Congratulations All Around (the World); Zeno + SoundStack

Over the past two decades, the Internet has enabled true global connection – photo sharing, access to news and information, communication tools, social media platforms and more bring people all around the world together. And over time, new formats quickly emerged to further enable that community connection, including audio.

Podcasting is clearly one of the best examples of audio’s ability to connect the global community. The idea is neatly exemplified by our new partnership with Zeno Media, a platform that supports and connects diverse communities through audio programming in their native languages. 

Announced today, the agreement officially establishes Zeno on the SoundStack platform, giving all of their podcasters, broadcasting from communities around the world, a simple way to have their shows hosted, delivered, and earning revenue immediately.

The democratization of audio tech has many faces. Broadly, it’s about providing easy access to easy-to-use tools that give everyone – from independent radio stations to podcast networks to enterprise platforms – an equitable opportunity to grow their audio business. 

But sometimes the benefit of that capability can run deeper. In the case of Zeno podcasters, the shows they publish can be one of the few ways that global listeners stay connected to their communities back home. 

We’re proud and excited to help fulfill that mission and get them up and running. But this isn’t just about basic access to audio tech – it’s about access to a platform that’s been purpose-built from the ground up to make podcasting more efficient and effective.

In addition to simplifying hosting and delivery, SoundStack Podcaster helps audio publishers ensure they sell more of their ad inventory at the highest-possible price. At one level, that comes from providing open, broad access to as many advertisers as possible in our Marketplace, with seamless connections to demand sources across the podcast ecosystem. 

At another level, it comes from innovations like dynamic ad insertion (DAI) which, unlike legacy systems that merely tack it on, is foundational to our platform. DAI, in a nutshell, makes podcast advertising more flexible and efficient by serving an ad automatically when an episode is streamed or downloaded. Variables like geography, the timeliness of a message, and more are taken into account and increase the chances of the best ad being served. 

Other innovations in Podcaster will make life even easier for Zeno podcasters, who are often managing their business as a “one-person show.” SoundStack Splice, for example, lets broadcasters create podcasts automatically from live streams and publish them instantly. Zeno is currently creating dozens of new podcasts with the tool.

So congratulations all around – from listener, to podcaster, to Zeno itself. We’re all helping to foster a vibrant, global podcast community, and keeping people around the world connected, with simple access to the most advanced audio tech out there.

Want to know more? Feel free to reach out to me jon [at] soundstack.com