Google Play Music Finally Gets Podcasts

After announcing it back in October last year, Google on Monday finally brought podcasts to its Google Play Music service. The new Podcasts section is available for Android and the Web interface for now with no mention about when it will launch on the iOS app.

Unfortunately not every podcast lover on the earth will be receiving the feature just yet, as it is initially limited to the US and Canada regions only. The Google Play Music Podcasts section will recommend podcasts based on user preferences, similar to the platform's recommendation engine for music. Also recommended will be topic-based podcasts.

"If you find something you love, subscribe to download the last several episodes automatically on your device or choose to be notified every time a new episode comes out," says Ilia Malkovitch, Product Manager, Google Play Music on the company blog post.

Some of the podcasts available with the Google Play Music are The Nerdist, TwiT, Stuff You Should Know, Radiolab, Reply All, and How To Do Everything. Google back in October started accepting RSS feeds to build a podcast store and the official introduction of this feature makes Play Music the one stop shop for everything listeners need. Not only the podcasts section will drive more audience to the app, it will also compete head-to-head against other podcast apps such as Pocket Casts and Podcast Addict. It is worth mentioning that this is also the first non-music content Google has offered in its Play Music app. Although this is just the tip of the iceberg, one can expect Google to get its podcasts work with Android TV or other platforms in future.