Google Podcasts Shutting Down in 2024, Birth of YouTube Music Podcasts | New Media Show - 9/27/23

Okay, let's go on.

Just wait just a second here for this stuff to get fired up. All right, that's live, that's live. Okay, recorders are turned on. Todd and Rob in the afternoon. Hey, Afternoon Delight with Todd and Rob. Oh yeah, oh yeah, here we are, here we are for a late start to the New Media Show, but, uh, Rob, you were racing the Tesla to get back, back to meet the start time.

Traffic. Fun traffic.

Fun traffic. Yeah. Well, my traffic here is— yeah, I get annoyed with it, but it's nonexistent. So I'm— I'm probably not—

That's a good problem not to have.

Yeah, it is. It is. But I tell you, I have like two really hot topics. And a matter of fact, one that's so hot that I emailed both Brian and Tom to say, are you guys doing something? And I got an almost immediate reply back that said, no, not us.

But I'll leave that as a teaser because they're pushing hard to get this big event at South by Southwest.

Yeah, I saw some announcement on that. But this is something else. This is a juicy one. As a matter of fact, uh, um, it's a series of emails I've responded to today by a mystery person who I've tried to look up. I, I guess we'll just, we'll just save it first. But of course, the big news— holy crap— is Google has left the podcasting space for how many times?

That's right, they've Taken a few cycles around the earth with this, haven't they?

Oh my God.

Yeah, it's, it's kind of a little crazy that they can't stay focused for very long, can they?

No, it's, it's, it's, this is what, how many tries have they done now? I, you know, I kind of lose track of these big companies that try to integrate podcasting and then don't. And so now they're just all bets are to YouTube. Give me a break.

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of a mistake on my part.

I think they get— they started to gain market share. They are, they're in the top 5.

I know, it's like, it's like, stay the course, guys. Um, there's nothing wrong with Google Podcasts. There's nothing wrong with doing it in YouTube if you really have to. So, um, so hold both places.

Hold on. Apple, Apple, now, now it's time. Now it's time. You have no, no excuse, right?

That's true.

You have no excuse. They've given up the ghost. They're giving up Google Podcasts. So, hey, that's great for the Android app developers, but this just sucks. I want to use a word that I can't use.

Yeah.

On beep beep. This, this, this just sucks.

Yeah.

On all levels.

Yeah.

Google, shame on you. Right.

It's really kind of a disgrace that they've chosen to do this.

Shame on you.

I'm not sure it's a smart move. Right.

Shame on you.

I mean, from a consolidation of resources, I can see that, but there's no reason why these two platforms can't operate, um, kind of, you know, with each other.

It's just they don't like RSS. Remember, Google does not like RSS. So someone asked me today, do you think Google's going to start hosting? I, I don't think so because they don't— they want everyone to stay on YouTube. They don't want you ever to leave.

So this is clearly a content acquisition strategy is what it is. I mean, they already have the content with Google Podcasts, but, you know, so really it's a matter of migrating. My big question though is, are they going to be hosting audio files? Are they going to be hosting video files? I still don't know the answer to that question.

Are they going to migrate Google Podcasts into YouTube? Is that how they're going to populate YouTube? Did they say that?

That's the, that's the perception.

Okay. So doesn't that require my permission for them to do that?

Uh, I don't know that it requires permission to do that. What it does do is it raises a lot of questions around, because everything I've ever heard, uh, YouTube communicating is that anything that goes into the YouTube platform is going to be video or in a video format. Right. This is, are they planning on converting all the audio into video is what they're trying to do.

I, that's, that's. And if they do that case, then it's really, they really need permission. Yes. That's really bad because then nothing's on pass-through. Everything's captured.

I've heard rumors that they're talking about pass-through because they face problems.

Okay. So if that's pass-through, then it's, they have to be serving MP3s.

Right. I mean, unless they figured out a technical way to update stuff on the fly, stuff on the fly, going from audio to video on their platform, right?

Shame on you, Google.

Yeah, I think it's a mistake.

So Apple, though, you're listening. I know you're listening. I know the number of people over there listening. Time for an Android app.

Oh, it's been way past time.

Well, better yet, to hell with it. Uh, good. Just go to—

it's just now it's time.

Just go to podcastapps.com and get yourself a new modern podcasting app. The heck with the rest of these folks. The heck, the heck with the rest of them. Just go to podcastapps.com. You that are listening, podcasters, start telling your podcast listeners Go to podcastapps.com, get a modern podcast app. Don't use any of these legacy apps. We don't need them. Yeah, I just suggest— I'm irritated.

Irritated.

And I'll be honest with you, Rob, I didn't even read— I just saw the headline. I was like, I was too busy. I've been buried. I've been up to here the last really 3 days. I'm glad we pushed to 4 because I I've been in meetings since I had took 15 minutes for lunch today. I never ordered DoorDash here because you pay $5 for delivery. It's stupid. I usually go grab lunch, but ordered DoorDash today because I had 15-minute window to eat. Mm-hmm. Since about 10 a.m. this morning. I'm not kidding. My schedule's been full. I've been sitting in a chair all morning just in this way. It's been since Monday.

Yeah. Yeah. So. Anyway, this change isn't going to happen until later in 2024 is what the—

oh, they might change their mind 5 times between now and then. Their strategy continues to change.

Yeah. Well, obviously they feel like this is a significant addition to add to YouTube Music, uh, and they must have big plans for trying to compete, uh, with Spotify. With this platform. Who? Um, yeah, who, right? And, and Apple for that matter. So, you know, I mean, all, all hands are on deck now in the, the streaming music wars now, huh?

Well, I just— yeah, yeah, I don't know what else to say about it really.

I mean, I think That's the biggest thing I'm concerned about is pass-through and whether or not audio is converted into video.

I think they need to ask permission to move my, my show from Google Podcasts. Specifically, if they try to move it to YouTube, I already have a YouTube channel.

Let's talk about how even YouTube, um, Google Podcasts got their content. Uh, they got it off of embedded RSS links in web pages.

That's right.

Which was, which was kind of a broken way of doing it anyway. I think that was a, that was a bad mistake on their part.

Just, well, they used the Google search engine to find podcasts and they found and they added the podcast. That's the way. And at least they used a, a logarithm that we are able to decipher and be able to say, okay, this is what your Google Podcast link is going to be. It just goes to show, hey, but you know what?

Oh, but it created so much confusion in the market with podcasters subscribe in there. Am I not in there? How do I find it?

You know, so big, big opportunity here. SubscribeOnAndroid.com still exists, right? So Blueberry operates SubscribeOnAndroid.com. If you're an Android— see, if you're worried about your audience being able to subscribe to your show if they're an Android user, do not send them to Spotify. Yeah, don't do that. Don't give up your listeners' privacy by sending them over there. The second they land on you, they own your listener. Think about that for a second. Matter of fact, I did an interview with someone today— yesterday, I think the podcast went live today— and I said, listen, I said, you know, you're using this company and that. I said, you are basically selling out your listeners' privacy. You know, and, uh, yeah, there's a lot of that going on right now.

So, and, and, and moderation is creeping into the media.

Oh, I'm getting a daily— I get emails from the, the, the site that shall not be named about their moderation of shows. Not moderation, just flat out step up put a thumb on them.

Well, let's say what it is. It's evaluating shows based on content or suitability or compatibility with advertising brands.

