#7 Understanding Podcast Analytics [June 9th 2021]

The Audio Newsroom with Hala Taha

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Libsyn Completes Its Acquisition of AdvertiseCast, the Podcast Advertising Company, for $30M.

• In March, Libsyn planned to raise $25M in new equity commitments for the acquisition of podcast advertising company Advertisecast.
• Currently, the $30M was paid $18M in cash, $10M in newly issued Libsyn shares, and $2M in the form of an earn-out
• including $8m from Libsyn Director Eric Shahinian’s Camac Partners
• Camac now owns 12.2% - and $1m from Chairman Bradley Tirpak.
• Libsyn President Laurie Sims said that "AdvertiseCast is a perfect fit with Libsyn's strategy to provide independent podcasters robust tools."
• Earlier this year, Libsyn acquired Glow, a podcast monetization startup. The company plans to use Glow's podcast membership programs and technology to provide monetization options for the 75,000+ podcasts on its platform.
• They’ve also agreed a new bank loan agreement. The company is currently without a CFO, after it was found to have underpaid $3.2 million in taxes over the past five years.
• Richard Heyse, the CFO of Libsyn, had resigned as the company gave the stock market an update on their incorrect financial reports. Libsyn underpaid a number of different taxes between 2015 and 2020: mistakes worth around $3.7m in unpaid tax and fines. The incorrect returns have also put Libsyn out of compliance with a number of bank loans.
• Libsyn’s previous CFO, John Busshaus, also resigned in October 2019 and is currently taking the company to court for wrongful termination: claims that Libsyn denies.

Linktree and Spring Team Up to Give Creators More Social Commerce Tools

• Spring, the merch ecommerce company formerly known as TeeSpring, and link-in-bio service Linktree have announced a new agreement that allows digital creators to host virtual storefronts within their social profiles.
• The integration will allow social influencers to create storefronts that link from their profile
• The partnership will basically allow fans to purchase items–which can range from physical products like T-shirts or hats to NFTs and other digital goods–directly from the page without having to follow a secondary link to the creator’s store.
• Linktree claims to have more than 14 million users including major brands like Red Bull, ASOS and Facebook, while Spring boasts around 450,000 verified creators. The combination of the two companies could help make social commerce easier for the growing creator economy.

According to a Forbes Contributor: “The Drop-In Audio App Clubhouse Is Dying. It Was Fun While It Lasted”

• John Brandon held a Clubhouse chat recently, inviting people to chat about productivity. It’s the subject of a new book he’s writing
• In the app, he started inviting people when he was testing Clubhouse which led to many people joining in on the conversation, but now most people have turned off notifications or ignore them as they join other rooms.
• He also noticed a few users could always rely on to join a chat were not even members anymore.
• When he posted about the Clubhouse room on my Twitter feed, all he could hear were crickets (not sure what that means)
• “It’s been replaced by something more worthwhile: meeting with real people.”
• Other reasons:
  • You still can’t record a chat.
  • They only recently added Android access.
  • The invite system starts penalizing you right away if you invite too many people