Podcasting 3.0?! And the Infinite Dial 2025

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Cridland (00:00):
It's Friday, the 21st of March 2025.

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

Sam Sethi (00:13):
I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm
Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans.

Matt Medeiros (00:18):
I just don't agree squarely putting the blame
on the podcasting 2.0 team,having just huge respect for
folks who dedicate their time tothis.

That's Matt Medeiros.
He's on later, also in thechapters YouTube TV gets
podcasting the Infinite Dial2025.
I spill all the tea and lots ofSpotify news.
This podcast is sponsored byBuzzsprout with the tool,
support and community to ensureyou keep podcasting, start

(00:46):
podcasting, keep podcasting withbuzzsproutcom.
From your daily newsletter, thePod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi (00:54):
This is going to be a long one.
Remember we do do chapters.
So if you haven't got chaptersin your app, change to a modern
new podcast app.
So YouTube TV it's basicallyadding a dedicated podcast tab
to its main screen, james.

Yes, so TV is now the premium device for
YouTube viewing in the US.
So TV is a big deal.
And a big deal for us inpodcasting is that they have
added, or they are rolling out,a new tab on the front page of
YouTube TV which is calledpodcasts.
So that has existed, but it'sexisted under a more icon and

(01:34):
they've moved us away from themore icon and into the front
page.
So that's good.
I mean, less good is the factthat the podcasts actually
listed in there aren'tnecessarily podcasts.
There seems to be someautomation that goes on there to
put all kinds of things inthere, but nevertheless, really

(01:54):
good to see podcasts on thefront page of YouTube TV.
So that's good.
Do you watch YouTube on yoursmart TV in your mansion?

Sam Sethi (02:05):
I don't, but I did this weekend to test it and
actually it wasn't a badexperience.
They actually sized the image.
It's not grainy, it isimmediately loaded.
Yeah, I mean, I can see why.
If you were getting into ahabit of doing that, why or how
you would do it?
Yeah, I think a lot of peopleare putting it on in the
background.
Again, the long form podcastsleave them on.

(02:27):
I'm not a subscriber to YouTubemusic, so that wouldn't be how
I'd listen to music through myTV.
But again, yeah, I can see theexperience working.

Yeah, I have to say, as a subscriber to YouTube
music when you because, ofcourse, you can control all of
this through your mobile phoneif you want to, and just tell
the TV to show YouTube and itwill show whatever it is that
you're doing on your phone,which is great, and it is the
best way by far to consume music.
Spotify is okay and it's gotsome playback stuff and all of

(03:03):
that YouTube, of course, it'llplay you the video if it's got
the music video, soautomatically.
You don't have to press anymagic buttons and so it works
fantastically in that way.
But, yes, no, it's a good thing.
Youtube clearly, as we've heardfrom the Infinite Dial, doing
really well and so, from thatpoint of view, yeah, you know

(03:25):
more YouTube podcasts, ininverted commas, so hooray Does
this generate the need to havemore video with podcasts.

Sam Sethi (03:33):
I mean I don't want to do video, but you know we are
seeing a trend towards it.
Does the fact that the genericword podcasts now appear on the
home screen mean that actuallythere is more benefit in having
a video with your podcast,because people can then watch
you on the big screen?

Yeah, you could argue that that's the case, and
certainly.
I mean it seems that podcaststhat are in their system but
that are just a graphic don'tseem to do very well, and you
can actually have a look at thispretty clearly if you have a
look at the Edison podcastmetrics list and you go through

(04:13):
that top 10 list and you have alook at YouTube for those shows
which are in video and they dofantastically well on YouTube,
as you would expect.
And then you have a look atthings like well, normally I
would give the example of theDaily from the New York Times.
They've actually started doinga little bit of video now, but
you can very clearly see thatthose don't do very well, nor do

(04:35):
some of the things from NPR.
So, yeah, I think there'sdefinitely something to be said
for doing podcasts in video ifyou think that that's a podcast
and if that suits you.
There are plenty of podcastswho are perfectly happy not to
including anything I do.

Sam Sethi (04:55):
There may be, you know, super comments or boosts,
asking James, you never know.

Well, if there are, then boost away and make it
a big boost and uh, we'll,we'll consider and still say no
oh right anyway.

Sam Sethi (05:11):
Um now, friend of the show, justin jackson from
transistor has put a report outabout video or audio podcasts.
What's the report?

He has.
Yes, this is the Transistor GenZ report or, as we are both
British Gen Z report, and thoseare people aged 13 to 28.
And according to that, video isSkibbity Toilet and audio is
Slay.

Sam Sethi (05:38):
They apparently Look at you down with the kids.

Anybody would think I've got a 12-year-old.
They overwhelmingly preferaudio podcasts, apparently
according to that new survey.
Now, it was a survey with notvery many people taking part in
it, so take some of what it sayswith a grain of salt, although
it was quite similar to some ofthe other studies that I've seen
over the past year looking atGen Z.

(06:02):
So I think that that'sinteresting.
But, yes, 76% primarily listento audio podcasts, 18%, it says
here, consume a mix of audio andvideo and just 6% primarily
watching video podcasts.
Just for Gen Z.
That's interesting because thatkind of goes against what you
would think.

(06:22):
But certainly Justin has had atremendous week in the news, I
think.
All of a sudden an Indiannewspaper picked up on that and
every other Indian newspaper hasfollowed and printed something
about that particular study.
So Justin must be pattinghimself on the back for the
money that he spent trying toget a bunch of Gen Z people to

(06:46):
take part in that survey.
I should say it's Gen Z podcastfans, and I was very careful to
say that it's not Gen Z as awhole, it's Gen Z podcast fans.
The first question to get intothe survey was are you a fan of
podcasts?
So just bear that in mind.
But super useful data.

Sam Sethi (07:04):
So I look forward to the launch of Transistor in
India.
That'll be great.
But he also went on to talkabout what device as well, and
it wasn't YouTube.

Yes, he says Spotify is the most used podcast
app for Gen Z YouTube at 21%,Spotify at 56%, Apple Podcasts
just at 10%.
Now, I could agree with all ofthat.
I think that makes sense.
If you have a look at ApplePodcasts, for example, then
typically kids these days don'thave iPhones because they're

(07:37):
still quite expensive, and sotherefore most of the kids have
Android on there.
And of course, Apple Podcastsisn't available properly, at
least on Android.
And certainly, if I can use mylist of one, my 12-year-old
informs me that all of herschool friends have Spotify

(07:58):
Apart from her.
She has YouTube Music.
She's the outlier, James.

Sam Sethi (08:04):
You've got to get her on it.
She is the outlier.

I'm not giving her Spotify.
We're already paying forYouTube premium, because it
gives you no ads in YouTube aswell.
So, yes, I think that's a goodthing.

Sam Sethi (08:16):
Well, now one of the other things that Justin has
been doing is building a newpodcast website gallery.
What's he been up to?
He's a busy boy, isn't he overthere?

Yeah, he is a busy boy.
All of a sudden he's.
I mean, maybe it's because skiseason isn't on right now.

Sam Sethi (08:32):
Ah, that's it.
Maybe that's the thing.
And he hasn't got to build theCanadian wall yet, so he's okay.

Yes, elbows out yes, no.
So from that point of view, yes, he's produced a podcast
website gallery, which thecompany says is an archive of
awesome and interesting podcastwebsite designs for your
inspiration.
Interestingly, some of thoseare transistor shows, but not
all of them, so I think thatthey are still worthwhile.

(09:00):
Taking a look at the feedbackI've given, justin is this is
brilliant, but you should givereasons why they are good,
because I think that that is auseful thing.
But, yes, if you want someinspiration in terms of what a
good podcast website might looklike, then pop along there and
take a peek.

Sam Sethi (09:17):
Yeah, justin kindly said it was because of what
we've been talking about how ameta page of websites provided
by the hosts themselves wouldmake a lot of sense as a landing
page.
Now, james, yesterday you werea very busy boy.
The reason you were a very busyboy you were co-hosting the

(09:38):
Infinite Dial 2025.
So the Infinite Dial itselfplease tell me what it is and
then tell me what they say.

Yes, so the Infinite Dial is a study that
Edison Research have run in theUS and in other countries.
In the US, it is a really,really old piece of research.
It has existed for a long, long, long time and that means that,
in terms of trends, that'ssuper useful.

(10:07):
So one of the first slides thatwe showed in the Infinite Dial,
for example, was smartphoneownership, and it starts in 2009
, which was the first year thatthe Infinite Dial asked the
question about smartphoneownership, and only 10% of
Americans have smartphones backin 2009.

(10:29):
Now, of course, the figure ispretty static at 91%, which I'm
surprised that it isn't higher,to be honest, but 91% is pretty
good.
There's a mass market medium.
So the Infinite Dial has beengoing for a long long time, and
one of the questions that itstarted asking, of course, a
long, long time ago, was aboutpodcasting.

(10:52):
In fact, they started askingthis question in 2006.
Did you know what a podcast wasand do you listen to a podcast?
So, in 2006, 22% of the USpopulation did know what a
podcast was.
That figure is now 85%.
But also, ever listened to apodcast?
Well, in 2006, ever listenedwas 11% of all US adults.

(11:20):
That figure, as you would haveheard if you were taking part in
the webinar on Thursdayafternoon.
That figure is now 70% of the USpopulation listening to a
podcast, so that is brilliant,but, as you will also have heard
, the phrase listened to is notthat handy, given that, of

(11:41):
course, we're now talking aboutvideo, and so the first question
that they have added this yearwas have you listened to a
podcast but also have youwatched a podcast?
And actually, when you addpeople watching a podcast, then
that figure goes up even higheranother 3%, which is more

(12:03):
millions of people, so 73% ofpeople have consumed a podcast.
So that's pretty good in termsof podcast consumption.
The big number, as you mightremember from yesterday, was how
many people are now monthlyconsumers of podcasts, and that

(12:24):
number has broken 50% for thefirst time, and I reckon that
must mean that podcasting ismainstream.
Do you reckon that 50% if 50%of people are doing it, it's now
a mainstream thing?
No, it has to be 52% Clearlyevery election is.

Sam Sethi (12:40):
You know, when we have oh, here we go, so 52% is
mainstream, I'm sorry you're.
When we have oh, here we go, so52% is mainstream.
I'm sorry you're not quitethere yet.

Well, it was 55% , so that was good.
So podcast listening, listeningand watching went up a little
bit from 47% to 48%, but if youadded those people that were
just watching podcasts but notlistening, then you got to 55%,
which is 158 million people.
I think that's mainstream.

(13:09):
So hurrah.
As I said, go podcasting.
I'm sure that Adam found thatabsolutely hilarious.
No, it was really good fun totake part in the middle of the
night here.
So, yes, all good news, I think.

Sam Sethi (13:28):
So, overall, where do you give a scorecard to what's
going on?
What does the Infinite Dial, Isuppose, give a scorecard to
what's going on?

Yeah.
So I mean overall, thetakeaways were the podcast
consumption is at an all-timehigh, as you would expect, of
course, audio consumptioncontinues to grow, but podcasts
using video are attracting morepodcast consumers to the medium.
Online audio adoption is at anall-time high.
That includes things likeSpotify, but also things like

(13:59):
streaming radio and that sort ofthing.
And then the stuff aroundsocial media.
The social media stuff was yeah, mastodon did not do very well.
1% of people in the US useMastodon.
I mean, that's still a lot ofpeople, but it's not very high.

Sam Sethi (14:19):
So yes, Now a friend of the show, rocky Thomas, who
is at Soundstack.
They've been working withEdison as well.
What have they been doing?

They have been.
They have launched a.
In fact, edison has had areally busy week because they've
launched a download metricsservice.
So they already produced thisEdison podcast metrics survey,
which is a really useful survey,but that's not as useful as it
could be, perhaps, for smallerand short run shows.
So what they've done is they'veproduced a download metrics

(14:51):
service using Soundstack, thesolutions, iab version 2.2
compliant, and it just adds thenumbers in.
What Edison Podcast Metricscould say is you're about as big
as Joe Rogan or you're about asbig as Smartless.
But what Edison Podcast Metricsby themselves couldn't say is
how many downloads you've got,the more people, of course, that

(15:12):
tie in with this downloadmetric service.
You can actually see that datain there.
So, yes, so they've been busyin terms of that and also
launching their fandom stuff aswell.
There's been a whole bunch ofinformation about fandom, which
they're going to be talkingabout at Evolutions in a couple

(15:34):
of weeks time, and so, gosh,it's been a busy, busy week for
Edison Research.

