Serial and the podcast explosion

I listened to this fantastic panel discussion on the recent “explosion” in the popularity of podcasts. Moderated by The New York Times’ David Carr, it’s a pretty impressive line up with Sarah Koenig from Serial, Alex Blumberg  from Start-Up, Alix Speigel  from Invisibilia, and Benjamin Walker from Benjamin Walker’s Theory of Everything. They chat about the recent wave of podcast fever that peaked with Serial’s huge success in late 2014.

It’s widely known now that Serial is pretty much the single most popular podcast EVER. And it’s success has created a lot of excitement about the potential of making and distributing audio stories outside traditional radio broadcast.  A lot of interesting ideas come up in this conversation, but what I loved most was the sense that podcasting offers a space to try new things and tell great stories with fewer rules and restrictions.

You can watch the full video of the discussion here…