James Cridland: 0:00

It's Friday the 13th of. December 2024.

Speaker 2: 0:04

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

James Cridland: 0:13

I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of TrueFans In the chapters. Today. Are Spotify going to launch live events? When is an app not an app when it's Apple on Android? Why did Overcast remove the support this podcast button and the inductees for the podcast Hall of Fame plus?

Shira Atkinson: 0:32

I'm Shira Atkins, I'm the CRO of Wonder Media Network and I'll be on later today to talk about our acquisition from Acast.

Rob Greenlee: 0:38

My name is Rob Greenlee and I'm the chairperson of the podcast Hall of Fame, and I'm going to be on later to talk about the Podcast Hall of Fame coming up in PodFest in January.

Daniel J Lewis: 0:48

Hi, this is Daniel J Lewis from Podgagement, and I'll be on later to talk about Podgagement as a new replacement for Chartable.

James Cridland: 0:54

They will. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout with the tools, support and community to ensure you keep podcasting. Start podcasting.

Speaker 2: 1:05

Keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi: 1:10

Last week we talked about Acast opening its London studio and they kept this one up their sleeves because I was chatting to both Ross and LP, but nothing came out about this. But they've bought a company called Wanda Media Network, valued at $7.8 million. What is a Wanda Media Network?

James Cridland: 1:30

Well, they're a company that makes its own original podcasts. They also make branded podcasts and digital content, whatever that means for a number of large companies, and basically it's the bit of podcasting that Acast has never really owned. It's got its own smaller set of creatives and has had those for a while, but it's not necessarily had the scale or the size to make its own shows, and now it does, which is really interesting.

Sam Sethi: 1:59

I guess that's part of what Ross was talking about, which was having the studio in London to do video and get Acast into video but branding their own shows. I mean, that's a new direction, totally, isn't it?

James Cridland: 2:12

I think this would be a question that you're better at asking, Ross Luckily.

Sam Sethi: 2:16

I pinged Ross and I found out that they're going to call it Acast Creative Studios. So I started off by asking Ross what is AAST Creative Studios?

Ross Adams: 2:26

This is a really exciting acquisition for us. You came to our London opening of the ACAST Studios, which have video and audio capabilities. This year we've been very intentional about focusing on America expanding here. I think we talked also about things like omni-channel opportunities and how the larger briefs are coming in from brands and we need to start thinking about how we properly produce and handle that content. And so you know, we've been friends with Wonder Media for a long time and always amazed at the high quality of stuff they produce.

Ross Adams: 2:56

And of course we could start our own production, probably get it wrong over three years and we'd be nowhere where they are. So I think for us it makes sense that we acquired a company that did this. Culturally it matches so well and then I think from the work they've done it speaks for itself. You know, you think about the productions they do when it comes to original content and the high quality they produce and the name they have in market. It's really important for us that we have a proper stamp of approval if we're going to put stuff out there. And I think the branded content they're producing and the opportunities we see and we normally farm that out because we don't have those skill sets internally- so, ross, where do you see this going?

Sam Sethi: 3:35

Is it going to be internationalization of branded podcasts? Is it just US only? How do you see this developing?

Ross Adams: 3:42

We're a global international company and I think that we have studio capabilities in pretty much every market. That we've got feet on the ground in US is a core focus for us. So I think this is a very intentional US focused acquisition. But the strategic side and learning from how we produce content, how we scale that there's definite applications we're going to start to do globally and you know someone who understands exactly what we're trying to do and how we scale that Every market's got a nuance but I think we can learn a huge amount which we can apply to most markets.

Sam Sethi: 4:13

Yes, Talking about markets, you've recently just grown your team in Holland with Martin Gerrits. You partnered with companies in China and Japan earlier in the year and you've done that in France and other territories. Is that the route for you? Is it partnership first, before feet on street?

Ross Adams: 4:31

Yeah, I think you know we've got to look at the signals of podcasting and it's at different stages and different markets. Netherlands is a really crucial market when it comes to Europe. So if you look from an advertising agency standpoint, you have the big five they talk about, which is UK, france, germany, spain, italy, and that's what a lot of brands want to buy those markets but actually quickly swap out Spain and Italy for Netherlands. A lot of the European global brands position themselves in the Netherlands, so it's such a strategic market from an EMEA perspective and also we started to see the podcast market rapidly expand there and we signed the right kind of audiences and partners there. So it made sense that we hired martin and put feet on the ground rather than kind of servicing it from a programmatic and international point of view from london now.

Sam Sethi: 5:14

We spoke to you earlier in the year. Roughly around february, it was the 10 year anniversary of acos. We looked back at what you guys have done. We talked about the London studio. The Q3 results were good. The CEO have you had a chance to look back? What's 24 been for you?

Ross Adams: 5:31

We don't give ourselves a chance sometimes to look back, and we really should do, because we've had a very successful year. I think a big core focus has been growing the US opportunity and really establishing ourselves here, and I think we've done that, focusing on building a profitable business. Q3 was our first full profitable quarter and we've been very clear to investors that we're focused on trying to deliver profits for the full year as well. Those results will come out, of course, in February next year, but it has been an interesting year. The ad market hasn't been incredibly buoyant everywhere. Some markets we see better signs than others and recovery signs, but in some markets I have kind of recovered, but I do feel there are tailwinds now as we approach 2025.

Ross Adams: 6:10

I think podcasting has gone through a real moment this year and I think video podcasts have definitely been put on the map. It is a real opportunity in that space and I think for Acast and the opening of our studios, we have to react where audiences are and where creators are going and so, yeah, video is going to be an interesting part of the kind of omni-channel opportunity for next year for us. So, in kind of summary, very proud of the team in 2024. We have had a huge amount of success in all departments, and to finish the year off with an acquisition is the cherry on the cake, or, the Swedes say, the onion on the salmon.

Sam Sethi: 6:45

I'm sure that has a very astute meaning there. Now. Are you still bullish on AI? You were in February. Are you still bullish that AI is going to be part of the mix?

Ross Adams: 6:56

Definitely. I think you know we really need to think about AI and its involvement in content creation and kind of a framework around that, but I think how it helps creators is insanely important. We've got to be very cautious with it still, because there's still a lot of unknowns, but I'm still very bullish about AI and I think how we're applying it as well to our ad technology, how we're applying it to our data strategy, is becoming really, really important and enabling us to move in a lot quicker way. So yeah, we're still very bullish about AI and its use.

Sam Sethi: 7:26

Now, earlier in the year I think January you were blocking YouTube from taking RSS ingestion. Is that still the case? Are you and YouTube made up?

Ross Adams: 7:35

I mean we see, of course, huge growth in opportunity with YouTube. I think we just got to look at our monetization model and what's fair for our creators and how that operates. So, whilst I can't give you any more than that, we are going to be focused on video as a big part of 2025.

Sam Sethi: 7:51

Do you also see live video or live events in any of your mix? Because, again, spotify look like they're going to get into live events. We see now much more podcasting in real life events happening and also online events live. Do you see that as a cast? Next thing you're going to be doing?

Ross Adams: 8:12

I think it's a really interesting area, and especially if you look at the omni-channel opportunity and where our creators going live. You know has always played a part in podcasts. But live streaming is another area that I think is really really interesting. I think as traditional tv audiences drop, I think as you look at streaming video sites, from Prime to Peacock, the amount of ads on them you heard Danielette talk about ad fatigue I do think there is an opportunity where audiences are everywhere and live streaming is a really interesting proposition for podcasting. So it's definitely something that interests us for sure.

Sam Sethi: 8:44

A really interesting proposition for podcasting, so it's definitely something that interests us for sure. Now, one of the interesting things we are looking at and all waiting for is the announcement from Spotify as to how much they're going to pay people to watch videos ad free. And again, would you see ACAST getting into a subscription-based payment model where you would remove ads from podcasts and start to pay people as creators from the subscription revenue that they generate?

Ross Adams: 9:11

I mean we've kind of like dabbled in those areas. You look at the deal that we struck with Amazon a couple of years ago which delivers ad content to Amazon Prime and Amazon Music Unlimited customers. So we've kind of tested in those kind of areas. Again, we're a creator-first company and if the model works and we can remunerate creators in a better way, we'll always evolve to that way. Right now, with the Spotify proposition, I don't think anyone really knows and understands how it's going to work. There are very strict thresholds to meet. But again, if there's an opportunity for our creators, it's something that we'll have to look at and see if it matches our business strategy. No-transcript on the website, I think. Obviously, if you're a creator and wanting to get in touch with ACAST London, I think you can email. He'll have. You give him the email address out, but samacastcom.

Sam Sethi: 10:15

We've heard from Ross Adams about the acquisition of Wanda Media Network. Let's hear from the CEO herself, Shira Atkins. Hello, how are you?

Shira Atkinson: 10:23

I'm great, so good to be here, sam.

Sam Sethi: 10:26

Well, look, that's a happy Christmas for you. In the family household Acquisition time let's talk about. First of all, how old is Wanda Media Network.

Shira Atkinson: 10:35

So we started the company about six and a half years ago and I co-founded it with a dear friend of mine from college, Jenny Kaplan, who is the CEO. I'm the CRO and we've built this business together, bootstrapped it and have about 25 employees now.

