INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Late last month, Castbox introduced Contentbox, an attempt help podcast hosts and producers make some actual money off their product
It been something of an on-going struggle since the dawn of the medium
Longtime listeners no doubt recognize all the trends after fast forwarding through their 10,000th Casper mattress read
While it true that a handful of successful startups are among the regular rotation in pre- and mid-roll ads, the simple fact is that a very
small percentage of podcasters are actually able to make a living wage through the medium
It no wonder, then, that the top of the charts for the supposedly democratized platform were quickly taken over by media giants like NPR and
I&ve spoken with a number of leading podcast providers in recent months, and the consensus seems to be that there will likely never be a
one size fits all approach to making money through podcasting
Gimlet (Startup, Reply All) provides one interesting example, through IP licensing that has the dual effect of providing cashflow, while
Jenna Weiss-Berman, the co-founder of Pineapple Street (producer of Hillary Clinton podcast and the wildly successful Missing Richard
Simmons), told me that her company takes a more for-hire approach, essentially working as a studio/production company for other people
shows, Obviously neither of these are a viable solution for all or even most podcasters
During a fireside interview at TechCrunch event in Hangzhou, China this week, Castbox CEO Renee Wang outlined her company plans to offer
podcasters a micropayment plan built around blockchain technology
&Contentbox is a blockchain-based infrastructure for the digital content industry,& Wang told me
&The existing model is broken
Creators are not getting what they deserve and consumers are not getting a reward for engaging with content.&
The company describes the
product thusly,
Castbox addresses this issue by consolidating the cumbersome subscription process into a single platform where users can
discover, unlock, and consume premium content without leaving the app
Castbox eliminates user friction and makes paid subscriptions easily accessible so publishers can generate more revenue and grow their
following.
Wondery, the 20th Century Fox-backed network behind shows like American History Tellers and Dirty John, will be the first to
I suspect that Castbox will likely begin implementing the payment system for the original content it began producing earlier this year,
which includes the Serial spoof, This Sounds Serious.
Wang, a former Google Japan employee who sold her home two years ago to raise capital
for the startup, believes the technology will allow listeners to become more invested in the product
&With blockchain, this small micropayment system, you can make are all of the investors who invest at the very beginning, before the show
is created, they can get their portion,& she told me
&It lets listeners become investors
They have more responsibility to share and distribute the show, because they are also the investor in the show
It incentivizes these behaviors.&
The company has yet to detail the specifics of the program, but it will likely offer a number of avenues
for promoting a show, including social media plug-ins, so users who get their shows through apps other than Castbox can participate
