Announcer: 0:00

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.

Sam Sethi: 0:12

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

Siobhan Leahy: 0:17

It's four audiences in Asia-Pacific, but we want to cover the biggest stories in the world and how they relate to audiences living here.

James Cridland: 0:24

Siobhan Leahy from the BBC on a new show for Asia, plus more from Podcast Day Asia and.

Barry Luijbregts: 0:31

So we wanted a podcast app just for us that works exactly how we want it.

James Cridland: 0:35

Barry from Podhome on their new podcast app. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout with the tools, support and community to ensure you keep podcasting, Start podcasting. Keep podcasting with buzzsprout with the tools, support and community to ensure you keep podcasting, Start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom. From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi: 0:53

James. So look before we kick off. Where in the world are you today?

James Cridland: 0:58

I am in Jakarta, in Indonesia, today. So here for a conference which we'll doubtless speak about, and, yes, it's been an interesting week in Jakarta, let's just put it that way. Quite a lot of army outside the hotel at the moment yes, still, but there we are.

Sam Sethi: 1:14

Sorry, are you sure you're not in Washington DC? Just check Now-.

James Cridland: 1:19

What are you? Doing there, then what am I doing here? Well, yes, so we're here for Podcast Day Asia and Radio Days Asia. It's two big conferences here, around 300 people here, and it's a really good get-together of people who are involved in both podcasting and in radio in this part of the world. And yeah, and so on Wednesday I looked after the main podcast day, but also spoke on the Tuesday as well.

Sam Sethi: 1:49

Now it says here there's a company called SRI FM in the Philippines that's using Spotify's open access. What are they doing?

James Cridland: 1:58

Yeah, this was interesting. So this is Ron Bateyong, who we've known for a long time. I think we've had him on the podcast. Actually he listens. He is our only listener on Spotify, so he says Makes sense, yes, and so Syria, I believe, is the way that you pronounce it. It's Filipino for series, it's a radio drama app or radio drama platform and it's basically podcasts that you can listen to.

James Cridland: 2:24

But he is using Spotify's open access, which gives him a real advantage in this part of the world, because, firstly, he doesn't have to build a storefront because Spotify is his storefront.

James Cridland: 2:36

Most of the shows that he does, the first six shows are free, and then you pay for show seven and on which is interesting.

James Cridland: 2:47

But of course, you then press the button in Spotify Open Access. It opens his website, which you can link to, but that means that he doesn't have to just take credit cards, which very few people in the Philippines have. He can also take the wallet apps that exist in that country, so GCash is one of the big have. He can also take the wallet apps that exist in that country, so GCash is one of the big ones, and so he can end up taking that, which I've never thought before, but of course, in many parts of the world people don't use credit cards, and so actually being able to accept other forms of payment is something that is very difficult, for example, for Apple Podcasts, very difficult for quite a few of these services, but if you're building your own and you happen to be based in the same country and you're using something like Spotify Open Access, then that's perfect for you. So that was really interesting to hear about.

Sam Sethi: 3:37

I liked the idea that you put in my head of Spotify being a storefront for other services services. I've never thought of it that way before, but I have said to you in the past, I think spotify are going to be looking at the money on the table that they are allowing to be taken from them now, now that the apple monopoly on their store has been broken, I suspect spotify's open access will be host your premium content with us still be the to do, but I think it's certainly a very interesting strategy.

James Cridland: 4:28

So you know, and yes, spotify may come a knocking and go. You know what. We'll have some of that money, please, and can you stop using your own payment system? We'd like to use our payment system and of course, that wouldn't be good for people in this part of the world. But I thought no, I thought it was a really fascinating thing.

Sam Sethi: 4:47

Now, if I am not able to come to Jakarta, which I'm not, can I watch any of this online?

James Cridland: 4:53

You would have been able to. Yes, there was a link that we put in Tuesday's newsletter to allow you to watch the podcast day itself as it went out live. There may be a link for you to catch up. I'm imagining that there probably will be. If you do a search in YouTube for Radio Days Europe, then I'm sure that you might be able to find it. But I went around the show floor as I normally do and I bumped into people and I asked them who they were, starting with Peter Niegel.

James Cridland: 5:21

I am Peter Neagle and I'm the CEO of Radio Days and we're here in Jakarta for Radio Days Asia, which is now the what fifth of these.

Peter Neagle: 5:32

It's the sixth. We were five years in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and now it's our first year here in Jakarta.

James Cridland: 5:38

And we're really enjoying it so far, aren't we? We've had some good speakers so far, and more to come. I know you know we've had some good speakers so far, and more to come. I know you know we've not seen a whole heap yet, but do you have any sort of anything that you've learned so far from the speakers that we've heard from or the ones which are coming up?

Peter Neagle: 5:54

yes, you and I were in the session which you moderated where we heard a very interesting story from the philippines and apparently gay love is really big in the in the philippines and I thought that was really big in the Philippines and I thought that was really interesting.

James Cridland: 6:08

Yeah, just to clarify, it wasn't just about gay love, it was about podcasts that were made about that. But that was fascinating because he's using a lot of AI, isn't he to end up doing that? And there's been a bit of a talk around AI here as well.

Peter Neagle: 6:21

There has been quite a lot of AI. Also. I heard well, I didn't hear it actually, because I was dragged out of the room, but I heard a fascinating from other people about Corey Layton from ARN talking about how they are now using brain research like actually putting electrodes on the heads of people to understand the differences in listening to radio and podcasts and music. I thought that was fascinating.

James Cridland: 6:48

Yeah, he's really, really good. And so Radio Days Asia this time next year, I guess are we going to be in the same place.

Peter Neagle: 6:55

We are. I had a wonderful meeting with the minister and the partners are very happy, so we'll be back next year.

James Cridland: 7:01

So we've got a lot of people who tune in to us from the US, from Europe and from other places. Why should they come to Radio Days Asia next year?

Peter Neagle: 7:10

Well, it's about finding that thing, that gem, like we were just talking about Ron Beertong from the Philippines, finding that gem that you would never have found in your own backyard and just saying that's really clever, I could use that. And nobody else is going to hear about it, I think, unless you come to Asia.

Jordan Kanazawa: 7:28

I'm Jordan Kanazawa. I'm the head of branded podcast production for Otono, a Japanese ad agency and ad tech distributor in Japan specialised in audio.

James Cridland: 7:41

And you've just been on stage here at Podcast Asia talking about some of the consumption stats for Japan in terms of podcasting. What was the big things that you were talking?

Jordan Kanazawa: 7:52

about Sure. One of the big things was that YouTube is the number one way to consume podcasts in Japan, which was about 5% higher than Spotify, which I think is quite significant. And there's also, for example, been an increase in political podcasts, which I know in America has been a big thing, and more Japanese analysts and politicians are starting to use podcasts as a way to communicate with people.

James Cridland: 8:15

And you're also talking about Japan, Japanese podcasts, using live events as a thing now and all of that.

Jordan Kanazawa: 8:22

You mentioned a couple of shows, I think now and, and all of that, you you mentioned a couple of shows. I think, just like overseas, japan is also starting to expand podcast monetization beyond just advertising in show. Podcasters are now curating their own events. They're starting to publish their podcasts as books, so taking the content from the podcast and putting it in a book, for example. And yeah, those are the two major changes this past year you mentioned YouTube being the number one podcast app.

James Cridland: 8:50

What are the other big podcasts app in Japan?

Jordan Kanazawa: 8:54

So YouTube is number one, number two is Spotify, number three is something your listeners probably haven't heard of Radico, which is like a radio streaming app for Japan, and number four is Amazon. So Amazon is behind Radico in the Japanese market.

James Cridland: 9:11

Yeah, and it's interesting that Amazon is so high in Japan versus other countries. I shared some data which was relatively demolished, I think, showing that Amazon Music was actually quite high here in Indonesia, showing that Amazon Music was actually quite high here in Indonesia. I find it fascinating seeing Amazon working in different parts of the world. Is there any reason why Amazon might be that high? Is it just that Amazon is quite popular?

Jordan Kanazawa: 9:36

Because Amazon is so popular in Japan, they also, for example, advertise on TV about their Audible initiative as well, so they do have a rather large footprint in Japan, which I think contributes to how high they are in the podcast app listening space in Japan.

James Cridland: 9:54

And Jordan, you don't sound very Japanese and you don't look it either. Why Japan?

