James Cridland: 0:00

It's Friday, the 31st of March, 2023.

Justin Jackson: 0:04

The

James Cridland: 0:04

last word in podcasting news. This is the Pod News Weekly review with James k Cridlin and Sam Sethy. I'm James k Cridlin, the editor of Pod News, and I'm

Sam Sethi: 0:16

in Prague. And I'm Sam Sethy, the CEO of Pod Fans, and I'm still here

James Cridland: 0:21

in. In the chapters today, a new coalition advocating for open podcasting. What happened at Radio Days Europe, here in Prague and iOS 16.4 is released with new podcasting features.

Justin Jackson: 0:33

And I'm Justin Jackson, and later on I'll be talking about the podcast Standards project.

Charles Wiltgen: 0:39

I'm Charles Wilin, and later on I'll be talking about the podcast standards project.

James Cridland: 0:43

They will. This podcast is sponsored and hosted by Buzz Sprout. Last week, 4,681 people started a podcast with Buzz Sprout podcast hosting made easy with powerful tools and remarkable customer support. And now you can turn your listeners into supporters with Buzz Sprout subscriptions from your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly review.

Sam Sethi: 1:05

So James, let's kick off with Jamesy. I hear, uh, I, I put it into Google and uh oh hok. Hok. Indeed. Jamesy. And, and that's how they said, say James. So, You know, that is now should be your new nickname, maybe. Oh,

James Cridland: 1:19

Jamesy James. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not so sure about that., Sam Sethi: your mother won't be happy. Quite a lot of Americans, when they've, when they've met me and they've, and they start chatting, uh, then they'll, uh, go back to Jim. Oh. And uh, right. Uh, very, very quickly. It's, it's, no, no, no, we're not doing that anyway. Why did you say A ho James e for me, to me.

Sam Sethi: 1:39

Well, um, you said you're in Prague. Uh, it was Ready Days. Europe started this week. You've been over there. Uh, pad Mo presented a new podcast, discovery algorithm, uh, and there was a few other things going on. So, look, I just thought, hey, Tell us what

James Cridland: 1:52

happened. It's a great, uh, conference. This, I've been going to every single one of these conferences that I've been allowed to go to since, um, uh, I think 20, I don't know, 22 or 2007, something like that, 2006. Anyway, so it's been going for a long, long time and, uh, it's basically where radio, um, all comes to meet, uh, across Europe this year in, uh, Prague next year in Munich. So there's clearly a beer theme going on, which i, I am not unhappy about. Um, and, uh, this time, uh, there was a, uh, a bunch of summits on the, uh, Sunday, including a podcast summit and a data summit. Uh, so there was a full podcast summit where, um, lots of, uh, really interesting speakers. The BBC's Leanne Ali from uh, BBC Sounds was talking about how to pitch a podcast, which was really interesting. But, oh, she was also talking about when not to pitch a podcast., you know, if you want to keep the IP of something that you own, um, if you don't want to be, you know, have your creative, um, you know, experience interfered with, then don't pitch it to a big company because they will do exactly that. Um, so it was a really interesting, um, uh, conversation. It was also a full workshop from the Deut Chavela Academy, which I haven't, uh, haven't. Fully, uh, looked at. Um, but, uh, they were, you know, it's one of those workshops where they were writing things on Post-It notes, um, putting them on, on the wall. It's one of those Sam that's serious then. That's serious stuff. Yes. I'm, I'm sure you've been to many of those. Uh, and Pomo who, uh, presented a new discovery algorithm, um, built for their, uh, podcast app. What they're doing, um, is actually very similar to AKA's, conversational targeting, um, or, uh, what Apple is doing in terms of term extraction as well. Listening to the podcast, working out what is being talked about, and uh, then pulling out those terms and those, and those, uh, pieces of information to help people find new shows. So it was, um, it was really interesting. Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 3:50

Mm-hmm., you also had, uh, Vicki Eels over there, the head of News and Factual podcast from Global Player. Indeed. She announced something.

James Cridland: 3:59

What did she say? Yeah, she announced that the news agents has surpassed 24 million downloads now it only launched seven months ago, so it's already become, uh, the UK's leading daily podcast. They say 24 million downloads. Dino SAOs, friend of the show from sif, um, uh, was also there. And, uh, he was also talking about, uh, the podcast success as well. They were on the big stage, which was a really big stage. Um, so that was very good. I spoke about, um, tools that, uh, podcasting is using that radio could also use. I thought I might get away with playing the descript video again, which is a descript video of where I edit this very podcast, . Um, and, uh, it still gets, you know, gasps in the room and, oh, how on earth are you doing that? It's magic and also, And also, how bad is this podcast ? Um, so, oh, thanks, . So that was, so, that was entertaining, but, uh, yeah, no, it was a good, uh, it was a good, uh, few days.

Sam Sethi: 5:00

Well, two fun facts about Prague James, which would please you, um, Prague locals consume the most beer per capita in the world. So I hope you joined in and, um, I found you a beer spa to go to James. It's not too late. You can go and sit in a nice hot tub and have a wooden hot tub, in fact. Yes. And have a lovely

James Cridland: 5:21

local beer. Yes. Well sit in a nice hot tub with beer in it. Um, uh oh, in, yeah, that's, that's, no, I'm not sure. The photograph that you have, uh, sent through is a picture. Oh, that, that is, Yes. Oh, right. So, yes, um, uh, Prague's beer scene is very lovely if you like pilsner Quell, uh, or you like causal dark because that's all you'll get. Um, but it's, uh, but it's very, very good. So, uh, yes, it's, uh, nice to be back. Haven't been back here since about 2008. And, um, the last time I was here, oh no, I, I tell a lie. I was also here in 2018. Um, but, uh, 2008 I climbed the television tower because of course I did. From the inside

Sam Sethi: 6:00

or outside. I'm just trying to

James Cridland: 6:01

get clarity on the inside. On the inside. It's a lovely sort of art deco. It's a very strange building. Art deco with the control, uh, tower sort of halfway up, but you sort of a rectangular thing in the middle of this tower. It's a very strange old thing. And it's got, um, iron babies on the outside crawling up the outside. Oh. So, okay. It's

Sam Sethi: 6:23

very strange. Um, talking of radio, um, autos. Auction for the radio.com domain, uh, was planned to end this week. What happened?

James Cridland: 6:33

Well, yes, so I think they were looking for two and a half million dollars. The fact that they put it into auction in the first place suggests that the people that they, uh, you know, the obvious people that they were going to, uh, talk to weren't interested in spending money on a domain name radio.com, which is where their player used to be and, and all of that. Um, and so they put it up for auction. And, um, I, I had it diarized for yesterday, which is when the auction would end so I could go and see how much it, it eventually sold for. And the answer is it didn't. And they've, um, given us another 90 days in, uh, auction. I mean, radio.com is a. Amazing domain name, but clearly, um, most of the radio broadcasters out there are slightly embarrassed about being radio broadcasters cuz they don't want it, which seems a bit of a shame. And your bid wasn't

Sam Sethi: 7:21

accepted then? No.

