James Cridland: 0:00

Welcome to the Pod News Weekly Review. Now, just before we begin, this is what I sound like on a proper microphone and, as any podcaster will tell you, it is much worse if you record on your laptop microphone by mistake. It's worse still if you record on your laptop microphone by mistake while walking around a busy podcast conference Almost inaudible, it turns out. Luckily, our sponsor, buzzsprout, has a thing called Power Clean as part of its magic mastering tool. It removes background noise, does a lot of restorative work to the audio even this audio so sorry if what you're about to hear isn't very good quality, but there are some great people in this show and I think Power Clean has done a pretty good job. It's part of Magic Mastering on Buzz Brown. We thank them for their support.

Announcer: 0:49

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

James Cridland: 1:00

I'm James.

Sam Sethi: 1:00

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

James Cridland: 1:05

True Fans Today, the wonder of Wondercraft and all the fun of podcast movement in Dallas. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout with the tools, support and community to ensure you keep podcasting, Start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom From your daily newsletter.

Sam Sethi: 1:22

the Pod News Weekly Review we will find out in a minute why Mr Cridland's got background noise and also a husky voice today. We will, and also you'll see me adding little words in which will become relevant later on. We have a lot to get to this week and I'm super excited, so you will find out why those two expressions are no longer needed Now, james you're in sunny Dallas.

James Cridland: 1:52

Who killed JFK? Have we got the answer to that one yet? No, no idea, no idea, no idea.

Sam Sethi: 1:55

Nothing on the grassy knoll to tell you that you know who was it Right? Moving on then.

James Cridland: 2:03

Podcast movement. What's been happening, james? Let's start off with that. Yes, well, so very exciting news. Here in Dallas, podcast Movement and Sounds Profitable are merging. Are they now called Podcast Profitable? No, no, both grounds are continuing. So basically, the idea is that hey.

Sam Sethi: 2:19

I got a round of applause for it and nothing else.

James Cridland: 2:21

You did exactly. So yeah, so the basic idea is that Brian Barletta becomes president we can all believe in president of Podcast Movement. He is organising many of the events and stuff like that. The Podcast Movement team are still involved. They will be, you know, obviously running it as well. So a bunch of all of that stuff going on. But that does mean that podcast movement itself will change where it does its shows, which is very exciting. So this show will be in new york next year. It was going to be somewhere else, it's now going to be in new york and evolutions will now be at south by southwest. So yeah, all all all exciting stuff really.

Sam Sethi: 3:03

Yeah, podcast Movement, podcast Movement. So good, they named it twice. Yes, new York, now that'll be cool. I haven't been to New York for ages, so that'll be nice. And what does that mean for you, james?

James Cridland: 3:18

Well, it means a few things. So Podcast Movement has a 50% business partnership with Pod News, so obviously there's some exciting stuff going on there. So I'm sort of part of this. But what it also means is that, in terms of the creators, I'm actually going to be rather more hands-on in terms of the Podcast Movement event as well, so I'm going to be content director, which sounds very exciting. I look forward to finding out what that actually means. To get any more money.

James Cridland: 3:48

Well, that may be one of the conversations so we can look after really make sure that there's a renewed vision in terms of how we treat our creators here, Because the creators are the important people. The creators are the reason why we are here. You know that's a very important thing, and so looking after those, you know, is an important thing.

Sam Sethi: 4:13

And what else has been happening. Then let's move on, because I'm sure this story will run and run for a little longer. What's been happening? How was the movie? There was a new movie called the Age of Audio.

James Cridland: 4:24

There was. There was a new movie called the Age of Audio. There was, there was a new movie, which was played, which seems to have gone down very well. Lots of excited WhatsApp comments about that, but also, of course, a lot of big sessions here as well, and, in fact, one of those people that was doing a session, hello, christoph from Orphonic. Great to meet you, james. You're on the Pod News Weekly Review. You've done a couple of sessions now, haven't you? Yeah, we've done a couple of sessions, and you are the company that is behind the fact that I no longer say the word um, although I still say the word you know apparently.

: 4:56

Yeah, we're very glad to be that company. How's it been for you? It's been great. I really love the podcast movement. It's a great job for us. It's always great to meet the creators, meet the people behind the products, behind the companies, to put faces to the names. It's always great to meet you.

James Cridland: 5:14

Well, you're a nice man. It's always good to see you. When are you headed?

: 5:17

back Flying out to California to meet a couple of partner companies next week, and then I'm going to go back to europe next week after that there you go.

James Cridland: 5:24

Wow, there you go. You've got a nice, a nice holiday on the way. I mean not holiday, it's work, but you know what I mean really good to see you have a good flight back. Take care, yeah. So lots of um, of sessions and things like like that it's been, uh, it's been a good um, a good time now, one of the things that was announced there was the all-time greatest podcast, or at least the top 100.

Sam Sethi: 5:47

Who was the all-time greatest podcast? Voted by people. I have no idea who voted.

James Cridland: 5:53

Well, the all-time greatest podcast, the number one, was this American Life and that went down very well. It's a really good list actually. It's 100 hundred individual shows which was chosen by around 300 different podcast creators and hosts and writers and scholars and all that kind of stuff. They were actually giving away a quite nice, you know glossy printout of them all and all of that, but no, it's a really good, good, good list actually and, just before you say it, plenty of of non-American stuff in there as well. There's some German content in there, of course. There's a Rest Is show, the Rest Is History, which is at 68, and so on and so forth. So there's a bunch of really good, nice shows in there.

Sam Sethi: 6:38

There was a whole bunch of other seminars. Talking of Mr Curry, then he was actually there keynoting on stage. Did you go to that keynote?

James Cridland: 6:47

Adam Curry was. Yes, he was here on one of the smaller stages here, so all of the stages are in the same room this year. It's a really nice sort of cozy atmosphere, which is nice, and Adam was on one of those stages. Rather annoyingly, rather irritatingly and Adam was on one of those stages, rather annoyingly, rather irritatingly, he was on at the same time as I was on, which meant two things it meant that the panel that I was appearing on there weren't as many people as there possibly could have been, because everybody was watching Adam, but also, of course, it meant that I couldn't actually see it either.

James Cridland: 7:20

So I'm looking forward to watching it. But of course, I will be able to watch it because, for the first time, podcast Movement is making all of the audio and all of the video available for free for anyone. You don't have to have come, you don't have to buy a ticket. It's available for free, and that's a really good move, I think. So you will be able to watch Adam Curry and Rocky Thomas on the Soundstack stage in a couple of weeks, which should be good, great.

Sam Sethi: 7:45

And some person, namely yourself, took a bunch of stickers. Now, a what was on the sticker? And B how did they go down?

James Cridland: 7:54

Yeah, the sticker is my definition of a podcast, and the reason why I'm sort of leaning down is so that I can read it, because I'm wearing it on my T-shirt Something for your ears when your eyes are busy. That's my definition of a podcast. I'm not saying you can't have video. Well, what I think is interesting actually here is yes, there's video, and people have been talking about video a bit, but much, much less than last year, much, much less, and I think that's been. You know that that's been interesting. Seeing the video was a little bit of a bubble. It seems to have calmed down a little bit, even though, of course, we're all talking about YouTube and you know and everything else. But yeah, so that's been interesting to end up seeing.

Sam Sethi: 8:33

Yeah, ariel Nissenblatt has one on her phone, I can see, and Harry Morton is looking out for you. He wants one for himself.

James Cridland: 8:41

So yes, Ah, well, there you go. Well, there are plenty more stickers where that, where that comes from, you know, and everything else. So, yeah, no, it's, it's. It's been fun to wander around with these stickers and and things. The other slightly weird thing is that pod news sponsored the badges this year, so you know how very annoyingly, the badge flips around and you can't see who somebody is. Yes, yes, yes, which happens in every conference, and for some reason nobody's ever fixed that. Well, this time it ended up being my logo on the other side. So that was nice, our logo on the other side, sam.

