James Cridland: 0:00

It's Friday the 3rd of March, 2023.

Steve Pratt: 0:04

The

James Cridland: 0:04

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

Sam Sethi: 0:15

News. And I'm Sam Sethy, the CEO

James Cridland: 0:17

of Pod Vans. In the chapters today, YouTube Music adss podcasts. But is it really good news for podcasting? Spotify, TikTok application arrives for music and podcasts. Zaps are coming to podcast apps like Fountain. And what is pod speeding? Why does Adam Curry hate it? Plus,

Steve Pratt: 0:36

hi there, I'm Steve Pratt from The Creativity Business. I'm an attention strategist and I'm gonna be coming up later to talk about how to earn attention. In your

James Cridland: 0:43

podcast, he will. This podcast is sponsored and hosted by Buzz Sprout. Last week, more than 4,154 people started a podcast with Buzz Sprout podcast hosting made easy with powerful tools and remarkable customer support. Now you can turn your listeners into supporters with Buzz Sprout subscriptions, and this podcast is also brought to you by CarMax, apparently, according to Spotify. More details on that later from your daily newsletter, the pod News Weekly review.

Sam Sethi: 1:12

Yes. Excellent. Have another sponsor now. So let's kick off James, uh, the end of last week's episode. YouTube, unfortunately announced what they were going to do, so we couldn't really talk about it. You kindly jumped back into the podcast and did an edit, but a week's past. So let's review again. What did YouTube announce about podcasting and what's our views on it now? Well, they've

James Cridland: 1:34

only really made an announcement on a blog post on the company's, uh, website. Uh, yesterday, uh, YouTube's new c e o Neil Mohan wrote a blog post on the company's 2023 priorities in which he says that, uh, both audio and video first podcasts are coming to YouTube music for users in the us. Um, and, uh, they're rolling out podcast creation in YouTube studio, making it easier for creators to set their videos as podcasts. So basically, uh, YouTube music will get podcasts, so not the full YouTube. But YouTube music app will get podcasts if you are in the US only. And, uh, you'll be able to listen. Um, if you lock your phone and, um, you know, background listening, you'll be able to listen. And, uh, but that will be supported by advertising, uh, which is an interesting concept. And later this year, YouTube will be offering support for creators to upload their audio podcasts via RSS feeds directly to YouTube. Um, you, I, I clearly had a bit of a say last week. What did you think of the, uh, of the announcement, Sam? Well, it was

Sam Sethi: 2:45

everything we expected. I suppose. It was, uh, it was something to announce with, uh, a delivery much later in the future. I. A lot of people have been waiting for something, it's better than nothing. And the question is, is it gonna be another Facebook or is it actually gonna be something more competitive to Spotify? Um, will they get bored after a couple of weeks when they don't find the revenue that they expect from it? Or will they say, cause I'm not a great fan of Google? You know what, I think they, they often have these projects. They have these ideas, they throw them out the front door and if it doesn't hit billions of pounds within weeks, they sent tend to put'em into the Google graveyard. And I wonder whether this is the start of YouTube's graveyards. Let's hope not. Because it would be good for podcasting in general. If there was another way of attracting more users to

James Cridland: 3:33

listen to podcasts. Yeah, it would be, it would be good for podcasting in general. I mean, ha having said that, of course, that this isn't necessarily podcasting. This is just another way of, uh, consuming some of the audio. Um, it's worse in fact, for podcasting than Spotify has been because, um, They're not using RSS feeds at all at launch, and their support for RSS feeds is to upload to their system. It's not as a pass through. Uh, there's been absolutely no talk of that. So that basically means that any podcast that earns its money through dynamic ad insertion or anything of that nature, um, won't be able to make its money through, uh, YouTube, uh, podcasting and through YouTube music. Um, I, I mean, we don't even know how many people use YouTube music. We know that there are 80 million people who are premium subscribers to YouTube, but there are plenty of people, um, who are premium subscribers to YouTube just so that they don't get any ads in the main YouTube service. We dunno how many people actually consume YouTube music. So, uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of looking at this and thinking half, half of me is thinking, where is the good news? I mean, the other half is, I suppose, Podcasts will be available if you know what to search for within the main YouTube product on desktop. Um, so you can find this, this podcast on, uh, YouTube. We, we have a podcast playlist, which has been marked as podcast. Um, , but I mean, nobody uses it. So, uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of thinking, well, you know what, what's the benefit for YouTube here? Perhaps the benefit for us is that if they do sell audio advertising, um, then perhaps there will be a rev share of that in the future. And perhaps that therefore means that we might get, you know, 30% of that whoopee. Um, but I, I, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm a bit down on it. I have to be, I have to be honest, and I think I'm a bit more down on it now, a, a week after than I was when they just announced it.

Sam Sethi: 5:38

Is this good news though, for a Dori Vizi headliner companies that have been looking to support YouTube as a mechanism for podcasters, or is. Gonna be a kick in the teeth for them, because you can bypass those platforms and go

James Cridland: 5:53

straight to YouTube. Yeah, I mean, you can bypass those platforms and go straight to YouTube if you want to, but it's quite hard work to produce a video from a, uh, piece of podcast audio. So tools like, um, Adori or Vizi, I mean, if I were YouTube, I would be buying one of those. Um, and I would be, uh, you know, putting my hands in my pockets and actually, you know, um, building something which is um, you know, which is a good tool for. For, uh, podcasters. Um, but, but yeah, so, you know, I mean, I produce something for the POD News Daily, which, um, adds some, uh, captions which are baked into the video and adds a little fancy video, you know, logo and everything else. Um, but that's about as far as I go and I'm certainly not going to turn cameras on and stuff like that. Particularly yesterday, for example, when I was in a airport lounge. You know, the last thing I want to to, to be doing is to carry video camera stuff around. So, mm-hmm. I, I suppose it might be good news, um, uh, for them, but if I were YouTube, I would be doing this job properly and I would be, um, going out and buying one of those companies and, and, um, strapping that, uh, that stuff into their, um, you know, into their workflow. Now you did

Sam Sethi: 7:08

ask other people what they thought of this. What did they

James Cridland: 7:11

say to you? I did, I, I of the. Responses that I got. And I think, you know, whenever you ask people, what do you think of this? And it's a really big platform, people are quite nervous about saying what they think in case somebody at the big platform reads it and uh, marks them down. Um, but you know, I mean, one person was saying, who's in Canada? You know, what's the point of it only being in the US at the moment? They're totally fumbling a massive opportunity. Um, and if you remember, that's how Facebook launched and that was a failure. That's how. Um, uh, Amazon Music launched. Uh, it was US only, and, um, that still has to, uh, that still has to be, you know, uh, proven as a success. So, you know that that wasn't particularly, um, , uh, good. Um, interesting to see that. Um, you know, Andrew Scott, uh, who um, talks about YouTube a lot on his podcast and on his YouTube channel, um, said it was very confusing. He doesn't understand how the ad funded background listening thing is gonna work for podcasters and all of that. So, um, it's not actually very good and very positive news. And I think part of that is because YouTube have just basically thrown this at us. They've not been communicating with the podcast industry all the way through this. Um, and they've just basically thrown us his bone and said, and said, be grateful. Um, here it is, and it's confusing because of course you end up having, um, a, a messy experience because Google Podcasts is still going, even though they don't care about it enough to put it into Google search anymore. The Google Podcasts app is still going to take part. So it's like Google messaging all over again. Um, I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm not sounding a bit more positive about it, and perhaps I should be.

Sam Sethi: 9:03

No, I mean, I think it's just a reflection of. What I suppose was 12 months of, of expectation and, and then outcomes, fundamentally a a little bit of a damp squib, right? So I think that's what you are reflecting in. They had the opportunity to do something pretty major, uh, and they've chosen to do something pretty minor. Oh, well, let's wait and see. We've got other weeks. Uh, I'm sure that there'll be conversations at podcast movement about it and, uh, you know, when we get our hands on it properly, I'm sure we'll be able to make a better judgment.

James Cridland: 9:34

I mean, the, you know, there are a few people who are doing some nice tools. Uh, transistors just rolled out, uh, embeddable YouTube videos within their podcast, uh, website pages, uh, which is a nice thing and.. Interesting. I think also to notice a steady little drip of podcast publishers who are doing extra things on YouTube. So, uh, npr, if you remember about a month or so ago, announced that they were going to pile a lot more stuff onto YouTube. They clearly knew that something was a foot, uh, Cumulus media. Has just launched a official podcast channel from, um, from an angry radio broadcaster called Mark Levin. Or Mark Levine. Um, and, um, that, uh, channel on YouTube will contain a number of different segments from the, uh, show. So, uh, you know, clearly stuff is going on, but, uh, you know, sadly not, um, necessarily, uh, stuff that, um, seems to be exciting much of us in the podcast world.

