December 12, 2024 • 36 mins
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Daniel J Lewis discusses his platform Podgagement, which helps podcasters track audience engagement through ratings, reviews, and voice messages. He explains how the platform allows listeners to record audio feedback that podcasters can use in their shows, creating a deeper connection with their audience. The system also tracks podcast rankings across 34,000 charts from different regions and genres, updating in real-time.
The conversation delves into Spotify's strategy with podcast analytics companies, with Lewis suggesting that Spotify acquired these companies primarily for user tracking and data collection, but later shut them down due to profitability concerns. He argues that Spotify prioritizes its closed ecosystem over supporting open podcasting standards, contrasting this with Apple's occasional engagement with the Podcasting 2.0 community.
Lewis shares his vision for Podgagement's future, including plans for SEO features and AI-powered analytics. As a podcaster-turned-developer, he emphasizes building features that serve real podcaster needs rather than tracking audience behavior across the internet. He also reveals a unique feature that allows users to watch podcast charts change in real-time, which he describes as "podcasting cocaine."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam Sethi (00:12):
Hello and welcome back to Pot News Weekly. I'm
joined today by friends of theshow. His name is Daniel Jay
Lewis. He's an educator,advocate and innovator. He also
is the builder, creator andfounder of Pod Government.
Daniel, hello, how are you?
Daniel J Lewis (00:27):
Sam is always great to talk with you.
Sam Sethi (00:29):
Now, Daniel, you have been working on publication for
a couple of years now, or itfeels like a couple of years.
Let's step back. What is podcast?
First, let's get everyone on thesame page.
Daniel J Lewis (00:40):
Yeah, I came from originally the product was
my podcast reviews that Istarted in 2014 with just the
focus of tracking ratings andreviews for podcasters. Along
the way, I realized I've got abranding problem with the name
of the product and I want it todo so much more, but I just
couldn't fit that so much moreinside that name. My podcast
reviews. So I rebranded it toPod Judgment because it focuses
(01:04):
on podcast engagement, thereforepod engagement and ways that
podcasters can boost theiraudience interactions and then
use that to grow their podcast.
Because I know that a lot ofpodcasters want a bigger
audience or maybe they want tomake money, but I think what
many podcasters feel is mostrewarding when they host their
podcast is the connection withtheir audience. Those
(01:26):
relationships, the kind words,the opportunities that come from
those relationships. That isreally, I think, what's most
rewarding about podcasting atall scales. And so Page
Engagement offers a suite oftools to help boost that
engagement so that you canleverage that for greater growth.
Sam Sethi (01:47):
So give me an example of the types of engagement
you've talked about reviews,ratings. What else can you get
from publications as a podcaster?
Daniel J Lewis (01:56):
Yeah, when I launched the rebrand into
podcast Judgment, the bigfeature that I was excited to
offer is being able to acceptfeedback from your audience as
voicemail so you can share apage. We have multiple speak
about shareable pages that aredesigned for specific users, and
each of these pages are smartthat they detect the device
(02:16):
using the page, so they showcertain options based on that
device. But what I really wantto do is make a feedback page
where people could receivewritten feedback from their
audience. That's easy. It's aform. But the more exciting
thing is that their audience canpress record on that page and
send a voice message, and thenthat gets automatically
transcribed, sent to thepodcaster. It's downloadable as
(02:39):
an MP three file so they can useit in their podcast. That's when
it gets really exciting, bothfor the podcaster and the
audience to include literallythe audience's voice in their
podcast. I know not everypodcast is structured in a way
that they can actually use that,but it can still be so exciting
(02:59):
to have that. And then you cando so many things with that.
Whether you use it in yourpodcast or you use that kind of
praise and feedback that you getfrom your audience to help
improve the podcast or helpmarket your podcast better take
it to sponsors and show them,Hey, look, this is what my
audience is getting from mypodcast. Don't you want to be in
front of this kind of audience?
There are so many things thatyou can do when you have that
(03:20):
engagement, and then there havebeen other tools that have built
into the system, like allowingyou to track the relationships
that your podcast has with otherpodcasts through what I call
networking, like in ApplePodcasts and Spotify, you see
the you may also like Section Itrack that as it is going out
from your podcast as well aswhat's coming into your podcast.
(03:41):
Pod role will be a feature thatwill be supported very similar
there that you'll be able to see.
What are all the other podcastswho have your podcast in their
pod role tag come back in? Andthen the newest thing that I'm
really excited to launch, I knowit's why we're talking is the
new charts and rankings featurethat has been actually five
(04:02):
years in the development.
Sam Sethi (04:04):
Wow, wow, wow. Okay, let's let's before we get into
the charts and ranking, let'stake a little step back. So in
my little mind, I've now gotthird party data, second party
data, first party data. Now, youmay never have put it in that
terminology, but I'm going totry and then you're going to
tell me that's rubbish time andthen we're going to just scrap
this section. So third partydata, right, for me is what
(04:28):
hosts, if they know your device,they know your IP address, they
know your country and they knowthe number of downloads. But
that's the limit of really whata host can tell the podcaster
about their podcast. There's nota lot else they do. Third party
data is really where the appslike Spotify, YouTube, Apple and
others can tell you what podcastepisodes you listen to, how long
(04:52):
you listened to it and where youdropped off. That's sort of that
immediacy. But I'm thinkingsecond party data, which is that
reviews rating voice commentsand that feedback loop that
you're giving because, you know,the third party data is
systematic. That's what the appis doing. The user is not really
involved in that, but it isimportant data for the podcast
(05:15):
to know how long people listento their show, where do they
drop off? It's same withadvertisers. What you're doing
is creating fandom zones ofcommunity where I actually
actively engage back to thepodcast and say, I want to give
you my voice comment, I want togive you a view, I want to give
you a rating. So it's notpassive like the first party
data. It's active. It's anactive act of the fan. I think
(05:40):
the host data is again, passivedata because if fan's not
involved in that element of theanalytics. So yours is really
the, the most active passivedecision making thought the fan
of a show wants to give. So Ilike voice comments and I've
always thought, given that we'rein this world of podcasting,
which is audio, isn't it crazythat we ask for a written
(06:03):
comment back and why can't wehave a voice comment back? And I
love the idea as well of beingable to include those in the
show. I used to run a radiostation and we used to have
people bring to the radiostation and that was always a
bonus. If you're loving the showring and tell us what you think.
And you'd put them on the airand it'd be amazing because it
was that affirmation thatsomebody is out there listening
(06:24):
to what you were saying. And Ithink voice comments make so
much more sense. So now you'vegone into this other area of
charts. Now you talk in thepress release that James covered
in Pop News Daily of 34,000.
Charles which my brain was like34,000. Where'd you get that
number from? So please explainto me A what the charts are and
be how you get the data, andthen we'll come to how you got
(06:45):
to 34,000.
Daniel J Lewis (06:48):
And I want to give a kind shout out here to
charitable for shutting down andgiving me the kick that I needed
because I have been collectingthis data for five years and I
haven't been actually buildingthe feature, but I started
building it five years ago andjust never finished. I got to
the point where I was collectingthe data and saving it in my
(07:09):
database, which got massive overtime, but I just wasn't doing
anything with it yet. So withcharitable sunsetting, I decided
this is the time I need tofinish this feature because
podcasters want this information.
I want to be able to providethat to them. And it's what
started my rebuilding of thewhole product. So I've been
collecting it for so long andit's close to 34,000 charts that
(07:30):
I've been tracking every hourfor the last five years. So for
five years I've been trackingthese 34,000 charts. And inside
of those charts are the rankings.
