Spotflix - is the Spotify/Netflix deal a gamechanger for podcasting? - Podnews Weekly Review

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:00):
The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters, and so can
you.
The last word in podcastingnews.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview with James Cridlin and
Sam Sethy.

James Cridland (00:12):
I'm James Cridlin, the editor of Pod News.

Sam Sethi (00:14):
And I'm Sam Sethy, the CEO of True Fans.

This podcast is sponsored by Buzz Sprouts with
the tools, support, andcommunity to ensure you keep
podcasting.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting with BuzzSprout.com.

Announcer (00:27):
From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly
Review.

Sam Sethi (00:32):
Now, I was putting this show together yesterday,
and I thought, um, you know,it'll be a good show, but it's
not a lot of breaking news.
And then suddenly, out ofnowhere, Netflix and Spotify
decided to make an announcement.
I've called if you can't beatthem, join them.
So what are they doing, James?

What are they doing indeed?
Well, Netflix is getting intobed with Spotify in terms of
video podcasts.
So Spotify and Netflix haveannounced a partnership to
deliver a selection of Spotify'stop video podcasts to Netflix.
So you won't get any otherstuff on there.
It will just be Spotify stuffthat they own the rights for.

(01:12):
The deal starts in early 2026.
It's in the US only, and youmight be thinking, yeah, yeah,
yeah, so much, so boring,whatever.
But the point of all of this isthat they are taking the video
of those shows off YouTube.
They're shows like uh TheRingers shows and a few others.
And the only place that you'llbe able to watch them is Netflix

(01:36):
and Spotify.
So YouTube will still getclips.
Audio versions of the podcastwill of course remain available
across platforms, but uh nowatching them on uh YouTube
anymore.
That's a bit of a big deal,isn't it?

Sam Sethi (01:48):
So who instigated this deal, do you think?
Was it Netflix saying we're outof the market, we need to get
into podcasting and videobecause we need cheap content?
Or was it Spotify going, God,YouTube's having our lunch, and
we better find a partner who'sgoing to help us?

Well, I mean, it might be a little bit of both,
I think.
Nick Quar has suggested he waswriting in uh Vulture, he's
suggested it's kind of a mutualdefense pact against YouTube,
because of course both Netflixand Spotify can see YouTube as a
competition.
So perhaps it's a little bit ofthat.
Perhaps it's just a nice dealfor Netflix to get some cheap

(02:24):
TV, as I've said on many anoccasion here.
You know, this is all this dealis.
This isn't a big difference forpodcasting, it's just the
Spotify stuff that they alreadyown.
They are making that availableon the Netflix platform now, and
they've and they've sold it uhaway to them.
So, you know, I I don't thinkit's anything more than that,

(02:45):
but I think it's quiteinteresting to end up seeing.
I have to tell you, if you readthe Bill Simmons subreddit,
because there is such a thing,fans are not happy, they're
calling it lame, stupid, anddumb.

Sam Sethi (02:56):
What do they know?

However, some of the fans who have, of course,
watched plenty of the Ringeroutput, have said that it's
gonna be really obvious thatthey're made in really bad
quality because they quite a lotof them are just simply
recorded Zoom calls, and youdon't expect that on a product
like Netflix.
So I think that's gonna beinteresting to see how that
works.

Sam Sethi (03:21):
Now, you know, I've been saying that this deal
should have been happening twoyears ago.
I've been talking about it, andyou know, and I've jokingly
called it Spotflix and boughtthe domain just for fun, you
know, just on the basis.
Now this is a quad play.
Apple has music, it has film,TV, and podcasts.

(03:43):
Same with Amazon.
And the the big holes in bothSpotify's strategy and also
Netflix strategy is symbiotic toeach other.
One has music and a podcast,the other has film and TV.
It makes total sense to me.
This is possibly just you knowthe first dance, right, where
they get together and have alittle does this work, does this

(04:04):
not work?
Do we like each other?
But I suspect that with DanielEck doing what he's doing, which
is fundamentally taking a stepsideways and then probably
outwards to you know, yeah, witha nice payoff.
Yeah.
And no, the DOJ won't blockthis.
We've seen deals now withOpenAI and NVIDIA and everyone
else.
Yeah, no one's blocking anydeals.

(04:25):
So I think for shareholders,this will be a payday and a half
because you know, there is bigmoney in both those places.

Yeah, I mean, you know, as you as you so
rightly say, Google has bothvideo and audio to an extent at
least.
Certainly, Apple has both videoand audio.
So you can well see thatthere's a real benefit here of
uh, what did you call it, SpotFlix?
I called it Spotflix, yes.
Domain names available.
There's a real goodopportunity, I think, for this

(04:58):
larger company who were they tomerge to produce something that
is pretty amazing.
Now, that doesn't necessarilymean that all of the music will
go into the Netflix apps, orindeed all of the video will go
into the into the Spotify apps,because actually people don't
work that way.
And you know, and that that'sthat's not how people consume
media, but you can well see thatactually streaming media with

(05:21):
all of that stuff in kind ofmakes quite a lot of sense.

Sam Sethi (05:23):
It does because it makes it sticky, doesn't it?
You you you get to the end of aI don't know, a film or a TV,
and you go, what do I do?
Oh, I'll go over to YouTube.
Oh no, I'll go to Spotify andplay some music.
Well, now you stick around ifthey if they can offer it all in
one place.

Yeah, theoretically.
Theoretically, I mean that thatmight be another way.
Stephen Da Vincenzi hascommented on Spotify.
Thank you, Stephen.
You're you're the one thisweek.
Well done.
He says, just in case youmentioned Spotify and Netflix
teaming up for video podcasts,I've come up with a good name
for the Spotify Netflix combo.
Netify.
What do you think?

