James Cridland: 0:00

It's Friday the 6th of January, 2023. The

Sheila Dee: 0:04

last word in podcasting news. This is the Pod News Weekly review with James k Cridlin and Sam Sethy.

James Cridland: 0:14

I'm James Cridlin, the editor of Pod News. And I'm

Sam Sethi: 0:16

Sam Sethy, the host of Sam Talks

James Cridland: 0:18

Technology in the chapters today. Prx adds value for value using web monetization. Spotify says its road to profitability is video, and O P three starts. A new stats page. His podcast is sponsored and hosted by Buzz Sprout. Last week, 2,728 people started a podcast with Buzz Sprout podcast hosting Made easy with powerful tools, remarkable customer support, and something new and exciting coming later this month

Sheila Dee: 0:46

from your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly review.

Sam Sethi: 0:51

But first, Episode is all about, I have to say it, James, show me the money. I think, uh, Tom Cruise is gonna make a guest appearance in this week's show. No, congratulations. You're still my agent. You had a story about prx, uh, have launched a value for value micropayments, which all sounds of very good. And they doing that using the value tag, which sounds even better so far. So, But they're using something else. They're not using lightning payments. They're using something called a web monetization payments.

James Cridland: 1:21

Tell me more, James. So, uh, uh, value for value, right? If you listen to this podcast using a podcast app like Fountain or like pod verse, Then you can, uh, automatically share a very small amount of money. It's, uh, Bitcoin in this particular case, but a very small amount of money through your, uh, app. And that's all lovely. And you can also do additional things like send us boosts or send us, um, you know, additional, uh, money in that way. Um, now what prx have, uh, launched is they've launched something, um, uh, uh, like value for value. It. The same podcast value tag, um, but it's not using Bitcoin, it's using something else. Uh, web monetization, well, they call it a W three C web monetization payment standard, um, which is, um, slightly over egging the pudding there, there, it's not really a standard, it's just one company that wants to make it a standard and they plan to send it in to the W three C, but, And the idea is that, uh, as you listen to a podcast, then uh, it ends up sending you, um, some money. And in this case, uh, it could be any money. It could be Bitcoin, but it could also be Australian dollars or US dollars, or whatever it is that you actually want it to. A few downsides in it. Um, at the moment, it, uh, you can't, um, as a listener work out exactly how much money you want to, uh, spend on a podcast. It's just a. Amount, which has been set by the web monetization system. Uh, you also can't send boosts either, which is no good, really. So, um, but, you know, early days, and it's interesting seeing a different company using the podcast value tag. Well, the

Sam Sethi: 3:02

first thing to note is the value tag is agnostic. It doesn't have to be Bitcoin. Uh, it can, as you say, be anything. So that's holding up well for Podcast Index 2.0. But I went and opened up mm, an upload bank account, which actually was pretty easy to do. It was all online, fairly quick. A bit of, uh, local documentation as you would expect from a bank account. And then I included this plugin called Coil. And this is where it all went a little bit. Pete Tong. Um, I started with, uh, coil, I went, okay. And then it wants $5 a month, uh, for me to be a member of Coil. And then as you said, James, it will decide, not me, um, all the host, but they will decide how much of my monthly subscription will be paid out. To the content creator. So guess what? I didn't sign up for a subscription per month of $5, so I dunno how that works too much. The other thing they do, which I think is slightly, um, yeah, it's fairly standard but it hasn't moved a needle forward too much, is they use a meta header tag to allow you to put in a pointer to your wallet, your, um, web monetization wallet, which is similar to what Alby do, but as. Podcast app developer. This doesn't give me the control that I need in terms of determining what podcast is being paid when and how so it, it's very early days, but, uh, yeah, an interesting

James Cridland: 4:39

step forward. Yeah. So the way the, the meta tag is because this system also works for websites and it's really meant for websites. So the idea is that you go, if you spend. Um, 40 minutes on the pod news website and you happen to have coil on that, then I get a percentage of the money that you have. Um, so, uh, and you might remember, uh, a lawfully long time ago, the guy that, uh, used to run Pirate Bay, Peter Sonder, uh, who was a very nice, uh, man from one of the Nordic countries. I don't want to, um, uh, embarrass myself by saying the wrong Nordic country, I think from Sweden. Um, , but, uh, there you go. I've just embarrassed myself. Anyway, Peter Saunder, um, had this, uh, idea that was quite similar and basically when you went to the websites that you had, um, decided that you wanted to support, it would, um, basically take your monthly subscription and split it up and send it to the different websites that you had spent. Um, time on, which kind of all makes sense. Um, but of course it works in a slightly different way in terms of podcasting. And one of the, um, one of the small problems with the way that prx have done this is they've got their prx, uh, embedded player so that the prx embedded player understands. where the money should go and understands all of that stuff. But it only works in the foreground. So if you start listening to this very podcast, for example, and then you, you, uh, open a different window and start, um, doing other things while you listen, then we don't get to see any of that money anymore. So that's a bit of a major problem that they need to fix, um, fast. And of course it's not yet in any podcast, uh, apps. But I have to say, I think if, um, You know, as this, uh, new technology matures and as they add the missing bits, I think that the, it's certainly a good and interesting alternative to where, you know, we are currently using, um, Bitcoin and SATs and Bitcoin and SATs scare people. Uh, and so perhaps this is a different altern. But, um, I think there's still an awful lot of, um, hard work to do in order to get it up to that though. Yeah,

Sam Sethi: 6:52

if you wanna find out or read more about it yourself, you can go to a web monetization.org that is with a Z or a Z rather than an S, which is where I would spell it. But web monetization.org is where you can find out more about it. Um, the other thing I wanted to point out was, um, our friend Oscar at Fountain posted a little bit of data. Um, more than $16,000 has been sent to podcast is an over 6.7 million transactions using fountain, using value for value, Bitcoin SATs. So yeah, it is working. Um, yeah, and there's more granular control with the current model because you can't. Uh, choose how much you want to pay in terms of SATs to which host. Uh, you're not determined to buy coil in this case as to what's paid out to who

