Rob Greenlee

Podcast Host Platforms are Becoming the New Media Operating Layer

After months of New Media Show conversations with leaders across podcast hosting, creator media, analytics, advertising, video, and AI, a pattern is getting difficult to ignore.

By Rob Greenlee, CEO/Founder, Trust Factor Lab and Trust Creator Community at M3Linked.com, Host of NewMediaShow.com

Rob Greenlee, 2017 Podcast Hall of Famer, Chair and Host of NewMediaShow.com and Founder of Trust Factor Lab I have spent more than two decades helping podcast creators of all sizes and hosting platforms like Libsyn, Spreaker, and PodcastOne grow and evolve.

For much of that history, the basic job was straightforward. Store the media file. Generate an RSS feed. Distribute the show. Count the downloads. Keep everything running reliably, and the podcaster was happy.

Creators and media companies are trying to manage a more complicated media landscape in 2026.

A single conversation recording can become a full YouTube episode, an audio podcast, Spotify video, Apple Podcasts video, multiple short clips, social posts, newsletter content, community discussion, advertising inventory, and searchable source material for AI systems.

The show may still begin with a microphone, lights, and potentially a camera. What happens around that show has become a much larger media operation. That is why I believe we are in a moving structural change in podcast and creator media technology:

The podcast host platform of old is evolving into a new media-creator operating layer.

And eventually, I believe the most valuable part of that layer may be the intelligence it produces.

This conclusion did not come from watching a single company or a single product launch.

It has become clearer to me through a series of conversations on the New Media Show with people building different parts of this changing market.

They do not all agree on what comes next. That is precisely what makes the pattern interesting.

We have already outgrown the old definition of hosting

When I spoke with Libsyn CEO Brendan Monaghan on New Media Show Episode 660, we spent considerable time asking what a podcast hosting company should become.

The episode opened with a simple observation:

“Podcast episode hosting used to be simple.”

The conversation quickly moved beyond file storage and RSS into monetization, analytics, video, AI-assisted workflows, distribution, measurement, and audience growth. The episode framed modern hosting as a broader creator-platform problem. (New Media Show Libsyn Interview)

That is significant coming from Libsyn.

Libsyn helped establish the commercial podcast hosting category. I also spent several years there as a VP, so I understand how central reliable hosting, RSS distribution, and measurement have been to the business.

But creators are now asking technology providers to solve problems that barely existed when the hosting category was created.

– How do I publish to multiple video and audio platforms in a single upload?

– How do I understand performance when the audience and counting methods are fragmented?

– How do I make better creative and audience-attraction decisions based on that data?

– How do I monetize across those surfaces and make technology simpler and speed up the process?

– How much of this work can software tools or AI take off your production team’s plate?

– Those are no longer edge questions; they increasingly define the publishing product the market wants and needs.

The audience has stopped caring about delivery methods

One of my favorite observations from Leo Laporte during Episode 672 was captured in the published episode notes:

“Most viewers or listeners do not care how a show is technically delivered.”

They care whether they can find it, whether it is worth their time, and whether they trust the people making it. (New Media Show Interview with Leo Laporte)

The above sounds obvious, but it has enormous implications.

Our industry still spends a great deal of energy defining media through its distribution technology.

People move between YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, social feeds, streaming television, newsletters and communities. They may encounter the same personality or show in several of those places without giving much thought to the underlying delivery technology.

Leo and I discussed how audio and video are increasingly part of the same overall media experience while measurement remains fragmented between platforms. (New Media Show interview with Leo Laporte)

That fragmentation creates an opportunity for improvement in the new media and creator space, including podcasting.

The more places a show travels, the more valuable a system becomes for understanding what is happening across all of them.

We need to measure the show, not just the file

My conversation with Listener.com founder Casey Adams on Episode 673 took this directly into measurement.

The central question was:

“How do you measure the true value of a show when the audience is no longer in one place?” (New Media Show interview with Casey Adams)

A podcast episode today may generate an RSS listen, a Spotify stream, a YouTube view, short-form consumption, newsletter engagement, and a sponsor interaction.

