James Cridland: 0:01

From Pod News? Welcome to Pod Land, the last word in podcasting news. It's Thursday the 27th of October, 2022. I'm James Cridlin, the editor of POD News.

Sam Sethi: 0:10

And I'm Sam Sethy, the host of my new podcast Coming soon in November. Called Off the Mic

Dylan Pugh: 0:15

Hi there. My name's Dylan p. I'm the managing director of the Spores Podcast Group, and I'll be talking later about the Spores Podcast Awards.

James Cridland: 0:22

Hey, Will Pod Land is sponsored and hosted by Buzz Sprout. Last week, 3,644 people started a podcast with Buzz Sprout. Now there's Buzz Sprout, adss to grow your podcast wherever it's hosted.

Sam Sethi: 0:33

and we're sponsored by Squad Cast. We use the latest squad cast version five to remotely record this episode with James in Australia and myself here in the.

James Cridland: 0:43

And a special thanks to, uh, Squad cast. It's our last week with Squad Cast this week. We appreciate their help and support over the last six months or so, Pod Land is our weekly review where Sam and I review the week's top stories in Pod News. Welcome to episode 99, Sam. Episode 99.

Sam Sethi: 0:59

Oh, you were young when we first met

James Cridland: 1:02

Yes. What are we, what are we gonna do for episode 100? I think we should blow the whole thing up and start again.

Sam Sethi: 1:07

Done. Let's do

James Cridland: 1:08

Okay.. There we go.

Sam Sethi: 1:11

let's talk a little bit about Spotify's earnings. They've reported their Q3 2022 earnings. It has 465 million at monthly active users, which was up 20% year on year, which sounds very good. Ad revenue led by podcasting is also up by 19%. Um, and yeah, it looks very healthy. James, come on, gimme a little bit of background. Are they doing well then with podcasting?

James Cridland: 1:36

It does look very healthy, doesn't it? Um, I, I'm kind of more interested at the moment in quarter on quarter numbers and their ad revenue has even grown quarter on quarter as well, 7% quarter on quarter, which, given that we're supposed to be going into a recession at the moment, is quite impressive. One would think I found it interesting, I just did a calculation to work out how much ad revenue Spotify is making, which of course is essentially driving the podcasting since nobody becomes a Spotify premium user just for the podcasts. Uh, I was keen to work out, okay, well what does that mean in terms of ad revenue for the company in total and 12.8% of the company's total revenue is from ad revenue, which is, uh, interesting. So, uh, yeah, it seems to be doing, uh, pretty well on that front, but it's still relatively small in comparison to the 1499 or whatever it is that we all pay for Spotify every single month.

Sam Sethi: 2:26

Now Dave Jones was, uh, has sent as a booster Graham to say the amount of money being lost on a courty basis by Spotify is staggering. It's predicted they will lose 300 million euros in q4. but, you know, uh, that's the way they've, they've got tons of money in the bank and they're still trying to get to growth. Really?

James Cridland: 2:45

Yeah, they are. I mean, they, they seem to be making profit in one way, depending on how you look at it. But, um, at, uh, at the end of it, you know, yes, they made, um, a loss of 228 million euro in the quarter, which, uh, for you in the UK is, uh, 228 million pounds, isn't it? Uh,

Sam Sethi: 3:01

No, no. We're doing better now. Now we're doing better. Now. We're okay.

James Cridland: 3:04

Okay, well, that's all right. Spotify are talking about raising their prices too., Apple, of course, has raised their prices, and that apparently, , gives Spotify permission to raise theirs too. And, uh, potentially I, I guess, uh, YouTube music and, um, all of the other ones will be raising their, uh, prices too. So that's, uh, a little bit, uh, sad. But, um, yeah, I mean, Dave, , uh, says I don't understand what accounting magic allows that to continue unabated for years. Perhaps they're still playing the long game. Uh, who knows? I, I, I thought that, you know, investors weren't too interested in the long game at the moment, Sam.

Sam Sethi: 3:39

They're not. But I think I, I think if they can show investors that their ad revenue and podcasting is growing, which is what they are by 20% roughly quarter on quarter, then making losses, short term isn't going to still be a problem for the market. eventually will, they'll run out of money in the bank. I mean, you know, I'm sure they've got plenty of it, but, , they will turn a corner. They've got the advantage. I mean, at the moment they've got a closed wall garden and, uh, it seems to be working for them.

James Cridland: 4:07

Yeah, it does. I think what we didn't see in the results, cuz these are only quarterly results, they're not yearly results. We didn't see much around consumption in terms of podcasts from, uh, Spotify. Um, but we have seen a bunch of, uh, other consumption, uh, data, um, over the last week or so as well.

Sam Sethi: 4:26

Yes. We have James, uh, the bbc, you know, for comparison, um, announced their numbers this week as well., they post a weekly average of 4.3 million users, but this is the bit that is actually quite scary for the bbc. that represents no growth from the previous quarter.

James Cridland: 4:43

Yeah, they're completely flat. Um, I, I always think the BBC does itself a little bit of a disservice because it quotes weekly averages because, you know, that's what broadcast media has always done. Whereas, um, other companies will quote monthly averages. But even so, 4.3 million weekly, uh, users is not the biggest number, and the fact that it hasn't grown is a concern. They have also posted a ton of other numbers, 178 million plays of on-demand radio and podcasts in the quarter. That's also flat, 392 million plays of audio overall, which includes live radio. That's also flat and the worst one, they're podcasts on third party platforms. So that's things like Apple Podcasts and indeed Spotify and various other places. Uh, they've achieved 256 million downloads in the quarter, which is a decline of 3.1% quarter on quarter. So however you look at these figures, they are not good news for the bbc, and I kind of wonder what they're doing basically.

Sam Sethi: 5:47

I don't think I've watched BBC TV or listened to BBC Radio in sc. Well, I dunno, months I feel, um, I tend to go to the streaming services or I tend to listen to podcasts, so I'm not sure that they're producing output that matches the demand of people currently. And they're also bleeding, as we have been saying for many months. Talent, I mean, it's, it's, it's leaking rapidly out., so I dunno what's going on at the bbc. You're an ex BBC man, you must know. Come on

James Cridland: 6:17

I am an ex BBC man. Uh, I turned the BBC on in the middle of Liz Truss's resignation speech last

Sam Sethi: 6:24

and turned it off straight away after

James Cridland: 6:27

Well, I mean, it was only 89 seconds, so it was difficult. Uh, I mean, what are the odds of turning it on? Just randomly in the middle of her re resignation speech. But, uh, yes, there we go. So, um, I mean, they're, they're producing some good content, but, um, yeah, but clearly not producing quite enough content. And if you think that it's a problem with broadcasters and a problem with legacy broadcasts and blah, blah blah, then take a look down here because, uh, here in Australia, the ABC's annual report was published and they are saying they're seeing 33 million downloads per month for their podcasts. That figure is up 22% year on year news shows getting the highest increase. 50% or so. Uh, the ABC News daily, um, achieving 46% higher downloads than what came before it, which was a podcast called The Signal. Um, and I can't help but think. That that's one of the benefits of, you know, calling a podcast what it says on the tin, um, the ABC News Daily. That might be a news podcast from the ABC and it might be daily, whereas the Signal, who knows what that's about. Um, so perhaps that's that. So yeah, they appear to be doing fantastically well. And I think, you know, the, the big thing here in Australia is we have a thing called the Australian Podcast, Ranker, as many countries do. Number one in the Australian podcast, Ranker is ARNs iHeart Podcast Network Australia, the number one for podcasts. They got 18 million downloads in September. The ABCs say that they are doing 33 million downloads per month. So the ABC is actually doing, uh, almost twice as much as the number one in the ranker, which just goes to show that, uh, all of these rankers are incomplete rankers, and we should probably never forget them.

