James Cridland 0:00

It's Friday , the 15th of December 2023 .

Announcer 0:04

The last word in podcasting news . This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi .

James Cridland 0:14

I'm James Cridland , the editor of Pod News , and I'm Sam Sethi , the CEO of Pod Fans , or Am I ? In the chapters . Today , tweet sees layoffs and the closure of several shows . Acast pays out 31 million Australian dollars , google podcasts going going , tiktok , buy , buy , spotify , cell , cell and YouTube growing , growing Plus hey , what's up .

Ainsley Costello 0:37

My name is Ainslie Castella . I'm a 19 year old singer-songwriter based in Nashville , tennessee , and I will be on later to talk about two very exciting new events coming up , they will .

James Cridland 0:45

This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout . Last week , 2,813 people started a podcast with Buzzsprout Podcast hosting , made easy with free learning materials and remarkable customer support . From your daily newsletter , the Pod News Weekly Review .

Sam Sethi 1:03

James , James . It's getting close to Christmas . You think the news would be slowing down , but it seems to go more and more ,

Redundancies at TWiT

Sam Sethi 1:10

so let's kick off with it , I think . A slightly sad story , in my opinion , because I've been a fan of this network for a number of years . Tweet announced a number of layoffs . They certainly people that I've listened to Jason Howell and Pruitt I don't know Victor Bognut but what's going on with Tweet James ? It seems like there's a big problem over in Tweet Towers .

James Cridland 1:31

Well , what is going on with Tweet ?

Leo Laporte 1:33

This is what Leo Laporte said at the beginning of Tweet last Sunday , and I do want to address something that is a sad state of affairs here at Tweet , and some of you may know , some of you may not know we have been going through financial difficulties all year . It's been very hard . All podcasting has been going through it . Radio got about 100 years , podcasting got a decade . That's about it , and now there's so many podcasts . But , more to the point , advertisers who loved podcasting briefly have decided that YouTube influencers are much better or something . I don't know what's happening , but audiences have dwindled as the number of podcasts have grown . Our audiences help pretty well we're not worried about that but also advertising dollars , and they've significantly dwindled . You know , youtube advertising sales grew almost a trillion dollars last year and that's because that money came from TV , from radio , from magazines , from podcasts and from every other medium , because advertisers said , hey , it would be really nice if we knew more about the people seeing these ads , and podcasting can't do that . It's not the way podcasting works . Spotify can do it because you have to listen in the Spotify app . So a lot of the ad dollars have dwindled .

Leo Laporte 2:44

Lisa and I sat down last week and did the math for next year based on ad sales to date , and our projection is to lose about a million $1.1 million next year . Now I am not Jeff Bezos , I am not Elon Musk . We can't lose a million dollars because we don't have it . So we had to make cuts . This week we laid off three of our people we loved dearly , hurt terribly to do so . Jason Howell , who produced this show , of course , was a host of All About Android Tech News Weekly and had been with Twitter for 13 years since he came over from CNET and Buzz Out Loud with Tom Merritt and we had to lay him off . We laid off Ant Pruitt , who you know , glenn from this week in Google , who is a gentle giant and a sweetheart and a beautiful man after five years here . And we laid off an editor , because , you know , canceling shows doesn't save money unless we also lay off the staff that produces those shows . So Victor Bognod , whose name you may not know . He produced our promos and edited a number of shows . You probably heard his name . He also produced some of our shows behind the scenes . All three understood it hurt me and it hurt them and I know , especially this time of year , but that's what happens because you know , when the calendar year ends , that's when we start to see what's going to happen next year and we wanted to make sure we could lay them off with severance and take care of them . If we had waited until next year , it might not have been the case . So all of them are going to do fine . We're going to help them all as best we can and they have use of our offices as long as they need it , and so forth . So we've left on good terms .

Leo Laporte 4:20

But I know this will be a bit of a shock for some of you listening and it's certainly a loss for us . There will be some show cancellations as well . That news will come out next week and all I could say is we're doing the best we can to sell ads . That does not make up the 1.1 million loss by any means . In order to survive , we're also going to need to increase the club , but we'd like to double the size of the club before you know , this year so that we can be financially solvent . We'll need to do that to be financially solvent . So if you're not yet a club member and you don't like what's happening , but you want to support us going forward , we'd like to keep doing these shows . I could retire , I don't have to do them , but I want to keep doing them . It will take some cooperation from you . If you're not a member of ClubTwit , please twittv . Slash clubtwit seven bucks a month , but it really does make a difference and we can give you some nice benefits .

Leo Laporte 5:08

Yeah , it's been a tough year for podcasting . Stitcher went out of business , gimlet went out of business , wnyc pulled back from podcasting . It's too bad , because I think this is a great medium and I know people who listen to podcasts love it . So it's a little bit of a puzzlement to me . You know I was working in radio for my whole life , left the radio show last year because it was going through the same thing . You know radio is not exactly doing well , but I'd hoped that podcasting would anyway . Enough of that , but I did want to give you that news . Benito Gonzalez , who is a wonderful guy , has been TD-ing the show for some time . He's going to take over as a producer . Tough times in the world of podcasting , but we're gonna . I'd like to keep going . I really would , and I think we can , because we have a very Dedicated audience . Thank you for your support .

James Cridland 5:58

Crikey . I mean , I've heard Leo doing a number of different Reads in my time , but he sounds really cut up about that , doesn't he ?

Sam Sethi 6:06

he does . Yeah , and I'm rightly so . I think he's put a lot of Years into the Twitter network and I think you know when when you start to lay off people and it's as public as it is . I think , yeah , it's his baby , really . I think it's been in the cards , though , for a long while . If you've listened to his shows , he's been talking about the decline of advertising on his shows . He does do long format podcasting , so quite a few of his shows are three hours plus , and he is one of the best as a , as they say , in the industry of reading out Hostred ads . I think you know he does a good job on those , but it seems that advertisers Are not getting the return they want and are pulling away from it . I don't know whether it's they want short form avatar , short form podcasting Rather than long form , and they're not seeing what they want . I don't know what's your thoughts , james ?

James Cridland 7:03

I don't know . I mean , I look at what tweets produces and they produce an awful lot of shows and I'm sure that some of those shows don't work . I'm sure that some of them do . They also don't appear to have changed very much in the last 20 years , and that is both a good thing in terms of everybody knowing what you know they are going to get from that particular show , but also it's not necessarily . You know , things do need to change sometimes and Having the same old voices on there , the same old correspondence , in many ways , you know , I mean Steve Gibson is still there doing his security now show . I don't know how old Steve is now , but I mean I thought I thought he was old 20 years ago when I was listening . So who knows ? So I think that there's there's that kind of side of it . And I think there was two other things as well . I mean club twit started Because I went back and checked started in mid 2021 , so it hasn't been going for all that long .

James Cridland 8:03

And he I think Leo has fallen into into the trap of , you know , seven bucks a month , as he said in that little clip . Now , seven bucks a month is a lot of money for some people , it's not a lot of money for others , and you know the whole value for value idea of give as much as you think you can Falls foul when you're asking for $7 a month . So I think that there is a learning there which is actually allow your users and this is something that I wish you know Buzzsprout would do a little bit more with the With our power supporters is to allow . If our users want to put in a figure of $200 a month , then let them . I mean I wouldn't have thought that they necessarily Type , but you know I mean that that's you know . Allow them to put in as much as they want . I , you know . I mean you know there could well be something there , but I think also what ?