Sam Sethi: 10:52

Very nice. Now. Was it ACOS knocking on the door, or were you stalking Ross in various New York cafes? How did this meeting come about?

Shira Atkinson: 11:01

Very organically and naturally in the course of regular business as founders. Acquisition is always something that we think about and we've certainly had conversations over the years and we actually were first connected with Greg and Veronica and got to know Ross subsequently. And of course we've known about ACAST and have had some partnerships over the years, but we really just it felt like the right time for us and it felt like the perfect home. So I didn't let on that they were our total front runner. We of course had some other conversations, but we really have felt from the beginning like this was a match made in heaven.

Sam Sethi: 11:42

Cool yeah. No, never let on in negotiations.

Shira Atkinson: 11:44

Yeah, of course not.

Sam Sethi: 11:45

Yeah, zeros tend to drop off checks very fast. Look, branded podcasting. It's grown. We've got a company in the UK called Lower Street. Harry Morton's done very well. He's bought Pacific Contents brand so he's been very bullish that the market now corporates, are beginning to wake up to this whole space.

Shira Atkinson: 12:04

is that what you found as well, that you're not chasing the deals, chasing you now yes, we still do a fair bit of chasing, but it does feel that brands increasingly need to think like media companies and if they're going to think like media companies, they need to think omni-channel. And there are use cases for audio that are not just bolt-on to an existing strategy but are genuinely the right approach for brands and executives who are really busy, or maybe they're better on audio than they are on video, or there's a particular kind of story that just makes sense in audio and I think marketers and corporate affairs people at even the world's largest companies are starting to understand this, and I'm so glad that there are other companies like Lower Street and JAR and Podglomerate. There's so many lovely people that are doing this work and I think it is totally a rising tide. Lips all boots.

Sam Sethi: 13:02

Do you find that CEOs are trying to be the tail that wags the dog? Do they try and dictate to you how you're going to do this, or do they defer to your expertise and let you run the show for them?

Shira Atkinson: 13:13

For the most part, there's a deference to our expertise. We like when CEOs get involved and want to champion the work, but we are doing a lot of discovery and strategy work with brands to help them figure out why audio? Why now, what are the goals and how can we have all of that sort of ladder up to? Whatever the content is and it's the thing that has slightly differentiated our work in this space is doing a lot of the consultative groundwork to ensure that the podcast is successful Because, as we all know, it's a very crowded space and it's hard for brands to break through because it's not the sexiest. You'd rather listen to K-File or Giggly Squad than the Pfizer podcast. But we've managed to, with Pfizer as an example, create content that is authentic for them but also you want to listen to because it's good and it's finding the exact right audience.

Sam Sethi: 14:08

How long is a branded podcast? Does the CEO get one hour? Does he get half an hour? Does he get five minutes? What is a good length for a branded podcast from a corporate?

Shira Atkinson: 14:18

So there's absolutely no one size fits all. The use case that you were just describing, with a CEO sort of delivering a message, it's all the use case that you were just describing, with a CEO sort of delivering a message, perhaps to their employees. We do that quite a bit. We've done that with companies like GE, for example, where it's internally facing, so it's not for public consumption and in some cases that's actually it's better for a brand. They're like getting their chops and audio with a very specific audience. We do have some understanding. We typically don't go above 20 minutes for any internally facing content. That feels laborious. For external it totally depends. We've done narrative audio documentaries for brands and we've also done more thought leadership. Similarly, we try to stay in the 20 to 30 minute range for episodes, but we have certainly gone shorter and also longer. We let the sort of content dictate the length.

Sam Sethi: 15:08

I assume you don't put advertising into the branded podcasting, so that would be a bit weird.

Shira Atkinson: 15:13

Well, so we have done it in a few cases, but not advertising as such. It's taking the principles of advertising and applying it in a strategic fashion. So we've done quite a bit of work with Greenhouse Software, the jobs platform, hr platform, and we made ads for them, for their partners. So they have like Checkr. The background check company, for example, is a plugin in their system and we made ads for this partner in exchange for promotion to their audience. So we will come up with strategies like that all the time, but for the most part, the content is an ad. It shouldn't feel like an ad.

Sam Sethi: 15:53

Infomercial. Yes, Now we talked to Ross briefly about how he sees AI being used within Acast, and you can see it within the data analytics and elements of that. Notebook LA, the AI chatty hosts that they are. Are people just go, oh, we just chuck a document into Notebook LA and that's the branded podcast done, isn't it? Is that some of the stupidity that you're hearing People just using that as the alternative?

Shira Atkinson: 16:21

We're not tending to speak to the kinds of brands that would do that. A lot of our clients are very large fortune 500s and for them there's also a lot of red tape and legal process, and understanding the nuances of what happens in the content and also working with teams that care deeply about storytelling ai can be a helpful part of the process from a research perspective, but certainly not from a content perspective. There's not yet. Perhaps one day, but at the moment there's not yet the capability to meet the needs of these kinds of brands that take a lot of care in every single word that comes out.

Sam Sethi: 16:58

I can see why Acast is a great fit because of their international footprint, and I can see how brands are global and therefore working with you very much to increase their footprint as well. Are you going to get into internationalization through language as well? Are you going to stick to English only, or do you look at, say, chinese, japanese, dutch, french, german? Will you get into those markets as well?

Shira Atkinson: 17:23

Yes, definitely. We have actually produced some content already in other languages. It's something that we care a lot about, so excited about the potential with ACAST to continue to do that. I know I mentioned Pfizer already. Pfizer is a global company. They have offices all over the world. They actually have some podcasts in Germany and in South America and they're desperate for us to get involved in those markets as well and we haven't yet fully had the capability to do so. So I'm really excited to do that.

Sam Sethi: 17:54

Shira, can I just recommend that you take Christmas off relaxed, and I think your 25 is going to be so busy it's going to be ridiculously mad. You might be on a flight once, or 20,000 times, I think. But can I just say congratulations as well for any entrepreneur, ceo, cro to get their company from bootstrapping all the way through to sale. It's a massive round of applause from me, so well done to you.

Shira Atkinson: 18:20

Thank you so much. We're thrilled and the best part about it is as I know Ross talks about all the time is the culture and the people, and we take a lot of pride in our team and it's such a wonderful vibe and it just feels like it really fits. So we can't wait to see what the next chapter brings.

Speaker 2: 18:36

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Sam Sethi: 18:43

Now, a couple of weeks ago, you went out to LA swanky. One of the things we talked about, though, was when Daniel Ek did their earnings calls and when they do product announcements. Why don't they do like Apple and have a live broadcast? And I guess you told me that you know well. They don't support video, and in terms of live video, but you spotted something in the notifications within your app. What was it?

James Cridland: 19:09

Yeah, so I spotted that they do actually have a notification for live streams and virtual events which you can turn on in your app, which I thought was interesting. And then, of course, I remembered of course Spotify used to own the Green Room and the Green Room was their tool for live streaming. I think they did live audio, but they may even have done live video in there as well. So I'd kind of forgotten the fact that actually they do own a product which can do live broadcasting over Spotify, although the green room doesn't exist anymore, doubtless all of the technology does, and one would kind of guess that they might have something interesting up their sleeve at some point in the future there.

Sam Sethi: 19:54

Well, they've got every other part of it. They've got ticketing, they've got events, they've got artists, they've got merch. I think live seems to be that little piece of the jigsaw puzzle that sort of pulls it all together. I can imagine. You know, I want to go and see my favourite artist. They're sold out, no worries, you can watch it live through Spotify, et cetera, et cetera, and I think it's a natural evolution we'll see in 2025 when they bring it out.

James Cridland: 20:20

Yes, I think so. I think so. It's been interesting using Spotify, which I've been using for the last couple of weeks, I didn't realise Australia is one of the countries that has video in it music video, so nowhere near as big enough of a music catalogue as YouTube Music, of course, in terms of video, but nevertheless it's got some nice features in there. So, yeah, it's been fun to play with and doubtless there will be some live stuff to come as well.

Sam Sethi: 20:48

Now on Pod News, I spotted an article that you had from a guy called Eric Johnson of Lightning Pod. It was about what are the trade-offs with putting video on Spotify. Is this an article that you commissioned or is this something that somebody sent in to you?

James Cridland: 21:03

Yes, so we have an agreement with the Podcast Professionals Association where one of their team produces an article for us every month, and this was that for December. Really good article. Eric Johnson has done a really good job. I managed to spell his name wrong. I noticed in the newsletter, which is slightly embarrassing but nevertheless very good article. All about the trade-offs with putting video onto Spotify. Some things are good, some things are bad and, yeah, it was a really good piece of work there.

Sam Sethi: 21:37

One of the pieces within that article that stood out for me was a quote from Spotify, and I hadn't really thought about it until I thought about my own app, it said. A Spotify spokesperson explained that this video replace feature, which is basically upload video to Spotify, is designed for the best playback experience for users who want to switch between audio and video consumption. To do that, we must use the same file. So we've talked about in the past how you can upload video to your Spotify for Creators and it will replace the audio with the video, and we thought that was well. I thought that was a bit weird, but now, reading that article, I get it, because when we have audio and video switching, we go back to the audio but we keep the timestamp, but actually just using the audio from the video means you can go straight to the same spot and it's much quicker.

