Podcast Movement Insights and Survey Trends

In this episode, “Podcast Movement Insights and Survey Trends,” hosts Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee discuss Todd’s team’s experiences at the recent Podcast Movement conference, share insights from various panels, and explore trends in the podcasting industry, particularly regarding video and audio convergence. The episode begins with Todd and Rob welcoming listeners and noting their … Continue reading Podcast Movement Insights and Survey Trends →

The post Podcast Movement Insights and Survey Trends appeared first on New Media Show.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
In the afternoon.
Hey. Afternoon
delight.
With Todd and Rob.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. We are here and hopefully we're
not squeaking
or buzzing
every minute or two minutes.

(00:21):
Prolific troubleshooting has went down. So maybe after
a month, I've I've got it right. We'll
see.
Hey, Rob. Welcome to the show.
Yeah. It's great to be to be back.
Static free. Yeah. Static free. Yeah. It was
kind of weird. It was just this weird
thing that just kinda
cropped up cropped up and

(00:41):
and I thought I had it licked. I'd
heard it once before and and then you
said, oh, no. I heard it on the
last two shows. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
So anyway,
but anyway, we're we're running completely on the
Mac Mini.
So
I guess it doesn't matter. People don't care
how it's running, but I'm not on the
MacBook no more. So there's no more power

(01:02):
supplies or you know any of that weird
stuff but hey,
podcast movement wrapped up.
I don't know if you heard
much about podcast movement at all,
on your side, but I had quite the
report from my team.
Yeah. I would love to hear,

(01:24):
from your team on what they thought of
it. I know you're not planning on going
back. It sounds like next year, but
but it'd be great to hear.
I've got an outline
of kind of the main
kind of key topics that were covered
Yeah.
In a significant way at the event and
what got people talking,
I think is the interesting

(01:46):
aspect of what what what happened there. So
yeah. Let's go dive in.
From an exhibitor standpoint,
pretty bad.
Pretty bad.
So Bad from what perspective? Traffic standpoint. You
know, just a traffic standpoint and it was
upstairs downstairs type of venue. They didn't even

(02:08):
know
after for the until like the first twenty
four hours that there were even stuff going
on downstairs
and there was just some, you know, major
it just it was just one of these
layouts. It wasn't conducive to
the traffic and
the the consensus
was not positive from the and again

(02:31):
as an exhibitor what you're looking for is
traffic and people to talk to you and
and you know they they did stay
fairly busy and have some good meetings. So
it wasn't like there wasn't
but that's nothing that couldn't have been accomplished
by just one of us being
on the ground.
Having bought a regular ticket and just been

(02:52):
there,
in person. So, you know, probably going forward
that will probably be
at least for the what I call the
winter event or spring event is what we'll
do.
The,
there was not a lot I think they
said they they saw Dan once

(03:14):
the entire time
and just in passing,
there was a notable,
very very significant
commentary about Jared not being there.
A lot of discussion
about him with amongst the vendors.
You know, Jared really kind of acted as,

(03:35):
how are you doing? How's things going? How's
the show?
You know, that type of a liaison
almost,
at the event. Dan had done some of
that in years past. But I think, you
know, just like any other show, Dan's pretty
busy.
But,
we and others did not opt to go
back. Now, ironically,
they did not announce

(03:57):
where the event would be held next year.
That's interesting.
So
maybe Usually they they know that by now.
Yeah. They did not take reservations.
So does that mean they're gonna go back
to or they're just gonna go to one
show?
I
my suspicion is that would probably be a

(04:19):
very smart move.
They did not,
almost
entirely there was there was less than a
handful of new podcasters they talked to and
it was the same people that were
business wise,
at the you know, it's again, it's turned

(04:39):
into a business event
largely,
obviously, there's creators there
but,
you have some of the same same faces
per se.
So, you know, I think it's,
we'll go to the the summer event. Obviously,
we'll continue to do that and support it.
But, I just don't see,

(05:01):
value anymore in supporting the spring event. So,
you know, what that really means for us
is
a reduction
in expenses.
And and and we're looking at other events
to go to. You know, we went to
a travel event,
couple of weeks before this and

(05:22):
obviously, I went out here to Podfest Asia.
I was lucky enough I'm in country so
it was an extra cost for me just
to go up to Manila per se.
But,
yeah. Interesting and of course the some of
the reports coming out were stuff I want
to talk about but let's go over what
you you see from a content standpoint. What

(05:42):
was being
chit chatted at the event?
Well, I think a lot of these things
that are kind of key takeaways from the
events,
really get back to kind of the core
of the content that was talked about at
the event and the panel sessions
and it and
that type of stuff. But it was also

(06:03):
conversations
in the hallway around
trends in the industry where things are going.
Just like you mentioned, you know, talking about
Jared Easley
and his move to,
Danny b show,
and being more involved on the content and
programming side at the any b show. Right.
Who I mean, both of us know that

(06:24):
show very, very well. We used to go
to that show all of the time. Time.
And I, you know, it's also another event
that's kind of dropped off of the
the the map for podcasters and podcasting as
well. Yeah. It's
it's just what Will's event that
we started out a few years ago having
a podcast pavilion at, and now it's like

(06:46):
there's
very little
people at the NEB show.
Now,
that is related to podcasting. I'm not saying
that maybe, you know, that there isn't still
people there at the event that are interested
in podcasting. It's just that kind of the
event itself has kind of moved away from
it. And it kind of speaks to a

(07:06):
bigger
topic around
conferences when it comes to
new creators and new content creators. You know,
I think
the thought that came into my mind as
I thought about what you were talking about
about,
Podcast Movement was maybe that event just needs
to move
into being like a Podcast Movement Summit or

(07:27):
something like that, where it's like
a
like a one day or two day track
or something like that,
that, you know, the business leaders in the
industry all get together and it's really just
mostly a networking event.
Because that's essentially what what the benefit of
this thing is anyway. Yeah. Right? It's a
really double down on that and

(07:48):
and just accept the fact that you're not
gonna attract
content creators. I mean, unless you create
something around it like a content festival or
a way that can,
create a platform for large content creators,
to help promote what they're doing and attract
fans and stuff. But I I just don't
see podcast movement move in that direction.

(08:10):
So, you know, I think probably just doubling
down on being kinda, like, focused on what
it it's trying to do instead of trying
to do something that it's it's not really
doing. It's not a creator event in my
opinion anymore. Yeah.
And, you know, in in the summer event
was supposed to be the creator event. They
will probably
they'll probably vehemently disagree.

(08:33):
And in again, they had and another thing
about attendance,
I asked, you know, what was their,
you know, what was my team's guess and,
you know, the the the best indication is
going to a keynote,
a big keynote
and and doing a headcount during a keynote.
And, you know, you figure if you get

(08:55):
probably 75% of the people attending the keynote,
because the other 25%
are people that are, you know exhibitors
and
and those types of folks
and,
they they just you know they said they
had a hard time,
and maybe it's wrong. You know, again this

(09:16):
is just their observation that 800 to 900
people they figured was the was the number,
of attendees. Now
again, if they had if they said 1,600,
that people you know, what's what I saw
even at Podfest Asia, even this is a
one day event, people come in and

(09:37):
they came in, they had their
their session and they left. They didn't hang
out.
So if people are coming in and out,
which doesn't seem to me to be completely
plausible but who knows?
I have a meeting with someone next week,
one of my partners and he was there
and I'm gonna ask him what his assessment

(09:59):
was because he was purely boots on the
ground and not,
doing a session. But what were some of
the sessions that you saw that maybe made
some headlines or
people talking about Well, I mean,
I didn't actually go go to the event
myself. So I'm not really an expert in
the sessions because I didn't really go go

(10:20):
to any, but I can
I can certainly speak to kind of the
the main takeaways from the event and what
was shared up on stage and things like
that from a broad stroke? Yeah. And I
think this whole
I I kept hearing,
that that
the official number of attendants was about 1,600

(10:40):
people just to kind
of say that.
But I don't know that
you and I necessarily believe that number. We
know how that number is always it's always
bigger than
Yeah. It's always padded with people that, you
know,
prior to cancellation.
It's probably
maybe how many tickets they sold in combination

(11:03):
with all of the all of the vendors
that are there and all that stuff is
the probably what they had originally thought they
were gonna have. But
maybe, you know, there's always people that cancel
and don't show up or
so it's it's probably at
least 10 to 15
at the maximum, less than that. Right. So,

(11:24):
so anyway, the kind of big topic that
I kept hearing was,
you know, it was all about video, video,
video, and the
convergence of audio and and video is the
big takeaway. You know, the Oxford Road kind
of study talked about saying that 77%
of podcast consumers
engage in both audio and video formats. And

