Extra: Matt Medeiros on the future of Podcasting 2.0

A full interview with Matt on the future of Podcasting 2.0, and his view of Tom Webster's recent article.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Pod News Weekly Review with Buzzsprout.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Start podcasting, keep podcasting.
I'm joined by a very goodfriend of the show.
His name's Matt Medeiros.
He is a contributor to thepodcasting 2.0 scene, but he
also writes thepodcastsetupcomand he also works for Rocket
Genius.
I think I've got there finally,edit 67.

(00:25):
No one noticed it was seamless,matt.
No one noticed it was perfect.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
You are great at your craft.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, you can tell.
I've got the brain of the sizeof a pea.
How the hell do I do anythingelse in life?
Right, matt?
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Now, what are we here to talkabout?
I guess Because there are somany things we could talk about.
Since the beginning of the year, there seems to be a little bit
of a negativity to this thingcalled Podcasting 2.0.
It was kicked off a couple ofweeks ago by Mark Asquith and

(00:57):
Danny Brown on their show In andAround Podcasting, where they
simply titled it has Podcasting2.0 Failed?
What were your thoughts?

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, so pleasure to be here, sam.
Thanks for having me.
The backdrop of my perspectiveon all this is I also cover
WordPress.
I have covered WordPress for 15years.
Wordpress is another opensource publishing platform that
complements podcasting perfectly.
Todd at Blueberry knows thisreally well.

(01:29):
We were kind of competitorsback in the day when I worked at
a podcast hosting company andI've seen the WordPress grow
through the lens of open sourceand I have a huge respect for
all the efforts.
People contribute their timeand efforts to grow WordPress,
and I have the same affinity forthis podcasting thing.
When I hear criticisms, like inthe WordPress world, where

(01:50):
people say it's slow, it'slethargic, nobody uses this
anymore, yet 45% of the internetis powered by WordPress I
scratch my head and I say, well,we got to be doing something
right.
Same goes for podcasting.
When I see the RSS feedconstantly get criticized or
podcasting 2.0 get criticized, Ihave to look at this and go

(02:11):
look, there are people trying toinnovate in a space that is
fragmented, of course, but thisis all done in the open.
This is your chance to vote andhave a say in improving
podcasting.
Why punch down on it?
And even if things were said aslike clickbait and to hype you
know, hype the conversation.
Only so much of that can goaround.

(02:32):
Like, at some point we have tostop and say like here's all the
good things that podcasting 2.0efforts and RSS feeds grant us.
Right, when we look at thecrowning achievement, you know
the ragtag team of podcasting2.0 folks got the transcript tag
adopted by Apple.
That is massive and I look atthese as real solid wins, not

(02:53):
only for podcasting but for opensource, for groups of people
without any VC backing, knockingon the door of Apple saying you
want this and Apple saying okay, we'll take it the biggest
company in existence, almost.
And you know I have to take astep back and say let's talk a
little bit more positively aboutPodcasting 2.0 instead of just

(03:15):
going at it for all of its youknow warts and bruises.
Like, let's look at the goodstuff happening.
Claire Wade Brown does this aswell with her podcast Fantastic
resource for Podcasting 2.0.
And there should be moreadvocates like Claire, like
yourself and others, to just saywe've got this thing here,
let's adopt it and let's be goodstewards of it.

(03:36):
In my opinion, Okay.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
So, as you said, the Apple adoption was a crowning
moment.
I would argue back, playingdevil's advocate, that Apple
only adopted it because therewas a court case about
accessibility and transcriptsand that they would not.
And I have spoken to the Appleteam and they have no interest
in the person tag in anythingelse, particularly in anything

(04:05):
else.
Particularly so I'm playingdevil's advocate here because I
think sometimes we can drink ourown kool-aid and sometimes
believe that what's beenachieved is because of what we
did rather than externalitiesthat made them adopt it very
quickly.
Now, yeah, that said, that said,the podcasting 2.0 namespace
came about because adam curry,the inventor of podcasting 2.0
namespace, came about.
Because Adam Curry, theinventor of podcasting, went

(04:28):
away.
There was the podcasting iceage, where nothing really
happened and the stewardship wasunder Apple.
And then suddenly Adam and DaveJones came back and said look,
you know, we should do somethingabout it.
And was born the podcasting 2.0namespace and a number of
people uh, yourself, myself andmany others included started

(04:49):
helping and working on it, andit's been great.
But tom webster wrote a postlast week.
What did he say?

