James Cridland: 0:00

It's Friday, the 19th of July 2024.

Jingles: 0:04

The last word in podcasting news. This is the Podnews weekly review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi.

James Cridland: 0:14

Yes. I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pot News.

Sam Sethi: 0:16

And I'm Sam Sethi, the Bisto kid. Brown seasoned and thickened while on holiday. James you got.

James Cridland: 0:21

In the chapters today. It's all change at lips in his lemonade. Up for sale. A new version from Overcast and a podcast. License from PRC in the UK for music. Or is it? Plus

Gordon Firemark: 0:37

Hi, this is Gordon Firemark the podcast lawyer and I'll be on the show later to talk today about fair use and copyright and podcast licenses and how all of these things interplay in the new era of

James Cridland: 0:49

he will. This podcast is sponsored by Buzz Sprout with the tools support and community to make sure you keep podcasting, start podcasting, keep podcasting with Buzz Sprout.

Jingles: 0:59

From your daily newsletter, The Podnews Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 1:04

Welcome back, Sam.

Sam Sethi: 1:05

Thank you very much. Yes. And thank you to Neal Veglio. Very well-done, Neal, for stepping in. Now, bugger off.

James Cridland: 1:15

Oh. Do you feel a little bit threatened?

Sam Sethi: 1:17

No. No. Well done, mate. And thank you for doing that. And yes, I occasionally go on holiday. Oh, do I? We'll find out later.

James Cridland: 1:28

Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 1:28

Now, I saw this story while I was away, which was the podcast licence, and I thought, Oh, hang on a minute. They been using the podcasting 2.0 tag. No, It turns out that the UK's pressed the licensing body for music and rights is launching their own podcast music licence early next month. James. Now the last bit of this before I ask what you think is going on is they say they've been in consultation with the industry. So have they asked me if they've been talking to you or Adam or anyone else that you know.

James Cridland: 2:01

Well, I went to talk to Adam because Adam is not in the UK. They won't talk to me because. Nor am I. But they said the consultation was actually pretty good. There were quite a few things that they were trying to do that the industry turned around and said, No, that's stupid. And so they haven't actually done those things. So that is good. So the press, for those who don't know, outside of the UK, the press is one half of the set of people that you need to ask for a music licence. So if you want to play a song on your podcast, then you talk to press and people and press represents all of the artists and the writers and all of that kind of stuff. So if you want to sing a Beatles song, you go and you talk to press and you say, I would like a licence to sing that Beatles song. And they say, Yes, that's absolutely fine. Here's here's the money, and that's all fine. will go to people. If you wanted to play the actual recording of the Beatles song. And so therefore people don't have a podcast licence, so it's still not quite as easy to slap some music onto a onto a podcast as you would like it to be. But nevertheless, you know, it's a great start. So hurrah for Press for launching a new and much easier podcast licence, I think.

Sam Sethi: 3:20

Yeah, I mean, I just looked at the pricing as £188 a year or 0.152 per play. when I had my radio station, we had a press license for playing music, and then when we took the show and put it onto something like Facebook, of course the license police on Facebook came down and said, I don't care if you've got a press license. And then they said, Sony BMG or Warner Brothers have claimed this feed or this post and you need to take it down. So is this going to make any difference? Is Facebook or any other online site going to recognize, I guess, this license?

James Cridland: 4:01

Well, this only covers audio, so if you are also putting your podcast onto YouTube, it won't cover that. So that's one thing just to bear in mind, you didn't have a press license to put anything online. You had a press license to broadcast radio station, which is a different a different license. So they were absolutely correct in actually turning around and saying, No,

Sam Sethi: 4:22

I have an online license, though.

James Cridland: 4:24

You did. But you didn't have a license to make something available on demand. So you had to.

Sam Sethi: 4:30

Right.

James Cridland: 4:30

You had a license to broadcast live, but you didn't have a license for on demand. So this is all of the complication. You say this is where it all gets hugely difficult. And of course, what I can't quite work out from the information is how this works internationally, because obviously it works within the UK. You would expect can I by I live in Australia, can I buy a press licence. I don't know is the quick answer and nor can I work out quite how it works, you know, overseas. One of the things that they have done is, you know, they've reduced the minimum fee. They consulted on a much higher minimum fee, but during the consultation they found out that quite a lot of podcasters don't operate as a business and they're really there to do something creative and fun, which is why that they've actually knocked the the minimum fee down. And they've also changed a number of different things. For example, they wanted reports of total downloads, but reports of queue sheet data. So that's, you know, all of the information that if you're a broadcaster you need to fill out title and artist and what the record label is and who the writers are and all that kind of stuff. And they're not now asking for any of that either after the consultation period. So it's a pretty good piece of work. But you know, you still it's only, Tony, half the half the job really, because of course, people on the other side.

Sam Sethi: 5:59

okay, so let's say I have a UK podcast and I want to go and buy this licence and I can use it. Can I? Now play AC DC Can I now play Guns and Roses or police? What can I play?

James Cridland: 6:14

You can play an AC DC tune on your on your. You know on your guitar there and um, you know and and and sing all of that that's all covered. You can hire a band and they can play that AC DC tune and that's cover too. What you can't do is you can't play the recording because you need a license for that.

Sam Sethi: 6:35

Okay. I wonder if my A.I. tool could cover the original song and I would be licensed.

James Cridland: 6:43

Well, the I. You know, we have to be careful what this license allows you to do. It allows you to play something on a podcast, a particular composition. Now, it, it probably doesn't cover the air company and their opportunity to actually make that audio in the first place. So it's just purely a license to allow you to do that very small thing of playing. Of playing someone's work. But not the recording, but playing someone's work on a podcast. So that's about as far as it goes. But yes, you know, air is being used for all kinds of stuff. Is that entirely licensed? Probably not. I wonder whether this wonderful song, Sam, was actually produced with this one here. Do you think that was I?

Sam Sethi: 7:43

Now. I think that's all been all the way.

James Cridland: 7:46

That's that's just overdub all the way though. Very nice.

Sam Sethi: 7:50

Now, what's odd about this is, of course, Julie Castello and I about a year ago worked together on a new podcast music license that she then eventually produced and published and had lawyers look out and that's available online and that became part of the podcast license that is available. And we

James Cridland: 8:11

Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 8:11

and I again, I'll say it before anyone else says, yes, true fans already had implemented it. So we had Creative Commons license and we had the podcast music license or what was originally called a v v license. So that shows like Adam Curry's Bootcamp all or any of the musical shows could then happily use music from Aynsley Costello or any of the other artists on White Lake and that all worked and that's working fine. So that's in contradiction to this other press license, I assume.

James Cridland: 8:42

so, Pearce, you are a member of. Gosh, I sound boring about Paris. Don't touch Turner. It's the. It's the history I have with online online radio and stuff like that. But. But press, you know, essentially you are a member of press. As a musician, you make a choice. Do I want to be a member of press? Do I allow press to go away and collect all of the money for me? And that's basically what press ends up doing. You don't have to do that. But that probably means that you won't get an awful lot of money for anything that you actually do. So if you are somebody like Ainsley Costello, you might say, I'm not interested in signing up with press. I will do it myself. And I will do it through v, v for V, and I will do it through other ways. And that's entirely in your own gift. You don't have to sign up with press, you don't have to sign up with people. And in fact, once you do sign up with press and people, that means that you are signed up with them and you can't do your own thing. And so there have been quite a few musicians in the past who have come out of press and people they've finished with their record companies, they've rerecorded their stuff so that they can do more with it. So, you know, it's it's that sort of complication really, of you. If you're a member of press, then you have essentially given your rights, full press to start collecting for you.

Sam Sethi: 10:11

Now, we've talked in the past that every podcast has a default copyright, even if they don't publish their copyright, but they do have it by default. So that covers their ownership of the podcast. My question is, should every podcast have a license to implicitly explain what you can or cannot do? So for example, should they put with the podcast license tag? All rights reserved. Or a Creative Commons license? Yeah, you can. You can use mine, but no, no commercial use or you can use mine with attribution. Do you think every podcast should and certainly every podcast should put their copyright within the RSS feed?

