2023 Recap: Hot Digital Trends, Big Industry Controversies & Most Innovative Tech | Panel (Ep31) - StreamLeader Report with Ross Brand

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
All right, what's your favorite techof twenty twenty three, what's your biggest
industry controversy of twenty twenty three,and what's the hottest digital trend of twenty
twenty three. We're gonna do atwenty twenty three recap and also of course
go over some of the biggest storiesof the week and of the last month

(00:24):
of twenty twenty three. It's ourfinal twenty twenty three show. It's the
twenty twenty three recap. A lotof fun, lot of opinions, a
lot to talk about. Let's doa show. It's The Stream Leader Report
live panel. Creators talking to creators, raw, real and unscripted, and
sometimes they say the quiet part outloud. Here're your hosts, Claudia Santiago,

(00:49):
Rebecca Gunter, Rob Greenley, andRoss Brand. All Right, hey,
Gang, Ross Brand, here forthe stream Leader Report. It's our
weekly Thursday extremely The Report live panelevery Thursday one thirty pm Eastern except the
next two weeks because we're gonna beoff for the holidays. But this is

(01:11):
our big end of the year wrapup show or recapuh, and it's gonna
be a lot of fun. Wehave the great Rebecca Gunter Business and the
Raw Hall of Fame podcaster Rob Greenleyfrom Podcasting Tips with Rob Greenley and Claudia
Santiago, the Great singer, musicianentertainer Claudia Santiago dot com. So let's

(01:36):
get right into it. We'll recaptwenty twenty three and I'm gonna put the
questions out there. There's no rightor wrong answers, they used to say
in school, until you gave ananswer that had nothing to do with the
book you were supposed to read andyou found out there is a wrong answer.
Let's get right into it. Whatis your top digital trend of twenty

(02:01):
twenty three? Rebecca Gunter, Oh, dang digital trend. I think my
top digital trend for twenty twenty threeis the stream Leader Report weekly live show
every Thursday one third Eastern Standard timehere on YouTube and also coach Straining on

(02:21):
LinkedIn. This has my trend.This is it. I'm serious using this
platform to bring voices together and toup level the industry. This is my
new favorite trend. And I fightme, Fight me, Internet family.
I'm loving doing this show. Sowhat can I say? I can't argue

(02:43):
with that? Rob, your topdigital trend? Of twenty twenty three,
I would say the development of artificialintelligence in all of our lives, as
well as I think you're a kindof a renewed focus on video online too.
It seems like those were the twobiggest things that kind of hit me

(03:06):
between the eyes this year. Soall right, can argue with that,
Claudia, your top digital trend?Well, I love that we have We're
not entering. We have entered amassive tech revelution, and I just I
counted an honor actually to be partof history like this, and you know,

(03:30):
I am excited but also going inwith eyes wide open and checking everything
out and seeing what's going to bebest to implement for me but also my
clients. And yeah, it's justI don't know, just living the history
part of this is really really exciting. All Right, Well, now I

(03:53):
get to do McGlocklin group style whereI tell you what the correct answer there
were no run of course, there'sno wrong answers. All right, I'm
gonna say community is the top digitaltrend of this year. You look at
the the podcast the live streams thatare successful. They're not only producing in

(04:16):
general a pretty large volume of content, but they're building community from from the
beginning pretty much the reverse of howpeople used to do it, which is
they would live stream or podcast forseveral years, grow an audience and then
decide to start a Facebook group ora paid group and move people uh into

(04:40):
that. And now I think you'reseeing people as soon as they start,
if they're on top of things,they're they're they're getting that first listener and
that first viewer right into a communityto continue the conversation and uh you know,
chat with them offline and let themknow when the next thing's coming up,

(05:00):
not relying on on social media fornotifications and keeping in touch with people.
So I would say community is abig one for this year. Well,
Ross, if you've shown us anything, the community happens here in these
comments. The comments are hot,you have regular people who show up all

(05:23):
the time. Shout out to BeautyBubble, you have engaged conversations, you're
able to bring them in. SoI think the community you're building here is
absolutely in the comments. So Istand for your prediction. Thank you.
I love that we're always watching.We're always watching those comments and see some

(05:43):
people there and huge, huge shoutout to the beauty Bubble for being here
since our first episode. I believethis is episode thirty, but I lost
track of the crowd. I've hadto look it up, but I believe
that this is the stream Leader reportsthirtieth episode. Okay, let's talk about
controversies. Everybody loves a good controversy. What is your big industry controversy of

(06:10):
twenty twenty three? Glaodia Santiago.Oh my, okay, Well, do
you want me to just dive rightinto our topic here? Is that what
you're using? No, it doesn'thave to be the topic of the day,
it's just okay, whatever you thinkis the big controversy of twenty twenty
three, and then we can getinto that in a deeper when we have

(06:31):
more time later on. So Ithink that the biggest one is are we
as humans going to be replaced byAI robots? What are we going to
do? What is the security ofall this? How do we? Yeah?
Just people, some people are lovingit, some people are really skeptical.

