From Podcast Movement, Dallas TX - and the Wonda of Wondercraft - Podnews Weekly Review

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Cridland (00:00):
Welcome to the Pod News Weekly Review.
Now, just before we begin, thisis what I sound like on a
proper microphone and, as anypodcaster will tell you, it is
much worse if you record on yourlaptop microphone by mistake.
It's worse still if you recordon your laptop microphone by
mistake while walking around abusy podcast conference Almost

(00:20):
inaudible, it turns out.
Luckily, our sponsor,buzzsprout, has a thing called
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It removes background noise,does a lot of restorative work
to the audio even this audio sosorry if what you're about to
hear isn't very good quality,but there are some great people
in this show and I think PowerClean has done a pretty good job

(00:43):
.
It's part of Magic Mastering onBuzz Brown.
We thank them for their support.

Announcer (00:49):
The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters the last
word in podcasting news.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview with James Cridland and
Sam Sethi.

I'm James.

Sam Sethi (01:00):
Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi,
the CEO of TrueFans.
I'm James Cridland, the editorof Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi,
the CEO of.

True Fans Today, the wonder of Wondercraft and
all the fun of podcast movementin Dallas.
This podcast is sponsored byBuzzsprout with the tools,
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podcasting, keep podcasting withbuzzsproutcom From your daily
newsletter.

Sam Sethi (01:22):
the Pod News Weekly Review we will find out in a
minute why Mr Cridland's gotbackground noise and also a
husky voice today.
We will, and also you'll see meadding little words in which
will become relevant later on.
We have a lot to get to thisweek and I'm super excited, so
you will find out why those twoexpressions are no longer needed

(01:44):
Now, james you're in sunnyDallas.

Who killed JFK?
Have we got the answer to thatone yet?
No, no idea, no idea, no idea.

Sam Sethi (01:55):
Nothing on the grassy knoll to tell you that you know
who was it Right?
Moving on then.

Podcast movement .
What's been happening, james?
Let's start off with that.
Yes, well, so very excitingnews.
Here in Dallas, podcastMovement and Sounds Profitable
are merging.
Are they now called PodcastProfitable?
No, no, both grounds arecontinuing.
So basically, the idea is thathey.

Sam Sethi (02:19):
I got a round of applause for it and nothing else
.

You did exactly.
So yeah, so the basic idea isthat Brian Barletta becomes
president we can all believe inpresident of Podcast Movement.
He is organising many of theevents and stuff like that.
The Podcast Movement team arestill involved.
They will be, you know,obviously running it as well.
So a bunch of all of that stuffgoing on.

(02:42):
But that does mean that podcastmovement itself will change
where it does its shows, whichis very exciting.
So this show will be in newyork next year.
It was going to be somewhereelse, it's now going to be in
new york and evolutions will nowbe at south by southwest.
So yeah, all all all excitingstuff really.

Sam Sethi (03:03):
Yeah, podcast Movement, podcast Movement.
So good, they named it twice.
Yes, new York, now that'll becool.
I haven't been to New York forages, so that'll be nice.
And what does that mean for you, james?

Well, it means a few things.
So Podcast Movement has a 50%business partnership with Pod
News, so obviously there's someexciting stuff going on there.
So I'm sort of part of this.
But what it also means is that,in terms of the creators, I'm
actually going to be rather morehands-on in terms of the
Podcast Movement event as well,so I'm going to be content

(03:39):
director, which sounds veryexciting.
I look forward to finding outwhat that actually means.
To get any more money.
Well, that may be one of theconversations so we can look
after really make sure thatthere's a renewed vision in
terms of how we treat ourcreators here, Because the

(04:00):
creators are the importantpeople.
The creators are the reason whywe are here.
You know that's a veryimportant thing, and so looking
after those, you know, is animportant thing.

Sam Sethi (04:13):
And what else has been happening.
Then let's move on, because I'msure this story will run and
run for a little longer.
What's been happening?
How was the movie?
There was a new movie calledthe Age of Audio.

There was.
There was a new movie calledthe Age of Audio.
There was, there was a newmovie, which was played, which
seems to have gone down verywell.
Lots of excited WhatsAppcomments about that, but also,
of course, a lot of big sessionshere as well, and, in fact, one
of those people that was doinga session, hello, christoph from
Orphonic.
Great to meet you, james.
You're on the Pod News WeeklyReview.

(04:44):
You've done a couple ofsessions now, haven't you?
Yeah, we've done a couple ofsessions, and you are the
company that is behind the factthat I no longer say the word um
, although I still say the wordyou know apparently.

(04:56):
Yeah, we're very glad to be that company.
How's it been for you?
It's been great.
I really love the podcastmovement.
It's a great job for us.
It's always great to meet thecreators, meet the people behind
the products, behind thecompanies, to put faces to the
names.
It's always great to meet you.

Well, you're a nice man.
It's always good to see you.
When are you headed?

(05:17):
back Flying out to California to meet a couple of partner
companies next week, and thenI'm going to go back to europe
next week after that there yougo.

Wow, there you go.
You've got a nice, a niceholiday on the way.
I mean not holiday, it's work,but you know what I mean really
good to see you have a goodflight back.
Take care, yeah.
So lots of um, of sessions andthings like like that it's been,
uh, it's been a good um, a goodtime now, one of the things
that was announced there was theall-time greatest podcast, or

(05:45):
at least the top 100.

Sam Sethi (05:47):
Who was the all-time greatest podcast?
Voted by people.
I have no idea who voted.

Well, the all-time greatest podcast, the
number one, was this AmericanLife and that went down very
well.
It's a really good listactually.
It's 100 hundred individualshows which was chosen by around
300 different podcast creatorsand hosts and writers and
scholars and all that kind ofstuff.
They were actually giving awaya quite nice, you know glossy

(06:15):
printout of them all and all ofthat, but no, it's a really good
, good, good list actually and,just before you say it, plenty
of of non-American stuff inthere as well.
There's some German content inthere, of course.
There's a Rest Is show, theRest Is History, which is at 68,
and so on and so forth.
So there's a bunch of reallygood, nice shows in there.

Sam Sethi (06:38):
There was a whole bunch of other seminars.
Talking of Mr Curry, then hewas actually there keynoting on
stage.
Did you go to that keynote?

Adam Curry was.
Yes, he was here on one of thesmaller stages here, so all of
the stages are in the same roomthis year.
It's a really nice sort of cozyatmosphere, which is nice, and
Adam was on one of those stages.
Rather annoyingly, ratherirritatingly and Adam was on one
of those stages, ratherannoyingly, rather irritatingly,
he was on at the same time as Iwas on, which meant two things

(07:08):
it meant that the panel that Iwas appearing on there weren't
as many people as there possiblycould have been, because
everybody was watching Adam, butalso, of course, it meant that
I couldn't actually see iteither.
So I'm looking forward towatching it.
But of course, I will be ableto watch it because, for the
first time, podcast Movement ismaking all of the audio and all
of the video available for freefor anyone.

(07:31):
You don't have to have come,you don't have to buy a ticket.
It's available for free, andthat's a really good move, I
think.
So you will be able to watchAdam Curry and Rocky Thomas on
the Soundstack stage in a coupleof weeks, which should be good,
great.

Sam Sethi (07:45):
And some person, namely yourself, took a bunch of
stickers.
Now, a what was on the sticker?
And B how did they go down?

Yeah, the sticker is my definition of a
podcast, and the reason why I'msort of leaning down is so that
I can read it, because I'mwearing it on my T-shirt
Something for your ears whenyour eyes are busy.
That's my definition of apodcast.
I'm not saying you can't havevideo.
Well, what I think isinteresting actually here is yes
, there's video, and people havebeen talking about video a bit,
but much, much less than lastyear, much, much less, and I

(08:17):
think that's been.
You know that that's beeninteresting.
Seeing the video was a littlebit of a bubble.
It seems to have calmed down alittle bit, even though, of
course, we're all talking aboutYouTube and you know and
everything else.
But yeah, so that's beeninteresting to end up seeing.

Sam Sethi (08:33):
Yeah, ariel Nissenblatt has one on her phone
, I can see, and Harry Morton islooking out for you.
He wants one for himself.

So yes, Ah, well , there you go.
Well, there are plenty morestickers where that, where that
comes from, you know, andeverything else.
So, yeah, no, it's, it's.
It's been fun to wander aroundwith these stickers and and
things.
The other slightly weird thingis that pod news sponsored the
badges this year, so you knowhow very annoyingly, the badge
flips around and you can't seewho somebody is.