James Cridland: 10:52

Yes. I mean, I mean, every as you say, ri say every podcast, every piece of creative work that you produce is already automatically copyrighted, certainly in the UK. That's that's how it works. So you don't need to worry about that. What you might want to do is you might want to point out whether it's in a tank so a computer can read it or not. You might want to point out if you don't want to keep that copyright, you know, active. So if you want people to remix your work, if you want people to take your work and copy it and use it in other forms, then that's what a Creative Commons license is for. And you know, if you want to make that into into a tag, into the podcast license tag, then absolutely go for it. You probably also want to want to stick it into the show notes in some way, shape or form to make sure that it's really clear and obvious that actually, you know, you can copy this and you can do other things with it.

Sam Sethi: 11:52

Now, a couple of weeks ago, before I went to Wade, Mike saw CEO of A.I. Mustafa Suleyman implied that the whole web is a fair use for scraping of A.I. training, and that includes podcasts.

Clip: 12:05

With respect to content that is already on the open Web, the social contract of that content since the nineties has been that it is fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it. That has been freeware, if you like. That's been the understanding.

Sam Sethi: 12:20

He got a lot of backlash on that one. But he seems to feel and I assume he's speaking for myself, given my time in Microsoft, you do not speak publicly lest the PR teams allow you to. So I assume this is official Microsoft policy that they are happy to go and get content from all sorts of places and scrape it. So what did you think was a thing that they should be doing or not?

James Cridland: 12:47

I think he's 100% wrong. I think he's a man that does not understand copyright. I'll be I'll be frank. I think he's a man that doesn't understand copyright. The Verge calls it a curious understanding of copyright law. It doesn't work that way. But I mean, that's, you know, I think he's wrong, basically. Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 13:06

Well, Paul Thoreau, who writes a very well-known Windows weekly podcast and newsletter, said you're an f ing thief with no sense of your legal or ethical obligations over those lovely

James Cridland: 13:19

Correct? I think

Sam Sethi: 13:20

ngs.

James Cridland: 13:20

that's absolutely correct.

Sam Sethi: 13:22

Now, Cloudflare a week ago brought out a web scraping blocker which I've implemented and it's working quite well. It's it's interesting that again, it's going to have to be a technology solution because companies clearly like Microsoft are going to ignore robots, not text and are going to try and scrape your content. So.

James Cridland: 13:43

Yeah. Yeah, indeed. And I would be I would just tread carefully with those sorts of tools. Amazon has a similar tool as well. They are great for the web. They are not great for RSS feeds. So obviously if you have an RSS feed, the point of an RSS feed is that they are consumed by robots. So you probably don't want to put those sorts of tools in front of where your RSS feeds live. But by all means, put those tools in front of where your website is, because that's that's an obvious thing. So you'll see that there are certain tools if you try and if you try hacking the bullet news website, please don't. But there are certain tools that will stop you from hacking certain pages on there or hammering those pages a fair amount of times. But the RSS feed is relatively open because obviously I want as many robots to see that RSS feed as possible. So just just be cautious podcast people out there.

Sam Sethi: 14:42

Okay. Now, instead of me and you trying to work this all out, it was actually quite useful. We met up with Gordon five Mark, who is known as the podcast lawyer in L.A., our podcast movement. And we did an interview or I say we I did an interview last week for us, and actually it was timely because it covers what Microsoft were doing with A.I.. what happens globally with licenses like press.

Jingles: 15:09

Oh. I want to they get you on because Microsoft CEO of A.I. He's caused some waves by saying that, oh, everything on the internet is fair. Use. Now, first of all, can you define what is a fair use? And then secondly, is he right? Fair use is a defense to U.S. Copyright infringement cases. It's specifically U.S. law because we have our First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and press. And what the courts over the first half of the 20th century had to do was sort of grapple with this. Here we have a law that says you can't copy that stuff, you can't use it. I mean, making stuff and another constitutional provision that says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech and the press. So the courts had to wrestle with this, and they came up with this sort of complicated multi-factor balancing test that has to be applied to each alleged infringement to figure out is it fair use? And those four factors look at the purpose and character of the allegedly infringing work, the nature of the original, and is there a transformation happening and not just transformation in terms of changing the work, but changing the meaning and purpose of the work? The third factor is the amount and substantiality of the portion that's been taken. And then the fourth factor has to do with the market impact or value impact of the infringement. So we look at these four factors in each individual case and so balance it out. We look at things like for that initial one, the nature, the purpose and character we look at is it an educational use or criticism and commentary? We value journalism over commerce. So if you're using a piece of material in an ad, it would be a different treatment than if you were using it to to comment on the quality of the thing or whatever. So that's the kind of analysis that we value it more as speech or do we value it more as property? And so fair use, it's this complicated thing. You don't get to just claim its fair use and use things without permission. And this fellow from Microsoft, I find it hard to believe that he is as willfully ignorant as he seems in that statement that you referred to. it's just preposterous for him to suggest that by posting something on the Web or on the Internet, you've created a social contract that says, go ahead, use my stuff. If that was the case, then every single piece of Microsoft software that I could possibly find on the Web, what you just told me, I can use it freely. I don't have to pay for it. But here's the other side of that coin then. So copyright only gives me ownership of the content. But if I don't have a license that says Here's what you can do with my content, Is the default license fair use? As in Yeah, take it, use it, do what you like with it. Because I haven't specifically set a permissioned license to what you can do. Now. Quite the contrary. What copyright law says, and this is universally true across all the countries that have signed on to the international treaty Is that the author of the work or the owner, if they've sold it, has the exclusive rights to do certain things, to make copies, distribute them, perform, display or make derivative works. So unless someone who wants to use the material has been given permission, typically in the form of a license agreement, then that what they have is no right whatsoever to do these things unless it's fair use. So fair use becomes the exception or defense. But that's tricky and risky to rely on. Fair use in the absence of some clear guidance. So if I wanted to take a clip of your podcast and use it in Partners News Weekly, under fair use, probably two or 3 minutes would seem that's okay. But if I wanted to take the whole of your podcast and call it podcast weekly and well, say hi, welcome to Pod News Weekly. And now for an interview with Gordon, Mark and his guest and then at the end, go Well, thanks for listening to News Weekly. Now that clearly is not fair use, right? Well, right. And in fact, the two or 3 minutes that you referenced, again, no rule of thumb, because if my podcast is only 4 minutes long now, you've taken 75% of it, Right? So now again, but there are scenarios where you could use the whole thing and it would be fair use because what you're doing is the kind of thing that we as a society value the social commentary criticism, the journalism that you guys do at partners. But if it was a pure entertainment podcast that did the exact same clip, it might be treated differently. So that's why this is tricky and risky is that each use has to be analyzed standing on its own. And yeah, it's just too complicated to boil down to a single sentence guideline. So first and foremost, although every podcast is given by default, a copyright should the podcast implicitly have within their RSS feed a copyright notice? It's a good idea. Implicitly, actually, I would say explicitly they should post a copyright notice on on their websites on the RSS feed. Ideally in the audio or the video of the program, although that is, I would suggest that's a practice that's observed in the breach more often than adherence. But yeah, I should say this episode is copyrighted by so-and-so and published in 1991, and I'm on it in 2024, and I'm saying they. Don't. Anyway. Copyright 2024 by Gordon Fire. Mark That's all you have to sort of say. And that notice it has small legal significance, but it's just the the way that people know who to reach out to and find. Okay, should they also have a podcast license then attached to their RSS feed? Well, I think that's a matter of choice for a creator of any kind of content, whether it's a podcast or a song or a photograph. If you're okay with people using your content, you can publish it under one of many different kinds of licenses that allow for use under certain circumstances. That's what a license is. It sets out the conditions under which your work could be used, by whom and so on. So there's the Creative Commons license. There are a few other model licenses out there, and a podcast license is something that we desperately need so that podcasters can opt into using a piece of music or something like that in a way that isn't such an administrative burden. I mean, as a lawyer, one of the things that people sometimes come to me for is help me get a license to use the first eight bars of AC DC's Back in Black. That's the classic, right. And I end up having to go and reach out to a publisher and a record company and sometimes a performing rights organization and ask for permission that they have to go to the owners. And it's this whole complicated, time consuming thing. And by then the episodes already ready to go and the podcaster moves on and uses something else. So having a a default or a standardized podcast license makes a lot of sense. Now, one of the things that podcasting studio has been working on is a piece of technology to enable independent music artists to be able to give their music a license and to allow that to be used within another podcast. And so some very clever people in the podcasting tutor arena came up with a technological wallet switching and before we started this podcast gave you a quick view of it. And the idea is that somebody is streaming micropayments to a podcast and then the wallet is taking that from my wallet to Adam Curry's wallet in this case as an example. And then since he plays the music, it goes from my wallet to the music artist for the duration of the track and then switches back to Adam when the track finishes. And that's a lovely thing to do. And that required a new podcast license for music. And I think I sent you that a little while back. I mean, again, I'm not asking for your legal final stamp of approval on it, but again, I think that's the sort of thing that we need to see if we're going to be able to use independent music artists giving permission not only copyright but license to play. Agreed. And what you showed me, it looks like a fantastic approach to this. The key word in what you just said was independent music artists, because it's going to take them opting in to this kind of a system to be willing to license on terms that allow for this micropayment wallet switching, kind of revenue sharing kind of thing. And I think it's a wonderful idea if we can get enough artists to opt in and we can get enough listeners to opt into paying through their wallet to these podcast hosts, the real challenge is that most creators that want to use a piece of music, they have a piece of music in mind, and it's not that little independent artist from down the road. It's Madonna or Kanye West, Sting And until the big record labels and the big music publishing companies that really control the copyrights and ownership of those things, until those folks see the light and opt in to something like this, we're creating a separate ecosystem for the independent music world, which is fine and it's a good idea. But the real trick will be getting the uptake on both sides of the payment equation to opt in. So in summary, yes, you have copyright. You should have a podcast license. Really fair use is fair use. No, Microsoft, you can't scrape the whole web for your trading. That's a good summary. I'd say. So yeah. On the podcast license, my one caveat would be if you want to, if you don't want anybody to use your stuff, then don't put a license. Fair enough. Gordon Fire Mark the podcast Lawyer Thank you so much. Now if people want to find you, where would they go? Well, Sam, I'm blessed with a memorable name that's easy to find, and there are too many of us out there. So Gordon Fire Markham is probably the hub of things or just fire Markham for the law firm. And you can find me on YouTube. And most of the social media channels. Gee, Fire Mark is the handle. They're amazing. Thanks, Gordon. Thank you. It's been great.