James Cridland: 22:28

I think it's quite a neat way of doing it Correct, and it's the way that YouTube does it as well, and it works really well. Yes, that is exactly why?

Sam Sethi: 22:36

OK, so everyone else knows about it. I'm just dumb and slow, basically.

James Cridland: 22:40

No, that's exactly the reason why they're doing it, so that the audio video button works. Now you could argue that's a pretty edge case, the person that is going to switch between audio and video, and is it, you know? Would it actually matter too much if it slightly missed the mark? But I think you know, as a putting the user first, it's most certainly the best playback experience and that's why they end up doing it. I would, I think, have preferred them not to have done that, but nevertheless, that's the product decision that they've ended up making.

Sam Sethi: 23:14

Moving on now Apple. One of your predictions since the last century, I think, has been that Apple will have an Android app, and you were sort of 50% proved right when they came out with a progressive web app earlier this year. But what have they done? Have they updated it now, James, or something?

James Cridland: 23:31

Yeah. So earlier this year they came up with a website. You could install that website as a shortcut on your Android phone, but it worked as a website. When you opened it, it opened Google Chrome and you could see the address bar at the top of the screen, and all of that. Now they've made it's a tiny little change.

James Cridland: 23:51

But they've made one tiny little change in a file called the web manifest, and what that allows you to do is it allows you to install that website as if it is an app. So you get a proper logo in the app drawer, you get a or on your home screen and when you press it it opens full screen into something that just looks like an app, works absolutely perfectly as an app. So it was just a little unannounced change that they've made in the last month or so, because I did check whether or not they'd made this change about a month prior to that and so now it just looks and works just like an app, which is very nice. Obviously, you can't install it from the Google Play Store, but as soon as you've installed it through Google Chrome, it just works as if it was an app in the first place.

Sam Sethi: 24:45

It doesn't have download capability and offline capability. That's one of the things I looked at that they don't have. Yeah, remind me why they're going down the PWA route and not doing a Google Play Store app.

James Cridland: 24:58

Well, because, unlike Apple TV, which is available as a Google app, and unlike Apple Music, you can buy directly in this app and you can buy, obviously, podcast subscriptions. But of course, if you were to do that in a Google Play Store app, then Google would expect the 30%. If you remember, of course, apple very excitedly wanting 30% of all that our users spend in the Apple App Store, but then, on the other side, launching a PWA web app to essentially avoid doing that for users using the Apple Podcasts website, if they launched a proper app in averted commas then they would have to do that and they would lose 30% of all of their revenue to Google, which weirdly, apple don't want to do if they're on that side of the fence. So yeah, it's been interesting having a look at that.

Sam Sethi: 26:15

The monopoly formerly known as Apple, deliberately disable PWwas on ios. I know that from my own experience with true fans. Some of the controls just don't work properly or they are delayed. So we will do something like the play widget and the back and forward uh controls work, but you hit play, it doesn't go through to the PWA in the web. It just doesn't, and we've tried everything to do that. They treat PWAs as second-class apps, but yet they will I guess will want Google to treat them as a first-class app. Now they're a PWA on Android and again, the sooner that Apple's broken up, the better, I think.

James Cridland: 26:55

Yeah, I mean, I don't know about that, but I certainly think that it is an interestingly hypocritical position to end up taking. And I was trying to get a few Android websites interested in my story because you know I could do with the traffic that would be nice and one of them just mailed me back and said why would anybody be interested in this? And I had to go back and explain. Well, I think there's probably a story in how Apple is deliberately circumventing the Google Play Store, do you not think? Which is related interestingly to Overcast. We heard from the developer of that, marco Arment, earlier on in the week in the Accidental Tech podcast because he was talking about the little green support this podcast button, wasn't he Sam?

Sam Sethi: 27:46

He was, and he was basically saying that he had to take the feature out because of Apple. Again, you know you have to worry about the Apple czars, what they will let through the gateway and what they won't. He said A very few people use it, so okay, take it out anyway, that's good. But B? He said he was worried because Apple might reject their app from the app store, and I think that's the concern.

Marco Arment: 28:10

So the real harm. The real harm that's done is all those ideas out there that people talk themselves out of even trying. So there's this overall chilling effect on the ecosystem. When we know that there's all this potential that could be really great, but we kind of think like well, apple probably wouldn't like that or probably wouldn't allow that, so we don't even try.

James Cridland: 28:32

As we went into this, you said that Marco had taken the green buttons out because Apple wouldn't let him. That's not the case. He took the green buttons out because he was worried that Apple wouldn't let him. So actually it ends up being not what Apple are saying, but how people read those rules and go, oh well, I better not even think about doing that. And I think what it was interesting in the podcast is he's basically saying look, I could have spent an awful lot longer working on this particular idea, but I didn't, because I thought, oh well, you know, apple probably won't let it, and I didn't even bother developing the idea further to a point where Apple might have allowed it. So it's almost like a chilling effect, isn't it? To stop you from coming up with new ideas, because, oh well, you know, it might be a bit close to the bone.

James Cridland: 29:28

So I just thought it was an interesting comment from Marco. You know, in terms of that, there's a bunch of other, you know, fascinating talk in that show as well. So it's worthwhile, um, you know, taking a listen to completely understand why Apple needs all of those rules and things. But, um, uh, yeah, it's, uh it. It was interesting that, uh it. It's now essentially having a chilling effect just because people don't even try with any of these ideas.

Sam Sethi: 29:55

Well, we're building our native apps and I'll let you know how much Apple let through the gate and how much they tell us to take out. Now, moving on, james Station was a story that you had in Pod News Weekly that probably most people wouldn't find interesting, but I found it very interesting, thanks. Well, no, because on the surface of it, you look at it and it's just a new tool for podcast communities. You go, okay, whatever. And I then thought, hang on a minute. And I drilled down and it's powering fan clubs for podcasts like new heights from jason and travis kelsey. Um, so I thought, oh, this is interesting. And then it reminded me a couple of weeks ago, on Podcasting 2.0, adam Curry started talking about something called the Rachel Maddow effect and he's been pushing an idea about how Podcast 2.0 app should start to create podcast portal pages for want of a better word, landing pages branded URL pages where podcasters don't go to what he called column-based views, so you could land in a podcast app and look at the episodes and then go to another column called pod rolls and then go to another column called something else. And he said wouldn't it be nice if you could have a holistic overview of someone's podcast page and that's a portal, in my words. In my words, and I thought that's really interesting because my former boss at Netscape, mike Homer, created the idea for the RSS feed, the original idea and it was to power the Netscape portal, which was basically a way of bringing in news, weather, sports to a single page because the web was so slow, but using RSS as a mechanism to do it.

Sam Sethi: 31:42

And I looked at Station and what they're trying to do is something very similar have multiple different elements for podcasts, so ticketing, events, merch, et cetera. And then I've been looking recently at patreon and or patreon and buy me a coffee and they are very similar in that sense. And we talked earlier today about spotify adding live events, but that goes alongside events, ticketing, video. Um, and again, I'll be honest as ceo of true fans, we're building out a very similar idea based around what Adam Curry was talking about, with branded pages and personalized URLs. So Station is a really interesting idea. I looked at it. They have no support for any podcasting 2.0. I've been reached out to from one of their colleagues, a guy called James, as well, and I'm going to talk to him later this week. But what do you think of Station. Did you have a look at it at all?

James Cridland: 32:44

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's an interesting idea. It's not first, it won't be the last, but it is a you know, a new way of trying to add the community to your podcast that lots of people have tried to add. If you remember, of course, we had a bunch of people trying to add cross app comments. Do you remember that? This is a bit of the same sort of thing in terms of this is a, you know, a community based thing that lives outside a podcast app in this particular case, but has all of this kind of stuff. I find it interesting. It will offer monetisation options in the new year they actually said towards the end of quarter two next year.

James Cridland: 33:34

So I'm not quite sure what those are going to be, presumably selling merch and stuff like that. One would, one would assume Um, but uh, all of that stuff, um, going on, I, uh, you know I'm, I'm kind of looking at it and going I wish that actually the podcast apps had this sort of thing in there, and the fact that we have failed consistently to put any of this kind of stuff in there, with the exception of um fountain app, which I think has done an interesting job there um, I think it's a bit of a shame, but still, there we go yeah, look, I I do think this is the direction that we're all going to head into.

Sam Sethi: 34:08

I think adam in last week's show was very um interesting in talking about traditional podcasting apps, single function podcasting apps like, let's say, overcast, where their primary goal is purely to play podcasting. They have no other use in terms of they're not looking at music, events, video, anything else uh, and then other apps that are now trying to combine all those into for want of a better word, I think they're called super apps. If you look at wechat or what elon musk want to do, which is using micropayments community and everything in one place. I think that's where we're heading, but we'll see next year whether that's true or not. Riverside, who we used to use, we don't use now, but we use Clean Feed, but Riverside has raised another round of $30 million. That's pretty impressive. They've raised $35 million in the past $9 million in 2021, $2.5 million in 2020. So, in total, they're getting close to the old $70, $80 million that they've raised. They've got 165 employees. Why do they need so much money, james?

