James Cridland: 0:00

From pod news. Welcome to pod land. The last word in podcasting news. It's Thursday, the 15th of September, 2022. I'm James Cridland, the editor of pod news.

Sam Sethi: 0:08

And I'm Sam Setti, the managing director of river radio.

Eric Nuzum: 0:12

I'm Eric Newsham from magnificent noise, and I'll be on later to talk about audiobooks, podcasting and all things listening.

Alexander J Newell: 0:19

And I'm Alexander Jane from rusty Quill. And later I'm gonna be talking about audio fiction.

James Cridland: 0:24

pod land is sponsored by squad the remote recording tool that creators love squad says just launched version five with new features and a new look and 4,100 hours of high quality audio is remotely recorded every week. Using squad cast.

Sam Sethi: 0:39

And we're sponsored by buzz sprout. podcast hosting made easy last week, 3,421 people started their podcast with buzz sprout. And now there's buzz sprout adds to grow your podcast wherever you are hosted.

James Cridland: 0:52

Pod land is where Sam and I review the week's top podcasting stories covered on pod news.

Sam Sethi: 0:57

We support both transcripts and chapters. So you can jump to the part of this podcast that interests you the most. If your podcast app doesn't support, transcripts or chapters, then grab a new app from pod news.net Ford slash new podcast apps.

James Cridland: 1:15

Yeah. So this week we've got more interviews than we've spaced for. So watch for a special extra interview edition of pod land on Sunday, we've got Dino SOAs, the brains behind the news agents, which is a new news podcast from global and many other things. And the return of Mike Caden from red circle with news about how their podcast host and monetization platform lets you sell your own dynamic ads as well. Those interviews in this feed on Sunday, I guess we'll call. I know, pod land, interview special or something like that.

Sam Sethi: 1:48

That sounds good enough to me, James. Good enough to me. let's kick off with this week. And we're gonna start off with Spotify. first and foremost, Spotify's the top podcast network in the us based on research from new data from Edison research, the data measures, total listeners to shows for each podcast. and it's for 12 months ending June the 30th. Is that correct? James is Spotify now the top podcast network.

James Cridland: 2:16

is it correct? I think one of the questions here is so we, so there are three podcast network rankers in the us. One is done by pod track. One is done by Triton and this one is done by Edison research. the one done by pod track doesn't measure SX M media, and nor does it measure Spotify. So it puts iHeartRadio at number one, the one, from Triton. Doesn't measure iHeartRadio and doesn't measure Spotify. So it puts S XM media at number one, but Edison research, the way that this one works is that they ask, 8,500 people a year. What podcasts have you been listening to? So they kind of, uh, measure everybody and, um, iHeartRadio is at three SXR media. Two now, and Spotify is at number one. So is Spotify really the number one? Yes. I probably think it is. so all of these figures are for the ringer and Gimlet and podcast and Spotify originals, and all of that, uh, archetypes of course, will be in there as well alongside Joe Rogan. And of course, the figures that we are seeing and the data that we are seeing is essentially, data from the last year. So you can guess that there's been a little bit of movement over the last quarter, in terms of that data.

Sam Sethi: 3:29

So take it as you will with a pinch of salt, but this is probably the most accurate is what you're saying.

James Cridland: 3:35

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think it is the most accurate. And I think it's worked out, uh, pretty well. The great Tom Webster of course, uh, was the original architect, uh, of this, although no longer works for Edison research. And, uh, yeah, I think it's, uh, it's interesting seeing, uh, Spotify at number one these days.

Sam Sethi: 3:51

Spotify, as we know are very heavily into podcasting, we've been waiting for a new UI because fundamentally the, the current UI is pants and, um, Friend of the show Christmas, um, has sent us some early screen grabs. What he says is the new UI, podcast and shows as a separate tab within the new mobile client.

James Cridland: 4:15

Yes. And some people think this is a really good idea that you have a view if you want to of just podcast and shows. but of course you also have a view if you want to of just music. And my, uh, slight worry with this is that you will end up with people who just press the music tab, and now no longer see any podcasts. Is, is this a good thing or a bad thing? And I'm not necessarily sure that it's a good thing. Um, would I be right or wrong?

Sam Sethi: 4:42

I'm on the other side of the fence. Sorry, James. I, I think it's great because I struggle when I use Spotify to, to clearly look at what I'm doing with podcasting. You know, I want what I go into a, into Spotify and if I want to be in a podcast mode, I'm fully embraced into that mode. And if I'm in music mode, then I wanna go in there. And I, I feel like I sort of get a mismatch of, um, everything coming at me. From what I remember, um, these are filters and not actually tabs. Potentially, uh, they could put more filters in. Um, now I like it. I prefer it this way. If I'm being brutally honest, I think it's a cleaner. Let's just keep podcasting in one space and music in another and never the two shall meet.

James Cridland: 5:29

Well, I think it'll be interesting seeing what happens there. Um, they are doing some kind of weird and wonderful things with, um, podcast artwork as well. There's a new sort of style for podcast episode art, where they have the main podcast image in a tiny little sort of window at the bottom. And then the big. Image is for the episode, which will look beautiful for this very podcast, because we have separate episode artwork, but won't necessarily look beautiful for most of the other podcasts, which don't and of course, apple doesn't support, um, episode artwork. So it's gonna be interesting to see how that bit works as well.

Sam Sethi: 6:09

Thank God we're covered.

James Cridland: 6:10

Yes. Yes, exactly.

Sam Sethi: 6:12

is this us only because I looked last night and clearly nothing's changed for me. Um, or is this gonna be globally rolled out? Do we know?

James Cridland: 6:21

Um, I, um, I mean, my guess would be, it will be globally rolled out., but it may well be, you know, in the same way that, um, Quite a lot of these things do where they launch with specific users, uh, first. And, uh, maybe that might start with the us only first. Yeah. I'm not seeing it either on my trustee, iPod touch, , where I, uh, um, still have Spotify installed it's off the Android device. It'll be, uh, interesting to, to see uh, how quickly they roll, uh, all of this out. I mean, if you remember, they had this super duper new view for podcasts, um, what this was, um, a six months or so ago and they still haven't rolled that out. So not quite sure what they're planning at there.

Sam Sethi: 7:06

Well, they're also gonna be bringing audiobook out. We've been, uh, told by Paul Vogel, the CFO. He said that, uh, audiobook are coming to Spotify reasonably soon. I dunno what that metric is reasonably soon is that as you just said, six, 12 or 18 months from now,

James Cridland: 7:24

yes. Who knows? I mean, 18 months is reasonably soon, but I mean, I'm, I'm fascinated with, uh, how audio books are going to work in terms of, uh, Spotify, because I. Surely, they won't be able to offer them in the same way as they've offered podcasts and, music of just, you know, here's your 1499 bill. And for that, you get all that you can consume. Will they, is that how that's gonna work?

Sam Sethi: 7:47

Well, no, I mean, I, I, you know, the way my order book, I dunno if you have an order audible account, but the way my order audible account is I have to pay a monthly fee. I get credits, uh, or I could pay a one off fee for a book cuz it's a single item purchase. Um, so I, it must be an additional on top payment to your subscription for, for whatever you pay for your Spotify. Um, unless they're changing a total model and then they've done an amazing deal. Ill ask Steve jobs they've rolled in books as part of your subscription, which again, I doubt very much though.

James Cridland: 8:21

Yeah. I mean, there is a, a limit of course is in terms of how many audio books you can consume in a month. So maybe they might, uh, work out that that's, that that's a plan who knows. If only we had someone who we could ask.

Sam Sethi: 8:34

Funny. You mentioned that. I thought I'd reach out to Eric Newsom. Who's the former senior vice president of original content at audible. I asked him about what he thought about, you know, Spotify getting into audible books.