(05:57):
No, it's not a good name.

Sam Sethi (05:58):
No, because it's got a double T in it.
No, no, Spotify.

Even if it's got a double T or a single T, I'm
afraid, Stephen, it's beentaken.
Because I did actually go andcheck.
Because I thought I thought tomyself, I can't let Sam be the
be the person with uh Spotflix.
Uh I've I I've got to see ifNetify is available, but it is
not.
So there we go.

Sam Sethi (06:20):
Uh yeah, I I think at the end of the day, this is a
very smart way for them to tryand combat YouTube, which
currently is really havingSpotify's lunch.
Yeah.
Certainly in video.
I don't I don't see video andSpotify working very well right
now.
But also, I think it's reallyinteresting when you start to
see things like Global Studiosand you start to see, you know,

(06:41):
all these media companies reallygetting into their game.
I think, you know, we've had inthe last couple of weeks audio
always, and we've had, you know,fresh air.
And it's it's interesting.
I think we're now beginning tosee production companies and
outputs where they can put audioand video.

Now I think it's going to be really fascinating
to watch.
It was uh all of the talk heretoday, because I'm at uh South
by Southwest in Sydney, and allof the talk here today was about
this particular deal.
I was sitting watching aSpotify presentation, which I
kind of felt that I should bepaid for at the end of it,
because it was an awful lot ofselling me Spotify.
But nevertheless, yeah, thatthat was clearly, you know, some

(07:20):
of the talk of the town.
Worthwhile just againhighlighting.
This does not mean that yourvideo podcast, which you have
put on Spotify, will be onNetflix.
It does not mean that at all.
All it means is that Spotifyhas a bunch of cheap TV shows
that they own, made by TheRinger, made by Spotify Studios,

(07:41):
and they are selling those toNetflix.
That is it.
There is nothing more to lookat than that.
So this isn't really a podcastdeal.
This is just a cheap TV deal,and I think it's probably a wise
idea if we think about it inthat way.

Sam Sethi (07:56):
Wonder whether somebody like Flightcast will
get the API access first.

Well, yes, I mean there there's a thing, but
that would be uh that would be away in the future, I would have
thought.
Also, we're really weirdly,starting in the US only.
So what it looks as if they'regoing to take all of the Ringer
shows, for example, off YouTubeeverywhere, but the only place
that you'll be able to watchthem is Spotify or Netflix in
the US.

(08:20):
You won't be able to watch themon Netflix in the UK or Netflix
in in Australia.
So that's a bit of a strangeone.
I really don't understand whycompanies will do that sort of
deal but only do it in onecountry.
I mean, for a company such asNetflix, where it's really easy
just to tick the button thatsays go everywhere, I don't
really understand why they'vedone that.

(08:42):
But I'm sure there'll be abrighter person in the comments,
which of course you can uhalways do to uh tell me why
they've done that.
Did I say my opic?

Sam Sethi (08:50):
Now, moving on.
Is Apple taking the pips,James?

Nice, nice.
I should have used that.
Yes.

Sam Sethi (08:56):
Well done.

Yes.

Sam Sethi (08:59):
Because they've had an ad-free October, which
they've promoted but decided notto pay anyone.
Tell me more.

Yeah, so this is apparently the second time that
Apple have done this.
They have a promotion calledSeries Essentials, and the
Series Essentials promotionchooses a bunch of shows.
In this particular case, theywere mostly audio fiction shows,
but certainly, you know, ashort series.
And they went to thepublishers, as I understand it,

(09:26):
and they said, You can be inthis series essentials thing.
And the publishers went,Brilliant! This is excellent
news.
And then Apple said, But we'dlike you to be ad-free for the
month, please.
So publishers won't be able toearn any money by selling
advertising because Apple hasbasically told them, if you want
to be in this feature, you needto be ad-free.

(09:46):
So you you you can look at ittwo ways.
You can look at it and think,oh, well, you know, it's good
news for the publisher becauseat least they get people
listening, and then they'll getpeople subscribing or following
that show, and they willcontinue to get a bunch of
people listening to that show,you know, next month and the
month after.
But actually, when you go inand you have a look at some of

(10:08):
these shows, they're only sixshows long, you know, they're
only six episodes long.
They're really short.
So there's nothing really tolisten to after you've listened
to the entire series.
It's called Series Essentialsfor a reason.
So I I I wasn't entirelycomfortable with the idea of
Apple turning around and going,Yes, you can be in our app, but

(10:31):
in order to do that, you cannotearn any money out of this
podcast at all.
I think that's just a bitcheeky for the third largest
company in the world.
What say you, Mr.
Sethy?

Sam Sethi (10:41):
Well, you know, I don't even see why they're doing
this.
I mean, what's the ad-freebenefit?
I mean, why would they eventhink about it?
I I'd love to be in themeeting.
Yes, let's do ad-free October.
It doesn't even rhyme.
I mean, it's like, you know,you know, you know, November,
get it, grey your mustache,ad-free October.
Not really sure what the planwas.

Because I think the plan is that they don't want
to have lots of ads in showsthat they promote.
And I know that if you go onto, you know, series news
briefing, for example, then theyreally don't want you to have
any ads in there.
So so I can kind of understandit, but if if I was them, I
would have done it the way thatAmazon Music did it.