Sam Sethi: 9:15

Yes, very good. Yes, no your logo. You got it right first, don't worry. I'm very, very happy.

James Cridland: 9:29

Your logo, yes. Now what was your highlight for the week then? I think it's a little bit too early to talk highlights quite yet, but I think certainly it's quite a positive feeling, which is nice. Last year everybody was a bit sort of deer in the headlights and there was a lot of change. I think when you start a conference with exciting news about its future, that changes how you think about a particular conference and it changed the narrative away from the job losses at Wondery, and that was a very useful thing. So being able to actually understand you know that there were other things going on and there were positive things going on, you know that was certainly a good thing, I think.

Sam Sethi: 10:09

Now, if you were at podcast movement like James, the question is did you take any fun pictures? James would love to have those so you could send them to editor at podnewsnet.

James Cridland: 10:21

And yeah, some of those will find their way to the pod news daily show yes, we've got lots and lots of nice uh pictures in today's edition of the pod news newsletter. So, yes, it's, um, it's going to be, it's going to be, you know, quite fun for, from that point of view, lots of um, entertaining people with their stickers, you know, and all of that. So uh yeah, it's so. Yeah, it's been a good day.

Sam Sethi: 10:44

Good, Now let's move on. James, this story is called an AI agent called Wanda. What's this one about?

James Cridland: 10:52

Yes, so WandaCraft launched this new agent. It's a super easy way to make a podcast using AI and you just type in a prompt and away it goes. It's very smart. If you want to hear one of those, then you'll find one in the PodNews Extra feed. So you ended up talking to Oscar Saranda and you started by asking who or what is Wanda?

Speaker 8: 11:17

It's the first AI agent that is built specifically for content creation, so you don't really have to learn editing and timelines and all that stuff. You just tell Wanda in plain language what you want to create. Maybe that's an audio ad or a meditation, or even video or a podcast, whatever it may be, and it will do the heavy lifting for you. So we're kind of moving into the space of vibe creating with Wondercraft as the next phase of the company. So it's a big day for us to get this moving and it's really the first step into a next era of the company wondercraft so agentic ai.

Sam Sethi: 11:52

Fundamentally it's an interface to what you could have done before with prompting, but now you're speaking through, as you said, vibe creating. James created a example of that on Pod News Extra, so if anyone wants to go and see it, it was the Pod News Guide to Dallas, 15 minutes long. It had a very simple prompt. We will put that in the show notes and it was fun. It was really fun and it was very good. If I was going to create one and I go in, I put a prompt and I basically tell Wanda what I want. How do I edit Wanda's results? What's the process?

Speaker 8: 12:27

Well, really, what this is is kind of the step into this agentic era of AI that we're all moving into. You've probably seen this in other places as well. As you know, software development is fastly moving into this idea of natural language instead of advanced controls and learning very advanced tools, including coding right. In this case, we're doing it with content in the same fashion, meaning you use your natural language to describe what you want to do and have a conversation with Wanda to really get to that place. And it's not only about the script generating right, which we're used to using ChatGPT or Claude, for instance. It's also about the agentic side of it, which is actually doing performing tasks, so finding the right music for you, finding the right voices you want to have for your production and eventually also video creation and just controlling the whole editing and creative process, really by talking to an AI.

Speaker 8: 13:25

That's really the core of it, and moving into this space is obviously something we believe in. It's the future of how we're going to interact with software. A lot more Gone are the days of. You know, I was back in 1993, I got the first version of Photoshop and I spent weeks and months and then years learning how to use it, and it's a new game now better man than me because I failed, I absolutely failed learning photoshop.

Speaker 8: 13:51

I gave up yeah, it's been like that for a long time. Right, we're so used to software that we have to learn, watch tutorials and and this is really making it way more accessible for anyone. And that was the mission with wondercraft when we got started last last February, as we've talked about before. Sam like making, in that case, audio production way more accessible to anyone who's not really used to advanced DAWs and editing tools and really putting the storytelling in front and center. So we really want Wanda to be a way for you to explore your creativity, explore your story. Whatever you're creating, for it all starts with a script. Whether it's a TikTok video or product video you're releasing, or, you know, marketing or learning and development, internal comms, whatever it may be, it all starts with a script and that's really where we're starting out and then filling that in. Wanda's going to help you with the selection of all these elements to make great storytelling happen, just through conversation of all these elements to make great storytelling happen just through conversation.

Sam Sethi: 14:47

Yeah, I've got a favorite expression from a guy called Edward de Bono complexity is fail simplicity and I think software is a very complex platform. I think what you've built is some way to simplify that interface. So with this, give me some other examples of where you see Wanda being used. So obviously, James has used it to give us a 15-minute guide to Dallas. You've used it in the past for ads foreign language translation. I mean, are there other use cases that you see, now that you've got this AI interface, where people will use WandaCraft in different ways than they have up until now?

Speaker 8: 15:25

Well, what we see now after a year and a half or so in market is it's kind of roughly in two big categories. It's marketing and internal communication, or corporate communications. Those are the two big areas that we see. Content creation really, you know companies needing to create much faster, with efficiency, and just make that into a much simpler workflow, because I think there's a lot of driving powers behind this. It's like corporations struggling to get attention with just email, newsletters and, you know, pdfs and communicating internally like that.

Speaker 8: 16:02

So we're seeing a huge surge of companies, from the World Bank to big pharma companies, with tens of thousands of staff around the world and being able to disseminate information much easier, and that's a fantastic use case, I think. But then what we're seeing a lot now which I think is the times that we're in stepping into this era of intelligence really is the one-person marketing team meaning the small businesses that has this need to create content, generate content to be able to be relevant and just be out there with their brand, and that's what we see a lot and we really want to empower that. So the single creator of the smaller team, the smaller agency who are just needs to do more with less, and that is a fantastic use case and I think we're hitting the times perfectly that to offer up a service and a really quality tool that helps people create great stories and not only use gimmicky tools to get something quick out, which usually tends to fall flat right. So we're really trying to build a platform here that helps people get to quality storytelling.

Sam Sethi: 17:06

Have we passed the Alan Turing test? Have we passed the line where we can't tell that it's an AI voice anymore? Do you believe that we are at the point where the quality of the content and the output is such that we are basically I don't know if that's AI that could be actually a human who's just worded that when are? Basically, I don't know if that's AI that could be actually a human who's just worded that. Where are we? Do you think on that line?

Speaker 8: 17:30

I think we have passed the Turing test. When I think people recognize AI is that it sounds too polished and almost too perfect, almost too studio. Sometimes, you know, when we record there's always a little in and out with the microphone or whatever it may be, and that raw roughness is something that you can detect. But yeah, we are. Audio has quickly become such a high quality and even with the inflection and the ability to really prompt and define the emotional value that you want, you can now do with WonderCraft as well, which is super powerful. If you want it to be a kind of a fast paced news broadcaster voice on TV, you can prompt for that. You can set these emotional values to really make it work, you can emphasize certain words. So we've come a really long way with these creative tools that we are able to build on top of all this AI technology. And that's a big part.

Speaker 8: 18:20

And I think video is catching up quite quickly as well. As you can see, just in the past six months there's been a tremendous development in how video is created, specifically with Gemini and VO3. But all of these video models are following the same path as audio. It's obviously a bit more complex with video, but it's certainly coming and we're going into a future where we can basically dream up anything and start creating it. It's not easy.

Speaker 8: 18:43

Today. You still have to know what you're creating and define it, and what we also see there is that even with a conversational engine like Wanda, you do have to explain exactly what you want to do. No-transcript, someone who can explain what lighting does to a room, and the best copywriters to be able to really create quality content and that's why we believe in AI is just really amplifying the skills that you already have, but much more accessible, in a way that you can really test and learn a lot faster than sitting and trying trying to learn adobe, premiere or anything like that kind of the old school tools I call ai assisted intelligences, which is what you're saying.

