Additional Video Podcast Format via RSS

In this episode of “The New Media Show,” hosted by Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee, the discussion centers on various topics in the podcasting space, with a particular focus on the emerging interest in video podcasting publishing formats. The episode starts with Todd welcoming listeners and mentioning that Rob has joined him for the episode. … Continue reading Additional Video Podcast Format via RSS →

The post Additional Video Podcast Format via RSS appeared first on New Media Show.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yes. We are live. Welcome to the new

(00:01):
media show, everyone. And,
Pat had to do a reboot.
Right before the show, Rob showed up and
I couldn't hear him. But hey. Welcome.
Yeah.
Back for another episode of The New Media
Show. Yeah. And it's it's almost,
as much stuff changes, it stays the same.
Yeah. I mean, it's an evolution that's going

(00:23):
on. Right? It's not you know, there's no,
like, week to week huge jumps in anything.
It's kinda like, you know, one step at
a time. That's why, you know, podcasting has
been like that for years. And I giggle
because
the and, of course, everybody's gonna say, oh,
please kill us.
The, you know, the

(00:44):
the all of a sudden
the interest,
the fantastic interest of video and
podcasting and open RSS.
Yeah. Right.
It seems like such a new concept. Yeah.
Doesn't it to you? Yeah.
Yeah. Right.

(01:04):
So So
Yeah. I mean, you know, it's good. It's
good that they're talking about it.
But, you know, there's this this behind the
scenes conversation going on in a Slack channel.
I don't know if you're in there or
not.
It's a DSP
discussion. It's got a whole bunch I think
I used to be in that group, but
I'm not in there. Yeah. There's a whole

(01:25):
bunch people and, of course, Justin and the
others have been off talking about HLS and,
you know, all the sexiness. And
and,
you know, when we are at the podcast
show in London, you know, I I talked
to Ted and the team at Apple and
and, you know, they've known for a very,
very long time,

(01:46):
at least where my head's been at. I
don't know if anyone else has been telling
them this. So maybe I've been the lone
wolf
in,
you know, maybe I've been the lone wolf
in
in describing
what what the issue is and what my
concern was. My concern. Yeah. Yeah. You're back.
Yeah. Okay. So, you know, maybe I was

(02:07):
the lone wolf
in describing
the,
you know, the the things we want.
And
so, you know, maybe now I'll have this
stupid thing.

(02:33):
See that that's what happens that's what happens
when I have to reboot everything and
wasn't able to run my preventive measures is
now the road is disconnected twice in a
row
for no reason.
Yeah.
Yeah. The computer is either getting adjusted
or
whatever. I don't know. There's
a driver conflict of some sort? Yeah. It's

(02:55):
it's it's this Rodecaster Duo. It's a piece
of shit.
So
Well, I still have the, first RODECaster Pro
and it it doesn't It's solid. Have too
many problems. Yeah. You know? So maybe I'm
gonna have to take this home and bring
back
a a pro on the next I mean,
the original one. You know? Yeah. You know?

(03:16):
And it it never disconnects. This one just
arbitrarily says, you know, good night.
At least it gives me a heads up.
I hear a little ding go off my
headset now and it when it disconnects, I
can reach over and pull the USB cable
out and plug it back in.
Right.

(03:39):
So you know, someone's saying, well, we don't
want pass through
and I was like, okay, be careful what
you wish for
because
you may wake up one morning and your
CDN bill is,
a c c c c c c c
c c c c c c c c
c c c c c c c c
c c c c c c c c
c c c c c c c c
c c c c c c c c
c c c c c c c c
c c c c c c c c
c c c c c c c c
c c c c c c c c
c c c c c c c c

(03:59):
c c c c c c
all of a sudden get popular with a
video.
Audio is
Are you talking about just generally with hosting
video? Yeah. Regardless if it's
HLS or Or m p four. Or m
p four. Yeah. You know, so So if
people are said, oh, you know, we were

(04:20):
gonna lose monetization
if Apple caches the video.
And
I'm like, are you monetizing
external video now?
Well, that's the piece that somewhat is missing
is the is the programmatic
for video podcast. Right? Yeah. Isn't,

(04:40):
I think the architecture is there. It's just
it's never been implemented
with any kind of a podcasting platform. No.
Not a podcasting platform. No. Right. And you
wanna talk about some cost.
So
so I'm like,
okay. If you wanna pay for your bandwidth
and doesn't want Apple to cache then,

(05:01):
you know,
set a flag.
I'm
I truly believe to bet if they want
the best user experience, that's that's what we
do is what what Apple cache the video
content. Not people are gonna be like, oh,
no.
But it in in in retrospect,
how about a ping back to us say,
hey, we've someone's listened.

(05:22):
I mean, if that's the only hurdle then
then, yeah, I think that's a good good
solution.
But it is
Yeah. It's actually a complicated conversation because you
start talking about HLS,
then you're streaming that content to Apple versus
Apple capturing
the m p four file and

(05:42):
they're streaming it. Yeah. There was a yeah.
There was a, a comment, and I'm not
gonna say who it was.
So funny. This this chat is just so
it makes me giggle so much. Love Justin
and the rest of folks, but

(06:02):
someone say, yeah. MP four is kind of
a one size fits all. You get one
resolution if and if it's way too large,
small for the current device posture. And you
lose the seamless switch between audio and video
and
interstitials
multiple captions and other stuff in HLS,
but certainly better than nothing. So, you know,
essentially,
you know, that was a comment made by

(06:24):
someone I respect, obviously, in that group. But,
Rob, has anyone in this audience ever complained
about this show's video?
I mean, it is true. I haven't heard
anybody complain about it. We and, you know,
we have never
had feedback from a podcaster and or a

(06:46):
listener of a podcast giving feedback
maybe in the early early early early days.
Yeah.
Maybe back when it kind of sucked. Yeah.
That was because our our video probably wasn't
breaking. Well, it's also Bama just sucked fifteen
years ago. So,
you know, so maybe

(07:06):
fifteen years ago, but in the past
ten years, nah, no one's complained.
So I guess it depends, you know, if
you get into this conversation about it, like
a like a variable bit rate playback
situation.
I don't know that
you can really do that effectively in
a MP four download situation. I think the