Eric Nuzum: 8:48

I think that anyone bringing innovative ideas into any medium is healthy. I have always liked competition. It makes my blood. Pump harder. And you think of better ideas. If you're the incumbent and someone comes in to try to disrupt you, how do you respond? And that can be a really exciting problem to deal with everyone kind of equates audiobooks with audible, which I think is unfair because there's so much else going on the audiobook industry. There's a lot of all cart sales that happen in the audiobook industry, but audible is such a major force. And when someone comes into a legacy business and just does the same thing or repeats the same offer that somebody else is offering. Very disappointing and it's a wasted opportunity. So what I'm hoping when other players be at Spotify or somebody else comes into the audiobook space. Like, how can we create a paradigm that excites even more people about a spoken word or this form of spoken word being audiobook? How can we drag the publishing industry into the future with new ways of how to reach people and build relationships with consumers and yet still make money? I think there's very few potential disruptors in that space. So there's lots of ways that they could disrupt. And so I'm hoping that when Spotify comes into that space, that's the attitude they're taking. if they're just gonna try to out-price maneuver audible, whatever. Cool. But the thing is, if you look at the audiobook audience, you see, if you look at all the literature, that's out there about consumers of audiobooks and how much they listen, you see that it's a very different type of listener. Then you would see for music definitely. And for podcasting, even you see there's that Venn diagram and there's that sweet spot in the middle where there's crossover in those audiences, but it's not as much as you think, you know, it's interesting. I've never thought of it this way before, but it's just coming to my mind of. A lot of audiobook listeners, traditional audiobook listener came up because of a love of literature and a love of books. And a lot of podcast listeners came up through radio and, and interest from that direction. And those are very different paradigms for listening as an experience. And you have the audiobook industry is basically broken into two groups. The much smaller are the people who are just large audio consumers. And those are the people who I think Spotify is gonna be dealing with. And it's not that many. And it probably is incrementally over who they have now. It's probably not as many as they think it is. Hopefully I'm sure they've done their research, but the much larger group, which is gonna be much harder for Spotify, any other entrant to get at of those people who are genre listeners who love romance books. I love business books. I like all these things and they listen to just business books or just historical thrillers or. Crime, true crime things. And they aren't looking for things outside of that space. That's their jam, that's their thing. And so I think those are gonna be much harder for a Spotify to capture, uh, or even start a relationship with. So if I was talking to Spotify, I would ask them, what are you really trying to accomplish? Are you just trying to looking that this is a sector that you should be part of and there's a lot of money attached to it and you like money, like most businesses do. And so you're trying to figure. How to have a role in that, or are you trying to capture more of your audience's time? If you have a listener who does listen to audiobooks, they go to another app to listen to audiobooks. They come back to Spotify, listen to podcasts and music. It, it depends on which paradigm they're trying to go for. It's gonna be hard for them, and they're gonna have to have a very good and clear strategy. And I'm not sure that. given their entry into non-music categories. It's probably gonna take a while until that kind of clear idea of what they wanna accomplish emerge. Okay. Given your observation about the radio and the book paradigms mm-hmm . What is the demographic generally of an audio book reader? Is it a plus 30 mainly female audience or is it a. Plus 50 male audience. What is the demographic generally of an audio book listener? Would you say it's one of the spoken word categories that if you look at some of the research from Edison and others, it's one of the categories that attracts more women than men. Most spoken word categories have traditionally appealed more to men than women. Uh, but the interesting thing as. You know, the, the, the boom that's happened, uh, since the evolution of the smartphone in podcast, listening and streaming and on-demand audio of all types that has also fueled a tremendous amount of growth in audiobooks as well. That's not been just confined to the on-demand free audio or on-demand subscription. Audio audiobook have also grown. And just as we've seen podcasts, listening and streaming democratize and look more like the audience in the, the territories that they. audiobook is also starting to see that same sort of reflection happening, where you're seeing much more presence of women and men in more in equal sense. You're seeing people from different strata, economically different walks of life. It just ends up. Becoming a much more reflection of the addressable audience than, oh, this is very techy. And only these nerdy guys, like you and me are able to access it. So therefore the demographics look very different. I go back to something you said earlier, which was. Radio became an advertising medium that they would green light content too, for the advertising. Mm-hmm I wonder if Spotify is going down the same route. So sub 20 fives are listening to Spotify. They don't listen to radio. Generally. That's a very sweeping statement. I know, but based on that, owning a radio station as well, I can tell you that's the sort of demographics that we understand podcasting within the. We've seen from the Edison research was very male, heavily dominated for a long while. And it's now in the balance is being readdressed, which is why I asked you about the demographics of audiobook, which I'd assume maybe with no data behind me, but was more female cuz of what you said, which was it's more thriller, it's much more romance. It's much more book led. Spotify just trying to fill all the demographic points so that it's advertising strategy can then touch any point within those age ranges and genders. And is that what Spotify is now? An advertising company, not a content company. it's a really great question. I'm not sure I have data to answer that. I think that rather than think of Spotify as an advertising driven company or a subscription driven company, I would choose to look at Spotify of like, are you in the listener business? Are you in the listening business? Are. Like asking them what business do they think they're in? And if that question is anything other than a user or a listener service business, then I think they're gonna go the same way as all the others who have. Eventually found themselves in the service of solely advertising or predominantly advertising. We're in an era now where advertising has been on a roll for quite a number of years. And you and I both though, that is much more cyclical normally and will become cyclical again at some point mm-hmm and what happens then? Yeah, they've got their free model with ad led. They've got their subscription model that I use. And then they've got their subscription model with ads injected still into podcasting. I just wonder cuz O obviously video is another form they're going into as well. Which again, as we all know within the industry, YouTube is on the precipice of doing something significant, but we never know when, um, I just, well, throughout my entire career, I've really tried to focus. Let's go where the listeners going and let's do things that excite listeners. And one of my many CEOs that I served with when I was at NPR is the last CEO I served with. His name is ya moon. He had amazing career in media and he used to always have a phrase that he would use that I rolled my eyes at it first. And then over the years I found myself quoting it all the time, which is nothing solves a problem, like a. he's like there are problems with business models. There are problems with relationships. There are problems with the ebbs and flows of business, but if you make a hit, a lot of those problems either go away or the options become much more interesting and you have much more opportunity to figure out what the options can be. And so his saying that implied focus on making hits. and I think that's wise advice that not many people in podcasting are taking right now because podcasting right now is a hand to mouth industry. People are like, I need downloads so I can get advertising. And I just need to shovel as much cash into my mouth as possible. But they're not thinking of like very few, very few. I would struggle to think of anyone in the podcast space right now, which is thinking of like, what do we want to be three to five years from. and how do we make decisions today? That will put us to be the leader in the space we wanna fill in three to five years. That's the type of thinking that is missing from podcasting right now, for the most part, it's all quarter to quarter, how do we get the next year's buys? Or how do we even subscription things? Like how many people do we get in people aren't thinking about. How do we care and nurture those relationships? And I, I don't wanna be too general. There are many people who are showing us great examples about how to think about relationships with listeners. And there's so much that can be learned from them. But I think the industry as a whole, especially the large networks and distributors are thinking quarter to quarter. And I think that is a really dangerous place to be in apple. We haven't talked about them. They don't have an audiobook solution. Any thoughts on why that might. They're a very disciplined company and they only go into things when they have a reason to do it and that they can make a significant presence in it. One of the things I admire about apple as a company is they're like, unless we can come up with something that just changes the game, we're not gonna do it. And it has to be a big change in a big game. Know, people always ask why hasn't apple gotten into podcast advertising or taken, oh, podcasting is now congratulations of billion dollar a year industry. And I think. Still too small to really catch Apple's eye. So I think that we're just too small for the most part. And I think