Speaker 1 0:00

It's Friday , the 27th of September 2024 .

Speaker 2 0:04

The last word in podcasting news . This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi .

Speaker 1 0:13

Yes , I'm James Cridland , the editor of Pod News on the Pacific island of Niue .

Speaker 3 0:17

And I'm Sam Sethi , the CEO of TrueFans , still in wet , cold , rainy England . Thanks .

Speaker 1 0:21

James . It's been raining all day today In the chapters . Today , much change at Spotify , including the announced closure of Chartable . Captivate launches its new AI service . Rode launches the Rodecaster video .

Speaker 4 0:34

Libsyn hires someone new Plus hey this is Mark Asquith , the MD and co-founder of Captivate , and I'm going to be here talking about the most useful podcasting artificial intelligence assistant . Yet I'll be introducing you to Captivate Spark AI . He will .

Speaker 1 0:52

This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout , with the tools , support and community . To make sure you keep podcasting .

Speaker 2 0:59

Start podcasting , keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom

Spotify shuts Chartable, adds features, changes staff

Speaker 2 1:03

From your daily newsletter , the pod news weekly review right , james , let's kick off .

Speaker 3 1:09

You said at the top of the show something that was quite well shocking . I guess spotify's to close chartable .

Speaker 1 1:15

Tell me more yes , so this is a story that we are covering this morning in the pod news newsletter . If you've not yet read that , go and take a peek . But yes , they have just sent out a set of emails saying we have an important update to share . After careful consideration and you know that that's never going to lead particularly well we have decided to sunset Chartable . The whole product closes on December , the 12th . They talk about , you know , prioritising the products we believe are most impactful to creators and all of that .

Speaker 1 1:54

If you're with Megaphone , then they are building smart links and smart promos . So those are the things that people use to work out which bits of their marketing are that they are using are actually working well . So they're building smart links and smart promo into Megaphone sometime in 2025 . But if you're not with Megaphone , then you will get trackable links , as we reported a couple of weeks ago , but for Spotify only , so you won't be able to measure the success of your marketing on other platforms , such as Apple Podcasts . But has that come as a big shock and surprise to you ? Spotify closing down Chartable ?

Speaker 3 2:27

Not really . I mean , was it an acqui-hire , was it a technology acquisition to integrate ? It certainly wasn't to keep it as a standalone company that would be multi-platform . So , no , not really .

Speaker 1 2:40

No , I mean , I wonder whether or not they hired and obviously Dave Zorob has now left Spotify , but I wonder whether there was a little bit of acquihire in there but I also wonder whether they were actually . They bought both . If you remember both Pods sites I always get the two confused but then they also bought Chartable on the same day . If you remember that , I do , yes , and I think what they were basically doing is they were buying the two leading products and they were essentially making sure that they had no massive competition .

Speaker 3 3:18

I mean , it's their trend , though , isn't it ? They bought Wooshka , killed Wooshka . Buy Chartable , kill Charitable .

Speaker 1 3:24

You know Well , yeah , I mean , I think , integrated , possibly more than killed .

Speaker 4 3:29

Okay , but yes , I mean I think possibly fair enough .

Speaker 1 3:35

It is , of course , podsites that Spotify bought , which is no longer called . That . It's just part of the Spotify ads platform , that it's just part of the Spotify ads platform . So yeah , but you know . So it's a shame in a way seeing that go . But we are hoping to get an interview , or part of one , with Maya Prohovnik from Spotify next week , which should be fun if we can get that . So let's see what . If she's still there next week , well , let's see what Maya has to say . I next week . Well , let's see what Maya has to say . I hope so , otherwise that'll be a waste of time , won't it ?

Speaker 1 4:11

At the same time , they've announced conversion metrics on Spotify for podcasters , as I just mentioned . So it's essentially replacing the charitable stuff , but for Spotify only . But they seem to be doing a ton of things . So , firstly , they've added promotional content tags for podcasts , I think for video podcasts more than audio ones . So where you've got promotional content in your show , it'll now say includes promotional content . I think that's an FCC requirement , because YouTube do require it as well , and this show flaunts that , because we really should be ticking that box every time we mention Buzzsprout , our sponsor .

Speaker 3 4:52

So I did want to ask you actually promotional content , Is that sponsors ? Is that ads ? Is that host read , Is it all three ?

Speaker 1 5:01

I mean , when do you have it ? Yeah , it's basically all of them . If you're paid to put something into your podcast , as we are by Buzzsprout , our sponsor , then yes , you should market that it includes promotional content . As I say , I think it's something to do with the FCC and the FCC wanting to be really clear when there is advertising content . I mean , I think it's a pretty useless way of being really clear , to be honest . But yeah , I mean , YouTube has had this for quite some time .

Speaker 3 5:31

They've also added a new Spotify account switcher , which means that you can now have multiple personas on a single account , which is quite nice . I suppose if you want to have a podcast account with a different algorithm and you want to have a music account or multiple music accounts , you can do that as well now .

Speaker 1 5:48

Well , yes , I mean multiple music accounts would be super useful , given there are many parents out there who , every so often , we get in our Spotify MyMix , we get a I don't know a song from the Wiggles or something we were playing our children three years ago . So that would be a super good thing .

Speaker 3 6:07

Yes , They've also extended their Spotify AI playlists . So you and I in the UK and Australia , if we had a premium account , would have been able to get Spotify AI playlists . So you pick the first track and then click the AI and it goes off and does it . It's now extended that to the United States , canada , ireland and New Zealand as well , but it stays all in English only at the moment .

Speaker 1 6:33

Well , there's a thing , and there has been someone leaving the company , sahar El-Habashi , who was VP and head of the podcast business at Spotify . After six years she is leaving the company , no reason given particularly , but she has no plans to join another company . Apparently she just had enough . But , yes , so that was sent out on Wednesday . There's a bunch of people who are stepping up , including Emma Vaughan , who is now stepping up to global advertising and content , business development , head for podcasts and a bunch of other things going on there as well . So I'm not sure whether there's anything to read into this particularly . I think that certainly El Habashi has done a very good job in terms of changing Spotify's business plan when it came to podcasts making it much , much cheaper , but also making it much more open . So I think that that was a good job done and , you know , I'm assuming that there won't be a big change when she goes and when somebody else takes her place , but of course , that is to be found out , isn't it ?

Speaker 3 7:54

She took over from Dawn Ostroff , who did , I think , well , I don't know whether she did a bad job or she did the job she was asked to do . I'm not quite sure .

