James 0:01

Welcome to Podland Podland is sponsored by Buzzsprout. It's the easiest way to host, promote and track your Podcast there@buzzsprout.com. It's Thursday, March the 18th, 2021. I'm James Cridland, the editor of pod news here in Australia.

Sam 0:15

And I'm Sam Sethi. The editor of Sam Talks Technology here in the

Benjamin 0:18

UK. I'm Benjamin Bellamy, the CEO of advise, and I will be on later to talk about the recommendation

Norma 0:24

tag, Norma Jean Blinky. And later I'll talk about finance Podcast

Jake 0:29

week. So I'm Jay Warren, the CEO of message heard. And I'll be on later to talk about all things

James 0:34

podcasting. Well Podland is a weekly podcast where Sam and I delve deeper into the week's podcasting news, which I cover daily@podnews.net.

Question: Spotify Podcast Search Topics

Sam 0:43

Now we'd love you to get involved with this podcast. We'd love you to send us a voice message to questions at Podland dot news, where you can tweet us at Podland news. Equally, you can just email us at questions at Podland news, We got an email question

0:57

this

James 0:57

week, James. Yes. Which is very exciting from somebody called Simmy who calls himself fellow. Ozzie. Not quite yet to me, but still, but there we are. And he says, thanks for your insightful discussions on all things podcasts. I was listening to your latest episode of Podland. Oh, good. And I had a question re the categories discussion. How do you think this would work with Spotify Podcast topics? Spotify has started to introduce these auto tags into the search section. And now you can find a range of podcasts. When you click into the topic, have you had a chance to check this out yet? thoughts, Sam,

Sam 1:32

the way that he described it and that, and I do agree with him. If I wanted to find a road Podcast and Mike, instead of me now going to Google, I go straight into Amazon where I buy stuff from and that's become my habit. So will my habits. Be that I just go to Spotify and start searching for Podcast rather than using Google's open search capability or maybe not even going to Apple. So will it become my default search for all

James 1:59

things? Podcasting, Google has been doing the same thing for the last six months or so. So it puts a, it works out what's in the Podcast and then puts little buttons where you can find out more. And I think any of this is good news for discovery. If we're talking about something that Spotify then shows to other people well, great. I think that's probably a good thing.

Sam 2:21

the danger is Facebook doesn't allow any of its content from its walled garden to be indexed by Google. So anything you put into Facebook is not available to Google And could Spotify do the same thing? Could Spotify say, actually we want to be. A walled garden and not allow anyone other than through Spotify, his own search, find it new

James 2:42

podcasts. It's an interesting thought. I wonder whether it will be part of the future of discovery for Podcast. It's an interesting thought. Thank you semi for getting in touch. And if you have a question questions at Podland dot news, send a voice message. If he wants to hear your voice on this show,

Sam 3:00

now this week's first story. If you use chartable or pod sites to measure your traffic, overcast will no longer appear in your data. Marco Arment, the developers decide to skip those redirects entirely after they have. He claims become increasingly affected by ad blocking. DNS service, James,

James 3:18

what's it all about? Is this all about, so this is something that Marco almond from overcast started doing on Wednesday. He's now stopped actually,

Overcast Marco Arment

James 3:29

but he was skipping past those redirects that you may see from people like charitable pod sites and he didn't skip past pod track, but could have done as well. These are services that essentially monitor. How many people listen to podcasts and they also do things like attribution. So if you buy a subscription to Buzzsprout after listening to this show and we were using charitable, and so we're Buzzsprout, then Buzzsprout might know that you bought a subscription to Buzzsprout through this show. that will be lovely. And we would get paid an awful lot of money. That's the theory. But one of the problems with that is that a chartable particularly has been marked. As a ad service by some of those ad blocking service. So if you're using services that block ads, then it's also blocking that redirect, which essentially meant that Marco was getting a load of emails from people saying your podcast app, isn't working and it's rubbish. And it won't let me download this particular show and it's all to do with ad blockers and stuff. And he got a bit fed up about that. And he tried skipping those as an experiment. He says, he's now reversed that experiment. It looks as if people got a little bit upset that said there's also another company pod LP, which is a Podcast app being used in developing countries. And that's now saying that they're going to skip some of these prefixes because they don't work with IP version six. So there's all kinds of this stuff going on in today's pod news. I wrote an idea for. Incognito mode, which we all know from using the internet, when we're doing something that we would prefer that our partner didn't find out about. And I'm talking about buying presence. That's what I'm talking about. Buying Sam, nothing more than that. Incognito mode. If you notice on your browser, you should know on your podcast app. As well is my theory. And I think you could actually use something which essentially means that it would work. Even if you're blocking ads. It would ensure IPV six actually works on them as well. And it would also mean that you, your purchases didn't get attribute ID the benefit of the way of doing it. That I came up within the shower. This morning was that if a Podcast sees you doing that, then a Podcast can actually control whether or not you can use incognito mode on there Podcast, because obviously it might mean that they earn less money. So weird and wonderful. It's a very long and complicated thing, but I think it's opens up a bunch of, have questions about can Podcast apps play around with RSS feeds. Can they pick and choose the bits that they like and the bits that they don't like and all of that. And I think that it's really opening up questions for what the future of this medium is given that it is such an open medium. We just need to make sure that every part of the ecosystem is responsible in terms of what it does.

