James Cridland: 0:00

It's Friday the 13th of January, 2023. The last word in podcasting news. This is the POD News Weekly review with James k Cridlin and Sam Sethy. I'm James Cridlin, the editor of POD News. And

Sam Sethi: 0:16

I'm Sam Sethy, the host of Sam

James Cridland: 0:17

Talks Technology. In the chapters today, apple delegated delivery. Is delivered a look back at a year of Google podcasts and Fountain gets a big update. This podcast is sponsored and hosted by Buzz Sprout. Last week, 3055 people started a podcast with Buzz Sprout, which is up week on week by the way. Uh, they offer podcast hosting made easy with. Powerful tools and remarkable customer support. I noticed that they've been doing some very smart new emails recently and there's something new coming later this month from your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly review.

Sam Sethi: 0:53

But first, James, uh, let's have a look at what's been going on. Yeah. Apple finally delivered delegated delivery. Tell me what is delegated delivery then? It's a

James Cridland: 1:02

beautiful word, isn't it? Delegated delivery. I mean, who knows? Um, uh uh, I did hear that. They weren't gonna be calling it that, so I'm not quite sure why they've ended up calling it. But anyway, it's called delegated delivery. Open brackets, beta closed brackets. And what it allows you to do is if you are publishing on Apple Podcast subscription, you're publishing a paid version of your show, then you can just press the button directly on the podcast host that you currently use. Um, and it will automatically get onto Apple's platform. Um, and that, uh, those, uh, people at the moment are Blueberry, Lipson, Triton, digitals, Omni Studio and rss.com. I actually used Omnis Studio's solution, uh, for a month or so, uh, in November when they were testing it. Uh, and that seems to work, uh, very, very well. Buzz Sprout will follow alongside Acast and Art 19, but, um, weirdly not megaphone. Why do you think that might be?, Sam Sethi: oh, I dunno. Begins with s Let me just take a wild guess. might have something to do with the fact that they're owned by Spotify. One would've thought, um, if you're not with one of those, uh, podcast hosts, then of course you can still upload your audio directly to Apple Podcasts Connect, which is what I do because, um, as of the end of last year, uh, we went ad free on the Apple Podcasts system. And if you want to get this show as well as the Daily Show ad free, uh, so this show without any of the dynamic ads, And the pod news daily without, uh, any ads at all. Then apple.co/pod news is the place to go.

Sam Sethi: 2:31

Now, James, I, I understand this is, uh, you know, quite a big thing for the hosting industry, but why, why bother? I mean, as an individual podcaster, I can go to Apple, I can do this myself. What's the value in delegated delivery?

James Cridland: 2:47

Yeah, you can, you, you can, you can go and do it yourself. It's a lot of fuffing about, um, Whenever you try to log into Apple, there's a little button saying, remember me, which never does. Um, you have to sit there and wait until Apple has noticed that you've published a new show, uh, or a new episode. Uh, you then need to, you know, press the, uh, the upload buttons and everything else much, much easier if all of that is completely taken out of your hands and. Press another button in your podcast hosting platform. So I think that's probably why people are doing it and it just makes life an awful lot simpler. One would assume that there are similar things going on with NPR and you know, those sorts of platforms as well to enable them to upload stuff pretty well automatically.

Sam Sethi: 3:32

So quick question, what's in it for the host? Do they get paid by Apple for this? Do they get any revenue from it or is it a case of uh, you know, we better be in the game cuz everyone

James Cridland: 3:42

else is? I think it's probably, we better be in the game. Cause everybody else is. I wouldn't have thought that they'll get paid any money. No. Okay. Um, but I think it's just, uh, an additional service that. You know, that you kind of have to offer if you are a podcast host, and if you, you know, I mean, you know, interestingly enough, when I was looking around earlier to do this, one of the reasons why I tried, uh, tried stuff out with Omnis Studio is that they were offering it at the time. Um, you know, I know the CEO pretty well, and so therefore, that, that was something that I was quite keen on giving a go, uh, with. But yeah, it's, it's one of those, you know, it's one of those, uh, things, isn't it, where um, If that's the only thing that you care about and you have a choice of two different podcast hosts, one, I don't know, megaphone and the other one, um, being, uh, being a blueberry for example, then you're probably gonna plump for the one that is offering that particular service that you want, I guess. Yeah, it's the

Sam Sethi: 4:37

technology escalator. Everyone has to provide it and then it moves down and becomes a default value service. Okay. There we go. Apple delegated delivery. The marketing team didn't get hold of it, so it stayed in its original name. Good news, . Now moving on Amazon podcasts, I should say. Uh, you reported at the end of last week that Pushkin had a deal potentially for $10 million with Amazon Music, but. Strangely, it's no longer what happened, James?

James Cridland: 5:07

Yes. This was, uh, Ashley Carmen's, uh, story in, uh, Bloomberg. And, uh, it, it was part of her great podcasting market corrections story, uh, where she was essentially rounding up quite a lot of the, um, of the layoffs and the budget constraints that some of the large podcast companies, um, have been going through over the last, uh, three or four months time. But, uh, yeah, and one of the. That she managed to, uh, find, which is really interesting, is that Amazon were just about to sign a deal with Pushkin Industries, 10 million. Apparently it was worth. And all of a sudden, um, someone higher up in Amazon turned around and said, actually, no, we, we've gotta make savings. Um, can you please go back to Pushkin with a, a much smaller offer, which apparently they've. and, uh, Pushkin haven't taken them up on. Um, so, uh, excellent sleuthing by, uh, Ashley there. But, um, yeah, I think it's. another one of those stories of, you know, podcasting not having a particularly excellent time financially at the

Sam Sethi: 6:07

moment. Could it be anything to do with the fact that a certain Lex Friedman, who was responsible at Amazon Music for partnerships, uh, and strategy, um, that he left. Could that be anything to do with this at all? Yeah,