James Cridland: 35:12

I don't really know. I would guess that they are pivoting, as Descript has done, pivoting into video rather than audio. That's what I would suspect is going to happen. They've launched a very interesting multitrack editing tool last week. It's worthwhile just taking a look at. That. Works for both audio and video productions, but it's a really interesting user experience. Take on a multitrack editing tool A really interesting take that actually I think quite a lot of people could learn from. But in terms of you know, I mean 165 employees. It's like when I I've just finished reading the book all about when Elon Musk took over Twitter, which I think is called Seriously Hardcore, and that talks about the amount of employees that Twitter had, and they had somewhere in the region of 4,000. And I'm there going. What do all of these people do? What do 165 people do at this company? Maybe they need the $30 million to keep paying them. They do, they're not profitable.

James Cridland: 36:14

Yeah, they're not making money, are they? They aim to be profitable in the next two years, by the end of 2026 is what the actual phrase said. So I find them a fascinating company. But certainly Kendall, a friend of the show, reached out and pointed out the Multitrack editing tool. They also have a really nice new feature on their website which is all about new and interesting research and help and hints and tips and all of that kind of stuff. They've got a bunch of people to write for them. It's called the Riverside Community. You'll find it at riversidefm slash community community. You'll find it at riversidefm slash community and there's some, you know, really good stuff in there. So they seem to be doing some really nice things there. But yeah, but I don't fully understand what they're doing with all this money. But great Hurrah for them. I'm imagining that they are fattening themselves up so that Spotify buy them. That's the only thing that I can think.

Sam Sethi: 37:19

Yes, yes, there goes one of my predictions for 2025.

James Cridland: 37:23

Then yes, I mean, you don't have to be Einstein, do you really Well?

Sam Sethi: 37:29

no, no one's ever called me that. Now, moving on Lemonada, they've done something interesting this week, James. What have they done?

James Cridland: 37:37

So they've partnered with a company called Gretchen Rubin Media which is headed by Gretchen Rubin. Surprise, surprise. She is a best-selling author in the US. She has a bunch of shows Happier with Gretchen Rubin, happier in Hollywood and there's another one which I think is called something like the Side Hustle Life or something, but it's another big name, although not particularly big name for the likes of you and I. Another big name signing for Lemonada Media. We've seen a lot of them sign over the last six months or so. That company seems to be doing incredibly well. I didn't appreciate quite how much heft it's got behind it in terms of, you know, la-based, lots of talent agencies working with them, you know, and all of that sort of thing. So I think it would be really interesting to see if we can get Jess Cordova-Kramer back on and see if we can learn a little bit more about what that company's doing.

Sam Sethi: 38:40

Well, your wish is my command, so she'll be on next week, we believe. So, yes, we'll be able to find out what they're doing Now. The one thing that seems to have died, though and I really do want to ask, jessica, because you wrote about it which is they were looking to, I don't know, sell. They were talking to banks back in the summer.

James Cridland: 39:01

That story seems to have died its death. It does, doesn't it? I wonder whether they have. I mean, there's two things that might have happened there. One thing that might have happened is they might have got some investment. We don't know that because you know they're a private company. They don't have to tell you anything like that. So that's one thing I mean. Certainly, you know they're now listed in the podcast ranker in the US. You know they've had a bunch of people you know joining them. Maybe.

James Cridland: 39:29

The other thing is that they tried, like a lot of companies are doing at the moment. They tried to get a buyer. They couldn't find a buyer and they thought, right, we'll stuff this, we're not going to get a buyer. They couldn't find a buyer and they thought, right, well, stuff this, we're not going to get a buyer and we're going to carry on building the company up. So perhaps that's what's going on there. Um, you know I'm I. You know I don't think it's a bad thing if you are hawking yourself around, as they were earlier on in the year, um, to find out that, uh, actually we're not really that interested in that and we want to just continue being a good company and working on that.

Sam Sethi: 40:01

Yeah, Well, I'll ask Jess when she comes on Now, let's whiz around the world. James, back in your homeland now. 2025 may be Australia's first podcast selection. I mean again following on from the US one. What's this one all about?

James Cridland: 40:16

Yes, you would have thought this is a piece from Audacia Audio's Kim Treasure friend, of the show published in BNT, which is an Australian media website. Lots of advice from Kim on how to use podcasting if you're a politician, to help them reach audiences.

James Cridland: 40:37

We're expecting there's probably going to be a bunch of elections next year and particularly the federal election, which is, of course, the one that matters, really, the one that works out who our next dim, disappointing prime minister is going to be. Is it going to be the current one? Is it going to be the disappointing Mr Albanese, or is it going to be the even more disappointing Mr Dutton? It's like imagine two really bad options in a fancy restaurant. You can either have the dog shit or the cat sick. What would you like? And that's basically what we've got to choose from here. Hooray, but yes, so Kim, giving some advice there.

James Cridland: 41:22

Also going on in Australia is ARN's iHeart. It's having a really good time of it right now because, firstly, it is very, very close to being joint number one in terms of both the top publisher, which they've had for a long, long time, but also they are pretty close now to overtaking Southern Cross. For Stereo's listener to be the top sales company as well here in Australia, all they need is to sign up a large podcast creator to their lists and then they can pretty well achieve that. And the good news is they have done exactly that. They've signed up the BBC of all people. So when you're listening to the BBC, those podcasts here will have ads sold by ARN's iHeart, so that's going to be really interesting and that will essentially change the way that the industry looks, given that ARN will then be the biggest by far in terms of both sales representation and their own shows as well.

Sam Sethi: 42:39

I was thinking while you were talking about the Australian first podcast selection. Who is the Joe Rogan of Australia then? Who would they go on what show?

James Cridland: 42:47

I mean, if you were going to go on one of those shows, you would probably go on to Conversations, which is the ABC's one hour long interview show. The benefit of that is that you would also be on the radio as well as be on a podcast, but it is most certainly the largest podcast that the ABC puts together. The biggest show has been Hamish and Andy, which is a comedy show, but no longer, because, as of last month, the biggest show is Casefile. Now, casefile is interesting, so it's a true crime show. It used to be with Audioboom, but it is now with Acast, so that again was a really significant get by Acast, which means that they're now looking after the biggest show in this country. But Case File does really well in America as well.

James Cridland: 43:43

So, yeah, but in terms of the Joe Rogan kind of, it would be conversations, so that would be either Richard Feidler or the other person that ends up doing it Sarah Kanofsky, I think her name is so. But yeah, it's a bit of a different world here. But I mean to be honest, if you want to be the biggest show here in Australia, you would go on Joe Rogan, because they are the biggest Joe Rogan's the biggest show here as well.

Sam Sethi: 44:13

I was going to say they're not going to knock on your door, mr Cridland, and say, you know, can we come on Pod News Daily? I?

James Cridland: 44:17

mean they're not really, are they In any way? I'd turn around and say, well, it's a five-minute show. I'd say no.

Sam Sethi: 44:24

Could always come on Pod News Extra Well, you know who knows I mean anybody could come on to Pod News Extra. Now over to Spain. Ivoox has launched like everyone else seems to be launching a rewind for 2024. What are they talking about, james?

James Cridland: 44:40

Yes, the company says it's got more than 800 million listens in 2024. If you're not familiar with iVoox or iVoox I don't actually know how to pronounce them then they are a Spanish language podcast hosting platform as well as a Spanish language app, and they have paid for stuff on there as well. The other thing that they did say is that they saw 80,000 new podcasts launching last year or this year, which is quite a nice number to end up seeing. So that's a good thing there, and lots of most listened to podcasts. They've got five in their big list with a bunch of new shows and all of that kind of stuff in there as well. So interesting seeing. Yes, you know. Obviously another look back at 2024. I noticed that Wondery has also done much the same sort of thing. I think Headliner has done one. There's a bunch of people doing these. Spotify, what have you started? I even got one for my bank the other day. No, yes, my bank has a 2024 wrapped and it will tell me exactly how much I've spent on coffee. You don't need that.

Sam Sethi: 45:52

I don't want to know that from the bank.

James Cridland: 45:54

You don't need that, nobody wants that. And Adelicious Adelicious looks back at the company's 2024 as well. He says, reading on the list. They are, of course, a podcast network. They say that they have just delivered their one billionth ad impression and they have also. That's where some of the big Avalon shows have gone. So, yes, but I mean everybody looking back at the companies 2024, I expect far more of these blog posts to come over the next couple of weeks. I was there on Monday and Tuesday thinking, oh, it's lovely and quiet to the point where I'm slightly nervous that I don't have enough news to cover. And then, all of a sudden, it's gone absolutely crazy over the last couple of days, but still, there we go.

Sam Sethi: 46:39

Yes, it's gone absolutely crazy over the last couple of days, but still, there we go. Ah, yes, it's. What was it? London red buses? You have to wait, and then three come along at the same time. Now, people and jobs, anyone moving and grooving, james.

James Cridland: 46:49

Yes, rocky Thomas has been appointed Chief Strategy Officer at Soundstack. She is one of the power supporters. So many congratulations, rocky, for that. I gather that she is going to be on the Pod News Weekly Review next week. So, many congratulations to Rocky for being named as Chief Strategy Officer.

Sam Sethi: 47:11

I just wonder whether it was becoming a power supporter led to her becoming Chief Strategy Officer.

James Cridland: 47:16

I think that's exactly what happened. Yes, once you become a power supporter, then great things happen. So let that be a tip for anybody that hasn't yet become a power supporter.

