The Importance of Owning Your Show: A Spotify Exclusive Cautionary Tale

Episode Transcript
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Jordan (00:00):
Was that a little more energetic? I don't know.

Alban (00:02):
That was more energy, but it's definitely more pauses.

Kevin (00:05):
It was more slow.

Jordan (00:06):
I'm gonna cut out the pauses. Oh my gosh, okay.

Alban (00:09):
Now you're getting amped.
This is how we get each otherpumped up. It's just annoying
each other until we're talking alittle bit higher and more
frustrated.

Jordan (00:16):
Yeah.

Alban (00:16):
Good. This is good content.
So, Kev, a few episodes ago, youtold me that I needed to start
listening to Buzzcast morereligiously.

Kevin (00:31):
Yeah, we talked about that on the show. Yeah.

Alban (00:33):
Yeah. I have, for my own edification, half for possibly
boosting our own numbers, I tookyour advice. And last week, it
was especially pertinent becauseI wasn't on the show. And I have
some follow up. This iHeartstory, like broke, right as I'm
getting ready to go out of town.
And I'm asking Jordan, "hey, canyou fill in for me?" And then it

(00:54):
breaks. And I'm like, Oh, Igotta get back on the show.

Jordan (01:00):
And this is the mobile gaming app advertising story.
Yeah.

Kevin (01:04):
Right. I mean, this is Subway Surfers? Yeah.

Alban (01:06):
Is this not just like one of the most wild stories, I
think, in podcasting in the lastfew years? And there's like
three different versions of thisstory that I've heard. And I
feel I'm not really sure whichis true. I mean, the Podcast 2.0
show, the way they talked aboutit. Adam Curry's like, there's
literally these fake games thatare just a front to boost

(01:29):
numbers. And I had not heardthis. So apparently, Adam, when
he worked in Silicon Valleysaid, there's some that it's a
mobile game. And all it's reallyused for is filtering scammy
activities, like he believessome of them aren't even games.
It's not like they got a bunchof teenagers who aren't
interested in the product. Theycreate a game that you can click

(01:52):
to get extra gems or somethingfor doing something. And then
they're actually hiring somebodylike in Malaysia to go sign up.
And so he was talking about thisis a way that people fake
growth. Kevin pointed out in theshow, and I thought was a good
point. That's probably unlikely,because the game that was being
used, what's it called Kevin?
Subway Surfers?

Kevin (02:13):
Subway Surfers, yeah, and a couple others. But that's
definitely a real, it's a realgame, very popular game.

Alban (02:18):
I'm of the opinion now, that one didn't happen. At the
beginning, I was like, Oh, mygosh, this is a bigger story
than we're talking about. Andthe other is like, Tom's kind of
talking about, like, hey, thisactually could kind of be a good
idea if you're really gettinglisteners. But I feel like the
middle is it's like the iHeartway it was so indicative of like
some of the stuff we keep seeingwith I heart, which is no not

(02:41):
getting new listeners from this.
And they're just juicing thenumbers. Now they're doing it
and IAB certified way which Ithink that should obviously
change now. They're loading upthe right amount of audio to get
the right amount of downloadthat they don't even care if
somebody goes through and clicksand listens. But like, this is
the same thing that I heard doeswith the who's the most powerful

(03:03):
people in podcasting, and it'slike, six people from my heart
that you've never heard of.
Yeah, so I really liked theconversation. But I found myself
in that section, kind of likeyelling at the radio, the radio,
podcast. And I'm like, this is Iheart I just feel like if it was
a different company, I wouldmaybe be a little bit more

(03:25):
inclined to say maybe it was asmart marketing move. But when
you have this fake it till youmake it persona, it feels like
the fake it till you make it isprobably what was going on just
like juice the numbers until weare number one, they started
putting up the science numberone in podcasting, most
influential in podcasting. Wellbefore the numbers reflected

(03:48):
that. And then the rubberstarted reflecting it because
the freaking mobile apps.

Jordan (03:52):
Yeah, and that's the thing is like that's, that's
also harmful to podcasting as awhole. It's like, you know, when
you are doing a round of fundingfor a business, you don't want
to like overvalue your company.
Because if you can't live up tothat, like you're screwed,
you're not going to be able tomake it to like the next
valuation. Right. And it's alittle scary to me putting it in
that sort of like context.

(04:14):
They're inflating downloadnumbers, and it kind of freaks
me out.

Alban (04:17):
Yeah, you see this a lot with like, anything that's VC
funded, they pump a bunch ofmoney in to try to make it to
the next level. And this isdifferent because it's iHeart
that has a very good profitablebusiness. I believed until
recently.

Kevin (04:33):
Yeah, I mean, their business is content and then
selling advertising around thecontent. They absolutely make
money doing that. I don't knowhow much they make or how
profitable they are. But yeah,there's a business there. They
own a lot of radio stations too.
So a lot of local ads.

Jordan (04:45):
That's true.

Alban (04:46):
Anyway, I think I just wanted to add like this is a
little bit of like maybe thefourth time now that I'm like,
huh, I liked I heart I have somerespect for the shows they make.
The creators who are associatedwith I heart are good people.
And now This is like the thirdor fourth time I've seen this,
Hey, we're the biggest. But thatdoesn't land for anybody in the

(05:06):
podcasting industry who's like,doesn't pass my smell test.
There was a lot of like, we'retrying to give him the benefit
of the doubt. And I was justkind of like, I can't give him
the benefit of doubt anymore,that this point, this is the
strategy for them. They saythey're number one in
podcasting. They say they're thetop destination for radio. They
say they're the most powerfulpeople in podcasting. And they

(05:30):
don't disclose that they wrotethat article, and they published
that article, it just feels likeit's all have the same cloth.

Jordan (05:37):
Yeah, it appears to be like them manifesting that they
are the number one inpodcasting. If they say it like
enough times, they'll come true.
But then when it doesn't, thenthey start like skewing things.
And that's a little different.

Alban (05:51):
I think manifesting is internal, you say to yourself,
you tell yourself, I will be thenumber one in podcasting, you
don't go lie.

Kevin (06:04):
You have to put it out to the world, that's part of it.

Jordan (06:07):
You have to, you have to put it out to the universe.

Kevin (06:10):
If you just say, in your own mind, I'm going to run a
marathon, you may or may not runa marathon. But as soon as you
start telling everybody thatyou're running a marathon,
there's a much better chancethat you're going to run a
marathon.

Alban (06:20):
To be clear, if they didn't say we will be the number
one. This is the right analogy.
If you just said Kennedy, thatthey said was I am the fastest
marathon runner in the world. Ibeat Kipchoge and I crossed the
two hour mark. And you're like,wow, that does not seem right,
based on the level of physicalfitness that Alban seems to
have. And then you dig into it.

(06:41):
And it's like, I skipped halfthe race actually could skip
half the race, and I stillwouldn't beat--but like, that's
what that's what they did. Theythey gamed it, and then they did
win, but it's like, oh, everyoneknows that's not real.

Kevin (06:56):
I don't know. I think it's worth a shot. Let's take
it. Let's take a shot. BuzzcastThe number one podcast about
podcasting.

