Podcasting in Asia; plus Podhome's new podcast app

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

Sam Sethi (00:12):
I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm
Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans.

Siobhan Leahy (00:17):
It's four audiences in Asia-Pacific, but
we want to cover the biggeststories in the world and how
they relate to audiences livinghere.

James Cridland (00:24):
Siobhan Leahy from the BBC on a new show for
Asia, plus more from Podcast DayAsia and.

Barry Luijbregts (00:31):
So we wanted a podcast app just for us that
works exactly how we want it.

Barry from Podhome on their new podcast app
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This podcast is sponsored byBuzzsprout with the tools,
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Sam Sethi (00:53):
James.
So look before we kick off.
Where in the world are youtoday?

I am in Jakarta, in Indonesia, today.
So here for a conference whichwe'll doubtless speak about, and
, yes, it's been an interestingweek in Jakarta, let's just put
it that way.
Quite a lot of army outside thehotel at the moment yes, still,
but there we are.

Sam Sethi (01:14):
Sorry, are you sure you're not in Washington DC?
Just check Now-.

What are you?
Doing there, then what am Idoing here?
Well, yes, so we're here forPodcast Day Asia and Radio Days
Asia.
It's two big conferences here,around 300 people here, and it's
a really good get-together ofpeople who are involved in both
podcasting and in radio in thispart of the world.
And yeah, and so on Wednesday Ilooked after the main podcast

(01:44):
day, but also spoke on theTuesday as well.

Sam Sethi (01:49):
Now it says here there's a company called SRI FM
in the Philippines that's usingSpotify's open access.
What are they doing?

Yeah, this was interesting.
So this is Ron Bateyong, whowe've known for a long time.
I think we've had him on thepodcast.
Actually he listens.
He is our only listener onSpotify, so he says Makes sense,
yes, and so Syria, I believe,is the way that you pronounce it
.
It's Filipino for series, it'sa radio drama app or radio drama

(02:18):
platform and it's basicallypodcasts that you can listen to.
But he is using Spotify's openaccess, which gives him a real
advantage in this part of theworld, because, firstly, he
doesn't have to build astorefront because Spotify is
his storefront.
Most of the shows that he does,the first six shows are free,

(02:41):
and then you pay for show sevenand on which is interesting.
But of course, you then pressthe button in Spotify Open
Access.
It opens his website, which youcan link to, but that means
that he doesn't have to justtake credit cards, which very
few people in the Philippineshave.
He can also take the walletapps that exist in that country,

(03:04):
so GCash is one of the big have.
He can also take the walletapps that exist in that country,
so GCash is one of the big ones, and so he can end up taking
that, which I've never thoughtbefore, but of course, in many
parts of the world people don'tuse credit cards, and so
actually being able to acceptother forms of payment is
something that is very difficult, for example, for Apple
Podcasts, very difficult forquite a few of these services,

(03:27):
but if you're building your ownand you happen to be based in
the same country and you'reusing something like Spotify
Open Access, then that's perfectfor you.
So that was really interestingto hear about.

Sam Sethi (03:37):
I liked the idea that you put in my head of Spotify
being a storefront for otherservices services.
I've never thought of it thatway before, but I have said to
you in the past, I think spotifyare going to be looking at the
money on the table that they areallowing to be taken from them
now, now that the apple monopolyon their store has been broken,

(03:59):
I suspect spotify's open accesswill be host your premium
content with us still be the todo, but I think it's certainly a
very interesting strategy.

So you know, and yes, spotify may come a
knocking and go.
You know what.
We'll have some of that money,please, and can you stop using
your own payment system?
We'd like to use our paymentsystem and of course, that
wouldn't be good for people inthis part of the world.
But I thought no, I thought itwas a really fascinating thing.

Sam Sethi (04:47):
Now, if I am not able to come to Jakarta, which I'm
not, can I watch any of thisonline?

You would have been able to.
Yes, there was a link that weput in Tuesday's newsletter to
allow you to watch the podcastday itself as it went out live.
There may be a link for you tocatch up.
I'm imagining that thereprobably will be.
If you do a search in YouTubefor Radio Days Europe, then I'm
sure that you might be able tofind it.

(05:13):
But I went around the showfloor as I normally do and I
bumped into people and I askedthem who they were, starting
with Peter Niegel.
I am Peter Neagle and I'm theCEO of Radio Days and we're here
in Jakarta for Radio Days Asia,which is now the what fifth of
these.

Peter Neagle (05:32):
It's the sixth.
We were five years in KualaLumpur, Malaysia, and now it's
our first year here in Jakarta.

And we're really enjoying it so far, aren't we?
We've had some good speakers sofar, and more to come.
I know you know we've had somegood speakers so far, and more
to come.
I know you know we've not seena whole heap yet, but do you
have any sort of anything thatyou've learned so far from the
speakers that we've heard fromor the ones which are coming up?

yes, you and I were in the session which you
moderated where we heard a veryinteresting story from the
philippines and apparently gaylove is really big in the in the
philippines and I thought thatwas really big in the
Philippines and I thought thatwas really interesting.

Yeah, just to clarify, it wasn't just about
gay love, it was about podcaststhat were made about that.
But that was fascinatingbecause he's using a lot of AI,
isn't he to end up doing that?
And there's been a bit of atalk around AI here as well.

There has been quite a lot of AI.
Also.
I heard well, I didn't hear itactually, because I was dragged
out of the room, but I heard afascinating from other people
about Corey Layton from ARNtalking about how they are now
using brain research likeactually putting electrodes on
the heads of people tounderstand the differences in

(06:43):
listening to radio and podcastsand music.
I thought that was fascinating.

Yeah, he's really, really good.
And so Radio Days Asia thistime next year, I guess are we
going to be in the same place.

We are.
I had a wonderful meeting withthe minister and the partners
are very happy, so we'll be backnext year.

So we've got a lot of people who tune in to us
from the US, from Europe andfrom other places.
Why should they come to RadioDays Asia next year?

Well, it's about finding that thing, that gem,
like we were just talking aboutRon Beertong from the
Philippines, finding that gemthat you would never have found
in your own backyard and justsaying that's really clever, I
could use that.
And nobody else is going tohear about it, I think, unless
you come to Asia.

Jordan Kanazawa (07:28):
I'm Jordan Kanazawa.
I'm the head of branded podcastproduction for Otono, a
Japanese ad agency and ad techdistributor in Japan specialised
in audio.

And you've just been on stage here at Podcast
Asia talking about some of theconsumption stats for Japan in
terms of podcasting.
What was the big things thatyou were talking?

about Sure.
One of the big things was thatYouTube is the number one way to
consume podcasts in Japan,which was about 5% higher than
Spotify, which I think is quitesignificant.
And there's also, for example,been an increase in political
podcasts, which I know inAmerica has been a big thing,
and more Japanese analysts andpoliticians are starting to use
podcasts as a way to communicatewith people.

And you're also talking about Japan, Japanese
podcasts, using live events as athing now and all of that.

You mentioned a couple of shows, I think now
and, and all of that, you youmentioned a couple of shows.
I think, just like overseas,japan is also starting to expand
podcast monetization beyondjust advertising in show.
Podcasters are now curatingtheir own events.
They're starting to publishtheir podcasts as books, so
taking the content from thepodcast and putting it in a book
, for example.
And yeah, those are the twomajor changes this past year you

(08:48):
mentioned YouTube being thenumber one podcast app.

What are the other big podcasts app in Japan?

So YouTube is number one, number two is
Spotify, number three issomething your listeners
probably haven't heard of Radico, which is like a radio
streaming app for Japan, andnumber four is Amazon.
So Amazon is behind Radico inthe Japanese market.

Yeah, and it's interesting that Amazon is so
high in Japan versus othercountries.
I shared some data which wasrelatively demolished, I think,
showing that Amazon Music wasactually quite high here in
Indonesia, showing that AmazonMusic was actually quite high
here in Indonesia.
I find it fascinating seeingAmazon working in different
parts of the world.
Is there any reason why Amazonmight be that high?

(09:33):
Is it just that Amazon is quitepopular?

Because Amazon is so popular in Japan, they
also, for example, advertise onTV about their Audible
initiative as well, so they dohave a rather large footprint in
Japan, which I thinkcontributes to how high they are
in the podcast app listeningspace in Japan.

And Jordan, you don't sound very Japanese and
you don't look it either.
Why Japan?

Yeah, I made the joke.
Jordan from Japan, white guydoesn't look Japanese.
So I'm from Australiaoriginally and I came over on an
exchange trip.
I liked the country enough Idecided to live there.
I now have a wife and kids soit's kind of hard to, you know,
move now, but I quite like Japan, yeah.

It's been really good to meet you.
Thank you so much.

Oh, thank you, Pleasure's all mine, and enjoy
the rest of your day here.

So my name is Siobhan Leahy.
I'm an assistant editor at theBBC World Service for World
Service Newsroom and the GlobalNews Podcast, which is one of
the BBC's most successfulpodcasts, but at the moment I'm
not doing that.
At the moment, I'm developingthe launch of a brand new
podcast for audiences in AsiaPacific.