(06:53):
Yeah, and where are we heading? Where are we heading? With
all this new tech? The implants, the camera on the tip of your
tongue. Hello, Just then you'regoing to put the chip right inside you.
Rob Greenley. I know in yourworld there have been some controversies going
on. Yeah, it's like whereto begin on that one. But if

(07:15):
I think of what's happening right now, I think it's it's around the kind
of flurry of concerns around a cyberattack on our country, and I think
that is really kind of indicative ofwhat we've been going through for the last
few years. It's like we're bouncingfrom crisis to crisis to crisis, and

(07:39):
it's like AI and the big blowup around open AI, and it's still
not really clear exactly why that happened, and there's some concern that AI maybe
you know, moving along faster thanmost people realize, and I think that
that is kind of a concern formany. But then you combine that with

(08:01):
cyber attacks and maybe we're moving intoan era of warfare. Is becoming much
more clear that it's beyond you know, like ground battles, you know,
like what we're seeing in Gaza andthose things like that, that really the
battlefield of the future is going tobe around digital technology and attacks coming that

(08:28):
way, and that's kind of scary. I think that's the biggest controversy,
and I think as we think aboutour big tech companies being targeted, and
somehow maybe there's you know, there'sthings that are going the other way too
from our side that are attacking othercountries too, So there's there's definitely some
concerns on those key areas. Inmy mind, well, we can always

(08:54):
be sure that all of our toptech companies are doing everything they have to
protect their users first and for why, I'm sure that's even thinking about their
own businesses or their own interests.It's all about protecting the user. Rebecca
Gunter, your big controversy in theindustry for twenty twenty three, I'm really

(09:18):
picking backing off of kind of yourlast glib remark ross about let's call it
the trust factor, if I mayborrow that phrase from my same colleague,
who do you trust? Controversy is, you know, kind of this versus
that almost and this ain't. That'sbeen the theme for twenty twenty three.

(09:41):
Do you know they kept do thetechnic companies have the user's interest at heart
first and foremost? As you globallysuggested question mark, who is the source
of media? Why is it someone'sgetting canceled? I think it's a great
pulling back of the curtain to seethat all of powerful oz and I actually

(10:03):
am for it because I kind oflike to see some more transparency in the
decision making that we move forward.So I think the big controversy is the
trust factor question mark yeah or not? All right, I'm gonna say,
although I could say something about socialmedia X and threads, but we're going

(10:26):
to talk about threads and what they'reup to in a little bit, so
I will say the big discussion,and Rob's been involved in it much more
than I have, but the bigdiscussion about what is a podcast? Is
YouTube a video podcasting platform or isit only if your video goes delivered through
an RSS feed? What is thepublic calling a podcast versus what some of

(10:52):
the OG and industry people want tostick to the definition of a podcast.
So there's a lot of probably needlessfighting about that. I think at this
point, you know, the thingis the medium, and it's really a
great time for people who are doingpodcasts with video right now, and those

(11:18):
that you know, as I saidearlier, if they're building community along with
it, and they're you know,consistently putting out content. Some shows and
some channels and some podcasts are reallyblowing up. And I think the podcast
and the video podcast and the podcastand video that may or may not be

(11:43):
RSS feed delivered is all going tohave a big, big role to play
in the twenty twenty four election.In fact, I think a lot of
people now, if they want tohear what a candidate really has to say,
I learn about who they are,They're just as likely to go to
a podcast as they are the eveningnews, where they get maybe a SoundBite

(12:05):
or two, or you know,a quick interview, either a softball or
a hardball interview, depending on whetherthey go on friendly or unfriendly media.
Yeah, they kind of riff offof that RUSS a little bit. I
think if we see more crackdown onthe part of let's say YouTube on content
moderation and censorship and things like that, that could push people over to doing

(12:31):
more RSS based video podcasting. AndI regularly have conversations with people out there
that are very confused about this convergencebetween video podcasting and YouTube and clearly understanding
a lot of people don't even understandthat you can embed a video file in

(12:52):
an RSS feed like you can anaudio file, because people don't, you
know, Apple hasn't been promoting thatthey're a video consumption platform. They've been
really focused on promoting that they're anaudio consumption platform, which is not true.
So, you know, we maysee in the new year kind of
a renewed focus around being in controlof your video distribution versus turning it over

(13:16):
to the YouTube. Is there anychance that storage and bandwidth or whatever it
is that you're paying for can getcheaper, because right now it's just out
of the reach of the hobbyist podcastthere and even some pros don't want to
be spending over one hundred dollars amonth on storage, right Yeah, I

(13:37):
think you have to spend probably atleast anywhere from fifty to two hundred dollars
a month to get involved in videopodcasting. So there needs to be enough
value that I know Podbean has aplan for I think it is fifty dollars
a month to do a video podcastbecause it is a lot more bandwidth to
deliver video depending on how much itis and what the encoding bitrate is.

