August 13, 2024 • 50 mins
Mac Geek Gab and Gig Gab Podcast Host Dave Hamilton celebrates his near 20-year legacy in podcasting and the journey therein, culminating in an upcoming appearance at Podcast Movement.
Dave discusses the evolution of the Mac Observer website, from its origins as a news and review site for Apple's Mac products to its expansion into iPhone coverage and podcasting.
Driven by his tech enthusiasm and background as a musician, Dave Hamilton co-founded Mac Observer and later integrated podcasting into its offerings. He reflected on the transition of their business model from content-focused to business-to-business, leading to the creation of Backbeat Media, which now manages sponsorships for websites and independent podcasters.
Dave also touched on starting the 20th year of his podcast, highlighting changes in technology, marketing strategies, and the importance of quality and community in podcasting.
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Dave discusses the evolution of the Mac Observer website, from its origins as a news and review site for Apple's Mac products to its expansion into iPhone coverage and podcasting.
Driven by his tech enthusiasm and background as a musician, Dave Hamilton co-founded Mac Observer and later integrated podcasting into its offerings. He reflected on the transition of their business model from content-focused to business-to-business, leading to the creation of Backbeat Media, which now manages sponsorships for websites and independent podcasters.
Dave also touched on starting the 20th year of his podcast, highlighting changes in technology, marketing strategies, and the importance of quality and community in podcasting.
Contact KOP for professional podcast production, imaging, and web design services at http://www.kingofpodcasts.com and click on Podcast Production Services.
Subscribing to KOPs YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@kingofpodcasts
Find all past episodes, plus where to subscribe to the show and how to follow KOP on social media at http://www.kingofpodcasts.com/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/podcasters-row-hosted-by-kingofpodcasts--5922450/support.
Contact KOP for professional podcast production, imaging, and web design services at http://www.kingofpodcasts.com
Support KOP by subscribing to his YouTube channel and search for King Of Podcasts
Follow KOP on X and TikTok @kingofpodcasts (F Meta!)
Listen to KOP’s other programs, Podcasters Row… and the Wrestling is Real Wrestling Podcast and The Broadcasters Podcast.
Buy KOP a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/kingofpodcasts
Drop KOP a PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=3TAB983ZQPNVL
Drop KOP a Venmo https://account.venmo.com/u/kingofpodcasts
Drop KOP a CashApp https://cash.app/$kingofallpodcasts
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome back to podcasters. Roue King of podcasts here with you.
Welcome to you against to another great program, and I'll
tell you I've been lucked out.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I always wonder what kind of guess we're gonna bring
on the program. We get a lot of newbies that
are being very fresh in the podcasting, but never do
I get a generation one an og in the space
like in the SEO space where I've gotten to go back,
which is where my originations of podcasting go back to
two thousand and five. Well, my guests also came just
shortly before I came onto the scene and learned about
(00:40):
podcasting myself. And there's a lot to be said. So
I'm not gonna go waste a lot of time. There's
just so much that we can go into that this
gentleman has done. We're not gonna go to any long
contrive introduction. He's co founder CEO of Backbeat Media, podcaster
at Mac Geek Gab, Geek Gab and The Small Business Show,
and there's so much more to it. But again, let
(01:00):
me just go and welcome Dave Hamilton onto the podcasters growth.
Thanks for being on with.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Us, Oh, thanks for having me Braska this is great.
I'm stoked to be here. I love talking about podcasting
and you know, the current days, the original days, the
previous you know, prior to the original days.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah. So first off, Dave, when I'm thinking back to
the beginning of when I started into podcasting, you know,
it wasn't the most popular thing in two thousand and five.
You know, if I remember still specifically calling into the
Donna Mike Show in Washington, DC syndicated at that time,
and they were asking was I was in radio and
I said, well, I'm in podcasting. And then they told me,
(01:39):
and this was like two thousand and eight, oh, you're
basically working on McDonald's, dude. And that's how they kind
of treated me, like, you know, it was just panned
and it was like look down upon. But the one
thing was is that for some of us that got
early into podcasting, it was because I was working in
radio and I need to find some place else because
I was working at corporate iHeartMedia, which was Clear Channel
the time, and I was like, well, it's not going
(02:00):
to stay where I want to be able to go
ahead and you know, have taken advantage of what I
wanted to do with myself, so I found myself in
what happened to be a podcasting outlet. And now for you,
tell me if this is a very similar I mean,
I would imagine you might have been a big radio
ficionado that kind of influenced you. You know, you always
wanted to have a place to go ahead and do
a show like this, and if radio wasn't going to
(02:21):
give you a platform, or was it going to be
an easy way to do it, then this possibility made
it possible, being able to go and record and put
it up on the Internet and have people listen to
it as opposed to being on AM or FM antenna.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Actually not at all. Wow, my yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
My story starts in nineteen ninety the very end of
nineteen ninety eight, the beginning of ninety nine, when we
I co founded and then started a website called mac observer. Right,
mac observer was a website.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It still is.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Sorry, we started it ninety eight. We sold it in
twenty twenty one, but it's still going strong. It's a
website for news, reviews, tips, tricks.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Those kinds of things for Apple users.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Right when we started it, the Mac was the Apple's
only product so mac observer made sense in retrospect, maybe
Apple Observer would have been a better name.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
But then what happened to me that you come in
here coinciding with the fact that it was when Apple
decided to go ahead and start working on creating an
app store, getting the iPhone, and soon enough we're like
the early days of hints that a smartphone was being
in the process of being built.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Not even I mean, you know, the iPhone didn't come
out til two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, right,
So we started, you know, we started mac observer when
it was just for the Mac for but we covered
everything that Apple did and that remained true and remains
true with that website.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And then in two thousand.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
And five, I you know, so because of the mac Observer,
I was, you know, we started that before the term
blog was even like a thing, right, And so we
actually resisted calling the mac Observer a blog for a
long time because they're like, we, no, we're not a blog,
We're a web magazine. Well potato patato, right, but we
(04:16):
were hung up on ourselves, so whatever. But because of that,
I was in the circles with other people that were
in what we would call new Media.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Online Media.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
And one night I was out to dinner with a
bunch of people at a conference and I can't remember
what the conference with the conference was, but like Robert
Scobel from Mike he was still at Microsoft, was there.
Dave Parmett was there. He did a lot of pr
for a lot of people back in those days. Mike
Dunn from Hurst, who did a lot of acquisitions and stuff,
(04:49):
was there. And I wound up driving Mike home from
the dinner that night, and on the way home, Mike
was like, you know, with what you're doing with mac observer,
you need to get into podcasting there.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I was like, crab man, you're right.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
It was not something. It's like now I got to
add like a whole other thing. I gotta figure this out.
But he was right, and it didn't take the full
hour ride back to his house for me to realize, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
But so it was like like anything.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
We had a staff, small staff at that point, probably
four maybe five people plus me and my co founder
Brian Chaffin. I was and still am a tech nerd.
I also was and still am a musician, and well
I'm a drummer, so I hang out with musicians. But
growing up as a drummer meant that band practice was
(05:39):
at my house. And this is relevant, I'll get I'll
get to why this ties into podcasting because I had
a drum set, you know, and so I had to
have a big space for all that. And that meant
that the PA, the thing that you you know, you
plug the microphone into to make the vocals come out,
was also at my house. And things were always like
feeding back and this that and the other thing. And
so because the PA was at my house, I sat
(06:02):
and learned a ton about sound equipment and how sound
processing works and all of that because I wanted to
make it so that when the band played, we sounded good.
And so I had this audio knowledge, I had this
tech knowledge. So when Mike convinced me that we hear
at mac observers should be doing podcasting, it was like, well,
that's me right. So because I understood enough about the sound,
(06:26):
I had the gear, I understood enough about the tech,
I had the software, and so I cobbled together this
podcasting setup and real and it's evolved over the years.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
But I'm actually we can talk about it a little later.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I'm teaching this podcasting set up at at podcast Movement
this month here because.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
What I created we're going to come in the podcast.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Well, we'll get there.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
One of the things that I got to ask about
is that initially, you know, your owners that even got
you into the idea obviously with mac observer, even before
then you were already working in tech support. The thing
was you were already with that passion of wanting to
help others to try to work on whatever their hardware
software was, to get them so they can optimize what
they're doing at their best level. So you had that
(07:11):
already in front of you now because of your attachment.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
But that's not what the show about was about initially, No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Right, But I'm just saying that's what you had leading
up to it. But now, yes, what I want to
find that was where were you based at the time.
Were you in Silicon Valley? Was this something where like
you were so you know, entrenched into everything that was
going on with tech that that's what kind of you know,
rubbed off on you and got you into working into that,
getting the publication together mac Observer and then the the podcast.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
No, we I was in Austin when we started Mac Observer.
And if you told me the night before we started
it that that would be my you know, my business
for the next twenty plus years, I would have laughed
at you.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
But then this opportunity kind of showed up.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
There was a website called webin tage that we knew about, uh,
and the guy was selling it, and so we wound
up buying it. It turned out he didn't own the
domain name webintash dot com, so that.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Was a little that that was a little weird. Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
We had a conversation about what it what in fact
he thought he was selling in the end, but it
all worked out.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
It was fine.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
But then yeah, then we then we started mac observer
because we were Apple fans.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I mean, that's really what it was.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And and and I wanted I just sold my interest
in a tech support business that I had been part
of with a I was sort of a junior partner
in it, and so I was kind of looking for,
all right, what might be next.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
It was like, all right, I'll do this. That sounds fine.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
And uh, I really thought it would just be a
part time thing and you know, kind of a fun
little thing. Who knew that it would turn into a
like a real job. But but yeah, we were. We
were in Austin, which at the time and still is
kind of a tech ye play.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Now it's become the new selicon value as a matter
of fact, so by Southwest, so many of the coming.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yeah, it was called that, Like when I was there
in the mid nineties and late nineties, it was called
the Silicon Hills, like it was definitely starting. They called
the plane. There was a Jet Blue flight once a
day at the time. Now there's more that went back
and forth from Austin to San Francisco, and they called
it the nerd Bird because it was you know, and
(09:21):
companies Apple Dell was of course already in Austin.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Apple AMD.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Had expanded in Austin at that point in time, So
it was Austin was this tech center and that's part.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Of what brought me there. I grew up in Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
But well even where the home catch Fire series was
based on was Austin, Texas. Yeah, there you go, that's right. Yeah, Yeah,
it was all that kind of thing where it's like
it's always been an attachment there. So the Austin's always
been some kind of a just there's an appeal to
that and I know quite a few be able to
actually live over there. There was a vogel Pol who
worked with WPNG and I forget where he works at now.
