Oscar: 0:00

we've just launched fountain version 0.4. And the big update that we've announced is we are now paying all listeners to listen to podcasts on fountain. So now on fountain, you can actually earn just by listening to your favorite.

Sam: 0:19

Welcome to Podland the last word in podcasting news. It's Thursday, the 7th of July, 2022. And I'm Sam Sethi, the MD of river radio, the podcast first radio station.

Harry: 0:29

I'm Harry Duran, founder of full cast and host of podcast junkies and the vertical farming podcast standing in for James this week, who is still on holiday with his family.

Oscar: 0:38

Hi, I'm Oscar, Mary, and later I'll be on talking about fountain's new listen to feature where you can earn Bitcoin just by listening to your favorite podcast.

Sam: 0:48

He will now Podland is sponsored by bus sprout podcast. Hosting made easy last week, 3,218. People started a podcast with bus sprout And now there's bus sprout ads to grow your podcast wherever it's hosted. Find out more at. Bus brow.com/ads. And we're sponsored by squad cast, the remote recording tools that creators love last week. Squad cast launched version five with new features and new look. You can hear the interview with rock and Zach on last week's episode. And we are recording this episode in squad cast itself now. Podland is where Harry Duran Duran so good. They named him twice and I review this week's top podcasting stories and interview some of the people making the news.

Harry: 1:34

This episode is short and the good news is Podland supports both transcripts and chapters. So please jump to the relevant story or interview that interests you most. And we'll also put the links to the

Sam: 1:45

First up Harry, pod first. Now it's a wonderful client., a few weeks back They added lit or live item tag from the podcast index 2.0. So if you have a podcast you can put in, when you are gonna actually do a live broadcast and people who subscribe to you using pod verse will get to know so you can join them in real time. But last week they also added video. Harry. What are your thoughts on both? Do you, as a podcaster, like the idea of being able to put a live item tag into your RSS feed to tell people that you are broadcasting and recording live,

Harry: 2:31

Yeah, I think it's a really interesting, application because of what's happening with folks that normally would stream. And I think if they can incorporate it into their workflow, anything that allows podcasters to more seamlessly. create a routine around their recording times and letting those super fans, Sam that really just want to be involved in everything related to the show. I've heard Dave and Adam talk about this on podcast in 2.0, they've been going live the past couple of episodes and I catch it in the replay, but it's interesting. In addition to going live. If you think about pairing that with the booster grams on a app that supports it, you're now notifying your fans, who in turn are listening and now watching you in real time. And of course, because you have a method for them to contribute directly to your show, it feels like everything is sort of gelling together. Nice.

Sam: 3:20

Yeah, I think pod first has done a great job. I tend to watch a lot of YouTube and there's a big discussion about YouTube is gonna get into podcasting and is a video podcast, truly a podcast, or is audio podcast the only real podcast? Do you, or would you watch a video podcast within an audio podcast player?

Harry: 3:41

I don't think there's anything that I watch or. So attached to that, I would need to watch it real time. I could see this happening with the apple notification, the apple day events comes to mind something of that caliber where people really want to know, what's happening real time. And again, like the super fans who want to follow along and just happened to be, so enamored of your show that they wanna watch every step. it's hard with live because especially now we talked about time zones before recording as well, just, they don't necessarily seem to sync up. So I don't know that you'll necessarily get a lot of people, but the ones that do are probably the ones who are gonna be the most engaged during the conversation. And you're almost integrating them into the actual episode, which.

Sam: 4:20

Well, if you want to try pod verse and have a look at how it works, go to pod verse.fm/podcast, and look for the daily tech news show, which is a video as well as a podcast. And you'll be able to see how it works And the good news is Mitch Downey, who is one of the founders of pod. First will be on the show next week to tell us all about it and what their future plans. now, also just a quick reminder, if you do want to see which podcasts are using the live item tag, John Spurlock has put together a Twitter account that will tweet out whenever one of those podcasts goes live. So if you wanna follow and see which podcasts are going live, do so at podcasts live all one. Podcast live on Twitter, follow it. And you'll be up to date on when any episode of any podcast that uses the live item tag

Harry: 5:11

One more, Twitter account to follow exciting.

Sam: 5:16

Yes. Now talking to John Spurlock, he's been a busy boy. He's just posted a ranking of where recent podcasts are hosted, ordered by the number of new episodes published. again, you can find that on John Spurlock's account and you'll find it in our show notes as well. Most surprisingly though, or unsurprisingly Harry, anchor remains top. Yes.

Harry: 5:36

I think what's interesting and you've talked about this. James ad nauseum. Just the fact that just, it's just a playground and a place where, amateur podcasters go to die. and so I think it's, I don't think you're gonna see much change in the fact that's gonna remain top of the charts, and with all the different ways that Spotify is deciding how to count actual shows. Regardless of whether they're active, regardless of whether it's in one episode, I know that Adam and Dave really railed into, the Spotify person who's on the earnings call. think one or two episodes ago about how clueless she was about the podcasting industry and just mentioning just numbers for the sake of numbers, because that's obviously what the investors want to hear.