Each platform measures behavior differently.

Casey’s concept of an “episode cluster” is useful because it treats all the content generated around an episode as connected, rather than pretending that the audio file represents the entire media product. (New Media Show interview with Casey Adams)

I think that idea points toward something larger. The next generation of creator analytics cannot simply show a data analytics dashboard.

It has to help answer:

What happened?

Why did it happen?

What should I do differently next time?

The above last question changes everything.

Once the platform starts helping the creator make the next decision, analytics begins turning into intelligence.

Rox Codes said the quiet part out loud

My July conversation with Flightcast CEO and co-founder Rox Codes made this transition particularly clear.

Rox came into podcast hosting from a YouTube creator and growth mindset. Flightcast did not begin with the assumptions of the traditional audio hosting industry.

During the conversation, we explored publishing, YouTube strategy, video, titles, thumbnails, retention, experimentation, monetization, AI analytics, and the growing amount of technical complexity being pushed onto creators.

Near the end of the episode, Rox made the underlying market change explicit:

Basic hosting has become a commodity. (New Media Show interview with Rox Codes)

The comment above deserves more attention than it received.

If reliable hosting becomes expected infrastructure, where does future value move?

Rox’s answer points toward growth, analytics, experimentation, distribution, monetization support, and creator intelligence.

Flightcast is already building around unified publishing and analytics, AI-supported analysis, and the idea that creator software should help people understand what is working via deeply analyzing results data and testing rather than simply reporting numbers. (New Media Show interview with Rox Codes)

During that conversation, I even asked whether Flightcast is becoming a creator operating system.

I keep coming back to that question and potential opportunity. Because I don’t think this shift will be limited to Flightcast, but it may be leading this upgrade revolution.

I think it describes where a meaningful part of the platform market is heading.

The creator is becoming the media company

There is another piece of this transformation that technology companies cannot ignore.

The economic unit itself is changing.

On Episode 676, Steve Wilson of Daylight Media and QCODE discussed a creator-first media structure in which the creator maintains the audience relationship, while companies provide infrastructure, distribution, monetization, audience development, and other support for that relationship. (New Media Show interview with Steve Wilson)

The episode ultimately reached a bigger conclusion:

A successful show can be the center of a much larger media business built around the audience.

That can include long-form audio, video, clips, subscriptions, communities, events, products, and additional intellectual property. (New Media Show interview with Steve Wilson)

Dan Granger of Oxford Road added the advertiser perspective in Episode 677.

The episode described how:

“A trusted personality can carry an audience across podcasts, YouTube, livestreams, newsletters, social platforms, communities, events, and direct business relationships.” (New Media Show interview with Dan Granger)

Advertising systems, however, still frequently purchase and measure these channels separately.

That creates another gap waiting to be solved.

The creators increasingly operate as one media brand.

The technology and measurement systems still often don’t see all media products.

Those realities are colliding.

Podcasting is becoming one lane inside a larger creator media system

Sam Sethi, CEO of TrueFans and co-host of Podnews Weekly Review, and I explored another version of the same shift on Episode 671.

The episode made the point that podcasting can no longer think only in terms of:

“feeds, files, downloads, and ad impressions.” (New Media Show interview with Sam Sethi)

Creators are building businesses around video, memberships, newsletters, events, merchandise, premium content, and direct relationships with their audiences.

That does not diminish podcasting. I believe it increases the show’s strategic value.

Long-form or Shorter-form podcast and video conversations, whether in horizontal or vertical video, can become an unusually powerful source of material because a single strong piece of intellectual property can feed many different audience experiences.

The show becomes the core. The distribution expands around it.

The media technology needs to understand the whole system.

I think we are moving through three generations

This is how I currently see the evolution.

Generation One: Podcast Hosting

Media file → RSS → Podcast apps → Downloads

The host’s primary responsibility was infrastructure.

Reliability mattered enormously.

Generation Two: Creator Platform

Audio + Video → Distribution → Monetization → Analytics → Creator tools

We are already well into this stage.