(07:27):
player would have to be intelligent enough to
be able to play back,
you know, probably.
EBR file that's But up to this point,
again,
people are watching 15% of you listening
are watching.
I should have said 15% of you are
watching this show right now. So,
you know, you you tell us is there

(07:48):
is there an issue? So
yeah.
Yeah. So it's it's And I think that
the
the strategy that was proposed
by Justin,
I believe it took into account m p
four and It did. It did. Tell us.
Yeah. It did.
As optional
enclosures. Yeah. And then also,

(08:09):
it talked about
feeding the video to YouTube and Spotify too
via API. Yeah. Well That was I'm not
feeding to
I I refuse to feed to Spotify via
API. People that wanna do that can.
Well, currently,
I don't believe it. Either one of those

(08:30):
platforms accepts
video via API. Yes. Both both do.
Right. No. You can submit video. Do? Oh,
yeah. You can submit video to
YouTube via API. And you can and if
you want to sign the agreement with Spotify,
you can submit via API. Yeah. I thought
it was only for special partners. No. Well,

(08:50):
it's basically they offered it up to us
some months ago, and I said no.
Okay. And then they were credulous. Why would
you do that? And I I go back
to the conversation we've already had a half
dozen times is that it placates the audio
feed and the audio gets demonetized.
Yeah.
So Yeah. If they stop doing that, I

(09:12):
think it changes the conversation. Right. It changes
the conversation.
Yeah. It does. And and I think that
that that would be a smart move for
for Spotify to remove that,
that aspect of what they're doing with video.
Well, the problem
that's kind of predatory right now. Yeah. The
problem though is is do they they'll they'll
definitely prioritize
video

(09:33):
and are people just gonna click play and
stick it in their pocket and and let
a video play and
so and they're also caching too. So that's
another issue.
So
Yeah. It's them wiping out Yeah.
The RSS based audio version, which is where
the objection comes in. Yeah. So anyway, it's

(09:55):
it's just funny this conversation is continuing. So
we don't need to spend a lot of
time on it.
I think we're getting to the meat of
the matter here. And
I think the the final message in the
the kind of chat room that we're both
in,
about
podcasting.

(10:16):
That was the last post that was made
by by Justin was this
idea that,
all this doesn't really work very well if
Apple doesn't Right. Make make video discoverable. Yeah.
It's it's it's a mute point.
So it it goes back to
Apple's gonna tell us what to do.

(10:36):
Yeah. Well, in this case,
I don't think it's
a big shift for them.
It's it's it's just is it in the
pipeline coming anytime soon is the
is the question. Ed says in the chat,
YouTube is the most frequently used service to
listen to podcasts in The US.
Again, this is the story, Ed.

(10:58):
So be careful on, you know, quoting that
as a quote quote.
I think you have to get clear on
what what you're talking about there. Are you
talking about the numbers of episodes being consumed,
or are you talking about the number of
users that
may be consuming
what they see. A portion of I think

(11:18):
it's a podcast. A portion of a yeah.
Right.
Right.
So because if you're actually talking about consumption,
Apple is still the biggest. Yeah. For sure.
So of what is termed a podcast
depending on
whose definition that you We're not gonna use
we're not gonna get into those definitions at
all. But

(11:39):
more importantly,
the
funding tag,
which you know all of a sudden people
are oh my god NPR supporting funding and
and I'm like,
hello or where have you all been for
the last couple of years here? Actually more
than a couple of years.
Yeah.
So I think it's a good good move.

(12:00):
Yeah. There's about 70,000 shows that support the
RSS funding tag,
which actually was told I need to fix
ours. There's something wrong. Some the link is
having an issue. So I need to look
at that.
It reminded me.
Todd,
are you getting the feeling like that because

(12:21):
of the moves that Spotify is making and
the
talk in the industry
around video
and YouTube's kind of influence coming into the
space that,
there's more energy and interest in the podcasting
two point o and Yeah. All of a
sudden. PSP
stuff Yeah. More than ever. Yeah. Because there's
a reason.

(12:41):
Yeah. People are seeing the numbers and they're
worried about survivability.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So
so I think this may be a good
time for
the podcast standards project and others, you know,
as we push towards trying to figure out,
you know, what's the next innovation

(13:02):
around this video question? Yeah.
How can RSS hold on to its
distribution,
core
for podcasting, audio and video podcasting?
That's the question we're trying to answer here
because podcasting when it started was audio and
video podcasting. Yeah. And that way from the

(13:23):
beginning.
Right. So let's let's go back and support
what this medium started out as. And and
especially now when we're faced with big competitors
like Spotify and YouTube who wanna disrupt the
audio side Yeah. Yeah. With video
that I think it makes sense for us
to, you know, push forth an optional effort

(13:44):
on the video side with RSS. And it's
it's no doubt, you know, it's it's hard
to say. I do see YouTube starting dance
with of course, it does. It's you know,
it's and you've got a lot of YouTubers
that
have what something they're calling a podcast that
don't have a podcast on Apple.
They are just on YouTube and you know,
one of my one of my favorite YouTube

(14:04):
channels,
they have a podcast. I don't watch it.
It's a separate channel on YouTube.
They call it a podcast and, you know,
I've
told them about a 100 times in their
YouTube comments, I can't find you on Apple
Podcasts.
And to try and draw a parallel to
the early years of the video podcasting

(14:27):
ecosystem
that existed
in the first few years of the podcast
medium,
there were
a few shows, I wouldn't say it was
a huge number of shows, that were
video
podcasts only. Oh, yeah. They didn't do audio.
Yeah. They didn't. So Yeah. I think that
could be what comes out of this. Yeah.

