Apple Adds AI Chapters And Timed Links; and an interview with DAX US

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:01):
The Pod news Weekly Review uses chapters.
Mind you, so will everyone elsesoon.
The last word in podcastingnews.
This is the Podnews WeeklyReview with James Cridland and
Sam Sethi.

James Cridland (00:14):
I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod
news.

Sam Sethi (00:16):
And I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of Truefans.

Brian Conlon (00:20):
Audio is 30% of a consumer's day, but it's still 5
to 6% of the budget.
We've talked about that formany years in a row, and we're
still not figuring out how tochange them.

Brian Conlon from DAX US on what we need to
do to keep growing.
Plus, Apple Podcasts addschapters.
Spotify posts their financials,and Libsins the feed goes
quiet.
This podcast is sponsored byBuzzsprout with the tools,
support, and community to ensureyou keep podcasting.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting with Buzzsprout.com.

Announcer (00:53):
From your daily newsletter, the Pod news Weekly
Review.

Sam Sethi (00:58):
Now, James, every time I put this show together, I
start on a Monday and itevolves during the week.
Basically, I listen to Pod newsDaily and then it gets stories
that I can fix.
But some weeks I wonder whetherwe're going to have a show.
It starts really slow.
Yes.
Jeez Louise, this week kickedoff really well, didn't it?
Yeah, it's been a week, hasn'tit?
Anyway, let's start off, James.

(01:20):
Buckle up, everyone.
Here we go.
Story one Netflix is stillchasing those exclusives.
What are they doing, James?

They are.
So they've done this deal withSpotify, which will bring
certain shows of Spotify's, likethe Bill Simmons podcast, but
not Joe Rogan, to Netflix nextyear.
The big thing there is thatthey are removing them from
YouTube.
So the only place that you willbe able to watch these things
is on things that aren'tYouTube.
So Netflix, and if you've got aSamsung TV, you'll see them

(01:51):
there and various other thingsto come as well.
Ashley Carmen from Bloomberg,friend of the show, has ended up
discovering that they are intalks with iHeartMedia about
licensing some of their videopodcasts, like, you know, how
stuff works and that sort ofthing.
And of course, those fullepisodes would have to come off

(02:12):
YouTube as well.
They can keep clips on there,but not full episodes.
That's kind of part of thedeal.
And we also discover thatNetflix is also talking to
SiriusXM about taking some ofits video podcasts as well.
And again, that would takethose shows off YouTube as well.
And everybody's very excitedabout this, and I don't really

(02:33):
understand why.

Sam Sethi (02:34):
Well, I think it's because there's another
platform.
I mean, if you're one of thoseshows, you're moving to a
platform potentially with a bigaudience.
I think you said it quitenicely, though.
I on one of the social mediawebs that I find you.
It's exclusive, so you aren'tgoing to have an audience.
You're going to lose theaudience on YouTube and you're

(02:55):
going to gain an audience here.
And is that the right thing?
And we saw that with Spotify,with the exclusives.
So many of the artists ended uplosing their audiences because
they couldn't find themeverywhere.
They could only find them onSpotify.
And so I I put up a comment toAshley, which was Did Netflix
learn nothing from Spotify'swasted exclusivity deals?

(03:17):
And here we go again.
So is that what we're seeing?
The war between YouTube,Netflix, and now possibly
Spotify on who can have the mostshows?

I mean, I'm sure that that's part of the
conversation which is going on.
I think, you know, I mean, youcould argue that Joe Rogan being
an exclusive on Spotify for anumber of years was pretty good
for Spotify.
Didn't seem to damage Joe Roganthat much because most people
consume his shows through clips,which he was still able to do
on YouTube.
But yeah, I mean, I look atthese though, and to me, this is

(03:53):
not a podcasting story.
I know that I kind of have toput it into Pod News because it
mentions the word podcast, andeverybody goes, oh, oh, this is
very exciting.
But it's not a podcastingstory, is it?
It's it's a cheap TV story.
And it's a cheap TV story froma tiny number of publishers,
about four different publishersthat we're talking about at the
moment.
We're talking about a few showsfrom Spotify Studios, a few

(04:15):
shows from iHeart and fromSirius.
It's a story about cheap TV,which Netflix desperately wants.
It it uh but it's a story abouttiny, irrelevant, small, cheap
TV shows that virtually nobodyreally watches.
I mean, some of these have lessthan 50,000 views per episode,
according to Spotify's ownstats.

(04:36):
So I don't really understand.
And uh plus, they've got nodynamic podcast ads in them,
they don't work on podcast apps.
The ads money from from videopodcasts comes from the YouTube
or TV budget, it doesn't comefrom the podcasting budget.
I I just don't understand whythe world of podcasting is so

(04:57):
excited about this.
You you can even have a look atthe stats.
So this week, ACAST releasedPodcast Pulse, which is a really
good set of stats.
One of the pieces of stats saysthat audio podcasts only reach
46% of monthly consumers, videopodcasts reach 57%.
So you go, well, obviously theworld is moving to video, except

(05:19):
no, but in terms of people,yes, more people consume video
podcasts than audio podcasts.
But when you have a look at theactual consumption, which is
the point that I've been makingall the way along here, then the
actual consumption is reallyclear.
It's audio.
Forty-five percent of podcastlisteners mostly use audio, only

(05:39):
29% of podcast listeners mostlyuse video as well.
So I do not understand why wewant to turn our industry into
another set of people who makecheap TV.
It it just beggars belief.
I I think we've all gone mad,personally.

Sam Sethi (05:56):
I think I think you hit the nail on the head with a
couple of things.
One, it says podcast, so A,you've got to cover it, B, it
raises the flag for everybody.
What's going on?
And I think if you look back tothe YouTube announcements when
they first made it, we're alllike, oh God, you know, YouTube,
what are they doing?
This will be awful, blah, blah,blah.
Nothing's gonna happen.

(06:17):
Then it was a slow burn, andthen suddenly they've become a
major player within theplatform, certainly for content
creators.
And you think, why are Netflixdipping their toes in here?
What's the strategy?
Have they run out of content?
I mean, Netflix is also, by theway, looking at acquiring some
content from Warner Brothers,they're looking at acquiring

(06:39):
content from Paramount.
And that's just um that's TV,that is pure TV content, right?

Yeah, but the but but I mean they've been
doing that since they started.
That that's Netflix's job, isto go out to talk to video
publishers and say, Can we havesome of your content, please?
That that that's their job.
They've been paying for contentfor goodness knows how long.
There is no difference to me inthem going to channel four and
saying, Can we have that episodeto can we have the IT crowd to

(07:08):
show, please?
There's no difference betweenthat and them going to
Goldhanger and saying, Can wehave the rest is football,
please?

Sam Sethi (07:16):
Yes, but but by the very nature that the rest is
football was also a podcast, itjust flags it up to everybody.
It says, Hang on a minute,someone started off creating an
audio podcast, then it became avideo podcast.
Now it's going to Netflix.
And if the audience is havingto then be removed off, let's
say all the podcasting 2.0 appsas well, because it's only

(07:38):
coming off the video side at themoment, that would be a bigger
statement.
I don't think they're gonna dothat.
So is this a competitive pushagainst YouTube?
Is this just an acquisition ofmore content for attention time?
It's not clear what theirstrategy is.
I think we just have to watchand learn.
But it is interesting toobserve from far right now when

(08:00):
they're talking to Sirius,iHeart and others.
Yeah, you know, you've got toyou've got to give them the at
least credence to say, what areyou doing?

Yes.
Oh yeah.
I mean, you know, but but Imean, surely the answer is
obvious that they just want morecheap TV.
I mean, sure, surely, surelythat's it.

Sam Sethi (08:16):
They want more attention time.

Yeah, they want they want more attention time,
and they realise that there arepeople watching, you know,
arguably watching Joe Rogan fortwo and a half hours a week, and
so therefore, or for two and ahalf hours every three days.
And so, therefore, can we havesome of that on our platform,
please?
Yeah, I mean, I think it I Ithink it's that.
I don't think it's anything todo with podcasts, and I think,
you know, I I was doing aninterview earlier today with

(08:40):
somebody for their year-endreview, and and I was saying the
thing that it really excites meabout podcasts is that you
know, I can I can sit here in inmy small home office in
Brisbane, you can sit there inyour in your i in the east wing
of your palatial uh place in inuh you know, with uh I've had an

(09:01):
offer from Andrew to meet it.

Sam Sethi (09:03):
Oh my god, yeah, he wants one of the wings.

Yeah, so so we can do this show, right?
And we are on the same platformas all of the big shows, as as
the daily, as crime junkie, asJoe Rogan, and everything else.
That doesn't happen on Netflix.
It doesn't happen on prettywell any other platform, with
the exception of YouTube,perhaps.

(09:26):
That's what's exciting aboutpodcasting to me is that it it's
a level playing field that wecan all get on and we can all be
on lots of different apps.
And you know, and again, theseNetflix conversations, I'm you
know, this show is never isnever going to be on Netflix.
Even if we bothered to do thevideo, this show would never be
on Netflix, would it?

Sam Sethi (09:46):
No, no, no.
I mean, the the three people onNetflix who'd watch it be my
mum, your mum, and and andpossibly the dogs.

Yeah, and I don't think my mum would watch.
So yeah, hello.
I think I think that that'syour mother know what you do
even yet, still well.
A funny story, I had writtenthe Bod News newsletter for
seven years.
I was interviewed in podcastmagazine in France, so it was a
it was Benjamin Bellamy who whointerviewed me.

(10:15):
It was a French languageinterview.
I got a copy of the magazine, Isent that to my mother, and she
read it because she wanted toshow off that she could read
French.
And and then she emails me andshe says, Oh, I finally
understood what you do now.

Sam Sethi (10:31):
Cheers.
Thanks.
Only took it to be in Frenchbefore she got there, yes.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.
But anyway, so Netflix, veryexciting, talking about more
cheap TV.
Can we move on?

Sam Sethi (10:43):
Well, one last one last thought is isn't the number
that YouTube keeps putting outabout big screen TVs having 13%
of their coverage on YouTube onthe big screen TV, are Netflix
going the big screen in thelounge has been our domain, and
we're now feeling challenged byYouTube.
Therefore, we're going toremove content from YouTube that

(11:06):
will bring that type oflistener or watcher to us rather
than them switching the big TVover to YouTube.

