If you are a podcast listener who wants to discover and listen to great podcasts and stories without being mined for private data, a podcast creator looking to directly engage with your listeners through an open and community-powered platform, or a Web 3.0 enthusiast excited about the future of blockchain and digital content, then you will be super excited to hear about Balcao!

A Public Goods Platform for Podcasts? Why?

I first started listening to podcasts sometime around 2009-10. Being a tech junkie, I mostly listened to technology podcasts like This Week in Tech and Buzz Out Loud by Molly Wood. My wife had gifted me an iPod and podcasts were a great way to unwind at the end of the day. The exercise of discovering new podcasts, subscribing to them on Itunes, downloading, and then synching new episodes to my iPod became a part of my daily routine. Listening to Podcasts was the epitome of multitasking, suddenly mundane tasks like doing the dishes, laundry, cleaning, etc. became all the more palatable! Little did I know then that even after 12 years, podcasts would continue to be my primary source of information and news of any kind and that Technology would not even figure in the top 5 categories of my podcast listening routine! Soon after that, in 2010-11, I had just gotten started as an entrepreneur with my first start-up. Listening to startup and business podcasts like HBR Ideacast was how my business partners and I tried to stay motivated and keep pace with the thought leaders in business and management. Fast forward to mid-2016, I was living in Minnesota, USA, the US presidential elections frenzy was at its peak and my political opinions were mostly being shaped by podcasts like The Young Turks, The Hartmann Report, and The Rachel Maddow Show (I preferred the audio version). Suddenly, podcasts became something much more than geeking out on tech news and I realized how powerful Podcasts as a medium was for shaping public opinion and culture. Today, I listen to podcasts on a wide variety of topics like Web3/blockchain, progressive politics, self-improvement, business/marketing, and economics - and yes these are the top 5 podcast categories that I listen to  today!

Over the years I have used several different platforms and apps to listen to podcasts. I started with Itunes, then switched over to Stitcher, followed by Google Podcasts and then the Castbox app, and recently back to Google Podcasts again.

Most of these platforms/apps work as follows:

Here are some of the common features provided to listeners by some of the most popular podcast platforms today:

All in all, I have had a tepid experience while using the various podcast apps over the years. Here are my pet peeves so far:

• The features are very limited - the search sucks and I can’t comment or engage with the podcast creator.
• Playlist features are primitive and if they exist, I get nickel-and-dimed on the number of lists that I want to manage.
• I have to put up with pesky ads unless I pay a fee to the platform/app. My private data like listening habits and browsing history is mined and sold off to the highest bidder. I have no control over this and can’t customize this experience.
• Archaic content curation and personalization - generalized featured lists and ‘happening stories’ that don’t appeal to my interests.
• My biggest gripe - supporting my favorite podcasts is not a seamless experience. Yes, there are options like Patreon if you want to support content creators but it’s not something integrated directly into the listening app.

This always makes me wonder why the big players in the Podcasting industry like Spotify, Apple, and Google are not doing much about improving the listening interfaces.

The Current State of the Podcasting Industry

Podcasts have developed into an immensely popular and influential medium. A plethora of podcasters, listeners, media houses, and marketers work tirelessly to power the ecosystem.

Here are some quick numbers to give you an idea about how popular podcasts are in the US:

Source: The Infinite Dial 2022 by Edison Research

Even though the numbers are lower than the pandemic figures, the trend is headed upwards, particularly in the age group of 35-54 years.

As of June 2022, the most popular Podcast platforms are as follows:

Source: Podcast Statistics, Buzzsprout.

Apple has been steadily losing its market share over the years but still maintains its pole position. It announced Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, a global marketplace for premium podcast subscriptions in June 2021 with perks like ad-free listening, early access to releases, and bonus content. However, publishers have to pay a hefty cut to Apple - 30% for the first year and 15% for subsequent years.

Spotify’s Q1 report for this year (2022) showed Spotify hosting 4 million podcasts on its platform, up from 3.6 million at the end of the previous quarter.“Growth in the number of MAUs that engaged with podcast content continued to outstrip total MAU growth, podcast consumption rates grew in the double digits Y/Y, and podcast share of overall consumption hours on our platform reached another all-time high,” the report said. The report also mentions Spotify’s acquisition of 2 podcast advertising and analytics companies, a move that would enable Spotify to bolster its efforts at monetizing data on user activity and listening habits.

Google has big plans to integrate its existing podcast platform with Youtube. As per an exclusive by Podnews, YouTube is looking at launching a new podcast homepage at youtube.com/podcasts with data aggregated directly from RSS feeds. This new offering will feature audio ads through its partner network with a possible share for podcast publishers.

Amazon is also making steady inroads into podcasts - it has more than a dozen original Amazon branded podcasts and has been acquiring podcast shows and platforms to put its podcast endeavors at Amazon Music on a fast track.

Advertising is the most popular way of monetizing podcasts and podcasters are using several other avenues like subscriptions, live events, marketplaces, etc. Among subscriptions platforms like Patreon, Supercast, and Glow, Patreon seems to be the most popular option. Here are some stats for Patreon:

Source: 20+ Patreon Statistics You Need to Know for 2022, Influencer MarketingHub
and Top Patreon Podcasts, Graphtreon for June 2022.

