Podnews Weekly Review

YouTube get into podcasting; Apple removes AppleCoreMedia, Podimo launches in the UK, and The Podcast Index shows cross-app comments working

February 24, 2023 James Cridland & Sam Sethi Season 2 Episode 14
Podnews Weekly Review
YouTube get into podcasting; Apple removes AppleCoreMedia, Podimo launches in the UK, and The Podcast Index shows cross-app comments working
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Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Special Guests: 

Show Notes: 

  • Apple finally removed the AppleCoreMedia user agent from Apple Podcasts.

  • (Jonas Woost) Listen Time & (Steve Pratt) Earned Value ... finally no downloads to measure?  

    • Bumper is suggesting Listen Time is the right metric and the company has published a detailed method of calculating it

    • I think Bumper is the other side of the coin for what I am doing.  I'm focused on how to Earn Attention and Listen Time is about measuring time and attention that has been earned.  - Steve Pratt.
  • The Podcast Index website now shows Cross-App comments for individual podcast episodes. The Podcasting 2.0 podcast is a good place to see them.

  • Nathan Gathright launched his early preview of http://Steno.fm

  • Join us at Podcast Movement on March 9 at 12pm for a live Podnews Weekly Review recording.

  • Podnews Live - Tickets for Salford, Manchester are on sale now.   

  • All the best podcasters are filling in the Podnews Report Card
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It's Friday the 24th of February, 2023. The last word in podcasting news. This is the Pod News Weekly review with James k Cridlin and Sam Sethy. I'm James k Cridlin, the editor of Pod News. And I'm Sam Sethy, the CEO of Pod Fans. In the chapters today, YouTube and podcasting is something finally happening. Nathan Gathwright launches steno.fm, and finally Apple. But what took so long? Also, hi, I'm Nate Za. I'm the producer of the podcast on with Kara Swisher, and I'll be on later to talk about On and more. Hi, this is Mitch Downey here, the co-founder of Pod Verse, and I will be on later to talk about the latest version of Pod verse. Hey, this is Jake Chuno. I'm the Global head of studios at Potty Mo, and I'll be on the show later to talk about our UK plans. They Will. This podcast is sponsored at hosted by Buzz Sprouts. Last week, more than 4,290 people started a podcast with Buzz Sprout podcast hosting made easy with powerful tools and remarkable customer support. And now you can turn your listeners into supporters with Buzz Sprout subscriptions from your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly review. James, let's kick this off then YouTube, have they finally announced anything? Uh, they seem to be saying that they've announced a test to allow podcasters to create and measure podcasts in YouTube Studio. Sorry, wake me up. What have they announced? It sounds very dull, but you think that they might be announcing something more, so come on, tell me more. Yes, well, uh, cuz they haven't really announced that either. They've just, they put a little blog post up if you knew where to. And nobody spotted it for a week. So I think that goes to show how much of an announcement that really was. Um, YouTube's PR person is very aware that I'm, uh, a little bit irritated , um, with them for not actually telling the podcast industry. But perhaps all of that has changed by the time, uh, this podcast has been released because Kai Chuck is scheduled to, he's of course the head of podcasting for YouTube, and he's scheduled to speak at the Hot Pod Summit, uh, yesterday afternoon as, um, this goes out. But, uh, this afternoon as we record, so is Kai, Chuck going to say something? I hear that he might be saying something, and I hear that some of it is what we already know in terms of the tests in YouTube Studio, but some of it is stuff that we don't know. So I wonder what he's announced. this bit may be already out of date. Who knows? Wow. Pod tubes coming, or ucast, who knows? That's, that's the new name. That's what they're gonna call it. Well, as long as they don't call it after a, after a porn website again, then, then that would be . That would make a bunch of sense. I mean, it's really interesting. Nobody really knows. And so lots of people are making up what might be happening and what might not be happening. If you listen to Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenley on the new media show this week, um, you know, Todd is fizzing. Uh, he, he thinks that YouTube is the worst thing ever. . Um, and quite a lot of it is from guesswork around what YouTube may or may not do. Um, Rob I think, was trying to be much more conciliatory in the podcast that I heard. Hold on a minute, Todd. Um, but I'm not sure necessarily that, uh, Rob managed to get, it's like he was in the room. He's scary . I'm not sure that Rob managed to get too many words. Words in edge ways I've, I think. Possible three ways forward. Would you like to know my three ways forward? Go on. Then James hit me with it. So I think, well, let's just stop for a second because you probably don't want to know what I thought might be the case when we now know what really is the case. So this is James in the edit telling you what YouTube has actually announced. They have said that they're going to bring both audio and video first podcasts to YouTube music for users in the us. Uh, they also say that they're rolling out podcast creation in YouTube's studio, making it easier for creators to set their videos as podcasts. And they're also saying that later this year they will offer support for creators to upload their audio podcasts via RSS feeds directly to YouTube and upload their audio podcasts via RSS feeds. Does not mean use RSS feeds for podcasters. I should just point out anyway, um, that's about as much as we know from the company, those that were in the room say that, um, apparently listeners will be able to consume podcasts with a locked screen, um, which is a feature that is currently only available on YouTube music to paying customers. Um, some people say that this will be ad supported. Um, uh, also we heard that, um, the product will unify the audio and video experience for the audience, which is probably a little switch. To turn on the video and turn off the video, you can, uh, already see that if you use YouTube music. Um, the main thing is that, uh, it is only going to be available in the US for now, uh, which is, uh, a real disappointment really. Uh, YouTube is, um, well it's got 80 million people using the YouTube music app, which is where the podcasts are going to appear. Compare that to Spotify. Spotify has 205 million, but those are global figures. And overall, YouTube has 2.5 billion monthly active users if you include everybody using all of the YouTube platforms compared to Spotify's 489 million. So there's clearly a big change, um, there. But one thing I would say is podcasts. Because they're being launched only in the us. Uh, YouTube are basically copying what Facebook and Google Play Music did in a failed podcast service that is only available in the us. It's what Pandora is using, and Pandora's, uh, u seeing a declining audience, um, particularly for its podcasting service. Uh, it was a mistake that Amazon music made. Um, when they launched. They now have a massive market share of oh, just not 0.7%. So I don't really understand why this is the case. Podcasting doesn't have local rights issues. It's global by nature, and podcasters can't promote their availability on apps that don't work where their listeners are. And YouTube is supremely popular in many countries across the world. YouTube music available in many different countries too. So even if it just starts with us editorial and a note saying, we're showing you the US page, for now, it strikes me that podcasts need to be available in every territory. That YouTube music is for this to be a success. Anyway, let's go back to, uh, me and Sam, uh, talking about other things from this week on the pod News Weekly review, YouTube. Finally. Well, how about Apple? Finally, but what took you so long? It seems they've just come out with the next version of the iOS and Makos in beta. And finally, James, it removed the Apple Core media user agent. Okay, come on. What have they? Finally, well, so Apple Core Media is a thing that your podcast host thinks is downloading your podcast. And, um, that is basically lazy coders who couldn't be bothered to put in some new code that Apple released, um, in the middle of last year that actually identifies their podcast app properly. So Apple Podcasts has for a long time been calling itself Apple Core media in certain circumstances. Mostly when you are streaming the, the podcast rather than downloading it. Um, it's not an awful lot, it's not a big deal, but, uh, certainly when I went to look at the figures, um, a couple of years ago, um, apple Core Media, if you assume that all Apple Core media is Apple Podcasts, then it, then it s swirls Apple podcast's numbers by about 4%. Um, and it's not all. Apple Podcasts and the latest data that I've pulled from, um, my, uh, podcast seems to show that about two thirds of Apple core media traffic these days is not from Apple Podcasts because of course, if, if Apple Podcasts is downloading it, then it appears as saying Apple Podcasts directly. So it's only people who are streaming all of this stuff. Anyway, all of that is, um, going away because the next version of iOS includes a new version of Apple podcasts and that. Finally, uh, they have added their own code, uh, to make sure that, uh, apple Core media goes away. Um, and Apple Podcast will always be saying that it is Apple Podcasts. Um, so that's good news. There are some other smaller apps which are still calling themselves Apple Core Media. Um, so they are doing themselves out of traffic. Um, probably the bigger ones in there are Castro, Podbean Fountain, and Podcast Republic. Um, but you know, at the end of, at the end of that, it's great to see that Apple is spending time, you know, uh, doing that. So we actually know the accuracy of how many people are really getting podcasts from Apple Podcasts. Hmm. So the naughty. Few people that John s Spurlock's named as you said. Um, now that announcement about the new iOS beater, uh, had a secondary announcement that got me more excited. I know you're very excited about the user agent, but I got more excited cuz Apple has finally announced a whole bunch of enhancements around progressive web apps, which I think was really exciting because you can now use the badging api, which means you can get little red dots on your uh, icon. You can use the home screen, so you can put your icon up there and again, That allows people who don't want to go and create a native iOS