And this is what you announced this morning.
It's very exciting.
It's a visualised podcast, or,as I would call it, a video
podcast, but also available onaudio as well.
You even gave the name of it aswell.

Very exciting.
We did a big drumroll andannounced it's going to be
called Asia Specific, so that'sgreat.
It took a long time to get tothat point for many reasons, but
we're here now and excited tolaunch it.

And so the show is starting in the next few
months.
It's coming from Singapore.
What will the show be focusingon?

So a few things.
It's for audiences inAsia-Pacific, but we want to
cover kind of biggest globalstories, the biggest stories in
the world and how they relate toaudiences living here, those
stories seen through an Asianlens.
But not just that.
We also want to do the kind ofbiggest and best stories from
Asia-Pacific, ones that maybehaven't penetrated our news

(11:42):
agenda in BBC World ServiceEnglish because there hasn't
been enough time.
So in-depth analysis on thosestories, kind of big picture
insights on the political,social and economic trends that
are shaping the region.
There are many Originaljournalism and on the ground
reporting, so massive editorialremit.
We want to try and do it all.

Yeah, absolutely , and it's a massive area as
well to cover Weekly daily.

Good question.
I think more than once a week,but we'll see if we get to daily
and how quickly we can get todaily.
I think we might launch withtwo episodes a week, one
building up to two, maybebuilding up to three.
We'll see how we go.
We think we've got to establisha few things one building up to
two, maybe building up to three.
We'll see how we go.
I think we've got to establisha few things in terms of the
workflow, the availability ofour correspondents and our

(12:31):
contributors.
So, yeah, that's very muchgoing to be a let's see answer,
I think.

And you've got some great names doing the show,
haven't you as well?

We really have.
I mean, the show is going to bepresented by Mariko Oi, who's
based in Singapore.
She's the BBC's first and onlyJapanese TV reporter and
presenter and she's going to bejoined by two amazing
correspondents in the regionJonathan Head, the Southeast
Asia correspondent, based inBangkok he's like a walking

(13:01):
encyclopedia for this region.
People know him very well hereand also Laura Bicker, china
correspondent in Beijing, whowas previously in Seoul and
Washington, who is just anamazing presence and warmth with
immense knowledge.
So, yeah, that's going to bethe regular lineup and we've
recruited a team.
So that's very exciting and wewant to kind of, alongside

(13:25):
Jonathan and Laura, we also wantto be showcasing the amazing
voices we have in the BBClanguage services right across
the region.
There are many.
They're in our bureaus workingfor the Burmese service, the
Thai service, the Vietnameseservice and the Indonesian
service here in Jakarta.
So they're amazing editors andbilingual reporters there and we

(13:45):
really want to kind of showcasetheir expertise, their
knowledge and their voices.
So you'll be hearing a lot ofthem as well.

So the show is called Asia Specific.
It'll start soon on YouTube andon the BBCcom app and wherever
you get your podcasts, I guess.

That's right, I'm really excited about it.

Thanks, Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, James Cheers.

Ron Bittiong (14:06):
I'm Ron Bittiong, founder of Podcast Network Asia,
and we are the biggest podcastnetwork in the Philippines.

And you were talking about Seria FM.
Have I pronounced that right?

No, it's Seria, yeah, seria FM.
Basically, it's our premiumaudio drama podcast platform and
, again, thanks to you, you toldus there is a way to actually
monetize and put a paywallwithin Spotify that people don't
even know, right ThroughSpotify Open Access.
We've been talking about thisfor like two, three years now.

(14:39):
We use that same functionality,but also had to localize the
payment platform.
We used that same functionality, but also had to localize the
payment platform.
So, basically, what Seria FM isis that.
What we do is we translate thebest novels on Wattpad, turn
them into audio dramas not in anaudiobook style, but it's fully
animated and whatnot with AIand whatnot that people love in

(14:59):
the Philippines and then we puta paywall.
The first seven episodes arefree.
On the eighth episode, thatperson sees the lock sign within
Spotify and then they have topay using e-wallets because
people in Asia do not havecredit cards.

And that's the clever thing from my point of
view.
So you're using Spotify as astorefront and then you're using
you know it's your website thatpeople pay through, so
therefore you can use not justcredit cards, but also, I think
it's GCash, isn't it GCash?

And there's a lot of other wallets that people use
, so we can definitelyhyperlocalize within Southeast
Asia because, again, only asingle digit of the population
and we're talking 400 millionpeople, single digits only have
credit card.
And there are shows that you'reproducing you're using quite a
lot of AI, I gather, yes.
So half of it are AI.
Half of our casts are AIsupporting cast, but the main

(15:50):
people that are the antagonistsare human, because, even though
AI can actually say it, it justlacks the kick and the emotion
that people love when theylisten to audio drama.

Have you had a good conference here?
So far?

No it's been great , as usual.
Radio Days Asia is a toppodcasting conference in the
region.
I'm glad you guys do it, butjust happy to show that the
whole industry has evolved and Iwas just so happy to show our
inspiration, which is Pocket FM,that, taking a page out of
their book, we were able tohyper-localize this and again

(16:23):
happy to share, actually, thatthe one thing and this is what
shook the audience yesterday theone thing that people obviously
pay for in this, at least inour side of the region in the
Philippines, is BL and GL yes,which stands for Boy Love and
Girl Love Content Top sellers.
We've made a couple dozenthousand dollars because of that

(16:50):
content alone.

Who would have thought this?

Actually, there's a pattern when I saw that there
might be a chance to createtheir story tell.
I don't know if you're familiarwith story tell out of the
Nordics.
Story tell is a Spotifycompetitor and they opened up in
Thailand and by chance I knewthe country manager who ran it,
and then the main anecdote thatthey told me was that in

(17:15):
Thailand they would have beendead a long time ago, I think it
eventually shut down, but theone thing that kept them afloat
was the BL category in Thailand.
I was like wow, and Thailandand Philippines have very
similar nuances in terms oftheir gay population.
So I was like all right, I gotto do it in the Philippines too.

Might as well.
Ron, it's always good to seeyou.
Thank you, James.

Steve Ahern (17:35):
Shout out.
Thank you, steve Ahern,publisher of Radio Info and one
of the co-founders of this eventhere at Radio Days Asia.

Yeah, and it's a fantastic event you are just
setting up.
As we speak, You've just beenblowing up balloons I have For
the Radio Info Asia PodcastAwards.
I believe that's right.

That's right, it's actually.
I've hated this year, and I'vehated it because there were so
many good entries that I thoughtshould win.
Of course there were so manygood entries that I thought
should win, but we could onlyallocate one winner, so there
were a few hundred entries, wegot down to 80 finalists and in
a few minutes from now, afterI've blown up the balloons and

(18:15):
put the gold paper all aroundthe stage, we will announce I
think it's 34 winners of thepodcast awards, and this year
the most entered categories wereinterview and social categories
, which I think says somethingabout podcasts across Asia.

What was the big sort of takeaway from the shows
that you saw that were enteredand the shows that are going to
win this afternoon?
From the shows that you sawthat were entered and the shows
that are going to win thisafternoon?

One of the changes was in the fiction category.
Last year there were a wholelot of ghost stories, this year
there was still one, but fictionexpanded out more to drama and
particularly in Chinese languagepodcasts.
Fully produced drama was a bigtrend this year, and there's a

(19:07):
couple of those that are goingto win.

Very exciting.
Where can people go and see allof the winners?

Radioinfoasia and either in the next few days
it'll be on the front page orjust search Podcast Awards Asia
2025.

And as soon as they are there, then hopefully
they'll be in the Pod Newsnewsletter as well.

Chris Stevens (19:30):
Indeed Steve thank you so much.
Thanks, james.
My name's Chris Stevens and I'mhere representing TM Studios.

TM Studios, who many people on this podcast will
know, are the people thatproduce all of our beautiful
music Absolutely, and I hear itevery morning at home on my
Amazon Alexa as well.

I get the news, the weather and then pod news,
so very familiar with it, on adaily basis.
Well, there's the thing.
Why are you here?
I was giving a talk yesterdayabout branding and imaging and
ways to connect your brandingwith your audience and just to
make sure that your radiostation is reflecting the people
that are listening to it.

And so TM Studios makes jingles for radio
stations but also works withmusic for podcasts and that sort
of thing.
And you've got other companiesas well, I believe.

Totally, absolutely so.
I've run DivaWeb for 25 yearsnow, which does a lot of
production work for radiostations around the world, and
then five years ago, myself andtwo colleagues took over TM
Studios as well, so so it'sreally exciting.
I basically get to work with amassive range of radio stations
all the time, which isfascinating because it's
different formats, differentcountries, different audiences

(20:35):
and, of course, differentcreative challenges with with
with helping stations just soundthe top of their game.

So I love it yeah, no, it's great fun and
doing more for podcasts thesedays.