James Cridland: 7:24

My bid wasn't accepted. Well, it was a minimum of two and a half million. Oh, sorry. All right. Yeah, so I w I would've, um, I mean, I'll, I'll give them a tenor for it, but, um, I doubt, I doubt that they'd be particularly interested. I mean, Odyssey of course, having all kinds of, uh, financial issues at the moment anyway. And potentially, um, uh, I mean, are they now off the stock market? I dunno. I've not, uh, I've not checked, uh, recently, but yes, it's not, uh, not looking particularly good for that company. Of course, they were formally intercom, um, and, uh, one of the largest radio, uh, companies in the world that also owns, uh, cadence 13, um, and a few other people. Uh, one of the

Sam Sethi: 7:59

other things that was announced while you were out in Prague was a new coalition advocating for open podcasting brackets. It's called the p s p for people. What was this? What is it?

James Cridland: 8:11

Yes. This was really, uh, good and really interesting news. This has been happening under the hood for a while. Um, and, uh, it comes from a, uh, nice dinner, um, that, um, I think the folks at rss, um, pulled together in Dallas last year at Podcast Movement. Um, and what has come out of that eventually is a new grassroots industry coalition, which has called the Podcast Standards Project, and it's there to advocate for open podcasting. And it's quite an illustrious group. It's got a ton of podcast hosting companies in there. Uh, captivator in there, Acast is in there. Blueberry rss.com, buzz Sprout, red Circle, um, all of the, all, all of these, you know, really large companies and also podcast players, which is exciting. Pocket casts are in there, uh, pod verse are in there as well. So really good to see, you know, a bunch of quite large, uh, companies, uh, organized. And, um, yeah, there's uh, a lot of really good, uh, stuff. So I thought it might be worthwhile having a quick chat with Justin in from Transistor, who is one of those people involved, and also Charles from Pod Base to find out a little bit more about what the podcast Standards project

Justin Jackson: 9:26

is. So it's a grassroots coalition and working to establish modern open standards to enable innovation in podcasting, specifically in open podcasting. And the idea is that if we could get consensus amongst the hosting platforms, And the listening platforms that you can actually innovate on top of an open standard. If you can say, Hey, all the hosting platforms, let's support this as a standard, and then do advocacy with the listening platforms. So they say, uh, yeah, we'll support that too, then. Some cool ideas like, uh, cross app commenting, for example, could become a reality if you get enough consensus enough people adopting the standard. And we're very much still in the beginning stages, but I see it as a group that's doing advocacy. Uh, very similar to the web standards project of, uh, the late nineties. They were doing advocacy with some big companies, Microsoft. Um, and, uh, the idea is to build relationships with folks in all sorts of different areas and podcasting and then try to say, Hey, let's all support this together, um, so that we can innovate on top of the, the open standard that, that podcasting is based.

James Cridland: 10:46

Justin, you are, you are from, uh, transistor, the, um, the podcast hosting company.

Justin Jackson: 10:51

That's right. Yeah. Co-founder of Transistor. We've been around since 2018, just a small little podcasting company,

James Cridland: 10:59

and, uh, Charles, uh, who are you?

Charles Wiltgen: 11:01

I am, uh, the creator of the, the pod based podcast validator. Uh, and I created that and also a podcast called For Stuff, which was popular back in its day, uh, over a million listens during its run. And I did that as part of, uh, creating a podcasting startup that failed. And so I'm still very passionate about open podcasting. And doing what I can within the podcast standards project to, uh, help promote

James Cridland: 11:29

that. Well, excellent. And I've been using Pod base, uh, a lot over the last 24 hours because I've been trying to understand why one of my RSS feeds doesn't work properly. Now, you know how to,

Charles Wiltgen: 11:39

who to blame for that. Let's

James Cridland: 11:40

move on from that and ask you who is involved, what, wh which, uh, podcast hosting companies, which players?

Justin Jackson: 11:48

Yeah. We, we initially, uh, got together at Podcast Movement and we just got as many people kind of talked to as many people during that weekend as we could. And, uh, so there's folks from rss.com, folks from Buzz Sprout, folks from Acast, folks from Casto, fireside Pocket Casts, uh, and Automatic is also supportive. Uh, a cast, O P three, Don Sperlock, Lipson Transistor Pod Bean. Blueberry Red Circle.

James Cridland: 12:21

It's a great list, isn't it? There are loads of people who are, who are involved, and some of the really big names, I mean Pocket's, um, massive podcast app, um, which has recently gone kind of semi-open source. Uh, so it's great to see them involved as well as a bunch of podcast hosting companies. And I think it does need both sides of this, doesn't it, to actually work to break that sort of, um, chicken and egg, um, uh, thing, I guess. Yeah. And,

Justin Jackson: 12:50

and you, you also have to realize at podcast movement was the first time many of us had even talked Yes. And then, uh, now, you know, we've been have, we've been messaging back and forth. This is the first time many of us have interacted. We are in some cases competitors, but we're putting aside any of that stuff and saying, Hey, we, we believe in open podcasting so much that we wanna work together on something. in particular, the advocacy part. Hey, let's encourage each other. Let's be email. I've been emailing more people in the podcast industry the past few weeks than I ever had. Uh, and, you know, different podcast players, different hosting, and again, these are my competitors in some cases, but we care about this and we know we're gonna need to work together to make this happen. That's, that's the messy part about an open standard, creating consensus and moving forward saying we're all going to do this together. Uh, that takes a lot of advocacy work and relationship building. So that's been the focus up till now, and really we'd just been wanting to get it to the point where we could open it up, get a GitHub project going so that anybody who wants to contribute and help us move that mission forward can

James Cridland: 14:08

be involved. Charles, why do we need this? We need this because,

Charles Wiltgen: 14:12

uh, in the beginning, Podcasting, uh, was an open medium and it still is, but we have this unfortunate problem where big tech created proprietary audio platforms and they also called them podcasting, right? So there's kind of an embrace extended extinguished thing happening, and big tech's gonna do it, big tech's gonna do. But what we need to do is sort of reclaim podcasting as an open medium. So just like any web page can be viewed by any web browser, we wanna make sure anything that calls themselves a podcast can be used with any podcast player. We think that proprietary podcasting, call it closed casting, removes choice. It locks people into one player, it locks creators into a single vendor services. And it also, Disrupts the relationship between creators and their audiences. You know, if you have a proprietary platform, you automatically have a middleman who owns that relationship, and we think that's a shame. We wanna make sure that open podcasting. Stays vital.

James Cridland: 15:24

I would certainly, uh, agree with that and support that. And I think one of the things, so I worked on a open, um, piece of, uh, software about 15 years or so ago, and it was a new technology, which is now in quite a lot of cars, which is all very exciting. And one of the real difficulties was that, yeah, you can come up with lots of ideas, you can talk at a few conferences, um, but you, you need lots of other people talking to other people about what you are doing in order for that to actually grow. And for me it, it, it seems that that is what the podcast standards project is, is given the amount of people who, whose day job is working within podcasting to actually share this and, um, get this, um, moving, uh, you know, even, even faster. Would that be about right?

Charles Wiltgen: 16:16

Yes. And, and as Justin said, there's a huge community aspect. You know, Justin's talking to competitors. I'm talking to people that have, you know, used the validator and, and presumably pointed to it. And, uh, working with them on things they'd like to see in future versions. Not to mention the community that will be created as part of posting the standard out on GitHub and having conversations, you know, on the service around the standard there. We, we hope to build this community that doesn't really exist, right. That supports open podcasting.

James Cridland: 16:48

So how does this differ from what Podcasting 2.0 what Dave and Adam are, uh, doing at the moment?

