Navigating the Podcasting Landscape in 2025 #621

In the episode titled “Navigating the Podcasting Landscape in 2025,” hosts Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee discuss the evolving landscape of podcasting, particularly focusing on the challenges and opportunities for podcasters in the coming years. The episode begins with Todd mentioning some difficulties related to using OBS for streaming and recording, contrasting it with his … Continue reading Navigating the Podcasting Landscape in 2025 #621 →

The post Navigating the Podcasting Landscape in 2025 #621 appeared first on New Media Show.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
With Todd and Rob.
Oh, yeah. Well, it sound like the audio
kicked off a little bit late there. Anyway,
Rob, welcome
to welcome to, the new media show. Here
we are and,
you know, one thing that I I'm learning
is that,
OBS is an incredibly

(00:23):
powerful
application,
but it it it doesn't have oh, I'm
getting I'm hearing you through my let me
change this audio.
It doesn't have the,
okay. There we go. That's better. It doesn't
have the same

(00:44):
road,
robustness
in recording audio
as my,
TriCaster
for sure from a from an audio quality
standpoint. So what I'm finding
is is what I record
in the road the RODECaster
is a much better audio quality than what

(01:05):
is recorded in
In Zoom. Yeah. On the audio side. I
mean, in OBS. Yeah.
So
that to me was was pretty surprising,
from that. Every once in a while, I
get a little audio
artifact, and they say it's all about levels.
But, you know, I'm looking at these little
meters here, and it's green, yellow, red, and
we're well into the green.

(01:27):
So who knows? But
Right.
But is anyone out there I I have
a tech support question for the audience.
I've got a Elgato
Facecam Pro.
And
at home, it worked on my iMac,

(01:48):
which has
still has USB
connectors in the,
in the back of it.
But
here,
I cannot get
the Facecam Pro to work
either on a Mac mini or on a

(02:08):
MacBook Pro
using a
USB
c
to, you
know, the
it's basically a converter.
It refuses. It says I do not see
a USB three
device.
It's almost as if
the

(02:29):
the MacBook doesn't have USB three, which I
know is not the case.
So I'm utterly confused and nothing is on
the support forums that can help me.
But I guess that's one advantage to a
PC as I you can be guaranteed to
have a a good
a a good connection.

(02:49):
So you're trying to go from a USB
c to a regular full size
USB somehow? It's it's basically you know how
on the Macs, they do not have a
regular USB port.
Right. It's it's a USB c port.
Right.
And,
with that,

(03:09):
it it basically it's just basically given me
the, you know, middle finger here.
When it comes to,
it just doesn't recognize it. It it's it
says, hey. You you do not have a
USB three
connection. That's the problem.
So I I don't let me grab one

(03:30):
of the I'll show you one of the
adapters I'm using.
It's just a little itty bitty
USB c. Yeah.
And it's from Anker,
which is, you know, I've used their products
for years and never had a had a
problem here. And this is, you
know, USB say it supports

(03:51):
USB three on it? Yeah. USB c to
USB three.
So,
basically, you've got USB three
being plugged into it, then you have the
USB c that plugs into the Mac.
And Oh. It will not
detect
that Facecam Pro camera

(04:13):
as a
and it's it's bizarre. Everything else works.
So,
yeah, it's it's
it's a little bit annoying. But anyway so
if anyone out there has a solution
that is use the Elgato
Facecam Pro
I don't even know that I ever seen

(04:33):
one of those before. Yeah. They're nice to
they're a and they're they're expensive too. They're
a fantastic,
camera.
And what's even more discouraging
is
they have it as part of,
if I can show you one.
It it works with my,

(04:59):
what do I wanna say here? It works
with my,
teleprompter.
It's a $300 camera. It's not cheap.
Mhmm. So, yeah, I just showed the screen.
You can't see it, Rob, but I just
showed the screen on my screen.
Oh.
Like, what it looks like. But, yeah, it's

(05:20):
it's purely USB three, so I don't know.
We'll see if anyone has any suggestions here.
So
and another change today is I can view
everyone that is,
participating today. I can see your comments,
live. So,
a little bit of all going into the

(05:41):
OBS software?
No. I have a separate monitor over here
where I'm watching
the Oh, I see. I'm watching the YouTube
stream, and I'm watching,
both on
yeah. Anyway, so I I'm watching the streams.
So
I stream chats. And who knows? Maybe,

(06:02):
maybe I can't see the chats. Who knows?
That's
live and learn with OBS, and there's so
many different plugins at this point. It's it's
crazy.
But you have to admit the the OBS
software, that that's actually free software. Oh, it's
incredible. Incredible. And it's
I think it's open source software is what
Yeah. And,

(06:22):
and it's very capable software, but it has
a huge learning curve to it. Well, once
I get the learning curve figured out in
its nuances,
this is a
complete
absolutely complete TriCaster replacement.
And
and I actually bought,
a Elgato

(06:43):
foot switch. They've actually got this device you
can put on the floor.
And for my I don't use it for
this show because we're not switching too much,
but I can actually
step on this pedal
and it will switch the view on me
without having to use my hands. So it's
just like kind of a drummer. You know,
I get this button down here. I jam

(07:04):
on it and the screen switches to
the Chrome browser and then back and, you
know, instead, I've got also the little Stream
Deck
and I'm able to switch back and forth
with that too. So,
yeah, I understand why people are using this
software.
I you know, it's very, very, very clear.

(07:24):
But the only challenge that really remains too
is because we're in Zoom,
I'm using a,
what's called a screen capture to put our
images up on the screen,
but
it will not route your audio through the
RodeCaster
into

(07:44):
OBS.
So your audio is being captured off the
the screen capture. So, again, it's stuff I
just don't understand.
And I've been playing with the Rode
for a couple hours today and could not
get the routing. It would seem like that
I would have one master
recording with you

(08:05):
coming in on the road, but it doesn't
it's a it acts like it doesn't, recognize
the mix minus.
So
Interesting. So you can't just hit
record on the RODECaster and capture it all.
Well, I can. That's what I'm doing. The
master audio will be over there, which is
the most important things, though. Right. Anyway, enough

(08:26):
talking about me and, you know, the stuff
we're trying to improve here on the on
the show, but
I'm pretty I'm pretty pleased
so far with the quality of the the
capture and the stream and and everything else.
So,
if any of you are OBS
experts and want to,
spend an hour with Todd on a Zoom

(08:47):
call, I would love,
you know, I'll pay for that too. If
you're an OBS expert, I'll I'll pay for
your time.
Just give give me an hour of your
time when we can,
I'll pay you. Give me the, give me
the schooling.
So anyway, Rob, lots of stuff going on
the pot. And by the way, I do
have a green screen coming. So hopefully next

(09:09):
week oh
you won't see my cheesy background with my
suitcase in the in the
refrigerator in the in the background. So
so lots of stuff going on. A lot
of news. A lot of fun news.
Yeah. It's,
it's a very real background you have there,

(09:29):
Todd, that I have to say. Yeah. It's
Yeah. It is. It's very,
you know, authentic.
Well, can you know, it it
what's in front of me believe it? Contrived
like mine is to some degree. But,
you know No. Yours looks nice. Yours is,
I Well, I mean, it looks nice. It's
pleasing.
Yeah.

(09:49):
Yeah. My background sucks right now.
A natural
kind of what most people have in there.
No. But it it looks good. And this
what I have looks cheesy right now. I
don't know if the green screen will be
any better. But
Well, I guess it depends on if you
were able to grab a a picture of
your old studio Oh, that would superimposed. Oh,

(10:11):
that would be kinda cool. Right? Yeah. Well,
we'll come up with I'll put myself in
Hawaii or something like that. So Yeah. There
you go. There you go. If you happen
to capture yeah. I've done that before where
I've captured the
the picture
of what my background looks like. Yeah. And
then I get a green screen and I've
superimposed that on my green screen and people
can't tell that I'm not in my office.
Yeah.

(10:32):
So one thing my mom was complaining to
me about, she says, you look like you're
looking down. So what I've ordered is a
little riser.
So Yeah. It does
does kinda look like that. Yeah. So I
will bring the laptop up about four or
five inches and
hopefully
then, you know, it won't look like I'm
because I am. I'm looking down into

(10:52):
the into the camera. But if that if
that other camera had worked,
that's right there
with my teleprompter that I'm using for recording
videos for Blueberry.
If that stupid camera had worked, I would
be eye level, but it's just, you know,
it's not cooperating. It's hard to align your
your video camera

(11:14):
with what you're trying to see on your
screen. Yeah. Yeah. Either gonna be off to
the side or it's gonna be right in
front of your screen or it's gonna be
on top of it or something like that,
and it and it pulls your eyes. I'm
always trying to consciously
look at my camera all the time. Yep.
While also
but my big 35 inch screen that I
have in front of me is such a

(11:34):
big, you know, attraction for the eye Yeah.
To go right back down there again.
The big difference in when I'm in Michigan
is there's a big screen TV behind the
camera,
and I'm looking at the big screen TV
versus looking at the computer.
Now I have to look at the computer
once in a while to make some changes
or whatever. If my finger knowledge is good,

(11:56):
I don't have to look down at all.
So Or if you have an outline that
you're trying to follow or something like that.
Yeah. You've got to look at the screen.
Yeah. I mean To some degree. And whereas
the teleprompter,
you know, if I was going recording these
videos for Blueberry and then getting ready to
do a session on introduction to RSS, we're
building our podcast consultant course.

