October 5, 2023 • 39 mins
What does the future of podcast monetization look like?
Today I'm joined by Sam Sethi, founder of https://www.podfans.fm, a new platform embracing creator culture and a pioneer of the value for value movement within podcasting and beyond.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
What does the future of podcastmonetization look like?
And in particular, what does the futurelook like for the independent creator?
It's something that a lot of podcastersconcern themselves with, especially in the
world of minimum revenue guarantees andminimum download thresholds for
advertisements and big words being thrownaround like programmatic advertising.
(00:24):
The good news is that as an indie, maybewe don't need to worry about any of that
so much.
That is what we're going to dive intotoday here on the podcast accelerator.
I'm your host, Mark Asquith, and I'mjoined by a great friend and a wonderful
industry thinker and an actual industrydoer, of which I believe there should be
more.
(00:45):
But we'll talk about that on anothersession.
We are going to talk all things value forvalue.
We're going to talk all thingsmonetization.
We're going to talk all things the futurefor the indie creator.
And we're going to talk about the brandnew platform called
hot fans.
Welcome to the show, Mr.
Sam Sethi How are you my friend?
Wow, I need to have one of you just leadin me, go in front of me in rooms and just
(01:08):
introduce me.
That'll be amazing.
Toastmaster.
like a David Brent thing.
We'll get a nice boom box on my shoulder.
We'll play a little bit of Tina Turner.
You're the best.
We'll just any room you need, my friend,I'm there.
I'm ready.
I'm ready.
That's it.
We're done.
Right.
Hello.
Hello.
I don't like doing this because I knowthat everyone really should know you like
(01:33):
I know you because I know the fantasticwork that you do in the industry.
But I want to get to some of the coolstuff that you're up to with, with the
product that you've got and some of thethinking that you do, which I think is
vital, but I'm going to do the thing thateveryone else does at the end.
I'm going to say, Sam, tell us what youdo.
And importantly, give us your bloodywebsite, mate.
Okay, what I do, I co-host Pod News Weeklywith James Cridland.
(01:56):
We've been doing that for about threeyears.
And so that's great fun.
It allows me to interview cool people andtalk with James about what's going on in
the industry on a weekly basis.
And it's so, so hectic every week.
Beginning of the week, I think, Oh God,what we're going to talk about this week.
And by the end of the week, it's like,Jesus, cut that we haven't got enough
time.
And invariably, the Pod News Weekly
(02:18):
We tried to make it a half hour podcast atthe beginning.
It's invariably 90 minutes on average.
It's ridiculously long.
So apologies to everyone about that.
And then on the side, just to keep myselfbusy, I've got a new podcasting platform
called podvans.fm.
I love it.
I want to dig into that in just a second.
(02:39):
And before we do that, though, I do, Iwant to set the scene.
I think that pod news weekly 30 minuteaspiration is actually a really good place
to start because that has been thesituation in podcasting.
I mean, I want to say at least for thelast five or six years, it was felt a
little different before that.
It was there was a lot going on, but itdidn't.
(03:00):
It wasn't I don't want to say mainstream,but it wasn't as close to mainstream as it
is now, which then incurred the fact that,you know,
wasn't as much money coming through itbecause of that there was much less
interest and then there was this startupboom there was this money boom there was
this boom of acquisitions and everythingjust seemed to go crazy 2017 2018 ish and
things started to change so as someonethat's really at the forefront of the news
(03:25):
and the response to the news every singleweek it's easy for me to sit here and say
things have changed things are slowingdown and for other people to comment and
say things are slowing down but like is it
Is that true?
It doesn't feel like what you're sayingmatches with some of the narrative that we
see online.
It seems as busy as ever.
I think what we're seeing is that peopleare still actively involved in podcasting.
(03:49):
Yeah, there is a slowdown.
I mean, we all know that COVID resulted inpeople sat at home bit bored, got a mic
out, started a podcast anchor gave it awayfor free.
We got a influx of podcasts that you know,let's be honest, some were not very good
and some were okay.
But but it wasn't
professionalizing it.
Now what we've seen post COVID, of course,is a lot of that's gone away, people have
(04:11):
gone back to work.
And that's fine.
We've seen also companies now the stockmarkets are beginning to say to companies
like a cast and others look, oh, you,you've got some money.
Now we want to see some profit.
Yeah, great that you are still revenuegenerating.
But Spotify, a cast, podimo, all theseothers, let's see the money.
(04:31):
And so there's been some downsizing ofpeople and cuts.
I think the exclusives that were outthere, it was a good idea to start off
with.
Let's get, you know, big high profilenames, see if we can generate some numbers
around it in terms of people and that willlead to more revenue and profitability.
Hopefully didn't quite work.
(04:51):
But I think again, looking at global,there have been some amazing alternatives
where there's actually been a very cleverstrategy.
So the news agents been brilliant.
I mean, the numbers you guys are hittingare knocking it out of the park, but also,
you know, look at.
The rest is, you know, GoldhangerProductions podcast.
They've got, the rest is politics, therest is football, and they're doing really
(05:14):
well with all of their titles.
And I think crowd networks, there's a lotof good solid companies who are producing
good solid podcasts that are generatingreal income and real revenue.
Now, what does that mean going down thelong tail?
Yeah, it's still hard work.
I mean, you know, most people are, youknow, if they're getting above 1000
(05:35):
listeners, they're still in the topquartile, right.
So podcasting is not quite yet, you know,the 10s of 1000s for everybody.
But it is, I think an industry that'sgone, I liken it to remember web one.io
when everyone had crazy valuations, andthere was a pop and everyone went, Oh,
well, that's the internet over and donewith in law, let's all go home.
(05:55):
And then suddenly web two came and itstabilized and real business models
occurred and real revenue occurred.
And we are where we are today.
And I think that's exactly what podcastingis.
It's, it's seen its early days.
It's seen its massive pop rise with crazymoney coming into the industry.
And now there's been a downturn and thenslowly, I think 23, 24, the end of 23,
(06:17):
early 24, we're beginning to see properbusinesses and proper podcasting models.
different revenue models, but propermodels.
And so, yeah, I think we're a goodindustry.
It's okay.
Yeah, I hear that.
And I love the comparison to web one andweb 2.0.
And we're going to talk about web 3.0.
(06:37):
And I'm always amazed how it's taking somany hosting companies in podcasting to
get rid of their web 2.0 interfaces.
And some of them still got them.
You know, we all like stuff that looksnostalgic, but time for an upgrade,
people.
Let's just move ahead with that one.
And I think that's representative of wherethe industry was, though.
(06:58):
There was no real need to shift.
And you know, all sort of flippancy asidewith that one, it was a genuine, that was
a genuine issue.
There was no honest reason to shiftbecause, you know, you think about the
creator economy and you think about theway that that's always worked and that's
always generated revenue.
And suddenly you get something.
And I don't want to be the guy thatinvokes cereal, but I've got to do it.
(07:18):
You know, you get something like cerealthat puts podcasting on the map for the
consumerism in a much bigger way.
And.
you know, the boom can be directlyattributed to that kind of feeling where
everyone started to look at podcasting asa media, as an industry.
And I completely agree with it now thatwe've come out of the end of what appears
to be that talent boom, which, you know, alot of people say that was a silly move,
(07:41):
you know, let's why, why acquire JoeRogan's the best example, if you're not
going to be profitable.
I do think there was a lot of strategy inthat around just acquiring users.
And I don't think there was necessarily aneed for profit.
I think it was a loss leader in many ways.
Um, and it's.
I think to a lot of people in theindustry, it hurt their feelings a little
bit that podcasting was like the lossleader for a platform.
And again, I understand that because we'reclose to the industry.
(08:04):
But what interests me about the way thatyou think and the way that you do things,
and I think we think pretty similarly on alot of these issues, is that podcasting is
sort of bundled in now.
Everything that is on-demand audio is sortof called podcasting now.
And it's not, you know, if I go and watch
a Marvel movie, whether that's on Disneyor whether that's in a movie theater,
(08:28):
that's not bundled together with a homevideo or something necessarily on YouTube.
And I feel like podcasting has got thatyet to come where, you know, crowd,
global, wondering, whoever's producing toptier multifaceted IP that happens to be
delivered via a podcast to start with,eventually starts to sort of not become
(08:52):
podcasts because
we feel that the creator economy is wherepodcast is.
And we saw that last week or it was lastweek, wasn't it?
With the new Batman original from Spotifythat just doesn't have the word.
It's an audio original, audio drama,whatever the wording was, it just not got
the word podcast.
So do you think there's a challenge there?
And well, I want to bring this back to theindependence in a bit because I think this
is where pod fans work so well.
(09:14):
But do you think that is, is that pie inthe sky thinking or is there something in
that logic around why are we bundlingeverything now under podcast?
