Google home page in early 1998
Podcast in 2017 & web in 1997 are similar in three aspects: number of users, ad spendings, and contents.
Number of users
In 1997, there were 70 million internet users in the world.
In 2017, there are 67 million people in the US who listen to podcasts at least once in a month — majority of podcast listeners are in the US.
Ad spendings
In 1997, $906 million was spent on web ads.
In 2017, $243 million will be spent in podcast ads.
Contents
In 1997 (actually early 1998), Google indexed ~25 million web pages. Serious web surfers bookmarked websites, then browsed web pages from those bookmarked websites.
In 2017 (actually there are still 3 months to go), Listen Notes indexes ~22 million podcast episodes. Serious podcast listeners subscribe to podcasts, then listen to episodes of those subscribed podcasts.
As there were more and more Internet users in 1997, people had very diverse tastes and there was a need for effective mechanisms to discover long tail web contents. So, a web search engine took off…
As there are more and more podcast listeners in 2017, people have diverse tastes and there’s a need for effective mechanisms to discover long tail podcast contents. Could a podcast search engine fill the need? We’ll see…
Listen Notes in 2017
Podcast in 2017 and web in 1997 share other similarities:
- In 1997, people bookmarked a few websites, and browsed these few websites everyday. In 2017, people subscribe to a few podcasts, and listen to these few podcasts.
- In 1997, everyone was building a portal website, and every portal website had a search feature. In 2017, many well-funded startups are building podcast player apps, and every podcast player app has a search feature.
The other day, one investor told me, “What you are building is targeting at a niche market (podcast). The market is way too small. No one will invest in your thing. Apple just need to change the algorithm in iTunes search, then you are screwed.” Well, I read similar words from books, articles, interviews, and movies. I finally heard someone said such words in front of me :)