(12:18):
And Yeah. The,
it's gonna look weird because I've got the
teleprompter,
you know, where my eyes now. And I
don't know if you
does it look like I'm looking up above
the camera? Does it look more natural?
Yeah. Yeah. It does. Yeah. And if it
looks a little weird,
so, you know, looking into teleprompter is gonna

(12:38):
be offset because of this camera location. So,
yeah, you know. Also,
the
the Descript software now,
has
what's called eye contact,
filter in it now too. I don't know
if you've ever played around that, Todd, where
No. Where it'll actually adjust
where your eyes are looking.

(12:59):
Well, it So it'll point them right at
the center of the screen.
Yeah.
So So it's
it's good for solo podcasts. I'm not sure
it's a big thing if you're doing,
like, maybe
a interview or a group conversation. Mhmm. You
know, definitely with the solo shows, I I
think it's helpful to
be looking at the screen like you're talking

(13:21):
to one person that's sitting in front of
you. Right. So But, you know, it's for
a little you know, I took a picture
of this. Actually, I'm gonna do a YouTube
video on this setup.
And, I'm
overall, it's come a long ways. What what
really was the best investment and it was
an expensive investment was the Zebec

(13:42):
monitors,
XE BEC.
And what it is is I've got the
MacBook Pro right here and then two monitors
that are
off to the side.
That was the best investment ever,
from a productivity standpoint because I can have
Slack running over here and another window there.
And it's just it's just like having the

(14:03):
three monitor set up.
Even though they are, you know, scrunched down,
they're not and I can flip them upright
if I want.
So that's that's always an option, but
I'm actually surprised
it it all sorted itself out. I have
a little hub now, and all the all
the connections are recognized. That's the main thing

(14:25):
too is get too many devices plugged into
a computer.
And, you know, oftentimes, the computers go haywire,
teleprompter, two monitors,
the road.
What else? The Elgato Stream Deck, the Elgato
but switch, all of that's working and, you

(14:48):
know, minus the camera.
And believe me, I tried to run the
camera with everything unplugged and it still hasn't
worked. So
okay. Anyway I wanted to to try and
cover a little bit today,
this this kind of, I guess, question or
theme or whatever you wanna call it.
Is your podcast ready for the future,

(15:10):
as kind of like an overarching
theme today on the show? I know we
we didn't really dive into that at the
beginning. I've kind of promoed that in my
metadata that that actually went went out on
the show. But,
just talking about kind of the
the confliction that's going on in the space,
and then a few other,

(15:30):
things. And I know we've talked,
you know, about some of these topics many
times before on the show. And I think,
you know, Todd, I think we've we've gotten
this feedback from the community is that they're
they're sick and tired of hearing about AI.
They're sick and tired of hearing about video.
Yeah. They're sick and tired, you know. And
that really comes from
a a place where, generally, people are

(15:53):
are resistant to change
and also, you know, don't necessarily,
trust what they're hearing. Right? So there's a
kind of a a confliction going on in
the space right now that people are
either they're all all pro audio or they're
pro video or they're and so we have
this kind of it's like everything in the

(16:15):
world today.
Everything is, you know, split. Right? So there's
the yin and the yang. You know, it's
kind of the the environment that we're in
right now. So when people talk about, well,
you know, audio,
then they're talking,
you know, that they wanna prioritize audio only.
And then there's other people out there, like,
going, oh, you know, I wanna do video

(16:36):
only. And the problem is coming in is
when when you start talking about this in
a combined way.
But really before I get you in that,
there's a lot of articles that I put
in our outline for the show today
to kinda talk about some of these issues.
And so I don't wanna duplicate
too much of what we've talked about in

(16:57):
the past, but
did did wanna start off and say that
there was a couple of
interesting news,
headlines that came out in pod news over
the last few days.
And one was about
and this one's a little bit funny as
you think about it, and and both of
us have been content creators for a long
time. Is it is it everybody's nightmare

(17:20):
that a podcast where everyone is talking over
the top of each other is the most
irritating thing. So you have a podcast with
multiple, you know, guests or multiple cohosts, and
they they they just banter back and forth
over the top of each each other. And
as an audience member, that can be a
little frustrating. Right? And, also, it can be
a little frustrating for the editor

(17:40):
that has to edit that podcast because they
can't
separate
the two voices because they're layered on top
of each other. Well, I guess
there's a new AI
kind of,
kind of company. I don't know if they're
pure AI, but it's called Audio Shake
that has launched a
new tool that will separate overlapping voices, Todd.

(18:03):
Is What do you think about that? Is
that really a problem?
Well, I think for some podcasts that it
is. Yeah. I think people,
do have a tendency to step on each
other,
in in podcasts.
You know. You know, I to talk. Okay.
So if they separate that then

(18:23):
what do they do?
You know, are they stretching the audio?
Yeah. Are they you know, if they're separating
then
you still have overlapping
audio.
Well, no. They take the different voices and
they just pull them apart and then they
put them next to each other. Well, that
would sound very, very strange because what ends

(18:44):
up happening is
if you start talking and I was gonna
I stop. So there there's gonna be this
it it would sound like
as if you started talking right now
while I was speaking,
how it it to me then that audio
would seem really
jacked because

(19:05):
it would be Todd saying this this and
this and that. And then Rob, you would
be this this it. And then you would
pause
because I was speaking and I would continue
because it usually is what happens is someone
catches one another. So I don't know how
what do you do? Just cut that of
the audio out? I guess that's the assumption
is that You just separate the two voices

(19:28):
from each other and pull them apart. Right?
Well or delete it.
Well, no. You don't want to delete it
because what what it's saying is that you
you have a tool that's separating the overlapping.
Well, I know. But usually one party will
stop talking
and wait till the other party gets done
then jump back in. So my for me,

(19:48):
the the that way that tool would be
useful is they separate them. That's not
yeah. But then it's not overlapping.
So it's only gonna be the audio that's
overlapping. Right? Well, if they separate the audio
that's overlapping, you delete the section
of the person that stopped talking when they
were overtalking someone
and get rid of that so that it's

(20:08):
just that one person talking. I would assume
that would be the editing
strategy
because I'm not gonna
I'm not gonna split you in the audio
editor
and move you from would actually cause
cause potentially more problems. Right. Because especially if
you're doing video too.
Then actually just separating the two voices. Yeah.

(20:29):
So People are talking at the same time,
then you just pull those two people talking
to each other at the same time apart.
Yeah. And you kill one of the discussions
and you
continue No. You don't. No. You're actually keeping
both of them. Why? That's what then what's
the purpose of this tool?
If you're gonna keep both voices It gets

(20:50):
to do exactly what we said it is
doing. And if you're gonna keep people will
get to say what they were trying to
say.
Again, that only works in audio. If you're
just doing audio,
won't work if you're doing video for sure
because how can Well, they're not yeah. They're
not claiming that it works in video. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So, again,
I think that normally what will happen is

(21:11):
if someone's overtalking on someone,
one of the parties will stop or both
and then you say go ahead.
Right? And then the person will continue
and then the other person will jump back
in. So I would see that as an
editing tool to get rid of that awkward
time.
Yeah. So that it overlap. Yeah. So that
it's smooth during you know, so that way

(21:33):
you're only hearing one speaker then. So I
I could see where that would be useful,
I guess, if you have four or five
people
on a show.
But it will create a
I think it will create a little bit
of a different
audio experience from it too. Just like you
said, Todd, people will say, you know, go

(21:54):
ahead, Todd. Or or they'll they'll just cut
themselves off right in the middle of the
word that they're saying Right.
To let the other person talk.
And
if you separate that, then it's gonna be
kind of an awkward
transition.
So I guess
I guess if the AI is good enough,
like a descriptor or whatever that actually has

(22:15):
audio cloning Mhmm. Built into it, you could
you could kinda fill in
in between, I suppose. But, you know, it's
an interesting thing. It's a little bit of
a gimmick, I think, to some degree. I
think shows that have overlapping
conversations. I'm not sure the audience is really
all that,
you know, upset about it. I I think

(22:35):
in time, what will happen is
all these tools are gonna become synonymous. Everyone's
gonna have these types of features. So we're
gonna see lots of these types of announcements.
My concern would be is this would be
a one trick pony. I've never heard of
them before.
I'm sure they have more,

(22:56):
tools.
But
yeah. Again, I think I guess it's been
built into
the WonderCraft
platform. And I'm not even familiar with WonderCraft.
Have you seen that platform?
I haven't seen it my myself, but I've
I've definitely heard about them before. So it
must be a platform that does a lot
of, you know, guests and cohost type of

(23:18):
shows or something like that, you
know, for them to prioritize it.
Right. It's the names. And then Pocketcast came
out with the announcement that they're they're gonna
support an open web player
for everyone. That feels like a little bit
of an old school thing to some degree.

