The definition of a podcast: and the Independent Podcast Awards

Episode Transcript
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James Cridland (00:00):
It's Friday, the 11th of April 2025.

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

I'm.

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

Emma Turner (00:18):
As many solo podcasters know, it can be a
really lonely sport at times.
So being with people that gothrough the same things because
you know it's one thing talkingto your partner, but if they're
not a podcaster themselves, theystill don't really understand
what it's like- that's EmmaTurner from the Independent
Podcast Awards introducing theIndependent Podcast Forum Plus

(00:39):
in the chapters.

Today in the UK, three podcast production
companies have announced amerger.
There's an open measurementprotocol for podcasting that's
been asked for and automatictranslations.
This podcast is sponsored byBuzzsprout, with the tools,
support and community to ensureyou keep podcasting.

Announcer (00:58):
Start podcasting, keep podcasting with
buzzsproutcom From your dailynewsletter, the Pod News Weekly
Review.

Sam Sethi (01:06):
Now, james not that I can sing, but I feel like I
have to do the Spice Girls.
When three became one.
There's a big announcementtoday.
What is it?

There is a big announcement.
Yes, it came out yesterday, ofcourse, but today, as we record,
three podcast productioncompanies have announced a
merger, which is all veryexciting.
In the UK, they're talkingabout a podcast supergroup,
which is exciting.
Those three are all owned byPodX, platform Media, listen and

(01:36):
Girlhawk.
Platform Media owns a brandcalled Folding Pocket for
podcasting and they're all goingto merge.
They're going to be calledPlatform Media and the newly
formed company claims eightfigure revenues and 70%
year-on-year growth, which isall very exciting.
To be honest, this is kind ofwhat I was expecting PodX to be

(01:57):
doing once they'd purchased anumber of different companies in
London, so I was kind of, youknow, assuming that that would
be the case.
But yeah, they've finally putthem together.
It makes a bunch of sense, Ithink.

Sam Sethi (02:13):
Yeah, I mean, is this the start of what PodX is going
to do?
I mean, they own a ton ofcompanies now Not all in the UK,
obviously but are they going totake the other companies they
have in the UK and bring themunder the umbrella, do we think?

I think this is all the companies that they've
got in the UK.
I know that they've got a tonof other companies elsewhere,
and so what I suspect we mightsee is we might see companies
that they own in specificcountries being merged together.
But of course it makes littlesense merging, for example, you

(02:47):
know, platform Media in the UKtogether with a random company
in Stockholm, for example.
I mean, that seems to make lesssense.
But certainly in the UKactually merging them together
seems to make quite a lot ofsense.
It does sound as if Platform,listen and Goldhawk, or rather
Folding Pocket, listen andGoldhawk, are going to be

(03:10):
continuing to use those brandsas kind of content labels, if
you like.
But yeah, 80 people in brandnew offices in Farringdon.
So I think that's all prettycool.

Sam Sethi (03:25):
Now, one thing I did note that they said they were
going to be co-CEOs.
That's quite a difficult thingto juggle, I think.

It is, yeah.
So that's Matthew Sherry, who'scurrently CEO of the original
Platform Media, and Josh Adley,who's Managing Director of
Listen.
They will both be co-CEOs ofthis larger company.
Have you ever seen co-CEOs workwell?

Sam Sethi (03:50):
No.
Well, crikey, there you go.
No is the answer, and I don'tthink when the buck stops,
someone's got to take the finaldecision.
And how does that happen?
But anyway, maybe they're goingto break the mould and be the
first to do it.

Well, maybe they're going to break the mould
and be the first to do it.
Well, maybe they will.
We've interviewed Josh, we'veinterviewed Matthew and we've
interviewed Stefan Rossell, whoworks at PodX, in this show
before, so you'll find it inthis feed.
It's well worth a peek.
And all of these people arebacked by Qualbo, which, as you
might guess, no, is aSwedish-based global investment

(04:30):
company and, yes, they seem toown all kinds of stuff.
Do they own Haribo, the happyworld of Qualbo?
Yes, I'm not so sure, but yeah,I think it makes total sense.
You know, you only need one HRdepartment, you only need one

(04:52):
invoicing department.
Now, I think our conversationswith Staffan in the past has
been you know, essentially wewill run all of that stuff, but
I think actually merging themall together seems to make a
fair amount of sense.
Apart from anything else, thesecompanies, I'm sure, have been
bidding against each other forcertain things, and you know,
and obviously all of that willgo away, although sometimes
that's a benefit, isn't it?

Sam Sethi (05:14):
Well, a couple of things.
I noticed One that Stefan hasmoved up.
He's now listed as founder andboard director and they've got a
new CEO, patrick Svenske.
So, yes, might try and reachout to Patrick and see what he
has to say.
And then the other one is Iguess with something like this,

(05:35):
the whole is greater than thesum of the parts.
So it's what PodX's goal was,and I assume this is what
they're going to keep doing,going forward.
I wonder if they're going toacquire, doing, uh, going
forward.
I wonder if they're going toacquire more UK companies and
maybe they haven't got any more,but I think they probably will
then now they've got thestructure.

Well, you know, uh, persefonica, that would be
an interesting company to toacquire, wouldn't it?
What do you think?

Sam Sethi (06:00):
no, uh, no, I, I don't know, I don't know.
Uh, I think I think we shouldbe.
Uh, no, I don't know.
Actually, I don't know, I thinkwe should be.
No, I don't know, actually, I'mgoing to keep my mouth shut for
once.
Acast, that's it.
I mean to be frank, they'reSwedish.

Yes, and, to be frank, qualbo could afford them.
Just so, yes, so that might beinteresting.
Yes, acast today, by the way,saying that they've just done a
deal with Supercast for paid forsubscriptions, which seems to
make a bunch of sense.
They've not been able toproperly offer that in the past,

(06:37):
so being able to offer that nowmakes a bunch of sense, so
that's very interesting.

Sam Sethi (06:43):
Well, it goes along with the comment I made last
week, which is I think peopleare now moving more to accepting
that for quality content you'regoing to have to pay for it.

Yeah, I agree.
I agree, we're definitelyseeing that trend in Europe.
Perhaps not in the US yet, butcertainly in Europe.
I'm sure that we're seeing that.

Sam Sethi (07:01):
Now moving on Dan Granger.
He spoke at Evolutions Jamesand he asked the question what
is a podcast?
Now this feels like it's oldnews because it was like a week
ago, but what did he say?

Yes, what is a podcast?
So actually he's done a bunchof work around the definition of
a podcast.
He was standing there andhaving a good old I mean almost
rant on stage saying things likethe stakes are nothing less
than the sustainability of theentire channel and all of that,

(07:37):
no, hyperbolic, hyperbolic, then.
Yes, yes, no, exactly, I meanyou know.
So from that point of view,that was very interesting to
hear him talk about that.
But he was basically doing abunch of research in what a
podcast is in the sales side tobe able to understand what a

(08:06):
podcast is, because at the endof the day, we've got that $2
billion thing that we haven'tyet hit for total revenue in the
US, still haven't quite hitthat number.
But of course, if thedefinition of a podcast changes,
then it gets more difficult toexplain what a podcast actually

(08:28):
is, and so actually knowing whata podcast is, it's kind of
useful for that sort of thingand for knowing where your
budgets are going.
So I can see why he's probablymore interested and excited than
anybody else about doing that.
I would say if it sounds like apodcast, or it looks like a
podcast, it's a podcast.
Move on.
Yes, and I think that thedifficulty is that actually

(08:50):
that's not good enough, um, foryou to be able to turn around
and say, well, how much moneyhas podcasting made last year?
Well, I mean, it's youtubepodcasting.
If it is, then, um, then we'veeasily hit that two billion, so,
yeah, let's do that then.

