Coming Google Play with Podcasts - New Media Show

I'm gonna start the recording here. It's hard to know sometimes when you're actually live and when you're not, but I'm gonna restart here. This is the New Media Show on Saturday. Todd is out traveling today, so I had to do it here on Blab since we run that show through his studio in Hawaii. So the theme of what we were hoping to talk about here was Talking about the Google announcement that they're going to add podcasts to the Google Play Music platform. There's still a lot of questions about exactly what's going to happen with that, but we shall see what's going to, you know, when that's going to roll out. I've been adding podcasts to the catalog. It's actually a public thing right now. You can actually get in and, and actually add your podcast right now if you wanted to. So, so that would be probably a great thing to do if you're a podcaster today. What's interesting about what they're doing, though, and hopefully we'll get another guest in here that we can have a conversation but is that they're going to be hosting all of those files. So let's go ahead. I think we have Walter Pedersen who joined the Blab here. I don't know if he's going to come on in and we can talk about the whole coming Google Play with podcasts, but they are gonna host all the files. So they're going to create this situation that seems to be spreading across even Spotify and other folks. Even the iHeartRadio folks do this as well, is where they're re-hosting the podcasts. So it's— it does kind of create this situation where there's kind of not clear lines of how we're going to actually be able to control the distribution of our show. That seems to be getting parsed out by a lot of the big players in the space right now. Everybody wants to be in control of the hosting of the files, and that is going to present some technical issues. And really around a lot of the companies in this space wanting to, to do dynamic insertion of advertising. Now Google is starting to, it sounds like, kind of address those issues. They're going to basically make it possible for you to re-ping the server looking for an updated audio file, but you have to change the file name in order to make that work. You can't just update the same file name. So you're going to have to, if you do any dynamic insertion of advertising, which a lot of the large podcasts kind of networks and platforms are moving towards, is to change out that file name's address. Now, that's going to require some custom coding on the back end of the network to be able to adjust the metrics on their end to be able to keep track of all these variants of files as those dynamic insertions happen. I don't believe that the Spotify folks are doing that, and I know that the other platforms out there are not actually supporting the ability to update the audio files in these redistribution platforms. So I guess I have an open seat. So if somebody wants to chime in here and we can talk about a little bit, if you're a podcaster and you want to talk about what's happening with the with Blab, or not with Blab, but with Google and their podcast initiative that they just launched here, that would be fantastic. I can share a little bit more information on there. Google is also going to come out with a new namespace, and that is similar to what iTunes has done or Apple has done with a namespace very early on in the space where they have unique tags that ideally need to be supported in your feeds. And the truth of the matter is, is not all of the hosting platforms currently do that yet, but it's creating this kind of this battle over namespace again, which we've been through this a little bit before. Yahoo, back in the early days of podcasting, launched a, it's called Media RSS, back in the early days of podcasting. So we had this struggle that was happening to support all of the necessary tags in our feeds to work with all these various platforms. And so what I think may be starting to happen here is we may start seeing the need for platforms to generate unique RSS feeds for each one of these platforms. It kind of depends on what the, what the monetization strategies are to actually do that. So we'll see how that kind of rolls out. I'd like to invite some folks to join me here, and let's see if I can do that. Let me see if I can bring in— can you join me? Let me send a tweet out to podcast. Helper, Ray Ortega, who said he was potentially going to come in and join us on this Blab. So it is live now. So let's see here. All right. All right, that tweet came out. So hopefully we'll get Ray Ortega to jump in here and join us and talk a bit more about this as well. But this whole new namespace issue is going to cause a lot of companies to think about creating, like I was saying earlier, a unique feed just for Google, just to support this. Because what we're going to run into is these RSS feeds are going to be so crowded with namespace tags, that it's going to be very, very confusing and difficult. And I believe that there's probably a chance that Google is going to want to get into the advertising business since they are an advertising company. So it's— that's going to create a situation where you may need to publish episodes that do not have dynamically inserted advertising in in those episodes that then Google can wrap with their own more what's considered kind of programmatic advertising. So we may see this kind of bifurcation of platforms being able to insert advertising into podcasts. Now granted, podcasting is basically mostly host reads today. I think we have Ray Ortega joining us here. I sent him an invite. I, I kind of started it and didn't, didn't send him an invite, but it looks like he's, uh, coming in. Um, let's see here. Let's give him some props for joining us, and hopefully he'll be able to come in here. Oh yeah, here's Ray. Ray, can you hear me?

Hey, do you hear me, Rob?

Yeah.

All right, hold on, let me get this camera situation. I'm not sure why the other camera won't come on, so that doesn't make sense. I might have to go out and come back in.

Okay, that's fine. But the, the whole advertising side of things, um, could get really, really complex and really, really fascinating, because if all these different platforms want to insert their, their own advertising as part of their own network, then we're going to have to get into much more complex kind of advertising relationships in here. It looks like we have Tahir who just called in.

Hello?

Hello? Tahir, can you hear me? You're joining a blab here talking about the coming Google Play with podcasts as part of the New Media Show here. Tahir, can you hear me? No. Yeah, I think your connection is kind of—

Hey, Dale.

Okay. It's not coming in too well here. How are you? Hey, Ray. So yeah, I can't— Tahir, I can't hear you, so I'm gonna drop you off the call, okay? Let me, uh, let's see if I can do that here. Okay, here we go.

It gets tricky with the, uh, the public. I find that if it's best to— if they're like someone— I don't know if he's been chatting for a little while. Yeah, otherwise you get the public drops in, they don't even know what they're dropping into.

Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, so it's just like this still image there and you can't hear anybody. It's like, yeah. So, so anyway, I was starting to talk about, um, kind of what was happening with the Google Play thing, um, I talked about being able to add your podcast and that's all open now. And it's really kind of at the beginning stages of what Google is trying to accomplish here. But I kind of left off talking about the whole need to add this whole namespace to your podcast feed to support Google's effort to come in and take over the space. They're kind of doing exactly what Apple did in the early days. Was create your own namespace.

And what do you mean by namespace?

Well, Google has published their own spec for a new namespace for podcasting, not unlike what Apple iTunes has. You know, they have the iTunes tags.

So you're talking about the tags?

Tags in the feed.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, as Pro as I should be. Unfortunately, namespace, I don't even— I don't know what that means exactly.

Oh, okay. Well, it's, it's more of a— it's a term that describes a set of tags that need to be added to your, your XML spec.

Right.

And, and Apple's had that for a long time. Yahoo published one called Media RSS back in the early days of podcasting in an effort to do this as well. And then now Google has announced their own set of tags and what, what folks like Ellipsen and some of the bigger hosting platforms, I believe, are going to start moving towards creating unique RSS feeds just for Google. Yeah, this is getting— I mean, trying to add another namespace to your feed, it's just going to make that feed just a mess.

So you know what I'm noticing too, that Feed Validator is having issues. Like, as I know that now Blueberry has the new tags, they're in there. If you update to the most recent, which you should do, I think, uh, Lipson has its own, uh, it also has its own destination, they call it. So it is split off to its own sort of—

yep, special feed.

But go validate your feed. I'm seeing a lot of problems, and it's saying like you'll get warnings like there's two images in there. Like, Feed Validator has no clue that apparently that this has happened. I don't think— I use also use castfeedvalidator.com, I believe, and I think it runs off of Feed Validator as well, but I'm not getting the same errors.

So I mean, yeah, that's what happens, uh, oftentimes, you know, with a new namespace, uh, is that it's not all the, the validators. And, and who knows, maybe even FeedBurner doesn't even work with it. Who knows?

Yeah, that's Yeah, that's, you know, and that would be— wouldn't that be funny? Because since it's their product, right, it's Google product, and then they'd be forced to actually do something to it.

Well, you know, you never know. That may be—

that might be the final death, uh, the final straw in FeedBurner's—

or, or it's going to force them to actually have to, have to update it, develop it.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, gosh, you can't— I mean, you can't cut that off. There's so many blogs run on FeedBurner, right? We're not talking about even podcasts. I mean, podcasts alone, but blogs, I can't imagine that would crush the blog world.

