SOCIAL MEDIA and PODCAST DISCOVERY

Looks like we're live.

Yep, just waiting on a few more things here.

Todd and Rob in the afternoon. Hey, afternoon delight with Todd and Rob.

Oh yeah, I think it's more like Todd and Rob in the evening, but, uh, Starting next week.

Well, in the— on the West Coast of the U.S., it's, uh, what, 5 o'clock? So I guess it's still the afternoon.

Still somewhere. But, uh, starting next week, we— I will be back. I'll be back in the States. So, uh, hopefully no more OBS glitches.

Yeah. And we'll go back to 3 o'clock.

Yep. Back to 3 o'clock. Okay, so we'll be back in the afternoon for those of you that miss the afternoon streams, at least for the time, or the lunch hour streams. Oh yeah, yeah, that's true. So sorry about last week, I just, uh, I, I came down with something. It was just like a 24-hour— I think what it was, I just hadn't been getting much sleep. And, uh, it just kind of caught up to me.

Well, you know, Todd, I've been hearing, um, that there's been a really high level of electromagnetic storms that have been hitting the Earth over the last, uh, couple weeks.

Is that supposedly affecting health?

Uh, it can affect your sleep, yeah, from what I gather. So it could, could be causing some tossing storms that erupted on the face of the sun that directed that energy right at the Earth. So I guess supposedly we're going to get hit by something in the southern hemisphere on Thursday sometime. So we'll see if there's power outages down there.

All right, well, we will see. I'm getting on a jet plane Sunday morning my time, which is Saturday afternoon your time, or evening or something like that. Yeah. And flying to San Francisco, then into Chicago, and then the train to Michigan. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Wouldn't that be funny? Anyway, uh, a couple weeks, uh, here since we've been talking about podcasting, and, um, you sent me over some, uh, some commentary. So word of mouth is no longer the, uh, the primary way that people are discovering podcasts, supposedly. Who, who, who came up with that?

Even from Edison and you know, the share rear and things like that have been doing some deep diving on this as well. And I think if you have to really back up and you have to look at kind of like two factors here, and I think we can dive into the details of this. So there's a lot of sharing going on. There's a lot of people commenting about podcasts on social media. All sorts of things like that that are really very similar to word-of-mouth sharing. So I think, you know, we may have seen this trend go on for a while, but people maybe were misinterpreting word-of-mouth, you know, not including social media. So, you know, I think it's a big thing. And then the other big one is this, you know, perception, and to some degree it's popping up in all the research that YouTube is considered to be a social media platform, which in my mind raises another bigger question is, you know, podcasting, is podcasting kind of a social media type of a medium as well? I mean, is everything becoming kind of like social media right now, right? I don't know. It's just something to ponder, right? As we think about how people are finding content on like Instagram and TikTok and all of these short its platforms and how this is all kind of like podcasters are tapping into all this stuff to reach new audiences. So this is a topic that is a little bit shifted, but I don't think it's that much of a shift away from, you know, people individually sharing a podcast. I think that still goes on. I think that came up number 2.

Yeah, that's curious because Yeah, you know, I, I guess, you know, if you want to— if they're going to call YouTube a social media platform, then definitely a podcast is a social media platform, which, you know, kind of a weird— I don't really consider YouTube a place to engage someone socially.

Um, no, that's true. That's— I mean, that's a good observation, Todd. I think that YouTube has not done a good job of making it kind of like a social media type of a platform, though. There's elements of it that are. I mean, comments come through and people talk back and forth. Like, that happens on this show sometimes, right? It mainly happens on Facebook, right? Which is truly a social media platform. So, but it, you know, I don't know, there's research that's coming out that's pointing in this direction, so I just wonder if just all online media is kind of converging on itself.

Well, you know, the— considering the interactions I have with the audience on here and in my, you know, Geek News Central, the social interaction there is usually a lot less than what I get in someplace like Facebook or X. So, and I can't remember the last time someone told me they discovered my show because of social media. Um, again, the way the logarithm works on Facebook, you know, they— it's very rare do I get exposed to anyone's content or anyone's— in anyone that I don't know already, um, you know, besides ads being thrown at me, um, and reels that really are, you know, you know, usually stupid stuff, nothing of any consequence, you know, a cow licking somebody's face or something dumb like that. You know, I'm not necessarily a quote unquote. I don't get this urging need to go find this person and subscribe to their content.

Yeah. Well, it's like a separate consumption experience, just separately, right? It's 2 minutes or a minute long content. And once you're done, you're moving on to the next thing, right?

And YouTube definitely surfaces new content for me. Sure, I see that. Yeah, but sometimes it gets annoying and it's predictable. Um, there's a, um, here in the Philippines, um, they— it's— there's a pretty amazing ecosystem. You had asked me before we, uh, started if I had a vehicle here, and I don't. And, uh, public transportation and Uber-like services are real popular here, but I've become interested in— they have this, and most people that have never been to Asia probably have no idea what I'm referring to, but in the '90s Suzuki had a series of vehicles that really 3-cylinder, 4-cylinder, very small powered, like 50 horsepower. And I always used to kind of laugh at these vehicles because they were I guess the best word for them would be, um, you wouldn't want to get in a wreck with one. You know, they're pretty small. They're pretty small. You know, they're, they're like—

so were they four-wheeled vehicles?

Yeah, four-wheel vehicles, but, you know, maximum four people and, you know, little storage area. But what they've done is, um, they cut them up in Japan And they ship them to the Philippines and then very industrious people put the vehicles back together, upgrade them, lift them, paint them, you know, modernize, accessorize them and do everything except for, well, they go through the transmission and the top end of the motor. And then they're selling these things. They're selling them for like $4,000. And they're wildly popular. And I'm thinking, if I come back again, this might be— because I just need a putt-putt vehicle to get around. I don't need something to go very far, right? And I thought, yeah, these are kind of cute. And so I got to watching some videos on that. And of course, YouTube immediately started firing me all kinds of car videos and You know, stuff that's like, okay, I was just watching this one channel. I don't need 82 channels of the same thing. So, you know, YouTube is pretty predictable in that regard. If you seek something out, then it starts serving you like content. So I don't know. I, again, I'm not watching podcasts on YouTube, so I'm not really being fed other podcasts.

But those, probably some of those shows look like maybe they're podcasts, right?

No, I don't watch—

have a—

I don't watch people on or something. I don't watch any of those shows on YouTube. If they're not on Apple Podcasts, I don't listen to them. I, I don't, I don't listen to, um, shows that look like a podcast on YouTube.

So what kind of shows do you watch on, on YouTube?

Uh, people that are out in the wilderness surviving series types of shows where people are living their life, you know, living their life. Uh, whether it be— I used to be big into van life, you know, I was watching that, those types of series before. Then I was into people that were sailing. So I wasn't necessarily watching interview shows or talking. There's probably one, maybe one that I watch on YouTube, but it's usually a short And it's never their full length, um, their full-length video because it's annoying. They'll start off and they'll do 2 minutes and then they'll promote some product or merch. So I don't watch—

are you watching on your phone mainly?

No, no, TV. And TV, never watch YouTube on my phone.

Oh, so you're watching Shorts on your television?

Oh yeah, those are pop— well, Shorts being 2 or 3 minutes, that's really— I can— it's not a short per se, vertical short. It's just cuts, you know, segments that they— someone has put up. But I never watch a full length. I never watch Rogan. I never— I don't watch any of those. You know, I've got more time to listen still than I do to watch, so.

