How Listeners Can Earn Bitcoin With Fountain Podcasts

Bitcoin-backed apps are starting to make the rounds, and with each app and its various iterations, bitcoin finds its way into a new target audience and gives these people a reason to earn, own, buy or send bitcoin. The more bitcoin apps we have, the more of a network effect can be built, with it being so early. Those apps that adopt programmable sound money will have a chance to either establish new market practices or take the lion’s share of older markets with an improved product or service.

One of the apps looking to improve the podcast medium, for example, is Fountain. The app pulls in the open podcast RSS feed, so they already have access to a growing library of content. It then adds a unique layer of monetisation on top of that library that helps bridge the gap between podcasters, listeners and advertisers.

The Fountain podcast app has begun to make strides in improving the bitcoin-wrapped layer around podcasts. While Fountain podcasts aren’t the only value-for-value podcast interface, it is the one making the most strides and focusing on a mobile-first experience.

If this is the first time you’re reading about the app, we did a review on it previously if you want to get an idea of the basic functions before you dive into this latest update.

Paying for podcast participation

Fountain made it easy for listeners to support their favourite content creators by streaming them satoshis for every minute they listen and set that themselves. Still, the market for people who would purchase bitcoin, add it to a lightning wallet and support podcasters isn’t that big, especially when the payments are entirely optional.

Most people would rather listen to them for free, either through Fountain or one of the many other podcasting apps.

But what if Fountain paid you to listen? Well, wonder no more.

As of the launch of the latest update, Fountain now pays users to listen to podcasts. While Fountain begins to reward users, podcasters themselves can set their rates to encourage listenership. Each podcaster can set a rate at how many sats they are willing to pay a listener per minute, and you’ll receive that rate for every minute you complete listening to each episode.

Once you start listening to a podcast on the app, you’ll see an “earning ⚡️” logo right above the podcast with the number of satoshis you will receive every minute. You don’t have to change your usual podcasting behaviour; tune into your favourite episode and stack some sats into your wallet.

Now you can keep those sats or cash them out to another wallet, or you can use it as payment to stream other podcasters or send boost messages. So there’s no need to fund your wallet directly to get started with Fountain; new users can stack sats by listening and then re-use those sats on other features.

Adding this feature will not only bring advertising revenue from podcasters into the ecosystem but help create a circular economy so bitcoin need not leave the ecosystem, it can constantly be recycled between the various participants based on the value they bring to the ecosystem.

Podcast promotions

Fountain also launched its promotions section which is their native ads service found on the Discover page that allows listeners to earn extra money every day. When a user logins into Fountain, they’ll see promoted content highlighted on the discover page, and they can choose to engage with it or not.

Getting paid to listen to ads is a more rewarding experience for users, but it also solves two common yet unreported headaches for podcast advertisers. You see once a podcast show is pushed live it is picked up by a host of service providers. When advertisers sponsor a show, they want to know two things:

1. If the episode your ad is placed in is downloaded, it might not be played.
2. If the episode is played, listeners can easily skip your ad

Both of these cases are still counted as downloads in your reach metrics. In other words, your ad is not reaching users, but you’re still paying.

Fountain Promotions are un-skippable, and a portion of the advertising budget gets paid back to the user for every second they spend listening. Fountain Promotions are voluntary and do not interrupt the podcast listening experience. If you find these promotions annoying, they can be turned off in the”settings menu” if you are a Fountain Premium user.

Podcasters who want to get their content in front of new audiences can also promote an episode or clip within the app once they have claimed their Fountain Podcaster Wallet, giving podcasters a way of augmenting their promotion spend. As the competition for ears increases in different podcast niches, you have to reach outside the podcasting network to bring in other listeners. This normally means tapping into ads such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Google’s network.

All these ad platforms offer different CPC’s and CPA’s which are pretty hard to track, meaning you aren’t spending your marketing budget effectively since you don’t have control over the complete loop. You’re looking at data between platforms and making correlated assumptions.

When using a Fountain-promoted podcast, you’re advertising directly to the listener, and you can actively manage your cost per listen and acquisition to see if it is worth your money to promote your content. This closed-loop on spend versus listenership is also ideal for podcast shows that already have sponsors and are looking for a particular reach.

Creating clips and netting tips

Fountain doesn’t only reward you for passively listening to people ramble on about topics, but you can also become an active user and get paid for it. The time you take listening to podcasts has been undervalued until now. Using Fountain, if you hear an interesting take or titbit on a poddy, you can clip it into a shorter audio file.

• Give the clip a name
• Add up to three hashtags
• Publish said clip

Once the clip is created, it can be found on your profile, and it will be recommended on the discovery page of the app on the odd occasion that it is seen as relevant. Once the clip is live, if it catches a wave of interest, users can thank you for finding this gem and pay you in bitcoin by liking the clips you create.

Adding a payment to clips gives listeners a financial incentive to share podcaster content they find valuable and express their thoughts on what they’re listening to, not only giving podcasters a greater signal on nuanced topics that get traction, but you can reward your listenership for contributing to the marketing of your podcast.

Fountain is obviously trying to create its own metrics for podcasters to use to deep dive into the performance of their content. Creating and liking clips allows for that by creating queues and signals for other listeners looking to find podcasts that they may not have heard of before, but this clip gets them into your funnel.

Clips get paid a set fee every time you press like, you’re sending ten sats to the user who created the clip, and if you feel ten sats is not enough, you can press the like button as many times as you want and ramp up that tip!

Earn tips from your comments/boosts

When you engage with a podcast show on Fountain, the comment function is known as a boost; you select the number of sats you want to spend and then send it to the show with the message being optional.

Now there is nothing wrong with simply tipping as a thank you, but engagement is always better, and now Fountain looks to encourage engagement. Instead of only paying the show when you comment, you can earn satoshis for your comments.

Perhaps you asked an excellent question or provided some interesting feedback regarding the show; both show hosts and other listeners can either reply to your comment or tip you ten sats simply by” liking” the comment.

All you need to do is navigate to the comment you want to tip, hit the heart button, and ten sats will be tipped to the commenter. So instead of moaning about a podcaster on YouTube or Twitter where you don’t get a reward for savagely correcting them, now you can, so what’s stopping you?

Let the podcaster takedowns begin :), kidding; it doesn’t always have to be swords out; you can also spread some kindness if you’re that way inclined.

Bring new users to the fountain app

Lastly, Fountain has released its referral program to encourage more users to switch from Spotify, Apple Podcasts or the host of lame podcasting apps that you’ve stuck with or bookmarked simply out of habit. If you have friends who listen to podcasts regularly, you may want to monetise them by encouraging them to switch to Fountain.

They’ll get to earn satoshis for doing what they already do, and you’ll get to earn 2, 3, or 4x the return from your use of Fountain as your code is used to onboard new users. So what are you waiting for monetise mums murder mystery podcast time or any of your other normie friends” sports podcasting time and turn it into a win-win for everyone involved.

Get the app

There you have it, another way to earn sats when you listen to bitcoin podcasts, skip the ads to get paid to deal with them while you support your favourite creators or create your podcast on a value-for-value model instead of relying on advertising that could compromise your messaging.

If you’re ready to switch over, you can find the direct links here, and feel free to follow us on The Fountain App using our handle @TheBTCManual

• Website
• Referral link
• Download on Android 
• Download on iOS