Speaker 1 8:04

Um , yeah , I mean , she was very much tv , wasn't she ? She was coming in for the hollywood way of spend lots on content and I'm not sure that she ever necessarily understood the audio space , whereas , um , yeah , I think it's pretty clear . Um , that , uh , you know that they understand audio a little bit more in the in the spotify world these days . It'll be interesting because little bit more in the Spotify world these days .

Speaker 3 8:26

It'll be interesting because I , you know , in the last few months have been saying how impressed I am with the Spotify strategy and podcasting and the way they've rolled stuff out , and I don't know if that's Sahar who's been behind that or whether it's her boss who's been behind that . So we'll see when she's left whether things start slowing down or changing for the worse or business as usual , I guess , is what I would say .

Speaker 1 8:48

Well , yes , indeed , indeed

Interview: Mark Asquith, Captivate

Speaker 1 8:50

. Well , it's definitely business as usual at Captivate , because blimey Captivate keep on launching new things , and this week they launched Captivate's Spark AI , which is what it calls a fully integrated AI assistant . Have you taken a peek at any of this yet ?

Speaker 3 9:07

Yeah , I have . Mark did a very good video on YouTube to demo it . He suggests that you know it's not just a AI that you've just chucked in that gives you just , you know , transcripts and titles , but they've gone much deeper with it . I'm curious to find out more about why it can suggest potential new guests , how it can suggest new episode subjects as well . So guess what ? You know , mark . Being a friend of the show , I thought I'd reach out to Mark and I started off by asking him you know why is it different from other AI assistants ? We've already seen from other hosts .

Speaker 4 9:44

In my view , and certainly the way that we are positioning this within the podcasting industry , it's the most useful podcasting artificial intelligence assistant that there is , and the reason it's the most useful is that , of course , it's fully integrated , which means that we can do much more within the ecosystem of Captivate and I think as well , given how different Captivate is overall the guest booking platform , everything that we do with Amy , some of the things that we do around dynamic show notes . There aren't really that many hosting platforms that think as number one , holistically , but without trying to become an all-in-one toolkit . We don't want to be an all-in-one toolkit , we want to be the right tools for the serious podcaster , and that's a real big distinction . So it always follows the same mantra as every captivate tool We'll either save you time or we'll save you money , or we'll make you money . And this is where Spark comes in and it's been fascinating to see it , because I'm a huge fan of doing things properly . We often do things first . We were the first 2.2 accredited hosts with the IAB . We were the first to put out proper dynamic show notes . We were the first to do various things full transparency mode and guest booking integration , fully proprietary system for that . But we weren't the first to do AI , we weren't the first to do podcasting 2.0 stuff . But what we always do is we do it more thoughtfully , because I think there are certain times , little inflection points in podcast technology where you've got to sit and you've got to think well , actually , what can this technology genuinely do for people , what are the outcomes that we're genuinely trying to achieve ?

Speaker 4 11:16

And that's how we approached Captivate Spark AI . We didn't want to just quickly put the most basic features in by integrating with another AI platform that is already serving podcasters . What we wanted to do was be more thoughtful . We didn't care about the feature list .

Speaker 4 11:34

You know , a lot of hosting platforms is one of my biggest points of contention in the industry . There are a couple of hosting platforms in particular that go like an inch deep on everything because they just want to get it on their website and I really I just think that's boring . I just think , as a consumer , why would I want that ? So the way that we approach Spark is we said look , there are things that we're going to have to do and there are things that maybe we can do that no one else can do or that no one else has considered doing and it's all wrapped up in the ability to be the most useful AI for podcasters . And , of course , remember it is only phase one , so we'll get into some of the nitty gritty about it .

Speaker 4 12:17

But that concept , that mantra , is why I think not only Spark AI , but why most things that Captivate does can be very different and can be very the feedback that we get is this is the most thoughtful version of this that I've seen , or very often we get the feedback you'll see on the live streams . Why has no one else thought of this ? And it's just the thoughtfulness . So we know that Spark has got that same level of thinking and that's been leveled back at us with the feedback that we're getting , which is really nice most ai that I've seen within podcasting is post-production .

Speaker 3 12:51

Right now it's . You've put your audio up . It takes a transcript , it creates a transcript for you , suggests speaker labels , maybe some titles , some episode . So you've got your chapter markers . So talk me through what you do at a basic level and then what you do at a additional level .

Speaker 4 13:11

Yeah , good question . So you're right . The thing that's boring about AI is the stuff that it's already taken for granted , for which we know about , but it's like anything . We take leveling and mastering our audio for granted , but it's still need to do it . Just because it's become so obvious and commonplace doesn't mean that it's still not valuable , and that's the thing that we considered here with Captivate Spike .

Speaker 4 13:32

Yeah , we've got to do episode titles , but , unlike a lot of players , we'll actually do you several and you can keep regenerating them until they land close or exactly as you want them . So that's a big tweak . We'll also give you the summary and the intro . So what we're doing is leading into things like promotional aspects , but also the YouTube world . We understand that people are going to take some of these assets , use them on YouTube . That's fine . So we create your summary and intro .

Speaker 4 13:57

We'll create your three variations of show notes and guess what . You can regen them as well , if you want . Just keep regening , it's cool . And then of show notes , and guess what . You can regen them as well , if you want . Just keep regening , it's cool . And then we'll create you a few things , of course , chapters , which can be copied into your show notes , or this is the integration coming in beautifully . You can click a button and they will be added to the relevant places , to your ID3 tags , podcasting 2.0 , support all with one click of a button . The same with your transcript .

Speaker 4 14:25

Obviously , you can generate , you can edit your transcript , but that is automatically added to all the right places . And we do a few things as well at that post-production level that you generally wouldn't always think of . So things like as people want to monetize their back catalog , or as people get ready for monetization but didn't think that they were ready for it , and actually they got a little bit surprised by this aspect that I can do programmatic or I can put my own ads in , but I didn't leave any ad slots . So what Spark will do is it will analyze the audio analyzer transcript and contextually tell you where some good places are for ad breaks . We also generate search engine optimized content . As I said , this is a phase two and that post-production aspect of it is only going to get bigger and better . We've got a lot of really interesting ideas for that one that I'll get killed if I talked about .

Speaker 4 15:16

But I think the power that comes with this is really , really for me , I think it's in the training that you can do around the persona and I think it's in the way that you can really start to understand how to grow your show by capitalizing on two things what's happening with your audience and what's happening in your industry . So these are two big things that Spark does that no one else does . So we created something that we're calling persona training and what you can do is you can say I want to be okay , I want to add some humor and I want it to be witty humor and in my writing style , my episode titles and so on and so forth . I want it to be technical or I want it to be simplistic , I want it to be complex or not complex , I want it to be first person , third person and so on and so forth . And what we'll do is we'll save that profile and every time Spark does something it will remember that it will work that into your assets . But we take it even further . We say you can pop in any written content that you've previously created , paste those links in , and Spark is going to go check the tone of voice and save that again to your show so that you can start to write things like you , and obviously this is going to get better and better .