(09:03):
Yes, yes, yes, which happens inevery conference, and for some
reason nobody's ever fixed that.
Well, this time it ended upbeing my logo on the other side.
So that was nice, our logo onthe other side, sam.

Sam Sethi (09:15):
Yes, very good.
Yes, no your logo.
You got it right first, don'tworry.
I'm very, very happy.

Your logo, yes.
Now what was your highlight forthe week then?
I think it's a little bit tooearly to talk highlights quite
yet, but I think certainly it'squite a positive feeling, which
is nice.
Last year everybody was a bitsort of deer in the headlights
and there was a lot of change.
I think when you start aconference with exciting news
about its future, that changeshow you think about a particular

(09:52):
conference and it changed thenarrative away from the job
losses at Wondery, and that wasa very useful thing.
So being able to actuallyunderstand you know that there
were other things going on andthere were positive things going
on, you know that was certainlya good thing, I think.

Sam Sethi (10:09):
Now, if you were at podcast movement like James, the
question is did you take anyfun pictures?
James would love to have thoseso you could send them to editor
at podnewsnet.

And yeah, some of those will find their way to
the pod news daily show yes,we've got lots and lots of nice
uh pictures in today's editionof the pod news newsletter.
So, yes, it's, um, it's goingto be, it's going to be, you
know, quite fun for, from thatpoint of view, lots of um,
entertaining people with theirstickers, you know, and all of
that.
So uh yeah, it's so.

(10:42):
Yeah, it's been a good day.

Sam Sethi (10:44):
Good, Now let's move on.
James, this story is called anAI agent called Wanda.
What's this one about?

Yes, so WandaCraft launched this new
agent.
It's a super easy way to make apodcast using AI and you just
type in a prompt and away itgoes.
It's very smart.
If you want to hear one ofthose, then you'll find one in
the PodNews Extra feed.
So you ended up talking toOscar Saranda and you started by

(11:14):
asking who or what is Wanda?

Speaker 8 (11:17):
It's the first AI agent that is built specifically
for content creation, so youdon't really have to learn
editing and timelines and allthat stuff.
You just tell Wanda in plainlanguage what you want to create
.
Maybe that's an audio ad or ameditation, or even video or a
podcast, whatever it may be, andit will do the heavy lifting
for you.
So we're kind of moving intothe space of vibe creating with

(11:41):
Wondercraft as the next phase ofthe company.
So it's a big day for us to getthis moving and it's really the
first step into a next era ofthe company wondercraft so
agentic ai.

Sam Sethi (11:52):
Fundamentally it's an interface to what you could
have done before with prompting,but now you're speaking through
, as you said, vibe creating.
James created a example of thaton Pod News Extra, so if anyone
wants to go and see it, it wasthe Pod News Guide to Dallas, 15
minutes long.
It had a very simple prompt.
We will put that in the shownotes and it was fun.

(12:13):
It was really fun and it wasvery good.
If I was going to create oneand I go in, I put a prompt and
I basically tell Wanda what Iwant.
How do I edit Wanda's results?
What's the process?

Speaker 8 (12:27):
Well, really, what this is is kind of the step into
this agentic era of AI thatwe're all moving into.
You've probably seen this inother places as well.
As you know, softwaredevelopment is fastly moving
into this idea of naturallanguage instead of advanced
controls and learning veryadvanced tools, including coding

(12:47):
right.
In this case, we're doing itwith content in the same fashion
, meaning you use your naturallanguage to describe what you
want to do and have aconversation with Wanda to
really get to that place.
And it's not only about thescript generating right, which
we're used to using ChatGPT orClaude, for instance.
It's also about the agenticside of it, which is actually

(13:10):
doing performing tasks, sofinding the right music for you,
finding the right voices youwant to have for your production
and eventually also videocreation and just controlling
the whole editing and creativeprocess, really by talking to an
AI.
That's really the core of it,and moving into this space is
obviously something we believein.

(13:30):
It's the future of how we'regoing to interact with software.
A lot more Gone are the days of.
You know, I was back in 1993, Igot the first version of
Photoshop and I spent weeks andmonths and then years learning
how to use it, and it's a newgame now better man than me
because I failed, I absolutelyfailed learning photoshop.

(13:51):
I gave up yeah, it's been likethat for a long time.
Right, we're so used tosoftware that we have to learn,
watch tutorials and and this isreally making it way more
accessible for anyone.
And that was the mission withwondercraft when we got started
last last February, as we'vetalked about before.
Sam like making, in that case,audio production way more
accessible to anyone who's notreally used to advanced DAWs and

(14:13):
editing tools and reallyputting the storytelling in
front and center.
So we really want Wanda to be away for you to explore your
creativity, explore your story.
Whatever you're creating, forit all starts with a script.
Whether it's a TikTok video orproduct video you're releasing,
or, you know, marketing orlearning and development,
internal comms, whatever it maybe, it all starts with a script

(14:35):
and that's really where we'restarting out and then filling
that in.
Wanda's going to help you withthe selection of all these
elements to make greatstorytelling happen, just
through conversation of allthese elements to make great
storytelling happen just throughconversation.

Sam Sethi (14:47):
Yeah, I've got a favorite expression from a guy
called Edward de Bono complexityis fail simplicity and I think
software is a very complexplatform.
I think what you've built issome way to simplify that
interface.
So with this, give me someother examples of where you see
Wanda being used.
So obviously, James has used itto give us a 15-minute guide to

(15:09):
Dallas.
You've used it in the past forads foreign language translation
.
I mean, are there other usecases that you see, now that
you've got this AI interface,where people will use WandaCraft
in different ways than theyhave up until now?

Speaker 8 (15:25):
Well, what we see now after a year and a half or so
in market is it's kind ofroughly in two big categories.
It's marketing and internalcommunication, or corporate
communications.
Those are the two big areasthat we see.
Content creation really, youknow companies needing to create
much faster, with efficiency,and just make that into a much

(15:48):
simpler workflow, because Ithink there's a lot of driving
powers behind this.
It's like corporationsstruggling to get attention with
just email, newsletters and,you know, pdfs and communicating
internally like that.
So we're seeing a huge surge ofcompanies, from the World Bank
to big pharma companies, withtens of thousands of staff

(16:11):
around the world and being ableto disseminate information much
easier, and that's a fantasticuse case, I think.
But then what we're seeing alot now which I think is the
times that we're in steppinginto this era of intelligence
really is the one-personmarketing team meaning the small
businesses that has this needto create content, generate
content to be able to berelevant and just be out there

(16:34):
with their brand, and that'swhat we see a lot and we really
want to empower that.
So the single creator of thesmaller team, the smaller agency
who are just needs to do morewith less, and that is a
fantastic use case and I thinkwe're hitting the times
perfectly that to offer up aservice and a really quality
tool that helps people creategreat stories and not only use

(16:57):
gimmicky tools to get somethingquick out, which usually tends
to fall flat right.
So we're really trying to builda platform here that helps
people get to qualitystorytelling.

Sam Sethi (17:06):
Have we passed the Alan Turing test?
Have we passed the line wherewe can't tell that it's an AI
voice anymore?
Do you believe that we are atthe point where the quality of
the content and the output issuch that we are basically I
don't know if that's AI thatcould be actually a human who's
just worded that when are?
Basically, I don't know ifthat's AI that could be actually
a human who's just worded that.

(17:26):
Where are we?
Do you think on that line?

Speaker 8 (17:30):
I think we have passed the Turing test.
When I think people recognizeAI is that it sounds too
polished and almost too perfect,almost too studio.
Sometimes, you know, when werecord there's always a little
in and out with the microphoneor whatever it may be, and that
raw roughness is something thatyou can detect.
But yeah, we are.
Audio has quickly become such ahigh quality and even with the

(17:51):
inflection and the ability toreally prompt and define the
emotional value that you want,you can now do with WonderCraft
as well, which is super powerful.
If you want it to be a kind ofa fast paced news broadcaster
voice on TV, you can prompt forthat.
You can set these emotionalvalues to really make it work,
you can emphasize certain words.