James Cridland: 6:24

I, I dunno whether it's anything to do with Lex, uh, leaving and, uh, it would be good to have him on the show as I think, you know, we might do in, in, uh, in a couple of weeks time. Oh, no. Next week, James. Oh, excellent. Well, there you go. You see, um, uh, you, you are, you are more clued up on it, on this than I am . Um, but, uh, no, so, we'll, we'll find out from, from, uh, him. I mean, I think, you know, at the end of the day, The, there's an awful lot of, um, uh, uh, of negative news around, but I think it's negative news really around some of the big companies that haven't necessarily had the strongest of business models anyway. Um, Who've suddenly been told by, uh, investors that, uh, no. We, we, we want you to stop investing for the future. We want you to be, um, aiming for profitability now. And I think that that's really the only, uh, change really that's gone on in that particular, uh, uh,

Sam Sethi: 7:16

space. Hmm. Well, Yes. As I said, next week Lex will be on the show, so look forward to asking him a little bit about his time at Amazon Music, maybe a little bit about this deal with Pushkin and also what he's doing with his new consultancy. So yeah, now excellent. Staying on Amazon very quickly, audible, which is part of Amazon, has debuted a new podcast, undercurrents Tech Tyrants, and us looking at how tech is affecting our future. I still get confused. Why do they keep still releasing stuff to Audible? I don't get it. I,

James Cridland: 7:52

yeah, I'm really confused by this as well. And I've got a access to Amazon Music's api, which doesn't have any access to Audible as well, . So it's a very strange old thing, but essentially, you know, uh, um, Audible has a lot of original content. Audible isn't a podcast app, but it, but it commissions a lot of original content, and this was one of them from, uh, Coda's story. Um, and then you have Amazon Music, which is, um, the place where you get all of your free shows. Um, so I suppose it's, it's really audible being the paid for. Um, where you get your paid four shows and then Amazon Music, where you get your free shows and they are free and ad free at the moment because Amazon is paying to get rid of the ads in some of the shows for you as

Sam Sethi: 8:36

well. Hmm. Well, uh, I am still an Audible user, so, uh, I'll go and listen to it. Um, are there any restrictions? Is it only available on Audible? There's no RSS with it. Is that So it won't be available anywhere

James Cridland: 8:50

else? Yeah, no. So it's, it, it's only available on. On Audible and, uh, in fact, I mean, if you remember back one of the big, uh, hits of a couple of years ago, west Cork was originally an, an audible exclusive, stayed on Audible for a number of years and was then opened up after that. Um, so it was available, um, in, uh, RSS through Acast. And, you know, you, you wonder whether or not that's going to be their plan in the future is to open up some of their catalog, um, once they've. You know, indeed, uh, you know, a plan, but I think it's, it's basically audible is, um, is Amazon's, um, you know, uh, paid for service. Uh, in the same way that, you know, obviously Apple Podcast has a paid for service and, uh, Spotify has, uh, paid for shows as well, although I don't remember even seeing any, um, and certainly when I've been asking Spotify's PR company, you know, Hey, give us some good news stories about. The subscription service, um, uh, they, they've not come back to me, so I wonder what the long-term deals are there. Hmm.

Sam Sethi: 9:57

Google. Let's have a quick look at them. Uh, not that we'll miss it, but Google podcast creator program has closed, uh, it was run with prx, uh, c Kerry Hoffman of prx said the program lasted three years, six cohorts, and achieved 14,000 applications from 120 countries. Before I say goodbye to, uh, the Google podcast creator program, what

James Cridland: 10:21

was it? Uh, so it was, um, basically getting a lot of people who are new to podcasts, particularly diverse voices, um, and, um, training them up to make great shows. Um, and, and I think did a pretty good job of that. And, and working together with prx was a very clever idea from Google's point of view, um, and was a good splashy way of launching the Google Podcasts app, if you remember, about three or so years ago. Um, to be fair, it's more, um, money spent on training the industry up than Apple has done. So I think from that point of view, it was a.

Sam Sethi: 10:57

Thing. I've reached out to Carrie Hoffman and asked her if she would come on the show to talk about this, but also talk about what prx is up to, especially as we talked about web monetization last week, which they

James Cridland: 11:08

implemented. Yeah. And Carrie's great. And I've, um, chatted with Carrie a number of times on panels and things. Uh, so it'd be really good if we can get, um, her on, I have to say, you know, you look at some of the stuff though that, um, Google Podcast has been doing over the last year and. Oh, no, wait, no. They haven't done anything over the last year have they? This has been nothing that Google Podcasts has done at all. So I think pulling away from the Google podcast creator program is kind of, uh, not really a surprise.

Sam Sethi: 11:36

Yeah, I mean, it, it fundamentally what you said, James, the Google podcast app has had no new feature updates in 2022. A press release announcing Google branded podcast, forgot the platform existed. Um, a YouTube document. Yeah. Great. Well done. A YouTube document suggested it might merge with YouTube's podcast strategy. Uh, it is still the third biggest podcast app. It was responsible for 2.6% of all podcast plays from bus brow in December, so it still has a place in the market.. Um, come on James. You are the, uh, font of all knowledge. What is Google Podcast going to do in 2023?

James Cridland: 12:15

Well, I'm not sure necessarily that Google Podcasts, I mean, kind of needs, needs to change. It's a capable podcast app. Um, it, it. Clearly, um, it's, it's being run as I understand it by the search team and so therefore has to fight for engineering resource with the rest of Google search. And so that must be quite difficult, I would've thought, uh, in terms of, um, getting there. But you know, I mean, it's a. Suggested new app when you get an Android phone. So it does pretty well in terms of that. Um, it, uh, you know, I mean it sits there and runs, um, podcast, um, uh, um, and runs podcast search in actual Google search. Um, I know a lot of people were asking for a specific podcast search tab, um, but actually just having a podcast appear in Google search. When it's a good search result to give you, um, is pretty important for us. So I think from that point of view, it's a pretty useful, uh, service. And of course it powers all of the smart speakers and things. One would assume that YouTube music, which is going great Guns one would assume that they will incorporate podcasts into YouTube music. Um, do it in a. Clearly better, more creative friendly manner than Google Podcasts currently works. Um, but that's just a presumption and uh, you know, so we'll have to wait and see whether there is anything there. I mean, I, I did, you know, ha have an off the record chat with someone from Google in, uh, Los Angeles this time last year and, um, and he said, don't expect any changes, uh, or new features for this year. So none of that came as a surprise and I think, you know, it's probably. A fine app as it is. It's just being left behind a little bit, I think.

