Poddy, the brand new and polyphonic podcast platform, which was founded in London and developed by two Turkish entrepreneurs to create a global platform where everyone can make their voices heard freely and in any language, has been officially released.
The mobile application Poddy, which was developed as a “multi-audio podcast platform” so that podcast listeners can make their voices heard and content producers can interact with the listeners, has been officially released.
As of now, it is possible to listen to podcast broadcasts, share audio recordings up to a maximum of 60 seconds, expressed as “podcaps”, and interact with other users through the Poddy mobile application, which can be downloaded from the App Store application store on iOS devices.
Fundamental change in the world of podcasts
The number of people and listeners starting to broadcast podcasts around the world is increasing rapidly. Parallel to this increase, the variety of platforms for accessing podcasts, which is a type of digital content in audio format, also increased, while there was no podcast platform that offered the opportunity to interact between content producers and listeners to make their voices heard. Poddy, which allows users to interact with each other in addition to broadcasting and listening to podcasts, stands out as an innovative application in this field.
A total of 500 people participated in Poddy, which was launched with a test version on January 18, 2023 to improve the user experience and test the features. On February 24, 2023, with the general use of the beta version, more than 1000 registered users started using Poddy within 5 days and this number continues to increase rapidly.
“We believe in the power of the story and that everyone has a story to tell”
Cuneyt Gokturk, CEO of Poddy, explained Poddy’s journey from an idea to an application, its purpose and the process of making it available for use. “Poddy, which we have brought to life with the definition of a multi-audio podcast platform, came up as an idea for the first time when I could not interact with the content or the content producer after a podcast I listened to in the evening on February 1, 2022. The next day, after I shared with my teammates the idea that a podcast platform could also be interactive in the office and listeners can have their voices heard, we embarked on a quick work process for Poddy. After developing the application with a team of 40 people, we started the testing process by executing many parallel processes simultaneously.
Poddy reached its first users in a short time after starting the testing process and the experience of the application; user experience has been tested by real users. We decided to change the test period and publication date we envisaged for the application after the earthquakes that deeply affected us all. Because after the earthquakes that were effective in Turkiye and Syria, we set aside all our other agendas and took action to contribute to the need for urgent support and tried to provide all the help we could. In this process, instant communication was very important in the short term and we focused our attention here. In the face of the difficulties we are experiencing, we have once again clearly seen the importance of speaking, telling, listening and sharing for a better future and by making an open call to the entire podcast ecosystem, we tried to draw attention to the need to start talking as soon as possible for a healthy recovery process, both individually and socially. In this direction, we decided to open Poddy, which allows us to produce content just by speaking and to listen to different voices, on February 24, 2023, to be a tool that will contribute to our improvement, although it is still in the testing phase. Because we think that there is a lot to talk, listen and share, especially in difficult times that affect all of us socially, and we believe in the healing power of speech.”
“Our goal is to create a platform where everyone can make their voices heard freely”
Poddy Co-Founder and CMO Erman Darici said, “We are proud to have launched Poddy as a healing platform for everyone and a platform where everyone can make their voices heard freely during this difficult time. We also explain its feature of being a platform where everyone can make their voices heard freely with Poddy’s logo. Our logo was inspired by the “Lone Whale”, which was first discovered in the late 80’s and produces sounds at a frequency of 52 hertz, unlike other whale species that mostly make sounds at frequencies between 15 and 20 hertz. For this reason, 52 hertz whales, considered the loneliest whale in the world by scientists, are waiting for their voices to be heard with Poddy. With Poddy, we are happy to offer anyone who wants to make their voice heard freely the opportunity to do so.”
Evaluating the features of the application that enable it to be interactive for both the listener and the content producer, Darici said, “With Poddy, we bring together the powerful interaction functions such as comments, likes and sharing, available on the social media platforms we are used to, with the polyphonic world of the podcast that offers ease of access. In this way, listeners can freely share their thoughts about the content they listen to on Poddy with the content producer or other listeners, and they can easily state that they are satisfied with the sharing by liking the content.
Sharing has an important place in Poddy’s innovative format. At this point, you first come across the type of content that we discovered with Poddy and which we call “podcaps”. Podcaps represent a maximum of 60 seconds of audio recordings that you can share on Poddy. It is possible to create podcaps by quoting up to 60 seconds of a popular podcast, as well as by recording audio by all users of the application. Regardless of whether for citation or recording purposes, with podcaps, it becomes easy to disseminate content on Poddy and thus reach wider audiences for content producers.
With these features, Poddy distinguishes itself from all other platforms in the “Podcast Player” format, both in Turkiye and in the world, and is a polyphonic podcast platform where everyone can make their voices heard.
In order to personalize the interaction features in Poddy, each user gets a customizable profile in Poddy. All podcaps recordings and excerpts, podcasts, if any, podcaps/podcasts that the user is co-produced or tagged with, and the content they listen to can be viewed in this profile. Through these profiles, anyone who is a user of Poddy can follow and be followed by other creators and listeners on the platform. In this way, Poddy is also no different than a social media platform, but innovatively focused on podcasts.”
Features that make it easy to discover new podcast content are on Poddy
Detailing the features of Poddy, which offers successful solutions in terms of accessibility and great convenience to its users in podcast production with its functional tools, Erman Darici said, “With Poddy, which we have shaped by carefully considering every technical detail to create an innovative podcast platform, we have focused on providing convenience to our users in discovering new content. In this context, Poddy has a “discover” section that makes it easier for users to access content that appeals to their special tastes, with its advanced algorithm and machine learning capabilities. The explore section, which is active under two different titles, podcaps and podcast, provides users with the opportunity to access the content quickly with its endless scrolling feature. On this screen, users can primarily view the content of the users they follow, and then, thanks to Poddy’s machine learning capabilities, the content that best suits their interests is displayed. This makes it easier to discover new content on Poddy, and it also makes it possible for users to find and discover content directly related to their interests by searching for a word in the search bar.”
Source: Egirisim / Prepared by Irem Yildiz