Big Takeaways From Podcast Movement Evolutions 2025

Episode Transcript
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Alban (00:00):
All right, confession time.

Jordan (00:01):
Uh-oh.

Kevin (00:02):
What's up?

Alban (00:02):
How did the sugar-free week go?

Kevin (00:04):
Confession, that sounds like you're going to tell us you
weren't able to do it.

Jordan (00:07):
I was going to say.

Alban (00:08):
I was going to say you didn't report on it when I
wasn't here.

Kevin (00:11):
No, no, no, this is a full show topic, it's not a
quick cast topic.

Alban (00:15):
All right well my confession.
This was so much harder, Dee,than I anticipated.

Kevin (00:21):
Yeah.
So two weeks ago we committedon the show to doing seven days
with no sugar.
And then was it on the show orshortly afterward Alban told me
that also includes no like sugarsubstitutes.

Alban (00:32):
I just thought that was like the goal is.
It doesn't feel good to me tobe like I'm not going to have
sugar, so I'm going to have abunch of aspartame or something.

Kevin (00:40):
Yeah, no, I agree with you.
And so I was like that's fine,I can totally do that.
And then I realized that a lotof the stuff that I eat does
have sugar substitutes in it,including, like my protein
powder and stuff, and so I waslike, oh my gosh, this is more
disruptive than I thought it wasgoing to be.
It was hard.

Jordan (00:53):
I honestly think it was super duper easy.
I did not struggle with this atall.
I thought it was going to bedifficult, but I just I don't
like sugary stuff anyway, Like Ihate desserts and stuff like
that.
I think my biggest thing wassoda.

Kevin (01:05):
Well, I didn't struggle with craving any sweets or
desserts or anything that thatwasn't hard for me.
What I was shocked by was howmuch just regular stuff that I
eat that I don't feel as sugaryat all, that has a very small
amount of added sugar in it.
Yeah, like I was shocked, Ihave like just dry roasted
peanuts.
I will take a handful or twothroughout the day.
It's a normal part of my dayand I think right after the show

(01:28):
I went to the kitchen.
I was like I'm going to have ahandful of peanuts and I looked
at the back and it has one gramof added sugar.
Why, they're not honey roastedor anything, they're just dry
roasted peanuts.
It should just be peanuts andsalt.
That should be all that's inthere in there, but for some
reason there's one gram of addedsugar, so I couldn't have that
there's a lot of stuff that'slike mildly sweet.

Alban (01:45):
You wouldn't notice, but I didn't even get that far
because the first meal after werecorded, my family all got
together as my brother'sbirthday.
So we all go out to eat andit's like a nice meal.
I'm like, oh, I'm not going tohave that added sugar, I'm not
going to have that added sugar.
Well, I got coffee at the endof dinner, not going to put any

(02:06):
sugar in it.
And then desserts come out andI say no, thank you.
And I'm like I'm doing grea t.
And as we walk out, my dadoffers me a piece of gum and I
pop it in and I go this tastesgood.
And then I went added sugar.

Jordan (02:19):
Guys, I think I'm realizing that this was easy for
me because I wasn't thinkingabout the added sugar and just
like everyday things.
So I was like this didn'treally disrupt me at all.

Kevin (02:31):
I checked the label on everything.
I had to steal my son'screatine powder, because he has
real creatine that you mix inthe water and tastes terrible.
And I take creatine gummies,but I couldn't take them because
they have artificial sweetenerin them.

Alban (02:44):
I mean everything Jordan, anything that comes in a
package.
Pretty much is now eliminatedas soon as you say no artificial
sweetener.

Jordan (02:51):
Yeah, I'm like thinking about like the spaghetti that I
had, like the sauce probably hadsugar in it, I don't know.

Kevin (02:56):
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
My wife made spaghetti squashone night and she put tomato
sauce on mine and handed it tome and I was like wait a second.
And I went and I looked at thejar and it had like two grams of
added sugar per serving, so Icouldn't have it.

Jordan (03:07):
Oh no.

Alban (03:12):
What did you do?

Kevin (03:13):
I just went and got more spaghetti squash and I didn't
put anything on.
I just ate the spaghetti squashPlain, no sauce.
But eye-opening for me in termsof how much stuff contains a
tiny little bit of sugar orartificial sweeteners.
It wasn't as easy as I thoughtit would be.

Alban (03:25):
Well, good suggestion Dee .
It's eye-opening, I think.
Hopefully we learned something.
I think mine is just.
Anything that comes out of apackage is probably not good for
me.
Here we go.

Jordan (03:40):
Welcome back to Buzzcast , a podcast about all things
podcasting from the people atBuzzsprout.
So our last episode we didn'thave Alban on because he was at
Podcast Movement Evolutions.
So, Alban, we need to get thefull report on how Podcast
Movement Evolutions was.

Alban (03:56):
Yeah, podcast Movement Evolutions is a bit more of like
the industry side.
I think I might have explainedthis before.
The old theory was it was in LAside.
I think I might've explainedthis before.
The old theory was it was in LA.
So it was like connected to allthe big studios and, you know,
kind of like the actors andNetflix and all that stuff.
So mostly it's more industryfocused.
But last year I went by myselfor all these indie podcasters

(04:16):
and so I was pretty excitedabout it and I was like you know
, I want to keep going.
You know it's great to meet newpodcasters.
It kind of become a bit more oflike an indie scene.
Chicago this year it kind offlipped back.
It was very industry focused.
It was a pretty big venue.
The image I kept getting youknow in like a cartoon, where
there's like a really massivetable and like a rich family's

(04:37):
house and like the kids sit atone end of the table and the
parents sit all the way at theother end.
That's how the conference felta bit, just that we were like in
a hotel.
You would walk, walk, walk likehalf a mile through hotels and
bridges and stuff and then you'dend up in a big venue and it

(04:58):
always felt to me a bit like theother half of the people
haven't gotten here yet.
Even though I think it waspretty big, like 1600 people
came, it probably was a venuethat could have accommodated
twice as many people.

Jordan (05:10):
Yeah, I love going to conferences, but this was one I
was kind of relieved to not goto, because I have not been
marathon training like you'vebeen, Alban, so it probably
didn't affect you as much to becommuting so far.
I would have been griping aboutthe whole time, I'm sure.
Well.

Alban (05:24):
I spent most of my time at the Buzzsprout booth, so I'd
make that trip once a day.
It really wasn't too onerous,but it's just.
It felt big.
This maybe was a good thing forme to remember.
It's so hard to plan a year outhow many people are going to
come to this event, and thenyou've got to try to sell the
exact right number of tickets.
So it feels full but notcramped, but not empty.

(05:46):
It's probably a prettydifficult thing to land.

Jordan (05:48):
So, even though it was like really industry focused,
were you able to meet some indiepodcasters there.

Alban (05:52):
Yeah, absolutely.
I met one podcaster whoprobably was like one of the
most inspirational podcastersI've met at an event and she was
launching a podcast abouttaking care of her parents at
end of life when they havedementia.
And just like the way it workedout, she was the only person at
the booth for 15 minutes andjust had a long conversation

(06:14):
about how people change.
My grandmother has dementia andit was a really cool story that
she was sharing and it'd beenpretty tough, and so her outlet
was I want to record this as apodcast for people who are also
going through it, becausethere's so many things she
learned about.
Her parents' personalities hadchanged and things that they
used to connect over were kindof disappearing and it was

(06:36):
feeling like they were goingaway day by day and I was like
what a powerful thing that she'sgone through this, pretty much
alone, learned about it, and heranswer to it was I want to do a
podcast so other people who aredealing with the same thing
feel like they have somebodythere.
So, yeah, moments like that yougo, oh, there's not many people

(06:56):
here, and then you talk tosomebody who's got a real
important thing to share andthey're doing such a beautiful
thing with their time, and I go,oh wow, this is why I'm so
thankful that we're here.

Jordan (07:08):
It's fun when it's really busy and you're talking
to all these different peopleand you're trying to remember
all the faces that you've met,but when you have those smaller
conferences, it's a lot easierto connect on like a deeper
level and I feel like that'smore meaningful in some ways.
So that's really cool.
And then you mentioned that youwere wanting to do a Buzzsprout
podcaster meetup.
Were you able to do that?

Alban (07:28):
Oh yeah, a few people reached out because I said that
on the show.
And then, just as I met people,I said, hey, let's do a meetup.
And we picked a night and wejust went down to the hotel bar
and I grabbed tables.
It was nice.
It felt like the old days whenwe used to just tell people
we're going to meet up and we'dshow up and then people would be
there.
So we have like 15 people, wegot food and drinks and we just

(07:49):
hung out for a few hours andbasically had dinner and spent
time together.
It was so much less work thansetting up a giant party it was
like a hundredth of the cost andit was almost just as much fun
because everyone there was muchmore connected to Buzzsprout,
the brand, or listen to thispodcast.
I met so many Buzzcastlisteners.

Jordan (08:11):
That's so wild.

Alban (08:12):
And that made me so happy .
And it's funny that people knowso many things.
They're like oh, you get to getup tomorrow morning and work
out.
No, you're supposed to.

Jordan (08:20):
I was like, oh great, now I'm being held to it to, I
was like, oh great, now I'mbeing held to it.
Yeah, on the Podn ews WeeklyReview, when James Cridland was
going live around podcastmovement evolutions.
It was so fine to me becausewhen he went up to you he
mentioned that there was asugar-free Alban Brooke in there
.
And then Sam Sethi asked aboutthe RV company for America.

Alban (08:43):
That was the key to me that a lot of people in the
industry, or at least like anumber of people, listen to the
show, cause that's the very endof it.
I was going to say, yeah, thepost-show multiple people were
like man, I'm really sorry youhad such a bad experience on
your vacation with the RV.
I was like oh man, I forgot Italked about that.
Everybody talked about that.

(09:03):
One of the things that rubbedme the wrong way in the event,
though, was the just unrelentingtalk about video.

Jordan (09:13):
Oh yeah.

Alban (09:17):
It kind of built up throughout the week.
You know, you start with onetalk and video is important Okay
.
And then another talk why youshould be doing video.
And then Netflix is sponsoringthe coffee Okay.
And then other talk why youshould be doing video, and then
Netflix is sponsoring the coffeeOkay, Well, that's a video
platform.
And then YouTube's got a stagethat's video.
Then we do the podcast reportcard and there's video talk in
there, and it was just likeeverywhere I went we were

(09:38):
talking about video.

Kevin (09:40):
Yeah.

Alban (09:40):
And by the end of it I was like but we're at a
podcasting conference, you knowlike they're video conferences.

Kevin (09:48):
Yeah, lots of them.
Lots of big ones too, likeVidCon, and even South by
Southwest does tons of videocontent.
And yeah, if podcast movementstarts leaning into video too
much, it's going to be a problem.