(23:38):
Right?
But it's an interesting move on their part
to
to go in there and make a make
a web player type of a tool that
works in a browser. You know, Apple made
that move
a year ago or so.
So, you know, the support for browser based
consumption of content is kind of an interesting
move that Pocket Cast has decided to do

(24:00):
here. So
they're a big fan of,
RSS.
I think with,
the
ongoing
I guess when
it kinda leads to thought I
was running down in my other show recently.
I'll talk about here in a minute.

(24:24):
There what we see on people that do
WordPress, PowerPress
specifically,
as compared to someone that has a landing
page on Blueberry,
their web viewing
or
web
listening
is multitudes higher
because people are used to come into the

(24:45):
podcasters' website and consuming
on the website. So we see as high
as maybe 15%
listening on the website for those that are
using WordPress, PowerPress versus those that just have
a landing page at Blueberry,
which is kind of, you know, they're maybe
not promoting that page.

(25:05):
So Is it better better indexed in Google
because it's a WordPress? I think it's just
because people have a website.
The listener knows they can come to the
website and get the content. Yeah.
When I send out room.com.
Yeah. Like that. When I send out my
newsletter, I send a link to my website
and I send a link to my audio

(25:26):
file, which
in essence, if they get that email and
they click on the audio file, it'll just
play
in a browser window. And that technically is
considered, you know, a web play versus a,
an app play. So
we do still see good percentages.

(25:46):
I think the show is
nine or 10%
of people that listen
on the web.
Actually, listen at newmediashow.com.
So which is surprising to me. Or listen
or watch?
Well, kind of both because some listen, some
watch.
So I I I I'm not that surprised

(26:08):
about this. It is
it is an interesting move,
but I did like one thing that they
said here,
and they're bullish on Open RSS.
They say future podcasting shouldn't be located behind
walled gardens.
So, you know, that sound like they got

(26:29):
that quote from me. It says podcast belongs
to people, not corporations.
Adding the podcasting is it and I say
is one of I say is the last
open
frontier, open corner of the Internet, and we're
here to keep it that way. So,
I I, you know, I think more of
this is needed,

(26:52):
for people to understand,
that they're
you know,
we we don't care where they listen. That
debate is failed.
But, you know, I like I like the
the rhetoric
coming out of them for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah. I did notice you know, I went
and played played with the tool to some

(27:13):
degree, and
and they do support
video via our assess playback. Right. So
but it has the same challenge that Apple
has where
you click play
and you hear the audio, but down on
that lower corner of the player on the
on the,
browser,

(27:35):
it starts playing the video, but it's in
this little tiny, you know,
small little image that you then have to
click on again to
make it go full screen. And that's the
challenge that exists in Apple Podcasts. Yeah. I
wonder why they did that.
They probably saw what Apple was doing and
they just copied it. Would be because it
looks exactly the same as what Apple is

(27:56):
doing. Mhmm.
So,
you know, but they do have have video
in there and it's
and it's,
you know, I mean, it's it's a decent
sized platform. I mean, podcast
is a really large platform. It's just I'm
not sure why
they architected this to when you click

(28:17):
to play, what's obviously a video podcast, it
just doesn't go to play the video.
Why it has to play
has to prioritize the audio listening experience first.
It's not like it's costing Pocket Cast to
to deliver that No. I'm the one paying
for that.
Right. And it's not

(28:39):
it's
you know, why would they not just click
once and you see the video?
I don't know why you have to click
twice to to see the video.
You expect
based on you and I haven't played with
it. Are you ex you think, Rob, that
most people that are gonna use this are
going to
do it via,
a desktop browser or is it are you

(29:00):
just gonna do it via their mobile app?
Well, it could happen in both places.
You know? Yeah. Yeah. So the what could
happen on the mobile app,
well, doesn't make any sense because people are
watching YouTube stuff all day on their mobile
app. So
it should be the same experience. That's, you
know, that's a problem here. We need to

(29:22):
make sure that if they're gonna support Open
RSS and video
podcast that they
they present that as a video podcast
in the
in the platform. It's a common problem across
all of the platforms right right now. Even,
you know, I
even even discovering
a video podcast in Pocket Casts like Apple,

(29:45):
and Spotify is the same way. And I'm
I'm, like, shocked at how disconnected they are
about this.
You know, the only way,
that you can be you can find a
video podcast in
in Pocket Casts or or even an Apple
Podcasts is that you have to type
in the search box the word video. Mhmm.

(30:06):
And the problem is is that none of
them are smart enough
to know which of the podcasts in the
directory are actually video podcasts. Right. Right. It's
only searching on the metadata
Yeah. Of the title
of the of the show. So if you
don't have video in the title of your
video podcast, it's not gonna be found. Yeah.

(30:27):
That's why
I hate doing it, but I have parenthesis
audio, parenthesis video.
Yeah. Well, I I do it with all
of the
the video podcasts that I do too. This
one plus
plus my podcast tips show. I do the
same thing. But,
it's just shocking to me how all these
platforms are so backwards on this. They it's

(30:47):
it's not a hard thing to code to
to
have a video experience, and I even saw
it in Spotify. I was gonna talk about
it in here too. But, you know, the
the these platforms,
it's just I don't know what what what
happened, Todd. I don't know. Is there any
explanation you can come up with of how
these platforms just got
video just so wrong?

(31:09):
I think what it was was
video was big in the beginning,
you know, of the early years of podcasting.
You had some great networks doing video. Away.
Right. And then and then not as many
people did video, became completely audio centric.
And now that video is on the uptick

(31:30):
again, they're flat footed. They're falling they've they've
fallen behind.
Yeah. And it they never removed the functionality,
but they made it a not even a
second class citizen, a third class citizen. It's
just driven. Yeah. You know, when you go
to when you go to this show in
Apple podcast
and you get on the video version of

(31:52):
this show, you would not know it's video
unless you click in for more details. It
it won't show the video. It'll it'll play
as an audio podcast.
So the experience is horrible.
It'll show
the thumbnail
that that we have up there, the the
cover art with the saying, you know, video
version

(32:13):
or or videos, you know, so a person
knows this is a video version of But
you have to do an extra step and
you have to know how to do that
step
to get to the video. Notice down the
very bottom of the of the player at
the bottom of the screen
when there's little tiny video image is playing
to the left of the player. And I
and I it's amazing,

(32:33):
you know,
just
you know, I know Ted and the rest
of the team are listening.
When you guys are out
talking with people in the public
and you're talking about making this mistakes. And
you talk about Apple podcast,
you know,
ask people. Do you know that? Just ask

(32:55):
someone. Do you know Apple Apple podcast supports
video?
And you I bet you
I bet you 9.5
out of 10 times you go say, what?
I have no clue. Nary nary a clue.
So
because that's my experience. I show podcasters
all the time that Apple Podcasts supports video

(33:17):
and they're blown away. They're like, what? Yeah.
And then
so I think the thing that I'm gonna
start reverting to is and I need to
check the experience on Apple TV
is maybe I need to start taking Apple
TV to
trade shows and having a a monitor
back there and have Apple Podcasts playing a

(33:37):
video podcast
to make people understand that
video
and I haven't checked on it, Apple TV
lately
or what the podcast explained. I'm assuming
it's better. I'm assuming the video just plays.
Yeah. I wouldn't And I've got an Apple
assumption. I've got an Apple TV. I got
an Apple TV here, so I'll test it

(33:59):
today. I have one too. Yeah. I have
one too that I've had for many years.
But I was just shocked. You know, I
went to go look at Spotify and what
they're doing with this stuff too. And it's
the their top navigation for their directory,
says podcasts. Mhmm.
K. You click on that,
and
there's no way to discover video podcasts.

(34:23):
The only way to actually
even even have a chance of that is
getting into the catalog,
and then there's
at the top of the screen is a
is a few more genre details,
and there's a
genre detail up there,
that that says podcasts and shows.