Sam Sethi: 14:01

Well, I think Google Podcast is a fundamentally great moonshot project from Google. Well done. Uh, and now it's gonna be left on the shelf. Um, they have announced though, one new feature, um, well, I say one new feature. It's tangential. Google announced auto transfer from one device to another with their. Android 13. I have no idea. I have never tried Android. Um, but it, what it means is you can start on one device and hand over to another. So you can go from your phone to Google Voice, uh, speaker to maybe a TV with Chromecast. It currently works with YouTube, uh, and it says in the press release they're working very closely with Spotify. Doesn't say they're working with. Google podcast apps though, but yes. Uh, new feature for you, James, to try on your phone.

James Cridland: 14:48

Yes. Well, that's on Android 13. Um, it'll need a couple of updates for that to appear, actually, to be fair to Google, they did make an awful lot of announcements around new, uh, uh, uh, Android, uh, features and things, uh, at CS last week, uh, of, of which this was one of. Uh, one of them. So they were doing, you know, a fair amount of announcements. YouTube, uh, music has had a, a refresh of its library view that went out to all users, uh, the other day, you know. Um, so I think, I think, you know, Google is still, um, doing quite a lot of work. I, I I look at both, um, iOS and Android, and I wonder, you know, how they're, they're, they're pretty feature. These things . Um, it's quite difficult to come up with new ideas, um, in terms of how the whole operating system works. Um, I think one of the things that Google could do if they were, you know, bright or clever is to buy a, uh, a properly decent podcast app or potentially fork. The podcast's, uh, interface or whatever, um, to actually get a bit more of a, uh, you know, of a, of a feature rich podcast experience on the platform. But, you know, as I say, Google Podcast, I think does the job okay. It's just not particularly exciting. Is it

Sam Sethi: 16:05

Spotify, uh, It seems it's goodbye to more exclusives, James. They're getting rid of all, uh, Brene Brown has released the final episodes of Unlocking us and Dare to Lead. Uh, and she won't be renewing the two year deal. Um, are they getting rid of everything over

James Cridland: 16:24

at Spotify? I dunno whether she is leaving because she has been pushed or whether, uh, it was just the natural end of the two year contract that she ran. I know that. Pull her podcasts when the big Joe Rogan, um, controversy was on, um, , one of the many big Joe Rogan controversies. Um, so, you know, I know that she was possibly slightly unhappy. There was a suggestion earlier in the year that the number of books that she had sold had gone down because she was an exclusive on Spotify and therefore her total audience had gone down. I did try and go and find a source of that. Um, and the only source that I could find was me reporting it in pod News, which doesn't make it true So I was, uh, wondering quite where that initial, uh, conversation came, uh, from. It was clearly, uh, you know, a chat, uh, over a podcast conference somewhere. Um, but yeah, you know, so Brene Brown has gone, um, We assume that, uh, Joe Rogan's contract, uh, is coming up later on in the year. So I would guess probably October, we'll find out where Joe Rogan is going to. Um, you are pretty convinced he's off to YouTube, aren't you? Oh, I think so.

Sam Sethi: 17:41

I think he's had enough. Um, he's been edited and edited and edited and, um, I, I know that we reported in the past that Daniel Ecker said that he really hasn't gotten that much control over what Joe says, but, um, they have gone early this week and, uh, edited out his tweets about vaccines and, um, various other things. I, I, I fully suspect if YouTube. Serious about podcasting, just in the same way that Spotify was trying to get a big splash when they launched. Um, they will get Joe Rogan back and they will make a big thing around it and, uh, bring the audience to

James Cridland: 18:17

YouTube again. Yeah, that may well happen and you know, I mean, certainly. Um, uh, you know, Joe Rogan was a big pull for, um, uh, you know, for uh, Spotify. Um, but I think also, uh, you know, obviously Joe Rogan excels in terms of video as well, and that's something that Spotify has never been very, very good at. Somebody did ask on podcast index.social the other day, um, how. Spotify users actually use the video functionality within, uh, Spotify. Um, I've heard Adam Curry talking about how bad the experience is. He, by the way, is gonna be back on, uh, Joe Rogan, uh, this month, which should be interesting. I hope that hasn't gone out already. Um, but uh, you know, so, uh, we should. Possibly go and watch the pod father on that, uh, show. But, um, yeah. So, uh, uh, you know, it, I mean, to me it's an obvious thing that Joe Rogan would be bought by YouTube, but who knows, maybe Amazon are standing and waiting in the wings and, uh, and we'll see what they can do with that. Hmm.

Sam Sethi: 19:18

Now, uh, staying with Spotify, max Cutler, uh, who is from Spotify, um, he posted a LinkedIn, uh, update saying that if you are a creator or entrepreneur, there's never. Better time for you. Uh, he was doing this in light of all the pessimistic industry views around a future of podcasting. He predicts that there will be a. Uh, desperate m and a activity this year. Mm-hmm.. Okay. Interesting. As you said earlier, Google needs a podcast app, um, as companies with fundamentally bad business models will flirt with going bankrupt. But he also said within that same post, he's very big on video as well. Who's Max Cutler?

