James Cridland: 0:00

It's Friday, January, the 3rd 2025.

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: 0:14

I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News. Happy New Year.

Sam Sethi: 0:17

And I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans, and it's a happy new year for me too.

James Cridland: 0:20

In the chapters today look back at 2024, the highlights and the lowlights of this year. This podcast is sponsored by buzzsproutcom. Obviously, one of the highlights of 2024 was the new Buzzsprout app for iOS and Android and the beautiful new podcast pages from Buzzsprout as well. You can see those at weeklypodnewsnet. There's a reason why Buzzsprout is one of the biggest podcast hosts in the world. You can find out for yourself at buzzsproutcom. Start podcasting, Keep podcasting.

Speaker 2: 0:47

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 0:51

All right, Sam. So here we are. We did a show this time last year with predictions for 2024, didn't we? We did yes. And this is where we mark our own work, Well, where I mark your work and you mark mine yes. And this is where we mark our own work, Well, where I mark your work and you mark mine yes. And we see if we agree with all of those. So let's go through our predictions from last year.

Sam Sethi: 1:17

Prediction number one James Joe Rogan will join YouTube in 2024. Yes, well, okay, come on. Then what was my score? Well, he didn't. Yes, well, okay, come on then what was my score?

James Cridland: 1:27

Well, he didn't, did he? No, I mean, he did join YouTube, didn't he? But yes, but he didn't join YouTube as an exclusive.

Sam Sethi: 1:36

He didn't sign to YouTube. Yes, exactly, so fail. So that was a fail.

James Cridland: 1:42

You did also say that SpotFlflix would happen. Spotify and Netflix. This is only because you want to sell your domain name.

Sam Sethi: 1:50

Yes, I own the domain Spotflix and I'm just praying one day someone buys it off me, but that was also a fail for that as well. Your second prediction was One of my highlights or predictions for 24 is that micropayments will go mainstream.

James Cridland: 2:07

How much of this was you know your?

Sam Sethi: 2:13

Wishful thinking, was it?

James Cridland: 2:14

even called TrueFans back then, when did you change its name?

Sam Sethi: 2:17

Yes, yeah, no, we changed it in November of 24.

James Cridland: 2:23

There you go.

Sam Sethi: 2:23

We snuck it through the window at the last minute.

James Cridland: 2:25

yes, yes, so micropayments go mainstream. What do you think? Massive fail? Yes, I think a fail. I mean there are a few things. I mean Spotify launching ad-free podcasts with payments from you know creators and things. That's kind of a bit of micropayment, but not really. And I suppose one of the things if micropayments is reliant on cryptocurrency because of the low cost of sending cryptocurrency around the world in comparison to dollars and cents, then maybe there's something exciting for 2025. Because it does seem that there's movement in the US in favour of Bitcoin, so perhaps there's a little bit of that in there. But I'm afraid I think it's still a fail for 2024.

Sam Sethi: 3:19

Yeah, I'm praying. President Musk takes control and decides that Bitcoin is the new tender of coin. We'll see.

James Cridland: 3:27

Well, let's see if Vice President Trump agrees. I mean, of course we are recording this a couple of weeks ahead, so I mean, who knows, who knows whether Elon Musk will still be involved by then. But anyway, right, your prediction number three Now.

Sam Sethi: 3:47

I think we will see in 24, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. Short-form videos help drive traffic to podcasts.

James Cridland: 3:55

Yes, I think so.

Sam Sethi: 3:57

Yeah. I did also add, though, that long-form video would not work. I don't fully agree that long form video will be the best format, which I think is a fail.

James Cridland: 4:09

Yes, I think that is a fail, but I mean very clearly. You can see that there's a bunch of research out there saying that particularly short form video but video on YouTube as a whole is helping driving traffic into podcasts and into podcasting apps um, you know, even as well. So, uh, yeah, so I think you can. You can certainly claim that one okay, next up, james.

Sam Sethi: 4:33

What have I got?

James Cridland: 4:35

ai. Oh, this was such an easy one. Well, einstein, how did you see that going?

Sam Sethi: 4:43

well, can I just say I had to have a banker Given my track record before this. There had to be one banker. Yeah, ai actually though over the course of 2024, has improved significantly from when Buzzsprout first introduced it with, you know, show notes and transcriptions, and then we saw that with Usha, and we saw that with various other companies like Blueberry and Captivate, so I think it did take a nice adoption curve within the hosting market. I haven't seen the apps really adopt much AI. Even the big ones haven't really done that either yet, so that may be something that we'll see in 25. But I also think the influx of AI-hosted podcasts thanks to Notebook LM and others was a surprise at the end of the year.

