Live from Podcast Movement with the New Media Show

Episode Transcript
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James Cridland (00:00):
It's Friday, August, the 25th 2023.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
The last word in podcasting news.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview with James Cridland and
Sam Sethi.

I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News
, recording this into my MacBookin an airport lounge because
I've packed my little travelmicrophone and I forgot to
record this intro before I didthat.
Today, a special edition of thenew media show and the Pod News
Weekly Review live from theshow floor of podcast movement
2023 in Denver in Colorado.

(00:35):
We're sponsored by Busbrout'spowerful podcast hosting with
remarkable customer support, andon the show today, rob Greenlee
, who's working with StreamYardand Nomano, and Kavanaugh from
the OSSA Collective and thefirst voice you'll hear
straining a bit to make himselfheard over the noise in the expo
hall.
As you can probably tell, weall were the CEO of Blueberry,

(00:58):
todd Cochran.

Todd Cochrane (00:59):
So, of course, there was a big acquisition here
a few weeks ago with the scriptbuying, squad cast or acquiring
, or however it might be.
So what does that tell us aboutthe podcast market today?
Are we going to see moreconsolidation?
Where is this headed?
James, you want to start?

Yeah, I think this is, and greetings everybody
.
It's wonderful to be back.
I think it's really interesting.
It's a really interesting timeseeing lots of different tools
that podcasters are using,basically consolidate.
So now Descript has a remoterecording tool.
If you look at Libsyn, theyhave a remote recording tool.

(01:37):
You know Descript has editingwith text and there are other
podcast hosting companiesworking on editing with text and
all of the all this stuff isgoing on.
So I think what we're seeing isless you know, sets of
different companies doing stuffand more large companies who are
offering a whole range of toolsto work on.

But it is an interesting that squad cast does
support video and audio.
So it is a script, so it's aperfect fit.
So does that really mean thatwe're seeing a convergence in
audio video?
What do you think?

Anne Kavanaugh (02:17):
Yeah, I mean I think it's been very fragmented
or segmented on the video andthe audio side and the tools
coming together to make thateasier for the podcasters or the
creators is incredible, becauseit gives them more opportunity
and to be able to take theiraudiences from one platform onto
another.
You know, good or bad.

You know, but we've heard lots of folks say,
oh, video is important, video isnot important.
It's been from all thosesession to session where folks
have had disagreeing opinions onwhether or not you should do
video.
Now, we've been doing video forthis show for a long time,
right?

Rob Greenlee (02:55):
And what video has been part of a podcasting since
podcasting started, right?

But I also think too that some people like to
watch, some people like tolisten.
So I think there's a place forvideo.
The question is, at what cost.
Like Rob, you're having somechallenges today to get the
stream set up there.
You are scrambling, so yeah,video is always harder.

Yeah, it does take a set up and stuff.
I mean we're streaming thislive on my iPhone, of all things
, through StreamYard, whichreally makes it really easy to
do this kind of stuff right fromyour iPhone.
I think we're going to see moreof that kind of stuff happen.
Really, the simplification ofdoing this is really.
Technology is really helpingwith that now, and it's really

(03:38):
exciting to see the productionof content to be as easy as it
is today and I think it's goingto get easier too.

So how many of your podcasters are using video
at ASA?

Really great question.
I think right now we actuallyjust started offering the
opportunity with the simulcasts.
I want to say maybe 10% havealready opted in with their
video.
But what I will say actually isinteresting is we've got some
podcasters that are on a waysmaller scale like less than a

(04:16):
thousand downloads per month onaudio, but they've got 10,000
plus on video and so thosepodcasters have been restricted
in their access to brandsbecause there hasn't been a way
to be able to reconcile orconsolidate it.
Now they have an opportunitybecause we're able to track
across platform and with some ofthe attribution solutions, yeah

(04:39):
, I think it's an exciting time.

I think video coming into the space, becoming
more of an emphasis, is nothingnew, but it's also, I think,
just like I was saying, it'sabout the tools getting simpler
to use, and podcasters just needto have really a strategy for
how they're going to merge audiowith video and to do it in a

(05:03):
way that's right for theaudience.
I don't know, what do you thinkabout the convergence here?

Yeah, I think it's fascinating seeing a ton of
different converging thingsgoing on.
Lots of talk about video, lotsof clearly podcasting.
Audio podcasting is still.
I can hear Adam Curry spinningin his grave.
If I'm talking about audiopodcasting, he'll be shouting at
me next week.

(05:31):
But I find the whole thinginteresting and I think it goes
to show there was some researchthat was talked about today here
at Podcast Movement.
About 75% of normal people outthere who listen to podcasts
think that podcasting can bevideo or audio and I think, from
my point of view, I think thepodcasting is an audio first

(05:54):
experience that may or may nothave video, but if you can close
your eyes and still enjoy it,then it's probably a podcast.

Right.
I mean, if the listener thinksit's a podcast, it's a podcast
to them, right?
So that's what we're seeing.
I think YouTube is reallypushing the envelope on this.
In the perception of consumersor listeners or viewers, if it
looks like a podcast, it must bea podcast.

(06:21):
So I think it's reallyinteresting what's going to
happen.
James, you broke some newstoday about YouTube and what
they're doing and what's comingup, so why don't you tell us
about it?

Yeah, I mean, I think YouTube's move into
podcasting is in equal partsexciting and terrifying, but I
think the really interestingthing was actually something
that Steve McClendon, who washere from Google yesterday,
didn't say on stage, which isthat the YouTube Music app will

(06:55):
accept RSS feeds, and Iclarified with him this morning.
It's passed through as well, soit will actually properly in
inverted commas play RSS audioif you subscribe in that way.
So you may have a choice in thefuture.
Obviously, you won't be onYouTube properly if you don't

(07:16):
upload your show onto YouTube,but at least you can have a
listen to an RSS show on theYouTube Music app, which I guess
Todd makes it a podcast app.

Well it does and actually, in the simple fact
that they are going to do passthrough, allows anyone that is
monetizing their shows to atleast have their podcast on
YouTube music.
Get the content delivered theway you want it to and then, if
you still want to have a YouTubechannel, I would assume then

(07:48):
you would uncheck that frombeing a podcast channel.
So there wasn't confusion inthe YouTube app, I would, or
YouTube Music app, I would think.

