For as public a medium as podcasting is, a lot of information about specific podcasts is private. But private doesn't necessarily mean secret. How different would podcasting be were we more forthcoming?

#podcasting

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https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/the-case-for-making-private-podcasting-data-public   

How would the podcast industry change if podcasting better embraced transparency, making currently-private information public?

Let's start with the obvious: audience size. 

Imagine a world where the size of a podcast—every podcast—was a matter of public record. A world where you could size up the competition or see how many other fans are loving a show because audience size data would be attached to each and every show.

Social media already does this with pubic follower counts. And any podcast that has advertising representation publishes how many people they reach on a monthly basis. 

There's nothing special about podcasting that requires us to keep the information about audience size a secret. Other than how we'd count it. That, and pride.

Let's go further, maybe to financials? The money-in / money-out of a show? A lot more controversial. But not without precedence. Publicly-traded companies publish their financial information. So do some long-running podcasters like John Lee Dumas and Pat Flynn. It's purely hypothetica for all podcasters to do this. But it would promote a much healthier view of the realities of building a profitable podcast.

We can also make crediting people more public. Services like Podchaser and the tag can be leveraged to show just how connected and interwoven podcasting is, beyond the pretty voice behind the microphone. 

But remember, this is a thought exercise. There are terrible people in the world who prey on others, so I am in no way suggesting that anyone should drop their guard from any real threat they face every day.

But with all deference to that reality, I do think that some data points from podcasting could be made more public for the betterment of all podcasting.

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Links

• Getting more than 10K downloads per episode? Talk to Gumball.fm! 
• Giving Your Podcast's Listeners A Public Voice With PodInbox 
• John Lee Dumas' income reports
• Pat Flynn's income reports
• Podchaser
•   tag from Podcast 2.0 namespace
• Over 100K active podcasters trust Buzzsprout.

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