Gaslighting the Industry: Big Names Support, AI Transformations, and RSS Feed Frustrations

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Cridland (00:00):
It's Friday, the 2nd of June 2023.

Voice Over (00:04):
The last word in podcasting news.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview with James Cridland and
Sam Suthey.

I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News
.

Sam Sethi (00:15):
And I'm Sam Suthey, the CEO of Podfans.

In the chapters today, pod X, acquire Listen.
Ai is coming to podcasting.
Why are Google, apple andSpotify gaslighting the podcast
industry?
I see that you've done there,Sam.
Is it time for the DOJ to lookinto Apple And how to see Apple
podcasts around the world withjust one click And also?

Maxime Piquette (00:39):
it's Maxim Piket, ceo at OSHA, and I will
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a new feature to bring AI intoyour podcasting workflow.

They will.
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(01:15):
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Sam Sethi (01:40):
So, James, let's kick off.
James, I've had enough.

Okay, yes, you don't look like a happy man, sam
.
What's the problem?

Sam Sethi (01:49):
Well, I feel I'm being gaslit by certain elements
of the podcast industry, namelyGoogle, Apple and Spotify.
But before I go into why, let'shave a look at the positives
first before I get into thenegatives.
Let's start off with thepositive note of the podcast
show in London.
Have you recovered yet, James?

I tell you what the first couple of days I mean
the jet lag was quite something,plus, of course, all of the
tiredness of seeing loads ofpeople and walking around and
being on for three days.
But yeah, i've just aboutrecovered.
Have you recovered?
Yeah, it took me two days torecover.

Sam Sethi (02:23):
I actually had to sleep during the day.
I was worn out, but accordingto the organizers, 10,000
attendees, 40 countries, and theevent itself was great.
If I knew, you opened it with akeynote, we had our drinks,
which was great, and then weclosed it with our live
recording of the show, which wasa lot of fun, actually, with

(02:45):
the audience as our guest.
So, yeah, i thought, overall myopinion, i thought it was a
great event.
Well done to the chaps who didit.

Yeah, i think the Toms who ran it they've both
done a really, really good jobin organizing that And, of
course, jason Carter being thebig man.
So, yes, very much lookingforward to the podcast show 2024
, which I assume will beannounced very shortly, and I'm
guessing it's going to be in thesame place, although who knows?
But, yeah, really enjoyabletime.

(03:14):
So, yeah, absolutely.

Sam Sethi (03:16):
I have to say, though , i am a little bit peeved, and
that is because, once again,youtube turned up to an event
and said nothing.
Now, you had a little bit of aexclusive, i guess, before or
during the event.
What was it?

Yeah, so I was talking about YouTube's RSS
ingest trial, which we got aleak from from a benefactor.
If you listen to other podcasts, you will know exactly who the
deep throat was, who gave usthat particular leak.
It's pretty damning in terms ofsomething that the industry

(03:55):
might want.
Youtube are basically sayingthat they're using the RSS feed,
frankly, as a shovel to getmore content into YouTube And
they're not using it foranything else.
They want your podcasts to bead free, so therefore, they
don't want any of the ads thatother people have sold.
Oh, no, because YouTube want togo out and sell those

(04:18):
themselves, and so, yeah, thewhole thing is just, is just bad
, i think, in terms of that.

Sam Sethi (04:25):
Yeah.
So what I wanted to do in thenext few minutes is lay out a
case of why I believe we'rebeing gaslit by these key
platforms Google, apple andSpotify for not supporting the
wider podcast community, notsupporting women in podcasting
and not supporting the blackpodcast community.
I'll explain that.
But it was the final straw thatbroke my camel's back this week

(04:45):
When I went to watch Google, orlet's say, youtube, one more
time.
I think her name's Alison Lomax, lovely lady, have nothing
against Alison packed again,everyone expecting a big
announcement from YouTube, givenwhat you would publish that day
.
What was Alison's response toJames?

I mean, she basically said absolutely
nothing.
She stood there.
I was there watching this thing, where she was very surprised
at how big podcasting was.

Alison Lomax (05:16):
I had no idea that it was going to be quite this
fast.
So yeah, it's absolutelyincredible.

Her idea of podcasting.
She kept talking about videoand people you know watching
stuff.

I think the misconception is that podcasts
are quite new on YouTube,whereas actually the reality is
that they've been on YouTube fora really long time.

And there was someone else, as they usually do
.
Kai Chuck did this at podcastmovement evolutions last year,
where they got somebody whomakes video shows and talked as
if that's podcasting, which itisn't.

Sam Sethi (05:50):
We're a baby podcast, it's just getting burned, but I
think you know knowing how muchof an opportunity monetization
brings on YouTube.
Really, there's no one else whocan provide what YouTube
provides, And that's whycreators continue to flock to it
more than any other platform.
It's almost like thecornerstone.

I think of the creator economy really.
But Alison Lomax said virtuallynothing And the only sort of
the nice thing is she gave us alittle name check by saying
there's no big launch today, bythe way, brenn Yorn, who's been
reading Bob Muse I hate todisappoint anyone on that.
Excellent that she read mystory, But why again come to one

(06:25):
of these events and sayabsolutely nothing?

Sam Sethi (06:28):
I know I mean as if they don't know anyone's going
to be there, As if they don'tknow the industry's actually in
the room.

Do we have any creators in the audience?
out here, loads of creators,massive respect.

Sam Sethi (06:38):
They just I mean, as you said, kai Chuck room full in
LA and said nothing.
They came last year to London Ieven spoke to Kai Chuck by
mistake actually, because Ididn't realize he was just on
the stand And that's the problemI've got.
They come along to these events, they don't say anything And
then they just walk away, andthat, for me, is where it

(07:00):
started.
I've got a little bit sort ofpeeved with these companies
because they seem to do it atevery event.
One of the things you said lastweek that I thought was quite
critical was that if they aresuccessful, fundamentally they
could kill podcast hosts becausethere wouldn't be a need for
them.
And actually our friend ToddCochran has got a little bit

(07:21):
upset, and I tend to agree withme.
He said I'm not a fan of whatYouTube is doing hijacking.

Todd Cochrane (07:26):
This is dumb.
This is dumb to begin with.
What they have done is dumb AndI'm not going to lose any sleep
over it, but I'm not going todo anything on Blueberry's side
to facilitate.
That Video is a differentanimal And I say to people that
want to do that good luck, Butdon't get distracted from the
price.

Oh, yes, and of course he said ownyourowncom at
the end of it.
And ownyourowncom.
He is absolutely right And Ithink hijacking is a good word.
That's exactly what YouTube aredoing here.
They're trying to hijack RSSfeeds, pull in shovel in as much
podcast content into theirclosed platform.
It's not just podcasts hostswhich will be killed off.

(08:09):
If YouTube does this well And ifGoogle doesn't mess it up and
frankly, google is pretty goodat messing these things up, but
if Google doesn't mess it up itwill mean an end to all podcast
hosts, because there won't be aneed for that.
It'll be an end for all ad techcompanies, because there won't
be a need for that.
It'll be an end to allattribution companies, which
some people might think is agood thing, but not sure it is.

(08:31):
So it'll be an end to thousandsand thousands of jobs just
because YouTube want to grab allof the RSS content which is out
there and use RSS as just ashovel to pull in as much
podcast content.
It's a really bad thing.
Somebody was saying to me theother day you know YouTube wants
to save podcasting.

(08:52):
I don't think YouTube's comingto save podcasting.
I think YouTube's coming tokill podcasting And the fact
that they can't even be botheredto communicate to the likes of
you and me about when theylaunch stuff, the fact that they
can't even be bothered to replyto emails asking for more
information.
I mean, maybe they fired theirother press guy, they fired the

(09:16):
first press guy that I wasdealing with, maybe they fired
this one too.
Just don't know.
It's just a complete mess Andit just it irritates me an awful
lot.

Sam Sethi (09:25):
I mean it wouldn't be bad, but at the moment the
YouTube numbers are so poor thatit's a complete waste of time
anyway, I was going to ask youknow, given we've been pushing
stuff to YouTube via headliner,i don't think it's actually
moved the needle in times ofnumber of listeners for us.
Anyway, now let's move on toSpotify.
One of the things that Inoticed was that Amazon and

(09:47):
Wondery aka Wondery and Audiblehad a big open stand at the
podcast show And again they gottheir checkbook out and they
sponsor the event along withA-Cast.
However, as I pointed out lastweek, Spotify didn't really
sponsor the event.
They were named as one of thesmallest sponsors I think that's
just a media sponsor And theyhad a stand that they put away

(10:10):
out the way and roped off, whichI thought was a perfect
euphemism for the podcastplatform a closed stand.
Now, james, have you seen orheard anything from a mayor
pro-Hovnick, the VP, head ofpodcast since she was?

appointed?
I haven't.
She was obviously speaking atthe stream on event earlier on
in the year.
I mean there was a bit of pressthat came out last week saying
that she actually has her ownpodcast which is talking about
becoming a mum for the firsttime, And that's going to be
very, very good and exciting.
But as for what she's beensaying about podcasting, really

(10:48):
I've not heard anything,particularly there.

