Why podcasts are so popular and what the format needs to grow

Are podcasts just having a moment?

Almost two years ago, the true crime podcast Serial enthralled people worldwide with downloads hitting more than 1 million week by week. In its second season, Serial failed to capture as much buzz.

But podcasting hasn't faded as an industry. In fact, podcasts were already on the rise well before Sarah Koenig started telling millions the story of Adnan Syed.

"The Serial effect happened here in 2014. It happened in Stockholm two years before," Måns Ulvestam, co-founder and CEO of podcasting platform Acast, said in an interview with Mashable's Biz Please podcast.

In this week's episode, Ulvestam and his co-founder Karl Rosander join self-proclaimed "podcast hipster" Jason Abbruzzese and me on Biz Please to discuss the business of podcasting.

The two Swedish tech entrepreneurs launched Acast in April 2014 as a platform to address the gaps they identified. While more people were interested in creating and listening to podcasts, there wasn't a standard for making money, for example.

"We saw many pieces of the ecosystem not working. Monetization wasn’t working. We didn’t think enough diverse content was coming out. You couldn’t share them in an easy way, and metrics were all over the place," Rosander said.

Now, Acast works with media companies like the Financial Times, BuzzFeed and Vogue, as well as independent creators to host, distribute and monetize podcasts. They have grown the service from 100,000 test listeners to now rake in 45 million unique visitors per month.

Despite Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's video-first push, podcasting isn't over, the entrepreneurs said.

"Podcasting is something you do while you're doing something else," Ulvestam. "Video has its place, and podcasting has its place, just like broadcast has its place."

You can listen to more about podcasting on Omny below. For more Biz Please, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and find them here on Stitcher.