Announcer 0:00

The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters . Chapters even work on Spotify or YouTube , if you really have to the last word in podcasting news . This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi .

James Cridland 0:15

I'm James .

Sam Sethi 0:15

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

Molly Bloom 0:20

When families are interacting and listening . Kids are often the ones starting these conversations .

James Cridland 0:25

Molly Bloom from Brains On on what gets kids talking about your podcast Plus Apple and podcasting at WWDC News from Spotify that we think you'll like , and YouTube . Is it really dominating podcasting ? This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout , with the tools , support and community to ensure you keep podcasting . This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout , with the tools , support and community to ensure you keep podcasting .

Announcer 0:53

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

Sam Sethi 0:57

Now , james , I was away last week , so first of all , you are welcome back . Thank you very much and congratulations to John for doing a wonderful job standing in for me . Not too well , thank god . Um , I do like doing this job , so , um , hands off . Um , no , he was very good , he was indeed .

Apple at WWDC

Sam Sethi 1:16

Now , at the beginning of the week , apple made a few announcements uh , new ui glass . Ui , that seemed to be the big announcement .

James Cridland 1:23

Windows Vista is back , everybody . Yeah , oh my God , yes , yes , yes , we're all good , we're all good .

Sam Sethi 1:32

But you also picked out three or four things from the announcement that related to podcasting . What were they ?

James Cridland 1:38

Yeah , there were a number of different things that Apple announced which were about podcasting . They didn't sort of properly announce them in the video , but if you looked carefully enough then you would have seen the clues . So Apple Podcasts , first of all , has got two new features . One of them is Enhance Dialogue , which is just like the independent apps have had for some time . I believe what it will do in Apple Podcasts is it actually brings the voices away from any background music or other noises and things like that . So I believe that they're talking about it being AI enhanced , I think , which is usually the way of these things .

James Cridland 2:21

But anyway , enhanced dialogue is one new thing in Apple Podcasts . The other thing is more playback speeds , which is yeah , yeah , yeah , whatever . But the interesting thing about that is that the app will also let you save your preferred speed per show , which Apple Podcasts has never done before . So that's good , because it means that you can speed up certain shows , not mentioning any by name the new media show and you can leave other shows not speeded up . So that's a very good thing , and so that's basically the Apple Podcasts changes . A couple of other little changes include Apple's AirPods will be upgraded to sound halfway decent , so that's good in terms of their microphone . So that's good for intervie their microphone , so that's good for interviewees who insist on using AirPods .

Sam Sethi 3:07

Can they still use them because the Bluetooth actually disturbs the recording ?

James Cridland 3:13

Yeah , Now I believe that the technology there is actually going to make it work better in terms of the microphone in there . So I don't think it's just a Bluetooth thing . I think it's more to do with how the microphones have always worked in those things . So I mean , the proof is in the pudding . I don't believe that any . I don't believe that that has been rolled out yet , but it'll be fun to play with . Obviously there's a couple of other little things . If you're listening to a podcast using airpods when you're in bed , then the audio will pause when you , when you fall asleep , and then you'll wake up as one of your airpods goes clunk onto the floor .

Sam Sethi 3:53

Um and I'm just trying to work out what they've added . Sorry , um , because they must have added something that does sleep detection yes , uh , you would have thought , wouldn't you ?

James Cridland 4:04

um ? One of the websites that I read said oh , it's got something to do with um . It's got something to do with , um , uh , your apple watch , but it's not um . So it must be something to do with sleep detection something . Maybe it's just the movement monitor in there , um , that it actually spots how , hopefully not Sat still on a train .

Sam Sethi 4:27

Suddenly your AirPods keep going on and off . No , thank you Having to shake your head to make them work .

James Cridland 4:32

I don't think sat still on a train . I don't think that that's the point of a train . I think the trains are always moving , aren't they ? So I think you should be okay . But , yes , I would probably agree with you that this is a technology which may go wrong , so worth having a play with that . There's also a new audio input control in iPadOS , in the new version of that , which is very swanky and confusing . So all of that stuff you know , very sort of hidden away in everything else , you will , of course , be using the new Mac OS , I'm imagining no .

Sam Sethi 5:09

I'm imagining you've already downloaded that , have you ? No , no , no , not at all . No , I genuinely thought about it and I went should I do this ? And then I went we'll clean feed work with it . And I thought , oh my God , no , I can't do this . The it . And I thought , oh my god , no , I can't do this , the stress would kill me this week . Yes , so I went , no , we're not upgrading , we'll wait .

James Cridland 5:30

Yes , for once in my life , I was being patient well , I have upgraded my phone and my um , uh , and my iPad , um , and noticed no difference , yes , and noticed oh , there's lots of glass everywhere . Um , that's about it . Um and um , actually there's a ton of differences on the iPad , and I've also looked at thinking about uploading , you know , upgrading the Mac , but then I did exactly what you did and went no , I think I'll just wait . I think clean feed itself will be fine . Feed itself will be fine .

James Cridland 6:06

It looks as if most apps are fine . It looks as if there are a couple of sort of VPN apps which aren't particularly happy , but apart from that , it looks as if , pretty well , everything is good because , essentially , apple haven't really launched an awful lot . The one thing that I'm sort of quite excited by is that the new Apple AI inside your Mac is now tied up with the shortcuts app , so it should mean that you can do some sort of , you know , a fun shortcut of you know , summarisation or image generation or something . So that would be quite fun to play with . But that's about as far as I've got .

Sam Sethi 6:44

Yeah , I wasn't getting excited by the announcement , I guess , look , they're not going to do everything . They've announced a few changes . We'll wait for the hardware changes . I don't think iOS , iPhone 17 , unless they rename that as well is going to be dramatically different either .

James Cridland 7:02

No , I think we're at a point with technology now where everything is sort of relatively mature in terms of all of the tech and it's just , yeah , working out what new little features you might want . I mean , obviously , the big thing with the last iPhone was the new cameras and the new camera button , and so you know what are they going to do next time , who knows ? But yeah , it's always Foldable phones that would be clever .

James Cridland 7:29

Apple oh , foldable phones . Oh , you want one of those , do you ? Oh well , well , there you go , I do yeah .

Sam Sethi 7:36

Get rid of the iPad . Have an iPhone that folds out to an iPad Job done , there you go .

James Cridland 7:41

Who knows ? Anyway , who knows ? If they're listening to you , mr Sethi , then Never .