Well, it's become the Hoover of the words,right?
So when you say I'm going to go and Hooverthe lounge, you're not talking about
getting the brand Hoover.
It could be Dyson, right?
It's the generic word.
(09:35):
Google, we don't say search, we say we'rejust gonna Google it, right?
I mean, so I think podcasting has takenthat generic mantle of anything that's
audio video that I can consume digitallyonline.
And the
pragmatist, and I'll put myself in thatcamp, you know, would say, well, it's not
(09:56):
really because it hasn't got RSS.
But look, 99% of people who are what wecall the normies are not bothered whether
it has RSS attached to it, right?
They open up Spotify, they open upYouTube, they consume it.
And to them, it's a podcast.
So therefore it is.
And we just have to get over ourselves.
I think where we will evolve possibly isnew words will come out.
(10:20):
maybe as you said, we talk about films,then we talk about DVDs, and we talk about
on demand, and we talk about streaming inthe video homeworld, you know, Netflix.
But equally, I just said, I'm going towatch a film on Netflix.
And it doesn't really have to have thatconnotation of a cinema attached.
So I think language is loose and flexible.
(10:41):
And I don't think we should get too hungup on it.
But I think as podcasters go, yeah, Imean, I think
think it's I'm I was against YouTube wasagainst audible in many ways, you know,
calling them podcasts.
I've sort of flipped I've gone like, youknow what, let it be because if we get a
secondary glow from the word podcast havebeen picked up by some 18 year old or 25
(11:04):
year old who's just getting into it.
And then they go, Oh, what other podcastscan I use or listen to or watch?
I'm happy.
They will they will eventually
get their education curve to where we wantthem to be, but they have to start
somewhere.
Yeah, I felt that way about Anker back inthe day.
You know, you get a lot of the incumbentshaving a real good cry about Anker.
(11:25):
You know, well, Anker's coming along andit's free.
And if you're free, you know, if it'sfree, then you're the product, which is
ironic, given, you know, that many of thehosting platforms have freemium, which is
wild.
And I'd sort of treated that.
That's how I treated Anker as a, in mymind was it's just a freemium product that
doesn't have a premium tier and guess whowas the premium tier?
(11:46):
You know, here we are at Captivate.
My logic was always the same that ifsomeone, I would rather someone start a
podcast using anchor and it was free andthen realized, oh, do you know what?
Okay, I enjoy this.
Now it's time for something different andCaptivate was an option for them.
Not even saying that we were the only one.
I would just rather we were in that mixrather than them just say, oh no, I've got
(12:11):
to pay money for this thing that I mightnot enjoy doing.
And yeah, it's a...
I feel exactly the same way about that.
So I'm with you on that.
I think that the evolution and the halothat we all feel with regards to the word
podcasting, taking on various differentmeanings.
I'm all right with that.
I think that's OK.
And there's merit to there's merit to openin that market, because then to bring it
(12:34):
back to the revenue stuff, which I reallywant to dig into, you can.
You can't bring more money in if you arenot making more people aware of what
podcasting is.
And if this is the way that it really goesmainstream, then we can't.
I don't think we can be that sad about it.
So let's, let's switch up to the creatorsthen.
So let's talk about pod fans.
You know, even, even now, a lot of peoplestill think that monetizing a podcast as
(12:59):
an indie with.
You know, a hundred downloads, a hundredlisteners.
is super tough.
You know, they think it's difficult to getsponsorships regardless of whether they go
direct and they've got a super nicheaudience or not.
And many people are put off by that.
There are other ways.
All right.
So we know about that.
You've been a big pioneer of value forvalue.
(13:20):
And pod fans is there, this new productthat you're launching this week into the
public domain properly is right at thebleeding edge of that.
So can you spend a second or two justeducating the audience on, okay, what is
this whole value for value thing?
What is pod fans?
How does it work?
And actually, why should we be interestedin this?
Yeah, before I do, sorry, before I do, letme take a quick step back because it looks
(13:47):
blame why value for value is important.
So when I was at Netscape, I was theproduct manager, we created the browser
HTTP was the way that people learned aboutthe language.
And I remember going out and saying topeople, oh, by the way, Mark, it's called
a browser.
It's called a URL has starts with HTTP andpeople were going never catch on.
(14:08):
don't understand what you're talkingabout, first of all, and secondly, you'll
never catch on.
It did, as we all know.
So new vocabulary is always hard to getinto the lexicon of people's minds.
The second part of that was MarkAndreessen, my boss never created a micro
payment system.
So in the absence of it, we got hearts,likes, thumbs up as sentiment analysis.
(14:29):
So people wanting to tell the creator thatthey like what they've done, that was all
they could give them.
There was no form of payment.
Then the creators went, well, I needmoney.
I can't keep doing this for free.
So that they ended up creating advertisingaround the content.
And that's where we got to today.
Now fast forward, and we have somethingcalled Bitcoin.
(14:49):
Now, most people rolled their eyes theminute you say Bitcoin.
And if I say it's a digital wallet, andit's called a micro payment, and they call
Satoshi's.
Again, these are all new words, peoplelook at you going that'll never catch on.
It's all Swahili.
I don't know what you're talking about,Sam.
Well, as I said, people didn't understandwhat HTTP was either.
(15:11):
So there are about 50 million people usingdigital wallets today.
So it's not, you know, small chump change,there are a good number of people out
there.
And it's slowly catching on.
We're seeing the numbers, you know,through various wallets increasing.
So what is a micro payment?
What is value for value?
So a micro payment is 100 millionth of theBitcoin, it has to be that small.
(15:31):
And why do you need it at all when you'vegot PayPal and Stripe and Visa and
MasterCard and Apple Pay?
Well, because all of those take paymentgateway fees.
And because they take those fees, if Ijust wanted to give you Mark 50 P or a
pound for this show, I couldn't do itbecause actually most of that money would
go to the payment gateway provider, evenif they accepted that payment, because
(15:53):
most won't even accept those smallpayments.
So
This micro payment model came about andthat's the first part of it.
Now value for value is just a simple neweconomic model.
It doesn't have to include micro paymentsand Bitcoin.
Value for value is simply you mark set avalue for the content you're creating and
(16:14):
means the listener can agree with thevalue you set or disagree and if I agree,
I just pay it and if I disagree, I canmake it higher.
I could say Mark you're stupid.
boy, this is the best show ever.
I'm doubling or tripling the amount I wantto pay you or I'm sorry, Mark, I'm a
newbie.
I haven't got quite into your show.
So I don't want to pay you.
I'm going to pay you nothing now.
(16:34):
I'm going to listen for free.
But when I become a fan, I will trip overinto paying you.
So value for value is a very simple model.
We have it in real world.
You know, if somebody walks into a shop,they see a sale ticket price, that's the
offer price, they can legally go to thecounter and offer a different price, but
we just too British, and we don't do it.
But bartering is that way.
(16:55):
It's a value for value is a very simplereal time model.
Now, what's nice about it with podcastingis because you get a digital wallet and
you get these micro payments in them,think of them as tokens, then, you know,
it's a direct payment between you, thelistener and the creator.
There is no third party.
There's no middleman.
There is no I'm going to do, you know, goup here and I'm going to hold your money
(17:19):
until I'm comfortable.
There's no none of that.
So direct payments.
which is the root of what Web Wando 1.0was.
You know, if you remember Linewire,Napster, Skype, it was a peer-to-peer
system.
It was Web2 that made it client serveragain.
And yes, you mentioned it earlier, Mark.
So I'll say it again.
Web3 is very much about decentralizationand peer-to-peer monetization.
(17:44):
And so we're going back to the roots ofthe web and value for value is a new
economic model that really will benefitpodcasters
And sorry, Mark, this is the last part.
So the average CPM rate for an advert isabout $25.
If you're a creator with less than acouple of you know, 100 users, you're not
going to get that $25 CPM rate, you'rejust not.
(18:08):
So what can you do, you can go and get asponsor if you're lucky, maybe you might
get a few of your mates listening.
Great.
And who might want to pay you buy yourcoffee or whatever it may be.
But again,
Kevin Kelly's seminal blog post was athousand true fans and all he said was
look, stop chasing millions of people.
None of us are Joe Rogan.
(18:28):
So if you've got a couple of hundredpeople willing to pay you 50p an episode,
a pound an episode, that covers yourhosting costs and gives you a little bit
of money.
Now scale that up to the likes of a newsagent at global with 10 million users and
you know, then the revenue numbersoutweigh anything you'll get through
advertising.
But we're just in the early days.
And so when this
(18:49):
crosses over and it will, then people willprobably not want to be interrupted by
advertising and they will willingly pay tolisten to content that they're a fan of.
We're starting to see that shift as well.
