AirPods (100M sold) and Alexas (200M sold) are flying off the shelves and they are changing the way we consume audio.
Before reliable wireless earbuds and ubiquitous smart speakers, consuming any kind of short-form audio wasn’t worth the trouble of taking them out and untangling your headphones. With AirPods things are changing. You can easily pop them in and out and Alexa is always listening and ready to play.
We have more “listenable” time than ever before. This is leading to the rise of audio munchables, short-form audio content to fill our free time throughout the day.
Standing in line at Chipotle, walking between meetings, and quick train rides can now be filled with audio instead of scrolling through Instagram or Twitter.
We have already seen this progression from long to short in other mediums. The written word has progressed from long-form books, to medium-length blog posts, and short-form tweets. Visual content has progressed from long-form movies to medium-length YouTube videos to <60 second videos on Instagram/TikTok/SnapChat.
Audio is up next. Audio started with long-form audiobooks then medium-length podcasts and now we are starting to see the very beginning of short-form audio munchables.
I suspect this could be an even larger shift than words or video/images. Audio is the perfect secondary activity. We can consume audio while were walking, driving, cleaning the house, doing the dishes, etc. Anything that doesn’t require much thought can be improved with audio munchables.
What do audio munchables look like in the future? We can see hints of it today.
Podcasts are adopting shorter formats. Naval has his snackable bite-sized podcasts on wealth and angel investing. Ride Home Media is launching <10 minute daily podcasts summarizing news in all kinds of niches. Konrad of TripScout launched a travel podcast with quick travel tips. Creating these polished audio munchables is easier than ever with products like Descript.
Audio based social networks are popping up like TTYL. Comedians and influencers like Gary V and Joe Rogan are putting one quick joke or piece of advice on TikTok/Instagram for quick consumption. These are audio munchables with an unnecessary visual component.
I’m intrigued to see where online education goes in an audio-first world. E-learning is a huge market and it is almost entirely video based right now. Early e-learning was just recorded university lectures so they had audio and video.
Many courses outside of computer science, math, etc. would actually be improved without the visual component. Online courses have horrible completion rates because they require you to sit in front of a screen. Quick lessons on a variety of topics could be consumed on the walk to your next meeting or before a test on a topic.
Audio courses with short chapters and audio-first storytelling feel like the future. Seems like a fluke of history that they aren’t already here.
If you’re building something cool in audio, drop me an email at colin@colinkeeley.com. I’d love to chat.