Sam Sethi (10:50):
Yeah, And do we know how they Spotify subscriptions
are doing or their audiobooksales, anything?

there.
No, I'm not aware of anyinformation on either of those
two things now.

Sam Sethi (11:02):
Yeah, and fundamentally I go back to it.
they throw parties, they cometo these events, but they keep
themselves squirreled away.
Again, they're not supportingthe industry, they really are
just doing a YouTube that sortof thing.
Now, didn't you tell me thatthey did what YouTube did in the
beginning?
they sort of ingested RSS andthen that was it.

Yeah, and so what Spotify did right at the
beginning is that they justpulled in the audio once, and
that was that.
And of course, the podcastindustry said no, that's not how
it works, we need pass throughand, to their credit, they put
pass through in.
It was quite a lot of hard workAnd I'm sure that Todd and Rob

(11:43):
would talk rather more aboutthat, but, yeah, that's
something that they have atleast been a little bit reactive
to and have understood thatthat's not how podcasting really
works.

Sam Sethi (11:58):
Okay.
So I think YouTube isn'tsupporting the industry.
I don't think Spotify really is.
And now let's talk Apple.
They are not a poor company.
I don't recall ever in the lastfour or five big events ever
seeing Apple supporting theindustry.
What I do see Apple do and I'mnot attacking the individuals
because they are really nicepeople, but they attend these
events quietly I mean it's likethe men in black.

(12:21):
If you ever see someone fromApple, you have to forget you've
seen them.
You can never tell anyoneyou've talked about And if you
do, you'll be blacklisted.
So I just think who are thesepeople?
and instead of sneaking aroundand having these quiet little
secret meetings, why don't theyactually get a checkbook out?
Do something to support theindustry Support the podcast
movement, support the Londonpodcast show, support women in

(12:44):
podcasting.
Just do something, Apple, otherthan nothing, which is what you
currently do.

Yes And they will say well, we support women
in podcasting because we promotethe women in podcasting on the
app and stuff like that.
That's promoting your own app.
That's not doing anything morethan that, and I think Apple are
very good at promoting theirown app.
But in terms of sponsorship,you know, i mean YouTube.
To be fair, youtube were amajor sponsor of the podcast

(13:11):
show last year.
Spotify have been supportingpodcast movements and various
other things as well.
Apple, as far as I'm aware,have supported absolutely
nothing financially.
They'll turn up to some ofthese events and have little
secret squirrel meetings withpeople, but that's about as far

(13:32):
as it goes.
Disappointing really that youdon't see financial support
being given from one of the mostrichest companies in the world
to some of these events thatthey turn up to.

Sam Sethi (13:45):
Yeah, now again at the London podcast show, we
heard that the head ofpodcasting globally had come
along and the head ofinternational had come along,
but again, nothing was donepublicly.
Apple used to do this atCanline, the big advertising
event in the south of France,until the organizers said no
more Apple.
You can't just turn up, runaround and have secret squirrel

(14:07):
meetings but not support thisevent, apple.
Oh interesting, apple stoppeddoing that.
They then did support Canlineand they did a bigger thing.
I think Microsoft does muchmore than Apple now, but it was
put up or shut up Apple.
I do think some of the industryneeds to push back at Apple and
say, hey, enough's enough,chaps.
You want everyone to use yourplatform, but you don't do

(14:29):
anything.
And talking about using theirplatform, because I know they
delayed a lot of people's plans,how is delegated delivery doing
, james?
Do we know?

Oh, you know, I mean delegated delivery
seemingly seems to be working.
We don't really know how manypeople are using it.
We don't really know what sortof numbers are being seen there.
I find it one of the mostfrustrating parts of my daily
work.
I'll be honest with youUploading the ad-free version to

(14:57):
Apple applecocom pod news ifyou want to go and subscribe to
that.
It's a frustrating experiencebecause there's no API access to
the likes of me.
I think it probably works alittle bit more because Apple
are very keen to promote you.
If you do individual things andpromote paid subscription

(15:21):
within Apple podcasts, i thinkApple are rather more keen to
then push your show on the frontpage and in various parts of
the app, although they've notdone that for us.
I can't think why.

Sam Sethi (15:34):
Now look, it's WWDC next week and I'm going to take
a bet with you, james that, athey don't announce Apple
podcasts for Android and B theygive less than 10 seconds to
podcasting.
That will be my bet.

Well, yes, i don't know, It's the quick
answer.
I mean, it's supposed to be allabout virtual reality and stuff
like that at Apple WWDC nextweek, but who knows, they might
be surprising us with somethingexciting.
I mean, every minute that theydon't have an Android app that

(16:08):
gives more traffic to Spotify.
If they want to be competitivein this space, if they want to
actually make them aware of youknow, make other people aware of
where podcasting is going, thenfrankly I think that they
should be launching an Androidapp.

(16:30):
But you know, i keep on sayingthis.
I mean, they're not stupidpeople at Apple.
There must be a reason whythey're not launching an Android
app, and it might be that theycan't get the engineering
resource.
It might be that they've got aproblem with Google payments you
know in that as well And theyneed to build a website first.

(16:52):
I don't fully really know, butit does seem such a missed
opportunity for them.
Yeah, it does.

Sam Sethi (17:00):
Now I'm going to conclude with this.
When I was at Netscape, wefought for the open web HTML,
CSS, JavaScript.
Microsoft at the time was thebig, bad boogie enemy.
They tried to hijack the web.
They made IE proprietary.
They put proprietary HTML tagsin.
They used a bastardized versionof JavaScript I don't know if

(17:22):
you remember JScript And it onlyworked in IE And they added
something called ActiveX.
They did everything they couldto try and kill the open web.
Microsoft finally had to changetheir ways after a much lobbying
, and the DOJ in America forcedMicrosoft to include other
browsers in the operating system.

(17:43):
They said you can't have anoperating system and have the
apps access being your onlybrowser.
I think it's time the DOJlooked closely at Apple and
forced them to include otherpodcast apps by default, not
just within the App Store.
The only app you have now bydefault is the Apple podcast app

(18:03):
.
And look, this is exactly thesame position, or in fact worse,
than Microsoft were in.
Microsoft didn't own thehardware, but now Apple own the
hardware, the operating system,the App Store, and have the
default podcasting app.
No other app is pre-installed.
Surely this has to beanti-competitive And I

(18:23):
fundamentally believe the DOJ,if it wasn't a puppy, should do
something.
I think the EU will be a betterargument for putting forward a
case to Apple that they have toopen up the store or at least
include more podcasting apps.
If they won't support theindustry and they don't then I
think it's time the industryfights back at them and says

(18:44):
okay, let's go and find someregulation that says you own the
whole stack, you own the marketspace, And I think it's
anti-competitive.
Personally, James And I thinksomething should be done.
Wow.

What would you do then in that case?

Sam Sethi (18:57):
Well, i think it's a really simple thing.
I mean, you know, microsoft wasforced to, on the install,
provide Netscape, firefox andother browsers that were asked,
so the user had a choice.
I think, exactly in iOS theyshould enable it to say would
you want Apple podcast, maybeSpotify or fountain, or maybe

(19:20):
it's going to be podverse or anyother app, but they should be a
choice as the default app.
I don't think, let's say,fountain wanted to be the
default app on my phone.
I don't think there can be,even if it's an iOS app.

The question is do you want to throw another
question to somebody that'snever listened to a podcast
before?
Which of these random podcastapps would you like And let's
face it, most people will go toApple anyway Or do you want to
make it really easy and simplefor people to already have a

(19:53):
podcast app but to be able todownload any other podcast app
that they want?
Yeah, i'm not so sure aboutthis, but I think I can
certainly see your point And I'msure that you know.
If you could get pod fans inthere as a as a you know, as a
default, then that would that,would you know, really change
what your business is.

Sam Sethi (20:13):
Well it would, but I mean, i'm not using that for my
own other hat I genuinelybelieve that they own the whole
stack And it's really as yousaid, the user, or the
mainstream user, let's say then,not the early adopter or the
geek doesn't know any difference.
They go default.
That's why Apple has such astrong position.
Yeah, it is anti competitiveAnd I think somebody somewhere

(20:35):
needs to start to tap on Apple'sdoor.
So it's time maybe you open upthe commoda, maybe, and let
others in.

There is a difference, isn't there?
Because you're not allowed tomake web browsers for iOS and
what that.
What Apple have basicallyturned around and said it's it's
our way or no way.
You use the, the web kitbrowser code, and so Google
Chrome on your iPhone is justApple's Safari with the Chrome,

(21:06):
quite literally, the user, theuser interface of Chrome around
the side.
There is a difference here inthat they haven't turned around
to podcast apps and said no,you're duplicating core
functionality of the iOSplatform with a podcast app, so
therefore you're not allowed tobuild your own podcast app.