James Cridland: 19:56

James? Well, max Cutler is basically, uh, Close as you can be to the head of podcasting at, uh, Spotify. His current title, because, you know, e every, everybody's title seems to change every so often at Spotify, but his current one is VP, head of Talk, creator Content and Partnerships and founder of Podcast Studios. Um, he basically is Mr. Podcast, um, uh, these days. And yeah, I think. You know, focusing on, I mean, he would of course mention video because, uh, Spotify is mentioning video and Dawn Ostro is very keen on video as well. Uh, and so he is probably, that's a, uh, a thing to his boss. Um, but uh, yeah, I find it interesting that one of his predictions for this year is that, um, Uh, is that a podcast, uh, company will go bust? Um, if you remember, that was one of my predictions as well for this year. Um, I hear one podcast company, which I won't mention because uh, I don't have the lawyers. Uh, but I do hear one, uh, podcast company that maybe isn't actually paying any of their employees at the moment cuz they don't have enough money to do that. Ooh. Um, but, uh, yes, but, uh, unfortunately, All of my attempts to, um, get at least some proof that I, so that I could actually run this, um, as a story. All of those have failed. Um, so, and there are various things going on that I don't necessarily want to, um, Be a nuisance, uh, uh, in terms of that particular company. So, um, I, I think I'm just gonna sit and wait for a couple of weeks and then see what happens. Then grab the popcorn. Um, but yeah, so interesting to see , what, um, what max, uh, ends up, um, Uh, uh, saying there, in terms of potentially some companies going bust, I'm sure that that's going to happen. Um, but also, uh, very good to see that, um, he is turning around and saying, yeah, you know, the, there are some pessimistic views out there, but they are not the only views. And there are some pretty positive views out there about where podcasting is still. Uh, Hmm.

Sam Sethi: 22:05

Now one feature they could do with the video is allow full screen video while you're watching it. Then that would be really useful instead of leaving it as a posted

James Cridland: 22:13

stamp in the corner. Yeah. Wouldn't it just, um, I think you can do that. Um, and, and I think that there is a way of getting it onto, onto your tele as well, but, um, I, I've not looked. Too much into that. And obviously, you know, I, I don't use, uh, Spotify, uh, on a day-to-day basis anyway. But, um, yeah, it's, um, it does seem, um, it does seem as if it's not a great experience at the moment and. You know, you can't help but think that Spotify's, um, closed garden of you can only have video on your podcast if you host with Anchor, uh, is a bit of a mistake as well.

Sam Sethi: 22:49

Well, ceo, uh, the diary of a ceo, they'll be fine. They're on anchor. I'm quite amazed. Still on anchor. Actually,

James Cridland: 22:56

yeah, it's, it's a massive, um, show for in the uk, isn't it? So, um, yeah, he's, I mean, I mean it's, it's clearly, you know, it, it, it's one of those things where at least you can actually point at Anchor and go look, there is a big success. Um, there are some people who turn around and say, you know, anchor hasn't got any big shows, and partially that might be a plan by Spotify to move the big shows off anchor onto megaphone. But the other part of that plan is actually no, there are. Big shows that are still on Anchor. So, uh, and the diary of a CEO being exactly one of those. So yeah, so that's an interesting thing. Hmm. Moving on

Sam Sethi: 23:33

in People News, uh, just days after Shameless acquisition targets, uh, RSS feed was bought, which I thought was a really interesting story. It's host Laura Mayer has announced as the new executive producer of podcast program. ABC audio. Hmm. Tell me more, James.

James Cridland: 23:50

Yeah, so this is, uh, b abc, uh, as in, uh, the American ABC and, uh, Laura Mayer, um, who will now be a very, uh, senior person, uh, within, uh, podcasting at, uh, ABC Audio, uh, which is doing some pretty good things in terms of, uh, podcasting. There. She joins, of course, from three uncanny four productions, which, uh, she used to own. Possibly still does. Who knows. Um, and also Stitcher and Slate. Uh, she was Panoply's first employee, so, um, she goes back a bit in terms of her experience. So it's great to see her landing on her feet at, uh, the abc, um, pod News also had an exclusive yesterday. Paul Reese Mandel has joined. Signal Hill Insights as the company's Chief Insights Officer. Uh, he goes back as well. He was one of the first researchers in podcast advertising. He's been working with Mid Roll Media, which of course is now Stitcher and SiriusXM, uh, been working with that company since 2014. He's worked on hundreds of ad effectiveness studies and it's actually a pretty good job that he's moving to be a third party podcast, uh, researcher because, um, actually. You know, it's, it's, it's fine getting your numbers from the same people that you're buying from, but it's actually rather better to be a third party researcher. So, uh, good news for him. Uh, there's a good job going, uh, as well at the moment at, uh, pod jobs, pod news.net/jobs, um, to be country manager of. Pomo in Mexico. Uh, so if you, uh, fancy yourself, uh, as being able to run, uh, that particular company, then um, you know, dive, dive in there. There are also jobs at K C R W, Santa Monica and the Wall Street Journal. So if you're looking for a job, pod News has podcasting jobs across the industry and across the world. Uh, they're free to post two. Just takes two minutes to add a new role at pod news.net/jobs. The tech stuff, tech stuff on the pod News Weekly review. Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. This is where we do all of the tech talk.

Sam Sethi: 25:54

Sam, indeed, the bit I love most now. Um, value For Value Enable Podcast App Fountain had a major update this. Congratulations to Oscar. 0.6 was released. It added an activity feed for enhanced discovery and integration allowed you to reward podcasts directly with a credit card using, uh, direct payment into moon pay. Now you are an advisor, James, but uh, have you had a look at this version or what did you do to input this version even better?. What

James Cridland: 26:25

did I do to input into this version? Not much, uh, to be honest with you. Um, but uh, have I had a look at it? It's, of course I have. Yes. And the activity is sort of stream that you get when you, uh, Open fountain and you have a look in is really cool. There's a lot of very, very, uh, smart stuff. Uh, for me, it's full of the shows that Kyron, uh, has been commenting on from the Mere Mortals podcast, um, as well as others. Um, and it's a really good place to find new shows to go and have a listen to, but also, uh, see what, uh, people who I know have been commenting on them. So, yeah, it's a really nice piece of, um, work. What they've also done is they've, Done quite a lot of, uh, hard work on the UX as well to make it look, uh, a little bit, uh, easier to, uh, operate. So, uh, congratulations to the folks at, uh, fountain there for doing that.

Sam Sethi: 27:17

Yeah, one of the things, I mean, apart from the activity feed, um, I remember talking to Oscar a little while back about it, um, is the credit card integration because what it allows you to do is have one click access to top up your wallet. Through, uh, a feat currency provider. And I think, you know, that will increase the amount of SATs within the ecosystem, uh, allowing people to not just have to earn it on fountain, but actually can then buy, uh, more SATs to actually bring into the system and the eco, sorry to bring into the ecosystem. So, yeah, you know, it's a lovely update. There's a lot under the hood as well, uh, when I had a look at it closely. Yeah, yeah, there's a lots of stuff. So, um, if you haven't got fountain. Go and update today.