Sam 6:24

we'll watch this space as this evolves. I'm sure you in the shower, my eyes and ears are burnt

Interview Norma Jean Belenky - Podbean

Sam 6:31

moving on next week. pod bean is to run a finance Podcast week a week long live stream and Podcast event focused on finance Podcast. With many Podcast is lined up to speak. What's interesting about

James 6:45

this event. I was interested in the whole thing obviously, but I was also interested in the live stream stuff. Cause it turns out that what pod bean have is they have something which is a bit like clubhouse, except it works for Android phones and it's particularly there for podcasts. So I chatted with Norma Jean blankie from pod bean. I asked what it was all about. Oh

Norma 7:05

gosh, it's exciting. I'll tell you that finance Podcast week as a live stream Podcast event, and we have live-streamed episodes of shows and panels talking about all sorts of finance topics with some of your favorite podcasters in real estate, personal finance, crypto markets investments. And it's really an opportunity. For people who love Podcast to interact with their favorite podcasters in real time and for podcasters to engage them with their audience. yeah, we're really excited

James 7:36

and you've got tons and tons of Podcast. Is there who are some that you're looking forward to the most? Oh

Norma 7:43

gosh, I, I think everybody's special and I'm looking forward to all of it, to be quite honest. we have panels ranging from the GameStop short, which is incredibly interesting right now, and really a hot topic cryptocurrency, which I think is, on the verge of really breaking into the mainstream to personal finance and the pandemic women in finance. And then we've got a lot of really amazing. Finance experts and pros. So we've got a fantastic panel called the pros, which is really cool. And we've also got a panel called markets, 2021 with, just some huge names in podcasting. So we're really excited about

James 8:20

the lineup. So I was covering some data, some Australian data actually last week from ARNs iHeart Podcast, network Australia, which said that business and finance podcasts are the fastest growing category. 407% growth this past year. Why do you think so many more people are listening to business and finance Podcast?

Norma 8:41

Oh, I think it's multi-pronged first of all, we've got a global pandemic. People are really having to reassess their lives in a multitude of ways, right? One of which is how they spend their time. And the other is how they spend their money. I'm American. A lot of people in the United States have been laid off or unemployed or, their job situation has changed in some way or another. And so people are reassessing their relationship with money and how they spend it. So on a personal level, I think people are. Having that, real awakening moment. And then in terms of trends and what's going on globally, there's some really interesting things that are happening, First of all, cryptocurrency and Bitcoin is coming in more into the mainstream. And these are ideas and things that were, scoffed at, or not really accepted by people for almost a decade at this point. And now like Elon Musk just bought was at $1.5 billion, I think, invested into Bitcoin. And then the game stops, short people are home and they're paying attention to things more. And so as a result, we're all. Re-evaluating I guess all of our relationships in our life, including the one we have with our finances.

James 9:46

And I wonder how much of that is because people are home because people aren't paying money on, massive, great, big worldwide holidays anymore on any of that. Kind of stuff and they're staying at home and they're actually thinking I've got some, those that are still working, I've got some money now, what do I do with it?

Norma 10:01

Absolutely. Cause they can't, go out and shop on their way home or, all of those distractions of, the $10 everyday in your pocket that just goes towards trinkets. Like you're not leaving your house. So that $10 is adding up and people are seeing what they can do with it. And. where they can find the value in their life in other ways, and maybe save that money or invest that money and, do things that are in their best interest, whether it's, financially or in terms of wellness or in terms of personal development. I think, people are really 20, 20, 20 was just, a real year for the

James 10:33

books. Indeed. pod bean is involved and pod bean is using it's a live streaming platform. What's the pod bean live-streaming platform all about. I don't think I've come across that before.

Norma 10:45

Yeah. Yes. Podbean live is a phenomenal platform. So within the pod bean app, which is an app where you'd listen like any other to podcasts, We've built in a live stream capability. So within that, you can, if you're a podcaster, you can directly live stream to your audience. And not only that, but they can. Call in. If you'd like they can chat and ask questions in the chat in real time, and then you can download that audio later, edit it and upload it as an episode. Or you can directly upload it as an episode. If you're a podcaster. Now, if you're someone who's in the audience and you just love and enjoy podcasts, or, you want to listen to one, that's not yours. you have the opportunity to engage with experts and podcasters and voices that you connect with. So it's really an incredible space and, pod bean as a company we're really community oriented. And community focused within podcasting. And, we believe everybody has a right to, connect with their audience and engage and the live stream. Platform is just an incredible Avenue to do it.

James 11:42

It sounds as if it's a bit like clubhouse, but good. Is it available on both iOS and Android? It's

Norma 11:48

available on both iOS and Android and it is better? Yes.

James 11:54

an Android as well. The green texters couldn't take part. Oh, I see. that's a very good thing. And so people will be able to listen to live stream sessions and panels, but also take part in some of those.

Norma 12:08

Absolutely. And within the live stream platform, obviously we're using it for finance Podcast week, so people can. have an opportunity to engage with podcasters that they love. And we're really excited about the programming that we're coming out with. we're starting off the year with finance Podcast week and then we've got storytelling and we've got some incredible events moving toward the end of the year. And we started last year with wellness Podcast wellness week, which was fantastic. So that's coming up again in December. And so we really wanted to curate programming where. The audience could engage on topics that brought value to their lives. but in terms of the live stream itself, it has that excitement of, do you remember when everybody used to listen to the radio and you'd call in to win tickets or to tell an answer or to give an opinion, or, it has that excitement of live where everybody. Matters and everybody belongs and everybody gets to connect in and join the conversation.

James 13:00

No, there's a full pass available for the entire week for $39. It's at Podcast week.live/finance. Is there a special code that you can give us so that we can get in for less?

Norma 13:13

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. We have got we've got a special promo code for you. So if listeners use the promo code F P w at checkout, you'll get a free pass.

James 13:24

Excellent F w that's nice and

Norma 13:26

simple finance Podcast. We exactly, we made it real easy

James 13:29

for you. This all happens between March the 22nd and 28th, which is next week. Normajean. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, James.

