Overcast quietly tests built-in transcripts!

In the latest episode of the New Media Show, hosted by Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee, the discussion begins with a light greeting and banter about upcoming events, particularly Todd’s anticipated return to the United States and the podcast movement. They briefly touch on the advertising campaigns Todd has been involved with on PodNews and … Continue reading Overcast quietly tests built-in transcripts! →

The post Overcast quietly tests built-in transcripts! appeared first on New Media Show.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the New Media Show.
Rob, welcome back.
Yeah.
Well, we're back for another New Media Show,
Todd. Yes. We are.
And,
one one more here before I
head back to The United States and back
in the other studios. So

(00:21):
one more next week.
Okay. And then and then home of course
then it's podcast movements. So probably we won't
be
doing one that week. But how's, are you
gonna be going or have you decided to
I
don't have current plans to go but things
could happen last minute. Who knows? Yeah. I

(00:42):
understand.
The
the week has been, I guess for a
better word, for me is,
you know, all good plans.
You know, we bought a bunch of advertising
on Pod News and
and, I it's fully expecting to have had
my GMP launch for two weeks.
And we've had to change up the ad

(01:03):
copy and I think we'll finally be ready
next week. It's just, you know, nothing ever
goes perfectly in final testing and
if you find little quicks,
quirks. So probably Tuesday of next week, those
of you that wanna see,
guestmatch.pro
and its beta release.
It will be a free beta for ninety
days. So

(01:24):
it'd be
be fun to see how that, we're gonna
need guest.
I think we're gonna be able to fill
it with podcasters, but,
guest is gonna be
a challenge. So if you wanna be a
guest, we're definitely gonna want you to register.
So You gotta have both. Right? You gotta
have the host and the guest. Yeah. Yeah.
And then we'll talk a little more about
that next week when it's if if we

(01:46):
actually get it online and it's ready. So,
we had to shake down today during the
team meeting and
there's about yeah, about that many issues left.
About 10 issues left. But
we'll see. But,
you know Netflix is,
rattling their savior
not their savior,

(02:07):
their saber,
not savior. Right. Saber.
Well, there's been rumblings about this and they've
been playing around with podcasting for many years
now, actually. So it's
it it just appears that the big shift
here is that it's more of an emphasis
on the video side where in the past,
it was kind of more focused on the
audio side, which maybe didn't work out as

(02:28):
well for them. Well, makes sense.
Yeah. You know, being
and again, I I think it goes back
to anyone that is putting just audio up
on video platforms. I don't think it's very,
very effective
per se.
Doesn't exactly seem like a very smart thing
to do. No. I I don't think so

(02:49):
at all. But, you know, I think what
it really
says
and and and I think this is starting
to be talked about just a little bit
is,
am I out of focus?
No. You seem to be okay. Yeah. I
am. The,
what what it really means is that,

(03:10):
a podcasting
talent
is probably now gonna start to be seen
more
as as actors or
maybe not maybe that's not not
the right word, but maybe teams of shows
are gonna be
started to pick up for more
traditional media.

(03:30):
And,
I wouldn't necessarily call Netflix traditional media, but
they definitely were a disruptor of the industry.
So,
you know, what happens now? Do YouTubers
move into Netflix then
sign big deals and get shows? And,
are we gonna start seeing

(03:51):
more of this? But
in in re in reality though with the
shift to people,
you know, not watching traditional cable,
and, you know, that business really in trouble
from
ratings revenues. I I can't tell you the
last time I watched anything
on

(04:13):
regular
TV
that was not Traditional cable.
Yeah. Traditional. But, you know, besides maybe news
snippets from
different news organizations, other than that,
it's On YouTube? Yeah. Yeah. Usually on YouTube.
Or, like, here, I get my 5,000 channels
for free.

(04:34):
You know, that's
on a little Android box,
you know, where I can watch
box and all the I can well, I
watch anything. I can watch anything on this
5,000 channels of every channel in the world.
I I don't know how they do this
and run this
bootleg infrastructure, but it's

(04:54):
it's it's pretty incredible.
And again, I don't pay for it. It's
just in you know, it's part of my
rent.
Yeah.
I guess I can pay for it. It's
interesting what's happening with Netflix.
As
as Netflix and Amazon Prime

(05:15):
kind of and Youtube
are replacing
the,
the traditional
TV
networks and channels and stations and things like
that as we move into a new generation,
a new era.
Right? I mean, that's kind of what's happening
here.
Because there's talk that Netflix is going to

(05:35):
get involved in short form content,
reoccurring
video content
designed to
build an ongoing subscriber engagement, which they've been
doing reoccurring video content for, for years. I'm
not sure what the difference is between that
and a video series, but
the,
the, the line

(05:57):
on Netflix between what a TV show is
and what a movie is have been blurred
for years. Oh, yeah. That's true.
And and so what we see is is
really a a series on Netflix has just
been a
a episodic
kind of presentation,
really.

(06:17):
And then the movies
are typically shorter
in length
clips, which most people when they typically think
of movies and TV, they think of TV
as shorter form content.
But,
in in the movies or long form content,
we're we're in some ways, it's kinda
that is flipping. Right? So I'm not quite

(06:39):
sure entirely what that means for what they're
going to do with video,
with video podcasts, but,
you know, it could be a hybrid model
here.
And it there may be some new
formats of content. You know, if you look
at what's on YouTube today, there's long form

(07:00):
documentary
type,
productions that are happening over there that are
high value productions
that I think would fit
perfectly fine on a Netflix platform.
But the big question is, is it going
to be like a, you know, like what
used to be with Joe Rogan?
Is it exclusive
content over there? Is that what it turns

(07:20):
out to be?
Or is it a dual distribution strategy?
I kind of doubt that it's gonna be
the content that generally on Netflix is gonna
be available on YouTube,
or out as a video podcast in an
RSS feed. So,
you know, this def this is where we
get into the definition
shift of what a podcast is. They're using

(07:41):
this term video podcast loosely Yeah. Just like
YouTube is. So Well, one thing is
I guess,
in the end,
as long as creators get paid, I guess
that is the you know, that's it's all
good for
for the space and
time
will time will tell what happens there and,

(08:02):
you know, they they're I I don't know
if I would go to Netflix for shorts,
though. You know, that's probably not the place
I would go
and and watch and watch shorts, but, yeah,
who knows? You know, we'll we'll see. A
change in interface, anything is possible.
One thing that is think about just just
taking what YouTube is doing and transferring the

(08:23):
the model over to Netflix, you can kind
of envision
what they might be thinking. Right? Yes. Yeah.
You know, when I go to Netflix, I'm
looking for some long form content. I'm usually
looking for a series or a movie.
Yeah. I'm not going over there. That's all
that's what's in YouTube today.
Yeah. But again, I'm I don't go to
Netflix to find

(08:45):
a
a sixty second short.
That's what I was referring to. I just
I don't Right. Right. You don't, but that
may be something they're bringing to the platform
is what I'm trying to say. Seems weird.
Seems like it would things are cluttered already
over there. So
I don't know. Time will tell. Hey. Overcast
is,
looks like Marco, congratulations,

(09:07):
finally.
Welcome to the party.
Looks like he's adding transcript support to
the platform. Now it's not completely clear
if he is going to
use
transcripts he's creating or the ones that are
in the RSS feed.

