Bryan Barletta of Podcast Movement: What’s Next for the Show?

The episode titled “Bryan Barletta of Podcast Movement: What’s Next for the Show?” features hosts Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee, who welcome guest Bryan Barletta. The episode begins with Todd introducing Bryan and discussing the recent happenings at Podcast Movement following the event. Bryan expresses gratitude for Todd and Rob’s previous discussions about Podcast Movement … Continue reading Bryan Barletta of Podcast Movement: What’s Next for the Show? →

The post Bryan Barletta of Podcast Movement: What’s Next for the Show? appeared first on New Media Show.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Alright, everybody. I think Tom's been Okay. Absolutely.
Right. Right. Right. Here we go, everyone. Welcome
to the New Media Show. And,
here we are on another Wednesday. Of course,
we've got a guest today. But, Rob,
welcome to the show. Of course, welcome to
Brian Barletta to the show as well.
Yeah. It's great to meet. Yeah. It's great
to be back. And, obviously,

(00:20):
I've got our spacing right for those who
are watching the show. So, just blame it
on operator error today. So if you're listening,
you don't care.
That's the main thing. But,
Brian, you you guys have had a a
couple of big weeks here,
coming off of podcast movement and the announcement
and everything. And
you're I'm sure you listened to last week's

(00:41):
show where Rob and I were doing a
lot of speculation.
Yeah. And,
and,
I guess from a beginning, and congrats on
your new role.
Thank you. And, of course, with the, SoundProflow
acquisition, you're moving to this new position. You
know, we're you're probably at a crossroads here
on,
you know, probably trying to answer all the

(01:02):
questions everyone has been asking. You know, what
does podcast movement become? And, you know, just,
you know, wherever you wanna start, we can
we can start.
Well, I first, I wanna actually say thank
you for for,
talking about it. Right? Previously digging into it
and speculating on it. I mean, I think
you guys have been a big part of
podcasting for
so much of its career, its life, I

(01:24):
guess. It wouldn't be its own career.
But, you guys have been a big part
of
it. Right? And you've experienced all these different
things. You've been to so many different conventions.
I mean, Todd, you have gone to conventions
all over the world too and speak at
them or expo at them too. And I
think we need that critical feedback. So,
we're really excited.

(01:45):
We want people
to,
you know, be
skeptical,
because it's a lot to change. But I
think that, you know, we're gonna do as
much as we can to benefit the whole
industry.
Yeah. I think the,
you know, I I yeah. I'm sure you
heard in the last show, we had kinda
made a decision

(02:06):
going into it that we would probably not
renew
and,
just, you know, based on, you know, a
whole bunch of factors.
And, what it really boils down to is,
you know, I've got a spreadsheet and I
put number of attendees,
cost,
you know, and then we we it comes
out with this, you know, this number down
below.
And,

(02:27):
you know, when you get under a thousand,
that number gets a little weird,
for us. But I don't know. I think
that there was probably close to a thousand
people there. I don't know what the official
number was,
from the event this year, but that was
my
eyeball calculation. Do you do you have any
idea what was the actual number?
So I I I don't. I wasn't actually

(02:48):
very involved in this specific event. You know,
the conversations really kicked off in May.
And so that doesn't mean, like, I'm not
on the receiving end of taking all the
feedback and digging into it, which is fine.
I don't need people to make that decision.
But it's, there's some things I have been
digging into, and there's some that I don't
know how much it benefits. I think that,

(03:08):
I think that I don't know the game
of, like, talking about how many people attended
and all that is valuable if because it
it's really a feel. And at the end
of the day, if you don't feel that
value,
you're not gonna come back. Right? Like, I
think
some of the spaces have been too large
and, you know, I'm comfortable candidly talking about
the fact that a lot of what drove
this deal was the fact that I was

(03:29):
starting to think about what our involvement would
be in the future. It sounds profitable in
the events and how we could accomplish something
that made it an unmissable event. And I'm
aiming, aiming absolutely to make that happen next
year, but sounds profitable is something where I
can make change in the same day. Right?
A partner has a big pitch. They wanna
do something. We can help. We can pull

(03:51):
data. We Tom and I can be on-site
with someone tomorrow presenting
latest research, and there's cool stuff. We're talking
about
South by by Southwest is March, right? That's
the first opportunity I have. And then September
in New York. And even then, I think
one swing is still not going to make
everybody
buy back in.
So we're talking years, right? And that's just

(04:13):
the reality of it that, like, there's gonna
be people that we can pull back in.
There's gonna be people we lose permanently,
and there's gonna be people,
that we can convert. And it might not
be
it might not be that quick.
I I think, you know, from my perspective,
the
idea going to New York alone
is valuable in that,

(04:34):
number one, you're gonna pull
you're gonna pull from that region. That's, you
know, that's a huge, huge, huge metropolis, you
know, huge numbers and people.
So from that standpoint alone, you know, the
show should be accessed just purely because of
the geographic location,
Boston, New York, Jersey,

(04:54):
Upstate, all of the folks that can train
in. Even Rob, you know, you can train
in from where you're at.
You know, so I think from that aspect,
that was a mark a lot more exciting
for me than San Diego,
for sure, which then, you know, will people
come down to LA to San Diego? And,
you know, maybe they won't. But I think

(05:15):
New York, you're gonna be able to get
a significant amount of foot traffic and,
but, you know, really then,
I think
the question we all have to ask is
there there's been a definite change since COVID,
Yes. And how shows are,
you know, the London show is probably the,

(05:38):
the oddball
and,
in how they've, you know and you've been
to London. You've seen what they did there.
Yeah. Yeah. Every year.
So, you know, that event in in itself
has even got its own unique dynamic. And
as a vendor, you know, you have to
be very, very aggressive in figuring how to
get people to stop because everyone's on a
mission. People got places to go.

(05:58):
You know? So whereas
Podcast Movement and Podfest, you've got a little
different traffic. People are,
you know, they're going to sessions and so
forth, but they're it's a little more casual
than they are in London. So it's a
totally two different, totally different crowds, both Yeah.
Both valuable in in a big, big way.

(06:19):
How you've been to London a few times
or just once? Twice. Yeah. We exhibited twice.
What years? The last two years, and then
we've renewed to go this year. Again, we're
not gonna be as in as big a
booth.
I think we went down to a three
meter, 3.5 meter, whereas before we were in
a a much bigger booth and and rolled
the dice on

(06:41):
the traffic from a specific location standpoint. That
worked out well, but I think we would
probably we're probably not gonna suffer from traffic
to based on where we picked our new
booth space at. So
I think that that it's such a great
event, and it's one of them ones that
we wanna model after. I mean, part of
New York as well is how do we
get the international crowd there because there's value
in it. I do think that overall we're

(07:02):
neglecting the West Coast as an industry. I
think there's so much value out there. I
think it's just kinda hard to crack. I
don't have a ton of experience in
LA, but now living in Portland, like, anything
that makes it easier for me to get
there is nice, but I think that for
this, we we do need to be in
New York.
When I look at London, right, like, it's

(07:22):
so hard
to tell like, when people are asking what
I meant go to, it's it's an easy
one to recommend because the tickets are so
approachable. It's Right. £90 a day or something.
It's two days. And when they mean two
days, there's, like, some arrival stuff the night
before, the two hard days. And that last
day ends at 04:30. And because it's a
European conference, it's a ghost town. It's the

(07:44):
Americans who haven't gone home yet that are
there that second night. And so it's really
packed in. And so people like I like
to red eye in on Monday morning.
I like to say that Monday is usually
my Australia day. I meet with all of
our partners from Australia because they're still jet
lagged from coming in over the weekend. So
they're a little bit more tolerant with how
incoherent I am from not sleeping well.

