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The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters, and so can you. The last word in podcasting news. This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridlin and Sam Sethy.

James Cridland: 0:12

I'm James Cridlin, the editor of Pod News.

Sam Sethi: 0:14

And I'm Sam Sethy, the CEO of True Fans.

James Cridland: 0:17

This podcast is sponsored by Buzz Sprouts with the tools, support, and community to ensure you keep podcasting. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with BuzzSprout.com.

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From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi: 0:32

Now, I was putting this show together yesterday, and I thought, um, you know, it'll be a good show, but it's not a lot of breaking news. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, Netflix and Spotify decided to make an announcement. I've called if you can't beat them, join them. So what are they doing, James?

James Cridland: 0:49

What are they doing indeed? Well, Netflix is getting into bed with Spotify in terms of video podcasts. So Spotify and Netflix have announced a partnership to deliver a selection of Spotify's top video podcasts to Netflix. So you won't get any other stuff on there. It will just be Spotify stuff that they own the rights for. The deal starts in early 2026. It's in the US only, and you might be thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah, so much, so boring, whatever. But the point of all of this is that they are taking the video of those shows off YouTube. They're shows like uh The Ringers shows and a few others. And the only place that you'll be able to watch them is Netflix and Spotify. So YouTube will still get clips. Audio versions of the podcast will of course remain available across platforms, but uh no watching them on uh YouTube anymore. That's a bit of a big deal, isn't it?

Sam Sethi: 1:48

So who instigated this deal, do you think? Was it Netflix saying we're out of the market, we need to get into podcasting and video because we need cheap content? Or was it Spotify going, God, YouTube's having our lunch, and we better find a partner who's going to help us?

James Cridland: 2:01

Well, I mean, it might be a little bit of both, I think. Nick Quar has suggested he was writing in uh Vulture, he's suggested it's kind of a mutual defense pact against YouTube, because of course both Netflix and Spotify can see YouTube as a competition. So perhaps it's a little bit of that. Perhaps it's just a nice deal for Netflix to get some cheap TV, as I've said on many an occasion here. You know, this is all this deal is. This isn't a big difference for podcasting, it's just the Spotify stuff that they already own. They are making that available on the Netflix platform now, and they've and they've sold it uh away to them. So, you know, I I don't think it's anything more than that, but I think it's quite interesting to end up seeing. I have to tell you, if you read the Bill Simmons subreddit, because there is such a thing, fans are not happy, they're calling it lame, stupid, and dumb.

Sam Sethi: 2:56

What do they know?

James Cridland: 2:58

However, some of the fans who have, of course, watched plenty of the Ringer output, have said that it's gonna be really obvious that they're made in really bad quality because they quite a lot of them are just simply recorded Zoom calls, and you don't expect that on a product like Netflix. So I think that's gonna be interesting to see how that works.

Sam Sethi: 3:21

Now, you know, I've been saying that this deal should have been happening two years ago. I've been talking about it, and you know, and I've jokingly called it Spotflix and bought the domain just for fun, you know, just on the basis. Now this is a quad play. Apple has music, it has film, TV, and podcasts. Same with Amazon. And the the big holes in both Spotify's strategy and also Netflix strategy is symbiotic to each other. One has music and a podcast, the other has film and TV. It makes total sense to me. This is possibly just you know the first dance, right, where they get together and have a little does this work, does this not work? Do we like each other? But I suspect that with Daniel Eck doing what he's doing, which is fundamentally taking a step sideways and then probably outwards to you know, yeah, with a nice payoff. Yeah. And no, the DOJ won't block this. We've seen deals now with OpenAI and NVIDIA and everyone else. Yeah, no one's blocking any deals. So I think for shareholders, this will be a payday and a half because you know, there is big money in both those places.

James Cridland: 4:34

Yeah, I mean, you know, as you as you so rightly say, Google has both video and audio to an extent at least. Certainly, Apple has both video and audio. So you can well see that there's a real benefit here of uh, what did you call it, Spot Flix? I called it Spotflix, yes. Domain names available. There's a real good opportunity, I think, for this larger company who were they to merge to produce something that is pretty amazing. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that all of the music will go into the Netflix apps, or indeed all of the video will go into the into the Spotify apps, because actually people don't work that way. And you know, and that that's that's not how people consume media, but you can well see that actually streaming media with all of that stuff in kind of makes quite a lot of sense.

Sam Sethi: 5:23

It does because it makes it sticky, doesn't it? You you you get to the end of a I don't know, a film or a TV, and you go, what do I do? Oh, I'll go over to YouTube. Oh no, I'll go to Spotify and play some music. Well, now you stick around if they if they can offer it all in one place.

