James: 0:01

Welcome to Podland the last word in podcasting news. It's Friday the 10th of June, 2022. I'm James crude and the editor of pod news.net. Hello, I'm

Sam: 0:09

Sam, Seth, the MD of riverine

Alban: 0:11

and I'm Malvin, Brooke, the head of marketing at Buzzsprout. And I'll be on later to talk about our new.

James: 0:18

It will Podland is sponsored by squad cast, the remote recording tool that your audience will love. Squad cast version five is coming later this month with new features and a new look, squad cars.com for more. And we're sponsored by Buzzsprout podcast hosting. Easy last week, 3,200 people started a podcast with Buzzsprout and now there's Buzzsprout ads to grow your podcast wherever it's hosted. Find out more at buzzsprout.com/ads.

Sam: 0:45

Now, Portland is where James and I review the latest news from the podcast industry. And this week, James, we're going to be talking about Spotify, bus brat, and many other things, but look, the big news, I think this week was Spotify is investor day. James. It was yesterday or the day before, actually on Wednesday. Uh, it was live streamed. Ah, did you watch it? And what were your thoughts? Yes,

James: 1:06

it was a Wednesday. Um, and, uh, we would normally be recording this on a Thursday, so that would normally be, uh, yesterday, but I was in. And I was flying back from Canada and that's why I couldn't, but, uh, I've, I've, I've had, uh, 30 hours in the air. Sam I'm feeling as bright as you would expect anybody. Who's spent 30 hours in the air and economy, uh, to be, um, but it was good watching these Spotify investor day speakers from the company, including mayor who's their new head of talk, basically the new Michael and the company said that. In, um, uh, around $215 million in podcast revenue last year, but it's still lost $110 million, which is always a thing. But actually Carmen was a friend of the show was watching the, um, the investor day as well. She spotted a thing. Didn't she?

Sam: 1:59

Yeah. Where's Mr. Rogan. He wasn't on the,

James: 2:02

where was Mr. Ray? Yeah. And he

Sam: 2:04

wouldn't go. Not any idea. Nope. Not on the slate

James: 2:06

anymore. He wasn't, uh, he wasn't promoted at all, which is a little bit weird, but I'm sure that they had a good, a good plan for that. So she noted that and she also noted, um, sort of new things that Spotify planning. Yeah.

Sam: 2:21

The company has three more businesses to cover X, Y, and Zed. Um, James, any idea what X, Y, and Z? Why? Yes

James: 2:28

I do. Oh, um, Uh, so nobody has been guessing what X, Y, and Z are. I'm going to say X, Y, and Z, because you know that they're all American aren't they? So X, Y, and Z, it will be about going through the video. Actually, Alex Norstrom talks about audio books. So then as X, Y, and Z appears on screen, he says something. Would you like to hear it? I think we should. In the next. There are additional markets and verticals that we believe are natural fits for our platform and audience there's audio books, there's new sports. And. Those are vast markets, news, sports, and education, their Sam news, sports and education using sports makes a bunch of sense. Doesn't it. To have some form of, uh, news content within Spotify as separate content in there. That makes a bunch of sense. And I guess sports kind of does too. When news

Sam: 3:26

news works. Uh, profile, right? So, cause it's daily, it's updated multiple times a day. Um, that's the sort of stuff that will bring you back to Spotify constantly. I get that one sports that with, um, live they've already got a sports history. So I assume they're going to take green room and extend that further. But I wonder why, whether that includes the Barcelona investment they made to Barcelona, ref C maybe live football, maybe, maybe some other live, uh, games. I mean, I know Facebook got into a broadcasting games. I know Amazon's very heavy into. Certainly here in the UK. Uh, now when Amazon prime they get 10 or 15 football matches a season. So yeah, I can see maybe them competing with, uh, for rights, sports rights. Yeah. That could be interesting. Yeah,

James: 4:18

no. Interesting. And, and, uh, you know, I guess education, I'm not quite sure what that might. Education, but what are your books? Well, yeah, but audio books is kind of separate and they were very excited about audio books, talking a lot about audio books and everything else. I think education might be a little bit separate, but I'm not quite sure. You know what there might be. Maybe that's just. Um, you know, courses much as you get in the Chinese market for podcasts. I don't know, but, um Hmm. Interesting to find out.

Sam: 4:48

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the, the thing that I think was most annoying for me in there, no, it was, uh, Maya's description of RSS is outdated technology. Oh, which took about going proprietary. Talk about trying to kill, uh, the open industry. Uh, I think that comment is going to come back and bite her, I think many times

James: 5:07

over indeed. I think it should. Um, Dave Jones will be writing a piece for pod news on Monday, which is just like, basically here are all of the things that Spotify is now doing, or at least this is the plan for it at the moment. Here are the things that Spotify is now doing that they say that they say is impossible with RSS. Um, and here is exactly how you can do that with RSS, you know, just kind of, you know, making the point that actually RSS is entirely fit for purpose. Indeed. iHeart's Connell burn has been writing for Forbes, uh, promoting the benefit of RSS today, which again is interesting because even if, if I hire is getting really behind what RSS have to offer, um, then you can certainly see. Uh, you know, a real, a real, uh, you know, opportunity there. I mean, he talks in here about, you know, RSS feeds gives creators or publishers all the control and enables them to manage those feeds from the center, wherever you listen to the content that's unique to this. So he's getting really behind RSS a car sort of getting ready behind RSS too. Um, so I suspect that we will see a bit more of that in the future as well. Yeah.