(14:48):
Again,
is that if Apple supports this, we will
see
video first
For sure.
Podcasts
come out and be distributed
via RSS. Like they were in the beginning.
Right. I think we'll see that inner get
energized again. Yeah. And then, you know, obviously,
those shows will probably be published over to

(15:10):
YouTube as well and probably over to Spotify.
So then we start the the the development
of a real video ecosystem that includes
podcasts,
not excludes podcasts.
So Yeah. Right. So, you know, it is
we'll see what happens.
Meanwhile, we you know,

(15:32):
it I think what
this is is and I kind of agree
with what some other folks assessment is. It's
the new shiny object
and, you know, if if video was all
it was meant to be then this YouTube
channel that I have would have exploded years
ago, and it has never exploded.
And

(15:52):
so,
yeah, the the audio video podcast continues to
do remarkably good numbers
beyond anything that's on YouTube. I never had
a true YouTube strategy either. So Well, you're
also an audio first creator too. So, you
know, the video side has been kind of
secondary to your priorities. Yeah. But I've always

(16:13):
had a nice studio background
and you know, the aesthetics have always been
good and, you know, flipping,
you know, different
images and, you know, lower thirds and all
that stuff is
always been
That's true. Part of the show. So,
you know, again, but I must I do
this is a show we do as a

(16:35):
you know, I don't know if this makes
for compelling content on YouTube or not. We
get twenty, thirty views or 100 views or
whatever we get. At least mine does. Yours
get a little better than mine,
and compared to the thousands on the on
the RSS based stuff.
So it looks like I don't fully understand
how a company

(16:55):
that is
an ad buyer network
can go into bankruptcy.
PPX.
How how This
yeah.
It just it surprises me
that something where you're working on a $50.50

(17:15):
revenue share and you can't make it work.
Well, Todd,
this may be less about that company and
more about the advertising market in Canada
too. Oh, maybe.
I've been hearing,
talk in the industry
that the podcast advertising market is

(17:37):
a little soft right now.
And CPMs have been declining. Oh,
that's that's Pretty, pretty significantly from what I'm
hearing. Oh. And
and there's just not as many campaigns
right now,
that are coming through the pipeline.
So,

(17:57):
you know, I
I don't know if there's How many billion
are we supposed to be?
Well,
you know, it's possible that we we could
still hit those kind of numbers, but it
just if from what I'm hearing, there's a
low that's going on. I don't know if
it's in certain genres
of ad ad buying,

(18:18):
that's going on out there.
But that's just
I've been hearing that. I'm actually trying to
dig into that a little bit deeper to
get people to actually tell me
really,
really the candid truth about what's going on
because I think Oh, yeah. The tendency to
try and,
tell the industry what what the industry wants

(18:40):
to hear. That's right. Not necessarily what the
truth is.
So because I mean, everybody wants to be
positive. Everybody wants to be optimistic and everybody
wants to put out this
growth
vibe, about the industry. But, you know, I
think, you know, if you're participating in the
industry, you wanna kind of know what the
ground truth is, not just what the fluff

(19:00):
is.
So, you know, that's the tension that's in
the space right now.
You know, and This could be a reflection
of Well, it'll be interesting to hear what
people are saying at
the Elle podcast movement
when what people are saying behind the scenes
because usually people are well, you know, it's
it's rare though for

(19:23):
well signing of the times they were people
are very aggressive at the podcast show trying
to get my programmatic business.
I had at least four companies
talk to me about,
you know, providing inventory
for the programmatic.
A programmatic is doing well. Our programmatic is
still continues to do well.

(19:46):
Are you talking about providing inventory or buys?
Inventory.
Inventory
of ads. Well, basically, they wanted to, you
know, be the supplier,
you know, replace sound staff or yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. So
at the same point,
I work with, BackBeat Media. BackBeat Media

(20:07):
is the company that we send all of
our big podcasters to for representation
on
post threads
and
I meet with Dave
every month six weeks to get a feel
and maybe they're
they're niche enough. Maybe they're not feeling it.

(20:28):
They he said sales
were good. So he would tell me if
things were down and things were soft.
So I'm I'm for sure that,
you know, I would get the straight story
there on that, but
we are lit and live today, ladies and
gentlemen. So if you're on one of those

(20:49):
newfangled podcasting apps, you can listen
to the show live
on the app.
So maybe maybe ultimately this discussion then will
transform
into
also I think the thing that has a
huge value for podcasters right now is this
ability to
to go live and to have

(21:11):
a live show, whether it be audio only
or audio and video.
So maybe this will drive some of that
conversation.
I don't know. We'll see. Well, that might
be an important part of the the industry
as you look to the future with all
all this AI content coming in.
And so I I don't know that AI
content is gonna be doing live. So it's

(21:32):
Right. I think I've used this term before.
It's proof of life.
That's true. It it is what live turns
into be. Yeah.
And but it takes a certain amount of,
I guess, kind of experience to do live
effectively.
Mhmm. It's not a
it's not a turn the camera on and
it's magically all gonna work for you. No.

(21:54):
No. Not at all.
So I I a lot of juggling. It's
almost like being a juggler in a circus.
Right? Yeah.
Trying to juggle a lot. I haven't looked
at the
to move this. I haven't looked at the
numbers
for June.

(22:16):
Of what? Of statistics because we put out
a statistics report every month.
On what
what aspect? Yeah. For basically it's it's basically
consumption at Blueberry. You know what the you
know, what total downloads were, you know, all
you know these things and,
I haven't seen
that's due probably this week because of the

(22:37):
holiday. So,
seeing this news from PodTrak about having a
ranking dip,
It's interesting. PodTrak leases June ranking show month
over month losses, a unique audience for every
participating
publisher.
So
that
that's concerning that they're seeing a drop.

(22:59):
And I don't know if we've seen that
here. I have to go back and look
at the global numbers.
It also says
advertisers and publishers must now reevaluate
where audiences are shifting
and adjust
strategies accordingly.
And who made that commentary?

(23:21):
Well, it came out of the article
that,
that pot track put out.
Well So, and then I added a couple
of things in here too. But,
but yeah, it's, you know, all these things
might be
related to each other. I'm sure.
Right? The whole ad CPM models.

(23:44):
It could also be that the advertisers
and publishers are
are shifting their
focus
a little bit to include
video buys. Oh, I'm sure.
So that may impact the audio buys.
Yeah. So interesting that PodTrax making this,
this commentary.

(24:06):
Mhmm. Mhmm.
It it is,
it is interesting,
I guess for a better word,
a little bit of an insight, a little
crack below the glass
that we normally
don't hear.
Well, it's a changing
it's a changing and evolving landscape. It's not
it's not the same.