(11:24):
And the way that Amazon Musicdid it is that they went to
people like Acast and they said,We want all of your shows
ad-free.
We'll just buy the ad slots.
And so and so Amazon bought thead slots foolishly in in my
view, but they bought all of thead slots and just made them
totally silent.
I think what Apple should havedone is they should have bought

(11:45):
all of the ad slots for Octoberand replaced it with a piece of
audio that said this show is onApple Podcasts series essentials
and is ad-free all this monththanks to Apple Podcasts.
At least that would then meanthat they would be supporting
the shows with money and thatthey would also be getting a bit

(12:08):
of obvious, you know, obviousbuyback with that, because that
mention would be ontheoretically all of the
podcasts across all of theplatforms.
That to me seems a little bitfairer, but at the moment you've
got a you you've got a casewhere two of these shows were
from uh three of these showswere from public radio stations
in the US, which have had all oftheir money taken away.

(12:31):
And then Apple turns up andsmugly says, you know what,
we've made you, because you'vemade a really good podcast,
we've made you a SeriesEssentials, but you're not
allowed to earn any money out ofit.
Get those ads out now.
Uh I mean, you know, poor pooryou if you're a public media
company and you've already hadall of your money taken away.
For Apple to turn up and say,you know what, we don't want any

(12:51):
ads in there, I just think is abit is a bit rude.
So I wish that that theywouldn't do it.
And Apple does a lot of reallygood things for podcasting
generally.
People are very scared to to toyou know talk against Apple
because Apple is so large, whichI totally understand, but I
wish that they would that theywould support podcasting

(13:14):
properly, and I think that thisis a bit mean.
They've done this before, withthey weren't gonna be paying
music music artists if you got athree-month-free Apple Music,
you know, deal just because youbought an iPhone, they were
gonna say, Well, you know, youyou don't get any money, Taylor
Swift.
And Taylor Swift herself wrotea blog post saying, We would

(13:37):
like some money, please.
We don't want to work for free.
And there are a lot of artistswho aren't as big as me who
would like paying, please, foryou know, for our stuff.
And uh and Apple caved.
And I'm surprised that we'renot seeing more podcasters
turning around and saying, youknow what, Apple, no, and this
is bad, and you shouldn't bedoing this.

Sam Sethi (13:58):
Well, let's move on.
Now, don't I just I'm justgonna hand hold your hand and
get you off the uh soapbox for aminute.
Now, thank you.
Um you're welcome.
Now, YouTube's also beentelling us what makes a
definitive guide to a goodpodcast content.
Now, I thought it was worthnoting because actually all it

(14:19):
is really saying it's what we'vebeen talking about in
podcasting 2.0.
They recommend chapters,keywords, strategic titles, and
a comment section, which again Ithink is just what we've been
trying to push for podcasting2.0 as well.

Yes, I think so.
I think chapters is important,particularly for long-form
stuff.
Obviously, chapters is ispointless for the Pod News
Daily, which is only fourminutes long, but for this sort
of thing, it works really well.
What they talked about wascultivating the comments
section.
And I think this is one of theimportant things.
If you listen to the Podcasting2.0 podcast with Adam and Dave,

(14:57):
and if you listen to this show,if you listen to No Agenda, if
you listen to a number of othershows, there is an awful lot of
reading out the comments andreplying to them on the air.
That's the way that fan mail issupposed to work for you reply
to those comments in your show.
And I think that is actuallyhow you get more and more

(15:19):
comments, is you just readcomments out.
Nobody's gonna send in acomment if they're not hearing
them being read out.
So I think that that's thatthat's an important thing.
So it was actually quite good.
It went a bit self-serving,this particular blog post, but
it was actually quite a good onefrom the folks at uh YouTube.

Sam Sethi (15:36):
Yeah, if you want to read it, you can find a link in
Pod News Daily.
Indeed.
Now, some of the other storiesthat you covered in Pod News
Daily, Stephen Goldstein, friendof the show, has been talking
about the secret ingredient toevery great podcast.
So it's not chapters, it's nottitles.
He says it's a real humanvoice.

He does.
And this was after he did atest of playing AI-generated
podcasts with college students,which actually seemed to go down
relatively well.
Quite a lot of them quite likedthe shows, which was
interesting.
College students of, of course,not like you are not your I.
No, so that was so that wasinteresting.

(16:19):
They don't play enough paddle.
So that was interesting fromthat point of view.
Perhaps they do.
And similarly, along the samelines, Alberto Batella from
RSS.com, who has done who hasactually done an awful lot of
very detailed academic workaround parasocial relationships
and stuff.
He has penned a very good blogpost on the rss.com blog, I'm an

(16:45):
advisor, saying that AI mightbreak the trust that we have
between the listener and thehost.
Because as soon as you realizethat it's not actually a real
human being, then there's a bita bit of a bit of trust that is
gone.
But he does say that AI voicescan be trusted so long as they
use the right prosodic cues,listen to him.

(17:08):
And they're used responsibly.

Sam Sethi (17:11):
So what's funnier is it's his second language as
well.

Yes, I know, I know, which is even which is
even more ridiculous.
Imagine, imagine this articlein Italian.
So it was good to read that.
Tom Webster from SoundsProfitable has also been
pointing out, and I think thisis a good point, that um AI
performed ads may unlocksignificant new revenue.
So, and I and I think he doesmake a good point.

(17:35):
There is, I think, a reallyinteresting middle between the
Joe Rogans of this world, peoplemaking lots of money on podcast
advertising, people that aren'tinterested in podcast
advertising at all and makingvirtually nothing.
And then you've got the middleground where you've got people
with uh quite a lot ofdownloads, but it's not really

(17:56):
worthwhile to sell advertisingfor them.
And so perhaps there is an AIanswer to that, both in terms of
ads, but also in terms of howyou sell them as well.
So I think that that'sabsolutely right.