Sam Sethi (09:03):
Um just do it fake it until you make it.

No, I mean, I guess most people say unless
it's got rss distribution, it'snot a podcast, and that's seems
to be the the, the final strawon it that that's certainly a
view um, it's not a view that Ihold, but it's certainly a view
that some people have is is thatyes, you must have RSS to be a
podcast?
I mean, and I think Rob Walshis right in saying Sorry, I know

(09:32):
.
I think Rob Walsh is right insaying that if you're not in
Apple Podcasts, you're not apodcast.
That's what he said on stagelast week.

Sam Sethi (09:41):
When does he start at Apple?

That's what he said on stagelast week.
That's what he has said, and Iprobably agree with that too to
a degree.
But at the end of the day, youknow, I say from a usability
point of view, a podcast iswhatever your audience thinks it
is, and it really is as simpleas that.
Having said that, he has adefinition which he has

(10:07):
researched.
He's talked to a bunch ofdifferent people and there are
two different definitions.
There's a technical definitionwhich is very tedious and boring
, but it sounds like anaudio-driven on-demand programme
rooted in the spoken word.
Typically, episodic andconversational Podcasts cover
wide-ranging themes and formats.
They are accessed via open RSSfeeds or other distribution

(10:31):
platforms and often supplementedby video.
Often Catchy that's catchy that.

Sam Sethi (10:37):
That's going to take off.

So that's not going to take off, but I think
that that is a good working.
I think there are bits of itthat I don't necessarily agree
with, but I think that that's agood working.
You know explanation of what apodcast is, but he's got a
snappier one which is probably alittle bit better, which is if
it works with your eyes closed,it's a podcast.

And I quite like that actually I think that works
.

Sam Sethi (11:00):
Yeah, I think that works.
Now, the thing about thatOxford Road report.
I mean, I wasn't so excitedabout the first part of it and
the clickbait of what is apodcast, but I did like the
second part of it, which was hewas asking for an open
measurement protocol forpodcasting.
Now why do we need an openmeasurement protocol, james?
What's the problem first,before we decide on what the

(11:22):
solution is?

Well.
So his problem is he wants goodmeasurement and as it stands at
the moment, as we talked aboutin the Pod News report card last
week, everybody's measuringdifferent things.
Youtube has a different stat toSpotify, which has a different
stat, to Apple, which has adifferent stat, to the IAB,
which has a different stat foryou know, various other things.

(11:44):
And that's not particularlyhelpful because, at the end of
the day, all that we want to doin the podcast business, in the
podcast industrial complex, isto go back to an advertiser and
say here's how many people heardyour ad, and that you know, and
that's basically it.
And you know, and you know, andthat's basically it.
And you know here's roughly, ifyou're doing a branded podcast,

(12:07):
here's how long your audiencestayed with you.
And we can't do that to a gooddegree with the current
measurement that we have.
In that, you know, everybody'smeasuring a different thing, and
so what Dan is saying is weneed an open measurement
protocol for podcasting toenable us to do consistent

(12:31):
measurements across platforms.
Privacy, safe as well althoughthat's an American talking, so
their definition of privacy is avery different definition to
you know people in other partsof the world.
But anyway, privacy, safemeasurement across platforms
while maintaining creative anddistribution flexibility.
Ie, it should work everywhere,it should be consistent and you

(12:52):
should be able to getmeasurement back from it, and I
think that that's a very brightthing.
And he's basically saying we'renot prescribing who leads.
You know who's in charge of it.
We are saying it needs tohappen and I think you then
frankly need somebody in chargeof it.
The difficulty is, I think, withall of this is the IAB will

(13:15):
turn around and go.
If the IAB is doing their jobproperly, they will turn around
and they will go.
How can we make money out ofthis?
Turn around and they will go.
How can we make money out ofthis?
How could we have the IABpodcast, measurement guidelines
version three, and everybodysigns up and gives us lots of
money, and so I'm not surenecessarily that the IAB is the

(13:39):
right tool, is the right companyfor this, because I'm not sure
that that will necessarily bethe right way of doing things.
So you know, we need probably adifferent way round that.
The question, I suppose, iswell, what are those numbers
going to be and how are thosenumbers going to be worked out?

Sam Sethi (14:00):
Not that we can talk about it in detail, but friend
of the show, john Spurlock, isworking on something to do with
this Now.
We would love to get John on,so we'll reach out to John, uh,
when he's ready to announce it,but I think what is the metrics?
You know Dan Meisner fromBumper talks about it.
You know downloads, not listen.
What are the type of metricsthat we would want to share then

(14:23):
, with the apps to host?
What are the hosts looking forfrom first party data?

Well, and I think this is where the
conversation needs to happen,because, to be honest, what
would be helpful is you know,from the advertiser's side, what
numbers do you want and fromthe creator's side, what numbers
do you want.
So, for example, knowing howlong people listen through a

(14:54):
particular show is very useful.
If you're a branded podcast, ifyou know that 75% of audiences
stay until the end or near theend um 75% of audiences stay
until until the end or near theend then that's um useful to be
able to go back to your brandand say look, we're making great
content because our audiencesare sticking with us as well, of

(15:15):
course, as working out, okay,what, what you know, what are
your daily listeners, what arethe total listeners for this
particular show?
How many followers does it have?
You know which would be usefulas well.
You know followers as well astotal audience and that sort of
stuff.
But I think it's you know, it'sworth that conversation with

(15:38):
all of the industry here to workout what sort of data you know
we should be collecting on a,you know, on an open, you know,
in an open fashion.
I mean, what sort of data wereyou thinking about?

Sam Sethi (15:56):
Well, you and I have talked about it consistently
over the last two years actually, so it's nice to see something
coming to fruition.
We've talked about listen time,percent completed and,
obviously, value paid.
When you talk about micropayments, yeah, and I think
those metrics, when aggregated,are then given back to uh from

(16:18):
creators with permission totheir host, then that's fine, I
think.
I think I can can't see Spotifyor YouTube playing in this game
yet.
That first party data is theirgold dust.
I'm not sure they're going togive that away.

And that's the other concern.
Yeah, exactly, I don't thinkyou know, person by person, data
is something that they wouldwant to.
Oh aggregated data.
Oh aggregated data.
Well, I mean, youtube's is openanyway, so from that point of
view, you can see plays, but thedifficulty is, of course,

(16:54):
that's YouTube plays not workedout in the way that we would
like them to be worked out.

Sam Sethi (16:59):
Exactly so.
What we're saying is, if wehave this show and we had X
number of people listening andwe could put an array of who
listened, how long, when theydropped off, etc.
Etc.
But we aggregated that and thengave that back to buzzsprout,
who had put it in our analytics.
Yeah, I mean why, if you couldget that data from your app, um,

(17:22):
would you want to give it tothe host?
But anyway, some hosts, someapps, don't have a back end.
So, okay, I understand thatquestion myself.
But, um, okay, so we would allgive our data to the host.
The host would aggregate itfrom fountain, true fans, uh,
over cars, pocket pc, etc.
Etc.
Which will give a holisticoverview for the creator.
That would then go to theadvertiser, who would then say

(17:44):
yeah, somebody heard my ad,somebody didn't hear my ad.
I'm just trying to understandhow this is going to evolve.
I think it's the right way togo.