(21:28):
So I suppose that there is akind of that side to it, but
certainly you know it would be.
It would be good, good,wouldn't it, if Apple were to
support the industry, not justtheir, their own platform, which
they do very well, but supportthe industry a little bit more.
Yeah.

Sam Sethi (21:45):
To back up my point Apple, google AKA YouTube now
are not sponsoring or exhibitingour podcast movement in Denver.
I had a look, i made a check.
I mean they may change theirmind, but they aren't at the
current moment.
And Amazon are gold sponsors.
I mean, at least, if Amazon aresaying you know what guys,
we're going to try and at leastgive you a leg up or support you

(22:06):
as an industry And that is notwhat's happening.
In my opinion, these closeproprietary podcast platforms
Google, amazon, spotify, the gasplatforms are only out there
for themselves, the gas lightingus as an industry, saying they
are supporting us.
They don't embrace openstandards.
They know that they could fullysupport the wider podcast
community and don't do it.

(22:27):
Now one group could change this.
It's the podcast standardsgroup.
right?
This is what I thought theywere brought together to do, and
yet, sadly, i've not seenanything from that group either.
And that is the group thatshould be going.
Oi, you three, enough's enough,and we as an industry are

(22:47):
telling you it's time to dosomething.
But I don't think the PSP isgoing to be doing it either.
That's my only problem.

Hmm, yes, i've heard absolutely nothing from
that group since launch, and Iknow that they get very upset
when I say I've heard absolutelynothing from them.
And there's one really easy wayto fix that And that's to do
something.
Yes, it's really sad.
I was talking to one personthat worked there about you know

(23:15):
, that's part of the PSP aboutjust the idea of week notes,
which used to be a big thing, ifyou remember, you know 15 years
or so ago of just.
You know, this is what weworked on this week.
We haven't got anything toannounce, but these are the
sorts of things that we've beenworking on this week, just

(23:35):
something, just a weekly blogJustin Jackson will be very good
at writing that, i'm sure justto let us know that something is
actually going on there.

Sam Sethi (23:43):
Yeah, Well, you know, let's wait.
I hope that the PSP does stepup to become the body that takes
on these larger groups to sayyou know, the open industry
wants you to do more.
Yeah, indeed, now let's move on.
I think I should get off mysoapbox a little bit, but I'm
not quite off it yet because itbrings me to my other point.

(24:03):
Several women-led events havebeen cancelled or announced that
they'll go online only.
So Sheepo Cost Life has beencancelled.
It's a plan.
It was a planned physical eventin mid-June.
It's the second time this eventhas been cancelled, and also a
couple of days before that therewas the postponement of the
International Women's PodcastFestival.

(24:24):
Now, that led to an open letterto the industry from the
organiser, imre El Morgan.
She was the founder and CEO ofthe event and she's called
Content is Queen And she'swritten this open letter.
James, have you read the openletter?

Yes, i've read the open letter.
It's a very emotive open letterall about where is the money?
words without action aren'tenough and all of that kind of
stuff.
I think a lot of people havecome out and supported it online
.

Sam Sethi (24:59):
Yeah, i mean a number of people we know quite well,
just Kaufman, Jason Phipps,you've got Alcy Escobar, naomi
Meller, all of these people whowe know, plus a lot of other
people, have come out and said,look, these events can't go on
because, again, there's a lackof industry support.

(25:21):
Now, i'm not throwing this downtotally at the door of the gas
companies.
I think they have biggerpockets and deeper pockets to do
something and still are notdoing it.
But as an industry, i supposethese female-led events are not
being supported And it's reallyhard to find sponsors.
And I think sometimes theindustry should again help these

(25:45):
groups because there needs tobe this uplift in all of us
towards female-led podcasting.
Otherwise, again, we are saying, look, no, that's not important
, we'll just go back to doingwhat we do in our own
proprietary ways, that's all.

Well, you can certainly read more about the
open letter to the industry andsome of the work that they've
been doing on pay and stuff likethat in the pod newsletter this
week.
It's been a strange weekbecause there's not been an
awful lot of news this week AndI think partially that's because
ULOT had a public holiday onMonday.

(26:23):
There was a public holiday aswell in the US, of course, on
Monday too, and so thereforequite a lot of people have taken
the last couple of months, thelast couple of days off.
But there has been some newsaround the Black Podcasting
Awards and news about the Blackcommunity as well.

Sam Sethi (26:45):
Yeah, the awards are open for entries.
Prices are going up on June 1.
The global awards are open toshows that are hosted, or
majority hosted, by Black people.
You can go to the URLapplyblackpodawordscom and enter
for up to five categories.
The organisers are DemetriusBagley, georgie Ann Getten and

(27:10):
Latrice Samson-Richard, and Iknow they'd love you to enter
Again.
I did.
Because of what I said aboutthe gas companies, i thought I'd
go and check who was sponsoringthe Black Podcast Awards.
Strangely, none of them.
In fact, the only people that Iknow podcast movement are
sponsoring it and transistors.
So well done to Justin.

Yeah, well done to them.
That's certainly a good thing.
Also, in other Black News,haiti, which is a Black-owned
news aggregation app, is now,they say, the largest source of
podcasts led by Black hosts.
The app lists more than 2,000shows.

(27:52):
And really interesting interviewthat I had last week with Tom
Denapoli in a podcast businessjournal where he was talking
about the really hard work thatthey've been doing to make sure
that they are welcoming morediverse voices to behind the mic
and elsewhere as well, and hewas saying that one year ago

(28:17):
thirty seven percent of thepodcasts that a p m studios runs
I'm were hosted by people ofcolor.
Now that figure has gone up toseventy three percent.
So there's a real amount ofChange there.
You can read that interview infull at podcast business journal
dot com.
And of course, you know lots ofannouncements going on with

(28:42):
deals audible Company that Istill can't quite get into.
They've announced a multiproject exclusive deal with ash,
a audio ventures, which is apodcast label from actor viola
davis, who is one of the fewperformers in the first black
actress to be Awarded in Emmy, aGrammy and Oscar and a Tony.

(29:05):
So, yeah, so there's certainlymovement in terms of that.
Again, weirdly, an amazoncompany Doing quite a lot of the
of the hard work there.

Sam Sethi (29:16):
So yeah, yeah, and he got James.
Having an egot is very fewpeople it's an egot, is it?

yes, you go.
There's a thing an exclusivegroup Right.

Sam Sethi (29:25):
let's move on to more positive news now.
bus sprout and Oh sure, andhave been announcing a i
integrations, james, what, whatthey said yes, they have both
integrations that.

There's all kinds of stuff.
There's a german company calledcurmese that is released an AI
for podcasting Potscape, if youlike, listing all kinds of
different companies that existout there who are doing some
interesting work.
There's a cap show.
Did you from cap show was atthe podcast show and very good
to see her.
But yes, let's start with thebuzz sprout, one of our sponsors

(30:03):
of this show.
They have a new set of toolswhich automatically build
episode titles, descriptions,chapter marks and transcripts.
If you see the transcript inthis show today and the
description and indeed theepisode title, all of that has
been produced by this new toolfrom bus sprout, sam caught up

(30:25):
with albin brook to find outmore details of how it all works
co host is a tool thatseamlessly integrates AI into
your podcasting workflow, andwhat we do is we automatically
generate transcripts for allyour podcast episodes.

We generate title ideas, descriptions, chapter
markers, and the whole idea isthere's all these things at the
end of your podcast.
You know you've already gonethrough the whole process.
You've done the interview.
You prepped, you scheduled it,you edited it, you mastered it,
you put it up on the bus sproutAnd then we start asking all
these fields and some of themcan take a little while to put

(31:02):
together and you know what Ijust don't want to do all this
extra work.
And for some podcasters thelucky ones like James cridlin
they have a co host that doesall this work.
Well, on bus sprout now, evenif you're solo podcaster, you
can have a co host that will goalong and do a lot of this work
for you.
So you just making me redundant.
This is what you're doing.

(31:22):
I think that you provide a lotof valuable things on the show
itself, like the interviews andto be James's foil, but you
going through and taking all thetime to transcribe episodes or
run things through differenttools.
I think that's something thatmachines are really good at
doing and we should let youfocus on all the creative

(31:43):
aspects of podcasting.

Sam Sethi (31:45):
I fully agree, thank you.
Now let's break that down.
First of all, when did you comeup with the idea of using AI?
I mean, a lot of people aretalking about Oh yes, i can see
podcasting using AI but very fewpeople have actually done
anything.
So when did you guys at bussprout come up with that idea?

The first time we thought we started talking about
AI was probably last year, butthe moment that we decided this
is something we're going to doAnd we sat down, said here's how
it will look, was probably lessthan two months ago.
So that's where we got togetherand we say this is what it's
going to look like, and wealways work in six week cycles

(32:25):
at bus sprout.
So at the beginning of thecycle we had a really good idea
of what it would be And at theend of that six weeks, something
was out was out.
There must sprout.

