2- Get the Best Bits of a Podcast in Minutes Not Hours with the Blinkist App

Rise of the Pod People

The humble podcast began in late 2004 when a new programme allowed people to download radio broadcasts onto Apple iPods. What started out slowly eventually exploded onto the mainstream, now there is truly a podcast for everything—from parenting advice to ghost hunting and even entire shared fictional universes that take place in the podcasting world.

As of last year, there were 850,000 active podcasts online, which totals more hours of content than a human can listen to in their lifetime. One way to get through all this content, according to Edison Research, is to speed up playback while listening. A method that 26% of US podcast listeners use so that they can finish faster. However, it’s evident that with all that content, people can’t keep up, a breakthrough in the way we consume podcasts is needed.

That breakthrough came from Blinkist. While podcasts were gaining popularity, Blinkist was building an app that explains nonfiction books through audio and text explainers called Blinks. Then, last year, the world of podcasting was changed when Blinkist turned their attention to long-form audio content and gave their users Shortcasts. Blinkist users are raving about the new Shortcasts feature. A Blinkist user recently left an app review, saying, “Blinkist has today become my toolkit for learning in an achievable, sustainable manner every day. I love its Shortcasts as much as I do its Blinks!”