Spotify Chasing YouTube While Ads Fall Short - and JAR Podcast Solutions - Podnews Weekly Review

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters In Apple
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Find them in the transcript orhold down the playback bar, or
just listen to the whole thing.
That dog won't walk itself.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
The last word in podcasting news.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview with James Cridland and
Sam Sethi.

Sam Sethi (00:19):
I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm
Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans.

Roger Nairn (00:24):
It used to be that podcasts were a nice to have,
something that brands weretesting out and playing with.
Now they're seeing the value,roger.

James Cridland (00:31):
Nairn from JAR Podcast Solutions on branded
podcasts Plus financials fromSpotify.

Daniel Ek (00:37):
The one area that hasn't yet met our expectations
is our ads business.

And financials from Acast.

Glen Glenday (00:42):
I'm particularly encouraged by the powerful
momentum we're seeing in NorthAmerica, which has been the
primary growth engine again forus this quarter.

Plus YouTube's Neil Mohan makes friends.
This podcast is sponsored byBuzzsprout, with the tools,
support and community to makesure you keep podcasting Support
that I've personally used thisweek and it's been like no other
.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting with buzzsproutcom.

(01:10):
Yes, and just before we begin,Sam, I've had an email with a
complaint.

Sam Sethi (01:15):
Oh, no, okay.

And the email is from a I won't name him, but
he's a very, very big LA radiopersonality Howard Stern's
called us, hasn't he Wow?
okay, amazing, very well known.
Anyway, he says Hi, james, bigfan here.
I follow you on all the socials.
I'm on, listen frequently toyour podcasts and radio
appearances and have even boughtyou a coffee in the past you

(01:38):
have.
Thank you, you have mentionedyou use an automated tool to
remove filler words like um ander on this podcast.
Yes, we do, smart man.
I edit mine by hand every dayand it takes me more time than
I'd like.
I'm writing to ask if you couldadd you know to your list of
filler words to be removed.
You might not realise just howoften it ends up on the podcast

(02:02):
between you and your guests, butonce one does, it gets
maddening to listen to.
Here's less than a minute fromthe most recent episode with six
occurrences of you know as anexample.
Yeah, so I'm going to tryreally hard.
Anyway, we'll find out how wellI've done at the end and you
know you're not going to be ableto achieve it, don't you?
Hey, very good.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
We're sorry, but now it's time for more news about
Spotify on the Pod News WeeklyReview oh good, that jingle was
very needed because it's goingto be Spotify heavy to begin
this show.

Sam Sethi (02:37):
The Q2 25 financial report's out and it looks like
Spotify's still growinggangbusters.
So what have they done, James?
Well, I mean, they've donereally well in terms of money.
Financial reports out and itlooks like Spotify is still
growing gangbusters.
So what have they done, James?

Well, I mean, they've done really well in
terms of money and they'remaking more profit 19% higher
profit year on year.
They've got more users using itas well up 11%.
They've hit over 100 millionsubs in Europe as if anybody
cares.
And all of that, in fact.
The only thing that theyhaven't done very well is their

(03:08):
ads business.
Their ads revenue has actuallydecreased by 1% to US$523
million.
Daniel Ek even said at thebeginning of his opening remarks
that he's not happy.

Daniel Ek (03:24):
As I look at our progress, the one area that
hasn't yet met our expectationsis our ads business.
We've simply been moving tooslowly and it's taken longer
than expected to see theimprovements we initiated to
take hold.
It's really an executionchallenge, not a problem with
the strategy, and while I'munhappy with where we are today,
I remain confident in theambitions we laid out for this

(03:45):
business and we're workingquickly to ensure we're on the
right path, and we are seeingsome promising signs in our
programmatic business, which Ithink will set us up nicely for
26.

Sam Sethi (03:57):
Yeah, he's not happy, and I have to say that the
stock market isn't happy either.
The share price fell over 8% onthe results.
That's never good, but let'stalk about throwing someone
under the bus, james, somebodycalled Lee Brown.
He's leaving the company bymutual agreement.
Yay, really, yeah, good luck,mate.

Mutual agreement , yes, mutual agreement.
And guess what he was?
He was VP of global advertising.
So trouble at Spotify, onewould guess.
But still, there we are.
But they did talk about video,didn't they?
Back in December 2023, thecompany only had 100,000 video
podcasts on its platform.

Gustav Soderström (04:38):
But now Gustav Söderström says that
there are and there are now morethan 430,000 video podcasts on
Spotify.
And video continues tooutperform, with consumption
trending higher and higher,growing 20 times faster than
audio-only consumption since2024.
And more than 350 million usershave streamed a video podcast

(04:59):
on our platform, and that's a65% increase year over year, so
that's good news.

Those figures do look quite impressive.
I would say, though, thatSpotify only launched their big
video push at the end of lastyear, November 2024.
I was there, and many largervideo podcasts are also.
As we reported earlier lastmonth, I think most large video
podcasters are given five grandof advertising to kick things

(05:27):
off, which may mean that there'sa temporary uplift.
So not so sure about all ofthose numbers and how realistic
they are, but this was a reallyinteresting clip later in the
earnings call, because Ilistened to it, so you don't
have to.
Sam Alex Nordstrom added thiswhat's?

Gustav Soderström (05:44):
more.
Users who watch a podcastconsume one and a half X more
than users who just listen.

Yeah, so that is an amazing stat 1.5 times.
What do you think of thosestats?

Sam Sethi (05:57):
Well, it's something that Daniel X said on his
LinkedIn mini video.
They're measuring customerlifetime value now as a metric
of value to the platform and I'msurprised they weren't doing it
before.
But you know, clearly this istheir new buzzword internally
and, yeah, one time, 1.5 timesmore Great.

(06:17):
I think you know how sticky theplatform is.
I think you could convert thatword customer lifetime value
into listen time percentcompleted the ones that we use.
And I think we're all going downthe same road.
Right, youtube uses watch time,so rest in peace the download.
But this is where well, youknow um sorry.

(06:41):
I have to give it a kickingevery now and again, and the
reality is that you know I'msorry.
I have to give it a kickingevery now and again, and the
reality is that you know.
Welcome to the party, spotify.

This is what they're going to be metricing on
as well that, but Spotifyhaven't been reporting time
spent, listening time within theapp.
All they report on is monthlyactive users, and it would be

(07:10):
more helpful, I think, ifSpotify were to start talking
about time spent within the appor time spent on Spotify.
That would be quite helpful, Ithink, but clearly we don't have
any of that data.
What else have they beentalking about in terms of, I
mean, clearly, video, I guess?

Sam Sethi (07:27):
Video.
Now you and I have talked aboutwhen will Spotify do live.
You know, it seems that that'sthe one gap in their strategy.
They bought Greenroom manyyears ago and sort of you know,
stuck it in a back roomsomewhere, never to be used
again.
But the thing they've beendoing now is they're putting
more 16.9 images into the ui.

(07:48):
Not everyone's very happy aboutit.
They have put in a recent betaopen the app.
It says and watch on your tvfor the best viewing experience.
And we know that youtube isvery big on the fact that
they're a tv first big screen uiapp and I think you know again
the wannabe youtube companyspotify are very desperate to

(08:11):
copy them, so they've gone tothe youtube style 16.9 images.
they've integrated it with thetv as a way to watch it.
They're bringing pushnotifications now for new
concert film from Miley Cyrus asan example.
Oh, miley Cyrus, how exciting.
She wasn't in your Aussie Top100, was she no?

(08:32):
No, well, you know should crownthe house a bit, but you know
anyone you claim anyone Oi?

it's a Melbourne band as well, you know.

Sam Sethi (08:40):
I would ask the Finn brothers where they came from
first, right.
Anyway, let's get off our radiodays Now.
I don't know whether this 16.9is very good.

These 16.9 images.
So they are the images that youget on YouTube.
They're images that look likeTV screens and they appear to be
using those more and more forpodcasts now, which essentially
means because we are allproducing square images and they
appear to be just putting thosein the middle of a 69.

(09:13):
And basically, you know, thisis only available on audio.
It's a bit of a bad experiencetype of communication, I think,
going on there, they clearlywant people to be uploading
video and maybe we'll see alittle bit more of this that
actually they will get veryupset if we continue just to
upload audio and they'll de-rankus from the algorithm and they

(09:36):
will, you know, do other thingsin there as well.

Sam Sethi (09:38):
Well, I have a fix for you, james, or I have a fix
for Spotify.
The podcast image tag would fixthis totally, because obviously
with podcast image tag wouldfix this totally, because
obviously with podcast image tagyou can put multiple images.
You could put in your squarecover art, you could put in a
tower or a 16.9.
You could set the purpose forSpotify.
So the actual tag would fix allof these problems for Spotify

(10:03):
if they ingested the RSS feedwith that tag.

Yeah, well, I mean, maybe Spotify don't want
to wear around it.
Maybe the whole point here isthat Spotify want the audio
experience to look bad so thatmore podcast creators move over
to video.
But yeah, who knows?
Spotify obviously has a thingcalled SOA, which is their way
of linking from Spotify to asupporting cast premium stream

(10:31):
or a Patreon premium stream oreven one from Supercast.
That has been going for a while.
Spotify don't make any moneyout of those.
You have been talking aboutsecure RSS, as has Oscar from
Fountain.
The rest of the world is, Ithink, still waiting for your
documentation.
It's there.