Alban (09:58):
And I'm like why are we at the only podcasting
conference, spending 40, 50% ofour time talking about video to
each other?
You know, we're pitching talksabout video, we're giving talks
about video, we're listening totalks about video, we're
chatting about video and I meanit makes sense to me for YouTube
and Netflix and Riverside oranybody who's engaged in video

(10:23):
content to be educating aroundit.
I don't fault any of thosecompanies, but I'm like if you
were feeling passionate aboutvideo, I think that you should
go to VidCon.
Like it was weird to me that weall were showing up to like the
wrong party and kind of likewishing we were at the other
party the whole time.

Jordan (10:41):
Oh yeah, that's been the theme around all of these like
surveys and studies going onright now too, like Edison
Research, the Infinite Dial youknow they were pushing a whole
bunch of video stats on that.
And then we had that thing fromlike Oxford Road that Kevin and
I talked about last week.
Is podcasting going through anidentity crisis and is it video
now and it's kind of exhausting.

Alban (11:02):
Well, the thing that kept coming into my mind was how
much I used to love Twitter,like 10 years ago, when it was
pretty much text only.
There were some images, but,like, even that was few and far
between.
It was pretty much just a textplatform.
And as they tried to get moreand more engagement, they
started adding images and theystarted adding video.
And now short form video isdominant on X.

(11:25):
And then I thought aboutInstagram and how much I
absolutely loved it when it wasjust square images that I shared
to friends, and then they addedand added and added.
And where did it go?
It ended up like it's gone downthe same pit into vertical
video and Facebook, same spotand everything.
I think when we just focus onengagement, at least right now,

(11:47):
the pit that everything is drawntowards is video.
And then it goes to short formvideo.
And now I'm at the podcastingconference and we're all talking
about if you want moreengagement, you've got to go
video, and I'm like, but I'vebeen down this path now three,
four times with the otherplatforms that I cared about.
I don't care too much for themanymore because X is not really

(12:10):
text-based anymore, andInstagram I have to take it off
my phone because there's no coolimages of friends.
It's short form videos all thetime and everything has just
kind of degraded into the samehomogenous, highly addictive
content.

Jordan (12:25):
Yeah.

Alban (12:26):
And now I'm looking around the industry that I care
the most about, the medium thatI care the most about and we're
all talking about I can see alittle bit into the future.
It looks like it's all videoand I'm like, yeah, and then
we're just going to not be whatwe like anymore.
We're not going to be audiofocused, we're going to be doing
video.
So if that's the case, whydon't we just leave this

(12:47):
platform and go do the one wewant to do?
Because otherwise we're justgoing to drag this whole
industry down the exact samepath that everybody else has
gone now.

Jordan (12:56):
So Epic Universe the theme park had opened and all of
these influencers congregatedto film a bunch of like the
rides and all the things thatyou go to.
And lately it's been sofrustrating for me because, no
matter what platform I go on,I'm being fed the exact same
videos of people touring EpicUniverse.
So if I go on like Instagram,my feed is completely flooded

(13:17):
with it.
Facebook, same thing.
If I go to like YouTube, samething completely flooded.
It's just all the algorithmsare serving up the exact same
thing.
Youtube, same thing completelyflooded.
It's just all the algorithmsare serving up the exact same
thing.
And it's like I don't want tobe on any of these platforms
because they all have juststarted doing the exact same
thing.
I can't go somewhere else fordifferent content when I feel
like it.

Alban (13:34):
Yeah, there's something like depressing about we got
online because you know mostlypeople's 150 person friend group
or the people you knew real inlife.
You were like, oh, there'sparts of me that I don't share
with someone in real life, butnow if I go online I can get on
a forum and I can connect topeople who are very different
and we're different in the sameway, and now we can share our

(13:55):
love of Pokemon cards.
For me, that was the thingYou're like oh, I'm really into
this thing and now I can connectwith people online.
But lately it feels like we'regetting pulled down the same
path into video first and theneventually it's like 30 second
podcasts.
The only difference is thatpeople hold the mic in their

(14:16):
face and they do a quick littlehit and that's what podcasting
is to people.
Everything that I like aboutpodcasting is the audio
component.
It doesn't have an algorithm,so you stick with shows for a
long time.
You build a relationship withthe audience, it gets much
deeper engagement and verticalvideo.
Eventually, most of it or allof it will be created by AI and

(14:39):
it's just going to be a bunch ofjunk churned out that's just so
highly engaging that that youjust swipe for eternity.
That's the most dystopianfuture I can imagine.
It'll be highly enjoyable, andyet not something that I will be
proud of scrolling through.

Kevin (14:56):
I'm thinking platforms have to evolve because you got
these closed ecosystems that arefunded by advertising dollars,
and so the business modelrequires you to get as many
people into that ecosystem aspossible and then stay in there
as long as possible so that youcan serve up as many ads as
possible.
That's the machine that has tokeep running as soon as another
platform comes along orsomething else comes along that

(15:18):
starts to pull more people in adifferent direction, because
they have a slightly differentoffering.
In those platforms' bestinterest to either copy or
innovate and not get people toleave Instagram to go to TikTok
or not to leave TikTok to go toYouTube Shorts.
And this is the battle thatthey all have to play with each
other, because when somebody hasfree time or downtime, they're

(15:38):
going to open something on theirphone, and so they're incented
to create the most addictivething that they can that keeps
people looking at their screens,as opposed to some other apps.
Screens as long as possible.
And podcasting is verydifferent than that One.
It's different in that it's notowned or controlled by any one
platform or entity.
Two, it's not algorithmicallydriven.
That's a very hard word to say.

(15:59):
So no podcast app, at leastnone that I am aware of have
really at least cracked the nutanyway yet on solving
discoverability.
So as soon as you get done withone show that you really liked,
it's not serving up another oneand like auto playing into it,
like it's all self-selectedcontent, you have to build your
own playlist, you have to findshows, you have to subscribe to
them, and so it's different.

(16:21):
Now, I don't fault individualplatforms for having a business
model and then adapting andchanging, like the example that
you just gave, Alban, ofInstagram, you know, starting
with square pictures, but then,as soon as TikTok came along and
they found something moreaddictive, that Instagram starts
to follow their lead.
Right, because they're likewe're losing people over here.

(16:41):
So now Instagram doesn't feellike old Instagram and Twitter
doesn't feel like the new X andall that stuff.
But these are platforms.
They're not really mediums Like.
Podcasting is a medium.
If anything, it's closest toyou know, like AM radio, more
than it is like a technologyplatform, and so I don't have
any concerns about us losing inthe traditional sense.

(17:03):
Podcasting is a format, youknow basically saying audio
first, like.
One of the definitions thatJordan threw out for me to think
about over the last week was ifit works with your eyes closed,
let's call it a podcast.
That idea will be aroundforever, but it might not always
be at the top of the trend list.
It might not always be thehottest thing that's happening
online for creators to jump intoand I'm very comfortable with

(17:25):
that.
I'm very comfortable with, likeI don't have to work in the
industry or be passionate abouta certain part of technology
that is the hottest thing, orit's the thing that all the
creators are moving to, or thehot new trend that they're
jumping on.
I don't know if that makes me apurist or if it just makes me
somebody who's found somethingthat they'd like right, and
whether it's hot or whether it'sthe full new thing to jump into

(17:46):
or not, it doesn't change thefact that there's always going
to be enough people in the worldwho, I think, have a similar
line of thinking that theyappreciate it for what it is.
And maybe podcasting is flatfor a few years.
Maybe it's growing at 10% for afew years.
Maybe it's decreasing at 10 or15% year over year for a few
years.
I think that's okay, but Idon't have a pessimistic view on
podcasting is going to becomesomething else or it's going to

(18:09):
go away or it's going to getdestroyed.
It might be more popular 10years from now.
It might be less popular 10years from now, but I think it's
still going to exist.
I think it's going to be morepopular.
Honestly, I just I think moreand more people will find this
audio first format of stuffthat's convenient and respectful
of your lifestyle and lets youenjoy content passively and
they'll work it into theirlifestyle, but I don't know that

(18:29):
it's ever going to make thetransition into the big platform
that tech giants promote a lot,because I think it is again
like they can't keep you engagedin that content, like they can
you know video content and theycan't quickly serve up the next
hot thing that you're going tolove, because this content isn't
30 second soundbites of funnyclips or rage bait.
It's 45 minutes of content, andsometimes the content is a

(18:52):
little boring and sometimes it'snot, and you kind of have to
figure that out yourself.
It's hard for algorithms tofigure out what to serve up next
for you, so I think it justdoesn't fit the mold.
There's other technologies thatwork better in terms of hey,
just keep people engaged on ourscreens so that we can serve the
most number of ads.
I don't know that podcastingfits into that perfectly.
It feels like those tech giantshave tried to make podcasting

(19:12):
that over the past couple ofyears.

Jordan (19:13):
Yeah.

Kevin (19:14):
Haven't really cracked the nut on it.
So they've said but you know,what we have cracked the nut on
is video.
Let's just take podcasting andsay in order to be a successful
podcaster, you have to do video.
Now, so, and it's not becausewe're improving podcasting, it's
just because we've alreadyfigured out video and we can't
really figure out podcasting.
So let's just make podcastingvideo problem solved.

Alban (19:34):
Yeah, I think I'm speaking to all of us that go to
these conferences.
I like the podcast movementteam, I like a lot of the people
who go to them and I'm like weall got here because we like
something, we like podcasting,and we just spent most of it
talking about hey, maybe what weshould be doing is video first,
and then we ripped the audio,mostly for the podcast.

(19:56):
But we do video because videois important.
But video is a thing.
It was called TV.
You had that before this.
There were TV shows you couldhave been doing and you got into
podcasting for some reason.
Why did you do that?
I think it was because youliked audio, for some reason.
And if that's the case, like weshould feel more confident in

(20:16):
what we really like, notinsecure because there's more
money or more attention.
Even if all that's true, whichit might be true it seems like a
lot of podcasts grow with video.
Even if it's true, that doesn'tmean you have to do it.
It just means like there'sother things out in the world
that are good, great, but likewhy are we going to a conference

(20:37):
called a podcasting conferenceand spending all of our energy
talking about how we reallyshould be doing something else.
Wasteful, feels misguided, andI don't want to spend my week of
connecting to the industry andrehash the same conversation day
after day after day after day.

Kevin (20:57):
Yeah, right, I get it.
It reckons back to theconversation Jordan and I just
had last week, which is there issome danger and harm in us in
the podcasting industry allowingpeople in the video space to
take over the use of the wordpodcasting and define it for
purposes that meet their goalsmore than serve the general
podcasting world.

Jordan (21:19):
Yeah.