I guess.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the thingsthat's really been apparent the
last couple of years is podcastswanting their own branding and
their own music, for a couple ofreasons.
Firstly, so it's absolutely,absolutely dialed in for what
they want, the sound they want.
But also now, with podcastsgoing on so many platforms and
so many places, you want to makesure that, firstly, no one else

(21:08):
has got the same music as youand, secondly, you're not going
to unintentionally get anycopyright notices when you put
things online somewhere.
So if something is created byTM or whomever, then it's yours
and you can use it anywhere, andI think that's a really
important thing, as podcastsinvest in their branding and
their image.
Where do we go if we want tofind out more about what you do?

(21:30):
There's loads of stuff attmstudioscom.
If anyone wants to drop me anemail, I'm always up for
chatting about stuff.
I am chrisuk at tmstudioscomand I just love talking about
this stuff.
Excellent, it's really good tosee you, chris.

Chitra Prastuti (21:45):
Thanks, and I just love talking about this
stuff.
Excellent, it's really good tosee you, chris.
Thanks, james.
My name is Chitra Prastuti,editor-in-chief of KBR Media,
overseeing production ofpodcasts.

Now you've been working on Podcast Day Asia.
Here You've been working onsome of the panels and sessions.
What's your overall takeawayfrom the event?

I think one of the things is the monetization,
and video is a very big thingbecause it's, I find, it really
hard to.
I think I kind of agree withron saying that saying it's only
audio is putting us in thepigeonhole.
But on the other side we'rekind of hardcore on audio and
really at first maybe reluctantgoing to video, but then it's a

(22:23):
must business-wise, but thenit's adjustment that we use to
adapting, adjustment, thingslike that to survive.

It was interesting hearing from the BBC
launching a new show and all ofthe work that they were doing
there.
They've done a year's worth ofplanning on that show.
Have you ever worked on a showfor a year before launching it
on that?

show.
Have you ever worked on a showfor a year before launching it?
No, that is really privilegedto have the opportunity to do
that, to do the research, tolike piloting several times.
Something like that kind ofthing that we cannot always have
that.

And what are the big things going on in this
country right now in terms ofpodcasting?

I think one of the things is talk, and video is
very big in Indonesia and inKBR.
We are still wanting to pushforward audio narrative
storytelling.
This is our bread and butter,our strength.
We want to show it to thepeople.
It's getting there.
We need visuals too, but themain course would still to the

(23:26):
people.
It's getting there.
We need visuals too, but themain course would still be the
audio.
I'm your team.

It's been really good to see you.
I look forward to seeing you inthe next year, I hope.

Announcer (23:35):
Yes, see you soon.
The Pod News Weekly Review withBuzzsprout Start podcasting,
keep podcasting.

Sam Sethi (23:45):
James, here's an interesting story I'd love your
opinion on.
Todd cochran, friend of theshow he might be out there with
you in jakarta has announced onthe blueberry website as of
october the 1st, they're goingto be putting up their prices.
He says it's the first time in20 years that they've done that,
which seems a bit odd.

(24:06):
Now, one of the things is, youknow, the hosting industry and
the podcast industry is lookingfor multiple forms of revenue,
from dynamic ad insertionthrough to subscriptions.
But are we, or have we cut offthe end of our nose to spite our
face by keeping the cost ofpodcast hosting low?

(24:28):
Now we're going to have to goand increase it.
I don't know by how much.
By the way, will this lead toeither people leaving Blueberry
because they're the first tobreak cover, or will we lose
podcasters because they'll go?
Oh no, that's too much.
Or will we lose podcastersbecause they'll go?
Oh no, that's too much.

Well, I don't think they are the first to
break cover.
I think they're the first tochange it for everyone, and
there may be a good reason forthat.
It may just be that Blueberry'sbilling system isn't capable of
grandfathering people into alower rate, or it might be that
Todd has gone.
You know what.
We'll just charge everybody alittle bit more.
I do know that other podcasthosts have put up the prices for

(25:06):
new customers but left existingcustomer pricing alone, so that
is obviously another way ofdoing things, and there have
been a number of differentpodcast hosts doing that, but I
think it's very difficult at theend of the day, given that
Spotify charges nothing.
Spreaker, which is the secondlargest podcast hosting company,
has a plan that charges nothing, and so if you're fighting

(25:30):
against that, then I guess anyamount of money that you're
asking puts you at adisadvantage, because people
will go well, hang on a minute,spotify is free.
I might as well use them then.
And so I think the cleverpodcast hosting companies have
realized no, we need to offermore than just free hosting, as

(25:51):
Spotify is doing.
We need to offer.
For example, you know,blueberry customers will get
access to Blueberry's guestbooking service, so they'll get
access to that, and there are,you know, a bunch of things.
If you look at Captivate, forexample, they have all manner of
existing and new tools thatthey will be adding in there,
and I think that is probably thename of the game here is that a

(26:14):
standard podcast hostingcompany probably isn't going to
win any races, but if you addadditional things that only you
can offer, then all of a suddenthat changes things.

Sam Sethi (26:26):
BT used to have an expression called bill shock,
which was fundamentally youdidn't want to get your monthly
telephone bill and suddenly findinternational calls and I don't
know other online data calls,and suddenly you have this big
bill three, four hundred poundsright line data calls.
And and suddenly you have thisbig bill three, four hundred

(26:47):
pounds right.
So what they always used to dowas say, when I did some help
for them, we can't add servicesto this existing bill, we have
to break it up into multiplebills.
And I'm looking at spotifysaying they're free and hosts
saying they're charging.
Is there a perception equalsreality model that says,
actually we'll just call ourhosting free, but we'll take

(27:08):
that 12.99 that we were chargingfor hosting and we'll increase
the price of ai transcriptionsor we will increase the price of
guest booking or increase thoseprices.
And the perception to theactual podcaster is oh, oh,
blueberry's free, captivate'sfree, buzzsprout is free, but
actually they're not.
They've just taken the costthat they had before and put it

(27:31):
into other services.

Yeah, I mean, you know there are a lot of
different ways, I think, ofskinning this particular cat, to
use a quite unpleasant phrase.
Yes, and I think from a pointof view you know, if you have a
look at Buzzsprout, for example,buzzsprout has a standard
package that gives you a certainamount of hours per month, but
if you want magic mastering, youpay more.

(27:54):
If you want co-host, you paymore.
You know there are additionalpremium services that Buzzsprout
offer which you know cost more.
Similarly, there are additionalservices for quite a lot of
other podcast hosting companiesas well.
So that's certainly one way oflooking at it and clearly you
know that's a way that you know,a way that is pretty tried and

(28:19):
trusted.
You know, in terms of that, Ithink the difficulty is it's a
numbers game in terms of ifyou're charging just by the hour
or indeed you're just chargingby the podcast, as quite a lot
of people do.
It is a bit of a gamble as towill.
I have just signed on the nextCall Her Daddy, and in which
case that's an awful lot ofbandwidth that I have to pay

(28:41):
somehow, and so it's the otherpeople who are paying but don't
get very many downloads who areessentially subsidising that
particular podcast.
So I think you know there'sdefinitely lots of different
ways around how you charge forall of this kind of stuff.

Sam Sethi (28:55):
So I've been looking at the various different hosts
and how they present theirmodels.
So Captivate present it asnumber of downloads.
So 30,000 downloads, 150,000downloads.
So in the model of Call HerDaddy, that would be protected,
because if she had a milliondownloads they just put her onto
a higher tariff.
Blueberry do it by the hour.

(29:18):
I think Buzzsprout do it by thehour as well.
So number of hours, that's justthe audio.
So they're not saying how manydownloads you would have, but
they're just saying how manyhours of audio you're uploading.
Now, at the end of the day,which is the better model, do
you think, for charging?

I mean, I can understand both of those
charging models because storagecosts money, and so buzzsprout
charged by the hour of storage,captivate charge by downloads,
but downloads up to a certainlimit, so you get an amount of
downloads included in yourmonthly you know thing and you
pay more if you, if you burstover that.
Both of those are related to thecosts that these companies

(30:05):
actually get, and bandwidth isprobably the big cost.
I like the fact that Captivateis there unashamedly and I used
to be an advisor, of course butunashamedly turning around and
saying your podcast grow.
We give you all of theseadditional tools to help your
podcast grow and we benefit ifyour podcast grows, because once

(30:30):
you hit that whatever it is30,000 downloads then we will
charge you more money.
But that's a honest quid proquo because we've made your
podcast grow and most of theircustomers will never hit that
level, of course.
So I like the charge by thedownload.
The benefit of that as well isthat with somebody like

(30:51):
Captivate you can have as manypodcasts as you like as long as
your downloads remain below thatlimit.
So that's a very differentmodel to the model like Libsyn,
for example, that charges youper podcast that you have in
their system.
So I think there are justdifferent ways of doing it,

(31:11):
aren't there?