So let's just clarify some termshere. The chart is if you look
in Apple Podcasts or Spotify andlook at like a top podcast list,
(07:52):
I'm calling that a chart. Sodon't think like graphs and line
graphs and bar charts and thatkind of thing. I'm trying to
avoid using the word chart inthat sense that we call that a
graph, but here a chart would bea list of podcasts, and it
usually is an ordered list ofsome sort. Even if there aren't
necessarily numbers, peoplestill think the thing that's on
(08:14):
the top is the top. Whatever islisted first. We kind of look at
it as a chart, how these chartsare actually populated and how
things move in the charts.
That's different for all kindsof places. It's even different
inside of Apple podcasts. Likeif you're looking at a top
podcast chart that is affectedby more recent subscriptions or
followers to a podcast anddownloads, whereas something
(08:36):
like a search results chart orwhat's hot or new and noteworthy,
those are all handled completelydifferently. But there's still
basically a chart of podcasts.
Each podcast, then in that charthas a ranking, and that is
simply where it is. It'sposition in that chart. So I'm
(09:00):
tracking these 34,000 charts andeach chart having up to 250, in
some cases even up to 400podcasts in a single chart. And
then there's the rank for thatpodcast. Now that number, 34,000
that comes from you look atApple Podcasts primarily is
(09:21):
where it's coming from. TheApple Podcasts is now available
in 175 regions. It used to be155, it's now 175. So right
there, that's 175. Every regionhas a different chart for every
genre inside Apple Podcasts, andthere are more than 100 genres
(09:42):
of podcasts inside ApplePodcasts. So multiply 175 times
those 100 plus inside of eachgenre. There are also additional
charts. There is the top podcastchart. That's what most people
are familiar with. I have alsobeen tracking the What's Hot and
the new and noteworthy in manyof these genres. Some of them,
(10:05):
some countries and some genresdon't have a what's hot or new
and noteworthy, but many of themdo. And I've been tracking that.
This is data that no one elsehas been tracking as far as I
know, for all of these years. Soyou start multiplying these
things and that's how you get tothe number around 34,000 charts.
Sam Sethi (10:25):
So you started collecting, you said five years
ago, you've now decided topublish that. So now let's go as
a podcast step. How do I get tosee my ranking? Clearly, I have
to sign up to podcast judgment,but once I've signed up to pop
judgment, is this available forfree or is this available as a
(10:47):
paid service? What's the scoop?
Daniel J Lewis (10:51):
Yeah, publication is a paid
subscription that provides allof these other features that
we've mentioned, and now thecharts and rankings feature and
the charts and rankings feature.
A little side note is thefoundation groundwork for an
upcoming SEO feature too, thatwill allow you to track certain
SEO terms across all of thosecountries and genres and such.
But this is all included insidewhat I call the constellation
(11:14):
tier. It's the higher end tierof what podcasts and offers that
offer currently has all of thefeatures of paid judgment in
that tier, and it starts if youwant to pay monthly. It's $19
per month per podcast that goesdown if you pay yearly and just
multiply that times however manypodcasts you have. I offer some
discounts for non-profitorganizations and some agencies,
(11:36):
so there is some option therefor some flexibility. But when
you're inside, then you get tosee three different news
sections. There is the rankingsoverview. There's the historical
rankings, and then there are thecharts. The rankings overview
would be where you log in andyou can see your number one in
Uganda under the such and suchgenre and the top podcasts,
(12:00):
you're number 15 in the UnitedStates under this genre. So you
get to really quickly see thisis where you are and this is how
it's changed since 24 hours ago.
If you click into any one ofthose, then it takes you to the
historical rankings where youcan then see how your podcast
has done over time in thosecharts, and that is at the
(12:22):
hourly detail level as well. Soyou can see certain patterns,
but some of the graphs andhistorical rankings that I look
at for some of these podcasts,it's really interesting. I can
see when they publish newepisodes because they jump up
the charts predictably, likeevery we'll say it's every
Monday that they publish a newepisode. You can see very
(12:43):
quickly they jump back up totheir same position in about 5
hours of time, and then theyslowly start going down again
and then they jump up. It's acyclical pattern that you can
see. One thing that you canlearn from that is, wow, the
more frequently they publish anepisode, the higher they stay in
(13:03):
the charts. And it confirms thatApple Podcasts is taking into
consideration downloads becausejust publishing a new episode to
a podcast will not get you newfollowers to the podcast, but it
will get you new downloads. Soit shows that because the
podcast publishes new episodes,it's getting a lot more
downloads and therefore that'spushing it higher in the charts
(13:25):
simply by publishing morecontent. And of course, the
quality of the content matters alot for the sustainability, and
it's really neat that you canlearn from that. What's working
well, what helps your podcaststay in those rankings better?
And even when it comes to stufflike is it valuable to know
you're number one? And in Golia,well, it might not seem like
(13:47):
that, but what that can tell youis you've got an audience there
and if you can acknowledge thataudience, it does two things for
you. And this is the same thingtoo, with like reading ratings
and reviews in your podcast orreading feedback or including
feedback in your podcast. Itdoes these two things for you,
one for that person who sentthat feedback, left that rating
(14:10):
and review, or is that onepersonal listening and then
Golia It helps them feel like acelebrity. It helps them feel
acknowledged that they mightthink this podcaster that's in
the United States, they don'teven know I exist. I mean, most
Americans don't care about whathappens outside of the U.S. and
that's probably okay.
Sam Sethi (14:29):
Sorry you said that, not me. Right. Let's be clear in
the edit here.
Daniel J Lewis (14:34):
Self-deprecating humor. So they might think that
you don't know they exist, butwhen you acknowledge that they
exist, that stands out to them.
That right there might turn theminto a superfan. It also makes
them feel like a celebrity thatthey want to tell other people.
Sam Sethi (14:52):
Hey.
Daniel J Lewis (14:53):
My feedback was included on this podcast, this
celebrity podcast I listen tobecause you're a celebrity to
your audience. Probably they'llthink that is amazing and they
want to share that with otherpeople. Getting other people to
listen to the podcast and thusgrowing the podcast. That's so
that's the one thing is theimpact that you have on that
person. The other aspect is theimpact to your reputation for
(15:16):
the rest of your audience. Sowhen the rest of your audience
knows you've got a loyallistener in and go, Yeah, well
then the rest of your audiencethinks, Wow, that's pretty cool.
They're pretty famous thatthey've got listeners all across
the world or their number one insuch and such company, or
they're number one in such andsuch country. That's really
(15:38):
amazing. That helps them to thenrecognize that that influence
that reputation and sometimes,especially when it comes to
feedback ratings and reviews, itinspires them to get involved
too, because they want to bepart of that same fun thing that
brought someone else attention.
So this is why it's so great touse these things, not simply
(16:01):
having them, but actually usingthem to engage the audience is
what grows a podcast.
Sam Sethi (16:10):
So you've aggregated all of this data together,
you've got the reviews, theratings, the comments. Do you
see any way that you could thenstart to offer advice on how
they can improve? Is that ametric that you're going to be
able to give them as a service?
You know, okay, your numberthree here and I'm a seven there,
you've got this rating, blah,blah, blah. And through that
(16:32):
aggregation of data, is thereany way that you can give a
podcaster advice on what theycan do better in order to grow
their ranking?
Daniel J Lewis (16:42):
Absolutely. And this is where I can come in to
do this stuff, especially fordevelopers like me, who had
judgment is programmedcompletely by me and only me. No
one else has touched the codeexcept me, and I still describe
myself, though, as a scrappydeveloper. And when it comes to
certain like analytics andcorrelating certain things,
(17:06):
conceptual things, and tyingthings together, I don't know
how to process that kind ofstuff or build that kind of
intelligence. But now that theartificial intelligence is out
there or I love what you call it,assistive intelligence is out
there, we can start feeding insome of this data and learning
what's the best prompt for thisand how to get that data back so
(17:28):
that it can start guiding oncertain things. And I do want to
build that in. I have some plansto do that, both from like the
feedback that you get to pointout, Hey, this is what your
audience loves are based on allof the reviews you've received.
