Despite the pandemic, the podcasting industry had a good year in 2021, with lots of new content, and a record in advertising spend.Podcasting and radio industry expert James Cridland is today's guest on this episode of The Communicate Influence Podcast. He takes a look at some of the emerging trends already visible in the first few weeks of this new year, and looks at what may lie ahead. He foresees a robust year, with more exciting and diverse content on the horizon.  Key areas of focus in this episode:

• The impact of Amazon's purchase of Wondery 
• Amazon will make more acquisitions in 2021
• Spotify's growth, and competitor attempts to keep pace
• Why privacy will be a growing issue in the coming year
• Podcast advertising revenue's continued growth
• Growth of other revenue streams, such as pod merch
• The types of shows people will probably want to listen to in coming months
• QR codes have had a resurgence in that they are a simple way of letting people subscribe to a podcast show
• Why podcasts that are no longer updated aren't a concern. Known as 'podfade', this can be due to the fact that it's a limited series.

Be sure to check out James' newsletter/podcast Podnews, and his new podcast show Podland.news , hosted by James and Sam Sethi.