Traditional hosts have expanded. New entrants are arriving. YouTube and Spotify have changed creator expectations. Video has become much more important. AI is being inserted throughout production and publishing workflows.

Generation Three: Media Operating and Intelligence Layer

Content → Distribution → Audience behavior → Intelligence → Creative decisions → Monetization → Audience relationship

This is where things become much more interesting. The platform does more than distribute the show. It begins helping the media operator understand the business around the show.

What topics create discovery?

Which guests expand the audience?

Which titles produce curiosity without damaging trust?

Which thumbnails work with which audience?

Where do viewers drop?

Which clips bring people into long-form content?

Which platforms produce casual reach versus loyal audiences?

Which sponsor relationships actually work?

Which older episodes should surface again because current events have made them relevant?

What should the creator make next?

That is a fundamentally different value proposition from hosting an MP3.

The host may become invisible while the intelligence becomes valuable

There is some irony here.

The better these systems become, the less creators may need to understand the underlying infrastructure.

Rox Codes of Flightcast made this point during our Flightcast conversation while discussing acronyms such as RSS and HLS, as well as technical migration requirements. The software should handle much of that complexity for the creator. (New Media Show interview with Rox Codes)

Leo Laporte, TWiT.TV essentially made the same point from the audience’s side. People care about getting the show they want, not the mechanics used to deliver it. (New Media Show interview with Leo Laporte)

That means the infrastructure can increasingly disappear into the background. What becomes visible is the value created above it.

I suspect that by 2030, asking a platform how many shows it “hosts” may tell us much less about its strategic value than it does today.

Better questions may be:

– How much audience growth does the platform help create?

– How much friction does it remove?

– How much revenue moves through it?

– How much useful audience intelligence does it return?

– How effectively does it help creators make better decisions?

– How much control do creators retain over their media, identity, and relationships?

Can the creators trust the intelligence the system is giving them?

AI makes the trust question unavoidable

This is where the next phase becomes more complicated.

AI can already analyze transcripts, suggest titles, identify clips, summarize analytics, and surface patterns across large catalogs.

It will become much better at those jobs.

Eventually these systems may recommend topics, guests, formats, publishing schedules, monetization strategies, and creative direction.

At that point, the platform is influencing the media itself.

That raises questions our industry should begin addressing now.

What data shaped the recommendation?

Whose incentives are represented?

Is the platform optimizing for creator growth, audience value, advertising revenue, or its own engagement?

Can creators understand why a recommendation was made?

What happens when every creator receives similar optimization advice?

Where does human editorial judgment remain essential?

And how much creative independence are we willing to trade for performance?

My conversations with Leo Laporte, Rox Codes, Casey Adams, Steve Wilson, Dan Granger, and others keep returning to different versions of the same human issue.

Data matters. AI matters. Distribution matters.

But media ultimately succeeds because someone earns another person’s attention and gives them a reason to return to consume more.

Trust sits inside that relationship.

We have been heading toward this longer than it appears

None of this began in 2026.

Back in June 2022, Todd Cochrane, Buzzsprout’s Alban Brooke, and I were already discussing YouTube, distribution, and the growing tension between open podcasting and more controlled platform ecosystems on the New Media Show. (New Media Show interview with Alban Brooke in 2022)

Todd Cochrane and I spent years debating RSS, platform control, video, advertising, creator independence, and what happens when large technology companies push podcasting in directions the original architecture never anticipated.

The technologies have changed. The underlying question has remained remarkably persistent:

Who controls the relationship between the creator and the audience?

I believe the next version of that question is: Who controls the intelligence around that relationship?

That may turn out to be the most important platform battles of the next decade.

The next podcast/creator OS platform may barely look like a podcast host

I do not think podcast hosting disappears.

RSS does not suddenly become irrelevant.

Audio does not stop mattering because video is growing.

Reliable infrastructure remains essential.

But infrastructure alone is becoming less differentiated.

The larger opportunity is developing around the show-in-it conversion to being a media company.

Publishing. Distribution. Audience understanding. Cross-platform measurement.