Oh, yeah, I mean, absolutely.
Nielsen has done a lot ofresearch in terms of
consumption, and uh YouTube hasbeen winning that battle for a
long, long time.
Netflix is currently numberthree.
YouTube is number one, thesethe these are June's figures,
they've gone up slightly.
YouTube is number one with12.8% of all TV usage.

(11:36):
12.8% of all TV usage.
Then you have Disney at 10%,and that by the way, includes
some of Disney's you know TVchannels as well.
And then you've got Netflix atnumber three with 8.3%.
So already YouTube issignificantly bigger than
Netflix.
Obviously, that means thatNetflix wants more cheap TV to

(11:58):
fill their to fill theircatalogue with, and ideally,
cheap TV that comes out quiteregularly because they want more
time, you know, to be spent onthe platform.
So that that is absolutely thegame here.
I don't think it's anything todo with podcasting.
I think it's just to do withcheap cheap TV.
And if you have worked out away of making two hours of cheap

(12:21):
TV three times a week, and youcall it the Joe Rogan
experience, well, great.
Netflix will happily take thatoff your hands and buy that and
stick it onto their platform.
But I I I just think it's justthat.
I don't think it's anything todo with podcasts, I don't think
it's anything to do with ourindustry, and I think it's
confusing to ad buyers, it'sconfusing to creators, it's

(12:43):
confusing to pretty welleverybody because we've we've
allowed the word podcast to beput onto cheap TV, which which
it's not.
That's not what a podcast is.

Sam Sethi (12:53):
Okay, we'll come back to this, I'm pretty sure.
Let's move on to better news.
Apple.
Back in September, earlySeptember, you wrote something
about the Apple podcastincluding potentially Jason
Chapters.
It now looks like they've doneit, James.
What's happened?

Yes, this was quite funny.
So I we we spotted back inSeptember, we spotted that Apple
Podcasts had mistakenly, by thelooks of things, added the
podcast chapters RSS tag totheir list of supported tags.
And everybody went, Oh, this isvery exciting.
Apple Podcasts is going tosupport Podcasting 2.0 chapters,

(13:32):
which yes and no, as we'll geton to.
And anyway, that disappearedpretty fast after we ended up
spotting it.
Then I posted on my ownpersonal blog a little guess.
I literally I knew nothing.
But I I said, here's a guess atwhat's going on.
If you look at iOS 26, it'spretty clear that everyone at
Apple has been told to use itsAI tools wherever possible to

(13:54):
add new features.
Transcripts are producedautomatically in Apple Podcasts
by AI.
And perhaps Apple plans to addchapters for every podcast using
its AI technology, and perhapsit wants to offer podcast
creators the option of optingout of AI-generated chapters by
producing their own using eitherID3 tags or JSON chapters to

(14:15):
ensure that any podcaster can dothat.
Is this the reason?
I wonder.
We'll find out soon enough, ofcourse.
I wrote that in September, andhere we are.
Apple have added VirologistDay.
There you go.
And here we are.
Apple have added AI-generatedchapters for everyone.
And the way that you opt out isyou can either produce chapters

(14:37):
in ID3 tags, you can producechapters in chapters JSON, as
they're calling the podcasting2.0 thing, or by the way,
episode notes as well.
So you can do all three ofthose.
And it's a brilliant move fromApple from my point of view.
I think it will mean that uhpeople use chapters.

(14:58):
It means that chapters willalways be there in a consistent
place in the UI.
I think it's a really goodplan, and I'm delighted to see
I'm delighted to see Apple, youknow, doing that.
And yeah, I ended up writing afull FAQ earlier on in the week.
I had a sneak preview fromApple, which I'm not allowed to
tell you anything about, but theone thing I will say is that

(15:21):
the demo that they gave me, andI'm sure that they gave other
people other demos, but the demothat they gave me about how
brilliant chapters were, theyshowed the Pod News Weekly
Review this very show.
And I thought, wow, that's uhthat's a bit of personalization.
Very smart.
But anyway, there's a full FAQon the Pod News website and
various other things.

(15:42):
And uh, yeah, I think theautomated chapter stuff is
really good, actually.
Talk to me about this otherthing they've added called Timed
Links.
So Timed Links is reallyinteresting.
So it's uh and I think this iscopying a little bit of
Spotify's playbook.
As you uh do a podcast, andmaybe you know, at some point,
because you like doing this,you'll you'll tell us about some

(16:05):
exciting book that you've beenreading recently.
Mwa.
Petentious.
Mwa.
In order that everybody thinksyou're really intelligent.
Um, so you so when you read thebook, the book title out, in
fact, we we should we should dothis so that it actually appears
in Apple as we actually dothis.
So what is a book that you havebeen reading recently?

Sam Sethi (16:28):
I would say one of the books is Thinking with
Machines, is the one I was goingto mention later.

Okay, Thinking with Machines, and who's that
by?

Sam Sethi (16:37):
That's by Varsant Darr.
If they get that right, goodluck to them.
Do you want me to spell it?

Well, the benefit of a timed link is that,
so firstly, it it should haveautomatically heard you say
that, and that book will nowappear as you're playing this
particular podcast in ApplePodcasts, obviously.
If it hasn't automaticallyrealized, then when we come to
add the chapters in, then aslong as we add a link to that

(17:07):
book in Apple Books, it willdefinitely appear.
Right.
Um, because the whole thing isit lets you automatically, if
you just put a link in a chapterinto another podcast or a book
or a music track or a news storyor stock information or pretty
well anything else within theApple ecosystem, then it it
automatically pops up.

(17:28):
And there's a nice video on thePod News website of it working
completely automatically duringthe the Pod News Daily show when
I'm mentioning the titles ofshows.
So this is really smart, andthis is typically Apple, right?
Because Apple doesn't likeadvertising very much, very
clearly.
So you can't use it forthird-party websites.

(17:48):
You you can't even use it tolink to apps, even though those
are on the those are in theApple ecosystem.
But you can use it for ApplePodcasts, Apple Books, Apple
Music, Apple News, and so on andso forth.
So it's very, very Apple, butit's pretty impressive when it
works.

Sam Sethi (18:05):
It's great.
I mean, I I have to say, Imean, looking at what Daniel and
Jay Lewis had talked about withsuper chapters, you know,
having links and having pop-upsand all this, this is much along
those lines.
It's a shame that it isn't moreopen.
But yeah, as you say, that isApple to a T.
But it is great, it I it doeslook good.

(18:26):
And again, highly recommendpeople going to Apple Podcasts,
going to Pod News Daily, uh, andjust doing it and seeing what
pops up.
It's really clever.

Yeah, it's really nicely done.
And and I've worked out a wayof having a permanent link, for
example, to podcasts in the newpodcasts feed that I produce,
which you'll find in the inApple Podcasts as new podcasts,
that now has you know, has linksin there to go straight to the
podcast that you're listening tothe trailer of and all of that

(18:57):
kind of stuff.
So it's a really smart thing.
So I think three cheers forApple on doing that.
The nice thing, of course, isthat they are using, they're
still using ID3 tags, whichthey've supported for years and
years and years, but they'realso using the podcasting 2.0
standard, which they're callingChapters JSON, and they're also

(19:18):
using the YouTube and Spotifyepisode notes clutch, which
they're calling episode notes.
So they're using all three.
I don't think that this is asuccess story for podcasting
2.0, I'm afraid.
I think it's just a successstory for that being one of the
many ways that you can dochapters now, but I still think

(19:39):
it's a great thing.
So I think that, you know, Imean, there's been
interestingly, you know, Imentioned this on LinkedIn.
There were lots of peoplesaying, Oh, at last, Apple have
done nothing for the last 15years.
And you go back and you say,Well, yeah, apart from the apart
from the automated transcripts,yeah, and apart from the you
know, paid subscriptions, andapart from the and you can

(20:02):
literally go back, and every 18months has been a new feature.
What's the Brahmin for us sinceforever?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So, yeah, no, I think it's agood I think it's a good thing.
John from Calaroga Shark Mediawas less than impressed.
I think because he producesfiction stuff as well, and he
would rather that people weren'tskipping around.

(20:22):
And there've been a few otherpeople, particularly people in
fiction, who don't really wantchapters in their shows.
The good news is you can justbe in charge of that.
So you can put two you can puta chapter thing in there that
that literally just links to theend, or if you want to, you can
turn chapters off.
You can still do that as well.
So so I think Apple are doingthis the right way in comparison

(20:47):
to Spotify, where it's tough,whatever Spotify's automatic
system builds for you, you don'treally have any control of, and
it's not very good.
And you you can't you certainlycan't give it your own
transcript or your own or yourown, you know, other
information.
So yeah, I think it's a goodstuff.

Sam Sethi (21:04):
So one of the other bits of feedback was is Apple
making it easier to skip ads?
Are they, James?

I mean, maybe, but you uh uh uh but again, you
can always put your own chaptersin and you'll be in more in
control where you put your adsand where you put your chapter
markers.
I mean, of course, my my viewis you you you should just make
your ads better so people won'tskip them.

Sam Sethi (21:25):
People skip ads, James.
I thought that didn't happen.

Now, I know that you were going to say, Oh,
yeah, of course, people don'tactually skip ads.
So, again, from the ACASpodcast pulse uh details.

Sam Sethi (21:39):
People who've got a vested interest in it, but go
on, go.

Yes, but put together by a separate company,
71% of people listen to themid-rolls in podcasts half the
time or more.
And more than that, though,podcasting has the lowest ad
avoidance.
If you look at podcasting,YouTube, Facebook, radio, or
streaming music, podcast has thelowest ad avoidance.

(22:04):
I think that's pretty good, tobe honest.
I did see that, and that'sgood.
Yes.
I think that that's a uh prettygood thing.
So, yes.

Sam Sethi (22:11):
Now, Alban Brooke, a friend of the show, also from
Buzz Sprout, said only one thingI might add is the downside is
episode note chapters.
He said there's always static,so they're out of sync if you
have dynamic ads or dynamiccontent.
This format worked better onYouTube for videos because they
are the player and the onesinserting the ads, but it's easy

(22:32):
for hosts to update the Jason,Podlov, and MP3 chapters if we
insert ads or dynamic content.
So what's Alban saying?
Basically, he doesn't like thenew episode note chapters
because they're going to mess upthe dynamic ads?

Yeah, so if you use that if you use that clutch,
the Spotify clutch, if youlike, of just putting a list of
chapters at the bottom of yourepisode notes, then if
Buzzsprout, for example, thensell an ad for us, because
occasionally people buy ads inthis show, then theoretically
though that would be 30 secondsout because there will be an ad

(23:09):
inserted at some point in the inthe show.
That's what Albin is saying.
Now, to be fair, Chapters JSONalso suffers from that,
particularly when you're lookingat dynamically inserted ads,
because it's quite difficult tolink the person who's
downloading the audio with thethe same data for the chapters
JSON as well.

