SoundStack's Rockie Thomas; and has Podcasting 2.0 failed?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Friday, the 21st of February 2025.

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

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm James.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi,
the CEO of True Fans.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
Our biggest challenge and our biggest opportunity in
this industry right now ismeasurement.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Later, rocky Thomas on what podcasting needs to do
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Speaker 3 (02:21):
A company that I know very little about is called
Soundstack, and that's notbecause I'm very lazy, it just
doesn't hit my radar very often.
But it started to pique myinterest probably back in
December when Rocky Thomas wasappointed chief strategy officer
, because we know Rocky she'sone of our power supporters I
thought I'd reach out and askRocky who or what is Soundstack?

Speaker 4 (02:43):
Soundstack is what we call a full stack audio and
service provider.
We really focus on everythingfrom linear streaming to podcast
creators.
We provide hosting, analytics,ad tech, distribution.
We even have our own contentmanagement solution for
podcasters.
We love all audio, so we doeverything from end to end

(03:05):
spectrum.
How?

Speaker 3 (03:06):
long have you been with Soundstack?

Speaker 4 (03:07):
So I started out with Soundstack in 2018.
Prior to that, I was one of thefirst employees at AdsWiz, and
then I've been in this industrysince streaming since 1998.
And I always like to joke I was10 when I started doing this
and actually my first, I guessmy experience with streaming was

(03:29):
streaming some local radiostations on Mark Cuban's company
back in the day.
Oh yeah, broadcastcom made melearn how to hate the real media
server, kodak.
And so, through my entirecareer, I started doing ad
insertion client side in 2000with a company on Silicon Valley
and really have been in thetech side of the audio business,

(03:49):
did a stint in TV for fouryears during the recession,
realized I'm not quite prettyenough or speak slow enough for
that industry, so I came backover to audio.
So it's been a great career.
What I love about digital audiois I have a music degree.
It just really speaks to me.
So it's great when one of yourpassions is also a career for

(04:10):
you, and I love how much itchanges.
I know it drives a lot ofpeople crazy, but it is
constantly iterating, whichmakes it really exciting.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
One thing that you and James, when you were in
Venice, were talking about wasthe problem with the way that
podcasting and buying of mediais probably talking Swahili.
The two parts are not talkingright.
So what do we need to do inpodcasting to make media buying

(04:38):
easier?
Because it was the media leaderthat said that podcasts have a
$74 billion opportunity inadvertising, but we're only
getting about 0.2% of all adspend.
What can we do to change Rocky?

Speaker 4 (04:50):
You're right, it's so shocking I like to say.
You know, podcasting is themost popular and one of the most
consumed, underbought modernmedias I've ever run across and
it's really frustrating.
And I said that in Venice.
I'm like it's just it's toohard to buy, and some people
took a little bit of bristle tothat.
I'm like, well, let me rephraseit, it's too hard to buy at
scale for large brands and Ithink one of the challenges is

(05:13):
consistent measurement acrossthe side.
So today we're getting bought,basically because you know,
we're getting the extra 10% buysthat are happening at the buy
level and we're not actuallypart of what we call sales
planning right now.
And that's not just.
That's just not podcasting,that's actually digital audio as
well, if you look at it from astreaming standpoint, and we're

(05:35):
never going to get more than ourfive or 10% afterthought until
we are actually part of themedia plant's initial planning
time, like when they're lookingat their year-long strategy.
We're talking millions uponmillions of dollars and right
now it's getting in.
What we're focused on and weare working with partnerships
which will probably be comingout in the next couple of months
, of how to get measurement intothose platforms so then those

(05:58):
buyers can actually identify.
All right, how many like oldschool stuff, like gross rating
points, which some of them stilluse.
If I have 10 GRPs in New York,how can I bring podcasts in
there to basically target thoselisteners within New York and
how can we basically keep onexpanding it?
Because, at the end of the day,I don't blame the demand or the
advertising side.
It's really hard to beswivel-chairing.

(06:20):
I call between a whole bunch ofdifferent platforms to buy a
very large media spend and so Ithink really gosh, I sound like
a broken record.
But it comes back tomeasurement.
I mean, I would say that ourbiggest challenge and our
biggest opportunity in thisindustry right now is
measurement and also making surewe're consistently passing the

(06:41):
correct signals to those buyers.
And that can mean everythingfrom you know the type of, you
know the type of content it is.
I would say brand safety is notso much of an issue, and I say
that just because you know.
I think that I would say thatmost of the podcasts out there
are pretty brand safe and if apodcast user is going to go

(07:02):
listen to that certain type ofpodcast, it's a user-initiated
action.
So I kind of look at it.
As you know, that's what if youwant, if an advertiser wants to
target that, that's whatthey're going to get, and also
dynamic ad insertion plays intothat as well.
So really our goal, my goalthis year is to figure out how
we can get measurement ofpodcasts into the planning tools

(07:24):
that buyers are using today.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
So, given your radio background and radio, I think,
has 15 minutes in the hour ofads you know saturation, we're
not there with podcasting.
Now do you see, in 2025, peopleupping that to five, six and
competing with the saturation ofradio?

Speaker 4 (07:47):
I do and I wish they wouldn't, and I am a hobby
economist because I'm nottrained.
I think we're kind of doing aslight disservice when you keep
on adding more spots to an adbreak.
The problem is that you'readding more supply into a.
If you're talking especiallywell, we can talk about just in
January adding more supply.

(08:07):
You know my old, my, my old.
You know local sales managersin the back of my head saying
increase rate.
You know, hold.
You know.
Basically constrict the supplyso you can increase the rate on
the demand side of it.
I know that's easier said thandone.
When everybody else is openingup all their spot sets and
they're getting more money, itis going to impact how people
are going to want to listen andwhen they know that you have a

(08:30):
two-minute spot break, they'regoing to take out their phone
and they're going to skip versushaving a 30 or a 60-second spot
break.
I'm a big fan of a 15-second ad.
I know that's really tight, butI find that we really have an
ADHD transactional brainnowadays and I think that people
really like to have concisemessaging and I think we have to

(08:50):
be about that.
That's one of my biggestchallenges with a personal
endorsement or live reads is theguys don't hold, or the people
women too they don't hold tightto like a clock when they're
doing their reads.
And I've heard like two minuteCasper ads.
Sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh,guys, you've got to keep it
tight.
And then also hearing the samebullet point creatives going

(09:12):
over and over.
The beautiful thing about livereads is they're not supposed to
burn out on creative andthey're starting to burn out,
and that's where I think it's anopportunity to mix up the
creative, have a differentchallenge.
Find out the first demo, thesecond demo, the tertiary demo.
Make sure you're making amessage towards that, just
because, at the end of the day,it increases your outcome, which
is going to increase theability for you to get bought
again.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
Given you talked about open.
Given, you talked about whatyou're doing with chapters.
Where are you with podcastingto the O?
There was a podcast out todayfrom Mark Asquith which was
podcasting to the O has failed,right, and he openly admits that
was clickbait, but it was alsoa very interesting.

(09:53):
Okay, let's throw theconversation back open.
Has it succeeded?
Has it failed?
Has Soundstack adopted it?
And if they have, great, and ifthey haven't, why not?
I mean, where do you sit asstrategy director on this?

Speaker 4 (10:12):
I love a lot of the elements within Podcast 2.0.
I think the challenge withPodcast 2.0 is there are so many
options that you can do inthere.
I mean really it is and the waythat we approach it at
Soundstack, we definitely adoptsome of the podcast elements and
tags.
It really comes down to whatour publishers are asking us to
implement.
And because I mean Sam, I thinkyou, you've heard the, you and
I think Alberto, there's acouple of guys you literally

(10:33):
have implemented almost all ofthem, which is incredibly
impressive, I have to say it'sincredibly impressive.
I would say you know, obviouslythe transcripts, the person,
the location ones, because thatmakes a lot of sense.
A lot of our broadcasters, alot of our publishers also tend
to be broadcasters or they tendto be podcast networks.
And then also I wouldn't sayit's a secret, but actually kind
of is we actually provide a lotof the delivery for some people

(10:57):
who would be consideredcompetitive to Soundstack.
That I can't talk about,because that's how we have grown
as a company.
We actually provide deliveryand hosting for other companies.
But the one I'm excited aboutis, you know, the live item tag.
I mean that's the, because Isee that as really like the cool
thing about mergingpossibilities between the linear
as well as the on-demand anddoing live events, and I mean

(11:22):
this is like.
This is where it gets reallycool for, like local sports and
just it's just.
This is like a kind of a geekaudio girl's dream come true.
And so, to answer your question,do I think that podcast 2.0 has
failed?
No, I would say that it hasfailed in its focus, and when I
say that is that I think we'd bebetter served if we find a

(11:43):
couple of the tags that arereally going to help.
Either one's going to drivemonetization, maybe for more
transparency within what I callprogrammatic signals.
One's going to help, you know,maybe merge like the lit tag
between linear and on demand,Maybe one that helps out with
metrics, I think, really kind offocusing, you know, taking
elements of it, the value forvalue.