Sam Sethi (18:10):
And finally, people don't really understand AI, says
Sam Battachari.
Writing InPod News today in thearticle, he explains how tools
like ChatGBT work and howterrible they are for creation
and how AI can actually benefitus.
So if you want to read moreabout that, check out InPod News
Daily.

It's a good piece.
He's got an AI researchbackground, and uh he certainly
doesn't hold back aboutInception Point AI.
He says, When I read aboutstories like that, I don't see
an AI company, I see some idiotswho hooked up to an A API from
Eleven Labs and are wastingeveryone's time and money.
Ouch.
Um, but it's actually it'sactually a great, a great

(18:51):
article.
It's well worth a read.
You'll find that in Pod Newsthis week.

Sam Sethi (18:55):
Now, James, when's the best time to listen to a
podcast?

Well, the best time is uh the best time for
you, Sam, but the highest timein terms of the most amount of
people listening to a podcast isbetween 10 in the morning and
two in the afternoon, accordingto Edison Research, releasing
some data at the end of lastweek.
And it's not just EdisonResearch saying this, because
I've seen similar data fromRajar in the UK saying this,

(19:22):
again, showing that the mostlistening happens between 10
a.m.
and 2 p.m.
If you want to take a look at afour-hour chunk.
Actually, the peak is between12 and 12.30.
So podcast for lunch, anyone?

Sam Sethi (19:34):
This totally goes against the grain for me,
because I thought the idea wason the commute to work, so in
the car, on the train, whateveryou're doing, walking the dog,
and maybe uh in the evening onthe way home or at the gym.
So those hours are for me seventill nine, and then probably

(19:57):
five till seven.
So totally different time setsto what I thought would be the
norm.

Yes, and I think quite a lot of people have
looked at it and gone, oh, thatlooks a bit weird, because
people expect, you know, the thesuccess of the daily from the
New York Times, people expectpodcasts to do very well at
breakfast time, and actuallythey don't.
All of the data that I haveseen seems to show that podcasts
actually end up doing betterduring the rest of the day.

(20:23):
And there's a good reason forthat.
It's that people, the usedstate of people in the morning
is to understand what's beengoing on in the world, to
connect with the world as theygo to work.
When they've finished work,they don't want any more
connecting to the world, and sothat's why they put on the
music, that's what they that whythey put on, you know, a

(20:45):
podcast or whatever.
So the use states are quitedifferent.
So although it doesn't look asif it's as if it's really what
happens, it's interesting seeingtwo separate bits of data
showing that that is the the youknow, that that is actually
what goes on.

Sam Sethi (21:01):
Or just people are bored at work and just want to
put a podcast on while they'rehaving to type out a
spreadsheet.

Yeah, yeah, no, indeed.

Announcer (21:09):
Hey, you with the ears.
If you are enjoying this show,you should also be enjoying the
pod news daily podcast.
It's five minutes long everyday with your daily update for
podcasting and on demand.
It's like the email newsletter,but ideal for you if you can't
be bothered reading that, or youcan't read at all.
No judgment.
I'm just an AI voice and I'mthick as a plank.
Artificial intelligence, don'tmake me laugh.

(21:31):
Anyway, you can find the podnews daily podcast at
podnews.net slash listen.
Now back to these two guys.
The pod news weekly review withBuzzSprout with BuzzSprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.

Right, let's go around the world.
Where should we go first, Sam?

Sam Sethi (21:53):
Uh Italia.
What's going on in the lovelycountry of Italy?

There is a new podcast company which has just
been launched.
Interestingly, there is a mediainvestor called SG Company,
which uh invests in mediathings, and it has just launched
a company called Sounds GreatSRL, which I quite like because
clearly SG doesn't stand forsounds great, but now it does.
So very clever.

(22:17):
They're working with a digitalaudio company called MDE, which
has a nice core man called MarcoLagronegro working for it, who
I've uh met a few times.
So that looks really cool.
So that's nice to end upseeing.
Talking about new companies,new company here in Australia,
down there in Melbourne, frozenMelbourne, Jetpack Media, a

(22:40):
creator, representation house,and media publisher, has been
launched by a former executivefor both ARN and for Spotify.
Interestingly, he ends upsaying, literally, just in his
second paragraph of hisannouncement press release,
dumping radio ads into podcastsor repurposed television

(23:02):
television commercials intocreative video is like going to
a steak restaurant and onlyordering soup.
It's not technically illegal,but you're missing the point.
Yes.
I think he's absolutely right.
What's going on in the UnitedStates of America Shire?

Sam Sethi (23:19):
Well, oh no, no, we can't talk about that.
Now, in podcasting.
Yes.
Sorry, sorry.
In podcasting terms, PresidentBarack Obama's making a guest
appearance on the final everMark Marin show.
What the no, what WTF.
Sorry.

You know what?
You know what WTF stands for.
Stands for stands for what'sthat for?
That's what it stands for.

Sam Sethi (23:43):
Stands for bleep machine required.
Host failure.
Yes.
Now Mark Marin's uh calling itquips for some reason.

Yes, he did.
Number 1686 is where he got to.
And President Barack Obama washis last guest.
Of course, he was a guest quitesome time ago and kind of made
that show to be even bigger thanit than it was.
President Obama, as you'll hearfrom this clip, was quite a fan
of Mark Marin.