Jordan Kanazawa: 10:00

Yeah, I made the joke. Jordan from Japan, white guy doesn't look Japanese. So I'm from Australia originally and I came over on an exchange trip. I liked the country enough I decided to live there. I now have a wife and kids so it's kind of hard to, you know, move now, but I quite like Japan, yeah.

James Cridland: 10:19

It's been really good to meet you. Thank you so much.

Jordan Kanazawa: 10:22

Oh, thank you, Pleasure's all mine, and enjoy the rest of your day here.

Siobhan Leahy: 10:25

So my name is Siobhan Leahy. I'm an assistant editor at the BBC World Service for World Service Newsroom and the Global News Podcast, which is one of the BBC's most successful podcasts, but at the moment I'm not doing that. At the moment, I'm developing the launch of a brand new podcast for audiences in Asia Pacific.

James Cridland: 10:44

And this is what you announced this morning. It's very exciting. It's a visualised podcast, or, as I would call it, a video podcast, but also available on audio as well. You even gave the name of it as well.

Siobhan Leahy: 10:55

Very exciting. We did a big drumroll and announced it's going to be called Asia Specific, so that's great. It took a long time to get to that point for many reasons, but we're here now and excited to launch it.

James Cridland: 11:10

And so the show is starting in the next few months. It's coming from Singapore. What will the show be focusing on?

Siobhan Leahy: 11:18

So a few things. It's for audiences in Asia-Pacific, but we want to cover kind of biggest global stories, the biggest stories in the world and how they relate to audiences living here, those stories seen through an Asian lens. But not just that. We also want to do the kind of biggest and best stories from Asia-Pacific, ones that maybe haven't penetrated our news agenda in BBC World Service English because there hasn't been enough time. So in-depth analysis on those stories, kind of big picture insights on the political, social and economic trends that are shaping the region. There are many Original journalism and on the ground reporting, so massive editorial remit. We want to try and do it all.

James Cridland: 12:04

Yeah, absolutely, and it's a massive area as well to cover Weekly daily.

Siobhan Leahy: 12:10

Good question. I think more than once a week, but we'll see if we get to daily and how quickly we can get to daily. I think we might launch with two episodes a week, one building up to two, maybe building up to three. We'll see how we go. We think we've got to establish a few things one building up to two, maybe building up to three. We'll see how we go. I think we've got to establish a few things in terms of the workflow, the availability of our correspondents and our contributors. So, yeah, that's very much going to be a let's see answer, I think.

James Cridland: 12:37

And you've got some great names doing the show, haven't you as well?

Siobhan Leahy: 12:41

We really have. I mean, the show is going to be presented by Mariko Oi, who's based in Singapore. She's the BBC's first and only Japanese TV reporter and presenter and she's going to be joined by two amazing correspondents in the region Jonathan Head, the Southeast Asia correspondent, based in Bangkok he's like a walking encyclopedia for this region. People know him very well here and also Laura Bicker, china correspondent in Beijing, who was previously in Seoul and Washington, who is just an amazing presence and warmth with immense knowledge. So, yeah, that's going to be the regular lineup and we've recruited a team. So that's very exciting and we want to kind of, alongside Jonathan and Laura, we also want to be showcasing the amazing voices we have in the BBC language services right across the region. There are many. They're in our bureaus working for the Burmese service, the Thai service, the Vietnamese service and the Indonesian service here in Jakarta. So they're amazing editors and bilingual reporters there and we really want to kind of showcase their expertise, their knowledge and their voices. So you'll be hearing a lot of them as well.

James Cridland: 13:52

So the show is called Asia Specific. It'll start soon on YouTube and on the BBCcom app and wherever you get your podcasts, I guess.

Siobhan Leahy: 14:00

That's right, I'm really excited about it.

James Cridland: 14:02

Thanks, Thank you so much for your time.

Siobhan Leahy: 14:04

Thank you, James Cheers.

Ron Bittiong: 14:06

I'm Ron Bittiong, founder of Podcast Network Asia, and we are the biggest podcast network in the Philippines.

James Cridland: 14:14

And you were talking about Seria FM. Have I pronounced that right?

Ron Bittiong: 14:19

No, it's Seria, yeah, seria FM. Basically, it's our premium audio drama podcast platform and, again, thanks to you, you told us there is a way to actually monetize and put a paywall within Spotify that people don't even know, right Through Spotify Open Access. We've been talking about this for like two, three years now. We use that same functionality, but also had to localize the payment platform. We used that same functionality, but also had to localize the payment platform. So, basically, what Seria FM is is that. What we do is we translate the best novels on Wattpad, turn them into audio dramas not in an audiobook style, but it's fully animated and whatnot with AI and whatnot that people love in the Philippines and then we put a paywall. The first seven episodes are free. On the eighth episode, that person sees the lock sign within Spotify and then they have to pay using e-wallets because people in Asia do not have credit cards.

James Cridland: 15:13

And that's the clever thing from my point of view. So you're using Spotify as a storefront and then you're using you know it's your website that people pay through, so therefore you can use not just credit cards, but also, I think it's GCash, isn't it GCash?

Ron Bittiong: 15:27

And there's a lot of other wallets that people use, so we can definitely hyperlocalize within Southeast Asia because, again, only a single digit of the population and we're talking 400 million people, single digits only have credit card.

Ron Bittiong: 15:40

And there are shows that you're producing you're using quite a lot of AI, I gather, yes. So half of it are AI. Half of our casts are AI supporting cast, but the main people that are the antagonists are human, because, even though AI can actually say it, it just lacks the kick and the emotion that people love when they listen to audio drama.

James Cridland: 16:00

Have you had a good conference here? So far?

Ron Bittiong: 16:02

No it's been great, as usual. Radio Days Asia is a top podcasting conference in the region. I'm glad you guys do it, but just happy to show that the whole industry has evolved and I was just so happy to show our inspiration, which is Pocket FM, that, taking a page out of their book, we were able to hyper-localize this and again happy to share, actually, that the one thing and this is what shook the audience yesterday the one thing that people obviously pay for in this, at least in our side of the region in the Philippines, is BL and GL yes, which stands for Boy Love and Girl Love Content Top sellers. We've made a couple dozen thousand dollars because of that content alone.

James Cridland: 16:53

Who would have thought this?

Ron Bittiong: 16:54

Actually, there's a pattern when I saw that there might be a chance to create their story tell. I don't know if you're familiar with story tell out of the Nordics. Story tell is a Spotify competitor and they opened up in Thailand and by chance I knew the country manager who ran it, and then the main anecdote that they told me was that in Thailand they would have been dead a long time ago, I think it eventually shut down, but the one thing that kept them afloat was the BL category in Thailand. I was like wow, and Thailand and Philippines have very similar nuances in terms of their gay population. So I was like all right, I got to do it in the Philippines too.

James Cridland: 17:32

Might as well. Ron, it's always good to see you. Thank you, James.

Steve Ahern: 17:35

Shout out. Thank you, steve Ahern, publisher of Radio Info and one of the co-founders of this event here at Radio Days Asia.

James Cridland: 17:43

Yeah, and it's a fantastic event you are just setting up. As we speak, You've just been blowing up balloons I have For the Radio Info Asia Podcast Awards. I believe that's right.

Steve Ahern: 17:55

That's right, it's actually. I've hated this year, and I've hated it because there were so many good entries that I thought should win. Of course there were so many good entries that I thought should win, but we could only allocate one winner, so there were a few hundred entries, we got down to 80 finalists and in a few minutes from now, after I've blown up the balloons and put the gold paper all around the stage, we will announce I think it's 34 winners of the podcast awards, and this year the most entered categories were interview and social categories, which I think says something about podcasts across Asia.

James Cridland: 18:38

What was the big sort of takeaway from the shows that you saw that were entered and the shows that are going to win this afternoon? From the shows that you saw that were entered and the shows that are going to win this afternoon?

Steve Ahern: 18:46

One of the changes was in the fiction category. Last year there were a whole lot of ghost stories, this year there was still one, but fiction expanded out more to drama and particularly in Chinese language podcasts. Fully produced drama was a big trend this year, and there's a couple of those that are going to win.

James Cridland: 19:10

Very exciting. Where can people go and see all of the winners?

Steve Ahern: 19:15

Radioinfoasia and either in the next few days it'll be on the front page or just search Podcast Awards Asia 2025.

James Cridland: 19:25

And as soon as they are there, then hopefully they'll be in the Pod News newsletter as well.

Chris Stevens: 19:30

Indeed Steve thank you so much. Thanks, james. My name's Chris Stevens and I'm here representing TM Studios.