(12:04):
One, or you know all the and Iknow that recently changed and
I'm still trying to follow youguys on how because we don't do
too much of that type Most ofour clients are enterprise
clients.
I understand that like theconcept tip jar and trying to
get that in there, but I'll behonest with you, I still do five
, you know, I still do thecredit cards with you guys, just
because it's I, I'm not.
I'm on pocket cast, which is, Ifeel, like a newer two, oh, but

(12:27):
it's definitely not like thetrue fans app or some other
stuff that we have out there.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
I'm equally giddy and excited about lit, as you are.
One of my predictions for 2025was that it will go big.
Finally, adam and Dave do alive show every Friday night.
Todd Cochran and Rob Greenleedo a live show.
There are many that are doingit, so I'm really hoping hosts
will start to provide theirclients, the podcasters, with

(12:56):
that one-click access to live,and then I think you'll see more
people adopting it.

Speaker 4 (13:01):
Well, and that's why I think that Soundstack is
really.
This is why we get real excitedabout it, because this is
really in our sweet spot.
We know the Icecast Showcast.
We just launched our own, youknow our own stream server with
HLS and this we could reallyhelp out the industry, because
we are those people who areindependent, who want to help
out creators, who actually haveincredible deep knowledge on

(13:22):
streaming protocols.
And I was listening to I thinkit was maybe a podcast 2.0 or
one of them with those guys andI could feel their frustration
of figuring out metadata withinIcecast or Shoutcast.
And how can we at Soundstackhelp bridge that gap a little
bit is something that I'm reallyexcited about and where I'm
working on, because I've been onrevenue forever and I love

(13:43):
making revenue and I love makingpublishers successful.
That's really kind of what Ilike.
Paying publishers, I likeseeing them continue to grow
because, I'll be honest with you, they're the heroes.
If we don't support publishers,we don't really have an
industry anymore and I don'tthink people kind of think about
that.
We can have an industry that'sbasically driven by the mega

(14:04):
companies and we'll be back towhere radio was circa 1996.
And I don't think we reallywant that.
I think we want to keepindependent voices thriving, and
that's something that we'reexcited about too, because we
want to help out the industrywith our knowledge.
We actually really understandthat, and I would say we
probably need a little bit morePodcast 2.0 people to kind of
work with us so we can figureout how we can help make it

(14:26):
easier, Cause you're right, itis deep geeky, deep geeky.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Awesome, I could talk to you all day with Rocky.
Now, look, um, we're going to.
We'll geek out after this show.
Um, now, rocky, if somebodywants to find out more about
Soundstack, where would they go?

Speaker 4 (14:40):
Um, soundstackcom.
Um, we're obviously on LinkedInand all the other you know
social places.
Um, anyone can reach out to meat Rocky or C-K-I-E, like the
mountains, Rocky, atsoundstackcom, and um, love
collaboration, love talkingabout the industry.
Um, I believe there's really umnot any one answer.
I think it's all about, youknow, making sure that we're all

(15:01):
kind of figuring out the bestway, path forward, and I'm
excited about it.
It's a great time to be in thisindustry right now.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Rocky Thomas from Soundstack.
On Monday, more from RockyThomas in this feed with the
full length interview.
Really interesting chat withRocky.
She knows the stuff and she'svery good in terms of
understanding the opportunitiesof selling audio all in one,
making sure that peopleunderstand the difference

(15:30):
between host read ads and, youknow, dynamically inserted ones
and all of that kind of stuff.
So, yeah, super good.
One of the other things.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
This week was SiriusXM.
What have they been up to?

Speaker 1 (15:42):
So they have a thing called Sirius XM Podcasts Plus,
and it's a premium subscriptionthat you can get in Apple
Podcasts by pressing the buttonand giving Apple some of your
lovely money.
Interestingly, they have justdone a deal with Supporting Cast
, which has allowed them to nowoffer Sirius XM Podcasts Plus to

(16:04):
other places as well everywherefrom Spotify, pocket Casts,
overcast, all of those otherpodcasts apps, as well, of
course, as YouTube Music, whichalso plays RSS feeds as well.
So I think it makes a bunch ofsense to remember that, of
course, apple Podcasts premiumsubscriptions are only available

(16:28):
for people who are using ApplePodcasts, and there are a lot of
people out there who don't, andso therefore, anything that
makes it easier and simpler toalso get money out of everybody
who's listening in otherplatforms makes a ton of sense.
And SiriusXM going forsupporting cast.
You could also use Memberful,and there are a couple of other

(16:49):
services as well there.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
We have to have a show in the future to talk about
secure RSS, james, because, asa podcasting 2.0 community, we
need to understand what secureRSS is and why it's much more
efficient because you staywithin the app and you make the
purchase in the app.
But that's why I think we needthis discussion, but I think
we'll do that another day, ifyou don't mind.
Milestones there's been a fewmilestones this week, james.

(17:14):
What's been happening?
Who's been getting across theline?

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yes.
So a number of nice differentmilestones, including Rusty
Quill, which is an audio dramacompany based in the UK.
We've had Rusty Quill on theshow before.
They have a show called theMagnus Archives and really
unusually, I think, for an audiodrama, it has surpassed 100

(17:39):
million downloads, and so thatmeans that they were eligible
for one of Spotify's new CreatorMilestone Awards, which
actually meant for the firsttime we could actually see one
of these things physically,which was nice.
They picked up the award fromSpotify in London last week, so
that's nice.
There's a picture of that onthe Pod News website.

(18:00):
Also, a couple of shows doingwell in terms of their milestone
numbers of episodes.
There's a podcast out ofWinnipeg called Humans on Rights
which has just published its100th episode.
They've been going, I think,for four years or so, I guess.

(18:30):
In terms of long podcasts whichare still going, 1,800 episodes
for Geek News Central.
So congratulations to ToddCochran, the CEO of Blueberry,
who has been doing that showpretty well ever since 2004.
So he's done very well.
Pod News also.
By the way, the Pod News Dailyhit episode 2000,.
I think last week You're overyour 2000.
Yes, yes, so you know.

(18:52):
So there's always that too.
But many congratulations tothose.
And there will be a majormilestone, we understand from
Podimo next week.
There's an embargo until Monday, so I can't tell you what that
is, but we will have MortenStrunger from Podimo, who will
be on next week, telling us allabout that too.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Indeed.
Now whizzing around the world,James, back to your homeland.
Now that you've officiallyannounced yourself as an
Australian on stage, what'sgoing back there?

Speaker 1 (19:22):
Oh well, the Australian podcast ranker came
out for January.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
Oh, that's irrelevant .
Now Move on.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Well, the interesting thing about the podcast ranker
is that normally there's anumber one of Hamish and Andy
and they are pretty well alwaysnumber one, apart from, I think,
australian True Crime jumps upthere, or maybe it's Case File.
One of those, anyway, jumps upthere, or maybe it's Casefile
one of those, anyway.
What is interesting is that forthe first time there is a brand

(19:49):
new number one, the Mel Robbinspodcast.
Now, the Mel Robbins podcastit's a SiriusXM podcast.
It's represented in Australiaby Southern Cross Austereo, one
of the big radio companies,which is why it appears in the
Australian podcast ranker.
But I thought it was interestingto see, you know, a foreign in
inverted commas podcast beingnumber one in the Australian

(20:10):
podcast ranker.
That show is doing incrediblywell.
Everybody still talks about JoeRogan as being the number one
show.
By the looks of it, the MelRobbins podcast is pretty well
beating Joe Rogan quiteconsistently.
Now, if you take a look atSpotify, if you take a look at
Apple Podcasts, you will noticethat number one more often than

(20:31):
not is the Mel Robbins podcast.
I have no idea who she is.
I have no idea why it's all ofa sudden a number one show, but
it seems to be doing incrediblywell.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
What else is going on down there?
There's a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
There's a little bit more in terms of ARN's iHeart,
which they own the brand inAustralia and it's their fifth
birthday, so happy birthday tothem.
A very nice man called Coreylooks after a lot of that.
Anyway, they have, quote,celebrated their fifth birthday
with a number of agreementextensions.
There's how to celebratere-signing Audioboom and Sony

(21:10):
Music Entertainment for anothercouple of years.
Never to be called that againplease, yes, true crime in the
UK.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
Yes, we've got enough of that.
What's going on?
We've got enough crime here,well actually We've got enough
crime here.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
According to the Americans, this is kind of true
crime all over the place, and Ithink this is quite an exciting
thing.
So there's a UK company calledChalk and Blade.
There's an Australian companycalled Clockwork Films.
They are working together withthe US company iHeart producing
a true crime show which will bereleased later on in the year
called Crying Wolf.
I heart producing a true crimeshow which will be released

(21:46):
later on in the year calledCrying Wolf.
I think it's really exciting tosee three different companies
in three different continentsworking together on a big show,
so I think that's a very goodthing.
Also, going on in true crimehow do you fancy Sam getting on
a boat and going on a cruise?
A true crime cruise On thecruise will be a number of

(22:12):
podcast stars, crime experts andcrime-related activities, like
a murder mystery game.
That sounds fun, doesn't it no?

Speaker 4 (22:24):
It sounds fun for about an hour and then after
that you're like get me off.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Oh no, we're out in the sea.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
It's going from Miami to the Bahamas next year.
It's from Wondery.
Wondery's Exhibit C True CrimeCruise is now available, and the
mystery to me is who gave meCOVID?
So yes, gosh, not my thing.
But if true crime is your thingand cruises are your thing,

(22:52):
then my goodness, you'll behappy with Wondery Exhibit C's
true crime cruise.
More details on that atexhibitcruisecom.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
No exhibitccruisecom.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Let's be clear and accurate.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
We should ask Evo Terra, agent for Pod News, to go
on that one.
He'll love it.
Yes.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Or Lauren Purcell, who always goes on Disney
cruises, yes, so perhaps thiscould be something that she
would do.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Who knows Now?
We said at the top of the showthat Joe Rogan has been
dethroned.
Who's he been dethroned by?