Speaker 4 16:26

So that's a big thing the persona training and then all right , captivate is the only platform that allows episode planning . You can clip research links from across the web and save them to your Captivate dashboard by going in . If you're a big news show , like something like the news agents , if you're a day-to-day show , if it's a pod news , weekly , whatever it might be I can go into my episode planning inside Captivate . I can attach the guests that I've booked on with all their details . I can attach research links that I want to talk about , add production notes anything that I want to do and Captivate , of course , generates the show notes .

Speaker 4 16:57

Based on that , generates an emailable PDF document for all of your talent or for your hosts or whatever you're doing , and what Spark will do is it will go and analyze everything that's going on and it will say , all right , here's an episode outline . Oh , and here's some guests , if you want to reach out to them with their contact details . Perhaps the thing that is more exciting even more exciting , to be honest with you is the idea , then , that I can use Spark to create completely fresh , then that I can use Spark to create completely fresh episode ideas . I just press one button and it's going to go away . It's going to analyze your own analytics to see what has worked in terms of titling , content , phrasing , and it's going to bring everything together and it's going to generate you . Here are three episodes , here are some titles , here are the talking points and here I agree .

Speaker 3 17:50

I think we are seeing the tools that mean that , as a podcaster , I can get all of this done quicker to focus on the thing I love doing , which is actually creating the audio . What's this cost , then , mark ? Is it part of the standard Captivate ? Is it an additional feature ? Now , how do I get a hold of it ?

Speaker 4 18:07

Yeah , so it's just a quid an hour basically or a buck an hour , depending where you are for the transcription . Everything else is based on the transcription and that's the only thing that we get charged for . So , as always , we'll just keep it as low as we can and we just pass that on , essentially . So a book an hour , we'll just do you the transcription . All the other assets come from that transcription , so the AI element of it , in essence , is actually not chargeable , but you need the transcript to do it and obviously we've got to charge a book an hour for that one . So it's really manageable . It's really affordable for people . Imagine that when we got into podcasting , someone said give us a book per episode or a book an hour . You would have done it instantly because it's such a time saver . So , yeah , it's really well priced , man , and I think the good thing as well is it's all part of Captivate as well . So the transcription will power everything else in the future . So this is only going to grow and grow . So , yeah , real strong stuff .

Speaker 3 18:55

Last question Is this under the hood , this is a third party that you've licensed and then adapted , or is this something that you've built in-house using your own LLMs and AI tech ?

Speaker 4 19:08

A little bit of both .

Speaker 4 19:09

There's a lot of API usage that we use behind the scenes , but not with any one specific partner .

Speaker 4 19:13

This is the benefit of not , for example , white labeling an AI platform that is already working in podcasting . So what we've done is we've worked really closely at an enterprise level with various , like you said , llms and providers of LLMs , and we've taken the best bits of each one of them , which is why I think it's the tightest version of AI we've seen yet in podcasting , because we've not been beholden to one supplier . It's one of the benefits of standing apart a little bit . And then we do have certain elements not really LLMs , but I can't really say too much but we are working on pieces of that puzzle ourselves for the future phases , which I'll be able to talk about in a little bit more depth , probably over the next I don't know probably next year 18 months . So , yeah , we pull a lot of different APIs together , a lot of different models together and use the best models for each part of the job , if that makes sense . You'll get that more than most will , because of how into this you are .

Speaker 3 20:07

Can I ask one favor of you ? Can you ask the news agents to now include transcripts and chapters within their podcasts ? Please give them a copy of it no comment on the transcripts .

Speaker 4 20:18

The chapters will be bloody handy , though , I have to admit . And guess what . You can do it now with a click of a button , indeed emily , just click the button .

Speaker 3 20:26

That's all you have to do ?

Speaker 4 20:27

I think you've only ever logged into captivate . I'd be delighted mark askwith .

Speaker 3 20:32

As ever , a joy to talk to you . Congratulations on Spark AI , my friend , and just remind everyone where they need to go to find out more yeah , for sure , thank you .

Speaker 4 20:40

Always a pleasure catching up , yeah , always fun and always insightful . So captivatefm if you scroll down the homepage , you'll see there's actually a banner there now that talks about Spark . Clicking on that take you to the full page and you can go deep on that . But Captivatefm is the place .

Speaker 1 20:55

The excellent Mark Asquith from Captivate . I used to be an advisor for the company . Haven't been for the last couple of years and it's good to see them continuing to move on . I think it's very clever . Suggested times for ad breaks makes a ton of sense and that's certainly something that is a useful AI tool . And very clever to suggest other of their things in there as well . I'm surprised that there haven't been other people who have looked at the wealth of data and analytics that podcast hosting companies have and say why don't we use the AI to make that a little bit easier to understand ? So the fact that Captivate have done that I think really , really clever .

Speaker 2 21:38

The Pub News Weekly Review . With Buzzsprout Podcast hosting made easy .

RDE launches RDECaster Video

Speaker 3 21:45

Now you teased it out . Last week , James , you showed me a picture which I reacted to . Well , now you can tell me why I was reacting .

Speaker 1 21:53

Yes , this was the mystery launch from Rode . So last week we got a leak of what that mystery launch was , which I shared with Sam , and Sam made some very exciting noises . This is a clip of those . I'll just see what you think . If you wanted to click on , you'll need to zoom in . What do you think ? Is that going to be exciting ? Are people going to be excited by ?

Speaker 3 22:15

this Blimey O'Reilly . Yes , I won't be getting one , but yes , it's a very big deal .

Speaker 1 22:21

Gosh , you are very excited , and so yes , and it turns out that it was the Rodecaster Video . It's an all-in-one video and audio production console . It's quite expensive $1,199 is the price of it . That said , it's pretty high spec . It's got a lot of exciting things you know in there , and I mean Todd .

Speaker 3 22:50

Cochran has already bought one , hasn't he ? He has , I mean he . Well , I did think Todd would be first in line for it . He said you know what the Rodecaster Pro did to the podcast industry . He expects the Rodecaster video to do for streamers . He said it will replace my $35,000 TriCaster . These are simply insane times . He's got his order . He's off and running . Um , it'll be interesting to see what he does with it . Tom webster said I don't even do video and I want one , which I think was what my reaction was last week as well . When I saw it I thought it was very pretty . I'm just trying to work out if you had one of these new video casters because it's got all of the mic capabilities would it replace the roadcaster pros ? Would it replace the RODECaster Pros ? Would it replace the RODECaster Geo ? So could you just have it as your all-in-one audio and video box ?