Oh yeah, definitely. And I think— I don't think Google is going to shut it down. I know that there's been a lot of speculation about that over the years, that Google's going to shut it down. But like you just said, it's just too— it's too integrated with so many layers in the syndication of content out there right now that Google would be really kind of shooting themselves in the head. It's not like the same thing of shutting down like a the Google Reader platform, which is basically just a service that, you know, people can use alternative platforms. FeedBurner, there really isn't a valid alternative, and when they shut that down, they're going to have to help people migrate to something else. And the problem is that I don't believe there is anything to migrate through to.

Yeah, not free at least.

Yeah, well, that, that, that too. And in some ways you don't you probably wouldn't wanna move to another free service that didn't have the resources that Google has because it might go out of business at some point. So you probably do wanna pay for something like that to keep it alive. But it certainly has created kind of a stir in the podcast community, the whole Google thing. Of course, we've been all harping at Google for a long time, support podcasts, support podcasts, for forever. But I'm just curious what you think. What was the catalyst that you think that put it over the hump with them? I've got a couple of ideas, but I'm just curious what you think.

I mean, you know, if you look at what they said, would they say something like— I mean, he basically said that— so Rob Greenlee has an interview with one of the product managers for Google Play Music.

Yeah.

So, you know, sort of straight from the horse's mouth there. But he talks about— he doesn't really say too much about why, but basically they saw that it's it's time to get involved, right? I mean, I don't know if did they just wanna wait until they were sure they could build something into it or, you know, did podcasting need to be at a certain level? I don't know. I mean, they've played in the space before, right? So you probably have a better idea of like what's the real underlying reason. I mean, did they think we can finally monetize this thing? 'Cause they say they're not gonna monetize, but if you look at the terms of service, It's in there to be open, and why wouldn't you? I mean, I know they want to host— they're ingesting the media, right? So they're going to host the media, not in a way that a podcaster can use it for a media host, but they're going to host it for themselves. And of those, why would you do that? I mean, analytics, ad insertion, and, and I mean, they, they wouldn't have to— if they didn't host it themselves, they wouldn't have to worry about delivering it. So I mean, they're taking on a like YouTube, which, you know, they see how they make money on YouTube is insane because of what's the stat, like there's 100 hours uploaded every minute or something like that. Right. And so podcast, no, no big deal compared to YouTube. So yeah, I mean, if ads is the play, I mean, they have such a huge opportunity, I think. I mean, I kind of, I didn't, I wanted to save it. I wanted them to bring me into Google and talk to me about it. Cause I mean, with search, And I mean, ads, they, they could do a lot with podcasts, I think, if they know kind of what they're doing with it.

Well, I think that the, there, the, there's two big reasons why I think you're seeing Google jump in right now. And I think it's, it, it dovetails with what their, their core business is, is they're an advertising business. I mean, that's what drives all the revenue of the company. And, and we have seen a, a huge spike in the recognition and the acceptance that podcasts are a viable advertising medium. So Google has played in radio. They had a failed effort back in, you know, back 5 or 6 years ago of trying to get into selling remnant radio inventory. That completely failed. And so now I think that they're seeing a lot more economic activity. Radio is starting to acquire podcast companies, you know, Midroll and PodcastOne doing deals with radio companies, and they're starting to see this, a real advertising business starting to come together. And I think they feel like maybe there's an opportunity there because the radio business is, you know, a multi, multi-billion dollar advertising business. So you can see where Google might wake up and say, well, we need to get on this now So we can maybe get in the middle of some of this stuff. And just the fact that they came out with their own namespace kind of points to that. And I believe that they're going to encourage platforms to generate unique feeds for them for that purpose also would be maybe, maybe. And I was talking about this earlier in the, in the blab here was Google may want to insert dynamically insert spots into, into your show and do a rev share with you. And one way for them to do that would be to, to get an episode that doesn't have any dynamically inserted advertising in it and do that for you, right? Yeah. But, you know, it's still a little early for that, but, but I think it's, it's, it's possible. And then the other part to it is, is that If Google wants to keep growing Android, they need to be more competitive with Apple. And Apple has been sifting away users pretty fast here over the last year. And I think they felt like they needed to have a platform that had all the same capabilities and features and content that Apple has to be able to—

You're saying that Android is— we've seen a lot of Android go to Apple, right?

Correct.

Android users, yeah, there's some crazy number. And I mean, they know this because there's an app that says, hey, take my Android stuff and put it on this iPhone. So that's just the people that actually use that app. They can tell who transferred over. But you know, when it comes to the dynamic ad insertion stuff, I mean, it's, it's both exciting and, and not. So a lot of people are excited about it, um, and a lot of people are worried about it. Now you already do this if you distribute to Stitcher. They put in pre pre-rolls, post-rolls. I mean, you know, and they could be— you know, I'm a YouTube creator, uh, partner, whatever you want to call it. Like, I make money on YouTube based on their ads, um, and I really have enjoyed that program. I actually— I'm— I think YouTube Red is pretty cool, um, which I may actually want to buy into YouTube Red. We'll see. But it's interesting, um, I haven't had to opt in yet, probably because I'm not a big enough partner, but I'm sure they'll get to everyone at some point. But I mean, people should expect that to happen and people are freaking out about it. But if you're on Stitcher, you already do this. Stitcher not only re-encodes— Randy Cantrell, he says in the chat room, will Google re-encode the feed? They'll re-encode your audio files. To what level, we don't know. I'm hoping that it's not as low as Stitcher because Stitcher is 32 kilobits per second. It really does change the sound of your audio. I always say that most people— I won't listen there. Most people who listen there, they obviously don't care because they're listening there. They'd listen somewhere else, right? So as a producer, you want to be on the platform. You don't have to use it to consume if that bugs you. Um, so I use something else, right? But, you know, as long as— you know what, Ustream— if you— Ustream back in the day was what everyone used to live stream, right? And then they went to inserting ads, but because it was live, they would literally interrupt your live stream, give your ad, and then come back, and you missed part of the content. So I guess at least— yeah, I mean, oh, it didn't pause it, and then it did not pause the stream. It's just— how about shoot yourself in the foot more?

That's awesome.

I didn't touch your stream after that. It's crazy.

I gotta say hi to Rob. Oh my God. Well, hi to you too, Ray, but I actually never been—

it's all right. Hey, well, thanks for, for calling in and jumping in. Have you gotten, gotten your podcast into the, the Google Play?

I actually blabbed about this already, did a blog post, the whole bit. It was so funny listening to Cliff Ravenscraft's show because he was saying the same words that I said. Google embraces podcasting. That's the title of my blab and my video and my blog post.

I know, it's amazing, isn't it?

For now.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, Seen them give up before. They, they, Google loves to start stuff and stop stuff.

This is true. I honestly think that part of it, and I don't know if you saw me type it into the chat, has to do with Spotify. And I know there's a huge thing between Google, Apple, and Amazon.

Okay.

We all know those are the big guys, but I think that Google might've got a little jealous about Spotify getting into the game.

Oh yeah, so they don't have to be jealous because Spotify is 1 million percent gonna drop that ball. It's garbage. Spotify got all the attention and then what happened? What do you— have you seen a podcast? They're there technically. I mean, Spotify did it. I think less— Google seems not like a company that's gonna worry or get jealous very much. Spotify, on the other hand, like, we need to do this thing. They did it because they felt like they needed to do it, but then it's like they bolted it on the side and said, okay, that's done. Like, I don't— they, they just let it out to hang to dry. They're just leaving it out there. I don't know. I, I'm not excited about Spotify anymore because it doesn't appear that Spotify is very excited about it. Their integration has been terrible, and they took the buzz they had and sort of threw it in the Waste can. I mean, can they get— can they make it okay? Maybe. But let's just see Pandora come in the game and do it right. That's what I say.

Yeah, what I meant by that, right? But yeah, you're right. But what I meant by that was I think that they saw that people got excited about it, you know? Like, they may have all— they know that podcasting is the thing now that everybody's doing, but it was getting this attention And then, you know, they probably were working on it, you know, 'cause they had said that they were working on something months ago, but this was just like, okay, we're gonna do it now. And the attention is definitely, like you said, is not even on Spotify. Maybe Pandora will do something, maybe they won't. And I'm really curious to see how this sort of recommendation thing is gonna happen, where they're gonna recommend content to you.