Sam Sethi 7:47

They don't even invite me to their parties , like they'd listen to me . God , no , the chances are Right . Moving on , maybe another company who might invite me to a party or listen , no , I doubt that

YouTube - not dominating

Sam Sethi 7:59

as well . Youtube no chance of that . What was interesting is we are about to start , james , a YouTube channel , aren't we together where we're going to do video ? Oh , no , we're not . No , we're not , no , no , because we are no we're not .

Sam Sethi 8:13

No , james sat there frozen to the screen going . What is he talking about ? No , because everyone seems to have to do a YouTube channel with a video at the moment , but a lovely gentleman from Signal Hill says that's not needed . What did he say ?

James Cridland 8:29

Yes , paul Rismandel has been looking at the data . This isn't an opinion . He says this is actual , evidence-based stuff . No , youtube is not dominating podcasting , and he says that the majority of podcast consumers are still using an audio-first platform most often . He says it's time to tone down the discourse . Well , I mean , it's a discourse that I've been trying to tone down for quite some time because quite a lot of the data that I see that is actual data that comes out of downloads and things shows that YouTube is most certainly not number one . But it's always nice seeing more people saying that and in fact , you know audio is still a massively important thing . So you know , important to keep it in context .

Sam Sethi 9:21

Yeah Well , it shows that YouTube PR has been very effective at making their position as the number one podcasting app , with certain key metrics like 1 billion plays , which we still don't understand . But look , I think there are at the top end of the podcast tree people who are using YouTube effectively . I mean , one of the most annoying things right now is watching how the newsagent or the rest is politics . They are literally YouTube first . Now I don't even think they think they're podcasts .

James Cridland 9:58

Yeah , yeah , no , it is fascinating . I mean I was reading something on LinkedIn Harry Morton from Lower Street doing an awful lot of exciting posts all about what he's doing in terms of YouTube , and I was just looking at one of his recent ones and he was saying , oh , we've done all of this hard work to make our shows work better on YouTube . And I'm there thinking , well , I mean , it's brilliant that you know you've got an audio company which is learning how to make YouTube videos , but what does that mean about where podcasting is going ? I'm not sure , necessarily , that anybody's going to agree with me there , that anybody's going to agree with me there . But yeah , I'm just sort of you know , just a little bit worried about the headlong push to video , particularly since , as Signal Hill Insights says , here they're not number one .

James Cridland 10:58

There's one piece of research which they very much push at YouTube and that's Edison Research's numbers , which have asked what is the app that you use most often to listen to podcasts , and YouTube appears number one in there . Well , that's not the same as consumption . That's a people bit of data , not consumption . So , again , we just need to be a little bit careful , I think , in all of that . Having said that YouTube just releasing some more figures . One figure for the US economy . Apparently , youtube contributed $55 billion to the US GDP in 2024 , which is the equivalent of 49,000 full-time jobs , according to the company . Anybody would think that that's a company that is rather desperate not to get split up from what I can see but what we can also see is that an article in the New York Times I don't know if you saw this , sam saying that YouTube has relaxed its moderation rules .

Sam Sethi 12:02

Look , this seems to be in line with the current US government strategy of saying certain things DEI going away . Certain things are more capable for people to say online that they wouldn't have been able to say maybe a year or two years ago . I don't know . Maybe that's where it's going .

James Cridland 12:21

Yeah Well , maybe who knows ? But yes , I don't know , maybe that's where it's going . Yeah Well , maybe who knows ? But yes , change at YouTube .

Sam Sethi 12:32

But certainly interesting seeing now a fair amount of people coming out and beginning to talk about the Emperor's new clothes when it comes to YouTube , I think what's interesting , though , I heard a podcast the other day and they were saying somebody said , go and see my video , and the immediate result was not spotify , and I think spotify has got a big challenge . So the immediate response of that person was oh , I went to the youtube to find their podcast , their video podcast , and I think , yes , spotify is going to struggle , I think , with video podcasting if they can't get people's default Pavlovian behaviour to be oh , I'll go to Spotify and look at that video . And I don't think people do . And I think the other one is the godfather , no , sorry , and the other one is the podfather . Has spoken , by the way , last Friday . You are now he Friday . He's mandated that only audio is a podcast . Video is not a podcast . Oh well , there you go . So it's mandated . That's it . End of discussion .

James Cridland 13:35

The podfather has spoken .

Sam Sethi 13:37

Yes that's it .

James Cridland 13:39

Well , there you go , and on that bombshell

Spotify embrace open standards

James Cridland 13:42

shall we talk about Spotify .

Sam Sethi 13:44

Well , we better do yes , Because you've got a hell of a story here to talk about . What have they done , james ?

James Cridland 13:49

Yes , Spotify , hell has officially frozen over . Spotify is supporting Podcasting 2.0 . Right , say that again , because I'm sure that's a typo . Spotify is supporting Podcasting 2.0 . It's adding podcast transcripts for many shows to its app . Not just that , but if you host your podcast with Spotify for Creators , or Anchor as it used to be known , then they will be publishing those transcripts . If you tick the button to say yes , it will be publishing those transcripts using the Podcasting 2.0 podcast transcript tag . And , in fact , if you have a look at an Anchor RSS feed right now , you'll see the podcast namespace is already in it . Wow , who would have thought it ?

Sam Sethi 14:39

Who would have thought it ? Someone's going to get sacked over at Spotify for doing that . No , I'm sorry , congratulations . That's going to get sacked over at Spotify for doing that . No , I'm sorry , congratulations .

James Cridland 14:46

That's super exciting . I asked my contact at Spotify are you going to be supporting creator transcripts that come in through RSS ? So what they're currently doing is they are automatically producing transcripts of shows that appear in the Spotify app . Obviously , they can't deal with my surname . They can deal with yours , seemingly , but they can't deal with mine . But still , there we are . But Spotify also currently lets creators upload their own transcripts using VTT or SRT files , which is good news . I can't get that working yet , but I'm sure that it is good news . But I did say are you going to support ingestion of creator transcripts using RSS , using the podcast transcript tag ? And I always like it when a spokesperson says more than they kind of meant to say , because the answer that I got was no timeframe to share at this time . No timeframe to share at this time is most definitely not .

Elena Tsakakis 15:52

No .

James Cridland 15:55

That's most definitely . Yes , but at some point , and don't hold us to it . So that's very exciting . So how exciting that we've moved in the last three years from nobody's doing any of this podcasting 2.0 stuff it's all been a total failure to even Spotify supporting the new podcast transcript tag . How exciting . So there's a thing We've won . We've won we can pack up and go home now . Pack up and go home . Pack up and go home .

Sam Sethi 16:25

No , don't tell Adam and Dave that they'll close the service down , shush , shush . So yes , what was Adam's words ? We have achieved . What did he say last time ?