Sam Sethi (15:40):
That word is becoming more and more common.
I find it really grating.
I use it within TrueFan, sodon't get me wrong.

Yes, sorry.
What's the name of your product?

Sam Sethi (15:51):
Yeah, yeah, I know I know, and I don't know why, the
word fandom just sits badly withme in my head.
I just can't equate it to whatit's supposed to be.
I don't know, I'm just going tosay I just can't equate it to
what it's supposed to be.

I don't know, I'm just not allowed to say.
Well, you'll find the datawhich is released sort of fully
at Evolutions.
But the report is called theFandom Phenomenon and one of the
chief findings is thatemotional connection bonds hosts
and podcast fans, with 71% offans reporting that they feel

(16:27):
like they're friends with thehosts of their favourite
podcasts.

Sam Sethi (16:32):
Ah, isn't that nice.
Well, alberto calls itparasocial, and many other
people begin to call that aswell the ability to bond with
your host because you feel likeyou know them better, whereas
the host doesn't really know thefan very well.

Ah well, yes, well, yes, now interesting stuff
.
Um, so more um information uhthere from edison research at
evolutions.
Um, it was a piece of work thatthey did with wondery and with
densu, uh, the big umadvertising uh company.
There is a quote in that pressrelease from somebody with the
excellent name of JenniferHungabula Hungabula, yes,
hungabula, hungabula.
So, yes, there you go.

(17:14):
So watch out for that atEvolutions in Chicago if you're
going.

Sam Sethi (17:18):
Moving on.
A few weeks ago, we talkedabout a new VP role that was
available at Spotify VP of AI.
This week, james, they'veannounced an update to their DJ,
their audio DJ, which was abasic function before, but now

(17:39):
you'll be able to press a buttonon your Spotify.
Well, you won't, because youdon't have Spotify Pro, but
other people at school will beable to press their button on
your Spotify.
Well, you won't, because youdon't have Spotify Pro, but
other people at school will beable to press their button.
You've got the ability to nowtalk to DJX English only, and
you'll be able to ask for thetracks or ask for a genre.
So it's an interface, an AIinterface, an agentic interface,

(18:02):
which is the term thateveryone's beginning to talk
about.
Ah, agentics gosh, this is thenew Web 4.0 terminology, but I
think it's very cool.
I've been playing with it andit is very useful actually to be
able to say, oh yeah, play mesome David Bowie, play me some
Paul Weller, whatever, and thenyou get, or it'll just go back

(18:23):
to your playlist and startplaying stuff, and it's actually
great for serendipity, um,being able to go oh yeah, god, I
haven't heard the countingcrows in ages or I haven't heard
uh x track like verticalhorizon, and you go wow, thank
you, you know, and and it is agreat way.
But I think music's differentto podcasting, because I love

(18:44):
listening to old music or newmusic and you know you can get a
feeling or an emotion to it.
I don't think listening back tothis podcast back in 2023, an
episode is going to be anemotional feeling.

No, and I agree, I think definitely music evokes
emotion of time and place.
So yeah, absolutely, although Ihave to say I did feel
incredibly nostalgic when I wentback and listened to a couple
of CNET Buzz Out Loud shows,which was a podcast that I was

(19:20):
listening to in 2004, 2005.
It's Friday, march 14th 2008.
Happy Pi Day.
And I went back to listen tosome of those and I thought, wow
, this is something else.
But yes, it's an interestingplan.
I have met DJ X.
He's a real person and he'svery nice.
So there you go.

Sam Sethi (19:39):
Yeah, spotify said they are going to let you know
that you're talking to an AI,but they will be storing and
analysing your voice requests tomake improvements.
They say Now, this is similarto March the 28th.
You don't have Alexa's in yourhouse, do you?
You have Google.

Yes, but Alexa's going to do the same thing,
isn't it?
Yes?

Sam Sethi (19:59):
They're going to now stop local processing.
It's all going to go back upinto the cloud.
So, yeah, yes, just be awareyour voice will be traveling.
Now, um, uh, the.
The reason I mentioned this wasbecause I did think there will
be, at some point, an elementwhere the agentic ai interface
is used for podcasting.
I'm, as I said last week and Iwon't be talking much more about

(20:21):
it looking at it for true fans,but I'll leave that there.
We do have enough data.
Well, this is going to linkinto something that Tom Webster
was talking about, which we'lltalk about in a minute, but so
you might say, hey, whatever,djx, it wouldn't be called that
but hey, mayo, or whatever itwould be called, play me my

(20:43):
latest podcast.
Or it might tell you there'sthree comments waiting for you,
or there's a new event that youmight be interested in, or
whatever.
I think we are moving to that.
It's too early yet, but I thinkit's worth looking at as a UI
and an interface to the way thatwe get information.

Yeah, exactly, and I think we should come back
to user interface and that sortof thing when we start talking
about what Tom Webster ended upsaying.
Spotify also launched a newpublishing program for
independent authors as well,allowing independent authors to
submit short form stories foraudio creation.

(21:22):
That was another thing from theInfinite Dial which I found
really interesting.
So if you've not yet seen theInfinite Dial, let me tee this
up for you.
If you remember, right at theend of November 2023, spotify
ended up giving everyone withSpotify Premium a free audio
book.
If you kind of remember, Ithink they give you what?
10 hours, don't they?
Something like that?

(21:42):
15 hours worth of remember?
I think they give you what 10hours, don't they?
Something like that?
15 hours worth of free.
So that's essentially a freebook every single month.
So every single Spotify premiumuser has a free book.
Amazon now does the same thing.
So if you are a subscriber toAmazon Music all three of you
then you, too, can get a freebook from Audible every single

(22:07):
month as well.
So I was really interested inseeing from the Infinite Dial
that audiobook listening in thelast year has gone down, gone
down 2% from 38% to 36%.
Why is that?

Sam Sethi (22:22):
I am actually not surprised.
I am not surprised.
Well, I've been a member ofAudible for I don't know decades
, it feels like, but at least adecade, let's say and through my
Amazon Prime account, I buycredit and I love listening to

(22:44):
books.
We've talked about this on thisshow here.

Yes, because you can't read You're like Donald
Trump.

Sam Sethi (22:49):
Yes, like Donald, big words, can't I?
But the thing about it, what'sinteresting is my attention has
been drifted more to listen topodcasts than it has to
audiobooks.
Now, because I actually findmost audio books are nearly all
books.
Right, you could summarize thebook down to probably 10 minutes

(23:13):
and get everything you neededto know in that book, but
because you need to sell 300pages, you waffle and bloat it
out.
Oh yes, and I think audio booksare just bloated podcasts,
right.
So there are audio booksummaries, but I still listen to
them at the weekend becausethat's the only time I can get

(23:34):
time to actually concentrate andhave a book, because it takes
so long to read or listen to,whereas I think my time
available now has gone down forlistening to audio books because
I listen to more podcasts.

And I completely agree that a lot of the books
that I read are basically filledwith stuff.
Would you like to hear myreview of Seth Godin's Poke the
Box book?

Sam Sethi (24:04):
from.

April 2011.
Yes, please.
This is my review.
I've worked out what Seth Godindoes, and it's very simple.
He takes one valid andinteresting thought and writes
it in lots of different ways tofill a book.
What Seth has done in this book, I discover, is that he's had
one idea and expanded on itrepeatedly to make a book out of
it.
Seth's a clever man becauseessentially, this book is full
of one concept which he'sphrased and paraphrased over and

(24:27):
over again to comfortably fillquite a lot of pages.
What's kind of happened here,you'll discover, is that Mr
Godin has suddenly woken up andthought goodness, if I just
write the same thing over andover again, but slightly
differently, for a number ofdifferent chapters, then I'll
manage to complete a book andthen I can sell it as a concept
of a book.
This is pretty clever.
Seth Godin has come up with onecentral talent and discussed it

(24:48):
in quite a circumlutory wayover a considerable amount of
paragraphs etc.

Sam Sethi (24:50):
Yes, yes, that is it in a tea.
That is exactly it.
Yes, yes.

Anyway.

Sam Sethi (24:56):
So I can see why audiobook consumption is
dropping, because people reallydon't want to have bloated,
long-winded books when they canget that summarised very quickly
.

Correct, yes, correct, absolutely.

Sam Sethi (25:11):
Now here's something from Spotify again.
Sorry, we should have had thatjingle in at some point, James.
Oh, yeah, Shall we play it now.

Announcer (25:17):
We're sorry, but now it's time for more news about
Spotify on the Pod News WeeklyReview oh good, oh that Weekly
Review, oh good, oh, that'sbetter, oh, that's better.

Sam Sethi (25:29):
Yes, yes, the Spotify warnings.
Now they're coming up withsomething called Spotify mashups
, and then they are going toreally, really really annoy
music artists further.
I mean not that they're doingit already, but they're going to
try and do more of it.
So what you get is with theupcoming music pro, which is a

(25:51):
new premium subscription oh yeah, this is spotify hi-fi, isn't
it?
yes, I'm just about to say yeah,finally, yeah, uh, what they're
sneaking in under the the dooris the ability allegedly and
because we haven't seen it yetof um you being able to take
multiple tracks and smash themtogether and create a new one

(26:12):
using ai.
Yeah, now, that in itself isnot new.
There are many um apps you canget off various app stores that
will do that for you.
Tiktok does a lot of it, butthe question here is who owns
the rights to a spotify mashup?
Who's going to get paid for it?
Um, when you take two originalsongs, what will the artist

(26:33):
think?
Do the artists have to opt inor opt out?
Um, and it often lacks um anysort of resources for
independent artists to stop this.
I think it's like David andGoliath, and you know poor
little independent David.
Independent music artists arenot going to be able to stop the
Goliath of Spotify from doingthis.

(26:54):
What do you think, james?

Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it?
I mean, somebody who would havean opinion would be a friend of
the show, will Page, whodoubtless would jump in and give
all kinds of erudite opinion ina Scottish accent.
But from my point of view, yeah, I mean that sounds really
interesting.
Does that mean that people willearn less money?

(27:18):
Does that actually mean thatpeople will earn more money
because it counts as a play forboth of the songs?
I don't know.
People will earn more moneybecause it counts as a play for
both of the songs, I don't know.
So you've got all of that.
I mean, I remember that therewas a radio station that started
broadcasting about 15 years orso ago and its idea was that it
will play twice the amount ofsongs as every other radio

(27:40):
stations.
And the way that it would dothat is it would edit the songs
down, and so, instead of a songhaving three verses and a chorus
, the song would have one verseand a chorus.
A song would be much, muchshorter, so you could
essentially get 24, 25 songs anhour instead of about 12 or 13.
And as a programming tool, thatwas amazing, because it meant

(28:01):
that you would hear much more ofyour favourite songs, but the
artists absolutely hated it andthere was a big, big kickback by
the Canadian artists whobasically said no, you are
absolutely not allowed to dothat with any of my songs, not
knowing, of course, thatBroadcast Radio edits songs
anyway.

Sam Sethi (28:19):
I think the worry I have here and look, this is all
music related, but let me bringit back to podcasting for a
minute, and I think it'ssomething that's happening to
you, james, as well.
So what if I wanted to take asnippet of this show, a snippet
of another show, a snippet of athird show, smash it all
together, use an AI voice andthen put it out as an RSS feed?

(28:42):
Where's the law going to standthen?

Well, yes, exactly, and I mean it's not
just something that might happenin the future, it's something
that is happening right now.
I don't know if you heard SatyaNadella, the big boss of
Microsoft.
He ended up saying this in apodcast just last week.

Satya Nadella (29:03):
The best way for me to consume podcasts is not to
actually go listen to it, butto have a conversation with the
transcript on my commute usingmy copilot.
It is more convenient becauseof the modality, the fact that I
can speak to it.