(11:46):
you know what? I mean, that's probably to
some degree always been the case. So, you
know,
just the fact that we're discovering that now
is, you know, not as remarkable as it
may sound. Yeah.
Video has been part of podcasting since 02/2005.
So
plus YouTube has been around since 02/2005. It's

(12:09):
just
for many years, YouTube didn't pay attention to
podcasting really in any significant degree. And now
that they have, you know, all of a
sudden Yep. You know, now it's showing up
in everybody's priority list. I don't think things
have changed dramatically, though. I think
people's consumption patterns are moving more,

(12:29):
towards consuming YouTube content
and, you know, Netflix and other other video
platforms
on big screen televisions now. So I'd say
that's the most profound shift that's happened. You
know, at at same time Audio is still
still doing well. Yeah. And I think that's
where it continues to be missed in most

(12:50):
of the
dialogue
is that the audio audience is strong as
ever.
Yeah.
It may not be growing as fast as
it was. It's always been steady. It's always,
you know Yeah. Right.
Yeah.
And it I mean, at least it showed
in some of the survey data that

(13:12):
the video side was showing
more kind of movement, I guess. I don't
even know the way they presented that data
when we talked about it in a prior
episode.
It wasn't really a % clear if that
was over the top growth or if that
just was the proportion. If it was if
that was the proportion, then it's probably not
that big of a movement.

(13:33):
So yeah. And I'm looking forward. There's a
the full report from
Coleman insights
and,
yeah,
amplify
media.
It's gonna happen next week
and

(13:54):
and again I I like Jay and I
like their approach and
obviously I like Steve as well. We've had
him on the show here. It might be
good to get Jay on the show
to talk a little bit about this in
the future after they do their the result.
But,
Yeah. I'm
doing a call with him next week. So

(14:15):
I'll invite him to come on. Yeah. So
you know, and we if they look at
Gen z
in between 15 and 29, 80 three percent
use audio and video interchangeably. To me, that's,
you know, that's that's good news.
And also,

(14:36):
you know, I think we YouTube has even
admitted that consumption is moved from the smartphone
to a smart TV. And what's curious about
that is
on the podcast consumption
or what I see
happening in,
in our stats
or because you know, we've been looking at

(14:57):
this a lot closer too to try to
make sure we're and we're looking specifically at
video shows. I think there's Yeah. Currently about
a thousand
little under a thousand shows on the platform
they're doing video, which actually was a much
higher number than I thought it would have
been originally.
Are you talking about
RSS based video? Yeah. Yeah.

(15:18):
On the on on your platform. Right. Yeah.
Okay. So when we when we look at
that data,
you know, I'm starting to look for specifically
for shows that have audio and video.
It's generally
no more.
I would say I never saw a single
show,

(15:39):
have an average higher than 30%
of video.
Basically, if they have an audio video show,
there was no show. They got greater than
30%,
consumption on,
RSS.
So 70% will listen to audio. Highest was
30% and then it was the full range
in between.

(15:59):
But the I I would say I don't
know if I want to use the word
medium
but around 20%
was typically the the split and it's kind
of follows this show eighty twenty.
So you know around 20
and again the outliers were those that were
in in a 30% range. So
from and that's all being done. And we

(16:21):
we looked at, Apple TV consumption and Apple
TV consumption is just, I mean, nil.
There's hardly any video. And you would think
that this is would be the place where
if someone was doing video on Apple Podcasts,
that's where the video would be consumed and
it's not. It it's nil. Apple isn't isn't
surfacing video content over there. On Apple TV,

(16:44):
they are.
Oh, it's easy to find if you play
this show on Apple TV, it comes up
video
on Apple TV. Absolutely.
No. No. But are they featuring it as
video?
Yeah. Well, they're no. They're not necessarily saying
it's featured. But if you go to this
show I mean I mean, does it say
this is video content or is it just

(17:06):
a sea of
It's it's in amongst everything else.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. So there's no featured video
on Apple TV from in Apple. Yeah. And
I think that's
that's
that's where the mistake was. Because I I
think in the past, the Apple TV podcast
app had,
different categories.

(17:26):
One video, one's audio. Yeah. I don't remember
on Apple TV if it was broke down
that way. But you might be right.
Yeah. Yeah. In the past. Yeah. I can't
I can't remember. But again, most of the
consumption is on,
you know,
obviously, Apple leads the charge.
My this, you know, this show and Geek

(17:46):
News Central, obviously,
we've been promoting the podcast two point o
app. So there's some consumption there in small
digits. But,
again, the majority of the consumption for
video, at least for RSS based, is on
Apple Podcasts, the high majority of it even
though it is suppressed.
So but then

(18:07):
again, here's the kicker. I can't see and
I and I've been asking my audience this.
Maybe I'll ask those of you that are
listening to this or watching the show right
now. Are you watching the show
in your mobile device?
And we know about 20% of you are
listening to Geek News Central. I mean, new

(18:27):
media show video version.
But are you actually watching? Are you just
listening?
In other words, do you say, oh, there's
new media show. Click play
and and don't look at your phone because
unless you click again, the video doesn't isn't
exposed.
So it could be.
It Thought it wasn't clear what you were

(18:49):
talking about if you're talking about the the
audio. No. Let's let's say someone Feed or
or the video. Let's say someone goes to
the video feed. We've got 20% people from
this show that are
at least listening to the video feed.
The question is are you actually watching the
video?
You know or yeah. In the app. We

(19:09):
don't know if they're actually watching
or if they've just mistakenly clicked on new
media show video and are playing it and
listening to it not watching it.
Well, that's the problem with the interface. Alright.
That's right. For playing video podcast is that
it requires a second click. Second click. So
we don't that's the question. Are you a
second clicking
or are you just

(19:30):
listening? Listening to the audio. Yeah. So we
don't know. You know? So there there Yeah.
It's almost yeah. I don't understand why
why Apple did that. It's like, you know,
it's it's best case scenario was that all
the video podcasts that the video creator went
to all this effort to publish video. Yeah.
And they, through the interface,

(19:52):
really
convert it to an audio Yeah. Experience. I
I don't get it. I just don't Yeah.
So, you know, I don't I don't why
they would do that. You know, someone just
could explain, doesn't do anything else. That they're
listening to the video version,
you know. And, you know, so yeah. There
might be 20%, but are they really, really
watching?
And that may not be the case. We

(20:13):
we just They're really shooting themselves in the
foot on that. Yeah. So I think we've
talked so much about it that I'm sure
Ted and team over there like quit talking
about it. But fix it, you know, come
on. Oh, no. I'm not gonna stop talking
about it. Yeah. Because
it's clearly a mistake that they're making. Yeah.
From a usability
standpoint and from a content creator,

(20:36):
kind of relationship standpoint, I think it's it's
a big blunder on their part. But if
you go back to the study that was
done,
again by Coleman Insights and Amplify Media,
this
trend of people watching on a TV
has changed. So
maybe

(20:56):
maybe everyone has gotten to the point where
they don't want to watch
the video
on their phone anymore.
I I mean you know, there's a lot
of stuff. If I think about how I'm
using my phone right now,
I don't
watch YouTube on my phone.
I watch TikTok. I watch

(21:18):
Facebook reels.
I watch
that's Well, you're watching video. I'm watching shorts.
Watching.
Right.
But you're still watching video on your phone.
But I'm not watching long form content on
my phone.
I'm just consuming short form content on my
phone. Well, yeah. I think that's more of
a use case

(21:39):
So it situation
for how how you you are probably only
consuming short form content because
that's that's the amount of time or attention
you wanna put to it. But YouTube has
already said people have shifted to their televisions
to watching content. So is the is this
the overall trend that people are no longer

(22:00):
watching long form content on their mobile device?
They're watching reels and shorts and well, if
YouTube says it is the primary way people
are watching content now is on television. I
don't watch shorts on my TV.
That's the difference. I only watch shorts on
my phone.
I don't play I think it's yeah. So

(22:20):
I watch
long form content on my television.
Right.
So wide format.
Wide format. Yeah. Wide format. Right. So my
my I'm just assuming
that most of the short consumption on YouTube,
Facebook,
and on TikTok are obvious. Yeah. It's it's
all the short the short reels

(22:41):
versus
Well, if you think about it, that conforms
to the the aspect ratio of the device.
And it also talks about,
you know, again, it it goes to it
backs up what they said. Today's smart TV,
you see, just climbs significantly and is tied
with computers for second place. It's not enough
to say lots of people use YouTube for
podcasts. The way they're using

(23:03):
YouTube is changing. So this is the this
is the key
is that,
again, not everyone
again, an 18 to 29 year old, not
all of them have a big screen TV.
They might be in college.
New homeowner, new apartment. They moved into a
new apartment.
So maybe