Alban (07:04):
Saying it, that's actually still more true I think
than the iHeart one, but yeah.

Kevin (07:09):
I think it is to maybe we would even say about podcasting.
We're just the number onepodcast number one podcast.
Thanks for listening toBuzzcast, the number one podcast
in the world!

Jordan (07:22):
Buzzsprout dev team has been working super, super hard
cranking out really awesomefeatures back to back to back.
They're doing such a great job.
And they just cranked out a newone that is super amazing. What
is that, Kev?

Kevin (07:35):
Yeah, it's episode footers. It's a great new
feature. Listen, hey, instead ofme talking about it. Why don't
we let Alban do this one becausethe way we work at Buzzsprout is
ideas can come from anybody inany department. And this was an
idea that Alban pitched a longtime ago, and there's some
reasons why it sat around for alittle while and till we got it,
right. But Alban, why don't youtell us about it since it was
your idea?

Alban (07:55):
Yeah, I just looked it up. I pitched this back in 2019.

Jordan (07:59):
Whoa.

Alban (08:00):
So this is a good example. There's a lot of times
where people reach out and askabout features, and they're out
there in some form inside ofBuzzsprout. being kicked around,
we're thinking about it, ittakes a little while for us to
go. This is exactly right. Andit's the right time to do it.
But this feature is episodefooter. In descriptions I kept

(08:20):
seeing, especially at thebottom, there was a lot of the
same information. You know,these are the Twitter handles
for the people who make thepodcast, our music is made by
brake master cylinder, our blah,blah, blah, like you put in all
these credits, and all sorts ofstuff. And the problem is like
one your copy and pasting thatevery time. But the second

(08:40):
problem is, if you ever want tochange that, let's say I just
added a new social mediaprofile, you now we're gonna go
add that back to in our case,like 70 episodes, like that's a
little bit much. And so theepisode footer is just like the
footer on any page in a Worddocument. It's some part that's
repeated on every page. And soyou can put information down

(09:03):
there like links to profiles andways to support the show and
calls to action. And it'sincluded in all of your episode
descriptions across all of yourepisodes. So I was super excited
when I saw that we were workingon it. Yeah, it's been a few
years in the making, and it wasreally good.

Kevin (09:19):
It was, you know, this project was, it's a fun one to
tackle. And we tried to keep itas simple as possible. One of
the things that I'm seeingpeople kick around in the
Facebook group is if you've got70 episodes, or 100 episodes or
150 episodes, and then you add afooter, does that mean you have
to go back and pull all thatinfo out of your first 70, 100,
200, episodes, how many have andwhere we landed was that really

(09:42):
is what has to happen. We triedand tried to figure out a
programmatic way, like asystematic way to be able to
edit previous episodedescriptions in bulk and
everything we came up with thereare problems with it. So looking
for repetitive content and usinglike an algorithmic system And
to try to figure out how much tocut off of previous notes, where
we landed was the possibility ofdoing damage to your

(10:05):
descriptions was way too high.
And so depending how manyepisodes you have, you might
have, you know, a couple hoursof work to do to go through and
edit all of them and get it backout. But the upside of that is
that once it's done, now, youcan use this new feature for all
your episodes going forward andever, you want to put a new link
and all of your episodes atonce, it's now a 22nd task
instead of a two or three hourtask. And so it does mean that

(10:26):
some people are going to have alittle bit more work to do if
you've been podcasting for awhile. But I think it's worth
it's worth carving out some timeon a Saturday or something to be
able to get that done. And nowyou can use this new feature.
And you have this powerful toolmoving forward.

Jordan (10:41):
It's funny that you mentioned that because our
Facebook moderator, JonathanSwenson, when I notified them
that this feature was deployed,he told me that the night
before, he had just gone throughevery single one of his prior
episodes, updating his and itwas literally one time and he

(11:04):
just like I just felt throughlike the chat, just that dismay
of like, "Oh, if I just waitedone day!" So it's a real thing.
Like it's a lot, a lot of workto go back through, especially
if you've been podcasting for along time.

Kevin (11:20):
You know, I saw somebody else in the Facebook group who
said that they had like ateenage son or daughter and they
were going to pay them a fewdollars to do this on an
afternoon. And I'm like, That isa great job for a teenage kid.
You have somebody, a kid, 12 towhatever, that would be a good
job for them. Like just edit,you show them how to edit an
episode and pull this out andsave it now do that 150 times
and you get 10 out of it.

Jordan (11:43):
And don't delete!

Kevin (11:44):
Right?

Alban (11:44):
Just wait until your episode footer has like here's
how to donate Roblox bucks. Oneof the questions I've seen since
we announced this was peopletrying to understand how would
this fit with a larger template.
So the other version of requestsI looked at when I was
researching and pitching thisproject was people were talking

(12:06):
about templates. And I kept likekind of running into this
question of like, what is thevalue of a template, at least in
law, like everyone uses tons oftemplates. And it's really
valuable when something's highlyrepetitive. You know, there's
some that are standard. And soyou're almost using the exact
same ones, you're replacingnames. But then there's some

(12:26):
times like it's very factspecific, like what things
happened on what days. And whenyou get into those type of
things, templates stoppedbecoming super useful. And
that's kind of the thing thatwas sitting in my mind as I'm
looking at, hey, can we get somesort of templates, what I
realized was, the only part thatneeds to be quote, unquote,

(12:48):
templatized, and actually needsto be consistent is this very
small area that is alwaysconsistent. It's the links, it's
the contact, it's the leadgeneration, it's the hey, here's
the premium feed these 12 thingsmax that you would ever include.
And so it was just kind of aninteresting point, I kind of

(13:10):
wanted to share, this is aleading example of we went in a
simpler direction. But in theend, I couldn't find a whole lot
of value, maybe going the fulltemplate way.

Jordan (13:22):
That's what I found with doing both Dreamful and then
also doing Buzzcast. SoDreamful, I just copy the prior
episodes show notes and slapthem into the next episode and
just change like the story thatI told. And then the music. That
is it. That is all that Ichanged in my show notes. And
then the rest of it's just allthe same information they'll be

(13:43):
putting in that footer. ButBuzzcast I can't do that. I
cannot just copy and paste ourprior episodes, show notes,
because all of the topics aredifferent than what we have done
in the prior episode. So yeah,it's kind of like a situational
thing. Like you said it would itjust would not make sense.