Well, it's not all that. They did— they're very, very heavy-handed on content and, you know, put a hammer on a show. It depends on what you say, and it doesn't necessarily have to be—

well, if you don't— yeah, if your content is not acceptable to it. It's really the same thing that's happening to, to some degree to Russell Brand and what's happening on, on YouTube. So like with content creators is, you know, those people are being either demonetized or their opportunities for monetization are dramatically reduced.

Again, podcastapps.com, ladies and gentlemen. Right. Uh, that's what we want you to do is go over there and get yourself a new modern podcast app. And I just— by the way, we did get a boost right before the show. Matt Kondel came and said, hey, looking forward to the Google Podcast chat, 2112. We want to thank Matt for that boost that came in before the show.

Right. Thank you, Matt.

So, yeah, I'm just There's a huge opportunity here, you know. Okay, so let's back up.

Yeah, I hope that Apple, Apple has a strategy here to take those Android users.

Let's back up. Let's back up. Before Google Podcasts, the only way that you could get an Android listener subscribe to your show was through a complicated process I've told them to go grab an app, specific Android app, go find an app and find my show and subscribe to it. Now that's what we're coming back to next year. You as a podcaster are going to have to tell your audience members, if you don't send them over to the platform that shall not be named, you're going to send them to the Google App Store to download an app and tell them, find my show. Now what you need to do now, and maybe this is an opportunity for some of you out there that have never deployed what we have given to the community more than 12, 10, 12 years ago. Yeah, it's a very, very cool thing. It gives you one-click subscribe on Android functionality with running a link on your website. And what happens is if they don't, if they don't have an Android app, then we give them the opportunity to install one. But once, once one is installed, Then, then guess what happens from that point forward? When they click on the subscribe on Android link on your website, they get subscribed right in the app, opens right up to your show, click and go. And here's the best part. Podcast Guru supports it.

And Podcast Guru is a great Podcasting 2.0 Todd, if you go and do a search in Google for New Media Show, yep, there was a time, yep, uh, when it came up, uh, with a, with a group list of episodes that you could click play on.

Yep. Now it's just, uh, you don't see anything. No, we don't see nothing. We see the Apple listing, we see the website, we see the, the site that shall not be named. We see YouTube playlist, we see Stitcher, we see Audible, we see Podchaser, we see player.fm.

So really the bottom line here is Google's already taken down most of the functionality already.

That's right. Yeah. The, the validity. People also search for school podcasting. We know about that show. Dave, um, and, and a few others, you know. But it's, yeah, it's completely— and I didn't even use an incognito window, which I should have.

But now it, it has a generative AI, uh, breakdown for the show that pops up.

Who does? Google?

Google does.

What? You must be using some beta thing. I'm not.

Well, if you do, it's actually combining search results now with AI kind of results.

Mine didn't show that. Where do you see AI on my screen?

I don't, but I've got it.

You must have some beta turned up.

I could.

Yeah. So what happens when you— what does the generative AI say?

It just gives a summary of what the show is about.

Okay.

I mean, I can, I can share the screen with you and you can see it.

Yeah. If you want to share it.

Let's see here.

I think I have screen sharing turned on.

You do. Okay.

Well, come on, Rob. You're acting like an old curmudgeon in here.

No, I was just making sure I was picking, picking the right one. All right, so this is it. So at the very top of the search result, it says generative AI is experimental, info quality may vary. So that's—

but there's, if you notice here, guess what's missing?

Any links to media, any links to be able to follow or subscribe, right? Well, off, off to the right, there is links to Apple Podcasts. Looks like a link to Podbean.

And by the way, we're not hosted on Podbean, so I don't know why it's— it makes it look like we are. I guarantee you we're not.

Yeah, so they've captured our show.

Yeah, they have a directory over there, right? That's interesting.

You guys, you have some beta thing turned on and Looks like IMDb is listing the show too. So Spotify.

Anyway, be careful, you're showing a different screen.

Anyway, that's what the generative AI looks like, but there's no links coming out of Google Podcasts. That's for sure.

Or out of Google, you mean.

Well, Google Podcasts, there's no way.

No, no, no, nothing.

Yeah, to actually get into Google Podcasts even right now.

Right, right, right, right.

So stop sharing.

So yeah, so now here we are.

So really, for all intents and purposes, it's a, it's a, it's already a dead platform, in my opinion. But yeah, there's still some apps out there that people have on their phones.

So those of you that are developing Podcasting 2.0 apps, you got a huge opportunity here and make sure you implement the subscribe on Android shortcode so that you can be a one-click subscribe, at least for all Blueberry customers. Anonymous says, Google's tried podcasting 4 or 5 times. It never works for them. Thank you for the 1,701 sats. We definitely appreciate that.

Right.

And so, so should I talk about my other topic that I have that's an interesting email that came in?

Well, we can, and then also talk about the AI stuff, cloning, cloning stuff that are—

Cloning?

Yes. Yeah. Did you see the AI cloning into multiple languages? Oh, That's the unnamed. Boring.

Boring. Come on. I sampled some of that and it sure didn't sound like the host.

Well, that's the topic, right?

Yeah. Because they said they had voice sampling so that the clone voice Right. It would sound like the host. Well, what it sounded to me like when I listened to it, and I had someone that was a native speaker listen to it, and they said, that sounds like a bot. It didn't sound natural. There was no pacing. You could tell it was generated from a transcript. There was no inflection. There was no excitement. There was no, oh my God, look at— there was none of that.

It was just I have no idea what they just said because it's in a different language.

Well, I had someone that was a native speaker listening to it and they said I could tell immediately that that was, you know, generated by a bot. By AI. So it's, and it's okay. So I think POD News is already doing this in several languages or did before.

Yeah, I think so.

So, you know, this is, this is not new. Yeah, this is not groundbreaking news. Listen to me, everyone. Listen, listen, listen carefully. Authentic voices are going to be sought out as we go forward, as more of this digital content is created by AI, your voice, your content, your inflection is going to be valued.

Well, that's what the difference is going to be, right?

Right.

So, and it should be probably flagged that it's AI generated. It should be.

So, yeah. So, to me, it wasn't like, it's like, okay, boring, boring. So let me get into my little secret topic that I had come in.

Okay.

I, I got an email from— I don't know who this individual is. If, if you're a listener of the show, please email me back, and because I looked you up and I can't find you, um, I will read the first email. Todd, I know this could never be you. It's just the beginning of exposing companies that make money off creator ads and defrauding them out of it. The fraud is apparently multi-layered though. Our secret group chat with some other creators said companies are also tinkering with a creator's dashboard to show lower downloads. The ad markets see way higher inventory numbers, downloads to purchase, and when they buy these impressions, the middleman hosting companies or agents takes what the creators don't see and pays out on lower download numbers. It sounds easy for these lowlife beeps, but it's also easy to detect. This type of white-collar crime has spawned an entire industry of professionals dedicated to catching ad fraud and helping those individuals book extended stays in prison. Here's the kicker. These investigations are started without any warning to the company, and they do employ forensic accounts to follow the money. Trust isn't given, it's earned in life, especially business. When hosting companies and agencies refuse transparency, it's the biggest blaring red flag to not give these people your business. It's also asinine to create distrust and destroying business with any unethical business practices. I don't know a beep soul that's been able to pull that off for any length of time before they start to pay dearly for it. Cast Media, unfortunately, isn't the only one doing this. Creators are being taken advantage of in hopes that they don't communicate to each other about what they're experiencing on their platforms. There are other platforms doing it as well. Cast Media won't be the only company exposed for being thieves. Now this is the email that I got. Yeah. And I said, my response is, this is why a podcaster always needs to run third-party measurement like Blueberry to see what the grand total is. The challenge becomes, the challenge becomes with most programmatic and fill rates are not at 100%. We run between 75 to 85%, which can vary widely from episode to episode. Our partner is unique in that we know when they are serving a media with an ad and when not. We serve the media file via our CDN when there is no ad, and they serve the file when there is an ad. We then process our stats separately, so we also— we always can see the delta and match that up with the reporting. That was my response. And then it can— then this conversation went on and on, went back and forth several times. And, uh, it's curious because I was asked to provide a payout sheet, and we're not doing that because I don't know who this group is, what they're doing with this data. See how revenue reporting is structured. Our podcasters can see that.