(10:52):
It's there.
It's there.
Sorry Scroll down the script.
Good, excellent, well, that'slovely news, because there's
also some new documentation, ora new proposal from somebody
called Daniel Matthews.
Now Daniel is basically tryingto rebuild Spotify, soa,

(11:14):
spotify's way of signing into asupporting cast stream, into
open podcast apps, which Ithought was interesting.
But then the next thing that Ithought very, very quickly was
yeah, this looks interesting andit's a brilliant piece of
writing, by the way, it's areally nicely laid out spec, but
it has the same problem thatSpotify's problem is is that,

(11:39):
you know, obviously the podcastapp doesn't earn any money from
all of these paid feeds, and ofcourse, that isn't the case for
Apple Podcasts.
It isn't the case with SecureRSS either, and so I'm just sort
of curious as to I mean,obviously you will be turning

(12:00):
around and saying that yourSecure RSS tool is the best.

Sam Sethi (12:05):
So we've said in the past that you know the reason
why Spotify SOA existed SpotifyOpen Access was because they
didn't want to pay the Apple tax, and so they put the onus on
the people like Patreon andMemberful to take the money from
the user for premium contentand then used an OAuth just to

(12:25):
actually suck the data in andallow the user to pay.
So that was the private feedfunction into Spotify and great,
and that worked.
Of course, things changed and Ithink and I've said before that
I think Spotify is going toprobably either kill or change
the relationship for Spotify SOA, because there's money on the

(12:46):
table a lot of money in the caseof Patreon over $100 million
last year in profit and soSpotify is going to sit there
and go.
Actually, you know whatAdvertising?
hmm, yeah, that may beinteresting, but we want to get
more of this paid premiumsubscription money and I think
they're going to go after it.
Now the positives of SpotifySOA.

(13:07):
Let me be clear.
It means that if I get mypremium content from Patreon, I
actually could do the same thingto True Fans Fountain Podcast
Guru if we implemented a similarmechanism as Spotify SOA.
So if you're a podcast host likeBuzzsprout or rsscom or

(13:28):
Blueberry, you could replicatewhat Patreon do.
You could say to the creatorthat you host the podcaster you
host.
Here's your freemium feed, butactually you can charge a
premium feed, like Buzzsproutalready do, and we will allow
the apps to verify that you'veactually paid and so you could

(13:49):
have your content on any app.
You don't have to have it tiedto a single app, and that is the
benefit of Spotify's model andthe benefit of Patreon doing it
that way and the benefit, Ithink, that hosts could do it.
Now, you were right, james.
It means that the apps make nomoney.
I think that's just acontractual issue.
You could have an agreement.

Yeah, I think it is.
I think it is.
I think you could very easilybuild in, just like Apple has an
affiliate deal already whereyou earn I think at the moment
you earn the first month ofanybody's podcast subscription
I'm sure that you could buildfirst month of anybody's podcast
subscription.
I'm sure that you could buildthat sort of thing in so that if
the sale came from the app,then you end up sharing in that

(14:33):
money somehow.
It's not a part of Supercast orSupporting Cast or Patreon
quite yet, but I'm sure thatthat could be doable and in
which case that kind of fixes it.
It does In comparison to.

Sam Sethi (14:46):
Yeah, as I said, the the way that daniel matthews has
presented it is.
It's a replication of spotifysoa for an open rss feed with a
premium and freemium model, andit's not a bad idea.
The secure rss model that weput forward was fundamentally
the user instigates the purchase, so the RSS feed has a paywall

(15:11):
tag podcast, colon, paywall andthen the app reads it.
We present the data at the frontend.
So this audio book is worth Idon't know $10.
The user then pays the $10 onthe app.
The app confirms to the hostthat the payment's been taken
and then the macaroon and theunencrypted version is sent down

(15:33):
the line through a pod.
ping and boom you've got accessto that paid content, that
premium content.
Now, in either case, I thinkthe issue is here At the moment.
Today, what we ask people to do, listeners, if you're a creator
, is listen to me on any appwhere you get your podcast,

(15:54):
which is my freemium content butgo here, set up a new account,
pay there and I have to equallygo and set up a new account and
upload there, and so thatsplitting of the audience and
splitting or additional work iswhat we're trying to get rid of.
So, whether it's the SpotifySOA hosts take the payment or
Secure RSS, where the app takesthe payment we will see which

(16:17):
one wins out.
I don't know yet, but I thinkit's really interesting that
we're both trying to combinepremium and premium content
within the same RSS feed.
I think that's the goal.
First, how you do the paymentswill work it out.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting and you
know, Daniel knows a thing ortwo.
He's built Taddyorg, which isthe same sort of thing, but for
anime and webtoons and thosesorts of things, webtoons and
those sorts of things.
So, yeah, I think there'sdefinitely something there.

(16:54):
It's just working out how youactually share that money and
making sure that this isn't justanother thing that we are
asking podcast app developers toput in to their app without
podcast app developers gettingany money out of it.

Sam Sethi (17:09):
And, as I said last week, I think you know our
sponsor and host, buzzsprout,has all the components.
They have a wallet, they havesubscriptions, they have premium
subscriptions.
They could implement this when,you know, the decision about
how it's going to be done isfinalised and they could be
first down the road with it,because they've got everything
pretty much there.
It's just linking it alltogether now, indeed.

(17:31):
Now, james.
Moving on, JAR Audio hasrebranded to JAR Podcast
Solutions, which doesn't rolloff the tongue as quick.
Why, why have they changed?

Why?
Why would they change?
Well, it's a little bit aboutpositioning, but it's also so.
Roger Nairn, who runs Jar Audio, tells me it's also what people
are asking for in terms ofpodcasts.
They're asking for measurableperformance.
They're asking for a lot ofinformation to really justify

(18:04):
paying for a branded podcast.
I spoke to Roger Nairn and Iasked him so why the new name?

Part of it is obviously the fact that you know
, podcast is evolving.
You know audio and video, youknow we do all of that, we do
everything when it comes to theclients that we work with.
So there's that, which is, youknow, the simple answer.
The larger, more sort ofstructural and strategic answer
for us as an agency is because,you know, again, because the

(18:31):
industry is evolving so much,you know, we're getting asked a
lot more difficult questionsfrom the clients we work with,
specifically CMOs and brandleaders, and they all want to
know sort of what is thispodcast going to do for my brand
?
And you know, the great thingis that we've always had an
answer for that.
We've always been able to, youknow, create great podcasts that
happen to solve differentbusiness challenges, meet their

(18:54):
business goals, and so the thepodcast solution, the solution
side to it all is, is somethingthat we've always been doing,
which is solving, solving,solving business challenges with
podcasts.

So you have a new system as part of this.
It's the launch of the JARsystem, which luckily stands for
Job Audience and Result Exactly.
Tell me about what that systemis and how it works with you.

Absolutely so.
So everything that we look at,we look at through the lens of,
of of this JAR system, as yousaid job, audience and result.
So everything starts with a job.
We, you know, when we sit downwith a, you know, a prospective
client, we always ask them, youknow, what is the job that this
podcast needs to be doing foryou?
And specifically, we work withbrands, enterprise brands,

(19:39):
midsize brands, and you know,going back to the, you know my
original point of the industrychanging.
You know, it used to be thatpodcasts were sort of a nice to
have, you know, something thatbrands were testing out and
playing with.
Now they're seeing the value ina podcast playing a key role in
their marketing ecosystem.
But that doesn't mean that itcan just sit there and be a fun

(20:01):
little toy to play with.
It actually has to have an ROIbehind it.
So what does it need to do?
Let's say you're a brand thatneeds to engage with a specific
audience.
Or let's say you want toincrease your thought leadership
, or you need to educate anaudience on something, or maybe
you just need to engage withthem via great entertainment.
That's the job.

(20:21):
That's the job that thispodcast needs to do.
So then there's the job.
You know that's the job thatthis podcast needs to do.
So then there's the audience.
Now, obviously, we want to knowwho is it that this podcast is
meant for.
But, more specifically, youknow, how are they engaging with
content content these days?
What other podcasts do theylike?
You know what are the otherthings that we need to know
about them in order to trulycreate something that's, you

(20:41):
know, of high value to them.
And then there's the result.
So, at the end of the day, whenyou know, what can we point to
to say this podcast wassuccessful?
How can we measure that?
You know we work with a bunchof incredible partners that help
us measure.
But also, you're looking at allthe different analytics and
everything that we have accessto these days as an industry.
You know we're building, youknow, custom stacks, depending

(21:05):
on the clients we're workingwith.
That allows us to point to thatsuccess.
But then there's the success ofthe podcast, but also what we
want to be able to consistentlydeliver on is you know, how is
this podcast impacting the brandspecifically?