We're starting to see the trend of peoplesaying that podcasts have too many adverts
because that is the only way when you havea large audience and the only extra thing
(19:15):
that you can do outside of listenersupport, so through subscriptions,
memberships, or whether it's taking tipsas you alluded to earlier, the only way is
to simply insert one more ad slot, andthen again and again and again and again.
So you do start to see now that people arestarting to just say...
Hmm.
This is becoming a bit of an issue.
And then, you know, conversely, what youthen get is the model that you hear
(19:37):
throughout, you know, everywhere.
Every major production company is doingthis where listen, add free.
If you give us money per month and what Ilike about the way this works.
And I'm always a I'm massively into newtech.
I'm always looking and playing andtinkering right in the earliest stages of
new tech.
And then as someone that runs a hostingcompany, I'm always thinking, actually,
(20:01):
When do you bring this to the masses?
And when are the people that aren't in totech going to be ready for this?
And I agree, you know, I think eventuallypeople will get on board with this
thinking.
Because what I see as a major issue thatthis begins to solve is that if I am an
(20:22):
indie creator, let's assume that I'vedevoted my entire creator experience to
the Kevin Kelly logic, which I totallyagree with.
I've got my thousand true fans.
How long has it taken me to get those fansto become true fans enough that they want
to pay me?
Like that entire, if you think about it inmarketing terms, as we always do, people
(20:43):
like you and I, that conversion period,that sales period is long.
They listen to X amount of podcasts, anumber of episodes, and then they've got
to discover that they like you, and thenthey've got to really like you, and then
they've got to be willing to give yousomething.
and then give you something regularlyevery single month.
Like that sales process is tough.
(21:04):
Does this go some way to solving thatproblem because it is such a.
I don't want to say transient, because Ithink that oversimplifies it and
diminishes it a little bit, but it's veryfleeting.
The decision, if that makes any sense.
So, so what we currently have today iswhat I call the Chinese buffet mode.
So let's talk about Spotify or, orsubscriptions on Apple, right?
(21:27):
Pay me in advance for something I've notconsumed.
And if I don't drop a new episode, stillkeep paying me because I want you to
because that's all that a subscription cando.
Whereas with a value for value model, it'sa per minute payment basis.
So let's say
you start listening to a podcast and youonly listen to 20 minutes of an hour's
(21:48):
show, that's all you pay 20 minutes worth.
If you're listening to a book, exactly thesame thing model applies for value for
value.
I've listened to two chapters.
I don't know how many books I've gottenaudible that I've got a third of the way
through and never listened to all of it.
The same works of video.
And most excitingly, this model is alsonow working for music as well.
(22:11):
And that's one of the new things that'scome out.
So you might only listen to 10 tracksinstead of listening to 50 tracks, but why
pay for the 500 tracks in advance that younever listened to?
problem with that is if anyone listens toMeat Loaf, each song's going to cost them
45 quid.
Oh, if anyone listens to Meatloaf, youjust shoot them.
(22:37):
I'm going to tell that to the karaokegroup at the local pub because on Friday
night, they get wild up there, mate, for alittle bit of meat.
But no, I like that.
I like that.
I'm interested in the way that technologythinkers like yourself will take what can
be very abstract concepts like value forvalue, like, you know, Bitcoin, like the
Satoshi element of Bitcoin and do what allthe good people really have been doing
(23:04):
since day one, which is putting technology
that doesn't feel scary in between us andthat what appears to be the backend
technology.
So tell us a bit about Podfans becausethat's exactly what this does.
It's a well thought out product from goodthinkers to simplify something that can be
(23:25):
complex for the creator.
So tell us all about it.
Tell us what Podfans does.
And really what was the idea behind it?
Where did it come from?
Sure.
So, complexity is fail simplicity is oneof my favorite sayings.
And that's a guy called Edward De Bonocame up with that.
When we started pod fans, there was nopoint in trying to replicate Apple and
(23:46):
Spotify, right?
Just a subscription based model.
We would fail.
And when I started pod fans, probably ayear to 18 months ago, Bitcoin was just
forming the Lightning Network, which isthis fast real time payment system was
just forming.
So these were new ideas.
Core part of it is I firmly believe thatpeople's time and attention has value.
(24:08):
And that value is I will only pay for whatI consume and I'll only pay for the time I
listen rather than pay it all in advance.
So when we found that this micro paymentsexisted and it was possible to do a per
minute payment system for digital contentof any sort, that was the embryo for
starting pod fans.
(24:29):
So RSS, as we all know, is an openecosystem.
You can consume anyone's RSS unlessthey've blocked it or made it exclusive.
And on that basis, we decided that wewouldn't have advertising as the
monetization model for creators, but wewould have this peer-to-peer direct
payment system from fan to creator.
(24:51):
So to build that, we had to fundamentallystart with creating the database, then we
had to create.
wallets and we have to create themechanism for measuring in real time
across everyone who's listening.
So we do we do a per second analysis overthe API.
And we make and then we aggregate thatbundle per minute and then we pay it.
(25:12):
And it works.
It just works, right?
We spent a year building this and itworks.
And that's the cool thing.
So now
when you're a new user to podfans, it'svery simple, you join and in the
onboarding process, you either have anexisting wallet, or you don't.
If you do, we just verify against yourwallet, off you go.
The learning curve is great because youalready understand what a payment system
(25:35):
is, with micro payment and what a walletis.
So now you're just understanding how myplatform works.
And you know, the intricacies of myplatform compared to other platforms.
If you haven't got a wallet, and that's,you know, again, we have to reach those
people who don't understand this.
then we've got to educate you on theonboarding as to how do you get a wallet?
And we do that.
(25:55):
And then we put in 10,000 sats into yourwallet as a part of the process and we
reward you and we're trying to teach youas well we call learn and earn.
So we're trying to say to you look, you'vegot your wallet you've joined here's some
tokens here's some sats in your wallet.
Now give us your email address or pickyour first five favorite podcasts or
(26:16):
listen to your first show.
and we will reward you for completingtasks that add up to 10,000 sats.
So when you get into the system and youclick play, it works.
You don't have to go, Oh God, do I have toget a credit card out now?
Oh, I don't want to do that.
I don't know these people.
We also, as I said, we reward time andattention so you can earn by being an
(26:37):
active user.
So let's say it was a fan of your podcast,Mark.
I could be sharing it.
I could be boosting it, which is a commentwith a payment.
I could be clipping in a piece and puttingthat out to my social network.
Each one of those is a verb, boost, clip,share.
And we've put a gamification engine insideof pod fans.
So we know there's 30 verbs.
(26:59):
We know what exactly you do when you're inthe platform and we can allocate points to
that.
So yes, you pay if you choose to listen toa podcast, you don't have to, but you also
can earn by being an active fan of apodcast.
So we think that two way value for valuemodel.
is what we've built and that's pod fans.
(27:21):
the element of rewarding the attention ofa listener as well.
I think that's really, really useful.
Even the gamification element of anythingis always so powerful.
And I do think that podcasting is yet toreally capitalize on that.
We see words like engagement banded aboutso much, but no one really does anything
(27:41):
with it.
So I really like this idea that you'veembraced that.
And a lot of people are going to start tosay things like, okay, well, actually
I listen to most of my podcasts on the go.
I listen to most of my shows when I'mdoing something else.
And it's usually on a smart device,usually on a phone or whatever.
So how do you handle that?
Are you available mobile?
Can people listen using mobile and usingpod fans?
(28:04):
Yeah, the good news is we've createdwhat's called a progressive web app PWA.
And all that means is browser based.
It's not in the iOS store or the GoogleStore.
We don't pay Apple a 30% tax for anytransaction, which is why we did it.
And it means it works across iPad, laptopand mobile in the same way.
(28:24):
And we just size the screen down to basedon the size of screen.
So that's really cool.
The one thing I was going to slightlychange one thing there was a report this
week Mark just bear with me.
Ashley Carmen from Bloomberg put out areport saying that podcasters now
beginning to fake their numbers in termsof downloads.
And why are they doing that?
(28:46):
Well, fake until you make it is anexpression that you hear many
entrepreneurs being told to say but
reason they're doing that is because theywant to get that $25 CPM.
Oh, how many how many people download yourbook?
Oh, yeah, a couple of 1000 people.
All right, well, we'll sign you up.
There you go.
You can have some advertising.
And then they find out it's a couple ofhundred people.
So that is something that is quite common,I'm afraid in the in the community.
(29:09):
And also, we all know if you use somethinglike an Apple podcast, it auto downloads,
that doesn't mean you auto listen.
So you could have a back catalog ofhundreds of podcasts you've never listened
to.
But that gets reported back as a downloadand therefore the advertiser thinks, oh, I
should be paying for that.
The last part of that mark is also wedon't know how far along in a podcast the
(29:33):
person's listened to.