James Cridland 9:02

What is , you know , relatively clear is that Leo has kept his head down doing his own thing and I'm not necessarily sure that he understands fully what's going on in the world of Podcasting . I mean , he said that Gimlet had gone out of business . That's absolutely not true at all . Gimlet is still , perfectly happily , you know , chunkering along under the brand name of Spotify these days .

James Cridland 9:27

He said that Stitcher have gone out of business . That's absolutely not true . Stitcher , all of Stitcher's podcast is still going . Stitcher's app has closed , but that was a strategy change from Sirius XM to get people to choose less apps , as indeed NPR have done this week as well . So I'm not necessarily sure , really , that Leo fully Comprehends what's going on in the podcast industry , and you know it does come back to . If you are a small player and Leo is still Unfortunately , a small player in this in this large pond if you're a small player , it's going to be hard for you to have meaningful conversations with advertisers , and you know there is an issue of scale and it is easier to get in front of advertisers if you are more than you know the large amount of shows that Leo does , and so I think that that's something just to bear in mind as well .

Sam Sethi 10:24

Yeah , I caught up with Lisa LePorte . I had a good hours conversation with her this week . Sadly , I have to tell you , it's all off the record . I can't talk about it . But she did say that there will be counselling , more shows and of course , this morning They've just announced Floss Weekly is going to be cancelled . There will be others that they're gonna announce this week as well . Sadly , we are doing something with them in regard to pod fans and I'll be able to tell you more about that in the new year .

James Cridland 10:56

Oh , that's interesting . Now , pod fans is a value for value thing , is it not it ?

Sam Sethi 11:02

is indeed yes , so there you go .

James Cridland 11:05

Well , I don't want to get you into trouble , it's not , let's not dig too hard , but , yeah , really interesting . But I think that you know Leo should , you know , certainly keep his eyes as open as possible in terms of other opportunities to , you know , for him to succeed . You know he's I've not met Leo , but I've chatted with him a couple of times and you know .

Sam Sethi 11:31

So I wish him all the very best indeed , moving

TikTok Closes Podcasting

Sam Sethi 11:36

on as we were saying bye-bye to a number of twitch shows , um , we're saying bye-bye , before we even said hello , to tick tock podcasting James .

James Cridland 11:45

Yes , back in August tick tock was letting some podcasters add RSS feeds , but this week they've cancelled the test and they sent an email which said we value our podcast creators , but we're focusing our efforts on other initiatives now , which is nice . And tick tock is a massive , massive app . I mean , it's the most used app , according to a bunch of Research that's come out this week . Especially , you know Pew Research , which came out earlier on Talking about how successful tick tock , snapchat and Instagram have been for teenagers , particularly Old guard media . You know failing a little bit Facebook . You know tumblr , obviously , and other things , and of course , you know Twitter .

James Cridland 12:31

Goodness knows what's happening with that . So I think you know it's a bit of a shame that tick tock couldn't necessarily see anything in terms of Podcasting . It's a shame because actually the plan that they had , as I understood it , was pretty good for podcasts in that it was essentially links to Proper podcast . You know episodes that would play back correctly and you know videos in there to help promote that particular show . But you know they've they've clearly jumped out of it , haven't they ?

Sam Sethi 13:03

Well , jumped out of it for now , hopefully . Maybe you never know , they might be , you know making a change and coming back . I'd be surprised if they jump out of it all together . But yeah , for now it's not great news . But the reports that came out the one from pure research that you mentioned I thought it was interesting when you look at them all back to back .

Sam Sethi 13:22

So you get pure research talking about teenagers being on those short form , attention seeking platforms as opposed to long form . You look at Signal Hill , which we talked about last week . You know you've got podcast . Newcomers are in the 18 to 34 age group . They're mainly female now they're not male , they're not , and the demographic is more diverse than it is white . So you've got a different demographic coming into podcasting as well , which is quite interesting . And then the last one was Edison research again we talked about people are now listening more in the car . And again the podcast Cherovir , which was the highlight from the report , was 575% up . So if you look at all of those together it feels like maybe I'm wrong and I'd love your opinion , james , on this . It feels like short of form podcasting aimed at younger people , sort of tiktok in style , but longer than a tiktok . Obviously is what people are looking for now , as opposed to the longer form podcast yeah , I mean .

James Cridland 14:28

I think that there's definitely something in respecting people's time and understanding that you can't give them a two and a half hour show because they won't listen to it . They won't have the time to listen to it , and you know I mean this show . You know I try to keep less than one and a half hours yeah , that's my fault .

Sam Sethi 14:44

That's my fault .

James Cridland 14:45

I wish I could keep it less than an hour , but you know . But yeah , you know , I mean , I think that there's definitely something there . I mean , you know , there's also studies that have come out this week from Signal Hill Insights talking about video and saying that , you know , 47% of people who watch video podcasts in the US have watched the Joe Rogan experience . But interestingly , of those , most of them two thirds plus say that they watch the show on YouTube and only 29% consume the show on Spotify . That says quite a lot , I think as well .

James Cridland 15:22

Spotify seems to be going down . According to all of the podcast stats that I can see , spotify seems to be , you know , not driving as much downloads as as it historically has . So I do wonder what the you know what , what is actually going on out there ? We know that Apple has made some changes to its its app not massive changes , but they've made some . Spotify appears to have made zero changes , but Spotify's downloads are down almost as much as apples are . So I find all of these numbers fascinating , but

Google Podcasts to close in April in US

James Cridland 16:00

TikTok pulling out of podcasting is a bit sad . But you know , I guess , that they hadn't really got got going , and what they certainly haven't done is they certainly haven't launched three or four different attempts at a podcast app , and now they're launching a fifth . I wonder who's been doing that , because , of course , google has now given us a date for the US to kill Google podcasts off . They're talking about April 2024 , aren't they ?

Sam Sethi 16:31

they are indeed now . I I thought it was , you know like the Monty Python parrot . It's dead , james , but it seems it's got a little bit of life left in it . Why are they just holding on with their fingernails to this app , if well , all the momentum is to YouTube what they have said is that and they've been pretty consistent that Google podcast would die in 2024 .

James Cridland 16:53

They were talking about September 2024 . It's probably still the case . It's dying earlier in the US because I think that they've got their curation . You know , their curation ducks in a row , so to speak , in terms of the US . They very clearly haven't . In terms of other countries , we'll get on to that in just a second .

James Cridland 17:14

But in terms of the US , if you're using Google podcasts now , you'll probably see an export subscriptions banner at the top which will chunk you out a opml file . Amusingly , it won't actually import properly , I don't think , into YouTube music . I don't think they've quite done that bit yet , which is a little bit strange . But it will give you an opml file . It will allow you , in time , to import all of this stuff into YouTube music , which is a , you know , perfectly acceptable rss based podcast player . Yes , it does YouTube stuff as well , but it also plays rss podcast and it seems to do that quite successfully . So you know Google seemingly killing podcasts earlier in the US than they were planning , but the rest of the world will still have Google podcasts for a while still to come that's just , you know , normal , isn't it ?