Kevin (21:19):
But we know that the shows that, whether we call them
their podcast type shows or not, we know if they're doing good
on YouTube it's mostly becausethey are YouTube formatted shows
, like they're playing towardsthe algorithm, they have good
thumbnails, they're doing allthe things that make a YouTube
channel successful, not all thethings that make a podcast
successful, and that justhappens to carry over into the

(21:41):
YouTube world.
That's not the formula tosucceed over there.
There's a whole industry around.
What does it take to actuallysucceed and stand out and grow
on YouTube?
And the shows that arepodcast-like, shows that are
appearing over there that aresucceeding, are following those
best practices, not podcastingbest practices.
And so for podcasters to feellike the best way for me to grow

(22:01):
my show is to add this videocomponent is, at best, maybe
misguided advice.
I don't think anyone's tryingto deliberately sabotage anyone.
I just think the people who aregiving the advice themselves
most of them of what I've seenaren't successful on YouTube
Like they've been decentpodcasters.
Now we have some people wholisten to the show and our

(22:22):
personal friends like StevenRobles, like he does great on
YouTube.

Jordan (22:25):
Yeah.

Kevin (22:26):
And he keeps telling us like you have to be careful when
you're telling people don't getinto video, because there is
some really great growthopportunities here.
And I do not think he is wrong.
What I do think is that he's anexceptional video producer and
he has a lot of skills that he'sdeveloped over many years and
he's an exceptional standout.
And it's a little bit like whenI hear Adam Curry say live is

(22:47):
so fun and every podcastershould try live.
And I'm like you're aprofessional broadcaster, One of
the best the world has everknown.
You started as an MTV VJ.
You could go live and talkabout anything and it would be
engaging because you're sotalented and you've honed your
craft for so many years.
Live works great for you.
You don't ever have to edit.
I also know if Jordan didn'tedit this show, we would have

(23:10):
zero listeners.
Nobody wants to hear this showlive.
Right, we are getting a littlebit better.
So I look at it like that, likeSteven Riverside video.
I get it.
You make a good point.
I also think you're veryexceptional and that's not an
on-ramp for many people who wantto step into podcasting.
I don think you're veryexceptional and that's not an
on-ramp for many people who wantto step into podcasting.

(23:32):
I don't think that pressure,like putting that pressure on
them, is the best thing for usto be doing in terms of
encouraging new creators to stepinto podcasting, Just like I
don't think pushing them intodoing live podcasts is the best
thing, but I know it works greatfor Adam.
I'll also say something that wedon't talk a lot about, but we
probably should talk a littlebit more about it, because we
know, and a lot of people in thecreator space don't know, but

(23:54):
because we're on the technicalside of podcasting and we're on
the business side of providing ahosting service, we know the
costs involved with hostingaudio versus hosting video, and
so to do a video show, not onlydoes the ecosystem have to grow
in terms of apps that supportvideo and can provide a good
video experience, like we mightjust think nothing of it as
consumers.
If you open up the YouTube appand every video that you click

(24:17):
on, kind of regardless of whereyou are whether you're at your
home on strong Wi-Fi or at theoffice, or you're driving in
your car or even like if you'rein an elevator or at a Costco
wherever you are the videos loadpretty quickly and they look
pretty good.
The amount of bandwidth andinfrastructure and app
development that goes intocreating that level of
experience is massive.

(24:38):
It's a huge technicalachievement In order for a
company like us to be able toprovide a similar level of
service to podcasters so thattheir audience would match the
experience.
So if somebody clicked on oneof your podcast episodes and you
had video in order for it toload quickly and for it to look
good kind of, regardless of whatbandwidth constraints we're
trying to negotiate at the timeon the backend, it would be very

(25:00):
, very expensive.
So right now our customers payus anywhere in the ballpark of
$12, $18, $24 a month, which isextremely cheap.
Like probably not a good topicfor the show, but the prices are
too low.
Everybody in the podcastindustry needs to raise our
prices Like we're getting killed, Okay, but regardless of how
cheap it is right now, even ifit's a little bit more expensive

(25:20):
which it should be video isgoing to be substantially more.

Jordan (25:24):
Oh yeah.

Kevin (25:24):
Right.
Even if you're only have 10, 20, 30 people who download an
episode, you're still talkingabout 10x the bandwidth
requirements than it is to serveaudio.
And that doesn't include any ofthe additional infrastructure
and tech that we would have tobuild Like.
We have to build video playersand those video players need to
be embeddable and we have toencode the video in multiple

(25:46):
different bit rates so that itcan switch between them on the
fly.
All of that stuff is veryexpensive.
So think about hosting yourpodcast with us right now, like
I said, $12, $18, $24.
To host a video plan with uswould probably be more in the
ballpark of $50, $70, or $90 amonth.
It would be substantially moreexpensive to do that.

Jordan (26:03):
Yeah.

Kevin (26:03):
And is there a business model there?
Because we already compete withsome free podcast hosting
solutions and we've figured outhow to differentiate ourselves
enough to be able to carve out abusiness for people who are
serious about their show andreally value customer service
and high quality podcastexperience and all that kind of
stuff.
But YouTube has done the samething on the on the video side
and they host it for freebecause they figured out we

(26:25):
don't need you to pay us, youknow, a hundred dollars a month
to host your video, becausewe're just going to throw ads
all around it.
And for people who don't wantads, they're going to buy
YouTube premium for $20 a monthand we'll share a few pennies on
the dollar with you for doingthat.
And because that's our businessmodel, we are going to invest
heavily in making it addictiveand create all these algorithms
to keep people on platform andif they don't like your video,

(26:51):
we don't care, We'll just serveup another one and all this
other stuff.
That really isn't about thecreator experience.
It's about making sure thatthere's a business model here
that allows them to host videosfor free.

Alban (26:55):
I think that's a good point, kevin, that the formats
that we consume content in theyalways end up with like similar
type monetization, and those areproducts of how expensive it is
to create that content.
And so if it's video content,it has to be heavily monetized,

(27:20):
and that monetization can eitherbe in the format of lots of ads
or a high subscription cost or,if you're renting a video, a
decent rental fee.
Whatever it may be, it's got tobe a few dollars.
It costs money to make highquality video and to distribute
it, and audio, being much easierand much more lightweight files
, gets monetized.
Much lower ad loads, much morelikely that the premium

(27:44):
subscription is much cheaper.
And then, if you go all the wayto text, which is going to be
the lightest of all, like someof the best blogs in the world,
are totally not monetized, and Ithink that's because, like the
time that went into, it ismostly the person who created
its time.
Everything beyond that isalmost free.

Kevin (28:04):
Yeah, but pricing is all based around.
What does it actually cost?
What are the hard costs behindserving that content?
So you could host a really niceblog site right now that's
pretty highly performant foranywhere from five to $10 a
month.
You can get a really goodshared hosting account for that.
That could take tens ofthousands of views per month.
So you could have a prettysuccessful blog and host it for
five or $10 a month.

(28:24):
Now on the podcasting side, youcan host your audio content
again on a on a high-performanceshared server like a Buzzsprout
subscription or something, for$12, $18, $24 a month.
Not bad.
But for video, like I said, itwould be much more expensive.
So let's just say you have apretty successful show where
you're doing a couple thousanddownloads per episode.
That puts you in the top 5% or10% or so of all podcasts.

(28:44):
If that was a video show, thatwould cost $ plus dollars a
month just to be able to serveup that amount of bandwidth.
But you might not be monetizingto the level.
Like, even with that level ofaudience a thousand downloads
per episode you'd be hardpressed to find an advertiser
who's going to pay you that.
Now YouTube doesn't have tofind one advertiser that pays
you that because they're notreliant on your one show to make

(29:05):
up their ad revenue.
They're going to load thatthing with advertisements before
it, in the middle and after,and as soon as somebody gets
bored and clicks on someone else, there's another ad, and
another ad, and another ad, andso it's like lost leaders.
They are Walmart, where the endcaps are all things that
Walmart doesn't make any moneyon, but it draws you into the
aisle where they do make moneyon stuff.
It's a totally differentbusiness model.

(29:26):
So I don't think there's atechnical solution right now
that I think scales enough tosustain a hosting business that
is video first, that doesn'trely on some sort of advertising
as part of the business plan,and if that's the case, then
YouTube's already won that space.

Alban (29:41):
So one of the things I did do while I was there, kevin,
is I went to a PSP meetup.
This is the Podcast StandardsProject and we spoke for a good
bit about I think it's calledHLS, and it's like a video
format and helps you serve upmultiple bit rates of a video so
that it can adapt based on youknow the bandwidth available at

(30:04):
any moment.
What are your thoughts there?
How is that not the solution?

Kevin (30:08):
Well.
So HLS stands for HTTP or HTTPSlive streaming, and all it is
is a.
It's a format that allows youto do live streaming without
setting up a dedicated webserver.
That just does live streaming.
So the original versions ofthis technology were, like you
know, real server had a productthat would do like a real media
encoder and a real media serverthat would allow you to do live
stream video, but it wasn't likea standard web server.

(30:29):
Hls is just allows you to dothat same type of thing over a
standard web server, so youdon't have to go change out all
of your infrastructure, all ofyour web servers, to be able to
live stream video, or audio forthat matter.
So it's not going to change thebusiness model at all.
It might make it a little bitless expensive in that I can
stream video content off of mystandard Apache web server as

(30:50):
opposed to setting up a separatebox.
But at the end of the day,that's not the big expense.
The big expense is thebandwidth and the processing
time.
So when somebody uploads onehigh quality video, we still
have to create six differentversions of that.
We have to create, you know,the 480p, the 720, the 720p, the
1080, the 1080p, the 4k, the 6k, like all those different
formats.
Then you have to create thisplaylist manifest file and then

(31:12):
HLS allows you to, instead oflinking to one individual file,
you link to the manifest file,so then it can bounce in between
all of those different types ofvideo, depending on the
bandwidth that you haveavailable, any given second that
you're watching the video.
That's all it does, and itsounds a little complicated, but
it's really not thatcomplicated.
This was a solution that I wantto say Apple invented as a

(31:32):
solution to video streaming,because they didn't want to put
MacroMedia's or Adobe's Flash onthe iPhone.
So it's been around for a verylong time.
This is not a new thing.
I don't know why people inpodcasting are just talking
about it like it was inventedyesterday.
It has been around for a verylong time.
I want to say it was like iOS 3, 2 or 3 or something that this

(31:52):
came out.
Holy cow.
Anyway any of our competitorswho want to step into the space
and say, oh, HLS is the solution, knock yourselves out.
It's been around for a longtime.
I don't think it changes thefact that you're still talking
about a lot of bandwidth.
I do think it's a good solutionin terms of it's better than

(32:14):
downloading.
Downloading video files to yourphone is not a solution Like.
Youtube knew this back in 2005.
They said, hey, if mobile isgoing to be the thing and a
mobile is going to be wherepeople consume our videos, we
can't have people going from onevideo to another and, like,
before they know it, they'regoing to have alerts on their
phone that it's out of storage.
Right, we can't download allthese videos.
We have to stream them.
And that's a big differencebetween how typically podcast
apps today.
When you are downloading,you're downloading it over HTTP,
but it is living on your phonefor some period of time.

