Mark Bergen, writing for re/code:

The Alphabet company is getting ready to open a dedicated home for podcasts on its Google Play hub. Today the company is letting podcast creators upload shows to Google Play Music, its streaming service; it says listeners will be able to listen to those shows “in the coming months.” It will be, remarkably, the first native app for podcast listening on Android in the content market where Apple carries disproportionate weight.

Remarkable that this is the first major challenge to Apple’s longtime podcasting dominance. The word podcasting comes from iPod, an Apple product. Podcasting was born in the Apple universe, but it is not protected by the Apple ecosystem the way music is. You can do all your podcast listening on the web. There is no digital rights management to overcome, there are no major rights deals to negotiate. Amazing it took this long for Google (or Amazon) to make this play.