Sam Sethi: 19:32

It's a tool to help you rather than a replacement. All the time video now, obviously, the audio is available already for people to go on to wondercraft and go and start to play with. How long before the video then will be available?

Speaker 8: 19:47

We're going to start releasing video in the next couple of weeks. We have a wait list right now that you can sign up to wondercraftai slash Wanda. If you sign up there, we're going to start releasing the full platform, including video and all of the tools that that entails. It's a huge upgrade to the platform, but it's going to be the same kind of storytelling user interface that you're used to. But now we're just chatting with Wanda to be able to get to the creation that you want to, and you can instruct her to help you edit as well. But we believe in is also like if you want to have the controls, you still have the full power of the end-to-end editing studio that we have in wondercraft, so you are able to sit with a timeline and go and finally fine-tune your production as well. On that end, it's just really creating an easier step in model for us for anyone who's not a professional editor to really get their work done faster and with better quality. So that's the idea. But yeah, go sign up for the wait list.

Sam Sethi: 20:43

Where do I go to sign up? Then, Come on, give me the URL.

Speaker 8: 20:46

Yeah let's say it again Wondercraftai slash Wanda, and that's Wanda with an O. Yes, something else out there Wanda with an A. So Wanda funny story about the name. It was really a working title, obviously, when we started building this a couple of months ago and we had this ambition to go in this direction for a while now. Right, and it's been a huge development and an amazing feat from the team. We're still a pretty small company and just an incredible talent. I'm so privileged to have this amazing team. But Wanda was a working title and you know, as things go, it kind of got stuck with us Then you couldn't go anywhere without it. So it was meant to be.

Sam Sethi: 21:25

I think then you couldn't go anywhere without it. So it was meant to be. I think it's a great title, I think it's a lovely little thing. So beyond wonder are you are with wondercraft. You said you're a year and a half, now a couple of years. How has looking back, the expansion of wondercraft been? I mean, what's the journey been like as an entrepreneur, you know? Has it been smooth sailing, or are you these proverbial swan, you know, smooth on the surface and kicking like hell underneath the water?

Speaker 8: 21:49

I think it's always like that. I always liken it with a balloon ride you don't really know where you're going to end up, but you put the fuel in and you hope to take off and it's been an incredible journey really. I mean, you do make some mistakes here and there. It's kind of part of the journey really. But I feel like we came in with the right intentions of solving some problems that I have lived throughout my career for so long and been able to really add value to a lot of organizations around the world. And then it's been an exploration of the use cases and I think we've kind of grown with the development and the acceptance of using AI, because the notion of using AI has changed quite a bit for organizations. Last year it was very exploratory. Everyone was saying they were doing it, but no one really had a big idea of how they're going to roll it in and what it really meant. There's a lot of fear built into it and I think the organization we work with now has a very clear understanding of what AI can really do to empower their staff and it's not about, you know, replacing humans, but really give them more power to remove tasks that are kind of redundant and people don't want to do and give them more space to be creative, and I think that's one of the superpowers that I'm the most proud of that you can work with creative teams at audio platforms or brand marketers or big HR team that are working on creating internal comps and onboarding and learning and development content, and now they can do more and they can actually take their ideas further, and I really enjoy that.

Speaker 8: 23:15

And for I mean you're talking about podcasting I always wanted to fix podcasting. I think there's always been struggles with podcasting and making it a growing industry. It's still severely undervalued, right in terms of how many are listening versus the investment goes into it, and I really want to make the creative aspect of brands stepping into audio a non-issue. This would be like flowing water. Any brand should be able to create a great ad quickly, at the speed of culture, and go live with it, and I think that is the way an audio industry needs to grow, and I always said that. I think that's brands are so used to meta and Google and platforms that are really giving them everything, including creative, and I think audio needs to step in that direction as well, and that's what we're going to do this fall.

Sam Sethi: 24:02

Yeah, I wish Wondercraft was around three and a half years ago nearly four years ago, at a radio station and we were producing ads with voiceover artists and the editing time and the re-editing and the cost of production was so high that actually by the time you went back to the client and explained what the price of the ad was just to run on a radio station, you'd probably lost the client or they were like flabbergasted at the price. So a tool like Wondercraft would have been brilliant to be able to produce those quickly and reiterate on them as well.

Speaker 8: 24:35

I think one of the things that we see now in radio as well, a lot of the radio networks that we work with is really bringing back the beauty of a spec ad at scale, being able to use audio to sell audio to an advertiser that are curious, listening to podcasting, knows what it is but haven't really spent in it, and I think that is such a superpower. I'm so happy about that. And then the idea of A-B testing hey, let's try different accents, let's try different creative takes on this to see what really works. It becomes a much more intelligent discussion around creative within audio and that is really really exciting to me to see, because that's something that I always wanted. You know, working with at acas the past couple of years of trying to really work with brands to keep them in and figure out what really is working in audio and unlocking. That is something I'm really proud of.

Sam Sethi: 25:26

Cool Look, oscar. Thank you so much. Congratulations on the launch of Wanda. If anyone wants, as I said, to hear an example of it, flip over to Pod News, extra James had done a version there called the Pod News Guide to Dallas, and you'll see in the show notes the script that we use, which was really two lines. It was crazy short and it produced this amazing result. So, yeah, nice work. Thanks, oscar.

Speaker 8: 25:53

Thank you, Sam. Thanks for having me again.

James Cridland: 25:55

What do you think then, Sam? It was interesting to hear what that company is making. Have you had a play with it? Have you had a listen to it?

Sam Sethi: 26:04

Yeah, I had a listen to what you produced, which was great A 15-minute podcast created from a single line prompt, which was very clever. I think what I said to Oscar about when I had my River Radio and being able to produce multiple ads quickly. I would have loved a service like Wanda or Wondercraft being even as an application, and I think the UI or AI interface is very clever because, you know, it reduces the barrier to learning from something that might be quite complex for people. So I can see lots and lots of other apps doing the same AI interface. The interesting other part for me was, though, they're using four or five different LLMs. So they're using Gemini, they're using Chachi, bt5.

Sam Sethi: 26:55

And I wonder, if you took the same prompt that you put in James and chose a different LLM, what the output would be. I mean, again, I suppose A-B testing is what Oscar was saying. You know you could put in a different prompt, you can put in a different LLM, you can put in a different voice, you can change it slightly. It makes it very quick and easy.

James Cridland: 27:15

And it's quite nice because it, yeah, and it asks you questions and things as the process goes. So, you know, it asks you how long you want it. It asks you, you know, for a few other things as well. So it's a pretty malleable system, I think. But yeah, no, I think it works.

Sam Sethi: 27:34

I think it works well, which is nice. I guess. My only question is what's the end goal? Right? Where does this all end? What comes next? They've done the voices, they've done the language translation. Done the voices. They've done the language translation. They've done the white glove service. They've done now an ai interface. I mean, how much more can you really do with it?

James Cridland: 27:50

of course, well, and, of course, video is coming as well. So, yeah, no, it'll be really interesting what, what happens next and, of course, at the end of the day, somebody might want to go and buy this as well.

Sam Sethi: 28:03

Hello.

James Cridland: 28:03

Spotify? Presumably yes, you would have thought that would make a bunch of sense. Look, I'm wandering around the booth and I'm just saying hello to our friends at the Podcast Academy. Hello James, hello Brandon. How are you? Today, James. I am doing fantastic. You're on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Speaker 7: 28:30

How has the show been for you? It's been fantastic and all kinds of different people signed up folks for the tpa, a lot of independent podcasters who are excited about our mentorship program and and the ambis, of course, as well.