James Cridland: 7:45

and when. Yeah, indeed. And, um, and of course, um, the current, uh, SATs also deals with splits, which the new version doesn't yet, but the new version could. So I think it's, uh, it, it's gonna be interesting watching what happens, but very exciting that prx, who's one of the. Big podcasters is, um, fiddling around with value for value. They have made the fatal error of using the word tipping in the middle of their documentation about it, which of course it is not. Uh, we don't like that word. Tipping means 5 cents or 10 cents. Um, value for value means, um, uh, considerable amount more. And in fact, when I was listening to the Podcasting 2.0 podcast recently, I've heard people who've given the equivalent 25 or 50. Um, that's not a tip, that's a sensible amount. It's a sensible wad of money. Um, so, uh, yeah. But, uh, yes, and if you, uh, do sign up to Coil, uh, then visit the POD news website and click around on there because we've supported web monetization there since November, 2020. Uh, and, uh, you will find, um, that, uh, we will happily, uh, take your money. Uh, and stick it into our Uphold bank account that I've had for some time. I used to hold all of my Bitcoin in there. I, I now hold it all of my umbr, um Oh, okay. Because, uh, I am that mad. But, uh, yeah. So there we go.

Sam Sethi: 9:04

The one thing I noticed with the Uphold Bank account, there were no, uh, fees or charges. For the transactions.

James Cridland: 9:10

Indeed. Although I do have to tell you as a user of uphold for some time, they do have a fee. Oh. Um, it's sort of relatively hidden away. But if you, if you try and grab for example, your Bitcoin and you try and, or for example, what I was doing is I was converting a bunch of ETH to Bitcoin. Um, and they wouldn't allow me to convert, I think, $50 worth of ETH over to Bitcoin without charging me a fee. But if I was, um, converting more than $150 worth of, uh, eth over to Bitcoin, then that was free, right? So they clearly want the, um, the, the, the volume going on. But, uh, yeah, it was really interesting having a play with

Sam Sethi: 9:51

that. We should also mention that our friends at Casta Podd, um, have been supporting both web monetization. And Lightning Network sofa SATs, uh, for some time as well. Yes,

James Cridland: 10:03

they have, uh, Le poi de uh, well Center, which I've probably pronounced entirely incorrectly. Anyway, they support both web monetization and lightning in their RSS feed, uh, and so does the pod news daily as well. So if you listen to the POD news Daily, uh, for all of three minutes, then we will get all of three minutes worth of the web monetization. I don't expect to get rich anytime. So

Sam Sethi: 10:25

there you go. Have a little play if you fancy it. Uh, it's not for the fainthearted. Now moving on, talking about, show me the money this week. Uh, it seems that someone's put their RSS feed up for sale and sold it for $18,000. James, who is Shameless acquisition Target.

James Cridland: 10:42

Yes. Well, this, uh, the entire point of this show by Laura Mayer. To basically make a great podcast that somebody would come along and buy because she had seen so many of her friends doing exactly that. Uh, it's reached the end of that particular, uh, season. Um, the final show included Ira Glass. It was a musical version. It's a. Very good podcast. If you've not heard it. Uh, it goes into a lot of detail about how the podcast industry works. And Gilded Audio sent me a very excited, um, uh, statement, which was all about how incredibly supportive they were of Laura Mayer sharing their perspective. And they have bought the r s s feed. They haven't bought the podcast in interestingly. They've just bought the RSS feed. They, uh, bought that for $18,000. And, uh, Andy Chugg, who's the managing director of Gilded Audio, was very excited and sent me a picture of the f the company's logo made out of cheese for some reason. Didn't really explain that, but nevertheless, it was. Quite nice to see. Um, so, uh, yes, so it's a good podcast to have listened to and somebody buying an RSS feed for $18,000 so that presumably they can promote their own stuff in there, uh, until people unsubscribe from it was, uh, an interesting thing to end up seeing. It's not the only amount of money that's happened this week in terms of podcasting, uh, cuz there's a, uh, set of people, uh, called. Um, four years later, the people behind the four years later podcast, they have posted how much they earned from their podcast this year on an Instagram post, and it turns out that they lost $327. Uh, it goes to show you guys actually have a passion for it and aren't just chasing dollars, said one commenter on that Instagram post. Uh, so not everybody is earning a huge amount of

Sam Sethi: 12:29

cash. At least they were honest enough to tell us what had gone on. Most people just fake it until they make it. But, uh, yeah. Good, good On the night, say indeed Now, uh, somebody's still trying to make a lot more money than $327 or lose more than $327 is podcast one. The. Put a filing in S one filing. James,

James Cridland: 12:49

tell me more. Yeah, so, uh, an S one filing is basically when you want to trade yourself as a separate company. So it's owned currently by live one, but on January the 16th, it will become a separate company. It wants the symbol P O D C, on, on the nasdaq, which it will probably get, um, And the filing is a good read. If you, uh, want to learn more about the podcast industry in general actually, just cuz it's got lots of market data in there. It's got lots of good news as you would expect, um, since it's a filing for a new company, um, being, uh, spun out of uh, live one. But, um, my suspicion is that live one, it's an events company, it's not made very much money over the last couple of years, uh, cuz there's been some form of pandemic. Sam, I dunno whether you've heard about that in the. Pass this over. No, exactly. But, uh, podcast one has done, uh, quite well. And, uh, when you read it, you do re you do see that there's, uh, stuff in there around the fact that they own their own content management system and they're able to do stuff with their, uh, content management system that other people can't. Um, and uh, there's quite an interesting story in there. So, um, yeah. Um, good luck to podcast one that gets onto the NASDAQ on January the 16th. Will it

Sam Sethi: 14:00

get onto the NASDAQ though? I wonder who's underwriting? That'll be interesting. I, I need to look at that,

James Cridland: 14:04

um, as I understand it. Will, um, the way that it is working is that Live one itself is, um, basically splitting, uh, some of its shares into Podcast one. So it's basically splitting into two. So, as I understand it, it, it, it's a done deal. It is going to happen. Um, but, um, you know, we shall, we shall wait and see. It's gonna happen at some point next week.