It sounds like your audiencewants more of this content and
they want less of this contentand then tie that over with some
(17:50):
of the analytics of this is howyour podcast changes in the
charts when you do this, or ifyou use these search terms.
We're seeing that this happens.
I really plan to also tie inwith some of the few hosting
providers that offer an API fortheir system. Like I know Dan
Meisner talks about this withwhat they've done with bumper
bringing in some of theseanalytics from Blueberry and
(18:11):
Open three in some of theseplaces. I want to bring some of
that data in as well to connectall of this together. And the
whole purpose is not so much Idon't want to be the company
measuring your reach becausethere are lots of other places
to do that. I want to measurethe engagement and help you to
(18:31):
improve that engagement so thatyou can use that to grow a
podcast that then you'll seethose metrics later down the
line as you do those things toengage and grow. And one of the
things here that some people aremissing from charitable and I've
been asked this a lot,especially recently, is
(18:51):
charitable smart links from theperspective of knowing if
someone visits this page, havethey then actually followed the
podcast and downloaded anepisode? There are different
aspects of smart links that I dooffer, like device aware pages
that are very shareable and such.
But the idea of tracking ifsomeone downloads an episode,
(19:15):
that's a privacy concern andsomething I've pointed out in
different places is charitableURL was made and run primarily
by data and advertising people.
I'm a podcaster first. I was apodcaster long before I learned
how to program or even startedhelping other people with their
podcasts. I want to respect theprivacy of the audience while
(19:35):
also serving the podcaster andgiving them the data they need
that can help them with any oftheir strategies. You look at
like an individual solo indiepodcaster. They're probably
doing one marketing strategy ata time so they can see more
directly. If I do this, do mydownloads increase, They don't
(19:57):
need the attribution sort ofthing, they just need to see.
I've done a Did that affect mystats? Some of the bigger
companies though, are doingmultiple things simultaneously.
They're trying differentstrategies they're sponsoring in
different channels, all of thesedifferent podcasts that they've
got their ads going out on andall of this stuff. So they need
to see which one of thesechannels and strategies is
(20:19):
actually working that we're alldoing at the same time, they
need more of that attribution.
And there is a way, I think, todo this in a privacy respecting
way that the hosting providersand these analytics providers
can get on board with like O.Pthree and Blueberry and
Captivate and Lipson and all ofthese other places without
(20:42):
having to track the audienceacross the Internet because
that's what charitable wasbasically doing, is tracking the
audience across the Internet. Iwill not do that. That is a line
I draw. I am not going to invadethe audience's privacy. So an
idea for this and developers,you're welcome to reach out to
(21:04):
me. Daniel at Pod judgment dotcom. If you want to talk about
some ideas with this, my idea isthat I could provide a little
anonymized piece of data from mylanding page that pings out to
the hosting provider. So let'ssay someone comes on one of the
(21:24):
landing pages I have as followthe podcast dot com so they land
on my follow the podcast dot compage and then my system uses
some kind of hash that looks attheir IP address hashes in some
way to a certain algorithm thatthe industry has agreed on. And
then I send that hash over tothe hosting provider through
(21:44):
their API that they makeavailable. Then they are able to
hash an IP address in the sameway or in a similar way, but
enough that they can compare itto see did the hash I send them
also download an episode if yes,then make that available through
some API back to me where I cansee here are all of the hashes I
(22:07):
sent you. These have allconfirmed to download. Now let's
completely forget these hashes.
Now that I've confirmed. Yes,they download in an episode. I
don't need to know anythingfurther about them. Let's forget
them and I can record it as aconversion for my audience. And
then the podcaster has notcompromised the privacy of their
audience, but the podcasterstill gets to know yes people
(22:28):
who visited this link throughthis campaign and whatever did
actually convert or did notconvert.
Sam Sethi (22:36):
Now, look, you've got a long track record in the
industry. Why did Spotify buyall of the analytics companies
when they did? And then why haveSpotify decided to close them
all down?
Daniel J Lewis (22:49):
Money really all comes down to money. I think
Spotify wanted to be able totrack the audiences. They wanted
this information and I talkabout this kind of tracking as a
dirty thing. I know thatadvertisers don't see it as a
dirty thing. They see it as weneed to know what's working, we
need to see what's converting sowe can put more money in the
(23:09):
right places. We need to makesure that we're actually making
the sales that we need in theright places. So I get that. And
I think Spotify then looking atcharitable and some of these
other companies, they wantedaccess to the data. I wanted
access to the tech, so theywanted access to this to be able
to track these people across theInternet, basically to be able
(23:31):
to build those profiles. Andwhen you have profiles on people,
then you can serve the right ads.
To them, it becomes morevaluable. There is value in big
data. I get it. I don't like it,but I understand the value that
is there. I just wish we didn'tvalue that. Why are they
shutting some of these thingsdown? Well, I think that comes
(23:52):
down to the cost of these things.
Like I'm really surprised thatSpotify has not yet shut down
completely what we used to callanchor, because I think they
thought when they bought anchor,they thought, Wow, here's this
great tool that has launchedmillions of podcasts and maybe
(24:15):
they never knew until after theyacquired Anchor that Well, most
of those podcasts are what Icall pod flashes. They're dead
on arrival. They're a flash inthe pan. They've got one episode
and then they're abandoned. AndSpotify still has that even with
Spotify for podcasters. NowSpotify for creators where
they've made it so easy, whichis a great thing, they've made
it so easy that people canaccidentally launch a podcast.
(24:39):
And many of these things areautomatically going into Spotify
instead of automatically goinginto Apple Podcasts. But many of
these things being abandoned, Ithink, end up not realistically
costing Spotify much money, butI think they are shutting down
certain things that they're justrealizing. The people using this
product that aren't our directcustomers aren't really helping
(25:04):
us. They're not helping uscollect this big data. They're
not building what is mostprofitable for us. They have to
think about their bottom line.
And I think they see that aservice like charitable, while
the technology is obviouslyvaluable to them, that's why
they're rolling it intomegaphone. It seems like it's
not valuable to them to offer itto the industry as a whole. And
(25:24):
my conclusion there is, I thinkSpotify doesn't really care
about the podcasting industry.
They care about what happensinside the Spotify app. And
we've seen behavior fairlyconsistent with that of they've
developed all these proprietarythings that they could have
instead supported the openstandards that we have in
(25:46):
podcasting and RSS instead ofdoing proprietary things. But
they're concerned about making agreat experience on Spotify in
their closed walled gardensystem. And I think that's
what's happening with theiracquisitions and what they're
shutting down. What do you thinkabout it, though?
Sam Sethi (26:02):
I get why the original charter bill was built
in the other analyst devices. Ithink one of the things I had
heard was that they actuallybought them so that they could
find out which podcast to go andbuy when they were going through
their exclusives, period. Theywanted to go and find out which
ones they should go and getbased on the rankings. The
(26:23):
Spotify for creators. I think itmay have been a dodo and now
with the video upload into it, Ithink they're beginning to see a
way of turning it around. And Iknow that there's a company in
the UK called Flight Cast thathas now been given the first API
access to publish as a hostdirectly into Spotify for
creators with audio and video.
