I think we can all agree that the podcast listening experience on smart speakers is pretty terrible. And by “we” I mean podcasters. We know the best podcast experience is listening via our earbuds with our preferred listening app in our hands. We have the habit of listening via that experience, and it’s lightyears better than the voice-only, limited-choice, and rather unintelligent podcast discovery and listening experience provided by smart speakers today.And we must not be alone in that assessment, as every data point I’ve seen shows that less than 1% of people listen to podcasts with their smart speaker. So we’re vindicatedBut Amazon/Apple/Google have each bet heavily on voice assistants to fill a variety of their customers’ needs for information, entertainment, and more. Sure sounds like a perfect fit for podcasting. Which is why it’ll get better. Imagine how much better of an assistant your smart speaker would be if it could parse something like “play the podcast called confetti” request with other things it already knows about you I know you don’t want anyone looking at your browser history or search history, but Google is the entity that keeps that data! It could also check through your YouTube videos, your physical location history, or your inbox in an effort to find just the right result for you. Again, this is data that this tech giant already keeps about you.Imagine how much better your Amazon-powered smart speaker would be at returning relevant podcast results if it looked at your purchase history to see what types of books you order. And which books you abandon mid-readImagine if your Apple-powered smart speaker could cross-reference podcasts you currently listen to and other device-level data from your iPhone.Using this data - data the device is already connected to - you 3 possible results instead of 36. Much more manageable.But we can go beyond that, giving us relevant context about the shows rather than the context-poor show titles only. And imagine a future where these helpful devices become even more helpful, helping you decide which season to listen to, or which episode you might find most useful.Amazon/Apple/Google could do all of this and more tomorrow, fundamentally changing the experience of podcast listening on smart speakers. It’s not a question of if, but whenIs your show ready? Start by cleaning up your show-level data, like title and host(s) name. Make sure your subtitle and show description are well-written, actually descriptive of your show, and are clearly and uniquely yours and yours alone. Then begin the clean-up process of your episode-level data. Make sure you’re using episode numbers properly and consistently. Categorize each of your episodes so the assistants can see how your episodes are connected. Correct your hastily-entered “show notes” to transform them into useful episode details the assistants can use. The way you and your podcast win in the future where smart speakers are made much smarter is by being the better-described show.We’re now a week out from Evo's Long Winter's Nap. If you have an idea you'd like to share as a podcast Pontifications episode while I’m on break, get in touch with me as soon as possible: evo@simpler.media. -----Read the full article and share with a friend: https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/podcasting-on-smart-speakers-isnt-dumb-its-the-futureFollow Evo on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.