Today, it was announced that it has acquired Whooshkaa, an Australia-based all-in-one platform for hosting, managing, distributing, promoting, and measuring podcasts. Last year, Megaphone and Podz were acquired by Spotify, as well as its earlier acquisitions in the technology market.
The company has also acquired creator-facing tools like Anchor and the live talk show platform from Betty Labs.
Radio broadcasters can use Whooshkaa to turn their existing audio content into on-demand programming. This is the part that most people are interested in, because it will integrate this tech directly into Megaphone, which already offers a suite of hosting, distribution, reporting and monetization tools.
More third-party content will be added to the Audience Network by Whooshkaa, which will increase reach and impact for its advertising partners. This part of the business has been growing. The company passed the 1 billion in advertising revenue milestone in 2021.
The number of advertisers using the Audience Network has increased by 1 in 5 and the number of publishers using Megaphone has increased by 10%.
The Australian firm Whooshkaa has innovated in areas like text-to-speech, speech-to-text, connected home integration, ad technology with dynamic insertion, enterprise-grade private podcasting tools, and more. Whooshkaa can bring its technology to a larger audience with the help of Spotify.
Digital audio is still largely undiscovered. The Chief Content & Advertising Business Officer of the company, Dawn Ostroff, said in a statement that the company is reinforcing its commitment to helping creators, publishers, and advertisers realize the value of this opportunity. We will strengthen our efforts to help audio publishers of all kinds grow their business and scale our ability to help advertisers reach their audiences with Whooshkaa.
The transition plan for Whooshkaa's existing customers was not commented on by the company. Twelve people will be joining the service as a result of this deal, and they will remain based in Australia.