Speaker 1 (04:57):
yeah.
So there was a lot of criticismand I took it as criticism
because I was under the weightof all of podcasting 2.0
criticism, right, and theheadline podcasting 3.0 was
something that just kind of, Iguess, sparked me to write a
blog post and makea video, youknow and coincidentally, yes, it
wasn't a podcast that Iresponded with, because I just

(05:18):
don't have a podcast forpodcasts.
I don't have another podcastabout podcasting, not yet anyway
.
So these were the mediums thatI had to.
You know, share my opinions andI agree with a lot of what Tom
said, especially with his recentarticle that he put out today.
But the criticism for apps iscertainly just and I look at

(05:42):
this as criticism all around.
I worked three years at apodcast hosting company as I was
the advocate for podcasting 2.0.
And this is not easy, right?
Hosts have to do their part,apps have to do their part, the
podcasters have to do their partin convincing listeners to do
it and, at the end of the day,the listener has to want to
engage in all this cool stuffthat we're putting together.

(06:04):
But I just don't agree squarelyputting the blame on the
Podcasting 2.0 team and, again,having just huge respect for
folks who dedicate their time tothis.
Is the listener experiencegetting better for podcasting?
Like you said, I think a lot ofus drink our own Kool-Aid
Probably not as much as we wantit to be laid, probably not as

(06:28):
much as we want it to be.
Are we under the gun againstYouTube and Spotify?
Absolutely.
Is it hard to put audio upagainst this behemoth video
social platform that is YouTube?
Yes, these are challenging timesfor podcasting, but I believe
that preserving all things openpodcasting is important to

(06:49):
humanity and I think forpublishers it is, at the very
least, a threat of insurance tosay, well, if YouTube changes
the algorithm, if Spotifychanges the algorithm, if some
other player comes into the gameand they're trying to do a
walled garden, you always haveyour fundamental base of audio

(07:10):
RSS or your blog with writtenwords of content to fall back on
as your foundation.
So it's a long way of gettingat.
You know, I don't think Tom wascompletely off base.
He is steeped into thisindustry further than I am.
He is an award winner and I amnot, so I have a high respect

(07:32):
for his point of view.
I am just coming from this aslike let's not beat up the
podcasting 2.0 efforts.
Let's try to find the partswhere we can make it shine and
adopt that as tech providers,hosts, apps and advocates.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
So, first of all, when I read Tom's article, I
wholeheartedly had to say,actually I agree with you.
And when I read or listened toDanny Brown and Mark Asquith
talk about how podcasting too,that I failed, I went.
It's not failed, but it's notsucceeded.
I think there's a different wayof phrasing that, right as in.
I think it's done some greatthings.
I think there's a different wayof phrasing that, right as in.
I think it's done some greatthings.

(08:08):
I think there's been atremendous effort by many people
to produce 27 plus tags thatare metadata features that
enhance the podcastingexperience.
They don't change the audio butthey make it a better way of
discovery or interactivity ormonetization.
So I think those things areunquestionable.

(08:28):
But I think companies likeSpotify, where we often say,
well, why aren't they adoptingthe podcasting 2.0 standards and
all these things, they can't.
I mean, I've been in largecorporates they can't.
They cannot wait for theratification of a new tag before
they can adopt it.
They haven't got the time.

(08:48):
They've got shareholders,they've got investors, they've
got 680 million users.
They need to go and make moneyfrom that market and they cannot
wait.
So you know, you could argue,they use what is called the pod
love chapters, same as YouTube.
So why can't they call thoseopen chapters?