Barack Obama (24:11):
I think that part of the reason you had such a
big fan base during the 16-yearrun is there was a core decency
to you and the conversations youhad that I think speaks to who
we are.
Most people are really decent.
And I think that's why whenthey hear somebody else who is,

(24:31):
it gives them courage and givesthem hope, and you should be
proud of having done it.

What a lovely man President Barack Obama was,
and indeed still is.
Although, gosh, you can knowsomething like that.
You can tell that he's old now.
He's he's got the old voicenow.
He's he's there there'ssomething about his voice when
you have a listen to thatinterview.
There's something about thatvoice.
Maybe it's just that maybe allof it, the all of those teeth

(24:56):
aren't aren't his anymore.
I don't know, but there'sdefinitely something about that
voice.
Really interesting.
Also, the Sean Ryan show, whichis one of the US's top 50
podcasts assigned with DaylightMedia.
Now that's a big, big deal.
The show was with CumulusMedia.
Last month, if you read theWall Street Journal, they said
that um the show was to be soldfor in a deal worth $10 million.

(25:18):
So wow.
So Daylight Media jumping in.
They probably haven't spent $10million, but who knows?
They're an expansion of Q code,which has existed for the last
um three or four years or so.
But he seems to be doing quitewell for himself.
Sean Ryan, which is nice, got abig uh focus in the Wall Street
Journal over the weekend.
You might remember that SeanRyan was the person who the

(25:40):
Cybertruck bomber rang to give astatement to.
So yeah, there's a thing.

Announcer (25:46):
People news on the Pod News Weekly Review.

In the latest episode of Podcast Perspectives,
I loved this.
Uh, Lex Friedman, not that one,said he was offered, quotes,
more money than I think anyonewill ever offer me ever again
for a job to work at Spotify.
This was back in the madness, Ithink 2019 or so.
He was offered a total of threemillion dollars for three
years.
He turned it down becausefrankly, he didn't want to

(26:12):
commute into New York everysingle day and not see his
family, which I think is a verygood and wise thing.
But uh gosh, it's uh quite alisten.
You should uh find the podcastperspectives podcast wherever
you found this one.
Uh also Laura Hagan has beenannounced at ACAST as SVP,
regional MD Americas and GlobalHead of Agency Relations.

(26:36):
There's a business card that'llfold out.
She is a big deal, apparently.
She joins from iHeartMedia, shejoins from Zeta Global, and
ACAST are very excited aboutnabbing her, so that is good.
Right, let's move on to uhawards.
And if you want to know how towin a gold, then uh you should
go into that there London onTuesday, the 11th of November.

(26:59):
There is a free event happeningat City University.
It's called Podcast Gold, anevening of British Podcast Award
winners.
They do this every single year,and it's basically lots of the
British Podcast Award winnerssaying exactly how they won
gold, so you can too.
You'll find details of that inthe pod news newsletter.
Also, events going on South bySouthwest here in Sydney, which

(27:23):
uh has a bunch of podcastingstuff going on, which is very
exciting.
And Apple Podcasts gettinginvolved, just launching
Creators We Love in Australia,joining the US, the UK, and
Canada.
A bunch of people here, so it'snice that uh Apple have
remembered that we exist downhere.

Announcer (27:40):
The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday
in the Pod News newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.

Sam Sethi (27:50):
RSS.com.
I mean, Alberto must be verybusy at the moment.
He's writing blog posts and nowhe's doing this stuff.
He's announced full support forthe podcast location tag, the
updated 2025 version that youand I were talking about months
ago.
Yes.
Tell me more.

Yes, I believe that this is the first podcast
hosting company that is actuallyproperly supporting the 2025
version of the podcast locationtag.
So it's using OpenStreetMap IDsas it should be.
It's got support for both whatthis podcast is about, or
rather, I should say what placethis podcast is about, as well

(28:27):
as what place this podcast isbeing recorded in.
So it's got support for both ofthose.
It's a really nice UX, it's oneof the best bits of UX for
that.
So yeah, it's very smart.
You should go and um and uhhave a play with that if you've
not done so already.
There is a demo as well, whichdoesn't quite use the same UX,

(28:48):
by the way, but there is a demoshowing how to how to do that
for yourself if other podcasthosting companies want to put
that in.
But it does look very, verysmart.
So hurraforrss.com.
Uh, because I think that that'sdefinitely a good thing.
Uh of course, the location tagssupported by TrueFans.
So you can go and uh seelocation tags in there.

Sam Sethi (29:11):
Yeah, I mean somebody said this week though that I
think it was you actually,James, who said that we can't
get access to the location tagthrough an API because what's
lacking right now is chicken andegg.
We we want more location tagsso that we can start to build
things like Maps FM, which Iknow you were an advisor to a

(29:32):
little while back, which youknow again layers on top and
adds metadata makes itinteresting.
But we can't do any of thatyet.

So well, we can we can, but we the the way of
doing it right now is that youhave to read every single RSS
feed out there and uh grab thelocation information from the
RSS feed.
Now that's perfectly doable, ofcourse.
And in fact, if you have a lookat the Pod News website, our
podcast.

(29:59):
Directory and you have a lookat the episode list, then where
there is a location in theepisode list, then I'm already
doing that.
So you can actually go thatfar.
What I was hoping for is in thepodcast index API, there is
currently an API call for slashrecent.