(14:00):
You know, it's just so muchcheaper just uploaded directly to the YouTube,
and it's you know, it's onGoogle's dime, right, So that's kind
of why things have happened the waythat they've happened. But it may get
back to that these big, megadistribution platforms want so much control over the
type of content that passes over theirnetwork because of advertiser pressure primarily where it's

(14:26):
coming from in political pressure, thatpeople start gravitating towards being in more control
of their video and audio distribution.Granted, there are some efforts to content
moderate even RSS based consumption of contenttoo, and that's something that we kind
of, I think we have topush back against. So there needs to

(14:46):
be a relief valve to get awayfrom moderation and censorship. Right. I
was surprised to see a notification comeacross my substack today that somebody was live
in substack and I've seen that youcan host a podcast there. I was
like, wow, that's really interestingthat, you know, live streaming is
starting to reach these very specifically contentyou know, like written the written word

(15:11):
type of platform LinkedIn live, etcetera. So it's almost like the variety
of muffins and the bakery counter isexpanding. Yeah, I'm sure you're going
to build your where You're going tobuild your community in twenty twenty four is
going to be a big question,I think, And those sub stacks and
places like that are are are definitelyset up to be an option and to

(15:37):
be monetizable at the same time.Yeah, I do wonder about Live too.
So if you think about what we'redoing here, we could choose it
at the moment to talk about somethingthat is, you know, kind of
not as you know, popular,or we could say something because it's live,

(15:58):
right, it's in the post playback, replay playback. The platforms have
the ability to censor and control whatwe talk about here, so Live may
be an outlet for more freer speecheven on these big platforms. Now,
they do control monetization. If yousay the wrong word renoticed, you're not

(16:19):
You're not being monetized while you're live. I think you can. So you
can still get super chats and allthat. Yeah, by the way,
we are taking super chats. Imean I've never mentioned that on one of
our shows. Oh my god,I don't even know what a super chat
is. We're open for super chatchatpeople donate people, Yeah, you you

(16:44):
basically you you give a tip tous for the great work that we're providing.
For everybody, and your comment willstay at the top of the comments
for a certain amount of time.Oh my god, it's like buying a
library wing at the university. Yes, it's justus permanent, it's a library.

(17:06):
When you can get a couple oftwo minutes for a couple of dollars,
we'll take what we can get.What I see is exciting too is
where distribution content distributors. So ifwe're going live and we're using a distribution
system that can take us to differentplatforms. If one of the platforms says

(17:33):
I don't like what you're saying,we're going to pull that down or you
can't monetize, well, the coolthing is is if with with content distributors,
if we're going to different channels,there's some channels that will go yay,
we like you. So I thinkit'll be kind of interesting to see
where we all go with and alsothe content distribution companies adding the different channels.

(17:57):
Yeah, I mean beauty, butsaying here, community content because it
is driven by the needs of othersis massive for twenty twenty four and I
think you know, it was somuch focus on the content creator. A
lot of content creators, maybe aren'tthinking enough about who they're actually trying to

(18:18):
reach, who they're communicating to,and what their audience wants. And you
could see that in for instance,Rob and I were at a meetup the
other night, and we may havehad certain ideas about how it was going
to go or whatever. But ifyou want to have a great meetup,
sometimes you just have to let thepeople there what are they interested in talking

(18:40):
about? What do they want todo? Do you want to create some
content or do you want to sharesome ideas about how to get good is
doing something? Do you want toask questions? Do you want to break
into small groups? You know,sometimes you just got to see what the
audience wants, and you can't gowrong by delivering that to them much of

(19:00):
the time. Yeah, yeah,all right, let's get to the last
of our three questions in our recaptwenty twenty three. What is your favorite
tech innovation of twenty twenty three?Rob Greenley, I would say at this
point, if you consider it tobe a car or a truck to be

(19:25):
something of a tech innovation, Iwould say the cyber truck is one.
And then also the announcement just yesterdayof the next generation Tesla bought Optimist Generation
two that came out. I thinkthose are the two things from Tesla that
we've seen that are glimpses of whatthe future is going to look like.

(19:48):
And it's going to look quite different. And a lot of the things that
I'm learning about the way that thatcyber truck is being manufactured is revolutionary and
may usher in an era of veryinexpensive cars and and also very efficient cars
and very tough vehicles too. Like, there was a couple of videos that

(20:14):
were put out about the about thecyber truck where guys were kicking it and
stuff like that, and they allthree of these guys walked away bruised from
trying to damage this, uh,this cyber truck. It's like they were
limping away because they kept bashing itwith their feet trying to dent it and
they couldn't and it was hurting themmore than they was hurting the truck.

(20:37):
So yeah, so what makes ita cyber truck? What what is the
control of it that makes it acyber truck? Well, it's it really
is reflective of a new way ofthinking about kind of how a vehicle is
assembled, manufactured, and how itactually operates it how like a drive by

(21:00):
wire capability in it, which meansthat it's built on a forty eight volt
architecture, which most of cars inthe paths were built on twelve bolts.
So as we think about our carsthat had a twelve volte battery in them,
right, this car is built ona forty eight volt battery system,
so that means that it has fewerwires, it has fewer connections. Things

(21:22):
can can travel through the vehicle andpower other types of things off of a
master circuit. So it's it's basicallyjust a revolutionary way, and they're going
to drive so much cost out ofmaking these things. It's going to be
stamped out in like one huge mold, and then there's going to be outer
skin put on this car. That'sgoing to be I mean, I mean,

(21:45):
you can shoot a machine gun atthis thing and it won't even go
through the doors. That's how difficulty. Even Joe Rogan tried to fire a
high speed kind of arrow at it, you know, and it bent the
arrow and bounced off, So youknow, it's it's just you know,
I think we're coming into an erawhere vehicles don't have built in obsolescence and