Sam: 6:21

Todd Cochran said, well, guess what, we are not going to let Spotify cause the podcasting space to become the closed eco system with gatekeepers open RSS allows podcast trays to have freedom where their content is. It will be wise for Spotify to remain. Yeah. So Todd's piling in as well.

James: 6:39

Yes, indeed. They have also given a, an, an interesting claim around new anchor shows. Haven't they?

Sam: 6:46

Yeah. It says that every new anchor show brings 2.5 new monthly active users to the Spotify platform. Did they really mean 2.5 new monthly active

James: 6:57

users, James? Yeah, they really did. I think because, uh, according to Spotify, as numbers, anchor now powers 3 million podcasts on Spotify. Which would therefore say that anchor just by itself is responsible for 7.5 million new users to Spotify. That's not bad, really 7.5 million. Um, and I reckon given the majority of people don't listen to podcasts. I think that the majority of those 7.5 million new users. Into Spotify will be new podcast listeners. Um, so I think that that's probably good news, but yes, it's a weird number. Why they, um, why they didn't say 7.5 million instead of 2.5. It's a little bit weird, but, um, yeah, you can, uh, you know, but I think it's a good number. No. The less and actually, you know, Spotify has been, single-handedly responsible for growing the amount of podcasts that are listened to, even if they may or may not be actual podcasts.

Sam: 8:02

So two and a half doesn't seem too bad then James, but, uh, you've also noted, uh, you've made a couple of changes to pod news to get rid of a few. Podcasts. And one of the stats that came out was a large amount of shows, a switching from anchor to megaphone. Now, though,

James: 8:17

yes. It's something that I noticed in our hosts changes page, which we'll probably link to from the show notes, but, uh, yeah, a large amount of shows appear to be switching from anchor to megaphone. And I wonder whether the stuff going on within Spotify where they're spotting. Big shows on anchor and they're switching them over to megaphone so that they can sell ads around them and you know, and all of that, it does seem a little bit strange. I think Brian Barletta said this too. It does seem a little bit strange that Spotify would deliberately shout about how rubbish RSS is when it earns considerable amounts of money from megaphones selling. In RSS. Um, so it seems a bit of a strange thing to basically say this thing that we're selling is rubbish, but that's what they appear to be doing. Um, so I don't fully understand that one either. Uh,

Sam: 9:11

I think it goes back to a comment I made a few weeks ago. My daughter did her final, um, degree thesis on Spotify. Business model. And I was helping to do that, uh, the proprietary nature of what they're doing means that they can, and they can move forward faster, uh, offer features and functions that appear very good to the end user without understanding the underlying technology. Um, but eventually that comes back to bite them. It's what happened to Microsoft with Rae seven. So maybe I should remove the title from apple of seven, you know, um, place that on Spotify. Spotify is the of the internet.

James: 9:52

Well, if, if, if it wasn't apple, it's a Spotify now. Gosh,

Sam: 9:59

there's a thing. Never gets their policy again. Watch out Spotify. Uh, now you have a little exclusive as well on Spotify. Spotify has quietly changed changes. Platform rules, James, what have they been doing?

James: 10:09

Yes, they did. So, uh, one of the things that I do for pod news is that I run, um, monitors on quite a few rules in terms of conditions and things, just in case that there's a story there. And there was a story with Spotify changing its platform platform rules to do to. It added a section prohibiting promotion of violent extremism. Um, now it doesn't define violent extremism, but you know, 200 mass shootings in the U S so far this year, possibly that might have something to do with it. Um, so, uh, that is now banned in Spotify. And second. They've gone into the actions that might be taken. If you don't follow the rules. Now this was a page that Neiman lamp found in April that wasn't linked to from anywhere. And now they've linked to it from their rules page, which is very exciting. Um, so it, it goes into the fact that they might hide your show or delete your show or monetize your show or all kinds of entertaining things. But at least it's actually now, uh, linked from other pages on the Spotify. Um,

Sam: 11:15

the, the biggest killer of children in America isn't any disease. It's a gun. And I never think the Americans are ever going to amend the second amendment. So I give up on them.

James: 11:27

No, well, it's a strange, old thing, but we possibly shouldn't dive into, uh, into, into politics. Let's move on. Let's talk about good news.