Sam Sethi: 8:12

What can these guys do? The bbc? Can they really start to challenge the commercial entities like Global and iHeart and others or, or is it gonna be a decline naturally?

James Cridland: 8:24

Yeah, I mean I look at what the BBC is doing. They are ham hamstrung by some of the, uh, rules and regulations that go around what the BBC is allowed to do and what it isn't allowed to do. And a lot of their podcasts have to still be on the radio. Um, you used to, uh, back when Chris Moles was on the radio, you used to bizarrely wake up at about three o'clock one morning and hear the best of Chris Moyles from the last week getting played out on Radio One, literally just so that it could be turned into a podcast cuz it was a separate show. So, um, there are some weird things that the BBC end up doing, , but I think at the end of the day they, they're just not nimble. They're not a commercial organization. They're not nimble in understanding what audiences want. And I think, you know, my two years in that organization were really. Driven by a horrifying realization that they don't actually care what the audience wants. The thing that the BBC and people at the BBC care about most is the long term survival of the bbc. And uh, if that's done by pleasing audiences, then great. If that's not done by pleasing audiences, then that's also great. Cuz the overwhelming thing is will the BBC still exist in 15, 20 years time? Uh, and will we still get all of our lovely money from the UK government or via the UK government from a TV license fee? So, um, yeah, you know, I, I, you know, it worries me. I think just sort of seeing some of the content coming out of the bbc, undoubtedly some of it is very good, but, um, you know, it's certainly not as commercially appealing as, uh, some of the other content that we are, that we are seeing else.

Sam Sethi: 10:05

Yeah, well they just hit their, what, hundred year anniversary a couple of weeks ago.

James Cridland: 10:10

They did, Yes, a hundred years old. Uh, I think, uh, last week. And similarly, um, uh, the ABC has hit 90 years old, uh, here, here in Australia. So both of us have coins out. You can get a BBC branded coin, a 50 P piece, or if you like it better that way, a 50 cent piece. Um, can't, I can't resist. Um, and the ABC have, um, the ABC have put out, or rather the Austral enrollment have put out a, uh, 20 cent coin with, uh, the ABC brand on it and various things. So it's all very exciting for public service wants. Um, but uh, still none, none of that going on in, uh, Italy though, which has also released a bunch of, uh, data as well. Haven.

Sam Sethi: 10:56

Yeah, the results of the Ipso Digital Audio survey, uh, announced 36% of Italian adults that's 16 to 60. Listen to podcasts. That's not bad, and it's up from 31%. So good to see a, I suppose, a trend in the upward direction.

James Cridland: 11:14

Yeah, it's, um, good to see that, um, a caution on these figures that they're not the same figures that you might see from Edison researchers infinite dial. Um, they are only 16 to 60 year olds, so they don't look at people over 16. You would guess that that will bring the figures down if they were to have a look at those as well. Um, but there's a ton of data coming out of Italy, uh, next week. A ton of data coming out of, uh, New Zealand as well with the Edison research infinite dial. And indeed, I've also got some data from a recent i b survey that they have also done there. So I'm looking forward to reporting on that next.

Sam Sethi: 11:51

Now James, there's more data that you wanted to, uh, look at in the US Podcast. One closed an 8.1 million funding round. Well done. Congratulations to them. And yeah, we will be having an interview with Podcast one next week., the Jordan Hoja show has had an increase of 25% in download. That boy seems to be, uh, rocketing through his numbers., what else is going on, James?

James Cridland: 12:16

Yeah, he seems to be doing very well. And the Dr. Gundry Podcast, whatever that is, has shown a 30% uptick in listeners. What is interesting going through this, um, long and very exciting press release from podcast one is that, um, they are grabbing some really interesting numbers, but all of the numbers are slightly different. So Jordan Harbinger up for downloads, Doctor Gundry, 30% uptick in listeners not. Downloads. You then have a look at some of the other numbers that they have our fake history has, uh, experienced a 25% increase in audience size. Uh, Namae Bitches from Real Housewives of New Jersey Star to somebody and Melissa, somebody. Debuted in the top 100 on Apple's top podcast chart that's got into the press release. So it's interesting seeing, you know, just a bunch of hopefully impressive looking numbers that they have pulled out of that. One of their numbers, uh, is all around their YouTube channel. 45% increase in views, 106% increase in subscribers, uh, in just one quarter total growth at 128% near the start of the calendar year. Um, and Instagram is doing, um, great guns for them, well, seemingly great guns up 13.7% on engagement over the last 90 days, whatever that means. So, you know, clearly Podcast one have been, um, delving deep into their, uh, list of stats to find some good news. And that's probably because live one, are, um, you know, they're spinning out Podcast one, so it's their wish. To spin out podcast one and, um, to have a look at, um, all kinds of, uh, independence for the podcast one, uh, business. And next week, uh, we are talking to head of Marketing and audience development. Ilana Sus now from Podcast one. And, uh, perhaps she will know exactly some of the things that they have been doing to get their numbers up so high. So it should be interesting on this very podcast, episode number 100 next week, assuming that we, you know, do another Pot Land, Sam

Sam Sethi: 14:24

Indeed. And I, I think I'm gonna ask you, did you get aaus for Christmas? That's that's the other question I'll ask her.

James Cridland: 14:31

That may be it. That may be it, but they're clearly doing an awful lot, right? And I know that Jordan Harbinger really thinks about all of this stuff. So lots of data in the news this week.

Sam Sethi: 14:41

Right now let's get out of the data, and get into some other stuff. Uh, let's take a closer look at, again, at Spotify. Uh, Spotify has added podcast to its app in South Korea. Well, so they're growing. Um, but the had a big complaint with Apple. They're having a bit of beef there. They're being forced, according to Spotify, to consider a suboptimal purchase flow for audiobooks. Fundamentally, from what I can read, James, is they don't wanna pay the 30% Apple tax, So they're having to do the bounce out Spotify, get your payment, and bounce back into Spotify.

James Cridland: 15:18

Yeah, they've been rejected a number of times, haven't they, from the Apple App Store. And, uh, it's not the first time of course that Spotify has been, uh, rejected from the app store. Apple's view is we spend an awful lot of money on keeping this app store good and safe and everything else. And we would like 30% of everything that you sell, just like any other retailer would. And, uh, Spotify is, uh, slightly less than happy about that, and they are already, you know, um, posting all kinds of weird and exciting blogs about, uh, what they call Apple's anti-competitive behavior. Do you think there's anything in that? Uh,

Sam Sethi: 15:56

No, look, the, the, the rules of engagement, Apple made that very clear. If you wanna play in our playground, this is the rule. Um, and Spotify could increase. Now, I think we reported a couple of weeks ago that there were rumors of a 1999 third tier payment system, which would mean that audiobooks could be included within that tier., but they seem to have gone down. I think we were saying the pay as you want model rather than the audible model. Eat all you can for a credit. so if, if that it's within Spotify's, uh, remit, they could just simply create a version of the subscription that included audiobooks the same as body mode do. And , they're trying to have their cake and eat it. They're trying to say to, to Apple, we want this, uh, but we don't wanna pay your, um, playground tax,

James Cridland: 16:49

Yeah, I mean, Spotify say that, uh, Apple is confusing because Apple changes the rules arbitrarily making these rules impossible to interpret. Um, and uh, and they say, you know, we're forced to make users work even harder to listen to an audio book and. Think of the authors and the publishers.