James Cridland: 19:37

TM Studios, who many people on this podcast will know, are the people that produce all of our beautiful music Absolutely, and I hear it every morning at home on my Amazon Alexa as well.

Chris Stevens: 19:47

I get the news, the weather and then pod news, so very familiar with it, on a daily basis. Well, there's the thing. Why are you here? I was giving a talk yesterday about branding and imaging and ways to connect your branding with your audience and just to make sure that your radio station is reflecting the people that are listening to it.

James Cridland: 20:04

And so TM Studios makes jingles for radio stations but also works with music for podcasts and that sort of thing. And you've got other companies as well, I believe.

Chris Stevens: 20:13

Totally, absolutely so. I've run DivaWeb for 25 years now, which does a lot of production work for radio stations around the world, and then five years ago, myself and two colleagues took over TM Studios as well, so so it's really exciting. I basically get to work with a massive range of radio stations all the time, which is fascinating because it's different formats, different countries, different audiences and, of course, different creative challenges with with with helping stations just sound the top of their game.

James Cridland: 20:40

So I love it yeah, no, it's great fun and doing more for podcasts these days.

Chris Stevens: 20:46

I guess. Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that's really been apparent the last couple of years is podcasts wanting their own branding and their own music, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, so it's absolutely, absolutely dialed in for what they want, the sound they want. But also now, with podcasts going on so many platforms and so many places, you want to make sure that, firstly, no one else has got the same music as you and, secondly, you're not going to unintentionally get any copyright notices when you put things online somewhere. So if something is created by TM or whomever, then it's yours and you can use it anywhere, and I think that's a really important thing, as podcasts invest in their branding and their image. Where do we go if we want to find out more about what you do? There's loads of stuff at tmstudioscom. If anyone wants to drop me an email, I'm always up for chatting about stuff. I am chrisuk at tmstudioscom and I just love talking about this stuff. Excellent, it's really good to see you, chris.

Chitra Prastuti: 21:45

Thanks, and I just love talking about this stuff. Excellent, it's really good to see you, chris. Thanks, james. My name is Chitra Prastuti, editor-in-chief of KBR Media, overseeing production of podcasts.

James Cridland: 21:51

Now you've been working on Podcast Day Asia. Here You've been working on some of the panels and sessions. What's your overall takeaway from the event?

Chitra Prastuti: 22:01

I think one of the things is the monetization, and video is a very big thing because it's, I find, it really hard to. I think I kind of agree with ron saying that saying it's only audio is putting us in the pigeonhole. But on the other side we're kind of hardcore on audio and really at first maybe reluctant going to video, but then it's a must business-wise, but then it's adjustment that we use to adapting, adjustment, things like that to survive.

James Cridland: 22:32

It was interesting hearing from the BBC launching a new show and all of the work that they were doing there. They've done a year's worth of planning on that show. Have you ever worked on a show for a year before launching it on that?

Chitra Prastuti: 22:44

show. Have you ever worked on a show for a year before launching it? No, that is really privileged to have the opportunity to do that, to do the research, to like piloting several times. Something like that kind of thing that we cannot always have that.

James Cridland: 23:00

And what are the big things going on in this country right now in terms of podcasting?

Chitra Prastuti: 23:05

I think one of the things is talk, and video is very big in Indonesia and in KBR. We are still wanting to push forward audio narrative storytelling. This is our bread and butter, our strength. We want to show it to the people. It's getting there. We need visuals too, but the main course would still to the people. It's getting there. We need visuals too, but the main course would still be the audio. I'm your team.

James Cridland: 23:32

It's been really good to see you. I look forward to seeing you in the next year, I hope.

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Sam Sethi: 23:45

James, here's an interesting story I'd love your opinion on. Todd cochran, friend of the show he might be out there with you in jakarta has announced on the blueberry website as of october the 1st, they're going to be putting up their prices. He says it's the first time in 20 years that they've done that, which seems a bit odd. Now, one of the things is, you know, the hosting industry and the podcast industry is looking for multiple forms of revenue, from dynamic ad insertion through to subscriptions. But are we, or have we cut off the end of our nose to spite our face by keeping the cost of podcast hosting low? Now we're going to have to go and increase it. I don't know by how much. By the way, will this lead to either people leaving Blueberry because they're the first to break cover, or will we lose podcasters because they'll go? Oh no, that's too much. Or will we lose podcasters because they'll go? Oh no, that's too much.

James Cridland: 24:44

Well, I don't think they are the first to break cover. I think they're the first to change it for everyone, and there may be a good reason for that. It may just be that Blueberry's billing system isn't capable of grandfathering people into a lower rate, or it might be that Todd has gone. You know what. We'll just charge everybody a little bit more. I do know that other podcast hosts have put up the prices for new customers but left existing customer pricing alone, so that is obviously another way of doing things, and there have been a number of different podcast hosts doing that, but I think it's very difficult at the end of the day, given that Spotify charges nothing.

James Cridland: 25:23

Spreaker, which is the second largest podcast hosting company, has a plan that charges nothing, and so if you're fighting against that, then I guess any amount of money that you're asking puts you at a disadvantage, because people will go well, hang on a minute, spotify is free. I might as well use them then. And so I think the clever podcast hosting companies have realized no, we need to offer more than just free hosting, as Spotify is doing. We need to offer. For example, you know, blueberry customers will get access to Blueberry's guest booking service, so they'll get access to that, and there are, you know, a bunch of things. If you look at Captivate, for example, they have all manner of existing and new tools that they will be adding in there, and I think that is probably the name of the game here is that a standard podcast hosting company probably isn't going to win any races, but if you add additional things that only you can offer, then all of a sudden that changes things.

Sam Sethi: 26:26

BT used to have an expression called bill shock, which was fundamentally you didn't want to get your monthly telephone bill and suddenly find international calls and I don't know other online data calls, and suddenly you have this big bill three, four hundred pounds right line data calls. And and suddenly you have this big bill three, four hundred pounds right. So what they always used to do was say, when I did some help for them, we can't add services to this existing bill, we have to break it up into multiple bills. And I'm looking at spotify saying they're free and hosts saying they're charging. Is there a perception equals reality model that says, actually we'll just call our hosting free, but we'll take that 12.99 that we were charging for hosting and we'll increase the price of ai transcriptions or we will increase the price of guest booking or increase those prices. And the perception to the actual podcaster is oh, oh, blueberry's free, captivate's free, buzzsprout is free, but actually they're not. They've just taken the cost that they had before and put it into other services.

James Cridland: 27:34

Yeah, I mean, you know there are a lot of different ways, I think, of skinning this particular cat, to use a quite unpleasant phrase. Yes, and I think from a point of view you know, if you have a look at Buzzsprout, for example, buzzsprout has a standard package that gives you a certain amount of hours per month, but if you want magic mastering, you pay more. If you want co-host, you pay more. You know there are additional premium services that Buzzsprout offer which you know cost more. Similarly, there are additional services for quite a lot of other podcast hosting companies as well. So that's certainly one way of looking at it and clearly you know that's a way that you know, a way that is pretty tried and trusted.

James Cridland: 28:20

You know, in terms of that, I think the difficulty is it's a numbers game in terms of if you're charging just by the hour or indeed you're just charging by the podcast, as quite a lot of people do. It is a bit of a gamble as to will. I have just signed on the next Call Her Daddy, and in which case that's an awful lot of bandwidth that I have to pay somehow, and so it's the other people who are paying but don't get very many downloads who are essentially subsidising that particular podcast. So I think you know there's definitely lots of different ways around how you charge for all of this kind of stuff.

Sam Sethi: 28:55

So I've been looking at the various different hosts and how they present their models. So Captivate present it as number of downloads. So 30,000 downloads, 150,000 downloads. So in the model of Call Her Daddy, that would be protected, because if she had a million downloads they just put her onto a higher tariff. Blueberry do it by the hour. I think Buzzsprout do it by the hour as well. So number of hours, that's just the audio. So they're not saying how many downloads you would have, but they're just saying how many hours of audio you're uploading. Now, at the end of the day, which is the better model, do you think, for charging?

James Cridland: 29:41

I mean, I can understand both of those charging models because storage costs money, and so buzzsprout charged by the hour of storage, captivate charge by downloads, but downloads up to a certain limit, so you get an amount of downloads included in your monthly you know thing and you pay more if you, if you burst over that.