James Cridland: 5:37

Yes, I think. Yes, that was definitely a surprise. I think the only podcast app, weirdly, that really has jumped into AI has been Apple Podcasts. Who'd have thought it? Because, of course, they have turned on transcripts for everything and they're even running some quite nice matching technology. Even if you produce your own transcripts and give it to Apple Podcasts, apple Podcasts then retimes everything to make sure that it's word for word. So they've certainly done quite a lot of AI in terms of that, but we've not seen too much more, and certainly not from any of the other podcast apps, which is a bit of a shame, you know, particularly some of the larger ones, like Pocket Casts, you know, and others. So perhaps that's something that might happen in 2025. Who knows what else we got here? Activity Pub will enable more podcast discovery.

Sam Sethi: 6:35

In the last couple of weeks of December, dave and Adam started to finally talk about something called Activity Pub and something called Activity Streams that I've been using in True Fans for a while, and I think what we will see is a model. Afraid that's a fail as well.

James Cridland: 6:52

It's a real shame.

Sam Sethi: 6:54

Yeah, I think Activity Pub as much as we, with my CEO of True Fans, implemented it and pushed it and we've still got a bit more work to do. But I think Activity Pub itself is half-baked. It hasn't really moved on and I'm really worried that I don't think in 25 it's going to do much more than it's doing now, which is idly waiting for things to happen. But it's not exactly evolving with new features and function. So I had hoped that it would be a great way that people would jump on the fediverse people would start to follow more people and it would start to be a way of discovery. And onboarding to mastodon is still very complex. I think blue sky, weirdly, has sort of at the end of the year, gained more popularity. Maybe it's simpler to get on board, maybe it's just Twitter in another clothing skill, I don't know. I think ActivityPub is either going to have its peak and go away or it's just going to idly sit in the background and not sure what it's going to do.

James Cridland: 7:56

I think there were two things with ActivityPub and I think one of them was just a bit too complicated working out what instance to join and all of that. That was a bit too complicated for the normal human. But I think also on the other side, even when people signed up and lots of people signed up at one point, there were loads of people signing up but they weren't staying because they couldn't find their friends on there very easily. Search is a little bit broken in the whole Fediverse thing. So from that point of view I think it really shows that it's not just a tech conversation, it's the people conversation. And Blue Sky appears to have won out, because Blue Sky is both easier in terms of the tech but also when people moved to it. There was enough work, there was enough onboarding that actually helped people move on. So you know, I'm sort of active on both now, but I'm getting quite a lot of activity from Blue Sky in comparison to, you know, the activity that I'm getting from the Fediverse, which is a little bit sad.

Sam Sethi: 9:08

Complexity is fail, simplicity and that seems to be true across many different types of technology and activity pubs fail because of that, I think.

James Cridland: 9:16

I would definitely agree with that, definitely agree with that.

Sam Sethi: 9:19

And then, finally, your final prediction Acast will buy one of the podcasting 2.0 apps. To quote James Cridland, they're not stupid, are they? That was about Apple, exactly, but I'm just going to nick the same quote. Acast have certainly moved into video, opened their new studios, nearly profitable in the normal sense of the word, and growing nicely, but I think, like all hosting companies, they're going to be lacking first-party data, which is the competitive advantage that Spotify and YouTube have, and I think if Acast wants to get into competing in that market space, then they're going to have to go back into the podcasting app space or do deals with apps, but I think they could buy one as well and that didn't happen, so I wonder if it's in my 2025 prediction so you had six predictions there you had kind of one and a half successes, I think yeah, so so better than last year, I believe.

Sam Sethi: 10:24

Well, can I just point out, no one should ever listen to what I have to say about podcasting. Then, based on that, yes, actually.

James Cridland: 10:30

I was going to say better than last year. Last year you got two out of six, Um, so maybe not quite as good as last year. Oh well, right. Well, it's time to take the mick out of mine now. Now I got two as well out of six last year, so let's see how many I can manage this time. So let's start off with James. I still think that one big hosting company will go bust and be bought out.

Sam Sethi: 11:03

How do you think you did?

James Cridland: 11:04

one big hosting company will go bust and be bought out. How do you think you did? Yes, I think, close, but no cigar there, which is a good thing. Let's just say we know that there have been a lot of job cuts at Libsyn. We know that there have been a lot of job cuts at Podbean, which is something that I've not been able to report in the Pod News newsletter because, you know, I've not really got enough actual clarity in terms of what Podbean has been doing. But two big, big podcast hosts have lost a lot of people. But that meant that they didn't go bust and so good, but also that means I suppose I've failed on there, haven't I?

Sam Sethi: 11:44

I'm going to put that down as a fail, I'm afraid, james. Yes, that's number one. Right, number two.