James Cridland: 5:36

Yeah, theoretically. Theoretically, I mean that that might be another way. Stephen Da Vincenzi has commented on Spotify. Thank you, Stephen. You're you're the one this week. Well done. He says, just in case you mentioned Spotify and Netflix teaming up for video podcasts, I've come up with a good name for the Spotify Netflix combo. Netify. What do you think? No, it's not a good name.

Sam Sethi: 5:58

No, because it's got a double T in it. No, no, Spotify.

James Cridland: 6:02

Even if it's got a double T or a single T, I'm afraid, Stephen, it's been taken. Because I did actually go and check. Because I thought I thought to myself, I can't let Sam be the be the person with uh Spotflix. Uh I've I I've got to see if Netify is available, but it is not. So there we go.

Sam Sethi: 6:20

Uh yeah, I I think at the end of the day, this is a very smart way for them to try and combat YouTube, which currently is really having Spotify's lunch. Yeah. Certainly in video. I don't I don't see video and Spotify working very well right now. But also, I think it's really interesting when you start to see things like Global Studios and you start to see, you know, all these media companies really getting into their game. I think, you know, we've had in the last couple of weeks audio always, and we've had, you know, fresh air. And it's it's interesting. I think we're now beginning to see production companies and outputs where they can put audio and video.

James Cridland: 6:57

Now I think it's going to be really fascinating to watch. It was uh all of the talk here today, because I'm at uh South by Southwest in Sydney, and all of the talk here today was about this particular deal. I was sitting watching a Spotify presentation, which I kind of felt that I should be paid for at the end of it, because it was an awful lot of selling me Spotify. But nevertheless, yeah, that that was clearly, you know, some of the talk of the town. Worthwhile just again highlighting. This does not mean that your video podcast, which you have put on Spotify, will be on Netflix. It does not mean that at all. All it means is that Spotify has a bunch of cheap TV shows that they own, made by The Ringer, made by Spotify Studios, and they are selling those to Netflix. That is it. There is nothing more to look at than that. So this isn't really a podcast deal. This is just a cheap TV deal, and I think it's probably a wise idea if we think about it in that way.

Sam Sethi: 7:56

Wonder whether somebody like Flightcast will get the API access first.

James Cridland: 8:00

Well, yes, I mean there there's a thing, but that would be uh that would be a way in the future, I would have thought. Also, we're really weirdly, starting in the US only. So what it looks as if they're going to take all of the Ringer shows, for example, off YouTube everywhere, but the only place that you'll be able to watch them is Spotify or Netflix in the US. You won't be able to watch them on Netflix in the UK or Netflix in in Australia. So that's a bit of a strange one. I really don't understand why companies will do that sort of deal but only do it in one country. I mean, for a company such as Netflix, where it's really easy just to tick the button that says go everywhere, I don't really understand why they've done that. But I'm sure there'll be a brighter person in the comments, which of course you can uh always do to uh tell me why they've done that. Did I say my opic?

Sam Sethi: 8:50

Now, moving on. Is Apple taking the pips, James?

James Cridland: 8:53

Nice, nice. I should have used that. Yes.

Sam Sethi: 8:56

Well done.

James Cridland: 8:57

Yes.

Sam Sethi: 8:59

Because they've had an ad-free October, which they've promoted but decided not to pay anyone. Tell me more.

James Cridland: 9:05

Yeah, so this is apparently the second time that Apple have done this. They have a promotion called Series Essentials, and the Series Essentials promotion chooses a bunch of shows. In this particular case, they were mostly audio fiction shows, but certainly, you know, a short series. And they went to the publishers, as I understand it, and they said, You can be in this series essentials thing. And the publishers went, Brilliant! This is excellent news. And then Apple said, But we'd like you to be ad-free for the month, please. So publishers won't be able to earn any money by selling advertising because Apple has basically told them, if you want to be in this feature, you need to be ad-free. So you you you can look at it two ways. You can look at it and think, oh, well, you know, it's good news for the publisher because at least they get people listening, and then they'll get people subscribing or following that show, and they will continue to get a bunch of people listening to that show, you know, next month and the month after. But actually, when you go in and you have a look at some of these shows, they're only six shows long, you know, they're only six episodes long. They're really short. So there's nothing really to listen to after you've listened to the entire series. It's called Series Essentials for a reason. So I I I wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of Apple turning around and going, Yes, you can be in our app, but in order to do that, you cannot earn any money out of this podcast at all. I think that's just a bit cheeky for the third largest company in the world. What say you, Mr. Sethy?

Sam Sethi: 10:41

Well, you know, I don't even see why they're doing this. I mean, what's the ad-free benefit? I mean, why would they even think about it? I I'd love to be in the meeting. Yes, let's do ad-free October. It doesn't even rhyme. I mean, it's like, you know, you know, you know, November, get it, grey your mustache, ad-free October. Not really sure what the plan was.

