In a world where algorithms determine all of our entertainment, YouTube Music makes sense. After all, YouTube has long been synonymous with online entertainment and a place people use for listening to music and discovering new artists. Using this strong brand for a dedicated music service seemed like the logical next step, even if that meant killing Google Play Music. But Google made a lot of mistakes in the transition, and with Google Podcasts being the next service to be transitioned to YouTube Music, the company needs to prove that it learned from its mistakes.
The rise of podcasts
To start, we need to talk about podcasts. Podcasts are a wildly popular medium, covering everything from news to entertainment. Nearly half of the US population regularly listens to podcasts, according to a report from Edison Research. That's a lot of people in the United States alone.
One of the first podcasts came out way back in 2003, with a show called IT Conversations by Doug Kaye. It was originally based on RSS feeds hosted on a blog similar to how the New England Patriots ran an internet radio show. The big difference with IT Conversations was episodes could be downloaded to an iPod, creating an entirely new form of media.
Apple loved the idea as more shows sprang up, and the company created a separate Podcast category on iTunes in 2005. Podcasts have only gotten bigger from then on, and the rest is history.
Google Play Music
Remember Google Play Music? It was a slick and reliable music streaming service with a great user interface. It was the first streaming service I started to use way back in 2012, and I uploaded my entire MP3 library there. This was the original intent of the service — a digital locker for music you owned that you could stream anywhere. You could think of it as an iPod in the cloud back then, but without the podcasts.
Google quickly expanded the service with Google Play Music All Access in 2013. This $9.99 a month subscription gave you access to a large library of millions of songs, playlists, and albums. It was Google's attempt at a Spotify-esque music streaming service, and it was awesome for its recommendations and that gorgeous UI.
Only three years later, in 2016, Google also integrated podcasts into the service. I didn't know about it back in the day, because trying to find a podcast among the confusing menu of libraries was difficult. It was as if Google didn't want anyone to find out that it added podcasts to the service. I don't think I listened to a single podcast on the Google Play Music app. There were plenty of other apps that handled podcasts much better.
Then Google launched Google Podcasts in 2018. Suddenly, there were two Google-owned podcast apps, though only one of them made it abundantly clear that it was tailored to podcasts. When Google launched YouTube Music in 2019, the writing was on the wall for good old Google Play Music, bringing back a strict separation between podcasts and music again. But first, let's talk about the botched transition from Play Music to YouTube Music.
What went wrong with the Google Play Music transition?
Google announced the demise of Google Play Music at the same time it launched YouTube Music. Reactions were mixed. YouTube Music offered a much more reduced feature set at the time, with some regressions still in place today. It offered fewer artists, made navigating your library harder, integrated too tightly with YouTube through shared history and playlists, and a completely different navigation system that took getting used to for those that make the switch. Today, it still makes it harder to access your uploaded music, which lives entirely separate from the streaming catalog.
The service is mostly good today, but many people feel that Google rushed the transition and only added much-needed improvements to YouTube Music after it was no longer possible to avoid the app as a previous Google Play Music user. At that time, most people were already using Spotify, and Apple Music was biting off big chunks of the streaming market. But it was hard for people like me, who had been with the service for years and had their entire music library there, including uploaded songs.
Not everything was great with Google Play Music, to be fair. For starters, Google Play Music All Access (a truly monstrous name) let me stream audio ad-free, but my favorite music videos were all on YouTube, which initially had a separate subscription. Google Podcasts was completely free. Those were three different apps to use when you wanted to enjoy listening to music and audio content using Google services. The problem is that many people still fondly remember Google Play Music. This is mostly due to Google not handling the transition all that well.
All that time, podcasts were treated stepmotherly by Google. The company seemed to be taken by surprise with the meteoric rise of the medium, despite podcasts being around for over a decade. By burying them in Play Music, and then offering a separate app, it seemed lost about how to handle them. Many podcasters also ended up uploading episodes to YouTube so people could simply listen to them there, but even then, you couldn't just listen to an RSS podcast using YouTube in the past.
Lessons for YouTube Music podcasts
Google announced the end of Google Podcasts and the transition of podcasts over to YouTube Music in September 2023. The standalone podcast app will shut down in April 2024. There are some lessons Google can take from the failure of Play Music and Google Podcasts, and hopefully make podcasts on YouTube Music more popular.
For one, the company needs to make sure that the transition process is handled smoothly. Once Google Podcasts shuts down, its users should find all the features and controls also available in the Podcasts app right at their fingertips. This includes power user features like specific listening speed preferences for certain podcasts.
Given the constant flow of new features, YouTube Music seems on a good path, but it's still missing a few capabilities today. You can only choose a few predetermined listening speed options, you can't choose to trim silence automatically, you can't mark episodes as watched, some granular download options are missing, and you can't directly subscribe to RSS feeds (though the latter is promised to come). That's just a selection of features and still a long list, with only a few months for Google left to tackle them.
For another, discovery has to be the most important part of the user experience. Spotify does a fantastic job of this for many people. But YouTube Music is not only competing against Spotify. Dozens of standalone podcast apps offer an uncluttered interface and great discovery, with Google Podcasts ironically among the sleekest and most streamlined. Google needs to ensure podcasts are just as easy to find on YouTube Music as they are on all the other services, including Google Podcasts. If it buries them in a confusing jumble, like with Google Play Music, it won't work.
This is why the user interface needs to be different for podcasts on YouTube Music than for music. Cover art lets you get a general idea of the type of music you can expect from a song or playlist. You can quickly glance at a thumbnail and know if you're going to listen to it or keep scrolling. Podcasts are a different beast. Many are in-depth discussions of complicated historical, technological, or political issues. They need room for their titles and a quick explanatory note to appear.
YouTube Music seems to put stock in the title of the podcast episode to tempt me to listen to it. The older Google Podcasts app gave each episode room for a few lines of text, which I found much more useful.
Spotify's podcast section is constantly evolving. Many thumbnails now play videos with captions scrolling across the bottom, which helps give an idea of what the podcast might be about. There's also a blurb of text next to the podcast episode. These are both ideas I wouldn't mind if Google copied for the YouTube Music podcast section.
Google also needs to stick with it, although I'm not convinced it will. Google has to convince us all that YouTube Music, including podcasts, is here to stay. This is the only streaming service in which I'm not confident. After all, we've been burned by Google many times. Reader, Google+, and Stadia are just a few examples. The Google graveyard is a real thing, and for people to give up their podcast app and switch to YouTube Music, Google has to show it's serious.
Podcasts on YTM make sense
in the end, it makes sense for Google to incorporate both music and podcasts into YouTube. Like with music, people already use YouTube for podcasts, both creators and listeners. The server infrastructure is already there, and by now, you creators can even push their RSS feeds onto YouTube. Google has been working on reducing duplicity in its product lineup and Google Play Music and Google Podcasts were ultimately superfluous.
But can YouTube Music compete against Spotify and dozens of standalone podcast apps? This is ultimately up to Google. YouTube Premium is fantastic value, offering both ad-free YouTube videos and YouTube Music for a decent monthly price. If Google can stick with it for the long haul, then YouTube Music, now equipped with podcasts, has a good shot of making it.
"avoid it" - Google News
January 14, 2024 at 06:00PM
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YouTube Music needs to avoid repeating its Play Music mistakes with Podcasts - Android Police
"avoid it" - Google News
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