Speaker 1 23:43

yeah , no , I think it's a , I think it's a very useful , a very useful thing . It does look like you know , a particularly smart thing . It's got a lot of the Rodecaster Pro , a lot of the audio stuff in there , but obviously an awful lot of video switches as well . But yeah , I mean very expensive , but I guess you know video stuff is always going to be , you know , pretty expensive .

Speaker 3 24:06

So , yeah , it's a

Blubrry launches Pod2Vid

Speaker 3 24:08

smart thing Now talking of Todd Cochran , it seems Blueberry has launched Pod2Vid , a tool that converts podcasts to video . Well done Timely there , young Todd . They did launch previously Vid2Pod in March , so what's Pod2Vid , james ?

Speaker 1 24:24

Well , it's the opposite . So Vid2Pod was Todd's and , I have to say , brilliant idea of going to YouTubers and saying would you like your show as a podcast as well ? And the Blueberry tool goes off , grabs the audio from the YouTube video and puts out as a podcast . Very clever . And , of course , now he's had a bunch of people saying I would really like my Blueberry show to be also available as a video on YouTube . So , rather than , like you know , also available as a video on YouTube .

Speaker 1 24:53

So , rather than , like you know , headliner , which we use , rsscom has its own tool that you can use there as well Blueberries launch pods to vid , which does exactly that . So what is interesting , though , is that it doesn't do the uploading . So what it does is it will convert podcasts into video files . What it doesn't do is it doesn't upload them to YouTube , because the idea behind it , if I've understood it correctly , is that you can use that video as something that you upload to Rumble or to YouTube or to PeerTube or to whoever it is that you want to . So it's not , you know , it's not fixed to the YouTube plan . So , yeah , so that should be .

Speaker 3 25:39

That should be interesting , james

Round the world

Speaker 3 25:41

come on , you're off in some crazy island , but let's zip around the world back to your homeland in Australia . What's going on ?

Speaker 1 25:49

Yes , and I'm in this crazy island , by the way , for a Pacific Island media conference . The island of Niue is very small , but there are lots of other people from other islands here . Some of them have incredible stories about the media that they've been putting together , so I've been really enjoying it here . I gave a demo of some AI tools , which they loved . So that was all good .

Speaker 1 26:11

But , yes , down in Australia , two million Australians are listening to podcasts daily , according to a brand new survey which came out this week . It's called PodPoll24 . And it's from two companies , one called Deadset Studios and one called Insightfully . Lots of useful data about the types of shows that people want to hear . Two other things , though , that I thought were interesting . One of them is two in five people 44% sample new shows every month . So if you're there doing new shows , then actually there are a lot of people who are sampling those , which kind of tells a bit of a lie in terms of the podcast discovery problem . Oh , there's a podcast discovery problem ? Well , not if 44% of people are trying new shows every month . There isn't . So I thought that was pretty good . The other thing that I thought was very interesting is Apple Podcasts , which has slumped to the third preferred podcast app in the country after Spotify and now YouTube . Youtube has overtaken Apple Podcasts , so once more YouTube seeming to do some pretty good stories there in terms of numbers . We should get somebody on from YouTube , and in fact I think we will , for next week on this very show . So , yeah , I think that was really interesting to have a listen to .

Speaker 1 27:36

And I was thinking about Apple Podcasts and thinking , you know , I mean I've just seen a press release of some American show which they've made their podcast of the month or whatever it is , and it's all American stuff that they don't seem to care about anywhere outside of the US . I know that they've got an editorial team in Australia , but there doesn't appear to be any promotional you know communications from them . There doesn't seem to be any promotional stuff from the UK . It seems that all of Apple Podcasts communications are all coming out of the US and it also seems that they've pretty well stopped . If you go and have a look at the Apple Podcasts website , it used to have a news feed in there and the news feed finished in October last year and they haven't posted a single thing yet . They haven't posted anything , for example , about iOS 18 and the changes in the Apple Podcasts app there . So I do wonder whether Apple has just kind of lost a bit of interest in Apple Podcasts again . I don't know .

Speaker 3 28:45

It would be lovely to get someone from Apple on hey what do you think ?

Speaker 1 28:48

Yeah , imagine , imagine that . Imagine , how easy that'll be .

Speaker 3 28:54

What's your blood type ? Let's find out Right . Zipping over to Spain , Piata Entertainment , one of the leading global Spanish language podcast networks , and TV Not Us have joined up together , James , what are they doing ?

Speaker 1 29:11

Yes , so it's a big strategic alliance for the production and distribution of podcasts . But Pitaya , I think , is a pretty big podcast network and so you know doing . There are a lot of these deals going on at the moment Different companies partnering with different people . In France , for example , acast has partnered with Influx , which is a French podcast producer , so Acast will start selling all of Influx's stuff , and so there's a lot of this going on . It's all around scale . All of the podcast sellers want enough scale to excite the advertisers , because you can't go to advertisers and say we've got four podcasts . Would you waste your time talking to us and seeing if you'll advertise ? No , but if you are part of a much larger organisation , like ACAST is in particular , then you can see that there's real benefits for both sides there . So , yeah , it's just another one of those deals .

Speaker 1 30:16

An interesting deal , though , coming out of the New York Times . They have had for a while , and we had Mukul on the show . What , a year or so ago . Mukul Devichand from the New York Times , your friend , friend of the show , so he was on the show talking about the New York Times . Your friend , friend of the show , so he was on the show talking about the New York Times audio app .

Speaker 1 30:38

Well , they seem to have had a bit of a second thought , because now , if you are a subscriber to the New York Times , you will be able to listen to your paid for podcasts within Apple podcasts or within Spotify , which , you know , says to me and I did ask the person at the New York Times and they said no , no , no , everything's all absolutely going ahead as planned , but it says to me that they're losing a bit of faith in their New York Times audio app by essentially doing this , bringing paid for shows to people if they want to consume it on the Apple podcast app and on Spotify as well . So , yeah , so I thought that that was certainly interesting .

Speaker 3 31:18

Well , whatever is happening , I'm sure if you want to find out more about what New York Times is doing . It's as clear as mud .

Speaker 1 31:25

I'm confused , Probably you are as well . Yes ,

People News

Speaker 1 31:30

some people news Matty Stort , who is the president of jam street media . Um , he is going back to his roots . Um , he's going back to a radio station called alice 97.3 um , and he is to become executive producer and third mike on the sarah and vinnie show . I think that means that he's the . He's the man that pops up after sarah and vinnie have done something funny and says , but here's the man that pops up after Sarah and Vinny have done something funny and says but here's the weather . I think that's how it works . Anyway , don't worry , we're not losing him from podcasting . He's just doing other stuff that he enjoys doing . So good for Matty . Another Matty Matthew Matthew Passy is to join Libsyn as Libsyn Pro Customer Care Specialist . Did you see this coming , sam ?

