Howl

Pioneering paid podcasting

Midroll, a podcast advertising company, tasked me with designing and developing a multi-platform app to access their content. The app, called Howl, was designed for iOS, Android, and Web and I developed the iOS version. Not only did Howl make it easier for users to access their favorite podcasts, but it also provided a paid subscription service. Overall, the project was a success and I am proud to have been a part of its development.

A New Market Opportunity

In 2014, while working as a freelance app developer and designer, I was approached by Midroll to develop a prototype of a podcast-listening app. As a devoted podcast listener, I saw this as a great opportunity to create a unique fan-centric experience that would provide users with the perfect listening experience.

We envisioned surfacing twitter feeds of the hosts, photos of each recording session and other aspects that would "super-serve" the fans. After creating a proof of concept to demonstrate the idea, they hired me to complete the design language.

Unfortunately, there were some issues with the proposed design, so I ended up taking it over and seeing it through to completion. The result was the app, Howl, which was designed to provide a unique listening experience to fans of the podcast network.

Broadening the Concept

Through the initial development of the 1.0 release we continued to learn more about podcast users needs. This broadened the scope of the project to include episode downloading, caching of data so users could use the app offline, and creating a design for Web and Android. Myself and a small team banded together to achieve what often seemed an insurmountable task, and I took on the design of the website and marketing experience. I worked with the lead backend engineer to determine an appropriate set of API responses that allowed the app to update quickly, but cache a lot of data, such that the user rarely noticed they were online or offline. We were especially proud of the creative solutions we were able to implement, such as the seek buttons that would spin like the head of a cassette tape as the user scrubbed through the podcast episodes. I also took extra time and, using my background in motion design and animation, added various micro-animations to buttons and screen transitions.

The app launched and, despite some minor flaws, it delivered an intuitive, fun and novel experience for users. Not only did our product improve the podcast listening experience, but it gave users an insight into the behind-the-scenes process of recording and producing a podcast. It was a great success and a big competitive advantage over our main competitor: iTunes.

Going Paid

After the launch we began working on the next big improvement: In-App Purchases. Apple’s subscription service was quite crude at this stage, which necessitated doing a lot of on-device receipt validation. The benefit of this feature was that there were no server dependencies or updates needed, so the user could immediately access the content they paid for, though this did make account syncing a bit fiddly. The idea of paying for a network of exclusive podcasts is now common, but this was a novel and pioneering idea and we were among the first to see success from this approach.

With the help of intelligent analytics and marketing, we were able to target the right people to make sure that we had a steady stream of revenue. Over the 2 year lifespan of the service the app earned $2 million of subscription revenue. We also saw an impressive increase in the number of positive reviews and ratings, which further helped us to improve our services and increase our reach.

Feature Refinement

Over time we were able to add additional features that were unique and a little ahead of their time such as automatically grouping episodes into seasons. We enabled on-device searching, so the user could search all of their shows and episodes for specific terms. We also enabled a clever filtering mechanism, such that a user could more easily isolate episodes they were interested in by different criteria such as unplayed or downloaded.

All of these features are commonplace now, but Howl was a strange little trailblazer in this respect.

Acquisition and Migration

In 2016 Midroll and Stitcher, a rival podcasting app, were acquired by E.W. Scripps and merged into a single new company (named Stitcher). This brought our two development teams together, and I started working on refactoring and improving the legacy Stitcher app.

Legacy and Lessons

Howl holds a special place for its fans and users. For a period of 2 years it was constantly advertised by hosts of the shows on Earwolf and Howl Premium, and a series of absurd inside jokes formed about “The Widow Howl App”. The success of Howl also contributed to the acquisition of the company by E.W. Scripps, and the subsequent merging with Stitcher. After the acquisition the premium service was migrated into Stitcher as “Stitcher Premium”, and users moved over to the new app. Since this time most podcast apps and networks have adopted a similar membership model.

The design and development lessons I learnt, particularly the amount of innovative creative work that can be done by a small team, has stuck with me. Since this time I have taken these lessons and values with me, and they have enabled me to make the most of opportunities. The spirit of Howl lives on, and continues to inspire and influence future projects and businesses.