(18:11):
So we've come a really long waywith these creative tools that
we are able to build on top ofall this AI technology.
And that's a big part.
And I think video is catching upquite quickly as well.
As you can see, just in thepast six months there's been a
tremendous development in howvideo is created, specifically
with Gemini and VO3.
But all of these video modelsare following the same path as

(18:34):
audio.
It's obviously a bit morecomplex with video, but it's
certainly coming and we're goinginto a future where we can
basically dream up anything andstart creating it.
It's not easy.
Today.
You still have to know whatyou're creating and define it,
and what we also see there isthat even with a conversational
engine like Wanda, you do haveto explain exactly what you want
to do.
No-transcript, someone who canexplain what lighting does to a

(19:09):
room, and the best copywritersto be able to really create
quality content and that's whywe believe in AI is just really
amplifying the skills that youalready have, but much more
accessible, in a way that youcan really test and learn a lot
faster than sitting and tryingtrying to learn adobe, premiere
or anything like that kind ofthe old school tools I call ai

(19:30):
assisted intelligences, which iswhat you're saying.

Sam Sethi (19:32):
It's a tool to help you rather than a replacement.
All the time video now,obviously, the audio is
available already for people togo on to wondercraft and go and
start to play with.
How long before the video thenwill be available?

Speaker 8 (19:47):
We're going to start releasing video in the next
couple of weeks.
We have a wait list right nowthat you can sign up to
wondercraftai slash Wanda.
If you sign up there, we'regoing to start releasing the
full platform, including videoand all of the tools that that
entails.
It's a huge upgrade to theplatform, but it's going to be
the same kind of storytellinguser interface that you're used

(20:07):
to.
But now we're just chattingwith Wanda to be able to get to
the creation that you want to,and you can instruct her to help
you edit as well.
But we believe in is also likeif you want to have the controls
, you still have the full powerof the end-to-end editing studio
that we have in wondercraft, soyou are able to sit with a
timeline and go and finallyfine-tune your production as
well.

(20:28):
On that end, it's just reallycreating an easier step in model
for us for anyone who's not aprofessional editor to really
get their work done faster andwith better quality.
So that's the idea.
But yeah, go sign up for thewait list.

Sam Sethi (20:43):
Where do I go to sign up?
Then, Come on, give me the URL.

Speaker 8 (20:46):
Yeah let's say it again Wondercraftai slash Wanda,
and that's Wanda with an O.
Yes, something else out thereWanda with an A.
So Wanda funny story about thename.
It was really a working title,obviously, when we started
building this a couple of monthsago and we had this ambition to
go in this direction for awhile now.
Right, and it's been a hugedevelopment and an amazing feat

(21:08):
from the team.
We're still a pretty smallcompany and just an incredible
talent.
I'm so privileged to have thisamazing team.
But Wanda was a working titleand you know, as things go, it
kind of got stuck with us Thenyou couldn't go anywhere without
it.
So it was meant to be.

Sam Sethi (21:25):
I think then you couldn't go anywhere without it.
So it was meant to be.
I think it's a great title, Ithink it's a lovely little thing
.
So beyond wonder are you arewith wondercraft.
You said you're a year and ahalf, now a couple of years.
How has looking back, theexpansion of wondercraft been?
I mean, what's the journey beenlike as an entrepreneur, you
know?
Has it been smooth sailing, orare you these proverbial swan,
you know, smooth on the surfaceand kicking like hell underneath

(21:47):
the water?

Speaker 8 (21:49):
I think it's always like that.
I always liken it with aballoon ride you don't really
know where you're going to endup, but you put the fuel in and
you hope to take off and it'sbeen an incredible journey
really.
I mean, you do make somemistakes here and there.
It's kind of part of thejourney really.
But I feel like we came in withthe right intentions of solving
some problems that I have livedthroughout my career for so
long and been able to really addvalue to a lot of organizations

(22:12):
around the world.
And then it's been anexploration of the use cases and
I think we've kind of grownwith the development and the
acceptance of using AI, becausethe notion of using AI has
changed quite a bit fororganizations.
Last year it was veryexploratory.
Everyone was saying they weredoing it, but no one really had
a big idea of how they're goingto roll it in and what it really
meant.
There's a lot of fear builtinto it and I think the

(22:35):
organization we work with nowhas a very clear understanding
of what AI can really do toempower their staff and it's not
about, you know, replacinghumans, but really give them
more power to remove tasks thatare kind of redundant and people
don't want to do and give themmore space to be creative, and I
think that's one of thesuperpowers that I'm the most

(22:56):
proud of that you can work withcreative teams at audio
platforms or brand marketers orbig HR team that are working on
creating internal comps andonboarding and learning and
development content, and nowthey can do more and they can
actually take their ideasfurther, and I really enjoy that
.
And for I mean you're talkingabout podcasting I always wanted

(23:18):
to fix podcasting.
I think there's always beenstruggles with podcasting and
making it a growing industry.
It's still severely undervalued, right in terms of how many are
listening versus the investmentgoes into it, and I really want
to make the creative aspect ofbrands stepping into audio a
non-issue.
This would be like flowingwater.

(23:38):
Any brand should be able tocreate a great ad quickly, at
the speed of culture, and golive with it, and I think that
is the way an audio industryneeds to grow, and I always said
that.
I think that's brands are soused to meta and Google and
platforms that are really givingthem everything, including
creative, and I think audioneeds to step in that direction

(23:59):
as well, and that's what we'regoing to do this fall.

Sam Sethi (24:02):
Yeah, I wish Wondercraft was around three and
a half years ago nearly fouryears ago, at a radio station
and we were producing ads withvoiceover artists and the
editing time and the re-editingand the cost of production was
so high that actually by thetime you went back to the client
and explained what the price ofthe ad was just to run on a

(24:23):
radio station, you'd probablylost the client or they were
like flabbergasted at the price.
So a tool like Wondercraftwould have been brilliant to be
able to produce those quicklyand reiterate on them as well.

Speaker 8 (24:35):
I think one of the things that we see now in radio
as well, a lot of the radionetworks that we work with is
really bringing back the beautyof a spec ad at scale, being
able to use audio to sell audioto an advertiser that are
curious, listening to podcasting, knows what it is but haven't
really spent in it, and I thinkthat is such a superpower.
I'm so happy about that.

(24:55):
And then the idea of A-Btesting hey, let's try different
accents, let's try differentcreative takes on this to see
what really works.
It becomes a much moreintelligent discussion around
creative within audio and thatis really really exciting to me
to see, because that's somethingthat I always wanted.
You know, working with at acasthe past couple of years of

(25:17):
trying to really work withbrands to keep them in and
figure out what really isworking in audio and unlocking.
That is something I'm reallyproud of.

Sam Sethi (25:26):
Cool Look, oscar.
Thank you so much.
Congratulations on the launchof Wanda.
If anyone wants, as I said, tohear an example of it, flip over
to Pod News, extra James haddone a version there called the
Pod News Guide to Dallas, andyou'll see in the show notes the
script that we use, which wasreally two lines.

(25:46):
It was crazy short and itproduced this amazing result.
So, yeah, nice work.
Thanks, oscar.

Speaker 8 (25:53):
Thank you, Sam.
Thanks for having me again.

What do you think then, Sam?
It was interesting to hear whatthat company is making.
Have you had a play with it?
Have you had a listen to it?

Sam Sethi (26:04):
Yeah, I had a listen to what you produced, which was
great A 15-minute podcastcreated from a single line
prompt, which was very clever.
I think what I said to Oscarabout when I had my River Radio
and being able to producemultiple ads quickly.
I would have loved a servicelike Wanda or Wondercraft being

(26:25):
even as an application, and Ithink the UI or AI interface is
very clever because, you know,it reduces the barrier to
learning from something thatmight be quite complex for
people.
So I can see lots and lots ofother apps doing the same AI
interface.
The interesting other part forme was, though, they're using

(26:47):
four or five different LLMs.
So they're using Gemini,they're using Chachi, bt5.
And I wonder, if you took thesame prompt that you put in
James and chose a different LLM,what the output would be.
I mean, again, I suppose A-Btesting is what Oscar was saying
.
You know you could put in adifferent prompt, you can put in

(27:09):
a different LLM, you can put ina different voice, you can
change it slightly.
It makes it very quick and easy.

And it's quite nice because it, yeah, and it
asks you questions and things asthe process goes.
So, you know, it asks you howlong you want it.
It asks you, you know, for afew other things as well.
So it's a pretty malleablesystem, I think.
But yeah, no, I think it works.

Sam Sethi (27:34):
I think it works well , which is nice.
I guess.
My only question is what's theend goal?
Right?
Where does this all end?
What comes next?
They've done the voices,they've done the language
translation.
Done the voices.
They've done the languagetranslation.
They've done the white gloveservice.
They've done now an aiinterface.
I mean, how much more can youreally do with it?

of course, well, and, of course, video is coming
as well.
So, yeah, no, it'll be reallyinteresting what, what happens
next and, of course, at the endof the day, somebody might want
to go and buy this as well.