And that's something we're always looking
at, and so how are you measuringsome of those results?
I mean, what are you going backto a client with and saying
this was a successful thingbecause X, you know, typical
marketer answer.

but it depends, you know, and everything is going
to be unique and different for aclient.
But, you know, a lot of timeswe're measuring brand lift.
So we're working with, you know, signal Hills of the world who
are helping us with brand liftstudies.
We're obviously looking at thequalitative and quantitative
side of podcasting.

(21:52):
So we're looking at, obviously,the quantitative side, which is
downloads and the actualengagement rate.
We're looking at listening tothe consumption side of it all.
But then we're also on thequalitative side, looking at
reviews and comments and we'rerunning surveys and we're doing
everything that we need to bedoing in order to, you know, get
as much, you know, input fromthat audience and feedback from

(22:14):
that audience and filtering itback into the project.
But also we are using a ton ofdifferent stacks to measure
conversions.
We're, you know, doingdifferent things to connect the
actual podcast to the branditself.
They're measuring differentimpacts the brand is having on
trust and authority viadifferent surveys that we're
doing.
And we're also, you know, ableto measure things like loyalty

(22:38):
and things like more likelihoodto purchase from or more
likelihood to engage with, youknow, via survey as well.

I'm sure that many of the people who are
enjoying this podcast, I'm surethat the one person who's
enjoying this podcast is curiousabout brand lift, because I
hear that phrase an awful lot.
To be honest, I don't know whatit means.
What does brand lift mean?

Yeah, I mean brand lift is a totally.
It's a catch all right In a lotof ways, and it's what does
Brand Lift mean?
So I'll give you a perfectexample.
We once worked with AmericanExpress on a podcast called
Build it Braver, and when weworked with Signal Hill, we
developed a survey that one ofthe questions we really wanted

(23:33):
to know is how is listening tothis podcast going to increase
or perhaps decrease theconsideration?
In this case, a small businessowner has, in, you know,
subscribing to an AmericanExpress business card, and so in
that case we were able tomeasure a certain percentage
that the podcast had an impacton and we're able to quantify

(23:58):
that.
In some cases, we're looking at, you know, things like
awareness.
You know, did you know aboutthis brand before listening to
the podcast?
And sort of, how does thatimpact it after you've listened?
So it really depends Again.
Marketer's answer.

It depends.
I think you know, way back whenI was writing radio commercials
, we used to talk to directclients and talk to them about
the purchasing ladder andbasically your job as a you know
, as an advertising copywriterwas to get that brand one rung
higher in that ladder.
I mean ideally more than one,but you know what I mean.

(24:32):
So if you were thinking aboutbuying a bed, where would you go
?
Well, you go to this companyand that company and the other
company and you wanted to movethat person higher in that
purchase ladder which I guess isone part of of of a brand lift
it sounds as if it's, um, as ifit's got quite a lot of other
things in there as well.

Well, I mean and and to flip that on the, on the
other end of it, you know, wethink about a purchase funnel
which which always starts withthe sort of top, top level
awareness, you know,understanding what the brand is.
So you know podcast plays agood role in that.
But then, more importantly,there's the engagement side of
of of you know, the, the funnel.
So how long, you know, how longcan we keep their attention and

(25:14):
and sort of capture theirinterest and keep it?
And we always talk about apodcast through jar as as, as
you know, a good podcast issticky, it keeps a listener as,
not only as a subscriber, but itactually gets them, you know,
more into the ecosystem of thebrand itself.
So great podcast is great forthat mid funnel which would be
considered consideration.

(25:35):
This is when they're startingto educate themselves about
certain topic or certain productor understanding, you know,
certain categories, so podcastscan be used for that.
You often see thought leadershipsort of in in that sort of tier
, and then there's the concernand then and then there's the
conversion itself, it's theactual purchase, and you know we
can talk about this for days.
You know some podcasts are arebetter than others when it comes

(25:57):
to conversion, we're of themindset that podcasts as a whole
podcast themselves like a fullbranded show are not what I
would consider to be a goodinvestment.
If you're looking for quickconversion, podcast advertising
is but an actual podcast itself.
You've got to build up anaudience.
You have to layer in a lot ofadvertising, frankly and talking

(26:19):
about yourself and the brand,and that's not what a listener
wants to experience when theylisten to a brand show.
They want you know great.
You know great narrative thatjust happens to be brought to
you by that brand, but you knowsome shows are better than
others when it comes to thoseconversions.

And looking wider at the whole world of
branded podcasts, do you thinkcompanies are taking branded
podcasts seriously or is itsometimes still seen as a bit of
a CEO?
You know, indulgence.

Serial CEO wink yeah, no, it's, it's, it's.
I knew that's what you wantedto say, right, you know, I'd say
it's sort of it's a it's a mix.
I would say that it also verymuch depends on the brand and
how seriously they take therelationship they have with
their audience as a whole.
I wouldn't necessarily put itinto the podcast sort of field.

(27:12):
So, you know, you see a lot ofbrands that are very, you know,
focused on themselves, focusedon, you know, talking about all
the great things that they'redoing, and that's not what
content marketing is about.
You know, on the flip side, yousee brands that are just doing
an incredible job of of ofproviding a ton of different

(27:33):
content that happens to becoming from the brand, and so
they're, they're the ones thattake the podcast a lot more
seriously because, you know,frankly, I think they just have
a ton more respect for their,you know, for their audience,
you know, respecting their timebut also just understanding them
more and having a bit more of adeeper connection with them.
But we do still see, you know,we do still see a lot of the

(27:55):
brand leaders saying you know,my CEO wants a podcast, just as
like from a purely, you know,from a purely like a functional
production standpoint, it, youknow some CEOs can be great.
You know some CEOs are foundersand they've built this company
and nobody knows.
You know the ins and outs of acertain category better than

(28:16):
them.
But then, but then sometimes,sometimes they're just frankly
difficult to work with becausethey're so busy and to actually
produce a podcast with a CEO asa host is incredibly challenging
.
Just because you got to nailthem down as far as timeline
goes and what, what in ourexperience, what's happened, or
what?
What tends to happen is the isthe show loses its cadence and

(28:38):
momentum because you know so,and so will fly off to Davos for
the week and screw the podcastschedule and you know, know,
screw the production schedule,like I got to go here and there
and what ends up happening is,unless you've got a really good
runway of episodes, things getreally disrupted.

Yeah, you've mentioned American Express.
Who else has JAR worked withrecently?

Who else has JAR worked with recently?
Well, recently we just did apodcast with the Wharton School
of Business, which was actuallya collaboration with Accenture,
and then we've also done somestuff with Deloitte, and we
continue to do a lot of greatwork with Amazon.
But we've also worked withCirque du Soleil, lush pretty
much every vertical.

(29:25):
We've done a show in Very nice.

My wife works in the circus here and we went to
watch the Cirque du Soleil inVegas and I was the person
pulled out of the audience to goand perform.
I don't think she's everforgiven me and perform.

I don't think she's ever forgiven me.
I have a.
I have a secret.
I have a wish to do a showentirely based around the people
that get pulled out of theaudience.

Oh yeah, that would be a gosh that would be a
thing.

Actually, just as a side note, I remember once
going to a Cirque du Soleil showin somebody I think it was
Mexico and about five minutesbefore the show was about to
start and everybody was in theirseats, all of a sudden the
lights dimmed, not to the pointwhere you knew that the show was
starting, but something wasabout to happen and all of a
sudden this woman came out ofthe ceiling.
She was hooked into a like abig hula hoop beautiful, like

(30:24):
gold hula hoop and she startedto sort of spin around and
eventually she landed right infront of this couple and took
out a box and handed it to theman there and he proposed to his
girlfriend and it was like themost amazing proposal.
It was awesome, you can't beatthat right Wow Gosh was awesome.

You can't beat that right Wow Gosh.

Yes, let's make sure that my wife won't hear
this particular podcast, becausemy goodness, I was with my wife
at the time and I got an elbowin the ribs.

Exactly right, Roger.
Thank you so much for yoursupport.
The Pod News newsletter, whichI know that you've been doing
for many years, much appreciatedand thank you for joining us.

Thanks so much James Appreciate it.
Thanks for everything you do.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
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.
Thank you.
Now back to these two guys.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
The Pod News Weekly Review with Buzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.

Sam Sethi (31:50):
James, we mentioned last week Apple iOS 26.
I've got to get used to thenumbers they came out.
Keep going.
I don't think I'll ever see iOS100.
No, never going to happen,right.
Just realize the finality of mylife.
Yes, no, never going to happen,right.
I just realised Funality of mylife.

Yes, actually that could be a new game.
What a way to find out.

Sam Sethi (32:10):
Yes, I've got 26 summers to go.
I'll probably get to iOS 50.
Excellent, nice job, sam.
Now the next version that iscoming out is it's got something
that you mentioned last weekcalled enhanced dialogue, which
takes the background noise ormusic and removes it.
Even Now, you've done someplaying around with it this week

(32:31):
.

Yes, I did some playing around with it.
We couldn't write about itbefore this week, because as
soon as Apple gives you adevelopment version of iOS, they
say you are not allowed to tellanybody what you're just about
to end up seeing.
Now lots of YouTubers seem topost willy nilly about it.