James Cridland: 28:37

So yeah, and the ambis, which are coming back next year, uh, uh, somewhere at a date. Do we know the date? Do we know? Know the venue? Yet Is that a thing? Here we go, somebody else?

Ami Thakkar Raval: 28:48

might answer the question. Hi, I'm Amitakar. I'm also on the TP Board of Governors. It's all in the works, being ironed out, so announcements will happen very soon. But I will tell you my fourth year here. It's going to be very exciting, very new, and we expect it to be our biggest and best Ambees award ever. We are definitely looking for good partners and sponsors, and so we would love to have talked to people that are interested in becoming part of this with us.

James Cridland: 29:23

Well, there we are. It's a great event, the AMBIs. I've been to a few of them and so I'm looking forward to next year. You can learn more information at the podcastpadamycom. I want to say I think that's correct. Everybody says I think that's right, so that's excellent news.

Speaker 7: 29:40

Award submissions are open. Award submissions are open at AM. Submissions are open at ambiescom as well. There you go.

James Cridland: 29:46

You've heard it here first, Sam Excellent.

Sam Sethi: 29:48

Not that you and I would enter, but everyone else can.

James Cridland: 29:50

Yes, Well, you never know. I mean, maybe there might be an award for the least prepared news show. Hang on a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Whoa Tiger.

Sam Sethi: 30:04

48 pages of prep here I on a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, tiger. 48 pages of prep here I know.

James Cridland: 30:08

Yes, yes, yes, apart from the fact that I'm walking around and ruining your carefully planned show. Yes, well, there we are. Shall we talk about some of the research.

Sam Sethi: 30:20

Yeah, three is the magic number, james. Why is three the magic number?

James Cridland: 30:24

Yeah, Well, three is the amount of podcasts that most podcast listeners make space for every week. So that was one of the key findings from the podcast study which was on stage here on Wednesday, and they basically said look, you know, you have to work really hard to be one of the three shows that people listen to every single week.

Sam Sethi: 30:50

And more research from them. They also said no second chances. That sounds pretty harsh. Why no second chances?

James Cridland: 30:59

Well, you know how I keep on fiddling with the opening of this show. That's one of the reasons, but it's all to do with if their first impression is not great in terms of a podcast. 41 will never come back again, so which which seems fair enough, but it does mean that, of course. You know you always have to be on your a-game, you always have to make the great show, and you know that's an important, that's an important thing to bear in mind, I think okay, and now look other people at the show announcing stuff.

Sam Sethi: 31:30

One was how Gen Z listened to podcasts. That was from Coleman Insights and Amplify Media. What have they said?

James Cridland: 31:39

Yeah, of course, very much talking about YouTube. Podcasts are mostly discovered through social media for younger audiences, which was interesting to see, and a load of differences there in terms of how you know young people are consuming podcasts rather than older folk as well.

Sam Sethi: 31:57

And sticking with the young folk. It says here for the first time in the US, 18 to 29-year-olds now listen to podcasts just as much as radio. Are we beginning to see I mean, I believe it, but others may not yet the swing away from radio to podcasting, just as we've seen many shows like BBC Radio 1 now losing out? If I listen to most of the young people that I know from my daughters, they don't listen to radio. They just go straight to Spotify for music.

James Cridland: 32:26

now yeah, I mean, it's another part of the decline of broadcast radio and moving into podcasting, and this is data that came out from Edison Research and, yeah, and it's a big deal, the fact that also that live radio going away, on-demand audio now being the number one thing that people of that age group tune into, that's very significant for where the industry is going.

Sam Sethi: 32:56

I still think live podcasting is an opportunity that we should grab with two hands, but hey.

James Cridland: 33:01

Yeah, no, I would definitely agree with that.

Sam Sethi: 33:03

Now Nielsen backs up this data about radio and podcasting by saying that podcasts represent now one fifthfifth of daily ad supported audio listening time, which is only second to radio. Again, you know, young people are quite happy to listen to ad supported audio.

James Cridland: 33:24

Yeah, exactly, but it's important to point out that you know, radio is still significantly larger across the entire age group than podcasting is. So, you know, things are certainly changing, you know, in terms of that. But, yeah, lots and lots and lots of data. There's one final piece from Australia PodPoll 2025, saying that millennials, gen Z and blue-collar workers that's tradies and that and those sorts of people are all listening more to podcasts here. So I say, here I'm not, I'm not in australia now am I? I'm in dallas, but uh, there, so, um, but it also says that youtube is continuing to to grow as well. But, yeah, a ton of ton of really useful stats and uh things. I I just thought I ought to say hello to our friends at Riverside, stephen from Riverside. How are you, sir? Doing very well, doing very well. You have been a busy man. You've been on this booth for two and a half days. How has it been? What have people been asking you?

Justin Jackson: 34:28

We have a lot of happy Riverside users asking about what's new. A few people didn't know what it was. Explain that and everyone's asking how they should do video why they should do video, and so I've been advising people on that.

James Cridland: 34:40

Have you been showing anybody any exciting shortcuts for their iPhone as well?

Justin Jackson: 34:44

Don't bring out the automations here, I'll just show them a Riverside.

Sam Sethi: 34:48

James James.

James Cridland: 34:49

It's really good to see you.

Sam Sethi: 34:53

Sam says hi, stephen, you've got to ask about the hosting mate. You've got the man of the moment. What are they doing?

Justin Jackson: 34:57

Yeah, we haven't really been talking about it.

James Cridland: 34:59

There you go. That's the answer Excellent.

Sam Sethi: 35:02

You've done your training well, haven't you? That was the insight we were seeking. Yes, that was the insight. Much clearer now.

James Cridland: 35:08

Excellent, excellent training. Stephen, thank you so much. What should we go for next?

Sam Sethi: 35:15

Well, shock horror. Spotify invents visual audio books. Whatever next, james. Visual audio books. So tell me more of this shocking thing that Spotify has invented called visual audio books.

James Cridland: 35:29

So Spotify have discovered and this is amazing, but Spotify have discovered the idea of adding visuals to audio and as you listen, you get little pictures. As you listen, you could call them chapter points or something, couldn't you? And as you listen, you get chapter images and things. This, apparently, will revolutionize audiobooks. At least one of the people who has been turned into one of these new audiobooks says. He's saying Bruce Holsinger. He says it's a new frontier in audiobooks. It basically sounds like chapters in podcasts with images, which is supported by quite a lot of people, but not everyone. Yes, so that's that. That was very weird. That was a very weird thing. I bet it's something that, uh, that true fans already supports, I'm guessing we do.

Sam Sethi: 36:25

But I've got a new sticker for you before we go into that, something for your ears when your phone is in your pocket.

Sam Sethi: 36:32

So yes yes, there you go. No, we we have. And the. The thing that annoys me a little bit is we've supported it for over a year now. Medium equals audio books and we did all the work. We were hoping that there would be hosts who would also support it.

Sam Sethi: 36:53

Change the episodic to serial. I know Dave Jones did some work with me on it and nada, nothing. And when we spoke to a bunch of audiobook providers they were like no, v4v, not going to play in that game. We want a fixed amount of money. It's a guaranteed payment. And we came up with secure RSS still nothing. And then I got Todd Cochran telling me we've been supporting private feeds for years and I'm like it's not private feeds, todd, it's not private feeds. And I don't think they understand the difference. And it worries me that and we'll talk about it later in the show it worries me that and we'll talk about it later in the show we're still talking about video support from hosts when the conversation was a year ago, and we're not even talking about multiple different mediums, not just audio books, but courses, films, radio.

James Cridland: 37:44

And it worries me Indeed. Well, things certainly change, and things certainly. You know it's never easy to do things particularly well, so I think it's quite difficult to obviously make that fast change. Having said that, the Podcast Standards Project has been here. They've had a room. Justin Jackson has been super good in there, hey Justin. Hey, good to see you. You've had your room in there. How busy has it been? People talking about HLS and podcasting.