(08:06):
And then Tuesday is that like grab a
few more meetings and all that, but it's,
their events, like, really great. And it just
has so much value for foot traffic, but
you we've seen the the development for them.
Right? Like we've seen it go from, they
had a lot of live shows and I
believe they had them this past year, but
it just wasn't in front of you the
same way. Yeah. It wasn't the same. They
had a lot of industry people. They have

(08:27):
a lot of, just general fans. It's it's
so accessible that they're still trying to figure
out that audience, but on, like,
every panel is well attended, is well,
built out, it's content appropriate.
It's a really cool experience and we wanna
emulate a lot of that. On the expo
side of it, like, I think you that
you're smart for doing that because I think

(08:47):
that having that booth is
great, but having people there and being able
to be flexible, the event in London is
so easy to just have such great conversations
with anyone anywhere.
So maybe you bring the same number of
people, but you only have one person or
two people at the booth and you have
another person kind of floating and talking to
other
people. I think that's
a lot of my mindset is how do

(09:08):
I create the opportunity? So I might not
win you over for a booth in New
York, but I'm I'm pretty confident I'm gonna
win you over for why your people should
be there and how to get in front
of those creators. Well, I think, you know,
the the booth has its value
and regardless of where you're at, because sometimes
you gotta wave the flag say, hey. Here,
I'm still in business. But at the same
point,

(09:29):
and then for London, it's critical. Could people
go who, what, where? You know, you know,
they they don't even know because it's it
is a different market. But I think from
my standpoint, what I really want to see
and I think they did a good job
with the regional,
promotion,
that Podcast Movement did prior to
the event and brought in a lot of

(09:49):
locals. That saved the show for us.
I think total we had we had 82
badge scans, and I had in about another
18 to 20
just rough discussions that we had. And that
was
way better than the year before. And most
of those were in the, you know, the
Dallas, Fort Worth,
metroplex area. So they did a good job
bringing local people in. So New York and

(10:10):
South By,
I think, are gonna have their own unique
challenges,
far as dragging people in from other locations.
So I guess the question is we we
already know what those is. It's affordability,
hotels,
all these things. Right? For both events, for
both South by and for New York. Is
there a consideration of maybe something regional,

(10:34):
down the road? If you do a one
dayer or a very tight two day or
something to that consideration?
We definitely like, again, remember, SoundsProble is a
four person team. Christy will be staying on
from the podcast movement team, but the rest
of the team is moving under event movement.
Yep. Yep.
It's something we
are like, it's not off the table, but

(10:54):
we I wanna master what we have first
and expand where it makes sense. You know,
I I view the dynamic between creators and
fans and the business side as, like,
the business side the revenue from the business
side props up and makes it better for
the creators and the fans on there.
Because I know I like when I come
out of my space that we normally have

(11:15):
at Podcast Movement and I see so much
life and activity, that makes me excited, right,
especially people who are new and interested in
the space or fans. Seeing them, it's like,
oh, cool. This is why we do this.
So the regional things are interesting and we
do have the infrastructure to do it, but
I want to get a little bit more
sure footing. What I will say is that
sounds probable. And of course, podcast movement has

(11:36):
never been shy about funding and supporting and
sponsoring
people who do these. Right? I think that
what both of our companies now combined do,
we fill a hole that isn't being filled.
And does that fill the, like, the complete
hole for everybody? No, it doesn't, but it
doesn't make what we're doing less valuable.
If there are people who are out there
who want to do those things, who wanna

(11:57):
take those swings on more of those events,
our biggest thing is like, we wanna see
people take that swing first in that first
year, prove that they can do it. And
in the second year, I'm expecting to pay
more than the first year pitch if I
didn't buy in in that first year, but
I'm very happy to pay that additional price
in that second year. And I think we've
proved that time and again for the people
who bet on themselves.

(12:17):
It's not easy, but, you know,
I got fired from Megaphone and started sounds
profitable. Right? Like and this is where I
am now. So I bet on myself and
did all that and funded it myself,
with, you know, an unemployment check. Rob Rob,
I don't I guess my email let you
weigh in here. And I think one one
comment that stuck out that was either LinkedIn
or somewhere, but that someone had said, hey.

(12:39):
A lot of this training is now available
online. They can watch a YouTube video or
or, you know, attend a webinar. There's all
kinds of stuff that's out there now for
new podcasters to get training, and maybe they
don't need the event. But I think we
all understand the value of the networking
and being able to just have this immersive
experience for for a couple of days for

(13:01):
people.
Do you you know, Rob, you know, what
what's your thought then?
You know, what would you like to see
move forward or or change or
if from other things you've already said?
Well, yeah, I kinda wanted to to kinda
pull the conversation back again. We've we've jumped
right into weeks Yeah. Of this. And I
was hoping to talk about kind of the

(13:23):
the the convergence of these two
entities,
and and major players in the podcasting space
about, you know, what's you know, I think
the community has this perception that sounds profitable,
is a very business
advertising,
brand centric kind of community, which I know
it probably isn't, but that's the perception because

(13:45):
of the name is sounds profitable, which
leads one to believe that it's all about
business and revenue and
and making money from from audio. Right?
So you combine that with Podcast Movement, which
has been
seen as a kinda like a more complete
kind of,
conference for the whole industry. Right? I mean,

(14:07):
if you look at the the the history
of that that particular event,
I've been to every one of them since
2014.
And so I I saw the very beginnings,
you know, Dan and Dan and Jared over
the years, we you know, between Todd and
I, we we've had a lot of conversations
with them about what podcast movement,
you know, can do in the industry and

(14:28):
how it can serve. So I think that's
the big question that a lot of people
in the community are concerned about, right, is
the separation between
being a industry event and being a business
centric event. And I guess I'm just curious
what your thoughts are on that,
perception
of,
of a change for podcast movement towards more

(14:49):
the business side of podcasting. And and maybe
that leaves off of the table,
the creator side.
Yeah. No.
It's a great question. The name sounds proper.
It definitely leads that. I think,
Right. It's hard. I don't get to talk
a lot about,
all the things that I've done, like, before
all this because a lot of my career
has been in advertising technology as product manager

(15:11):
and whatnot. Like,
when the iOS,
the app store opened up and the Android
app store, I used to do 12 video
reviews a day, audio and video recording it,
write an inner, like write a review,
and edit it all myself.
And it was fun and insane. And,
I really, really enjoyed the experience, but, like,

(15:31):
I've been a creator. Right?
I think
the the hole that we fill
is for the people who want to do
this more than a hobby. The news and
stuff we're covering is the stuff that relates
to the impact of your business. And I
really think that is creator focused. Right? Like
the
the coverage of how Spotify video works for
both consumers and for

(15:53):
publishers who take advantage of it. If you
ask some of the questions and the things
that we post in there to even the
Spotify
support, they're not gonna have the same answers
that we dug out. So these things are
not as cool as, you know, the microphone
equipment or the recording or all that, but
it is an area that I don't see

(16:13):
enough other people talking about.
So we, you know, we kinda get that
bad rap. I think
I think when I think about things, like,
the business side is very happy with simply
moving to New York and
changing the dates and things like that. The
creators are where we're gonna put a lot
of our attention. Right? It is if the
brands are there,

(16:35):
then the business side is happy,
and then it's allows us to do a
lot more stuff. But we're evaluating, like, how
do we do single day
tickets?
Oh, that's great. I think Great to hear,
Ryan. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. And, I
mean, like, we made all the content available.
It is
apparently five, six x ing the number of
cameras and everything and get it editing. Editing
takes a little bit longer when we weren't

(16:56):
prepared to do it. So we'll have that
content out for free and live, but we
plan to put that content out there. We
wanna make more opportunities for people to submit
content and more clear
process towards that. We want for the people
who are not selected for content to be
able to have community voted on, like,
meetups and work groups and workshop type things
and provide the space for it. So I

(17:17):
think that the truth of it is is
that
if there are creators, the space that we
wanna create for them is affordable
and accessible,
and the opportunity
for them to say, like, of my peers,
who wants to learn about this, who wants
to collaborate on this, and making that space
available.
Whereas I think there's far more competition on
the business side, and there is

(17:38):
I don't tend I don't intend to charge
for that space for the creators.
But on the business side, there'll be a
limit of how many of them are
are earned and how many of them are
sponsored. And I think that that's just the
truth of it. I think there are more
people on the business side who are interested
in running how to use Riverside
than there are on the creator side of