(32:34):
Right, you click play.
It's a progressive download.
It might be playing back asit's downloading, but at some
point the download finishes,whether you're done playing it
or not, and it sits on yourphone for some amount of time.
Maybe you complete the episodeand the phone auto deletes it.
Maybe you never come back tothe episode.
So after two weeks or 30 daysor whatever settings you have,
it says oh, you're probably notgonna pick this up again, I'll
go ahead and delete it.

(32:54):
If they ever wanna resume, Ican always download it again
Again, because audio is not abig file.
It's not that big of a deal.
Video is different.
If we start subscribing to 10or 15 or 20 video shows and
every night my phone is tryingto download, you know, two or
three terabytes worth of videopodcasts so they're ready for me
to play on the plane tomorrow,I'm going to wake up and my
phone's not going to work.
It's like out of storage.

(33:16):
Yeah, Sorry, we deleted allyour photos so that we could
download the latest Joe Rogan.
You're like no, I didn't wantthe latest Joe Rogan, I want my
photos.
What did you do?
So we have to stream if we dovideo, and HLS does solve the
streaming side, but it doesn'tsolve the bandwidth side.
It doesn't solve the costsassociated with it.
What solves the costsassociated with it is the
advertising model that YouTubehas perfected and that Spotify

(33:38):
is starting to try to figure outbecause they want to compete
with YouTube.
But it's not going to be, Idon't think, an effective
business model that independentpodcast hosts can pick up and
follow, because our business isabout.
You pay us $12 a month to hostaudio.
How many people in the worldwant to pay us $100 a month so
they can serve video?
Our typical customer on apodcast they get somewhere

(33:58):
between 20 and 50 downloads perepisode and they're happy.
And the 20 to 50 people thatdownload their episodes are
happy.
But it's a hobby and it's apassion and those hobbies and
passions are funded by 12, 18 or$24 a month.
How many people have 50, ahundred $200 of expendable
income to throw into a hobby?
I like that these numbers justkeep escalating.

Alban (34:22):
It started off as a $50 plan and now it's a $200 minimum
.

Jordan (34:26):
Inflation's crazy right now.
Minimum Inflation's crazy rightnow.

Kevin (34:30):
But the reality is that YouTube and Spotify and some of
these other services havefigured out that there are
people who want to do this, butthey're not going to be able to
pay for it, so we have to figureout how to fund it, and what
they figured out is theadvertising model can fund it.
Now, it's not a greatexperience, and we have to
create addictive algorithms andother stuff in order to make it

(34:50):
all work, but at the end of theday, it does work.

Alban (34:53):
Yeah, I feel like you're making the argument, if anything
, to our competitors and tomaybe people at Buzzsprout.
I don't think we should bemaking video into our apps.
I think I'm somewhat trying tomake this argument for creators
that it's okay to do the thingyou want.
If what you want to do is audiocontent, you can do that

(35:14):
without doing video, and if youwant to do video content, you
can do that too.
Either is fine, but like,follow your heart and do the one
that you're into.
What I don't love is when I'mlistening to a podcast and it's
podcast content until the momentthey say so right now, we've
got this up on the screen,here's what we're doing, and you

(35:34):
go oh, so now I'm like thesecond class citizen.
Now I'm missing out onsomething.
We're missing out on the corething.
But I really came back from theconference feeling like I don't
know if I'm gonna go to anotherconference that is focused on
video content.

Kevin (35:50):
Well, you might not have a choice, because it seems like
they're ambushing you.
They're calling it podcastmovement, but it's really VidCon
.
But you had no idea.

Alban (35:58):
And I don't know if I would do any different if I was
podcast movement, becausethey're like well, the
podcasters are pitching thesetalks on video and they seem to
show up to the video talk.
So it seems like that's wherethis is going.
We've got to follow thisindustry where it's going and
I'm saying like I don't know ifI want to spend my time and our

(36:19):
money to go and be like talkingabout video all the time.
It'd be so much more fun for meto go to VidCon and talk to
like the high end people who aremaking great videos, the people
who are teaching video.
Besides, maybe, Steven, whospoke on the YouTube stage, most
of them are not videoprofessionals.

(36:39):
Most of them are podcasters whoare dabbling in video.
But years ago Podcast Movementhad Andrew Huberman on stage, I
think, with the YouTube teamtalking about how he grows his
podcast with video.
That's like a high big videoperson also doing podcast
content.
Then I would feel like man, I'mlearning from the best.

(37:14):
It kind of felt like we're allpodcasters who are reinventing
ourselves into video creatorsand kind of cheering each other
on along the way.
This does not feel right.

Jordan (37:25):
Well, I think a lot of podcasters feel like they're
killing it when they start aYouTube channel and they put out
some like videos and they getyou know 800 views, when their
podcast only gets you know 120,and they're just like I'm
killing it.
But you have to realize whenyou're in YouTube land, that's
nothing.

Alban (37:43):
Yeah, and you've started.
Now you started the videotreadmill, which is very
different than the podcasttreadmill.

Jordan (37:48):
Exactly.
It's completely different, andso you might be thinking like
these numbers are crazy huge andI should talk about this
because I am doing really wellright now, but really you're not
.

Kevin (37:58):
Right, and no one talks about this because it is
completely closed off.
So when you do a thousand viewson a YouTube video that you put
up, nobody questions howaccurate that is.
Yeah, because there's noopportunity to look at that data
from a different perspectivehow accurate that is yeah,
because there's no opportunityto look at that data from a
different perspective.
There's no standard, there'sonly what YouTube has decided is
going to count as a view.
Now, I'm not saying YouTube'sdoing anything shady.

(38:20):
It's totally their platform.
They can decide exactly what aview is, and they really only
have to be accountable to theadvertisers and then to to the
creators, and they have to makesure it reconciles on both sides
good enough so that the moneykeeps flowing, like that's their
whole job.
I think that probably highlyinfluences what they determine
is a view and what isn't a view.
But in podcasting it's not likethat.

(38:42):
It's like oh well, you couldhost your podcast on Buzzsprout
for a little while, but then youcan move to somebody else and
then you can come back and youcan see that your numbers change
.
Well, why is that?
Well, they might count a littledifferently than we count, and
so we've had to figure it out.
Well, how should we all becounting?
Can we all agree on a standardset of rules and guidelines that
we follow for counting and allthis kind of stuff?
But none of that takes place inthe YouTube space.

Alban (39:03):
Yeah, there's something about as soon.
And yet the audit should makeyou feel more confident the fact
that you can set up OP3 on yourBuzzsprout account and then you
can go and pull your Applepodcast stats, and then you can
move over to Libsyn and get theLibsyn stats and move to
Captivate and get the Captivatestats.
And now you've seen the sameshow perform and had six

(39:24):
different people measure it andIAB standards on top of all of
them.

Kevin (39:27):
Yeah, and stats prefixes that you can add on there, so
you have two people counting atany given time, or three people
are.

Alban (39:33):
And you should be able to go okay, like this is actually
pretty consistent.
But every once in a while I gointo YouTube and they do say
like, hey, during this two dayperiod we noticed some anomalies
, so these areas might be off.
Those anomalies does that meanlike like they were off by a
factor of 10 or off by a few?
I think it's just like YouTubeis determining it on their own.
Nobody else is coming inauditing.

(39:54):
I mean, maybe there are someadvertisers who have rights to
do that, but not that I know of.

Kevin (39:58):
Weird, and I think all it typically means is we're not
exactly sure if these views were100% targeted or legitimate in
the way that we want them to be,to be able to justify what we
charge the advertiser whosecontent.
We ran against your content, sowe might monetize it
differently, which means you'renot going to get paid, maybe,
for any of those views, or youmight get paid less or whatever.
But it's a very black box thingand again, this is not me being

(40:21):
critical of them, this is justme saying like the reality of
the worlds are just very, verydifferent.
So video podcasting good Lord,it's a whole nother beast and
honestly, I just think, ifthere's some drive or passion
that you have in you, that Ilike video content, I like
consuming it and I want to seemy face on the screen and I want
to create video content.

(40:42):
Unless you want to pioneer awhole new way of doing video
online and that's not whereBuzzsprout is right now, so
don't really look for us to bedoing it then I think the
solution is YouTube For all ofit, the pros and all of the cons
that come along with it.
They've figured out a businessmodel to make it work.
If you want to do a videopodcast or any sort of video
content, they're the solutionright now, and maybe Spotify is

(41:06):
big enough and smart enough tofigure out a way to challenge
them, so at least we'll have twoplayers in the space.
But I don't see a great way forthe open podcasting ecosystem.
At least that's really workedwell for the past 20 plus years
in audio.
I don't see a clear path totransitioning that at scale over
to video.
Not saying that there's not avideo podcast shows that are
distributing via RSS right now.

(41:26):
They figured out a way to meettheir needs.
I just don't know that there'sgoing to be enough people for
somebody like a Buzzsprout tocome in and say, hey, there's a
video plan now and we built allthe infrastructure to sign up
200 customers paying $100 amonth.
We would lose our shirts onthat, and so I think the
solution, at least for the nextyear or two, the solution is not
HLS.
The solution is somethingdifferent that no one's thought

(41:47):
of yet.
No one's figured out yet,including us at Buzzsprout.
Just full transparency on that.
We're not super passionateabout it, so we're not investing
a lot of time in trying tofigure it out, but there are
plenty of other people who are.
But I'm just telling you, froma technology standpoint and from
a business model standpoint,hls might solve some of the
technology.
It's not going to solve themoney side.

Alban (42:10):
Something I would propose to everybody is follow where
your energy is and where yourpassion is, and if your energy
right now is behind video, fullsteam ahead.
If your energy is not behindvideo, release yourself of that
fake obligation and do the thingthat you're into, and that is
healthy, it's good.
It's good to quit thingssometimes, like you don't have

(42:30):
to do stuff just because youheard a talk or you even
listened to this show and youfelt like I told you never do
video.
Like, go do what you want to doand feel confident in it.
Yeah, I feel confident.
Now I don't really want to doany more video, podcast stuff.

Kevin (42:45):
You know, maybe my last bit will be another rant on this
show or a talk about why youshouldn't be doing video All
right, and can we also make apledge to anybody who listens to
this show that at least likefor the next month or two, like
we're not going to talk aboutvideo anymore.

Jordan (42:58):
Nope.

