As promised, LeBron and JJ Redick’s new podcast Mind the Game, has launched, The first episode is available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts (Apple Podcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, RSS).
So far, there’s very little GOAT debate, leaving room for discussion about stuff like an unexpected element of Steph’s impact on the NBA (below) and a different idea for guarding the baseline out-of-bounds play.
As athletes increasingly cut out the media middleman, basketball stars LeBron James and JJ Redick are launching a podcast, reports The Athletic. But unlike so many other celebrity podcast deals, they are doing so independently and with no official sponsor. To be fair, it doesn’t seem like James or Redick need the money.
Update 6:20PM ET: Added YouTube embed for Mind the Game.
It appears Google is further optimizing YouTube Music for podcasts as it prepares to sunset Google Podcasts at the end of this month.
9to5Google reports spotting a line of code that indicates it is building out a “trim silence feature,” which is standard on Google Podcasts and other podcast listening apps. It automatically skips long stretches of silence that appear in an episode, saving the listener a bit of time.
The artist pulled his catalog in early 2022 over its then-exclusive Joe Rogan deal, which Young said had resulted in Spotify spreading vaccine misinformation. Now, with the exclusivity deal over, Rogan’s podcast is also available on Apple and Amazon, and Young can’t keep his music off all of them.
He’s still not happy about Spotify’s lack of high-res audio quality, though.
[Neil Young Archives]
Apple released the fourth major update to macOS Sonoma today. It includes the latest crop of new emoji, including a phoenix, a lime, a brown mushroom (to go with its red cap counterpart), and more.
It also brings searchable, auto-generated transcripts to Apple Podcasts. An update to Messages for Business will let users opt-in to notifications about flights, fraud alerts, order statuses, and more.
[Apple Support]
I wanted it to be February’s Button of the Month — partly because its big honking button has an incredible click and shoots out a monster jet of flame, partly because it triples as an alarm clock (!), and partly ‘cuz it hearkens back to Casio’s original invention: a finger ring for cigarettes.
Sadly, the Casio QL-10 seems rare. Last time one hit eBay, it sold for $499. Behold history through other people’s cameras in our gallery instead:
An open letter signed by AI researchers, including Algorithmic Justice League founder Joy Boulamwini and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, said governments should look to fully criminalize deepfake child pornography even with fictional children, create criminal penalities for people who make and share “harmful” deepfakes, and require developers to be held liable if their safety measures are easily bypassed.
US policymakers have discussed regulating deepfakes, though mostly in the context of the upcoming elections. It’s rare for open letters to influence regulation, but AI is a fraught issue that some lawmakers might take these suggestions into account.
After a very public and acrimonious breakup with Spotify, Meghan Markle has a new podcast deal with Lemonada Media. She will launch a new show with the network, which will also take over distribution for her Spotify podcast, Archetypes. The company had another splashy launch last year with Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz sent a memo to staff on Monday announcing another round of layoffs. She said that less than 3 percent (which works out to about 170 people) would be affected. Last year, the company cut 475 employees.
Spotify for Podcasters is changing, and according to some creators, not for the better.
An expanded partnership with Riverside will replace some of the platform’s native mobile and web creation tools, and it’s sunsetting Music + Talk, a feature introduced in 2020 that allows podcasters to plug licensed full-length tracks into episodes. Podcasters who focus on music, in particular, have a particular need for that capability and say their shows will be gutted by the change.
After over three years of Spotify exclusivity, Joe Rogan’s podcast is now available via other podcasting apps — including Apple Podcasts — and will return to YouTube “within weeks.” The change comes after Rogan renewed his deal with Spotify for a reported $250 million.
Despite its exclusivity, the Joe Rogan Experience has still managed to be the most popular podcast in the world.
The New York Times reported earnings yesterday, and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien told investors that “our digital performance, including podcasts, was impacted by marketers avoiding some hard news topics like the Middle East conflict.” The NYT has published extensive (and important) podcasts about the war in Gaza and surrounding conflicts. Conventional wisdom in podcasting goes that advertisers avoid politics and other controversial topics, which is perhaps why brands gravitate toward sports and comedy shows.
Always one to project its creator-friendly bonifides, Spotify issued a statement this morning saying that the streamer paid out $9 billion to the music industry in 2023. The company has released this figure the past few years in the context of mounting criticism that artists on the platform are not adequately compensated for their music. Spotify also recently announced major changes to its royalties system, including a new policy in which only songs that get at least 1,000 streams annually earn royalties, which the company says is intended to get more money into the pockets of working artists.
WMG CEO Robert Kyncl -- who thinks you could pay more for Spotify-- revealed the record label will lay off 10 percent of its workforce, or 600 employees. It’s winding down the podcast division behind Rap Radar and Drink Champs, and IMGN Media. It’s also in an “exclusive process” to sell Uproxx and HipHopDX.
Earlier on Wednesday, WMG reported Q1 revenue of $1.75 billion — its highest quarterly revenue since it went public, and net income of $193 million.
On the latest Vergecast, Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz discuss The Verge score for the Vision Pro, which got a 7 for being fun, but perhaps it should’ve been less?
Nilay put it to a vote on Threads yesterday, asking Vision Pro owners, in a “world of no 7s,” is it a six, or an eight? The winner was a third option: “Show me the results.” (Six came in second, though).