I can interrupt it and if I can interrupt him,
then I mean that is, is that nota kind of stealing?
I mean, you know, if you'rejust having a conversation with
a transcript of a podcast,you've stripped all the ads out,
you've stripped all of thevalue for value call outs from

(29:41):
it.
You know, is it basicallyhelping yourself to the food but
leaving the jar in thesupermarket?

Sam Sethi (29:50):
possibly, but I think we just talked about audiobooks
being bloaty.
We talked about people beingtime efficient.
Um, we talked about spotify'sagentic ai interface.
Well, what he's doing is usingcopilot, which is Microsoft's
agentic interface, fundamentallyto have a conversation.
Is it more efficient, possibly?

(30:12):
Is it actually better for youthan hearing the actual people
speak?
I know a number of people who Italk to who listen to this show
and the first thing they do isdo a name search in our
transcript.
They do right, that's funny.
Yes, I, I won't reveal who, butthere are a number of people
who tell me I check that I'vebeen name checked and then then

(30:35):
they'll listen to the episode.
Possibly, um, and so there is alot of that and I think, with
transcripts and we're going tobe talking about apple shortly,
um, there is going to be talkingabout Apple shortly.
There is going to be more andmore push to say, actually, how
do I get a short form, how do Iget a summary?
Or, as I said earlier, you knowwe're looking at Sesame as an

(30:56):
example, where you know you canhave a conversational AI and you
could say, hey, any mention tome across the.
You know there was a mention tome across the you know
podosphere.
Oh yeah, no, there was a mentionof me in that podcast.
Oh, I've never heard of thatpodcast.
Can you play that snippet, notthe?

whole podcast.
Yeah, well, yes, I'm sure thatthere are people doing that and
let me say hello, Sharon TaylorRoss, adams, lizzie Pollitt.
Who else can we name check,just randomly?
And by the way, I was listeningto Adam Curry over the weekend

(31:34):
and he was talking aboutlistening to power, as he calls
this show, and I think he'smentioned in the past that he's
very pleased that we havechapters, because I think he
skips through some of the things, yes.
So what we should do is weshould put a chapter point in

(31:54):
here and then say something likeanyway, I don't think Adam
Curry will do that, so what elsedo we have in terms of Spotify?
Deplatforming is a thing.

Sam Sethi (32:07):
Yeah, I mean, there are two schools of thought,
aren't there?
One is the.
You know you shouldn't bedeplatforming.
It's freedom of speech andpeople should be allowed to say
what they want.
And then there's the other form, where Spotify this week
decided to remove some podcastepisodes of Andrew Tate.
Spotify says the content wasremoved because it violated its

(32:28):
policies.
The content's already beenremoved by YouTube and TikTok.
Tate is a self-describedmisogynist.
In fact, in the UK it wasmentioned in the Houses of
Parliament at the PMQs yesterday, it was mentioned in the Houses
of Parliament at the PMQsyesterday there's a new show

(32:52):
called Adolescence.
That's sort of really hit thezeitgeist at the moment in the
UK.
It's about what they callincels boys who are very insular
and celibate, who play games,watch porn, um, and and and have
never interacted with a femaleand they're they're just taking
in all the Jordan Peterson's,the Andrew Tate stuff, and women
are awful, people of color areawful, it's all the white power

(33:15):
stuff and um, yeah, you areseeing a generation of young men
who that is their role modeland um, the question is, do you
de-platform somebody like that?
Um, and I guess here's an openquestion.
The podcast index was partiallyformed to prevent

(33:36):
de-platforming so I had a quicklook and there are 10 plus shows
from andrew tate.
I didn't even know he had one.
But there are 10 plus showsfrom Andrew Tate.
I didn't even know he had one.
But there are 10 plus shows inthe podcast index.
Should they be removed?
Should those episodes beremoved?
Because I think the episodethat was removed was how to pimp
or how to treat women in thatway where you can pimp them out,

(33:59):
and I think you know whenyou're putting content like that
out.
I think it should be removed.
But there you go.

Yes, I think it's.
It's interesting the way thatsome people remove content is to
make it available in search,but not to make it available in
any.
If you're like this, you'relike this type of stuff, so it's
shadow banned, if you like.
It's still available in the net, in the, in the system, if you

(34:36):
know what you are searching for.
But if you don't know what youare searching for, you will
never find that stuff.
But podcast apps shouldconsider, you know, marking some
of these things to be, you know, not worthwhile.
You know appearing.
You know what I mean.

Sam Sethi (34:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've gone one stage further.
He's banned.
I'm not having his content on,and if you don't like it, don't
use my app.

No well, I think that is absolutely fine, and
that is absolutely fine and thatis absolutely fair.
You are a, you are, you know, aan app which is surfacing this
information in front of people.
The podcast index is just anindex and I guess I would kind
of argue and say it's up to theapp developers.
Possibly a useful thing is forsomeone and I don't know who

(35:27):
that somebody might be andimagine the excitement of it,
but someone producing a list ofyou know, a block list, if you
like, of shows that shouldn'treally be appearing in, if you
Like this, you Like this, or podroles or any algorithmic lists,
and perhaps that's the wayforward.

Sam Sethi (35:47):
Well, when you say Andrew Tate's best friend is
Donald Trump, there's a saying,a Japanese proverb when the
character of a man is not clear,to look at his friends.
I think that says it all.

Yes, donald Trump Jr, by the way, not
President Donald Trump, just forany lawyers listening.
He was allowed, though Tate,not Donald Trump Jr, by the way,
not President Donald Trump,just for any lawyers listening.
He was allowed, though Tate,not Donald Trump Jr was allowed
to return to the US after thechange in administration and he
faces charging of humantrafficking of minors, rape and

(36:19):
money laundering, all of whichhe denies.
Again, andrew Tate, not DonaldTrump Jr.
Just to be totally clear yeah,andrew Tate not.
Donald.
Trump.
Jr.
So just to be totally clear.

Sam Sethi (36:28):
Yeah yeah, please, god, you're the one travelling
to America, you're the one whocould be body searched, not me.
Yes, well, there's the thing.

All I'd say is ice ice baby yes, good luck.
Anyway, let's skip away fromall of that and let's talk about
podcasting 2.0.
No, let's talk about podcasting3.0.
Why don't we do that?

Sam Sethi (36:51):
Well, we will by the end, that's for certain, right,
ok.
Now, in the last few weekswe've seen a number of friends
of the show podcasts.
So Danny Brown, mark Asquith,rob Greenlee, todd Cochran,
they're all talking about haspodcasting 2.0 failed?
What is the lack of videosupport in apps?

(37:12):
It's not a first party clientright.
Youtube wins there.
And last week Tom Webster talkedabout podcasting 3.0.
That was the title, but heactually said he would rather
possibly talked about howpodcast apps are failing us and
um, but he wasn't feeling thatgrumpy so he thought he'd call
it podcasting 3.0, which I readand I have to say I pretty much

(37:37):
100 agreed with tom and Iactually have to sayi agree with
danny brown and mark casquithand I have to say I agree with
Rob Greenlee and Todd Cochran.
They're all saying that we, theapp developers, are not
providing the user experiencethat we should be.
That whole conversation isabout how the apps need to

(37:58):
change the user interface inorder to grab and I think the
infinite dial talks about itagain.
You know, where is Gen Z, whereis the community and what's the
experience they want.
And I think, as an appdeveloper, I'm probably
developing only a podcasting 2or even a 1.0 UI at the moment a

(38:21):
podcasting 2 or even a 1.0 UIat the moment?

Yes, and I think that there is definitely
something in saying that theidea of a podcast app and this
has been Adam and Dave's thingfor the last couple of weeks the
idea of a podcast app assomething that you use is fine
for lots of people, but also notso fine for many others, and
it's worthwhile going back andlistening to Podcasting 2.0,
their podcast for that, andindeed their interview, which

(38:46):
you'll find the full version ofin this feed as well with us,
and I think that there'sdefinitely something there.
I mean, I think the wholedifficulty with all of this is
Podcasting 2.0 is not a thing.
Difficulty with all of this ispodcasting 2.0 is not a thing.
There are lots of individualfeatures, some of which the vast

(39:06):
majority of which, let's befair have failed, some of which
have been tremendouslysuccessful.
The podcast transcripts tag,for example, has been
tremendously successful, so it'sa lazy thing just to say has
podcasting 2.0 failed, becausethere isn't anything like
podcasting 2.0.
There is, though, certainlysome ideas of you know the

(39:31):
future in terms of what couldother podcast apps look like.
Now.
Tom Webster, in his article andindeed in his podcast, ended up
saying the good news.
I believe is that a lot of thesethings can be accomplished by
AI without having to overhaulRSS.

(39:52):
Now I would potentially say, yes, ai certainly has a part to
play, but have you seen the RSSfeeds from many podcasters
recently?
Because the RSS feeds are notgreat and they do not have great
content in them to help the AIagents.

(40:12):
I mean, you know, the examplethat I always give is the Joe
Rogan podcast, one of thebiggest podcasts in the world,
but if you go and have a look atthe description for that show,

(40:33):
then you get absolutely nothingwhich is of any use to anybody.
Literally, the only thing itsays is the official podcast of
comedian Joe Rogan.
The only thing it says is theofficial podcast of comedian Joe
Rogan.
That is the full thing thatwould appear in any podcast app.
And so how you can make aentertain me button, as I'm
going to call it I think Tomcalls it something different but
how you can make the entertainme button from information from

(40:58):
publishers, which is that weak,that poor um, is really
interesting.
So I'd love to um sit down withTom and um see.
Well, what can we do here?
Is there something that we canum take and uh work out and make
you know work a little bit more?
Hmm.

Sam Sethi (41:17):
I, I looked at what Tom said and initially, when,
when I I got pointed to thearticle, I was like, okay, I'm
gonna go in all guns blazing,I'm gonna protect the podcasting
2.0 community.
I, this is this is not fair,right?
Yeah, as somebody who'sbuilding an app, I, and who's
betting my future on on whatpodcasting is going to be doing,

(41:39):
then I I was like, don't, don'thave a knock at it.
And then I read everything andI went, yeah, you're right, tom,
you are so right the the waythat we do things.
And and again, when I heard robgreenlee talk about how the the
apps, if it's a video podcast,we don't make that front and
center.
We, we make it a secondary twoclicks, three clicks before you

(42:00):
can watch the video, and I'mlike, yeah, you're right.
Actually I can't knock it.
I do have, though I actuallywrote.
I remember actually and I'llpick out the article because
Adam referenced it but Iactually said, probably two
years ago, that we need to becalling what we're doing
currently Podcasting 3.0.
And and my argument for it waswe mirror web 3.0, right, so

(42:26):
podcasting 1.0.
In my humble opinion and thisis an opinion, so you can, you
know, everyone has one like theyhave an asshole the.
You can edit that out later,but the, the, the, the.
The point was podcasting 1.0, inmy head was when Adam Curry and
Dave Weiner added the enclosureto RSS 2.0.
That's podcasting 1.0.

(42:48):
Podcasting 2.0 was when Adamand Dave Jones came back and
started to add some of thenamespace, but podcasting itself
was in the web 2.0 paradigm.
We were DAI driven ad driven adsupported.
The user wasn't part of theconversation particularly, and
it was all about centralization.

(43:08):
And the centralization wasstill saying Spotify, apple,
youtube, it's all around thosebig behemoths like we have
Facebook and Twitter.
So that's my head.
Podcasting 2.0 has that similarparadigm to Web 2.0.
But Web 3.0, thecharacteristics of it are
decentralized data ownership,monetization, bitcoin and

(43:33):
blockchain.
Those are the things thatpeople talk about as
characteristics of Web 3.0.
Now you look at podcastingwhere we are today.
I think podcasting is abrilliant example of a Web 3.0.
Now you look at podcastingwhere we are today, I think
podcasting is a brilliantexample of a Web 3.0 app where
RSS is data ownership.
We have data portability.
I can move to any host or anyapp.
I have monetization coming init's early, we know but

(43:55):
micropayments we have openstandards.
I think I would like to getpodcasting 3.0 out as a name,
tom, as well.

