Ma'ayan Plaut
Ma’ayan Plaut is RadioPublic’s Podcast Librarian and Content Strategist. Follow her on Twitter here.
Kindly introduce yourself!
Ma'ayan Plaut, lover of podcasts, the people who make them, and the people who enjoy them. I'm the content strategist and podcast librarian at RadioPublic, where I help people find podcasts they'll love through curation, podcast marketing strategy, and lots and lots of educational writing about how the web and podcasts work together.
What is a podcast librarian? How did this happen?
A podcast librarian helps people find things they will love listening to. What that looks like in practice has taken on many forms since I started at RadioPublic in 2016, but it always boils down to that essence. I found my way to RadioPublic after a connection-driven crowdsourced metadata listening project called The Pod Party, where I curated episodes for a small group of avid listeners in order to connect episodes across shows with more information than initially provided by the creator. The proposed role of Podcast Librarian was a timely expression of how both RadioPublic and I were thinking about listeners and podcast content, so of course I said yes to this never-yet-seen-before job. My librarian father was thrilled, as was I, a long-time library kid.
Did you want to be a podcast librarian when you were a young tot? If the answer is no, what did you want to be?
When I was a young tot, podcasts didn't even exist. But I definitely wanted to be in a library all the time, so much so that my whole room growing up was alphabetized books that had a spreadsheet system so that I could check out books to my friends. My only memory of what I wanted to be was a teacher, which is in part what I am now - helping podcasters understand how to position their shows to new listeners and be smart about the time they spend on reaching and connecting with their audiences.
We need you to discover podcasts but who or what is helping YOU discover them?
Well, I have two primary resources: I surround myself with other curators both in podcast newsletter and podcast community form, and because RadioPublic sees podcasters adding themselves to our podcast directory all the time, I see what's new right from the source.
I want to be a podcast librarian when I grow up. (I am 35.) a) What advice do you have for me? b) Is it too late?
Do you believe in organizing podcasts, sharing them with people with purpose, and helping others find things they will love to listen to? Then you might just be a podcast librarian! (I believe that many people have the soul of a podcast librarian, so of course I don't think it's too late for you.)
Quickfire! Give a quick podcast rec based on the following words...
Horse! Oh no my brain went in two directions at once! The first was HORSE, the basketball podcast about everything that isn't the numbers. The other was the long-standing Horse Radio Network, which is lots and lots of equine podcasts, like Heels Down Happy Hour and Horses in the Morning.
Daily! See, I love the daily podcasts that aren't just current events, like poetry (The Slowdown), history (Retropod), and feel good (The Good News Podcast).
Travel! Greater Boston. Since I moved to Somerville, I'm on the Red Line a lot, a mode of regular travel that is well accompanied by this podcast.
Before it’s time! Codebreaker. I think it was perfectly of its time, and yet, I want to think that there's even more interactive awesomeness that could exist with a show like this in the future.
Beautiful! Hope Chest. To quote its creator, it's an audio quilt. In short, it's gorgeous.
Strange! Clearing the Air. It's a comedy podcast about an ad quality control manager. It's weird and I love it.
Silence! All I can remember is that comedian's podcast 25 Minutes of Silence.
Old! Radio Diaries has this series called Last Witness, which are interviews with the last people to witness a specific historical event, like Olivia Hooker, the last surviving witness of the Tulsa Race Riot. (Also, The Kitchen Sisters are similarly brilliant with their archival audio.)
Baby! Oh, the truly wonderful Pregnant Pause!
What about podcasting is exciting to you?
There is SO much more yet to come. I started listening to podcasts in 2013 and I couldn't even imagine the kinds of things I'm hearing now existing in audio form then. And in the next six years there will be even more things I can't even imagine yet... and that's wildly exciting to me.
Everyone sane agrees that women, non-cis, POC people are underrepresented in podcasting but I bet you can give me a more specific answer. What do you think there needs to be more of?
I'll get super specific: the thing we need more of is RESOURCE ALLOCATION for underrepped voices and stories. That's money (in the form of paying people for their work, creating more financial stable podcast endeavours, investment in creators...), that's time (in the form of training and mentorship and meetings that move things forward), that's people (networking, mentoring, and advocacy in all parts of the creative process)... all of it.
With more and more podcasts coming out all the time, it takes that much more work to get the good things heard. And there are things being made we don't know about yet, or things that we can't even imagine being made yet because it requires significant investments (of all the sorts I mentioned above) to get them up and out into the world.