Sam: 6:19

She also mentioned that RSS was dead basically as well.

Harry: 6:23

Yeah,

Sam: 6:24

Okay, let's watch this space. The reason why I thought it was interesting that anchor was number one, Spotify, New Zealand reported, and now it's become more generally. known that there's a plan within the Spotify app to allow you to record directly into the Spotify app, to create a podcast.

Harry: 6:41

Yeah, it'd be interesting because I think, I wonder how that plays into anchor. So they would record into Spotify and it would immediately host on anchor.

Sam: 6:51

I think this reminds me a little bit about when, Facebook, had bought Instagram and for those in the know the technology people, of course, we all knew that Facebook owned Instagram and owned WhatsApp, but now you have Instagram owned by meta. As part of the launch screen . and I guess that's to make, people aware that they own the product, maybe anchor and Spotify being two different brand names. Most people may not associate anchor with Spotify. I don't know. Maybe that's the

Harry: 7:22

I think what's interesting is their attempt to make the recording of content. And, people throw this creator term around pretty loosely. And I don't know that anyone that can be a creator needs to be a creator. And I, I don't know that, creating it's almost sounds like a Facebook live tool or, we're going live in terms of, how you can do that immediately on all the channels at TikTok snap, Snapchat, Facebook. And it seems. That vibe, that energy I'm going live immediately record. And I have some strange impulse to just do it right now in the Spotify app. it feels like it could be something that would lend itself to ephemeral just in the moment. I don't even know if you would call them podcasts. you would call them audio snippets maybe because yeah. Clips or something like that. So interesting to see what they do with the content and how they share it, to folks as.

Sam: 8:14

it's surprising cuz they've already, still got, a clubhouse like client haven't they? so again, you'll have one of those capabilities. I think it's called Spotify live. then you'll have this recording on the fly clip capability and then hosting with anchor and megaphone. Cool. Now the next story we wanted to talk about is another app. That's doing great guns. It's called fountain. and we last spoke to them. September 17th, 2021. and James did an interview with Oscar Mary talking about the fountain app. but we thought it's time to come on back. So Oscar's been working busily on a new version and I asked Oscar, what's in the new version of fountain

Oscar: 8:53

So we've just launched fountain version 0.4. And the big update that we've announced is we are now paying all listeners to listen to podcasts on fountain. So now on fountain, you can actually earn just by listening to your favorite. You can also earn by listening to promotions. And you can also earn by contributing back to fountain by creating clips from podcasts, by, liking and commenting on other people's clips and also by supporting podcasts through the value for value system. So what we believe and why we've done this is we. Actually want to reward the users and the listeners that are using our app and our platform to listen to podcasts. We think that the. Time and attention that we all give to these tech platforms every day is incredibly valuable. And actually most of the tech platforms out there that you use don't recognize or reward this. So we want to change that. And, we're starting with the earning features that we have now, but we've got a lot more coming along. Those.

Sam: 10:05

I'm really glad that you're doing that. I've been banging the time and attention monetization drum for about 15 years. and what's been lacking of course is a micropayment system to enable it because, up until now getting a or a thumbs up or whatever is the only way of, getting some sort of user. Interactivity back. Why did you think that this was a good time to start it for yourselves? what was the driver that you,

Oscar: 10:28

So there was actually two reasons that we decided to launch this. Now, the first is what I've already talked about around the value of a user's time and attention and how we want to reward that. But the second benefit of launching this feature is it's an incredible onboarding mechanism for the existing value for value. Features that we have. So one of the things we've seen over the last year since fountain has been live is that. The people that are able to go through the onboarding journey of getting their first Bitcoin in fountain and sending their first boost or supporting their first podcast. Those people come back again and again, because they love it because it's such a great feeling to be able to support your favorite show in the app and feel like you have that connection with the host. The problem that we had is that for. your average person that's never heard of Bitcoin before, or doesn't really care about Bitcoin from an investment philosophy, is difficult for them to take that first step. So the ability to earn Bitcoin just from listening now makes it much easier for the average new fountain listener to have that moment of magic and send their first boost because all they have to. Is download fountain, start listening for a few hours or a few days, and they'll have some SATs in their wallet, which they can just send back out to podcasters. So for us, the ability to number one, Align with this belief of rewarding users' time and attention, but number two, solve the problem. One of the biggest problems that we've had over the past year in terms of onboarding to value for value, both of those together was it was a no brainer for us to do this. And then I think the other thing as well is we're really curious about how we can improve on some of the problems with existing podcast advertising as well. And happy to talk more about that, but yeah, I think the onboarding, problem that we're solving with, this is really exciting. And actually we've seen just in the past few days, since we launched the new version, so many new users sending their first boost from all around the world, which is really exciting.