Sam: 11:35

Shall we indeed now, uh, on the gut and the brightest side of life, uh, we, yes, we've been trialing. But sprout ads for a couple of weeks here in Portland. And, uh, they finally released Buzzsprout ads to the public. Um, and I had the pleasure of interviewing Alban Brooke, the head of marketing. Tell me all about what is Buzzsprout ads, why they brought it to the market and how it works.

Alban: 12:01

Bus pro ads are the best way to buy podcast promotions and to grow your podcast. So in the podcasting world that we live in, a lot of people tell. Podcasts promotions, where they share snippets of their podcast or a short ad about their podcast onto other shows to help grow. And we thought this was a good opportunity for us to try to help podcasters both grow and also monetize their podcast at the same time.

Sam: 12:29

So how long has this been in your thought process? I mean, the products any come out last week,

Alban: 12:35

I think what Kevin and I started talking about it. There were at least seeds of it that are two years old. So we were thinking about this back when we launched dynamic content. I don't know, maybe that was a year and a half ago, but pieces of this are much, much older. As long as you are complaining about things that you see around you and problems that you naturally are going well, how could we fix. And it was only after he had enough solutions around ads and enough solutions. At least we. Around podcasts, promotions that we said, actually, I think this is something we could build. And hopefully it will be significantly better than what exists right now.

Sam: 13:09

Okay. Now we have them in pod land already because we're hosted by you. And they've been out a couple of weeks now in the last two episodes. And obviously this episode we'll have them in as well. How do they work? They were, how do you determine a, what ad to put into Portland? B how does the creative. Podcast come to and say, these are the ads I want, or these are the podcasts I want to be enhanced the whole process work.

Alban: 13:34

Sure. So let's start, um, with the person who's running the promotion, we'll call it that the advertiser, they go to bus, route ads.com and they sign up for an account and then they upload their audio file. That's basically saying, Hey, check out the Alvin Brook podcast, where I interview thought leaders and entrepreneurs and you upload. And then you select your podcast categories. We're pulling all of this in, from your feed. And we put in all this data about your podcast, you pay for your promotion and you move on. Then we are looking specifically at those podcast categories, and then we're finding people inside of bus. Who have Buspar ads turned on. So was pro hosts 114,000 active if shows and we're going through and saying, is there anybody who's a really good match. I just said, my show is about business entrepreneurship. Well, let's see if there's somebody else in the business entrepreneur category, who's interested in running up podcast promotion on their show. So let's say the pod land was in that category. We're interested since you've turned it on, then you would go in to. Monetization section and you would see, oh, you have some opportunities and you could go through and listen to all of them. See which ones you thought were a good fit for your show. And if you think it's a good fit, you accept the opportunity and we start stitching it in to all your podcast episodes. So a few things that we're doing a little different on the stitching inside. We realized for a lot of podcasts, especially smaller ones. It wasn't feasible for them to go and add mid rolls to their entire back catalog. I heard examples from people who moved hosts and had to redo their mid-rolls and it took them multiple days to reroute them. So we're using a pretty sophisticated algorithm to identify good breaking points for podcasters inside of all their episodes and that we are automatically setting those minerals. And that's where we will. The podcast promotion, and then that will be served up to all of your listeners.

Sam: 15:39

Okay. Two quick questions. What's the number of podcast ads that can be put in pot lamp. Do I determine that or do you determine that it's both?

Alban: 15:48

So if you have accepted a lot of them, but right now we're bringing pretty conservative on the ad load, but what we're doing is we're not ever doubling up and putting the back-to-back right. And we're also spacing them out pretty far. And this may change. I know that over time we see a lot of digital media is getting closer and closer to what TV used to look like, where, you know, seven minutes of ads and a 30 minute show. Hopefully podcasting doesn't get to that level, but we're starting off pretty conservative right now.

Sam: 16:22

And one of the bits of feedback we got from a listener, John Spurlock was that he heard the ads in the last episode. He thought the ads were fine. But he felt where they jumped into the middle of an interview where the best place for him and his suggestion was why not put them at the end of a chapter marker. And as Portland, we put chapter markers in which you support. So is that a good suggestion?

Alban: 16:45

That's an excellent suggestion. Actually, a few reasons that hasn't been the route we took first chapter markers, as much as we love them and podcasts, us apps love them. And I love that Poplar had to use it. There are lots of people who don't. And I think the numbers are somewhere like 1.5% of podcasts have chapter markers support in the RSS feeder in the audio file. And so it was hard to try to build a system around what only really worked for 1.5% of listeners. The other piece is that chapter markers don't really have the same level of fidelity that we need for an ad. So here's what I mean by. It's totally fine. When he set a chapter marker to set it a couple seconds before the official change of the conversation or the topic, because somebody might click it and it helps them orient themselves right before the topic change. That really doesn't work super well for an ad because you might be jumping in the middle of a word or in the middle of a sentence. So it would need to be a bit more sophisticated. We'd need to get adoption up for chapter markers. And then second we'd still need to be doing some magic at the background to finding the exact right point near that chapter.