And, by the way, tom is absolutely not saying
that I don't want, as in do notwant, to brand this as
podcasting 3.0.
But anyway, yes, go on.

Sam Sethi (44:13):
Okay, he's not lying there, and this is my argument.
We have created an elephant,and it's a massive elephant of
27 tags.
No wonder people areoverwhelmed by what the hell's
going on.
No wonder people can't gettheir head around it.
There's a famous parable, aBuddhist parable, of four blind

(44:34):
men feeling an elephant, andeach one thinks they've got
something different, but theycan't see the bigger picture.
And I think that's where we are, you know.
We're saying, oh yes, you'vegot to add transcripts, chapters
and tons of enclosures, mediumvalue, time splits,
micropayments, lit live.
Why aren't you doing it, host?
Why aren't you doing it?
And they're going.
I don't know which bit do webreak off?
First, why do we?

(45:02):
And then the customer's going.

I am the clue.
It's so much, it's overwhelming.
You know what?
Screw it.
I'm just going to go and playwith Spotify, youtube, because
it's easy.
Yes, except of course lots ofpeople have said okay, the
podcast transcript tag.
I understand that.
I'll do that Because I knowwhere that'll go and I know how
important that is and I hopethat we end up in a position
where we have a few tags and Iwould suggest the podcast
transcript tag, the funding tag,because that's massively

(45:27):
important and it's kind of seenas a bit old fashioned and
rubbish by most podcast apps andI wish it wasn't.
Thirdly, the podcast locationtag, which I think has real
opportunity there.
Podcast location tag, which Ithink has real opportunity there
, and potentially even the tag,which is something new that
Nathan has been working on,which actually helps you link to

(45:48):
other places.
It's useless for an app likeTrueFans, but super useful for
being able to link to an appfrom you know, to a podcast from
elsewhere.
You know, if you were to lookat four tags that had, you know,
approaching mainstream so morethan 50% take up I think that

(46:09):
would be pretty good.
I think the closest that we'vehad is for self-preservatory
reasons.
We've had a lot of podcasthosts implementing the totally
useless, not fit for purposepodcast lock tag and you know,
and we've seen all of that, andthen everybody has gone well,
what the hell is the point ofthat?
What a waste of time this wholepodcasting 2.0 is.

(46:31):
So I wish that we could justfocus on a few of these tags,
get them over the road so thatwe can actually see the real
benefit out of that, and then wecan continue moving on.
Potterol is a wonderful thing,you know all of these.
Then we can actually move on.
But that's kind of where we are, I think, at the moment.

Sam Sethi (46:50):
Well, with my marketing hat on from my past, I
say we need to break theelephant into smaller parts so
that people can see achievementand success.

And I think that's what I'm saying is to
break it into.
Okay, just focus on these fourtags.
That's what the podcastingstandards set of people were
supposed to be doing.
Here is a subset of those tagsthat we are all going to support
but, as we know, that's notreally gone anywhere.

(47:23):
But I do think that that'swhere the future might end up
being is to focus on some realobvious listener benefits from
the new podcast namespace andfocus on that.
And you know, see if we can getthe branding right, because the
branding is all over the place.
I heard the other week AdamCurry saying that there's no

(47:46):
such thing called Podcasting 2.0.
They only named the podcastPodcasting 2.0 to piss off Dave
Weiner and I thought, well, hadI known that, I wouldn't have
bothered trying to make friendswith Dave Weiner, would I?
You know the whole thing.
You know, the whole thing seemsa bit driven by ego and you
know and I kind of wish itwasn't really we are at a point

(48:10):
at the moment, sam, where wehave a number of tags which are
going into the next phase of thepodcast namespace, but we don't
have a suggested spec for anyof those tags.
We're linking to long,complicated discussions on

(48:32):
GitHub, which are not aspecification.
It's just a long randomdiscussion, with people agreeing
and disagreeing and saying,well, have you thought about
this?
Have you thought about that?
You know, we're not at a pointwhere we can actually agree on
the spec for the new tags, butwe seem to be.
This seems to be how the thingworks these days is, you know,

(48:54):
we'll link to this complicatedthing and you've got to sit
there and read through all ofthe argument and work out
whether or not you know what thefinal spec might be and at the
end of the day, it's, it's.
You know, it's just.
It's just a mess, it's a propermess.
So I do worry about the wholething.

Sam Sethi (49:12):
So you're going to Chicago.
I'm pretty sure that the groupformerly known as the Podcast
Standards Project will meet.
I'm sure that there will be aknown as the Podcast Standards
Project will meet.
I'm sure that there will be anannouncement from that group of
something I'm not sure what.
I did put my hand up to be anevangelist, but an evangelist
with no funding and no you knowwhen it takes.

(49:33):
I think it's a full-time rolenearly is useless, so I stepped
back away from it.
But that group should have hadthis role of marketing
podcasting and they could havebroken it down into.
That's what my suggestion wasthen was break it down into
smaller component parts so wecan all win.
So the success metric is yes,it's look, we've achieved all

(49:55):
these tags.
Now we're going to achieve thenext ones.
Equally, I think the consumerand companies like Wondery and
companies like Persephoneca andGoldhanger could then get their
heads around it and then startto implement it, and then you
could have case studies, successwins.
But also the work that you andDaniel did on that website

(50:17):
should have been part of the PSP.
I think the person tag or theperson um taxonomy lives in a
totally another group nobody hascontrol over.
I think wave like you've got amusic category list that no
one's got control.
All of this should be broughttogether and that should be
marketed under one.
So if I was to say to you Iwant to use the terminology now,

(50:38):
podcasting 3.0, who do I needto get the blessing from Adam
Dave else's?

um database, a slow database on somebody else's
computer right um, and bitcoinum, which, as we all know, is

(51:04):
just, is just a ponzi scheme.
It's I mean it's not but that'swhat most people think yeah, I,
I wouldn't go.
I wouldn't go anywhere nearpodcasting 3.0.
I, I would go.
I would go towards um, what arethe features that we want to
push and how can we makepodcasting better?
And the brand comes at the end,but that's my personal opinion

(51:34):
and Tom has said very clearly hedoes not want to call anything
podcasting 3.0.
See, I go.

Sam Sethi (51:40):
The other way People understood when we were talking
about in the day, HTML 2, 3, 4,5.
It was a shorthand for oh,there's a new version, Is that
great?
What's in it?
What features are there?
We do that with iPhone 15, 16,17,.
Right, it's a shorthand forpeople to understand.
There's been a step change andin that step change.

Yeah, but it's only a shorthand when somebody
hasn't ruined what thatshorthand is.
If you were changing the namefrom podcasting Toyota to
podcasting Tesla, everybodywould go, oh my God, no, Because
Tesla has such a bad brandthese days.

(52:22):
In the same way, Web3, I mean,that is not a brand that anybody
wants to be aligned with,surely Well I mean DeepMind are
already talking about Web4.

Sam Sethi (52:34):
We talked about Agenta KI.
I mean I think you know in thecircles that maybe we talk about
within podcasting, people don'tlike it, but the there is a
world of people talking aboutweb3 and what it means and what
characteristics are of web3 andthey do align very well with
podcasting in terms of whatpodcasting delivers.

(52:56):
And I think web4 we talkedabout, you know, in this show,
spotify.
We talked about Copilot.
That interface is coming.
You can pretend, like KingCanute, that you know the wave
is coming and you can hold itback, but you're not going to.

No, and I'm not saying that I want to hold it
back.
I'm saying that if you go outthere and you say this is called
podcast turd, then no amount ofpolishing that turd is going to
stop people from thinking hangon a minute.
You've just called it after aturd.
Why would you do that?

Sam Sethi (53:33):
Well, I strongly strongly disagree.

And on that bombshell.

Sam Sethi (53:38):
No, I think the PSP failed.
So here's an example of myweakness week James right as an
app developer.
So I launched FanZone and it'skindly sponsored by rsscom.
They've given us a platform,but they have no speaker labels
for transcripts, so I'm like ohGod, okay, right.
And then it was like we put thewallet in for the old b wallet

(54:01):
but there are no splits, sothankfully I can do it in the
dashboard in true fans.
Then, uh, there's a new showfrom ancy costello which is
looks like it's going to be verygood.
Um, it's talking about themusic industry, um, and talking
about how her experience of itso, so great.
I then looked in the sats.
The sats sorry, the splits.
It's in sats, not percentages.

(54:23):
I pulled my hair out for yearsabout this stupidity.
Oh yes, you can have 130% inthe splits.
And I'm like does no one domaths anymore?
Right, I don't get it.
I fundamentally do not get it.
I'm not blaming RSS Blue, butthey're following the spec and
the spec's wrong in my opinion.
And then Blueberry we'repulling in the new media show.

(54:45):
They support the alternativeenclosure, but they don't add
the MIME type.
These are just examples ofevery host not implementing
things.

And the way of fixing all of this is to have an
individual feature champion foreach of these things, so that
when Blueberry produces analternate enclosure incorrectly,
then the alternate enclosurechampion says to Todd, no,

(55:13):
you've got this wrong.
Or, even better, todd canactually talk to the alternate
enclosure feature champion andsay have we got this right?
Prior to actually sticking itlive.
And the same way goes forsplits in wallets and all of the
other stuff.
There needs to be a pointperson for every single feature

(55:36):
out there, every single featureout there.
And if no one wants to takeresponsibility for the features
that they have, you know, put inand wants to, I mean, frankly,
there should be a website forevery single feature out there.
This is how to do the podcastlocation tag.
I mean, that's mine, so maybe Ishould do that, but you know
what I mean.

Sam Sethi (55:56):
I thought you did with Daniel, right?
Yes, I mean the starting pointwas there.

The frustration with that site is that the only
person that could update it wasDaniel.
So I pushed very hard to makeit a simple markdown document,
but no, that was not what itturned out to be, which was a
frustration, and that's why myname isn't on there anymore,
because I can't do anything withit.
So, yeah, no, I mean, I think,you know, I think we've got all

(56:27):
of that on one side.
We've got all of thefrustrations that individual
companies aren't supportingthese things properly, and then

(56:54):
we've got on the other side thefact that, actually, even if you
give a lot of the podcastersthe tools to do this stuff, they
don't do it right either.
And so you end up with, youknow, the Joe Rogan experience
there of one line in adescription, and that is
supposed to be, you know.
So we got all of these, all ofthese problems, and you know
time was when, whatever Applewould do, everybody followed.
And so Apple would say we don'twant episode numbers in your
titles, please, because thatmakes it really hard for voice
assistants, it makes it reallyhard for lots of things.

(57:16):
Please get your episode numbersout of the titles.
And everybody went okay, apple,yes, yes, sir.
Now Apple's strength is soreduced that it can't actually
do any of that and some of thethings it's done recently.
We want a website for everysingle podcast which is out
there.
People have simply ignoredbecause, oh well, it's only
Apple and it's only 10%.

(57:37):
We don't care because, oh well,it's only Apple and it's only
10%, we don't care.
And so we actually don't haveanybody in that leadership
position for the technology ofpodcasting anymore.
Again, arguably that might besomething that the IAB should be
doing, but it certainly isn't.

(57:58):
Maybe it's something thatsomebody else should be doing.
I mean, I don't know who shouldbe doing, but it certainly
isn't.
Maybe it's something thatsomebody else should be doing.
You know, I mean I don't knowwho should be doing that, to
basically be able to turn aroundand say, well, where's your
trailer?
How are people going to promotethis podcast if there's no
trailer in there?
You know, all of that kind ofstuff is, I think, really
important, but that doesn'thappen.

Sam Sethi (58:17):
No, it doesn't.
And I think the the otherchallenge with all of this is
you know you talk about havingchampions, but somebody's got to
herd the cats right, becausenobody's just going to stand up
randomly.
You might put a location tagpage, right, fine.
Um, I might put an alternativeenclosure page because I I'm
pretty wedded to that one.
Although adam has said he wantsto do lit, that's his champion,

(58:39):
right, right, yeah, that'sthree.
Who's going to?
Who's going to do the block one?
Who's going to?
I mean, no, it's not going tohappen.
It's not going to happen.
We know it's not going tohappen.

