I'm at a loss, will anyone notice the difference? Lossless audio comes to Apple, Spotify and Amazon for free.

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James (00:02):
Welcome to Podland.
We're sponsored by buzz sprouts.
The easiest way to host, promoteand track your podcast
there@buzzsprout.com.
Your first 90 days of free it'smay the 20th, 2021.
I'm James Cridland, the editorof pod news.net here in
Australia.
Sam

Sam (00:17):
Sethi, the editor of Sam Talks Technology here in the UK

Adrian (00:21):
I'm Adrian.
Spataro from clean boys thoughtAI and later I'll be talking
about getting rid of earns

Lindsay (00:27):
and I'm Lindsay, Jeff c'mon.
And later today I'll be talkingabout Casad a way to help
promote Podcast for

James (00:32):
business.
They will pod lands a weeklypodcast where Sam and I delve
deeper into the week'spodcasting news.

Sam (00:40):
This week, which is bigger Spotify or Apple, some clever
artificial intelligence.
And we go lossless.
But first the Ambien James inthe award ceremony live from Los
Angeles, California at theambitions were announced.
They're the first Podcast awardsfrom the Podcast Academy.
Did you watch

James (00:59):
it Jane?
They were, yes, I did.
I watched it along with a backchannel on Slack with a couple
of friendly folk, including Evaterror and yeah, it was a great
event.
very smart.
The Podcast of the year went towonder is.
Dying for sex.
Wondering, ended up winning fivedifferent awards which is good.
They were the number one Podcaststudio crooked media got four Q

(01:21):
code got three.
so yeah, it was a good it was agood, positive showbiz good
feeling award, which was great.

Sam (01:28):
Excellent.
Now I've never heard, I shouldsay, dying for sex.
Is it worth listening to aclearly it's a

James (01:34):
winner.
clearly it is a winner.
I thought, Oh, wouldn't it begood if I poached the dying for
sex trailer on the end of podnews for that day and then
listened to it and then thought,I don't think I'll probably be
able to, broadcast that onPodcast, radio, where the
podcast goes out and a year.
I'm not sure that's gonna work.
there we go.
But It's a great story ofessentially someone who didn't

(01:56):
have long to live.
and she decided that she wouldchange her lifestyle quite
dramatically.
and there was a lovely sort ofbit at the end where the award
was given out to her co-host andit was a good time, really, very
nicely produced very glossything on Twitch on YouTube.
I think 26,000 people werewatching it live and it's been

(02:19):
watched by double that now.
So yeah, it did.
It did very well.

Sam (02:23):
Now you wrote about evergreen Podcast, one for
communicates rewards.
What were they.

James (02:28):
Yeah.
this was a separate awards.
the communicate or awards andevergreen podcasts, we're very
pleased to win that.
There's also been awards.
of course from the Webbys.
I always liked the Webbysbecause I won one year both the
judges choice and the audiencechoice as well for the same
thing.
The thing for the Virgin radiowebsite, which I'm delighted by.

(02:49):
so therefore the Webbies have acertain place in my heart and so
good to see so many Podcastwinners for that awards as well.

Sam (02:58):
Now clean voice.
This is a new service calledclean voice.ai.
It claims it will automaticallyremove ums and ERs from audio.
You just upload the audio and itdoes it automatically for you.
James do

James (03:13):
you think of it?
It's really clever reallyclever.
not just, it gets rid of ums andERs and things like that.
We use D script of course, butthis system would do it
automatically, but even more ofthat sort of thing, it does.
They are working on, I say theyAdrian is working on removing
stuttering, which would be agood plan.
I could have done that 50 yearsago.

(03:33):
And even when you stop asentence halfway through and you
rephrase what it is, you'regoing to say we'll automatically
spot that as well.
So from Australia to Austria, Ispoke with Adrian Spataro and he
outlined what clean voice.ai cando.

Adrian (03:49):
In essence, it removes all the filler sounds you
produce during talking.
So for example um, which mightbe removed from this episode, I
guess, and earth.
But also we want to remove oursounds like stuttering.
or for example, when yourephrasing your sentence and
also our sounds, which are,let's say not nice to hear in

(04:10):
the

James (04:10):
recording.
Okay.
that's really interesting.
And you're using.
Artificial intelligence to dothe RS and the ums and the ERs.
Normally we use Sam and Samnormally edits them out using D
script, which is a relativelygood way of doing it.
But you're using some form ofartificial intelligence.
how does that work

Adrian (04:28):
in essence what we are doing when I'm saying, wait,
it's just myself.
Sorry for that.

James (04:34):
I'm used to that you would see

Adrian (04:37):
it from a genetic perspective.
They would try to find aphonetic sound of the earth and
the earth once it indentifiedthat phonetic sound.
It also tries to see if it makessense to remove it because when
you sing um, that um, can comeforth in a way that it's in the
sentence.
So you could say, I think thisis better than.

(05:00):
This, when you say, damn, thatsound same as M or whatever.
So the AI is a bit more smarter,which it tries to identify if it
makes sense to remove it, ifit's within the word or if it's
just a filler sound.
So that's the basic approach.
How we do this.

James (05:17):
That's very clever.
And you were talking aboutgetting rid of stuttering in mid
July.
I have started in Stamford allmy life.
So that would be quite a thing.
If you're able to get rid ofthat.
How is that going so far?

Adrian (05:32):
So currently I have an algorithm which can remove some
stutter.
It's currently not availablesince let's say it takes every
10th.
Stutter.
And the problem also is once youdetect the stutter, it's not
quite obvious how to correct itsince there's little ways you
can stutter and every way ofstuttering needs a certain way

(05:56):
of editing to make the sound.
As natural as possible.
So it's still a work in progressthat said I think it's possible
to do it since I have a canprovide ready value.