(24:26):
You know? And I think
many
in many in the industry would like things
to just stay the same. Right? Yeah.
But they don't. Yeah. So the the economy
changes.
These brands start prioritizing
different kinds of ways of spending their money.
Well, it's it's been evident. I've we've been
saying this for a long time. It's flattering

(24:48):
a pancake.
So,
you know, it's just not in in here's
again, this is the narrative
when you have an 800 pound gorilla
like YouTube saying things that they say and
then you have the whole industry going ape
shit gaga over
video
and, you know, every podcast consultant in the

(25:10):
world saying you have to have video.
And then,
you know, then Todd, the reason that happened
was that there was a perception that that's
where the growth was. And maybe there is
growth there. But when you say that then
you exclude
a whole class of potential creators
of new podcasters

(25:32):
that say,
oh, you know, it's just the story. We've
heard this story
many many times.
Oh, podcast is dying because of this or
that.
And
Yeah. It's true. You know, we're not stupid
at Blueberry. We're gonna definitely gonna be we're
embracing it. I've been to product bid to

(25:52):
pod product is
being very successful.
Not so successful that it's taking up you
know, it's not like a 10% revenue line
yet. When it's 10% revenue line, then I'll
be
then they'll get my attention.
But
Well, there's probably an awareness issue with it

(26:13):
too. Yeah. And and and making people understand
this there. Once they find out matter of
fact,
we've had a number of folks
that have canceled their podcast hosting at other
platforms because
they basically don't have to do double work.
They come over to us and,

(26:34):
you know, migrate over essentially.
So Yeah. It it remains a pretty, yeah,
pretty successful
endeavor. But
maybe I need to double down on that.
So I thought this next,
topic,
podcasting passes

(26:54):
radio in Germany for young people.
It took this long?
Yeah. Well
Do do people in America even do do
youth in America even listen to the radio?
Yeah. Do we do we have that number
here?
Do we I don't actually have it have
it

(27:15):
in front of me. But Yeah. I don't
know if I've ever seen that number published
in The US before.
Says for the first time, podcasts have overtaken
traditional radio,
for 18 to 29 year olds. Monthly listenership
among women
has also surged tripling since 2019.
So,

(27:38):
yeah, youth markets increasingly favor on demand audio
over traditional legacy media formats.
Here's what's scary is,
used to be when there was bad weather
or a an event,
something that was critical to the community, you
would flip to FM one hundred and you

(27:59):
would get the
you know, that was the utility for me
that
was important, you know, after I really completely
transitioned to digital and you know, as back,
you know, probably, you know, 02/2004,
I started shunning shunning
radio because of podcasting

(28:19):
and so now,
I think I still have one AMFM battery
powered.
I think it's a hand crank model or
something. It's emergency radio.
I don't think that
if there's something going on, let's say there's
a tornado
or a
hurricane.
I don't think my local of course, I

(28:40):
live inland, so it's not like I'm going
to have hurricane coverage in in Michigan. But
in Hawaii,
there's no one at the radio station. It's
all running on a computer.
So how do they have any sort of
break in
where they can come in and say, hey,
we've got a, you know,
82 car pile up in the fog, you

(29:01):
know, South Of Fresno or we have a
tornado on the ground in, you know, in
your community,
you know, your community named X Y Z.
And you know, I I don't think there's
the ability to radio to serve the public
in that regard
anymore.
So
with That's gonna that's gonna be done by

(29:22):
AI now. Well, I I think what it's
what's already happened is what do I do
now?
I look out the window and I say,
oh, there's there's weather. There's bad weather coming.
I what do I do? I load my
grab my mobile device
and,
I load weather.com
or,
weather underground or one of those apps and

(29:42):
I figure out, okay, I've got a turn.
And matter of fact, it notifies me that
you have a thunderstorm warning or tornado watch
or whatever it is based upon where I'm
at. And,
you know, that's how I get my notifications
now. So
radio to me has lost all of its
purpose. And
I just continue to be amazed that it

(30:04):
holds on as strong as it's still holding
on. Well,
it's it's mainly holding on with the music
side.
I think that's the
that's the genre of radio that's gonna
last
the longest.
Talk talk radio doesn't have a bright future.
Ed says, do you think that podcasting will

(30:25):
ever shift from CPM model? It's already multiple
models.
There's already It's already
it's maybe subscription. Yeah. Paid. It's it's multiple
list or support value for value. There's,
there's flat rate sponsorships.
You know, my tech show has been flat
rate from the beginning.

(30:47):
So I was never on a CPM model
with GoDaddy.
I always been flat rate with bonus.
So,
I I think the models are pretty diverse
right now. But I think a lot of
shows So you say flat rate?
Is that a fixed dollar amount and then
bonuses on top of that? Yeah. Okay. A

(31:08):
base. Yeah. You get a base rate.
But
Spotify, you know, I think they've been,
they they released something. I saw that they
gave some product back to its original owner.
It was Podlink or something like that. I
can't remember. I saw the article. I don't

(31:29):
have it in front of me. It's not
in our show notes. But
I think it was
a I think it was a
link thing that was
picked up by Podscribe, I think. Yeah. Well,
they bought it,
Podstites
bought it before they were acquired. Podstites. Either
before they were acquired and they've reverted it.

(31:52):
No.
But the Spotify deal offering
$5,000
free ad credit Yeah. We took new video
podcasters
to promote their shows on the platform. Yeah.
We talked about that a little bit on
the last show. Yeah. 5,000.
Yeah. Those are credits.

(32:14):
Credits. It's not like Yeah. You're not getting
Spotify is actually spending any money. That's right.
And they could get to write that all
off. That's a tax deduction for them.
Right. Yeah. That goes straight. They will give
you 5,000 credits and the accountant puts $5,000
in promotional
credits
and they they they, they get to write
that off.
So big loss to them. They probably fill

(32:36):
that in unused inventory. So, you know, it
really cost them nothing.
Right. Exactly. So It's a strong incentive to
shift audio shows Yeah. To the video format.
Oh, yeah. Didn't you know that? Yeah.
You know,
tell that to the $600 camera I have
right there now. And,
yeah. I switched cameras.

(32:57):
Very happy with camera that you're using now?
A
PTZ
optics
x camera.
Is it like a webcam? Or It is
a
pro camera that operates
as a webcam.

