Rumor mill: Users can already find a lot of podcasts on YouTube, but the platform doesn't officially support them the way it supports movies or music. Recent reports suggest that may change, though with no indication of when.
Podnews claims to have received a presentation sent by YouTube to podcasters, which lays out upcoming features to support podcasts. They appear designed to facilitate searching for and monetizing podcasts.
YouTube currently has dedicated sections for movies, music, and game streaming, but not one for podcasts despite their prevalence there. The presentation slides mention a page dedicated to podcasts at "youtube.com/podcasts," though that URL doesn't lead anywhere yet.
From there, YouTube may be planning a way to incorporate podcast RSS feeds directly. One slide is about the growth of audio-only ads from Google to further monetize music and podcasts. It says ads sold by other companies are coming sometime this year.
Analytics and metrics targeting audio-only content are also on the way so that podcasters will get a more accurate sense of their audiences. The presentation mentions analytics platforms like Podtrac, Chartable, and Nielsen.
Last October, Google confirmed it had hired Kai Chuk to manage podcasts on YouTube. It hasn't officially said anything on the subject since.