Speaker 1: 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.

Speaker 3: 0:12

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

Speaker 4: 0:17

We've always thought about the creator in the center. How they reach their audiences is up to them.

Speaker 2: 0:23

Greg Glenday, the CEO of Acast, on the company's plans to keep growing, plus more AI slop and the cost of advertising in pocket casts. 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, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Speaker 3: 0:47

Now, james, I was going to start this week's show talking about YouTube's announcements, but I think, given what they've announced, I want to finish the story off from last week about the AI slop, because it will lead nicely into what YouTube's announced. But so I've called this one Quiet Please. I wish they would, because the Quiet Please network that we reported on last week has been putting out a load of episodes AI-generated 3,000-plus, I think. What they put out Now on the back of that, matt Deegan, friend of the show, said my biggest surprise about the Inceptionai crowd, which is the company behind it all, is what a poor job they've done with it. Mark Francis again said they've inflated the numbers and Eric Newsom said it's all a steaming pile of hot garbage. Now, that was last week, and then on the back of that they did an interview in Australia. What happened there?

Speaker 2: 1:42

Yes, well, they were mentioned in Media Watch, which is a very well-known and very well-respected show. Down here it's on the TV. You can watch it on YouTube and on ABC iView. And, yes, they ended up focusing on these AI-generated you know, unsupervised AI-generated shows, and what they turned around and said was that Inception Point AI was that some of their content is only at a kindergarten drawings stage was the comment that they made. They then taken that and copied and pasted the comments that they made to the ABC and have actually made a blog post out of it, and it's a very combative blog post as well, really doubling down and saying you don't understand what is art anyway and you know, and all this kind of stuff, saying clearly, we've hit a nerve. Linton Besser, who's the presenter of the ABC's Media Watch, said that he would rather listen to a leaf blower at dawn on a Sunday. Ouch, that's a very Australian thing to say.

Speaker 3: 2:47

Yes, isn't it illegal actually? No, that's Switzerland. It's illegal to have a after five o'clock a leaf blower in Switzerland on a Saturday.

Speaker 2: 2:56

Well, I can also tell you it's illegal to have it going off before seven in the morning here in Australia as well. So, yes, yes, there you go, but no, I'm really surprised. So this is Janine Wright, who used to be COO of Wondery, chief operating officer of a company that was so poorly operated they had to fire 110 people, so 110 families have been affected by. You know, I'm sure, lots of reasons, but you know clearly, if you're chief operating officer of a company, you're hardly going to be blameless, and so she moves from that. You'd have thought that keeping your head down for a while would be a good idea, but no jumping into this AI slop generation tool. One of my favorites that the abc ended up pointing out was one show which is about the history of the city of of sydney, which all of a sudden starts talking about sydney sweeney and the history of sydney sweeney. It's just bad. Bad stuff, isn't? It was the bit that.

Speaker 3: 4:01

I read which said it uses unsupervised AI to generate thousands of podcast episodes of Sydney Story, and if that's the point of them to either monetize around any content with ads then clearly you know this is going to eventually end up failing because no one's going to be listening, right? Why would you listen to this stuff?

Speaker 2: 4:23

Well, they argue that people are listening, and their argument is we get, you know, 20 or 30 people listening to any one of the shows that we put out and so therefore it is valued by people. What I would say back to them is that that's not quite the case. You have 20 or 30 downloads. Is that that's not quite the case? You have 20 or 30 downloads which aren't necessarily listens, which aren't necessarily human beings actually having a listen, and those human beings who have listened have very clearly realised that it's AI slob. If you look at any of the reviews, then you can very clearly see that they do not come out well. So I think the argument that they are trying to make what is art anyway and actually you know we've we've had lots of of requests for, for new shows is is is, I think, missing the point that actually that's not how the thing works anyway so, james, let's move on to what youtube announced this week.

Speaker 3: 5:22

They've been talking about YouTube paying out $100 billion to creators and artists, but they also announced a number of new services. What did they announce?

Speaker 2: 5:31

They've announced all kinds of exciting things, so one of the things that they're doing is automatically making shorts from long-form podcasts, which is something that Spotify has been doing and something that Headliner will do for you as well. They're doing some clever things with live streams so you can stream both in vertical and in horizontal mode at the same time, which is very exciting, but I think the most exciting thing for podcasters is dynamically inserting sponsorship messages. So now this sounds very exciting. It's something that we haven't had on YouTube, but we have had in terms of podcasting, so it'll be nice when they get around to launching that. But my understanding is that I mean we reported that in March. My understanding is that they've announced it, but that it probably won't be available for most people until next year at the earliest.

Speaker 3: 6:16

Now, you like the idea of that. I'm scared about the idea of that because it goes back to the AI slops. So there's a couple of things they announced. Speech to song is the ability for you to talk some words and then, using their Lyra 2, google DeepMinds, ai advanced music model, will turn that into a song, which is a nightmare, and then you can put that out. And then, on top of that, they've got an AI product tagger which then looks at the video, tags the products within that video and then brings up that pop-up that you just and then using dynamically inserted sponsorship messages because they can use the AI product tagger. So you just mentioned tons of products. Bring up the pop-up and then chuck it out the front door and see what sticks.

Speaker 2: 7:20

Yes, I think you could well be right there, and obviously YouTube is already cracking down on the amount of AI slot that they have in their platform. It's not monetizable if they spot that you're using it. So hopefully that will also be the case here. But yeah, I mean, I would much rather to be honest, I'd much rather that Inception Point AI were chucking loads of crap into YouTube than chucking loads of crap into the entire podcast ecosystem. But that's a slightly different thing. But yes, I'm sure that some of these tools can be used for bad as well as good. I mean, that whole song thing speech to song sounds as if that's a feature that somebody has been told you've got to use AI because otherwise it'll look bad. So please can you shoehorn use of ai into this somewhere? And I I suspect that that's basically as far as that's gone well, yeah, and I think also they're trying to replicate tiktok.

Speaker 3: 8:11

You know where you go, automatically making shorts out of long form. I mean, that's what, uh diary of a ceo does? You know? 10, 20 shorts out of a three hour show. But the biggest hit this week on TikTok is a Brazilian song which, by the way, is super rude, but it is super catchy as well, and that's totally AI generated. And OnlyFans have just put themselves up for sale for eight billion dollars, because they realize that the content that's going through OnlyFans now is AI generated, or the majority of the stuff that they see now is becoming AI generated, and this is reported in Forbes. This is not, you know, some backstreet rag. So what you're seeing is this tsunami of AI from inception through to music, ai from inception through to music, through to explicit content being thrown out and churned out, actually at a rate that I don't know anyone can cope with, and I assume it's all being done because monetization can be done on the back of it. 20 people listen to it or two people listen to it, whatever it may be. It's scary, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 9:23

It is a bit scary, isn't it? And you know you would hope that YouTube have the you know the systems in place to make sure that their services isn't just going to be full with that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's a big issue and I think it comes back to you know conversations that I've been having this week around what technology allows you to do is not necessarily the same thing as what human beings would like you to do, and just making sure that you know you've actually got decent content there, which is worthwhile content, which is interesting, useful stuff, is an important side of it as well, and if we're not careful, we end up with services that are totally useless because they've been overrun with AI, bots and things like that.

Speaker 3: 10:09

Yeah, I mean Yuri Naval, who's one of my favourite commentators, has talked about. In a world of AI, we need more human connection and I think that's going to be where we gravitate to as humans. But I also worry that we're doing the old man thing which is oh, it's radio, it's awful, you know, and then you know decrying new technology, when actually a generation or two down the road from us will actually just say, yeah, that's how we consume content.