Sam Sethi: 14:28

Well, I'm sure you'll cover it on Pod News Daily when that happens. Indeed, Ashley Carmen, uh, just wrote a post yesterday I believe in Bloomberg called The Great Podcasting Market Correction. She's not happy or she's reporting that the industry's not very happy that a lot of the market value disappeared from some of the bigger companies last year. Um, Nick, uh, Hilton was also very negative about it, saying that it was the end of podcasting in 2022. Um, no surprise there. But, uh, with hiring freezes, upfront payments and fewer acquisitions. The podcasting boom, she says, is feeling like a thing of the past. Well, that's interesting because also Yahoo Finance started to dig into Spotify's business model and they wrote a post called, they've Gone Too Far, how Spotify Dug a Giant Hold and How it Can Dig itself out. I have a little look at that and it's not great reading for Spotify. Uh, it's market cap in 2021 was 60. Billion, it's now roughly 70% down, and its current market cap is 15 billion. Um, they're trying to say that the Spotify business plan to do podcasting is, um, a growth area. Um, even Dawn Ostro, who was interviewed in Variety said that, uh, she says it's Spotify's future. To profitability is video and they are in investment mode. Um, Adam Curry was less than, uh, uh, complimentary about what Dawn Ossoff said, but what do you think, James? Where is the market and where is Spotify?

James Cridland: 16:04

The piece was, um, basically a good prec of, you know, job losses, a acast, uh, hiring freezes at Spotify and Amazon. Amazon apparently, according to this, Article have reversed out of a deal with Pushkin Industries. They were going to, uh, spend $10 million with Pushkin Industries. But they then came back and they said, actually, we've been told that we don't have that much money anymore. Uh, and Pushkin Industries were a bit upset, as you can imagine, cuz they thought that they had a done deal. So, um, that's a, a, a very interesting piece of, uh, of, of, uh, scuttlebutt on there. Um, I, I should also point out that, um, Magen and AI, who are currently sponsoring the POD news Daily, they, um, they gave her a quote, which basically said, we are seeing more money being put into podcast advertising. We don't think that there's a problem here yet. Um, so I think that that's, You know, worthwhile bearing in mind, I think, you know, the advertising market is certainly softening is, is, uh, the phrase. Um, and uh, I think we should, uh, bear that in mind. But I think, you know, quite a lot of this is two things. It's the market, um, had a pretty bad year overall last year. And it wasn't just, um, podcast companies, it was every.. So I think you've got that on one side. Uh, you've got the other side that, um, you know, stock analysts now want you to be making profit now, don't want you to be investing for the future. So you've got that kind of side in there as well. Um, and, uh, I, I, I'm not too concerned. I think Spotify has problems, but I'm not too concerned for the. Overall market. I think the overall market is still in pretty good health. Um, but, you know, uh, interesting to see, you know, Bloomberg essentially saying what the, uh, what the financial people are saying.

Sam Sethi: 17:52

Well, can I just remind everyone I still own the website? You are al. Spot flicks. So when that merger happens, dot com, Daniel's obviously gonna have to come to me, pay me lots of money for their new

James Cridland: 18:02

website. You are url You do, although I, I did go to spot flicks.com and, uh, and it says that it's up for sale. So, um, you should be, you should be forwarding that

Sam Sethi: 18:11

somewhere, No, it is up for sale. I, I, you know, I'm very open to the fact, you know, Ink, Daniel, you know, there you go. Before you lose all the capital value that you've got now.

James Cridland: 18:21

Well, Dawn, if you're listening, you, you know, you know who owns that domain name then don't you?

Sam Sethi: 18:27

But they have been busy. Look, let's, let's not totally bash Spotify. They have been doing some good things as well. They have with, um, their platform thanks to Christmas, Cena pointing out, um, been updating Spotify with video q and a, pinned replies, polls. Yeah. Um, if you wanna see all of that working in one place, go and have a look at, um, call her daddy the podcast. Do I have to? But it's interesting you have got the video element in. You know, Dawn Ossoff was saying, my question to you, James, is will they roll that out to every podcast on the platform or will it just remain in their top 5%

James Cridland: 19:04

exclusives? No. So my understanding from the recent, uh, announcements that they've been making is that, uh, yeah, the, uh, polls and um, uh, q and a and all of that kind of stuff is gonna be available to anyone that hosts with Spotify. Um, but of course it's only gonna be available on the Spotify platform because why would they do anything that helps anybody else? Um, so, um, they're certainly doing that. They're doing their own proprietary thing, of course. Um, and you can do most of this, most of this on the, uh, on the podcast index, uh, in terms of, uh, the stuff that, uh, Spotify is doing. But of course, Spotify isn't supporting any of that.

Sam Sethi: 19:42

Yeah, I mean, if you want to, uh, you can use the alternative enclosure. So you could take, you know, different, um, streaming qualities Yeah. Or

James Cridland: 19:51

video. That would be good for video. Yep, yep. Indeed. And you've also got the medium tag. Yes. And, and, uh, the medium tag will also help. Um, uh, so you can put, uh, music in there. I can understand why Spotify doesn't necessarily want to ingest music through RSS feeds, cuz that, um, would, uh, really confuse the current system that they've got. Um, but certainly in terms of all alternate enclosures, um, we don't have things like polls in the new podcast name space. Um, but, uh, there's probably no reason why, uh, polls wouldn't be a thing if, uh, more people wanted them. Um, uh, you know, things like. You know, things like, uh, transcripts as well, you know, clearly we've got those in the new podcast namespace as well, but Spotify isn't bothering, ingesting those and is creating their own rubbish ones. So I, I guess, you know, it's, uh, Spotify doing as Spotify always does. Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 20:43

Well, you know, again, the end user, the question I would really apply to the end user, my daughter as an example at teenager really.. I mean that's the problem, you know, at the end of the day, no, we might care, you know, but does the end user care if it all works and they don't need to understand the underlying technology. So, uh, it'll be interesting to see the take up. Yeah. Other companies in this space though, worth looking at, distopia now supports video podcasts as well. I did try and find them. Couldn't. But they say they do support them.