Sam Sethi (32:35):
So let's take this in section.
So let's start off with So youproduce post audio uplift.
You produce a number of titles.
This is what I think you do.
It's not like one title, yougive a number of title options.
Is that correct?
Yeah?

So maybe the easiest way to talk about it is
from the transcript.
First, transcripts somethingbeen really important to us now
for two or three years.
We've been talking abouttranscripts for podcasters And
we've always been kind of youknow, bummed to see, while
podcasting to it Oh, it's done areally good job of pushing

(33:13):
transcripts and we've beengetting more apps on board.
More podcasters areunderstanding the value.
We still see a lot of peoplenot using transcripts And so the
first thing we're going to dois run that transcription for
you And then, when we have areally good transcription based
on what was actually said in theepisode So it's still the same

(33:34):
content Then we are able to comeup with lots of ideas for what
the title could be and what thedescription should be and where
there are chapter markers Youknow where they're actually
spots in the episode thatcoincide with chapters.
So that's kind of the process werun through.
You're right about titles wegive five And that was just I

(33:57):
think I was just born out of myexperience using some other AI
tools Where they'd give you oneoption and especially when it
was something as important as atitle getting one option, you
would feel a little bit like, oh, it missed.
And now what am I going to do?
Maybe I run this again, likehow can I get a second option?
And now, when you get five, itmay not even be that you pick

(34:20):
one of those exactly, but one ofthose is really close to
something that you're going tobe excited about.
And now you maybe make thattweak and there's your title
Yeah, before.

Sam Sethi (34:29):
I ask you a secondary question to titles with the
transcript.
Is this an in house solutionthat you've provided or is it a
third party you've partneredwith?
How's that transcript made?

We're partnering with podium for all of our
capabilities.
We spent quite a bit of timegoing through all the different
partners trying to figure out ifthis should be something we do
totally in house or we work withothers, and I initially, like
personally, i thought we'llprobably do all this in house,
and as we started working withdifferent partners and looking

(35:04):
at what we could do ourselves,there is a drastic difference
between which partner you use,so we are really excited to work
with podium on this.
And does it to speak detection,because I haven't had a chance
to use it yet.

Sam Sethi (35:16):
So yes, you're right, james, and I record.
James edits the audio, heuplifts it to buzz sprout, then
I go in afterwards once Jameshas put chapter markers in.
But the transcript that weupload tends to already have our
speakers against the transcript.
So if we don't use that thirdparty service that we were using
before and just use buzz sprout, will you do speaker detection

(35:39):
as well?

We're doing speaker detection, depending on
when we release this episode.
I won't know for sure whetheror not you can rename the
speaker detection.
Whether or not you can renamethe speakers on mass, i'll have
to check right when we releasethis.
But that's what they werelooking at.
But the identification of yourvoice versus James is going to
be pretty easy to identify.
Those are not the same person.

Sam Sethi (36:01):
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty quick Now with the titles
.
One of my other questions is alot of people talk about podcast
SEO, right, and you knowmaximizing the word that you put
in.
Now, with James and I, when welooked at Apple, we realized
that They don't look atdescription, they don't look at
keywords.
In fact, stuffing the title isgenerally the only way that you

(36:25):
get any sort of high ranking onApple With the titles that the
AI produces are you?
has it got a capability tothink of SEO, yeah?
Or is this just very early daysand it's just picking up some
really cool words but not reallyoptimizing it for an SEO type
solution, right?

So two different answers here.
One is does AI actually havethis ability?
Yeah, it does.
I mean there's lots of SEOtools that do that Right And you
can, as the human pick of thetitles, which of them has the
most SEO style title you want.
You can do that as well.
But I would really ask peoplewhat do they think they mean

(37:08):
when they say podcast SEO?
I think that's a bit of a redherring.
There's not like there's thesebig search engines that are
going through all podcastepisodes and are trying to
understand it and then you canmanipulate those results to show
up at the top.
Apple is primarily using thekeywords in your title.
They told us that I think theystill use the author tag and

(37:30):
then they look at how manypeople subscribe to the show or
listen to the show.
I think listen rate might beone of them as well.
All you're really trying to dois optimize for Spotify and
Apple.
That are primarily going to beusing, like the play type data
and subscribe type data.
So let's make sure that titleis good and it's accurate and it
reflects what's in the episode.

(37:51):
But sometimes what people thinkwhen they say SEO?
that means like you'll neverbelieve what number seven is on
this list.
Like, those kinds of things arejust click bait and I think
like podcasting is so beautifulbecause we don't have true SEO
in podcasting And so themarketers haven't ruined that

(38:14):
yet, and so I'm always hesitantto recommend anybody to be
thinking about podcast SEO.
I defer to the head ofmarketing at Buzz Brown.

Sam Sethi (38:24):
Now I D chapter markers.
How do they get put in withthis?
How do they get put in with thedynamic ad insertion that Buzz
Brown provides?
You've worked out a reallysmart way of finding in the
audio the best place to drop thedynamic ad.
Are you automating thosechapter markers or is it up to
the end user to put thosechapter markers in still?

Nope, that's still .
That's 100 percent automatic.
So when you drop your new pod Isaid pod land, pod news weekly
into the good days When youupload it and we transcribe, we
give you the titles, we give youthe description.
We're also going to go throughand identify.
This is a segment and we cansee there's a change in the

(39:10):
conversation here.
Here's what we think thatsegment's about, and then you'll
be able to go in and say, oh,that's perfect.
Or you may say, oh, that'salmost got what we talked about.
But now I know that's thetimestamp And so you make a
slight tweak.
So the first time I did it, ithink I got six or seven
different segments and I lookedat them and five of them The

(39:33):
exact right name was there forthe title and two of them I
tweaked.
But the big benefit here isthose timestamps are right,
because what's frustrating isthe podcasters you upload to
Buzz Brown And now you want togo put in a chapter marker and
like you're in your mind cursingyourself saying, when I edited
this, why didn't I just writedown when I switched segments?

(39:56):
And now you don't have to bethinking about that.
We will detect, oh, there's atopic change here and here's how
we would summarize that segment.
Now you have some chaptermarkers Cool cool Now with image
art for chapters.

Sam Sethi (40:12):
are you going to use anything like Dali or any of the
other AI tools to createautomated image art?

We have no plans for that.
I think that would be aninteresting thing to do.
I wouldn't be looking at itactually.
This is just a totally off thetop of my head.
I wouldn't be as interested inthat for chapter markers, but
maybe with YouTube, When peopleare putting podcasts on YouTube.
if you wanted to have some sortof a visual component, maybe

(40:39):
somebody could build a tool thatwould be running a bunch of
mid-journey images that wererelated to what you were talking
about, to have some sort oflike a slideshow, something
interesting there.

Sam Sethi (40:48):
Yeah, or maybe even just the episode art.
You know, just change it up.
I assume that links still haveto be manually added.
That last part is still auser-generated link.

Yeah, so any links that you want to include,
anything where you have a callto action, you'll do that.
Obviously, your Buzz Brouts hasepisode footers and so you
could just click in and add allyour social links And that's
added once and now.
It's there for every episode.
This won't override that.
But for most podcasters you'reuploading an episode and you

(41:23):
want something there And I'venoticed if you go read tons of
descriptions, you'll see a lotof times they just want a bit of
bare bones.
Here's what happened in theepisode, so that a listener
could see it and go oh, i'vealready listened to that episode
, or that sounds exactly likesomething I'd like to listen to.
Just a bit more info.

(41:43):
But yes, if you want links, ifyou want calls to action, those
should go in your episode footeror you'll add them in manually,
cool.

Sam Sethi (41:52):
So, with this new podcast tool that you've
provided, co-host, how much isit?
And is it just included forfree, or is it an add-on?
What is it?

It depends on which plan you're on in Buzz
Brout.
Most people are on our $12 amonth plan.
For them It's a $10 add-on,which for us is a pretty
expensive add-ons.
It's more of the magicmastering would be, and this is
just because to get the verybest tools right now it is more
expensive than even we expected.
Hopefully, over time thosecosts will all come down and we

(42:24):
can be able to pass that on toall our Buzz Brout customers.
But the way we think about it is.
This is work that somepodcasters were outsourcing to
another person, or they werethinking about joining a podcast
network and they were thinkingthat would be my way to not have
to do all this work.
If you're thinking I'd likesome help in getting past the

(42:48):
hurdle of adding these podcastto auto features that are really
cool I don't want to bethinking of creative titles and
descriptions after I already didall my creative work Then
co-host AI will be a wonderfultool for you, and so if anyone
tries it out and they see it'snot right for me, always reach
out to us at support and we'llmake it right.
We'll take care of you.

Sam Sethi (43:09):
Albin Brooke, head of marketing at Buzz Brout.
Thank you so much, Sam.

thank you so much for having me.