I just think it's got a lot of rough edges.
No, I do agree and I think thereis a difference.
I don't think we'll ever getthe how many people have heard
my ad without talking directly?
I mean, you know you alreadyget that.
If you're selling ads in aprogrammatic way, you already
get that information anyway,because that's how many ads were

(18:16):
stitched together, you know.
But I think, from a point ofview of aggregate information, I
think everything that you saidthere apart from the who
listened, because nobody's goingto give you that, but apart
from the who listened if youlook at just, you know, okay,
you had 2,000 followers.

(18:39):
This particular episode waslistened to 400 times on Monday
and 200 times on Tuesday.
That kind of information to befed back to a whether it's a
podcast host or whether it's toyou know whoever else for them
to then aggregate thatinformation from Spotify, from

(19:02):
YouTube, from pocket casts, fromwhoever it might be, that will
be quite useful information andstill allows those individual
podcast apps like Spotify andYouTube to still keep things
back in terms of information onwho those people were, in terms

(19:24):
of information on who thosepeople were in terms of
demographic information.
You know all of that kind ofstuff If the only thing that
we're looking for are numbers interms of a listener and in
terms of, you know, followersand those sorts of things and
potentially how long people getthrough the show on average,

(19:47):
then I think that that's reallyall that most people would like,
but it depends, you know, ofcourse it depends on what each
individual stakeholder wants andhow close we can get to that.

Sam Sethi (20:02):
I think you're right.
That's a good 101 step.
Here's one question for you,james.
Will people want that data when, let's say, your download
number is wildly exaggeratedbased on the fact that Apple do
auto downloads and your numberis thousands and then actually

(20:22):
you find out the actual listentime is hundreds or tens?
What are you going to do then?

Well, I think this then means that you have to
, in the same way as we have theIAB podcast measurement
guidelines.
Perhaps this is another form ofexpressing how many you know
how large your audience is, andperhaps there is some form of a
process there to you know, toshow that you're calculating

(20:55):
that accurately.
But you know being able toquote, you know let's call this
the open measurement guidelines.
To quote, you know, let's callthis the open measurement
guidelines, and these numbersare open measurement guideline
compliant, and I've got X peopletuned into this particular show
.
I agree that.
You know, one of the biggestproblems I think that podcasting

(21:17):
has is that, historically, allof our consumption data is
private and nobody gets to seeit.
Now, you know, op3 makes itpublic and makes it visible to
everybody.
Youtube actually makes itpublic at least the total plays
and makes that visible toeverybody as well.
I wish that more people, and infact, castbox and GoodPods and

(21:40):
there are a few others maketheir consumption public as well
.
So let's make sure that there'smore public data, but let's
also make sure that you knowwe're just counting the same
thing, because at the momentwe're not.

Sam Sethi (21:54):
Yeah, that's the critical part measuring apples,
not oranges and apples.
Anyway, james, should we movearound the world and have a look
at what's going on Over in Asia?
Iheart Podcast is to launch aslate of new podcasts.
What are they doing, james?
That was very British of you,asia, asia.
Over in Asia.
One went to public school.

(22:15):
One will say Asia.

Yes, exactly my word.

Sam Sethi (22:19):
I'm an Indian, don't worry about it, you know.

So, yes, don't worry about it.
You know so, yes, so iHeartPodcasts getting very excited
and they are going to do twodifferent things.
They're working with a companycalled Mammoth Media in Asia and
they are or Asia, if you preferit, better that way and they
are launching a whole set of newshows coming out of that part

(22:44):
of the world.
But also, obviously,iheartmedia want to promote
their own stuff in Asia as well.
Tons of people, obviously.
It's a massive part of theworld in terms of population and
so, yes, they are doing someinteresting things going on
there.
Iheartmedia already um has uhexpanded into um, the um the

(23:07):
Middle East and North Africa aswell.
Um, so you can kind of see thatthere's um some conversations
going on just making sure thatiHeart um content is available
in the in the Asian um uh regionas well.
Uh, but uh, yeah, interestingto see a large US company, very
much you know, growing outwardsin terms of the potential

(23:31):
audience that it's got.

Sam Sethi (23:33):
Now hopefully I get this word right Germany Crikey.

Here we go.

Sam Sethi (23:41):
Yes, german podcast company Podigy has launched a
new AI-powered analytics tool.
Do we need this, james?

I mean, you know , so you can go to it and you
can go.
Hey, how many listeners did mylatest episode have last week?
And it will come back and tellyou if you're too stupid to
press the buttons.

Sam Sethi (24:03):
You might be driving and have a need immediately to
know that number.

No, I mean, I can see that there might be some
quite complicated things.
I mean, the one thing I wouldsay is that AI is not, at least
currently, highlighted as beingsomething that is very good at
maths.
So if you ask AI to add up acolumn of figures, then it

(24:31):
doesn't always get it right,which is a slight concern when
you see AI powered analyticstool.
But I do like the idea of beingable to ask simple questions in
natural language and it'll comeback to you with what it hopes
is the answer.

Sam Sethi (24:52):
Look, I think we're going to have a conversation
later on in the show aboutforeign language and translation
, but I do think that AI andvoice is actually.
We are a voice medium after allwith audio, so voice interfaces
, I think, are going to be thenatural extension in the future.
Anyway, that's just me.

Yeah, no, indeed , I think you're probably right
in some way.
So, yes, I just find the wholething fascinating.
But yeah, what else is going on?
But yeah, what else is going onin Italy, roma Tre University,
which is an italic, which is anitalian public research

(25:32):
university in Rome, in Italy.
I'm trying to find out why it'scalled Roma Tre.
It genuinely is.
Wow, it genuinely is, because Iwas going to make a joke about
it was the third university inRome.
Do you know why it's calledRoma Tre?
Because it's the thirduniversity in Rome.

Sam Sethi (25:50):
So, where's Roma Due Genuinely yeah.
Is there another one called Due, then yeah, who knows?

Gosh Anyway, and Pope Francis has been there.
Anyway, rometrae University.
It's hosting the first Europeanconference dedicated to
podcasting as a tool forresearch, education and
information.
It's a very academic conference.
It's taking place well as wespeak.
In fact, the event is calledKnowledge in your Ears, which

(26:21):
all sounds very exciting.
So I hope that they've had agood day yesterday and a good
day today as well.

Sam Sethi (26:29):
Whizzing over to the UK.
Bristol-based podcast agencyEarworm has secured £200,000 in
investment.
Congratulations.

Yeah, that's £200,000 or US$260,000.
And so congratulations to them.
I like their logo, that's allI'll say.
And Acast has held a capitalmarkets day for investors
setting updated financialtargets for the company.
Interestingly, first time thatthey have streamed that

(27:00):
particular thing live from AcastStudios in London, so very nice
too.

Sam Sethi (27:05):
So do you remember when Daniel Ek did his last
announcement of Spotify and wesaid, why don't they video
broadcast it?
Yeah, why don't they videobroadcast it?
Yeah, why don't they do it live?
And then we said, oh, that'sbecause they haven't got a live
capability.
Well, clearly, acast isdemonstrating that they have,
but then again, weirdly, therest is politics.

(27:25):
Recently did a show from the LAstudios from Spotify.
So, daniel, you do have a livestudio capability if you want it
.
So maybe you should mirror whatAcast is doing.