James Cridland: 25:42

The very excellent Gordon fire Mark. And in the full version of that interview, which you'll hear in the Pod News Xtra podcast, Gordon talks about, I generated audio content, whether or not we should be flagging that and more details about copyright protection, including robots, stock text files and even no copying flags. You'll find all of that in the Pod News XTRA podcast. You can get it wherever you get this one.

Sam Sethi: 26:16

Now. Moving on, James, after all that heaviness leaving out the media very well that they are. They've been very successful over the last year with some of their titles. They're up for sale. They're exploring a sale. James, tell me more.

James Cridland: 26:28

Yes. I mean, I think everybody's up for sale, to be fair. But Lebanon's media has apparently been exploring a sale over the last year. They talked to a few people and they've hired an investment bank. So they're sort of, you know, properly looking for sellers. Now, the thing about Lebanon to media is that it's a VC backed company. It's raised ten and a half million dollars so far. And so they are you know, at some point, those backers will be wanting to see some money. As a result of that. They've signed some very good people. They are the company, if you remember, who have signed to Meghan Markle. They also have a bunch of other very, very big shows. So best of luck to them. We've spoken to them on the on this show in the past and best of luck if they find a buyer. But that's certainly interesting timing, I think, isn't it?

Sam Sethi: 27:18

Yeah. I mean, if they've raised 10 million, they, they're certainly looking for a ten X returns. That's 100 million make minimum, maybe 200 million. Who's going to buy them. I mean, Amazon bought Wondery. Who do you think might buy them? I mean. Fine.

James Cridland: 27:34

I mean, Amazon might buy lemonade. Lemonade Media seems to be very different to Wondery in terms of Wondery is very much very carefully scripted shows there aren't that many interview shows that Wondery creates. They just lost Smartless of course, which is probably the only big interview show that Wondery does. So Lemonade probably fits into that quite well, but unlikely that Spotify will buy them. Spotify seems to be not buying anything anymore. Um, but um. Yeah, it'll be interesting to end up saying. I mean, maybe Max Cutler with Pace Studios, maybe that's something that he might wish to grab to bolster his slate. Sirius XM seems to be spending an awful lot of money at the moment, so who knows who might end up buying them?

Sam Sethi: 28:27

Well, watch this space now. Overcast, your favorite podcast player, has a new version. James is the ten year anniversary of Overcast one that Marco Arment launched his new version. Tell me more about it.

James Cridland: 28:42

Yeah, it's I think what Marco has been really suffering from over the last couple of years and you will relate to this, Sam, is technical debt. He built that out ten years ago. Essentially, he built it from the products and the product was his silent skipping technology and his voice boost and all of that kind of stuff. And he built a podcast app around that and has run that very successfully for the last ten years. But all built in, I think, or built in. Objective-C very difficult and complicated to maintain, certainly very difficult to add new features. And so you basically scrunch the whole thing up 18 months ago and rebuilt the entire thing. So it's all using the latest tech. It works much, much faster. It's you know, it's a it's a nice tool. One of the interesting things that he did from a UX point of view is he's moved almost all of the controls to the bottom of the screen. So if you are holding your phone with only one hand, you can basically control the entire thing just using the bottom of the screen with your thumbs because of course, mobile phones are so much bigger these days. iPhones are so much bigger because it's only available on the iPhone. So he's done some very interesting things, but that should mean that he can move forward with new features. There are no new features in Overcast, so it should now mean that he can add an awful lot of new features into that to start enhancing what he's currently working on.

Sam Sethi: 30:18

So do you think he'll now start to support podcasting to.

James Cridland: 30:21

I think he I think he needs still needs to be convinced about podcasting to point out. I think that there's certainly opportunities there for him to support things like transcripts. He'll never do as good a job as Apple Podcasts, and perhaps he just wants perhaps that will be the reason why he doesn't do it. But it will kind of make sense if he could do transcripts, if he could do a few other things. But I think him doing, you know, streaming, that's probably unlikely. I mean, probably unlikely for any anybody to be doing it at the moment. To be fair, given

Sam Sethi: 31:01

Find

James Cridland: 31:01

the.

Sam Sethi: 31:02

out later.

James Cridland: 31:02

Given the complication.

Sam Sethi: 31:02

Find out later.

James Cridland: 31:03

Yes, indeed. You know, so I don't think he'll be doing that. He's been very vocal on the fact that he hates super chapters as we call them. But I would expect there to be a few new features that he might have a look at. He uses the podcast index under the hood anyway as a fallback. So he's not he's not 100% away from it, so who knows?

Sam Sethi: 31:29

I just have to say, while I was listening to you in Greece, you look a giddy schoolboy when you have the new overcast version. It was very funny.

James Cridland: 31:37

It was it was very exciting. It was yes, I was excited that he was launching it. And, um, and I got I got it on test fly a couple of days early and, um, yeah. And it's it's nothing particularly special about it, but it's just, it's just nice that it just works a bit better. And his next plan is to the one thing that he's lost out of is Opel export and import. So he's going to fix that pretty shortly and then he's going to rebuild the the Apple Watch app which is which needs some work. And I think once he's done that, then he can hopefully move really fast to add new features. And I think it's up to us to show him up to us, the community that listens to the show, to show him some of the good new features that he probably should should be adding. But he is very, very privacy focused and we just need to bear that in mind when we're talking about individual ideas for him.