(23:23):
the majority of their consumption is on smartphone,
tablet, and laptop.
And maybe the TV is is, you know,
for that age group.
Yeah. You know, and maybe yeah. Obviously, when
you're probably plus my kids I think about
what my kids are doing now and

(23:46):
my son
does not have a TV in his bedroom.
So he does everything
on his tablet
or a phone tablet or
computer.
Whereas my daughter,
both daughters who was all three daughters have
their own homes,

(24:07):
they have smart TVs.
So
I think there's an age split at some
point, you know, depends on where you are
in your life journey.
I'm sure a lot of kids have TVs
in their rooms, but are they using that
as a consumption device? I don't know.
Well, and if you think about
YouTube content,

(24:27):
right,
your
YouTube videos, you know, I,
I use YouTube
every day to consume content
and I don't necessarily
automatically
consider,
well,
everything that I consume
in
YouTube, I guess, could be
also

(24:48):
put out as
a audio podcast. So, you know, it's, it's
where we're
really where I think our, our adjustment is,
is our perception of
and how broad do we want to paint
the stroke of what a podcast is. Well,
I think that ship has sailed already.
Well, yeah. But I think as you apply
it to YouTube,

(25:08):
there's a lot of content
in YouTube that has not been
added to a podcast playlist Right. Right. You
can say. So you have this kind of
separation between some of the content
is included in a podcast playlist, but being
included in a podcast playlist is not what
I would call
the definition of what a podcast is, if

(25:30):
you know what I mean. I mean, it's
like just because you create a playlist, this
name podcast doesn't make
what you're doing a
a podcast
necessarily.
It's just a video. So are we basically
taking this concept of everything that's published into
YouTube now,
we are considering

(25:50):
as a podcast now. Well, one thing's for
sure, you know, I the podcast awards was
streamed on a playlist,
and YouTube flagged that as a podcast. And
it really wasn't it was just because it
had named podcast in it. I'm sure they
did that. Matt says in the chat,
he says, I'm watching on my laptop

(26:10):
while doing some work.
And I'm watching on Todd's channel because Rob
never looks at his live chat during the
show.
So
that's probably true. I don't.
You know, you need another monitor, Rob.
So,
so, you know, I I think it's where
you're at
too. You know, it's like, I there's

(26:33):
when emails come in, I I pay Patreon
donations
to I don't know. A handful of shows
and every once in a while they'll do
an update
or they'll put content that is Patreon exclusive.
I I watch that purely
in my on my browser.
And I don't use the Patreon app in

(26:54):
my phone
to consume that content. So but again, everyone
is a little bit different. I think it's
what device you have and
but
anyway, I think
we know the discussion but I it looks
like a little bit of luster has come
off
video in my opinion. But I was very
interested in

(27:17):
the report
that
James Cridland came out with
and Rob, you won't be able to see
this screen
because I'm flipping it here in OBS
but
you know,
they they basically
did the pod news
report card
and

(27:39):
it was
they looked more than 150 different podcast creators
took part.
So I wish more people would take part
in this because
he's got a huge audience he's getting to
and we could get Garner more data. So
being the only 50
people, I I participated.
I don't know if you did too. I
feel You know, we're that we're a p

(28:00):
one. You know, we're part of that p
one
audience that is,
in radio terms. We're we're super podcasters. And
and
and but it said that,
as publisher
as one of the questions was, as a
publisher, how would you rate the following podcast
apps? Do they do a good job at
helping your listeners find, follow, subscribe, and then

(28:22):
listen to your show?
And I don't fully under I guess this
is a one out of five.
Apple Podcast 3.7,
Pocket Cast 3.4,
Spotify three point three, YouTube two point eight,
podcast addict 2.8,
and then muse YouTube music all the way
down to 2.2.
So

(28:43):
YouTube definitely rated higher than YouTube music
at 2.2.
So this is just about do they do
a good job at helping your listeners find
and follow?
And then the next
question was promotion in app
and the some of the comments that were

(29:03):
made,
Apple podcast feels like the platform tends to
rely on latest releases from some big names
in studios for its recommendations and that's pretty
true.
YouTube needs to invest in real time, in
real editor
real
editorial curation
and some real content curators to be taken
more seriously.

(29:24):
Please don't
disturb the computer in the closet.
Basically it's in a logarithm and YouTube is
never gonna
hand curate.
They used to.
Yeah. But
years and years and years ago they did
but not not anymore. I don't think. And
it's and it's interesting. People are still seeing

(29:45):
discovery still a huge issue in all these
apps. If you're a smaller independent show, it's
very difficult to get noticed. Of course.
All these apps will do much better job
highlighting high quality smaller shows. Well, they're not
gonna do that. That's not driving
views.
They're gonna go over quantity over
yeah. Quantity over quality.

(30:05):
No.
Quantity?
Quantity of Quantity
of plays and yeah. They're They're gonna go
after shows that have more more views.
Star ratings, Apple Podcasts. If people want to
leave a star rating, and honestly, I think
that's fine, but they can also leave a
comment that could be completely
true. Spotify and YouTube give you more control

(30:27):
over comments. That's
absolutely true.
You basically you're stuck with one star,
reviews. Now here's where the p one stuff
comes in again, directories.
Podcast index got a ranking of 4.2.
So
how many listeners?
This is obviously questions being asked by podcasters.

(30:49):
So
you definitely had a lot of people that
are podcast index fans
ranking
podcast index over Spotify. Four point two
podcast index, four point o Spotify, four point
o Apple podcast, 3.6
Apple Music,
3.3
for YouTube.
So this is where the survey gets skewed

(31:11):
in my opinion and still good information.
It shows that podcast index is appreciated by
podcasters.
But
this is about ease of getting your podcast
listed.
So
it talks about YouTube being very is too

(31:31):
complicated.
YouTube has taken some fairly easy to do
YouTube has taken something fairly easy to do
on other apps and made it unnecessarily convoluted.
Other than RSS set up in YouTube, getting
your podcast listed is simple.
Everywhere, Spotify and YouTube are pretty challenging or
requiring too many steps to get a new
show on the platform.
Well I don't I don't always I don't

(31:54):
agree with that. Well, that's the that's the
feedback he got from the survey.
I know Apple's been the one that had
the
the steep curve. I wouldn't say that that's
the case for
Spotify. I we we have we take more
questions on
we never get a a how do I
submit to Apple Podcasts even before,

(32:16):
they automated it. We never had questions. How
do I submit to Apple Podcasts?
It was always the questions always come up
from YouTube. People are confused.
They're confused about the RSS
integration, what it means. Oh, as far as
the
RSS. Yeah. And then once they kind of
figure out
what
YouTube has done, most people don't have the

(32:38):
RSS ingestion. If they have video, they auto
they submit it themselves.
Yeah. And treat it It's a pretty complicated
topic because
if you're an Android user and you wanna
get your podcast into Apple, it's a hassle.
No. Not anymore.
Well, I realize that, but for the vast
majority of the years, it's only been a,
what, a couple months.

(33:00):
I mean, that that changed up. But but
again,
Android users are still on the minority on
podcast listeners. So
Yep. Well, none. I'm not talking about listeners.
I'm talking about podcasters
Yeah. Well, I can who wanna get their
podcasts
into Apple because you have to have an
Apple ID. Yeah. Well, I still think Android
users are a minority in podcast creators. You

(33:23):
don't you know, we you go to a
podcast event, it's a c of max. There's
no Windows machines.
Well, Android has nothing to do with Windows.
But again, if it's more associated with people
being Android users and being a Windows person
because if you have a Mac, you have
an Apple
you have an Apple ID.

(33:45):
Yeah. No. I agree with that. So if
you're on Windows or if you're an Android,
you you
you may not have an Apple ID so
you have to go create one. Right. Right.
But again,
again, that's why,
at least from my opinion,
way it looks to me is if you
are a
if you are more likely to be an
Android user if you're using Windows.

(34:10):
What what phone do you carry?
I've got an iPhone. Oh, and then you're
a Windows user.
So you've you've got an Apple ID. So
maybe I'm wrong. I've
I've had one for But we've never had
that come up as a problem. It's never
been
a support issue as much now. Oh, even
before.

(34:30):
It's never been a support issue. I kept
hearing about it constantly. No. I got On
on the hosting side,
one a month maybe.
I got questions about it a lot. Well,
I think to also we've made it very
clear on how you do it. We gave
clear instructions on how to submit your show.

