Like London buses, you wait years for a subscription service to turn up and two come along at the same time. James and Sam analyse Spotify's new subscription service and compare it with Apple's alternative subscription service.

Join James Cridland and Sam Sethi on this week's thought-provoking show about Spotify's new subscription service.

NEWS:

Spotify has announced their Paid Subscriptions service, which is hosted on Anchor.
Spotify’s Paid Subscriptions tool sounds nice when compared with Apple - who can argue with free. But it isn’t quite as straightforward as that. Or, even, free.
- It’s not actually free. Standard payment processing fees still apply. Stripe charge 2.9% +30¢, and I’d expect Spotify’s pricing to be similar. Apple’s fees include payment processing.
- It’s US-only for now, as all Anchor monetisation has been. The company is hoping to expand “in the coming months”. Apple Podcasts Subscriptions are available in 170 countries and regions.
Facebook is to add a podcast player in its app, powered by Spotify. It’s being rolled out to 27 markets, none in Europe.
Riverside․fm has announced a further $9.5m in funding. The company has also debuted its “magic editor” feature, to automate recording, editing and uploading.
SiriusXM has bought 99% Invisible Inc. The company, owned by Roman Mars.
Acast claims the future of podcasting is Dynamic RSS.
Buzzsprout now integrates with Canva
Headliner now supports Soundbites - a new Podcasting 2.0 tag also supported by Buzzsprout.