Sam Sethi (31:13):
There is a third way in my head.
So when you talk to somebodylike Soundstack about their CDN,
they talk about the amount ofdata they deliver, right, so
they're talking about oneterabyte or half a terabyte of
data.
Is there a model for hosts todo the same?
Because the download isassuming that it's a complete

(31:33):
download of a complete episodeand hours uploaded in terms of
the audio length has nothing todo with the consumption.
If you you look at Blueberry orBuzzsprout.
But is there a third model thatsays actually it's the amount
we pseudo-stream?
I know it's a downgrade, yeah,yeah, yeah, but the amount of

(31:54):
data that you get through, andyes, i'm… yeah, like a CDN.

Yeah yeah, and I'm sure that there is.
I'm sure that there is a modeland I'm sure that there are some
podcast hosting companies outthere who charge on that model,
who give you X terabytes forfree and then away you go.
The difficulty with that, Ithink, is that as a customer

(32:19):
you've got no idea and as acustomer you're hoping that your
podcast is going to be a bigsuccess.
And I know that that putspeople off signing with
Captivate because they're goingwhat I only get, 30,000
downloads.
Well, actually you're not goingto hit that, but you don't want
to tell a brand new podcasterthat.
So, yeah, I mean I'm sure thatthere is, and it's what I find
interesting.
For example, with Buzzsprout is, on the standard rate, your

(32:42):
audio, whatever you upload, youraudio, is fixed so that it is
no more than a 96k mono file, sothey do all of the transcoding
for you.
I do not understand why morepodcast hosting companies do
that, to actually build intranscoding down to 96k mono or
whatever it might be, because Ithink that actually that's the

(33:04):
right way of doing things.
You know it.
It's pointless sending out a320k mp3 file because there's no
.
You know, most people willnever notice any difference
between that and 128k, forexample.
So, so I actually think thatthat's not a bad, that's not a
bad plan.
Again, you can pay extra withbuzzbrow if you want stereo, as

(33:26):
as we, as we do.
Well, we don't pay anything,but you know what I mean.
So, yeah, so I I do think thatthere are different ways.
The the one thing, though, youknow, as I say, is that, from a
customer point of view, theyreally don't know how much
bandwidth, you know.
I mean, for many people youwouldn't even guess how how many
.
You know how many gig thisparticular show is, for example

(33:49):
this, this show is normally oneand a half hours.
You know what is that in termsof 192k?
I wouldn't know, you know so.
So I think it ends up justbeing easy for customers.
Do they understand?
You know, charged by storage orcharged by total downloads, but
those two are clearlyunderstood numbers.

(34:11):
The benefit of charging bystorage, by the way, is, of
course, that charging bydownload.
The podcast company is also incharge of basically working out
how many downloads you'regetting.
Of course, the podcast companyis the, you know is the arbiter
in terms of oh, you got thismany downloads, I'm going to
charge you X amount, whereas atleast charging by the hour of

(34:34):
storage is something that youunderstand as a creator.
Okay, so I've made five hoursand I know that that fits, so
it's probably the easiest one toexplain, but I think it's
interesting.
Fits, so it's probably theeasiest one to explain, but I
think, but I think it'sinteresting.
I think it's, you know,particularly interesting when
you look at blueberry puttingout their prices for the first
time in 20 years.

(34:55):
It'll be interesting to seewhether or not that causes
attrition, whether or not peopleturn around and say you know
what, I'm not, I'm not going togo with Blueberry anymore
because they have just put theircosts up, or whether most
people go.
You know what.
Actually, I'll stick with them.

Sam Sethi (35:10):
So it'll be very interesting to watch, as I'm
sure lots of podcast companieswill be watching, because I
would suspect that every podcastcompany wants to put all of
their prices up for all of theirexisting customers well, one of
the things that when I wastalking to the guys at
flightcast when they were doingtheir calculations for hosting,
they said as soon as you can getsomebody to sign up, you pretty

(35:32):
much can bank 12 months revenue, because getting someone to
switch is so hard.
You know there are 301redirects and everything else.
It's not, you know, thesimplest thing in the world to
do so.
Most people, even if the pricegoes up by a small amount, I
don't think they will thenimmediately want to switch.

(35:52):
The other thing that had methinking about, with all of this
hosting costs and everythingelse, was, at the end of the day
, stephen Fry once said hedoesn't know anything about wine
.
So when he goes to a shop tobuy wine, he says all I look at
is the price.
He says I don't understand thegrapes.
I know I want red wine.

(36:13):
I don't really understandwhether it's a good year or a
bad year.
None of those things reallymake me understand.
He says but I'm guessing thatthe price has factored in all
the quality and quantityelements of the bottle.
So he says I'm happy at 17.99for a bottle of wine.
That's my price point, and Iwonder whether we are talking

(36:34):
about hours or amount of storageor data distributed and the
user is going yeah, I don't care.
What was it?
12.99 on bus sprout?
Great.
What was it on blueberry, 17.99?
No, I'm going with buzzsprout.

I wonder whether the price is just that thing
that people don't even considerall the other yeah, and I think
you know I mean the most heavilyresearched page on any podcast
hosting company is the pricingpage, and I think you know,
going to the captivate page, forexample, and you see all of the
stuff that they have.
You know all of these ticks ofthis is what you get tick, tick,

(37:08):
tick, tick, tick.
Very different to you know,spotify, that is obviously free,
or you know some of these otherhosting companies.
So I think, yeah, you know, atthe end of the day, it's helping
people understand that there isa difference between Buzzsprout
and other podcast hostingcompanies.
There is a difference betweenLibsyn and, you know, megaphone

(37:29):
and blah, blah, blah.
People are perfectly happy topay significant excess for
companies like Megaphone becausethey give you the monetization
tools that you need, and soperhaps it's partly that as well
.
It's just making sure that thefeature set that you have is
very clear, and that's clearlysomething that I think the

(37:52):
industry needs to communicate aswell as it possibly can.

Sam Sethi (37:56):
Let's move on.
James and we were talking aboutpeople maybe staying or leaving
a host.
What are the top reasons peoplestay or leave a podcast?

I'm just having a listen out of the window and
all I can hear is the call toprayer at the moment.
The call to prayer and lots ofmotorbikes Welcome to Jakarta.
Yes, exactly.
Yes.
This was a study that wastalked about podcast movement.
It's now available if you are apod news reader, if you're a
subscriber to the newsletter,it's free, but only then do you

(38:30):
get access to the podcast studygrowth.
And they say that the topreason that people leave a
podcast, firstly, that it wasjust boring and secondly, that
it started with too muchmeaningless chat.
That's one of the reasons whythis podcast starts the way that
it does.
It goes diving straight intothe content, because that's kind

(38:52):
of important.
We leave our meaningless chatto the end, don't we, sir?

Sam Sethi (38:56):
exactly, and it is totally meaningless.

Yes, yes, so, uh , yeah, there's some really good
data in here.
It was a survey of 1200 podcastlisteners and, yeah, let's see,
yeah, it was good.
They basically say that thefirst 60 seconds are critical,
and I think that that'sabsolutely correct.
So, yes, if you get the PodNewsemail newsletter, then you can
go to podnewsnet, slash extrasand you can grab a copy of the

(39:22):
podcast study.
And if you're not getting thePodNews newsletter, then you
should just sign up and then youcan get it.
So it's as simple as that.

Sam Sethi (39:33):
Now Acast, since Ross Adams has stepped down as CEO,
have made an acquisition.
Who have they bought, james?

Well, they haven't made an acquisition.
They actually made thisacquisition earlier on in the
year, but the acquisition hasfinished, is all done.
So this was the acquisition ofthe Wonder Media Network, which
they got right at the end oflast year, beginning of this
year, which makes a ton of greatshows, and the idea there is
that they are going to be makingshows, for example, that are

(40:03):
for brands and things like that.
Example that, do you know, thatare for brands and things,
things like that.
So it was 5.5 million dollarsin cash, but acast have just
completed the deal with 2.6million dollars worth of acast
shares, which means that thetotal acquisition price for
wonder media network, in caseyou're working it out, is 8.1
million dollars.

(40:23):
So, yeah, just an interestingthing, just to sort of, you know
, point out that this has, youknow, finally gone through.
So that's good news for them.
But they've also done somethingwhich I thought was quite
interesting, haven't they?

Sam Sethi (40:37):
Yeah, they've started a cast ads academy a course or
two courses even to gaincertification on how podcast
advertising works.
I guess that's not a bad thingif you want to get people to pay
you to learn how to use yourproduct.
That's a really smart way ofdoing it.

It is free though.
Oh, it's free, sorry.
Yeah, you're okay, I thought.

Sam Sethi (41:00):
LP was finding a new revenue stream there.

No, you can gain a certification, but I think
this is a very good idea.
So you are helping ad buyersand people like that.
They're hoping to train up athousand, you know, or thousands
in their first year, but theidea is that you can train up to
be a certified podcast adsalesperson, which is basically
a certified person thatunderstands how to buy

(41:27):
advertising on Acast.
So I think it's a clever idea.
But you look at the amount ofpeople out there who are
certified AWS engineers orcertified Google Cloud engineers
.
That's a good thing that youcan go to a client and say I've
done the course.
I've got a piece of paper thatsays that I do actually

(41:48):
understand how AWS works or howGoogle Cloud works or whatever
it is, and so understanding howpodcast advertising works, which
is the spin that Acast areputting on this is, I think, a
pretty good thing.
I thought that that was a veryclever plan from Acast's point
of view.