(34:51):
Yeah. So,
you know, that was the that's the business
we're in is making sure people shows get
get listed.
But Yeah. It was always the the entire
process
of getting it into Apple.
You know, sometimes
they would ask for a credit card number
and
all this all these hurdles that you have

(35:13):
to jump, all these security hurdles and all
this kind of stuff that,
that Apple put put in front of people
to get it get an account set up
with them. Now that definitely is is now
gone.
Yeah.
Well,
is it really? I mean, I think if
you want to get access to your
account,
you have to have still have an Apple

(35:34):
ID, I would imagine. Yeah.
But you still have to create one. People
can do that at their people can do
that at their leisure now. They don't have
to worry about it in the moment.
Right. Yeah.
Right. But it's not completely wiped away. It
just depends on if that podcaster wants to
get access to podcast connect or not. Right.
They want to claim their show.

(35:55):
Right.
But So Again, I I think it's much
harder. If you want to be on YouTube,
you have to go create a you have
to have a create a channel,
go through all the steps to set up
the channel.
I don't think there's any,
you know,
but again, this is what podcasters are saying.
YouTube has taken something fairly easy to do

(36:16):
on other apps and made it unnecessary convoluted.
Other than the RSS setup in YouTube, getting
your podcast listened is simple everywhere.
Spotify and YouTube are pretty challenging require too
many steps to get a show on the
platform. Now Spotify, though,
if it's if they're
referencing video yeah. Spotify is difficult. But getting
your show on Spotify

(36:36):
has been easier than it has been to
Apple for many years because it's Oh, yeah.
You just click one One click submit. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
But I don't I mean, I would love
to see some stats
on
how many podcasters
don't have an a YouTube
account.
Oh, I would if you have a Google

(36:58):
account, you've got a YouTube account.
Yeah. So
that's what makes
me wonder is it's
it's not the same thing. I don't think
as Android,
podcasters.
Android users will have Apple. Will have a
Google account for sure.
Right. Right.

(37:18):
So
I wouldn't say that
it's
I don't know. I think people have it.
It just would be interesting to know what
what what the percentage of podcasters out there
have A YouTube channel. Created a a YouTube
channel. Right. That's that's probably a good question.
I bet it's lower than everyone thinks. I

(37:38):
don't know. It may be higher than everyone
thought. I don't know what everyone thinks.
Well, we we we know how many connected
VRSS.
I can tell you that.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's less less than five
percent.
Yeah. Well, that's a second layer question. Right?
Well, this is First layer question
is, do those podcasters have a

(38:01):
a YouTube account? Well, they do because
55%
have submitted their are are having their podcast
ingested via RSS from YouTube. And and at
Blueberry, it's it's less than 5% have connected
their YouTube
account to their RSS feed.
Right. Which is a small percentage. Very small

(38:22):
percentage.
But but that that may not be the
full percentage of how many podcasters have YouTube
accounts. Oh, that's oh, yeah. From a YouTube
account, I bet you it's near a %.
Yeah. Well, that's that's part of my difference
between having YouTube account and a YouTube channel
though, Rob?
Well You can have a YouTube account without

(38:44):
having a YouTube channel.
I would say near a % probably have
a YouTube account.
Account, but they don't have And then we
don't know what the percentage has a YouTube
channel. It's the percentage.
Yeah. Right. Right. I've got Where they would
have have the ability to publish content. Yeah.
I've got five or six YouTube channels,
you know. So Oh, you do? But you

(39:04):
know,
you know, they're not being used.
So, you know, they're they're they're they're you
you YouTube faded. You faded.
Oh, YouTube fades. Right? Right.
Another thing to ask
That's that's gonna be a term in the
future. Right? Yeah. I think it already it's
just well, you know, it's just like the
it's just like the dead shows on Spotify.

(39:27):
The same thing.
You know, you have a lot of looky
loos and I was a looky loo and
thought I had a great idea for something
for YouTube and,
you know, not enough time.
And, you know, there's nothing there.
So is that a, spot fade? Is that
what that is? I think it's like you
have an idea and, you know, you know,
I'm gonna try this and then, you know,

(39:47):
just the complexity of, you know, chasing that
animal is just not enough hours in the
day. Right?
Insights. These services offer a dashboard containing analytics
and insights how to how your podcast is
doing, how you should find this data.
YouTube three point six, Apple podcast 3.4. This
is a weird thing. I never look at
my Apple podcast analytics ever. I I probably

(40:09):
haven't been in there in a year.
Spotify three point four, o p three three
point two,
Amazon Music. So when you say Apple Analytics,
are you talking about podcast connect or you're
talking about your podcast hosting?
They're saying no. They don't they call it
out as Apple podcast. They don't call it
out as podcast connect.

(40:30):
Most podcasters don't know what podcast connect is.
They say, I'm gonna go over and look
at my Apple
Analytics,
and they log in to Apple. They don't
know that's Podcast Connect.
It's so Apple Podcast But you can see
your your Apple stats in your podcast hosting.
Yeah. You can. Too. Yeah. You can. But
they they didn't cover any. They covered o

(40:50):
p three.
You know, o p three is a redirect.
You know, they don't include Blueberry as or
pod,
pod track as a
a question.
You know? So Also,
Apple doesn't, track,
download plays and all that stuff in the
same way that the No. Maybe No. Metric
standard either. So you're We don't. You're really

(41:11):
looking at apples and oranges. Yeah. Yeah.
So, you know, they he's pumping o p
three as a solution here because it's open
stats.
It doesn't include,
you know, those of us that are running,
you know, you know, our 45,000
people that are using,
Blueberry podcast statistics. It doesn't include

(41:32):
Blueberry or
PodTrak and how many number they have a
hundred thousand people using PodTrak for for stats.
So
there's, you know, they he just it's limited
by questions here.
Nobody measures the same Apple. Why can't it
match IB standards for greater than sixty seconds?
Well, they're Apple.
There needs to be a standard definition that

(41:53):
all these services use, the data provided each
app should match.
They're not going to
because YouTube has their own They could. Well,
they won't. It could. YouTube has their own
thing. Apple has their own thing. Spotify has
their own thing. Yeah. I think the problem
with Apple is the fact that they don't
care about advertising. So Yeah. Why is it
Why would they conform? Why isn't there an

(42:14):
industry metric for download? There is. This is
why you use your podcast hosting platform.
Yeah.
That's the best place to get your metrics.
But everything else is, you know, got to
go to YouTube and get their data. You
got to go to Spotify and get their
data.
If you want more Oh, YouTube

(42:35):
is increasingly
sharing via API back to the hosting platforms.
Yeah. But again,
it's YouTube numbers and it's it's apples and
oranges. Yeah.
Yeah. It's not the same
analytics,
you know, kind of standards. Right? But I
find So interesting here monetization.
These services offer ways to help your podcast

(42:56):
make money.
Subscriptions value for valid donation, other forms of
how well do they work for your podcast?
YouTube two point six, podcasting two point o
2.6,
Apple Podcasts premium subscription 2.5,
Spotify for creators two point o, Apple Music
one Amazon Music one point I don't even
know Amazon Music offers premium.

(43:16):
So
kind of a weird.
But
it's for I know exactly how many Blueberry
customers are using Apple Podcasts Premium. It's not
a big number
in the scheme of things. It's not. It's
not a big number at all.

(43:38):
Yeah. There's feedback. Apple subscription service. I don't
think that a 30% fee is appropriate.
Another comment is terrible for not allowing you
to have any relationship with supporters who then
message with customer service requests that you you
can help with. I think this is, you
know, this is why we introduced,
Blueberry premium.
So we understand that relationship between the

(44:00):
the podcaster
and those people subscribed is important.
Giving them access to those folks.
Apple Podcasts brings me some money but they
take too steep of a cut and they
don't allow direct access to their audience. They're
never going to.
Innovation.

(44:21):
Are these apps or services doing anything innovative?
Do they offer ideas or features you can't
get anywhere else?
Podcast index 3.7,
Spotify three point o, YouTube two point nine,
Apple Podcasts 2.7,
Amazon I don't even know why we include
Amazon Music.
They they are such a low percentage

(44:42):
of overall consumption.
I don't think they break 1%.
Well,
people don't really think of Amazon as a
place to get a podcast. Yeah. But James
includes it in
the in the, questionnaire here.
Standard. Are these
services good stewards of podcasting open ecosystem?