James (06:08):
And this Technology does it.
you're joining us from Austria.
and I'm wondering whether itworks in other languages other
than just English.
That was

Adrian (06:19):
one of the main ones.
Not only in English, but alsoother languages here in Europe,
the script, like I've seen thisscript, this is an amazing tool.
And it also can remove firms.
It's not like a, it cannot dosomething similar while we are
doing.
But the big difference is thatthis script is limited only to
an English language.
And one of the big things isthat here in Europe, we have so

(06:42):
many languages You have German,you have French and so on, and
we definitely support morelanguages than

James (06:48):
English.
Yeah.
I think that's certainly a veryhelpful thing and certainly I
know living in Australia, butspeaking British English, I know
that there's more than just oneEnglish as well, so it's always
fun.
sometimes when you're askingsomething which is used to
American English, To understandEnglish, or British English.
yeah, I'm sure that's acomplicated thing.

(07:10):
So who if people wanted to tryout your tool, how could they
end up doing that?
And what's the business modelbehind it.
So
if

Adrian (07:19):
you do it today, then you would have to buy a license
key.
And that license key would allowyou to upload the single file or
up to ten five.
Depends.
how many license keys you wantand then it will render that
audio for you.
So you will upload the audio.
It would remove the arms andthen you get the clean audio
back.
Now that's the current one.

(07:41):
In a week.
So I guess end of this week onFriday,

James (07:46):
which is tomorrow, is this Podcast goes out.
Yeah, it

Adrian (07:50):
will be a subscription based model.
So that we'll be starting from$10 where you can upload.
Five hours of audio and youagain, same thing as before, but
you will without needing tolicense

James (08:02):
key.
Okay.
that's very cool.
That's very cool.
And in terms of the future, isthis always going to be a
tool@cleanvoice.ai, or is thatgoing to be other ways that you
can get rid of ums and ERs inthe future, perhaps by working
with Podcast hosting,

Adrian (08:17):
we are an early Talks with certain companies to
integrate clean voice.
Currently, we still have tofigure out a way which is
sensible for both of us for now.
That's a more longer term ideaMy goal is to create the best
remover.
And after that, we can see howwe can integrate the top of

(08:37):
platforms.
But that's more a long-term

James (08:40):
plan.
Yeah, sure.
It's certainly a reallyinteresting piece of technology
and certainly a very cleverthing that you're doing here.
So I'm particularly keen to findout how it goes on.
what are you using under thehood, by the way, are you using
Amazon stuff or Google stuff orwhere's all of this stuff?
None of that.

Adrian (08:57):
the problem with these tools is that.
there feature text tools whereyou give an audio and we'll give
it a text back.
And that's how the scriptremoves arms.
Cause he knows where the ums arebased on the text and yeah,
that's about it.
The problem with these tools isthat you cannot use them.
if you don't speak perfectEnglish, right?
If you're a native Englishperson, it's not a problem.
But especially if you want tosupport off languages, this is

(09:20):
not the right way.
In this case, I did the AI bymyself.
Since I'm a data scientist, I'vebeen working with five for a
long time.
So, I build my own AI in thatregard and the current tools out
there, like Google and so on asmentioned the promise.
If you're not native speaker,they don't provide much value.

James (09:36):
So you're hosting this stuff yourself.
It's your own AI, your owntools.
this can't be the first AI pieceof work that you've done in the
past.
Adrian, what other excitingthings have you been working on

Adrian (09:48):
prior from this.
Except of work, of course, whereI've done a lot of projects for
clients.
my personal project was busier,not AI, which is AI too, which
helps you draw stuff.
So for a graphic designer, youwould maybe draw an icon for
your website.
You would have to do it for youinstead.
So yeah, it's not my firstendeavor in that regard.

James (10:09):
Wow.
Gosh.
So it's talking to people likeyou, Adrian.
And then I realized how stupid Iam a little long though.
so many congratulations.
It's a great looking tool andcertainly if anybody wants to
have a play with it, cleanvoice.ai is where to go.
Adrian, thank you so much foryour time today.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you James.
Really good to speak withAdrian.

(10:30):
He's a bright man.
Isn't he?
And by the way, if you try cleanvoice.ai, a couple of weeks ago,
Adrian tells me that he improvedthe AI just yesterday on stay.
So it doesn't even better job.
which is really nice.
And it's weird, isn't it?
That you can have an upgrade ofthis sort of thing happening, at
the same time.
So really good to see all ofthat.

Sam (10:50):
I think it's interesting that this whole space is rapidly
moving forward.
It will be a good comparisonwith what we do with de script.
When we use this later.

James (11:00):
indeed.
So we can either, use cleanvoice for this Podcast what's
your thinking there, Sam?
Shall we use clean voice forthis podcast to not do any
DM-ing and D-ring otherwise

Sam (11:11):
yeah, I think we'll see how it works.
I think I'm going to put itthrough both cause we have that
fun of you editing and then Isubmit it.
that's the best way to get itout there, James?
I think, we'll try it in bothand just let's see what the
result is.
Maybe we can talk about it nextweek.

James (11:24):
Well, maybe we can, maybe that's a plan.
I love the way that he alsosays, Oh yeah, I also built that
thing that makes it automaticfor you to paint and draw and
things like that.
And you go clever people who youreally want to succeed.
Great to talk to Adrian earlieron.

Sam (11:38):
now Apple and Spotify seem to be on a weekly bunfight this
week.
It's about lossless audio, Appleand Amazon have joined Spotify
by announcing lossless audio forthem music streaming services.
And the question is, will anyonenotice.
What's happened, James, youwrote a big article on this,

James (11:56):
I did.
I wrote a big article on it.
so I used to, when I worked inthe radio industry in the UK,
there's this thing called dab,which broadcasts the radio over
the air.
and lots of people were veryMony at the audio quality
because on a dab radio, you cansee the bit rate.
So you can see, is this 128?