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Well, if he's not being dethroned by the Mel
Robbins podcast, which ishappening more often than not.
Also, there's another show outthere called the Midas Touch
podcast, which appears to havebeaten Joe Rogan in a number of
charts.
So that's interesting seeing.
I'm thinking that you know moreand more now we're seeing the

(23:56):
Joe Rogan still being a verypopular podcast, of course, but
just being pipped at the top bysome of these other new shows
coming up from behind.
So, coming up from behind, sothat's interesting to see, but
the numbers are still relativelyclose.
So I think this is the PodSitesdata here Joe Rogan experienced
50 million downloads per month,quite a substantial drop

(24:20):
according to PodSites, down by25%, whereas the Midas Touch
podcast, up by 120%, yikes with57 million downloads a month.
And at number three, candaceAgain never heard of it 44
million downloads per month up110%.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
She's an ex-right-wing US presenter who
got fired for her views onPalestine, so yes and she
started a podcast.
So there you go, Well there yougo.
I've got a reason for Joe Roganfalling down, James.
Oh yeah, Adam Curry was on theshow last week, so that was it.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
That's it.
Everybody went no, not Batmanagain, not that bad, again right
.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Unsubscribe no did he say podcasting 2.0?
God, I can't stand that stuffright.
V for v, I'm off, I'm not doingit um.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
While we're on, uh, adam curry.
By the way, congratulations toadam and to dave um for
launching godcaster uh, theirbrand new project.
It's a tool which allowsChristian podcasts hosted
anywhere to benefit from livestreaming, from tools and other
podcasting 2.0 features.

(25:37):
Funding tools I'm just readingmy notes for Pod News and it
says finding tools in there.
And I was thinking findingtools, what on earth have I
written here?
Anyway, funding tools and otherfeatures as well.
So Godcaster is the place totake a peek at that.
It's just quite an interestingplayer, and PWA seems to be

(26:01):
something which you know otherpeople might want to take a peek
at.
Godcasterfm is where to go forthat.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Well, I have already reached out to Adam and Dave to
come on the show, so hopefullynext week we might have them on.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
Who knows?
Well, there you go.
It's going to be anaction-packed show next week,
because we've also got somebodyon from Coleman Insights talking
about how they test new podcastideas.
So, yes, it's going to be onewhere you need the chapters.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
Now, james, moving on to people and jobs.
There was a job that stood outthat I found, so if I'm not here
next, week.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Thanks, now wait a second.
Wait a second Before we go on.
Do I have to play a jingle forthis?
Yes, please, yes, first.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
We're sorry, but now it's time for more news about
spotify on the pod news weeklyreview.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
Oh good, oh good, why have you brought them up?

Speaker 3 (26:56):
sam, well, I I wasn't hunting for a job.
I promise um, but I was lookingat spotify's press releases and
what they're up to and turnsout they're looking for a VP for
AI and one of the prerequisites, obviously, is that they want
more DJ shows.
That's what they're looking at.
That was one of the examples ofhow they use AI.
It was like no, no more DJshows, please.

(27:18):
No more, no more.
But there is a job, if you wantit, for Spotify's VP for.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
AI.
You will earn somewhere between416 000 and 595 000 us dollars,
um, and you get a.
You get a whole uh 23 paid daysoff a year.
Can't be in america, then, gosh.
Who knows what's going on there.
But yes, if you, if you want toapply for that, then it's on

(27:46):
the Spotify website, althoughI'll probably link to it from
podnewsnet slash jobs as well,it'll be in Sweden.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
It'll be in Sweden.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
It might be in Sweden .
I mean, it does say actually no, it says the location's in New
York or Boston.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
Oh right, I was going to say because that salary is
needed in Sweden for just buyinga beer.
I mean, it's just ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yes, my goodness, there's an expensive place.
Awards and events.
Looking forward to the AMBISwhich, if you are a Podcast
Academy member, you can now castyour vote for.
Just log into the PodcastAcademy website and it'll take
you there.
I think it's mostly US podcasts.

(28:27):
I think we've called it the USPodcast Awards before now, but
anyway, you're more than welcometo go and vote for lots of
American podcasts.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
I did look last night .
I couldn't find anyinternational podcasts, I agree.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
So that show will be on Monday, March 31st in Chicago
I will be there making surethat I don't go in and it's
being hosted by comedian andpodcaster Tig Notaro, who is
very good.
So there's a thing.
And talking about academies, inthe UK, the Radio Academy is

(29:05):
seeking new trustees to join itsboard from February.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
When are you joining James?
Come on, they've got to haveasked you.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
I used to be a trustee of the Radio Academy.
I'll have you know.
I was a trustee for a couple ofyears Got the t-shirt.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
okay, lovely yes been there.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Got the t-shirt.
Don't need to be getting thatparticular t-shirt anymore.
Got the t-shirt.
Don't need to be getting thatparticular t-shirt, uh, anymore.
Uh, one more thing just for youto um take a peek at, which is
the wickers podcast pitch award2025.
If you are making documentariesso original and innovative
documentaries, uh, in terms ofpodcasting, um, then you can
pitch your show to the wickersum and um awards are.

(29:45):
Well, you've got until Februarythe 28th, so you've got another
week to enter those.
It's part of the legacy fromAlan Wicker, who was a big UK
broadcaster.
So, yes, there's a thing too.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
The tech stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the
Pod News newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.
I have a feeling that we'regoing to talk about cross-app
comments, yay.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
We are, but I don't think they're quite here yet.
No, so I think we talked aboutJustin from Transistor actually
supporting the social interacttag as a host and the first host
to do it, which was amazing.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
Yes.
So essentially the way thatTransistor works is that they
have got a little script thatevery time you post a new show,
a new episode, it postssomething on Blue Sky on that
social media platform and says,hey, so-and-so has just posted a
new show.
Isn't that brilliant.
But any comments that you maketo that post go back and appear

(30:56):
on the Transistor podcastwebsite.
So I thought to myself well,that's interesting because
that's relatively easy toimplement, because Blue Sky has
a little JSON field which youknow anybody can get hold of,
and so it shouldn't be too hardto code.
And hey presto, it's not toohard to code because I've coded
exactly the same thing, and somessages can appear on the Pod

(31:21):
News website and all of that.
So that's all fine, and thatessentially means that all of
the complicated stuff goes awayin terms of having to run a full
activity pub stack, having,indeed to run any sort of OAuth
into Blue Sky.
It's just super easy, superstraightforward and away.

(31:42):
You go for a listener to leave acomment, as long as they're
subscribed, you know, as long asthey're registered on the Blue
Sky platform.
So, theoretically at least, thatmakes it very easy to integrate
comments into any particularapp.
As long as we don't mind thefact that the comments are all

(32:03):
hosted on the Blue Sky platform,then that's easy.
Now you could do the same sortof thing on Mastodon as well,
and I think this is where itbegins to get a little bit
complicated, because you can dothe same sort of thing.
It gets a little bit morecomplicated because of the way
that Mastodon works, but you canstill do roughly the same sort
of thing.
You can integrate it properlyin a podcast app if you want to,

(32:25):
in the same way as you couldwith Blue Sky, or you can just
have a link to somebody's appthat they already have installed
anyway.
So I suppose we're back to theproblem of well, do we go with
Blue Sky for everybody?
Do we go go for mastodon witheverybody?
Um, or should we have fivedifferent social media networks,

(32:48):
and in which case this is whereit all gets.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
It all gets hugely complicated no, no, no, no, no,
it's not.
It's not a problem, right?
So the first thing was um,copying you, and justin uh, with
my true fans hat on, weimplemented blue sky into the
comments.
So we read the social interacttag, we follow the comments and
then we present those in theepisode so that all works now

(33:13):
and that's live and it works forpod news daily and it works for
a show called the panel, whichis justin's show.
So that's that.
That was easy.
Like you said, took us about anhour or so to get that done, so
hopefully all the other appswill do it as well.
We already have an ActivityPubstack built into TrueFan, so we
will have this week later on theMastodon comments coming in

(33:35):
from a social interact tag.
And the thing with the socialinteract tag that's quite nice
is you can add more than one URLto that tag, so you can put one
, two, three or four tags andyou can put what's called
priority one, which is your lookhere first, then go here, then
go here.
So again, it just needs alittle tweak from our side, but

(33:57):
we could support multiple socialinteract tags and pull comments
in from multiple places like X,linkedin, whatever.
That is not cross-app comments,that is cross-social comments,
a word we've never probably usedbefore, but that is basically
one app going out to multiplesocial media endpoints and
pulling in based around the RSScreator sorry, the RSS feed and

(34:22):
the creator saying where theywant comments to be posted.
Now cross app comments.
The next bit is can I getcomments that are posted in
Podverse, podcast Guru,castomatic, fountain and then
bring those into TrueFans andvice versa?
That is still a little bit moretricky.
Now.

