Podcoin platform that pays users to listen to podcasts hits 10,000 daily active users

Podcoin, an app that rewards podcast listeners, says it has surpassed 1m listening minutes in a single day and crossed 10,000 daily active users.

Podcoin offers “nearly every podcast ever made”, and pays the listener one Podcoin for every 10 minutes spent listening. These can be redeemed for rewards including Amazon gift cards and Bose headphones.

Podcasters owners can claim their podcast for free by filling out a simple form to prove ownership. Claimed podcasts receive promotional benefits and access to analytics. While there are hundreds of thousands of podcasts on the app, 40 per cent of Podcoin’s listening minutes go to podcasts that have claimed their podcast on Podcoin.

“Podcoin is the latest innovation in podcasting,” said co-founder David Cook. “We offer loyalty points to our podcast listeners, fostering community around shared interests. We want to solve the problem of discovery for podcasters. We aim to provide the most efficient way to build and engage an audience of podcast listeners. Authenticity is the key to everything we do. Podcasters can see the profile photos of their audience and get direct insights into what other podcasts they’re listening to through the app, and they also have access to advanced analytics that track listening minutes, listeners, subscribers, taps in search, and more. Our goal is simple: to grow audience for podcasters while providing the best community management tools in the podcasting industry.”

Podcoin plans to add social features, including likes, comments and an enhanced social graph that will provide and encourage meaningful conversations.

David Murphy writes:
Podcoin seems like a neat idea with a transparent value exchange, but those who have been in, or following, the mobile marketing business for any length of time will recall numerous failed schemes whose model was to pay consumer to click on ads – Blyk is probably the most (in)famous.  Apart from the fact that they were clicking on the ads for all the wrong reason, the main problem with these things was that amount of ads you needed to click on – literally hundreds – to earn a few quid, meant they were never going to catch the imagination.

When I downloaded the Podcoin app to see how much listening is involved in claiming your rewards, it was like history repeating itself. To claim a $2 Amazon Gift Card requires 1,200 Podcoins. At the standard rate of 1 Podcoin per 10 minutes listening, that’s 200 – yes 200 – hours, for a $2 Gift Card. If all your listening is done in Bonus Streak mode, where you listen for at least 10 minutes a day every day, you can earn a maximum 2.5 Podcoins per 10 minutes, which means that $2 Amazon Gift Card will only take 80 hours of your life to achieve.

Yes, I appreciate a podcast is not an ad, and if you listen to a lot of Podcasts anyway, you might as well use a platform that rewards you in some way, but, if, as stated on the Podcoin website, its aim is to grow the audience to the point where, one day, it can charge Podcast owners to reach it, this level of incentive doesn’t look likely to cut it.