(45:06):
Do they support open standards? Well, of course,
this is gonna play out like you think
it would. Podcast index four o, Apple podcast
three five, Amazon music two six,
YouTube two four, Spotify two point two. Spotify
and YouTube should get a zero on these.
In in, in all honesty,

(45:30):
Open RSS is valued.
They say they're all trying to become walled
gardens. Not all.
Spotify is selfishly building themselves, not the industry,
the creators.
I feel they're lacking in support
in the podcast ecosystem. The push for video
is disturbing.
Each platform in their fight to end market

(45:51):
share diminished podcasting's open ecosystem.
These are pretty valid
bitches
for sure.
Greater relations,
podcast index 3.4, Apple podcast 3.1.
How do you
I don't know. I'm feeling a little,

(46:12):
like I say,
disappointed
in
what what what we're hearing here to some
degree that we've had this medium for twenty
years. Yeah.
And and it just feels like it's chaos.
I don't think it's chaos.
Well, it feels that way, though. Man. Feels
very disjointed
for us.

(46:32):
All all of no. No. I'm not saying
about the hosting platforms. I'm talking about the
ecosystem
is everybody's playing like stray cats. They're all
running off in different directions. Everybody's doing different
stuff. And For sure.
I mean, which is great when a medium
is very young and people are experimenting and
stuff, but

(46:52):
it just feels like it's being done
for
not so greater reasons. Well, it's it's it's
very clear how people are feeling. They're all
trying to become walled gardens.
Spotify is selfishly building themselves, not the industry,
the creators.
Each platform in is in their fight to
win market share, diminish podcasting's

(47:14):
open ecosystem.
So
that sediment is coming across.
But again, we have to remember these are
a 50 of the most hardcore
podcasters
have
responded Or or podcast industry people. Podcast industry
people have responded
out of 32,000
people in James's newsletter.

(47:37):
Right.
So
I would be much happier,
James.
We have to you know, we need to
push your survey.
You know, you need to push it more
hard next time. We need
more more
more more more more.

(47:59):
Yeah. It seems like it I mean, with
that kind of circulation,
he could have gotten more responses to that.
You would have hoped. I'm not I mean
I mean, James didn't do anything. No. No.
No. People just didn't respond. Why aren't Yeah.
Yeah. Why aren't the people in the industry
contributing to this? So this is, you know,
this survey is made up of taught just

(48:19):
a simple fact that there is
podcast index in here. This is made up
of the Todd,
the Robs,
the Daves.
These these are these this survey was done
by,
you know, 150
of those of us that care about this
and a great deal.
So
is it indicative

(48:40):
of
average
podcast creators?
This extent it seems like it is by
the comments. Now he had over 700
comments and
I'd like to see all those comments.
We're sharing this.
So I'd like to see
we've anonymized adding a country code. I don't

(49:02):
know where
all the comments are but
overall, someone said I hate them all. So
I think that's kind of funny.
Matt says why I don't like the view
from the top from Goldstein is because of
its ad biz bias.
And all of this has
well, James' doesn't.

(49:23):
But for sure
for sure, Matt, there is a
all this, the YouTube,
the Spotify play,
all of it is on a ad biz
bias.
It's all focused on the money.
And Yeah. I heard a a quote from
a person that went to podcast movement and

(49:43):
they
their their two takeaways that they had was
mostly all of the
invest investment and tech in the podcasting space.
Mostly right now
is focused on
trying to leverage monetization.
Oh, you need to come over to Blueberry.

(50:03):
No. No. No. I'm not saying that there
are Yeah. People that aren't doing that. It
just that's the impression that they get
when they talk to people or
go to boost and stuff. Everybody's pushing
monetization,
monetization.
And most of
and most of the the focus of
the innovation in the podcasting space is focused

(50:25):
around technology to enable
deeper metrics or advanced analytics or, or
building platforms that that can drive more programmatic
advertising or
I mean, that's where most of the investment
is going
right now because I guess there's a direct
mapping

(50:46):
to revenue. Well,
it's
it's not coming from
blueberry. It's not coming from rss.com.
I don't think it's coming from buzzsprout.
You know, we're all doing lots of innovative
stuff.
Libsyn's got its own whole arm. They're investing
a huge amount of money obviously and
Wondering and others.

(51:09):
But
if I was solely focused on making money
for podcasters, I'd be out of business.
It's But, Todd, you have to admit. I
mean,
that is a I mean, if just look
at sounds profitable.
Yeah. You know, that's that's the focus of
that organization.
It's in the name. Yeah. They don't I

(51:32):
think they would like to be known more
as
a as an association, but it's true. It's
even their articles are heavily heavily heavily focused
on advertising.
Matt says we need a view from the
bottom to share what us blue collar podcasters
think.
And I think that is the was the
design of,

(51:54):
James's report card.
But again, we need more
blue collar podcasters to
More participation.
Yeah. Yeah. And maybe James needs to ask,
are you
do you run a podcast host? Are you
a podcast industry person? Are you just a
podcaster?
And he could see the spread

(52:16):
of responses.
I think we put our email in there.
I think there's I don't think it's anonymized.
So Yeah. No. I did. Yeah.
I I you know, I know what podcasters
are asking for.
I I talk to them every day. I
know their opinions
and

(52:36):
it it doesn't align
with
this heavy video centric focus. It it that
alignment
is, you know, that is not the conversations
I'm having with blue collar podcasters.
The the the conversations I'm having with blue
collar podcasters, how do I grow my podcast
90%
of the time.

(52:57):
Yeah. But that that doesn't exclude
a a video. Well, sometimes sometimes people will
say, do you think I should do a
video podcast? And usually they can after the
phone call, it's a no.
You know? So again Or
or do they not talk about
video because they don't really consider doing something

(53:17):
Invariably, it'll come on. On YouTube
as part of their podcast. Invariably, it'll come
up 50% of the time in a in
a call. Right. They'll ask me my opinion.
Should I start video
and again I I say I've been doing
video for fifteen or so years and I
like video.

(53:38):
But at the same time, I I do
live. I do live for a reason. I
think there's value in having live,
live audio, live video.
So I don't discount it at all. But
I also
make them understand that only a small percentage
or percentage
of
the audience watches.

(54:00):
So
there's a split.
And is it you need do you have
the time? Do you have you don't wanna
go through the pain of setting up OBS
and a camera and lights and a background
and, you know,
making yourself camera ready.
Todd, I got this impression,
kind of going through the the key takeaways

(54:22):
from podcast movement. You know, these
these key things like this convergence of audio
and video and
redefining podcast metrics. Right? And trying to
understand this distinction between video
and audio
and this concept of evolution of multichannel
brands

(54:42):
per se, you know.
You know, none of this stuff is new.
No.
And
the more I look at it, the more
I think about it, the more it's the
same.
It's the same. We've been doing
We've always been. We've been doing multichannel distribution,
Rob, for fifteen years.

(55:03):
So
I'm just trying to get more practical about
as I think is is I pull back
and I think about all this stuff,
what really has changed? I'm not sure that
anything has changed that much. I think the
I think maybe what we're emphasizing and what
we're talking about
is maybe slightly different, but it's not but
it's all rooted in the same thing. Not

(55:23):
nothing's changed for us. But for some, it
is a monumental
change because people have just been doing audio
only.
And they have now this this, you know,
like, oh my god. I need to do
video.
So then Right. You know, then there is
a
But that was always an option.
But I don't think a lot of podcasters

(55:43):
considered it an option. If they did, we
would have had more video content
via RSS than we do now. So
I I just don't think they considered as
an option. I think there was this divide
for many years. You're as a YouTuber, you're
a podcaster.
And then as soon as YouTube said, oh,
you're now can do podcasts over here. Everyone
went went ape shit gaga.

(56:06):
And, you
know, oh, I got it.
Oh, I have this.
And yet five only 5% have connected RSS
feeds to at Blueberry to YouTube.
And
okay. So then,
you know, oh my god. I'm I gotta
be on oh, but it it sucks. It

(56:26):
looks horrible.
So so now I have to do a
live video. I I
Yeah. Yeah. But people have been able to
push audio over to YouTube for, like, the
last
twelve years. I know. But they they didn't.
Only a small percentage did. I know. I
know. But it's probably still a small percentage
that are pushing it. Well, like it's like
I said, 5% connect to RSS feed. Yeah.

(56:48):
Yeah. So
I'm still looking for what has dramatically changed.
Nothing has dramatically changed. It's the hype. It's
the money. It's, oh, chasing the dollars.
Everything's tied to chasing money
and getting monetized on YouTube. Gets back to
what we were just saying earlier, that everything
is about monetization now. Everything.