Oh, okay.

You know, I don't spend— I can't spend hours and hours and hours in front of the TV.

Um, you know. So I guess what you're symbolizing to me is that there's a different, there's a wide range of different experiences people are having with content that's on YouTube, right? There's other people that are, there's very, very huge numbers that I see for shows that are doing stuff just like we are here, Todd. It just depends on what the topics are.

To me, it doesn't move fast enough. Or YouTube. I'm kind of a YouTube guy that I want to be in and out in 20 minutes. And I don't want to be watching 2-hour-long or an hour and a half stuff on YouTube. I can listen to stuff that long, but, you know, my, I guess my internal log, and everyone I'm sure is different.

Yeah. Well, I think that that's the big takeaway. Yeah.

And if the pace, and I'm sure sometimes probably people become annoyed with the pace of this show.

So, you know, well, it's, it, you know, if you compare this show to many of the shows that are up there, um, they're, they're more visually stimulating, right? So, and I think that's the, that's the big distinguishing characteristic here is that, you know, really, I, I see the most audience gravitating towards shows that have lots of, you know, like other visuals that pop up on the screen.

Oh, they're running other clips or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. So you have, you know, a conversation that runs in a certain direction. We could certainly do that with this show too, but it's mainly done in like a tool like a StreamYard or something like that where you bring up a, you know, like a short video or you bring up a still image or you bring up something in the background and you're able to refer to it, or people draw on the screen. Yeah, circle things and talk about things and things like that, which is a much more kind of visual production.

Um, but again, those are usually people that are— those are usually shows where there's 3 or 4 people in a studio somewhere, very high-end productions.

No, I mean, I've— I do it with my podcast Tip Show.

Yeah, I do it with, with Geek N' Central as well, so even with—

so you bring up like a— what, like a screen?

Yeah, bring up a screen, screen grab or something like that, right? Yeah, it's very—

that's all I'm talking about. I know a lot of people pre-produce.

You can't, you know, you can't see it, but, um, I can do it right now. Um, that's the only difference here is I don't have a feedback mechanism to show you, but I, you know, I can bring up You know, I can bring up the screen, you know, but boom, you know, it's not a big deal.

Well, it's a little bit more difficult because I mean, I do this live show that I've been doing for a while too. And it's not as easy as it is to do it in a post-produced video, right? I mean, it's really easy to use like a video editor to just bring up, you know, and just layer into the timeline in a video editor, kind of like a video overlay that will play. I just published one today that had, had video overlays.

And the challenge is, is the copyright issues. You know, they're so hardcore on any motion video whatsoever, um, interplayed in your content. The copyright strikes just come quicker than, you know, you play anyone else's YouTube video, you play anyone else's content I haven't seen that, Todd.

I've been doing it for months now.

Oh, it hasn't caught up to you? If you— and if you're using other people's contents in and playing live video, do you play the audio at the same time that's in those videos? Yeah, yeah, that's, that's just like—

I— yeah, like I played, uh, some videos that I got from from Tesla in, in the most recent episode that I did about Tesla, um, that I grabbed off of their website.

Yeah, you've been, you've been left for their, off of their press page, and maybe they're not enforcing it, but you know, I've seen something.

That's the key, key thing. It depends on what it is, how long you play it. Yeah, to some degree. But I do think that the, somewhat the rules have changed Well, there's—

I've gotten strikes, uh, even putting website images up before. So when you say website images, just bringing a website up, bringing a news site up, bringing up, you know, uh, PC World or whatever. I've got a screenshot.

Yeah, or a browser.

A browser of a, of a, of a website. I've gotten a copyright strike on those before. And again, it doesn't happen all the time, but you know, it all depends on if there's enforcement going on by those groups.

Yeah, I would imagine that's probably true, right? Yeah.

And I have had bigger issues with YouTube content, replaying someone else's YouTube content. Yeah, that's even more challenging. If I'm getting something off a news site, less impact. But if I'm playing someone else's YouTube video, bam, copyright strike.

Yeah, I'll play like a— I did this in a recent other video that I did. I played like maybe a minute from a TEDx talk.

And I'm surprised you haven't— Yeah, I'm just surprised you haven't gotten copyright strikes on those.

No. So, yeah, I've been doing it off and on for months. And I go through all of the checks, the copyright checks, all that stuff. It comes up saying found no problems. So, yeah, I think it's kind of a hit and miss thing, Todd. I'm not sure it's a it's an always thing, right, that happens. I think it depends on where it came from and who it is.

Yeah, that's probably, probably the issue. Yeah. And one thing's for sure is you don't want to show any Getty Images in your videos at all. If there's an image on a website that has a Getty Image on it, that's— or, uh, you're talking about superimposed kind of You know, just if you have, let's say you have a news website opened up and they've got a Getty image in there and you show that within your content, bam, that's, that's almost an instant one. So when you say show a Getty image, okay, so if I was bringing up, it's a Getty image because it's, they have a, it says Getty, it says the credit is Getty or AP or whoever. In the image. Getty is hardcore on if you haven't licensed that image, you can't use it in your content. But that's more news type of stuff that I do, and I have type of— so if I ever see on a web page that they have a Getty image, the credit is the Getty image, I, I don't load that page because it, it almost immediately within 24 hours there's a copyright strike that you used, uh, imagery that you weren't licensed for.

And when was the last time that you got a copyright strike?

I don't— well, again, I avoid it because I don't want copyright strikes.

Yeah, so, so if things have changed, but you probably—

you can't use a Getty Image though. And if you put a Getty Image up in your YouTube video, go ahead and try it. You know, I, you know, good luck.

Well, Todd, if you haven't tried it in a long time, it's not necessarily a long time, things have changed.

I don't think so, you know. Okay, you know, when Getty comes and sends me an email, wants $800 for an image in an image, and the image within the image was a Getty image, um, They're still being very aggressive.

Has that happened to you?

Yeah, absolutely. I've had to write a check in the past.

Oh yeah?

Yeah. You know, got an image off a quote-unquote place where there was licensed— it had a licensed image to use. And what it was, was there was an image within the image and it was tiny. It was in a It was in a frame. Basically, it was a picture of a room and in the frame was an image. The image in the frame was a Getty image and I ended up having to write a check over that.

So when was that?

A couple years ago.

Do you remember? Oh, it was years ago.

No, I said a couple of years ago.

Oh, a couple years ago.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we're really tight on Geekness Central on what images we use. To ensure that we're— and again, that was on the website, not necessarily on YouTube. So I just, I avoid Getty.

Like, oh, so, oh, so that copyright strike was based on the website?

Well, the demand for money was because of the website, not because of YouTube. But I've gotten YouTube strikes because of imagery in, in the YouTube video.

It'd be interesting to find out exactly what's going on with that. And I, I have this perception that there's not a huge amount of transparency at YouTube about what they're doing with that.

I'm going to just Google this. Can I use a Getty image in a YouTube video that is on a website being displayed.

It doesn't even need to be on a website, right? It can just be pulled up as a background image.

No, it says no, generally you cannot use a Getty Images and YouTube video on a website being displayed without permission. So yeah, they are And even there's Quora, and even Getty has— yeah, yeah. So, you know, you want to use Getty Images, you got to have a Getty Images— you got to have a license.

Yeah, I don't, I don't think I've ever used a Getty image.

Well, you won't know again if you're showing a website and they have an image in there. That is right.