(34:44):
We've not applied a lot of workhas done something, which is
they use the Olby API inFountain to go and use Fountain
comments next to Olby commentsthat are posted from all the
other apps.
So they've actually got a quitenice integrated comments
section where they're pulling inapp comments from others like

(35:07):
TrueFans and Podverseverse andmixing it with Fountain.
We need to go and do the samefor Podverse, podcast, guru, the
old B1s, but we have a wholedifferent challenge with
Fountain and I have spoken toOscar already and he's pointed
me in the right direction.
So maybe in a couple of weekstime we will be able to do cross
app comments, but at the momentwe're trying to focus on

(35:30):
cross-social comments, if thatmakes sense.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Right, right, there you go.
Yeah, no, it's, and you know.
All I'm hearing now is that, inorder to display comments, we
now need to hit three differentendpoints rather than one, which
is not going to be a fantasticthing.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
When you say that, I'm not quite sure what you mean
by that, so can you explainthat to me?

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Well, so if I want to show comments for example, if
the Pod News Daily has a socialinteract tag for Blue Sky and
then another one for Mastodon,like you say, which I can very
easily do then that means inorder to show the comments as
one, I need to go and get thecomments from Blue Sky and I

(36:15):
need to then go and get morecomments from Mastodon and munge
them together in some way sothat I can actually show them.
If we're then adding, you know,fountain stuff in there and
adding more things in there,then all of a sudden we seem to
be hitting a number of differentendpoints just to display
comments, which is kind of youknow.

(36:37):
I mean, that's fine if we'reall up for that.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
I think you need to separate the two.
I think where they are onsocial media is the choice of
the podcaster, right, and inyour case, podcasting news daily
has chosen to put them on bluesky.
That's your social interact tag.
If you had a second one, thenthat's your choice.
To add that level of extracomplexity?
You don't have to.
You can stick with one place,the.

(37:01):
That challenge is not hard andthat will be done pretty quickly
.
Of aggregating comments fromsocial media end points, that's
not a big problem.
There's APIs out there.
The problem is the cross-appcomments getting comments from
Fountain and TrueFans andPodverse to mix together, and
that's the bigger challenge.
And so it's always beensomething that's been parked by

(37:21):
all of us because it's like, oh,that is so difficult to do.
I don't know how we're going todo it, and I thank Justin for
doing what he did, and I hopeother hosts now follow suit and
do it as well, because it won'twork unless self-hosting people
like yourself, james, put it in,or hosts give it as an option
to their users.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
It needs to be big hosts, like you know, transistor
and others.
And, yes, I mean, you know theblue sky approach is pretty easy
and simple and the APIs are outthere, the code, you know,
bases out there for you to beable to do all of this.
So hopefully it's a relativelyeasy and simple thing.

(38:03):
I think it just does get alittle bit more complicated.
If you know, if we're expectingpodcast apps to have to deal
with, well, let's, we need tohave the code to pull from
Mastodon and the code to pullfrom Blue Sky and the code to
pull from Fountain and the codeto pull from, you know, x, y and
Z.
Then all of a sudden it getscomplicated again and I suppose

(38:26):
that's what it would be nice totry and avoid.
You know, for it to be ascomplicated as that.
The benefit of being able justto pull in blue sky comments is
that that's something that youcan do on the client side,
because it's one JSON call andit's very easy to write a piece
of JavaScript to just pull thatin, you know, on the fly, which

(38:49):
is the way that I'm doing it, sothat the rest of the page that
you see is beautifully cachedand has been cached for a long,
long time.
But just that little bit in mycase goes through a proxy on my
server because I don't want BlueSky to have all of the IP
addresses of my users.
But that's certainly you know,but that's certainly a doable

(39:13):
thing.
I think once you start havingto do that for multiple services
and then have JavaScript to tryand fathom out how to bring
them all in, that all of asudden gets a little bit
complicated again.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
Yeah, well, you'll be glad to know.
I've taken on that challenge.
So we will have, as I said, theMastodon comments coming in
with the Blue Sky comments tothe same page, if they exist,
along with native commentswithin the app.
So you won't be able to.
You'll see them all in the samecomment section and they'll be

(39:43):
chronologically ordered.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
But by making it three times more complicated, we
are making it 30 times lesslikely for other podcast apps to
implement it.
That's the concern that I'vegot, and I know that you know.
Truefans is very good and veryquick at implementing this kind
of stuff Antenapod, for example.

(40:11):
How long are they going to beplaying around getting their
code ready to incorporatesomething which is three times
more complicated than it franklyneeds to be?

Speaker 3 (40:17):
Sure, so if I just said to you how long did it take
you to put the blue sky inagain, you said how long.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Well, yes, it was an hour or so.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
No, excuse then for any of the other apps to not do
it.
Right?
That's an hour's work, right?
Let's be clear on that.
If they want to then go furtherand want to differentiate
between themselves and otherapps, then crack on or not.
You know you can't say let'snot do it because someone might
not be able to keep up.
I'm sorry.
We've got to that point whereeveryone keeps saying they want

(40:50):
cross app comments and I thinknow we've got a chink of light
that might lead us to that.
I think it's worth trying toget done.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yes, and to play devil's advocate, podcasters
have been saying, yes, we wantcross app comments.
I'm not hearing any podcastapps saying that they want cross
app comments and in fact,cross-app comments.
Surely you know?
One would argue.
The benefit of you usingFountain is that you get that
whole social experience.
What Fountain doesn'tnecessarily want to do is to

(41:20):
give away all of that socialgoodness to other podcast apps
as well.
I used to think that way.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
No, james, I used to think that way and I don't think
comments are of high value interms of what's going to
differentiate us right.
I used to think, oh my god, whywould I want to send dates to
another app?
It's my data, I'm going to keepit in the club.
You know all of that sort ofthinking.
Comments don't actually.
They're great for the podcastand they're great for

(41:49):
interactivity, but they're notgoing to be the thing that says,
oh, as an advertiser, you knowwhat I must, I must go on that
platform because the commentsare amazing.
That's not going to be.
I think we've got a biggerproblem with comments, by the
way, coming down the track,which I think we're going to get
spam in them, and I think we'regoing to get um well, that
that's number one is spam.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
And the other thing, of course, is the new UK social
something law, whatever thatone's called, which essentially
I mean, who would make you know?
Does that make Blue Skyresponsible for that law?
Does that make the podcasterresponsible?
Does it make it the podcast appresponsible?
And then you'll have you know,have stupid governments like

(42:30):
Australia copying the UK becauseit was an idea that the UK came
up with.
So therefore we'll do it.
Yes, it's going to beinteresting to see all of that
stuff, too Good to see thecolony still following along,
good chat.
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
The other thing we are doing is we're reversing it.
So today we will launch thecapability for the TrueFans user
to verify their BlueSky account, and then what they can do is
write a comment in TrueFans andwe will publish it to the social
interact tag from TrueFans, soyou'll be able to take comments

(43:05):
out of TrueFans into your socialinteract tag.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah, which is nice, which is a good thing.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
Now we were talking of Fountain.
Fountain's been busy on someother things.
One of the things they've beenworking on is something called
LN Address and LN URLP.
Yeah, you can fast forward ifyou're not interested in this,
but it is very important.
It's the ability formicropayments to be sent to
podcasters using the Strikewallet and using the Nosta

(43:32):
platform.
Again, it's still very earlydays.
I don't have a lot of details,but I was listening to the
podcasting 2.0 show last weekand Adam and Dave were talking
about how Fountain have gotexamples of it, and so we
actually have tested it.
We actually have tested it.
So the podcasting 2.0 podcastitself is configured to use the

(43:57):
new LNURLP and LN address.
So if you send sats to thatpodcast and Adam gets them, then
it works, and if you send satsto Adam and Dave and they don't
get them, I'm afraid you need togo back and recode.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
I'm afraid you need to go back and recode.
Well, you can also test that bysending sats to the Pod News
Daily podcast, which also has anLN address in there.
So yes, so that's a good thing.
And by the way so the differencebetween where we've been in the
past, which is having to quotenode addresses and all sorts of

(44:32):
complicated things, and where weare now, where you just type in
something that looks a bit likean email address, is it's kind
of the difference between theinternet before, domain names.
So we were typing in theequivalent of an IP address, you
know 192.168.0.1.

(44:53):
And now we're just typing in aDNS, you know a domain name, so
examplecom, so easy and simple,and that's where we should be
going.
So hurrah for that NOSTA.
So they're supporting Nostrpayments, obviously, but they're
also supporting Nostr livestreams.

(45:14):
What is a Nostr live stream?

Speaker 3 (45:17):
So I think what Oscar and the team over there at
Fountain Dunn have done is verycool.
What they've done is if you'vegot a show and you want to
broadcast it live on Nostr a bitlike a YouTube live then you
can do.
And now if you want to watchthose shows in Fountain, you can
do that as well.
So you might want to watch theshow Rabbit Hole Recap or the

(45:40):
Bitcoin podcast and watch itdirectly in Fountain and then
give them some sats, or youmight be in Nostra and giving
those shows sats a bit likesuper chats, I guess in YouTube
equivalent.
You can do that and you'll geta stream of chat going on as
well at the same time.
So I think what Fountain havedone is basically replicated the

(46:01):
YouTube live function withsuper chats and chats, but
they've done it with with theNosta platform and I think it
looks really cool.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
So so technically um, is it just a a normal stream on
a normal streaming platform.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
It's a normal stream on a Nosta platform.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
On a Nosta platform.
Okay, yeah, so you have to havea Nosta.
Really, who's paying thebandwidth then?