Speaker 2: 10:40

Yes, but I think it's absolutely fair for us not to say that all use of AI is bad. It isn't, it absolutely isn't. But that unfettered use of AI with no human involvement is not going to make for right now at least, is not going to make for great content, and all of the evidence is there that that is the case. So you can turn around and call us lazy Luddites all you like. What the Luddites were angry about wasn't the machines. It was the impact that it would have on the quality of the products that the machines were making and what it also meant for the quality of life of the people who made them. That's what they were concerned about. It wasn't a knee-jerk reaction against the machine. It was a bit more nuanced and I think we should bear that in mind.

Speaker 3: 11:35

Now Listen Notes has been very active, I guess, in removing 4,000-plus podcasts from its database. Since December last year it's removed over 29,000 plus podcasts from its database. Since December last year it's removed over 29,000 podcast shows. The data is available online and in fact has an API which you can plug into which we're looking at doing. It also has a CSV file which you can then look at and map that against your database. So again, multiple ways that you know ListenNote's done a great job of tagging.

Speaker 2: 12:07

Yes.

Speaker 3: 12:08

But I go back to the conversation we've had for a couple of weeks now. James, you know, do we need an AI tag? But I think you said six months ago it won't come from the podcasting 2.0 community because it'll probably be Spotify or YouTube that create the content labelling. That we will have to then follow on the backup. But someone's got to start at some point.

Speaker 2: 12:30

But I mean, I think you know, if you were to read the blog post from Inception Point AI talking about how what they're doing is actually very full of art and very useful material and stuff, that's exactly not what they are going to do. They're not going to voluntarily flag the fact that their stuff is made with AI. So you know, I mean, I always come back with all of this stuff and say it relies on honesty from the creator and it relies on acting in good faith. Neither of those things have been very clear from inception point AI who've turned around and, you know, slagged people off that don't think that they like what they're doing. So I'm still a bit dubious as to whether or not anybody would actually voluntarily mark their material as AI. And also it's more complicated than that. You know the Canna Roga, shark Media stuff quite a lot of that is very good, good content. It just happens to be voiced by an AI voice, but does that change? You know what that content is in comparison to the Inception Point AI stuff.

Speaker 3: 13:37

So no, no, no, no, I don't think it does. No, the point, the point is choice. I think if it's labelled AI and you then choose to listen to it, that is your choice. Have produced One of those.

Speaker 2: 13:47

Has had human beings going through, checking everything, making sure that everything is good, and one of those hasn't. You know. So there's a massive difference. So a blunt tick box of does this have AI in it is not, is not going to, is not going to work really. So I this is why I'm I'm I'm yet to be convinced that that's necessarily a plan.

Speaker 3: 14:22

Yeah, but I go to the same point on explicit tags. Right, you know someone's rude word is another person's acceptable, but both may be tagged explicit, right, it's choice. I think there are AI watermarks that are available and again, it may be come down to the tool creators to actually add AI watermarks in. I don't think you're going to get like King Canoe. You're not going to stop the AI slop wave right, it's coming, and the only thing you can do is provide listeners and people with the tools to make subjective choices about whether this is something they want to mark as never to be heard again or something that they go. Actually, I really liked that. Yeah, I'll have more of it, please.

Speaker 2: 15:04

Indeed, and I think we need to be clever about the way that we do that. Something that looks for AI watermarks will ding this show as being AI, because that lady that says the Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters at the beginning is an AI voice. That is going to be. That is a very different, you know, and obviously when you have a look at our show notes, for example in the podcast apps, those normally have been produced either wholly or partially by an AI tool that Buzzsprout gives us. So, again, I think we just need to be careful. But, yes, I do agree that disclosures are really important here, and just making it clear what you're actually doing to a to a creator is an important thing now related to youtube.

Speaker 3: 15:52

Vimeo has been acquired by bending spoons james for 1.38 billion. Who are bending spoons?

Speaker 2: 16:00

bending spoons are the. You know, when anybody says that venture capitalists are dreadful and they will buy companies and then they will put their prices up threefold and they'll stop investing in those companies at all and just squeeze the companies dry. That's bending spoons for you. Bending spoons own Evernote. Do you remember? Evernote used to have a very big free tier and loads of people used it and then all of a sudden it doesn't anymore and nobody's using it anymore, because Bending Spoons bought it and almost doubled the pricing for that. They've bought StreamYard and doubled that monthly pricing for StreamYard Meetup they own, tripled the price for that.

Speaker 2: 16:41

They also own WeTransfer. They also own video hosting and streaming platform, brightcove, and they've jumped in and thought we can make some money out of Vimeo as well. I think it's very sad, because what you can very clearly see from the bending spoons who purchase these companies is that they stop any work know platforms at all and it's just keeping it going and squeezing it dry of any of any money. So that, I think, means that Vimeo, which was essentially YouTube's biggest competitor in terms of you know, in terms of a place to put video, I think Vimeo will will be sort of going away as that, and so it gives more power to the YouTube world, because YouTube won't have a big competitor anymore.

Speaker 3: 17:33

Yeah, and StreamYard used to be one of my favourite products. Oh well, there we go Now AudioBoom very similar. It's one of these things I keep seeing on Pod News Daily James companies announcing how much money they've paid to creators. We've got, you know, youtube announcing 100 billion. We've got Patreon announcing 2 billion. We've now got audio boom saying they've paid more than 325 million to creators worldwide. That's a lot of money that creators are making around the world, it seems. But you know where is all this money flowing from?

Speaker 2: 18:09

It is a lot of money. I mean from Audioboom's point of view. It is mostly, of course, audio advertising, although, interestingly, about 13% of Audioboom's revenue is coming from video these days. So 60% of Audioboom's creators producing video podcasts, by the way, which I thought was interesting. So yeah, you know Audioboom doing some. You know they're a plucky little company. They keep on growing and growing and growing. We speak to Stuart, Last friend of the show. Every now and again He'll be on in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 3: 18:39

actually, He'll be on maybe next week.

Speaker 2: 18:45

Oh well, there you go, so yeah, so you can very clearly see that there's some good stuff coming out of all of that. But yeah, you know another big number and I suspect that we will see. You know, obviously, patreon has a big number that they go out and talk about. I would guess that we will see more big numbers from Spotify towards the end of the year as well, in terms of how much money they have shared with podcasters as well.

Speaker 3: 19:06

Now one other platform that we know about, acast, has got a new CEO, greg Glenday. They've also announced a number of products. They've acquired. A number of companies have had a couple of successful quarters. I thought I'd catch up with Greg first of all and ask him congratulations, first of of all, on becoming the new CEO. But why have things changed at ACAST?

Speaker 4: 19:28

Yeah, so I've been with ACAST now two and a half years. I started as chief business officer until a few months ago where I moved into the CEO role. In my old role I actually had the managing directors rolled up to me, along with content and sales. So this is really a slight change internally that we sort of lifted the tent. We're focused on alignment, moved product and engineering a little closer to commercial and I think for our next decade we're just trying to get really good alignment for the future. So a little bit of an operational strategic shift.

Speaker 3: 20:00

Nice. Now the biggest market for ACAST since you came on board has now been the US market. Is the US now the biggest focus for Acast going forward?

Speaker 4: 20:11

It's funny, it's a little bit like the dog that chases the car. It's always been a really big focus. I think when you try and launch a beachhead in some place like the US, it's not easy. You know. Especially a company born in Stockholm really grew and took a lot of market share and grew the business in Europe and then to move to the United States and try and sort that out after the fact it might be easier to go the other direction. So I'm really proud of the team. I mean they've been working at this before I got here.

Speaker 4: 20:37

So the plan was always obviously there's more upside in the US. So the plan was eventually it should become your largest market if you're doing things right, and we're really excited. We were founded in Stockholm, where we've got a lot of great people engineering hub for us. Uk became our biggest market and really is our centerpiece for our European expansion, and now the US being our largest market. I wouldn't say that it's any more important than anything else, but it's nice to have those three beachheads that we now have. That was always the plan when ACAST was launched.