Sam: 17:59

So it's the use of AI that's intelligently working out. Where's the best place within the mid to place these ads now, is that something that you're going to patent?

Alban: 18:09

Yeah, that would be the hope. So I I'm a little too far away from my property days, so I will not be the patent attorney, but yeah, we are looking into what does the future look for patenting some of this technology that.

Sam: 18:23

Now you've had it in beta for a little while. Now, it's out in the wild, what's some of the feedback that you're getting in terms of your things that work, maybe some of the things that you surprisingly you thought would work, but didn't work. What's the feedback cycle look like.

Alban: 18:37

So few things that we're seeing, we that are been surprising to me, quite a few people who work on growing podcasts are looking at. Lots of different promotions for lots of shows. Once they see it works for one client, they want to come back and do it for many. So there's going to probably need to be some improvements for managing multiple shows. We're seeing lots of people who. Maybe they want to test one ad that run a totally different type of ad immediately after we need to be doing probably more on the education side with what makes a great podcast promotion versus what is a 42nd, just ramble that isn't going to really drive listeners. We're looking at things about how do we have some exposure outside of just English podcasts, because brown, most of our customers are podcasting in English, but now we're actually seeing demand for people who want to run promotions. In other languages. And obviously it wouldn't work. If all of a sudden we started dropping the Italian podcasts into pot plant. So lots of good feedback, some of which are things we've been thinking about, but if you don't start launching things into the world, you won't learn. What's the most important thing to be

Sam: 19:46

built out. No procrastination is the killer of all development. Absolutely. Now, one last question, then what comes next with the ads? What are you working on? What do you think is the next big iteration in your mind?

Alban: 20:02

Well, the way we always work is in six weeks cycles where we don't have it planned out. And right now we're in the in-between stage where we're buttoning things up and we're fixing anything that we see that comes up. And we're now in a big stage. Communication and education for our own customers and for people who might use Buspar ads, the next stage, we don't really know what it looks like, because part of what we're hearing now is going to heavily influence what we end up working on in the next cycle. May not even be bus routes, may end up being podcasts, websites, or something totally different. It'll be, it's always appreciated when people test it out and tell us what they think what's working for them. So we are very appreciative since our launch, we've served up over half a million ads and are excited to serve up many more.

Sam: 20:55

Now I said something to James when we started getting the payments from the bus brow ads, they're in the dollar numbers. And so I, I wondered whether you were ever going to support Satoshis and go to moving to a digital wallet. Getting into the value for value

Alban: 21:13

element. There's a lot of legal ramifications around actually managing people's money for them, especially in crypto, in the United States. And while there are a lot of maybe idealistic aspirations, I think the legal ramifications of some of this end up hindering that development a bit. If there's one thing we've learned from the world of crypto it's, if you don't have people who are really good at security and really good at blockchain technology on your team, what you're very likely to do is maybe make everything explode and lose every once money. We don't want to be the next Mt. Gox of podcast takes. That would be maybe distant future. I would imagine that's actually a feature. I think I'm comfortable saying it's not coming in the next six weeks.

Sam: 21:57

Good. Okay. Alban, Brooke had a milking at bus, Brad. Thank you so much now, before you go, where can everyone go to find out more information about this?

Alban: 22:05

Go to buzzsprout.com/. And you can read all about it. And we've got some blog posts FAQ's on the site as well. We'll be putting up videos in the next few weeks. And any questions you have, you can always reach out to me at Alvin Brooke on Twitter, and I'd love to chat and answer any questions.

Sam: 22:23

Brilliant. Thank you so much. Thank you,

James: 22:25

Sam. Help him, Brooke from Buzzsprout. Um, and, uh, yes. When you hear the buzz sprout ads in this show, just know that they are being automatically inserted. Um, uh, if there are some forests and if there aren't some forests, then you won't hear any, but that's what's going on there. And they're not the only company to launch some form of monetization over the last couple of weeks. Are they.

Sam: 22:49

Um, Todd and blueberry have emailed, uh, podcasting hosts and customers saying that the company is registered launches, programmatic advertising. Have you got any more details on it, James?

James: 23:00

No, not very much. Other than, um, if you are with a blueberry, then there is a link to opt in to the, uh, programmatic advertising. So, uh, that's probably worthwhile if you are a blueberry podcast hosting customer now

Sam: 23:14

during the week. Apple also had the WWDC, the worldwide developer conference. I watched that on Monday, um, and it was very slick as usual. Um, and one of the things that they announced that that was interesting for podcasts is, was they're going to have a new user. For podcast, James. And now tell me more. What is apple core media is