Albin Brooke from Buzz Brout, who sponsored
this very show, and great tohear what they're planning on
doing.
It was a real shame not to seeanybody from Buzz Brout at the
podcast show in London last week.
Also, oshia, who were at thepodcast show in London.
In many people were there.

(43:38):
They have been talking about AIas well and Maxime Piket, who
was the CEO of Oshia, was thereat the show.
You caught up with Maxime andJennifer Han to ask them how
they're using chat GPT toproduce social media posts.

The podcast show was a very amazing event.
I think I was very surprisedabout how this event was big and
was very interesting also interms of confidence, so it was
great.

Sam Sethi (44:10):
Yeah, it was very well done.
Now let's learn a little aboutOshia.
first, Oshia stands for audiosharing.
Let's give everyone thebackground to it.
When did you start Oshia andwhat was its original goal?
Let's start there.

Yeah, so we started in 2018.
We are based in France, sobasically, we are a podcast
hosting and marketing platform.
Our platform enables creatorsto easily share their audio
content and reach a wideraudience.
Maybe just one of ourparticularities, in more, of

(44:48):
course, of our some exclusivemarketing and data features, is
that all our plans are unlimitedin terms of audience, monthly
uploads or episode numbers.

Sam Sethi (45:02):
Okay, and now, with the platform itself, you've
started to grow internationallyas well.
Where have you moved into?

Yeah, so we opened up to the US market at
the end of last year with ourfirst team based mainly in New
York.
So, yeah, of course it'simportant for us to develop
Oshia in this new market,because friends or French
podcast are very small markets,you know.

(45:32):
And I think also that the USmarket talks a lot about
monetization.
When you look at theinnovations announced by the
hosting platform in general, ofcourse, most of them concern
monetization.
I said that to monetize yourneed and audience, and that is

(45:54):
the desert and we've no one tohelp you with your audience, and
that is the mission we have setourselves at Oshia.

Sam Sethi (46:05):
Cool.
Would you look internally intoEurope, or maybe into the UK as
well, as expanding next?

Maybe, but US is already a very huge market.
It's difficult because they arenot from a long time, so we are
new on this market And, yeah,it's not easy for us to develop
Oshia on the US, so we are veryfocused on this.
Of course, we will certainlydevelop OSHA after that on the

(46:34):
Europe, because it's where weare.

Sam Sethi (46:37):
Yeah, exactly Now.
you wrote a post about AI andAI's effect on podcasting.
Can you summarize what thatpost said?

Yeah.
So I think it's very importantto understand how AI will
transform the entire industry ofpodcasts, and personally, i'm
very optimistic about how AIwill change our industry Nice
And so what I can see is, onevery step of creating a podcast

(47:11):
, i think AI have a role to play, and even if, for my part, for
the hosting and the promoting ofthe podcast, and it's the
reason why we are starting tointegrate AI into OSHA.

Sam Sethi (47:25):
So let's distill that down further.
What have you exactly done?
Let's talk about that.
What have you added to OSHAusing AI?

So we started with our social media manager.
The social media manager is theperfect tool to plan your
entire communication on socialmedia and from OSHA.
So we integrated chat GPT intoour social media manager And now
, in a single click, you cangenerate a post for Facebook,

(47:56):
twitter, instagram or LinkedIn.
It's very easy And we saw goodresults about this integration,
because, thanks to this feature,podcasters have created an
average of three times moreposts on social media.
Certainly because it's easier.

Sam Sethi (48:16):
Now explain how this worked.
Do you provide a transcriptthat the AI then reads to
summarise the tweet?
Let's say, how does that work,or is it doing something else?
So what I would love it to do,or what I'd love OSHA to do, i
guess, is auto transcribe thepodcast and then pull out the
summary of the best bits aboutusing the AI to then promote.

(48:39):
And I guess one of the otherthings is I could send multiple
tweets or multiple updates,because I guess the first tweet
will be the one hit chat GPT andit'll produce more different
styles.
maybe, but let's step back.
Is it using a transcript towork with?

So it's very interesting because what you
said just here it's my visionand I love that.
So for now, no, we don't use atranscribe.
It's what we are working justnow.
We are working to give freetranscripts to our customers.
I think it will be availablebefore the end of the year, and
today to do this, we use thetitle, the description and the

(49:20):
keywords to give you a goodtweet or a good post for
LinkedIn.
But, of course, like you said,i think transcribe it's a good
plan to you know, my vision is,with a single click, to create
an entire plan of communicationfor your social media.
You have nothing to do, just tocheck if what we plan to post

(49:46):
for you it's okay or not, and ifyou want to edit, you can.
But yeah, i think a lot ofpodcasters don't spend a lot of
time of promoting and it's areal problem for the audience,
and if we can help them withthat using AI, it could be just
perfect.

Sam Sethi (50:06):
Yeah, I could imagine .
If you're using chat, you coulduse open whisper AI as the
transcription or as a party.
One of the other areas, then,that maybe AI could help is have
you thought about using thingslike mid journey or darling so
to creating cover arts orchapter art?
Is that in your thinking?

Yes, absolutely Before that.
We are actively working so onintegrating AI for automatic
generation of podcast metadatathe title, description, keywords
, chapters, even the newsletter,because it's making effortless
for creators to optimize theirepisodes for discoverability.

(50:47):
But after that, maybe to createthe perfect cover, we can use,
of course, a mid-journey.
I think also that we can use AIto help on podcast promotion
and maybe also but we need towork on this.
It's a very difficult part, ithink, but I'm pretty sure that

(51:09):
AI can help to analyze youraudience and maybe to give you
some good recommendations aboutyour podcast, because we can
also analyze your podcast, butwe can also analyze the other
podcast, and that is veryinteresting.

Sam Sethi (51:25):
Yeah, i want to look at A-Cast with a conversational
tracking and they go andtranscribe every podcast.
Look at the keywords, look atthe type of podcast and then
they're doing dynamic adinsertion.
But actually you can also usethat to analyze just what the
zeitgeist of the conversation is.
And this is a podcast verysimilar to that podcast.

(51:46):
So, recommendation enginesThere's lots of ways that you
can use data and machinelearning to help podcasters find
, i guess, similar podcasts.

To be honest with you, i can't say a lot
about this, but we are workingon very, very nice and, i think,
very exclusive features in OSHA, because a lot of listeners
have discovered a podcast fromthe search on listening apps,
and I think we have a lot to doon this And more of that.

(52:19):
I think that today, again, thesearch on podcast apps are very
simple.
So if you want, it's not Google, of course.
Apple Podcast or Spotify, it'snot Google for now, so we have
to profit of this, and so if youwant to grow your audience, i
think it could be a good pointfor you to improve your

(52:40):
visibility on Apple and Spotifytoo.

Sam Sethi (52:44):
Yeah, well, today in the podcast I'm having a go at
Apple and Spotify for not reallyhelping the industry too much
and being slightly monopolistic.
Where do you stand on OSHA andintegrating with YouTube?

So we already integrate YouTube because
automatically it's possible foryou to publish your podcast on
YouTube.
It's not, you know, it's asimple video, like you can do
with weekly pot news, forexample, but, of course, about
the recent news, what Ponyo'sgive us about the plan of

(53:18):
YouTube.
So we are waiting for theofficial version, of course,
from YouTube.
But what is certain is that atOSHA we are fighting to ensure
that podcasts remain a freemedium for both podcasters and
listeners, and we can't upsetfrom that.

(53:40):
Any listening platforms shouldhost the content we transmit via
RSS feeds.
Our priority is to ensure thebest experience and value for
our users, and this model isdefinitely not the best for our
users.

Sam Sethi (53:58):
Yeah, i think you, todd Cochran and many others are
beginning to understand thatsending your data to YouTube may
not be the best plan, exactly,but we talked, thankfully, at
the podcast show.
It was lovely to catch up withyou and have a coffee and sit
down with Jennifer.
One of the things we talkedabout was the podcast namespace
and OSHA's support of it.

(54:18):
Where are you and what supportdo you provide already with the
namespace?

So, firstly, i think it's very important for
the podcast industry And it'simportant to have a standard.
So for the variability in thepodcasting ecosystem, it's very
important, and these standardsallows us to work together on
the evolution of podcasts and toensure that it remains free.

(54:47):
So, for now, we only support afew times and we definitely need
to improve on this.
So I am pleased to announce toyou that we will be getting
started this year with theaddition of the chapters and
transcription tag as a minimum.

Sam Sethi (55:07):
Brilliant, brilliant.
And we talked about maybe youbecoming a member of the podcast
standard project as well PSP.
Is that something still in yourthoughts?

Yeah, you know, it's something what we are
currently thinking, but we havea lot to do OSHA, but step by
step.

Sam Sethi (55:26):
Exactly Now, Maxime.
Thank you so much for that.
A couple of things First of all, is the new AI available, and
is it an additional cost or isit part of the existing service?

