Taking A Break In Business Is Important

Podcasts just keep rising in popularity. With over 700,000 active podcasts in 100 languages, and more than 29 million podcast episodes on platforms.

The good folks at Sonata Insights recently analyzed Datos’ clickstream panel to uncover consumer search behavior insights in the “age of AI”. If you’re in

In the Audience Development department, we like to grow audiences. We want people to know about your podcast and your message and we want your podcast to build community. So why would you want to leave anyone out? Especially when we have the tools to include them from the start. In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day on May 16, we at Pacific Content wanted to give you some tools on how to make your audio more accessible. According to the WHO 1.3 billion people have a significant disability. Not all people with disabilities would find a typical podcasting experience to be a barrier, but for those who do, there are some things we can do for our productions that can make a difference. In order to make your podcast more accessible, start with these three: Transcripts and Captions For those experiencing hearing loss, transcripts can make podcasts much easier (or even possible) to access. At Pacific Content, we have always encouraged our clients to add transcripts for each of their podcast episodes. That job just got a whole lot easier thanks to the new transcripts feature on Apple, where all podcasts on that platform have automatic transcriptions by design. The auto generated transcripts are included with each new podcast episode that is published on Apple, and we are told that over time Apple will transcribe the back catalogs of all podcasts. Spotify also has a transcription feature, but it is still rolling out so isn’t turned on for every podcast episode on the platform yet. Being able to see a written copy of the script doesn’t only help those with hearing loss, but people learning a new language or who have audio processing disorders can also benefit from being able to read what is being said. For others, a transcript can help you follow along, or find a specific part of the show to listen to again. It also helps with SEO- now that the transcript is there, it’s searchable. Thoughtful Sound Design Knowing all of this, how do we design a podcast that will be better for people with hearing differences? When recording, think about your audio first: use quality recording equipment and record in rooms with limited background noise. Unless it is essential for the podcast topic, avoid having people speak over each other. That means if you have more than one host/guest, record on multiple channels so that if they do speak over each other, you can edit that out in a way that makes sense and makes it more clear for your listeners. I asked Robyn Edgar and Mark Angly, co-managers of our sound design team, what techniques they use when sound designing with accessibility in mind. They told me the pre-production, production and post-production approaches needed to make a podcast better for people with hearing differences are generally the same things they would do for all podcasts: ensuring high quality recordings, making sure levels are consistent and balanced between foreground and background sounds, removing echoes and other technical problems while recording & mixing, and properly finalizing and publishing the final product to deliver it in the highest possible quality An Accessible Website We always recommend that our clients have a website for their podcast, and we have started recommending they think about how that website can be made more accessible. There are many ways to make your website easier to navigate for people with disabilities– including alt text for images, making sure it has keyboard navigation, and using colours that will show contrast even for people who experience colour blindness. Learn About It Seneca College in Toronto offers a micro-credit in Accessible Podcasting, and when I reached out to instructor Devin Andrade, she told me because the course focuses on considering accessibility at every step, and not thinking about it as an add-on at the end, it impacted the ideas and production plans she saw from her students. “They were considering the accessibility of their guests and of their consumers in every decision they made. It wasn’t just about the final product being accessible (ie. having transcripts, video versions, etc), it was about how accessible the actual content was in how it was presented and organized within an episode.” It’s worth considering how an accessibility approach from the start could change the way you work on your podcast, and how the final product might be different. A Note on True Accessibility and Diversity While researching this post, a fellow PCCer said I should look up podcaster Michelle Macklem. Michelle did her Masters research on critical disability studies, and though we weren’t able to connect in person due to some gnarly time zone issues, she was kind enough to share with me the work of a few people who are focused on making a difference in this space. I want to highlight this as one of the most important things you can do: know more. Understand someone else’s barriers, and then push them out of the way the best you can. Alice Wong’s “Manifesto” made me reconsider what it means to include someone who “sounds good;” Aimee Louw’s episode of The Conversation Piece made me thankful for the working ramps on my city’s transit system; and hearing Chancey Fleet on Spark forever changed how I feel about digital-only elevators (and has encouraged my new hobby of writing better alt-text.) PLAYLIST Inspired by this list of accessible podcasts, we put together a playlist of our own, with a few episodes from producers in the world. Seen and Not Heard: A conversation with Tal Minear Our brilliant sound designer Tal Minear joins Caroline for a discussion of the intricacies of creating a deaf soundscape, voices that defy filtering, and the wacky things we do to in the name of foley. Talk Description To Me: AI Description Part 1 Love them or hate them, AI writing tools like ChatGPT have the potential to change the way we write, communicate, and learn. One group looking to harness the […]

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The European Union’s risk-based regulation for applications of artificial intelligence has come into force starting from today.

The Senate has passed legislation designed to protect children from dangerous online content. It’s pushing forward with what would be the first major effort by Congress in decades to hold tech companies more accountable for the harm they cause.

With LinkedIn’s video uploads escalating 34% during fiscal Q4, the platform is leaning in with features like its full-screen video feed.

Welcome to another edition of 5-Minute Whiteboards. And folks, we’ve got a doozy of a topic. Yes, I’m being intentionally provocative. But it’s because

In the company’s Q2 earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed a future application of AI chatbots built by individual businesses.

Time, Der Spiegel, and Fortune are among the first batch of publishers to join Perplexity’s publisher’s program.

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Google has released several new generative AI models in its Gemma 2 model family that focus on safety use cases.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has named Lisa Einstein as its first chief AI officer.

See new updates from Maps and Waze to help you stay informed on the go

The government alleged that TikTok unlawfully collected data like email addresses from children and allowed them to interact with adult content.

Threads (finally) took a brave step towards the Fediverse Yesterday, Threads used their platform to put spotlight on the Fediverse by inviting Block Party co-founder Tracy Chou and Flipboard co-founder Mike McCue to an AMA (ask me anything) on the Fediverse - hosted by the Threads brand account. With 4.