(12:16):
K is this 64?
K what is it?
And lots of people were veryMoni about the audio quality.
and I did a very sneaky andunderhand thing once with a
radio station that I ran calledVirgin radio, where we took the
grooves output.
And we changed it.
So instead of saying 128 K onthe screen, it said 160 K on the

(12:37):
screen.
cause it was using 160 Ks worthof bandwidth.
And so lots of people emailedand said how wonderful, you've
improved the audio quality.
It sounds brilliant.
It sounds excellent.
Thank you so much for doingthis.
I just changed what the numbersaid on your radio.
I hadn't changed the audioquality at all.
I just filled the extra 32 Kwith some images.

(12:58):
and I think that goes to showthat for quite a lot of people,
not everybody, but for quite alot of people.
audio quality is something thatwe just don't really notice.
And we have to have something onour screen telling us that this
is Hi-Fi sound.
I am not entirely convinced thatpeople are going to spot this,
but Apple, Amazon and Spotifyhave all said that they are

(13:21):
going to be using 24 bit 192kilohertz audio, which is up to
3.7.
Megabits a second to listen toif you want to end up using
that.
So I think if you were todownload a Joe Rogan podcast, it
would be more than three gig.
if they were doing that in highres, but apart from anything

(13:42):
else, you can't listen onvirtually any.
Phones many devices, Bluetooth,headphones won't work with it.
and secondly, it's nothing to dowith Podcast cider.
So it's just purely music andI'm not sure that it's the right
thing to do for podcasts, maybethe right thing to do for music.
But, as I say, I'm not entirelyconvinced that most people will

(14:02):
realize.

Sam (14:02):
as you know, I do river radio and we're going to be
starting at 32 bit mano.
They're so expensive.
And I wonder how bad or good itwill be, but 128 you said, or
160 over a hundred thousand ayear.

James (14:18):
Exactly.
So if you can lower the amountof, bit rate that you use
without it sounding appreciablyworse, then that's probably a
plan.
Interestingly, Apple, Amazon,and Spotify are all doing this.
So Amazon and Apple have saidthat it will be free.
For their users, Spotify Hi-Fi Ithink they were planning on
selling it as an additional feefor Hi-Fi sound, but I'm not

(14:42):
sure they will now and YouTubemusic, which is the music
service that I use.
they have said they currentlyuse 256 K AAC.
which by the way, lots of testshave said that people can't tell
the difference between that andlossless anyway, but they've
said publicly that they won't begoing higher than that because

(15:03):
their music licensing costswould change quite dramatically
if they did.
which is interesting.
Because hearing music, licensingcompanies, the music companies
wants to charge more for highquality audio is an interesting,
side, which I hadn'tappreciated.
So that's the wonderful world ofmusic licensing, which is always
for fun.

Sam (15:23):
I think though, this is one where Apple will win.
now the reason I think that isabout a year ago when Apple
started to launch numerous chipsof its own So the headphones
would one chip in it with theApple home studio their
equipment at the Alexa with theone chips in the M one chips.
The fact that they've built thisecosystem of chips, it means

(15:46):
that they can start to do cleverstuff than Amazon or Spotify
that are just software driven.
And in the Apple announcement,they said that they all play
Dolby, Atmos tracks on allairports or beat headphones with
an H one or w one chip as wellas the built-in speakers in the
latest iPhone iPad.
max so tells me that they'regoing to use hardware

(16:06):
acceleration.
To make that sound better.
And I think that's going to bewhere again, they will have an
extensive advantage over Spotifyand.
Amazon.
So it'll be interesting to seewhen

James (16:18):
that comes out.
absolutely.
And my understanding of the waythat Dolby Atmos can work is it
can work in, in terms of a verysort of spacial sound, where if
you turn your head, you heardifferent things going on.
So if you're listening.
To an orchestra, for example.
And normally the violins are inthe left side.

(16:39):
The the double basis are in theright hand side.
But as you turn your headrounds, then obviously all of
the instruments will change.
And I think that's fine if themusic's recorded in that way.
If the music's not recorded inthat way, and most pop songs
aren't recorded in that way,then I'm not quite sure what
you're going to hear, but I'msure that people will spot that
as this gets more, yeah.

(16:59):
More, used by people who aremaking music.
I'm sure it'll be something thatpeople will get very excited
about whether or not peoplenotice really is an interesting
one, but not necessarily forpodcasting, but who knows.
There have been podcasts thathave been announced, which have
been called high definitionpodcasts and iHeartRadio did a
lot of work with binaural soundas well.

(17:22):
And they were getting veryexcited with that bit too.

Sam (17:26):
to be, or not to be Spotify or Apple on Tuesday.
Libsyn release their figures forApril saying that Apple is four
times bigger than Spotify forpodcasts downloads.
However, Buzzsprout releasedfigures earlier this month
saying that Spotify and Applewere now the same size.
So can't both be correct, Jameswhat's going on.

James (17:48):
They can't both be right.
and my suspicion is that neitherof them are right.
I spent a month researching thisand I think I chatted a little
bit about this a month or soago.
I talked to a bunch of othercompanies as well to find out
what was going on.
And so partially it's to do withApple core media that we spoke
about a couple of weeks ago.

(18:08):
So Buzzsprout was basicallylooking at any Podcast plays
from an Apple core media useragent and saying, we're just
going to ignore all of those.
Whereas Libsyn was giving all ofthose numbers to Apple, and
that's why the figures are sodifferent here because
Buzzsprout have essentiallytaken all of the Apple core
numbers and gone.
None of this is Apple, whichisn't correct.