Sam: 12:37

Yeah. I think that's a great way, as you said to onboard, I've been calling these attention tokens, in the past rather than SATs, but that's what they are. Do you have a level of gamification now added into the platform? So is everything that the user does because fundamentally what you are talking about is an activity verb, right? You're talking about, I've joined, fountain. I've completed my bio. I've listened to my first podcast. I've done my first clip. I've shared it with my friends. Those are all verbs within an activity stream. Do you. Envisage an element of gamification. So more points for certain activities, less points for others, or are you universally rewarding people for those activities now?

Oscar: 13:23

Yeah. Great question. So the amount that you can earn on fountain. Does depend on the amount that you contribute to the platform. So the main ways that you can earn more are number one by creating clips. Number two, by engaging with the content that other users are creating. So liking other users' clips. replying to other users boost. And then of course, the more you are supporting podcasts on fountain, the more you earn to, and then finally we have a referral, system. So the more users you refer to fountain, the more you earn as well, you can find your referral code, just on the wallet page. And I think, yeah, in terms of gamification, I think long term, it's not necessarily that we want to gamify, the experience. It's more just that. We think that the actions that I've just mentioned, every time a user on fountain takes one of these actions, it's an incredible signal to us about where the high quality content is. and especially. The fact that we've tied money to every single action. So for example, we don't have likes in order to like content on fountain, you have to pay so it makes the action a lot less trivial. and we think that it's gonna make these actions a lot more high signal, which ultimately will allow us to. the best moments from podcast listening experience.

Sam: 14:50

How are you stopping people? Gaming the system in the sense, not gamification, but gaming,

Oscar: 14:56

Yeah, it's a great question. And that it's a big. To, try and combat bad actors. There's a lot of sophisticated, bad actors out there. So it is a big job. I think the thing that we have on our side is that the signal that we receive on which content is the best is. Money from other users and it's not our money. So for a bad actor to fake that signal, they're gonna have to spend a lot of money. we've got a lot to do to build up those systems, but ultimately if you tie money to every single action, then the cost to spam, those actions, is just gonna go up and up with the amount of users that we have.

Sam: 15:36

Now I've used fountain. it's also James' app of choice. one of the things in the early days was obviously getting the wallet to connect. how have you overcome that technical challenge?

Oscar: 15:47

Yeah. we've just made a bunch of small improvements to the wallet functionality. And obviously as the, the volumes have gone up just scaling the payments has been. Challenge as well. I think we're constantly improving and I think it's much better than it was six months ago, but we still got a lot to do. I think we're still not quite there for, your average user that comes onto fountain to have a completely seamless experience for onboarding. But obviously now, The ability to earn you don't have to go through the Bitcoin purchase flow, which was the most challenging. but yeah, We're getting there with the payments. They're much faster now, much more reliable. so yeah, we're getting there.

Sam: 16:23

Do you allow, exchange out? So do you allow stats out of the system or is it a closed system?

Oscar: 16:29

Yeah. So you can withdraw from fountain. we don't. Handle the exchange back to Fiat. You'll have to withdraw over lightning to another wallet that handles that because we don't want to touch the actual exchange part.

Sam: 16:43

So moving forward then. So you've got this, platform now that allows to reward and monetize time and of attention. What comes next for fountain? where are you going next with it?

Oscar: 16:54

Yeah, I think in the short term, we just have a massive amount to do in terms of, feature parity with some of the other more established podcast. Performance, and just, reliability and design. I think in the past six months, we've launched our podcast wallet that allows podcaster to join the lightning and receives features that we've launched to the CLIPP features that we've launched. we've moved quite quickly over the past six months. And I think now we just need to take some time to. Get things, stabilized address all of the user feedback that we have, which is there's a lot of it and add some of the other more advanced audio features as well. Like skip silences, improve our CarPlay integrations, things like that. The things that our users are asking us for. so yeah, we're really focused on that. And then, looking a bit further into the future. I think we just want to improve the. Incentive models that we have introduced with the earnings. I would love it in six months time, fountain users to be making, serious money from creating amazing clips from amazing podcasts. I think that benefits the podcast is cause it helps them grow. We've seen this with the biggest podcast like Joe Rogan. It helps fountain, obviously, because fountain users will be able to hear incredible content from shows that they don't subscribe to on the discover page. and ultimately it just helps other fountain users. So I think the more we can optimize the incentive models to reward, fountain users, for creating content, the better.

Sam: 18:24

Now, looking at some of the newer features of the podcast index 2.0 namespace. One of those that's quite exciting right now is a new live tag. any plans to implement the.