James Cridland: 11:52

YouTube. I think it will be Google's most successful podcast app ever. Yes, podcast app ever yes, absolutely yes, I think I won that one, didn't I? I mean, that was a banker, wasn't it yeah?

Sam Sethi: 12:07

okay. So you've gone for the nice easy one there and you win. Actually, I think YouTube has surprised me more than I thought it would do in podcasting. I thought it would be a damp squib in terms of they'd do an announcement. People go oh, podcasting on YouTube, right, anyway, thanks and move on. But when you listen to the younger generation, um, they are all you know.

James Cridland: 12:30

They equate podcasting and youtube very closely and I think that's something to watch yes, yes, now I did say last year that I'm not sure how much larger it'll be than google podcasts was maybe, say, double, so that would make it a 5% market share. Now you've written this down as a fail. I actually think that we don't know what YouTube's market share is, because the only data that we've got is data which is survey data of what podcast app do you listen to the most, and all of this kind of stuff, and that doesn't necessarily tell you all of the information. Okay, I still don't know what YouTube's market share is. I'll be blunt All of the data which is out there.

James Cridland: 13:23

Yes, joe Rogan does very well, but podcasting is bigger than just one show or two shows Joe Rogan and Crime Junkie, and there are lots of shows. If you look at the New York Times Daily, it does nothing on YouTube but does really well on podcasting. So I'm just not so sure, and I suppose quite a lot of this comes down to what is the definition of a podcast, and I suppose that's the age-old conversation.

Sam Sethi: 13:51

Yes, and if people are calling a video they watch on YouTube a podcast, is it a podcast? That's the question, I guess. Well, yes, indeed. Now. Okay, you said to me about AI, here we go.

James Cridland: 14:05

AI will be used across. Every Will be used across. Hang on, I think AI is going to come more and more into podcasting, whether we like it or not. Yeah, I think AI is going to be used an awful lot in terms of podcasting, but I also think that it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Sam Sethi: 14:30

But and you had a big but AI should not be used to replace humans and used as a positive force. Now, is that a success or fail? Where are you on that, james?

James Cridland: 14:39

Yes, I mean, I think it's mostly a success. Obviously, notebook LM making more AI hosted podcasts. If you want to hear a Notebook LM hosted show, you can go to the Pod News Extra right now where you'll hear a look back at the year for podcasting 2.0. So Notebook LM is making more AI hosted podcasts. But I think that AI is being used, you know, mostly as a positive force. Things like Buzzsprout's co-host AI, for example, which seems to do a very good job in terms of, you know, writing headlines and writing, you know, show descriptions and stuff like that. You know, I think that that's a very useful, you know a very useful tool. So I think it's you know, I mean, clearly AI will be used is a success, and I think mostly AI isn't used to replace humans and it is used to actually just make the product better. So I think that's probably a success.

Sam Sethi: 15:35

I'll give you that then.

James Cridland: 15:36

Apple podcasts will launch on more platforms in 2024. Right, they might even launch an Android app, because they're not stupid.

Sam Sethi: 15:45

Oh, come on, Really, you predicted this one, didn't you? It was not quite the app, so I'll go wider. Apple Podcasts will launch on more platforms in 2024. Okay, yeah, I'll give you that one, james.

James Cridland: 15:58

Yes, because they've launched on two platforms. I can't remember when they launched on Tesla, but that was a new platform that they launched on. I think it might just have been in 2023, actually the first time. But, of course, their web app, which finally they've made into a decent web app which works well on Android now. So I think I can claim that one as a tick.

Sam Sethi: 16:21

I'll give you it. Yes and finally.

James Cridland: 16:26

I predict that the IAB will be less important to podcasting. I predict that there will be a podcast advertising bureau Whack, whack.

Sam Sethi: 16:37

That's a fail.

James Cridland: 16:39

That's a big fail. I still think that the IAB will be less important to podcasting and was less important to podcasting, if you look at what happened last year Spotify came out of the IAB altogether and then kind of went back in with their tail between their legs once we asked them to. So I think that you know the IAB was certainly less important to podcasting. Also, by the way, spotify and Apple and YouTube none of those three actually support the IAB or use the IAB standards when it comes to the consumption information from their apps. So, you know, let's bear that in mind. So you know, let's bear that in mind. But, yes, but my idea of a podcast advertising bureau rather than the same company that also sells, you know, punch the Monkey ad banners that has not happened, which is a bit of a shame.

Sam Sethi: 17:35

Yeah. Well, looking at that, james, I think you got three. Okay, you win yeah.

James Cridland: 17:42

I think I've probably got two and a half there, which is probably, which is again, which is slightly better than last time two and a half.

Speaker 2: 17:49

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

Sam Sethi: 17:56

Okay, let's have a look at our highlights and lowlights of 2024.