James Cridland: 11:03

Because I think the plan is that they don't want to have lots of ads in shows that they promote. And I know that if you go on to, you know, series news briefing, for example, then they really don't want you to have any ads in there. So so I can kind of understand it, but if if I was them, I would have done it the way that Amazon Music did it. And the way that Amazon Music did it is that they went to people like Acast and they said, We want all of your shows ad-free. We'll just buy the ad slots. And so and so Amazon bought the ad slots foolishly in in my view, but they bought all of the ad slots and just made them totally silent. I think what Apple should have done is they should have bought all of the ad slots for October and replaced it with a piece of audio that said this show is on Apple Podcasts series essentials and is ad-free all this month thanks to Apple Podcasts. At least that would then mean that they would be supporting the shows with money and that they would also be getting a bit of obvious, you know, obvious buyback with that, because that mention would be on theoretically all of the podcasts across all of the platforms. That to me seems a little bit fairer, but at the moment you've got a you you've got a case where two of these shows were from uh three of these shows were from public radio stations in the US, which have had all of their money taken away. And then Apple turns up and smugly says, you know what, we've made you, because you've made a really good podcast, we've made you a Series Essentials, but you're not allowed to earn any money out of it. Get those ads out now. Uh I mean, you know, poor poor you if you're a public media company and you've already had all of your money taken away. For Apple to turn up and say, you know what, we don't want any ads in there, I just think is a bit is a bit rude. So I wish that that they wouldn't do it. And Apple does a lot of really good things for podcasting generally. People are very scared to to to you know talk against Apple because Apple is so large, which I totally understand, but I wish that they would that they would support podcasting properly, and I think that this is a bit mean. They've done this before, with they weren't gonna be paying music music artists if you got a three-month-free Apple Music, you know, deal just because you bought an iPhone, they were gonna say, Well, you know, you you don't get any money, Taylor Swift. And Taylor Swift herself wrote a blog post saying, We would like some money, please. We don't want to work for free. And there are a lot of artists who aren't as big as me who would like paying, please, for you know, for our stuff. And uh and Apple caved. And I'm surprised that we're not seeing more podcasters turning around and saying, you know what, Apple, no, and this is bad, and you shouldn't be doing this.

Sam Sethi: 13:58

Well, let's move on. Now, don't I just I'm just gonna hand hold your hand and get you off the uh soapbox for a minute. Now, thank you. Um you're welcome. Now, YouTube's also been telling us what makes a definitive guide to a good podcast content. Now, I thought it was worth noting because actually all it is really saying it's what we've been talking about in podcasting 2.0. They recommend chapters, keywords, strategic titles, and a comment section, which again I think is just what we've been trying to push for podcasting 2.0 as well.

James Cridland: 14:34

Yes, I think so. I think chapters is important, particularly for long-form stuff. Obviously, chapters is is pointless for the Pod News Daily, which is only four minutes long, but for this sort of thing, it works really well. What they talked about was cultivating the comments section. And I think this is one of the important things. If you listen to the Podcasting 2.0 podcast with Adam and Dave, and if you listen to this show, if you listen to No Agenda, if you listen to a number of other shows, there is an awful lot of reading out the comments and replying to them on the air. That's the way that fan mail is supposed to work for you reply to those comments in your show. And I think that is actually how you get more and more comments, is you just read comments out. Nobody's gonna send in a comment if they're not hearing them being read out. So I think that that's that that's an important thing. So it was actually quite good. It went a bit self-serving, this particular blog post, but it was actually quite a good one from the folks at uh YouTube.

Sam Sethi: 15:36

Yeah, if you want to read it, you can find a link in Pod News Daily. Indeed. Now, some of the other stories that you covered in Pod News Daily, Stephen Goldstein, friend of the show, has been talking about the secret ingredient to every great podcast. So it's not chapters, it's not titles. He says it's a real human voice.

James Cridland: 15:56

He does. And this was after he did a test of playing AI-generated podcasts with college students, which actually seemed to go down relatively well. Quite a lot of them quite liked the shows, which was interesting. College students of, of course, not like you are not your I. No, so that was so that was interesting. They don't play enough paddle. So that was interesting from that point of view. Perhaps they do. And similarly, along the same lines, Alberto Batella from RSS.com, who has done who has actually done an awful lot of very detailed academic work around parasocial relationships and stuff. He has penned a very good blog post on the rss.com blog, I'm an advisor, saying that AI might break the trust that we have between the listener and the host. Because as soon as you realize that it's not actually a real human being, then there's a bit a bit of a bit of trust that is gone. But he does say that AI voices can be trusted so long as they use the right prosodic cues, listen to him. And they're used responsibly.

Sam Sethi: 17:11

So what's funnier is it's his second language as well.