James: 23:37

new user? Well, yes. So apple core media is basically the user agent that your podcast hosts sees. When any podcast app on your phone streams your podcasts. So it plays as it's downloading. That's what I mean by streaming there. That really technically streaming, but that's what that, that, that's what the user agent is that you see when your podcast app is doing that. Now apple core media is not a particularly helpful user agent because we've no idea what app that really is. So what apple are doing is that they have added a new SDK, uh, call, uh, which goes by the snappy name of a V URL asset to HTTP user agent. Uh, and it basically allows any podcast app to correctly state their user agent, even when they're using that particular library. So that's really good. Um, developers, if you are a developer of a podcast app, you can adopt this today that we are public beta in July and, uh, iOS 16 rolls out for everybody in quarter three. One of the things that I did last week is I supplied apple with a full list. Every podcast app that I'm aware of, which is using, um, apple core media as a user agent in this particular case. And I've also given them email addresses of, um, every contact at those companies. So, uh, I'm sure that apple had most of that information anyway, but I've made sure that they've got a little bit more, so that should hopefully be useful to them. If you are a podcast app. A developer, please go and take a peek at this because it will be really, really helpful. Um, for all of us,

Sam: 25:25

James, who's on the naughty step. Who's not playing

James: 25:28

correctly. Well, nobody's on the naughty step yet because of course this is I'm in a new iOS. Uh, version, but, um, and so therefore nobody will have, um, done any of that work as yet. But if you take a look at, you know, the users of apple core media, then there's a bunch of people in there, including Siri, including apple podcasts itself, of course, uh, including pocket casts. Uh, and there's, uh, quite a few others, Google news, actually, if you're using an iPhone, uh, also uses that. So there's a bunch of these, um, apps which are using, uh, uh, apple core media. Now what happens with that? Either. If, if you see those global stats from Libsyn, for example, they assume that it's all apple podcasts, which is why apple podcasts is so much higher with those Libsyn stats. They're also not IB compliance. I don't bother reporting on them. Bars sprouts global stats, uh, which are really good, which I do report on don't include apple core media at all. So therefore the apple podcasts number is under estimated in those figures. So it'll be really good to see, uh, you know, apple actually, um, having, uh, you know, more accurate figures, but also more accurate figures for things like pocket costs and for Google podcasts and for all of those other apps.

Sam: 26:49

Hmm. So do you do, is this summary, we will get better accuracy on Spotify versus

James: 26:56

yeah, absolutely. We will get far better accuracy on both the Spotify versus apple fight. All. You know, we should always bear in mind that apple has a lot of auto downloads where a Spotify doesn't. So apple will always be in an awful lot bigger. Um, but we'll also have, um, good stats for everybody else in that market. And my suspicion is that we will see apps like pocket costs in particular, really growing, because a lot of PocketCasts users are actually hiding under the apple core media user agent. So it should be good news for the valuation of. Pocket casts. So maybe automatic has bought a clever thing. Wow.

Sam: 27:35

Okay. So moving on, uh, spooler FM, uh, from a James Obagi and Andy Bowers, um, one of their first companies that started to use it as a come to light. It's a company called circa travel app. Uh, it includes a podcast guide to places around the world, including London, Barcelona. Iceland and Rome, it covers the food music in history of those places. And the good news is it uses spooler to keep the guides up to date. Now that sounds like a really good use case, James.

James: 28:07

It does. It sounds like a great use case. I think we're now aware of three different companies who are using a spooler insider, of course, being the first, uh, with, uh, the refresh then, um, there is, uh, Fox when. Uh, which is producing weather, um, podcasts for, uh, north America. And, uh, and I'm sure that that's very good. Um, and then this, which is a travel app where they're basically able to swap out, you know, individual bits, uh, of these podcasts, keep them up to date without, uh, an awful lot of, um, re audio engineering, which I think is. Clever plan. So it's always interesting seeing new, uh, new tech. It's funny. When I was in Toronto, I was, um, talking about spooler and talking about, uh, D scripts and talking about various other things and you, uh, to the radio industry, uh, there, and you could see. You know, their eyes light up as we were talking about, you know, how spooler might work or how, um, how D script works and everything else it's, uh, I think I found it quite fascinating that the radio industry, particularly the Canadian radio industry. Really isn't keeping an eye on the tech, which is available to podcasters, which could be just as useful for them in radio as well. So I thought that that was really interesting. Yeah.

Sam: 29:28

I'm, we'll be able to hopefully demo in two weeks time river radios, user

James: 29:33

spooler. Oh, well, I'm looking

Sam: 29:35

forward to that. Yeah. I mean, I've been playing with it. I really like it. Um, and it's quite simple to do. Um, I've just got to get it into a workflow so that I can mange make sure. That our daily news for Thames valley, where I live can be updated. Once I start on a regular basis, you must know what that's like having to do a daily show. You can't skip a beat Kenya.

James: 29:57

Yes. Doing a, doing a daily show. I'll tell you what, doing a daily show while you're traveling. It's not fun as well, not fun, but still there we are. Thank you to sure. For my brand new. Uh, microphone, which I, I, uh, gave a good go at, uh, over the, uh, over my time, um, in, uh, Canada. And it seemed to work quite nicely, which is, which is always good.