(22:11):
frailties and lots of things that willbreak and possibly get damage and you have
to spend a lot of money toget them repaired. And all the stuff
that is just built solid, soyou don't have to deal with a bunch
of maintenance on your vehicle in thefuture. All right, before we move
forward, any word on the price. Yeah, it's actually the base unit
right now, it's not available tillnext year, is about sixty thousand,

(22:33):
which is, you know, it'snot inexpensive, but if you think about
the rebate that's out there, it'sabout seventy five hundred dollars. I don't
know if that's going to last intotwenty twenty five or in that timeframe,
but the high end of this thingis more in the one hundred thousand plus
range. So it's actually you know, there's a lot of people that are

(22:57):
talking about this car is that it'sit's dangerous for pedestrians because it's so tough,
right, you can't and it's likeNBC Breaking News is that pedestrians would
die if they got run over bya cyber truck. Okay, well,
if you got run over by anyvehicle, you're probably gonna die. So

(23:17):
cyber truck is somehow unique here,A diesel truck will tell you right that
big. I mean it's big,but it's not that big. I mean
I think F two fifty is alot bigger than a cyber truck. I'll
just put you that way. Andif you have to live in your car
for any amount of reason, you'vegot kind of a built in protection hubs.
If we go total mad Max,beyond thunder down, taking my cyber

(23:41):
truck to the RV park and honkeringdown. Yeah, I think all it
needs now is some bulletproof glass,and I think we're good to go.
Oh my god, All right,Rebecca, what is your favorite tech innovation
of twenty twenty three? My favoritetech innovation of twenty twenty three is TikTok.

(24:03):
And I know it's not in brandnew innovation, and I know I'm
late to the party, but damn, this beautiful piece of interconnected software allows
us to hear and tell stories andinterconnect and have conversations and create kind of
like these global nationwide to local movementsof thought, leadership, ideas, best

(24:27):
practices, conversations, art, creativity, absurdity. But like I stand for
TikTok So Hard twenty twenty three.I think this is change the game for
humans to be able to talk toeach other from any walk of life,
from anywhere in the globe, andto be able to piggyback on each other

(24:48):
for creative endeavors and to advance thehuman species. So we all know,
TikTok is bay for me. Sothat's my answer. That's my final answer.
Ros Brand Claudia. What's your favoritetech innovation of twenty twenty three?
Robots? Robots, robots, robots. What I'm loving is the medical aspect

(25:14):
and helping humankind with some of theseinnovations. Just to see the medical advancements.
I had no idea what had beenin the works and what has already
been implemented, And we've delved intoa little bit of that in this show,
and that's been absolutely wonderful to realizehow many people are being helped now.

(25:37):
On the other hand, while itis one of my favorite things,
it's also pretty damn scary. There'sso much about it that could go sideways,
could I go wrong? So whileit is my favorite, there's also
some big red flags as to whyexactly are they doing this. I'm still

(26:03):
waiting for Rob Greenley's AI empowered RobotStaffing agency to download their skill sets and
come to my dishes. I meanthey're pretty athletic from watching some of that
film. I mean they're starting toget very skilled and like they're I don't
know what you call it. Youknow, their motor skills and how they

(26:25):
can manipulate things, and all ofa sudden, they're gonna be No,
we're gonna be no match for themsoon enough. If we are already a
match for them, right, theydon't get tired, they don't get hurt.
All hail the algorithm, All Hailthe algorithm. Well go go doing

(26:47):
backflips on stage, and you knowit's like I don't have to worry about
insurance. Aw you cast that storyin a different light. Yeah, where's
that band for the rem shot?It's the Congo behind. Yeah. I'll

(27:11):
say for my favorite tech innovation oftwenty twenty three, it's all the different
ways people are using chatchpt to createtheir own product or like every product that
comes out now it's got to belike this, and there's this generative AI

(27:33):
section of our software or of ourwhat like everything's got like an AI chat
bot ability built in. And whileit's you know, I haven't the most
deeply into it, I will saythat, like, it's so cool some

(27:53):
of the things that you can findout. And sometimes I just have a
conversation with chatchpt about some topic thatI'm interested in learning about, or if
I want to challenge my own opinionson something, I'll just get into a
conversation with cht GPT, And it'sreally almost like talking to a person after
a while, it's it's really alittle bit different than anything we've we've kind

(28:18):
of dealt with before. My kid'sbeen practicing dating simulation with it. Yeah,
like to have like texty conversations withsomebody you're interested in using chat GPT
or AI enabled bot to practice flirting. There you go, you know,

(28:41):
And this is like exciting because it'llhelp us with our tender business. You
know. Yeah, we got theAIS brand. That's right, that's right,
often duplicated, Hey, replicated aswe speak. I'm being cloned.
So just so you know, you'reSanta clone is coming to town. It's

(29:06):
a virtual digital clone, but aclone is being made through Podfest. There's
a I guess a sponsor, or, a company involved, a startup and
they're offering to create a clone forspeakers of Podfast and then you have like
a few weeks to use it beforeyou have to pay. So gathering all

(29:30):
my info to train the clone,and we're going to see what it's like.
But apparently, like if you decideto go with the service or whatever,
you can have your clone have appointmentswith people, like if somebody wants
to pick your brain instead, youset them up with the clone and you
can charge them for a consulting session. Because the clone sounds like you,