There you go, daniel, copy what Acast is doing
.
You've heard it here firstAudio boom.
I bumped into Stuart last inthe queue for a coffee in
Chicago last week.

Sam Sethi (27:50):
Did he buy you the coffee?
No, no, he didn't actually.
Well, he should have done,given their results.

Yes, very good results for quarter 125.
Ebitda profit up 10 times yearon year and the company says
it's on pace to deliver recordrevenue of 80 million US dollars
this year.
They're doing very well, ouraudio boom, and it's good to see
them doing so well.

Sam Sethi (28:13):
Now Podmatch, the podcast network, has hit 150
shows.
It's open for another 50 peopleto join.
It's $6 a month as a service.
It offers courses, training andevents.
So yeah, podmatch is run by who?
Again, james?

It's run by Alex Sanfilippoo, always a very
well-dressed man.
Whenever I see him atconferences he wasn't at in
Chicago, at least I don'tremember that it was that it was
there, but yeah it's.
He's got a good rep, hastheatch network, so it's worth

(28:53):
taking a peek at.

Sam Sethi (28:55):
And finally over to Canada.
James, what's going over there?

So there's a company called Websites for
Podcasts, which is a new toollaunched by a Canadian company
called Podcast Branding, and atfirst I looked at it and I
thought, oh, this looksinteresting.
They basically say, if you arepaying somebody a perpetual
subscription model for yourwebsite, then this is a bad

(29:22):
thing and, frankly, you shouldown your website, own it
completely, and that makes a tonof sense.
So I thought, yeah, no, thatmakes sense.
You know, all of that makesperfect sense.
And then take a look at thepricing $3,400 it'll cost you

(29:42):
for a website of your own whichis just based on a template.
So you don't even get it.
You know, uh, for you it'sreally just a template that's
been recolored and re and andand, you know, made for you, uh,
from a choice of templates.
I should say $3,400 for thefirst year, um, and then you

(30:03):
have to pay them if you want tocontinue being hosted by that
company.
Yes, you can, you can do um.
You can do um, uh, self hostingif you like, although that
means that you'll have to paysomebody else to do your hosting
for you anyway.
So I was kind of looking atthat and thinking, well, a,
that's a lot of money and B thatprice doesn't include the

(30:25):
ongoing hosting anyway.

Sam Sethi (30:28):
Or maintenance.

I bet, yeah, well, yeah, or maintenance, so
you've got to continue payingfor maintenance and hosting,
which sounds to me like aperpetual subscription model.
Anyway, he doesn't seem to beparticularly happy with me for
pointing that out, but yeah, itjust doesn't look like a good
deal when you've got somebodylike you know, like Podpage,

(30:52):
which will give you somethingwhich looks pretty good, and,
yes, it's a perpetualsubscription model, but then so
is your podcast hosting anyway,and you're paying.
I think I calculated it as $88a year, which is a bit cheaper
than $3,400.

(31:12):
So, yeah, but you know it's achoice, I guess, isn't it Well?

Sam Sethi (31:19):
that, on the back of the fact that WordPress just
launched their free AI-poweredwebsite builder, that would not
be a problem then, would it?

Gosh.
Yes, well, that's definitely athing.

Sam Sethi (31:31):
Yes, yeah, anyway good luck to them, whatever they
manage to achieve Now.
Moving on Not a lot, not a lotNow.
Moving on people in jobs.

People in jobs, who's moving and grooving who's
moving and grooving James.
Well, yes, plenty of peoplemoving, but not necessarily
grooving, From Daily Wire.
There's been a round of layoffsthere.
To quote better align resourceswith business priorities and
growth areas.
There's seemingly quite a lotof drama going on in that
company.
Now, of course, this is beingread through the lens of there

(32:07):
being quite a lot of people whowish that company bad because of
their political views.
People who wish that companybad because of their political
views, and so there's lots ofvery hyperbolic blog posts out
there.
But it turns out that one ofthe co-founders has left,
somebody who rejoices in thename Jeremy Boring I'm sure
that's not how you pronounce it,but anyway and the VP of Public

(32:28):
Relations, alyssa Cordova.
They've both left the company,but also it sounds as if a
quarter of the company'semployees have Cordova.
They've both left the company,but also it sounds as if a
quarter of the company'semployees have left, although,
depending on who you read, itmight just be the kids division
has closed, in which case, well,that's fine, that's just a
change of priority there.
But in any case, trouble atMill, potentially at Daily Wire,

(32:51):
also Trouble at Mill withAutomatic.
Now, we care about Automaticbecause it owns Pocket Cast.
It does, of course, also ownWordPress, and 159 employees
left that company in Octoberafter the founder did something
really weird.
They're now laying off another280 workers in a restructure,

(33:15):
which I think makes it somethinglike 30% of you know, maybe 25%
of their workers gone in thelast six months.
So quite a lot of movementgoing on there.
So far as I can work out,pocket Cast seems fine there.

(33:36):
So far as I can work out,pocket Cast seems fine.
Ellie was in Chicago, althoughI didn't see her there.
So yeah, but interesting stuffgoing on at Automatic.

Sam Sethi (33:43):
Yeah, and they also own Tumblr.
Do you remember?
They bought that as well.

Yes, they did, and they were talking about
Tumblr moving on to theFediverse, but then apparently
they've been talking aboutTumblr moving on to the
Fediverse, but then apparentlythey've been talking about
Tumblr moving on to theFediverse every sort of three
months for the last five years.
So I'm not quite sure whetheror not that's ever going to
happen, but yeah, who knows?

Sam Sethi (34:04):
Anyone else got a new job, James?

There are a few people who've got a new job.
Casey Spivey has been named VPof Podcast Operations for
Pioneer, and Carrie Brodie,interestingly so, she moved from
Pushkin Industries where shewas VP of Business Development.
She's now VP of BusinessDevelopment at Higher Ground,
working with the Obamas, whichis quite a move.

(34:31):
So congratulations to CarrieBrody for doing that.

Sam Sethi (34:36):
I listened to the first, michelle Obama.
New one Won't be listening tothe second.

Well, I mean, I have to say my goodness the
feedback about that new show,because of course, again, just
like with the Daily Wire, peoplereally want to, um, do whatever
megan markle does down, um, andso of course everybody's piled

(35:02):
in and said how dreadful this isoh, that's megan mark and not
michelle obama, but they areboth oh sorry, yes, sorry, yeah,
yes, yes, you're absolutely,absolutely, uh fair.
Yes, uh, we I mean both peopleare being slagged off left,
right and centre again becauseof some of their views.

Sam Sethi (35:21):
I don't, actually I don't believe that.
Look, yes, there will be thosepeople on the right who just
don't care whatever is said, orthose people in the royalist
side who won't give MeghanMarkle a break, and that's fine.
But I actually think thecontent of both because I wanted
them to be successful it's justdull.
It really is dull, and I'm notsaying that I'm a massive fan of

(35:44):
the Obamas, but I couldn'tlisten to that longer than I had
to Well.

well, there we are.
And on that bombshell let'smove on.
No one cares what I think than Ihad to.
Well, well, there we are.
And on that bombshell, let'smove on.
Let's move on to awards andevents and the Independent
Podcast Awards.
I was there last year.
They are open for entry againthis year.
Excitingly, they've alsoannounced a new event, the
Independent Podcast Forum, whichis a one dayday event for indie

(36:13):
creators.
The awards attracted more than400 entries last year.
I'm curious as to why they'vealso jumped in with the
Independent Podcast Forum.
So you decided you'd find outas well.
So you had a quick chat withEmma Turner.
You asked her what theIndependent Podcast Awards were.