Yeah, I mean, I think I think, if you're going
to use it cleverly and it's notgoing to be, it's not going to
be particularly easy from thestart, but I think, if you're
going to use it cleverly, youwould use YouTube for clips of
your show, but make your fulllength show available as an
audio podcast, available throughRSS, which is, by the way, the

(08:21):
work that TikTok is currentlydoing as well, where they're
encouraging content creators toproduce clips, rather than to
put the whole thing onto TikTokbut link through to the podcast.
I mean, I wonder, is thatsomething that Osser is doing?

Actually, we just we hosted a six week
accelerator program earlier inthe year.
So we had 72 podcasters for sixweeks, two sessions a week, and
we recorded all the videocontent and we recently just
actually took the video contentand turned it into a podcast.
So we're using the videosnippets to promote up a driving

(08:57):
traffic to the show.
So it's something that we'reactually doing ourselves to try
and get the crossover betweenaudio and video content.
Yeah, I mean a lot of ourpodcasters are used for
promotional content to drive itto whatever streaming service
that their listeners arelistening on.
You know.

You know.
If you think about TikTok isdoing, though.
You know.
Their approach, at least atthis point is you use TikTok to
promote an episode of a podcast?
It's not.
It's not going to be a directlisten app.
It's a place where you couldlisten all the way through, but
probably they won't.
They'll probably use that moreas a way to sample.

(09:37):
So it's going to be reallyimportant and I've heard many
people say this many times thefirst 30 to 60 seconds of your
show is got to be the mostimportant part of your content.
To get that lead in, to getpeople to stick and say, oh,
this might be something I wantto listen to more of.
You got to get them in and getthem started and get them hooked
quick, or otherwise they'rejust going to swipe up and

(10:00):
you're going to be off the offthe screen as far as TikTok goes
.

But there's also a perspective on this too, that
each of these consumptionplatforms have a little
different audience, so the issuewith this strategy of using one
to drive listeners to anothermay not pan out.
So you may want to have a dualstrategy, and that's kind of

(10:25):
what I've been advocating for alittle bit, and I think I'm
starting to feel a little bitstronger about that Now.
Granted, that adds a heavy liftto the creator to actually
create like two differentversions of their show or
something like that, but I thinkif you can make one version
that will work in both places, Ithink that's the best way to do

(10:47):
it, but that may not be theright content for YouTube.
And I do wonder about if you'reprimarily a YouTube creator
that is producing your show likea podcast, that it may not make
sense for you to submit youraudio version to YouTube, right?
I don't know, I mean, it'salready going to be listed in

(11:11):
YouTube music as the video,right?
So does that?
I mean, what's your commentbased on what you learned, is it
going to make sense forsomebody that has a full video
podcast right now in YouTube tosubmit their audio version to
YouTube as well?

I think my understanding is that you submit
one version to YouTube andthat's the version that goes on.
That's it.
You can turn on or off thepicture, but that's about as far
as it goes.
But I was listening to abandrew Scott podcast.
He was explaining how theYouTube algorithms work, and if
you listen to a show and youskip out after 20 seconds, that

(11:51):
is essentially telling thealgorithm that that show is
rubbish.
Now, that is if you listen toWait, wait, don't Tell Me as a
podcast, the first 30 secondsare the intro music and Carl
Castle, or whoever the new CarlCastle is talking about, live
from the such and such theaterin beautiful downtown Chicago.

(12:13):
All of that stuff will workreally badly on YouTube in terms
of the algorithm, and so whatBandrew Scott, for example, has
been doing in his podcast ishe's been editing a different
version for YouTube, which is adifferent version to the audio
version that he puts everywhereelse, and perhaps obviously the

(12:35):
real scale on YouTube is thevideo website where all of the
videos are, and perhaps the planthere is to upload something
that you edit slightly for theYouTube algorithm and put the
normal audio show everywhereelse.

For those of you that are here that are not
subscribed to our show, we had aguest last week to talk about
dual strategies for having asuccessful podcast and having a
successful YouTube channel, so Iencourage you to go over to the
website and listen to thatepisode.
It's real world on how it'sbeing happened.
But I want to change topics.
Ai.

(13:13):
I've had half a dozen folksstop by the booth today or the
past couple of days and saywe've got an AI solution, let's
work together, and I think AI ismoving quickly.
We've talked about it a lot onthis show in past episodes
almost probably the point wherewe're driving people away.
But is AI enabling a new typeof podcast SaaS service, as you

(13:36):
say in here?
Model?

Yeah, I kind of wonder about that.
Yeah, I mean it's they're goingto be a consolidation of some
of these AI services and do, andI thought that maybe the script
and squad cast was kind of likean early indication of that,
because the script is using AItechnology to some degree.

(14:00):
But I do think that more andmore of these platforms and Todd
you're an example of thisYou're starting to embrace AI
technology and your publishingplatform.
But are we just going to see AIcome in and have an influence
over every aspect of podcasting?

My thought process and it's pretty public
at this point.
The.
AI is going to be a great toolfor all of us to use, but just
remember, there's going to bemass production of content being
put out by AI and the 100 andwhat 35 million listeners

(14:39):
they're going to be seekingoriginal voices.
So, as long as we stick to ourcore and original voices and
don't let AI affect our contentand our voices and our opinions
and our stories, I think we'regoing to be have a very, very
positive future ahead.
Now the tools can be usingpre-production, post-production,

(15:00):
social sharing.
I think that's all going to befantastic.
As a matter of fact, it alreadyis and we're already using the
dumbest AI we'll ever use today,so I think it's going to have a
big change.

Yeah, I was going to say that I think that
the real benefit of AI is doingnot necessarily the podcast
itself, but doing some of theother stuff around the podcast.
So the Pod News Weekly review,which you may be listening to
this on, which is sponsored byBuzzsprout Sorry, todd,

(15:36):
buzzsprout has AI tools builtinto it, so when you upload, it,
does a transcript, it thenworks out what the show notes
should say, it gives you a titleand all of that kind of stuff
which is using podium under thehood.
It's a very good first step tobasically go okay.
Well, that's a job that I don'thave to worry about right now,
and I think that actually that'swhere AI is going to be super

(15:59):
useful to us as podcasters.
It's almost as if AI stands forassistive intelligence rather
than anything else.