Justin Jackson: 38:21

It's been unbelievable. I didn't know what to expect. We did something similar in London and people showed up every time we announced an event and without a lot of support from the organizers. So this time we made it more official. We got on the schedule Our first session on HLS video.

Justin Jackson: 38:39

I expected maybe 10 people and the room was packed 40 to 45 people out the door and it's a mix of people who old timers, who care about open podcasting and creators who are curious about how open podcasting works. And so many of them after were like I had no idea this existed, I had no idea that podcasting had this like even understanding RSS and all of that. They were just and hungry for information. So it's been really, really wonderful. And then we've just done some drop-in sessions as well.

Justin Jackson: 39:18

Well, we did our Podcast Standards Project meeting, biggest one ever for members and potential members. Adam Curry came. We just had a really great meeting and that was about I don't know 25 people for that really great meeting and that was about I don't know 25 people for that. And then we did another open house yesterday with probably another 20 people that came by for that just to ask questions and things. So there's a real hunger and curiosity from creators about how open podcasting works, how RSS works, and then we were able to demo all of these cool features, like pod role, that a lot of them don't know about, and so I'm really excited. I think now we just got to keep going, because every time we tell people about these features that they don't know about and you see the reaction, it's like, oh, this is worth doing. So I'm fired up right now.

James Cridland: 40:05

Yeah, it's really good, I think, Sam, one of the things that I've realized is, of course, we are quite far forward in our discussions, but when you're suddenly walking around here on the Buzzsprout stand earlier, Jordan was explaining to somebody what a podcast hosting company does, yes, and you just go. Oh yeah, it's not quite as easy as it seems.

Justin Jackson: 40:28

Yeah except that people are receptive to hearing about it and really intrigued by it. I think, and especially once we started to paint the picture of like, in kind of dreaming about scenarios here's how these features could work. And you know, right now we have pod role on the show level. But what happened if we had it on the episode level? What would that look like if you could recommend other episodes and people just kind of light up and they get that bug of oh, this is what's exciting, being in the open podcast ecosystem, because you can create things, you can propose things, you can try to move it along and you can kind of build what a centralized platform would do.

James Cridland: 41:09

Justin, it's great to see you as ever. Have a safe trip back to the frozen north. Thanks, james, see you soon.

Sam Sethi: 41:17

Has he got a bright shirt on James?

James Cridland: 41:19

He's got a beautiful shirt on. It's a beautiful pink t-shirt, as you would expect. Indeed.

Sam Sethi: 41:26

Should we move on to a few awards and events that are going on around the world.

James Cridland: 41:32

Yes, let's so. The International Business Awards, or the Stevie's, announced their winners and five.

Sam Sethi: 41:37

Sorry, how do you get from IBA to Stevie's?

James Cridland: 41:41

I have no idea. I have no idea how that works. Okay, no idea, but they ended up giving away seven podcast awards, which was great, so congratulations to those people. Winners from the us, uk, canada, australia, belgium and the dominican republic. We've already talked about the ambis, of course, and the entry deadline for the apas from audio uk is fast approaching, so if you're a brit having a listening, having a listen to this, then, and it's time for you to enter those as well and now the other thing that's happening here in the uk is the london podcast festival is returning this september, but it's the 10th year at king's place.

Sam Sethi: 42:20

They've got some great shows pod save, the uk weirdos book club, sarah pasco. They've got other ones there if you want to go to the website, which will be in our show notes. But the festival, which was originally launched in 2016, has now grown to welcome more than 68,000 visitors and over 750 podcasters over the past decade. So great job there. I'll be going along to this year's 10th anniversary and I'm looking forward to a few shows.

James Cridland: 42:52

Yeah, it's pretty good. It's a pretty big thing. Other events going on the Empowered Podcasting Conference is happening in Charlotte at the end of September. Also happening in September is Pod Summit, YYC up in Calgary and Radio Days Asia, which I'm going to next, which is in Jakarta in Indonesia as well, and the Afros and Audio Podcast Festival. Their seventh and final conference is happening in October in Baltimore and Pod News is a supporter.

Sam Sethi: 43:22

Nice one. Good job, James. Now the story that tickled most people I think that was in Pod News Daily was a story by a guy called Bill Wyman and why he hates your podcast. But he doesn't hate it for one reason. There's 23 reasons he hates your podcast. The people who were commenting on LinkedIn about this were all nodding in agreement. So you may have heard me say things like at the beginning I'm super excited about what's coming up next, and friend of the show and various other things. Well, clearly, we're not allowed to say those things. According to bill wyman. What else are we not allowed to say, james?

James Cridland: 43:58

there's a ton of things that uh, that he, he doesn't like, and you know quite a lot of uh, quite a lot of shows take quite some time to get going, um, and you know, uh, start with, you know how are you and how is your week and all of that kind of stuff. Just get on with it. It's a great, fun article. It's worth a read. You'll find it at podnewsnet slash articles and yeah, it's a great piece from Bill. Bill used to work for NPR in the US, is now based in Australia. It was quite funny. We were having a chat about something else and he just said oh, I've written an article and I can't get anybody interested in it. Would you be interested in it? Yes, please, yes, please, I'll have that. So, yes, all super, super excited. The Tech. Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 44:49

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News Newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology. Every Monday in the Pod News Newsletter, the Tech Stuff is supported by RSScom and I'm on the RSScom booth right now. I'm going to grab you and say hello, greg, how are you? How?

Speaker 10: 45:08

are you doing, James? I'm doing amazing.

James Cridland: 45:10

You've been on the booth for the last two and a half days. Of course you're talking about paid from RSS, but you've also got this screen behind you. Tell us about the screen.

Speaker 10: 45:23

It's pretty amazing, Alberto's. It's called Podping. We've basically been able to pull every episode from RSScom that is releasing an episode, so I can see the title, the description and you get to see how constantly it's updating with new episodes that people are releasing.

James Cridland: 45:43

Yeah, so as you've been walking past the RSS booth, you've just seen new shows appearing every so often, every 30 seconds or so. It's been super good. What are people most interested in when they're?

Speaker 10: 45:58

coming here. Everyone wants to know what is RSScom, what kind of posting they can provide. They're really actually interested in seeing this because it gives you an idea. Everyone's trying to understand their pod SEO. Everyone's trying to understand graphics and images. That pulls people in just titles, descriptions. So this now gives you an idea of like look, you're trying to start a podcast. Here's an example so you can see what's good, what's not. And then from RSScom, everyone wants to know how do you make money? So paid has been a big topic of conversation.

James Cridland: 46:30

Yeah, and so I've been trying to pay for the podcast business journal and it seems to be working well so far. Greg, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Also, ben and Alberto here as well. We've just been hearing from Justin Jackson about the podcast standards project and how exciting that's been. Has it been a good show for you, alberto?

Speaker 10: 46:48

It has been a great show and I'm very excited for the podcast standard project because we're going to launch the location tag, the new version oh, the location tag.

James Cridland: 46:56

Yes, this is the. This is the new and better version, sam, which, of course, true fans already supports but my t-shirt.

Sam Sethi: 47:03

That has got to be the t-shirt for me yes, yes, it does it absolutely.

James Cridland: 47:07

But, yes, so that is coming to rsscom real soon. I've actually seen it and it's a really good implementation. In fact, it's the implementation that, frankly, everybody else should be having a look at. When's that coming, albert? Are you able to tell us? Well, eta is September, mid-september, september. There we are. I don't know about you, sam, but are we getting more of these very cautious I've been doing media training type answers?

Sam Sethi: 47:35

Yeah, there used to be so much more fun, these people. Yeah, I'll be there next week.