(17:58):
what is the best video solution for your
needs. Right? Right. The creator one, phenomenal. If
people vote for that, let's make that happen,
right? On the Riverside one, well, there's other
video softwares, right? And so if the business
community wants to see that, we can create
that. If Riverside wants to make it happen,
whether or not the public wants to see
it, then I think that that's a sponsored
thing. And so, again, it's one of those

(18:20):
things that, like, I want people to hold
us accountable and Yeah. You know, wait for
that to happen. But I think I think
the podcast movement as it existed fell into
a a track that it worked for the
business people enough, and it probably needed more
support on the creator side.
And Dan built a really incredibly successful event

(18:40):
company that does far more than Podcast Movement.
And what he is lacking is that
individual who can be with that community. And
what I think I bring to the table
on that end is the acknowledgement that I'm
not as close with those creators and I
need to be, and I need to meet
more people who are.
Well, and that's the interesting tension here is,
is that the creator community is a very

(19:01):
diverse community, right? It spans,
you know, really big,
content creators and then it spans all the
way down to smaller content creators and the
needs of those,
different groups in the podcast industry and then
also by genre or topic or whatever. Sometimes
those needs,
vary a lot.
There's not a a real consistent, you know,

(19:23):
and I struggle with this for many years
in the podcasting space being reaching out to
all these different groups, the comedians and the
the the
commercial radio folks and the public radio folks,
they all build their own little communities around
themselves.
And oftentimes, they don't really hear about things
that happen outside of their little community bubble.

(19:46):
This is just kind of a social
dynamic that I've seen. It's the same thing
with the broadcast space as well,
whether it be TV or radio where they,
you know, there's a bubble that's around them
that they don't really see outside of.
And I think that's the that's the real
question. And Todd and I have seen events
that have come through the pipeline here for
many years that are combining this kind of

(20:07):
festival atmosphere where there's live on stage podcast
recordings and things like that, and people have
tried to do that. That. PodCon tried to
do that many years ago in Seattle. And
I don't know if you saw that that
happened, but I think they they had, like,
two or three events, right, where they would
have a on stage performance of a very
popular podcast and have, like, six, seven hundred

(20:29):
people in the audience
in the same facility with the conference
that's going on. Yeah. And that's something I
wanna get towards, but I think that that's
another group of people that Podcast Movement hasn't
captured. That's fans. Right? Yeah. Like, Yeah. Exactly.
Joking around. Like, I'd love to do live
shows, but I was like, okay. So thinking
about business and creators,
like, I feel like the

(20:50):
if if I offered two shows, if I
did, like, The Ringer and Welcome to Night
Vale, I think I could capture everybody who
attends for fifteen minutes at least by one
of those two, but could I even hold
their attention for a full recording? And even,
like, at South by, right, Vox has their
own stage where they do live recordings.
The line to get in to see Kara
Swisher

(21:10):
is so long.
But fifteen minutes into it after everybody's taken
their selfie and everything,
people are like, well, I'm at an event
where there's so many other cool things asking
for my attention. I can listen to this
literally on demand later and they leave.
So I think that that's like a thing
I wanna crack later. And you're right on
all those small communities. I mean, then you

(21:30):
even get into like the black creators and
the Hispanic creators. And the hardest part for
me is that so much like I try
and read and ingest everything, but then you
learn about the fact that the the loudest
voices in some of those areas aren't actually
the ones that people want to be the
champion, but they just don't want to lose
another voice in that space. And so navigating
that further. And so I think that, like,

(21:52):
our goal for next year is how do
we support creators, period, and acknowledge the places
where we probably
Yeah. Need to improve still and then figure
out how to do it from there. But
how do we listen? How do we provide
that opportunity?
And when people raise their hand, how do
we take it seriously and empower them to
to engage more? And, yeah, and I think
you're not gonna please everybody. No. It doesn't

(22:13):
matter what you do. You're never gonna please
everybody. Yeah.
I remember years ago,
oh, man, school podcasting.
Dave Jackson's he was in charge of, you
know, the the creator thread or basically
the he was basic one that was curating
all the speakers. And I told him, I
said, everyone has agendas, my friend.

(22:33):
You're you're you're not gonna get away from
it. Everybody that wants to speak has an
agenda. But I the thing that's drove me
crazy
is,
in the beginning, podcast movement was pretty strict
on it. If you if you pitch, you
you know, you aren't coming back another year.
Yeah. You're off. You're off. And I don't
know You're never coming back on stage. Right.

(22:53):
And and if, you know, someone reported you
pitching, it was taken very, very seriously.
I heard just continuous pitching at a a
lot of of the sessions this year.
And,
yeah, of course, in in like, even in
my presentation, I gave a couple of blueberry
examples, but I also had stuff up from
from, Buzzsprout. I had stuff up from Libsyn.
I I, you know, I was throwing all

(23:14):
my competitors' stuff up there too
so that there was equal balance saying, hey.
This isn't what we're doing. Now the other
hosts are doing too. These are things that
you need to look for, go ask for,
and making it fair and balanced and make
it educational and try to be e equally
applied in what we're presenting.
I think that
if you guys took a hard stance on

(23:37):
you have to educate.
You can't pitch.
Regardless of your status as a vendor, whether
whether your whether your status as who you
are, if you're going to
present,
you can't pitch a product or service.
And Well or you have a separate track
that's just for pitching. There you go. I
think it's people that's what it is. I

(23:57):
think that if you wanna pitch, it's gonna
be a purchase thing, and we're gonna figure
out how to be more clear about that.
Yep. But I think that it's tough. Right?
I mean, like, we one of the things
that I'm excited to engage with James Cridland
on, and I I don't think we've done
justice explaining what we mean by editorial director
there, but I haven't been to a podcast
conference that hasn't had James involved in some
sort of leadership position. And that doesn't to

(24:20):
to be clear, that doesn't mean, like, he's
picking the individual panels, but he's working with
the people on the structure. What are the
topics that are important? Who are the people
that we can reach out to? Right? These
he's part of that process. And
as Pod News is half owned by podcast
movement, like,
I want to learn from James on that.
I wanna pull him into that and figure
out where where we can do better. I

(24:41):
love things like south by south west panel
picker, right? It's four people on stage. It's
no more than two male. It can't be
all white. If you submit more than one,
you're less likely to get any of the
subsequent ones.
And anything more than two, you can't get
up there.
And, like, it's no more than two people
per company. And even then
in a panel, like, that reduces your chances

(25:03):
of being on stage. There's so many things
that we wanna work through on that. I
think that probably, you know, the next year
will be our opportunity
to get smaller. Yep. We'll never have that
opportunity again if this grows the way we
want to.
So why not
reflect on the type of panels and the
type of structure and what we're asking for
the call for content? Why not provide the
opportunities for people who got enough votes to

(25:24):
show there's interest but couldn't get on stage
to still present something, still try it out,
whether it's a webinar, whether it's a smaller
space or a workshop, or we can figure
out cool things out there. But,
I really want to make sure that when
we ask for people's attention on the stage,
it's it's what is coming next. It's no
more of the one on one stuff unless

(25:44):
it's meant to for the creators. But I
honestly feel like we should do workshops.
Todd, like what you just talked about there,
how much more fun would it be if
that was like you and 50 people in
a room where there was like breakfast? Right.
And would that to me is, you know,
I think the key here is
we wanna impart value.
We want we we we want the creators
to go home and say something. This is

(26:05):
something I'm gonna put my toolbox.
Yep. We this is something when I go
home, I can make a noticeable change. I
always tell people there's probably even if someone's
pitching, there's probably one thing from a session
you can walk away from. But if you
can have a
a situation where you're impairing
knowledge on whatever your expertise in, whatever it

(26:26):
may be a through z as the topic's
range is pretty wide, there's always gonna be
people that wanna know how to do that
and do that better. And And if we're
if we can figure out how to make
that happen and where because this is where
you get the value. This is where people
say, oh, man. I got so much value
from this conference.
I have to attend next year.
Yeah.