Sam Sethi: 32:41

Well, as a fellow app developer. Congratulations, Parker. It's hard work so well to make up for getting our new version.

James Cridland: 32:47

I'd have to say the Slack group. I'm in the beta Slack group, and the Slack group is full of people shouting at him and saying, This was never finished. It's buggy and blah blah, blah, blah, blah. I think it's fine. I think it's absolutely fine. I think it's a good piece of work and I don't understand why people are so, so grumpy at him. But you know, that's always going to be the way, I suppose.

Sam Sethi: 33:07

Yeah, he did say tried to get used to it for a few days before you yell at me too much, please. So.

James Cridland: 33:12

Yes.

Sam Sethi: 33:12

Yes.

James Cridland: 33:13

It's like it's like if you're in the bus Facebook group. There are still lots and lots and lots of people very grumpy at the new crisp, sharper look and feel of the of the bus sprout website. And one person said, ever since the read the redesign, I've had 50% fewer downloads and you they're going what is a redesign of a website got to do with the download it's. Silly man. Anyway, moving on.

Sam Sethi: 33:44

Moving on. Adobe have gone into beta with their podcast studios now available for everyone to try. The tool is like the script or headline is Eddy. It lets you record, edit, enhance audio right in your browser. So yeah. Have you tried this yet, James?

James Cridland: 34:01

I did try and make whatever day that was this week, I think it was Tuesday. I did try and make that day's pot news podcast in Adobe Podcast Studio, and it was one of those things where I tried it and I'd done about the first minute and I was trying to get the jingles to work. And then I thought, This is impossible. I can't do this. Carlos closed the thing and went away. But I think for editing interviews and stuff like that, it would be a really good tool. It's certainly a tool that I'm going to show off at the various talks that I end up doing. And what I like about it is that it's got built into it. It's got Adobe's voice enhancing tool, so much like the D script studio sound thing. So it's got that built into it and a couple of other things in there as well. So it's a pretty good thing really.

Sam Sethi: 34:58

Well, I'm talking to the Adobe team later today. Hopefully they'll give us an interview as well. But I'm doing it with my podcast on this project hat on because they're getting involved with that and also getting involved with podcasting today. So I'm helping them understand what it's all about and how they can use it within the tool itself. So yeah,

James Cridland: 35:18

Very

Sam Sethi: 35:18

looking

James Cridland: 35:18

nice.

Sam Sethi: 35:18

forward to that.

James Cridland: 35:19

Very good.

Sam Sethi: 35:20

Now, also related to that, James has a couple of other aid tools have been launching as well. What are they?

James Cridland: 35:26

Oh, so there is one called a call from a company called Air Acoustics, and they have a audio quality enhancement tool just the same as the the Adobe one. And yes, the difference here is that there is an API and the API allows you to do this all completely automatically. So it will do. Volume, normalization and all that kind of stuff. It will do it will do a fair amount of quite nice, you know, interesting things there. So that's quite a nice quite nice tool. It's from a German company, I think. So worthwhile taking a look at that. And also our friends at 11 Labs, I say our friends, I've never spoken to anybody from 11 labs. I would love to speak to somebody from 11 labs. But our friends, maybe our future friends from 11 APS have launched a very similar thing, which is a it which gets rid of all of the background noise. And they did it in a very nice way with a little video. And the video has a man talking into a microphone while a leaf blower is being blown at him. Would you like to have listen.

Sam Sethi: 36:42

I'd love it.

James Cridland: 36:54

I mean, that's pretty impressive.

Sam Sethi: 36:55

This. Very good.

James Cridland: 37:00

Very, very smart. So yes, so well done to them. That's another till 11 Labs has a free tier, as does Adobe I think, right now. So just with worthwhile playing with these things and giving them a go.

Sam Sethi: 37:13

Let's whizz around the world, James. Here in the U.K., we have a new Labour government and it's committed to supporting the BBC licence. Unlike the last one, he was trying to destroy the BBC. But the new Culture Minister, Lisa Nandy, has said that she's against the BBC putting advertising in podcast.

James Cridland: 37:33

Yeah, she has. She has a so it was quite an interesting interview actually on The Leading, which is a podcast that Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell does. And she was rather rather carefully asked. That's a show that Gail Hanger produces, and she was rather carefully asked, What do you think of the plans of the BBC to put advertising into its podcasts in the UK? And she gave a good answer. So she was pretty well saying, no, the BBC shouldn't be putting ads into their shows. Now the BBC will turn around and say, We were very clear that we weren't going to put ads into news shows. They're just going into the entertainment podcasts that we make. So maybe she needs a more cast iron. Reason why it's a bad idea. But you know, she's a pretty good, pretty, pretty switched on person by the sounds of things.

Sam Sethi: 38:38

Her family's got some really strong roots in politics. I've listened to her before, so I think she'll be a really good culture minister, Unlike Nadine Dorries.

James Cridland: 38:49

Yes. Let's face it, wouldn't be difficult to be worse. Now, podcast listeners in the UK are more likely to listen while walking or listen while on public transport than podcast listeners in the US say. Edison Research's podcast metrics. Also, Edison Research's podcast metrics also tell us that the Pope is Catholic and that bears defecate in the woods. So I'd also add the U.K. you heard Lisa Nandy there. She has an accent from I'm going to guess, Manchester

Sam Sethi: 39:18

Yeah, she's. She's

James Cridland: 39:19

or that

Sam Sethi: 39:19

that

James Cridland: 39:19

sort

Sam Sethi: 39:20

area.

James Cridland: 39:20

of area.

Sam Sethi: 39:20

Northern England.

James Cridland: 39:22

Now some research has been done around accents of audio ads. 62% of audio ads feature accents from the south east of England. Only 2% feature Welsh or Scottish accents. I think it was 1% for Midlands accents. I can't imagine why. And they also say and this I thought was interesting, only 36% of audio ads feature female voices as the lead voice, even though women make up 51% of the population. So now a female voice over who I know has posted this and said, just saying, you know, I'm a female voice over. Why? Why is the so much male voice work out there? I think, you know, I think it's probably a little bit more complicated than just saying it should be 51% because I think a female voice over and a male voice over kind of mean different things when you hear them. But even so, really interesting work, and I don't believe that anybody's actually done that sort of work in the past. So that was interesting to have a look at.

Sam Sethi: 40:32

I also think that, you know, again, with with accent, we often in this country, in the UK use northern accents when there are call centres, for some reason they're much nicer. They feel friendlier than anything else. But I'd just like to say, James, I come from rural Berkshire and we speak the Queen's English in this country and I think we are. So moving on.

James Cridland: 40:54

Yes. And I just had a very expensive schooling That's. Plain would explain my lack of accent. Let's move to Australia. Triton Digital released the Australian podcast Ranker for June. I wasn't trying to be clever here, but I said that total downloads are down 6.2% month on month, 16% fewer episodes published, but there were 13% fewer weekdays in the month, though, thanks to the way calendars work. So of course, the figures are going to be down. If you've got 13% fewer weekdays, then you're going to get about 13% fewer episodes because of the way that that works. And in fact, there were a number of public holidays last month as well. But we kind of forget that whenever we're looking at monthly data. Interestingly, the Australian podcast Ranker, I always thought that Triton's podcast rankings look at a four week period, not a calendar month, but seemingly not in Australia, where they still have a look at calendar months, which is a little bit strange. But there we are. Anyway, the ABCs number one, the listener is number one and IHA is also number one. Just depends what you look at which is nice. So lots of exciting things going on in this country.