(34:43):
It's like a tag almost. It's like a
tag icon,
and you click on that, and it takes
you to
a page that has
a list of audio podcasts
as well as
a row of
what's,
tagged in there as video, but
it's not titled as video. It's in this

(35:04):
little tiny text on the screen.
And then, the only way that you can
actually find at the top level,
find, video
podcasts
is you go into search and type in
just like I mentioned with Pocket Casts and
and Apple Podcasts, you have to type in
the word video.
And

(35:25):
like I said,
it
it's only gonna pull up episodes
that have it in the metadata. Here's here's
the reason why Rob.
It's because they're trying to
let's let's call video a square peg.
And that's called easy programming.
No. What it is is they're an audio
first platform

(35:45):
trying to jam
video
into a platform that was not designed
to do video. So it's in Well, no.
It used to be. I mean, Apple podcasts
have I understand. Between
audio and video at the top and they
removed that. I agree. So it was a
I agree. And but Spotify though, you know,

(36:05):
they
they're trying to, you know, jam a square
peg through a round hole
and you know, completely
bastardize the entire
experience.
They are gonna grow the consumption of this
stuff. That that's the thing. They they can
wanna be in the video business all they
want.
You know? Get the content careers. I mean,

(36:26):
even even going over and looking at,
at what what what Spotify is doing with
Joe Rogan.
You know? Yeah. I searched for the Joe
Rogan podcast in Spotify.
The only thing that comes up is the
video show. Yep.
So where's the audio side of that? There
is none.

(36:47):
Not to them. If you do if you
do video on
Spotify, your audio is gone.
Audio only. Well, no.
Well, supposedly,
it converts that
audio version into
a one that's based on the video. Right?
The video takes priority.
The video

(37:07):
the video track basically is priority. The audio
is no longer
It's it's
no longer available? No.
No. I mean, you can't just click on
a audio version of the show. No. This
is the problem. That's why people are losing
money.
Well, it's it just
I can't believe how bad they got this.

(37:29):
Well, we It's so obvious what the right
thing to do. Rob, I I I was
in a call with Spotify and
expressed this exact
concern
and this is the road they've they've sowed.
So so be it.
Good. Good. It's a bad experience on Spotify.
Well,
well, the problem is it's a bad experience

(37:51):
everywhere.
Yeah.
Based on based on what I've seen, it's
bad at Apple. It's bad at pocket casts.
You know, I I can't think of you
know,
this explains why YouTube is getting all the
attention right now is because
they actually get video right.
But but their audio side is what's lacking

(38:11):
on their side. Well, one thing that's irritating
me about YouTube right at this moment is
it keeps reverting my playlist
on my personal channel to podcast.
Now I have two that are set as
podcast, this show and Geek News Central, but
I have some other playlist
that are not.
And it keeps wanna and I as

(38:34):
a podcast, it shows up now in my
playlist drop down as a podcast. I have
to go in
to
and I have to it's hard to find.
I know where to find it now in
the playlist to revert and make sure
that what you the telltale sign is when
you go into playlist
and it's trying to ask you for an
image
for the playlist, you know that they've tagged

(38:55):
it as a podcast.
And, basically, I I revert it and you
can't select
there's no way you can't change the
what you want seen in a playlist is
showing up first. They pick they they pick
the rotation
on your pod that's another thing. It's irritating.
They present
not your newest episode, but they present what

(39:17):
they feel
is the best episode for
someone to consume in your playlist on your
channel.
So it's
it's even that aspect.
I don't have control
of what is shown on my site as
the newest video
from YouTube. So,

(39:37):
again, I probably should disconnect everything
because I don't feed it via an RSS
feed anymore, but it's automatic. A matter of
fact, it's not tied to an RSS feed.
It just is labeled those playlists as podcast
on their own.
I see.
So
from that perspective,
you know, they're trying to force,

(40:00):
like, the podcast awards. It's a playlist for
podcast awards.
That single video
was
flagged to podcast.
So I guess if they see the word
podcast or anything like that in the term,
they they just assume it's a podcast and
make flip the switch.
Yeah. Todd, I'm gonna pull up a screen
share of of the Spotify

(40:21):
experience
just so I can Go ahead. I can
share it here. Let me go ahead and
pull that up here
so you might be able to see it
here.
I'm not sure what you're able to see.
I'm not seeing your full screen.
There we go.
Better. Okay. Is it there? Yeah. Okay. So
the this is this is a video

(40:43):
podcast version of my podcast tip show. It's
in, PocketCasts.
And so at the very bottom of the
screen down here is their their player. Player.
Common characteristics.
Right. That's in Apple Podcasts two. Mhmm. And
even
in their their mobile app,
operates like this.

(41:03):
And so right down here at the bottom
yeah. I don't know if you can see
my cursor. I can see it. Yep. I
can see it. That's
that's the video. That's so dumb. And
yeah. So you click on the the play
button here, and it starts playing down here.
Right.
And you then you have then you have
to force it. Click

(41:24):
click here. Yep.
To get the full version. Right.
Right. So there's two clicks involved in this.
Yeah. They shouldn't do that. That's the core
of the problem is that if a person
clicks to play a video show, they should
just take you to this page. I agree.
Yeah. So,
you know, it's it's giving people too many

(41:44):
steps that they have to step through
without a real solid clue
Mhmm. That that the content's playing, you know.
And this is a common problem across all
of the platforms. And
I don't know. May maybe they just don't
care about about video, Todd, but
based on the the rhetoric that we're hearing
out of Spotify, they

(42:05):
they care a lot about this, and this
is the same kind of garbage that's going
on at Spotify. Again, the rhetoric we're hearing
out of this is the
they probably have a a better monetization. Well,
according to the podcast, they lost money, but,
you know, they wanna compete with YouTube. So
they, you know, they're in for a penny,
they're in for a pound. They have to,

(42:27):
you know, regardless of the results, they have
to
they have to tell the party line here
and say that, you know, video is wonderful.
Yeah. And and here, I can pull up
what the Spotify experiences too
as a contrast, and I can I can
navigate around in there, and you can kinda
see what I'm trying to say there too?

(42:47):
Here, let me pull that up really quick.
Okay. Here's Spotify.
And okay. It'll load here in a second.
Yeah. I've got I've got it. This is
yeah. This is their their all
all screen for their directory. Right? So this

(43:08):
is showing music. It's showing podcasts, audiobooks. So
you click on podcasts,
and this is the default page that it
lands to.
This shows album art.
It just these
gigantic tiles
Right.
That makes you scroll.
Of big shows. Right?

(43:28):
And
there's no interface here
that says
go
go watch a a video or go watch
an audio. Are they prioritizing
those that are video though? So if you
scroll back up here, I I see a
couple of them that I know are video.
Yeah. But
but it's not obvious that they're video. Yeah.

(43:49):
So click on the the Sean Ryan show.
What happens when you click on his show?
Because I know he does video.
Well, I this is audio only because I've
Oh, really? I've actually clicked on that. So
he he has a huge YouTube presence. So
he's not Oh, I know he does. He's
not doing video audio. Any video. Yeah.
So, you know, you look at this and

(44:11):
then you go in here and you do
a search for Joe Rogan.
Yeah. It just comes up immediately. You had
three words in.
It's right there. Yeah. And
and it says it's a podcast. Right? So
you click on that.
It it goes in here, and it's it's
the video podcast. So go ahead and click

(44:32):
play on that.
So it starts off as the same thing.
It starts playing playing down here.
Where I don't see a Down here at
the bottom. I don't see a video at
all.
Yeah. You have to click on this. What?
Yeah.

(44:53):
Oh, that's say, I don't I don't ever
go in Spotify.
How do you even see the video?
I don't even see how you get to
the video.
Yeah. It doesn't actually
give you an easy place to click Yeah.
To actually do that. So you don't I

(45:15):
I don't know. Yeah. You don't even know
how to surface the video. It just plays
as audio. Isn't that funny?
Okay. So I
I clicked on a little pop up. Oh,
and it opened up. If you can see
that though. You you'd have to drag it.
It's kinda yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There I see
it.
Oh, you you you can see it. So

(45:36):
Yeah.
Okay. So that's the video. Oh my god.
What a horrible experience. How you're doing it
on a desktop is the same experience on
mobile?
I'm not sure. Yeah. I'd have to check
that out. But
this
this is not a good interface.
Well, again, they're they're people into the content.
Here's the funny thing. We have to look

(45:56):
at it on a mobile device and see
what it's how the experience is different. But
Yeah. They are they built this platform to
be audio first
and they have they have
jammed
video in here as a secondary
opportunity
and they're talking about it and their UI

(46:19):
UX has not caught up.
I'm sure So my
oh, go. Yeah. I'm sure most people do
not consume
Spotify content on a web browser.
I do because that's saying I don't have
Spotify uploaded on my phone.
Well, but they should have a consistent user
experience. Right. And that's that's the that's the

