While YouTube is primarily intended for video content, video podcasts have also become increasingly popular in recent years – among users and creators alike. After all, both parties benefit from it, because users get to see the facial expressions of those involved, which can improve the consumer experience, and podcasters, on the other hand, have little extra effort apart from pointing the camera at them, and can thus generate more reach.
It has also been known for a while that YouTube has other plans in this direction. In the spring of this year, an official YouTube presentation made the rounds on the Internet, in which it was about a separate podcast page on the world’s largest video platform (via 9to5google.com).
Some US portals are now reporting that a new podcast page should be available to users in the US. Who from Europey want to access it, so far only an error message is displayed. But it probably won’t be too long before the feature comes to Europey. However, there is no further information on this yet.
Europe users are currently not seeing more than this cute monkey.
What does this mean for the Europe podcast market?
YouTube is already one of the largest podcast platforms in Europey and is second only to Spotify in terms of market share. Apple Podcasts is in third place.
In the USA, the birthplace of podcasts, so to speak, YouTube is already the most popular place to go for the format. Here in Europey, the podcast market is growing more and more and videos will certainly not become less popular as an entertainment medium. All this indicates that YouTube could become an even bigger competitor for Spotify in Europey, even if the top dog with 38.1 percent of the users is still a long way ahead of YouTube’s 12.3 percent.
Overall, Spotify is number one, still by a wide margin (Image source: POD-Ratings.com)
However, YouTube’s second place in Europey came about without much effort on the part of the video platform, so the podcast veteran Apple was overtaken without lifting a finger. This suggests that many users are already very satisfied with YouTube as a podcast platform. So there will probably not be too many changes to what is known.
We can at least tell from enhanced RSS feeds for video podcasts and the new ones already mentioned Discover
– side out. In addition, US users who can already access the site report new filter options for podcasters, playlists and popular episodes. In other words, features that are already known from other podcast providers.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the mobile app’s inability to use a locked screen unless you pay for it will become a problem for YouTube’s podcasting ambitions.
And speaking of podcasts: Do you already know the latest episode of our GameStar podcast? This time, Civ pro Writing Bull was our guest, with whom we talk about whether civilization also increases management qualities in real life. You can listen here:
Are Civilization professionals really better managers too? – with Civ professional Writing Bull
Do you see YouTube as a podcast competitor for Spotify? What platform do you use to listen to your favorite babble? Write it to us in the comments!