(29:52):
talks like you, understands you.I think we're going to see what it's
like. But Ross, something fora little show and tell. Maybe in
twenty twenty four, just sort ofwells, I have bad news for you.
Your clone is making Facebook pages.Yeah, it might be. It
might be you check your clone,bra he's out there, rogue. Oh

(30:15):
man, who made the Facebook page? You know? To be honest,
when I saw that, I thought, hmmm, could this day? Could
this be one of those things that'srolling out? Hey, I'm so sorry
you got hit with that. Ross, I mean, whoever did it?
Thank you? I mean whoever didit? Like for that day, we're
sharing people's profiles and then putting someway that they could make money or whatever.

(30:38):
But then they stopped doing it thatday. And I know a bunch
of people have notified Facebook, includingme, twice of it, and it
just just continues to sit there.So if you search for me, that
comes up in the list of pages, just like you know, crazy.
So anyway, you can't get inthere and say it's unofficial. You can't

(31:00):
you. No, I go throughand I clicked the thing impostor who are
they in? This was my clone? This was my clone. It wasn't
me. Yeah, Crazy, Well, I'm far more popular than the clone
because the clone is zero followers rightthere, So you ain't gonna replace me,
so often replicated, never duplicated Rossbrand, all right, promise you

(31:26):
if we get our if we getour tender dating site up for you,
you'll have good traction Ross, You'llhave a good track. So are you
are you working on the profile orwhat is your role going to pick?
I just show up right. Theclone actually does all the back and forth.

(31:48):
I just show up right for thedate. That's right your own GPT.
A short sixteen second video of theTesla bot that was announced today.
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely absolutely,let's watch that the Tesla bot. Yes,

(32:30):
it was enough. Yeah, that'sit. Wow, I'm not sure

(32:52):
why it's I guess that's all itis. That promo for your staffing agency
is excellent. Sorry, Rob,I always make the mistake of like,
how do I get this off?Oh, I'll just kick the you two
because you're kicking the screen share.But somehow I always kick the person with

(33:15):
the scream share. This isn't theGong Show. Hopefully Rob doesn't. I
really bet the kick him out andwho shall be back shortly? I do
hope that is something else, likehow those things move, Like, honestly,
it looks like a man in asuit because of the movement, but

(33:37):
it's not. It's a robot,and it's just crazy. I feel like,
honestly, this is when I seethe video, I think that maybe
there's some sort of an answer tothe impending elder care crisis. It's just
even just with basic housework for howlong people might stay in place, more

(33:57):
often like longer then in an inan institute. You know, it's just
a living et cetera. And justfor things that get harder to do when
people like you know, open thatheavy refrigerator. Oh my god, tie
my shoes. Right, if you'vehad a stroke, you can't like extend
in grasp like, there's just somany ways are I don't know what happened.

(34:21):
I meant to uh kick the uhscreen chair out, and I kicked
you out with it. So throwthe baby out with the bath water.
Right. What a cool perspective,Rebecca. On that, I just think,
Wow, you're You're so right.It could change how our elderly or

(34:45):
disabled like the care and how longthey actually can stay at home independently.
I just I just went is Rob'stemp agency opening up? Because I'm to
retire? I rent a plan rightright? Wow? Incredible? All right,
Rebecca, I want to talk aboutthis crazy story that you've got because

(35:10):
fans are creating their own unions orthere's talk about it, or it's a
joke. Tell us what's going onwith that? Well, it's tongue in
cheek to kind of start with thatthat some creative folks have. We find
the graphic here, which is adorable, the Taylor Swift fan union. What

(35:31):
would happen if fanned Claudia girl?We got to get you your fan union,
which really speaks I think one toIn my opinion, twenty twenty three
was definitely the year of the workerunion and the ability to you know,
have folks who have big economic impacthave also then the ability to control some

(35:57):
aspect of their future through labor.And the argument or the kind of food
for thought that this op ed piecefrom Fast Company is really about what is
the economic power of your fandom.I'll kind of just switch over here and
talk about this piece from the WashingtonPost about how Taylor Swift became her own

(36:20):
economy. The amount of voting power, buying powder power, their sheer mobb
ability makes them almost the economic forcethat will contend with a small country.
So if brands become such a forcein which I don't know, it's just
an interesting like, could capitalism kindof turn in this direction in which,

(36:44):
like, your job is not justto consume a brand, but also to
work towards I don't know, amore consumption of it, more influence of
it. It's a glib little piecethat really caught my eye. But I
think in the year of the Union, thinking about the power of the consumer
and what would happen if they unionizedis extremely an extremely interesting topic. I

(37:12):
was joking before we kind of cameon camera about that old that scene in
Blazon Saddles where the cowboys and theand the waltzing dancers kind of meet together
in a Hollywood studio set. Theyget in a fight and you know,
big clock, screw you. Iwork for mel Brooks. Like what if?
What if? What if fans unionized? And we're like, I work

(37:35):
for mel Brooks, I work forTaylor Swift. It's just a fascinating economic
fantasy to think about if we unionizedas a fan union. Let's talk about
what that really means in a practicalsense. I mean, you know,
a union has a certain amount ofbaggage to it, right that that word