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Uh, I assume it will be whoever is setting it up on
the Nostra platform.
So there must be a payment tobroadcast live on Nostra.
I don't know, I don't useNostra.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
Yeah, yeah, no.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
I'm just curious as to does it use the Nostra you
know system to?
Well, I think it's somethinglike TuneStar, you know, when
you look at what they've done inNashville in the past with
Ainsley Costello and PhantomPower Media when they broadcast
those shows live, they've donethat through the Nostra, they've
done it through the live itemtag, but they've fundamentally
been using TuneStar, which is aNostra live platform.

(47:07):
Right, and I think that's whatthey probably use on Nostr live
platform and I think that's whatthey probably use on Nostr to
create those live streams.
But I think what Fountain hasdone is created a way for you to
pull those in and then be ableto watch the video of those live
streams within Fountain.
So, again, you don't have to goto a Nostr relay, and I think
that's really nice.
I mean, look, you know, we'vesaid it before Nostr sorry,

(47:30):
fountain and TrueFounds aregoing slightly different
directions.
We might be podcasting apps,but we have slightly different
directions in where we're goingwith live.
But, yeah, I think it's verycool what Fountain have done and
you should try it out.
It's in beta, though, still, soI don't know if you can get a
hold of it if you're not on thebeta program.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Yeah, very cool.
Yes, so it's.
There is a thing just sort oftaking a look.
There is a thing called NIP53,which is part of the way that
NOSTA works.
It's a live activity thing andit does look as if you are
pointing people towards a stream.
You know, just a fairly typicalnormal stream available on the

(48:12):
internet, but you then send, youknow, a message, a bit like a
pod ping, via the Nosta platform, to basically say, yep, this is
the activity that we're doing,we're doing a live activity and
here we go, but the stream herelooks to be just a normal m3,
you know, m3 u8, um playlist, um, which kind of makes a bunch of

(48:34):
sense.
So, um, yeah, very smart, uh,very nice.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
Yeah, I mean, I want to do it slightly different.
I want to do it with the littag and I want to use xmpp um
and go down that road with superchats.
But you know, we'll see when weget there.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Yes, best of luck with XMPP, your brother, I'm
calling him.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
I'm calling him Mr Cridland.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Yes, now Spotify is doing something called Go To An
Artist's Concert, so they've gotsome sort of concert button
that they're adding to their umapp apparently.
Uh, which is um, which is athing.
If you've got the data, thenwhy not, I suppose.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
Yeah, I think they've been promoting events and
allowing you to click on a linkto go to Ticketmaster in the
past.
I think this may be a stepwhere they start to do it
themselves, and I think we'vetalked about it on this show.
How long before you buy virtualtickets and watch live online?
I mean, it seems the mostnatural extension of what

(49:38):
Spotify will do.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, yeah, no interesting.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Now, related to that, there was a report out that,
although Spotify is veryprofitable and doing very well,
that their ad revenue growthslowed from 15% in the first
half of the year to 6.4%.
I don't know if you saw thisreport, james.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
Yes, that's interesting.
Now this is a report in theInformation, which is a paid for
website which costs $749 inorder for you to sign up to
$749,.
I'll repeat that again.
So therefore I can't read it,and so I'm not quite sure what

(50:19):
the story says, other thanapparently it has managed to get
some ad revenue data out ofSpotify's information.
But yeah, according to thisstory, advertisers have
complained that their ads are nolonger reaching enough of
Spotify's audience and that someadvertisers aren't satisfied

(50:43):
with the results of theadvertising, and Spotify isn't
doing very much to improve it,according to the information.
But I'm not going to spend 700and X US dollars in order to
actually get that whole report.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
But didn't we talk about Spotify putting in
non-skippable ads into Joe Rogan?
And I talked last week abouthaving three ads played before I
could watch the video last week.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Now we did and um on that.
Um, uh, my contact at Spotifycontacted me and said that
should not be happening.
Um, well, it was.
I know it was.
Um but, uh, she said, no, thatshouldn't be happening.
Please tell us where that washappening so that our team can
actually get on the case.

(51:33):
So I've done that.
There was a report last week ina few of the Android trades
that basically said that Spotifywas giving people advertising
even if they were a Spotifypremium user.
So it does sound as if therewas a wider bug that may have
been at play here.

(51:54):
I've not heard back from mycontact at Spotify, so I can't
tell you for sure which way it'sall gone, but yeah, it was an
interesting one, and that took afew people by surprise.
What was, though, interestingis all of the wording that
Spotify has released.
All talk about uninterruptedvideos.

(52:16):
Ie, no mid-roll showed an adthat interrupts a video.
I am still, um, and and I'vehad a few people contact me
saying this is really sneaky ofSpotify because they late, they

(52:38):
led us to believe thateverything would be ad free if
you were a Spotify premium user,but actually what, um, uh, what
you're actually getting here'tthat, but they've never actually
said that in the first place.
So, yeah, I think it's justsort of kicked off.
A few comments, and I'm justbusy waiting for Spotify to come

(53:02):
back and confirm, or you know,or whatever, what's actually
going on there.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
It's fake news, move on.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Maybe that's it.
That's all it is.
Yes, it's fake news, move on.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Maybe that's it.
That's all it is.
Yes, nothing to see here Movingalong.
Now Podpage we like Podpage.
They put out a little post thatI picked up on.
It says I'm starting a bigdesign sprint to add a lot of
customisation and templateoptions to Podpage.
To get inspiration, I'd like toknow what your favourite podcast
or website is besides your own.

(53:32):
It's interesting because Ithink creator portals, or
fandoms as I'm calling them, aregoing to be fairly big in 2025.
And I think Podpage is doing agreat job of allowing that
customisation.
I think Buzzsprout's done agreat job with the pages that
they offer us weeklypodnewsnet,and I think many of the other

(53:54):
podcast hosts have got them.
I probably shouldn't do this asa CEO of True Fans, but a great
idea I'd like to give out tothe hosts is why don't they
create an aggregated page of allof their best websites so that
when you land, you can see otherwebsites right?
So, for example, we mightpromote weeklypodnewsnet, but

(54:20):
they must have bigger and nicerand better or different websites
.
Why don't they create a landingpage that is a aggregated page
of here's the best of our webpages for these podcasts?
Have a look and go and discovernew stuff.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
That would be cool.
Yes, I am always surprised atmost of the podcast hosts who
don't seem to promote any of theshows on their podcast hosts.
And you're there thinking, well, why would you not?
You know, occasionally I willforward through an email that
I've had, launching a brand newbig show on, you know,
Transistor or Captivate orwhoever it might be, and just

(54:54):
saying, oh, by the way, just foryou to know.
And I'm always surprised at howfew of them actually will go.
Oh, look, you know, so-and-sois hosting with us.
So yeah, definitely there'ssomething there, I think.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
Especially as Transistor added comments, the
Blue Sky comments, you know,again, they've got web pages.
Promote them, Do something withthem.
No, indeed.
Moving on then, James, this wasan interesting company and I
think you might know the answersto my question, so I'm going to
ask you.
Yeah, or Dillick, I think, isthe name of the company, is an
audio processing tool forpodcasts that uses the broadcast

(55:29):
standard, which I've neverheard of, called Orban Optimode
tool.
I thought it was a drug that Iwas supposed to take.
I have no idea Now.
I've never heard of it, but Idid look it up and it looks
pretty sexy.
It allows you to do audiobroadcasting over FM, DAB plus
and HD radio, but the thingsthat I thought you know.

(55:50):
It had some nice featureswithin that, but one of those
was you can remotely controlHTML5 web browsers as well, and
I'm like what is this thing?
I have never heard of it, but Ithought I know a man who does.
So come on, James, tell me whatit is.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Yes, so it's an OptiMod, not an OptiMode.
It's an OptiMod, not anOptiMode.
It's an OptiMod and my voiceused to go through one of those
for a number of years until theygot rid of it and they changed
it into an InnoVonix, which doesmuch the same sort of thing.
But essentially what it is isit smooths out your levels, your
audio levels, so thateverything doesn't sound too

(56:25):
loud or too quiet.
Everything sounds just right.
Orphonic is the tool that a lotof podcasters use.
If you're using Magic Masteringon Buzzsprout our sponsor then
you're using Orphonic.
To be honest, behind the scenesit does a very good job of

(56:46):
smoothing out the audio levels.
Optimod is significantly better.
It deals with an awful lot ofvery clever stuff to do with
just making audio clearer andeasier to understand.
And it was really mentionedbecause I ran a slightly
tongue-in-cheek feature thisweek called Having a Bad DAI,

(57:08):
and it was some pretty awful DAIthat had been produced, you
know, with an ad, half thevolume of the surrounding
content and all of that kind ofstuff.
So that was quite interesting.
But essentially, what this tool, audilic, allows you to do is

(57:28):
it allows you to use Optimod,optimod's technology and
Optimod's algorithms on anypiece of uploaded audio so you
can get your podcast soundingjust as good as a punchy
sounding FM station.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
So yeah, would you not have this included in things
like Rodecasters or Shure micsor stuff as a natural thing?