Oscar: 18:36

Yeah, definitely. We'd love to implement the live tag. as I said, over the next kind of month or so we're focused on, some of the features that our users have requested, but we're definitely. Look to add live item support at some point in the next few months, I think it's gonna probably take working with, the hosting providers or the actual live stream platforms, just to make sure that's already to go because at the end of the day, if we're gonna launch the feature, we do want, podcasters to be able to try out the live stream from the hosting side.

Sam: 19:05

now Oscar remind everyone if they want to try or download fountain where they can go.

Oscar: 19:11

Yeah, so to download fountain and start earning your first sat, just go to fountain FM, and you can download we're live on iOS and Android. And if you want to earn more, try our clipping feature, create a clip, support a podcast, share your referral code, and you'll earn more. And I'd say for anyone listening that has heard. The value for value system, the Adam and Dave have set up on Podland. I'm sure you've heard about it in previous episodes, but if you've been put off by the fact that you have to go and buy Bitcoin on an exchange and go through the invoice process and all of that, now's your chance just listen on fountain and you can earn your first SATs over a couple of days, and you can send your first boost for free. So yeah, check it out. it doesn't cost anything and as always would love to get your feedback on the.

Sam: 19:59

Oscar. Thank you so much. Good luck with the, next version. I'm sure. 0.5. Dunno when that will be out, but I'm sure you're working on it.

Oscar: 20:08

Amazing. Thanks, Sam.

Sam: 20:09

Oscar Mary, an interesting idea there, Harry. how do you feel about being paid to listen using Satoshi's to your favorite podcast?

Harry: 20:17

That's interesting because when you and James brought this up on the last, episode, about this feature, the impulse for me immediately was to go and. Start listening to more of my shows on fountain overcast is my default app. And some of the look and feel of fountain, if you're coming from overcast is challenging because I don't know if there's a setting required, but when you play an episode, I've noticed that it doesn't immediately go to the next episode in the queue. If there's one available. and so you have to start and stop sometimes when you're listening. and a lot of times you just wanna queue up whatever's, let's say podcast, pod news or even, Podland if I'm behind a couple of episodes, I wanna be able to just go to the show and say, start playing what's there, but I did. Actually begin to listen more. And so it did change my listening habits because I said, if I'm gonna be listening anyway, might as well, stream. And I think it's based on time listened, not speed of at which you listen. Cause I was wondering if you listen faster, do you earn lesser? Do you just earn your stats faster?

Sam: 21:19

Never thought of that. what's interesting though, if you compare both the apps we've talked about, if you look at pod first, who've got the live item tag and video, which aren't in fountain, but fountain's got the value for value, Satoshi payments for listening and recording, It feels like a little bit of a, features, war between apps to try and get the new latest feature in from the podcast index guys. which do you prefer, would you prefer to be rewarded for your time and attention, or you prefer to be able to listen live.

Harry: 21:52

I think the rewarding for your time and attention. I think what's interesting is what all these apps are doing. And again, I just keep harping back to the folks who are on the cutting edge of this Dave and Adam, and they had an interesting discussion in the last episode of podcasts in 2.0 about, what. All these developers, what all these services are charging as their fee and how much of that is transparent to the users. Do you know that, whatever the percentage is that Oscar's getting on fountain, do you know that a percentage of that is going to the podcast index? Do you know that a percentage of that is going to your wallet provider and there's so many different moving parts? I think, In the early days right now, what would benefit us all is just to be more transparent. I've always been a fan. And I know that Oscars added and fountain the ability to change the Toshi to actual Fiat currency amounts. And with the drop in cryptocurrency, listeners, aren't donating as much as they think they are. And I really think having that flexibility and having that transparency. What you'll see as creators is that your supporters would actually be willing to donate more. If they were clear about how much of that was actually making it into the creator's.

Sam: 22:59

do you think this make the mainstream consumer move across from say Spotify or apple? Because obviously Spotify and apple, both support video proprietary as it may be. And. Neither have a live item capability. I suppose if you added Spotify live to something that you followed, maybe that's the equivalent, but would you think what fountain's doing, would make the mainstream move over if they're getting paid I'm just wondering whether they would understand what a Satoshi is and