And you know there's a few other people that. I mean,
(09:57):
my bosses originally came from Texas.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Originally Houston Nice.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So there's all that kind of an attachment. And now
one thing was that because you were in Austin and
with all these companies around you, you wanted to be
in the part where you were staying business the consumer
with your content. Was there already any thought or any
kind of inroads to go business to business because obviously
you had such an understanding of it, and you know,
if you were to get yourself within one of those
(10:21):
companies you could have.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
That was back in the day when there were Apple
clone companies, like people could make clones of the mac
MacTel was one of those.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
They were located in Austin.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
We sold ads to them, but we sold ads to
people all over the country, all over the world. But
that selling of the ads was it led to an
interesting thing. When we started, I mentioned I had a partner.
Brian's job was to do all of the content on
the site. My job was basically everything else, which really
(10:58):
was get the servers up and running, make sure the
technology worked, and then bring in the money. And that
meant that in nineteen ninety nine I actually wrote from
scratch a content management system for us, like because there
was no word press, like I had to just write that,
oh yeah. But we also had to sort of build
(11:18):
the engine that would sell the ads for the site
and pull all that stuff together, the business engine as
well as the technological engine. And about six or eight
months in we had four of our competitors come to
us and say, hey, wait a minute, you guys have
your stuff together. Will you do for us what you've
done for you. We just want to publish our sites.
(11:40):
We don't want to worry about posting on a server,
we don't want to worry about selling ads. And so
that's where backbeat Media started was we thought, well, if
our competition wants us to do this for them, we
should do it. Like we have all the relationships we have,
We already have the business processes in place, We already
have a server that we know how to co locate on,
(12:01):
Like we had the nerd skills, we had the business
skills ish. And so that's where backbeat Media started and
it evolved into what it is today, which is a
business that manages the sponsorships for some websites still but
mostly podcasts. Like I always say, we represent a group
of fiercely independent podcasters of which I am one.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So June thirteenth, twenty twenty four, celebrate your twentieth yere podcasting.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
And you know, nineteenth anniversary of the show begins our
twentieth year the twenties.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Okay, perfect, all right, yeah, so I want to ask
about this now. You know, from the original setup of
Mac keep gabb episode one. I know for me when
I had to go and start working on it, we
were using you know Tell's hybrid phone systems, just like
the radio stations were using, and we were streaming through
you know ice cast, and we had in three different streams.
(12:57):
It was one, twenty eight, fifty six and ninety six
the way we had to set up, and it was
live stream like that, and it was encoded through Sam Broadcaster.
That's our setup back in the day. What do you
remember as your setup as you did it when you
did it that first show in two thousand and five.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So my setup hasn't some of the tech, some of
the hardware, some of the software has changed. There was
no video yet, no correct there was no video, but
and our audience is still primarily audio. But when we started,
I knew I had a lot going on. I couldn't
(13:34):
humor myself. I couldn't give myself permission to do much,
if any, post production or editing of the audio because
I know I'm a perfectionist, and I knew that I
would fail at releasing episodes consistently. If I recorded an
episode and there was like, all right, now I got
to edit it, it would be weeks before I got
(13:54):
it to a point where it was like this is perfect.
Now it can be released. But somehow, and probably just
from publishing mac Observer, I knew that the way to
succeed with any kind of content was to deliver it
consistently and on a schedule that my audience that didn't
yet exist would expect. Because I know, the hardest thing
(14:18):
to do is to get a new audience member. The
easiest thing to do is to lose one by not
giving them more content. Right, So I knew I needed
a workflow.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
That my goal as I started it out, was a
workflow that allowed me to publish within fifteen minutes of
finishing recording, and that's basically been true today. So it
meant a lot of pre production and mixing it live
so very much that radio ethos of record. I mean,
(14:50):
we're recording live to tape, but the show is the
show as it happened live, right And if I'm going
to play our theme music, I'm playing that to the tape.
I'm recording directly to you know, stereo, and that's it. Certainly,
if I have to go back through and edit, I can,
and there have been a handful of times when I
have had to. But by and large, the show is
(15:12):
the show, and we release what we recorded, and that
has worked out really well for me. And it's interesting,
you know, I say that my prime directive was released
within fifteen minutes of recording. My secondary directive was make
it sound good, and it was a very distant second.
(15:32):
I knew that good sound was important, but good sounds irrelevant.
If you're not releasing content, you'll notice neither one of
those two is good quality content. And that's because I
knew that we were going to suck at the beginning,
and we did. But I also knew that by doing
it regularly, we would get better. Oh yeah, and I
(15:54):
like to think we did. And so that that was
kind of that's how the show started in that's.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Inspiration. Nothing like that where you felt like was there
I mean, was there anybody that you kind of follow
off of that you felt like you felt like almost
like a mentor that said I like the way this
person approaches speaking, like if it was a public speaker
or if it was a radio host. Was there anything
at all that made you feel like, this is the
kind of show we need to be able to do,
this is how I need to present it.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
So I at the same period, you know, we launched
in June of five. In May ishu of five, we
relocated from Connecticut to where we are here in New Hampshire,
which is about a three hour drive, so I was
driving back and forth once a week. We bought the
house about a month and a half before we moved in,
and we did a ton of construction here.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
We had a lot of construction done.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
So I was coming up once a week to check
on things, and that meant three hours in the car
each way once a week. So I started listening to
podcasts because they were this new thing and it was like,
all right, great, and I did I really you know,
to your question about an inspiration or a mentor, Adam
Curry was doing the Daily source Code. He's one of
the people who created podcasting. And I know that point
(17:09):
can be argued to, but let's say he.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Was certainly one credit.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah right, one of the first podcasters, if not the first,
and certainly the person who helped put podcasting on the map.
And I liked his style. He was also recording live
to tape and not doing any editing, and that inspired
me to like, Okay, this is doable. I understand, Like
I listened to his show, but I knew how he
(17:34):
did it, Like I didn't need to like drill into
like asking him, how what what's this magic that you've done?
It was like, no, I totally get it. I know
what software I was used. I don't know what software
he's using, but I know what software I.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Would use, and I would route things internally on my
computer and do this and that and the other thing,
and yeah, I can do this. The trick was he
was not doing it with a co host back then,
so I had to figure out how to get a
co host that was not local a remote co host
to work in the system. And we tested out all
of the voipe engines back then and we found that
(18:07):
Skype was had the cleanest audio, the best quality audio,
and so and and then we actually worked with the
Skype engineers to take out some of their audio filtering. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So you.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Didn't go to Skype until about so late mid six
o seven was we finally made you are welcome. Because
it was a welcome we had. The wiring had to
be done differently for that. They're going to get done
because we wanted to get there and we saw that
the benefit was like we want to be able to
get callers in there, get the callers little hissed into
each other through the phone. So we had to work
around and kind of rig things up. But you know,
(18:41):
eventually we got to the point. Now let's go forward,
because Apple changed the game with the iOS going to smartphones,
the app store being created, and that's again seven to eight,
and then you know that we're at iOS eighteen. We
are you know, entrenched where I mean, it's obviously the
people that would be listening to your program and the
(19:03):
essentially we're looking for support for their desktop. I imagine
that is completely flip flopped over to the phones.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yes and no, I would say that our audience.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
We so episode one of the show, we were talking
about whatever the latest mac Os was at that point
in time. Right, episode two, I forget what we talked about. Well,
we had a topic. Episode three, I didn't have a topic.
I was like, crap, I got to come up with something.
So I said, you know what, let's create the mail bag.
(19:34):
I'm going to say, I'm going to create like four
or five questions that are going to tee up great
geeky conversations to teach people things. But I made up
the questions like these were not listener questions. We lied
to our audience, but we only did it once. We
lied to our audience. We said, oh great, a bunch
of you sent in questions. We picked the top five
and we're going to answer them on the show. That
(19:55):
was episode three.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Now, actually at the time it was macOS X. It
was trans from Tiger to Panther. That's where you were
a point all right, great, perfect, Yes, it was a
ten point four, Yeah, that's ten point four. The other
thing was so that was like these constant releases, constant changes,
and that was obviously the focus of what was going
on at that time.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
But we so we made up questions, we gave our answers,
and the questions haven't stopped coming since. So the show
immediately pivoted to become a Q and A and tips
show for Apple users. And certainly the show's evolved in
different ways, but nowadays I would say that our tips
and questions are probably fifty to fifty between the Mac
(20:39):
and the and you know, IPHONOW and iOS.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Now, what about the audience because obviously, you know, for
those that would have adopted into podcasting early, pretty smart,
young adept and they would have really been able to
go understand whatever you said. You didn't have to dumb
down your content. You were basically kind of saying they're
on a particular smart playing field. I think if we
talk very technical, they're going to understand us. So that's
(21:03):
the part I always think about. Like for us, it
was about, you know, doing tech programming where I was
working with web Master Radio dot FM. It's the thing
where it was high end conversation. It's like we didn't
worry about what people were I mean, there might be
proprietary so we won't talk about but like we would
go insitionally, what was going on for us, It's always
about like what Google was making changes to the Florida
(21:24):
update and the moving into you know later years to
Pan and Penguin and all that stuff going on. It
was all this constant change that was going on that
all these different people on the Internet wanted to understand
so they can market, they could advertise, they could find
their way through paid or organic starch, whatever it was.
It was the other way of not having to go
through traditional means. So in the same way for folks
(21:44):
on Apple, you know it's the software to build, they
go and do that kind of thing. So I imagine
that some business the business types, so developers or people
that wanted to create programs that would work well, those
must have come into the conversation as well.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, we definitely had developers early on, but our audience
really has expanded to the people. I always what I
the way I describe our audience is what I say
to our audience. You don't have to be a geek
to listen, but if you listen long enough, you'll become home.
So we really do. It's not for it.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
I think we walk a pretty good line where we
cater to the experts and then also cater to the
people that are new that want to become experts. And
becoming an expert doesn't necessarily mean you're going to do
it as a career or that you're even going to
do it for someone else, but you want to become
an expert of your setup, and the desire to learn
(22:41):
more about your setup, regardless of what your knowledge level
coming in.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
That's the That's the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
We start every every episode by saying, and the goal
is for us each to learn five new things every
single time we get together. And that's not just the audience,
that's us as the host too. We want to learn
new stuff. And I always say I learn the most
because I see everybody's question that comes in. I see
everybody's tips. We can't share everything. We only do the
(23:09):
show for an hour and twenty each week, so it's
you know, we have to pick and choose. But yeah,
we learn a ton and and I think that.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Informs our audience.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
The fact that we are interested and open to learning
something new along with our audience essentially gives our audience permission.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
To learn with us. Like we don't purport to be experts.
