James Cridland 0:00

It's Friday , the 31st of January 2025 .

Announcer 0:04

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

Sam Sethi 0:13

I'm James Cridland , the editor of Pod News , and I'm Sam Sethi , the CEO of True Fans .

Andreaa Coscai 0:18

I think there's just so much that we can learn from one another .

James Cridland 0:23

Andrea Koskaj on Eurowaves and why it's a new useful tool for podcasters everywhere , also in the chapters . Today has tuned in , tuned out of new podcasts . Audio podcasts have 150% higher listen-through rate than video podcasts . Podx has bought someone else , and which podcast has won the political podcast of the year ? This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout , our sponsor .

Buzzsprout is #1

Sam Sethi 1:01

A little bit of a congratulations is due to them .

James Cridland 1:04

What have they done ? Yes , techradar have said , in a review of all of the best podcast hosts , they reckon that Buzzsprout is the best podcast hosting company . Also in that list Podbean , libsyn , captivate and Transistor , but Buzzsprout gets the number one overall , which is always nice for our sponsors . So hurrah , hurrah . How do they measure that , though ? They measure that with lots of different things . So basically they say so . For example , you know , captivate is the best for corporates , it says , and professionals . Libsyn is best for no frills . Let's not go there , but Buzzsprout Is that a euphemism ?

James Cridland 1:49

Sorry , a euphemism for no features . I think one of the downsides that they gave there was complicated interface , I'll say . But Buzzsprout was best overall . And , yeah , they like the excellent customer support , hurrah , they like the easy-to-use interface . They don't like the fact that you get charged per podcast show . Well , it's one way of charging . And they also don't like the idea that there's no private podcasting . Well , that's not what Buzzsprout's all about , but it certainly is what some of the other ones are all about . So , yeah , it's a nice release and everything else . I should say that a few friends of the show have been in touch and said why did you focus on that ? And their list hasn't actually changed in the last four years . Well , that might be because Buzzsprout's still a pretty good service . So , yeah , but yeah , certainly useful at least . Uh , seeing all of that excellent , well done buzzsprout .

Numbers go down, numbers go up

Sam Sethi 2:48

Now there's some new figures out , james , for the industry . Some of it's good , some of it's bad .

James Cridland 2:54

Give me the highlights yeah , some of it is good , some of it is bad . This is um ad revenue um for the industry , the podcast industrial complex , as uh , adam Curry calls it . The IAB do a study of ad buyers and they say that , well , podcast ad spend will still go up this year , but not by much . Total advertising is set to grow by 7.3% . Podcasting will just beat that at 7.4% growth this year and that's likely to be less than it was last year . And they are talking about its market share dropping , and this was a surprise . A company called S&P , global Market Intelligence , has said that the US podcast industry , which you might remember , hit $1.9 billion in 2023 . They have confidently said that it's not going to hit $2 billion in revenue until 2032 , which is quite some time in the future . I think they've got it wrong personally , but it's always interesting to see what these people are saying grew over the last year by about 14% . Then you can expect , therefore , us to hit the 2 billion revenue when it's announced in May , but we'll see what S&P end up saying .

James Cridland 4:15

Interesting little note from ACAST's Greg Glenday , who posted something a little bit grumpy on LinkedIn about the IAB . It's the IAB's 2025 Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Springs , good luck with meeting in there at the moment . And it's $3,400 . If you want to go , by the way , and you're a member of the IAB , well , if you're not a member , how much does it cost you then ? $4,400 ? If you're to go , by the way , and you're a member of the IAB , well , if you're not a member , how much does it cost you then ? $4,400 ? If you're not a member , can you believe ?

Sam Sethi 4:49

Won't be going for either reason .

James Cridland 4:52

No , I mean , I won't be going to either of those , but anyway , so you know . I mean that's a proper shindig , isn't it ? But Greg Glenday from ACcast said that he was disappointed that podcasting barely registers a footnote , even in the shadow of the podcast election , and he added this is one of the fastest growing parts of the creator economy and it's still undervalued and misunderstood . Maybe this means that the podcast industry is waking up to the fact that the IAB is not their friend and that they should be moving away and doing something better not their friend and that they should be moving away and doing something better . If it was up to me , we would all be funding our own podcast advertising bureau and not leaving it to people who are also selling video pre-rolls and also selling ad banners with punching the monkey on it . That would be my own personal view , but anyway , let's not stop that .

Sam Sethi 5:42

Again , listeners , that is not a euphemism .

James Cridland 5:47

Oh , dear family show . Let's not stop that Again . Listeners , that is not a euphemism . Yes , oh , dear Family show .

Sam Sethi 5:50

I'll rate it E this week , don't worry .

James Cridland 5:53

Having said that , though , there have been some interesting bits of data and some good news for the industry More listeners than ever to podcasts in the US . According to the Triton Digital 2024 US podcast report , they reckon that 44% of the US public listen to podcasts every month . Sounds Profitable's numbers are a bit higher I seem to remember 53% , but in any case they've gone up and that's the important thing . Youtube , apparently , according to this , still continues to be the most preferred platform for a third of all podcast listeners . Apple Podcasts still seems to be going down 12.2% for Apple Podcasts . I wonder what they could do to actually change that Release any features .

Sam Sethi 6:42

Release the feature . Apple Release the features .

James Cridland 6:45

I do hear that there is a feature being released . Wow , I'm not reporting on it because I suspect that whoever has told me hasn't understood that there was an NDA .

Sam Sethi 7:06

But it's not a feature that you'll see in the Apple Podcasts app . We'll leave it at that . It's uh , make life easier for us podcasters . So basically , no new features for apple . Look blink once . Apple podcast team . If you're still alive , just let us know so we're .

James Cridland 7:16

we will see . I think that the change that they're going to make um is going to be a good change because I think that that will help move the industry forward a little bit , but it isn't something that a listener will see , but even so , that I thought was interesting . A couple of other bits of data that might be useful . A strong overlap who would have thought ? A strong overlap between newspaper readers and podcast listeners .

James Cridland 7:42

According to a new study from the Media Audit , apparently , if you read the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times thought a strong overlap between newspaper readers and podcast listeners . According to a new study from the Media Audit , apparently if you read the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or USA Today , then you are almost twice as likely to listen to podcasts as the US average , which I thought was interesting to see . Also , in terms of data , there was a really interesting piece of information from Acast . All around commuters , podcast listeners who listen to and from work super valuable anyway because they listen to a lot of podcasts . But also it turns out super valuable because they react to advertising more 22% more focused , 10% more likely to engage with ads , 15 percent more likely to consider podcast time an essential part of their day . So some nice data that has come out of that too .

Sam Sethi 8:33

Looks like CarPlay offline playlists might be critical features for apps .

James Cridland 8:40

Yes , and I think particularly CarPlay . That certainly , or indeed Android Auto is , I think , certainly something that's worthwhile bearing in mind , because there is an awful lot of audio listening in cars , for obvious reasons . And the other thing that I thought was interesting it's not necessarily data , although there is a little bit of data in there , but it's something that I thought this was interesting , that it took the Germans to do it . I thought this was interesting that it took the Germans to do it . The podcasters in the UK haven't bothered , the podcasters in the US haven't bothered , but the podcasters in Germany have put together a lovely presentation from both podcast publishers and marketers about the benefits of audio-only podcasts and basically saying they are much better than video podcasts . Focus on audio-only podcasts , because that is where the future of the medium is .