Kevin (13:58):
So one of the last things that's worth mentioning is if
you look at the footer feature,it has a character limit of 500
characters, and that includeshidden characters. So if you do
links, you might see that, youknow, you just typed the word
hello. But it didn't just takefive off because you linked
hello to whatevergoogle.com/hello To do a Google
search for the word. And all ofa sudden, you've lost 75

(14:20):
characters, because all thosecharacters that you don't see
that are needed to make thatlink are counted as well. So let
me explain that a little bit andwhy it's in place Apple podcast
app, which is the most popularapps but like in the world, for
most podcasts that applies aswell has a 4000 character limit
for what they now need to callepisode descriptions. Now
they're calling an episodenotes. Okay, so that is a

(14:43):
constraint that we put on theEpisode notes for every episode
4000 characters. You've seenthat anytime you've gone in and
added episode notes for anepisode, you see a little
character counter and it countsdown as we're introducing more
and more dynamic contentabilities into Buzzsprout thing
He's like, if you set up anaffiliate or sponsor, if you
have dynamic content, if you useBuzzsprout ads, and if now if

(15:05):
you use the footer, all of thosethings get added into your
episode notes, right? So youmight write, you know, 3999
characters versus where theepisode notes and then you hit
save and you think you're good.
But what you don't know is thatyou have an affiliate link
getting dropped in, you havesome dynamic content getting
dropped in, and now you have anepisode footer getting dropped
in, pushes you over 4000characters, so all that stuff's
gonna get cut off in Applepodcasts and possibly some other

(15:28):
apps as well. So how do weaccount for that, the way that
we account for that is in ourdynamic content tools, all of
them, we put some limits aroundthem to let you know, like, you
shouldn't do too much in here,because it's going to impact how
much of your episode descriptionreally gets to be used. And we
also have to implement like ahierarchy, like at some point,
something could get cut, what'sgonna get cut. And so the way

(15:49):
that we do that is that all ofyour dynamic content, your
affiliate links, your dynamiccontent, Buzzsprout, add
content, your footer contentthat will never get truncated,
but we're going to truncate onepiece of content, that's always
going to be your episodedescription. If we add all that
stuff up, and it's over 4000,we're going to truncate your
description, to be able to makesure that we can fit all the
dynamic stuff. Why, because theydidn't know when stuff comes and

(16:10):
goes. So once it leaves, then wecan add more of your
description. And so that's theway it works. If you're
wondering, and you're wonderingwhy we put 500 characters around
it is because we don't want youdoing you know, it doesn't make
sense to do 2000 charactersworth of footer stuff, because
then you're not gonna have verymuch room to put in Episode
notes for your specificepisodes. So we're encouraging
people to try to keep it tight.
That may be the right number, itmay not be, but that's where we

(16:30):
started, we're listening tofeedback. And we'll adjust as
needed. But that is a constraintthat we're working within when
we build stuff like that. Sothat's why it's there.

Alban (16:38):
This is one of the areas where Apple has a limitation
that isn't there in otherpodcast apps. But I kind of side
with apple here, like it's gotto be a limit. There is some
limit where it's like this istoo much show notes. And I
looked this up, the averageEnglish word is 4.7 characters.
So 5.7. Once we add a space,we're getting 702 words into

(17:02):
this episode description. That'sthree pages double spaced. If
you can't write your show notesand three pages, double spaced,
there's just too much going inthere. Most people aren't
reading the show notes, they'regoing in there to click a link.
And they're taking one or twoactions that you asked them to
do, you have the ability to putthe whole transcript in the
transcript tag, or to directpeople to a website where

(17:24):
there's even more info. I likethe limitation just saying hey,
4000 is where we're going tostop. And because there's
different ways now to put wordsand links and content into this
4000 characters, let's just findourselves like something that's
reasonable. I noticed peoplejust want to put more and more
info in here. But after 2000characters, you know, 350 words,

(17:49):
diminishing returns areapproaching very.

Kevin (17:52):
Yeah, I really like it as a place to drop links. Like it
shouldn't necessarily be anarrative definitely shouldn't
be a transcript transcripts orsomething totally different. And
they live in a totally differenttag. But for links for things
that you talk about on yourepisode that you want to link
to, or make it easy for youraudience to be able to follow
that link and find thatresource. That's a great use for
episode notes.

Jordan (18:10):
I think that a lot of people misuse episode
descriptions for a place tokeyword stuff. And they think
that like, the more that theyput in there and treat it as
like a blog post, it's going tohelp the discoverability or
searchability of their podcast,but Apple doesn't even use the
episode description in theirsearch engine. So I think that

(18:30):
that's also a misconception andwhy people kind of make their
shownotes a little bit too long.

Kevin (18:35):
they might be able to help a little bit. Alvin, you
could probably speak to thisbecause the if you're a
Buzzsprout podcaster, you dohave a public website, it does
list all your episodes and yourepisodes, all of the episode
notes for those episodes is putin there. So I imagine Google
indexes it and uses it. But mostpeople are not finding your
podcast through Google. Some arebut not all.

Alban (18:53):
Most of your podcast episodes are not going to rank
for some highly competitivekeyword based on the 700 words
that you wrote in yourdescription. Like you're
interviewing, you know, somebodywho is the creator of something,
and you know, somebody'ssearching for her. And now
they've all of a sudden theyfind like your interview. That's
a perfect match. But if you'relike, Hey, I'm going to do a 30

(19:15):
minute episode on credit cards,and hopefully I'm going to rank
for credit cards that I can getlike referral points when people
sign up for them. That's notgoing to happen whether or not
you have 20,000 words to writethere rather than 700. So I
think podcasting one of the nicethings is like it's a little bit
less game of firewall like alittle bit less that you can
trick it I guess you can go getsome ads and mobile app that

(19:39):
there's like a little bit lessthan this scam Enos just use
your description the normal way,right something that's helpful
for the people who arelistening, make it clear what
this episode is about. And whenyou reference something link to
it. I've actually seen decoderwhich I really like it's a verge
podcast with Eli Patel. They'lloften give a little bit of like
a glossary. So if they talkabout Mike or chips, and then

(20:00):
they'll mention like wafers andfoundries and define those
phrases. I think that's superuseful. But again, like, that's
not going to take up 700 words,they're defining the few words
that you may not know, in caseyou want to check out the
description. So good ways to useit, I take for 1000s More than
enough.

Jordan (20:22):
In the news, in the last week or two, is Spotify platform
exclusive podcasts. And, youknow, we've talked about
platform exclusivity a lot, andkind of like, why that's
detrimental to the Creator. Andthis is really the perfect
example of it. So Spotify cut 11shows from Parcast and Gimlet to

(20:47):
concentrate on exclusive hitsthat they consider to be bigger
and better. And I'm reallybummed out because some of these
shows are actually ones Ilistened to on the regular,
especially Crime Show. It wassuch a good show. And I've
actually been looking for likethe last like six months to see
why they're not putting forthnew episodes. And I was waiting
for the next season to start.
And now it's done. And I'm notgoing to hear another episode.

Alban (21:09):
Yeah, the first way this crossed my radar was Dr. Ayana
Johnson wrote something aboutit. She was the co host of how
to save a planet was like theirclimate podcast. It's so
frustrating to read this fromthe perspective of somebody who
worked on these podcasts, theymade a successful show at

(21:29):
gimlet, gimlet ownership got areally big payout when they went
and sold to Spotify. Nothingwrong with that. And then at
some point, Spotify says, Hey,this is gonna be exclusive now.
Well, then they drastically cutthe available market for these
shows by say they need to beexclusive. You know, the purpose
being convinced everyone who'slistening to your show, they

(21:52):
better listen on Spotify. Butthen to come back during, you
know, the beginning of aneconomic downturn and say,
sorry, your shows just notcutting it anymore. Look at the
numbers. They're way down fromwhen you used to be on your own
and be everywhere you're done.
It's like you bought the showand made it exclusive for the
intended purpose of convincingthe existing audience to move.