Now that's where they're like Spotify. So Spotify also wants to do this, sort of use their algorithm like Pandora. So Spotify switched to a Pandora-type model where they're going to introduce you to stuff. That's why, you know, I listen to Pandora if I just want to set it and forget it, and Spotify if you want to do very specific. But Google seems to be really bent— if you listen to that conversation with him and Rob, it is 100% this guy wants to get the message across that we want to get podcasts in front of people who aren't listening to podcasts, they don't know how cool they are, and at the right time. So they're searching for one thing, and I guess it will show you— he actually explains it a little more somewhere else. I don't know if it's an interview about how that will work.

They brought Sonza, and I was really liking Sonza for a while there. You guys remember that?

Well, the guy that's, that's, that's leading this podcast effort is one of the guys from Sonza. Yeah.

Songs Up was kind of one of those apps that you just said, okay, I'm gonna listen to jazz. Okay, I'm working out, I want to listen to this kind of music. And then it would recommend you— there would be playlists in there and you could follow other people's already pre-existing playlists. And just like the other ones, you can skip until you skip too many, then you can't skip anymore kind of thing. But Songs Up was a really cool cool app. And for somehow I just got a little disinterested in it after Google bought it. But I don't think they changed it one bit. But I guess they really wanted that talent. Yeah, that's why they, they purchased Sonza, because they wanted that talent. So see, it's kind of been in the works for a while, and that's why I'm thinking it's the timing may have been around the same time that stuff was going on with Spotify. But that part is neither here nor there. I'm just really So excited that this is happening because one thing that we do know is that Google knows how to do search right.

Yeah.

So those shows that, you know, have been podfaded for 5 and 6 years that are showing up at the top of Apple searches or iTunes searches, you don't have to worry about them because those guys aren't even going to be submitting, first of all. I don't have a big problem with that because you personally, I can understand, but I, I think some—

no, no, but here's the problem. If you have a problem with it, it means you're just not doing a good enough job. No offense, because those are still— they're showing up in the top iTunes for a reason. They're still more popular than your stuff. People are still consuming it. It's not dead stuff that just sits there for no reason. It's because people are subscribing to it, they're watching it. So like You need to work harder to get above that. If you can't beat a dead podcast, up your game, man.

It's kind of, um, you know, kind of like cause and effect kind of thing. Like, what came first? I mean, because those shows are showing up first, people are subscribing, and it may not be until they listen to them, they're like, wait a minute, this podcast is 8 years old.

Yeah, yeah, it's just a nice bar to aim for.

Yeah, you know, but we'll see. We'll see.

I just think it's gonna change the whole game because I'm more, I'm more excited that we can now answer the question, is a native app the reason Android people aren't listening? Right? So in a year or two, we're gonna have data and then we're gonna say that Android listeners aren't listening that much more cuz it's not gonna be a gold rush. None of that, no single tech that we do is a gold rush. It's a slow march towards being right up there with radio and TV. Right? So, Like, we can at least say, oh hey, the native app, more people are finding podcasts, that's awesome. What's left, right? But we can answer that one question, I hope, and push it out of the way.

Well, and I think that, you know, a lot of the, the, the reasoning that people used for why podcasts weren't consumed as much on Android was for the simple reason that, well, we thought it was a different demographic, or the phones weren't capable enough, or, or people, people that bought Android phones just didn't want to consume media, or they didn't have enough data points. —That's what we'll find out. You're exactly right. I think that that may be a misconception because I think what you're seeing in the smartphone business is that all these phones that people are buying now are all fairly equally capable. So really the only difference is, well, what's the user experience for getting podcasts on that device? And then are those users spending less money, which means that they're getting less data plans, right? If that's the case, then maybe they're not consuming enough data. But I believe over time that's gonna get fixed because from what I'm seeing there, these cellular networks are starting to do rollovers now. So any unused data gets rolled over and you can use it the next month. So I think that, and data is gonna become cheaper over time, though you're still gonna be paying a lot, but you're just gonna get more data for the same dollar. And those problems are gonna get fixed. So I guess, What it comes down to is what's the timing on that, and then how long is it going to take for us to move to the next level with Android users?

I'm also curious in the demographic question, right? I mean, you've got Android devices, which tend to be given out free like candy when you go to a cell phone store. So it's just the phone you get. You might not be there, you know, and iPhone, it does take a little bit, you got to spend a little bit more. So why are you buying an iPhone versus why you ended up with an Android? I mean, that's not the only reason, but I'm curious about those questions as well. So it'll help, it'll help answer some of that too. At least it'll, like I said, it'll move one question out of the way. The native app. It's like, well, we don't have a native app, so that's why people aren't consuming. Well, we will. And I don't know how long it takes for the data to, you know, to be statistically significant so we can say, hey, a native app has driven things. I mean, look at the native app on iOS. I mean, that app is used a ton. And however, when it announced that Apple and iTunes was gonna break out podcast into their own app, it was gonna be on the iPhone. You can't take it away. Again, everyone thought this is the gold rush, man. Here it comes. Right. But it wasn't a massive flood. However, I believe the stats do show that I think that that app gets used more than any other app for consumption of podcasts. So it has done something. Yeah.

So we got a question comment in here from Camari who asks, Camari, yeah, isn't Apple creating a native Android app? And I think that's an interesting question. There's been a rumor of that for a while now that Apple may be—

Native is probably the wrong, is probably not the right word.

Well, it's not correct, but I get what you're trying to say.

Yes, an app, they're making an app.

Is to push their, their Apple experience over on the Android platform. If you— and I felt this way for a while— that if you look at the analogy of what Apple did with iTunes with Windows, I think you can certainly see an analogy there. And then there has been an announcement that Apple's going to push out their, their music service over to Android.

So wait, visit that one that you went right over, because you were at Microsoft, I imagine, when iTunes probably came to Windows, right? I wasn't—

that actually came, came to Windows, um, really early, uh, like back in 2005.

You're on the inside of Microsoft. So what did you— how do you guys perceive having Apple software? Especially you were in the Zoom— you're in the Zoom podcast team. You were the head of the Zoom podcast team. So what— how was that for you guys to have that Apple iTunes? It's sort of playing against it. You guys were kind of up against that software, right?

Well, it actually put us in a situation where we felt like we didn't, we couldn't really compete on our own platform is what it did. Because the iTunes platform was so big at that time and continues to be that it was always like, you know, any client application that we build for Windows has got to be better than iTunes and has to have more content and has to be more and more and more. The problem is, is getting that done. It's not as easy as people think it is to, to get content into a platform like that, from TV shows to movies to podcasts. And the problem is, is that the economics weren't, weren't as strong as what's going on in iTunes because iTunes was taking 90% of the market. You know, they were, they were dominating everything. So it really took a significant risk on the part of the company to say, well, we're going to invest in content, we're going to spend you know, half a billion dollars in building Zoom and building this platform to compete with Apple when Apple's got 90% of the market share. Well, what's the opportunity there then?

Uh, opportunity was they, they could, they should be number 2 right now.

And I say something, but they were for many years. Uh, Zoom was the, the number 2 platform. Still be.

Well, yeah, I don't know about that, actually.

Say something about, Ray, what you were talking about, about just for a short period of time.

About the podcast app. Okay, I have Android phone, but I decided to get an iPhone because I wanted to make sure that I could be on top of all these apps that are coming out. So I still have my Android, and that's how I really listen to podcasts when I'm listening on mobile, my Android. Okay, but on— remember, with iPhone, you have to have the podcast app, right? You can't get rid of it. So even if I do listen on my iPhone, I don't listen on the podcast app, even though all those podcasts are being downloaded because I subscribed to probably 150 podcasts or more.

That's actually more than I do.

I remember back in 2006, '07, if you looked at my podcatcher, it was like that.

Now it's a much more sane number of podcasts, you know, but so they're still being downloaded.

Well, even though I—

yeah, but you're not listening.

Make sure that's not happening.

I mean, well, yeah, if you're doing it in Apple, they'll probably stop the automatic downloads.

Yeah, if you don't listen, they stop after a little while. But I mean, yeah, I don't consume on the podcast app, but I mean, like, individual stories don't matter much. The massive numbers— I mean, there are obviously studies about who consumes.

What my point was, I think that what's really going to be the factor is what features is Google going to build into their app? Because people are, you know, people that are on Android that are already listening to podcasts, they're going to want to stick with their app.

