To Join or Not to Join?

Anyone can listen to podcasts on TrueFans, but what extra stuff can you do if you sign up for an account?

In this episode we ask:

• Do I have to create an account in TrueFans?
• What are the advantages of signing up?
• How do I create an account?
• Is my user name different to me actual name?

Music: How It Is from Ketsa Music

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Come along to TrueFans, look around on the homepage, go to podcast pages, episode pages

(00:11):
and you can play any episode you like without you having to have an account. All of your
activity then gets added to your personal dashboard so there are a lot more features
when you get an account.
Welcome to Fanzone, your bite-size guide to getting the most out of the TrueFans podcast
app. In each episode we'll discuss an aspect of the app and hopefully answer any questions

(00:36):
you may have about it. Plus, when you listen to Fanzone in TrueFans, you can earn as you
listen and use your earnings to support your favourite podcasters.
I'm Claire Waite Brown, independent podcaster and all-round podcast enthusiast.
And I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO and founder of TrueFans.

(00:58):
This time we're going to have a little chat about signing in, whether to sign in, whether
not to sign in. As a newbie, I've come along and I'm exploring everything that the TrueFans
podcast listening app has to offer. Sam, am I correct in believing that I don't need to
sign up for an account to do that?

(01:18):
You are correctly. You can come along to TrueFans, you can look around on the homepage, go to
podcast pages, episode pages, and you can play any episode you like and it will play
without you having to have an account.
Okay, brilliant. There is also the option to create an account. What are the advantages
to the listener of doing that?

(01:40):
So the biggest advantage is first of all, you get a wallet and then you get some tokens
added to that wallet, which allow you to reward your favourite podcasters. Then you can also
get a library of all of your activities so you can see what podcast episodes you're listening
to. You can then create playlists and also at the same time, you can start to get a record

(02:03):
of your activities so you can see how long you played a show, how much you paid a creator,
maybe you suggested a new podcast. All of your activity then gets added to your personal
dashboard. So there are a lot more features when you get an account, you can start to
use the app properly rather than just listen to a podcast episode.
Yeah, so you've got those two levels. You can use it literally to listen to shows or

(02:28):
you can get a little bit more involved by actually signing up. Do I need to sign my
soul away to the devil? What does a listener have to actually do to sign up?
Very simple. You put in your name, we guess a username for you, but you can change that.
We then ask you to put in your email to verify who you are. We will guess your country, but

(02:48):
you can change that and you can either put in personal categories of interest. So you
might say I like news, business, sport, or you can leave the default ones. But it just
means that we customise the homepage for you. Other than that, you just go straight in,
verify your email and you are straight in with a new account on TrueFans.
You mentioned a username. Why do I need a username as opposed to my real name?

(03:15):
You don't need a username per se. Some people prefer to be known by their username. Now,
most English people, for example, don't have a problem with the name Sam or Claire. Other
people may have a longer, more complicated name that they want to just use a nickname
for. Other people, for example, are known on social media by their nickname and they

(03:36):
have been for years. Again, we need to give that option. So yeah, you have it in your
user settings to be shown in TrueFans by your full name or by your nickname, your username.
Brilliant. So when we come on to the future episodes and we talk about commenting, for
example, it'll be your username that shows up with your comment.

(03:56):
Correct.
Super. Thank you very much, Sam.
You're welcome, Claire.
Thanks so much for listening. There are lots more episodes of Fanzone for you to get stuck
into and that show you how to make the most of the fab features that this forward-looking
podcast app has to offer podcast listeners and creators alike. We'd love to hear from

(04:17):
you. You can send us a comment on TrueFans. More about that in the Fanzone episode on
comments or email [e-mail].