James Cridland: 17:14

Yes, I know, I know, which is even which is even more ridiculous. Imagine, imagine this article in Italian. So it was good to read that. Tom Webster from Sounds Profitable has also been pointing out, and I think this is a good point, that um AI performed ads may unlock significant new revenue. So, and I and I think he does make a good point. There is, I think, a really interesting middle between the Joe Rogans of this world, people making lots of money on podcast advertising, people that aren't interested in podcast advertising at all and making virtually nothing. And then you've got the middle ground where you've got people with uh quite a lot of downloads, but it's not really worthwhile to sell advertising for them. And so perhaps there is an AI answer to that, both in terms of ads, but also in terms of how you sell them as well. So I think that that's absolutely right.

Sam Sethi: 18:10

And finally, people don't really understand AI, says Sam Battachari. Writing InPod News today in the article, he explains how tools like ChatGBT work and how terrible they are for creation and how AI can actually benefit us. So if you want to read more about that, check out InPod News Daily.

James Cridland: 18:28

It's a good piece. He's got an AI research background, and uh he certainly doesn't hold back about Inception Point AI. He says, When I read about stories like that, I don't see an AI company, I see some idiots who hooked up to an A API from Eleven Labs and are wasting everyone's time and money. Ouch. Um, but it's actually it's actually a great, a great article. It's well worth a read. You'll find that in Pod News this week.

Sam Sethi: 18:55

Now, James, when's the best time to listen to a podcast?

James Cridland: 18:59

Well, the best time is uh the best time for you, Sam, but the highest time in terms of the most amount of people listening to a podcast is between 10 in the morning and two in the afternoon, according to Edison Research, releasing some data at the end of last week. And it's not just Edison Research saying this, because I've seen similar data from Rajar in the UK saying this, again, showing that the most listening happens between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. If you want to take a look at a four-hour chunk. Actually, the peak is between 12 and 12.30. So podcast for lunch, anyone?

Sam Sethi: 19:34

This totally goes against the grain for me, because I thought the idea was on the commute to work, so in the car, on the train, whatever you're doing, walking the dog, and maybe uh in the evening on the way home or at the gym. So those hours are for me seven till nine, and then probably five till seven. So totally different time sets to what I thought would be the norm.

James Cridland: 20:02

Yes, and I think quite a lot of people have looked at it and gone, oh, that looks a bit weird, because people expect, you know, the the success of the daily from the New York Times, people expect podcasts to do very well at breakfast time, and actually they don't. All of the data that I have seen seems to show that podcasts actually end up doing better during the rest of the day. And there's a good reason for that. It's that people, the used state of people in the morning is to understand what's been going on in the world, to connect with the world as they go to work. When they've finished work, they don't want any more connecting to the world, and so that's why they put on the music, that's what they that why they put on, you know, a podcast or whatever. So the use states are quite different. So although it doesn't look as if it's as if it's really what happens, it's interesting seeing two separate bits of data showing that that is the the you know, that that is actually what goes on.

Sam Sethi: 21:01

Or just people are bored at work and just want to put a podcast on while they're having to type out a spreadsheet.

James Cridland: 21:06

Yeah, yeah, no, indeed.

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James Cridland: 21:48

Right, let's go around the world. Where should we go first, Sam?

Sam Sethi: 21:53

Uh Italia. What's going on in the lovely country of Italy?

James Cridland: 21:57

There is a new podcast company which has just been launched. Interestingly, there is a media investor called SG Company, which uh invests in media things, and it has just launched a company called Sounds Great SRL, which I quite like because clearly SG doesn't stand for sounds great, but now it does. So very clever. They're working with a digital audio company called MDE, which has a nice core man called Marco Lagronegro working for it, who I've uh met a few times. So that looks really cool. So that's nice to end up seeing. Talking about new companies, new company here in Australia, down there in Melbourne, frozen Melbourne, Jetpack Media, a creator, representation house, and media publisher, has been launched by a former executive for both ARN and for Spotify. Interestingly, he ends up saying, literally, just in his second paragraph of his announcement press release, dumping radio ads into podcasts or repurposed television television commercials into creative video is like going to a steak restaurant and only ordering soup. It's not technically illegal, but you're missing the point. Yes. I think he's absolutely right. What's going on in the United States of America Shire?

Sam Sethi: 23:19

Well, oh no, no, we can't talk about that. Now, in podcasting. Yes. Sorry, sorry. In podcasting terms, President Barack Obama's making a guest appearance on the final ever Mark Marin show. What the no, what WTF. Sorry.

James Cridland: 23:36

You know what? You know what WTF stands for. Stands for stands for what's that for? That's what it stands for.

Sam Sethi: 23:43

Stands for bleep machine required. Host failure. Yes. Now Mark Marin's uh calling it quips for some reason.

James Cridland: 23:52

Yes, he did. Number 1686 is where he got to. And President Barack Obama was his last guest. Of course, he was a guest quite some time ago and kind of made that show to be even bigger than it than it was. President Obama, as you'll hear from this clip, was quite a fan of Mark Marin.

