Podcasts show their power with big SXSW session

If there was any doubt left that podcasts have earned a big spot in the big tent of South by Southwest, alongside streaming video and virtual reality, a Tuesday keynote in the gigantic Ballroom D of the Austin Convention Center blew that away.

Featuring leaders from Spotify, Gimlet Media and Anchor, the "Second Golden Age of Audio" presentation was a follow-up to one of the biggest recent stories in podcasting: Spofity's sizable acquisition of those two companies, announced last month.

It was the first sit-down session since that news made waves, but the promise that some new announcements would be made didn't really come through.

Instead, the session -- with Spotify's Dawn Ostroff, Gimlet Media's Matt Lieber and Anchor's Michael Mignano -- focused on what may or may not change post-acquisitions.

All had praise for Spofity as a growing platform for podcast creators, with Lieber calling it the biggest podcast marketplace for the 12-to-24 age group, which was the fastest-growing segment for podcasts last year.

Podcasts are evolving in terms of monetization and the tools creators have at their disposal. While Gimlet has focused on creating a new, "Top shelf" suite of shows, Anchor has been trying to build better ways for podcasters to access analytics, introducing messaging from listeners and develop audio-creation tools.

Spotify has a goal of enabling 1 million podcast creators to make a living from those creations. As far as Gimlet, its current shows will stay where they are, but new shows could end up being exclusive to Spotify and more in partnership with sponsors, such as an Ancestry.com-sponsored show coming up called "The Unclaimed."

Ostroff, who has extensive experience in the movie and TV industry, said the purchase is modeled after Disney's purchase of Pixar.

"Why rock the boat when Gimlet has been having such incredible success?" she said.

AMignano promised better mobile analytics tools for podcasters and a new dashboard, and Lieber said Gimlet's hip hop show "Mogul" will return with new people in the spotlight.