James Cridland 9:31

Why it had to be the Germans doing this and not anybody else , I really don't know , but nevertheless , it's a great white paper . Now , the first time I linked to it , the white paper was in German , although the press release that I covered was in English . If you saw that and you thought well , I don't speak German , well , that's absolutely fine . Take a peek at Pod News on Thursday and you'll find it was also linked in English as well , so you can now arm yourself with all of the facts and the stats in there . What did you think about that , sam ?

Sam Sethi 10:04

Yeah , look , I think personally it's great to see that , and once you see it in writing , actually you go obvious . Yes , isn't it obvious ? It's like everything in hindsight is obvious once you know it . And I think this is one of those moments where you go clearly . I understand it because that's what it reflects on my own behaviour . I don't watch , you know , videos to the end , it's just not natural . But I might watch them . Why Because I'm in the car , why Because I'm at the gym , or why Because I can't ?

James Cridland 10:35

get to my phone .

Sam Sethi 10:36

No , I think that's great Good work .

James Cridland 10:38

Germans . Why and you know the IAB would never do that . Of course , because the IAB is there promoting video ads as well as audio ads , because they are not our friend . And if we had a podcast advertising bureau , maybe one of the first things that they would be doing is actually turning around and saying no , audio podcasts are amazingly good for you advertisers . No , audio podcasts are amazingly good for you advertisers . But no , all of the Americans and all of the Brits and all of the Australians have just sat on our hands and gone . Whatever you say , mr Spotify , whatever you say , mr YouTube , and it's such a missed opportunity . So I'm so delighted to see that the Germans have ended up doing that .

Sam Sethi 11:33

Grab the English version of that slide deck and use that to help you sell ads is what I would say for , um , how do we do that ? Um , you know it's not going to magically happen , right ? The PSP , unfortunately . Yeah , it's not going to make it happen , and I don't see companies combining . I don't see any of the big ad companies which would be in their interest , like Triton , doing something or well , but , but you know , this presentation from the Germansans shows it .

James Cridland 12:06

I mean , you know that that essentially was uh , acast was in there , along with a company called 71 audio , axel springer , which is a massive publisher in germany , uh , iq , the audio alliance , and various other people , um , who I can't pronounce um . So they've certainly done that and I I think , if you look at the UK , for example , there has been a consortium of podcast publishers who have been making noises about the BBC and saying that the BBC should stop thinking about advertising within their podcasts in the UK . So all of that kind of stuff is going . We can see that podcast publishers will work together on things like that . So I think it's just another case of I mean , these podcast publishers are working together on other things . Why are they just letting the IB run this industry and own the relationship between them and the advertiser ? To me it's just a weird old thing .

Sam Sethi 13:13

The other things that you pointed out there . Okay , I've got a couple of questions . One is why is YouTube still seen as the platform for podcasting ? Is it because , look , it's a term I want to use for 25 . Is it a super app ? Is it a multifunction app ? And that's why people go to it ? They go to it to watch video , listen to podcasts , play music , go to look at a film . Maybe Is that why it's dominating , or is there another reason ?

James Cridland 13:39

The data says YouTube continues to be the most preferred platform for 33% of all podcast listeners . What's that ? What that isn't saying is that YouTube gets the most listeners , or indeed that YouTube gets the most listens either . All it's saying is that people who've used Apple and YouTube and you know , you know whatever prefer to use YouTube . So , and why might that be the case ? Well , because you know , I don't know , maybe it's a decent app , but that doesn't say that the majority of podcasts consumed are on the YouTube platform , and I think that's , you know , something that we kind of forget about and it's probably important just to bear in mind . So that's sort of one side .

James Cridland 14:27

But yeah , I mean , why is YouTube continuing to do really well ? Why is Apple Podcasts slumping ? Is it truly because no new features , although there have been a few new features in the last year , and you know , and Spotify seems to be doing pretty well as well . So , yeah , it's a curious one . Maybe Apple Podcasts , the lack of video in Apple Podcasts ? I know it does it , but the lack of decent video in Apple Podcasts is one of the reasons . I don't know .

Sam Sethi 14:56

Well , I would say that may be one of them . I think you know there's a dozen other reasons I could give you that they don't do . The other one , james , is we talked about the growth of users , which is brilliant , but why , would anyone say because from what you read it would sound to me like advertising is flatlining we think it's not flatlining . We think it's going to burst through the two billion ? Given the roganomics and the political advertising , the money must be coming towards podcasting . So why would S&P say that it's not going to go through the two billion mark for another half a decade ?

James Cridland 15:36

Well , yes , I mean , that's a good question really . They say that things are going to decline in 2025 , primarily since it's not an election year , it's not an Olympic year in the US , and this is just purely US numbers , of course , and so you know that is one thing , but it doesn't really say very much more about the thinking behind that number . Thinking behind that number it's expecting that podcasting will triple in terms of ad share by 2034 . So at the moment , it's about 6% and they reckon it'll be about 16% , and so you know it should do a bit better . But yeah , it's a curious one that I don't fully understand why they seem to be marking podcasting down

TuneIn

James Cridland 16:30

.

Sam Sethi 16:30

Let's move on , then , to your friend Richard Stern , ceo of TuneIn . What's he been ?

James Cridland 16:35

after my friend , my friend who doesn't talk to me , my friend , yes exactly .

Sam Sethi 16:40

Doesn't ring , doesn't call , doesn't send you an email . What's he ?

James Cridland 16:44

up to no , indeed . So , yes , he didn't talk to us . Of course , you might remember I was doing some digging and asking . I just asked him one simple question Can you tell us when we're going to be able to add podcasts to your platform ? And he sent me directly to their customer support people who sent me back the copy and paste which they've been sending back since February , and then blocked me on LinkedIn , which is how I got in touch with him . So I thought well , there you go .

James Cridland 17:14

Anyway , he ended up talking to iHeart's podcast News Daily , which apparently is a thing that iCast do , and they carried a full interview . And they probably carried the full interview for two reasons Firstly , because , of course , it was also carried in iHeart's inside radio and so , therefore , was talking to lots of radio . People Tune in hugely important to radio , and one of the things that Richard Stern basically said is look , and one of the things that Richard Stern basically said is look , 96% of listening on TuneIn is to live audio . There's no revenue in us adding a podcast , he said , and so therefore , we're not really updating our podcast directory for anything other than our partners' podcasts , and he's got no plans to change that Absolutely no plans .

James Cridland 18:01

So it was interesting . Absolutely no plans . So it was interesting . And , to give iHeart their due , they did ask him a few , you know , difficult questions of you . Know how are you ? You know how are you making money and why aren't you supporting podcasts , and blah , blah blah . The only podcasts that are being updated are partners' podcasts , because they get a data feed directly from some of those partners , and one of those partners , surprise , surprise , is iHeart . So that explains that one Don't expect a Christmas card .

Sam Sethi 18:28

That's all I'll say

Interview: Andreea Coscai, Eurowaves

Sam Sethi 18:30

Now . Is anyone else , James , do you think , going to start a podcasting newsletter ?

James Cridland 18:34

Well , I mean , I hope so . I mean , there's somebody in Australia who stole most of my work and has produced something which looks awful , but it's still going , so I'm not quite sure what's going on there , but anyway , ignoring him . Yes , there are a number of interesting people , including Katie Law from Pod the North , which is a newsletter all about Canada , and also there's a new podcast newsletter covering podcasting in Europe , which is a little bit different , isn't it ? You caught up with Andrea Koskaj ? Yeah , she's lovely .

Sam Sethi 19:12

She's worked with Lauren Purcell and Ariel Nissenblatt over at Tinksh . I say has is working with them still , but she's moved back to Europe and she's started a new podcast newsletter called Eurowaves . So I thought I'd start off by asking her why she started it .