Harry: 23:31

the thing. I think we're so wedded to this idea of the Satoshi because it's crypto and We want to be transparent about the fact that it's a cryptocurrency and that, there's no, intermediary. and while there is no payment processor, there's no Stripe, there's no PayPal. and people rail around the fact that PayPal's taken their 3%, that system is functional. It works. And you can make decision about whether you wanna support that system or not. And if you choose not to, then that's a lot of where the value for value comes in, but you shouldn't be fooled into thinking that more of that money is gonna be making its way to your creators because everyone's taken their cut along the way, but that's not a bad thing as long as we're transparent about it. and I really think, The default should be, know, Fiat currency so people have transparency. It's not as sexy to boost 2 cents as it is to boost 2000 Toshi. But that's like inside baseball, not, us term, obviously, but, the geeks and the. Early adopters really appreciate that. And they can still have fun with it, cuz the fun in the booster Grahams, as you've demonstrated on this show is the fact that you can send thousands and thousands of a currency. And at the end of the day, it's nice. But what ultimately makes its way into the pockets of the creators is pennies still. So let's not fool ourselves into thinking we're letting these creators, quit their day jobs. So if the true. real, want and desire is to support our creators. there's something to be said for the full transparency of a picture on model, where you can see that you're getting to your $5, your $50 donation every single month. I think what's also, gonna be helpful is probably for someone who's got some more visibility to experiment with the app and. bring a big show onto fountain and then someone with a decent following to just demonstrate and screenshot and say, Hey, try that this app, made several hundred dollars over the past month with my show. And granted that's not as much as I'm getting. With these other tools like Patreon, but it really opened my eyes to the possibility. and I may look at doubling down on that. so a message like that from someone who's, doesn't need to be a super big influencer, but I think as more and more names, and I think as podcasters, if we can encourage our fellow creators to try out the app, the onboarding is a bit, don't, I haven't tried it recently cause I've been on for a while, but I recently chatted with, Mike McAllen on podcast junkies and he was asking me, I got him excited about it. And he got stuck a little bit in terms of getting Fiat currency into the app. And there's still that disconnect about, I think you have to capture the, your address in

Sam: 25:54

I had the same issue that I had to get a QR code with an invoice and go over to a wallet and blah, blah, blah, and jump back and, scratch my tummy and rub my head and do all sorts of things. And yeah, Oscar's done a great job of the onboarding in fact, Part of the onboarding's been made easier as well, because what he does is he uses an element of gamification by rewarding you through the process with SATs.

Harry: 26:16

That's smart.

Sam: 26:18

So that you, by the time you've done the onboarding and you've got to the point, I'm ready to listen to my first podcast. And then you see that you're earning more points or SATs into your wallet. You then go, ah, now what do I do with all these? And then there's that process. Now I can generously give back to the creators that I enjoyed. So I think he's done a great job from onboarding all the way through to,

Harry: 26:41

So if I'm on the app now, and I hit my wallet and I hit fund wallet, which is what I. In

Sam: 26:48

Yeah.

Harry: 26:48

instinctually. And then I've got a bunch of options, a hundred thousand stats, only $20 us, not bad. but now I have the QR code.

Sam: 26:56

So, I've earned 60 SATs from listening over the weekend to a podcast. I'm just enjoying getting paid right now and using what I get paid to give back. I still think the neatest way that I've ever seen it done is on Twitter. if you go to the podcast index, Twitter account and you see the dollar sign, you click on that icon. It comes up with how many SATs would you like to pay instead of likes. And then when you click on open one, it takes you to cash app and it's super simple. You put your five quid or quid in or dollars and it converts it straight to sat and you are in. So I think. I still think as you point out correctly, Harry, there are so many little geeky steps left to get out the way. I guess by the time fountain 1.0, comes out whenever that may be, all these will be removed and I guess. Pod versus the same, they may well support paying people to listen to the podcasts, while watching them and, or, watching live right in as well as video and maybe Oscar by that time will have added video and the live item tag, eventually all these outs will catch up with each other. the question is, will Spotify an apple change to make it so that they're on parity? Cause I think we're going past them.

Harry: 28:11

yeah.

Sam: 28:12

Anyway now, moving on, some quick news, Harry what's in the quick news.

Harry: 28:17

in quick news, Lipson studio, the company's free podcast maker tool is running a brief user survey to help shape the future of the product.

Sam: 28:24

Have you tried at all the lip sync studio,

Harry: 28:27

No, I haven't. I was a early Lipsen user, but I've since migrated over to, a couple different hosts, including captivate for our clients' shows, but I'm not familiar with the latest changes in what they're doing there.

Sam: 28:41

yeah, I need to go and try it as well. I suppose again, it's a great entry point I used to be on Lipson. And I guess when I first started podcasting, that whole idea of having to pay for your first hosting when you didn't really know whether you were gonna do a podcast, it's a barrier. I

Harry: 28:56

One, one thing that they did early on and I'm sure they still support it is they had a very easy to remember URL. So it would be an extension of your Lipson, address for your show. And I think it was forward slash survey or they had built in something. So they'd been really. Promoting the benefits of serving your audience for a long time. I remember Rob Wal talking about this early on. So I think a lot of podcasters always try to figure out how to grow their show. and the most obvious thing to do is to ask your audience. And I think that's one of the things that podcasters are reticent to do, maybe cuz they don't wanna hear the answer or maybe cuz they're afraid they're gonna send it out. No one will respond but it's an important, tool to use, to grow your. The

Sam: 29:38

So talking of Lipson and Rob Greenley, his partner in crime on the new media show, Todd Cochran at. Blueberry has launched a podcast media kit that they update daily with information that you choose the kits are of used to media buyers rather than you and I. And, blueberry's implementation is automatically updated. I'll be putting a link in the show notes to show you how you can use blueberry's new podcast media kits.