It's very interesting.
Now AI it's already available.
It's free for all our customers.
It's already free for them.
You know, i think AI will be soimportant as a simple copy past
on a text editor.
So I can't imagine to have avery high price on this type of

(56:00):
option.
But we will see.

Sam Sethi (56:02):
OK, and now just lastly.
Where should everyone go tofind more about OSHA?
What's the URL?

OSHAco, of course, oshaco Excellent.

Sam Sethi (56:12):
Maxime Piquette.
Thank you so much for your time.
Congratulations for the AIintegration.

Thank you Rissan , jennifer Han and Maxime
Piquette from OSHA, and bothOSHA and Buzzsprout services are
available to all customersthere.
So very cool, very, very smart,and I'm sure that we'll see
even more AI and stuff like thatcoming in the future as well.

Sam Sethi (56:36):
Well, the one thing that Albin said that really
surprised me was that it's beenless than six or seven weeks
from planning to implementation.
That's really smart.
The speed of implementing it isquite cool.
I suspect you'll see the likesof Blueberry, captiveairsscom
follow quickly, and also, ithink apps like Vizzy, headliner

(57:00):
and other apps will start touse AI more.
I can see this, just you know.
I say this look, if people callAI instead of artificial
intelligence assistedintelligence, it will set its
place alongside humans muchbetter, rather than it's going
to be the terminator taking over.
That's not, and I think youknow the tools that are listed

(57:24):
here.
you know from CRISP, fromJasper, various other ones.
I think we will see.
Look, we have used Descript inthe past.
You have used Adobe.
when I think, what was it?
your mic wasn't connected toyour laptop, but you used Adobe
And that was brilliant.
You wouldn't have known.

Yeah, i used it there.
I used it for the conversationthat you had in a pub with who
was it?
now I'm trying to remember NickNick Hilton And so, yeah, it's
a great tool.
In fact I was showing it off toa New Zealand radio group only
this morning doing apresentation for them And again,

(58:05):
a fantastic tool.
So I think that AI certainlyhas its place not necessarily,
you know, all of this clonevoice stuff that we keep on
hearing an awful lot about, butI think certainly in other bits
of workflow.
I think it's a good thing.

Sam Sethi (58:22):
Now moving on.
big announcement PodX, thegroup that we interviewed a few
weeks ago, has acquired Listen,tell me more, james.

Yeah, listen is a massive, massive company, so
Listen produces podcasts.
It's a large podcast producer.
It also produces an awful lotof radio shows within the UK.
The way that the BBC works isthat they have to produce a
bunch of their radio outputs bythird party so-called
independent producers, andListen is one of those.

(58:53):
Interestingly, goldhawkProductions is also one of those
that makes podcasts but alsomakes radio shows for the BBC.
Podx bought GoldhawkProductions last year and has
now bought Listen as well.
I think Listen used to be knownas Wise Buddha.
It's the content division ofWise Buddha a while ago And it's

(59:17):
been doing some really, reallygood work.
So, yeah, a fantastic deal.
No terms were given, as isalways the way with PodX, but
definitely the largest deal inthe UK podcast industry for a
while.
So great to end up seeing thatPodX also own companies in
Scandinavia, in Argentina and inFrance as well.

(59:37):
And if you want to learn more,stafan Rossell we spoke to on
this very podcast about three orfour weeks or so ago, so you
can just go back and find that.
If you haven't yet found that,skip along in the chapters until
you hear Stafan talking aboutit.
It was a great interview thatyou ended up doing Now, it'd be

(01:00:00):
nice if we were to speak to someof the folks from the lesson on
this very show.

Sam Sethi (01:00:07):
Well, we had Darby Doris on a few weeks ago as well
.
I spoke to Darby yesterdaybriefly.
I think he was a little bitmerry and very happy about
what's happened.
Let's be honest, quite right,exactly.
So he wasn't really going tocome on for this week's show,
but he will be on, hopefullynext week, he says, and possibly
.
I've reached out to FrederickSeid, who's the other co-founder

(01:00:29):
of PodX.
I thought it'd be interestingto hear from him, rather than
Stafan this time.
So hopefully both of those willbe on next week.
And also next week we haveMuckel Debi-Chand from the New
York Times to talk about theirnew podcast app.
So, yeah, exciting for nextweek.

James Cridland (01:00:46):
Yeah, no, indeed , and that's one big
announcement.
And then there was anotherreally weird announcement that
you perhaps could help me with.
Liveone, who own podcast One,they are looking to acquire and
it's LiveOne, not podcast Oneare looking to acquire certain
assets of Cast Media.

(01:01:08):
Now, cast Media is a companythat makes podcasts and does a
bunch of those.
The weirdest announcement.
Did you end up seeing thisparticular announcement?

Sam Sethi (01:01:19):
I did, yeah, and I was confused, as you.
It's very odd to pre-announce apotential deal because, a it
either drives up the price fromif everyone goes, that's a great
deal.
Well, if I was Cast Media, i'dbe going well, yeah, stick
another zero on the end of thatone then, mate, or I don't know
why you pre-announce it.
It's like the weirdest ever.

So there's a lot of stuff around.
Liveone have entered into aletter of intent to acquire
certain assets of Cast Media.
If completed, the proposedacquisition is expected to blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then you read that theletter of intent is non-binding
And the contemplated acquisitionis subject to all kinds of

(01:02:03):
stuff due diligence andsettlement of Cast Media's
outstanding obligations,whatever that is, obtaining
applicable approvals and consent, whatever that is.
And then it says there can beno assurance that the proposed
acquisition will be completedand or within the anticipated
timeline.
Shall we just announce todaythat we're going to buy Apple?

Alban Brooke (01:02:25):
I don't know We're going to buy Libsyn.

Yeah, we're going to buy Libsyn, we've
written them a letter and we'llpress release that.
I mean, it just seems thebizarrest things.
I have no understanding of whatthis is about.
What we should probably do iswe should get somebody that
understands business, this sortof random, weird business.

(01:02:49):
I always see the stuff thatLiveOne puts out and I'm always
there going.
Yeah, it's just a bit weird.
Don't really understand it,probably since LiveOne is
currently supposed to be takingPodcast One off as a separate
company.
But this isn't Podcast Onebuying Cast Media, it's LiveOne

(01:03:11):
buying Cast Media.
Podcast One, if you remember,was supposed to have been spun
off as a separate company inJanuary.
That never happened, and thenin February and then that never
happened.
And well, we're still waitingand it's now June.
So I'm just looking at thiscompany and it all seems a
little bit sort of smoke andmirrors and I'm not quite sure

(01:03:33):
what's going on there.

Sam Sethi (01:03:34):
If LiveOne was a traded stock exchange or a New
York stock exchange company,that would be seen as
pre-information to the marketbefore the stock exchange got it
, and it would be then null andvoid.

So very odd.
Well, and they are So they are.
I mean, i think, yes, they are,They're on NASDAQ And this ends
up with this press release,ends up with a lot of guff about
forward-looking statements andthen more guff about no offer or

(01:04:09):
solicitation and all this kindof stuff.
I mean the whole thing looks tome It's just really weird.
But there again, liveone isalso selling NFTs.
It's also doing lots of weirdand wonderful things.
It's all a strange old company.
So, yeah, who knows what'sgoing on there?
Surprised, they did that.

Sam Sethi (01:04:30):
Now moving on.
Friend of the show, dan Meisner.
Saw him at the podcast showLovely Man that he is from
Bumper.
Yeah, he's got a radio voice.
He has yes And well, maybe youshould do a podcast.
No, not another one, please.
He wrote a book blog post thisweek about how to change the

(01:04:54):
Apple podcast store with oneclick.
What did you say, james?

Yeah, so he's basically got a lot of links in
this particular blog post whichenables you, if you're using a
toy phone really a noise Applewhenever I say that if you're
using a toy phone it enables youto have a look at the Apple
podcasts front pages for anyparticular country, so you can
actually see, you know, what thefolks here in Australia are

(01:05:20):
pushing and what the folks inthe UK are pushing, and so on
and so forth.
So really easy.
It's not been easy up untilthis discovery.
So it's a pretty cool thing andgood that Dan has ended up
doing that.
It's Apple podcast is in 175countries and regions around the
world, which is quite a thing.

(01:05:42):
So, yeah, some really good workfrom that regard and also some
really good work around explicitpodcasts as well.
You've probably know that youcan mark podcasts as explicit,
and normally that means thatyou've sworn a bit, but
sometimes it doesn't and itmeans something entirely

(01:06:02):
different, and so we've neverreally understood properly
understood what that means.
If you mark something asexplicit, what that actually
means in terms of where yourpodcast is still available.
But it turns out that eightcountries in the world prohibit
explicit content altogether and35 countries hide explicit

(01:06:26):
content behind a opt-in.
So, for example, india is oneof those and Indonesia is one of
those.
Those are two very, very largecompanies, large countries,
which essentially make you optin if you want some of the filth
.
So that's basically what'sgoing on there.
So, really interesting.