Andreaa Coscai 19:28

So Eurowaves is not to sound cliche , but it is the first European podcasting newsletter and my goal for it is to connect different European podcasting industries to see what the connections are , what the missing links are and how we can come together more . Now I'm also very interested in the rest of the world , so not only within Europe , but also connecting Europe and the US and you know the UK specific industry and beyond that , canada and Asia and Africa . There's so much . So this is just the beginning , but that is kind of my vision for it and , yeah , it's been amazing right so far , everyone has been so supportive , as people are in the podcasting industry and , yeah , just trying to see how I can be helpful and contribute to the growth .

Sam Sethi 20:16

Okay , we're at newsletter four . When did you come up with the idea ? When did you suddenly go ? I want to do this , Mm-hmm you come up with the idea ?

Andreaa Coscai 20:26

When did you suddenly go ? I want to do this . So I would say it was about last fall , because I started working with Tink Media , which we'll probably go more into a little bit later , but I was very much involved in the US podcasting space . I was living there for five years and , just for context , I'm originally from Romania and I have been back in Europe for about a year and a half and what I've been doing since I came back is trying to figure out how the Romanian podcasting landscape is , what I can bring to it and what can be done really from everything I'm learning from the US podcasting space and it's pretty limited .

Andreaa Coscai 21:00

So that was disappointing , but at the same time , it's exciting because there are a lot of opportunities and I said , okay , let me not just stop at Romania , I want to go beyond that and I want to see what's going on in Europe and , to my surprise , there are so many amazing projects going on , so many podcast production companies , even , you know , cross-border collaborations , which is one of the things that I'm most excited about cross-border collaborations , which is one of the things that I'm most excited about . So that's kind of how the idea came together . I've spoken with a few people who were very supportive and gave me some ideas . Lauren was supportive from the get-go , lauren Passell , ariel Nissenblad , who I also work with at Earbuds , yeah , and I said , okay , let me give it a go .

Sam Sethi 21:41

Okay , let's cover them . We've mentioned them enough times already . So Lauren at Tink and Ariel , how did you meet them ?

Andreaa Coscai 21:48

So okay to go back a little bit to where I was when I met them .

Andreaa Coscai 21:52

So I was in the States for five years and I was kind of in between gigs .

Andreaa Coscai 21:58

I was freelancing at that point in podcasting and I started out freelancing in production , which I really miss , and then also doing a bit of social media marketing , which , if you know Tink and if you know our opinions about social media marketing , it can be helpful to engage your audience , but it's not necessarily going to be the best for audience growth , which is what I also saw in my project . And I was really looking to find a community of podcast lovers , as I am , I just love listening to podcasts , not only working in the industry , but I love the medium as a whole . So I put out an announcement on listservs telling everyone that you know I can be helpful with anything production , marketing , social media , just all the skill sets I had production , marketing , social media , just all the skill sets I had . And Ariel reached out at the time actually and said they were looking to add someone to the team . We had a call . We immediately had such a great energy and , as you know , they are really amazing people and then it yeah , it moved on from there .

Sam Sethi 22:58

So what was your role when you were there ? Were you helping produce the newsletter ? Were you helping produce ? What were you doing ?

Andreaa Coscai 23:05

So , yeah , I'm still working with Tink Media and basically have been doing a lot of PR and marketing , and I've been loving it . I learned so much about the industry . I learned so much about what really builds an audience from that perspective of a community and engaging with them , and how impactful storytelling can be , which is what draws me to the medium in the first place . So , yeah , that's what I've been doing learning so much from everyone and then also bringing in what I was previously doing to Tink and this kind of multicultural , international angle .

Sam Sethi 23:39

So what's your strategy for growth , then for Eurowaves ?

Andreaa Coscai 23:44

It's honestly , it's the same as podcast growth , I would say , because podcast growth is all about making podcast friends and that's the industry as a whole . So my strategy for Eurowaves is continuing to build those connections , which is like the vision of the newsletter itself . So I feel like it's kind of self-fulfilling , almost . And then , yeah , continuing to also support other newsletters at the same time amplify them , amplify other creators , connect them , and then it happens .

Sam Sethi 24:16

Is there going to be a podcast ?

Andreaa Coscai 24:20

Oh , great question . I had not thought of before , but that's how I want to think , yes , I , I know I've been so wrapped up in , like , okay , writing the issue , sending this email connecting with this person , and like the little tasks that add up to a lot . But , yeah , it was right there . Well , I will think about it for sure now excellent 2025 .

Sam Sethi 24:44

What do you see happening across the industry ? Given your years of experience in the US ? Now you're back in Europe . What does Andrea see going to happen in 2025 ?

Andreaa Coscai 24:55

Well , my hopes are for that international collaboration , because I think there's just so much that we can learn from one another , as I'm meeting with more creators from Europe and trying to compare with what I know from the US . Even the monetization models are very different . For example , europe is very much subscription based , so that's something that could be more implemented in the US . Obviously , the US industry is already at another level , but I think there's always more room for growth and everyone's looking to diversify their income stream . So maybe paying closer attention to that and then , vice versa , probably putting more , so an emphasis on narrative podcasts in Europe as well , and this is a pretty , you know , focused look I'm taking at podcasting right now . It doesn't really talk about the so many other podcasting industries , like in Africa and Asia and so many parts of the world , but this is what I'm hyper focused on right now , so that's why I'm talking about that .

Andreaa Coscai 25:59

But I would love to see more narrative podcasts in Europe as well and a lot more play with multi-language . I'm personally a language nerd , so I'm biased about that . I think podcasts can be a great way to practice your language skills , and AI is definitely helpful in that sense . That's the hot topic in podcasting these years , but I think it needs to be used carefully so that we still pay attention to the cultural differences , the nuances and , you know , any kind of references that would make sense for a German listener would not make any sense for a Romanian listener , so you cannot just translate directly . And , yeah , there are definitely maybe some tools that can be developed in that sense .

Sam Sethi 26:45

Yeah , one of the tools that we be developed in that sense , yeah , one of the tools that we love is WonderCraft . They do a great job . They use the technology from Eleven Labs to allow you to use podcast translation of your voice , but in your tone .

Sam Sethi 26:57

So , james , has done a really good job of speaking Japanese strangely , or suddenly speaking Italian , or whatever . I think WonderCraft's done a really good job and I think AI has done a good job . So you talked about subscription . How does Eurowaves make its money then ? Are you going to go subscription ? Are you going to stay open ?

Andreaa Coscai 27:14

I will definitely stay open for the most part . I think that's part of my personal ethos as well , and it's been a trend in all the work I've done so far . I'm also the founder of Her Time Romania , which is an NGO in Romania focused on leadership for young women and their personal and professional development , and so we did have some paid events and paid opportunities , but the main goal was really making education accessible for everyone , so that's definitely my goal for Eurowaves as well . What I would love , though , is to partner up with some brands , companies , you know , creators who would love to promote their work , and , you know , as I mentioned , eurowaves is all about amplifying what's in the podcast community .

Sam Sethi 28:00

And will we see you in Boston at Podcast Movement , or will we see you in London at the London Podcast Show , or where else ? Might we see you in Boston at Podcast Movement , or will we see you in London at the London Podcast Show or where ?