And you're gonna get pulled into doing audits?

No, this is just some group that is questioning whether or not podcasters are getting ripped off by the folks that are serving ads for them. So Here's the thing, um, my partner I trust explicitly. I've had a long-time relationship with them, but at the same time, I do run their stats separately, and I don't reconcile every report, but I do have the ability to see what was delivered and what was paid for on my side. I have that ability to see that. And it's, to me, smells like— and I responded to this individual, I said, this is starting to feel like a hit piece. Who is this group? Um, so this group is yet to be determined. So I had sent an email over to Tom and Brian, and I'd ask, I said, are you guys doing anything like this? Are you guys doing some digging in? Tom immediately replied back, said, no, this is not how we work. He said, we don't know anything about this, but I am surprised— I'm not surprised someone's digging the issue. So he says, this isn't what we do. And I believe that too, you know, they're very upfront about what they do. Because I just— trying to figure out who's the group, who's this anonymous group that's digging in. And I'm actually gonna have a call with Tom on Monday to talk about this. So again, I just was curious because all of a sudden getting some weird emails and people asking questions about advertising. And has anybody else got any of these emails? Anybody else in the podcasting space? If you have, I'd love to hear from you. Todd@blueberry.com. Um, but I think— and there was even a comment made that, uh, companies shouldn't be using PayPal to pay podcasters. I've been paying podcasters with PayPal for 18 years, never had an issue.

Is that more of a political thing, or is it—

I don't— they said it wasn't secure or something.

Oh.

To that effect.

You can always use Venmo. That's, that's more secure, right?

So, you know, and, and again, we— every show that is running programmatic, yeah, uh, with us, we initially had it wide open where you could just turn it on, but now I go through and look at every show, approve every show to turn on, because we had a couple of jokers that came in and turned on programmatic that, you know, should not have been running programmatic. They were just scammer shows. So I said, okay, shut it down, lock it down, the party's over. And we can't make it easy, we're gonna have to approve every show. And, uh, so I think the— if there is a group investigating, I think the main thing is you have to do independent analysis of your statistics using a third-party statistics provider. There's plenty of them. There's PodTrack, there's us, there's OP3, and if you use OP3, that's open source so that everyone can see those numbers. But the thing you have to make sure of is in the audio delivery that that redirect isn't stripped. As you go through and look at those deliveries, you got to make sure that the redirect hasn't been, hasn't been gutted from the delivery. Um, if, if the redirect has been gutted, then I get super, super— I'd get super, super concerned, right, that the redirect— because, you know, basically, if, if you're running host red, there's a difference too. If you're running host red, you're contracted for X number of deliveries. You know, there might be a limit. Let's say they book you for 8,000 deliveries per episode, or increasingly impressions, right? Or impressions. Yeah, impressions, plays. So even though they're not really impressed, so it— so at 8,000, let's say you deliver 8,000 or whatever it is, the limit, they should stop delivering and you should get paid on what you're contracted for on, on host read. So this should be pretty straightforward. You know what you're gonna— you know what you've been contracted to deliver, you know what you're going to get paid. So in programmatic, and that on host reads, there should never be a question. Your contract should say that you're expected to deliver X thousands or whatever the number is per episode.

You're talking about host reads that are dynamically inserted, right?

Yeah, right.

Not baked in.

In my contracts with, uh, host reads, I say, you know, up to— and I give an up to number— you're going to get paid up to Here's the cutoff, and I'm going to be very, very close to what your average download numbers are because I have to be able to bid that in the contract to say, you know, your show can deliver 8,000 impressions, downloads per episode. I'm going to pay you for 8,000. Now, usually if it goes over, I pay the overage. I usually take that out of hide, but I contract for an amount per episode. And, um, And if I under— this is what happened probably to these other folks. If they, you know, if the podcaster only delivers 7,000, well, I make less money, you know, and we don't meet our delivery goals. We might be able to even it out other places, but, you know, in the end it kind of works out. But on programmatic, the price of the delivery I mean, the price of the ad, where it's delivered, who it's— that changes. You know, that spreadsheet could be for one episode, could have 400 different advertisers paying 400 different prices for the ads. And so I think from a programmatic standpoint, that's where You know, you have to watch. And here's, here's a simple thing. Turn off your programmatic. See what your download numbers are. Run it, run 3, 4 episodes without programmatic, without anybody injecting anything. Re-baseline. What'd you say, Rob?

Oh, I was just saying, and then see where your numbers are.

Yeah, see where your numbers are. Then turn on programmatic again and your numbers should be in that same range. There should— you should be very easy to figure out. But again, the fill rates, it depends on what partner you're working with. If they're delivering all your downloads, if they're delivering your ads with media in it and your ads without, well, then maybe you can't tell. But at least us with Blueberry, we know we deliver the ads. My CDN delivers the ad when there's no ads. And my partner delivers the ad when there is an ad and I get the raw log files and I, 1 1 and I have the number. And then I get the report and I can look at the report and say, okay, got paid for $10,000. They delivered $10,000. And there's always going to be a little, you know, a little bit of this, you know, it's never going to be exact, but if it falls out without, it falls out of a range, I'm going to be picking up the call phone and say, hey, hey, hey, hey.

If it's way out of whack, yeah.

If it's way out of whack, I'm like, hey, what's, what's, you know, where's, where did that go? You know, so I, I think that there is a, um, I think a podcaster has to know their, know their numbers. They're going to get in this business and they have to know who they're working with.

Todd, it's always interesting, these, these type of situations always come up when the economy is a little rough. Yes, it does. And, and if you combine that topic with what Ashley Karman's article that came out about 4 days ago, um, on Bloomberg, uh, she's writing an article on Bloomberg. The, uh, I'll just read the, the title of this article, uh, Podcasting's Number One Agent. This is like talent agent now copes with crash of market he hyped. This is a conversation about guarantees.

Right. I have never, ever, I would be insane to give a guarantee.

Yeah. But that's been going on. It's been going on a lot the last few years. And these big power broker talent agents out of Hollywood have been like a target or Everybody's been, you know, the talent's been working with them. The, the advertised brokers have been working with them as well. And so you kind of have this in the hosting platforms. I would say many of the hosting platforms have been working with these talent agents too. So you have this trifecta of power with these power brokers that are giving access. When I say these power brokers, they're the typical one. Or there's multiple ones out there. It's called a United Talent Agency out of Los Angeles and New York and things like that. And there they oftentimes will represent a particular talent or a show or whatever to an advertiser type, broker type platform, you know, like a larger, larger hosting platform or an advertising sales platform or a big media company will represent them and they will demand, you know, 6-figure guarantees. And that's oftentimes even before a show is even launched. That's right. And that's where the mistake is. And that's really what this article focuses on, is that, is that these talent agents have created an environment within the industry that is financially unsustainable.