I think that's a good use for it.

And I think too is, and I'm sorry, what I've
seen over 19 years of podcastingis podcasters are horrible.
Horrible at writing goodepisode titles, writing good
show notes, because you'rerecording for your audience, but
you're writing your show notesfor Google and if you don't give

(16:30):
Google enough to chew on, ofcourse your episodes are not
going to be discovered.
I think AI will solve this forpeople that have been lazy in
creating good show notes.

Well for us.
We started working withPodscribe recently and we're
using it for all the air checksand, from an operational
perspective, it's been night andday, like actually Victoria was
sitting there and there has tolisten to all those episodes on
a monthly basis.
It's completely offloadedoperational side for us.

(17:03):
And then also internally, whatwe're thinking about, or how
we're thinking about AI is, Ithink, one of the challenges
that exist in the market and thereasons brands continue to work
with the same shows over andover again is because they're
taking a risk on smaller showsthat have no historical
performance data.
You don't know how they'regoing to perform is how can we

(17:26):
leverage AI to understand whattype of shows work best for
brands, based on shows that have, you know, converted well in
the past?
So like really thinking abouthow do we do that to unlock
monetization for podcasters wayearlier on in their career then,
or their journey, versus havingto wait until they get to 10,

(17:50):
20,000 downloads, you know.

Yeah, I think that the tools, I think, should be
thought of as assistive rightnow.
There may be a day when you cantrust them, but I think that
the big thing is that they needto give you choices.
You know, give you like threeor four or five different
episode titles to pick from.

(18:15):
You can edit them still, but itjust makes suggestions.
And I was talking about thisearlier today with someone I was
doing another interview and Iwas thinking to myself what if
the AI really was smart enoughto know what works the best with
YouTube, what works the bestwith Spotify?

(18:35):
And it makes those suggestionsback to you based on that
knowledge and that understanding.
So it kind of takes the heavyload of the podcaster to know
all these intricate detailsabout how each of these
platforms works and how to reachthe proper audience, and I
think that the listeningplatforms would probably like

(18:57):
that too.

I think it also can help depending how the
platform you're using isconfigured.
If it knows your goal, if itknows the goal of your show, if
it knows the goal of the episodeand it can analyze the content
that you record for that day, itmight just write a better title

(19:21):
to help make you reach yourgoal, For not only the show but
for the episode and ways thatmaybe we weren't able to do
ourselves.
So I think there's lots ofopportunities here from
utilizing these tools smartly togain audience, because everyone

(19:41):
says, oh, I can't be found, I'mnot growing.
Well, often it's because again,we've heard Tom Webster this
morning you need to be talkingto that specific group and
attracting them to your show.
You can't be everything foreveryone and if you know what
the goal of your podcast is,maybe this can help.

Speaker 6 (20:00):
Yeah.

James, you try and automate a lot of what you do
with Pod News, because I've seenyou do it before.
I was just curious if there'sany inkling of possibility that
AI could help you.

Well, I wrote a.
I actually went to see apresentation last week from
Adobe in a home in Brisbane.
Somebody came to Brisbane totalk Who'd have thought it?
And that was interestingbecause the guy from Adobe.
He was talking about picturesand images and stuff, but he was

(20:33):
saying that they've worked on aspecific tool that helps people
looking at pictures to know howfake they are, how real they
are.
What was the initial part ofthis picture?
Was it a prompt?
Was it another image?
You know, et cetera, et cetera,and I, basically I came home
from that and the first thingthat I wrote was the AI policy,

(20:55):
which you'll find on our Aboutpage, which basically says we
don't really use AI.
I've used AI a little bit fortaking a press release an
impenetrable press release thatI sometimes get, and asking
Google, bard or whatever.
Please could you tell me in twosentences what this press

(21:16):
release is about?
That's quite helpful but, to behonest, most of the times it
gets in the way of my speed.
But I think if you're slower atwriting you need some help with
those sorts of things.
It's a totally useful tool andreally good.
I'm not necessarily using itfor that, but what I am using it

(21:38):
for is obviously things liketranscripts and for this show
for the Pod News Weekly Review Ialso use it for I'm also using
the other stuff as well, so Ithink that there's certainly
something there, I think, interms of that.

So I want to change gears a little bit and
talk a little about this tensionthat is growing to some degree
between these large platformsSpotify and now coming TikTok,
twitter and possibly Twittermight jump into podcasting at
some point and YouTube and howthat conflicts with open RSS.

(22:23):
Todd and I are involved withthe open podcast standards
project of trying to extend RSS,make it a much more robust kind
of protocol for podcasting withmuch more capability and
features, and I know, james,you're a proponent of the open

(22:45):
podcast project, podcast 2.0,all that stuff.
What do you see as the role ofthe open podcast standards
project to be and how should itbe deployed?
Do you think?

Yeah, I think there's two things here.
There's the open standards fornew podcast features, and
Blueberry has really beenleading the way in terms of this
.
The amount of work that yourteam have been doing, todd, in
making sure that as many of thenew podcasting features are

(23:20):
being supported in Blueberry andin PowerPress is super
impressive, so you've beenreally leading the way in terms
of that.
So I think it's partially that.
I think it's just partiallyreminding ourselves that we are.
We come from an openenvironment.
We come from open podcasting.
Podcasting was always designedto be open.

(23:41):
That's what Adam and Dave didwhen they invented it.
I find it interesting that ACASTlast week made an announcement
that they didn't want Spotify adattribution to be used on their
services anymore from the 1stof September.
Now I got an instant quotationsent to me from Spotify telling

(24:04):
me how much Spotify loved theopen podcasting ecosystem and we
love talking to all of theindustry.
I would just point out thatwe're in a large hall.
As you can probably hear athome.
We're in a large hall full ofother stages, other speakers,
other booths.
Blueberry is here, streamyardis here, Nemono is here.