James Cridland 18:08

you know , roll it out in the US and then , oh , the rest of the world it's the typical complicated way that Google insists on doing this and it doesn't bear any resemblance to the realities of podcasting , which is global , and the whole problem with , if you remember , facebook when they , when they got into podcasting , that was a US only thing . Huge Google podcasts well , in fact , google play music podcasts . So back before Google podcasts , that was a US only thing . Google seemed to be , you know , very focused on making something which is a US only experience , and that's not a fantastic thing . If you are a podcaster which is a global medium , you can't just launch something in the US and that's all , because it won't work properly and we can't talk about it .

Sam Sethi 18:58

If that's the case , and you've done a couple of things , james . One is you've taken the PDF and made that available , haven't you ?

James Cridland 19:05

yes , so there's a PDF , which is basically a page , with the instructions for how to export your stuff out of Google podcasts . They didn't think that anybody outside of the US would actually want to have a look at that , because , of course , nobody works in podcasting outside of the US . So therefore , I logged in using a US IP address , printed it out to PDF and I'm hosting that now so you can find that if you go to podnewsnet and search for it . And what I've also downloaded is a opml file from Google takeout so that you can test . And there are a few weird things in that opml file . I've edited it down slightly , but there are some of a few very weird things in that opml file , just to you know , catch you out if your opml import script isn't particularly good . But you can give that a go as well , and again , you'll find that linked from podnewsnet and you've done one other thing to help people migrate to YouTube music , remind people yeah , and if they want to , you can .

James Cridland 20:06

You can listen to any rss feed in YouTube music . So rss2ytmnet , which is the website address that I've thrown together , rss the number two ytmnet rss2youtube , musicnet see , that's a little , a little page which will essentially help you grab and copy the rss feed and shove it into the right place in YouTube music . So you can have a go on that . And you'll need to because certainly , if you're using YouTube music and YouTube outside of the US , the editorial experience is pretty awful , as I mentioned as well .

Sam Sethi 20:45

They've now got a YouTube index for Australia and the Netherlands .

James Cridland 20:49

Yes , and weirdly not in Europe yet , not in Japan yet , for some reason . But yeah , so I went to have a look at the at the youtubecom slash podcasts in the Netherlands and in Australia . Here in Australia , in the Netherlands , there are a few Dutch language podcasts in there . One of them is literally called All Episodes because they've named the title of the playlist incorrectly . It's a entrepreneur podcast and there's a Dutch sports podcast in there as well , but there are only two .

James Cridland 21:26

One of the shows that they are promoting in the Netherlands is in Indonesian . One of the shows is in some Cyrillic script . It might be Ukrainian , it might be Belarusian . I don't know enough about those languages , I'm not even going to go there , but you know that was . I thought that that was a bad experience .

James Cridland 21:46

Then I went on to the Australian experience , which obviously I'm sort of relatively aware of , and the Australian experience . There is absolutely no Australian content in there whatsoever . On youtubecom slash podcasts , the same Indonesian show is number one and I went to check the census and the amount of Australians who speak Indonesian is so small that it's not even on the census . So that probably tells you anything . There's a Chinese language show in popular podcasts , so great . About two percent of Australians will be able to enjoy that one .

James Cridland 22:18

But if you have a look at , there's absolutely zero Australian content in there , which is weird because on youtube there are tons of podcasts and the ABC has a ton of podcasts . Kind , use , australia has a ton of podcasts . They're all rubbish but nevertheless they've got a ton of podcasts there . The Australian , the Sydney Morning Herald , the H , mamma Mia and others have all thrown some podcasts onto the youtube experience and youtube has clearly just not done any local work on that web page at all and it's just completely algorithmically and it's rubbish . I don't even understand why they've launched it . What , what , what are ?

Sam Sethi 22:57

they thinking um , let's just chuck anything out the front door and see if it sticks . No , I don't know . I have no idea um . A , because I don't use youtube music like you . Uh . And B , I don't believe youtube podcasting will be here , probably in 12 months time , because , like most google things , it'll be in a graveyard soon yeah , I , I mean I'm , I'm looking at it and going why are you spending so long launching a product which is pretty bad ?

James Cridland 23:22

I mean , the youtube music app is actually not bad in terms of being a podcast player , but that experience the podcast landing page in youtube itself , which is the big one youtubecom slash podcast is awful . Um , so , really to understand what they're doing and and I mean it worries me because youtube has more than twice the users of apple podcasts , almost twice of that of Spotify , according to cumulus media and signal hill insights . So they are a very big player , but the experience is , I believe , the experience . We would call it pants .

Sam Sethi 23:58

Yes , we would and I just think that you know they've got an obvious target in front of them and they just keep missing it . I don't know why . I mean , you know , you've just said you know they've got twice more , twice as many users as apple and Spotify . So , look , they've got the audience , the the content is out there , it's rss . They are doing it by rss . Um , so again comes down to , uh , executionary yeah , it's just .

James Cridland 24:27

It's just not a great experience . I hope it's going to be a better experience , but who knows ? And at least we haven't heard too many stories over the last couple of months of um google getting rid of people , whereas we obviously have from other people

Spotify's CFO to go

James Cridland 24:41

.

Sam Sethi 24:41

After last week's recording of the show James , you announced something that Mr Paul Vogel , the CFO have Spotify , did . What did he do ?

James Cridland 24:48

Well , um , yes , so I think this time last week we were talking about Spotify laying off 1,500 people less than three weeks before Christmas . That's a nice thing for them to do . Um , spotify and its CFO , paul Vogel , decided to part ways , um , according to a pretty bluntly worded statement . I don't know if you read that particular statement , sam . No , I didn't actually .

Sam Sethi 25:14

I thought I would I'd save losing half an hour of my life .

James Cridland 25:17

Well , I mean , what I find fascinating is , firstly , it was only two , two paragraphs . Secondly , it quotes Daniel Eck saying um , I've talked a lot with Paul about the need to balance the two objectives of bringing our spending more in line with market expectations while also funding significant growth opportunities . Over time , we've come to the conclusion that Spotify is entering a new phase and needs a CFO with a different mix of experiences and , as a result , we've decided to part ways . And you read that and you go . Okay , well , I wonder , you know where's the quote from Paul Vogel ? Oh , he hasn't got one . You know , normally you would have seen Paul Vogel going . I'm very proud of all of the , all of the things that I've done , um over the last , uh , over the last number of years , and blah , blah , blah . But no , I mean , it genuinely looks to me as if either he was fired or he was made a scapegoat for getting rid of 1,500 people , and the conversations that I'm having with few people in , uh , in and around Spotify would tend to point to the latter . The fact that Paul Vogel was probably made as the bad man . Um is probably closer to the , to the truth .

James Cridland 26:32

I think Daniel Eck , like a good Swedish person , um , wants to be seen . As you know , this is a . This is a community enterprise . This is , you know , the way that we run businesses in , uh , in Sweden , very different than to the way that we run businesses in the US . He was a naughty American and he didn't really understand how these . You know how how it works , but you're fine with me . Um , I suspect it's a little bit of that , but I mean , it was kind of blunted a little bit by the fact that , um , it transpires that Paul Vogel has trousers , more than 12.6 million dollars worth of shares . He sold over nine million dollars worth of shares on the very same day that he was firing 1,500 people .