Sam Sethi: 17:07

Oh,

James Cridland: 17:07

uh, I think that there's, I think there's some things to be said for that, but not an awful lot to be said, uh, for that. But Spotify's jumping up and down and saying, you know, there's the absence of government intervention and Apple has shown time and time again that it will not self-regulate and blah, blah, blah. But I think, um, probably come down on your side to be honest. Um, you know, as it is, if you want to buy a book, for example, in your Amazon Kindle app, then you have to go to the Amazon website separately, buy it, and then it gets delivered into the Amazon Kindle app. Um, that's Amazon's way of getting around the 30% tax. And, uh, presumably that's what Spotify's gonna have to be doing.

Sam Sethi: 17:51

Hmm. Now, uh, Todd, uh, put out a tweet, which I thought was quite funny. Uh, he said, not that Spotify isn't trying to lock things down in emerging markets when it comes to podcasting. So he was basically taking the, uh, view that, you know, you want it open in one market, but you're closing it down Spotify in other markets.

James Cridland: 18:12

Yes. And I think he's also, um, talking about, uh, the way that Spotify was, uh, certainly talking, um, in, uh, the event that we were at last week where, you know, Spotify was there very, very gung ho talking about, um, you know, podcasting and, uh, in the Middle East and talking about, you know, the large amount of people who are using their service. And again, pointing out the fact that, um, you know, Android phones do very well in some parts of the Middle East. Not all but some parts of the, the Middle East. Um, and of course, uh, there is no Apple Podcasts for Android. I mean, there will be doing a Android app at some point cuz they're not stupid. Um, but,

Sam Sethi: 18:55

before you're broke. James

James Cridland: 18:57

Yes.. Yes. Yes. Please do it this year. Um, but, uh, yeah, so, uh, you know, who knows, We should get somebody from Apple on at some point. That would be, uh, that that would be fun. Like they're gonna do that. Um, but anyway, they are though, um, promoting audio books by musicians, uh, in the app. A friend of the show Christmas C, has uh, spotted that when you listen to the Foo Fighters, if you ever were going to listen to the Foo Fighters, then you would find on the top of the Foo Fighters artist page, a little link saying, Uh oh, here's an audio book that you might be interested to and linking through to Dave Gros book. Um, so, you know, they're doing some clever cross promotion there, which presumably they'll also be doing some clever cross promotion, um, on podcasting, uh, as well in that way. So, um, yeah, uh, you know, Spotify using their heft to do some nice cross promotion within their app.

Sam Sethi: 19:54

Yeah, I mean, it, it's a smart way of doing it and, uh, it, it's unintrusive as well., cuz while you're listening, you're looking at your phone maybe, Oh, what else can I do? Oh, let me click through.

James Cridland: 20:04

Now have you heard of uh, Rob Beckett and Josh Whitaker's Parenting Hell Podcast. It's supposed to be very big in your country.

Sam Sethi: 20:09

It is indeed and it's my daughter's favorite podcast. And um, I have listened to it. Um, I did have a shocker when she first told me that she was listening to Parenting Hell as a 22 year old. I did say, Is there anything you need to tell me? Um,

James Cridland: 20:24

brilliant. There's

Sam Sethi: 20:27

But outside of that, yeah, it was like, Whoa, Easy Tiger. Too soon to be a granddad. Um, but um, no, her and her boyfriend prefer to listen to that show cuz it's, it is good comedy as well. And, uh, they go into the live event, which sold out very quickly in 2023. So yeah, it's probably number three or four in the Apple charts. Um, so it is a good show.

James Cridland: 20:53

And, um, I, I only, uh, bring it up because that show is moving to Spotify as an exclusive from next month, uh, which, uh, was interesting to see the comments. Uh, so Rob Beckett, , who tweeted a announcement that, uh, they would be on Spotify, you know, the same show, just available on, uh, on a different platform or on, you know, on only that platform, uh, still completely free twice a week as usual, you've just got to switch over to the Spotify app and all of the comments are wow. Gosh, uh, I'm really not very positive, you know, Uh, um, honk, honk, replying. Oh no, Chris B saying, Nice one, Get that money mate. Uh, Stephen Mcw saying, Wow, I really enjoyed the podcast, but I guess not anymore. Um, and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So, uh, you know, what a shame, and Steve Marshall writes, All right, you pair of Joe Rogans or

Sam Sethi: 21:52

Oh.

James Cridland: 21:54

Hard Burn. Um, it's part of Keep It like Media's, , uh, move to the Spotify audience network and to megaphone. They also look after Alan Car's lives of Beach Wolf and Al, and, uh, plenty more UK comedy podcasts., they're very excited about moving to Megaphone and joining the Spotify audience network. What I thought was interesting is that the press release of that announcement, keep it like media moving to megaphone. Didn't mention at all the fact that Parenting Hell would become a Spotify exclusive, which I thought was, uh, interesting. Anyway, they've moved over from Global's. DACs.

Sam Sethi: 22:28

I wonder how long they're gonna stay within that walled garden. I suspect it won't be long.

James Cridland: 22:33

Yeah. Well, we, it'll be interesting to see whether Beckett and Whitaker make any, um, you know, comment about, uh, what happens to their audience figures. But there again, I'm, I'm sure that they will learn plenty of money

Sam Sethi: 22:45

won't, they won't , they'll, they'll be going, Yes, that was, that was a nice million we made there very quickly. Or whatever they made. Um, spotify in Africa seems to be doing, uh, well as well. They've been helping 13 podcasts with some funding. Um, anything that you know about this James?

James Cridland: 23:03

Yeah, it's this second amount of funding that Spotify has been doing in the, the region they had. Um, another similarly named. Thing, which they announced in May, uh, which was again, some form of, uh, podcast, um, Grant, uh, I think they called it, uh, this time, uh, they have given Africa podcasts some money to promote, um, uh, podcasting in the region. Uh, so Africa Podcast are administering it. And uh, that money is going out to 13 different podcasts. The amount of money is a hundred thousand, uh, US dollars, uh, which is quite a lot, although split between 13 podcasts is, uh, a little bit less. But, um, you know, uh, again, I think Spotify does a lot to promote. Individual creators. Now the question, of course, is how much of those, uh, shows are going to become exclusives onto Spotify or whether there's any, you know, uh, regulations around, you know, you must start, uh, hosting with Anchor or with Megaphone or whatever that might be. Um, but, uh, Spotify does do, you know, a lot of good work like this. So good to see them helping emerging creators, but also good to see them, you know, doing some really big shows as well. Case 63 is a brand new show on Spotify, which, uh, has launched with two Emmy award-winning actors. Well, one Emmy award-winning actor Julianne Moore, and one Golden Globe winning actor, Oscar Isaac. No idea. Anyway, um, it's a, um, very big budget thing. It's being made by Gimlet Studios and by the production companies owned by, uh, Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac. Uh, and that's also, uh, new as well. So they're clearly, you know, pushing their weight in terms of, uh, creators, both big names and also, uh, emerging ones.

Sam Sethi: 24:50

Now 5.5 million. James, what's the answer?

James Cridland: 24:55

Well, uh, the answer might be the amount of podcasts on Spotify, cuz according to an app notification, although interestingly, not according to their quarterly figures, but according to the an app notification, Spotify now indexes 5.5 million podcasts. Um, uh, which is an awful lot. Obviously quite a lot of those are anchor and, uh, you know, one shows that is somebody testing a microphone. But nevertheless, 5.5 million podcast is nice. Um, and, uh, Joe Rogan appears not to be number one again. Uh, he has for the last, um, three or four days. Been knocked down to number two because of a podcast called Distractable, uh, which has been number one, uh, for a number of uh, days. Uh, Rogan is now back at number one, but, Joe Rogan isn't, uh, number one very often these days, which I find interesting,

Sam Sethi: 25:46

He's just warming up for his YouTube account.

James Cridland: 25:50

that'll be what it is. Uh, should we talk awards

Sam Sethi: 25:54

Yes. We're not entering any. That's, that's the end of that section then? No. Uh, let's we wait.