Edison Research - Infinite dial 2021 study

James 13:40

Some numbers came out last week, Sam. Yes. More

Sam 13:42

people are listening to podcasts than ever before. Now that sounds great. Edison research has released its infinite dial 2021 study, which you can read in full on their website. Showing continued growth for Podcast consumption. This study reports at 41% or 160 million of us adults aged 12 plus. listen to podcasts every month. Now, James. What's what was your take from this report? You obviously read it,

James 14:10

So 41% monthly is a really good reach for podcasting. Arguably radio is still more than that as you would guess, but that's really good. What I saw are a few things. One thing, which I thought was great, Podcast and are reaching more than half of all young people. That's 12 to 30 fours. So 56% of Americans listen to podcasts aged. 12 to 34. So that's a lovely thing. They are half of all monthly Podcast consumers, a little bit weirdly. We haven't seen any growth at all for 35 to 54 year olds. Not quite sure why it actually dropped slightly. So the one thing that I thought was Interesting was that a, we are listening to more podcasts, but we're not necessarily listening to a whole heap more podcasts. The number of podcasts has doubled in the last year, but actually the typical American listens to five or fewer every week. I wonder whether or not we have had so many new podcasts. Now I wonder whether or not people are finding this tremendous amount of choice that we have quite difficult to see. I think

Sam 15:15

it's very similar to the way that we all started with Apple apps. I don't know if you remember, in the early days when they first started coming out, I know people had six, seven, eight, 10 screens of apps. we were loading everything and trying everything. And now I can pretty much guarantee if you ask most people, they're probably down to a handful, maybe one screen, maybe a screen in the half, you feel, push the boat out. So I think people. I've looked around, tried a few podcasts, or these are the ones I've settled in on occasionally they'll swap in and swap out with a new one, but I think people's habits get set and then they tend to stay with the same thing. If it's the same as apps I can imagine it will be the same with

James 15:55

podcasts. Yeah, no, that may well be the case. May well be the case. the other thing just to point out is that four out of five Americans, 78% of Americans know what a podcast is. So perhaps we can stop the hilarious joke of. it's a Podcast. because I think most people know and probably the other folks who don't know will never bother finding out.

Sam 16:16

No, I was going to say it, the no growth in the 35 to 54 year olds. I think I have an answer. Oh yes. What's that? They're all homeschooling. They knock it. There's no way. Yeah, the young ones, if it's anything like my house, the young ones have got their, they are not bothered, dead listening to them, watching everything they've done Netflix to death. So they're now finding Podcast cause they can't rebuild it to find anything new. But I think the 35 to 54 year olds are the ones with the young children. and they're probably going, I can't do anything. No, no more.

James 16:46

You may well be right. Tom Webster was saying in a blog post after this, that he says we should all Pat ourselves on the back, that podcasting is still going up virtually everywhere after the kind of year that we've actually had. So I think he's got a great point in that.

Interview: Jake Warren Message Heard

James 17:00

talking about America, you read it. Thing in an American newspaper, did you not?

Sam 17:05

I say I read a thing. I skim read, let's be honest. One doesn't have time to read the New York times back to front or front to back. I don't know which way you read it. yes, there was an article in there this week about UK Podcast companies. the title was, they want what the U S has looking past to be received. It was quite an interesting article. It featured Renee Richardson who started broccoli productions and Jake Warren from a message urge. And I thought I'd reach out and talk to Jake.

James 17:33

I, Sam,

Jake 17:33

thanks very much for having me on

James 17:36

where do we find you in the world

Jake 17:37

that I'm. Experiencing the joys that everyone else is have locked down London. So nothing too exciting to report.

Sam 17:44

You're not part of the Exodus then if

Jake 17:47

I had somewhere to flee to, I might well have been, but unfortunately I'm from London originally. No, sadly, no, it's a runaway too.

Sam 17:53

Now. Who or what is messaged? Give us the background on it.

Jake 17:57

Good question. So message heard is a UK based Podcast company. Although, we work all over the world now and we effectively have. Two distinct sides to our business. We have an editorial side where we create our own programming under the message hide banner ourself, that we monetize in the typical ways for sponsorship and advertising. We also create programming for others. We create shows for audible and for Spotify and for increasingly other platforms. And indeed even in foreign language markets now, which is exciting. A little bit to become the first Podcast company to be signed by Curtis Brown, Canada, literary agents. And what that effect gives us is first dibs. So to speak over that huge roster of amazing talent, and we've become an effect that preferred supplier. It's also good to have a bad cop at the table for our sort of top line commercial deals. But the really exciting thing that I'm really focused on working with them is the exploitation of IP into other more traditional mediums. So we're starting to have conversations directly with the streamers now about how they can use podcasting, perhaps in a way that feels more developmental rather than just paying a premium to wonder whoever else for squillions and squillions of dollars. Once they've got a hit show. So that's all the editorial staff. And then we also have a branded side where we use podcasting to update corporate comms, which haven't particularly moved on since the nineties. but that's targeted sales, internal comms and engagement or sort of external content, marketing thought leadership brand uplift, all of those good things. That's a bit of a waffly answer. We do quite a lot. No.

Sam 19:25

Now how long have you been around?

Jake 19:26

yeah, I was just thinking about this actually the other days, it feels like it's been forever, but also incredibly quick. So we've gone past the three year Mark because it was December, 2017 when I was crying new year, new me, new business. This is it. Full time when we come back into 2018. So yeah, just over three years now.