James Cridland: 28:00

Yeah, there's a lot under the hood as you so rightly say, Sam. And I think one of the things under the hood, if I've understood it correctly, and again, I've not, uh, spoken to the folks there about it, is that, um, they've actually shifted where your wallet actually is. So under the hood, uh, your wallet is now being, uh, looked after by a company whose primary job is to look after. Bitcoin wallets. So that's probably a good thing too, . So, um, you know, so that's all happened, uh, there. So it's a pretty big update from, uh, all sorts of reasons. So, um, yeah, worthwhile giving that a go. If you've not played with uh, fountain yet, go and, uh, do that. Um, fountain.fm. Uh, have a listen to this show and to the pod news daily. Uh, and, uh, hit that boost button cause that's always a good

Sam Sethi: 28:45

thing sticking with Apple. Then, uh, iOS 16.3, B2 two. Tell you what the release build is, it doesn't matter. Uh, apple Podcast didn't deliver the updated user agent key, which they introduced in IRS 16 to change the user agent when playing on demand from Apple Call Media. Uh, what are they doing, James? Why aren't they introducing

James Cridland: 29:08

this? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Um, if, um, one part of Apple say that they have released, um, a, a specific key for, for you to be able to correctly identify your podcast host, then why Apple Podcast, which is another part of Apple, haven't actually implemented that your, your. Guess is as good as mine. I mean, I, I, I would suggest to you that one reason maybe is that some large companies like Lipson, uh, and others, um, basically assume that all Apple core media is Apple Podcast's numbers, so they get higher figures and it would actually damage their numbers if they were to. Put this code in. Um, that might be an idea, but, um, there again might not be, I mean, why else would they be deliberately holding back? I mean, the other, the other reason why they might be deliberately holding back is that there might be actually rewriting the entire core Apple Podcasts app. Um, and they don't necessarily want to be making any breaking changes to the main app. But I mean, it's a, it's two lines of code. So , I don't. Buy that one either. So, um, yeah, who knows what's going on, but I do know that they get very annoyed when I mention it. So, um, we'll probably won't mention that and we'll probably move on to the latest update of Slack. Wow. Which, um, Which is pretty cool. Have you seen what the latest update of Slack does when you upload, uh, or audio into

Sam Sethi: 30:37

it? Uh, I haven't seen it. I've, I've read it from Pod News, which tells me that it produces transcripts. So, um, when you upload audio files, so that's quite interesting. Uh, I dunno what technology they're using,

James Cridland: 30:49

but there you go. I've got no idea what technology they're using, but I have to say, um, I, uh, I believed the source that. Got this information from, so I didn't go and, uh, and, and test it myself, but I did think just before we recorded today, I thought I better go onto snack and just see what it looks like. And it's amazing. So you basically, you, you, you upload, I uploaded an old version of a, of a podcast, um, and uh, yeah. And then you wait about a minute or so and then all of a sudden the entire transcript appears in, in your. Space or room or whatever they're called. Um, and, uh, yeah, and it does a pretty good job at it. So, yeah, I, I was really impressed. If you want free transcripts, that does seem a pretty good way of doing it because you can highlight the whole thing and just copy and paste. Mm,

Sam Sethi: 31:40

I might try that later. I have got a copy of Slack that I'm using, so Mm. Um, I'm not quite sure why I'd want it in Slack, but there you go. Uh, moving on, uh, Friday nights with podcasting 2.0 live with Adam and Dave is always a, a fun thing in my house with a glass of red wine, although I'm doing dry January, so God knows what's gonna happen this Friday. But they had a board meeting, um, and they talked about the future of cross apps. Now. This seems to be one of those, uh, tags that doesn't seem to be getting much traction. Um, but they did seem to suggest that activity pub will be used, uh, as the full, um, method of doing this maybe through. O or maybe through the Master Don api, what was your take on it? And then I'll give you mine, James.

James Cridland: 32:28

Yeah, so, and I, I think part of this was my suggestion the previous week. So instead of trying to build an entire activity pub stack into your podcast app, which would be lunacy, uh, and which every podcast app developer has gone, my God, I'm not going anywhere near that. Um, you just make your podcast app compliant with the Master Dawn api. Now that doesn. Mean that everything has to go through Mastodon because the Mastodon API is also being used by other services that, um, are talking with activity pubs. So if you use pl, if you use a coma, if you use any of these other, uh, services, they still have the Mastodon API there. So that's all fine and dandy. And, and, and that all works.. And so basically you just in your podcast app log into your master on account or your account on plural or, uh, any of those other, um, services. Um, and then your podcast app knows how to talk to it. So that's how you post comments and that's how you see other comments. Um, and so that's. Pretty well what's been, uh, clarified, um, in the board meeting, uh, last week. So, um, uh, so that makes life very simple. What it also means, which is quite clever, is it means that, um, master Dawn instances are responsible for moderation. Um, because of course you are posting under your Master Dawn instance. And what it also means is that all of these, uh, conversations will also be going on in the fe verse itself. So if you are scrolling through Master Dawn, you will see people commenting to. Their favorite podcast. So I think all in all, it's pretty good, uh, news in terms of, um, getting cross app comments up and running. I'm hugely excited about Cross app comments and I think it's just been so difficult and complicated for anybody to understand how to actually implement them. Uh, I think now it's gonna be much, much easier because it's just as simple and straightforward as log into your master on. And, uh, once and away you go. Do you still

Sam Sethi: 34:36

have to use the social interact tag then to place that first comment so that you get a threaded conversation?

James Cridland: 34:42

Yes. So the social interact tag, as I understand it, is the, it's basically the foundation of where the conversation will be. Um, so that will. Typically be when you post, I've just posted a new show, uh, and uh, here it is, and then all of the comments, uh, come from that. So yeah, that's my understanding of, um, you know, how that continues to work.