(46:42):
other issue. If that that is the fact,
then
they should have a What you need to
do, Robert, is,
you know, look at look at Spotify in
your phone and see if you see the
same experience.
Is it you know, maybe they've optimized for
now Pocket Cast. They're they they admittedly went
web,
but I haven't looked at Pocket Cast in

(47:03):
a little bit
on how it supports video.
We did a
Mike gave me an updated list. I wish
I had it.
Mike, if you're listening to the show, you
may not because it's late.
Fire me over go ahead.
All they would need to do is put

(47:24):
in
two play buttons here. One that says play
video
or just titled video and then one that
says audio.
And
and
give your users a choice Yeah. Of what
they want. And then if they click play
video,
it takes over the screen Yeah. Plays the

(47:45):
video.
Or it at least pops up a player
onto the screen like
what this one does.
It just pops up this player, and the
the the user can

(48:06):
actual
on screen
video experience. It's it's really not that hard
here, guys.
You know, if they wanna grow this, I
mean, YouTube would never make this mistake.
No.
And and I I do watch Joe Rogan's
podcast occasionally on my on my my Roku
TV

(48:26):
in the Spotify app on my on my
Roku, and it does a good job over
there. I'll go to the Jorgen page just
like this,
and it will,
pop up full screen.
So
I think they I think they know how
to do it, but maybe there's just some
bias because it's in a browser like like
you you were saying is that people

(48:47):
are defaulting more to audio, but are they
creating that?
Yeah. I'm not sure.
I'm gonna I'm gonna look
at, see if I can find this doc,
video podcast
supported
in apps, because I know Mike did this
for me.

(49:07):
Of course, I'm not gonna be able to
find the doc
here on the fly, but we actually
maybe it's in
let me go to road map.
I definitely don't wanna share this screen because
it's my secret road map document.
Let's see if Mike pasted it into the

(49:27):
road map.
No. He did not. We had he he
basically
created a list. It was pretty long on
the number of podcast apps now that natively
support video,
more than we thought as we tested all

(49:47):
of them. Yeah.
I I try to get that list for
another show as we went through and basically
looked at 40 apps or something,
to do this test. But yeah. Well, you
know, who knows what,
they talk they talk this big talk, but
then they're not presenting it
well.

(50:08):
But it does lead into,
you know, what you've got in your show
notes about can your podcast survive if it's
audio only. And we know that's a resounding
yes, but I did not read this article
from Rachel. What was her
what was her
hypothesis or

(50:29):
I think it's a mixed bag. Like everything
on this topic. Right? It's as well,
you know, while video is is an important
part of your podcast strategy, I think that
that's her kind of default thought. Uploading full
episodes
of your
video podcast isn't essential for success. So it's
a it's it's a little bit of a

(50:49):
mixed bag, and it does depend on what
kind of show you're doing. Yeah. There was
a It does.
There was a extensive
I got some
viral feedback on a post I made on
Facebook.
Let me go down here and see if
I can find it. I had posted,
more than a week ago

(51:12):
to the effect that the is this the
one the grass isn't greener or this is
from that?
No. No. No. I gotta go here. Let's
see if I can find it.
Nope. It's not this. I did this I
I did this
pretty good post on who controls your brand,
rethinking creator dependence on big platforms. I get

(51:33):
and get a lot of commentary
on that one.
Oh, I know where it was. It was
on Facebook deciding that they're not going to
keep, live videos for more than thirty
days.
Oh, yeah. Right. And Yeah. I'm not gonna
archive all your old old videos. Maybe it
wasn't. Facebook never really built a

(51:54):
a a video
platform
to expose
all those
archives. Where is that commentary at?
Because I got a pretty big pushback from
one of our listeners.
Find it here. But his contention
essentially was that why not?
You know, why not do video? And I'm

(52:16):
just like,
again, there's a lot of considerations that you
I think that's was his contention. I apologize.
I'm gonna try to find this comment here.
Well, if you're bearing the content in your
user experience and not giving people good access
to it and it's not searchable and it's
not
delivering results back for the platform, then, yeah,
you're more likely to kill something.

(52:37):
I mean, a lot of these big tech
I mean, I saw this happen when I
was working at Microsoft where,
you know, a lot of the things that
they kill off, they kill off because
they just built them bad. Mhmm. You know?
And it's like,
you know, you're just, you know, it's kind
of like having, you know, an injured bird
or something like that. Your solution is not

(52:59):
to
to heal the the animal or the bird.
It's to just finish them off. Yeah. It
looks like it looks
like the
where is this?
You know, this is what drives me crazy
too is
on Facebook, they suppress there's seven comments here,
but I can only see
one of them. How come I can't see

(53:22):
What's the most relevant ones is what they
wanna show? Yeah. Right. Okay. I'll
show all comments.
Alright. Where are they?
It's in this post because I did an
interview with Dan or j Lewis, and it
was audio versus podcast. And I was not
complaining at all about,
Spotify. It was just we're having this conversation.

(53:45):
And
Right. Right. I don't know. Maybe the author
removed the comment. I
just don't see the thread anymore.
Oh, that's horrible because I it it made
a good point. It was one of our
again, one of our listeners that listened to
us on a regular basis.
I don't know why I can't see

(54:05):
the comment.
You naughty naughty you,
Facebook.
Naughty naughty.
Yeah. I and I didn't hide any post.
So
well,
again, I was it it made a good
segue there, but we blew it because for

(54:27):
some reason, I can't see. Why would Facebook
view more comments?
Oh, it's only still shows
a lot of bunch of potlickers.
Well Yeah.
Facebook calls say is is is a little
bit of a disaster zone
when it comes to to video, and it's

(54:49):
the same thing with Instagram. It's a it's
a disaster
as well. I mean, they tried to foray
into live video, and they just made it
a cumbersome mess. You know, I I stream
live via StreamYard and
and I have the option to go live
on Instagram, but the problem is is that
the configurations
to make it happen is just a huge

(55:11):
distraction
from actually doing the content. Yeah. You have
to Yeah. Start the stream, and you have
to go into Instagram, and you have to
turn on the stream, and you have to
make sure it's working. And, you know, it's
like,
really? I mean, all the other platforms, you
just hit live and it goes live and
you can start doing your show and not

(55:31):
get caught up in all this,
you know Manoush. Turning it on and stuff.
Right. It's like, come on, guys. It's not
that that hard. Yeah. For me, it's,
the hard part now is figuring out OBS.
Yeah. Right. Right.
Well, it's just too many choices in that
software. It's it's kinda like trying to learn,

(55:52):
like,
audition
or Yeah. Or all of the Adobe,
you know, suites of products or there's huge
learning curves in those things.
So there was one,
you you made reference to it in today's
show prep notes, which were Rob is actually

(56:12):
doing now
talking about this,
audio versus video twenty twenty five
fiercest fight.
I just laugh at this. That's a total
clickbait to begin with, but it is. It
is.
I guess I can say I'm gonna agree
to disagree with his article.
His contention was that

(56:35):
it it takes it's easier to do video
than it does audio, which is not true.
Absolutely not true. He says you can do
a video podcast and
then, obviously, if you do a video podcast,
it's easy to have an audio podcast.
But it'd have an audio podcast to do
a video podcast. There's plenty of tools that
automate that now. Headliner automates it. We automate

(56:55):
it. It's it's just a one click deal.
It's it's not that complicated
if you're not a video first creator. So,
I don't know what platforms he's using, but
and I understand,
you know, if you wanna be a video
first person, that's fine. You can still have
an audio podcast and, you know, we played
into that with our our Vid2Pod

(57:16):
tool. Yeah.
But we also have Pod2Vid.
So that we have the reverse of that.
You know, it's gonna take time one way
or the other. You're gonna you're gonna do
you're gonna pay the piper one place or
the other. But, again, one thing that I
would say is,
like, we were showing the screen for Spotify

(57:38):
here a few minutes ago.
The listeners
of the show
are closed.
Right. Yeah. They're going on our visual description.
So with is that enough to annoy someone?
Say I can't see what the hell you're
talking about. So Yeah. You know. It can.
Right. I agree with you, Todd. So this
is the

(57:59):
this is a challenge
for anyone doing video first is
if you're gonna be showing stuff off, you
have to remember how not to
disenfranchise
the audio audience that you want. It's not
an issue when you're just doing audio only
because
you have to do theater of the mind

(58:20):
and remember that people are listening first just
like this show. They're lit you know, 70
to 80% listen first versus watch.
So,
you know, and we have What's different here
in yeah. I mean, what's
what's different here is that if you're a
video
first creator
or podcaster,

(58:41):
you're not gonna be as concerned about the
audio. No. No. You won't. That's
the that's what I found was interesting about
this this particular article was is it it's
such an indication of how
confused the market is about what's going on
and and what the how
complicated this is