(30:22):
And all that slash recent doesis it shows you the last you can
have episodes slash recent oryou can have shows slash recent.
And if you have a look atepisodes slash recent, for
example, it will show you thelast you know 50 episodes that
the podcast index has seen.
So you can actually use thatAPI call to go and have a look

(30:45):
for recent shows or indeed allthe way back to the beginning if
you call if you call it enoughtimes.
And what I'm hoping that we canbuild is slash locations slash
recent, which does exactly thesame job, but it just looks at
any podcast episode with alocation tag in there.
But what I am thinking is thatat the moment the Pod News

(31:32):
podcast sample is about four orfive hundred thousand shows, so
it's about half a million shows.
Quite a lot of those willalready have location tags in
them.
So perhaps I can actually getgoing anyway and start passing
some of those location tags.
So my first job is to do thaton the JavaScript-driven episode

(31:54):
pages, and then we'll see if Ican build something which is
more impressive in terms ofpulling all of those things
together.

Sam Sethi (32:01):
Good luck.
I'll be uh watching thatspells.

One of the things, by the way, that we that
that I have belatedly realizedis that as part of the
podcasting 2.0 work, we reallyshould be suggesting what the
icon for each of these toolsshould look like.
So in the case of location, I'msuggesting that it's a

(32:25):
teardrop-like map point.
That's that that's all.
So I'm not saying use this usethis icon because that has
licensing implications and itmight not fit with the other
things and blah blah blah.
But I think if we say pleasedon't use a pin, use a use a
teardrop-like map pin for this,please don't use a an X or a

(32:51):
Target.
You know what I mean?
And similarly, I think thatwe've we've we've missed the
boat a little bit in terms ofthe funding tag, but the funding
tag, ideally, whatever platformthat you have a look at it on,
should have the same icon insome way, shape, or form, just
as we have for a play button, astop button, and a pause button.

(33:11):
And I think we've probablymissed a bit of a a bit of you
know of a trick with just youknow not actually saying this is
the funding tag, and ideallythe icon for it should be
something to do with a dollarsign in a circle or something.
I don't know.
But you but but you know what Imean, so that so that we don't

(33:33):
end up with lots of differenticons for the same uh type of
tool.

Sam Sethi (33:38):
Yeah, I mean we've talked about this before.
I mean, Microsoft in the earlydays when I was there, when
Excel and Word and PowerPointwere all run by three teams,
they all chose different iconsin different locations in
different positions.
So the learning curve was justridiculous.
And then somebody withinSeattle said, right, stop, and
then they came up with astandardized toolbar with

(34:00):
standardized icons, and then ofcourse the learning curve was
reduced massively.
And I would happily sign up todoing that with TrueFans if
somebody came up with a set ofstandards for the icons.
I would yeah, happily changethe icons.
Yeah, yeah.

And I know that there's a podcast font out there
which is actually quite useful.
And again, I'm not saying usethat font, but what I am saying
is it if we've got something, ifwe've got something like a like
a play button, everybodyrecognises a play button, even
though it's actually, I mean,it's the direction of the
magnetic tape that used to gothrough the thing.
I mean, it's not um it's notreally got anything to do with

(34:40):
how you play media now, but it'sjust a symbol that we all know
and understand.
And maybe we should be doing alittle bit more of that, and
maybe that's something for thePSP, who knows?
But we will, but we will see.
What else is going on?
Should we talk about some apps?

Sam Sethi (34:55):
Yeah, no, Marco Armin from Overcast has released a
new beta.
What's he given us?
Yes, uh sorry, sorry, he haspodcasting to the o, support for
every tank, and micropayments.

No, he hasn't given us that.
He hasn't given us any of that.
What he does say is thatactually downloads are getting
more and more complicatedbecause of ad blocking VPNs,
because of networks where youhave ad blocks built in and all
of that kind of stuff.
So he basically needed torebuild his entire download

(35:30):
code.
And I think it it'sinteresting, some people would
just turn around and say, ifyou're running an ad blocking
VPN, you deserve everything thatyou get.
But Marco is turning around andgoing, No, it's still my
problem.
It's still my issue if somebodycan't download a show because
it happens to have a chartablelink in it, and that bit happens
to be blocked.
I should be able to at leasttell the user, yeah, this isn't

(35:54):
downloading because X.
And so I think he's doingexactly the right sort of thing.
Quite an interesting Redditthat he now runs.
So worth a peek at that.
Quite also interesting in termsof Metacast, which is what I'm
calling an advanced podcast app.
It's got lots of AI goodness inthere, if there is such a
thing.

(36:14):
Anyway, I've been I've beensaying to them for a while, you
should stop spending your tokensproducing transcripts when
we're all producing them foryou.
And so now he produces, and sonow he supports creator-made
transcripts as well as as wellas making them.
So if you're using the podcasttranscript tag, then he will

(36:37):
ingest those instead, which is avery good thing.
They're currently having a 50%off sale as well in what the
company calls its 12-monthsurvivor versary, which I think
is an is an is an excellent wayof putting it, because he, like
you, are entirely bootstrapped.
So yeah, so so there's a thing.

Sam Sethi (36:56):
The next iPad OS 26.1 will include a game control for
USB microphones.
Do you do you use an iPad atall?

Yes, I I do use an iPad, but not for recording
things.
But actually, it you can plugin a USB microphone into your
iPad.
It would be a really goodrecording tool if you could
actually turn your microphonedown a bit in many cases.
So that's exactly what they'vedone.
So it should be quite a goodrecording device if you're if

(37:26):
you're on the move.
And that maybe is the thingthat's been missing there.
So 26.1 for iPad OS and indeedfor iPhone OS is coming out in
the next few weeks.

Sam Sethi (37:37):
Now, here's another company called Audiogram, a tool
to make social video from yourpodcast.
Uh, it's launched a freeAI-powered podcast promo tool.
Now I'll have a look at thedemo that they gave us, James.
Um it's a bit it's a bitstrange.