So let's say there's three adverts, theone at the beginning, middle and end.
We all know the one at the end generallydoesn't get listened to.
We know the one in the middle probablygets skipped.
If it doesn't get skipped, it will getlistened to.
But we can't 100% know for certain.
Now with pod fans, we know for certain,because we know exactly how many minutes
you've listened to, at what point youdropped off.
(29:55):
So we've got three metrics that we'veworked with a company in Canada who have a
similar thinking called Bumper.
And it's time listened, percent completedand value paid.
And you bring those three metrics togetherand you can roll that up to a creator so
they know exactly how long each listenerlistened, but also in aggregate how...
(30:16):
where people dropped off in your episode.
You also know how much value was paid forit.
And those three, when you go back to anadvertiser, if you still want to put
advertising into your own podcast, youcan.
And then the advertiser is going to beconfident that yeah, actually, you know
what, Mark?
80% of your listeners listen to thatadvert.
Great, I'm going to continue paying it.
So again, we've got this old downloadmodel.
(30:38):
We've got this fake it until you make itand use a number model.
And again, that's all changing as well.
So...
The way that we're doing micro payments,it'll be not just good for creators
linking to their fans, but it also be goodfor advertisers trying to be 100% certain
that their adverts are even being listenedto.
(30:59):
It's such a challenge that because I thinkthis is responsible for a lot of the
downside of the boom that we saw.
So where we are now basically in theindustry, you know, the renewals of big
brands looking at partnerships and lookingat even programmatic and so on where
they're doing big ad buys across variousnetworks or different types of show.
You often find renewals are so much morechallenging than the original sale because
(31:23):
you're absolutely right.
We can report on downloads, but that.
That was only sexy when podcasting wasreally, really new and it was the only
metric.
But now those same people are walking intothe meetings and saying, actually, all
right, downloads are fine, but what did weget?
And you can't you can't constantly justuse brand positioning as the answer to
(31:43):
that.
And we know that's happening.
We see that at the highest levels ofpodcasting.
We see that at the highest levels of adsales.
And we see it reported very, very often,which, as you said, leads to what we saw
reported.
today through Ashley.
So yeah, I get it.
I think it's fascinating.
Now I think the thing that I would say isthe indie producer, so the person that's
(32:04):
really, really busy, the person that is,you know, getting the 50 or the 100
download, you know, good loyal audience,but actually, they've not got that much
time.
What's this going to do for them?
Is this a challenge from a timingperspective?
Do they need to put piles of time intoworking with something like pod fans?
Or how does this accommodate those?
(32:25):
Really simple.
So we we've ingested probably about500,000 podcasts and we'll increase that
over the next few months.
Obviously, all 4 million aren't what wewant.
We talked about anchor earlier.
So but we'll get all the best podcasts wethink they're out there.
If yours is one of those podcasts, all youhave to do is then claim it.
(32:45):
And when you claim it, you get access to abackend dashboard for pod fans.
Now
A pod fan sets a default value for everypodcast out there at 100 sats per minute.
So an hour show is six thousand sats.
What's that in real money?
About 50p.
Right.
So it's not a big problem.
(33:05):
So once you've got a value for everyepisode, you as the creator, once you've
claimed your show, can go and change thatvalue.
You can say, oh, OK, I want my show to be10 sats per minute or a thousand sats per
minute or zero.
You can pick what you want.
In the value for value model that willjust change at the front end and the
listener will go Oh, that's the new valuethat's set by the creator.
(33:28):
But in the value for value model, I as thelistener have that final say I can still
change that value as well.
So as a creator, no, you don't need to domuch you go in and check that the podcast
that you that's yours is there you claimit and verify it and it has to be verified
and we'll
And then once you've done that, you setyour own values and then you market that
(33:52):
out to your listeners that this is what wedo and your listeners then have choices,
pay it or not pay it right.
But there isn't much more you have to do.
There's no, Oh my God, do I need to knowhow to do a tag in the middle at minute
one with a DAI link here and somethingelse and do I need to rub my head and
scratch my tummy to do this?
No, it's fairly self-explanatory becauseyou've got to, you get given a wallet when
(34:16):
you joined.
So it, you know,
It's the same for creators as it is forlisteners.
You just need a wallet to be receivingyour sats into.
That's what I like about this concept isthat, well, like we said earlier,
simplifying the complexity of all of thesemechanisms and moving parts that are
required to benefit from blockchainpayments and so on and so forth.
(34:36):
I think that's the real strength behindthe scenes of this is that I can set it
up.
And I know the word wallet, I know thatworks, but I don't generally have to worry
about it.
So I commend you on that, my friend.
I think that's fantastic work.
What's the timeline for pod fans then?
So this is, we're here, we're at 28th ofSeptember.
2023, what's the status of pod fans now?
(34:57):
What's the next six months look like towrap this up?
So earlier this week, we took off thewrapper.
It's now a beta product.
It was an alpha.
And so it's mobile, it's desktop, it's inall those screens in between.
That's great.
And yeah, please go and use it.
We've also built a really, I mean, talkingabout paying SATS, Mark, we've built a
(35:20):
feedback model where if you give us a bugreport, we pay you in SATS as a thank you.
So we give you some SATS for reportingbugs.
If you give us a brand new featuresuggestion,
give you some slats as well for that.
So again, there's ways of getting earningit.
But fundamentally, yeah, you can go inthere.
You can use it.
Now what we are doing is increasing theservers.
(35:42):
We're building this.
We talked about it very tangently.
We're building a new music element to itas well.
So lots of independent music artists arenow being said, I don't really like
putting my music on Apple and Spotify.
I don't really make any money, but they'rebeginning to create RSS feeds for their
music.
and uploading those to the index and thenwe can download those and using a payment
(36:04):
model value for value, they can get paiddirectly by their fans and Ashley Ainsley
Costello, sorry, an artist on who's donethis said on Twitter or X that she made 20
or dollars when she did it across 60streaming platforms and she made $400 in
one day doing the same thing using SATs.
(36:27):
artists are beginning to understand andartists more than podcasters have a deeper
connection to their fans.
I mean, we all love to think our fans loveus, but realistically they are a little
bit flirty.
If we went away, they'd go away.
Right.
They wouldn't chase us down and find us.
But if a music artist goes, you're like,Oh my God, I love you.
(36:48):
Where have you gone?
Right.
And, and their commitment to music is muchhigher.
So
The value for value model works really,really well with music.
So we're adding a music element veryshortly to it as well.
fascinating work as someone that buildssoftware, my friend, I know how difficult
this is to pull off.
And yeah, come on, commend you on thework, but also just the way that you lead
(37:09):
in the thinking as well.
So yeah, absolutely commendable workersalways.
And I think everyone should just give thatgive this a whirl, even if I'm always a
fan of trying things anyway, I think evenif you don't stick with it, I'm not saying
that would be the case with pod fans, butplease, anyone listening, just go over
there and try this and you can find thatat podfans.fm.
So I heartily recommend that you do that.
(37:31):
Well, Sam, it's always a pleasure.
I know you've held an event this week withJames, which I'm sure was absolutely
fantastic.
I was out of the country for it.
So I'm sorry I couldn't be there, but ifit's anything like the Manchester one, I
know it would have been a roaring success.
And yeah, look forward to seeing you inperson soon, my friend.
Indeed, indeed.
And we're going to a Liverpool gametogether.
So that'll be even more fun.
(37:51):
That sounds good.
Speaking of that, I appreciate that.
I cannot wait for that.
I'm looking forward to that.
If you would like to send Sam and I somebeer money for that, you can do that at
mark.live slash support.
It's like we planned that, Sam.
It's like this smooth segue into sending
Thanks for watching!
(38:20):
Any industry events outside of your own?
No, no, I mean, I think we're coming tothe end of those.
So we did our own one and I also went tothe British Podcast Awards this week and
gave out an award.
The next big event, Mark, for me, andmaybe you might be there, is the one in
the LA podcast movement.
I will be there.
It'll be the first time back on the WestCoast since COVID because of the family
(38:42):
and travel.
So I'm excited for that.
We actually booked the hotel.
We booked the flights.
We are there.
So I'm excited for that.
And for you listening out there, if youare interested, go to podfans.fm.
And if you've got any questions, just getin touch with us on the usual channels.
The Twitter's all, I'm not gonna call itX, the Twitter's the best way to do that.
(39:02):
And I'm at MrAsquith and Sam.
You're over on Twitter as well, aren'tyou?
at Sam Sethi or at JoinPodFans.
Just come and ping me and I'm more thanhappy to give you an answer to whatever
question you have.
Amazing stuff and for you listening, enjoyyourself.
Thank you for tuning in.
It's always a pleasure until the nexttime.