James Cridland: 47:39

We're getting a lot of these, but still. But there we are. Alberto Ben Greg, thank you so much. Have a great show. All right, james.

Sam Sethi: 47:49

When's a pod roll, not a pod roll.

James Cridland: 47:54

When it's a pod roll from Libsyn. Yes, they have announced now, being fair, they have announced it's a rebadging of a product which is called Podroll from a company called Podrollfm. Yes, and Podrollfm has actually existed for some time and I think podroll existed before podroll was invented. Really see what I mean? I need to check that fact. Yes, I so I think. So a lot of people are very upset about libsyn launching podroll because it you know working with the Podroll folks, because that's a bit confusing when it comes to Podroll for the new podcast namespace. But, yes, so the Libsyn version is people can pay to be in your show and the second episode is essentially it's a trailer drop for a diffuse show. That's basically how that works. But, yes, it's been an interesting conversation over over some beers here okay.

Sam Sethi: 48:56

So just to be clear, though, this does not add to your existing rss feed. It's fundamentally a visual injection into the website page for libsyn, so that if I'm looking at a particular show let's say Podnew's weekly review number one would be the latest episode, number two would be this new injected show and number three would be last week's episode. Is that correct?

James Cridland: 49:22

That's pretty well right, except it does get injected into the RSS feed as well. Oh no, Don't like that. Oh no, Don't like that If you're listening to the feed from Libsyn, then the latest episode will be number one and then there'll be a random trail for some show at number two. Now I have to say the Pod News Daily did that for a long time for this show.

James Cridland: 49:50

Yes, but they were related. They were related and perhaps that's the thing here, perhaps that's the thing here, but yeah, it's certainly been an interesting conversation, shall we say. That's certainly been going on.

Sam Sethi: 50:03

And what was the overall view?

James Cridland: 50:10

positive or negative, then dare I ask I'm not sure that it's that positive, and I would rather that they hadn't called it Fodroll. I think it's just confusing. But you know, by all means launch a thing where the number two episode is something else.

Sam Sethi: 50:23

Can they rename it? Promo Roll.

James Cridland: 50:27

I'm sure that they could rename it all kinds of things, but I'm not sure that they're going to all kinds of things, but I'm not sure they're going to but, but, yes, but that. But that was certainly a conversation. That was certainly a conversation. Um, that going on the lips in booth is one of the biggest booths back here again, which is, which is interesting. But pretty well, everybody else is the same sort of sort of of size and, as ever, the folks from Blueberry are here, todd and Mike. Hello, todd, how are you? Hey, doing great. It's it's day three. We're all a bit tired. How, how late were you up last night? Midnight, midnight.

Todd Cochrane: 51:06

Yes, that's not. That's not too bad. Yeah, it's actually better than three o'clock in the morning, like it usually is, but I can't complain more.

James Cridland: 51:15

I can't complain too much. It's been a weird show this year, hasn't it, because of the upcoming changes and everything else. Have you had some good conversations at your?

Todd Cochrane: 51:26

booth. Believe it or not, it's been much better than last year. So a lot of quality discussions. We're actually pretty impressed. We're going to walk away with a lot of leads, great conversations. I didn't say that at all last year, so from that standpoint it's been a much better show, even though it's been smaller, but a lot of local people coming in, interest, new podcasters, interests the new podcasters, new creators. I really have no complaints, and it's hard for me to to. Actually, usually I'm the one that's coming out of here disgruntled, and this year I'm very happy can, james, james, can you just ask todd if the carpets meet his requirement as well?

Todd Cochrane: 52:04

well, they had carpet already. So you know, of course it met the requirements and I had. We always order extra padding to make sure our feet stay sane, but no it's. You know it's been, it's been a good event. I think you know, maybe you're going to have your hands full a little bit with editorial duties for next year's creators track, because I have seen a little bit of pitching going on in some of the sessions. So you get that under control.

James Cridland: 52:32

I think it'll up the game quite a bit too yeah, no, I think it's good, and I mean basically todd, saying I have no complaints, I think I think I know what the number one story is going to be. Uh, that's, that's amazing, really good, really good to see you both. I will see you.

Sam Sethi: 52:47

See you later, I'm sure yeah, say hello to sam uh, well, uh, yeah, I look forward to seeing you soon. Todd take will see you later, I'm sure, yeah say hello to Sam.

James Cridland: 52:54

Well, yeah, I look forward to seeing you soon. Todd, Take care.

Sam Sethi: 52:58

So what else is going on in terms of the tech stuff? Sam HLS let's get back to that, then. So we talked a little bit about Rocky. Thomas was on stage with Adam. I look forward to seeing what was said.

Sam Sethi: 53:06

There was also the PSP track that went on.

Sam Sethi: 53:07

There was also the PSP track that went on, but Rocky also posted on her own blog about better podcast delivery through HLS, and she did answer some key questions, one of those being how would Soundstack charge for HLS?

Sam Sethi: 53:32

And again, what was interesting for me is that they're not going to be charging on a per request, because if you're downloading an mp4 and it's a single request for the file, that's great. If you were doing hls with 100 requests, because you've chunked up the audio or video and they were charging per request, that would make it well impossible to use as a service because the cost would be too high. So what they're doing is they're treating each hls chunk as a byte range request and they're only looking at the total download delivery as the cost model, which is the same as an mp4, which which means ultimately in english that you could save money, because often the listener doesn't listen to the whole show and therefore, if you're only paying for the delivery of what's been downloaded, then again it should be cheaper than using a consistent mp4 file if you switch to an HLS now.

James Cridland: 54:28

Yeah, no, it was, it was good. I mean, it very much gets into the technical weeds. I think there's still debate going on around HLS and whether HLS makes sense for certainly for audio. But yeah, it's really interesting seeing Rocky, you know, pushing that and moving that forward, and of course, she was the person that brought Adam Curry, the co-inventor of podcasting, here as well.

Sam Sethi: 54:51

Had to be a woman, couldn't have been us. Did we ask Adam to go and do it? Yes, we did. Did he say no? Yes, he did.

James Cridland: 55:01

Well, maybe Rocky was just a bit more persuasive than we were.

Sam Sethi: 55:07

She's just a nicer person than we are. That's what I'd say.

James Cridland: 55:11

I'm very much looking forward to hearing from Adam on the Podcasting 2.0 show about his experience here. I hope it was a positive experience. He certainly seemed to be, all you know, all smiles whenever I saw him, so from that point of view that was good and I'm very much looking forward to watching that particular show on the podcast video feed and on the audio feed as well.

Sam Sethi: 55:34

Now friend of the show. I'm not allowed to say that, but I'm still going to do it. Yes, john Spurlock, he's released a product called HLS Podcast Radar. What's this one, james?

James Cridland: 55:45

So this is a fancy new website, hlslivewireio, and it is essentially all of the latest shows that have been published using HLS all of the latest videos, so you can go and watch that.

Sam Sethi: 55:59

Now what was interesting. I was talking with David Marzell on Mastodon, who his podcast is KDE Express. It's in Spanish, it's using PeerTube, but now PeerTube have updated their RSS feeds as well and can support HLS. So we tested that on TrueFans. That worked, of course. But what's interesting is John Spurlock has said now, if you add as a end of the URL HLS equals one, then he will be able to pick that up on HLS Livewire as well. So it's another way if you want the analytics to be recorded with John, how you can do that. So the prefix stays OP3, but the end of the URL you just now add, hls equals one.

James Cridland: 56:44

to help John, Well, there's a thing. So yeah, uh, yeah, I mean op3 doing great guns. Actually quite a lot of people talking about op3 here, which is nice. There's been a number of people, you know, not really understanding what op3 has done until now. And you know op3 has also added a bunch new, a bunch of new apis. One of those apis added because it because daniel j J Lewis wanted to build something clever on his desk actually that just showed all of the downloads for his shows, and so that API is available for everybody, which is nice.