(09:09):
Because there's more peopleusing them than the podcasting
2.0 chapters.
It's just a moniker.
Calling it open, it's justbecause we want it to be open
across platform standard.
But actually, spotify couldargue with YouTube that it is a
better, more open standard.
Right could argue with YouTubethat it is a better, more open
standard.
Right.
James has argued that.
Why are we adding a new imagetag when there is already a

(09:29):
image tag available that is inadoption?
There's a media tag.
So all I'm trying to say isthat I don't think we can expect
the large corporate companiesto come and adopt these things.
Maybe they will, apple, butthey'll be bit piece adoptions.
They won't be mass adoptions ofwhat's been produced.
So I think when Tom Webstersaid two things, one was where

(09:54):
is podcasting 3.0?
I want to ask what does thatmean?
And then the other one was hetalked about it being rudderless
and tillerless.
What do you think he meant bythat?

Speaker 1 (10:05):
first, yeah, I mean, once again it was a little
disheartening for me to readthose words, but then also I got
the double take of Adam andDave sort of almost agreeing
with that thread of thought andI sort of lost a little bit of
air in my chest because I waslike man once again, like you

(10:27):
guys have been doing an amazingjob, and you know I won't
belabor this but like just ahuge amounts of respect for both
sides, but especially those whohave committed the time to
podcasting 2.0.
Yeah, you know, when I look atagain, if you look at WordPress
as an open source movement, andI look at what, what I've been

(10:47):
in for the last 15 to nearly 20years, yes, there are more
community.
It's a first of all.
It's a much bigger community,right, you're talking about
40,000 people in Slack that are,you know, interested in
committing to WordPress, nevermind the hundreds of thousands
of people who develop for it,right?
So huge, huge community.
And, yes, there are regularmeetings, like we have the

(11:11):
Friday afternoon show, as, likethe air quotes boardroom as the
only official meeting that I see.
Could it be more organized?
Yes, what I know is that opensource is slow and messy and you
know it's a snowball effect asit rolls down the mountain it
gets a little bit bigger and alittle bit bigger and it's just

(11:31):
gonna take time for that to grow.
And you know it's unfortunatethat I feel like now both sides
feel like, yeah, there's nothingreally here, it's just a little
experiment that we're all doing.
I wish it wasn't.
I wish there was moreorganization around it.
I know Adam and Dave just don'thave the time nor want to be in
that direction.

(11:52):
Hosts when I was at my time at ahosting company, hosts would be
perfect to get together and tryto get some momentum going
around this so that there can bequarterly meetings going around
this, so that there can bequarterly meetings.
You know some kind of in publicmeeting that breaks down the
different 2.0 tags that arebeing adopted.
You know, once again I look atif you were to buy an account

(12:17):
from GoDaddy, you're going toget WordPress one way versus a
Bluehost.
You're going to get WordPressone way.
It's still WordPress at thecore, but this open source
framework allows them to buildtheir own experiences and I hope
that's what that hosts will doand apps will do in a more joint
effort.
So I guess at the end of theday, as the dust settles.

(12:37):
From this it sounds like it isslightly rudderless, though I
hope for a future where it doesget a little bit more organized,
much to the corporate chagrinof podcasting 2.0, I guess.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
I think mirroring your point about the way that
web hosting companies haveadopted WordPress and they are a
different experience based on adifferent host.
I think that's true withpodcasting as well.
You'll see Buzzsprout haveimplemented some of the tags.
You'll see RSS have implementedothers Captivate, blueberry,
pod2, podhome All of them havegot different levels of adoption

(13:14):
.
As an app developer TrueFans Iwish they'd go faster and
further, but that's just mydesire.
But they are making businessdecisions about their customer
base and the amount of time inengineering required and also in
customer support.
So you can ask them to gofaster, but they will go as fast

(13:36):
as they want to go.
Have you ever heard the parableof the elephant and the four
blind men?
Yeah, right, yes, I thinkthat's what podcasting 2.0 is.
We all look at it as what wewant it to be.
It's transcripts, it'smicropayments, it's live, it's
whatever we think it wants to beright.