Speaker 3: 21:09

Now you've had a good Q1, Q2, and you are EBITDA profitable. When can we expect ACAST to become fully profitable?

Speaker 4: 21:20

Sam, that's a great question If you think about podcasting. Right, Podcasting is 20 years old, Acast is 10 years old and to build a rapidly scaling company to get where we've gotten, obviously at some point it's like, okay, how do you pay back those shareholders? How do you become profitable? So we're really proud of that. I know in an adjusted EBITDA number it's still profitable. So we're guiding the three to 5% adjusted. We don't guide much further out than that. But once you become profitable, as you know, it's not a 100-meter dash where you collapse after the finish line. You have to keep doing it. So everything we're doing now is around growing the top line, being strategically fit for the future for podcasting and what that's becoming, and doing it with discipline so that we can remain profitable.

Speaker 3: 22:02

Now rumor in the market is you're looking to become a full listing on the NASDAQ. Is that something that ACOS is aiming for, this in 26?

Speaker 4: 22:16

Yeah, we're exploring the possibility of a change to the NASDAQ, the Stockholm main list, which I think anybody who's looked at the company. That would be a natural next step. So no announcements. We will come to you first when we have one, but we are exploring it, of course, so no announcements.

Speaker 3: 22:25

We will come to you first when we have one, but we are exploring it, of course. Now one of the things that it appears to be companies are doing is putting out metrics Some call it vanity metrics as well about how much they're paying the creators that are using their platform. Does ACAST have a nice number that you can put out there into the podosphere?

Speaker 4: 22:45

We do and it's something that we've been doing for quite a while. In aggregate, 10 year old company, we've paid out over half a billion dollars to our creators. So I know those don't mean much, other than you've been around a while and you know we really do think about the creators. But that's a number that we've been putting out quarterly for quite a while and we're really thrilled that it's at the level of 500 million US dollars, so really exciting. But, like listens, these are metrics that kind of give you a direction for a company, but not overly precise.

Speaker 3: 23:16

Now you opened up a lovely new studio in London had video capability. I hear you're going to be opening up a new studio as well in New York with video capability. So where is video within the ACAST strategy?

Speaker 4: 23:24

Yeah, I think video is really important to the future of podcasting, the future of ACAST. I think its share of conversation in the industry is probably a little too high. I think there's a bit of hysteria, a lot of our creators when we say they're asking about video, they're looking for consultation, they're looking for advice. Our belief is podcasting is so unique. I think a lot of people think we're at the mountaintop. I think we're at base camp. I really really do. Even though it's 20 years old, the industry is just starting to mature, like we're really starting to answer some of the objections that the blue chip brands and big creators have had. So as we get more professional, this stuff is really going to sort itself out. So when I think about video, I think about each creator is different and I think if your show does not work unless someone is sitting on a couch with their eyes glued to the television, the show does not work. Otherwise that may not be a podcast in the future. I think that might be something else. But for us, if you have a show that maybe is enhanced with video, or there's some some guests where it is better, or there's going to be some visual presentations, that's fair game and we've always thought about the creator in the center, and then how they reach their audiences is up to them, and we really want to empower the creator.

Speaker 4: 24:36

Some of them do live events, some of them do daily shows. Some of them need to do videos. Some of them do social promotion. Some of them only use video for promotion but not for the episodes. So we want again the powers in the hands of the creator with podcasting. That's what makes us special. There aren't network executives greenlighting things and messing with your strategy. It's you as the creator and your audience. So it's not up to us to get in the way if you want to reach them via video. So ACAST is committed to making sure that we focus on the creator and however they reach that audience. So that means partnerships with all the video platforms and being able to enable our creators to reach their listeners. If video is video, we'll help them. That's why we've got I think it's four or five studios around the world now that are all video enabled. So that's just a natural part of what we do if the creator wants it.

Speaker 3: 25:21

So Spotify and YouTube are asking all of the hosting companies to provide the feeds without DAI right advertising light. Are you seeing more host-read advertising then, led by what you're producing for the RSS feed?

Speaker 4: 25:39

Yes and no. I think you know it's hard. Again, this is a good problem and no one's going to have any sympathy for the industry. But we have multiple tailwinds, which is a good problem. But I also know that sometimes it makes you feel like you're really smart when really it's just the wind behind you is blowing and revenue is coming into our sector. So on the transactional side, ads is really growing because programmatic DSPs and our self-serve platform marketplaces are all growing because people are coming into the space for ads and for buying podcasting at scale.

Speaker 4: 26:09

But then what's kind of especially in the U S, the people that built podcasting. We love our partners, like better help and all of the performance direct response agencies that really put podcasting on the map in the U S. So we won't turn our backs on them. But omni-channel and ads and becoming more sophisticated is what's going to help grow the industry. One at a time buying shows, one at a time with live reads. We want to make that much quicker and easier to do, so we're not focused on one or the other.

Speaker 4: 26:35

Again, our job shouldn't be to sort of influence either the creator or the brands, If the brands are looking to participate in these conversations that the creators have with their audiences. Sometimes that's going to make more sense with a sponsorship, Sometimes it's an ad, Many times it's both, I think deep dives, deep integrations into shows, and then with long tail ads that bring scale to that plan. I think that's how podcasting becomes a place that the Fortune 500 companies insist on the media plan. It's not a nice to have. It'll become a base part of the media plan.

Speaker 3: 27:07

You've got a strong background in advertising. That's where you came from. I believe, and I've heard from many people within the podcast industry, that we aren't talking the same language as the advertising agencies. Now you've released recently something called the Podcast Academy. Is this aimed at getting who to learn the language of the other side? So is it aimed at the advertising agencies to understand the podcast world, or is it aimed at the podcasters to understand the advertising agency world?

Speaker 4: 27:37

It's open for all. But I will tell you, you know, we're over a thousand people have completed the course and I will say we're not even at a hundred percent of A-casters. So externally, we're seeing everyone from media agencies, creative agencies, some creators, producers. We had an agent go through like a talent agent, so they're all getting smarter. So one of the things we try and do, sam, again, when we're at this kind of fledgling industry and again I can't say that enough, but I think we're really just getting started we industry and again I can't say that enough, that I think we're really just getting started we try and write down the objections we get.

Speaker 4: 28:08

You run into problems all the time with the new industry. What are the whole coast saying, what are our creators saying? Then those objections and those issues and those obstacles become our to-do list. It's really simple. This is another case of the advertisers coming to us, particularly the smaller ones. You know like we look at our abandoned cart, if you look at our self-serve marketplace, if you look at essentially the abandoned cart, somebody who registers, logs in, puts in their information, puts in a credit card, even they go all the way and then they don't book a campaign. So when we reach out to them, they start giving us their issues and three main things we don't really have good creative.

Speaker 4: 28:43

Okay, we've solved that. We now do that for them. We've automated that. We've got some AI tools that are working on that. We don't know what shows to buy? Okay, we now have smart recommendations where you can put in natural language, talk about who your target audience is, who are your customers, and we will spit out a great recommendation that may not be the types of shows you were thinking about, right, using our pod chaser. So we've made all those things easier. And then, finally, we realized that a lot of people don't know what they're doing and they get a little confused by the jargon and it's a little different. This isn't like buying local television or print. So we decided to just solve that problem ourselves. We spent several months building out Acast Academy 101 and 201. And I think they're great. They're very impartial, they're not Acast heavy, it's about the industry and just basics for everyone. So it's been very well received.

Speaker 3: 29:29

And just to be clear, it's free is right, because I joked with James what a great way for people to learn how to use ACAS and then charge, and I thought LP is onto a new revenue stream. And then James put me right, it be right, it's actually free, so yes.

