Current Challenges and Future Directions in Podcast Information Access
It addresses the problem of inefficient podcast discovery for listeners and creators, but is incremental as it synthesizes existing perspectives rather than presenting new solutions.
This perspective paper identifies the unique characteristics of podcasts compared to other media and outlines challenges and future research directions for improving podcast information access, noting that current search and recommendation systems have had limited impact in this domain.
Podcasts are spoken documents across a wide-range of genres and styles, with growing listenership across the world, and a rapidly lowering barrier to entry for both listeners and creators. The great strides in search and recommendation in research and industry have yet to see impact in the podcast space, where recommendations are still largely driven by word of mouth. In this perspective paper, we highlight the many differences between podcasts and other media, and discuss our perspective on challenges and future research directions in the domain of podcast information access.