(09:28):
Because he's
been spotted,
testing it, what's called a transcriber
tool.
So, you know, I I would hope he
would adopt the
the transcript tag
And,
that, you know, that would be nice if
he did that. And if he did, he
would join,
Apple Podcast

(09:50):
and Pocket Cast in the in the party
there. Of course, Spotify did their own thing.
They they didn't wanna do any everyone else
is doing. So
at the same time,
you you we kinda, talked a little bit
about it before the show started about Spotify
missing their advertising numbers.
The profit was up, but ad revenue was

(10:12):
down. So you you saw something different. Everybody's
everybody's shifting over to subscription models. That's the
I mean, that's where the big momentum is.
Mhmm. You know? Paying for it. It does
raise the question about the long term future
of
advertising. But if it if they
so so then let me think about this

(10:34):
for a second. So
I don't pay for Spotify.
But how much do you use Spotify? Barely.
So that's the question. I assume if you
are a heavy user, but even if you're
heavy user, you're still getting subjected to ads.
That's my understanding. Not a subscriber. Right? No.

(10:54):
I if you are a subscriber, you're still
get a portion of ads, I thought. It
doesn't guarantee an ad free experience if you're
paying for it.
I would hope so.
Yeah.
But then do they take a a portion
of that revenue and give that to the
creators
that, you know Well, that's exactly what the
YouTube platform is doing. Yeah. Well,

(11:16):
there's never been transparency in what that equates
to.
You know, if I pay
whatever the YouTube premium is and if I
watch,
you know, ten thousand hours
that's an exaggeration. But if I watch x
number of hours a month
across x number of properties then
you know, do they take $5 of that

(11:37):
and split it between
all those hours?
Because
My understanding is they do. So I just
I wonder share of of audience
that is that takes a percentage of that
that,
subscription revenue. It'd be nice to know what
those actual

(11:58):
numbers were, what that ratio is,
because it can't be very high. They must
take a majority of that money for revenue,
for the company. I just
I just can't see it. Because YouTube's not
an inexpensive machine to run. So
well,
we we may be able to see it
in the back end tools of the monetization

(12:20):
stuff. I just haven't dug into it to
try and find out
what the numbers are back there for subscription
revenue share. But I I think I have
seen it in the past broken out as
a separate line item.
So in the monetization
tools. So is a stock, you know, the
stock report or whatever they do, their earning
analysis

(12:41):
or their earning announcement.
Oh, Spotify? Yeah. Daniel Eck basically said, hey.
We had some execution challenges and
that, what that meant,
someone someone getting fired.
Well, the ad chief Lee Brown
is is departing

(13:01):
Departing. Mutual agreement.
Interesting how they term that. Which is code
for yeah. You're out, dude. Yeah. You didn't
hit your numbers. You didn't get your numbers.
So it's Well you know, it's Pack up
your bags. Yeah that's the way it is
in, in
in real life, you know.
And a public company. Yeah. Well even private

(13:22):
companies that have a board of directors, you
know. You don't hit your numbers.
Okay. We're gonna be looking for someone to
help us get these numbers.
You know, so And
he may be in a in a no
win situation here too because the ad market
I think is a little soft right now.
Yeah. And at the same time, marsys.com

(13:44):
finally joined the party. Hey, welcome guys.
And they're they're they're doing programmatic ads now
for any show. They're doing the same thing
as we are.
Very, very creative naming that they gave this.
Right? Yeah.
Paid programmatic ads. And they're doing a $1
payout threshold that, you know, I give them

(14:04):
credit for for doing a dollar.
The overhead
to process payments and just the amount of
of, you know,
it costs you 30¢ to send a dollar.
So
I don't know if I'd want a payment
at a buck.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah. So

(14:25):
good for them. $1
payout threshold. Interesting. Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, from a if I if I
tried to do that, my CFO will be
like,
I think our minimum
is 25 or 50. I think there's any
problem with
setting it at a minimum amount. Yeah. With
the processing fee, that's the problem.

(14:47):
The process of check or payout. Right. Yeah.
You know, check or payment. I mean, not
a 20 or 25 or $50 payout amount.
I mean, if you look at what what
the YouTube platform does, they have a $100
threshold. Yeah. We we have we said, I
think 25 or 50 is what ours is.
You know, for the and we'd only pay
by PayPal. You know, that's

(15:09):
very rare. Do we pay by check? It's
kind of a special exception to that.
And I think you can transact that for
free, can't you?
PayPal? No.
Either we pay it or either we pay
a fee or they pay it. Or the
recipient pays. Right? Yeah. I think we end
up what we do is I think we
pay the fee, but we do a bulk

(15:30):
transaction so that we're doing all of it
at once and just get one
one transaction.
So
I'm
publishes 100 best podcasts of all time. I
don't know if you saw this list
from time. This came out a couple of
weeks ago. This came out a couple of
weeks ago. Yeah.

(15:52):
And it
was
interesting because,
that was announced on the twenty fourth. It
was a bill. It was seven days ago.
Weren't on the list. Yeah. Yeah. It was
it was,
since we've had the show, it was on
the twenty fourth.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I thought I saw it
before that. Yes. Maybe.
But yeah. Just that they left Pod Save.

(16:13):
Yeah.
Missing
And Joe Rogan. Yeah. I wonder if that
was a little There was a few others
out there that were missing too. I wonder
if that was a little political swipe by
by time.
Well, I think it was a political swipe
of,
but they didn't wanna get engaged in any
direction on the politics.

(16:33):
So if there was a show that was
extreme
Oh. And what its perception of its politics
I mean, if you look at Pod Save
America, that's a left leaning
podcast. And the perception of Joe Rogan is
that's kind of a right leaning.
So maybe they
they just wanted to stay entirely out of
politics. I think they should have a list
of the best podcast shows fifteen years and

(16:55):
older.
Well, that's
that was the intent of the whole thing
was what were the podcasts that really pioneered
the the medium? It's it's the legacy media
stamp of approval giving mainstream
Yeah.
You know, shine, I guess, to the medium,
but
shows that really, you know, boosted

(17:17):
the the podcast industry early on.
You know, and to leave out a huge
show like Joe Rogan seems to be like
maybe But there's shows on here the forest
through the trees. If I if I look
through these shows, there's some shows here that
are pretty new
that did not shape the industry.
And there's there's some there's some stuff in

(17:38):
here. I'm like,
I see some that were yes,
but others A lot of them really were
that important of shows in in the scheme
of things. In the scheme of the medium.
Yeah. And and They weren't that important. Yeah.
And maybe in their own right, they were.
Yeah. I'm sure that they had their audience
and they were good shows and Yeah. That's

(17:59):
nothing to take away from them. It's just
I don't that 100 list,
is kind of an exclusive club. It shouldn't
be close to anybody.
Yeah. I I'm looking through the list. I'm
like,
really?
Yeah. Right.
Well, there's a lot of lot of public
radio shows in that list, which

(18:20):
which leads you to
feel that there's a little bit of a
public radio bias on that list. You think?
Yeah.
And to be honest with you,
I don't think I've listened to a single
public radio
podcast in
ten years,
at least.