So it won't be a local upload,it will be a host driven upload
(26:47):
of video as well. So I thinkyou're going to see some changes
there. Hello, I'm with you. Andyou know that generally I'm on
the open advocacy of podcastingTwitter, but I also can see from
a corporate point of view thatthere was no way that Spotify
could have got ahead of thecurve while waiting for the
community to come up with thetags and the standards. And I
(27:12):
think as a listed company with amassive user base and a
quarterly return requirement, Idon't think you can
realistically wait for someoneto improve the location tag,
someone to make sure that theboost or the comments work. I
don't think that's feasible.
(27:34):
That would be literally the tailwagging the dog in the case of
the podcasting to to a communitydetermining what features and
functions Spotify would put in.
So as much as I would love themto embrace the open standards, I
don't think they could have donethat because the pace of change
that they've had to implementwould not have met with the pace
of change that we think in thepodcasting community. So I'm not
(27:56):
giving them a pass, but I'm alsounderstanding why, as a business
they wouldn't go down the roadand let you and I and other
people determine their strategy.
I think the one company thatcould and should is Apple.
They've cracked open the doorslightly with a couple of
podcasting, 2.0 tags, and that'sthe company I'd love to see in
(28:19):
2025. You know, really take themetal five, six, seven, eight,
ten new tags in place and thenbecome the champion of the open
community against the closedcommunities of YouTube and
Spotify and again, talking aboutdata, you know, hosts who have
supported Apple with delegateddelivery are getting no value
(28:41):
back from Apple. And I thinkApple not having an advertising
platform has really no need forthat first party data rather
than smart internal metrics.
They should and could give thatfirst party data back to the
hosts who've supported themthrough delegated delivery, and
then the host would haveimproved analytics. I think. So
I think Apple should and coulddo something. I just feel
(29:03):
Apple's gone missing in action.
I don't know what they're doing.
As I joke with James, I'mlooking forward to that. One new
feature will get in 2025 becausewe only get one feature a year.
They just don't seem to do anymore than that.
Daniel J Lewis (29:16):
Apple moves very slowly and I think that like
some of these companies, whetherit's Spotify or Apple, as they
want to build some of thesefeatures into their platforms,
they probably feel, hey, it'sfaster for us and better for us
to just build this thingourselves instead of trying to
participate in the community andherd these cats together to be
(29:39):
able to come to an industrystandard on a particular feature.
But the difference between Appleand Spotify here is that Apple
does have team members watchingthe podcasting 2.0 developments
and occasionally just droppingin a little nugget. You know
what? If maybe would youconsider possibly doing
something like this Apple isdoing that Spotify is not.
Sam Sethi (30:03):
And that's why I think Apple, instead of being
what I call the man in black,you know, if you ever meet
someone from Apple, you have topretend you've never met them
and certainly can never talkabout what you said to me. I
genuinely believe that theyshould just come out of their
cocoon, really embrace it,because they would be the big
enough player who would actuallythen drive forward that for mass
(30:25):
adoption. We saw that with thetranscript tag. But when I met
one of the Apple people in L.A.
recently and I asked them, whydon't they adopt the person tag
and chapters? And they were like,No, we don't need to, thanks.
And that was it. And I went, Oh,so anyway, let's forget about
them. Let's go back to you. Sowhat's the future hold for pod
engagement? What's next then?
(30:48):
You've done the charts, you'vedone the comments, you're doing
some of the SEO bit of AI. Isthat the roadmap for 25?
Daniel J Lewis (30:54):
Daniel Well, the CEO thing I think is coming next
because being able to track achart and historical rankings,
that is the foundation I need tothen open it up so podcasters
can track their own terms andthen see what else is ranking in
the search terms so they candiscover networking
(31:14):
opportunities and such. Andthere's so much about this
though, that since judgment isdeveloped by me, a podcaster
first, and I'm helping otherpodcasters, I'm listening to
other podcasters, I sympathizeand empathize with other
podcasters. So a lot of what Ido is really driven by what are
podcasters actually meeting like.
That's why I fast paced thischart development thing. As I
(31:37):
realized with charitable goingaway, podcasters are going to
need this as another option. SoI have to build this for them
quickly so that they can getthose needs met. And I've served
several charitable refugees atthis point and they're the fun
little things I'm often lookingfor, like what are the things
that I can make that are so funfor podcasters that they will
(31:59):
love? Like one of those thingsis that third page. I didn't get
to finish talking about earlier.
I have a chart page now thatdoesn't sound all that exciting.
You can view the charts inmultiple ways, but what is
exciting about it is you canwatch the charts change in real
time where you could park yourbrowser on this page inside your
(32:19):
account. And if the chartchanges, you'll see a podcast
shift over and things will movearound and shift. I've actually
thought of maybe opening up apage like that to the general
public. I just have to thinkabout the bandwidth and server
costs of something like that.
But it could basically be thenew podcasting cocaine to just
sit there and.
Sam Sethi (32:42):
Chance that Daniel and then someone else pays for.
You'll find.
Daniel J Lewis (32:45):
Oh, good idea.
It's sponsored by true fans.
It's the kinds of things likethat that I'm looking for. You
know, it goes back so much towhat we've seen Apple do over
the years and many other greatinnovators in history. It was
Ford who said, if I ask peoplewhat they wanted, they would
(33:05):
have asked for a faster horse.
Correct. And you think aboutlike when Apple came out with
the iPhone, people didn't knowthey wanted a smartphone.
Sam Sethi (33:16):
Oh, I remember everyone on CrackBerry at the
time was like, Oh, there's nokeyboard on it. It's only just
go screen, keep it all ever work.
Daniel J Lewis (33:25):
Yeah, exactly.
And now here we are in a worldwhere we feel like how a
physical keyboard on the phone,that would be torture. So I'm
looking for those innovationsand I'm that type that I was so
inspired by the Isaacson bookabout Steve Jobs, because I like
to find something that's notworking very well and innovate
(33:45):
it. That's why your t shirt inthe Podcasting 2.0 community is
we've built this in true fans.
My t shirt is either I suggestedthis years ago or Hey, what if
we make it do this instead?
Sam Sethi (34:02):
Indeed, we should wear those at the next event we
attend. That will be funny. Look,Daniel, thank you so much. If I
want to join podcast again,where would I go?
Daniel J Lewis (34:13):
Go to pod engagement dot com. Just think
podcast engagement pod judgmentdot com.
Sam Sethi (34:19):
And can I get you to come to pod camp? Will you and
Dave Jackson find that couple ofpennies from behind the sofa and
get on a flight and come and dopodcast with me. Oh I would.
Daniel J Lewis (34:31):
Absolutely love to because a funny thing I did a
pod camp like the originalstructure of pod camp. I did Pod
Camp Cincinnati many years ago.
I put on this conference, hadsome volunteers. It was a lot of
work to put on this conference,but a lot of people who came
said, Best pod camp ever. And Inever did another one because I
didn't want to try and top that.
(34:53):
But I love being in thatconference atmosphere. I am an
introvert, so I get energy fromboth sides of the aisle in that
way. And I love just being withpodcasters and I love traveling
too. So I'm looking at if it'spossible to make it there. I
would love to be there andsupport what you're doing and
it's exciting to see what you'redoing with Pod Camp 2.0.
Sam Sethi (35:15):
Yeah. Well, the idea came from you and Dave saying,
Thank you. I just saw a problemwith the idea that was whole.
And also just, just plug it. Goon, watch your podcast that you
guys do.
Daniel J Lewis (35:26):
Yeah, I do two different podcasts. I do The
Audacity two podcast, which ismy own solo podcast about
podcasting, where I get prettyin-depth with a lot of things.
