Yesterday’s news of Google Play Music now offering ad-supported streaming music in Canada was certainly welcome news. But at the end of that announcement there was a passing mention around podcasts.
We thought that would be awesome, so today we’re announcing that we plan to start offering podcasts on Google Play Music, giving podcasters access to millions of new listeners on Android phones and tablets.
Now this in itself isn’t new. Google announced this same thing when they launched the streaming service here in the US. In fact, it is the exact same language. Interestingly however, as I researched this last night (after building my Fi Lego set of course), there is surprisingly little information on this or when it will be coming to Google Play Music. The one clear thing that is known is that content is needed and if you have a podcast you want to offer up then it is time to get registered with Google on it.
Google Play Music Wants Your Podcast
Whenever podcast support does launch in Play Music, content will be critical. If you have a podcast that you want published, Google has setup a link for you to get registered and get them tracking it for publication. https://play.google.com/music/podcasts/publish is where you want to go. Follow the instructions on registering and getting your XML feed of your podcasts into Google.
Google Play Music
For users, the question becomes if you want Google Play Music to be your Podcast app. It’s a fair question especially given there are some great apps in the Store for podcasts. For me, I think there is a big benefit of having my podcasts and music all in one location. It allows me to switch between them seamlessly which, given my sometimes short attention span, is a good thing. A lot of that however is going to depend on how Google implements this within the app and how easy they make it to subscribe and listen. That, unfortunately, is a mystery at this point.
Finally, there is no word on when we can expect to see podcast support. The latest APKs have no hints of it in there yet so if I were a betting man, I would guess we won’t see anything until the first quarter of 2016. That’s my guess at least.
What do you think? Do you like the idea of having your podcasts and music all in one app or do you like to keep them separate?