James Cridland: 21:16

Yeah, they support them now. So you can actually upload your own video podcast into the, into the platform and it will serve it rather than coming from somewhere else, which, uh, kind of makes sense. And Spotify have also done something, which is pretty cool. Nick Ivanov, founder of Vizi friend of the show, uh, discovered that there was a new chapters section in an episode page now. And, um, there's a really. Player, which is rolling out, uh, it's rolled out to my Android phone. Hasn't rolled out to my iPhone yet. Um, but, uh, rolled out to his, which shows all of the chapters in a podcast. Now, if we leave enough space this week, um, Sam, in our chapter notes, then I might see if I can add our chapters in there, in the format that, um, Spotify wants them, because guess what? They don't use chapters in the ID three tags. They don't use chapters in the podcast, uh, namespace Jason file. They use chapters as YouTube does, which is essentially a set of timestamps in the description field, um, which is a little bit annoying, but at least they're kind of supporting them now. Um, so perhaps there's a future and I, I'm., you know, I would expect clever podcast companies. And, uh, you know, buzz part is, is a clever podcast company, but clever podcast companies that already support chapters in other formats. You will, you could kind of see them saying, is this Spotify asking for this RSS feed? If it is, then let's put these chapter timestamps the way that Spotify wants them so that they will appear in the, uh, Spotify. Uh, you know, chapter, uh, interface. Perhaps that's something that Buzz Sprout might end up doing. It's just a case of just serving a slightly different RSS feed to the Spotify client, but perhaps that's what Spotify wants us to do, um, so that we, uh, ruin, uh, RSS even more. So, uh, who knows quite what the plan

Sam Sethi: 23:10

is there. My brain's just died. What's Justin's company? Uh, trans. Didn't they do this, uh, with your support to

James Cridland: 23:16

change things? Exactly Right. Uh, transistor said that they were taking chapters that people had produced and producing those in a correct format for the YouTube, uh, timestamps. And I said, you know, if you put those in brackets that also work for Spotify. And, um, so now they work on Spotify as well. Um, so, uh, So, um, I would imagine that other podcast platforms, uh, will be wanting to jump onto that cuz that would kind of make sense now

Sam Sethi: 23:45

you see just in ahead of the curve. Now, Spotify, just to finish off with what they've been up to, um, it seems anchor isn't dead, so, you know, the company was responsible. It seems for a bit of a market share increase over the last six months to 22.3%. James, I thought they were dying. It was disappearing. It seems to be

James Cridland: 24:05

revived. Well, they, um, this is the first increase that they've seen since June, and this is market share of all new episodes. Um, now, uh, last month was a weird month because it was December and there were lots of people that weren't there in, uh, the last couple of weeks. December as lots of, um, you know, more, uh, corporate podcasts, take holidays and things. So I think what this is basically telling us isn't the anchor is getting bigger. I think it's basically telling us that, uh, none, none of the big corporate podcasters bother to produce any podcasts, um, in the last couple of weeks of the year. I think that that's really what it's saying., the, uh, the rest of those, I mean, the number of total new episodes, for example, dropped by 7.8% last month. So I think that that does show that it's just a different market. Um, in December, uh, buzz Sprouts market share dropped ever episode slightly, but the company is still easily number two, 8.6% of all new episodes. Uh, so that is a good thing. So Harrah

Sam Sethi: 25:10

for Bus Brown indeed. Now, Um, moving on, let's talk about Apple for a second. Uh, what does Apple know about you?

James Cridland: 25:18

quite a lot, but nowhere near as much as Google, it turns out. So I did a, uh, so firstly, you can request your data from Apple, um, by, there's a, a. Arcane form that you can find on the Apple website, and that, I think because of European legislation, allows you to download absolutely everything that Apple knows about you. All of the data, and it's fascinating stuff. And I wrote a blog post on my personal blog, um, at Medium. Uh, all about that. I'm moving my personal blog over to my actual personal website soon as well. Um, but anyway, I wrote a long blog post about that and um, it turns out that Apple know quite a lot, but there was one thing which I thought was really interesting. There's a document called Podcasts Play Date, and that shows you what podcasts you have listened to. Uh, on Apple Podcasts, and there's another one, which I think is called your podcasts, which is all of the podcasts that you have subscribed to. So I thought, oh, well I wonder whether this would help telling us how many podcasts have been listened to on Apple Podcasts, um, in comparison to how many podcasts have been download. Because if you remember, we've always had this, you know, this long argument that Apple Podcast automatically downloads shows and not all of those shows are listened to. So I thought, well, I wonder if I can find someone who uses Apple Podcast as their daily podcast app. Would they be willing to share? Their podcast's play date file with me, and I found somebody who was, and so I combed through their data, combed through the data of the shows that they were subscribed to and ended up finding that, um, of the shows that he was. Subscribed to, which is therefore all of the shows that, um, would automatically download assuming that he'd turned that feature on. He had listened to 78% of those episodes, which means that he didn't listen to 22% of all of those episodes that had automatically downloaded or could have automatically downloaded. Really the kind of figure that we always thought was the case. Um, so, uh, yeah, so I thought that was really interesting. Um, just taking a look and going, here's another data point. We know that about 20% of all podcasts downloaded by Apple podcasts are never played. And there's another data point showing that kind of figure once more. So, uh, yeah, that was a really interesting piece of, uh, data. Excavation. And then I went to ask Google all of the information that Google had on me. And I discover that Google has every single Google web search that I have ever made since 2007, every single one. Oh. Um, that's in a massive great big, deliberately obfuscated HTML files, so you can't actually. Do much work on it without doing an awful lot of rejects and, you know, fiddling around with it. Well done Google. Can't think why you've done that. Um, there's also another thing which is, you know, uh, all of the podcasts you've listened to on Google Podcasts for which, uh, almost everybody will have less than, less than zero in there. Um, but uh, the best one, uh, Sam was, I've got Google speakers, uh, throughout the house, and what your Google data includes is everything that. Ever asked your Google speakers for including an MP3 file of you asking, so at the actual recording ? Oh, no. Yes. Hey, Google set a timer for 10 minutes. So it's absolutely fascinating. I mean, you know, I was kind of expecting all of this stuff, and of course all of my location data from 2007, but only because I've specifically asked Google to keep that because, um, I, I quite like that. But um, yeah, the amount of data that Google has on you is incredible. The amount of data that Apple. At least Apple sent to me, uh, was much, much, much less and much more benign. So, um, yeah, it's true what they say about Apple being better for your privacy than, uh, Google. But, uh, goodness, the amount of data that Google had was quite something. Mm.

Sam Sethi: 29:32

Does make you wonder. Now moving, moving on before we, before we get into deep water about what's in those Google searches, let's move on to Adobe podcasts. Uh, they've got a beater out that you talked about in, uh, December, 2021. Yeah. Um, it was called Project Shasta. Tell me more. But they've, Updating it now. It's in beta and it's called Adobe Podcast.