Harry: 30:05

I think this is a great tool. This is something that, new podcasters may not come with that skillset about how to sell their show. And they're so focused on the creation of it. And they almost think about sponsors after the fact. So the fact that blueberry is making this really easy with media kits. This is something that we've manually created for our clients, but if you can do this. I think that it gets podcasters into the habit of having conversations with potential sponsors of installing the benefits of their show and just being really, curious about who it is that could be a good fit for their show. And so I think having that as something that's available to them, that one less thing for them to create that blueberry's gonna handle. I think it'll keep the folks who are on blueberry, stickier as.

Sam: 30:49

I wonder though, how many podcasters are gonna be truly happy? Not saying that some may, elaborate on their numbers to sponsors, but, some do. and now obviously, Blueberry making that very transparent. this is the number of people who listen and how long they listen to you.

Harry: 31:05

Yeah. And it's something that charitable now provides, obviously for any conversations with sponsors. I know gumball FM, has you connect, your host or your charitable account? So I think in the long term, it's helpful for podcasters to be ready to answer those questions about downloads and why that's not the only metric a sponsor should be focused on if they're C. In the content that they're creating is either niche or very specific to an audience that a specific sponsor would find helpful regardless of the downloads, because would you rather have, 20 to 30 people listening that are specific to that industry and, it could be something that where people spend a lot of money. And so I think it would force podcasters to be more creative and, cognizant of what they're creating on a regular.

Sam: 31:52

again, I think it's a good thing. So congratulations, Todd. anchor, podcast fraud appears to be on the rise again, about six months ago, James and I were talking about how somebody on Spotify had recreated the whole of the Ricky DRES podcast with a slight twinge, the cover art and put it as the out, as their own podcast and had put ads around it and were making. Decent money and they're not the only one doing it appears as other people. I do know that there is a, or was I'm hoping James has fixed it, but there was a, fraudulent copy of Podland that was being put out on Spotify. So There were two versions of Podland on Spotify.

Harry: 32:30

when you know, you've made it.

Sam: 32:32

oh, it does it. Oh, okay. Is a badge of honor. Is it? Woo . have you, come across this before?

Harry: 32:37

no, I haven't, but I heard about it when you mentioned it on the show and I think it's really strange that if you would think about the content, there's an audio signature to the episodes to obviously they're gonna replicate the cover art, the name, as much as possible. And the fact that this can't be. It at least programmatically early on and warn, or give a notice to a creator. That's, a show with your exact name has been created, are you aware of this? just something to flag it because for creators to have to figure this out or find out, on their own through some third party. Really doesn't seem like they're doing the creator's justice. It's so interesting. The focus is on creating content and having creators come to the platform, but then they do nothing to protect them. They do nothing to care for them on the platform.

Sam: 33:30

Yeah, I think James has Nu them. And again, if you want to find out how to do that, James has created a link with details on how to report, fraudulent podcasts. And again, I'll put the link in the show

Harry: 33:43

I wonder if that's even like a nice thing to do as your show grows to periodically check and search for your own show, which you should probably be doing anyway on the major platforms.

Sam: 33:54

just did.

Harry: 33:56

Yeah.

Sam: 33:56

now on the move, people who are moving around in the industry this week, Chris stark has quit the BBC, and has joined global, which is a big UK radio and podcasting platform. He's joined as a presenter, and a producer of one of the. Global big radio station's capital FM breakfast show. and he's also got a remit to expand the sports content on the global player. I guess this is, I dunno what the equivalent in the USA would be actually a commercial radio station group that also has a podcasting arm. what would be the equivalent Harry? Would iHeart media come into that.

Harry: 34:32

They could, yeah, I could see that and this is the same global that purchased, captivate.

Sam: 34:37

Correct. Yeah. and they have recently been acquiring a lot of talent from the BBC, Emily mate list, John Sopel to name, but a couple. now Chris stark is well known cuz he produced a very good parts. Called the Peter crouch podcast, which got a significant number of downloads. Now that podcast has also left the BBC and is with Acast. so yeah, I'm renaming the BBC by, by creators, because they literally are bleeding producers. They're literally bleeding talent. yeah, here's another one who's on the

Harry: 35:09

Anyone from BBC, listen, listening to this show.