(13:58):
And I think people adopt orlook at podcasting 2.0 when they
see it and they touch it inmany different ways and somebody
will describe it in one way andsomebody will describe another,
but it's still an elephant ifthey could all see what it was.
So this is my issue.
I think we as a group havemissed a trick, and I think we

(14:19):
all know that, because thepodcast standards project was
going to be the marketing arm ofPodcasting 2.0.
And I stepped up to be theevangelist and I wanted to do
that role, but sadly I don'tbelieve I can do that role
without funding, so that roledoesn't exist.
But I did think and I genuinelybelieved that the smart, smart

(14:43):
people who work with Adam andDave and what I would call the
R&D of podcasting 2.0, coming upwith some crazy ideas, some hit
the cutting room floor, somemake it through.
Those people would then chuckthat over to the podcast
standards project group whowould then be in the marketing
side of the business saying, yep, we'll adopt that tag as

(15:03):
ex-host and, yes, we'll adoptthat tag as ex-host and, yes,
we'll market it this way and wewill spend time and money
pushing that to the end user sothey're made aware.
And I think that's what I hadhoped would happen.
But I don't believe that willhappen now and in the last three
or four weeks I've tried andAdam has done, clearly, told me

(15:23):
and the rest of the community heis the inventor of podcasting,
but he will not be theevangelist.
He will not be at the events.
He was treated badly by podcastmovement and I think he's just
said screw it, I'm not going togo and put myself.
You know you wouldn't get TimBerners-Lee walking into an
event and going oh, we'retalking about the web, who are
you?
And I just think you know therewas no respect to Adam.

(15:48):
So guess what?
We've lost that one.
So I think the other part ofwhat I wanted to say was we are
missing the marketing.
That's one of my beliefs.
So I think podcasting 1.0 wasAdam, with Dave Weiner coming up
with the enclosure 20 odd yearsago.
Right, that's 1.0.
I think Adam and Dave Jonescame back and said, okay, we can

(16:10):
make this better.
And that was, I think, thestart of podcasting 2.0.
Now I think that could havebeen of the 27 tags, maybe eight
or 10 of those tags could havebeen part of 2.0.
And I think and I've said itover a year ago that we missed a
trick to align ourselves withthe monikers of the web web 3.0,

(16:34):
now web 4.0 that's coming out.
So I think web 3.0 is adecentralized, own your data
monetization, bitcoin,blockchain platform.
That's what people think of Web3.0.
Web 2.0 is Facebook, it'sTwitter, it's centralized, it's
ad-driven and that's what Ithink we are.

(16:55):
I think podcasting 2.0 today isDAI, I think it's host-read ads
, I think it's all of that stuff.
It's centralized around YouTubeand Spotify and Apple, and I
think RSS is a perfect analogyof a Web 3.0 app with all of its
characteristics multiple hosts,multiple apps own your RSS, own

(17:16):
your data, move it to where youwant, and data portability
exists, right.
All of those characteristics ofpodcasting are all the
characteristics of Web 3.0.
And I think we as a communitythen could have made it easier
for non-technical people and forpublishers and even some hosts
to adopt bits of the elephantinstead of trying to adopt the

(17:40):
whole elephant.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
And I think that's what we missed.
Yeah, it's a marketing playno-transcript that just do

(18:15):
boosts, just boosts.
Or an exploration of chapters,or an app search engine that
just does transcripts.
They're just these individualtags.
One could have an entire appjust on that.
Right, I understand what I'msaying to a guy who's building
an entire platform, you know,using all this stuff.

(18:36):
But there could be, you know,just a place where you go for
all live episodes happeningusing the lit tag.
Right now, that's all it is,you know, and that's where I
feel like I look around as justan advocate myself to be like no
, there's opportunity to buildthis stuff here.
The tech exists.
You just have to align thiswith some marketing and

(18:57):
messaging.
I mean, are you going to buildthe next you know massive social
media platform?
Probably not, but a host couldadopt this kind of thinking, you
know, and I think it's justvery important and I would be
remiss to just not mention.
I understand, like, maybepodcasting 2.0 is not the best

(19:17):
title.
Maybe value being tied soclosely and misconstrued to
Bitcoin all the time is also nota good thing, because I've been
operating under the auspice ofvalue for value since I started
my podcast 15 years ago.
I just put out content and Iturn to sponsors and I say I've
got a valuable audience here.
How about you sponsor it?