Sam Sethi: 42:07

In the US, a bit like the report. We just had a consumer say they don't mind hearing an ad twice in a day, but three times is more annoying. But podcast ads work better than billboards. Video ads and ads on social media says Unlocking the Power of Audio Arts. A study by Vir a tonic. That sounds good.

James Cridland: 42:25

Yes, it does. It's nice to see some actual data around when people get annoyed about about advertising, of course. Sounds profitable. Did something not so long ago say much? The same sort of thing. Meanwhile, megaphone has changed a few things, which I think is interesting. The abolition of the minimum price floor, which you might remember that they did a couple of months ago, they stopped podcast companies from saying we will only take ads from you if we're earning X amount of money from them. They stopped all of that. That came into effect on the 1st of July, and all of a sudden people are hearing lots more ads to the point where there is a lot of complaints on social media from people who think that they've paid for Spotify premium but are still hearing an awful lot of ads in the podcasts that they're listening to. It's of course, nothing to do with Spotify Premium, but I thought that's interesting that that seemingly small change has, by the sounds of it, really changed the amount of ads which are in shows that are hosted on those platforms.

Sam Sethi: 43:35

People are getting annoyed about ads, but we've talked about this in the past. Given your radio background as well, James. We're not even close to radio saturation within within an hour of the number of ads in the podcast.

James Cridland: 43:48

No, we're not. I mean, some radio sets, they call them where the ads are 6 minutes long. But of course, you can't fast forward through them and I think that's the big difference here. So, you know, I mean, I've just been talking with somebody that has just launched a podcast app that skips the ads. He's a little bit nervous about going live with that, but hopefully we'll have an interview with him not so long in the future. But yeah, I mean, he sees there being a real a real opportunity there. And there certainly will be if we start putting six minute ad breaks in. So let's hope that we don't end up doing that.

Sam Sethi: 44:31

Excellent. Now, people in jobs are a big one here. James. Dave Jackson has left lips. And what's going on?

James Cridland: 44:38

Yes, in fact, a number of changes at. Leibsohn But first on the customer support side, Dave Jackson, who was their sort of educator and trainer, he has worked with Leibsohn for eight years. Of course he also runs the School of Podcasting and, and he's a very good, jolly good egg, I should say. But he has ended up leaving. Leibsohn He says he's got a very good and very exciting place where he's going to leave, but one of the things that I thought was really classy is that he went onto Facebook or LinkedIn or wherever it is that I saw this and he said, You need to understand this isn't a problem with Leibsohn This is me. I have spotted something that I know I will be even happier at and is just a better fit for my educational skill set, he said. So we get to find out where on July the 29th he's actually starting his an exclusive. He's actually starting on July the 22nd. So that's that's next Monday. He's actually starting at this place, but he's not going to say where he is or what he's doing. July the 29th, and we'll find out in, of course, the School of Podcasting podcast and doubtless a a podcasting newsletter near you. But yeah, he's a very good man. So yes, that that said good.

Sam Sethi: 46:06

good luck with your new job, Dave, And yeah, we'll hopefully get you on once you've got your feet under the table as well.

James Cridland: 46:11

Indeed. And of course he's not the only person to have left. Leibsohn So it turns out that all of a sudden Dave Hanley, who used to run the Libs in ads business formerly known as Advertise cast of course, and Trevor Smith and Trevor Smith, Lynn, who also worked there, was also a co-founder of Advertise Cast. They have both left the company this week. It's three years after the acquisition of Advertise cast by Leibsohn and it's very clear that it's the end of their contract and, and they're off. And so congratulations to Rick Salat, who is now CEO of Leibsohn Ads. He was CEO of Power Podcast Ad Reps, which was also bought a couple of years ago. So he's a good egg and he'll be at podcast movement in a few weeks. So he is now CEO and SVP of Publishing. Is Steven Pearlstein or Pearlstein I don't know, but so well done to them. But yeah, very interesting seeing both. Dave and Trevor leave the company. And an interesting statement, I thought, from John Gibbons, the CEO of Leibsohn, who said, you know, they they do remain strong supporters of the business. They're significant shareholders. Well, of course they are, and they're friends of the company. But one of the things he said, which I thought was very interesting in an email that was shared with me, he said, We've crossed a lot of ground together over the last three years, transforming Lipson from a hosting platform into a full suite, monetization and hosting service company, generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue for podcasters. Very clear what the future direction for Leibsohn is, and that is not a podcast host, that is this full suite monetization and hosting service company. So I thought that that was a very interesting stake in the ground from John as to where he wants to take that particular company.

Sam Sethi: 48:25

I think many of them are. I think we've heard it from Alberta Butler and our sister Colm that, you know, they are not a hosting company. I think you look at our sponsors, but I wouldn't say they think themselves primarily the hosting company anymore. I think it's a service of a suite of tools that they offer.

James Cridland: 48:44

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I think I think very much you can see from his point of view, you know, the focus is on their ads products. The focus is on their, you know, automatic ads if you're hosted with them. Apparently new and exciting things on the way there as well. So, um, let's wait and see. And I should also mention, and this is an entire coincidence, I should point out, but Leibsohn have returned as a gold supporter for the newsletter as well. It just so happens to be on the same day. So, um, so that was nice to end up saying. So thank you to them for that.

Sam Sethi: 49:18

Now, James events and awards. What's going on in the world of events and awards

James Cridland: 49:23

Well, if you are a woman in podcasting, then the deadline for the women in Podcasting awards is fast approaching. You have until July the 31st to get your entries in. Also, there is, of course, two big events happening Podcast Asia, which I am programming which had pretty well got everybody sorted now for September the third in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Tickets are$99, but you can use code pod n10 to save the clues in the one show. It's not going to be an awful lot you save, but nevertheless, you will save. So that's worthwhile. I discovered that the that the hotel where we're at, it's a halal hotel apart from a hidden away bar that was very smoky amp but did serve beer. It is now a properly halal hotel and I'm. That means no beer.

Sam Sethi: 50:16

drawing.

James Cridland: 50:17

But it's. But it's a good job that I know where to go. So lucky. So looking forward to that. And a bunch of folk coming from the U.S., which should be good fun. And of course, podcast Movement 2024, which is in August the 19th in National Harbor, which is very close to Washington, in Washington, D.C.. So, yes. Are you coming?

Sam Sethi: 50:38

I am.

James Cridland: 50:38

Sam?

Sam Sethi: 50:39

Yes .

James Cridland: 50:39

Oh, Eric. Excellent. Well, that's very exciting. What are you. What are you doing? Or can you say yet?

Sam Sethi: 50:45

Well, I will tell you I will tell you personally later today, because I got a call with somebody. So, yes. But the goal is we are doing a podcasting to to show track. And that's the goal under the auspices of the podcast on this project. So the idea is to run a full day track from start to finish. And yeah, fingers crossed that we can get this over the line today. And if that happens and yes, we'll be making lots of noise about it.

James Cridland: 51:15

Excellent. Well, I'm looking forward to being able to break that properly, although you heard it here first, folks. And there are more events both paid for and free upon news, virtual events or events in a place with people, of course. And if you're organizing something, tell the world about it's free to be listed at pop news dot net slash events.

Jingles: 51:31

The The Tech stuff. on the Podnews Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 51:36

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod news newsletter. Here's where we do all of the tech talk. Here's where Sam talks Technology. What have you got for you?

Sam Sethi: 51:44

Well, Matt, my dearest friends on the show and one of our paid supporters, he put out a wonderful little video, which is is value for value doing. His answer, in short, was no, it absolutely isn't. But he thought that the insiders were getting it wrong. Did you watch that video?

James Cridland: 52:03

Yes, I did watch that. And I think yes, absolutely. What Matt says and Matt, by the way, will be the next the next host for this show when either you or I are off because he's because he's desperate to do it. So there you go.

Sam Sethi: 52:18

Next week. If you want it next week, you can. Pull your.