Andreaa Coscai 28:09

else , might we see you ? Yes , I am planning to come to the podcast show . It is not 100% confirmed yet , as I assume it's for most people , but I would love love to come to Podcast Movement as well , also because that's where Tink Media folks gather up usually and we need to meet more often face-to-face , because our energy , just virtually , is already amazing . I was also thinking of Radio Days Europe , which is another amazing conference . As you know , it's in Athens this year . Yeah , there are a lot of great events I also share in my newsletter for anyone listening who is in Europe or is visiting Europe at whatever point of the year . I do share different events happening in Lithuania , germany , belgium , all over . So if you happen to be taking a trip somewhere and you're a podcaster , you might find an event and , yeah , it'll be included in the newsletter .

Sam Sethi 29:06

Okay , Last question If you could have one interview in the podcasting space , who would you interview ?

Andreaa Coscai 29:13

Well , it'll have to be someone in the US space , because I have to say , that's how I started out loving podcasting . I'm absolutely in love with Caitlin Press' work At the Heart . That was one of the first podcasts I listened to and I can really see how it influenced just my podcast listening habits , because they're always sound design heavy , so it would probably be Caitlin Press . And then , oh , I'm also very excited to be interviewing some Romanian podcasters because I didn't get to touch on it but , even though it's not as developed as I wish it would be , there's so many independent creators doing narrative work and really doing podcasts about social issues and it's amazing and I would love to share that more with the world because I think it needs to be more seen .

Sam Sethi 30:01

Andrea , tell everyone where they can go and get subscribed to Eurowaves .

Andreaa Coscai 30:08

You can find Eurowaves on Substack and I post every couple of weeks . It's a bit of a longer newsletter , so don't worry , you'll be happy . It's every two weeks so you can catch up on it . You can also find it on LinkedIn and you can find me on LinkedIn . I would love to connect and share more thoughts about where the industry is headed and what we can do to grow the industry as a whole . And listenership that's a huge thing . That's on my mind . So , yeah , I'm excited to connect and thank you again so much , sam .

Sam Sethi 30:37

Pleasure . James and I really wanted to reach out and you know help , so anything else we can do , just shout back . We're always there .

Andreaa Coscai 30:45

Thank you . Thank you so much .

Around the world

Announcer 30:47

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

Sam Sethi 30:54

Right Around the world , James . Let's start off with India . What's been happening over there , mate ?

James Cridland 30:58

What has been happening over there . Well , amazon Music held a big who Still going . Actually , amazon Music is really big in India . It is actually , I believe it's either the second or the third biggest . I think it's the second biggest podcast . It is actually , um . So , who knows , maybe maybe next year Amazon , maybe next year , um , but uh , good to end up seeing that uh pod the North ended up giving us uh , seven podcast recommendations for Canadian listeners , um , to help keep them informed and connected .

James Cridland 31:43

Not that anything's going on in Canada right now . You know there's , no , there's nobody breathing down their neck saying we would like to own you , um , you know they've got good , strong leadership . Uh , um , um , uh , breathing down their neck saying we would like to own you . You know they've got good , strong leadership . Our friends at PodX seem to be doing a bunch of interesting things . They have their company , filt , has announced a reorganisation . They've done a little bit of sort of merging with a company that they own in Finland and they've launched across the Nordics , which is good . But they've also bought Arunda Studio , which is their second acquisition in Latin America , their first in Mexico and , yeah , it's a big podcast company there that they have bought . So PodX is still on the go . So many congratulations to them for their growth . What else is going on , sam ?

Sam Sethi 32:45

Talking about moving on . Is anyone moving on ? Because let's talk about people in jobs . Where are they off ? To James .

James Cridland 32:49

Yes , well , so there's a few new jobs . Jonathan Pascoe , who's a jolly nice man , has joined UK production company Listen as executive producer . He's got a video background . He used to work at MTV and Comedy Central Before that , though , working on BBC Radio 2 , on the Chris Evans Bradford Show , I think , and on Heart with Jamie and Harriet , I think all the way back then , perhaps . Anyway , jonathan , now working at Listen , listen very excited about what they call a visualised podcast , but given that it's not available on podcast platforms , I don't call it that . I call it a TV show . But many congratulations , listen .

James Cridland 33:29

What else has gone on ? Stephen TVO Holgren he's a very clever man . I saw him at a podcast movement in Washington DC last year . He was working as a part-time CTO , or as a fractional CTO , as everybody calls part-time these days . Anyway , he's now joined as a full-time chief technology officer for the company . So many congratulations to him . Ryan Morrison , who's worthwhile following on the socials . He used to be a BBC News tech journalist . He's now working at a content editor at Eleven Labs , the voice and AI company . And some sad news out of the US . Gary Krantz , who you may know as someone who was helping run podcast radio in the US . He also worked with me on our acquisition of the podcast Business Journal . He has died . He had a long history of being in the radio business . Obviously , our hearts go out to his family . He was just 65 . In terms of other things , lots of layoffs at SiriusXM . Sam .

Sam Sethi 34:37

Very serious . I see what you did there . Yes , I'll get my coat Right . Why are they doing that , james ? Because it seems that they're doing fairly well . I mean , alex Cooper we call her daddy's moved over there and they seem to be acquiring podcasts . I mean , they paid what was it ? Two hundred twenty five million to get her over . So they've got the money . So what is this ? Is this DEI ?

James Cridland 35:05

They do seem to be going relatively well . Having said that , sirius XM as a whole relatively well . Having said that SiriusXM as a whole , you know , I mean it leans a lot on its broadcast , because it does broadcast satellite radio leans a lot on its in-car stuff . That's where it earns a lot of its money and all of that bit isn't working so well for them . But I think it does point to the size of the company . A hundred people have been laid off at SiriusXM , which is 2% of the workforce , just 2% of the workforce . They've got a lot of people working at that company .

James Cridland 35:50

So yeah , I mean , earwolf has been looking as if it's been dying for a long time . That's their comedy podcast network . Amelia Chappellow , who was executive producer at Earwolf , is one of those who's been laid off , and so I would expect the Earwolf name to continue to slowly go away . But yeah , they did make an interesting change though , didn't they ? Over the week , apparently , they've pulled their video versions of Call Her Daddy from Spotify . So if you want to watch the video of Call Her Daddy , you can watch it on YouTube now and the SiriusXM app , but if you're on Spotify , you only get the audio version now , which is interesting .

Sam Sethi 36:38

Ashley Cooper's got her own network called Unwell Network , and she's also done that with other shows . So Hot Mess and Pretty Lonesome , whatever shows that I clearly have not watched and , yes , she's moved those all over to YouTube . So there , yeah , well , there you go . Didn't like Spotify's exclusive anyway . Didn't like Spotify too much .

James Cridland 36:59

Yeah , I wonder whether or not part of it is that they've been earning quite a lot of money from the audio version and , of course , as soon as you upload a video version onto Spotify , that overwrites the audio , so it actually makes it harder for them to to monetize .

Sam Sethi 37:20

I don't know , but , um , that might be one of one of the reasons perhaps , but um still or the other reason being they have no idea , like the whole of the industry , as to how much you make with video . Yet come on , spotify , release the numbers .

James Cridland 37:28

Well , yes , um , there is uh always that . Well , uh , yes , it's possibly not for Spotify to release , but I'm sure that one of the partners will release some of that data in the next couple of months .

Sam Sethi 37:39

No , no no , I mean not how much have you been consumed , how much you make ? Well , yes , is it all those questions we've had in a couple of weeks , you know ? Is it 0.00001p per video ? 0.00001p per video ? What are you making ?

