The Alphabet Inc.-owned tech giant announced today the introduction of new features for its search engine. The update is aimed at making it easier for users to look up and access relevant podcasts on Google Search. From today onwards, when users search for podcasts on specific topics on Google, playable episodes will show up in the search results in addition to other relevant results such as websites, news articles, videos and images.
Google also disclosed plans to bring the same features to its Assistant and to Google Podcasts for web later on this year. Users will be able to ask the Google Assistant to list out podcasts episodes on any topic and the Assistant will suggest relevant episodes to the user.
Zack Reneau-Wedeen, Product Manager for Google Podcasts described the upcoming experiences in the following way:
"..when you ask the Assistant for podcasts about a certain topic, such as “Hey Google, play a podcast about Marie Curie,” it will suggest relevant episodes for you. In Google Podcasts for web, you’ll be able to search for relevant shows and episodes and listen right there on your computer or phone. As always, your listening progress is synced everywhere, so you can pick up where you left off anywhere you use Google Podcasts."
Google is also working on bringing more features to improve podcast-searchability. At some point in the near future, the company will enable podcast publishers to provide further details about their podcasts, such as links to where users can listen to the episodes. This will make it possible to find otherwise exclusive podcasts that might only be accessible via purchase or subscription.