Sam Sethi (42:05):
I also saw somebody on LinkedIn already post that
they've become certified.

I thought there you go, yeah yeah, well, yeah,
you can do this exam.
You can do it in your lunchhour, in a few lunch hours, so
you can learn how it all worksand then do that.
I think it's a very clever idea, and if there's one problem
that the podcast industry hashad, it's that ad buyers don't
understand how to buy yet, andif this helps them buy, then I

(42:33):
think it's a good thing for theentire industry.

Sam Sethi (42:35):
Well, next week we will have Greg Glenday on as the
new CEO of ACAST to tell usmore about what this acquisition
was about, and also, are thereother plans as well?

Yeah, so looking forward to that.
There's been some new data fromLivewire.
Not much changes in terms ofpodcast hosts by episode share,
which is what John Spurlock'sLivewire puts together.
The only thing that I noted inthe data for August was that
Libsyn has hit a new low ofshare of new episodes in a month

(43:10):
.
They're down to 3% for thefirst time.
Podtrack now has a new high ofshows that they track as well.
Super useful data and I'mreally pleased that John puts
this together.
It does make you questionLibsyn's focus.
They are very much now talkingabout advertising, very much

(43:30):
talking about the ads that theysell, which they can sell on any
podcast host, and it does makeme wonder, well, how long are
Libsyn going to continue being ahosting company?
If you know, by the looks of it, they don't particularly care
too much in terms of the amountof hosts that they actually or
the amount of podcasts that theyactually host out there.

Sam Sethi (43:51):
Buzzsprout has also put out some numbers.
James, what's the take on thatone?

Yeah, these are always really interesting
numbers.
Buzzsproutcom slash stats iswhere to go.
Of course they're our sponsor.
They showed a drop for Spotifyyear on year of 3.1% in terms of
downloads, although obviously,if you produce video, then you
no longer appear in that list interms of downloads from Spotify
.
Apple Podcasts still number one37.1%.

(44:20):
What other interesting statsare in there?
5.9% of all downloads onBuzzsprout are from the UK,
which is interesting to see.
Obviously, the US is number oneand if you are on Buzzsprout
and you are doing 27 downloadsor over, then you are better
than half of all podcasts on theBuzzsprout platform.

(44:43):
Just 27 downloads, downloads,which is quite a thing.
We are easily in the top five.
We do well over a thousand, athousand downloads in the first
week for our episodes.
We're easily in the top fivepercent.
But you do take a look at thesenumbers and you go well, maybe,
maybe charging our stored isprobably the right plan, exactly

(45:07):
In terms of charging instead ofcharging for downloads.
Certainly, yeah.

Sam Sethi (45:13):
And I forgot to mention.
I looked at the T's and C's formost of these hosting companies
as well.
They have a safety net.
So if you do go beyond acertain amount they kick in with
an increased charge anyway.
So they've got their safety netin place.

Indeed, and for completeness, the Buzzsprout one
if you are using more than 500gigabits of transfer within 30
days, I've got no idea how manydownloads that turns into.
Then, yes, you get switched tothe Pro plan, Although the pro
plan is still genuinely quitecheap $49 per month.
That includes up to oneterabyte of outbound data

(45:51):
transfer.
So yeah, there's a thing.

Sam Sethi (45:54):
Nice.
Now, this is not really a bigstory, but I thought it was an
interesting observation.
The Rest is Politics, which isa big UK politics show from the
guys at Goalhanger.
They were doing a live show.
They got 15,000 people at theO2 to come and listen to two

(46:15):
people on stage talk aboutpolitics.
Now they've done the AlbertHall and they've done a few
other venues, but even thepresenters were gobsmacked that
they've actually managed to get15,000 people to pay them to
come and talk about politics.

Yes, yes, it was a really interesting interview,
done, of course, by a man witha garbage bin on his head.

Sam Sethi (46:36):
That's where we're missing out, James.
That's where.

Yes, a man called Count Binface, which, yes
, uk politics, who understandsit?
But, yeah, you know.
And so alistair campbell, hewas actually saying that rory,
his co-host, rory, put up apicture on the big screen it was
just a chart showing tax, youknow, tax rates or something and

(47:01):
he put it up on the big screen,talked about it and then on and
somebody in the audienceshouted more and he was saying
this is just mad, this is justmad.
So, yeah, I think the successof some of these shows have
totally taken them by surprise.
And certainly, if you canimagine doing a live show in the

(47:22):
O2 arena in front of soAlistair Campbell says, 15,000
people, you know that's quite athing.
So, yes, it was a goodinterview, worthwhile watching
that on YouTube.
Also another good interview,amy McNee, who is an author.
She was on your friend JayShetty's show.
No relation, friend of the show.

(47:44):
No relation, yeah, no, no.

Spelled differently, so that's probably
the clue.
It's not a lisp.

It's not a lisp.
Anyway.
Amy Winley went on Jay Shetty'sshow.
She is an author, she haswritten a book called we Need
your Art and she was expecting amassive sales hump because she
had appeared on Jay Shet's show.
It made no difference to hersales whatsoever and she makes

(48:11):
the point and I think this is areally good point.
Actually, she makes the pointthat artists have been taught
that success comes from externalforces.
It doesn't come that way.
It comes from word of mouth.
Now, if you were to take theword artist and replace that
with podcasters, and if you wereto take external forces and
start talking about you know,does success come from Apple

(48:32):
Podcasts, new and noteworthy?
Does success come from, youknow, you being picked as a
speaker at podcast movement?
Does success come from all ofthese things?
No, it doesn't, at the end ofthe day, and you should stop
sitting back and assuming thatsomebody else is going to give
you success.
Just go out and get your wordof mouth and get all of that
stuff going.
So I thought it was a reallyinteresting point of hers and

(48:57):
very interesting.
She shared the purchase numbersfor her book and you you could
actually see very clearly thatthat it made no difference to
those sales numbers at all.
So yeah, really interesting.

Sam Sethi (49:13):
I remember many years ago somebody posing the
question who's the moreimportant on a podcast, the host
or the guest, and the answerwas the host, actually strangely
, because most people had theperception you know, get a big
guest and that'll get my numbersup, do this, do that, do the
other.
But actually what you find isthe parasocial relationship with

(49:34):
the host is what people comeback for, and so it's that
person or people in our casethat people come back to listen
to.
The guest happens to be justthat week, so the effect for her
Amy McNee may be little,because Jay Shetty's fans are
coming back for Jay, not for Amy.

Indeed, and I remember you know Todd and Rob
from the new media show.
They say that whenever theyhave a guest on, their figures
actually go down.

Sam Sethi (50:02):
No wonder they've said no to me numerous times
then.

I wish I find fascinating.
Let's talk about events.
There is an event coming up inSpain called Podcast Days, and I
was there looking through thelist of international speakers,
and there are some excellentnames on there.
Eric Newsom is on there, meganDavies from ACAST, todd Cochran
from Blueberry, of course, andthen there was another name that
I noticed on there and it's SamSethi.

(50:28):
That's very exciting Aninternational speaker.

Sam Sethi (50:30):
Now are we Well, you know clearly, a certain
well-known speaker called JamesCriddle must have been busy that
day.
The only reason anyone goes foroption two yes.

Well, that should be very exciting.
Yeah, so it's a month away.
It's in madrid on the second tothe third of august, so just
less than a month now, and yeah,so that that that should be
very nice.
How exciting for you.

Sam Sethi (50:55):
Yes, no, I'm looking forward to it.
I mean, you need to top up thesun tan, it's raining in england
, so, yeah, it'd be nice to getout to spain, also going on pod
summit in calgary on septemberthe 19th.

I will be there.
It's actually september the19th and the 20th I think I will
be there doing a talk which Ihaven't actually given a title
to for tim, who is running it.
If he's listening, it'll be myusual title of where we've come
from and where we're going,because that leaves me to think
for another week.
And there's the Speakfest Nightof the Living Pod, which is

(51:28):
tremendous branding.
It's being held in.
I think it's being held insomething like a cemetery or
something really weird or amuseum of.
Yeah, it's just very strange.
Anyway, that's happening inHouston, in Texas, on October
the 10th.
The Tech Stuff on the Pod NewsWeekly Review.
Yes, it's the stuff you'll findevery Monday in the Pod News

(51:49):
newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.
It's been a quiet, quiet, quietweek in terms of well tech and
news and everything else.
So, at least while we recordthis, there may be more exciting
things to happen, but while werecord this, it's been very
quiet things to happen, butwhile we record this, it's been
very quiet.
But what technology are youabout to talk about?