And know everything. First of all, that would be impossible,
and secondly, that'd be probably really annoying to listen to
someone that thinks they know everything when we know you can't.
So we're we're we're good at troubleshooting, that's for sure.
(23:53):
We also are.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Pretty good at explaining things once we understand them, and
we're the third thing that we're good at is curating
the right topics to talk about in the show to
kind of keep everyone engaged.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
And that's our job is you know, we.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
See ourselves as the stewards of the community that has
sort of grown up around our show.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Now, that's a great way to segue here, because what
Apple and for anything else Mac or Apple based, Obviously
it's one particular portion of the whole consumer base. Now
I can imagine with some of the other shows I've
seen that out there that are they're Mac based, and
that doesn't matter what consecretion is. It gonna be on
TikTok of you, on Instagram, it gonna be in podcasting.
(24:36):
But we know that in the phone space you have
people that are Samsung fans or you know, they're fans
of Android, and on the other side you have Windows
or Linux or whatever their other operating systems that are
out there for desktop. So obviously there's gonna be a
differing opinion out there that if they come to your show,
you know, you might get obviously feedback in your mail bag,
(24:59):
you might get comments from people like that or some
people that will say, well, maybe you're one sided. Without
trying to say what you're gonna say, right, I'm just
saying what you felt like you'd done consistently to handle
what other people might say, Well, you know, Apple's inferior.
You know, what do you would you say about that?
Or what would you say about for those that feel
like for me, I've never said anything necessarily bad about Apple,
(25:21):
it's just a matter is that. I think it's one
of those things where like if the system worked for you.
To me, it's always been if you're more of a creator,
then you are someone that needs other programs. Like That's
the one thing for me is that always Windows always
give me more programming, but damn it, give me the
hard ware and I'd.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Be happy, right.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah, Really, so I had prior to starting machikab as
you noted, I had a career and it spilled over.
I mean there was a lot of over time, you know,
temporal overlap too. But I have spent a lot of
my career, arguably all of my career helping people with
their technology and in a variety of ways.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And I was always an Apple user.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
My first well, my first computer was a TIMEX Sinclair.
But then uh then my my first if you know,
real computer. If the next computer after the Sinclair was
an Apple. To see, I was always interested in Apple
computers and then so I got into Max and all
that stuff. But I also learned a lot about Windows,
(26:25):
and most of my on site tech support consulting was Windows,
and I was like I I certainly was one of,
if not the best Windows consultant in Austin, Texas in
the late nineties. Like there's there's very few people that
I that I think would would argue that point. And
I had a lot of clients when they found out,
(26:45):
you know, they would I mean, I didn't make a secretive.
Well I use Max at home, but I'm very skilled
at this and I can help you, and I'm you know,
I will provide value to you on your Windows stuff.
And it was great, and occasionally some of them would ask, like,
you know, we've been working again for a while. How
come you haven't tried to convince me to switch to
the Mac? And my answer was always the same. It's like,
(27:07):
because you haven't expressed a desire to switch to the Mac,
I am happy to have the conversation with you, but
it's going to be your decision, not mine. The only
time I would even suggest considering it was if someone
was doing something on their PC that would be easier
(27:28):
for them in the long run on the Mac. But
that transition learning a new platform. I mean even today,
if you were to switch from Android to iOS or
iOS to Android, it would be filled with friction. Like
you know, they're somewhat similar, but they're not exactly the same,
and so you'd have to learn how the platform works.
And I have no interest in evangelizing, and we've never
(27:50):
evangelized on the show, so it's rare. I don't even
know that I can think of anybody that ever wrote
it in and said, you guys are one sided, because
we're not. We all choose to use the Mac as
our primary platform, and for us it is the right choice.
So therefore, for us, it is a better platform for
(28:13):
me than Windows would.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Be for me.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
But it doesn't mean that the Mac is objectively better.
I mean, I think you could make an argument that
it is. You could also make an argument that Windows
is objectively better, and that's an interesting conversation to have,
but that's not what our show's about. Our shows about
helping people learn how to use it. And in fact,
there was you know, after the iPhone came out, there
was the whole switcher thing right where people switched from.
(28:39):
It started with the iPod, really when people switched from
Windows to the Mac because they realized, wait a minute,
I can get into this whole ecosystem, and that's great.
And we had a ton of people that started listening
to the show before they became Mac users because they
wanted to learn about this platform before a switch to
(29:01):
it and get some working knowledge and understand how the
tech works.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
So we had a lot of questions from switchers over
the years, not so much.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Now helped a lot because the iPod was just a
more superior product than Zoom anybody remember player to be
as a matter of fact.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Correct, correctly, Well, yes it was, and that halo effect
of the iPod really brought a lot of people to
the Mac, and we we had a ton of listeners
that were iPod owning Windows users and would listen to
the show. And then eventually some of them, not all
of them, of course, but some of them switched, you know,
to the MAC. And I mean, I have the great
(29:38):
I mean, I love all of our listeners. We have
such a great community. There's so we've got a discord
channel full of thousands of people, and the conversations are
helpful and supportive. There's never any like bickering or any
of the flame wars or any of the stuff that
just happens on the internet. It's freaking awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
And I will take credit for creating the vibe that
our listeners then and our audience then sort of just
follows into into that, right, But we don't have to
police our discord.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
It's fine. It's basically because the fan that it's kind
of like just everybody's in lockstep and they all want
to just get better with it.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Everybody wants to get better.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
That's right, and and so it it all just it
all just works. It's it's really a supportive thing. And uh,
I mean, like I said before, you know, I see
us as stewards of this, and I really consider myself
lucky that that we get to do this with our
with our audience.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Now the other part is uh coming up as we
record this right now, you will be appearing in Washington,
d C. At Podcasts Movement. I will not be there,
but I know listen, I would love to go to
the show. And long story short, there's a lot that's
gonna be said. But I mean, I respectful of the
fact that you know, you have been recognized for all
the years you've been working on this, and that you're
(30:55):
gonna be speaking at the show. You're gonna have the
several sessions are cana be on streamline the shine mastering
real time podcast production across genres. I'll ask you about
that real quick. But also, uh, you know that you
are you know again you are talking about the fact
that you have what has been said be a special
milestone you're gonna actually be exploring about with your twentieth
(31:15):
year of podcasting. You're starting it up right now, and
so you're gonna be also speaking about a walk through
two decades of podcast production. So through all this year,
you know, I've done my own little session of like
podcasting one on one tips into you know, like pet
peeves of mine that I have when it comes down
to things. But you know, now you see that I
(31:37):
think from the from COVID specifically, I think people started
really paying attention a lot more, especially when it came
to video. If you know, like how many video how
much video cons in DC out there, that everybody has
to use a microphone like yours, or has to have
the short microphone like Joe Rogan has, or has to
have you like AED five or whatever it is. They
all have to have this. It's got to be what
was originally the Howard Sterns setup. I will always say, yeah,
(31:59):
he's the first one that Jada on the channel, and
then everybody just copied it, and you know what it works.
You make you a little change on it. Oh, you
might get it look a little more like a you know,
like a set like from Data, you know, Dick Cab
or something like that, without couches at all. You find
your way to do it. It's something that's a little aesthetic,
but otherwise it's still the content itself. So I mean,
that's the one thing I noticed too, is that I
(32:19):
guess a lot of podcasters now are not are kind
of learning that, you know, they're starting to see that
some of the basic things that we always were pet
peeving about for a long time. People are starting to
understand you need a good microphone, you need to sound good.
Even with TikTok, they're like promoting their shop and they're
all selling microphones out there because they're trying to help
for people to enhance and improve their content.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
No. The session I'm doing it at Podcast Movement really
is teaching that workflow that I created so that people
can at least learn how I get content out quickly
and consistently, because I think that's the biggest is that
podcasters have is that headache of well, I've recorded something,
(33:04):
now how do I get it out there? How do
I go from the red light turning off and it
being published fifteen minutes later.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
That's what I'm teaching at Podcast Movement.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
I got to ask you this because this is one
of the things that's always a pet peeple of mind
everybody across the board, and everybody's uh, you know, we
can accuse everybody of it because it always happens. People
will stutter and stammer, especially we're doing it as live. Well,
I'll do it. I know. I used to be horrible
at that. But one of the most important thing ahaois
did for myself and I tell everyone to do that.
Listen to yourself back as much as poscorse. You have
(33:34):
to do it. There's no choice. You might cringe if
you hear something you say that doesn't sound well. And
now even more so because I audiogram so much of
my stuff. So to part question, how much do you
listen back as you're getting the show prepared and ready?
How much do you listen to yourself back to continue
to keep improving your presentation? And then also, you know,
(33:56):
do you take that now? And you know multitasking that
saying okay, well, well people want to be able to
get the gateway into listening to my show, so I
have to start creating content a short form to get
to the long form content. What is it that you
do today to incorporate that social media? Good?
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, great question. So how often do I listen back?
I will intentionally listen to one episode a month just
to spot check things, make sure. I mean I listen
to every episode, but not the whole thing. I will
jump through like if I were I know you're producing
(34:34):
this episode, but if I were producing this right, we
would finish our thing. I would run it through an
engine called Aphonic that really helps kind of normalize, and
it does a multi bank compression on the audio and
then converts that to MP three for me and all
that stuff. I will listen to the end result of
that and make sure and I will jump around in
it and hear each speaker to make sure everybody sounds
(34:57):
level and that there's no issue that I need to
be aware of, and also confirming did I push out
the right file, because the last thing I want to
do is push out the pre show where we're all
complaining about things and swearing and doing things that we
don't do on the show. So, you know, I make
sure that the content is what it is, then I
push it out. When the episode goes live, I go
(35:20):
to the web page and I press play on the
web page like I am someone coming in, just to
make sure again that the technology is all working. So
I do all of those things, but in terms of
listening completely all the way through to an episode, that's
about once a month, and yes I cringe, even after
you know, doing this nineteen plus years, I still hear
(35:41):
myself do things. But the good part is those cringey
moments are the ones that teach me. I always say
my mistakes are my tuition, and listening to that is
my tuition.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
It's like, oh, what what are my verbal tics?
Speaker 3 (35:56):
What do I say regularly to fill that mental space that.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I don't need?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Yeah, the ums, the uhs, the other phrases that we
use to keep things going.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
What am I doing?
Speaker 3 (36:09):
And simply hearing those makes me more aware of them
in the moment. I also, about two years ago, maybe
three years ago, I started pre recording all our sponsor reads.
I used to do them live into the show. I
decided to start pre recording them for a variety of reasons.