(32:53):
But I thought, well, let's benice and only cover it once it's
available to the public, andthat's all good.
So the enhanced dialogue thingis just a little button within
Apple Podcasts and you press itand it does kind of the same job
, as you know, adobe Podcastscan do in tidying up audio or

(33:13):
that sort of thing.
It normalises voices as well,with different volumes, and it
just makes things easier tolisten to.
The one thing that I would sayis that it works very well on
the phone, really nicely on thephone.
It doesn't mess things up toomuch.
It does make voices sound alittle bit thinner, but it

(33:34):
doesn't mess them up too much.
The one thing that I'm reallysurprised at is that it's not
available through Apple CarPlay,because in the car, I find is
really the time when you need itto be really clear.
You need to be able to hear thevoices, and you don't appear to
be able to turn it on fromApple CarPlay, which I think is
a bit of a miss.
There is also a new feature forApple Music, which is Auto Mix,

(33:58):
which tries to make songs flowtogether a little better, like
radio stations do.
For the type of music that Ilisten to, it does a pretty good
job, but if I'm playing thetype of music that my daughter
listens to, it tries to beatmatch half of it and it doesn't
sound great, which is a littlebit weird.
But anyway, I'm quite impressedwith it so far.

(34:18):
So it's been nice to end upusing that rather than YouTube
music, which I've been using forthe last year or so.
Anyway, the Australiangovernment has just announced
that YouTube is going to bebanned for people under 16.
So we'll have to have a rethinkabout where we get our music
from.
Yeah, absolutely.

Sam Sethi (34:36):
Try Facebook first.
Try Instagram, try any of thosethings.

Well, they're actually banning those as well.
So all social apps are beingbanned for kids under 16.
Youtube was an outlier, becauseobviously YouTube has quite a
lot of educational content on it.
But Rupert Murdoch has got tothe Australian government and
said, nah, you should be banningit.
And the Australian governmenthas said, whatever you want, mr

(35:00):
Murdoch, and that's basically asfar as it's gone.

Sam Sethi (35:03):
He might not be able to do that soon.
He's got a $20 billion caseagainst him, but oh, I just
realised.
I wonder by iOS 50 if Siri isuseful by then.

Anyway, oh, now, now.
Now my favourite, by the way,on Siri has been trying to use
my Apple Watch and saying youknow, set an alarm for 10
o'clock and it hasn't beencapable of doing that on any of
the developer beaters.

Sam Sethi (35:29):
Did it ask chat?

GBT.
Set an alarm for 10 o'clock.
No, I've got no idea what youmean.
And it says oh, I'm sorry, Idon't know how to do that Really
.
Anyway, it's fixed now.

Sam Sethi (35:38):
Okay, Bless them Well done One feature a year.
Yes, it'll be useful eventually.
Now, uh, youtube have beencrowing a little bit.
This week, neil moham put up aarticle on linkedin saying it's
been a big week for youtube, ourincredible community of
creators, artists, viewers andadvertising partners.

(35:58):
Basically, there's a article inthe wall street journal and in
the New York Times saying thatYouTube's growth in the living
room is basically exploded.
We've been talking andreferencing this for weeks now.
Neil Cern says that YouTube isnow the most watched video
platform on the TV, and so NeilMohan's been crowing and you

(36:18):
know it was very funny.
Their advertising revenue hasincreased 13% year over over
year, reaching 9.7 billion.
So I left a comment on me onlinkedin.
Nobody nobody from youtubewould have responded are you
profitable?
Yet?
That was my comment because Ithought well, you know, they're

(36:38):
sitting and telling you how muchrevenue they're generating, but
they're not telling you howmuch profit they're making.
And we've said this before,they've not split it out
alphabet.
And I guess, if you know,you've got massive
infrastructure costs to run thatwhole thing, plus probably all
the staff.
I just wonder you've said it aswell when are they going to
announce whether they'reprofitable?

Yes, Well, yeah, I suppose the question is that
they probably don't need toannounce whether they're
profitable or not, because it'sall part of that.
So the only thing yes, you'reabsolutely right, the only thing
that Google has released isrevenue numbers, and they don't

(37:19):
release the fact that they'vegot all of these complicated
storage costs, their contentcaches.
I mean, it's easier for Netflixbecause Netflix has a finite
catalogue of a relatively smallamount of videos.
Youtube, obviously, you knoweverything is available and
everything is available you knowall over the world, and it's

(37:39):
very, very complicated for themto cache a lot of the content
which is on YouTube.
So, yeah, I'm fascinated inlearning how profitable it is.
There have been some blog postswhich have tried to work out how
profitable YouTube is.

(38:00):
There's a blog post which I'mlooking at at the moment from
Howie Mann and he writes aboutstartup strategy and he reckons
that YouTube has a profit margin, an operating profit margin of
around 15%, which I would befascinated by if that's true,

(38:20):
but I can't see it.
Personally, I think it must beso expensive to run that thing.

Sam Sethi (38:27):
Yeah, and what I love , if you like, going to see
comments on LinkedIn.
It was just.
I love it.
Oh, Neil, you're amazing.
Oh Neil, Wow, Wow, man, that'scool and like yeah, yeah so
reveal the numbers.
Neil, Tell us the truth.

I mean, neil comes over in all of his
bragging, as being a deeplyunlikable man.
I mean, I'm not sure that Ilike Daniel Ek very much, but
Neil Mohan just comes over asdeeply unlikable.
Youtube have no interest incommunicating with the podcast
industry.

(39:04):
No interest in communicatingwith the podcast industry.
They released, you know, videosand how-to information on their
blog and didn't bother alertingany of the podcasting press.
It's almost as if they don'tcare about us.
Yet here we are rushing towardsYouTube with open arms, saying
you're the future of podcastingand I just don't get it.
Really don't get it.

(39:25):
But you know that's what theindustry wants to do.
Come and grab some stickersfrom the podcast movement,
because I have stickers with myviews.

Sam Sethi (39:35):
Well, just to reaffirm why you don't like Neil
.
The CEO said it's all over.
Video podcasting on youtube haswon the battle.
Audio podcasting might not packup its mics and go home.
There you go.
Thanks, neil wow, and he saidthat on linkedin no, this is a
taken from an article by frankrassiopi in the substack and I

(39:59):
clipped out the quote taken inthere.

Yeah, yes, gosh, it's just yes.
It's just yes, it's a, it's athing, isn't it?
Oh, yes, yes, claims that it'sall over.
What a cheery, cheery man.

Sam Sethi (40:12):
Anyway, moving on, James talking of financial
numbers.
Acast released their Q2financials as well, and I just
wanted to see well, I've titledthis section what's the Real
Story?
What's the Morning Glory TakingOasis, because ACAST obviously
have a new CEO.
We've seen Ross leave, rossAdams.

(40:34):
We've also seen Emily Villate,the CFO, leave.
Yeah, just something doesn'tfeel right.
It's not passing my smell testand I'm not sure what it is.
So tell me about their numbersfirst and let's have a little
chat.

Well.
Their sales grew by 27% to$63.6 million.
For the first time, the US isnow ACAST's largest market, with
sales growing 70% in the US.

Glen Glenday (41:02):
I'm particularly encouraged by the powerful
momentum we're seeing in NorthAmerica, which has been the
primary growth engine again forus this quarter.
In fact, for the first timeever, the United States was our
largest revenue market for aquarter.
While this quarter includedsome one-off costs related to
leadership transition and ourupcoming main market listing,
resulting in an EBITDA loss,it's important to highlight that

(41:23):
our underlying profitabilitycontinues to improve On the back
of scaling revenues.
Our adjusted EBITDA marginimproved by five percentage
points year-over-year to reach3% in the quarter.
This development clearlydemonstrates our strong growth
and enhanced underlyingprofitability.

And that is probably the big exciting news,
and why the stock market lovesthem is probably the big
exciting news and why the stockmarket loves them.
The number of listens, though,decreased and has decreased
further.
So they decreased last quarterand they've decreased again this
quarter.
Possibly some of that is due toYouTube and the fact that it's
all over for audio podcasting,so maybe it's part of that.

(42:00):
So you know the number oflistens is going down, but they
are doing much, much better interms of revenue.
So perhaps you know the numberof listens is going down, but
they are doing much, much betterin terms of revenue, so perhaps
that's the only thing thatmatters.
They did make a much largeroperating loss this quarter, but
part of that is the costsrelated to the change of CEO and
the change to the CFO as well.

(42:21):
The company now owns 445 people, which is nice Not owns, but
employs.
You know what I mean.

Sam Sethi (42:27):
Yes, it's not the slave trade.
No, you will come to work.
Well, who?

knows, but yes, it's been interesting because I
get a lot of releases from ACAST.
But one I didn't get was thefact that the CFO and Deputy CEO
, emily Villard anyway, the factthat she resigned two weeks
after Glendale's appointment.
She's off to a global gamescompany.
Also after Glendale'sappointment, matt McDonald ended

(42:58):
up leaving.
We discover he was ChiefProduct Officer at ACAST and he
ended up leaving last month aswell.
He's had a lovely holiday inSicily, which is very nice, and
he of course came to ACASTthrough Radio Public, which the
company bought.
So there's quite a lot ofchanges going on there and I'm

(43:19):
just sort of curious as to whatthose, you know why all of these
changes.
What do you reckon, sam?