Speaker 4: 29:42

Yes, maybe the graduate level will charge for it, but these are free.

Speaker 3: 29:45

Now international markets. How are you doing across those spaces?

Speaker 4: 29:49

Yeah, really well, that's one of our fastest growing. You know it's a two-sided marketplace and when we go into a market we've got to go find the content and then go find the supply and the demand and it's really chicken and egg so it's not easy to break in. So our international rest of the world team, they're really, really strong. So we've been watching demand come out of Singapore, for example. You start with programmatic and you keep your eye on it. You know, you collect some content, then you look at perhaps a partner manager or a partner company that we could work with, then maybe a managing director, an individual contributor in that country, and then you open an office. So kind of like following that sort of logical plane. We see a lot of interest in Japan, asia. We've got a couple of people in Singapore. They're doing a lot of business around the world.

Speaker 4: 30:31

So the really cool thing about podcasting and what I think is special for Acast is our global footprint. And I think People think about traditional media as, oh, I'm a creator in Australia, so my audience is in Australia and that's how it worked for 50 years. Well, now RSS, these are borderless creators. Tony and Ryan is one of the biggest shows. They do a show five days a week in Australia and about a quarter of their listening is in other ACAST markets and now we monetize that. They're a top 200 show in the US and they come here once a year. So the fact that we can take that and say you know what? We now have impressions and monetizable inventory in other markets, that's really great for creators. They shouldn't be forced to go find partners everywhere.

Speaker 3: 31:15

So James is talking about in Pod News Daily Brazil being a massive market opportunity that most people are missing, mexico being another one, and I think India is a massive one that I think people are missing as well because it's such an English language speaking country. Where do you sit with those? Have you got footprints in Brazil and India, for example?

Speaker 4: 31:35

Not in India yet, but we have some listening. I don't want to say where we are in that continuum, but we are working on that continuum I just described, in India for sure. And then we have an office in Mexico City that focuses on business in Mexico, but that's becoming our springboard into Latin America. So, again, we're working on all of these Any place that has listening. We're thinking about content first. In the chicken and the egg scenario, content first and then driving revenue for that content.

Speaker 3: 32:02

Nice. Now, one of the things that Acast did very well in the early days was it transcribed every podcast that you had in your platform and you use that for your contextual advertising platform. But one of the things that frustrated me the most was that you didn't release those transcripts with the podcast in the RSS feed and I was like, oh, come on, ACOS, you've got this great content, Please do something with it. And up until now I'd say it hasn't been something that you've released. Will you support the podcasting 2.0 transcript? Apple's got on board. Many other companies now are doing it. Is that something that ACOS will do in the future?

Speaker 4: 32:39

Yeah, so as a matter of fact we have released. You know again, our belief is that data that belongs to the creator you know ACAS sort of we can provide it but that should be up to them what they do with it, and I think that's an important part of our ethos. But we did recently start releasing in the creator hub. The creators have access. So we've started with 2000. Creators have access to their transcripts that they can do with what they choose, and we're going to be rolling that out to everybody. So the creators will have the option. We're not necessarily going to publish it from the center, we're not, you know, b2c, necessarily for ACAST, but the creators will be able to do that. So we think that's the best path forward. And then of course, we do use Podchaser has 24,000 shows that they do daily transcription.

Speaker 3: 33:28

And we use that data to better inform the campaigns and things like that as well.

Speaker 4: 33:30

Now you acquired a company a little while back called wonder media. What was that all about? Yeah, so when I think about a cast, we know like to keep it really simple. We've got our creators, who we love, right, and then we've got their audiences, which are really important to us, and those are two different things.

Speaker 4: 33:40

I think there's a lot of brands early on they say they want to buy a creator, but really what you're saying is you want access to that audience. So if we can find other ways to get that audience, so we have the creator, we have the audience, and then we have the brands, and the brands are third constituent, and then we use all of our technology in the middle to make those things work better together. So as we think about our strategy, everything sort of hangs off of that, you know. Is it good for the creator? Does it make it easier for the creator to reach their audience? Does it make it easier for those brands to participate in those conversations? So you know, as we think about that, that's really going to be our driving strategy for anything going forward. Is it better for the creator? Is it good and will it help them reach their constituents?

Speaker 3: 34:21

So will you spend more of your cycles on branded content. Corporate companies.

Speaker 4: 34:25

Yeah, so in that ecosystem, wonder Media fits in that, you know. So there it's 25 people. They produce original content. They do world-class branded content. It was a piece that was missing from our ecosystem. We were very mechanical as a host and now we can do things like branded content for our partners. Wonder Media came with some great relationships, but mostly what they do that's really good is world-class production. So the fact that we can bring this to bear for advising our creators or our advertisers the big you know, they do a lot of work for Nike and Pfizer and a lot of their audio content that's on demand, so it just added a new rich layer in that. That's enabled us to do bigger things with big brands. As big brands say well, what should we do? How do we want to think about that? We now have creative strategists, producers. We can help them build that stuff. Again, going back to my earlier point that that was an obstacle for us. So we kept hearing this as an obstacle. Let's remove the obstacle and make it easy.

Speaker 3: 35:21

Patreon is putting out numbers. You talked about putting out half a billion, which is an amazing number, but Patreon are throwing numbers around of 2 billion in the last 10 years for subscriber-based content and you know there's a lot of push now for companies like Substack as well. Are ACOS going to get into private feeds and subscriber-based content as well? Is that going to be a revenue stream that you will push?

Speaker 4: 35:48

heavily onto right now. That's not a focus for us. You know, for us we've leaned hard into the ad supported open ecosystem for podcasting and there's nothing wrong with subscriptions. We actually support it. If it's right for that creator and they want to have a dual business where they've got subs and then they've got an ad supported, that's wonderful. We will help them do that with our partnerships.

Speaker 4: 36:08

But my opinion is, I think consumers and we've watched this happen in CTV the battle for eyeballs has gotten really abusive for the consumer. I've got every friend I have complains about how many streaming services to sign up for. They just said to watch the National Football League, you have to have five different services if you want to see every game this year. It's just so it's become. This race for content has become really a detriment to the consumer. So for podcasting, I think it's even worse because it's a meritocracy, like when I listened to a show and we all know shows that have faded over time right, started out great. They ran out of stories. Maybe the co-hosts don't get along anymore, but you see it happen.

Speaker 4: 36:49

And the podcast that I listened to I've got about 25. So I might listen to religiously every week that I wouldn't subscribe to, but it's not many and I want to explore and I want our creators to earn those eardrums. I'm a basis. You have to put out great content, but people will stop coming back. So I don't see a war where people are subscribing to 25 different podcasts and we want this to be open, where you can go check out different things. There are shows I listen to once a month based on the guests. I would never subscribe, but I do like them. So that's our feeling is that we want to be in that open ecosystem, part of the market.

Speaker 3: 37:22

Okay, last thing then, in 26,. What do you think is going to change? We are seeing regularly the number that's related to US advertising sticking around the 1.92 billion mark. How do we get it to the 7 billion mark, 10 billion mark? How do we move the needle rapidly? Because we all heard that the US presidential election was the podcast election, the influence of podcasters like Joe Rogan. But has that resulted in more advertisers coming into the space and do we think we can go through that 2 billion mark quite quickly now in 26?

Speaker 4: 38:01

Yeah, that's an awesome question. That is probably the thing I think about every day when I wake up. So 26, I think, is going to be watershed, because these things don't happen overnight. You know I talked to. You know, the podcast election is one thing. Taylor Swift getting engaged on a podcast, you know everyone kind of jokes about that, but five years ago that would have been an Instagram post. And when there's more of a story to unpack, right, when there's something you want to like, there's a narrative, I don't want to just announce the proposal, I want to talk about the story and why, why now and how much all of those things. The same thing with the podcast election.