Sam Sethi: 10:36

Mm-hmm. Let's move on, James, then from YouTube. Uh, Spotify. Now again, just a little reflection back in a little look forward. Um, we said goodbye to Max Cutler, but strangely this week we're gonna say hello again to Spotify live and something called Spotify detoxification. I'm not gonna do that with my teeth in again. Hello. Let's start off with Max Cutler. Um, he said goodbye to, uh, his time at Spotify, but he left a really interesting LinkedIn post. Did, and I think you read it. I know I did. What were your

James Cridland: 11:11

thoughts? I mean, not only did I read it, but Max Cutler's personal PR person Oh. Emailed me and said, um, oh, uh, you know, max has just posted this really interesting post on LinkedIn in case you wanted to link to it. Max Cutler's own PR person. I went through all of the other work that this person, um, has been involved with and she's, uh, spooked. Uh, another Max Cutler, um, uh, thing in the past. A book that Max Cutler has written and has done nothing. For Spotify and you're there thinking, okay, well that's interesting. But anyway, um, he talked a lot about, uh, it's time for disruption. I'm excited about the future of media. Successful media companies, he said, won't be just about content. They will be built on the foundation of fandom and communities, which are set to shape the future of hashtag media in significant ways. Interesting that he should say that because Spotify very much hasn't got communities and fandom in there. Uh, Spotify has no comments, has no form of, you know, um, uh, taking part in a larger group of, uh, people. So, um, so perhaps that's, um, uh, you know, something that, uh, max Cutler will be working on next. Uh, who knows. Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 12:33

Again, another entrepreneur that, uh, Spotify acquired that has. Jump the ship to go and start their own thing outside of Spotify. But, uh, I did, I did. Yeah, that bit you just read out. Fandom and Communities did prick my attention and I wonder what he's gonna be doing there. Um, other people now are jumping into his space, aren't they? James?

James Cridland: 12:53

Who is it? So he's not been replaced by Julie McNamara is going to be supervising the license exclusives, which is I think stuff like, um, Joe Rogan. Uh, Brian Tho Andon will be overseeing third party content partnerships. Bill Simmons having more of a focus on podcast monetization. Um, now if Bill Simmons is having a focus on podcast monetization, my understanding is that the ringer, which Bill Simmons, um, was, uh, the big boss of, um, they have always said that they did not want to be exclusive on the Spotify platform. They wanted to make sure that they were still available everywhere because they felt that that was the right way of earning revenue. Now, if Bill Simmons is now looking at podcast monetization, perhaps that might mean a different plan in terms of where Spotify is going. And perhaps we see less exclusives and more just, um, you know, outright monetization through the Spotify audience network. Uh, and through the, you know, the megaphone and everything else.

Sam Sethi: 13:56

Yeah, I dunno him. So, uh, you know, it'll be interesting to see from your perspective, um, whether they go broader or narrower in the future, but they have hit. 200 million subscribers. That's pretty cool. They, they made a big PR noise that I thought on LinkedIn this week. I already thought they'd hit that number, but there you go. It was a big post that they put out. Woohoo. Um, Eddie's actually a big number so I shouldn't go. Woohoo. Really, should I? No, I should go. Well done. Um, , you can't be sarcastic about 200 million people really can you? Um, no now, but one thing that came back this week, which we thought was dead and it's now alive, is, uh, Spotify live. It's come back as a exclusive for paid shows for Pete Premium subscribers. It's 9 99. It's your chance to talk to the artists, ask your burning questions, and chat with other super fans. Now, I did think this was the exact thing they should have done with their acquisition that they made. Um, and it seems that they're gonna do it now, I can imagine, if, you know, I dunno what, who your favorite singer is? Kylie Minogue James. But if, uh, she was doing a, uh, a live racist. Whoever your favorite artist was, was doing a live, would you jump on and pay your 9

James Cridland: 15:12

99? Uh, I mean, uh, you know, maybe, I mean, I think it's interesting. There's a nine, there's a 9 99, you know, uh, uh, it doesn't necessarily, it's say for how long it is. It's a live listening party hosted by somebody with an inexplicable name. Um, and you get to listen to music and hear behind the scenes. and uh, you also have a chance to talk to the artist to ask your burning questions and to chat with other super fans. Well, maybe this is going back to what's, what Max Cutler was talking about in terms of, um, community. Maybe that's, uh, part of it. I mean, to me it looks like we've got this tool. We should be, um, uh, we've got this tool that we spent quite a lot of money on by the way. Um, and so therefore perhaps we should be using it for, um, for things that we can do. And, uh, this seems like a sensible plan. Yeah. As, uh, as you say. So I think, um, uh, I think it makes sense from a revenue generation point of view and I can certainly see, you know, if you were a big fan of a particular artist, being able to have something that is pretty exclusive, um, is a good thing.

Sam Sethi: 16:18

Yeah. And I think, you know, with, with album launches, they've done e editors cuts. You know, when you watch. Films, they have the editors cut who tells you what's going on and talks around around the background and people wanna buy those. Uh, and I can imagine somebody launching an album going, right, well, I'll talk you through the album and why I did this track and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And people would, yeah, I think people would do that. So, uh, again, I can't be sarcastic about something I probably would want to jump onto if say Bruno Martin was doing it. So, you know, there. now bars. The other thing, well this is still in beta, Spotify live, so don't expect to see it in your player anytime soon. Yeah. But that's what they're testing currently. Now they're testing something else, which is a Spotify R using a TikTok application, um, ui. What do I mean by that? They've created a vertical scrolling slide in the mobile app so that you can scroll up and see tracks and albums and they've even done it. So it works with podcasts. Thankfully, normally podcasts are never touched, but this way from the UI that we've seen, hat Tip two, Christmas scene, a friend of the show that you can actually now quickly vertically scroll, uh, through a number of podcasts. And then if you like one of them, you can click play and uh, off you. What do you think of that one then, James?

James Cridland: 17:41

Yeah, and it sounds very exciting and it sounds vaguely reminiscent of something that, um, if you remember, we actually talked about a year ago, um, the end of March, uh, last year, uh, Spotify actually had this brand new, uh, podcast interface. It had that, uh, nice vertical scrolling. It had live captions for all shows, and there was a way of actually seeing it. It was called podcast clips. And the way of seeing it, um, we actually put into the pod news newsletter on March 31st, 2022. If you want to go back, um, and uh, take a peek, so. 11 months later, they've actually launched it, not just for podcasting, but for music as well. Well, they haven't launched it. Oh, yes. Well, they haven't, they haven't launched it yet, have they? They're still, they're still playing around with it. Gosh, PR to be a, to be a product manager at, uh, Spotify. Can you imagine how frustrating it must be?

Sam Sethi: 18:35

Well, hey, can you imagine the guy who got through the, the other change hearts are out and plus signs are in Woohoo. He must have been dancing around the floor, getting that one through the, uh, oh,

James Cridland: 18:45

he must have been. Yes. Uh, the like button has gone, the ad for to playlist button has gone, and instead there is a plus sign, uh, instead. So, so there's a thrill. I mean, any of this testing and trying out new features is a great thing. Spotify being as large as it is, it will of course get an awful lot of, um, of write up of whatever it is that they actually test. Uh, but this looks like a nice, uh, a nice tool. So many congratulations to them on that, at least. Uh, I think that looks good, although they are doing weird and wonderful stuff with NFTs, aren't they? Sam?

Sam Sethi: 19:21

I know the rolling eyes of many will be seen or heard. Um, I dunno if you can hear rolling eyes, but anyway, um, Spotify's testing a token enabled music playlist, a k a. NFTs. Great. Go on then James, take it apart and then I'll tell you what I think.. James Cridland: Well, you can uh, holders of non fungible tokens so you can listen to created mu uh, curated music. Um, currently the is available to token holders within the fluff, moon, bird's, kingship and overlord communities. That's nice. And, um,? Sam Sethi: Yes. Oh, I can see you're rushing out straightaway to get your Missy Elliot and Snoop do Doga. Yes. And NFTs, aren't you? I can

James Cridland: 20:11

see. Now what do you, what do you think of all of this?

Sam Sethi: 20:14

Well, I, I, I think NFTs are a little bit dated. I, I could imagine this is, uh, somebody in, uh, Spotify within the corporate wards has had to overlook and seen. Something interesting, however they call it an NFT and tried to, uh, crowbar it in. Yeah.

James Cridland: 20:30

Well, here, I am struggling to be, uh, interested in this. I guess the only interesting sort of side on this is that, um, they only enabled it on an for Android users, not iOS users. And it was only available in, um, a few different countries, the us, the uk, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. Um, and, um, so there's two interesting things in there. Firstly, those countries, I'm imagining that there's some form of, um, legal, um, uh, thing why those countries were chosen. Uh, perhaps, um, I think the inclusion of Germany is interesting because, um, uh, you know, clearly that, that that's not an English speaking market, uh, whereas the rest of them are, um, the exclusion of Canada is al is also interesting to have a look at, uh, too. So there may well be laws and rules around, uh, virtual wallets in this way. The other thing, of course, is that, uh, Android only.. And I wonder whether that was just purely, um, a, uh, an issue with, um, having the engineering resource to, uh, only stick it in the Android app or whether it was a thing where Apple were basically looking at this and going, we will not approve anything that has a wallet in there, um, from you Spotify. Thank you very much. So I don't know what, uh, you know, what the reason, um, is for that, but I just think it, you know, interesting to see Android users only, which makes a change, um, and available in those five countries only, which is, uh, four more countries than YouTube.

Sam Sethi: 22:15

Yeah. Well, James, we're okay. We've got a new sponsor according to Spotify. CarMax, tell me what you did. Yes.