James Cridland: 29:57

It is. Um, and it was quite exciting. podcast.adobe.com if you want to have a play. It's got, um, a number of different things on there. It's got, um, a, uh, Piece of technology, which will, um, smarten up your audio. So if you've got something that sounds all echoy or has some, some hissing behind it, then it will automatically tidy that audio up for you, uh, which anybody can use. But if you are a current, um, Customer of Adobe's, then you can use, uh, you can apply to use Adobe podcast, which seems to offer basically a mix of descript. So edit words, not wave forms. A mix of squad. So remote recording and a mix of that, or phonic, uh, like AI powered audio clean. And stuff like that. So, um, yeah, they appear to be doing some quite nice stuff. Um, Matt Madeira asked friend of the show from Casto. Uh, he gave it, uh, a full review, um, over the holiday period on, uh, YouTube and, um, yeah, so Adobe, very much, um, jumping into the world of. Audio editing for podcasts, which as we know is very different to audio editing for music like Adobe Audition and those sorts of, of, uh, services that it, it already offers. So, fascinating to see.

Sam Sethi: 31:15

I tend to stay away from Adobe products cause they are generally overly complex, A k a Photoshop. Um, I prefer things like Canva. I think I'll go and have a look at Matt's video, but, uh, personally, probably not gonna be for me.

James Cridland: 31:30

Yeah, I, I th I think Matt's video actually basically says that it's really, really basic and it's almost, uh, too basic at the moment. Um, descript is more complicated than this. Services. Um, but that may be just because it's still being built, um, and it's being built in the open. But, uh, yeah, it's uh, worthwhile taking a pca. Now,

Sam Sethi: 31:51

James, when's a podcast? Not a podcast? Well, let me give you the answer. It's when Donald Trump Jr. Produces one. It seems the eldest child of the former US president is signed a seven figure deal to make an exclusive He calls podcast on Rumble, which is really a video service. It will be live, but it's not available through an RSS feed. So is it a podcast, James? No, it's not. Short be sweet.. James Cridland: No it's not. It's from Donald Trump Jr. I have already given this more oxygen than I wish to give it. Basically , I think we should start to make podcasts a bit like champagne. If it's not got RSS in You can't use the word podcast.

James Cridland: 32:33

Well, yes. You could, uh, you could certainly say that. I mean, I think that, that, uh, you know, there are shows which are podcasts, like some of the shows in, um, that are, uh, uh, in Spotify, uh, and that are Spotify exclusives are podcasts like. But when you are producing what is essentially a live TV show and then you're calling it a podcast, I, I think, um, I think you're skating on dangerous ground there. Um, but. Anybody from the Trump family is welcome to Skate On As Dangerous a Ground as they like. Sam Sethi: A little Moving on, um, in People News. James, what's been happening? Yes, it was a little bit of people news over the holiday period. Lex Friedman is moving on from his role at Amazon and Wondery, and he's going to become a full-time consultant at Lex Friedman Consulting. He's written a long piece about that. Paul Ritz Mandel has left his role as Senior Director of Insights at SiriusXM. He's a fellow radio junkie. He's worked for the company for nearly nine years, and he says, exciting new things start on January the second. Now he has my email address. But he hasn't told me what those exciting new things are. So looking forward to finding out what those exciting new things are. Now, if you're looking for a job, pod News has podcasting jobs across the industry and across the world, they're free to post as well. It'll just take you two minutes. Pod news.net/jobs. The text

Sheila Dee: 33:57

stuff, text stuff on the Pod News weekly review.

James Cridland: 34:02

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the pod news newsletter. Here's where we do all of the, uh, tech talk. I've got something you haven't, Sam. Oh,

Sam Sethi: 34:11

there's a lot of things. Yeah, that's a very broad statement. Go on there, James. What have you got that I haven't?

James Cridland: 34:17

I've got a top secret link for the pod news daily on op three on the Open Podcast analytics platform. Oh,

Sam Sethi: 34:26

did Santa send that to you or was that Johns

James Cridland: 34:28

Spurlock? It was John Spurlock, the man himself. And, uh, he is, uh, clearly putting the finishing touches on a very, very smart piece of, uh, tech, which is essentially taking all of the data that he has been collecting. Uh, in the, uh, o P three data, uh, and, uh, showing that basically on a, uh, very fancy looking, uh, page, which is very John Sperlock. It's all dark and mysterious and exciting, but it tells me how many, uh, people have downloaded my podcast, the unique audience, which I've never been able to calculate before. 44,879 last month. Mm. I'll, I'll tell you, uh, total amount of downloads, um, where the downloads are coming from. Uh, there's, uh, all manner of other things in there as well. Uh, so it's very, very cool. I know he is still working on it because every single time I come back to it, it looks slightly different. Um, but all of the data is in there and, uh, very cool. Well worth looking out for this when it, uh, appears. Um, and, uh, I know that some of this is gonna be freely available via APIs and some of this is not gonna be freely available via APIs, but there is a lot of hard work which has, um, gone into this. So, uh, yeah, it's been really interesting.

Sam Sethi: 35:43

Mm. Do we have a. Uh, expected ETA for the, uh, public release.

James Cridland: 35:48

We don't, no, there's no expected. No, there's no expected ETA quite yet. I think it's when it'll be ready. I mean, I have to say, it looks ready now. Um, there's, uh, a couple of bugs that I have been pointing out and a couple of, um, you, you, you know what I'm like a couple of, uh, a couple of, uh, you may, maybe you might want to format. This way, north American and all this kind of, uh, stuff. So, yeah, so that, that kind of work has been ha has been going on for the last, um, uh, few weeks. He's basically making sure that it is as reliable and as, uh, accurate as he possibly can. Um, so that's really exciting. One thing that came out of this data, which I've seen in my own data as well, um, is that the POD News Daily podcast seems to do incredibly well. Indonesia for some reason, that's the number one country by far. Um, and I do not understand why it looks to be something to do with, um, Google News, but I don't really understand why it would be that high. Uh, so if you're listening in Indonesia and you listen to the POD news Daily, I would love to know. How and why? Um, please do send me an email editor pod news.net. Um, because, um, yes, it's really weird, but it looks absolutely standard. You know, good traffic comes from a lot of different, um, ISPs, so, uh, yeah, so really interesting seeing them. Mm now.

