The news landed with an apocalyptic shudder on an otherwise beautiful Saturday morning. Just 23 days after the Raptors handily dispatched the Golden State Warriors in six games, the enigmatic Kawhi Leonard announced he had signed a four year, $142 million deal with the Los Angeles Clippers. Predictably, the interstitial period became #KawhiWatch for fans of NBA basketball around the world. Nowhere more so than in Canada. Over the course of a single season, for Canadians, Leonard went from ‘say who?’ to being the leading candidate for pope if the position suddenly came available. We just couldn’t get enough of Kawhi which included, embarrassingly, chasing a lookalike in a black SUV through the streets of Toronto with a news helicopter. We were collectively transformed from diffident admirer to deranged stalker over the course of a little more than a week...

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. They key image for this episode is Pascal Siakam and Kyle Lowry double team Tim Frazier, then of the Washington Wizards, on March 2, 2018. (image: Keith Allison via Wikimedia)

I had to reread the headline at least a couple of times:

Podcast Platform Himalaya Raises $100 Million, Launches Apps With Tipping Function

$100 million? What on earth is Himalaya going to do with all that money? Besides, of course, the oddly headline-worthy 'tipping function'? Then it occurred to me: The Oprah and LeBron Show. The two stars would richly deserve that money just so long as their deal includes three important words: Only on Himalaya. At that point, Himalaya is only two tweets away from over 80 million high engagement Twitter impressions. And that's the whole game, of course. Content really is king. If there is any doubt about that just ask Netflix.

On the other hand if all that's delivered for the $100 million is exclusive distribution deals with those who need no further introduction other than their first name, that will be a crying shame indeed...

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium where it was published contemporaneously. The key image for this episode is "On The Air" by Alan Levine (Via Wikimedia under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. Image slightly cropped to fit Fireside format.)

An unsolicited prediction of what The Big A will do next. Well, even if they don’t, then they really should.

Despite what you might think, not one second of Apple’s podcasts are actually hosted by Apple. “But how can that be”, you may ask, “when they ‘host’ hundreds of thousands of them?” It’s simple. When you download a podcast ‘from Apple’ what you are really doing is using them as an index — a pointer, if you will — to a file located somewhere else. That’s why you might find some podcasts really sparkle on iTunes, downloading quickly and streaming promptly, while others really stink. I know because I’ve done it both ways. Incidentally, not stinking is a great way in increase download counts, as I eventually discovered.

But I‘m ahead of myself...

Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. A version of this essay previously appeared on Medium on April 24th, 2017. On June 10, 2017, Apple announced Podcast Analytics which will be launched later this year. This is very close to at least one aspect of what was predicted in this essay. (header photo: Shunichi Kouroki via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)