James Cridland 16:35

oh , what last time ? Oh yes , this was a couple of weeks ago . Mission accomplished . He said yes , yes , that excellent phrase Last seen by George W Bush . So , yes , yes , how exciting is that .

Sam Sethi 16:50

More importantly , okay , this is brilliant news and well done Spotify . Look , I'm going to defend Spotify for a minute because , well , somebody had to . The reality is the the number of tags and the namespace has been evolving , um pretty rapidly , right , and if you're a corporate company and you have no input to the creation of the namespace which is their own fault they could join , but they haven't . Um , you're not going to rely on that namespace to be the thing that you are betting your whole future of your company on um in terms of profitability , share price , etc . Yeah , so you will go and do proprietary stuff at the pace that you can do it at with the controls you have within your own closed wall garden , and that's what they've done , and I think now they're realizing that .

Sam Sethi 17:43

Actually , what can we add that's new and different ? They can't add much more . We're finding that in the namespace . Actually , if you look at the number of new tags that are being suggested , they're very few and far between . There's not much being added , not at the pace that we did two years ago , and I think they've looked around . Apple's done it . Yeah , okay , we're getting this data in . It's free data . We can actually use it . We don't have to spend money on our own . I don't know . Maybe that's where it's come from , maybe they've got the same push or pressure that Apple had , that they need to support it for the what was the society who was suing people ?

James Cridland 18:19

Yes , yes , the National Association for the Deaf .

James Cridland 18:23

I mean , it is an accessibility thing , Of course it is , but the fact that Spotify have and they 've not fully done this yet , so you know , let's not run away with the idea but the fact that Spotify have not reinvented something that has already been invented but is basically saying there is a standard out there , we will use it and , more to the point , Spotify for Creators publishing those transcripts so that Apple podcasts can use those transcripts , I mean , how exciting is that ? So I think all of this is everything moving in exactly the right way . So , yeah , and you know , one of the things that I was very vocal about for the pod news report cards that was reported earlier on in the year was basically highlighting that and saying Spotify has really bad scores for open standards , for supporting open standards , and , you know , maybe being bottom of that list for the last four years is something that Spotify has finally gone . Oh well , actually , maybe there is something that we can do there . So , no , I think it's all good Wish list for Christmas person tag chapters .

Sam Sethi 19:39

Let's not get ahead of ourselves , hey , right and tag chapters .

James Cridland 19:45

Let's not get ahead of ourselves , right ? Although I should also say chapters now , because Buzzsprout supports the Podlove chapters format as well . Chapters now in the Spotify app for this show look amazing . They look super good , so you know . So everything is coming together . It might be the in inverted commas wrong standard , but nevertheless , everything is good . Everything is beginning to work as we would hope , so yeah it's good .

Sam Sethi 20:12

Don't mention micropayments , then we're all good . Right ? Other things that Spotify have been up to they've been working with United Airlines to announce a collaboration . What have they said , James ?

James Cridland 20:24

Yes , so it's the first time . So if you jump into a number of different airlines , you will get Spotify content in some way shape or form on the in-flight entertainment . It's mostly Spotify podcasts and they're mostly hidden away on a podcasts page with maybe a few audio books in there . What United has announced is that they are getting rid of the audio category entirely , replacing it with Spotify , and what Spotify will then give you is audio books , podcasts , music playlists and video podcasts video and audio podcasts . So it's the first time that Spotify's video podcasts have made it to an in-flight entertainment system . And I have to say if there's one use case where video makes sense , it's being stuck on a plane for hours , because , of course , video makes perfect sense in terms of that . So that was interesting to end up seeing United jumping in . I think you can get Spotify content on Delta and on a few other American airlines , as well as Emirates and a few others in other parts of the world .

Sam Sethi 21:40

But , yeah , the first time that video podcast has made it into the aeroplane , I think one of Spotify's secret sources I've said this consistently over the years is that they are everywhere , and I think this is one of the best things that Spotify do . You know , I turn on my Alexa they're there . I go to my car it's there . I go now to an aeroplane it's there . I go to my car it's there . I go now to an airplane it's there . I go to my , you know , fire TV . I just think they're great at doing that . That's one of their things , I think . Gives them hello Apple . You know , don't just be my op , he can be on one platform .

James Cridland 22:17

Well , you see , and I think Apple just has so Apple is in Tesla cars . So if you want to drive like a Nazi , you can have a listen to Apple podcasts in there . So Apple are on a few other what's the phrase ? They use ? Surfaces . They're on the Aston Martin DBX as well , by the way . Oh , are they . Well , there you go .

James Cridland 22:47

But where they're not , of course , is Android phones , and that's probably not the Apple Podcasts team making that choice . It's probably a little bit further up the tree in terms of that , but yeah , so that's interesting . Other things going on , by the way , very briefly , in terms of Spotify , the Spotify Podcast Awards took place in Mexico , so they run a podcast awards there . Interestingly , the Top of the Top podcast , as they called it , was a podcast that is actually hosted by Ivux , not hosted by Spotify . So that goes to show that it was a sensible awards where they didn't just give everything to Spotify people . So that was good . And a few people have sold shares . Recently , chief Public Affairs Officer Dusty Jenkins crazy name , crazy person has sold a total of 5.1 million shares , and there's a board director called Mona Sutphen who has sold 3.3 million shares . Now you've been looking at how many shares Daniel Eck has sold .

Sam Sethi 23:50

Yeah , I just think , when you start to see board members or leading execs selling off big chunks of shares , it's normally a good time to look around . And Daniel sold off in April 2025 , he sold 50,000 shares , so $28 million . But he also divested $666 million of stock in July 2023 . And Martin Lorenzen , who's the co-founder , sold off $556 million worth of shares . It's just interesting , In the last two years or so , they've sold off the co-founders . That is $1.3 billion worth of shares and you sort of go okay , you're taking money out , you're reducing your equity stakeholding . Is there a reason when also , it goes down below that to the executive team ? I know Daniel's got his new health company and I know that may be where he's got his focus , but I don't know . It's just one of those things I thought I wonder who else is selling shares .

James Cridland 24:55

It's just interesting , isn't it , in terms of Spotify share sales . So I mean Spotify obviously doing very well in the stock market at the moment and I guess who knows what the next couple of years are going to bring . I mean , you know we covered news yesterday in the Pod News newsletter that WARC media are saying that global advertising spend is going to go down again , you know , downgrading their growth forecasts even further . So you know there's clearly concern about what is going to happen in the next couple of years . So perhaps it's a good time to sell shares if you happen to have

X announces a new podcast

James Cridland 25:35

a lot of them .