Sam 19:42

Okay. And you, according to your LinkedIn, you, the first UK Podcast comes to have residency on the homepage of Apple and the first European Podcast company to have Spotify acquire our constant. So that must be pretty exciting when that happened. Yeah, I

Jake 19:56

think so. I think, especially on the Apple feature provider list, how much that means in reality, other than it being a sort of badge of honor, I don't know, but it was fantastic to see the message home logo next to the financial times and all of these. Big institutions, right? When you click on our little badge and you see all the little shows next to at the time, these absolute behemoths, that was amazing. And Spotify, that was incredible too, to be in that first tranche of kind of original shows that they ever required or funded being the only Podcast company amongst that. And there was a few other shows, but it was much more specialist things. So those were fantastic sort of early

James 20:31

wins

Sam 20:31

for us. And what sort of programs in produce if somebody wants to define something, for message head, what would they be looking up? How would they find

Jake 20:38

stuff? I guess what kind of shows we create? The honest answer is we care about high quality. So hopefully anyone that was listened to any of our show would be able to discern that it's not our to rubbish, but we're also genre agnostic. And that's one thing that I'm very keen on is I hate this axes. The approach of you're either a super serious political person or you're a slapstick comedy person. I think everyone is anything dependent upon their mood. And then again, it goes back to the quality of the content that are listening to. So we've done stuff from investigative journalism. Fruits are kind of conflict and politics to short-form comedy, to pop culture, to football. And in fact, even just today, we got announced in the audio content from we're doing our first kids show in partnership with fun kids, which is a philosophy show for kids, which it feels worlds away from some of the stuff that we've created. But now I'm really excited to be doing that. Cause I want us to do everything in anything.

Sam 21:28

And one of the things that I noticed this week, he got featured in the New York times. What was that all about?

Jake 21:35

Yeah. Is still a bit of a pinch yourself moment, really to see yourself in the New York times, especially as they send a photographer and I had to do the traditional sort of East London hipster look wistfully into the distance on the bridges photo shoot.

Sam 21:51

Yeah. Cause we all do that all the time. Can't imagine why I wouldn't want to be standing under a bridge looking

Jake 21:55

wistfully. If you look at the photos, you can just see just how they are comfortable. I look at this on my face. It's yeah. What an amazing opportunity and amazing institution. Like the New York times, not only talking about podcasting, but talking about UK specific podcasting, if you think about the people that they talk to in that interview, it's all of the people that are doing amazing stuff in the UK, outside of the BBC. And actually it feels like there is it's growing at such a rate and there's such amazing work going on from such amazing people. That, to be a part of that I almost lost for words still really to feels like a seminal moment, certainly in kind of message. Heard in my life to be in the New York time. not that.

Sam 22:34

Great. Hopefully on the back of it, you'll get more.

Jake 22:38

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The response it's been insane. The amount of emails and people who have to touch, as you said, actually work related queries or whatever is fantastical. I read about you in the New York times. Let's have a conversation and.

Sam 22:50

Now last week, I had the pleasure of talking to Sean Glenn from Novell and other UK based production company affair. We were just talking about what's the difference between somebody like novel? Who did the deal with iHeart media and message her? Maybe you could just give us that reflection again.

James 23:05

Yeah.

Jake 23:06

So I know Sean, but I don't know his plans intimately or what they're exactly doing or what they might be doing. But I guess one of the things that I've talked about as to maybe one of the things that I feel very importantly, that message had. Is Robert isn't is we have a really rich legacy of production companies in this country who have typically lived. And I have talked about this in the New York times article who typically lived feast to famine based on how many commissions they can get. And that's great. And that's fantastic. But what I wanted to do was to create the business that lived outside of that world that lived outside of the BBC ecosystem of being able to get radio for commissions. And what I mean by that is that I think I see a discernible difference between a production company and a Podcast company. And for me, a Podcast company, Which is what we're trying to get at message heard is much more co-opting of that American model. We're actually, we are fronting up both the time, the effort, and of course, the money to invest in creating shows under our own banner, that actually gets the recognition and perception of quality from the consumer standpoint, because how honestly, how many people can tell you that their favorite show that was on BBC radio four that was made by an external production company or audible or whatever it is, can tell you the names of that. Of the business or the people behind that made that show? Not many and certainly not many people outside of the actual audio industry themselves. Whereas for me, The perception of quality is the most important thing that you know, with the brand. So the message that brand for me is we want to be able to create rich and interesting content across multiple genres. And the dream for me is we create a show about X that someone may love. And we have another show that's coming out about why, and maybe that's not that person bag, but they go because message had made it because I know they do high quality stuff. I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to, I'm going to test again. I'm going to effectively the valuable minutes of my day. I'm going to use some of those to test listening to this new show, because I know there's already going to be an expectation of quality because I know they create good stuff. So for me, the Podcast company thing, which is different than the production company thing is very much trying to meet that perception of high quality from the end listener's point of

25:06

view.

Sam 25:07

Okay. So you very much like a Gimlet or a Wondery rarely. Yeah,

James 25:11

look

Jake 25:12

what a ridiculous thing to say at this stage in our lives when compared to those two businesses, but in terms of a British Gimlet, certainly feels something that in terms of what they did before being brought onto the Spotify umbrella. But we have that discernible difference between the editorial side of our business and the brightest side much in the same way that given it had gimlets and given the creative as well, more of a North American model is definitely something that we are looking to. To do ourselves.