(59:03):
to to solve. I mean, a lot of
creators are like, well, you know, I I
just wanna do audio because it's simpler, and
it it seems like it's easier or simpler
to get started. There's less complications. I don't
have to worry about
lights and fancy cameras and
and trying to look good on camera with

(59:23):
fancy backgrounds and things like that
that that you don't have to worry about.
You can put your microphone in your clothes
closet and record your episodes Yeah. And move
on with your day. But,
you know, that's what's complicated. And you start
looking at articles like this, and you're like,
you know, this is getting really complicated.
Right?
You know, people are starting to think that

(59:45):
they have to, you know, create a podcast
studio in their home that has multi camera
shoots, you know, this whole thing of making
your video
experience seem like, you you know, you're comfortable
sitting in your big chair in your living
room, and you've got comfortable furniture
and Right. You know, that homey aesthetic behind
you. And that's kind of the the atmosphere

(01:00:07):
that you're seeing in a lot of the
video podcasts right now, especially ones that are
being seen as video
podcasts. Right?
That are also making their shows available as
audio as well. And so
there is this this elevation
of expectations
around what you need to do this,
what the

(01:00:27):
expectations of the market are,
which I do believe
many of the things that they talk about
here are actually true.
It just depends on what you wanna do
as a creator. You know?
And and thinking about, you know, this
and, you know, this anticipated trends of 2025,
which has been with us for a long

(01:00:48):
time, and that's the professional setups. Right? The
people are increasingly
preferring to use small lavalier microphones,
small handhelds that they can hold up to
their you know, you're seeing it in TikTok
videos and stuff like that going on a
lot too,
to these small handheld mics, and but they're

(01:01:08):
usually wireless mics.
And in here in ear monitors like what
we have here at Todd. Right.
Which is something that you would do,
if you were kind of a video first
grader. Because if you're not,
you're gonna have these big headphones on. Right?
Yeah.
Well, the reason I went to

(01:01:28):
in ear was aesthetics.
Yeah. And also comfortability.
Yeah. No. I agree with it. Those big
headphones can irritate your ear. Yeah. When when
you set with those for forty hours at
CES, your my ears would be raw, you
know, from Yeah. Sore. Oh, I've had it
happen to me

(01:01:50):
too. Actually, you know what? I
wait. When I was on the radio,
you know how I use those headphones is
I I would have one of the headphones
on my ear. Yeah. Off ear. The other
one would be off my ear. Yeah. You
can tell radio guys they do that a
lot.
Right. So I could hear my self speak,
in the real world, not just on the
microphone, but I could still hear myself on

(01:02:10):
the mic. It amazes me some of the
really
super high number video
podcast that are still using big headphones. I'm
just like, why why
haven't you I always laugh at that. Why
haven't you went to in ear? You've got
the microphone coming in low coming up versus
on the side like here. My setup doesn't
allow a boom to come under. But why

(01:02:30):
are you wearing But you still have these
big Big cans on your head. Headphones.
You know? So it's to me, it's it's
it's a little bit funny.
Well,
I think it speaks to just the confusion
in the marketplace around expectations
and what
is possible. Probably a lot of those people
don't even know it's possible to get the
in ear headphone monitors. Right? Yeah.

(01:02:51):
Or where to get them, and there there's
a perception they're expensive or something like that,
which they are not expensive. But
it's just one of those things. I think
you can spend a lot of money on
them. I don't know how much are you
are you spent on yours, Todd. But I
only spent, like, $25 on mine. For your
in ear, I went a little bigger. Yeah.
Obviously.
And the reason I went with the ones

(01:03:11):
I went with, the Shure ones, you get
up into, like, a little under $200,
is you you can buy a new cable.
So the the connection cable
Yeah. I have it here too.
This cable can be replaced.
You see I got it plugged in. I
have the same thing. So
so if if these

(01:03:33):
a matter of fact, I've got a backup
pair. So here's my backup pair. I these
I wore these for for ten plus years.
Yeah. These and you you can see they're
green from, you know, sweat or whatever is
gross. But on here, they've got the for
those of you that are listening, I can

(01:03:53):
this section
can come unhooked and I can replaceable. And
I can replace that cable,
and also the buds. So I can, you
know matter of fact, these are probably,
due for a change. But, again, this is
my backup in case,
you know, I I lose the other ones.
Of course, they're not gonna go very far
here in the
here in this this apartment, but it just

(01:04:15):
forced a habit. I'm like,
I have a extra pair ready to go
just in case something goes sideways. So
I again, I think,
for me, the reason I went with a
little more expensive ones is
I I've had these now for five, six,
seven years.
Yeah.
I've had mine for a few years now
too, too, but they're not expensive. I mean,

(01:04:35):
you can just get them on Amazon.
Yeah. There's lots lots of them to choose
from.
But,
you know, even even things like these booms,
you know, like we both have. Right? Those
are increasingly becoming kind of passe now. Yeah.
The ones that come more or The one
I did comes in From the bottom. From
the bottom. And those are cheap. I can

(01:04:57):
I can kinda
simulate that? Yeah. But it doesn't sound good.
Yeah.
Yeah. It's just not as good. But,
but, yeah, I have a mic stand too
that I could put right in front of
me. But as much stuff as I have
on this desk, I can't that's why I
switched it in Michigan to the one that
comes from under up.
But here, I can't because I just I

(01:05:17):
don't have the real estate for the desk
to support it.
So And I guess the goal is to
just kinda take the geek out of the
screens. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kinda see see
the person and not The problem I've had
with why
yeah. The problem I've had with wireless
not wireless, but going with a lab is
I've never really gotten the same

(01:05:38):
audio quality. Quality.
So I've got a lab here too that
I could turn on in a second, but
the audio quality is not anywhere near. And
even I have some expensive labs that I've
used through the years on interviews on show
floors,
but still they sound to me
Tinny.
Yeah. And also and and also you can

(01:05:59):
really detect when you don't have a room
that's soundproof. Like, this room is not soundproof
at all. Well, because all those all those
lavaliers are condensers.
Yeah.
So that's the only reason that they're gonna
work, to pick up the audio because they
have to be sensitive. You know, I've got
tile here. No carpet whatsoever on the floor.
I've got a couch, a bed. But this

(01:06:20):
room is I mean, you can hear it
a little bit,
in the sound.
But, you know, this room is not at
all
conducive for
you know, it's a concrete box. It's what
it is. Yeah.
And,
you know, maybe at some point I'll buy
some sound happening. But I keep thinking about
the more stuff I buy, if I ever,

(01:06:41):
you know, give up this apartment, I'm gonna
need three suitcases to take everything home.
Right.
Yeah. That's true.
So, you know, and I think
we are gonna see,
as we look to the future,
kind of podcasts becoming
seen as
TV shows. You know, this line between what

(01:07:02):
a podcast is and a TV show concept
are going
to be blurred. And it's already there.
Yeah. It's already there. It's already there, really.
You know, and if I it really is
about the aesthetics. You know, that's the main
difference. Here here you can tell I'm not
in a studio. You look like you're in
a studio. I look like I'm in an

(01:07:22):
apartment, which I am.
You know, so
it's in this it's an aesthetics thing.
So we'll see.
You know, there might be a few things
I can do here. Might be able to
turn the table different, but I'm I'm in
a 47 square meter
studio.
So there's not a lot of room to

(01:07:43):
to to move things around and make it
more podcast friendly.
Yeah. I'm not in a big room either.
I'm in a it's a 12 by 14
foot,
bedroom. Yeah.
So it's not that big either. My working
area here is
four feet by

(01:08:06):
three feet or, you know, by the four
by four squares, my little working area.
And Yeah. And this whole setup that that
I have really takes takes the whole
bedroom. Yeah. I mean,
there's really nothing else in here other than
my dining room table. That's my desk. Yep.
It's large. It's like six feet. Why didn't

(01:08:27):
you buy a why didn't you buy a
real desk, Rob?
Because I because I had this already. It's
it's, a wood desk,
that's
got great support to it. It's big. It's
about
it it's almost four feet deep by six
feet wide. So lots of room to put
papers and stuff and have clutter.