Sam Sethi 27:18

Yes , that's not a good look , that's not a good look , that might have been automated , but that is .

James Cridland 27:25

that is just a nasty thing to do . Um , hotpods . Ariel Shapiro has also spotted that Eve Constan , who spotifies general counsel , also sold 1.1 million dollars worth of shares on that very day as well . She sold that under her married name . I looked at her married name and I thought I've no idea who that person is . Couldn't actually find them , but you know , that's why you leave it to a proper reporter , and there have been others as well . I mean , you know , that is just bad . They're on a 52-week high , you've noticed , but still not quite as high as they could have been .

Sam Sethi 28:03

No , I mean the share price is on the up , so the more they cut , the more the price goes up . I mean I think Ebenezer-Eck has bitten off more than he can chew here a little bit . I mean especially also , I did a little digging as well myself . Daniel sold off 675,000 Spotify shares back in July , and he also bought . How much is that worth , then ? 675,000 ? It's over a hundred million dollars worth of shares .

James Cridland 28:32

Oh wow , yeah , oh well , that'll be nice .

Sam Sethi 28:34

Yeah , he bought them in May of 2022 , and he sold them in July this year . So again , if he'd hold on for a little longer , he probably would have made double that killing . So my heart is not breaking for you , daniel . I don't know . I think , yes , I think , they are automated sales . I would hope they're automated sales because that would imply they weren't as cold-hearted as it comes across . I don't know . It'll be interesting to see where Mr Vogel pops his head up next and what he says afterwards .

James Cridland 29:06

Yes , won't it . I mean , if he needs to , I mean , if you've got $12 million in your pocket , you know , I mean , that's probably it , that's chump change for them .

James Cridland 29:15

Chump change ? Well , yes , I suppose . So Spotify , don't go expecting Spotify to make a massive profit next quarter . It's going to make a loss of between 100 and 116 million US dollars , according to none other than Paul Vogel , as he leaves the company . He just mentioned that to the SEC . Oh , by the way , we're going to lose an awful lot of money next quarter because of the severance costs . Spotify is , though . They've done a deal with Warner Brothers Discovery . Alongside Acast , actually , warner Brothers Discovery is going to be selling some of well , rather , spotify's megaphone , and span is going to be selling some of Warner Brothers podcasts . So that's a nice thing . And also , spotify was going to be closing in February in Uruguay , but it's not going to . Now they have had a chat with the Uruguayan government , they've understood what the changing copyright law is all about , and they are no longer going to be closing down . So , if you're listening to us on Spotify in Uruguay , the stats would say you're not , but if you are , then you can relax because we'll still be here . So , yeah , there's a thing , Excellent .

Sam Sethi 30:37

What is your Uruguayan ? Like ? I don't know James in Uruguayan . That'll be interesting .

James Cridland 30:42

I don't even know what language they're speaking Spanish , uruguayan .

Sam Sethi 30:46

Spanish , is it ? Yeah , it's a foreign Spanish . It'll be a Spanish dialect . I only know that because two Liverpool players , Luis Suarez and Nunes Darwin Nunes , are Uruguayan , so that's my sad reason for knowing that .

James Cridland 31:00

Yes , spanish is the official language of Uruguayan . It's spoken by almost 99% of the population , according to the World Atlas .

Sam Sethi 31:07

There you go Now

OP3 details and a chicken

Sam Sethi 31:10

friend of the show , john Spurlock , who keeps putting out all different reports about stuff . One of his is that over 70% of Apple podcasters now use iOS 17 . So that's good , I think .

James Cridland 31:21

Yeah , that's helpful because we know that we're unlikely to see an awful lot more change now in terms of Apple podcasts numbers we have seen I mean LiveWire , john Spurlock suggests and this is through the OP3 data as well suggests that Apple podcasts total drop is around 7% or 8% of share of downloads . But share of downloads means different things . If your total downloads are also going down , so yeah , but you know great to see and again underlines the fact of how helpful it is to have data from your podcast analytics data in an open format . That then allows other people to go digging and to learn an awful lot more about what that data actually is . So it does show the real benefits of OP3 and why so many people frankly ought to be using it , particularly people within the industry . You'd have thought as well .

Sam Sethi 32:29

You had a very interesting Twitter discussion about the use of OP3 . Talking about a number of shows our show , your podcast News Daily , and other people's shows using OP3 , what was that whole thing about , James ?

James Cridland 32:45

Yes , this was a very rare for me , a very rare pop onto the artist formerly known as Twitter . And yes , todd . Well , I think it started with Rob Greenlee basically talking and saying nice things about OP3 and how John Spurlock should go on to the new media show and talk about OP3 on there . Of course , we know that Todd sees OP3 as being a competitor and so therefore probably wouldn't want to end up doing too much of that . But yeah , and then Todd is just like basically saying now we're not going to list our numbers in OP3 at all , you know , wasn't he ? So you know .

Sam Sethi 33:31

Yes , I was going to say in last night's show he basically went bugger off . It's my data and it's private and you can stick it basically .

James Cridland 33:39

Yeah , he basically said that . In fact , this is his exact phrase . I only have to be transparent to those that are writing me a check Now . And he said exactly that phrase two minutes after reading a boostergram from Adam Curry . Well , hang on a minute . Isn't that somebody essentially writing you a check , todd ? Isn't that somebody paying for the fact that he loves that show an awful lot ? Wouldn't it be the sensible thing to open up your numbers ? We open up our numbers . Buzzcast opens up their numbers , the Pod News Daily opens up their numbers through OP3 , as does podcasting 2.0 , just to a search for all of these shows on Pod News and you'll see some numbers there .

James Cridland 34:30

But it does seem that Todd is a little bit too chicken to share his numbers . I don't quite understand why he's chicken . Is it that the new media show gets no listeners , todd ? Is that what it is ? Is that what it is ? Because I mean , if it is , you're with friends , you know it's okay . Come and have a look at our numbers . Go and have a look at your numbers . You know , I can't believe you're so chicken . Don't leave me , Todd Cochran .

James Cridland 34:57

I can't believe it . I can't believe what a chicken .

Sam Sethi 35:00

I think the gauntlet has been thrown down nicely , James . I wait for the rest of the floor .

James Cridland 35:04

OP3.dev . It's free Pod News is even a sponsor is even paying for it , todd , so you can be on there , go on .

Sam Sethi 35:20

Oh , I look forward to the next week's show . Oh my God , now look , let's fly around the world very quickly

Round the world

Sam Sethi 35:27

. Back to you over in Australia , in New Zealand , james Acasp in Santa Clausing . They've been very generous with people pre-Christmas .

James Cridland 35:35

Yes , well , I mean , they've sent out a press release , which would mean that you thought exactly that . Yes , haven't they been generous ? Pre-christmas , they sent out a press release which said that they have paid $31 million to Australian local podcasters , which is US$20 million , and that's what most people looked at , and , of course , that is since the company's local launch in August 2017 . So that's over six years . So it's not quite as generous as they could have been , but nevertheless it's a good number . So it's nice to end up seeing that number from Acasp .