Well, that's the thing. Well, that's the thing is I don't think that didn't happen on iTunes. I think, I don't know what the numbers are, but I'm pretty sure the podcast app is the dominant app for listening to podcasts. And so that is not very old and everybody was listening to podcasts on their phone already when Apple came out with that. I didn't change. A lot of people, you know, I have Pocket Cast. I love Pocket Cast. Why would I change? Apple didn't offer me anything. No. Yeah, anything new. I checked it out, but for some reason it still dominates. So a lot of people did change. I doubt that's all new numbers. So, you know, and they didn't offer anything new.

So yeah, I don't think that it's going to cause anybody to, to probably go over and stop using the app that they're using today to go use the the Google Play app. I think what, what more than likely will happen is they're going to capture new users that aren't currently using podcasts.

They put cool enough features in there and you also can discover podcasts quick, easy, and more efficiently, then I think it may get some folks. I mean, you gotta pay for—

we get Player FM and Overcast is Overcast came out, it offered unique features. Now he just recently made it free because guess what? People weren't paying. He had a lot of awesome features, Marco did, but people weren't paying for them. So they weren't— he's working really hard, you know, 90% of what the cool stuff that Overcast could do, people weren't using because you had to pay for it. But now he's opened it up free. I think more people are going to go to Overcast. But, you know, I don't know that there will be this flood. So it's kind of like, yeah, you've got some unique features, you'll pick up some people. Like, I think the biggest thing is, is that new, the new people is what you'll get. But again, how did the iTunes podcast app become so dominant? Is that all from new people? It seems unlikely. It seems like that there must've been several people. I mean, at least two that moved over. Just two.

Two people.

I got to run, but this is a great conversation, so I'm still gonna listen.

Okay, all right.

See you, Eileen.

All right, Eileen. Talk with you guys later. We gotta revisit this. Okay, thanks. Thanks.

The bottom line is, this is all we were having fun. But Google is going to bring podcasts, that's all I really care about, right? It's fun to talk about all this stuff and what will happen. But, you know, this, this just is, we need this, like, anytime our medium extends somewhere else, that's a good thing, right? I mean, we've seen a lot of players come and go. So we'll hope that they'll be dedicated to it. And you know, and you know what I'm actually really hoping? I'm hoping this makes Apple be like, ooh, I guess let's, let's ramp it up here, right? Because that competition— they'll actually see Google, I maybe, as some real competition in this space.

So I agree with you. I think that that's the, that's the great thing about this, is that Apple's been way too dominant in our medium, and we've been way too reliant on them for our success. It's, it's definitely great to see alternatives in the space because it's going to keep, um, Apple honest about this stuff, maybe even reinvesting and doing some—

which, which I think they have been doing over the last year. And I'm sure they know, knew this was coming, but Apple does seem to have, you know, with the podcast app and a few other, other things, you know, I'm seeing Apple turn back to podcasts and giving it a little bit more attention. So that's a good thing, but hopefully this will drive even more. The real question, Rob, is how will I get in New and Noteworthy Google Play Music.

I don't think there's going to be a new noteworthy in Google Play Music.

They're going to hear about that in the next— the impression is, how do you get featured?

Well, for one thing, I'm not sure that they're even going to do featured. Um, so I think they'll probably be lists by, by genre, but I believe that their, their big push is going to be like what they did with, uh, Songza, which is going to be creating curated playlists and some automation or personalization, I think, is the direction that a lot of the platforms are gonna start going more towards. I believe that's maybe what's next for Apple as well, is trying to—

We talked about that a long time ago.

Blend this, yeah, blend this concept of trying to create a little bit more of a lean-back experience. So you have this kind of the ability to create like your own little personal radio station of sorts. That will play when you're in the car. So as you start thinking about usability and simplicity, I think a lot of folks have been thinking that that's one of the big things that's holding podcasting back and reaching the other 250 million people in the US that are currently not listening to podcasts is because they're still listening to radio. And radio is more of a lean-back experience. Granted, I think we need to bridge this divide between true lean back and in control lean back, which is kind of how I like to kind of designate it out, which is be, let's help the user generate their own playlists of shows, to generate their own channel, their own personal radio station that has some automation and capabilities that that station knows more about you and what you like and what you tend to listen to and can maybe make little suggestions to you, but you primarily listen to your own playlist of shows. As those episodes come out, the system knows where you are, you're in the car or you're doing something, and it can suggest to you that, well, this episode just came out of one of your favorite podcasts. Maybe you have a ranking list based on the algorithm. It's this contextual personalization that I've been talking about for probably a good year now is I think that's what's coming, 'cause we're all gonna get our own little smart personal agents. You know, you think about Siri, you think about Cortana, you think about the Android Now platform, and those are going to get integrated into the operating system to be able to help you solve problems. Right. But that's also going to look at your calendar. It's going to look at what you're doing and it's going to look at your podcasts, your podcast consumption patterns, and it's going to figure out the best way to meet your needs. And somewhere along the line, there's going to need to be this curation part that's human slash, you know, automation slash that's going to suggest new things that are going to come out to you that you're likely going to have some interest in or maybe even sample.

Yeah, I mean, I don't feel personally in my own consumption, I don't feel the desire to have new things shoved in front of me. But that said, here's what I'll say. That's probably not true. That's how I feel on the surface. But if I think back, my favorite way to discover new shows, and no one's ever done this better, and the problem is screen real estate, is iTunes. When I started listening to podcasts, below every podcast I would check out, it would give me 4 or 5 things that people who are listening to this are also listening to this. And that's how I ended up with 105 podcasts in my podcatcher because I'd be like, Yes, I do. I thank you for— I— so shows I would have never found, I just wouldn't have found them. So no one's recreated this very, very basic engine, uh, that I thought worked really well, uh, because, you know, in the app— but you could do it, I hope, you know. So if it— if it's anything, you know, it's going to be probably much more than that. So in that way, I can see, you know, being resistant at first, but if it starts showing me stuff where I was like, that actually looks interesting— and this is a good reason that you're Your cover art should be nice. It should be descriptive. I should know what your show is at a glance, right? And that's really how I would click on and try a bunch of different shows.

And I think that the— that's a good topic to talk about here, just so everybody understands. The, the image spec for Google Play is, I believe, 1200. That's the minimum size spec, up to 7000. Something crazy. Something really, really crazy. So what most people are recommending, and I know Rob Greenlee is recommending this too, is keep supporting the 1400 as the base image size because that's compatible with both Google and Apple. And then go up to maybe 3000, which is compatible in the Apple spectrum as well. And you should be good to go with Google Play or or the iTunes platform. So 1,400 to 3,000.

As far as I know, you don't even need, you don't need any of these tags, don't need anything special. Like your iTunes feed will work fine in the, if you meet iTunes spec, it'll work fine in Google Play Music. However, like you said, their own namespace. I mean, for instance, in Blueberry with their release yesterday, you can put in a different image in that tag specifically to Google Play. So if you did want to use a different size, you could specifically only for Google Play. So, you know, that's one advantage to, you know, I like Libsyn and Blueberry. Those are the two hosts that I, that I use most reliably or recommend. And, um, you know, I don't know, you know, what's question— how are you guys adjusting to this at Spreaker?

I mean, at this point I don't see it's a big, uh, big thing. I, I've been encouraging the team to consider creating separate feeds for Google just in a general sense, because I believe that that's— I would say because it's a completely different environment and I think it's of note enough to start thinking like that, because I believe that it's very possible that Google's going to move into an advertising business and you want to be positioned as a company to be able to move that way if you need to. And you might as well start getting your users thinking like that. And I believe that's a big reason why Rob Greenlee over at Lipson moved in that direction as well.

So, so I am curious, like, so I think, I don't think I finished the one where I said I was a YouTube creator and I'm excited that if YouTube can do what they've done for YouTube creators for podcasters, it makes the average podcaster have the ability to, you know, to monetize easier. And maybe if they get enough exposure, you know, YouTube does, I do well on YouTube. Well, I call it golf and beer money, but I'm curious, you know, what would suck is that you talked about dynamic advertising, and if we already had advertising in our, in our show, they might want a clean version, I'm assuming, so that they can insert ads. It would really suck to have to deliver two different types of media. And I mean, I know helping having the two feeds would help, but I'd still need to create a clean episode, so to speak.