Sam 25:39

And how'd you feel about the likes of Apple and Spotify acquiring all of these companies and bringing all the content inside wall? What fundamentally is a closed wall because they're moving, we all know to a subscription model. Very shortly Apple was just remove the subscribe button to a follow button of in preparation. If everything's going inside that wall. Does that make it harder for you to get your shows heard? Because there's less than as market opportunity or are you much happier just keeping it. open so that everyone can come here, mess, charge

Jake 26:08

shows. It's a good question. And. The honest answer is, I don't know. And the reason is because a lot of this stuff is being talked about or being suggested rather than having happened yet. I certainly one of the reasons that I love podcasting is because of its open accessibility to listen to any show, usually across any platform. Although of course there are notable examples to that, and indeed some of the original shows that we've created for Spotify, of course, any different Spotify platform. I think for me, like anything, it will become. Almost two distinct lines of business, actually, where it's, maybe you, we are creating sort of Maldoff shows for particular platforms, but for me, and I don't mind doing that. And I certainly would not going to say that we would never do that, but not at the expense of creating shows, which are. It's everyone. And I think until we really start seeing these plans come to fruition and having experimented with them, you can't say what's going to work and what's not going to work. Look at luminary from a few years ago, that kind of Netflix style model for podcasts, you're facing an uphill battle because of the very open nature of podcasting and expectation of it to be open. So I think if you were to purely just go down the, of the walled off approach, I think you're not doing yourself any favors and being able to grow an audience. And I wouldn't want to do that at the expense of open. Shows that anyone can listen to across any platform. So it will be a mixture for sure. But it's exciting that these things are even being talked

James 27:30

about.

Sam 27:31

It is indeed. Now a final question. Where do you see podcasting heading? If you could get your Jake's crystal ball out, where do you see things in a couple of years for you or for the industry?

Jake 27:42

Jake's crystal ball go. That's the dangerous goodness. I could talk about this forever and a day. I think. Certainly one of the things that's been talked about a lot and I'm experiencing a lot of, and this is part of the relationship that we have with Curtis Brown is obviously the exploitation of the IP that Podcast and creates back into more traditional mediums where undoubtedly there is more money, right? Because people talk about, Podcast, that's going to be a 60 billion pound industry or $60 billion industry in 2027. And that sounds like a lot of money. And indeed it is. But if you compare it. To other mediums and other industries, it's a drop in the ocean. And I think that for me, one of the things that I'm most particularly excited about is not necessarily just the big streamers paying for a premium, the hit shows that wonder you have made, or whoever have made, but actually utilizing podcasting is more of a developmental process for them because. Being honest, it's cheaper to make a hit Podcast than it is to make a hit TV show. And I've worked in TV and TV still fairly archaic. This idea that actually, if you fund a hit Podcast show, you're going to get rich data. You'll go to be able to look at it and understand and interpret your audience and who it's worth and who it's not. It mitigates the risk. To then fund it and turn it into a TV show and shove Zac Efron or whoever it is you want to be in the lead. So whatever it is, I don't know that was a poor example, but whatever it is there, the Netflix thing at the moment, that's one thing. And I think it's, I think it's just that the other thing I would say is just the continued growth as 27.5% growth year on year. And I, people talk about things being a bubble. I don't think podcasting is anywhere near reached its peak people where it can do, but the more innovative and experimental stuff, I just think. I love podcasting because it is so innovative that there are no rules. It does feel like we're off the garden path with a machete kind of hacking into the Bush and throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks and all of those other sort of wonky analogies. But I almost, the unknown is the exciting part for me as much as what I think is going to happen.

Sam 29:39

Cool. Jake, good luck with what you're going to be doing.

Jake 29:42

Message has. Thank you so much for asking me to be honest.

James 29:47

Jaguar and from message heard a really interesting seeing how UK companies are doing really well. Of course, novel. we were speaking to last week, I had a good chat with Pascal from a delicious couple of days ago as well. And they're doing really well. yeah, it's always good. To see, great British companies doing well on the world stage. You're going to be in Australia.

Sam 30:09

You won't care anymore soon. Will you? You'll just be like great Australian gardeners. Don't really well. GABA. Do you have to learn to speak like that as well? I don't know.

James 30:19

I'm speaking conference coming up and they've added onto my photograph. They've added the phrase. Good day. I'm James. I know that was a good day. It's a very strange thing. Now, my colleague Brian Barletta, who writes a sounds profitable, which is a very good Podcast about ad Technology. He did a little bit of testing last week and he's concluded that Podcast streaming is a myth that it just doesn't actually exist. There's a great piece from him, which you should go and read. He wants to stop calling it streaming and downloads, and he wants to call it instead. Player initiated downloads and listener initiated downloads. Good luck with that.

Sam 31:02

Say he's never done. Yeah. He's never been in marketing. You might be super clever about ad tech, but seriously mate, one Oh one marketing that'll never catch on. Yeah.

James 31:13

Good luck with that. But anyway, one of the things he found out is if you play just one second. Okay. Of a podcast on Spotify that will automatically download over 90 seconds of audio, which is enough to count as an IB certified Podcast download, which is interesting. so well worth a read on that. It's at sounds profitable.com. You've got some tech forests.

TechNews

Sam 31:32

Yeah in our little tech corner, WordPress, those people who like to use WordPress and I think you do James Power price is a wonderful little plugin. That's been great for anyone who wants to host their podcasts with WordPress. And good news is they've added support for five new fi tanks from the Podcast namespace. So that's very impressive. it includes the transcript, the funding and the location tags. We'll be happy about that. James, the location takes been

James 31:58

added to WordPress, always happy about that. Yes. I haven't used WordPress for many years. It always confuses me. Matt Dugan, who I used to run the next radio conference with insisted on using WordPress for the next radio website. And it was always a battle every year of me trying to understand how the hell this thing worked. Yeah. But yes that's a really good, and of course, power press is a free plugin from the blueberry Podcast host which is all very good.