James Cridland: 18:02

so, um, let's start with your. Should we start with high or low? Should we start with your low lights? Why don't we? Start with your low lights first.

Sam Sethi: 18:11

Okay, my low lights were albie and micro payments was a big fail in 2024, I think we saw at the beginning of the year, with albie pulling out the us market due to legal issues that the? U or licensing issues that the US was going to potentially implement. It caused a massive change in the micropayments wallet market and then again we've seen throughout the year changes as well, which has led to a little bit of confusion Well, a lot of confusion, if I'm honest. So yeah, albi and micropayments, I say, was a low light for me in 2024 yeah, which is a bit of a shame.

James Cridland: 18:49

Uh, I think you know and that, and that's probably linked to your second low light, isn't it?

Sam Sethi: 18:55

yeah, I, the podcasting 2.0 adoption from hosts. It was really good to begin with. You know transcripts, chapters, the easy ones as I I call them, but as we got into the more complex ones, like publisher feeds or wallets or live video and video itself, yeah, we haven't seen the podcasting to their own hosts. Really take on those.

James Cridland: 19:24

Yeah, yeah, I think there's that whole chicken and egg thing, and doubtless I will talk more about podcasting 2.0, so I will save my comments until that bit. A little bit later, but it is a shame, isn't it? Number three oh, this is where you get technical.

Sam Sethi: 19:44

Oh, this is where you get technical. Yeah, now, a GUID is a Global Universal ID. Now it's a way of describing in a numeric number a podcast or an episode, and they are really good for apps to link things together. Oh, this GUID is an episode, that's the comment from that GUID, et cetera. So so many are missing and I don't know why. That's the comment from that gooid, etc. Um, so so many are missing and I don't know why. That's been a slow adoption. Again, this is something that the hosts can implement and they're not doing all of them. I think it's mainly things like megaphone, um, and some of the other ones like that, which aren't really participating in podcasting 2.0, so I don't think they really care. But there are a lot of missing gooids and again, that means we can't do things like pod rolls or publisher feeds because they use a remote item with a GUI. So there are just bad, bad, um, yeah, just bad, bad, missing bits of data that we really need as apps, and I wish they would do it.

James Cridland: 20:44

Yes, yes, it's a bit of a shame. Low light number four, and we're only doing five low lights by the way, you'll be glad to know what's low light.

Sam Sethi: 21:00

Number four Open RSS is under threat from the rapid growth of Spotify and YouTube. We have seen that and I think we are seeing that Spotify is embracing more and more of their own proprietary technology, but growing very fast Massive profitability this year and growth in their share price. People are using their platform significantly for podcasting as well, and we talked about YouTube earlier and we talked about YouTube earlier. I think if the industry itself is to combat what they're doing, then I think we need to work together much more as a collective response. I think the podcast standards project was a fail this year. I think there's no fund Now.

Sam Sethi: 21:42

This is one that I have tried to see if it will happen. I don't think it's going to happen, so I tried to push for a pod fund which would be similar to what the podcast index gets. They get a payment from many hosts and that's the good thing that happens, where they get funded to keep the servers and the lights on, but the apps themselves aren't funded and often don't have a subscription model. Yet. We're too early, but we're putting in a lot of new tech and we have to market that new tech, and I think we are seeing the apps slowing down. We've seen three or four apps, because of the Albi wallet, have gone quiet. I haven't heard anything from them and that worries me a lot as to what's going on with them.

Sam Sethi: 22:28

I have asked that adam and dave take on the role of managing the fund, and maybe this is what I would like, um, that they would take a seed investment stake into some of those apps there's only five or six, really um, it wouldn't be a significant amount of money. They could take a small investment stake, which would help the apps and then, based on the number of tags that they actually support, they would get a bigger share or an increase in the funding, and I just think it would give that safety net to some of the apps while they're growing, before they get their new investment. Um, I just don't see that.

James Cridland: 23:04

So I'm I'm seeing no leadership no direction, no fund, no podcast standards group. I think it's all very, very poor right now. And one more low light and then we'll do your highlights, because we deserve an uplifting part of this.

Sam Sethi: 23:25

What's your final? Low light's gone, mia. Missing in action. The men in black, the people you never meant to talk about. If you've seen them, um, they've gone walkabout. Um, they've failed to promote video. They're not adopting any more podcasting to their tags. Uh, we have one apple new feature a year. I wonder what it will be this year, but but I'm certain it won't be Apple micropayments. So Apple, for me, could be the open champion to Spotify. They could adopt more and more of these tags, really become the player that gives the market an opportunity to take on Spotify and YouTube with podcasting 2.0 standards. They've adopted some of it. They could adopt all of it, but again, I just don't expect anything from Apple anymore. They've just gone quieter.