James Cridland 37:51

Well , and also SiriusXM has signed the Fantasy Footballers . Again , that's a set of individual podcasts . Now , the Fantasy Footballers in 2020 , they were with SiriusXM . In 2021 , they moved to Audioboom . In 2022 , they moved to Spotify and here we are , 2025 , and they're back at SiriusXM . The show once had a live show on Spotify's Green Room , if you can remember that far back . But they're going to have a live show again on one of the SiriusXM live channels . But they're going to have a live show again on one of the SiriusXM live channels . So you know , siriusxm still doing the deals , which is always interesting to end up seeing . Is this where we announce our deal with SiriusXM or do we keep that till next week ? We might keep that until , I mean , for somebody saying , spill the beans of a deal that we've got Sam Sethi . Ah , yes , I'm surprised . Oh , moving on ,

The tech stuff

James Cridland 38:57

moving on .

Announcer 38:57

The Tech Stuff . Tech Stuff On the Pod News Weekly Review .

James Cridland 39:02

Yes , it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter . Here's where Sam talks technology , even more so than he's been doing already .

Sam Sethi 39:11

Sam , what have you got ? No Spotify so far . There we go . Yes , yeah , feedback to everybody who's given us critical feedback . I was going to say criticism , critical feedback , saying yes , now we're saving that for this bit , right at the end , so you can tune out , use chapters , we have them Right . Podcast Vibes is a piece of research from Yuri Vyshensky . I'll go through that very fast so no one knows I got that wrong . He's using AI to extract subjects and emotions from individual shows . Tell me more , james .

James Cridland 39:43

I think this is really cool . So he has basically worked out from my point of view , he has worked out using AI , not just what someone is saying , but the emotion that they have . Is it sarcasm , is it laughter , is it humour , is it nervousness ? So he's worked out all of the emotion alongside the words that have been said . And I think if you were to have a look at brand suitability scores , for example , actually using emotion is a hugely important part of that , because if you can work out oh well , actually , when that person said that they were being sarcastic , for example , then that changes completely , can ?

Sam Sethi 40:27

it work out , sarcasm .

James Cridland 40:30

Well , can it work out sarcasm , but it looked pretty impressive , so yeah , so we linked to that . This week . We also linked to PodOps , which has added a product called AI Blog , which is a new feature to turn audio into written articles , just like you've had with Buzzsprout , our sponsor , for the last year and a half . So congratulations to PodOps for that . Yes , that's one of the things that co-host allows you to do . It will take the transcript of your show and it will write a blog post , if you want that , which you can then copy and paste onto your own blog . So you can check that out , obviously , at buzzsproutcom . String Bean Radio . What's Stringbean Radio ?

Sam Sethi 41:14

Sam , I'm not too sure , but when I looked at the link , it was a website which basically uploads the audio , reads the audio to try and find if you've been a guest on a show , and it caught Lex Friedman on 104 shows and Marco Arment on 88 shows . Gosh , that's what Marco does , right ?

Sam Sethi 41:35

I wonder what he does it's amazing Right I haven't even done 88 shows , I think no , anyway , but it looks very good , except it's very light in data , because I looked for James Gridland and there was not a lot there of James Gridland , which I was quite surprised about . And the UI is pretty cool . What they're trying to do is find where you've been a guest or where you've been not obviously a host . And this is very similar to what Russell Harrow did at Pod 2 , which was to come up with a product he called Pod ID . He's in the process of completing that . Now he's bought a new NVIDIA card .

Sam Sethi 42:10

They're helping with transcripts , so , um , we'll see if that helps . But yeah , again , I think it's quite good for discovery if you can find out where people it's a bit like a human pod role , that's the best I can describe it um , where's james been on which shows as a guest ? Because I like james cridland and I therefore want to find out what else he says on other people's shows . Now , that's not easy to do . So these types of services Stringbean Radio , which I don't know why it's called that , and PodID are examples of looking at the transcripts , finding the names , aggregating that together in some sort of UI , which then I can then follow that individual and then get alerted when the next time you're a guest on another show that I wasn't aware of yes .

James Cridland 42:54

So yeah , I know it's um . Yeah , I mean , you can achieve quite a lot of this with the um , with the podcast people tag , uh , of course . But the podcast people tag has a problem that you don't necessarily know that the James Cridland who was on this particular show is the same James Cridland as the James Cridland that was on that particular show . I mean , in my case it probably will be because of my relatively unusual name . But if you're called Dave Jones , no chance , you know so that's .

Sam Sethi 43:23

But having said that , buzzsprout updated the person tag for us as a hosting company , you can now tag guests in episodes correctly as a guest using the person tag . And again , hello podcast industry . Where's everyone else doing it ? Why aren't we having those things done ? They're super simple to implement . Why can't we do it ?

James Cridland 43:47

Well , yes , indeed , talking about podcast hosting companies , rsscom , which I'm an advisor to they've launched it says here a set of tweaks and updates , including a web player that now has iOS Dynamic Island Support , which is very exciting . I instantly looked at that and I thought Dynamic Island Support , that looks amazing . I should make sure that I'm doing that for the PodNews website as well , but I think I'm already doing it . I think that for the PodNews website as well , but I think I'm already doing it . I think that's the media . Isn't that just the media API ? I'm not sure .

Sam Sethi 44:20

I think it's that little black thing at the top of your fancy iPhone that plays what's going on .

James Cridland 44:26

Yes , and I think as long as you support the media web API , then I think that it supports that automatically free , but I'd like to learn a little bit more about that . So that's good . They also have what they call improved Podroll support . I have no idea how it's been improved , but nevertheless , support for Podroll is a brilliant thing . If there's one thing I would like everybody to be doing by the end of the year , it's Podroll , because it's super simple , super easy and it will grow the industry .

Sam Sethi 44:56

I mean , it's a super obvious thing They'd be giving up on trying to rename it to recommend now .

James Cridland 45:04

I well have I cared about that in the past .

Sam Sethi 45:06

I don't know . I think a few people have They've gone . Oh , I don't like the name Podroll . It doesn't mean anything , I mean .

James Cridland 45:11

I think the name Podroll is awful and it should never exist in UX at all . But yeah , but I'm not so sure about that . Anyway , that's what's going on . Excitement with Descript and with Riverside and all of these things . What's going on with those ?

Sam Sethi 45:30

Well , Descript have announced that they've extended their language dubbing to 20 languages now . So if you've got a video and you want to then put it into a different language and you don't ask your guest to redo anything , you can now put your guest into a Danish or Greek or Hindi or whatever you want and push that out . So it's quite a nice little feature . It's very simple to use within the video element of Descript . So congratulations . If you want to see it working , they have a live session on February the 4th . You can sign up on Descript and they're going to do a demo of that .

Sam Sethi 46:05

Now Riverside , I found I was just hunting around and I hadn't noticed that Riverside had fundamentally morphed into StreamYard , or StreamYard's been swallowed by Riverside . I don't know which way you want to look at it , but they've basically added live broadcasting to Riverside . Now we used to use Riverside and it was great . It does 4K . It's very similar to Squadcast . So you know , pick your , pick your um various platform .

Sam Sethi 46:34

But now you can do things like live broadcasting to facebook or twitch or youtube or linkedin , which is what I meant by uh streamyard . It's taken all that functionality one click straight into any of those platforms and , of course , they use uh rtmp real-time media player protocol , sorry , and that means that you might be able to take a URL and put it into the live item tags . I'm going to try and test that and see if that works .

PodCamp 2.0

Sam Sethi 47:01

Good news I reached out to Kendall , who is their community manager at Riverside , and she'll be on the show next week to talk all about what they've actually done . So you don't have to listen to me surmise . And also good news they're going to be a sponsor for PodCamp 2.0 , the event I'm running in London , and we will be using Riverside to broadcast live to all those platforms as well as podcasting 2.0 apps .