James Cridland: 30:00

Both of those are related to the costs that these companies actually get, and bandwidth is probably the big cost. I like the fact that Captivate is there unashamedly and I used to be an advisor, of course but unashamedly turning around and saying your podcast grow. We give you all of these additional tools to help your podcast grow and we benefit if your podcast grows, because once you hit that whatever it is 30,000 downloads then we will charge you more money. But that's a honest quid pro quo because we've made your podcast grow and most of their customers will never hit that level, of course. So I like the charge by the download. The benefit of that as well is that with somebody like Captivate you can have as many podcasts as you like as long as your downloads remain below that limit. So that's a very different model to the model like Libsyn, for example, that charges you per podcast that you have in their system. So I think there are just different ways of doing it, aren't there?

Sam Sethi: 31:13

There is a third way in my head. So when you talk to somebody like Soundstack about their CDN, they talk about the amount of data they deliver, right, so they're talking about one terabyte or half a terabyte of data. Is there a model for hosts to do the same? Because the download is assuming that it's a complete download of a complete episode and hours uploaded in terms of the audio length has nothing to do with the consumption. If you you look at Blueberry or Buzzsprout. But is there a third model that says actually it's the amount we pseudo-stream? I know it's a downgrade, yeah, yeah, yeah, but the amount of data that you get through, and yes, i'm… yeah, like a CDN.

James Cridland: 31:57

Yeah yeah, and I'm sure that there is. I'm sure that there is a model and I'm sure that there are some podcast hosting companies out there who charge on that model, who give you X terabytes for free and then away you go. The difficulty with that, I think, is that as a customer you've got no idea and as a customer you're hoping that your podcast is going to be a big success. And I know that that puts people off signing with Captivate because they're going what I only get, 30,000 downloads. Well, actually you're not going to hit that, but you don't want to tell a brand new podcaster that. So, yeah, I mean I'm sure that there is, and it's what I find interesting. For example, with Buzzsprout is, on the standard rate, your audio, whatever you upload, your audio, is fixed so that it is no more than a 96k mono file, so they do all of the transcoding for you. I do not understand why more podcast hosting companies do that, to actually build in transcoding down to 96k mono or whatever it might be, because I think that actually that's the right way of doing things. You know it. It's pointless sending out a 320k mp3 file because there's no. You know, most people will never notice any difference between that and 128k, for example. So, so I actually think that that's not a bad, that's not a bad plan. Again, you can pay extra with buzzbrow if you want stereo, as as we, as we do. Well, we don't pay anything, but you know what I mean. So, yeah, so I I do think that there are different ways.

James Cridland: 33:33

The the one thing, though, you know, as I say, is that, from a customer point of view, they really don't know how much bandwidth, you know. I mean, for many people you wouldn't even guess how how many. You know how many gig this particular show is, for example this, this show is normally one and a half hours. You know what is that in terms of 192k? I wouldn't know, you know so. So I think it ends up just being easy for customers. Do they understand? You know, charged by storage or charged by total downloads, but those two are clearly understood numbers.

James Cridland: 34:11

The benefit of charging by storage, by the way, is, of course, that charging by download. The podcast company is also in charge of basically working out how many downloads you're getting. Of course, the podcast company is the, you know is the arbiter in terms of oh, you got this many downloads, I'm going to charge you X amount, whereas at least charging by the hour of storage is something that you understand as a creator. Okay, so I've made five hours and I know that that fits, so it's probably the easiest one to explain, but I think it's interesting. Fits, so it's probably the easiest one to explain, but I think, but I think it's interesting. I think it's, you know, particularly interesting when you look at blueberry putting out their prices for the first time in 20 years. It'll be interesting to see whether or not that causes attrition, whether or not people turn around and say you know what, I'm not, I'm not going to go with Blueberry anymore because they have just put their costs up, or whether most people go. You know what. Actually, I'll stick with them.

Sam Sethi: 35:10

So it'll be very interesting to watch, as I'm sure lots of podcast companies will be watching, because I would suspect that every podcast company wants to put all of their prices up for all of their existing customers well, one of the things that when I was talking to the guys at flightcast when they were doing their calculations for hosting, they said as soon as you can get somebody to sign up, you pretty much can bank 12 months revenue, because getting someone to switch is so hard. You know there are 301 redirects and everything else. It's not, you know, the simplest thing in the world to do so. Most people, even if the price goes up by a small amount, I don't think they will then immediately want to switch.

Sam Sethi: 35:52

The other thing that had me thinking about, with all of this hosting costs and everything else, was, at the end of the day, stephen Fry once said he doesn't know anything about wine. So when he goes to a shop to buy wine, he says all I look at is the price. He says I don't understand the grapes. I know I want red wine. I don't really understand whether it's a good year or a bad year. None of those things really make me understand. He says but I'm guessing that the price has factored in all the quality and quantity elements of the bottle. So he says I'm happy at 17.99 for a bottle of wine. That's my price point, and I wonder whether we are talking about hours or amount of storage or data distributed and the user is going yeah, I don't care. What was it? 12.99 on bus sprout? Great. What was it on blueberry, 17.99? No, I'm going with buzzsprout.

James Cridland: 36:47

I wonder whether the price is just that thing that people don't even consider all the other yeah, and I think you know I mean the most heavily researched page on any podcast hosting company is the pricing page, and I think you know, going to the captivate page, for example, and you see all of the stuff that they have.

James Cridland: 37:05

You know all of these ticks of this is what you get tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Very different to you know, spotify, that is obviously free, or you know some of these other hosting companies. So I think, yeah, you know, at the end of the day, it's helping people understand that there is a difference between Buzzsprout and other podcast hosting companies. There is a difference between Libsyn and, you know, megaphone and blah, blah, blah. People are perfectly happy to pay significant excess for companies like Megaphone because they give you the monetization tools that you need, and so perhaps it's partly that as well. It's just making sure that the feature set that you have is very clear, and that's clearly something that I think the industry needs to communicate as well as it possibly can.

Sam Sethi: 37:56

Let's move on. James and we were talking about people maybe staying or leaving a host. What are the top reasons people stay or leave a podcast?

James Cridland: 38:06

I'm just having a listen out of the window and all I can hear is the call to prayer at the moment. The call to prayer and lots of motorbikes Welcome to Jakarta.

James Cridland: 38:18

Yes, exactly. Yes. This was a study that was talked about podcast movement. It's now available if you are a pod news reader, if you're a subscriber to the newsletter, it's free, but only then do you get access to the podcast study growth. And they say that the top reason that people leave a podcast, firstly, that it was just boring and secondly, that it started with too much meaningless chat. That's one of the reasons why this podcast starts the way that it does. It goes diving straight into the content, because that's kind of important. We leave our meaningless chat to the end, don't we, sir?

Sam Sethi: 38:56

exactly, and it is totally meaningless.

James Cridland: 38:57

Yes, yes, so, uh, yeah, there's some really good data in here. It was a survey of 1200 podcast listeners and, yeah, let's see, yeah, it was good. They basically say that the first 60 seconds are critical, and I think that that's absolutely correct. So, yes, if you get the PodNews email newsletter, then you can go to podnewsnet, slash extras and you can grab a copy of the podcast study. And if you're not getting the PodNews newsletter, then you should just sign up and then you can get it. So it's as simple as that.

Sam Sethi: 39:33

Now Acast, since Ross Adams has stepped down as CEO, have made an acquisition. Who have they bought, james?

James Cridland: 39:39

Well, they haven't made an acquisition. They actually made this acquisition earlier on in the year, but the acquisition has finished, is all done. So this was the acquisition of the Wonder Media Network, which they got right at the end of last year, beginning of this year, which makes a ton of great shows, and the idea there is that they are going to be making shows, for example, that are for brands and things like that. Example that, do you know, that are for brands and things, things like that. So it was 5.5 million dollars in cash, but acast have just completed the deal with 2.6 million dollars worth of acast shares, which means that the total acquisition price for wonder media network, in case you're working it out, is 8.1 million dollars. So, yeah, just an interesting thing, just to sort of, you know, point out that this has, you know, finally gone through. So that's good news for them. But they've also done something which I thought was quite interesting, haven't they?

Sam Sethi: 40:37

Yeah, they've started a cast ads academy a course or two courses even to gain certification on how podcast advertising works. I guess that's not a bad thing if you want to get people to pay you to learn how to use your product. That's a really smart way of doing it.

James Cridland: 40:55

It is free though. Oh, it's free, sorry. Yeah, you're okay, I thought.

Sam Sethi: 41:00

LP was finding a new revenue stream there.

