Apple reportedly buys podcast search engine creator Pop Up Archive

Posted:
in General Discussion edited December 2017
Apple is said to have bought Oakland's audio tool developer Pop Up Archive, known for the audiosear.ch podcast search engine, in a move that could bolster the company's own podcast service.




Nieman Lab reported on Tuesday that Pop Up Archive, the company responsible for the now shuttered Audiosear.ch podcast search engine, is now in Apple's hands.

Pop Up Archive was founded in November of 2012, by Anne Wootton and Bailey Smith.

Apple issued its traditional response to queries about acquisitions. It generated $1.4 million in funding across five funding rounds.

The audiosear.ch service gave a "Buzz Score" on a 100-point scale based on iTunes charting and reviews. As recently as April, the company was actively refining the technology.

Apple issued its traditional statement to Nieman Lab about the acquisition.

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time," Apple told Nieman Lab. "We generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

It is unclear how the acquisition relates to Apple's rebranding of the Podcasts service in April, or its announcement in June that it would roll out more in-episode data for content producers.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    I disapprove of a California company using the Swiss top level domain.  I don't suppose they say "Go to audio sear dot cee aych to check us out."  
    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 2 of 6
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    I disapprove of a California company using the Swiss top level domain.  I don't suppose they say "Go to audio sear dot cee aych to check us out."  
    Well, you don't have to worry about it anymore. The domain is closed.
    SpamSandwichdoozydozencgWerks
  • Reply 3 of 6
    NY1822NY1822 Posts: 621member
    no doubt this will enhance the HomePod experience...

    "Pop Up Archive is an online platform of tools for organizing and searching digital spoken words. It makes sounds searchable using its speech-to-text technology.

    Audiosear.ch is a full-­text search and recommendation engine for podcasts and radio — powering the best podcast experiences by automatically knowing everything about podcasts. The Audiosear.ch platform turns speech into text, indexes it, and analyzes it to create millions of data points (i.e. topics, entities, people, recommendations). We help audio distributors, platforms, and advertisers improve listener experiences, audio discovery, and content targeting."

    edited December 2017 racerhomiedoozydozen
  • Reply 4 of 6
    I wonder if this will super charge the Podcasts app.I don't want Apple to make the best podcast app, since the 3rd party ones will be gone.I love the iOS 11 one. 
  • Reply 5 of 6
    I wonder if this will super charge the Podcasts app.I don't want Apple to make the best podcast app, since the 3rd party ones will be gone.I love the iOS 11 one. 
    What?  You want the Apple app (that you love) to get better, but not to be the best?
  • Reply 6 of 6
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    NY1822 said:
    no doubt this will enhance the HomePod experience...
    Or, the Apple podcasts experience on the whole!
    For example, will it be able to bring up Libsyn's "The Feed" podcast when you search for 'the feed' vs bringing up, "The Livestock Feed" or something like that. Currently, it's not capable of that kind of stuff. It's like a super-simple keyword in block of text search that was surpassed by the Web and nearly every software app back in the 90s.

    I wonder if this will super charge the Podcasts app.I don't want Apple to make the best podcast app, since the 3rd party ones will be gone.I love the iOS 11 one. 
    The Podcast app has a *whole* other set of issues beyond search problems. Having someone with basic UI skills, and knows something about podcasting, work on it would be a start.
    edited December 2017
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