Um, yeah. So, but I think for most podcasters out there, Choose your partners and people that you work with wisely. Mm-hmm. You know, all— can you— you know, for me, I've had this saying for years, and you probably do a Google of this, you probably find it too. I— when Angela was developing her stats, I told him, I don't care what the number is. I just need to know what the number is. And that's why we at Blueberry have always overqualified downloads. I go beyond the IEB spec. I don't want to— oh, I don't want to overhype and over— so because what it does is it hurts this. Let's go. We've— Rob Greenlee and I've had this conversation like 100 times. Right. If I report 5,000 downloads and it was 1,000, and we bill 5,000 downloads and it was only 1,000, that advertiser is going to get pissed off because their performance is going to be junk and they are going to leave.

There's not going to be an ROI. I mean, that's the—

they're going to leave, right? And I knew at one time a certain advertiser had a spreadsheet. I saw the spreadsheet. And I don't think he was supposed to show me the spreadsheet. This was a long time ago. So this was maybe 8 years ago. And they had a list of companies on this spreadsheet and they had a math equation. It basically discounted the CPMs Not everyone got the same CPM because guess what? Not everyone counted the same.

Right. That was especially a problem way back then.

So this is part of the reason the IB came in place and we want to get everyone on the same page, have a certification process so we're all counting as close as we can to one another. But there is, again, it's the minimum specification. It's not the maximum specification. It doesn't cover fraud.

You know, doesn't cover any of this whitelist, doesn't cover any of that, right?

You know, so bots, bots, well, you know, there's some stuff in there, but again, it's—

well, there's a pathway to filter them, but it's not really built into the stack, right?

So again, if someone's delivering, you know, it depends. This is the problem with, um Also, when do you analyze? Okay, let's say you deliver a download or play with a listen in it and it was a bot. Are they able— are they filtering in real time as that request comes in to see that that is a bot and not deliver that download because it was a bot? That's a question. So what if they— so what if they process the log files later and say, okay, 100 of these thousands that we delivered with advertising and it was a bot. Guess what? You don't get paid for that if they do that. So there's lots of factors that could go into the technology a company uses when they're delivering media to determine that's real and that's not. There's a whole— so you could actually deliver an ad to a bot and it counts as a play. Yeah, right. But you're not going to get paid for it. So there's all kinds of stuff that can happen.

Or an ad request.

That's a whole other one. There's so many variables here. Right.

This is why— We've talked about this topic so many times over the 12 years we've done this show.

So, so this is— so if, if the number, right, that you get paid for is $100, $200, $300, it depends on the volume. Mm-hmm. Depends on the volume. Again, if all of a sudden you see that you got 1,000 downloads, you think 1,000 downloads all had ads in it, but you only get paid for $850. Well, was it because they post-processed it later? They have to explain that. Right. That's where you say, why? Why did this? I didn't get paid for this $150. I'm showing $1,000. You only gave me money for $850, but yet you're ain't answering. Why didn't I get paid for this $150? They should have an explanation for that. There's lots of variables. This statistic stuff is hard. Yeah, it is hard. My stats processing bill a month plus is over $20,000. Just for stats processing and the analysis of that data. That's not including the storage. It's hard. It's hard to do this.

It is hard because it's a very dynamic medium, literally.

So, you know, it was a very curious email. Yeah. So Be careful in pointing fingers. Because sometimes the— but again, these are the questions you have to ask the people you work with. How are you doing this? Are you filtering out? Do you filter before delivery? Because most of these ads are being built instantaneously. They deliver within seconds. A lot of things have to happen within several seconds to make sure that not a bot. All kinds of things. That's why we don't do real-time stats. I'm never going to do real-time stats.

So did you see, um, I guess Ross Adams of ACast, um, was on Pod News Weekly and I guess— oh, I didn't listen to it, but Ross Adams is the CEO of ACAS and I guess he's questioning the ad analytics on Spotify. So here we go, Todd. We're, we're, it feels like we're back, what, 8 years? Something like that, that all these topics are popping up again.

Again, same thing.

Again, again, same stuff. We thought we knocked this issue out, but it's popping up again.

Is Spotify IAB certified? Are they using— is PodSights and Chartables IAB certified? Or PodScribe? Or whatever they were, or whatever that— I'm sorry if I got the company wrong. Which one did Spotify buy? I'm assuming that's what they're doing for their measurement.

PodSights and PodScribe, I think they bought.

Oh no, no, it was, it was Chartable and one other. I think it was PodSights, the one someone almost got in trouble. Oh, right, right, right, right. Yeah, it was, it was Spotify bought PodSight.

Okay, not PodSight. Yeah, they all sound the same.

But again, but again, Spotify has all your listener data already. Yeah, so they get the real play data, they get the click, they know when the listeners click, they know when they scrub, they know when they went fast forward, they, they know all that data. They should have the best measure.

Okay, so what's, what, what's being said here is that Acast is claiming that, um, Spotify ad analytics should be ignored and should They should use Podscribe.

Oh, but Podscribe is only doing pixel. Yeah, they're not— they're doing attribution or they're not doing measurement.

Well, it's ad analytics, so it's not specific to what they're specifically talking about.

So it could be attribution is what they're talking about. Their website says verify and measure your podcast ads.

So Yeah, I haven't dug too deep into this.

And they, you know, the attribution thing is its own thing too. So that's a whole story we can talk a week on. Yeah. Better thing to do is not worry about this. Go value for value. Right. And get in the game here.

I'm just not that deep into the metrics of advertising.

You know, me neither. You know, I, I'm in the metrics of measuring podcasts, right? You know, I'm trying to get an accurate number. You know, I saw something in our stats a couple of days ago. I wrote a ticket up. I said, need to go look, we need to go look at this. Something doesn't— there's something there that I don't like, right? And, you know, I got 2 of my guys tearing log files apart, you know.

So how do you— yeah, so how do you like the changes in Apple Podcasts that came out with, uh, 17?

Have you been playing around with it at all? I, I don't— I, I have not upgraded my phone because I'm one of those people that wait.

I have—

until when? Well, I'll, I'll probably wait another week. I can't. Hmm. How can I say this?

It's not a dramatic change.

No. Well, I know something I can't talk about.

Here we go again.

Yeah. I promised I wouldn't say anything. I think the changes are good. Let's just put it that way.

Yeah. Yeah, from what I can see, they— yeah, I think it's good.

So I have some background on some things that have changed, but I'm not at liberty to quote or publish anything.

At least we can see episode art now.

I think what is the best thing is there has been some, some, I think Apple's done some positive things with, uh, with iOS 17 and the Apple Podcast app. And I'll leave it at that. There's been positive things done.

Do we think that there's going to be anything, um, around analytics? Coming from Apple anytime soon?

Um, we just did a briefing. We had our customers got briefed. No, I, I'm not privy to anything that's new besides what they have publicly announced. Right. And again, if I did know something, I wouldn't be able to—

you probably couldn't say it anyway, right?