Justin Jackson: 16:54

I mean, I'm a big fan of what they're doing. We've been, we've adopted a lot of their tags at Transistor. Uh, really this initiative is to establish a baseline standard. So, uh, you know, they're out innovating. There's other people that are out innovating, doing open things. John Spurlock is doing some open statistics things. So there's lots of different projects going on and creating all sorts of great ideas. But what we need is a baseline standard to say, Hey, let's all at the beginning, at least commit to this. And so, uh, that's the initial proposal is just to establish a basic set of ground rules for anyone building, uh, technology for the pro, the podcast space. So, um, yeah, we're gonna support any. Open projects, we're not going, we're gonna be agnostic in, in terms of, uh, where, you know, where we can draw from to create the standard. We see ourselves as doing the advocacy work with those relationships. And by the way, not just with independent companies, but going to the big companies as well. Hmm. And building relationship relationships with folks there. I know there's lots of engineers and, and folks at those big tech companies that agree with the spirit of open source and open podcasting. And so we want to create relationships with those folks and try to say, Hey, let's all commit to this baseline together to make this whole thing better.

Charles Wiltgen: 18:25

James, can I jump on something Justin mentioned earlier, uh, there, there was this, uh, group called WASP Web Standards Project, and what they did is they came in at this inflection point where browsers were starting to diverge. You all remember that there are certain sites that could only be used with certain browsers. We are gonna make sure that, that we're gonna do our best to make sure that that does not happen

James Cridland: 18:49

with podcasting. Well, that sounds like a wise plan. How can people get involved? They can follow us on

Charles Wiltgen: 18:53

Twitter. At, at pod standards, they can email us@infopodstandards.org. They can go to pod standards.org, and there are links right up front for how to join and how to participate and how to

James Cridland: 19:06

get certified. Very cool. And the GitHub is linked, uh, from there as well. Uh, I guess Absolutely. And particularly if, if, if you're a, if you're a podcast hosting company, if you are a supplier of some, uh, service to the podcast industry, it'd be super great, I think to get, uh, you involved if you are not already involved in that, in that sort of, um, in that sort of thing as well, I guess. Absolutely.

Justin Jackson: 19:30

Mm-hmm. and, yeah, folks can email me directly too if they're a hosting company and they just want to talk to somebody. Justin at Transistor fm would love to hear from. All my competitors,, James Cridland: Um, Justin, Charles, thank you so much for your, uh, time. I really appreciate it. Thank you James.

Sam Sethi: 19:52

Thanks so much, James. There you go. Justin and Charles from the, uh, podcast Standards Project. Um, I'm really interested, I read the blog post and uh, it was quite funny for. because they, uh, said, we've seen this happen before. In the nineties, Microsoft and Netscape added proprietary features to their web browsers, creating user compatibility. And

James Cridland: 20:12

I went, and why would you know anything about that?

Sam Sethi: 20:14

Well, , I think I was right smack bang in the middle of it all. Um, yes, I was the product manage for Netscapes communicator and, and navigated and fighting that battle. So, yeah, I vaguely remember it. Yes, I am that old before you ask. Um, but I, I, I do think, yeah, it, it is a similar thing to the browser war that occurred. I think Spotify and to some degree, uh, degree Apple. Oh, on the wrong side of this argument, and I think they will be in the future, found out. But uh, right now it's gonna be a slow uphill battle. That's often what happens for the open standard side of the community. You think you're not getting fast enough or further along. Um, but eventually it does crack. Eventually

James Cridland: 21:01

it does open. Yeah. No, indeed. It's, um, I I thought that it, uh, it, it makes a bunch of sense. Um, there's been a few sort of negative comments, I think from people that don't fully understand what the project is on the podcast Index social. Um, but, uh, Todd Cochrane I think said it very well when he, he basically said, look, there, there's, um, there's this group, the podcast standards project, and they will work at committee. and then there's Podcasting 2.0 and we will work in podcasting 2.0 speed, which is much, much faster. Um, and I think he's absolutely right. I think there's a real benefit though, to the podcast standards project because, um, it's got lots of people who are very well thought of in the industry, um, very well thought of running podcast businesses. Uh, and also a lot of people who don't necessarily have an agenda. They don't have an agenda about, um, advertising being the work of, of the devil. Um, they don't have an agenda around, uh, cryptocurrency or SATs or any of that stuff. Now those are absolutely fine and it's absolutely fine that we, um, talk about that too. But I think this is a sanitized version that will comfort large companies like Acast, for example, um, who seem very much involved with this sort of thing. Um, , but also, you know, clearly who make their money through advertising as well. So I think it's a, it's a really good, um, uh, additional group, um, that will be, uh, just a sort of, um, you know, more of a welcoming group to certain people in the podcast industry when it comes to working with some of the new, uh, standards and some of the new tags. Hmm.

Sam Sethi: 22:43

I'm glad that I, when I read the website, uh, that they did say to Adam Curry and Dave weer. We thank you. Everything podcasting is today has evolved from your genius. This project exists to better understand. and protect your gift to the world. Uh, open podcasting and I'm glad they referenced both. Yeah, I just wish Dave Weiner would be less of a grumpy old git and just actually come and join everyone and, you know, and sit, sit on his rocking chair, moaning it all. But, and other than that, thank you Dave Weiner. Um, on the other side, um, everyone should follow twitter.com/pod standards. I don't know, James, you might know if they've got a mastered on

James Cridland: 23:19

account as well. No, and I think, uh, you know, again, that highlights one of the differences between. Group and, uh, the podcasting 2.0 group in that they don't, um, have an official presence on ma master on. But of course, many of the people involved in this group are on master on. Um, and so the conversations have been, uh, going and that's been really helpful. So they've basically got a new, well, a first standard if you like, essentially, um, a few, uh, tags from the po, the new podcast namespace, um, that they know have very few problems about being adopted. Um, so there's things like, uh, uh, the TXT tag. Uh, there's things like the funding tag and the transcripts tag, which everybody agrees is a great thing. There are still conversations going on around, um, Jason chapters, for example. There's still conversations going on around, uh, the person tag and the spam ability of that and everything else. But I think actually jumping in and going, okay, these are some of the, uh, podcast tags that we are going to choose, um, that um, we are going to get wider support for, is a good thing. Yeah,

Sam Sethi: 24:33

I, I, I had a look closely at this and, uh, yeah, it's great that they've documented a one, oh, it's not even a 1.0, it's a 0.9 specification right now. Um, yeah, and I looked at the original RS two specification, and it's very similar. I mean, there's a couple of, um, certainly in the channel requirements that have been taken that were not mandatory in the original spec, that are now mandatory in the new PSP one spec. Um, so nothing major there. Um, but what I did think was putting podcast txt, um, I'm not a happy boy on that one. It is not fully baked, and I am not sure. People are using it. Um, I've had a lot of problems. Adam Curry's had a lot of problems with it, um, because it should have been an OAuth type automated

James Cridland: 25:23

system. Yeah. I mean, as you know, I, I, that's exactly what I was calling for, was an OAuth type, uh, system. But everybody said, oh no, it's too complicated. And also, let's be fair, apple basically turned around and said, oh yeah, this txt idea, yes, we, we will do that. This is a great example of, um, you know, apple sort of muzzling in and saying, uh, no, we want to do it that way. Thanks. Um, and this is where this group, because it isn't just a lot of well-meaning friendly geeks, uh, at the end of a master on account, it's, you know, some of the biggest podcast hosting companies out there. Um, this group can actually have a bit more of a conversation with the likes of Apple, um, and, um, and Spotify and others to actually, um, to, to actually get, you know, the, the, the conversation moving on that. So, but yeah, you know, I, I, I do. I do agree that there are certain things in the existing, um, podcasting name space, which aren't necessarily fully baked, and I think podcast text, uh, txt I is one of those that I think actually the standard itself is fully baked. But the problem is that no one has sat down and said how the UI is going to work, how we're going to talk about this particular feature to the consumer. And until we do that, um, then we'll see the sort of random attempts to support that across, uh, across the industry. You should never see podcast TX t on any, um, consumer facing, uh, service, but they, they, they, but you know, pretty well everybody has put it in there.