Sam Sethi (52:10):
Well, goodbye, chartable, really.
I mean, I thought you'd gonealready, but it looks like it's
finally sun setting on Decemberthe 8th.
So that's that.
And a company called Talkscohas launched a platform
connecting podcasters and andguests, so very similar to what
we had, pod match last week yeah, with alex sanfilippo, who's
very pleased that you called himdapper, so he is, he is, yes,

(52:34):
and so they've launched a freespeakers page to help hosts find
guests.
The pages come with an easy touse url to help prompt it.
I mean, it goes back to seo.
You know, again, I know hub.
Hub has got a service like thiswe talked about Blueberry's got
one, captivate's got one.
So there are a lot of companiesin this space of guesting and

(52:55):
hosting connectors.
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, indeed , it's going to be interesting
to see what happens with talksco.
And yes, and just to mention onthat Chartable thing, there's
two things that's going on there.
It was, of course, killed lastyear for most people.
It still works for megaphonecustomers, which are landing
pages that you can link to ifyou want to promote your show,

(53:26):
and it does all of the tracking.
So basically what Chartable wasdoing, but they are typical
Spotify in that these landingpages have a massive button that
says listen to this show onSpotify and then these miniscule
little icons for all of theother platforms that you might
want to have a listen.
It's the most Spotify thingever, so it's quite funny.

(53:46):
But yes, if you want to use thekind of thing that you used to
get through Chartable SmartLinks, those URLs won't work
anymore by December the 8th, soyou'll need to use these new
megaphone links instead.

Sam Sethi (54:00):
A couple of other ones.
Podclock, James, you brought itback why?

Yes, I brought it back.
It's a podcast app, testingpodcast.
It's got a whole set of testsIf you're making a podcast app
or a podcast service of somesort, all kinds of things from
odd podcast formats or differentmetadata.
So, yes, worth a peek.
You'll find that wherever youget your podcasts.
And also, alberto Batella ofrsscom We've already mentioned

(54:27):
this but it's worth mentioningagain there's demo code for
producing the podcast locationtag, the new podcast location
tag.
I know that rsscom are going toroll this out very shortly, but
it's really nicely done.
It's done the correct waythrough the UX.
It's very nice and you can copythe whole thing and stick it
into your podcast hostingcompany.

(54:47):
It's well worth a peek.
You'll find it linked onMonday's newsletter and in no
you know.
Obviously I'm not justrewriting that because there was
virtually no news on Mondaybecause it was Labor Day at all,
but it's certainly worthanother mention Monday because
it was Labor.

Sam Sethi (55:03):
Day at all, but it's certainly worth another mention.
Yes, now, one other thing tomention is Podhome.
Now, barry Lubreks, fromHolland, is the CEO and founder
of Podhome, which is a hostingcompany, but strangely or maybe
not so strangely now they havedeveloped their own app, and
it's both iOS and Android.
Have you seen anything of thisyet, james?

Yes, I've played with it.
I think, as with any of thesepodcast apps, you need to kind
of understand what the big dealis, and I think the big deal
with this one is it's a supermodern podcast experience.
That's what they're calling it.
It deals with live podcasts, itdeals with quite a lot of the
secret sauce in terms ofpodcasting 2.0 and all of that,

(55:48):
but there's quite a lot of stuffthat it does that you know,
pocket Casts does fine and ApplePodcasts does fine and
everything else.
But, yeah, it's certainly builtfor the super fan in terms of
podcasting.
You caught up with Barry andyou asked him who is Podhome.

Podhome is a podcast hosting platform and one
of the most modern ones.
I always say we've gone live inI think it's now 2023 or 2022.
I don't even remember somethinglike that.
We're hosting lots of podcasts,some large, some small.

Sam Sethi (56:21):
We're doing pretty well Now one thing you announced
last week you've been teasingit for a little while that
you've been building a newpodcast app and it was in beta
and now it's gone live.
It's available on the iOS andAndroid stores, so why did you
want to go and build an app?

Why did I want to hurt myself like that?
Yeah, want to go and build anapp.
Why did I want to hurt myselflike that?
Yeah, as you know, building anapp takes lots and lots of time
and is very, very painful.
Because developing anything formobile is super specific.
The mobile rules for androidand ios are super specific.
So, yes, it's a lot of effort.
So why?
Why?
Why did we decide to do this?

(57:03):
Well, first of all, me, and alsoJurgen, that's also working
with me we use lots of podcastapps and none of them truly fit
how we want to use a podcast app, so that is really the best
reason.
So we wanted a podcast app justfor us that works exactly how
we want it, and from there itstarted.

(57:25):
And the second biggest reasonis that now we control the whole
stack from us.
So for our podcast hostingusers, when they host anything
with us, we can now control thewhole stack stack.
So if all the podcast appsdon't work anymore or everyone
wants to censor you, forinstance, you can still hear

(57:50):
your podcast online on ourpodcast app and that I think
that's very important.

Sam Sethi (57:52):
So I understand the desire to find the best podcast
app you can that fits your needs.
Was there an immediate featureor function that was frustrating
you?
That said, you know what I cando a better job than those guys.

Yeah.
So basically, we wanted apodcast app that is, as, let's
say, beautiful or intuitive asApple podcasts, because say what
you want, but it's a nice app,right, it looks nice, there's
nice buttons, all that type ofstuff, because it's Apple and it
fits exactly on the device.
So we wanted that.
But then make it work withmodern features like chapters,

(58:29):
transcripts although ApplePodcasts does a lot of that, but
also some of them it doesn'tand make it work slightly better
in a way that we also wanted itto work.
Like, for instance, when Istart playing an episode, I want
to know where it's gone.
Like when I then scroll aroundand search for more stuff, where
did that episode go?
So that's clear for us.

(58:51):
It's now in the up next tab,unless you then remove it from
it.
And then the final part is wealso wanted to discover new
shows.
So, for instance, we seeeverything that happens on the
backend of Podhome hosting.
So, for instance, we seeeverything that happens on the
backend of pod home hosting.
So we see new shows beingcreated.
We try to catch up and listento everything, but that's
impossible.
But there's so much interestingstuff out there and most of it

(59:14):
nobody's ever heard of.
Because when you go to thebigger apps, you see trending,
you see trending in your countrytrending on the lists, and it's
all the same shows, right.
So we wanted a mechanism thatalso lets us discover other
shows, fringe shows, just randomshows, literally random shows
and maybe filter that as well,like random shows within comedy

(59:36):
within uk, for instance, and sowe also built features for that,
to see those, and now we have afeature where you can basically
swipe through shows, just likeyou swipe through instagram or
any other social media app, andthen you get a little preview of
an episode, so you get to seethe show, but you can also hear
oh, this is what that soundslike.
Then you can get a feel andthen you can, if you like it,

(59:59):
you click on it, you follow theshow, you explore a little bit.
So discovery features are alsovery important, and that's
throughout the app.
There's little widgets whichsay random episodes from this
country, for instance, randomepisodes, random, random.
And then you just get to seelots of stuff that you otherwise
wouldn't see and listen to.

Sam Sethi (01:00:20):
Yeah, no, I agree, otherwise wouldn't see and
listen to.
Yeah, no, I agree, there's alot of dare I say it paid
promotions on the bigger appsthat publication companies will
have gone to those companies andsaid feature us first.
Of course, yeah, and strangely,that appears on all of them.
So look, let's with thedevelopment process then.

(01:00:41):
How long did it take?

Barry Luijbregts (01:00:43):
roughly, how long did it take?
I think roughly a year fromstart to publish in the app
store.
Roughly a year, something likethat, Off and on, of course, not
full-time development.

Sam Sethi (01:00:53):
So look, now you've got the full stack.
What do you envisage as thebenefit?
I mean first, possibly firstparty data into an analytics
dashboard.
But again, you know, one of theproblems of being a full-stem
top-to-toe is that it's onlyyour data to your analytics and,
of course, being a host, youwant to have a breadth of data.

(01:01:15):
So when you came up with theplan, the idea to build your own
app, you must have had somethoughts about yeah, we will
also get some competitiveadvantage by having our own app
hook into our own server yeah.

So there's basically two things not so much
the data, because, yes, we needa breadth of data, we need more
data, otherwise, you know, it'skind of useless to the, the
podcast users.
So the first advantage is thatnow we can have features that we
roll out in the hostingplatform that we can also then
surface within the app first,before you implement it in

(01:01:53):
TrueFence the next day.

Sam Sethi (01:01:55):
No, you never beat us .
No, never going to happen.
No, Jackie.

So that's one.
And then the second one is thatthe app itself is also kind of
an advertisement for the podcasthosting platform as well,
because it offers a nice andmodern features and, for
instance, on the episode pulsepage it shows all of the the pod
pings going by, including thosethat we find ourselves within

(01:02:21):
our own back-end.
So you see new episodes everythree seconds from all around
the world that are beingpublished right then and there.
And then we can in a littlepop-up box we say you also want
your episodes being published ina couple of seconds.
You know, check out Podhomehosting.
And so it's kind of anadvertisement also to show
people what is possible, andalso podcasters and let them

(01:02:45):
know that podcast hosting isalso possible through Podhome.
So those two things basically,and not so much the data.

