Google will soon bring podcasts to Play Music

Google announced in a blog post today that it is finally bringing podcasts to its Google Play Music app. In order to make that happen, the company — now a subsidiary of Alphabet — has launched a tool for podcasters to upload their content.

What makes Google’s podcast offering a little different, however, is that it’s using the technology gained from buying Songza to deliver podcast recommendations. It will recommend shows to listen to based on the listener’s mood, activities or interests as well as offering more traditional browsing and search discovery tools. It works essentially the same way that Google Play Music does to bring you music based on your likes/dislikes. Google sees this move as a way to offer a more complete media consumption service. Speaking to Re/code, Play Music product manager Elias Roman said “Podcasts allow us to do everything for our users. It makes us a more complete concierge.”

For podcasters, this represents a huge opportunity to reach millions more users than they could before. Some big names in media have already been working with Google behind the scenes preparing for the launch. Companies like 5by5, Nerdist, This Week in Tech, Feral Audio, HowStuffWorks, HBO and Public Radio International have all been working with Google, as have a dozen others.

Podcasts will be available to both paying and non-paying Play Music subscribers, and will be available to iOS and Android users with the app installed. Currently, only US-based podcasters can publish their shows to Google’s service, but we’d be surprised if Google didn’t roll it out further afield in the coming months.