Right, right, right. You know, so I, I think here's the takeaway: Apple's listening. Not to just this show. They're listening to the community, they're listening to the hosting companies, they're, you know, they're listening. So yeah, I think that's why I would just encourage you to play around with the app yourself and discover, you know, discover whatever changes you think may have been implemented.

I don't think it's as confusing as it used to be.

No. Functionality. I think the functionality is better for, for listeners at this point.

But I do agree, Todd, they need to get an app on Android.

Yeah, they do at this point.

There's a— I mean, is there a YouTube Music app coming?

Stop. I'm not recommending it. It's not going to be on my distribution folder.

No, but there's no app that exists yet on that.

I wonder, I think there is a YouTube Music app.

I think, is there?

Yeah, I'm 90% sure there is. If we can find it. Yes, there is a YouTube Music app on Google Play. Oh, okay.

So yeah, is it available on iOS?

Uh, well, let's— I'm, I'm 99% bet it is. Let's go to the, uh, to the App Store. I'm sure, I'm sure it is there.

Yeah, it says, uh, YouTube Music. So in-app purchases, it's been Rated 1.1 million times.

Yeah, Google gets— Apple gets 30% of that sales.

So I'm going to download it so I can take a peek at what this thing looks like.

But we have to be worried about the Android users, not the iPhone users. The iPhone users are set. I agree.

So I don't have an Android, so I can't pull it.

I do, you know, and you know, so podcastapps.com, ladies and gentlemen. I keep saying that. Yeah, I, you know, it's, we have to quit talking about YouTube and podcasting.

All right, good talking about YouTube. Good luck with that, Don. I don't know if that's a sustainable strategy.

Wow. Okay. So some of our YouTubers, uh, uh, hey NMS Chat, we know this is going to be a hot potato talk. Ross Brand says, hey gang. Robin Todd. Beauty Bubble comes, says back, this news is wild, huh? Uh, Beauty Bubble says, now mine using Chrome, the art and podcast still exist. Yeah, a little bit. Bang said wall gardens are easier to have, easier to have comply with government regulations. That's, well, you know, that's why, that's why open podcasting is beautiful. Bangs also says think about YouTube Music. It is including YouTube videos reviewing music in my playlist. So what is anybody, is anybody saying anything on Facebook? Let me look on Facebook. Anita says, uh, Mike says Google AI is beta, you can sign up. Google's tried podcasting. And then Anita says, I don't know why your comment was hidden. Okay, I don't know who she's referring to.

So yeah, so it's gonna be interesting to see if this YouTube Music app is gonna— I mean, I keep saying this, but I think, is it gonna support audio?

Well, it already does. Well, YouTube Music is a music playing app. It doesn't play videos, does it? Yeah. Well, I'm sure there's music on there. It doesn't have a music video.

They convert the music to a video file is what I'm trying to say.

Okay, well, then therein lies a—

does that— I mean, unless I'm, I'm completely wrong, I, I hope I'm wrong, but the impression I've got talking to the YouTube team is that They don't do anything in MP3. That's probably true. It's because their infrastructure isn't built for MP3, it's built for video. So that's, that's my big question. If it's going to be pass-through, then they compromised on this. Yeah. And built the ability to ingest audio. Well, I mean MP3 files. Well, more clear.

We'll have to see what, what transcends and what happens. We'll have lots of stuff to talk about.

Yeah, because if they're going to support passthrough, that's really, I think, the only way they can do it.

I agree, unless they do some sort of other solution.

That's going to be problematic.

Yes, it is.

And are they going to combine in the YouTube Music experience shows that are video as well as audio into one kind of like item listing?

Well, there's the question.

That's part 2 of my question.

Again, I don't— Google thus far has failed. So we have to quit talking about them. Here's why. They have failed, failed again and again and again and again to execute a good podcast strategy. I'm not convinced that they can execute a good podcast strategy in YouTube.

Are you taking the position that you would like to see them not be involved in podcasting at all?

Hmm. Are they driving listeners to my website? Are they driving listens to my show?

That's yet to be determined. Again, with this change in strategy, we don't know.

It took them how many years to get 3, 3.5, 4% with Google Podcasts?

And then, then they started pulling that apart because I don't think 3 or 4% is enough for Google to keep investing. Well, I think that's, that's why we're seeing what's happening here, is that they see a pathway to get content but majority shows existing investment.

But the majority of shows that are on Spotify don't get, get like 3 or 4%. So, you know, some shows do better on Spotify, but the majority get 3, 4% at max. And I would say if I did— a matter of fact, I'm going to run a data analysis on that. I would, I would suspect that 90% of shows get less than less than 3% listening on Spotify. Certain shows get great listening on Spotify, but, but it's a small minority of shows. Again, still Apple continues to rule the roost.

Yeah, well, if you think about Apple in their strategy in the market, it's to create a separate podcast app from their music app, right? I hope you say that again. All these other— well, Apple's strategy has been on iOS to create a separate app for podcasts and a separate app for music.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Every single podcast, every single iPhone comes preloaded with this very, very cool little thing right here. It's got a purple—

says podcast on it. The only way, or the only rational way I can see Google deciding to do this was looking at Spotify and saying, okay, well, that's a platform that's gained what, anywhere from 7 to 15, 20% of the market with a converged music and podcast strategy.

All right.

Let me, let me look at something here because if you look at Apple, Apple's been dominant with a separate.

So I'm, I, I've never changed this menu. This is a Samsung phone. Google has to negotiate which apps they are allowed to preload as part of the base of Android. Here's what I have. I've got Google Chrome, Gmail, Maps, YouTube Drive, YouTube Music, Google Play, Duo— no, do I load it? Duo. And photos. So they have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 apps that they preload on every Android device in the world.

So in order— not that much different what Apple does.

Well, but listen, Apple doesn't have to do licensing deals, doesn't have to negotiate. They don't have to like go to every one of their partners, said, we're going to add another app. Because believe me, Samsung says, all right, you're allowed to preload so much because this real estate—

Samsung has their own app, right?

Well, they have their own deals and their own multibillion deals of who gets preloaded on a phone. Netflix, TikTok, they all pay to be preloaded. This isn't a free ride. Right. With every, with every manufacturer. So when Google goes, tries to load some more, they happen to negotiate that out. Apple doesn't have to do that. They just say, we're gonna put whatever the hell we want on here.

Right. Because they own the whole—

they own it.

Right.

The whole thing. Whereas unless you have a Pixel, that's the only phone that Google can say, okay, we're going to load whatever we want.

But if you have a Galaxy Pixel that popular though, it's very popular. Is it?

Oh yeah, it is. It's very popular with Android users. So in that instance, then how does it rank up against Samsung? Do you have an idea as far as market share? I am. Well, you have to— we'll have to Google that and ask the, you know, ask Bing or whoever. But yes, that's the AI. Yeah. Yeah. But if you look at the market share, but if you think about it now, They had every opportunity over these past 3, 4, 5 years to put Google Podcasts as a default-loaded app in Android. They had all this time to pre-negotiate that. You know what they did? They didn't. So what they said is, okay, I've got YouTube Music already pre-loaded. I already got you— you— was YouTube pre-loaded? Oh, maybe not. No, my phone, YouTube was not, but YouTube Music is preloaded. Really? So, okay, we're gonna do some default Google apps delivered on every phone. You're gonna give me a list. Aha. So let's go to the source. Let's go to android.com. Uh, let's look here. What apps come preloaded? Google Apps such as Gmail, Chrome, and Google Maps come preloaded on many Android— Apple, Apple. Okay, I already know that.