James Cridland: 22:22

According to Spotify, we have a. Called CarMax, which, um, I don't even know, uh, who CarMax are. Um, but, uh, you know, I, I think that that's an, an interesting and exciting thing. So when you look at, uh, the, uh, POD News Weekly review within Spotify, then you see that we've got a sponsor called CarMax. CarMax is Love Your car guarantee is their way of helping you buy a car that truly fits your life with a 30 day money back return and 24 hour test drive. It's at carmax.com. Is that, is that how we get our money from, uh, Spotify? We just, we just look at who, who they want us to promote. Well, that host Red ad. Yeah, I, I, I've got no idea. But anyway, uh, thank you Spotify. I'm looking forward. To the money for that bit. Well, thank

Sam Sethi: 23:06

you to Kevin Finn for spotting it first as well, by the

James Cridland: 23:08

way. Yes. It's slightly embarrassing when our actual sponsor that actually pays us money sponsors the fact that we've got a different sponsor within, uh, Spotify. One of the things that I have promised Kevin, is that I will ask Spotify what on earth is going on. Um, so, uh, I am going to be doing that, um, and uh, see if, uh, I get any response back from, uh, Spotify. It's not the first time that they've, uh, given us a sponsor. If you remember, we also had a sponsor of some dreadful, um, whiskey type thing. Uh, what was it? Turkey, wild Turkey. Yeah. The, yeah. Had

Sam Sethi: 23:41

something to do with turkeys and whiskey, which is a never a good combination in anyone's world. Yeah,

James Cridland: 23:48

certainly in my experience, it's not . Anyway, uh, time

Sam Sethi: 23:52

to move on. I think. Time indeed. Uh, last week we talked about Steve Pratt x uh, Pacific content coming up with a really interesting idea. Attention is a scarce commodity. Most posts don't generate much traction, which leads to more front tactics to draw attention. He was highlighting the fact he didn't think most podcast marketing worked, and that, uh, lasting attention requires different thinking. So, I thought, why don't I reach out to Steve Pratt and find out what he's doing today. He's called an attention strategist and what his thoughts are on this new idea of earning attention. What is an attention strategist? Let's start with that first. Well,

Steve Pratt: 24:35

can I just say I love that you started with that cuz I was kinda like, well if I just put myself down as like consultant or something like that, it'll be like, oh, there's like a zillion of those. But maybe if I have an interesting title, it reflects what I'm actually doing and just make up my own title based on what I'm doing. Maybe that will actually earn attention. So I'm like, oh good. You have attention strategist? Uh, yeah. Good

Sam Sethi: 24:53

put on sir. It worked. Uh,

Steve Pratt: 24:55

can I also just say that, uh, I'm slightly daunted because I realized that I've got. Title that you just said, like, attention strategist or, my focus is on how to earn attention, that I feel like there's an enormous pressure for me to be enormously entertaining in our interview today. So I'm, I may have backed myself into a corner. I feel like, you know, I don't wanna show up in a clown hat or something like that, but I, uh, I'm gonna do my best to, to be valuable today. start

Sam Sethi: 25:17

off with that first and foremost. You are an attention strategist. Well, let's define that. Yeah, it's interesting.

Steve Pratt: 25:22

So, uh, the way I think about attention strategist is helping other people learn how to earn attention more effectively. I think a lot of the stuff that I've seen, you know, and this is not by any means, exclusive to podcasting, I would say the entire content marketing ecosystem is people are, you know, somewhat selfish in, in a lot of the things of why they're putting them out. Without thinking enough about the audience and where you're creating value to be able to actually earn time and attention over and over again. I think, you know, an infinite sea of content., the message has to be, what is the way that I can create significant value for people where, you know, I'm not just getting 'em to try something out, but when they try it out, it's so good that they keep going and stick it out and subscribe and come back again and tell other people about it. Cause it's worthwhile. It's a really high bar to earn attention. But that's kind of the only, like, it's a tough message, but it's also the only message that matters. Cause I think there's so many people trying to do shortcuts and tricks. And again, whether it is using AI to do your podcast or your marketing for you, everyone's

Sam Sethi: 26:28

trying it. Yeah.

Steve Pratt: 26:29

I feel like the call is just lead with your empathy and values and think about the other people and set yourself a very high bar for quality to be able to actually be something special that's worth talking about. So that's what I try and help people, people do. And I, I think in some ways I've spent my whole career doing that, you know, in a variety of different media contexts. And I think that when I was at Pacific Content, , that was the big bar that you have to get every client over. I think there's always, you know, for a brand putting out content, there's an extra level of skepticism because the assumption is that somebody's trying to trick you into selling you something or somebody's trying to, you know, somehow hoodwink you that like, oh, it may sound like a good podcast, but there's gotta be a gotcha somewhere, have to be extra good to overcome that skepticism and make something that's really worth earning attention now. And when you do that, oddly it might even be a lower bar by just making a good show that's generous. People will talk about it because it's unusual for a brand to make something. That is generous for an audience and is patient enough to wait to get the return on the investment.

Sam Sethi: 27:36

Well, everyone believes there's no one's giving anything away for free. That's the problem. Have a favorite expression. Nothing is free, is at my expense. And so I guess when somebody's trying to grab your attention and trying to earn your attention, you're going, hang on a minute. Bat signals up. What do they want? What, what do they really want?

Steve Pratt: 27:54

Well, I think even on the flip side of that, it's also interesting this, you know, from a somebody who's putting content out into the world, nothing's free time and attention is the most valuable commodity out there. And to think about like, if I really want to earn that, I've gotta step up and be great cuz like they're, again, there's, everybody wants it. How am I gonna be the one that actually earns it? And when their radar is up and you know that the audience's radar is up, the shortcuts and the cheat codes don't.

Sam Sethi: 28:22

So this brings me to two questions. One, you had an epiphany moment when you came across this. What was that epiphany moment? I think it was just that

Steve Pratt: 28:31

I had been living in the podcasting world, like really like very deep for eight or nine years at Pacific content. And I knew this was a truth about how we approached content strategy. I just don't, I, I think from having left and had some time off, I kind of, you know, zoomed back out to, you know, 40,000 feet. And I was trying to think like, what, what is it that is unique about the way that I think about content strategy and it came down to values is that I truly believe like doing the right thing and having generosity and having empathy is the secret to making great content. And you know, there's also peace around really thinking about differentiation and what's gonna be unusual or surprising, you know, for an audience member. But., again, not in a gotcha way. Something where it actually has to pay off with some real value in the end. And I read a couple of articles where it was like, here's how to grab attention or how to steal attention or capture attention, you know, or hijack attention. And you know, I think e even though there's some good ideas in the universe of growth, hacker marketing, it all just felt very selfish with the language of it. And I thought, oh, you know, if I lean into the values side, that's where earning attention comes from. And I, when I kind of first had the thought of earning attention, I was like, oh, this, this actually is the unifying theme around all my work and all my career around what's actually made success for, you know, my own career, but also for a lot of clients. Uh, the podcast space,

Sam Sethi: 30:06

you also talked about delayed gratification. Tell me more. Well, I think

Steve Pratt: 30:11

in the end people say like, well, why should I earn attention and any business outcome. That you want. And there's, you could be, as a publisher with, you know, looking to sell advertising, you could be a podcaster trying to grow your audience to the point where you get to be able to sell advertising. You could be a brand looking to change the way people think about your brand or get people to eventually become a customer. There's a zillion different reasons why you might put out a podcast, for example. But at the core of it, people won't do any of those things until they trust you. And trust takes time. And I think, you know, to, to our point earlier, when you come in with a point of skepticism or you're worried that somebody is trying to get something for you, your radar is up and you have to prove that you're worth time, intention by being great over time. And so, you know, I think the earning attention is a piece. The consistency over time is a piece that builds trust. And when you have trust, then you have a relationship with people. People wanna do things with people they have relationships with, and people tell other people about relationships they've got, or when they trust somebody and think something is great, when something's earned their attention. That's where word of mouth comes from and good things. Uh, again, I, I think we're in a period of very short-term thinking and it's actually leaning into the long-term and the patients to get what we want. You know, I, in one of the newsletters I put out, I kind of used the example of the marshmallow test as is this famous Stanford experiment with children, where it was like, you know, you can have one marshmallow right now, or if you can hold off eating the marshmallow for 15 minutes, you get two marshmallows. You know, I, I'm not sure where the current science is on whether it is fully debunked or accurate, that the, the ones who waited for 15 minutes for the second marshmallow, a got the second marshmallow, but also displayed skills that were really valuable later on in life and determined where they went in their life. And I think that actually applies to e everything in content creation and marketing and all of it as well. The. Delaying the gratification and doing the hard work now for a future payoff, totally works.