(18:30):
Libsyn has said all of it isApple, which isn't correct
either.
My research at the moment saysthat it's about 58% of Apple
core media being Apple podcasts.
So that means that 42% isn't.
but then that's just research onpod news, which isn't a normal
podcast it's normally listenedto by people in the industry.
at least you get some kind of anunderstanding there that maybe

(18:53):
it's half and half, and in whichcase, Libsyn is giving way too
much numbers to Apple.
And Buzzsprout is giving way toolittle numbers to Apple, and
there's all kinds of otherthings as well, but sprout is
growing faster than Libsyn iscurrently.
So therefore newer shows aremore likely to be on Spotify,
that older shows and Buzzsproutseems to have more shows which
do better on Spotify, likesport, for example, which does

(19:15):
significantly better.
So I think all of that ispartially the reason why the
figures are so different here.
The other thing which I foundfascinating is I talked to
Buzzsprout about whether or notthey have any numbers for how
many of their shows are onSpotify and how many of their

(19:35):
shows are on Apple and they havethose numbers and it turns out
that they have more shows inSpotify than in Apple.
so no surprise that Spotify isalmost bigger than Apple for
Buzzsprout, but secondly, only60% of Buzzsprout shows are in
Apple podcasts because it's sohard to get into Apple podcasts,

(19:56):
fiddling around with Podcastconnect and everything else only
60%.
And I think that's the realinteresting story here.

Sam (20:04):
And have they fix the Apple connect yet?
Is that.

James (20:07):
have they fixed Apple connect yet?
It's been a month.
since it's been launched a monthtoday Marco almond reported
yesterday, that ATP, which ishis Podcast fell off Apple
podcasts for awhile.
He can't log into Apple podcastsconnect.
it's been a month.
I still can't see any analyticsin Apple podcasts.
It says not enough data.

(20:28):
For the pod news Podcast.
Now pod news got 359 downloadsfrom Apple podcasts on Tuesday.
If that's not enough data, howmuch is enough date?
and it's very sad.
I've literally just.
Been sending an email to mysuffering friend at Apple
podcasts PR and saying, is therea chance of an interview on
this?
It's been a month now?

(20:49):
we should probably see, whetheron an Apple might say anything
and an Apple still aren't sayinganything yet.
So who knows, maybe I'll begiven an interview with Ben
cave, although I would imaginethat I'm more likely to be sent.
five brand new Apple MacBookpros.
This knows what else, and that'snot going to happen either.
yeah so it's a real shame tosee, not just the Apple podcasts

(21:13):
connect still isn't workingproperly, but also that they're
not saying anything.
And I think that's the saddestthing there.

Sam (21:19):
in the adult message, you'd like to say they're still giving
us their mushroom strategy.

James (21:24):
Indeed.
Indeed.
They are.

Sam (21:27):
Now costed, this is a new company that got$7 million
funding.
Last month, they help largercompanies promote their Podcast
better.
James who know more about cost.
I think he spoke to their CEO.

James (21:41):
Yeah.
companies like sales force usecosted, but I reckon that
there's probably something tolearn here for every podcaster
as well.
So I talked to co-founderLindsay.
Chip calmer.
And I asked her how she got intothe Podcast space in the first
place

Lindsay (21:57):
career marketer.
I spent 15 years in B2Bmarketing.
So I have lived the lives ofthose that, that we at Casad are
now serving.
So I've seen B2B marketing.
I've seen content marketing fromevery angle, small boutique
agency, and up to those largeenterprises and realized, Hey,
the way that we.
our approaching contentmarketing is becoming
antiquated.
it's all focused around bloggingand keywords and SEO, which is

(22:20):
great.
All of those things are great,but.
Our audiences really want thiscontent, what you and I are
doing right now, this, theseconversations where they feel
really connected to a brand andthat they can hear and see and
experience something that theyfeel really matters and is
relevant to them.
So what if we put that at thecenter?
So I've seen that I'veexperienced it throughout my
career, right before startingcasting, I was brought into a

(22:41):
large global enterprise to startand run a content strategy.
long story short, as part ofthat strategy.
I wanted that connection that Ijust talked about with our
audience and I wanted to growour brand that way.
So we started to Podcast.
This was in 2017 that we startedworking on.
I think we launched it in 2018which seems like just yesterday,
but is becoming is years agonow.
so we launched a show and foundthat it was really great.
Did what we wanted it to do.
it created relationships withour audience around the world.

(23:04):
It pulled together our internalaudience of team members around
the world.
But I was shocked that there wasno platform to help me do that.
We had to piecemeal together,all these one off tools and
point solutions, most of whichwere not made for an enterprise
marketing team and many of whichweren't even made for
podcasting.
It was like a recording toolthat you can use to Podcast.

(23:25):
And we made it work and we foundways to measure what we felt
like it mattered, but it wasvery cumbersome.
It was very frustrating for meas a marketing leader.
Not to be able to go to my CEOand my COO and say, this is
working and I know it.
And here's why, and here's howit's influencing revenue.
here's how it's impacting thebusiness.
And basically I've set out to bethe change I wanted to see and
create that platform.
And so a little over two yearsago now that's outcasted was

(23:46):
born, as I said, What if we hadin the world, a content
marketing platform that servedmarketing teams in a way that
let them put the content thattheir audiences really want rich
audio, video content at thecenter of their strategies and
helped them ring it out, helpthem not turn it and burn it and
measure it in a way that reallymattered for the brand.
And yeah, that's.

(24:07):
That's how it all happened.

James (24:08):
And your website has a lot of excellent language on it.
One of the, one of it talksabout there are quite a lot of
Podcast brands out there,churning and burning episodes.
I love churning and burning.
What do you mean by that?

Lindsay (24:20):
So quite often when a brand and I think even.
More broadly speaking, anyonewho does a podcast, they create
the podcast, they produce thepodcast, they publish the
podcast.
However, whatever that processlook like, and then they move on
to the next thing.
And you're leaving so much valuebehind because there's a lot of
goodness in each.
And every conversation you get asubject matter expert or

(24:42):
somebody who's really passionateabout a topic on your show to
talk about everything that theyknow about.
And.
you leave all that in thatepisode, in that little
container, that's set on thisshelf.
When you could be ringing itout, you could be getting back
in there and using more from it,pulling clips, plane takeaways,
equipping your sales team withit, creating supplemental blog
content, or article content withit.
There's just so much more youcan do.