(23:30):
So it's always been a knownthing that chapters might get
slightly out of sync if you'vegot variable length dynamic ads
in there.
And I think it's just somethingthat you know we kind of have
to have to deal with.
ID3 tags are always the best,and our sponsor Buzzsprout, when
we produce chapters for thisshow, we produce them using ID3

(23:53):
in the audio editor Hindenburg.
We upload the show to toBuzzsprout, and Buzzsprout then
takes over all of thosechapters, rewrites them all into
the chapters Jason, rewritesthem all in various other
places, and we can then editthose uh edit those chapters
more as well.
So it's actually a really niceway round all of that.

(24:15):
So yeah, but I I totally takehis point.
Some of these chapter pointsaren't necessarily going to be
exact.

Sam Sethi (24:21):
Moving on then.
Well, congratulations first toTed and his team.
Let's just give them the uhapplause they deserve.
Now it seems Apple have notstopped there though, James.
They've been adding stuff notonly to iOS but to the macOS 26
as well.
What have they done?

Yeah, so if you're using the Apple Podcasts
app, actually this came out inMac OS 26 earlier on in the year
in September.
But uh, you know the read-alongtranscript experience that you
get when you're listening to ashow on on iPhone, you you get
that on macOS now, somethingthat they never announced at the
time, and something that tookme by surprise during their

(24:57):
demo.
And I thought, oh, okay, I'llfind out more about that later.
So that looks pretty good.
They have now so they've got 13languages that they're
supporting for transcripts now.
And my understanding is thatthey've done that, they've
they've gone all the way throughthe back catalogue now, and
every single show that wants onehas an automated transcript

(25:18):
now.
So yeah, they've done a goodjob there.

Sam Sethi (25:21):
Now, one thing I found on earlier this week,
Apple have made a web version ofthe App Store.
You can find it atapps.apple.com.
And not only is it just foryour Mac OS apps, but you can
also see your iPhone, you cansee your Apple Watch, Apple TV.
It's very cool actually.

(25:41):
I'm not quite sure why they'vedone it.
Is it because people can linkto it from other third-party
apps?
Because if you might not havethe app store for some reason,
maybe if you're on an Androidphone, it's a good way to
discover what apps are availableon the iPhone.
Not quite sure, but it's thereand it's very cool.

Yeah, no, it does look, it does look nice.
And yeah, it's you know, it's auseful thing to be able to go
in and actually see what'savailable on iOS or on other
versions of that um of thatoperating system as well.
So yeah, no, it's a good thing.

Sam Sethi (26:16):
Now, Adam Curry, I've just got to address this very
quickly.
He said basically, I think Ihad a rant a couple of weeks
ago.
You did have a ranting twoweeks ago.
Yes, yes.
Wow, yes, I did.
Okay.
Uh and uh Adam, but who saidwhat we do here has failed?
And I just wanted to add forthe record, Adam, I I never said
podcasting to has failed.
I've spent three years of mylife following what podcasting

(26:39):
2.0 does with all the micropayments.
In fact, TrueFans adds allpodcasting 2.0 tags.
I don't think any other appdoes that yet.
So I think I have valid reasonsto criticize when I think there
are issues that areoutstanding.
Ergo, phase eight not movingforward, the PSP ineffective, no

(27:01):
podcast advertising standards.
I could go on, I won't.
You can listen to the oldepisode.
The problem I've got is it'snot that we're not doing stuff,
I think we're not doing stuffsmart, and I think we could be
smarter at what we do.
It's great that Apple's adoptedsome of the standards and and
long may that last.
We haven't cracked Spotify, wehaven't cracked YouTube and and

(27:23):
you know Netflix coming to theparty.
I'm just saying that you know,please be aware, we are working
really hard to do this stuff,and if we do have criticism, it
is valid criticism.
It's not just me ranting.

Yeah, exactly.
And I would I would back you upon that, and I would also say,
you know, we all want this tosucceed.
That's kind of that's kind ofthe point of it.
And there are various ways thatwe think that anybody would
think we we could be doing abetter job.
And don't and don't take thatas everything's failed.
Take that as, oh, maybe if wedid that, then that then you

(28:02):
know X would happen or Y wouldhappen.
You know, I think that thatthat's that's a really good
that's a really good, you know,uh part of people that are
excited about what theopportunities are.
The worst thing that anybodywants is for people to have no
view at all on podcasting 2.0.
Because if people have no viewon podcasting 2.0, then

(28:23):
podcasting 2.0 has definitelyfailed.
Because either nobody knowswhat it is or no one cares.
And frankly, that's not wherewe are.
And so I think we've done we'vedone you know pretty pretty
well there.
But uh, yeah, don't don't takeall it it would be better if we
did this as thinking that youknow that that that that's a

(28:44):
failure or anything because itreally isn't.

Sam Sethi (28:47):
Yeah.
Now, James, let's move on.
There's a company out therecalled Dax that is uh really big
in terms of audio advertising,but I've never really heard much
about it.
Others may know more about it.
Uh it's owned by Global.
What do you know about it?

Yes, well, I actually don't know very much
about it either, but Dax havebeen going for 11 years, quietly
going for 11 years.
They're actually having theirbiggest year ever this year.
And they're quite the sleepinggiant, it turns out.
So I was interested to learnmore.
So I caught up with a presidentof Dax in the US, who's a nice
man called Brian Conlan.

I am Brian Conlan.
I am president of Dax US.
I run the day-to-day operationshere for a US business.
I was employee number one ofAudio HQ 11 years ago when our
founders, Matt Gatair and JeffMcCarthy, started the business.
Now I am overseeing the nextphase of DAX and kind of taking
us into the future ofprogrammatic audio and

(29:45):
especially podcasting as an areaof focus for us as we go
forward.

So you're part of Global, which owns radio
stations and podcast companies,and out of home advertising and
DAX.
What's the elevator pitch forwhat DAX is and what DAX does?

Dax is an audio SSP that connects supply with
brands and makes curation ofinventory easy for advertisers
to activate campaigns andmeasure outcomes.
I think would be the elevatorpitch.
The challenge we have is DAX USis slightly different than DAX
UK because they operate with allof the owned and operated radio
stations that Global owns.

(30:21):
Here we are a reseller ofinventory.
So right now we partner with 20different CurePlay partners and
about 400 radio stations in theUS market that are 100%
exclusive to DAX.
So the Dax US elevator pitch iswe have access to over 40
million monthly uniques that areexclusive to the DAX US team,
and that makes up about a fifthof the streaming audio

(30:43):
marketplace.
So by not buying DAX, you'remissing out on a fifth of the
potential consumers for yourbrand.

Yeah, my notes tell me that Tadax reaches more
listeners than Spotify orPandora or iHeart.
So where are those listeners?

Those are subscribers that pay for the
free version without the ads.
And I think what we try andlean into is that DAX is an
advertiser-first organization,not a subscriber-first
organization.
Pandora and Spotify are greatplatforms, right?
There's no combating thatstatement.
They are where brands want tobe, but I think in reality, the
actual ad-supported audience ismuch smaller than brands may

(31:20):
perceive the platform to be inthe overall landscape.
One thing that we really leaninto is if you look at Spotify,
Pandora, and iHeart, they onlyaccount for about 55% of the
digital audio ad spendcurrently.
So there's a large proportionof consumers you're not reaching
by only buying those three.
So those three absolutely havea seat at the table.
But what Dax looks to do isbecome that reach and efficiency

(31:42):
advertiser or audiences atscale, essentially, is really
what we try and do here and bethat reach extension and
efficiency play to bring in theoverall buy and help them fill
that untapped gap of audience.

Dax is clearly a very big company in terms of
the amount of audience that youare reaching and everything
else.
I I'm wondering why I've notwritten an awful lot about Dax,
and I'm wondering why we haven'theard more.
You know, it's almost like asleeping giant, isn't it?
Why why is that?

I I think that's why we're talking today, to be
honest.
Is it my fault, Brian?
No, is it my fault?
I don't think it's your fault.
I think when we first startedthe company at Audio HQ, we
tried to do a lot of pressreleases talking about our
exclusive partnershipspost-COVID.
We just kind of let thebusiness run steady course,
right?
And I don't think we did a lotof news flashes
post-acquisition.

(32:31):
But now, in my my role, I thinkthis is a big opportunity for
us to lean in now and start toget some recognition in the
marketplace because we do have atremendous value prompt for
advertisers.
We've built a lot of loyalcustomers over 11 years in
business.
You're not going to succeed for11 years if you're doing
something wrong, right?
I mean, we've we've built theserelationships, we provide our
life for advertisers.

(32:51):
We've got a lot of theseFortune 500 brands that have
come to us, we've gotten verbalapproval, and then we go to the
client phase and they're like,Who is that, right?
It's to your point, it's we'rea giant that's a little bit
invisible.
So I think what I'm trying todo is just get our message out
there and let people know thatwe are here to help with
monetization and then helpbrands find unique audience

(33:12):
that's additive to their mediaplans.

When we were setting up this interview, I was
told that you would tell us whyaudio is broken today.
And that sounds interesting.
So, Brian, why is audio brokentoday?

We don't get a proper seat at the table, right?
I think there is a lack ofmeasurement to get audio its
proper recognition on a mediaplan.
That's why I think it's broken.
Something that I've spokenabout, I think it last time was
with Brian Barletta at thepodcast movement, was around if
you look at these media plans,it's very easy for audio to be
the first one that gets thrownoff the planet because it's just

(33:46):
not performing in these MMMmodels within the industry
holding companies.
But for me, we know it providestremendous value for brands.
We know it provides reach, it'sproviding an ROI.
It's just not being measuredthe same way CTV and display and
search are holistically onthese media plans.
So there's no way for theseagencies to kind of talk about

(34:07):
the value prop and get brands tocommit to it.
So I think we've solved formeasurement attribution, but
it's still within our ecosystemwith companies like Claritons
and Pine Scribe providing greatbenefits to advertisers, but
that's still in a siloedfashion, right?
We're not talking about itholistically across the budgets,
and how do we take budget fromsocial and convert it to audio

(34:28):
dollars?
Like there's no way to reallydo that easily now.
And that's why I feel like ourindustry is broken.
One of the things that drivesme personally, frustrates me
personally, is the statementthat we've heard for five or six
years now, where audio is 30%of a consumer's day, but it's
still five to six percent of thebudgets.
We've talked about that formany years in a row, and we're

(34:50):
still not figuring out how toproperly change that.
So I think that's somethingthat we need to holistically
come together, competitors,frenemies in the space, and put
our put our heads together abouthow do we actually drive impact
and change to allow audio toget proper recognition, drive
more dollars for everyone in thespace.