they take their role very seriously as a nurturer and convener of the podcast industry. And it has been since it's very origins, but as far as like a business that they would be interested, I think it's just not quite big enough. And so I think that's basically my thought about it is that they're a very disciplined company and they're not gonna jump into something unless they can change it and they can make a substantial business out of it. There's no question they could change podcasting. Anything they do, but can they make a big business out of it? I'm not quite sure it's big enough for them possibly. Now magnificent noise is off podcasts. One of the things we talked about off air was the podcast index 2.0 namespace, extending the metadata around podcasting person, location value tags. Where do you sit within that? Do you think it's. Valuable way of moving the needle forward for podcasting and making it easier to discover and pay for stuff. Or do you think it's an industry distraction? So. Podcasting is moving at a tremendous speed. People come with lots of great ideas. So it's interesting. Our conversation has really been focused on surprisingly a lot on audiobooks and some of the business around podcasting, which is I don't spend a lot of my time thinking about these issues. I spend a lot more of my time thinking about how do we take good things and make them great either through what we're learning from the audience we have or editorial instincts, or like, how do we make something great. And that's where I spend most of my. Focused around that. Now I read everything. I read all the newsletters. I read the things that come out in the mainstream press. But as far as like things I'm going to stop and pay attention to this, or this deserves more of my time, a there's a small qualifier. If I think it's big enough issue that I have to understand it in order to have a conversation with someone about their business. But for the most part, I try really hard to focus on what my kind of core. Principles of my business and my work are. And if some new idea comes in, that makes that better, makes that easier, makes the connection have less static or less resistance in it. I think it's great. And I'm very comfortable with people experimenting with things and learning from them and not being the first one to rush in. When we started podcasting in NPR, we started in the summer of 2000. And this is after iTunes had made the announcement or Steve jobs made the announcement of the integration into iTunes. It was after many large media comes, already had a presence in podcasting. There were even NPR shows, which were distributed by NPR, but weren't owned by NPR like those from WNYC, for example, who were already podcasting. And when we decided enter into podcasting, the overwhelming response from within those inside of podcasting is day late, dollar short. you're too late. We've already started this space, but our approach was, we would rather wait until this kind of establishes itself. And then come in with something we think is a really smart idea that can move that space forward. And that's what the team did was let's come in, let's do our version of this. Let's not worry about what everybody else is doing, but let's pay attention to everything they've done and learn, and then come up with a better version of this. And so I just keep doing that, whether it is different kinds of tagging or different kind of ad solutions or technology around podcasting, first off, I'm just inherently very skeptical of new technologies. And even though I have a lot of new technology in my life, but I wait until it's really established itself, but everything I ask is around, how does this make things easier for the listener? Not the business, the listen. And if you're like, oh, you can have conversation with other listeners of this show, but you have to do it in my podcast app. That's not solving a problem for listener. That's solving a problem for the network or the creator, right? Programmatic advertising. Does it solve a problem for listeners? Does it make advertising less annoying? Does it make it more relevant? Is the advertising itself better? As a result of this, unless the answer is yes to all those things, then I just don't give it a lot of credibility. I just let the listener be. The guide technology is only good when it solves a problem and that problem can't be yours. Okay. I think there are elements in there. I won't go into it now where I think cross commenting and value for value will help listeners with interactivity and communication, but that's a longer conversation. My last questions are, how do you monetize your slate? How's your podcast production company monetizing. Is it through just producing for others or is it advising. Your clients as well on the best way to monetize their content. So the advice we give tends to be focused around portfolio and product. So if you are the X, Y, Z media company, and you have all these different things, you, you have no idea where to start in podcasting, believe it or not, those conversations are still happening. And we come in or let's say you've had some podcasting efforts in. Not terribly enthused about what's the results have been, or you just don't feel it's working right. Or it's, doesn't match your brand, or you're not making any money we come in and we'd help you figure that out. It's very common for us to get brought in by large organizations or talent who are still trying to figure out, like, I can start a podcast tomorrow, but I don't wanna just start a podcast. I wanna start a podcast that matches my brand or is it the level that my brand should be at? So we do a lot of that work. And so that's just consulting for a fee. the production work has largely worked for higher. So those are our biggest income streams. But as we've grown as a company, we've started to experiment with, um, making, distributing our own content. And that's been confided, just a handful of things so far, and they themselves are meant to be experiments. So we have a, a podcast, uh, in the finance and business category called bubble trouble, which is really a very long think about where you wanna be in three years. That we have a trajectory of where we want bubble trouble to go over three years. And it's very modest and it's very much like grow in increments and stages. We also have another show that we did that came out this year called this is dating, which was really an experiment. We complain a lot about the lack of innovation in the commissioning and green light space for new podcasts. We pitch a lot of podcasts and we see what people's reactions are to them. And it just got depressing. And so we're like, let's show that there's space for so. That's more innovative and it's not a huge leap. Let's just do this. And so we, as a company funded, this is dating actually I do it newsletter and there's one newsletter, which is just my co-founder. And I talking about the process of coming up with this as dating and put it out in the world to show the potential of how thirsty people are for innovative ideas. And this is dating is fun. Is it the most innovative thing in the world? No, one's ever gonna say that, but it is different. And it's created differently. It's doesn't have a host. It's like all these conventions that we assume we deliberately walked in the opposite direction of, and that turned out really well. We did. Okay. Monetizing it, not great, but the purpose was never to break. Even the purpose was basically to start a franchise. And so that's definitely what we've done. I'm glad you said that you're looking to innovate, cuz it does feel to me sometimes when I look at the Spotify or apple charts or I look at recommendations that everything's the same. It's another celebrity with another celebrity talking heads, inviting a third celebrity to a conversation or it's a sports person. Welcome to mainstream media. Why now, now podcasting is no different than every other media. Look at the TV charts. Look at what is popular in radio. Look at what's popular in movies. It's like the same type of things. But look at TV, just look at TV. As an example, that's a function of two things. The mainstreaming of podcasting is the main reason why. But another reason why is you've had so many refugees from other media come into podcasting. Think it's an exciting space. And their first order of business is to make it exactly like the field they left, whether the business arrangements or the content choices, or the approaches to the different types of talent you work with green lighting processes. All of it is exactly the same as it was when they left TV and movie. And it blows my mind that people wanna get away from media, try something new and then make the new media, like the old media. That's very confusing to me. And I think nothing highlights that more than the kind of head scratching interest that podcasters now have in. That it's it's like video is the future of podcasting. No people who say that are fall into two categories. They're people who used to work in TV or people who sell advertising. Those are the two people or people who used to work in TV or wish they worked in TV and people who aren't advertising. And there's nothing wrong with that. If you wanna make your podcast into a video thing, great. Do it fine. But I think there's something important to remember about podcasting. And that is that it is predicated on the idea of listen. Listening is different than watching. Listening is stopping and letting something into your head. A voice, an idea, a way of thinking that may be challenging to you may be validating to you may be calming to you, comical to you, moving to you, but that act of listening is something that will go away when it becomes a video based. So people who wanna make video podcasts, great. Many people forget that there were video podcasts before there was YouTube, right? There's a lot of that energy win into YouTube. There's nothing wrong with it, but I don't think it's the future of podcasting. I think it's the future of something else. Before you go, please tell everyone where they can get hold. Well, I have a newsletter that you can get@audioinsurgent.com. It's called the audio insurgent. Magnificent noise is at the very difficult to find website of magnificent noise.com. And you can find information about magnificent noise, my newsletter and my book@ericnewsom.com. Eric, thank you so much. It's been very insightful. I've enjoyed it and I'm finally glad we've met. So look forward to having a beer with you at the next event, though. That's something I'm looking forward to.