Sam Sethi (43:26):
Well, as long as it's by mutual request, we're OK.

I mean, I know that, ross.
The reason why Ross has steppeddown, it seems clear, is a
health reason and we wish, andwe do wish, ross all of the best
.
But that wasn't made very clearin the press release saying
that he was going and the factthat you then get the CFO going,
the chief product officer going, nick Harnett, who used to be

(43:53):
their marketing and PR director.
He has now resurfaced.
He's working for Audio Alwaysand his own marketing and comms
company called Little Wolf Media.
So I suspect that there's goingto be even more changes to come
in Acast.
I suspect that Greg Glendale isgoing to make quite a few
changes because it's a verydifferent set of people.
You know, all of a sudden theAmericans are running the shop.

(44:15):
America is where the success is70% sales growing in that
particular region.
It seems like a very differentcompany now than it did two or
three months ago and I suspectthat all of the contacts that we
have will be whittled awaybecause all of a sudden it'll be

(44:36):
America running everythingrather than it being run from
Europe, and that seems to be abit of a shame.

Sam Sethi (44:46):
Well, you know, they have still been pushing out the
boat.
Acast announced a globalpartnership with Magnite, which
I don't know, but you may wellknow, James, that's allowing
them to have the world's largestindependent supply-side
platform for advertising.
That sentence means nothing tome, by the way, if I the way.

Well, a week after Spotify made the same
announcement.
So I think we can possibly saysomething for that.
It's essentially it's a bigbuying system that quite a few
ad buyers use and it just meansthat Acast stuff will be
available on there.
So that's all you know.
That's all nice, obviously, butyes, I don't think there's much
interesting there.

(45:24):
That's kind of business asusual.

Sam Sethi (45:27):
Now moving on then, James rsscom friends of the show
and just for clarity, you are aadvisor, so getting that out of
the way early, I've announcedsomething called PAID what's.

PAID.
Paid stands for ProgrammaticAds Inserted Dynamically.
Paid stands for programmaticads inserted dynamically.
Yes, and it's all to do, ofcourse, with getting paid for
your podcast.
So typically, what has happenedin the past is you need to be
big enough for one of the bigpodcast sales companies to sell

(46:00):
advertising on your show, selladvertising on your show, and
that's fine, but it doesn'tnecessarily work for everybody.
So what paidfromrsscom is?
Firstly, it's available toabsolutely everybody on the RSS
platform as long as you have 10downloads a month.

(46:22):
I think most podcasts probablyshould have 10 downloads a month
.
I'm sure I've got a podcastsomewhere that hasn't got that
anymore.
Yes, so as long as you've gotthat, then that's what happens.
It automatically sells pre-roll, mid-rolls and post-rolls for
you.
You have control over how manyof those are actually inserted
and where they're inserted ifyou want them to be.
So it's quite nice from thatpoint of view.

(46:44):
It'll be interesting to see Ihave a podcast on there.
It'll be interesting to seewhether that makes any money at
all, but we will see, I'm sure.
But I think this is a reallyinteresting move, a really
interesting plan.
One thing that is worth knowingis that Blueberry and Libsyn
also offer this sort of service.

(47:06):
They have a minimum payout ofsomewhere in the region of I
think it's $20 for Blueberry,$50 if it's Libsyn, and RSS's
payout minimum is a dollar.
So you are going to get paidfaster, but I think it's very
interesting.
I think it's what we'll seemore of is podcast hosting
companies also sellingadvertising inside those shows

(47:30):
as well, and of courseBuzzsprout has that sort of
thing, but not allowing anybodyto buy ads.
It's only ads that you willhear from other podcasts and
that sort of thing.
At least, that's all that weget, certainly on this
individual show.

Sam Sethi (47:47):
Yeah, and look, I think the interesting thing was
the $1 payout.
I wonder whether that willremain when they start to see
the fees that are thrown around,because that $1 will certainly
be eaten up quite heavily, whichis why most companies tend to
bundle it into larger amounts,because the fees stay static, so
you're not having $1.25 everytime you do your $1, whatever.

Yeah, I believe that the way that they have
sorted it out is that theminimum is essentially the
PayPal fee.
So, as long as you're going toget more than the PayPal fee, as
long as it's not just going toget eaten up, then you'll get
paid.
And I believe that the PayPalfee differs on individual

(48:32):
countries as well.
I think it might be free inMexico, for example, and a
dollar in the US.
But, yes, worthwhile, taking alook at, worthwhile, seeing
whether that works for you.
If you're moving from adifferent podcast host to rsscom
, then I think that they giveyou six months free anyway, so
that's worthwhile.
Although, why would you move?
Because you know Buzzsprout isobviously the best place to have

(48:55):
your podcast, with everythingthat's available on the
Buzzsprout platform.
Who?

Sam Sethi (49:00):
are our sponsors.
Hang on, save it.
Save it for the end of the year.
We need that sort of script forthe end of the year when we get
renewed yes, steady James, whenwe desperately try to get
renewed for another year.
Too early, my friend, too early.
Keep it in the back.
Yeah, there we go Now whizzingaround the world.
What's happening in Europe,james?

What is happening in Europe?
Well, there's a top 100European creators list.
You might have looked at thetime list, for example, but how
much European representation didthey have?
A big fat zero.
So now there is a list ofEuropean ones, except it's put

(49:40):
together by one person, and I'malways sort of slightly nervous
about lists put together by oneperson.
The one that I'm really lookingforward to is the big list that
is being put together at themoment gets revealed at Podcast
Movement, which is a top 100podcast of all time, voted by
more than 300 different podcastprofessionals and hosts, and all
of that stuff that is beingreleased at Podcast Movement and

(50:03):
I'm really looking forward tothat.
I sense that there will be anawful lot more European stuff in
there.
There may even be stuff inthere that isn't in the English
language.
Who'd have thought it?
So, worthwhile watching out forthat.
That, I think, is beingunveiled on the first day of
Podcast Movement in Dallas injust three weeks.
Also, the Lovie Awards.

(50:23):
They have extended their entrydeadline to August the 8th.
That's a European awards,representing it's basically the
European Webby's.
From what I can understand, Ithink it's run by the same
people and it recognisesEuropean internet excellence in
the fields of culture,technology and business.
Obviously, I own, you know, twoWebby awards, so why would I

(50:45):
need anything else but some goodBreaking news, breaking news.
Yeah exactly Some good reportingthere from Andrea Koskaj from
Eurowaves.
Also in Canada, there is moneyup for grabs from the government
Well, not necessarily from thegovernment, but from a big
indigenous organisation.

(51:05):
They have given a total of200,000 Canadian dollars, so
that's about £1.50, to no, it'snot two indigenous podcasts, so
nine indigenous podcasts sharingin some of that money.
So many congratulations to them.
Maybe that's something that weshould do here in Australia as
well.

Sam Sethi (51:22):
I really wish it was £1.50, because that would mean
skiing in Whistler would becheap.
It's not, it's not, yeah it is.
Right now Jobs.
I saw this one and I thought itmight catch your eye, james.
Netflix is on the hunt for avideo podcast exec as it tries
to catch YouTube.
The podcast role would sitinside of Netflix TV and film

(51:43):
licensing arm under LaurieConklink Great name, conklink,
yes.

Yes, great name.
Conklink, yes, yes.
And Ted Sarandos, who is almostas likeable as Neil Mohan,
ended up saying that we'rereally excited about some
various shows that they aretalking about, and a wide
variety of creators and videopodcasters might be a good fit
for us, particularly if they'redoing great work and looking for

(52:18):
different ways to connect withaudiences.
Yeah, they will be a great fitwith you if you don't pay them
any money to be hosted on yourservice, like YouTube, like
Spotify.
So yeah, of course, of course,netflix would like some
podcastage as well.
So, yes, anyway, it'll beinteresting to see whether or
not anybody, or who, grabs thatparticular role.
There's also a few other peoplemoving.
Alexander Damiano Ricci isleaving his position as chief

(52:41):
operating officer of Europod,which is a very interesting
podcast agency based in Brussels, and Anya G Spence, who was
podcast marketing at Sony MusicEntertainment, has now moved
upwards as senior marketingmanager.
Hurrah, so that's a.
So that's a good thing?

Sam Sethi (52:59):
well, just means that there's a job again for someone
in podcast marketing at Sonywell, maybe if they're replacing
that role oh, okay, well, Iassume they're not killing.
That would be a biggerannouncement.
Sony have stopped doingpodcasting.
That would be a bigger ruck andawards and events.

We have the first list of nominees for the
british podcast awards 2025,which is nice.
Those will all be announced inI think it's october.
Yes, thursday, the 2nd ofoctober.
London's o Also nominees forthe 2025 Earworthy Awards have
been announced.
Now, podnews itself doesn'tcredit people who get

(53:38):
nominations because, let's faceit, if we were to do that, that
would be the only thing that thePodNews Daily newsletter would
end up doing.
But on this podcast, we canthrow that to the wind, because
not just one, but twonominations for the 2025
Earworthy Awards for this veryshow.