I don't show websites like you do, so I don't show like news articles on a website, right? I don't do a news, news show.

So how do you get around the music then that's in like the Tesla videos and stuff?

The ones that I've used don't have music in them.

Oh, okay.

Plus I'm doing kind of the voiceover over the top of the videos while they're playing.

So some of that is, you know, again, fair use is funny. And I'm just so leery of it. You know, once you've had to write a couple of checks.

Oh yeah, I can totally understand that. That makes sense, right?

Yeah.

But I do think it's a moving landscape and I don't bring up browser-based experiences on my videos here lately. I haven't been doing that much of that. I kind of create my own image. Oh yeah, and I superimpose it.

I've gotten more strikes on my own content that's mine that they mistaken for somebody else's. I probably had to deal with maybe 100 of those, every— and it's usually old content on YouTube.

So what would that be?

They just flag it and say, hey, at 3 minutes and 42 seconds to 4:10 You're using— and I go into it and it's, no, it's me talking and it's just the algorithm made a mistake. So I can test it and, and, uh, it's cleared. So there's, you know, it's always been a mistake, but you know, you rack up too many that are true ones, you, you can, you can lose your channel, which is the advantage of podcasting. You don't You know, you're not going to lose your channel. Although, although, you know, it's true Spotify is being, you know, pretty heavy-handed still.

Um, yeah, it's mainly on music.

It's church. It's, uh, church. Anybody that's doing a church podcast, they're just getting hammered. Church lately, that's been the latest. Yeah, because there's been hymnal music or something like that's being sung or something.

And oh, it's still music.

Yeah, it's music. Yeah.

Okay.

So for those of you doing church podcasts, don't put any music in the content.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, I suppose that could be the case. But if it's like a— it's interesting if it's a church group of just people just singing or something like that.

That's still a copyright hit. You know, there's stuff that's very, very, very, very old that is not, but that's not what's being sung in churches these days, you know. A lot of the stuff that's being sung in churches is modern-day church music that is copyright and licensed.

So, okay.

Yeah. So, you know, and so that's what we've been seeing. And matter of fact, we've actually had some outreach by podcasters said, hey, how come How come they have this episode missing? I said, well, we forwarded you your DMCA takedown, your copyright strike that you can appeal now, but we've seen no appeals having been overturned.

So are you seeing any takedowns like that coming out of Apple?

No, never.

That's interesting why Apple would be tolerant of it, but Spotify is not.

Well, they don't— they've been very clear they don't want music in spoken word content.

Hmm. But Apple doesn't care.

Apple doesn't care. Well, I don't get them. I've never— I don't think I've ever gotten a DMCA. And maybe Apple sends it directly to the podcaster. You know, I would assume that's if there was an issue. You know, maybe Ted can weigh in if he's listening. Um, again, maybe they go direct because they have a direct relationship with the, with the, uh, with the podcaster.

So yeah, right, yeah, that makes sense. So to kind of back up about this social media connection, I think a lot of ways it The more I think about it, the more I do think it makes sense because there's elements that have come into play here as social media has gotten bigger and more popular that just those pathways can be great ways for people to share. So it's just an augment of that word of mouth.

People have gotten smarter. They're doing Shorts, they're doing clips, they're doing audio segments.

Yeah, and that's all on social media.

And we're having, We see the usage of our AI tool creating audio clips and video clips. It's huge.

Yeah, and then with YouTube adding the podcast playlist thing, that puts it right into that perceived to be social media of YouTube. But does— would Spotify be considered to be a social media platform?

Again, I guess if you're going to call YouTube a social media platform, then Spotify is as well. You know, again, if there's anybody that's discovering stuff via those platforms, then, you know, is that really social or is that just an algorithm thing? I, I don't care where they can find the content. That's why I've always said I don't care where you watch or listen. Long as you do. And if you're discovering us on YouTube, great, you know. And if you're not, then, you know.

Yeah, I think this opens up another layer of question is, if you look at what YouTube's doing, is that they're very focused on the episode level, right? Um, in presenting to their users, uh, just individual episodes, right? It's this whole concept of subscribing and following a series and stuff like that. Sure, it's built into the platform, but it's not the primary ideation around the algorithm. The algorithm is really focused on each individual video has to be a standalone experience.

Yeah, yeah. But if I'm subscribed, they show me the last—

It's a signal.

They have, well, no, in my subscription list, I have the last 20 shows that I have watched, and those are at the top because they don't offer— you know, this is the thing that's so bad about YouTube is if you subscribe to a lot of channels, you know, it's, it's not by recent except for those top 20. You have to go A, B, C, D, E, F, G, F, you know, well, actually they're not even alphabetical. You just have to find them in the list. Just ridiculous. They make it so hard.

Yeah, and I keep hearing more and more from the, the YouTube experts out there that that whole subscribe function doesn't really play into the algorithm that much anymore. They've, they've kind of de-emphasized it.

I very rarely watch stuff that I'm not subscribed to.

Well, they would rather surface content to you that they know that you are more likely to watch.

Well, they, they suck then, because it Like I say, I go into these rabbit holes and they just serve me up more shit of the same if I watch one thing that's out of my list. So for me, it hasn't been a good experience on them surfacing new content. TikTok, on the other hand, is a completely different animal.

I mean, they're catering to what's, what's best for YouTube, and what's best for YouTube is to surface videos that they know are catching fire, right?

That are, that are most of the stuff I see has got 100 views, 200 views. There's nothing I see that has tens and thousands of millions of views. They don't surface any. I don't get that surfaced to me, that is high viewing content.

Yeah, I do all the time.

Then you must not be subscribed to very much stuff.

Um, I'm not sure. I mean, it's not a top priority for me to subscribe to things because I increasingly know it's not that important. So, I mean, I think a lot of the big kind of YouTube influencers are out there and they're talking about how, you know, it's all about the thumbnail, it's all about the title, it's all about, you know, hooking people at the beginning of the content, holding on to their viewership. And that's what the algorithm is really playing into now. The whole factor of being a subscriber to a series is a signal to the algorithm, but it's increasingly becoming less of a driver. Because I think the thinking that they're in is that if an individual video looks like it's going to do well, They will feature that to you if you happen to be a subscriber to it. But if it isn't doing really well, they're probably going to feature something else that is doing better.

I'm subscribed to 142 YouTube channels.

Yeah, I'm not sure on my end. Yeah, I'd have to pop open a browser.

And not all of those I watch, you know, but I'm subscribed.

Yeah, I mean, It would be an interesting exercise for you just to kind of look at that list and remember it and just think about how many shows on your wall actually came out of that subscriber list.

It's— I only spend time in the subscribe list. I don't spend time in it. Yeah.

Oh, okay. So you pop into the, to the subscribe list and then click on those to go to those channels to watch that content?

Because every time I go to the home page, they just serve me a bunch of Bunch of crap.

Oh, okay, so you're, you're using YouTube like a podcast app. So, but that's not what—

again, when I go to, when I go to the home page, I don't get a good experience. I've been on the home page before, and it, like I said, it just recently I subscribed to that one channel on, you know, them making these, uh, weird vehicles, and then You know, I was getting served. The end of that video showed me another one of those. I'm like, no, I don't want to see that. And I back out. I don't let it autoplay. I stop it before it starts. If I, if I don't physically say I want to watch this, I don't let them play.

So you watch a video and then you pop out and go back to your subscription, right?

Yeah.

Okay, that's Okay, that explains to me what your experience is and why it's different.