(19:38):
And the numbers are 20, 30, 40,x of what you would hear.
You know, tom and and evenJames report on for CPM, like
podcast, does 50, $60,000 a yearin sponsorship.
And it's a fraction.
You know the the downloadcounts are very small, but it's
a super trusted audience that Ihave and that is the essence of

(20:02):
value for value.
That is the essence of likebeing able to build something
your way, monetize it your way.
That sort of bucks the trend of, well, if you're on YouTube,
you got to have, you know, atleast 500 subscribers before you
can turn on monetization andthen, when we do, you're going
to get three cents.
It's like, well, I don't wantto be a part of that.
I want to be able to adopt thistechnology and sort of do it my

(20:24):
way.
I mean, it takes a differentkind of person to lead that
charge, but I, you know, througheducation, through my efforts
and others' efforts, I hope thatwe can educate folks that you
don't always have to fit themold of the algorithm to get
this stuff done.
You can do it your way.
And again, that's what I loveabout podcasting in general and,
of course, the efforts ofPodcasting 2.0.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
I wholeheartedly agree.
I think, you know, what weshould see is piecemeal use of
the tags and people will adoptapps based on that.
So Adam and Dave are buildingGodcaster.
It's using some tags, not usingall tags.
There are other apps out there.
There's music-specific focuspodcasting like Wavelake, like

(21:07):
Tune FM, like LM Beats.
There are audiobook specificones as well.
So there are generalist appslike Fountain, true Fans,
podverse, podcast Guru, andthere are vertical specific ones
.
But I think I go back to mypoint.
When I woke up after readingTom Webster's post and having

(21:28):
mulled over it overnight, and Iread the title, which was called
Podcasting 3.0, and when I wasin marketing with Netscape and
Microsoft you know I've beendown this road in was it HTML1,
2, 3, 4, 5,.
We use monikers very well withiPhone 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,

(21:51):
right, and Apple knows thatiPhone 17,.
Ooh, new phone, what's in it?
What's the features?
And that's what I want us to dowith podcasting.
I want podcasting 2.0 to have acutoff line.
I want it to be 10 tags, 12tags, whatever that decision is,
and then the next set of tagsare the next version.
So in podcasting 3.0, I wouldput micropayments in there and I

(22:13):
agree with you.
By the way, value for value isnot micropayments, it is a
economic thinking, theory ofCorrect.
Yeah.
So it's more of a theoreticalway of monetizing and it's not
specific to any mechanism ofmonetization which the two get
conflated.
But I would put, you know,bitcoin wallets and micro
payments into the 3.0.

(22:34):
I'd put live into the 3.0, I'dprobably put wallet switching
into the 3.0.
I would put other more advancedtechnical things.
So it's easier then forcompanies to say yes, yes, we're
podcasting 2.0 compliant.
We have chapters, transcriptsand all these nice, easy to
understand things we bring alongthe audience with us.

(22:54):
And then, guess what, there'sanother version of podcasting.
It's called 3.0.
Oh right, what's in this onenow?
Now, I've got the elephant'strunk and I've got its tail and
I've got one foot.
I can get my head around thebody now and maybe the ears are
next and maybe I can understand,and then I can put it all
together and go oh, I see, thisis the new podcasting thing.

(23:16):
This is the whole elephant.
But I think we're asking peopleto understand what a whole
elephant is when they can onlyfeel or understand parts of it,
and that's my problem, and Ithink tom webster said it very
well.
Podcasting 2.0 apps have failedbecause, as an app developer,
we are not gaining market sharein the way that spotify and

(23:38):
youtube are doing it, and so,therefore, are all of our
efforts leading to nothing.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
I'm not a developer but I have a chatbot that tells
me I am.
And I certainly wouldn't wantto debate Tom Webster on his
knowledge in, like, let's say,the ad tech industry or the ad
industry for podcasting.
But I see a world you knowwhere I hear Todd talk about.
Well, we have a way to look at,let's say, completion rate of

(24:08):
episode listening with chapters.
Right, let's say, we got thechapter tag and maybe why I'm so
critical or what made mecritical of Tom's post was I
would love to see Tom and maybehe is, I just don't know it like
advocate for, okay, badplatforms or large publishers.
Like we've got this chapterthing over here and see, see

(24:28):
down there in podcasting 2.0,there's this tag called chapters
.
We can tie up a way ofreporting on completion rate by
just leveraging, let's say, thischapter tag.
You complete the chapter.
We know you've made it x, xyzpercent through the episode and,
by the way, chapters, we candisplay an ad or something like
that, an impression for yourbrand.
I would love to see thoseefforts tied in Now.