It's currently on hiatus becauseI'm a full time dad to in
addition to building Podjudgment, and then Dave Jackson
and I do a podcast together, TheFuture of podcasting, where we
hypothesize about a lot ofthings, talk through a lot of
(35:47):
things, a lot of podcasting, 2.0stuff, but it's also sometimes
just the concepts of things orchallenges that we see coming up
in the industry and reallytalking about where is this
industry going and what are someconcerns, what are some things
to get excited about? How can weuse this?
Sam Sethi (36:04):
Very cool. I love listen to it. As you know, I'm a
big fan of the show. I never geta shout out. I always listen. So
no worries at all. Thank you somuch. Good luck with publication.
Catch you in tonight.
Daniel J Lewis (36:16):
Thank you, Sam.
Hello and welcome back to Pot News Weekly. I'm
joined today by friends of theshow. His name is Daniel Jay
Lewis. He's an educator,advocate and innovator. He also
is the builder, creator andfounder of Pod Government.
Daniel, hello, how are you?
Daniel J Lewis (00:27):
Sam is always great to talk with you.
Sam Sethi (00:29):
Now, Daniel, you have been working on publication for
a couple of years now, or itfeels like a couple of years.
Let's step back. What is podcast?
First, let's get everyone on thesame page.
Daniel J Lewis (00:40):
Yeah, I came from originally the product was
my podcast reviews that Istarted in 2014 with just the
focus of tracking ratings andreviews for podcasters. Along
the way, I realized I've got abranding problem with the name
of the product and I want it todo so much more, but I just
couldn't fit that so much moreinside that name. My podcast
reviews. So I rebranded it toPod Judgment because it focuses
(01:04):
on podcast engagement, thereforepod engagement and ways that
podcasters can boost theiraudience interactions and then
use that to grow their podcast.
Because I know that a lot ofpodcasters want a bigger
audience or maybe they want tomake money, but I think what
many podcasters feel is mostrewarding when they host their
podcast is the connection withtheir audience. Those
(01:26):
relationships, the kind words,the opportunities that come from
those relationships. That isreally, I think, what's most
rewarding about podcasting atall scales. And so Page
Engagement offers a suite oftools to help boost that
engagement so that you canleverage that for greater growth.
Sam Sethi (01:47):
So give me an example of the types of engagement
you've talked about reviews,ratings. What else can you get
from publications as a podcaster?
Daniel J Lewis (01:56):
Yeah, when I launched the rebrand into
podcast Judgment, the bigfeature that I was excited to
offer is being able to acceptfeedback from your audience as
voicemail so you can share apage. We have multiple speak
about shareable pages that aredesigned for specific users, and
each of these pages are smartthat they detect the device
(02:16):
using the page, so they showcertain options based on that
device. But what I really wantto do is make a feedback page
where people could receivewritten feedback from their
audience. That's easy. It's aform. But the more exciting
thing is that their audience canpress record on that page and
send a voice message, and thenthat gets automatically
transcribed, sent to thepodcaster. It's downloadable as
(02:39):
an MP three file so they can useit in their podcast. That's when
it gets really exciting, bothfor the podcaster and the
audience to include literallythe audience's voice in their
podcast. I know not everypodcast is structured in a way
that they can actually use that,but it can still be so exciting
(02:59):
to have that. And then you cando so many things with that.
Whether you use it in yourpodcast or you use that kind of
praise and feedback that you getfrom your audience to help
improve the podcast or helpmarket your podcast better take
it to sponsors and show them,Hey, look, this is what my
audience is getting from mypodcast. Don't you want to be in
front of this kind of audience?
There are so many things thatyou can do when you have that
(03:20):
engagement, and then there havebeen other tools that have built
into the system, like allowingyou to track the relationships
that your podcast has with otherpodcasts through what I call
networking, like in ApplePodcasts and Spotify, you see
the you may also like Section Itrack that as it is going out
from your podcast as well aswhat's coming into your podcast.
(03:41):
Pod role will be a feature thatwill be supported very similar
there that you'll be able to see.
What are all the other podcastswho have your podcast in their
pod role tag come back in? Andthen the newest thing that I'm
really excited to launch, I knowit's why we're talking is the
new charts and rankings featurethat has been actually five
(04:02):
years in the development.
Sam Sethi (04:04):
Wow, wow, wow. Okay, let's let's before we get into
the charts and ranking, let'stake a little step back. So in
my little mind, I've now gotthird party data, second party
data, first party data. Now, youmay never have put it in that
terminology, but I'm going totry and then you're going to
tell me that's rubbish time andthen we're going to just scrap
this section. So third partydata, right, for me is what
(04:28):
hosts, if they know your device,they know your IP address, they
know your country and they knowthe number of downloads. But
that's the limit of really whata host can tell the podcaster
about their podcast. There's nota lot else they do. Third party
data is really where the appslike Spotify, YouTube, Apple and
others can tell you what podcastepisodes you listen to, how long
(04:52):
you listened to it and where youdropped off. That's sort of that
immediacy. But I'm thinkingsecond party data, which is that
reviews rating voice commentsand that feedback loop that
you're giving because, you know,the third party data is
systematic. That's what the appis doing. The user is not really
involved in that, but it isimportant data for the podcast
(05:15):
to know how long people listento their show, where do they
drop off? It's same withadvertisers. What you're doing
is creating fandom zones ofcommunity where I actually
actively engage back to thepodcast and say, I want to give
you my voice comment, I want togive you a view, I want to give
you a rating. So it's notpassive like the first party
data. It's active. It's anactive act of the fan. I think
(05:40):
the host data is again, passivedata because if fan's not
involved in that element of theanalytics. So yours is really
the, the most active passivedecision making thought the fan
of a show wants to give. So Ilike voice comments and I've
always thought, given that we'rein this world of podcasting,
which is audio, isn't it crazythat we ask for a written
(06:03):
comment back and why can't wehave a voice comment back? And I
love the idea as well of beingable to include those in the
show. I used to run a radiostation and we used to have
people bring to the radiostation and that was always a
bonus. If you're loving the showring and tell us what you think.
And you'd put them on the airand it'd be amazing because it
was that affirmation thatsomebody is out there listening
(06:24):
to what you were saying. And Ithink voice comments make so
much more sense. So now you'vegone into this other area of
charts. Now you talk in thepress release that James covered
in Pop News Daily of 34,000.
Charles which my brain was like34,000. Where'd you get that
number from? So please explainto me A what the charts are and
be how you get the data, andthen we'll come to how you got
(06:45):
to 34,000.
Daniel J Lewis (06:48):
And I want to give a kind shout out here to
charitable for shutting down andgiving me the kick that I needed
because I have been collectingthis data for five years and I
haven't been actually buildingthe feature, but I started
building it five years ago andjust never finished. I got to
the point where I was collectingthe data and saving it in my
(07:09):
database, which got massive overtime, but I just wasn't doing
anything with it yet. So withcharitable sunsetting, I decided
this is the time I need tofinish this feature because
podcasters want this information.
I want to be able to providethat to them. And it's what
started my rebuilding of thewhole product. So I've been
collecting it for so long andit's close to 34,000 charts that
(07:30):
I've been tracking every hourfor the last five years. So for
five years I've been trackingthese 34,000 charts. And inside
of those charts are the rankings.
So let's just clarify some termshere. The chart is if you look
in Apple Podcasts or Spotify andlook at like a top podcast list,
(07:52):
I'm calling that a chart. Sodon't think like graphs and line
graphs and bar charts and thatkind of thing. I'm trying to
avoid using the word chart inthat sense that we call that a
graph, but here a chart would bea list of podcasts, and it
usually is an ordered list ofsome sort. Even if there aren't
necessarily numbers, peoplestill think the thing that's on
(08:14):
the top is the top. Whatever islisted first. We kind of look at
it as a chart, how these chartsare actually populated and how
things move in the charts.