Sam Sethi: 32:12

So if I can earn attention and I can do that through trust, are they the only two ways that I can do it? I look at somebody like Mr. Beast, I just looked at his numbers. 136 million subscribers on YouTube. Is that a over time gained trust so that the attention that he gains is given because they accept that the value of the product he delivers is high? Or is that just a stunt? Is he just a, somebody can throw money at the problem and actually, is that a way around getting someone's attention? Just throw money and that's, that fixes it. So I,

Steve Pratt: 32:49

I think Mr. Beast is such an interesting example. I'm, I'm glad you brought it up. Cause I think. He does two things really well. A and I think you're right on both counts. Like I, I think he has earned attention over time by being consistently great. But the way that he's great is by being unexpected and like, and I think that he counters a lot of the thinking that, you know, he takes all the money that he makes on and po to even more and more extravagant videos. And there's always this element with a Mr. Beast video of like, what is he gonna do next? And I remember this from the Howard Stern movie, private parts. Uh, you know, just as we're leaning into audio, uh, one of the program directors, I think, so one of the characters like, why does he do so well? And it's like, everybody wants to know what's he gonna do next. And so they don't leave. They stick around whether they love him or they hate him. They wanna know what's he gonna do next. And I think Mr. Beast is kind of the same way. It's, uh, you know, I, sorry to just keep talking about things that I've written for my newsletter, but I, I wrote one this week about being unexpectedly great. And I think that that's the magic combo is that it, when it's unexpected, it kind of breaks a pattern and that's what actually earns your attention is that if it's just the same as everything else out there won't actually, you know, get you to try that first click or that first, oh, I wonder what this is about. Things that are unusual or surprising or unexpected. Break patterns and get you curious. And I think a lot of the short term thinking just leaves you like that and leaves you with no solution or resolution or anything like that. I think the ones that actually pay off and deliver on the surprise or the unexpectedness and help you have a new insight or tell you a great story or provide closure, that's where you get the unexpectedly great, is you actually close the loop. And if you do that over time, I think that's Mr. Beast. And I think, I think that's a wonderful model to solve. And it doesn't have to be shocking stunts, but I think he's found his thing. And oddly, I think he also has a lot of really wonderful human values in it that he's. Giving a lot of stuff away and changing people's lives and a lot of human emotion stuff that works really well for attention too.

Sam Sethi: 34:57

Yeah. Now bringing it back to podcasting a little bit, because obviously Pod News is a podcasting podcast, is that very meta, I feel very meta right now. James with his daily podcast, I think is somebody who consistently and persistently has done for years a really great job of delivering equality piece of content day in, day out. I think he's earned people's trust and I think that's reflected in his numbers. So is that a good example of someone who's earned people's attention and trust?

Steve Pratt: 35:28

Yes, a hundred percent. So I, uh, I love James and I love POD News, and I think James is very conscious of the amount of time and attention he's taking up every day and that there's a trade off between daily and the amount of time that you have. And I always get the sense. That James gives me the stuff that I need to know and is not gonna pad it with stuff that is a waste of my time and attention. And I always feel like when I put my time into listening, I get the stuff that I want out of it in a very efficient manner. And I also get it in uniquely James's voice. There's always a James element in the writing of it, which I look forward to every day. It is, it is not dry corporate speak or industry. It's not, it is not an industry white paper every day. It, it is a fun fast. Here's everything you need to know.

Sam Sethi: 36:19

So he, he ticks all boxes. I'll say

Steve Pratt: 36:21

like, does every single day surprise me in an unexpected way? No. But I think a lot of the stuff that he chooses to focus on and the way that he chooses the, the lead story and things like that, he determines the narrative for a lot of the podcast industry. Or at least taps into the narrative of the podcast industry and helps everybody, you know, kind of get on the same page and know what's going on. I think that's a really valuable. Use of time and attention and he does a great job of it.

Sam Sethi: 36:48

So what's a bad example? Is Joe Rogan a bad example? Then four or five hours of rambling speech with somebody that doesn't focus, it just sort of goes along, but he happens to do very well in terms of his audience numbers. Is that a bad example of someone who's earned our attention or has earned people's attention? Orkel. I've ever watched Joe Rogan and he's earned their trust cuz he's been persistent over time and earned Spotify's trust cuz he earned 200 million. Does that qualify as a good example of a earned

Steve Pratt: 37:18

attention? I think it's a great example of earned attention. I think that this is a really key piece of this is that it depends on who you're trying to reach and you're not gonna, like, when you make something for everybody, you're not really making something for anybody. And I think that you could look at any big podcast and know that some people are gonna absolutely love it and some people are not gonna love it and not understand why the people who love of it, the fact that. Joe Rogan can put out episodes that long and get the size of audience that he's got and be able to have the amount of time and attention spent with him. Would say that he knows his audience really well and does a great job earning their attention. Like I don't know if there's, honestly, I don't know if there's any other craters on the planet that could get the amount of time and attention of people signing up for two or three hour episodes on a regular basis. And I, you know, I think about some of the other big long ones, the, uh, hardcore history, like those episodes take an enormous amount of time to be able to earn that kind of time and attention. But Joe Rogan's doing it several times a week. Two very different models. Two very different, you know, styles of production and they both work for totally different audiences and they both have massively different resources and formats and all those sorts of things. So, um, I think the key is you may not understand why it earns attention from some people or why other people don't understand why you love the shows that you love. But if you're targeting the right people and you understand how to create value for those people, I think about this in terms of like a big mainstream something for everybody as more of a traditional media mindset because, you know, you're trying to aggregate the absolute largest audience possible to sell the most number of ads. And I think it kind of softens a lot of the content, you know, where if you wanna make it for more and more people, it, it becomes less special and it's something that you like, mm-hmm. more than you love, but the, the more that you focus it on a very specific group of people and you're the only person delivering that sort of stuff, or one of the only people or the best. Person delivering that sort of thing. People love it. And when you can tap in and create that extra value that people love the thing, because you're the only one putting it out, that's where you get massive time and attention. And I think Joe Rogan has been one of the few people who's been able to do that at a pretty significant scale.

Sam Sethi: 39:42

Yeah. Kevin Kelly called it The 1000 Tree Fans. Finding Your Audience. Right. And I

Steve Pratt: 39:47

guess I, I love that article. I'm such a fan of that since it came out. Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 39:51

Yeah. It's brilliant. Okay, so I'm a brand new podcaster and I've come to see you, Steve. You're an attention strategist and I need your help. What are you gonna recommend? I do.

Steve Pratt: 40:01

I would recommend a number of different things. So one, figure out why are you doing this? What is the actual desired outcome for your, your podcast? Because knowing why you're doing it will answer almost everything else. Know who you're doing it for. Again, not for everybody, but knowing who the people are and what do you know about them. Looking around at what else is out there that they're already spending their time and attention on, and who's your competition in that space and figuring out what you're gonna do that's gonna be different. I think differentiation is such a big piece of this and you know, in some ways, you know, looking at your own strengths or your own expertise or your own beliefs or your own values and where those overlap with the audience you're trying to serve and the subject you want to talk about or the area you wanna explore. You, you have to figure out something that is gonna be uniquely you, that is gonna create value f on the other side that is also gonna help you achieve your, your goal. And that, that's the hard strategy part, is actually, you know, the then diagram overlap between why I'm putting this out and why other people are gonna love it and listen to it and tell other people about it when you can find that nice overlap piece. That's the magic spot where you have a big success on both sides. And I, I think, you know, when you talk about negotiating and things like that, you always look for like the win-win situation. You have to look for the win-win where it's not just a win for you, but it is a massive win for the audience. And when, when you feel like you've got that, I would say that's when you can actually start thinking about putting a podcast out. But don't, don't do it until you actually have the strategy piece of where the value comes from.

Sam Sethi: 41:40

Okay. So the famous saying is, what doesn't get measured doesn't matter. So how do I measure earned attention?

Steve Pratt: 41:49

I think it's, it is a great question. I actually think, and you know, and I, I'm biased on this because I think from my background at Pacific Content, I've talked about this for a, a long time, but I think a lot of the numbers that a lot of podcasting uses are not necessarily good markers for time or attention or value creation. A focus on downloads or on, you know, if you're doing an ad campaign on reach, Are really just about blanket numbers of how many people, but doesn't actually tell you whether once they clicked on it, whether they liked it or not. And so I, I very much like the idea of measuring time as a marker for attention. You know, we used to look at completion rates and Apple and Spotify and show those to, to clients to say like, here, here's how your podcast is actually doing. If you can get, you know, 85, 90, 90 5% of your audience through a half hour episode, you're doing a phenomenal job on earning people's time and attention. It's a marker for editorial quality and whether you're actually creating value for them or not. And if you, you know, you can learn all sorts of stuff, looking at time and attention in your metrics. If everybody leaves, you know, like 50% of your audience leaves in the first minute. Doesn't sound like a very interesting episode. How, however you've set it up. Not super interesting . Yeah, no. My friends at Bumper, Dan Meisner and just put out the idea of listen time and a, a way to calculate listen time for your podcast. I think it's really smart as a way to say, let's talk about how much time people are giving us as a way to measure whether what we're putting into the world is valuable or not. I think it's really smart and, you know, YouTube has watched time. I think there's, uh, I know you built a tool to measure time and attention on the web a while ago, 16 years ago. Yeah. Like it's, uh, yeah. So anyways, I think, think that as a substitute, you know, like that we should be leaning more into time and a time measurement and engagement. It's a bigger value of how we think about success of podcasts because man, that's one of the superpowers of audio compared to almost every other medium. I don't know where else you can get, you know, on average a half hour of people's full attention and time on an ongoing basis. You sure can't get that on, on YouTube or on social media or. You know, any other platform.

Sam Sethi: 44:05

So if we move forward, then earning attention is what we try. Everyone's trying this game though, right? Everyone is trying it. Is it just a time thing? Is there a short circuit to getting more attention, I suppose, is my question?