Alban (43:00):
Jordan, that's easier, I think, for Kevin and I than for
you.
That means you've got to comeup with outlined sans video.

Kevin (43:14):
Yeah, there is plenty of exciting stuff to talk about
just in the audio podcastingspace that we do not need to
keep going on and on and onabout Again.
We've said that a million timesnow, and I'm going to say it
one last time, just forposterity If you want to do
video, we love it.
We're not saying don't do it,but our expertise, our passion
and the technology that we'rebuilding is focused around
helping people be like audiofirst podcasters and being the
best version of that they can be, and so, at least for the next
month or two on this show, we'regoing to do our best to steer
away from video content.
Whether it be a rant or a ravedoesn't matter.

(43:36):
We're going to talk about audiopodcasting for a while.

Jordan (43:39):
Okay, Alban, I heard you got tagged in on a talk at
Podcast Movement that you werenot planning on doing what
happened?
Arielle Nissenblatt I think got double booked and needed someoneto fill in, and one of them was
on podcast marketing, so I waslike all right, if you send me

(44:06):
the deck.
She was doing it with LaurenPassell, who we're all at dinner
, and I was like, okay, lauren,I'm willing to jump in and be a
part of it, and I really enjoyedit.
It was a talk about podcastawards and podcast lists.
There's all these lists peopleput together at the end of the
year the 10 best shows of 2024,10 shows you need to be
listening to and like New YorkTimes does them and Vulture and

(44:27):
the New Yorker, and there's allthese big lists and there's lots
of podcasters who try to get onthem.
And what they did is theylooked at all these lists and
they tried to find the commonthreads, what gets people onto
these lists.
And then they actually went andinterviewed people and a few of
my takeaways from it was likethe world is not very big,

(44:48):
there's like 15 of these liststotal and you look at the
bylines and they're the samepeople every year and so I was
like there's like 16 people whoare kind of like the tastemakers
for at least these like best ofpodcast lists.
Yeah, for at least these likebest of podcast lists.
Yeah, and it's really a PR game, making sure you get your shows
in front of the handful oftastemakers.

(45:11):
Then the other takeaway was thenicest part about the list is
that it helps people feelencouraged and they're proud of
their work and they're proud oftheir team.
Same as Apple Podcasts new andnoteworthy it doesn't always
drive big listens.
Some of the biggest shows werelike we felt amazing.
We had a really nice bottle ofchampagne.
We were so proud and it didn'treally turn into any big growth,

(45:35):
but it was really nice to see.
Yeah.

Alban (45:38):
One of the things I thought was so interesting was a
majority of the shows that wincame out in June, July.

Jordan (45:45):
Oh, interesting.

Alban (45:46):
It's because the shows that come out in February, even
when they're really really good,a lot of people have kind of
forgotten about those shows.
They don't feel as hot Rightnow.
If people are talking aboutwhat's the big show from the
last year, white Lotus gets alot of love, but even Severance
is starting to fade.
And that was only a month ago,and whatever was nine months ago

(46:08):
is going to get even furtherdown.

Jordan (46:09):
And we don't really remember if it was this year or
last year.
Isn't that what movies do forlike the Oscars.
They'll release at like acertain time, just so yeah.

Alban (46:13):
And they re-release also.
Yeah, yeah, for the intent ofwe're trying to get in front of
the people who are picking theawards, or people who are
picking the lists, so thatthey're top of mind.
And it reminded me if you wantto be on these lists or you want
to get recognition first, youcan do this PR yourself.

(46:34):
There were not many people I'mtalking 15 people are writing
these lists, so it's not verybig.
You can make personal outreachto each of them.
Also, if you really care aboutpodcasting, you've probably got
enough expertise to write yourown list.
What are the 10 shows that youreally love?
Because if there's not a ton ofpeople putting out these lists,
there's plenty of space forjust small creators to say, hey,

(46:58):
here's the five shows that Ifound this year that I love,
that I've been recommending, andkind of vote for what you want
to see in the world.
And then, if you're ever doingPR, there's just a bit of luck
involved, and part of that luckis catching the person who's
writing the list at the righttime.
So if you see a list come outthat didn't include you, maybe

(47:20):
sending a nice email and sayingI'd love for you to consider
this one If you write anotherlist, or consider us next year,
reach out maybe November, whenyou think people are probably
writing these.
So if you're working on bigshows and this is something
you've aspired to I don't thinkit's as difficult to get in
front of the really biggestnames out there, you know.
So maybe buzzcast we're goingto to get on the New York Times

(47:42):
best 2025 podcasts I don't knowif we're gonna make it.
You know, maybe we'll makenumber 11, you know, just got
cut off from the list.

Jordan (47:51):
We could also make like iH eart and do a like 50 most
influential people in podcastingand just put ourselves at the
top every year.

Alban (47:57):
Jordan B lair wins again.

Jordan (48:00):
Thank you, thank you.

Kevin (48:01):
Were there any stats on like how effective this stuff is
in terms of a marketingstrategy?
If you make one of these listsor multiple lists, does it
actually help your show?

Alban (48:09):
They interviewed people who had been on the list.
One of the creators was on fiveof the lists, so their show did
really well and he said Ireally love the appreciation.
It made the team really proudbut, we didn't see massive
growth from this.
It seemed to me like thebiggest growth lever involved

(48:29):
was when the shows won an award,that they were able to then
start posting that on their ownmarketing channels.
They're posting it on socialmedia.
We're proud that we were justawarded this, and so people who
were kind of on the fence aboutlistening saw it as social proof
, in the same way that, you know, every website in the world's
like as seen in New York times,as seen in business insider and

(48:51):
they put that on the homepage.
It's just kind of social proofthat people think we're good and
we all are, you know, subtlyinfluenced by seeing logos that
we think are prominent and we'remore likely to engage with the
brand Right.

Jordan (49:05):
You know, I actually was a finalist on like a couple of
those sort of things and I usethat to guest on other podcasts
and also I put it on prominentlyon my one pager to submit to
like sponsorships and so I wouldsay like, hey, I was a finalist
on like the best podcast forthis and I feel like it worked

(49:26):
pretty well and it just made itlook a little bit more official.

Alban (49:28):
Yeah, One creator mentioned something similar,
Jordan.
He said it didn't help themgrow but it did help them sell
future shows.
Yes, so he won for other showsin the past and said each
subsequent one just helped thempitch.
Hey, we want to make thispodcast.
I know it sounds a little offthe wall, but just go look at

(49:49):
our track record.
We won best show three out ofthe last four years for
different podcasts.
So you can trust us as atrendsetter, maybe in the way
that the Oscars help validatethe work of lots of great
directors.

Kevin (50:03):
You know, I hear a lot of people who win these awards.
They just say also they say,you know, just being nominated
is an honor in and of itself,and it feels like a lot of these
lists just to nominate yourself.
It's just a form you fill outon their website, and so why not
just nominate yourself foreverything and then put all over
your stuff.
You know, nominated for bestpodcast 2025, nominated for best

(50:24):
podcast in this genre so atleast you've been nominated.
You were nominated by yourself,but I don't think that's.

Alban (50:30):
I think you're sounding more like the awards.
I don't think you get tonominate yourself for the best
of list.
Those are uh, they're editorial, so you can pitch it to them
considered.

Kevin (50:39):
Maybe you can say you would say like, considered, for
like, they looked at my emailand they threw it away, but at
least there was a moment ofconsideration.

Jordan (50:47):
I mean really, what's going to happen?
Are they going to check?
They're going to, like, callyour references.

Alban (50:51):
All the time when people are like as seen in New York
times, they have that logo ontheir website.
I'm like, what if the as seenwas like investigated for, like
financial fraud, and you go,guys, put it on the Buzzsprout
website.
As seen in New York Times.

Kevin (51:07):
Dude, you have to be careful with what you say.
You just said my first and lastname investigated for financial
fraud, which that will nowappear in the transcript, which
will now appear in all theGoogle's indexes and will appear
in AI results and everythingelse.
Jordan, could you please editthat out Kevin investigated
for being super cool Nice.

Jordan (51:26):
For donating to orphans.
Yes, I'll bleep out his fullsentence.

Kevin (51:32):
No, keep out my last name .

Alban (51:34):
It's going to be so much worse if you bleep that out.
Kevin Finn investigated forRedacted.

Jordan (51:44):
So here is a wonderful Fan Mail message we got from
Salt Lake City, Utah.
It says I am 92 years old andwant to start a podcast.
I want to talk about howtoday's news is similar to the
past, using first-personknowledge.
My son and grandson will beinvolved.
I had a YouTube channel, butthey canceled it, saying I broke
the rules and I have no way todispute it.
Nice, so I think we alreadybroke our no video thing here,

(52:07):
but we're not going to soapboxabout it.
You are no more feeling aboutit.

Kevin (52:11):
We're not, but I can't imagine what rule was broken.

Alban (52:14):
That's so cool.
92 years old and starting apodcast, that's great.
I also love the idea ofcomparing today's news to the
news of 92 years ago.

Kevin (52:25):
Probably not.
Probably not.
90, full, 92 years ago.

Alban (52:27):
Okay, the news of 82 years ago, when they were 10?

Kevin (52:30):
Yeah, I think when he was about 10 is probably about what
he's remembering.

Alban (52:33):
That's phenomenal.
And, jordan, you pulled in afew other stories here.
You guys remember Maury.

Jordan (52:39):
Maury Povich.

Alban (52:40):
Maury.

Jordan (52:41):
That's the, the paternal testing guy on TV.

Alban (52:45):
You are the father guy, yeah.

Jordan (52:47):
Oh gosh, yeah, Is that what he's known for.

Kevin (52:49):
Yeah, it's his main shtick.

Jordan (52:51):
Pretty much.

Kevin (52:51):
OK.

Alban (52:52):
I mean, you just had like kind of that TV show and it was
always like they'd get peopleon with like something bad is
going on in their life andMaury's like I'll help a tiny
bit by making this much, muchworse on my TV show and they'd
be like, oh, you are the father.
And then they're like great,now I've been like humiliated on

(53:17):
TV.
I don't know if this is better.
Yeah, so anyway, maury starteda podcast at the young age of 86
.
Wow, and the press release saidhe's returning to his
journalistic roots, which, frommy memory at 10 of watching
Maury you know, when I was sickand not working on school, I
don't think he had journalisticroots Seemed a little bit more
like media.
But Maury's back podcasting aswell.

Jordan (53:36):
Yeah, there's the Maury Povich podcast, so he's 86
starting a podcast.
He's going to be likeinterviewing people.
He's kind of deep diving intosome of like his old episodes
too.
Like, I think he's going totalk a little bit about why this
was a problem, but maybe whathis thinking was at the time,
which could be reallyinteresting.
But something I really want totalk about is how, in Argentina,

(53:58):
a group of people over 90 yearsold created the podcast Noventa
y Cantando, which is 90 andcounting, and it's led by
97-year-old psychoanalyst,alberto Chob.
And what's really cool is thatthey started this podcast
because they were sitting arounda table chatting with each
other and I mean it's very muchlike how the podcast bros will

(54:20):
start it.
You know they're sitting around.
They're like we should do apodcast about that, but they
actually work this time Okay.