Well, and in which case all all of those um,
if, if nobody feels stronglyabout those particular features
to be the champion of that, thenthey should go.
But we seem to have a real, areal um worry about getting rid
of stuff.
I mean, just have a look at thepodcast images.
Um, oh, don't, no don't openthat.

Sam Sethi (59:08):
Leave it alone, james .
Let it go frozen.

Let it go let it go, we fixed it we'll talk
about that later then, but yes,now um one person, friend of the
show, who's also a powersupporter, matt medeiros.

Sam Sethi (59:22):
Um, he was um a little bit miffed with what tom
had written.
Um, now, matt works veryclosely with the wordpress um uh
open source community and he'sbeen an advocate of that
community and he sees theparallels with the podcasting
2.0 open source community, ineffect, the tag community that

(59:43):
exists, and he put up a videolink saying he didn't agree with
what Tom had said.
So I thought I'd reach out toMatt.
I started off by asking himwhat were your thoughts on all
of the recent podcasts thatsaying Podcasting 2.0?

Matt Medeiros (59:58):
has failed.
The backdrop of my perspectiveon all this is I also cover
WordPress.
I have covered WordPress for 15years.
Wordpress is another opensource publishing platform that
complements podcasting perfectly.
Todd at Blueberry knows thisreally well.
We were kind of competitorsback in the day when I worked at
a podcast hosting company andI've seen the WordPress grow

(01:00:21):
through the lens of open sourceand I have a huge respect for
all the efforts.
People contribute their timeand efforts to grow WordPress
and I have the same affinity forthis podcasting thing.
When I hear criticisms, like inthe WordPress world, where
people say it's slow, it'slethargic, nobody uses this

(01:00:42):
anymore, yet 45% of the internetis powered by WordPress I
scratch my head and I say, well,we got to be doing something
right.
Same goes for podcasting 2.0.
Get criticized.
I have to look at this and golook, there are people trying to
innovate in a space that isfragmented, of course, but this

(01:01:05):
is all done in the open.
This is your chance to vote andhave a say in improving
podcasting.
Why punch down on it?
And even if things were said aslike clickbait and to hype you
know, hype the conversation.
Only so much of that can goaround, like at some point we
have to stop and say you know,hype the conversation, only so
much of that can go around.
Like, at some point we have tostop and say, like, here's all
the good things that podcasting2.0 efforts and RSS feeds grant

(01:01:28):
us.
Right, when we look at thecrowning achievement, you know
the ragtag team of podcasting2.0 folks got their transcript
tag adopted by Apple.
That is massive and I look atthese as real, solid wins, not
only for podcasting but for opensource, for groups of people
without any VC backing, knockingon the door of Apple saying you

(01:01:50):
want this and Apple saying,okay, we'll take it the biggest
company in existence, almost.
And you know I have to take astep back and say let's, let's
talk a little bit morepositively about podcasting 2.0
instead of just going at it forall of its you know, warts and
bruises.
Like, let's look at the goodstuff happening.
Claire Wade Brown does this aswell with her podcast Fantastic

(01:02:14):
resource for podcasting 2.0.
And there should be moreadvocates like Claire, like
yourself and others, to just saywe've got this thing here,
let's adopt it and let's be goodstewards of it.
In my opinion, tom Websterwrote a post last week.

Sam Sethi (01:02:30):
What did he say?

Matt Medeiros (01:02:32):
Yeah, so there was a lot of criticism and I
took it as criticism because Iwas under the weight of all of
podcasting 2.0 criticism, right,and the headline podcasting 3.0
was something that just kind of, I guess, sparked me to write a
blog post and makea video, andI agree with a lot of what Tom

(01:02:53):
said, especially with his recentarticle that he put out today.
But the criticism for apps iscertainly just and I look at
this as criticism all around.
I worked three years at apodcast hosting company as I was
the advocate for podcasting 2.0.
And this is not easy, right.
Hosts have to do their part,apps have to do their part, the

(01:03:16):
podcasters have to do their partin convincing listeners to do
it and, at the end of the day,the listener has to want to
engage in all this cool stuffthat we're putting together.
But I just don't agree squarelyputting the blame on the
podcasting 2.0 team and again,having just huge respect for
folks who dedicate their time tothis.
Is the listener experiencegetting better for podcasting?

(01:03:38):
Like you said, I think a lot ofus drink our own Kool-Aid
Probably not as much as we wantit to be.
Are we under the gun againstYouTube and Spotify Absolutely.
Is it hard to put audio upagainst this behemoth video
social platform that is YouTube?
Yes, these are, these arechallenging times, uh, for

(01:04:02):
podcasting, but I I believe thatpreserving all things open
podcasting is important tohumanity and I think for
publishers it is, at the veryleast, a thread of insurance to
say well, if YouTube changes thealgorithm, if Spotify changes
the algorithm, if some otherplayer comes into the game and

(01:04:25):
they're trying to do a walledgarden, you always have your
fundamental base of audio RSS oryour blog with written words of
content to fall back on as yourfoundation.
So it's a long way of getting at.
You know, I don't think Tom wascompletely off base.
He is steeped into thisindustry further than I am.

(01:04:48):
He is an award winner and I amnot, so I have a high respect
for his point of view.
I am just coming from this aslike let's not beat up the
podcasting 2.0 efforts.
Let's try to find the partswhere we can make it shine and
adopt that as tech providers,hosts, apps and advocates.

Sam Sethi (01:05:07):
So I think when Tom Webster said two things.
One was where is podcasting 3.0?
I want to ask what does thatmean?
And then the other one was hetalked about it being rudderless
and tillerless.
What do you think he meant bythat mean?
And then the other one was hetalked about it being rudderless
and tillerless.
What do you think he meant bythat?
First?

Yeah, I mean, once again it was a little
disheartening for me to, youknow, read those words.
But then also I got the doubletake of Adam and Dave sort of
almost agreeing with that, thatthread of thought, and you know,
I sort of lost a little bit ofair in my chest because I was
like man once again, like youguys have been doing an amazing

(01:05:46):
job, and you know I won'tbelabor this but like just a
huge amounts of respect for bothsides, um, but especially those
who have, you know, committedthe time to podcasting 2.0.
And yeah, you know, when I lookat, uh again, if you look at
WordPress as an open sourcemovement, and I look at what,
what I've been in for the last15 to nearly 20 years, yes,

(01:06:09):
there are more community.
It's a first of all.
It's a much bigger community,right?
You're talking about 40,000people in Slack that are, you
know, interested in committingto WordPress Slack?
That are, you know, interestedin committing to WordPress?
Nevermind the hundreds ofthousands of people who develop
for it, right?
So, huge, huge community.
And, yes, there are regularmeetings, like we have the
Friday afternoon show, as, likethe air quotes boardroom as the

(01:06:32):
only official meeting that I see.
Could it be more organized?
Yes, what I know is that opensource is slow and messy and you
know it's a snowball effect asit rolls down the mountain it
gets a little bit bigger and alittle bit bigger and it's just
going to take time for that togrow.

(01:06:53):
And you know it's unfortunatethat I feel like now both sides
feel like, yeah, there's nothingreally here, it's just a little
experiment that we're all doing.
I wish it wasn't.
I wish there was moreorganization around it.
I know Adam and Dave just don'thave the time nor want to be in
that direction together and tryto get some momentum going

(01:07:23):
around this so that there can bequarterly meetings, you know,
some kind of in public meetingthat breaks down the different
2.0 tags that are being adopted.
You know, once again I look atif you were to buy an account
from GoDaddy.
You're going to get WordPressone way versus a Bluehost.
You're going to get WordPressone way.
It's still WordPress at thecore, but this open source
framework allows them to buildtheir own experiences and I hope

(01:07:47):
that's what that hosts will doand apps will do in a more joint
effort.
So I guess at the end of theday, as the dust settles from
this.
It sounds like it is slightlyrudderderless, though I hope for
a future where it does get alittle bit more organized, much
to the corporate chagrin ofpodcasting 2.0.

Sam Sethi (01:08:07):
I guess tom webster said it very well podcasting 2.0
apps have failed because, as anapp developer, we are not
gaining market share in the waythat Spotify and YouTube are
doing it, and so, therefore, areall of our efforts leading to
nothing.

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

(01:08:49):
episode listening with chapters.
Right, let's say, we got thechapter tag and maybe why I'm so
critical or what made mecritical of Tom's post was I
would love to see Tom and maybehe isn't, I just don't know it
like advocate for okay adplatforms or large publishers.
Like, we've got this chapterthing over here and see, see

(01:09:09):
down there in podcasting 2.0,there's this tag called chapters
.
We can tie up a way ofreporting on completion rate by
just leveraging, let's say, thischapter tag.
You complete the chapter.
We know you've made it X, x, y,z percent through the episode
and, by the way, chapters, wecan display an ad or something
like that, an impression foryour brand.
I would love to see thoseefforts tied in Now.

(01:09:32):
That would also mean that Tomwould come up with some data or
some feedback from big ad techand that means folks in the
podcasting 2.0 world would haveto look at that and say, ok,
critical feedback, let's adoptit, let's think about it, let's
not shun it away because it camefrom, you know, amazon or some
you know big publisher that wedon't like to, uh, you know,
align with.
Let's look at it respectively.

(01:09:54):
Just like tom's respecting thepodcast 2.0 tags, I would love
to see that world where, uh, youknow, tom, is that conduit to
add tech and advertiseradvertisers out there and
leverage some of this technologyso that we can see something
happen, um, you know, in thatspace matt, matt mediros, thank
you so much.

Sam Sethi (01:10:14):
Thank you for coming on and sharing your thoughts
with us.
Podcasting 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 is notgoing to die and there are too
many good people behind it.
But I do think it's not goingto go as fast or as far as
people think and it may take alittle time for the tortoise to
catch up to the hare.
But when it does look out hare,we're going to win.

James Cridland (01:10:35):
I agree, I agree , sam, the excellent Matt
Medeiros, and you can hear moreof that interview in Monday's
Pod News Weekly review feed.
So where are we?
Good news from Apple?
Just to round off with somegood news, because we should
probably round off with somegood news.
Apple announced podcasttranscriptions just over a year

(01:10:57):
ago, the beginning of March lastyear.
The good news from them is thatthey have finally managed to
complete creating transcriptsfor all previously published
episodes.
So that's 13 supportedlanguages, more than 100 million

(01:11:18):
episodes in Apple Podcasts thatall have transcripts now
available, which is super good.
If you want to, you can supplyyour own transcripts and that's
all good, using the Podcasting2.0 tag, of course.
So well done to Apple Podcaststhere, I think.

Sam Sethi (01:11:29):
Yeah, I thought, on the back of YouTube announcing 1
billion and Spotify announcingtheir big number, I thought
Apple have to announce a bignumber.
I thought they were going toannounce 100 million
subscriptions.
No, it was transcriptions.
But anyway, nice that they'vedone it.
What are they going to do withit all, james?
What are they going to do withtheir data?

Good question.
So one thing that you can dowith your data yourself is you
can download your transcriptsfrom Apple, which is good, which
Apple has always made available, so that's a good start.
I'm imagining that they willuse that to do a bit of training
of their internal AI tools, andyou know why not.

(01:12:08):
It reminds me trying to thinkwhether or not Apple's terms and
conditions actually wereexplicit about that or what they
were actually using that for.
But certainly transcripts havebeen in Apple's terms and
conditions for some time now, as, by the way, they are in

(01:12:28):
Spotify, even though Spotifyaren't making any yet.
By the way, they are in Spotifyeven though Spotify aren't
making any yet.
So that's all good, I think.
So, yes, it'll be interestingto see if they actually do
anything more, you know withthose tools.
I guess Now another companythat's also focusing on
transcripts is Pocket Cast.

(01:12:49):
What are they up to, jamesPocket Cast?
Well, they're up to a fewthings.
Firstly, they appear to beconsidering generating its own
transcripts for its app.
If you look at the next versionof the app, that includes
something which they have calleda remote feature flag for
generated transcripts.
Typically, what a remotefeature flag is is it's

(01:13:15):
something that they can turn onat a later date when they are
ready to launch a particular youknow tool or whatever, and so
maybe they are warming up a tonof computers to produce a whole
set of transcripts as well, whoknows?
Of course, pocket Casts isanother podcast app that

(01:13:36):
supports the Podcasting 2.0podcast transcripts service.
So yeah, so that might be athing.