(24:28):
Who isn't here?
Spotify?
Spotify has a room, but it'sthe other end of this hotel and
you can only get in invite only.
That's not really a companythat is too excited about open
podcasting.
I don't think.

If you think about what ACAST did, it's
something that we've talkedabout on this show for a while.
Spotify bought Charitable andPodsites and essentially anyone
using Charitable or Podsites.
Again, you have to use theassumption that Spotify bought
them for a reason.
What did they buy?
They bought intelligence.

(25:05):
Did they buy intelligence onyour shows Speculation or did
they buy intelligence on youraudience Speculation?
So the question that a podcasterhas to ask is whose services
should I use to guarantee thatmy audiences are not being
resold to?
Again, this is just my opinionand we don't know if that's

(25:28):
exactly happening or not.
So just be clear on that.
But I think, as podcasters arepicking services to work with,
they have to consider theiraudience members.
At Blueberry, we've been verypublic for many years about
wanting to make sure ourlisteners' privacy is foremost.

(25:48):
That's why we at Top GDPRglobally a number of years ago.
Some other companies do that aswell and that's just not us.
So I think that it wasinteresting.
I think that was the mosttelling announcement that I had
seen in a while.
So if ACAST was worried abouttheir audiences or their shows,

(26:09):
intelligence being collectedupon and then used against them
or poached, or poached, andSpotify's down the hallway down
here?
I don't know, does Spotify hasall podcasters' best interest at
heart, I would contend that'sup to you to decide.

So, anne, what's your thought on this?
How do you think yourpodcasters are thinking about
this topic, right?
Our podcasters are one side ofthe spectrum or the other, which
is they got the full spectrum.
I don't want to do prefixes.

I don't want to do attribution.
We actually had a show recentlyon a campaign and was like I am
not running any campaigns witha prefix and unfortunately,
brands, more and more so now,are making that a requirement
when you're working with them.
And then there's the other sidewhere they're like sure, how do

(27:07):
I do it?
And so we work with multipleproviders and we've been working
with Spotify historically, orpod sites, and I think, in terms
of like, there's also a lot ofbenefits for companies and for
podcasters to be able to gaininsight themselves into how

(27:29):
they're performing and whatthey're doing.
But I think, like you said, islike understanding which
providers are the best ones foryou individually, as a creator
or as a company.

Yeah, and I think it depends on the priority of
monetization, because I thinkwe're in a tension point here
too of as a creator, who is yourreal audience.
Is it advertisers or is it yourlisteners?
Right and this is an issue thathas impacted radio too is radio

(28:02):
thought more about theiradvertisers and they thought
about their audience, and that'swhy they got to some degree and
James jump in on this too andthat's the tension that we're
feeling in the podcasting spaceright now.
So I think that there's astrong ethic in podcasting, that
we want to maintain kind of alow advertising load medium

(28:25):
going forward, and that's that'swhat's best for the listener,
what's best for the contentcreator and should be good for
the advertiser too, becausethere's fewer messages and their
messages are going to getthrough.

So so one thing to remember, though, is, because
they took that prepend out,that only removes their
intelligence access to what'snot being consumed on the
platform.
Whatever has been consumed onSpotify and click, they still
have that detailed information.
So maybe it's it's enough.
Maybe they don't need any moreinformation.

(28:59):
So maybe it was like okay, wedidn't get the Apple podcast, we
didn't get the Amazon music andwe didn't get the the other
stats, but we got the eight,nine, 10% of the audience over
here.
Maybe it's enough to say, okay,we know what this audience is.

But I also understand that that's why ACAST
doesn't take part in the TritonRankers in the US and in Canada
, because, of course, Triton isowned by I Heart, who, I would
remind you, Todd our number onefor podcasts, and and so
therefore you know, quiterightly, I think you know that
that may well be one of theirreasons we don't really want to

(29:36):
give our entire log files, Thankyou very much to one of our
competitors.
So you can kind of see thatconsolidation has been helpful
in some cases to the industry,but actually hasn't necessarily
helped some parts of ourindustry as well.

And for the average podcasters not putting
any money in their pocket whenthey want money put in their
pocket.
And that's where you guys comein.

Yeah, and actually you know this is a
question we get asked a lotbecause we're host agnostic,
right?
So why are we host agnostic?
For us it's we want creators tobe able to monetize without
putting as many restrictions inas possible.
But the downside to that isyou're managing X amount of
platforms and having tounderstand all of the good stuff

(30:20):
that comes with that right orbad, yeah, but I think also on
the RSVS, we actually juststarted to work with the podcast
index on the onboarding, to beable to pull that out for the
podcasters that are signing upfor ASA.
We look at tools like that as away to be able to make enhance
user experience where it's notdependent on a hosting provider,

(30:45):
to be able to give us certainaccess to information to make
the creators life easier.

Speaker 6 (30:51):
Yeah.

I think also, and I wanted to ask you a little bit
more pinpointed about the OpenStandards Project, the Open
Podcasting Standards Project,james, and just kind of get your
, what do you think that groupshould do going forward?
I know many aren't thatfamiliar with the Open
Podcasting Standards Project,but it's just a group of podcast
hosts and trying to buildalliances with the listening

(31:15):
platforms to extend some of thenamespace tags in RSS.
And I know you've beenoutspoken about the Open Podcast
Standards Project and I wasjust curious what you would
recommend to that group goingforward to have more of an
impact.

Oh, I can't believe that I'm now being
called outspoken.

You're always outspoken, James.
It's a podcast with Todd andRob on it.