Sam Sethi: 26:55

Yeah. I mean, this week I was doing some demos of pod vans and, uh, Harry Duran friend of the shows, basically he's on Captivate and captivated, implemented podcast, TX t Blue Brief done it this week. Um, yeah, Buzzsprout will have it so. We went to do the, oh, can you verify yourself? Oh, your email's not in your rss. Oh, oh. He said, I'll go and do it. And he went over to Captivate, did the 24 hour UNH republished his rss. We then tried to get it back in and it didn't give the right email address to the one that he thought it was gonna give. So them, we, I had to manually do it locally. And I'm thinking this is just one user. If I want to then do that across 300,000 people claiming podcasts, which is, you know, an aim I might have. Yeah, that is crazy. I'm not gonna be able to do this. This manual system of trying to get users to find a hidden button in the host service that they turn on is not gonna

James Cridland: 27:52

work. Well, you're, you are, you are talking to somebody that. that was basically saying that, and, uh, you know, my, my original standard was, um, to put a URL for, uh, a callback URL in the RSS feed so that you pressed a button in pod fans and it would take you to the right place on your own podcast host. Yep. And you would, um, click a button that says, yes, I really do want to claim this. And it would, um, go back to pod fans with an North token. Yeah. That was my, that was my plan. But, um, no, no, far too complicated. We can't do that. Um, but anyway, I'm

Sam Sethi: 28:27

sure they are. The teams will love the calls that they're gonna get. They,

James Cridland: 28:31

well, yeah. Exactly. So I think, you know, hopefully the podcast standards project will help with that sort of thing. Um, there is also a certification, uh, program, which is essentially just making sure that your app or your, uh, podcast hosting company, uh, properly supports the tags that are written in the new standard. Um, which I think is a good plan. Um, and, uh, so watch out for that and watch out for the podcast standards project, uh, logo on there as. Cool.

Sam Sethi: 29:01

Um, Dave Jones, uh, the pod stage himself, uh, is asking, um, on the GitHub, which new tank should be in phase six of the new podcast name space. You'll be very pleased, James, except guests has been proposed.

James Cridland: 29:14

Yes. Well, that'll be nice to see that going through. Um, even nicer will be to see people start to support it, particularly on the side of, um, podcast, you know, guest booking services and all of that kind of stuff. Um, I had an automated email the other week from um, somebody who, um, was clearly just sending them out automatically and even started with, don't worry, I'm a human being. Um, and, and all of that. But it was very clear that he was sending it out automatically. And um, and I know the person responsible and I sent him a quick email saying, please don't do this. did start off with, hi Jamesy, uh, . He did not . It did not, that's not gonna be a thing. Seth, it's not gonna be a thing.

Sam Sethi: 29:59

Let's move on. Indeed. Um, YouTube this week, uh, gumball has expanded its host Red podcast advertising marketplace to YouTube. Tell me more,

James Cridland: 30:09

James. Yes. So Gumball is, um, a podcast ad company. Um, it basically sells, um, to advertisers the opportunity of doing, uh, buying and selling host red ads on a bunch of different podcasts. So it's basically doing that at scale, uh, which is, um, a really important thing now. Um, it's been doing this for a while, but now it is also bringing that same approach to video content creators and advertisers on YouTube as well. Um, which is really interesting. So you're basically seeing Gumball now, um, coming in and going, okay, we can reach all of these influencers. And some of those might be on podcasting and some of those might be on YouTube, but it's all the same sort of thing. So again, Another sort of YouTube, um, uh, is taking over the world thing. Um, and, uh, so, uh, yeah, good to see, uh, gumball, um, uh, jumping in with that, uh, sort of thing. Hmm. Okay,

Sam Sethi: 31:07

well moving on from them. Libson, uh, Lipson's Glow has unveiled integration with Spotify's Open access. It joins a number of publishers and services making their premium subscription content available on the platform. Do remind me again cuz I can't really remember, what was Spotify Open access and what is

James Cridland: 31:26

this all about? Yes. And what was is possibly the phrase. Um, so Spotify open access is a way, well, I mean, we were just talking about o or, um, Spotify, acc, uh, uh, open Access is a way for you to show to Spotify that you have paid for access to some particular premium podcasts so that you can listen to those podcasts in the Spotify app. So it's a nice, secure way of, um, being able to, um, you know, share a podcast paid subscription and was essentially their answer to Apple podcasts. Um, and they, so they rushed this out first. Um, um, it's, it's nowhere near as large as Apple Podcasts. But, um, quite a few people are using it. Um, supporting cast, uh, super cast as well, I believe, um, a number of, um, different publishers are using it. Um, Acast said that they would use it, although haven't actually done it quite yet. Um, there's no charge for podcast creators to participate as well, so it's a relatively, uh, uh, sensible thing. And, um, yeah, and, um, glow, uh, which of course is, um, a Patreon equivalent that Lips in owns, um, that is now, um, plugged into the Spotify open access service, which is a good thing. Hmm.

Sam Sethi: 32:41

Yeah, no, won't be using that now. Moving on. You

James Cridland: 32:45

won't be. Of course. It's not to say, I just, just don't wanna be honest

Sam Sethi: 32:48

and say, look, I won't even be looking at the documentation, but oh dear. Well done, well done to both parties. Yes. Now around the world, you are in Prague, but 180 miles away in Spain. Let's have a look there. Uh, almost 60% of Spanish internet users listen to podcasts, but that's pretty

James Cridland: 33:05

cool. That is pretty cool. Yes. And, uh, Prodi Gizo Volcan has published a set of data about podcasts listening in the country. It's actually their fourth year of doing this. Um, and there's some, uh, there's some fascinating things. So I highlighted our, uh, the, uh, growth of, uh, YouTube, which has seen, uh, a growth in this particular, uh, set of data, uh, of 10 times or 10 times as many people consuming podcasts or say that they're consuming podcasts in YouTube, um, this year than there was, uh, last year, um, which is, uh, really interesting. Also, what's really interesting is how tiny Apple podcasts is, which I didn't, um, I didn't push, uh, in my write up of it. So Spotify, apparently 50 50% of people are listening to podcasts on Spotify in Spain. Uh, 41% are listening to podcasts on YouTube in Spain. Uh, IVs has 20% Apple Podcasts, 4%. It's. Tiny, super tiny. Um, so that one's really interesting to see. There's a bunch, uh, more, uh, data all in Spanish, but that's what the, uh, Google's translate is for, um, that you'll find. And we'll link to that from our show notes. Hmm.

Sam Sethi: 34:20

Staying in Spain, nearly 400 companies are part of this Spanish language audio ecosystem.