Well, again, because I have such a horrible experience when I'm on the homepage or whatever they call—

well, it's probably pretty confused about what you like.

Good. Well, shouldn't be. It knows what I'm subscribed to.

I know, but, but if that's not a key signal for it anymore, well, good. And you're— then, then what you watch off of your homepage is actually going to drive the algorithm Yeah, I don't watch off the home. Yeah. Well, that explains it then, Todd. Well, I was a little baffled by it, but that would explain why you're having the experience that you're having.

Yeah. But it's on purpose because why do I want to watch stuff that I am not interested in? Why do I want served something to me that I haven't specifically sought out?

Yeah, but that's the role that the algorithm is trying to play.

Well, that's great, but that's a waste of my time. Okay, time is valuable. I don't need to be served some, some content that I didn't seek.

Yeah, okay, well, the algorithm— yeah, it's, it's this game of algorithms back and forth.

If people just sit there and let YouTube serve them stuff, oh my God, sorry for you.

It's more of a lean-back experience, right? I mean, so you have the option to just let it play the next video, or you watch the video that you want, and then you scroll through your wall to find something that looks interesting. And that's a signal to the algorithm of the types of things that you like to watch, and it will deliver to you more of that.

Yeah, I seek specific content. I don't, Yeah, that's just difference.

Well, and that's how, that's how most podcast consumers consume podcasts in the podcast apps too. It's very series-driven. It's not episode-driven. And I do wonder if that's what we're going to see come to Spotify and come to Apple at some point is, is more of a drive towards episode level, not series level.

You're gonna, you're gonna laugh. Hassa Films said, uh, in chat, nearly 8,000 subscriptions for me. He said, and nearly the bell for many of them, you must be getting ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding all day. Wow, 8,000. That's an impressive number.

That's a lot. I can't even imagine.

Yeah, how do you, you know, I'm trying to delete stuff all the time.

Yeah, I thought that I was like this unusual character that had I think at one point I had like 128 podcast subscriptions in my Apple Podcast app.

No, my Apple Podcast app is crazy. My Apple Podcast app is pretty insane, you know.

Is it?

Yeah, it's pretty insane.

How many subscriptions do you have, or follows now, I guess, in the Apple Podcast app?

I probably have 100.

Yeah, yeah, I've had that for—

But I've also got 10 that are on another app I do my reviews via another app so I can remove them and add them real easy. So the 10 I add and subtract all the time are on a separate app. So I use that app specifically for— I scratch myself in the forehead, I'm looking red, I look like I got punched in the face. Um, yeah, so anyway, yeah, you know, yeah, I think it's interesting. Here's the thing though, Rob, you are so, you are so in, you're so ingrained in what's going on YouTube, you're losing You're losing touch on what's going on in the rest of the podcast space.

Well, fill me in, Todd, if I'm so out of touch.

Have you listened to the Podcasting 2.0 show or any of that stuff recently?

Not, not here in the last week. Oh, okay.

I'm just, yeah, I'm just wondering if you're, you know, doing anything outside of YouTube.

Yeah. I've got, I've got, uh, but I've got 3 podcasts.

Yeah, but they're all primarily— your primary focus is on YouTube. Are you pushing Apple Podcasts or any other subscription method?

I don't, I don't really push that hard on, on, on social media for, for all that stuff, actually. I mean, for me, creating content right, right now is not a really big big area from the standpoint of trying to grow a huge show. I think my approach to it right now is probably not the best approach.

So you're doing— you're chasing the logarithm. You're trying to get a hit.

No, I'm just trying to try all sorts of different formats, try all sorts of different ways of doing this stuff. If it's like on YouTube, I I'm currently doing probably 6 different shows that have different formats and different ways of presenting content. And then some of those shows are taken out as audio podcasts, and some of them are taken out as audio and video podcasts. So just playing around, but I think I'm going to be changing that. I think I'm going to be kind of cutting back and maybe trying to launch maybe a new show that's maybe— and only have one show or two, you know, like this one and maybe one more.

Yeah.

And that's it. Because, you know, I think I've tested the limits on lots of different formats and trying to learn, you know, learn YouTube. But yet, you know, I kind of feel like I understand podcasting. I'm not like a like a low tide on podcasting all of a sudden. So, so I've only been doing it for 20 years. So, and so what I did want to learn was what was happening on the social media side of content. So that's also where I've been really focused on is doing more with Shorts and doing more with different, different types of content. So not just doing the same thing.

Yeah, you've got the luxury of having time. To be able to do all this.

I don't know if time is time, right? Yeah, yeah, we all have the same amount of time.

Yeah, so, well, some of us have more time than others.

Well, it's just where you're spending your time. Yeah, is what it comes down to, right?

So, so, uh, by the way, if anyone, uh, is in need of a little extra bandwidth I, uh, we overestimated how much bandwidth we needed, and, uh, so I, I've got a few petabytes I'd like to sell between now and July.

So how would you do such a thing, Todd? Sell petabytes? I'm not quite sure how that works.

It's easy. Yeah, you know, you want to, you want a great deal on some bandwidth? I'll, I'll send you some bandwidth at, uh, uh, below retail.

So are you like below wholesale now? Is that what you are?

No, it's just what we did is, you know, our one of the team members is no longer with us, saying, you know, we had a 3-year contract with the CDN and, you know, based on X amount of projected growth and overdid it a little bit. So I basically have more bandwidth. You still pay for it, you know, no matter what. It's, you know, we had— it was in the budget to to pay for it, but I've got use it or lose it.

So how would you sell it?

Basically, anyone comes to me and says, hey, and we'd make you a bucket. You drop stuff in and connect it to, uh, you know, map a subdomain and serve media from it at a—

and then it's still, it's still coming off of your infrastructure then?

Yeah, it's coming off of CloudFront. Right. Yeah. So, but basically you can, you know, we'll make it easy for you. And I sell it by the petabyte. So I've got a few petabytes to sell.

So wouldn't that be kind of a temporary deal?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would be. But I'm going to give someone, if someone is paying a, you know, let's, you know, I'm not going to announce the price on this, on the on this live stream, but I'm going to give you a price that you're not going to get anywhere else. You save some money, you know.

So what would a, a, a potential candidate for that?

A big show or a network, you know, any another podcasting host. It really runs the— so it's— yeah, it runs the other way too if you're, if you're overcommitted. Um, depends on your contract. So it's a short-term issue, and it's— and basically what it is is that the— you get billed every month for what you use, and then at the end of your contract year, whatever you didn't use, you have a lump sum payment that you have to make. We would have paid for that if we'd have been using all the bandwidth month to month, except that bill is going to come due on July 31st, you know.

So Yeah, so would they— let's say a network came to you and the network was working with, you know, um, they can use it whatever or something, however they want to use it.

Yeah, but you just have to use that media URL and we'll leave it up. It's not— it's, it's, you know, you just use a new media URL for your for your delivery. Oh yeah, yeah, for that.

In a lot of ways it's like, like still hosting your media on your platform.

Yeah, it's a— well, it's not on our platform, it's on CloudFront. Oh yeah, so they would—

okay, yeah.

And we use CloudFront for all of our content.

Yeah, right, right.

And we're like 90% of the rest of folks are using, right? Or 80% are on CloudFront.

Got it.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

And I mean, you know, contract renegotiation at this moment too. So of course now I'm gonna have a lower commit for the, you know, for the coming year so that I don't overspend, you know, so it's, or over, you know, overcommit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's hard to, it's hard to always know precisely what you're What's your usage going to be?