James Cridland 47:28

So that's what we're planning to do Very cool , very cool . So tell us about PodCamp 2.0 . Last week , I seem to remember that you dangled a big announcement that you weren't quite able to make in front of us last week . Is that still ?

Sam Sethi 47:46

the case . Yeah , God , I can send you the email which was from the people concerned . We'll let you know on Monday . Where were we now ? Yeah , Monday's gone . Hello , Can't announce things , Can't announce it . But yes , hopefully I pray that one or both of them can make it .

James Cridland 48:04

It would be wonderful if they can , some exciting things planned there . So podcamplive , is that where you ?

Sam Sethi 48:14

go yeah , podcamplive . And it's on the 2.0 day , 20th of May , Very good .

James Cridland 48:20

Looking forward to seeing you there . I have sorted out flights and everything over the last week , so that's good too . Yes

Here's where the Spotify news is

James Cridland 48:29

, now we haven't talked enough about Spotify yet . I don't think I can see that there's going to be some people complaining why hasn't Sam talked about Spotify yet ? I'm imagining that one of Spotify's 47 different PR companies will be going . Oh , you know what's going on here . Is there any information at all that you can share with us in terms of Spotify ? No , what ? What's going on here , um is , is there any , any information at all that you can share with us in terms of spotify ?

Sam Sethi 48:56

let's move on um , no , they look , uh , spotify for for everything that we , as we say , are proprietary , they actually execute hello , apple , hello . Um , we would talk about apple and amazon if they actually did something , but they don't . Now , uh , spotify've added gamification and badges , so they've introduced the creator milestone award , which is a way of saying people who do what 500 million all-time streams , or maybe , uh , 250 million or 100 million , which is their bronze bronze level . So who's qualifying for these all-time awards then ? James ?

James Cridland 49:36

I mean , it's the YouTube thing , isn't it ? You get sent a nice plaque from YouTube if you hit a certain number . And now guess what ? You get sent a nice plaque from Spotify because Spotify want to be the next YouTube . So you know why not , not ? But in terms of that , yeah . So in terms of gold , obviously , joe Rogan , crime junkie , armchair expert last podcast on the left , but interestingly , two German podcasts have also been awarded the gold thing .

James Cridland 50:08

That's 500 million plus lifetime streams , and I looked at one of those , gemichteshack , which has 285 episodes , which therefore means that if you do the math , then either they've taken an awful lot of episodes out , which might be true , or each one of those episodes has been played an average of 1.7 million times just on Spotify . Played an average of 1.7 million times just on Spotify . And those are all in German . There are only 120 million native German speakers in the world . That is an incredible podcast . Now , they were exclusive on Spotify for quite some time and may even still be exclusive . I don't think they are anymore , but I know thatify does still have exclusives in other countries , not just in the us , um , but uh , yeah , that's a big old show 1.7 million plays , um yeah , no , that is a lot .

Sam Sethi 51:03

I mean we're close , but that is a lot , we're close .

James Cridland 51:06

Uh , dear listener , you Close . Dear listener , you can go and have a look at our numbers if you wish , on the OP3 platform , yes , and it's interesting as well that on the bronze one , which has 83 people who've won awards so far , that's for 100 million lifetime streams . Lifetime streams except if you're in an emerging market , whatever one of those is when you get bronze after just 50 million lifetime streams , which I think is actually rather a good idea . I've no idea what classifies as an emerging market , but I think that they're doing a good job here .

Sam Sethi 51:43

Yeah , what's interesting they also put out , though , when you compare it to some of the biggest music artists , like Taylor Swift , which is at 26.6 billion streams .

James Cridland 51:53

Yeah .

Sam Sethi 51:54

Yeah , we have a long way to go still .

James Cridland 51:56

Oh , yes , no , absolutely , absolutely . So , yes , that's all going on . What else is Spotify doing then ?

Sam Sethi 52:06

Yeah , this is a weird one Some new UI spots that we've found Download to other devices . I don't know what other devices would be , but they've added a new download to this device . Download to other devices . So can I now share my spotify podcast , audio books and music tracks to you , james , or is it just within my family family network ?

James Cridland 52:29

I think this is um . If I wanted to looking at the um , at the UX , um , I would guess that I really like the idea of this podcast . I'm here surfing on my iPad in the house , Um , but I actually want my car to download that , please , so that when I next jump in the car , um , it's already downloaded . I bet no one uses it at all .

Sam Sethi 52:54

Well , like jam , they're jam sessions , yeah .

James Cridland 52:57

Well , yeah , I mean . So I have used this sort of thing on YouTube , because on YouTube , what you can do is you can ask for a playlist to be downloaded automatically if you pay for YouTube , and so I've asked it to automatically download my playlist . What's the playlist ? Called ? Watchlist or you know , yeah , whatever it's called , the one that basically the standard playlist that you have for something that you want to watch at some point , but you don't want to watch it quite yet .

James Cridland 53:32

So I now , when I'm using YouTube , there are often shows that are about 40 minutes long that I really want to watch , but I don't have the time to watch them right now . So I will add them to my watch list and I know that my iPad at the moment and it'll be my phone very shortly will automatically download those , so that I know that when I then jump on an aeroplane , I've got a bunch of shows to watch and I don't have to sit there , you know , the day before I fly and work out what it is that I'm going to actually download . So that's quite useful , I think . So , yeah , I can see that being useful , but it's a very niche thing . I mean , certainly I wouldn't have coded it that way . I'd have just coded it . As you know , if you want to download a particular show to a device , we'll just have a playlist that automatically downloads . That would be the way of doing it , but yeah .

Sam Sethi 54:26

The other thing they've done . They've created a new explore feature . I call it Tinder for music is the best way I can describe it Obviously very niche , but what you can do is listen to samples of music literally not even 30 seconds and then you can share it . So what's nice about it ? It is like Tinder . You swipe up and down to get to the next track , and it's a good way of discovery really . You a quick feel . You can do it by hashtags , you can do it by , uh , music artists , um , so I think it's quite a nice little way . Again , what they're trying to do is find a new way to help people discover new music . Um , and this is one interesting ui . I don't know if it'll survive , whether it's experimental , but you can go and play with it . It's live now and you just scroll up , scroll down . Yeah , very Tinder for music .

James Cridland 55:20

Cool , cool . And they've done something in terms of episode notifications as well , where they've made those look a little bit prettier at least on iOS they have . So one of the things I didn't realise is that from the notifications you can actually ask for that particular episode to be downloaded or played or whatever , which

Boostagram Corner

James Cridland 55:41

is quite nice .

Announcer 55:41

Boostergrams , boostergrams , boostergrams and fan mail . Fan mail On the Pod News Weekly Review .

James Cridland 55:48

Yes , it's our favourite time of the week . It's Boostergram Corner , or Super Comments Corner if you're on True Fans . Yes , and backed by other people .

Sam Sethi 55:56

People are agreeing with me , so yes , Anyway there we are .

James Cridland 56:02

So yes , if you have a boost button or a super comment button in your podcast app , then hit that and send us a message and some sats as well . That would be a kind thing . Kyren , Kyren lives . He sent us a row of ducks . Double two , double two sats . He says Podcam 2 sounds awesome . I'll actually be in Europe around that time .

Andreaa Coscai 56:23

So I'll come over and say hi .

Sam Sethi 56:25

Amazing .

James Cridland 56:26

There you go . Well , that'll be fantastic . I look forward to welcoming you to my birth city , karin . That would be a good thing . What are you going to do with him ? I'll give him some flat , boring beer . The last time I showed an Australian , a proper Australian , I took him to a pub and he says so , what should I have ? I was thinking about a lager . And I said , no , I'll get you a London Pride . And so I went to buy him a London Pride and he came to me a couple of minutes later and he said James , I don't think this London Pride's . I think there's something wrong with it . It's kind of it's much warmer than I was expecting and it's really flat .