That's different for all kindsof places. It's even different
inside of Apple podcasts. Likeif you're looking at a top
podcast chart that is affectedby more recent subscriptions or
followers to a podcast anddownloads, whereas something
(08:36):
like a search results chart orwhat's hot or new and noteworthy,
those are all handled completelydifferently. But there's still
basically a chart of podcasts.
Each podcast, then in that charthas a ranking, and that is
simply where it is. It'sposition in that chart. So I'm
(09:00):
tracking these 34,000 charts andeach chart having up to 250, in
some cases even up to 400podcasts in a single chart. And
then there's the rank for thatpodcast. Now that number, 34,000
that comes from you look atApple Podcasts primarily is
(09:21):
where it's coming from. TheApple Podcasts is now available
in 175 regions. It used to be155, it's now 175. So right
there, that's 175. Every regionhas a different chart for every
genre inside Apple Podcasts, andthere are more than 100 genres
(09:42):
of podcasts inside ApplePodcasts. So multiply 175 times
those 100 plus inside of eachgenre. There are also additional
charts. There is the top podcastchart. That's what most people
are familiar with. I have alsobeen tracking the What's Hot and
the new and noteworthy in manyof these genres. Some of them,
(10:05):
some countries and some genresdon't have a what's hot or new
and noteworthy, but many of themdo. And I've been tracking that.
This is data that no one elsehas been tracking as far as I
know, for all of these years. Soyou start multiplying these
things and that's how you get tothe number around 34,000 charts.
Sam Sethi (10:25):
So you started collecting, you said five years
ago, you've now decided topublish that. So now let's go as
a podcast step. How do I get tosee my ranking? Clearly, I have
to sign up to podcast judgment,but once I've signed up to pop
judgment, is this available forfree or is this available as a
(10:47):
paid service? What's the scoop?
Daniel J Lewis (10:51):
Yeah, publication is a paid
subscription that provides allof these other features that
we've mentioned, and now thecharts and rankings feature and
the charts and rankings feature.
A little side note is thefoundation groundwork for an
upcoming SEO feature too, thatwill allow you to track certain
SEO terms across all of thosecountries and genres and such.
But this is all included insidewhat I call the constellation
(11:14):
tier. It's the higher end tierof what podcasts and offers that
offer currently has all of thefeatures of paid judgment in
that tier, and it starts if youwant to pay monthly. It's $19
per month per podcast that goesdown if you pay yearly and just
multiply that times however manypodcasts you have. I offer some
discounts for non-profitorganizations and some agencies,
(11:36):
so there is some option therefor some flexibility. But when
you're inside, then you get tosee three different news
sections. There is the rankingsoverview. There's the historical
rankings, and then there are thecharts. The rankings overview
would be where you log in andyou can see your number one in
Uganda under the such and suchgenre and the top podcasts,
(12:00):
you're number 15 in the UnitedStates under this genre. So you
get to really quickly see thisis where you are and this is how
it's changed since 24 hours ago.
If you click into any one ofthose, then it takes you to the
historical rankings where youcan then see how your podcast
has done over time in thosecharts, and that is at the
(12:22):
hourly detail level as well. Soyou can see certain patterns,
but some of the graphs andhistorical rankings that I look
at for some of these podcasts,it's really interesting. I can
see when they publish newepisodes because they jump up
the charts predictably, likeevery we'll say it's every
Monday that they publish a newepisode. You can see very
(12:43):
quickly they jump back up totheir same position in about 5
hours of time, and then theyslowly start going down again
and then they jump up. It's acyclical pattern that you can
see. One thing that you canlearn from that is, wow, the
more frequently they publish anepisode, the higher they stay in
(13:03):
the charts. And it confirms thatApple Podcasts is taking into
consideration downloads becausejust publishing a new episode to
a podcast will not get you newfollowers to the podcast, but it
will get you new downloads. Soit shows that because the
podcast publishes new episodes,it's getting a lot more
downloads and therefore that'spushing it higher in the charts
(13:25):
simply by publishing morecontent. And of course, the
quality of the content matters alot for the sustainability, and
it's really neat that you canlearn from that. What's working
well, what helps your podcaststay in those rankings better?
And even when it comes to stufflike is it valuable to know
you're number one? And in Golia,well, it might not seem like
(13:47):
that, but what that can tell youis you've got an audience there
and if you can acknowledge thataudience, it does two things for
you. And this is the same thingtoo, with like reading ratings
and reviews in your podcast orreading feedback or including
feedback in your podcast. Itdoes these two things for you,
one for that person who sentthat feedback, left that rating
(14:10):
and review, or is that onepersonal listening and then
Golia It helps them feel like acelebrity. It helps them feel
acknowledged that they mightthink this podcaster that's in
the United States, they don'teven know I exist. I mean, most
Americans don't care about whathappens outside of the U.S. and
that's probably okay.
Sam Sethi (14:29):
Sorry you said that, not me. Right. Let's be clear in
the edit here.
Daniel J Lewis (14:34):
Self-deprecating humor. So they might think that
you don't know they exist, butwhen you acknowledge that they
exist, that stands out to them.
That right there might turn theminto a superfan. It also makes
them feel like a celebrity thatthey want to tell other people.
Sam Sethi (14:52):
Hey.
Daniel J Lewis (14:53):
My feedback was included on this podcast, this
celebrity podcast I listen tobecause you're a celebrity to
your audience. Probably they'llthink that is amazing and they
want to share that with otherpeople. Getting other people to
listen to the podcast and thusgrowing the podcast. That's so
that's the one thing is theimpact that you have on that
person. The other aspect is theimpact to your reputation for
(15:16):
the rest of your audience. Sowhen the rest of your audience
knows you've got a loyallistener in and go, Yeah, well
then the rest of your audiencethinks, Wow, that's pretty cool.
They're pretty famous thatthey've got listeners all across
the world or their number one insuch and such company, or
they're number one in such andsuch country. That's really
(15:38):
amazing. That helps them to thenrecognize that that influence
that reputation and sometimes,especially when it comes to
feedback ratings and reviews, itinspires them to get involved
too, because they want to bepart of that same fun thing that
brought someone else attention.
So this is why it's so great touse these things, not simply
(16:01):
having them, but actually usingthem to engage the audience is
what grows a podcast.
Sam Sethi (16:10):
So you've aggregated all of this data together,
you've got the reviews, theratings, the comments. Do you
see any way that you could thenstart to offer advice on how
they can improve? Is that ametric that you're going to be
able to give them as a service?
You know, okay, your numberthree here and I'm a seven there,
you've got this rating, blah,blah, blah. And through that
(16:32):
aggregation of data, is thereany way that you can give a
podcaster advice on what theycan do better in order to grow
their ranking?
Daniel J Lewis (16:42):
Absolutely. And this is where I can come in to
do this stuff, especially fordevelopers like me, who had
judgment is programmedcompletely by me and only me. No
one else has touched the codeexcept me, and I still describe
myself, though, as a scrappydeveloper. And when it comes to
certain like analytics andcorrelating certain things,
(17:06):
conceptual things, and tyingthings together, I don't know
how to process that kind ofstuff or build that kind of
intelligence. But now that theartificial intelligence is out
there or I love what you call it,assistive intelligence is out
there, we can start feeding insome of this data and learning
what's the best prompt for thisand how to get that data back so
(17:28):
that it can start guiding oncertain things. And I do want to
build that in. I have some plansto do that, both from like the
feedback that you get to pointout, Hey, this is what your
audience loves are based on allof the reviews you've received.
It sounds like your audiencewants more of this content and
they want less of this contentand then tie that over with some
(17:50):
of the analytics of this is howyour podcast changes in the
charts when you do this, or ifyou use these search terms.