Sam Sethi (01:13:42):
Right, james, let's whiz around the word rapidly.
What's going on in the US?
No, not just in podcastingterms.
Nothing else I don't want toknow.

Yes, just in podcasting terms.
The power of branded podcastsis a thing that Jar Audio and
Sounds Profitable released acouple of weeks ago.
It's a good piece of research43% of Americans aged over 18
would likely listen to a podcastabout a favourite brand or
product.
According to the study andthere's a tonne more data there

(01:14:10):
If you make branded podcasts,then this essentially, is your
next six months worth ofmarketing.
So go and grab that.
In the UK, interestingly, onepodcaster has got very upset to
the Daily Mail about the factthat Michelle Obama has

(01:14:31):
apparently stolen the name ofhis podcast.
Um, not really Um, but thepodcast.
Uh, his podcast is called In myOpinion.
Um, he's a bit grumpy that.
Uh, michelle Obama's newpodcast is called IMO.
So for a start, they're notcalled the same Uh.
Secondly, they've trademarkedthe name, but only in the UK, so

(01:14:52):
that's useless.
The podcast index I looked has261 shows called In my Opinion,
30 shows called IMO, and so,yeah, I think this is a
desperate attempt from a unknownpodcaster to stir up some
anti-Michelle Obama stuff in theDaily Mail, and the Daily Mail

(01:15:14):
fell for it.
So hooray for them.

Sam Sethi (01:15:16):
Well, in my opinion, I think he's a lucky, lucky boy,
because people are going to bedoing searches and guess what?
His unknown podcast is suddenlygoing to appear in searches
that he's never appeared inbefore.

Well, yes, indeed, and suddenly people
might go.

Sam Sethi (01:15:32):
I might listen to that one as well.
Yeah, that may well behappening.

May well be happening.
Many congratulations to DinoSofos, friend of the show from
Persephonica.
His company has announced avideo version of a podcast that
they make called Miss Me, withLily Allen and Mikita Oliver.
It was a big exclusive reveal,except Pod News had already

(01:15:57):
broken that a week before, so Ididn't bother covering it again.
The one question that we askedlast week is really weird that
they are allowed to do that onYouTube when the BBC would
probably do it on iPlayer.
Anyway, it turns out that it'son the BBC Sounds YouTube
channel, which, ah, that makesmore sense.

(01:16:18):
So that's where that's going tobe and it's only the question
and answer version of that show.
So it's very similar to some ofthe Goldhanger shows in that
it's got a full version and thena Q&A shows.
In that it's got a full versionand then a Q&A and it's just
the Q&A which is being filmed.

Sam Sethi (01:16:34):
So, anyway, that's all quite nice, so that will be
live as well then, becausethere's no point doing Q&A if
it's not live.

I mean I suspect it'll be Q&A.
That is done in the gold hangarway of taking emails in and then
responding to those emails.
I don't think it's going to belong, but yeah, I know that the
rest is politics.
Yeah yeah, yeah, but yes, sothat's going on in the UK.
In Australia, the Australianpodcast ranker released for
January which was exciting SEA'slistener returned to number one
.
Arn's iHeart is top publisher.

(01:17:11):
If you look at top downloads,then the ABC is number one.
Arn's iHeart is top publisher.
If you look at top downloads,then the ABC is number one.
So everybody wins the data.
So normally I don't.

Sam Sethi (01:17:18):
I normally wouldn't be bothered with these things
because nothing changes.
But you have a bit that saystwo significant changes.
I thought, okay, what's thesignificant?

change.
Oh, you want those, do you?
Okay, well, I'll tell you thoseTwo big changes.
Firstly, a podcast called it'sA Lot with Abby Chatfield was up
quite a lot of places to numberfive.
And the reason why?
Well, there are two reasons why.
Firstly, she's been talking alot about Maths, married at
First Sight, which is a realityTV show that sounds just as

(01:17:50):
awful as the name would imply,but it is absolutely massive in
this country.
Married at First Sight They'vegot a new spin-off of that?

Sam Sethi (01:18:02):
Have they, yeah, divorced on the Second Bloody
Day?

Well.
Married at First Sight doesincredibly well.
But the interesting thing aboutMarried at First Sight is that
it's totally changed theaudience that it used to aim at.
So it used to aim at.
It used to aim at, you know,women of a certain age, you know
30 something.
It's got nothing to do withthat anymore.
It's very much aimed at youngerpeople, very much aimed at
young men and yeah.

(01:18:28):
So it's really fascinating.
It's a really fascinating show.
I know Weird, but anyway itseems to be doing really well.
It seems to be the water coolermoment TV show.
So anyway, abby Chatfieldtalking a lot about that, but
she also interviewed the PrimeMinister, anthony Albanese, in
mid-February.
We've got an election coming upany moment now, not yet been

(01:18:52):
announced, but you can imagineit's going to be announced
relatively shortly.
So of course, the podcastelection going big here.
Also, the unpleasant Kyle andJackie O, who do a dreadful
breakfast show in Sydney whichis also broadcast to Melbourne,
which nobody listens to becauseit's dreadful.
They are up 20 places to numbersix.
They released 85 episodes inFebruary, almost double the

(01:19:15):
amount of January, and if youhave a look at their podcast
feed then it's the full show.
But then they also cut bits ofthe show and make those
individual episodes as well,presumably so that they can get
more advertising around theirtawdry and unpleasant content.
So there's no accounting fortaste.

Sam Sethi (01:19:35):
Tell us what you think, James.
Tell us what you think.
Don't sit on that fence.

No accounting for taste.
Australia Dreadful, anyway.
That's enough about AustraliaIn Canada.
This is a brilliant idea, Ithink, and well done Katie Law
for coming up with this idea.
She didn't come up with theidea, I should say, but she has
reported on it in her Pod, theNorth newsletter.

(01:20:00):
An initiative which I think is areally good initiative, to just
place a graphic of a small redmaple leaf on any podcast which
is made in Canada, so you candownload the image, you can
overlay it on your graphicsright now.
If you do a Canadian podcast,go do it today.
I think that's a really niceidea, just so that it's really

(01:20:23):
obvious when you're therescrolling through, particularly
in Apple Podcasts.
If you're scrolling through theApple Podcasts top list, you
can see all of these shows fromCanada and we should feel proud
about that.
I think that's a really goodidea.
Actually, one of the things thatI did when I was working at the

(01:20:43):
original Virgin Radio back inthe early 2000s is I suggested
that every single podcast madein the UK should have, at the
bottom right hand corner, a UKflag.
Don't care what it looks like,just put a UK flag on there.
If you're proud of the webcoming out of the UK do that,
and our competitor, TalkSport,ended up doing that pretty well
instantly as soon as I came upwith this idea.

(01:21:04):
Also, lastfm ended up doingthat as well, because that was
from the UK.
Yes, I thought it was asplendid idea.
So seeing the same sort of ideafor podcasts is, I think, a
good thing.

Sam Sethi (01:21:17):
Can I just say a couple of years ago, when I said
to you that we have a countrytag field, that we then show the
country flag next to thepodcast, you said why have you
got that?
No one's going to use?

it yeah, just thought.

Sam Sethi (01:21:31):
I'd remind you.

Yes, yes, I think slightly different.
I think having a sticker onsomething that says made in
Australia is different to havingan additional web field
somewhere that you can filtershows from Australia from.

Sam Sethi (01:21:52):
Well, hey, if you've filter shows from Australia from
, but I well, hey, if you've got, if you've got every show from
Canada, you can then filter itand then say I just want to hear
Canadian shows, or I think I'lljust put it out there.
We do that on true fans and I'mgoing to continue to do it.

There you go and you do put, you do put a little
flag next to every single show.
So, and I appreciate that,which is clickable.

Sam Sethi (01:22:13):
Oh, it is.

There's a thing and then you can filter Very
nice Filters as well.
Very nice, so manycongratulations.
I should also say, just by theway, that I am speaking at Pod
Summit, yyc.
Where's YYC Sam?
What airport code is YYC?
Go YYC.
Go YYC, yes, go Go.
Yvr, vancouver.

(01:22:34):
Okay, what's another one?
Yto, toronto City Airport.
Yyc is Calgary and I amspeaking at Pod Summit, yyc, in
early September.
I would love to see you there.
That would be lovely.
I've just booked my flightbecause my airline had a deal on

(01:22:55):
, so that would be excellent.
And if you are in Calgary, I dohave a day before I'm due to be
on stage and stuff, and so ifyou're in Calgary and you drink
beer, then that would be lovely,right?
Can I just say why?
Why bother?
Hey, very good, there's afascinating asterisk piece of

(01:23:19):
information about why all of theCanadian airports are all
called starting with a Y and, asyou may already have guessed,
it's not that fascinating, right?
And in France, deezer hasbroken even Hooray For the first
time, so they're very excited.
They have grown revenue by 12%.

(01:23:39):
They are now cash flow positive.
I don't see the word profitanywhere, but they're cash flow
positive, whatever that means.
And so many congratulations,dizer, for that.

Sam Sethi (01:23:55):
May we.

Yes.

Sam Sethi (01:23:57):
But they do podcasts.
That's the thing.
The reason I put it in there isnot because they're a music
streaming service, because theyalso do podcasts.

They also have podcasts in Zaire.
If you wish to get your podcastin Zaire, yes, that was my
Benjamin Benhamy impersonation.
I hope you liked it.

Sam Sethi (01:24:13):
Oh, I thought that was my Benjamin Bellamy
impersonation.

I hope you liked it.
Oh, I thought that wasInspector Clouseau.
Maybe it's just very similar.

Sam Sethi (01:24:18):
Do you have a room?
A room, yes.

People and jobs.
Congratulations Jared Easley,who has got a job at the NAB so
very excitingly.
He is Director of membercontent programming and
education for the NAB.
The downside is he has to go toLas Vegas at least once a year,
so sorry about that, but apartfrom that, that's all good.

(01:24:42):
I found the job ad for his joband the job ad says that the
successful applicant will hostthe NAB podcast.
So we will hear Jared doingthat.
Of course, he still continuesas a shareholder of podcast
movement.
What else?
Pushkin Industry looking for adirector of business development
?
That's exciting.
They've also ratified a unioncontract, so lots of exciting

(01:25:05):
things there in terms of AI anda minimum salary and all that
kind of stuff.
And hello everybody at Odyssey.
Big changes going on at Odyssey, including the chief digital
officer and president of podcastand streaming, jd Crowley, who
has been left, as I believe thephrase might be.

(01:25:26):
It's time to move on to my nextchapter.
He said yes, and a bunch ofother people gone.
Apparently, 300 employees beingterminated.
They've got a new president andCEO who is the same as the one
that they've had ever sinceJanuary.
They're just tip-hexing out thephrase interim, so that's all

(01:25:48):
good.
Awards and events.
So gosh Evolutions next week,no, the week after.
I'm looking forward to going toEvolutions the week after that.
That should be fun.
Catching up with the folks fromMopod for a deep dish pizza, oh
okay, yes.

Sam Sethi (01:26:04):
Chicago pizza there you go, yes.

I know.
So that'll be good Unipodfest.
You are there in BirminghamMuch the same sort of time,
aren't you?

Sam Sethi (01:26:16):
Friday, the 4th of April, yes, yes, the only way to
do a Birmingham accent is tosay Dudley, and once you say
Dudley you can do a Birminghamaccent.
It's really useless.

Oh Dudley, yes, that kind of works.
Yes, there are also equivalentsfor Newcastle, which is
photocopier?
Oh, okay, I do.
Kawasaki, oh Kawasaki, yes,that also works.
And also Scotland, just randomScottish accent.
You just have to say CurlyWurly and then you are good

(01:26:47):
there.
So that's all good.
Oh gosh, look, it even says PodNews Weekly Review.
They capitalised Pod Newswrongly, but at least it says
Pod News Weekly Review and notjust Pod News Weekly.
So that's nice, so hurrah.
Where can they go to find outmore information?
Unipodfestcouk for that.
And, dare I mention, no move onNext.