James Cridland: 34:26

Yes. Dos Doche has produced a, uh, Spanish audio industry ecosystem map. So it's a, a large thing for you to stick on your wall with lots of, uh, logos in there, uh, showing how they all fit together. It's a really big industry, actually. It's a really big, um, Spanish language, uh, uh, industry, including of course, uh, quite a lot in la, Latin America as well. But, um, yeah, it's um, certainly something to be more involved with and.

Sam Sethi: 34:52

Still in Spain. How do the podcast recommendation algorithms work?

James Cridland: 34:56

Tell me more, James. Yes. Um, there's a big Spanish article, um, from somebody, and I'm going to butcher this, but somebody called Lord Moreno Kaza. Um, I'm sure that she pronounces, uh, nun of her, uh, names that way. But anyway, uh, she looked into the algorithms used by Spotify and Apple, um, and there's quite a lot of sort of work of, um, trying to work out exactly how they work, uh, in there, but. Again, uh, quite a fascinating article. And again, that's what Google translators are for. Good

Sam Sethi: 35:28

Now. Uh, well, we might need Google Translate in September. James, why is that?

James Cridland: 35:31

Well, because, uh, pod News Live, which is our, um, our networking event, um, which, uh, we're already taking to, um, Manchester in, uh, June. Uh, we are taking to London in September, but why stop in the uk? So, uh, pod News live in Barcelona will be somewhere in Barcelona on the 25th of September. We've set the date. Um, and so very much looking forward, uh, to, uh, being in SEP September and learning more about the Catalan and uh, Spanish podcast

Sam Sethi: 36:05

industry. Yeah. And we'll be announcing in a couple of weeks time who our global sponsor is as well. So there you go. It'll be interesting. Yeah, right. Moving forward, James. Let's go,

James Cridland: 36:15

right? Let's jump into People News. Um, the podcast Academy Board election closed yesterday. No idea when we'll know, uh, the results, but lots of good people, uh, running for that. Uh, NPR has made 10% of its workforce redundant. Um, interestingly, they have canceled a number of podcasts in visibility are being the big one that everybody knows about. Um, they've also made the embedded podcast a bit more of a, of a, uh, larger brand absorbing another, a number of other narrative series. But I say interestingly because even though. There were 150 job losses. No radio shows were canceled. Um, which I think shows some interesting priorities at, uh, npi. It's their largest job reduction for 15 years, and it's all due to, um, the economic uncertainty, uh, and the fact that of course, that they are, uh, um, both advertising sponsored and also sponsored by, uh, grants as well. Uh, Hassan Caudry has been confirmed as head of partnerships and strategy for Blanchard House. Uh, he joins from hbo. O. Also hired is Amika, Sciortino Nolan as managing producer. Again, I'll have ruined that. Uh, she was previously at The Economist too. Lots of, uh, moves and shakers. Uh, this week if you're looking for a job. Pod News has podcasting jobs across the industry and across the world. They're free to post as well. It'll just take two minutes to add a new role at pod news.net/jobs. The tech stuff, tech stuff on the pod news weekly

Justin Jackson: 37:45

review.

James Cridland: 37:46

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the pod news newsletter. Here's where we do all of the, uh, tech talk. You know, I'm, I'm beginning to understand, um, uh, Sam, why you sound the way that you do on this podcast. Um, because it's, uh, eight in the morning for me, seven in the morning for you, . It's, it's the, it's the early day. Normally. I'm recording this at about five in the afternoon. Um, so, uh, yes, very much looking forward to some coffee in a minute. Um, what's going on in terms of, uh, tech, ah, your phone will have, uh, done some exciting, uh, updates, won't it? Your, uh, your pretend. Yes,

Sam Sethi: 38:17

yes. I'm very excited about it as well. Um, apple has released iOS 16.4. Now, I'm not normally excited by a iOS update. Um, safari has included 135 new web features, uh, and over 280 Polish updates, fundamentally emojis. Um, but they. Added some wonderful, uh, progressive web app features. So you can now access things like the homepage. You can access badge APIs, you can, but the big, big one is web apps. Now, can, um, like native apps can use push notifications? Ah, yes. So it's really cool. But in podcasting terms, um, they've added channels in the library. They've mm-hmm.. Up next improvements and they've also added up next and browse in CarPlay, which I've actually played with in my car already. Um, so yeah. Um, they're very excited about those features coming to podcasting. So that's all good news. Anything you spotted at all, James?

James Cridland: 39:17

Yeah. Um, the, uh, I mean the main thing from a tech point of view, I guess apart from, um, apart from web notifications, which is, uh, super cool, maybe one day I might get around to. Bothering to code them up on the POD news website, then it'd be quite nice to be able to send a, a notification with the latest uh, edition. Um, but apart from that, uh, of course this is the version of iOS that finally stops, um, calling the Apple Podcast app, apple Core Media, uh, some of the time. Uh, so we should get rather better stats. If you follow the Buzzsprout Global Stats, which are on their website, buzzsprout.com/global_stats, um, then you will probably see the amount of downloads from Apple Podcasts improve, um, because, uh, Buzzsprout quite correctly doesn't, uh, put Apple Core media in their chart because it could be anything. Um, but, uh, now, uh, apple Podcasts won't be using that, so that's gonna be an exciting thing. Um, my suspicion is that Apple Podcasts will go up by 4%, um, but will, uh, find out exactly, uh, when that's likely to happen. Um, uh, apparently, um, you know, apple is pretty good in terms of, um, um, people, uh, getting the updates. So, uh, hopefully that'll happen relatively quickly.

Sam Sethi: 40:33

Mm-hmm., I mean, I, it's already come onto my phone, so Yeah, I'm sure. It covers iPhone eight to iPhone 14, which is quite cool as well.

James Cridland: 40:42

Yes, which is good because I have an iPhone eight, so, um, so there we are still not been saying your

Sam Sethi: 40:47

freebie then. No,. James Cridland: It's, it's, I keep on dropping hints, um, uh, the good folk at Apple, but then they must have, um, uh, hints dropped every single day of the week. Um, so, uh, yes. So there we are. Um, uh, yes, let's, uh, move on. Um, although I do know that, you know, the right people from Apple are listening to this podcast because we got a Sark comment, didn't we, last week from somebody at Apple, which is probably not for broadcast. So we have better not No, I did not mention that. And sad. Let's move. Yes, go on. I was due to meet, uh, SU, who's head of international podcast this week, which she's come down with Covid, so, uh,

James Cridland: 41:23

yeah. Ah, there you go.

Sam Sethi: 41:25

I was gonna get you a phone there. I was gonna ask then, you know. Yeah,

James Cridland: 41:28

yeah. Well, you know, why not? Why not? Well, Suzy is a, a good person, so I'm hoping that she gets better soon. Moving on. What else is going on

Sam Sethi: 41:35

there? Well, um, there was a, a really cool announcement on, um, master Dawn on the podcast Index Social from, um, Mitch Downey. Um, there's a new library called Transcript Data, uh, con for converting the various transcript, file formats to a common format. Uh, it's originally designed, designed to help users of the podcast namespace podcast. Transcript tag and I was like, oh, this sounds interesting. And pod versus has already made it live. Um, why is this useful, James?