No, I mean, do that. Well, I think, okay, it depends on what you're talking about. If you're talking about host reads—

I'm talking about dynamic insertion where I have, they stick in an ad that I have no, just like YouTube does, but it would be audio, it'd be audible as opposed to like a layover or a pre-roll or post-roll. I thought you were talking about like sticking a pre, like Coca-Cola jams right in the middle of my content.

Yeah, I think that that's probably, that could be something that happens. Around a pre-roll or a post-roll that is likely to happen. I don't know that they're gonna push right away into mid-roll insertions with spot advertising like that. But I do think that it is possible that they could do that as a monetization option for content creators. And it's not gonna require you to create a unique version of your show to be able to be compatible with that. Because if it's dynamically inserted, it can be controlled at the server end, which means that that episode can go out without it or it can go with it. Right. It could be geo-targeted. It could be a campaign that runs just on Google. It could be a campaign that runs just on iTunes, or it could be something that's unique that runs on your website. And then there's another layer to this too, which would be the streaming versus downloading part. There could be different spot advertising that's inserted into a stream of this as well. I believe, and it's not known yet right now what the play mechanism that Google is gonna use, but as you look at Spotify, Pandora, and I believe all these music services use true streaming technology, which is like Icecast or the HLS standard to stream this content. And when it's delivered on a request basis, the download could be considered a separate distribution play. That's how Spreaker is built today, is that the download is a separate thing from the on-demand play request, which means that you can insert different spots in different delivery platforms and different delivery methods. And one of the reasons that that may be attractive to do over time is that some advertisers don't want to advertise in downloads, but they want to advertise in in streams so that they do that.

So then in theory, they know it got heard.

Well, that, that, and also if for some reason that, that, that spot message is time sensitive and change it, that, that, that can die when the stream ends versus having a download that has a spot ad in it that person listens to 2 weeks later after, you know, some promotional offer is expired. Right. So, so we did have Rob McCracken, who was in the in the chat room, and he works for Scripps and is related to Midroll Media. And he asked a question about—

It's a leading question. So he asked about Howell.

Yeah, yeah, Howell. Yeah, well, Rob Greenlee. It certainly is a little bit of a plug, but it does raise this additional question of premium podcasts and what you think and what, not specific to Howell, more specific to, do you think that Google would ever play in a premium podcasting thing? And, and part of the reason that I raise this is that I think that the premium side is kind of getting kind of mashed up with podcasting, and it may not be. If you think about Audible right now, and I've heard the, the fellow that's leading the Audible, um, kind of original content creation stuff, he's got up on stage. I think he did this at Podcast Movement, and, um, I think somebody from the audience asked him if if he was gonna podcast the content that Audible was gonna make. And he basically gave the impression that he wasn't, but yet he's out, everybody thinks that Audible's gonna get into podcasting. So I think that the big question is, I think what Audible's doing is creating original content for Audible. And I think they're just using the term podcast because that's the kind of production it is.

So with your Audible account comes podcasting?

Not the other way around. Yeah, exactly. Because the key question to ask is, is this original content going to be available on iTunes as a free download that's going to be ad-supported? Audible doesn't have any track record of doing ad-supported content, so I don't know how that, you know, that may not even make sense. Yeah. Um, so, so, and then it gets back to the premium stuff, right? Um, Audible tried to get into podcasting very early days of podcasting, like in 2005, 2006, with a a premium advertising platform called, um, it was called WordCast, and they were going to wrap DRM in the podcasts back then. I don't know if you remember that, um, not that much, Ray, that they tried to do that. And I, I'm just curious if Audible is going to try and do that, um, again, um, with their own proprietary platform to deliver this content, but they're going to use the term podcast to describe it so they can be a part of this kind of spin-up that's happening around the medium.

Yeah, which is interesting because it sort of is a bastardization of the word, right? I mean, like podcast in general implies free. I imagine because iTunes, it needs to be free, right? And so they dominate. So if you're on iTunes, it needs to be free. It's a podcast, but you can put it behind a paywall. I mean, you got WTF that does this, right? He does podcasts, they're behind a paywall. While it's not required, it is implied. Or that's how, that's the perception that it, that it's sort of been built up over the years is that podcasts are freely available, but people have definitely spun that into a premium model. I mean, and Rob, he, he actually, he says, what do you guys think about the move by Midroll to launch Howl premium paid app with exclusive content behind a paywall? So I guess if you don't know Howl, you can buy, you can pay for Howl and you get all of the original content that's created. So you have, uh, I give— I guess Mark Maron, WTF, all used to be you had to pay for his back catalog, but if you pay for Howl, it comes wrapped in with other things. And I think they're creating original content as well specifically for Howl, right? So I mean, YouTube Red is the only reason I think that, you know, maybe YouTube would be interested in something like that. I mean, they are creating a premium You know, you got $10 a month gets you into YouTube Red, which actually is also Google Play Music. So yeah, which is gonna be podcasts. So it's like, it's all— when are they gonna drop the music from Google Play Music? Because it's becoming just Google Play, right? Because it doesn't make any sense that you'll now have YouTube, podcasts, and Google Play Music all sort of in playing in one, in one thing. So, you know, with YouTube Red, which I'm almost ready to pay for, it has some interesting elements.

I guess it's possible. Yeah, no, I mean, can we call a premium podcast a podcast? I don't know.

I mean, it doesn't say in the podcast spec that it has to be free, right?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, you know, I think more and more people are referring to the term podcast to describe it as a form of content. But is it unique content against radio or is it, You know, I think it's an interesting question. I mean, I think as people use the term podcast, um, and I don't want to take this down this rabbit hole too far, but, um, because I think that Google has squashed that whole question of— they're calling it podcasts. I mean, they've totally squashed the whole question of whether or not we should change the name, right?

And he says it, he says it himself, and that is, uh, Elias, and I'm forgetting his last name, from Google Play Music. He says himself that That's the accepted name. That is what people call it. We don't want to confuse anybody. We're going with it. Like, that's what it is. Like, it's not going to be Google Cast. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. I mean, because I mean, if you think about, if you think about the, the history of this medium, um, Microsoft called it podcasts, Apple calls it podcasts, and now Google calls it podcasts. Uh, those are the three biggest tech companies You know, and more and more, I believe the radio industry is accepting reluctantly the term podcast.

Go listen to a radio show, go listen to our podcast, right? Watch ESPN. I mean, here's the thing, everyone's got a Twitter, Facebook, in every ad, it's on every cereal box, on every brand. And a lot of these brands now say, go check out the podcast on iTunes, right? I mean, ESPN's got all their stuff over there and they say, go check out our podcast.

Yeah, so it's, I think it's safe to say that the question, you know, and maybe this is a shout out to Leo Laporte. Jerry, Leo, get up, man. This whole netcast concept that he's been pushing for years now. Granted, I think part of the reason he was doing that is because he was thinking more on the video stuff.

Yeah, which video is podcasting, people? I know it's not as popular, but.

There are still video podcasts, and I guess Google wasn't clear on their— the spectrum of their support either on this topic.

I got the impression— you mean if video is going to be included? Yeah, I got the impression that it would be. I have to listen. If you listen to that interview again, I believe there's something in there that led me to think very clearly that It's happening. It's still speculation.

I don't know. I mean, I think that the whole video podcasting stuff has certainly fallen off the radar a little bit. I believe in the, you know, back in the 2007 timeframe, it was pretty popular.

It was really popular, I think. I listened, I watched more podcasts than I listened to in the beginning. Yeah.

And I mean, I still do. I mean, I still watch quite a few video podcasts. There are some really good ones out there, but oftentimes people don't, Talk about video podcasts anymore.

No, it's become— the word has become synonymous with audio, which is fine. It dominates. And I think YouTube played a big role in sort of crushing that. I mean, it's hard on the creator side. Video's expensive. It's that simple. Like hosting video is not cheap. So delivering that to a feed can be very difficult.

But both Lipson and RawVoice support video.