Sam Sethi: 37:15

Friend of the show, uh, Todd Cochran. He's been posting that we are 95% complete at blueberry for our new dashboard for customers. Uh, he's adding a pile of podcasting 2.0 tags and features. We will release this in the new year. When we are finished testing value for value is almost ready. So, uh, from a man who didn't want to get on board with the podcast Index two to, oh, probably a year ago, to someone who's now an evangelist, he's really pushing the boat out there,

James Cridland: 37:44

James Indeed. And he'll be at Pod Fest later on, uh, this month and he will be talking about value for value. Uh, which is very exciting. So, uh, great to uh, hear that he's been accepted for that too. So, yeah. Um, blueberry really jumping in. So as lips in couldn't be bothered, blueberry jumps in and are really working on, uh, work on their podcasting 2.0 staff. Of course, Buzzsprout has supported various, uh, podcasting 2.0 tags for, uh, some time as well. So really interesting seeing that. So congratulations to.

Sam Sethi: 38:21

Now talking of tags, we talked a little bit about the proprietary transcripts within Spotify, the lack of transcripts within Apple. Uh, but Stan Barnett has been evaluating 15 different tools, uh, that do transcripts from Microsoft Word to auto ai. Did you have a look at any of his, uh,

James Cridland: 38:41

Findings. Yeah. So I've always been keen and, and interested in understanding what it is that I should be doing in terms of, uh, transcripts and how to get transcripts onto the pod news daily, which is a, uh, very, um, you know, I, uh, important to get that done very, very quick. I can't fiddle around with all kinds of, uh, things. So, uh, yeah, it was good to read, uh, a couple of things on, uh, Dan's, uh, website, um, about those, uh, tools that he's worked on so far. Uh, I, I then went to read a really good post on Reddit, um, from somebody called, Oma X Man or Omer man. Anyway, he posted in the podcasting subreddit, um, about how to use open AI's whisper technology, um, which, um, it now appears is really easy to install onto your computer. So as a direct result from doing that, I worked out how to. So if you listen now to the POD News Daily, um, in your favorite podcast app that supports transcripts, then you will now see transcripts appear. Uh, I'm now sticking those into the feed in s r t and V T T and TXT format. Uh, so if you're using Pod verse, uh, or you are using, uh, customatic or other of these, uh, things, then uh, yeah, you now get transcripts for that show as well as this one because Buzz Sprout supports SRTs as well. So thank you to them for doing that. Uh, so yeah, really cool. So, um, uh, it's been, uh, quite fun, uh, understanding how transcripts work and understanding how I can speed them up without them hopefully not looking too rubbish. Does

Sam Sethi: 40:19

this, All podcasters could do this themselves quite easily, or does this mean we could run a service, say, on AWS with OpenAI?

James Cridland: 40:28

Um, I'm sure that you could run something on aws, um, that would do this. The problem is that you need to put the transcripts into your RSS feed. It's not quite as easy as it could be, unfortunately, um, to offer a service, which is, you know, a free, a free transcript, um, you know, thing. Um, but you know, I, I mean, I think that they're getting, they're getting there in terms of, uh, uh, in terms of that. But, uh, yeah, you really do still need to host your own podcast if you're going to be doing this, this, this, uh, kind of thing, or be with a company like, uh, Buzzsprout, which lets you upload an s r t file yourself. What was

Sam Sethi: 41:09

the accuracy like? I mean, compared to what you've seen before? Um, I mean now you've done it for your own podcast.

James Cridland: 41:13

Yeah, the accuracy. Um, so there are a number of different voice models that you can use, and one of them is a very small voice model, which is quite quick.. Um, and one of them is a much larger voice model, which is much, much slower. I mean, it was taking a three minute version of the pod news daily and it was taking 20 minutes to go through it. Now, that was really accurate, like properly accurate, very, very well done. Um, the tiny, uh, model, the much smaller model. is a little bit less accurate, but not by much. It's still about 95% accurate. It's as good as the, as the, the, the descript, um, you know, transcriptionist. So, uh, yeah, I've, I've been super impressed. Um, and it just, and it just sits there and produces the files within a couple of minutes. So it's a really good thing and completely free and open, which is.

Sam Sethi: 42:13

Hmm. We should remind everyone of course, that, uh, descript got 50 million from the Open AI Foundation. So, uh, I wonder whether they'll be integrating Whisper into Descript in the future. Yeah. Moving on. Uh, Castor's customers can now easily toggle an automatic YouTube republishing in the growth plan, so I thought that was quite interesting that they've moved. At taking the podcast a bit like Headliner and pushing it out to YouTube.

James Cridland: 42:40

Yeah, I think that's a good thing. So congratulations to cast os for that. Uh, any pod is interesting. It's a search engine for your podcast. It uses semantic search to delve deep into content, but it's, uh, worth, um, a look in case you've got a big podcast that you want to have a look at and see if you can, um, produce a good search engine for it to any pod.ai. Uh, there's also a new service. Dub, D U B B, which promises to generate a marketing kit for your podcast in minutes that uses, um, AI as well. And it basically, um, upholds your transcripts and, uh, writes, uh, articles based on what your transcript says and various other things. So that's, uh, pretty cool. Uh, and RSS Blue is, um, the latest company to now remove emails from. Podcast feed if you want it to. Um, which is a good thing. So, uh, har no more, um, no more spam if you are with, uh, rss. Blue. Quick question

Sam Sethi: 43:38

for you. Did you remove our email manually from the RSS feed, or was that a buzz sprout field that you did that from?