(24:52):
That would also mean that Tomwould come up with some data or
some feedback from big ad techand that means folks in the
podcasting 2.0 world would haveto look at that and say, ok,
critical feedback, let's adoptit, let's think about it.
Let's not shun it away becauseit came from, you know, amazon
or some you know big publisherthat we don't like to, uh, you
know, align with.
Let's look at it respectivelyjust like tom's respecting the

(25:15):
podcast 2.0 tags, I would loveto see that world where, uh, you
know, tom, is that conduit toadd tech and advertiser
advertisers out there andleverage some of this technology
so that we can see somethinghappen.
You know, in that space, onceagain, tiny little tag pulled
out of Podcasting 2.0 that makesa good impact or a big impact.

(25:37):
It doesn't have to be the wholeenchilada, you know.
You know I don't go to therapyI should, but I've been thinking
.
I've been thinking about why Iam like this, I am the way that
I am, and you know Tom wrote anarticle that uses the brand name
Saab right from automobiles.
I grew up in a General Motorsdealership and General Motors

(26:01):
right.
My family owned a GeneralMotors dealership.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Most of us grew up in a home, but it's very nice to
know you grew up in a dealership.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Maybe that explains a lot Quite literally.
It like quite literally workedthere when I was like five until
I was 20 something, but Ialways, like I just grew up in a
space where General Motors wasconstantly telling you what to
do Right, here's the cars youhave to sell, here's, here's how
much money you get foradvertising in this pool.
Everything else figured outyourself, and it was just

(26:27):
constant like breathing down ournecks.
And it was just constant likebreathing down our necks.
And maybe, as I had, thistherapeutic moment is that's.
You know this, you knowcorporate overlord is stuff that
I've never been I've been ableto jive with, because I grew up
watching my father pull his hairout going I can't do this
because of what GM is doing.
And then they went bankrupt andthat's a whole other story.

(26:47):
But you know, that's, that'show I've sort of gotten to this
place in my life.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
How do we fix it?
We can moan and groan, we cantalk about it succeeded.
If you listen to Adam and Dave,it's a massive success.
Look at the adoption, look atall this, and I don't decry them
.
What I said was when Danny andMark used the clickbait, has
podcasting 2.0 failed?
They could have equally saidhas podcasting 2.0 succeeded?

(27:15):
And then we could have saidwhat does success look like?
And Adam and Dave gave theiropinion of what success looks
like, and that's fine.
Tom Webster doesn't think thattheir opinion of success is the
same as his opinion of whatsuccess looks like.
So there is a gap between thetwo.
And what does podcasting 3.0then have to be?

(27:35):
What do the apps have to do?
Tom wants a big shiny buttonand he wants serendipity.
I actually and I'm probablygoing to be laughed out of every
podcast in the future I wouldsay web 4.0.
Oh my God, did he just say that?
Web 4.0 is Gentic AI?
It's the idea of an interfacethat will be personalised to us,

(27:58):
voice enabled potentially.
We've all moved the creepy line, as I call it.
We now probably have a GoogleHome, alexa or whatever.
In our house, we've allinterfaced to some sort of voice
system, even if dumb siri can'tunderstand a word we say.
But we've all tried it and nowwe're getting more intelligent
versions of that and theirinterfaces to the web, and I

(28:19):
think what we're going to seewith podcasting for dodo god,
there's another one to add tothe book is going to be a user
interface where, hey, matt,you've got three comments,
you've got a new podcast readyfor you and you're in the car,
hands-free, and it's talking,and I think Adam and Dave have
even said they've called it theRachel Maddow problem, which is

(28:41):
they don't want to see thepodcasting 1.0, 2.0.
Structure of lists and playlists.
And have I got through my emaillist?
Have I read all the episodes orlistened to all the episodes?
Have I got through everything?
Right, I'm ready for next week.
And Rachel Maddow was talkingabout how she wants a
destination, a community, an endpoint, and I think we're