(18:43):
Yeah. Well Yeah. You know, the last couple
of years, different folks. Kind of kind of
kind of struggle too. I mean,
there's there's there's been a lot of shows
that have come and gone in the public
radio space over the last couple of years.
Well, it is being reported though
that,
you know, the podcast market is gonna boom
towards 40,000,000,000 in 2025.

(19:09):
We went from what? 2,500,000,000.0
to 40.
Okay.
Okay. I guess that's the general.
That's, you know, the word podcast again,
is being used very
liberally here.
So
Well, it's the whole industry. It's not just
looking at it from an advertising lens,

(19:30):
which I think is I think it's the
smart thing to do because
the advertising side of things have been pretty
flat lately.
Yeah. Well, you know, we're not getting to
the 40,000,000,000 number with hosting companies.
Or advertising either. So Yeah. You know, it's
it's probably better to start looking at it
from the whole industry perspective.
Yeah.

(19:51):
And again, it's It looks better. Yeah. Yeah.
And I and I think too, it's just
like, you know, they keep toting this numbers
of
4,500,000
shows and
584,000,000
listeners. And I can believe the listener number.
Actually, I think that number's
low,
to be honest with you.

(20:15):
You know, I look at I don't know.
I I have to go back and probably
pull some math. But if we're if we're
measuring 300,000,000 downloads a month,
you know, what does that equate out to
in audience
alone just from us?
Well, that's a different metric. Right? It is
a different metric. It's ours. Right? Is that

(20:35):
what you were saying? Or is it just
users? No. They say there's 584.
No. No. You,
you had quoted a number. Yeah. We met
we measure 300,000,000
downloads a month.
Downloads. That's not necessarily users. Well, but if
you if you if you
if well, 300
well, there was at least

(20:56):
300,000,000
listens,
you know, or thereabouts. And, you know, what
is the what is the divider factor on
that? So if someone if we put out
five f four episodes a a month, so,
you know, someone, one person listened to the
show four times. That's a one. It's not
a four
from a listener standpoint. So there is some
derivative
of listeners that are accessing that, you know,

(21:18):
those 300,000,000
downloads.
Yeah. But as far as total list I
mean, what's the listener number? If the average
listener is listening to five podcasts, then that
would So then it would be number and
Yeah. Divided by five. So 60,000,000
on our side. Right. You know? So,
584,000,000
and, you know, we're not even, you know

(21:39):
Mhmm. You look at Libsyn and Buzzsprout.
Yeah. Yeah. They have a lot more. Bigger.
Espreaker, you know, they're much bigger.
So There's still, I don't know what the
percentage is, Todd. Have you seen any numbers
lately about how many what percentage of the
podcasts that are out there that are still
self hosted?
I

(22:00):
mean, at one point, I thought it was
like a third of all podcasts were self
hosted. Well, we have a lot of shows
we measure that are self hosted
because Yeah. That are using your plug in,
but they're not hosting with you. Right. But
they're hosting it off of their own Yeah.
Website
hosting platform. Yeah. If everyone that uses our
plugin would host with us,

(22:21):
I could hire a couple of more people.
Okay.
Yeah. There you go.
Also, before we move on, we skipped
we skipped over another Spotify story, which is
interesting too. Is that,
Spotify and AI, and this is kind of
following in the footsteps of YouTube because YouTube
just announced this too, has announced that they're

(22:43):
gonna translate all the podcasts globally
Yeah. Into multiple languages just like what YouTube
is doing. So if you have a podcast
in their platform, I'm not quite sure if
they're only doing this with shows that are
hosted on Oh, I'm sure. Spotify
or if if they're I'm not sure how
they would do this with a show that's
a pass through.

(23:03):
Do you have any idea, Todd? They haven't
said nothing to us, so I would assume
it's only shows hosted over there.
Well, but they don't really say that explicitly
here in there. No.
They're messing. And I'm sure they it it
you know, the cost to do this is
very high. So
I'm sure it's not for every show.

(23:24):
Yeah.
It says that they're gonna
they're gonna allow creators to produce a single
show
automatically
available in multiple languages.
So that that does sound like it it
would be Yeah. Spotify
only hosted shows. I think so.
You know, we've looked at that

(23:44):
and, you know, ran the numbers
and using someone like eleven Labs or something
like that to do the translation. And,
you know, it's it's it's, That could be
expensive if you use eleven Labs. Well, you
know, and there's not a lot of other
platforms out there
that are publicly available that do
English to French, English to German, English to

(24:06):
whatever
language.
There's just not that many.
I'm sure we'll probably start to see more,
but
I can't imagine
go ahead.
It doesn't say in here if they're going
to clone the the host voice No. I

(24:27):
know. That they're just gonna apply a
like, a voice actor Yeah.
To it. So it'd be a different voice
in your podcast. Yeah. It definitely would. And
in and what are they actually doing? Are
they taking the
well, I'm sure they're taking a transcript. You
know, our transcripts come up and have second
by second tracking. So

(24:48):
I'm sure Probably errors in the transcript.
Oh, that yeah. That I I think that
you believe it or not,
the transcripts
have gotten
A lot better. Yeah. A lot better.
You know, the accuracy
and actually, I talked to the team about
this a couple of days ago. I said,
what level
because you can set the translation level with

(25:09):
the service we're using right now.
Or the transcription or the Yeah. The transcription.
You can you can set the accuracy level,
basically, and pay for so we're paying for
the most expensive model
that does the gives the highest results.
So, you know, and and it breaks you

(25:30):
and I out. I can see when we
get the transcript,
that it understands when we when you speak
and I speak and it switches back and
forth. Matter of fact, today, we were gonna
double check to make sure your levels are
good, and I forgot to do that before
we
started today. So,
yeah, I turned my my own mixer up
a little bit too. Turn your turn yours

(25:51):
up. Alright. So let me boost you here
as well.
Just in case. Unless you're leveling me down.
There we go. You're Okay. Yeah. Much better
on
my side. I put you up a
a whole bar.
A whole bar? Oh my god. I've been
I've been elevated to another bar. Yeah. You
you might actually be louder than me now.