(22:14):
You did not buy this show,because it was a powerhouse to
sell ads against the strategy ifthat's what you were trying to
do is to not go exclusive. Youknow, this is a multimillion
dollar slip up. Not a big dealfor Spotify put me in is this a
big deal for people who pouredtheir heart and their time and
their soul and their creativityinto these shows only for the

(22:38):
show to get cancelled? Becausethey got kneecapped by the
Spotify strategy?

Jordan (22:45):
Yeah. And the thing that's like really crappy about
this, too, is that Spotify nevertold them, Hey, your show isn't
performing to the standard thatwe like, you're not meeting our
version of audience goals. Andso these teams that were working
on these podcasts, didn't evenknow that their shows were
underperforming until Spotifywas like, Hey, your shows

(23:07):
underperforming by and then theywere like sent home, then these
unions are requesting thatSpotify release the work that
they've already done on theseshows, and just let them
continue it independently. But Idon't see that happening.

Kevin (23:21):
Yeah, I mean, is this too much different from when a
network show gets canceled? Or aNetflix original show doesn't
get renewed? Or something likethat?

Alban (23:29):
It's different in that view, or a YouTube show? First,
I don't know I'm trying to getthe analogy right, you were open
anywhere for free. And youactually built an audience, and
you got pulled in for a specificstrategy. And then that made the
show not viable. And yeah, theydon't get released. So that's
acceptable. But it's like thefrustrating bit is like, you got

(23:51):
everything you wanted Spotify,which is us, convincing our
audience to switch. And thenwhen we are no longer useful,
you discarded our show.

Kevin (24:00):
It's a bummer for sure for those creators, but I also
think those creators now havethe opportunity to go out and do
it again, like this is a littlebit like what we talked about
last week, when we talked aboutthis high school students who
put together what was the nameof the show? Know Justice, Know
Peace, right? And the schoolboard said that this is actually
our IP, and we're gonna moveforward with it. And we said,

(24:20):
well, the students are theactual talent here. They're the
ones that built this thing. Andso now they can go do it. And I
might have to do it under adifferent name, but they can do
it. And I think the same thingapplies for any of these
creators whose shows werecanceled. They have an audience,
they have people who are upset,like Jordan, you're saying I
listened to some of the shows onthe regulars wondering why the
new episodes weren't coming out,or when they're gonna do another
one. Like now they get to go dothat on their own terms their

(24:43):
own way. They may or may nothave wanted to be acquired by
Spotify. They may or may nothave wanted to go exclusive, but
now they have the opportunity todo their own thing their own
way. I don't know I have a hardtime as much as I kind of come
down on Spotify. I have a hardtime getting really Like it was
a business decision, the showsweren't performing the way that
they needed them to perform. Sothey decided to cut back on what

(25:05):
wasn't working and double downon the stuff that is working.
That sounds like a good businessdecision. But it's the same
criticism that we have asSpotify all the time. It's not
that they're not making goodbusiness decisions, it's that
the business decisions come atthe cost of some of these
independent creators andindependent podcasters. So I'm
kinda like, I mean, it's justanother thing. Like, it
shouldn't be surprising. This iswhat Spotify does. I think the

(25:26):
challenge here is to what's theopportunity for the creators,
and the opportunity for thecreators is now you can go and
start again. And I know that'skind of a bummer that you have
to start over again, but you getto do it on your own terms. And
I'm hoping that at leastsomewhere along this journey,
they were able to earn enoughfrom the acquisition and from
Spotify to be able to have somesort of buffer to be able to

(25:47):
sustain themselves while theyrebuild. But hopefully, it's a
lesson learned for all of them.
I can't imagine it wouldn't bethat they need to own stuff from
the very beginning. This isexactly what Laura Meyer talks
about on her shamelessacquisition podcast.

Jordan (25:59):
Yeah. And in a similar vein, I think it was like last
Thursday was when this happened,that Spotify, UK, they
relaunched a Spotify Originalpodcast, but they replaced the
hosts without telling the hoststhat they were replaced.

Alban (26:14):
What?

Jordan (26:15):
Yeah. So there's a podcast that came out in 2020.
It's with Gizzi and Sydney, andthey created this podcast like
in their kitchen, called Sex,Lies, and DM Slides, and they
got picked up by Spotif, did afull season of it. The final
episode of the first season wasin like 2021. And then just like

(26:37):
last week, these other...I don'tknow what to even call them,
because I don't I'm not familiarwith them...but these other
influencers, I suppose, posted aSpotify original screenshot of
their podcast cover art calledSex, Lies, and DM Slides. And
these poor hosts found outthrough this, and Spotify even

(26:59):
went so far as to delete theirpodcast. So Spotify just like
completely scrapped the wholething and replaced it. This is a
tough one. It's like Kevin wassaying, this is really tough.
Because if it is a Spotifyoriginal, like, even though
these girls were the ones thatcreated the format created the
the name of the podcast, theydid all that work, they still

(27:20):
got picked up by Spotify. And sodoes Spotify own that? It is
probably baked into the papers.

Kevin (27:27):
Yeah, that's exactly what it means. I mean, when you sell
something to someone, that'swhat they're buying. That's what
you're selling. So I think whatwe're dealing with here is a lot
of people have regrets about adeal that they made with
Spotify. And I get it like Itotally empathize with the pain
that you're feeling and theregret. But I have a hard time
saying, again, as much as I kindof complain about Spotify, I
have a hard time saying thatthis is something unethical that

(27:49):
they're doing, they bought it,they can do what they want with
it now, so they can replace thetalent. It's just like you're
watching a sitcom on NBC. Andall of a sudden, the George who
used to be played by Joe Smith,is now played by Michael Jones.
Sometimes they make a joke of iton the show, sometimes they
don't. And sometimes you hearthe backstory of why they
switched the actor, andsometimes they don't. It's their
call their show they own it. Iunderstand why people are like,

(28:12):
this is a bummer. But it's like,it's theirs.

Alban (28:16):
Yeah, I think that, to me, this is a personal story.
It's a story of puttingeverything in to a creative
project to try to make abusiness or a company work that
sold. And it seems to you likewe're part of Spotify now.
Everything's gonna be smoothsailing from here on out because
we're aligned with this reallypowerful brand. But the truth of

(28:37):
the matter is, the money is thevalue. And if you're not
included in that sale, I mean,this isn't some unethical thing
that they're doing this isn'tlegally suspect. They're well
within their rights to do it. Ithink like there's two different
perspectives here, the ones thehuman story, and one is the

(28:58):
business story. And I think thatwe've been talking about this in
many different ways. Now, sincethe beginning of the show,
making Podcasting A primarilycreative, independent thing. And
making it commercial is going tohave a lot of changes. One's
gonna be money, like there's alot of money here that wasn't

(29:18):
here before. That's cool. Butthe downside is, a lot of the
creatives are now no longer thepeople in control. And man like
it hurts to get laid off fromany job. But there is some
nother level when like you'relaid off and you're replaced
with somebody who's doing thecreative work you created, or
you're laid off because yourshow didn't work. But their main

(29:40):
reason your show didn't work isbecause the business made a move
to make you exclusive to helpthem out and then they discarded
you. If you're entering into abusiness relationship with
somebody, make sure that you arecomfortable with it going south
the way that it could. And sofor going exclusive or becoming
an employee at a big company,like when things don't work out,

(30:02):
they can let you go. Yeah. Andso it's just it's tough to read
because 38 Good people losttheir jobs. And a year ago, that
would have not been a big deal.
And right now, it's just gettinga little bit tougher to find a
great job. And it's going to betough on all those families.