One of them is to make sure that I keep
(36:30):
the ads tight. We found that our ads were more effective.
We sell sixty second spots. We found that they were
more effective if they were two minutes or less. If
I'm doing it live, you and I are having a
conversation and it's like, Hey, I want to talk about
our sponsor. Now I'm pulling out the sheet that with
the talking points. I'm navigating my way into it. It
might take me twenty seconds to figure out, like talking.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
While I'm reading, what am I talking about?
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Okay this, it's much more efficient if I pre record those,
and I can, I can get them tighter, right, But
it also means that I do edit that audio. And
listening to myself do these sponsor reads is also really
informative because I can edit out the ums and the
oas and the other verbal tics and the things where
I stumble.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
But that process, again is informative. I learned from that
and then I am become aware of it. Like while
we're talking now, I'm sure I've said ums and ohs,
we're normal humans.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
We're having a conversation, but that's okay. People want to
hear a normal conversation. But I've also learned that I
can be comfortable with dead air every now and then.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Right pregnant path that's one of those things as well.
If dead air is fine, absolutely now. The other GINGU
I gotta make otion of is that. And I appreciate
you doing the once per month where you listen through
a full show, because for me, it's the gauge of saying,
you know, am I gonna joy listening to myself talk
again about the same thing I just recorded. It's very
important to me and I think if I'm enjoying myself.
I'm like, Okay, I'm not turning this off yet. I'm
(37:57):
still digging what I'm talking about. Tells me I know
what I'm doing as well. Plus the other thing too
is that when it comes to you know what you
gotta talk about in terms of the sound quality, I
guess one of the things I always like to talk
about as well is that you know you talk about
you use alphonic to get help in terms of compression
and doing things to help with the audio. For me,
I also like to use on top of the compression
I have is you know, everything's gotta be recorded right
(38:19):
the first time for the most part, or if I
need to, I use what's now the Adobe podcast Enhancer.
When I learned about that last year, damn it, it
sounds like MPR. And the truth is that's that's all.
I like to go ahead and almost comment all the
time best podcast quality, and honestly, if people want to
go ahead and do a podcast that obviously is very appealing,
it sounds like MPR. Because I imagine maybe some of those
(38:41):
podcasts also drop into your own portfolio, because I know
I've done that myself, because it sounds good, all of
it does. They just do a great job of it
and it sounds good and their presentation is just the
way they're doing it where it works, and I feel
like that's some of the best podcasters. They learn the
sound quality has gotta be like that. It's like they
are the arbiters of how do it?
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Yeah, Aphonic does a similar thing. I mean again it
it is dependent on what you put into it. Those
engines can do a lot, but they can't do it all,
so you have to. We had a I talk about
it as the the am radio moment. When I do
the show, As I mentioned, I am mixing it live,
so I know in my ears what I want the
(39:23):
show to sound like, and so it's my preference that
sort of sets the tone, the actual tone of the show, right,
the EQ of the show, those kinds of things. For
a long time, I used westne Um two in ear monitors,
two drivers per year, and then I moved from those two.
(39:47):
I had Jerry Harvey on one of my podcasts. He
was the guy who created Ultimate Years, the company that
makes in ear monitors. He's like, ah, and he had
sent me some I met him when he first started
Ultimate Years. He had sent me some UE's that were
basically the same as the Western UM two is the
duel drivers. And then he's like, oh I hate West tone.
He's like, they screwed my business. I'm like, yeah, I
(40:09):
remember the story. So he told the story. He's like,
I'm going to send you some iems, and so he
sent me this set of these jhe Audio leilas that
had twelve drivers per year, and they were built to
be a reference speaker, a reference.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Meaning flat EQ, so that you can mix with them.
I thought, well, that would be perfect for doing the podcast.
So I moved to those and I'd used them for
six eight months, and then we traveled. We went to
ces the show in Vegas. And when we travel and record,
we don't bring the full set up with us, so
(40:45):
I didn't have all the processing on the mics. I
just used two Audio Technica two thousand and five USB's
great microphones.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
We recorded the show, we released it, and one of
our listeners wrote in and said, whatever you did on
the road, your show sounds amazing. When you're on the road,
it sounds like FM radio compared to you know, the
setup that you usually have, which is like AM radio.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
And I knew exactly what he meant. AM radio is tinny.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
FM radio has a wider frequency spectrum so you can
hear like low end in it. And so I knew
what he was saying without him saying it, and I thought,
wait a minute, I got to go back and listen.
So I ab uh, oh are we still here?
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
My audio cut out?
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Okay, great, we a I ab'd you know, two episodes,
it was like, oh my gosh, she's right. And what
had happened was these layla's that the twelve drivers that
I was using was giving me way too much low
end in my ears, that I had tuned it all
out without realizing it. So that's when I was like, oh,
I got to listen, and I got to listen in
(41:50):
the car, and I can't just listen to my shows.
I need to listen to my show compared to like
an NPR show or something else, so that I'm hearing
it as our listeners would hear it, because I know
they're not just listening to us, they're listening to other podcasts,
so you know that that.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
And also I always send it now more than ever,
I think people will realize if it doesn't sound good,
they're gonna turn away because people will now expect a
higher level quality. In the last few years, I really
believe that's been more important than ever. Now. It's so like,
I mean, yeah, your guess that's miked up? Well all that,
because I can tell you're in you know, you got
(42:28):
that right now process you're going you're going through a
pre amp on that microphone, that setup is going through.
Make sure it's set right, like I hear right now.
It's it is f M. Broady broadcast quality across the board,
and it has to be so for me, it was
always about whatever I make into the show, which is
just advertising revenue. Right now, I put it back into
the show. That's why I bought this microphone here, and
(42:50):
I keep doing it just as such. So it's like
a matter of I can imagine what you'll get at
podcast moving when you talk about it. But if you
want to just give a little preview what you'll be
talking about that that show real quickly, and then I
gotta ask you about giggap. We haven't talked about your
other program yet, All.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Right, great, Yeah, no, it really is that.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
It's I'm gonna teach people how I how I mix
it live, how I process it how I've used automation
to cut down on the amount of time that it
takes to both prepare the show up front and then
also produce the show after I've recorded it, and even
the automation that I use while doing the show so
(43:26):
I can track our time stamps and things like that.
So yeah, it's it's all of those things and my
hard the hard part for me is I got to
figure out how to whittle this down into a twenty
minute block. So uh, because that's what podcast Movement gave
us this year. So that'll be interesting, But that's that'll
that I love a challenge, so well, we're gonna make
it happen.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
What is it that you do at all? I mean,
have you gotten into the process of doing anything where
you are trying to go ahead, you know, put a
presence on social media. Do you feel like that you
already have an audience that just continued just to adopt
and you get more word of mouth where you know,
if you are you don't really have a worry about
in terms of the audience. You have such a consistent
(44:06):
audience that's been there with you since day one, or
continue to just build up upon do you ever feel
like that, you don't necessarily have to go into the
route of you know, going through social media putting out
that gateway, putting out clips, because I know, for me,
I'm still trying to grow an audience. It's never been that.
We're still mounting into it. So it's always about it.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
We're still absolutely we're still absolutely growing.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
We know that there's always going to be attrition, right,
and so we need to have growth at the very
least to offset the attrition, but hopefully growth to actually
grow the audience. And yeah, we I.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
I realized years ago that.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
I and also most of the podcasters in the Backbeat
Media family, we're all really good at attracting our initial audience,
and we're all terrible at continue to promote our shows.
We're great at continuing to do the shows, but the
promotion is something we all sucked at. So I hired
somebody here at Backbeat. We hired Sadie Sear, and she's
(45:11):
been with us three and a half years now, and
she does all of that stuff where she basically creates
the clips and does all those things. Now she will
put me to work because I tell her, look, if
there's clips that you can create from the existing content
and the show great, awesome, do that, but if you
(45:31):
need something specific from me, tell me what to make
for you, and I will make it so that you
can go out and you know, and promote the things.
So yeah, the social presence, I think is it's super mandatory,
and you've got to figure out where the presence is
right for you. Like, for example, giggab, you wanted to
(45:52):
talk about that show. It's a show we do it
for musicians. Yep, that show is in its tenth year now,
and we this isn't going to come as any great surprise,
but you know, we kind of sat down. We've been
doing a smattering of social media with that show, and
we realized, wait a minute, that audience is more on
(46:13):
Instagram than anywhere else. That the audience of musicians. The
show is targeted at working musicians, so people who play
in bands, Instagram is where most of them are spending
their time promoting their stuff, and so that's where we
need to focus our efforts.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Of course, if we had unlimited.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Time and money, we would promote the show one hundred
percent of the time everywhere, but it turns out we don't,
so we need to pick and with giggab. Instagram is
the platform right with mac geek gab X is pretty good.
Some of the Facebook stuff. I think there's room for
us on TikTok and I want to crack that that
(46:52):
egg a little bit. But but yeah, so you got
to figure out what to do with your with your
show and where it Like for Business Brain, which is, uh,
you called it the Small Business Show and that it
did used to be called that. We changed the name
last year to Business Brain and that show is also
in its tenth year. X is absolutely the best platform
(47:13):
right for business Brain. That's where all of the small
business audience really has collected itself. So it said, great,
that's where we'll put our efforts. We will we will speak.
I always say, go to where your audience is. Don't
expect them to come to you, right, You've got to
go find them.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
So no, they've been working on that I put it. So.
I also use a lot of LinkedIn for myself in
terms of all my contents. I have again four shows,
hey go, and I do it all everywhere. I'll take
the same audio and just plaster. So yeah, I'm pretty good,
like pretty much maybe like four to six to maybe
eight clips per show I do now and audiogram them
and you know, see what happens with them, and it's
(47:51):
got me some good response out there and also put
on YouTube to see what happens. But you know, it's
been hard just to you know, I haven't brought anybody
else into the mikes. It's I got. Everything is almost
all monologue except for this show is guest intensive, and
the US they've brug me for my full time on
top of that, so like it's only so much time
I have dedicated. So if you're gonna be a podcast
movement and you're catching this episode, make sure to go
(48:11):
ahead check out Wednesday twelve fifteen at podcast Movement Streamline
the Shine mastering real time podcast production across genres. Make
sure to go look for Day's presentation on that. And
also I love this fact of this and this is
I understand where it's like I'm a throwback, but you
kept the blogger page Dave thenerd dot com and actually
all your information is there to follow along. But also
(48:33):
you have great websites for mac geek gab dot com
for the mac geek Gab podcast, gig gab podcast for
gig Gab, among others. So you know I want to
make sure to drop that off there and all your
information is there, so if people want to find you,
you're easy to find and.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
I am easy to find ye.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Dave Hamilton, Dave Hamilton dot com will find me, and
Dave Hamilton on most of the socials will find me too.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
So yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
You were for me to have someone here on pot
Podcasters Show of Importance. You are up there, my friend.
