Apple is making it easier to discover and listen to podcasts via the web. The company announced today an Apple Podcasts embed web player is now available, allowing anyone — including creators, listeners or marketers — to generate embed codes for the more than 1.5 million shows available across the Apple Podcasts service.
The codes can be generated from the Apple Podcasts Preview pages on the web or from the Apple Podcasts Marketing Tools website.
For the former, you would first click the share icon on the Preview page for either a show or an individual episode. You’ll then see a new “embed” button on the left-hand side.
And in the case of the latter, you would enter the URL for the podcast or episode you want to embed on the Marketing Tools website, then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the options for the embed player.
Here, you can also adjust the options for the player’s height and width to your own specifications or leave it at the default setting of 450px x 660px. When you’re ready to grab the code, you just click the “Copy Embed” button, which automatically copies the code to your clipboard for pasting elsewhere.
Here’s an example of what the embed looks like:
When visitors happen upon the embedded web player, they can interact with the podcast immediately by playing the episode and by opening the Apple Podcasts app for iOS, iPadOS or macOS to learn more about the program or to add it to their existing podcast subscriptions.
The new feature aims to help Apple retain and grow its audience of podcast listeners who use its own app for following their favorite audio programs. It arrives at a time when rivals, led by Spotify, are increasing their investments in podcasts. Spotify continues to acquire podcast studios and ad technology, while also rolling out more tools and features for podcast creators and listeners alike. Spotify, too, already offers an embed feature for its podcasts, which allows it to direct users to its own service.
Apple says its Apple Podcasts web embed is broadly available as of today.
Spotify adds a built-in podcast playlist creation tool, ‘Your Episodes’
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