app or go into the Apple store to create a first class client. And what was even more exciting use, now you can use orientation as well. So you can go, um, and have the app appear quite, um, if you turn your phone, of course. Mm-hmm. Um, appear. Uh, cuz it's a progressive web app, it'll expand back out. I think that's really cool. And, uh, that for me and say pod verse who do a web app as well, um, will be really exciting. Yeah. It was something that, um, that uh, Steve Jobs was very, um, uh, pro, uh, initially. And then all of a sudden changed his mind when he realized how much money he could make from, um, from apps in the App Store. Um, and, uh, but I think that, you know, the technology now is there for you to do a really, very good, um, progressive web app. Uh, certainly I've been using the Twitter Progressive web app rather than the Twitter app on my Android phone because Android has dealt with, um, PWAs for a long, long time now. Um, and that's just as good. You know, the, the Twitter app appears in the share, um, you know, dialogue. The Twitter app appears in various, uh, things. It can see everything on my phone. It's a really good app and it does, you know, alerts and, uh, notifications and all of that. So it's great that Apple, uh, you know, is finally getting to be as good as Android phones for. Individual, um, individual thing. But it does also mean that, um, it should be much easier for podcast, um, apps to produce something which work across different, um, across different mobile phones, whether it's a, you know, an Apple phone or a real one. So, um, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm quite, I'm quite pleased about that. Yeah, I mean, for, for dev app developers, it means you won't have to, unless you want to have three code bases, Android, iOS, and Native desktop. Mm-hmm. . Um, the one downside to this, I, I will add is that there is no support, uh, announced for CarPlay. So you can't do. Native CarPlay. Yeah. Unless you've got a native iOS app. Yeah. And as they've announced a brand new version of CarPlay with lots more toys and features, it does sort of force you back into creating a native app again. Yeah, I guess. So if CarPlay is important to you, I mean, what, what does occur to me? You've been able to install POD news as a web app for a while. Um, I have a feeling it might be a little bit broken, but, uh, you know, you have been able to do that for a while. What occurs to me is that what I should be doing now, that both, um, uh, iOS and Android support, um, notifications is to actually put a, allow you to. To subscribe to, you know, new, um, new, uh, newsletters or allow you to subscribe to new jobs or new events as they get published. Um, that'll be a really easy thing to do. I think so. Um, maybe I should do that. Maybe that's a, that's a plan for the weekend. Who knows? . I was gonna say, what you doing this weekend? Um, no. No. Right. Anyway, thank you Apple, finally. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see if everyone starts implementing it now. Potty mo, we, we talked about Potty Mo last week. They entered the UK with a big splash. Uh, they talked about supporting 20 plus, uh, companies. They did something very interesting, didn't they? They reached out to lots of UK production companies, James. Yeah, they did. It looks really interesting and really exciting that they've reached out to a bunch of people, whether it's listen, whether it's, uh, mags creative, whether it's tortoise or Message heard, or all kinds of, uh, people. Um, and as we said last week, you managed to, uh, sit down with, uh, Jake Chau and uh, find out a little bit more about the plans for Pomo. Yeah, so we announced a lot of shows and a lot of great partnerships and production companies in the uk. So Pomo is currently launched in six markets, and we just recently announced plans to expand into a few more Mexico, and of course in the uk. And so that announcement last week was about the number of shows that we're creating with fantastic production companies and talent here in the uk. And I actually have a few more announcements to come. It marks a bit of a different approach to launching than we've taken previously where we have launched our app, our paid subscription service, and high volume of shows altogether. Whereas in the UK we're launching a number of shows which will be free to listen on all platforms globally with the primary goal of building a large and loyal and meaningful audience for the shows and see what the market's doing in that time, as well as what type of talent we're attracting to potty mo. So whilst we're eventually aiming to launch the app and the subscription service, we've got a lot of work ahead of us before we do that, and the number of further partnerships and shows to be announced. So this must have taken months of work cuz you've got message Herrs telltale to toys. What's the story? Mag's Creative. The list is quite extensive so it must have taken some time to line those all up before you can make this announcement. I always thought potty mo's U S P was foreign language, so why come to what is clearly one of the most competitive markets, the UK and potentially the US eventually the English speaking language. Yep. So I can address both of those. I think there's probably two ways to answer the question. The first is the market opportunity in general in the uk. And then the second, as you mentioned, is the specific opportunity for PADI mo. I think from a general market point of view, there's of course the size of number of active POS podcast listeners and radio listeners in the uk, the quality of the production, the storytelling, but then there's the opportunity for subscription in the UK as well. That suggests that a lot of production companies in the market and media companies and creators are typically looked to the US as to where there are opportunities to grow. And in a sense, they're forced to the ad rates in the UK growing and you know, quickly growing, but still not yet big enough for an average creator or platform to make a return on a significant investment, whereas subscription doesn't require. As large of an audience to monetize the show. So the dream of course, is to be creating global hits enjoyed by everyone around the world, but the more sustainable future is one more creators of all sizes can make a living by creating audience where they're based. So, you know, the industry is embrace subscription on the show level in the UK is a way to support individual shows to date, but less so in a subscription service with a high volume of exclusive shows like pmo. So we have a lot of lot to prove in that sense. But then there's the opportunity specifically for pmo. So as you mentioned, the previously when you spoke to our C E O Morton in November, you predicted we wouldn't launch in English speaking market. Um, I didn't indeed. Clearly I'm wrong. , I'd say can find things as they relate to us and why that's not necessarily breaking our strategy. The first is if we want to raise the ceiling of how far our company can grow, we do need to be in the English language eventually. and given our European footprint to date the size of the UK market, the comparative cost to entry, it makes sense that we're starting with the uk, you know, if we're thinking about English language. But the second is that our model actually hasn't been specifically non-English. It's been local first. So we're not breaking that local first approach by entering the uk. And I think if you look at a snapshot of the top 50 today, I haven't done this, but if I did, I would guess that somewhere around 40 to 50, usually closer to 50 of those shows on the charts in the UK were made by, you know, production companies and talent in the uk. And so that, in that sense, we're not breaking that local first model. And then the other three are, you know, the, I mentioned it before, but low add rates are an opportunity prescription subscription, as I mentioned. And also we think about the content cost compared to other European, large European markets that require investment levels. Pretty similar to markets like France as an example. And then the last one is that we're already alive and running in the uk. We have been producing shows in a smaller scale for years here in the uk, and we've got meaningful relationships with a lot of the production community and a few hit shows already. So the UK makes sense for a lot of reasons. Why did you go and partner rather than build internally these shows? What did you gain from the partnership rather than internal self-creation of ip? So we actually are bringing a number of our own shows to the market as well, which were further down in the announcement, but we're translating a number of our head shows that came out of my studios team that were born in other markets and will make their English language debut in the uk. Um, but the approach to partnering is, is probably twofold. One, we don't yet have the team on the ground here. We'll be building that up. It's a kind of medium long term pre-launch approach for us. And the second is, once we are alive in a subscription service, here will be, um, a service for all creators and listeners. And I think it was really important for us to take that approach in the announcement that we are sharing the space with our production partners. We're celebrating them. They are amazing. They deserve to have that space. So these are production partners that do create podcasts for a lot of other platforms and don't get mentioned as much. So it felt really important to us to take that approach. Will you be announcing more partnerships? We will. Okay. No one's listening. Go on. You can say what you like. We will, yeah. Like I said, this pre-launch phase, if we call it as a medium long-term game for us. So we announced a number of partnerships last week, and in the next few months we'll be announcing a few additional ones with, with some. Notably missing production talent in that first announcement. So Pomo itself is growing rapidly. You have a global head and I've looked at everything that you've grown into. It's central European, uk, Mexico. Will you go far east? Where do you see that market? Or America, which way would you go east or west next? Yeah. I think we have a lot of room for growth in our home territory, which is Europe still. There's a lot of European markets, both big and small, that I think make sense to launch in before we start thinking really far outside of that Latin America and Mexico specifically, which was announced recently, made a lot of sense for a number of reasons. One is that we already are making a lot of shows in Spanish. Of course, we're taking that local first approach to making content in Mexico for a Mexican audience. But I think the feeling is that we have a lot of