(26:13):
That's okay.
Because you always come across a little For
now anyway. Yeah. You always come across a
little soft in the
live. Yes. I fix Well, I'm
I'm purposely speaking a little louder into the
microphone Oh. Today. I I pick I I
definitely,
fix you in post, but it doesn't help
for your YouTube channel when you're a little
Right. Right on the on the life side.

(26:35):
Right? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. The the live ends up being
a little quieter.
I I thought this oh, go go ahead.
No. No. No. Go ahead.
I I was surprised when this this story
popped up in my query about
venture capital
and and their focus on big firm networks,

(26:58):
trying to reshape
podcasting. I don't know if you've you heard
about this, Todd. I I haven't heard much
about this.
The major venture capital firms, including
Andreessen Horowitz, you know,
are are investing significantly
in podcast and creator networks. I didn't realize
this. Well

(27:19):
I thought that they would have been backing
away from this, but what's really interesting about
this is that,
they're offering,
executive salaries of approaching half a million dollars
to develop branded podcast networks.
This aggressive strategy signals
a VC belief in the power of audio

(27:40):
first
content. Well, I know. Interesting. I know I
get at least what the climate is.
I get probably 10 emails a week. Hey.
Are you ready to sell?
You know, people fishing,
m and a fishers.
And I tell them, yeah, we're always willing
to sell, but, we will require $50,000
deposit before we start any discussions.

(28:04):
We're gonna find out if you're serious. I
have to find out if you're serious. Or
I have a candidate. I have a company
candidate that might be interested in acquiring you.
Yeah. It's just,
you know, and you you can tell they're
all AI generated emails from some Oh, they
are. Some assistant of some, you know, and
you look at the email, you go, yeah.
They're, you know, they're they're they're a firm,

(28:25):
you know, and it's
so I'm not surprised that they're going after
content.
Well, this may be,
coming off of some research that's been coming
out, over the last, I don't know, six
months or so talking about how the creator
economy is going to be like a
$60,000,000,000

(28:46):
industry in the next three years. You know?
I mean, you see these, these marketer research,
studies that are coming out saying that the
the the creator economy is going to be,
you know, this huge of a market. So
all of these VCs are, like, going white.
My God, you know, $50,000,000,000.

(29:07):
We gotta get in on that.
Well so then what happens
and I think that the flaw here is
it's just like a okay let's take a
podcaster that pod fades.
You know, I've had I've known some very
very very very successful podcasters that were,

(29:28):
you know, even in the early days making
more than a $100,000
a year
in in in revenue
and they just hit a wall
and quit
and
walked away
from
significant revenue
and

(29:48):
the question then is okay if you and
if you're investing
in content,
aren't you really investing in the voices and
the talent behind
those shows and
you know, I I just I I I
even see it on YouTube. People quit because
they get tired of the rat race of
chasing the algorithm.

(30:09):
So
what happens when
you know, they make these investments in networks
and,
you know, talent quits? It's not it's you
know, I don't think what we've seen okay.
You you and I are an example here.
We've been doing this show for fifteen years
or so or whatever the number is. It's
I think it's like fifteen now,

(30:30):
maybe fourteen.
And I've been doing my and you've been
doing your other shows or a series of
shows for twenty years.
So you've done but, you know, I consider
that my tech show,
obviously, I've been doing that show
consistently for twenty years.
There's not a lot of podcasters

(30:50):
that
have
this type of standing power. Now obviously, like
some big names, Joe and others,
they're out there, you know, they
they got a team and they they're kind
of obligated to
create content probably until they die.

(31:12):
I I don't I just don't know. Is
there is there enough talent out there to,
you know, if you're gonna build a network
of shows and branded shows that you have
I don't know. You'll even look at the
night show. How long did,
what's his name run at CBS before he
they
before they killed the show? What's his name?

(31:34):
Was Colbert or whatever?
He ran for yeah. He run for what?
Fifteen years or something like that. So I
don't know. Maybe He had a show for
a long time on the on Comedy Central.
Yeah. That's true. So he's been in the
space a lot longer, but how many
how many people in this
in this new media space

(31:55):
that are doing YouTube, doing podcasts, everything else
have twenty years of longevity?
So I I just question
when so and maybe they're only thinking three
years. Maybe they're not worried about it. But
if you're gonna build
a big show,
you need a talent base that is not
gonna quit.

(32:15):
You're investing. I think the manpower issue is
the biggest issue. Maybe they don't look at
it that way. Maybe they say people are
replaceable.
Well, I tend to look at this from
the South. I was really more shocked around
this this statement
in here that the VCs believe in the
power of audio first content. Yeah.

(32:36):
I think that may be
missing
the the revolution that's happening here. If you
look at
what's happening with, like, a Netflix or whatever,
you know, that is an energy shift of
of consequence from the standpoint of, you know,
those platforms are I I guess you could
look at it that those platforms like, Amazon

(32:57):
Prime and Netflix and YouTube are
replacing cable television. Right? Yeah. They're actually
taking those those spots. But equally important, the
audio audience is not has not left, has
not declined. Right. It's still it's still there.
It's still do doing well. So they may
be taking a contrary view here

(33:18):
to the mainstream narrative that,
audio
is has its own kind of carved out
niche because of the decline of radio. So
so the same phenomenon could could be happening
on the video side,
but they didn't mention, like, a hybrid model
of audio and video, which I would have
been more likely to have expected to see

(33:40):
you with these VCs.
So it's really interesting that they're they're doubling
down on audio first. I think we forget
that. And,
you know, with all this hype around video
Yeah. Again,
the numbers prove that that audience
is is is maybe they're watching more video,

(34:00):
but they're definitely listening to as much or
equally or more audio. Or it's growing. It's
still growing. Right? Yeah. So But incrementally,
but we've been growing one or 2% a
year for or 3%,
you know, for years and years and years.
But
yeah, well I always thought it would
it would keep growing but I always thought

(34:22):
at some point it would kind of peak.
Right? But you know what VC means. Right?
Culture capital. Oh, yeah. In three years in
three years, if you haven't made your numbers,
you know,
you're you're gone.
Alright. Well You run out of runway.
Right.
You gotta start
generating revenue. You can't. Yeah. You better you

(34:43):
better you you know, you'd so, you know,
maybe it's just maybe they're running out of
things to invest in.
Anyhow, that's
Yeah. You know? Yeah. It also says in
the article, it says
there's important discussions
revolving around the how these
significant financial injections could affect
independent creators.

(35:04):
A, the shift economy. I'm not sure what
a shift economy
is
or, or alt alter
podcasting.
That's
traditionally been an open ecosystem. So
maybe what they're implying is is that this
is
this is something,

(35:26):
new and different
than what we have had before. Well, they've
where are they gonna find all this talent?
Branded podcast networks.
So
what would be the definition of a branded
podcast network be? It would be like

(35:46):
anyone that's, you know, over the the site
Glenn over there at the horse network.
Yeah. I would assume
it would be a topic goal.
Yeah.
No. But I mean, it it that that
word brand
implies it could be a corporate brand. Right?
It could imply
that.