(33:17):
Oh, it's like a like a mirrorless
SLR kind of? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's like
a PTZ, but it's without the
without the swivel on it.
And, I'm very, very, very, very happy with
its output. And probably, I have a couple
of cameras at studio
in Michigan that are getting really long in
the tooth.

(33:38):
So Oh, it's a PTZ camera. Well, it's
So it's that large
aperture Well, it's pivoting?
No. It doesn't pivot.
It it it's the camera that came out
of their PTZ
camera.
Line. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
So I if I can actually find it
here. But it's a fixed mount

(33:59):
camera. It's a fixed mount. Yeah. And it's
got, you know, focal
adjustments, white balancing. It's got all the pro
features.
Can you zoom in and out with it?
Yep. I'm zoomed I'm zoomed in now.
Yeah. Got a pretty wide wide field of
view and,

(34:20):
that's pretty good on
you know, so far so good. I'm pretty
happy with it. It's Yeah. It seems
sharp. Yeah. Sharp. It does a little I
I got a got one thing I got
to figure out on it on color correction
because you'll see once in a while I'll
shift in color.
So I got to get it so it's
locked and not
not auto changing on the probably a white

(34:42):
balance issue is probably need to manually white
balance it
instead of letting it auto auto white balance.
These lights I've got are pretty good.
But
Yeah. I set my camera to be a
be a little bit more saturated
in the colors.
So So that you don't look like you're
so white.

(35:03):
Right. Yeah.
So for those who did notice, yes. I've
lost some weight. Lost 14 pounds.
You lost your beard too. Well, I haven't
had that in a while. So
Okay. Yeah. Maybe I have a I have
a shadow, but I would say I have
a beard. I've I've got one day stubble

(35:24):
right now. Yeah.
So
this what is this thing you've got here
about video podcast aesthetics?
Oh,
living room style. In other words, they're building
studios.
People are building a studio. Podcast
studios are are, you know, have been for

(35:47):
a while becoming
more visual. Yeah.
In their
conversational
type of
formats.
Yeah. I think that trend has been going
on for for a while now. I think
there there's actually
a trend kind of,
I think, starting to develop away from that
now.
I think

(36:07):
this may not be at the cutting edge
of where it's at right now. Mhmm.
And I think you see some early signs
of that on the YouTube side where people
are increasingly
doing stuff outside
or they're
they're doing it in, you know, like an
office setting or something like that. I mean,
people are still concerned about the

(36:27):
the aesthetics, right?
But they're not as, you know, locked into
these kind of like these,
you know, the
the big microphones,
the big couches, all this kind of Yeah.
They're trying to
Make it look like,
Like it's more real. Making it look like
Good Morning America.
Yeah. It's not like stage sets. Right. Right.

(36:50):
Right. That kind of stuff. I think the
stage sets kind of thing is
I think
we're gonna move past that
stage and it's gonna be
doing things in more
authentic
looking places. Right? You know, I've
been on a kick recently of watching a
lot of bourbon channels.

(37:12):
That's kind of my latest fatuation
over the past. Bourbon channels. Yeah. Drinking channels?
Yeah. Bourbon reviews
and, in watching the bourbon bros and and
and and gals talk about, you know, different
bourbons and,
you know, do all the you know, I'll
be honest with you. I don't have a
palate.

(37:32):
If if, you know, I can I can
tell the difference between Jack Daniels and,
let's say,
a Scotch? Obviously, that's a pretty easy difference.
But when you get into bourbons and I
can tell the difference between a wheat or
a rye
that when it gets into these flavors, oh,
I'm tasting marshmallow.
I'm like,

(37:53):
GTFO.
Come on. You taste marshmallow
and drinking a 130
proof alcohol.
Really?
You know, and it you know,
come on. You know,
if the flavor is good, it's good. And
it's when people have these refined palettes, oh,
and they give these caramel and all these
descriptions. I'm like,

(38:15):
you're talking about
whiskey or, you know, alcohol that was put
in raw dog. It was basically put in
raw in a in a oak charred barrel.
And what are you gonna taste?
You're gonna taste the
the the recipe
and the charred oak, you know. So I
mean, the charred yeah.

(38:36):
Yeah. So I don't know. For if they
have these palettes can actually taste that stuff
great. I I would not make a
what do they call a wine?
What is the word for the wine experts
that can
taste wine?
Folier or I don't know whatever the name
is. Sure. You know, so I get a
kick out of watching these bourbon channels and

(38:57):
all those guys have their bourbon collections behind.
It's like,
you know, and of course they've got their
thousand dollars Pappy Van Winkle and you know,
they've got all their different
alcohols behind them. And
in today's world, if I buy bourbon, I
drink it and
I'm not gonna buy a thousand dollar

(39:18):
or $3,000
Pappy Van Winkle because it's 18 years old
and supposedly fantastic.
And I I basically I don't drink at
all. I So You know, I I made
a rule. No more than $10 per year
of age. You know, that is probably the
top end on liquor.
But,

(39:39):
I will say this, if anyone sees a
Jack 10, 12 or 14
in their liquor store
and
it's priced at $10 per year
or thereabouts,
I'm good for it. Pick it up and
ship it to me. I will buy it
from you. Jack ten twelve or 14.

(40:03):
But anyway so anyway, so the yeah. All
the bourbon bros had their
you know, they got the glass all lit
up. This is beautiful what they've done with
a little bit of lighting.
So.
So is it a lot like like like
my background? Yeah, but it's full of bourbon
bottles.
Yeah, just bottles.
Except it's a little more narrow because most

(40:24):
these guys don't have 500 bottles because it
would take 500 bottles to fill your background.
You know, you know,
So Yeah. At at a 100, you know
They could be empty bottles. Yeah. They could
be. You know? Like, I don't know if
you'd wanna have 500 empty bottles. It probably
would be a a life insurance liability.
Right.