(57:10):
And
though I would say that
AI to some degree has changed the conversation
a little bit.
But even that
All I
AI is had the ability to have transcripts
far be far before we had this AI
conversation. Yeah. A long time. And matter of
fact, the AI,

(57:31):
unless you're using the right AI, doesn't create
a transcript.
So, you know, ChatGPT
will not give you a transcript.
You know, you have to end in how
we do transcript styles. We integrate with the
services specifically,
creates a transcript in the format that is
a true transcript.
So Well, it it technically can create one

(57:53):
because I've done it before. It's just it
kind of maxes out at a certain Right.
You don't minutes. Well, you don't You have
a token limitation.
So
and it doesn't give you it doesn't give
you an SRTVTT
file.
Well, you have to cut and paste it
out of the app. Well, again, they don't

(58:13):
give you Or save it and then paste
it into something else. If you look at
an SRTBTT
file, you'll it you can't get that output
out of chat g p t. You can
get a text. You can get some text,
but you can't get a true
closed caption ready transcript.
Oh, close caption. By the second word for
word.
You know, you can't get that. I don't

(58:33):
know about you, but I export usually in
just a text file anyway.
So but that's not a transcript. That's a
text file.
So
What's no.
Well, a transcript is not a format. Yeah.
Oh, it absolutely is.
SRTBTT
are are x are the two standards for

(58:54):
transcripts.
Well, that's for closed captioning transcripts. But it's
if you if you wanna have any utilization
at all,
across platforms,
you're if you're just creating a text file,
a text file is a text file
of just words. Yep. Yeah. But it's still
a transcript.
There's no delineation
of person

(59:14):
speaking.
There's none of that.
Yeah. There is. Not in a not in
a text. Out of,
out of the script. Everything. That's that's you're
getting
a SRT or VTT file then out of
the script. No. I'm not. Well, then they're
giving you a they're they're doing wrong.
They're making they're they're giving you an incorrect
format then. A text file text in the

(59:37):
transcript is all it is.
Is it coming text over a paragraph. Does
it come in a t x t file?
Well well, you can export the transcript as
a t x t file. Yeah. Or you
can export it as a text file.
That doesn't
not make it a transcript
just because of the format that it's exported

(59:58):
in. Okay. I'm just I'm just telling you,
if you're gonna follow the transcript rules
and have something not a rules. It's it's
it's the type of file it is. It's
kinda like saying
that a
a Word doc is not a Word doc
unless it's a text file.
I'm just saying if you're going to have
a transcript, don't export to a text file.

(01:00:21):
That that is acid on.
Why is it acid on? It it depends
on how it's being used.
Where else how else you're gonna use it?
You can take a text file and you
can upload it to chat
GPT and they can do an analysis. Yeah.
You of course. With a summary, come create
other types of content

(01:00:41):
from that transcript. Yeah. Of course. Right. But
if don't call it don't call it don't
call that file a transcript. That's a text
file of the content
that will be that you can use. It's
not something you should put in an RSS
feed.
I'm not saying that I'm putting it in
an RSS feed. Yeah. Yeah. So you're just
That's a use case. Yeah. Yeah. But a
transcript is taking the words that are spoken

(01:01:04):
and converting them into text. That's what a
transcript is. It doesn't matter what the export
format is. Okay. In in in a podcast
format, you're gonna use a transcript. This don't
use text file in the transcript tag, please.
I'm not. Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah. But if the the the
the the advantage of having a VTT and

(01:01:26):
SRT file used within
but the time hacks used within
an AI model
is
you can
see the audio segment length.
You're able to determine, okay, this is a
one minute clip
versus them guessing via tokens. What what is

(01:01:47):
a one minute clip
and the breakout of people that are that
are speaking.
So
yeah. But
again, I guess it's apples and oranges. I
just I focus on the technical side. Sorry.
But again, I think
the
what Descript gives you is different than what
you can't just submit audio to chat g

(01:02:09):
p t and have it give you a
transcript.
Yeah. You can. It just can't be too
long.
Because I've done it a zillion times.
I'll give it like maybe a ten or
fifteen minute audio piece. And it'll it'll
transcribe the whole thing and create a summary.
Oh, that's interesting. But it it is it

(01:02:31):
give you the transcription
that output?
Or does it just give you a summary?
Well, I mean, it'll do do both.
Mainly
mainly the transcript and capability and chat
GPT
is by
recording it in the app. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. You can't upload it. So you just

(01:02:53):
Last I checked, you couldn't upload an audio
file.
I might be wrong. It may have changed.
So most people are using whisper or one
of those types of platforms to do a
Well, I think they do recommend that if
it's too long. Right? They say, well, we're
not you know, you're gonna have to use
Descript or you're gonna have to use some

(01:03:13):
other app to create a transcript from this.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm an I'm not a Descript
user.
So
Yeah. It does
does a lot of different stuff
with with the transcript. It's really foundational to
everything it does.
Yeah. That's why we build our AI tools.
I don't need Descript to do that.

(01:03:35):
Yeah. Right.
So, you know, you gotta capture what the
words are,
and then you can
formulate different uses for for the Yeah. That's
what we do with the AI tool.
Right.
Right. But again, we we the the
the queries that we are using a
using a time based

(01:03:56):
transcript
that has a time accident so that we're
able to get audio snippets and have a
word for word, second by second tracking
of knowing where and then not only for
the closed caption, but also for
audio clipping or video clips or whatever we're
putting together.
Yeah. And I also
export,

(01:04:18):
chapter markers
out of out of the platform too that
will have like, you know, from zero minutes
to
two minutes and thirty three seconds. It talks
about this topic. And then if you cut
and paste that into YouTube,
YouTube will automatically
connect up
those timestamps.
You need to be using our AI tool.
This this stuff comes automatically

(01:04:40):
right into YouTube
Rob. That way you don't
need to
you don't need to have,
you know, you can have these outputs that
go in your show notes and to YouTube
that give you the chapter markers.
Okay. Are you talking about the audio file?
Are you talking about the video file?

(01:05:01):
Audio video. Same difference.
Like For this show. Push
push my video over to YouTube through your
platform.
Yes. You you get sure can. But it's
not video. You can push the audio version.
Yeah. Well, that's But again, if if if
if I I haven't pushed the video But
I have an audio the audio and video

(01:05:23):
version, the sound is the same. So the
audio version creating chapter files, I just copy
that paste that into YouTube.
Right. For audio, but not for the video.
Yeah. For the video. Right. Because it's time
sync the same.
Okay.
What we're talking about here in the audio
is gonna be time sync the same in
the video.
Right. Well, that's if you're creating the same

(01:05:46):
version
Yeah. Absolutely. For video that you're doing with
the audio, which oftentimes I I don't. Well.
I'll do additional editing on the audio than
I do on the video. Yeah. I don't.
So but again, I think it's, you know,
it depends on how you want to use
the tool. If you want to be efficient
or if you want to be inefficient.

(01:06:09):
How long does it take you what you're
creating.
Oh, that's true. You're trying to create. Right.
Fifteen minutes, I'm done. That's the beauty.
Well, I spend
more time on the editing side than I
guess what you're doing. So Yeah. Speaking of
editing, did you get a chance to see
that new AI platform, that beta?

(01:06:31):
What platform is that? The one you've introduced
me to. I think you are recommended. You
recommended. I have
you saw the it's Unify or what's the
name of the company?
You told them to talk to me.
I can't remember what that was. I gotta
look at my calendar and look at the
company name.

(01:06:52):
When was that meeting? Yesterday?
Not that guy.
See here.
Maybe that was Monday.
Okay.
No. It was a
AI video editing tool.

(01:07:14):
I remember
what it was I recommended. I can't remember.
When did I Was it? When did I
do that meeting?
QSO? Was it QSO?
No. It wasn't that. How come it's not
in my
is it happened? It didn't happen last week.
What day was it?

(01:07:38):
I'm looking at my calendar here.
It's late my time and I don't know
why it's I don't see it in my
calendar.
Oh, it's yeah. It's ukumi, u k u
m I dot a I. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

(01:07:59):
You can. Right.
Yeah.
So Yeah. I remember now. Nice tool but
pricing. Holy
shit. Oh, it was expensive. No question. Yeah.
I told him I told him basically, that's
that's a non starter.
Yeah. I told him that they probably couldn't
sell any plans
at that pricing level. No. I said that's

(01:08:20):
that's absolute insanity.
I told him, I said $20.30 bucks a
month for, you know, a number of episodes.
It might be worth it.
But Yeah. Wow.
Yeah. It was a lot. Yeah. And you
know, and and actually doing a comparison, I
said, have you guys, you know, have you
guys looked at the pricing of,

(01:08:42):
Opus clips?
I'm, you know, and I'm like,
you know, if you look at Opus clips
and what you're doing here,
the only thing additional you do is give
me a little metadata and I've already got
that metadata
extracted.
So
the clipping tool was nice in it.
But

(01:09:02):
way too expensive.
Way way way I mean I
as I was actually kind of shocked.
I know I was too.
I told them that too. I told them
flat out that they probably wouldn't get any
podcasters to sign up at that level. Yeah.
I told him I said this is a
if you have a if you have a
top YouTuber, maybe they'll use it but I
said they have a team already

(01:09:24):
that's editing
and you know, we even have a video
editor now. So and for blueberry. So it's
like,
I'll have them make the shorts
in reels and use a human to do
that interaction.
So What?