James Cridland: 52:22

But what he's aboitiz essentially said is value for value is not streaming SATs. Streaming sites are not value for value. And he's absolutely right that streaming science is just one way of doing value for value. Streaming science is a little bit complicated and blah, blah, blah. But that said, all of this is very, very complicated. You know, podcasting is very, very complicated if you're talking about RSS feeds and everything else. So but the concept of value for value is absolutely not dying. I think there are questions around streaming SATs and boosts and and lightning payments and all of that. I think that there are a few rocky, rocky patches going on with that right now. But in terms of value for value, that value is absolutely golden and continues to be a very viable way of funding a particular show. If I go. Got that basically right.

Sam Sethi: 53:14

Hundred percent. James. Yes. And Adam will be nodding along to everything you just said because Adam will tell you as well that SATs and micropayments are not the only metric for before they say yes.

James Cridland: 53:28

Hmm. Hmm.

Sam Sethi: 53:29

But interestingly, some reason last week seemed to be the way that everyone wanted to talk about it, because friend of the show, Marcus with Anthony Brown had Matthew Passi on their show in and around podcasting talking about it, and also Daniel J. Lewis and Dave Jackson, whom we talked about just a few minutes ago on the Future podcast, also talked about it. I think everyone is a little bit sort of, Oh, what do we do next? Where do we go? How this going to work? And it's all a bit up in the air at the moment.

James Cridland: 53:58

Yes, I think so. I think there are a few complicated things there in terms of in terms of how lightning payments work. And I think we just need to write the storm there to make it to make that work. But yeah, I think, you know, the talking about it in this way hasn't been particularly helpful and you will notice that there's been not that much mention of it in the the party's newsletter because you know, I don't really see yeah, I don't really see it being a particularly helpful thing to end up doing. But, but yeah, you know, but it's interesting to interesting to watch anyway.

Sam Sethi: 54:36

I think we should be very careful because I know that a lot of us, you know, let's say Popeyes, Trayvon's podcast guru, for example, all put all eggs in one basket, the Albie basket. But, you know, fountain, you have got a separate, different wallet system. They use Zebedee Wave Lake, his move to Zebedee.

James Cridland: 54:59

Hm.

Sam Sethi: 55:00

So I think, you know, when we say V for V with micropayments is, you know, going through a sort of a a winter. Actually, with fountain, nothing's changed with wavelength, they've moved over to the same system and they, they're very happy. And so I think it's some apps are facing challenges. I think other apps like Fountain are doing very well with it still. Nothing's changed for them and yeah, they're moving ahead quite nicely.

James Cridland: 55:25

What else has been going on? Andrew Grumet I mentioned umbilical for no apparent reason. There's no real news there, but I realize that I haven't mentioned umbilical cord at all, which is the work that Andrew has been doing in terms of a helper for anything browser based that you're doing in terms of a podcast player or something else. There's a bunch of really useful things there. So I felt that that was worthwhile mentioning. So I did.

Sam Sethi: 55:54

But didn't you use it as well on Pokernews daily to do some changes?

James Cridland: 55:58

I didn't I didn't use it. But I explained why you might want to use it that way. So the episode pages for the episode pages on the Pod news website pull the RSS feed directly from the podcast host. But there are some RSS feeds that your browser won't pull. And so therefore I have to proxy them and do that myself. And it's just is just an irritation and a nuisance. Now, umbilical umbilical would help you with all of that completely because it includes a decent proxy for all of that sort of thing and everything else. So that's a lovely a lovely tool to end up using. I of course, wrote my own because of course I did. But but it's a useful tool

Sam Sethi: 56:42

Yeah.

James Cridland: 56:42

just to have in your back pocket.

Sam Sethi: 56:44

Yeah. Andrew, thanks for coming out with about a year too late for me as well because we wrote our own ones as well at Tree Farms because we are a way. But what's interesting is there's a real weirdness going on. I just want to just sort of. This out a little bit. So we went down the road of being a progressive Web app, web based. So partly that was because, you know, having multiple code bases for iOS, Android and and also Web, I don't think we could have done it. And I think Apple would have blocked half a dozen features that we did anyway. So the speed reasons we went down that road. Pokey Castle has just recently released their progressive Web app as well. But you are beginning to see podcast Guru released a new website which isn't a progressive web app pod, but has a website, but it's not a progressive web app. And Fountain has a website but not a progressive web app. But they are moving back to the web while they also have their native flash to the proprietor free app sorry, iOS and Android. I must stop saying that. But what I think is interesting is we I'll put my true fans down here are going to have to build native apps. We are just finding and users can't get their heads around PWI. And that's, I say primarily the fault of Apple because they've not made it easy for people to understand what they are. They have made Pete was a second class citizen and they won't allow developers to change. Just a really simple thing that would make it all different. You know, having installed the name of this app like they do when you have an iOS app on a web page, would make the difference or just changing the words out the homescreen to install this app, but they weren't allowed to make any of those changes. So, you know, people have been loading trained, oh, go to the iOS App store to go find your app. And so we're going to have to play in the field that Apple's created.

James Cridland: 58:45

Mm

Sam Sethi: 58:46

People

James Cridland: 58:46

hmm.

Sam Sethi: 58:46

just don't understand what a PWI is.

James Cridland: 58:48

Yes. No, it's you know, you can kind of understand Apple's Apple's position given how much money they earn from the App Store.

Sam Sethi: 58:58

Sorry, Did I say Monopoly?

James Cridland: 59:01

Oh, I think this I think Google exists as well.

Sam Sethi: 59:04

No, they don't. No, no, not as well. Actually, if you went to India, they'd say the same thing. Yes, probably. But what what I do say, you know, and again, I'm not 100% the fanboy Spotify, but I do think they have got their strategy right. They are. They've got a website called Spotify Everywhere. And I think that is a strategy that I certainly agree fans are going to try and copy. We are going to be iOS, CWA, mobile Web, CarPlay, Alexa as well. You know, we just got to be everywhere where the user wants to be rather than telling them where we would like them to come.

James Cridland: 59:39

Indeed. And you've been you've been copying a fair a fair amount of things, haven't you? You've copied the beautiful full screen chapter player from Ask.com. You've.

Sam Sethi: 59:50

Yes.

James Cridland: 59:50

Yes, he

Sam Sethi: 59:51

Yeah.

James Cridland: 59:51

grabs that

Sam Sethi: 59:52

Hey.

James Cridland: 59:52

and gone, oh, we can we can build something similar, which is great. So well done. Well, well, well done for you for that. And also, what are you doing with the super feeds, then? Tell it. Tell us about super feeds.

Sam Sethi: 1:00:04

Well, I just wanted the t shirt with an s on it. No, that was it. This was a feature that probably a year ago we developed. The idea that I had was that we could get true fans to be a bit like a sandbox really, for testing, podcasting, to toe tags so you could come in, claim your podcast, add whatever tags and see how they worked in truth, untimely. And so that was fine and we bought nearly every tag. So that was, that was good for people to do. And then I had hoped that we would be able to do something like a switching tool which would say, Oh, you're currently with I on a podcast that doesn't support or podcast host that doesn't support these tags. Why didn't you think about switching to one of the new podcasting to to oh. Host that supports more tags that didn't go down very well as in host didn't really want to jump on board with it. They weren't excited about the idea of you know, well, if he can move people to me. You can move people away from me so that nobody really bought into that idea, unsurprisingly. But I spoke with Guy Martin, the guy who did the 2.0 logo, and we were just chatting about it and he gave me a eureka moment. He said, Well, you can leave the audio where it is and you can actually just add all of the tags to your RSS feed and I won't.

James Cridland: 1:01:30

Hmm.

Sam Sethi: 1:01:30

Hang on a minute, can I? So we did a little work with various people. One of those being Dave Jones. And we did a test. We basically took a podcast. We took podcast Extra, actually, and put in his extra and we added a whole bunch of little extra tags. We published it to the podcast index. It'll come down. James Before you ask me, don't worry,

James Cridland: 1:01:52

Hmm.