James Cridland: 43:47

Uh, no. So what Buzz Sprout does is that they automatically take your, uh, email address out of podcast feeds. You can put it back though. So you can put it back for up, up to 24 hours. You, you just click a button to say, um, uh, if, so, if you are trying to, uh, claim your podcast in Spotify, for example, or you're trying to claim your podcast in Google Podcasts, then there's a button that Buzzsprout have, which allows you to. Put it back in there, um, until Spotify or Google have done their thing and then, and then it gets whisked back out again. So it's a quite a neat

Sam Sethi: 44:21

little system moving on. Then there's tech tech corner. Let's look at some events around the world. You talked briefly, James, about Pod Fest Expo, which is on the 26th of January in Orlando. I won't be going, will you? Uh, I

James Cridland: 44:34

won't be going. Um, unfortunately, um, but, uh, it should be pretty good. There are lots of people who I know are going, um, it's, uh, it's just incredibly expensive to fly anywhere at the moment, so I'm, uh, keeping things dry until, um, until March in La, Las Vegas. But yes, that's going on in Orlando, in Florida. Uh, Chris Kreitz sauce, uh, was on the new media show, um, just between Christmas and the New Year. It's worth a listen. Um, he's done some very clever outreach, um, for the event as well, including a event in Toronto, which was just done in a Tim Horton's, uh, which seems a very strange place to do that. So congratulations to him. Podcast Movement Evolutions is, um, when I'm next, uh, traveling six to the 10th of March in Las Vegas. You are coming too, Aren.

Sam Sethi: 45:22

I am indeed. Yeah. Looking forward

James Cridland: 45:24

to that. Yes, they've, they've just announced the second set of confirmed speakers for the event, uh, which should be good. So what day are you speaking? Uh, I, uh, that is yet to be confirmed, and in fact, I'm not in their list of confirmed speakers. So as an exclusive, I, I am a speaker, but clearly not yet confirmed . Um, but, uh, I. Think I know when I'm going to speak, but I don't necessarily, uh, want to jinx it. Um, but of course I, I need to, um, uh, get the data together of what it is I'm gonna speak about, which will be probably an important thing too.

Sam Sethi: 45:54

I will be speaking as well, but I haven't, I'm not gonna tell you about what yet. Oh, there we go. Now moving on. Somewhere else that you're gonna be is in

James Cridland: 46:03

Prague? Yes. Somewhere else I'm gonna be is in, uh, well actually I'm going to Prague at the end of March. Radio Days, Europe. It's the meeting point for radio, podcast, and audio. There's a podcast summit on the Sunday, which I'm speaking at, uh, as well as the main. Uh, conference on Monday and Tuesday. Yes, it's lots about radio, but there's also lots about podcasting as well. If you fancier trip to, uh, Prague. Um, also in, uh, April I'm going to the New Zealand Podcast Summit, which should be nice. Um, and in May the podcast show in London, uh, returning May 24th to the 25th. Um, this very podcast may be on a stage, Sam actually in the venue. and they might do that, this, this, this time around . They keep promising things, they keep it, but uh, no, I think it's gonna be bigger and better this, uh, time around. So, looking forward to that. There are more events both paid for and free at pod news, virtual events or events in a place with. People. Uh, and if you're organizing something, you can tell the world about it. It's free to be listed pod news.net/events.

Sam Sethi: 47:03

Um, one more thing, James. If your New Year's resolution is to support independent journalism, you could subscribe to our ad free podcast in Apple Podcast. Tell me more. What have you been doing now with this podcast? You keep moving it all over the place, but what have you done this time,? James Cridland: Well, um, podcast, um, channel, uh, which is in, uh, apple Podcasts apple.co/pod news. We've just been given, which is very exciting. Apple CEO slash POD News. Um, and you can find ad free versions of the pod News Daily and of this very podcast. It's not sponsor free, it's just ad free Buzz sprout. Um, but uh, that is there for you. Uh, it's very cheap. Um, and it'll give you both, uh, of, uh, regular podcasts ad free and a warm feeling inside. Uh, knowing that 30% of that money goes straight into Tim. Back pocket. I mean, 70% of the money helps support this newsletter. Um, so if you want to, uh, do that, it's very cheap at the moment. The price will go up. Uh, but apple.co/pod News booster, Graham Booster Graham

Sheila Dee: 48:09

Corner, corner corner on the Pod News Weekly review.

James Cridland: 48:14

Yes, it's Booster Graham Corner. It's my favorite time, uh, of the, uh, show. Uh, and, uh, we had, uh, a number of boosts, uh, over the, uh, Christmas period. Uh, so thank you for that. Uh, what are some of the big boosts that we, uh, ended up having? Sam

Sam Sethi: 48:30

Dave Jones, the pod Sage. Sent us 10,000 SATs and said, uh, to a new year, Jen. So auntie you, Dave, and you, you were on their show, weren't you? I was,

James Cridland: 48:39

I was on the Podcasting 2.0 show the, the, uh, the one just before New Year, uh, which was great fun. I'll tell you what, if you are in the splits, For that. You, uh, you really do succeed very nicely if you are in the splits for that, you get, you get lots of SATs coming in. Um, wow. So, uh, yeah, it's, uh, definitely a good, a good thing being a guest on that show, but, uh, really, really enjoyed that. Um, so thank you so much, uh, Adam and Dave for, uh, asking us on, and thank you, uh, Adam. To, uh, uh, uh, Dave, for all of the SATs that you send, I mean, Dave Jones sent us 10,000. Adam sent us 33,333, and as I said on the podcasting 2.0 podcast, I said, um, basically you, you just have to annoy Adam and he sends even more SATs, uh, your way. So, um, yes, he, he said, stop the Kylie hate. I think we were being rude about Kylie Minogue. And he ended up saying, uh, stop the Kylie hate, uh, for that. Uh, and Kyron, uh, who, uh, with, there's another Brisbane podcasters meet up soon.

He said 7: 49:46

00 AM in the Facebook group, and I've said,

you do mean 7: 49:49

00 PM right?

You do mean 7: 49:51

00 PM It is at a pub.

So 7: 49:54

00 AM wouldn't, no chance wouldn't be correct.

Sam Sethi: 49:58

The train is on.

James Cridland: 49:58

It's a run on the beach, mate. Yeah. But yeah, but Kylin likes that sort of thing. He likes exercise. Exactly. Anyway, he says, loving the chapter. Art guys especially, helps to put a face to all the different voices. Have super enjoyed your podcast in 2022 and looking forward to more in 2023. Well, thank you Buzz Sprout for enabling us to do even more of it. Uh, and thank you, Karin, for. Kind set of SAT 4,321, which is probably a something. Um, so, uh, thank you for that. If you get value from what we do, the pod news weekly review, uh, is separate from Pod News. Sam and I share everything from this. We really appreciate your support so we can continue making this show. You can support us with Cash Pod news.net/weekly support. By the way, I should say, uh, there are a couple of people who did that. Um, I notice, uh, when I was doing my accounts. Um, so, uh, thank you for the two people who did that. Not sure whether I should mention them by name, so I won't. Um, you can also subscribe in Apple Podcast, apple.co/pod news or support us with sets by hitting the boost button in your podcast app. If you don't have one, pod news.net/new podcast apps will help you find a new app like Fountain, for example. Now, uh, what's been happening for you this week, Sam?