James Cridland: 29:02

The very excellent Eric Newsum, who else have you been, uh, chatting with? Uh, this week, then Sam.

Sam Sethi: 29:08

Well yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting up with will page, who is the former chief economist at Spotify, lovely friend of the show and Oscar Murray, the CEO and founder of fountain. And we were talking about, uh, books, music, and podcasting within the same application because we. Mulling over the idea that podcasting apps, the, the ones that support the podcast index 2.0, can use the media tag and support multiple different genres. Um, because my daughter will not use anything, but Spotify and her reasoning is that when I've got my music here and I've got my podcast here, why would I go elsewhere and have a standalone app just to do podcasting and. Oscar was mulling over the idea of, you know, Hey, he may, there's no, no announcement here by the way. But it was a hypothetical. He may add music and books to fountain and actually then will got very excited because then he was thinking, Hmm, could we put a different revenue model? Cuz Will's view was that Spotify's ceiling, the 1499 for family or 9 99 individual. Was done decades ago and they can't seem to move that price point up. But what if you then started a value for value payment model, you could then suddenly have an elastic model of payment because it wouldn't be fixed, uh, at the current pricing.

James Cridland: 30:43

You can see, will getting very excited about all kinds of conversations around economics and everything else. Um, but, uh, wow. Wouldn't that be interesting if you had, uh, will and Oscar working, uh, together on that sort of thing? Uh, that must have been fun.

Sam Sethi: 30:58

Yeah, the other, the other thing that Oscar mentioned, I thought that was great was imagine being able to clip up cuz fountain supports, clipping, uh, clip up sections of books to share with friends or, or clips of music that you want to just say, Hey, this was a really great intro or why didn't we, you know, have you heard this track and here's a bit off it. I think there's lots that could be done if you know, any podcast app in not just fountain could aggregate books, music, media, even video. And the nice thing about it is as you know, James, the podcast index already supports this as a, uh, mechanism.

James Cridland: 31:35

indeed. It does. Absolutely. And, um, perhaps now's a good time just to remind you, if you get value from this particular show, then you can always pay that value back by hitting the boost button in your favorite podcast app. Uh, if it's got one, if, if not, Pod news.net/new podcast apps is where to go to find one with that in there. And we really appreciate that. We'll get onto some booster Grahams, uh, later on, Now, let let's move on. Shall we let's move on to audio fiction because, um, audio fiction we're always told is the next big thing in terms of podcasting, but I was, um, quite curious as to how the business works and how easy audio fiction is to monetize. So I wondered who better to talk to than Alexander Jane new who's the CEO of a successful or audio. Who's the CEO of a successful audio fiction podcast company called rusty Quill.