(37:59):
and is it a union against aTaylor Swiss Swift? Now it is a
union as the fans are unionizing.Okay, for what purpose is the question?
Well? I would think for activism, social and political. I would
think for kind of driving consumer spending. I would think for just the economic

(38:25):
vehicle of something in like the Aerostour, the movie that went along with
it, the merchandising, the recordplayers, all the things. So the
word union doesn't have a historical meaningthat that implies like a labor union or
something like that. Well, Ithink that that's kind of the fantasy exploration
Rob is like, what are fansdoing the work? Are they doing the

(38:51):
work? Well, that would meanthat they're kind of oppositional to their their
leader, right, which would bein this case Taylor's lift, Right.
So does that mean that they're goingto not show up to her event unless
she does something? Are they goingto strike if she doesn't do it?
All? They're just not going toshow up to her concerts if if she

(39:12):
takes a particular position on something,or she says something they don't like or
does something like some business deal orsomething like that. Votes are kind of
way where's you know, has apublic opinion about it kind of thing.
I think that to your point oflike, okay, well the deepest meaning
of the word union, you're beingglib. But what does it all mean

(39:36):
for us? What do our fanscompelled to organize? Well, it's our
groups of people compelled or compelled toorganize. And how does that relate to
the consumerism of the brand itself.I think it's an interesting thing to think
about from the standpoint of you know, nation states too, Like all of

(39:59):
the citizens in a nation coming together. But typically unions are oppositional to something
right, not you know, operationsomething right. I'm going to throw this
out there, Taylor got really royallyuh injusticed by her own label, by

(40:20):
the label and you know, wantingto withhold from her the rights to her
songs. And so perhaps with someof this uh the they can unionize or
to protect her, to say,hey, I'm not supporting what the la
that labels doing. I'm going tosupport this. So and then the other

(40:42):
thing is some of these fans maybe bought fans like not not robot,
but bought as impaid fans, becausethat is done also in the industry.
Uh there is, there is ahuge budget for marketing, and some of
these fan communities are not necessarily justgiving you industry in sight. They're not

(41:06):
necessarily ones that go, oh mygosh, Taylor. It's more like,
oh, I'm on the list andI'm getting paid as an influencer as a
fan or maybe you know, thingsare slowing down after we might want to
start a fan club or a fanunion or whatever, and you know,
this will keep her in the newsfor quite a while. I mean,

(41:29):
she doesn't need any publicity at all, but just in theory that can happen
with artists. You know, there'sbeen talk of this. I mean,
I don't know if the union wordwas used, but there was talk.
There's been talk about this in thesports industry for fans when leagues go on
strike. You know what about thefans when leagues charge I forget what it's

(41:54):
called. The NFL football charges likethese personal seat license It like you not
only have to buy a seat ora season ticket, but you have to
actually invest in licensing that seat ontop of it, which can be thousands
of dollars. And what I thinkbasically the sports industry realizes you're never gonna

(42:19):
get fans to act together because nomatter how mad they are about a strike,
when you come back and play,there may be a time that attendance
is down, But once my teamhas a chance to go to the World
Series or the Super Bowl or whatever, I'm not missing that right. Yeah,
that's interesting. The other thing isI guess for sports is that the

(42:45):
in person tickets I imagine, arenot the big the big money maker that
the big money maker is the TVcontracts. So I mean, unless people
stop watching on TV altogether, theycan play like during COVID to an empty
house and still be doing business.Yeah, so I was thinking about that.

(43:12):
I was looking at the article too, and it does have an image
on here it says the Taylor SwiftFan Union's effort to join the United Musicians
and Allied Workers. So it doeshave a strong kind of traditional kind of
association just based on the the nameof it here. But I'm I'm really
starting to think maybe this is somethingof a way of solidifying a community per

(43:40):
se. And then also I knowthat this term has been out there for
a while and I think it's calledswifters or swift eas or something like that,
right, so that that terminology couldbe linked up with this too,
And that's just like a fan communitythat's organizing itself somehow to for some purpose,

(44:04):
which we don't really know yet whatthat purpose might be. But it's
an interesting trend, right It couldit could be the a new form of
religion, It could be the Swifties. Yeah. I don't think I had
an idea, really any idea ofhow famous and popular she was until she
started dating a football player, andthe entire either Sunday night or Monday night

(44:29):
broadcast was like it was more abouther than it was about the football game,
because of the number of people tuningin just to see her cheering and
the stands for her boyfriend. Youknow, even that some some are saying
that that's actually a strategic marketing thing, the whole thing with her, and

(44:51):
so they're they're coming together, bringingbrands together, and it's a whole different
way of entertainment. That's so interesting. The two of them were a topic
of conversation in a business meeting Ihad yesterday, and I was shocked that
my client was like, really justkept saying, I've learned so much from
her. I've learned so many marketinglessons, Like the enthusiasm for who she

(45:16):
is as an entrepreneur has almost asmuch of a hold on people as the
enthusiasm like a teenager has for herlove songs. It's very interesting. She's
a very interesting case study, Ithink, and a little inside scoop just
behind the scenes with Taylor is fromday one, her and her family have

(45:39):
positioned her in such a way thatthey make a lot of the decisions in
her career. And this has beenoutside of the normal model out of Nashville.
And so, yeah, I knowpeople that work with her directly and
developed of certain things. But sheis brilliant but also very very business savvy.