Creative optimization. Monetization. Catalog intelligence. AI assistance. Creator ownership.

Human trust.

Those capabilities are beginning to connect with creators and audience communities.

When they do, calling the resulting product a “podcast host” may sound increasingly inadequate.

We will call it a creator operating system, a media operating platform, an intelligence layer, or something rather early and less defined.

The terminology is less important than the shift underneath it.

For 20 years, podcast technology has helped creators publish, distribute, and monetize.

The next-generation creator media OS companies will increasingly help them understand what should be made, what happened after they made it, analyze the results, and decide what to do next.

That is a much larger and more valuable services business. And I believe the race to own that layer has already started.

Rob Greenlee is a longtime new media executive, Podcast Hall of Fame inductee, and host of the New Media Show. His work focuses on the evolution of podcasting, video, creator-led media, AI, and human trust in emerging media systems.

AI Disclosure: AI tools were used to assist with organizing and editing this article’s research. The thesis, editorial perspective, final judgment, and responsibility for the published version remain mine and my New Media Show guests’.

The Word “Podcast” Is Owned by the Audience Now

By Rob Greenlee

For years, the podcast industry has argued over what a podcast really is.

Is it an RSS feed?
Is it an audio file?
Is it a downloadable media enclosure?
Is it open distribution?
Is it something in Apple Podcasts?

Those definitions still matter, especially to those of us who helped build and protect the open podcasting ecosystem. RSS matters. Creator control matters. Portability matters. Ownership matters.

But here is the uncomfortable truth: The word podcast is no longer owned by the industry. It is now owned by the audience.

The audience does not care nearly as much about the delivery technology as we do. They say they “watched a podcast on YouTube,” “followed a podcast on Spotify,” “saw a podcast clip on TikTok,” or “listened to a podcast in the car.”

They are not thinking about RSS, hosting platforms, download measurement, API delivery, or whether the file was streamed or downloaded.

They are thinking about the show. That is the shift.

To the public, a podcast is increasingly a recurring show with a host, a point of view, a topic, a relationship, and a familiar format. It may be audio. It may be a video. It may be clipped, streamed, summarized, searched, or recommended by an AI system.

This is where the old industry definition starts to break down.

The podcast industry can argue that YouTube shows are not “real podcasts.” But if millions of people call them podcasts, watch them as podcasts, and advertisers buy them as podcasts, then the market is already redefining the word.

That does not mean open podcasting is dead. It means open podcasting has to compete within a much larger media environment.

The danger is obvious. Platforms want to shape the meaning of podcasting around their own business models.

YouTube wants podcasts to look and behave like YouTube.
Spotify wants podcasts inside Spotify.
Apple wants podcasts inside Apple Podcasts.
Social platforms want clips.
AI platforms want structured metadata knowledge and summarized answers.

Each platform pulls the word in its own direction. But the audience is the real force behind the change.

Words follow behavior. Television is no longer just a living room device. Radio is no longer just a local tower.

Podcasting is no longer just an RSS audio file. It is becoming a broader show format.

That means new media creators need to stop building only for the old definition of a podcast and start building for how audiences actually consume media now.

The show is the center.
The RSS feed is infrastructure.
The website is the home base.
YouTube and Spotify are discovery and consumption engines.
Social clips are attention triggers.
Email and community are direct relationships.
AI search is becoming the next discovery layer.

This is the new podcast stack. The biggest mistake would be to fight the audience over the word. The smarter move is to protect the open foundation while accepting the expanded meaning.

Podcasting’s future will not be won by telling people they are using an incorrect term. It will be won by building trusted shows that work across audio, video, social, search, AI, and community.

The word podcast may have started as a technical, open, but narrow standard distribution term. But today, it means something much bigger. It means a trusted show people choose based on what the platform it is consumed on calls it; if a production looks and sounds like a podcast, then that is what they will think it is in their lives.

And that definition now belongs to the audience.