(25:03):
other than let it turn and burnand just go onto the next thing.

James (25:07):
And so constitute what allows you to search through
previous podcasts and that sortof thing?
Or how does it work?

Lindsay (25:13):
Yeah.
So in a nutshell you're amarketer and you are.
Managing a Podcast.
And so you have your host,whoever that may be go have a
great conversation, you recordit.
that show gets produced and youhave this lovely episode.
That's where Casad as a softwareplatform comes into play.
So you upload that episode.
Into the cast and platform, wehost it and syndicate it out to

(25:36):
whatever player that works foryou.
Apple, Spotify, lots of othersare getting involved now as
well.
but then we also give it a placeto live on your site.
So a microsite, a home that, hasthe houses, the entire show and
every episode gives youraudience a really nice branded
experience as they come andconsume your content on that.
That page on that micro-site youcan share key takeaways and

(25:58):
little clips and relatedcontent.
but then also on the backend,you get a transcription for
every single episode.
so from there, yes, to yourpoint, yes.
You can go back and searchthrough every piece of audio and
video content that you'veuploaded into cast it.
So you can resurface contentthat you already have.
You can repurpose it, you canreuse it, you can clip it up and
share it.
as opportunities presentthemselves.
To reuse that content and makeeven more of it.

(26:20):
and then, yeah, just ringing itout and amplifying it across all
other channels.

James (26:25):
That's very cool.
And something that I used to doan awful lot around some of the
websites that I used to run wasmaking sure that as much of the
content as possible wasevergreen.
So you could go in reuse as manylittle chunks of content as you
possibly could.
And it sounds as if that's doingexactly that for podcasting as
well, which is great.

Lindsay (26:44):
It's true.
And then with analytics, Withmetrics that really matter
specifically, because again,we're talking about marketing
teams that represent brands,specifically, enterprise B2B,
some metrics that matter to thebusiness to say what of this
content is?
Yes, great content and greatmarketing, but also what's
influencing revenue.

(27:04):
What's influencing pipeline,what's influencing, renewables
and the metrics that matter tothe brand.
And how can I, as a marketer.
Get back in there and resurfacethings that are going to
continue to move the needle, soto speak for my business.

James (27:18):
So you can work out whether or not somebody who's
listened to a podcast then goesand buys a product or buys a
subscription or whatever itmight be.

Lindsay (27:26):
Yeah.
Yep.
By integrating with CRM andplugging into, flowing into that
information that you and yoursales team and your business is
already using to manage thatinto the sales process and the
customer relationships.
yeah, you can absolutely see howit's all working together and.
What to do more of,

James (27:43):
So who are some of your current customers?
Are they all massively largecompanies?

Lindsay (27:48):
we work with mid-market on up to yeah.
Enterprise.
So of course, Salesforce, PayPalHubSpot's also a customer and a
great partner of ours.
Drift is a.
Fantastic brand and a wonderfulpartner and customer of ours.
yeah, we work with a lot of SAScompanies, I think by default,
they are early adopters, notjust of us, but of podcasts in
general.

(28:08):
but yeah, that's lots of other,financial institutions and
venture capital firms are biginto thought leadership and
therefore podcasting.
So yeah.
a nice range of of industriesand company sizes.

James (28:20):
Always nice to hear Ray pod new supporter of of HubSpot
getting mentioned at so always agood thing.
Are there any plans to make thisavailable to smaller podcasts as
well?
Or are you really focusing onthat sort of size of company?

Lindsay (28:32):
Yeah, so we are made for and designed for in that
mid-market to enterprise thatsaid we do have.
a few smaller customers thathave prioritized this approach
saying, Hey, we're going to putour shows, audio and video
content at the center.
That there's a huge opportunityfor us.
thought leadership is massive.
It does create more connectionwith your audience.
It does build more relationshipswith your audience.

(28:54):
and yeah, just because you'resmall doesn't mean that you
can't prioritize that, buttypically we are the best fit
for kind of that mid size and upto very large

James (29:00):
company.
Now last month you announced a$7million funding round many.
Congratulations on that.
I'm guessing because I'm talkingto you on your private yacht at
the moment, I'm guessing that'swhere the money's gone.
no.
Yeah.

Lindsay (29:12):
Don't tell the investors yet.
I just, yeah.
Swindled that off.

James (29:18):
Yeah.

Lindsay (29:18):
it's growth.
I that's the shortest answer isgrowth.
we've got to continue toinnovate on product and I truly
mean innovate, not just turnout, here's a new feature and
here's something additional for.
But product growth sake, buttruly innovating and say and
guiding our customers into nextgeneration of content marketing
to say, truly put conversationsat the center.

(29:38):
Here's how where the first andonly platform that's doing that.
First of course, there'sdifferent ways that you can have
a podcast if you're a brand, butwe're are, we are the ones that
are taking our customers andreally the industry by the hand
and saying, What if you didmarketing this way, what if you
approached content marketingthis way?
and so it's up to us to continueto lead the way with really
great product innovation.
and then, when we do that, wehave to continue to talk about

(30:01):
it.
So fueling drilling our voiceand making sure that people hear
about us and know about us andyeah, just growth across the
board and serving our customers.

James (30:08):
The other thing that I noticed looking through the.
Castiel website, whichis@castillo.us is random
mentions of something calledPodcast.
Tell us what Podcast is.