James Cridland 57:12

No , that's that's that's what makes it great . Yes , um , thank you to seth s3th . Uh , 100 sats for the pod news daily , which is very nice . Great show , says seth . You'll never hear this , but anyway it's nice to see that on True Fans as well .

Andreaa Coscai 57:32

Look there you go , we're alive someone uses it , we're alive we're alive .

James Cridland 57:39

Silas on Linux 1000 sats . Another grumpy message from Silas on Linux . Good that you two are keeping the money to yourself . What's the fun in hiring people if you can't underpay and take all the money yourself ?

Sam Sethi 57:51

yes , what's the fun in hiring people ?

James Cridland 57:52

if you can't underpay and take all the money yourself . Yes , exactly , yes , um . And uh , neil velio from podnos , uh 500 sats , uh 10 out of 10 on the new production porn . At the start of the episode straight in with the what ? What's that with them ? What's in it for me ?

James Cridland 58:06

oh , what's in it for me straight in what with the what's in it for me at the beginning to with slick , engaging structure . It's almost like you know what you're doing . It's uh , I'm not sure I know what I'm reading . As for spotify's latest attempt to own podcasts , it's like they learned nothing from anchor what becoming the biggest podcast hosting company in the world . What is there not to learn from that ?

Sam Sethi 58:32

What did Spotify ever do for us ?

James Cridland 58:34

as the writer said , yes , I've got no idea what that's all about . Leo Velio , thank you so much for that . He is , of course , one of our stupendous 16 power supporters . You can become his power supporter if you like , weeklypodnewsnet . Go there armed with your credit card and give us a small amount of money or a large amount of money , if you like every single month . That would be a lovely thing . Neil is doing that through . Pod knows his company also . David John Clark , james Burt , john McDermott , claire Waiteite-Brown , Ms Eileen Smith , rocky Thomas , jim James , david Marzell , si Jobling , Rachel Corbett , dave Jackson , mike Hamilton , matt Medeiros , marshall Brown and Cameron Moll . Those are all the stupendous 16 . We're wondering who the sweet 17 is going to be . If you would like to be that person , weeklypodnewsnet , that would be super excellent .

Sam and James's week

James Cridland 59:33

So what's happened for ?

Sam Sethi 59:34

you this week , Sam ? Well , you know nothing . Quiet week , another quiet week on the trail . No , we added transcribefm to TruFans . So Nathan Gathwright's company . But what's unique about it ? Well , first of all , let's explain . You can now now , as a creator , if your host doesn't actually give you a transcription , you don't have to move to another platform . You can stay where you are and then just press a buy transcript button and go and buy your transcript . And what's unique about it is we're using the technology we've termed secure RSS , but it's the protocol L402 or F402 . And the idea is that the confirmation of the payment is first sent , then approved . Nathan will then do the transcription and send that back after . So it's just a way of making a secure payment across any API using L402 . But Nathan's implemented it for Transcribefm and we've added it to TrueFans .

James Cridland 1:00:36

Yeah , Very good . Yes , it's always good to see more different ways of paying and supporting people , so that's nice to end up seeing You've also added currency support for New Zealand dollars , for Japanese yen and for Canadian dollars which is a nice thing . What's your creator portal ?

Sam Sethi 1:00:57

customisation . Well , this goes back to the thing that Adam mentioned , the Rachel Maddow problem , as we call it now . How can we turn podcast pages in TrueFans from what they look like as very similar to everyone else's page into a more customizable way ? So little things that we're starting to add so we can now hide comments , which is one of the features I think is already on YouTube or other platforms , so it's not unique to us , but the idea is very simple . You might want to hide comments for the whole of your podcast , or you might want to hide comments for an episode . Simple thing to do .

Sam Sethi 1:01:35

But the critical is we're now adding the first customization so you can now reorder the tabs within your podcast page . So the default currently is your episode page . So I land on Pod News Daily and , of course , I want to see all your latest episodes . But , for example , we do events , we do blogs , we do merch , so you might have an event coming up and so you want your event page to be the landing page , or you might have I don't know something to do with a new t-shirt that you're launching . So you can reorder those tabs to be what is the tab you want , or you can hide tabs . So that's a feature that we've added . So yeah , first part of our customisation to create a portal .

James Cridland 1:02:13

Very good . Are you working on anything exciting in terms of TV ?

Sam Sethi 1:02:17

Yes , Basically , I was just playing around with the Fire TV stick that we have and I worked out it has an Amazon Silk browser . I've known that for ages and no one in the world uses it , but anyway it's on the Fire TV stick and I thought , oh well , go on , we're a universal web app , so let's go and try it . So I put in the URL for truefansfm and boom , it worked and it's sized correctly . And I was like , oh , this is pretty cool . And then I went well , how do you create an app ? Because it's got an app store on the Fire TV stick and it's pretty simple . Actually , it's using HTML and JavaScript . You put a Chromium wrapper around it and then you submit it to Amazon and then it will appear on your Amazon Fire TV stick .

Sam Sethi 1:02:59

So that's what we're doing . We'll be pushing that live this week and you'll be able to then go to the amazon fire tv whenever they make it available . So don't try it this week if you're going . Where is it ? Um , it's not our fault , we'll submit it . We just don't know how long it takes for it to populate .

James Cridland 1:03:16

but yes , but it works and it's good . Well , that's interesting , isn't it ? Because , uh , yeah , because you , you can imagine . I mean , if it works for fire tv , it should work on google tv as well , which is rather a lot larger . So , yeah , that would be interesting to see how much traffic you get from TV users , and I'm imagining that you know there will be TV users who might be interested in seeing the video versions .

Sam Sethi 1:03:43

Yes , exactly , yeah , very good . The video versions yes , exactly , yeah , very good . And then the last bit , just on a personal note I'm doing my next leg of the River Thames walk , that I'm doing so Richmond to Chertsey . Anyone I should say hello to James , that you might know along the way .

James Cridland 1:03:56

Oh gosh , not off the top of my head , no , but yes gosh . Well , that'll be nice . Yes , you'll be walking past Eel Island if you're going down that way .

Sam Sethi 1:04:11

Is that ?

James Cridland 1:04:11

where I can get eels , or is that just why is it called Eel Island ? I think it's called Eel Island because you know London in the 1400s , but it will be . But there's a number of different companies on that island and you have to . If you run a company on that island , um , and you have to , um , if you run a company on that Island , uh , then , uh , you get a , uh , you get a key to actually get onto the Island and , uh and do stuff . Yeah , it's this , this tiny little little Island in the middle of the Thames , but , um , yeah , and one of the companies who is there , uh , is now owned by Dolby Um , it's a large company that makes data stuff for in-car entertainment . So , yeah , there's a thing .

James Cridland 1:04:54

There's a thing .

Sam Sethi 1:04:55

So , James , come on . What's been happening for you ? Have you bought your swastika ?

James Cridland 1:04:59

I have not got any of these . That's going to get us demonetised , if nothing else is . I have not got a Tesla . No , I did buy a Chinese electric car , which I got delivered today . Well , I went in and got it and , yes , so that was exciting . It came with a little bow on it . Yes , from the dealership Red Red . It's a white car because Australia and it's very hot .

Sam Sethi 1:05:34

But the bow was red . No , I meant , was the bow red ? Yes , the bow was red . Yes , you see , china , it's always got to be red . Here we go , here we go .