Sam Sethi 25:35

Now , this was an interesting story . Moving away from Spotify over to Twitter now , or X as it should be called , venus and Serena Williams are going to launch a video podcast on X . Now , you had that as a simple one-line story and I thought , okay , there's a number of questions to unpack from that , mr Cridland , one being when did Twitter have video podcasting ? I remember Clubhouse very well and I know that they had video capabilities in the past and they still have , but officially announcing a podcast that's launching on X , is this their new strategy ?

James Cridland 26:16

Well , x have had content on there before . I mean , weirdly , x , um has also been doing live um sport on there as well . The women's national basketball association , um , is , uh , on there . They've had um , a podcast , um called chloe in wonderland , featuring chloe kardashian , who is famous for , oh yes , nothing . So there we are . So I guess it's just . You know , x does have video and maybe they have lots of advertisers coming to them and wanting to buy some video advertising . So perhaps it's that . I don't know , but I suppose you know . I was curious to see it being called a video podcast and I wonder whether that's just . You know the YouTube effect of of ? Oh well , you know , let's , let's call it a video podcast instead of just a TV show and take it from there . But yeah , it's going to be a thrill .

Sam Sethi 27:25

It's launching in August , so yeah , yeah , I mean the questions you know , open-ended questions . Does it support RSS ? Can you switch to audio only ? Will there be exclusive content ? Yes , I'm sure that the rumours of a ex-wallet and micropayments means that they probably will . Again , lots of open-ended questions . Curious to see , when it launches in August , what it will look like .

James Cridland 27:51

Yes , it'll be interesting to take a peek . I will wait for other people to take a look at it and then find out what it looks like from other people , because I sure aren't going to look at it for myself .

Sam Sethi 28:05

Well done .

Interview: kids podcasting study

Sam Sethi 28:07

Now you've got a story here about kids podcasting . Tell me more .

James Cridland 28:11

Yes , so this was some really interesting research . I thought Brains On , which is a podcast for kids , has done some research with the Science Museum of Minnesota and the research was all around how to make great kids shows , specifically how to design podcast content to spark conversations with your family , and particularly looking at podcasts in cars , you know one of the best practices you know , because that's a great place where you can listen to a podcast with your kids , you can talk about the things that are going on in the podcast and all of that , and so you know there's clearly some interesting stuff in there .

James Cridland 29:00

So I thought , well , what would be interesting is to talk to somebody from the Science Museum of Minnesota and also the co-creator and host of Brains On . So I chatted with Elena Tsikikis from the Science Museum of Minnesota and with Molly Bloom from Brains On , and the first question I asked Molly was what Brains On was .

Molly Bloom 29:22

Brains On is a science podcast for kids and their adults . We answer questions that kids send to us from all over the world . Every episode is hosted by me and a kid co-host . The kid co-host is different every time and kind of go wherever curiosity takes us , so sometimes we you know a kid will interview a scientist , or we'll have a song about bruises , or we'll you know have a skit where we anthropomorphize molecules . It's a really fun and silly show , but we also take kids' questions and curiosity very seriously too .

James Cridland 30:00

And so why did you want to do this research into making podcast content that sparks family conversations ? What was the thinking behind it ?

Molly Bloom 30:09

This is actually our third study that we've done with our partners at the Science Museum of Minnesota , and the first study we did with them , you know , was really groundbreaking because there hadn't been any research really into who was listening to kids' podcasts and why and how , and so this came out of that first study that we did together and I'll let Elena kind of talk about what piques the interest of the researchers at the Science Museum .

James Cridland 30:37

Yeah , Elena , I was going to ask you . I mean , firstly , you know , the world of podcasting has lots of research , but that research is normally based on online surveys , but you did things quite differently in this study . So how did it work ?

Elena Tsakakis 30:52

Yeah , the first study that we did with Brains On was actually a survey and we got some really interesting insights from that Um and we . We got some really interesting insights from that , one thing being that almost every family um said that they had conversations while they were listening to brains on in the car . And so for us as researchers , that really kind of sent a signal to ask the next question of you know why ? What are those conversations about ? What does that look like ? Things like that which just couldn't be answered through a survey . In the same way , that being physically in the car in some way could help us understand what those conversations looked like , sounded like , kind of how they came to be , and so that was what started to get us thinking about the different opportunities to learn about what this listening experience was like . That didn't rely on , you know , people to think and remember and share that , but would allow us to see things as they were sort of happening and just in a more natural way .

James Cridland 32:00

So why did you focus on listening to the podcast in the car rather than anywhere else ?

Elena Tsakakis 32:05

Yeah , so that was also from the survey . I think it was 90 , it was 91% of families from that survey shared that they listened in the car , and that was something that we had had some hypotheses about . You know , we thought people listen to podcasts in the car . It wasn't shocking , but it was as informal science researchers it's . It was . It's a new learning space . It's a space that we maybe don't typically think of as an opportunity to learn in the same way that like a classroom would be , or , you know , or a museum or whatever it may be , and so the car was emerging as this sort of understudied space for learning that happens around podcasts , and so that was really exciting to us as researchers of being able to look at this space in a new way and in a space that really hadn't been studied in informal learning research prior and I guess there's less opportunity for multitasking in the car .

James Cridland 33:08

There's less other things to do there's . You know you're not also doing the cooking and and you know doing the housework and everything else . So I suppose , in terms of a place to learn , it's actually quite an interesting place .

Elena Tsakakis 33:21

Yeah , absolutely , and you just mentioned some of the things that we learned from the study and things that we heard from parents , which were things like you know we're in the car together , our attention is focused when we're listening at home . We're very rarely , you know , all sitting together on the couch listening to a podcast together . You know someone's doing dishes , someone's playing with toys , someone's doing homework , whatever it may be , and when you're in the car , you're taking this sort of existing space and parents shared that . You know listening to the podcast helps turn it into a more productive environment , because they were just sitting in the car and that was something that you know . They weren't doing other things , there weren't those same distractions , and so they were able to all engage as a family together in listening to the podcast in ways that just weren't really wasn't really happening outside of the car and Molly .

James Cridland 34:16

what other lessons did you find from the research ?

Molly Bloom 34:21

I mean , I think one of the interesting things we learned was sort of the moments in the podcast that spark the most interaction . We design our podcast to have those moments , but it was cool to see the ones that aren't necessarily the games . Like we know , kids love to guess the mystery sound and we know that's sort of a natural place for interaction . But then to hear about the interaction that just happens from families hearing me talk to the kid co-host was really interesting and surprising . And also , you know , hearing the kid interview the expert also sparked questions in ways that we weren't really expecting and to find out that when families are interacting and listening , kids are often the ones sort of starting these conversations and it's not just the parents who are trying to engage their kids . So I thought that was really interesting , especially since our show tries to emphasize kids' voices . It's very gratifying that that's sort of coming across and the kids are picking up on that .