James Cridland 36:13

Acasp don't take part in the Australian podcast ranker , but lots of people do , including the ABC . For the first time , the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is in the Australian podcast ranker , which is good , and the ABC says it's got the most titles in the top 200 , with long-form interview show Conversations landing at number five . A listener claims the number one podcast slot , with Hamish and Andy being the only podcast with more than a million listeners , and ARN's iHeart Podcast Network Australia claims it's number one publisher . So everybody's number one and everybody's very happy . The top 10 shows , by the way , are all Australian , which I thought was interesting . You normally expect there to be some American shows in these , in these rankers . It's certainly the case in New Zealand and in Canada and in other places , but no , the top 10 shows are Australian , so that was quite nice to end up seeing the New Zealand podcast ranker also released . Rnz hasn't put their numbers in there either .

Sam Sethi 37:15

Well now a strange story that you wrote about a new podcast called On Musk with Walter Isaacson , the guy who wrote the book about Elon Musk wrote the book about Steve Jobs and various others . It's launched in an open RSS format on iHeart Podcast and Kaleidoscope , but strangely it's in a closed format with Podimo across Europe . That's a bit odd .

James Cridland 37:42

Yes , it's . I think this is the first time that I have seen this where the show is exclusive on Podimo If you live in Denmark , norway , germany , the Netherlands and Finland , so you won't be able to get it on open RSS feeds , but everywhere else you will . It's freely available everywhere else , including obviously , the US and other places , just through the standard RSS feeds . So I think that's the first time that I have seen anybody doing that and I think it's the first time that I've seen Podimo do a geo locking deal such as that . I'm not quite sure what I feel about it . I don't necessarily feel particularly positive , it has to be said , but nevertheless it's an interesting business model , so it will be interesting to see how they do with it .

Sam Sethi 38:34

Well , podimo is a closed platform . Let's be honest , I mean as much as it uses RSS . It is a closed platform because you have to pay a subscription to get to it and , at the same time , I wonder what they paid . So is this a Podimo exclusive ? Because they must have paid to get the geo locking .

James Cridland 38:51

Yeah , so it's . I mean , it is an exclusive , so in those countries . So therefore , yes , I do wonder what they've paid to get these particular shows . And what is interesting again is that the shows are in in English . The five European markets aren't English markets , although they do , in most of those markets , speak English very , very well indeed . So they're actually making an exclusive show , you know , in English , in those those markets where , by the way , tesla seems to do you know incredibly well , particularly places like Denmark , norway and Finland . So , yeah , so I just found that really interesting .

Sam Sethi 39:35

Let's move on to events and awards . Events James she podcast unplugged 2024 is coming to Florida in January the 24th . What else is going

Interview: Ainsley Costello and JL

Sam Sethi 39:47

on ?

James Cridland 39:47

And also tell me about Ainsley Costello . The live music event is happening next week , Is it not indeed ?

Sam Sethi 39:55

next Wednesday and Thursday , the 20th and the 21st of December to events live . So very much similar to what RSScom did with PodCon MX , where you were the keynote , they're broadcasting it live . So podcasting 2.0 apps will be able to use a lit tag and be able to listen and or watch the event and stream sats or boost depending on how you want to pay , or just watch if you don't want to pay anything . It's value for values , so do what you like . But yeah , we're running a test . We did one yesterday which went very well , so let fingers crossed we're all ready to roll .

James Cridland 40:33

And you caught up with Ainsley Costello and Just Loud and ask them more .

Sam Sethi 40:37

So let's meet the artists themselves first off . Ainsley , hello , how are you ?

Ainsley Costello 40:41

I'm so good , sam . How are you ? Thanks so much for having us on .

Sam Sethi 40:44

You're very welcome . This is Ainsley Costello , the million sat artist singer . How would we describe you , ainsley ? What did you describe yourself as ?

Ainsley Costello 40:54

I don't know . I mean , that was pretty good . If you ask me , I describe myself as a 19 year old singer songwriter from Nashville who kind of just happened to fall into this whole other worldly crypto value for value space .

Sam Sethi 41:07

And what ? What's your sound like ? No one's heard Ainsley Costello . What's the sound like ?

Ainsley Costello 41:13

Yeah , absolutely . I had to say sometimes I like to say that my sound is like if Paramore gone pop had a baby with the band Camino . That's what I sound like . But I write a lot of messages about girl power and like doing whatever you want if it makes you happy and that you don't have to be in a relationship to be a whole and happy and fulfilled human being . So it's like Paramore with like girl power messages .

Sam Sethi 41:35

That's me . So word of the year was Riz , but actually the second word of the year was Swiftie . Maybe next year we can have the word of the year , costello .

Ainsley Costello 41:44

I think it could absolutely be a word . I think that with a name for a fan base like that , it has to come organically . I don't think I can be a part of that . So whatever my fans deem themselves their collective group name is .

Sam Sethi 41:56

I'm down with it . I've got it . You're Ainsley Costello , AC , and they can be DCs , AC , DC . You'd have to be old enough to remember Perfect , yes , You'd have to be old enough to remember . Now also , headlining on the evening is a JL , just loud JL . How are you ?

Just Loud 42:13

Hey , hey again , thank you for having us , You're very welcome .

Sam Sethi 42:17

Now , as I said to Ainsley , describe your sound .

Just Loud 42:21

My sound OK , mine is a little bit if a big orgy party you have , in that orgy party you have Billy Idol , yes , you have Prince and you have Tina Turner , wow , that's a party that is a party that's a sound and a half .

Sam Sethi 42:42

Now , Ainsley , we know that you've come to the value for value world and you've got involved in it and you're on Wave Lake and you're on LM Beat and loads of apps and people have been paying you JL . Have you been introduced to this mad world that we're all moving into the value for value world with Bitcoin , micro payments and wallets ?

Just Loud 43:01

So my team just introduced me to it . Super new at it . Value for value . All I can say is that I did 10 million streams on one song on Spotify and I've received more money for value for value than I received from Spotify , to say , the music . So I hope that answers your question .

Sam Sethi 43:25

Yeah , maybe perfectly answers it , because that is the thing , isn't it ? Spotify is not paying independent artists any value . That you deserve from 10 million streams . That's how hell of a lot of streams . Look , ainsley , you had a great experience when you first came into it . Adam Curry did a podcast called Booster Grand Ball and you basically got paid . I think it was equivalent to around $400 from just one airing and is that correct ? I think that's the sort of numbers we were remembering .

Ainsley Costello 43:54

Yeah , I mean the specifics themselves I'm a little iffy on , but I'm very similar to JL in the sense that I've been on all of the traditional DSPs the digital streaming platform Spotify , apple Music , amazon Music for almost four years now and in about four months in this new value for value , micro currency , micro payment space , I've made more in four months here than I have in four years on Spotify .

Sam Sethi 44:19

Wow . And one of the things is do you find it when you say to other artists , hey , have you heard of this new world of value for value ? Have you heard of this new micro payment ? Do they look at you like you're talking Swahili ? How do they approach it when you say that ?

Ainsley Costello 44:36

For me in my experience , the couple of friends who I've told about this space , they've been like , hmm , I'm intrigued , but they haven't been like absolutely not . I'm shutting this down . I've had a couple of friends who I've kind of told my whole experience to and they've been really excited by the fact , and so I would not be surprised if some of my friends start joining this space soon . Look out for Arayas , who is incredible . I told her about this and we had a whole like three hour long conversation about this whole space and she was really excited about it and she's incredible . So if Arayas comes in , she hits the scene , just be aware , because she's a powerhouse for sure .

