A few days ago, reports emerged that playable Google Podcasts episodes were no longer showing up in Google Search results.
For the uninitiated, ever since Google Podcasts launched, it’s been possible to start podcast episodes directly from Google Search results. However, Podnews (via 9to5Google) recently reported that this functionality is gone.
This development rekindled a discussion regarding YouTube Podcasts or rather the integration of Google Podcasts into YouTube or YouTube Music for that matter.
Last August, Google started testing something known as YouTube Podcasts. As the name suggests, this was meant to integrate podcasts into the main YouTube platform as part of the ‘Explore’ page.
However, this feature never made it to everyone. But it was hint enough that we were staring at a possible future with podcasts integrated into YouTube. This also hinted at the potential sunsetting of the Google Podcasts app.
While there’s no confirmation from Google, you can never rule out Google killing any of its good products. And Google Podcasts is one of the good ones, at least going by some comments from current users.
This partly explains the divided opinion among YouTube Music users, which could be the likely destination for Podcasts if Google indeed kills the app.
It does make sense to some considering Spotify, one of YouTube Music’s competitors, already allows listening to podcasts straight from the app.
While a section of YouTube Music users is totally okay with integration of Podcasts into the app, others are not quite excited about this prospect.
Some of them are citing Spotify constantly pushing podcasts to their listening recommendations as a reason for their concern.
They are worried that a similar situation may occur with YouTube Music, where podcasts will be heavily promoted and interrupt their music listening experience.
While some may have no problem with the YouTube Music app hosting podcasts, they’d prefer if they are hidden behind a dedicated tab to avoid mixing them with their music recommendations.
As noted earlier, these fears come amid recent rumors that Google may be planning to sunset Google Podcasts and migrate the app to YouTube Music (or the main YouTube platform).
But again, there’s nothing concrete behind these developments, so it’d only be fair to treat them as rumors for now, at least until Google comes out with an official statement.
Either way, we’d still like to hear your thoughts on the potential integration of podcasts into YouTube Music in the comments section below. We also have some more related coverage worth checking out here.
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