Sam: 35:11

we have a few, I believe. Yeah, it's a shame. we've got some great X BBC people, crowd network being one, voice works being another, and we've also got Dina sofa. Sophonic, who's recently produced the J leaper podcast. so they are losing big talent. That's all I can. Now, moving on the techy stuff. Couple of weeks ago. Thanks to Adam Curry who gave us the heads up on it. There's a little Chrome browser extension called Albi that allows you to, earn and play with cryptocurrencies. now if you add the lightning. Emoji to your Twitter account or to your webpage in your bio. and you've got the lb browser extension. It will allow you to make payments to that website or to receive payments. what they've done now though, is it's at its own podcaster wallet, which is pretty cool.

Harry: 36:02

Yeah, I, yeah, actually after hearing it, I have, I set it up. I have the Chrome browser extension. I think I was even able to get my name it's cuz it's, Harriet lb or whatever the . And I

Sam: 36:15

Congratulations.

Harry: 36:18

didn't know about the lightning emoji. So I'll have to play with that a little bit as with all things related. Shiny new toy related. it's just finding the amount of time to just sit there and plan out, the next hour or two of losing your time, because you have to figure out these things and play with them and test and send money back and forth. But I think, it's something that I'll look into as well.

Sam: 36:38

You can now use that new wallet, in your RSS feed for your funding tag. So within the funding tag, you can now set it up to be the Albi, wallet that your money goes in and out of. So that's

Harry: 36:50

and I'll be

Sam: 36:54

That's a good question. I haven't checked. I'll have a check and maybe we'll let you know next week.

Harry: 36:57

take a percentage as well. Okay.

Sam: 36:59

Talking of other apps that are out there are good friend Benjamin Bellamy over in, France has released a new version of Casta PODD, version one, beta 17. Wow. Beta 17, publication process for podcasts is in this with a new draft mode, and a few other bits and pieces. Again, cast pods, an interesting it's gone differently. It's gone down a different path. It's started to use. Activity pub. And it started to focus on the whole area of cross commenting. and again, going back to my earlier comment, Harry, you've got pod verse doing some great stuff with live item, tags and video. You've got Oscar doing some great stuff with value, for value, and you've got Benjamin Bellamy doing some great stuff with cross commenting. They all seemed to have taken a different stance from the podcast index, new tags and implemented them. hopefully they all catch up one.

Harry: 37:49

I wonder it may be too early for this, but I imagine there's gonna be some consolidation. Within this value for value app ecosystem, because I think, for the most part, most of these are solo developers. So there may be some power in joining forces, especially as they get more and more adoption. other than everyone trying to do their own thing in their own app,

Sam: 38:09

Yeah, we would've had Mitch Downey on today, but his daytime job, got in the way. Dave Jones as well, the guy who's putting most of the tech behind the new podcast index, extension tags. He's got a full-time day job as well. So most of the people putting this stuff together, aren't, working on it. Full-time so congratulations to them all in what they're delivering. Now, events that are coming up. again, just a quick reminder, the British podcast awards powered by audible are Saturday, July the 23rd here in London at Kennington park. Tickets are on sale. they're quite pricey though. dunno what you think, Carrie, I went on there and it was, 90 pounds for a ticket. Yeah, I was a little surprised on that. A little bit toppy, I thought, but,

Harry: 38:54

Anyone, you know, that's

Sam: 38:56

a couple of people, Jake from message heard. there's a few of the other guys who've been nominated, so I am gonna go along Harry. it will be interesting to see, the bridge podcasting scene will go along you, unfortunately couldn't come to the London podcast event this year, but it was a good event. And I think on the back of that event, we're beginning to see a little bit of a growth in the. podcasting scene, people getting together more often and getting to know each other. I think

Harry: 39:20

Is it a black tie fair?

Sam: 39:22

no, it's outside under TP tents or under sort of tents. So jeans t-shirts flip flops. Anything you like, even if you'd like to wear a hula skirt, I'm sure there'll be okay with letting you in Harry.

Harry: 39:34

that's great. So we have pod Fest, Berlin coming up on July 16th in Berlin, Germany. I imagine it's not related to pod Fest, multimedia expo in Orlando, Florida. I think it's just a function of grabbing the same name. I don't know if you know much about it.

Sam: 39:50

No, I don't, actually Ariel ni and black was on last week and she knew the guys behind it. But, no, I dunno if they're related to that event in Orlando.

Harry: 39:58

And always a good time in Berlin. It's been years since I've been there., I'm sure if anyone is nearby, they, here's another reason to go out there as.

Sam: 40:05

I might go cuz I was stationed out there as an army officer. Berlin's a city very close to my

Harry: 40:10

Yeah. And then here in the states, we have podcast movement 2022, August 23rd in Dallas, Texas. So make sure you get your cowboy hats ready. the full schedule's been published, now by the podcast movement team for the event, I'll actually be speaking on Thursday, so I'm excited to be attending

Sam: 40:28

Okay.