Thought I looked up, uh, as of July 2023, yeah, the Google Pixel now occupies 2.46% of North America smartphones.

All right, here it is. Gmail.

Okay, good. It's third largest Android brand in North America, bested only by Samsung, 54%, and Motorola, 4.82%.

Many to almost all Android devices come pre-installed with the following Google apps: Gmail, Google Maps, Google Chrome, YouTube, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies and TV are the primary ones that are on most. Again, I think it, it really depends on Manufacturer to manufacturer, right? I go to 9to5Google. There, there are the new default Google apps for Android 10. See, this is published— oh, this is old, 2023. But again, Google Play Store, Google Search, Chrome Browser, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Duo, Maps, Google Play Music, Google Photos, Google Play Movies, and YouTube. That's pretty much what I have on my Samsung. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. There's no Google Podcast.

Oh, right. Yeah, so it didn't get default.

Now someone wants to pull off a coup, Marco, or one of these others that have an Android app, start negotiating with, uh, with, uh, Samsung and everyone else and try to get your podcast app preloaded. Apple will have the same issue. They won't be able to have a preloaded, but they had enough money they could buy their way in. There you go, Apple team. Tell Tim to pony up a billion and, you know, pay the licensing fees to every one of the Android manufacturers worldwide. She's probably going to take a billion dollars. To get the Apple Podcast app preloaded on every Android device. Why? It probably would take a billion, but guess what? There's not enough money in podcasting to justify them spending a billion to do it.

Right. Right.

Why?

That would be a big middle finger to Google, wouldn't it?

Yeah. Well, they're in antitrust court right now because of default browsers. You know, they're in DOJ, you know, Google's in doing a DOJ trial right now as we speak based upon, you know, them paying to make Google Chrome primary. Wow. That's— and they pay Apple, my understanding is from my everything I'm hearing, they pay Apple a cool billion a year. They have Google Chrome in the iPhone. Wow. Tell you what. Does that tell you what that's worth to Google for their display business?

Yeah, I would imagine.

All right. That's what it's all about is the advertising that we get subjected to when we have Chrome. So maybe there's a reason to start using DuckDuckGo or one of these other privacy-focused browsers. Right. But, you know, I'm talking to a wall here. No one cares. They're going to continue.

There's no privacy in Chrome, that's for sure. So, uh, turn stuff off, I suppose.

So Bang says, of course, Google Play used to be the podcast destination, so it used to be there. But no, it wasn't there by default. Google Podcasts was never pre-installed on any Android device. It was on maybe on Pixel, but not on—

not on— it wasn't No. And it wasn't easy to find that app either.

No. So we're not, we're not going to get a Christmas. We're not going to get it. Oh, it's on Google Play, of course. But the key is here, what we're talking about and the reason why Apple Podcasts, the app, there was an inflection point. For many, many years, Apple Podcasts was not delivered with the iPhone, right? And then at some point, what was it, 2000? What happened? Let me Google. When, when was Apple Podcasts— I should know this date— added to the iPhone by default?

Hey Todd, I just did a a Google query in AI about Google Podcasts, and it says Google Podcasts is a free app that lets you discover, stream, and download podcasts. It comes pre-installed on some Android smartphones, some, and all Pixel editions.

Yeah, so there again, a standalone Apple Podcasts app was announced at the 2012 Worldwide Developer Conference as a feature of iOS 6. Apple released the app early on the App Store in 26, 2012. So we've had a dedicated podcast app from Apple in the iPhone for 11 years, and there is never— and I use the word again, never— to this day on this Samsung phone that I have here, this Galaxy S whatever number it is, has there ever been a podcast app by default loaded on this phone ever., and this is my third or fourth Android. I've had to go manually install a podcast app on this phone. Yeah. Thus the reason why we introduced Subscribe on Android. So when someone came to someone's podcast website, said, oh, there's an Android link, they clicked on the Android button, we took them— if they didn't have an app already, we took them to Subscribe on Android, said, here's 12 or 13 apps that support Single Clip Subscribe on Android. Install it on your Android phone, and Heather Moore, once you find another podcast that has a Subscribe on Android link, it will load the app by default and you can subscribe with one click. Yeah. Oh, why does Blueberry Podcasters have a larger percentage of Android listeners than anyone else in the podcasting space?

Ta-da!

Ta-da!

So I just went and pulled up, um, the, the podcastmanager.google.com website. Oh, to see if it's still up. I'm sure it's still up. It is up and active. Uh, insights to power your podcast, it says. Get to know your audience better and reach new listeners.

Google Podcast Manager. What were in this? And people ask, why has Android always lagged in podcast listenership? Why is it always lagged? Why is the numbers of Android listeners by default always lag?

6 to 1 on Apple to this thing.

This thing they're doing here with YouTube and Google Play Music is not going to fix that. No, not gonna fix it.

Will not. Google is a bigger platform than YouTube Music, clearly.

So there is again a great opportunity here for all Android apps that— they're all cheering. Everyone that has an Android podcast app that isn't Google, they are all like, yes, break out the guns!

Yes, there is that, you know, that you're They're getting all those people back, right?

They're shooting themselves in the foot. Getting all them back. Spotify's cheering too because they think, oh, we can get those folks, right? And they're going to be marketing hard to Android users, hard, trying to get them to listen to podcasts on Spotify. Don't do it. No, send them, send them to podcastapps.com. Get a modern podcast app on Android.

Do not let people move. I'm— I loaded the, the app, the, the YouTube Music app, and right on the front page, recommended music videos.

Well, search for the New Media Show. We're over there, in there.

Oh, it's in here.

And okay, but we're a video.

We're a video. We're actually live right now, but it only links to the video.

Yeah, links to the YouTube live. Yeah, exactly. Links to the YouTube live. Oops, kind of the wrong way. Yeah, to the video.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's all it links to, right? Oh, okay, okay. It does have a tab at the top. It says podcast. Uh, no, no, it says audio.

It's up at the top up here. They have the audio.

Version of it. If I click on the audio, yeah, it doesn't change anything.

Really great experience.

Rob, you need— Oh, oh, I know what it did. What did it do? It locked the visual image. Right. Midstream.

And just plays the audio.

Okay, well, again, that's the actual experience.

Let's, let's stop talking about these folks. Quit.

We have to. Well, I think, well, Todd, people need to understand what they're doing here.

Well, I mean, you know, I think ignoring them is probably not helping people understand. There's people pounding their head against the wall right now that's listening to this show.

No, I I don't disagree with that, but this, this may be how they're going to do the audio.

Yeah, okay, is what I'm saying, is that it's just gonna, you know, freeze the album art if you're not doing live.

Well, it's the live stream is what they—

yeah, well, again, you know, not everybody does live streams. That percentage is still small, right?

Right. But how are they going to, um, so is there anything—

go look for Geek New Central, you'll— because we're not live on Geek New Central, and I guarantee what it's going to show you is the YouTube channel. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to show that it's going to show that video channel. Yeah. Because there's, they're not taking RSS feeds yet. So we have to wait until see what they do with RSS.