(36:07):
Right. So like,
like a Tesla creates a
a network of
shows that support their their brand. It could
be.
Again, I
unless we know exactly what that definition is,
it could be two ways. It could be
sports networks. It could be,

(36:28):
you know, the
mommy cast. It could be anything here. You
know, it it could be Yeah.
Is that a niche
niche branded
podcast networks?
Question is the question is who's getting this
money? Have we have we heard
anyone get it? I haven't heard of anybody
in the podcast industry getting the money unless

(36:49):
it's new people. Oh, hey. Hey. Hey, Anderson
Horowitz.
Hey there. How you doing?
You guys We need some technology to distribute
this stuff. Right? You guys went and talked
to us twenty years ago. So, you know
Times times
times here.
Well, you know, I went Time's up. Yeah.
Anderson Anderson Horowitz didn't want to talk to

(37:11):
me about, you know, investing in a podcast
hosting company. Her at the time, we were
a media company. We weren't a hosting company.
Well,
the Andreessen
Horowitz
Andreessen. Yeah. Whatever. How do you ever say
it?
It has been around a long time. They've
been around a long time. And they've they're
the biggest of the VC capital companies. Right.

(37:31):
Yeah.
But
So
I send the
that guy that,
told me I was too old to build
a business. I I send him a
a note every year in email saying, hey.
Where's
the fucking hair?

(37:52):
Was there
a a some sort of a middle finger
that gets involved in that? A little a
little, you know, involved me being thrown out
on my throw out on my ass when
I went to, you know,
I got, like, fifteen minutes with him, you
know, and just, like, get out of here.
You're too old. Your team's too old. You
don't live here in Silicon Valley. Good luck

(38:13):
to you.
Right. As as easy as, you know, he
he didn't Don't don't wear that suit in
here again. Well, that happened in New York.
You know, don't don't let the don't let
the door hit in the butt on the
way out, you know?
Yeah. There you go. Yeah. That was the
same day. I got a flat tire. I
was so pissed off. I I I ran
into a curb and punctured a tire that

(38:35):
day
on a rental car.
Yeah. Well, it's probably good that you took
it out on the tire instead of him.
There's nothing more degrading than being told you're
too old,
you know, too old to to build a
business. You don't have the energy. And of
course, I was still in the Navy. So
was it like I could, you know,

(38:57):
like I could move to Silicon Valley?
So Yeah. Todd. Todd, I think you wanna
be with a company that thinks of you
as a slave. Right? Yeah.
You're too young. You don't have enough energy
for this. Or the or the,
I won't say the group name
in New York where I was grabbed by

(39:18):
my sleeve and basically told, you know,
don't ever come in here with a, you
know, just see me again in my team
with a
JC it wasn't JC Penney's, it was a
Macy's rack suit.
We will not be demeaned like that. Oh,
yes. You know, looking me up and down.

(39:38):
Of course, I did probably had, you know,
$80
black shoes on and, you know,
you know, there wasn't there, you know, there
there wasn't a brand thing on me. I
was just we were just poor.
That's why the hell we're here. We don't
wanna be poor anymore. Right? Yeah. And, you
know, to be honest with you,

(39:59):
that pissed me off pretty bad too, but
I ended up going to Brooks Brothers and,
you know, buying a suit. Upgrading
suit.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, again, we had
no money. So it's like Yeah. So you're
gonna say you lost money on that deal.
$2,000
I didn't need to spend, you know. Right.
And then you end up, you know, then
then how things go to California, you show

(40:20):
up in a polo shirt and you're good,
you know. They don't want to see you
in a suit. You walk in a suit,
they're like, hey,
you know, we're right down the street from
the beach.
You know, do you really need to be
here in your,
you know, your blazer, in your tie?
Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny how the difference
between costar when it comes to clothes.

(40:41):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So Edison's I thought I guess there's a
shakeup in podcast,
host leadership out there that's occurring right now
with
the Gen z and women led podcasts
surpassing traditional giants like Joe Rogan. I don't
I don't know if that's entirely true. But
Well, I hope they are shaking. Shifting. It's

(41:02):
definitely shifting. Yeah. Good. I
don't know. You know, I think we see
it. I think we see more women creating
new podcasts than men right now.
So
it makes sense. Well, there's definitely a lot
more
more energy around
women led
podcasting companies.
Well, one thing as well as hosts. One

(41:24):
thing we do see
is men are more likely to go solo
and women are more likely to have a
team.
Team from the standpoint of on mic or
Like people that are helping them. Two or
three people. You know, they're more than like
and maybe it's a friend or whoever but
you know, they we do see

(41:45):
that, most a lot of ladies shows are
not solo,
solo shows. Now that switches So when you
say solo
show, let's be clear. Are you talking about,
supporting team or are you talking about
non solo show Solo like hosting. Geek News
Central host talent

(42:05):
marketing.
Oh, do it all. Yeah. Do it all.
So we see more women having, you know,
a small team that helps them with with
all of that. So typically, I'll get on
the call. Production
and stuff like that. Typically, I'll get on
a call with,
a new creator that's a man and
it'll just be him or maybe his coach.

(42:25):
He's trying to, you know, be Superman and
do it all. And then
when I get on the call with
the new creator that's a woman more often
than not, there's two or three people on
the call. Not necessarily a co host or
there's a co host and is someone that's
called Yeah. It could be a co host.
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
So, but again, there's always seems like there's

(42:45):
a little more and I kind of makes
sense to me a little bit in
the way I think it's very, you know,
to be a successful podcaster now, I
I think it's very complex game right now.
You know, all the all these platforms want
you to publish directly to them. Of course,
it's gonna add work. Just two.

(43:07):
What do you mean just two? They all
want you to publish directly. Spotify.
No. X,
Instagram,
Facebook.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, TikTok.
All of them want you to publish directly
to them. There's no syndication to those platforms.
I mean, of any consequence. Unless you're restreaming

(43:28):
like we are, and it just goes up
there. Yeah. Well, that's what the only way
to do any kind of a simul
posting to all these platforms is to do
a live show. Yeah.
If you're watching live, make sure you check-in
and say hello. Sorry. Go ahead, Rob.
Yeah. And so,
you know, it's it takes a team to
plus trying to manage these algorithms,

(43:51):
you know, with the reels and the
and the slideshows that people are putting up
on their their posts on LinkedIn and
Instagram and stuff like that, trying to do
these stories,
right? These slide stories.
All this stuff takes a lot of production
work and a lot of work generally.