(29:02):
beginning to hear things likecontent, commerce and community
being the driving fact that youhear that from Substack, you
hear that from YouTube, you hearit from other platforms that
are trying to make that happenPodPay and I think those are the
driving thoughts.
So now we've got to look at oh,dare I say it, going back to
portals.
Even my word you know let's goback.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Everything comes full circle.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah well, mike Homer , who was the driver at Netscape
for the Netscape portal, helpedor instigated creating RSS it
wasn't Dave Weiner and the ideawas that RSS would bring you the
weather, the sport, the news,and then it would be created
onto a portal page.
And Adam and Dave arefundamentally saying the Rachel
Maddow problem is what I want tocreate, rachel Maddow world,

(29:49):
and I want that world to be myblog, my events, my merch, my
podcast, whatever, and it allcomes to one portal page.
So I think that's where we'reheading.
And then there's an interfacelayer on top that will be voice.
How we get there, how soon weget there, I have no idea.
But my bigger question to you,matt, is who's going to lead the

(30:11):
charge?
Because, as I, because as Isaid when I woke up and said
well, if I want to call itpodcasting 3.0, who do I have to
ask permission?
Do I have to go to adam and say, adam, is it okay that we now
start calling this podcasting3.0?
And adam will say I'm not theleader, so then I'll look at the
pod stage.
Davey, can I call it podcast?
Nope, nothing to do with me,mate.

(30:32):
Then I go James Cridland, do Iask you Nope, okay.
Head of Amazon, head of Apple,head of Spotify?
Who's the person who's going toanoint it and say yes, I grant
you the permission to use it aspodcasting 3.0.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
And that goes back to tom's premise there is no one
at the tiller.
Yeah, so I'll get.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
I'll get kicked out of all the podcast events
alongside of you.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Good, because I have another crazy idea so it's just
a good quick couple threads ofthought here.
This is why I am such a hugeadvocate for open source and and
why I think my task in myonline career life is to
advocate for open source.
It doesn't mean I'm a fanatic.
I'm not using the graphene OSphone and, like I'm detached

(31:18):
from you know, cell carriers.
But open source very important,because I think I don't have an
answer of who leads it.
But I think what we'll see isthis trend in people realizing
that, oh, like the Maddow effect, yes, every publisher should be
omni-channel and, quite frankly, we had a stimulus, a steroid

(31:41):
of traffic when we had COVIDright.
That's when I got hired atCastos Podcast Hosting.
I mean, we were selling podcasthosting accounts left and right
.
Private podcast feeds was athing Companies were doing
because that's how they werecommunicating to people at home.
It was a massive shot of ofpurchasing and consumers coming

(32:01):
into podcasting and now we seethis dip.
We also see this dip fromorganic traffic.
We see this dip from socialmedia traffic because there's
just so much noise and Google'slosing search and AI is up and
coming.
So a publisher who's trying tostay afloat without big money or
without spending on ads needsomni-channel audio video,

(32:26):
written newsletter and communityright, it's the whole stack
that we need and what I'mlooking for in the future.
This is the crazy theory.
Part is, with the introductionof AI, you want to have these
open standards to build from,because now people can build
that stack, like Rachel Maddowcan build that stack.

(32:48):
Let's say, with AI, Proofreadall your code, people, before
James throws a shoe at me, don'tship bad code.
Understand what you're doing.
But the point is, is opensource allows us to have that
framework, so that, okay, I wantto build from that.
I want to build my own stack,my own community with all of my

(33:09):
content in my little website app.
Right, matt can build a tiny,tiny version of TrueFans just
for Matt's content.
Or TrueFans can build theportal for Matt and Matt can
adopt that.
I think this is why we need tokeep open source available, so
that we have something to pullfrom, so that it's not closed

(33:31):
source and that innovation justdoesn't come from closed source
software.
When it comes to, you know,podcasting, listening
experiences, you know.
So my crazy world is advocatefor this stuff.
Let people know that RSS isalive and well dare I say that
and that we have a framework topull from and maybe the new