I think, from my point of view, I was very
excited about the Open PodcastProject because I saw this as
being something which the OpenPodcast Standards Project,
because I saw this as beingsomething which could bridge the
gap between what some of thepodcast hosts were doing adding

(32:03):
new features transcripts beingan obvious one here, and then
talking to the podcast appdevelopers, and we've seen a lot
of really good but very smallpodcast apps like Fountain, who
I advise for, and Podfriend andall of these other smaller apps

(32:25):
adding some of these services inthere.
But once you start looking atovercast or pocket casts, or
even, of course, spotify,youtube Music and Apple, there's
absolutely no move in terms ofthat and in fact, one of
Spotify's announcements todaywas finally, we're going to give
you the chance to choose theorder in which your podcast

(32:49):
appears on your page.
What, like Apple, did threeyears ago with an open tag that
you could be reading Spotify.
From my point of view, this isall open stuff, collaborative
stuff that we can all be workingtogether on and actually making
sure that there istranscription and other new

(33:10):
features such as that I thinkwould be really exciting.
So, from my point of view, Ithink that what the podcast
standards project could be doingis being a bit more visible out
there, being a bit more obviousthat there is work underway and
basically picking a feature andthat might be transcripts
because there are benefits foraccessibility but also benefits

(33:33):
for advertising in there as welland seeing how we can get that
into as many possible podcastapps.
And I don't see why Apple orSpotify would turn around and
say we're not having transcripts.
That's a dreadful idea, becauseof course it's not a dreadful
idea, so maybe that's a goodfeature to actually start with.

Yeah, I mean if there's some pressure on them to
some degree from competitiveapps.
But some of the competitiveapps that have adopted some of
these namespaces, they don'thave big market shares, so it's
not like they're taking awaymarket share from the big guys,
and I think that's the challengeor the strategy of trying to

(34:13):
launch with a bunch of smallapps to try and get the big apps
to add these capabilities.
I don't see a lot of motivationon their part yet, unless the
organization is doing somethingthat it gives them something.

Well, go ahead.
I was going to say I think, asa startup, if we had known two
years ago when we startedengineering that those options
were available to us, weprobably would have maybe built
a little bit differently, faster, and even though we know you
guys, it was by chance that wecame across.
So I feel like even in thestartup community or the tech

(34:50):
community who are buildingproducts or technology around
audio in any capacity, it's anincredible resource and tool
that's available to be able toactually build innovation and
product.

For those of you that are like what are they
talking about?

There's a danger of that.

Let's back up when podcasting started.
Rss was basically thisinvention that was with
enclosures that allowed peopleto have syndication of content
that was free and open, that noone had ever really been able to
do that before because therewas gatekeepers, you had to sign
contracts to be on platformsand, of course, you could have a

(35:31):
website with your content, butthat distribution was difficult.
So when Apple introducedpodcasting in 2005 into iTunes,
at the time and remember, thisis pre-iPhone, we're still the
iPod era they set up a set ofspecifications that podcast
hosts would follow, that youfill out when you're hosting

(35:52):
your show Name of the showdescription, those types of
things that you've set up withyour podcast hosts.
From 2005,.
Literally until probably 2019,2020, apple dominated that
specification space and Googleadded a little bit here and
there, but in the end theycontrolled the narrative.

(36:13):
So, starting about three yearsago, adam Curry and Dave Jones
started the podcast indexpodcast 2.0 initiative to add
features to podcasting, to RSS,that would make podcast apps
more robust.
So, to break this down, so it'snot technical, for you example,

(36:33):
there's a tag that's commonlyreferred to as the credit tag
and all you do is you say, ok,here's the host name, here's a
link to his LinkedIn page, apicture of him, the co-host name
picture of him, a link to hisLinkedIn page, my guest name and
so on, and what that canultimately end up being is

(36:54):
surfaced in the app when theyclick on the episode.
That additional metadata isthere.
That's just one feature that isbeing done by podcasting 2.0.
So part of the challenges withthe open and PSP, the podcast
standards project, is as hostand the participating apps we're
setting.

(37:14):
Hey, we are going to try toadvance the space and adopt
these new features to getpodcasters more exposure, grow
their show, make it moreinteractive for the audiences.
The challenge goes back to whatyou were saying Apple and the
others.
They move at their own speedand you talk with an Apple

(37:36):
representative and we're friendswith many of them.
They have their own languageand they're never committal to
anything.
You can ask nicely and maybetwo years you might see that
feature in the Apple podcast.
So it's a big challenge for usto get the big apps to move.
But what you can do as apodcaster number one is ask your

(37:59):
podcast host to adopt thepodcasting 2.0 tags and features
and then ask the apps that youuse to add those features.
You will have as much pressureon this growing ecosystem as
anyone else, because you, as acreator, want your listeners to

(38:19):
have the best experience.
We're trying to make thatexperience better.

Yeah, and I think to add another layer onto that,
the history has been, when Applemakes any changes to their RSS
namespace, the whole industrykind of like sits up and runs to
adopt it, and that's one of thechallenges here is that Apple
has been dictating to thepodcasting medium for a long
time what features and whatfunctions this industry has that

(38:48):
aligns with their product andtheir service, and so what we're
trying to do is kind of takethat control back and say, as an
industry, we want to have a sayin what these capabilities are
across all of the listeningplatforms, instead of basically
being the tail that's wagged bythe dog, which is what we've

(39:10):
been up to this point.

And you can start by trying one of the new
podcast apps atnewpodcastappscom.
Go, try one of them as apodcaster and then see what this
is all about.
That's the best thing to do aswell, to get educated on this.

So there's some movement on planning and
organizing for the podcaststandards group about kind of
escalating this and working withsome of these listening
platforms and other podcasthosts to certify them as being
supportive of certain tags inthe industry.
So hopefully we will see thisadoption start to spread across

(39:48):
some of the larger apps, butdefinitely go check out some of
the newer apps as well.
There's some fun features inthere.
It's called, I know, Todd.
Why don't you explain some ofthe cool features like the lit
tag and things like that?

I think it's just best for them to go try the
apps, experiment, play aroundwith them and see what happens.

Sure pass in the buck.
Yeah, pass in the buck.

I do.
We've hit on this for a while,but I do want to ask the
audience one thing how many ofyou here our new podcasters that
have not created an episode yet?
Oh, okay.

So we have a few Sorry to believe that.

All right.
So one thing as a podcast hostthat I see is someone will sign
up for a hosting account andthey'll never get to episode one
.
So for those of you that havegot to episode one, you know,
congratulations, you know you'reyou're, you're already ahead of
50% that have started, but yetpod fading continues to be a

(40:46):
significant problem becausehistorically and this is a
number that I've talked aboutfor many, many years really
about 50% of the people thatstart never make it to episode
seven, and then 50% of thoseremaining people never make it
to episode 20.
And once you make it to 20,you've got a pretty good chance
to making it to two years.