(26:46):
Because I was maybe had that one on
one interactive interaction.
You know, these are the things that that
really where's the value in conferences? The the
conversations in the hallway is the value. If
you guys are gonna give away the sessions,
I can listen to them all online.
But if we're having you.
We're literally recording right now and you're on
a TV. I have two other screens. My

(27:07):
wife is texting me because it's the first
day of school for my youngest and the
second day of school for my oldest and
my dad's birthday. And, like, when I'm at
these events and right? But that's the thing.
Like, I like, when I could burn Dreamcast
games when I bought the Dreamcast way back
in the day, I burned every game and
I played none of them.
It's the problem. Right? So I think I
would pick I would be picky on what

(27:29):
I listen to. Yeah. But I would be
Yeah. But I would definitely listen to the
handful that I wanted to go to, but
I couldn't
because I was in another session or we
just, you know, we didn't have the time,
something was mixed up. What happens if we
can enable for those people who have those
sessions
sessions that were more workshops and conversations and
just say like, hey, would you like to
join a live version

(27:50):
of this? Yeah. If people are interested in
it, like why
there's so many aspects of the event, like,
we go to so many events and there's
a difference between we're an industry body
that
is now running two events. Right? Just I
mean, those are just the two that we
directly control. We're like at advertising week in
a month from now. We're all over the
place.

(28:12):
The event companies look at these things on
how much revenue did I earn last year
and how much can I earn next year,
right? I look at things
and I say, what can podcasting afford and
what's the ROI?
We at the things we do at Advertising
Week or whatnot there, we're looking at building
up panel structures that are one fourth, the
price,

(28:32):
substantially more value and everywhere, but it's like
40 or 50 seats versus 200 seats. But
let me tell you, if I walk into
a session and there's 20 or 40 people
there, I'll stick around. If I walk in
and there's 20 of 200 people, maybe I
misunderstood what this is. Right. I'm only here
for a few days. Why am I going
to waste my time there? And so I
think that that's the big thing that we

(28:52):
want to bring to the table is that
conversation, that
kind of
the the the opportunity for questions. When you
exceed four people on a panel that's a
half an hour long, you don't go deep
enough for anybody to have any questions. No.
No. There's no value there. There's no value.
So so, Brian, since you weren't really involved
in this year's podcast movement, what's your

(29:14):
assessment of how that that format of having
everything in
the exhibition area, all of the sessions in
the exhibition area, and everybody walking around wearing
headphones.
What's your reaction to that?
So it's funny. So I think the headphones
are like, first off, I did not realize
how expensive PAs can cost for each of

(29:34):
the stages. And in
London, previous years, they had just the PA.
And this past year, the first half of
the first day was headphones, and then they
moved back to the PAs because they've done
really well with targeted
PA systems to make it so that the
people in the audience can hear fine, but
it doesn't bother everybody else's conversations.
Correct. It's a piece of an area that

(29:55):
we're gonna look into more and we're gonna
learn more about, but it is
crazy expensive.
I love the idea of Two headphones.
Have the headphones or
The headphones are surprisingly more accessible. Interesting. I
do understand the antisocial aspect of it to
a degree, right? You're wearing headphones, but it
gives you the opportunity to focus. I think
that when there's less competing panels, that's going

(30:16):
to be a big thing too, right? We're
working on a structure that hopefully has less
overlap in those ways, especially about the keynote
or the key
track of content.
But I think that
conversation is the most important thing to me
and being able to see a vibrant area
where you have
the stages and you have foot traffic, I

(30:37):
really enjoy. And looking at some of the
past events and where Todd's booth has been,
there's been some events where I was like,
oh, I hope somebody walks by here, right?
Like, it's just like there's no draw to
it.
I guess like if I could have started
this process earlier, could I have moved my
lounge in there? Could we have moved in
the premium lounge in there? Could we have

(30:59):
done more in that space, drop a stage
and build more in there? Because the problem
is that that that Gaylord Hotel was laid
out
it was fun. But But once you left
that area, it was really tough. But even
where we were, it was so far down
the hallway. Yeah. It's always been an issue.
And so I think that that's as we're
evaluating the the location in New York, it's,
you know, how do we build a space

(31:20):
that shows the life of everything there with
allowing people to do each of their independent
things
in an accessible area. Right? Well, it keeps
keeps people together more. I mean, if you
look at the the the London event, I
went to the first year of that that
that event, and and so I have some
feeling for it. I haven't been to the
last couple, but,
just that small venue,
everybody's kinda forced together, and and it it

(31:43):
just feels like there's a higher energy. People
aren't scattered all over the place. Like at
the Gaylords, the Gaylords are just such a
huge venue. And Yeah. All of the podcast
movements probably over the last ten years have
been held at venues that are that are
so big that
it it it it's hard to hold people
together. And
Yeah. I and I think that The head

(32:04):
conversation. The headphone though deal, I was surprised.
I think I had I probably in my
session, I may have had 40, maybe 35,
40,
but their attention was definitely dialed on because
they had no choice. I was right there
in their head because everyone was listening on
the headphones. From an attention standpoint,
it works great. Now what was kinda cool

(32:25):
for me too is I was able to
hang out in the booth and and when
it was slow, I was able to listen
to some other sessions, you know. So that
was kinda cool too.
But at the same point Do you Go
ahead. Do you how many people were in
your like, how many seats were at that
panel? Like, a 100?
There was more than probably would have ever
attended it. So there's probably there was probably

(32:45):
a 100 seats.
How How would it have made you feel
presenting to 50 seats with 35 people filled?
See, that's always better. That's always better. It's
always better to have people
always better to have, 50 in a 45,
seating room too. Yeah. Always. I
I think that that, like, we talked about
podcasting is, like, it's this mainstream thing, but
a niche appeal. Right? Yeah. My favorite panels

(33:07):
at Poncho London are when they're in the
50 person ask the expert stage in, like,
a small glass room. Yep. And I go,
like, people are like, oh, sorry. We're at
capacity. Yep. And I'm just like, wow. There's
people that, like, can't get in to see
this. Like, I feel bad, but also, like,
awesome. Like, clearly have I'm doing something right.
You know? They had a lot of space
they had to fill this year,

(33:27):
so I understand
Oh, I I didn't feel like they did
in a lot of the things. I'm more
more as a compliment. Like, I think they
have a bunch of the small and they
have a good number of the large. Large.
Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I think I
think there's a lot to learn from that,
but it's like, I would rather
20 seats and standing room and people being
like, wait, I missed that. How do I

(33:49):
like Todd? Okay, I'll go buy his boot
and ask him those questions. Like,
that's the exciting part. Like, catching the tail
end of it. Why are all these people
here? Why are they so excited? And that
to me is how do we find that
line between this should be a presentation
and it's entertaining or this should be a
workshop and and all of that. One thing
that Podfest has done that helped

(34:09):
again, I'm I have an agenda. I'm a
vendor. So one thing that Podfest did was
they always
they started having these afternoon, like, you know,
have some drinks.
You know? In one year, we basically
four or five maybe 10 of us sponsored
a a keg at the booth.
And,
after And food too. You know? And food
and stuff like that so that they had

(34:31):
throughout the room, they had beer stands and
people could go over and get a beer
or whatever. And and, you know, and it
You did that in Vegas too for podcast
movement. Drove a little conversation.
But the main thing was is the reason
they had to have it was because all
the exhibit rooms I mean, all the,
all the session rooms were quite a ways
away from the from the hall. So they
were trying to ring people back in. You

(34:52):
You don't necessarily have to do that if
everything's really close. In other words, the rooms
are attached to the hall,
where they have to come out and get
into the hall. It's always always the best.
I think that's the best situation where
they're they don't have to go
five minutes to find, you know, where their
next session room is.
But that's not like a bad like, that
that's the first time I've heard, like, that

(35:14):
ask for that con comment. And, like, let's
think about it. Right? Like, in a lot
of the venues that we have, there's either
gonna be some additional costs or a requirement
to to cover some of those Sure. Beverage
things. So pass it on to you. Now
you've helped me reduce my minimum.
There's gonna be space that we need to
do anyways. What about for the people who
don't wanna go twenty minutes away and wait
in line for sushi? Right? Like, what about

(35:34):
the people who just wanna stick around and
a KIND bar isn't gonna be enough for
them? Having that as an option and just
seeing who opts in as the vendors, like,
I think that's great.
Alcohol is always a really interesting one. I
think that, you know, part of me is
excited and part of me is sad about,
like, the loss of the hotel bar. Right?
It's 11:30. That was You get back. Those
are the best.