Barack Obama : 24:11

I think that part of the reason you had such a big fan base during the 16-year run is there was a core decency to you and the conversations you had that I think speaks to who we are. Most people are really decent. And I think that's why when they hear somebody else who is, it gives them courage and gives them hope, and you should be proud of having done it.

James Cridland: 24:35

What a lovely man President Barack Obama was, and indeed still is. Although, gosh, you can know something like that. You can tell that he's old now. He's he's got the old voice now. He's he's there there's something about his voice when you have a listen to that interview. There's something about that voice. Maybe it's just that maybe all of it, the all of those teeth aren't aren't his anymore. I don't know, but there's definitely something about that voice. Really interesting. Also, the Sean Ryan show, which is one of the US's top 50 podcasts assigned with Daylight Media. Now that's a big, big deal. The show was with Cumulus Media. Last month, if you read the Wall Street Journal, they said that um the show was to be sold for in a deal worth $10 million. So wow. So Daylight Media jumping in. They probably haven't spent $10 million, but who knows? They're an expansion of Q code, which has existed for the last um three or four years or so. But he seems to be doing quite well for himself. Sean Ryan, which is nice, got a big uh focus in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. You might remember that Sean Ryan was the person who the Cybertruck bomber rang to give a statement to. So yeah, there's a thing.

Announcer: 25:46

People news on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 25:51

In the latest episode of Podcast Perspectives, I loved this. Uh, Lex Friedman, not that one, said he was offered, quotes, more money than I think anyone will ever offer me ever again for a job to work at Spotify. This was back in the madness, I think 2019 or so. He was offered a total of three million dollars for three years. He turned it down because frankly, he didn't want to commute into New York every single day and not see his family, which I think is a very good and wise thing. But uh gosh, it's uh quite a listen. You should uh find the podcast perspectives podcast wherever you found this one. Uh also Laura Hagan has been announced at ACAST as SVP, regional MD Americas and Global Head of Agency Relations. There's a business card that'll fold out. She is a big deal, apparently. She joins from iHeartMedia, she joins from Zeta Global, and ACAST are very excited about nabbing her, so that is good. Right, let's move on to uh awards. And if you want to know how to win a gold, then uh you should go into that there London on Tuesday, the 11th of November. There is a free event happening at City University. It's called Podcast Gold, an evening of British Podcast Award winners. They do this every single year, and it's basically lots of the British Podcast Award winners saying exactly how they won gold, so you can too. You'll find details of that in the pod news newsletter. Also, events going on South by Southwest here in Sydney, which uh has a bunch of podcasting stuff going on, which is very exciting. And Apple Podcasts getting involved, just launching Creators We Love in Australia, joining the US, the UK, and Canada. A bunch of people here, so it's nice that uh Apple have remembered that we exist down here.

Announcer: 27:40

The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 27:44

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

Sam Sethi: 27:50

RSS.com. I mean, Alberto must be very busy at the moment. He's writing blog posts and now he's doing this stuff. He's announced full support for the podcast location tag, the updated 2025 version that you and I were talking about months ago. Yes. Tell me more.

James Cridland: 28:05

Yes, I believe that this is the first podcast hosting company that is actually properly supporting the 2025 version of the podcast location tag. So it's using OpenStreetMap IDs as it should be. It's got support for both what this podcast is about, or rather, I should say what place this podcast is about, as well as what place this podcast is being recorded in. So it's got support for both of those. It's a really nice UX, it's one of the best bits of UX for that. So yeah, it's very smart. You should go and um and uh have a play with that if you've not done so already. There is a demo as well, which doesn't quite use the same UX, by the way, but there is a demo showing how to how to do that for yourself if other podcast hosting companies want to put that in. But it does look very, very smart. So hurraforrss.com. Uh, because I think that that's definitely a good thing. Uh of course, the location tags supported by TrueFans. So you can go and uh see location tags in there.

Sam Sethi: 29:11

Yeah, I mean somebody said this week though that I think it was you actually, James, who said that we can't get access to the location tag through an API because what's lacking right now is chicken and egg. We we want more location tags so that we can start to build things like Maps FM, which I know you were an advisor to a little while back, which you know again layers on top and adds metadata makes it interesting. But we can't do any of that yet.