James Cridland: 26:00

Well, you never know. We might do.

Sam Sethi: 26:02

Oh, really? Okay. Uh, let's do awards then. Um, it's the Asia Podcast Festival Awards. Uh, the entries are open now. Uh, submission deadline is November the 13th. Um, it's just a 15. I'll Come on please. What's S g D

James Cridland: 26:20

Singaporean dollars. It's just, uh, . It's just, it's just 15 Singaporean dollars, which is 10, uh, US dollars. Or, or if you prefer it that way. Uh, 10 pounds, Sam, to enter. I've, I've got that in a third time now. Um, so they're going on in Asia. The Webby Awards are open for entries. Uh, did I mention that? I've got two of those. Uh, anyway, it's the 27th Annual Awards. They five new categories for podcasting this year. The early entry deadline is, uh, today, tomorrow, depending on when you're listening. Friday, October the 28th. Um, and they've got a bunch of new podcasts and a bunch of new. Categories as well. The publisher podcast awards 2023 are open for entry. Your submission deadline for that is December the ninth, although you have to be a, a big publisher in order to enter those., and, uh, the Australian Podcast Awards ceremonies next month in Sydney, The New Zealand Podcast awards have just closed two. But you want to talk sport, don't you? Liverpool FC supporter,

Sam Sethi: 27:18

Yes, I do. We won three N against IX last night. No, no, that's not what I want to talk about. I wanna talk about the, uh, Sports Podcast Awards 2023, which is now open, uh, for entries. They've got 23 categories and it closes in mid-November. But I thought I'd reach out to the organizer, Dylan Pugh, who's the managing director of the Sports Podcasts Group, to find out more about the awards, why they've done them, and he's also revealed about a festival that they're going to be announcing that sounds very exciting in February. And he has a big revelation given his previous role at Spotify as to why he thinks exclusives don't work. Look,

Dylan Pugh: 27:56

Yeah, so this is the second year for the Sports Podcast Awards. It was a brand new initiative last year that we started. You know, we are very happy with how the first year went. So, you know, we were testing the waters a little bit. You know, there's lots of. Podcast awards out there in the world, but I don't think there's a awards program specifically for one genre. So I'd say we were probably the first to do something like this, but it was a big success. And yeah, we're we are back bigger and better.

Sam Sethi: 28:20

well. The award entry now is open, but when will the closing

Dylan Pugh: 28:24

date be? So the closing date is end of November, so it's open for, you know, a month and a half or so. So there's plenty of time for people to get their entries in. So we've tweaked the entry process slightly from last year based on people's feedback. It, we experimented a bit in the first year. We wanted to do things a little bit differently, but, you know, we've optimized the process, but by and large it's not gonna be too different. It's quite easy for anybody to enter, you know, we wanna e. Podcasts of all shapes and sizes from the bigger shows out there to the smallest independence to enter. So yeah, that's the goal that we're aiming.. Yeah. You've got

Sam Sethi: 28:55

23 categories this year. I can see. And last year's winner was sur surprising. Now I've never heard of it myself, although I teach martial arts at Morning Combat.

Dylan Pugh: 29:05

Yeah, I, I wasn't aware of it myself before they entered. But in getting to know those guys through the process, it's a huge show in America, You know, it's owned by CBS and Showtime. It's two guys who host the podcast. They're very well known personalities in the US, in the MMA and combat sports world. And yeah, very worthy winners and just everything they did, they were humble and obviously they were a very loyal following, and they did a live show in Las Vegas to celebrate the success as well. So it's good that they celebrated in style.. Sam Sethi: Now, is this a physical awards ceremony, or a hybrid? What's the format? So the first year was virtual. Mm-hmm., you know, the pandemic played a little part in that because when we were planning everything, it was still some level of uncertainty. But also, given the fact that this is a global awards program, it would be pretty tough to do a. In person event. You know, it's not like other awards programs that I've been involved with where the majority of the people entering our corporates, where people will fly places and buy tables for large sums of money. You know, a lot of, uh, addressable audience for this are independents that have their own day jobs and they're doing this as a passion point themselves. So it's unrealistic to think that people are gonna fly around the world to go to an in person event at this stage. You know, that certainly is the goal. Perhaps, uh, we'll move to some kind of hybrid. Uh, arrangement whereby we have an in person element likely either in London or somewhere in the us and then it would be livestream for those, not in that location. So tbc, but I think we'll remain virtual for now.. Sam Sethi: Okay. And who are the judges for these awards? So there's two stages to the judging process. The first stage is the industry select jewelry. So this is essentially the shortlisting phase. So we have a panel of people that work in the industry. So we've got people who work for, you know, the usuals, the Spotifys acas audio booms, Amazons apple. iHeart, espn, et cetera. So all of these people would have a category each. There'd be three people for each category. They would listen to all of the entries in that particular category. Then collectively, they would decide a short list of eight, and then we would make those eight short list for each category public, and then it's down to the public to vote. So it's a public vote to see who wins each category from., Where

Sam Sethi: 31:22

would the public go? What's the website gonna be?

Dylan Pugh: 31:24

It, it's the sports podcast. awards.com is the website. So yes, the voting system is nice and simple. You know, people can vote on every single category if they want to. They can listen to every single entry and make a, an informed decision on who is the deserved winner, or, you know, if you are just a listener of a particular podcast and you love that podcast, you can just hop onto our website and vote for that particular show. It's and only. So

Sam Sethi: 31:49

closing entries mid-November. When are you gonna announce the winners then?

Dylan Pugh: 31:53

So the short list will be announced first in February. Mm-hmm.. So that's when we'll be announcing the short list, and that's a major milestone for us. You know, it's not just about the winners. You know, last year we had so many podcasts who made the short list, They didn't win. But you know, the fact that they made the shortlist in amongst some really well known podcasts from well known publishers and networks around the world with well known celebrities and sports personalities who are hosting those podcasts. You know, so for many people, getting onto the shortlist was a major win for them because of the visibility it gave them and you know, the discoverability it brought to them, which is a massive factor for us. Yeah, so that's the major milestone for us in February. And then at the moment, we're planning end of March to have the virtual ceremony, which is when the winners would be.

Sam Sethi: 32:36

now, have you got any other plans in the pipeline?