(33:51):
leaders come from the marketshift.
Youtube is great.
Now they want podcasts, they'refriendly with podcasts, but how
many times have we seensomething end up in the Google
graveyard?
Right, it's only a matter oftime.
Hey, youtube's the biggestplace for podcasting.
Yes, because they quiteliterally shut down the Google

(34:12):
podcast app and they said all ofyou come over here now.
So, yes, okay, great, it's theit, because it's the only place
on Google I literally have toput my podcast now.
So I think what we'll see isthis market shift where
eventually, the top level moneydries out at the big places.
They tighten the grip around,like distribution and what you

(34:32):
can do with a podcast, andinevitably, like it happened to
Spotify and then YouTube came in, inevitably another player
shows up.
But I think the new leadershipare going to come from people
who are looking at these bigplatforms going.
You know what I actually don'tneed, that I don't need to be on
YouTube anymore.
I can spin up, actually, my ownlittle video library, because
AI has helped me do it and costof distributing video at a small

(34:56):
scale actually isn't that bad,so I can start to build my own
omni-channel stack the Maddoweffect once again.
Yeah, I don't have a directanswer who will lead it, but I
have a hope that more peoplewill spin up their own, you know
efforts leveraging Podcasting2.0 and other open source
efforts to serve their audience.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, again, I don't know who will lead the charge,
but Aesop's fable comes to mindthe tortoise and the hare.
Those systems are always thehare.
They are always the ones whohave the deeper pockets, the
better marketing, theengineering teams that can go
and build proprietary technology, but it's the tortoise, behind

(35:37):
which, I think, is the opensource that then comes back and
eventually, look at you know thething that makes me laugh the
most, when I was at netscape,we've, we fought ie, and now ie
is basically chrome.
So microsoft edge is chrome andchrome is basically firefox,
and fire Edge is Chrome andChrome is basically Firefox and
Firefox is basically Netscape.
Right, so the thing came fullcircle eventually, where

(35:57):
Microsoft adopted the openstandard underlying it, and I
think I don't suspect thatSpotify or YouTube will do
anything anytime soon.
They don't need to.
They've got massive revenuesand massive market share.
But I do think that there willbe a point where they go oh, how

(36:19):
can we evolve?
And and the thing that I dohope and this is my last point,
I guess is Apple is missing inaction.
I think Apple could be thechampion of the open standards
community.
I think Apple could be thecounterweight to Spotify and
YouTube and they're failing.
They're just failing.
I joke with James, the IE7 ofpodcasting.

(36:43):
They're an awful client.
They've not innovated for Godknows how long and my worry is
that Apple themselves know Applethemselves.
This week, mark Gruber basicallythrew Apple under the bus.
The number one Apple fanbasically said Apple
intelligence is another yearaway.
It's failed.
And I think, when I look atwhat we started off with, saying

(37:05):
that how great the podcastingcommunity has got to get
transcripts and the TXT tagsinto Apple.
I want has got to gettranscripts and the txt tags
into apple.
I want apple then to adopt theperson tag and and the other
tags, the location tag and allthese tags, and be that company
that is the champion ofpodcasting 2.0 or the new name

(37:26):
space, and adopt as many tags asthey can, and only then do.
I think we'll get acounterweight to Spotify and
YouTube, because Apple has themarketing clout behind them and
the market share to do it.
But here's the kicker Don'thold your breath, because
they're not going to do it.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yeah Well, yeah, I guess, never say never.
But I agree with you, like I,there needs to be a continued
champion for a podcasting 2.0.
Right now, it's still herdingcats, which are, you know, the
community behind podcasting 2.0,the hosts, the app developers,
um, and the podcasters, right,getting everyone on board, and I
, you know, I think that all Ican do is continue to advocate

(38:08):
for it so that light doesn'tburn out.
In my opinion, matt.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Matt medeiros, thank you so much.
Thank you for coming on andsharing your thoughts with us.
Podcasting 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 is notgoing to die and there are too
many good people behind it.
But I do think it's not goingto go as fast or as far as
people think and it may take alittle time for the tortoise to
catch up to the hare.
But when it does look out hare,we're going to win, I agree.

(38:37):
I agree, sam, get updated everyday.
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