About the Author
Rob Greenlee is a 2017 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee and Chair, a global new-media leader who bridges podcasting’s human roots and its AI-driven future. As founder of Trust Factor Lab and host of the “New Media Show” and “Spoken Human”, Rob helps creators start, grow, monetize, and future-proof their content. He’s held leadership roles at Microsoft, Spreaker, Libsyn, StreamYard, and PodcastOne, and serves as Chairperson of the Podcast Hall of Fame. Learn more at RobGreenlee.com and join the Trust Factor Lab Creator/Podcast Services.

Personal note: I used AI tools to help organize this article and hand-edited it; the views, clarifications, responsibility, and industry perspective are mine. I have been working in podcasting and platform adoption for more than two decades, and this article reflects my own position. The original word choice was mine, and so is the clarification.

Spotify Supporting Apple’s HLS Video Shift Shows Apple Podcasts Still Moves the Podcasting Market

By Rob Greenlee

Spotify’s decision to support Apple Podcasts’ HLS video streaming approach is a bigger signal than it may first appear.

On the surface, this looks like a practical product update. Spotify for Creators and Megaphone need to support Apple’s new HLS video publishing workflow, so Spotify-hosted creators can publish video podcasts into Apple Podcasts without having to rebuild their whole setup on a different platform to get video into Apple Podcasts. Spotify has said that support for both Spotify for Creators and Megaphone is coming later this year, and that it is working with Apple on the integration.

But underneath that announcement is a much larger industry reality. Apple Podcasts remains the market mover in podcasting. When Apple changes something meaningful in podcasting, the industry aligns around it very quickly. That has been true since the early days of the iTunes podcast directory, and it remains true now. YouTube is massive. Spotify is powerful. Both are major forces in video, discovery, audience behavior, and creator monetization. But neither one has historically been able to shift the core technical direction of podcasting the way Apple can.

Apple’s move to support HLS video podcasts inside Apple Podcasts is not just another video feature. It is a market shift signal.

Apple is saying that video podcasting needs to work more like modern streaming media while still preserving the podcast model that creators, hosting companies, and listening platforms have built around for two decades.

Apple describes the new HLS video experience as allowing listeners to switch between audio and video, view horizontally, download video for offline viewing, and continue using existing podcast features, such as follows and downloads. Apple also says creators can monetize through sponsorships and dynamic advertising, including video ads provided by the creators’ hosting platform.

Since 2005, video podcasting has been available in Apple Podcasts as an MP4 video download via RSS, while non-RSS-based video distribution has gained traction on platforms like YouTube, which support video. Spotify has had video podcasts via direct upload, like YouTube, with a few API based submission processes.

Below is Apple iTunes Podcasts page on MAC and Windows.

Below is a screenshot of the Microsoft Zune Marketplace software on Windows from 2011.

Apple is not new to video podcasts, as well as the early (2007-2014) Microsoft Zune supported Video Podcasts (see image above); Apple has supported video since the earliest years of podcasting, when they were a significant part of the medium, with most mainstream media companies, large and small, supporting video podcasts via RSS, like HBO, Showtime, CNN, MSNBC, Comedy Central, and most others you can think of. Independent creators like Ask a Ninja and startups like Revision3 and TWIT.TV.

But since about 2014, video has not been central to the Apple Podcasts app, making it hard to discover it there today. Video podcasting was there but not treated as a first-class media experience in the Apple ecosystem, and thus declined in popularity as audio podcasts became dominant.

Now Apple and Apple Podcasts are moving video podcasting into a more modern HLS streaming framework, the same method YouTube uses to stream video.

All the above is why Spotify’s support for Apple’s HLS video publishing workflow is not optional. It is required if Spotify wants Megaphone and Spotify for Creators to remain competitive in podcast hosting.

Spotify cannot afford to be in a position where a creator using Spotify’s own hosting tools has a harder time publishing video to Apple Podcasts than a creator using Acast, ART19, Omny Studio, Transistor, Podigee, Libsyn, Blubrry, iHeart, or other hosting providers that have moved quickly into Apple’s HLS video workflow. Apple’s support materials already tell creators to work with a hosting provider that supports video via HLS on Apple Podcasts.