Kevin (54:24):
It works.
A lot of times, surprisingly,it works yes.

Jordan (54:29):
But I feel like this, actually like he posted a clip
of this podcast to TikTok andthen, within days, got 2000
emails of people just likereaching out, and now he has
like 290 something Instagramfollowers.
And it's just so cool that at97, you start a podcast and it
just explodes.

Alban (54:49):
Somebody said at our age, the worst thing that can happen
to you is loneliness.
Being alone, which can becreative, is not the same as
loneliness which really becomesan illness.
The people around us die andwe're left very alone.
This group combats thatloneliness.
Yeah, I love that message.
I mean it's one it's a podcastto, you know, anybody who's

(55:10):
younger and just wants to hear,like, what's life like after 90.
But I also love that they'rereaching out to people their own
age, and people who do probablyfeel a little bit alone are now
feeling much more connected topeople who are kind of going
through the same thing.
So I love it.
I love the podcasting we'rejust did a video about.
You know, should you start apodcast?

(55:30):
And one of our points was thatpodcasting tech has gotten
easier and easier.
I think a 97 year oldpsychoanalyst launching a
podcast means you probably cantoo.

Jordan (55:41):
Absolutely.

Kevin (55:42):
I think we need to start focusing some of our marketing
efforts in this direction.
Alban Like, we always talkabout what's the next generation
of podcasters, but rarely do welook upstream for that.

Jordan (55:51):
That's true.

Kevin (55:51):
So I think we need some marketing channels targeted
towards At what point are youconsidered a senior citizen now,
once you pass 50, you get freecoffee at McDonald's, does that
count?

Jordan (56:00):
What 50?

Kevin (56:02):
Yeah, get free coffee at McDonald's.

Jordan (56:04):
Does that count?
What 50?
Yeah, if you're over 50, youget free coffee.

Kevin (56:05):
You're a baby at 50.
That's nothing I know, but Ilike this idea.
I like that next generation ofpodcasters might be the 60 plus
crowd, 70 plus crowd.

Jordan (56:13):
Yeah.

Kevin (56:13):
That's great.
That's great for the industry.

Alban (56:15):
The generation that didn't never went down the dark
path of vertical video.
Yeah, all are like you know,there's better things than this
nonstop phone usage.
They're the ones who are goingto lead the next wave of
podcasting.

Kevin (56:28):
It's so right, though.
You never sit down withsomebody who's further along in
life, like, let's say, 60 plus.
You never sit down with themfor 10 or 15 minutes where you
don't walk away feeling likesomething interesting, something
entertaining, somethinglife-giving.
You never know what you'regoing to get.
You might get a wonderful,valuable life lesson that you're
like oh my gosh, this totallychanges my perspective and

(56:49):
outlook on things and I'm goingto change.
Or that person is so kooky andcrazy and nutty and they just
say whatever comes to mind andthat was just a fun interaction.
But, whatever it is, you rarelywalk away just thinking like,
well, that was a waste of 15minutes, never, never a waste.
Yeah, like when you get anopportunity to spend some time
with someone who's a little bitfurther along in life, it is

(57:09):
always, always worthwhile.

Jordan (57:11):
Well, and like when you listen to podcasts, you get to
know people a little bit better.
It's like when you talk tosomeone and you get that glimmer
of what they we have to callthese like sage casts or
something.

Kevin (57:24):
Yeah, sage cast, I like it.
Yeah, sage casting.
That's the next big trend inpodcasting.

Jordan (57:30):
Let's go, I'm all for it .
All right, let's get into oursound off messages.
So first up we have a messagefrom Scott, host of the Talk
With History podcast, and thisis in regards to YouTube
designating content as podcastdiscussion.
So Scott says when YouTubeintroduced podcast features

(57:50):
through the playlistdesignations, it was great and
the algorithm treated thosevideos differently.
He's been posting videoversions of his podcast to the
main channel, but recently henoticed that YouTube
automatically changed some ofthe old video playlists into
podcasts without him doinganything.
So he's saying heads up to theother creators Check your
YouTube studio in the podcasttabs and make sure your

(58:11):
playlists are labeled the wayyou want them to be.

Alban (58:14):
Well, that follows on all this news about.
You know there's 20 billionYouTube plays for podcasts,
plays for podcasts, and ifYouTube is switching some of the
content over to being labeledas a podcast, I'm sure that
number is being prettyinfluenced.
That 20 billion number I justpulled out of thin air, but
whatever the number was, I don'tthink you're that far off.
Oh, all right.

(58:37):
Daniel J Lewis from Podgagementreached out.
He said a great use for fanmail would be to put in your
legacy and podcast 2.0 chapters.
That would make the linkimmediately and contextually
available when you're reading orasking for feedback, so that
listeners could tap the linkwhen it's relevant.
So Daniel mentioned this to meat Podcast Movement and what

(59:00):
he's saying is the link to textthe show meant and what he's
saying is the link to text theshow.
We could make the link for ourchapter marker where we talk
about fan mail, and so Iactually went and did that for
our last episode.
So when you're listening to ourprevious episode, you could go
in at any moment and where itsays sound off or fan mail, that

(59:21):
was a link and if you clickthat link it could open up your
text app and text the show.
So yeah, nice little idea fromDaniel.
Thanks for sending it in.

Jordan (59:31):
Are you able to do that when your phone's locked, like
right from the lock screen, ordo you have to open up the app
anyway?

Alban (59:37):
No, you have to open up the app anyway.
I think it would enable maybe apodcast player to make it a bit
more prominent.
Some make it a little bit moreprominent the link to wherever
that chapter marker takes thelink just depends on the app,
but they could maybe make it alittle bit more prominent so
that you could text the show.
You're talking about textingthe show, and now they could

(59:57):
click it and do it.
Right then?

Jordan (59:59):
Got it.

Kevin (59:59):
David from no Stroke Podcast wrote in and said we
just had someone reach outwanting to know why support the
show options on Buzzsprout arecapped at $10 a month max
donations.
They want to support for more.
How can they do this and whydon't we have an other or a
custom option?
Keep up the great work.
You're not going to love myanswer, but it is as simple as

(01:00:20):
when we were building thisfeature, we needed the minimum
donation amount to be $3 and notgo below that, and technically
there's just some validationthat we'd have to do and then
figure out how to give errormessages.
If somebody wanted to give youa dollar or $2, then we'd have
to say sorry, donations have tobe three or more and it's like
they had to be three or more.
Why didn't you just give me out?
So you know, just softwarebuilding in general and and

(01:00:40):
general and trying to get asolution out as quickly as
possible that's as bulletproofas possible is why we just
started with some set donationamounts.
But it's a good idea to revisitthat and come back to it and
invest more now that we havepeople using it and we've gotten
great feedback like this.
So it is good feedback.
It's something we'll take underconsideration, but yeah,
there's not a good reason forsome technology that we didn't

(01:01:02):
build, that's all.

Jordan (01:01:03):
Derek from Intentional Teaching said if it doesn't have
an RSS feed, it's not a podcast.
Shake's fist at Sky.
I think Derek had a little bitof like a premonition moment,
because I think we got thismessage before I released the
episode where we talked aboutwhat is a podcast, so I don't
know if it's clairvoyance orjust luck.

Kevin (01:01:24):
Yeah, derek, I wouldn't argue with you.
I would tend to agree with you.
But there's also a bit of methat says, like I recognize that
for most of the world it's notthat important.
But if you're into podcasting,like we are, yeah, I think
you're right.
You should probably hold thatopinion.
Now, whether my friends andfamily who just enjoy podcasts
have that same understanding oropinion, I don't think we have
to convince them.
But it is frustrating whenthings like we talked about on

(01:01:47):
that quick cast and if youdidn't listen, just click back
one episode, when people saylike, oh, I watched a how to
video on YouTube, so now Ilisten to podcasts.
That's not right.

Alban (01:01:56):
No, Dr Wolf, co-host of Life After Impact, the
concussion recovery podcast,reached out and said I wonder if
you could address the topic ofrelease dates.
A lot of weekly podcasts seemto get published first thing,
monday morning.
Is there any advantage tochoosing alternative day like
Wednesday?
That might bump your show tothe top of someone's feeds
instead of getting buried by thetime they get around to

(01:02:16):
checking their library.
I think it is a good idea topublish on different days.
So when I first started workingat Buzzsprout, there was all
this research about the best dayto send a newsletter out and
everybody was locked in on like.
Wednesday was the day.
But then, once everything gotpublished about how Wednesday
got the biggest open rates, theneveryone was sending on

(01:02:36):
Wednesdays and all of a suddenTuesday became the big day.

Jordan (01:02:39):
Oh yeah.

Alban (01:02:40):
And it just was.
You don't want to be publishingthe exact same time as
everybody else, and my personalusage of podcasts is I have some
shows.
I know what day they come outon because it's different
Tuesday mornings.
I know I'm going to listen toDithering and I used to have a
show on Wednesday and there's ashow that used to come out on
Thursday in the afternoon, so Ionly knew I would listen to it

(01:03:01):
on the drive home from work onThursday, on Thursday in the
afternoon.
So I only knew I would listento it on the drive home from
work on Thursday.
And the benefit for those showsis they start working their way
into your actual habits andthey're not constantly in
competition with four othershows for the same general
household chore time.
So I like publishing them ondifferent times, different days,

(01:03:22):
and eventually people associateyour podcast with that day of a
week and so it'll work theirway into their schedule.

Jordan (01:03:29):
Well, and if you look at the top podcasts, you know
you're going to get a wholesmattering of different
publishing days and frequencies.
So it might be kind ofdifficult to figure out which
day to go with.
But if you go look at otherpodcasts that are in your
category or topic, maybe that'llhelp you to differentiate
yourself from them a little bitmore.

Kevin (01:03:46):
For Buzzcast.
We always publish on Friday andoriginally I think Jordan, you
had those set to publish like atmidnight right Yep, just
midnight Yep.
Friday morning, and I noticedthat a lot of shows that I
happen to subscribe to andfollow they also drop on Friday
for whatever reason.
Not a problem, but we were,since we published right at
midnight, we were always likeburied on the list of the shows

(01:04:06):
that I followed, and so I askedJordan to change that to like
now what he said at eight ornine 8am.

Jordan (01:04:10):
I think 8am.

Kevin (01:04:12):
And so now all the same shows are there.
We still publish on Friday, butwe're at the top of the list as
opposed to the bottom of thelist.