Sam Sethi: 35:05

And you also wrote about something that I hadn't heard of called the Thread Cap Library, uh, which is a really quick way for app developers to grab all the comments back to display them within their app.

James Cridland: 35:16

Is thread cap. Well, it's another Johns Spurlock, uh, project because of course all of the best technical projects are in the podcasting ecosystem at the moment are from John Spurlock. Uh, and this is essentially a piece of code that he's written, which is, uh, compatible with the Master Dawn api, which basically goes and uh, and has a look at that key message. And then pulls all of the comments from that key message so that you can actually see that, and it works on, you know, across the different, uh, platforms. So it does a pretty good job. Um, and, um, you know, worthwhile having a look at, I would've thought for your, um, for your pod fans, uh, uh, stuff, because to me it looks as if that all of that stuff would be., uh, you know, for you, I guess it

Sam Sethi: 36:03

is. Yeah. And um, again, going back to what Fountain have done with activity feeds, um, that in the structure that they've built, it is a activity pub structure as well. So, um, it's active verb object and so, Again, you can push across not just comments, but if you int integrate with the, uh, activity pub client, in this case, the masters on api, you can push other things as well. Hmm. So you can start to put about, James has just started listening to this podcast or commented is one thing. So we can start to look at what other things you are doing, not just commenting, but other activity as well that you do within the app that you are

James Cridland: 36:45

using.. No, I think I, I think it's a really good move and I think the growth of Master Dawn, um, has happened at just the right time for this. Uh, if we were having this conversation a year or so ago, it would be a very different conversation. But I think the fact that, you know, master Dawn is growing relatively well, um, , it means that there are gonna be more people that at least understand how to find an account on that if, if they've not actually got one already. Um, so I think all of that is a good, uh, is a good

Sam Sethi: 37:16

thing. Now, one of the other things that was, uh, announced at the board meeting last Friday was the requirement that podcast value only appears once for a show or episode. That now has been removed as a requirement. Uh, you can now have more than one podcast value tag within your RSS feed so you can support both your web monetization, which we talked about last week, and lightning payments, uh, and you've already implemented it. James, look at you. Hey,

James Cridland: 37:42

yes, I've implemented, uh, I've, I implemented both of these things. So Pod News Daily's, RSS Feed has a social interact tag in there if you want to, uh, comment about any of the stories that you hear. Uh, and that'd be wonderful if you did. And the pod news daily RSS feed also has, uh, both web monetization and lightning payments in there. So depending on which you want to use, um, access or. Uh, then you can, uh, no one outside of the UK will get that, will they? But anyway, um, uh, then you can, then you can end up, um, then you can end up, you know, paying however it is that you actually want to. So, um, yeah, so I think that that's, um, uh, a good thing and a good change to the, uh, spec that we have and, and talking about, um, Uh, uh, things in the Speck. Of course, we've also got Pod Ping, which, um, is a great way to, uh, advertise to podcast apps that you have just published. A new episode and Podcast Guru has released new apps this week on both iOS and Android, which are Pod Ping enabled. So you'll see a new episode the moment it's published, which is a good thing. So congratulations to them for that.

Sam Sethi: 38:50

Yeah, and uh, Dave Weiner, who is now a master on. Iono and, uh, Evangelista. Um, he posted that full RSS feeds for Master on Instances can now be seen in open rss. So you go to open rss.org/news and if you put a prefix in front, you'll get a full RSS

James Cridland: 39:12

feed. Now yes, and I don't want to accuse Dave Weiner of talking nonsense, but um, open Rs. Org, why would you go to a third party website to get RSS feeds for a Master Don account when you can just go to the Master Don account and type in RSS at the end of the L and get the RSS feed anyway,, why, why would you want to use a third party for that? Seems, seems to make no sense to me, but, um, yes, but I don't wanna criticize Dave. Other people have been there

Sam Sethi: 39:43

and they've not survived. Kurt, that rath, no., let's not do that. No, indeed. But you know, just in case you do want to go through the Dave Weiner root of getting your full RSS feed, you can do that through open rss.org. Anyway, we'll move on Indeed.

James Cridland: 39:57

And if you just want the simple and straightforward way, then just, uh, find somebody who you want to follow on, master on, uh, edit the URL to, uh, RSS and hey Presto, you've got an RSS feed and funnily enough, editing URLs like that, if you edit a get LB page, uh, then you can, uh, to add png, then all of a sudden you get yourself a very exciting QR code that you can, I don't know, ha, have tattooed onto you or something so that you can accept lightning payments through, uh, The Albi system. Oh, is that what

Sam Sethi: 40:34

you are doing for podcast movement? You're having a tattoo. Oh,

James Cridland: 40:36

excellent. Now that's an idea. I mean, when in Vegas, uh, , that's not a bad idea, but, uh, yes. No, I don't think we'll be doing

Sam Sethi: 40:45

that. Have it on a t-shirt just to be safe. Yes.? Yes. Oh, no, that's, no, I might get it on a t-shirt. That would be hilarious. Yes. That's not