(01:09:44):
Create the shorts and the reels manually?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It's gonna be very labor intensive. It's
actually not because it's very short videos, eight
minutes or whatever, and you're doing a But
you have to find where the clips are
in the video and then you have to
format them. Yeah.
Again, it's if you're if you're editing the
video already, you know where the clips are

(01:10:05):
at.
So
if you're actually in there editing,
it's not like they're coming in there and
and doing it raw. They're they're doing the
full production. So
any of these were using
like an Opus clip? Yeah. We yeah. We
use Opus clips, but Opus clips doesn't always
get it right.

(01:10:25):
It's it's about a about a 50% solution.
So you have to hunt anyway.
Yeah. I use,
I've been using a platform called
QSO,
AI here lately to play around with it.
It'll generate
like 30 or 40 different.
No. That's a huge no. Vertical videos

(01:10:47):
out of like an hour long
video. So How many of those are viable?
Probably maybe half.
Oh, that's actually pretty good. Mhmm.
You so What what Q u s o?

(01:11:07):
Q u here. I think it's Q's Q.
So here, let me pull it up here
really quick.
QSEO.
But yeah, it's a platform that,
has, has the ability
to create AI AI videos as well.

(01:11:29):
Yeah. Qus0.ai.
They need to fix their HTTPS
on their website.
Qus0.ai.
Oh, you found it? Yeah. Yeah. Not secure.
Not a good look.
It's not a good look.

(01:11:50):
Okay. Why why don't they have HTTPS fix?
They must be early.
They are pretty early. You're right.
Pricing.
How much is it? The other one that's
good too is,
in video
AI.
I don't know if you've seen that one
before, Todd. And video
AI.

(01:12:14):
N video?
In
in
I n v I d e o a
I. Yeah. In video.
These are dime a dozen now, aren't they?
Yeah.
There's a lot of them. That's for sure.

(01:12:34):
Actually, this one's pretty popular.
And I'm looking at pricing on these.
Not bad.
Fifty minutes a month. Oh, it's really lone
minutes for $28.
Oh, really? Only fifty eight minutes? Oh, it's
it's a crew oh, this is for AI

(01:12:55):
creation.
AI
IAI Copilot for video creation. This isn't a
doesn't look like it's a clipping tool. It's
Yeah. It's made for creating
full AI videos. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I have
no desire to do that at this point.
Yeah. It's

(01:13:18):
so you got the full spectrum of what
people are Yeah. Giving
creators out there with the what's possible. So
you can actually make full
you know, if you think about making, was
it close to sixty minutes of content?
You know, a lot of creators will make
like maybe a thirty second or sixty second

(01:13:40):
AI video,
Right? And so you can get a lot
of content if you keep it, keep it
in a short form.
Well, again, I guess we'll see when, people
are going to start,
you know, doing more on audio side. Everyone's
focused on video.
But, NotebookLM

(01:14:01):
made some improvements
to their their platform. I don't know exactly
what they did.
I gotta go back and look at odd
news.
But,
they made an improvement to their to their
platform.
So Yeah. Hopefully, the voices aren't so chitter

(01:14:22):
chattery.
Where was the publish? What did they update?
Then some more layoffs too.
Where?
At,
Daily Wire. Automatic also laid some people
off. Where where was that announcement?

(01:14:43):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think I heard about
that. Yeah. They let 25%
of the company
go
to report the kids division has closed and
makes sense.
It really
doesn't that really makes sense for daily wire.
And then with Matt being off the rails
on WordPress,
wonder if they've been affected because they let
280

(01:15:03):
people
off and restructure.
So more layoffs.
One thing I'm running into is I'm hearing
a lot of people are using DaVinci for
video editing. I've I've never used DaVinci at
all. Yeah, it's a good tool.

(01:15:27):
At one point, I almost got that tool
to try and learn.
Yeah. Once you've once you've went down the
road and use a tool for a while,
it's pretty hard to
to go backwards
and start on another one.
It's a learning curve to learn how to
use something.

(01:15:47):
Well, increasingly, those kind of tools are gonna
be incorporating,
AI video editing capability. I know that the
really high end tools are Yeah. Adobe's increasingly
adding adding that kind of capability.
Yeah. Adobe's always asked me, do you want
it mean to improve this with AI? No.
Yeah.

(01:16:08):
What else has happened here in the past
week?
I'm just looking through
the stuff that they had a podcast standards
meeting
and
Oh, yeah. So they committed to adding the
location tag,
to the list of supported features

(01:16:29):
in the PSP certified spec. We've already done
that.
And they're adding chapters to our list of
optional but recommended. We've already done that.
They had a big discussion about video.
I'm sure they did. Their collective desires bring
new features to OpenBot ecosystem that matter to
listeners
and creators

(01:16:49):
and some new participants, which is I don't
know if yes. I can probably say who
was there.
And,
new participants in the meeting was from,
rep from episode FM, Transistor, SportingCast,
o p three,
Libsyn, Podgageman,
SoundStack,

(01:17:12):
Dystopia.
We were there. Mike Dell was there.
So I'm looking at the image here. How
many people? One, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, 10, 11. Yeah. It looks
like 12. Rocky Thomas was there. Daniel j
Lewis was there. Yep.
So it looks like 12 people,
had time to attend.

(01:17:32):
But, yeah, a few new faces
in that group.
Still a lot of folks missing. A lot
of folks missing. But, again, we kinda do
this as a, you know, add events, you
know, to do a quick catch up. So
not everyone is at those events. But it
was nice to see that, Rob Boss joined
again.

(01:17:53):
Yep.
Which he had not been participating for a
while
from Libsyn. So
yeah. Yeah. It's good.
Anyway, what else is happening with you?
Just,

(01:18:14):
trying to play around more with the AI
tools, trying to learn
what works, what doesn't,
how they work,
where it's
shifting to, you know, if you think about
where AI is going, I know you've been
digging deep into this topic
for,
for a while now.
And,

(01:18:35):
you know,
there was a big improvement to the AI
artwork.
Oh, that's been massive update.
Yeah. And I've been playing around with that
a lot too. It's definitely, you can get
a lot more precise with it. Yeah. It's
still not perfect. It still doesn't spell things
correctly
all the time every time, but

(01:18:55):
it's definitely a lot better than it was.
There was a service,
we are playing with called,
I think it's Flux.
Is it Flux Flux AI?
Yeah.
Alright. Maybe not. Maybe not Flux AI.

(01:19:16):
It's Flux dot okay. It's kind of a
weird, locate
it's flux dash a I dot I o.
And they have a Flux image generator.
And
because,
ChatGPT
API is still using DALL E three
and not the new image generator, they haven't

(01:19:38):
announced the pricing for it.
We're switching
our,
pie solution to use Flux AI image generator
in the interim,
while we're waiting for chat g p t
or waiting for,
Google Gemini to get better.

(01:20:00):
So it's just a moving target. Again, it's,
nothing is perfect yet but I will say
that the OpenAI
image generator is pretty damn good.
Currently I just wish they would roll it
out into
making any
allowable with an API call.

(01:20:21):
Oh. Right. And it's definitely slower
from an image generation standpoint but I'll wait
thirty seconds for a better video.
I mean a better image
and I've been pretty good on the
spelling standpoint. Although I did have trouble
with the image I tried creating for my

(01:20:43):
tech show, which was kind of funny.
I was talking about the,
the tech stock and tariffs with
my tech show and the images that it
created were awesome.
But I it kept like
shifting the text to the left,
which was kind of funny.

(01:21:04):
But it it did a great image once
I got everything kind of figured out.
So
had, yeah. I can actually prompt it,
one after another to
refine the image
to to move elements, to make them smaller
and bigger
just by prompting it. And they don't, and

(01:21:25):
they they don't create a whole new image
each time. It refines the one that it
had. So
yeah. Much much much much better,
for sure.
I haven't tried giving it images to say
well, I did. I did give it some
images to try to
utilize. I said use this image,
in the image creation, it wouldn't do that.

(01:21:47):
And it hasn't got smart enough to do
that. So I uploaded my bio picture and
said use this in the in the image
and it it it didn't replicate me. So
it probably a copyright thing where
you're not proving that you own the image.
So Yeah. I played around with it, earlier

(01:22:07):
this week to create an image,
like a thumbnail for for YouTube. And it
it did create
a a a version of me.
Oh, a version of you?
Right. In the thumbnail. Well, I had a
version of me created too, and it made
me let me go see if I can
find it. It is kind of hilarious.