Jordan (01:04:17):
Yeah, we are.

Kevin (01:04:19):
It.
It worked.
Yeah, just a simple change likethat.
And when you publish might, ifthere's a lot of shows in your
same category or niche thatpublish on the same date, how do
you get at the top?
That's an easy way to do it.

Jordan (01:04:29):
Yeah, like you might miss the commuting timeframe or
whatever people go by, but youknow, whatever they can listen
to you on the commute back, yep.
So in our last SoundOff segmentwe asked you to tell us what
was your foot in mouth moment.
When did you say something thatyou wish you could take back
and you couldn't?
You just want to like fall intothe center of the earth.
And we got a few submissions.

(01:04:50):
So the first one, my foot inmouth moment, isn't podcast
related, but I was at aHalloween party when I saw a
large person dressed in aHolstein cow costume.
I told them I liked the cowcostume and they looked at me
and said I'm not a cow, I'm aDalmatian.
That one hurts.

Alban (01:05:07):
That hurts to read, not good.

Kevin (01:05:12):
I honestly think that Halloween is tricky, no matter
what.
Yes, because it's.
I'm not thinking about adults,where you're going to have a big
foot and mouth moment, but I'mthinking about, like when the
kids come to our house just toget candy, I want.
I feel like guessing theircostume or getting it right is
how I compliment them Like youdid such a good job dressing up
as Spider-Man.
I immediately am like oh,spider-man's here, right,

(01:05:32):
they're like I'm not Spider-Man,I'm Captain America.

Jordan (01:05:35):
Then I'm like yeah, that's how I feel about when,
like, kids draw you a pictureand you're like, oh my gosh,
it's a puppy, so cute.
And they're just like that'snot a puppy, it's a polar bear,
and you're just like oh.

Alban (01:05:48):
Anonymous wrote in who does a podcast about working in
network news and had a guest onwho told a story about choosing
one cameraman over another for apretty high profile show.
Cameraman over another for apretty high profile show.
So anonymous, assumed the storywas generic enough to avoid any
issues, published it and theperson who was passed over heard

(01:06:08):
it, figured it out.
It was them felt.
The description was veryspecific so everybody would know
who they were and reached out.
So they pulled the episodes,edited out that entire segment
and re uploaded.
So they have a new rule, whichis a good rule no disparaging
colleagues or employers in anyway on the podcast.

Jordan (01:06:27):
I mean can't go wrong with that.

Alban (01:06:29):
I think in my psychology classes the rule they had was if
people could identify you weretalking about them, the subject
could identify it.
It was too specific for you toshare without violating some
trust, so maybe that would be agood rule for us to have for
podcasting.

Kevin (01:06:46):
Yeah, is there a word for I know like, if you're the type
of person that always feelslike you're sick, you're a
hypochondriac, right?
Yeah, is there a word forsomebody who always feels like
you're talking about me?
Paranoid, just general paranoia.

Jordan (01:06:59):
I mean, I would think so or a little bit of like
narcissism, narcissisticparanoia Is that what I would
put it at?

Kevin (01:07:06):
Is that what it is?
I think both of those have alittle bit of a negative spin on
them.
I mean, they could be positivetoo.
You could be sharing a nicestory about somebody and
somebody just feels like it'sabout them.
Anyway, it just ties me back towhat Alban said is, I think
it's very easy for people tofeel like especially if they
have any connection with you orthe show if you're talking about
something you'd be like oh, areyou talking about that?
One time I did that and they'dbe like no, it's a totally

(01:07:28):
different story, but it's easy.
As you know, if there's anysort of similarities between you
might think oh, that's methey're talking about Again.
Oftentimes it's bad, sometimesit's not, but yeah, that could
be tough If you're listening toa podcast, like if I weren't on
the show one week and you guysstarted telling a story about
something that was close tosomething I did.

Alban (01:07:49):
I might get a little upset about that.
Well, imagine if you werelistening to like pod news and
they're talking and they're like, oh, somebody in the industry
is going off on this rant andthey don't know what they're
talking about.

Jordan (01:07:55):
And you're like shut up about video.

Alban (01:08:00):
I mean that that is not unlikely.
That's true, I might just haveto own that one.
I'll do another one.
Anonymous wrote in and theysaid they once sent an email to
the wrong person years ago, whenthey were younger and a bit
more foolish.
They were working in an officewith a young woman who was
employed as an apprentice.

(01:08:20):
One day their boss told her todress more conservatively and
she was really upset.
So, trying to make her better,anonymous emailed her and said
don't pay attention.
What does Claire know?
All she does is talk crap allthe time.
She's probably just jealous ofyou.
And I sent the email to Claire.
Oh no, I had to go and confess.

(01:08:41):
She said she hadn't receivedthe email, but I didn't believe
her for a second.
Oh my gosh, good for you forgoing and confessing, doing that
on the as soon as you knew whatyou did and you sent it to the
wrong person that probablydiffused it so much more,
especially if that confessionhad an apology attached to it.

Jordan (01:09:00):
I'm having like phantom tingling sensation in my chest,
like going up to my face.
I once did something verysimilar.
I had a boss who was justawesome.
But yeah, she was tough asnails and I thought she was
super mad at me one time and Iwent to a meeting with her and
then I texted my husbandafterward and was just like I

(01:09:22):
don't know.
She was a lot nicer this time,so I think she's not mad at me
anymore and I accidentally sentit to her.
I wanted to like die.
I just wanted to like crawlunder a rock and then I had to
like go meet her again and shedidn't say a word about it.
It was super awkward.

Kevin (01:09:39):
I have one more Years back.
I bumped into an acquaintancewho I hadn't seen since high
school and congratulated her andasked her when she was due,
which resulted in me getting theevil eye because she wasn't
pregnant.
So I have never asked thatquestion again.

Alban (01:09:51):
Oh, now just wait until an official announcement.

Jordan (01:09:55):
I'm with you on that.
So you just say you look great.

Alban (01:09:59):
I got to say.
This segment just has made myskin crawl the whole time.
Yeah, I hope everyoneappreciates us editing out your
names.
I'm surprised how many peopleset the exact whole name in info
.
It's true.

Jordan (01:10:12):
All right, so what's our sound off question for the next
episode?

Alban (01:10:15):
One thing we talked about at the Podcast Standards
Project this week was thingsthat the podcast hosts could
implement.
So maybe the apps wouldimplement it so that the
listeners could have an improvedlistening experience.
And the more I've thought aboutit, the more I feel like it
needs to come from the otherdirection.
It needs to come from thelisteners.
What is missing from ourpodcasting apps?

(01:10:37):
Because if we can identify as alistener here's what I want and
then we ask the apps toimplement it and the apps can
work with the hosts and thecreators to, you know, collect
all of the data and build allthe infrastructure that needs to
be made, then I think it canall work.
So what do podcast listeningapps lack right now?
What would you like?

(01:10:59):
One thing I would really likeis pretty much a normal
podcasting app with just theeasy way to like, click, you
know, add a bookmark or clip,and it just goes and it grabs
the transcript for like the last30 seconds and it just gives
you a note, because there's alot of times where I hear
something I'm like, oh, I wantto remember that, but I just

(01:11:19):
want to be able to tap somethingor double tap on my headphones
and just grab the transcriptfrom that period.
So that's something I wouldlike.
I don't know if that'sprevalent in the industry, but
what are the things that youwish your podcast listening app
could do?

Kevin (01:11:33):
I like this idea when you're listening to a podcast
for educational purposes, whichI do a lot, listen to a lot of
business podcasts, listen to alot of podcasts about podcasting
stuff.
I'm trying to gain knowledge asI'm listening to some of these
things and I would love to havea quick action button in there.
But like I like that, or I wantto remember that, or do that
ding, ding, ding, ding, ding andmaybe, as I listened to an hour
long episode, I have four orfive of these and then I would

(01:11:55):
like it to utilize thetranscript or something and then
send me like an email thatsummarized the context around
those points and sort of tiedthem together.
Maybe it even creates like asuper cut of you know 45 second
or one minute podcast episodethat I could always I could
listen back to after a period oftime.

Alban (01:12:11):
All right.
Well, now that I'm justdreaming, let me build on this
even more.
Yeah, here we go.
I want to just be able to talkback to my podcast player and
say, remember that.
And even add like a little bitof a note.
And now it transcribes theaudio and it figures out what I
just listened to and it saves alittle note for me and so I've

(01:12:32):
got it for that podcast.

Kevin (01:12:34):
Right.
If it can do this, it has to doit privately.
This is driving me crazy.
I use X a little bit and nowit's like anytime there's an
interesting thought or thread orsomething that might have more
context below it, everyone's.
This is driving me crazy.
I use X a little bit and nowit's like anytime there's an
interesting thought or thread orsomething that might have more
context below it, everyone'swriting at Grok do this stuff
for me, and it's doing stuff inthe thread of the tweet.

Jordan (01:12:50):
Oh, I know it's like yeah, it's public, it's so weird
.

Alban (01:12:53):
It's so annoying.
This is like Venmo, wheresomething that never should have
been public.
They were like, let's add asocial feature here.
And they were like what if youcould just share?
Like what you were sendingmoney to people for?
And I remember there was anaccount.
All they did was they justscraped public Venmo payments
and they were like here's allthe people who are sending money
to their drug dealer for drugsand that's what's written in the

(01:13:15):
Venmo receipt.
Like why is this public tobegin with?

Jordan (01:13:20):
One thing that I've really liked that hasn't been
adopted is the like crossplatform comments.
However, it'd be super cool ifit also tied into your idea of
pulling the clips with, like alittle transcript.
It'd be super cool to pull aclip and then write a comment
about that clip and then havepeople like start a discussion
on that.
That'd be so sweet.

Alban (01:13:40):
Yeah, I would love comments.
Yeah, I'm not sold on crossplatform comments.

Jordan (01:13:46):
Why not?

Alban (01:13:47):
The more I think about it .
I'm like, if anybody ever getsenough comments on an episode
that it's like hit some criticalmass, that it's interesting,
they're never going to sendthose comments out to the world.
They're just going to say keepthose for us.
You know, youtube doesn't allowtheir comments to go out via
API.

(01:14:07):
Spotify is not going to lettheir comments go out via API,
because they realize thecomments are the content that
people really enjoy.
For a lot of stuff, they scrolldown the funny jokes, and so I
don't see the podcast apps.
You know sharing this contentfreely between each other, so I
would like to see somebody crackcomments.
The only one that's ever reallygiven this a good go was

(01:14:28):
GoodPods, and I feel like theynever got enough market share to
get a ton of engagement onepisodes.
But it would be really fun ifApple Podcasts had comments.
I feel like that would end upbeing a pretty great place to
have discussions around apodcast.

Jordan (01:14:46):
All right.
So what was the question?