James Cridland: 41:04

No, you can gain a certification, but I think this is a very good idea. So you are helping ad buyers and people like that. They're hoping to train up a thousand, you know, or thousands in their first year, but the idea is that you can train up to be a certified podcast ad salesperson, which is basically a certified person that understands how to buy advertising on Acast. So I think it's a clever idea. But you look at the amount of people out there who are certified AWS engineers or certified Google Cloud engineers. That's a good thing that you can go to a client and say I've done the course. I've got a piece of paper that says that I do actually understand how AWS works or how Google Cloud works or whatever it is, and so understanding how podcast advertising works, which is the spin that Acast are putting on this is, I think, a pretty good thing. I thought that that was a very clever plan from Acast's point of view.

Sam Sethi: 42:05

I also saw somebody on LinkedIn already post that they've become certified.

James Cridland: 42:10

I thought there you go, yeah yeah, well, yeah, you can do this exam. You can do it in your lunch hour, in a few lunch hours, so you can learn how it all works and then do that. I think it's a very clever idea, and if there's one problem that the podcast industry has had, it's that ad buyers don't understand how to buy yet, and if this helps them buy, then I think it's a good thing for the entire industry.

Sam Sethi: 42:35

Well, next week we will have Greg Glenday on as the new CEO of ACAST to tell us more about what this acquisition was about, and also, are there other plans as well?

James Cridland: 42:46

Yeah, so looking forward to that. There's been some new data from Livewire. Not much changes in terms of podcast hosts by episode share, which is what John Spurlock's Livewire puts together. The only thing that I noted in the data for August was that Libsyn has hit a new low of share of new episodes in a month. They're down to 3% for the first time. Podtrack now has a new high of shows that they track as well. Super useful data and I'm really pleased that John puts this together. It does make you question Libsyn's focus. They are very much now talking about advertising, very much talking about the ads that they sell, which they can sell on any podcast host, and it does make me wonder, well, how long are Libsyn going to continue being a hosting company? If you know, by the looks of it, they don't particularly care too much in terms of the amount of hosts that they actually or the amount of podcasts that they actually host out there.

Sam Sethi: 43:51

Buzzsprout has also put out some numbers. James, what's the take on that one?

James Cridland: 43:55

Yeah, these are always really interesting numbers. Buzzsproutcom slash stats is where to go. Of course they're our sponsor. They showed a drop for Spotify year on year of 3.1% in terms of downloads, although obviously, if you produce video, then you no longer appear in that list in terms of downloads from Spotify. Apple Podcasts still number one 37.1%. What other interesting stats are in there? 5.9% of all downloads on Buzzsprout are from the UK, which is interesting to see. Obviously, the US is number one and if you are on Buzzsprout and you are doing 27 downloads or over, then you are better than half of all podcasts on the Buzzsprout platform. Just 27 downloads, downloads, which is quite a thing. We are easily in the top five. We do well over a thousand, a thousand downloads in the first week for our episodes. We're easily in the top five percent. But you do take a look at these numbers and you go well, maybe, maybe charging our stored is probably the right plan, exactly In terms of charging instead of charging for downloads. Certainly, yeah.

Sam Sethi: 45:13

And I forgot to mention. I looked at the T's and C's for most of these hosting companies as well. They have a safety net. So if you do go beyond a certain amount they kick in with an increased charge anyway. So they've got their safety net in place.

James Cridland: 45:28

Indeed, and for completeness, the Buzzsprout one if you are using more than 500 gigabits of transfer within 30 days, I've got no idea how many downloads that turns into. Then, yes, you get switched to the Pro plan, Although the pro plan is still genuinely quite cheap $49 per month. That includes up to one terabyte of outbound data transfer. So yeah, there's a thing.

Sam Sethi: 45:54

Nice. Now, this is not really a big story, but I thought it was an interesting observation. The Rest is Politics, which is a big UK politics show from the guys at Goalhanger. They were doing a live show. They got 15,000 people at the O2 to come and listen to two people on stage talk about politics. Now they've done the Albert Hall and they've done a few other venues, but even the presenters were gobsmacked that they've actually managed to get 15,000 people to pay them to come and talk about politics.

James Cridland: 46:29

Yes, yes, it was a really interesting interview, done, of course, by a man with a garbage bin on his head.

Sam Sethi: 46:36

That's where we're missing out, James. That's where.

James Cridland: 46:39

Yes, a man called Count Binface, which, yes, uk politics, who understands it? But, yeah, you know. And so alistair campbell, he was actually saying that rory, his co-host, rory, put up a picture on the big screen it was just a chart showing tax, you know, tax rates or something and he put it up on the big screen, talked about it and then on and somebody in the audience shouted more and he was saying this is just mad, this is just mad. So, yeah, I think the success of some of these shows have totally taken them by surprise. And certainly, if you can imagine doing a live show in the O2 arena in front of so Alistair Campbell says, 15,000 people, you know that's quite a thing. So, yes, it was a good interview, worthwhile watching that on YouTube. Also another good interview, amy McNee, who is an author. She was on your friend Jay Shetty's show. No relation, friend of the show. No relation, yeah, no, no.

Chitra Prastuti: 47:47

Spelled differently, so that's probably the clue. It's not a lisp.

James Cridland: 47:50

It's not a lisp. Anyway. Amy Winley went on Jay Shetty's show. She is an author, she has written a book called we Need your Art and she was expecting a massive sales hump because she had appeared on Jay Shet's show. It made no difference to her sales whatsoever and she makes the point and I think this is a really good point.

James Cridland: 48:13

Actually, she makes the point that artists have been taught that success comes from external forces. It doesn't come that way. It comes from word of mouth. Now, if you were to take the word artist and replace that with podcasters, and if you were to take external forces and start talking about you know, does success come from Apple Podcasts, new and noteworthy? Does success come from, you know, you being picked as a speaker at podcast movement? Does success come from all of these things? No, it doesn't, at the end of the day, and you should stop sitting back and assuming that somebody else is going to give you success. Just go out and get your word of mouth and get all of that stuff going. So I thought it was a really interesting point of hers and very interesting. She shared the purchase numbers for her book and you you could actually see very clearly that that it made no difference to those sales numbers at all. So yeah, really interesting.

Sam Sethi: 49:13

I remember many years ago somebody posing the question who's the more important on a podcast, the host or the guest, and the answer was the host, actually strangely, because most people had the perception you know, get a big guest and that'll get my numbers up, do this, do that, do the other. But actually what you find is the parasocial relationship with the host is what people come back for, and so it's that person or people in our case that people come back to listen to. The guest happens to be just that week, so the effect for her Amy McNee may be little, because Jay Shetty's fans are coming back for Jay, not for Amy.

James Cridland: 49:54

Indeed, and I remember you know Todd and Rob from the new media show. They say that whenever they have a guest on, their figures actually go down.

Sam Sethi: 50:02

No wonder they've said no to me numerous times then.

James Cridland: 50:05

I wish I find fascinating. Let's talk about events. There is an event coming up in Spain called Podcast Days, and I was there looking through the list of international speakers, and there are some excellent names on there. Eric Newsom is on there, megan Davies from ACAST, todd Cochran from Blueberry, of course, and then there was another name that I noticed on there and it's Sam Sethi. That's very exciting An international speaker.

Sam Sethi: 50:30

Now are we Well, you know clearly, a certain well-known speaker called James Criddle must have been busy that day. The only reason anyone goes for option two yes.

James Cridland: 50:43

Well, that should be very exciting. Yeah, so it's a month away. It's in madrid on the second to the third of august, so just less than a month now, and yeah, so that that that should be very nice. How exciting for you.

Sam Sethi: 50:55

Yes, no, I'm looking forward to it. I mean, you need to top up the sun tan, it's raining in england, so, yeah, it'd be nice to get out to spain, also going on pod summit in calgary on september the 19th.

James Cridland: 51:06

I will be there. It's actually september the 19th and the 20th I think I will be there doing a talk which I haven't actually given a title to for tim, who is running it. If he's listening, it'll be my usual title of where we've come from and where we're going, because that leaves me to think for another week. And there's the Speakfest Night of the Living Pod, which is tremendous branding. It's being held in. I think it's being held in something like a cemetery or something really weird or a museum of. Yeah, it's just very strange. Anyway, that's happening in Houston, in Texas, on October the 10th. The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 51:47

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology. It's been a quiet, quiet, quiet week in terms of well tech and news and everything else. So, at least while we record this, there may be more exciting things to happen, but while we record this, it's been very quiet things to happen, but while we record this, it's been very quiet. But what technology are you about to talk about?