Thank you for being on with us. I really appreciate
you finding the show and thinking my invite and I
really thank you again for being on and you know,
best of luck. I hope we couldn't talk again. And
if there's anybody that you have along your circles that
you think would be a good guest for podcasters, real peace,
bring bringing them along. I love the gun speak with
(49:19):
them amazing.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
I I it's a it's an honor and a pleasure
to be here, and I absolutely will will recommend. I've
got several people in mind already, so I will I
will send them your way.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Would love that. Thank you again, and folks again, as always,
thank you for listening. In finding the show, you'll find
out The King of Podcasts dot com the website of
this work to it. All the sub pages you can find.
The podcasters Row now nice and a little bit easier
to go and look forward to, so make sure to
go ahead and keep listening for new episodes. I'll try
to get little more consistent on the programming on podcasters Row,
but we'll do more and we'll talk to you next time.
Welcome back to podcasters. Roue King of podcasts here with you.
Welcome to you against to another great program, and I'll
tell you I've been lucked out.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I always wonder what kind of guess we're gonna bring
on the program. We get a lot of newbies that
are being very fresh in the podcasting, but never do
I get a generation one an og in the space
like in the SEO space where I've gotten to go back,
which is where my originations of podcasting go back to
two thousand and five. Well, my guests also came just
shortly before I came onto the scene and learned about
(00:40):
podcasting myself. And there's a lot to be said. So
I'm not gonna go waste a lot of time. There's
just so much that we can go into that this
gentleman has done. We're not gonna go to any long
contrive introduction. He's co founder CEO of Backbeat Media, podcaster
at Mac Geek Gab, Geek Gab and The Small Business Show,
and there's so much more to it. But again, let
(01:00):
me just go and welcome Dave Hamilton onto the podcasters growth.
Thanks for being on with.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Us, Oh, thanks for having me Braska this is great.
I'm stoked to be here. I love talking about podcasting
and you know, the current days, the original days, the
previous you know, prior to the original days.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah. So first off, Dave, when I'm thinking back to
the beginning of when I started into podcasting, you know,
it wasn't the most popular thing in two thousand and five.
You know, if I remember still specifically calling into the
Donna Mike Show in Washington, DC syndicated at that time,
and they were asking was I was in radio and
I said, well, I'm in podcasting. And then they told me,
(01:39):
and this was like two thousand and eight, oh, you're
basically working on McDonald's, dude. And that's how they kind
of treated me, like, you know, it was just panned
and it was like look down upon. But the one
thing was is that for some of us that got
early into podcasting, it was because I was working in
radio and I need to find some place else because
I was working at corporate iHeartMedia, which was Clear Channel
the time, and I was like, well, it's not going
(02:00):
to stay where I want to be able to go
ahead and you know, have taken advantage of what I
wanted to do with myself, so I found myself in
what happened to be a podcasting outlet. And now for you,
tell me if this is a very similar I mean,
I would imagine you might have been a big radio
ficionado that kind of influenced you. You know, you always
wanted to have a place to go ahead and do
a show like this, and if radio wasn't going to
(02:21):
give you a platform, or was it going to be
an easy way to do it, then this possibility made
it possible, being able to go and record and put
it up on the Internet and have people listen to
it as opposed to being on AM or FM antenna.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Actually not at all. Wow, my yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
My story starts in nineteen ninety the very end of
nineteen ninety eight, the beginning of ninety nine, when we
I co founded and then started a website called mac observer. Right,
mac observer was a website.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It still is.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Sorry, we started it ninety eight. We sold it in
twenty twenty one, but it's still going strong. It's a
website for news, reviews, tips, tricks.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Those kinds of things for Apple users.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Right when we started it, the Mac was the Apple's
only product so mac observer made sense in retrospect, maybe
Apple Observer would have been a better name.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
But then what happened to me that you come in
here coinciding with the fact that it was when Apple
decided to go ahead and start working on creating an
app store, getting the iPhone, and soon enough we're like
the early days of hints that a smartphone was being
in the process of being built.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Not even I mean, you know, the iPhone didn't come
out til two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, right,
So we started, you know, we started mac observer when
it was just for the Mac for but we covered
everything that Apple did and that remained true and remains
true with that website.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And then in two thousand.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
And five, I you know, so because of the mac Observer,
I was, you know, we started that before the term
blog was even like a thing, right, And so we
actually resisted calling the mac Observer a blog for a
long time because they're like, we, no, we're not a blog,
We're a web magazine. Well potato patato, right, but we
(04:16):
were hung up on ourselves, so whatever. But because of that,
I was in the circles with other people that were
in what we would call new Media.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Online Media.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
And one night I was out to dinner with a
bunch of people at a conference and I can't remember
what the conference with the conference was, but like Robert
Scobel from Mike he was still at Microsoft, was there.
Dave Parmett was there. He did a lot of pr
for a lot of people back in those days. Mike
Dunn from Hurst, who did a lot of acquisitions and stuff,
(04:49):
was there. And I wound up driving Mike home from
the dinner that night, and on the way home, Mike
was like, you know, with what you're doing with mac observer,
you need to get into podcasting there.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I was like, crab man, you're right.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
It was not something. It's like now I got to
add like a whole other thing. I gotta figure this out.
But he was right, and it didn't take the full
hour ride back to his house for me to realize, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
But so it was like like anything.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
We had a staff, small staff at that point, probably
four maybe five people plus me and my co founder
Brian Chaffin. I was and still am a tech nerd.
I also was and still am a musician, and well
I'm a drummer, so I hang out with musicians. But
growing up as a drummer meant that band practice was
(05:39):
at my house. And this is relevant, I'll get I'll
get to why this ties into podcasting because I had
a drum set, you know, and so I had to
have a big space for all that. And that meant
that the PA, the thing that you you know, you
plug the microphone into to make the vocals come out,
was also at my house. And things were always like
feeding back and this that and the other thing. And
so because the PA was at my house, I sat
(06:02):
and learned a ton about sound equipment and how sound
processing works and all of that because I wanted to
make it so that when the band played, we sounded good.
And so I had this audio knowledge, I had this
tech knowledge. So when Mike convinced me that we hear
at mac observers should be doing podcasting, it was like, well,
that's me right. So because I understood enough about the sound,
(06:26):
I had the gear, I understood enough about the tech,
I had the software, and so I cobbled together this
podcasting setup and real and it's evolved over the years.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
But I'm actually we can talk about it a little later.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I'm teaching this podcasting set up at at podcast Movement
this month here because.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
What I created we're going to come in the podcast.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Well, we'll get there.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
One of the things that I got to ask about
is that initially, you know, your owners that even got
you into the idea obviously with mac observer, even before
then you were already working in tech support. The thing
was you were already with that passion of wanting to
help others to try to work on whatever their hardware
software was, to get them so they can optimize what
they're doing at their best level. So you had that
(07:11):
already in front of you now because of your attachment.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
But that's not what the show about was about initially, No, no, no.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Right, But I'm just saying that's what you had leading
up to it. But now, yes, what I want to
find that was where were you based at the time.
Were you in Silicon Valley? Was this something where like
you were so you know, entrenched into everything that was
going on with tech that that's what kind of you know,
rubbed off on you and got you into working into that,
getting the publication together mac Observer and then the the podcast.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
No, we I was in Austin when we started Mac Observer.
And if you told me the night before we started
it that that would be my you know, my business
for the next twenty plus years, I would have laughed
at you.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
But then this opportunity kind of showed up.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
There was a website called webin tage that we knew about, uh,
and the guy was selling it, and so we wound
up buying it. It turned out he didn't own the
domain name webintash dot com, so that.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Was a little that that was a little weird. Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
We had a conversation about what it what in fact
he thought he was selling in the end, but it
all worked out.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
It was fine.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
But then yeah, then we then we started mac observer
because we were Apple fans.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I mean, that's really what it was.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And and and I wanted I just sold my interest
in a tech support business that I had been part
of with a I was sort of a junior partner
in it, and so I was kind of looking for,
all right, what might be next.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
It was like, all right, I'll do this. That sounds fine.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
And uh, I really thought it would just be a
part time thing and you know, kind of a fun
little thing. Who knew that it would turn into a
like a real job. But but yeah, we were. We
were in Austin, which at the time and still is
kind of a tech ye play.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Now it's become the new selicon value as a matter
of fact, so by Southwest, so many of the coming.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yeah, it was called that, Like when I was there
in the mid nineties and late nineties, it was called
the Silicon Hills, like it was definitely starting. They called
the plane. There was a Jet Blue flight once a
day at the time. Now there's more that went back
and forth from Austin to San Francisco, and they called
it the nerd Bird because it was you know, and
(09:21):
companies Apple Dell was of course already in Austin.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Apple AMD.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Had expanded in Austin at that point in time, So
it was Austin was this tech center and that's part.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Of what brought me there. I grew up in Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
But well even where the home catch Fire series was
based on was Austin, Texas. Yeah, there you go, that's right. Yeah, Yeah,
it was all that kind of thing where it's like
it's always been an attachment there. So the Austin's always
been some kind of a just there's an appeal to
that and I know quite a few be able to
actually live over there. There was a vogel Pol who
worked with WPNG and I forget where he works at now.
And you know there's a few other people that. I mean,
(09:57):
my bosses originally came from Texas.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Originally Houston Nice.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
So there's all that kind of an attachment. And now
one thing was that because you were in Austin and
with all these companies around you, you wanted to be
in the part where you were staying business the consumer
with your content. Was there already any thought or any
kind of inroads to go business to business because obviously
you had such an understanding of it, and you know,
if you were to get yourself within one of those
(10:21):
companies you could have.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
That was back in the day when there were Apple
clone companies, like people could make clones of the mac
MacTel was one of those.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
They were located in Austin.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
We sold ads to them, but we sold ads to
people all over the country, all over the world. But
that selling of the ads was it led to an
interesting thing. When we started, I mentioned I had a partner.
Brian's job was to do all of the content on
the site. My job was basically everything else, which really
(10:58):
was get the servers up and running, make sure the
technology worked, and then bring in the money. And that
meant that in nineteen ninety nine I actually wrote from
scratch a content management system for us, like because there
was no word press, like I had to just write that,
oh yeah. But we also had to sort of build
(11:18):
the engine that would sell the ads for the site
and pull all that stuff together, the business engine as
well as the technological engine. And about six or eight
months in we had four of our competitors come to
us and say, hey, wait a minute, you guys have
your stuff together. Will you do for us what you've
done for you. We just want to publish our sites.