James Cridland 35:19

Yeah , elena , there's that segment in the podcast called the Mystery Sound . Let's hear one of those mystery sounds . Are you ready ?

Molly Bloom 35:26

for a mystery for the ears , because it's time for the Mystery Sound . Siddharth , are you ready to hear today's mystery sound ? Yeah , okay , here it is . Hmm .

James Cridland 35:51

What do you think ? That was one of the most popular segments of the show , wasn't it ? I'm curious from your point of view , elena ?

Elena Tsakakis 36:03

how does it work ? Why is it so popular ? That's a great question . I can't say for certain , of course , but I think one thing that we really noticed in the data about the mystery sound is that it's something that's in every episode .

Elena Tsakakis 36:15

It follows the same sort of structure . Every time it starts with a little soundbite , molly says the same thing , or a very close variation of the same thing . The kid co-hosts guests . First , they revisit it . So it follows this pattern which allows families to establish their own patterns .

Elena Tsakakis 36:36

And so when they hear that sound or when they hear Molly say you know , it's time for the mystery sound , um , they immediately have this sort of reaction and every family's reaction was a little different . Um , sometimes it was , you know , the adults just saying oh , mystery sound , and like silence so they could hear it . Um . Other times it was sort of that structured like okay , you go first , what's your guess , child one , what's your guess , child two ?

Elena Tsakakis 37:02

But it was clear that you know they were ready and they knew , and even in some episodes where you know the mystery sound maybe happened a little later or things like that than they were used to , you could see that coming out in the conversation Like , oh , we haven't heard the mystery sound yet , what is that ? What is that ? So I think that having that repetition , that's definitely that was definitely one thing . And then another thing that I think contributed to the kind of engagement around the mystery sound was the child co-host guessing Molly , an adult asking the question to the child , what do you think ? And the kid making a guess sort of opened the door for children who are listening to see themselves as guessers as well and answer Molly's question as though they were , you know , on the podcast , as though Molly was asking them and see themselves in kind of that guessing role that the child co-host was modeling in the episode .

James Cridland 37:55

Well , let's find out what that mystery sound was . Here's the answer .

Announcer 37:58

My name is Milo , and that was the sound of me closing my van door .

James Cridland 38:04

Well , there we are . Molly , very focused work around kids' podcasts and learning about science , but are the learnings for any type of podcast in here ?

Molly Bloom 38:13

Yeah , I think so . I mean , I think there's just a lot to be said for respecting your audience and making something that's driven by what kids are interested in , and really listening to them and taking them seriously . I think that's sort of for any kids podcast . I think that's sort of an interesting and important thing to remember . And then , you know , I think , for adult podcasts I think most adult podcasts are listened to probably you know an individual listening on their headphones that's how I listen , or I'm in the car by myself and kids' podcasts sort of have an interesting bonus to them , which is that a lot of times they're listened to in groups , either family groups or classrooms . So to know that there are multiple people listening and to design your show knowing that there's these groups listening .

James Cridland 39:06

I mean , you know we're talking about learning about science here , but there's a lot of other learning in podcasts , isn't there ? Like to be honest learning about goods and services you might wish to purchase , or , as we know it , advertising ? Are there things that advertisers can learn from this study as well ? Molly , do you think ?

Molly Bloom 39:27

That's a good question . We didn't really look at that at all . The episodes that the researchers played for the families ads were not included . But I guess I would just say that to know that if ads on kids' podcasts , particularly the kids are listening very closely and they listen to them multiple times and they remember them .

James Cridland 39:48

So it's just the way that kids and families listen to this kind of stuff , consistency , repetition , all of that stuff we know works very well in terms of this show , but you can also see that perhaps working in other shows as well .

Elena Tsakakis 40:08

Yeah , absolutely . I mean , I think , just having spaces where families and , you know , kids in particular , kind of know what to expect . That's where we saw a lot of engagement and that was true in different segments of the podcast . In addition to the mystery sound , there were other elements where , you know , people sort of knew what was coming and they were excited to participate . I mean , I think about the call outs , which is inviting kids to share their own idea , their own responses to kind of a silly question , and that was something where , again , kind of once that question was read on the podcast , there was these immediate reactions of oh , what would you say , what would you send in ? You know , this is what I think and so like having those things in there that are repetitive but also are inviting in , that participation I think is really important in this podcast .

Molly Bloom 40:57

Yeah , I would also say too , you know , we have other podcasts in our Brains on universe . We have a , a debate show called smash boom , best and a history show called forever ago , and we do similar . Those shows are very different than brains on in a lot of ways , but they have a lot of the same structural lessons that we've learned , which is exactly what elaine is saying is to be super consistent and predictable in some ways , but then , within that predictability , be surprising and funny , um , and so you know , if people are curious to hear how those lessons that we've learned from this study play out in other podcasts , they could check out Snatch Room , best and Forever Ago .

James Cridland 41:33

And Molly , how important are kids' podcasts do you think , in terms of all of the shows out there ?

Molly Bloom 41:40

I mean I think it's a really exciting space that is just sort of underdeveloped right now . There's like I mean , we were the first kids podcast way back in 2012 when we started , and now there's been so many more that have come on the scene , but there's just so many more that could you know there's . There's far fewer than they're all podcasts for adults , and I think the best thing about making shows for kids and their families is just how appreciative they are and how sort of you become a really big part of their daily life , Because if anyone's ever had a kid or hung out with a kid , you know that they like to listen to the same thing over and over again , Like it becomes a part of their daily routine , and so it's very impactful to make stuff for kids and to know that it's sort of shaping who they will become .

James Cridland 42:31

So , elena , where can we go to learn more about the work that you've done here , and the Science Museum of Minnesota as well ?

Elena Tsakakis 42:39

You can read more about the research at brainsonorg slash research . The Science Museum of Minnesota is located in St Paul , Minnesota . You can visit us at smmorg . We are I work in the Department of Evaluation and Research and Learning , where you can read about the different work that we do and the different things that we study , and right now we are in the process of getting our final findings written up and assembled to be shared more broadly on our own website , but it's not quite live yet .

Molly Bloom 43:12

And if you go to that research page , there's also a webinar . You can watch where we talk about the findings more in depth there too Fantastic .