(35:54):
Well, yeah. Because you get back, you know,
like, I really should go back. I should
go to sleep. But, you know, I'll do
one lap, and then it's 2AM. That's right.
And it's Those that's that that often pays
for the show.
I I think the hard part there is
I don't know how I accomplish that in
New York. Yeah. It's very hard. Same with
Vegas. You know? Same thing. Yeah. People people
oh, let's go to the, you know, let's
go to the casino on Fremont Street or
whatever. And that's yeah. And that's so that's,

(36:16):
like, you know, how do we contain everybody's
intention for two full days and make room
for the people who have spaces in New
York or wanna meet people in New York
to say like, hey, as long as you
don't step on our main two days, like,
we understand you're going to do your own
thing and we wanna support you in that.
So how do we make space for you
to do that? How do we say like,
oh, could we get some tickets to that

(36:36):
so that we can bring some of our
sponsors to it and just make it valuable
for everybody and collaborate there? But yeah. I
mean, I but alcohol, like, not opposed to
the idea. Definitely on the snack side is
really easy there, but I think that,
yeah, I think that's
Again, it the main thing is keep the
traffic, make people wanna talk to each other.
You know? I think that's the main thing

(36:57):
too is is having I used to live
off the candy that ACAS would bring out
to the events. Right? Like, in London, there
was a few times where I, like, basically
only ate candy and coffee,
not advising that candy. Well, we always bring
two bags of candy and yeah. I understand.
Thrill, man. 50 calories at a time.
That's then you have better self control than

(37:19):
I am because mine's fistfuls.
So as we think about the the future
in in the,
especially in New York,
Yep. I've been to a lot of events
in New York. I live close to New
York, and and I know that,
I'm sure that you've been to the advertising
week.
Yeah. Yeah. We'll be there in in less
a little over a month from now. They
hold that event in an old,

(37:41):
multistory
mall
Yeah. In Manhattan. So it's an interesting
question of whether or not you see,
this event being held in a hotel or
in a separate venue, which gives people the
option to stay wherever they want to in
the area. I think it's gonna be a
separate venue. I don't wanna obligate people that
because, like, I know we've talked about or

(38:01):
you guys talked about costs and and all
that. And so, like, granted it is September
and I'm looking at March right now for
South Buy, but my flight
to Austin from where I am in Portland
of the same setup that I had for
Dallas was about 2 or $300
cheaper for Austin if I booked it now.
And
being twenty minute walking distance,

(38:24):
without a self buy ticket to get to
what we're going to have there, which by
the way, the stuff that we're going to
be running there will not require a ticket.
It will be official partner content, but it
will not require a ticket to South Buy.
I think that the price was a little
bit less a little bit more expensive than
my discounted Gaylord,
hotel room.
But I believe

(38:45):
yeah. I mean, I think that that's what
it is, but I I think that that
total price was still,
it was only a couple 100 more, so
erasing the flight discount there. But that was
also, it's more days at South Buy than
it is at Podcast Movement. Because arrival day,
three days of content and departure day. So
five days instead of what you could do
in four if you really wanted to,

(39:05):
and no ticket. So if you factor in
the fact that you don't have to buy
a self buy ticket or a podcast movement
ticket, granted if we think about creators, it's
only around $100 that they're saving there.
But still, I mean, we're coming in very
close
for what this August event was for South
Buy. New York, I think New York continues
to be one of the cheapest places to

(39:26):
travel to if you're willing to be flexible.
There was lots of airports flying. Into Newark.
You know, I don't I don't love flying
into Newark. But flying in is is definitely
not the cost. It's, you know and then
if you if you have enough time, you
can find
reasonable,
daily combinations within the within Manhattan. I tend
I mean, most of the times when I

(39:46):
book, like, I haven't booked for advertising week,
but I'm happy to share with you. I'll
send you an email over what I end
up booking. So we're about a month out.
I I really believe that I'll be able
to get it for a couple $100 per
night for when I'm staying there. That's that's
I would I would expect that about $2.02
50. Yeah.
But there's people who tell me that they
expect 6 to $800 and, like, look, I'm
not telling you to go stay on Long

(40:07):
Island. Right. You can come into Manhattan. Right?
But it's like Too good. Right. Yeah.
But I think that there is
I think there's a lot of opportunity, right,
and we wanna make it as accessible for
creators as possible and the business people we
want to, you know, we gotta decide Manhattan
or probably Brooklyn on that. We have to
decide, like, proximity to transportation.
We have to decide, are there two venues?

(40:28):
Is it where the event is and then
where the party happens afterwards? Because can I
really transport that many people?
What am I gonna find for a venue
that has, like, a cool place that can
support a couple of thousand people for a
party? Right. Or does it need to just
all be in one place because if I
lose somebody, they're gone. Right.
And, and just being really, you know, really
aware of these things, but we're, you know,

(40:48):
we're in a fight for all of it.
But I think the truth is, is that
like,
I think when we talk about creators, we
need to separate out the difference between hobbyist
and creator.
And there's nothing wrong with being a hobbyist.
Like there's so many things I do where
I'm a hobbyist. I probably wouldn't necessarily go
for a convention for it. I don't even
know if somebody gave me a path to
make I love Dungeons and Dragons. I'm a

(41:09):
hobbyist in that. I'm not a creator. If
somebody was like, here's your path to go
do that professionally, I don't think I'd take
it. Right? It's all being separate.
But creators, I think that every creator has
that question of,
could this ever make me money? Right? I
think that that's part of why they do
it. It's that line above hobbyists, that line
before it's a business or even into the

(41:31):
business. And I just I wanna I wanna
acknowledge that, like,
hobbyists
probably need some more support in this industry
overall.
Creators definitely do, but
a lot of where we've gotten into trouble
as an industry
is we are one of the easiest creator
based industries to get an actual job as
a creator. I don't know how you do

(41:51):
that in YouTube or influencer, like to get
a job as a creator. We don't require
them to understand necessarily the marketing and sales.
So there are creators in our space who
don't have to understand the full flow. They
get a great job and get a promotion,
get a huge budget, and then get let
go without
being explained all the details to it. Whereas
if in YouTube and Twitch streaming and all

(42:12):
of those things, they really have to be
responsible for those things because they're all micro
businesses. They're their own thing. Right? So I
wanna get better at that creator and saying
to them, like, hey. If you sign with
the network, this is what they're looking for
and why. Like, this is Spotify's video. Here's
the upside and here's the downside. Right? It's
I'm not gonna help anybody with what cool
microphone Right. Right. To get, you know, mic

(42:34):
That's all on YouTube already.
Yeah. But but there are things that creators
ask, and I wanna be there to answer
them. And they just don't feel like creator
questions, but they are, you know, a lot
of our cons our readers of Sounds Proper,
people who download the reports or people with
Gmail addresses and people just getting started, and
they shoot me an email and Tom an
email, and we respond to every single one

(42:54):
of them. One thing I think we do
have to acknowledge is that
someone's considering
creating content. There's so many choices now. You
know? And, of course, the natural thing is
let's go to YouTube or do TikTok or
whatever it may be. I think we have
It's our channel world. Yeah. And I think
we have to make folks understand.
And and I think it's it's a real
threat if we don't make

(43:16):
the the world,
not just podcast movement, but if we don't
make the world understand that doing
audio
is still cool, we can lead to video.
That's cool. You start with video. That's cool.
We don't care. Whatever you wanna do.
But I think the the components
of podcasting,
it traditionally and and, of course, everything's called