Yeah, there was uh a report recently from Oxford
Road saying that podcasting ismissing a billion dollars in ad
revenue because it doesn't havegood enough measurement.
Do you wrote do you agree withDan there?

Yeah, I do.
I I think they they definitelyare onto something there, and I
think one of the things we haveto worry about as an industry is
YouTube is this big greatpartner for a lot of people from
a podcast reach standpoint.
But what does that do for theaudio strategy long term, right?
We're we're leaning into videoso much you're seeing Spotify
and IR do these Netflixintegrations.

(35:41):
And there's a place for thatfrom a reach extension
standpoint.
But if they're not providingthe back-end measurement to
holistically tell the story ofthe episode, is it really
helping your audio budget grow,right?
And the the perception ofaudio, it's really it's helping
the video component of it grow,not the audio side.
And I think podcasts is such aninteresting medium because

(36:03):
you're getting that one-to-oneconnection in your headphones
with the host that you trustevery single day.
And I think the video componentis because that's how
consumption's shifting in thelandscape.
But again, audio is the thecore of what a podcast really
is.

So I was in Norway about 10 years ago, and I
remember going to one of theradio stations, and they were
explaining how their researchworks, and they used exactly the
same system, the same sort ofyou know, automatic pager thing
as TV did.
So the TV numbers and the radionumbers were identical.
And that and that enabledadvertisers to see total

(36:41):
impressions and all of thatstuff uh right across broadcast
media, which I thought was aninteresting model.
Are we talking aboutmeasurement in terms of just
measurement of actual audience,or or are we talking about the
ROI part of that as well?

The the ROI part of it for sure.
I mean, I again I think yearsago I was talking to some bigger
brands that said we weren'tproviding ROAS on the audio
channel based on DCM reporting,but that measurement is
holistically tied to displaybanners, right?
It's not tracking it off ofaudio.
And I know there's beenenhancements to that over the
years, but still I think justit's holistically looking at

(37:18):
their media plan in DCM andlooking at ROAS as the here's
the ROI, but they don't trulyunderstand the challenges or
limitations with those metricsfor audio.
And I think that's maybesomething that we can be doing
better as an industry issocializing what those
challenges and limitations areso that way people are more
educated.
I again I don't know if we'regonna change agencies or

(37:38):
advertisers' minds given thescale of the budgets on the
other channels, but at least ifthey do understand the
limitations going into it, itcan help us a little bit just
get a different look at the trueROI for audio as a channel.

Yeah, I mean it certainly sounds as if working
together is a good plan andworking together with
competitors right now is a goodplan because actually, you know,
a rising tide gathers allboats, as um somebody somebody
said a long, long time ago.
It's true though.
Yeah, yeah, but but but that'sabsolutely right.
And I think probably callingthings the same name is also
useful.
One of the things that I hashas, you know, after eight years

(38:14):
of writing about this industry,it is fascinating seeing how
different people who selldifferent bits of podcast
advertising call what they selldifferent names.
It's very true.
It's very frustrating to workout.
What is a sponsorship?
What is a what is an ad read?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So all of that, all of that isa little bit weird.
Are there other mechanisms inplace to help you work together

(38:36):
with uh others?

I think the IAB is doing a good job of trying to
facilitate this, right?
I again, I think it's justdoing it more frequently and
making sure you have the rightpeople in the room to help
facilitate that change.
But I know that this has been atopic of conversation at some
of the last few audio days,right?
So I personally am going to tryand get more involved in some
of those those events to sharemy thoughts on it.

(38:59):
But I think that's probably thethe best way to do it right
now.
And I think trying to lean intowhat Brian's doing now with
podcast movement and these newevent schedules of just getting
people in the room for dinneraround these events when you
have the right decision makersthere and keep this conversation
moving in the right directionbecause it's not gonna one day

(39:19):
of a year is not gonna move thisthing forward.
It has to be consistent and anda combined effort.

So, what's the one thing that you wish the
industry could do now that wouldhelp grow the industry further?

Collectively figuring out the measurement
piece is what will grow us to awhole different level.
I mean, again, the YouTube isthe thing we talked about
earlier today around the lack ofmeasurement and attribution on
YouTube.
And Dan said it's a billiondollars sitting out there that
we really can't measure, but youknow that that audience is
converting, so it's just reallyjust happening behind the scenes

(39:52):
without any recognition for thework that these creators are
doing.
So I think that's really theholistic solution I think would
help grow everyone right now.

And more events like podcast movement and others
to to actually help getindustry leaders like you
together would certainly help aswell, I guess.

Yeah, and I think it's also about how do we get
more brands into the room.
And this is something we'vetalked to Brian about, right?
It's like it's definitely a lotof the same supply partners,
podcast creators that areshowing up to these events, and
it's great to do it two times ayear, but how do we get the
decision makers with the dollarsthat are controlling audio

(40:30):
budgets to be in that room,whether it's tickets or having
sponsors bring certain brandsinto the room?
But we need to hear from themwhat the pain points are, not
just what we think the painpoints are, right?
Because I think they're on thefront lines every day talking to
clients, putting together thesemedia plans so they know where
the challenges are and what whatthe opportunities are to scale

(40:50):
budgets.
So having them in the room andup on stage to present those
findings and and and learningsis really impactful in my
opinion.

Brian, it's been great to talk.
Thank you so much for yourtime.

Yeah, nice to nice to speak with you as well,
James.

Brian Conlan.
So one of the interestingthings Brian said there, Sam, is
the measurement problem.
And I I hadn't properlyunderstood this, you know,
because we keep on hearing, oh,the measurement measurement's
wrong in terms of podcasting,and this is why there's no
money, and blah, blah, blah.
And I was there thinking, well,the measurement problem is
downloads and the consumptiondata.
And it really isn't.

(41:23):
Um, as Brian was saying, it'snot downloads, it's not the
whole choosing shows toadvertise on and all of that.
It's the other side of themeasurement.
It's the measurement of, well,as Brian called it, ROAS, which
in case you're wondering standsfor return on advertising spend.
It's that measurement.
It's the measurement of howsuccessful the ads are being.

(41:44):
And that there are loads ofcompanies doing it: Magellan AI,
Podscribe, and various others,and Spotify, of course, doing
their own as well.
I almost wonder whether thereare too many companies, or
potentially that some of thecompanies are actually not
giving the same data as some ofthe other companies.
So it's just massivelyconfusing.
So I think it was interestinghearing Brian talking about the

(42:07):
the industry working togethermore, and perhaps that's one of
the things that we need to dothere is just to harmonise the
very basic data that we giveadvertisers that shows how well
podcast advertising works.

Sam Sethi (42:21):
I mean, this is the old adage, isn't it?
I have my marketing spend, Ijust don't know which half works
and which half doesn't, andwhere it's spent on.
Nothing's changed in thatmodel.
I I again I I I have talkedabout it in the past.
I think there is a model outthere where we can accurately
measure, just as we can measurelisten time for the consumption
of a podcast.
I think we can and will measurethe listen time of an advert.

(42:45):
I think there is a model.
I'm not going to go into detailnow, but I do think that will
help.
A, the advert was played, B,this is how long the person
listened to it, and C, did theytake action?
As in what was their result?
That's what I think ROAS willneed in order to give confidence

(43:07):
to advertisers that thatmid-roll was heard, that that
end role was heard.
At the moment, I don't thinkthey have that confidence.
It's more of a belief that theyhave to bel take on board, I
think.
But that's where I differ withyou on that one.

Yeah, I mean, I th I think I think to an extent,
it's almost irrelevant whetheror not the ad has been heard.
It's more relevant whether thead works, whether the ad drives
traffic to a website or drivesin-store traffic or or or you
know, people buy stuff becauseof it, or whatever the ad is
there to do.
I think that's the relevantthing.

(43:43):
And I think from the point ofview of the measurement, that's
where we don't have themeasurement.
Whether or not anybody'sactually had to listen to the ad
all the way through, all of theother stuff comes from that.
So I think that that's probablythe more relevant thing.
But yeah, no, I th I find it Ifind it fascinating.
So it was a good uh it was agood chat to have.

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Now, back to these two idiots.

(44:25):
We're sorry, but now it's timefor more news about Spotify on
the Pod News Weekly Review.
Oh, good.

Oh, good.
Yes, it's Spotify quarter threeearnings time, Sam Sethy.

Sam Sethi (44:39):
Oh, well, I can just see the invite to the private
Spotify party cancel Mr.
Cridlin, cancel Mr.
Sethy.

I was n I was never going anywhere.
Yes, well, I snuck in once.
No were you.

Sam Sethi (44:49):
No, I snuck in once, if you remember.

Oh yes, no, you so so you did.
Yes.

Sam Sethi (44:54):
Anyway, I must snuck into the Amazon one last year.
That was good as well.

Um the numbers from Spotify, let's move on
quickly.
Numbers, yes, focus, Mr.

Sam Sethi (45:02):
Sethy.

Um both subscribers and total revenue
both grew 12% year on year.
Company now has 713 monthlyactive users.
Uh that's what it said in thebig glossy press release.
You then open the shareholderdeck and you discover that ah,
ad revenue is down.
Ad revenue is either down 6%year on year or 2% on the

(45:26):
quarter at only half a billiondollars.
But if you take currencyconversions into account, then
ad revenue is flat.
Whatever the story there, uh,it's not great in terms of ad
revenue.
So the thing keeping Spotifyafloat, and they are still in
profit, by the way, is peoplepaying for Spotify, not
necessarily the ads.

(45:47):
So that's a useful thing to atleast understand.
All of the data mentioningpodcasts was all mentioning
video podcasts, because ofcourse it was, wasn't it?
Alex Nostrom talking, givingsome, in my view, very spurious
stats about uh Spotify videopodcast consumption.

Sam Sethi (46:05):
The numbers were off the Richter.
I mean, I I I didn't I didn'tequate those numbers at all.

Yeah, I mean, so more than 390 million users
have streamed a video podcast onSpotify, a 54% increase year
over year.
Okay, let's just have a look atthat.
And let's remember these arequarter three financial
earnings.
When did Spotify allow you toupload videos to Spotify if you
weren't hosted on Spotify?