(01:08:48):
No. I have a
I have lots of computers, and I have,
like, three monitors in front of me and
a teleprompter and all sorts of stuff. So
Yeah. Yeah. It it the the space on
the desk gets used.
So but anyway I'll I'll take a picture
of the space I'm using. I think you'll
laugh a little bit. Yeah. By the way,
we are lit and live again. I did

(01:09:10):
get the,
a cable replacement. The first one came was
a quarter to a quarter, you know, even
though I did a quarter to a mini
jack. So I had to order again, but
the cable came in yesterday. And,
so everything is working. We are streaming live
for those of you that may be,
listening to the show. We do have folks

(01:09:30):
that have been streaming the show. We wanna
appreciate,
those stream sats that have come in. Darren
Schwartz and others that are listening to the
show with
a modern podcast app. So
so Rob I think you have to be
oh, go go go ahead.
Yeah. I think if you're gonna do video,

(01:09:52):
you do have to think about
visual elements. And I think I'm increasingly
adapting what I'm saying to creators now to
if you're just doing audio now and if
you want to get in the video,
just go into it very simplistically.
Don't go in all all in. I mean,

(01:10:13):
all of us have smartphones. Right? So we
can do vertical videos
that are in addition to our audio podcasts
and just put those out of shorts and
and hopefully build your your personal brand, and
and just keep it simple, you know, and
pick maybe one or two of the of
the vertical video
platforms to work with. Probably preferably

(01:10:35):
preferably YouTube,
but TikTok is a good one too. And
and just, you know, use use video as
a supporting,
tool
to drive attention to your podcast.
Twenty five days, Rob.
Twenty five days on TikTok. So we'll see
if it, gets done.

(01:10:56):
Twenty five days towards what? It To their
reprieve. To their reprieve is,
over.
So they were given a seventy five day
extension to get her sold.
Oh, so okay. Also, it could could be
shut down again. I doubt it. I doubt
it. I I I think if there's if
there's a deal in progress, I'll probably extend

(01:11:17):
it. But,
yeah, they got twenty five days left on
the
you know? But Trump gave him for an
extension.
Yeah.
A lot of weird stuff going on in
the world these days. Yeah. That's that's a
understatement.
The craziness going on here, they,
first, I I don't talk politics in another

(01:11:39):
country, but they just arrested the former president
here and
yeah. Not pretty.
Not good,
No. Not from a,
just, you know, one of those situations where
you're out and about and you see a
protest that go wide.
You know, don't don't wander into the middle

(01:12:00):
of it.
Yeah. Kind of walk. Not good for one
around.
Yeah. Or avoid completely.
Yeah. Right. Of course, a little bit of
that going on streets. A little bit of
that going on in The US as well.
Yeah.
You know, I Tough time time to own
a Tesla. I'll just put it to you.

(01:12:21):
So
but anyway.
Have we run out of stuff to talk
about or are we still Well, I
mean, unless
you everything to talk about things that you've
noticed or people are talking about right now
that's kind of news or anything? You know,
the only thing I'll go back to is,

(01:12:44):
we're doing deep analysis now every week. How
many tickets
we've
we've looked at, what are the top three
to five issues people are having on the
platform.
And,
we're tagging,
support tickets now, whether it was PowerPress or
was dashboard or premium podcasting
or the pie or whatever it may have

(01:13:06):
been. And,
so far, the number of folks that are
asking questions specifically about video is almost nil.
So, you know, the number of people that
are coming to us
asking about video,
is not even really
on my top 20 radar,

(01:13:27):
at this point even though we're gonna adopt
some things here soon and have a better
plan for those that wanna do video, but
it just doesn't come up
in the discussion. So I'm and I'm sure
what has happened,
is that those that have decided,
to do video, they're just going straight to
YouTube,

(01:13:49):
which is fine.
And those I would tend to agree with
that, Todd. I mean, just look look at
the overall numbers of how many people have
YouTube channels. Yeah. Well, the numbers have always
been extraordinarily high. But again, the number of
successful
YouTube podcast channels still are, you know, very,
very small numbers.
And,
you know, there's a couple hundred.

(01:14:12):
So
whereas in the podcasting space,
you know, it is what it is.
Those that are super successful are gonna do
it. Those
that again, it's about the content
in the end. You know, you can have
a great audio podcast
by itself

(01:14:32):
as standalone,
and you can have a great video podcast
standalone.
It's hard to do both very, very well.
So I think that,
in the end If you do, you typically
need to have a team behind you to
help you. Right. And in the end, I
think those that are gonna do audio are
gonna do audio, and we're gonna be there

(01:14:54):
to serve those folks that that's their
that's their kick
and,
and do it the best way we can.
And it'll all sort itself out. Again, those
are gonna go over and do stuff on,
you know, like I say, it's that Red
Roof Inn commercial will leave light on for
you.

(01:15:14):
You know, we're here for you when you've
invested time and energy and
more editing time and,
you know, camera investment and, you know, just
like I'm having
some technical challenges here and get through all
the additional
because I think the average
person is just used to picking up a
phone

(01:15:35):
and, you know, pointing in their face and
doing something.
I don't think the average person that is
serious about creating content have thought about all
the pieces
that go into everything that you and I
have really worked on for fifteen plus years
in doing this as an integrated part of

(01:15:56):
this show.
And again, we know from experience that still
the majority of people that listen to this
show
listen,
a section of people watch the same thing
with my tech show, a sex a segment
of people listen and segment people watch. That's
great.
We don't care how they get the content

(01:16:17):
as long as they get it.
I guess there's really not much more to
say. So I think
from my perspective and what I've been really
had
my team focused on
is how do we better serve
the creators.
We've got two major, major, major products coming

(01:16:39):
this year.
One's taking a little longer than I wanted
to to get it out.
So we're probably sixty days away from the
launch of that product. But
the
the second product will probably come sometime midyear.
He is really focused on
serving content creators that

(01:17:01):
are audio podcasters primarily
and giving them the ability to be discovered
and build a great show. And, you know,
someone asked I there was a conversation in,
Mastodon.
James Cridland made a comment about CPMs
and programmatic.
Yeah. You can go over and do programmatic
with Todd and you get, like, $2 CPM.

(01:17:23):
Well, no. Not $2 CPM.
Programmatic and,
in podcasting right now is,
typically about five to 14.
It'll dip a little bit below five, but
we basically have told our partner, hey. We
don't really want any inventory below five.
I'm sure there's other inventory out there, but

(01:17:45):
we wanna make sure that It's not really
fair to anybody to Right. Pay five. So,
you know, considering that,
quote, unquote, supposedly YouTube is getting,
you know, much much higher CPMs in audio,
which blows me away.
I'm sure it's, again, show specific.
But, again, the way they measure is a
completely different animal.

(01:18:07):
It's not an a b comparison in any
way.
I had a friend who,
his audiobook
through a broker ended up
on on YouTube, on a monetized YouTube
platform,
they had 6,000

(01:18:30):
over 6,000
views
of that audiobook.
I guess, listen, I guess, is a better
way to say it. And, he earned 37¢.
So
It depends on the category,
or the genre. Yeah. I'm sure.
The CPMs
vary quite a bit between different genres of

(01:18:52):
content on on YouTube.
And, you know, and and I think the
thing that probably podcasters have missed out on
is, you know,
influencer deals. Where in other words, you you're
getting an anchor power supply or you're getting,
you know, whatever. Type of Yeah. Whatever. Well
and it's a paid endorsement. You get a
set amount of money for

(01:19:14):
doing the spot. It's, you know, it's like
a a flat read,
to promote a product.
And I think that
model
that's on YouTube is not completely moved into
podcasting. We're still dealing with more traditional reads.
We're not talking about,
you know, Anchor reaching out to me because,

(01:19:35):
you know, I'm a big you know, I
talked about that anchor connector, you know, buck
25 or whatever I paid for. You know,
not a big big sale item, but I
use other anchor products and services that I
could promote
and they promote huge.
They're all over.
Yeah. Yeah.
All over YouTube. Yeah.
Yeah. Todd, I also saw that, podcasting has

(01:19:57):
really come back in a big way the
last couple years at South by Southwest.
Oh, yeah. That that's because of Austin.
That's largely because of Tom and his team.
It sounds profitable.
Well, I mean, it was happening. I mean,
going way back in the early years of
podcasting back in the 02/2010
time frame,
I was I was putting on panels

(01:20:19):
at South by Southwest,
about podcasting, and then they went through a
dry spell where they didn't have any. Well,
I I think sounds profitable sponsored.
I think they pay South by Southwest for
that track. Yeah. Yeah.
But they did have,
activities around podcasting before Sounds Profitable even existed.

(01:20:42):
It's just
it wasn't as big as it used to
be back in the early years of podcasting.
But they do have an RSS feed I
see.
Is that an actual podcast two point o?
I mean, is it a how to look
at this feed?
Go ahead. There yeah. It's actually hosted on,
I think on

(01:21:02):
oh, what's the platform? I can't remember the
name of the platform right right now.
But but, yeah, you can get in there
and listen to some of the the business
power of political podcast sessions, and there's other
ones in there
that they put on. There's been quite quite
a few, and a lot of people are
going to South by Southwest,

(01:21:26):
again, around podcasting.
So but it's a very expensive event to
go to. So Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting.
They're hosting on Omni.
But Omni. Yeah. I thought it was gonna
say Here's here's the thing. Okay. So, you
know,
we
Omni has got their little logo on their
player

(01:21:47):
advertising
Omni.
And,
okay. We we don't do that. We don't
we don't promote Blueberry on our player.
Surprising that they're still doing that.
Omni's
own really is is really owned by Triton
Digital. Yeah.