It's been built to explore the latest AI video
generation models.
It uh creates a whimsicalscript and then generates a
short promo video.
I'm not quite sure of the pointof it, but nevertheless, it's
quite fun.
If you go and have a play, itmade this very weird 10-second
clip for us in a 1950s style.
Betty, I've got it.

Barack Obama (38:14):
The news source for the man of the future.
It's called a pod news.
A pod, dear?
Goodness, will it fit in thevegetable CRISPR?

Yes, I'm not quite sure what any of that has,
uh, but um but still.
Worth a play.
You'll find a link to that.
Just search for audiogram onthe pod news website.

Announcer (38:31):
Boostergram.
Boostergram, booster grand,super comments, zaps, fan mail,
fan mail, super chats, andemail.
Our favorite time of the week,it's the Pod News Weekly Review
inbox.

Yes, so many different ways to get in touch
with us.
Fan mail by using the link inour show notes, super comments
on true fans, boosts everywhereelse, and email or indeed
comments on Spotify if you must.
We share any money that we makeas well.
And we've got a fan mail,haven't we?

Sam Sethi (39:00):
We have, yes.
It says, Hi, James and Sam.
I'm a little behind, so I'mcommenting on this September the
12th episode.
I think.

September the 12th?
How behind are you?

Sam Sethi (39:11):
Can I tell him other news what's happening in the
world?
Because he may not have heardthat either.
Um I have a comment on thechapters topic.
You questioned why chapters arenot required by hosts, aside
from being more work.
The hosts might not be able tooffer AI and the podcaster might
be averse to AI.
Chapters wouldn't really makesense for some podcasts.

(39:32):
If it's a non-fiction podcastthat just covers one subject, I
agree.
You can't easily break thatdown into subtopics.
Yep, no worry at all.
Additionally, if you have somekind of serial podcast, again,
not needed, I agree, forchapters.
And then he said you wouldn'twant people skipping ahead.
Correct, when they're in aserial story.

(39:52):
That's what I think.
Best Devin.
He, him, his, because we werequestioning in the past whether
Devin was a he, him, or her.
Yes.
And yes, uh thank you.
Yeah, no, I agree.
It's not for everything,chapters, but where it is
appropriate, like shows likethis, then certainly chapters
are very welcome.

Yes, no, I would certainly agree with that.
Chapters are a good thing, butthey shouldn't necessarily be in
everything.
And I think that's one of thethat's one of the issues with uh
some of the AI-driven chapterservices that you hear.
A bunch of uh additional uhmessages as boosts, they're all
coming from true fans, and thisis your gamification working, uh

(40:30):
Sam.
Because so Lyceum sends us abag of Richards.
David John Clark, aka the latebloomer actor, is trying to get
the number one position as thesuper fan of this podcast.
He is an active listener, asmiley face, followed by the
late bloomer actor saying,trying, but your budget is
breaking me, Lyceum.
Followed by Lyceum replying andsaying, quote from the late

(40:51):
bloomer actor, trying, but youryour budget is breaking me.
I had to top up my wallet inorder to send this new booster
gram.
This time it's a reference tocyberspace in a science fiction
TV series, to which the lateBloomer actor replies, Lyceum
replies, and so on and so forth.
So I'm a big fan of yourgamification, Sam, and long,
long may it last.

(41:12):
Yes.
But he does say, when will wesee the level feature?
No hurry, I'm pulling your lega bit.
What's the level feature inthis thing?

Sam Sethi (41:21):
So part of the gamification is we we we we
teased out that there was alevel zero for everybody.
But of course, withingamification, you add points,
points add to badges.
So we're gonna issue badges andlevels.
So again, it's just all part ofthe gamification.
People like claiming andacquiring badges, you know,
first first common or first to athousand points or whatever it

(41:45):
may be.
So there's a whole new set ofgamification features that we're
bringing out very shortly.

Yes, it it it's it's it is quite fun.
And I do I do enjoy the latebloomer actor basically saying
to Martin, you already are thesuper fan on the Pod News Weekly
by a mile.
Can't you let let me have thePod News Daily?
This game only ends up givingmore beers to James, which is
great, of course.
Uh, I would I would totallyagree with that.

(42:13):
Speaking of beers, a row ofducks, 2,222 sats from the ugly
quacking duck.
It's nice to hear from Bruceagain.
I think the next step in thisweird AI design culture will be
the human stroke AI,transhumanism.
I believe that is the term.
We are heading that way like aplane at 65,000 feet, heading

(42:36):
straight down.
Yikes.
Just a bit of dark in a brightday.
Thanks for the episode 73.
Yeah.

Sam Sethi (42:42):
Well, there you go.
Yeah, I mean, uh Peter Thielwants the singularity.
Elon Musk wants thesingularity, so yes, they want
to be man and machine.

And and uh and a message from uh Neil Vellio,
who of course is one of ourpower supporters, uh, one of our
23 power supporters.
Thank you, Neil, for that.
Although he doesn't think muchof flight cast.
Oh well, there you go.
If you want to join Neil and bea power supporter, then please
do.
Weekly.podnews.net would be afine thing.
Uh Rocky Thomas has done that,Rachel Colbert has done that,

(43:15):
Mike Hamilton at the Rogue MediaNetwork has done that, as has
Cameron Mole and Will Clark.
And you could too.
Weekly.podnews.net is the plan.
So anything exciting happenedfor you this week, Sam?