Sam: 30:21

Now, moving on a couple of quick wits news up the infinite dial 20, 22 in Australia. It's going to be announced this month. James, what do you expect to hear?

James: 30:29

Yeah, well, it'll be the first numbers that we've seen. Outside of the us for podcast consumption. Um, and I'm interested to find out whether Australia is numbers go down as well, or whether actually Australia's numbers continue to go up. So interesting to keep an eye out on that. Um, it's at the end of the month, I haven't given a date because the date is different depending on which country you're in. Um, so it's just, just easy enough just to follow the. Uh, over to that, but that's a free for you to watch. Headliner is now supporting direct sharing to tick tock. Hooray. Yay. Yeah. As well as YouTube playlist. So, um, all of those people on ticktock can now enjoy little clips of podcasts. So that'll be a thrill, I think as well, James is that we'll be you on tick-tock. If you

Sam: 31:22

like, well, no, actually I've said I've set up a pod land to put the RSS feed into headliner and yeah, it it's automatic. So we can now push it out to Tik TOK, a little clip. I don't know what anyone's going to see at the other end and what they're going to think. But yeah, we can try it at least

James: 31:40

anyway. Well, lucky us, uh, more news about, uh, funding, which is always good religion of sports, which is a sports podcaster has raised $50 million in funding. Uh, and, uh, just so that you're aware of any gender gap, just women's sports, which is, guess what a media platform focusing on women's sports has raised 6 million. Always good. So what's that, that's a 10th of the size of the blokes, uh, sport. Brilliant. Um, it, uh, previously raised, uh, just women. This has previously raised 3.5 million in may last year. And all of those were in dollars to

Sam: 32:19

now, uh, focus, right? Launch the vocab, Esther, a dedicated podcasting audio interface for podcasts. We happened to see it in London, uh, and we've seen it, uh, demoed. It's a very nice little device.

James: 32:33

It is, it's a very nice little, uh, device. It has one big knob on the top, or if you buy the vote constitute two big knobs on the top, uh, and is a very, uh, it's very cool. It is of course, uh, named after Richard . Uh, one of the first podcast is in the UK. It's not, um, but the time I hear vocab, I'm there thinking about Richard verbs. So there we are. Um, but it's a, yeah, it's a very cool, uh, simple. Uh, device, if you're looking for something to plug XLR microphones into and then into your laptop, uh, it's a very good, uh, audio device, uh, which is worthwhile taking a peek out, um, bad news for clubhouse as well. Isn't it? Isn't there.

Sam: 33:15

Yeah. Well, I'm surprised it's still going, but I suppose if you've got a billion dollars of funding, you can go for a long while, but for senior leaders have quit the company in the past two months. Um, And downloads have slowed dramatically. Um, I'm actually, I can't remember the last time I even heard of clubhouse being used or when I went on it, I think it was January or February. Last summer probably went. Yeah,

James: 33:37

indeed. I can't remember either. So yes, lots of people are running away, run runaway. Uh, and if you're using. Uh, which is a very, a very popular Bitcoin node. It's popular with podcasters. Cause helipad is on there that is now easier to install a there's new Bitcoin enlightening apps on there. More security for other apps on the device, like Halle pad as well. I have spent the last hour trying to install it. Um, and it says it, it says it's installing and then brings me back to the old version. So, um, I've, I've clearly messed that one up, but anyway, uh, you may have better luck. Um, you'll find out more on the, uh, Umbra website, which is@getumbrella.com.

Sam: 34:23

And now your favorite moment, it's time for Boostgram corner.

James: 34:29

And now as the French say it is timeful Lu boost. It is time for booster Graham corner. Yes. And, uh, we've got a number of booster grams at one from Chad Farrow. Thank you so much. I should probably read Colin's first. Uh, Karin says the pod Sage himself. He was listening to last week. Show the pod Sage himself. Dave has a great way of simplifying complex concepts and boiling them down with examples and being careful with his language. Careful. Uh, he says he loved it. Oh, that's very kind. Uh, and uh, he gave us a big duck boost. I don't know, double two, double two SATs who knows, but Karin, thank you very much. And Chad, uh, added, totally agree. And I find Dave's voice is so calming and gave him. 33 33 sets, which is very nice. How do I know that he added because he was using fountain and in fountain, uh, I think you can see the comments that are being made here and therefore you can, uh, you can join in the conversation. Uh, so that's a very good, uh, and we, and we had a, uh, a boost of ground from the pod Sage from. Uh,

Sam: 35:42

yes. He said what an incredibly attractive and knowledgeable guest you had on this week? I think he meant the host. I think he'd got it wrong, but other than that, yeah, very well done, Dave. Thanks for joining us. It was a really fun interview.

James: 35:55

Ah, very good. And if you get value from this podcast, and I know, I know that many of you do download fountain or another new podcast app and hold that boost button down and send us some sets. We very much appreciate it. Let's talk people shelter.