Sam Sethi (01:02:53):
Now, what do you, as Podhome, hope to do next?
Now that you've got both sidesof the fence?
What are you planning on doingnext with either the hosting
side or the app side?

well the hosting side.
We are always improving thatconstantly and we have lots of
big plans.
So the first new things thatwill be live very soon is an
upgrade to our pod home, ai.
It's already very capable atdoing all the basic stuff that I
mentioned already, likechapters, transcripts, all that
type of stuff.
The next update will do thateven more cleverer if that's a

(01:03:28):
word but then also will tell youall the things that the podcast
was about.
So, for instance, if we woulduse it on this episode, it would
give us also a link to yoursocial media website, link to my
social media website, a link tomy social media website, link
to Podhome.
It would filter out all of theentities and stuff that we've
talked about and put relevantlinks in the show notes there or

(01:03:50):
suggest them, and then you canuse them or alter them or don't.
So that's one thing that'scoming out.
Another thing is that we'regoing to make publisher
dashboards now.
So, for instance, one of thebig things that we do with our
hosting company is that you canhave unlimited shows, unlimited
episodes and many people usethat and you can all have that

(01:04:11):
within your one subscription of15.99 a month.
So you can have 10 shows, forinstance, for 15.99 a month, and
a lot of people do that.

Sam Sethi (01:04:19):
Sorry for clarification.
Can we just go pounds sterlingor euros?
I mean just for clarification,your denomination.

So most people pay in US dollars and then it's
15.99.
In the euro zone, let's say inour countries here, it's 15.99
also.
Okay, gotcha.
So lots of people do that andhave multiple shows.
But then you have multipleshows and then you need to
navigate to the multiple showsto see your statistics and all
that type of stuff.
So we're building a dashboardthat shows you an overview of

(01:04:50):
all of your shows and then anaggregate of all your downloads
and all the things, and then youcan drill down from there much
more easily and manage all yournetwork, your shows, basically.
So that's another thing that'scoming up there.
And then the last thing that weare thinking about we haven't
built yet is rudimentaryrecording feature.

(01:05:13):
So we already kind of have it.
So now people can go live right, like I explained, within our
own podcast streaming server.
So you don't really have to doanything for that.
And there's already a togglewhere we say record this live
stream and when you do, whenyou're done, you stop being live
.
Then we process your recordingand we put it in your episodes

(01:05:33):
and boom, you're done.
You can just publish it as isor you can download it and edit
it if you want and upload itagain.
So we already have the basicinfrastructure for it and so we
want to make it super easy forpeople to just use the whole
platform, go to our website andthen record instantly, put it in
an episode just like Anchorused to do right Spotify for

(01:05:57):
podcasters and just make it easyalso for less technical people
to just hit, record, starttalking and just do that.
So I think we're going to makea simple first version of that
where you do it by yourself andthen maybe later you can invite
guests and do all that stuff.
So we have lots of big crazyplans.

Sam Sethi (01:06:19):
Okay.
So one of the things that I'vebeen saying is that hosts should
support live.
I'm glad that you do.
I know Blueberry does to someextent.
I know a few others have saidthey will, but haven't quite got
there yet.
I have said that livepodcasting is the new radio, so

(01:06:40):
it's the possibility and nowthat you you're recording it,
you've also got that ability toturn that live into an episode
is.
Is this going to be somethingthat you support?
I I'm hoping that one of thehosts will now start to use
medium equals radio for some ofthat rather than medium equals
podcast, and I know that's afine line between what's a

(01:07:02):
podcast and what's a radio show.
But I do think that there's abig trend globally where radio
stations are closing down.
They can't an on-demand podcastand what is a live streamed
what I would fundamentally callradio.

Yeah, maybe we will support that medium.
That's not hard to do, ofcourse, but then of course we do
need some apps that alsosupport it, because otherwise
nobody will show it.
I know one, I know one, you doit.
Yeah, but obviously then youneed to treat it differently
than a normal podcast.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, yeah, perhaps.

(01:07:54):
Yeah, I think we can definitelydo that for shows like that,
absolutely.

Sam Sethi (01:07:59):
Given that you're a vertical stack.
We know that Fountain and RSSBlue have merged together to
create Fountain Blue, althoughstill not seen a press release
from Oscar or Dovidas, but thenagain, you know it's coming, I
suppose.
Do you think companies likeBuzzsprout, captivate, blueberry

(01:08:21):
, rsscom should all be goingdown this same road?
Is this the trend now?

No, no, no, absolutely not.
I think nobody should followany trends.
You should just run yourbusiness as you please and
listen to your customers Most ofall.
Almost every feature that webuild is customer driven.
Somebody asks for it, so Idon't think other companies
should also have an app.
You should only have an app ifyou have a good reason for it,

(01:08:47):
because it's very hard to buildand to maintain.
So, no, absolutely not.
And I think, for instance, whatthe Fountain Blue guys are doing
is great and they have aspecific focus on a type of
customer with Bitcoin and withNoster, and that is perfect.
I think every business shouldhave such a focus, because then
you know who your audience is.

(01:09:09):
If everybody's your audience,then nobody kind of is, because
then you have no focus.
We have a broader focus, not somuch Bitcoin and Noster.
Also, we do have a lot ofBitcoin people, because we
support value for value, andthat attracts obviously the sad
stackers, which is a good thing,but also the modern podcasters

(01:09:30):
with live.
That's also a very specificaudience of podcasters that do
that.
Not everybody does that, mostdon't because it also requires a
little bit of technologyknowledge, because it also
requires a little bit oftechnology knowledge.

Sam Sethi (01:09:43):
So two quick questions then, because the last
time we spoke, you were notanti-V4V and not
anti-micropayments, but youweren't pro it.
I remember you were saying,yeah, this will be a couple of
years down the road, we won'tsupport it yet.
So when did you change yourmind?

When did you start supporting it then?
I was never anti it.
I was hesitant to that.
It would have brought adoptionquickly and you know we see that
now as well, because it is verydifficult to do, to implement
for for the users mostly so apodcast listener is difficult to
.
To put a wallet in a podcast appNow, you have it in TrueFence.

(01:10:23):
Many other podcast apps alsohave it.
I do not have it in the Podhomeapp.
Put a wallet in a podcast appNow you have it in TrueFence.
Many other podcast apps alsohave it.
I do not have it in the Podhomeapp, a wallet or V4V, because we
developed this in theNetherlands and we do not have
any good options there to host aproper wallet that is also
monitored by the NetherlandsCentral Bank, which
unfortunately, you need in thiscase.
So as governments still aroundEurope at least are kind of

(01:10:48):
hostile towards Bitcoin, it'sgoing to be difficult to do this
with Bitcoin, at least inEurope, perhaps not so much in
the US.
So here I maybe, when we getstable coins, then you know we
can pay with euros or whateverin little pieces.
So not per se one euro, but0.001 euro, and then send that

(01:11:11):
around in a couple of seconds.
When that happens, then asystem like this would be able
to get broad adoption from theusers as well, so from people
that I know, my brother.
I can explain it to my dad, forinstance, and then he might
actually use something like that.
But it takes time.

(01:11:31):
It definitely takes time, but Ithink we will get there,
especially when technologieschange and adoption gets better
also here in Europe.

Sam Sethi (01:11:41):
Last few questions then Monetizing monetizing
obviously we've just touched onv4v and wallets, but are you
doing dynamic ad insertion?
Are you focused on any of thatspace at all yet?

from a hosting side.
No, we do support the fundingtag and almost everybody uses
that and we surface that also inthe Podhome app and I know from
my users, from the podcasthosting users, they have just
great success with that.

Sam Sethi (01:12:10):
So I've had a question in from a Mr Cridland
in Australia.
He says do you know whereAustralia is now?

Yeah, the next release which is now pending at
Apple, that will also haveAustralia in the country list.
So what Sam is alluding to isin the Podhome app you can
choose countries to filterpodcasts, shows and episodes and
stuff on, and in that list wemissed Australia.
There.
We had some other.
We revised the whole list so wehad some other weird things in

(01:12:40):
there that did not make sense atall.

Sam Sethi (01:12:43):
So look, barry.
First of all, allcongratulations, welcome to the
game of app development.
If I wanted to go and get thepod home app, remind everyone
where would I go?

you can go to the app store apple app store,
android app store just searchfor pod home, pod home and you
will find the app, and or go topodhomefm slash app.
A-p-p.

Sam Sethi (01:13:07):
Barry, thank you so much, congratulations.
One year of working has provedto be very fruitful for you.

Announcer (01:13:19):
I look forward toostergram Super, super
comments, zaps, fan mail, fanmail, super chats and email.
Our favourite time of the week,it's the Pod News Weekly Review
Inbox.
Inbox.

James Cridland (01:13:35):
So many different ways to get in touch.
So many different ways to getin touch with us Fan mail by
using the link in our show notes, super comments on True Fans,
or boosts everywhere else, oremail, and what have we got?
We've got three boosts thisweek, which is very exciting.
What's the first boost thatwe've got there, sam?