(01:27:14):
Okay, right, let's move on.
Then in that case, there is abig awards which has gone live.
There are actually a number ofawards which have gone live this
week, including the SignalAwards, but the one that I want
to point you to is the 20thPeople's Choice Podcast Awards.
It's the one that Todd Cochranruns, getyourhomecom, and it's

(01:27:34):
open for registration.
The awards have been runningsince 2005.
We are another sponsor thisyear.
Can't decide whether it's goingto be Pod News sponsoring it or
whether it's going to benewpodcastsnet sponsoring it,
who knows, but anyway we'll findout.
You can enter that awards.
It's very cheap to do atpodcastawardscom.

(01:27:55):
The Tech Stuff on the Pod NewsWeekly Review.
Yes, it's the stuff you'll findevery Monday in the Pod News
newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.
Sam Zoom, Talk to me about.

Sam Sethi (01:28:07):
Zoom yeah, fat Larry's band.
That's all I'll say, right.

Just one look and then my heart went boom.

Sam Sethi (01:28:17):
Exactly, old DJs never die young, right?
This is directly from Pod NewsDaily.
So you tell me, james, what'sZoom?

Zoom with a Z rather than or a Z rather than
Zoom with an X, zoom with a Zmake podcast hardware and audio
hardware, and they've released athing called PodTrack P2, which
has nothing to do with PodTrack.
In fact, they spell PodTrackdifferently than PodTrack.
It's a portable recorder forUSB microphones, which is very

(01:28:49):
cool.
Actually A little thing it's$99.
It includes background noisereduction, it's got a built-in
dynamic compressor and all ofthat.
It records up to foursimultaneous tracks.
That's two microphones folksonto an SD card and, yes, quite
neat.
So if you have a couple of USBmicrophones and you want to go

(01:29:09):
on the road, then the PodTrak P2is for you, I think.
Let's mention Spotify again,shall we?
Brilliant.

Sam Sethi (01:29:16):
Yeah, didn't want to, but have to.
They've added comments back innow for Spotify.
I think they had them before,but now they're making much more
front and centre.
So you have to answer threequestions before you can answer
your first comment, so you haveto know that they're public.
You have to answer threequestions before you can answer
your first comment, so you haveto know that they're public.
You have to know that they canbe reviewed and you have to read

(01:29:38):
the terms and services.
But other than that, you canget on with leaving them, and
they've also added nice emojisnow, so again it's some UIE
stuff that's what they're doingRight.

More about Podcasting 2.0.
This can be nice and quick, Iguess yes.

Sam Sethi (01:29:54):
You and I actually talked about the location tag a
long, long, long, long time ago.
You came up with the originalidea and then I sort of said I'd
like it to also be where yourecord.
And I think we've come to alovely compromise, James.

Yes, which you can now do both.
So the podcast location tag nowsupports a location of the
creator as well as the subjectof a podcast, so you can record
a show about the Eiffel Towerand make it available in a map
that shows podcasts about theEiffel Tower and podcasts about
places in Paris, but you canalso add your location in there

(01:30:30):
as well.
I'm recording the show inChicago.
That's all absolutely fine.
The proposal, which isn't yetwritten as a proposal, see
earlier in this podcast.
Then you can absolutely do that.
There's a couple of lines ofJavaScript which allows you to

(01:30:56):
automatically query theOpenStreetMap map and grab all
of the information from that.
So that is a very good thing.
I'm sure that TrueFans alreadysupports it.

Sam Sethi (01:31:08):
We do.
You know that because PodNewsDaily is our standard bearer for
this.
You correct zip around theworld, yes, and you add your
location of where you'rerecording and we can now build
feature on it like where's james?

yes, and you will see um when I am uh next,
uh, on the move, which is nextweek, then you will see um.
See that I'm coming from Dublinor I'm coming from a random
airport somewhere, or whereverit is that happens to be.
So that is a good thing.
Go and find us on True Fans forthat.
Two other new features comingfor Podcasting 2.0, if we all

(01:31:47):
agree with them.
Firstly, an expansion to thepodcast images tag, which
essentially makes it actuallyuseful.
It adds links to banners.
It adds links to YouTube sizethumbnails, other images as well
.
Again, it isn't specced outproperly yet and if it's specced
out the way that it currentlyis specced out, it will still be

(01:32:09):
a spectacular failure.
So I'm hoping that it getsproperly specced out in between
now and when it gets launched.
But the podcast images tag is agood thing.
There was a talk of deprecatingthe podcast images tag and
making this one, which dealswith differently sized images at
different sizes, be called thepodcast image tag, but I think

(01:32:33):
I've made everybody see sense onthat, because nobody was really
using the podcast images tagapart from three people, and we
know all of their emailaddresses.
No, you don't.

Sam Sethi (01:32:43):
Yes, we do.
Yeah, you got mine, I know.
Okay, fine, we did it.

Yes, yes, I've got the other two as well.

Sam Sethi (01:32:50):
We're all good, we're all good.

And then finally , the podcast follow tag, which,
if you want to see a version ofthat running, then just have a
look at the PodNews RSS feedpodnewsnet slash RSS.
No one is going to use thisapart from people like PodNews
and episodesfm and other podcastdirectories.
It will be super useful for us.

(01:33:13):
The podcaster need never seethis.
This is something that reallythe podcast hosts should be
doing automatically, and it'sbasically a list of all of the
places where you can follow thatparticular podcast on Apple, on
Spotify, on YouTube, all ofthat kind of stuff, and so that

(01:33:33):
will be very good.
If you want to take a look atthe version that is in the
PodNews RSS feed, you might workout how you can actually just
copy and paste the JSON for yourown podcast, because I've
actually written an API thatwill do it for every single
podcast out there.
It's just that I don't reallywant that to be used that much

(01:33:57):
for that, because I don't thinkI can afford it.

Sam Sethi (01:34:00):
But yes, so that is all good.
Two questions, Well, two things.
The first one is Radiotopiaadded this right.
Yes, who in Radiotopia is partof the podcasting 2.0 group?
I'm like how fast did they getthis done?
I mean, they beat you to thebeat.

Yes, nobody.
And in fact it's not justRadiotopia, it's all of PRX, who
use their own inbuilt appcalled Dovetail.
What I think has happened isthat they have worked out well.
We already have all of thisinformation because we use it in
our web player anyway, so wecan very easily produce the JSON
file.
That should be what Buzzsprout,our sponsor, does.

(01:34:40):
That should be what you knowanybody else is capable of doing
without annoying a podcast, apodcast podcast publisher,
directly.
So PRX has shown us the way togo.
So hurrah for PRX.

Sam Sethi (01:34:58):
And the running joke is this is the only tag that
True Fans won't implement, sothere, you go.

Yes, indeed yes, which is good.
Radiotopia, by the way, gettinga lot more shows for 2025.
There's a quarter two forspring in their part of the
world.
So, yes, there's more detailson that too.

Sam Sethi (01:35:16):
Last couple of things Antenapod, the open source
podcast app for Android, has anew release and they're also
allowing you to downloadindividual shows.
Now, hopefully, yes, that'sright.

So it used to be auto download everything or
nothing and now you can say Ionly want to auto download this
show, but not all of these shows.
Good, which is good.
Antenapod is if you are lookingfor a clean replacement for
Google Podcasts, antenapod is mynumber one choice.
I know that I talk a lot aboutPocket Casts being very good.

(01:35:49):
Antenapod is the number onechoice if you want a Google
Podcasts replacement.
I mean, I would say, where haveyou been for the last nine
months?
But it's really good Opensource.
You can nick the code if youlike and work out how they did
everything, but that is supergood.
Two big changes from HeadlinerFirstly, good news Yay.
Two big changes from Headliner.

(01:36:09):
Firstly good news Yay, eddie by.
Headliner is now offeringautomated transcripts, which is
good for your SEO and good forpromo assets and stuff like that
.
It's free if you are aHeadliner Pro user, so that is a
good thing.
What I love about it is thatthe automated transcripts learns

(01:36:31):
from the corrections you make.
So if you are forever changingwhat the transcripting system
thinks co-host is spelt like tochange it to the correct
spelling of co-host, you needonly do it a couple of times and
then it'll get the hang ofthings.

(01:36:52):
That would be super useful forme, given that the Pod News
Daily is currently sponsored byco-host.
And secondly, headliner has athing called Forever Free.
Well, that's lovely, a thingcalled Forever Free.
It is still going to be foreverfree, but instead of getting a
free number of videos per month,you are going to get one

(01:37:15):
un-watermarked video per month,but additional videos will have
a Headliner logo on it.
I'm imagining, knowing thefolks at Headliner, it won't be
an obnoxious logo and it won'tbe accompanied by these.
People haven't paid us.
I think it'll be just a nicesmall, you know, smart one, but
nevertheless just something tobe aware of.

(01:37:37):
If you are a Headliner Foreverfree account user, we are a
Headliner Pro user and we thankthem for giving us that, so
that's a good thing.

Announcer (01:37:48):
Boostergram, boostergram, boostergram.
Super comments, zaps, fan mail,fan mail, super chats and email
.
Our favourite time of the week,it's the Pod News Weekly Review
Inbox.

Sam Sethi (01:38:01):
My word we've reached the inbox, james.
What are we going to say?

My word.
Yes, we have so many differentways to get in touch with us.
You can press that fan maillink in our show notes.
That'll send us a text message.
You can use super comments onTrue Fans boosts everywhere else
.
Or you can use email weekly atpodnewsnet.
All of those are valid and weshare any money that we make too
.
A ton of boosts 501 sats fromTrue Fans.

(01:38:30):
From Seth saying I think wedefinitely have a problem with
diversity in podcasting and weneed to push out different
viewpoints from different typesof people.
I'm not saying demote anyone,just highlight all of the
different voices.
Especially now we need morediverse voices than ever before.
Seth, I would agree with youand that was one thing that I

(01:38:52):
was quite sad about seeing inthe Infinite Dial that including
video in those podcastconsumption data means that
we've again skewed more malethan female.
We were pretty well 50-50, andnow we've skewed a bit more male

(01:39:13):
again.
So we do need to work on that.
So completely agree with you,seth.

Sam Sethi (01:39:18):
Now a thousand sats from RW Nash coming through loud
and clear on Fountain.
Good, that's good to know.
And what app can we mentionthis week, james, and see if
they will send us sats from thatapp now?

Yes, indeed Great strategy.
Yes, it's an excellent strategy, in fact.
Three more from Fountain, oneof them from Silas on Linux.
Or is it Silas on Linux?
Let's not even go there, Anyway, he says right.
This talk about missingFountain boosts got me to top up
again.
I just ran out of sats.
Lads, I could never dislikeyour show.

(01:39:52):
It's not new media, Call backto a past episode.
I have a suggestion for Sam.
After the Thames walk, heshould walk from the UK to his
house in Portugal.

Sam Sethi (01:40:04):
Can I say, silas, we're doing the Camino way.
Ha ha, ha, ha ha ha.

Oh, there you go .

Sam Sethi (01:40:09):
I've got no idea what that is, but it sounds
impressive.
It's the walk from NorthPortugal down to South Portugal,
past my house in Portugal.
So, yes, I will be doing it.

Right, very good , while exclusively listening to
Portuguese podcasts.
How about that?
No, no, no, because they grate.

Sam Sethi (01:40:25):
It's a horrible language.

I'm sorry, Portugal, but it's a grating
language, yes yes, news justcoming in of a house fire in
Portugal.
Weird.
Thank you for the 6,300 sats.
Silas then says I forgot tofill in the report card.
I wanted to, but I just forgotRubbish.
I am super, super busy and itall gets tracked back to Sam

(01:40:48):
telling me to make my own app onMastodon.
Genuine thanks for that,because that could turn out to
be really good.
Nothing to show yet, though.
Still have the day job.
And finally, another 1,000 sats.
Actually, I don't even think itwas on the Mastodon.
I was joking around on Mastodonand on the show I got told to
make my own app.
It doesn't matter anyways.
Here's more money for readingnonsense.
Excellent, thank you, silas foruh, all of that.

