Google announced in late October last year that they would begin offering podcasts through Google Play. Google, at the time didn’t have any specifics on a release date, and still don’t, but according to former Grantland and ESPN host Bill Simmons, the service could go live this month.
The tweet, which has of course now been deleted, was fairly basic, simply saying his podcast would be available on Google Play when they launch their podcasting platform later this month – but obviously that can’t remain there.
I’ve never been a big fan of Simmons, but he certainly does have a very big market and is obviously a launch partner with Google – as are a few big name podcasting networks such as The Nerdist, TWIT TV, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History and Common Sense – and so should have a fairly good idea of the launch date.
At this stage, availability is on track for a US launch, and Google hasn’t yet announced any details on when we can expect to see podcasts made available globally. The rights issues which generally hamstrings international rollouts shouldn’t be too great a hurdle for content being generated by networks specifically for podcasts, so hopefully we don’t have to wait long to find out when we’ll see them in Australia.