You kind of do a thumb in the, you know, you do a little bit of a, a little bit of this, you know, and, uh, you know, you try to make sure you get the best, is you're trying to get the lowest rate, the lowest rate you possibly can get. And, uh, you know, so you'd go with the biggest number you think you're going to move and whatever growth that includes. And sometimes, you know, this is the first time we've ever overshot, so, you know, I'm not going to complain too much. But yeah, if someone wants some bandwidth, I got to— got a deal for them. Sub-sub penny per gig.

Yeah, yeah. Todd, I saw this chart. It's in the outline that I share with you, and it's basically— if you scroll down the page a little bit, it's after the Oh, talk about this pods thing? No, no, the one above it, the chart above it. Yeah, it says when listening to a new show, how long do you— how long do you give it to hook you in before you give up on it? And it's an interesting— you know, it's like, so let's say you're listening to a new episode. How long do you listen to that new episode before you bail, right? So people are like, what's the percentage of the audience?

Yeah, that's pretty big percentage that people give you, 40% or up to 50%.

2024 versus in 2020, it was 29%.

Yeah, so people are a little more patient here. Um, So in 2024, 40% of people give you up to 15 minutes to make an impression.

Right.

One full episode is 29%. That's, that's pretty good. That's pretty good percentages.

Yeah. But, but the one below it is 5 minutes or less. 27% in 2020, 17% That's interesting. It's hard to kind of pull out of this what this means to some degree. Yeah, so fewer people are judging a podcast based on 5 minutes or less. Is that what that means from 2020?

Yeah, it means that in 2020, you didn't get as— people weren't as patient. So people are more patient now. Hmm. So these are good numbers. That's, that's actually encouraging.

Yeah. And then 11%, uh, 2 full episodes. It's about the same.

That's incredible. That's actually higher than I would have ever thought. I give shows about 10 minutes. That's really kind of my rule of thumb is because I'm listening to, still listening to a lot of new shows, 10 minutes is the, you know, is my, is my make or break point.

That's why I remember.

Oh, that's one of the reasons why I changed up the format of my tech show that I do my opening lead article immediately. And spend 2 or 3 minutes on that and then jump into the intro and then get back to the content. So, you know, the first 2 or 3 minutes is actually the lead article for the, for the show. So I'm into the lead article within 40 seconds of starting the podcast.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting too from the standpoint of, uh, in the earlier years of podcasting and even YouTube, I kept hearing that, you know, you weren't gonna get anybody to watch your video if it was longer than 5 minutes, right? I'm sure you remember that too. I mean, that was the big talk about online videos, that you can't do anything longer than 5 minutes 'cause nobody's gonna pay attention to it, right? So, but you contrast this with, I'm sure, is only audio. And it's, the patience is definitely significantly higher. And it's also, you know, if you look at the video watching patterns, you know, what's the drop-off of people that start a video and how long do they typically continue watching?

They think you're successful if you keep people for 60 seconds. I think is insane.

Yeah, I mean, it is. I mean, I see it in my own videos. It's, it's almost— I mean, there's a lot of videos that kind of fall off an audience like a, like falling off a cliff. Um, it shows you how it tracks on that timeline.

It shows you how people on YouTube are less patient. I'm the same way on YouTube. If they're— if the pace is not quick enough, if the, if the person is talking slower Yeah, or they have a hook to you at the beginning of it. Well, they're not getting to the point.

Right.

You know, some of these folks, it's just like, come on, you know, this doesn't take 15 minutes. This should take 10 minutes. And whatever reason they're trying to keep you longer.

Or yeah. Oh, you mean the total content or just the tease part at the beginning?

Everything. You know, it's just like, come on, let's get, let's get going here. And it's these AI ones are horrible, you know, they're dragging you on and repeating. And so, you know, we've made it— trying to make a goal of our— most of our YouTube stuff to be like 5 minutes.

Yeah, I'm seeing so much AI.

It's horrible now. It's really bad.

Well, Todd, I think it depends on how you look at it. I mean, I think that there's a lot of people watching it.

Well, then did You know, it's— but it's amazing that they are watching it then, because I think it's just horrible.

What about it's horrible? Just curious.

Static image and someone talking.

Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about videos. AI videos is what I'm—

Oh, I'm not seeing any AI videos. I don't think I've ever seen an AI video.

Yeah, I see them on Shorts.

Maybe shorts, but no, that's what—

yeah, but that's what I'm talking about.

Oh, I don't watch shorts on YouTube.

Well, I think they're, they're coming everywhere now. It's these kind of graphic— and it says not graphic from a content perspective, but just kind of like, um, cartoonish type, type of videos. Silly, right?

I don't have time for that BS.

No, but I'm, yeah, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about what I'm seeing out there on these platforms is that it's being, I think there's a huge movement on content creators right now moving into AI-created content. And I did hear that there was a new podcast. I think it was talked about in Pod News today that I think it was done, I can't remember what company it was, but it was a larger media company that was doing all of, doing a podcast that has an AI co-host and a real person host. This kind of stuff is becoming more common.

I think it's a cute trick, but—

Yeah, I mean, I think the younger generation enjoys it more than the older generation.

I just get— I hear that monotone and it just—

I'm not talking about audio, I'm talking about videos.

I'm talking about videos too on YouTube.

Oh, you are?

But it's just an image. They show an image of something and then the person's talking and it's got that same— Yeah, it just, to me, it turns my stomach.

No, it's full motion movie-like videos is what I'm talking about here.

Yeah, I haven't seen anything that is more than a minute long that uses full motion video for AI. Everything else is static images.

No, I'm not saying it's longer than a minute. I'm just saying it's just full motion video.

Not watching Shorts on YouTube either. So I'm used— when I refer to Shorts, that's like 3 minutes, 3 or 4 minutes.

Well, it's up to 3 minutes, so it can be any length that you want, up to 3 minutes.

Yeah, but if I see— usually I see stuff like that, I'm out.

Yeah. Did you hear in the news that Podex, the company out of Europe, are The Swedish company acquired Lemonade Media. Yeah, that was—

isn't that like their activity, their second sale in recent months? Or weren't they bought last year or something? Isn't this—

oh, you're talking about Lemonade?

Yeah, yeah, they've— haven't they changed hands a couple of times? I, I can't remember.

I can't remember either. Yeah, but I know that PodX Group has been been on a buying spree in Europe for like the last 3 years or 4 years. So they're going around buying up, um, content production studios.

Yeah.

So that's going to wind up being a big, uh, a big content company someday.

Well, it sounds like they already are. They're buying up a bunch of stuff, right?

I mean, I think they paid— at least the, the rumor is They paid $30 million for Lemonade.

How many shows did they have? In-house shows?

Don't have that, but I know that they have some pretty big shows.

That's a big number.

Like, I think Julia Dreyfus, I think, does her show on their platform, on their network.

How many shows Does Lemonade Media, right?

So PodX merged its 3 UK companies together. I guess they brought them under the umbrella, so they're basically doing a roll-up of content creation.

Let's see here. Dylan Mulvaney's on there. When It Clicked, Pantsuit Politics. Oh yeah, let me look at the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. A lot of LGBT, it looks like, on their network. 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 40, 50, 55, 60. Oh, quite a few, like 70 shows or more.

Yeah.