Alexander J Newell: 32:32

We are a combination podcast, network and production house. And we specialize in audio fiction. It's not all that we do, but it is most of what we do. So if it is genre fiction in the podcasting space, we are either making it. Or we are probably talking to the people that make it to see if we can't collaborate on something. We were founded in 2015. And in that time, I think we've. To public at least more than 25 shows, but we we're constantly adding new ones, both originals and network partners. So don't quote me on that exact figure. So it's, cuz it's probably shifted by the time this, uh, airs tell us some of your big hits, the podcast that we would've heard of. The one that's probably the most popular is the Magnus archives, the Magnus archives, a weekly horror podcast by rusty queen. It is a, uh, horror. I anthology ish in that it gets a bit more complicated, but that's sort of part of its charm. And, um, that's probably our most popular that's. Uh, that was Ooh. I'm trying to think now that was launched around 20, 20 17, 20 18, something like that 2017 that came off the back of our first show, which was called rust gaming. Okay. Hello and welcome to episode. Of the rusty Quill gaming podcast, which was an actual play podcast with improvisers and comedians and so on. That was the biggest in the UK of its type. And then, uh, grew a bit from there. So why audio fiction then? I mean, you know, there's lots of different genres there. What made you think in 2015, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to launch a company and it's going to focus. Audio fiction. What was the fascination there? Yeah, I have to admit at the time it was even more niche than, uh, what it's, uh, grown into. I personally have a lot of background in theater, in comedy, stuff like that. And as a result, the first show was actually the, uh, the gaming on, which is sort of, uh, semi audio fiction, but it does have, uh, improvisational and chat elements. But back at the time, it was mostly. It's, it's not very particularly inspiring asset market analysis. It was looking around and going in the UK, there's not many people do on the actual play. Uh, we'll do that, but we'll do it better than everyone else. And then we pulled the time into that and then we reinvested and doubled down on audio fiction. And the reason that we've stuck with it though, is it actually ticks almost all of the boxes for like, uh, successful podcasting. So to dive into that a little. It's evergreen. Um, a story is still the same story later on. So as a result, you get a lot of people will go back and listen to the whole thing. Also, you get a lot of transference between shows. So for instance, if you were doing a, an economics podcast and you were doing a podcast reviewing food, the, the cross. Pollination between those audiences can sometimes be a bit low, but for fiction, oddly enough, even though it seems disparate to compare a, a sci-fi comedy over here with a, a historic drama over here. Interestingly, we see a lot of audience transfer between these different points because ultimately the people here like storytelling and as long as you are hitting that quality marker, um, you'll get that transference. The most important thing for a fiction is that it ends, um, which obviously is. Anti normal podcasting is you kind of want that thing to roll forever, but for fiction there's, there's a sort of critical mass where if your story doesn't end, people are like, okay, this is kind, you kind of, you're drawing this out. Now. This is like lost season 57. We we're, we're done. So you do have to keep. Creating new shows for fiction. You can't just sort of make the one and live on. If it forever, it doesn't really work like that. So does that make it harder to earn money out of audio fiction? I'd actually argue the opposite at scale. Um, so it's very, very difficult to make money in audio fiction. If you make your tight little six parter. And leave it at that. Um, because yeah, podcasting it, we all know it's a bit of a war of attrition. You need to hit that number of episodes. But when it comes to the, um, the longer running stuff, you, you get, you get runaway conversation, you get very good organic growth from audio fiction, because if people like a story, they want other people to come and listen on the stories so they can start talking about it and things like that. And it can grow. The catch is, yeah, that scale is you need to be able to finish a. And already be working on the next show. You can't sort of make it, package it, leave it there, and then just sort of get rich. It, it doesn't work like that. You, you do still need to hit those downloads, but what you can guarantee is that people will move between fictions. Um, so that's the way that you sort of make it and you make it balance. So how do you earn money out of all of these things? I get asked that question a lot. Um, so. Audio fiction lends itself quite well to a couple of specific revenue streams. Um, first things first is your standard dynamic and programmatics tend to do very well actually on audio fiction because people binge the whole thing. So as a result, you are, you, you sell a lot of ad space because it's rare that someone will just listen to the most recent episodes. They tend to go back and they want the whole story. So as a result, you actually get a, a healthy. In almost inflated, um, amount of ad slots in a good way where they, they are getting used. Um, but in addition to that engagement tends to be very, very high in fiction, disproportionately high, compared to pretty much every other type of, uh, podcasting I've come across. So as a result, um, merch sales tends to be a lot higher for fiction. Partnerships tend to be a lot more lucrative as well. People want to buy the game based on the characters that they love. And the last one, which is the sort of elephant in the room, is it. It's not a secure and I would not say that it is a guarantee, but, uh, intellectual property derivatives obviously are a lot more robust in audio fiction. Um, so don't get me wrong. I am not saying cool. Go make audio fiction. And then you will have an Amazon show. It does not work like that, but it is still an additional option that. Isn't really on the table for other types of podcasting. Whereas here you can make something and you do get the knock at the door of, I wanna make the film of this, or I wanna make the TV show of this, or, you know, I wanna make the MMO RPG of this, whatever, like you do tend to get more approaches because it's fiction. So as a result, um, the extreme long tail of derivatives is a, is a lot healthier in fiction, but yeah, day to day BAU it's that you can. Uh, dynamic and programmatic and, uh, sponsor ad reads very effectively in audio fiction, cuz the earlier episodes stay relevant perpetually, which is a, a huge advantage. So as a result, audio fiction tends to per show actually be quite lucrative compared to say chat content where you have to run a long time before that attrition starts to. and in terms of brand safety and things like, uh, that, I mean, obviously audio fiction, you know, there are, uh, um, motor chases and people die and, you know, and all that kind of stuff. Does that cause problems with the automated brand safety tools. Really good question. So there's been a lot of shifts in that. Element, uh, of the, of the dynamic advertising environment recently, which we have to keep, uh, a close eye on. Um, so far I've been pleasantly surprised at how, uh, that, uh, detection has worked. So you haven't fallen foul of it too much. They can put a little marker and be like, okay, yeah, we know this isn't about cars. We we'll stop doing cars on your ghost podcast or whatever, and make sure it's horror stuff and things like that. So yeah, you can get the odd sort of false positive. But generally speaking, I've been surprised that it's, it's a bit more robust than you might think. Um, which I suppose could be terrifying if you are, if you are worried about robot overlords, but it, it serves the industry. Okay. At the moment. now you, you have a, um, you have a very good, uh, north Midlands accent. Um, and, uh, from the UK, of course, and the UK is an interesting market because you still have fiction audio fiction on the radio, uh, in terms of the afternoon, play on radio four. And in terms of what's available on the BBC sounds app, and that's pretty unusual for a radio market. I wonder whether you see any differences between. The UK audio fiction market. And let's say, uh, places like the us or Australia where audio fiction really isn't, uh, something that people are actually very familiar with. Uh, yeah. Massive differences. You're you're right to hone in on that. Um, as a, as a market difference between them, um, The odd thing is it's actually more similar than you'd expect cuz of one simple fact, which is although I would argue, and this is speaking anecdotally, that your average British person is going to be more likely to be more familiar with the concept of audio fiction. Like you say, thanks things like radio four, et cetera. The ultimate truth is, is that there's still a sort of element of, they're not necessarily aware of it in podcasting and things like that. Yeah. The, the interesting ones that you Hond in on though are. From our perspective, uh, Nordic regions, Canada, uh, and Australia tend to be very interesting on the audio fiction side in that a lot is actually being produced. But what's interesting is it seems to, it seems to lock quite regionally. So the us and UK has a lot of cross pollination in that, like if you make a UK show tends to go down well in the us, um, it's just so British and similarly on the us side, um, it, it comes across onto the UK side, cuz there's a lot of, there's a lot of that kind of, uh, bleed. Canada's an interesting one. It's a difficult market to break into because audio fiction in Canada is very well received, but Canadian audio fiction tends to go down very, very well. And it's, it's more difficult to break in from the outside. Yeah. Whereas Australia definitely as a market skews towards comedic fiction. Uh, and if we're getting really technical, it's a different style of comedy than say British or Northern us. Um, it, it has a more. let's just say it has a more specific skew. So as a result, it's quite difficult to make something appeals. All of those markets equally, sometimes you'll have to say right, this story will go down well in this region. But in this other region, we, we can't assume it's gonna go down as well. And you, you kind of balance against those different regions. And of course the fable and folly, um, podcast network in Canada is a tremendously, uh, large force in terms of, um, fiction. P podcasting in that, uh, in, in that country as well. Tell, tell me a little bit more about the, um, the company. Do you have lots of people who are just sitting there waiting to make great audio or how does it work from a, um, from a people point of view? Basically we ripped off a number of production, um, models from different industries and combine them into something that's, uh, a bit more efficient for podcasting. So for anyone who really wants a deep dive, we began by using, uh, we call it the Pixar model, which is you hire a creative. Uh, and then once say the writers have finished working on that project. Ideally you try and get those writers, pair them with some new people working on the next project. Meanwhile, while they're writing on the next project, the, um, performers are getting recorded. Um, and then once those performers are recording, the director's done. You get the performers working on the next project. So you start staggering, these things out. So that ideally what end is happening is you have a launch. And while that launch is running, You're already finishing up the next one and so on and so on. But ultimately, as we expanded, we, we hit the point of needing to do a multi strand, uh, tactics. So rather than sort of releasing these in single file, it was a case of, okay, well we have our, a team and then we have our, uh, our team one let's say, and then we are running them parallel to one another. Uh, and you, you start staggering it out so that each of these teams are stagger. Work, but you have multiple strands releasing simultaneously. So I think at one point we had, uh, four or five originals sort of landing all on separate days of the week, but offset with one another slightly. So in terms of your, uh, shows, um, what's the next big show that you have, uh, coming up and if, if, if I've never listened to any audio fiction, Before which audio fiction podcast, and it might be yours, it might be somebody else's would you recommend? So at the moment, we are literally mid-launch of our newest show, which is called tri forgotten rusty Quill presents tri forgotten premiering August the second, 2022, wherever you get your. It is a found family piloting, uh, adventure, which is, uh, led created by, uh, a person called Nemo Martin. They are very good at what they do. Uh, and that is it's only a few weeks in now, but that's gonna that's. Going down quite well. We also have another one launching mm-hmm comparatively soon called cry havoc, ask questions later, which is a, uh, ancient roam comedy. We're going through a bit of a, a, a historical bent, uh, kick for the, for the next few months. But in terms of what would I, what would I recommend almost always what I'll do whenever I'm asked that question is, well, what's your favorite story? And then I'll find them an audio fiction that pairs, well, with that favorite story, you know, like, like cheeses and wines, but if I had to pick a generic sort of. Go to, um, from our own, I tend to recommend, uh, Magnus archives because it starts in a more familiar format. It feels quite like an audio book, um, in the it's, you know, begins with single narrator and it narrates it out. And it's a very easy transition. Hello. Hello. This archive is off limits. Is anyone there? Martin Martin is that you. and then it starts becoming ensemble and full immersive audio and blah, blah, blah, as it, as it grows. So as a result that can sort of lure people in well, uh, I will put links to all of those in the, uh, show notes and, uh, Alex, where can we find all of the shows that you are currently working on standard phrase? You know, it's all available on the podcast is off your choice. Uh, but if you had to rusty quill.com, um, you'll find links to all of the RQ network shows on there. That contains show information, credit information. Basically everything that we do is on there. That's probably the easiest way, but you can just find us anywhere that you look for podcasts. Alex, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. No, it's been an absolute pleasure and uh, I hope we get to speak again soon.

Sam Sethi: 46:52

There you go, Alex, uh, from rusty Quill. Yeah. Very interesting audio. Fiction's not my genre, but, um, uh, again, I can see why it's growing rapidly

James Cridland: 47:01

Mm. Yeah, it's not mine either, but I really like the, the way that he talks about basically planning ahead so that your people are always busy producing something and basically, um, adding to the body of work that you have out there. So that was, um, that was all interesting stuff. right? Uh, time to, uh, get some tech stuff, I suppose.

Sam Sethi: 47:23

Yeah. Um, one of the companies you wrote about this week was a OA. I, I think that's how you might say it. Uh, which claims it's a new decentralized podcast platform now, uh, apart from rolling my eyes initially I did actually go and have a look under the hood of what they were actually saying and doing. And actually if they deliver on what they're saying, it could be a very interesting system. basically, they're using the IPFS, uh, blockchain, uh, database system for, so they're allowing people to write to a database and decentralize it., James Cridland: from my point of it'll use a Webber DAP Huray um, it is got tokenized communities. Uh it's it's just like basically, you know, um, if, if this was a drinking game, I'd be I'd. Drunk by now. Um, but, um, so is the plan that it's a, it's a new podcast hosting company, which is sensor resistant or is it a new podcast directory or is it a bit of both? And then it's got subscription memberships and that type of thing. What, what, what's it actually trying to build? I'm not sure an initial viewing of it. It looked like it was. Directory, uh, it could be a host, as you just said. Um, I was more curious about the micropayments for your content offerings based on the fact that it was using Ethereum. So it would have to use E to do that, and I'm not sure how you would do that.