(11:40):
We don't want to worry about posting on a server,
we don't want to worry about selling ads. And so
that's where backbeat Media started was we thought, well, if
our competition wants us to do this for them, we
should do it. Like we have all the relationships we have,
We already have the business processes in place, We already
have a server that we know how to co locate on,
(12:01):
Like we had the nerd skills, we had the business
skills ish. And so that's where backbeat Media started and
it evolved into what it is today, which is a
business that manages the sponsorships for some websites still but
mostly podcasts. Like I always say, we represent a group
of fiercely independent podcasters of which I am one.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So June thirteenth, twenty twenty four, celebrate your twentieth yere podcasting.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
And you know, nineteenth anniversary of the show begins our
twentieth year the twenties.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Okay, perfect, all right, yeah, so I want to ask
about this now. You know, from the original setup of
Mac keep gabb episode one. I know for me when
I had to go and start working on it, we
were using you know Tell's hybrid phone systems, just like
the radio stations were using, and we were streaming through
you know ice cast, and we had in three different streams.
(12:57):
It was one, twenty eight, fifty six and ninety six
the way we had to set up, and it was
live stream like that, and it was encoded through Sam Broadcaster.
That's our setup back in the day. What do you
remember as your setup as you did it when you
did it that first show in two thousand and five.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So my setup hasn't some of the tech, some of
the hardware, some of the software has changed. There was
no video yet, no correct there was no video, but
and our audience is still primarily audio. But when we started,
I knew I had a lot going on. I couldn't
(13:34):
humor myself. I couldn't give myself permission to do much,
if any, post production or editing of the audio because
I know I'm a perfectionist, and I knew that I
would fail at releasing episodes consistently. If I recorded an
episode and there was like, all right, now I got
to edit it, it would be weeks before I got
(13:54):
it to a point where it was like this is perfect.
Now it can be released. But somehow, and probably just
from publishing mac Observer, I knew that the way to
succeed with any kind of content was to deliver it
consistently and on a schedule that my audience that didn't
yet exist would expect. Because I know, the hardest thing
(14:18):
to do is to get a new audience member. The
easiest thing to do is to lose one by not
giving them more content. Right, So I knew I needed
a workflow.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
That my goal as I started it out, was a
workflow that allowed me to publish within fifteen minutes of
finishing recording, and that's basically been true today. So it
meant a lot of pre production and mixing it live
so very much that radio ethos of record. I mean,
(14:50):
we're recording live to tape, but the show is the
show as it happened live, right And if I'm going
to play our theme music, I'm playing that to the tape.
I'm recording directly to you know, stereo, and that's it. Certainly,
if I have to go back through and edit, I can,
and there have been a handful of times when I
have had to. But by and large, the show is
(15:12):
the show, and we release what we recorded, and that
has worked out really well for me. And it's interesting,
you know, I say that my prime directive was released
within fifteen minutes of recording. My secondary directive was make
it sound good, and it was a very distant second.
(15:32):
I knew that good sound was important, but good sounds irrelevant.
If you're not releasing content, you'll notice neither one of
those two is good quality content. And that's because I
knew that we were going to suck at the beginning,
and we did. But I also knew that by doing
it regularly, we would get better. Oh yeah, and I
(15:54):
like to think we did. And so that that was
kind of that's how the show started in that's.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Inspiration. Nothing like that where you felt like was there
I mean, was there anybody that you kind of follow
off of that you felt like you felt like almost
like a mentor that said I like the way this
person approaches speaking, like if it was a public speaker
or if it was a radio host. Was there anything
at all that made you feel like, this is the
kind of show we need to be able to do,
this is how I need to present it.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
So I at the same period, you know, we launched
in June of five. In May ishu of five, we
relocated from Connecticut to where we are here in New Hampshire,
which is about a three hour drive, so I was
driving back and forth once a week. We bought the
house about a month and a half before we moved in,
and we did a ton of construction here.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
We had a lot of construction done.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
So I was coming up once a week to check
on things, and that meant three hours in the car
each way once a week. So I started listening to
podcasts because they were this new thing and it was like,
all right, great, and I did I really you know,
to your question about an inspiration or a mentor, Adam
Curry was doing the Daily source Code. He's one of
the people who created podcasting. And I know that point
(17:09):
can be argued to, but let's say he.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Was certainly one credit.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah right, one of the first podcasters, if not the first,
and certainly the person who helped put podcasting on the map.
And I liked his style. He was also recording live
to tape and not doing any editing, and that inspired
me to like, Okay, this is doable. I understand, Like
I listened to his show, but I knew how he
(17:34):
did it, Like I didn't need to like drill into
like asking him, how what what's this magic that you've done?
It was like, no, I totally get it. I know
what software I was used. I don't know what software
he's using, but I know what software I.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Would use, and I would route things internally on my
computer and do this and that and the other thing,
and yeah, I can do this. The trick was he
was not doing it with a co host back then,
so I had to figure out how to get a
co host that was not local a remote co host
to work in the system. And we tested out all
of the voipe engines back then and we found that
(18:07):
Skype was had the cleanest audio, the best quality audio,
and so and and then we actually worked with the
Skype engineers to take out some of their audio filtering. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So you.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Didn't go to Skype until about so late mid six
o seven was we finally made you are welcome. Because
it was a welcome we had. The wiring had to
be done differently for that. They're going to get done
because we wanted to get there and we saw that
the benefit was like we want to be able to
get callers in there, get the callers little hissed into
each other through the phone. So we had to work
around and kind of rig things up. But you know,
(18:41):
eventually we got to the point. Now let's go forward,
because Apple changed the game with the iOS going to smartphones,
the app store being created, and that's again seven to eight,
and then you know that we're at iOS eighteen. We
are you know, entrenched where I mean, it's obviously the
people that would be listening to your program and the
(19:03):
essentially we're looking for support for their desktop. I imagine
that is completely flip flopped over to the phones.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yes and no, I would say that our audience.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
We so episode one of the show, we were talking
about whatever the latest mac Os was at that point
in time. Right, episode two, I forget what we talked about. Well,
we had a topic. Episode three, I didn't have a topic.
I was like, crap, I got to come up with something.
So I said, you know what, let's create the mail bag.
(19:34):
I'm going to say, I'm going to create like four
or five questions that are going to tee up great
geeky conversations to teach people things. But I made up
the questions like these were not listener questions. We lied
to our audience, but we only did it once. We
lied to our audience. We said, oh great, a bunch
of you sent in questions. We picked the top five
and we're going to answer them on the show. That
(19:55):
was episode three.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Now, actually at the time it was macOS X. It
was trans from Tiger to Panther. That's where you were
a point all right, great, perfect, Yes, it was a
ten point four, Yeah, that's ten point four. The other
thing was so that was like these constant releases, constant changes,
and that was obviously the focus of what was going
on at that time.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
But we so we made up questions, we gave our answers,
and the questions haven't stopped coming since. So the show
immediately pivoted to become a Q and A and tips
show for Apple users. And certainly the show's evolved in
different ways, but nowadays I would say that our tips
and questions are probably fifty to fifty between the Mac
(20:39):
and the and you know, IPHONOW and iOS.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Now, what about the audience because obviously, you know, for
those that would have adopted into podcasting early, pretty smart,
young adept and they would have really been able to
go understand whatever you said. You didn't have to dumb
down your content. You were basically kind of saying they're
on a particular smart playing field. I think if we
talk very technical, they're going to understand us. So that's
(21:03):
the part I always think about. Like for us, it
was about, you know, doing tech programming where I was
working with web Master Radio dot FM. It's the thing
where it was high end conversation. It's like we didn't
worry about what people were I mean, there might be
proprietary so we won't talk about but like we would
go insitionally, what was going on for us, It's always
about like what Google was making changes to the Florida
(21:24):
update and the moving into you know later years to
Pan and Penguin and all that stuff going on. It
was all this constant change that was going on that
all these different people on the Internet wanted to understand
so they can market, they could advertise, they could find
their way through paid or organic starch, whatever it was.
It was the other way of not having to go
through traditional means. So in the same way for folks
(21:44):
on Apple, you know it's the software to build, they
go and do that kind of thing. So I imagine
that some business the business types, so developers or people
that wanted to create programs that would work well, those
must have come into the conversation as well.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, we definitely had developers early on, but our audience
really has expanded to the people. I always what I
the way I describe our audience is what I say
to our audience. You don't have to be a geek
to listen, but if you listen long enough, you'll become home.
So we really do. It's not for it.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
I think we walk a pretty good line where we
cater to the experts and then also cater to the
people that are new that want to become experts. And
becoming an expert doesn't necessarily mean you're going to do
it as a career or that you're even going to
do it for someone else, but you want to become
an expert of your setup, and the desire to learn
(22:41):
more about your setup, regardless of what your knowledge level
coming in.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
That's the That's the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
We start every every episode by saying, and the goal
is for us each to learn five new things every
single time we get together. And that's not just the audience,
that's us as the host too. We want to learn
new stuff. And I always say I learn the most
because I see everybody's question that comes in. I see
everybody's tips. We can't share everything. We only do the
(23:09):
show for an hour and twenty each week, so it's
you know, we have to pick and choose. But yeah,
we learn a ton and and I think that.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Informs our audience.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
The fact that we are interested and open to learning
something new along with our audience essentially gives our audience permission.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
To learn with us. Like we don't purport to be experts.
And know everything. First of all, that would be impossible,
and secondly, that'd be probably really annoying to listen to
someone that thinks they know everything when we know you can't.
So we're we're we're good at troubleshooting, that's for sure.
(23:53):
We also are.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Pretty good at explaining things once we understand them, and
we're the third thing that we're good at is curating
the right topics to talk about in the show to
kind of keep everyone engaged.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
And that's our job is you know, we.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
See ourselves as the stewards of the community that has
sort of grown up around our show.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Now, that's a great way to segue here, because what
Apple and for anything else Mac or Apple based, Obviously
it's one particular portion of the whole consumer base. Now
I can imagine with some of the other shows I've
seen that out there that are they're Mac based, and
that doesn't matter what consecretion is. It gonna be on
TikTok of you, on Instagram, it gonna be in podcasting.
(24:36):
But we know that in the phone space you have
people that are Samsung fans or you know, they're fans
of Android, and on the other side you have Windows
or Linux or whatever their other operating systems that are
out there for desktop. So obviously there's gonna be a
differing opinion out there that if they come to your show,
you know, you might get obviously feedback in your mail bag,
(24:59):
you might get comments from people like that or some
people that will say, well, maybe you're one sided. Without
trying to say what you're gonna say, right, I'm just
saying what you felt like you'd done consistently to handle
what other people might say, Well, you know, Apple's inferior.