Speaker 4: 38:34

Nobody really knew what to do with that information. It's like, well, these are influencer shows that influence the world, you know. So if you're an advertiser, if you're a CMO, it's like it's not a far leap to say, wait a minute. If politics and all of this can be influenced, certainly I can change the way someone feels about my brand, right, top of funnel, bottom of funnel, all of it. So I feel like podcasting works across the whole funnel.

Speaker 4: 38:57

So for us, leaning into that, inviting those blue chip brands, inviting those blue chip brands, it takes time. We're spending tons of time at that level with advertisers who, again, are curious, but it's not like they just show up with a truck full of money, sam, they're not. It's hard. There's things, there's brand safety, there's issues. It's not easy to buy. So that's why we're focused on just removing that friction, because they are kicking the tires. They are curious, they would love to be here, but we just have to make it easier. We have to work together because every company, like all our competitors, pretty friendly, but we all have different processes, we all have different language we use. We call different products different things. We're not making it very easy for the Verizons, the BMWs, the Coca-Colas to come in in a big way to our industry. They will get here, but it's up to us to make it really hospitable when they get here.

Speaker 3: 39:42

Yeah, I mean in the old days we used to say nobody got sacked for buying IBM, right, and the idea was it was a safety net and I've been in large corporates where I've seen it's the quarterly spreadsheet going back up the tree and it's that safety. So somebody putting their hand up and say, actually I'm going to take some of my budget into podcasting, someone looks at me going are you crazy? Just stick it in the radio and TV like we've always done, stop doing stupid things, right? Have we crossed that line now where actually it's not a stupid thing to put their money into the podcast bucket and take it out of the TV radio buckets?

Speaker 4: 40:15

I think we have. And again, you mentioned my career has always been thinking of products like how do we challenge the status quo? Thinking of products like how do we challenge the status quo? Is it a startup? And there's a lot of history of these things showing up in a market where it's like, oh, we don't need that. No one thought you needed TikTok, right, there was sort of no space in the market for them. So we can't just rely on letting the market sort itself out and they're going to find us. We have to go make it happen and be proactive with industry orgs.

Speaker 4: 40:41

You and I have talked about the fact that my first year I went to every podcast show. There was everything that said podcasting. I attended and it was awesome and everyone loves a cast. We had a great time. But I wound up realizing that we're talking to ourselves a lot. You know we're sort of we're down there and that if we wait for the audio buyer at an agency to get a podcast RFP that then they give to us, it's going to take a long time. We have to go make that happen. We have to go convince them, show them research, show them insights, build some trust, do some tests at a high level and then more money will start coming to the industry. But we have to kind of do it together.

Speaker 3: 41:15

Nice. Yes, I agree, greg. Thank you so much. That's been amazing. Congratulations once more on your new role and look forward to talking to you in 26, when we have more news from ACAST.

Speaker 4: 41:26

Same here. Thanks again, Sam.

Speaker 1: 41:28

The Pod News Weekly Review with Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Speaker 3: 41:37

Sad news this week. Of course, it was Todd Cochran's funeral this week and a number of podcast folks attended.

Speaker 2: 41:47

Yes, it was in Quincy in Michigan. I see some very dapper looking podcasters in a picture that I think was posted here by Daniel J Lewis. There's also Dave Jackson and Rob Greenlee and Rob Walsh there and Rob Walsh there. So what I do know, by the way, is that Apple Podcasts sent a very nice bunch of flowers from the Apple Podcasts Ohana, which is something that Todd used to talk about an awful lot. So that's very nice. And Spotify and YouTube weirdly didn't send anything. Who'd have thought it? But there we are.

Speaker 2: 42:21

One of the other things that you will notice in the Pod News newsletter this week is something that you know may have got some relationship with this. It is, if something happens to you, what happens to your podcast, what published in the RSS feed is that people are still trying to work out what the password is for the RSS feed for that. So, therefore, I thought it was a good idea to write a little article, which I've done quite a lot of research on in terms of what happens if you fall under a bus tomorrow, what happens in terms of your passwords and everything else. So there's a bunch of things there. Thankfully, we're okay on that, Sam, aren't we? Because you have access to Buzzsprout as do I, so there we go that's it, we're fine.

Speaker 3: 43:14

then is it, you're my backup and I'm yours? Excellent, right, yeah.

Speaker 4: 43:19

Yeah, that's basically how that works.

Speaker 2: 43:23

So I mean it's not as if anybody's got a birthday today or anything.

Speaker 3: 43:27

Yes, exactly, we'll talk about that later. Shh, don't tell anyone. No one's listening. Now let's zip around the world a bit, james, don't ignore Brazil.

Speaker 2: 43:35

Why not? Don't ignore Brazil? Well, it's a top three country in the world for podcast consumption, according to Renato Bontempo, who's written a great article for PodNews this week. Ignoring Brazil isn't just short-sighted, it's bad business, he says. I find it fascinating that Brazil is so big in terms of podcast consumption, yet when you have a look at things like Spotify's partner programme and all those other things, you can't earn any money if you're in that country. There must be some good reason for that as well. But yeah, it's a really good article.

Speaker 3: 44:09

I would heartily recommend it. You'll find it in the Pod News newsletter. Now zipping back round to London, Sony have announced a podcast academy. Seems everyone's got an academy, so what's their one?

Speaker 2: 44:18

Yes, nothing to do with the podcast academy. I did ask. It's a six-week in-person mentorship program. Now it's taking applications from people who are aged under 30, emerging content creators who are based in London. I think that London is rather over-served for this sort of thing, if you asked me, and I think that they would do better to be doing this sort of thing in Manchester or in Leeds or in Edinburgh or in Glasgow personally. But there we are. It starts on October, the 6th, and I think you have to turn up and do this for six weeks. It's a very worthwhile thing to do, but given that it was announced on the 17th of September, I mean good luck to them for finding enough people that are free and that can take part. But it's a wonderful thing for Sony to be doing so. You'll find out more things about the Sony Music Podcast Academy in there. Good for you if you're an emerging content creator.

Speaker 2: 45:10

Here in Canada. Exciting things going on Monthly podcast listening growing by nearly 20% year on year. According to the data, 46% of all Canadians listening every month. Congratulations to Signal Hill Insights, who has all of that data, and doubtless they will be sharing more, because Matt from Signal Hill Insights is talking at Pod Summit YYC, which is here in Calgary, where I'm talking to you from today and that kicks off tomorrow, which should be good.

Speaker 3: 45:41

Zipping over to Spain now very quickly tomorrow, which should be good. Zipping over to Spain now very quickly. It looks like the RSS podcast app that was blocked. Antenapod is unblocked.

Speaker 2: 45:54

Yes, unblocked by the public service broadcaster. So they've realised that it's probably a good idea for the people that are paying for their programmes to be able to listen to them. Who'd have thought it was something that we covered back in July, you might remember, and they said, as part of our reporting. They said we will look again at the blocking and very pleased to say that, yeah, antenna policy is no longer blocked. It's one of the bigger podcast apps in Android, which, of course, is a massive market share in Spain. So hurrah for them. Right, let's move over to jobs. Amelia Chappellow has joined MIK Studios. Don't know who they are, but I do know that they're based in Australia somewhere. She is their head of content. She was at SiriusXM and she's now based in Melbourne, here in sunny Australia, or there in sunny Australia, I should say. So I hope she likes flat white and I hope she likes being cold, because that's what Melbourne is. So congratulations to her. Also, congratulations to Jenna Weiss-Berman, who is to be awarded a Gracie's Leadership Award, those awards taking place in November in New York City, which, of course, is going to be a fantastic event.