Okay. I, I typed in Geek News Central and it came up with the New Media Show. That's funny. That's funny. Well, because you've linked those things together.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's a different channel. There's two channels within the YouTube channel.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't think platforms see a big— I mean, YouTube doesn't see a difference between your Geek News Central and the New Media Show, really.

I mean, they do, right? Right, because, because again, they're just— we've just set the channel as a podcast in, in YouTube and they don't know the difference yet until they start at some point taking RSS feeds.

Right. So I, I clicked on Geek News Central. Um, let me go to an episode.

Yeah. It's only video.

Yeah.

Because that's all it's tied to right now is video. We have to find up there. We have to find a YouTube. What we have to find is we have to go on YouTube and find a podcast that doesn't have any video. But again, they can't. It's all converted to MP4. So there's going to be something that's going to be shown there.

Yeah. Well, they're going to probably only partner with shows that have video too. I don't know. I mean, I think they announced a couple of really big shows.

Yeah. If you click on the podcast link in the, in YouTube, it's all video.

So again, Okay, I clicked on the Lex Friedman Show, but it looks like it's all video.

Yeah, Lex Friedman does video. Yeah, he does.

So, but who might they have in here that is just audio only?

Well, again, you're going to have to dig and find one. And I'm sure there's plenty out there. So if one of our podcasters does audio only, but yes, their audio on a YouTube channel, send us the link so we can see what it looks like. You know, I, I think it's album art is what it shows. That's all it shows, I'm pretty sure, is when it's— when it is a thing playing, it just shows album art.

Yeah, it's been converted into a video file. Yeah, yeah. And it's just playing, playing.

But again, playing as a video, they're going to ingest RSS, they have to take the MP3. That's just— I'm going to assume that they are.

Well, that's a big change for them. Oh, good. Yeah. Well, if they want to compete with Apple and Spotify, they kind of have to do that, right? I would say if they want the content, they need to take it in the form that it's being presented if they're going to ingest RSS. Yeah. But I wouldn't, I'm not sure on that. Yeah, we'll see what they're actually going to do.

We'll see. Yeah.

Boy, we should check in about it and we'll talk about it.

We should get some feedback on this show. Probably get some hate, but talking about those guys. But there is, you know, here's, here's the thing. We just got to keep our eyes on the ball, not get distracted about them and what they're going to do because they've failed multiple times to move the ball for podcasting.

So show me, what would Adam Curry say?

I already know what he's going to say. No, I'm serious. They have not moved the ball for the average podcaster. They've not. For subset that do video and all that stuff. Yeah, they moved the ball. But for majority of podcasters, no, they haven't. So not— it's a non— they don't, they don't give two hoots because they don't drive them no traffic. When you— when, when, when we see— when we see Google Music, which supposedly going to ingest RSS feeds, when we see them— YouTube Music, it's not Google. Excuse me, YouTube Music, blah, blah, blah. YouTube Music, when we see that at 3 or 4%, then they, they've caught up to where they were before. I don't believe it's going to happen. Amazon can't move the ball. Pandora can't move the ball. iHeart can't move the ball for average podcasters. Oh no.

Right.

They haven't moved the ball. Who has moved the ball? Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts. Those are who's moved the ball. That's who people are using to listen to podcasts.

The other question that I have is this. So if your podcast is currently in Google Podcasts, oh, that's going to be— yeah, then what's going to happen? That I think if you look at this Google Podcast Manager platform, it podcastsmanager.google.com is the address. That is, they have a process that you can claim your feed.

Yep. And you know, here's the thing that pisses me off about that platform. About every 2 months I have to go in there and say, you switch feeds, stop pulling that wrong feed. I have to keep going in and telling it, don't move, don't pull this feed, you keep pulling the wrong feed. Because in, in day, I get a support ticket, 2 weeks later, so, okay, we put your original feed back on. They keep moving the feed to some other location that is not my podcast feed. It drives me crazy.

Let me lay out another scenario. The more I think about this, um, what if a podcast is RSS only. Yep. Um, but doesn't have their podcasts either in Google Podcasts or—

every podcast is in Google Podcasts. You think so?

Automatically.

Yeah, every podcast. Yeah, there's very— we haven't found it within 2 weeks of a podcast coming online, it was in Google Podcasts.

Okay. Yeah, because I mean, it was done kind of automatically. Yeah, I think in the background, but Yeah. Okay. But let's say they don't have a YouTube channel.

Well, that's, that's where I want to see what's going to happen because there's going to be a conflict at some point.

Yeah.

Does that mean that—

have 3 listings, 4 listings? Well, that, and also where do you go in to claim that RSS feed that came out of Google Podcasts that they've imported into YouTube Music?

Right.

They'll have to tell us. Is there going to be a separate claim process for that compared to what they have now? Or, and is there going to be a submission process that's built into a channel area, you know, the settings area for a channel in YouTube in order to get your podcast in there?

Or is it going to be a separate thing? It may be both, but there's going to have to be a way to deconflict.

Or I'm sure Google will want to force all the podcasters to create a YouTube channel.

Some of us, some of us have two feeds. And that's another thing I've spent this week doing. What, a video and an audio feed? Yeah, I've been educating podcasters that, hey, by the way, you can do a video podcast, right?

A true one. The question is, is YouTube gonna accept the ingestion of a video podcast?

Oh, that's, that's— Darren, Darren lies. We'll see.

I, I hope so. There's a whole other question there.

Yeah, so it's a whole nother video.

I do know that YouTube has a relationship to import videos into Rumble. I thought it was an interesting connection.

Hold on a second. YouTube has a relationship to do what?

To Rumble, where you can link up your, your Rumble video account with YouTube and That relationship will transfer videos out of YouTube into Rumble over a period of time automatically because I've done it. Now that's interesting.

So there's a migration path from YouTube to— I bet you this must be a hack that Rumble did. I bet you there's no relationship. I bet you Rumble just is doing something. Of course, Rumble's in trouble now. They're— the EU is gonna try to find them because they won't do what they've been told like good children. Mm-hmm. Yeah, big brother coming in once again and putting the thumb on the scale, right?

Yeah. So anyway, that's what's going on. I thought it was an interesting relationship. So YouTube must have some sort of an API or something like that that is made available to other platforms to share video somehow.

Not sure. Oh, somebody's— I see Mike Dell's comment on here. Somebody's comment may have gotten moderated on the Facebook channel, but might have been Mike's, but Anita's gonna send me a screenshot of it. Huh. And Bangs has been busy. Uh, Rumble scrapes the video like BitChute and all the others. It's not a business relationship. Oh, not the EU. The UK is about ready to slap Rumble. Oh, um, he says there are many new podcasters I've been dealing with that think of Spotify and YouTube as where podcasts exist. I've never heard of RSS. It's Gen Z. Yeah, we know. We know that. So the best thing to do is educate, educate, educate, educate, right? Meanwhile, if you want to participate in the Podcasting 2 ecosphere, you can go over to podcastmirror.com and use that to, uh, to participate and take your, uh, Spotify feed and submit it to podcast mirror. And guess what? You can now monetize via Podcasting 2.0, value for value—

time, talent, or treasure. So does that mean that Spotify could make a connection to YouTube and get the, get the YouTube videos transferred over to Spotify?

Is that what's going to happen? That could happen, but I think you would have to be on Spotify to authorize that, right?

Yeah, but if Rumble was able to do it, why couldn't Spotify?