(46:06):
M wow, I'm for organizing theClaudia Santiago fan club. Make me
the president, I make you thepresident. All right, it's yours re
record? All right, Claudia,what do you have for this week?
Oh? Boy, this one,I'm gonna need a lot of your input,
guys, because I'm still learning somuch about this. In fact,

(46:29):
I got to pull up my notes. But okay, So Zuckerberg has Facebook,
he's got Instagram, he's got What'sApp, and then he's created Threads,
and I know I jumped on boardright away. I actually got on
their waiting list before it went live. You know, I was waiting till
midnight, you know, went liveand who had my account? So the

(46:52):
crazy thing is with Threads when youlook at it. Honestly, I don't
know about you, but it seemsso useless. Did I just say that?
But this is the thing is Iknew that behind the scenes Zuckerberg is
he's smart, and he's got aplan. And there's something about Threads that

(47:15):
is different, and it's called decentralizedsocial media. And as I've been looking
into this morre and I'm gonna askyou guys a lot of questions because I'm
just learning. It's part of Mastodon, right Rob, This is a different
framework and what we're currently on isdifferent, so it the way it communicates

(47:40):
with other platforms, and like,where are we heading with this decentralized social
media And obviously with Threads, it'sstill some things are in development, but
that is one of the main thrustsof Threads. I think it's the linkages
between all these platforms. I thinkis really where it's going to be seen,

(48:02):
is that, you know, there'sall these different platforms like threads and
Instagram and Facebook and all whatever,and I think this open it's more about
open connections between these two and it'sa way to, you know, to
create more of a seamless kind ofpathway between all of the platforms because people

(48:23):
are members of various platforms and tryingto make connections between them is also a
common thread. Even in podcasting.I know that the Podcasting two point zero
Initiative has a project and an integrationthat's proposed in the RSS feed to be

(48:44):
able to link up all of thecomments from all of the listening apps and
funnel them all through a central platformthat can be shared across all the other
listening apps. So it's kind oflike what you see here with stream yard.
I mean, you contribute in acomment on Facebook or on LinkedIn or

(49:06):
whatever, and it goes into acommon pool that's then shared across everything.
But that could happen across listening appstoo. So and then also live capability
is being built into RSS two pointzero as well, so you know,
linking to like this program that wouldbe right next to your on demand audio
program, so you could have alive version of this show. So there's

(49:29):
there's a there's an effort I thinkthat's happening in the technology sector is to
try and connect all these different anddisconnected platforms and try and connect them up
again to create community. When I'veheard about decentralized a lot of times,
the centralized social media, the centralizedinternet goes along with the blockchain, it

(49:54):
goes along with protecting privacy. Yeah, you're data your own data, right,
yeah, And I mean I thinkobviously Facebook already has all of our
data through every one of these apps. And I think when people talk about

(50:15):
going to a masterdon or some ofthese I know, there's a whole sort
of distributed I think they call itor decentralized social media networks and platforms where
it's like you don't even know wherethe server is that you're like, there's
all these different servers, or youpick a server so that it's nobody really

(50:39):
controls the data of everybody, well, or or everybody does, depending on
where everybody does it. But Idon't I so, I guess I don't
understand the decentralized part with Meta unlessit's, hey, how do we get

(50:59):
the datta from mastadon too? Howdo we get the data from all these
other sort of more more protected servers. Well, And that's why a lot
of people have been very skeptical ofMeta wanting to make this connection with all

(51:20):
of these other platforms, is thatit's a way for them to potentially extract
all that metadata out of those platformstoo, and just it's just a bigger
pool of data for them, becausethat's what that's what Facebook is is a
is a gatherer of information about users. That's what they market, that's what
they sell. It's a data company, right, They're selling data. They're

(51:44):
selling data. Yeah, correct meif I'm wrong, But from my understanding
with decentralized social is also like currentlywith a lot of platforms, they are
doing this whole verification thing and you'vegot a very five through Google Platforms or
some other things, which is reallykind of wild. So that's one thing

(52:07):
I'm understanding. The other thing thatI don't quite get, and it makes
me kind of wonder because it saysthat there's not one person that makes a
decision on content and things like that, so it's going to allow for more
open conversation and thoughts. And I'mthinking, well, if not one person's

(52:28):
controlling that, why is Zuckerberg integratingthat into threads when he's like king of
control, right, just saying andthen do it. And then the third
thing I read also, which Ifound very intriguing, is that through this

(52:50):
also people will be able to createtheir own platforms with this technolog leg I
don't know exactly, like I justbarely started digging into that, but I
don't know. Some of you mayknow more about that. So not only
will everybody have their own podcast andYouTube channel, now everybody will have their

(53:14):
own version of Facebook or LinkedIn,which can have like really really amazing pluss
because as we talk about building community, and if there's platforms that are not
letting us say certain things, well, you know, we can have our
own version of the Swifties with ourown community where we have free speech or