Lindsay (30:18):
Podcast is our, I keep saying unofficial mascot, but I
think he's pretty official atthis point.
yeah.
Yes he's he's a grumpy littlepurple cat and he.
Yeah.
He shows up everywhere and hedressed up as lady.
I can't remember, but fromBridgeton yeah, I don't know if
you're a British and fan, butmost recently that's what
Podcast was dressed up as, andthe way that Podcast came to be
was our designer.

(30:39):
Byron Elliott who's.
enormously talented was in ameeting with us.
He was our first hire.
I have two co-founders, so Adamand Zachary and I were talking
about product roadmap and Byronwas there.
and Adam accidentally wrote podKatz instead of Podcast.
On the board.
And of course, what gooddesigners do?
He started doodling and Podcastwas born.
And we were like no that's not adoodle that's a thing.

(31:01):
And so yeah, Podcast came aboutvery organically and found his
home with us.

James (31:06):
Podcast thing.
Fantastic, Lindsay, thank you somuch.
Feel re feel retirement and keepin touch as you continue
growing.

Lindsay (31:15):
thank you so much for this show.
We have a business doingpodcasts, listening to your
podcast about podcasts has beenenormously helpful.
So it's been a real pleasure tobe here.

James (31:25):
Great to talk with Lindsay.
I reckon it's always a good ideato make the most of the content
that you have.
It's very easy.
I think, to publish a show once,assume that it's been out there
and everybody's heard it andthen forget about it.
And I think their tool is agreat way to help the companies
that they work with, link backagain and again.
And I think that's a great tipfor every Podcast of big or

(31:46):
small, even if you can't affordthis particular tool, remember.
All of the archive stuff thatyou've got and link back to it
whenever you can.
I think that's always a goodplan.

Sam (31:55):
Yeah.
Cross-promote now Spotify, backin the news again, James, with
transcripts, it seems as part ofa wider piece of work for better
accessibility.
Spotfire to begin autotranscribing some of the
podcasts in the next few weeks.
Now, is this something thatSpotify should be doing?

(32:15):
Is it a good idea?
What's behind

James (32:17):
it.
Yeah.
I think it probably is somethingthat they could, that they
should be doing.
They plan to enable transcriptsfor every Podcast in the future,
but they will be autotranscribing the podcasts that
they own already.
I hate to say, I told you soSam, but back in may of last
year I spotted something in theterms and conditions, the new

(32:41):
Spotify terms and conditions,which said that they were
thinking about automatedtranscripts.
so I was quite pleased to befirst with the news a year ago.
Which is always a nice thing.
but I also wrote something atthe time around automated
transcripts and whether or notall podcasters wanted those.
The problem with an automatedtranscript is that it's about
95% accurate, which means thatevery, one word out of every

(33:05):
five is wrong.
That's not quite how mathsworks, but you'll get the idea.
There's an awful lot of wrongwords in there.
so automated transcripts, aren'talways the best plan.
One would question, how could Igo in and correct Spotify
transcripts?
is that a thing?
And anyway, the Podcast indexhas a Podcast transcript tag,

(33:25):
which is now available.
and maybe Spotify should beusing that one as well.
the good news, is if you useChrome as your web browser or
you're on an Android phone, thenlive captions are available for
every podcast app that you use.
which is a great thing.
if you're on an Apple phone,unfortunately you're a bit left
out for now.
but a good thing, I think interms of accessibility from

(33:47):
Spotify point of view,

Sam (33:48):
is that the only benefit of transcripts?
we've been told time and timeagain, that it's got an SEO or
Podcast SEO functionality.
Do you think it has, or is itjust something that we just do
and hope that Google will indexit?

James (34:03):
I'm sure that Spotify will feed in these automated
transfers to their own searchengine, which is really, when
people talk about Podcast SEO,it's very much, I think talking
about what's the Podcast appsearch engines kickback rather
than what Google does.
I'm still not very convincedthat Google has a massive impact

(34:23):
on Podcast.
Discoverability, although, whoknows, maybe it does.
But it'll certainly help.
And I know that Apple have beendoing stuff like this in the
past.
So if you do a search within theApple podcast app, then you do
get some results which areclearly, automated transcripts
in that particular app.
I'm sure that there are benefitsin terms of SEO.
There's clear benefits in termsof Podcast reporters as Carmen

(34:47):
said from the verge when she wastweeting about this because
it'll make life an awful loteasier for all of us to be able
to quickly skim through apodcast and find out what was
said in it so that we can thengo and find out the the actual
bit of the audio.
so that'll be useful.
but All of this kind of stuff isI think very handy, as long as
it gives the content creator,the control that they really

(35:09):
ought to have because they arethe people that make the
content.
And if I want to opt out ofautomated transcripts or if I
want to be able to go in andcorrect them, then to my mind, I
should be able and afforded theopportunity to do that.

Sam (35:24):
it'd be long before we're not needed, by the way, you know
that change

James (35:26):
then you yes, I, I was talking I was talking only this
morning to Brian Barletta fromsounds profitable, who has found
this amazing piece of automatedtools that will learn your voice
and do a better job of it thande script And apparently we
won't be needed at all.
So who knows?

Sam (35:46):
I was thinking there's AI software that can write posts
now.
So the Washington post had beenusing that some of these sports
journalism.
So you've got the ability towrite the post.
You've got overdub and othervoice tools that will speak the
text.
You then can auto transcript it.
And there's software.
Now that will auto summarize atranscript as well.

(36:07):
So you could get the summaryback at the other end, if you

James (36:10):
wanted.
Yeah, and done in your voice ifyou wanted to as well.
all of that I think is this isreally interesting.
what might be really interestingis to give a bunch of software
or the entire RSS feed that Iuse to produce.
Pod news with give it all ofthat and basically say go.
and it would take all of thosestories.

(36:32):
Make sure short versions of eachof them is to come all together,
get me to voice themautomatically.
That would be a thing.
Maybe I'll do that when I'm awayon a holiday at some point in
the future when I can leave thiscountry.