You know, what do you would you say about that?
Or what would you say about for those that feel
like for me, I've never said anything necessarily bad about Apple,
(25:21):
it's just a matter is that. I think it's one
of those things where like if the system worked for you.
To me, it's always been if you're more of a creator,
then you are someone that needs other programs. Like That's
the one thing for me is that always Windows always
give me more programming, but damn it, give me the
hard ware and I'd.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Be happy, right.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Yeah, Really, so I had prior to starting machikab as
you noted, I had a career and it spilled over.
I mean there was a lot of over time, you know,
temporal overlap too. But I have spent a lot of
my career, arguably all of my career helping people with
their technology and in a variety of ways.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And I was always an Apple user.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
My first well, my first computer was a TIMEX Sinclair.
But then uh then my my first if you know,
real computer. If the next computer after the Sinclair was
an Apple. To see, I was always interested in Apple
computers and then so I got into Max and all
that stuff. But I also learned a lot about Windows,
(26:25):
and most of my on site tech support consulting was Windows,
and I was like I I certainly was one of,
if not the best Windows consultant in Austin, Texas in
the late nineties. Like there's there's very few people that
I that I think would would argue that point. And
I had a lot of clients when they found out,
(26:45):
you know, they would I mean, I didn't make a secretive.
Well I use Max at home, but I'm very skilled
at this and I can help you, and I'm you know,
I will provide value to you on your Windows stuff.
And it was great, and occasionally some of them would ask, like,
you know, we've been working again for a while. How
come you haven't tried to convince me to switch to
the Mac? And my answer was always the same. It's like,
(27:07):
because you haven't expressed a desire to switch to the Mac,
I am happy to have the conversation with you, but
it's going to be your decision, not mine. The only
time I would even suggest considering it was if someone
was doing something on their PC that would be easier
(27:28):
for them in the long run on the Mac. But
that transition learning a new platform. I mean even today,
if you were to switch from Android to iOS or
iOS to Android, it would be filled with friction. Like
you know, they're somewhat similar, but they're not exactly the same,
and so you'd have to learn how the platform works.
And I have no interest in evangelizing, and we've never
(27:50):
evangelized on the show, so it's rare. I don't even
know that I can think of anybody that ever wrote
it in and said, you guys are one sided, because
we're not. We all choose to use the Mac as
our primary platform, and for us it is the right choice.
So therefore, for us, it is a better platform for
(28:13):
me than Windows would.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Be for me.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
But it doesn't mean that the Mac is objectively better.
I mean, I think you could make an argument that
it is. You could also make an argument that Windows
is objectively better, and that's an interesting conversation to have,
but that's not what our show's about. Our shows about
helping people learn how to use it. And in fact,
there was you know, after the iPhone came out, there
was the whole switcher thing right where people switched from.
(28:39):
It started with the iPod, really when people switched from
Windows to the Mac because they realized, wait a minute,
I can get into this whole ecosystem, and that's great.
And we had a ton of people that started listening
to the show before they became Mac users because they
wanted to learn about this platform before a switch to
(29:01):
it and get some working knowledge and understand how the
tech works.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
So we had a lot of questions from switchers over
the years, not so much.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Now helped a lot because the iPod was just a
more superior product than Zoom anybody remember player to be
as a matter of fact.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Correct, correctly, Well, yes it was, and that halo effect
of the iPod really brought a lot of people to
the Mac, and we we had a ton of listeners
that were iPod owning Windows users and would listen to
the show. And then eventually some of them, not all
of them, of course, but some of them switched, you know,
to the MAC. And I mean, I have the great
(29:38):
I mean, I love all of our listeners. We have
such a great community. There's so we've got a discord
channel full of thousands of people, and the conversations are
helpful and supportive. There's never any like bickering or any
of the flame wars or any of the stuff that
just happens on the internet. It's freaking awesome.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
And I will take credit for creating the vibe that
our listeners then and our audience then sort of just
follows into into that, right, But we don't have to
police our discord.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
It's fine. It's basically because the fan that it's kind
of like just everybody's in lockstep and they all want
to just get better with it.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Everybody wants to get better.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
That's right, and and so it it all just it
all just works. It's it's really a supportive thing. And uh,
I mean, like I said before, you know, I see
us as stewards of this, and I really consider myself
lucky that that we get to do this with our
with our audience.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Now the other part is uh coming up as we
record this right now, you will be appearing in Washington,
d C. At Podcasts Movement. I will not be there,
but I know listen, I would love to go to
the show. And long story short, there's a lot that's
gonna be said. But I mean, I respectful of the
fact that you know, you have been recognized for all
the years you've been working on this, and that you're
(30:55):
gonna be speaking at the show. You're gonna have the
several sessions are cana be on streamline the shine mastering
real time podcast production across genres. I'll ask you about
that real quick. But also, uh, you know that you
are you know again you are talking about the fact
that you have what has been said be a special
milestone you're gonna actually be exploring about with your twentieth
(31:15):
year of podcasting. You're starting it up right now, and
so you're gonna be also speaking about a walk through
two decades of podcast production. So through all this year,
you know, I've done my own little session of like
podcasting one on one tips into you know, like pet
peeves of mine that I have when it comes down
to things. But you know, now you see that I
(31:37):
think from the from COVID specifically, I think people started
really paying attention a lot more, especially when it came
to video. If you know, like how many video how
much video cons in DC out there, that everybody has
to use a microphone like yours, or has to have
the short microphone like Joe Rogan has, or has to
have you like AED five or whatever it is. They
all have to have this. It's got to be what
was originally the Howard Sterns setup. I will always say, yeah,
(31:59):
he's the first one that Jada on the channel, and
then everybody just copied it, and you know what it works.
You make you a little change on it. Oh, you
might get it look a little more like a you know,
like a set like from Data, you know, Dick Cab
or something like that, without couches at all. You find
your way to do it. It's something that's a little aesthetic,
but otherwise it's still the content itself. So I mean,
that's the one thing I noticed too, is that I
(32:19):
guess a lot of podcasters now are not are kind
of learning that, you know, they're starting to see that
some of the basic things that we always were pet
peeving about for a long time. People are starting to
understand you need a good microphone, you need to sound good.
Even with TikTok, they're like promoting their shop and they're
all selling microphones out there because they're trying to help
for people to enhance and improve their content.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
No. The session I'm doing it at Podcast Movement really
is teaching that workflow that I created so that people
can at least learn how I get content out quickly
and consistently, because I think that's the biggest is that
podcasters have is that headache of well, I've recorded something,
(33:04):
now how do I get it out there? How do
I go from the red light turning off and it
being published fifteen minutes later.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
That's what I'm teaching at Podcast Movement.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
I got to ask you this because this is one
of the things that's always a pet peeple of mind
everybody across the board, and everybody's uh, you know, we
can accuse everybody of it because it always happens. People
will stutter and stammer, especially we're doing it as live. Well,
I'll do it. I know. I used to be horrible
at that. But one of the most important thing ahaois
did for myself and I tell everyone to do that.
Listen to yourself back as much as poscorse. You have
(33:34):
to do it. There's no choice. You might cringe if
you hear something you say that doesn't sound well. And
now even more so because I audiogram so much of
my stuff. So to part question, how much do you
listen back as you're getting the show prepared and ready?
How much do you listen to yourself back to continue
to keep improving your presentation? And then also, you know,
(33:56):
do you take that now? And you know multitasking that
saying okay, well, well people want to be able to
get the gateway into listening to my show, so I
have to start creating content a short form to get
to the long form content. What is it that you
do today to incorporate that social media? Good?
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, great question. So how often do I listen back?
I will intentionally listen to one episode a month just
to spot check things, make sure. I mean I listen
to every episode, but not the whole thing. I will
jump through like if I were I know you're producing
(34:34):
this episode, but if I were producing this right, we
would finish our thing. I would run it through an
engine called Aphonic that really helps kind of normalize, and
it does a multi bank compression on the audio and
then converts that to MP three for me and all
that stuff. I will listen to the end result of
that and make sure and I will jump around in
it and hear each speaker to make sure everybody sounds
(34:57):
level and that there's no issue that I need to
be aware of, and also confirming did I push out
the right file, because the last thing I want to
do is push out the pre show where we're all
complaining about things and swearing and doing things that we
don't do on the show. So, you know, I make
sure that the content is what it is, then I
push it out. When the episode goes live, I go
(35:20):
to the web page and I press play on the
web page like I am someone coming in, just to
make sure again that the technology is all working. So
I do all of those things, but in terms of
listening completely all the way through to an episode, that's
about once a month, and yes I cringe, even after
you know, doing this nineteen plus years, I still hear
(35:41):
myself do things. But the good part is those cringey
moments are the ones that teach me. I always say
my mistakes are my tuition, and listening to that is
my tuition.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
It's like, oh, what what are my verbal tics?
Speaker 3 (35:56):
What do I say regularly to fill that mental space that.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
I don't need?
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Yeah, the ums, the uhs, the other phrases that we
use to keep things going.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
What am I doing?
Speaker 3 (36:09):
And simply hearing those makes me more aware of them
in the moment. I also, about two years ago, maybe
three years ago, I started pre recording all our sponsor reads.
I used to do them live into the show. I
decided to start pre recording them for a variety of reasons.
One of them is to make sure that I keep
(36:30):
the ads tight. We found that our ads were more effective.
We sell sixty second spots. We found that they were
more effective if they were two minutes or less. If
I'm doing it live, you and I are having a
conversation and it's like, Hey, I want to talk about
our sponsor. Now I'm pulling out the sheet that with
the talking points. I'm navigating my way into it. It
might take me twenty seconds to figure out, like talking.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
While I'm reading, what am I talking about?
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Okay this, it's much more efficient if I pre record those,
and I can, I can get them tighter, right, But
it also means that I do edit that audio. And
listening to myself do these sponsor reads is also really
informative because I can edit out the ums and the
oas and the other verbal tics and the things where
I stumble.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
But that process, again is informative. I learned from that
and then I am become aware of it. Like while
we're talking now, I'm sure I've said ums and ohs,
we're normal humans.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
We're having a conversation, but that's okay. People want to
hear a normal conversation. But I've also learned that I
can be comfortable with dead air every now and then.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Right pregnant path that's one of those things as well.