(53:37):
bring forth whatever. But then there'sa whole other gamut of criminal minds tapping
into that. And so I don'tknow, this whole decentralized social media thing
was very intriguing to me. AndI'm in the classroom still obviously, right
right, yeah, I mean I'mnot a huge fan of THREAT since I've

(54:00):
been over there. I mean,and I know that, like people don't
like X, so they don't likeElon Musk or whatever. But it just
seems like the people who left Xbecause of hatred or it was too political
or you know, it was toobiased or whatever, they're going over to

(54:25):
to threads and same people are nowranting on threads and hating people with different
opinions and whatever. So I mean, at least between the two places X,
we have a history on it onTwitter on X and there's a there's
a huge diversity of content on therewhere I don't know, I find Threads

(54:51):
is kind of boring and and youknow, I get hit with these rants
immediately, Like it's like two promoposts from you know, friends or whatever.
One, Hey, look at I'mon vacation and bing. You know,
now I'm hit with something about politicsor whatever. And I don't mind

(55:12):
doing that on X, where Ifeel there's a very balanced discussion, not
that I'm necessarily engaging in it,but it and even X. I wonder,
like, why am I getting somuch stuff in my feeds about politics
and stuff when clearly I've never tweetedabout that on my account? Like is
it because I have other accounts thatI may use for reading the news and

(55:36):
following things, and they're merging togetherbecause one of my accounts follows that and
my five other accounts are about livestreaming, Like why are those live streaming
accounts? I don't want to seethat stuff in my feed when I'm on
Like I'm on those other accounts forwork, and I don't want to be
distracted by, you know, somebody'srant about whatever the issue of the day

(56:00):
is. I wonder. I wonderif TikTok runs on decentralized social type that's
the CCP is about as centralized asit cats. I mean, to what

(56:21):
extent they influenced it. I don'tknow, but you know they have an
owner and can someone explained masted tome? We could do a we should
do another segment on this next year, because when we come back in twenty
twenty four, let's do a segmenton decentralized Internet and alternative social media platforms

(56:45):
and talk about some of that stuff, because there's so much to it,
and like you said, I mean, we're all just kind of learning about
it. I have some friends whouse those platforms, and it's like it's
like a whole nother it's learning tospeak a whole other language. Yeah,

(57:06):
developing our own platform. Maybe weshould, maybe we should do we get
to meet the algorithm? Oh mygod, get ready for this stream leader
retort look live streaming posts getting fivetimes in the view. I love Rebecca's

(57:30):
hair. By the way, thankyou. Do you want to end on
a holiday spirit note here? Absolutely? Absolutely, let's bring this up to
the stage. So Ross and Iwere just in New York a couple of
days ago here for his uh NewYork City video content creator and podcaster kind

(57:53):
of combo meet up, and Itook some pictures of some of the Christmas
trees around Times Square, and sothis is this is one of them.
And I'll show you another one thatwas in Times Square. As we you
know, fast approach, Christmas iscoming up or the holidays for some people.
Not everybody celebrates Christmas, I understand. And and then this is this

(58:16):
is the one that's by a RockefellerCenter a little bit closer, so you
can see this huge crowd around thatthis gigantic tree. So I just wanted
to share that. And this isGrand Central, Grand Central Station. Their
their decoration and and as we comeinto the holiday season, so very nice.

(58:39):
What a beautiful Audi is going tobe dancing in the holidays. Yes,
she just got her Actually, actuallythese are all over my tree,
by the way, beautiful pictures inNew York. I've always wanted to go

(59:01):
to New York at Christmas. Yougotta come for one of our meetups,
yes, guest speaker, who wehave? Yes, yeah, yeah,
I think we should do a Christmasmeetup for live stream Universe. I think

(59:21):
we should. Maybe you've got roomfor us all in your apartment, Ross,
I'm bringing my sleeping bag, allright, come on, all all
right, everybody, Thank you somuch everybody for joining us throughout what has

(59:45):
been over a half a year.I think now we've been doing this panel
thirty episodes. Thank you so much. This is our last one of twenty
twenty three, but we'll be backthe first week of the new year.
UH every third and from there onit's every Thursday as well, just like

(01:00:05):
it was most of this year,one thirty pm Eastern UH for Rob Greenley,
who's later today hosting podcasting Tips withRob Greenley on stream yards channels.
And Claudia Santiago who's music and entertainmentyou can find it Claudia Santiago dot com.
And of course the great Rebecca Gunterwho does her live streaming, her

(01:00:30):
writing. Everything is business in theraw. It's a great show. And
also where can we find you withStonefruit stonedfruit dot com and on YouTube at
Stonefruit that's s t O N Eed f r U I T. Come
check out. I've got a lotof ross on my channel. Baby,

(01:00:51):
you're craving extra ross. Come onover and that's some happy fruit there,
I'll tell you Stoned it must befeeling feeling pretty warm. All right.
This has been This has been theExtreme Leader Report. It's our live panel
edition. You can find out allof our episodes on YouTube on the livestream
Universe channel. You can also findthem on some of our other creators channels

(01:01:15):
as well. And with that,we'll send you out by saying Happy Holidays,
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, HappyNew Year, and we'll see you
in twenty twenty four. Take care, everybody,

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2023 Recap: Hot Digital Trends, Big Industry Controversies & Most Innovative Tech | Panel (Ep31)

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