Keep on doing what you do.
Keep sharing your voice, your thoughtswith the world and look after yourself.
(39:25):
Bye bye for now.
What does the future of podcastmonetization look like?
And in particular, what does the futurelook like for the independent creator?
It's something that a lot of podcastersconcern themselves with, especially in the
world of minimum revenue guarantees andminimum download thresholds for
advertisements and big words being thrownaround like programmatic advertising.
(00:24):
The good news is that as an indie, maybewe don't need to worry about any of that
so much.
That is what we're going to dive intotoday here on the podcast accelerator.
I'm your host, Mark Asquith, and I'mjoined by a great friend and a wonderful
industry thinker and an actual industrydoer, of which I believe there should be
more.
(00:45):
But we'll talk about that on anothersession.
We are going to talk all things value forvalue.
We're going to talk all thingsmonetization.
We're going to talk all things the futurefor the indie creator.
And we're going to talk about the brandnew platform called
hot fans.
Welcome to the show, Mr.
Sam Sethi How are you my friend?
Wow, I need to have one of you just leadin me, go in front of me in rooms and just
(01:08):
introduce me.
That'll be amazing.
Toastmaster.
like a David Brent thing.
We'll get a nice boom box on my shoulder.
We'll play a little bit of Tina Turner.
You're the best.
We'll just any room you need, my friend,I'm there.
I'm ready.
I'm ready.
That's it.
We're done.
Right.
Hello.
Hello.
I don't like doing this because I knowthat everyone really should know you like
(01:33):
I know you because I know the fantasticwork that you do in the industry.
But I want to get to some of the coolstuff that you're up to with, with the
product that you've got and some of thethinking that you do, which I think is
vital, but I'm going to do the thing thateveryone else does at the end.
I'm going to say, Sam, tell us what youdo.
And importantly, give us your bloodywebsite, mate.
Okay, what I do, I co-host Pod News Weeklywith James Cridland.
(01:56):
We've been doing that for about threeyears.
And so that's great fun.
It allows me to interview cool people andtalk with James about what's going on in
the industry on a weekly basis.
And it's so, so hectic every week.
Beginning of the week, I think, Oh God,what we're going to talk about this week.
And by the end of the week, it's like,Jesus, cut that we haven't got enough
time.
And invariably, the Pod News Weekly
(02:18):
We tried to make it a half hour podcast atthe beginning.
It's invariably 90 minutes on average.
It's ridiculously long.
So apologies to everyone about that.
And then on the side, just to keep myselfbusy, I've got a new podcasting platform
called podvans.fm.
I love it.
I want to dig into that in just a second.
(02:39):
And before we do that, though, I do, Iwant to set the scene.
I think that pod news weekly 30 minuteaspiration is actually a really good place
to start because that has been thesituation in podcasting.
I mean, I want to say at least for thelast five or six years, it was felt a
little different before that.
It was there was a lot going on, but itdidn't.
(03:00):
It wasn't I don't want to say mainstream,but it wasn't as close to mainstream as it
is now, which then incurred the fact that,you know,
wasn't as much money coming through itbecause of that there was much less
interest and then there was this startupboom there was this money boom there was
this boom of acquisitions and everythingjust seemed to go crazy 2017 2018 ish and
things started to change so as someonethat's really at the forefront of the news
(03:25):
and the response to the news every singleweek it's easy for me to sit here and say
things have changed things are slowingdown and for other people to comment and
say things are slowing down but like is it
Is that true?
It doesn't feel like what you're sayingmatches with some of the narrative that we
see online.
It seems as busy as ever.
I think what we're seeing is that peopleare still actively involved in podcasting.
(03:49):
Yeah, there is a slowdown.
I mean, we all know that COVID resulted inpeople sat at home bit bored, got a mic
out, started a podcast anchor gave it awayfor free.
We got a influx of podcasts that you know,let's be honest, some were not very good
and some were okay.
But but it wasn't
professionalizing it.
Now what we've seen post COVID, of course,is a lot of that's gone away, people have
(04:11):
gone back to work.
And that's fine.
We've seen also companies now the stockmarkets are beginning to say to companies
like a cast and others look, oh, you,you've got some money.
Now we want to see some profit.
Yeah, great that you are still revenuegenerating.
But Spotify, a cast, podimo, all theseothers, let's see the money.
(04:31):
And so there's been some downsizing ofpeople and cuts.
I think the exclusives that were outthere, it was a good idea to start off
with.
Let's get, you know, big high profilenames, see if we can generate some numbers
around it in terms of people and that willlead to more revenue and profitability.
Hopefully didn't quite work.
(04:51):
But I think again, looking at global,there have been some amazing alternatives
where there's actually been a very cleverstrategy.
So the news agents been brilliant.
I mean, the numbers you guys are hittingare knocking it out of the park, but also,
you know, look at.
The rest is, you know, GoldhangerProductions podcast.
They've got, the rest is politics, therest is football, and they're doing really
(05:14):
well with all of their titles.
And I think crowd networks, there's a lotof good solid companies who are producing
good solid podcasts that are generatingreal income and real revenue.
Now, what does that mean going down thelong tail?
Yeah, it's still hard work.
I mean, you know, most people are, youknow, if they're getting above 1000
(05:35):
listeners, they're still in the topquartile, right.
So podcasting is not quite yet, you know,the 10s of 1000s for everybody.
But it is, I think an industry that'sgone, I liken it to remember web one.io
when everyone had crazy valuations, andthere was a pop and everyone went, Oh,
well, that's the internet over and donewith in law, let's all go home.
(05:55):
And then suddenly web two came and itstabilized and real business models
occurred and real revenue occurred.
And we are where we are today.
And I think that's exactly what podcastingis.
It's, it's seen its early days.
It's seen its massive pop rise with crazymoney coming into the industry.
And now there's been a downturn and thenslowly, I think 23, 24, the end of 23,
(06:17):
early 24, we're beginning to see properbusinesses and proper podcasting models.
different revenue models, but propermodels.
And so, yeah, I think we're a goodindustry.
It's okay.
Yeah, I hear that.
And I love the comparison to web one andweb 2.0.
And we're going to talk about web 3.0.
(06:37):
And I'm always amazed how it's taking somany hosting companies in podcasting to
get rid of their web 2.0 interfaces.
And some of them still got them.
You know, we all like stuff that looksnostalgic, but time for an upgrade,
people.
Let's just move ahead with that one.
And I think that's representative of wherethe industry was, though.
(06:58):
There was no real need to shift.
And you know, all sort of flippancy asidewith that one, it was a genuine, that was
a genuine issue.
There was no honest reason to shiftbecause, you know, you think about the
creator economy and you think about theway that that's always worked and that's
always generated revenue.
And suddenly you get something.
And I don't want to be the guy thatinvokes cereal, but I've got to do it.
(07:18):
You know, you get something like cerealthat puts podcasting on the map for the
consumerism in a much bigger way.
And.
you know, the boom can be directlyattributed to that kind of feeling where
everyone started to look at podcasting asa media, as an industry.
And I completely agree with it now thatwe've come out of the end of what appears
to be that talent boom, which, you know, alot of people say that was a silly move,
(07:41):
you know, let's why, why acquire JoeRogan's the best example, if you're not
going to be profitable.
I do think there was a lot of strategy inthat around just acquiring users.
And I don't think there was necessarily aneed for profit.
I think it was a loss leader in many ways.
Um, and it's.
I think to a lot of people in theindustry, it hurt their feelings a little
bit that podcasting was like the lossleader for a platform.
And again, I understand that because we'reclose to the industry.
(08:04):
But what interests me about the way thatyou think and the way that you do things,
and I think we think pretty similarly on alot of these issues, is that podcasting is
sort of bundled in now.
Everything that is on-demand audio is sortof called podcasting now.
And it's not, you know, if I go and watch
a Marvel movie, whether that's on Disneyor whether that's in a movie theater,
(08:28):
that's not bundled together with a homevideo or something necessarily on YouTube.
And I feel like podcasting has got thatyet to come where, you know, crowd,
global, wondering, whoever's producing toptier multifaceted IP that happens to be
delivered via a podcast to start with,eventually starts to sort of not become
(08:52):
podcasts because
we feel that the creator economy is wherepodcast is.
And we saw that last week or it was lastweek, wasn't it?
With the new Batman original from Spotifythat just doesn't have the word.
It's an audio original, audio drama,whatever the wording was, it just not got
the word podcast.
So do you think there's a challenge there?
And well, I want to bring this back to theindependence in a bit because I think this
is where pod fans work so well.
(09:14):
But do you think that is, is that pie inthe sky thinking or is there something in
that logic around why are we bundlingeverything now under podcast?
Well, it's become the Hoover of the words,right?