(44:12):
I think over time AI is gonna, you
know, help with a lot of this stuff,
but currently AI is still I don't think
AI is still quite good enough to a
100% rely on.
It requires
it requires manipulating.
Yeah. Proper prompting and But it it gets
you 80% of the way there and that,
you know, for most people

(44:34):
that are time constrained,
you know, for for moms that have kids
and, you know, people have busy lives,
it's it's a force multiplier for sure.
It's definitely gotten
better with the imaging.
Oh, our image with the images stuff. Our
imaging has in I mean, it's

(44:54):
it's a thousand percent better
in just the past.
Yeah. Yeah. We we made a switch on
a model here about
two months ago,
maybe a month ago.
Night and day. I was actually not happy
with the outputs before. I just thought it
was horrible.
Well, the problem I'd had enough before was

(45:16):
spelling of words. Yeah. It just couldn't it
couldn't do it. Right. No matter how many
times you scolded it or told it to
do it right,
it wouldn't make any difference. Yeah.
Now I've noticed that at least the open
AI platform, the the chat g p t
four Yeah. Point o or
or what or whatever it is, even 4.5
will will actually

(45:37):
spell things right, but it won't put all
of the text on the image. It'll only
put, like, half of it on the image
or something like that. So you have to
tell it to slide that text over so
I can see it. Yeah.
One a little But still making mistakes. One
experiment I've been running with, and I still
have a hand curator for my tech show
that does the

(45:59):
goes out and looks,
for content,
you know, digs through
we use what's, it's called
the name of it.
It's called Feedly and we just are subscribed
to every RSS feed we could potentially be
subscribed to and and then he curates the
articles and then,

(46:19):
but I've been recently building
a agent,
not an agent.
What's it called in AI? It's called a,
make it open here. It's called a
a GPT.
I've been building a Oh. I've been building
a new GPT
to try to

(46:41):
help with show prep.
And, basically,
it's a custom one because
I have,
you know, basically sources
that I need to have it looked at.
You know, give me the, you know, the
most hot stories in tech in the last
three days.
And you have to feed it, you know,

(47:01):
a whole bunch of sources
in order to get it to, you know,
to basically put out a list of, you
know, fifty fifty topics that you pick 20
from.
So I've been playing with this a little
bit, and I I think within a year,
and Kirk, your job's safe. Don't worry.
I think within a year, I could replace

(47:23):
Kirk and use,
but again,
then what do we miss?
You know? So that's the that's the key
here is,
even though it puts me out of this
to 50,
50 topics
that are fresh,
I have to still go and
look at tech tech meme and other locations

(47:45):
to make sure that we didn't miss anything.
And it does. It misses stuff quite
quite
regularly. And it all also the same thing
is,
some
tech sites now have gotten so political.
I matter of fact, I called a site
out on my show,

(48:05):
Monday.
And just so blatantly,
but they have TDR. They hate Trump so
bad. It's
and Elon.
They hate those two people so bad that
every article that has any relation to
those two people. They're just,
you know, it's like a paragraph of

(48:28):
I don't know whether It's kind of a
bashing. Oh, it's a bashing. Yeah. Right. And
that's exactly what it is. So
you know, and I don't wanna be honest
with you. I don't wanna,
even
I'm trying to stay neutral. Involved in that.
Right. It's a tech show. So I'm trying
to stay neutral and not bring, you know,
let people generate their own opinion. If Tesla

(48:50):
earnings were up or down, what was it
in fact because of what he was doing
with Doge or whatever?
Okay. Then I'll let the listener make that
decision.
I'm not gonna say, well,
they're down.
And because, you know, he's spending too much
time over SpaceX.
So the problem that I'm having is currently
is filtering out

(49:12):
the the biases
and,
the bias content that is actually still being
handwritten.
Well, the
the irony of all that is one one
could be seen as bias because you don't
wanna talk about the bias.
It's a tech show. I'm reporting about I
know. I get what you're saying. I'm just
saying that's how that's how crazy our world

(49:35):
is. Now to be honest with you, I
I I have no problems
going after congressional
people or
or talking about bills, you know, that side
I'm good at when it comes to talking
about policy.
And if if policy was changed because someone
was a friend, well then I'm going that's
fair game for me to talk about. Right?

(49:55):
So someone got a a sweetheart deal because
they're a friend of the administration. I want
to I want to talk about that on
a tech side.
It's it's valid,
but I don't know. So for me, I
think the AI planning stuff is just gonna
get better.
And

(50:15):
But should you
should you rely on it? No. You can't
right now. You can't rely on it. Because
it misses stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. And again, I've been working on this
GPT for a while and you overwhelm it
because
the
oh, I can can't really I had no
one to do a screen share. What happened

(50:36):
on the show today is that the,
you know, the research that I did using,
AI came up with this
investment
thing from the Anderson
Andreessen Horowitz thing into podcast networks that I
hadn't heard anywhere else.
There's nobody else talking about that
that I've seen.
But at the same time, the podcasting

(50:57):
news
ecosystem's pretty small right now between James.
We try over at Podcaster News to put
some stuff up, but it's always behind,
and it's all handwritten
over there. So
the
the number of news sources for podcasting
is pretty narrow.
But when you're doing a tech show, I

(51:17):
think my
resource
catalog is like 1,200
sites.
So trying to tell
an AM But you're doing more than just
podcast news. So Oh. And my tech show.
Yeah. So I'm talking about it would be
easier to build one for this show
than it would be for my tech show
because I rely on 1,200 news sources to

(51:38):
find
25 news stories twice a week.
Yeah.
Well, the problem with our genre here is
that it it just it's not, it's never
going to drive a huge audience. Oh, no.
We, we, for sure. For sure. Yeah. I
mean, it's, it just,
it's kinda like at some point it's almost
like doing a, doing a podcast about telephones,

(51:59):
right?
It's so it's so mainstream
and so accepted and so understood by so
many people that there's nothing mysterious about it
anymore. So,
you know, it's it's one one thing that
we
we've been doing this a long time.
And, you know, at some point, Todd, it's
not gonna be new media anymore. Oh, that's
right. So how do we how do we,

(52:20):
you know,
take that ball to the next level Yeah.
Is is a question that we're gonna have
to ask ourselves if we're gonna keep this
going.
Well again, we're we've kind of changed the
format up a little bit already. So yeah.
Trying to stay more focused.
I will say that,
there's an initiative
and I

(52:43):
the purest in me is take everything away
from everyone.
You know, build solutions where people don't need
a Patreon.
Build solutions
where
because be you know, be honest with you,
creators are not trusting
many of these platforms now. They're even bringing
into the question trusting

(53:03):
YouTube and Spotify and creators are finally waking
a hell up on this and I think
that's
critical, but,
a few folks in the,
you know, the podcasting two point o space,
proposed a
a spec or linking paid feeds in
podcast apps that originate.

(53:24):
There's basically everything happens within the RSS
one RSS feed.
And,
it's a noble
in,
you know, in basic age, Sam Sethi and
others have, you know, there's been a few
back and forth with me in the podcast
index
social,
Mastodon and a few other places where I

(53:46):
basically said we are in a time today
when there's not enough podcasters that are doing
premium content.
Premium content now is being delivered. It works,
very easily. You have a username, a password.
It's a secure RSS feed.