Jordan (30:19):
You know, the other element about this, that is a
little concerning to me isSpotify's disregard for the
audience. Like it's not justhurting the creators, it's also
hurting the audience, like Iknow that the shows aren't
performing quite as well as thebigger ones that they want, you
know, like the Kim Kardashian,or Megan, Markel, or whatever.
But how big are these shows,they could have a lot of really

(30:43):
loyal listeners like myself, whoare now hurt because some of
their favorite shows are done.

Alban (30:50):
Alining yourself with somebody who's much more
powerful than you is reallyawesome when you're totally
aligned. But the minute thatthose roads diverge, and they
have all the control, thenthings really start to hurt for
the person who is in the worstposition. So I mean, that
happens with at will employmentanywhere in the world. That

(31:11):
happens in tons of differentways. But like we're seeing
podcasters give up the benefitsof freedom and control for the
benefit of money and security.
But the security is not asstrong. As we really imagined.
It seems really secure. Whentimes are good, as soon as we
start to even touch an economicdownturn while the things

(31:32):
change. So I really feel foreveryone involved. But I do hope
next time this kind of comesaround that we hold on some of
these lessons like there is areal benefit to being
independent, controlling yourown destiny, and be able to make
the decisions yourself.

Jordan (31:52):
Elgato just announced that they have produced their
first dynamic microphone!

Kevin (31:59):
Elgato is transitioning, right? They were big for video
game streamers, Twitchstreamers. That was their whole
market for a few years. And nowthey're trying to make products
for podcasters. And since Albanis big into the Twitch streaming
scene, he of course, is theperfect audience member for this
crossover they're trying to makebecause he's a podcaster and a
Twitch streamer.

Alban (32:17):
I would actually I wouldn't be such a bad Twitch
streamer. But I do like oh god,you both are right, I right now
I'm using an Elgato key light.
So it's one of these lights theyput up on your desk and it
lights your face, and you canchange the color and the
brightness. And man is the UI onthe computer really good. And
then the other thing I'm usingright now is the Elgato wav XLR,

(32:39):
which is just an audiointerface. Very clean, we can
drive at SM seven be easily soit's got a lot of gain. There's
a lot of other stuff I like alot of people swear by the
streaming setups, I don't know awhole lot about it there. So
when they put out a mic, I'm youknow, somewhat interested to
check it out. They're not superwell known for their

(33:01):
microphones, but the stuff thatI've used of theirs, I am
pleasantly surprised. It's wellbuilt, it's a reasonable price.
And you know, this looks likeit's coming in at 99 bucks, and
it's a XLR mic that will workreally well with the way of XLR
I think like definitely worthtrying out I doubt it's going to
be something I replace my SMseven be with.

Jordan (33:25):
You know I'm always really surprised by the amount
of companies that createmicrophones for like streamers
and stuff and it's alwayscondenser mics, and I don't I
don't understand that becausethey capture so much ambient
noise. And so I'm actuallyreally excited that Elgato like
finally did a dynamic mic andit's specifically for streamers

(33:45):
broadcasters podcasters but whatsurprised me is that it's only
XLR and not USB would you thinkthat USB would be more
beneficial to a lot ofstreamers.

Kevin (33:57):
Unless your company also makes USB interface.

Alban (34:00):
I was just about to say, when you have the product shots
with your low profile boom armwhich looks pretty good looks a
lot like the ultimate OC YT andthen you got the wave XLR in the
background I'm like this isintended to be a make sure you

(34:20):
buy all three of these thingsright.

Kevin (34:22):
Yeah, they all go together and I think the move
from condenser mic to dynamicmic has been about because a
dynamic mic requires a decentmicrophone technique like you
can get the gain high enoughthat you don't have to have
perfect microphone technique andwhen I say that I mean like just
being close to the mic being onmic no more than like six inches
away. Most streamers are notgreat at that and especially if

(34:42):
you're playing a video gamewhile you have the mic in front
of you you might be moving quitea bit and so condenser mic does
probably make sense for some ofthem especially when they're
first getting into it. Theproblem is like you said it
picks up a lot of keyboardnoises whatever they're doing
while they're playing the game,you know, controller or whatever
might not be in the treated roommight have outside no is so
dynamic doesn't make sense. Butit makes sense for a streamer as

(35:03):
they're getting, you know,better microphone technique
while they're playing. But italways makes perfect sense for a
podcaster like podcasters. Fromday one, we need to understand
microphone technique we need tobe on the mic. We're not playing
a game while we're talking. Soit's not as difficult to be able
to do both things. And so asElgato moves into the podcasting
space, make sense from the makea dynamic mic, it seems like
it's worth checking out, becauseit does look like a guy who

(35:24):
makes pretty high quality, notthe highest quality, but pretty
high quality products. And nowthey have a microphone that's
designed for podcasters.

Alban (35:30):
I've brought this up a few times, maybe not on this
show. But there's this thing Ikeep starting to run into where
people like are the recommender,they're like, Oh, I'll tell you
what to buy. And then they giveyou a bunch of pros and cons.
And at the end, they say like,basically do your own research
and like figure out what is bestfor you. And I'm like, you have
to recommend something. If likeyou're the recommender, that's

(35:51):
your job, I liked the Elgato isat least building up, like,
here's the full set of what youshould build. They're not
building 12 different mics thatlike they're saying, figure out
which is good for you. They'relike, here's the mic, here's the
interface, here's the boom arm,here's all the stuff, use our
exact setup. It's not perfectfor me. But I think for a lot of

(36:13):
people who are recording, remotepodcasts, they're doing
streaming, maybe they play somevideo games, so they do a
YouTube channel, you've got apretty solid setup with Elgato.
And it's not the exact thing Iwould pick. But I do use two of
their things. And I found themboth to be really high quality.
So this is a mic I would beinterested in testing out it's

(36:36):
not my favorite looking mic. Butyeah, I think if, if you've used
Elgato is a pretty high qualitybrand.

Jordan (36:42):
I actually think that like aesthetically, they put a
lot of thought into how themicrophone is going to look on
camera, because they have a veryinteresting mount for this
microphone, the microphone, it'skind of like a rounded rectangle
shape, right. And it has on oneside like a button. And it's the

(37:04):
Elgato logo. And what they didwith this is there's like this
one sided mount that you canactually remove from one side
and put to the other based onlike where your cameras angled.
And so you can actually put thatlogo button in the spot where
the cameras going to face sothat it just looks like this
like floating microphone, andyou don't see the swivel arm and

(37:26):
things like that. And so I thinkthat there's like a lot of
thought actually went into thedesign of this. So I was
actually surprised that youdidn't like the look of it. And
me from a crafting perspective,I'm looking at that logo button
and thinking about how I couldput my own logo on that button
and stuff.