(41:07):
So will some of this new stuffhelp us?

I don't know.
I mean a lot of the pod fadingand that's.
I'm not sure we've clearlydefined what pod fading is.
There may be people in theaudience that don't know what
that is, but it's.
It's just when a podcasterstarts and then they start to
fade in their passion forpodcasting and eventually, after
usually about seven or eightepisodes, they kind of no more

(41:31):
new episodes get published, theyquit.

Right.
So from your perspective, whydo you think that that happens,
outside of maybe losing passionfor it?

Oh, I think there's a lot of reasons that
people pod fade and it'sprobably too many of them for me
to even mention here.
But life changes, people lose ajob or people just run out of
stuff to talk about.
I think it.
You know, this is where theniching down of your podcast can
kind of bite you in the butt,because if you niche down too

(42:02):
far, you can kind of run out ofthings to talk about.
So you have to find stuff thata topic or a genre that there's
a lot of stuff that you cancover and a lot of people have
an interest in.
I don't know, what do you thinkabout pod fading, james, as you
think about the medium?

Yeah, I mean, you know.
What we do know is that thething that works in podcasting
is consistency.
You know this show, the newmedia show, goes out every
single week.
It is a consistent listen.
You know what you're going toget when you tune in most most
of the time Sometimes it turnsout that it's just Todd shouting

(42:37):
at Rob for 40 minutes.
Did you enjoy that one recently?
That was good, that was good.
But you know so, consistency isa massively important thing and
I think once you lose thatconsistency, once you you know
you drop a week because you knowlife has got in the way, or you
drop a couple of weeks and thenall of a sudden it's difficult

(42:57):
to come back.
But actually that's also abusiness issue for podcast hosts
, because you want people tocome back and you want people to
, you know, be paying thatmonthly subscription.
You know that's an importantpart as well.
The thing that I also look atis the total amount of podcasts
which are being updated.

(43:18):
You know, every 90 days is thefigure that I look at, and
there's a massive big graph atpodcastbusinessjournalcom slash
data and that is showing a quitea ski jump, and it's a ski jump
going the wrong way.
And I wonder why there arecurrently fewer and fewer

(43:43):
podcasts being kept, you knowbeing worked on, and I wonder
whether some of that is justactually.
It's still the end of the COVIDexplosion of new shows being
made because, frankly, wecouldn't go anyway.
We couldn't do anything, butall of us could make a podcast.

(44:04):
I wonder whether it's, you knowa little bit of that.

One thing I will say and based on you know, I
agree with James if you look atthe 10-day running average,
we're down 50% from maybe 13months ago.
So it is a great time to be apodcaster and here's why that
audience is still there.
We're seeing indie growth now.

(44:29):
That is, you know, 10, 12, 15%,where shows have been stagnant
for a long time.
So audiences are seeking newcontent now.
So this is a great time to makehay when others have hung up
the microphone or hung up theheadphones or whatever you want

(44:49):
to say.
It's a great time to be apodcaster because it's a unique
time, I think.

Well, there's fewer competitive shows out
there that are active.

Well, because I was going to say both fewer
competitive shows, but also, youknow, Anne, are you seeing
consumption going down?
Because I'm not seeingconsumption going down.

No, and actually it's interesting for us.
We've got like maybe 10% turn,which is way below what
typically is.
But I think it's also theprofile of the creator.
Right, you have some that arecontent creators.
I don't want to say they don'tcare about monetization, but
that's just the icing on thecake for them, and they show up
and they, and then there'sothers that are it's a business

(45:33):
for them.
So I think it's understandingto where they're at in their
journey and you know what,sometimes maybe it might be okay
that they just do 10 episodes,and you know.
So, yeah, I think a lot of itis around the community
engagement as well.
It's like how does the creatorcommunity support each other to
keep on going?

Yeah, you know, but I think at the same time, I
do calls with all of you not youspecifically, but podcasters
every week, and the number onequestion continues to be, to me
at least how do I grow my show?
And the first question I'malways asking podcasters now is
what is the goal of your show?
And oftentimes I get a pause,and if you don't know what the

(46:16):
goal of your show is, then howcan you focus the content to
grow your show?
So that's a start.
And number two oh my God,please make it easy for your
audiences to subscribe to yourpodcast when they come to your
website, because if I have toclick three times to find or
follow your show, it's never,ever going to happen.

And then the next question is how do I make money
with my show, right, todd?
Yeah, so that's a whole othertopic.
There's a, there's a millionsof ways you can make money with
your podcast, but I think bothTodd and I realize that if I
think back to the 18, 19, 20years that we've been doing this
medium, making money with yourpodcast has never been really

(47:00):
the priority.
So it's it's really a matter ofbuilding community, building an
audience, and maybe you canmonetize is kind of what always
has been the thought process.
So so how does also look at thethat topic?

Well, all of our shows are there to monetize, so
, but it might be.
You know, we've got some showsthat are like 20, 30, 40,000
monthly listeners and they'venever monetized before and
they're like I should probablystart monetizing my audience.
And then you have some showswho've you know 10 episodes in
and they're like I need to makemoney now.

(47:34):
So I think again, it's like thespectrum of who is the creator,
where are they at?
And also, maybe advertising isnot the right way to monetize
and you know that can also be.
You know, if you have abusiness to use your podcast to
drive leads to your business andyou make money that way, versus
you know, I think it just goesback to the audience as well.

(47:55):
It's like are your audiencegoing to like it or are they
going to be like I'm going totune out now?

It goes again back to the goal Is the goal?
Money Is the goal.
Authority Is the goal.
To help someone Is the goal todrive leads.
You know what's the goal of theshow and I would almost bet if
I asked people to raise hands.
How many of you?
Is your number one goal of yourshow is to monetize.
So a few, I would expect it afew more.

(48:25):
Yeah, you know, becausetypically about 50% of
podcasters want to monetize, butreally only about 15 or 20%
effectively do Well those twotopics finding an audience and
monetizing may be the answer towhy we're seeing so much
podfading.