Sam Sethi: 52:10

Well, goodbye, chartable, really. I mean, I thought you'd gone already, but it looks like it's finally sun setting on December the 8th. So that's that. And a company called Talksco has launched a platform connecting podcasters and and guests, so very similar to what we had, pod match last week yeah, with alex sanfilippo, who's very pleased that you called him dapper, so he is, he is, yes, and so they've launched a free speakers page to help hosts find guests. The pages come with an easy to use url to help prompt it. I mean, it goes back to seo. You know, again, I know hub. Hub has got a service like this we talked about Blueberry's got one, captivate's got one. So there are a lot of companies in this space of guesting and hosting connectors. Yeah, yeah.

James Cridland: 52:58

Yeah, no, indeed, it's going to be interesting to see what happens with talksco. And yes, and just to mention on that Chartable thing, there's two things that's going on there. It was, of course, killed last year for most people. It still works for megaphone customers, which are landing pages that you can link to if you want to promote your show, and it does all of the tracking. So basically what Chartable was doing, but they are typical Spotify in that these landing pages have a massive button that says listen to this show on Spotify and then these miniscule little icons for all of the other platforms that you might want to have a listen. It's the most Spotify thing ever, so it's quite funny. But yes, if you want to use the kind of thing that you used to get through Chartable Smart Links, those URLs won't work anymore by December the 8th, so you'll need to use these new megaphone links instead.

Sam Sethi: 54:00

A couple of other ones. Podclock, James, you brought it back why?

James Cridland: 54:04

Yes, I brought it back. It's a podcast app, testing podcast. It's got a whole set of tests If you're making a podcast app or a podcast service of some sort, all kinds of things from odd podcast formats or different metadata. So, yes, worth a peek. You'll find that wherever you get your podcasts. And also, alberto Batella of rsscom We've already mentioned this but it's worth mentioning again there's demo code for producing the podcast location tag, the new podcast location tag. I know that rsscom are going to roll this out very shortly, but it's really nicely done. It's done the correct way through the UX. It's very nice and you can copy the whole thing and stick it into your podcast hosting company. It's well worth a peek. You'll find it linked on Monday's newsletter and in no you know. Obviously I'm not just rewriting that because there was virtually no news on Monday because it was Labor Day at all, but it's certainly worth another mention Monday because it was Labor.

Sam Sethi: 55:03

Day at all, but it's certainly worth another mention. Yes, now, one other thing to mention is Podhome. Now, barry Lubreks, from Holland, is the CEO and founder of Podhome, which is a hosting company, but strangely or maybe not so strangely now they have developed their own app, and it's both iOS and Android. Have you seen anything of this yet, james?

James Cridland: 55:26

Yes, I've played with it. I think, as with any of these podcast apps, you need to kind of understand what the big deal is, and I think the big deal with this one is it's a super modern podcast experience. That's what they're calling it. It deals with live podcasts, it deals with quite a lot of the secret sauce in terms of podcasting 2.0 and all of that, but there's quite a lot of stuff that it does that you know, pocket Casts does fine and Apple Podcasts does fine and everything else. But, yeah, it's certainly built for the super fan in terms of podcasting. You caught up with Barry and you asked him who is Podhome.

Barry Luijbregts: 56:05

Podhome is a podcast hosting platform and one of the most modern ones. I always say we've gone live in I think it's now 2023 or 2022. I don't even remember something like that. We're hosting lots of podcasts, some large, some small.

Sam Sethi: 56:21

We're doing pretty well Now one thing you announced last week you've been teasing it for a little while that you've been building a new podcast app and it was in beta and now it's gone live. It's available on the iOS and Android stores, so why did you want to go and build an app?

Barry Luijbregts: 56:41

Why did I want to hurt myself like that? Yeah, want to go and build an app. Why did I want to hurt myself like that? Yeah, as you know, building an app takes lots and lots of time and is very, very painful. Because developing anything for mobile is super specific. The mobile rules for android and ios are super specific. So, yes, it's a lot of effort. So why? Why? Why did we decide to do this?

Barry Luijbregts: 57:03

Well, first of all, me, and also Jurgen, that's also working with me we use lots of podcast apps and none of them truly fit how we want to use a podcast app, so that is really the best reason. So we wanted a podcast app just for us that works exactly how we want it, and from there it started. And the second biggest reason is that now we control the whole stack from us. So for our podcast hosting users, when they host anything with us, we can now control the whole stack stack. So if all the podcast apps don't work anymore or everyone wants to censor you, for instance, you can still hear your podcast online on our podcast app and that I think that's very important.

Sam Sethi: 57:52

So I understand the desire to find the best podcast app you can that fits your needs. Was there an immediate feature or function that was frustrating you? That said, you know what I can do a better job than those guys.

Barry Luijbregts: 58:08

Yeah. So basically, we wanted a podcast app that is, as, let's say, beautiful or intuitive as Apple podcasts, because say what you want, but it's a nice app, right, it looks nice, there's nice buttons, all that type of stuff, because it's Apple and it fits exactly on the device. So we wanted that. But then make it work with modern features like chapters, transcripts although Apple Podcasts does a lot of that, but also some of them it doesn't and make it work slightly better in a way that we also wanted it to work. Like, for instance, when I start playing an episode, I want to know where it's gone. Like when I then scroll around and search for more stuff, where did that episode go? So that's clear for us. It's now in the up next tab, unless you then remove it from it.

Barry Luijbregts: 58:55

And then the final part is we also wanted to discover new shows. So, for instance, we see everything that happens on the backend of Podhome hosting. So, for instance, we see everything that happens on the backend of pod home hosting. So we see new shows being created. We try to catch up and listen to everything, but that's impossible. But there's so much interesting stuff out there and most of it nobody's ever heard of. Because when you go to the bigger apps, you see trending, you see trending in your country trending on the lists, and it's all the same shows, right.

Barry Luijbregts: 59:25

So we wanted a mechanism that also lets us discover other shows, fringe shows, just random shows, literally random shows and maybe filter that as well, like random shows within comedy within uk, for instance, and so we also built features for that, to see those, and now we have a feature where you can basically swipe through shows, just like you swipe through instagram or any other social media app, and then you get a little preview of an episode, so you get to see the show, but you can also hear oh, this is what that sounds like. Then you can get a feel and then you can, if you like it, you click on it, you follow the show, you explore a little bit. So discovery features are also very important, and that's throughout the app. There's little widgets which say random episodes from this country, for instance, random episodes, random, random. And then you just get to see lots of stuff that you otherwise wouldn't see and listen to.

Sam Sethi: 1:00:20

Yeah, no, I agree, otherwise wouldn't see and listen to. Yeah, no, I agree, there's a lot of dare I say it paid promotions on the bigger apps that publication companies will have gone to those companies and said feature us first. Of course, yeah, and strangely, that appears on all of them. So look, let's with the development process then. How long did it take?

Barry Luijbregts: 1:00:43

roughly, how long did it take? I think roughly a year from start to publish in the app store. Roughly a year, something like that, Off and on, of course, not full-time development.

Sam Sethi: 1:00:53

So look, now you've got the full stack. What do you envisage as the benefit? I mean first, possibly first party data into an analytics dashboard. But again, you know, one of the problems of being a full-stem top-to-toe is that it's only your data to your analytics and, of course, being a host, you want to have a breadth of data. So when you came up with the plan, the idea to build your own app, you must have had some thoughts about yeah, we will also get some competitive advantage by having our own app hook into our own server yeah.

Barry Luijbregts: 1:01:30

So there's basically two things not so much the data, because, yes, we need a breadth of data, we need more data, otherwise, you know, it's kind of useless to the, the podcast users. So the first advantage is that now we can have features that we roll out in the hosting platform that we can also then surface within the app first, before you implement it in TrueFence the next day.

Sam Sethi: 1:01:55

No, you never beat us. No, never going to happen. No, Jackie.

Barry Luijbregts: 1:02:00

So that's one. And then the second one is that the app itself is also kind of an advertisement for the podcast hosting platform as well, because it offers a nice and modern features and, for instance, on the episode pulse page it shows all of the the pod pings going by, including those that we find ourselves within our own back-end. So you see new episodes every three seconds from all around the world that are being published right then and there. And then we can in a little pop-up box we say you also want your episodes being published in a couple of seconds. You know, check out Podhome hosting. And so it's kind of an advertisement also to show people what is possible, and also podcasters and let them know that podcast hosting is also possible through Podhome. So those two things basically, and not so much the data.