Sam Sethi: 1:01:53

I But we tried it, it worked. So we can literally go into the pop news extra at any podcasting to the other tags, pod roles, publisher feeds, whatever we want.

James Cridland: 1:02:05

Hmm. Hmm.

Sam Sethi: 1:02:06

We can then one click publish that to the podcast index and it appears there as a true fans feed. But the audio enclosure still points back to Buzz Sprout. So that means you don't have to move your audio, but you can get all of the latest greatest Twitter oh tags within your feeds and so found in or pop bursts or podcast. You can then use that feed and get all the tags and the host can still charge the podcaster for hosting. So yes, that's what we've done. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of blowback on that because hosts won't like that. I know that. But a I did it because I wanted hosts to move forward. No one's going to use a super feed from true fans. If you as a host have all the features they currently want anyway. So it's just a case of catch up or they'll move to super feeds.

James Cridland: 1:02:56

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it certainly sounds sounds exciting. So good to see you trying that and testing that. And. Yeah, I think it's a good thing.

Sam Sethi: 1:03:06

Now moving on. Captivate friends of the show off might not be my friend anymore. Cut to be friends. The show they announced 2.5. What they announced James.

James Cridland: 1:03:19

Well. So they have announced a few things, unlimited networks for all podcasters. So which is quite clever if you understand how captivate challenge their podcast is, they obviously want you to add lots and lots of additional shows which you can do for free. So yeah, so unlimited networks for all of those. Also a new look and feel on that dashboard as well, just making it look a little bit more modern, a little bit, a little bit nicer, being able to squeeze in a few more features in there as well. So yeah, they've done well.

Sam Sethi: 1:03:54

And finally, Zach, our friend from Apple. He now has a radio play within the Apple Vision Pro.

James Cridland: 1:04:02

Yes.

Sam Sethi: 1:04:03

Clearly you've got yours happening in your Apple Vision product.

James Cridland: 1:04:05

Yes, said the Apple Vision Pro, which is, of course, the toy glasses that Apple have made. Yes. So radio player, which was a radio app that I helped start over ten years or so ago now I think 15 years ago now that now has a vision pro app. So if you're in the UK, France, Germany or Canada, you can use radio player and you can listen to your favorite radio station. While you're at it. No. Doing other things, walking in the metaverse or whatever it is that you do with one of these app. Russian president.

Sam Sethi: 1:04:43

I was going to say.

James Cridland: 1:04:44

For them to be on.

Sam Sethi: 1:04:46

Wasn't the idea of a radio that you can play it in the background and walk around doing the things? A How the hell when you got that visor over your face

James Cridland: 1:04:54

You know.

Sam Sethi: 1:04:54

are you going to be.

James Cridland: 1:04:54

You know what I think? You know, I think it basically is I think it's it's a very good way for radio player to get a press release out, for people to be talking about them and go, ooh, that looks like that looks like a cool idea. And I think that's about as far as it goes. And congratulations to them because I would have done exactly the same thing. Yeah. So I think that that makes a bunch of sense. They did actually give a demo of that all the way back in March in Munich at Radio days, Europe there, and lots of people were having a play with it and thinking that this was very exciting and very cool. So the fact that they've actually launched it because of course you can now get the Vision Pro in all of those other places too, then that's a nice thing. One final thing, actually just worth a mention is the Audio Sigma MC Hero DSP. Now, if you're using a exel microphone, as I am currently, then it's probably plugged into something like a focus, right? Scarlet box or maybe it's plugged into a road caster. Who knows? But the audio Sigma MC Hero DSP looks very, very cool. It's a very clever looking little portable USB audio interface. Adam Curry loves it. It's Adam Curry approved. What was the phrase Godfather approved? I. And looks very, very smart. So it's worth a peek if you're thinking about maybe upgrading. Maybe you want to sound a little bit more like Adam Curry does from his his fancy microphone and everything else. Then worth a look. You'll find that links from the podcast newsletter earlier on in the week.

Jingles: 1:06:34

Boostagrams and fan mail on the Podnews weekly review.

James Cridland: 1:06:42

Yes, it is our favorite time of the week. It's Booster Graham Corner. We've had a number of exciting boosts, which is always good.

Sam Sethi: 1:06:48

We have a thousand sacks from a Claire Claire, who's a friend of the show, and I owe her several emails, so she's probably hating on me right now. I enjoyed the contribution from Neill this week. Yes, he was very good. And well done. Nil, by the way. I was only joking at the beginning of this show.

James Cridland: 1:07:05

Andrew KRULWICH, friend of the show 2222 Sets a row of ducks. Thanks for the umbilical shoutouts. By the way, I was impressed that Neal last week did do the friend of the show catchphrase. If only that. So hurrah. Another Rove docs from Jean Bain. James, you talked about podcasting mikes this week. What's your opinion about how road mikes stack up? I'm curious about both their high end ones and the pod. Mike Well, Neal was using a wrote Mike last week. You will have heard it. It was sort of crackling and and had some kind of issue. When Neil drove it quite hard. I have had a road pod mike in the past, a podcast, a mike, which was a bigger one. I had a road pod podcast to Mike and I was always crackling with my voice as well. I don't understand why it was doing that to the point where I just got rid of it because it was annoying me too much. In fact, it still in a drawer here. I should I should do something else with it. So I'm not I'm not a particular fan of road mikes, I have to be honest with you. But. But, yeah.

Sam Sethi: 1:08:16

But I'm using one now, Jane.

James Cridland: 1:08:17

You are using one now. And it sounds it sounds excellent. And I know that you are a fan of road things and you have road headphones as well, and you're using a road caster. You are entirely road.

Sam Sethi: 1:08:29

Yes.

James Cridland: 1:08:30

I amuse.

Sam Sethi: 1:08:31

Sponsorship opportunity.

James Cridland: 1:08:33

I know. I keep on talking to her about, you know, they're based in the same country. They don't send me anything apart from press releases that don't communicate with me at all. I'm only up the road, mate. But yes, I do understand that. So I'm using at the moment I'm using a Lewitt Ray Pro, which is their fancy microphone with a laser inside it. I'm not using it for the laser, but I am using it just because I quite like the form factor of a signed address. Mike rather than an end address one. And that's plugged into the focus right box. So at some point I might get myself one of those fancy micro DSP things. But anyway, not that we've gone off on one. Thank you Jean Bien for that. And what else have we got?

Sam Sethi: 1:09:15

10,000 SATs. So. From Adam Curry. Thank you, Adam. That's a nice little baller, he says boosting fan mail lol.

James Cridland: 1:09:22

Boosting fan mail lol. Excellent. I mean, 10,000 sets for this show gets one of these because. Yeah, because it is that big. But also an ice and ice ball. And in fact quite a lot more from Rachel Corbett, friend of the show and also a previous co-host of this show who sat in for you a number of years ago. She has joined as a power supporter, spending $5 a month. Rachel, thank you very much. You didn't need to do that. But I'm glad I'm glad that you have. So that will be very much helping in Washington, D.C. next month. So thank you for that. You can join Rachel if you like, a weekly diet pod news dot net is where to become a power supporter. And you can also join Cameron Mole, the person who's responsible for the beautiful, beautiful sprout.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:16

And the value of downloads for that lounge.

James Cridland: 1:10:18

Yes. Yes, exactly. Also, Marshall Brown, Matt Medeiros, your understudy, Mike Hamilton, and Ex of Lips in Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting, who are all power supporters as well. Thank you so much for your very generous support and I am very grateful to you. So what's been happening for you this week, Sam? You've obviously had a lovely holiday and you've done no work at all.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:43

Well, I have done the work. I just I just point out emails now. A lovely time in Greece. It was it was super hot, lovely, Enjoyed it thoroughly with the family. And we took a girl for a daughter's boyfriend this time for the first time. So, yeah, all very interesting. But why?

James Cridland: 1:11:00

Oh,

Sam Sethi: 1:11:02

We've got this all to come, mate. Look how. Hmm.

James Cridland: 1:11:05

yes.