James Cridland: 40:54

of your t-shirt. That's not a bad idea. I quite like the idea of a little QR code on a t-shirt. Hmm. I wonder if you can get them embroidered though. Um, quite possibly. Anyway, let's move on, uh, to awards and events. The signal award winners have been announced, uh, weirdly the winner. Were announced, uh, this week, but the winning ceremony won't happen until January the 23rd. Don't really understand that one. Also don't really understand that the awards aim to quote, celebrate the world's best podcasts, end quote. But they have a judging academy holy based in the us and I didn't see any winners that were based outside of there. So, uh, uh, uh, but still, um, always nice to see new awards. Even if, um, they, they confuse me a little bit. Um, the UK's pod Bible magazine has revealed the winners of its fourth annual pod bible polls, which we linked to earlier on, uh, in the week and some events to go to Pod Fest Expo, which of course is happening, uh, in Orlando in Florida. If you want a little bit of sun, uh, January the 26th. Is a way to go if you missed the new media show. Recently, episode 5 25, Chris Kreitz Sauce was on there and he was talking about what, uh, they've been, uh, planning, uh, and everything else. And Todd said, get your arm.com. And Rob said, what's Roy Todd? Uh, so that's, uh, all good podcast movement evolutions, um, happening in early March in Las Vegas. They've announced the third set now of confirmed speakers for the event. Um, and I noticed there are a bunch of. Excellent speakers in the third, uh, set, although not me. So, um, they're keeping the best to last. James, not quite best to last. I'm wondering whether or not I'm actually speaking. Yeah, that's clearly, that's clearly what they're doing. Um, radio Days, Europe also happening at the end of March in Prague in Che. It's the meeting point for radio, podcasts and audio, which I will be as well. And the podcast show in London, uh, returns May the 24th and the 25th, and Sam and I will be there too. There are more events both paid for and free. At Pod News, virtual events or events in a place with people. Uh, if you're organizing something, tell the world about it. It's free to be listed. Pod news.net/events. Booster Graham Booster Graham Corner, corner corner on the Pod News Weekly review. Oh, it's my favorite time of the week. Yes, it's. Booster Graham Corner. Uh, we've received a bunch of, uh, boosts and the excellent thing about, um, you, Sam, being on the splits is, uh, I've noticed you, you now go and grab all of the, uh, boosts so that I don't have to, uh, well, I dunno. Very big boost. I notice. Yes, A big boost I noticed from Dave Jones. Uh, thanks for the very fair coverage of the value tag developments. Oh dear. Was it that bad? Um, Dave, thank you very much, uh, for that. Um, and I did mention something, uh, about Kyron, uh, who's organized a Bri uh, Brisbane podcasters meetup. Uh, for the end of this month. Um, and he, he, he'd written 7:00 AM on Facebook, uh, and, uh, he's contacted us. Uh, he sent us a row of Ducks Boost and he said, got to get you fit and ready for Las Vegas James 7:00 AM drinks followed

by 8: 44:02

00 AM at the casino. It's not how it works in Las Vegas, let me tell you. Anyway, uh, it does appear that it's 7:00 PM which I'm rather looking forward to. And he says, Sam, gimme, gimme. Pod fans. Alpha, you've got news about pod fans, haven't you? Coming up a little bit later.

Sam Sethi: 44:17

Mm, I have indeed. Yes. So, uh, Adam Curry, uh, sent us a boost as well, a, um, How do I put this politely without us getting banned? Um, a row of Richards? Yes. A row of Richards, uh, 1, 1 1, 1, 1. Um, uh, he said, crap, that's not us. That was Adam. We're sending an anonymous. Uh, boost. So he is fixed it Anyway, so thank you for sending us that. And the anonymous boost was, uh, Google Click Farms in Indonesia. Google may be jacking up their own pages for ad revenue. I think it was about why you are so popular

James Cridland: 44:54

in Indonesia, James. Oh, that might be it. Yes. Uh, yes. And it, no, it, it won't be jacking up their own pages cuz this is, um, uh, this is the, so. Uh, the backstory here, uh, in case you missed it, was Pod News Daily seems to do particularly well in Indonesia. Uh, and I couldn't quite work out why the podcast version of it. Um, so I don't contract with Google in terms of advertising, so it's got nothing to do with that. Um, And Google don't earn any money from the advertising. Yeah. Around that. So, uh, yeah, I still don't really understand what's going on there, but thank you Adam, for two sets of a, uh, of a basket of Richards That's very kind of you. Uh, and he also sent, um, uh, five sevens. There's probably something there, um, criticizing me for saying that, uh, I might change the RSS feed that I give Spotify, uh, to have the timestamps in it. Um, he says that's counterproductive to all the work done on the namespace. It's shortsighted and rude. Um, so, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm not sure that hacking, um, hacking Spotify. To make, to make the product work a little bit better in Spotify, uh, is necessarily counter to anything. Um, but uh, yes, I mean it would be much, much better, wouldn't it if Spotify actually used the standards which are available to them elsewhere. So I would certainly agree with that. And we had a

Sam Sethi: 46:27

boost from, uh, Guy, I assume a guy called Gene Beam. Uh, Sam, I like Matrix and where it's going. Hit me up on ma on if you want any help making sense of it. I know may well take you up that on Gene. He sent us 1 3 37 SATs, uh, and he gave us his master on account. So yeah, I might look you up on that cuz. Um. I really don't understand Matrix well. I say I don't really understand it. Yes, I do understand it. I just don't understand where it's gonna fit in, into the, uh, ecosystem. But I will heat you up on that one. And he sent us another set of SAT 2, 2, 2. The row of ducks. 2, 2, 2, 2. Two, uh, gene Bean said, uh, keep up the good work. Thanks, gene. We will, we'll

James Cridland: 47:05

try Indeed and Brian of London. Perhaps I'll be in Melbourne second week of February. I'm in Sydney the first week. Who's allowed you in? Brian? Um, , who's allowed you in? I don't know. Um, but anyway, uh, that's, uh, very exciting to, uh, to, uh, hear that, uh, I wo won't be in Sydney nor in Melbourne, uh, during February. Um, but, uh, you know, enjoy. Um, and, uh, I hope you don't get too wet. Uh, if you get value from what we do, the pod News weekly review is separate from Pod News. Sam and I share everything from it. We really appreciate your support so we can continue making this show. You can support us with cash. Pod news.net/weekly support or subscribe in Apple Podcasts at apple.co/pod news or supporters with SATs by hitting the boost button in your podcast app. And if you don't have one, pod news.net/new podcast apps will help you find a new app like Fountain, for example. Um, what's happening for you this week then, Sam?