Dylan Pugh: 32:40

Yes, of course. So, you know, the awards were the first step for us. You know, testing the waters a little bit to see what kind of interest there was with the Spores podcast community. And you know, we were overwhelmed with the amount of people who engaged in the voting process Last year we were over 20,000 people worldwide got involved. So it just goes to show that there is a very vibrant and engaged community of sports podcast fans, whether it's listeners or creators that's out there. So, Obviously the awards are the first bit. The next stage for us, we've launched a new newsletter called The Scout. So the Scout is this underground character who's got his ear to the ground, who helps to identify new undiscovered podcasting talent in the sports space. That's, At least the analogy we're going for anyway. So we are launching the newsletter this week. We, we've also got a brand new website, which we launched last week as well, which not only has the award side of things, but also has more of a news and curation from a discoverability perspective. So there's a lot more of a content driven focus on the website. So that's that side. And then also something we haven't announced yet publicly, but we are gonna be launching the first ever Spores podcast festival. Um, in February in London next year. So we'll be announcing that in the next week or so, which we are very excited about. We have some major, well known, mainly UK Baseballs podcast, but some people like the morning combat guys are flying over from the US to perform. But yeah, we're gonna have some, you know, really big name podcasts playing over a week period in London. So, very excited about that. And, uh, we'll release more details than that in the next week.. Sam Sethi: Oh, I look That will be great. Now, Dylan, before you did all of this wonderful events and organizing of awards, it says here you were the former head of podcast monetization for Spotify at the Amir level. That sounds fairly chunky role that you had there. Yeah, it was an interesting time. You know, a, as you can imagine, Spotify's growth in terms of podcasting was stratospheric during those years. So it was a fun journey to be a part of. I guess the job I had perhaps was a little bit early for, you know, what it actually was for me, it was more setting up all of the markets outside of the US ready for monetization once. The content was, I guess, acquired or licensed at the spot level. So, you know, this was before the Joe Rogans and the Foss cast and the rugby pods and all those shows that they've brought as owned and operated podcasts. So it was in anticipation of those shows coming on board, was setting up the backend processes ready to monetize, and there was a new ad serving technology called streaming ad insertion, which I was a he heavy part of, you know, bringing in into play. Getting all the teams ready to adopt once we had the inventory., Sam Sethi: were you also involved in any Not necessarily. My main remit was on the free tier, so it was mainly on the monetization side. You know, before podcasts were a thing at Spotify, it was mainly on the, like music was the only thing really that we were kind of monetizing around. But as soon as podcasts became a major focus and a lot of the resources were being pooled towards that, it was a really fun journey. But yeah, not really involved in the subscription. But you know, from the podcast perspective, the, the unique proposition there is that if you were placing an ad in a podcast on Spotify, it gets exposed to both premium subscribers and the free users. So that's a major sell for any, you know, brands wanting to advertise on Spotify and, you know, not that I making a job of selling them anymore, but, you know, it's, it was an interesting time to be part of that.. Sam Sethi: Yeah. You also got a lot of data there as well to give back to content creators. So we've talked about it on pod land, how Spotify's walled garden, although you know, most people would like them to be a bit more open, actually gives Spotify competitive advantage in the ability to support their content creators. Absolutely. The amount of first party data they have as a company is phenomenal, and actually they've got the systems in place to utilize that really usable form. You know, just on the podcast monetization point of view, the fact that all the users are logged in and you know, you've got that first party data on so many users allows you to do so much more, both from an attribution, from a targeting, from a tracking, all sorts of things. So, yeah, you know, I'm perhaps a little bit biased, but, and I know there's a fair amount of negativity around what they are doing in the industry at sometimes, but, Perhaps I'm a bit brainwashed and biased, but I'm a big believer in what they're doing and I think that they'll do very well in the future in the podcast space. Last

Sam Sethi: 37:10

question really, cuz you might have sort of the inside track, a lot of the exclusive podcasts that you know came to Spotify appear to be going away again. Some of the podcast and Gimlet podcasters were saying that, you know, they weren't promoted properly. The war garden didn't allow them to reach the larger audience. I. The Obama said something similar that they wanted to be on a bigger platform in terms of reach. Do you think exclusives work? I mean, not just for Spotify, for for anyone really?

Dylan Pugh: 37:37

No. Is the answer, if I'm honest. I don't think exclusives are good for the podcast space in the long term. I think it should remain an open ecosystem. I understand what Spotify are doing. Because they're trying to attract the audiences to the platform. And I get that. And my hunch is that the exclusive side is probably a short term play for them. You know, I don't think it's in their interest for things to be exclusive on, on, on the platform, but you know, even some of their recent. I guess you could call them acquisition, uh, that, that they're not that exclusive. You know, take the rugby report, for example, was one that they, you know, was over a year ago now that they did that deal. But that has remained open across all platforms, even though it's owned and operated by Spotify. It's not exclusive Spotify as a platform. So, I'd say there's gonna be more of those to come, but perhaps there still will be some element of exclusivity in the short term whilst they're building up their market share. But as soon as Spotify get, you know, 40%, 50% market share, then I guess there's no need for that exclusivity because you've got enough scale across the board. But you know, back in the. When the Obamas, the Joe Rogan, those deals were made. I would've hazard a guess as Spotify's market share being around 20% of all podcast listens, you know, needed to get that up. And bringing those shows exclusive was a means of getting that.. Sam Sethi: Yeah, I mean, this week Beckett and Josh Whitaker's, Parenting hell, which is I think number three or number four in Spotify and Apple charts, you know, is my daughter's favorite. Again, the comments on Twitter about the announcement were overwhelmingly negative about them going. Exclusive, but you can understand, I get the, going back to what you said, you know Dylan, you know they've got to bring subscribers to the platform. That's what they generate their revenue from, and if bringing shows that are popular brings the audience, then that's what they will continue to do. Yeah, I know they're still fairly early in their journey as a podcast listening. Form. I'd say it's probably about four years now since podcasts were brought onto the platform. You know, Apple as the dominant platform, has been around for 20 plus years, I would've thought. So they're still fairly early in the journey, and it'll take a while for people's behaviors and habits to change to using Spotify as the go-to default platform for listening to their podcast. You know, people always have their own views on the user interface. Of the experience and all that of stuff, but you know, if they can migrate a certain proportion of the parent held audience away from other platforms onto Spotify, then it's worth the invest.

Sam Sethi: 40:03

Okay. Well look, Dylan, thank you so much. Can you remind everyone again about the sports podcast awards that you're doing and

Dylan Pugh: 40:10

where they can go? Yep. So if you head to sports podcast awards.com, there's 23 categories, and the categories are for, it's quite simple, really. Things like the best soccer podcast, best rugby podcast, best golf, cricket, tennis, basketball, et cetera. It's a global initiative. We want to encourage all podcasts of all shapes and sizes to enter. You know you are part of the BBC or Sky Sports or The Athletic or espn, or whether you're just a bedroom podcaster with a podcaster by your local football team. We want everybody to enter and there's benefits in there for everybody. So yeah, head to sports podcaster was.com.

James Cridland: 40:43

Dylan Pugh from the Sports Podcast Awards. Yes, that was, uh, that was an interesting interview. And I think, uh, particularly interesting to hear that, uh, he reckons that, uh, exclusives don't work. Uh, a man whose worked for Spotify wonder why that might be.

Sam Sethi: 40:59

Well, they'll keep knocking the door. I mean, Rob Beckett and, uh, Whitaker are taking the money for their exclusives, so at least it seems that they don't think the same as Dylan P. But, uh, you know, when I hear the name Pew, I just wanted to sing Kawi Green Pew, Pew Bar Beru Cockpit Dibb and Grub

James Cridland: 41:18

yes, indeed. I might have to, I might have to find a little clip from YouTube. Go on. Here we go. There we are. Uh, whenever I hear, Josh Whitcomb, I always think of Anne Whitcomb. Uh, and I wonder

Sam Sethi: 41:31

Oh, no.

James Cridland: 41:32

Um, uh, anyway, uh, let's move on to podcast Industrial Complex News.

Sam Sethi: 41:38

Yes, uh, in sounds profitable., Brian's done a really good report on, uh, the transparency issues that we talked about a couple of weeks ago that Ashley Carmen, uh, revealed about iHeart Media, uh, basically buying plays in mobile games. And he's done a really in depth analysis. Uh, it says in summary, it's clear that we are reaching a breaking point of confidence in downloads. Did you read the report as well,

James Cridland: 42:06

Yeah, he's, he's, he's basically saying, you know, it really is time for the podcast industry to focus on listens and on listen metrics rather than on downloads, uh, metrics. And, uh, I would certainly agree with him if we can manage to do that. Uh, sounds profitable. We'll be working on, uh, some of that, uh, work. Interestingly, the big, uh, ranker that has measured. Listens, uh, Edison's podcast metrics tool has announced today that they are going to add download numbers into that tool. Not quite sure how that's going to work. And I did ask, How's that gonna work then? And they say, Well, we're not talking about that at the moment. Uh, So, so who knows how that's gonna work? Um, but, uh, yeah, I think listens is, uh, the future. And I think downloads is, um, a bit of a confusing metric that frankly we shouldn't necessarily be using, uh, anymore. So I would completely agree with, uh, Brian there. Uh, one of the other bits of, uh, data that, um, I've been looking at or other bits of news that I've been looking at is, um, Rover, which is a popular podcast app in New Zealand from MediaWorks. Now I discovered that, uh, they've been sending details about their listen. Uh, with every download to any podcast publisher, including the geolocation, including a unique listener identifier. Uh, more details of that in today's pod news. Uh, and again, it's a download story. Uh, and again, uh, in this particular case, it's oversend information about audiences to the place that they're getting that download from, which is a real privacy concern. They've, um, uh, listened, thankfully, uh, to us and they're going to make urgent changes to their app. But, um, You know, all of this could be avoided actually, if we did two things, if we started looking at listens and we got some listen data back from the podcast apps, and also actually if we allowed our podcast apps and the podcast platforms to cash the audio because, um, that, that would be quite, that would be quite good for most of us. Um, so, um, anyway, we'll uh, see quite what happens there. But, uh, yeah, I think that's, uh, it was a great piece from, uh, Brian. Taking a look at, uh, all of the shenanigans going on.

