Let’s keep it going with the Signal Awards winning branded company podcasts for a second week! Kicking it off is a podcast from Google's data center division:

Where the Internet Lives

It won a silver for Show Artwork, and the show does have a nice and distinctive logo that reinforces Google’s colors and reinforces the data center focus, plus they make unique episode-specific versions of the logo that are well done.

If I was writing podcast show logo reviews, I’d end things there. But there are some additional insights and interesting choices in “Where the Internet Lives”, hosted by Stephanie Wong. First, it’s a good case study in finding the human interest stories behind monolithic business topics. How data centers are built and operate is quite technical and, to most people, dull. But the show finds the stories of the communities where the facilities operate and the people who are devoted to having a positive impact. Google also produces YouTube documentary videos that are companion pieces to some of the episodes. They aren’t just a video version of the episode, they’re independent stories with the same protagonists, and the ones for this season have had 4,000 to 16,000 views, so it’s clearly working as another way to engage with their audience.

It’s a little harder to understand a different detail of the show. There is a 20 second pre-roll ad for a different podcast from LAist Studios, as well as a post-credits excerpt and ad for the same show that runs 4.5 minutes at the end. I’m guessing production partner Postscript Media (now Latitude Media) brokered the deal for the ads. And they’re well made and with a bit of overlap in show genre around tech. I’m surprised though that Google, who is investing a lot in the narrative stories and production on the show, would find it worth the intrusion into their feed to run ads that offset the costs in only a small way.