The Problem With Podcoin (It's Not The Way To Make Money With Podcasting)

Who doesn't love free money? I get it. I get the idea. This organization, Podcoin, comes up. And the idea is Podcoin will pay you to listen to podcasts. And A, that's kind of fun. B, because Podcoin Lists pays people to listen to podcasts. If you register your podcast with Podcoin, you can now essentially pay your audience to listen to your podcast. Now, this, on one level sounds really interesting, but what I wanted to do today was just kind of examine the realities and the false thinking that Podcoin brings to the Internet game in a new wrapper that's been around for a while now. The first of all, Podcoin, I don't know if this has any relationship with, if this has anything to do with all the cryptocurrency stuff, but the fact of the matter is this is not, as best as I understand it, a crypto play. This is a reward play. This is, you know, and we've seen this before, get money to watch ads, get money to visit websites, get money to read email, that kind of thing. This is that idea. Now, a couple of issues. Number one, if you look at what these coins add up to and you look at what you get paid for is really, really, really small. If you are looking to see a revenue stream or even, you know, beer money from, and I'm talking one beer money from listening to podcasts, this is not the way it's going to happen. But flip side, podcasters who are thinking, hey, someone else is footing the bill, someone else is going to kick people in my direction, you know, why not? What the heck is wrong with it? Well, what you need to do is you need to understand the difference between podcasting and all the other industries that ran. Now, some of you are in the game of I got to get as many downloads as I can because downloads = CPM, CPMs = money, that kind of thing. So if somebody who doesn't care about your podcast in any way, shape or form, download your podcast or plays your podcast, then you're able to tell the right person that you got that download and then you get your, you know, percentage of a penny. But the fact of the matter is, podcasting is a game of service. Podcasting is a game. Dan Sullivan, strategic coach, you know, he says that basically most revenue and most true wealth is coming from understanding who you want to be a hero to. And paying someone who has no desire to watch your podcast or listen to your podcast to watch or listen to your podcast is not being a hero to anyone. Now, yes, sure. Maybe you're in a situation where your audience is the type of audience who goes out trying to figure out how to make money. I mean, if you were a podcast about making money online, you know, I could see something. But the other thing you have to look at is just the automation and the simple process for this. Anyone who's doing this is clicking the button, listen, listening, the amount of time that they have to. To get their credit, and then leaving. We saw this in the YouTube space, and I think it's still going on. I don't know. I just haven't followed that as much. There was a thing where, you know, if I watched five videos, they would send two people to watch one of my videos. And so there were these little apps that would run on the YouTube screen that would play, you know, five seconds of video one, five seconds of video two, five seconds of video three, five seconds of video four, and five seconds of video five, you know, and then 25 seconds later, I would get a viewer for my video. But the problem is that viewer for my video is also only watching five seconds. And it becomes this chain of just ridiculousness that we have to think about and we have to go through. But what's really important, the thing that people forgot, the thing that most people didn't pay attention to, is that let's say I got 500 people to listen to my. Watch my YouTube video for 5 seconds. I've just told YouTube that 500 people only want to watch the first 5 seconds of my show. If you get 500 people to listen to the first 5 seconds of your podcast, so they get that percentage of a penny, you're telling the world that your podcast is not even worth the first five seconds. So conceptually, great. Someone else foots the bill to find new audiences. Someone else foots the bill to make this happen. It's there, but it's not in service to your audience. It's not in being a hero to someone. It's in kind of rigging the system, kind of fixing the system, kind of, you know, yeah, it's just not that good. And then if that's not enough, it's just not true. It's just not real. Now, if you want to poke around the Internet, there are articles from different podcasting prognosticators who have lots of problems with this, but it's the amount that you get paid or the tracking or these types of things, and these are all issues. And I did mention the amount that you get paid. And tracking certainly important, but it just becomes it Must be. It has to become a bigger question of where is your podcasting audience going to come from? Here's the thing. Either you have something for your audience or you don't. Let's take the first one. If you have something for your audience, the word is going to spread. I remember I've chatted about this before in the episode, but it still was a big day for me. Listening to Dave Jackson. Dave Jackson, School of Podcasting Last five and five at First Podcast Movement with Lou Mongello said that David, the last episode he listened to, the last podcast he listened to was the podcast report. I was thrilled. Lou listens to me. It's because I am trying to be a hero to Lou. I'm trying to be a hero today. I'm trying to be a hero to these people. And when you are that, when you serve your audience, when you love your audience, when you give your audience something, the word is going to pass along. You're going to end up on top lists, you are going to be recommended. People are going to give you ratings. And here's the thing, if they're not doing that, maybe it's not them, maybe it's you. Maybe you're not serving them. Maybe you're not giving them something to talk about. Maybe you're not giving them a reason to log on and listen. Call this one the problem with podcoin. The problem with podcoin is it just changes our focus, it changes our reality, it changes our perception, it changes a bunch of things, but it doesn't really change the fundamental issue that you're going to build your audience by serving your audience, by loving your audience, by being a hero to your audience, not by paying random people, you know, a half a cent to listen for a few moments. Even if you're the best person in the world to your audience, what's the chance of that person coming through podcoin and going there? It's not a good idea. I wish the podcoin guys no ill will. And there are certainly maybe in mass market circumstances, you know, pinky in the brain kind of drive time morning radio situations where this might work. But those are not the types who listen to the podcast report. You are desperately trying to serve your audience. And yeah, someone came out there and said, I'll pay to find your audience. It's not that good of an idea. It's not that good of an idea. And I really recommend that you don't go for it. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast report. Thepodcastreport.com, apple, Pandora, slash, Spotify. All those places. Subscribe so that you don't miss an episode. Occasionally I do produce this by jumping out to Facebook like I did today. And those of you who are watching live, hey, thank you so much. Love to hear any comments from you. But also subscribe to the podcast because if we're looking at the Facebook numbers, they're going down, down, down. And the podcast numbers are going up, up, up. And I haven't had to pay a single person to watch my podcast. Thank you so much for listening. We will chat soon. Bye now.