(40:44):
It's almost like the equivalent of having a
bookshelf behind you. Right? Yeah.
Yeah. I've got one bottle of buffalo and
it's actually,
Eagle Rare in my studio from when I'm
in Hawaii. If you'll look above my head,
there's one bottle of Eagle Rare on the
on the counter. And I've only had three
people say, oh, I saw that Eagle Rare.
You know?
I think,

(41:05):
most of mine,
my background is microphones, old microphones. I don't
use anymore.
I've got a whole bunch of those in
in a closet. I could I could break
out all those and put them on stands.
Yeah. Might be fun. Right.
Right. The,
so yeah. Aesthetics.
So the aesthetic seems to be

(41:26):
seem to be changing.
And you know what that all means?
Money money money money money.
Well,
maybe not.
I mean, if you wanna go down that
path Yeah. I think increasingly more people are
trying to record it in natural settings. Yeah.
That don't cost money.
Well, you know, then you have to have
a portable setup. And I've been down that

(41:48):
road before and getting the lighting right. And
it's still money, money, money, money.
Well, you still have to get a, like
a like a portable
video camera or something like that?
Which Micah, lights, all that stuff. Yeah.
More power to them. I'm not doing anything
that requires me to pack anything up anymore.

(42:09):
I'm not
I don't. You you lug that stuff around.
You can travel pretty pretty light these days.
Oh my god. Unbelievable.
And actually what I built here now is
a little bit out of control. So if
I ever
depart,
you know, not have a permanent place here

(42:30):
in The Philippines, I will
definitely,
how should we say it? I'll have to
sell some stuff because this all will not
fit in a suitcase
or two.
Yeah. Maybe two.
Yeah. I have the
the DJI
Osmo three with the Yeah. The
the lavalier microphone. Yeah. I've got one of

(42:50):
those.
Connects directly to it. You never use it.
Never use it. It's in a bag. Matter
of fact, it's with me now. It's sitting
right
yeah. It's behind the counter.
With the Osmo four. I think so. Yeah.
About about every nine months, there's a new
one to make you spend another $700.
I think yeah. I think they're gonna be

(43:11):
a little more than that. Yeah. They're they're
a little pricey.
Depends on if you get all of the
attachments.
Yeah. Get the extended package with the extra
battery and so forth. But I see a
lot of folks that are doing
they that's good about that unit is you
don't have to shut the camera down. You
can hot swap the battery
and keep on rolling. It's got a pretty

(43:32):
long battery. I mean, I've got it on
my shelf over here, but it's got a
pretty it's got a pretty long battery. It'll
go for a while. I've got the first
version of that that's about this big.
Yeah. Don't worry. I mean, the the actual
camera itself is Yeah. Like like you say,
only about that big. Yeah. So
and it comes in its own little carrying
thing. You can just drop it in your

(43:52):
pocket. It's it is pretty remarkable how small
small stuff has gotten now and how
good of audio you can get from
just a portable
little portable rig.
And, you know, it bodes well for people
that wanna do a show on
the audio podcast on the cheap too.
You know? Yeah. I I think increasingly

(44:13):
you can do terrific stuff with,
like an iPhone or an iPad. Absolutely.
And there's just one external maybe an
external audio kit, maybe just like same thing
that stuff from DJI.
That connects right will connect right to the
iPhone or Rode.
Yeah. Rode's got some of those mics that

(44:34):
connect right to the phone. And if any
of you are buying any of that stuff,
I'm just gonna foretell you. A lot of
it's been,
white labeled. So there's a lot of white
label solutions out there. Same quality of
remote recording mics that are in the hundreds
of dollars, not the 5 hundreds of dollars.
So
don't be afraid. Knock offs. You mean is

(44:55):
that what you're talking about? Yeah. Go on
Alibaba and and look for them and you'll
find the same
charging package. You'll find the same model.
Yeah. They'll and again, it's by,
you know, Juju
company or whatever.
It's probably made out of China. China is
notorious. Well, it's cloning product. Well, no. No.

(45:15):
What happens? This is what really happens.
The company
designs
that package
and then licenses it to
XYZ
companies
and they license it and put their label
on it yet the original version of that
was never designed or built
by the company that's representing it.

(45:38):
So it wasn't
a
some of this stuff, not everything
was originally a
Chinese brand that was developed. I'd see this
stuff five or six months in advance.
It would be in, you know, on,
Alibaba and then all of a sudden you
see a major company

(45:58):
that has never been in this
space before
making announcement about a new product and it
was the clone
of what I saw in Alibaba six months
before. I'm sure road builds their own stuff
and
and
and others but
you know, there's definitely and there's probably
stuff that's cloned or ripped off from those

(46:19):
designs too.
Yeah. I was watching a
video
on YouTube
the other night.
There's a guy that went on a trip
to China
and and went to the city of Shenzhen.
Oh, yeah.
Which is
and did a complete tour

(46:42):
of
Shenzhen
and all of the tech that's in that
city. Yeah. I guess it's it's it's considered
the most technologically advanced
city probably in the world.
The challenge Shenzhen is having right now is
because the most of them a lot of
manufacturers are moving out.
So,
Apple has their

(47:03):
iPhone,
iPad factories in Shenzhen
and,
Apple has moved a majority of their
stuff
to Vietnam.
All Vietnam. Yeah. Vietnam and India
different they packed up the whole factories and
moved.
So,
but still if you,
you know, if you're ever in

(47:25):
China,
Shenzhen would definitely be a great shopping location
to pick up lots of electronics cheap.
Yeah.
But it's also a fascinating place to see
probably what our
our our future looks like
with technology
integrated into everything and
camera surveillance and Oh, yeah. Drones

(47:48):
delivering
all sorts of products to you no matter
where you are. And Oh, you look at
my Wyze cameras now. My Wyze cameras now,
which are $40
each or something like that, they have facial
recognition. So you register faces that are familiar.
Like, I can register my mom, my sister,
family members and it will say, oh, okay.

(48:10):
I don't need to re I don't need
to do a report because there's Sherry or
there's Chantelle or there's Todd. Oh, there's a
face I don't know. Let me record that.
That's on a $40
camera. Mhmm.
It's insane.
You know. So,
I don't think you have to have really
high end equipment

(48:31):
anymore
to get
to be a content creator, to be a
podcaster. I mean, I think I mean, you're
I've I mean, I've got a
Oh, you I'm I'm I've got a iPhone
10 here. And and
and it it does I think your time
for an upgrade, Rob. You're a little What's
that? I think it's time for an update.