Yeah, you could well be right and I think you
know, when we talk aboutmonetizing, there are some
people who are thinking aboutthousands and thousands of
dollars a month.
But you know, as I think yousay quite often, you know, Todd,
there are some people here whoare, essentially, when they
podcast, they're making enoughmoney to pay for Netflix.

(49:05):
They're making enough money.
Enough money to take, you know,their partner out for a nice
meal or to pay the monthlyinstallment on the car.
You know, those are stillincredibly useful things.
And you know, yes, of course,we're all like you know,
thousands and thousands ofdollars every single month from
our show, but actually, you know, even paying the Spotify bill

(49:29):
is a useful thing.

Yeah, oh, it's always good to make a little bit
of money on your show andthat's a little bit of a success
right there, right.

But it also goes back to.
There's lots of ways tomonetize.
You know there's.
You know my show.
I've always had the ability forlisteners to donate through
what I call fiat funding coupons, which is like PayPal, you know
they can send money to the show.
That way.
I've had a sponsor for the showwhich has been a traditional
sponsor, which is like well, mysponsorship is a little bit

(50:00):
unique, but I'm alsoparticipating in a new value for
value, and this is somethingyou should think about for your
show and your audience.
The biggest mistake is notasking Many of you I listen to
your shows and you don't askyour audience to donate.
You're afraid to ask.
If you're giving them value,why should they not give you

(50:20):
value back?
And, taking the word straightout of Adam Curry's mouth, time,
talent or treasure is what youcan get back from your audience.
What's the talent part?
The talent could becontributing articles that
you're going to cover in yourshow, or suggesting a guess.
What's the time component?
The time component may behelping with chapters, maybe

(50:42):
helping with show notes, helpingwith social and treasure.
Some people don't have talentor time, but they do have
treasure.
So then, giving money back tothe show in a monetary value.
So I think the value for valuemodel if you think about it and
are willing to ask your audienceis something that's an
applicable way to earn moneybesides straight doing

(51:04):
advertising, although I do both.

Hey, todd, would you like to take questions from
the audience?

Yeah, you want to be there and we can.
We got a few minutes to takequestions and at the same time,
I can go out in the audience andAll right.
Does anybody have questions?
Does anybody want to?

ask any questions.

Uh-oh, okay, dashaan does, I know he does.

Yeah, I think I dropped out.
Okay, yeah, I also wanted tosay that this is being captured
on a 360 degree video camera soyou'll be able to see with your
question.

Speaker 6 (51:48):
Great show, by the way, everybody.
So I've been podcasting for along time and the problem that I
have is advertised and I don'thave an advertising budget to
advertise my show, but I stillwant to monetize my show and I
do have a goal to monetize myshow, but I also want to have

(52:09):
more fan base.
I have a different type of showwith different types of
statements and I love doing evencovering places like podcast
movement or another podcastconvention, and I love doing it.
So how do I advertise the rightway for my show to be able to

(52:29):
grow?
Thank you.

So was there.
I think there was two pieces ofthis.
Number one was you want to haveadvertisers, right.
So most podcast hosts todayhave a very easy way to monetize
and that's through theprogrammatic advertising.
If your host has that capable,I would encourage you to enable
that or apply for programmaticadvertising.
But so far as advertising yourshow, if your budget is

(52:55):
relatively small, there are anumber of podcast apps like
Overcast and others, for a smallbudget that you can advertise
your show on other podcasts andthat can be done at a pretty low
level from financially.

Yeah, and also I would say it's not necessarily
just advertising, it's lettingpeople know about your show.
You can do that for free.
You can contact podcastnewsletters, for example, iheart
runs a very good one of those,I believe it's number one for
newsletters but also you can doleaflets in your local store or

(53:32):
you can.
There are lots of differentways of reaching audiences,
depending on what the podcast isabout as well.
So don't always think aboutadvertising in a sort of
standard way.
Think about how you can getyour particular show in front of
the audience that you want toget in front of.

Yeah, the thing is there is a.
If you have looked at likenetworks or other platforms with
shows that are in your niche, alot of networks will actually
offer cross promotion betweenthe shows that are there.
So, example, on awesome, we'vegot a program called PodSwap
which is completely up to everypodcaster to opt in.
And then let's say, we're twoshows, I'll interview you or

(54:16):
I'll give you a script and youdo a plug and then let's just
say you don't want to join anetwork.
Another great way is go toChartable or Spotify or Apple or
wherever, and look at showsthat are similar to you and just
reach out to them and say, hey,listen, I'll promote your show
if you promote mine and you'llpick up similar based audiences

(54:36):
to be able to.
But it's a really effective way, even if you don't have the
money to invest in it, to beable to build relationships with
other creators like you.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yeah, hi Anna.
That was great.
That was one of my questionsyou just answered.
I was a little bit late.
I do have an OTT nationalnetwork that reaches 10 million
viewers per week and I'mlaunching a podcast station and
being able to promote a lot ofpodcast shows.

(55:10):
My question to you isspecifically first, podcast as
platform.
What does OSA do?

the bottom line so we're a technology driven
platform that connects brandswith podcast creators.
We're host agnostic, with nominimum download.
You're in full control over thebrands that you want to work
with and, yeah, we connect youin whether it's baked in

(55:39):
embedded dynamic.
We just recently addedprogrammatic as an option, and
then episodic and sponsorship issoon to come and you're
simulcast the other side of thatquestion is does the advertiser
retain you or does the podcastcreator retain you?
Both.
So the brand we do self-serveand direct.

(56:01):
So the brand will come to ourwebsite, create an account, say
I want to spend some amount ofmoney, and then use a podcast or
receive a push notificationthat says this brand wants to
work with you.
Are you interested?
This is how much you'll getpaid.
You opt in.
So we do it a little bitdifferent.
You say yes, I want to, and nowthe brand can see the 30 shows

(56:21):
that are interested in workingwith them and they say one, two,
three, four.
You say yep, I'm going to takeit.
And you go and execute yeah,they do that.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
No TT, and they'll do all that and broadcast I'm so
glad you do it now and podcastand to get your company, it's
osacom.

Yeah, it's actually, osacollectivecom is
the domain name.
Okay, thank you, thank you.

And she's being shy.
They have a booth here too, somake sure you go see them 405.