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yeah, and to a degree , quite a lot of that is.
So the microphone I'm talkingto you on today, which is the
Shure MV88+, this has gotlimiting in it, it's got
compression built in, it's gotEQ built in and this is why I'm
sounding you know, whenever Iuse this mic slightly more butch

(58:20):
than when I use the mic that Ihave at home uses quite a lot of
additional work.
It was built by somebody thatreally understood how to process
audio, especially how toprocess audio for it to sound as
good as possible on AM or on FM, which have their own things as

(58:45):
well.
So basically, yes, things likethis exist, but nowhere near as
good as the OptiMod algorithm.
So that's what you'reessentially getting you know
with this Audillic tool.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
Now, moving on, there was a clickbait podcast that
came out this week from In andAround Podcasting, which is Mark
Asquith and Danny Brown,friends of the show, who had
Clearweight Brown as well, who'sone of our power supporters and
they were just simply saying ispodcasting 2.0 a failure?
Did you hear the show, james?

Speaker 1 (59:19):
I did hear the show, yes, and I thought it was a very
good show.
I mean the whole, the whole ispodcasting 2.0.
A failure thing is a bit of abit of, you know, clickbaity

(59:41):
nonsense.
I don't think anybody wasnecessarily saying that, but,
yes, it was a very interestingand quite nuanced conversation,
which you know, which is aboutall of that.
I mean, you know, I said thatit was a bit clickbait and Mark
Asquith says yes, absolutely,but it got some ideas.
He's very good at doing that,but it got some eyes on that.
But what I said to Mark wasthat Podcasting 2.0 is a

(01:00:04):
collection of ideas.
It's not one thing, it's acollection of ideas.
Some of those ideas are totalfailures, like the images tag,
completely unusable.
It's a duplicate of a differenttag that already exists.
It's a total waste of time andeffort.
Virtually nobody's using it.
We should get rid of it, butseemingly we don't have the

(01:00:28):
balls to get rid of it to exist,which is bad.
But secondly, most podcasthosts either don't support it or

(01:00:55):
, worse, do support it but messit up, which is even worse.
So, actually, the podcast GUID.
Maybe I should agree withsurprise.
Maybe I should agree with DaveWeiner when he pointed at the
podcast GUID and he said no, no,no, just use the RSS feed URL.

(01:01:16):
Yes, there are problems withusing the RSS feed URL as well,
actually, but that issignificantly better, in my
humble opinion, than the podcastGUID, as somebody that has a
database of shows using thepodcast, guid has just been a
bit of a nuisance, and I'm busytrying to work out whether or

(01:01:36):
not I should just get rid of it,you know entirely.

Speaker 3 (01:01:39):
No, no, no, no.
Don't get rid of it Because,look, we need it for things like
remote items and things likethat and publish feeds.
No, please, don't get rid of it.
Just hosts, get on with it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Bloody hell, you haven't got much else to do.
Well, we only need it becausewe've gone down the route of
only saying that the podcastGUID is the thing, rather than
linking to RSS feed addresses.
So you know, I would just pointthat out, but anyway also
finally look.
So you know, maybe I would justpoint that out, but anyway, but
also finally look.
You know, some of the ideas inthe collection of ideas that we

(01:02:14):
call Podcasting 2.0 arebrilliant ideas, ideas that even
Apple has taken up, like thepodcast transcription tag, for
example, the pod roll awful name, but a great, but a great idea
that anybody can do.
Only one person's done it well,but a great idea that anybody
can do.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Only one person's done it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
Well, I'll give you a clue.
I've done it too.
Okay, two of us have done it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
Well done to the pair of us.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
But the pod role should be a really good idea
that everybody can do.
But you know, but there we are.
So you've got things which aretotal failures, things which are
not very good, things that arebrilliant.
So saying is podcasting 2.0 afailure is overly reductive,
because actually there isn't onething called podcasting 2.0.
There's lots of differentthings and some of it has been a

(01:03:08):
tremendous success and some ofit has not been.
In my humble opinion, this iswhat we need for Podcasting 2.0
to move on.
We need a feature champion, oneperson to promote each feature
and responsible for thatfeature's take up Um.

(01:03:33):
So, instead of um, uh, you know, buzzsprout or whoever it is,
um, uh, occasionally talking toDave Jones and saying what are
the new features that we shouldbe supporting?
And uh, and Dave, you know,takes time out of his um day to
um, go through a couple of thesenew features with him and blah,
blah, blah.
It should be, you know, ifthere are 30 features out there,
then 30 different peoplecontacting Buzzsprout,
contacting Libsyn, contactingwhoever it might be, and saying,

(01:03:55):
look, this is this feature,it's really cool.
When can you support it?
And really pushing thatparticular feature and everyone
knows that if it's the podcastlocation tag, you have to talk
to James, because Jamesunderstands how the thing works.
If it's the pod role tag, youhave to talk to, you know,
daniel, because Danielunderstands how it works.
That's where I think we shouldgo, and I think we shouldn't be

(01:04:20):
waiting for somebody to lead thepodcasting 2.0 movement,
because, I mean, that's kind ofDave and Adam, but also they've
got their own things to do aswell.
So, yeah, so that's my plan.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Okay, I don't disagree with you on most of
what you said.
I think 80, 90% of what yousaid I agree with, I think, the
lag between the idea, which iswhat you said they are a bunch
of ideas and the adoption byhosts and apps, and then the
user adoption.
I think the lag time betweensome of the tags is small and
some of the tags is long.

(01:04:56):
So where they're obvious, likechapters and transcripts, it's
pretty easy to understand andagain don't understand when
hosts don't support it or appsdon't support it.
That's just me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Well, it's when it's obvious and also when it's easy
to implement.

Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
I think when it's hard, some of the harder tags, I
think, okay, I get it.
You know, I've heard Kevin Finntalk on Buzzcast about how
adding an extra tag adds extraweight to the RSS feed times.
The number of people who pullthat feed adds a significant
cost.
So they take a strong look atwhether that tag is worth doing
and then they make a decisionand so I get the business point

(01:05:36):
uh as well.
Um, but what I, what I do thinkis, and I say, and the lack of
leadership is is where I thinkwe have a problem.
Now, look, look, adam and Davechampion podcasting 2.0.
I listen to that showreligiously on a Friday night,
right, and I love what they do,but Adam has made it absolutely

(01:05:58):
100% crystal clear.
He will not be leading thecharge from the front by being
the keynote speaker, andunfortunately, I think that's.
I wish he would change hisopinion, because you standing up
, james, is amazing, right, andI've seen your keynote speeches
and they're great and um, that'sgreat, but you never invented
podcasting.
No, you don't have the gravitasof adam curry.

(01:06:19):
Adam can stand there and wandrywill listen to him in awe and
they will then go.
What is this new thing you'veinvented adam podcasting.
To tell me more, adam.
If James stands up and says letme tell you about podcasting, I
go.
Oh well, you know, whatever, Ithink Adam doesn't appreciate

(01:06:40):
what he is and who he is interms of the gravitas he would
bring to the market if he wouldtake that role on.
But he won't.
And it's four times a year.
You know you're talking aboutthe London podcast show, podcast
movement, twice, maybe in oneother show, you know, and that's
where I think it is, and Ithink it's that leadership
element of being the symbolbearer of podcasting 2.0 and
carrying that gravitas with itthat Adam can bring.

(01:07:02):
Now he won't change his mind, Ithink.
But that's where I think welack.
I also think we're going totalk in a minute about where we
are with the apps.
Now.
Many, many months ago, pod2came up with an idea with me for
a small fund right, it was, Ithink, russell offering 5% of

(01:07:22):
his revenue.
Now he's a small host, sothat's very small.
And then when you divvy it upbetween all the little apps, I
mean it's nothing of nothing butit's a gesture and it's a very
appreciated gesture.
I've tried to say that.
You know, again, in aleadership format, the PSP,
which, again, I don't know whatit's doing, where it is, who's
running it, what's going on.

(01:07:43):
But again, you know, if, ifeach one of these big hosts put
in I don't know a thousandpounds each, they could fund an
evangelist right, but they won'tdo that.
They could put money aside tohelp the apps who are promoting
podcasting 2.0 while the marketadoption is slow, but they're
putting in the technology at thetime to support them until they

(01:08:05):
get to the point where they getexternal funding, in which case
they don't get supported by anangel fund.
These are ideas that I think weshould be talking about because,
unfortunately this week, martinfrom Podfriend has said he's
hiatusing the Podfriend.
He can't afford to keep theservers going.
So there's one app who did alot of work that's going to go

(01:08:28):
away for a while.
It may be going away forever.
Have you heard from PodverseJames?
I haven't.
I don't know what Mitch isdoing.
I hope he's well.
I hope he's squirreling away onan amazing new version that we
don't know about, but I haven'theard a thing from him.
Castamatic and is doing I don'tknow what customatic is doing.
I think they're adding supportfor strike, but I don't hear

(01:08:48):
from them.
Um, you had this week castrotalking about what they did this
year.
Pocket pc hasn't announcedanything recently.
Um, I just feel that all theseapps that are supporting the
podcasting 2.0 tags andimplementing them and spending
time trying to educate theirusers and the market need help,
and that help would come fromthe bigger hosts who make

(01:09:10):
significant money.
Right, it's not going to happen.
None of this will happen.
By the way, james Adam won'tlead the charge and the hosts
and PSP won't take on the roleof supporting the apps, and I
think my biggest fear is thatsome of these apps will go away
in 2025 because they can'tsurvive and we will just be left
with Spotify and YouTube.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Yeah, I would, I would agree with a lot of that.
So, um, yeah.
So the question, of course, iswhat happens next, and, um, it'd
be good to, um, be good to getsome ideas.
I uh, you know, I'm guessing.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
Moving on.
Then, james Apple came out withan announcement yesterday and I
thought you must know, becauseyou know you've got friends in
Apple.
Why are they for eight hours,closing down Apple Podcasts
Connect?
What are they launching?
What's their one feature of theyear that's coming?

