YouTube is known for being a video-on-demand platform, but it has been much more than that for many years now. Thanks to its capabilities, users have been making the platform what they need from it, even when Google hasn’t necessarily reacted quickly to adapt to those needs. Or even never seems to have done so, in some cases. That’s why it’s great news to know that, finally, YouTube is going to include podcasts among the items we can listen to on YouTube Music.
First announced in February at The Verge’s Hot Pod Summit, the YouTube Music app will now have a tab that will allow us to browse through all the podcasts hosted by the platform. But there’s a catch. Just as the YouTube podcasts tab was not available in all territories, this YouTube Music podcasts tab is not yet available for everyone and everywhere: for the moment, it will only be available in the US. In any case, its intention is to progressively reach more territories in the future.
Although there is still some time to go before it reaches our territory, the advantage of this is that YouTube Music users will have greater control over the podcasts. Being able to listen to them in the background on their mobile devices and being able to switch between versions with or without video, YouTube Music can position itself as the main rival of Spotify, the platform currently most used to listen to podcasts.
In any case, although from our territory we still don’t have these advantages, that doesn’t mean we don’t have a few podcasts worth listening to. That’s why we have chosen a handful of podcasts, trying to pick some perhaps a little less popular or known, that you can watch and listen to on YouTube that, in addition, you will be able to see and listen even better when this new YouTube Music functionality arrives also outside the US.
TED-Ed Español
If there is one thing about Ted Talks, it is that they are exciting to listen to. People who have something to say express their ideas in a precise and careful way. Ted-Ed Español does exactly this with concrete concepts, such as how fish produce electricity or how sugar affects the brain, adding simple but very effective animated videos, as well as scripts and voiceovers that have everything that makes us enjoy TED Talks. One of those podcasts that are more enjoyable on video, but simply listening to it is a delight.
Welcome to Night Vale
There is nothing like a good mystery and paranormal story to keep us hooked. This is well known to Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor and Cecil Baldwin, who in Welcome to Night Vale tell stories that take place in Night Vale, a peculiar desert town in the southwestern United States. Going from the gothic to the cosmic and space, always engrossed in the mystery, the paranormal and always with a certain dose of humor when dealing with all this from the most absolute normalization, after eleven seasons its only drawback is that it is in English. But if English is not a problem and if you would like to follow a Twin Peaks even more paranormal and more humor, Welcome to Night Vale is the podcast you need that you did not know existed.
Podcast Andar
Walking is a healthy exercise, recommended for people of all ages, and if we do it accompanied it is usually a very pleasant moment where we can strengthen ties with the people who accompany us. From this idea comes the Podcast Andar, with Marina González and Jordi de Paco, two of the three members of the video game studio Deconstructeam, who will publish this year the game The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood. Walking around Benimaclet, Valencia, they talk about their day to day, about creativity, what it’s like to develop videogames, and all the aspects related to creation that creators don’t usually talk about. Essential for all those interested in knowing more about creativity, creation and of course, who want to know more about Deconstructeam.
Aquí hay dragones
The expression hic sunt dracones, here there are dragons, was used on maps to refer to unexplored territories or territories that could pose a danger of any kind. That is why it is an appropriate name for the podcast by Arturo González-Campos, Rodrigo Cortés, Juan Gómez-Jurado and Javier Cansado, who insist on exploring in their podcast all those territories of culture that remain unexplored by mainstream culture. Each episode you know where it will start, but you don’t know where it will end or what detours it will take. And that’s what’s interesting: listening to these foursome explore culture from their particular perspective without a map or compass.
Hablemos de videojuegos
Allow me here the opportunity to get corporate. Hablemos de videojuegos is the video game news podcast of our colleague Nacho Requena that is broadcasted on Twitch from Monday to Friday and that can be listened in podcast format on Youtube. With sapience, sense of humor and the grace that characterizes him, Nacho and his collaborators shred the video game news every day in capsules of just over an hour to be always up to date, occasionally including reviews of indie and mainstream video games. As I said, a small concession to corporatism, but more than justified by Nacho’s excellent work.
Trash Taste
Talk about nothing to talk about everything. That’s what the average podcast before the current boom where everyone and their grandmother has a podcast. And the specialists in this have always been Trash Taste. Based mainly on Japanese pop culture and anime, Joey Bizinger, Garnt Maneetapho and Connor Colquhoun talk about everything and anything, jump between topics in no order or order and always have an opinion or anecdote to develop, plus high profile guests when you least expect it. Again, with its only problem being a program in English, but worth making an effort for if you are into that particular vision of pop culture.
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