Speaker 3 32:16

No , Look , I heard in and around podcasting with Mark Askewith and Danny Brown and that was only at the beginning of the summer and if you go back to listen to that episode , Matthew was slightly scept , skeptical about the whole thing . He certainly didn't think micropayments had any merit .

Speaker 6 32:39

What problem does it solve better for the user , for the listener , than what is already out there in the ways that people can support podcasters . We have Patreon , we have Memberful , we have , you know , buy me a coffee . It doesn't do anything better , easier , more efficiently , in a way that assists the masses .

Speaker 3 33:07

Unless I don't understand it , which is quite possible , you know , let's say negative wouldn't be the right word , but he wasn't certainly positive about podcasting 2.0 . So I reached out to him and you may recall he came on the show to talk about his um uh bands and we . We then had a longer interview where I was interviewed on his show about podcasting 2.0 .

Speaker 6 33:29

Make sure you head to truefansfm to claim your show or Even if you're not a podcaster , go on there just to become a listener so you can support your favorite show in the podcasting space using all their cool features and the podcasting 2.0 ecosphere .

Speaker 3 33:43

He subsequently has changed his view on podcasting 2.0 and he is much more gung-ho and positive . Now I'm not saying that's because of my interview , but I think he's now researched it better and if this is what he's now doing going to Libsyn with more knowledge and information maybe he can make a difference .

Speaker 5 34:01

But you know we will see yes , because Libsyn's Rob Walsh , friend of the show , says that Matthew will be working with me on the Libsyn Pro side and beyond , working with our enterprise and Libsyn Pro customers . Matthew will also be our lead to work with the Podcasting 2.0 folks .

Speaker 1 34:19

So he will be the person who will end up being the interface . I mean , to be honest , as long as there is an interface , then that's great . And you know , and I hope that Matthew ends up being able to do a little bit of internal education in that company or maybe he'll just get it beaten out of him one or the other , I don't know , but it's an interesting move . That obviously doesn't mean that Matthew will be going away from any of the other fun things that he's doing , but , yeah , it's certainly a good person to have at a large company such as that . So , yeah , many you know . Well done to him , I guess yes we wish him well .

Speaker 1 35:06

We wish him well Indeed

Awards and events

Speaker 1 35:08

In terms of awards and events . There's a new brand podcast , summit 2025 , coming from Lower Street . It's a free event . It's in early January . There's more details in the Pod News newsletter this week . I can tell you exclusively one of the speakers you , yes me , so that'll be fun , shock , horror , surprise .

Speaker 1 35:30

Shock horror . So that'll be fun . I'm looking forward to taking part . It was a great event last year . I think they're expecting somewhere in the region of two and a half thousand to take part this year . Wow , Well done . Yeah , and congratulations to Claire Waite-Brown , who has won an award . Friend of the show . We've had her on in the past . What award has she won , Sam ?

Speaker 3 35:53

She was at the Digital Women's Award in London and she's won the award for Community Leader of the Year , and well done to her . She's very positive in reaching out and helping lots of people who are just starting out in the world of podcasting and she's very good at bringing them through , so well done to her .

Speaker 1 36:10

Yeah , she certainly is , and PodCamp coming next year . There's more details now live on the pod camp website . You can either go to pod camp dot live or you can go to podcasting2.live because sam likes spending money on domain names . I'm sure I'm assuming that's the reason .

Speaker 3 36:28

Yes , yeah , yeah , I just I keep . I keep looking at stuff . Oh , that's nice , buy that . I'm not as bad as daniel j lewis think he's got 2,000 or 3,000 URLs , something crazy .

Speaker 1 36:40

Yeah , well , that's in London alongside the podcast show . I'm looking forward to catching up with the podcast show in a couple of weeks' time , so that should be very good , and that's next May in the UK .

Speaker 2 36:52

The

The Tech Stuff

Speaker 2 36:53

Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review .

Speaker 1 36:58

Yes , it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter . Here's where Sam talks technology . Lots of good , positive news this week , sam Indeed .

Speaker 3 37:08

Pocketcasts , who we like . They're the most popular third-party podcast app . They've now included podcasting 2.0 transcripts , which is amazing . Well done to them .

Speaker 1 37:18

Yeah , it's really cool . So if you're producing your own transcripts on a supported podcast host , then they will now automatically appear within Pocket Casts . Both Android and iOS Transcripts are searchable . Show speaker names are in there , so you can actually see that . You can go and have a look at this show . For example , we use the transcription tool from our sponsor , buzzsprout . So , yes , it's a very smart thing . Other companies that support podcast transcripts include Blueberry , rsscom , transistor Spreaker and others Basically , any podcast host you like , as long as it doesn't start with an L .

Speaker 1 37:58

Others basically any podcast host you like , as long as it doesn't start with an L . And if you want to have a play with Pocket Casts , get into trouble . If you want to have a play with Pocket Casts , then Pocket Casts is free anyway , so you can download it and you can play around with it . It's got a special tier which is called Pocket Casts Plus , which gets you all kinds of additional things , including you can upload your own audio to it and you can put your podcast in folders and stuff like that . It's very cool , and if you want to have a quick play with that , then we have sorted out a free year of Pocket Casts Plus .

Speaker 3 38:31

No , no , no , no , no , not we . I'm not paying any of this . You , you , you are flush with the cash . You've done it , you've done everything so I .

Speaker 1 38:40

So pod news uh has sorted out um free year of uh pocket casts plus um for every pod news reader , so you can give it a go for yourself . Um , uh , you need to move quick because we've got that until october the 9th , but thanks to the um excellent people at Pocket Casts , you can go and have a play with that . We don't get any money from it , it's just a . I asked and Ellie said yes , so that was nice of her . So , yes , so it's very good . Other podcast apps are available , including True Fans , of course , but yes , so that's a very good thing .

Speaker 1 39:15

And talking about transcripts , antenapod has also turned on transcripts this week . If you are using an Android phone , then you'll see creator-produced transcripts appearing in there as well . Why is this a big deal ? It's a big deal because if you are a podcaster , you should be creating transcripts . Don't leave it to Apple Podcasts to create a crappy transcript when you can create one that you can then go in and edit and do a good job on , and then your transcripts will be available in places like Pocket Casts and True Fans I thought I'd get there before you and AntennaPod and Podcast Addicts and a bunch of these other services as well . So if you're not already producing transcripts , sign up to co-host in Buzzsprout . If you use that , you'll get transcripts free in rsscom . Pay a pittance in Captivate , as you've just heard . All of this stuff is going on , but it's super important that you get your transcripts sorted out .