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
out, and this always happens Every single time that
Apple needs to do databasemaintenance and turn their stuff
off for a little bit.
Everybody rushes around andgoes oh I wonder what the new
feature is.
And every single time, there isno new feature and it's just a

(01:10:20):
nice man called Ted with a beardwho has to get up early that
morning because he's got hisannual database management stuff
that he has to get done andeverything else.
Everybody does this, everybodydoes this.
So, yeah, so if you don't know,yes, apple Podcasts Connect,
which is just the back end forApple Podcasts, none of the you

(01:10:46):
know, nothing will be impacted,uh, other than you going in and
having a look at your analyticsand stuff like that.
Um, won't work.
Um, the morning of March the1st, if you are in, um, uh, la,
um, and that's basically.
That's basically that.
Um, I uh would not think thatthere is any new app uh coming,

(01:11:07):
because there never is, so weprobably don't need to
particularly worry about that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
Yeah, 164,000 people on Apple and I'm still waiting
for one new feature.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
Anyway, Good Lord, they've just launched a new
phone this week.
I mean, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:24):
Oh, oh, come on, I mean seriously.
The designers for the iPhonecould be Stevie Wonder.
What are you producing?
It's the same size, the samelook, the same thing.
What's new about it.
We're taking one of the camerasoff and um, it's the one that's
much, much cheaper than youknow than everything else.

Speaker 1 (01:11:50):
And uh, yeah, and they've updated it and it's um,
you know it's.
It's finally got rid of the,the ridiculous home button that
was still on there, so you'vegot face id now on on even those
phones, um, and they seem tohave done I'm gonna prove it
failed.

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):
Right.
I'm gonna test you.
James, are you buying the 16Efor your daughter to replace any
Android phone?
Because it's cheap, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
Well, it's not that cheap.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
No, exactly that's the thing.
There you go, $800.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
But it's Apple.
No, it's not $800.

Speaker 3 (01:12:21):
It's less than that no, no, no, they failed.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
They got it in and out at $800.
Well, yeah, oh well, yeah, Imean it is a significantly
cheaper phone than any otherphone that Apple have made.
So from that point of view, Imean, yes, I wouldn't be buying
my daughter it, but then mydaughter uses Android and has
always used Android, and thankheavens for that, given that she
managed to drop her phone lastweek and had to go out and buy a
new one.
But the new one was $227, whichis Australian dollars, which

(01:12:55):
means that it was about 120 quid.
It was not an expensive phone,but yeah, I don't know.
Anyway, Right.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
One last thing with Apple.
They're on a purge.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
They're on a purge in Europe because of the Digital
Services Act that's coming intoeffect.
They've got rid of 135,000 appsfrom the EU app stores.
Regulation has a requirementthat app developers must provide
their trader status.
So are you a sole trader?
Are you a company?

(01:13:41):
Are you just one person?
And if you haven't done that,and if you haven't done that,
then your stuff gets taken downbecause it's not legal to have
there anymore.
So now you can ask whether ornot this is malicious compliance
by Apple, apple makingunpopular changes and blaming it

(01:14:03):
on the EU, but it does seem tobe.
You know much of what the EUwants and similarly, apple did
say last year that every podcasthas to have a website attached
to it in the RSS feed and thatwebsite has to have corporate
information on it, becauseotherwise Apple will, you know,

(01:14:28):
I mean potentially take showsout in the future.
I can't see them necessarilydoing that, but at some point
they might have to because,again, of the EU's rules.

Speaker 3 (01:14:43):
So, yeah, blame the EU.
Yes, everyone else is.
Everyone seems to be doing that, mr Trump, well, jd Vance, yes.
Anyway, the last thing on this.
I mean I think this if I canafford it, the next phone I'd
love is the Huawei tri-foldablephone.
I think it looks really cooland they've just announced the
price €3,499 or $3,662.

(01:15:08):
But they've launched in fivenew countries now.
None of those in Europe yet,but it's interesting to see that
they're moving into thosemarkets first, rather than the
Western.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
European markets?
Yes, and those markets areMalaysia, Indonesia, the
Philippines, the UAE, SaudiArabia and Mexico.
They're not going to get richnecessarily.
Well, the UAE, Saudi Arabia andMexico, they're not going to
get rich necessarily.
Well, the UAE, they might, ohwell, I mean the UAE and Saudi
Arabia.
Yes, perhaps, but yes, that'sabout as far as we will go.

(01:15:42):
Yes, now interesting moves fromHuawei.
And of course, that $3,662 USdollar price is not what you
would pay in the US anyway,because doubtless there will be
quite substantial tariffs onthat price as well.

Speaker 3 (01:16:00):
It's okay, you can get the iPhone 17.
It's just going to be a singlescreen and slightly thinner,
with the same camera and battery.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
Brilliant.
That's what you need and aslightly different looking back
to it, by what I understand.

Speaker 3 (01:16:12):
I would like rose petal gold please.

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
Inbox week.
It's the pod news, weeklyreview inbox.
So many different ways to getin touch with us.
Fan mail I love that jingle.
It's good fan mail by using thelink in our show notes, super
comments on true fans, boostseverywhere else, or email, and
any money that we get is sharedas well.
Um, no fan mail this week, but,um, a couple of boosts that

(01:16:47):
we'll read out anyway, both fromNeil Velio.
Thank you, neil Ree.
The boy from space, neil saysyou may need to go back to last
week's episode to understandwhat any of this is about.
I think I must have watched itin 1984 on a tape in school.
Oh, do you remember when thereused to be?

(01:17:07):
There used to be a trolley witha big television on it and a
VHS video recorder and they usedto move that trolley between
classroom and classroom and youalways knew that you were in for
a good day when you saw theteacher pushing it into your
classroom.
Lights down, go to sleep in theback.
Brilliant, yeah, that was it.
My favourite was occasionallyin Italian class.

(01:17:30):
I think they would bring it inand we would watch Italian news,
and I found that fascinating.
Anyway, that was Mussolini.
Neil, how dare you?
Neil Velio says they used toshow an episode to us as an end
of term treat Educationestablishment endorsed trauma.

(01:17:52):
Awesome, Right.
Well, there we are.
He also says something about astory that I'm not going to read
out because I know Malay bulllaws, so let's move on.
And he also loved the Spotifywarning jiggle.
Yes, we love the Spotifywarning jiggle too.
Please do send us messageshowever you like.

(01:18:13):
That would be very kind of you,and thank you for the Super 16
subscribers that we have.
Power supporters, who areCameron Moll, Marshall Brown,
Matt Medeiros, Mike Hamilton,Dave Jackson, Rachel Corbett, Si
Jobling, David Marzell, JimJames Rocky, Thomas, Neil Velio,

(01:18:34):
Ms Eileen Smith, ClaireWaite-Brown, John McDermott,
James Burt and the late bloomeractor For your kind support.
Weeklypodnewsnet is how you canbecome number 17 in there.
We would love that.
That would be super excellent.
I had a lovely chat with SiJobling this week, by the way,
Did you Well there?

(01:18:55):
we are.
What are you planning with him?

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
Well, no, si is very useful at giving me feedback on
True Fans, and I love it, and wewere talking about something
I'll talk about in a minute.
But also he showed me wherethat pub is.
We're invited anytime to hislocal pub.
But he also talked aboutsomething that we'd launched,

(01:19:19):
which was support and monthlypayments equivalent to Patreon
or Buy Me A Coffee or againsimilar to what Buzzsprout has
here, and he was going should Igo and do it there with Sats?
I was going, no, no, no, staywhere we are, it's fine.
You don't need to use thatfeature, you're okay.
Stay on Buzzsprout, please,it's fine.
So, yes, so he's lovely to talkto and he's got a plush new him

(01:19:44):
.

Speaker 1 (01:19:45):
Well, there you go.
What else has happened for youthis week?

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
We talked about TrueFans implementing Blue Sky
support for comments, and we'llextend that, so that's really
cool.
We also automated YouTubeplaylists.
As I said, we took the leaf outof PodPage and so we now allow
you to copy and paste yourplaylist from YouTube, put it
into a field in your admindashboard and we will

(01:20:11):
automatically sync the videointo the alternative enclosure
for you so that, when you're inTrueFans as a listener, you can
switch between the audio andvideo.
We've done that for you, James.
You can take it out if youdon't like us.
We've done it on PodNews Dailyas a test, um, and it worked
perfectly.
So, um, you can, if you so wish, James, remove your video

(01:20:33):
support in your alternativeenclosure and have YouTube pay
for it all instead, if you want.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
Well, that's always a good thing.

Speaker 3 (01:20:40):
Uh, so very nice.
And then last week we addedprivate notes.
I took on board your comment.
It now says private underneath,so that that's fine.
Um, and very similar to um podpage as well.
We are now adding customization.
So reordering of tabs is thefirst one, but next week you
will see um domain names.
You'll be able to use your owndomain name with true fans pages

(01:21:03):
oh, fancy yeah fancy um andfinally, yes, we are upgrading
to Nextjs and React.
I've been warned and we lead offon the native apps after that.
So yes, it's all kicking off.
That will be exciting.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
Also in the show notes it says that you are going
to be adding WebSub.