Sam Sethi (28:03):
Hello.

Spotify?
Presumably yes, you would havethought that would make a bunch
of sense.
Look, I'm wandering around thebooth and I'm just saying hello
to our friends at the PodcastAcademy.
Hello James, hello Brandon.
How are you?
Today, James.
I am doing fantastic.
You're on the Pod News WeeklyReview.

Speaker 7 (28:30):
How has the show been for you?
It's been fantastic and allkinds of different people signed
up folks for the tpa, a lot ofindependent podcasters who are
excited about our mentorshipprogram and and the ambis, of
course, as well.

So yeah, and the ambis, which are coming back
next year, uh, uh, somewhere ata date.
Do we know the date?
Do we know?
Know the venue?
Yet Is that a thing?
Here we go, somebody else?

Ami Thakkar Raval (28:48):
might answer the question.
Hi, I'm Amitakar.
I'm also on the TP Board ofGovernors.
It's all in the works, beingironed out, so announcements
will happen very soon.
But I will tell you my fourthyear here.
It's going to be very exciting,very new, and we expect it to

(29:09):
be our biggest and best Ambeesaward ever.
We are definitely looking forgood partners and sponsors, and
so we would love to have talkedto people that are interested in
becoming part of this with us.

Well, there we are.
It's a great event, the AMBIs.
I've been to a few of them andso I'm looking forward to next
year.
You can learn more informationat the podcastpadamycom.
I want to say I think that'scorrect.
Everybody says I think that'sright, so that's excellent news.

Speaker 7 (29:40):
Award submissions are open.
Award submissions are open atAM.
Submissions are open atambiescom as well.
There you go.

You've heard it here first, Sam Excellent.

Sam Sethi (29:48):
Not that you and I would enter, but everyone else
can.

Yes, Well, you never know.
I mean, maybe there might be anaward for the least prepared
news show.
Hang on a minute.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Whoa Tiger.

Sam Sethi (30:04):
48 pages of prep here I on a minute.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, tiger.
48 pages of prep here I know.

Yes, yes, yes, apart from the fact that I'm
walking around and ruining yourcarefully planned show.
Yes, well, there we are.
Shall we talk about some of theresearch.

Sam Sethi (30:20):
Yeah, three is the magic number, james.
Why is three the magic number?

Yeah, Well, three is the amount of podcasts
that most podcast listeners makespace for every week.
So that was one of the keyfindings from the podcast study
which was on stage here onWednesday, and they basically
said look, you know, you have towork really hard to be one of
the three shows that peoplelisten to every single week.

Sam Sethi (30:50):
And more research from them.
They also said no secondchances.
That sounds pretty harsh.
Why no second chances?

Well, you know how I keep on fiddling with the
opening of this show.
That's one of the reasons, butit's all to do with if their
first impression is not great interms of a podcast.
41 will never come back again,so which which seems fair enough
, but it does mean that, ofcourse.
You know you always have to beon your a-game, you always have

(31:21):
to make the great show, and youknow that's an important, that's
an important thing to bear inmind, I think okay, and now look
other people at the showannouncing stuff.

Sam Sethi (31:30):
One was how Gen Z listened to podcasts.
That was from Coleman Insightsand Amplify Media.
What have they said?

Yeah, of course, very much talking about YouTube
.
Podcasts are mostly discoveredthrough social media for younger
audiences, which wasinteresting to see, and a load
of differences there in terms ofhow you know young people are
consuming podcasts rather thanolder folk as well.

Sam Sethi (31:57):
And sticking with the young folk.
It says here for the first timein the US, 18 to 29-year-olds
now listen to podcasts just asmuch as radio.
Are we beginning to see I mean,I believe it, but others may
not yet the swing away fromradio to podcasting, just as
we've seen many shows like BBCRadio 1 now losing out?

(32:18):
If I listen to most of theyoung people that I know from my
daughters, they don't listen toradio.
They just go straight toSpotify for music.

now yeah, I mean , it's another part of the
decline of broadcast radio andmoving into podcasting, and this
is data that came out fromEdison Research and, yeah, and
it's a big deal, the fact thatalso that live radio going away,
on-demand audio now being thenumber one thing that people of

(32:49):
that age group tune into, that'svery significant for where the
industry is going.

Sam Sethi (32:56):
I still think live podcasting is an opportunity
that we should grab with twohands, but hey.

Yeah, no, I would definitely agree with that
.

Sam Sethi (33:03):
Now Nielsen backs up this data about radio and
podcasting by saying thatpodcasts represent now one
fifthfifth of daily ad supportedaudio listening time, which is
only second to radio.
Again, you know, young peopleare quite happy to listen to ad
supported audio.

Yeah, exactly, but it's important to point out
that you know, radio is stillsignificantly larger across the
entire age group than podcastingis.
So, you know, things arecertainly changing, you know, in
terms of that.
But, yeah, lots and lots andlots of data.
There's one final piece fromAustralia PodPoll 2025, saying

(33:45):
that millennials, gen Z andblue-collar workers that's
tradies and that and those sortsof people are all listening
more to podcasts here.
So I say, here I'm not, I'm notin australia now am I?
I'm in dallas, but uh, there,so, um, but it also says that
youtube is continuing to to growas well.
But, yeah, a ton of ton ofreally useful stats and uh

(34:08):
things.
I I just thought I ought to sayhello to our friends at
Riverside, stephen fromRiverside.
How are you, sir?
Doing very well, doing verywell.
You have been a busy man.
You've been on this booth fortwo and a half days.
How has it been?
What have people been askingyou?

Justin Jackson (34:28):
We have a lot of happy Riverside users asking
about what's new.
A few people didn't know whatit was.
Explain that and everyone'sasking how they should do video
why they should do video, and soI've been advising people on
that.

Have you been showing anybody any exciting
shortcuts for their iPhone aswell?

Don't bring out the automations here, I'll just
show them a Riverside.

Sam Sethi (34:48):
James James.

It's really good to see you.

Sam Sethi (34:53):
Sam says hi, stephen, you've got to ask about the
hosting mate.
You've got the man of themoment.
What are they doing?

Yeah, we haven't really been talking about it.

There you go.
That's the answer Excellent.

Sam Sethi (35:02):
You've done your training well, haven't you?
That was the insight we wereseeking.
Yes, that was the insight.
Much clearer now.

Excellent, excellent training.
Stephen, thank you so much.
What should we go for next?

Sam Sethi (35:15):
Well, shock horror.
Spotify invents visual audiobooks.
Whatever next, james.
Visual audio books.
So tell me more of thisshocking thing that Spotify has
invented called visual audiobooks.

So Spotify have discovered and this is amazing,
but Spotify have discovered theidea of adding visuals to audio
and as you listen, you getlittle pictures.
As you listen, you could callthem chapter points or something
, couldn't you?
And as you listen, you getchapter images and things.

(35:50):
This, apparently, willrevolutionize audiobooks.
At least one of the people whohas been turned into one of
these new audiobooks says.
He's saying Bruce Holsinger.
He says it's a new frontier inaudiobooks.
It basically sounds likechapters in podcasts with images

(36:10):
, which is supported by quite alot of people, but not everyone.
Yes, so that's that.
That was very weird.
That was a very weird thing.
I bet it's something that, uh,that true fans already supports,
I'm guessing we do.

Sam Sethi (36:25):
But I've got a new sticker for you before we go
into that, something for yourears when your phone is in your
pocket.
So yes yes, there you go.
No, we we have.
And the.
The thing that annoys me alittle bit is we've supported it
for over a year now.
Medium equals audio books andwe did all the work.

(36:48):
We were hoping that there wouldbe hosts who would also support
it.
Change the episodic to serial.
I know Dave Jones did some workwith me on it and nada, nothing
.
And when we spoke to a bunch ofaudiobook providers they were
like no, v4v, not going to playin that game.
We want a fixed amount of money.
It's a guaranteed payment.

(37:09):
And we came up with secure RSSstill nothing.
And then I got Todd Cochrantelling me we've been supporting
private feeds for years and I'mlike it's not private feeds,
todd, it's not private feeds.
And I don't think theyunderstand the difference.
And it worries me that andwe'll talk about it later in the
show it worries me that andwe'll talk about it later in the
show we're still talking aboutvideo support from hosts when

(37:34):
the conversation was a year ago,and we're not even talking
about multiple different mediums, not just audio books, but
courses, films, radio.