James Cridland: 48:53

Yes. And I think that the costs for doing that are quite expensive as well. I find it. I always find it amusing when you have a company which is announcing a decentralized platform, um, who posts their main, uh, blog post about it on medium.com. They very opposite of a centralized platform. And I'm there thinking. Really, um, but still, uh, there we are. It'll be, um, uh, yeah, interesting to, uh, take a peek, uh, at that. Um, you can, uh, find that, uh, linked in, uh, our show notes. Uh, of course, as indeed you can find the podcast index website linked in our show notes. Um, they are going to do some, um, Uh, interesting tech work in the background. They're no longer going to store any email addresses anymore. Um, so that instead of storing the email address, it'll store a hash of that. So you can still log in, uh, if you want access to the API and all that kind of stuff. Um, but the system won't ever have a clue, um, who is actually logging in, um, uh, in terms of an email address, there won't be an email address shared in the. Database and I thought, oh, that's an interesting idea. Maybe I should do that on pod news. And then I thought, no, because I need to send people emails so, uh, no, we won't be doing that, but I thought that that was quite a nice thing that, uh, Dave Jones announced, um, listening to the podcasting 2.0, uh, podcast last week.

Sam Sethi: 50:21

Mm, he's also still very keen to get the verified tag working as well. So, um, I think this is all part of that verified tag, um, that you, I Alberto and a few others were talking about a podcast movement back in January.

James Cridland: 50:37

Indeed. Yes. It's uh, yes, we haven't, haven't moved, uh, much from that. Have we? Um, but yes, it would be nice for that to get, uh, sorted, um, iOS 16 is out, uh, you and your play phone. Have you, uh, have you installed iOS 16 yet?

Sam Sethi: 50:53

Yes, James. I mean, I had it loaded one hour after, uh, it was available.

James Cridland: 50:58

But of course you did.

Sam Sethi: 51:01

um, yeah, you were, you were saying, uh, a couple of weeks ago, James, that, you know, it would be, uh, a lovely new, uh, large graphic on your lock screen and Hey Presto, there it is. It looks very pretty, uh, the graphic stand out. Uh, you've also got a nice little widget below it so that you don't have to open your phone and go in to change the volumes or move forward and back. I mean, it's nothing, nothing. That's gonna change your life, but it is just a little bit prettier.

James Cridland: 51:31

Hmm. I was getting very excited. Uh, I was, uh, there stabbing the, uh, the system update button on my, uh, iPod touch, uh, waiting for iOS 16 to drip down to it. And I got, uh, an exciting. Update and I thought, oh, brilliant. And, uh, yes, it's updated me to iOS 15.7 and then I thought to myself, hang on a minute and went online. And of course, iOS 16, isn't supported on this. So, um, I now have no way of checking any new, iOS apps. Um, so great. Um, so I'm not quite sure what I'm, what I'm gonna do now.

Sam Sethi: 52:10

Can I just say ho, ho, ho. It's Christmas coming.

James Cridland: 52:14

Well, ho ho, ho is Christmas coming? Yes, but I mean, uh, would that be buying a phone? What, what do I want with another phone? I've got a phone that works perfectly happily.

Sam Sethi: 52:23

you can have dynamic island, then you'll be very excited.

James Cridland: 52:27

Dynamic island. Oh, dear dynamic island. Uh, the one thing that, uh, if you are, um, uh, a app developer on iOS 16, one of the things that you should be doing is just, uh, supporting, uh, that new user agent in apple core media. So you're no longer using apple core media, basically as a user agent and the figures for your app will go up. Uh, so you should most definitely be, be doing that too. Um, you write something about a Mac, um, app called podcast studio app, which I've never heard of before. Why is this exciting?

Sam Sethi: 53:03

Well, you know, it just, it just appeared as a new available app. They've added support for Buzzsprout, which I thought was interesting. So you can record. Yeah. Yeah. Nice boys. Those, um, uh, I've, they've added support for record, edit and published directly to Buzzsprout, which, you know, obviously peaked my interest. So I wouldn't had a look at who they were never crossed my path before. Uh, and it's available on the Mac store. You can try it for two weeks. Uh, it also supports Capt. Blueberry Lisen Podbean sprayer, um, et cetera, with, as it says here, single click publishing. Um, I haven't tried it. Um, I just thought it was a nice thing. It's a native app for podcasting on your, um, desktop.

James Cridland: 53:50

Yes, it looks nice. Um, also, uh, pod verse web now has, uh, translations into Portuguese as well, which is nice. It's always good to see more translations being done. And there is a, um, there's a website that I discovered called send to pod, which is a very strange looking website. It takes. Long web articles that you are too busy to read, uh, and basically uses an AI voice to turn them into an audio file, which you can then import into your podcast app. Um, which, uh, sounds like an interesting plan. Um, it's also incredibly expensive. Well, To use. and my suspicion is it's incredibly expensive because the APIs that he's using are incredibly expensive, but you know, like 20 cents an article to listen to a podcast app does not seem to be a particularly good plan, but still, but there we go. Uh, at least it's a new and an interesting idea, uh, that interfaces with, uh, with, uh, podcasting. So can't, can't be all bad.

Sam Sethi: 54:51

Yeah. And I tested the WordPress, uh, version where you could actually, uh, have your blog posts translated to, uh, a audio file and, and that. Very easily. So I'd probably stick with something like that, but there you go. nice of him to try something new. Um, let's move on James. Uh, let's have a look around pod land, uh, and see what's going on around the world. Um, in Dubai, the Arabic podcast network as Fout. How do you say that? How's your

James Cridland: 55:24

South, I believe.

Sam Sethi: 55:25

Arabics. Okay. Uh, has acquired the Dubai based podcast production company, Al media.

James Cridland: 55:33

Yes, lots of exciting things going on in the Arab world. I'd like to learn a little bit more about that, uh, in India, Ghana, which has been historically one of the larger podcast apps and podcast platforms, they are not in a good state. They're owned by times of India group. As I understand it in times of India group is, is in the process of splitting up and they Ghana have tried to merge with a big telco. So in just the same way. Um, sovereign is now owned by geo reliance. Uh, Ghana will be owned, uh, or Ghana would've been owned by one of, uh, their competitors, but that failed, uh, basically the company's going, oh, we dunno what to do now. And we are stopping access for free users, which sounds, you know, well, You know, the, the way that quite a lot of these, uh, music services and podcast services work, but unfortunately, India being, uh, the economy that it is fewer than 1% of Indian audio users actually pay for audio entertainment. Um, so Ghana is gonna have a scary couple of months, um, assuming that it, uh, finds another, uh, buyer, so interesting stuff going on, uh, there in, uh, India, certain.

Sam Sethi: 56:45

Yeah, just a little, Tibit gone. I mean, song in Indian, just in case you want to know what

James Cridland: 56:49

Oh, I did. I did not. No. Well, thank you very much for that.

Sam Sethi: 56:54

Back to the UK. Uh, the audio production awards has announced a pay what you can scheme, uh, which is sponsored by Amazon music and wonder entrance and attendees, who would otherwise be unable to enter, can choose to pay what they can afford. This is a value for value payment system, I guess.

James Cridland: 57:11

Yes, uh, almost is isn't it. And talking about awards, the Australian podcast awards are open for entry mate, uh, in Australia, the country's most prestigious and well recognized podcast awards. It says here. The judges had more than a thousand submissions in 2021. So if you are in, in Australia, uh, and you think that your podcast is award-winning then by heck you should be entering, uh, you'll find it at Australian podcast, awards.com probably.

Sam Sethi: 57:41

Are you a judge?

James Cridland: 57:43

uh, I'm not a judge. Um, I've just been asked to judge in another awards, which I don't think the awards are actually, um, public yet, not 2 million miles away from Australia. Uh, I'm not a judge in the Australian podcast awards and actually haven't been over the last couple of years. Oh no, I was, I was a judge last year. I think actually more than the way that I think about it. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's. Good to be a judge, but always quite a lot of work. Cuz you do have to listen to them all. Uh, so that's always, uh, always worthwhile bearing in mind.