Sam Sethi (01:41:13):
Uh, this one from podcast guru here to to, to to
sat the uh from bruce, the uglyquacking duck, and try that
again.
The ugly quacking duck even.
Yes, yes, uh, yes, put yourteeth back in sam.
Uh, you called it from the us.
I'm in the midwest, enjoy yournews and the conversation quite
a bit.
Um, sorry, I enjoyed hang.
I'm in the Midwest, enjoy yournews and the conversation quite
a bit.
Sorry, I enjoyed Hang on, I'min the Midwest, enjoy your news

(01:41:36):
and the conversation quite a bit.
I did read that correctly firsttime around.
Thanks, 73.
73.

Is that how old?
He is 73 and he's sending ussats.
Wow, wow, that's veryimpressive, very impressive.
Thank you for the row of ducks,bruce, and also thank you to
Neil Velio 304 sats through TrueFans.
Why did Spotify's spokespersonsound like a badly behaved kid
who's just smashed a window andsaid I can't help it if the

(01:42:02):
window is in the way of mystones?
I've got no idea what any ofthat's about, but I like it.
Neil Velio, thank you so muchfor that, for that now I'm going
to tell you off again.

Sam Sethi (01:42:15):
I'm afraid um you're not putting your blue sky um
social interact tag in your feedanymore ah, it should be in
there.

um, I have a feeling it arrives in there 24
hours late, uh, and I think thatthat's a bit of a mistake.
Um, but yes, I will go and takea look at that.
John Spurlock has alreadyhassled me about that.
He'll be in Chicago next week,sam just saying, or in a couple
of weeks time, just saying, butyes, I should get that fixed,

(01:42:45):
it's.

Sam Sethi (01:42:46):
Just saying people of a brown colour may not be
welcome.

It's yeah, no comment.
It's very difficult,interestingly, to do the timing
right, because what you've gotto do is you've got to post
something, you've got to publishthe show so that there's a show
there.
You've then got to post thatepisode onto Mastodon or onto

(01:43:09):
Blue Sky one of the two.
You've then got to get the IDof that post and then put that
in the RSS feed and thenrepublish the RSS feed again.
So there's that sort of doublepublishing thing that you have
to do in order to actually getthe you know, the base message

(01:43:33):
in there, and that's justsomething that my flung together
code can't quite work on yet.
So I need to continue workingon that.
I know exactly what it is.
It is literally that the thingthat sends the blue sky what are
they called skeets posts thething that sends the Blue Sky

(01:43:54):
posts runs on a cron job everyone minute, and so therefore,
it's just not running fastenough in terms of the publish
thing.
So, anyway, I need to get thatsorted.

Sam Sethi (01:44:06):
I'm going to sneeze Now.
Good news, James we have a newpower supporter.
We do, James.
We have a new power supporter.

We do.
We've got a new power supporterAbsolutely right, and that's
very exciting.
And I've no idea who they are.
The only thing I can tell youis that they are called Star
Tempest and they have a veryexciting email which I'm not
going to read out, but they areone of our big supporters,
giving us $10 a month.

(01:44:35):
Thank you so much for that,star Tempest.
That will be very, very welcomefor Sam to buy some more cut
price wine and for me to buysome beer.
That is a very good thing.
So thank you so much forbecoming our excellent 18, the
latest excellent 18.
So thank you very much fordoing that Much appreciated.

(01:44:56):
You can do that too.
Weeklypodnewsnet is where youcan plug your credit card into
Buzzsprout, our sponsor, andhelp support us.
Other people who've done thatBrian Entsminger, david John
Clark, james Burt, johnMcDermott.
I'm looking forward to meetingin Chicago, I hope, even if he's
now ignoring my email sayingwhen are we going to meet up?

Sam Sethi (01:45:18):
He's travelling.
He's travelling.
He's in Ireland.
Is he?
Yes, he's in Ireland.

Is he?
Oh right, well, there you go,I'm in Ireland next week.
Clare White-Brown, ms EileenSmith, neil Velio, rocky Thomas,
jim James, david Marzall, siJobling, rachel Corbett, dave
Jackson, mike Hamilton, mattMedeiros, marshall Brown and
Cameron Mull All of thoseexcellent people all giving us

(01:45:45):
an amount of actual money.
Thank you so much for doingthat, really, genuinely.
We really appreciate that.
And um, I've just, I've justemptied the buzzsprout wallet,
uh, so you can, you, you can,eat again, sam, and I will send
you, send you your half as soonas, as soon as paypal, uh, send
it all the way through, cool.
So what's happened for you thisweek, sam?

Sam Sethi (01:46:06):
uh, we finally finally launched fan zone, so
it's out in the wild.
It's also thank you for foryour name.
Check on Pod News Daily becausewe updated it on the new
podcast URL that you have.

What's the URL, james?
Yes, the new website that I'vegot.
Yes, it's called newpodcastsnet.
It is the easiest way.
If you want to be in that listof new shows at the bottom of
the Pod News newsletter, it'sthe easiest way to you want to
be in that list of new shows atthe bottom of the Pod News
newsletter.
It's the easiest way to toachieve that.
You do the work, not me.
So newpodcastsnet is where yougo for that.

(01:46:41):
Don't worry, I do take a lookat them before they get
published.
But typically what happens ifyou've got a trailer, as you do,
if you've got a trailer markedin your podcast feed, then
typically we can probably getyou about 600 downloads.
So that's a pretty good thing.
So, yes, it's worth a look atWebSub.
It says here it says herePodNews WebSub.

(01:47:03):
What's PodNews WebSub?

Sam Sethi (01:47:05):
Well, so we've been implementing WebSub, as you know
, and we came across a slightsticky point with Superfeeder
and then you, under theamazingly brilliant moniker
which I think is your company,have a lovely page all about
WebSub and how to implement it.

(01:47:25):
So we looked at that and wefound what we were doing wrong.
So thank you very much.
Podnews oh, excellent.
Well, there's a thing.
Yes, See, I'm fascinated tofind out what you were doing
wrong.

So thank you very much, pod News.
Oh, excellent, well, there's athing.
Yes, see, go on.
I'm fascinated to find out whatyou're doing wrong now.
Anyway there's a thing.

Sam Sethi (01:47:39):
And then I had an absolute hair-pulling moment
trying to get my River Radiopodcast off Podcast Connect.
I've not been on PodcastConnect for two or three years,
but I had to do that to get fanzone up there and I then went oh
what are all these podcastsstill up here for?
And I was trying to.
I got.
It took hours, it's like, andthen I had to pay the pleasure

(01:47:59):
of 1799 to do it as well, by theway, thanks.
Now you.

You didn't have to pay.
You would have.
You have to pay if you aregoing to sell a premium version
of that show.
Well, can I just point out, it'snot bloody clear then I agree,
I agree, but you didn't have topay.
And secondly, you alsomentioned that Apple wanted
hundreds of documents to verifyyou.

(01:48:24):
Yeah, you only need again.
You only need that if you arewanting to earn money, because
Apple sends you through I thinkit's the Dun Bradstreet, you
know, business verifier orwhatever it ends up being.
So you can ignore both of those.
But I mean, you didn't, but youcan.
That's all I'm saying.

Sam Sethi (01:48:45):
Yes, and also there's EU rules as well that you have
to comply with now as well.
Ah, yes yes, well, that's yourfault, not my fault.
Blame Brexit, Blame Nigel.
Farage.
Send back the rubles, Nigel.
Anyway, James, what's happenedfor you?

Well for me.
I've had an entertaining weekstill trying to work out why,
all of a sudden, I'm getting youknow 300 times the downloads
for the Pod News Daily podcast,which is lovely, but they are
all very clearly automated.
They're all something to dowith Google.
They're all coming out ofeither Indonesia or Malaysia.
So far, I think I have narrowedit down to be able to

(01:49:28):
confidently say that this is abug in Google and that Google is
making lots of people inIndonesia and Malaysia, two of
the more poorer parts of theworld, and they are chomping
through data, making automatedpodcast downloads, and it

(01:49:49):
happens to be my show which isgetting the automated downloads.
I've so far been trying to getGoogle to pay attention to this
over the last two weeks andGoogle have just said we're
looking into it.
Well, they haven't asked me forany logs.
They haven't asked me for anymore detail.
So either the blog post that Iwrote was really good and
contains all of the informationthat they were looking for, or

(01:50:13):
they're not looking at it.
But it's costed me quite a lotof money and I wish they would
stop, because it's also costingpeople in Malaysia and Indonesia
quite a lot of money as well,so, naughty Google, you can
expect to hear more of that overthe next couple of weeks.

Sam Sethi (01:50:30):
There was that famous track Big in Japan Does that
mean you're big in Indonesia now?

Well, I'm not big in Indonesia, because nobody
is actually listening to this.
They are automaticallydownloading all of these shows.
You can really clearly see onOP3 that I'm getting, you know,
x amount of downloads per hourand there's no fade off.
If you have a look over theweekend, I'm still getting the
same amount of downloads perhour and there's no fade off.
If you have a look over theweekend, I'm still getting the
same amount of downloads perhour.

(01:50:56):
It just happens across Friday,saturday and Sunday as well.
There's absolutely no fade off.
There's absolutely no.
You know, you can't see whenIndonesians go to bed or wake up
.
It's absolutely rock solid Xamount of downloads per minute
automatically throughout the day, all coming from individual

(01:51:18):
Android phones in Indonesia andMalaysia, and at least one of
those countries doesn't haveGoogle Audio News, which is
where the service is that Googleis actually sending these
things to.
So none of it makes sense, andI have heard from a couple of

(01:51:41):
other podcast hosts who areseeing the same sort of thing.
But the fun thing is, of course, that they are all IAB
certified downloads, soaccording to the rules, I can
claim all of this.
So so that's good.

Sam Sethi (01:51:54):
Anything else, James, apart from you doing that
amazing Infinite Dial show.

Anything else.
No, apart from apart from that,it was my birthday on Wednesday
.
No, it wasn't, it was mybirthday on Tuesday.
I forgot to.
I did all of pod news, but Iforgot to press the button right
at the end of the process,which meant that the first I
knew was sitting having a nicerelaxing coffee the morning
after and then seeing a littlesignal message from you, sam

(01:52:22):
going, are you all right, mate?
No pod news.
And I thought, oh, so Ifinished my coffee very, very
quickly and came back to thehouse.

Sam Sethi (01:52:30):
Can I tell you why I was also miffed with you?
Because we were using yourpodcast for a web subtest and
we're going.
I know he does a daily one.
I know he does a daily one.
Where is it, James Hurry up?

Yes, yes, no, indeed.
So, yes, there's a thing, andhere's a fun fact for you.
Every time I send pod news out,it costs me $1.79.

Sam Sethi (01:52:57):
And then the last thing I'd say is happy birthday,
james.

By the way, oh well thank you.

Sam Sethi (01:53:08):
Thank you very much.
It's been a.
You know it's been a greatpleasure.

Yes, I'd like to thank my mum and dad.
Yes, yes, and without whom, etc.
And that's it for this week.
All of our podcast stories weretaken from the Pod News daily
newsletter, podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi (01:53:22):
You can support this show by streaming stats.
You can give us feedback usingthe Buzzsprout fan mail link in
our show notes.
You can send us a super commentor a boost or become a power
supporter like the sensational17 at weeklypodnewsnet like the
exciting 18, obviously, ofcourse, yes, yes, like the
exciting 18 I, I don't know.

Exciting is the wrong word, isn't it?

Sam Sethi (01:53:45):
uh, the excellent I couldn't find a moniker for that
.
Yeah, any suggestions excellent18.

I don't know.
Anyway, our music is fromStudio Dragonfly.
Our voiceover is Sheila D Fromthe free state of Arizona.
Our audio is recorded usingClean Feed, we edit with
Hindenburg and we're hosted andsponsored by Buzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.
Get updated every day.
Subscribe to our newsletter atpodnewsnet.

(01:54:13):
Tell your friends and grow theshow and support us, and support
us.
The Pod News.
Weekly.
Review will return next week.
Keep listening.

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