If dead air is fine, absolutely now. The other GINGU
I gotta make otion of is that. And I appreciate
you doing the once per month where you listen through
a full show, because for me, it's the gauge of saying,
you know, am I gonna joy listening to myself talk
again about the same thing I just recorded. It's very
important to me and I think if I'm enjoying myself.
I'm like, Okay, I'm not turning this off yet. I'm
(37:57):
still digging what I'm talking about. Tells me I know
what I'm doing as well. Plus the other thing too
is that when it comes to you know what you
gotta talk about in terms of the sound quality, I
guess one of the things I always like to talk
about as well is that you know you talk about
you use alphonic to get help in terms of compression
and doing things to help with the audio. For me,
I also like to use on top of the compression
I have is you know, everything's gotta be recorded right
(38:19):
the first time for the most part, or if I
need to, I use what's now the Adobe podcast Enhancer.
When I learned about that last year, damn it, it
sounds like MPR. And the truth is that's that's all.
I like to go ahead and almost comment all the
time best podcast quality, and honestly, if people want to
go ahead and do a podcast that obviously is very appealing,
it sounds like MPR. Because I imagine maybe some of those
(38:41):
podcasts also drop into your own portfolio, because I know
I've done that myself, because it sounds good, all of
it does. They just do a great job of it
and it sounds good and their presentation is just the
way they're doing it where it works, and I feel
like that's some of the best podcasters. They learn the
sound quality has gotta be like that. It's like they
are the arbiters of how do it?
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Yeah, Aphonic does a similar thing. I mean again it
it is dependent on what you put into it. Those
engines can do a lot, but they can't do it all,
so you have to. We had a I talk about
it as the the am radio moment. When I do
the show, As I mentioned, I am mixing it live,
so I know in my ears what I want the
(39:23):
show to sound like, and so it's my preference that
sort of sets the tone, the actual tone of the show, right,
the EQ of the show, those kinds of things. For
a long time, I used westne Um two in ear monitors,
two drivers per year, and then I moved from those two.
(39:47):
I had Jerry Harvey on one of my podcasts. He
was the guy who created Ultimate Years, the company that
makes in ear monitors. He's like, ah, and he had
sent me some I met him when he first started
Ultimate Years. He had sent me some UE's that were
basically the same as the Western UM two is the
duel drivers. And then he's like, oh I hate West tone.
He's like, they screwed my business. I'm like, yeah, I
(40:09):
remember the story. So he told the story. He's like,
I'm going to send you some iems, and so he
sent me this set of these jhe Audio leilas that
had twelve drivers per year, and they were built to
be a reference speaker, a reference.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Meaning flat EQ, so that you can mix with them.
I thought, well, that would be perfect for doing the podcast.
So I moved to those and I'd used them for
six eight months, and then we traveled. We went to
ces the show in Vegas. And when we travel and record,
we don't bring the full set up with us, so
(40:45):
I didn't have all the processing on the mics. I
just used two Audio Technica two thousand and five USB's
great microphones.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
We recorded the show, we released it, and one of
our listeners wrote in and said, whatever you did on
the road, your show sounds amazing. When you're on the road,
it sounds like FM radio compared to you know, the
setup that you usually have, which is like AM radio.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
And I knew exactly what he meant. AM radio is tinny.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
FM radio has a wider frequency spectrum so you can
hear like low end in it. And so I knew
what he was saying without him saying it, and I thought,
wait a minute, I got to go back and listen.
So I ab uh, oh are we still here?
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
My audio cut out?
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Okay, great, we a I ab'd you know, two episodes,
it was like, oh my gosh, she's right. And what
had happened was these layla's that the twelve drivers that
I was using was giving me way too much low
end in my ears, that I had tuned it all
out without realizing it. So that's when I was like, oh,
I got to listen, and I got to listen in
(41:50):
the car, and I can't just listen to my shows.
I need to listen to my show compared to like
an NPR show or something else, so that I'm hearing
it as our listeners would hear it, because I know
they're not just listening to us, they're listening to other podcasts,
so you know that that.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
And also I always send it now more than ever,
I think people will realize if it doesn't sound good,
they're gonna turn away because people will now expect a
higher level quality. In the last few years, I really
believe that's been more important than ever. Now. It's so like,
I mean, yeah, your guess that's miked up? Well all that,
because I can tell you're in you know, you got
(42:28):
that right now process you're going you're going through a
pre amp on that microphone, that setup is going through.
Make sure it's set right, like I hear right now.
It's it is f M. Broady broadcast quality across the board,
and it has to be so for me, it was
always about whatever I make into the show, which is
just advertising revenue. Right now, I put it back into
the show. That's why I bought this microphone here, and
(42:50):
I keep doing it just as such. So it's like
a matter of I can imagine what you'll get at
podcast moving when you talk about it. But if you
want to just give a little preview what you'll be
talking about that that show real quickly, and then I
gotta ask you about giggap. We haven't talked about your
other program yet, All.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Right, great, Yeah, no, it really is that.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
It's I'm gonna teach people how I how I mix
it live, how I process it how I've used automation
to cut down on the amount of time that it
takes to both prepare the show up front and then
also produce the show after I've recorded it, and even
the automation that I use while doing the show so
(43:26):
I can track our time stamps and things like that.
So yeah, it's it's all of those things and my
hard the hard part for me is I got to
figure out how to whittle this down into a twenty
minute block. So uh, because that's what podcast Movement gave
us this year. So that'll be interesting, But that's that'll
that I love a challenge, so well, we're gonna make
it happen.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
What is it that you do at all? I mean,
have you gotten into the process of doing anything where
you are trying to go ahead, you know, put a
presence on social media. Do you feel like that you
already have an audience that just continued just to adopt
and you get more word of mouth where you know,
if you are you don't really have a worry about
in terms of the audience. You have such a consistent
(44:06):
audience that's been there with you since day one, or
continue to just build up upon do you ever feel
like that, you don't necessarily have to go into the
route of you know, going through social media putting out
that gateway, putting out clips, because I know, for me,
I'm still trying to grow an audience. It's never been that.
We're still mounting into it. So it's always about it.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
We're still absolutely we're still absolutely growing.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
We know that there's always going to be attrition, right,
and so we need to have growth at the very
least to offset the attrition, but hopefully growth to actually
grow the audience. And yeah, we I.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
I realized years ago that.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
I and also most of the podcasters in the Backbeat
Media family, we're all really good at attracting our initial audience,
and we're all terrible at continue to promote our shows.
We're great at continuing to do the shows, but the
promotion is something we all sucked at. So I hired
somebody here at Backbeat. We hired Sadie Sear, and she's
(45:11):
been with us three and a half years now, and
she does all of that stuff where she basically creates
the clips and does all those things. Now she will
put me to work because I tell her, look, if
there's clips that you can create from the existing content
and the show great, awesome, do that, but if you
(45:31):
need something specific from me, tell me what to make
for you, and I will make it so that you
can go out and you know, and promote the things.
So yeah, the social presence, I think is it's super mandatory,
and you've got to figure out where the presence is
right for you. Like, for example, giggab, you wanted to
(45:52):
talk about that show. It's a show we do it
for musicians. Yep, that show is in its tenth year now,
and we this isn't going to come as any great surprise,
but you know, we kind of sat down. We've been
doing a smattering of social media with that show, and
we realized, wait a minute, that audience is more on
(46:13):
Instagram than anywhere else. That the audience of musicians. The
show is targeted at working musicians, so people who play
in bands, Instagram is where most of them are spending
their time promoting their stuff, and so that's where we
need to focus our efforts.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Of course, if we had unlimited.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Time and money, we would promote the show one hundred
percent of the time everywhere, but it turns out we don't,
so we need to pick and with giggab. Instagram is
the platform right with mac geek gab X is pretty good.
Some of the Facebook stuff. I think there's room for
us on TikTok and I want to crack that that
(46:52):
egg a little bit. But but yeah, so you got
to figure out what to do with your with your
show and where it Like for Business Brain, which is, uh,
you called it the Small Business Show and that it
did used to be called that. We changed the name
last year to Business Brain and that show is also
in its tenth year. X is absolutely the best platform
(47:13):
right for business Brain. That's where all of the small
business audience really has collected itself. So it said, great,
that's where we'll put our efforts. We will we will speak.
I always say, go to where your audience is. Don't
expect them to come to you, right, You've got to
go find them.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
So no, they've been working on that I put it. So.
I also use a lot of LinkedIn for myself in
terms of all my contents. I have again four shows,
hey go, and I do it all everywhere. I'll take
the same audio and just plaster. So yeah, I'm pretty good,
like pretty much maybe like four to six to maybe
eight clips per show I do now and audiogram them
and you know, see what happens with them, and it's
(47:51):
got me some good response out there and also put
on YouTube to see what happens. But you know, it's
been hard just to you know, I haven't brought anybody
else into the mikes. It's I got. Everything is almost
all monologue except for this show is guest intensive, and
the US they've brug me for my full time on
top of that, so like it's only so much time
I have dedicated. So if you're gonna be a podcast
movement and you're catching this episode, make sure to go
(48:11):
ahead check out Wednesday twelve fifteen at podcast Movement Streamline
the Shine mastering real time podcast production across genres. Make
sure to go look for Day's presentation on that. And
also I love this fact of this and this is
I understand where it's like I'm a throwback, but you
kept the blogger page Dave thenerd dot com and actually
all your information is there to follow along. But also
(48:33):
you have great websites for mac geek gab dot com
for the mac geek Gab podcast, gig gab podcast for
gig Gab, among others. So you know I want to
make sure to drop that off there and all your
information is there, so if people want to find you,
you're easy to find and.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
I am easy to find ye.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Dave Hamilton, Dave Hamilton dot com will find me, and
Dave Hamilton on most of the socials will find me too.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
So yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
You were for me to have someone here on pot
Podcasters Show of Importance. You are up there, my friend.
Thank you for being on with us. I really appreciate
you finding the show and thinking my invite and I
really thank you again for being on and you know,
best of luck. I hope we couldn't talk again. And
if there's anybody that you have along your circles that
you think would be a good guest for podcasters, real peace,
bring bringing them along. I love the gun speak with
(49:19):
them amazing.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
I I it's a it's an honor and a pleasure
to be here, and I absolutely will will recommend. I've
got several people in mind already, so I will I
will send them your way.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Would love that. Thank you again, and folks again, as always,
thank you for listening. In finding the show, you'll find
out The King of Podcasts dot com the website of
this work to it. All the sub pages you can find.
The podcasters Row now nice and a little bit easier
to go and look forward to, so make sure to
go ahead and keep listening for new episodes. I'll try
to get little more consistent on the programming on podcasters Row,
but we'll do more and we'll talk to you next time.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.