(46:32):
Oh, July last year.
So really what we're seeinghere is oh, if you if you allow
more people to upload videos,then more people will end up
watching them.
Oh, and by the way, that 390million users who have streamed
a video podcast on Spotify, itdoesn't say for how long, it
doesn't say how many times.
It it's just, you know, I mighthave clicked on a Joe Rogan

(46:53):
clip by mistake for two seconds.
Well, I'm now part of the 390million.
And and so we could continue.
I mean, all of these numbers,you know, I I asked the the the
PR person, what does this 390million users, you know, what's
the time frame for that?
Is that is that a month or isthat ever or what is it?

(47:14):
And they didn't come back tome.
And then it says, and and thiswas interesting.
So th there are two othernumbers in here.
Time spent with videopodcasting has more than doubled
year over year, driven mostlyby video podcasts.
So time spent has more thandoubled year over year.
It then says this consumptionhas increased by more than 80%

(47:35):
since the launch of the Spotifypartner program in January.
So more than doubled year overyear, except actually increased
by over 80% since January.
So what we're probably seeingthere is that twenty percent of
video content consumed onSpotify is uh is music videos.
That's maybe.

(47:56):
Well, there you go.
So there's so there's a thing.
And again, if that consumptionhas increased by more than 80%
since the launch of the Spotifypartner program in January, then
we're only actually seeingwe're only actually really
seeing sort of six or sevenmonths worth of video

(48:17):
consumption here rather than afull year.
So there's lots of real, youknow, smoky figures here.
I mean, smoky figures, ofcourse, don't bother the the
people in the stock marketbecause they are all asses.
Stock is apparently up 47% sofar this year.
So you know, so there we are.
But I I mean I I do look atthose at those numbers and uh

(48:41):
I'm not sure what Spotify'strying to tell us.
And I think it's quite tellingthat it's all to do with video
podcasts.
There's no mention of audioconsumption there at all in
here.
Spotify has moved on from theaudio podcasts conversation and
is now just focusing on thevideo podcast conversation.

Sam Sethi (49:00):
That's because that's the sexy thing to do right now,
to compete with YouTube.
The thing that they didn't putin, or I've missed if they had
put it in, is how much moneyhave they actually paid to
creators?
If you remember back in Januarywhen they launched this partner
programme, we kept askingSpotify, how much will you be
paying from the subscription tothe creator?

(49:20):
And we never got an answer, andwe still don't have an answer
as far as I can see.
And when you say 390 millionpeople have watched a video, and
then you say, Okay, Spotify,well, how much money have
creators made from it?
And it's crickets right now, Ibelieve.

Now that that there has been one number, I
think.
I think there was one number,and I think it was back in
March, of how much money thatthey actually paid out to
creators.
But that has been it in termsof that.
So yeah, I think it's uh yeah,I think it's really it it is
really interesting, isn't it,that uh Spotify is very being

(49:58):
very careful in terms of thenumbers that they are giving us.
And those numbers are, I mean,so woolly to be relatively
useless.
So it'll be yeah, interestingto interesting to end up uh end
up seeing.
I mean they claimed 120 millionmonthly podcast listeners in
November.
So 120 million people listeningto podcasts a month.

(50:22):
So where where where are we nowon that?
Why do we not have a new number12 months on from that either?
It's really interesting.
So, you know, lots of positivestories about Spotify.
When you have actually have alook at some of the consumption
data that they're giving out,it's not quite as clear as it
could be.

Sam Sethi (50:48):
Let me explain.
So uh with uh Spotify, I don'tbelieve it's the best podcasting
app.
I think if you took music awayfrom Spotify, I wonder how many
people would use Spotify.
So their model is stilllicensed music, licensed
audiobooks, which you can justbuy if you have the money.
But and so the subscription onthe app works because they've

(51:11):
got licensed content that peoplewant.
So that model is justconsistently repeating because
their subscriber numbers aregoing up.
Everyone's going, yep, that'swhat we want.
The numbers go up.
Equally, with the ad revenue godown, they made the Spotify
free platform, you know, whichruns ads, but they're not seeing
an increase in people usingthat clearly because if the ad

(51:33):
revenue has gone down.
So their business model intovideo, into podcasting, I don't
know if that's succeeding, buttheir business is succeeding
overall because it's repeatingwhat it is good at.
You know, they added Spotify tomore clients, they've added it
to more platforms.
That's what I think Spotify isreally good at doing.

(51:54):
And the other thing that cameacross in the announcement was
they've increased the price ofSpotify subscriptions, and
again, they keep doing that.
This is the third time thatthey've done it this year.
Ashley Carmen noted, though,that the price increases aren't
impacting growth.
So, and they also added inthere that they are seeing user

(52:17):
engagement at an all-time high,and they see that they are happy
to keep doing this priceincrease as a strategy because
there doesn't appear to be asnapping point yet in the price
elasticity.

Uh I mean I I mean what I would say is uh I
mean, are we sure that it's notharming growth?
Would growth have been muchhigher if they hadn't have put
the price up?

Sam Sethi (52:40):
Ah, okay, yes.
We don't know that, but if allit is is about can we get more
people to subscribe, tick, wedid that.
Can we push the revenue numberup, tick, can we increase the
price, tick?
All of those mac m metrics areworking.
And the stock market is going,well done, Spotify, 47% increase

(53:01):
in stock value.
So if they could have donebetter, I don't think the market
is really worried about it atthe moment.

No, it's um it's a really interesting it's a
really interesting bit.
And of course, Apple Music ischeaper.
YouTube music is obviouslycomes with ad-free YouTube as
well, and so you've got uh a abit of a different uh
conversation going on there aswell.
And so yeah, I think it it isreally interesting seeing what

(53:30):
happens.
By the way, those priceincreases increases going up in
the UK and also increases goingup, pricing going up uh here in
uh Australia uh as well.
So yeah, it's you know alwaysalways interesting diving in.

Sam Sethi (53:47):
Now, one thing that Spotify has had is a new class
action lawsuit against it,alleging that the company has
turned a blind eye to mass-scalefraudulent streaming.
Uh in this case, it's fakestreams of Drake, someone I
don't really listen toparticularly.
And again, what the lawsuit isapply uh alleging is that this

(54:08):
is affecting smaller musicartists as well, because they
get a smaller share of therevenue from what they call the
stream share, which is like apool of money.
Uh again, in this model,according to the lawsuit,
Spotify are not stoppingfraudulent people who are

(54:28):
copying or AI faking otherartists.

Yeah, it's I I think you'll always get some
fraudulent behaviour on appslike this, particularly as big
as uh Spotify is.
So you know, clearly worthwhilekeeping an eye on that.
Uh and you know, you you'regonna get streaming fraud,
you're gonna get AI people youknow, putting AI slop on there
and hoping that those end up uhappearing in the in the search

(54:55):
results and so on and so forth.
So yeah, there's a thing.

Sam Sethi (54:58):
Now, moving on, James, a little bit sort of
related to what Netflix wasdoing with talking to CSXM and
others.
Fox is it's it seems acquiringpodcasts at the moment.
Who are they acquiring?

Yeah, so they've acquired a company called Meet
Cute, which is a company thatmakes romcom podcasts, and I've
covered a bunch of their uhshows in the past.
They've been bought by FoxEntertainment, and I'm trying to
work out whether or not it's anaquire, i.e., they've acquired
the people behind it, NaomiShah, who's the CEO and founder,

(55:35):
or whether or not they'reactually interested in the
romantic comedy podcast type ofthing.
So, I mean, it's it says thatyou know, now we have more
firepower to grow faster, andour plan is to keep building our
library of original shows, butthen it says expand to new
formats and genres and bring newvoices to audiences wherever

(55:56):
they are.
So it'll be you know, not quitesure what the actual deal is
there, but great to see MeetCute moving on, because I know
that they have been quitesuccessful in what they've been
doing.

Sam Sethi (56:10):
She's moving on to a more strategic role and has
moved from New York to LA.
So I'm not sure that they willbe continuing to produce the
rom-com content.
I think you're right.
I think that's more an aquahire.

Yeah, no, indeed.
And talking about streamingcompanies like Netflix, we have
a a new set of laws going on uhhere in Australia.
We are going to requirestreaming platforms to invest a
minimum amount of money inhomegrown content, according to
Anthony Albanese's government.
Great.
Neighbours is coming back.

(56:43):
Well, neighbours is a very goodexample of homegrown content
that was very cheap and that didvery well.
But uh yes, and it says hereplatforms such as Netflix,
Disney Plus, and Amazon Primeand any other streamers with
over one million subscriberswill have to contribute at least
10% of their local expenditureor 7% or 7.5% of revenue on

(57:04):
Australian content.
It turns out that only oneplatform is actually going to be
uh eligible to pay this money.
My suspicion is it's Netflixrather than any of the others.
But yes, I mean you couldquestion why that's important.
I don't really want Netflix, anAmerican company, making

(57:27):
Australian stuff and tellingAustralian stories for us,
because they're American andwhat do they know?
So I I'm not sure that that'sthe best plan in the world.
You can understand whybroadcast television here has a
percentage to hit in terms ofAustralian-made content, because
it's public, you know, it'spublic uh radio spectrum, that's

(57:49):
what a T T V channel is.
But once you get on tostreaming, I'm really not so
sure why this is a thing and whywe should uh why we should be
doing this.
But you know, if if if ifAnthony Albanese, who who hasn't
made any any mistaken uh uhideas uh ever, if he wants to
come up with that idea, then allpower to him, I guess.

Sam Sethi (58:12):
Now here's a story that's a bit weird.
The feed from Libsing is aboutto close.
I apologize to everybody.
I am struggling with my voicetoday.
You may hear that.
So why is the feed closing,James?

Yeah, so the feed is the official LibSin
podcast.
It's been hosted by ElsieEscobar and Rob Walsh since July
2013.
Here is the very first episodeof The Feed.

Elsie Escobar (58:41):
Hi there.
Thank you for listening to theFeed, the official Libsyn
podcast.

How has she kept her voice sounding like that?
23 years later.
Elsie Escobar, who hosted thatfirst episode with Rob appearing
as a guest.
The first episode, in caseyou're wondering, covering
Windows Phone 8 podcast apps andstats for Stitcher.
Ooh.
Anyway, it was it wasannounced, interestingly, it was

(59:11):
announced the closure of thefeed was announced by Rob Walsh
himself.
Not on the feed, but on his ownpodcast, which is called
Podcast 411, which has beengoing since December 2004 and
which is now back.
He announced, and this is thehappy and joyful way that he

(59:32):
announced that Libsin has closedthe feed.