Sam Sethi: 47:29

Indeed. And now awards and events. James, what's happening in the world of awards and events?

James Cridland: 47:35

Well, let's start with the Podcast Hall of Fame, who announced a new Board of Governors a while back, but they've also announced the 2025 Podcast Hall of Fame inductees. The person who is now in charge of the Podcast Hall of Fame is Rob Greenlee, friend of the show, and you started by asking him what the Podcast Hall of Fame was.

Rob Greenlee: 48:00

Well, it's a ceremony that was started by Podcast Movement, dan and Jared, and they actually started it in combination with a podcast awards that they started back in that same timeframe. So they were doing a Podcast Hall of Fame and an awards podcast ceremony, kind of similar to what the Amby's are. So over a period of time they did that for a few years and then the pandemic hit and then they stopped doing events for a year or two and then, just over about a four year period of time, they just didn't hold the Hall of Fame at the podcast movement event or the awards. So they actually dropped all that at the Podcast Movement event or the awards. So they actually dropped all that.

Rob Greenlee: 48:41

And then, just a few years ago, we as inductees wanted to take it back from Podcast Movement and keep it alive. I think that people understand that if they got inducted into the Hall of Fame, they don't want to be inducted into a Hall of Fame that died right. So it's not a good thing. And I started to get involved at that point because I was working for Lipson at the time and was working with some other folks that had an interest in keeping it going as well. And so, if you fast forward to today. We took it back from podcast movement and now it's part of a partnership with Podfest that's going on down in Orlando in mid January here. So that's when we're going to do the 2024 Hall of Fame induction.

Sam Sethi: 49:20

Now you've just announced the Hall of Fame inductees. Give us some names off that list.

James Cridland: 49:25

Yeah.

Rob Greenlee: 49:25

So, there's a good group of folks. I mean, I've been around this podcast space since it started and have perspective on being able to see people that have had a significant contribution over the many, many years. And that's part of the challenges the Hall of Fame is facing right now is that there are a lot of people that had significant early contributions to what we see today as podcasting and that needed to be recognized for that and brought into the Hall of Fame. And so we're still in that phase of bringing in people that were very foundational to the creation of this medium that we all love. And guys like Tom Webster, twyla Dang, who's been working in public media for a long time and she has her own company now and she helps with a lot of other creators. And then Jessica Kufferman is another one who started the she podcast, along with Elsie, who's also in the Hall of Fame. So these people in just the first three here I've mentioned, have had a significant contribution to the growth and the development of this podcast medium.

Sam Sethi: 50:35

So Rob, if I want to find out about all the current inductees, where would I go? Where's the website?

Rob Greenlee: 50:42

Yeah, I would just go to podcasthallcom and go to the inductees page on that site. It's at podcasthallcom forward slash hall, dash OF dash fame.

Sam Sethi: 50:54

And would I be able to see all the previous inductees as well on that website?

Rob Greenlee: 50:58

Yes, yeah, yeah, it's all below. Just keep scrolling down the page and you should be able to see them all Now.

Sam Sethi: 51:05

James Cridland, co-host of this podcast, said very well on Pod News Daily look, everyone's an American. So how are you going to make, without sounding slightly facetious, the American Hall of Fame, the global Hall of Fame? How are you going to bring the, without sounding slightly facetious, the American Hall of Fame, the global Hall of Fame? How are you going to bring the world into this?

Rob Greenlee: 51:21

Well, I think one of the big challenges and I've been really facing this very consciously and also getting feedback from others too that are outside of the United States and get their perspectives on how this might work but I think very fundamentally and I think James Cridland is a very good example of what I'm talking about here is that the history of this medium pre-James Cridland was very isolated to its view of a US-centric medium, right, and I think we all know that the rest of the world has been supporting podcasting all along. It's just that the country knowledge has really been centered on the United States when it comes to the medium, and that's really unfair. And this is a similar challenge that I faced when I was working in the Podcast Academy, too, with the Ambees Awards is that you have this challenge of making something global, which can be an overwhelming challenge because it's a lot easier to say well, available, which can be an overwhelming challenge because it's a lot easier to say, well, it's an international award, whatever. But it's a whole other matter to actually make it happen and also to make it fair, right, and also to have that institution have international knowledge. And I think James Cridland has done an amazing job of making this medium visible internationally, but that's only been a recent thing. So it's really a matter of expanding the board right To include people that represent pretty much all the countries of the world.

Rob Greenlee: 52:48

So this is going to be a pretty good size board and then also having a much larger pool of people to vote, because one of the issues that I have is I can add a bunch of international podcasts that were very pioneering in the medium in the early years. But the problem is I can put them on the list but if most of the voters are from the US, they're not even going to know who they are, what they are. I mean, I do put a lot of information in there about each nominee's background and things like that, but it does get back to voters vote on name familiarity to some degree. It's it's human nature. That's the challenge that I face. But expanding the voting pool is the biggest thing and bringing in voters from countries all around the world is really the only way I can do a fair one.

Sam Sethi: 53:33

So recently you did expand the board, so you've gone name some of the people who've joined the board. Then let us know.

Rob Greenlee: 53:41

So trying to name everybody, you know, like Todd Cochran, dave Jackson, gloria Petrucci, glenn Washington, danny Pena is on the board, the CEO of Podfest is on the board and Gautam, the founder of Hubhopper, is on the board too, and he's the first one that I've added to the board so far.

Rob Greenlee: 54:05

That's from outside of the US, and so he's going to be one of many that I'm going to tap into various parts of the world to add to the board and then they're going to help me come up with nominees, which they've already started. And then they're going to help me come up with nominees which they've already started. You know, my contacts outside of the US is going to give me nominees from people that were very early in the podcast medium, even as far back as like 2005 or whatever, that had a significant contribution to developing podcasting in that country Right, and to build awareness there that we just don't have visibility to. So it's really a matter of me and the board and the organization having visibility to these people that are outside of the US, that had those major contributions to the growth of podcasting in the early years that we just don't know about.

Sam Sethi: 54:50

So and again, when people get to nominate next year, how will they be able to do that? Is it user generated nominations or is it board generated nominations? I'm curious to understand how people get nominated.

Rob Greenlee: 55:05

Well, up to this year it's been basically funneled in through all sorts of different sources People sending me emails recommending people, the board has recommended people, past inductees have recommended people, so you can already see that there is somewhat of a regional bias just based on human knowledge, right, and so expanding the sources of those nominations is the biggest thing, and that's kind of already started.

Rob Greenlee: 55:35

I had people on the list that did pioneering things outside of the US on my ballot this year, but the problem is they didn't get voted in right, and I think it's fundamentally because there's not enough people voting that are from outside of the US, that have that knowledge like who they are and what their significance was. So, yeah, having a much more public nomination process and then also expanding that pool of voters that would vote from that list, I'm hoping that it will be a fair thing. To be honest about it, I'm not exactly sure that it will be as fair as it needs to be this next year, but if we start that pathway towards making it a much larger thing and including the significant regions of the world in this pool, then it might be possible.

Sam Sethi: 56:24

Yeah, rob Greenlee man about podcasting Hall of Fame inductee from 2017. Thanks a lot. Remind everyone one more time, rob. When is the event and where can they go and find out more about the event?

Rob Greenlee: 56:37

Yeah, I think the best thing to do is go to podcasthallcom and the ceremony is being held on January 17th at 7 pm Eastern in Orlando, Florida, at the Podcast Expo. So if you want to find out about the conference, it's at podcastexpocom and we are selling tickets to the in-person ceremony and it will be recorded. It's going to be put out on YouTube and online the full ceremony recording on January 20th. So that's what the current plan is right now. Last year we tried to do it live. It didn't work out that well, so we're just going to try and record it and then put it out at a later date and hopefully it will be perfect.

Sam Sethi: 57:20

Well, good luck with it, Rob, and congratulations for bringing it back to life.

Rob Greenlee: 57:24

Well, thank you, Sam, for having me.

James Cridland: 57:26

The very excellent American Rob Greenlee there, the Podcast Hall of Fame. It's a very cool thing. If you can be at the big ceremony in Orlando in Florida in January, then you should be there. The other award that you should be aware of this week are the finalists for the Political Podcast Awards 2025, which are deeply undiverse because they're all from the UK and that's because they're the UK Political Podcast Awards and 29 finalists, and I noticed that 10 of those finalists are with ACAST. So if you're wondering how big a hold that ACAST have on the UK podcast scene, then you can very clearly see how successful they are being there. The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 58:15

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology.

Sam Sethi: 58:20

Well, let's kick off. Yesterday was the last day for you to be able to remove the chartable prefix, so have you done it? James, you pointed out there was over 30,000 podcasts that had that prefix. I wonder how many have broken.

James Cridland: 58:34

Yes, now, probably none have broken, because what Spotify have actually said is they're not going to stop working instantly, so they'll all still be working now. So they will break at some point over the next couple of months or so. And this is, of course, unless you're with Spotify's megaphone, in which case, depending on which piece of support you read, you're completely unaffected, or you're unaffected if you've done certain things, and I fully don't understand it, but that's what you pay your megaphone bill for. So go and ask them if you are confused by that. But yeah, so Chartable going away? No end of companies wanting to jump in for certain bits that Chartable has ended up doing. Podfollow, adding some charts that you can go and see. Osha, also yesterday in the Pod News Daily, really plugging their new service, which again allows you to see both into categories charts in Apple, but also into category charts in Spotify as well, which is something that is relatively unavailable Podgagement, of course, from that as well. And talking of podgagement, you ended up having a quick chat with Daniel J Lewis, didn't you?