So when you say I'm going to go and Hooverthe lounge, you're not talking about
getting the brand Hoover.
It could be Dyson, right?
It's the generic word.
(09:35):
Google, we don't say search, we say we'rejust gonna Google it, right?
I mean, so I think podcasting has takenthat generic mantle of anything that's
audio video that I can consume digitallyonline.
And the
pragmatist, and I'll put myself in thatcamp, you know, would say, well, it's not
(09:56):
really because it hasn't got RSS.
But look, 99% of people who are what wecall the normies are not bothered whether
it has RSS attached to it, right?
They open up Spotify, they open upYouTube, they consume it.
And to them, it's a podcast.
So therefore it is.
And we just have to get over ourselves.
I think where we will evolve possibly isnew words will come out.
(10:20):
maybe as you said, we talk about films,then we talk about DVDs, and we talk about
on demand, and we talk about streaming inthe video homeworld, you know, Netflix.
But equally, I just said, I'm going towatch a film on Netflix.
And it doesn't really have to have thatconnotation of a cinema attached.
So I think language is loose and flexible.
(10:41):
And I don't think we should get too hungup on it.
But I think as podcasters go, yeah, Imean, I think
think it's I'm I was against YouTube wasagainst audible in many ways, you know,
calling them podcasts.
I've sort of flipped I've gone like, youknow what, let it be because if we get a
secondary glow from the word podcast havebeen picked up by some 18 year old or 25
(11:04):
year old who's just getting into it.
And then they go, Oh, what other podcastscan I use or listen to or watch?
I'm happy.
They will they will eventually
get their education curve to where we wantthem to be, but they have to start
somewhere.
Yeah, I felt that way about Anker back inthe day.
You know, you get a lot of the incumbentshaving a real good cry about Anker.
(11:25):
You know, well, Anker's coming along andit's free.
And if you're free, you know, if it'sfree, then you're the product, which is
ironic, given, you know, that many of thehosting platforms have freemium, which is
wild.
And I'd sort of treated that.
That's how I treated Anker as a, in mymind was it's just a freemium product that
doesn't have a premium tier and guess whowas the premium tier?
(11:46):
You know, here we are at Captivate.
My logic was always the same that ifsomeone, I would rather someone start a
podcast using anchor and it was free andthen realized, oh, do you know what?
Okay, I enjoy this.
Now it's time for something different andCaptivate was an option for them.
Not even saying that we were the only one.
I would just rather we were in that mixrather than them just say, oh no, I've got
(12:11):
to pay money for this thing that I mightnot enjoy doing.
And yeah, it's a...
I feel exactly the same way about that.
So I'm with you on that.
I think that the evolution and the halothat we all feel with regards to the word
podcasting, taking on various differentmeanings.
I'm all right with that.
I think that's OK.
And there's merit to there's merit to openin that market, because then to bring it
(12:34):
back to the revenue stuff, which I reallywant to dig into, you can.
You can't bring more money in if you arenot making more people aware of what
podcasting is.
And if this is the way that it really goesmainstream, then we can't.
I don't think we can be that sad about it.
So let's, let's switch up to the creatorsthen.
So let's talk about pod fans.
You know, even, even now, a lot of peoplestill think that monetizing a podcast as
(12:59):
an indie with.
You know, a hundred downloads, a hundredlisteners.
is super tough.
You know, they think it's difficult to getsponsorships regardless of whether they go
direct and they've got a super nicheaudience or not.
And many people are put off by that.
There are other ways.
All right.
So we know about that.
You've been a big pioneer of value forvalue.
(13:20):
And pod fans is there, this new productthat you're launching this week into the
public domain properly is right at thebleeding edge of that.
So can you spend a second or two justeducating the audience on, okay, what is
this whole value for value thing?
What is pod fans?
How does it work?
And actually, why should we be interestedin this?
Yeah, before I do, sorry, before I do, letme take a quick step back because it looks
(13:47):
blame why value for value is important.
So when I was at Netscape, I was theproduct manager, we created the browser
HTTP was the way that people learned aboutthe language.
And I remember going out and saying topeople, oh, by the way, Mark, it's called
a browser.
It's called a URL has starts with HTTP andpeople were going never catch on.
(14:08):
don't understand what you're talkingabout, first of all, and secondly, you'll
never catch on.
It did, as we all know.
So new vocabulary is always hard to getinto the lexicon of people's minds.
The second part of that was MarkAndreessen, my boss never created a micro
payment system.
So in the absence of it, we got hearts,likes, thumbs up as sentiment analysis.
(14:29):
So people wanting to tell the creator thatthey like what they've done, that was all
they could give them.
There was no form of payment.
Then the creators went, well, I needmoney.
I can't keep doing this for free.
So that they ended up creating advertisingaround the content.
And that's where we got to today.
Now fast forward, and we have somethingcalled Bitcoin.
(14:49):
Now, most people rolled their eyes theminute you say Bitcoin.
And if I say it's a digital wallet, andit's called a micro payment, and they call
Satoshi's.
Again, these are all new words, peoplelook at you going that'll never catch on.
It's all Swahili.
I don't know what you're talking about,Sam.
Well, as I said, people didn't understandwhat HTTP was either.
(15:11):
So there are about 50 million people usingdigital wallets today.
So it's not, you know, small chump change,there are a good number of people out
there.
And it's slowly catching on.
We're seeing the numbers, you know,through various wallets increasing.
So what is a micro payment?
What is value for value?
So a micro payment is 100 millionth of theBitcoin, it has to be that small.
(15:31):
And why do you need it at all when you'vegot PayPal and Stripe and Visa and
MasterCard and Apple Pay?
Well, because all of those take paymentgateway fees.
And because they take those fees, if Ijust wanted to give you Mark 50 P or a
pound for this show, I couldn't do itbecause actually most of that money would
go to the payment gateway provider, evenif they accepted that payment, because
(15:53):
most won't even accept those smallpayments.
So
This micro payment model came about andthat's the first part of it.
Now value for value is just a simple neweconomic model.
It doesn't have to include micro paymentsand Bitcoin.
Value for value is simply you mark set avalue for the content you're creating and
(16:14):
means the listener can agree with thevalue you set or disagree and if I agree,
I just pay it and if I disagree, I canmake it higher.
I could say Mark you're stupid.
boy, this is the best show ever.
I'm doubling or tripling the amount I wantto pay you or I'm sorry, Mark, I'm a
newbie.
I haven't got quite into your show.
So I don't want to pay you.
I'm going to pay you nothing now.
(16:34):
I'm going to listen for free.
But when I become a fan, I will trip overinto paying you.
So value for value is a very simple model.
We have it in real world.
You know, if somebody walks into a shop,they see a sale ticket price, that's the
offer price, they can legally go to thecounter and offer a different price, but
we just too British, and we don't do it.
But bartering is that way.
(16:55):
It's a value for value is a very simplereal time model.
Now, what's nice about it with podcastingis because you get a digital wallet and
you get these micro payments in them,think of them as tokens, then, you know,
it's a direct payment between you, thelistener and the creator.
There is no third party.
There's no middleman.
There is no I'm going to do, you know, goup here and I'm going to hold your money
(17:19):
until I'm comfortable.
There's no none of that.
So direct payments.
which is the root of what Web Wando 1.0was.
You know, if you remember Linewire,Napster, Skype, it was a peer-to-peer
system.
It was Web2 that made it client serveragain.
And yes, you mentioned it earlier, Mark.
So I'll say it again.
Web3 is very much about decentralizationand peer-to-peer monetization.
(17:44):
And so we're going back to the roots ofthe web and value for value is a new
economic model that really will benefitpodcasters
And sorry, Mark, this is the last part.
So the average CPM rate for an advert isabout $25.
If you're a creator with less than acouple of you know, 100 users, you're not
going to get that $25 CPM rate, you'rejust not.
(18:08):
So what can you do, you can go and get asponsor if you're lucky, maybe you might
get a few of your mates listening.
Great.
And who might want to pay you buy yourcoffee or whatever it may be.
But again,
Kevin Kelly's seminal blog post was athousand true fans and all he said was
look, stop chasing millions of people.
None of us are Joe Rogan.
(18:28):
So if you've got a couple of hundredpeople willing to pay you 50p an episode,
a pound an episode, that covers yourhosting costs and gives you a little bit
of money.
Now scale that up to the likes of a newsagent at global with 10 million users and
you know, then the revenue numbersoutweigh anything you'll get through
advertising.
But we're just in the early days.
And so when this
(18:49):
crosses over and it will, then people willprobably not want to be interrupted by
advertising and they will willingly pay tolisten to content that they're a fan of.
We're starting to see that shift as well.
