Audio is booming in 2020, that is a fact. Mostly thanks to the fast growing podcast industry, estimated to be worth $3.3B by 2025.
The modern incarnation of audio started with long-form audiobooks, then medium-length podcasts and now we are starting to see the very beginning of short-form audio.
Global podcast listener figures are forecast to grow more than six-fold, from 287 million in 2016 to 1.85 billion in 2023. Today, there are almost 100 million weekly podcast listeners in the USA alone.
The problem? Less than 1 million podcasts have ever been published. Globally. That’s just 1%. A huge gap in the market.
Why?
Today, podcasts and their distribution channels like Spotify and Apple Podcasts cater to long-form content by professional creators only.
The podcasting process is not friendly for every day social media users, with content generation typically being the most time-consuming and labor-intensive part. Creators must plan, write and record their episode, as well as edit, upload and distribute it to Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Distribution to these podcast platforms alone can take up to 10 days.
There are some signs that show us that the podcast industry is going to radically change in the coming years, moving from a high-touch content format reserved for professional creators — to a new daily behaviour for every day social media users.
Today’s consumer marketplace, driven by technologies like AirPods, connected cars and smart speakers, has created an audio-first environment where people use voice commands and receive responses audibly. Voice technologies are unlocking new ways for people to connect and this has created great demand for voice-based content.
100M AirPods were sold this year in the USA alone. That’s a lot of hands-free time that could be spent sharing, learning, connecting.
As our time becomes more fragmented, we long for short bursts of entertainment. Celebrities are already using voice messages to engage with their fans (and locking them behind subscription pay walls), while many Gen Z consumers have adopted the format as a way to express themselves authentically in their friendship networks, sending voice notes on WhatsApp.
What is a Logcast?
Popular among Gen Z, who typically have an attention span of just 8 seconds, “logcast” is the term given to a short-form audio clip.
While a podcast is a carefully scripted long-form piece of spoken audio, logcasting is the next generation of podcasting, a more live and spontaneous content format also known as “logging”. Logcasts are generally 10 minutes or less in duration and are recorded and published on the go.
Record your thoughts, conversations, creativity wherever you are — the airport, on a bus, at a restaurant with friends — and get them out into the world instantly, without the need for a full studio set up.
Music artists, politicians, authors, scientists, financial investors, health & wellness experts, coaches and teachers are all discovering new ways to share their journey more authenticity, documenting behind-the-scenes thoughts, moments, and experiences during their creative processes. This is a new behaviour where people can share (and monetize) their creative process — leading up to the release of a book, album, or political campaign — not just the final product.
But it’s not just famous creators exploring this new social media behaviour. Every day Gen Z users are also beginning to use short-form logcasts to document their daily life via audio recordings, recorded and played back from their AirPods. Putting down their hand-held devices and communicating the way humans were supposed to, through voice. Mirroring the ebb and flow of a real life conversation.
Think of the trend like “social podcasting”. And new breed challenger social networks, like Logcast, Clubhouse and HearMeOut are popping up to answer the demand for this new content behaviour.
Logcast™ is an audio-based social app that lets users record, publish and discover short-form audio updates and conversations (known as “logs”) from friends, brands and creators.
“With scripted content, advanced technology and studio settings it became too time-consuming for podcasters to share their thoughts. People may not know, but a 40 minute podcast episode takes over one working day to script, build, produce and edit, and we haven’t even touched upon the fact that most podcasters are searching for their sponsors themselves on top of this,” says Johanna Hoof, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at Logcast.
“Over the last few years, I found several podcasters were ending their show regardless of its success due to too much work load. There was no media platform that offered voice recording and sharing in an easy way, and creators were searching for a way to seamlessly share their experiences regularly during the week. So we built Logcast in collaboration with some of the most popular podcasters in Sweden to answer this.”
The app lets you easily share audio updates from your daily life with it’s unique “one tap” record and post functionality, join conversations with like-minded people, and discover new voices with its data-driven recommendation engine.
This new breed of spontaneous social apps have a mission to bring us together instantly, absent those frictions, and connect with who we want when we want.
Logcast is currently in private beta. Want to apply for early access? Register your interest here.
