What happened and why?Podcasts have experienced exponential growth in the past year, fast-becoming some of the shiniest content on the shelf when it comes to 'Big Tech' shopping. Apple, Spotify, Amazon and Google are some of the major players who have taken a share in expanding into the land of the Pod. And now, Twitter (- 1.75%) has just joined the elite with the acquisition of Breaker.Bringing in the OG… Breaker was founded in 2016, a year when podcasts were seen as recorded radio - never-ending feeds of audio tracks and tools for productivity - rather than a self-sufficient experience. Breaker was one of the first to breach this frame of mind, setting the foundations for an engaging and fast-growing podcast community. Twitter snatched up the Podder, in the hope of building a healthier public conversation...Endings: 15th of January is marked as the day Breaker will be shutting down its app for good.Beginnings: Leah Culver, the podcast app's CTO, took to Twitter (where else) to announce that they will be joining forces to focus on building Twitter Spaces (now in beta), in a quest to “improve the health of the public conversation”. Upping up their podcast game... Twitter may be better placed than other big tech rivals in gaining some synergies with the acquisition. Twitter is already a highly-trusted platform for content consumption and the pod addition is a snug fit. But the big money swelling around the space, makes this just the first bit of cash to splash on the road to Pod-domination..Amazon: Acquired Wondery for $300m to build on the popularity of its Amazon Music service.Apple: Working on bringing even more Apple-made podcasts to the market on top of the 1M+ they're hosting right now. Production meets hosting.Spotify: Acquired Parcast and The Ringer ... pushing more podcasts than ever before on their platform.The TakeawayBalancing the scale... Twitter Spaces is an audio-based social networking product that offers its users the possibility to chat through voice instead of text. Twitter is the real winner in the acquisition of Breaker, managing to bring in key talent that can help the social media giant lay the foundations for better voice-based social networking. An essential component lacking from the one-way nature of the podcasting apps of today .