(43:36):
a podcast these days, so we don't need
to have that discussion. But I think just
the understanding that,
you know, there's opportunities
here.
And if we don't,
this industry could look a lot different in
five years. It's already looking different by the
number of the lack of new talent coming
in
to the space. I think we have to
do something, and that's just not necessarily your

(43:58):
issue, but that's a community issue to make
people understand.
I don't know if we have a lack
of new talent or if there's just this
really healthy middle area where they don't get
a lot of visibility. Right? Like, I continue
to bump into all these people that are
able to build their passion products, projects and
all that. Like, there's a few podcasts I
really enjoy that are narrative that are fully
funded by Patreon and just get to sit

(44:19):
out of so many of these things that
we're talking about. That's true. I
think that we're often too close to it.
Like, I the anybody who attends Podcast Movement,
I do not care about your ad skipping
behavior.
Right? Like, good on you that you skip
every ad. I don't believe you. I think
you're over exaggerating it more than consumers do.
And it you know, that's like again, I

(44:41):
also listen to very specific podcasts that, like,
if I was like, hey, my favorite show
is on stage. It's the besties where four
forty year old dudes talk about the video
games they don't have time to play. Not
a lot of people are gonna wanna be
in there. But I think that there are
a lot of killer creators out there that
are making great money that we're just not
talking to because we're not pulling them in.
I think that, you know, Todd, I don't

(45:02):
envy
how much of your business is built around
RSS, but I've also been impressed by how
many things you've done bigger than RSS. Industry
is built around RSS.
But I think we're at this opportunity where,
to me,
the word podcasting is whether correctly or incorrectly
being used to talk about on demand, audio
forward, open distribution,

(45:23):
and we are benefited by every time someone
says, oh, that's a podcast because we have
the opportunity to pull them in. When someone
says to me on the advertising
side, oh, we can't buy audio, but I
love podcasts and we buy social. Sure. We
got, we got social podcasts for you, right?
Like why say no? We can grow them
into that.
And, oh, I don't, I don't listen to

(45:43):
any of that. But I, I, you know,
I do watch a lot of podcasts on
YouTube, whatever you want. Like, it's how we
get them engaged with this idea of content
that the creators actually own. Because think about
it. Ten years ago or something, Linus Tech
Tips and a few other creators were just
like, if you subscribe on my website directly,
you'll get the content one week in advance,
and that

(46:03):
disappeared.
Right? It didn't take on on the private
proprietary sites for most creators, but now we're
watching Patreon use the word podcast. So we're
watching all these subscription things and all these
services use the word whether
whether fully encompassing or not,
it means a world where the creator makes
a decision where their content lives,
how it gets to the people, and how

(46:24):
they make money off of it, whether they're
giving that right to somebody else or they
maintain it themselves.
That's cool. But I think if we give
ground
to the two major locked in platforms,
your industry
podcast movement will not survive that. If we
just rely on those two. Oh, just relying
definitely not. Right? Like, I think that that's

(46:45):
a terrible idea. Right? Like, if
if,
severance doesn't get renewed for season three and
they did like, they can't, like, go
shoot it themselves
as, like, a budget TV show and then
release it on Betamax.
But if we decide to not list this
on Spotify and we send a final message
posted on the Spotify feed that says, hey.
Everybody who consumes on Spotify, we disagree with

(47:07):
what Spotify is doing. Contact us and we'll
send you a cassette tape with it. You
can. Right? That choice is to opt in
there.
Look, we're watching musicians opt out of Spotify.
That's true. Now we're watching people push back
in different ways. We're watching all those different
things. I agree that there is nothing cooler
than the open distribution and ownership of RSS.

(47:27):
But the problem is, is that the people
with a substantial amount of money
don't want
things to be open. Right? They don't want
them from not having control of it. However,
I think some have been better stewards than
other. And most of them, when they've tried
to, like, really
exert pressure on it,
have found that even their audiences, not just

(47:48):
our industry, has pushed back, and it's been
pretty cool to watch.
Yeah. I think we have an opportunity, though.
This conversation tends to always focus on audio,
and and I think one of the things
that we've left ourselves vulnerable to is Spotify
and YouTube
disrupting RSS

(48:08):
because of an effort around video. Of course.
And and so Did you see the latest
numbers that we I think it was this
week's article, like, showing that, like, it's almost
half the people on YouTube just listen.
Yeah. To the video,
right? Sure. But like, I mean, to them,
they don't care about the delivery format and
all that. And I understand that like the
hosting and the freedom aspect of it, but

(48:28):
like that means that to me, people want
audio.
And that, like, that's the core that we
don't have to let go of. Well, but
your research has also shown that people want
to have a choice.
So I agree.
It can't be
a 100%
viewed everything that everybody
wants as just audio only. I think that

(48:48):
people will experience the content
in an audio experience even though it's video,
but then they know that they have the
option to pull it out and watch it
too. So And I think that option's powerful.
I mean, like, look, we're we're a Zoom
call for me and Rob into what Todd's
doing for the rest of it. Right? Like,
you don't have to be precious for it.
Like, literally, no one's gonna turn this on

(49:09):
and be like, hey, by the way, I'm
done with the new media show because, wow,
we phoned it in on video. They're just
gonna
minimize it and keep listening to it if
that really bothers them that much. But the
but what you're what you're building though and
what the marketing messaging that has been produced
largely over the last two years and what

(49:29):
is affecting new creators is you have to
do video.
And as soon as some creators, women and
others, they hear that you have to do
video, they say, I'm not doing nothing.
So I think I agree. Think we have
to be
cognizant of that messaging. And I'm not saying
video is gonna go away, and I'm not
giving, you know, I'm not giving up. But

(49:51):
I think we just also have to make
people understand that, yeah, you can start with
audio, and audio only is still cool. We're
we're leaving ourselves vulnerable
for for YouTube and and Spotify to come
in and disrupt us,
if we have that attitude, Todd.
I think podcasting since the very early days,
and you know this because you support video

(50:12):
on your platform, that
video has always been a part of podcasting.
It's just that
YouTube came on the scene and siphoned off
all that content. Right. Now granted,
what was the reaction of the podcast industry
was to retract from from video. Yeah. There's
no reason why we can't be more aggressive
with video. I agree, you know, and that's
dependent upon the messaging we've already shared with

(50:35):
people that can help us in that regard.
And maybe I think the hard part is
that, like, you know, the
like, we are always going to explore what
more we can do, but none of our
messaging has ever been any more than, like
I mean, heck, in Tom's book and everything
we do has been Right. Your show doesn't
necessarily need to be on video, but you
do. Right?
Have you ever tried to play a podcast
trailer in a group of people?

(50:57):
Like, just like grabbing your phone and hitting
play and then awkwardly staring into somebody's eyes?
Well, I've never played a trailer for somebody.
I mean, so there you go, right? But
like the video component is the fact that
like there are, we have substantial number of
partners who say like, hey, on TikTok, we
got these people who watch like a bunch
of shorts or whatever
on Instagram. And they buy it. How do

(51:18):
we get them to our RSS feed? I
said, Well, I think that's fair.
But that person just said, I want one
minute of content from you, not three hours.
There's nothing wrong with that. Right? We have
to figure out how to reach all these
people if we want those audiences. But again,
this is the line. If someone says, I
wanna be an audio only creator,
we are going to provide you by where

(51:40):
they can but where they can figure out
where they can thrive. And I think that
a lot of the things that we intend
to do, everybody here is not saying like,
hey, just spend money and it just works
on video. It's
will you make enough money back by going
into video to make it worthwhile?
Or can you do what you need to
do on audio? And I think that's the
bigger conversation that's been happening. And I think

(52:00):
too, it's very, very clear that about 65%,
and this is, you know, runs pretty close
to from the very, very beginning, don't care
about money at all. They don't care a
bit about
money.
So you've got 35%
Well, Todd, let's be clear on that. They
don't care about money
coming directly from the podcast. Right.

