Current Challenges and Future Directions in Podcast Information Access

TL;DR

This paper discusses the unique challenges in podcast information access, highlighting differences from other media and proposing future research directions to improve search and recommendation systems in this rapidly growing domain.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the current challenges and outlines future research directions specific to podcast information retrieval and recommendation.

Findings

Podcasts differ significantly from other media in structure and access.

Current recommendation systems are underdeveloped for podcasts.

Future research should focus on tailored search and recommendation methods.

Abstract

Podcasts are spoken documents across a wide-range of genres and styles, with growing listenership across the world, and a rapidly lowering barrier to entry for both listeners and creators. The great strides in search and recommendation in research and industry have yet to see impact in the podcast space, where recommendations are still largely driven by word of mouth. In this perspective paper, we highlight the many differences between podcasts and other media, and discuss our perspective on challenges and future research directions in the domain of podcast information access.