Many early podcasters got into podcasting with the idea of doing something different than was possible with other mediums. And while that’s still the case, many podcasters -- especially businesses just getting started with podcasting -- are choosing a more conservative path, choosing to follow-the-pack instead of doing something bold. And I get it. It’s hard to be bold. It’s hard to get fired by following the beaten path. But when you do something wild and weird? Your exposure goes way, way up.But right now, in mid-2019, I’m convinced that there’s never a better time to go bold and do something different with your podcast.Before I give you three reasons why that’s truer than ever before -- yes, even for business podcasts -- I’ve a caveat. Before you can make the conscious decision to something different from the status quo, you have to know what the status quo is. You need to do your homework and understand what un-bold podcasts in your particular niche look and sound like. No, you're not going to fulfill that need by listening to one or two shows in your space. This requires a relatively deep study of what's going on right now so you can really break from it.With that caveat out of the way, let's get into the 3 reasons why I think right now is probably the best time ever to go bold with your podcast.All New PeopleThere's an old saying I’m fond of repeating: It won’t matter what mistakes you make today, because 100 years from now; the world will be filled with all new people. That's the case in podcasting as well. Except we're living through “the all-new” people faze right now. Every day, a new flood of people become podcast listeners. Many have never heard a podcast before. Others have had very limited exposure to select shows. New listening apps are attracting new listeners who don't have any (or not very many) preconceived notions of what podcasts should sound like. (Of course, they do have some expectations of sound quality from other sorts of audio-based media. So don’t think you can get away with something that sounds like garbage.) These “all new people” becoming listeners represent a much bigger slice of the population than the current listening audience. We know that only mid-to-high 20% of the population are regular podcast listeners. That “all new people” pool represents something like 75% of the population. These are “all-new people” who have different expectations than the current listening set. So play to that.Differentiation Trumps DiscoverabilityWe hear a lot about the discoverability issue in podcasting, which is both real and imaginary. One way to beat discoverability problems in podcasting, now and definitely in the future, is with differentiation. We podcasters don’t have much direct impact on discoverability (other than, you know, just making a great show that well-described, obviously). But we have 100% control over differentiation. Once you do your study (see my...