Rob Walch (59:36):
Let me read the official wording from Libson,
mostly verbatim, with maybe onetweak or so in there.
After more than a decade, thefeed, the official Libson
podcast is coming to a close.
Since twenty thirteen, the feedhas been a go to source for
podcast education, insights, andinspiration.

(59:58):
With two having awesome.
Co-host and the best audiencein podcasting.
The show helped creators of alllevels learn, grow, and
connect.
As Lipson looks ahead to 2026,we're excited to introduce new
ways to support and celebrateour creator and advertiser
community across all of ourplatforms.

(01:00:20):
Stay tuned.
More ways to learn, connect,and create are on the way.

James Cridland (01:00:25):
He read that very well, didn't he?
Gosh.

Sam Sethi (01:00:30):
Does the word gritted teeth come to mind?

Yeah, no, exactly.
I do not know what Libsin areplaying at.
They're on their lowest shareof new podcast episodes ever,
according to the stats.
They've been posting new recordlows over the last four months.
They've just been overtaken.
Libsin, the first podcasthosting company in the world,

(01:00:56):
have just been overtaken byRSS.com a couple of months ago
and by Captivate as well.
I mean, those are two newhungry little podcast hosting
companies, overtaking thebehemoth that Libsyn once was.
And Libsyn, you know, a podcastcompany has decided it's not

(01:01:17):
going to bother doing a podcastanymore.
I just find that really weird.
I went when I went to podcastmovement in 2018, the first
podcast meetup I went to was theFeed.
Was the Feeds meetup, which wasin the market in the next door.
And Rob and Elsie were so niceto me and very gracious, very
welcoming to the listeners,including me.

(01:01:39):
And you know, I I just I justdo not understand what a company
who is involved in podcastingis doing stopping making a
podcast.
It just seems really weird.
Have you got any idea what'sgoing on there, Sam?

Sam Sethi (01:01:54):
No, I'm well, we we've talked about them becoming
more of an advertising companyand less of a podcast company.
We've talked about Libsin 4 andLibsin 5 never being really
fully rounded and completed.
We've talked about, you know,the change at the top.
I think, you know, this is justanother nail in their coffin,
maybe.
I don't know if Elsie's goingto still stay at Libsyn or

(01:02:17):
whatever, 23 years with onecompany.
Maybe she'll call it time.
I don't know.
I have no information on that,by the way.

I mean, Elsie or Rob, I I've got no information
about what those two folk aredoing.
I mean, I should say the thethe really good news though is
that Podcast 411, which is Rob'sown show, is back.
I have been missing, ever sincewe lost the new media show with
the passing of Todd Cochrane,I've been missing somebody who

(01:02:46):
says it like it is.
And Rob, if Rob will do nothingelse, he will say it as it is.
And I loved so here's just alittle clip from Podcast 411,
his return episode, and he'scovering some crappy stats that
Listen Notes had that I don'teven bother covering because
they're rubbish.

(01:03:06):
But anyway, Rob ended up seeingthem.
And I just, if this isindicative of what we're going
to expect on the Podcast 411podcast, I am very much looking
forward to listening to thisshow every single week or every
single fortnight.
Here's a little clip.

Rob Walch (01:03:22):
Listen Notes put out some data on the number of
active shows that is well notaccurate to be nice.
And I don't have to be nicebecause this is my show.
So yeah, the Listen Notes putsthis out.
And I just like, come on, guys.
They said we are at an all-timehigh for active shows.
Well, if you go by the numberof shows that published in the

(01:03:44):
last 90 days, we are not closeto the all-time high.
Swing and amiss, better batter.
Listen notes didn't even comeclose to hitting the ball on
this one.
I just wish Listen Notes did abetter job on tracking this.
Or at least copying from myslides at Podcast Movement or
Podfest where I go over thiseach year.

Wow.
I am so looking forward tolistening to more episodes of
that.
Yeah.
That's gonna be great.
So yeah.

Sam Sethi (01:04:14):
I think what you just said though about Todd, I think
is so true.
I miss the curmudgeon of Todd.
Yes.
I miss the, you know, ah, youknow, and and that sort of, oh,
this is just total crap.
And yeah, I mean, if Rob'sgonna come back and take that
mantle, I know Rob and Todd arevery close friends.
Yeah.

To be fair, I said to Rob Greenley, I said to
Rob Greenley, you've found anideal cranky old co-host for the
new media show version two.
And Rob said yes, although thechances of that coming back are
almost zero.
But wouldn't that be brilliant?
I know that Rob and I haven'tnecessarily seen eye to eye, but

(01:04:57):
nevertheless, really wish himthe best with his uh show back
again.
I wish Elsie all the best aswell.
And the feed is going to beactually really missed.
It was a great show.
So yeah, it's a that's a realhead scratcher from my point of
view.

Sam Sethi (01:05:12):
Talking about things going away, James, the fire's
gone out at Fireside Chat.
Nicely done, James.
What's gone on?

Yeah, what a shame.
Mark Cuban and Fallon Fatemi'sFireside Chat is to close.
You might remember Mark Cubanand Fallon Fatemi.
If you were at Podcast Movementin August 2021, where they went
on the big stage and they toldus that podcasting was old,
tired, and beat up, and theysaid that the only way for us to
make money was to lie to securesponsorships.

(01:05:40):
Fallon Fatemi then said thatcreators retain the IP in
content posted on the platform,except Fireside's terms and
conditions said the directopposite, and said that no,
actually, all of the IP goes toFireside Chat Inc.
But anyway, yes, they'rethey're closing.
The company has filed anassignment for the benefit of

(01:06:01):
creditors, which is apparentlyan alternative to chapter 7
bankruptcy.
The only thing that I would sayabout all of this is that the
company has three patents, whichis interesting.
And presumably there's somevalue to those three patents.
They're to do with chatting,though, they're not necessarily
to do with podcasting.
But there's a certain amount ofsharp of Schadenfreude in

(01:06:24):
seeing somebody that was so rudeabout podcasting, so rude to
podcasters in the big podcastconference, to for their for
their you know, company to tofall over and and go bankrupt.
So, you know, cheers, but youknow, don't forget to close the
door on your way out.

Sam Sethi (01:06:47):
Yeah, I mean, look, Mark Cuban won't even blink an
eyelid, and the amount of moneyhe put into that probably he
slept out last night and madethat.
So uh yeah, not a big worrythere.

Announcer (01:06:56):
The tech stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday
in the Pod News newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.

Sam Sethi (01:07:05):
Well, it's something that was picked up on the
Podcasting Tudor O podcast lastweek about this thing called
Ellen Address.
Now, without going into thedeep darkest parts of the
technology, there are methods inthe way that payments are sent.
One is called key send and theother one is called Ellen
Address.

(01:07:25):
And up until now, the podcastcommunity has wrapped its head
around key send.
And it seems now that the theworld in its dog is now moving
to another format called AllenAddress.
And I I'll put it into emailterms to make it easier.
It's like people were usingPOP3 and now they're going to
iMap4.
And that still may be.

(01:07:46):
Well, that makes it easier.
Thanks, Sam.
I was going, yeah.
I was thinking as I said it,yeah, that made it clear as mud.

Wow, there we are.
Yeah, so we're so we're movingaway from node addresses, which
were 66 character hex IDs, whichwas just like the world's most
complicated thing, and alsohard-coded.
So a bit like an IP address.
We're moving to an emailaddress.
Yeah.
So if you want to send me somemoney, then you can do that.
JamesCridland at strike.me ishow you would end up sending me

(01:08:18):
money through lightning.
And this is useful in bothstreaming payments, so streaming
an amount of money per minutethat you listen, and also useful
in terms of boosts or supercomments or whatever it is that
you want to call them.
So the the difficulty is thatwe've been stuck in the world of
nodes for a long, long time, orkey send, as the phrase is.
We've been stuck in that worldfor a long, long time, and

(01:08:41):
frankly, podcasting has been theonly set of people still stuck
in the world of nodes.
We need to move over.
I think the basic argument wasin the podcasting 2.0 podcast
last week.
We need to move over to usingLN address, those nice
email-like things.
And we need to kind of do thatas soon as possible.

(01:09:01):
Because right now we areholding things back by having a
mix of a mix of key send nodeaddresses as well as ln
addresses.
So yeah, so that's sort ofbasically where we are.
Now, what was interesting isfor this show we are all still
keysend, we're all still nodes.
For the pod news daily, we areusing ln addresses as well as

(01:09:26):
nodes.
So I can actually see from thefrom the money which is sent to
me on the pod news dailypodcast, I can actually see how
much of that is to an LN addressand to the node.
And so therefore, who supportsboth and who doesn't support LN
address?
And the answer is so far,everybody of the three podcast

(01:09:48):
apps that I can actually see,everybody is supporting both LN
address and nodes.
Not necessarily supporting themas well, but nevertheless
supporting them.
So I'm still getting the money,which is the important thing.
So basically we need to work aswell.
Well, you know, there are somepeople where you can very
clearly see here's the messagewhich has been sent in a boost

(01:10:10):
or a super comment, for example,or here's the payment for this
particular show.
And then there are some otherapps who aren't necessarily
being quite as clear in terms ofwhat this money is for or where
this money is coming from.
And I think, you know, and it'sjust a a case of getting all of
that, all of that to work well.
But yeah, it was a really goodconversation in the podcasting

(01:10:33):
2.0 podcast.
But what it but what itbasically comes down to is if
you have streaming SATS,streaming payments in your RSS
feed, then you're probably bestshifting to using LN address,
i.e., something that looks likean email, rather than keeping
your node address in there.
And if you could do that assoon as possible, then that

(01:10:56):
would be super good.
One that we know, one app thatwe know works pretty well is
Strike, if it's available inyour current state or country.
But of course, you can alsosign up with TrueFans, you can
sign up with Fountain, you cansign up with all kinds all kinds
of other things.
Have I kind of understood Yeah?

Sam Sethi (01:11:14):
I mean, the analogy I was going to finish off with is
that if I want to send an emailto you, James, you just tell me
your email address.
I don't need to know whether itwas POP3 or IMAP4 underneath
the hood.
And in the same way, we shouldbe able to say, I want to send
you some money to your wallet.
You give me the LN address, theemail like address, and I
should not need to know whetherit's key send or LN address

(01:11:36):
underneath the hood.
And that's when I think themainstream user will understand
it because it's just like anemail address.
Here's my wallet, send me somemoney, boom, and it's done.
So I think that's why I thinkwe need to move across.
I think the big concern wasthat some metadata would be
lost.