Sam (36:44):
also a company I found, David just launched type
studio.co, which is anotheraudio transcribing software.
but it's in browser only.

James (36:54):
Yeah.
Ah, Interesting.
I shall check it out.

Sam (36:57):
Now, just to finish off with, there was a couple of
stories that I thought I'd askyou about.
First one, we keep talking aboutthem.
Nick Flix is said to beexpanding their Podcast activity
and taking pictures fromproduction companies.
So now last week you said youthought it might just be, them
putting a podcast out for a filmor TV show that they had.

(37:18):
But this seems to suggest thatit's a broader use of
podcasting.

James (37:23):
Yes.
And I'm not quite sure what theunderlining story is.
I remember reporting onsomething called Netflix plus,
which they're apparently workingon, which is some kind of, get
closer to the action portal thatwill be inside the Netflix app.
so maybe it's that, but the factthat they're taking pitches from
other independent companiesseems to suggest that they've

(37:45):
got more ambitions in thatfield.
who knows, maybe on the otherside, maybe they're using
podcasting as Amazon is forexample as a way of incubating
story ideas and things that theycan then turn into TV shows in
the future.
maybe that's the plan.
really don't know, but I thinkit's interesting to keep an eye

(38:06):
on and you're, they'reabsolutely convinced that
Netflix is going to buy Spotify.
I'm convinced that Netflix isgoing to crash and burn because
it's, I'm spending so muchmoney.
It's increasingly reliant onthese massive, great big budget
shows and and we're alreadyseeing the fight back.
Paramount and Disney and all ofthese other streaming services.

(38:29):
And I wonder.
Whether Netflix is first moveradvantage, which they clearly
had is going to be somethingthat is almost worthless now.
and who knows whether Netflixmay fall apart in the next year
or so.
I guess you are very much youare very much a glass half full
person, and I am a glass halfempty person when it comes to,

(38:52):
large companies such as this.
I

Sam (38:53):
think you're arguing the same point for me because if
Netflix films and TV starts towane because of the other
companies, they will need tofind a secondary revenue stream.
And that's when I think theywill go to sports.

James (39:05):
Ah, yes.
that probably makes sense maybe.

Sam (39:08):
And I think when you see Amazon making a 9 billion pound
bid for MGM this week I thinkyou're beginning to see that
triple play.
getting much more serious films,TVs, music, podcasts.
I think they're all playing inthat same space.
It'll be interesting to watch,but I'm still taking my bet
Netflix to buy Spotify.

James (39:28):
we will see on that.
I appear to be winning the bestwhole clubhouse, not being
around in six months, butjudging by some of the latest
download figures.

Sam (39:36):
Yes, 90% down now.
the other one that I caught myeye was Spotify is hiring a new
Podcast boss, according toBloomberg.

James (39:46):
Yes, Spotify is fascinating to me.
They have so many differentPodcast bosses.
and so this story in Bloombergis basically saying that they're
going to get another one.
And so they're essentiallylooking for somebody else to
look after podcasts andsplitting the podcasts that they
have Into more divisions I'malready confused enough about

(40:07):
what's going on in terms ofSpotify as podcasts.
Do you remember that?
Barack Obama and BruceSpringfield exclusive Podcast
renegades exclusive until lastweek when all of a sudden it
appeared on Apple podcasts, Iwouldn't say easily.
Yeah.
So you can now listen to that.
On Apple podcasts, which isexactly the same as they did
with the Michelle Obama show.

(40:28):
and so some others of theirexclusives appear not to be
exclusives anymore.
Maybe that's a windowing thing.
Maybe that's a complete changeof strategy from the strategy
that they told their investors.
I don't know, but there's weirdthings going on that Spotify at
the moment in terms of theirPodcast strategy.
and the fact that they arehiring more management is always

(40:50):
a slight concern.
I tell you, after somebody thatwas worked for the BBC for two
years, the least you want ismore managers get rid of them.
you absolutely don't need anymore of those.
yeah.
Interesting seeing what's goingto happen at Spotify that.
I expect Joe

Sam (41:08):
Rogan an Apple anytime soon then.

James (41:10):
Huh?
yes.
or may be which is which by theway is a really weird thing with
Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan is still in Applepodcasts.
The feed is the old feed isstill in Apple podcasts.
There's one show in there whichdates from April of last year,
randomly.
And that's it.
There's no other shows.
There's no communication in thatfeed at all that Joe Rogan is

(41:34):
now available exclusively onSpotify.
There are no clips being posted.
There's no opportunity.
That's the most subscribed toPodcast for a certain generation
as the most subscribed toPodcast yet Spotify aren't using
the Libsyn feed that they haveto promote.
The fact that Joe Rogan is nowexclusive on the Spotify

(41:55):
platform.
That to me is just really weird.
why would you throw away thatincredible opportunity that you
have to reach Joe Roganlisteners?
Themselves by putting somethingnew in that Podcast feed, maybe
somebody has forgotten theirLibsyn password.
Maybe they should be dropping LCat email to say, what's the

(42:16):
password again, I've forgottenit.
but you look at that and youthink surely that's an obvious
thing to do.
so again, I don't reallyunderstand how Spotify works.

Sam (42:26):
maybe this new person who they're hiring will clear it all
up.

James (42:30):
Maybe they will.
Who knows now?
podcasts, Sam, we've not reallytalked about the amount of
content that we listened to andI think it will be nice to do
that every week.
So I was wondering what podcastsare you listening to?
at the moment

Sam (42:43):
I tend to listen to tech podcasts.
I have the same thing with mybook reading.
I don't read.
Fiction books.
It has to be non-fiction I can'tsee the point, but a bit like
spike, Milligan.
I read the last chapter of thefiction book just in case I died
before the end really don't haveany value in it.
so my podcasting listening isvery much the same.
I listen to Scott Galloway.