Alban (37:43):
I'm looking at this thing thinking whoever runs brand
Elgato is like crushing itbecause they said on one side
will be an ugly mount on theother side will be possibly a
lighting up logo of Elgato. Andwhat's this used for primarily
streaming and video podcasts andstuff like this is going to be
front and center. So in the sameway, the SM seven B got a lot of

(38:08):
notoriety when a bunch of videopodcasters started using it and
people were like, Oh, what'sthat podcast Mike, this Elgato
wave dx, I bet ends up being ina ton of videos on YouTube and
starts to become one of like theGo twos. And plus, they've got
the camera, they've got thelights, they've got the little
XLR, they've got the like streamdeck, they've got all sorts of

(38:30):
stuff. So I think they justrounded it out with a really
good setup. And I bet a lot ofpeople will buy it.

Jordan (38:36):
I'm hoping that the sound is actually comparable to
other you know, $100 and lessmicrophones that we really like
like the Samsung and the Rodepod mic or something like that,
because it looks so good. That'sthe thing is like, it looks like
an expensive microphone. So ifit's something that's more
affordable, that'd be reallygood. I watched a video of
someone testing it out. And itseemed like it handled plosives

(38:59):
really, really well. And itseemed like it had like a really
nice tonality to the sound. SoI'm hoping that it's really
good, except it's gonna beexpensive because it's XLR, so
you have to get the audiointerface to go along with it.
So it'd be a lot better if itwas XLR and USB and then that
way a beginner podcaster couldhave a nice microphone or a nice

(39:20):
looking microphone.

Alban (39:22):
Yeah, it looks like you're probably in for about 300
bucks. If you go the Elgatoroute you want to get $100 boom
arm you're getting a $20 XLRcable 160 for the wave, XLR wave
dx, another 100 and they giveyou a discount, but you end up
at about 300 bucks when I builtout my package. So it's cool.
Mike will be interested to testit out and interested to hear

(39:42):
what people say. The more micswe get like we're gonna keep
getting better and better. Sothis is good.

Kevin (39:47):
Did you see my link to Vinylfy to create vinyl records
from whatever audio files youhave?

Jordan (39:56):
Oh yeah,

Alban (39:57):
This is wild and it's wild because of how cheap it

Kevin (40:01):
Well, it's--

Jordan (40:03):
Wait, how cheap is it?
Because I thought it wasexpensive.

Kevin (40:06):
Almost $100 for a record.
So I don't know why you'resaying "cheap" for.

Jordan (40:09):
One record?

Kevin (40:10):
Yes. For one record.

Jordan (40:11):
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Alban!

Alban (40:13):
I'm sorry. I'm imagining, like start this business. And
think like, where do you have tobe selling these custom made
single vinyls to say, hey, thiswas a good idea that we started
this business 100 euros seemslike lower than what I would
have expected. I'm not sayingI'm going out and buying a
bunch. I'm not buying $30 vinylseither, but 100 bucks that we

(40:36):
could get a 10 minutes ofBuzzcast on a 10 inch vinyl
record. I could do it.

Jordan (40:42):
I think to make our money back, we would need to do
like a Buzzcast like two hourspecial. And plus, vinyl records
have two sides. So it would haveto be.

Kevin (40:53):
I know, but they said you can only do 20 minutes of music
total.

Alban (40:56):
Yeah, 10 minutes on each side

Kevin (40:57):
10 minutes per side.

Jordan (40:58):
What? Okay, that's even worse. What?

Kevin (41:01):
So, it would have to be like "Best of" I don't know how
many shows we've done. But wemight be able to come up with 20
minutes best, you have to buythree of them. That's pushing
it.

Jordan (41:13):
I think if we just spliced together all of albums
like wonky transitions thatsometimes make it to the show,
and sometimes don't if we justdid like a compilation of albums
transition, like

Kevin (41:24):
when artists make it really big, they get their own
channels on Spotify and AppleMusic, like, you know, the
Beatles essentials, this wouldbe the Buzzcast Essentials. And
it'd be 20 minutes from the pastthree years of our best stuff.
And, you know, we might have tostretch it a little bit to get
full 20.

Alban (41:40):
These are the kind of like self indulgent things that
I am highly skeptical of notbecause I'd be against owning
this vinyl, but because I wouldNo, I would never play it and no
one's gonna buy it from us. It'sjust gonna be humiliating when
we put this all together. And wehave exactly one purchase from
my own mom or something thatthat's like our entire sales. I
thought 100 bucks, I wasimpressed. I was impressed the

(42:03):
company was able to do it forthat price. I'm not saying I'm
buying them. But I'm kind ofproud of them for being able to
get it down to that price. Imean, it's a big deal, you're
making something physical. Thatis like you're etching the
grooves that there's work beingdone here, and it's totally
custom. So 100 euros,

Kevin (42:20):
I just wanted to link to it, because we had this, you
know, discussion, two or threeepisodes ago about a podcast
that put their stuff to vinyl.
What I don't understand is thelimitation, most records that I
have have way more than 20minutes worth of audio on them
total. So it must have somethingto do with the process that
they're using to create these.
But it could be cool as like agiveaway or something from your

(42:40):
podcast, that you know, somebodycould win their favorite episode
on vinyl. Again, if your podcastepisodes are under 20 minutes,
whatever, it's not a big deal, Ijust want to show you that there
is a service out there thatexists. And so if you want to
get your podcasts on vinyl, andit's under 20 minutes, and you
don't mind spending $100 on it,it can be done.

Jordan (42:58):
There's gotta be something else. Like there's
gotta be another way. So we livedowntown near this really hip
coffee shop that always hasbands playing right, and we'll
go down there and I'll see theselike indie bands that they're
not that great. And yet theyhave a merch table with a bunch
of records. So I

Kevin (43:19):
imagine if you're getting like 500 or 1000 pressed or
something like that, it'sprobably a different technique.
And so the price comes way down.
But if you just want to be ableto get a one off

Alban (43:27):
guys, I'm I'm doing real time research right now in the
clouds.io up to 72 minutes.
They're doing it on 12 inch, andthey're doing 2x LP lathe cut
vinyl records at $5 in the US 72minutes. That's a Buzzcast
episode. So we're bringing theprice down. We're getting the
whole thing that's way betterdoable. Yeah. And I think that

(43:49):
this might be a neat need to beone of our first growth
strategies, Jordan. So we'vebeen talking about trying to
grow the podcast in unique ways.
Hear me out, make some Buzzcastvinyls. Go drop them off, sneak
them in to Jordan's localhipster coffee shop and CV

(44:10):
someplace.

Kevin (44:11):
This is podcasting for hipsters. So like what if we
sold a subscription a premiumpodcast subscription? You could
subscribe and then every twoweeks you get a vinyl delivered
to your house every two weeks?
Yeah, because once we do anepisode, then it has to get
pressed the vinyl then we got todo shipping. So you'd be a
little bit behind. But hipstersdon't care about that. They're
fine, because it's like it'sold. So it's even better.

Jordan (44:29):
Yeah, it's not cool to like want things instantly.