Speaker 2: 46:54

Other events going on the Independent Podcast Awards happening October the 15th in London. I believe that there will be an invite for you, mr Sethi, for you to go if you so wish. One thing that I did notice, which I thought was really interesting, is there is a shortlist page on the Independent Podcast Awards website and that links to an independent podcast's room on Apple Podcasts. So they've sat with the good folk at Apple Podcasts and created some editorial around that. I thought that was a really nice thing, a really clever thing for Apple Podcasts to be doing, a really clever thing for the Independent Podcast Awards to be doing as well. I mean, it's the sort of thing, frankly, that every podcast app should have is some form of awards page. You're going to tell me now that you've already done one.

Speaker 3: 47:42

Well, there you go. We actually have had this in the planning for about three or four weeks Now. First of all, let me say how the hell do you find that Apple podcast page from the front of the Apple podcast app? Because there is no, seemingly, way to find it. That's the first thing I'd say. How did you find it?

Speaker 2: 48:01

I found it because it's linked from the Independent Podcast Awards page, which is probably fine, which is probably all that you actually need. But yeah, okay, fair enough.

Speaker 3: 48:11

So Claire Wake Brown, who does some work with True Fans, has been putting up a lot of the winners from other awards onto our homepage, and that's been a decision we made to try and promote the winners and that led us to have a conversation about well, could we create a dedicated page, which we are doing? That will be live this week, and so what you'll be able to do is go and find a playlist of every award and you can add that to your own profile. But what's nice about them? They are dynamic playlists. So what will happen is, as each episode from each show gets updated, your playlist automatically gets updated as well. So you'll always have a fresh playlist and you can edit the playlist. So if you don't like everyone in the award, you can narrow it down to three or four shows that you might like.

Speaker 2: 48:59

That's very cool, and, of course, those awards that PodNews covers as well. You'll find an OPML file for all of those awards on the relevant pages. Talking about awards, the Webby Awards are now open. You can enter the early entry deadline, so the cheap one is October the 24th, so you can go and do that. Similarly, the AMBIs are also open for entry as well. What else is going on this time? Because there's a lot going on, isn't there?

Speaker 3: 49:27

yeah, I mean there's the comedy podcast festival, cheerful evil. They've announced more stars taking part across london, melbourne and new york, so check out their website. I'll be in madrid in the first week of october with eric newsom and megan davis from a cast podcast days in Spain. There is a new monthly networking event launched in London and that's going to be on Dean Street. So again, think from the Pod News Daily, and I'm sure we'll put it in our show notes as well. So if you're interested in a podcast meetup once a month, then there is an event now for you.

Speaker 2: 50:02

Yeah, which looks really good. A couple of things going on in North America Houston in Texas, night of the living pod, the Speakfest is on October the 10th, and, of course, here in Alberta in Canada, pod Summit YYC started today. It's on tomorrow as well and should be good. I'm very much looking forward to the keynote on the second day. Have you written it yet? No, I'm very much looking forward to finding out what it is. I say so. That'll be fun. Yes, no, no. No panic there or anything, no, no get off this call right.

Speaker 3: 50:42

One podcast that I listened to this week was buzzcast. I listen to it regularly and not because they're our sponsor, because I just like what they say. They have had some interesting ones recently. They talked about the challenges that musicians have in a couple of episodes ago and this one they started to talk about super fans and true fans and I thought, oh, here we go, they're talking about me again. Sadly, they weren't talking about me at all, or my platform, no, but they were talking about the concepts around community and the identity of super fans and what they mean to you as a podcaster and how those super fans can generate 80% of your income compared to the standard fan, and I think it's a great little episode. If you want to listen to it it's the latest one from Buzzcast have a listen on what they talk about and how you can generate your own super fans as well.

Speaker 2: 51:38

Excellent, and you'll find that in the recommendations section of any good podcast app which should appear next to ours. The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review. Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday the Pod News newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology. What have you got for us this week, sam?

Speaker 3: 51:56

Well, I'll get off my crowing nest that I'm sitting on right now. Last week we talked about Adam Curry and Dave Jones in their podcast, the podcasting 2.0 show, which goes out every Friday night live. Normally it's an audio-only show and Dave Jones wanted to run an experiment running a PeerTube instance with HLS video streaming and using the live alternative enclosure. I think you surmised the end of that with hmm, that's a car crash about to happen. That's, I think, your passing words.

Speaker 2: 52:30

But it all worked, didn't it? It all worked in. Truefans.

Speaker 3: 52:34

Yes, I'm pleased to say that we were the only platform where it worked. Yes, we do have support for PeerTube, we have support for HLS, we have support for the live alternative enclosure and live, of course. And yes, it all works. It was very nice. It's very good to see that you remembered your login for the 30 seconds that you viewed it and say, for adam curry, it's nice to see you all pop in and pop out again. Yes, it all worked well there we are.

Speaker 2: 53:00

I I was. Yes, I can't quite remember what I was doing at that at that time, but but yes, no very you know. These have been noticed by other parts of the podcast industry as well. There's been renewed interest in live podcasting and renewed interest in HLS as well. So I think from all of that point of view that was very good. Did Adam actually appear in video?

Speaker 3: 53:25

No, he didn't, because it was only dave who got it running, so it wasn't. It wasn't dual video, it was single video, you know. I have to say it was great that you know. It all worked seamlessly. Podcast guru jason said that they support hls and they support the live tag, which they do. I think fountain does as well. It's the alternative enclosure, which is an extension to the live tag, that they don't think fountain does as well. It's the alternative enclosure, which is an extension to the live tag, that they don't support. But they're making a change and I'm pretty sure the other apps will do so in the near future.

Speaker 2: 53:55

Yeah, well talking about apps. Lots of new and exciting things going on in apple podcasts, of course, with ios 26, are you all liquid glassed up there, sam?

Speaker 3: 54:04

I'm afraid I am yeah and I don't like it. But hey, you know, it feels like change for change's sake. It just felt like, oh, my God, we've got to do something, let's go with this. Let's go with this.

Speaker 2: 54:16

Well, and what's very clear is, if you play with any of Apple's apps, then clearly Tim Apple has said you have to use AI in some way, shape or form, and so for Apple Podcasts, you will find an enhanced dialogue feature, which is brand new, which reduces background noise, makes it easier to hear voices. It's a pretty good thing, actually, if you end up trying that. So the big thing for me is that playback speeds can now be saved per show, which is much better from a point of view of a listener. So all of that's going on. There is a new logo. I have asked Apple about updated buttons. Apple, I think, has a new podcast PR person, which is very exciting.

Speaker 2: 54:58

She she, she and she has come from somewhere else in podcasting. I probably shouldn't dox her, but she's come from somewhere else in podcasting. She knows the space very, very well. So very much looking forward to hearing a bit more from Apple. I have asked them what does that mean in terms of what we should be using for badges and things? And at the moment, I noticed that Apple hasn't updated their icons and badges yet, but who knows what they might be doing in the future? What is interesting, though, is you can see how fast people are switching over to iOS 26 if you use OP3, which, of course, can actually see that kind of information. So if you follow John Spurlock, one of our power supporters, on Mastodon or on Blue Sky, then you can follow along and see how quickly users are switching over.

Speaker 3: 55:51

Yeah, john also pointed out that the iPhone 17 won't be updated for 18 months, not a year cycle. It's going to be next May 27,. I think he was pointing out it's going to be a long time for the iPhone 17 before the iPhone 18 appears on the horizon. Did anyone say foldable phone? No, I don't think they ever did.

Speaker 2: 56:14

No, nobody said anything about that. But that is interesting, isn't it? Because that's a big change if they're going to change up when the new hardware comes out. So yeah, gosh, when the new hardware comes out so yeah, gosh.