So it looks like pretty good diversity of shows. Yeah, most of these I'm not familiar with. Add to Cart. After 1954. As Me with Sinead. Ask Eliza Anything. Attitude. Being Golden. Being Trans. Believe Her. Lying P, Boneheads, Burnout, Call Decline, Choice Words, Confessions of a Female Founder, Discarded, Everything Happens, Fail Better, and mostly shows I've never heard of before. They must be doing well.

Yeah, yeah. I tried to get, uh, the CEO of Lemonade Media on the New Media Show on on stage, um, once, and she was traveling that day.

So the only show that I know here is Side Hustle School. I know that one.

Oh, the, the company I was talking about that had the AI, um, kind of co-host. Yeah. And, and a, a real person as the other co-host, uh, It was a podcast being done by Hacker News, I guess. It was on Pod News.

Well, there's been a number of shows that have been, that are being AI produced that I'm aware of. They're completely automated.

Yeah.

So Hacker News has one that has a co-host. You know, I had played with it, tried to get, it was early. Trying to get ChatGPT to respond to something when I was recording a podcast, but I just didn't have everything wired up right. It was just taking too long. Of course, you can't do anything like that live because you have to wait for the response. So it's— I'm sure it's spliced together.

I'm sure you could do it live. I could do a live chat with ChatGPT. GPT on my show.

You think that— you think the timing would be fast enough?

Yeah, I think it would be. Yeah, I should try it. I should try it sometime.

Yeah, you can make pod news if you do that.

Yeah, though I think you probably have to be careful what questions you, you prompt it with because it could—

especially if you're live.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to be careful, probably. Yeah, so it doesn't disclose anything from its memory about, you know, its co-host.

Yeah, so, well, I'm going to tell you, I'm pretty impressed with Sora. Sora is, uh, Sora's knocking out of the ballpark and creating, uh, static images, and that's all I'm really using it for. It's—

oh, you are? Oh, okay. So is Sora built into the 4.0?

I— here's the deal, I'm still paying for the $200 version of ChatGPT.

Oh, you are? Oh, you are?

Yeah. So I think that gives me access to Sora. So they got this new thing called Operator too. I don't even know what that is, haven't played with that, but Um, oh, Todd, what were you gonna say?

I, I found something in Pod News that I think is a little bit— it's a little bit amusing. Oh, um, you know Eric Newsom?

Yeah, I know.

He used to work for, uh, Audible and— yep, and has been in podcasting for a long time. I guess he published something in his latest newsletter, and it suggested that podcasting has fundamentally changed in the last several years.

Oh yeah, I think I saw this.

And his contention was, is that it's kind of splitting between chatcasts and storycasts, Todd. It's a new phenomenon. It kind of makes me laugh. Yeah, because isn't that what podcasting has been, um, if you go back even to the early years?

Well, is it— is it more— Storycasts are pretty— that's pretty broad.

Yeah, well I mean, he's coming from a background with Audible, right? So this whole kind of telling a linear story or, you know, like serial, he's coming out of that public radio background and all that kind of stuff like that. So I think he just has a little bit of rose-colored glasses on to what the medium has been about. I think the podcast medium has always really primarily been about chatcasts.

Yeah, well, so, you know, Geekness Central is a chatcast, right? It's only been more recently, but I call it a news show, not a chatcast, right?

Right.

Then so you could say it's a story, and this is definitely a chatcast, although we tell stories.

Yeah, but I just— this concept of storycast as being something that's, uh It's new. It's new. I have a hard time.

I just— but I don't like those. I— those two specific titles are just— it's almost like Leo Laporte going back to the old days where—

oh, to netcast.

Yeah, netcast, you know. Come here. Come on, let's—

yeah, so yeah, it seems like it's a— this— it's basically a distinction that really isn't very important to highlight.

Yeah, because, well, you know, if you think about true crime, those are definitely stories. Yeah, yeah. Entertainment shows are probably chat. And again, it's, you know, how do you get around—

I mean, yeah, I mean, I featured on the Zoom platform the, the We're Alive, um, audio drama series. Yeah, podcast back in 2009. And, and there were shows that were being produced, um, that were stories.

What was it, The Adventures of— oh my God, it was highly produced.

Um, well, Dan, Dan Carlin is another one, you know. Yeah, that's a story cast of sorts, but that's been around for, yeah, 15 years. I mean, I mean, unless he's thinking that somehow that the medium is evenly split between Chatcast and Storycast, which I don't think it is. But maybe it is. Is that what's fundamentally changed? Is just the—

No, I don't think things— Storycast part? It's defining it, but it's— We've been this way since the beginning, I think.

Yeah, I think so too. Yeah.

Huh.

Yeah, it's interesting. Perspective on that.

And what do you think of these, uh, these new earbuds that are coming out?

Oh, the, the PodPods?

Yeah.

Yeah. Do you want to pull that up on the screen?

Uh, yeah, I can. And to me, it's like a product that is really probably not needed.

Well, it's an interesting device because it merges the visual with the audio. I don't know if you saw the capability of this thing, Todd.

Yeah. But again, I think—

It's got a color E-ink screen on the side of it. So you can actually see the show notes. You can see the COVID art, all that stuff. It's not that much different than that.

It's got Chinese on it, so it's definitely being built by someone out of Taiwan or China, one of the two.

Well, the designer is Japanese, I guess. Oh, I don't know if—

so yeah, so if it's kanji, I'm looking at the Pinterest pictures.

Take offense with that, Todd.

No, I'm not. It's, it's, it's like the reason I said he would— oh, if you know, again, it's—

I didn't know Japanese and the Chinese don't typically like each other that much, do they?

But it's an interesting device. It's surprising it's coming out of the Japanese market then.

Yeah, well, maybe it's not being made in Japan, but who knows?

It's interesting. It comes with an accessory that has a speaker too.

Yeah. And an e-ink, color e-ink screen.

Yeah. But you can fast forward 15 seconds, you can stop, you can advance, you can—

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that takes me back to the early days of my WebTalk radio show that I did because I featured the CEO of e-ink tech back in I think it was like $2,000.

Yeah, how much is this gonna cost?

Yeah, I mean, look, I thought it would be a price game-changing technology to be able to, to show it, you know, electronic ink on, uh, on paper.

Of course he didn't— he's not supporting chapters. Yeah, what's the price on this? It doesn't say.

Yeah, it's not actually able to be purchased.

Oh, is this just a, uh, CGI at this point?

No, it's just a— it's a prototype. Oh yeah, development product.

Pod Pods is what it's called.

It's at yankodesign.com.

I'll put a link in the Show notes. Yeah, interesting. You know, it's— but again, if you've got earbuds in and, you know, there's lots of functions you can do with earbuds as well and playback, but this is definitely audiobook or podcast specific. And seeing that Japan has not had such a huge podcast surgence like other places.

Yeah.

It's curious this product is coming out of Japan.

That is interesting. And I guess Google's Notebook LM has rolled out, I guess, over 50 languages on their AI-hosted podcasts. So. There you go, Todd. So I'm not sure how that would work. If, uh, would you have to create a separate RSS feed for each of the languages?

Yep. But the challenge really there is, again, they would, they would not, they would not, um, I don't think you can supply the transcript and it will I don't know, I haven't used this in a while. Can you create a transcript and have it play it back? I thought it was all about giving a subject and it creates content on its own.

Yeah, it probably creates the content on its own in over 50 languages.