James Cridland: 24:12

For me, yeah, I mean, you know, and as I've been saying through the year, the reason why they're not promoting video podcasting is that it's not good enough, and if it's not good enough through OpenRSS, they're not going to promote it in that way. Through OpenRSS, they're not going to promote it in that way. So I could see why they're not doing that. And I think you know I don't know I think that they have been adding more things during the year. They've been adding more features into Apple Podcasts. You know the Apple Podcasts app is a. You know, by all accounts, three, four years ago I wasn't using it then, but three, four years ago, by all accounts, it was not a good app. Now it's a pretty good, well-rounded app. So I think they've done a relatively good job.

James Cridland: 24:55

But, yes, you know, the thing that has frustrated me this year about Apple is not hearing from them again. We used to have a pretty good relationship with Apple for the last few years, but for this year it's just been absolute total silence, until the day before they want to announce something which happened with the transcripts, you know, as an example. So I think that that's a bit of a shame. But yeah, I can certainly see that. Right, let's have some positives. I notice you've only got three positives. Yes For 2024, blimey. Well, let's go through those Two of them.

Sam Sethi: 25:35

I don't think anyone will expect either. So, yes, well, you just talked about Apple bringing out transcripts and I think that was a highlight. It was, I thought, was the opening of the door. I thought they were going to really do a big push in 2024 to add more things like the person tag, chapter tags. I thought they would do that, but they didn't. So it was a highlight to have that. But yeah, it was a short-lived highlight.

James Cridland: 26:01

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Sam Sethi: 26:04

Now, anyone who listens regularly to Pod News Weekly will know I am sort of a fanboy of Spotify, and that shouldn't be the case given their closed proprietary nature. But, as I've said many times before, spotify can't wait for the tail to wag the dog. They can't wait for the podcasting 2.0 community to come out with new standards before they can implement new technologies. That's just not going to ever happen, so big corporates will never do that. But I was pleased that they added audio books, events, ticketing, courses and they became what I call a super app.

Sam Sethi: 26:38

I think we're seeing them now rolling out, as we've talked about the ability to pay creators directly for video consumption without advertising. I think that's an interesting step forward and I think this is a start of creator portals. I can see Spotify doing live events next year. I can see them doing much more. Look, they're a juggernaut right now. We've got to hold on to them and keep in their tailwind. But yeah, it was a highlight for me that they've taken what was a music-only app and really broadened it out, and I think that's the way podcasting needs to go as well.

James Cridland: 27:14

Well, there we are, spotify, super Spotify, and in terms of and do you have any other highlight that might also mention Spotify as well?

Sam Sethi: 27:24

Yeah, well, again controversially, because I've left X but X and spotify, uh, have both looked at paying creators, as I just said, and x is doing the same. So if you look at the fact, they've just announced the increase in their premium rates, uh, for subscribers, um, but they're taking that to allow ad free x use and paying certain creators from that fund Again very similar to what Spotify are doing, and I think that is a massive trend for 25. I think we're going to see people paying and I think that's beneficial to podcasting 2.0, because we're trying to get the mainstream to understand that paying creators directly, without advertising, is a good model. And here we are seeing the bigger players marketing that, and I think that's going to benefit the podcasting 2.0 community, because then, oh, people go, oh, yeah, they do that over there, I'll do it over here, oh, and I can do it myself rather than rely on the company to make that payment. Okay, that's much more exciting. I think it could be really good for us.

James Cridland: 28:25

Indeed indeed. Well, it's all exciting stuff and I think, particularly with the change in the American ruling class this year, I think it's going to make quite some difference in terms of that.

Sam Sethi: 28:37

Now, James, let's get on to your lowlights of 2024.

James Cridland: 28:42

Right? Well, lowlight number one for me is the rush to video. I just think it's such a short-sighted thing for the podcast industry to be doing, to rushing away from the very thing that we have in our favour, which is that podcasts are there entertainment for your ears while your eyes are busy. That's the fundamental thing that podcasting offers and that radio offers, by the way. And if you turn it into television or, in podcasting's case, if you turn into cheap television, I fail to understand where the benefit is over all of the other myriad of media out there. So I just think that the rush to video is possibly the biggest low light, not just for last year, but the biggest low light in the last five years of the industry. It's just such a short-sighted move, if you'll pardon the pun, and I just think it's wholly and truly the wrong thing.

Sam Sethi: 29:54

I agree. So, yes, think it's the uh, it's wholly and truly the wrong thing. Um, so, yes, yes, uh it. I guess we'll find out in 25, or you know what happens. Is it a rush to video and a damp squib or a rush to video? And it's the way forward?

