Hard to believe it was 10 years ago. iTunes had just rolled out podcast support in this burgeoning new medium, opening podcasting up to the mainstream. Companies left and right popped up to capitalize on the podcasting boom — it was a time filled with excitement and anticipation as we threw our all into the podcast space.
Soon, however, independent innovation slowed down as reliance on iTunes became the norm and, sadly, within a couple of years most of the upstarts were gone, having burned through ideas and venture capital funding. Not us.
RawVoice stayed lean and mean, we worked advertising deals for podcasters, launched our first network and started to build the measurement and media platforms that power our business today. We launched Blubrry.com, our podcast community and directory, and acquired Tech Podcast Network, a directory of tech related shows.
When a popular podcast plugin that integrated core functionality into the majority of podcast sites using WordPress — the leading open-source content creation blogging and website content management tool — was no longer being supported we knew the space was going to need a plugin. We set out to build what today is the PowerPress Podcasting Plugin, the No. 1 podcasting plugin for WordPress.
All the while, we’ve been evolving / innovating, designing tools to best publish and promote content; making audience growth and advertising opportunities easily accessible and comprehensive for our podcast family. We represent the interests of our podcasters at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) — Angelo Mandato, our CIO, is heavily embedded on the measurement committee and is providing unparalleled knowledge on podcast measurement.
And now, at the end of the month, we’ll be sharing with you something that’s downright revolutionary. Stay tuned! We’re pretty excited about this because we know how excited you’ll be when we roll this out.
Ten years ago, we stood by podcasting and podcasters, but we never stood still. Thanks for coming along for the ride.