room to grow in Europe before we think very ambitiously outside of it. . Now the other thing you said earlier on was that all of these new shows will be open and non-exclusive. Do you think though, cuz obviously that's been Spotify strategy, that exclusive is something that you might go now because obviously you want to drive audience to your app and one of the best ways I guess is, you know, you can get a hit show, but it's only available on our app. Is exclusive in your remit going forward. Yeah, and that is the model in all of the markets that we've launched in to date with the uk I mentioned the approach here is slightly different. The ultimate goal is to grow an audience around these shows and the vision is that a percentage of those listeners will become potty most subscribers in the future once the app in the subscription service is available. So we're doing a number of things. One is growing the size of the audience. We're also trying to prove that podcasts are a format that's worth paying for, and if listeners like what they hear, they'll hopefully want more of it exclusively through us as a trusted brand and a great product that has a lot to offer in the short form audio space. Last couple of questions, given the breadth and extent of the slate that you've got, is video on the roadmap. Video is not only on the roadmap, it's already launched. So video's a core part of our app in the sense that if a creator chooses to have video, the listener can flick it on or off with the flick of a switch, and it works really nice today. It also allows us to promote podcasts in a way that feels really special on our app. So video trailers are another way that podcasters in that we can choose to promote their shows on pot. Brilliant. Well look, Jake, thank you so much for telling us a little bit about Potty Mo and what's going on. We look forward to the next set of announcements hopefully soon. Where can people go and find out more about potty? So you can go to tymo.com and no matter where you type that in, it will automatically redirect you to where you are. So if you're in the uk, you'll get some UK specific information and, uh, where to sign up for updates on when we have them. Jake Chad, now from Poti Mo. Uh, they are hiring a lot of people right now. If you want to see exactly who they're hiring, pod jobs.net is the place to go where you'll find all of the jobs. I just said pod jobs.net. And what I really mean is pod news.net/jobs. Can you tell what the plan might be in the future? Uh, pod news.net/jobs is where to go. Uh, and you'll find all of those open positions there. Yeah, he's, uh, Jake's gonna be joining us at, uh, our pod news live event in London, and he will be at the podcast live show as well. So look forward to meeting him in. Clay. Yes. Yeah, it, it should be really good to, um, to end up, uh, seeing him. So Pod News Live is our, uh, one day conference. Uh, the first one is in June and it's in Sulfur near Manchester. And you can, um, go and buy tickets now if you wish, and learn more information@podnews.net slash live. And, uh, yeah, Jake is going to appear in the London one, which is. Happened towards the end of September in sunny London town. Um, so I'm looking back to going home, mate. Looking back to going home, aren't I? Yeah. Goli me. I'll get the cockles and muscles out for you, mate. Lovely. Yeah, that's, that's it. Cockles and muscles. I've God, no idea. . No idea what the accent is. Anyway, let's move, let's move on. Yes. Quickly before they sign you up to the next very Popp Jim Chimney. Jim Chimney Jim, Jim Tree. Now, uh, story . Uh, there was a story last week, uh, about, well, there was a story a couple of weeks ago that we did an interview with, uh, the guys from Bumper, um, and. Meisner talking about listen time, and they've given a little bit more detail about what listen time is now, James. Um, so tell me more. What have they said now that listen time should be? Yeah, so they are very keen on listen time as the right metric rather than downloads. Um, particularly if you are looking at this from a point of view of producing branded content, uh, I would, uh, I would suspect they've created a detailed method of calculating it, which is essentially going into Apple podcasts and using some of the data from there and using some of the data from Spotify. And, um, they detail exactly what to highlight and what to end up, uh, doing. It's a good piece of, um, you know, it's a good piece of, uh, of, uh, work. Um, I, I'm, I'm not entirely convinced that I think the listen time. The right metric. I think that downloads has something to do with that. And I, I, I, I'm, I'm most mostly saying that because obviously I produce a podcast which is four and a half minutes long every day , and four and a half minutes long doesn't end up giving you a very long lesson time figure it turns out. So I'm much more happy with my download numbers , rather than my total listen time numbers, selfish, , . Although I would imagine it would be really interesting to have a look at this podcast, uh, which has very many fewer downloads, but looking at the listen time of this podcast versus the listen time of. The Pod News Daily. Um, I can tell you what the Pod News Daily's numbers are because I did actually work it out 860 hours for January, uh, 860 hours, you know, I mean, it's nice, but, uh, 55,000 downloads is rather better. So that sounds better. Yeah, I'm sticking with that. Um, but, uh, yes, you can go back to episode nine in, uh, season two and here Jonas Woo, uh, talking about lesson time. And both Jonas and, uh, Dan will be at Podcast Movement Evolutions and they're both, uh, talking I think in various different things, uh, in Las Vegas in the next couple of. Mm. Now, uh, pop Vans does use listen time. We do calculate that and we will be giving hosts the ability to aggregate anonymously their listen time. I think what, from what I read of the report from, uh, Jonah Swen and Dan Meisner was at the moment, it's a, it's a way of you having to go into the inspect tool within your browser to get the data that they want. I think it will be beholden on the app developers to provide this, but then I was trying to work out, it would need somebody like a John Sperlock to then take what we produce as listen time in aggregate across the industry of podcasts, to up upload that into an o p three like tool where you could then aggregate it across apps, because that's the only time it will be useful as a piece of data, cuz. If you just did it on its own. No, y yeah, I mean, I, I agree with that to a an extent, but I mean, obviously, um, the rest of media is measured using a survey and, uh, so you ask, um, 10,000 people and then you, um, and, and then you times, times that up to the total amount of, uh, people. And then, and then you've got numbers, um, you know, it's TV works in that, in that way. So actually, just looking at, I just looked at, at Apple's numbers because, um, uh, virtually nobody uses the pod news daily. Podcast on, on uh, Spotify. Um, but I was still able to then work out, okay, well this is the average in terms of a download and let's times these up by the total downloads that I had and blah, blah blah. Um, so I think that, uh, you can probably do a fair amount. I think, um, in fact, uh, bumper have said that they have produced a tool which will, um, go in and grab the information from Spotify and from Apple Podcasts and basically spit out the numbers for you anyway. So they've got, um, you know, a web scraping tool doing that sort of thing. And I think that that makes a bunch of sense and you can of course pull listen time for, um, YouTube as well and for various other things. Um, and from, from. Pod fans as well, so that, that will be, you know, really helpful. But yeah, I think, um, you know, yes, it would be useful for something like OP three or some service like that to be able to, uh, share, uh, you know, grab that data from more places. Um, and it may well be that, um, some app developers already have that kind of information in their, um, you know, in their stats tools. Yeah, they probably do. I mean, in the report as well, I love how they put the rent in the works. Here is the Apple Call Media user agent, which makes it very difficult for podcast hosts to report an accurate number of Apple podcasts attributed to download. Well, the good news, Dan, is the Apple iOS 16.4 fixes that problem for you. I think. Yes. Indeed, although it's not much of a, uh, it's not much of an issue right now anyway. I wouldn't have thought. But uh, yeah, so, uh, interesting seeing that. Also interesting seeing a couple of new, uh, things. So the I A B has announced a new industry digital audience measurement currency called IPS Os Iris here in Australia. Now the i b um, we should just sort of mention is um, there is a US version of the i b and it's called the i b and then there's the IB in the UK and the I b in Australia. And they are but aren't the same organization. So actually they can do different things in different markets depending on what that local market. Once, um, IB Australia has done this, uh, IPS OS Iris thing and actually they're copying the UK and they're using this for TV figures. But it was really interesting reading the, uh, the press release because it turns out that they could probably use this technology to work out other, um, Media download, you know, download or play figures as well. So potentially it could be used for podcasting as well. Uh, so interesting taking a look at that. And in fact, um, next week I'm off down to the IAB in, in sunny Sydney, uh, to learn a little bit more about this and all things, uh, audio. So, uh, doubtless I can report back from. Yeah, cuz I was gonna ask you the question, is the IAB B even relevant anymore? Um, given that they allowed iHeart medias to buy downloads and ju advertisers and to say that would a legitimate IAB B download? I just wonder whether the i b is useful? Well, I, I think that that's a very good point and I think, um, perhaps, you know, it would make sense for podcasting to have its own, you know, I mean as I, I've been whittering on for a long, long time for podcasting to have its own, um, advertising bureau, if you like, um, to help with that sort of thing. Um, but uh, yeah, I would, I would completely agree with you there. in the same way of talking about downloads, then James, that SiriusXM's podcast network remains number one. The latest data from Edison says, uh, and the Acast creator network is at number nine. Again. How do they calculate these downloads and why? There's so many different ones. I'm always confused every week when you mention it anyway. Yes, I'm always confused. So you've got things like Pod Track and you've got Triton who are, uh, participating publishers only. So you have to sign up with them