James Cridland: 30:01

I mean it may be a rush to video and and um, those people that can afford the video are doing great guns in terms of ad revenue, but that's not podcasting, that's something else. That's making telly. And if you want to go and make telly with your stuff, then do. There's nothing wrong with that. But please don't call it podcasting and confuse the entire, you know, confuse the public out there. Podcasting does not have pictures. Full stop Video podcasts exist, but podcast Podcasting does not have pictures. Full stop Video podcasts exist, but podcasting itself doesn't have pictures. And it drives me a little bit insane that we've got all of these clever folk in the room going, oh we've all got to move to video, when it just takes away the one thing that podcasting has going for it. I can say this again and again, and again until Sam says move on to your next one, james.

Sam Sethi: 30:52

No well, I was just going to say. The last thing is podcasting, as a word might not even be used by some of the other players, spotify have tried to deprecate it totally.

James Cridland: 31:00

Yes, well, what does that tell you?

Sam Sethi: 31:02

Yeah Right, james. What was your second low light?

James Cridland: 31:06

Yes, my second low light, I have to say, is probably the same as yours the Podcast Standards Project, podcasting 2.0. I'm going to lump both of those together because both of those are leaderless. They are strategy-less. There is no thought put into what the future is, what a win looks like, what a lose looks like. Both of those, we really don't know what we're actually doing in terms of that, and it's well-meaning folk coming up with some nice ideas which nobody really does anything with, and, you know, we pat ourselves on the back and we go away and nothing really happens.

James Cridland: 31:49

I was hoping for much more from both the Podcast Standards Project and Podcasting 2.0 over the year.

James Cridland: 31:56

From my point of view, podcasting 2.0 is the mad scientific lab where you've got all of these people with, you know, white coats and dubious social skills coming up with brand new ideas and brand new things. And then the Podcast Standards Project are the men in suits, who are, you know, the men in marketing, or indeed the women in marketing, who are taking what the mad scientists are doing and turning it into a product which is then sold in inverted commas to podcast hosting companies, but also to podcast apps. That's what I was hoping was going to happen. So you get loads of new ideas from Podcasting 2.0, dave Weiner's favourite words and then you would get the real creme de la creme of those coming up through and being plucked from obscurity and marketed the hell out of by the Podcast Standards Project. Neither of that has happened, and I'm very sad that it does almost feel as if Podcasting 2.0 has stagnated, if not gone backwards a little bit, with the lack of the streaming payments. So yeah, I think it's a bit of a sad thing that.

Sam Sethi: 33:16

Well, you know, I stepped up to be the podcast evangelist and I really wanted to do that role. But when you open that role up and you look at how big a role that is, then it's not a part-time, once a day or once a week or once a month role. You know, somebody has to be at events pushing that message, somebody has to be talking to agencies, somebody has to be talking to production companies, somebody has to be updating the website, somebody has to be talking to the hosts and apps. It's not a short-term role. And when I pushed back on that, um, yeah, there was no, there was no desire for me to do that role further, and so I I decided to step down from it and I, I regret and I, I, you know, regret having to do that, because I still see that there is a role for somebody to do that, and that's where I thought we would make a success absolutely there is, absolutely there is, absolutely there is.

James Cridland: 34:08

So low light. Number three was the whole sort of I mean I've written in the notes here Pacific Content and Rogers. But it's really all of these companies that have looked at their investment in the podcast industry, not fully understood what they actually had had and managed to cut it so badly that they've essentially made that entire industry for them valueless. So Pacific Content and Rogers is part of that, but also people like TuneIn, you know, are part of that as well, and you know a number of these other companies who have cut their companies to the bone to basically have an asset there, but an asset that isn't actually doing much for the industry. So I think that that's a bit of a low light in terms of that Low light.

James Cridland: 35:00

Number four was Google Podcasts. Closing Google Podcasts was a really good podcast app. It worked great if all you wanted was a super simple, easy to use podcast app that was built into Android, which is what everybody wanted. It was the number three podcast app for a long time and Google Podcasts managed to botch the closure of that product so badly and so, you know, so badly handled. You know what a real shame. But that's, you know that's Google for you. I mean, as we record this, I've just learnt that you know Google Notebook LM. They've got another competing version.

James Cridland: 35:48

I was just about to say the same thing. Look at that, Can you believe you know? Go on.

Sam Sethi: 35:55

Well, and I read the review of it and it's supposed to be better than Notebook LM and I'm like, oh my God, does nobody in there have a grown up strategy? I mean, let's just throw everything out the front door and see what sticks seems to be the strategy.

