The Podcast Authority Paradox - The Podcast Report Episode #149

Because there's so much confusion, people get frustrated. People don't know what to do, people don't know where to go. I think my biggest pet peeve in this whole space simply comes that when someone's investigating podcasting, they will read two articles and these two articles will say two vastly different things. They'll get confused. So then they'll read two books and they'll say different things and they'll get confused. Or they'll tend attend two sessions at a podcasting event, be it a virtual event, be it a physical event, be it an expensive event, be it a cheap event, and they'll, you know, their mind wants to explode. So what do we do?

It's another bonus episode of the podcast report. You can find everything we're chatting about here@thepodcastreport.com 149thepodcastreport.com 149So two things a the content. I went live on Facebook a week and a half or so ago talking about an idea that I've really been pondering, really been playing with, called the Podcast Paradox. It's the beginning of a way for us to take some of the confusion that is our industry and some of the craziness that is where we've been playing and make some sense out of it. So I went monologue, had some notes, thought it was interesting, got some great feedback. Pretty popular video. If you want to see the video, you can go out to the podcastreport.com149 and I'll link to that. But the second thing I want to do is, and this is a bonus episode. We haven't started the new season yet, and I'm not gonna start the new season on episode 150. But what I'd like to do is this. And I would love your thoughts here.

I would love your help here. I'm 150 episodes into the podcast report.

Many of you have told me this show has helped you, focused you, directed you that kind of thing. If it has, I would love to hear. But what I'd love to do is I'd love to do a bit of a twist on the whole tell me how great I am meme that is so popular with so many podcasters. What I would like is I would like audio video recordings. I guess you can write it out if you want. I'll have somebody read it. But I'd prefer if it was audio or video of something you've learned from the podcast report or something that's made you a better podcaster as a result of the podcast report and share it. Assume the person who's listening to this didn't listen to that episode, didn't, you know, hear what it is that you heard and hasn't yet made the change that you made as a result of the show. And I'd like the format to be really simple. I'd like the format to be, hey, this is X from the so and so show. Give a web address. And what I learned from the podcast report was X and it made me a better podcaster. Y, and here's what I'm doing differently, that kind of thing. And then what we can do is we can have episode 150 be a episode about things that you learned, what you're doing differently, so that others can group. So let's say we get, you know, 12 people who submit something. It'll be 12 tips. It'll be 12 things that you can do to make your podcast better as a result. And gosh darn it, that's what the podcast report's for. So I think that'd be pretty cool. So if you head out to thepodcastreport.com149, there's a comment section there, link to whatever you did. If it was a YouTube video or an audio recording or episode of your podcast or whatever it is, just link to it there. I'll have the editor put all that together. We'll do that with episode 150 and that should be fine. So let's get to the audio from my Facebook Live recording. Again, the podcastreport.com 149 for all the links. I think we're good. Enjoy this bonus. Episode 150 will be the what we all learned from this and 151will be the start of the new season. Chat with you soon. Thank you so much. Love to hear how this helped. Bye.

Today I want to chat about the authority paradox. And the authority paradox is simply this. Because nobody owns podcasting, everyone acts like they do. Because nobody owns podcasting, everybody acts like they do. Now, this is important. At the very beginning, some of us nerds realize this. Some of us play in this space. But the fact of the matter is there is no central authority for podcasting. Nobody owns it. It's not like Microsoft owns it or Google owns it or Apple owns it or that type of thing. The podcasting tech was designed, birthed originally by Dave Weiner and Adam Curry. And different people have done different things with. But one of the things they've done, and this is what has led and allowed to its explosive growth is they've let kind of. They've let people kind of pave their own way and do their own thing. And this has let us do great things with podcasting. This has allowed for the explosive growth. In many way, it kind of parallels the whole Internet. Nobody really owns the Internet. There's some technical legal issues maybe where that one isn't as huge, but the fact of the matter is nobody really owns it, which means different people have come in, sometimes ignorantly, sometimes deviously, sometimes strategically acting like they own it. They begin to say things like show notes must be a certain way, Feeds must be a certain way, audio must be encoded a certain way. This platform must be the one that's used. Interesting stuff. Another thing that happens is you can have different leads, you can have different feeds for different platforms. Some people think that's good, some people think that's bad. Google has come up and Google has announced, in the grand scheme of things that, oh, look at that, my Google voice just went off. As I said that the G O o G L E has come out and changed some things. And as a result, even things that we thought we were doing correctly for Google aren't necessarily going, you know, aren't done correctly. It's. It's a mess. There's an entire industry right now that wants apps to report back. Some of the very things that got us excited about podcasting in the beginning days are some of the things that are now becoming very annoying. You know, Apple announced last year that their app is going to allow people to. Not going to allow, is going to report back how long people listen, you know, whether or not they're subscribed, that type of thing, Very, very power for the podcaster, but for an industry that once prided itself on content that we couldn't get those things and build strategies for that, now Apple's doing it. Now other firms are coming up and there's this whole standard where, you know, people are wanting everybody to report back for the ads that are out there. And again, because nobody's in charge, everybody's acting like there's charge. There are some systems out there. There are platforms that when you record using what feels like a tool, they exclusive ownership. They claim the ability to own everything and then they claim they don't really want that, but that's what's in their legal stuff. There's a ton of confusion. Because there's so much confusion, people get frustrated. People don't know what to do, people don't know where to go. I think My biggest pet peeve in this whole space simply comes that when someone's investigating podcasting, they will read two articles, and these two articles will say two vastly different things. They'll get confused. So then they'll read two bucks and they'll say different things, and they'll get confused. Or they'll attend two sessions at a podcasting event, be it a virtual event, be it a physical event, be it an expensive event, be it a cheap event, and they'll, you know, their mind wants to explode. So what do we do? Circumstantial, but I think telling. I reached out on a past episode of the podcast report. You can go back and listen to it if you want. I mentioned that there was a podcast app that seemed to have some real problems understanding their space in the game. And whenever I reach out, I try. Whenever I say anything about a company, pro or con, if they want to reach out, I respond to them. I go to them. I got on the phone with the CEO, seemingly very smart guy. I mean, he raised a bunch of money, but he asked me, and I quote, he said, is itunes really that important now? Is itunes going to win? Who knows? Is itunes overstepping their boundaries? Some might say so, but the question is itunes really that important? Is a question of great ignorance for a space that almost terrifying that someone got that much money to play in that space, not even knowing who the real player is. And then it goes back to. Because Apple doesn't own podcasting. I think there's a bit of arrogance where the person came in and said, well, we'll own it, we'll take it over. And they're gone. I think. I don't know. I'm not making any sort of impression.