You support it, but you can't afford it. Yeah. The average podcasters cannot afford it. Like I can put up a 50 megabyte, 1 hour long audio and be well within my cap. Try putting up a 1 hour video, even at SD, you've gone over your monthly cap. I mean, and the average podcaster can't afford the price of video. It's that simple. And there, yeah, yes, there are some free options, but it's more difficult. It's more difficult to, more difficult to consume. It's more difficult to produce. It's more difficult to, host. I mean, all the above, right? There's a lot of reasons, and it's just go to YouTube, right? I mean, if you're an audio podcaster and you want to get a video, just talk about it and say, hey, go check out the video, go check out the video on YouTube, or Blab, or do Blab, right? Blab. Someone asked here, someone asked about the— do we think that Blab is a good platform for creating a podcast? I think it's an awesome platform for creating a podcast.

Yeah, it can be. I mean, it's It's not going to solve your video podcast solution entirely, but it's going to—

I think an audio-only podcast, I think this is a fantastic way. Look, we get to look at each other and get all those nonverbal cues, right? And people can come in live. Now it has to be live. Now there are elements to this that you— the good thing is you will get an audio file at the end of this. And we know that LabBot PodClear sounds like that. I imagine they're going to be working on some double-in solution where I get my file and your file and I bring them into my editor in post-production. So I think if you're willing to do some work, I wouldn't release it raw the way a Blab is necessarily, because I mean, even look at this one, you're like, uh, Ray, I can't see you, but it's— and I'm like, yeah, let me get my camera turned on. Like edit that stuff, please, people. But I think it's creating an audio podcast. I do this for the Roundtable. Podcasters Roundtable is done on Google Hangouts On Air, and it will not be switching over. And I won't go into why that is. I love— I love—

why is that, Ray? Come on, there's not enough seats.

I know, exactly. That's the first number one thing, there's not enough seats. I do more, more than 4 on, on the roundtable most of the time. So, uh, but there are other reasons. But I, I have content planned for the Blab platform for the roundtable. Let's just say that. So Anyways, but I mean, this, you know, I find this— it's my experience so far has been pretty much it's as reliable or more reliable than Skype. So if you're just doing it to connect, um, I think it works great. I mean, we're running video, which is usually intensive. Obviously it's dependent on your connection to the web, but I like it a lot. I think, I think it's really cool. Even the fact that I, I don't use it as much as maybe some other platforms right now I think what they've created here is really cool, and it's a great way to create an audio podcast because you will get that file. Now, I think it's— I'm not sure you get access to the raw file. You do get a high bitrate MP3, which is perfectly acceptable. Like, it's perfectly acceptable, and the audio here is good. I'm getting what you're sending me. It sounds like, you know, decent quality.

And vice versa. Yeah, it sounds like a Skype call, which is good enough quality for podcast listening.

And with that—

it's not a painful listening experience. Right.

And with the PodClear integration, it's probably going to record locally and then you're going to get those files. So it's going to be as good as recording in your studio.

Yeah. And I think that that's exactly why they actually did that. So let's hop back to talking a little bit more about what's happening with Google. I believe that they're going to probably, they haven't officially announced this, but I believe it's gonna be a couple months before they push this thing out. I think they're gonna give enough time to gather a good catalog of content. It's available for you to submit to right now. So you can get your show, if you're a podcaster, you can just log in with your Google account and submit your feed. They do have some requirements. I would definitely, before you do that, I would make sure that the email address that's in your feed is accurate and will come directly to you because they will verify that you're the owner of that. And you'll have to click on it, terms of service and all this kind of stuff. And plus they also have a help area that will detail out all of the changes that they, they kind of have established for their platform, the RSS spec, how they're their process works. So if you have any questions that we haven't covered on this show, you can certainly get all the details there. And I would, I would highly recommend go, go read through that so you understand it as a podcaster, uh, what they're going to be doing with your show, how it's going to work. They're not going to tell you some of the under-the-cover stuff yet because I, I don't know if they know or they've decided on everything when they're going to launch. Where it's going to go. I think it was only going to be US only, and I believe it was only going to be on Android, I think, to get started with. Yeah.

Everyone's freaking out about that. I'm getting tweets after tweets. They're clearly not listening to my whole— as I did a whole episode on this over at the Podcaster Studio, they're clearly not listening because I covered this. Like, it's US only in the beginning. Yeah. And then shortly after they said it's going to roll out everywhere. So like in a year it's all moot. Like everybody will be in, it'll be available everywhere. It'll be on iOS. Like, they're— he kept saying their goal is to make it as easy as possible. Like, every time Rob thought about it yet, and he's like, uh, yeah, whatever, we'll just do it. Like, we want to make— what will make it easy, easy, easy, easy? And, and that's one of their goals. So it'll be on every platform, I think, that you can imagine. What's really cool is, as, as producers of podcasts, we're going to be able to check our show inside their store, which is a problem. Like, you're on a Windows Phone or an Android device and you don't, you don't have that. You're an iOS user. I can't check my show on an Android. I can't check it on a Windows Phone. I don't know how it looks. I don't even know if it's in there. So you got to find a friend. This is— it's gonna be available on the web. I mean, you know, used to have an awesome web interface. I love the Zoom web interface.

Oh yeah, I mean, we had all that stuff except we didn't have any apps on the Apple side, but right, early days.

But, you know, so the good news for producers is we will be able to see our show inside their platform. So for free. And but it's going to be on all platforms. Yeah.

So don't worry. Yeah. So let's, let's talk about what's happening with them around metrics because I think it's an important thing since they're rehosting the file that's going to present big hopes here, I would say.

For me.

Yeah, there needs to be methodology for them to, number one, get those metrics back to the primary hosting platform.

Sounds like they will. There's an API from what I know will be. Yep.

I'm going to get that from them next week. So they're going to be doing that. Plus you're going to be able to go into your account in your podcast portal and get access to your numbers there as well. So that's that's how they're gonna manage that. Now, granted, the big platforms are going to probably integrate those APIs and be able to source them based on the source feeds to get access to those tracking on metrics. So I think it's an important thing that everybody needs to understand of how they're gonna get their numbers. And I think Google, I think has thought this through. I think just like what you were saying earlier, I think Google has definitely thought this through more than Spotify has.

I think everyone's thought this through more than Spotify has.

But, but, but I have heard that some shows that have been added to Spotify have doubled their audience. So I have heard, heard some reports that, I mean, that's a huge user base. You would— I mean, if you're a limited number of shows, you're going to get a big jump, right?

If, if Spotify features you, Spotify pretty much has to put you in front of people because Good luck finding podcasts on the platform, but I'm highly critical. Don't get me wrong. They can turn it around in my eyes, Spotify. I know you're watching, you know, but let's see some, let's, you know, it just feels like it got announced and then just sort of left out to dry. So I'm, I'm excited for these platforms. I just want to see it work better. Yeah. With, you know, with the analytics, you know, they have Google Analytics. I mean, they've got the file. So one unique thing is that, you know, a lot of people, Oh man, are they gonna ingest it? And they're gonna re-encode it. I'm not as a producer, very excited about that, but I am in terms of the potential that it, that it has. Right. So hopefully they won't dumb down the quality again. If people are using it and listening there, they don't really care. So I'm fine with that. But if you're on Stitcher, you can go into that platform and see some unique numbers, like how long someone listened. Now, if you do that, don't get depressed. You'll see the majority of your audience is gone. They're not listening to half your show, but don't worry about that. First, I hope that they integrate and give us numbers like that. That would be really cool.

Well, I think one thing to think about in this context with Google is my guess is they're not going to downscale the encoding all that far because one thing that we do know about Google is that bandwidth cost is not a big issue to them. YouTube. Yeah, so it's not like they're going to, uh, downscale it down to 64 KB or something like that. Fine, just don't—

well, it's not, it's not the best, but I mean, it's fine for spoken word. It's just Stitcher goes so far and they chop that in half with 32.