Sam 32:25

Another story that you wrote about this week was Deezer has worked with the French Podcast house shoe. Yeah, I think that's how you say it now. Sure. Alisha. Oh, bless you. to launch a new energy efficient Podcast, API, that limit Nate's according to them, the need to crawl RSS feeds is that web

James 32:43

sub James? No, it's not. it's not website. So what OSHA and teaser have produced is they've done a very excellent job of reinventing the wheel, but making it a proprietary API. So what they've done here is they've recognized that it's a really stupid thing to do what Spotify, for example does to me, which is to come and have a look at my RSS feed every five minutes. Just in case I've released a new episode of pod news. That's a really silly thing to do because it costs a lot in terms of energy. It costs a lot in, terms of greenhouse gases at the end of the day and all of that. That's my server time as well. I actually serve more bandwidth on my RSS feed than I do on my podcast. So it's a big thing. so they've recognized that's a bad idea. Which is good on them for doing that. Unfortunately, they didn't look at web sub, which is the standard tool to fix all of that, which fixes all of that perfectly. They've ended up inventing their own thing. And I'm sure it's very nice. But so anyway, so slow hand clap. I think to Deezer and OSHA, it's the right thing to do to be fair. To stop polling RSS feeds all the time. Cause you really don't have to, but please just use the open standard because you'll find a lot of podcast hosts out there already supporting, including captivate and probably Buzzsprout, it's the sort of thing that they would support I'm sure. Or even

Sam 34:04

Google.

James 34:05

Google sports. Oh yes. And Google supports it.

Sam 34:08

Absolutely. those little, that little company now talking of Google Podcast added likes and dislikes this week according to nine to five, Google a heart symbol will tweak recommendations for more like this, a thumb down button we'll stop recommending shows. Is that a good thing,

James 34:25

James? Yeah. this is something that Google are working on for Google podcasts. I was told that they were working on this over a month ago, but because I'm a good person, I didn't say anything. and then 95 Google have basically gone into the code and worked out that's what they're doing. And fair enough. I think anything that improves recommendations and also allows us to talk about liking this podcast is probably a good thing. yeah, I think that's all pretty cool.

Interview: Benjamin Bellamy - Ad Aures

James 34:52

And talking about pretty cool. A new idea for a recommendation tag has been proposed in the Podcast. 2.0 projects this week, Sam, you spoke to Benjamin Bellamy about it.

Sam 35:05

He's the CEO of ad, always, which cleverly means two ears in Latin. He's based in France, Benjamin. Hello? How are you? Know, Sam I'm very

James 35:14

good.

Sam 35:15

Good. Now please tell me a little bit more about ad. What

James 35:20

do you do?

Benjamin 35:22

is a company that provides contextual monetization for podcasts. Meaning we analyze the Podcast, the metadata and the audio files. We transcript them in both so far in English and French, and we get the meaning, the actual meaning from it. So that's, we know what it's talking about when we have that, we are able to provide recommendation for a specific episode. And that recommendation can be another Podcast. It can be an article. It can be a book. It could be an ad or it could be an affiliate pro.

Sam 35:58

Brilliant. So how long has ad you guys been going? How long have you been as a company?

Benjamin 36:06

The company is very young. It's one year old, but we've been working on this project for about three

James 36:13

years.

Sam 36:14

And what drove you to decide to go down this road of finding recommendations and Podcast? What was the initial idea? Where did that come from?

Benjamin 36:22

Because initially my partners and I were working on the media industry books and other stuff, and we spent over a decade. Working on niche markets and long tail. So our recommendation was something really important. So that's a, we can analyze

James 36:42

all of the catalog.

Sam 36:43

So I understand the first part, which is analyze the audio, look at the metadata, create a set of data sets. Have you written the recommendation engine internally as well? So is that part of what you guys have done as well?

Benjamin 36:59

Yes exactly. We had a lot of RND and we are doing that ourselves.

Sam 37:07

And where are you? So you've tested this with a number of podcasts already. How far have you got the product out the door? So

Benjamin 37:14

now we are releasing our platform for monetization. And at the same time, we are releasing a platform for our Podcast hosting, which is called Casta pod. And that allows us to provide services. Such as hosting transcription, automatic chapter and monetization in the next version, we will also provide paywall features so that any media or magazine can use that platform to manage the subscribers. Whether they are paying or notes.

Sam 37:48

Brilliant. Now you were talking offline that so far, you've seen a 5% uptake in terms of recommendations. So from the recommendations that you've produced, so what sort of Podcast have you been testing against what genres? I would say

Benjamin 38:04

really any, I was talking about the Podcast that's my daughter did. So it's a poetry Podcast. We are taking. Testing that also on the e-sports actually it can work on anything. So the subject of the Podcast is not an issue. And

Sam 38:22

when you're sending these recommendations out, how are you making your money? Where's the revenue in it for you?

Benjamin 38:29

We take a fee on each transaction. That's we make

James 38:33

possible.

Sam 38:34

So one of the things that you came on my radar from was because you've recently been working with the guys at Podcast index to Datto, and you've made a proposal for a recommendation tag. Can you tell me a little bit more about that place?