I have heard you say you listen to podcasts at 1.3 speed. I am at 1.5 and I know I need to go down. Can you please make an argument for 1.3 and talk me (and other 1.5-ers) down to 1.3?
1.3 still sounds natural to me, but it also might be because I think and talk at about 1.5 in my daily life. Music might be the only thing that it's noticeable on while listening, and I tend to go back to 1x when a podcast has a lot of music/is about music/has a lot of really intentional sound design.
Laughter is usually my biggest indicator that something is at 1.5x, and sometimes I can deal with that and sometimes I can't. Interviews are the only style of show I listen to at 1.5x consistently, and interviews are few and far between for me at the moment.
What app do you use and what is your listening strategy?
I use RadioPublic's app. I can organize things to my heart's content and I HearMark stuff all the time.
Listening strategy is... varied all the time. I'm going through a semi-permanent feed hiatus, which also means looking at my followed shows for new episodes. At the moment, the only way something gets into my queue is if I think, "Oh, I want to listen to this show" or I see or hear a reference or recommendation for something specific. It's helping a lot with media overwhelm and overall enjoyment of what I end up selecting and hearing.
When do you listen? Do you save different shows for different activities?
My favorite time to listen is on a walk (either to or from a place or just out to wander/get some air). The biggest dip in my podcast listening in the last few years was the first winter I worked remotely for RadioPublic. No walk to work + no desire to leave my warm house = minimal podcast listening for a few months there.
I also take pretty long solo roadtrips and I tear through my queue during those. My only real activity time that has podcasts attached is usually knitting. I had an Instagram account for a while where I documented what I was making and what I was listening to, but the feed hiatus is strongest around social feeds so it's on hold for now.
In general: I don't usually have specific shows for specific times at the moment, though I did have a good month or two where I was listening to Death, Sex & Money while showering and getting ready for bed and that was a nice routine. (I moved and there's no longer a good place for my speaker in the bathroom where I can hear over the shower.)
Are there kinds of shows you don’t love listening to but you are like “I am a podcast librarian I must do this.”
Well, yes and no. I think I'm in a pretty unique position given who I surround myself with—the big secret of podcast librarianing is that you don't listen to all the podcasts, you know people/sources that can give you enough information so that you don't have to listen. And similarly, I'm actually in a spot where I can help bring ears to shows that would otherwise not be heard, so I tend to listen to a lot of new, independent, solo/small team podcasts. Some of these are hits, some are misses, and yes, I do skip things I'm not digging.
At this point I don't know that I'm listening to things I don't want to listen to. My listening time is at a premium, so I don't force myself to listen to things that aren't holding me.
What are 3 shows you have listened to in entirety? Are there any you have listened to in entirety twice? 3x? 4?
The only one I know I've listened to at least some of the episodes more than once is Millennial (RIP). There are a few other series that have ended that I've loved so: Heat & Light, Dream Diary, Buick City 1AM, A Piece of Work, and The Fridge Light.
And there's a slew of podcasts I have listened to everything that's come out so far and I keep up with very regularly: ZigZag, An Arm and A Leg, Personal Best, Copper & Heat, Ear Hustle, Love Letters, Other Men Need Help, The Carlötta Beautox Chronicles, The Cut on Tuesdays, Decoder Ring... And that's just me thinking "Oh, what am I excited to listen to right now?!"
I was (and still am) a completionist, and it's hard to maintain that approach when there are all the podcasts all the time. In the past few years I have really gravitated toward podcasts that take a seasonal or limited run approach for this reason alone.
Please rank the following: podcasts, paperback books, hardcover books, audiobooks, magazines, broadway musicals, stand up comedy, improv, Disney World, spaghetti, cats, Twitter, TV, movies in the theater, Netflix and chill
What. Okay.
Spaghetti, paperback books, hardcover books, podcasts, TV, broadway musicals, movies in the theater, magazines, and everything else is a tangle of "sure, it's okay this exists but they aren't more than a blip in my life or things I seek out in a way that I can rank them."
Things I would have added to this list: books on my phone (somewhere in the books section? I have been reading WAY more simply because my phone is on me all the time and digital checkouts at my local library are amazing for my reading life), knitting socks (up there with spaghetti), podcast and chill (not because I listen to podcasts with other people but because a very, very early set of RadioPublic stickers said "Podcast and chill" and people loved them).
Thanks, Ma’ayan!