We're seeing that this happens.
I really plan to also tie inwith some of the few hosting
providers that offer an API fortheir system. Like I know Dan
Meisner talks about this withwhat they've done with bumper
bringing in some of theseanalytics from Blueberry and
(18:11):
Open three in some of theseplaces. I want to bring some of
that data in as well to connectall of this together. And the
whole purpose is not so much Idon't want to be the company
measuring your reach becausethere are lots of other places
to do that. I want to measurethe engagement and help you to
(18:31):
improve that engagement so thatyou can use that to grow a
podcast that then you'll seethose metrics later down the
line as you do those things toengage and grow. And one of the
things here that some people aremissing from charitable and I've
been asked this a lot,especially recently, is
(18:51):
charitable smart links from theperspective of knowing if
someone visits this page, havethey then actually followed the
podcast and downloaded anepisode? There are different
aspects of smart links that I dooffer, like device aware pages
that are very shareable and such.
But the idea of tracking ifsomeone downloads an episode,
(19:15):
that's a privacy concern andsomething I've pointed out in
different places is charitableURL was made and run primarily
by data and advertising people.
I'm a podcaster first. I was apodcaster long before I learned
how to program or even startedhelping other people with their
podcasts. I want to respect theprivacy of the audience while
(19:35):
also serving the podcaster andgiving them the data they need
that can help them with any oftheir strategies. You look at
like an individual solo indiepodcaster. They're probably
doing one marketing strategy ata time so they can see more
directly. If I do this, do mydownloads increase, They don't
(19:57):
need the attribution sort ofthing, they just need to see.
I've done a Did that affect mystats? Some of the bigger
companies though, are doingmultiple things simultaneously.
They're trying differentstrategies they're sponsoring in
different channels, all of thesedifferent podcasts that they've
got their ads going out on andall of this stuff. So they need
to see which one of thesechannels and strategies is
(20:19):
actually working that we're alldoing at the same time, they
need more of that attribution.
And there is a way, I think, todo this in a privacy respecting
way that the hosting providersand these analytics providers
can get on board with like O.Pthree and Blueberry and
Captivate and Lipson and all ofthese other places without
(20:42):
having to track the audienceacross the Internet because
that's what charitable wasbasically doing, is tracking the
audience across the Internet. Iwill not do that. That is a line
I draw. I am not going to invadethe audience's privacy. So an
idea for this and developers,you're welcome to reach out to
(21:04):
me. Daniel at Pod judgment dotcom. If you want to talk about
some ideas with this, my idea isthat I could provide a little
anonymized piece of data from mylanding page that pings out to
the hosting provider. So let'ssay someone comes on one of the
(21:24):
landing pages I have as followthe podcast dot com so they land
on my follow the podcast dot compage and then my system uses
some kind of hash that looks attheir IP address hashes in some
way to a certain algorithm thatthe industry has agreed on. And
then I send that hash over tothe hosting provider through
(21:44):
their API that they makeavailable. Then they are able to
hash an IP address in the sameway or in a similar way, but
enough that they can compare itto see did the hash I send them
also download an episode if yes,then make that available through
some API back to me where I cansee here are all of the hashes I
(22:07):
sent you. These have allconfirmed to download. Now let's
completely forget these hashes.
Now that I've confirmed. Yes,they download in an episode. I
don't need to know anythingfurther about them. Let's forget
them and I can record it as aconversion for my audience. And
then the podcaster has notcompromised the privacy of their
audience, but the podcasterstill gets to know yes people
(22:28):
who visited this link throughthis campaign and whatever did
actually convert or did notconvert.
Sam Sethi (22:36):
Now, look, you've got a long track record in the
industry. Why did Spotify buyall of the analytics companies
when they did? And then why haveSpotify decided to close them
all down?
Daniel J Lewis (22:49):
Money really all comes down to money. I think
Spotify wanted to be able totrack the audiences. They wanted
this information and I talkabout this kind of tracking as a
dirty thing. I know thatadvertisers don't see it as a
dirty thing. They see it as weneed to know what's working, we
need to see what's converting sowe can put more money in the
(23:09):
right places. We need to makesure that we're actually making
the sales that we need in theright places. So I get that. And
I think Spotify then looking atcharitable and some of these
other companies, they wantedaccess to the data. I wanted
access to the tech, so theywanted access to this to be able
to track these people across theInternet, basically to be able
(23:31):
to build those profiles. Andwhen you have profiles on people,
then you can serve the right ads.
To them, it becomes morevaluable. There is value in big
data. I get it. I don't like it,but I understand the value that
is there. I just wish we didn'tvalue that. Why are they
shutting some of these thingsdown? Well, I think that comes
(23:52):
down to the cost of these things.
Like I'm really surprised thatSpotify has not yet shut down
completely what we used to callanchor, because I think they
thought when they bought anchor,they thought, Wow, here's this
great tool that has launchedmillions of podcasts and maybe
(24:15):
they never knew until after theyacquired Anchor that Well, most
of those podcasts are what Icall pod flashes. They're dead
on arrival. They're a flash inthe pan. They've got one episode
and then they're abandoned. AndSpotify still has that even with
Spotify for podcasters. NowSpotify for creators where
they've made it so easy, whichis a great thing, they've made
it so easy that people canaccidentally launch a podcast.
(24:39):
And many of these things areautomatically going into Spotify
instead of automatically goinginto Apple Podcasts. But many of
these things being abandoned, Ithink, end up not realistically
costing Spotify much money, butI think they are shutting down
certain things that they're justrealizing. The people using this
product that aren't our directcustomers aren't really helping
(25:04):
us. They're not helping uscollect this big data. They're
not building what is mostprofitable for us. They have to
think about their bottom line.
And I think they see that aservice like charitable, while
the technology is obviouslyvaluable to them, that's why
they're rolling it intomegaphone. It seems like it's
not valuable to them to offer itto the industry as a whole. And
(25:24):
my conclusion there is, I thinkSpotify doesn't really care
about the podcasting industry.
They care about what happensinside the Spotify app. And
we've seen behavior fairlyconsistent with that of they've
developed all these proprietarythings that they could have
instead supported the openstandards that we have in
(25:46):
podcasting and RSS instead ofdoing proprietary things. But
they're concerned about making agreat experience on Spotify in
their closed walled gardensystem. And I think that's
what's happening with theiracquisitions and what they're
shutting down. What do you thinkabout it, though?
Sam Sethi (26:02):
I get why the original charter bill was built
in the other analyst devices. Ithink one of the things I had
heard was that they actuallybought them so that they could
find out which podcast to go andbuy when they were going through
their exclusives, period. Theywanted to go and find out which
ones they should go and getbased on the rankings. The
(26:23):
Spotify for creators. I think itmay have been a dodo and now
with the video upload into it, Ithink they're beginning to see a
way of turning it around. And Iknow that there's a company in
the UK called Flight Cast thathas now been given the first API
access to publish as a hostdirectly into Spotify for
creators with audio and video.
So it won't be a local upload,it will be a host driven upload
(26:47):
of video as well. So I thinkyou're going to see some changes
there. Hello, I'm with you. Andyou know that generally I'm on
the open advocacy of podcastingTwitter, but I also can see from
a corporate point of view thatthere was no way that Spotify
could have got ahead of thecurve while waiting for the
community to come up with thetags and the standards. And I
(27:12):
think as a listed company with amassive user base and a
quarterly return requirement, Idon't think you can
realistically wait for someoneto improve the location tag,
someone to make sure that theboost or the comments work. I
don't think that's feasible.
(27:34):
That would be literally the tailwagging the dog in the case of
the podcasting to to a communitydetermining what features and
functions Spotify would put in.