Sam Sethi: 51:09

I say this week, it's over Christmas cuz I, I tend to, yes, stay home because I've got 90 year old in-laws so we don't tend to go out partying too much. So I tried to get my head around various, multiple protocols. Last year I was playing with Web three and NFTs. That came to nothing. And I'm thinking that this year, maybe the same cuz I started to look at Nasta, um, which stands for notes and other staff transmitted by relays, which is meant to be a decentralized. Twitter in effect, or like a master Don. Yeah. God, it's difficult. God, I didn't enjoy it. I put a post up saying, I've now done this no thing with my astral doc Ninja. If you wanna find me using my NIP zero five authentication token, and I didn't even understand the sentence I wrote,, James Cridland: how could God knows. No idea. Um, I, I, I, you can find me on an astral, but I. With Alby, I do have my address. So my lightning address, Sam, at Get alby.com is also my Nasta address. So if you type that in, it will then use my public key right to then address me to the relay that I'm on or the relays that I'm on. But I have to say it was crickets when I got to most of it. Oh yes. So it was pretty. Boring really, if I'm honest.

James Cridland: 52:27

Well, there you go. Yes. And I've just found you, so that's exciting. Uh, yes. Uh, talking about Nosa on pod news this week. Are we really? Uh, there we go. Well, right, well, I will hit follow, um, Yes, you should be able to follow me. I believe if you just search forJames@getlb.com. I'm hoping, um, by the time this podcast goes out, that you'll also find me if you search forJames@cri.land, which is what I would like it to do. Um, but I need to understand cause it's always cause isn't it? Uh, so I need to understand cause uh, for that. Um, but, uh, anyway, we'll, we'll see, uh, quite where that goes. So you've been playing around with that. What else have you been playing?

Sam Sethi: 53:07

So I found a couple of other protocols, one's called Matrix, which is a decentralized conversation store. No idea. Tried to look at it. It's supposed to be, do you remember the good old days of Xmpp where we were supposed to integrate all of these different instant Messenger clients together? Well, they claim that matrix is the new way to do it. So again, not holding my breath. And then Jack Dorsey, of course, has got his authenticated transfer protocol. At Protocol. Uh, again, not much movement on that, but that was from Blue Sky. So again, I'm just looking around and seeing what's going on, but I have to say, master Don's hard enough and this stuff's even harder. So if they expect this to go mainstream anytime soon. Don't hold your breath. Yes,

James Cridland: 53:49

there is no chance of any of that going mainstream, uh, quite yet. Nasta, possibly. Uh, but it needs an awful lot of hard work, um, putting, uh, behind it. Jack Dorsey is on Nasta there and who, who I've been following. Um, so it's been interesting to see what, um, uh, Jack has been doing, but. Uh, yeah, there is something there and something potentially that might work with, um, cross out comments, but who knows what's gonna happen there. Mm. Uh, how is pod fans your big secret project going on? Sam Sethi: It's coming along. You will be one of the first, obviously on the alpha. Uh, we will be releasing the alpha this month, so I'm very excited. Been working every day over Christmas on it. Uh, my developer team. So that's been nice. Mm-hmm., uh, we've made some great progress, so I'm very excited on that. And also finally, Sam Talk's, technology goes live on Monday. I've got Lyle Pratt from Avida who is basically, um, you've been using Nostren, signing up with Nostra and how you get into it. So, um, that's what drove me to try and get my Nostra account set up. So I'll be interviewing him and another guy you may have heard of, a guy called Robert Scobel who. Access or knowledge of Apple's new AR glasses. So I'll be talking to him about that. Oh, very good. I haven't seen Robert Scobel in many, many years, but I had a, a nice beer with him in a London pub in a, in a rooftop London pub, if you can imagine such a thing. no

Sam Sethi: 55:13

one or two. Now, James, what have you been up to? I know you've been on various podcasts, but what else you been.

James Cridland: 55:19

Yes, I have. I've been on various podcasts and things. Podcasting 2.0 should go and have a listen to that, obviously. Um, podcasters Live, which I was on this, uh, morning, hence why I'm u I'm wearing the, the pod news, uh, polo shirt at the moment. Uh, so that's good. I was also on the, um, on Buzz Sprouts video, the 2022 year in review. Uh, Adam Curry and Jake Shapiro and other men were on that , so that was nice. Um, so. So all of that was good. And I've been, uh, playing around with, um, other things like Nasta, uh, as well and you know, and just sort of playing around with, um, y y you know, my, uh, old fashioned website and goodness knows what, but, uh, yes, it's all been, it's all been good. I think it's been a good and entertaining, um, uh, a couple of weeks of just sort of relaxing and doing, not very much apart from writing, obviously pod news every single day, which has been. interesting when there's been no, no news happening, , but.

Sam Sethi: 56:19

Um, well, I would say go and have a, listen to the New Year's Eve or edition of, uh, podcasting 2.0 with you cuz there was a really good discussion on cross app comments and, uh, I don't think Adam's very happy at the moment about it all, but, um, and I'm not sure that it's the right way that it's going, but, um, let's not, let's wait and see what people come up with in 2020.

James Cridland: 56:41

Indeed, let's wait and see. Uh, that, um, and, uh, yes, it's, uh, it's gonna be interesting to see what happens, but lovely to see prx dipping a foot into the podcast. Uh, value for value, uh, stuff. Uh, and that's it for this week.

Sam Sethi: 56:55

You can give us feedback using email at weekly. Pod news.net or send us a booster gram. If your podcast app doesn't support boosts, then grab a new app from pod news.net/anew podcast apps. Our

James Cridland: 57:08

music is from Studio Dragonfly. Our voiceover is Sheila D, and we're hosted and sponsored by Bus Sprouts Podcast hosting made easy.

Sheila Dee: 57:16

Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter@potnews.net. Tell your friends and grow the show, and support us and support us. The News Weekly review will return next week. Keep listening.