Sam Sethi: 59:55

I did indeed, and I started off by asking him what is a podgagement?

Daniel J Lewis: 59:59

Yeah, it came from. Originally. The product was my podcast reviews that I started in 2014 with just the focus of tracking ratings and reviews for podcasters. Along the way I realised I've got a branding problem with the name of the product and I want it to do so much more. But I just couldn't fit that so much more inside that name my Podcast Reviews so I rebranded it to Podgagement because it focuses on podcast engagement. Therefore, pod-gagement and ways that podcasters can boost their audience interactions and then use that to grow their podcast, because I know that a lot of podcasters want a bigger audience or maybe they want to make money, but I think what many podcasters feel is most rewarding when they host their podcasts is the connection with their audience, those relationships, the kind words, the opportunities that come from those relationships. That is really, I think, what's most rewarding about podcasting at all scales, and so podgagement offers a suite of tools to help boost that engagement so that you can leverage that for greater growth.

Sam Sethi: 1:01:06

So give me an example of the types of engagement. You've talked about reviews ratings. What else can you get from Podgagement as a podcaster?

Daniel J Lewis: 1:01:15

Yeah, when I launched the rebrand into Podgagement, the big feature that I was excited to offer is being able to accept feedback from your audience as voicemail so you can share a page. We have multiple speakable shareable pages that are designed for specific uses, and each of these pages are smart that they detect the device using the page so they show certain options based on that device. But what I really want to do is make a feedback page where people could receive written feedback from their audience. That's easy, it's a form, but the more exciting thing is that their audience can press record on that page and send a voice message and then that gets automatically transcribed, sent to the podcaster. It's downloadable as an MP3 file so they can use it in their podcast. That's when it gets really exciting both for the podcaster and the audience to include literally the audience's voice in their podcast.

Daniel J Lewis: 1:02:12

I know, not every podcast is structured in a way that they can actually use that, but it can still be so exciting to have that. And then you can do so many things with that, whether you use it in your podcast or you use that kind of praise and feedback that you get from your audience to help improve the podcast or help market your podcast better. Take it to sponsors and show them. Hey look, this is what my audience is getting from my podcast. Don't you want to be in front of this kind of audience? There are so many things that you can do when you have that engagement.

Daniel J Lewis: 1:02:42

And then there have been other tools that I've built into the system, like allowing you to track the relationships that your podcast has with other podcasts through what I call networking, like in Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You see the you may also like section. I track that as it is going out from your podcast as well as what's coming into your podcast. Podroll will be a feature that will be supported very similar there that you'll be able to see what are all the other podcasts who have your podcast in their pod role tag. Come back in. And then the newest thing that I'm really excited to launch I know it's why we're talking is the new charts and rankings feature. That has been actually five years in the development.

Sam Sethi: 1:03:23

Now you talk in the press release that James covered in Pod News Daily of 34,000 charts, which my brain was like only 4,000?. Where'd you get that number from? So please explain to me, a what the charts are and, b how you get the data, and then we'll come to how you got to 34,000.

Daniel J Lewis: 1:03:46

Yeah, and I want to give a kind shout out here to Chartable for shutting down and giving me the kick that I needed, because I have been collecting this data for five years. I haven't been actually building the feature, but I started building it five years ago and just never finished. I got to the point where I was collecting the data and saving it in my database, which got massive over time, but I just wasn't doing anything with it yet. So with Chartable sunsetting, I decided this is the time I need to finish this feature, because podcasters want this information. I want to be able to provide that to them and it's what started my rebuilding of the whole product. So I've been collecting it for so long and it's close to 34,000 charts that I've been tracking every hour for the last five years. So for five years I've been tracking these 34,000 charts and inside of those charts are the rankings. So let's just clarify some terms here.

Daniel J Lewis: 1:04:37

The chart is if you look at an Apple podcast or Spotify and look at like a top podcast list, I'm calling that a chart. So don't think like graphs and line graphs and bar charts and that kind of thing. I'm trying to avoid using the word chart in that sense I would call that a graph. But here a chart would be a list of podcasts and it usually is an ordered list of some sort. Even if there aren't necessarily numbers, people still think the thing that's on the top is the top. Whatever is listed first, we kind of look at it as a chart how these charts are actually populated and how things move in the charts. That's different for all kinds of places. It's even different inside of Apple Podcasts, like if you're looking at a top podcast chart that is affected by more recent subscriptions or followers to a podcast and downloads, whereas something like a search results chart or what's hot or new and noteworthy. Those are all handled completely differently. But there's still basically a chart of podcasts. Each podcast then in that chart has a ranking and that is simply where it is its position in that chart. So I'm tracking these 34,000 charts and each chart having up to 250, in some cases even up to 400 podcasts in a single chart, and then there's the rank for that podcast.

Daniel J Lewis: 1:06:04

Now that number 34,000, that comes from you look at Apple Podcasts primarily is where it's coming from. The Apple Podcasts is now available in 175 regions. It used to be 155. It's now 175. So right there, that's 175. Every region has a different chart for every genre inside Apple Podcasts and there are more than 100 genres of podcasts inside Apple Podcasts. So multiply 175 times those 100 plus. Inside of each genre there are also additional charts. There is the top podcast chart. That's what most people are familiar with. I have also been tracking the what's hot and the new and noteworthy in many of these genres. Some of them, some countries and some genres don't have a what's hot or new and noteworthy, but many of them do and I've been tracking that. This is data that no one else has been tracking, as far as I know, for all of these years. So you start multiplying these things and that's how you get to the number around 34,000 separate charts.

Sam Sethi: 1:07:16

What's the future hold for pod engagement. What's next then? You've done the charts, you've done the comments, you're doing some of the SEO, a bit of AI. Is that the roadmap for 25, Daniel?

Daniel J Lewis: 1:07:27

Well, the SEO thing, I think, is coming next, because being able to track a chart and historical rankings that is the foundation. I need to then open it up so podcasters can track their own terms and then see what else is ranking in these search terms, so they can discover networking opportunities and such. And there's so much about this, though, that, since podgagement is developed by me, a podcaster first, and I'm helping other podcasters, I'm listening to other podcasters, I sympathize and empathize with other podcasters, so a lot of what I do is really driven by what are podcasters actually needing? Like? That's why I fast paced this chart development thing. Is, I realized, with Chartable going away, podcasters actually needing Like? That's why I fast paced this chart development thing is, I realized, with Chartable going away, podcasters are going to need this as another option, so I have to build this for them quickly so that they can get those needs met, and I've served several Chartable refugees at this point, and they're the fun little things I'm often looking for, like what are the things that I can make that are so fun for podcasters that they will love Like?

Daniel J Lewis: 1:08:33

One of those things is that third page that I didn't get to finish talking about earlier. I have a chart page. Now that doesn't sound all that exciting. You can view the charts in multiple ways, but what is exciting about it is you can watch the charts change in real time, where you could park your browser on this page inside your account, and if the chart changes you'll see a podcast shift over and things will move around and shift. I've actually thought of maybe opening up a page like that to the general public. I just have to think about the bandwidth and server costs of something like that. But it could basically be the new podcasting cocaine to just sit there and watch the charts move.

Sam Sethi: 1:09:14

Get it sponsored, daniel, and then someone else pays for it, you're fine.

Daniel J Lewis: 1:09:18

Good idea. It's sponsored by True Fans. It's the kinds of things like that that I'm looking for. It goes back so much to what we've seen Apple do over the years and many other great innovators in history. It was Ford who said if I asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse. And you think about, like when Apple came out with the iPhone, people didn't know they wanted a smartphone.

Sam Sethi: 1:09:47

Oh, I remember everyone on Crackberry at the time was like oh, there's no keyboard on it, it's only just got a screen keyboard. That'll never work?

Daniel J Lewis: 1:09:55

Yeah, exactly. And now here we are in a world where we feel like ew, a physical keyboard on the phone that would be torture. So I'm looking for those innovations and I'm that type that I was so inspired by this Isaacson book about Steve Jobs, because I like to find something that's not working very well and innovate it. That's why your t-shirt in the podcasting 2.0 community is we've built this in true fans. My t-shirt is either I suggested this years ago or hey, what if we make it? Do this instead.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:33

Indeed, we should wear those at the next event we attend. That will be funny Look, Daniel. Thank you so much. If I want to join Podgagement, where would I go?

Daniel J Lewis: 1:10:44

Go to podgagementcom. Just think podcast engagement podgagementcom.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:50

And can I get you to come to PodCamp? Will you and Dave Jackson find that couple of pennies from behind the sofa and get on a flight and come and do PodCamp with me.