and then, uh, you give your server logs to Triton or you put a redirect on the front of your audio for Pod Track, and then they work out how many listeners you've got from that point of view. In terms of Edison's podcast metrics. They're really good because they are worked out using a survey. Uh, just going to ordinary, uh, podcast, uh, you know, listeners and actually asking them, uh, you know, what, uh, shows are you listening to for how long and blah, blah, blah. So actually Edison podcast metrics measures everyone, uh, and, uh, measures in terms of total, uh, audience total reach. Uh, if you, uh, like that term in the. . Um, and, uh, yeah, so the Sirius XM Podcast Network, number one in that list. Um, interestingly, Acast has come from nowhere to be new at number nine, um, which I wonder whether that's just a measurement, uh, trick rather than anything else. I wonder whether actually Edison was properly measuring the Acast stuff in the past, but, um, I'd like to learn a little bit more about that because normally it's a very static list. Um, and for somebody to be new at number nine is, is really quite, quite interesting. But yeah, that, that's how it's worked out. It's worked out by asking 10,000 people every six months what podcasts they're, they're they're having a listen to, which is not particularly good for, you know, the top 2000 podcasts, but is really good for the top 50. Mm-hmm. . I saw a report from a friend of the show, Steve Pratt, who used to be at Pacific Content, who used to do all of our, um, well at Christmas and New Year's with you, James, didn't he? The predictions and, and look back. Um, he's come up with a new term called Earned Value, uh, and Steve Pratt says most podcast marketing is wrong. Uh, in an interview he did with Steven Goldstein, which was a good interview, he's now thinking about it as, I don't want to grab attention or steal it or buy it, which all sound very selfish is about earning it. And I read the full thing. And it is very interesting and I think it's worth a full listen. Um, Steve says, I think bumper is the other side of the coin of what I'm doing. I'm focused on how to earn attention and listen. Time is about measuring time and attention. Hmm, that has been earned and I'm, I'm very much bullish on, on both of those cuz if you look at value for value, which I think is the right way to do it and measure, uh, value through the painting Satoshi's per minute, which is how I'd like to see podcasting go forward rather than download, sorry, James. Um, then I think earned attention as a metric or could be very interesting and listen time as a metric could be very interesting. It's very early for both of them. , but I think they're both onto something very interesting. Well, Steve is, uh, coming on to this very podcast next week to talk about how to earn value from podcast listeners, so I'm looking forward to that. And he will also be at Podcast Movement Evolutions, uh, in Las Vegas. So we will both, uh, be seeing him there, which should be fun. Now talking about guests, uh, we mentioned Vox Media last week who had, uh, all kinds of massive great big fundraising rounds and all kinds of things, and you managed to reach out to Nama Raza, who's the executive producer of On with Cara Swisher, which is an excellent Vox Media podcast. She said all kinds of things including this. Kara and I have been making an interview podcast since 2020 together. Right? And this new iteration on is different format wise. We've been doing a lot of format experimentation. I'm a producer who's on the air with Kara. Um, I don't have a ambition. I didn't get into this like having a vision for what the next step looks like and I'm guilty of that. Through my career, I've seen doors open and then walked through the ones I liked a little bit. And so right now we're so early in I wanna keep growing the show. It's doing really well and people seem to like it. We wanna learn more, probably do listener soon cuz we're almost six months old. Wanna keep experimenting and getting the show really right. That's the near term feature for me. And also continue to write and, and to do film work as well to do, continue to do projects on the side and continue this kind of portfolio career that I've built for myself. And you can hear the full interview. Uh, it's a good long one. It's, uh, well worth a listen in our pod news Extra Feed. You'll find Pod News extra wherever you find this podcast, probably. Uh, so, um, go, uh, hit that up. Uh, it's another podcast which is sponsored by our friends at Buzz Sprout. Uh, and it's a great, great interview. So, Nama Raza, uh, from Vox Media on the Pod News Extra podcast. Mm-hmm. Did you do what mere mortals asked you to do last week, James? Uh, I didn't. No, I haven't, uh, I haven't, uh, value for value enabled it and I'm really sure shouldn't I? So, um, yes, that's, uh, I'll put that on the list. Is that another job for the weekend? That's another, that may, that may be a job for the next half hour. Who knows? ? Yes. Now, uh, last night a DJ saved my life. No, I'm not trying to sing you the song. Uh, it seems Spotify's launched an AI powered personal DJ for. Featuring with stunningly realistic, uh, voiceovers. Um, you're out of a job, James, if you're thinking of going back to Virgin or the pbc. And so I, if I'm going back to River Radio, so uh, DJs look like they're in the past. If Spotify, uh, launches this service. Now, why am I talking about DJs and AI powered? Well, because I think there may be something in it for podcasting. Um, so can I use the cheesy line? James AI killed the radio star. No, I shouldn't use that one. No, no, you may not. And, uh, and I'm going to find you if you do, uh, use that. Yes. But, uh, did you see the announcement? And, uh, what do you think? Because I do think this could be a really interesting way for podcast discovery if they adapt it to podcasts. Yeah. Well, you know, the video that they have put online, um, has a stunningly realistic voice, mx and from this moment on, I'm gonna be your own personal AI DJ on Spotify because it is a voice that they have recorded for the video. It's clearly not an AI generated voice. It's clearly just a voice that they've recorded for the video. I'm not sure. Are you sure? Are you sure? Absolutely convinced about that. And Spotify can come at me if they, if they wish, but, um, Also the voiceover talks over the songs, which, um, uh, Spotify can't do. They're not allowed to under the terms of their music licenses. So, uh, the video is misleading because it's not actually showing what the product is. Uh, radio analyst Matt Deagan has said in a blog post today that, uh, Spotify still misunderstand what a DJ does. If you listen to what the DJ says, then he basically says, well, it sounds as if you'd be listening to quite a lot of songs from the eighties over the last couple of weeks. So here's another great song from the eighties. Next up, some of the music you had on a lot back in 2018. To me, there's nothing of value in there. There's nothing of value in this dj. Um, a guy saying why he's, why the algorithm has chosen a new song for you. There's one. Bit of value from the video that they put up. Um, which is where the v the voice who calls himself X because of course he does, um, the voice says, says, uh, something like, um, well, uh, we thought you Boyd like something new. So here's a brand new release. You've been in a dance music lately. I got this brand new release to get you more. And I thought, well, that's good. If they then explained who the brand new release was and why this listener should be interested in it. Because as it currently stands, there's nothing to actually help the listener into a brand new release and, uh, what a presenter does, what an a personality or in an answer or whatever you want over an rj, whatever you want to call it in your own country. But what, what, what a presenter does is that they actually help people understand why this is going to be a good listener, why you should give the next four minutes, you know, your, your, your full attention and all of that. But there's none of that with this. A crappy AI dj. So, um, and by the way, ai, I'm not even convinced that there is any AI in there whatsoever. Um, I think it's just, um, it's, it's like machine learning was a year ago. I think someone has told Spotify, oh, you need to be using the word AI in your press release. And so that's what they've done for this particular thing. As you can tell, I'm a fan. Yes. Massive. Can't, can't wait. Can you? Luckily for you, you can wait because it's only in the US and Canada, so you won't be able to get it. Anyway. It's in the US and it's in Canada and it's only for paying Spotify customers. Um, uh, uh, and I'm not a paying Spotify customer, so therefore, uh, there's no, there's no chance of me hearing that yet. But you can imagine the, of the Australian version, um, you know, when that, when that launches, you can imagine how bloody annoying that's going to be. Yes. Come on Skippy. So, um, , no Now. No awful. Um, anyway, awful. Uh, the, the only reason I mentioned it, cuz I thought one of the bits from it was that they were looking at back catalog and, and extracting content. But you know, you may be right. Maybe it was just, you know, let's do buzzword bingo and put AI in where we haven't had AI before. Cause hey, it worked for Microsoft and they got a lot of value from saying that they were gonna support Bing. Ai. Yes. And, uh, open chat, G b T and et cetera. So, hey. Yes. Although, although being fair, they actually did. Um, oh, yes. But did you see what it did? Of, of, of, of the video that I've heard of this feature, there is, there is no AI there at all. The only thing that is happening is this, uh, you know, this DJ is saying, um, you've been playing lots of songs from the, you know, the 1970s. So here's another one. What, what's, why would you even interrupt music with an annoying voice telling you that? I do think AI has got a place though with podcasting. I do think Whisper, for example, for transcriptions, I do think maybe a chat G B T could be used to summarize, uh, show notes. And I do think there is an element of discovery that AI could be used. So I don't want to dismiss AI and podcasting outta hand. I do think there is something in it. I just don't know when. Someone's gonna do something about it. Uh, let's move on to more positive things. Um, lots of, uh, new people, um, uh, with new jobs. Uh, Ray Harkins is now director of Podcast Sales at Soro Global Media Corp, uh, which is exciting. FM Shapiro has joined the New York Times as the senior audio engineer for Time's Opinion. He joins from Vox. Um, my friend Simon Cross is joining sound wide Now. You may not have heard of Sound Wide, but they are the company that owned Plugin Company, isotope