And it worries me Indeed.
Well, things certainly change,and things certainly.
You know it's never easy to dothings particularly well, so I
think it's quite difficult toobviously make that fast change.
Having said that, the PodcastStandards Project has been here.

(38:05):
They've had a room.
Justin Jackson has been supergood in there, hey Justin.
Hey, good to see you.
You've had your room in there.
How busy has it been?
People talking about HLS andpodcasting.

It's been unbelievable.
I didn't know what to expect.
We did something similar inLondon and people showed up
every time we announced an eventand without a lot of support
from the organizers.
So this time we made it moreofficial.
We got on the schedule Ourfirst session on HLS video.
I expected maybe 10 people andthe room was packed 40 to 45

(38:44):
people out the door and it's amix of people who old timers,
who care about open podcastingand creators who are curious
about how open podcasting works.
And so many of them after werelike I had no idea this existed,
I had no idea that podcastinghad this like even understanding

(39:07):
RSS and all of that.
They were just and hungry forinformation.
So it's been really, reallywonderful.
And then we've just done somedrop-in sessions as well.
Well, we did our PodcastStandards Project meeting,
biggest one ever for members andpotential members.
Adam Curry came.
We just had a really greatmeeting and that was about I

(39:28):
don't know 25 people for thatreally great meeting and that
was about I don't know 25 peoplefor that.
And then we did another openhouse yesterday with probably
another 20 people that came byfor that just to ask questions
and things.
So there's a real hunger andcuriosity from creators about
how open podcasting works, howRSS works, and then we were able
to demo all of these coolfeatures, like pod role, that a

(39:50):
lot of them don't know about,and so I'm really excited.
I think now we just got to keepgoing, because every time we
tell people about these featuresthat they don't know about and
you see the reaction, it's like,oh, this is worth doing.
So I'm fired up right now.

Yeah, it's really good, I think, Sam, one
of the things that I've realizedis, of course, we are quite far
forward in our discussions, butwhen you're suddenly walking
around here on the Buzzsproutstand earlier, Jordan was
explaining to somebody what apodcast hosting company does,
yes, and you just go.
Oh yeah, it's not quite as easyas it seems.

Yeah except that people are receptive to hearing
about it and really intriguedby it.
I think, and especially once westarted to paint the picture of
like, in kind of dreaming aboutscenarios here's how these
features could work.
And you know, right now we havepod role on the show level.
But what happened if we had iton the episode level?

(40:48):
What would that look like ifyou could recommend other
episodes and people just kind oflight up and they get that bug
of oh, this is what's exciting,being in the open podcast
ecosystem, because you cancreate things, you can propose
things, you can try to move italong and you can kind of build
what a centralized platformwould do.

Justin, it's great to see you as ever.
Have a safe trip back to thefrozen north.
Thanks, james, see you soon.

Sam Sethi (41:17):
Has he got a bright shirt on James?

He's got a beautiful shirt on.
It's a beautiful pink t-shirt,as you would expect.
Indeed.

Sam Sethi (41:26):
Should we move on to a few awards and events that are
going on around the world.

Yes, let's so.
The International BusinessAwards, or the Stevie's,
announced their winners and five.

Sam Sethi (41:37):
Sorry, how do you get from IBA to Stevie's?

I have no idea.
I have no idea how that works.
Okay, no idea, but they endedup giving away seven podcast
awards, which was great, socongratulations to those people.
Winners from the us, uk, canada, australia, belgium and the
dominican republic.
We've already talked about theambis, of course, and the entry
deadline for the apas from audiouk is fast approaching, so if

(42:03):
you're a brit having a listening, having a listen to this, then,
and it's time for you to enterthose as well and now the other
thing that's happening here inthe uk is the london podcast
festival is returning thisseptember, but it's the 10th
year at king's place.

Sam Sethi (42:20):
They've got some great shows pod save, the uk
weirdos book club, sarah pasco.
They've got other ones there ifyou want to go to the website,
which will be in our show notes.
But the festival, which wasoriginally launched in 2016, has
now grown to welcome more than68,000 visitors and over 750

(42:42):
podcasters over the past decade.
So great job there.
I'll be going along to thisyear's 10th anniversary and I'm
looking forward to a few shows.

Yeah, it's pretty good.
It's a pretty big thing.
Other events going on theEmpowered Podcasting Conference
is happening in Charlotte at theend of September.
Also happening in September isPod Summit, YYC up in Calgary
and Radio Days Asia, which I'mgoing to next, which is in
Jakarta in Indonesia as well,and the Afros and Audio Podcast

(43:14):
Festival.
Their seventh and finalconference is happening in
October in Baltimore and PodNews is a supporter.

Sam Sethi (43:22):
Nice one.
Good job, James.
Now the story that tickled mostpeople I think that was in Pod
News Daily was a story by a guycalled Bill Wyman and why he
hates your podcast.
But he doesn't hate it for onereason.
There's 23 reasons he hatesyour podcast.
The people who were commentingon LinkedIn about this were all
nodding in agreement.

(43:43):
So you may have heard me saythings like at the beginning I'm
super excited about what'scoming up next, and friend of
the show and various otherthings.
Well, clearly, we're notallowed to say those things.
According to bill wyman.
What else are we not allowed tosay, james?

there's a ton of things that uh, that he, he
doesn't like, and you know quitea lot of uh, quite a lot of
shows take quite some time toget going, um, and you know, uh,
start with, you know how areyou and how is your week and all
of that kind of stuff.
Just get on with it.
It's a great, fun article.
It's worth a read.
You'll find it at podnewsnetslash articles and yeah, it's a

(44:20):
great piece from Bill.
Bill used to work for NPR inthe US, is now based in
Australia.
It was quite funny.
We were having a chat aboutsomething else and he just said
oh, I've written an article andI can't get anybody interested
in it.
Would you be interested in it?
Yes, please, yes, please, I'llhave that.
So, yes, all super, superexcited.

(44:44):
The Tech.
Stuff on the Pod News WeeklyReview.
Yes, it's the stuff you'll findevery Monday in the Pod News
Newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.
Every Monday in the Pod NewsNewsletter, the Tech Stuff is
supported by RSScom and I'm onthe RSScom booth right now.
I'm going to grab you and sayhello, greg, how are you?

(45:07):
How?

Speaker 10 (45:08):
are you doing, James ?
I'm doing amazing.

You've been on the booth for the last two and a
half days.
Of course you're talking aboutpaid from RSS, but you've also
got this screen behind you.
Tell us about the screen.

Speaker 10 (45:23):
It's pretty amazing, Alberto's.
It's called Podping.
We've basically been able topull every episode from RSScom
that is releasing an episode, soI can see the title, the
description and you get to seehow constantly it's updating
with new episodes that peopleare releasing.

Yeah, so as you've been walking past the RSS
booth, you've just seen newshows appearing every so often,
every 30 seconds or so.
It's been super good.
What are people most interestedin when they're?

Speaker 10 (45:58):
coming here.
Everyone wants to know what isRSScom, what kind of posting
they can provide.
They're really actuallyinterested in seeing this
because it gives you an idea.
Everyone's trying to understandtheir pod SEO.
Everyone's trying to understandgraphics and images.
That pulls people in justtitles, descriptions.
So this now gives you an ideaof like look, you're trying to
start a podcast.

(46:18):
Here's an example so you cansee what's good, what's not.
And then from RSScom, everyonewants to know how do you make
money?
So paid has been a big topic ofconversation.

Yeah, and so I've been trying to pay for the
podcast business journal and itseems to be working well so far.
Greg, thank you so much foryour time.
I appreciate it.
Also, ben and Alberto here aswell.
We've just been hearing fromJustin Jackson about the podcast
standards project and howexciting that's been.
Has it been a good show for you, alberto?

Speaker 10 (46:48):
It has been a great show and I'm very excited for
the podcast standard projectbecause we're going to launch
the location tag, the newversion oh, the location tag.

Yes, this is the .
This is the new and betterversion, sam, which, of course,
true fans already supports butmy t-shirt.

Sam Sethi (47:03):
That has got to be the t-shirt for me yes, yes, it
does it absolutely.

But, yes, so that is coming to rsscom real
soon.
I've actually seen it and it'sa really good implementation.
In fact, it's theimplementation that, frankly,
everybody else should be havinga look at.
When's that coming, albert?
Are you able to tell us?
Well, eta is September,mid-september, september.
There we are.
I don't know about you, sam,but are we getting more of these

(47:30):
very cautious I've been doingmedia training type answers?