Depression.

Did they study? Did they do any research? I don't know. I think it's important to realize the playground that you're playing in, at the very least, and we can chat about that. Another client comes to me because he has been locked out of his podcast platform and he wanted to move it. And that podcast platform was in a situation where that podcast platform wasn't able to change, wasn't able to move the feed. He wanted to know what to do. The company was going out of business. They were giving him reporting that I really believe was the best reporting they could give him, but they were giving him numbers that weren't real because they weren't really following standards for podcast downloads. It was one of these companies who kind of jumped on the podcast bandwagon and provided something. And so they're Telling this guy he's a great hit. He doesn't know if he's a great hit. The only way he can know he's a great hit is if he moves. But the organization that he's with won't let him move and eventually ended up trashing the podcast. And we'll never know. The stats were questionable, but again, because there's no standards, the stats they were reporting maybe were just as relevant as the stats that others were reporting. Something to think about. So we have this situation where nobody owns it. Everybody acts like they do. Lots of stories. Let's chat about the bad, let's chat about the good. Let's chat about the take home. And I'm going bad, good. Because, you know, we'll start with the bad and then I want to get to the good stuff because there is some really good stuff here. The bad about there here is because there is no authority. There are a lot of rogues in the podcasting space. There are a lot of rogues. There are people who are doing things that are doing you damage, that are doing the industry damage. Some are doing it intentionally, some are doing it unintentionally. Some are doing it as an indirect result of what they're doing. And we've got a big mess. And that has to be fixed. And that has to be understood. I had a client who had a fantastic launch. He went on a show of someone with great authority, at least by many people in the industry. He told them what he did. The host, my client told him what he did. The host told him what he did wrong. My client actually did a really good job of defending me and didn't even call me out by name in case it went bad. It was a really interesting situation. And then the host of the show said maybe and realized maybe there was some logic there. And it was a really interesting experience to consume this episode. But at the end, what happened was this host went back to preaching this wrong stuff. And again, because I am no more an owner of this than he is, we have this mess out there. So the bad, no authority. A lot of rogues, intentionally, unintentionally, purposely, unpurposefully, whatever the right term is. But the good to this, and this is important, the good to this, and this is massive. We have an awesome chance in podcasting to pave our own way. Yeah, the microphone that I'm using to record this live stream on Facebook, that will eventually become an episode of the podcast report. There are many gurus who will tell me I'm doing it. Wrong, don't care. I'm paving my own way here. There are many who have said that a certain way is wrong or certain way isn't right, or truly isn't podcasting or that kind of thing. In the meantime, because I got up early this morning, I'm able to get an extra episode out, serve my audience a little bit better, begin to create some content for a larger project. There's very little in place that can prove you wrong if you pave your own way in podcasting, and I want you to do that, and I think everybody should do that. The take home here, and this is key, is you own podcasting as much as anyone else does. So claim your ownership of it and make it work for you and your organization. If someone tells you something is lost, something is true, examine it, see if it works. See if it makes sense for what you're doing. If it does work, if it does make sense for what you're doing, go ahead, great, do it. If you need to do something different, go ahead and do that as well. You own it. Make your mark. Claim your ownership. The one strategy that I'd really play with this is just simply do strategically and intelligently, play nice with the big boys. I spoke earlier to the person who said, does itunes really matter? Yes, itunes really matters, at least right now at this time. And if you make your mark while playing strategically with others, you'll get in a really interesting combination that will do really well for you. So, yes, everybody acts like they own it. Nobody does. But you got as much right as anybody else. So I want you to do great things with it. Embrace the stuff that works for you. Ignore the stuff that doesn't. Play nice with the big boys, and you will go far in podcasting. Thank you so much. We'll chat again. Bye.