Sam Sethi 45:10

And Jail . Have you actually received any sats yet ? Have you experienced receiving those micro payments yet ? I have .

Just Loud 45:18

And my team . Every time we receive , we get a screenshot and then I go straight to my computer and I start writing or profiting the record I'm working on . Next , I think it's like one of those things like when you see just the smallest amount kind of means a lot to Arayas . Once people are pouring into you , it's like you get so amped up and get back in the studio and start writing again and I think it's gonna continue happening that way .

Sam Sethi 45:47

I think you're right and I think 24 is gonna be the year that it breaks through to the mainstream . I think we're beginning to see more and more people In the early days . I was here when the internet was first introduced and people were going it's HTTP , it's a URL , it's called a browser , and people looked at me and went I have no idea what you're talking about . I think in the same way , people look at you now and say it's a micro payment , it's a wallet , they call Satoshi , and you pay directly . People look at you going I don't get what you're talking about . I think 24 , I think , is when people suddenly the pennies will start to drop , or should we start to say the sats will start to drop now instead of the pennies ? One last thing then , for you both , Ainsley tell me a little bit about the set you're gonna be playing .

Ainsley Costello 46:32

Yeah , I am so excited and I'm so gracious and grateful to JL who's like so wonderfully allowed me to be a part of these like two amazing nights Because really I'm just so excited because I'm doing something really fun and exciting and kind of new for me . I'm doing about 50% of both . Sets that I'm gonna be playing on the 20th and the 21st are gonna be all new music that isn't out on any platform not even Wave Lake or any of these podcasting apps yet . But I've been writing so much music this year that I'm so proud of and I'm so excited about and that I think really represent me in a way that I haven't showcased before .

Ainsley Costello 47:08

So I'm really excited because these shows are gonna be 50% new stuff Wow , this is exactly what Ainsley wants to be and then 50% old stuff . Like I'm sure we'll have to throw a cherry on top in there . But yeah , I'm just I'm so excited . And one of the shows is gonna be at First Avenue , 7th Street entry in Minneapolis , which is just like legendary . It's like every musician's dream to play at a venue like that . So I could not be more thrilled . I'm so excited .

Sam Sethi 47:34

Jail . Same question , really . What can we expect from your set ? What are you gonna be putting out ?

Just Loud 47:39

I'm recording live . I have about three albums in the can that I've done this year and similar to Ainsley . No one has heard this music and I will say that this is my Phoenix , because 2019 . Lollapalooza was my last concert and I'm glad that I had six stage left , and this is gonna be an opportunity to show people that I'm not funk , I'm not soul , I'm not R&B , I'm rock and roll .

Sam Sethi 48:09

Nice , nice , nice . Ainsley Jail . Good luck for the night . We can't wait for it . It's gonna be so exciting . All the technology's in place , we are all lining up behind you . So I suppose break a leg would be the right thing to say . That's what we say in England anyway . I'm not sure if that translates very well in America , but have a great night . Now look where can people go . Ainsley first of all . Tell me where can people get tickets in Jail . Tell me where the events are . So Ainsley .

Ainsley Costello 48:38

Yeah , absolutely so . One of the places that you can get tickets is on my website at ainsleycostellocom you can get tickets . It'll redirect you to First Ave's website where you can buy tickets , and I'm sure Jail our tickets gonna be on your site too .

Just Loud 48:52

Yes , justlawworldcom .

Ainsley Costello 48:55

Absolutely so either of those .

Sam Sethi 48:57

Jail . Remind everyone if they want to come in person , where would they go ?

Just Loud 49:02

First Avenue , 7th Street , entry . December 20th and 21st Be on time because you don't want to miss anything , okay .

Sam Sethi 49:14

Excellent Haynes and Costello JL . Thank you so much . Good luck and yeah , I can't wait for it . See you soon , Thank you .

Announcer 49:21

Thank you , sam

The Tech Stuff

Announcer 49:22

. The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review .

James Cridland 49:26

Yes , it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter . Here's where we do all of the tech talk . Pocket Cast has had a day bookmarks feature which looks entertaining . It's for you if you pay for the app , and the app is relatively expensive . But it's a good app . Relatively expensive , it's worth giving you a go .

Sam Sethi 49:43

It's worth giving you a go . 97 . Quid for what was it 97 ?

James Cridland 49:47

quid . Yeah , well , it's 97 pounds for a patron member , although it's only and inverted commas 40 pounds for Pocket Cast's plus . I don't , frankly , necessarily understand the pricing model that they have for that particular app . I'm all for charging for a decent Pocket Cast app , oh my , yeah . But yes , gosh , yes , I think patron , to be fair , is someone that just really likes the app and the people who work there and just wants to support it a little bit more than they would with a plus subscription . And there are plenty of people grandfathered into plus for free After all of that bother a few years ago .

James Cridland 50:39

So it may well be part of that . But , yeah , so there's all of that built in . But , yes , bookmarks are now available . They've also fixed their search , which used to cause problems with apostrophes . All of that is fixed . Now . They tell me that they fixed another bug that I reported to them . They haven't , so I'll be going back and talking to them about that one , but they're releasing new versions of that player every couple of weeks , so it's a good thing , of course , now owned by Automatic .

Sam Sethi 51:12

Now . Substack now has a video episodes feature . What's this , james ? I don't use Substack .

James Cridland 51:17

Yeah , so you can upload videos to Substack , they will play in the iOS Substack app , not Android , because you know , and while you can upload audio to Substack and it comes out in the Substack RSS feed , the video doesn't , because Substack . So therefore they've not called it a video podcast feature . They call it a video episodes feature , and it won't work in any other podcast app . So that's nice , isn't it ? I'd use YouTube if I were you . Podcast Guru is doing some new and exciting things . We should get the CEO of Podcast Guru on next week to tell us more about it .

Sam Sethi 51:58

Yes , jason Hudgens is the CEO , and they've just released their iOS and Android app . He said it's a pretty big thing , and so , yeah , he's flying back from Italy , so we're waiting for him to land , but when he does , we will get him on the show next week .

James Cridland 52:14

And we'll see you . Gregor Snip has also upgraded its use of AI to summarize a podcast , which is a neat little trick Pod Home , barry's podcast hosting company that is now that now has some AI to create clips for you and create video and share those on social media and all of that , which is all very smart , barry , continuing to work on that . If you drive a Tesla , then firstly , I am so sorry , and secondly , apple podcasts will be available as a native app pretty soon on Tesla vehicles as part of Tesla's 2023 holiday update . It probably gives you fart sounds and space invaders and something else as well . It's available on Model S3 , x , y and Cybertruck .

Sam Sethi 53:10

Oh , no , no , no , I'm a saddo . So , apart from the S3 , x , y spelling sexy , which I think is so stupid and so , childish .

James Cridland 53:16

but there you go . Oh , I've just realised that S-E-X-Y . Oh God , did you not know that ? What a man-child that man is .