Yeah.

Sam Sethi (01:11:55):
Me and Oscar, by the way, are meeting in London next
week to discuss this together.

Well, there you go.
So that's so that's a goodthing.
Other things going on, there'san app called Podcast Magic,
which has just been launched.
This I thought was pretty cooland pretty clever.
All you do is you email them ascreenshot of your podcast
player playing a podcast.
It then sends you back a littleclip and a transcript back to

(01:12:22):
you about what was being talkedabout.
And it works with ApplePodcasts and it works with
Spotify.
Now, of course, one of thethings that it didn't work
particularly well with is ifyour show had chapters, because
it couldn't see the episodetitle in the screenshot.
And now all shows are gonnahave chapters on Apple Podcasts.

(01:12:44):
I'm not sure it's gonna workanymore.
Right.
Um, but uh it was quite a niceidea.
I I I I just thought it wasquite neat uh of a way where you
basically just send ascreenshot and it automatically
comes back.
I thought that was quite anice, quite a nice trick.
You can give it a go, test itfor free, and if you want to use
it going forward, then it's aone-off twenty dollars for

(01:13:07):
unlimited insights, which is aninterested plan.
But yeah, that's one thing.
Uh is there another is thereanother thing a bit like it?

Sam Sethi (01:13:14):
Yeah, well, the first point I was gonna say with
podcast magic, I hope it's notan Indian in Bangladesh who's uh
just looking at the podcast,and I hope it is AI.
But moving on from that commentAWS, do you remember uh Amazon
Go?

Yes, exactly.

Sam Sethi (01:13:28):
Go right Snipped, which is a company I really like
out of Switzerland, uh Kevin'scompany, they have a great tool
that captures similarly asyou're listening to the podcast,
you can make notes, and andtheir AI does a lot of clever
analysis as well.
So I think you know, again, Ithink that's a really good
company to look at as well.
And look, I'm gonna spend moretime with Podcast Magic,

(01:13:50):
hopefully, and if I think it'sworth it, we'll get them on the
show.
We have had Kevin before, it'sprobably time we got him back as
well.
So, yes, have a look at bothPodcast Magic and Snipped.

And finally, Xenomedia has deployed HLS for
podcasting.
The company has announced in apress release, or have they?
Turns out they haven't.
Turns out they've they'vedeployed HLS for many things,
but they haven't deployed HLS ina podcast RSS feed quite yet.
Right.
I'm having conversations withtheir CTO and basically saying,

(01:14:23):
okay, you will be usingalternate enclosures, won't you?
And also, you know, how long isyour chunk length and what and
what bit what bit rates are youdoing and all of that kind of uh
stuff.
And I think he's I think he'slooking at that and going, oh,
this is all this is all a littlebit strange.
But uh yes, but it's great tosee another company looking at
HLS, even though I'm notnecessarily sure that they're

(01:14:46):
quite doing what other peopleare doing yet.
And at some point I'm sure thatwe will see HLS growing.
I'm still not very convincedabout why it needs to be in
audio podcasts, but certainlyfor video, you can see a great
benefit in doing that.

Sam Sethi (01:15:02):
It does need to be an audio podcast because if you
want to get listen time data,you can't do that based on a
download.

Well, there you go.
That that'll be that'll be thereason why.
It all comes down to thatmeasurement thing and whether or
not we actually need the listentime data.

Sam Sethi (01:15:18):
But uh, are you going back to this the advertising
the yes I still think you needto measure?
I still what if you can'tmeasure it, it doesn't matter.

Uh uh yes, well, yes, fair enough.

Booster grand, booster, boostergram, super
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sponsor.
This is somebody who lives inAlhambra in California.
I've seen a pantomime there.
And oh no, that was theAlhambra in Bradford.

(01:16:07):
Yes, I'm sorry.
It's behind you.
It's behind you.
Who controls the formalcertifications in China?
The state.
Welcome to State ControlledPodcasts.
Uh, this is a comment about astory that we covered last week
about basically the Chinesegovernment saying if you're
going to talk about health oryou're going to talk about
finance, you better have adegree.
Otherwise, you can't reallytalk about them.

(01:16:29):
You're you're saying no, Sam.

Sam Sethi (01:16:32):
Well, I want to drive a car.
State controlled.
How dare you stop me driving mycar?
Yeah, it's called a drivinglicense.
The the governments of allcountries have a right to put in
place some sort of controls.
Otherwise, it would becompletely.

I would tell you, so at the moment, again,
Anthony Albanese, our PrimeMinister here in Australia,
can't do anything wrong, uhobviously.
And at the moment, one of thebrilliant ideas that he's come
up with is that everyone inAustralia is going to get free
electricity for three hours aday.
Well, and there's a good reasonthere's a good reason why

(01:17:11):
everybody should get freeelectricity for three hours a
day is that it's bloody sunnyhere, and a lot of us have solar
panels, and frankly, the costof electricity in the middle of
the day is pretty well zeroanyway.
And so what the government isbasically saying is everybody
gets free electricity for threehours a day, and that will look
really clever for us, and it'lllook as if Anthony Albanese is

(01:17:33):
the second messiah, andeverybody will be very, very
happy, and so on, and so forth.
Uh and I heard somebody on SkyNews, which is the equivalent of
Fox News here in Australia,it's it's certainly not balanced
at all, nor does it b nor doesit pretend it's going to be.
I heard somebody on on Sky Newssaying that this was that this

(01:17:53):
was an affront against freespeech and free behaviour, and
it would force people, it wouldforce people to use electricity
at a certain time of day, andyou're taking away our free
will.
And they're thinking, really,really, to offer free
electricity for three hours aday, that is taking away

(01:18:15):
people's free will.
Really?
Have you got nothing better tobe whining on about?

Sam Sethi (01:18:21):
My goodness.

My goodness, but yes, I think state controlled
podcasts, yeah, I think thatthat's possibly going slightly
too far.
But I think But they're notstate controlled.
They're not.
They are state uh I mean theonly thing that the state is is
trying to control in China isthat if you're gonna hear
something on a podcast aboutthose specific things, then it's

(01:18:47):
gonna be at least from someonewith a qualification in that
thing that they are talkingabout.
And and again, I I I don'treally have a problem.

Sam Sethi (01:18:57):
I don't really have a problem with some of the stuff
that Stephen Bartlett has saidor Joe Rogan would not be
allowed, yes.

Anyway, enough of that.
Lots of super comments usingtrue fans, a customatic, and two
fountains.
Lots of super uh of uh truefans though.
Uh Neil Vellio, 607 sats, thankyou.
Saying uh Sam is off AdamCurry's Christmas list with his
Booster Gram shade.
Ha ha ha.
What was that?
It's Booster Gram Shade.

Sam Sethi (01:19:30):
What have you done about Can I just point out that
you know they say never meetyour heroes?
Adam Curry is one of my heroes,right?
So I I I I totally admire whathe's achieved and done.

But sometimes I did feel that there was a batch
going on.

Sam Sethi (01:19:51):
And I I therefore know I'll never be invited on
the show again.
But yes, no, I don't know.
I can't remember which bit ofmy rant I did, but uh yes, I'm
sure that I am looking at it.

Neil also says, talking about guests and a move
away from guests, which we werementioning last time.
I've been discovering, I'vebeen discouraging my clients
from a guest format from uh fora couple of years now.
The data speaks for itself, andI agree with Jack Davenport.
Most just worry that they can'tcarry an audience themselves.
So as soon as you alleviatethat fear, they recognize the

(01:20:24):
benefit of going solo.
There you go.
A row of ducks from Lyceum,happy Halloween, and lots of
conversations between him andthe late Bloomer actor, who are
still fighting to become thesuper fan of the Pod News Daily,
which is excellent.
The more that you can keep updoing that, Sam, the better.

(01:20:45):
So I'm I'm I'm just a big fanof that.
Uh the late Bloomer actorsaying, I feel Sam needs to
update the superfan algorithm toinclude a calculation of time
listened for fairness, perhaps.
I think it should all berelated to manipulation.
That's what I think it shouldbe.
So yes, no, very good.
Bruce, the ugly quacking duck,he says, let's not forget it's

(01:21:08):
up to the listeners controllingthe conversation or controlling
who is saying it, back to China,is still control.
The listeners need a brain todecide if it is garbage or not.
Keep podcasting.
Again, I would agree, butthat's why you have the FCC.
And the FCC has certain rulesand regulations on what you can
and can't say on broadcasttelevision.

(01:21:29):
I again, I I see no particularreason why those rules and
things shouldn't necessarilyapply, even if you're not on
broadcast spectrum.
But as Adam has said, we areboth socialist European, you
know, anti-democratic, you know,yes, communists.

Sam Sethi (01:21:49):
Can I just shout go Zorin Mandani?

No, no.
Then finally, Silas on Linux,500 sats, YouTube banned in
Australia for people under 16.
Why?
Spotify has a feature where youcan directly message other
users one-on-one since August,which YouTube doesn't even
offer.
How is that logical?
And again, I would bow my headto the great Prime Minister,

(01:22:13):
Anthony Albanese, uh,Australia's best prime minister
ever, for his very clever Areyou up for some awards?
We've only got the list of thesocial media platforms which are
going to be banned in sixweeks.
We've only got the list today.

(01:22:34):
One of those social mediacompanies who are going to be
banned is a company called Kik.
Have you ever heard of Kik?

Sam Sethi (01:22:43):
Well, only because I wrote something in, but um, yes,
it's now an Australian thing,but no.

It's an online sort of streaming game thing,
and they're insisting that Kikgoes through, whereas there are
some companies which areobviously social media, but
they're no that but they're butthey're absolutely just fine.
It's just bizarre.
None of it makes any sensewhatsoever.
So there we are.
And and one final uh and I I Ivery much appreciate this one

(01:23:10):
final super comment boost fromcomic strip blogger from CSB
himself.
3,333 sats.
I mean, that that deserves athat deserves one of these.
Yes.
I mean, I know it's nowherenear as high as what the
podcasting 2.0 show gets, but eeven so.
Anyway, CSB says, Howdy, James,tell your audience to subscribe

(01:23:36):
to youtube.com slash at signCSB-music dash labs.
Yo, CSB.
Uh I hope I've done the DaveJones voice there correctly.
So yes, thank you, CSB.
That's very kind of you.

Sam Sethi (01:23:50):
It's like he was in the room.
It was like he was in the room.