James Cridland: 42:05

Yeah, it seems to be very useful because there are a number of different transcript types in rss. Um, uh, there's, uh, S R T, but there's also V t t It supports that. It supports, uh, Jason as well. There are various conversations going on about all of these, um, transcript formats in the podcasting 2.0 GitHub anyway. Um, but uh, this library essentially, um, uh, covers all of that for you and you don't have to worry about it. And so you can just write something that just deals with, with, uh, transcripts far, far, um, more simply, which looks great. It's one of the things that I would like to build into. News, uh, podcast pages, um, to actually allow you to see, see the transcripts of the audio that you're actually playing. Uh, and this looks like, um, the way that I might be able to achieve that. So, uh, yeah, that's looking really good.

Sam Sethi: 42:55

Yeah, we should hat tip Stephen Crater and Ryan Hirsch for creating it so quickly. So well

James Cridland: 43:01

done To YouTube Chaps, there's a new podcast out from Mozilla. It's called Thunder Cast. And, uh, it's basically a behind the scenes look at them rebuilding Thunderbird, which is their rather antiquated looking e email, um, uh, platform. But they're, um, busy putting, uh, lots of, uh, new coats of paint on that and making that, um, a bit more modern. Um, but, uh, what's really interesting is, so it's a, a podcast from Mozilla, Mozilla, of course, lots of open source stuff. Um, they publish their listen data in public on op three. And so when you go and have a look at what apps that podcast is being listened to, you won't see Spotify. Number one, you won't see Apple, um, at number one. Either number one is PocketCasts, which of course is the partially open source, uh, app, which is, uh, due to get a bunch more features by the sounds of the announcements that were made this week. But also number two, antenna Pod, which is a wholly open source, um, podcast app for Android. So really interesting seeing that. Of course, different podcasts have different users using them on different platforms, but particularly seeing this particular podcast, which has a really defined audience and seeing what type of, um, what type of platforms people are using to have a listen to it. I just thought that, that, that was fascinating. Mm. It'll be

Sam Sethi: 44:22

good to see when, as you said earlier, the Apple core media thing changes and, uh, Um, John Sperlock publishes the updated data. That'll be very interesting

James Cridland: 44:31

to see what's happened. Yeah, no, indeed. That'll be, that'll be fascinating to end up seeing. And of course you can see the, uh, the download figures for the pod news daily in op P three as well. Just, um, search for a podcast that you're interested in, in the pod news newsletter. And if it's measured on O P three, then you get a link to the o P three, uh, stats, uh, which is nice. Um, some nice, um, uh, press release usage from a company called Ellipses Podcasts who have launched something called Ellipses Personalized Podcasts, trademark powered by Open AI in the latest text to speech technology. It's basically another one of these services that, um, goes off on the internet and finds stuff and turns it into text and reads it for you in a slightly robotic voice. But, um, good. We needed another one of those, so

Sam Sethi: 45:15

that's nice. How many have you got now? 25, 30, I dunno. Who knows?? Um, yes and a bit of podcast history. Uh, from October the 13th. 2003. James, what did you discover? Yes,

James Cridland: 45:26

well, this was Chris Aine, uh, who has, um, basically discovered, hidden away on a website somewhere, the original iPod Apple Script. It was the little script that started it all. Uh, so Adam Curry basically wrote this piece of code that allowed you to, uh, sync your downloaded podcast from radio user land, which was Dave Weiner's, um, RSS reader, um, allowed you to sync your podcast from there onto your iPod. So arguably was the first podcast. Uh, Catcher, I guess. Um, but, um, yeah, that's a piece of proper, uh, podcast history. Now the interesting thing about the, uh, the iPod script is that actually it's, it was compiled into, into machine code. So therefore you don't get to see what the original text would've looked like when you decompile it. There are two different versions of the Decompile, uh, code, uh, which is on the GitHub as well. And of course, you know, and they both look slightly different because they've, they've been, um, you know, taken from the, uh, code. But yeah, it's, uh, really interesting seeing, uh, essentially the, the first, um, podcast, uh, app all the way back from the 12th of October, 2003.

Sam Sethi: 46:44

Well, uh, moving on. Blueberry has removed email addresses from RSS feeds by default, and the latest version of Power Press also does the same. As we said earlier, it's joining a growing number of podcast hosting companies have removed email addresses from feeds for privacy, and I get why they've done it. Acast was a really bad, a bad actor by spamming everybody in the industry. But I think the knee-jerk reaction, I think we're gonna come to regret it. That's all I will say.

James Cridland: 47:14

Yeah. Well, you know, uh, if you, if you need, uh, ux um, ux uh, specialists, uh, for this sort of thing, uh, and UX specialists are deeply required in the podcasting 2.0. If you are a UX specialist or you understand good user experience, then please do, uh, join us. That would be a wonderful thing. Uh, you can find out more@podcastindex.org g. Audible, uh, is doing Dolby Atmos. It's one of the latest people, uh, adding Dolby Atmos supports to their apps. Uh, they've launched more than 40 shows mastered in spatial audio as well. Of course, iHeartRadio calls that 360 degree sound. Um, and there's a bunch of other people who call it Surround sound. Um, but it really adds to you if you're doing, uh, particularly, um, uh, audio fiction and that sort of thing, um, but uh, not supported by either Spotify or by Apple. So you do need to, uh, have a fancy app if you want to go and, uh, have a listen to some of that. One of the

Sam Sethi: 48:13

titles was The Little Mermaid, which has been, uh, done Hands, Christina Anderson Classic. And it was done all voiced over by little mixes, Leanne Pin, who happens to live in our village. So I'll go and have a little chat with her., James Cridland: there's to live in our village. Isn't that, that's fantastic. That's what I tell you another. Another Sam Sethy Classic. Uh, thank you for that. Uh, yes, let's move on. From Sam Seth's famous neighbors, um, to, uh, Spotify's, uh, r and d team, which has published a paper about goal orientated podcast recommendations. So, um, people saying, I want to learn something, or I want to, uh, laugh or something and then get a bunch of recommendations back. It's quite interesting, uh, to end up seeing, uh, it sounds as if it's all your idea there. No, nothing to do with me. It just reminded me of the campaign that Microsoft Round., which was, where do you want to go today? Which, um, was their second campaign for Windows 98, um, their first campaign being Star, you know, I dunno if you remember that, the Rolling Stones theme. Yeah. Start me Up. Um, and it, it just reminds me about, uh, I remember being in Microsoft at the time and people saying it's, it's trying to provide aspiration rather than technology as to where you want. And it was the aim of trying to get the consumer to get into computing rather than the geek of, you know, what app do you wanna start? You know, go on. Yes. Now it's like, what do you wanna create? Where would you like to go? What language? Where, where would you like to visit? And that was the aim of where do you wanna go today? And it sounds like Spotify's doing the same. Yes. Well, since

James Cridland: 49:48

2005, I. Always used either Linux or Mac Os at home. And so the only time that I was seeing Windows was at work. So where do you want to go today? Home. Home would be nice.. Um, there's um, there's a new, uh, podcast, search website concepts called Dr. Ports, P A W D. Uh, it searches for topics mentioned within uh, the audio. So it's another one of those. But it's nice to see, um, more experimentation going on there. You'll be buying some more, uh, kit from Road by the looks of things cuz they've released something new. Nope. Uh, the Wireless

Sam Sethi: 50:22

me ? Nope. Your friends at Road, uh, sponsoring your speech, we'll find out later in New Zealand, but no, they won't even talk to you. I did put in a request to see if they'd sponsor us. Not a thing.