Sam Sethi 53:28

Yeah , it smells sexy . So that's the first thing , isn't it like ? Did we all do that ? With our calculators ? We can put boobless upside down , but yeah , no , the Cybertruck . I was watching a YouTube video where it was taking on the Lamborghini one of the big four by four Lamborghinis , yeah , and it beat it off the light . And then I saw a brilliant one where somebody posted I'm trying to think , who saw one of them in real life , went in there , you can keep it , and it just looks like an ugly box . It is awful .

James Cridland 54:04

It looks like the Homer . If you ever saw that episode of the Simpsons where Homer Simpson gets to design his own car . Homer , I need your help , you do ?

Ainsley Costello 54:15

Yeah , I want you to help me design a car . A car for all the Homer Simpsons out there and I want to pay you $200,000 a year and I want to let you . It looks like that .

James Cridland 54:30

It's my goodness , yes . So anyway , you'll get Apple podcasts in the app launcher of your man child machine . You'll need a premium connectivity subscription to stream it over a cellular collection . You'll also need to wear a disguise so that people don't think any of the worse of you for driving a Tesla .

Sam Sethi 54:51

Oh , my God . And you did say it's very popular in the lowlands of Europe . So there you go .

James Cridland 54:55

Yes , and interestingly , actually Tesla also supports Apple CarPlay , or will support Apple CarPlay , I believe , which is a new thing . Apple CarPlay is now in 800 unique models of automobile . So , apple tell me Although today we learned that GM , which is a massive , great big car manufacturer , they are pulling both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto out of their cars because they are worried that they're not safe . So it's got nothing to do with paying for a subscription or earning money or any of that , but yeah , so they're pulling Apple CarPlay out of those cars . So that's going to be interesting to see what happens there .

Sam Sethi 55:39

Yeah , it's quite interesting . When you buy a new car I mean being a techie I buy it for the tech rather than the vehicle . Now , strangely so , I probably wouldn't buy a GM car if it didn't come with CarPlay .

James Cridland 55:52

I mean , I think I would definitely only buy my next car and I'm sort of , you know , slowly getting ready to buy a new car Tesla but I would only buy that car Tesla .

James Cridland 56:03

No , no . But I would only buy that car if it had Android Auto in there , because you know I've used that in higher cars and it's just super helpful . So I would really like that . But yeah , it's not quite as simple , I think . Unfortunately . I think my next car will still have to have a petrol engine in it , because I don't think for Australia it's possible really to have an electric car yet .

Sam Sethi 56:28

So the country with how much sun ? How much sun have you got ? Solar ?

James Cridland 56:33

Oh , I know , I know exactly , and yeah , so we do very well in terms of the solar panels and very well in terms of lots of other things . What we don't do very well at is people living in the country where you can drive for hours and hours and hours and not see a single person . Now , we don't do that very often , but it would be . I mean , I've got my eyes on you know one of these plug-in , you know Prius hybrid things which all go for 100 miles on a battery and then you can also use you know dead things to power your car if you want to . I think that probably ends up making sense . Anyway , we've turned into a motoring show On that bombshell .

Sam Sethi 57:19

Yes , and on that bombshell , it is time to end . Thank you so much for watching Good night .

Boostagran Corner

Sam Sethi 57:27

Boostergram corner , corner , corner on the Pod News Weekly Review .

James Cridland 57:32

Yes , it's our favorite time of the week . It's a Boostergram corner . I do worry slightly about Boostergram Sam , because I do worry that I did hear Boostergram corner on Buzz Cast the other week and they had Boostergram corner . It was the same old three names .

Ainsley Costello 57:51

To kick off this segment , we have a few Boostergrams . The first is from Sam Sethi All right . Next up is Gene Bean . Last but not least , Dave .

James Cridland 57:59

Jones , I do wonder how many new people were actually getting into the whole boosting thing Again .

Sam Sethi 58:07

I think we talked about it last week . I think people are streaming and very happy to stream and just getting on with doing it right , you don't always have to . I think the novelty of oh look , I'm going to send a boost , I mean you don't always want to just put an interactive comment back to the content creator . So you know , I love doing it on Friday nights with Adam and Dave on the podcasting index 2.0 show . Do I do it much else ? I very rarely do it elsewhere . So you know , but I do stream a lot . So there you go . I don't know , maybe that's what's happening , who knows ?

Sam Sethi 58:41

Anyway , we did get one , we did get one . We might have got hundreds , actually , james , but again , saturn doesn't have any filters , nor does all we put them in . So but the ones after page 77 that I could still find said that it's from old podcast and it says thank you for the mentioning pod news today , james , wishing you a happy holiday season and new year . This is for this is not me abribing you for more mentions , but it works . Well done , justin , and people not worked out . Boostergrams are just great ways of getting an advert in .

James Cridland 59:15

That is what it is , yeah , no exactly , exactly , and he gave us a long row of ducks double , two , double , two , two sats , which is 10 US dollars . So , thank you very much . That'll be , that'll be almost a pint when you and I are in Los Angeles .

Sam Sethi 59:30

I was going to say London , it wouldn't be no , no , that'll be a straw among glass .

James Cridland 59:36

Exactly exactly . So that's going to be fun , but yes , so thank you , justin , and congratulations for Optimal Living Daily , which I seem to remember has been celebrating the fact that they have hit episode 3000 recently . Their network has achieved more than 400 million listens , which is a pretty amazing thing . So many congratulations to them . 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 and you can become a power supporter at weeklypodnewsnet with your fiat fun coupons or you can support us with sats by hitting the boost button in your podcast app . Podnewsnet slash new podcast apps will help you find a new podcast app . How about pod fans ? I gather it's very popular these days . Podfansfm .

Sam and James's Week

Sam Sethi 1:00:35

So what's happened for you this week , sam ? Well , as I said , I had a lovely long conversation with Lisa La Porte . Yeah , I mean , you know it's a hard time going on over there and hopefully in the new year we'll see some green shoots of growth . Will keep you informed . Then Great chat with Tom and Jason over at the London podcast show Very exciting for what they're planning this year . So , yeah , looking forward to that one . Obviously , we did A&C's rehearsals . I launched a new video player that some people , many people , liked . One person didn't . Don't beat me , Todd Cochran .

Sam Sethi 1:01:11

Yes , but no , we were listening to the Friday night podcast show with Adam and Dave , and Adam , you know , put out a little sort of I wonder if we could take YouTube videos into podcasting apps . I thought , yeah , I wonder if we could . We were building out our new podcast media player because you know it was on the roadmap and we'd done , you know , a very basic player to get the product moving . And then we'd started to put in what we wanted to as version one of our , you know , more control so you can boost while listening and all those good things and read transcripts and look at chapters , etc . Etc . And I just mentioned to my CT I wonder whether we could take a YouTube video as well , Because we were going to allow people to upload the video through the alternative enclosure and host it locally on podfans . But he said , no , give me three minutes . That's all it took .

James Cridland 1:02:07

So , yeah , yeah , and it's not a hack , is it ? It's just embedding the iFrame that YouTube would normally , you know , allow anyone to do .

Sam Sethi 1:02:17

Yeah , and you use the share content , not the URL of the page , so that's the only bit you have to work on and then it plays beautifully . And there's a couple of iOS sorry couple of PWA hacks . I'm more than happy to tell all the other apps how to do it , if they want to do it . Just yeah , I'm , you know , oscar Mitch Martin , anyone . Just I'll share what we did very , very happily . It's not something I need to keep personal or private , and it's simple . And what we are fundamentally doing is saying look , if you want to use the alternative enclosure , there is a place for you to put a link in . Job done , right , and that's it . The next thing is YouTube enable it , and we're using fundamentally YouTube as a host . That's all we're doing . But we're still streaming and boosting and paying you directly and sad if it's your content .