So as much as I would love themto embrace the open standards, I
don't think they could have donethat because the pace of change
that they've had to implementwould not have met with the pace
of change that we think in thepodcasting community. So I'm not
(27:56):
giving them a pass, but I'm alsounderstanding why, as a business
they wouldn't go down the roadand let you and I and other
people determine their strategy.
I think the one company thatcould and should is Apple.
They've cracked open the doorslightly with a couple of
podcasting, 2.0 tags, and that'sthe company I'd love to see in
(28:19):
2025. You know, really take themetal five, six, seven, eight,
ten new tags in place and thenbecome the champion of the open
community against the closedcommunities of YouTube and
Spotify and again, talking aboutdata, you know, hosts who have
supported Apple with delegateddelivery are getting no value
(28:41):
back from Apple. And I thinkApple not having an advertising
platform has really no need forthat first party data rather
than smart internal metrics.
They should and could give thatfirst party data back to the
hosts who've supported themthrough delegated delivery, and
then the host would haveimproved analytics. I think. So
I think Apple should and coulddo something. I just feel
(29:03):
Apple's gone missing in action.
I don't know what they're doing.
As I joke with James, I'mlooking forward to that. One new
feature will get in 2025 becausewe only get one feature a year.
They just don't seem to do anymore than that.
Daniel J Lewis (29:16):
Apple moves very slowly and I think that like
some of these companies, whetherit's Spotify or Apple, as they
want to build some of thesefeatures into their platforms,
they probably feel, hey, it'sfaster for us and better for us
to just build this thingourselves instead of trying to
participate in the community andherd these cats together to be
(29:39):
able to come to an industrystandard on a particular feature.
But the difference between Appleand Spotify here is that Apple
does have team members watchingthe podcasting 2.0 developments
and occasionally just droppingin a little nugget. You know
what? If maybe would youconsider possibly doing
something like this Apple isdoing that Spotify is not.
Sam Sethi (30:03):
And that's why I think Apple, instead of being
what I call the man in black,you know, if you ever meet
someone from Apple, you have topretend you've never met them
and certainly can never talkabout what you said to me. I
genuinely believe that theyshould just come out of their
cocoon, really embrace it,because they would be the big
enough player who would actuallythen drive forward that for mass
(30:25):
adoption. We saw that with thetranscript tag. But when I met
one of the Apple people in L.A.
recently and I asked them, whydon't they adopt the person tag
and chapters? And they were like,No, we don't need to, thanks.
And that was it. And I went, Oh,so anyway, let's forget about
them. Let's go back to you. Sowhat's the future hold for pod
engagement? What's next then?
(30:48):
You've done the charts, you'vedone the comments, you're doing
some of the SEO bit of AI. Isthat the roadmap for 25?
Daniel J Lewis (30:54):
Daniel Well, the CEO thing I think is coming next
because being able to track achart and historical rankings,
that is the foundation I need tothen open it up so podcasters
can track their own terms andthen see what else is ranking in
the search terms so they candiscover networking
(31:14):
opportunities and such. Andthere's so much about this
though, that since judgment isdeveloped by me, a podcaster
first, and I'm helping otherpodcasters, I'm listening to
other podcasters, I sympathizeand empathize with other
podcasters. So a lot of what Ido is really driven by what are
podcasters actually meeting like.
That's why I fast paced thischart development thing. As I
(31:37):
realized with charitable goingaway, podcasters are going to
need this as another option. SoI have to build this for them
quickly so that they can getthose needs met. And I've served
several charitable refugees atthis point and they're the fun
little things I'm often lookingfor, like what are the things
that I can make that are so funfor podcasters that they will
(31:59):
love? Like one of those thingsis that third page. I didn't get
to finish talking about earlier.
I have a chart page now thatdoesn't sound all that exciting.
You can view the charts inmultiple ways, but what is
exciting about it is you canwatch the charts change in real
time where you could park yourbrowser on this page inside your
(32:19):
account. And if the chartchanges, you'll see a podcast
shift over and things will movearound and shift. I've actually
thought of maybe opening up apage like that to the general
public. I just have to thinkabout the bandwidth and server
costs of something like that.
But it could basically be thenew podcasting cocaine to just
sit there and.
Sam Sethi (32:42):
Chance that Daniel and then someone else pays for.
You'll find.
Daniel J Lewis (32:45):
Oh, good idea.
It's sponsored by true fans.
It's the kinds of things likethat that I'm looking for. You
know, it goes back so much towhat we've seen Apple do over
the years and many other greatinnovators in history. It was
Ford who said, if I ask peoplewhat they wanted, they would
(33:05):
have asked for a faster horse.
Correct. And you think aboutlike when Apple came out with
the iPhone, people didn't knowthey wanted a smartphone.
Sam Sethi (33:16):
Oh, I remember everyone on CrackBerry at the
time was like, Oh, there's nokeyboard on it. It's only just
go screen, keep it all ever work.
Daniel J Lewis (33:25):
Yeah, exactly.
And now here we are in a worldwhere we feel like how a
physical keyboard on the phone,that would be torture. So I'm
looking for those innovationsand I'm that type that I was so
inspired by the Isaacson bookabout Steve Jobs, because I like
to find something that's notworking very well and innovate
(33:45):
it. That's why your t shirt inthe Podcasting 2.0 community is
we've built this in true fans.
My t shirt is either I suggestedthis years ago or Hey, what if
we make it do this instead?
Sam Sethi (34:02):
Indeed, we should wear those at the next event we
attend. That will be funny. Look,Daniel, thank you so much. If I
want to join podcast again,where would I go?
Daniel J Lewis (34:13):
Go to pod engagement dot com. Just think
podcast engagement pod judgmentdot com.
Sam Sethi (34:19):
And can I get you to come to pod camp? Will you and
Dave Jackson find that couple ofpennies from behind the sofa and
get on a flight and come and dopodcast with me. Oh I would.
Daniel J Lewis (34:31):
Absolutely love to because a funny thing I did a
pod camp like the originalstructure of pod camp. I did Pod
Camp Cincinnati many years ago.
I put on this conference, hadsome volunteers. It was a lot of
work to put on this conference,but a lot of people who came
said, Best pod camp ever. And Inever did another one because I
didn't want to try and top that.
(34:53):
But I love being in thatconference atmosphere. I am an
introvert, so I get energy fromboth sides of the aisle in that
way. And I love just being withpodcasters and I love traveling
too. So I'm looking at if it'spossible to make it there. I
would love to be there andsupport what you're doing and
it's exciting to see what you'redoing with Pod Camp 2.0.
Sam Sethi (35:15):
Yeah. Well, the idea came from you and Dave saying,
Thank you. I just saw a problemwith the idea that was whole.
And also just, just plug it. Goon, watch your podcast that you
guys do.
Daniel J Lewis (35:26):
Yeah, I do two different podcasts. I do The
Audacity two podcast, which ismy own solo podcast about
podcasting, where I get prettyin-depth with a lot of things.
It's currently on hiatus becauseI'm a full time dad to in
addition to building Podjudgment, and then Dave Jackson
and I do a podcast together, TheFuture of podcasting, where we
hypothesize about a lot ofthings, talk through a lot of
(35:47):
things, a lot of podcasting, 2.0stuff, but it's also sometimes
just the concepts of things orchallenges that we see coming up
in the industry and reallytalking about where is this
industry going and what are someconcerns, what are some things
to get excited about? How can weuse this?
Sam Sethi (36:04):
Very cool. I love listen to it. As you know, I'm a
big fan of the show. I never geta shout out. I always listen. So
no worries at all. Thank you somuch. Good luck with publication.
Catch you in tonight.
Daniel J Lewis (36:16):
Thank you, Sam.
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