Sam Sethi (47:35):
Yeah, there used to be so much more fun, these
people.
Yeah, I'll be there next week.

We're getting a lot of these, but still.
But there we are.
Alberto Ben Greg, thank you somuch.
Have a great show.
All right, james.

Sam Sethi (47:49):
When's a pod roll, not a pod roll.

When it's a pod roll from Libsyn.
Yes, they have announced now,being fair, they have announced
it's a rebadging of a productwhich is called Podroll from a
company called Podrollfm.
Yes, and Podrollfm has actuallyexisted for some time and I
think podroll existed beforepodroll was invented.

(48:18):
Really see what I mean?
I need to check that fact.
Yes, I so I think.
So a lot of people are veryupset about libsyn launching
podroll because it you knowworking with the Podroll folks,
because that's a bit confusingwhen it comes to Podroll for the
new podcast namespace.

(48:38):
But, yes, so the Libsyn versionis people can pay to be in your
show and the second episode isessentially it's a trailer drop
for a diffuse show.
That's basically how that works.
But, yes, it's been aninteresting conversation over
over some beers here okay.

Sam Sethi (48:56):
So just to be clear, though, this does not add to
your existing rss feed.
It's fundamentally a visualinjection into the website page
for libsyn, so that if I'mlooking at a particular show
let's say Podnew's weekly reviewnumber one would be the latest
episode, number two would bethis new injected show and

(49:18):
number three would be lastweek's episode.
Is that correct?

That's pretty well right, except it does get
injected into the RSS feed aswell.
Oh no, Don't like that.
Oh no, Don't like that Ifyou're listening to the feed
from Libsyn, then the latestepisode will be number one and
then there'll be a random trailfor some show at number two.
Now I have to say the Pod NewsDaily did that for a long time

(49:48):
for this show.
Yes, but they were related.
They were related and perhapsthat's the thing here, perhaps
that's the thing here, but yeah,it's certainly been an
interesting conversation, shallwe say.
That's certainly been going on.

Sam Sethi (50:03):
And what was the overall view?

positive or negative, then dare I ask I'm
not sure that it's that positive, and I would rather that they
hadn't called it Fodroll.
I think it's just confusing.
But you know, by all meanslaunch a thing where the number
two episode is something else.

Sam Sethi (50:23):
Can they rename it?
Promo Roll.

I'm sure that they could rename it all kinds
of things, but I'm not sure thatthey're going to all kinds of
things, but I'm not sure they'regoing to but, but, yes, but
that.
But that was certainly aconversation.
That was certainly aconversation.
Um, that going on the lips inbooth is one of the biggest
booths back here again, which is, which is interesting.
But pretty well, everybody elseis the same sort of sort of of

(50:48):
size and, as ever, the folksfrom Blueberry are here, todd
and Mike.
Hello, todd, how are you?
Hey, doing great.
It's it's day three.
We're all a bit tired.
How, how late were you up lastnight?
Midnight, midnight.

Todd Cochrane (51:06):
Yes, that's not.
That's not too bad.
Yeah, it's actually better thanthree o'clock in the morning,
like it usually is, but I can'tcomplain more.

I can't complain too much.
It's been a weird show thisyear, hasn't it, because of the
upcoming changes and everythingelse.
Have you had some goodconversations at your?

Todd Cochrane (51:26):
booth.
Believe it or not, it's beenmuch better than last year.
So a lot of quality discussions.
We're actually pretty impressed.
We're going to walk away with alot of leads, great
conversations.
I didn't say that at all lastyear, so from that standpoint
it's been a much better show,even though it's been smaller,
but a lot of local people comingin, interest, new podcasters,

(51:53):
interests the new podcasters,new creators.
I really have no complaints,and it's hard for me to to.
Actually, usually I'm the onethat's coming out of here
disgruntled, and this year I'mvery happy can, james, james,
can you just ask todd if thecarpets meet his requirement as
well?
well, they had carpet already.
So you know, of course it metthe requirements and I had.
We always order extra paddingto make sure our feet stay sane,

(52:13):
but no it's.
You know it's been, it's been agood event.
I think you know, maybe you'regoing to have your hands full a
little bit with editorial dutiesfor next year's creators track,
because I have seen a littlebit of pitching going on in some
of the sessions.
So you get that under control.

I think it'll up the game quite a bit too yeah,
no, I think it's good, and Imean basically todd, saying I
have no complaints, I think Ithink I know what the number one
story is going to be.
Uh, that's, that's amazing,really good, really good to see
you both.
I will see you.

Sam Sethi (52:47):
See you later, I'm sure yeah, say hello to sam uh,
well, uh, yeah, I look forwardto seeing you soon.
Todd take will see you later,I'm sure, yeah say hello to Sam.

Well, yeah, I look forward to seeing you soon.
Todd, Take care.

Sam Sethi (52:58):
So what else is going on in terms of the tech stuff?
Sam HLS let's get back to that,then.
So we talked a little bit aboutRocky.
Thomas was on stage with Adam.
I look forward to seeing whatwas said.
There was also the PSP trackthat went on.
There was also the PSP trackthat went on, but Rocky also
posted on her own blog aboutbetter podcast delivery through
HLS, and she did answer some keyquestions, one of those being

(53:20):
how would Soundstack charge forHLS?
And again, what was interestingfor me is that they're not going
to be charging on a per request, because if you're downloading
an mp4 and it's a single requestfor the file, that's great.
If you were doing hls with 100requests, because you've chunked

(53:41):
up the audio or video and theywere charging per request, that
would make it well impossible touse as a service because the
cost would be too high.
So what they're doing isthey're treating each hls chunk
as a byte range request andthey're only looking at the
total download delivery as thecost model, which is the same as

(54:02):
an mp4, which which meansultimately in english that you
could save money, because oftenthe listener doesn't listen to
the whole show and therefore, ifyou're only paying for the
delivery of what's beendownloaded, then again it should
be cheaper than using aconsistent mp4 file if you

(54:26):
switch to an HLS now.

Yeah, no, it was , it was good.
I mean, it very much gets intothe technical weeds.
I think there's still debategoing on around HLS and whether
HLS makes sense for certainlyfor audio.
But yeah, it's reallyinteresting seeing Rocky, you
know, pushing that and movingthat forward, and of course, she
was the person that broughtAdam Curry, the co-inventor of

(54:50):
podcasting, here as well.

Sam Sethi (54:51):
Had to be a woman, couldn't have been us.
Did we ask Adam to go and do it?
Yes, we did.
Did he say no?
Yes, he did.

Well, maybe Rocky was just a bit more
persuasive than we were.

Sam Sethi (55:07):
She's just a nicer person than we are.
That's what I'd say.

I'm very much looking forward to hearing from
Adam on the Podcasting 2.0 showabout his experience here.
I hope it was a positiveexperience.
He certainly seemed to be, allyou know, all smiles whenever I
saw him, so from that point ofview that was good and I'm very
much looking forward to watchingthat particular show on the
podcast video feed and on theaudio feed as well.

Sam Sethi (55:34):
Now friend of the show.
I'm not allowed to say that,but I'm still going to do it.
Yes, john Spurlock, he'sreleased a product called HLS
Podcast Radar.
What's this one, james?

So this is a fancy new website, hlslivewireio
, and it is essentially all ofthe latest shows that have been
published using HLS all of thelatest videos, so you can go and
watch that.

Sam Sethi (55:59):
Now what was interesting.
I was talking with DavidMarzell on Mastodon, who his
podcast is KDE Express.
It's in Spanish, it's usingPeerTube, but now PeerTube have
updated their RSS feeds as welland can support HLS.
So we tested that on TrueFans.
That worked, of course.

(56:19):
But what's interesting is JohnSpurlock has said now, if you
add as a end of the URL HLSequals one, then he will be able
to pick that up on HLS Livewireas well.
So it's another way if you wantthe analytics to be recorded
with John, how you can do that.
So the prefix stays OP3, butthe end of the URL you just now

(56:42):
add, hls equals one.

to help John, Well, there's a thing.
So yeah, uh, yeah, I mean op3doing great guns.
Actually quite a lot of peopletalking about op3 here, which is
nice.
There's been a number of people, you know, not really
understanding what op3 has doneuntil now.
And you know op3 has also addeda bunch new, a bunch of new
apis.