among others. And Simon, who was a brilliant, um, product manager for, uh, me at the bbc, uh, about 15 years or so ago. Um, he has been working for. And he's, um, thank heavens, um, uh, jumped out of that. Uh, and he is now joining sound wide as Chief Product Officer and I'm sure that he'll be, uh, very excellent at that. He completely understands audio, so that's a really good hire for them. Uh, Susan Waki has, uh, stepped down as CEO of YouTube. She's been at Google for almost 25 years. Neil Mohan will be the new c e o. He's currently chief product officer for the company. And what you know about Neil Mohan? Sam? Well, oh, I was hoping you were gonna do this, uh, cuz we, we are so good as English people at foreign languages. Um, he's, uh, he's Indian. That's, that's the main thing. Uh, go, go brother. Um, yes. He basically is gonna be, as you said, the chief operating officer. Like to point out that they, there is quite a few, uh, Indian people who are in the, um, you know, senior roles. You've got, uh, uh, ion, uh, Adobe. You've got, uh, such an Adela, Microsoft, Sonja, Pati, alphabet. You've got Arvin, Krishna and I, ibm. You've got AJ Banger at MasterCard and Indra Newi used to be at Pepsi. The list goes on. Anne Luman, uh, Nara Seaman, who's at Starbucks. So I think we've got a list of some very interesting Indians running some very big American companies, and I'm very proud. Yes, you are taking over the world. Um, so, uh, yeah, no, really are really interesting to, uh, yeah, interesting to, uh, see and interesting to see what that means for, uh, YouTube as it continues to grow. And of course, after the, uh, the big podcast announcements, stroke, no podcast announcements at all. Please delete when we make this. . Uh, also less than a month after Spotify podcasting head, Dawn Ostro announced her departure, max Cutler is also leaving the company. Now. He was theoretically, uh, the person who oversaw Joe Rogan's contract. I'm not convinced, but nevertheless, that's apparently what he, um, is. Maybe he was overseeing Joe Rogan's contract after Dawn Ostroff left. But, uh, whatever, um, uh, he's not getting replaced, which I think is interesting. So Bill Simmons will have more of a focus on podcast monetization. Brian Thon will be looking at third party content partnerships, which I guess you could call Joe Rogan or although, although is Joe Rogan licensed exclusives. Uh, because if he is, then Julie McNamara will be Joe Rogan's, theoretical boss or client or whatever. Um, not quite sure what's going on with, uh, Spotify. They also have a big announcement in about two weeks time, right in the middle of podcast movement, uh, because that's how much they care about podcasting. Uh, they're making a set of big announcements in Los Angeles. But anyway, um, that, uh, that will be, uh, all, all will become clear in the next couple of weeks. And we'll also have an interview with Dave Zab from that announcement. Uh, so yes, we'll find out from the horse's mouth what they have to say. I did find one last piece that was interesting in the announcement of Max Cutler going, um, some of the analysis was many founders of podcast companies Spotify acquired, have left the company over the past year, including both Gimlet co-founders, megaphone co-founders, and anchor co-founder, and now Max himself, who you who founded podcast. Why did they take all these. Brilliant, intelligent entrepreneurs who clearly have done well because Spotify acquired them. And why doesn't Spotify just stick a load of money on the side and say, Hey guys, look, instead of twiddling your thumbs for three years, just waiting for your cash out, why don't you go and start your next project and we'll fund it for you and incubate you here in Spotify. Mm-hmm. , that would be more use to those people rather than them sitting, waiting, going 24 days left to go and then I'm leaving. Yes. So, uh, yeah, so that's interesting. And also , and I thought that this was funny, uh, osha, which is a French podcast hosting company, which is also now big in, uh, the US and various other places, has a new, um, CTO Nicola DeFrank, um, who now, according to their press release that they sent me, joins the company from. But of course what, what, whatever I do when I get a press release is I actually have a look at the LinkedIn and yes, Nikolai did work for Google. He left in 2015 and he was working for Double Click. That's not really working at Google, is it? Um, so great. He didn't have sushi, but he wasn't at the sushi bar. He wasn't at Google eight years ago. Does not make it. Joins the company from Google. Now, if you're looking for a job, POD News has, uh, podcasting jobs across the industry and across the world, and they're free to post pod news.net/jobs. The tech stuff, tech stuff on the pod news weekly review. Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the. Pod News Newsletter. Here's where we do the tech talk. We will whisk through some of these. Um, firstly, very exciting. The podcast Index website now has cross app comments for individual podcast episodes. Uh, if that's been enabled by the podcaster, then you'll see them. Uh, so you can go and have a look at the Podcasting 2.0 podcast, for example, where you will see, uh, lots of comment. Or you can go and have a look at the POD News Daily podcast where we've enabled it, but no one leaves any comments, . Um, so, uh, so I wouldn't waste your time on that. Um, we can't enable, uh, cross app comments on this podcast because, uh, because we are hosted with our sponsor and we are delighted with them. Um, but, uh, they don't support that. So, uh, that's why you won't see them on this very podcast, but you will on some of the others. Uh, so, uh, yeah, that's a very cool new piece of, uh, functionality, which is, uh, really nice. Let's, uh, shift on then, uh, Vizi Studio has added YouTube video, ah, what excellent timing, uh, as an output to the company's popular podcast enhancement platform. If you remember Vizi Studio, and we've had Nickon in the past, uh, adds visual chapters to shows they work on, um, podcasting 2.0. , uh, podcast apps also on Apple Podcasts because it actually puts the chapters, uh, back into the mp3, uh, file as long as your podcast host doesn't rip those out. So, um, yeah, they've launched YouTube as another method of getting that out, which is, uh, very cool. Uh, listen notes, um, uh, we Bin has been busy. He's launched, uh, both a thing called Listen clips, which is a tool to create podcast clips for free. Would be really good if he had used the podcasting 2.0. Um, uh, standard for that, but he hasn't. Um, and he's also launched something called Micro Feeded, which is a interesting looking content management system because of course everybody needs a new content management system. Uh, and this is his, uh, and it hosts on CloudFlare. I think my understanding is it's a serverless, uh, content management, um, system. Why it's important here is that it can host a podcast as well and it produces an RSS feed, uh, which is very nice. Um, and he launched a new version over the weekend, which was, uh, quite nice. And in case you are wondering, the Trade Secrets Archive website, which you'll find at Trade Secrets dot archive dot pod news.net. Snappy, uh, that, uh, I used, uh, Hugo to build, and that's on just a AWS S3 bucket. So it's really easy and simple, um, to, uh, sling a relatively static, uh, site up, um, uh, there. But, uh, that's what I ended up using and it looks as if micro feed is much the same, but runs on the CloudFlare, uh, service, uh, as well. What else have you seen in terms of tech news? Uh, Well, memento is an AI powered tool for podcasters. And, and is it really? No, it is , um, that grabs the best shareable clips of podcasts, produces transcripts and automates social media. It sounds very interesting. It became publicly available today and has a fancy video. which has a no DJ in it. Um, no, it has a fancy video, uh, to give you example. So that's mementos AI power tool for podcasters. Yes. Which is all very exciting. Uh, what else? Um, podcast digs Ban. Scott, that's very easy to say, isn't it? Podcast digs. Um, anyway, uh, Banro has, uh, demoed and reviewed Adobe Podcast's audio noise reduction and treatment tool, which is a really good tool. It's a very cleverly done tool, which works very, very well indeed. Um, the slightly weird thing about it, um, is that it does make you sound a little bit robotic. Um, and, uh, so from that point of view, uh, it's just a little bit strange. And he, he's got this little bit in the video where it's him talking in front of the camera and he just sort of changes. the way that he, he changes whether or not you are listening to the standard audio or to the audio through this, uh, service. And, um, yeah. And it's a very strange effect. Um, just sounds a little bit weird, but it's well worth a, a watch of that. Um, so, you know, taking a quick, um, taking a quick peek at that, talking of weird voices. You used a tool called Revoice this week, didn't you? I did, yes. Uh, it's a, uh, new service called Podcast Castle called Revo. Um, and what it is, I read 70 sentences and the tool then makes a clone of your voice so you can record podcasts or make changes just using text. And I thought, brilliant, you know, and so I negotiated a free month, which was hard enough, uh, with the, uh, folks who, um, put this, uh, service together. I think they're in Romania or somewhere. Um, and, uh, yes, so I ended up, uh, getting a free month, which I really must cancel cause otherwise they will take money out of my credit card. Um, and uh, yes, and I trained it to use, um, on my voice. And this is what it sounds like, and this is what it sounds like. This is me on Podcast Castle, and it sounds like this, it's a bit robotic, to be honest. Some of the vowels sounds are a bit. I wonder whether it is confused at my British accent and is expecting an American accent, but it is based in Eastern Europe and some of what I hear in this voice sounds Eastern European as well. I don't really know. The tool will remove Vonz and Herz. It has a remote recording tool and a multi-track editor. It's a very nice tool, but hang on time to be real again. But, um, yeah, I'm not necessarily sure. Seamless. Seamless, absolutely couldn't tell. And Pod first, uh, is doing a, a bunch more things including videos and posh notifications and all kinds of stuff, Sam? Yeah, well I, I've got very interested because obviously they've been using Lit the live item tag for a while and I hadn't really spoken to Mitch Downey, so I thought I'd reach out to him and find out what's new about the latest version and why they've moved into doing a pod verse with video. Uh, so we spoke about Lit, we spoke about the alternative enclosures, James, which you'll be happy to know. And