James 38:47

Yeah. So we've

Benjamin 38:48

been involved in the Podcast, indexed namespace for almost since the beginning. Which was not long ago, it was less September only. And they've accomplished a tremendous amount of innovations for the Podcast industry. And we are really grateful for what they're doing because they are allowing every player, every platform to work with one another. And of course, as you understood recommendation is something important for us and. Right now the big platforms, they understood that this is something almost mandatory for listeners to be able to find content and for podcasters to be found. But. What we fear is that this eventually is going to create vertical silos that are closed. And we'd like to avoid what happened to videos on the internet also happens for podcasts. We think that internet is just a way to connect people in applications, not to create. Closed ecosystems. So the answer to recommendation can be either a closed silo or a something that's a Rose, anyone to share recommendations so that everyone stays in control of the content and the audience. So this is something that's, we feel very strong about it. So we really want, we think that this. Could be a game changer for everyone. And the good thing about the Podcast index is that everyone can join. And we think that now, of course we are. Tiny, very small parts on the pie charts, but the thing is the only way to get bigger is to make the pie bigger. And that's comes with more interactions between podcasters listeners and everyone in between.

Sam 40:56

absolutely. Now, final question. What's popular in podcasting in France these days.

Benjamin 41:02

I cannot tell you what's popular because it's really depends on what you're into, but there are many major studios who are producing podcasts and we see more and more listeners. So of course, a dependent mic. Make everything like fuzzy, but we can see that there is a market that is growing. So our goal here is to provide one way to, to allow people to make a living from it.

Sam 41:39

Yeah, and which is what's needed. If people are going to keep doing podcasting now, is it mainly native, French speaking podcasts, or I have the American English Podcast dominated you think so? Are you seeing Joe Bogan everywhere? Yeah. Is Joe Rogan everywhere? Is he number one in France as well as everywhere else? the

Benjamin 41:59

Joe Rogan is nowhere that I know of. Yay. Excellent. I'm not a big fan. I have to say

James 42:07

reminder,

Sam 42:08

you might've noticed that.

Benjamin 42:10

That there's a language barrier anyway. So until we see the transcripts tag everywhere and the subtitles everywhere, I fear that's French people. Won't listen to so many English speaking Podcast, but there are a few, of course I'm listening to you. For start and I'm listening to a James Cridland and to Adam Curry and Dave Jones. And I loved cereal and I love the also homecoming, which probably is a little bit famous in France because of the Amazon TV show. But. You have to understand English good enough to be able to listen to because watching TV with subtitles is quite easy. Listening to a podcast without subtitles can be difficult. Until it's possible. And I'm very happy to see that Podcast apps are getting into that. And soon probably we will listen to more and more other languages, not just English, but German, or I don't know.

Sam 43:22

there's a wonderful lady called Lori Martinez. Who's based in France. She's Colombian. And we interviewed her six, seven months ago and her company focuses on translating multiple different language Podcast into other languages. That's something that is desperately needed to unlock all the great content from around the world.

Apple It's Not Free

Sam 43:41

So last week we talked about Apple changing the subscribed to a follow model. And again, this week, it seemed as a little bit more news about it. It's is Apple getting ready to launch? Paid subscriptions was a post that 95 Mack wrote about one of the changes in the new iOS 14.5 Bita for let's be very specific is Apple is stopped describing all content in Apple podcasts as available for free. So any thoughts

James 44:09

there, James Apple is clearly doing something, but we're not quite sure what, and one of the things that it does when you open Apple podcasts for the first time, you probably can't remember that far back. And I can weirdly, because I reset my iPod touch last week to test something out. But anyway, what it tells you is it gives you a little bit of guff about, all sorts of content and very exciting things, all available for free. except it doesn't say that anymore in the latest version of iOS that people will be getting in a couple of weeks, they've dropped the phrase available for free. what does that tell you that clearly tells you that Apple is about to start charging for certain things? So that'll be interesting to take a look at, I think Apple should probably be. crediting podcasters with a little bit more intelligence than they currently have. Everything is still hidden behind the Apple PR folks. And no, nobody must know anything. They haven't said anything publicly about any of this, I think. And certainly Matt Deegan thinks, and he wrote a great blog post this week about this, that actually there's no corporate benefit. In hiding this information. There's no corporate benefit in restricting it. He knows that it's been planned for 18 months. And actually what Apple should be doing is talking to content producers like your eye and saying, Hey, make sure that you're using the word follow in the future. Please don't use the word subscribe because from next month, you'll find that the new version of Apple podcasts won't use the subscribe wording anymore. And why they can't treat us as grownups. I really don't know, but it's the Apple way. Isn't it? Sam, it's the wizard

Sam 45:53

of Oz, they're the big, bad, scary wizard. And till you reveal, what's behind the curtain and it's not really that clever, that's, Apple's way as you say. And the other thing I would say, I have a favorite expression where you. You talk about available for free. Whenever anyone says to me, can I just pick your brains or can you do this for free? I always go, no, it's not for free. It's at my expense. So in future, when somebody says, can you do something for free? yes, sure. But it's at my expense and it really changes the dynamic

James 46:22

of the conversation. Yeah. Wow. that's a really interesting thing. The other thing just to mention is that there are dates, field diary. So don't go to Podcast expo in Florida that was planned for June this year. It has been postponed for fairly obvious reasons. They will be announcing new dates shortly, but we have some actual dates, Sam of people coming together and, talking to one another and drinking in a bar and shaking hands, possibly not shaking hands, but doing as many of them. Those things. Somebody tried to shake my hand today and I was not having it anyway.

Sam 46:58

tell the wife never to do it again, James,

James 47:02

funnily enough, it was the wedding celebrant who we were meeting. Yes. And he tried to shake my hand. So I was not having that. We did a fist bump. That was as far as we were going to get anywhere,

Sam 47:11

Australia is COVID free. You're okay.

James 47:13

COVID free. But even so don't. don't don't trust these people.

Where's James?