(57:05):
One of those apis added becauseit because daniel j J Lewis
wanted to build something cleveron his desk actually that just
showed all of the downloads forhis shows, and so that API is
available for everybody, whichis nice.
And you know, op3 is such auseful tool because you can see

(57:25):
all kinds of things.
During the week, we linked toupdates of the latest version of
iOSos, for example.
You can actually see that datain op3, you know.
So you can see how applepodcast is doing versus spotify.
You can see how you know howpeople are consuming shows, when
people are consuming shows indifferent time zones.
It's a really useful, usefultool.

(57:46):
It it needs its financialsupport.
Pod News pays for a bit of it.
More people should pay for abit of it too.

Sam Sethi (57:59):
But I think you know that's certainly a thing.
Youtube, they've added a silentskipper Again just a nice
little feature.

They've taken from Google Podcasts, it seems.
Yes, this was a thing that youknow.
Obviously most podcast appshave, we don't.
And oh, there you go.
Well, you can get rid of um ofbits of silence in your in your
show.
It just uh, it's a.
It's a interesting way of sortof speeding up, and youtube
music has just added it now.
It used to be in googlepodcasts, so so it's a bit weird
that they didn't put it intoYouTube Music originally, but

(58:29):
yes, they've added it in there.

Sam Sethi (58:32):
Fountain has released 1.3, a new version of their app
, and they've added a likebutton and some other new
features to the home tab as well, so worth a look at fountainfm.

Yes, they have, so they've done a bunch of work
in there too.

Sam Sethi (58:48):
Now, this is just a side note.
It may never.
It'll probably hit the cuttingroom floor, but we'll see.
We talked last week about thegranularity of the explicit tag
either you are explicit oryou're not and I was saying is
there a way of adding moregranularity to it?
And I was chatting to RussellHarrower from Pod2, and he

(59:09):
pointed to me to the RSS Media,which has a media rating built
into it.
Now this is dating back to 2009, when it was first promoted.
So it exists, it's there, it'sfully documented.
Is this something that thepodcasting 2.0 namespace should

(59:29):
take or support?

Well, the Media RSS namespace is obviously a
separate namespace.
I think Yahoo have been lookingafter that.
It's got a bunch of reallyuseful things in it, including
ratings.
I think ratings are a totalwaste of time because who
polices them at the end of theday, and also ratings in one

(59:54):
particular country is verydifferent to other countries
because there's this thingcalled culture and that also
exists as well.
But if it's a conversation thatthe industry wants to have,
then certainly, looking at themedia RSS specification again,
just like the podcast namespace,you can stick it in your RSS
feed right now.
It won't break anything becausethat's how RSS works.

Sam Sethi (01:00:16):
You had a conversation, actually to be
fair to you back in 2020 aboutthis on the GitHub with Daniel J
Lewis.
I assume the answer to thewhole thread was no, we're not
doing it.

James Cridland (01:00:28):
then I assume the answer to the whole thread
was no, we're not doing it.
Then I mean, I don't see theuser need for that and I think
it's very difficult.
You know, the reason whyratings exist is for TV
broadcasters, for films, youknow, for those big industries,
for films.
You know for those bigindustries and you know and

(01:00:50):
everything goes through.
You know official rules andregulations and everything else.
Podcasting isn't like that.
So I'm not sure that we needall of this additional
complication.

Sam Sethi (01:01:06):
But I know that Daniel's very keen to get that,
you know, up and running.
Yeah, I'd just say explicit, aseither on or off is a very
blunt method of verifyingwhether this podcast should be
listened to or not.
And I'd also that, with much ofthe age verification going on
in the uk and the social mediaverification in australia, I
don't think it will be longbefore those podcast

(01:01:27):
requirements as well.
And even you ask who mightpolice it.
Well, what about the people whodo brand verification, or what
are they called, I can'tremember now?
They brand safety people wherethey determine it.
Well, there must be a metricthat they're using to determine
safety by.

Yes, there are, but it's mostly looking at the
words that have been said in apodcast and so it doesn't have
any of the context around there.
That's been one of the issueswith those services in the past.
So I mean, you know, and youknow ratings are more than just
fruity language.
You know ratings are talkingabout difficult concepts and

(01:02:09):
that sort of thing which youknow ratings are talking about
difficult concepts and that sortof thing which, you know again,
is very difficult to capture byautomated means.
But you know, if people want towork on that sort of thing,
then of course that's fine.

Sam Sethi (01:02:22):
Well, the good news is ChatGPT believes it already
exists, so Russell put it intoChatGPT and it came back with
podcast colon rating.
It's now available and, in fact, good news, podverse and
Fountain, according to ChatGPT,have already implemented it.

Great news.
Well, there you go.
That's all very exciting then,isn't it?

Announcer (01:02:43):
Instagram, boostergram, supercomments, zaps
, fanmail, superchats and Email.
Our favorite time of the week,it's the Pod News Weekly Review
Inbox.

Yeah, so many different ways of getting in
touch with us.
Fanmail, by using the link inour show notes, Supercomments on
True Fans or Boosts everywhereelse.
Or, of course, Email we sharethe money that we make as well.
Fanmail we've received a fanmail.
We have?
We've received a fan mail.
Have we sam?

Sam Sethi (01:03:12):
we have, yes, yes, who's that from?
Yes, it's great news the uglyquacking duck.
I think he decided that.
You know, sending his boost wasa little bit too slow, so he's
gone back to fan mail.
He says hope the trip toamerica and the show goes well.
He says can't wait to hear inbrackets about it.
Video not needed.
Ugly quacking duck 73.

Yes well, there we are.
So it's always nice to see apiece of fan mail coming through
Buzzsprout.
What else do we have?
Lyceum has sent us some satsfor Engine 20.
Thank you, I look forward totesting it out.
This is talking about Wanda.
I'll join Wanda's waiting list.
Did you have a beer at thepodcast movement?
Oh yes, can't you tell?
I have great food memories froma deli restaurant in dallas.

(01:03:54):
I tell you what.
So I was at the bar until aboutmidnight last night I then go
and have to go and write andrecord pod news, which is why it
might sound a little bit slurryfor th's edition.
But then, as I was doing that,I got a text from my lawyer.
A text from the lawyer at halfpast midnight and I'm thinking

(01:04:16):
oh no what?
And he texts me and he saysthere are 40 people here at the
swimming pool.
Why don't you come and join us?
That was legal advice I didn'tfollow Half past midnight.

Sam Sethi (01:04:31):
You forgot your budgie smug list, did you?

Yeah, the only person who is seeing my belly
button is me.
I'm not sharing that withanybody else, so that was good
fun.
Sai has sent us two 347 satsusing True Fans.
Thank you, sai, I reallyenjoyed this episode.
Ah yes, this was our specialadditional episode, true fans.
Thank you, si, I really enjoyedthis episode.
Ah yes, this was our specialadditional episode last week
with NJ and you, which loads ofpeople said that they really

(01:04:56):
liked Sam.
So thank you for that, si saysSam and Norma bounce off each
other on some of the hottesttopics Works really well.
Maybe you could have a moreregular panel conversation with
other podcasting experts whenyou hosts have to take a break.
It could be quarterly to makesure that there's enough to talk
about.
Okay, well?

Sam Sethi (01:05:15):
There you go.
Well, there we are.
Maybe Maybe Si did ask mewhether we were giving Norma any
splits and I said that the onlyplatform that supported guest
splits was.
Truefans.
Here we go.
Well, we can't add it tobuzzsprout, because buzzsprout
oh, here we go officially so I Idid.
I did show in the screenshot ofwhere we do support it.

(01:05:37):
So there you go.

Well, that's all very uh, that's all very
exciting.
Talking about buzzsprout, I'vecome back to the buzzsprout
stand, uh, which is where Istarted.
Actually.
I came back, there was TomRossi and I walked up to Tom
Rossi and he ran away.
So I'm not quite sure why, butJordan's here oh, hi, hi, james,

(01:06:00):
oh hi, hello.
Yeah, how are you?
You've been.
You've been on this, on thisbooth, for the last two and a
half days.

Jordan Blair (01:06:06):
I have been and suddenly I find myself alone and
I'm wondering if you haveanything to do with that.

Not so far as I'm aware.
Not so far as I'm aware.
What have people been asking?
What are people interested in?

People seem to really be interested in
modernization that is notprogrammatic ads, that is like a
little bit more creative.
And they seem to be reallyinterested in tools that are
going to make podcasting a loteasier for them, because they're
not tech minded.
That seems to be a really hottopic here.

And what have people been most excited about
in terms of the swag that youhave here?