we spoke about cross-platform app supports as well. Pod verse started a long time ago. It's one of. First things I did to learn how to code like 2014. And at the time it was a web app for creating podcast clips. That was the purpose of it. And since then, it has grown into a podcast app for Web, iOS, Android, and does just about every feature you could ask for a podcast app. So when did you first hear about the podcast Index? Two Oh namespace extensions features tags. It's funny, I heard about it through James Cridland right at the beginning. Who's he? Never heard of it. . It was like by a coincidence too. So two and a half years ago or so, I was looking for ways to get involved in open source with the podcasting community, and I happened to see on pod news that James had some open websites or some GitHub repos. I made some changes to it and he reached back and said, Hey, there's this thing going on, podcast index podcasting 2.0. He sent me episode one before it was released, and I've been all in ever since and it's been a wonderful two years. I think I've, I joined James a couple of years back on what we then called Pod Land, and it was great to just see the evolution of the podcast namespace. Now, apart from the things like the person tag, the location tag, all of those tags, you have been one of the earliest advocates of the live item tag. Certainly the one I use every Friday night for listening to the podcast Index Show with Adam and Dave. When did you go, I'm gonna implement this, and how hard was it to do for you? Sure. Well, we pretty much jumped on it as soon as we could, as soon as it was made into a spec by the community. and it just so happens that Adams show, no agenda already had a live stream. So we had a, a major podcast that we could integrate with and that there was already an audience for that wanted to use the feature, and it wasn't all that difficult. To be honest. It's not that big of a paradigm shift to load a live stream in a media player versus a recording. And yeah, so we jumped on it right away, and it's been one of our most popular features since we've done that, and it works really well with being able to interact with a live show, with a live podcast. Now, one of the ways that people interact, for those who don't know, is using something called a booster grammar, a live comment with a micropayment. When did you first come across micropayments then? When did you first come across Alby as well? Well, that was all through the 2.0 community and the value for value named space. Spec that we have. And it just makes sense that when I'm listening to a show, I want to contribute to a creator as I'm listening, if it's one of my favorite shows. And in order to do that, we wanna make it as easy as possible. So we want it in the app, not have to ask the listener to go to PayPal or go outside of the app to be able to send money, just put it right there within the player, and then also to send a message along with it. So it's not only a donation, but you can send a personalized message with it. Yeah. And so that was a new idea that came through 2.0 and we held off for a while on implementing it because there just didn't exist a service that we could use to integrate with it. The people who had implemented it before us were actually hosting their own wallets and sending money from their own wallets, and we didn't want to get into that. We didn't want to get that overhead. LB came into the picture and they have an open API that's super easy to integrate with. And yeah, so we just use their API to send requests and you log in with your account and then you're ready to go. This is just that the boost buttons appear and you can send money to the podcasters, and it works really well. I use it, um, Friday nights with, as I said, live boosting to Adam and Dave. When you first implemented it, did users come back to you with, oh, what the hell's this, Mitch? Or did they pick up on it pretty quickly? What was the reaction to it? People have picked up on it pretty quickly. It's in the app for people who are looking for it. We're primarily a podcast listening app, and that is our focus is listening first, and we make these features available for people who want them. So people who are using the Value for Value feature typically are seeking it out and familiar with it. So we really haven't had too much trouble or people saying they're confused, they don't wanna see it, it's opt-in. Within pod verse so you can have experience with it on or you could have it with it off. And Alby has just made it really simple and it works pretty reliably in my experience. There's a lot of things going on with the Bitcoin Lightning Network that can be complicated and they have smoothed it out to make it so the user doesn't really have to think about that stuff. So one of the things that I found interesting with Pod News was when we first implemented Booster Grams was people were giving you one SAT and then the classic light of, have you got it? Did you get it? And then we've now started to see higher amounts. Is that the same that you've seen on pod verse? Yeah. I think the amounts have gone up over time as people have gotten more familiar with it and comfortable with it. And also SATs was a new currency for people in general. They didn't have like a mental model of how much that was to currency we're used to using. So we actually added in pod verse a translation within the app that shows you. How much a SAT is actually worth. So when you send a thousand SATs or 10,000 SATs, it'll say it's translated into 25 cents or $2 or $20, stuff like that. So I think that has helped a bit. This is new tech to a lot of people and to get some perspective on how much money they're actually sending. Yeah, I think it is, it's VO vocabulary that people are getting comfortable, as you said, Alby has done a great job in simplifying the way that you can get your wallets and you get your sass and you can top it up with fear currencies. So I think all of that's good. One of the things that I found interesting, and you only did it recently in the latest version, is you've implemented video as well. Why have you gone down that road, considering you said only five minutes ago, is that pod versus primarily a listening app? Yeah, well, it's a natural fit. A lot of podcasts have video. I would say an increasing number. Seemed to have video. If you're going through the trouble of recording the audio, you might as well have cameras there. So a lot of shows are adopting that. And there's also a new video livestream feature that's made possible through Podcasting 2.0, which we think is a game changer and like a real step forward for RSS innovation to allow video live streams to be distributed along with your podcast so your audience can watch your video live stream within the same app that they would listen to the audio recordings or watch the video recordings. Yeah, talk to us more about that because that is very new. Is this using what, something like Streamy Yard, or is this an HLS server, or how's it being implemented? So for live streams, they are typically hosted on a site like Peer Tube. Which is basically an open source version of YouTube, you can think can host their own server that allows their livestream to be watched by anyone. And we use something like Peer Tube because it's open and available to any app that wants to watch it. So we use h Ls. That's another advantage of going in this direction of video live streams. HLS is a more feature file version file type for media. And like one of the advantages of using HLS is you could be watching a, a video live stream and you can switch between the different resolutions. So if you want an ultra high resolution, you can select that. If you want a very low resolution that doesn't take a lot of bandwidth to load, you could select that option. So yeah, that's the, the state of things currently are people are pretty much up to figuring out their own livestream server, where they want to use it. But yeah, pure Tube is one of the best options available currently for it. Are any of the well known popular podcast hosting companies, implementing any of this? I haven't really seen any one of them yet. Implement support for Audio Live, let alone video live. Do you know of any? To my knowledge, I'm not aware of RSS companies hosting the streams themselves. I know Blueberry is supporting video live streams and the lit tag within the RSS feed. As for the actual audio that's streaming, I think podcasters are mostly on their own today, which there are quite a few that have already adopted it. Uh, the people that already had live streams, Podcasts, but we're still in a phase where the hosts don't do that. For the podcaster, if anyone is interested in this, I would recommend them going to podcast index.social and asking the community there, because a lot of people have accomplished it and we're happy to help others learn how to do it themselves. Yeah, yeah. I still though think it's a competitive advantage for hosts over their other competitors if they start doing this. I mean, you know, it'd be really cool if they implemented a shared HLS server, so it was a premium value added service. So you went to your host and said, yeah, here's my RSS fee, but actually I'll pay you a little bit extra. Oh, great. Now I've got my audio feed for live streaming, or, Ooh, look, even for a little bit more, I've got a video feed, and again, I suppose it's chicken and egg between the app providers like yourself as assume you're using the medium tag. Within the podcast index namespace to enable this, are you? We are using the medium tag that helps with identifying if something's video or film, but medium itself is not that critical to livestream as it's more of the live item tag. But I would agree that I think there's a tremendous opportunity here for a company that would be interested in helping people share HLS live streams, video, live streams. There's growing demand. Now, typically live streams were centralized in big tech platforms, and that's just how it went. That's your only option. Now, with adding live streams to podcasting, they can be available to any app. They're not locked into a specific big tech platform. So yeah, I could see a company spinning up their own peer tube instances and selling on a monthly basis, podcasters the ability to broadcast from their servers. Are you also using the alternative enclosure or supporting it? See, I'm really struggling. There is a really good tag called the Alternative Enclosure, right? And you've probably read about it as just as much as I have. And very few companies support it again from the hosting side. So very few apps will support it. And it would seem to me crazy that we've got a live item tag, we've got an alternative enclosure and a medium tag. When