Sam Sethi: 48:01

Uh, well, I couldn't. Reveal. I closed the seed, ran funding for pod fans, so I'm very ese with that. So yes, a nice chunk of came in for that. So yes, very happy. Oh, that's

James Cridland: 48:11

very nice. That's very nice. What, um, terms weren't available or uh, uh, are you able to give us some kind of understanding of how big that seed ran might have

Sam Sethi: 48:21

been? Uh, it was over 300,000, so That's nice. It was enough. Very nice to get us. Probably for the next, you know, let's say 2023, quite happily. Um, without having to go back into the market, we don't have to go and raise a big chunk of money. It's not very expensive to develop the platform. Um, it's more to do with marketing. So yeah, I'm really pleased. Um, It always is hard to raise money, especially in the current market. So yeah, getting any money in is always good news. Um, the other thing I've been looking at is something, you know, another week, another protocol, um, is, uh, the Lightning Service Authentication Token, or lsat, which is gonna be supported by Albe. Uh, it's a new standard protocol for authentication and paid APIs, basically a way. Uh, allowing people to buy access to good source services and, uh, meter them and limit them based on their usage. Um, it's way over my head right now. I'll be brutally honest. But again, if you wanna know more about that, go to lsat.tech. It's got a really good set of documentation that. Diving my way through it as

James Cridland: 49:28

best I can. Wow. Else is, well, there's a thing, uh, you've, you've been listening to podcasts as well, haven't you?

Sam Sethi: 49:34

Well, only one. Um, , no, I say only one. I've been listening to lots of podcasts, , but one that has been, uh, talked about, had Jack Dorsey on it. That was the end reason, and it, if you are interested in nasta, they. Other protocol. Uh, then he did a massive deep dive, um, on the Bitcoin Review podcast. Uh, yeah. And it's very, very, uh, interesting. It's also very intense. But yeah, if you wanna know more about Nasta, then find the Bitcoin Review podcast, episode 18. Uh, and you'll problem watch, know everything there is to know about Nasta right now. Very nice. So, James, come on. What's

James Cridland: 50:09

been happening with you? Well, I, uh, was, uh, Discord on one of the podcast, uh, servers in there and somebody was asking whether streaming sat were a waste of time. Uh, and I wrote a spirited defense, which I then thought this is too good as just a, uh, a quick, um, uh, piece in a. Discord, uh, server. So I pulled it out of there and I put it onto my, uh, personal, uh, uh, blog website, uh, which is james.cridland.net if you want to take a peek at that. But, um, one of the things that I did discover, um, uh, from that is that, um, if you, uh, do a comparison between streaming SATs and cost per thousand, I can already hear Adam getting, uh, getting upset, getting ready to send us another satchel of Richards. Um, but um, but yes, if you compare streaming SATs with a cost per thousand number, then actually streaming SATs looks pretty good. Uh, if, if you've got somebody who's, who's paying you five SATs a minute and they listen to, to an hour's worth of show, then you're actually earning quite a lot out of that in comparison to what you might be in terms of advertising. So it's a nuance that. I think, you know, some of the, uh, uh, some of the people have have, uh, missed there. Uh, so that was fun to do. And while I was doing that, Um, I went through a lot of my old blog posts, um, and, uh, I discovered that, uh, in 2006 I was actually on stage with Adam Curry. Couldn't remember it at all, but apparently I was, uh, the Changing Media Summit of 2006 Um,

Sam Sethi: 51:46

sorry, I'm just thinking No drugs were involved. It was no drugs involved. I've

James Cridland: 51:50

got absolutely no, I, I, I can't even tell you where it was. Um, I can't tell you. Uh, I can't, I can't think of it at all. But, um, the report that I linked to, uh, back then was very, very positive. And, you know, uh, I was on stage with Captain Chris Kimber from the bbc who's still there. Um, and, uh, and, uh, Adam, and I'm not sure that Chris had ever heard of Adam. Um, and frankly, I'm not sure that I had at the time as well. It was a strange. Thing. But, uh, yes, that was, uh, that was good fun. But I, I seem to have said some very polite things to Adam all the way through that. Uh, so that was good fun. Um, and one of the other things that I discovered, um, was a blog post from November, 2005, which I've also added, um, onto my, uh, uh, site, given another Lease of Life, um, which was some of the podcasts I was listening to. And I, precociously re reviewed them all and said whether or not any of them were any good. So the Telegraph Podcast, for example, I said was very, very bad, and it was. Basically, if I remember rightly, it was somebody that couldn't, who couldn't read reading out articles from the newspaper, and that's what they thought would be a good thing for podcasts at the time, , um, there was something called the Richard Bacon Go Home Show, uh, which I believe was a reheated radio show from XFM that I listened to in light the New Scientist podcast, which apparently was very good. I can't remember it. Um, turned out that I was paying for this week in tech back in 2006, 2005. Uh, so that's interesting. Um, and something called the slash.review, which I said was very good. And, um, I, I, I don't think it's happening now, and I wonder whether the. Natural successor to that now is the tech meme ride home. So I dunno. But, uh, yeah, so that was, uh, interesting seeing, um, if you want to see any more of that and uh, I have no idea why you'd want to, but anyway. james.cridland.net. Slash blog is where to find, uh, that blog, which is, uh, the address of it back in 2005. So I've made all of the old links work again. Uh, so there's a thing, and of course, uh, the reason why I'm sounding a little bit different today. Uh, and the reason why I'm standing possibly a little bit tired today as well, uh, is that we're actually all on a family holiday, and it's been very nice. And, uh, we've been at the top of a mountain here in southeast Queensland, which is 45 minutes drive away from., uh, anywhere else, basically down a very, very wiggly road. I am astonished that the internet has worked so well, and astonished that the mobile phone just works when I walk outside. Um, but uh, yes, I've been on mountain bikes and, uh, going down zip wires and all kinds of things. So, uh, yes, it's been, it's been quite full on, but it's been rather enjoyable. So that's, in case you're wondering why I'm sounding a little bit different, that's why I'm sounding a little bit different.

Sam Sethi: 54:46

Hearing from the mere mortals will be very happy. I'll have. Each run soon, I'm

James Cridland: 54:50

sure. Yes, yes, I'm sure. Uh, and that's it for this week. You can

Sam Sethi: 54:55

give us feedback using email, uh, to weekly pod news net, or send us a booster crown, which we love. If your podcast app doesn't support boost, then grab a new. Podcast app from pod news.net/anew podcast

James Cridland: 55:10

apps. Our music is from Studio Dragonfly. Our voiceover is Sheila D, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout Podcast hosting made easy. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at. Pod news.net. Tell your friends and grow the show, and support us and support us. The POD News weekly review will return next week. Keep listening.