Sam: 36:09

Yeah, people on the move. So we mentioned earlier, uh, Maya pro Hoff, Nick has been named the head of talk at Spotfire replacing Michael Uh, she was employee number one at anchor James. So, uh, yeah, she's rising up the

James: 36:23

ranks. Yeah, indeed. And did an impressive. Daegu as the Americans say at the Spotify investment day, uh, Libsyn, you may remember, uh, had a few bits of, uh, financial trouble last year. Not financial trouble. They're not going out of business or anything but financial trouble with the sec. Um, uh, being quite late to file some, uh, accounts which got them, uh, struck off the stock exchange anyway, uh, in order for them to fix all of that. To people and you global director of tax called Steve Thorne and a director of sec reporting and technical accounting, a man called Mike McHugh. They seem to have hired some experts. Um, so that will be a good thing. And they've said that they do aim to get back onto the stock exchange somewhere in some shape or form as soon as they can.

Sam: 37:16

Uh, Camilla bikes, the founder of podium.me a medium network for young people has been awarded the MBE in the Queen's birthday honors list. Weldon

James: 37:26

Camilla. Yes. Well done. Camilla. I think she's been working on a podium.me for well over 10 years, if not 15. So, uh, good to see her being recognized by the queen. Um, and, uh, talk from one queen to another talking about. Um, the queen of vac. See what I did there, uh, talking about the queen of tech interviews, Kara Swisher, uh, she is to leave the New York times shock and is returning to Vox media. And she'll host a new interview show there, which I believe will be a, um, a sister podcast to pivot. Uh, so, uh, yeah, interesting to see Kara, uh, making that move back. Yeah,

Sam: 38:08

which he was doing sway with New York times. I don't know who got that much pickup on it. Uh, so maybe she's just thought I'll go back to Fox media. I don't know. Interesting to see what happens. If you also, uh, want, uh, one of the things that I spotted with you spotted as well in pod jobs, uh, there was also a very interesting hire James. That was a

James: 38:30

posted. Yes. Uh, a cast is looking for managing director for a cast UK and Ireland. It used to be called a cast UK plus now is just to be called a cast UK and Ireland, but they are looking for a managing director of that company. And that's a pretty big, pretty big. Um, if you are involved in podcasting, because that's one of the countries where a cast is strongest and in fact probably is strongest there rather than just a stronger. So, um, yeah, well worth taking a peek at that. If you fancy a big podcast job, um, uh, but presumably you'll be, you'll be going for that. Uh, five rather five jobs.

Sam: 39:11

Yeah. Nothing, nothing to do between the hours of three and four in the morning. No, I think, I think, I think I've probably blown any child to getting any job at a cost in the future anyway, from some of my pontifications in the recent weeks. Oh yeah. Not a chance.

James: 39:26

Uh, events coming up, include podcast movement, 2022 in Dallas, in Texas in August. I hope that, uh, Dallas Fort worth airport, uh, has, uh, their, uh, check-in desk, uh, sorted out by then. Goodness. I flew through there yesterday. It was not fun, but looking forward to being there, there's the international women's podcast festival in London on June the 18th, which is Saturday week. They've already announced a number of high profile speakers. Um, and a well-worth you going there? If you can. Uh, the podcast show 2023 in London next year, 24th to the 25th of May in. Is LinkedIn resonate recordings, where at the podcast show they wrote up, their highlights are linked to those this week. They really enjoyed it. I did notice that I was not one of the highlights. Thanks, resonate recordings. Um, but still ego. What can you do? And the British podcast awards, they're doing some interesting things. Aren't they? Yeah.

Sam: 40:26

Uh, the bridge podcasts walks by Matt Degan to add a few others. Uh, They are first of all, going to have a nominations party. So if you're in London on Monday, the 20th of June and you fancy going down to brick lane city, summer house, uh, you can go to the nominations party. They're also doing something called the growth. The British podcast awards, which is another event they're doing on Friday, the 22nd of July, uh, at Kensington park, all the details will be on their website and we have a link in their show notes, but, uh, more importantly, the British podcast awards themselves are coming out. Now, if you want tickets for those, they will be available on Monday the 20th of June.

James: 41:11

Yes. And, uh, they will be handed out those gongs on the 23rd of July in Kennington park. The only thing that I know about Kennington park in London is that there's a tube station there. Uh, and I believe it's on the Northern line and that's literally the only thing that I know about it. So there you go. Um, so worthwhile looking out for that, but you say that Matt Deegan runs, uh, and a couple of others runs the British podcast awards, not anymore. Um, because they've been bought by Haymarket, which is a large publisher and event company. They run loads of events across the world, and really good to see, Hey market have dipped in. Have dipped into their wallet and are buying the British podcast awards as well as the Irish podcast awards and the Australian podcast awards as well. So many congratulations to the two mats for that deal. And I think that's really exciting for podcasting as well because Haymarket will certainly take those events and move them forward.