Steve Pratt: 44:20

Well, you know what, I, I think a short circuit, uh, and if you mean like a, is there a faster route to doing it or a secret formula doing it? I think that's what everybody wants. And the, the unpleasant answer I'm giving is no, you actually have to figure out how to create value and it, you have to do it consistently over time to earn trust and earn relationships. And that means you have to really bust your butt to put out something great. You know, I think just when you're talking about downloads and downloads, you know, as a metric, it kind of plays into this. Cause I think there's, this, there's a, a really tough tension in podcasting because it's all CPM based advertising., the best way to make more money is to put out more episodes and to produce them really efficiently. And to me that's almost like an invitation to make content that is not worth people's time as attention as much as fewer things better, but fewer things better. You know, I look at all the, like every show Serial has made, everybody waits for it, but it takes years to make one of those things and it's not as good a business. And I think in some ways if I looked at the amount of time and attention that each episode of something from serial productions gets, it must dwarf everything else in the entire industry out there. But we don't have a way to actually value that and monetize that. And I think that's the business problem that I think podcasting hopefully will figure out how to solve. Because if, you know, if I wanted to connect to an audience and., you know what I would put my time and attention into figuring out how can I reach the serial audience rather than the ones that are putting out 5, 6, 7 episodes a day at a huge amount where the quality is not as high.

Sam Sethi: 46:08

Now, look, in my head, I've, I've got the idea. I've got, I need people to listen. So the number of people to listen to my podcast, I need them to listen for a longer period of time. Listen time. So first of all, I. earn their attention so that they come to it. Then I need them to listen for a period, which is a measurement I can put in place. The last bit I want to do, which is a metric that I'm really keen on, is something Adam Curry has been driving called Value For Value. Now, micropayments, when I first started on the internet, oh, years ago, bluff 30 odd years ago. Gosh, yes. Really that long? There was no Micropayment system, right? And hearts and sentiments. I've said this many times, were the only way, and then advertising was the only way to monetize. Well, that's change where Satoshi's a micropayments of Bitcoin and that value for value is, is that also a really good way of measuring the value of the attention someone applies. I'm prepared to give you streaming SATs. I'm prepared to pay attention, literally, in this case, pay attention for the whole of your episode. So the longer I pay attention to, the more I pay in value. For value. Do you think that's. Ultimately the best measurement of someone's attention, the amount they're willing to pay you in a micropayment.

Steve Pratt: 47:27

I don't know if it's the best for everybody, but I think it's a really smart way of thinking about it for certain use cases or business cases, the idea of value for value, like the principles behind it, I think are wonderful because, you know, in some ways, uh, if I want to charge you more than you're willing to pay, I'm not creating enough value for you. And that's a great signal exactly. To say like, I should really double down and think more about why you're not willing to pay that much. You know? But I, I would say the o the why I say it's not a, maybe a universal thing is that it's assuming that it is a listener paying a creator. And there's a lot of different reasons to make podcast or to put content in the universe that are not that direct one-to-one creator support model. Um, like I said, there's a lot of different reasons, a lot of different potential outcomes. Why you want, may wanna make a podcast. But in principle, the idea of thinking about value for value all the time, and are there ways to measure that? And maybe some of those might be measuring your time, that if you're not getting the time, you're not creating the value either that maybe the value for value is, I'm putting something out there and they, I get a 95% completion rate on every episode. That probably says a lot about the value for value you're, you're creating even if you make

Sam Sethi: 48:34

no money from it. Yeah. I mean,

Steve Pratt: 48:35

but I guess in some ways making money from it. It's not the only reason people make podcasts anyways. I'm sorry I'm repeating myself, but I think in a certain context it's really smart and, and it makes a ton of sense. And the principle, you, you should be thinking about that all the time as a creator is, how can I create enough value that it's gonna return to me at some point in some way, shape, or form? by being awesome over time and building the, the trust and the relationships.

Sam Sethi: 49:01

Attention strategist. Hey, that's worked. Got my attention, Steve Pratt.

Steve Pratt: 49:05

Uh, let's see what the completion rate is on this one. We'll, love, who knows? You let me know. Okay., Sam Sethi: a hundred percent. Always gonna be a hundred percent. Where can I find out more about this though? Tell me. Uh, creativity business.com is my website and I have a sub that you can see on there that, like a newsletter that's free. I write a lot about how to earn attention every couple weeks. So yeah, that'd be great.

Sam Sethi: 49:28

Thanks. and if they want you, let's be up to trend. Are you a master on or are you still on Twitter? Where are you, Steve? I'm on Twitter

Steve Pratt: 49:37

at steve pratt ca, which is Canada, not a charter accountant. Yeah, I'm on there sometimes for now. We'll see.

Sam Sethi: 49:46

Yeah. So he is, you're not paying attention over there. Where do you pay attention then? You know

Steve Pratt: 49:51

what, hon? Honestly, I like podcasts. I like audio books. I like reading. I think I'm in a phase where I like, I, I don't like a lot of shallow. Uh, stuff like I'm, I like meaty stuff. I like learning. I have high amount of curiosity, so I go for the bigger stuff. And then when I need a break, I, sadly, probably on TikTok much So. snack on TikTok. Yeah,

Sam Sethi: 50:10

exactly. Yes. Yeah., Steve Pratt. So nice to have met you. Fine Linkford seeing you in Vegas. And, uh, sharing a beer with you.

Steve Pratt: 50:17

Thanks so much, Sam.

James Cridland: 50:18

I can't wait too. See you next week. The very excellent Steve Pratt from, uh, Vancouver in Canada. One of the best places to live apparently, although whenever I've been there, it's been quite cold and rainy. Uh, Um, and what I'm looking forward to seeing Steve at, uh, podcast Movement Evolutions next week as well, where I know he's coming because, uh, I have drinks with him at one point. So, uh, very much looking forward to, uh, uh, seeing him. He's one of those really infectious, positive people. Um, he, he never has a bad word to say about anybody, or if he does, he then follows it up with two very, very positive things, . So, uh, very much looking forward to, uh, to, uh, seeing him there. Yeah, we,

Sam Sethi: 50:58

um, we probably have a different opinion on, on this, don't we? I think, James, I think I'm very positive on the idea that listen, time and attention as a metric, if it can be evolved, I don't think it's fully baked, but if it can be evolved Mm. Uh, maybe a better way of measuring value from podcasting than download. Yeah.

James Cridland: 51:22

I mean, I, I, I think from my point of view is I, I put together a show which is four minutes long every day. Um, and, uh, I wonder whether POD news, which is four minutes every day, is a less valuable listen than this show, which is about 150 minutes every week, and, and growing . Uh, it's not, it's not quite that long, is it? It's about, it's about 80 minutes, but yes. Um, You know, from my point of view, I don't want to see, and this is one of the problems with streaming SATs. Streaming SATs, um, and listen time both reward you for being flabby and for not editing out, um, bits of your podcast that don't work and the aim of the game, particularly if you are being paid by the minute, as streaming SATs does, then the aim of the game is to keep people listening for as long as possible, whereas my aim of the game is to give people the best possible value that they can possibly get in the shortest possible time. So listen time or indeed streaming SATs actually penalizes me for doing a good editing job, and I'm not necessarily. A massive fan of that bit. So, um, you know, I, I think you've got that kind of side of it. I, I, can I

Sam Sethi: 52:38

throw one, one curve ball back at you then on that? Just very quickly. Go on then. So, if the streaming SATs was a hundred SATs per minute, and yes, you're right, a longer podcast would have a perceived longer value, maybe 6,000, 7,000 SATs for the whole show because it was longer, say 60 minutes. But if I only consumed 10 or 15 minutes off that show, that's all I would pay. I wouldn't pay that full amount because I wouldn't perceive the value of that show. So making the show f flabbier and longer doesn't mean that I pay more. It just means that I jump or skip or whatever to the parts that I find interesting. I just consume Indeed.

James Cridland: 53:15

Secondly, yeah.

Sam Sethi: 53:17

You as the host can change that value proposition. So there's two sides to it. So you might say, actually, you know what, a hundred stats per minute? No, mine is only four minutes long, but I think the value I give is a thousand stats per minute, and you could charge a greater amount of course. Then it comes down to the user or listener to say, yes, I fully agree with you. Your show's worth more than a hundred cent per minute, and actually a thousand cent per minute for a four minute show is exactly what I want to pay. I'm just saying that the amount is not fixed, so therefore, the amount of time is not the only metric. So you can increase the amount of streaming stats per minute. I e, the value on one side because the value received on the other side is much greater for a four minute show than it is for an hour and a half.

James Cridland: 54:02

Well, yes, I, I, I, I, I think you know, it, it, it all comes down to how you get rewarded for that attention that, um, your audience is giving you. And, um, so I, I, you know, I think that there's certainly something to be said for listen time. I think there's certainly something to be said for downloads as well. And perhaps the, the answer is it's somewhere in the

Sam Sethi: 54:25

middle, I think. So, I think a beer with Steve, you, me and him and a few others might come up with the answer. Who knows? Now talking about where you are in the world, Australia seems to be doing lots and lots of things. You are on a plane somewhere. I think to Sydney, yes. To go and see an event. Tell me more what you were up to.