What would be interesting in that regard is if you could take it and feed it This show with Todd, Rob, Todd, Rob, Todd, Rob is, you know, indicating the switch in speakers and then let it create something in Spanish or something from a transcript. That might be kind of— but the problem is that the pacing won't be— so the pacing would be good. It might be interesting. I think the folks over at ElevenLabs are probably doing a better job in this regard because you can record your voice, train it, provide it the transcript, and you will get an output in a different language. So, you know, I think ElevenLabs is probably more set to do cool stuff like that. And then you have to figure out how much, how good the accuracy is, and will it annoy those for— I think they'll put up with more if you have a disclosure here, hey, this has been automatically generated, it may get some translations wrong, we apologize in advance. I think you'd be covered. I pick it up.

Though, isn't it technically possible to dynamically replace the audio in an RSS feed to a localized version through dynamic ad insertion technologies?

Oh, you could, depending on the IP origin point, sure, you could serve a different version. But if the people are expecting— imagine me being here, like I am right now, and then requesting to listen to my own show, and getting the Tagalog version of the show, I would be pretty irritated. I would be expecting the English version and not the Tagalog version. So I think there's challenges there.

It probably needs to be controlled by your preferences, right? So I mean, in the player experience.

Yeah, let me think about that. But again, there's a disconnect because I control the media distribution and the app controls the language preference. So again, unless it was— and I think you still need, uh, you know, it would be really cool to do it all in one feed and have the, uh, the, uh, the app support it. But again, Apple and Spotify and others will not. So it would be— and Overcast will not. So, you know, how do you I think you have to have something.

Why would they not? Yeah, if it's done through the same technology as dynamic ad insertion.

Well, it wouldn't be. It'd have to be a setting, and there would still have to be a separate feed in that language. Hmm. Yeah, because there's too many variables there. I can, at Blueberry, I could redirect the media, but That's not what the listener maybe wants.

So in other words, so what's the cap on how many different alternative enclosures?

There's none.

You could have—

there's none. Hey, you can do as many as you want. So that would be one way of solving it, but the problem is, is again, you'll be limited to Podcasting 2.0 apps that would be able to support that.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, in the short run, right?

And if you're going to go into this and do the expense of having 11 labs create 4 or 5 versions of the show, you're probably going to want 4 or 5 different listings in different languages so that you can support the App Store in, let's say, Mexico or wherever.

Well, or you can use Google Notebook LM.

But I don't know, we'd have to experiment with it and see if it'll actually take a transcript and create this show in its entirety. I don't think it will. I think it summarizes this show. We give it a transcript, I think it'll create a summary of this show in English or whatever language you pick. I haven't used— I've only used it once, so I'd have to go back and look and see what it supports.

Yeah. And then the— well, I also know that YouTube announced about a year ago that they were gonna dynamically change the audio and the video to localize the language on, on videos that are on their platform all around the world.

Well, when they do that, that'll be impressive. It's very expensive to do that.

I think they're already doing it with the big shows, huh? So it's already starting to It's been rolling out, I think, for a while now.

As a native English speaker, does me no good because I would not be able to go sample it and see it was worthwhile or how accurate would be. I think that's the advantage is if, if you can speak a couple of languages, which most people outside the United States can, can, um, I think that'd be a good, a good test You know, listen to it in the native language and see how good it is.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a reasonable thought. But I think that's coming. And I think we're gonna see more of that. And also means that all those shows that are being done outside of the US in non-English language will be able to be translated into English.

And be honest with you, there's some Arabic shows that I've been watching based on my trip to Saudi, I would love to listen to. There's a number of them over there that I would really like to be able to hear those stories. So I think there's a desire. And if you think about leveling the playing field, it seems like a— and you know, what did we do? What did we do with podcasting? We made audio accessible to for creators and listeners that was not available in any other place. And if you take this to the next step, it just seems natural to me that we would be able to create a show in 7 different languages. I think that would be, you know, we've talked about it internally, just the cost, you know, what is the cost to do that? 'cause you've got 7 media feeds, you've got 7 versions of the show, which is not a big deal, it's just metadata. And then that distribution, where do you want that content listed so people aren't confused, making sure it's getting in there. We have to really get some guidance from Apple and others on, all right, I want this to show up in the, Portuguese market, how can I have it only show up in Brazil and, you know, the countries that speak Portuguese, you know? So how do we distribute that in specific, you know, that version of the show in those target countries without also annoying the people that are English speakers in Brazil that want to listen to the English version? So, you know, there's a bunch of dynamics there for sure.

Yeah, yeah, it's going to get complicated, but I think it's, it's going to be possible to be able to do all that, um, and it'll be probably pretty soon it'll be fairly common.

Yeah, but it's still, from an expense standpoint, I, I penciled it out, it's not inexpensive, especially if you have 11 labs do it. Yeah, right, because each content creator would have to have 11 labs unless they want to use someone else's voice. Have an ElevenLabs account, train, and then do the API integration for the show, which is not hard. Send the media over, then pull it back once the translated versions are. But you're paying over there, you know, by the minute for that.

Yeah, I saw another conversation that popped up that was intriguing. To me, you know, it's always through this lens of, you know, what we've seen happen over the years. And that's a big thing about this show is that we can give that perspective because we've lived it, right? So it's this concept of consolidating feeds. I think you're, you're once One's initial reaction would be that it's like, well, you know, let's just merge all of our feeds together. In the early years of podcasting, that was done to some degree. That was kind of like a feed that had different shows in it that would publish at different cadences, but it would just be one RSS feed that had multiple shows in it. Now this conversation that's happening now is more to do with, let's say you have on your network, let's say you have maybe 5 different shows. So how, how would you, even if assuming that you can, how you would merge those into one feed, one RSS feed that would have all the episodes from a separate podcast feed all in one. Right. So you have this technology now of creating seasons, right? Yeah. Or a miniseries type of a season type of an idea, right? So you could conceivably, and podcasters have done this, where you create one master RSS feed and you just have different topic shows in each of the seasons, right? And so what this person is asking, and this is, interesting question for a podcast host is how would you merge, let's say, 4 different RSS feeds into one and basically take each of those RSS feed content, right, and merge it into a season in, in another podcast feed?

Easy, right? PowerPress does it today.

It does it. Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. See, okay.

You just have to, you have to use channels. Or category podcasting. And then when you're publishing, you could— you can really mix it up whatever way you want. So you could have a master feed that is— let's call it everything in it, category everything. As long as you select that category and have that set up as a, you know, podcast feed, everything goes into that category will show up. And then you can have the breakouts, you can have individual feeds for each show, or you set that up and then you do seasons with that specific feed. You really can mix and match it almost any way you want.

Yeah, though I think in the, in the early years of podcasting, I think they called that a network feed.

I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was the official term for it. Yeah.

Now the new term that I'm hearing people talk about is this concept of an umbrella feed. Okay, so it's kind of the same thing.

It's the same thing. Yeah, it's kind of splitting hairs on that, but I can't do that within Blueberry because we haven't enabled that within the dashboard.

I know most podcast hosts probably can't do this.

No, but it's, it's a matter of fact, it's been used. Many networks have used that function in PowerPress for many years.

Yeah, to create a a network feed.

[Speaker:ROB_GREENLEE] Yeah. [Speaker:TIM_FERRISS] Right? [Speaker:ROB_GREENLEE] Yeah. And we even have a system in Blueberry called My Cast where you can pick the shows that you want to be in a custom-built RSS feed that you can subscribe to that has 20 shows and you get a river of—

[Speaker:TIM_FERRISS] Just those shows.