So Spotify had to move.

That does not mean Spotify suddenly became a fully open podcasting infrastructure company. Spotify has always been a bit of a rebel in the podcasting market. It often adopts podcasting approaches that shift the advantage toward Spotify’s own platform, app experience, audience data, and monetization systems. That is not always bad. Spotify has pushed the market forward in some areas, especially around video adoption and creator monetization inside its own ecosystem.

But Spotify has not typically been the company that aligns the whole podcasting industry around open, cross-platform technical standards.

Apple still plays that industry leadership role more than anyone else.

The next big question is whether Spotify stops at supporting Apple’s HLS publishing workflow or goes further.

Will Spotify add HLS video streaming support via RSS using an Alternative Enclosure or a similar pass-through model, so video stream links can flow beyond Apple Podcasts into other podcast apps and platforms?

That is the question that matters now.

If Megaphone and Spotify for Creators can support HLS video for publishing into Apple Podcasts, could they also support HLS video links inside RSS for external podcast consumption platforms like iHeart, Pocket Casts, Overcast, Fountain, and other apps that may want to support video playback in a more modern way?

That would be a much bigger move.

It would mean Spotify is not only supporting Apple’s new video podcast workflow because it has to. It would mean Spotify is helping make HLS video distribution more available across the broader podcast ecosystem. Really helping the broader industry to actually innovate in the RSS feed they have spent years criticizing was not happening.

The Alternative Enclosure concept matters because podcasting has long been built around the RSS media file enclosure model. Traditionally, that meant an audio file, often an MP3, delivered as a downloadable media file. For years, video podcasts have often meant an MP4 file. But modern video distribution does not really want to live solely in a giant downloadable-file model anymore.

HLS, or HTTP Live Streaming, breaks video into adaptive streaming segments. It is the way much of modern video delivery already works across the streaming media world. It can adapt to bandwidth. It can create a better user experience. It can open up better advertising possibilities. It can improve playback reliability. It can make video podcasting feel less like downloading a file and more like a contemporary media experience.

That is where podcasting is heading: Video-First.

The download model has served podcasting incredibly well. It gave podcasting its open distribution foundation. It allowed creators to publish once and reach many apps. It gave the medium independence from a single-platform gatekeeper, was simple, and took advantage of the limited bandwidth of the earlier medium-birth era that has now passed.

But as the industry moves deeper into video, dynamic video and audio ad insertion, cross-device (screen sizes) consumption, and seamless listen-to-watch and watch-to-listen behavior, the old download-first model is increasingly looking outdated as both the central delivery method and the metrics, too.

That does not mean RSS goes away. It means RSS has to evolve.

Podcasting needs to preserve the creator-controlled, open distribution layer while allowing modern media delivery, such as HLS, underneath it. That is the real importance of Apple’s HLS move. Apple is not adding video, as they have had video all along. Apple is forcing the hosting industry to rethink how podcast video and increasingly audio should be delivered, monetized, measured, and experienced.

Then everyone else has to respond. That is the cascade effect.

Hosting platforms have to support HLS publishing workflows. Ad tech platforms have to think about video and audio ad insertion differently. Metrics providers have to account for streams, downloads, plays, watch behavior, and hybrid listening/viewing sessions. Podcast apps have to decide whether they remain audio-only experiences or become richer show-consumption platforms. Creators have to decide whether their shows are audio-first, video-first, or multi-format, adapting to where the audience is.

Podcast Consumers will not care about the technical details. They will just expect the experience to work.

They will expect to start listening in the car, continue watching on a tablet, pick up later on a desktop, and still feel like it is the same show, because it is. Apple’s HLS video podcast experience is clearly aimed at that kind of seamless consumption behavior.

This is where podcasting becomes less about podcast media files and more about consuming shows at scale.

I have been saying for a while that podcasting is moving into a broader show-based media era. Audio is still core. Audio remains the most intimate and flexible format.

Video is now central to discovery, trust, audience connection, and monetization. The question is not whether video belongs in podcasting. It does. The question is whether the podcasting ecosystem can support video without simply handing everything over to YouTube, Spotify, or any other closed platform.