(53:59):
Who knows why, but anyway.
Well, I've asked that questionmany a week, but anyway, the
awards recognise indie podcastsand podcasters.
We get to find out who's won onAugust, the 26th, so very much
looking forward to seeing ifwe've got any.
Finally, sam, any awards forthis little show to put in our,

(54:25):
you know, awards cabinet orwhatever.

Sam Sethi (54:27):
Yeah, I won't tell you what my wife said.
Oh really Nice.
Yes, yeah, thanks for thissupport, darling.
Yes, moving on, yes, so therewe are.

What else is going on?
There's the UK podcast consumer.
That's exciting.
That's next Thursday.
That Edison Research is doingas an online webinar It'll be.
I don't think that a podcastconsumer has been a thing that
Edison Research have done before, so it'll be quite interesting
to see how the UK podcastconsumer differs from the US
podcast consumer, Worthwhilegiving that webinar a watch.

(55:03):
Of course we will cover that inthe Pod News newsletter.
I wonder if they're usingSpotify's funnel yes, exactly,
spotify Super listeners.
Yes, spotify's funnel, that'swhat we all need.
Or, indeed, as I was talking toRoger as well, the ladder I
think we were talking aboutladders and funnels with Roger

(55:24):
as well.
I know who knows what's goingon and, of course, podcast
Movement 2025 in Dallas andTexas.
I have stickers you should stopme and grab one, but there's
lots of exciting things going onthere.
I have learnt about OSHA, whois.
They have on their standsomething called Pod Wars Battle
for Visibility, and it is a.

(55:47):
The booth will let podcasterscheck how visible their shows
are, which will be nice.
So that's how visible they arein podcast search apps.
Quite a nice idea.
So if you're going, you shouldprobably check that out.
Also happening is a study calledthe Podcast Growth Study, with

(56:07):
a couple of companies, strategicSolutions, research and
point-to-point marketing and afew more keynote sessions being
announced Tom Webster speakingand sharing some more research,
undoubtedly, and the excellentAussie podcasters Tony and Ryan
will also be there as well.
So it's going to be quite fun.

(56:27):
I'm looking forward to it.
I've just had my first emailinviting me to alcohol, so
that's nice.
So I've said yes, please.
So that should be fun.
But yeah, it should be a funtime, and hoping to bump into
Adam Curry, who, of course, isalso speaking at the event too.
Has he been upgraded yet?
Has he been upgraded yet?

(56:48):
I don't believe he's beenupgraded, and I would understand
why.
But actually, how cool wouldthat be to essentially have the
entire exhibition hall beingimpossible to get into because
everybody's watching Adam Curry.

Sam Sethi (57:02):
That would be amazing .

I think that would be brilliant.
So, yes, I'm very much lookingforward to seeing that.
And also, by the way, speakingabout about adam curry, his new
godcaster app is now availableon the app store and that's
that's an interesting ui almostas interesting as the two fans
ui.
They're both very interesting,right and yeah, and worth a

(57:23):
worth a peek at.

Sam Sethi (57:24):
I'm gonna put that on my website, james cridland.
It's very interesting, it's anit's very interesting.

It's an interesting UI.

Sam Sethi (57:34):
Yes, I won't put what rating you put against it, but
I'll just take it from there.

Unconventional Exclamation, mark no no.

Sam Sethi (57:43):
Well, you know why go with the norm?
No, exactly.
No, have you got your puppiesthere as well?

I don't have puppies, but I have just sorted
out a very exciting bit ofmarketing for the Pod News
newsletter, which I'm fascinatedto find out how it works.
So I won't tell you too muchabout what it is, just in case
it gets taken away from me.
But we'll find out what it ison the actual day.
But I ended up having toapprove some advertising copy.

(58:12):
It's really weird when you havesomebody else writing
advertising copy for you, andthe advertising copy that they
gave me was a picture of a cupof coffee with a wolf on it for
some reason, and then the linestart your day, the pod news way
.

Sam Sethi (58:30):
Okay, yeah.

And I thought that's lovely, but could we use
this coffee instead?

Sam Sethi (58:37):
So, anyway, I would say, yes, you've changed it.

Yes, I guess, but yeah, but that's all going
to be fun as well.
One final event to tell youabout If you speak Italian or
even if you don't the ItalianPodcasting Festival 2025 has
been announced.
It's both in person and alsoonline.
The online event is happeningon International Podcasting Day.
Alberto Batella will beprobably speaking Italian at

(59:01):
that event from rsscom, andJames Cridland that's me will be
probably speaking English atthat event as well, and looking
forward to taking part in that.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday
in the Pod News newsletter.
And here's where Sam talkstechnology.
What technology have you gotfor us, sam Well?

Sam Sethi (59:22):
potentially very exciting.
Overcast Marco.
He has been dabbling, it lookslike, because John Spurlock
would, wouldn't he Look at thecode?
I mean, come on, john, there'smore on.
Tv to watch.
Go and get your YouTube channelout.
But anyway, john, lovingly, haslooked at Overcast Transcriber,
which seems to suggest thatOvercast is going to be adding

(59:46):
transcriptions very shortly.

Yes, I think what John does is for fun.
He reads the latest unmatcheduser agents on OP3 to spot if
there's anything exciting goingon.
And one of those user agents is, yes, overcast Transcriber,
which is very exciting.
If that's the case, then, yes,I would only hope that Marco is
using the podcast transcript tag.

(01:00:10):
That would be great if he didand save himself the hassle of
transcribing everything.
And also, while he's there, canyou please turn on the funding
tag as well?
That would be really helpful.

Sam Sethi (01:00:20):
Shouldn't it be turn on again the funding tag?

James Cridland (01:00:24):
Well, turn on again.
He didn't use the funding tag.
He actually used a really niceclever sort of you know kludge
before where he was just lookingfor Patreon links and
supporting cast links and thosesorts of things.
So now that he's, you know, nowthat he's working very heavily
on Overcast again, it'd belovely if that feature would
come back.
I know that he said that veryfew people used it.

(01:00:46):
That's kind of not the point.
The fact is, people used it andthe more that it's used, the
better for us podcasters as well.
So it'd be lovely if it was inthere, Please, marco.
Thank you very much.

Sam Sethi (01:00:57):
I think timing is golden.

I mean, it could have been that it was so early
that people weren't aware ofwhat to do with it, and he was
worried and also, I think he wasnervous about Apple App Store,
and I think what we can now sayis that there is absolutely no
worry about putting thosefunding links into the Apple App
Store, because there are somany podcast apps which have
them in there now.
So, yeah, I think that that's agood thing.

(01:01:19):
What else has been going?

Sam Sethi (01:01:22):
on A platform I've not used myself.
Podsqueeze launches a websitebuilder designed for podcasters.

Yes, it's another company producing
websites.
The interesting thing aboutthis one is that it is free, and
so if you are a free user ofPodsqueeze, you still get a
website for that, so that'squite a nice thing.
So that's going on, and also,rode have been busy as well,
haven't they?

Sam Sethi (01:01:49):
Well, they've been busy, but I'm not sure I'm going
to use it.
So they've launched somethingcalled Road Call Me which allows
you, if you've got a Rode Proor a Duo, to update it with a
free firmware update, worrying.
Every time you do that Don'treduce my settings to zero and
reset it to everything.
I can't remember what I did,but it's basically an idea that

(01:02:12):
I suppose.
It's a bit like what we do withClean Feed.
I guess what they're trying todo is allow you to invite users
to record a show remotely.
It says it's got ultra lowlatency, studio quality remote
connectivity and they'vepartnered with a company called
vortex communications to do this.
so the idea, I guess, is that ifyou've got a piece of hardware

(01:02:35):
roadcaster pro 2 or duo- you canrecord and interview your
guests and send them out a weblink if they don't happen to
have another roadcaster.

So yeah, yeah oh , yeah, I think that looks
really interesting and I wouldlike to play around.
So, yeah, either a Duo or awhatever.
The other one was Quattro,quattro, let's call it a Quattro
.
So yes, I'll be able to have aplay with that.

(01:03:16):
But yeah, to me that is a veryinteresting move because it
essentially takes away Riversideor Descript or any of those
services, or, indeed, you know,clean Feed that we use from this
side as well.
So, hmm, yeah, well, if hedoesn't.

Sam Sethi (01:03:35):
By the way, I happen to have a spare roadcaster pro 2
sat doing nothing.
So what you're more than happyto have it what, oh, it's from
your radio station, isn't?
It.

Yeah, I had a backup, so of course it's been
doing well, maybe, maybe whenI'm I I'm in london for two days
at the beginning of set of themiddle of September.
Very happy to have that.
So maybe, yes, maybe, we shouldcatch up then.
That would be a good plan.

Sam Sethi (01:03:58):
Right, Very nice.
Now, Olby, it's the walletcapability, the thing that we
all used and got very excitedabout with micropayments about a
year ago and everyone wasbuilding wallets and doing
streaming sats Sort of slightlytaken a bit of a dip down
recently, hasn't it, James?