We're starting to see the trend of peoplesaying that podcasts have too many adverts
because that is the only way when you havea large audience and the only extra thing
(19:15):
that you can do outside of listenersupport, so through subscriptions,
memberships, or whether it's taking tipsas you alluded to earlier, the only way is
to simply insert one more ad slot, andthen again and again and again and again.
So you do start to see now that people arestarting to just say...
Hmm.
This is becoming a bit of an issue.
And then, you know, conversely, what youthen get is the model that you hear
(19:37):
throughout, you know, everywhere.
Every major production company is doingthis where listen, add free.
If you give us money per month and what Ilike about the way this works.
And I'm always a I'm massively into newtech.
I'm always looking and playing andtinkering right in the earliest stages of
new tech.
And then as someone that runs a hostingcompany, I'm always thinking, actually,
(20:01):
When do you bring this to the masses?
And when are the people that aren't in totech going to be ready for this?
And I agree, you know, I think eventuallypeople will get on board with this
thinking.
Because what I see as a major issue thatthis begins to solve is that if I am an
(20:22):
indie creator, let's assume that I'vedevoted my entire creator experience to
the Kevin Kelly logic, which I totallyagree with.
I've got my thousand true fans.
How long has it taken me to get those fansto become true fans enough that they want
to pay me?
Like that entire, if you think about it inmarketing terms, as we always do, people
(20:43):
like you and I, that conversion period,that sales period is long.
They listen to X amount of podcasts, anumber of episodes, and then they've got
to discover that they like you, and thenthey've got to really like you, and then
they've got to be willing to give yousomething.
and then give you something regularlyevery single month.
Like that sales process is tough.
(21:04):
Does this go some way to solving thatproblem because it is such a.
I don't want to say transient, because Ithink that oversimplifies it and
diminishes it a little bit, but it's veryfleeting.
The decision, if that makes any sense.
So, so what we currently have today iswhat I call the Chinese buffet mode.
So let's talk about Spotify or, orsubscriptions on Apple, right?
(21:27):
Pay me in advance for something I've notconsumed.
And if I don't drop a new episode, stillkeep paying me because I want you to
because that's all that a subscription cando.
Whereas with a value for value model, it'sa per minute payment basis.
So let's say
you start listening to a podcast and youonly listen to 20 minutes of an hour's
(21:48):
show, that's all you pay 20 minutes worth.
If you're listening to a book, exactly thesame thing model applies for value for
value.
I've listened to two chapters.
I don't know how many books I've gottenaudible that I've got a third of the way
through and never listened to all of it.
The same works of video.
And most excitingly, this model is alsonow working for music as well.
(22:11):
And that's one of the new things that'scome out.
So you might only listen to 10 tracksinstead of listening to 50 tracks, but why
pay for the 500 tracks in advance that younever listened to?
problem with that is if anyone listens toMeat Loaf, each song's going to cost them
45 quid.
Oh, if anyone listens to Meatloaf, youjust shoot them.
(22:37):
I'm going to tell that to the karaokegroup at the local pub because on Friday
night, they get wild up there, mate, for alittle bit of meat.
But no, I like that.
I like that.
I'm interested in the way that technologythinkers like yourself will take what can
be very abstract concepts like value forvalue, like, you know, Bitcoin, like the
Satoshi element of Bitcoin and do what allthe good people really have been doing
(23:04):
since day one, which is putting technology
that doesn't feel scary in between us andthat what appears to be the backend
technology.
So tell us a bit about Podfans becausethat's exactly what this does.
It's a well thought out product from goodthinkers to simplify something that can be
(23:25):
complex for the creator.
So tell us all about it.
Tell us what Podfans does.
And really what was the idea behind it?
Where did it come from?
Sure.
So, complexity is fail simplicity is oneof my favorite sayings.
And that's a guy called Edward De Bonocame up with that.
When we started pod fans, there was nopoint in trying to replicate Apple and
(23:46):
Spotify, right?
Just a subscription based model.
We would fail.
And when I started pod fans, probably ayear to 18 months ago, Bitcoin was just
forming the Lightning Network, which isthis fast real time payment system was
just forming.
So these were new ideas.
Core part of it is I firmly believe thatpeople's time and attention has value.
(24:08):
And that value is I will only pay for whatI consume and I'll only pay for the time I
listen rather than pay it all in advance.
So when we found that this micro paymentsexisted and it was possible to do a per
minute payment system for digital contentof any sort, that was the embryo for
starting pod fans.
(24:29):
So RSS, as we all know, is an openecosystem.
You can consume anyone's RSS unlessthey've blocked it or made it exclusive.
And on that basis, we decided that wewouldn't have advertising as the
monetization model for creators, but wewould have this peer-to-peer direct
payment system from fan to creator.
(24:51):
So to build that, we had to fundamentallystart with creating the database, then we
had to create.
wallets and we have to create themechanism for measuring in real time
across everyone who's listening.
So we do we do a per second analysis overthe API.
And we make and then we aggregate thatbundle per minute and then we pay it.
(25:12):
And it works.
It just works, right?
We spent a year building this and itworks.
And that's the cool thing.
So now
when you're a new user to podfans, it'svery simple, you join and in the
onboarding process, you either have anexisting wallet, or you don't.
If you do, we just verify against yourwallet, off you go.
The learning curve is great because youalready understand what a payment system
(25:35):
is, with micro payment and what a walletis.
So now you're just understanding how myplatform works.
And you know, the intricacies of myplatform compared to other platforms.
If you haven't got a wallet, and that's,you know, again, we have to reach those
people who don't understand this.
then we've got to educate you on theonboarding as to how do you get a wallet?
And we do that.
(25:55):
And then we put in 10,000 sats into yourwallet as a part of the process and we
reward you and we're trying to teach youas well we call learn and earn.
So we're trying to say to you look, you'vegot your wallet you've joined here's some
tokens here's some sats in your wallet.
Now give us your email address or pickyour first five favorite podcasts or
(26:16):
listen to your first show.
and we will reward you for completingtasks that add up to 10,000 sats.
So when you get into the system and youclick play, it works.
You don't have to go, Oh God, do I have toget a credit card out now?
Oh, I don't want to do that.
I don't know these people.
We also, as I said, we reward time andattention so you can earn by being an
(26:37):
active user.
So let's say it was a fan of your podcast,Mark.
I could be sharing it.
I could be boosting it, which is a commentwith a payment.
I could be clipping in a piece and puttingthat out to my social network.
Each one of those is a verb, boost, clip,share.
And we've put a gamification engine insideof pod fans.
So we know there's 30 verbs.
(26:59):
We know what exactly you do when you're inthe platform and we can allocate points to
that.
So yes, you pay if you choose to listen toa podcast, you don't have to, but you also
can earn by being an active fan of apodcast.
So we think that two way value for valuemodel.
is what we've built and that's pod fans.
(27:21):
the element of rewarding the attention ofa listener as well.
I think that's really, really useful.
Even the gamification element of anythingis always so powerful.
And I do think that podcasting is yet toreally capitalize on that.
We see words like engagement banded aboutso much, but no one really does anything
(27:41):
with it.
So I really like this idea that you'veembraced that.
And a lot of people are going to start tosay things like, okay, well, actually
I listen to most of my podcasts on the go.
I listen to most of my shows when I'mdoing something else.
And it's usually on a smart device,usually on a phone or whatever.
So how do you handle that?
Are you available mobile?
Can people listen using mobile and usingpod fans?
(28:04):
Yeah, the good news is we've createdwhat's called a progressive web app PWA.
And all that means is browser based.
It's not in the iOS store or the GoogleStore.
We don't pay Apple a 30% tax for anytransaction, which is why we did it.
And it means it works across iPad, laptopand mobile in the same way.
(28:24):
And we just size the screen down to basedon the size of screen.
So that's really cool.
The one thing I was going to slightlychange one thing there was a report this
week Mark just bear with me.
Ashley Carmen from Bloomberg put out areport saying that podcasters now
beginning to fake their numbers in termsof downloads.
And why are they doing that?
(28:46):
Well, fake until you make it is anexpression that you hear many
entrepreneurs being told to say but
reason they're doing that is because theywant to get that $25 CPM.
Oh, how many how many people download yourbook?
Oh, yeah, a couple of 1000 people.
All right, well, we'll sign you up.
There you go.
You can have some advertising.
And then they find out it's a couple ofhundred people.
So that is something that is quite common,I'm afraid in the in the community.
(29:09):
And also, we all know if you use somethinglike an Apple podcast, it auto downloads,
that doesn't mean you auto listen.
So you could have a back catalog ofhundreds of podcasts you've never listened
to.
But that gets reported back as a downloadand therefore the advertiser thinks, oh, I
should be paying for that.
The last part of that mark is also wedon't know how far along in a podcast the
(29:33):
person's listened to.
So let's say there's three adverts, theone at the beginning, middle and end.