They are, as the name says, awards for
independent podcasters.
They're in their third year nowand we launched them back in
2023.
It was kind of off the back ofa conversation that Em from
Verbal Diorama heard with SimonBrie from Film Stories about how
there's quite a lot of podcastawards out there, but often the
smaller shows get overlooked.
Of podcast awards out there,but often the smaller shows get

(36:56):
overlooked, and so one thing ledto another, and then we
launched the awards to try anddo something about that.

Sam Sethi (36:59):
So here we are, three years later yeah, james and I
went to the last awards.
They were really well done.
Congratulations to everyoneinvolved thank you there's some
amazing winners out of that.
Now you've also just announcedthe independent Podcast Forum.
What's that?

It's going to be a small one-day event for indie
creators to come together andlearn from experts from the
industry, but also to learn fromeach other as well.
This sort of came off the backof feedback from attendees from
the awards and how much theyloved just being in a room with
people like them.
As many solo podcasters know,it can be a really lonely sport

(37:36):
at times.
So being with people that gothrough the same things because
you know it's one thing talkingto your partner, but if they're
not a podcaster themselves, theystill don't really understand
what it's like.

Sam Sethi (37:47):
Know that feeling well.
Know that feeling well.

So this is a chance for people to come together,
talk about what they do, findout how they could potentially
do things better and, yeah, hearfrom some excellent speakers
too.

Sam Sethi (38:01):
So what is the date for this independent forum?

It's taking place on Monday, the 16th of June, at
21 Soho in central London, andit's running from about 9.30
till 5, and there'll be somedrinks afterwards as well, so
even more time to chat.

Sam Sethi (38:18):
And if I wanted to register or I wanted to come
along, what would I do?

You would go to our website
independentpodcastawardscom, andthere's information about both
the forum and entering theawards, so everything's all in
one place, making it nice andeasy.

Sam Sethi (38:32):
And, as you said, entering the awards, what's the
entry date and what's the actualdate of the awards then?

The deadline for entries is the 2nd of June,
which is a Monday, so it givesyou that last weekend to get
everything together, and theawards themselves are going to
take place on the 15th ofOctober, back at King's Place in
London.

Sam Sethi (38:51):
Nice Judges.
Who's judging it this year?
How do judges get involved?
What do they need to do?

Well, it's an open call for judges.
If people would like to getinvolved, then please do get in
touch with me.
My email address is all overthe website and, yeah, we've had
a mix of people that have beenpodcasting for years, people
that just started doing it.
A nice array of judges, but wewant lots of people from
different backgrounds, differentvoices, looking for different

(39:18):
things as well.
So please do get in touch andget involved.

Sam Sethi (39:22):
Now, is it as expensive as entering the
British Podcast Awards?
Do I have to pay a gazillionquid?
Find sponsors and give you agold bar of bullion.
What do I need to do?
And give you a gold bar ofbullion.
What do I need to do?

No, we try to keep our costs as minimal as possible
.
Obviously, life is expensiveright now and lots of these
people are doing it themselves.
They don't have a company topay for them.
So the cost to enter is £35 forthe first entry and then if you
want to enter a couple of othercategories, they're £5 each
after that, and we've got a fewfree enter categories as well,

(39:54):
which are best podcast artwork,best jingle and a new one for
this year best use of video,because lots of people are
starting to dip their toe in thewater in terms of video
podcasting, so we just want tosee what people are up to and
reward those that are doing itwell I was gonna ask you about
video and new categories, butyou beat me to it, do you?

Sam Sethi (40:14):
you or will you?
Now here's a controversial oneWill you use a category for AI?
Some people say having an AIvoice is not very creative, or
maybe having AI artwork is notvery creative, and other people
sit on the other side of thefence say that's very creative.
So where do you sit?

That's a really tricky question.
I think that if you candemonstrate why you're using it
and how you're using it anddoing it, but still being
creative, then I think it's okay.
But it's so open tointerpretation, isn't it?
Lots of people have veryMarmite views on it, so I think
it's demonstrating to the judgeshow you're using it and why,

(40:57):
and then it's kind of down tothem to decide, and it takes it
out of my hands yes, I waswatching that shoulder slope
nicely someone else's decision,not mine but having that we're
actually going to be using AIourselves because with each

(41:17):
entry the entrants get feedbackfrom the judges, but that will
be using an AI tool to pulltogether reports on each entry
to send out.
So I'm definitely not anti-AI.

Sam Sethi (41:28):
Excellent, emma.
Thank you so much.
Look again.
Quick reminder what's thewebsite?
Where do I go?

Emm (41:35):
Independentpodcastawardscom and everything about the forum
and the awards will be there foryou.

Sam Sethi (41:40):
Lovely Speak to you soon.

Brilliant, thank you.

The very excellent Emma Turner from the
Independent Podcast Awards.
Will you be at the IndependentPodcast Forum, Sam?
Is that something that mightfloat your boat?

Sam Sethi (41:54):
I'm going to be there to report for Pod News, but
also they've asked me oh, youknow, don't get paid for it, I
just help out.

You do get paid for it, thanks to the
municipants of Busborough.
That's true.
Yes, that's true.
And our exciting 18.

Sam Sethi (42:12):
Yes, yes, okay, but no, emma's asked me to do a
podcast about the event, so I'llbe interviewing people at the
podcast forum for a live eventon the day.

Very good.
There is also the PublisherPodcast Awards.
Their shortlist has beenrevealed and there's over 120
people in that shortlist.
If there's one way that I canannoy people, it's if they spend
a long amount of time writing abeautiful press release how
they've been nominated for thePublisher Podcast Awards or for

(42:46):
the Webis or for something else,and then I very politely as
politely as I possibly can replyback and I say we don't carry
any stories about nominations,because if I carried nominations
about, you know, being on theshortlist for the Publisher
Podcast Awards, for example, Iwould be publishing 120
different press releases and I'mnot doing that.

(43:06):
So no, we don't do that.
But anyway, congratulations toyou if you are one of those 120.
Do that, but anyway,congratulations to you if you're
one of those 120.
There is nearly 50 judgesaround the world who are judging
that and the winners will berevealed in an in-person event
at Salsa Temple.
Salsa Temple amazing food inLondon on the 11th of June.

(43:29):
I've never heard of SalsaTemple, have you heard of that?
No, well, there we are there weare.

Sam Sethi (43:34):
Who knows, I'll be going have a look if the food's
good.
Also, media Voices, who arebringing this award, are
bringing back the PublisherPodcast Summit, which will run
in parallel alongside theinaugural Publisher App Summit
on Wednesday, the 11th of June.
I guess you can find all thedetails on their website.

Indeed and also congratulations to you if you
are nominated for the ARIAS, theAudio and Radio Industry Awards
in the UK.
That's taking place on May, the14th.
The Tech Stuff on the Pod NewsWeekly Review.
Yes, it's the stuff you'll findevery Monday in the Pod News
newsletter.
Here's where Sam talkstechnology.

Sam Sethi (44:13):
Well, first of all, I'd like to say happy birthday,
seven years old, to Headliner,congratulations to Neil Modi and
the team over there, and today,at 12 o'clock Eastern time,
they're hosting an online party,so if you want to join, go to
the Headliner website.
I don't think there's anydrinks they'll be giving you,

(44:34):
though, but other than that, youcan go and celebrate with them.
They're seven years.