James Cridland: 54:42

Truth mate. Yes. I went down to, uh, Sydney. Um, it's getting better at that Australian accent. It's almost as if I've lived here for six years. It is. Yeah. Uh, anyway, yes. Um, so I went down to the IAB Australia. Um, audio Summit, which was really interesting. Lots of, uh, entertaining people there. Lots of, um, fans of the show, which was nice. Um, and uh, one of the announcements there was, um, CEO Ford Als of commercial radio and audio, the company that used to be called Commercial Radio Australia. They, uh, announced three more people that will be joining the Australian Podcast Ranker. There's, uh, um, one podcast publisher called The Squeeze. There's one podcast publisher called Shameless Media. You probably don't care about those. The one that we do care about is the abc, which is the biggest podcaster in this country, and they will be joining the Australian Podcast Ranker. So I understand in the next few months, which is very exciting because that, um, basically means that the Australian Podcast Ranker will actually be worth something now because it will actually have. All of the very big podcasters in it. Um, so that's, uh, nice. I did speak to, uh, Henrik at, uh, Acast, who was, uh, hanging around outside afterwards. And, uh, Henrik is actually, um, was keen to, um, say that, um, Acast was not against these sorts of rankers. Um, that, that, that's very different from saying he's going to join, but . But he was also saying that Acast isn't against them, uh, which is a good thing. Uh, there was also a piece of, um, research unveiled by the I b Australia, um, the audio advertising State of the Nation report, um, which basically said that, uh, lots of advertising agencies have been using podcast advertising regularly. 70% of them, which is up from 36% in 2020. And overall, the, uh, money that's been pouring into podcasting in this country, um, is, uh, 55 million US dollars in 2022, um, which is a pretty good amount of, uh, money for a country that only has 29 million people in it. Um, the overall ad market saw a nice growth in the first six months last year, 15%, and still a growth in the second half of the year. 4%. Um, and I suspect that that's what we are seeing in a bunch of other territories as well. Um, big increases in the first half of 2022, um, smaller increases, or indeed, you know, standing still in the last half of, uh, 2022. And we'll see what happens uh, this year. There you go in People News. Um, in Canada, Roger's own Pacific content is to restructure. Layoffs are expected. Their layoffs are also expected. iHeart podcasts at npr, which is interesting, uh, they are losing 10%, a hundred people of their workforce due to a 30 million projected revenue shortfall for this year. And the CEO o specifically cited NPR podcasts as being. A part of the, uh, company which was not doing as well as it could be doing. Um, I think possibly because there was a point a couple of years ago where NPR podcasts were essentially bankrolling the entire company. Um, they were doing phenomenally well, and, um, now maybe not so much as the advertising market, uh, softens. Um, but, uh, yeah, not, uh, good. But it's not all bad news. Um, there is some, uh, good news. Nick Pinella has joined, uh, apa, which is a talent agency. He's launching a new podcast and audio division there. Diana Martinez has taken on the role of podcast relations director at sonoro. Um, Brittany Hall is joining. As Vice President of Sales and Client Success. Uh, and there's a new editor at Australian Women's Brand, uh, mam, Alfie Scott, who's been appointed, uh, as, uh, edited there mam, doing, uh, a load of really good, uh, podcasts as well. Uh, so it's not all bad news and in fact, there's quite a lot of jobs available too. Pod News has podcasting jobs across the industry and across the world, and they're free to post at pod news.net/jobs. The tech stuff, tech stuff on the

Steve Pratt: 58:48

pod news weekly review.

James Cridland: 58:51

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. And here's where we do all of the, uh, tech talk. What's new in tech this week? Sam Mammoth

Sam Sethi: 58:59

is a brand new iPhone app from Bart Decrem. Uh, he's on Maton at Bart Moth Social. Um, it's interesting only for me because, uh, Mozilla have invested heavily into it. Uh, so yeah, not sure how much they've invested, but it's interesting to see that Mozilla are getting their teeth into Maam. Yes, and

James Cridland: 59:21

Mozilla are, um, I think, uh, very interested in the whole world of podcasting as well. And if, uh, um, and, and you know, I ended up having a, a good chat with one of the Mozilla people, uh, today as well. They see something, uh, really in interesting, in the decentralized world of. Podcasting. And I'm, uh, hoping that they, uh, perhaps invest a little bit into the podcast index. Um, and also hoping that they, um, you know, I mean, maybe ha having a look at, um, at, uh, apps as well. That would be really interesting too. Um, so good to, uh, hear from them. Uh, that's not the only, um, bit of social media, uh, stuff. Uh, blue Sky has, uh, hit the App Store as an invite only app. Now, blue Sky is one of those, uh, things that, um, is another social media platform. Um, it's backed by Jack Dorsey rather Irritatingly. It doesn't use Activity Pub. It's using a completely separate thing. Um, so who knows what's gonna happen with that. But, um, you know, again, uh, that, that is also brand new. Have you b have you gotten, uh, an invite only beat? No. I'm sure that you, you know, Jack, I'm sure you know, you know, every. What I'm following

Sam Sethi: 1:00:33

him on must on. He followed me back, but that doesn't

James Cridland: 1:00:35

count. I'm following him on Noster and yes, , he doesn't count

Sam Sethi: 1:00:39

now. I've got him there as well. Yeah. No, he's not said hello. He's not even, you know, not drop me a sat, nothing, not a word jack. Um, but I went on and had a look. Um, yeah, it's his invite only, so, yeah. We'll wait and see. Um, Benjamin Bellamy friend of the show gave his a little hat tip. He said There's a new ProCard core mumble, which is an open source, low latency, high quality voice chat. He came outta the gaming world, but he said mumble lah called all your speakers and guests separately. With one audio file per person, and therefore it's actually being used by some people for recording

James Cridland: 1:01:14

podcasts. Yeah, which looks, uh, exciting. Although the website looks, uh, very much like an open source product would do. Um, so it, uh, pretty well instantly dives into, uh, the new versioning scheme, which is their latest news. So that's important. Um, but you can use, uh, mumble for that. You can also, of course use Discord for that as well. Um, I would recommend, um, if you are interested in this sort of thing, uh, using clean feed, uh, which, uh, has a very generous free tier. Uh, you'll find that@cleanfeed.net. Uh, the two marks who run that, um, do a really good job. Um, and they've, uh, really worked hard on making that product work nicely. And again, you get one audio file per person. Uh, if you end up using that too. Now another

Sam Sethi: 1:02:01

product that uh, you may know more about James and me is called Rumble Studio. And they're internationalizing, they use Interface is now available in French and Spanish with more languages

James Cridland: 1:02:11

to come soon. Yeah. So this is a way of, um, doing a podcast without. Your guest being live. So basically you ask them questions and then they sit and record the answers. Um, which is, uh, interesting. I've done a couple of Rumble podcasts, um, and they're always, um, a bit weird to do, but they kind of work quite nicely in my time zone. So, uh, that's nice to end up, uh, seeing. Uh, there's a new service called Pod Squeeze, which is yet another one of these, um, ai uh, services, which, uh, generates show notes and timestamps and newsletters and blah, blah, blah. Uh, there's a new one called Podium, which guess what uses AI to produce show notes and transcripts and chapters, quotable moments. Uh, so that's all very exciting. Uh, Spreaker, um, is doing something really interesting now. It is, uh, Friday, so I can actually, oh, can I actually say this? I'm not allowed to say the big announcement that Sprier. Quite yet, but I can tell you that Sprier is offering transcriptions for podcasts, which is very exciting. They've partnered with a company called Musics Match. Um, I couldn't quite work out from their press release whether or not those transcriptions were free, whether or whether it was just a partnership and, and they, you can buy transcriptions from music's match. So I'm a little bit confused as to that. Um, but it does use the podcast transcript feature and the Jason, um, uh, uh, transcript format, um, so that it, it will appear in supporting podcast apps, which may not be the supporting podcast apps that are supporting the S R RT files. But anyway, that's a whole open thing. Uh, but that's all very exciting. And Podbean too has announced support for transcripts last week. They squashed that into their app and it works great on this very show, which I tested it on. So that's a nice

Sam Sethi: 1:04:00

thing. Yeah. Um, in case you're wondering about pod squeezing. Podium. Uh, last night open AI announced the chat G B T api, so fully expect a lot more companies to announce instant transcripts, show notes, chapters and clips for your

James Cridland: 1:04:15

podcasts Open. Uh, podcast analytics service OP P three, uh, made a really big release. Uh, at the end of last week, they released show stats pages. So basically you can go and you can have a look at download stats and where people are downloading from and what people are using for loads of different podcasts now. Basically any podcast that has listed itself in o P three. Uh, now has, uh, all of the, uh, stats as well. And if you want to go and see some of those, um, then, uh, you can, uh, see them all on the Pod News website. You can just search for a podcast that is in OP three. Uh, and you can, uh, see their stats. So Pod News Daily, for example, is in, uh, op three. This show isn't, but Pod News Daily is. Um, so you can see our stats directly, uh, from the pod news, uh, podcast page. Uh, also buzz cast from our sponsors at Buzz Sprout. Uh, an excellent podcast. You should go and, uh, and, uh, have a listen to. Um, and the numbers, um, are there for that show as well. If you want to go and have a look at that or for no agenda or for pod chat or. Build your SaaS, which is just in at, uh, transistors podcast, uh, you know, and so on and so forth. So there's a bunch of different, um, uh, different shows that you can actually go in and, uh, see and really good and quite affirming actually to be able to go in and go, oh, that's how many downloads, you know, buzz Sprout are getting for their show. That's how many downloads Pod News Daily is getting, and so on and so forth. So really interesting seeing, uh, how all of those are actually working.