James Cridland: 29:39

So well, we can we can, but we the the way of doing it right now is that you have to read every single RSS feed out there and uh grab the location information from the RSS feed. Now that's perfectly doable, of course. And in fact, if you have a look at the Pod News website, our podcast. Directory and you have a look at the episode list, then where there is a location in the episode list, then I'm already doing that. So you can actually go that far. What I was hoping for is in the podcast index API, there is currently an API call for slash recent. And all that slash recent does is it shows you the last you can have episodes slash recent or you can have shows slash recent. And if you have a look at episodes slash recent, for example, it will show you the last you know 50 episodes that the podcast index has seen. So you can actually use that API call to go and have a look for recent shows or indeed all the way back to the beginning if you call if you call it enough times. And what I'm hoping that we can build is slash locations slash recent, which does exactly the same job, but it just looks at any podcast episode with a location tag in there. But what I am thinking is that at the moment the Pod News podcast sample is about four or five hundred thousand shows, so it's about half a million shows. Quite a lot of those will already have location tags in them. So perhaps I can actually get going anyway and start passing some of those location tags. So my first job is to do that on the JavaScript-driven episode pages, and then we'll see if I can build something which is more impressive in terms of pulling all of those things together.

Sam Sethi: 32:01

Good luck. I'll be uh watching that spells.

James Cridland: 32:05

One of the things, by the way, that we that that I have belatedly realized is that as part of the podcasting 2.0 work, we really should be suggesting what the icon for each of these tools should look like. So in the case of location, I'm suggesting that it's a teardrop-like map point. That's that that's all. So I'm not saying use this use this icon because that has licensing implications and it might not fit with the other things and blah blah blah. But I think if we say please don't use a pin, use a use a teardrop-like map pin for this, please don't use a an X or a Target. You know what I mean? And similarly, I think that we've we've we've missed the boat a little bit in terms of the funding tag, but the funding tag, ideally, whatever platform that you have a look at it on, should have the same icon in some way, shape, or form, just as we have for a play button, a stop button, and a pause button. And I think we've probably missed a bit of a a bit of you know of a trick with just you know not actually saying this is the funding tag, and ideally the icon for it should be something to do with a dollar sign in a circle or something. I don't know. But you but but you know what I mean, so that so that we don't end up with lots of different icons for the same uh type of tool.

Sam Sethi: 33:38

Yeah, I mean we've talked about this before. I mean, Microsoft in the early days when I was there, when Excel and Word and PowerPoint were all run by three teams, they all chose different icons in different locations in different positions. So the learning curve was just ridiculous. And then somebody within Seattle said, right, stop, and then they came up with a standardized toolbar with standardized icons, and then of course the learning curve was reduced massively. And I would happily sign up to doing that with TrueFans if somebody came up with a set of standards for the icons. I would yeah, happily change the icons. Yeah, yeah.

James Cridland: 34:16

And I know that there's a podcast font out there which is actually quite useful. And again, I'm not saying use that font, but what I am saying is it if we've got something, if we've got something like a like a play button, everybody recognises a play button, even though it's actually, I mean, it's the direction of the magnetic tape that used to go through the thing. I mean, it's not um it's not really got anything to do with how you play media now, but it's just a symbol that we all know and understand. And maybe we should be doing a little bit more of that, and maybe that's something for the PSP, who knows? But we will, but we will see. What else is going on? Should we talk about some apps?

Sam Sethi: 34:55

Yeah, no, Marco Armin from Overcast has released a new beta. What's he given us? Yes, uh sorry, sorry, he has podcasting to the o, support for every tank, and micropayments.

James Cridland: 35:08

No, he hasn't given us that. He hasn't given us any of that. What he does say is that actually downloads are getting more and more complicated because of ad blocking VPNs, because of networks where you have ad blocks built in and all of that kind of stuff. So he basically needed to rebuild his entire download code. And I think it it's interesting, some people would just turn around and say, if you're running an ad blocking VPN, you deserve everything that you get. But Marco is turning around and going, No, it's still my problem. It's still my issue if somebody can't download a show because it happens to have a chartable link in it, and that bit happens to be blocked. I should be able to at least tell the user, yeah, this isn't downloading because X. And so I think he's doing exactly the right sort of thing. Quite an interesting Reddit that he now runs. So worth a peek at that. Quite also interesting in terms of Metacast, which is what I'm calling an advanced podcast app. It's got lots of AI goodness in there, if there is such a thing. Anyway, I've been I've been saying to them for a while, you should stop spending your tokens producing transcripts when we're all producing them for you. And so now he produces, and so now he supports creator-made transcripts as well as as well as making them. So if you're using the podcast transcript tag, then he will ingest those instead, which is a very good thing. They're currently having a 50% off sale as well in what the company calls its 12-month survivor versary, which I think is an is an is an excellent way of putting it, because he, like you, are entirely bootstrapped. So yeah, so so there's a thing.

Sam Sethi: 36:56

The next iPad OS 26.1 will include a game control for USB microphones. Do you do you use an iPad at all?

James Cridland: 37:06

Yes, I I do use an iPad, but not for recording things. But actually, it you can plug in a USB microphone into your iPad. It would be a really good recording tool if you could actually turn your microphone down a bit in many cases. So that's exactly what they've done. So it should be quite a good recording device if you're if you're on the move. And that maybe is the thing that's been missing there. So 26.1 for iPad OS and indeed for iPhone OS is coming out in the next few weeks.