In fact, I got an email from them the other
week saying that this podcaststill references Albi in the
payment tab, and can we pleasetake it out?
And so, of course, because Ithink I've put 1% into my Albi
account here, which of course Inow think, I've put one percent
into my albie account here,which of course I now can't
actually even get into, justpurely for the stats.
So I need to remind myself totake them out.

(01:04:39):
Have they done anything moreinteresting?

Sam Sethi (01:04:41):
well, there's been this whole push towards bolt 12.
And what and what's bolt 12?
Okay, so the way that the wholething am I going to regret
asking yes, you are.

Gustav Soderström (01:04:52):
You shouldn't have done that you can edit
this out later so bolt 12, itjust simply means recurring
payments.

Sam Sethi (01:04:59):
So the idea is that you get an invoice is the way
that it technically works.
So, um, when you get a payment,you're getting an invoice
presented and I'm paying againstthe invoice and now you can
recurring payment.
So it's great for things likesubscriptions.
And again, this is reallyuseful for things like hosts,

(01:05:20):
who may want to set up arecurring subscription, for I
know secure payments, I don'tknow.
You know monthly payments, andnow you can set up an invoice
and that invoice can be paid andit can be automated and all
these sorts of nice things.
Now, weirdly, we we sort ofbuilt that into true fans in
another way, because we couldn'twait for bolt 12, but it's

(01:05:41):
there now if you want it, andit's.

It's a way that hosts really could use it rather
than apps more right, and ifyou want to learn more about
bolt 12 by way, there is areally good website that
actually explains it in an easyto understand language.
It's at bolt12.org.
And the exciting thing, as I'msure that you'll be delighted to

(01:06:04):
know, is that you can use Bolt12 already on Bitbanana, on
Plasma, on Lampo, on ROYGBIV oron Zeus.
Yeah, catchy, catchy, lucky us.

Sam Sethi (01:06:20):
I would say.
I would say look, the wholething is quite useful.
It's a technology that'smigrating.
So we've gone from KeySend toLNAdress and you know most
podcast apps aren't supportingthat yet.
I know fountain does we do, I'mnot sure on the other apps.
And again, you know it seemslike this technology is taking

(01:06:42):
forever to come around, but it'shere now and if all be
supported as well and theysupport ellen address we just
all have to update to the latest, greatest versions of
micropayments and then hopepeople will now catch on and
start to use it.
But you know we've had to gotwo steps back to go one step
forward.

Yeah, well, there we are.
That's usually the way of thesethings, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Boostergram, boostergram, boostergram.
Super Super comments, zaps, fanmail.

So many different ways to get in touch
with us Fan mail by using thelink in our show notes, super
comments on True Fans, or Boostseverywhere else, or email.
We share any money that we maketoo.
Now, talking about Bitcoin andstreaming payments, as we just
were, I mentioned this time lastweek that we'd had no mentions
at all, no boosts or streamingpayments at all.

(01:07:39):
Last week.
It turns out that there's areason for that, and it turns
out that the reason for that isthat my own node lost all of its
channels whatever that'ssupposed to mean and so,
basically, it's been unable toreceive any money.
It is now able of receivingmoney, as long as it's not more
than one set, because that's allthat I've got left, weirdly, so

(01:08:01):
I need to fiddle around withthat a little bit more to get
that to work.
I've managed to open a coupleof channels, now one to the
podcast index, so that's nice,but I need to do some clever
balancing now and it's all verycomplicated, and I wish that I
didn't have to.
But thank you.
If you have sent us a messagelast week, just know that we

(01:08:21):
probably haven't received it,but that's kind of you.
Don't think that you shouldn'tthis week, though, because that
would be very kind of you.
We did, though, get a fan mail,and you can just click the link
in our show notes.
Thank you to Buzzsprout.
And this fan mail comes fromIdaho and somebody called Jordan
, who I suspect is Jordan fromBuzzsprout, and she says Sam,

(01:08:43):
nice, save.
I love your passion andconviction on this and I agree
with James correctly.

Sam Sethi (01:08:53):
I've got no idea what you're talking about.
This was sort of saying hey,buzzsprout, come on, host, what
are you doing?
Blah, blah, blah.
You need to up your game.

And then I sort of saved it with they've got all
the parts, they just need topull it all together well,
jordan says a good portion ofthe attention needs to be on the
adoption of features by theapps supplying them to audiences
.
Otherwise, why build somethingthat nobody can access in their
preferred daily driver?

Sam Sethi (01:09:19):
chicken meat egg, right.
I hear this from blueberry allthe time as well.
Oh yes, no one's gonna do thisuntil the apps blah, blah, blah.
What you really mean host is wewon't do anything until Apple
do this, and that'sfundamentally it.
And this is Rob.

Walsh at Libsyn.
Good luck.

Sam Sethi (01:09:36):
Yeah, this is the.
You know we won't do anythinguntil Apple's done it.
Blah, blah, blah.
Right, If we all wait for Appleto do anything, as I said, ios
50, I might actually be alivefor it.
We in the podcasting 2.0community have to take leaps of
faith.
Right, you have to decide.
Yes, this feature isn't goingto be used by more than one

(01:09:57):
percent of people today because,guess what?
That's where we are.
But you know, we can'timplement these things.
We have to set a path andothers strangely follow, like
apple, then implement thingslike TXT and other things on the
verify tag and Spotify doimplement the namespace and
start to support things.
They are slow, but if we don'timplement stuff first, then

(01:10:22):
guess what?
We will never have it.
And it's chicken, meat, egg andso sorry, hosts.
The answer is we won't do ituntil apps do.
It isn't a good enough excuse.

The answer is we won't do it until apps do.
It isn't a good enough excuse.
Yeah, and I also think you knowparticularly Apple, because
Apple won't, probably won't ever, build a alternative to the
Apple premium podcasts tool thatthey have written, because they
earn 30% from that, and whywould they?
So I totally get that Appleisn't going to put that

(01:10:52):
functionality into their app,but there's an awful lot of
other apps out there.
So, yes, it would be nice ifthere was a bit of sort of
meeting in the middle at PodcastMovement this time round, and I

(01:11:13):
know that there's going to benot just quite a lot of meetings
between the members, but alsomeetings for anyone that wants
to to go and have a look at, forexample, how the location tag
works Alberto is going to betalking about that, so I
understand but also a bunch ofother things.
One of the things I've askedthis week from Dave Jones is can
we please have a clever APIinto podcast index that actually

(01:11:35):
pulls the location informationout?
And as soon as we've got that,I've said I will write a fancy
map of all of the podcasts outthere in the world that you can
then go and find podcasts basedon where they are or what
they're about or you know, orall of that stuff.
Very happy to end up puttingthe dev time into that, because

(01:11:58):
that would be great fun toactually see it from the other
side of it as well.
So, anyway, lots of stuff goingon.
If you find yourself at PodcastMovement and you want to make
your head spin, then pop intothe podcast standards folk and
see what they're up to.
And we should say thank you somuch to our power supporters.

(01:12:18):
There are lots of them.
Weeklypodnewsnet is where tobecome a power supporter, like
Rachel Corbett, who's veryimportant and runs her own pod
school here in Australia.
Or Dave Jackson, who's veryimportant and runs the School of
Podcasting in the US, or MattMedeiros, who's very important
and runs thepodcastsetupcom.

(01:12:38):
Yes, all of those people andmany more are our power
supporters.
Please, if you can join them,if you get value from this show,
that would be very kind.
Weeklypodnewsnet is where to go.
So what's happened for you thisweek, sam?
I?

Sam Sethi (01:12:54):
had a.
I don't know if it's anepiphany moment, but it
certainly feels something thatI've been struggling with what
to define TrueFans as.
Is it a marketplace?
Is it a platforming withservices?
And neither of those termsreally resonated with me.
They sort of seem to be, youknow, just the same old, same
old as everyone else.

(01:13:15):
And I sort of jumped on an ideacalled the value exchange, and
I'm sure I saw it somewhere else.
I'm not saying I've claimed itas something new that I've
invented, but it seemed toresonate very well with me that
podcast creators, musicians,audio book publishers, et cetera
, are creating the value and onthe converse side, you've got

(01:13:36):
tangible and intangible valuefrom fans.
So tangible value is veryobvious.
That's streaming sats,micropayments, super comments,
subscriptions.
But there are intangible valuesas well, such as sharing, such,
as you know, feedback, and sothe value exchange is how I'm
trying to now use around theword TrueFans, so I've used it

(01:13:57):
in the way.
True fans is a value exchangewhere creators provide value in
the form of podcasts and providevalue back in the form.
Sorry, listeners provide valueback in the form of streaming
sats, as an example, et cetera,et cetera.
So value exchange feels like agood term that I'm going to hang
my hat around for true fans.

Yeah, I think that's nice, and you have a
fancy graphic which is oneperson giving some money and
another person giving a present,and I think that that's exactly
right.
I think whenever people talkabout value for value, quite a
lot of people instantly startthinking about streaming sats
and all of that kind of stuff.
It really isn't.
It's asking for stuff.