James Cridland 43:20

And where do we go to find out more information about the Brains On universe , Molly ?

Molly Bloom 43:23

You can go to brainsonorg or wherever you listen to podcasts .

James Cridland 43:27

Molly Elena . Thank you both so much yeah .

Molly Bloom 43:30

Thank you for having us .

Announcer 43:31

Thanks for having us the Pod News Weekly Review with Buzzsprout . Start podcasting , keep podcasting .

Sam Sethi 43:41

Right , james . Now , from children to around

Around the world

Sam Sethi 43:45

the world , let's have a quick look . What's going on in Africa ? It seems that they've found video too . Is the video disease spreading ?

James Cridland 43:52

Yes , the video disease is most certainly spreading . The unrelenting rise of video podcasts in Kenya , according to African Business I do like unrelenting , that sounds as if it's a dreadful rise that nobody wants . So , yes , that makes a bunch of sense . But some nice numbers in that particular story , just sort of really showing how video podcasting is certainly growing in that part of the world . Kenya's top podcaster in that part of the world , kenya's top podcaster , for example , is getting around 300,000 views per video , which is , you know , quite nice and large , although very male focused . 71% are men who listen to the top 10 shows . But , yeah , a bunch of interesting data that you'll find in there .

Sam Sethi 44:51

Now , this is a story I did , like Goalhanger have announced a new free monthly masterclass . What are they doing ?

James Cridland 44:59

Yes , so the companies , producers , editors and commercial leads will stream masterclasses live and free for you to watch . Goalhanger's Green Room is what it's called , and you can sign up to the first few classes now if you want . Anybody would think that maybe Goalhanger have discovered a grant for educational stuff . Maybe that's what's going on , but it's a good thing nonetheless , so certainly worthwhile taking a peek at if you are keen in learning from others , totally free , and you'll be able to watch after the event as well . In terms of streaming , will it be a video podcast , who knows ?

Sam Sethi 45:47

I think it'd have to be , wouldn't it ?

James Cridland 45:49

You would kind of hope it would be , wouldn't you ?

Sam Sethi 45:53

Now , another story that you reported back in April was about Tencent Music was buying Himalaya . It seems that that's gone through now , James .

James Cridland 46:02

Yes . So Bloomberg actually got the scoop back in April $2.4 billion to buy Himalaya , which is a big Chinese podcast platform , and I think everybody looked at that $2.4 billion and went , wow , that is an astonishing number . Anyway , it turns out it's more than that . Tencent has sent a note to the SEC saying that the deal has now been done $1.2 billion worth of cash plus $1.5 billion worth of shares . And there are a number of people that will be very rich from that , including Sony Music that owns quite a lot of Himalaya . So fascinating company . Himalaya , so fascinating company , which , if you remember , had a very strange jump into the US as well and then went away from the US after stories were told . But yeah , himalaya , 2.7 billion dollars , that's a lot for a podcast company .

Sam Sethi 47:10

Crazy Rich Asians , that's all I'd say . Crazy .

James Cridland 47:13

Rich .

Sam Sethi 47:13

Asians Great film , great film , if you've not seen it .

James Cridland 47:18

Yes , and finally , congratulations to Kim Treasure at Audacia Audio . They've partnered with Sport Social to sell all of Sport Social's ads in the Asia-Pacific region , and so that will be good on both of their points of view . I mean , obviously , UK sport in particular , incredibly big in Asia . I remember landing in South Korea for the first time in gosh it must have been 2005 , maybe 2005 , 2006 . Did they all shout out Gareth Salke to ?

Sam Sethi 47:56

you .

James Cridland 47:56

Well , it was the first time I'd ever been to Asia , and I went out of the hotel in the morning to find myself a coffee and literally the first thing that I saw was somebody wearing a man United shirt and I thought , wow , isn't the world a small place ? So , yes , so there we are we mentioned Spotify earlier on .

James Cridland 48:20

We should also mention that Spotify's podcast division have made 15 layoffs , including staff at the ringer . Apparently they say that the cuts are the results of a focus away from audio and towards video . Spotify declined to comment there , again , video is to blame .

Awards and events

James Cridland 48:43

Talking about awards and events , which we weren't I'm going to now , because there's a bunch of awards and events happening , including Podcast Movement , of course , which is the next big one in Dallas , texas , on August the 18th . If you use the code PODNEWS , you'll save money on selected tickets there .

James Cridland 49:03

The Publisher Podcast Awards were earlier on this week in the UK . There's also Podcast Day Asia and Radio Days Asia , which is in Jakarta in Indonesia . Again , if you use the code PODNEWS , you'll save money if you're going to that one as well , and very much looking forward to that . There's a whole day of podcasting going on in Jakarta and Pod Summit in Calgary in Alberta on September the 19th , which I will be there as well . And congratulations to the winners of the New Zealand Radio and Podcast Awards . Public service broadcaster RNZ won the most awards , although the podcast of the year was won from iHeartRadio because , of course , number one for podcasts . It's a show called Sports Cafe-ish which comes from NZME in the country there .

Sam Sethi 49:59

Must go down to New Zealand one day . Find out about it .

James Cridland 50:02

It's definitely there . I've been , it's definitely there ?

Sam Sethi 50:05

Great , I look forward to it . I kind of stop at Australia and think that's far enough . I'll better go home now . Yeah , to be honest , yes , exactly One thing from around the podosphere that I did want to highlight a very interesting show if you want to listen to it was Daniel J Lewis and Dave Jackson's Future of Podcasting this week , where they talk about HLS and all about how the podcast standards group are going to be looking at using hls . I think it's interesting that the alternative enclosure and also the enclosure do not pre-mandate the format that goes within those enclosures . So hls is just a media format and so I don't think it's it's a case of we have to change anything for the adoption . It's a case of hosts using HLS as a alternative media format . The actual standard itself already supports it , which

The Tech Stuff

Sam Sethi 50:57

is quite good .

Announcer 50:57

The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review .

James Cridland 51:01

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

Sam Sethi 51:07

Well , the Podcasting 2.0 website has undergone a rebuild . James , what have you been doing ?

James Cridland 51:13

Yes , well , it's not me , it's Daniel J Lewis . But Daniel J Lewis has rebuilt it essentially to allow me to edit it . I think that's the main thing . I think that's what I meant .

Sam Sethi 51:21

I mean , what have you been doing ? You've been putting pressure on Daniel .

James Cridland 51:23

Get on with this . Yes , so podcasting2.org is where to go for that . I kicked the tyres earlier on in the week the podcast transcript tag , which , of course , is now out of date again because of Spotify's adoption of it . But yes , that is certainly much easier to edit that . So hurrah for that podcasting2.org . You can go and edit it as well as an edit this page button on every single page , so that's nice .