James Cridland: 57:23

And you know, op3 is such a useful tool because you can see all kinds of things. During the week, we linked to updates of the latest version of iOSos, for example. You can actually see that data in op3, you know. So you can see how apple podcast is doing versus spotify. You can see how you know how people are consuming shows, when people are consuming shows in different time zones. It's a really useful, useful tool. It it needs its financial support. Pod News pays for a bit of it. More people should pay for a bit of it too.

Sam Sethi: 57:59

But I think you know that's certainly a thing. Youtube, they've added a silent skipper Again just a nice little feature.

James Cridland: 58:08

They've taken from Google Podcasts, it seems. Yes, this was a thing that you know. Obviously most podcast apps have, we don't. And oh, there you go. Well, you can get rid of um of bits of silence in your in your show. It just uh, it's a. It's a interesting way of sort of speeding up, and youtube music has just added it now. It used to be in google podcasts, so so it's a bit weird that they didn't put it into YouTube Music originally, but yes, they've added it in there.

Sam Sethi: 58:32

Fountain has released 1.3, a new version of their app, and they've added a like button and some other new features to the home tab as well, so worth a look at fountainfm.

James Cridland: 58:45

Yes, they have, so they've done a bunch of work in there too.

Sam Sethi: 58:48

Now, this is just a side note. It may never. It'll probably hit the cutting room floor, but we'll see. We talked last week about the granularity of the explicit tag either you are explicit or you're not and I was saying is there a way of adding more granularity to it? And I was chatting to Russell Harrower from Pod2, and he pointed to me to the RSS Media, which has a media rating built into it. Now this is dating back to 2009, when it was first promoted. So it exists, it's there, it's fully documented. Is this something that the podcasting 2.0 namespace should take or support?

James Cridland: 59:33

Well, the Media RSS namespace is obviously a separate namespace. I think Yahoo have been looking after that. It's got a bunch of really useful things in it, including ratings. I think ratings are a total waste of time because who polices them at the end of the day, and also ratings in one particular country is very different to other countries because there's this thing called culture and that also exists as well. But if it's a conversation that the industry wants to have, then certainly, looking at the media RSS specification again, just like the podcast namespace, you can stick it in your RSS feed right now. It won't break anything because that's how RSS works.

Sam Sethi: 1:00:16

You had a conversation, actually to be fair to you back in 2020 about this on the GitHub with Daniel J Lewis. I assume the answer to the whole thread was no, we're not doing it.

James Cridland: 1:00:28

then I assume the answer to the whole thread was no, we're not doing it. Then I mean, I don't see the user need for that and I think it's very difficult. You know, the reason why ratings exist is for TV broadcasters, for films, you know, for those big industries, for films. You know for those big industries and you know and everything goes through. You know official rules and regulations and everything else. Podcasting isn't like that. So I'm not sure that we need all of this additional complication.

Sam Sethi: 1:01:06

But I know that Daniel's very keen to get that, you know, up and running. Yeah, I'd just say explicit, as either on or off is a very blunt method of verifying whether this podcast should be listened to or not. And I'd also that, with much of the age verification going on in the uk and the social media verification in australia, I don't think it will be long before those podcast requirements as well. And even you ask who might police it. Well, what about the people who do brand verification, or what are they called, I can't remember now? They brand safety people where they determine it. Well, there must be a metric that they're using to determine safety by.

James Cridland: 1:01:47

Yes, there are, but it's mostly looking at the words that have been said in a podcast and so it doesn't have any of the context around there. That's been one of the issues with those services in the past. So I mean, you know, and you know ratings are more than just fruity language. You know ratings are talking about difficult concepts and that sort of thing which you know ratings are talking about difficult concepts and that sort of thing which, you know again, is very difficult to capture by automated means. But you know, if people want to work on that sort of thing, then of course that's fine.

Sam Sethi: 1:02:22

Well, the good news is ChatGPT believes it already exists, so Russell put it into ChatGPT and it came back with podcast colon rating. It's now available and, in fact, good news, podverse and Fountain, according to ChatGPT, have already implemented it.

James Cridland: 1:02:38

Great news. Well, there you go. That's all very exciting then, isn't it?

Announcer: 1:02:43

Instagram, boostergram, supercomments, zaps, fanmail, superchats and Email. Our favorite time of the week, it's the Pod News Weekly Review Inbox.

James Cridland: 1:02:57

Yeah, so many different ways of getting in touch with us. Fanmail, by using the link in our show notes, Supercomments on True Fans or Boosts everywhere else. Or, of course, Email we share the money that we make as well. Fanmail we've received a fan mail. We have? We've received a fan mail. Have we sam?

Sam Sethi: 1:03:12

we have, yes, yes, who's that from? Yes, it's great news the ugly quacking duck. I think he decided that. You know, sending his boost was a little bit too slow, so he's gone back to fan mail. He says hope the trip to america and the show goes well. He says can't wait to hear in brackets about it. Video not needed. Ugly quacking duck 73.

James Cridland: 1:03:32

Yes well, there we are. So it's always nice to see a piece of fan mail coming through Buzzsprout. What else do we have? Lyceum has sent us some sats for Engine 20. Thank you, I look forward to testing it out. This is talking about Wanda. I'll join Wanda's waiting list. Did you have a beer at the podcast movement? Oh yes, can't you tell? I have great food memories from a deli restaurant in dallas. I tell you what.

James Cridland: 1:03:55

So I was at the bar until about midnight last night I then go and have to go and write and record pod news, which is why it might sound a little bit slurry for th's edition. But then, as I was doing that, I got a text from my lawyer. A text from the lawyer at half past midnight and I'm thinking oh no what? And he texts me and he says there are 40 people here at the swimming pool. Why don't you come and join us? That was legal advice I didn't follow Half past midnight.

Sam Sethi: 1:04:31

You forgot your budgie smug list, did you?

James Cridland: 1:04:35

Yeah, the only person who is seeing my belly button is me. I'm not sharing that with anybody else, so that was good fun. Sai has sent us two 347 sats using True Fans. Thank you, sai, I really enjoyed this episode. Ah yes, this was our special additional episode, true fans. Thank you, si, I really enjoyed this episode. Ah yes, this was our special additional episode last week with NJ and you, which loads of people said that they really liked Sam.

James Cridland: 1:04:57

So thank you for that, si says Sam and Norma bounce off each other on some of the hottest topics Works really well. Maybe you could have a more regular panel conversation with other podcasting experts when you hosts have to take a break. It could be quarterly to make sure that there's enough to talk about. Okay, well?

Sam Sethi: 1:05:15

There you go. Well, there we are. Maybe Maybe Si did ask me whether we were giving Norma any splits and I said that the only platform that supported guest splits was. Truefans. Here we go. Well, we can't add it to buzzsprout, because buzzsprout oh, here we go officially so I I did. I did show in the screenshot of where we do support it. So there you go.

James Cridland: 1:05:38

Well, that's all very uh, that's all very exciting. Talking about buzzsprout, I've come back to the buzzsprout stand, uh, which is where I started. Actually. I came back, there was Tom Rossi and I walked up to Tom Rossi and he ran away. So I'm not quite sure why, but Jordan's here oh, hi, hi, james, oh hi, hello. Yeah, how are you? You've been. You've been on this, on this booth, for the last two and a half days.

Jordan Blair: 1:06:06

I have been and suddenly I find myself alone and I'm wondering if you have anything to do with that.

James Cridland: 1:06:13

Not so far as I'm aware. Not so far as I'm aware. What have people been asking? What are people interested in?

Jordan Blair: 1:06:18

People seem to really be interested in modernization that is not programmatic ads, that is like a little bit more creative. And they seem to be really interested in tools that are going to make podcasting a lot easier for them, because they're not tech minded. That seems to be a really hot topic here.