Kevin (44:33):
Like it's an old business models like when Netflix used to
mail DVDs to your house. It'slike that we're doing podcasting
on vinyl, you subscribe. It'slike it's crazy expensive. It's
gonna be like 500 ollars a monthto records every month. And they
always have like, new colors,new artwork, and the latest
episode.

Alban (44:48):
This is...guys.

Kevin (44:49):
Could be huge.

Jordan (44:50):
We're making this happen.

Alban (44:52):
It's such a bad idea. I would be okay with printing one
these ideas of like actuallyimagining of printing it. That'd
be super exciting. If somebodyactually did this, I would just
if it was us, I would say we'rereally stupid for doing this.

Jordan (45:06):
Now I kind of want to do it because Alban thinks it's
stupid.

Kevin (45:10):
There are definitely shows that are big enough to be
able to pull this off.

Alban (45:13):
I mean, like, Radiolab and 99% Invisible and like a lot
of these like kind of NPR shows.
I feel like there's a lot inthat realm that makes sense to
me.

Jordan (45:23):
Or fiction.

Alban (45:24):
Yeah, Welcome to Nightvale or I could see
something like that working.

Kevin (45:28):
Or what if you could buy like the original series of
Serial or something on vinyl?
For like, $300 you just get theauthor get the whole box set.

Jordan (45:35):
Oh, that'd be cool.
Before we get into theseBuzzboosts, I don't know how
it's like slipped my radar, butPodnews has a Boostagram
Numerology on GitHub. Is thathow you say it? GitHub?

Kevin (45:52):
Yeah, GitHub.

Jordan (45:53):
GitHub. Okay, GitHub, GitHub. So I'll link to it in
the show notes, but they have alist of boostagram numbers that
are super funny. Like 500 is theIndy boost. I personally really
loved the 1215 Magna Cartaboost, or the 8675309 Jenny

(46:14):
boost. Like there's some reallyfunny ones in here.

Alban (46:18):
What is high five boost 4205? Why was that high five?

Jordan (46:24):
Oh, Alban. We don't have enough time for that. 420 is--

Alban (46:29):
Oh, yeah. 420. So what's five? Okay, so I get 420 with--

Jordan (46:32):
High five, cause it's five. High five.

Alban (46:35):
Why is this in the list of like, officially sanctioned.

Jordan (46:40):
I think it's clever.
4205...high five,

Alban (46:45):
The Magna Carta boost makes no sense to me to people
in like England celebrate 1215the way that we talk about 1776?

Jordan (46:54):
I don't know. 1776 made the cut to it's the Liberty
boost.

Alban (46:59):
That makes sense, I just have never heard anyone say
1215. Like remember when we gotthe Magna Carta, we got our
rights. I never heard anyonefrom England say that. But maybe
it's just that I'm vhere in theUS.

Kevin (47:09):
I think most of these come from like the No Agenda
Show.

Alban (47:12):
Okay, so this is just stuff that Adam curry and the
other guy have like, invented.

Kevin (47:17):
Dvorak. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if they invented but
they're their producers, whichare what they call their
audience members. They talkedabout value for value. So as
they're giving back, they dofunny things with numerology.
And so most of it has be hasprobably come from there.

Jordan (47:30):
Yeah, there's there's a lot in this list. Some of them I
don't quite understand, like theStar Trek boost being 1701.

Kevin (47:37):
Yeah, I don't know, either. And I think I've talked
about this before is the problemwith the way that we accept
boosts, we don't have our ownnode or whatever. So I don't
always see the full amount, wehave splits in our boost. So if
you boost us, I think we givelike 10% to the podcast index
and a certain percentage goes tothe app that it was boosted
through and then we just get theremainder. I think I only see

(47:57):
the remainder. So even if youdid, you know, whatever, an
indie boost to us, and you sendus five hundreds that might look
to us like you sent 400. I'mlike, Well, I don't know what
400 is.

Alban (48:05):
So all our numerology is off. So we apologize to people
who've sent like, there's aspecific amount because we
donated a little bit away. I didlook it up 1701 Tom would know
this if he was on the podcast,the USS Enterprise from Star
Trek is call sign is INCC -1701. So it is the Star Trek

(48:26):
boost for the USS Enterprise.
This is why Tom needs to be onthe show. I know this is the
kind of breaking facts that hereally want to get on Buzzcast.

Kevin (48:35):
One other thing that's interesting in the value for
value discussion before we gettoo far into booster grams is
that fountain I don't thinkwe've talked about this. But if
you go to fountain.fm, they'vegot a link at the top for
charts. And the charts show theshow's episodes and boosts like
who has the most so like whatshows are getting boosted the
most which episodes are gettingboosted the most. And then just
like the largest booths that aregoing through mountain, like

(48:57):
what show they're going to. AndI thought this was interesting
that the largest boost is only200,000 sets, which sounds like
a lot, but it's really only $30.
And so for $40, you could be atthe top of that chart for who
knows how long because the nextone is only 135,000 sets. But if
somebody out there wants to beat the top of the chart, all you
have to do is boost Buzzcastlike 220,000 sets, it's like $40

(49:17):
And then you would be at the topof the chart.

Jordan (49:22):
Let's gamify this a little bit and play a little
good old fashioned king of thehill.

Alban (49:27):
If you give us the biggest boost of all time,
Jordan will make you a vinylrecord Buzzcast and mail it to
your house.

Kevin (49:34):
Yeah, I like it. No, that's a losing proposition. The
vinyl record costs $100. And theboost is only worth 40 that's
losing. That's how we go out ofbusiness.

Jordan (49:44):
It should totally be like a king of the hill thing.
So whoever boosts the most isgonna be the king of the hill
until the next person knocksthem down off that hill.

Kevin (49:52):
But just remember this, just remember if you're going to
do this, you have to boostthrough the fountain app because
if you send 240,000 SATs orsomething through a different
I'm not going to get to the topof the chart, it's only fountain
that has the chart and the chartis only for booths that go
through fountain

Alban (50:05):
Do you remember on Foursquare, where it will, if
you checked into a location themost you were like the mayor of
that coffee shop or something?
Yes, we need the mayor ofBuzzcast. So whoever is the top
booster at any given point, andall this money is then re
donated out to our listeners. Soit's not like we're all getting
rich off of it. Yeah. But ifyou're the top booster,

(50:25):
according to the Fountaincharts.

Kevin (50:28):
Yeah. According to Fountain charts, that's the
thing. I can't keep track in thespreadsheet. So it has to be
through fountain. It has

Alban (50:33):
to be through fountain.
If you're the top booster, thenthat's it. We've locked it in
you are the mayor of Buzzcast.
And that will update as timegoes on.

Kevin (50:43):
Well, let's be clear.
It's like an honorary mayor.
Like you don't really have anypower.

Alban (50:47):
No, you have to give them power. Like, cut Alban from the
show.

Jordan (50:52):
They get to make one executive decision per episode.

Alban (50:58):
Talk more about politics.

Kevin (50:59):
Alright, so we've got three booths this week. First
one is from Brian at Top TierAudio. And he's, he sent us 900
SATs and said "Love this idea".
I have no idea which idea you'retalking about. But thank you.