Sam Sethi: 44:28

So are we suggesting that Apple should reverse the, uh, bug that they brought out in the past and, uh, stop having downloads? Cuz that was what, 30% of downloads that, uh, we realized the numbers dropped for most people.

James Cridland: 44:43

Yeah, so what, what we basically learned from that data is that the numbers went down by about 27, 20 8%, so 30% ish, um, of all downloads from Apple Podcasts. And nobody noticed that the auto downloads weren't actually working. Um, so to. Tends to really show that yes, about 30% of all downloads aren't being listened to from Apple, which, um, makes it about sort of 10, 11% if you look at the total market. And of course what that means is if you're looking at the data between Apple and Spotify, for example, then Apple's numbers are, um, always gonna be a little bit higher than Spotifys because Spotify doesn't have that auto download. You can't automatically download shows without really working hard. And in fact, I think you can still only automatically download, um, uh, individual episodes rather than, uh, shows. So, um, yeah, I mean, I think getting rid of automatic downloads would be a good start., and I think just getting some data from the podcast apps would be a good start. And perhaps that's where John Spurlock's podcast events, um, new namespace stuff might actually help us there. That and the Uli, uh, information that, um, Dave Jones and down from Fireside, Dan Benjamin, uh, have been working on, you know, that will certainly help, I think, uh, in there as well. But I think, you know, total downloads is, is probably as old fashioned these days. As, you know, page impressions or hits, uh, certainly hits. Um, you and I, Sam would've been quoting hits a long, long time ago. Um, and nobody quotes those anymore. And I think that that's probably where the, the download is. So, um, yeah.

Sam Sethi: 46:25

I mean, downloads has to be historical based on the fact that bandwidth was so limited that downloading was what the, the apps did really. And, um, yeah. Now, now that bandwidth is pretty, uh, universally big. I, I'd say that not in all countries, of course, but in most Western countries. It

James Cridland: 46:42

Yeah, in most Western countries. But of course, many of us now no longer have to pay for, data, um, by the megabyte or, you know, have to worry about how long it'll, it'll download as well. Um, e even in, um, you know, Sub-Saharan Africa and other places. So, um, and, and you know, the, the reason why the automatic download came to be in the first place was Adam Curry. Adam Curry came up with the bright idea of basically keeping something in your house, your server in your house, busy downloading stuff because Adam Curry realized, um, in a blog post that he has deleted, which is. Very frustrating. But Adam Curry realized, um, a long time ago and wrote up a really aite blog post, which led to the invention of podcasting that basically said, you know, we've got, um, these, connections into our homes that we could be using 24 hours a day and we really aren't. Uh, and we could be, you know, setting something up to automa, automatically download entertainment for us and other things. And that's where podcasting came from. So, um, yeah, I find the whole thing, uh, fascinating.

Sam Sethi: 47:50

Well, let's see if, if the market will change. I think it'll be a slow change, but let's see if it will change now. Uh, sounds profitable. Seems to be on a bit of a role this week. They also have done a deep dive of Triton Digital's new advertising platform called Tap. Tell me more, James.

James Cridland: 48:08

Yeah. So th this is something that sounds profitable do, um, quite often now, and in fact they've done two deep dives. So they've both done one with Tri and digital around their advertising platform, and one with a company called Frequency, which is an ad management tool. And, uh, what they basically do is, uh, they sit down with, uh, Brian Barletta, uh, these people, and they show Brian through this particular product, and Brian asks the questions that anybody would ask when you're having a look through a product like that. Um, and at the end of the day, it's a. great, uh, peak into how these products actually work. It's a bit like you, you know, your first pitch of a company's, uh, technology, so worthwhile having a peak at that. There are tons of them actually on the Sounds Profitable website. Uh, you'll find them@soundsprofitable.com and just hit the deep dives link, um, at the top. But certainly interesting to peek into both how advertising platforms like Frequency and Tap Works. So, um, worthwhile having a peak at that and talking about those two advertising platforms is another one, um, which, uh, a cast, uh, has just, uh, worked on. It's a first party data targeting solution. So if you've got data on your audience, perhaps you have an app which people log into, perhaps you have other bits of data on your audience, you can actually combine that with the data that a cast has to target. Adds in a podcast a little bit better. Uh, Acars claims it's an industry first. Um, and interestingly, from my point of view, it's available in two countries, the US and Australia.

Sam Sethi: 49:43

I was gonna ask why, why we can't have it. Is it GDPR

James Cridland: 49:48

gdpr exactly right. Yes. GDPR is still a rule where you are. Um, and, uh, my suspicion is that the US and Australia has rather different privacy, uh, rules and that that is rather easier. Um, they're also, you know, I mean, Australia is a good test market for anything cuz you know, we're, we're only 25 million people or, or, or thereabouts. Um, so we're a pretty good test market to have a play with. Um, although, you know, launching it in the US as well, where a cast is, you know, relatively small, um, perhaps that's an interesting thing.

Sam Sethi: 50:21

Hmm. Well, uh, moving on then. Uh, let's have a little bit of tech stuff. This passed me by actually, James. I, I did read about it on Pod News, but I hadn't seen it listed anywhere else. A group of podcast companies, rss, Bus, Sprout, Transistor, Libson, and Acast are working on a project to promote open standards for podcasting. The project hopes to launch its website before January, uh, at podcast. What is this group trying to achieve?

James Cridland: 50:49

I think I was at the dinner when this was ironed out and I find it interesting that, uh, some of the podcast hosts that were at that dinner, uh, are listed here, RSS Buzz Sprout, Transistor Lips In, and Acast Buzz Sprout are our sponsor. Um, and, uh, and that some aren't. Uh, and I also find it interesting, um, that, uh, other people in the room aren't involved in this, but the podcast Standards project, uh, which is basically an open standards, group for. Podcasting, um, is coming. Um, uh, so they say, my suspicion is that this is something around promoting the benefits of RSS and very much a anti Spotify type of thing. Um, and uh, you know, obviously it would be great to, um, uh, get a little bit more, uh, excitement and, uh, visibility around, uh, the benefits of open standards. And clearly they'll be promoting the new podcast, Namespace one would assume. Um, but, uh, yes, but I find it interesting seeing those names on there and seeing who else was at that dinner. And I probably shouldn't talk about, um, who aren't involved in that.

Sam Sethi: 52:00

Hmm. But, um, I've seen these things done before in the past with, um, when we were at Netscape talking about HTML and, and versus Microsoft. Um, I suppose it's a good marketing vehicle, but we already have a fairly good, um, forum for creating new standards. So I assume all they're going to be doing is talking about, um, trying to raise the awareness in consumers. I, I, I can't see what else it's gonna do.