Sam Sethi: 37:37

Now, here's another company called Audiogram, a tool to make social video from your podcast. Uh, it's launched a free AI-powered podcast promo tool. Now I'll have a look at the demo that they gave us, James. Um it's a bit it's a bit strange.

James Cridland: 37:54

It's been built to explore the latest AI video generation models. It uh creates a whimsical script and then generates a short promo video. I'm not quite sure of the point of it, but nevertheless, it's quite fun. If you go and have a play, it made this very weird 10-second clip for us in a 1950s style. Betty, I've got it.

Barack Obama : 38:14

The news source for the man of the future. It's called a pod news. A pod, dear? Goodness, will it fit in the vegetable CRISPR?

James Cridland: 38:21

Yes, I'm not quite sure what any of that has, uh, but um but still. Worth a play. You'll find a link to that. Just search for audiogram on the pod news website.

Announcer: 38:31

Boostergram. Boostergram, booster grand, super comments, zaps, fan mail, fan mail, super chats, and email. Our favorite time of the week, it's the Pod News Weekly Review inbox.

James Cridland: 38:45

Yes, 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, boosts everywhere else, and email or indeed comments on Spotify if you must. We share any money that we make as well. And we've got a fan mail, haven't we?

Sam Sethi: 39:00

We have, yes. It says, Hi, James and Sam. I'm a little behind, so I'm commenting on this September the 12th episode. I think.

James Cridland: 39:07

September the 12th? How behind are you?

Sam Sethi: 39:11

Can I tell him other news what's happening in the world? Because he may not have heard that either. Um I have a comment on the chapters topic. You questioned why chapters are not required by hosts, aside from being more work. The hosts might not be able to offer AI and the podcaster might be averse to AI. Chapters wouldn't really make sense for some podcasts. If it's a non-fiction podcast that just covers one subject, I agree. You can't easily break that down into subtopics. Yep, no worry at all. Additionally, if you have some kind of serial podcast, again, not needed, I agree, for chapters. And then he said you wouldn't want people skipping ahead. Correct, when they're in a serial story. That's what I think. Best Devin. He, him, his, because we were questioning in the past whether Devin was a he, him, or her. Yes. And yes, uh thank you. Yeah, no, I agree. It's not for everything, chapters, but where it is appropriate, like shows like this, then certainly chapters are very welcome.

James Cridland: 40:09

Yes, no, I would certainly agree with that. Chapters are a good thing, but they shouldn't necessarily be in everything. And I think that's one of the that's one of the issues with uh some of the AI-driven chapter services that you hear. A bunch of uh additional uh messages as boosts, they're all coming from true fans, and this is your gamification working, uh Sam. Because so Lyceum sends us a bag of Richards. David John Clark, aka the late bloomer actor, is trying to get the number one position as the super fan of this podcast. He is an active listener, a smiley face, followed by the late bloomer actor saying, trying, but your budget is breaking me, Lyceum. Followed by Lyceum replying and saying, quote from the late bloomer actor, trying, but your your budget is breaking me. I had to top up my wallet in order to send this new booster gram. This time it's a reference to cyberspace in a science fiction TV series, to which the late Bloomer actor replies, Lyceum replies, and so on and so forth. So I'm a big fan of your gamification, Sam, and long, long may it last. Yes. But he does say, when will we see the level feature? No hurry, I'm pulling your leg a bit. What's the level feature in this thing?

Sam Sethi: 41:21

So part of the gamification is we we we we teased out that there was a level zero for everybody. But of course, within gamification, you add points, points add to badges. So we're gonna issue badges and levels. So again, it's just all part of the gamification. People like claiming and acquiring badges, you know, first first common or first to a thousand points or whatever it may be. So there's a whole new set of gamification features that we're bringing out very shortly.

James Cridland: 41:51

Yes, it it it's it's it is quite fun. And I do I do enjoy the late bloomer actor basically saying to Martin, you already are the super fan on the Pod News Weekly by a mile. Can't you let let me have the Pod News Daily? This game only ends up giving more beers to James, which is great, of course. Uh, I would I would totally agree with that. Speaking of beers, a row of ducks, 2,222 sats from the ugly quacking duck. It's nice to hear from Bruce again. I think the next step in this weird AI design culture will be the human stroke AI, transhumanism. I believe that is the term. We are heading that way like a plane at 65,000 feet, heading straight down. Yikes. Just a bit of dark in a bright day. Thanks for the episode 73. Yeah.

Sam Sethi: 42:42

Well, there you go. Yeah, I mean, uh Peter Thiel wants the singularity. Elon Musk wants the singularity, so yes, they want to be man and machine.