Sam: 42:14

I'm hoping this year, I won't be on holiday and I will be able to go to the podcast awards. So looking forward to that is outside under marquees, which is always quite interesting.

James: 42:24

Oh. Which is probably COVID safe as well. Uh, and, uh, two other, um, uh, events to, uh, consider those the Latin podcast awards, which is actually a virtual event. Um, registration is open for that. If you want to enter those awards and the Paris podcast festival, if you're a fan of concrete and dog poo, Uh, which is all that I know of in terms of Paris and old buildings, the parents bought the rest of it, but I think I'll be invited now is in October the 20th to the 23rd of October, 2022. If you speak French, which is probably a prerequisite then worthwhile having a look it's a to Paris podcast festival, doc.

Sam: 43:08

And if you want to find out about any more events, go to pod.events.

James: 43:12

Yes. Now what's been happening for you when I've been gallivanting all over the world. Uh, th th this week, so

Sam: 43:19

I still got a brick. Uh, it's still waiting to tell them my road cost to, to. Well, it's the 12th or 15th I've been told now it might even be the 15th, but a friend of mine has one of those bricks, but he cleverly sent in his press pass and they turned it on for him. So I'm going to do that today. I'm going to go to road and send him my press pass and say, please, can you turn on my road so I can. That's the thing, that's the idea of generally, if all else failed, I'm just going to drop your name in it because that often opens doors for me. Yeah.

James: 43:57

Yeah. I'm not sure that they're very aware of me at the moment. Although I have been given an intro from Nick, from Visy, uh, who was on the podcast 2.0. Uh, podcast last week, Nick is best buddies with road. And so hopefully I will get to have a chat with the folks over there as well.

Sam: 44:21

Uh, also I'm pleased to say my podcast with Harry Duran on podcast junkies has just dropped today. So if you fancy listening to me one more time, I'm not sure anyone's going to do that after this, but, um, if you do fancy listening, Um, head on over there. Um, it was a fun interview with Harry. Um, I enjoyed talking to him about all sorts of things I've been

James: 44:41

doing. He is very good. Isn't he? Have you interviewed anybody exciting

Sam: 44:45

recently? Um, and I've got a, another interview lined up, uh, a band called madness for anyone who knows the eighties band. Um, yeah, river radio. Suddenly being given the, all the, uh, events to do at Windsor race course. So one of those is Magnus and other one is Ronan Keating and the other one is cigar. So I'll be feeding all of those. So God knows what I'm going to ask. So well, very

James: 45:08

nice. My, uh, my partner was, uh, singing in a madness music. Only three or four months ago. And she was very good at it. And it did mean that we heard an awful lot of madness in the house for a number of months, but one step. And I remember when Sox was on Virgin radio and I used to see him in the. Uh, every day and he is the nicest man ever. So you will enjoy that interview. I'll tell you that.

Sam: 45:36

Good. Now, James, you've hinted a little bit, but what else has been happening for you in Podland this week? Uh,

James: 45:41

so I spent much of the week on an airplane and in Canada, in Toronto, it turns out that Canada is still, uh, still half class. There's still an awful lot of, uh, of, of, you know, pandemic related entertainment going on there. Um, but, uh, it was really good to be back in a room with lots of other people, um, as part of the 40th Canadian music week, uh, which is quite a thing to have. Organized. Um, so that was good fun. It was a lot of podcasters there. Um, but also a lot of radio folk there as well. Um, but it was good to bump into Sharon Taylor from Omni friend of the show, Steve Pratt from, uh, ex of Pacific content now working for himself. And he wouldn't tell me what he was working on. Um, so, uh, good to see Steve, but also Matt Degan. Um, so it was good to be able to talk to him onstage about the purchase by Haymarket of the British podcast awards and various other things. So it was a, yeah, it was just a really good, a really good thing. And, uh, that means that I will not be on a plane for a whole two weeks. And then I'm coming to the UK. Oh, yes. So, uh, it's a family holiday. Um, so we might have to have, I have a think about what happens to pod lands in a couple of weeks time. But anyway, let's cover that when we, uh, when we stop recording. Cause that will be a sensible thing. Uh, but, uh, yes. So I'm looking forward to that. And then of course, a podcast movement in Dallas. Uh, and that's it for this week. If you like pod lands, tell others to visit. Please tell your friends on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Tik TOK, or wherever else you like. Uh, you

Sam: 47:27

can also email the show at comments at Podland or news, and you can find all our previous shows and interviews at Podland.

James: 47:35

Yes. And if you'd like daily news, you should get pod news. No, really the newsletters free upon news.net. The podcast can be found in your podcast app or by asking your smart speaker. Play the latest news from pod news, podcasting news, all the stories that we've discussed on Podland today or in the show notes, we use chapters and transcripts. Um, music

Sam: 47:54

is from ignite jingles, and we're hosted and sponsored by a good friends. Buzzsprout and squat cast. Keep

James: 48:00

listening.