(48:52):
It is, but it the phone continues to
work well. So right.
Yeah. I'm now. I've I've went from two
years to three years. I'm now on a
three year upgrade for Apple. I don't do
I used to do it religiously every two
years. Now I'm at three.
Same thing with my,
Android.
And my Android though, I will admit,

(49:15):
is starting to get impacted by,
battery life.
So I could probably it's a the phone
is perfect.
I could probably
I actually took mine into the Apple Store
and they actually got a new battery for
it. I replaced the battery in it and
it gave it a whole another probably year
or two of life. Yeah.
So and it's again, the cost of doing

(49:37):
stuff is remarkably low.
It is. Yeah. Really, it's all about, you
know, your imagination,
your creativity,
and and
how you can, you know, do
be compelling in the content. I I think
that is the real
challenge that's before everyone. And
increasingly people are,

(49:59):
you know, using these tools to
to do live video e commerce now. You
know, I think we've talked about in the
past episode, but site like, it's called whatnot.
Oh, yeah.
Is a hot topic right now.
And, you know, you look at TikTok and
a lot of the ecommerce stores over there,

(50:19):
and
content creators that maybe didn't make it as
podcasters
can go over there and,
you know, be a huckster of products.
TikTok quality to me has went down.
I'm not finding as much stuff that I
want to find. I I'm searching for stuff
like this this tragedy in Texas. I was

(50:40):
looking for,
you know, on the ground TikToks for
for that what was happening there and I
didn't find a lot on TikTok. Maybe people
just weren't in the area. It was so
devastated. I don't
know. But,
the problem I'm having with TikTok
and why I'm using it probably

(51:02):
90%
less now is
the proliferation
of
people selling stuff. It's just
every other video is someone doing e commerce
on TikTok and
yep,
but it's amazing to me here,
where I live, I have to go downstairs

(51:23):
to pick up my
if I have something shipped in, if I
have an Amazon or something shipped in from
Lazada. That's a shopping network here like Amazon.
If I go downstairs,
I can see the packages behind the guys
and
the they're fascinated here with a TikTok shop.
65,

(51:43):
70% of the packages that would be on
the wall behind me is is TikTok shop.
So they they do a huge amount of
commerce here,
which is which is pretty remarkable,
all things considering.
Does Amazon have a bunch of place? They
do.

(52:04):
There's no just you you have to have
it shipped in.
So
in Amazon, I changed my address to the
address here and then it changes the store
to show me only things that will
ship to The Philippines
and there was something I wanted.
I forgot to bring Tylenol
and you can't ship Tylenol to The Philippines.

(52:26):
The only way to get Tylenol in The
Philippines, you got to go to a pharmacy.
Tylenol is over the counter.
You actually have to ask the pharmacist for
Tylenol and they'll say, how many pieces do
you want? You can order 10. Now imagine
in America, you you know, we're all used
to buying the 250 pack of Tylenol or
Motrin or whatever. Right?
And,
so

(52:46):
it's only a 10 pack there. Well, you
you had tell them how many pieces you
want and you buy by the piece
and
so I was By the pill. By the
pill. Yeah.
And you have to tell them the milligram
and they don't have the big milligram size.
So
I couldn't ship Tylenol to The Philippines. It
was not on the allowable shipping list.

(53:08):
So, you know, dummy me for not bringing
Tylenol.
I know and I don't use a lot
of Tylenol but
every once in a while you just need
a Tylenol. Right?
And so yeah, it's pretty good. It takes
seven
to
usually about a week.
Usually about a week to get here. They

(53:28):
tell you the estimated shipping arrival date and
it's it's it's pretty good. I've had some
relatively expensive stuff shipped to a couple $100
level. Nothing higher than that.
It's come through just fine.
So
Yeah. It's good. Yeah. It's good. And it
is surprising the stuff that you can have
shipped here,

(53:49):
unlike in America. Like I can have alcohol
shipped from anywhere here
and of course, I live in Michigan and
you know, getting alcohol delivered to your house
that is not a wine is impossible.
So in some ways, The United States is
so far behind in, you know, it's just
the regulatory on

(54:09):
on liquor.
The wine industry has done well in allowing
wine to be shipped.
And reason I say that is because I'm
on this bourbon kick. They have these bourbon
clubs
and you can sign up for x number
of dollars a month then you get maybe
a bottle every quarter or whatever it is
And

(54:29):
they can't ship to Michigan. So I have
a friend in Indiana that has agreed to
allow me to ship to their house
and then I can pick up what I
want. So you know, it's
it's dumb.
Really really dumb. But anyway, back to the
podcast stuff.
AI driven
and we're over time by the way. AI
driven previous snippets boost engagement. Yeah. We've been

(54:51):
seeing this too.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's just because it's easier
to use. It's quick.
We use
you skipped over number eight, which is
the audio
premiere
still wins in key metrics.
So
this this is a story that
you should like.

(55:13):
Recent research finds audio podcasts up to 100
spent more listeners
listen through rates than video.
I believe the listen through rates are much
higher on audio podcast.
Yeah. But they say audio premiere.
Does that mean like an in in in
intro?
No. Just the audio.
You know? Yeah. Really, I think being audio

(55:35):
first,
I think is kind of
what is implying, I think. I agree.
And I think it's true in video too.
If if
if you're staying on topic, which we just
kind of drifted
off, but if you're if you're
being focused and delivering and staying engaged audio

(55:55):
or video people will listen through.
The problem I have on video is this
pacing sometimes is too damn slow.
They just come on. Get on with it.
Let's go. Let's go.
That dopamine hit. I mean, it can happen
on the audio side too. Absolutely. I'm sure
it's happened on this show too.
So
Yeah.
But and that's good. I have no doubt

(56:17):
that. I have no doubt at all. But
I find this last one that you have,
very concerning.
And
and I don't think you talked about the
AI driven Yeah. Snippets. Yeah. It's just, you
know, it's
it's doing well. I
think it's known. It's if if I didn't
have time to do snippets before and I

(56:38):
can do snippets now and I don't need
hours and hours to do it.
So why is it being effective? Because it's
it's easy to pull snippets out with AI
and generate them and publish them.
Yeah. So what we're talking about here is
shorts. Yeah. Shorts. Clips or shorts or And
and just Reels or And just an audio

(56:59):
only clip are doing well too. We we
see this.
You know.
Mhmm. So
I
think that it's well known. Shorts have done
well everywhere
and the problem you're going to run into
is you produce produce too many shorts. People
stop listening to your actual show.
Because there's a few podcasts I don't listen

(57:20):
to. I just listen to their five shorts.
Yep.
So
the last topic and we can let everybody
move on with their with their day or
evening or whatever. Whatever time you're tuning. Whenever
they're consuming this.
Right? You know, it's this whole thing about,
you know,
AI content.

