7A

1. Opportunity: a new platform for audiobooks and podcasts
2. Audiobook and Podcast listeners don’t have options for where to listen to their desired audios and find new audios because there is only 2 main platforms with many options, Apple and Spotify.
• The who: Baby Boomers  Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z
• The what: They don’t have many options for platforms of audiobooks and podcasts
• The why: There is basically an oligopoly in this market- Spotify and Apple. Neither of them offers great organization and recommendations, in my opinion
3. Hypothesis

• Testing the who: Which generation is this need most popular in? Would people who don’t currently listen to audios be enticed by this opportunity?
• Testing the what: Are you currently satisfied with your options for audiobooks and podcasts? Would you be more inclined to listen to stuff if you got user-generated recommendations based on your likes and linked with your social media? Where do you currently listen to audios?
• Testing the why: Why do you think 2 major platforms aren't enough? Is it because you would simply like more options? Or is it because Spotify and Apple don’t have a great interface? What do you think is missing from Spotify and Apple audio interfaces?

4. Interviews

Interview 1: I listen to podcasts, but not audiobooks. Yeah, I agree that there are not really many apps that I know about for podcasts. I stick to the podcast app that comes on the iPhone. I actually didn’t know Spotify has podcasts. I wouldn’t say I'm unsatisfied, but your suggestions sound good so I would use that app if it was real. I've only heard of podcasts through word of mouth, I've never seen any sort of recommendations feature. I also wish there were some summaries for podcasts or like a "pilot" episode before having to dive right in to the whole podcast, but I'm not sure if that’s related to the app or if that’s something each podcaster needs to do. Maybe you could require people to make a short summary episode.

Interview 2: I would say college kids and like 20-30 year old's listen to podcasts. My parents who are in their late 50s listen to audiobooks all of the time. I could definitely see podcasts and audiobooks becoming even more popular if there was a better app for it. I've seen a couple on Spotify, but have never actually listened to any on there. I listen to a couple of YouTube people's podcasts that they were promoting on their channels. Those podcasts are on the Apple app. That would be cool if I got some recommendations. I'm actually in a rut right now and can't find any great new things to listen to.

Interview 3: I don’t think old people care about the interface of podcasts and stuff. But this could attract a younger crowd. I listen to both, more audiobooks actually. I used to read a lot in high school, but I don’t have as much time right now so audiobooks are a good way to compensate. I would say this idea sounds great for podcasts because there's like no apps that I know of that recommend based off of likes. This could potentially be good for books, but there's definitely a bunch of apps that recommend books already. Or like if you google "books like [insert a title here]" then a bunch of stuff will come up. So its not necessarily, but I could still see this idea taking off.

Interview 4: This is such a great idea. This could be great for everyone of all ages. Potentially this could draw people in who don’t normally listen to podcasts and stuff. But I feel like you either like podcasts and audiobooks or you don’t. I'm not sure if a sleek new app will be the reason more people start to listen. It could go either way, I'm not sure. Yeah, I guess I'm satisfied. I never really thought about it. There is room for improvement and an opportunity for you to spice things up which would be neat to see. But again I wouldn’t go as far to say I'm dissatisfied. Only thing is, I don’t like the social media idea. I feel like the phone is always listening so I don’t want all my actions to be tracked by a podcast app. Other then that, it sounds solid. Try adding a feature where you can do like 1.5x the speed of 2x the speed because sometimes the readers talk too slow.

Interview 5: Ummm, it sounds good. I don’t really listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I know its popular, but I'm more of a music person.  I could see this being popular with young adults. Being someone who doesn’t normally listen to that stuff, I'd check it out. Especially if a friend recommended it. I've pretty much only heard of Apple and Spotify for podcasts, but I'm again I'm not really into that kind of thing so I don’t know much.

5. To conclude all of the interviews, I got some pretty great feedback. It sounds like everyone thinks this a good idea and would give it a chance. It doesn't sound like it could convince non-listeners to start listening to podcasts/audiobooks unless other people recommended it. One of the interviewers had a great idea of having a speed up option. Someone also suggested  a summary before each podcast. I'm not sure the logistics of this, but I could think about how to implement it.