(01:14:38):
It's asking for money or askingfor time or talent, and you
know and Adam talks about thatvery, very well every single
time that he does talk aboutthat.
I hope he'll talk about thatpodcast movement where he's
speaking as well, but that's animportant thing.

Sam Sethi (01:14:54):
The other thing we are launching this week is the
ability for podcast creators tobuy space on our homepage and on
Carousel.
So that was just a nice littlething we added, and we put up
our HLS live server now intobeta, so we're testing the
ability to offer live item tagHLS services.

(01:15:15):
So if you want to do livepodcasting, we will be able to
offer you that very shortly.
Very good, very good.
Now, james, what's happened foryou?
I'm going to start off with theword ouch and then sit back and
have a coffee while you tell uswhy I've said the word ouch.

And I was looking at the word ouch and I
was thinking why is Sam writtenouch in there?

Sam Sethi (01:15:37):
And I was looking at the word ouch and I was thinking
why is Sam written ouch inthere?
Anything to do with a car maybe?

Ah, yes, Now.
So I have my little brand newelectric chariot which, yes,
there was some hooner, as Ibelieve the phrase is, in
Australia.
I'm sure that's not the word youused at the time who was coming
up way too fast behind me andgosh, and I saw my life flashing
between my eyes.
Thankfully he managed to swervejust in time.

(01:16:06):
So I just have a big scratch onmy bumper and, yes, so I was
rather, rather irritated at thisguy, but anyway.
So, yes, so my beautiful, mybeautiful new car is no longer
scratch-free.
But you know, it's just a tinylittle scratch on the bumper, so
it won't buff out, but I'm surethat I can easily fix it

(01:16:26):
without having to talk toinsurance companies, because
nobody wants that.
Nobody wants that, no, the onlyother thing that I've been
doing so, firstly, I switchedweb browser a couple of weeks
ago away from Orion, which I wasusing, which is lovely but so
unstable that it was getting alittle bit frustrating.
So I've moved to Vivaldibecause Evo Terra said it was

(01:16:50):
good, and it is.
It's very good, so very happywith that, and none of the
nonsense of Google in there.
Also and this has got nothingto do with travelling to the UK
in the next month or so, wellyou're going to profess your
love for Keir Starmer in caseyou get
stuck in a prison and alsotravelling into the US as well.
Nothing to do with that.

(01:17:11):
But what was interesting?
I bought a subscription to aVPN.
So I use Proton, which is fine,but I actually wanted a VPN.
You know, use Proton, which isfine, but I actually wanted a
VPN.
You know Proton, know who I am.
They've got my my you knowcredit card details and all of
that kind of stuff, so there's areally easy link back.
But I then thought to myselfwell, I wonder whether there's a

(01:17:32):
way that I can get a VPNwithout actually putting any
personal information in there atall.
And I don't know if you'veplayed around with a VPN called
Mulvad no, it's got a picture ofa mole on it, because Mulvad is
one of the Scandinavianlanguages probably Swedish, I
would guess, for mole, butreally interesting.

(01:17:53):
So you can buy a subscriptionwith them.
It's five euro a month, so it'snot much at all.
You can buy a subscription withthem using your credit card,
but obviously then they know whoyou are and your credit card
knows that you've bought fromthem as well.
So that's a thing.
But also you can buy a voucherfrom Amazon.

(01:18:19):
So you go onto Amazon, you payyour money and Amazon sends you
through the post a very nicesealed envelope which has a
voucher number on it.
And then you go onto the Mulvadwebsite and they give you a
random account number.
You then type in the vouchercode in and that is literally it

(01:18:41):
.
So I don't even have a passwordfor this thing, I've just got
an account number which justworks.
Yeah, and this code which, sofar as I can work out, is
impossible for anybody to workout who that account belongs to.
So I thought that was a reallyclever idea for something which

(01:19:02):
is really, really private, ofbuying a physical voucher from
Amazon.
Amazon send that to you.
So Amazon know that I havebought a Mulvad subscription,
but they don't know which,because there's no correlation.
And so, yeah, I just thoughtthat that was interesting and
it's an okay VPN.

(01:19:23):
I mean, it's not brilliant, butyou know it's as good as any of
these things are but I justthought it was a wise idea.

Sam Sethi (01:19:30):
Yeah, vpn sales in the UK went 70% or more up
through the roof this week.

Yes, so I understand.
And in fact, proton VPN, whichis the other one that I use,
that has had a more than 1,300%increase, week on week, of UK
people buying it.
Yeah, which is astonishing.
Yeah, so Is this just so thatyou can watch dirty movies?
No, no.

Sam Sethi (01:19:58):
But every 14-year-old's just listened to
exactly what you just said andgone to go to a mole van now.
Thank you very much.
I don't need daddy's creditcard.
No, no, it's this ageverification that the UK has put
.
I actually have a VPN US set onmine because I want to get hold
of Meta's developer releasesearly for my silly sunglasses,

(01:20:23):
but also it means I don't getbloody cookies everywhere as
well in Europe, so I oh, thecookie banner yeah.
I don't get any of those nowbecause I set myself to a US and
of course it just goes oh okay,you're from the US, we'll
ignore you.
But every time I turn it offand go back to the UK, I'm
clicking yes, accept, accept,accept accept.
And then it's like oh really,please.

Yes, it's just it's such.
I notice this whenever I travelinto Europe.
I notice that, firstly, some ofthe websites that I go to
simply aren't available at all.
So iHeartsInsideRadiocom, forexample, which sometimes covers
some interesting stories, thatif you try it from a European IP
address, it just says you'renot allowed to have a look at

(01:21:06):
this website.

Sam Sethi (01:21:07):
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, so I noticed that an awful lot.
But I mean, you know, I supposeon the other side, the amount
of you know, the amount of dataloss that is going on in the
Australian market at the momentis just ridiculous.
I mean, qantas, my airline, hasjust spent you know, goodness
knows how much time trying toclean up a big security hole of

(01:21:31):
theirs, which has meant thatpeople have walked away with
virtually everything that can beused to identify me.
You know my name, address, mydate of birth, my mobile phone
number.
You know.
All of that information has allgone, and this is after you

(01:21:52):
know, I think about four otherlarge Australian companies have
done much the same sort of thing.
So I guess you know there arethings on both sides, but yeah,
I mean imagine Google andFacebook being so delighted that
now, if you want to use theirwebsites to search for naughty
pictures, that you have to sendin a driver's license.

(01:22:13):
I mean, you know Google andFacebook, so hang on a minute.
Uk government, I mean you knowGoogle and Facebook, so hang on
a minute, uk government.
You want us to scan all of theUK's driving licences into our
massive system so that we cansell more advertising around
them?
Brilliant, no, that'sabsolutely fine.
We'll definitely do that.
They must be delighted, yeah.

Sam Sethi (01:22:36):
There's a really interesting new podcast out
called Revolution Sosocial, froman ex twitter developer called
rabble.
Uh, he's I don't know who he is.
In terms of his, his first twopodcasts have been very
impressive.
Yeah, he's had jack dorsey and,uh, cara swisher as number two
he was the person that hiredjack dorsey, I believe.

wow, okay, and, and interestingly, you, and
interestingly you go onto theirwebsite and there are four
different podcast apps which arebeing pushed Apple Podcasts,
spotify, youtube Music andFountain.

Sam Sethi (01:23:12):
Oh, very good, they're very well done.
They've done well, haven't they?
Yes, congratulations, yes.

So, yeah, so it's certainly interesting
seeing it.
But, yes, no, I should have alisten.
I'm a member of EFF, theElectronic Freedom Foundation,
but they irritated me by backingMeta in some stupid thing that
Meta was doing and, in a fit ofpique, I said cancel my, cancel

(01:23:39):
my account immediately.
I'm not going to, I'm not goingto give you any more money if
you're going to support Meta.
And they actually sent out ablog post the next day and
apologised and said that theyshouldn't have supported Meta in
the first place.
And then and then asked me if Iwouldn't mind rejoining.
No.
So yes, see, you have influence,james, you have influence, yeah

(01:24:00):
, well, don't know about that,but anyway, yes, we should
possibly stop talking about allof that and tell you that that's
it for this week.
All of her podcast storiestaken from the PodNews daily
newsletter at podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi (01:24:14):
You can support this show.
Maybe you can, we don't know.
We'll find out next week withstreaming stats.
Who knows, who knows?
You can give us feedback usingthe buzzsprout fan mail.
That works and you can send usa super comment, which does work
, but it just may not get to theother end and become a power
supporter, like the 21 people atweeklypodnewsnet yes, our music

(01:24:35):
is from tm studios, ourvoiceover is she D, our audio is
recorded using Clean Feed andwe edit with Hindenburg, and
we're hosted and sponsored byBuzzsprout.

Start podcasting , keep podcasting.

Speaker 2 (01:24:46):
Get updated every day .
Subscribe to our newsletter atpodnewsnet.
Tell your friends and grow theshow.
And support us, and support us,the Pod News.
Weekly Review will return nextweek.
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Spotify Chasing YouTube While Ads Fall Short - and JAR Podcast Solutions