Speaker 3 40:14

Now , before we go on to talk about Descript , the other company that's also doing stuff with transcripts is Alitu , over in Scotland . They've had two new additions to their editor . They've added silences and pauses , but they've also added transcripts and individual episode artwork as well .

Speaker 1 40:30

So congratulations to Colin and the team fantastic job as well and it's a great tool . If you're missing the tools that Spotify used to give you , then that's a great tool to take a look at . Hindenburg also does them . Eddie by Headliner also does them as well . So lots of Basically . You've got no excuse for not doing a transcript . Really , there should be an excuse for not going in and checking it afterwards , and sometimes I'm not . I'm not very good at doing that for this show , but I check every single one for the daily show that I do . So there we are . D script sam you mentioned .

Speaker 3 41:07

Yeah well , last night , d script dropped their next version , version 99 , which is the one that we've been waiting for . It was called season 7 as their preview . Uh , it's the one where squadcast gets now fully integrated into dscript , so it's not a standalone , separate item . They've called it rooms . So rooms is live . Although it's still in beta and people are being allowed in , I did get my access . Thank you very much to the guys there . Um , yeah , it's including a 4k multi-cam capability all within software . I actually did the interview with mark asquith using it . So you know again , what I'm going to be doing later on today is taking some of the video clips and creating audiograms and putting them out to end points and seeing what that has as an effect . But yeah , I think it's really interesting . So this is the first fully integrated version since the acquisition of squadcast . So congratulations to the team there very cool .

Speaker 1 42:02

It's definitely worthwhile taking a peek at Headliner . Have also done some very clever stuff too . They can now automatically post podcast videos to anywhere . Basically so if you want to post your podcast videos to X for some reason maybe you like Nazis then you can do that . If you want to post it onto threads for some more understandable reasons , so you can knock that Zapier payment off because Headliner will do everything . A really smart company , I think .

Speaker 3 42:44

Headliner I think is really interesting , as you said , but I think it's also one of those companies I feel a bit like Podpage . Look , I'm not trying to get these companies sold , but I do feel that they're standalone wonderful companies but within an aggregated podcasting landscape I don't think they have the strength to continue as a standalone company . I look at Squadcast being bought by Descript and that's now made a lot of sense . I think Riverside will be next on the chopping block for somebody . I think Podpage would be a brilliant acquisition for somebody , and I think Headliner as well . I think it's just sitting there screaming buy me .

Speaker 1 43:19

Well , yes , because they do . They've got three products . They've got Eddie , which is essentially a Descript clone . They've got Headliner I forgot what they call their main product that does all of the video stuff . It's probably called Headliner Video , isn't it ? It wouldn't surprise me . And then they've got this thing called Disco , and Disco is very clever . They announced that they've done a deal with Newsweek this week . So if you're Newsweek and you write an article , if there is a reason to put a podcast episode next to it , it reads the article . It works out okay . Well , this looks as if it's going to be about Roman architecture , and we've done a show about Roman architecture in one of our Newsweek podcasts , so we'll put a player on the page . I think it's a very , very clever idea , and so Newsweek using this tool should mean you . You know that we can see how successful it's going to be . So very , very clever organisation .

Speaker 3 44:24

Now , moving on some miscellaneous , I came across this company in Italy called a Music Match . I don't know if you've heard of them before , james . They used to do AI powered music lyrics , so you could go and use their API to get music lyrics licensed and add that to any site . They've just announced AI-powered podcast discovery , so they're going to be transcribing every podcast , ranking them by relevant topics , and then you can be doing searches and find . So , yes , they've got an API now for that . So they've called it Music Match Podcast and I think this is quite an interesting space as well .

Speaker 1 45:01

Yes , it's interesting . One would kind of hope that they aren't transcribing everything , even if there is a creator produced transcript in there . I have a feeling that they probably will be . You kind of hope that they wouldn't be doing that . But anyway , yes , you know , always good to see more people doing that kind of work .

Speaker 3 45:20

Yeah , we spoke to podengineai a few weeks back and I was talking to them about they're pitching for VC funding from somebody I know quite well called Jason Calacanis quite well , called Jason Calacanis and so I was helping them with some stuff . And , yes , jason and I are not friends that's not the situation that we're in , but I do know Jason very well and so I just the way they were . I suspect there's a story there , listener , don't you ? Yes , there is , but it's not going to be broadcast in this show there , listener , don't you ? Yes , there is , but it's not going to be broadcast in this show .

Speaker 3 46:03

Um , let's put it that way uh , so , yes , um , so , and strange thing is , jason's also a second down black belt . So if you ever want to have a fight , jason , let me know . Um , but , moving on , we'll edit that one out . Um , so , no one . So , uh , I said to them look , they were .

Speaker 3 46:22

They were using their ai engine to do a booking service , which I thought was sort of a bit like having a ferrari to do , uh , delivery , and it was just a weird thing that they were doing . So I've come up with a term for them called audio mining , and I think this is where I think Music Match is working as well , where they're looking at taking the transcripted data . I mean , again , you've seen this with ACOS , with contextual conversations that they use to take information out of the transcript . I think there is a topic area called audio mining I'd like to try and bring to the fore , because I think that's what it is . I used to work for a company called MicroStrategy that did data mining and I think we've now evolved into this new area . So , yeah , audio mining is a term I'm going to throw out there .

Speaker 1 47:07

Well , I think , certainly if you're going to play around with AI on that data as well , I think all of a sudden you've got something which could be quite exciting , I think

Boostagram Corner

Speaker 1 47:15

.

Speaker 2 47:15

Boostergram , boostergram Could be quite exciting , I think . Boostergram , boostergram , corner , corner , corner . On the Pod News Weekly Review .

Speaker 1 47:21

Oh yes , it's our favourite time of the week . It's time for boosts and fan mail and our power supporters and all of that . Everything that Sam and I get in as value for value for this show we keep and we split equally between us . So if you enjoy what you're listening to , then hit that boost button or send us a message or whatever . What have we got here , sam ? We've got some boosts and things , haven't we ?

Speaker 3 47:51

Yeah , we've got 169 sats from Bad Career Advice Chad . Let me try and read that correctly . Hey , question for me , sam . Some episodes back , there was a real-time voice changer that was used to create Samantha . Can you please share what that tool is ? I don't think it was me , I think it was James and Jemima . Is what you're looking for , jemima ? What was the voice changer that you used ?

Speaker 5 48:18

Well , thank you so much for asking Bad career advice , chad , what a nice man . Yes , this isn't necessarily Samantha . It's a tool called Speech to Speech by Eleven Labs . No-transcript . Thank you so much for asking , gosh .