Speaker 3: 56:26

Now other apps. James Out of Germany, podigy, has added a number of new 2.0 features. What have they added?

Speaker 2: 56:34

Yes, they are adding them as we speak. The full announcement is on October 1st. They will be supporting creator-led podcast recommendations, aka Podroll. They will be supporting instant notifications of new episodes, aka pod ping, and they're also supporting the podcast location tag. And I was a bit dubious when I saw their write-up of what it is that they were announcing. I thought, oh, I wonder if they're doing it properly. Anyway, they are doing it properly. They're doing it really nicely. I've been shown a video, which I'm not going to repost or anything, but it shows how the UX works. It's exactly the way that it should be. So really pleased to end up seeing that they're a good and big podcast hosting company based out of Germany, so worth keeping an eye on there. So excellent news from that A couple of apps that are doing little intelligent summaries and swipable key points, so you don't have to listen to this show at all.

Speaker 2: 57:27

You can just read the intelligent summary instead. One of those apps is called Skimmer S-K-I-M-R. Yes, it produces all of that kind of stuff Also. Metacast is another one of those apps. Metacast is now supporting private RSS feeds as well, which is interesting. So, yeah, they're doing all of that kind of stuff too Nice as well, which is interesting.

Speaker 3: 57:47

So, yeah, they're doing all that kind of stuff too Nice. Now you've found another tool not directly related to podcasting, but it's called OpenRSS. That's what I've heard for OpenRSS.

Speaker 2: 57:56

Yes, I just thought it was interesting. Openrssorg, it's a website. If you have an RSS reader and you are using RSS to read stuff, as I do quite a lot, and you go to you know, log on a website that doesn't actually have an RSS feed Apple then you can actually go and go to openrssorg and make one. So it's a very nice little tool that makes RSS feeds for websites that don't have them. So that's a nice thing.

Speaker 2: 58:24

Quick question, because it's been one that I've tried to find the answer to Is there a page anywhere on the web that shows the RSS feed structure for blog posts? I mean, that would be the standard RSS, you know, 2.0 or whatever it is these days, wouldn't it? But yes, I mean I don't think it's changed forever, okay, but yes, so probably the old Harvard, the old Harvard thing, yeah, Okay, I'll check them out again, didn't it didn't come across as obvious?

Speaker 3: 58:55

Now, hannah Campbell has a website and an app called podcast review. What's he done?

Speaker 2: 59:01

Yeah, so he's added an API into that. So if you want to show your reviews on a webpage, then you can through this podcast reviewsapp, which is nice, and he's added an API into that. So if you want to show your reviews on a web page, then you can through this podcastreviewsapp, which is nice. He's also added some additional paid extra widgets if you want more than one widget to appear on your website. It's a little niche product but it might be useful for some, so worth a peek. You'll find that at podcastreviewsapp.

Speaker 3: 59:30

Now Pocket Cast turned on their ads this week. James, they're now live out of beta. How much do you think for a seven day ad on pocketcast?

Speaker 3: 59:38

it costs oh, who knows, who knows go on now a giddy five thousand,000 per week to advertise A bargain A bargain and that is not actually anything more than just views. So there's no click-throughs. So this is CPC-based advertising. There's no CPA, there's no measurement of clicks, there's no measurement of plays. Even so, for $5,000, with no refund if you don't hit the numbers, and it's just look well done for producing it. I think this is another way of monetizing content. But, geez Louise, $5,000 per week.

Speaker 2: 1:00:19

Yeah, carousel ads. Now that is the most expensive one, five grand. You can be in there a little bit cheaper, but the ads are all over the place and I have to say the users are not happy. And if you, I have a watch on the Pocket Casts subreddit and there are lots of people who are using Pocket Casts for free and all of a sudden they're going oh, it's full of ads. Now it literally is full of ads. So expect change, I think, think in terms of that.

Speaker 3: 1:00:48

But they've got to, they've got to pay for themselves.

Speaker 2: 1:00:51

Somehow don't they.

Speaker 3: 1:00:52

Yeah, no, look I, I question. They offer a pro version, which is hopefully then ad free, because you can't stick ads and then offer a pro version yes, I mean again, that's quite a pricey product as well that pro version. So again, I mean, you know they've got their target audience, they're going after and I assume that they're saying yeah to your point, james we need to make money and if we're going to make money, this is the going rate.

Speaker 2: 1:01:21

Yeah, no, and I mean you know, to be fair, I think if you're advertising in Overcast, it is still quite expensive.

Speaker 2: 1:01:29

I don't know what advertising in Player FM is like, but they seem to be advertising in the Pod News website every now and again, saying that you should come and advertise there.

Speaker 2: 1:01:39

So clearly they're making money out of that too. So it is a thing you know. I just wish that, instead of it being advertising based, it was more sharing in the revenue that the creators are getting, which, of course, would make an awful lot more sense. But the whole streaming payments thing is currently I mean it'd be wonderful if that could work properly. Notice that there's been a few people this week doing some work on the on the documentation on the on the podcast index website around how streaming payments works to make it a bit clearer, and so hopefully that means that there's more work going on in terms of how that's going to work, but that that, to me, is that is the best way. Actually, the more that somebody uses a podcast app, the more money you earn as a developer seems to be the most sensible way of doing that, but that can only work if it's streaming payments, I think yeah, and look, I think we all have to move to ln address.

Speaker 3: 1:02:36

That's what we're doing. Key send, though much easier. I think there's a whole misconception about the metadata I. I think people are doing it wrong, but I'm gonna keep my keep myself out of this one, because there's too many chefs in that kitchen and I don't think one more indian in it's gonna help mix my metaphors there, if I can should we move on, james?

Speaker 2: 1:03:04

yes, let's move on. What have we got? We've got a few test comments, one from somebody called Sam, one from somebody called Sanjeev, one from somebody called Martin Quibel.

Speaker 3: 1:03:15

Don't send out all my test messages. No.

Speaker 2: 1:03:18

Let's not read those out. Martin actually says he was listening to the Pod News Weekly Review and just sent a True Fans zap. What is a True Fans zap? Is that just like a like or something? Yes, yeah, very nice. Thank you, martin for that. Justin Jackson, looking forward to seeing you in Calgary at Pod Summit. James, yes, excellent, I'm looking forward to seeing Justin Jackson here in Calgary as well. Silas on Linux sent us a number of rows of ducks, one of them saying I really thought the philippines had internet, but that can't be possible if they don't use credit cards. Those are the internet's money. It was the philippines, right, james?

Speaker 3: 1:03:56

yes argument. That wasn't it months ago that the, I think you put forward that the credit card was the internet's money?

Speaker 2: 1:04:03

was the credit card was the internet's money. I think the I I still think that the credit card is the internet's money. The credit card was the internet's money. I still think that the credit card is the internet's money in Western countries, but very clearly not in places like Asia. But they've got their own payment systems. But yes, good point. Thank you, silas.

Speaker 2: 1:04:18

Filling up my sats again, he says to boost in my sadness about Todd Cochran In London. He says I showed him bouncepadlive cochran in london. He says I showed him bouncepadlive, my crap in depth, my crap in dev web app tailored to live rss feeds, and he immediately got it and said this is good, this is really good. It hasn't moved on a lot since may for a number of reasons, but I'm in the process of rewriting the front end because that part is really, really bad and no one visits it. I would have liked him seeing a really good version of it. Bouncepadouncepadlive that sounds interesting. Live. That sounds interesting to Silas.

Speaker 2: 1:04:51

And one more thing 1234sats. He's using Fountain Sam, so you'll need to you know, fix that. I remember you saying you wanted to use React Native for a TrueFans app some months ago and then more recently heard you're wrapping the PWA now to put in app stores. What has changed that? I am fully making the new front end in React Native and it seems significantly nicer tech than a PWA. Why did you end up choosing a PWA Sam? Was it just speed?