actually if the app itself, like Pod First went, oh, okay, we're supporting video and we're looking down your alternative enclosure. Yep. There's your mp4. Lovely job. We'll just turn on our video stream as well. Wouldn't that be so much simpler? Yes. That's what alternate closure would allow, is that you could have multiple media format. Within one feed. So typically podcasters today, if they have audio and video, they have an audio feed and they have a video feed, two separate things, well that could just as easily be one feed and you just toggle between the video or audio version. So that's the main advantage of alternate enclosure in my opinion. Yeah, I was talking to Todd Cochran over a blooper about this cuz he has an audio and a video feed and he simply said it's Apple's fault. They require two separate feeds. They don't support one feed and therefore he has to produce two feeds and therefore he's not going to integrate the two into one. So thanks Apple. That's really the reason. But it would be lovely if a host enabled it so that you could upload into one single feed, both audio and video, and support the live item tag and allowed you to do a shared server. And again, I think they could charge for it. So it's not like, do this for free. Um, and it would certainly move the needle forward so much for podcasting, wouldn't it? Yeah, I agree. We do offer partial support for alternate enclosure tag. It's on the website only. It's not in the mobile app yet, but interesting way to maybe get around. This is with the hls. It's a video format hls, uh, it within it allows you to provide different resolution sizes and also an audio only version. So I don't know if Apple Podcast plays HLS files, but it contains within the file format. It's more advanced than the mp3 mp4, uh, world of file types. So if you just have hls, it kind of sidesteps the need for alternate enclosure. There's definitely still a need for it, but. This is a way to get more broad file type support within the Apple structure of just one, one type of media file. And I can see Adams talked about it. I can see radio stations using live audio all the time, live video, occasionally. I've had a radio station and we were using a third party service called Radio King out of France and we were broadcasting from a radio studio, live shows, and then we would add video to the live stream and we would do both. Um, it was cobbled together solution, but using Ker, which sadly has gone to Spotify now and died. They had this really cool service that took your livestream, your RMT P Stream, and they would transfer that at the end into a podcast, into Spotify, apple, or anywhere else. Right? So we were taking live shows. Broadcasting them live over d a b Alexa and the web. And then at the end of the show, Weka would do all the magic for us and put it into Apple or Spotify as a podcast. It was perfect, totally perfect. But Wekas gone sadly. And no one seems to have a service like it, which would be great as well. Interesting. I wasn't familiar with ska. Sad to hear that Spotify has, uh, made it no more. So, apart from lit and video and lots of other things that you're working on, I know that you've been working on CarPlay and various other things. What's coming up for pod verse next? What's in the, uh, roadmap? While something we're most excited about in the past month is that we've had major upgrades to performance and the app, just major bug fixes. It works a lot faster than it ever. And it's a smoother experience. We're getting great feedback, so we're excited about that and we wanna keep focusing on that to make sure that it's like a premium podcast listening experience. I don't know if I've mentioned that. We are free and open software, so we give all of our software away for free. People can copy it and modify it and do whatever they want with it. . So we do this on evenings and weekends and our days off, we don't have a full-time job working on it. And projects that are open source tend to feel like they're open source. They tend to feel like it's not quite at the quality of the big corporate apps. And hopefully with this recent round of updates, that's not the case anymore. Hopefully the app is working quickly and is in the upper tier of podcast listening experiences. And going forward, the live experience is a priority. We wanna improve the live experience even more. For example, we wanna add the ability to pause and then rewind within the app while listening live. Just handle some of the different network interruption use cases. Our focus is primarily on, on the smoothing out the livestream experience, and after that it'll be Android Auto. We're anxious to begin working on Android Auto. Again, there was a big announcement. I'm not a big Android user, but I'm a big iOS user. There was Apple 16.4 beater one, which had two big announcers. One was massive update to CarPlay, which they're planning. So there's brand new version of CarPlay coming out, all car manufacturers next year. So you've got much more control over the cars, uh, widgets and gadgets, and hopefully they'll all mean more controls for podcasting. The other one that they had was a massive upgrade for progressive web apps, so taking the web client and making it a first class client alongside the iOS client. So for things like badges and screen notifications and push notifications, I know you've got an iOS native app, but would. Uh, look at also making POD versus a progressive web app. We definitely would look into it. And to be honest, I haven't done much research on it cuz it hasn't existed in the realm of possibility on Apple until coming soon. But yeah, we'll look into seeing what we can do to maybe minimize the file size needed by the app or, uh, yeah, let people have a more custom experience by using it without having to download it through the app store. We'll look into it, but I don't have any clear plans on what we would do differently with the Progressive web app. I will say it, when you go through the app store, it's more closed down and what features they allow and should a day come where there's features we want to add in the mobile app, but Apple doesn't allow it in the app store. Maybe progressive web apps would allow those features to still exist and be accessible to users. So I think it's a very good thing that progressive web apps are allowed. I think they should be just a part of having any device. So it's encouraging to see, I don't see a, like a use case in the short term for us, but it's a great step forward I think for Apple, if they're embracing PWAs transcripts. How do you support transcripts today? Within pod verse, we parse the transcript tag provided by podcasting 2.0, and so the podcasters will release their own transcript that they include with their show, and we parse it and load it within the app. and one of the nicest parts about having transcripts is that you have searchable written version of the show. So if you're listening and you hear a moment that you liked or you want to go back to it later, you just open up the transcript in the app, type in a search term, and then tap the match result that matches, uh, the word you're looking for. Yeah. And that's been a great boon for people finding stuff. Will you look at automating any of that? As in, there's a lot of chat right now about AI and Whisper and the use of Whisper to automate some of the show notes or automate chat G B T, some of the show notes, but automate the transcription element if, cause I think James said only about 1% of podcasts currently come. A transcript. So is there any in your thinking about automating these services? Automating it, as in we would generate the transcript. We don't have plans like that, and it's hard to see where it would fit in with our approach because we have to minimize our expenses as much as possible as an open source company. And transcriptions, if either it's done by AI or it's done by people, there are costs involved in the process. So I don't see us translating them ourselves, but there might be services we could integrate with that specialize in that, that we send them a signal or say, Hey, people are trying to listen to this show. Can you provide a transcript for it? We're open to integrating however we can because transcripts are important for accessibility, but I don't see us getting. Handling the costs of translating 90 million episodes or whatever we're at in our database. Yeah, exactly. Now, how do you fund this then? So do you take, uh, a fee from the Satoshi payments? Are you gonna be looking at streaming stats or do you get third party external donations, or do you have like a, I know you mentioned the premium service. How do you fund pod first? Well, since we're free and open source software and we don't add ads, we don't sell people's data. Our only revenue option, our only revenue model is, uh, premium memberships. So we sell $18 a year premium memberships, which give people more advanced features in the app. And we also follow the value for value model. So if anyone wants a premium membership, but it's out of their budget, just send us an email and we'll give you a year for free. But yet our primary. And, and pretty much exclusive revenue model is that for the listeners to give us a membership fee that makes sure that we work for them and not for ad advertisers or corporate sponsors. We wanna keep our focus on delivering what is good for our listeners. And I think that's a great way to look at it. I think focus on the listener first and then the other stuff will follow. Mitch Downey, pod verse co-founder. Thank you so much. Where can people go and get pod verse, find out more about what you guys are doing, what's the best place? Sure. Our website, pod verse.fm. Otherwise, the app is available on the app store, Google Play, and Foid. Brilliant, Mitch. Thank you so. Thanks, Sam. Mitch Downey from Pod Verse. You should be going and downloading that. It's, uh, very good. You'll find it in your favorite app store. Uh, upcoming events, um, coming up include, of course, podcast Movement Evolutions, which is March the seventh. Uh, the i b Audio Summit, which is next week in, uh, Sydney. Um, and of course the big news is that this very show is going to be live, live, live at podcast Movement and Lit. We've, we've been given, well, it won't be lit cause it won't be live done on the internet, but it will be live, uh, at podcast movement, uh, itself. We've been given the big stage, Sam, uh, yeah, the big stage. Dell's got the night off. Excellent. I've always wanted to do the big stage . Not that stage then. No, not that stage, no. So March the ninth at 12:00 PM so at noon, March the ninth at 12. Uh, we will be there on the big keynote stage. Please come along and see us. We will very much bring lunch. Appreciate that. The good news