James Cridland 1:03:10

Can't believe you're sharing stuff , sam , and you know wanting to help the industry get better and share stuff . I only have to be transparent to those that are writing me a chat .

Sam Sethi 1:03:24

Anyway , I can see a Christmas card being put in the bin now , right now you think I was going to get a Christmas card .

Sam Sethi 1:03:32

Well , so Todd and Todd and I were having a chat on MasterDom and Todd is just vehement that I'm hacking this and I shouldn't be doing it , and blah , blah , blah . And I'm like Todd , why don't you just support the alternative enclosure ? I don't support it . And then I sent him a screen grab saying you do . And oh well , we spoiled it only for the live thing . Okay , well , if you do it there , why can't you just do it in the actual channel ? Then you know it's not that hard and he will be . He'll be sticking with his two feeds and it's two feeds to me , his basic quality saying so yes . And then the last thing was it was my father-in-law's 93rd birthday this week . So happy birthday to Duncan . Well done , he's reached a grand old age of 93 .

James Cridland 1:04:16

So yes as you listen to this show not particularly , but I can .

Sam Sethi 1:04:22

I can . I can clip it up and play it to him . He'll be happy .

James Cridland 1:04:25

Okay , good , excellent , happy birthday

Sam's Super Secret Exclusive Announcement

James Cridland 1:04:28

, yes . What does it say here ?

Sam Sethi 1:04:31

Sam , it says well , he doesn't say the first part . But it's goodbye to pod fans and hello to true fans .

James Cridland 1:04:39

Really .

Sam Sethi 1:04:40

You're changing your names Indeed Before we launch officially and remove the beta sticker which we've been holding on to . Yeah , one of the reasons is , again , I've listened to where we've had pod fans mentioned on many shows and in many lists and I get pod fan blindness because it's just pod , pod , pod , pod , pod , pod , friend , pod , first , pod chase , a pod pod and pop , pop , pop pod , and I'm like , oh , we're just one of many and I don't feel we stand out and as a marketer , I just don't like it . So that was the first reason and we've been talking about this with a couple of people for a while . The second reason was we do more than just straight podcasts . We were obviously looking at music . We're looking at books , video , and so , talking to several music artists , they were like pod fans is just doesn't really say music to us and it's a bit sort of narrow focused . So , yeah , and I tend to agree with them .

Sam Sethi 1:05:41

And then finally , of course , kevin Kelly , who , who's seminal blog was 1000 . Truefans was some of the thinking behind value for value and some of the thinking behind what we do with our platform , and I thought , yeah , I wonder if anyone's got Truefans , and they didn't , and so we didn't got Truefansfm , so , as of the publishing of this recording , we will now be Truefansfm and you can still go to podfansfm . We'll do a redirect , but Truefansfm is what we are .

James Cridland 1:06:12

So you heard that here first , unless , of course , you heard that first somebody else before . I've edited it . But yes , well , there you go . What am I going to do with my beautiful , my beautiful purple sweatshirt ? Now is the question .

Sam Sethi 1:06:26

Well , you just have to get the new one , the collector's item . I've got to just print some more . Anyway , on that bombshell James , what's happened for you this week ?

James Cridland 1:06:35

I was on a couple of different video things . This week I did a online event with Norma Jean-Belenki from Podbean . It was called Revitalize your Podcast in the new year with AI podcasting tools and apparently I was very good . I had an email telling me so .

Sam Sethi 1:06:57

I was passing myself on the back as I said it .

James Cridland 1:06:59

You can go and take a peek at that . I'm sure you'll find it on the Podbean website . Also , a little bit earlier this year I don't know whether I should mention that we actually recorded these in August , but a little bit earlier this year I was asked by the good folks at Libsyn to sit and do some predictions for podcasting in 2024 . Quite difficult to do in August , it turns out . I was going to say premature predictions , I know , and one of my predictions was that it won't be all Apple and Spotify next year . Well , that is certainly coming true , I think . So great to see that put up by the Libsyn team earlier on this week . Thank you to Elsie Escobar for asking . It looked super smart as well . It's always nice when , instead of somebody recording themselves on a laptop camera , it's actually done in a proper way . So that was really nice . So thank you to Elsie for asking . I was really looking forward to being on the Christmas special of the podcasting 2.0 podcast , but unfortunately that will be recorded on the very time that I am flying with the rest of my family to the UK . So unfortunately I'm going to miss it , which is a great shame , but so sadly . But I'm sure that the Christmas special of the podcasting 2.0 show is going to be a fantastic thing . You can expect it on . The 22nd of December is when that is being recorded , I can tell you it's at 8pm central time , so it'll be quite late for you , sam , I'm afraid . Oh , great , but still . But there we are , so looking forward to that .

James Cridland 1:08:47

The one other thing that I have done today and I do want to just mention it is that , as a podcast website , it's probably important that I've got RSS feeds , and someone posted a couple of weeks ago on Mastered On . If you do have RSS feeds , then make them obvious , and while you could discover them , you weren't necessarily obvious . So , as of now , if you are looking at the Pod News website on desktop , then you will see a little of the proper Mozilla RSS icon . You will see that on pretty well every single page that there is an RSS feed . They're different RSS feeds on every single page and that's good too . But , yeah , and it occurred to me that there are an awful lot of podcast news websites out there that don't actually have RSS feeds , and I'm there going if you really a podcast newsletter or a news site if you don't have an RSS feed . So yeah , so I was quite proud to add that little orange badge on virtually every single page on the Pod News website . So yes , rss feeds , hooray , it's a good thing , it turns out .

Sam Sethi 1:10:01

An orange badge of honour . There you go .

James Cridland 1:10:03

Yes , exactly , and that's it for this week .

Sam Sethi 1:10:06

No , no no , no , hold thy horses , young man . Just , I know you want to keep the show under 15 hours , but keep your horses hold Very quickly . Talking about you flying to the UK , we will be doing our predictions show at some point as well . So thank you to everyone who sent their prediction team . Yes , and we will be doing our look back to 23 and our predictions show as well . So James will be revealing that at some point when that's going to be done .

James Cridland 1:10:34

Yes , we're looking forward to releasing that at some point , whether it's before Christmas or after Christmas , not sure . I think I know what the answer is going to be . We will see . I think July 24 is a perfect time to do it , but we've got some fantastic predictions , so it's great to have so many different voices , so thank you all so much for that , and that really is it for this week .

Sam Sethi 1:11:05

You can give feedback to James and me by sending us a boost to Graham . If your podcast app doesn't support Boost , then grab a new app . What are you waiting for from podnewsnet ? Forward slash new podcast apps .

James Cridland 1:11:16

Yes , and I gather that Truefansfm is very good . Our music is from Studio Dragonfly , our voiceover is Sheila D , we use clean feed for our main audio and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout Podcast hosting made easy . Get updated every day . Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet .

Ainsley Costello 1:11:37

Tell your friends and grow the show and support us the podnews weekly review will return next week . Keep listening .