Indeed, if you've listened just in time,
this podcast has been edited onan aeroplane, because of course
it has, then you should justabout get that, can you?

Sam Sethi (44:48):
tell the pilot to actually fly the plane and not
edit this podcast please.

Yes, that would be a good thing.
So what's going on on YouTube?

Sam Sethi (44:58):
Because there's some interesting things going on in
YouTube.
Yeah, so YouTube.
John McDermott, friend of theshow, posted that YouTube had
just announced automatic dubbing, which, again, I thought they
had before, but it seems it'snew.
They've announced it before torob greenlee.
So the idea is that you canthen have a voice in multiple
different languages put ontoyour video automatically.

(45:20):
Now this again seems logical,but I was listening to colin and
samir.
They had mark zuckerberg onrecently and they also had mr
beast on one of the things, mr,that 15% of the world only spoke
English and that he is relianton language translations and

(45:41):
audio dubbing to reach a wideraudience.
He said without it he wouldn'tbe as successful, and he
actually told Mark Zuckerberg onthe show look, you don't have
this in any of your metaplatforms and I can't therefore
use your platforms.
I mark zuckerberg took that onvery seriously and he's now
going to do something about it.
But it is interesting that whenyou start to look at podcasting

(46:05):
today, we we tend to put we doit, james, this show, we just
put it out in english.
Now, I think, with thealternative enclosure tag within
podcasting 2.0, there is anopportunity to put multiple
different language versions.
You've experimented in the past, james.
What did you do with Pod NewsDaily?

Yeah, so I took Pod News Daily, I put it into
wondercraftai and did atranslation in there with my
voice.
So I was there speaking Spanishand Japanese and all kinds of
stuff.
I mean, theoretically we couldput this show in there.
It's considerably longer, it'llcost considerably more, but
theoretically we could do thatand clone your voice and my

(46:46):
voice, and you know, we could bein Japanese as well if you
wanted to.
So yeah, all of that kind ofstuff is certainly possible.
I suppose the thinking there iswell what happens now in terms
of people finding thoseparticular alternate language

(47:08):
versions.

Sam Sethi (47:09):
I guess, well, if you go onto YouTube, obviously you
get your YouTube local languageversion delivered to you in the
country you're in.
So that's why MrBeast likes it.
He's already said that thoseversions where they haven't put
a local language version, thenumber of people it gets watched
by is very low comparatively towhen they are dubbed in the

(47:31):
local language.
Now that's dubbing, so it's notMr local language.
Now that's dubbing, so it's notMrBeast's voice that's being
used.
So YouTube aren't offering youthe same thing as WonderCraft,
which is to take your voice andmake it into Japanese or
whatever.
So I think that's slightlydifferent and I think
WonderCraft got a good tool.
The problem, I guess, is it'sthe cost, and for us on this

(47:51):
show, which is a long show, thenthat would be quite expensive
and as we don't really doadvertising on this show to
monetize, then we wouldn'treally see any value back in it.

No, I'm not sure that we'd see that, and I'm
also, you know, slightlyconcerned about, you know, the
cultural thing of you know, well, we do this in English and we
don't care enough about, youknow, doing a French version.
It's kind of um, to me it's abit um, as the British, as the
British person, it's a bit sortof, you know, we've, we've

(48:30):
conquered you guys, you'll,you'll, you'll just, you'll just
have to deal with a, you know,with a poor quality version
dubbed into your, into your ownlanguage.
So I'm I'm always sort ofslightly nervous about that uh,
that sort of thing.

Sam Sethi (48:43):
I don't know.
I think it's either a poorlydubbed version or nothing.
If you can't understand English, for example, Well, yes, I
suppose there is always that,isn't there?
I mean, we saw Persephonica dothis with Dua Lipa, if you
remember, ages back.
They didn't do it in the DuaLipa being Dua Lipa French or

(49:08):
Dua Lipa German.
They did it in the what youcalled the United Nations way of
doing it.
So she would talk in Englishand then someone would talk over
it to talk about what?
yeah, somebody would dub over ityeah, yeah, I doubt they would
do that now, but I guess theother side of it we've talked as
well about AI being used as avoice and we go oh, I'm not sure
we like it or dislike it, wehaven't really made the decision

(49:30):
, but I I've seen, for example,somebody in india whose english
may be written very well but whocan't speak it very well
because of their accent, whothen use an ai voice or, in this
case, a WonderCraft voice, toput it into an English accent.
And again, the content may begreat, but we grate against the

(49:53):
sound if it's not the way wewant to hear it.

Yeah, yeah, no, indeed, you know there's a lot
of sort of interesting thingsthere.
I guess the other question andcertainly, you know, when you
have a look at somebody likeWondery, which took Dr Death,
its first big hit, translatedthat into lots of different
languages.
You know they did a very goodjob, but they even went as far

(50:20):
as to translate the title,translate the show descriptions,
you know, do all of that and atthe moment in RSS we don't have
a way of doing that.
So every RSS feed at the momentis, is, is unilanguage, you
know it's.
It'll deal with one language inthere and you and you say what

(50:42):
that language is going to be atthe top of the RSS feed and
that's it.
Now you could theoretically putdifferent languages into your
alternate enclosure so you couldfind, you know, the French
version of a podcast using youralternate enclosure.
That sounds a nice idea, youknow, initially, until you

(51:03):
realise, well, yeah, but you'vestill got to translate the show
notes, you've got to translateprobably the title and all of
that.
So I'm not sure necessarilythat that works as a, you know,
as a, as a tool.
I think probably one RSS feedper language is fine because it

(51:23):
does, because it does allow youto be linked to from other stuff
in that particular language.
So I think that that's probablyfine, but I don't know.
It's an interesting thing thatnot very many people have looked
into quite yet.

Sam Sethi (51:42):
No, but I think it's coming.
I mean, if you look at Descript, they've just launched their
translate and dub video option,so you can use an AI voice now
to narrate your video.
It isn't weirdly?
Although Descript allows me tostore my voice in Descript to
make editorial changes, theydon't offer me my voice in the

(52:05):
dubbed video into foreignlanguage.

Right, yes yes don't offer me my voice in the
dubbed video into foreignlanguage, right, yes, yes, no, I
think.
I think, yeah, it's, it's, it's.
It is interesting, isn't it?
You know, there's the dubbing,there's, you know, subtitles and
stuff, which, of course,youtube has been doing for a
long, long time anyway, and allof that.
So, yeah, it's fascinating, youknow fascinating, thinking what
might happen there.
So, yeah, it's fascinating, youknow fascinating thinking what

(52:28):
might happen there.

Sam Sethi (52:29):
Moving on, I found a new app that's just been
launched, a podcast app calledSofa App.
Now, I heard this on a podcastabout technology and I thought
I'd have a look at it andfundamentally, the idea of the
Sofa app I think it's.
Basically, they say most appswe use today are designed for

(52:49):
work.
Sofa is one of the fewproductivity apps intentionally
designed for play, andoriginally it was just a note
taking function.
You know, what shall I watchtonight?
What shall I eat?
What shall I read?
What shall I play?
And now they've addedpodcasting into what should I
listen to?
But it actually has audioplayback as well within the app.

Now, right, Well , it looks interesting.
Certainly it's got a very, verypretty website at sofaHQcom.
That's sofa as in.
You know what JD Vance likes,so yeah, it's certainly worth a
peek at.
You know, I'm just having aquick flick through.