(43:05):
I listened to Kara Swisher withsway.
they're the main.
Podcasts.
I listened to obviously the podnews daily.

James (43:12):
Yes, of course everybody does.
Yeah, of course.

Sam (43:15):
And it's quite interesting whether you consider audible to
be a Podcast or it's not.
because I listened to a lot ofaudio books and the current one
that I'm listening to is theprisoners of geography.
10 maps that will tell youeverything you need to know
about global politics

James (43:31):
by Tim Martin.
Oh yes.
Tim Marshall sky newscorrespondent.
Yes.
He's yes, I think I read a bitof that.
and I enjoyed a bit of that.
There's also an app, which Iwould hardly recommend called
Blinkist, which takes.
Books and it's alwayshistorically taken books and
edited them down so that they'rea short read and you get the

(43:52):
gist of the book in there.
But what they've started doingis they've started turning those
into audio books.
So you can listen to an audiobook that only takes 15 or 20
minutes.
And what they've even starteddoing now is taking podcasts and
made short versions of thosepodcasts, which is quite a
clever.
Plan on there as well.
So it's a paid for service, butmight be worthwhile.

(44:15):
but in terms of Podcast I whatPodcast specifically?
Don't invade my question, Mr.
Sethi, are you listening to

Sam (44:22):
no.
As I said, I don't, I onlylistened to as I said, Scott
Galloway is one that I lovelistened to.
I think his views on theindustry and what's going on in
generally.
good.
And then sway, which is KaraSwisher's.
They're the two main ones Ilistened to.
I used to listen to a fewothers, but they're dropped off
my list now.
And going back to Blinkist, notto avoid the subject before I

(44:42):
ask you what yours are.
I used a similar service when Iwas doing my MBA many years ago,
and it's the only way I gotthrough it.
So there was a company in NewYork that would take all the
business books, and this is howold we are, or I am and put them
onto to cassette tape.
And then they would send youthose cassette tapes back to the
UK Yes.
And on my train journey home.

(45:03):
I would listen to the books.
And so my professor or my MBA,who was saying, read all these
books and then I'd come backwith these summaries the next
couple of days, you'd be like,how the hell are you reading all
these books so fast that I nevertold him.
yes, I think it worked reallywell.
Got a great result in my MBA forthat.
Thank

James (45:19):
you very much.
I'm amazed that they were ableto ship the wax cylinders to you
and that they didn't break onthe steamer in between the U S
and the UK.
good.
yeah I ha I have been listeningto.
the Lazarus heist, which is allabout a North Korea hacking
group.
It's a weird listen it's Podcastfrom the BBC.
it's a Podcast which is full ofad breaks for their own shows,

(45:42):
which is really weird.
So they've clearly understoodthe benefit of cross promos
which is a nice thing.
and there's also somethingslightly weird about listening
to stories of the propagandathat comes out of North Korea on
a podcast which has beenproduced by a state fund, did
broadcaster of a Western nationbecause you can't help, but
think that there's probably alittle bit of property Gamba on

(46:05):
that side of it as well.
Yeah.
But it's a fascinating lesson.
it's really interesting.
It starts off with the Sonyentertainment hack after Sony
was bringing out a new filmabout the killing of King Kim
Jong IL or King Jong whicheverof the Kim's it was and then
goes into lots of other thingsthat the North Koreans have also
apparently been involved with.

(46:25):
So a well-worth Alyson.

Sam (46:27):
clearly my podcasting has to be listening to the winners
of the Ambi.
So I'm going to go back in this,dying for sex, this week.

James (46:34):
And why not?
what's been going on for you inPodland this week, Sam.

Sam (46:38):
unlike you who's much busier.
So we'll ask you in a second.
I been kindly invited by HarryMorton onto the Podcast 24 as a
panelist.
So I'm looking

James (46:48):
forward to that.
Oh yes.
This is the planets podcastingconference at Podcast day 20
four.com.
it's on Monday, the 7th of June.
And you can come to theconference itself in Sydney for
eight hours at the beginning ofthe day, which I'm helping
program.
And then it continues in Londonwhere you are presumably, and
then in North America, whenneither of us are you can buy

(47:12):
tickets now at Podcast, a 20four.com.
And if you use code P news day21, That's P news day 21.
then you can save some money.
I'm not quite sure how much yousave, but I'm sure that you've
saved some money.
so a well-worth doing Monday,the 7th of June and also I'm
taking part in the BBC Podcastfestival, which is happening.

(47:32):
a little bit sooner than that.
you'll find links.
If you do a search for BBCPodcast festival in pod news
that's all free.
And I'm speaking on the finalsession on may the 27th, which
reminds me, my slides needs tobe in for today.
And I haven't even started doingthem yet.
But, that's the story of mylife.

(47:53):
so there we go.
that's it for this week, comeback to Podland next time.
Follow us in your podcast app orwe're at Podland dot news on the
web.

Sam (48:03):
And if you have any comments or questions, please
send us a voice comment toquestions at Podland dot news or
tweet us at

James (48:10):
Podland news.
If you want daily news, youshould get pod news, the
newsletters free pod news.net.
The podcast is free in yourpodcast app, and that's where
you'll find the links for allthe stories we've mentioned this
week.
Our music is from ignitejingles.
We used clean feed and Riversidethis weekend we're hosted and
sponsored by Buzzsprout.

Sam (48:29):
Please.
tell your friends and colleaguesabout Podland would love if they
joined us and we'll see you inPodland next week.
And I'll explain to my wife whyI'm listening to a podcast
called dying for sex.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}I'm at a loss, will anyone notice the difference? Lossless audio comes to Apple, Spotify and Amazon for free.

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

I'm at a loss, will anyone notice the difference? Lossless audio comes to Apple, Spotify and Amazon for free.

Dateline NBC