Jordan (51:18):
You know what, he probably loved the idea of the
mobile gaming download strategy.

Kevin (51:25):
Maybe. So here's something to remember when
you're sending a boost is likewe do get a timestamp with the
boosts but it would take us along time to actually you know,
figure out the timestamp go backto the episode that you've
boosted figure out what we'retalking about. So just write in
your boost love this idea. Andthen in parentheses just
mentioned the idea that you'retalking about, but either way,
thank you for your support.
Thank you for your boost, Brian.

Jordan (51:43):
Or you can be like Mere Mortals Podcast and send 100
SATs, "boosting just cuz". Noexplanation needed.

Kevin (51:52):
Thank you, Mere Mortals.

Alban (51:53):
And 1203 from GeneBean that just that number feels like
there probably was somenumerology in there that we
might be missing. But in thisepisode, December 4 2020, you
link to a blog post onpodcasting terms being defined.
And that page gives a 404 Gmean, I think that we had a blog

(52:13):
post that was just a lot ofdifferent podcasting terms. And
that's probably my fault. And Ithink that's intentional if they
had deleted that blog post orarchived it, and moved all that
content to other pages. So weshould go back and make sure
that that link is pulled out ofthe show notes. But thank you
for going back and listening toour old episodes. We really
appreciate it.

Jordan (52:31):
And letting us know when things don't work. That's always
helpful to us. Thanks forlistening and keep podcasting.
For my personal podcast, I waslooking for a story to do that
would be kind of Halloweencentric, you know, like spooky

(52:54):
season, things like that. And Istumbled upon this short story
from 1905 from like aCosmopolitan magazine. And it's
a comedic ghost story about ascientist that realizes that he
can spray ghosts with this likeformula, and then they
materialize and then he sucksthem through a hose into the

(53:17):
cylinders strapped on his back.
Does that sound familiar at all?

Kevin (53:21):
yeah, Ghostbusters.

Alban (53:23):
I was gonna say, is Dan Ackroyd in this podcast, Bill
Murray in there?

Jordan (53:27):
Yeah, so the story is called The Ghost Extinguisher.

Alban (53:31):
What?

Jordan (53:32):
Yeah!

Alban (53:32):
Well, what year's this cosmopolitan story?

Jordan (53:34):
1905. But yeah, so it's this guy who realizes that
there's too many ghosts likeaffecting real estate in San
Francisco and so he gets hiredby people to suck their ghosts
into his backpack of cylindersand tomfoolery ensues because
the ghosts escape thethings...it is like exactly the

(53:55):
plot of Ghostbusters. Here's thething is Dan Ackroyd took credit
for writing this story rightlike because here's the thing is
he says that the story is basedupon, or Ghostbusters when he
wrote that script. It's basedupon his family's--

Alban (54:10):
It's a documentary.

Jordan (54:11):
No, it's not. But it's based upon his family's
experiences because his familywas like very superstitious and
like really into that kind ofthing. There is no mention
anywhere of Gelett Burgess who'slike the person who actually
like wrote it.

Kevin (54:27):
Wow, that's super interesting. So are you saying
this is this is like clearly arip off? Or is it are you
putting this like in theconspiracy theory camp?

Jordan (54:35):
Um, maybe a little both.
Let's, let's spice it up. I didlook into this like quite a bit
because as I was reading thestory, I was just like, Wait a
second. Wait a second. Whoa,wait a second. And it is a
comedy. Like it just feels likeit got completely ripped off.

Kevin (54:53):
How close is it? Okay, so they capture goes in cylinders
on backpacks...it's acomedy...those things are all
the same, like how, what's therest of the story? Is there a
marshmallow man?

Alban (55:04):
It's affecting house prices in one of the two major
cities in the United States.

Kevin (55:11):
Does this ghost exterminator like get an old
hearse and make it into hisemergency vehicle?

Jordan (55:16):
I mean, this is a short story. So it doesn't go like
quite that far in depth. But Imean, he basically finds a way
to commercialize the ghostextinguishing business and
capturing the ghosts into hisbackpack cylinders. And then he
also gets some assistance toalso help him suck the ghosts
into their backpacks.

Kevin (55:36):
That's wild. That is wild.

Jordan (55:38):
I mean, it's really close. I'll link to the story.
It's really interesting. Butyeah, it's wild.

Kevin (55:45):
At what point do these written stories become public
domain? How many years afterpublishing?

Jordan (55:50):
See, that's the thing is it was public domain when
Ghostbusters was written becauseit takes like, I want to say,
like seventy years or somethinglike that, for the copyright to
expire.

Kevin (55:59):
Yeah, but you should still give credit, right? Yes.
If it was inspired by?

Jordan (56:03):
Yeah, like, inspired by this story. And it's a short
story. Like I don't think it'svery well known. But it is like,
exactly Ghostbusters.

Alban (56:11):
There been a few different cheating scandals last
few weeks in like, just theworld. So like, there's the
fishermen who stuck lead weightinto their fish and got busted.
There's like, chess right nowhas a guy who's like very likely
been cheating in some really bigchess tournaments. There
possibly was cheating in a highstakes cash, Texas Hold'em game.

(56:36):
And I heard somebody likehypothesize, maybe is it not
that there's more cheating nowthan there's ever been, maybe is
that now we're better atcatching cheating, because we
have lots of people withcameras. And so when it happens,
like we can go back, review thefootage, make sure we got them
for sure. And then publicize it.
I mean, we see this all the timein books now. Or somebody writes

(56:56):
a memoir, and then someone'slike, you know, they plagiarized
like stuff from a somebodyelse's story in the 70s. And you
go back and you're like, yeah,there's actually some sections
that are very highly likelylifted right out of this old
book. And I just think this isgoing to happen more and more
like, sometimes I think it'stotally accidental. You know,

(57:16):
maybe Dan actually, like, hearda story from his grandfather at
some point. And his grandfathertold it and his grandfather was
really just kind of telling himthe short story that he
remembered a story that he readin a magazine sticks in your
brain. Yeah. And so when you'rewriting this story, you don't
know where exactly it's comingfrom. And then later on, it's
just kind of humiliating orembarrassing, because it looks

(57:38):
like you just plagiarized it, oryou, you're just kind of skeezy
and you've plagiarized and gaveno credit at all.

Kevin (57:47):
You know, the Ghostbusters theme song was also
controversial, Ray Parker Jr.
wrote the song, but shortlyafter it was released, he was
sued by Huey Lewis, who claimedthat he stole the baseline from
I Want a New Drug.

Alban (58:01):
Really. So Ghostbusters is just all sorts of
controversies.

Kevin (58:06):
All sorts of controversy.
In that case, it sounded likeHuey Lewis was right because it
was settled out of court for anundisclosed amount and part of
the settlement said they can'tdiscuss the case. So no one
really knows but it sounds likeRay Parker Jr. did something
wrong. And then you know whatelse happened? I don't know the
studio that owns Ghostbusters,but then they re released
Ghostbusters years later with acompletely different cast.

Jordan (58:31):
And it wasn't as good!

Kevin (58:33):
Wasn't as good.

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