(53:29):
It calls itself your NewFavourite Podcast Player.
Enjoy the convenience,simplicity and fun of listening
to podcasts in SOFA.
Yeah, what the playback engineis like don't know, but it does
seemingly support chapters, sothat's always nice.
Anyway worth a look, anyway,worth a peek.

(53:50):
yeah, exactly also works alsoworks on those, on those um
silly, um uh glasses that uhapple have they don't have it,
they're gonna.

Sam Sethi (54:01):
That's going away, like everything else they do.

Yeah, I mean it's a bit like their cars a bit like
their search, a bit like theirAI.

Sam Sethi (54:07):
Yeah, no, it won't last.
No, no, they're not.
No, no, they're not Google.
Well, I did have an expressionApple miss it, google kill it.
Oh, okay, yes, everything.
Sorry, apple miss every newtechnology and Google kill every
new technology.
Anyway, moving on, final thing,you are having a little

(54:28):
discussion about the locationtag.
I thought we'd all done anddusted the location tag, James.

No, not really.
I'm keen that.
So there are conversationsgoing on at the moment about the
location tag and supporting thelocation tag in the podcast
standards project.
Now that's not a bad thingreally to support that.

(54:58):
I don't necessarily see thatpeople are supporting the nice
bit of that specification whichis the open street map stuff,
and I'm a little bit nervous tosee that they are supporting the
current specification, not thenew version of the specification

(55:21):
which is currently you know anyday now going to be made into
the you know, the currentspecification, if you see what I
mean.
So, yeah, so I mean, to me, theexciting thing about the
location tag is the integrationwith something like
OpenStreetMap, which would thenallow you to do things like find

(55:43):
me every podcast about arailway station, find me every
podcast about a brewery, find meevery podcast about a brewery
in Paris.
You could do all kinds ofreally interesting location tags
from that because of theadditional metadata that exists
in the OpenStreetMap API.

(56:05):
And I think what I'm nervousabout is that people say that
they are supporting thespecification, but just
supporting the bare minimum,which is just a lat-lon, and a
lat-lon tells you nothing aboutwhat you're highlighting other
than just it's a spot on theearth.
So I'm kind of hoping I'm notin the podcast standards

(56:29):
projects and there are goodreasons why I shouldn't be but
I'm kind of hoping that they dothat job properly and support
the location tag properly, notjust the bare minimum because it

(56:56):
will just be a bit rubbish.
If they do that, let's see ifthey do.
It is indeed, and I have somethings in front of me in terms
of the feedback that we've got.
Through boosts, you can send usa boost or a super chat from
your favourite podcast app.
If you're not using a brand newpodcast app, then you really

(57:18):
ought to be.
Lyceum 1,701 sats.
James, I'm pulling your leg now, he says.
I talked to Sam today about thelocation tag, blogging and
other stuff.
I hoped you had a nice tripfrom Brisbane, australia, to
Chicago, united States ofAmerica.
Did you travel with?
The Starship Recording locationis now All the best, martin and

(57:38):
1701 is a Star Trek boost.
Oh is it?
Oh, well, there you go.
And he then follows that upwith another one saying and he's
using True Fans for this, Iwill pull your leg a bit.
Oh again, how are things in theWindy City, chicago?
What kind of pizza do you fancy?
Do you approve of pieces ofpineapple on your pizza?
Well, of course, a classicpizza in Sweden is with slices

(58:02):
of doner kebab meat.
No, what Did you have?
A Sam Adams beer?
Well, I did.
I had one because it was thebest of a bad bunch, but I then
had some local beer, which wasnice.
Recording location says Brisbane, queensland, australia.
Yes, all right, I know that youare not lost in space if you
travel with the Starship loadedwith 1,701 Satoshis.

(58:22):
All the best, martin.
Anyway, there we are.
Thank you, martin, for that.
2,222 sats from Silas on LinuxPod.
News is the reason why I'm poor.
He says Silas, thank you forbeing poor.
I appreciate it.
Neil Velio.
298 sats from True Fans.

(58:43):
He says I love the overdubs.
Evolutions in the intro lastweek, yes, I realised that I had
a version that said live fromPodcast Movement, but not a
version that said live fromPodcast Movement Evolutions, and
I thought it wasn't fair todesperately ask Evo to get
Sheila to do a new version ofthat.

(59:03):
So yes, so there's a thing.

Sam Sethi (59:07):
Might not need one for next year.

No, well, no, exactly, well, well, I mean, who
knows?
I see what you were sayingthere.
Let's move on.
2222 sats from Bruce.
Thanks for taking us alongagain.
This is to the Pod News.
This is the Pod News WeeklyReview last week, which, which,
of course, was recorded live atpodcast movement evolutions.
Love to hear you can do apodcast without your comfortable

(59:31):
studio.
Good show 73.
Uh, thank you, bruce.
Uh, that's very kind of you.
Also, matt cundall.
5150 sats.
Um, from fountain.
Wonderful episode from podcastmovement evolutions.
Perfect cure for fomo, hmm.

Sam Sethi (59:47):
Yes, I had FOMO.
So yes, I'm sure several otherpeople did as well.

It was good fun, although, to be honest, it was
very easy wandering around andchatting to people because there
weren't very many people thereLast day and everything you know
.
I think all of the interest inthe booths had been and gone.
Can't wait to hear what Toddsays about it when that show is

(01:00:11):
back.
But yes, so there we are.
So thank you all for your sats,much appreciated.
Sam and I share those sats withus and that's very gratefully
received.
Sam, I think you also got inyour bank account this week some

(01:00:31):
nice money from our excellent18.
Yes thank you.
Who are Star Tempest, BrianEnsminger, the late bloomer
actor, James Burt, JohnMcDermott, Claire Waite-Brown,
Mazzalene Smith, Neil Velio,Rocky Thomas, Jim James, David
Marzell, Cy Jobling, RachelCorbett, Dave Jackson, Mike
Hamilton, Much appreciated.

(01:00:52):
If you would like to be the19th, then you are more than
welcome.
Weeklypodnewsnet is where to gowith your credit card.
We accept any popular creditcard.
No tariffs on our weekly thing.

(01:01:13):
I don't even understand howtariffs work online.
I should probably not even careabout them, should I?
I don't know.
No, we're not important Tariffsare for things, aren't they?
Yes, yes, yes.
So they're not going to startcharging.
If Australia starts charging a50% tariff on America, it's not

(01:01:35):
going to be a 50% tariff onmoney that we might make from
Buzzsprout, I'm assuming.

Sam Sethi (01:01:41):
No, no, it used to be .
Tariff is a really easy word tounderstand import duty.
Do you remember those words?

James Cridland (01:01:47):
Yes, yes, oh, and I suppose we're not
importing anything other thanmoney, so no, exactly.

Sam Sethi (01:01:54):
I also caught up with Jim James this week, one of our
power supporters.
He's wonderfully produced usinglovable AI, which is one of
those vibe coding platformswhere you can just ask it to
produce an app.
But he produced somethingreally cool, which is he puts
the audio transcription into histool and it then gives you

(01:02:17):
balance of speakers, tone, whatthey talked about, all sorts of
things.
It's an analysis of speakers.

It's very cool, oh, okay, well, that's nice,
excellent, well, there's a thing.
Uh, what's happened for youthis week, sam?