Established players like Apple, Youtube, and Spotify have also added some form of subscription plans to their suite of current offerings - Youtube with Channel memberships and Spotify with Anchor Podcast Subscriptions.

Here are the most common monetization methods adopted by podcasters in 2022:

• Direct Sponsorship Deals
  No middlemen involved, direct payments deals/contracts with the client. The ad could be media produced independently of the podcast episode.
• Platform-based ads, the platform takes a cut
  Platforms like Youtube and Spotify-Anchor play podcaster read ads or sponsor generated automated ads inside an episode sometimes giving one control over where to place the ads.
• Platform-based exclusive sponsorships, the platform takes a cut
  Host-read or sponsor-generated third-party brand ads for creators with a very high listener engagement (highly popular podcasts).
• Platform-based subscriptions/memberships, the platform takes a cut
  Platforms like Youtube, Spotify-Anchor, and Patreon allow listeners to pledge a monthly recurring amount to support the podcast. Listeners mostly get an ad-free experience and bonus content.
• Sale of products/services
  The Podcast is a medium for brand building and content marketing and indirectly leads to sales. Direct sale of branded merchandise.
• Affiliate Marketing
  Several marketplaces like Amazon have affiliate programs that pay a commission on every purchase made by a customer referred through the podcast.
• Live shows, virtual events, and webinars Listeners pay for attending online events or in-person live shows.
• Paid perks inside live user engagement
  E.g. Youtube has features called Super Chat and Super Stickers that allow creators to provide perks to users during live chat to highlight a user message.

(Compiled using this list by Listen Notes)

It is very apparent that the current industry leaders will monopolize the medium by throwing an unprecedented amount of resources at acquiring new users, creating state-of-the-art tools for production and distribution, and keeping content exclusive to their walled gardens. It’s not like independent podcast publishers cannot survive without being a part of these platforms but making their offerings discoverable and keeping control over their production processes and listener activity data is going to be more and more challenging for them going forward. Podcasters have already started feeling the pressure from advertisers to hand over more and more listener data and are being forced to add tracking mechanisms that monitor user browsing activity for advertising platforms - a tremendous concern for user privacy. People who look upon podcasts as an independent medium and a platform for the small players to shine are concerned about the direction that the industry is heading towards. The need for an open, democratized platform powered by a community of listeners, curators, and podcasters has never been greater and the Balcao platform is an attempt to address this need.

The Balcao platform

Balcao is a decentralized podcasts platform - it’s a revolutionary new way for publishing and consuming podcasts using blockchain technology.

At Balcao, we believe that podcast listeners would be best served by empowered creators and content curators. As podcasts become more and more popular, the need for podcast listing directories and discovery platforms to remain transparent, open, and democratized, has become all the more pressing. Moreover, podcast listeners deserve a platform that puts privacy first and provides them complete control over how they get to support the podcast creators:

• ad-supported - through privacy respecting advertisements
• ad-free - through subscriptions or micropayments.

Initial Offerings

The platform’s initial offerings would be as follows:

**For podcast listeners
**Privacy-first, web, and mobile DApps with blockchain-based membership and sign-in options, crypto (ERC-20 tokens) based micropayments, and subscriptions. Connect using a crypto wallet like Metamask and start supporting your favorite podcasts.

For podcast creators
A platform that allows for open, decentralized, and democratized podcast listing and discovery built using decentralized, blockchain-based storage (IPFS for now). Use the Ethereum-based Balcao smart contracts to claim your podcast and set up subscription memberships, tokenized communities, and micropayments for your content offerings.

For content curators
Balcao channels allow you to create curated podcast feeds focused on topics and stories that you want to highlight and amplify. Use discovery and curation tools powered by machine learning that aggregate trending news stories and topics to jumpstart your journey!

Vision

Decentralized platform for listeners and creators
Keep podcast publishing and listening accessible and hassle-free.
Smart and intuitive web and mobile apps for podcast listeners.
Content curation performed by humans and facilitated by tools powered by machine learning.
Provide podcast publishers an open platform to monetize their offerings and create tokenized communities.
Integrate with open and privacy-respecting ads platforms like Brave Rewards/Brave Ads, Permission, etc. that provide a decentralized and transparent digital ad exchange on popular blockchains.

Balcao Collectives through DAOs
Small podcast publishers don’t have the resources of medium and large-sized media houses. They can benefit from an ecosystem where they can be a part of a collective. Blockchain-based affiliations through DAOs can be used to create synergies and a shared support system.

Marketplace offering Podcast Production and Marketing services
An open marketplace for brands/businesses that want to publish a podcast without having to deal with the actual production. Podcasters can offer Influencer marketing services. Pipelines that deal with every stage of podcast production, release, branding, and marketing.

What’s next?

We are just getting started. An MVP web application is launching soon to demonstrate the vision to listeners, podcasters, content curators, and Web3 enthusiasts! Meanwhile, you can follow the progress of our initial offerings and our plans on our Trello Board here.
You can also help us build Balcao by taking this survey.

Balcao is your platform. It’s your voice, unshackled! Join now!

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