James Cridland: 50:34

not a sausage. Well, they, there you go. And they're not sponsoring my speech in, uh, New Zealand. Uh, it's the local, uh, company, rock Shop, which is, uh, which sells road in New Zealand, and they are sponsoring the speech, um, under the brand that they represent. But yes. Uh, so what's the, um, what's the road Wireless Me?

Sam Sethi: 50:53

It's a cheaper version of the wireless go-to, so

James Cridland: 50:57

it allowed, oh, you've got, you've got those, haven't you? Yeah, I

Sam Sethi: 50:59

have. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah. Um, no, it's, it's basically instead of a three setup, uh, where you get two, um, two little clip on mics that go to your hope for yourself and for maybe another guest. Um, this one here, you can only have one guest. So one of the mics has a., uh, the, the one that attaches you as the host has a mic on it, but it's not there for actually recording it. It's very weird. So it allows for two speakers to be recorded at the same time with separate audio files. That sounds great. But um, again, it's a little bit cheaper and it hasn't got the full functionality of the wireless go. Um, I haven't got my hands on it, so I can't give you much more info. Um, in fact, strangely, yeah. Um, it came out, there was a big announcement that was put up onto the wireless, uh, onto the road website. And then if you go and, uh, Google Wireless me, all of the links that were out there in, in the domain public domain have now been going to 4 0 4 pages. I think they've pulled it, but don't ask me. Very odd. No,

James Cridland: 52:03

no, that's, Well, might do a little bit more digging on that. Uh, and, um, and, uh, find out, uh, r Riverside also, um, has, uh, had a new, um, a new feature release. And my goodness, it's quite a new feature release. They now offer automatic AI transcriptions in more than a hundred languages, although you do have to pay extra for those. I notice. And there's also a text-based editor, so they basically put Descript into the platform as. That sort of thing, um, to, uh, simplify the creation process. Um, I have noticed that, uh, our account has been updated, uh, but I've not actually ended up playing, uh, with that. I wonder what that means for, uh, the folks

Sam Sethi: 52:47

at Descript. Well, I, look, I, I, hands on heart, I am a script ambassador and I love descript as a product, but I do think they need to up their game fast. I think they've taken the eye off the ball with podcasting and I think they've gone down a video, um, direction. Um, I don't know why. And so the. 90% of people I talk to who, who use the new descript actually have the option to go back to the classic version and we all go back to the classic version. It's so much better, so much simpler. Um, maybe, you know, they've added bells and whistles to the new version that people go. I just don't know where that icon is. I don't know where that feature's gone. It, it's not a good update in my opinion. Yeah, it's more complex., but it complexity has failed simplicity and they've failed in

James Cridland: 53:35

this one. Yeah. So I think, uh, no, it's, uh, is interesting. I mean, descripts always gets a gasp whenever I show it at radio conferences. Um, but I do think that, uh, yeah, they, they do appear to have lost their way a little bit, don't they? So, um, yeah. Who knows?

Sam Sethi: 53:50

Uh, let's, I do know. Talk, sorry. I do know talking to the guys at, uh, podcast movement that, you know, one of the big questions is they've just got 50 million from the open ai, um, company, um, to replace Rev with Whisper, and I kept asking when that's coming. Uh, it's internally being tested., so expect the new descript. Um, what was your

James Cridland: 54:12

joke, James? The new descript. What you mean? You mean every time you open the program, there's a new version available?? Yes.. Sam Sethi: No, this one actually So, uh, I expect that sometime soon to come out with Whisper Yes. As opposed to, um, user to Rev. But of course that, that, that's basically something that will benefit the folks at Descript. It won't necessarily benefit the user. Um, no. So you've kind of got that side of it, of it as well. So, uh, yeah, it's a, it's a peculiar, a peculiar thing. Uh, one of the things I have noticed with, uh, some of the transcript tools is that some of the transcript tools, particularly descript, transcribes the words. Um, and, uh, and some of them don't. And actually, depending on what you want your transcript for, you don't want them. Transcribe the ums and the hers. Um, but sometimes you do, so if you're using it as a text, um, to, uh, as a text editor, then you want to see the ums and the hers in your text. But obviously if you are using it just to, um, compile what somebody is saying into a document, then you really don't want to use those ums and hers. So there's some, some really interesting nuances that I hadn't actually spotted properly, uh, about how these things work. So yeah,

Sam Sethi: 55:22

I wonder, I mean, looking at what Riverside has done, which has basically said our rock core is, you know, remote recording and now we're adding these periphery services, uh, I wonder whether Descript has to go the other way and say our rock core was. Transcription and or editing. We need to now go and add video recording, remote recording, uh, as a service. I mean, it feels like they're all gonna go down a, a stack of services, um, from recording through to editing.

James Cridland: 55:54

Yeah, no, indeed, indeed. No. It's all, all interesting to look at. Um, upcoming events, um, coming up include the Birmingham Podcast Festival 2023 in Birmingham, in the uk. Of course, now it says here, spoke to Nina Robinson from the Birmingham Bo Podcast Festival. Does that mean that you've spoken to her? I have

Sam Sethi: 56:15

indeed, yes. And she'll be on the show next week to have a little chat about what's going on and why she started that festival. I'll also be going up to it, so I'm looking forward to that. And. So lovely Lady X, bbc, um, worked on a lot of big shows. Yeah, so well done to her.

James Cridland: 56:32

Excellent. Looking forward to that. The publisher podcast awards are going on in London, uh, in the middle of next month. Uh, tickets now on sale. You can also virtually attend the award ceremony. Gosh, can you imagine that? Um, so, uh, you can find, uh, more details, uh, about that. The New Zealand Podcast Summit is in May, of course, in Auckland, uh, which I am speaking at. I'm also speaking at the podcast show, 2023, um, which is, uh, in London, uh, from the 23rd to the 25th of May. There's also, uh, all kinds of other things going on, including the British Podcast Awards, which you call the Bamboo, um, which I'm sure, I'm sure they are, uh, delighted about.

Sam Sethi: 57:14

Well, I won't be going to that one, I'll tell you now. 300 pound a

James Cridland: 57:18

ticket, 300 pounds a ticket. Yes, wowee. That's what happens when you get bought by a large company like Haymarket. Uh, 300 pounds a ticket, there's a thing. Um, so that's on September the 28th, which is the day after we plan to be in London for our networking event. Uh, pod News live on September the 27th. Um, so, uh, come to London. Um, uh, our event is a bit cheaper than $300, 300 pounds. So, um, uh, but uh, come to London you can get two exciting things, uh, for the same time.. Sam Sethi: Mm. Uh, and we just obviously mentioned that we're going to be in Barcelona also in September, but I'm glad to say, James, get your passport out again. Get your packed. We're off to Mexico City in November. Are we? That's gonna be very exciting. I've not been to Latin America before. So, uh, Mexico City, how exciting that's happening in November. More details when we have them at pod news.net/live. Of course, pod News live in sulfur in Manchester on the 13th of June, uh, as well. And if you are in London, uh, for the podcast show and, um, you fancy coming and having drinks with us, then uh, they are invite only drinks cuz we're not made of money. And also the pub's not very big. But, um, you are more than welcome to, uh, drop us a, uh, email weekly@podnews.net. Um, and, uh, it'd be great to see you on the 23rd of

May from 5: 58:42

00 PM until, uh, until slightly later, seven.

Sam Sethi: 58:47

No, about seven. Yeah, a couple of

James Cridland: 58:49

bands until seven. That's I think's that your wallet now

Sam Sethi: 58:52

after that, yeah. Your wallet will be dead

James Cridland: 58:54

by then., that's a party, right? Uh, there are more events both paid for and free at pod news, virtual events or events in a place with people. And if you are organizing something, tell the world about, it's free to be listed. Pod news.net/events. Booster Graham, booster Graham Corner, corner corner on the pod News weekly review. Yes, it's our favorite time of the week. It's Booster Graham Corner where you can share, um, some of the value that you get from this podcast back with us using things like the boost button, uh, and uh, and all kinds of, uh, stuff. Um, we got a boost from Gene Bean, didn't we? Mm.

