Spoken word is said to be the new medium. Why sit around and watch a video when you can just listen to the audio and clean house simultaneously? Listen to a book or get caught up on the world happenings while driving to work. Find out all the things you missed with your favorite TV show. It’s no surprise that podcasts are becoming the next popular thing.
Listening to and enjoying podcasts as been an activity around for more than 10 years. But with recent political stand points and all around changing world news, podcast listening has gone up almost 60% since 2013.
The main reason why podcasts are so popular is because people are searching for information. Staying in the loop and learning new tips and tricks has kept podcasts alive. Streaming services from music to TV make having your favorite things available with just a screen tap. Now, podcasts are joining the crew and it has definitely been a long time coming. CastBox is adding to that, by revolutionizing the way we search for podcasts and the ability to find exactly what is being sought out.
CastBox is a podcast streaming app that was founded and developed by Xiaoyu Wang. In 2015, Wang quit her job at Google in Tokyo. She sold her house rendering her homeless and jobless. But, after working at Google and realizing there wasn’t an dominant podcasts app, she went to work on making CastBox. Now, two years later, Wang’s dream has received $16 million in funding and has over 1.5 million users. With the project orginally being funded but Xiaomi Corp and Didi Chuxing, CastBox.fm is now backed by SIG China, Zhenfund, IDG Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, and GSR Ventures. ZhenFund.
Of course, there are already popular podcast streaming apps. For example, Apple products come with a specific podcast app already installed and ready to use. So what makes CastBox so special? It’s new search and find capabilities.
CastBox now has an audio search filter that uses processed language to find keywords and specific topics for its users. While it’s strictly supported in English, Wang wants to add more languages as the in-audio search option is perfected.
The main thing, though, is how CastBox helps you find certain episodes. Instead of being limited to just titles, CastBox opens up the ability to look into podcast episode content. With more than 50 million podcast episodes to go around, finding exactly what you’re looking for can be time consuming. The possibility of missing an episode or not getting the right information is taken away by this new feature.
Google Cloud platforms are used to run transcriptions of every podcast episode Castbox has to offer. Even within seconds of it being posted. Initially, the transcripts were used for recommending other episodes. Now, the quality of said transcripts is at 98% when dealing with accuracy, making them perfect for user use.
The new search feature works exactly like getting onto your popular search engine and typing in what you’re searching for. CastBox’s internal search engine finds phrases and related words to narrow down your search with related episodes and channels. The app then gives a timestamp of when in the podcast your searched word is said. Listeners can go directly to that portion of the podcast without having to listen to then entire conversation.
Although this can be somewhat bad for podcast hosts who dislike having their episodes broken up. But there’s still possibility in gaining more viewers who listen to a minute or two instead of closing the episode out immediately if it’s too long or not right. Podcasts are mainly consisted of interviews and news, so this helps in answering the very questions we searched for initially quickly and easily.
Like other popular streaming services, CastBox considers its user’s search engine history and listening patterns to offer recommendations. CastBox is also available on Google Home and desktop/laptop computers. The option to pick up right where you left off on any of these platforms sets CastBox apart from its competitors even more.
CastBox will offer premium options which add the ability to subscribe. At $.99 a month, the subscription option offers unlimited podcasts and default homepage customization. The podcasting app also plans on producing its own original content within the coming future.