Sam Sethi: 1:11:06

But, yeah, well, we're out there. We. We successfully tested sea feet so bad now, like, we also launch that you said the full screen in homage to our sets dot com. We are adding video and gifs and other bits to it. Anyway, it all worked very well. One of the other things we did though was we added web sub now to the platform, so compliments popping again. Rubenstein Thank you very much for your help from Poughkeepsie. So, yeah, it just it was something we thought we should add. And the last thing we added live web sockets. Thank you again, David, us for putting up that server. So that's in preparation for Aynsley Costello and Joe Martin doing their concert at the Bitcoin event in Nashville. So you'll be able to stream now live or wallet switching through tree fans as well. So yeah been a busy week while I was away sunning myself. Yes.

James Cridland: 1:12:04

Wow. I said there's a thing I should. I should take notes from you on how to have a how to have an interesting holiday.

Sam Sethi: 1:12:12

And the other thing I did was I read the activity protocol book and my wife looks at me in disgust when I do that. But hey, I'm very happy.

James Cridland: 1:12:20

Yes.

Sam Sethi: 1:12:21

I can't do I can't do novels. I don't care. I want something that teaches me something while I learn. But anyway, anyway, less about me. James, what happened for you?

James Cridland: 1:12:29

Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I. Very excitingly, Sam. Not really, but very excitingly. Some of the pod news features, some of the pod news newsletters that you've had this week. I've actually typed into my own content management system rather than typing into a cycle database. So that's an excitement. I've actually got a form and you fill it out and it publishes it properly.

Sam Sethi: 1:12:54

Sorry. So when you said that I had visions of the. Oh, God form gov. I've got form. I've been down several times.

James Cridland: 1:13:01

No, I finally, after after seven years of doing this newsletter, eight years of doing this newsletter, all of a sudden I've actually got a web form where I can actually type out the newsletter. And yes, so that's a that's a benefit for us all. So that's been nice. And part of that has been I've got something in that page which automatically grabs the top sort of four or five stories, adds a prompt to the top of those, and then allows me to copy that and paste that into a service that I use. And so I'm actually using A.I. for the first time ever, which is just that little summary that you might see. If you get the daily podcast, you might see that there's a very tiny one sentence summary of the other stories in this particular show, and that is where it's coming from. Now it's that's produced by A.I., so I'm very excited about pushing a very tiny amount of AI in there. But yes, so that's good. So I've been doing that and the other thing that I've been doing is very excitingly in I've been asked to speak at a conference. Now this this happens regularly, but this is an exciting conference in that it's a conference in a Pacific island called New. Now New York is one of the Polynesian, you know, islands. It's a brand new country. The country only existed from 2003, I think. And it's kind of owned by New Zealand, but it's its own its been its own country. The population of the island is 1600. And there is one flight that gets there every week. And one. So essentially I've said, yes, I'll come and speak at this conference. And they said, Yeah, it's quite difficult to get to. There's only one flight there a week. So you've basically got to stay there for an entire week. So I'm speaking for speaking for an hour, Staying there for a week. Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 1:15:12

Well, at least what you told the wife. Now I won't fly away, darling. Sorry, I can't get back. I've got to stay there.

James Cridland: 1:15:18

So. So I was there a little bit worried that there won't be any Internet because how can I do my job for a week? I have discovered that they probably have better Internet than virtually anybody does because they're right next to a big fiber and they were the first wi fi nation in the world. So all of the 14 villages on the island, they all have wi fi. I've got no idea how the wi fi works. Presumably it's paid for, but yes, but it should be really fast because you're right next to a fiber. And yes, so this show will be coming from the island of Norway at some point in early October. I think the lights.

Sam Sethi: 1:15:59

I'm so glad you told me. Why? Because I looked at the show notes. I thought you just leaned on the keyboard by mistake.

James Cridland: 1:16:06

Yes. I mean, it's it comes to it comes to something. So apparently in New York City, 1600 people who live there, 30% of people speak English, but they've got their own language. Otherwise, it used to be called a long, long time ago. It was once called Savage Island. And it was called

Sam Sethi: 1:16:26

Oh,

James Cridland: 1:16:26

Savage.

Sam Sethi: 1:16:26

okay.

James Cridland: 1:16:27

Because the people there eat. Um, if there's a particular, uh, uh, fruit or vegetable that they eat, which dyes their teeth red. Um, and so when I think it was Captain Cook actually who, who got off on the island and was rather rather taken aback by these red taste, um, you know, folk who lived there. But yeah, so, so that's an exciting so that doesn't, that, that doesn't happen every single day. I mean, you know, I mean, I'm talking.

Sam Sethi: 1:16:55

I thought you going to say they used to be savages and cannibals, but there you go. Few.

James Cridland: 1:16:58

Well, I mean, they may well have been cannibals as well. I mean, in Fiji there certainly were. So. Yes. So who knows? But anyway, that that doesn't come across, you know, that doesn't come very often. They the chance to to speak to speak on a on an island in the middle of the in the middle of the ocean for a while.

Sam Sethi: 1:17:20

So. So are you going to use your wonder craft skills now to put a new way Voice translation out.

James Cridland: 1:17:27

In you and I don't think so. No, I don't think that that's that's going to happen, but.

Sam Sethi: 1:17:33

That would impress them

James Cridland: 1:17:34

I would. In fact, I'm trying to find any of these tools that supports both things, like by things like new and but also the other languages in that particular area. Samoan, Tongan. Um, there's a form of pidgin which is spoken in some of those islands. There's Fijian as well and also Hindi. So Hindi should be relatively easy, but the rest of

Sam Sethi: 1:18:03

to

James Cridland: 1:18:03

them,

Sam Sethi: 1:18:03

be.

James Cridland: 1:18:04

the rest of them, who knows. So.

Sam Sethi: 1:18:07

There's one or two of us Indians on the planet. They might want to do Hindi.

James Cridland: 1:18:11

Yes, there are one or two, but yeah, the best that I've seen so far to support languages is free. Podcast transcription dot com, which is a free service from our friends at Spreaker and they support some very excellent languages like Tamil and Telugu and Serbian and you know, all of those types of things. So Hindi is supported by them. But I don't, I don't see Samoan on the list. You know, Filipino is about as close as it's going to get. I think so, yes.

Sam Sethi: 1:18:46

That's like saying Welsh to the English now that when work.

James Cridland: 1:18:48

So it's going to be it's going to be very interesting to see if I find any of these tools which actually support any of the languages that that everybody speaks over that. Now. You know, they they do have English as well. But yeah, it'd be nice to find a language. So if anybody knows that, then please use fan mail or send us a boost or or even an email weekly at pod news dot net if anybody can help with Pacific Islander languages in I like.

Sam Sethi: 1:19:17

Nothing much about that one.

James Cridland: 1:19:18

No, exactly. And that's it for this week. If you enjoy the podcast, the newsletter, the better you can find better podcast on the podcast daily as well as wherever you get your podcasts. And there are longer interviews in the Pod News XTRA podcast as well.

Sam Sethi: 1:19:33

You'll also find this podcast on the cutting room floor. But other than that, you can support the show. With that you can give us feedback using the fan mail link in our show notes, or you can send us a scrap

James Cridland: 1:19:43

Yes. And all joking aside, I've been trying to keep this podcast to below an hour. I have a feeling it's going to balloon again this week. But we will.

Sam Sethi: 1:19:51

back.

James Cridland: 1:19:51

But we will see if you have strong views either way, given that you've made it to the end. I have a feeling that this may be slightly biased, but if you have strong views either way. Please do let us know. Our music is from Studio Dragonfly. Our voiceover is Sheila Day. We use Clean Feed for this audio and we're hosted and sponsored Bye Buzz Sprout. Start podcasting. Keep podcasting.

Jingles: 1:20:15

Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter. at Podnews Dot net. Tell your friends and grow the show and support us and support us. The Podnews Weekly Review will return next week. Keep listening.