Speaker 1 48:38

So there we are .

Speaker 3 48:38

I am slightly creeped out right now .

Speaker 1 48:42

Anyway , yes . So , 11labsio is where you want to go . Bad career advice , Chad . Thank you so much for the question . 4,444 sats from John McDermott . Thank you for the lovely mention of Pager Protocol . Oh , yes , that was the AI show that he put together last week , which is worth a listen . So thank you for that . Oh , look , it's an old friend of the show and he's back .

Speaker 3 49:09

Oh yes , adam Carey . Thanks for the wellness check . You're welcome , adam . All good , great to know . And thanks for discussing podcast portals . It helped me with my own ideation , great . I look forward to hearing what your thoughts are on Friday .

Speaker 1 49:22

Excellent . He used the word ideation there . 25,000 sats from Adam Thank you so much for that and a row of ducks 2222 sats from Jean Bean Another great listener , as always , oh , thank you . And one from Sai as well , both , by the way , using TrueFans . Can we use AI to detect AI-generated podcasts and tag them , like the new standard being adopted on Google's images ? What do you think , sam ? I ?

Speaker 3 49:48

think we can and we should . I think we mentioned last week that you know there's a number of AI-generated podcasts . Now I'm putting up a GitHub proposal to extend the person tag with an additional field for AI , because I think we don't have it there yet and the person tag actually needs an update because it's sadly lagged . Since it was first incepted by the podcast taxonomy group , it hasn't changed . So there's a couple of things . One is I think we need AI within it , and the second one I think we need multi-role within it . So James is both host and editor of this . I would be host and producer , but the person tag doesn't have that extensibility right now . So , yeah , I'd like to see both those changes , but AI certainly would be one . It's long overdue .

Speaker 1 50:41

Yes , I think the question is how to detect AI , because I think it's going to be much , much harder in the future . There's an awful lot of AI stuff which is going on at the moment where you simply can't tell that it's AI anymore , so I think it'll be interesting to see whether or not the detectors keep up with the AI generation . But there's been a lot of talk about AI actually here in the Pacific Islands , partially because the media companies here really don't have an awful lot of people working for them and so anything that they can do to get more people working for them , the better , and that includes AI people working for them and producing content and stuff like that . So actually very open here to AI , very much more closed in places like Australia to AI , because we see it as being a threat to people and , you know , jobs going away and all of that , but it's being much more opened , you know , welcomed in terms of the media market here . So really fascinating to end up seeing .

Speaker 3 51:52

Yeah , two things . I'll go and have a look at that new standard . I do remember reading about it , but I can't remember what it was that Google was putting forward . And then the other one is I highly recommend Nexus by Novel Harari . Again , it's a very good book and certainly timely in the discussion around the human challenge of AI rather than AI , the technology .

Speaker 1 52:13

Yeah , no , indeed , indeed Streamers . Thank you to those Super streamers . Maybe we should call them . There you go . Super streamers include the late bloomer actor , dave Jones , podpimp , dave Jackson , nero , john McDermott , open Mic , adam Curry , brian Ensminger , gene Bean and Dwev . I'm intrigued why John McDermott is called by his full name when he's streaming , but called by a different name when he's sending us a boost , and I don't know whether that's true fans being clever or whether he uses a different app to listen . Probably the latter , I would have thought .

Speaker 3 52:56

No , I'm thinking he's got a nickname , obviously , and we allow you to use your real name or nickname . I'm now wondering whether there is an issue . But then , if I look at somebody like the late bloomer actor , I know he's been using true fans as well recently . Yeah , that's his uh nickname that he's streaming with , so I might reach out to john and just check .

Speaker 1 53:15

But , um , because I know john uses true fans as well and yes , well , let's just check what john uses to actually listen touchy stream , uh , because , uh , there you go . That would explain it . He's using customatic to stream , presumably because he was I don't know away from his offline yeah , or something which you don't do yet .

Speaker 1 53:35

Um , but he used true fans to send a message . There you are , the mystery is solved . Excellent , which is always nice . Now I've lost my script . Oh , yes , and the power supporters . Hey , this time last week we had eight , the magnificent eight . Now we've got the magnificent 10 , which is very exciting , isn't it ? It is Jim James from the Unnoticed Entrepreneur free marketing strategies for business owners . Jim , thank you so much . That's very kind of you for becoming a power supporter . Four days ago and around six hours ago , we had another one , didn't we ? Yes , rocky .

Speaker 3 54:14

Thomas , she has also become a power supporter . So thank you , Rocky . I actually had a video call with Jim James about a week ago . He's got a fascinating story . I mean he lived in the Far East . He was involved in the IT industry out there extensively . He's back in the UK now and we were talking about using Medium Equals Courses to take a video course that he's created and making that into an RSS feed . So I was helping him with that .

Speaker 1 54:44

Well , there you go . Well , thank you all of our magnificent 10 for that . You can support us as well at weeklypodnewsnet . Also , a big thank you to Mike at the Rogue Media Network . You are our first and I don't even know whether we call them something , but the first person who's giving us $8 a month rather than $5 , which , pretty well , everybody else is giving us . So , mike , thank you . You are our I don't know super , super captain . This is how Adam Currie does it , right ? Yes , he just gives people funny names .

Speaker 1 55:16

Yeah , or titles yep , yeah , yeah , that's exactly it , so thank you so much for

Sam and James's week

Speaker 1 55:23

that . What's ?

Speaker 3 55:26

happened for you this week , sam . I went up to the war memorial in the UK near Birmingham and I didn't even know it existed . And it's a beautiful , fascinating place . If you are anyone who's served you'll find it very poignant . It has all the regiments there and it has their memorials and it is the UK equivalent of Arlington , I suppose , and that's where it came from . Somebody from the UK went to America , saw the Arlington Memorial for the fallen in America and said , well , why don't we have one in the UK ? Came back and it's a massive 100-acre sprawling area which is beautifully maintained and is very , very worthwhile as a visit . If you've never heard of it or never been , I highly recommend it .

Speaker 1 56:12

Well , there's a thing , and the only slight drawback is you have to go to Birmingham .

Speaker 3 56:15

Yes , that's very good and I had dinner in a beautiful hotel and guess who walked in uh , oh , I don't know .

Speaker 1 56:26

Uh , adolf Hitler close .

Speaker 3 56:28

Nigel Farage that was too close for comfort , nigel Farage and the whole of the hierarchy , or the Reich from the Fourth Reich , from reform , walked in . Oh my God , wow , yes , that was the worst thing I've ever had . But there you go Gosh .