Daniel J Lewis: 1:11:01

Oh, I would absolutely love to because a funny thing I did a PodCamp like the original structure of PodCamp. I did PodCamp Cincinnati many years ago. I put on pod camp like the original structure of pod camp. I did pod camp Cincinnati many years ago. I put on this conference, had some volunteers. It was a lot of work to put on this conference but a lot of people who came said best pod camp ever and I never did another one because I didn't want to try and top that. But I love being in that conference atmosphere. I'm an ambivert so I get energy from both sides of the aisle in that way. And I'm an ambivert, so I get energy from both sides of the aisle in that way and I love just being with podcasters and I love traveling too. So I'm looking at if it's possible to make it there. I would love to be there and support what you're doing and it's exciting to see what you're doing with PodCamp 2.0.

Sam Sethi: 1:11:46

Yeah, well, look, the idea came from you and Dave, so thank you. I just thought I'd run with the idea, that was all, and also just just plug it. Go on, what's your podcast that you guys do?

Daniel J Lewis: 1:11:57

Yeah, I do two different podcasts. I do the audacity to podcast, which is my own solo podcast about podcasting, where I get pretty in depth with a lot of things. It's currently on hiatus because I'm a full-time dab too, in addition to building podgagement. And then Dave Jackson and I do a podcast together the Future of Podcasting where we hypothesize about a lot of things, talk through a lot of things, a lot of podcasting 2.0 stuff, but it's also sometimes just the concepts of things or challenges that we see coming up in the industry and really talking about. Where is this industry going and what are some concerns? What are some things to get excited about? How can we use this?

Sam Sethi: 1:12:34

Very cool. I love listening to it. As you know, I'm a big fan of the show. I never get a shout out, but I always listen, so no worries at all. Thank you so much. Good luck with podgagement. Catch you in 25. Thank you, sam.

James Cridland: 1:12:45

The excellent Daniel J Lewis. The excellent Daniel J Lewis and there's more from that interview in the Pod News Extra feed. You'll find Pod News Extra wherever you find your podcasts. The Pod News Weekly Review. With Buzzsprout, podcast hosting made easy.

Sam Sethi: 1:13:12

What other tech stuff have we got? Sam cover it. Youtube now include a timestamp when sharing a podcast. Well done, YouTube. And that's from YouTube music. Actually, I still don't get my head around why they've got YouTube and YouTube music. I know we've interviewed them about it, but I still don't get it.

James Cridland: 1:13:21

Yeah, well, you know, as somebody that has used YouTube music, a fair amount I pay for that, you know, I, I I can certainly see the being a benefit for a music user interface, but, uh, yes, um, sharing a timestamp when sharing a podcast from YouTube, you can obviously, of course, do that from Spotify and from Apple podcasts and, uh, things like Overcast and Podcast Addict and everything else, um, it's basically something that really ought to be in there, and so hurrah for them for doing that. Headliner has announced that it will now produce captions for automated videos and audiograms created in Headliner. You can control pretty well everything the font, face and the style and all of that kind of stuff and they can be added entirely automatically. I did go in I'm not sure I understand Headliner, but I went into it and sort of had a play with it and I've basically said to them if you want to add captions to us, then please feel free, but I look at it and I go. I don't want to break it. I'm confused.

James Cridland: 1:14:25

But well done, headliner. If you use headliner, then you will know rather better than me in terms of how to do that. So that is good, and I'm currently working on a fascinating story all about Italians and the Italian podcast space. Probably we'll get that on Monday in the Pod News newsletter. So something to watch out for there. But there is an organisation, let's put it this way there's an organisation in Italy that basically wants to completely break how Open RSS works, because they're too dumb to understand how the podcast industry actually works. More on that on Monday at podnewsnet. Boostergrams, Boostergrams and Fanmail on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 1:15:22

Yes, it's our favourite time of the week. It's Boostergram corner and, yes, lots and lots and lots of boosts.

Sam Sethi: 1:15:25

Sam, who's our first, from Silas on Linux. He said I'm always down to annoy Adam Curry, I don't know why. So that should offset my annoyance at saying open RSS. Although I get it Anytime I write a sarcastic comment or boost, it is always the fault of my app. Dang autocorrect keyboard. Yes, Silas does like putting out sarcastic comments, but I think he does understand why we use the word open RSS.

James Cridland: 1:15:50

I think he does understand why we use the word open RSS. I think he does 1,111. That's a row of aubergines. So thank you for that. It's not a row of ducks, isn't it?

Sam Sethi: 1:15:59

Oh no, that's 2-2-2, isn't it Row of?

James Cridland: 1:16:02

ducks is the twos I know, what it is.

James Cridland: 1:16:05

It's a bag of sticks. Right, that's what it is Right. Yes, anyway, thank you, silas, and thank you for trolling me on Mastodon Kyren. We haven't heard from Kyren for a while. He has also sent us a bag of sticks. Thank you, gents. Fantastic news, summaries and context. As always Been a busy year and it's getting even busier. Hope to tune in more next year. Let me know if, when any Brizzy events are on James, I will tell you that there is going to be a Brisbane event. This is an exclusive for this part of the show. There will be a Brisbane event towards the end of February. Not just that, I've got somebody to actually pay for the drinks this time. So Kyren, don't go anywhere at the end of February. That will be good, oh, okay.

Sam Sethi: 1:16:50

A hundred thousand sats from anonymous podcast guru user. I think that may be Adam Curry. Yes, I think it might be.

James Cridland: 1:16:59

He says I think I've fixed my app, don't think you have anonymous podcast guru user, but anyway, I appreciate the work you, fellows, do. Much love from Texas, much love back from Brisbane and from Buckinghamshire, and thank you for the 100,000 sats. That is now a lot of money, by the way. So, yes, so, thank you so much for that.

Sam Sethi: 1:17:21

A hundred sats from Brian Entzminger 13,. He says Congratulations. You'll have to wait for a few more minutes to find out the update on that number.

James Cridland: 1:17:31

Yes, that's the number of power supporters that we had last week. Claire White-Brown, who was the 13th 1,000 sats. Thanks for my mention as the 13th power supporter. I really joined to see which adjective you'd use with 13, but you went with baker's dozen instead, so let's just write that one down. We need to come up with adjectives, and this is why people are signing up. So who'd have thought it? Anyway, claire Wake-Brown goes on. I want to apologise to Rob Greenlee, who isn't a guest on my new show, podcasting 2.0 in Practice, even though Sam says he was. I just assumed he would be. It was just an assumption. That's right, sam, so that is also good. And an anonymous 3,520, which is nice from True Fans. How did that work? An anonymous from True Fans? I don't know. Bug 101 today.

Sam Sethi: 1:18:28

Anyway, that's very nice.

James Cridland: 1:18:29

So thank you for that. Power supporters, we had 13 this time last week. How many have we got this time?

Sam Sethi: 1:18:38

We have 15. Welcome John McDermott and James Bird. And yes, james put power support mode activated. Thanks for all you guys both do respect to both sam and james. Yes, thank you, james. That's very kind of you.

James Cridland: 1:18:52

Thank you, james, that's an excellent thing. And also john mcdermott, who, um calgaroga, shark media and all that, he does a very good job of uh tweeting and not tweeting uh linkedin ing um what would be a linkedin uh post is that. Is that a smug? Or is that a show off? I? Don't know, I can't stand LinkedIn.

Sam Sethi: 1:19:15

I've got to the point with social media where I'm bored of Twitter. I can't be bothered with Blue Sky or Threads. I like doing techie stuff on Mastodon, but if I want to do anything that's just talking about product or just something more businessy, linkedin's the last place I've got left, and so I don't think this. I don't know, are you bored of social media yet, james?

James Cridland: 1:19:37

Because it's getting a little more boring now for me, I found myself really getting into social media over the last couple of weeks. I think it's because Blue Sky basically all of my friends are on Blue Sky now, which is a nice thing. So, yeah, I think I've basically been focusing on that now. But yeah, but no, it's been fun. But, john, thank you for that, thank you for your LinkedIn smugs and all of those. That's very kind of you. So, thank you to the rest of our 15 uh, our fabulous 15.

Sam Sethi: 1:20:12

Yes, I was gonna say fabulous 15 indeed.

James Cridland: 1:20:15

Yes. Uh, james burt, john mcdermott, obviously, claire waite brown, uh, miss eileen smith. Uh, neil velio, rocky thomas, jim, james, david, marzell, sy jobling, rachel corbett, dave jackson, mike at the Rogue Media Network, matt Medeiros, marshall Brown and Cameron Mull. If you want to be a sexy 16, then you're more than welcome. Just go to weeklypodnewsnet with your credit card. Can you imagine?

Sam Sethi: 1:20:44

And that would be good. Somebody's sitting there going. I am going to be sexy 16 now, Excellent yeah, or sensational 16, I should possibly say Sexy 16 now yeah.

James Cridland: 1:20:49

Or Sensational 16,. I should possibly say Sexy 16 will get us demonetised, won't it Not that we are? Yes, deplatformed, and we should say. On that very point, we should also say thank you to Buzzsprout that has, for reasons best known to themselves, re-signed for the next year. So that's very kind of them. So thank you to Albin and Kevin and the rest of the team over there. So what's happened for you this week, Sam?

Sam Sethi: 1:21:16

Well, I had an epiphany with all of the work that we're doing on value tags and LN address. It seems that the RSS feed is now just a pointer to external files, whether it's the enclosure, chapters, transcripts, pod roles, publisher feeds and now LN address. So it just made me look at the RSS feed again and go what's left that we hard code into the RSS feed?