(52:22):
Right. So they may be making money from
other
business activities. If this episode doesn't have ads,
you're advertising that they listen to your next
episode. You're advertising that they follow you guys.
So they buy and sell. That's what some
people are looking for is authority or whatever
it may be. So they have different goals.
But everything that is beneficial for the business

(52:44):
and advertising side is applicable to creators. It's
the difference between selling someone else's brand and
yours. And I think that that's what's really
fun about it. And we just probably could
do better at saying that sentence every time
instead of just saying, like, if you're selling,
you know, a health product. Right? This is
how it works. It's no. If you sell
products on your show And you might be

(53:04):
the product. Someone else's. Yeah.
Yeah. So how does this
conversation
shift about RSS
when we start to see a real groundswell
of interest and deployment of HLS
streaming into RSS?
I think there's a plan.
You know? The standards project has a plan.
You know, by getting the apps to

(53:26):
participate in other news.
I'm gonna pass the torch on that one.
I think that that I've spent the first
two to three years
convinced
that if with the right momentum and the
right people, we could get the app to
adhere to things. And
I did not succeed.
And it's not and, like, Todd laughed at
me when we started this and and rightfully
so, but I don't I think you supported

(53:47):
us and you too, Rob. But it was
just like, okay. Like, let's see if it's
different. We should always keep trying. This new
idea with HLS and and the the standards
project, I support it. And I'm going to
figure out how we give them space and
how we give them opportunity and how we
amplify that message.
But I struggle as someone who has so
many other things that I can provide results

(54:07):
on to believe that in today's world that,
like, we are going to get the apps
to buy in. And I've been really finding
more success. How do we how do we
build around that, and how do we understand
that, and how do we just be fully
aware of everything? But I don't I don't
think it is a dead end effort.
I think that I have potentially hit my
dead end as an industry advocate to be

(54:29):
able to do it. And whoever is next
on this, I wanna provide them all of
our support and backing to how I think
traditional apps,
you know, that's an uphill battle. I think
apps have to look different. The other apps.
I think it has to look different. I
think there has to be and maybe it
turns into
micro communities on a PWA or who knows
what is gonna end up looking like. All

(54:50):
pool money together and then we fund the
next 10 to 20 YouTube and Spotify and
TikTok competitors as an industry. Which will be
over eight years. Well, but but under the
agreement that they in integrate a certain level
of data and obligation to the podcast industry.
There's so many different ways to go about
it, and it's really exciting. But, like, what
does it say in a world where people
are saying, oh, RSS is dead or or

(55:12):
fighting that or YouTube's taking over Spotify video
when, like, there are so many companies like
Blueberry
that are
still strong and have
a growing business. Right? Like, that's cool. Is
it, you know, is it the 2020 gold
rush aspect or even 2018 when there was
more companies? No. But, like it's never been

(55:32):
a gold rush. Spend slow and steady. Sure.
But that's
that's pretty neat. To me, that means that
the, you know, the the exaggeration of the
RSS feeds death is is exactly exaggerated.
Brian, I wanna be respectful of your time.
I know you had a call at the
top of the hour.
Any before before we let you go, any
thoughts on when you guys are gonna have

(55:53):
some announcements?
I know you're probably scrambling behind the scenes.
It's I wouldn't say say scrambling. It's a
lot of opportunity. I think that our goal
will be to start being more vocal as
soon as October for as much as possible.
I want people to have more
more ability to get things in under their
budget for who wanna sponsor. The people who
wanna submit, not only do I wanna have

(56:14):
clarity on submission, but also the approval process.
I want people to know months in advance
whether they're approved or not. And even, and
then we have to build out all of
that there. But,
we are very close to finalizing
we're we're signed on the South Buy venue,
and we are close to finalizing
on the New York venue. We just wanna
make sure

(56:35):
it's it's exactly what we want, and we
wanna we wanna ask a little bit more
feedback. But I think
people will have more time than they've ever
had before to participate in podcast movement,
and we will work our hardest to hear
all the feedback and and expand this event
to fit everybody's needs. I know you got
you got your hands full. By yeah.

(56:56):
And will the South by Southwest event be
a podcast movement event or a SoundSpot? It
will be. Yeah. So both of those will
be podcast movement, and, you know, podcast movement
will likely take the lead on the event
titles. Whereas my day to day is still
very much with the SoundsProfit partnership and the
the,
the the, trade association aspect of it. Will
we see SoundsProfitable

(57:16):
events that are separate from podcast movement events?
Right now, like advertising week this year, the
branding will still be SoundsPropo just because of
the momentum and stuff there, but we are
figuring that out. Right? I think advertising week
and SoundsProfitable
probably are one of the ones that's going
to be an interesting one name wise and
the recognition. But I think a lot of
our focus is how can podcast movement be

(57:38):
very clearly the event arm there. But there's
a difference between the trade association supporting POD
Show London and another event supporting POD Show
London Right. Which we're already signed as a
sponsor for for next year too. So one
thing that did come in via chat from
Beauty Bubble, she says one way to
be forthright
is to discuss or play the complaint and
how you have resolved them. This is just

(58:00):
an idea for someone who has acted as
a supporter to the activist,
whatever that means, of the conference. So,
that's some feedback from Beauty Bubble. So has
acted as a supporter to the promise that
we're gonna have we're gonna have more input
and more opportunity for that. But as someone
who's been involved in events before or large

(58:20):
scale groups and all that, talking through all
of that,
it can cause more work and negative feeling,
even if it's settled by the people involved.
So
we intend to explore opportunities to be better
at that, and that's I think that's the
strongest statement I can say. It is a
priority, but right now, I need to build
that appropriate funnel. Because if people give me

(58:42):
feedback or things to work on, I don't
have the system set up for how how
to get them the right feedback today. And
your and someone says your setup has gotten
more intense since the last time I saw
it. So anyway, so speak back to your
your background, your your wall of speakers back
there. And and I love thing I did
was a cool camera and a cool microphone.
I gotta set it up every year. I'd
love to hear a ACDC at, 120 decibels

(59:04):
rattling out of that from behind you. So
Pounding on those speakers. Right. Brian Guys, this
is great. Thanks. Thanks so much. Any questions
you have or anything we can add in
the future, it really means a lot to
me that you guys are bought into this,
and I want to hear your feedback. Thanks
for coming on. We definitely appreciate it. Thanks.
Thanks, guys. Yep. Okay. Bye.
Alright. Let me transition here. There we go.

(59:26):
That's the wide wide angle view there, Todd.
Yeah. Now we're back to normal.
Yeah. Well,
I kind of expected
the things that he was saying.
Yeah. So it
makes sense. I think that there's still a
lot to
be explored and unpacked and clarified.

(59:48):
And Oh, I think there's a huge amount.
Yeah. So
Lots of questions unanswered here. He can't do
it overnight. No.
It's gonna be based on his experience at
his next event and then the next event,
and he'll evolve it and make it into
something that will be more attractive to others.
And I think he may find that these,
you know, that there's a huge opportunity to

(01:00:09):
do regional events, not unlike what,
Podfest is doing with pot tours.
And I know that Dan has done that
in the past. So it's not like it's
alien to podcast movement to do
local regional events. Yeah. But I did get
the impression
that,
oh, the advertising piece is still gonna be
heavy piece of this.

(01:00:30):
Yeah.
You know, I'm not sure that we have
a clear understanding of what those sounds profitable
and and what that alliance is or what
that connection is. Yeah. Just like what you've
been saying about, you know, there's gonna be
some arm arm twisting. Yeah.
Since that's the base
of,

(01:00:52):
of now podcast movement. Right? All those companies
and also
increasingly now that, you know,
Pod News has come out publicly and said
that they're half owned by this entity. Now,
all those sponsors,
are now part of podcast movement as well.
So I don't know what that means for

(01:01:12):
how many people are exhibiting, how many people
are going to be, you know, paying for
stuff. I think, you know, I think it
could
really
expand the participation at the company level of
what Brian is working on here. But the
the key question is,
you know, trying to attract people that are
not part of his partnership
pool.