Sam Sethi: 1:05:55

So remind me cuz I still get confused by OB three. Um, is this something that the. Individual host does to their RSS feed, or is this something that the host provides, or is this something that APP provides provide in order to enable

James Cridland: 1:06:12

OP P three? This is something that you enable as a podcast publisher, and you go to your hosting company and you add a prefix just as you would add a prefix for pod sites or for Chartable or for any of those other services. You can add a prefix to, um, o P three directly. Uh, from there, uh, many, uh, podcast, uh, companies like, uh, captivate allow you to do that directly from the dashboard. And, uh, captivates data is, uh, prefilled for OP three. If you want to end up doing that. Other podcast companies like, uh, Buzzsprout, for example, do support it, but you need to ask their supporting, uh, staff to add that particular. Analytics tool for you, which is probably a good plan because it's very easy to completely mess up your podcast completely, um, if you set that up wrongly. Um, but uh, yeah, anybody can actually set it up and, uh, at the moment, OP three is entirely free. No idea how John is, um, is, uh, paying for it. Um, but I'm catching up with him next week, so hopefully I will learn a little bit more.

Sam Sethi: 1:07:16

He's a Zulu, he doesn't need to work anymore., all Zu

James Cridland: 1:07:19

never work. Yes. Well, I, I, I think that may be the case, but it would be nice. It'd be nice to have a, a, a long-term plan there as well, wouldn't it? Oh,

Sam Sethi: 1:07:28

okay.. Um, moving on then. Uh, well done, John, by the way, uh, new Shaq's dashboard has been announced. Dashboard, a version a 0.3 was out, uh, some changes in it. You can now create a lightning wallet and get your podcast value for value ready with a few clicks, and you can also manage your splits. I didn't quite understand why. Maritz and I had a long conversation with him, why you would want to use a, uh, dashboard very similar to Saturn, to start your splits, uh, in your RSS feed. I couldn't quite see the. That, but maybe I'm missing the trick. James, any thoughts? It's

James Cridland: 1:08:08

all looking a bit fancy and a bit smart. Um, I'm, I'm literally just, uh, logging in now so I can, I, I'm, I'm actually having a quick peek. This is, uh, this is from the Todd Cochran School of um, podcast, um, uh, planning . Just having a look. I'm just, I'm just typing here. I'm just having a look. Um, but it all looks, uh, very cool. All looks very, very smart. So, uh, yeah, it's a good thing. Yeah. The UI

Sam Sethi: 1:08:34

is good. Uh, and, and I think the data's good. Um, I'm just a little confused as to why I would do

James Cridland: 1:08:39

a split. I think I will tell you what's going on there. I think it's talking directly to the podcast, uh, to the podcaster wallet.. And, um, I think it then allows you to, um, uh, allows you to actually get that information into the, uh, into the podcaster wallet, which quite a few, uh, podcast apps end up using because it's quite difficult to add your splits to, um, you know, to anything else. And in fact, I can tell you that that's what's going on because for Pod News Daily, it won't let me change my splits. It says this Podcast's value for value data is managed directly in its rss. Correct. Whereas pod News's weekly review, which is managed by the podcaster wallet, um, I can actually go in and, uh, change them. So it's a nicer experience than the podcaster wallet, uh, site, which is, um, you know, functional. Okay. Well,

Sam Sethi: 1:09:35

This is the mo moment where, uh, you tell me where you're gonna be, which plane, which airport, which country? Go for it, James.

James Cridland: 1:09:42

Oh, well, yes, this is, um, events coming up. Um, we'll have a jingle for this soon. Uh, I've, I've got it recorded and everything. Um, so podcast movement. Finally here, March the seventh, uh, is when it starts. I'm actually getting into Las Vegas, um, on Sunday afternoon. Uh, so, uh, looking forward to having a, a day of rest before the madness. Um, you are speaking, aren't you, on Wednesday, March the eighth at 11 in the morning? I am, yeah.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:11

I'm on stage with the guys from Alby and we are doing a live demo of Polands. So if you wanna see what Polands is about, do make your way over to wherever the room is. Yeah, I dunno what room. Please mate

James Cridland: 1:10:23

your way. Yeah. Excellent. Um, I am taking part in a number of different things, including a panel session on Wednesday, March the eighth at 10 in the morning, uh, which you should probably come to. This very show is gonna be live, live, live, live

Steve Pratt: 1:10:37

from the

James Cridland: 1:10:37

keynote stage at podcast movement on Thursday, March the ninth. I don't think I should come to that one then. Yeah, so should come to that one. Yes. Let, let's make sure that both of us go to that. Um, yeah, which is on Thursday, March the ninth. It's on the big, uh, keynote, uh, stage at 12 midday. Um, we need to find some guests. We should probably talk afterwards. Um, I'm also unveiling the pond. I hear there's

Sam Sethi: 1:11:00

only standing ramoni though, for it

James Cridland: 1:11:02

standing room remote. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that would be nice, wouldn't it? Um, I'm also doing the pod, the, uh, pod news, report card, um, later on that day. Um, in, uh, the big keynote session, I'm at present writing my jokes. I, I'm obviously, I haven't yet looked at the data, but I'm present. I'm just writing my jokes. Um, and, uh, I'm also doing something else on the Friday morning, uh, as well. Uh, the ambi of course, uh, happening on the Monday night just before podcast movement revolutions. Um, and, uh, if you are listening to this podcast, then you are invite. This is how it works, right? Um, to the, to our drinks at Podcast Movement evolutions. Um, they are at BrewDog in Las Vegas on the Thursday night, starting at six, uh, at night. Um, BrewDog is really easy to get to, uh, just have a look on Google Maps, but you just jump on the, the monorail and where you go. Um, and, uh, and, uh, Adam Curry, much to his annoyance is, uh, is, uh, buying the beers., thanks to his, yes, uh, very generous SATs and to Dave Jones'. Very generous. Uh, SATs. He's buying some of the beers, although quite a lot of it will be a cash bar, just. Just saying. Um, but, uh, you are more than welcome to come down. Uh, it would be wonderful to, uh, see you just come and, um, come down to the BrewDog, uh, British Pub, um, uh, from six, uh, in Las Vegas on the Thursday.

Sam Sethi: 1:12:27

Hmm. What other events are going on after, uh, podcast

James Cridland: 1:12:31

movement, James? Oh, there are lots of other events, uh, including, uh, iHeart's Black Effect Podcast Festival, which is in April. Also the Birmingham Podcast Festival 2023. That's in Birmingham on the sec 22nd of April as well, uh, which is a Saturday. It's really cheap to go to that. It's about a tenor, so it's, um, really cheap. So well worth, uh, doing that. Um, Radio Days. Europe is happening at the end of March as well, which I will also be at. And there's also the publisher podcast awards in London on the 26th of April. And, uh, there's Pod Fest Global, which is also happening, um, I think towards the end of March. But, uh, if you take a quick peak, um, at, uh, the listing in the pod news website, then you will find out that it is free for you as a pod news listener, stroke reader. Just use the code pod news and you'll save yourself $50 on us, which you sh you can then send to us as a boost. Uh, that will be very kind. Uh, there's more of those, uh, events going on, both paid for and free. Uh, pod news.net/events, including. Ours. Um, we will be doing pod News live in Sulfur in Greater Manchester on June the 13th. Won't we, Sam? We will indeed.

Sam Sethi: 1:13:45

Yes. At the Compass Rooms, at the Larry Theater. Tickets are now available@podnews.net slash live. So, Go and grab a ticket if you can. And also, of course we have the POD News Live London event on the 27th of September. And yes, very excited. We've got some more speakers, uh, announced. Um, I think we mentioned it last week, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. So we've got Charlotte Newing, head of commercial from Mags Creative. Uh, we've got Helen Parker, the managing director from Chalk and Blade. Uh, we've also got Kirsty Hunter, one of your fellow anti Ians, whos a Brit, strangely from, uh, story Hunter and Lizzy Pollard from, uh, the SVP of Marketing from Acast as well. Uh, and added to that list is Harry Morton from Lower Street, Morton GaN, and the CEO of Pomo, and somebody called Darby Doris, the director of content from Listen. So. Please go along. Oh yes,

James Cridland: 1:14:45

I know Darby. Uh,

Sam Sethi: 1:14:46

excellent. Yes, so please go along. Uh, as I said to a pod news.net/live, that's where we'll be updating all the details about all of our events.