So yeah, well, 32 is what I used to stream my own radio show back in, um, back in early 2000s. So it wasn't bandwidth back when, when people were on, on dial-up modems. So I think, you know, going down that far is kind of ridiculous, and I don't think that Google is going to do that. I mean, if you think about what Google is doing with YouTube, they're actually pushing the envelope the other direction. They're actually going 4K, and because bandwidth to those guys is like fractions of pennies per gigabyte. So, you know, a lot of the hosting platforms— Lipson, Spreaker, Blueberry, all these guys— they're paying more for bandwidth than Google is. Way more, probably 100 times more. So these guys are not worried about the bandwidth part, and these guys will be more than likely wanting to deliver your show at the highest quality possible within reasonable range. It's not like they're going to go lossless on you or something, but it's going to be, you know, my guess is probably going to be at the quality level of what people expect with music, which would probably be somewhere between 96 and 128k. I know that that's the standard streaming bitrate that we use on Spreaker. And, and I think that that's what people are, are expecting now is that level of quality. I don't know, you know, does that seem consistent with what you think, Ray? Yeah.

I mean, I've also heard that, you know, even Spotify, because they're a music-first platform, right? Podcasts with Google are going on to a music-first platform. It's called Google Play Music. Yeah. So it should follow along with those guidelines. That's the hope, right? That, you know, they're obviously not gonna dumb down music. I think 128 is what Spotify, that's, you know, that's my top end of a podcast. Big time.

Yeah. I don't think you have to, I don't think you have to be up that high. I've been a big, big, big proponent of 96k.

96 is you and me then. I don't hear that. I am, 96 is the sweet spot in my world. But, but you know, I'm really anal about this stuff cuz I'm a producer and I have podcaster ears. Most of this doesn't matter to most people as long as, like I said, Stitcher takes it to a level where I think it's noticeable. Not if you're in a car, only if you listen with earbuds or something, but a lot of people do. I mean, this is an intimate medium that people shove right in their ears. So, you know, so yeah, I'm not concerned about it. And again, like I said, if I was that concerned, I wouldn't be on Stitcher. But what's more important? And the people who listen on Stitcher, they don't care about that. They would listen on Pocket Casts or something else. It's a moot point. It's interesting, but it's moot. I'm just, I'm excited that if they got the file, I hope they do some cool stuff with it on the analytics side. That would be really cool. Yeah.

And I think that's going to be really important for the advertising business that they get that right too. And I'm not sure, you know, as it gets back to what's going on with the IAB, you know, Spotify, Google, all these guys, I don't know that they're involved in that IAB spec conversation.

They've got to be coming to that table, right?

Well, I would expect that all those guys are members of IAB. Whether or not they're actively involved in the podcast working group at this point is probably something that someone needs to raise with the leadership over at IAB to get those guys involved. And that would be something that I do next week or something like that is kind of, kind of reach out to the IAB and say, hey, have you guys spoken Google lately about podcasting. So, so it might be something important. I'm gonna be actually next week, I'm gonna be back at the Dash Conference. Not to move this on to another topic, but I, I think that it does dovetail to what's going on here a little bit with Google Play Podcasts, is that the Dash Conference is back in Detroit and it's— excuse me, I'm losing my voice— is a conference that's talking about the integration of radio, digital audio, and the car. And so it's a big conference back in, back in Detroit that's, uh, a lot of the, the folks from the automotive industry are coming in.

The second coming. This is the other thing. There were two things: Google supporting podcasts, and when we get in cars, it's over, man. We're gonna be—

no, we've reached the promised land. We reached the promised land. Yeah.

Yeah. Which is not the case. Like, it's gonna be another incremental step in our march towards I think ubiquity. I think it's—

so I think, yeah, I think with what's happening with Google Play and this is like maybe the third reason that Google is getting into this is that Apple has a, you know, their CarPlay solution that has an app integrated in there that's kind of a default app from Apple. You look at Android Auto, they do not have one, right, that has podcasts. And I believe Android Auto is a big priority for Google. And if they want to compete with Apple head-to-head with the car manufacturers, because I also believe in this, something I'm going to verify when I'm back there, but I believe most of the car manufacturers are building basically fairly generic operating system platforms that they're going to layer on top the option to install CarPlay or the option to install Android Auto, right? So they're not going to limit their ability to sell the car based on what phone platform, um, the, the particular buyer has, right? So for, for Android Auto to compete with Apple in the car, uh, and that could that could dovetail between— that could be a deciding factor between what, you know, a buyer of a car chooses what car based on what platform it supports. They're going to want to support all the platforms, and for Google to be competitive there, they need to have a comparable offering.

Yeah, I'm excited you're going to— I got invited to Dash, but I can't make— like, I can't make the trip to to Detroit. A lot of money. But the key is that one of the things that the person invited me was that they wanted me to sort of represent podcasting in the space and, you know, to this new group of people who, you know, hey, we've heard about it. And, you know, because it's about getting audio in the dashboard, it's, I guess, on-demand or digital audio in the dashboard. Right. And so, yeah, so I'm excited to hear what comes out of that since I can't make it.

But I'm going to try and do some, some live streams from there too. It's part of my Speaker Live show. So I'm going to try and do some of that from the conference. I'm going to pull in some folks from the automotive industry, hopefully, to talk about podcasting. And then I'm also going to be going back to the Nielsen Partner Conference back in Washington, D.C. in the early part of December. The Nielsen folks are It's December 4th and 5th.

Wow, I think I might be in town for work. Yeah, I, yes, my organization, I'm in California, but my, my company is based in DC, and I might have some filming to do during that. So, okay, I will hit you up if I am.

I'm gonna be on a panel back there that they're gonna be talking about podcasting. As far as Nielsen's concerned, and I think I'm sure many of the viewers of this probably know what Nielsen is, they're basically a television and media ratings agency. They have taken an interest in podcasting and they're trying to figure out where they have a place for it, or how they can add value to the podcasting space. And it's gonna be interesting to spend more time with those folks. They're asking a lot of questions. They want to get their community engaged in the platform and the medium. So that's the, that's the reason that this, this conference is including a complete session just on podcasting. So it's going to be interesting to see what comes out of that and what Nielsen figures out what they're going to do with this space.

Yeah. It should be real interesting. It's so funny to— oh man, I read articles all the time about one of the problems with podcasts is measurement and who's listening, and they hold it up to like TV standards. And I was like, wait, we have real numbers and they have made-up numbers, but yet somehow those are better numbers. I'm so confused by that. But don't get me wrong, I think there's space to grow. We need some work on on how we count things in podcasting. That's growing. But so many companies, Raw Voice, Blueberry Lips, they're doing it so well and we have so much, I would think, better data than TV has. I don't know how that goes, but Nielsen's very involved in that. And from what I understand, radio numbers are made up. You can't tell if someone's listening and they tell me what you really think of a city.

Of course, of course they're all made up. It's all based on a statistical analysis of a sample.

And podcasts are not made up. They're not made-up numbers. Like, how is that— how are those numbers? But I don't know, a little bit of a pet peeve.

It's a little bit of a hot button there, sir. I love it.

That's, that's what I think the purpose of this live stuff is. Let's— you know, you might not hear this on my show because it's not, it's not a stream of consciousness as, as in your face like this. Someone said that, I think Richard and, uh, Ote in the chat, he's like, you guys should do more shows like this. You guys work well together. So I think people are wondering— I've seen people say, hey, when does this show happen on a regular basis? Well, this is something we threw together late last night just to have this conversation based on the Google Play announcement. But Rob does a regular show. In fact, it would normally be during this time. It's why we did this, the New Media Show with Todd Cochran, which is actually one of my personal favorites. I said we have that. I narrowed it down to a few. New Media Show is definitely one that I got.

I got ribbed on Twitter by, by Ray. He basically said the show must go on.

The show must go on because I, I'm a listener. That's the thing, that's the funny part, is like, that's one of my shows. So like, when I open it up, my podcatcher, I should not be one to talk because I am, I am known as an inconsistent podcaster. But I am as do as I say, not as I do. But when you affect my consumption, Rob— but you know, like I said, and I get it, I mean, doing— it would be like doing a roundtable without me, but which is— I'm not saying that from an ego base, but I sort of run the whole thing. Rob— Todd runs the whole thing, but Rob does Spreaker Live. He's set up there, so I was like, hey, that's true.

I guess they guessed. Todd and I had talked about doing, doing a Blab while he was gone because he's, he's back east, um, for the next 3 weeks. Um, so this may be something like maybe next, next weekend we can do do a Blab, you know, and I think— Yeah, but that won't show up in my— Well, you know, it could because, because remember, we can export this, right? So yeah, so we could publish it, uh, in the, the New Media Show, um, feed.