(01:06:47):
We've not seen that data beforeand that's data that the good
folks at Bumper have ended upworking out.
So, yeah, particularly usefulpiece of work there.

Sam Sethi (01:06:58):
Yeah, I'll put the links to those two posts in our
show notes.

Now talking about?
Well, yes, if the AI hasallowed it.
Otherwise, of course, you'llfind it just by doing a quick
search on the podnews websitepodnewsnet.
Slash search.

Sam Sethi (01:07:12):
Hang on, hang on a minute, hang on.
Have I been superseded here now?
Well, i mean, the AI has takenmy editing job.

We're using Buzzsprout for that this week,
So who knows?
I mean we can say that thingsare going to be in the show
notes, but frankly, we don'tknow, do we Okay?

Sam Sethi (01:07:30):
I'm not sure how I feel anymore now.
Right, moving on talking aboutsmutty stuff In Canada, the
number one French languagepodcast in Canada is Well, you
won't mention it.
Are we allowed to mention ithere, or are we going to get
banned here as well?

Oh, i think we can mention it here.
I didn't mention it in thenewsletter because, you know,
corporate email systems would goabsolutely spare if I mentioned
that the number one podcast inFrench-speaking Canada is called
Oral Sex.
Yes, oral Sex, ladies andgentlemen And I mean mostly
ladies, oh, i don't know, mostlygentlemen.

(01:08:09):
Anyway, it's the number onepodcast in French Canada.
It's the number one women'spodcast in all of Canada, the
number two podcast in all ofCanada among 18 to 34 year olds,
and etc.
Etc.
So it does really, really well.
It seems to be sponsored by asex shop, i think.

(01:08:32):
So you know very, very FrenchCanada If you've ever been to
Montreal.
That's all there is on the highstreet in Montreal.
It's just sex shop, followed byan Apple store, followed by
another sex shop.
It's the bizarrest place.
Yeah, it's very strange.

Sam Sethi (01:08:49):
A quick question Where are you going in on the
8th of June?

I'm not just going to Montreal, i'm going to
Toronto, which is a verydifferent place.
Oh, okay, very, very differentplace.
Fine, fine Just checking, ijust had the you're going to
Canada moment.
Yes, no, i'm going to Canada,but not to Montreal.
But Montreal, yeah, fascinatingplace, is where Triton is based
for quite a lot of people And,yes, they are very Yes, anyway.

(01:09:15):
So the good folks at thepodcast exchange, which is an ad
tech company based in Canada,have written a long piece about
oral sex, the number one podcastin French, canada.
Ladies and gentlemen, there wego Now.
This possibly means that we nowneed to mark this show as

(01:09:37):
explicit, or I don't know.
I don't know whether that?

Sam Sethi (01:09:40):
No, I don't Hey.
hey, good news, James.
It's not down to us anymore,It's down to the AI.

Oh yeah, it's down to the AI Brilliant.
Well, in that case, that's allokay.
Other things going on aroundthe world The podcast sessions
magazine, which looks beautiful.
It's had a redesign which lookseven more beautiful.
It's a Pan-African magazine.
It's now available for download.
There's the founder of theYoung God podcast on the cover

(01:10:06):
of that And, yeah, it's a supergood thing.
Thepodsessionscom is where togo and get your copy of podcast
sessions magazine and it's free.
People News on the Pod NewsWeekly Review.
Now let's take a look at somejob news.
Not that much jobs news at themoment because not that much

(01:10:27):
news, But Julie Shapiro has beenhired as supporter and advisor
to Canada Land, the Canadianpodcast network.
She'd been with Novel, with PRXand Radio Topio.
She's a good egg.
I met her in Sweden, I think.
So good to see that she's doinga bit of work for them.

(01:10:47):
And Isabelle Salazar has beenhired as Podemos' new country
manager for Spain.
She joins from Google, butshe's had enough of working for
a gas company I do like that agas company And she has replaced
Juan Gallardo, who now becomesthe company's global head of
markets, which is all veryexciting.

(01:11:10):
If you're looking for a job,Pod News has podcasting jobs
across the industry and acrossthe world.
The even better news is thatthat website now works again,
after I made a breaking changethat broke it.
They're free to post.
It'll just take two minutes toadd a new role PodNewsnet slash
jobs The tech stuff, the techstuff On the Pod News Weekly

(01:11:31):
Review.
Yes, it's the stuff you'll findevery Monday in the Pod News
newsletter.
Here's where we do all of thetech talk.
Blueberry has done somethingquite cool.
They've added badges for itspodcast creators, which can be
earned in a number of ways andquite smart, in fact.
Blueberry has always donebadges at conferences and things
, so now they have virtualbadges for you, too.
Transistor has done somethingquite nice Dynamic Ad Campaign

(01:11:54):
Scheduling, which is all veryfancy, just in doing, as ever, a
very good job of writing blogposts and recording videos and
everything else for somethingwhich is a relatively minor
upgrade but nevertheless seemsto always get the news.
So well done, justin for that.

Sam Sethi (01:12:12):
Now, content Studio Project Brazen has launched a
podcast network and platformcalled Simply Brazen.
What's this one, james?

Yes, so this is interesting, project Brazen
being a company that makespodcasts, but they will allow
other shows on this platform.
They're basically looking forother shows that are seeking an
alternative distributionstrategy that allows them to
have a greater participation inthe success of their work, just

(01:12:40):
basically trying to getlike-minded podcast producers
together.
I always think that that's agood plan, so worth a peek, and
they've just announced a wholeset of new shows coming out soon
.
Podcast events on the POD NewsWeekly Review.
Let's take a look at some eventsthen, shall we?

(01:13:01):
I am very much looking forwardto speaking, although very much
not looking forward to going toRadio Days North America in
Toronto.
Why would I say that?
Because I'm flying with AirCanada, the airline for people
who love the colour beige, but Iwill be sharing some and I've

(01:13:23):
got absolutely no status on thatairline.
I, frankly, don't want to beflying with that airline, but
I've got absolutely no statuswith them.
The seat that I have been givenfor my 14-hour flight between
here and Vancouver, you knowit's an aisle seat and it's two
rows away from the Lou and I'mnot looking forward to that.

(01:13:46):
Anyway, i'm going to be abundle of joy, i tell you.
So, yes, so anyway, lookingforward to that.
I'm doing a couple of speakinggigs there, so that should be
good.
Other things going on, of coursepodcast movement in Denver

(01:14:06):
Towards the middle of August,august 21st to the 24th, in
Denver, in Colorado.
The venue is very easy to getto from the airport.
I noticed when I was booking itonly earlier on The British
Podcast Awards coming at the endof September as well, and
PodFest, which will be in earlyJanuary, no late January 2024,

(01:14:31):
in Orlando, in Florida, at theWyndham Orlando Resort
International Drive, whateverthat is, but PodFest is always a
great event and, who knows, imight, might make it to that one
next year.
And then, of course, there'sPod News Live, which is on June,
the 13th.
Yes, which yes.

(01:14:52):
Give us an update on that then,sam.

Sam Sethi (01:14:55):
So, look, i caught up with loads of the speakers at
the podcast show London lastweek, which was great to do.
We are I've been speaking tothe organisers up at the Lowry
Theatre yesterday, so that wasgood.
Thank you, tash.
So all is going forward, goingwell.
I'm sending out lots and lotsof updates to the speakers today

(01:15:17):
, but fundamentally, the formatof the event is this We've got
14 amazing companies, soCaptivate Voiceworks, we've got
a whole bunch of others, There'sMichael Carr coming out there,
we've got the BBC R&D, so lotsof the companies that are based
around the Manchester BBC Hub.

(01:15:39):
And the format, james, i think,that I've come up with is a
show and tell.
Mainly Now, if we look at why wedid this event originally, it
was we did a drinks last yearnot the drinks that we did this
year where lots and lots of thecompanies came down.
Then we're going oh, we've notreally spoken to each other and
we've had to come to London tomeet each other.

(01:16:00):
And it was a conversation withMark from Captivate and Michael
Carr, and we were just saying,well, why don't we bring
Mountain to Mohamed, you know?
and let's go up to Manchesterand do something, which is what
it started off with, And then itwas like well, why didn't we
say something when we'retogether rather than just have a
drink?
So that's how it evolved, and sothe idea is that the companies
will have 15 minutes to talkabout what they're currently

(01:16:22):
doing today to a reallyintelligent audience, and then
you are all right, all both willdo a Q&A with the said people.
It may be a panel for a coupleof the speakers, and then the
audience has a chance to talkabout it.
We did want to give enough timeas well for people to network,
because you don't want to havejust back to back to back to
back talks.

(01:16:43):
So, yeah, that is the event.
You can get your tickets stillat podnewsnet, forward slash
live, and they are veryreasonably priced.
We've kept them low 30 poundsbecause we don't want we're not
looking to make a profit out ofthis.
We are literally trying tocreate an industry.

We're not going to make a profit out of this.