(54:07):
You can subscribe to a show. You can
go on Apple Podcasts. You can do a
a premium subscription over there,
to premium content, and they make it easy
one click.
What's being proposed
is basically trying
to go around these folks.
Go around Patreon. Go around

(54:29):
the premium offering but the problem is
you don't have
you have less
than less than
maybe one half of 1% of shows globally
that are doing premium content.
You know, just they people you you have
to have a pretty massive audience

(54:51):
to consider offering premium.
And it just it's a pure math issue.
So if you think about
having a 100 listeners
and let's say 3%
subscribe to premium content. There's three to five
people that are probably subscribed to premium if
you're a 100 and if you're charging

(55:11):
$6 for that,
you're gonna have to create extra content for
$30.
You know, if it's $5 a month, that's
six people. Now if you get a thousand
and
you can get,
30
people
or or six thirty to 60 people, maybe
the math starts looking a little better.

(55:33):
But then you got to get to 10,000
and if they you use the three to
5%
math problem,
then maybe you're into a position where you
could do premium and do okay with it
and have enough time to say, like, I'm
gonna do an extra episode,
or I'm gonna give them ad free,
for $5 a month. Maybe that's math starts

(55:54):
working.
Well, how many shows are more than 10,000
listeners
per episode, Rob?
You know, that's a pretty small number of
shows.
Yeah. So this Well, at the same time,
we're seeing growth in these,
these private
platforms too.
Yeah. Like a Uscreen or Mhmm.

(56:14):
And Patreon is an example of it. Okay.
You know,
Substack
is another one
that people are getting more and more involved
in. There's other ones out there too. It's
very hard to observe at this point, Patreon,
Substack, and those other folks that offer
this premium content
because

(56:35):
it's just easy. People want easy.
And I understand buying premium content in an
app would be easy,
but I think,
again, it's such a small number of people
doing it. I I don't know. I Yeah.
But it's not all about people,
doing this necessarily around podcasts.
It's people that are doing it with exclusive

(56:57):
video.
They're building Right. Communities around
But I'm referring largely to a spec for
podcasting.
Right. Right. Yeah. For for Or if you
look at the whole ecosystem Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Right. If you look at the whole
ecosystem of where the energy is going, it's
it's going into these private
communities because, you know, quite frankly,

(57:20):
like we saw with the announcement from Spotify,
the the advertising market may not be
long term strong.
So, you know, I think creators have to
start thinking outside of the box a little
bit and start thinking,
you know, beyond just podcasting, you know,
creating their own kind of

(57:40):
community
of
subscribers I think are subscribing to get access
to their their relationships,
their content. Again, big shows
are doing this
and they're smart to do so.
Right. You know? And That's certainly true. And
again, there's only so many big shows

(58:01):
that are in Open RSS.
People that are defining,
you know, a podcast on YouTube that is
big, most of those shows do not have
a corresponding
true open RSS based podcast. They're just strictly
on YouTube.
So Yeah. I've heard many creators on YouTube

(58:22):
take this perspective too that, you know,
I'm gonna focus my energy just on this
platform. Yeah. And that's YouTube. I'm not gonna
spread myself too thin and do a bunch
of other platforms, especially when these other platforms
are not rewarding me Mhmm. To to do
cross promotions. Right? Yeah. So that means that
I'm gonna have to duplicate everything I'm doing

(58:43):
over here and
duplicate it over there, and they all want
it to be a little different. And so
people are, like, focusing more. Right? And
and to some degree, that's what podcasters should
do too. They should, you know, primarily focus.
Well, I think the I think
the the big ones the big I think
they're starting to realize that

(59:05):
YouTube,
Spotify,
all these platforms are not necessarily their friend
and are waking up to this.
And I hope more of that happens.
And I hope they all look to alternative
ways to make sure that their revenue streams,
making sure that they're building community, that they're
capturing those people

(59:25):
external to those platforms.
And that's exactly,
I think, what we're both saying here Yeah.
Is that having those direct relationships between you
and your audience
and driving value in that relationship
bypasses
Yeah. These big platforms that wanna get in
the middle of your relationship.
Have have your own mailing list. Have your

(59:45):
own merch store. Have all this stuff that
is, you know Yep. Gonna help you
and,
in not giving, you know,
30%
to someone because they've hit a premium subscription.
Rob, we've, we've made it to the top
of the hour here. We did. We did.
I've got quite a few people watching on
YouTube.

(01:00:06):
Hey, David. Thanks for checking in.
So,
yeah. So thanks for for for jumping in
for you on Facebook today as well.
Yeah. I've I've got 17 on mine. Oh,
you're doing better than me.
Also,
I guess no this the big tsunami that
was supposed to hit Hawaii, it ended up

(01:00:27):
I thought it was gonna be a dud.
Well, it's it's good. It was a big
earthquake. Oh, it is good that it's a
dud. Yeah. Yeah. Dud is always good.
Yeah. I was in Hawaii when the,
the big one came about fifteen years ago,
and, they did considerable amount of damage to
the harbors and stuff. So nothing inland, but
it was,

(01:00:47):
you know, this this pounding power of
this you know, water is so powerful. It's
unbelievable. But yeah, thank goodness. 8.3.
What a what a ride.
Oh, no. I thought it was 8.8.
Oh, was it eight? I
was in a,
one in Guam that was six point
it was and it was a shaker. It

(01:01:09):
wasn't a bouncer. It was one of these
and knocked me out of my chair. I
wasn't sitting
it did. I had my feet up on
a table
and when it hit now luckily in my
house,
it shook,
this way and all of my cabinets were
this way. So all my cabinets were this
and nothing tipped over. So Oh, well, that's

(01:01:30):
good. I mean, that's that's why you should
secure your bookshelves. That's right. If you live
in earthquake zone,
Yeah. Of course, you know, when you have
a concrete wall behind your bookshelf,
kind of hard to
secure your bookshelf. But that's why those little
straps are in all,
bookshelves. It's for a Yep. Is for a
shaking earthquake. But No. Or if you just

(01:01:52):
have a tall bookshelf. Right? Yeah. That could
easily
do this. Yeah. I've got a tall liquor
cabinet right now that,
that I've got secured because I'm just afraid
someone's gonna bump it and it's, you know,
$500
worth of bourbon's gonna, you know, get destroyed
on the on the floor.
Yeah. If you live out in the

(01:02:12):
out on, like, on the West Coast or
in that part of the world, like I
lived in Seattle for many years, I've lived
through many earthquakes.
So you secured your furniture.
Well, yeah. And, you know, you know, you
know what it's like. So,
you know, I went through a few six
point sixes
and six point eights and stuff like that
over the years. And so I was in