We all know the one at the end generallydoesn't get listened to.
We know the one in the middle probablygets skipped.
If it doesn't get skipped, it will getlistened to.
But we can't 100% know for certain.
Now with pod fans, we know for certain,because we know exactly how many minutes
you've listened to, at what point youdropped off.
(29:55):
So we've got three metrics that we'veworked with a company in Canada who have a
similar thinking called Bumper.
And it's time listened, percent completedand value paid.
And you bring those three metrics togetherand you can roll that up to a creator so
they know exactly how long each listenerlistened, but also in aggregate how...
(30:16):
where people dropped off in your episode.
You also know how much value was paid forit.
And those three, when you go back to anadvertiser, if you still want to put
advertising into your own podcast, youcan.
And then the advertiser is going to beconfident that yeah, actually, you know
what, Mark?
80% of your listeners listen to thatadvert.
Great, I'm going to continue paying it.
So again, we've got this old downloadmodel.
(30:38):
We've got this fake it until you make itand use a number model.
And again, that's all changing as well.
So...
The way that we're doing micro payments,it'll be not just good for creators
linking to their fans, but it also be goodfor advertisers trying to be 100% certain
that their adverts are even being listenedto.
(30:59):
It's such a challenge that because I thinkthis is responsible for a lot of the
downside of the boom that we saw.
So where we are now basically in theindustry, you know, the renewals of big
brands looking at partnerships and lookingat even programmatic and so on where
they're doing big ad buys across variousnetworks or different types of show.
You often find renewals are so much morechallenging than the original sale because
(31:23):
you're absolutely right.
We can report on downloads, but that.
That was only sexy when podcasting wasreally, really new and it was the only
metric.
But now those same people are walking intothe meetings and saying, actually, all
right, downloads are fine, but what did weget?
And you can't you can't constantly justuse brand positioning as the answer to
(31:43):
that.
And we know that's happening.
We see that at the highest levels ofpodcasting.
We see that at the highest levels of adsales.
And we see it reported very, very often,which, as you said, leads to what we saw
reported.
today through Ashley.
So yeah, I get it.
I think it's fascinating.
Now I think the thing that I would say isthe indie producer, so the person that's
(32:04):
really, really busy, the person that is,you know, getting the 50 or the 100
download, you know, good loyal audience,but actually, they've not got that much
time.
What's this going to do for them?
Is this a challenge from a timingperspective?
Do they need to put piles of time intoworking with something like pod fans?
Or how does this accommodate those?
(32:25):
Really simple.
So we we've ingested probably about500,000 podcasts and we'll increase that
over the next few months.
Obviously, all 4 million aren't what wewant.
We talked about anchor earlier.
So but we'll get all the best podcasts wethink they're out there.
If yours is one of those podcasts, all youhave to do is then claim it.
(32:45):
And when you claim it, you get access to abackend dashboard for pod fans.
Now
A pod fan sets a default value for everypodcast out there at 100 sats per minute.
So an hour show is six thousand sats.
What's that in real money?
About 50p.
Right.
So it's not a big problem.
(33:05):
So once you've got a value for everyepisode, you as the creator, once you've
claimed your show, can go and change thatvalue.
You can say, oh, OK, I want my show to be10 sats per minute or a thousand sats per
minute or zero.
You can pick what you want.
In the value for value model that willjust change at the front end and the
listener will go Oh, that's the new valuethat's set by the creator.
(33:28):
But in the value for value model, I as thelistener have that final say I can still
change that value as well.
So as a creator, no, you don't need to domuch you go in and check that the podcast
that you that's yours is there you claimit and verify it and it has to be verified
and we'll
And then once you've done that, you setyour own values and then you market that
(33:52):
out to your listeners that this is what wedo and your listeners then have choices,
pay it or not pay it right.
But there isn't much more you have to do.
There's no, Oh my God, do I need to knowhow to do a tag in the middle at minute
one with a DAI link here and somethingelse and do I need to rub my head and
scratch my tummy to do this?
No, it's fairly self-explanatory becauseyou've got to, you get given a wallet when
(34:16):
you joined.
So it, you know,
It's the same for creators as it is forlisteners.
You just need a wallet to be receivingyour sats into.
That's what I like about this concept isthat, well, like we said earlier,
simplifying the complexity of all of thesemechanisms and moving parts that are
required to benefit from blockchainpayments and so on and so forth.
(34:36):
I think that's the real strength behindthe scenes of this is that I can set it
up.
And I know the word wallet, I know thatworks, but I don't generally have to worry
about it.
So I commend you on that, my friend.
I think that's fantastic work.
What's the timeline for pod fans then?
So this is, we're here, we're at 28th ofSeptember.
2023, what's the status of pod fans now?
(34:57):
What's the next six months look like towrap this up?
So earlier this week, we took off thewrapper.
It's now a beta product.
It was an alpha.
And so it's mobile, it's desktop, it's inall those screens in between.
That's great.
And yeah, please go and use it.
We've also built a really, I mean, talkingabout paying SATS, Mark, we've built a
(35:20):
feedback model where if you give us a bugreport, we pay you in SATS as a thank you.
So we give you some SATS for reportingbugs.
If you give us a brand new featuresuggestion,
give you some slats as well for that.
So again, there's ways of getting earningit.
But fundamentally, yeah, you can go inthere.
You can use it.
Now what we are doing is increasing theservers.
(35:42):
We're building this.
We talked about it very tangently.
We're building a new music element to itas well.
So lots of independent music artists arenow being said, I don't really like
putting my music on Apple and Spotify.
I don't really make any money, but they'rebeginning to create RSS feeds for their
music.
and uploading those to the index and thenwe can download those and using a payment
(36:04):
model value for value, they can get paiddirectly by their fans and Ashley Ainsley
Costello, sorry, an artist on who's donethis said on Twitter or X that she made 20
or dollars when she did it across 60streaming platforms and she made $400 in
one day doing the same thing using SATs.
(36:27):
artists are beginning to understand andartists more than podcasters have a deeper
connection to their fans.
I mean, we all love to think our fans loveus, but realistically they are a little
bit flirty.
If we went away, they'd go away.
Right.
They wouldn't chase us down and find us.
But if a music artist goes, you're like,Oh my God, I love you.
(36:48):
Where have you gone?
Right.
And, and their commitment to music is muchhigher.
So
The value for value model works really,really well with music.
So we're adding a music element veryshortly to it as well.
fascinating work as someone that buildssoftware, my friend, I know how difficult
this is to pull off.
And yeah, come on, commend you on thework, but also just the way that you lead
(37:09):
in the thinking as well.
So yeah, absolutely commendable workersalways.
And I think everyone should just give thatgive this a whirl, even if I'm always a
fan of trying things anyway, I think evenif you don't stick with it, I'm not saying
that would be the case with pod fans, butplease, anyone listening, just go over
there and try this and you can find thatat podfans.fm.
So I heartily recommend that you do that.
(37:31):
Well, Sam, it's always a pleasure.
I know you've held an event this week withJames, which I'm sure was absolutely
fantastic.
I was out of the country for it.
So I'm sorry I couldn't be there, but ifit's anything like the Manchester one, I
know it would have been a roaring success.
And yeah, look forward to seeing you inperson soon, my friend.
Indeed, indeed.
And we're going to a Liverpool gametogether.
So that'll be even more fun.
(37:51):
That sounds good.
Speaking of that, I appreciate that.
I cannot wait for that.
I'm looking forward to that.
If you would like to send Sam and I somebeer money for that, you can do that at
mark.live slash support.
It's like we planned that, Sam.
It's like this smooth segue into sending
Thanks for watching!
(38:20):
Any industry events outside of your own?
No, no, I mean, I think we're coming tothe end of those.
So we did our own one and I also went tothe British Podcast Awards this week and
gave out an award.
The next big event, Mark, for me, andmaybe you might be there, is the one in
the LA podcast movement.
I will be there.
It'll be the first time back on the WestCoast since COVID because of the family
(38:42):
and travel.
So I'm excited for that.
We actually booked the hotel.
We booked the flights.
We are there.
So I'm excited for that.
And for you listening out there, if youare interested, go to podfans.fm.
And if you've got any questions, just getin touch with us on the usual channels.
The Twitter's all, I'm not gonna call itX, the Twitter's the best way to do that.
(39:02):
And I'm at MrAsquith and Sam.
You're over on Twitter as well, aren'tyou?
at Sam Sethi or at JoinPodFans.
Just come and ping me and I'm more thanhappy to give you an answer to whatever
question you have.
Amazing stuff and for you listening, enjoyyourself.
Thank you for tuning in.
It's always a pleasure until the nexttime.
Keep on doing what you do.
Keep sharing your voice, your thoughtswith the world and look after yourself.
(39:25):
Bye bye for now.
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