Sam Sethi (43:29):
Well, this week I handed out an award because you
weren't available at theInternational Podcast Awards.
And what was that like?
It was lovely.
Oh, yes, lots of people, greatdrinks, fun night.
It's almost as if you haven'tdone that yet.
Yes.
Yes.
Time travel hasn't quiteoccurred.
So that's that's tonight,actually, as we record this

(43:51):
show.
Well, very good.

Well, I hope that you have fun tonight doing
that.
And I look forward to well, Iwas gonna say I look forward to
hearing from the the winners,but of course, um I I will
already know who the winners areby the time this goes out.
So that's a thing.
Yes.

Sam Sethi (44:05):
And then the other thing we will be doing this week
is posting our pricing for ourhosting and opening up the wait
list.

Oh, there you go.
There's an excitement.

Sam Sethi (44:16):
What's happening for you, James?

Well, I tell you what, if you thought that was
exciting, then you ain't heardnothing yet because my goodness,
if you look at the top of thepod news newsletter, uh, which
of course you'll be gettingevery single day, then you will
notice that the logo at the topof the pod news newsletter now
changes colour if you're usingdark mode.

(44:39):
Finally.
So it turns out who'd havethought that Google, of all
companies, would be so bad atfollowing uh any form of
standard when it comes to theiremail services.
Gmail is impossible to developfor.
But uh, as long as you're notusing Gmail, then it now looks

(45:00):
quite nice.
So hooray for that.
I have worked out how to do it,and I'm going to stick it onto
my personal blog as well,because it's nowhere near as
easy as it is on the internet tocode all of this stuff for
email and and to make sure, bythe way, that it actually works
everywhere.
So there's a thing, but yeah.
But apart from that, nothingparticularly exciting other than

(45:21):
of course being here in Sydney.
Oh, there was something elsethat was particularly exciting.
So earlier on today, you knowhow we occasionally have beers
in a pub?
That's where we normally havebeers in a pub.
Yes.
Yes, but uh yes, but we havebeers in a pub with listeners to
the podcast.
Yes, so the there were uh beersin a pub earlier on in the

(45:44):
evening for people that listenedto the Game Changers podcast,
which is a radio podcast inSydney, who've been who've been
very mean about me recently, andand I and I discovered that
they were having drinks, and soI went to say hello.
Not only did not only did I seeall of the folks who do that
particular podcast, and that wasvery nice, but somebody came up

(46:05):
to me, Sam, and said, I listento the Pod News Weekly Review
every week.
Which was which was uh fairlyamazing.
So hurrah! So, yeah, so veryenjoyable that was just to say
hello to to a few people and uhyes, that was um that was good
fun in uh in a random pubsomewhere in Chatswood in

(46:27):
Sydney.
Oh, I forgot to say two twoquick things.

Sam Sethi (46:30):
First of all, looking at your website, when did you
add the hamburger?

Oh the hamburger, the hamburger has
been there for a while, but onlyif you're on if you're on tiny
yes, only if you're on tiny.

Sam Sethi (46:41):
I'm on a big screen and I can see your hamburger.

I beg your pardon.
It's the way you walk.
On on what?
On uh the pod news website oron Pod News Daily, on the Pod
News website.
Oh yes, yes, yes, that thatthat is it it's always visible
on the Pod News website, yes.
Yes, it's uh hiding away in thecorner.
Never noticed it.

Sam Sethi (47:03):
Right, and then the other thing I forgot to mention,
I went to an Irish wedding thisweekend in the most oh yeah,
you know that'll be grand.
Yes, it was.
It was lovely, but it it was inthe most Irish of sounding
places called Thurmanfecken.
Oh nice, yes.
I swear, you can look it up,it's about an hour north of

(47:25):
Dublin.
Oh my god.
I mean you have to say it in anIrish accent because it gets
far too rude if you don't.
So yes, it was Thurman Fecken.
Yes, all weekend.
And you enjoyed it, did you?
Wonderful.
My liver didn't, but I did.
Yes, it was lovely.
Yes.
Four o'clock in the morning.

Very, very little Ireland.
I I've done Dublin, I've doneCork, and that's it.
And I would like to see a bitmore of Ireland at some point.
I I really should go and findan excuse.
Yes, very pretty.
Oh, and I've done Belfast aswell.
Not so don't at me.
Don't not so pretty.
Not so pretty.
No, not really.
Not really.

(48:03):
Yes.
Anyway, that's it for thisweek.
Uh, all of our podcast storieswere taken from the Pod News
Daily Newsletter, which is verygood, and you can get it for
free at podnews.net.

Sam Sethi (48:13):
With dark mode.
And you can support this showby streaming Sats.
You can give us feedback usingthe Buzzsprout thumb mail, a
like Debon.
You can you also send us asuper comment like most people
do, or become a power supporterlike the 23andme, and be a power
fan at weekly.podnews.net.
Power fan, eh?

Uh our music is from TM Studios.
Our voiceover's Sheila D.
Our audio is recorded usingCleanFeed and my mobile phone
this week because the the Wi-Fiin this hotel is rubbish.
But then, you know, if I willstay in the cheapest hotel.
Uh, and we're hosted andsponsored by Buzz Sprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.
Who said YMCA?

Announcer (48:52):
Get updated every day.
Subscribe to our newsletter atpodnews.net.
Tell your friends and grow theshow.
Support us.
And support us.
The pod news weekly review willreturn next week.
Keep listening.

All Episodes

Spotflix - is the Spotify/Netflix deal a gamechanger for podcasting?

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Crime Junkie

The Brothers Ortiz

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

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Spotflix - is the Spotify/Netflix deal a gamechanger for podcasting?