James Cridland: 1:06:35

And what have people been most excited about in terms of the swag that you have here?

Jordan Blair: 1:06:40

Oh my gosh. T-shirts are always a big hit. We've got our enamel pins. Our stickers are a really big hit, and this year we have been testing out some hats for pickleball theme right, and these hats are flying, so they're very nice.

James Cridland: 1:06:56

Yeah, there are some very beautiful hats. That's a Nike one I can see there, so that's doing very well. This is pickleball Sam, not your paddle thing.

Sam Sethi: 1:07:05

I know that you love pickleball.

James Cridland: 1:07:07

I know that you love paddle, but you know, there we are now. It's still all to do with pickleball over here.

Sam Sethi: 1:07:14

Yeah, when they grow up it'll get to paddle.

James Cridland: 1:07:16

Yes, no, exactly right. Well, really good to see you. Thank you for allowing me to leave my bag here. That's very kind as well. Ben from rsscom has just come and given you a bit of sugar, which is nice.

Jordan Blair: 1:07:34

He gave me some taffy salt water tapping, which I will not eat. You know, you never know what they might have put in it. Yeah, I don't, I don't trust I don't trust competition.

James Cridland: 1:07:38

Thank you so much it'd be fun to see you anyway. Where are we, as if that was going to happen.

Sam Sethi: 1:07:47

Yes, go on 222 from Lyceum as well. He says I will become a power supporter in the near future as I've started a new podcast called Sweet the Gig. What is the symbolic meaning of power supporter number 22? We don't know, because we haven't got there yet. And he says James, have a safe flight and a jolly good time at the Podcast Movement Conference. By the sound of your voice, James, you have. He's wondering whether we can arrange a lit show during the conference. Well, no, we can't because I'm not there. And yes, so next time, maybe, maybe in London, you never know.

James Cridland: 1:08:22

Yeah, next time maybe. Or yes, in New York or whatever, but yeah, no, it's fun to do. He also says, by the way, things can happen with the recording of podcast episodes. Our podcast pen meets paper almost got cut off during an electric blackout in lebanon, which is quite a thing. Yes, lots of interesting things happen. It's quite nice just being just holding a laptop, even though it gets quite heavy, and walking around rather than bringing an entire rig. So, yeah, so that's a thing.

James Cridland: 1:08:56

A couple of other quick messages. One from Matt Cundall excellent coverage of the Wondery restructuring. Well, thank you, matt, that's very kind of you. Hopefully I'll see you in Calgary in a couple of weeks. Another from the Ugly Quacking Duck saying that he's glad that boosts are working again. Yes, absolutely Us too. And Seth, talking about creators and talking about the ones that are making it big on Patreon. Seth says I always try to tell people to make money and ROI around your podcast instead of on your podcast, which is an interesting way of thinking about it. Lots of supporters Thank you for the 21 people who are supporting this particular show every week, including Neil Velio and including Jim James and including David Marzell. You can join that as well. Weeklypodnewsnet is where to go. So what's happened for you this week, sam? While you've been stuck in jolly old England, have you seen anything exciting?

Sam Sethi: 1:09:56

Went up to Edinburgh for the Fringe first time ever which was great Saw an Aussie called Gary Starr, now James. I would say he is the funniest ever comedian I've ever seen. Period end of he did the whole show naked. That's all I would say. Oh nice.

James Cridland: 1:10:14

Oh nice, that's what you need, he forgot his budgie smugglers.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:17

Yeah, he totally forgot his budgie smugglers. Yes, he was crowd surfing naked and cartwheeling naked, so lots of things to be done naked, yes.

James Cridland: 1:10:27

But he was very, very funny.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:37

Well, there we are. Have you built anything exciting for for true fans? Well, we were in the middle of building a promotion function. So the idea of creators being able to buy space on the hero pages on our home page or on the carousel.

Sam Sethi: 1:10:45

So if you yeah, if you wanted to be listed in a category. So that's gone live now and that's been great. And I really liked what Libsyn did with the way that they implemented promos in the middle of podcast page listings. I don't like the idea of injecting an actual episode into the RSS feed. But yeah, so we've sort of taken that idea and we've added that now so you can now buy. So let's say, somebody wanted to buy space on True Fan slash Pod News Weekly Review. We would get a request. We would then accept that request or reject it, and if we accepted it, then the second podcast would be listed, but we don't add it to the RSS feed at all. So yeah, so we've built that as well.

James Cridland: 1:11:31

Oh well, very nice.

Sam Sethi: 1:11:35

James, come on, then. What's happened for you this week?

James Cridland: 1:11:39

I mean, I think really, you know. I mean it's obviously been all about Are you going to describe the gif? It's obviously been all about? No, it's. Sam grabs a bag of popcorn and sits back. It's been a really interesting week, just because an awful lot of change for this show going forward and an awful lot of very quick change that quite a lot of us have had to all of a sudden go into. But no, it's been a good week. It's been fun to say hello to a bunch of people here and fun to you know. Yeah, it's been a good week. I think I'm wondering whether I can interrupt a conversation going on and just say hello to Ben from Airwave. Hello, ben, you're on the Pod News Weekly Review. How has the event been for you? You've been on a big stand here talking about Airwave.

Speaker 5: 1:12:39

I think it's been great. I think it exceeded expectations. I think there's a lot of great people here. We've stayed out of the heat and it's been a fun week.

James Cridland: 1:12:47

Yeah, it's been good. So you've been talking about Airwave. Who are Air?

Speaker 5: 1:12:51

waves. If people don't know, air wave is a fully comprehensive podcast network that includes ad sales, promotion and growth, other fun stuff, and, additionally to being a network, I think we're a community. Most of our podcasters know each other and interact regularly. I hate to say a family, but at the very least we're a community?

James Cridland: 1:13:12

yeah, no, indeed, and it's nice to come and see, see the family here you know, every single year. So, yeah, so it's great to see you, ben, you know, I hope you've had a good, a good, a good time. What? What's the, what's the main sort of feedback that you're getting? What? What are, what are creators asking about this? What? This event?

Speaker 5: 1:13:29

I think we're hearing a lot more about subscriptions, particularly than we have in the past. Obviously, monetization, a lot of talk about video, of course. I think I see podcasters and industry people finally coming down from the video high over the past six months or a year and coming down to a little bit of reality where that's regarded. But, yeah, it's a great crowd, it's been really fun. Always good to see you down to a little bit of reality where that's regarded. But uh, yeah, that's a great crowd, it's been really fun.

James Cridland: 1:13:50

it's always good to see you it's been great to see you, ben. I will see you soon okay, take care there you go ben from airwaves. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, and I think that that's been. The story of the conference really has been much less talk about video, much more talk about what matters to podcasting something for the, something for the ears when the eyes are busy, and I think that's been super exciting. So, yeah, so that's been my week basically was?

Sam Sethi: 1:14:17

was youtube actually at the event there this year?

James Cridland: 1:14:20

there was somebody from youtube here, yes, on a panel that john wardock looked after. So he uh certainly ended up doing that, and but that was the only. That was the only bit of youtube. Yes, so there wasn't very much youtube there. They were much more involved in evolutions earlier on in the year and perhaps evolutions as was was a better event for them. Evolutions next year moves to the south by southwest, and so obviously youtube will be very much involved in that. I'm sure you know as we go forward, cool, well, so that is it for this week. All of our podcast stories taken from the PodNews daily newsletter at podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi: 1:15:01

You can support the show by streaming sats. You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout thumbnail linked in our show notes. You can send us a using the buzzsprout fun mail link in our show notes.

James Cridland: 1:15:10

You can send us a super comment or become a power supporter, like the 21 people at weeklypodnewscom it's our music, it's from tm studios, our voiceover is sheilad, our audio is recorded using clean feed, we edit with hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting, keep podcasting, get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi: 1:15:36

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