Sam Sethi (01:02:30):
uh, yeah, have you been busy on true fans yeah,
well, you know, um, I thinkwe'll probably save a little bit
of this, what we are doing,hopefully for a conversation
with john spurlock, but we'vebeen working on some technology
called activity streams, whichis not activity pub, it's the
ability to create a json file toexport.
So, look, we do import andexport.

(01:02:50):
Quite well, now, we we importand and export cough hint, uh,
opml, um, we?
Um wonder who I'm aiming thatone at?
Um, we also do the xml exportof uh pod roles and publisher
feed and import them as well.
And we now do import and exportof activity streams.

(01:03:12):
So, yes, you can get a JSONfile of all your activity,
download it, do what you wantwith it, share it with who you
like, put it onto social media.
Yeah, so we've been working onthat.
The idea is it's aboutdiscovery.
So, yeah, that's been whatwe've been working on.

Very good, and you're doing stuff around the
verify tag, which is nice nowthat Apple is fully supporting
that, so that's a good thing.

Sam Sethi (01:03:39):
Yeah, I mean email as a mechanism of verification
after we all removed email fromthe RSS feed is very hit and
miss, and the idea of the userin the moment wanting to claim a
show and then going to have togo and update their RSS feed
through their host and then waitfor it to populate and then try

(01:03:59):
again doesn't work.
So we need a better mechanismand I guess Apple have shown the
way forward, so now we canreplicate it.

Indeed, indeed, and you're adding a new TrueFans
API.
This looks weird.
What is this TrueFans API?

Sam Sethi (01:04:16):
Well, we've been asked by a couple of hosts to do
this.
They want to use our platformas a means of publishing
directly so that they can get animmediate knowledge that the
podcast that they have publishedon behalf of their customer has
actually been received by anapp.
So they normally publish to thepodcast index and they'll

(01:04:38):
continue to do that, but theyhave no feedback mechanism that
tells them that we have pulledit correctly from the podcast
index.
So they wanted an API into whatwe do.

Very nice.
Yes, I've been sort of battlinga little bit with the podcast
index.
There are a few feeds that arein Apple but have changed their
feed since they went into thepodcast index.
And it's not always, you know,for some quite big launches seem
not to show up correctly in thepodcast index.

(01:05:11):
So I'm wondering if there mightbe a bug there or something.
I've reported it today.
We'll see what happens.
But I have gone into thepodcast index because I have the
power and changed those RSSfeeds over.

Sam Sethi (01:05:29):
So you know I fixed that for everybody that uses the
podcast index, but yes, it's abit of a strange old one really.
I'm still confused by how,sometimes moving from one host
to the other with three or oneredirect works.
But hey, we'll try and work itout Now.
James, what's happened for you?
Are you at 1 million downloadsyet, or 2 million downloads?
Come on, what's happened?

Ah no, yes, you are talking about the story that
we had on Monday, which is allabout the wonderful Google Audio
News.
I've been mentioning this alittle bit in this podcast and,
yes, all of a sudden, on the28th of February, 28th of
February, google started givingus 30,000 downloads a day to the

(01:06:10):
Pod News Daily, which was niceof them, but I don't really want
that.
Thanks, thanks very much.
Anyway, what we're now seeingis that that has now gone up to
about 40,000.
Google and I, you know,eventually turned around and
started publishing a story aboutthis, because I had a contact

(01:06:35):
with another podcast host whowas also seeing something
similar.
That has flushed out a thirdpodcast host which again is
seeing the same thing.
Google basically pulling lots ofthese shows and seemingly I
don't think everybody's agreedthat they're not getting played,

(01:06:55):
but I think that that's prettyself-evident from our stats.
Anyway, google told meyesterday that they'd fixed it,
but they haven't, so I'm notquite sure what's going on there
as well.
But yes, I think my hostingcost me an extra $200 last month

(01:07:15):
and so I could kind of I'dquite like Google to stop, but
we will see what they do there.
Anyway, more information inthat on in Monday's pod news, I
think this week, where you candive in and find out a little
bit more information about that.

Sam Sethi (01:07:37):
You've got here LTG.
What's?

LTG a lot with airlines.
Then eventually they give you apat on the back and they say
well done, james.
You've flown an awful lot withus.
You are now lifetime gold.
So, as I flew back from Chicago, I'm now lifetime gold, which

(01:08:00):
is very exciting which meansthat I have access to the
lounges forever now, hooray, sothat's nice.

Sam Sethi (01:08:09):
Patch of honour.
Well done you.

Patch of honour.
And the scary thing is I hitthat in just eight years.
It's all I've been flying thisparticular airline with.
So just eight years and I'm nowlifetime gold with them, which
is interesting because it doesactually mean that you are going
to potentially become lesscustomer loyal, because it means
that I can always get into thelounge with that airline.

(01:08:34):
So therefore I can try theother airline now, you know.
So it's a strange one.

Sam Sethi (01:08:40):
But why would you want to start at the bottom and
work your way up again?

Well, because they've got status match so you
can actually start.
You can go hello, I'm gold withthis airline, Can I be gold
with you?
And they'll say, oh, yes,please.
So you start with gold, youstart with gold there and yeah,
and so you can play the game.
Play the game with them as well.
I don't think I'm going to, butnevertheless, because they're

(01:09:03):
not a very good airline, butnevertheless, yes.
So that, I think, tells me thatI've been doing far too much
travel.
I have been given theopportunity to go somewhere in
June which I'm sort of ummingand ahhing about, and I have
been asked to go and speaksomewhere very nice on World

(01:09:23):
Podcast Day on the 30th ofSeptember.
Except my September is mostlytravelling around different
parts of the world anyway.
So I'm there thinking, gosh, doI really want more travel at
the end of September?
So we'll see quite how far weget Depends, how much I can

(01:09:44):
charge, I suppose.

Sam Sethi (01:09:47):
You're on a plane to London, aren't you?
So you'll be coming to Londonshortly.

I will.
I'm on a plane to the podcastshow in London.
I noticed that I've got a callat some point next week in the
middle of the night with therest of the advisory board to
find out how that's going.
But that should be good fun.
I'm looking forward to that.
And also going to Toronto,which is my next flight in a

(01:10:12):
couple of weeks' time, going toa big radio conference up there.
So that should be fun as well.
Looking forward to a little bitof that too.
Excellent, yes, and that's itfor this week.
All of our podcast storiestaken from the PodNews daily
newsletter at podnewsnet.
I'm very aware that I'msounding very sort of relaxed
and quiet, and that's becauseit's half past nine at night

(01:10:34):
where I am.
We're recording this slightlylater and I happen to know that
my very sleepy parents aretrying to go to sleep in the
room directly below this office,so that's why I'm being
slightly quieter than I normallywould be.

Sam Sethi (01:10:48):
But anyway, there we go.
Let's wrap it up for you.
You can support this show bystreaming stats.
You can give us feedback byusing Buzzsprout fan mail.
The link is in our show notes.
You can send us a super commentor become a power supporter by
the excellent 18 atweeklypodnewsnet.

Yes, our music is from TM Studios.
Our voiceover is Sheila D, ouraudio is recorded using Clean
Feed, we edit with Hindenburgand we're hosted and sponsored
by Buzzsprout.
Start podcasting, keeppodcasting.
Get updated every day.
Subscribe to our newsletter atpodnewsnet.

Sam Sethi (01:11:25):
Tell your friends and grow the show and support us
and support us.
The Pod News.
Weekly Review will return nextweek.
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