(01:22:30):
Yeah. I think I can find one for
me. Yeah. The image it created was oh,
yeah. It made me look like Gordon Firemark.
Oh, it did? Yeah. That it this is
kind of funny.
See if I can I can't show this?
But
yeah,
it
it definitely it it was kind of hilarious.
I I said, oh my god. That made

(01:22:52):
me
mean and it made me fatter, made my
head about this big around.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. And I said, oh, there's
I look like Gordon now.
Not that you have a fat head, Gordon,
but
yeah. I don't think I can put it
up on the screen easy. Let's see if

(01:23:12):
I can.
Oh, it doesn't?
Gotta go dig it out here. I gotta
be careful on moving stuff because if I
move stuff, it it screws
up. Yeah. But anyway,
yeah. It does it does it won't take
your image and use it exactly. That is
for sure.

(01:23:33):
Yeah. It's it's getting close though, I have
to say.
Okay. Here's
here I can here, let me pull up
and
see if I can pull it up. I
I told it don't make it don't make
me so fat and it still didn't
yeah. Go ahead and share your screen.

(01:23:53):
I'll I'll try and pull it up here.
This was a
video that I made,
outside.
So here, let me
see if I can show it to you.

(01:24:13):
Oh, yeah. That definitely,
okay.
Yeah. It yeah. It
it kinda
You're a head over.
Yeah. Right.
Right.
But it it that's what it thinks I
look like. Yeah. Well It hasn't been as

(01:24:35):
refined.
Yours,
was kind.
Mine wasn't as kind. Yeah. Mine was kind.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think it created a, even a
different version.
Let's see here.
Oh, I, I don't think I saved that

(01:24:56):
other one that I created. See if I
can Yeah. So I basically took that same
image and I
I I copied it out of the image
and then I cut
I paste it into the image
a a real one Yeah. That I had
captured.
So you can do that in Canva so
you can swap them out.
Alright. I'm totally messing everything up. Long as

(01:25:18):
I don't move the other one. Let me
see if I can bring this up.
Okay. So let me share.
File share.
Share.
Okay. So here's what it made me look
like.
There's a podcaster out there that looks like

(01:25:39):
that. Do you see do you see the
Gordon Firemark?
Oh, it is. A little bit. Actually, it
didn't it's not showing on the live stream.
I'm sorry. I've screwed this. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. It was kinda funny. So those
of you So I wonder if that's gonna
be like a premium upgrade,
where you can use your I've seen some

(01:26:01):
apps out there that will
replace your face
Yeah. On an image,
but that probably treads into some
privacy and,
you know, cloning type of
worries and concerns out there about AI. Right?
People be being able to coop your

(01:26:22):
Yeah. Your likeness. Right? David says, I haven't
heard the buzzing noise today. Yes. We
I did extensive testing to figure out what
was going on. So I'm glad the buzzing
is gone.
Yep. That's a good Yeah. Thought I had
it whipped one time and then it came
back. So who knows? But we talked about
the beginning of the show.

(01:26:42):
Well, Rob, I'm kind of out of juice
on stuff to talk about. Been kind of
a slow week really in the podcasting space,
all things considered. Yeah. I wanted to mention
one one thing that I did notice,
was
that Google appears to be driving hundreds of
thousands of podcast downloads every week

(01:27:02):
that we
that many don't think are being actually listened
to Yeah. Via the I saw that. The
Google audio news product that's out there. Yeah.
We we look track this at all? We
we looked into it, and we already had
that on
that that data had been flagged by our
system as being

(01:27:26):
we get a basic report that says here's
suspicious activity
and
we had already flagged that. So we we
had excluded
those downloads,
for quite a while.
So,
you know, we just we see this type
of activity. We don't even

(01:27:46):
if if it's us, we just exclude
it. You know Yeah. As far as being
being counted but you're still using bandwidth to
deliver all those phones. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
There's a lot of there's an unbelievable
amount of traffic that happens,
that causes us to have bandwidth being used.
I mean,

(01:28:06):
that's just the tip of the iceberg.
And to be honest with you, there's probably
10 or 15%
of our total
bandwidth bill,
that if I don't add a,
a blocker,
would just continue to download media. This that's
just the tip

(01:28:27):
of, you know, like I said, like 10
or 15% of total traffic we we have
blocked
at the CDN level.
Blocked from counting but not blocking from delivery?
Well, we once we basically say that this
once we confirm
that something is
invalid

(01:28:48):
traffic,
we not only block it from the log
files, but we block it from,
we block it at the CDN level. Oh,
yeah. Yeah.
Because like I said, I think we probably
have 10 or 15 of our total traffic
that would we'd have a higher bill
by 10 or 15% if we had not

(01:29:09):
blocked that traffic.
Yeah. Yeah. So when I see this stuff
comes up, you know, oh, yeah. We that's
we we just say we already knew that
it was just weird.
Yeah. We don't catch everything. So I appreciate
when people put stuff up because then I
can go dig around too and say, okay.
Where did we did we miss this or

(01:29:30):
are we being affected by it? But,
the dashboard's been pretty good at
our
I I don't even wanna call it threat.
It's not even a threat dashboard. It's kind
of a who are you,
you know, type of traffic. Especially when a
user agent shows up that,
you know, has not
driven any, you know, any traffic, all of

(01:29:51):
a sudden there's a we see a spike
in user agent traffic. We do the investigation
on it.
Sometimes there's no user agent.
So yeah.
And it's hard. Some of the stuff is
hard to,
to filter out. But
that's why the IAB is at forced
companies to have some sort of,

(01:30:13):
filtering
mechanism,
at least in the stats.
So that you, you know, we basically do
a weekly review of
all traffic.
So and some stuff you kind of like,
is this real or is this and you
do your best and then sometimes you just

(01:30:34):
have to kind of go on a gut
feel that okay, we're gonna allow this and
and basically it's you know, check you later
and see if this continues, this activity continues.
Right.
But yeah. I can understand why James is
upset getting a higher hosting bill of $200.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. I know that. Yeah. That

(01:30:55):
was that's big. That's big money
for for a single show.
Yeah. And to have that happen
without really delivering anything to Right. Listener. Right.
Google's not
being proactive,
but they're obviously preloading something somewhere.

(01:31:17):
So,
you know, that
in its essence is a, you know, one
of the things you have to watch out
for
to maintain your certification. If you find stuff
that's being preloaded like that, that's an automatic
supposed to be an automatic block,
at least from the stats and then you
have to decide what you're going to do
at the CDN level.

(01:31:39):
Yeah. I didn't say if if it was
all,
sourced through audio podcasts.
I don't know if there's other types of
audio out there that people are maybe playing
through the Google
audio news
app. Well, being it was just a couple
of countries too is, you know, suspicious of

(01:32:00):
its global. That's one thing. But when it's
all focused
around two or three countries, then, you know,
there's definitely a problem.
Right.
Alright.
Okay. We we made it to you. Call
it a call it a day? Yeah. Absolutely.
Or an evening, in this case. So let's
see here. I I will be available next

(01:32:21):
week to do the show. I'm taking Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday my time off.
We don't do the show until Thursday morning
my time. So I'll be avail I might
be hungover.
I have some friends coming out in into
town.
So,
you're gonna be dragging. Yeah, I might be
I might be
a little worse for wear. So I have

(01:32:43):
a friend coming in from Thailand,
that I haven't seen in a while. And
he's like, are you ready to rage? I'm
like,
dude, I am not of the age to
rage anymore.
But he likes to do Jager bombs. So
you know, I'm thinking, oh, okay. Oh, no.
You know, at least it's not tequila, but
it's just as bad, right?

(01:33:06):
It's gonna take you out, right? Yeah.
So hopefully he gets it out of his
system Tuesday and then Wednesday we go a
little a little lighter, you know. So
again, don't record here till Thursday morning.
Okay. Okay.
Kind of recovered by then. Yeah. Well, we'll
see. We'll see if I show up.

(01:33:27):
Yeah. Right.
Alright. It's [e-mail]
on Mastodon. Don?
Yep.
And Rob Greenlee. I'm on x
at Rob Greenlee and,
YouTube at Rob Greenlee
and LinkedIn at Rob Greenlee.

(01:33:50):
So you can find me in all those
places. You can also send me an email
too if you want. [e-mail].
Happy to hear from you.
So thank you for watching today. Thanks. And,
all the AI models, we do give you
permission
to,
to use,
this content in your your models and for

(01:34:10):
training.
Any of the content on newmediashow.com
is a open game for you to utilize,
for training and quoting.
Everyone else, thank you for being here. And,
again, we'll see you back here next week
for another edition of the new media show.
Take care. Bye bye. Goodbye.