James Cridland: 36:10

Yeah, it's such a shame, such a shame. Someone was telling me about Google Podcasts. Someone was telling me that it turns out that in Google, quite a lot of the very senior managers are using Android phones not iPhones, but are using Android phones and it turned out that Google Podcasts was their podcast consumption vehicle of choice, because they were dogfooding. They were using their own stuff and they were furious when Google Podcasts was closing, particularly furious because they managed to close Google Podcasts in the US early before they closed it everywhere else in the world and YouTube music was not ready. Youtube music was a pretty poor experience. It's still a pretty poor experience, but it was particularly a pretty poor experience back then. So, yeah, proper, proper mess.

Sam Sethi: 37:06

What a real mess. America looks like they're going to try. Or mess America looks like they're going to try. Or the DOJ looks like they're going to try and break up Google a little bit more Search and Chrome and various bits. I think it's ready for it. I think it's a company that has totally lost its direction. I think breaking it up into multiple parts and letting 10 CEOs run each different part of it and start again would make more sense.

James Cridland: 37:31

I certainly agree with that. I think it's a real. It's a real. Yeah, it's a real shame. You know Google used to be, you know, 20 years ago, my God. You know Google's done what. Now Google's launched this thing called Gmail Wow, but you know it's not launched anything of note for the last 10 years. I mean, it really hasn't. Google Gemini is just oh, it's another AI thing. You know there's nothing new that they've launched there.

Sam Sethi: 37:58

The chat GBT. The T in chat GBT came out of Google to transform transformations and basically they were asleep at the wheel. I mean, yes, they've got some good little uh video. Product vo came out recently and that's meant to be really good, but I just don't think they leave anything together properly. It's just a company in the world now yeah, it's not.

James Cridland: 38:22

Anyway, moving on, not great, james, anyway, yes, bill.

Sam Sethi: 38:27

Bill Simmons is all you've written.

James Cridland: 38:30

Yes, my fifth and final lowlight Bill Simmons, etc. It's people who work for large companies that couldn't give two hoots about what that large company was actually doing and they just plough their own furrow and they just go ahead, Bill Simmons being a great case in point. Bill Simmons was sitting in front of me at the big Spotify reveal of we're doing all of this new exciting video stuff. Bill Simmons is head of podcast monetisation. Let me say that again head of podcast monetisation at Spotify. Even he couldn't be bothered to do anything in terms of video on Spotify.

James Cridland: 39:10

It's people like that that shouldn't be involved anywhere near. You know a high, you know a high executive level job in a large company, and people like that really irritate me. There is a lack of care in quite a lot of these large companies, a lack of care about what you do. Again, going back to TuneIn, there's a lack of care about what's going on in TuneIn right now. It's just people who are doing the bare minimum just to sort of move on, and they don't even care what the rest of their company is doing. So, bill simmons, you're a low light of 2024 okay, james.

Sam Sethi: 39:55

Finally then, now we've done your low lights, let's look at your highlights. What's the highlights for you for 2024?

James Cridland: 40:02

um, so transcripts was definitely one of my highlights was one of yours as well, both in terms of Apple Podcasts, who are doing it properly in terms of taking creator-produced transcripts, but also doing their own transcripts as well, so that every single show has a transcript. That may have been driven a little bit by some potential legal action, who knows but they've done it in exactly the right way, so transcripts is a very good thing. We shouldn't also forget that transcripts went into Pocket Casts this year or last year, went into AntennaPod last year, so transcripts has been a big success, I think, from all of us. It's part of the podcast namespace, and so hurrah for transcripts, so far as I'm aware.

Sam Sethi: 40:55

What's your second highlight, then, james?

James Cridland: 40:57

My second highlight, weirdly, is Castro. If you remember, castro this time last year was a pretty well-failing company. It had done its usual again tune in. It had been bought by a venture capitalist. The VC company clearly didn't care too much about podcasting and in fact, the person who's in charge of the venture capital company that owned Castro was a guy that actually said I don't listen to podcasts at all, I don't like them. So I publicly ended up saying that Anyway, they Castro. That is got a brand new owner and real life has been put back into that app. It appears to be growing again. It appears to you know quite a lot of the tech. Debt has now gone. They're working on new features and stuff like that. I just think that's a great nice story from 2024. So hurrah for Castro, that's what I say.

Sam Sethi: 41:59

And what's your third one then, james, come on, this sounds interesting.

James Cridland: 42:03

My third one is profit. It's really nice to see companies finally making profit Spotify making profit A's really nice to see companies finally making profit Spotify making profit, acast Audioboom as well making profit or close to it. I think all of that is really good news for the industry, and you know, there are companies out there that also plan to be making profit in 2025, which is good as well. I think, from my point of view, the depressing thing over the last 10 years has been seeing companies spaff money up against the wall because they've been given a bunch of money from venture capitalists. At the end of the day, if they're not capable of making profit, then they shouldn't be around as companies, and it's quite nice, from my point of view, seeing all of these companies finally making profit, moving into the black, contributing to society rather than taking money out of society. I think all of that is good, so hurrah for those companies making profit.