Speaker 3: 1:05:18

No, no, no. We all of our front end is in React and we use that there. Yes was a speed issue. We were going to go and use react native, build actual new versions of our ios and android apps. When I spoke to mo, my cto, we looked at six months or more to replicate what we'd built as the pwa in react native. We haven't got six months or more. I mean, we we would have been, you know, probably dead by now, I think, because everyone was saying well, you're not an app, we don't want to use you the way that we've done. It is allowed us to get into the app stores and play the game and then, when we get our funding and we build up our team, then we will go back and build the React Native versions as well.

Speaker 2: 1:06:04

Yeah, no, I think that makes a bunch of sense. So there you go, silas. Now you know. One final message here from Lyceum 10,000 sats, which gets a jingle Thank you, lyceum, that's so kind, he says for the beers, so hurrah. And we did enjoy our beers, didn't we, sam? We should talk about that just a second. Firstly, let me just thank our power supporters. There are 23 of them, john Spurlock being the very latest, martin Lindeskog, also being a brand new supporter, as well, as well as David Marzell, jim James, rocky Thomas and Neil Velio and many others. You can join them if you like, if you wouldn't mind, at weeklypodnewsnet. So I got to see you face to face this week, Sam.

Speaker 3: 1:06:51

We did. Yes. We met in a pub in the middle of London, near the BBC, One of your old haunts.

Speaker 2: 1:06:56

I'm guessing it was. Yes, yes, a very bizarre pub, but it was great. It was really nice to have chats with all kinds of folks, so it was good to see the people who turned up there. Yeah, no, it was.

Speaker 3: 1:07:08

It was very nice and yeah. So what else has happened for me this week? Well, my mother-in-law turned 94. That's a good old number. Yeah, she's going very strong, so who knows? Centurion on the way.

Speaker 2: 1:07:22

It's also your birthday today.

Speaker 3: 1:07:24

Yes, the 18th of September, so yes, Well, happy birthday to you, Thank you very much Happy birthday to you.

Speaker 2: 1:07:30

Do you now get cheaper bus?

Speaker 3: 1:07:33

No, I'm not on that milestone yet. No, I'm still sub 60. We're not saying how far sub 60.

Speaker 4: 1:07:42

I am, but we are sub 60.

Speaker 3: 1:07:44

That's critical and, yeah, I can announce we have closed our funding. I will be sending you the press release once the investors have made the announcement to the market. I cannot reveal until they make that announcement.

Speaker 2: 1:07:57

That's brilliant, that's such good news and you must be very pleased and that must be a weight off of your shoulders in terms of that. So so that's funding for, for true fans. So that means that true fans is not going to go away anytime soon. Well, a good day.

Speaker 3: 1:08:16

I mean, I could do a runner. No, I'm joking, in case they're listening, just in case they're listening. Just no, it's no, it's great. And yeah, we can reveal more about that, probably next week or the week after. I'm not allowed to say anything publicly yet.

Speaker 2: 1:08:31

Still no well, you better wait who they are, your new bosses. Your new bosses turn around and say yes, Until Daniel Eck turns around and says no.

Speaker 3: 1:08:42

That would be so funny if it was.

Speaker 2: 1:08:45

That would be so funny, good Lord, a few things that have happened for me. Obviously, catching up in London was lovely. I went to the Museum of Brands in Labrador Grove, which was interesting. If you like cereal packets and old radios, then you would like the Museum of Brands, I'll tell you. And that's about it, but still, there we are.

Speaker 2: 1:09:06

The one thing, though, that I did notice my flight was cancelled in order to get over to the UK, and so Qantas ended up sticking me on a Qatar flight which flies from Brisbane up to Doha, and I got onto that flight.

Speaker 2: 1:09:23

That's a 14-hour flight, sam. So I get onto the flight, I know, and I think, oh no, it's dreadful, but you know, at least one of the things I can do is I can write tomorrow's Pod News newsletter, because there's always that going on in the back of my head. When am I going to write the newsletter? So I cracked open the laptop and then I went I wonder how much they're going to fleece me for the internet and how expensive it's going to be. So I opened up the website, and you know, and there was a Wi-Fi connection. So I thought, brilliant, I'll connect to that. And then I just got Wi-Fi and I thought this is weird, so I'm not having to pay. And then I thought this seems very fast. And then I thought this seems very fast so I did a speed check. I was getting 250 meg down, which is unheard of for an aeroplane.

Speaker 2: 1:10:15

And about 40 meg up and guess what it was? It was Starlink. So what Qatar have done is they have junked all of their old Panasonic Viasat nonsense and they've just gone for Starlink and they've rolled it out on every single one of their Airbus planes. And they are rolling it out right now, and they rolled it out six months ahead of ahead of schedule because it was so easy to put in and it was astonishing.

Speaker 2: 1:10:42

So we were there flying, you know, flying flying to Doha, and I could stream live TV over the airport Wi-Fi. It was incredible, it was really really good. So hurrah for them for that and I thought to myself excellent. Well, I'll leave writing the Pod News newsletter, actually until my next flight out of Doha, because I'm shattered and I'll just go to sleep. And, of course, that aeroplane didn't have it and had the crappy old version. So there we are, hence why one of the pod news is. This week sounded as if it had come from a from oh, in fact it was Friday last week. Sounded as if it was coming from a Costa Coffee in Heathrow Airport, because it was was coming from a Costa Coffee in Heathrow Airport because it was.

Speaker 3: 1:11:27

Right. So I'm both happy and sad for you. Actually, James. I'm happy that Starlink works and that it was such a great experience, and I'm sad as hell that it's owned by Elon Musk. Yes, I know the guy who asked for a government overthrow and who live videoed into a far-right fascist rally in London. And basically he did it in Germany a little while back and he's sticking his nose in where it's not wanted. He's an apartheid racist and I will never use Starlink on that basis.

Speaker 2: 1:12:01

No indeed, and so I was very conflicted, because that is a brilliant product. But yes, but absolutely. You know you're using Elon Musk's. You know horrible, tainted stuff, so you know, I mean there's obviously all of the news this week about Jimmy Kimmel, who said something that was relatively sensible but has got cancelled for that, and you know all kinds of stuff going on in the US.

Speaker 2: 1:12:30

The interesting thing from my point of view was, you know, I had to fly into the US and then back out again to get up here to Canada. That was very, very smooth, so doing some kind of test for that flight, and so I found that incredibly smooth. I didn't even have to pick up my bag or anything for that flight, and so I found that incredibly smooth. I didn't even have to pick up my bag or anything. So more of that from my point of view, but I have a feeling that the way back via Chicago is not going to be anywhere near as easy. You know, sadly, but yeah, no, it's interesting times, isn't it? Sadly, yes, sadly, yes, but still there we are. And that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories taken from the Pod News daily newsletter at podnewsnet.

Speaker 3: 1:13:10

You can support this show by streaming stats. You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout fan mail link in our show notes. You can send us a super comment or a boost or, better still, become a power supporter like the 23andMe Not me personally, that's just what I've called them Superfans at weeklypodnewsnet.

Speaker 2: 1:13:28

Yes, very good. Our music is from TM Studios. Our voiceover is Sheila Dee, who we would like to give a big virtual hug to. She has lost her job this week and so is looking for more jobs and things. So best of luck to you, sheila, and I hope that you find something very nice and quick. Our audio is normally recorded using Clean Feed. This hotel does not have good Wi-Fi, so we are using a mix this week of Clean Feed plus a bit of Descript for Greg's interview, plus, most of this has been recorded on Google Meet using Audio Hijack. Oh yes, old school. We edit using Hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet.

Speaker 4: 1:14:19

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

Speaker 3: 1:14:28

We made it to the end.