Sam Sethi: 59:34

Yeah. Not a positive boost. This one, I dunno what a negative boost is, but this one is, uh, kind of bummed. You didn't also give Chris Fisher credit for co-hosting the upcoming Valley for Valley webinar. Uh, it seemed kind of odd. Um, gene. Any centers A row of ducks? 2, 2, 2, 2. Uh, gene, I have to say apologies. Um, I don't know Chris Fisher. I ha I assumed when I read it, uh, that it would be Oscar with somebody like Alberto and Ben. Um, so that would be Fountain with, uh, you know, somebody from rss.com doing it. Um, I should have read that closer. It's Chris Fisher and Nick Ster. Nick Ster being the marketing, uh, director over at Fountain and yeah, so apologies for that. Uh, but I'm now following both on Twitter and uh, yeah, I've reached out to Chris to say hi.

James Cridland: 1:00:20

So, yes, indeed. Um, another row of ducks from Gene Bean. 2, 2, 2, 2 SATs, uh, telling us that tut and wooley are both nice mastered on clients. Um, not aware of Wooley. Um, is that, is that on, uh, is that on toy phones? I, I imagine it must be on toy phones. No, I do. Um, indeed. But there we are. Thank you, gene. Be I will, uh, check, uh, that out. Uh, we got an email, an email, an email, uh, from, uh, Matt Con, um, who says, uh, Dave Jones sent to you 5,150 SATs. The, what's the significance of 5 1 50? Uh, Sam, have you any idea.. Sam Sethi: Well, I I'm much more aware thanks to Matt. So what is it again? Yes. So it refers to the California Law Code for the temporary involuntary psychiatric commitment of individuals who present a danger to themselves or others. Uh, it's more generally applied to people who are considered threateningly, unstable or crazy. And so Dave Jones sent us a crazy, uh, boost, 51 50 SATs. Um, It is also a Van Halen album from 1986, which is possibly why he's, ah, that's probably more likely. Yes, yes. Uh, apparently the first album with Sammy Hagar, whoever, whoever Sammy is. Um, she, uh, there you go. That, that just goes to show, doesn't it? Um, also be aware of two Double One Two, which is an album by Rush. Yes. We're very aware of that one. Matt. Um, uh, thank you for listening. Um, uh, he's, uh, he's a good, a good radio man who's now involved in, uh, podcasting in, uh, I think Winnipeg in, uh, Canada. So, um, keep warm, uh, Adam Curry sending us, um, uh, uh, SATs again,

Sam Sethi: 1:01:59

isn't he? Yes, thankfully. Uh, welcome Adam, uh, the Insurgency Knitting podcast called Said the Care. Very said. They Care, said they care very much about knitting and value for value, so stop the knitting bias. Yes. This is in reference to my interview with Mark Asquith last week, where we, we mentioned that the Small Knitting podcast, mark. Might not be interested in value for value . Um, I think Adam was there. Now Adam did say though, um, , I, no, sorry. I did say that if Adam sent me a picture of him knitting, I know that the world has come to an end and uh, I just added in our script a picture of Tom Daly, the Olympic Board diver. He was knitting at the Olympics. So, uh, yes, there is a thing about knitting.

James Cridland: 1:02:46

Nice. Well done. Tom Daley. Uh, if you get value from what we do, the pod News weekly review is separate from Pod News and Sam and I share everything from it. We really appreciate your support so that we continue, uh, so that we can continue buying, uh, buying beer, uh, in London. Uh, you can become a power supporter@weekly.podnews.net. You can subscribe in Apple Podcast at apple.co/pod news or support us with stats by hitting the boost button in your podcast app. If you don't have one, pod news.net/new podcast apps will help you find a new app I would recommend Fountain. Um, and, uh, that will be a splendid thing. Now, what's happening for you this week, Sam?

Sam Sethi: 1:03:22

Uh, well I met with, uh, Brett and Sandy over at the City University. Um, I went to the, a career in podcasting on Wednesday night, and that was really good. Um, and also LP was there herself, Lizzie Pollitt. So yeah. Very good event. Well done

James Cridland: 1:03:39

Chaps. Yes. Excellent. And you, uh, uh, you are also, um, going to be on the Mere Mortals podcast. I understand.

Sam Sethi: 1:03:45

Yeah. Now look, this, this thing about getting up early, I, I, in fact, it got doubly worse because, um, the clocks had moved forward the day that before I was due to be interviewed by Karin. So not only was it six in the morning when I was being interviewed by him, yes. Um, but yes. So, uh, but no lovely chappy years. Uh, we spent a couple of hours going through pod vans and, um, Yeah, it'll

James Cridland: 1:04:07

be out in a couple of weeks, I think. No, he's very good. He's very good. So, uh, that's a splendid thing. Uh,

Sam Sethi: 1:04:12

James, what happened for you? We know you, you were in Prague, but what else

James Cridland: 1:04:15

happened? Yes, I was in Prague. Um, uh, what else can I tell you? Um, we, um, uh, any excuse for a, uh, glass of something we, um, , uh, we, we all raised our glasses. Um, for Paul Easton, who was, uh, a man that worked in, um, radio in the UK for a long, long time, was, um, a really nice man who died suddenly about a month or so ago. Uh, it was his funeral during the week, and so we, uh, felt that it was right that on the day of the funeral we all got together to say a few words about him and to raise a glass. Um, so, uh, that was, um, that was a nice slightly somber thing to do on, uh, 10 o'clock at night, uh, in the middle of a conference. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's also been snowing here. Um, it's, uh, really quite chilly. Um, so my pod fan's hoodie has been, uh, very nice and warm. That is, Um, which is, uh, a nice thing. Yeah. I think you posted a picture of, of, of me modeling the pod fans

Sam Sethi: 1:05:10

hoodie. Yeah. And, and somebody thought you looked like the, uh, guy from Zoolander, but I won't, I won't say why.

James Cridland: 1:05:16

Yes, . Yes. Yes. Well, there we go. Um, thank you for modeling it. Pod fans, hoodie Li James Look. Li look. Yes. Everybody tell, everybody tells me it's li look, but it's clearly pink. uh, and. That's, and that's it for this

Sam Sethi: 1:05:33

week. Yeah. You can give us feedback using email at weekly@podnews.net, or send us a booster gram. And if your Boostgram app doesn't support Boost, then grab a new app from pod news.net/new

James Cridland: 1:05:46

podcast apps. This podcast is edited in Hindenberg Pro version two, and will be edited on an airplane going to Dubai. That's exciting, isn't it? Our music is from Studio Dragonfly. Our voiceover is Sheila D, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout Podcast hosting made easy. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter@potnews.net. Tell your friends and grow the show. And support us and support us. The Pod News Weekly review will return next week. Keep listening.