Sam Sethi: 58:16

Now in other news, uh, podcast discovery tool. Good pods has launched a website. The website includes chart, user reviews and supports episode images. Um, I had a quick look at it looks very nice. It's not finished yet. They say that at the top, they'll be adding more features. Why if they moved to a website solution,

James Cridland: 58:37

I think they're adding a website solution more than more than anything else, but, um, uh, making that available, um, so that you can, uh, have a good, um, look through, uh, the particular good pods, um, you know, Thing on there as well. We have 10, uh, ratings in good pods. We have two comments, one from Claire Sandy's who says great way to hear experience perspectives on all things podcasting. Thank you. And thank you, Claire and something else from carisa flockin, uh, who has just given us five stars. So Carisa, thank you very much for that. Our score is five stars in there in total, uh, which is, uh, nice, but no, it's a good looking. Um, it's a good looking site. Uh, it works well. It's very responsive and everything else. And you assume that, you know, at some point they may focus a little bit more on the website. Um, Uh, and, um, you know, I'm not quite sure what the long term future of the app is. If the website is going to be as fully featured as it, as it currently is,

Sam Sethi: 59:40

Well talking about long term view. What is the, what is the overall goal for good pods? I mean, what what's are, are, are they pod chaser? Like, I mean, I don't really use them. Um,

James Cridland: 59:51

Yeah. I, I mean, I, I think from a, from a point of view of what they are aiming at, they're aiming at something which is a very, uh, social experience. So you can see who your listeners. Are, you can see who your friends are on the system and what they're listening to. So you can be, you know, re re recommended, you know, um, to that. So, you know, I, we can see we've got 20 listeners on the good pods. App who have clicked the button and subscribed. Um, and I can see Alberto from, um, rss.com, I can see Ariel Nien blat. Um, Matt Madea a is in there Norman Celler from, um, from pod chase. So a bunch of different, uh, people. Yeah, I think, I, I think it's just a nice social experience, which also is there to promote the fact that it's, um, a very, you know, indeed friendly, um, podcast app, not that much stuff in terms of the new podcast name space. Quite yet though. That's the one thing that I would say, but we are number four in there in the top 100 tech news chart.

Sam Sethi: 1:01:02

Keep, keep rating. We might go to number one now. Um, I'm going to say it as gram phone. It's spelled differently, but I'm gonna call it gram phone.

James Cridland: 1:01:11

it? Grammar phone, but yes, it's a, it's a magic new tool, which, um, allows you to do live streaming straight into TikTok. Uh, you liked the idea so much that I believe you used it didn't you.

Sam Sethi: 1:01:25

Yeah, I we've been looking at ways of trying to get into more TikTok. I think Elle ni and Black's got the best to handle at pod talk, um, which I think is very cool. Um, and she's. Very well on there with, um, announcing new, uh, podcasts and reviews. Um, no, I think it's a, a platform that I think the audience is at now. I. Facebook's dead. Uh, Instagram's going the same way. I think Snapchat looking at its numbers are, is, is dying on its feet. Um, Twitter is a broadcast out medium, I think TikTok and video and that short form they've increased. It's certainly interesting. And I really like this. It may not be the right tool, but it's certainly got the right direction. I think of making it easier.

James Cridland: 1:02:15

Yes, it does look, uh, pretty cool. So, uh, yeah, that's uh, grammar phone, which I believe is a British, um, product as well. So, um, so there we are go king and all that. Spotify's megaphone was down again for a couple of hours earlier on in the week. Um, that's the fourth time that I'm aware that it's been down this year? It's it was down on September the second down in early August. And in may, it broke for nine whole hours. Um, I'm not quite sure what was going on at megaphone. I have to say.

Sam Sethi: 1:02:46

maybe we need to get someone on from there to tell us, I don't

James Cridland: 1:02:48

Yeah. Yeah. Good luck with that. Um, there's a new podcast platform out there called herd.fm, H E a R D. Although it does have a picture of a cow on the website, it's looking for podcast to promote in its inaugural creator. Program you until September the 30th, if you wanna take part in that. And, uh, Patreon rather worryingly has made its entire security team redundant. Um, my suspicion is that they're outsourcing all of the sites security, which given that Patreon is essentially just a big payment system, seems a little bit shortsighted, but I'm sure they know what they're doing.

Sam Sethi: 1:03:23

Maybe they've seen valley for valley and just decided to close shop. Who knows now? few happy birthdays going on this, uh, week. I noticed on Twitter, happy birthday to buzz sprout, which turned 13 years old on the 1st of September.

James Cridland: 1:03:38

Yes, happy birthday buzz sprout. Many congratulations to them. Also many congratulations to RSS long live RSS. Uh, it is, um, It is RSS 20th year anniversary next week. Um, so Harrah,

Sam Sethi: 1:03:55

So also my birthday. So I feel very, very happy that RSS and my birthday will celebrate on the same day.

James Cridland: 1:04:01

Ah, there you go. There you go. You were born, born to be a podcaster

Sam Sethi: 1:04:06

well, I feel like it, but I'm not 20. That's the trouble. Um, Uh, yeah, it just made me have a look actually, while I was sort of rummaging around after what David said was, um, RSS 2, 0, 1 was frozen on July, 2003, 19 years ago. That's when it was frozen. And I thought. I'd have a look at the site and it's, it is just dead. There's nothing been updated on it. And then you look at the people who are involved. Now, you might know somebody on the list that's in front of you, James, but I don't know who Roger Caden head is. I don't know who Simon Carty is. I've never heard of these people.

James Cridland: 1:04:45

Simone Carti, but yes, I Jack SA in Jason, Shellen, I've never heard of any of these people. And in fact, I would be prepared to guess that at least one of these people is dead. So, uh, not, not quite sure what's going on, uh, with that, but I guess. You know, the point is you probably, you know, RSS itself as a standard is frozen. It's the name spaces, which are making it exciting. And you can still innovate on that. So perhaps it doesn't matter that, um, the board members, whoever they are, whoever they were, um, you know, haven't met for a long, long time, but, um, yeah, it's a strange, old thing.

Sam Sethi: 1:05:27

Uh, and the last birthday, um, uh, Brian Barletta, congratulations sounds profitable was two years old this week.

James Cridland: 1:05:34

Yes, many. Congratulations, Brian, and indeed. Yes. It's that time again? It's booster Graham corner. And, uh, I have in front of me a ton of exciting boosts, 21,000 boosts from Boomie. Thanks for an always great and very informative show, help so much with staying up to date with what is going on out there. Uh, that's very kind of you. Uh, what else do we have? Um, a bunch of, uh, additional, uh, uh, sat from, uh, Boomie as well. Um, uh, clearly Boomie is a big fan. So thank you for that. Um, double four, double four SATs from Kyron at me mortals podcast, the Satan dashboard is a fantastic first attempt. Heidi recommended agreed. He also says that, um, he has also integrated Saturn into his splits as well. Uh, so now he's got four different wallet setups across his podcasts. Uh, one of the things that I have fed back to the Saturn folk. Are, um, it'd be nice if we could see the name of the podcast and perhaps be able to filter per podcast, um, cuz that would be useful. Um, Adam Curry, 10,000 sets. Thank you, Adam. Multiple diva could work on a single reference app. Oh, I think he's talking about multiple devs. I'm I'm gonna guess could work on a single reference app and all be included in a block split. Um, yes, I, I, we, we were talking about a reference app, uh, last week that might include adaptive podcasting might include other things as well. um, and, uh, I agree. I think that block splits and things like that are a really interesting way of paying, uh, a, a lot of different people on one platform. Um, so thank you for that, Adam and Adam also says. That, um, smile, which is the system that, uh, the BBC was, uh, working on. Uh, he said it was weird hearing about smile. We developed the first freedom controller with it. Bandwidth was the problem and helped me think about enclosures. So there we go. Perhaps smile is responsible for the invention of the podcast. Uh, if you, um, would like to, uh, send us a message, then please do pod news.net/new podcast apps is the place to go find a podcast app that supports value for value and. That boost button or indeed just download ING cuz that's a Johnny Good thing too.