Well, again, they just, they just play the videos and they capture it, and then they You've given them permission to take your content.

So however that happens, there's some sort of a pathway there.

If it's an API or some sort of— oh no, it's not a relationship. It's just pure— it's pure grab. I would imagine. I would imagine. Yeah. So I pay for YouTube Premium, but I don't pay for YouTube Music. Maybe it's a combined deal. So, oh yeah, you pay for YouTube Music at the same time if you buy Premium.

Oh, you do. Okay. Wow. So I have a music platform I can play. Wow. Okay. Wow. There you go. What a value there, Todd. Yeah. Okay.

So we actually made it. Well, we're not quite there yet. You were late. So we're still a little short.

We're a little short. Short is not an accurate reference to me.

So, you know, okay, well, that's, that's true. I tell you, it's a, it's an interesting time in the podcasting space right now because we continue, we continue to have huge opportunity outside of the stupid conversation about YouTube with I keep throwing that in there. Um, great opportunity to grow your show right now. It's— we're seeing it, we're seeing the numbers. Independent podcaster shows, uh, are growing because people are going downstream, looking deeper into, uh, Apple Podcasts and other places to find shows that are producing. Um, again, it's, it's a great time And of course, I want to say the best time ever, but last 10 days, 247,000 episodes were created. But over the past 60 days, only 412,000. So the 10-day average might be up just a little bit, but the 60-day average hasn't caught up. So, yeah. So it still continues to be a, uh, to be a challenge.

Um, and I'm not getting a sense that the economic situation is going to be improving anytime soon.

Oh, it's horrible right now. Absolutely horrible.

I think, um, the only way that we're going to see a change in there is if the interest rates can go down, but there's a lot of people saying that's not going to happen until 2024 or sometime.

Yeah. It's, you know, it's not, not at all going to—

it's going to continue to be a rough advertising market for podcasting.

Yeah.

So a lot of people in the, in the industry don't like to talk about it like that.

So rough market. I've started No Shave November early. I'm going to put the beard back in. Oh, you are? Yeah. I'm going to put it back in a little, little hint of fall and I'm I just started 2 days ago.

What, it's a path to stay warm in the winter months?

Is that what the— yeah, it's the polar bear look. Just get the, you know, get the, get the Santa Claus look going again here, you know.

You know.

Right. All right. So, you know, I, there's no Grecian formula that's going to save me. Not anymore. I am gone anyway. I am going to— I don't think it's going to affect the show. I'm going to be going out to, um, see my daughter with my new grandbaby. So I think—

I don't think it's gonna see my message to you.

Oh, about next week not being available?

No, no, no, about the Wenatchee.

I did. That was curious. I'm just gonna stay at her house, sleep on the floor. Oh, you are? Okay. Yeah, unless you don't have it. So you don't have a house there no more?

You don't? I don't have one, no, but my dad's sister lives there.

Oh, okay, okay. Well, I got a place to stay, but that is— what is the deal with that town? How come I've never seen— it's more expensive to stay there than it is to stay in Seattle.

Well, it's because it's close to a town called Leavenworth, which is a German town, right, which is a very popular kind of fall destination.

It's going to have Oktoberfest going on, so I got cheap tickets to get into Seattle. Wenatchee was another, it was double. I could get into round trip to Seattle for $450, but getting into Wenatchee was $800. And I'm like, small airport, so I'm only serviced by Alaskan Airlines only. And it would have had me arriving at midnight. So I'm just going to fly United like I normally do to Seattle. And then I will rent a car and drive for 3 hours. So there hopefully will be no snow by then. The pass doesn't get closed until like November 15th, so I should still—

yeah, you should be okay.

You should be okay in October. Yeah, so go out there for 3 or 4 days and see the new grandbaby. But I don't think it's going to affect the show. I think I'm going to leave here on the 13th and come back on the 17th. So, okay. Um, but yeah, and maybe get a little— go maybe get a little Oktoberfest going on, maybe drink a little German beer at, uh, in—

well, I was gonna go out go out to Seattle too in October.

So, oh well, let me know when you're— are you going to be in that area?

Well, I know it depends on if we go out and see my— oh, okay, my dad's sister or not.

I'm not sure. Well, I'm gonna be cooking anyway. I'm just saying I'm going there to do chores, change baby diapers, and let, let my daughter get some sleep as she needs to. Yeah. So, uh, but hope everyone has enjoyed The, uh, the battle royale today. And who were a dull moment in the podcast? And again, who— what is the secret group? Who belongs to the secret group? There's a secret group.

Yeah, the secret group.

Yes, secret group. Yeah, that emailed me this, you know, they're going to, you know, looks like develop a hit piece for for podcasting. That's my suspicion. Because they, you know, they want people to go to jail.

Wow, that's some serious stuff there.

Yeah, well, if you steal from— if you steal from people, that's a serious issue. And I'm not saying anybody is. Well, yeah, okay, that's a— that you come out with that gun, you, you better have all your ducks in a row because that's That's, that's a major accusation. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think stealing is now more acceptable, Todd. No, it's not.

For some people it is. How can you even say that, Rob?

Well, you just got to pay attention to what's going on in the world.

And well, that's the— if you pay attention to what's going on mainstream media, you'll end up sick. Don't— I know, don't watch any of that stuff.

I'm not watching mainstream, I'm just watching social media.

Well, you know, you have to unfollow people that, you know— yeah, there is some crazy stuff on, on social media. Yeah, but, uh, I haven't had time. I've just— like I said, it's been busy, busy, busy. It's just I'm trying to stay ahead of my dev team.

Yeah, so what's the next, next event that you're involved in?

I mean, there's, you know, I know, uh, January, going to Podfest. Yeah, the Podfest. Matter of fact, has that announcement been made? It did, right?

On the Hall of Fame? No, I'm, I'm the one that said something. Oh, so, but anyway, you know, I'm sure that something is going to be coming out.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right. Yeah. I just said something I probably shouldn't have. Okay. So, okay. Everyone, thanks. I'm Todd at blueberry.com. I'm @geeknews on X. I'm at @geeknews, @geeknews.chat on Mastodon.

Rob? And I'm on X as well, @robgreenlee. And you can find me at robgreenlee.com. I've got a bunch of podcasts, you can find them all there. And you can send me an email if you want, rob.greenlee@gmail.com is my current email address. So feel free to send me a note if you have any, uh, who the secret group is.

Yeah, we want to know.

And have you got—

we promise we won't tell anybody. Have we got the same Have you got the same email? Some of it, you know, it's very interesting email. Yeah. So, uh, all right everyone, we'll see you back here at the same, uh, same— well, we'll be back at 3 o'clock next week. Rob isn't gonna have to race. I think we are.

Yeah. So I do have a new, new surprise coming out in October about something I'm doing.

Oh, so you're, uh, let me, let me guess, you are going to work with You already work for them. You already work for them. You already work for—

so it's just a check-off list, Todd.

That's all it is. So I'm trying to figure out who's left on the list that's still in prison.

Well, I think there's multiple things that we may be talking about me in the next month, right?

Who knows?

Oh, really? Wow. Well, You keep wanting to talk about one of them already.

So just, you know, just, you know. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not ready to talk about it yet.

Okay. Oh, good. All right, everybody.

Rob's hinting.

Well, that's all I can do is hint. All right. So everybody take care. We'll see you next time here. And let that email flow.

We want to know. Yes. All right.