James Cridland: 1:21:39

Well, yes, there's an, and it does seem to sort of add quite a lot to the complication of having to deal with RSS feeds, because all of a sudden you need to go off and find all of these additional files. It does sort of worry me slightly, but who knows? And then, of course, you've got all of the caching for those additional files. When do you re-import them? What do you do with them, you know, and all of that. So I hope that we're all doing everything the right way. Who knows?

Sam Sethi: 1:22:08

Talking about doing things the right way. Who knows talking about doing things the right way. We've talked about the 4th of january being the wallet apocalypse, when, uh, I'll be turn off, uh, the custodial wallets that they've had in the past, and we're all sort of looking for solutions and different ways of working. I mean one is the albie hub, which you know again. I think we've all agreed that might be overkill for the mainstream user who just wants to give a few sats to a podcast. So this week we built a wallet transfer tool, james, so you can go into true fans and you can go to your settings and click transfer, verify your albie wallet with al and then transfer some or all, if you want of your sats to TrueFans, and it works seamlessly, very nice.

Sam Sethi: 1:22:56

We're also working on something with Pod2. Well, a couple of things. One is called Secure RSS, or L402. Now we talk about open RSS and now we're going to talk about something called Secure RSS, and I just wanted to lay the groundwork for that. Open RSS is brilliant and it means that you can own your own data. It's data portable, it's decentralized all the good things that we want it to be.

Sam Sethi: 1:23:30

Downfalls of RSS is that, if you know what you're doing. You can go and read the XML, go and find the enclosure and just copy and paste the mp3 URL into anything else and you can have access to the audio or video and audio book providers. Music providers and other film providers do not want that capability, they do not want that openness, and so they wanted to find a new solution. Now Adam Curry pointed out to Russell at Pod2 that there was a technology called L402. Now this was used by Nathan Gathwright for a product called Transcribefm earlier in the year, and so instead of calling L402, we've renamed it secure rss, and the idea is it tokenizes the enclosure file.

Sam Sethi: 1:24:16

So what it does? It says yes, you can see the rss feed, yes, you can see the url. But if you try to actually copy and paste that url and use it, it won't work until you've actually made a confirmed payment against that digital. You know content, wherever it may be the audio book or the film, then you will not get access to it, and so I think this opens up many new doors for audiobook providers certainly, who are saying I don't want to play in your open RSS world, I'll stick with Audible, or I'll stick with the way that Spotify does it. Hopefully, this is now a way of content owners to feel secure and safe that there is a way to transcribe, transmit their content without it being stolen.

James Cridland: 1:25:03

Yeah, well, that certainly sounds interesting and I wonder obviously Amazon has had through AWS, has had signed URLs for a while. Is it the same sort of thing but a bit more open?

Sam Sethi: 1:25:16

Yes, exactly it's that same principle. You literally get a confirmed transaction and then they can then update that and allow you to then use the content.

James Cridland: 1:25:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam Sethi: 1:25:29

Well, there you go. The other thing that was talked about on podcasting 2.0 was something called Boostergram Live. Now you talked about it earlier in the show the fabled unicorn of cross app comments and Oscar has proposed something to do with Nostra events going through the Nostra relays. It's not something that I particularly want to go down as a route, but you know who's to say that we won't ever do it, but at the moment it feels like never. The twain are meeting, we're going one way and the fountain are going the other way, so cross-app comments are becoming less likely, not more likely.

Sam Sethi: 1:26:06

So there's this proposal for Boostergram Lives. It's a centralized server, basically. That would be relevant to whether you're on nostril activity pub, um, allow you to, as an app, broadcast your comments to a central server with a episode guid and then other people can put like a pod ping listener on there and go oh yes, that's come from true fans, and fountain could then pull that in and aggregate that with the comments for that episode. So again, fourth time, lucky, who knows, we might be getting it this time. It might not be the right one, it might be, but what russell has done is he has put up a github. The code. It is open sourced and there is a demo at boostergramlive if you want to go and see how it all works as well.

Sam Sethi: 1:26:55

Nice gosh, that's complicated, isn't it? Well, hopefully it's not. I mean, like all these things, it's complex when you first start and, as you will often say, james, or I say, complexity is failed simplicity, but you will say complexity has to be hidden if it's to go mainstream. So we'll see, moving on James, what's happened for you this week.

James Cridland: 1:27:17

Well, two things, nothing to do with podcasting, but you know, might as well mention it. If you are on Mastodon, or indeed on Blue Sky, and you look me up in there, then you will see. Pinned to my profile at the moment is what my wife bought me for Christmas, which is a Christmas advent calendar with beer in it.

James Cridland: 1:27:38

She knows you well, every day she does, and every day I've been going through one of these cans and I've been posting it onto the internet and giving my review of it. There was a awful one the other day which had chili in it, which is which is never. Never the right thing for a beer, even if you go for a curry Chili, but also lime also lime, so it smelled like bathroom cleaner.

James Cridland: 1:28:04

Oh, um, and it had, it was just awful and it was two, two and it was just awful and it was two sips and then that was down the drain. But that's kind of. The point of this is that some of the ideas are insane and should never work, and some of the ideas are weird and lovely and so, yes, so that's been fun. What's your?

Sam Sethi: 1:28:22

favourite so far, then, because you've been posting them, what's your favourite?

James Cridland: 1:28:30

I think my favourite has been, you know, one of the more boring ones. I think I ended up with a nice Dunkel beer, which is a sort of a dark lager, which was very nice last night, so that was very good. But yes, I've just put number 12 in the fridge, so I will be, so I've still got another 12 to go, so very exciting exciting, wow.

Sam Sethi: 1:28:49

What do they say? Don't drink and podcast. No, don't know and I don't think anyone's ever said that.

James Cridland: 1:28:55

Maybe maybe I mean one, one beer a day is going to be fine. Um, so that's one thing, uh, and the other thing, again nothing to do with podcasting, but just in case you're looking for a new browser for your Mac or indeed for your iPhone, but let's focus on the Mac, there is a browser out there which is called Orion. It's free, and the interesting thing about Orion is that it uses WebKit, so it's not a Chrome browser. It doesn't use Chromium under the hood, it uses WebKit, so the same as Apple Safari Plus. What it does is it deals with Firefox plugins and Chrome plugins and Safari plugins or extensions, which is very cool, so it runs all of the extensions, so that's nice.

James Cridland: 1:29:44

It's got ad blocking built in, it's got a ton of other things built in and the most important thing is you can, on a Mac, actually see an RSS feed with it rather than downloading it or trying to load it into some other app. So that's all very good. It's just well worth giving a go. It's from the same people who make Cargill, which is the alternative search engine, which is also very excellent. But yes, if you're looking for a decent web browser with content blocking and all of that, I would heartily recommend this one, so give that a go.

Sam Sethi: 1:30:20

I did I downloaded it last week after you mentioned it previously, and did you, and it looks lovely. And here's the thing that's in my head what's stopping me from hitting that? Make it my default right. And it dawned on me. This is exactly the same challenge we have with podcast apps. It's like, oh, this is a new, sexy new podcast app, yeah, great, I'm going back to my old one that I know and love and feel comfortable with, and that's generally, I guess, what we're trying to get over to other people Change to a new podcast? That? No, no, no, I'm going to stay where I am and I haven't changed from chrome, even though I've got it on my desktop and it looks nice and you just said it does everything that chrome does, and the extensions and I'm like. So why aren't I moving?

James Cridland: 1:31:01

and I don't know yeah, well, that's, that is the thing, and I think, certainly, if you have built your, if all of your passwords are in Chrome, you'll never move away from Chrome, that's the way that they get you Same password.

Sam Sethi: 1:31:14

Okay, it's easy. One password, yeah well yeah, exactly.

James Cridland: 1:31:16

So if you use 1Password or if you use Bitwarden, which is the one that I use, oh no, no. I mean just I have 1Password.

Sam Sethi: 1:31:22

Oh, I see what you mean.

James Cridland: 1:31:23

I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't do that. I know, I know what Sam can fix it.

Ross Adams: 1:31:31

Is that your password?

James Cridland: 1:31:33

Is your password already implemented?

Sam Sethi: 1:31:38

Should be, should be.

James Cridland: 1:31:41

Yes, well, there we are. Anyway, those are my two things, and so give Orion Browser a go. It's a pretty good thing. It's a little bit raw around the edges, but who knows? And that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories well, most of them, were taken from the PodNews newsletter. You can subscribe to that at podnewsnet, and longer interviews in the PodNews Extra podcast. You'll find those wherever you get your podcasts. Except that might be going away next year, who knows.

Sam Sethi: 1:32:10

You can support this show by streaming Satch. You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout fan mail, like James did this week in our show notes, and you can send us a boostogram or become a power supporter, like the fabulous 15. And again, who's going to be the sexy 16? You can find it at weeklypodnewsnet.

James Cridland: 1:32:27

Sensational 16. Our music is from Studio Dragonfly. Our voiceover is Sheila D. We use clean feed for our audio. We edit in Hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet.

Marco Arment: 1:32:47

Tell your friends and grow the show and support us, and support us, and support us. The Pod News Weekly. Review will return next week. Keep listening.