On Ximalaya, listeners can create and join listening circles or discussion channels, or give gifts to support their favorite shows. Instead of serving as just search and recommendation engines, they also had features that allowed listeners to take notes and leave comments on their favorite audio content. When I first downloaded Chinese podcast apps, I was shocked at how interactive they were. Xiaoyuzhou FM is podcast-centered, and caters to creators. Kou Aizhe, the creator and producer of Story FM, one of China’s most popular podcasts, told me that Ximalaya is the most broadly popular platform, while NetEase has a relatively younger millennial audience, and Apple Podcast users are likely of higher levels of income and education. The category known as “podcasts” in English translates to “播客”, literally meaning broadcasted blogs.ĭifferent apps have their own personalities and audiences. podcast industry grouped together with the wider universe of audiobooks, meditation apps, and, at some future point, Spotify,” he wrote in Nieman Lab. “The proper comparison would be to the U.S. As podcast critic and the founder of Hot Pod Nicholas Quah has argued, it’s difficult to compare the U.S. Even the ability to browse by category is unavailable.īecause it evolved independently, the podcast ecosystem in China is fundamentally different. Apple Podcasts are available on iPhones, but there are strict limitations, and the content is filtered and censored. The Chinese podcasting landscape emerged, in part, because the country’s technology and internet ecosystems are separate from the rest of the world. As a creator, I wish that Spotify and Apple Podcasts would learn from them. set up Patreon pages, Substack newsletters, Discord channels or Facebook groups to bypass this difficulty and reach their fans.Ī better variety of options for podcast creators already exists in China, where apps like Ximalaya, Lizhi, Qingting FM, and Xiaoyuzhou FM allow for more audience participation than their Western counterparts. To cope, many podcast creators in the U.S. Sure, I could see the gender and age range of my listeners and the average time they spent on each episode, but reading their thoughts and connecting with them directly was almost impossible. Podcast apps also don’t provide enough granular information about your audience. Unlike YouTube or Twitch, where it’s relatively simple to earn advertising revenue, there is not a clear path to earn revenue from listeners on most podcasting apps. When I launched my podcast last year, I found myself contending with the same questions that all audio content creators must solve: How do you monetize? How do you understand your audience? Making money as a small podcast creator isn’t easy.
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