YouTube has become, perhaps without too much effort, one of the most used platforms globally to publish and consume podcasts. The video giant wants to take advantage of this favorable scenario to offer a better experience for its users. The first step? A page dedicated to this type of content in the United States.
According to 9to5Google, YouTube’s plans to add a Podcasts page within the discover section where we can currently find Trending, Music, Movies, Live, Video Games, News and more had been leaked earlier this year. Now, the page has gradually started to appear for some users.
YouTube also bets on podcasts
The new Podcasts discovery page is currently available via the link youtube.com/podcasts and from the page Explore, on both desktop and mobile devices. Upon entering we find very popular channels and programs and a section with playlists with what is trending at the moment.
As we can see from the screenshot, it’s not a completely new design or a painstakingly developed interface like some other services like Apple Podcasts and Spotify offer. YouTube, on the other hand, offers a rudimentary and minimalist design.
When playing a podcast, the page does not open a separate player, but everything looks the same as a conventional YouTube video, even the controls where we can pause, fast forward, save the episode or control the playback speed.
However, it should be noted, we are facing a very first version of this proposal for podcast listeners. In this sense, over time the company may decide to make some changes to improve the experience and consider expanding it to other countries.
With this move by the Mountain View company, at least two questions remain in the air. The first is how this will affect other platforms in the industry. Spotify has spent millions of dollars to take on the competition with its exclusives.
Apple, for its part, pioneered this industry with its first foray in 2005although in recent times it has not made major changes, beyond implementing monthly payment subscriptions to access exclusive content.
The other question has to do with what will happen to Google Podcasts, the company’s current proposal in this matter. Will it merge with YouTube? Will it still be available as a standalone platform? In time we will know.
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