Oh my gosh.
T-shirts are always a big hit.
We've got our enamel pins.
Our stickers are a really bighit, and this year we have been
testing out some hats forpickleball theme right, and
these hats are flying, sothey're very nice.

Yeah, there are some very beautiful hats.
That's a Nike one I can seethere, so that's doing very well
.
This is pickleball Sam, notyour paddle thing.

Sam Sethi (01:07:05):
I know that you love pickleball.

I know that you love paddle, but you know, there
we are now.
It's still all to do withpickleball over here.

Sam Sethi (01:07:14):
Yeah, when they grow up it'll get to paddle.

Yes, no, exactly right.
Well, really good to see you.
Thank you for allowing me toleave my bag here.
That's very kind as well.
Ben from rsscom has just comeand given you a bit of sugar,
which is nice.

He gave me some taffy salt water tapping, which
I will not eat.
You know, you never know whatthey might have put in it.
Yeah, I don't, I don't trust Idon't trust competition.

Thank you so much it'd be fun to see you
anyway.
Where are we, as if that wasgoing to happen.

Sam Sethi (01:07:47):
Yes, go on 222 from Lyceum as well.
He says I will become a powersupporter in the near future as
I've started a new podcastcalled Sweet the Gig.
What is the symbolic meaning ofpower supporter number 22?
We don't know, because wehaven't got there yet.
And he says James, have a safeflight and a jolly good time at

(01:08:08):
the Podcast Movement Conference.
By the sound of your voice,James, you have.
He's wondering whether we canarrange a lit show during the
conference.
Well, no, we can't because I'mnot there.
And yes, so next time, maybe,maybe in London, you never know.

Yeah, next time maybe.
Or yes, in New York or whatever, but yeah, no, it's fun to do.
He also says, by the way,things can happen with the
recording of podcast episodes.
Our podcast pen meets paperalmost got cut off during an
electric blackout in lebanon,which is quite a thing.
Yes, lots of interesting thingshappen.

(01:08:44):
It's quite nice just being justholding a laptop, even though
it gets quite heavy, and walkingaround rather than bringing an
entire rig.
So, yeah, so that's a thing.
A couple of other quick messages.
One from Matt Cundall excellentcoverage of the Wondery
restructuring.
Well, thank you, matt, that'svery kind of you.
Hopefully I'll see you inCalgary in a couple of weeks.

(01:09:05):
Another from the Ugly QuackingDuck saying that he's glad that
boosts are working again.
Yes, absolutely Us too.
And Seth, talking aboutcreators and talking about the
ones that are making it big onPatreon.
Seth says I always try to tellpeople to make money and ROI
around your podcast instead ofon your podcast, which is an

(01:09:28):
interesting way of thinkingabout it.
Lots of supporters Thank youfor the 21 people who are
supporting this particular showevery week, including Neil Velio
and including Jim James andincluding David Marzell.
You can join that as well.
Weeklypodnewsnet is where to go.
So what's happened for you thisweek, sam?

(01:09:49):
While you've been stuck injolly old England, have you seen
anything exciting?

Sam Sethi (01:09:56):
Went up to Edinburgh for the Fringe first time ever
which was great Saw an Aussiecalled Gary Starr, now James.
I would say he is the funniestever comedian I've ever seen.
Period end of he did the wholeshow naked.
That's all I would say.
Oh nice.

Oh nice, that's what you need, he forgot his
budgie smugglers.

Sam Sethi (01:10:17):
Yeah, he totally forgot his budgie smugglers.
Yes, he was crowd surfing nakedand cartwheeling naked, so lots
of things to be done naked, yes.

But he was very, very funny.

Sam Sethi (01:10:37):
Well, there we are.
Have you built anythingexciting for for true fans?
Well, we were in the middle ofbuilding a promotion function.
So the idea of creators beingable to buy space on the hero
pages on our home page or on thecarousel.
So if you yeah, if you wanted tobe listed in a category.
So that's gone live now andthat's been great.
And I really liked what Libsyndid with the way that they
implemented promos in the middleof podcast page listings.

(01:11:02):
I don't like the idea ofinjecting an actual episode into
the RSS feed.
But yeah, so we've sort oftaken that idea and we've added
that now so you can now buy.
So let's say, somebody wantedto buy space on True Fan slash
Pod News Weekly Review.
We would get a request.
We would then accept thatrequest or reject it, and if we

(01:11:24):
accepted it, then the secondpodcast would be listed, but we
don't add it to the RSS feed atall.
So yeah, so we've built that aswell.

Oh well, very nice.

Sam Sethi (01:11:35):
James, come on, then.
What's happened for you thisweek?

I mean, I think really, you know.
I mean it's obviously been allabout Are you going to describe
the gif?
It's obviously been all about?
No, it's.
Sam grabs a bag of popcorn andsits back.
It's been a really interestingweek, just because an awful lot
of change for this show goingforward and an awful lot of very

(01:12:01):
quick change that quite a lotof us have had to all of a
sudden go into.
But no, it's been a good week.
It's been fun to say hello to abunch of people here and fun to
you know.
Yeah, it's been a good week.
I think I'm wondering whether Ican interrupt a conversation

(01:12:26):
going on and just say hello toBen from Airwave.
Hello, ben, you're on the PodNews Weekly Review.
How has the event been for you?
You've been on a big stand heretalking about Airwave.

Speaker 5 (01:12:39):
I think it's been great.
I think it exceededexpectations.
I think there's a lot of greatpeople here.
We've stayed out of the heatand it's been a fun week.

Yeah, it's been good.
So you've been talking aboutAirwave.
Who are Air?

Speaker 5 (01:12:51):
waves.
If people don't know, air waveis a fully comprehensive podcast
network that includes ad sales,promotion and growth, other fun
stuff, and, additionally tobeing a network, I think we're a
community.
Most of our podcasters knoweach other and interact
regularly.
I hate to say a family, but atthe very least we're a community

(01:13:11):
?

yeah, no, indeed , and it's nice to come and see,
see the family here you know,every single year.
So, yeah, so it's great to seeyou, ben, you know, I hope
you've had a good, a good, agood time.
What?
What's the, what's the mainsort of feedback that you're
getting?
What?
What are, what are creatorsasking about this?
What?
This event?

Speaker 5 (01:13:29):
I think we're hearing a lot more about subscriptions,
particularly than we have inthe past.
Obviously, monetization, a lotof talk about video, of course.
I think I see podcasters andindustry people finally coming
down from the video high overthe past six months or a year
and coming down to a little bitof reality where that's regarded
.
But, yeah, it's a great crowd,it's been really fun.
Always good to see you down toa little bit of reality where

(01:13:49):
that's regarded.
But uh, yeah, that's a greatcrowd, it's been really fun.

it's always good to see you it's been great to
see you, ben.
I will see you soon okay, takecare there you go ben from
airwaves.
So, yeah, it's, it's, it's,it's, and I think that that's
been.
The story of the conferencereally has been much less talk
about video, much more talkabout what matters to podcasting
something for the, somethingfor the ears when the eyes are
busy, and I think that's beensuper exciting.

(01:14:13):
So, yeah, so that's been myweek basically was?

Sam Sethi (01:14:17):
was youtube actually at the event there this year?

there was somebody from youtube here, yes,
on a panel that john wardocklooked after.
So he uh certainly ended updoing that, and but that was the
only.
That was the only bit ofyoutube.
Yes, so there wasn't very muchyoutube there.
They were much more involved inevolutions earlier on in the
year and perhaps evolutions aswas was a better event for them.

(01:14:41):
Evolutions next year moves tothe south by southwest, and so
obviously youtube will be verymuch involved in that.
I'm sure you know as we goforward, cool, well, so that is
it for this week.
All of our podcast storiestaken from the PodNews daily
newsletter at podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi (01:15:01):
You can support the show by streaming sats.
You can give us feedback usingthe Buzzsprout thumbnail linked
in our show notes.
You can send us a using thebuzzsprout fun mail link in our
show notes.

You can send us a super comment or become a
power supporter, like the 21people at weeklypodnewscom it's
our music, it's from tm studios,our voiceover is sheilad, our
audio is recorded using cleanfeed, we edit with hindenburg
and we're hosted and sponsoredby buzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting, keep podcasting, get

(01:15:30):
updated every day.
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Sam Sethi (01:15:36):
Tell your friends and grow the show and support us,
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Weekly Review will return nextweek.
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From Podcast Movement, Dallas TX - and the Wonda of Wondercraft

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Podcast Movement, Dallas TX - and the Wonda of Wondercraft