Alban (01:14:48):
again, Alban, we've discussed it, so we've given a
few answers real quick.
But, as a podcast listener,what would you like your
favorite app to implement?
Maybe tell us what app you'reon and what you would like to
see them make, and then maybe wecan build on ideas for this in
the next episode.
What would this like?
Perfect podcast player?

(01:15:09):
What would it have alreadybuilt in?

Jordan (01:15:11):
Oh, I can't wait for this.
I want to hear, like somemoonshot ideas.
It's going to be great.
All right, so to have yourresponse feature on next episode
, go ahead and tap the Texasshow link in the show notes or
in the chapter marker and let usknow what you think.
So until next time, keeppodcasting.
Did you hear that they broughtthe dire wolf back from

(01:15:33):
extinction?

Alban (01:15:39):
So the dire wolf was real .
I didn't realize that.
What I thought it was justsomething that Georgia RR Martin
put into the Game of Thronesbooks.

Jordan (01:15:43):
So maybe this means like dragons were real at one point
too.
I don't know, maybe he's ontosomething.

Alban (01:15:48):
So how are dire wolves different Jordan?

Jordan (01:15:51):
So dire wolves.
I mean they're sizable.
It's hard because I've onlyever seen, like in museums, like
their jawbones compared to aregular wolf it's like they're
two to three times larger thanan actual wolf.
They're big, big boys.
It's so cool that science hasgotten us to a point where we
can actually bring species backfrom extinction.

Alban (01:16:14):
The funniest thing I saw was that Jurassic World
retweeted the story and say wedon't see any problem with this.
No way it goes wrong.
Are you serious?

Kevin (01:16:25):
Right, they're all, it's fine.
They're all females they can'tbreathe.

Jordan (01:16:32):
Oh, I loved the nod to Roman mythology, though we had
Romulus and Remus as the names.

Alban (01:16:38):
I like that.

Jordan (01:16:38):
Oh so good.
I don't know, I kind of geekedout on this a little bit.
I mean very excited.
I watched like a two-partdocumentary series about this
guy in like South Korea that isworking to bring back the
mammoth from extinction, and soit's him trying to find the
missing DNA blocks of themammoth.
So they've just been working onthis forever and so you know,

(01:17:01):
whenever they find like a tuskfrozen in Siberia, and Russia
yeah, they'll like bring it inand they'll like try to find
these missing building blocksand I think they're like really
close.
but it's one of those thingslike when you have 98 pieces of
the puzzle, if you're missingthe 99th, you can't build a
woolly mammoth.

Alban (01:17:19):
It's exactly like that when you have 99 of a hundred
piece puzzle, you can't build awoolly mammoth.
It's exactly like that when youhave 99 of a hundred piece
puzzle, you can't build a woollymammoth.
You can't even have a hundredpieces of a puzzle either.
I think that the dire wolf theydid the Jurassic Park type
thing too, where they don't haveall of the DNA.
They used a lot of the graywolf DNA.
So it's not like geneticallyfull dire wolf.

(01:17:39):
I think that they mapped onpretty close to the gray wolf
with the pieces of the dire wolfthey could get.

Kevin (01:17:44):
But I heard it was because they determined that
those parts of the DNA were,like, genetically equivalent.
They're exactly the same, so itdidn't matter.
Oh yeah, so I'm pretty surethese are pretty much dire
wolves.
Which brings me to a wholeseries of questions.
Question one, question one Dowe know at all the temperament
of the dire wolf?
Oh, we're about to find out.
They're really docile, it seemslike.

(01:18:06):
Who's the person who's going tobe like sure, I will take care
of these two dire wolves, I'llgive them their daily food, I
mean we got Tiger King Joe.

Jordan (01:18:16):
I'm sure he'll take them in.

Kevin (01:18:19):
I just we don't know, Like we don't know anything.

Alban (01:18:22):
All right.
So let me ask are you guys infavor or not in favor of trying
to bring back the dinosaurs?
If we ever have the technology,it's good to go.
And Universal Studios is likewe want to open a Jurassic Park.
Do you say, go for it and we'recoming, or you're on the picket
lines.
I think it depends on whatspecies they're wanting to bring

(01:18:44):
back t-rex is the mainattraction I mean did you miss
the movie?

Jordan (01:18:48):
well, the t-rex was not.
He was a scavenger.
He wasn't actually like apredator right, so safer bet
with that velociraptor.

Alban (01:18:56):
Utah raptor is in the t-rex was a massive predator.

Kevin (01:19:00):
The t-rex is not a scavenger yeah, huh no, yes,
scavenger no, t-rex is little.

Jordan (01:19:08):
His little like baby arms were not conducive to like
attacking prey.
It was more just for likeclawing at a carcass that had
already been killed jordan.

Alban (01:19:16):
I'm not sure if you saw the documentary, but it was
flipping cars and stuff.

Jordan (01:19:26):
Not a feather in sight.

Kevin (01:19:29):
I think that's my main concern is that we have a lot of
theories based upon old bonesand where we found the bones and
other bones that were foundaround them, but we have really
no idea what these animals werelike.

Jordan (01:19:42):
Yeah, like I wouldn't want to bring back the Megalodon
, I wouldn't want to bring backany of the raptors.
No, thank you.

Alban (01:19:49):
I'm 100% in favor of this .

Jordan (01:19:51):
Are you really?

Alban (01:19:52):
I mean it's pretty rare that animals break out of a zoo
and like go on a rampage.

Jordan (01:19:57):
But when it happens like it's not good and it's not good
and it's, it's happened.

Alban (01:20:01):
Yeah, but it's like a.
You know, that's what happens.

Kevin (01:20:04):
All right, here's a question, and I think it tells
me a lot about who you are basedon how you answer it.
Oh, no.
In your opinion, what is thegreatest threat to humanity,
given these three options?
Number one nuclear annihilation.
Number two we bring backdinosaurs and somehow they cut
loose and kill us all.
Or number three, ai and themachines rise up and take us all

(01:20:25):
out.
Which one is most likely?

Alban (01:20:27):
AI nuclear war.

Kevin (01:20:29):
No, AI and nuclear war are not the same.
Those are two different options.

Alban (01:20:31):
I know that's my order AI 100%, most dangerous Nuclear
war number two.
And then like 700 other things,including like choking on the
top of a coke can or somethingeveryone at the same time that
gave me the weirdest mentalpicture like what?
Like the pop top.

(01:20:52):
I'm like like what's thedumbest thing?
I?

Kevin (01:20:54):
could do like.
That's how humanity goes out iswe all choke on coke cans at
the same time?

Alban (01:20:59):
oh, oh man, you choke on a paper clip or something I
don't know, like somethingreally dumb, and then beyond
that is some sort of wild animalattack.
There's no, you're not going todie from a wild animal.

Kevin (01:21:09):
No, but in this scenario we have already cloned dinosaurs
, so the dinosaurs are back.
So what are the greatestthreats?
Humans release nukes, aimachines rise up and kill us all
, terminator style or JurassicPark.

Jordan (01:21:21):
I would say AI being malevolent and like outsmarting
us and then deploying the nukes.
That scares me.
If AI decides that it's goingto be nice because I say please
and thank you and chat GBT andI'm not in danger, I'm going to
say nukes, thousand percent.

Alban (01:21:39):
What about if the AI gets out and uses the dinosaurs?

Kevin (01:21:42):
That's what I think.
I think the AI is going to usethe dinosaurs.

Jordan (01:21:47):
Cut the dinosaur codes.

Kevin (01:21:48):
What's your vote, kevin?
I think that I'm probably morenervous about humans using nukes
to kill other humans before I'dbe worried about the dinosaurs
getting us.
Yeah, only because I think likedinosaurs would be dangerous
for sure if they make it to themainland, but I still think we
have enough weapons to take themdown.
They're going to get a few goodpeople, but I think ultimately

(01:22:09):
we win that battle.
If the machines rise up againstus, we're in trouble, and if
other humans decide to startreleasing nukes, we're in
trouble.
So and I think the likelihoodof humans doing something stupid
is 100%, is a lot higher thanthe machines getting to the
point where we can't rein themback in the short term anyway,
Okay.

Jordan (01:22:29):
So Emmy asked me a question yesterday.
She said well, what animalwould you want them to bring
back from extinction?
I was like, ooh, that's areally good question.

Kevin (01:22:39):
What'd you go with Unicorn the dragon?
I actually went with the dodobird because I think they're so
cute.

Jordan (01:22:41):
I was like, ooh, that's a really good question.
What'd you go with Unicorn thedragon?
I actually went with the dodobird because I think they're so
cute and harmless and it wouldbe so cute to have dodos running
around and they look likethey're quite large.

Kevin (01:22:52):
I like that part of your criteria is how large it is.
You don't want to bring back asmall thing.

Jordan (01:22:59):
Yeah, I just I want something large and dopey around
.
I want to bring large, dopeythings back.

Kevin (01:23:02):
And the husband doesn't fill that gap in your life Not
quite, I would go with thylacine, like the Tasmanian tiger.

Jordan (01:23:11):
Yeah.

Alban (01:23:12):
They're not been extinct for all that long like 70 years
ago or something and they lookkind of cool because we've got
pictures of them and yeah, it'skind of a bummer that we drove
them to extinction.
So let's bring some back.

Jordan (01:23:26):
Yeah, kevin, what about you?

Kevin (01:23:28):
I don't know.
Give me some options.

Jordan (01:23:30):
Got saber tooth cat.

Kevin (01:23:31):
Yeah, I thought about that already.
I felt like I don't know whatit's contributing to society.

Jordan (01:23:36):
Oh, there's a North American cheetah that's extinct.

Alban (01:23:40):
I mean, there's that thing that's like half a zebra,
half a mule, like on the front,half it's a zebra.
Okay, and half a mule, so it'slike it just looks like a horse
that, like you, put on a zebrahead.

Kevin (01:23:54):
Not sure I'm going to go all my marbles in on that guy.
Hold on.

Jordan (01:23:59):
Let's see here Woolly mammoth.
Oh man, why did see here woollymammoth?

Kevin (01:24:05):
oh man, why did I say woolly mammoth?
Those are the best.
That'd be so cool.
Is there any animal thatexisted that used to fly around
but was big enough for me toride on?
yeah pterodactyl that wasfriendly, so I could domesticate
this animal that I couldmothman, throw a saddle on and
fly over to Alban's house,because that's what we need.
Forget the self-driving cars,we just need to bring back an
animal.
I want the um, I want the thingfrom the never-ending story the

(01:24:28):
large dog that could flysebastian around what was his
name?
Falcor yeah, falcor, yeah,that's what I want to bring back
yeah, I think a woolly mammothdodo.

Jordan (01:24:37):
I agree with Alban, the phylocene would be super cool
and falcor and falcor.

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