Sam Sethi 51:53

Nice , ok , talking of Podcasting2.0 , there's a new company called ProxyFeed that offers a new service . What do they ?

James Cridland 52:02

offer . The idea behind this is it's another podcast mirror , if you like . There are a few of these around where they will actually take your RSS feed and host it themselves , and you can then add additional features . So perhaps you're hosting with a podcast hosting company that doesn't allow you to use very much podcasting 2.0 . Podcasting 2.0 . Well , if you use a proxy feed , then you can , because you can actually grab that RSS feed and make changes to it .

James Cridland 52:36

One of the things that I thought was really interesting is that proxy feed will allow you to keep your RSS feed , or their copy of it , under your own domain , or their copy of it under your own domain . So , instead of you know , the RSS feed for this show is , of course , at a buzzsproutcom domain , as it should be , because A they're our sponsor and B that's who we use to publish our show , and it sort of struck me that there aren't very many podcast hosting companies that allow you to take your RSS feed and put that under your own domain so that you are freer to leave , because it's therefore much easier to keep control of your RSS feed . So I just thought that that was an interesting thought , did .

Sam Sethi 53:25

Blueberry , try this and I don't think it succeeded , did it ?

James Cridland 53:29

I think Blueberry have it as a product of theirs . It's called Podcast Mirror , it's at podcastmirrorcom , and I do think that there are a few others of these tools as well , and so I suppose the question is , what do they offer that you can't get from your podcast host ? And part of that is potentially your own domain . Part of that is potentially supporting podcasting 2.0 tags , although this company don't support very many of them so far . Part of them could be just a little tick box add this podcast to OP3 , and it will automatically add all of the redirects for you . I think there's definitely something in it I mean kind of TrueFans has been doing it for the last year and a half , two years , kind of in that you can change the RSS feed that your systems see , can't you ?

Sam Sethi 54:29

Yeah , we experimented with it . We thought if you wanted to add any tag that was in the podcasting 2.0 within Reason I think we've supported them all you can add them by claiming your feed in TrueFans and then it would only work within TrueFans . We thought , okay , well , that's very limiting . So could we do something where you could publish your updated feed to the podcast index but keep the enclosure or the alternative enclosure with your original host , like Buzzsprout ? And we tested that and that works . We've got some more stuff that we're going to be doing with that . But yeah , I think it's a safe way for people to experiment with podcasting 2.0 tags , Because one of the things we do in our creators dashboard is we have a toggle that says true fans feed original feed , and so you can go and play with every tag you like , change your feed and do what you want and then , if you don't like anything you've done , flick the switch back and we just put back your original feed for you . So it's a fairly safe way of experimenting , I think .

James Cridland 55:36

Yeah , no . So I think that that's a pretty cool and pretty smart thing . What else is going on in the whole tech ?

Sam Sethi 55:44

world . Congratulations to Castomatic . They now support the Lit Tag , so I think that's great . One more platform now to support live podcasting . Um , and I think live podcasting in the second half of 2025 , it's going to have a bit a very big impact personally . So , yeah , congratulations now .

James Cridland 56:03

I think that's very exciting descript as well , releasing a new set of features , including improved filler word removal . They say and they've also added and this was a no-brainer and I'm really surprised that other remote recording tools haven't added this They've added a teleprompter . That's just such an obvious thing To add a teleprompter so you can stare at the screen and read whatever it says just underneath . It makes a ton of sense . So nice additions from Descript there .

Sam Sethi 56:39

Now Podstats is a new tool that uses OP3 . What are they doing , james ?

James Cridland 56:44

Yeah , so OP3 does analytics and it's free . Op3.dev and the analytics pages that OP3 produces are they're a bit boring , they're a bit black , but nevertheless you know they're fine . But you can do more with that . And so what Podstats has done is it's used the API into OP3 to pull all of the data in to show you more data for the entire time that you've been with OP3 , to pull all of the data in to show you more data for the entire time that you've been with OP3 , rather than just the last couple of months . But it also shows you nice things like trending graphs and those sorts of things , and it's just a prettier way of seeing some of the OP3 data .

James Cridland 57:27

So I thought that was quite interesting , that a company has essentially started by pulling the OP3 information and just making that look prettier . So it's quite a nice thing . The tool is in preview at the moment , so everything on there is free , but it looks really smart actually . So it's , yeah , worth a peek , certainly in terms of how that works . It's particularly good when you have a look at a graph and you can see the amount of downloads increasing , as our show appears to be doing right now .

Announcer 58:02

So you know , that's always a good thing . Super comments

The Inbox

Announcer 58:04

, fan mail , super chats and email Our favourite time of the week .

James Cridland 58:18

Yes , there are so many different ways to get in touch with us . We can email by using the link in our show notes or super comments on True Fans or Boosts everywhere else , or email , and we share money that we make too . That's me and Sam sharing every money , and I only mention that because Silas on Linux sent us a thousand sats here and said this is why I posted to James to skip the week , so Sam's replacement , that's you , john McDermott , wouldn't have to read a boost about Sam getting cash . Lol , good co-host , though skilled . You may remember last week that Silas on Linux gave us something like $70 worth of sats , which was very kind and made my umbral hurt a bit , but thank you for that . Words you've never said before . Yes , exactly . So yes , and I felt sort of slightly bad that we didn't put John in the splits and maybe we should have done for last week , but still , there we go .

Sam Sethi 59:22

Anyway , we've got 644 sats from Neil Velio . Ha ha , excellent crucification .

James Cridland 59:29

Yes , I was being rude about his comments about radio statistics . I think last week Cy sends us 3,865 sats . Now he's using TrueFan , so that's probably an amount of money rather than a random number . But anyway , Cy says , like Danny Brown also enjoyed hearing John as a guest host , chatting to James , you should invite more along to join in to occasionally shake it up . And then says can John get some of this sweet value for value as well ? Yes , oh , okay , Everyone's wanting the money now .

Sam Sethi 1:00:05

Oh yes , here we go . I want to be a guest , I want the money .

James Cridland 1:00:09

Come on , yes , and Danny managed to , I think , comment without sending any sats , which means that I haven't seen what Danny's original comment was . But Danny Brown from Canada did then send through 4,762 sats . So thank you , danny , for that much appreciated . Silas on Linux , also says that lowering fees on payment systems that aren't compatible is not enough . I think he's talking about MyVisa and MasterCard . If only they just lowered the fees , then everything would be happy plan , and I don't think he likes that very much . But still , there we are , and Bruce , the ugly quacking duck sent through a row of ducks 2,222 sats . If things settle down to one way of doing podcasts , one way of paying for it , what else would you have left to report and what would I look forward to listening to each week ? Thanks for the reports and the conversation . Good show 73s . Thank you , bruce . Bruce , don't worry , mate .