Sam Sethi: 1:02:53

Now, what do you, as Podhome, hope to do next? Now that you've got both sides of the fence? What are you planning on doing next with either the hosting side or the app side?

Barry Luijbregts: 1:03:05

well the hosting side. We are always improving that constantly and we have lots of big plans. So the first new things that will be live very soon is an upgrade to our pod home, ai. It's already very capable at doing all the basic stuff that I mentioned already, like chapters, transcripts, all that type of stuff. The next update will do that even more cleverer if that's a word but then also will tell you all the things that the podcast was about.

Barry Luijbregts: 1:03:37

So, for instance, if we would use it on this episode, it would give us also a link to your social media website, link to my social media website, a link to my social media website, link to Podhome. It would filter out all of the entities and stuff that we've talked about and put relevant links in the show notes there or suggest them, and then you can use them or alter them or don't. So that's one thing that's coming out. Another thing is that we're going to make publisher dashboards now. So, for instance, one of the big things that we do with our hosting company is that you can have unlimited shows, unlimited episodes and many people use that and you can all have that within your one subscription of 15.99 a month. So you can have 10 shows, for instance, for 15.99 a month, and a lot of people do that.

Sam Sethi: 1:04:19

Sorry for clarification. Can we just go pounds sterling or euros? I mean just for clarification, your denomination.

Barry Luijbregts: 1:04:26

So most people pay in US dollars and then it's 15.99. In the euro zone, let's say in our countries here, it's 15.99 also. Okay, gotcha. So lots of people do that and have multiple shows. But then you have multiple shows and then you need to navigate to the multiple shows to see your statistics and all that type of stuff. So we're building a dashboard that shows you an overview of all of your shows and then an aggregate of all your downloads and all the things, and then you can drill down from there much more easily and manage all your network, your shows, basically. So that's another thing that's coming up there.

Barry Luijbregts: 1:05:04

And then the last thing that we are thinking about we haven't built yet is rudimentary recording feature. So we already kind of have it. So now people can go live right, like I explained, within our own podcast streaming server. So you don't really have to do anything for that. And there's already a toggle where we say record this live stream and when you do, when you're done, you stop being live.

Barry Luijbregts: 1:05:30

Then we process your recording and we put it in your episodes and boom, you're done. You can just publish it as is or you can download it and edit it if you want and upload it again. So we already have the basic infrastructure for it and so we want to make it super easy for people to just use the whole platform, go to our website and then record instantly, put it in an episode just like Anchor used to do right Spotify for podcasters and just make it easy also for less technical people to just hit, record, start talking and just do that. So I think we're going to make a simple first version of that where you do it by yourself and then maybe later you can invite guests and do all that stuff. So we have lots of big crazy plans.

Sam Sethi: 1:06:19

Okay. So one of the things that I've been saying is that hosts should support live. I'm glad that you do. I know Blueberry does to some extent. I know a few others have said they will, but haven't quite got there yet. I have said that live podcasting is the new radio, so it's the possibility and now that you you're recording it, you've also got that ability to turn that live into an episode is. Is this going to be something that you support? I I'm hoping that one of the hosts will now start to use medium equals radio for some of that rather than medium equals podcast, and I know that's a fine line between what's a podcast and what's a radio show. But I do think that there's a big trend globally where radio stations are closing down. They can't an on-demand podcast and what is a live streamed what I would fundamentally call radio.

Barry Luijbregts: 1:07:33

Yeah, maybe we will support that medium. That's not hard to do, of course, but then of course we do need some apps that also support it, because otherwise nobody will show it. I know one, I know one, you do it. Yeah, but obviously then you need to treat it differently than a normal podcast. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, perhaps. Yeah, I think we can definitely do that for shows like that, absolutely.

Sam Sethi: 1:07:59

Given that you're a vertical stack. We know that Fountain and RSS Blue have merged together to create Fountain Blue, although still not seen a press release from Oscar or Dovidas, but then again, you know it's coming, I suppose. Do you think companies like Buzzsprout, captivate, blueberry, rsscom should all be going down this same road? Is this the trend now?

Barry Luijbregts: 1:08:26

No, no, no, absolutely not. I think nobody should follow any trends. You should just run your business as you please and listen to your customers Most of all. Almost every feature that we build is customer driven. Somebody asks for it, so I don't think other companies should also have an app. You should only have an app if you have a good reason for it, because it's very hard to build and to maintain. So, no, absolutely not.

Barry Luijbregts: 1:08:52

And I think, for instance, what the Fountain Blue guys are doing is great and they have a specific focus on a type of customer with Bitcoin and with Noster, and that is perfect. I think every business should have such a focus, because then you know who your audience is. If everybody's your audience, then nobody kind of is, because then you have no focus. We have a broader focus, not so much Bitcoin and Noster. Also, we do have a lot of Bitcoin people, because we support value for value, and that attracts obviously the sad stackers, which is a good thing, but also the modern podcasters with live. That's also a very specific audience of podcasters that do that. Not everybody does that, most don't because it also requires a little bit of technology knowledge, because it also requires a little bit of technology knowledge.

Sam Sethi: 1:09:43

So two quick questions then, because the last time we spoke, you were not anti-V4V and not anti-micropayments, but you weren't pro it. I remember you were saying, yeah, this will be a couple of years down the road, we won't support it yet. So when did you change your mind?

Barry Luijbregts: 1:10:01

When did you start supporting it then? I was never anti it. I was hesitant to that. It would have brought adoption quickly and you know we see that now as well, because it is very difficult to do, to implement for for the users mostly so a podcast listener is difficult to.

Barry Luijbregts: 1:10:18

To put a wallet in a podcast app Now, you have it in TrueFence. Many other podcast apps also have it. I do not have it in the Podhome app. Put a wallet in a podcast app Now you have it in TrueFence. Many other podcast apps also have it.

Barry Luijbregts: 1:10:28

I do not have it in the Podhome app, a wallet or V4V, because we developed this in the Netherlands and we do not have any good options there to host a proper wallet that is also monitored by the Netherlands Central Bank, which unfortunately, you need in this case. So as governments still around Europe at least are kind of hostile towards Bitcoin, it's going to be difficult to do this with Bitcoin, at least in Europe, perhaps not so much in the US. So here I maybe, when we get stable coins, then you know we can pay with euros or whatever in little pieces. So not per se one euro, but 0.001 euro, and then send that around in a couple of seconds. When that happens, then a system like this would be able to get broad adoption from the users as well, so from people that I know, my brother. I can explain it to my dad, for instance, and then he might actually use something like that. But it takes time. It definitely takes time, but I think we will get there, especially when technologies change and adoption gets better also here in Europe.

Sam Sethi: 1:11:41

Last few questions then Monetizing monetizing obviously we've just touched on v4v and wallets, but are you doing dynamic ad insertion? Are you focused on any of that space at all yet?

Barry Luijbregts: 1:11:55

from a hosting side. No, we do support the funding tag and almost everybody uses that and we surface that also in the Podhome app and I know from my users, from the podcast hosting users, they have just great success with that.

Sam Sethi: 1:12:10

So I've had a question in from a Mr Cridland in Australia. He says do you know where Australia is now?

Barry Luijbregts: 1:12:17

Yeah, the next release which is now pending at Apple, that will also have Australia in the country list. So what Sam is alluding to is in the Podhome app you can choose countries to filter podcasts, shows and episodes and stuff on, and in that list we missed Australia. There. We had some other. We revised the whole list so we had some other weird things in there that did not make sense at all.

Sam Sethi: 1:12:43

So look, barry. First of all, all congratulations, welcome to the game of app development. If I wanted to go and get the pod home app, remind everyone where would I go?

Barry Luijbregts: 1:12:53

you can go to the app store apple app store, android app store just search for pod home, pod home and you will find the app, and or go to podhomefm slash app. A-p-p.

Sam Sethi: 1:13:07

Barry, thank you so much, congratulations. One year of working has proved to be very fruitful for you.

Announcer: 1:13:19

I look forward toostergram Super, super comments, zaps, fan mail, fan mail, super chats and email. Our favourite time of the week, it's the Pod News Weekly Review Inbox. Inbox.

James Cridland: 1:13:35

So many different ways to get in touch. So many different ways to get in touch with us Fan mail by using the link in our show notes, super comments on True Fans, or boosts everywhere else, or email, and what have we got? We've got three boosts this week, which is very exciting. What's the first boost that we've got there, sam?

