What Every African Podcaster Should Know About Anchor
Many brand-new African podcasters are turning to Anchor because it’s free and easy to use. The value is unmatched. But…have you read the…
Many brand-new African podcasters are turning to Anchor because it’s free and easy to use. The value is unmatched. But…have you read the fine print?
By Paula Rogo
Each week, I write a column about the growth of podcasting in Africa from my perch in Nairobi, Kenya.
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(August 25, 2020)
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how many new African podcaster are leaning towards Anchor as their “starter” host and distributor over Soundcloud.
For a longtime, Soundcloud was the first-choice for new podcasters on the continent, and the new (circa 2020) breed of podcasters are no longer turning to it for a number of reasons.
But is Anchor really the right place for the African podcaster? What’s the catch?
That’s a question that came up in the LinkedIn comments of that particular article after I’d recommended the use of Anchor to Ntshadi Mofokeng, a South African podcaster. The discussion that ensued involved the lovely Chris Mottes of Hindenburg Systems (a great audio editing software system), who brought up a… PINK FLAG… about using Anchor.
I thought it was worth sharing it here.
Was I missing something? Luckily, Chris was able to help further!
And there’s more! Ntshadi went on to actually ask Anchor (duh!) their policy on this. And the company shared a link to this blogpost.
The blog post says a lot, including the fact that they do not own your content. But ultimately we arrived at the same conclusion Chris pointed out: you can lose your RSS feed and doing so can be damaging to all the work you’ve already put in.
And so the question comes down to, do you care if you lose your RSS feed?
Perhaps, your podcast is simply for pleasure and you don’t see yourself wanting to do more with it. That’s totally fine and Anchor is the place for you.
But if you have bigger, wider goals for your podcast that might one day involve removing it from Anchor…well, buyer beware!
Thanks to Chris and Ntshadi!