[Speaker:ROB_GREENLEE] Just those shows. And they show up newest episode first in the feed. And we've had that for many, many years. Matter of fact, it's trademarked. We trademarked MyCast. So it's a feature within the platform.

So people are starting to think about these things and they're— it's an extension of what RSS is capable of doing.

Oh yeah, easy peasy.

It's not well known that it's capable of doing this.

You'll have to send me the link to that and I'll respond to that. Oh, that was—

yeah, it was an article that was posted in a newsletter called, uh, Pod the North. Oh, um, I'm not sure who the—

yeah, I don't know either, but you know, it's— and I don't know what their response was and who can do that and who couldn't, but— and it's actually— and it's actually pretty It's even today is pretty common.

So, oh, it is?

Yeah, yeah. But I think most of the times they don't publish those to Apple Podcasts. They make the feed available to be manually subscribed to.

Oh, it's probably more of a, um, a premium podcast.

No, it's— it— well, it could be, but it's also just the network doing what they do.

Okay. Yeah, Todd, I'll send you a link to this. Yeah, this newsletter. It doesn't look like it has a place to comment though, but I guess— well, maybe it's off a Substack. It's off a Substack.

Maybe they'll listen to the show.

That would be interesting, huh?

Yeah.

Yeah, because I mean, there's a long history of this. And as things happen like this, people talk as though it's a new idea.

It's new, yeah.

It's new if you've never heard of it before, right? Yeah. So that's—

And I think this is part of some of the stuff that Podcasting 2.0 is looking at is, and you know, some discussions that have happened is, is it, you know, I think there's super value in building niche communities and niche networks. You know, I remember back when we built Tech Podcast, and there was so much value that people got from being part of the network and working together. And I think most— and again, without a financial commitment or a, you know, it was basically— it was purely for promotion, you know, and working together. And there was no, you know, most networks now are all tied to, oh, how much money you're going to pay me to be part of your network. And I think there's super value in shows aggregating up content and helping each other, even if there's no financial incentive or financial agreement, just the ability to promote each other and rise together, I think is super valuable. And I think in today's age, it's probably becoming more valuable than ever. I've got some internal pet projects I'm working on. And we're improving our— we have what's called a network feature for PowerPress, and I've asked the dev team to add about 8 new features to it so they basically can, you know, have a little mini network website with all these cool functions, all these interactive functions that Podcasting 2.0 supports. So instead of just having a page where it shows the show name and the, the, you know, description and link to the show and the episodes. We can have it more interactive, and, um, and this is, you know, be web-based for sure. Um, but, you know, there's lots of cool things that can be done right now. Um, and I think podcasters have to be starting to be thinking about being more creative with all the noise that's out there.

I do think that we're in a time of the growth and proliferation of podcast networks. I'm seeing it in my own experience that it's just a lot more interest in that. And I think it really is grounded in this idea of support. If a network can provide value and support to a creator, then as a replacement for having to build their own team, per se. Because I think a lot of creators now feel like they've got to hire, you know, people to help them do everything that needs to be done because the medium is so complex now, especially if you're making money from it. If you want to build a business with a podcast, it takes a lot of work. I'm not sure that one person can really do everything. You know what I mean?

I think it's getting easier. And, you know, there's a lot of stuff that—

I mean, AI is helping, but in some ways AI is a time suck too.

Oh sure, everything's time suck. Yeah, but the key is, is the time suck getting smaller? That's the goal.

Yeah, is it getting smaller? Is it getting— as it gets smaller, is— are you able to maintain the same level of quality?

Yeah.

So, and what does it take to be successful as a podcaster now? And well, what is the definition of success? Well, I think it depends on everybody, right?

Yeah, it depends on the goal.

It depends on what everybody wants it to be.

And most of the times it's, well, I would say at least 50% of the times it's not money. So that's the other thing that, you know, everyone wrapped around that. 50% of podcasts, they have different goals, building their business, getting their message out.

Yeah, but that, that is to some degree grounded in money though.

So of course, because if their goal is to drive business to their business, then, you know, but again, it's an end to a means. It's not that they are trying to find a sponsorship.

So, right, I mean, that's just one facet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or building authority or whatever it may be.

Right, but I think most podcasters would love to make money directly from their podcast though. It's not like the people don't necessarily—

I, I talk to people that have no desire to make money from their podcast, right? At least 50%.

You think it's 50?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, at least 50%. It used to be only about 30% cared about money, but it's grown.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

For years it was 70% could care less, 30% wanted to make money, 10% could.

I mean, if you really go back to the beginning, uh, nobody wanted money with your podcast was like, uh, the, you know, praying to the devil or something, you know.

On the 5 to 10 calls I do a week with podcasters, it's, it runs 50/50.

You know, yeah, I remember back when I first started, um, I had ads in my show.

Well, I had— I, I got a podcast, I announced my book, and I lost 50% of my audience because I'd sold out and took money.

Yeah, well, that was the same thing happened to me too. I got, I got criticized because I had ads in my content.

Yeah, yeah, bizarre.

It just shows you how things have evolved and changed. Podcasting has become increasingly like the, I hate to say, but commercial media. It's increasingly, as radio has integrated themselves into the podcasting and been very influential in podcasting, it's taken that advertising focus into the medium. No question about it.

All right, Rob, we're here at the end of the time. So next week we'll be back at our normal time, and then the following week I'll be in London.

So next Thursday at 3.

Let me see, uh, next Wednesday at 3.

Wednesday at 3, right?

Yeah, it's Thursday my time here, but it's— yeah, we'll be back on normal Eastern Standard Time hours. So I'll move the meeting reminder to that time.

Um, I have a standing podcast conversation I was going to do with somebody before, so yeah, I'm screwing your schedule up.

Um, but, uh, I'm Todd at blueberry.com, at Geek News on X, Geek News at geeknews.chat on Mastodon.

I can also be found on X as well, @RobGreenlee, and then on YouTube @RobGreenlee as well, and LinkedIn @RobGreenlee, and Instagram too, that's @robwgreenlee. So Instagram is the last one I signed up for, so I wasn't able to get my name. So Todd, if we can go for just an hour next week, that'll help you make everything work.

Okay, that'll work. I'll let you adjust. Okay, sounds good. And I'll be probably jet-lagged a bit anyway, so, uh, all right. I'm doing a— I have, I have a couple secret new things I'm doing. I'll talk about next week. Anyway, if you look at the Blueberry, um, YouTube channel, you'll be able to see what we're doing already. I'm doing a podcast Mythbuster series. Oh, comes out every Friday.

Okay, I'll have to go check that out.

So yeah, enjoy it. I think I've got 29 episodes planned.

Oh, planned? So you've done what, a couple of them now?

I've got one recorded, published. Second one's recorded, will come out Friday. And but I've got 29 episodes already planned and I'm going to have a lot of fun with busting myths.

Busting myths.

Okay, it's not Mythbusters because that's a copyright thing, so it's Podcast Myths.

Yeah, you and Rob Walsh. Well, it's—

I'm not being Rob.

I know you're not being Rob, but he does the same thing around kind of like marketing of podcasts and stuff.

Yeah, yeah. Well, again, this is targeted to our YouTube audience.

Yeah, yeah, right. Okay.

All right, everyone, thanks for being here, and we'll see you back here next week. I'm back at, uh, 3 PM Eastern, I think, right?

Pacific.

Yeah, there we go. All right, everyone, thanks. I'll see you next time.

All right, bye. Good night. Bye.