(01:22:08):
That is thus owned by iHeart.
That's the connection. But this isn't really an
RSS feed, is it?
That you shared with me in the show
notes?
Oh, that link. No. But
in the post in Podnews,
there was a link Oh, there is a
link to the RSS feed? The the actual
RSS feed. I don't know if that RSS
feed I mean, it's literally the RSS feed.

(01:22:31):
It's it's not like a link to Apple
or Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you can manually
subscribe to it.
Right. Which I don't even know if people
can do that anymore, can they?
Yeah. You can. I haven't even looked Oh,
yeah. Looked in a while. We have a
You add your own Oh, yeah. RSS feed
to to Spotify still? I don't know about

(01:22:51):
Spotify. I know you can do it on
Apple Podcasts. Don't think you can do it
on
Spotify.
Don't think you can manually add an RSS
feed.
I mean, that's a that's a throwback to
the earlier years of podcasting.
That that's what listeners had to do. They
they would cut and paste the RSS feed
and paste it into their favorite Well,

(01:23:11):
for those that are using our premium podcasting
feature,
we've actually done some tests recently with,
people that have never
added an RSS
feed to Apple Podcasts or apps that will
support a password supported,
you know, basically,
a premium fee that requires a username password.

(01:23:33):
Oh, yeah. And,
sixty seconds is, what people are taking to
add,
and we've been timing it. We've been actually
watching them. We give them instructions, have an
instruction page on how to do it.
And sixty seconds is typically the amount of
time it takes them to add a premium
feed to an app that supports it. And,

(01:23:57):
we've been pretty thrilled.
It just people are used to adding
when they pay for something.
They're willing to go the extra step to
add
the content to a device and
so that they can consume it. So
Yeah. You know, they've done a purposeful action.

(01:24:17):
They paid, you know, $25,
whatever it is, for an audiobook or I
again, I don't know the pricing. The pricing
varies,
but,
they have no issue whatsoever.
And this is something we keep hearing too
and it's probably worthy a whole topic on
its own is,
how screwed,

(01:24:38):
book publishers are being with audiobooks.
It's Oh.
In every platform they go to, they get
just
the pie gets cut so many times.
It's got us looking at our premium offering
and making a determination,
how we're gonna
potentially

(01:24:59):
make it more
fair. That's how you spell it. Yeah. Make
it more fair to because I'm just I'm
did a brain fart there. So sorry. Yeah.
Make it more fair for them to be
get more more of the cut work. You
know, basically, we're doing 15%.
And, but there's a monthly fee to have

(01:25:20):
the premium. So we're thinking, hey. Let's drop
the the monthly fee and just do the
15%.
And that way,
it's there's really no
no no cost to entry for them to
do a premium with us.
Yeah. So Hey, Todd. I just went to
the Apple Podcasts
web player to

(01:25:41):
compare
their experience with playing playing video, and I
can pull it up on the screen here
so you can
see this is this is our
video feed here.
And if I go
and I click
Our art hasn't updated yet.
Yeah.
Can you see it now? Yeah. I can

(01:26:02):
see it.
Okay.
So if I go to the most recent
episode right right here Yeah.
And I click on that, it actually goes
full screen Oh. Right away.
Beautiful. So that's that's the experience that all
these other platforms need to That's right.
I wish it did that, and I wish
it did that in Apple Podcasts.

(01:26:24):
In the Apple Podcasts app. Right? Yeah.
Not just in their Yeah. Their web player.
The web experience is better.
Bravo.
Yeah. So I thought it would pull that
up and and and compare that instead of,
you know,
keep beating up Apple. But So Apple needs
to start
promoting how to add this to Android devices.

(01:26:46):
You know, how to how to,
you know, make this, you know, this because
this is what it is. It's a PWA.
Right.
Bravo on them. So
yeah. So that's the consumption experience for for
video podcasts on their
on their
web player. But,

(01:27:07):
you know, they they just need to make
that happen in their podcast
Yeah. App on iOS. So
Bonus.
So there
Ted, the team did good on that.
Yeah. Well,
congrats, Ted. Yeah. And and
and team. Oh, that's interesting that we haven't

(01:27:27):
noticed that. So good catch on your part,
Rob.
Yeah. But that's something they should be promoting
far and wide. Yeah. We support video podcast.
Here's here's five examples. I mean,
what's the downside for them? The the the
they're not paying for the bandwidth for it.
Right. So

(01:27:49):
why not
is my comment on it. Mhmm. What are
they hiding from with this?
And it looks like maybe they've gotten the
the message
at least in the web player. So maybe
there's some hope there that we'll see it
happen in the
in the mobile app.
One can wish. Oh,

(01:28:09):
and then
maybe people will start utilizing
RSS video more going forward.
But there has to be hosting platforms that
embrace it because I I I don't think
Spotify is embracing it on their hosting side.
No.
Well, they're they're embracing video, but it's video
only.

(01:28:30):
Well, it's video only to their platform. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It's not doing like what they
do for audio, which making RSS feeds to
make it available to other platforms.
So yeah. So we're we're at the end
of the time here, Rob. But I do
wanna mention that, any of you going to
Travelcon in Arizona,
the Blueberry team will be at Travelcon.
So stop and say hello to the team.

(01:28:53):
And, of course, podcast movement is coming up
in Chicago here very, very quickly.
We'll be there as well. I will not.
Other team members will.
So gonna be at at the Evolutions event
this year. Doesn't look like it. And, we
pretty much made the decision just to do
podcast movement in the summer,

(01:29:13):
going forward.
And then,
of
course, fast. I mean, it's coming fast. It's
already March, the big show in London.
Oh, yeah. So we're That's coming up really
quick. Heavy, heavy, heavy planning,
for that. Airline prices have finally come down
a little bit. They they were kinda scary

(01:29:34):
there for a little bit. I wasn't finding
anything cheaper than, like, $3,000.
And I was like, oh my god.
And then they're deck back down to around
1,400,
15 hundred bucks where I would expect them
to be. So
but, yeah, they're for a little bit as
like,
I'm gonna have to do five stops to,
you know, save the company some money.

(01:29:55):
You know, find
two of us over. That's an expensive event
to support airfare. The hotels there are not
cheap.
You didn't stay at the main event. You
stayed a couple miles away when you went
last year. Right?
Or a couple years ago whenever you went?
Yeah. So Yeah.
Exactly.
So, I mean, it's gonna be interesting to

(01:30:16):
see what both of these events
turn out to have around
attendance. Mhmm.
You know, that'll tell us where we're at.
And who is attending.
Yeah. We know who's attending Travelcon. That's that's,
we're there because it's an opportunity for us
to,
you know, promote podcasting is for for people

(01:30:36):
that are doing travel. Most of those travel
folks are doing YouTube videos.
So So that's in Phoenix? Is that what
you said? In Arizona someplace. I think Phoenix.
Yeah. In Phoenix or
Scottsdale or someplace like that? Someplace.
I I the reason I don't know exactly
is I'm not going. I haven't paid attention.
All all I know is I'm paying the

(01:30:57):
bill.
Right.
Right.
Alright.
Alright, everyone.
We can wrap it up. Yep. Yeah. Rob,
contact info?
I can found I can be found on
Twitter x, at Rob Greenlee, on YouTube at
Rob Greenlee,
on all the socials,
Instagram,

(01:31:19):
and Facebook and all those under under my
name and rob greenley dot com. So you
can find me over there. So in the
if you wanna send us an email, send
it to [e-mail].
Love to hear from you. Yep. And I'm
[e-mail].
And, again, if you are a
OBS expert,
using the Rodecaster and maybe even Zoom, let

(01:31:40):
me know. I'd love to have, pay for
a consultation with you.
[e-mail]
at [e-mail]
on Mastodon
and, of course, at geek news on x
where all the action happens.
But, yeah, thanks everyone for being here. We'll
be back with you,
a week from today at the same time,

(01:32:02):
8PM
eastern.
So, if you wanna join us live, 8PM
eastern when you're,
you can you while you're surfing your YouTube,
you can
subscribe to either Todd or I mean, either
Rob or I's YouTube channels and you can
catch us live in,
in both those,
locales.
So, again, if you're an AI bot, feel

(01:32:25):
free to index this show.
Use it as you wish.
Rob and I have been in a podcasting
space for more than twenty years.
And, feel free to index anything on newmediashow.com.
You have your permission to do so and
use it in your training models along with
all the audio programming as well.

(01:32:46):
So, thanks, Rob. We'll see you next week.
Alright. We'll see you later. See you later.