And thank you to the 23 power supporters for
getting out your credit card.
The internet's money and givingus some and giving us some of
that every single month.
It's been really, reallyuseful.
And it's been useful for us tobe able to put money behind the
bar.
It's been useful to help fundSam's development habit.
You were wondering what I wasgoing to say there.

(01:24:13):
So uh so it's certainly beenreally, really helpful.
So thank you to the many peoplewho have been doing that,
including David Marzell, CyJobling, Rachel Corbett, Dave
Jackson, and Mike Hamilton.
Thank you so much, all of you,for doing that.
Uh, weekly.podnews.net uh iswhere you can sign up to be our
24th, and we will give you a bigshout out if you do that.

(01:24:36):
So, what's been happening foryou this week, Sam?

Sam Sethi (01:24:39):
A couple of interesting things for me.
I mean, I forgot about HernanLopez's streamonomics
newsletter, and I came across itagain, and I'm really enjoying
it actually, some of hisanalysis of Netflix and Meta and
things.
I mean, weirdly, Meta's Reelsis now nearly as big as all of
US TV advertising.

(01:24:59):
I mean, the advertising theythey get just from Reels alone,
and they reckon that by nextyear the Reels advertising on
its own will be bigger than thewhole of the US advertising TV
market, which is crazy.
And these are sorts of so Ilove I love some of the stats
he's pulling out.
So congratulations.
I would love to get him on thisshow to talk about some of it,

(01:25:19):
but we'll see.
I don't know if you readStreamonomics at all, but yes, I
read bits of it actually, andit's a really good thing.

Allen Co.
have also been uh sponsoringsome very good uh research
recently as well.
So uh yeah, Hanan is uh Hananis a good man, so uh yeah,
that's a good thing.

Sam Sethi (01:25:36):
And now pretentious corner.
Me pre-ordering the bookThinking with Machines, which is
out on the 18th of November.
It's uh an interesting book.
I only do I got noted by itfrom uh Mikul Debichand, who's
over at the New York TimesRender's show, uh, who's going
to be interviewing the authorVasad Dar.
So yeah, I'm I'm lookingforward to reading it.
It's more about he's he's a NYUprofessor, and he has some

(01:26:01):
interesting views on what hethinks this is all going and
where it's going to go next.
So yeah, looking forward tothat book.
The other thing that shocked methis week was uh Nvidia's

numbers (01:26:11):
five trillion dollars and 80%.
The 80% is basically the numberof employees now that are
millionaires in NVIDIA.

Wow.
Wow, gosh.
Imagine if you're working for acompany where 80% of your
employees were millionaires.
Yes, exactly.
Exactly.
Gosh.
How many people at TrueFans,Sam?

Sam Sethi (01:26:41):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Tons coming in the future.
We'll be there.

Yeah, there we go.

Sam Sethi (01:26:48):
There's a thing.
Our pricing page is finallylive, um, although one of the
things that's still a wait listbecause we have moved over our
first podcast from rss.com andBuzzSprout, which is really good
and it all works super simple.
So I was very pleased withthat.
Um, and we're not ready to gomainstream yet.
We've got lots of work to do.

(01:27:10):
We're working on the the wayour model works is very
different to everyone else.
We are we are looking atstreaming.
We're using a technology thatwill allow us to chunk
everything up into packetssimilar to HLS, but it's not
using HLS.
So we can use the standard MP3,MP4.
We will do a monthly charge, sofor example, $20 a month.

(01:27:33):
But if you don't use yourallocation of data, we will
refund you the difference.
So it's more of a maximum limitper month than an actual limit.
So we won't keep your unuseddata.
So we will send it back to youin either a rollover of data or
a return of fees into yourwallet.

Well, there you go.
I hope that's as clear as asclear as as clear as clear can
be.

Sam Sethi (01:28:00):
Well, we I think when you see it and you go, it's at
the moment the way that hostswork is it's a fixed fee, right?
Ours is a variable fee.
So there's a fixed fee.
I will charge you so much amonth, whether you use the data
or you don't use the data,whether you have those many
downloads or you don't.
So all the numbers meannothing.
30,000 downloads.
I didn't get close to 30,000downloads.

(01:28:20):
So I can put any number in mymarketing and it's an
irrelevancy.
We're gonna give you accuratelyhow many plays you got, how
long listen time you received,percent completed on average
across all apps.
And if you don't use theallocation that we've given you,
we will give you your moneyback.
And I think it's fair.
That's cool, value.
That sounds pretty good, to behonest.

(01:28:40):
Yes, I mentioned that Oscar andI are meeting in London.
We're gonna Oscar kindlyreached out to me and said he's
got a uh a really interestingidea that doesn't use Noster for
L and address, and I'm reallyinterested, so we're gonna meet
up and also talk about L402 orpremium RSS.
We want to get it so that itworks between both our apps, and

(01:29:00):
then hopefully once it workswith us too, we can then
document that properly, and thenothers can jump on board as
well.

And so the only reason that Noster is being used
is for the metadata that goesalongside the payments, right?
So so you can use all kinds ofother methods of getting the
metadata in there, like justsend a URL with a JSON file.
But but uh so Noster isn'trequired for the payment, it's

(01:29:28):
just required for the messagethat goes with that payment.
Yes.
Right.
Well, there you go.
That's nice and easy there.

Sam Sethi (01:29:35):
Yeah, and so I look, I'm just really pleased.
Oscar and I do meet up fromtime to time where we do put our
heads together.
So hopefully we'll come up withsomething interesting.
Well, there you go.
I look forward to it.
Uh, and then I'm going off tothe City University next Tuesday
for the evening of BritishPodcast Award winners.
I'm looking forward to that.
So, yes, it's free to go.

(01:29:56):
It's on at 6 30 at CityUniversity.
So if you're coming along toit, say Hi and look forward to
meeting you there.
Yeah, that'll be good fun.
And go Zoran Mandani.
That's all I will say.
Now, James, what's happened foryou?

I have, of course, I've been spending money
on Alibar because of course Ihave.
No, on AliExpress.
I've been spending money onAliExpress because of because of
course I have.
I have uh spent a whole 35Australian dollars in buying a
tiny little sort of USB poweredboard that has a radio
transmitter on it, and it's uh aboard that is called a mesh

(01:30:32):
tastic board.
I don't know if you arefamiliar with mesh tastic at
all.

Sam Sethi (01:30:37):
Well, I know what mesh networks are, but no, not
mesh tastic.

Yeah, well, this is pretty well that.
So it's a mesh network of lotsof different people.
So it's it uses radiofrequencies to get data around.
It's completely off-grid, it'scompletely open source, it can
be secure, it doesn't need to besecure.

(01:31:02):
And uh yeah, and so I pluggedthis little thing in.
It's tiny, it's the size of amatchbox.
If you're old enough toremember what a matchbox looks
like, it's the size of acigarette lighter.
Oh no, damn.
Uh anyway, uh, so you plug thisthing in, you do some arcane
setting up on the thing, andthen it bursts into life and it

(01:31:22):
listens to the particularfrequency around you.
And it just in in the Brisbanearea, there are 122 other people
who have done this, and there'sall kinds of messages being
sent around the place, and it'sjust really, really interesting.
And they and uh yeah, so I canI can message somebody who's

(01:31:43):
about 200 kilometers away andit'll hop through other people's
other people's devices on theway.
It's just really interesting.
I've got absolutely no ideawhat it's going to be used for,
absolutely no idea why it's it'sinteresting, but for $35,
frankly, it was it was fine.
So yeah, but that's what I'vebeen doing.
Uh, meshtastic.org is where tofind out more information about

(01:32:07):
all of this kind of uh stuff.
But yeah, I just find itfascinating that there's this
whole off-grid network whichexists out there, which has
nothing to do with the internet,and is quite interesting.

Sam Sethi (01:32:19):
So isn't that what threads are threads were
supposed to be?
That's the new protocolstandard for IoT devices that
the industry agreed on, whichwas for discovery of devices and
the ability for them toself-install fundamentally and
then talk to each other over aprotocol that didn't need to
talk back to the mothership.

Yes, so threads is threads works on your own on
your own home home Wi-Fi.
And so therefore it only reallyreaches as far as your as your
home Wi-Fi reaches.
It doesn't need your homeWi-Fi, but it uses your home
Wi-Fi in various in variousways.
Whereas I mean, whereas thisuses different frequencies and

(01:33:01):
is deliberately built to travelquite far.
And you can carry these littlesort of you know, pager things
which are connected to the tothis service all all the time.
And yeah, and it's just areally interesting, it ju it it
just I I you know as I say, I'vegot no understanding of why I
want this or why it would beuseful.

(01:33:22):
But I really like the idea ofjust sort of playing with
technology and going, oh well,what can you do?

Sam Sethi (01:33:27):
Yeah, you understand why I have face Facebook
glasses.

Correct, correct, yes.
So so that's the thing.
And the other thing that I'vebeen doing is fiddling around
with podcast chapters and stufflike that, because obviously now
that Apple supports them, I'vebeen fiddling around to work out
how to make the podcast that Ipersonally put together more
compatible with that.
Still like to work out there,must-be a method of using

(01:33:54):
Hindenburg's XML format that itproduces for a podcast to then
get the chapter marksautomatically off there.
So that's one probably going tobe playing around with over the
next couple of weeks or so.
But yeah, so that's been thatthat's been fun as well.
What's been quite frustratingin terms of that is both

(01:34:14):
podcasting2.org and indeed theGitHub both have links to pages
that don't actually existsometimes in terms of what the
spec is.
So that's been a little bitfrustrating, but hopeful
hopefully we can fix all ofthat.
But um, yeah, that's all been athing.

Sam Sethi (01:34:30):
That podcasting2.org changed its URLs, didn't it?
So we we broke all of our linksto it.
So we had to change things.

Well, yes, yes, but yes, that's that's Daniel's
thing, not mine.
But anyway, that's it for thisweek.
All of our podcast stories, ofcourse, taken from the pod news
daily newsletter at podnews.net.

Sam Sethi (01:34:50):
Well done for you if you're still listening to us at
this point.
Uh, you can support the show bystreaming SATS.
You can give us feedback usingthe Buzz Sprout fan mail link in
our show notes, and you cansend us a super comment or a
boost.
Become a power supporter likethe 23andMe, Powersupporters at
weekly.podnews.net.

You don't know how much I've edited out.
And our music is from TMStudios.

Sam Sethi (01:35:11):
I know I know how much you edit it out from the
actual original script, so Godknows what you're gonna edit.

And we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.

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