Come see us.

Yeah, absolutely.

Does anybody else want to ask a question or?

before we close today so, james, trends and
changes we're seeing andpodcasting anything you
specifically say what's going tohappen in the next six months.

Oh, great thanks for giving me that one first,
Todd that's kind of you.
I think we're going to see.
Firstly, I would keep your eyeson Europe and the Middle East.
I think that's where we'll seean awful lot of growth over the
next couple of years.
I think that there'sdifferences in the economy in

(57:28):
those parts of the world, but Ithink also they're starting from
a lower base and so actuallywe'll see significantly high
growth there.
But what I would also suggestis we'll see a bit more
consolidation.
We'll see more things likeSquadcast and Descript.
We'll see more companiesjoining together, particularly
around podcast networks.
We've seen Evergreen this weekmaking an acquisition of shows,

(57:53):
podcast One making acquisitionsof shows from certain assets,
from Cast Media and all thatkind of stuff.
So I think that we're going tosee a bit more consolidation in
terms of the content side ofpodcasting, and I think that
that's going to be pretty goodfor the health of the industry
as well.

The international expansion is, without a doubt,
going to be big.
You and I were both luckyenough to go to Riyadh and speak
in front of about 3,000creators.
It was an amazing event.
You would have never thoughtthat I would go to Saudi Arabia
and speak in front ofindividuals that were giving

(58:35):
finally, for the first time in,let's say, 100 years, to have
the ability to have a voice andcreate content openly, yet with
probably some restrictions, butyet it just showed me that
podcasting is exploding globallyand I think you're right, the
Arab market is going to justexplode.
But, rob, I asked that samequestion to you.

(58:58):
What do you think?

Yeah, I think that the markets overseas has
learned a little bit from themistakes of what's happened in
North America and it's just adifferent market.
It's a different media markettoo.
You think about the UK with BBCand you think about Canada with
CBC.
The population is very much inthat mindset.

(59:24):
So podcasters that start inthose areas and James, maybe you
can speak to this too, becausethis affects Australia too but I
think the expectations ofquality of audio and stuff are a
little higher, aren't they?
Does that impact theprofessionalization of
podcasting outside of the US?

Yeah, I think that was one of the interesting
things that Dave Weiner wastelling me about when he was
podcasting when he got intopodcasting initially, that
actually he was doing a showwith Adam Curry and it was quite
professional and he thought tohimself actually this is scaring
some people away, because AdamCurry is a professional
broadcaster, he knows what he'sdoing and actually there needs

(01:00:06):
to be something which is a bitmore rough and ready to allow
people to understand whatpodcasting can be like, which is
why Dave then worked on MorningCoffee Notes, which I'm
actually working with him onbringing back to the internet to
be able to have a listen in amodern podcast app to that, and
I think that's interesting thatradio, particularly in some

(01:00:28):
other parts of the world, hasdriven some of the podcasting
that you actually end up hearing.
I'm wondering whether Anne hasany thoughts about where the
trends are over the next sixmonths as well.

Todd Cochrane (01:00:43):
And we have to throw in our fire because you
just become the CEO on Thursday,right?
And, by the way, ladies,everyone, please give her a
round of applause.
Isn't that fantastic?
So go ahead, annie.

Anne Kavanaugh (01:00:55):
You know.
Thank you, I think you know youguys kind of hit it on the head
I as far as I think the toolsthat are becoming available will
make actually the contentcreation and the marketing of
the content much easier.
So hopefully the creators havethe opportunity to do more of
what they love instead of.
You know the admin andoperation side of it all you

(01:01:19):
know.

And I think the world is going to change in a
big way.
It's going to affect everyone,as listened to a Google
executive recently and they saidthere's going to be creatives
and there's going to be subjectmatter experts.
Well, I think in this audience,in this audience that's
listening in here today, we havelots of creatives and lots of

(01:01:42):
subject matter experts because,ultimately, some of the thunking
that is we do today, wherewe're writing proposals and
we're doing spreadsheets,that'll ultimately probably be
done by AI in the future.
But again, because we arecreative and we are subject
matter experts in our contentand that there's going to be
this desire for original voices,it's going to be craved.

(01:02:05):
I truly believe this, that thelandscape is going to change in
the next two, three years and weare going to see the biggest
upswell of listening to podcasts, youtube, tiktok, wherever
contents being originallycreated.
I think the future is very,very, very bright because AI is
not human.
We are, and as long as we putforth the human emotion in our

(01:02:30):
content, I think we're going towin the day.

Rob Greenlee (01:02:34):
You also think that trust is a big factor in
all this too.
Podcasters have an opportunityand, you know, really inherently
build trust with their audience, and I think that's one of the
biggest challenges that we face.
Going forward is all of usknowing who, what information,

(01:02:57):
where it comes from, to betrusted, and I think that's a
huge factor.
The podcasters have a big rolein going forward.

James Cridland (01:03:05):
Yeah, I think trust is hugely important.
You should make a show aboutthat role.

I should it's called trust factor?

Yes, so we're going to wrap this up.
We normally do 90 minutes, butthere's beer to be drank, so we
want you all to have well, thoseof you that aren't here and are
listening to this later, anyway.
So, james, go ahead and givethem your contact information
and how they can reach you.

So, please, if you don't already subscribe to
pod news, it's free, you'll.
You'll join 28,900 otherpodcasters getting that email
every single day.
Pod newsnet is where to findthat.
And if you want my contactdetails, I'm James at critland.
That's my email address, annie.

Anne Kavanaugh (01:03:56):
And our website is asaossacollectivecom.
For any podcaster who's lookingto monetize, you can go to our
website, download the app andsign up easily, and then my
contact details are is an and an.
E at asacollectivecom.
Thank you.

Yeah, and I can be found on Twitter, Rob Greenley
at Rob Greenley and I've got apodcast trust factor.
Definitely go subscribe to thenew media show.
And James also does a couple ofpodcasts to does a weekly pod
news weekly and a pod news dailytoo.

So right, absolutely.
And thank you for the audio forthis week's edition, that's
very kind of you.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, and I can be found at X.
I think that's what we'resupposed to call it that's right
.
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