Speaker 3 (01:21:24):
Yes, we've got it working on our test server
already.
Podping's great and there was anew version of Podping that
came out and we looked in it andthere wasn't much.
But again it's more back-endstuff rather than stuff we could
utilize.
But Pocket PC did this manymonths ago.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
You mean Pocket Cast?

Speaker 3 (01:21:45):
Pocket Casting sorry, Pocket Cast did this many
months ago.
Ellie Rubenstein and I was like, well, do we need to support
WebSub, which was the old PubSubhubber, and again for things
like Megaphone and for Spreakerand for those that don't support
Podping, having WebSub is agood idea.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
So yes, Now Castro also said that they are
supporting WebSub as well, andit's been very useful to them.

Speaker 3 (01:22:11):
So Podping utter waste of time implementation and
the adoption seems to be a lag.
But you know most of thepodcasting to that oh, app hosts

(01:22:32):
are doing it.
You know bus brow um, theblueberry transistor, etc.
Etc.
It's just some of the old 1.0podcast hosts that aren't moving
.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
But I mean web sub is a standard which is out there
which lots of people use.
Now there are people thatpromote Podping and say that
WebSub is totally unsuitable forpodcast apps and it's
impossible to implement, but yetI'm seeing more and more people
you know, castro true fanssupport WebSub.

(01:23:00):
So that's clearly not the case.
So what's the problem?
Why would people be saying thatWebSub is not, you know, is not
fit for purpose?

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
It's not that it's not fit, it's just we wish we
didn't have to do it.
It's a case of the hosts aren'tmoving the ones that have not
implemented PodPing.
So we have to go back and finda way of making sure we update
them properly.
And if you can't beat them, youhave to go back and join them
right.
So in this case, websub's theway we're going to do it,
because otherwise we're justgoing to have a lag between some

(01:23:33):
of the podcast hosts updatingto our apps, and that's not a
good thing.
So, yeah, we need to go backand support WebSub.
I don't think WebSub wasoriginally, if I'm right, when
it was PubSub, hubbub andoriginally Comet, if I remember
rightly in my history of updates, was mainly for RSS feeds and

(01:23:53):
blogs.

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
It wasn't pre-designed for podcasting like
Podping was.
Well, no, but I mean, it's thesame thing under the hood.
The thing that Podping doesthat WebSub doesn't is.
We're doing a live show.
Tune in now.
But accepting that, I'm stillsort of struggling a little bit
with why WebSub isn't aperfectly adequate solution for

(01:24:22):
signalling.
Look, this person has updatedtheir show.

Speaker 3 (01:24:27):
I can't give you a categorical answer, James.
I wish I knew I'm going tosupport both, because then I've
covered both bases.

Speaker 1 (01:24:35):
Oh, yeah, yeah no, I mean, it makes perfect sense and
I think supporting both youknow, I was just aware that all
of the technical conversationsthat I've seen say that actually
, you know, if you're going tosubscribe to WebSub for 4

(01:24:56):
million podcasts, thenessentially you will be always
subscribing because of the waythat you know a subscription
runs out.
So I'm just sort of curious asseeing companies saying, oh,
we're supporting WebSub now,when I've been always very
clearly told that it is totallyuseless for podcasting.

(01:25:18):
So, yes, somebody needs tounderstand what's actually going
on here, and I think thatsomebody is me.

Speaker 3 (01:25:29):
Let's put it back to Dave Jones.
Go on, let's have Friday nightpodcasting to the subject web
sub versus pod, what's thedifference?

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
Answer on a postcard and you did another Thames walk,
I believe last week 25 miles,that's nice.
Yep, yes, and you're going todo another one this week.
You'll be walking past the oldThames Television Studios in
Shepparton.

Speaker 3 (01:25:52):
Yes, it's very plush.
Still, they've got a nicelittle Hollywood sign at the
front.
Yes, nice Shepparton StudiosRubbish train service, but
that's another issue.
Trying to get from Sheppartonto Richmond took about an hour
and a half.
The walk was less I felt, butanyway.

Speaker 1 (01:26:09):
Oh well, there you go .
But yes, now we're, and you'llhave walked past the brewery for
Budweiser, I think yeah.
Which is on the river downthere.

Speaker 3 (01:26:18):
And we're off to go and see His Royal Highness at
Windsor Castle next.

Speaker 1 (01:26:22):
Oh well, that's very lovely.
Yes, Well done.
Wait to see if he's in.

Speaker 3 (01:26:25):
Maybe, tea at the end .

Speaker 1 (01:26:27):
Well done.
Are you going to tell me offfor anything?

Speaker 3 (01:26:30):
I am only because I love you dearly, yes, because
you do so many good things.
And then I go yay, james hasdone it.
And then I go why why?
Why James, why not?
So first one is you put in thesocial interact tag for the
episode on Monday and Tuesdayand then on Wednesday maybe
because you were flying, youforgot to do it, but the episode

(01:26:52):
with Todd didn't have it in forsome reason.
So, yes, and then so we keeplooking.
Is he doing it?
No, he stopped.
Okay, so that's the first one.
And then the other one isupdating your location because
you're not in Brisbane, but yourPod News Daily says you're in
Brisbane.

Speaker 1 (01:27:09):
Yes, well, so there's two things on that.
The social interact tag willalways appear Currently, will
always appear without me doinganything special, but will
always appear 24 hours latebecause of the order of things
that I do.
That needs fixing and so I needto rewrite the publish code in

(01:27:33):
order to do that, but that willessentially mean that the social
interact tag does appear in theRSS feed as soon as possible.
So, yes, I need to do that, andyes, and the location tag.
I'll be honest, I've not donethe location tag for a while
because, firstly, I haven't beentravelling and I'd forgotten
that I have to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:55):
We've got a feature coming out called when Is James?

Speaker 1 (01:27:58):
Yes, so I'm going to go back and update the ones
where I was in Geneva, so we'llget that one done, not Geneva,
neuchatel in Switzerland and Iwill, because I'm doing a lot of
travelling next week and theweek after and various things.

(01:28:19):
Yes, I will keep all of thatupdated.
I've just got to kind of buildthat into the system, right,
because at the moment it's verymanual.
So I should probably try andwork out a method of making that
a little bit more easy to do.
But still, there we are.

Speaker 3 (01:28:38):
Well, hopefully hosts will do it as well for their
own clients.

Speaker 1 (01:28:44):
Yes, well, this is the James will implement this,
but in a half-arsed way.
Isn't production ready yet?
So I should go back and makethose production ready, I
suppose.

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):
So, James, where are you?
What are you doing?
What's happening in the worldof Mr Cridland?

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
Well, I'm, yes, I'm currently at a conference, at a
media conference, so that's athrill and an excitement.
But what else have I been doing?
I have, yes, I've just been.
One of the things that I didlast week is I bought a very

(01:29:24):
small, for about $50 Australian.
I bought a very small littlecolour screen to attach to an
old Raspberry Pi of mine.
So now I've got this nicelittle thing, which I've got,
which is showing me how muchpower the solar panels are
making, how much power is goinginto the electric car.

(01:29:45):
It even pulls information fromthe electric car, like you know,
what's the range on it, howcharged is the battery already,
are the doors closed?
It's got all of that kind ofinformation, which is quite cool
.
So yeah, so that wasinteresting.

Speaker 3 (01:30:04):
Have you paid for the car?

Speaker 1 (01:30:04):
yet Breathing new life.
I haven't paid for the car, butI did notice that I mean it's
very slow charging from a mainsplug, because you would expect
that, but I did notice that it'sbasically cost me nothing to
fill it up because it's justpowered by the sun.

Speaker 3 (01:30:24):
What's that?

Speaker 1 (01:30:25):
We haven't seen that for a while.
As long as I only plug it induring the day, but yeah, so
that's good.
And what I could do with HomeAssistant and this is all Gene
Bean's fault what I could dowith Home Assistant is I could
actually program the car tocharge only when I've got enough

(01:30:46):
electricity to charge it forfree, and then, as soon as the
clouds go over the solar panels,I can actually get it to stop
charging the car automatically,which is pretty cool.
So I can actually write thecode to do that.
It's just a case of gettingaround to it, to be honest.

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):
In terms of priority.
You can drop the location tagin the social interact tab.

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
Yeah, I know exactly, I personally think save a ton
of money would be better, and awebsite, yes, and a new
podcast's website that I've beentrying to launch for the last
month and just simply haven'tgot round to actually finishing
the three little bugs that Ineed to finish in order to get
that launched.
I should probably do that first, given that I've got that

(01:31:31):
sponsored and everything.
So, yes, but anyway, there weare.
That's where I am and that's itfor this week.
All of our podcast stories weretaken from the Pod News
newsletter.
You can subscribe to thenewsletter.
Oh heavens, I thought I'dedited all of this stuff out.
So I will say and that's it forthis week.

(01:31:51):
All of our podcast stories weretaken from the podcast daily
newsletter at podnewsnet.

Speaker 3 (01:31:57):
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You can give us feedback byusing the Buzzsprout fan mail
link in our show notes, or youcan send us a super comment or
become a power supporter, likethe sensational 16 at
weeklypodnewsnet.

Speaker 1 (01:32:12):
Our music is from Studio Dragonfly, our voiceover,
sheila Dee.
We use clean feed for our audio, we edit with Hindenburg and
we're hosted and sponsored byBuzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.

Speaker 2 (01:32:23):
Get updated every day .
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Speaker 4 (01:32:29):
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Speaker 2 (01:32:37):
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