Sam Sethi: 1:13:53

well, neil velio sent us 627 sats from true fans and said ha ha, ha, ha, ha ha. I think the road casted chat. I just thought I'd add a few ahas in. There was the very first thing we heard. Right there you go.

James Cridland: 1:14:06

Yes, I think fair enough. Also, another 621 sats from Neil. We finally get to see those Cridland Baby Blues in real-time in video format. Yes, the Pod News Daily show was in video last week. It's not in video this week because I am in a hotel room in Jakarta and I'm not bringing all the complicated things that I need in order to do video. But yes, that was. That was fun to do. So. Yes, I hope you enjoyed that. Don't know whether I'll go back to doing video. It was a good, it was a good experience, but uh adam curry didn't like it, did he not?

Sam Sethi: 1:14:39

no, he, he said you felt less natural. He, he liked. He said you were reading the script and, yeah, he was off putting watching you and I think no, but the key point, the key point he was trying.

Sam Sethi: 1:14:53

I think he was trying to get across thanks mtv vj exactly mr pro, yeah, I think the point he was trying to get across was that with the audio you have the option to edit it, post-production Correct Whereas with the video you were trying to get it all done in one hit so you didn't have to edit it. And he said that it seemed, or he felt, he could tell the difference.

James Cridland: 1:15:19

Yeah, absolutely, you could tell. And yes, that was one I I definitely felt doing that, I definitely felt that it just wasn't quite as good a product in terms of the audio. Yes, you know, video was there, but also who wants to watch? You know a man squinting at screen, so that that doesn't make an awful lot of sense either. So, yeah, yes, I'm not sure we will be going back to that. But one more from Martin Lindeskog from Lyceum 1,701 sats, which is very generous of you, martin. It says congratulations for being ear-worthy. Is the trophy shaped as an ear? It better be. That's all I'm saying. Yes, this was an award that we won last week, hence why the jingle, the opening jingle for the show last week added the word award winning and it was very subtle and I hope that everybody spotted that. So, thank you. But also, martin has done one extra thing, hasn't he?

Sam Sethi: 1:16:14

he has. Martin has officially become the 22nd power supporter. Now, yes, I I was looking at what should we call it, and I just think we'll go with the bingo calls, right. So a row of ducks, yes.

James Cridland: 1:16:28

Oh, yes, a small row of ducks. We'd like 222 supporters please, but 22 is fine. So, yes, I mean, martin did very helpfully. So not only is he giving us $10 a month, which is super excellent, not only is he doing that, but he is also. He went to Wikipedia and he was trying to work out what we should call the 22. So in Spanish lottery and bingo, 22 is nicknamed Los Dos Patitos the two little ducks. So I suppose, two little ducks. There's also Catch-22. There's also a song by Tommy Steele which I've never heard, called Number 22,. Across the Way, if it exists on YouTube, you'll hear it. Now. Number 22.

Chitra Prastuti: 1:17:10

Number 22 Number 22 Across the Way.

Sam Sethi: 1:17:16

Oh, that was nice. No, you're not 80, mate, you're not 80. You're okay, tommy Steele.

James Cridland: 1:17:21

No, gosh, and Martin asked Gro grok, but I couldn't care less what grok says, so thank you, so much did it? Did it come back?

James Cridland: 1:17:29

with an auntie salute or something so, yes, good, good lord, but anyway, I asked grok for sake. But uh, martin, thank you so much. All joking aside, it really does, uh, help us and it really does keep us going. So thank you to you, thank you to Ms Eileen Smith, thank you to John McDermott and to Brian Entsminger, who are all very generously members of our power supporters, and if you'd like to join them, weeklypodnewsnet is where to go. So what's happened for you this week, sam?

Sam Sethi: 1:18:01

I'm broken, James. I'm technically, physically broken. It was my daughter's 21st and she decided to do an outdoor garden party.

James Cridland: 1:18:11

Ah yes, now, this was this time last week, wasn't?

Sam Sethi: 1:18:13

it yes.

James Cridland: 1:18:14

So what so yeah.

Sam Sethi: 1:18:15

So it was raining until five o'clock and an outdoor garden party in the rain wouldn't have been very successful.

Sam Sethi: 1:18:22

And then suddenly someone, somewhere thank God turned the taps off and it was dry for the rest of the evening. So that was lovely. And then, of course, my daughter, being my daughter, decided that one party is not sufficient. So she decided to have another one on Saturday with all our family and friends. And so this time, sadly, it did not stop raining. So plan B was move everything in the house. Oh my god, it was just like where does?

Sam Sethi: 1:18:46

this chair go, I don't know, stick it in the study. Do something else with that, and yeah, so by sunday morning I I was officially broken.

Sam Sethi: 1:18:54

Yes stick it in the third, the west wing yes, and then on true fans, I guess we finished off the promo for podcast pages so you can now request to be featured on someone else's podcast page as episode two. So we're not injecting into the rss feed, but what we've done to make it slightly different is the person requesting makes an offer and you accept the offers or reject it. So I might say I want to be on Pod News Weekly Review on True Fans and I want to put Creators one of my other podcasts that would go to you as the admin, james, and you would then say seven days to 10,000 sats, no, not enough. Reject. Or you might say, yep, accept that, and then that gets put in. So yes, we've done that.

James Cridland: 1:19:45

That's very nice. That's very nice and I think it's quite similar in some ways to the way that Buzzsprout sells advertising here. So if you want to advertise your podcast on the Pod News Weekly Review and you're on Buzzsprout, then you can can do that. But what's interesting about that bit is that I get to or you get to say yes, we'll take that or no, we won't, and there's been a few that we've that. You know I've turned around and said no, I don't want that, but most of them I've said, I've said yes to. So I think, you know, giving creators the control is, I think, a really good plan so what's happening for you, James?

James Cridland: 1:20:23

Well, yes, I mean, you know it's been an entertaining week in Jakarta, so the call to prayer at half past four in the morning is not ideal. No, so that's the thing I was told when we got here. So there's been quite a lot of unrest in Indonesia and for various reasons, and so I got here and I was basically told don't well, I seem to remember, don't turn right out of the hotel, but turning left is okay. It turned out that I'd remembered it wrongly. But so the next day I thought, right, I need to write my newsletter, I need to get out of this hotel, so I'll go. There's a Starbucks down the road in a shopping centre, so I'll go down there. So I walk out and I walk past, I think probably about 15 police vehicles, army vehicles. I walk past people packing guns and stuff like that, and so get to the shopping centre to discover that the shopping centre is closed. Not just is it closed, but it's closed and it's got barbed wire in front of it to stop anybody getting anywhere near it, with lots of people, you know, holding massive, great big guns and stuff. And so I just walked all the way back again. So very, very bizarre. It's calmed down an awful lot.

James Cridland: 1:21:50

The government have been very good to us because there are lots of radio people here. The government's been very good to us. One of the ministers opened the event and all of that. But it's been an interesting experience, shall we say. I mean, obviously I've lived in London so I'm used to all of this. Yes, yes, but it's been an interesting experience. So that was entertaining. But no, apart from that, it's been a good week. It's been a fun week just bumping into people who I've known for, in some cases 25 years, who I never get to see normally. So that's been a nice thing. So, yes, it's always good to do these sorts of events.

James Cridland: 1:22:30

And when do you go back to Australia? I go back. Well, I will be on the plane as this podcast goes out on Thursday night. Friday morning I get back into Australia at something like seven in the morning and then I have to go up to Brisbane and then that night I'm off to see my wife perform in a performance. She's doing something as part of the Brisbane Festival which is on at the moment. So that should be fun to do and hopefully I'll stay awake for because that would be a bad plan to fall asleep while your wife is performing.

Sam Sethi: 1:23:00

I think it'd be on the divorce papers actually yes, yes, Not again.

Steve Ahern: 1:23:06

Don't go there.

James Cridland: 1:23:10

I think that would be a good thing. And that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories taken from the Pod News daily newsletter, of course, at podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi: 1:23:18

You can support this show by streaming sats, you can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout mail link in our show notes and you can send us a super comment or boost or become even better than Martin Discock, a power supporter, like the 22 other people at weeklypodnewsnet is here, so it's been fun to have a chat with him about that.

James Cridland: 1:23:42

Our voiceover is Sheila D. She's not here. Our audio is recorded using Clean Feed, which, of course, just starts to go wrong as soon as we mentioned the word Clean Feed, which is weird, isn't it? But anyway, there we are. We edit with Hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.