(01:01:33):
Right?
And I think he underestimates
the lack of growth in this space.
Again, he says he doesn't 100% know the
creator space. So Or the stagnant
aspect. Aspect of it. Yeah. Right now, what's
going on and how to kinda, like, turn
the faucet on this. And I think to

(01:01:53):
some degree, the stag the stagnatism
or the stagnation
is coming from this shift in perception around
video. Mhmm. And I think so too. The
that's the shiny thing that's out there that's
getting people's attention now Yeah.
More than ever. And that may have

(01:02:13):
caused
a little bit of
a pullback in focus around the the RSS
audio side of podcasting.
For sure.
Well, Rob, one thing is, clear today. I
have my a few changes I made. You
have not jickered today. In other words, you've
not froze.
I haven't froze. So no.
Because you That could be my bandwidth. Yeah.

(01:02:34):
You're going out Starlink two, and the stream's
going out Starlink one. So, Really? Wow. Yeah.
So the fiber's blown in, but no word
on when they're gonna be able to get
me hooked up. Like I said, two months.
So, you know, who knows? Months before they
actually were Start it up to you. Yeah.
Because, yeah, the you know, they're gonna start
lighting stuff up, and then they're gonna work
this way. So it it probably the grown

(01:02:55):
ground will be frozen by the time Right.
It might be spring. Hell will freeze over
by now. Well, it you know, I was
laughing with the guys. And I by the
way, where they put the main junction box
close to my property, I said, by the
way, in the spring, there's a foot of
water over the top of that box.
So, you know, hope that stuff's waterproof.
So what's

(01:03:16):
the the the takeaway that you have from
your perception of what Brian said today and
what you've heard? I'm a little bit confused,
so we'll see.
I don't think they made
a decision.
Yeah. I I guess we're not gonna know
until we know. Right? Which is gonna be
when they start doing their next event. Yeah.

(01:03:38):
I don't even know that we're gonna necessarily
know a lot even at South by in
the spring. Yeah.
Just because But but I've never seen hotel
rooms for $200
a night at South by.
Not unless you stay out of town. Yeah.
Yeah. And then you can't drive in. There's
no parking, so you have to Uber in.

(01:04:00):
Uber it. You'd have to Uber or in
in Austin's case, it sucks staying outside of
town. Robotaxing
you then. There's nothing. You're gonna have to,
you know, you're gonna have to have a
backpack that day, and then, you know, you're
gonna be there from 08:00 in the morning
until 09:00 at night.
Well, there's
also a growing market for, robotaxis
and

(01:04:21):
autonomous Yeah. Car transport in Austin as well.
But that's, you know, that's kind of the
same way as Dragon Con is too. So
it's not any different than Dragon Con. I
know. I stayed out by the airport and
took an Uber in every day. Yeah. Because
it was you saved $250
a night on your hotel room. Right? Yeah.
It wasn't that inconvenient. Right. Right. Take

(01:04:42):
a $10 Uber ride. Yeah. But when you
left for the day, you left. You were
done.
I was, but it was pretty late usually.
And that's gonna be the same
way in New York, you know, because Yeah.
That's why he's gonna have to really focus
on after hours. Yeah. Because if I'm going
to New York, the first, you know, the
first afternoon or evening that I'm there, I'm
going to the Mecca. You know what Mecca

(01:05:03):
the Mecca in New York is. Right?
I don't think I've ever been to the
B And H.
Oh, B And H.
Actually, they've got
a a
a creator event coming up, I think, in
a couple weeks. Yeah. You know, making making
the you may not afford to go there,
but you sure like to go there and
look at all this stuff
if you're a gear head.

(01:05:24):
Yeah. And I think that what one of
the limitations is if a lot of people
come in via train Yeah.
There is a
there is a last train out of there
Yep. That you have to account for. Yep.
So
yeah. And I think the,
yeah, it's just gonna be like Vegas. You're
gonna get stuff done during the day. But

(01:05:44):
if they you know, we didn't ask him
about the weekend aspect.
We missed that.
Yeah. We did. Yeah. But I I think,
you know, probably there's been enough
feedback. Hopefully, he's heard that already, but I
don't know. And, again, if he's Well, he
did did give us the impression that single
day tickets was Yeah.
On the table, which I thought was a
good Yeah. Good sign.

(01:06:05):
Yep. Yeah. Or maybe they have two dedicated
tracks, you know,
dedicated tracks during both those days that would
make one person come or another.
Yeah. You know? Right. Maybe pure business side
and then per growth side. Maybe it's a
growth track and a monetization track or some
to that effect. Yeah. So
what's saying
go ahead. I was just saying,

(01:06:27):
certainly the needs of the market are
different than they were
back in, you know, let's say, 2015
or 2016. Yeah. And the market has changed,
you know. So, again, the vie the vitality
of events are not as valuable
as they were. But I think going back
to podcast, I think Chris has such a
huge opportunity.

(01:06:49):
And I see they're out in California this
week promoting.
So, you know, what how many does that
you know, how many of those folks will
make it to to to Orlando? I don't
know. I hope plenty.
But I think Chris has a huge, huge,
huge, huge
opportunity
to differentiate
completely
this conference from podcast movement. But

(01:07:13):
Yeah.
I agree with that. But it is, you
know, it is good that Brian understands the
dynamics of London too because they've been they
go to London. They do a lot of
business in London.
That sounds profitable. So
Right.
True.
Anyway, no other, feedback from the audience. Let
me see if anyone else weighed in.

(01:07:36):
No other comments here today.
So we're already an hour in. So we've,
spent two weeks on podcast movements. So next
week, we will definitely be talking about them.
Anything pop up in the podcast space that
we need to talk about before we go?
I don't think so. I think that that's
been the
the focus is
kind of what's gonna happen with this this

(01:07:58):
event and
and we're coming into fall. So, you know,
that's usually
a time when
maybe
new podcasters are gonna launch their shows and
and just prior to the holidays that are
coming up, and so we may see a
little bit of a burst in energy in
the space. I do I do have a
funny one for you. I was

(01:08:21):
this morning, I was gonna start my prep
for,
podcast days in Madrid.
And I went to my email, and I
typed in Madrid in my email, and it
was nothing in there.
And I said it must come in another
email. And I
spent an hour trying to figure out what
happened to this email thread.

(01:08:42):
And all I can think of is my,
executive assistant must have deleted the thread
because it was gone.
So I had to reach out to Ruben.
I said, hey. Can you can you reform
me the thread?
So, I, you know, I know,
where I'm staying. I have the whole you
know, it seems kind of funny as I'm

(01:09:04):
sorry, but I cannot find it. So I
don't know how you can protect something in,
when you have someone else in your Gmail
to not delete it.
You know? So I just told her, hey.
This thread, don't don't touch that thread.
Yeah. Yeah. So I do check my trash

(01:09:25):
every day to make sure she hasn't deleted
it. And she's been pretty good, but I
must have missed it or or I deleted
it. Who knows? You know?
Yeah. Who knows is right. Or or it's
in the spam folder. Did you check? Well,
look there too. You know?
And, you know, I said, did I dump
this in another folder and it's just not
finding it? You know? Because there is it's
Google search

(01:09:46):
being a piece of crap. You know? Who
knows?
So, anyway, that was my tech fund for
the day.
Yeah.
Okay. We're already overtime here. So, everyone, thank
you for being here. I'm [e-mail]
[e-mail]
on Masto.

(01:10:07):
Rob? I'm on all the social platforms. Rob
Greenlee with two e's on the end,
at rob greenlee dot com. You can send
me an email, [e-mail].
And,
those are the best places that I've had.
I've got a YouTube channel that this is
airing on right now too. So if you
wanted to see a replay of this, you
can go to either Todd's channel or my

(01:10:28):
channel,
to
to watch the full conversation with Brian. So
And you can watch me try to manipulate
the, video while we were going and cut
off Rob's head and stuff for a little
bit. I was trying to fix it. Got
a little better, but not much.
So anyway. I think it got got a
little more even. Alright. Alright, everyone. Thanks for

(01:10:49):
being here. We'll we'll see you next week.
Same time. 03:00 eastern live if you wanna
watch and listen. Alright. Everyone take care. We'll
see you next time. K. Bye. Bye bye.