Harry: 40:29

Uh, a little follow to I talked about at podcast movement evolutions, but this idea of establishing sponsorship opportunities for your podcasts that are not related to the CPM model. And as of this recording with the vertical farming podcast, I've generated over 60 K us on my show. And the first sponsor actually acquired before I launched the. So it's an interesting story. And, on the times that I've spoken about it before it's been well received and I'm grateful to the team at, podcast movement for putting me on the slot for Thursday. So I, expect it to be well attended. We have a podcast day 24, the 24 hour podcast conference in Sydney, London and New York tickets are on sale now and they've announced their first speakers, including mark fennel, Eric Newsham. And John Russo, the event is on October 4th.

Sam: 41:22

Yeah, this is something that, Matt Deagan, who runs the British podcasting, do together, with a few other people. I'm pretty sure. so James runs the. Part of it, um, at the London, I'm not sure who runs the New York part. they run a full day 24-hour conference. they did it last year and I'm sure they did it did it few years before COVID

Harry: 41:42

It sounds interesting. And I wonder how it relates or how different it is than the inter. Podcast a 24-hour event that goes on where, it's in the same it's 24 hours across the globe. and the show just keeps handed, over to folks who begin live streaming. So, I wonder if it's something related, and similar to that.

Sam: 42:00

tickets are going on sale and, links to the website will be in our show notes. now. hot pod summit. Have you been to that one before Harry?

Harry: 42:07

no, I haven't been,

Sam: 42:08

yeah, Ariel was saying that they're normally in New York and now they've moved over to Los Angeles. and it's on November the third. So I'm just wondering, cuz you go to podcast moving quite a bit, whether you'd been to the hot pod summit.

Harry: 42:19

Not yet. At some point you have to pick and choose, with so many conferences in the states. And the fact that I'll be wanting to attend the UK, one year. So just a matter of making sure your whole life doesn't revolve around podcasting as well.

Sam: 42:35

Yeah. Yeah. There's no money in that.

Harry: 42:37

so Sam, just as we wrap up here, what else has been happening for you in Podland?

Sam: 42:42

it's been a pretty quiet one, but, my little crafty tug my pub on the water, pulled my first pint on it. So very exciting. So when you come over, Harry, you'll be able to come to the crafty tug, and pull a pint

Harry: 42:55

does it have its own Instagram account? Can we follow along somewhere?

Sam: 42:58

Oh, that's a good idea. I should set that up. I posted the picture the other day. It looks really cool. We just got our license in the river in Marlo where I live and, yeah, this Saturday we it to the public. So

Harry: 43:11

And it's a tug on the, it's a pub on a tug

Sam: 43:15

a tug boat. That's been turned into a real ale pub and it's called the crafty tug. That's the name of the place?

Harry: 43:22

That's a perfect name for it. Um, yeah, definitely. It'll be on the list of things to visit when I'm out there for sure.

Sam: 43:29

So Harry, so what else has been happening for you in Podland this. Wow.

Harry: 43:33

Uh, podcasting related. interesting how starting that new show, the vertical farming podcast has opened up some new relationships for me. So I actually just returned back a, a week or two ago from from the indoor ag tech. NYC conference. It was in Brooklyn for two days and really fascinating just to see, what's happening. I came back with probably 20 plus interviews queued up for the show. So it's, it's always interesting to see that opportunity to build relationships with people that have that you've just spoken to virtually. And because I focus on founders and CEOs, it was nice to shake a lot of hands and build some relationships. So there's some ideas cooking, and it's interesting to see the potential for projects that can come out of. Podcast that I just started out of curiosity two years ago, and now building these relationships and building these partnerships, which has been really fascinating for me. Um, we're also hard posse, trying to get that out for the next beta release, working with my co-founder Brad marketplace, the posse.com. And, I think that's the focus, until podcast movement in.

Sam: 44:38

Well, I'd like to take the chance to thank you, Harry. I was on podcast junkies. lot of fun doing that podcast with you. So thanks a lot for

Harry: 44:45

Yeah, I appreciate that. It's always a good time. And the hour goes by so fast when you're having

Sam: 44:50

guest indeed.

Harry: 44:51

And that's it for this week. If you like, Podland please tell others to visit. Tell your friends on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on Facebook TikTok, wherever else people are hanging out these days.

Sam: 45:03

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Harry: 45:04

yeah.

Sam: 45:05

you can also email us at comments Podland news or send us boosts. You can also find all our previous shows and interviews on our website. Podland dot news.

Harry: 45:16

And if you do want daily news, highly recommend you to get pod news. The new newsletter is free@podnews.net, and the podcast can be found on your favorite podcast app. All stories we've discussed on Podland today are in the show notes, and we use the chapters and transcripts as well.

Sam: 45:34

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Harry: 45:43

And don't forget, keep boosting.