(57:42):
As AI content grows, you know, it's it's
it's becoming,
you know, a mixed landscape out there around,
you
know, information and what you can trust and
and,
you know, also,
you know,
ethical framing of topics and things like that.
You know, I think that there were some

(58:03):
questions, I guess, over this past week
with Grok,
I guess,
being a little bit,
extreme in its views. Oh, and some somebody
got fired over that. There was some sabotage.
Did you hear about that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. A guy guy got fired and
then he turned on the Right.
The authentic

(58:23):
grok
as he was going out the door. Yeah.
He he he turned off the guardrail for
letting it do what it shouldn't be doing
and
yeah.
But but also I I read into this.
It says
that they propose an audio alert for potential
misinformation
in podcast. That's really not AI.

(58:45):
That's a proposal to put an audio alert.
Who who's gonna okay. Who's gonna police that?
It's gonna be policed by AI, isn't it?
Yeah. Okay. Whatever.
I did I am absolutely
unequivocally
against
this
Genpod. I don't know what that is. Shows

(59:06):
constructive framing and AI generated podcast. Okay. So
gen
constructive framing. What does that mean, constructive
framing?
I think it's framing that
respects a certain kind of guidelines,
in
in its
ability to create negative emotions.

(59:29):
Because I think that there's
I think I commented
somewhere. I commented
on this that there that there's a lot
of research that points to,
you know, negative commentary,
generates more interest in positive emotions. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So
so people are leveraging you know, you see
this on x and you see it on

(59:50):
a lot of the platforms is that, you
know, it's it's not really about truth. It's
it's or what's wrong or misinformation. It's more
about
positive
references versus negative references.
The negative references tend to get more activity.
Yeah. That's So that's why you see on
YouTube lots of thumbnails talking about, you know,
doomsday, the end of the world. Right. Right.

(01:00:12):
How How the markets are gonna crash tomorrow.
So sell all your stocks and Yeah. Click
bait.
Right. Right. So And then they come out
and say, oh, the world is great.
Right. And then
two weeks from now, you think,
all those guys said that the that the
market was gonna collapse and
the the economy was gonna inflation was gonna

(01:00:32):
go through the roof and a year later,
that never happened. Right.
Right. And since you're seeing how, a of
these predictions,
polling,
it's broke. This is all completely
fabricated information.
Stuff that's coming out from people, you know,
in in the news,

(01:00:53):
the mainstream media
is complicit
and telling a false narrative. And
Yeah. Because they're paid by attention. They're paid
by audience. Right? And they're and they and
I truly believe they have a political agenda
to
you know, any they they they're not news
anymore. They're just extensions of whatever

(01:01:14):
party that might be
in favor at the moment. So it's it's
all b s. And they
they probably justify it from the perspective that
it's
their entertainment plan. Oh, they're serving serving their
audience.
Right. They're providing mental entertainment.
You know, if you go back and It

(01:01:35):
just so happens that it has a political,
bias. You know, if you go back and
I think I saw something
I don't don't quote me on this. I
might be wrong. But 15 of the 16
presidential polls had, Kamala Harris winning. Kamala Yeah.
Excuse me, winning. And
how how did they all get it so

(01:01:55):
wrong?
You know, and
you know, what's the source? Because the research
was biased. That's why. Or
yeah. You know,
don't oh, you got They just asked more
Democrats
right now. They could get the wrong answer
and they ask more people or something. The
left again, I don't know. It's pretty easy
to to to slant research and just ask

(01:02:17):
more people that are biased towards the side
that you wanna be slanted to. But going
back to this particular topic, I just I
feel very, very I think AI should be
flagged somehow.
Yeah. There should be a flag that says,
okay, this is
at what percentage is this AI generated?
And I think that's really important.
We haven't really talked about that a while

(01:02:39):
and within the podcasting two point o space.
But I think it's
something that should
be
should be Where's the line is the problem?
Well, that's the problem is that no one
could agree before what the definition would be.
I mean, at what stage in how you're
using AI do you cross over that line?
Right.
Is it just at the creation part or

(01:03:01):
do you cross over the line by the
editing part? Yeah. So maybe there has to
be
a multi flag level system, but then who's
gonna comply with that?
Like,
almost like the rating systems for content of
sorts. Yeah. Which we've had at Blueberry for
years that, you know, very few Light AI.
People set AI. People set g for every

(01:03:22):
episodes. And then, you know, earlier in the
show, I made a little bit of an
expected. We should have kicked it to p
g 13 for this episode.
Right. So, you know. Or give me heavy
AI, light AI. Yeah. There you go. There
you go. Or whatever is or I think
it's when it's 100% AI generated. That's when
the Yeah. I think we can I can
still recognize it, but that's gonna change

(01:03:44):
in time?
Yeah. It's getting better for sure.
Alright, Rob. We We did it. Yes. We
were actually over.
Actually, we started a little late, so we're
not as over as we thought we were.
But Right. Everyone, thanks for, being here. And
then we're trying to keep these about an
hour.
I'm [e-mail]

(01:04:05):
[e-mail]
on Mastodon.
I'm on x as well at Rob Greenlee.
Just, type in my name, Rob Greenlee,
g r e e n l e e.
And you can send me an email,
to
[e-mail].
That'll make it to me. We'd love to
hear from you and get your feedback on

(01:04:26):
topics we should cover on the show or
just, you know, share what whatever you're seeing
in the market. We'd love to hear some
candid,
disclosures about what's happening in the advertising. Yeah.
If you have a secret, let us know.
We're good at hiding,
hiding our sources.
At n m s podcast is the x
account for this show.

(01:04:47):
So if you wanna follow that over there.
But, of course, Rob and I both have
YouTube channels if you're so inclined.
But most importantly, follow or subscribe to the
podcast on your favorite modern
podcast app.
Alright, everybody. We'll see you next week. Alright.
Good night.