Sam Sethi (01:17:03):
No, we're not going to make a profit out of this
Technically, we're right, so butwe are trying to see if we can
support the industry, and thisis the first one we're doing,
and so please come and have alisten.
Join us in Manchester on Junethe 13th to listen to a super
smart group of people talkingabout what's going on in the

(01:17:23):
podcast industry, and it's yourchance to ask them any questions
you like.

Yeah, it's a day of sharing knowledge and
networking in the business ofpodcasting massively looking
forward to it.
It should be a really good day.
I booked my hotel in Salfordonly yesterday, so that's good
news.
So I know at least that I'll bewhere I'll be staying.

(01:17:47):
So that's always a good plan,but definitely worthwhile
finding out more informationpodnewsnet slash live, and we
look forward to seeing you thereBoostagram, corner, corner,
corner on the pod news weeklyreview.
Yes, it's our favorite time ofthe week, although not that many

(01:18:07):
booster grams this week.
Maybe this comes from doing a45 minute or 40 minute show last
week instead of two and a halfhours.
Maybe we get more boosts if wedo two and a half hours, who
knows?
But thank you to Bumi, who sent30,000 sats no message.
Thank you to anonymous who sent1000 sats as well.

(01:18:31):
Gene Bean and Kyren alsolistened.
I noticed from the stats thatwe have It's probably
complicated by the fact that myumbral fell over last week.
Not quite sure what's happenedwith it, but I have moved my
umbral from the kitchen to theoffice rack, because of course
I've got a rack in the office,because of course I do.

(01:18:54):
So hopefully it'll work ratherbetter in here.
But if you have, yeah.

Sam Sethi (01:19:00):
James, that feels like you've put your umbral on
the naughty step.

Well, I kind of have You're out of the kitchen I
kind of have, now I canactually see it.
I've put it where I can see itor I can just check that it's
actually working, the umbral.
But anyway it's sitting thereand working quite nicely If you
get value from what we do.
Give that umbral a bit of workto do because the Pod News

(01:19:24):
Weekly Reviews separate from PodNews.
Sam and I share everything fromit.
We really appreciate yoursupport so we can continue
making this show.
You can become a powersupporter at weeklypodnewsnet.
You can subscribe in ApplePodcast at applecopodnews, or
supporters with sats by hittingthe boost button in your podcast
app.
I do wonder whether or not thefact that my umbral had fallen

(01:19:45):
over last week.
I wonder whether there are someapps out there that, because
they couldn't send that paymentto the value split that we have,
i wonder whether it then didn'tsend anything at all.
Perhaps that may be why we'venot seen any boosts, or maybe it
was just a really bad show lastweek, but I don't think it was.

(01:20:06):
I think it was a really goodone.
So anyway, if you don't have anapp that supports boosts,
podnewsnet slash new podcastapps will help you find a new
app.
I would recommend Fountain,which has had a lick of paint
and is faster and works muchnicer.
I'm an advisor.
I'm not a paid advisor, by theway, adam Curry.
I'm just an advisor, sofountainfm to go and get that

(01:20:30):
Now.
What's happening for you thisweek, sam?

Sam Sethi (01:20:32):
Well, it's official, I'm now a tech veteran.
I don't know when I crossed the, I don't know where I crossed
that chasm.
Well done, But now I'm aveteran.
Yes, that was my title At anevent I did last week.
I did a AI presentation at SohoHouse in White City, which will
be the location of our podnewslive London.
So yes, I'm officially lookingfor white hairs now places I

(01:20:54):
shouldn't.

Yes, i was called a veteran radio
futurologist at the NAB show,which, of course, i was
delighted with.
Not So, yes, veteran.
That word should be bannedunless you are a veteran.
Yes, in which case that'sacceptable.

Sam Sethi (01:21:15):
And I think I probably should go and learn
French this week.
Sorry if I sounded frustratedthis week I'm not And I have
recovered from the podcast show.
Maybe I should learn French andlisten to that number one
Canadian podcast That might helpme?

Yes, maybe you should.
Maybe it might teach you athing or two.

Sam Sethi (01:21:32):
Now I'm also frustrated because of the gas
companies, that is true, andbecause also RSS feeds.
Now I hear this so often thatthey call the feed of truth
right, and I have to tell younow, james, having dealt with
thousands of RSS feeds in thelast few months, they're a mess,

(01:21:53):
absolute mess.
Oh yes.

Yes, there is a lot of crappy bad, i mean you
know, wrong image sizes for astart.
I mean, the podcasting 2.0podcast didn't have a square
image until a couple of weeksago when I when I noticed and
gave them a nicer image.
But yeah, there are, and Ithink this is one of the things

(01:22:19):
that isn't particularly wellappreciated within podcasting is
that actually, rss feeds arefull of an awful lot of junk And
a podcast hosting companiesreally do a particularly poor
job checking whether the RSSfeeds they might be.

(01:22:40):
They might be technicallyacceptable, but they certainly
don't have the right informationin them quite a lot of the time
.
I mean, you only have to lookat Joe Rogan's RSS feed, which
is still there, which doesn'thave a decent description field
in there at all.
It just says something likewitterings from a guy and mind
or something.
Um, you know that there's justso much that if people were

(01:23:03):
actually following the correctstandards for rss, um, then
podcasting would work so muchbetter, um, so yeah, it's quite,
it's quite a frustration, ithink do you know if there's
gonna be a podcast standardsgroup that might help with this?
Yeah, at some point, at somepoint there might be.
I mean, there is a reason why ilink on pod news podcast pages.

(01:23:25):
There's a reason why i link totwo different validators The
live wire one, which johnspurlock runs, and cast feed
validator, which blueberry runs,and the reason why is that you
would be surprised how brokensome of these rss feeds are And
and and also how fiddly you knowquite a lot of things.

(01:23:45):
I mean to come back to to apple.
Apple require all kinds ofthings that they don't even put
into their own documentation, sohugely frustrating.
So, yes, i'm sure that you havehad a particularly frustrating
time with Pod fans working outexactly all of the all of the

(01:24:06):
details and the information inthere.

Sam Sethi (01:24:08):
Yeah, i did write a long email to adam and dave.
I think you know our show notesgo on for a long time.
They got a longer version ofthat, just saying gosh, value
blocks are just totally.
We need some clarity.
They are all over this placeanyway.
Yeah, crap in crap, out, therewe go, james.
Yes, what's been happening for?

you garbage in, garbage out is.
I believe the phrase isn'tthat's, that's the nicer version
.

Sam Sethi (01:24:34):
We'll see what the a i says later.

Yes, you, you were going to ask me what's
happened for me this week.
What you, i did, yes, what'shappened for you, james?
oh, i'm glad you asked.
So, yes, i've, i've.
Yes, i mean, apart from Try notfall asleep during the middle
of the day, which has been afrankly, taken up quite a lot of
my time this week.
I also i also very much enjoyedspeaking to a bunch full of

(01:24:58):
people in new zealand this thismorning, which was good.
I've also Recorded aforthcoming edition of a podcast
with alex sanfilippo and reallyenjoyed doing that this this
morning to.
You'll also find me on apodcast with Mark.
Ask with mark.
Ask with me mark.

(01:25:18):
Ask with from captivate talkingabout youtube, which was good.
A little bit frustrating inthat i only got the information
about YouTube's rss ingest afterthat particular recording,
which is some quite a thing, buteven so, mark and i managed to
get an hour out of that talkingabout youtube and i should also

(01:25:40):
tell you are you tube stats,because you did ask earlier How
we were doing on youtube.
So, pod news in total, if youinclude the pod news daily as
well as this very show, over thelast month we have had one
thousand two hundred and thirtyviews on youtube So ready.

(01:26:00):
That's not very much, but interms of youtube's products
directly, one thousand twohundred eighteen of those have
been on youtube like the websiteand twelve have been on youtube
music just twelve.
This, of course, was the biglaunch that they neglected to

(01:26:20):
tell the industry about at theend of last month, the big
youtube music launch, twelveplays.
So perhaps we shouldn't worrytoo much about youtube, because
it looks as if google is messingthis one up again.
Interesting times as it alwaysis.
And that's it for this week.

Sam Sethi (01:26:41):
Yeah, thank you to our guests and if you want to
ask us any questions or you wantto give us any feedback, you
can use our email weekly at podnews dot net Or send us a boost
to grab, which we love forfeedback if your podcast that
doesn't support.
Boost and grabbing you up frompod news dot net forward slash.
New podcast apps.

Yes, our music is from studio dragonfly.
Our voice over is Sheila D.
In case you're wondering if Isound a little bit different
this week, it's because I'musing the senheiser profile USB
microphone, just as a change,rather than my sure MV seven and
why not?
and we're hosted and sponsoredby Buzzsprout podcast hosting

(01:27:22):
made easy get updated every day.
Subscribe to our newsletter atpod news dot net.

Alban Brooke (01:27:29):
Tell your friends and grow the show and support us
and support us the podcast.
Weekly review will return nextweek.
Keep listening.

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