Sam Sethi 1:01:18

We have a ton of stuff we haven't talked about yet . Yes and yes , there's a lot to talk about still , even if we settle down and get micropayments working , indeed Just you wait until this special episode on L402 .

James Cridland 1:01:32

It's coming , it's coming . It's not here yet , but it's coming .

Sam Sethi 1:01:38

Oh , dear , yes .

James Cridland 1:01:39

Yes , we should also thank the noteworthy 19 , those kind people who have grasped the internet's money which , of course , is Visa and Mastercard and gone to weeklypodnewsnet , and those people include John McDermott , our co-host from last week , matt Medeiros and Marshall Brown . Thank you all so much for doing that . It's very much appreciated , and that does get shared regularly with Sam as well , so that's definitely a good thing

Sam and James's week

James Cridland 1:02:13

. So you have been on holiday spending some of this money .

Sam Sethi 1:02:17

Yes , Well .

James Cridland 1:02:18

I could spend more thanks to Silas as well . Yes , where did you go ? What did you do , and are you pleased to be back at work ?

Sam Sethi 1:02:27

Right In that order , I went to Alsace , which is stunningly beautiful .

James Cridland 1:02:32

it's a handsome , incredible country . That's in France , isn't it ?

Sam Sethi 1:02:34

Yeah , well , occasionally it was in Germany for a while and then getting back to France and then went to . Germany . Yes , it's one of those , but no , very beautiful there . And then we went down to Lausanne , which is the home of the Olympics at the IOC , and , yeah , went to Montreux to the festival Very nice Freddie Mercury's home . And yeah , no , it was all very lovely and we did a lot of wine tasting and driving electric bikes and basically just yes .

Announcer 1:03:06

Oh they were , electric bikes were they that was one piece of detail that was missing and basically just yes , oh , they were electric bikes , were they ?

James Cridland 1:03:09

Oh , mate , that was one piece of detail that was missing from the self-congratulatory Facebook posts . I've been cycling across the Alsace yes , okay In an electric bike .

Sam Sethi 1:03:23

Seriously . Well , let me put it this way there was no spitting , there was lots of swallowing of wine , and you basically get to the fourth vineyard and you try and get up a hill without an electric bike . Good luck to you . Yeah , no , that wasn't working . But then I came back and we did another 27 kilometres of the Thames Path . So four legs to go . That's all I will say .

James Cridland 1:03:50

Very nice . Whereabouts were your 27 kilometres this time round ?

Sam Sethi 1:03:55

It was from just outside Cull House over to through Abingdon into Oxford , and Abingdon is stunning if you've not been to it . I loved it . Yeah , it was very pretty . But yes , very good , yes , and then we have started doing our testing for HLS . So more about that in future weeks .

James Cridland 1:04:18

More about that in future weeks . Yes , that'll be exciting , james . What's happened for you , mate ? I have done virtually nothing . All of a sudden , queensland is now in winter . We're in the depths of winter . I wake up and it's six degrees outside , which still means that it's six degrees inside because our houses are made out of sticks . And , yes , it's been very chilly in the morning . But apart from that , I've done very little , which has been very nice . Rather boringly , I ended up changing my electricity supplier over the week and more worryingly .

Sam Sethi 1:04:56

I read about it .

James Cridland 1:04:58

Yeah , well , yes , there you go , but one of the things that I have , of course , because Jean ended up convincing me vaguely to get into the home automation . Changing my electricity supplier also meant rewriting all of my home assistant screens . So there we are . But my new electricity supplier gives me free electricity between 11 in the morning and two in the afternoon , which is three hours of free electricity , and it's been really interesting basically changing everything in the house so that it comes on at 11 o'clock , because , you know , we've got a pool pump that needs to run for a couple of hours . We'll make sure that that runs between 11 and 1 .

James Cridland 1:05:41

We've got , you know , we've got a car that needs charging . We've got , you know , a dishwasher that needs working . Wow , you know , literally everything goes on between 11 and one , and it's really funny . So I've got a little screen in front of me which shows how much electricity the house is using , and we pile everything into those three hours . So that's quite fun .

James Cridland 1:06:04

And then the other thing that it's got is it's got very cheap electricity overnight between midnight and six in the morning . The only way that you can get this is if you own an electric car , because they want you to charge your electric car using it . Well , we've got solar panels , so I'll still charge it during the day , when it won't cost us anything anyway . But in this particular case it does mean that we can actually leave some of the heating on overnight , which we've needed . So yeah , so it's been quite interesting , just sort of playing around with that , reconfiguring all of the boring stuff , making sure that you know the water heater turns on at 11 o'clock in the morning and all that kind of stuff . So that's been quite fun to end up playing around with .

Sam Sethi 1:06:46

Well . At WWDC , apple announced their new home management platform . Maybe you could switch to that if you wanted .

James Cridland 1:06:52

Well , I mean , you know , Home Assistant is certainly interesting , but my goodness , it is a . The whole thing is held together by just random , you know random bits of code written by nobody in particular . So I've got an integration with the electric car so I can see how much charge the electric car has , and blah , blah , blah . Anyway , I was curious about that particular plugin . So I went to have a look at the plugin and it said this plugin is no longer being developed . If anybody wants to develop it , then please . And so all of this entire ecosystem is run by just well-meaning coders in their bedrooms . It's just not great . So , yeah , it'd be very interesting if either Apple or Google well , let's face it , it's going to be Apple get interested in integrating all of this stuff properly . That would be really interesting . But still , that's kind of where we are right now . Anyway , that's it for this week . All of our podcast stories taken from the Pod News daily newsletter at podnewsnet .

Sam Sethi 1:07:59

You can support this show by streaming stats . You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout fan mail link in our show notes . You can send us a super comment or become a power supporter , like the naughty but nice 19 . That's not the phrase we're meant to use , are we ? But I'll stick with it for now . At weeklypodnewsnet .

James Cridland 1:08:16

Yes , our music is from TM Studios . Our voiceover is Sheila D , our audio is recorded using clean feed , we edit with Hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout . Start podcasting , keep podcasting .

Announcer 1:08:30

Get updated every day . Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet .

Molly Bloom 1:08:36

Tell your friends and grow the show and support us and support us the Pod News .

Announcer 1:08:41

Weekly Review will return next week . Keep listening .