James Cridland: 1:14:55

Indeed. And that's where you can buy, uh, tickets as well for those, uh, events that we have, uh, organized that for as well. Pod news.net/live booster

Steve Pratt: 1:15:04

Graham Booster Graham corner,

James Cridland: 1:15:06

corner corner on the POD News Weekly review. Yes, it. Favorite time of the show. It's Booster Graham Corner. Uh, very excellent to see a boost from, uh, Dave Jones, the pod s he says, if anyone can find the missing Acast feeds, it's the Swedish Trickler Christoph ic. Ah, yes. Now, um, let me, uh, tell you about the missing Acast feeds. So you might remember, uh, last week or maybe the week before, I was talking about, uh, Acast who claim that they have 92,000 registered shows. But if you have a look inside the podcast Index or indeed listen notes or anywhere else, basically, then you can only see about 30,000 of them. And I was a bit curious about this, and so I did a lot of digging, uh, and I did a lot of digging with, uh, Molly, who works for a cast's PR team and a and, uh, Molly presumably has been swearing under her breath, uh, at me, um, finding out all of the details. But actually, um, yeah, it does actually add up because there are private shows in there. There are, um, additional shows in there, uh, from Pippa that aren't always counted particularly well. Um, and there are also a bunch of, uh, shows which are basically, um, it's, it's basically hidden the fact that Acast actually do them, um, because Acast has a thing called Flex, which means that publishers can use their own domains for RSS feeds and their own domains for audio as well, and all of this kind of stuff. And so, you know, um, small, uh, podcast publishers that you may have heard of like the BBC or The Guardian, um, use that sort of thing so those don't end up being, uh, listed. So actually it, it's probably fair that they are, uh, that they do have about 93,000. So now we know.

Sam Sethi: 1:16:51

It's no longer hidden then, right?

James Cridland: 1:16:54

You're happy? Yes. I, I, I think it's, I I think it's all good. I, I think there is not a story there. Good. Sam Sethi: Who else Oh, uh, I thought you were gonna do some, but, uh, Kyron, who I saw on Monday, uh, he, uh, has just seen the new podcast pages on his two YouTube accounts. He's been approved for the, uh, test, which is going on, as have I actually. Um, and he says basically they're just a newer, slightly more fancy version of a playlist, so nothing special. Yes, I would agree with that. Thank you for the row of Ducks. 22, 22 Satz Brian of London sent us a Israel boost of 1948. Surely the right metric is listen, time per download. Well, Possibly, although I would argue again, completion time per download, maybe, who knows? Mm-hmm. or, or, and indeed who cares? Um, sorting how I keep on calling sorting because he or she hasn't actually told us how I'm supposed to be pronouncing your name. Anyway, uh, they have sent us a thousand sets. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure to listen to. Uh, and one more from, uh, Dave Jones, which has magically appeared in front of me. It's almost as if this is a dynamic document. Um, Mitch Downey is one of the most thoughtful people I've ever met. Yes, he's just a solid guy. All round 10,000 SATs from Dave Jones. Thank you, uh, Dave, that's very kind. If you do get value from what we do, the pod news weekly review separate from Pod news, so Sam and I share everything from it. We really appreciate your support so we can continue making this show. And as you've probably heard, uh, some of these SATs go directly into beer, so that's a good thing too. Um, you can either become a power supporter@weekly.podnews.net. Which is a beautiful way of, of, uh, supporting us through, uh, buzz Sprout, our sponsor. You can subscribe in Apple Podcasts at apple.co/pod news or hit 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 just like Fountain, perhaps. Uh, so that's a good thing too. Now James,

Sam Sethi: 1:18:54

one more thing, just so add, um, if you listen to the podcast 2.0 show last week, Adam was very adamant that nobody should be listening on a higher speed than one X to any podcast. It does your brain. And he said, um, there is a tone for that called pod speeding, basically. Um, and Adam is anti Podd speeding. So I just wanted to let you know, I end

James Cridland: 1:19:16

up using, uh, I end up listening to Podcasting 2.0 at about 1.4, uh, speed. Uh, and I also use the, um, the silence, uh, cutting, uh, tool in. PocketCasts. Um, and that's one of the reasons why I don't use Fountain yet, because there's no silent skipping tool in that yet. Um, but, um, in, in terms of that, that that is a game changer for certain shows, particularly for shows like, uh, the new media show with, um, Todd and, uh, Rob. That's right, Todd. Um, uh, you know, it does get rid of an awful lot of, um, of gaps and stuff like that. So, um, yeah, I, I, I, I think it's up to, up to you and, um, and you know, So, there we go. Anyway, um, what's happening for you this week? Uh, and next week, Sam? Well,

Sam Sethi: 1:20:06

uh, this week as I said, we've added more speakers to, uh, our events, which I'm very excited about Also. Uh, I had my dinner with James Bishop from One Fine Play. Thank you, James. It was very good in the middle of Hammersmith and lots of very clever independent podcasts over there. Very open discussion, and I met up with Naomi Mela for lunch, and so, yes, she will be coming onto the show in a couple of weeks time to talk about the International Women's Podcast Awards, as well as the podcast publisher awards going on

James Cridland: 1:20:34

in London. Very nice. When do we all get a play with, uh, podcast fans? Then? Do we have to wait for your, um, excellently crafted speech at podcast movement, or can we, uh, can we get in. No.

Sam Sethi: 1:20:46

Uh, as of today, Friday, the 3rd of March, uh, you can go to a pod Vans fm. That's where it's been hiding. Uh, we've now removed the Google, um, robot text, so now it'll be indexed, hopefully by Google and you can find us. So yes, pod vans.fm. Go along there. Register. Um, and yes, I will be adding people to, uh, have a play. Be gentle. It is an alpha, but, uh, we'd love your feedback. James Cridland: Very nice. Um, and, uh, the last time, uh, I saw you face-to-face, you were, uh, driving a very, very fancy, very big car, um, which to me looked brand new. So it's, um, it's surprising, um, , but, uh, I noticed that you've bought another new car. Yes. Um, what have you bought? Well, it's the same car. It's a Range Rover. We had to get rid of it. So, uh, uh, Oh, we had to get rid of it. Well, it's called the lease it they sort of allow. Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this one though comes with Alexa built in as well. So it's quite fun. So you can tell it what loads today. But I've got a funny story. My wife drove it yesterday cuz it's a hybrid and she rang me from where we lived about a mile away. Go, the car won't start, it just won't start. And I'm like, really? It's brand new? I mean, what's wrong? Because it's an electric car, it makes no sound when you start it and say, yes. She was adamant that it wouldn't start . So I had to walk for half an hour with a spare set of keys to go and find her, to tell her that actually I had started.

James Cridland: 1:22:20

No, please. There you go. Yes. I, I have, cause I drive a hybrid as well, although my car is, uh, six years old now, seven years old. Um, and, um, yes, when you turn it on, it makes no noise whatsoever. And so, um, uh, when my parents were over, I, I, I ended up having to ha having to turn the car on and then said, Right. We're just about to move then. So it didn't come as a shock.. Oh,

Sam Sethi: 1:22:46

well anyway, here we go. Anyway, that's me. James, what's been happening for you this

James Cridland: 1:22:49

week and next? Well, I am looking forward to, um, uh, the podcast show, uh, 2023. They sent out some very fancy, uh, graphics, uh, which I, Julie tweeted like they asked me to, and apparently that got a lot of engagement, whatever that means. So that's good news. Um, and I was in the Daily Telegraph. I I would hope that you haven't seen it because you know it's the Daily Telegraph, but, um, , no. Yeah, I was, uh, I was called a radio expert. Uh, in there. I was talking about the switch off of am, which is going on in the uk. Lots of radio stations coming off the AM dial. Um, and I also, uh, wrote a personal blog about, um, radio G P T, which is a, um, the idea is it's a live and local radio station, which is entirely run by ai. I'm not. Quite sure that it really is, but it's a pretty impressive thing. I really wanted to hate it being an old radio dj. I really wanted to hate it, but it turned out that it was actually quite good. Rather annoyingly, um, I'm

Sam Sethi: 1:23:48

worried about you. Mm-hmm. I, I'm genuinely worried cuz a, you said radio G B T wasn't as bad as he thought. In fact, it was nearly good. Mm-hmm.. And then you went off on one and said the Spotify DJ wasn't as bad as he thought either. Are you taking

James Cridland: 1:24:02

your medication? Ah, no, I, I didn't say that the Spotify DJ wasn't as bad as I thought. I, I said that, uh, my friend, uh, uh, Sean Ross thought that actually it wasn't as bad, um, as, uh, as, uh, he first thought. So quite a lot of this is, I think, really interesting. It's, it's, um, people's assumption that it's going to be rubbish because it's what they think AI is, and then they actually hear it and they go, oh, I wasn't expecting it to be as good as that. Um, which I think is really interesting, and I think it ties in very closely with, um, the things that, uh, Leo Laport said about podcasting to your 0.0, the other week. And I think it also ties in with, you know, what Marco Ahmond was saying? The, um, the developer of, uh, overcast was saying about podcasting 2.0. In a podcast, uh, this week, uh, he was basically, um, not, um, particularly impressed at a few things again, because I think he'd made assumptions about what it was rather than properly had a look at things, so, mm-hmm. Yeah. I find all of that. You know, really interesting. It's possibly time for us to go. So that's it for this week.

Sam Sethi: 1:25:08

You can give us feedback using email to weekly app pod news.net. Or better still, send us a booster Grammy. If your podcast app doesn't support boosts, then grab a new app from pod news.net/new podcast

James Cridland: 1:25:20

app. Our music is from Studio Dragonfly. R voiceover is, uh, Sheila d. Do you know how I pay Sheila d I buy Evo Terrace and Beer? Apparently that's, apparently that's how it works. And we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout Podcast Hosting made easy and also weirdly sponsored by CarMax apparently. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter@potnews.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.