James Cridland: 52:29

Well, I wonder actually whether or not, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, Dave Jones, um, doesn't work for the new podcast name space or for Podcast Index. Um, that's not Dave Jones's full-time job. He, he works at some accountancy company somewhere. Uh, Adam Curry, you know, he, he, he does other things too. So actually these sets of people with their large corporate, uh, you know, exciting, uh, budgets, um, promoting open standards for podcasting and uh, helping guide things through is probably a good thing as long as, you know, they, they don't end up suffocating the grassroots work that Dave, Adam, and the others have been doing. Podcast index.social. So I think, you know, this is probably from my point of view, this is just a different way in. You are more likely if you are Apple or you are Samsung, or you are, you know, Google, you are more likely to listen to the likes of Libian or Acast or transistor than you are likely to listen to, you know, um, uh, uh, a weird, you know, coder from Stockholm. So I think, um, there's probably no harm, uh, in, uh, doing this. And, um, yeah, and I, I, I, I wish them the best for, um, this, uh, new project of theirs, which, um, uh, they're hoping to launch before January's pod fest, which presumably means that that's when the real announcement is likely to happen.

Sam Sethi: 53:55

Never knew Dave Jones was a weird programmer from Sweden. But anyway,

James Cridland: 53:58

Now. Oh no, I was talking about somebody else there. Dave Jones is most certainly not from Sweden,

Sam Sethi: 54:06

Now, uh, moving on, let's talk about OP three, the Open Prod podcast, a prefix project. Yeah. I'll just stick with op three. It's so much easier. Um, OP three was put forward by, uh, John Burlock, um, and this week he's announced that, uh, the OP three returns, country, continent, and region time zones. Um, so he's developing this much further. I know you are doing a lot of work, um, with John, or at least your tweets intend to show that you're doing a lot of work. What's going on with the OP three this week, James?

James Cridland: 54:40

Yeah. So, um, uh, so if you don't know what the OP three project is, it's a, uh, open, uh, method of doing, uh, analytics on podcast, uh, stats on podcast, uh, downloads, uh, actually at the moment on podcast requests, if we're gonna be strictly accurate. Um, and, uh, anyone. Can use this service, it's free. And on the other side of it, anyone can dive into the data and pull out information. So in this particular case, um, what, um, John has realized is he has access to a lot of information from CloudFlare, which is the service that he uses, um, to, uh, do this, uh, particular analytics tool. And he has information, for example, the edge colocation. So where, did the request for a podcast go to, uh, the continent of where that person was, who asked for the podcast, the country, their time zone, and various other things in their metro code? If you, um, uh, if you happen to be in a country which has one of those as well, so you can really get a lot of information in terms of. Download or the request for that podcast without, um, uh, giving anybody any privacy concerns. So I can see, for example, now in OP three, all of my downloads and I can see that, you know, somebody at seven 50 this morning, uh, GMT downloaded, um, a version of the pod news podcast from the 1st of September. They were using Overcast, um, they were in New York. Um, we know what time zone that is. Of course, we know that that's in, uh, the US in, in the state of New York. Uh, we know that that's in North America in terms of a content. Um, we know even that they were in Metro Code 5 26, which is a metro code, which, uh, points to where that particular person was. And that's as much as we know. So we don't. More detail than that, but we do know, obviously much more detail than you can get from just a standard log file. So that's gonna be really interesting when you start building analytics tools to show, you know, what country or what city your listeners are from. Uh, perhaps, uh, this might be one of the reasons why we might want to end up doing that for this very podcast as well, because, um, you know, all, all of a sudden we can get a ton more information, uh, out of some of the data here.

Sam Sethi: 57:05

John's doing a grand job with the OP three now. Um, something you wrote about was called Podcast Saver. It's a website that lets you easily download your favorite podcast. I've just gone on there to look at Pod Land News and it just basically allows you to download any episode. Why would you wanna do this, James?

James Cridland: 57:24

Why would you want to do that? Well, some people do want to download their favorite podcasts and make it really easy and, and keep the MP3s because the MP3s sudden times go away. And you know, some people like collecting things, so you've got that. Um, but really, Under the hood, this is actually a test tool for individual search engines. So there's a search engine called me search or me search, and there's a search engine called Postgres fts. And there are various other search engines as well. And this is a piece of work with, um, the podcast index where they've grabbed the podcast index, uh, big dump, and they are using that to, um, power this particular service. But they're also testing what search engines work best for them. Um, so I find that quite interesting to see, you know, what, what is working better, what isn't working better, and they just point out that, you know, the podcast index, it's a relatively small data set to try things out on. Um, it's got 2 million podcasts in. You know, it's doing a fair amount of searches and blah, blah, blah. So, um, yeah, I thought that that was interesting because it's basically two different things. It's a product which is out there to enable you to download podcasts. Yes. Great. But it's also actually, um, doing a bunch of, um, interesting work around testing individual search engines. So, um, quite a clever little project.

Sam Sethi: 58:53

Hmm. Now pod verse friend of the show, um, Mitch, uh, has announced you can now, uh, export all of your user data, uh, and it's also partially available in 14 languages. So thank you, Mitch, for doing that.

James Cridland: 59:07

Yes, exporting user data is always a very good thing. Um, there's no standard way of doing that, so it's just, um, a lump of, uh, a lump of data. Um, but, uh, maybe at some point in the future there'll be a standard way of exporting all of your user data and no opm l is not the answer. Now, uh, time for Booster Graham corner, and actually we start with a 10,000 sat boost from Mitch himself, um, which is, uh, very nice. Mitch, of course, that runs pod verse. And, uh, he has sent, uh, send Bitcoin boosts to your favorite podcasters with pod verse and Albi hashtag foss. Uh, what, what's all this about then? Uh,

Sam Sethi: 59:47

Well, last Friday night I was listening to Dave and Adam on live using Lit the live, uh, item tag. And of course I was using pod verse and I wanted to send, uh, 10,000 sat to Dave and Adam cuz they were talking some really good stuff and it didn't work. And it turns out that Alby have a 30 day token, so if you don't reset your account when you go in, um, then the token link, the authorization from Alby to pod first drops off. And so I sent an error report to Mitch, um, that evening and uh, thankfully he fixed it the next day. Um, and it's all hunky-dory now. So, yeah. So thanks Mitch.

James Cridland: 1:00:36

Excellent. Oh, well, that's, uh, good to hear. Yes, it's, uh, pod verse on the web is a really good, um, podcast, uh, app now, and it's, uh, you know, it's getting better and better every single week. And, uh, completely open source as well, which is, um, a very good thing too. So, uh, yes, well worth, uh, a peak pod verse.fm is the website address pod verse.fm. Uh, thank you also too, uh, Justin, uh, from the Optimal Living Daily Podcast Network who sent 777 sat, uh, for my, uh, impersonation of Todd Cochran last week. Get your own.com and of course, every time I read a boost, sending me some stats for doing an impersonation of Todd. Then I have to also then do another impersonation of Todd. It's kind of like an infinite loop. Um, uh, I must say, I, I spent some time with, um, Todd Cochran last week, uh, in. The Middle East. And, uh, I, I kind of saw a, a bit of a different side of, of Todd. I, I, I've seen a very, you know, sort of grumpy side, uh, of, of Todd in the past, but actually so, so helpful to so many different podcasters who were there. Um, at this event, he was really, really positive and helpful around podcasting. He was on stage, he got a number of rounds of applause from the audience because he was talking about the benefits of podcasting being open, the benefits of you being able to say what you want in a podcast, uh, which to the Middle East is a, is a very exciting thing. And, uh, yeah, it was a real pleasure to spend a number of days with, uh, with, uh, Todd, uh, last week. So it was good to end up seeing him.

Sam Sethi: 1:02:17

Still doesn't listen to this show though.