That is why Apple’s move matters.

Apple Podcasts is the only major podcast platform with sufficient market power to drive the industry toward a more modern technical layer while keeping podcasting connected to RSS-based distribution and creator-controlled publishing.

Spotify’s support for Apple HLS video is a practical business decision. Megaphone and Spotify for Creators need to stay competitive. But it is also an acknowledgment that Apple still has the power to set the technical direction of podcasting when it chooses to act.

The next test is whether Spotify will support this only where Apple requires it, or help extend HLS video publishing more broadly through RSS pass-through and Alternative Enclosure-style support.

This is where the industry should be watching.

If the HLS video format becomes something Apple supports only through approved hosting integrations, then we have a powerful new Apple Podcasts video layer.

If HLS video becomes something that can travel through RSS in a broader, interoperable way, then podcasting takes a much bigger step toward a modern open media future.

That second path is the one that could change everything.

It could impact consumers, creators, hosting companies, monetization systems, metrics standards, and listening/viewing platforms.

It could also finally move podcasting beyond the limits of the download model while preserving the open publishing spirit that made podcasting matter in the first place.

Spotify’s support for Apple’s HLS video shift is not just about Spotify. It is about Apple once again moving the podcasting market, and the rest of the industry deciding how open, modern, and creator-controlled the next era of podcasting will be.

Why “Fringe” Was the Wrong Word and What I Actually Meant About Podcasting 2.0

By Rob Greenlee

This article provides context about my comments on New Media Show episode 660 with Libsyn CEO Brendan Monaghan, where we discussed Podcasting 2.0, RSS tag adoption, and the gap between innovation and mainstream platform implementation.

During my recent interview conversation with the Libsyn CEO, I used the word “fringe” when discussing Podcasting 2.0 RSS extension tag ideas. That comment in an extended audio clip was played and discussed on “Podnews Weekly Review“, and understandably, it raised concerns in parts of the podcasting 2.0 community, including Dave Jones and Adam Curry on the Podcasting 2.0 podcast. Let me say this clearly. That was not the right word for me to use, and I regret saying it that way.

Not because I am backing away from the broader point I was trying to make, but because the word itself does not reflect how I actually view the work happening in the Podcasting 2.0 and open RSS ecosystem.

The comment came out quickly in a live discussion and did not carry the full context I intended.

What I was trying to describe is something I have repeatedly seen said over the past two decades working with large platforms, hosting companies, and media organizations: there is a real difference between something that is not widely adopted yet and something that is not valuable.

Podcasting 2.0 Innovation Has Real Value

Podcasting 2.0 innovations are valuable. RSS namespace expansion, new tags, and experimentation around monetization, identity, transcripts, funding, and distribution all matter. This is where much of the real innovation in podcasting is happening.

At the same time, many of these capabilities have been around for several years, in some cases for close to five years. That historical context matters. My comment was not about the value of the ideas themselves. It was about the pace and pattern of adoption, especially among larger platforms.

When I used the word “fringe,” I was referring to the broader set of emerging and evolving tag ideas within the Podcasting 2.0 initiative.

There are many tags and concepts at different stages of maturity, market fit, timing, and implementation. Not all of them have broad agreement or adoption, even within standards-focused efforts like the Podcast Standards Project. From a product and platform perspective, this creates a spectrum of adoption rather than one unified standard that everyone has fully embraced.

What I Was Trying to Say

What I meant is that market fit and timing play a major role in what gets adopted at scale. Larger podcasting platforms tend to move more deliberately. Their decisions are shaped by user experience, engineering resources, monetization models, product stability, support complexity, and business priorities.

That often means only a subset of new capabilities gets integrated into mainstream products at any given time.

That has been the pattern over the past several years.

But it is also important to say this pattern is changing.

Momentum Started Very Slow, But Is Building

Over the past year or so, we have started to see real momentum around some Podcasting 2.0 tags and capabilities. More platforms are experimenting. More tools are supporting them. More creators are becoming aware of what is possible and how these features can be used in real workflows.