Sam Sethi: 43:11

Now Megaphone, a company I don't really deal with much because they're on a different level to what I do. But Megaphone, what about them, james, for your highlight.

James Cridland: 43:19

Yes, weird a highlight, but this isn't necessarily a highlight of what Megaphone did. I think it's a highlight of what we have achieved as an industry and we have achieved particularly as PodNews and, in this case, working with Sounds Profitable and working with a few other people. When Spotify quietly announced that oh, they didn't even announce quietly it became apparent that Spotify had left the IAB and I covered a story about that. And then all of the podcast industry said to Megaphone you cannot leave the IAB, you cannot let your IAB compliance elapse. This is a bad thing for the industry. Iab compliance elapsed. This is a bad thing for the industry.

James Cridland: 44:12

We managed to I'm sure that Spotify won't see it this way but we managed to push the IAB back into, or push Megaphone back into, iab compliance. So they came back again in, I think, june of last year. So I think this isn't a story about how good Megaphone are. I think this is actually the story of the beginnings, of how good are we when we all work together on something and making sure that Spotify weren't going to completely walk away from the IAB? They're not full IAB members so far as I'm aware, but Megaphone, their podcast hosting company, is IAB compliant and that was a massively important thing, so I think that was a highlight that we managed to force them to get back and play with everybody else.

Sam Sethi: 45:00

And what's your fifth and final one, James?

James Cridland: 45:02

My fifth and final one is Apple Podcasts on the web. I do genuinely think that that is a good thing. I think it's a good thing to open up Apple Podcasts and much of the Apple Podcasts on the web. I do genuinely think that that is a good thing. I think it's a good thing to open up Apple Podcasts and much of the Apple Podcast experience if not all of it to people who are using the web, people who are using Android devices, partially so that you can see the good curation that happens in Apple Podcasts, partially so that you can begin to understand how you can earn more revenue out of Apple premium podcasts and all that kind of stuff. So, again, I think that that was a good thing and I think any movement of Apple podcasts to move away from just you know, existing on toy phones even if they are very good toy phones is, I think, a good thing. So, yeah, I think Apple Podcasts on the web all a good thing.

Sam Sethi: 45:53

James. So, with your hat on having written every day about podcasting, what would you then give 2024 as an overall score? What would you say? Was it a good year or a bad year?

James Cridland: 46:07

I think it was a better year, certainly than 2023 for most people in the industry. I think you know there are frustrations in there, but I think, at the end of the day, it wasn't a bad year. I think it'll be interesting seeing what the change of government in the US means in 2025, whether that has any impact to us, and I think you know the backdrop with all of this is that media is in a pretty bad place right now. Not too many people talk about this, but media my goodness if you look at you know the traditional media companies they are doing incredibly badly and losing you know, losing jobs all the time, and podcasting has seemed to come out of that quite well. So I don't think that 2024 was anywhere near as bad as it could have been, so I think that that was probably a good thing.

Sam Sethi: 47:05

Yeah, I tend to agree. I mean, we talked about 23 being a pretty rough year for most companies. I think the expression is the green shoots of hope. I think 24 was that. I think we are seeing companies now looking at different models. I I just wonder. Everyone wants to be entertained. You know, in the russell crowe world, are you not entertained? Um, it's just where are they going to be entertained? You know, in the Russell Crowe world, are you not entertained? Um, it's just where are they going to get entertained?

Sam Sethi: 47:30

you know, is it on YouTube watching video? Or is it on audio, listening to podcasts? Or because TV seems to be, uh, reducing in the amount that it's being consumed, maybe streaming services are still, you know, um binge watched, and radio with your radio hat and you probably can tell us has seen a lower consumption. So I don't know, I think it's. Where are people going to be entertained in 2025?

James Cridland: 47:58

Well, that we should probably leave to our prediction show, which is next week here in this feed, and that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories were taken from the Pod News daily newsletter. You can subscribe to that at podnewsnet. Longer interviews, of course, in the Pod News Extra podcast as well, and you'll find those wherever you get your podcasts.

Sam Sethi: 48:20

You can support this show by streaming. So actually you can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout fan mail link in our show notes and you can send us a boostergram or become a power supporter by the sensational 16 at weeklypodnewsnet.

James Cridland: 48:34

Our music is from Studio Dragonfly. Our voiceover is Sheila D. We use Clean Feed for our audio, we edit with Hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Speaker 2: 48:46

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Sam Sethi: 48:52

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Speaker 2: 49:00

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