James Cridland: 1:02:18

Uh, well, uh, you know, there you go.

Sam Sethi: 1:02:21

could try and convince him one day. Maybe you'll send us a boost. Dad, if you're listening, send us a boost.

James Cridland: 1:02:26

Yes, exactly. Todd, if you're listening, send us a boost talking about people who are listening and send us a boost. Adam Curry, Um, interestingly using Fountain. No, there you go. 25,000 sat from Adam, and, uh, he says, enjoyable episode. Jensen then sends another 25,000 SAT thing, uh, with, um, uh, uh, details about your edit off last. He said that the editing discussion neglected pre-production. This is an excellent point, Adam. Yes. He says, I spend five hours before each show prepping up to 50 clips and 20 news articles. I don't need to edit because I know exactly what I want to say and do before we hit record. Well, of course Adam comes from a broadcast radio background. Uh, and Adam is very used to pressing all of the buttons and doing a live show. Uh, that's not necessarily something, uh, that all of us have in our, uh, back history. But, uh, yeah, he makes a really good point that actually pre-production is really important. Sand does all of the pre-production for this show.

Sam Sethi: 1:03:29

all I do is cut and paste your, your stories, James. So let's, let's be honest. It isn't a hard one. It's not that, it's not that difficult. People, honestly, Anyone want a job? Just, just email James. You know, You know, that's not hard. No. Look, I agree with Adam. Uh, pre-production is part of it, and we do spend a lot of time putting together this show in pre-production. But not everybody does. And that was what we were trying to get across was that a lot of people do just go into podcasting without that thought process. And if they do do that, that there are tools like descript out there that can be used to edit in post production. And it was just a bit of fun with Neil and me just thinking, Hey, let's see what we would do with the same interview. I've never done that with anyone before. Taken the same piece of content and seeing how differently that they edit it to me. And, uh, you know, Neil was much more harsher than I was. And um, yeah, there was a 10 minute difference between the two edits of the same interview.

James Cridland: 1:04:30

Yeah, which was really interesting. And I should say, by the way, descript, uh, the new version of Descript, if you have that descript storyboard works so, so, so much faster, uh, on this mac, uh, so much faster. Whatever it is that they've done under the hood, it is so welcome. So, uh, thank you to the folk, uh, to descript for making their app actually, you know, work in a performant way. So that's, uh, a very good thing. Uh, as the rain comes down in another Queensland, uh, tropical rainstorm outside, we've got little, uh, quick bits of, of other news. Uh, it's no agendas birthday this week. Uh, they published their first episode on October the 26th, 2007. They're currently on episode 1,497, hosted by John c Devor and Adam Curry, of course. Um, you should have a listen and a boost that show and, uh, very happy birthday to them.

Sam Sethi: 1:05:29

Indeed now, not that you'll miss it, but Facebook is stopping supporting instant articles, which are supposed to be their proprietary replacement for rss. Sorry, James, can you remind me what is Facebook

James Cridland: 1:05:45

Oh, I believe it's something that the old people use. Um, but that you. Yes, they ended, they ended up doing something called Instant Articles, which was some complicated XML format thing that they built. And, uh, yes, and they're not no longer supporting it anymore. Who'd have thought it. Proprietary things don't work very well, and, uh, RSS works fantastically. Uh, there's a thing, um, our friends at spooler have launched something which is interesting, Spooler Affiliate Cloud, which is a way of, um, if you syndicate audio, it's a way of, um, basically syndicating that audio and allowing all of your clients, uh, to produce stuff with your audio. So the first client is Fox News Radio. So if you are an affiliate of Fox News Radio, then you automatically get all of the bits of, uh, audio directly into a tool where you can produce breaking news shows. And of course you can produce that in terms of a podcast, but you can also produce that in terms of, um, uh, over the air stuff as well. So I thought a very clever use of the Spooler platform. So the Spooler affiliate Cloud, which went live, uh, last week.

Sam Sethi: 1:06:44

Moving on then, uh, Evokes Outta Spain has launched a new ad marketplace called Ad Voices, uh, the first marketplace in the Spanish language. It allows advertisers access to podcasts and video podcasts, uh, so they get a good fit for your target audience. So congratulations to them.

James Cridland: 1:07:03

Yeah, and it's, uh, interesting seeing, uh, from Catalonia, not necessarily from Spain, but it's interesting seeing, uh, evokes, uh, doing this and, uh, really pushing forward the Spanish language podcast, uh, marketplace. So, uh, that's very smart. Uh, pod ties is raising a million dollars in funding. There are monetization platform. Um, they've already raised, um, nearly 200,000, uh, dollars or if you like it better that way. Uh, Sam, 200,000 pounds. I'm gonna stop doing this, uh, in, uh, earlier on in this year. But, um, then now, uh, pushing for, uh, a million dollars in funding. They say they've already got$1.2 million worth of revenue, although we don't actually know for what, uh, time period that was. Uh, but, uh, you know, who knows? Um, but interesting seeing them, uh, jumping in and looking for funding there. And there's a study by a company called New Voodoo who claimed that 38% of podcast listeners have bought something they heard advertised in a podcast, which is quite a wonderful thing. Uh, Buzz

Sam Sethi: 1:08:04

how have they measured that?

James Cridland: 1:08:07

How have they measured that? Yes, there's a question. Uh, New Voodoo do, uh, an awful lot of, uh, decent research in the US for radio companies. So one would presume that they've done that well, but, uh, yes, but I don't know, is the, is the quick answer. Uh, there, uh, what's happened for you, uh, this week in, in, uh, Pot Land then Sam

Sam Sethi: 1:08:27

Well, I actually, uh, had a really interesting chat with John Spurlock about the podcast events, um, which is a new extension tag that is being talked about. So John and I got on the phone together to talk about it. We, we have a history going back about activity pub and we looked at how that might fit into podcast events and yeah, so watch his space or, that's what I would say. Um, and the lovely people at Albe have also added me to their presentation. Hopefully that's gonna be going on at podcast movements, so I'll be presenting something to do with value, for value out there.

James Cridland: 1:09:05

Oh, fancy. Fancy. Well, that'll be very exciting.

Sam Sethi: 1:09:08

And James, what's happened for you this week in Pod Land?

James Cridland: 1:09:11

Uh, I've been trying to get over jet lag, which is, uh, you know, uh, e my every two or three week thing is trying to get over jet lag, seemingly, uh, but there we go. But, uh, no, apart from that just being, um, hard at work and, and particularly looking at this, uh, at, at this uh, podcast app, um, privacy, uh, story, which, um, I seem to have spent, uh, quite a long time on making sure that I've, um, crossed the i's and dotted the T's. No, you don't do that, do you? You do it the other way around. You cross the T's and you dot the i's. That's right. That's what I mean to say. Anyway. Um, yes. So that's been fun. And that's it for this week. That's pod land for this week. If you like this episode of Pod Land, please tell others to follow the show. We'll be back next week for episode 100, and things may sound a little bit different. Mightn't they, Sam, next week.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:04

Well, don't miss out. That's all I will say., you can also give us feedback using email at comments@podland.news, or a boostgram. And if your podcast app doesn't support boosts, then grab a new app from pod news.net/new podcast apps.

James Cridland: 1:10:20

Yes, I added the email address there just so you can mention it one more time, um, because you know, who knows, It might be the last time. If we blow this podcast up next week and we do something else, who knows. If you want Daily News, you should get Pod News Daily. The newsletter is free@podnews.net. The podcast can be found in your podcast app. Just search for Pod News daily

Sam Sethi: 1:10:40

And our music is from Studio Dragonfly, and we're hosted and sponsored by our good friends, a Buzz Sprout. And thank you so much for your support over the last few months to squad cast.

James Cridland: 1:10:50

and keep listening.