That has been great to see.

I believe we will continue to see more adoption of certain RSS tags as platforms, tools, and creators find clearer ways to integrate them into everyday use.

Some Tags Are Seeing More Adoption

You can already see this progression in parts of the ecosystem.

Tags like transcript, chapters, and person have seen meaningful adoption because they provide immediate and understandable value. The Alternative Enclosure tag is being more widely adopted across platforms, too. They improve accessibility, discovery, context, and creator attribution.

The funding tag has gained traction within parts of the ecosystem, especially among creators and platforms exploring alternative monetization models. The value tag, which supports value-for-value and streaming payment models, has been adopted within specific apps and communities, though it has struggled more recently and has not yet become mainstream across larger platforms.

Other tags and ideas are still at an earlier stage. Some are being tested. Some are evolving. Some are still looking for the right use case that will drive broader adoption.

That is what I meant by a spectrum of innovation.

Innovation and Adoption Are Not the Same Thing

Podcasting operates across two layers simultaneously.

There is an innovation layer, where developers, independent platforms, and forward-thinking creators create and test new ideas. Then there is a platform layer, where those ideas are evaluated, prioritized, supported, and integrated into products used by millions of people. The gap between those two layers is where much of the tension comes from.

I have seen this pattern many times. Podcasting itself began outside the mainstream.

Mobile listening took time to become the default. Video podcasting has gone through multiple cycles before finding its current role. Programmatic advertising in audio took years to mature. Innovation usually moves faster than adoption. Adoption follows when user demand, product fit, creator benefit, and business alignment come together.

That is where many Podcasting 2.0 capabilities have been.

My View of Podcasting 2.0 and the Podcast Standards Project

I also want to be clear that Podcasting 2.0 and the Podcast Standards Project are not the same thing. They overlap in some areas, but they do not necessarily embrace every tag or idea in the same way.

That is part of the larger point

When standards-oriented efforts evaluate which capabilities to support, it shows that this is not simply a question of innovation versus resistance. It is about maturity, usefulness, interoperability, timing, and market fit. That is the context I was trying to convey, though I did not do so well at the time.

I Respect the Podcasting 2.0 Community

So when I used the word “fringe,” I was trying to describe how some organizations have historically perceived ideas that had not yet reached scale or product integration. But I understand how that word sounded dismissive of Podcasting 2.0, and that is not how I really see it.

I respect and appreciate the innovation and work happening through PodcastIndex.org, Podcasting 2.0, and the broader open podcasting community, including the work and advocacy of Adam Curry, Dave Jones, Daniel J. Lewis, and many others.

The opportunity now is to build on the momentum emerging and move the most valuable ideas toward broader adoption. That means making these capabilities easier to use, improving listener experiences, aligning them with sustainable business models, and demonstrating clear value at scale.

That is how innovation moves from experimentation into everyday use.

My Role in the Conversation

I do not want to frame this as one side versus another. I am focused on helping connect what is being built with what is actually being adopted and used at scale.

That is the conversation we are having every week on the “New Media Show“. Join us LIVE on Weds, 3 pm PST/6 pm EST, or on demand in all the podcast apps and live on YouTube.com/@robgreenlee, LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, and X.com

So, yes, I regret the word “Fringe” I used. But I stand by the broader point that there has been a gap between innovation and adoption in podcasting over the past several years.

The good news is that momentum is building, and that gap is starting to close. That is where the real opportunity is for all of us in this industry.

About the Author
Rob Greenlee is a 2017 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee and Chair, a global new media leader who bridges podcasting’s human roots with its AI-driven future. As founder of Trust Factor Lab and host of the “New Media Show” and “Spoken Human”, Rob helps creators start, grow, monetize, and future-proof their content. He’s held leadership roles at Microsoft, Spreaker, Libsyn, StreamYard, and PodcastOne, and serves as Chairperson of the Podcast Hall of Fame. Learn more at RobGreenlee.com and join the Trust Factor Lab Creator/Podcast Services.