(01:02:33):
a brick building one time when it when
it's I think a 6.5
hit. I was drinking I was drinking a
beer in a bar in The Philippines.
So with the, Philippine construction at the time,
four stories above me and
the bar was waving and all I could
think of was the concrete workmanship
of that building. I couldn't people

(01:02:53):
couldn't get out of that bar fast enough.
It was like that all the ants going
towards the exit.
Hey,
by the way,
if you're a bourbon lover,
you know,
a lot of people listen to the show
all over the place. If you're a bourbon
hunter,
don't forget about me. You get into some
place and someone's got a great deal on,

(01:03:15):
you know, some allocated
or or something that looks cool, you know,
always feel free to text me because
I've got Venmo. I have,
Cash App.
I'll be
always on the hunt here,
for,
good bourbon. Good bourbon? Yeah. Oh. So my
flavor profile is definitely in the Buffalo Trace

(01:03:36):
kind of profile. So if that gives you
any idea or Green River or
Michters or Yeah.
So Rob, this is one hobby you don't
want to get into.
Right. Yeah. So I was gonna say I
would recommend it. Right. Yeah. You know, it's,
you know It's a connoisseur kind of a
thing. You know? It's like a it's like
connoisseur of cigars. Of wine, you know, that

(01:03:57):
type of thing, you know,
you you know, and it's just like,
does it really taste that much better? You
know, that bottle that was $40 on the
shelf versus the one that is $3.69?
Is this is the taste that much better
than
I'm thinking of 360
whatever it is and you only get Yeah.
750
milliliter or not seven whatever this bottle size

(01:04:19):
is. 75 mils or whatever. But you say,
what is that? That's
you know, that's that's like $40 a drink.
Wow.
Yeah. Is is it worth it really
to be this big, you know? Is it,
worth it to your liver? I guess is
Well, you know, you and an ounce at
a time,
you know, and you know, but it's just

(01:04:41):
like wine, you know, people spend big money
for a bottle of wine.
So one thing about bourbon, it lasts a
hell of a lot longer than wine does.
You open it up, you got to drink
it.
So
I don't drink any of it anymore, Todd.
Yeah. Oh, I I I I still do.
So alright.
[e-mail]

(01:05:03):
on Twitter at geek news at geek news
dot chat on mass. Don?
Rob Greenley dot com. Great place to get
a hold of me. If you wanna send
me an email, you're welcome to send it
to [e-mail].
Love to hear from you.
So
we found on all the social platforms, YouTube,
doing stuff on a regular basis, guest on

(01:05:24):
shows, guest on group
events, all sorts of stuff. So
if you just look at the posts that
I make, you can see all the stuff
I'm doing. I'm increasingly talking about AI
and how humans and AI are gonna work
together, Todd.
Well, I've been using the AI operator
from
OpenAI.

(01:05:45):
Been talking about it quite a bit on
my tech show. It's Have you been playing
around with the agent capability in OpenAI now?
Yeah. Because I'm still paying for the I
here's
Oh, the pro plan. I'm still paying for
the pro plan, the $200 a month. I'm
getting at least
one to two projects
a week
that pay for it

(01:06:06):
in research.
That's good. Yeah. Are you using that agent
technology to do that? I'm not. The agent
technology though is I'll give you an example.
And, you know, I know we we're just
about ready to sign off here.
And again, this is the operator.chatgvt.
I said, look for the cheapest flights to

(01:06:27):
Manila from Chicago starting on October 15
with a return flight between January 3 and
January 9. My preference carries United and I
will pay a slightly higher price for those
flights.
The output was incredible. I let it go
to work.
Worked for five minutes
and it gave me one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten flight options.

(01:06:48):
Gave me the lowest fare.
The medium,
it gave me,
the best day to return on.
I didn't take it any further than that.
I didn't say go book the ticket or
anything,
but,
I would have You could. Right? I could.
You could do that. Right? Yeah. I could
have well,
I don't know if it lets you do
that at this point. It gets you almost

(01:07:10):
to that point.
I could have no. No. No. Not could
have. That would have took me an hour.
Just to look at all the different flights
and sort and it always is frustrating.
Yeah. It is.
And
so for me, I was like,
okay.
Five minutes. Do the research. I pick one.

(01:07:33):
Book it. I'm done. I've just saved fifty
five minutes or fifty minutes
of my
time.
Right. So this is where the operator functions
are going to
save you time.
Yeah. Well, hopefully, it'll save you money too
because it's able to find the the best
deals. And, you know, and maybe it's anonymously

(01:07:56):
searching and it doesn't know it's you and
you're you're not a the logarithm because you're,
you know, they know you're gonna buy the
ticket, you know. Yeah. Yeah. There's all kinds
of crazy. I I don't ever
use I always use an incognito window whenever
I'm
searching for flights.
I don't log into anything and I use

(01:08:17):
incognito right up to the point where I
buy the purchase and I sign in and
then it knows who I am.
Because I don't want them Is there a
specific reason for that? Yeah. Because they know
you
and Who? The airlines? Airlines. Everybody knows you.
And the airlines are doing AI based pricing
now.

(01:08:41):
So if they know you and you're willing
to pay a higher price Exactly. And it
might be it might be a $100, but
a $100 is a $100.
Right? You know, if I can say $50
here, $25 there, $15.20,
whatever it is, it's in the end,
in this economy,
good lord. Yeah. You know?

(01:09:02):
Of course, the economy they say is on
fire right now. If it is, where's the
podcasters?
I was gonna say, I think it's it's
on fire, but it's burning down.
Yeah. Yeah. That's what every everyone's saying, Rob.
So it hasn't burned down yet.
No. I know. I know. I
was more talking about, other aspects of it.
Oh.

(01:09:22):
Oh, yeah.
I'm I'm hearing rumors that,
from people I'm talking to that are that
are trying to make plans to go to
a podcast movement that
there's not that many people going
at this point.
And this is what I'm hearing some rumors
bouncing around right now.

(01:09:45):
Well,
look at
the speaker lineup.
Well, that's probably the majority of the attendees.
No. But I I don't know about that.
Wow. So what are you trying to say
around the I don't know. I you know,
we got two sessions. We never get two
sessions. Mike and I both got session.

(01:10:08):
That's my that was my thing.
And we applied late on the last day
of submissions.
I didn't expect to get one because I
thought it was gonna be late.
So I've been awful quiet out of that
team. The team hasn't
there's there's news, but there's not a lot

(01:10:30):
of news.
Yeah. I'm not hearing a lot of announcements.
I mean, James does does a fair amount
of plugs above it, but he's part of
podcast. He has to. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So Not well. Well, I don't
yeah. I'll leave I'll leave that alone. Okay.
Yeah.
Everyone will see you back here next week.
Thank you for being here.

(01:10:51):
Take care. Okay. Yep. Thanks everyone. Bye bye.