Speaker 1 56:51

well , there we are . That wasn't what I was expecting .

Speaker 3 56:54

Yes , good Lord . Other couple of bits of quick news . The Social Web Foundation is a new initiative by Evan Prodomo and Tom Coates and several other people I know it's there to promote the ActivityPub standard and related technologies , so good luck with that . I'm not sure what it's going to do yet , but you know , everything starts somewhere .

Speaker 1 57:15

Tom Coates is a good man as well . He's a very good thinker as well . He did a lot of good work at the BBC .

Speaker 3 57:23

So , yeah , it doesn't include Blue Sky yet and it doesn't include Sir Tim Berners-Lee , which I hope they will . Tim's company , solid , doesn't use the Fediverse yet , but again , you never know .

Speaker 1 57:35

It would be nice if they did , wouldn't it ? You wear silly Ray-Ban sunglasses from Facebook and they now do more silly things , don't they ?

Speaker 3 57:46

Yeah , you're going to get one soon . I'm adamant you will , or I'll ship you one , maybe eventually . The Ray-Ban sunglasses now do real-time voice translations , so multiple languages , and that's really cool . It does AI video recognition , so before you'd have to say , hey , meta , tell me what I can see and what is it , and it would then take a photo and use the AI to recognize the object . And now it does it with real-time video . I think that's very cool . It has visual reminders now , so if you park your car somewhere , it can take a photo and it'll remind you where you put it . But I think , more interestingly , it's extended its platform plays to include Audible and iHeartMedia , so now you can start to listen to podcasts and all the other things . And also Spotify now have voice controls . So before you could just say play Spotify and it would just play something random . Now you can actually say which playlist or podcast or what you want it to play and it will actually do it as well .

Speaker 1 58:45

Now , you've been doing some work on TrueFans this week because it's a week in the year , but you've made quite a lot of changes , haven't you ?

Speaker 3 58:54

Yeah , we've made about 100 UI changes . I mean , look , we know the UI was designed desktop first and not mobile first , but that was because it allows us the bigger screen . Now we've got to the point with most features complete . We're going back to the UI . It seems people can only scroll vertically on a phone . God forbid . If they scroll horizontally , they lose it . I mean , it suddenly becomes where people go oh , I'm Dorothy . It feels like we're not in an app anymore . Ah , help , it scrolls horizontally , help , help . So we've taken out all the horizontal scrolls in the UI , so now it's much cleaner and much neater . We haven't quite finished all of them yet , so that's just going live as we speak and you'll see over the next few days . But , yeah , I'm pleased with that .

Speaker 3 59:41

I actually got to get hold of , you know , one of those new XT Mates from Huawei , the triple fold-out ones . Have you seen them ? Oh , yes , right , yes , oh , my God , I want one , apart from the $2,000 . But it was beautiful . So I started off on a single screen and , yes , guess what , truefans worked like a mobile app . I went to the halfway screen and , yes , it worked . And I went to the full screen and it was beautiful . It was a desktop because we're a PWA and we can expand and contract . So yes , the future of folding phones with PWAs , that's where we're going .

Speaker 1 1:00:19

Wow , yes , I did see that and I thought that would last about two weeks for me , but yes , as in before you broke it , or what ? Yeah , before I broke it .

Speaker 3 1:00:29

Yeah , exactly , james . What's happening for you , mate , apart from your ? Lovely sunny pictures that you keep sending us .

Speaker 1 1:00:40

Yes , I mean to be fair . What I'm doing there is I'm waiting for the rain to stop for 10 minutes and then taking a photograph . Um , it's a fascinating place , uh , anyway , in that , um , so we've got an island tour tomorrow . I'll give you an idea of how small the island is . The island tour will take two hours , all right , so we're not going to . So we not . It's not the biggest of areas . It's got three TV channels , for example . It's very , very small and , I think , 1,700 people who live here . But it's been fascinating . It's been all of the Pacific Island .

Speaker 1 1:01:13

Media , people have all converged on this island . We've seen the prime minister of Niue three times . Apparently , we're going to see him again tomorrow . It's almost as if he can't stay away . He hasn't seen strangers in years . I mean , it's lovely for him . Yes , exactly , so , yeah , so it's been a really good , really interesting time . So , yeah , so it's been fascinating to be learning more about media in this part of the world . Podcasting is not a big thing here , to be fair , but so I've been talking about other things , but yeah , it's been really good . So , if you are ever in this part of the world , niue is a wonderful place to come for a week . If you want to come for less , then tough , because there's only one flight . Well , there are two flights when they're a week apart . So , interesting thing , they close down the police station on Mondays because Monday is when the flight comes in , and so they close down the police station and the police become immigration officers and they do the passport thing .

Speaker 3 1:02:22

So that's when you commit crime Monday .

Speaker 1 1:02:24

Monday's when you commit crime , yeah and then they turn back into that . So that was quite funny . The one thing , though , that I did notice , sort of slightly more seriously , is the Wi-Fi here is terrible , and it's the hotel Wi-Fi . It's got nothing to do with anything else , it's just the Wi-Fi here is absolutely terrible . But for $55 , which is now that's New Zealand dollars , so that's even less than about 25 quid you can get a SIM card for your phone .

Speaker 1 1:02:56

There's no mobile phone roaming here , but they do have a mobile phone company and yes , and so they gave me six I think it was six gig of data for that amount of money . And so that is how I've been having this conversation with you through the mobile phone , how I've been having being able to publish the pod news , uh , daily all this week , um , through a tethered mobile phone . So , um , yeah , it's quite , it's quite a uh , quite a piece of piece of technology ending up having to do that . But , um , yeah , you really notice it when the , when the wifi is bad , uh , all of a sudden , it's a proper , proper problem . So , um , yeah , but but it's been , it's been good fun .

Speaker 3 1:03:39

Have you ever thought of the starlink mobile device modem ? I think it .

Speaker 1 1:03:44

Whatever they have uh , yes , now if you brought a starlink into this country , you would be arrested because it is illegal to have starlink in this country . Now I could ask the prime minister mate about that when I see him tomorrow again . Does he hate Elon Musk that much ? No , it's more that Telecom Niue is owned by the Niuean people and they see , obviously , starlink as being a massive competitor , so they've passed a law that bans it . Wow , yeah , there you go . That's one way of keeping your national mobile telecoms company working . But yes , I mean in all seriousness , they probably wouldn't be able to compete , so it will probably end up meaning the end of Telecom New A's home internet connections and we'll probably end up putting the entire company out of business and will probably end up putting the entire company out of business . So you know , from a point of view of survival , then I can completely understand why they've ended up doing that . But yeah , yeah , it's been a really fascinating thing .

Speaker 1 1:04:51

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