Sam Sethi: 1:07:57

Moving on event corner, Steve Pratt has shared details of the lineup for podcast day 24 in New York. Uh, you can use the coupon code P O D N 1215, which now works for the events in New York, London, and Sydney. Now gimme more details, Jim, cuz you're involved in.

James Cridland: 1:08:16

Ah, yes, I am. Yes. So this is a 24 hour conference, the first eight hours in Sydney, second, eight hours in London, the third eight hours in New York. Um, and there's all kinds of people, uh, talking there. Let me tell you, uh, some of the people who are in Australia and basically if you go to one of them, you get to see the other two events on demand after. So basically it's, uh, three, uh, different podcast conferences in one, uh, some of the things going on in Sydney include, uh, data from the Australian podcast. Ranker. There's a session around true crime and why Aussie's love true crime podcasts. It's a really interesting, um, thing. Grant T hill who's the executive head of podcasting for listener is talking about how listener approached the launch of a new podcast and is basically a 50, 50. Rule of, uh, not just focusing on the idea, but focusing on other things as well. So he'll be talking about the F the five rules of success. And if you're interested in, uh, a little bit more around narrative podcasts, then sh McCue, uh, is there, she's an author. She wrote the power of podcasting, uh, and she's talking about narrative podcasts as well. Um, and, um, Tony and Ryan are also there. They're the big signing from, um, Spotify this year. Um, so that should all be fun. And then let's peek into the us, uh, schedule as well. There's everything. Ethics and podcasting, which ju Laker UA Williams is doing. Um, there's uh, Dan Meisner is talking, answering tricky podcast questions with data. Um, so, uh, Dan friend of the show will be, uh, there as well. Uh, tri and digital, uh, will be talking John Roso and a bunch of other people, including Arian Nien blat. Tom Webster is also announcing more from the creator. Uh, which should be interesting. Uh, so if you want, uh, tickets for any of that, uh, podcast day 20 four.com is the place to go. Uh, the coupon code is pod N 1215 that's pod, N 1215, and that works wherever you are in the world.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:27

I'm so glad you said that nicer than I did now. The, the Irish podcast awards are gonna take place. Uh, tomorrow, Friday, the 16th of September at the Dublin Liberty hall tickets are still on sale. So, uh, if you still fancy going go along.

James Cridland: 1:10:43

Yes not happening this year. Is she podcast live, which has shifted to June next year. It'll be in Washington, DC, possibly happening this year. Jason Cal canis, uh, who is, um, a venture capitalist and also a podcaster he's considering hosting a 48 hour event for podcasters only. I'm up for that? That sounds fun. Tell us more, Jason. Uh, that would be a nice thing. Uh, lots more events at pod dot event.

Sam Sethi: 1:11:11

Jason's very good at doing this. Jason sticks out a feeler, uh, just to see what people's reactions are and if it's positive, positive, he might push it forward. Um,

James Cridland: 1:11:22

I, I knew somebody who stuck out a feller once, and then he got arrested. Uh, Casto has shared the top 500 podcast search terms on YouTube. If you're interested in finding out what people are searching for and seeing if you can gain the system, uh, then that's a good thing. And there are some people news, uh, in here as well. Uh, uh, somebody who I know is cat. But sh uh, she's not called that anymore. She's called Catherine Hutchinson because she got married. She's joined crowd network as commercial director joining from Acast Jack radio and absolute radio. Um, iHeartMedia has also named their new chief product officer for iHeartRadio, which I'm, who I'm not going to pronounce. I pronounced her name already on the pod news podcast this week, and I'm not going to dare do it again. And Steve Pratt, um, friend of the show has launched the creativity business, which is a business marketing and content strategy company. I. Good long chat with him earlier on, uh, in the week. He, of course, used to work at Pacific content. So what's happening for you this week in pod land? Sam

Sam Sethi: 1:12:20

Well, before we do move on to that, James, um, uh, catnap, did you say

James Cridland: 1:12:25

catnap. Yes. That was genuinely her name.

Sam Sethi: 1:12:29

right? Well, she might be on the show in a couple of weeks time.

James Cridland: 1:12:32

Her surname was NAAPP. Uh, yes, I, I, I'm very aware that they have put her forward for interview. Uh, so we will, we will see, have you said yes to that, Sam?

Sam Sethi: 1:12:43

I haven't yet. I I'm now gonna think that you two should interview. I think it'll be a funnier interview that I.

James Cridland: 1:12:50

Yes, it was, uh, yes, it was nice to see her, her, her, her name again. I, I, I saw it about nine months ago when she joined Acast so, um, yeah, she's a good person, uh, knows what she's doing. Um, so, uh, other than meeting up with, with will and Oscar, what else have you been doing this week? Any large parties or anything?

Sam Sethi: 1:13:09

Yeah, no, I'm staying black, you know, playing morning music and, uh, just, you know, settling down for the funeral, I guess, uh, you know, the country rightly so actually not be. So, uh, um, blase is, um, mourning a, a queen who, whether you are a monarchist or not a monarchist, she was actually a, a pretty good lady. Um, somebody said, . I'll miss not knowing what she thinks, um, is

James Cridland: 1:13:39

Yes, that's a very good Quip. Very good Quip. Yes. I've been a fan of following some of the Twitter accounts, which have been pointing out, uh, some of the things in the UK, which have been canceled, um, uh, very, uh, sadly there will be no, uh, Guinea pig appreciation week next week, uh, because of the funeral that has been moved, um, And also, uh, and also a, a bike rack in Norwich has been closed to show respect to the, to queen Elizabeth second. Um, so I'm glad that they're doing that. Uh, and I'm glad also that, um, both here in Australia and also in the UK, Uh, parliament is off so that you know, any, you know, uh, crisis or anything else with, uh, energy bills. Uh, we won't have to worry about that for another two weeks. I'm glad that all that, all of that is happening too. You're you're not planning on, on queuing at all. Have you, have you been watching the live, the live stream?

Sam Sethi: 1:14:38

No, not really. No. I mean, I think, I think the, the, the, no, I haven't, I, I think the thing that sort of, um, dips in and out of it is occasional people protesting about not my king and then getting arrested. Um,

James Cridland: 1:14:53

Yes.

Sam Sethi: 1:14:54

and I think, I think we are just storing up a, uh, a volume of, um, unrest,

James Cridland: 1:15:01

Uh, yeah, I've, I've been seeing tweets from North Korea going oh, steady on. Um, yes. So what's been happening for me this week. Uh, let's see how much of this stays in the edit. Uh, so what's been, what's been happening, um, for me this week. Um, not, not that much, to be honest with you. I've been, you know, I've been. On my way back from, uh, Malaysia last week. Uh, thank you for doing the editing last week. I was, uh, very, very tired indeed. Um, I've just been, uh, you know, buying more things to do with coffee, um, on the internet this afternoon, that's been my main thing. So, uh, yes, playing around with that and, um, that's basically been it, but looking forward to taking part at podcast day 24 in a couple of, uh, weeks time, um, you know, still. Finding that all a little bit stressful, but I'm sure it'll all work in the end and that's it for this week. If you like this episode of pod land, please tell others to visit, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, we'll be back next week with another review and analysis of all things podcasting. And of course, don't forget that there's a special interview special this Sunday, Dino SOAs from PERA and Mike Caden from red circle.

Sam Sethi: 1:16:14

Mm, you'll find all our previous shows and interviews on our website, pod land.news. And you can give us feedback using a Boostgram. If your podcast app doesn't support boosts, then grabbing you app from pod news.net/new podcast apps.

James Cridland: 1:16:30

Yes. And if you'd like daily news should get pod news, the newsletters free@podnews.net, the podcast can be found in your podcast app or your smart speaker. All the stories we've talked about on pod land today in the show notes, we use chapters and transcripts.

Sam Sethi: 1:16:43

Our music is from studio dragonfly and we're hosted and sponsored by our good friends, buzz, sprout and squad cast.

James Cridland: 1:16:50

Keep listening.