James 47:17

Anyway, Podcast movement has announced the dates and venues for their events in 2022, which I'm very excited by Podcast movement. Evolutions is in L a, in a different hotel that I didn't recognize, but it's from March the 23rd to the 26th next year. So we're looking forward to that. That's only 14 hours flight. Away from my house. So therefore that's quite local. I'll be going to that one and Podcast movement, 2022, we'll be in Dallas, Texas from August the 23rd to the 26th. again, looking forward to that, there's also direct flight from Sydney to Dallas, or at least the, was this time last year, check the airlines not gone bust. Yeah yeah, exactly. whether or not they'll still be running that particular flight that was 15 and a half hours. That was quite a long flight nonstop. One to aim for a business upgrade. I'll tell you anyway, I'm looking to being both of those, because I've just had enough of sitting in this office at home and not speaking to anybody except through a screen. So that should be really good. So get those in your diary. You'll also find those dates and at everything else on the. Pod dot event's website, it's pod.events with all kinds of other things in there as well.

Sam 48:33

Question James, I as a speaker, like you do a lot of speaking events there was a great conversation this week. I was thinking too, about how. One speaker who, would fly 15, 14 hours like you from the USA to Germany. And that would take out two or three days of their time and they'd get to the venue then whatever they earned as a speaker and they go home and he was saying, there's three things that would have a problem with one. A the time it now takes, he's got used to doing the zoom conferences and he can do two or three of those in a day. Whereas he was doing one in three days. So he's earning more money, although slightly less each event, but he's only overall more money too. He's seeing his family. And he said, he's got young children, so he doesn't have to be away. And three, he's looking at the green footprint that he doesn't want to go back to, destroying. He says, my green footprint for the last 12 months has been great. The value add, I guess what you're saying is meeting people. How do you feel about, traveling because you have to, from Oz travel to anywhere in the world you're so isolated, but how'd you feel about what. That person's saying, you can do more for less.

James 49:49

he's exactly right. In terms of you can speak at more conferences. I ended up doing the other month. I ended up doing a conference in America, somewhere and a conference in Norway. And I think a conference in Singapore on the same day. And obviously wouldn't have been able to do any of that. But it's not really a conferences it's shouting at a computer screen. and seeing a few people in chat saying it doesn't work and that sort of thing. And and yes, there is still value in these sorts of things. But I do look at them and think they are a very different experience. And one of the things that I very much enjoyed, certainly at Podcast movement evolutions, which was the last big event that I went to in LA, actually it wasn't. I then went to reign in New York and then the very next day went to New Zealand and did a couple of speaking engagements in New Zealand, which was great as well for the commercial radio groups in New Zealand. Just meeting people and talking to people, not on stage, but having a relaxed chat with somebody in a bar with a beer in your hand. that's a tremendous thing that I think particularly those of us who work from home, who don't have the office experience of, going out and having a chat round. The water cooler or, having a fag at the back door or whatever it is for the Americans having a cigarette fact, or I miss all of that. I miss the, I shouldn't be telling you this stories and my catchphrase, as long as I've got a beer in my hand, it's all off the record which is a very good catchphrase to have which I'm looking forward to warming up again. and I miss all of that stuff, but of course, it's been lovely to be home. It's been lovely to be with my family and all of that, but it's also stuff that I've missed. Yeah. If I had enough a, I've got a bit stir crazy, but also be on the other side, it's what I've been doing for the last 15 years, really. I've been working for myself for the last 10 years. Before that I was doing an awful lot of speaking, whether it was on behalf of the BBC or of a Virgin radio. and it was part of the job that I really enjoyed and to have all of that sort of whisked away from you is a bit sad. So I'm really looking forward to being able to firstly, get my vaccination with. So far behind you guys in the UK it's unreal. And then being able to actually get on a plane and hear foreign accents again and and all of that stuff. So that will be really good. I think.

Sam 52:14

So what else are you going to be doing this month in Podland clearly not traveling on a plane, but else

James 52:19

clearly not traveling on a plane. I am the radio days, Asia next week. I'm hosting a great panel session. I tell you, I'll tell you that I'm hosting a great panel session. I hosted it yesterday and recorded it and it all worked great. And that's all about the Australian Podcast industry. It's an industry that works together. and it is a really interesting one to have a lookout, which reminds me Corey Layton from. I heart Podcast network Australia is going to be on Podland next week. So looking forward to that. So that was good. I also spoke to Valerie gala. Who's a very well-known radio and Podcast consultant about what she thinks the most important things are around being a powerful communicator. So all of that was very good. it's next week you'll find a D. Discounts tickets at radio days, asia.com and you'll find a special secret coupon code on the pod news Podcast as well. what's going on in Podland for you so

Sam 53:17

well, I'm going to be a guest on the Harry gerans podcast called Podcast junkie. So I'm looking forward to that and a big one then. And I'm breaking your, my Podcast virginity by going on to Adam Curry and Dave Jones Podcast. Hashtag no pressure.

James 53:35

Yes. good luck with that. And that's it for this week. If you've enjoyed your trip to Podland come back again. Anytime you can follow this podcast on all the major Podcast players or visit our website at www dot Podland dot news. And if

Sam 53:50

you enjoyed this podcast and we do really hope you did. Thank you. Please tell your friends, share us on the socials, biggest art. Do whatever you need. Just get the word out. We'd love to have your comments about anything on the show today. Send us a voice comment. Two questions at. Podland dot news or tweet us at Podland news.

James 54:08

If you want daily news, you should get the daily pod news newsletter. It's free@podnews.net. And that's where you'll find the links for all the stories we've mentioned this week. Or you could ask your smart speaker to play the latest news from pod news, podcasting news. Music is from ignites shingles. We use scald cast for our interviews and Riverside FM to record the show this week, it was edited by me on Hindenburg journalists pro, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout.

Sam 54:38

We'll see you in Podland next week. And in the words of Apple, keep following.