That would be— I think that would be good. I'd be happy with that as an NMS listener. I would be happy. Thank you.

As we digress here. But, but yeah, is there, is there any other part of this, this announcement with Google Play, Ray, that, that we haven't talked about? Or do you think that there's any other?

I did miss the beginning, but I don't know how much. So you talked about the submission portal. I mean, here's the thing. We don't know when they'll launch, but I think part of that depends on how we do as producers getting in the, you know, populating that library. So, I mean, you go to g.co/ Podcast portal. And, uh, I, I did a whole— let's see, how many does it tell me? How many minutes I did here? I did like a whole 40 minutes on this at thepodcasterstudio.com. That's a cheap plug, but I have all the links there, um, the submission portal, all the specs, and the link to the interview with, uh, Elias Roman is his name, uh, with Rob. So, so check that out. So, you know, I don't know, I'm looking here, we talked about cross-platform, the specs are known, known. He said no ads now, but those are probably coming. I I would think. Search, he, you know, when asked about search, which is I think for me their biggest opportunity, or maybe it's just what I'm hoping most as a podcast producer. I mean, why not? Like if you produce a podcast, they can't crawl audio, that's fine. But if you write good descriptions and show notes, they can search that text content. And if I'm searching for anything, how to podcast, you know, or how to use, an ATR2100 for my podcast with Blab, and I have that on my website. You know, you could introduce people to new podcasts, which is what they want to do, by saying there's a whole episode about this, that thing you are specifically searching for. So I hope that they do something with search. But again, we don't know. But when asked, he definitely did not say no. And he—

he's a search company, you know. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's coming. I—

well, so, and also, could there be a connection between this and what's happening in, in YouTube too?

Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, it's very interesting. Here's one that I, that I thought of, uh, that I actually went back and added in later. A lot of podcasters, I think, when you— so you might want to think twice before you put your show on Google Play Music if you have copyrighted music. A lot of podcasters are probably gonna get a rude awakening. 'Cause if you're a YouTube creator, there's a system called Content ID and you get nailed because it's listening. It actually is listening to your podcast or your YouTube video. And I've had to challenge it several times. My music is totally legit so that if you have legit music, royalty-free that you own and you can prove it, they'll, you know, sometimes it's an algorithm, it's not perfect and you just tell them you own it and it's fine. But if it's not yours, You're gonna get— you can get the boot. Yeah, at least at the worst you're gonna have to take off that episode. But I mean, at the best you're gonna take off that episode, at the worst you're gonna get booted out of the system. So I can't imagine why Content ID wouldn't also come to this system at some point. So it's just something to be aware of if you're using copyrighted music. Uh, you didn't listen to my show, listen to copyrighted music, you're going to want to fix that because, uh, I imagine, you know, at some point Content ID. So that's pure speculation, but it's an interesting aspect because they will be the first ones to really bring that to podcast.

And it is very, very possible, guys, that, um, Google could get in the hosting business here.

So, so I did mention like there, you know, podcast producer can't use them as their host even though they're ingesting it, but you think maybe that will be an option? Because there's been talk that, I mean, it's—

they do that sort of for video, would do this at some point as well. So, you know, if you think about YouTube, just look at the analogy of YouTube and I can see it being something that maybe is coming. So I got a question in the chat room about, Rob, is there any idea about maybe automatically connecting Spreaker to Google Play Music in a similar fashion that we've done with YouTube? And that has been asked of Google to to establish that type of relationship. And I believe other platforms have done the same. But currently there hasn't been any progress on that. I think what they are wanting to do is just kind of get their own thing launched and get people to submit through their, their portal and not basically push it off to other platforms to assist with that yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if that would be something that they would they would open up as an API into the system, just like what they did with YouTube. So being able to push your feed over there from Libsyn or from Spreaker or from, from Blueberry and just make the process easier, I think is definitely something that everybody should do. And I think would be good for podcasters in general to automate these things a little bit. So I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, and Donald, Donald in the chat says YouTube does have the Creator Studio, which they have a ton of music you can use. So, you know, it's, it's available. There are plenty of options to, uh, to not violate copyright, but something to be on the lookout for.

Definitely, definitely. Um, yeah, I see. Yeah, I, I guess we had a listener comment on that as well. Um, but is there any other thing I I'm trying to think. You gave them the link to the podcast portal to be able to get in and do that. Okay.

Yep. Again, go— I'm sorry, I totally blanked. It is here. It's go— oh, you know what? g— I know it's complicated.

It'd be nice if it was like Google Play g.co/podcastportal or something simple like that, right?

It's g.co, so g.co/podcastportal. So get over there. Like Rob said, make sure that, you know, the big thing being that your, your, uh, email is yours and correct in your feed, because when you sign up, they're going to ping your email and say, is this you? All right. And, or someone's going to get an email And that's important. I'm honestly still undecided about which feed I'm going to submit, but I'm different in that I, I use both PowerPress and Libsyn in this sort of mashed up version. But most people have one feed.

Yeah, feeds and hosting and redistribution. This is all getting so convoluted and complicated. I try and explain it to people sometimes and they're— it just goes right over their heads. You know, it's just, yeah, of what, what the right thing to do is, which feed to use. I mean, it's just crazy complicated stuff. And oftentimes podcasters will create this situation where they create, they send different feeds to different places and it gets really, really messy. And I believe that we're kind of coming into a time when it's only gonna get worse. So I don't know how we're gonna get, manage all this stuff. Because I mean, just a simple thing of making a change, right? Just causes all sorts of problems.

Yeah, I mean, this is another reason to get a good host, right? I mean, if you're gonna go over to Spreaker or Blueberry or Libsyn, you know, go to someone who's in the space. I mean, you got Rob at Spreaker, so he gets it. I mean, saying he can help— the key is that these people are in the community and they can help. It can be difficult. I'm, I'm on the fence about how easy I want it to actually be because it does weed out some bad content. Anyone can upload a bad cat video to YouTube, and that's been a rub on, on YouTube at some level. But, you know, because it's hard, it tends to filter itself. But that said, I don't want to create a barrier where someone who has something to say can't do it. Yeah. So yeah, it should be easier for sure. And, you know, good stuff rises to the top. So ultimately it should be easier to produce a podcast.

Well, Ray, we should probably wrap this up. I know you had something you else had to get off to.

Digging the dirt outside. I know, it's like, it's sunny here in California today, so it means go. Yeah, it doesn't sound really important, but my, my wife and daughter are at a birthday party, and like, sadly, like, this is how I, I have, I have a chance to fill my free time. But, uh, good thing she's not watching my comment.

All right, well, thank you everybody for, for spending some time with us this morning talking about this, and, um, I'm sure we'll be back, uh, blabbing again in the future. Such an amazing name.

Yeah, make sure you— I mean, if you're on— I guess if you're plugged into this, you probably got here via Twitter, right? So make sure you're following Rob and myself, and because that's where the, the notifications come out. And I guess, you know, I don't know— so that's funny. So I just looked over here, so it looks like they just recently added a, um, a broadcast. The blab function used to be just a button that you tweet out. Yeah, a little bird. They see the Facebook one says, tell your aunt. What's that all about? That's awesome, because, because fam— family is who you communicate with on Facebook, right? I like, I like that. That might be confusing, but I think that's pretty funny. But now that's new, you could click this and one click tell your, tell your aunt.

So, well, I think we're kind of, kind of losing listeners, uh, the, the longer we go here. I can tell by, you know, it's the same pattern that happens with podcasts, right? If you do it too, too long, by the time you've weeded out all of the passive viewers and you've got to the real diehards, the ones that will stick to the very end.

Well, if you're a podcaster, this is the part where you actually put out the call to action because these are the people watching who actually will act on that stuff. Like, you know, a lot of people want to cram the front of their show with all these call to actions and it's people who are just checking it out. They don't want that. They want content. So, Go to thepodcasterstudio.com, follow Podcast Hub, or follow Rob Greenlee. Like, you shouldn't also not give multiple call to actions like that. But anyways, yes, I could do— we could go on and do these shows forever.

So just sit here all day so I don't have to do any housework around here.

Can we get paid to blab?

Because we can handle that. Exactly. All right, well, thank everybody for, for spending some time with us here, and Ray and I will be back soon, hopefully. I don't know. We'll see. Okay, bye.