is, uh, that, uh, we've only been given 45 minutes, so it'll be significantly, uh, tighter than this, uh, current show is. Uh, but, uh, please do come along. Uh, we would love that. Uh, the POD News Weekly review, uh, live at podcast movement, uh, evolutions. Uh, and of course the other big news is Pod News Live, which is our full length, day long, um, day long conference. Um, we have, uh, announced a few speakers so far. Uh, we've announced the date, which is June. 13th in, um, sulfur at Manchester. Uh, you can learn more information@podnews.net slash live and also buy tickets if you are so inclined. Um, uh, it's in the Larry Center in, uh, sulfur, uh, among the speakers. Mike Newman from Audio Boom. Michael Carr from mc Crowd Network. Mark Asquith from Captivate. Alright, mate. Um, Vic, uh, Elizabeth Turnbull from Mi from Mike Media. Uh, Ian Forrester. Uh, Sam speaking. I'm speaking Kate Cocker speaking. All kinds of people are speaking. Uh, we do hope that you'll come along, uh, as well. That's, uh, June in, um, the north of England in, uh, sulfur near Manchester. Indeed. Now I found, uh, an interesting event that, uh, is in Birmingham in the middle of the country, which I hadn't. I have heard of Birmingham. I meant to say I haven't heard of the event. Yes, I was gonna say before people write in and tell me. It's in the middle of the country. Uh, tickets for the Birmingham Podcast Festival 2023 are now on sale. Um, and I'll put a link in the show notes. It's on the 22nd of April and they say a podcast festival that reflects the super diversity of Birmingham by representing across race, class, and regional accents. AOP Duck. Well that sounds really great. Uh, and there are more events both paid for and free at pod news, uh, virtual events or events in a place with people pod news.net/events. Booster Graham, booster Graham Corner, corner, corner on the Pod News Weekly review. Oh, it's our favorite time of the week. And uh, yes, if you are enjoying this show, it's always good to get, um, some nice booster grams. Uh, Dave Jackson, um, who is. Excellent. Who is again speaking at podcast movement evolutions. Uh, he sent us 10,000 SATs, which is a good amount. Uh, thank you Dave. And he says, great show lads. Thank you Dave. That's very kind of you. Uh, who else has sent us stuff? Ah, good. Frank, Karen from the mere mortals sent us the row of Ducks 2 20 22. Uh, he said, drinks on Adam. Now, can I clarify this? Because Adam got upset with us again. Uh, did he? Yes. How could he have got upset us with us? For what? Well, because you, you intimated that we're going to be doing drinks in Vegas, which we are, and we'll be announcing what we're doing and where that is shortly. But he, the way that he interpreted what you said was that we're going to an English bar and it will only be for English people because uh, that's how he took it. And it's not, uh, we are going to have no all and everyone is welcome. It may just well be an English bar with English beer is what we were trying to suggest. Yes, exactly. And then the other one was . When you suggested that the beers might be on Adam, I think he was like, well, uh, not if it's only for English people. So I think, Adam, can I just clarify, we're having a drink where anyone from any nationality is more than welcome. It just happens to be in an English bar in Vegas. Yes. And we are gratefully going to use the SATs you've given us to power and pay for the beers at our live show event. So that's what we're doing. Yes. Yes. Why on earth? How on earth could we have just English people? It would just be you and me and probably, I don't know, mark Asquith or somebody. Oh, mate. Um, he sounds nothing like that. I dunno why I'm doing that. Doing. Anyway, uh, so yeah, so that's gonna be good. That's on, uh, that's going to be on the. Thursday night, uh, is the pod news, uh, drinks, uh, and there'll be more information on that, uh, somewhere shortly. ? Yes. Possibly in Pod News, although if I put it in pod news, I in the newsletter, then no. Um, we, we could, we could be broken and people might turn up. Yeah, no, this is the 9th of March that we're doing it, so yes, we'll put some more info up. Yes, that will be a good plan. And yes, we will be, uh, spending, uh, some of the, uh, SATs that, uh, Adam and that Dave and that many other people have sent us. And we are very grateful, uh, to everything. So one point and 50 straws. That's all we did. . Well, yes. American prices, uh, CI Radio, uh, sent, uh, a thousand, uh, SATs over. And, uh, he says, showing a colleague how badass fountain is. Go podcasting. Go podcasting. Indeed. And Sir Pete sent us a big row of ducks. One more duck than Kyron. Uh, double two. Double two, two. Love the show. Love is lit. Love is lit. Yeah. I think he wants us to go live. We are going live, but we're not going lit. Yeah, we're going live, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, podcast movement evolutions, but we're certainly not going lit. Um, that would be, uh, a mistake. My goodness. I mean, you know, if, if you had actually been sitting here during the recording of this, then you'd be going, why on earth am I listening to this I'm being recorded when I could listen to the, to the slightly less rambly one once it's been edited. Um, and one more thing. Um, I am also speaking at podcast movement evolutions, um, going, uh, through the pod news report card Now, the pod news report card is a thing that we started doing last year. We're doing it again this year. Uh, it is basically all about getting feedback from you people that make podcasts and people who. Two podcasts and we want to find out what you like and what you don't like about individual platforms. That feedback goes back to the podcast platforms apart from Spotify who don't care. But apart from them, uh, it's going back to the podcast platforms. I'm seeing Amazon, I'm seeing Apple, uh, I'm seeing, uh, good friends at, uh, Google, and, um, I've got the right person to send it to at YouTube whether or not they're interested, uh, or not. But, um, you know, apple and uh, Amazon are certainly very, very interested in what you say and this is how you can actually get your feedback back to them. Uh, it takes very, very short amount of time, couple of minutes. Uh, you need to go to pod news.net/report card. I specifically built it so it's really quick and simple to fill in, uh, pod news.net/report card and it'll be super good. If you wouldn't mind, uh, filling that out. And also super good. If you wouldn't mind, um, giving us your support so we can continue making this show, you can become a power supporter@weekly.podnews.net. You can subscribe in Apple Podcast to apple.co/pod news or support us with stats of course, by hitting the boost button in your podcast app. And if you don't have one POD news.net/new podcast apps, we'll help you find a brand new app. Ah, now, what's happening for you this week, Sam? Well, we, we've hinted about it. Uh, the pod news live in Manchester. I'm telling you what the, the Americans are scrambling now on Google Maps to find out where sulfur is. That's for certain, I mean, but you know, it's near Manchester. Yes. Um, , no one's ever heard of Sulfur. Uh, but as we mentioned, the tickets are now live, so please go and look. But I was really excited because yeah, I have had a busy week talking to lots and lots of wonderful people in the podcast industry. Uh, as you said, we also managed this week to get, um, Matt Deagan, Oscar Mary from Fountain Charlotte Newing for Mag Creative. Harry Morton's joining us in London. Jake Chato from Potty Mo. I'm very excitingly. And also Liz Poll from, uh, AKA who's the SVP of marketing there. So they're joining us. I'm imagining a. Or, or something. I am actually, yes. I'm going to going see my friend James Bishop from one fine play. He's got a dozen independent podcasters turning up, and we're gonna be talking about all things podcasting over dinner, over a fine wine as well, maybe. Wow. Um, well, very nice. Are you having a, any lunches or anything like that? Wow. You know, got to keep me going. Um, I'm going for a lovely lunch in Marlow with, uh, Naomi Meller. She's the founder of the International Women's Podcast Awards and they've just renamed their companies now, called Everybody Media, and she's partnered with Rebecca Pennington. So I'm gonna find out more about that, and we might even have Naomi a guest in a couple of weeks time to talk about the publishing awards that she's a judge on. Indeed. Um, and finally, um, pod fans, how's that going then? Uh, well, thankfully it's going well. Thank you, James Fki and, uh, we now have the. Wait list is gonna be open this week. Uh, you will be top of it James, so don't worry. Um, well, you won't be on the wait list. You'll be in. Um, I'm already in. You're already in. Yes. I I'm already getting feedback. It's, please . Yes, I'm getting great feedback. Um, no, we, we, I'm really excited cuz if we've got to the point of having a wait list, it means that everything else is pretty much ready to go and, yeah. So next Monday I will be sending out invites to loads and loads of people. Hopefully they'll come on board and have a play and be gentle and give me some feedback and then we'll announce more of it at. Podcast movement when I'm on stage with the guys from Alby. Excellent. Well, I look forward, uh, to hearing more about that podcast movement evolutions and, uh, that's it for this week. Oh, and you're not, you're not up to anything then? Oh, yes, uh, there is, uh, always that isn't there. Uh, am I up for, up, up to anything? I, I went to a great thing in the center of Brisbane yesterday, um, which was, uh, all about bots on master dawn and bots on other things as well, and bots on Twitter. And it was basically a wake for, um, you know, after Elon Musk b banning all of the bots on, uh, Twitter. Uh, so it was, uh, yeah, it was really good to, um, go and see, um, other folks from the, the master dawn instance that I use. Um, so that was, uh, that was Johnny Good. And, uh, early next week down to Sunny Sydney, uh, to learn more about, um, how the IAB is working here in Australia. So that should be a good, fun thing too. And that's it for this week. You can give us feedback using email to weekly@podnews.net, or send us a booster. Grab me. If your podcast app doesn't support Boost, then what are you doing? Grab a new app from pod news.net/new podcast apps. Yes. Our music is from Studio Dragonfly. Our voiceover is Sheila D, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout Podcast Hosting made easy. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter@podnews.net. Tell your friends and grow the show. And support us and support us. The POD News Weekly review will return next week. Keep listening.
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