James Cridland 1:05:42

Anyway , a few interesting things about that . The operating system in it is Android . It is , if you can imagine , the worst operating system , the most badly coded thing you've ever seen , then it's that it's really not particularly great . But you know , I've sort of played around with it and done a few things with it . It's kind of OK . Around with it and done a few things with it , it's kind of okay .

James Cridland 1:06:10

One of the things that I enjoyed was it's got its own navigation system . Can't quite work out what it's using because it doesn't quite look like Google Maps , but I'm not quite sure what it is . But anyway , clearly its GPS can't deal with anything because it put me in the middle of a field as I was driving to pick my daughter up from school today , so not quite sure what's going on there . But it also comes with Amazon Music , so you can sign into Amazon Music on the device and it will then give you access through the SIM card that it's got , which I'm not paying for . It will give you access to the entire Amazon Music catalogue , which is quite interesting . So yeah , so I thought that was a bit weird . Does it have Google Maps in your car ? I do have Google Maps and Apple Maps in my car through my phone .

Sam Sethi 1:06:59

Yes , Right , can you do me a favour ? When you're in it , can you check if the gulf of america's in there now .

James Cridland 1:07:06

Now , uh , I google have changed it , capitulating they have , but only in the us .

James Cridland 1:07:14

um , so they've put , they've put the us into a list of countries . Um , uh , they I think they call it their unstable country list , which is a bit of a mistake , but it's their it's . But it's their finickety countries that insist on calling different things different names . Hello , derry , london Derry . So , yes , so that's what they've done . So if you are American and you are logged into Google Maps , then at some point in the next few weeks you will see it being called the Gulf of America , but if you are from Mexico , it will still be the Gulf of Mexico . So , yes , which I have to say , I think is probably the right choice . Similarly , you know , if you are in India , there are bits of some countries near you that you think are in India , but they think are not , and so it just depends on what you know , what account you're logged in to , depends on what the map actually says , and I think that's probably the right thing .

Sam Sethi 1:08:23

Washington's been renamed as well , hasn't it Go on Trumpton , washington's been renamed as well .

James Cridland 1:08:26

Hasn't it go on trumpton ? There's a joke for people who remember uh uk television of the 19th barnaby grew but cuff , boot , dibble and grub .

Sam Sethi 1:08:38

Yes , right , anyway , that'll be cut .

James Cridland 1:08:41

That'll never make the edit anyway moving on to , uh , slightly more interesting things I set up . So I've got an apps server , which is a very cheap little box that I hire from Amazon , which has , you know , a SQL viewer on it and various other things that I use , and I thought to myself , brilliant , what I can do is because I got to rebuild that box , as it was running an old version of Amazon Linux . So I thought , right , well , what I'll do is I'll build this so that it's an IPv6 only box , because I need to access it and I've got IPv6 . So therefore , I don't need to rent for a dollar a month , an IPv4 address for it . I can just deal with IPv6 . So IPv6 is up and running and that worked absolutely fine . But it turns out that in order for it to connect to my database server , which is also in Amazon , it needs an IPv4 address anyway . So , brilliant , well done . Another Amazon web services triumph . But I quite liked the idea of just using IPv6 for that . So , who knows , might come back to that later .

James Cridland 1:09:55

It's only 30 years that they said IPv4 would be gone , had some really interesting conversation with a man called Bill Shillett . Now no one will know who Bill is , but he was one of the co-founders of Google Listen and , again , no one will know what Google Listen was . It was Google's first ever podcast app and it came out in , I think , 2011 or so . No , it didn't , it came out in 2009 . It was one of the first things that you could get basically on an Android phone and really fascinating Talking to him he shared a few of the internal documents about how that app came up and really interesting talking with him about how it all works and how the system .

James Cridland 1:10:48

Yeah , you know what the idea of the system was . Here's an interesting thing Google Listen started as kind of a podcast app . It then morphed onto on the Google TV platform into well , frankly , we would call it today , we would call it YouTube and the idea of being able to watch TV shows through your box , because I think at the time , google didn't own YouTube and so this was one way of , you know , helping them go into that . So I thought that was fascinating and Bill has just shared with me . Of course , google Notebook LM is now doing what Google Listen was initially supposed to be doing , which was to produce , you know , automated digests of news for you to , and I'm writing up a sort of a history as part of the history of podcasting thing , a history of Google Listen , which was an app that really , you know , never really got anywhere , but was tremendous In fact . He even shared with me the numbers that they were getting in terms of downloads and things , because the numbers that they were actually getting in terms of usage was really high for , you know , for the android platform in in 2011 , which hardly anybody was using , but they had half a million people using that every day , you know it was incredible , so um yeah very

James Cridland 1:12:20

nice , so I'm looking forward to writing that up . So that will be coming up at some uh , some point in the next week or so , uh , into the pod news newsletter , and this time next week I will be coming up at some uh , some point in the next uh week or so , uh , into the pod news newsletter , and this time next week I will be speaking to you from switzerland . Um , which will be a thrill , um , so , uh , yes , it'll be also very much colder than it is here , uh , but there we are . Reveal the beans , spill the beans . What you're doing there . Oh , oh , it's a conference Climbing the Matterhorn , it's a conference for French language broadcasters there . So I am doing the opening keynote , all about the future of radio .

James Cridland 1:12:55

Run , run away is not what I'll be saying .

Sam Sethi 1:12:58

Can you just end it ? The future of radio is podcasting . See what happens . Go on do it .

James Cridland 1:13:07

Interestingly , I said you know , and obviously I'll be talking about podcasts , and the person that's running the conference has said I wouldn't mention podcasts too much if I were you . Nobody listens to them and they're impossible to earn any money out of . So I thought , well , that's interesting .

James Cridland 1:13:20

Oh , wow so anyway , yes , so I'm looking forward to going there . Neuchatel is the place in Switzerland where I'm going and , yes , and I think I've got I think I've got most of a free day there , so I'm looking for if we've got any listeners in . No , no , okay , so there we are , so that should be fun .

Sam Sethi 1:13:39

I'll look up on my analytics on Buzzsprout , we'll see . Yes , the other thing I was going to say , talking of Google , have you seen they're still recommending Google Podcasts in Google search results Are they really ? Yeah , I'll send you the screenshot . It was posted on Mastodon yesterday . Somebody was asking about the best way to listen to podcasts on Android , and it comes up with Google Podcasts oh you are absolutely right .

James Cridland 1:14:02

Yes , because , of course , Gemini , of course , is stuck in a world where Google Podcasts still exists In 2024 , it would still work oh my . So they're still recommending it .

James Cridland 1:14:15

Yeah , the good thing about Kargi which is , or Kargi , I believe it's now pronounced which is the web browser , the search engine that I use , is we are now able to share searches with other people , which is really great , because if you want to show somebody how much better it is because it doesn't use any of this stupid AI stuff , now I can share those links with people , which is rather a fine thing . So , yeah , maybe I should do a little bit more of that . Anyway , anywho , that's it for this week . All of our stories , of course , taken from the pod news daily newsletter , which you can subscribe to podnewsnet . You can also give us a review in your podcast app and , by all means , go hard on the five stars you can support this show by streaming satch .

Sam Sethi 1:15:03

You can give us feedback using the buzzsprout fan mail link in our show notes and you can send us a bootstrap super comment or become a power supporter , like the sensational 16 at weeklypodnewsnet .

James Cridland 1:15:16

Our music is from Studio Dragonfly . Our voiceover is Arizona's Sheila D . We use clean feed for our audio , Hinterberg to edit it , and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout . Start podcasting , keep podcasting .