Sam Sethi (01:13:53):
well, neil velio sent us 627 sats from true fans and
said ha ha, ha, ha, ha ha.
I think the road casted chat.
I just thought I'd add a fewahas in.
There was the very first thingwe heard.
Right there you go.

Yes, I think fair enough.
Also, another 621 sats fromNeil.
We finally get to see thoseCridland Baby Blues in real-time
in video format.
Yes, the Pod News Daily showwas in video last week.
It's not in video this weekbecause I am in a hotel room in
Jakarta and I'm not bringing allthe complicated things that I
need in order to do video.

(01:14:27):
But yes, that was.
That was fun to do.
So.
Yes, I hope you enjoyed that.
Don't know whether I'll go backto doing video.
It was a good, it was a goodexperience, but uh adam curry
didn't like it, did he not?

Sam Sethi (01:14:39):
no, he, he said you felt less natural.
He, he liked.
He said you were reading thescript and, yeah, he was off
putting watching you and I thinkno, but the key point, the key
point he was trying.
I think he was trying to getacross thanks mtv vj exactly mr
pro, yeah, I think the point hewas trying to get across was

(01:15:02):
that with the audio you have theoption to edit it,
post-production Correct Whereaswith the video you were trying
to get it all done in one hit soyou didn't have to edit it.
And he said that it seemed, orhe felt, he could tell the
difference.

Yeah, absolutely , you could tell.
And yes, that was one I Idefinitely felt doing that, I
definitely felt that it justwasn't quite as good a product
in terms of the audio.
Yes, you know, video was there,but also who wants to watch?
You know a man squinting atscreen, so that that doesn't
make an awful lot of senseeither.

(01:15:40):
So, yeah, yes, I'm not sure wewill be going back to that.
But one more from MartinLindeskog from Lyceum 1,701 sats
, which is very generous of you,martin.
It says congratulations forbeing ear-worthy.
Is the trophy shaped as an ear?
It better be.
That's all I'm saying.
Yes, this was an award that wewon last week, hence why the

(01:16:04):
jingle, the opening jingle forthe show last week added the
word award winning and it wasvery subtle and I hope that
everybody spotted that.
So, thank you.
But also, martin has done oneextra thing, hasn't he?

Sam Sethi (01:16:14):
he has.
Martin has officially becomethe 22nd power supporter.
Now, yes, I I was looking atwhat should we call it, and I
just think we'll go with thebingo calls, right.
So a row of ducks, yes.

Oh, yes, a small row of ducks.
We'd like 222 supporters please, but 22 is fine.
So, yes, I mean, martin didvery helpfully.
So not only is he giving us $10a month, which is super
excellent, not only is he doingthat, but he is also.
He went to Wikipedia and he wastrying to work out what we
should call the 22.

(01:16:49):
So in Spanish lottery and bingo, 22 is nicknamed Los Dos
Patitos the two little ducks.
So I suppose, two little ducks.
There's also Catch-22.
There's also a song by TommySteele which I've never heard,
called Number 22,.
Across the Way, if it exists onYouTube, you'll hear it.
Now.
Number 22.

Chitra Prastuti (01:17:10):
Number 22 Number 22 Across the Way.

Sam Sethi (01:17:16):
Oh, that was nice.
No, you're not 80, mate, you'renot 80.
You're okay, tommy Steele.

No, gosh, and Martin asked Gro grok, but I
couldn't care less what groksays, so thank you, so much did
it?
Did it come back?
with an auntie salute orsomething so, yes, good, good
lord, but anyway, I asked grokfor sake.
But uh, martin, thank you somuch.
All joking aside, it reallydoes, uh, help us and it really

(01:17:41):
does keep us going.
So thank you to you, thank youto Ms Eileen Smith, thank you to
John McDermott and to BrianEntsminger, who are all very
generously members of our powersupporters, and if you'd like to
join them, weeklypodnewsnet iswhere to go.
So what's happened for you thisweek, sam?

Sam Sethi (01:18:01):
I'm broken, James.
I'm technically, physicallybroken.
It was my daughter's 21st andshe decided to do an outdoor
garden party.

Ah yes, now, this was this time last week,
wasn't?

Sam Sethi (01:18:13):
it yes.

So what so yeah.

Sam Sethi (01:18:15):
So it was raining until five o'clock and an
outdoor garden party in the rainwouldn't have been very
successful.
And then suddenly someone,somewhere thank God turned the
taps off and it was dry for therest of the evening.
So that was lovely.
And then, of course, mydaughter, being my daughter,
decided that one party is notsufficient.
So she decided to have anotherone on Saturday with all our

(01:18:36):
family and friends.
And so this time, sadly, it didnot stop raining.
So plan B was move everythingin the house.
Oh my god, it was just likewhere does?
this chair go, I don't know,stick it in the study.
Do something else with that,and yeah, so by sunday morning I
I was officially broken.
Yes stick it in the third, thewest wing yes, and then on true

(01:19:04):
fans, I guess we finished offthe promo for podcast pages so
you can now request to befeatured on someone else's
podcast page as episode two.
So we're not injecting into therss feed, but what we've done
to make it slightly different isthe person requesting makes an

(01:19:24):
offer and you accept the offersor reject it.
So I might say I want to be onPod News Weekly Review on True
Fans and I want to put Creatorsone of my other podcasts that
would go to you as the admin,james, and you would then say
seven days to 10,000 sats, no,not enough.
Reject.
Or you might say, yep, acceptthat, and then that gets put in.

(01:19:44):
So yes, we've done that.

That's very nice .
That's very nice and I thinkit's quite similar in some ways
to the way that Buzzsprout sellsadvertising here.
So if you want to advertiseyour podcast on the Pod News
Weekly Review and you're onBuzzsprout, then you can can do
that.
But what's interesting aboutthat bit is that I get to or you
get to say yes, we'll take thator no, we won't, and there's

(01:20:08):
been a few that we've that.
You know I've turned around andsaid no, I don't want that, but
most of them I've said, I'vesaid yes to.
So I think, you know, givingcreators the control is, I think
, a really good plan so what'shappening for you, James?
Well, yes, I mean, you know it'sbeen an entertaining week in
Jakarta, so the call to prayerat half past four in the morning

(01:20:36):
is not ideal.
No, so that's the thing I wastold when we got here.
So there's been quite a lot ofunrest in Indonesia and for
various reasons, and so I gothere and I was basically told
don't well, I seem to remember,don't turn right out of the
hotel, but turning left is okay.

(01:20:57):
It turned out that I'dremembered it wrongly.
But so the next day I thought,right, I need to write my
newsletter, I need to get out ofthis hotel, so I'll go.
There's a Starbucks down theroad in a shopping centre, so
I'll go down there.
So I walk out and I walk past,I think probably about 15 police

(01:21:18):
vehicles, army vehicles.
I walk past people packing gunsand stuff like that, and so get
to the shopping centre todiscover that the shopping
centre is closed.
Not just is it closed, but it'sclosed and it's got barbed wire
in front of it to stop anybodygetting anywhere near it, with

(01:21:39):
lots of people, you know,holding massive, great big guns
and stuff.
And so I just walked all theway back again.
So very, very bizarre.
It's calmed down an awful lot.
The government have been verygood to us because there are
lots of radio people here.
The government's been very goodto us.
One of the ministers opened theevent and all of that.
But it's been an interestingexperience, shall we say.

(01:22:02):
I mean, obviously I've lived inLondon so I'm used to all of
this.
Yes, yes, but it's been aninteresting experience.
So that was entertaining.
But no, apart from that, it'sbeen a good week.
It's been a fun week justbumping into people who I've
known for, in some cases 25years, who I never get to see
normally.
So that's been a nice thing.

(01:22:23):
So, yes, it's always good to dothese sorts of events.
And when do you go back toAustralia?
I go back.
Well, I will be on the plane asthis podcast goes out on
Thursday night.
Friday morning I get back intoAustralia at something like
seven in the morning and then Ihave to go up to Brisbane and
then that night I'm off to seemy wife perform in a performance

(01:22:48):
.
She's doing something as partof the Brisbane Festival which
is on at the moment.
So that should be fun to do andhopefully I'll stay awake for
because that would be a bad planto fall asleep while your wife
is performing.

Sam Sethi (01:23:00):
I think it'd be on the divorce papers actually yes,
yes, Not again.

Steve Ahern (01:23:06):
Don't go there.

I think that would be a good thing.
And that's it for this week.
All of our podcast storiestaken from the Pod News daily
newsletter, of course, atpodnewsnet.

Sam Sethi (01:23:18):
You can support this show by streaming sats, you can
give us feedback using theBuzzsprout mail link in our show
notes and you can send us asuper comment or boost or become
even better than Martin Discock, a power supporter, like the 22
other people atweeklypodnewsnet is here, so

(01:23:39):
it's been fun to have a chatwith him about that.

Our voiceover is Sheila D.
She's not here.
Our audio is recorded usingClean Feed, which, of course,
just starts to go wrong as soonas we mentioned the word Clean
Feed, which is weird, isn't it?
But anyway, there we are.
We edit with Hindenburg andwe're hosted and sponsored by
Buzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.

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