James Cridland: 42:53

And and uh and a message from uh Neil Vellio, who of course is one of our power supporters, uh, one of our 23 power supporters. Thank you, Neil, for that. Although he doesn't think much of flight cast. Oh well, there you go. If you want to join Neil and be a power supporter, then please do. Weekly.podnews.net would be a fine thing. Uh Rocky Thomas has done that, Rachel Colbert has done that, Mike Hamilton at the Rogue Media Network has done that, as has Cameron Mole and Will Clark. And you could too. Weekly.podnews.net is the plan. So anything exciting happened for you this week, Sam?

Sam Sethi: 43:29

Well, this week I handed out an award because you weren't available at the International Podcast Awards. And what was that like? It was lovely. Oh, yes, lots of people, great drinks, fun night. It's almost as if you haven't done that yet. Yes. Yes. Time travel hasn't quite occurred. So that's that's tonight, actually, as we record this show. Well, very good.

James Cridland: 43:52

Well, I hope that you have fun tonight doing that. And I look forward to well, I was gonna say I look forward to hearing from the the winners, but of course, um I I will already know who the winners are by the time this goes out. So that's a thing. Yes.

Sam Sethi: 44:05

And then the other thing we will be doing this week is posting our pricing for our hosting and opening up the wait list.

James Cridland: 44:13

Oh, there you go. There's an excitement.

Sam Sethi: 44:16

What's happening for you, James?

James Cridland: 44:18

Well, I tell you what, if you thought that was exciting, then you ain't heard nothing yet because my goodness, if you look at the top of the pod news newsletter, uh, which of course you'll be getting every single day, then you will notice that the logo at the top of the pod news newsletter now changes colour if you're using dark mode. Finally. So it turns out who'd have thought that Google, of all companies, would be so bad at following uh any form of standard when it comes to their email services. Gmail is impossible to develop for. But uh, as long as you're not using Gmail, then it now looks quite nice. So hooray for that. I have worked out how to do it, and I'm going to stick it onto my personal blog as well, because it's nowhere near as easy as it is on the internet to code all of this stuff for email and and to make sure, by the way, that it actually works everywhere. So there's a thing, but yeah. But apart from that, nothing particularly exciting other than of course being here in Sydney. Oh, there was something else that was particularly exciting. So earlier on today, you know how we occasionally have beers in a pub? That's where we normally have beers in a pub. Yes. Yes, but uh yes, but we have beers in a pub with listeners to the podcast. Yes, so the there were uh beers in a pub earlier on in the evening for people that listened to the Game Changers podcast, which is a radio podcast in Sydney, who've been who've been very mean about me recently, and and I and I discovered that they were having drinks, and so I went to say hello. Not only did not only did I see all of the folks who do that particular podcast, and that was very nice, but somebody came up to me, Sam, and said, I listen to the Pod News Weekly Review every week. Which was which was uh fairly amazing. So hurrah! So, yeah, so very enjoyable that was just to say hello to to a few people and uh yes, that was um that was good fun in uh in a random pub somewhere in Chatswood in Sydney. Oh, I forgot to say two two quick things.

Sam Sethi: 46:30

First of all, looking at your website, when did you add the hamburger?

James Cridland: 46:33

Oh the hamburger, the hamburger has been there for a while, but only if you're on if you're on tiny yes, only if you're on tiny.

Sam Sethi: 46:41

I'm on a big screen and I can see your hamburger.

James Cridland: 46:43

I beg your pardon. It's the way you walk. On on what? On uh the pod news website or on Pod News Daily, on the Pod News website. Oh yes, yes, yes, that that that is it it's always visible on the Pod News website, yes. Yes, it's uh hiding away in the corner. Never noticed it.

Sam Sethi: 47:03

Right, and then the other thing I forgot to mention, I went to an Irish wedding this weekend in the most oh yeah, you know that'll be grand. Yes, it was. It was lovely, but it it was in the most Irish of sounding places called Thurmanfecken. Oh nice, yes. I swear, you can look it up, it's about an hour north of Dublin. Oh my god. I mean you have to say it in an Irish accent because it gets far too rude if you don't. So yes, it was Thurman Fecken. Yes, all weekend. And you enjoyed it, did you? Wonderful. My liver didn't, but I did. Yes, it was lovely. Yes. Four o'clock in the morning.

James Cridland: 47:42

Very, very little Ireland. I I've done Dublin, I've done Cork, and that's it. And I would like to see a bit more of Ireland at some point. I I really should go and find an excuse. Yes, very pretty. Oh, and I've done Belfast as well. Not so don't at me. Don't not so pretty. Not so pretty. No, not really. Not really. Yes. Anyway, that's it for this week. Uh, all of our podcast stories were taken from the Pod News Daily Newsletter, which is very good, and you can get it for free at podnews.net.

Sam Sethi: 48:13

With dark mode. And you can support this show by streaming Sats. You can give us feedback using the Buzzsprout thumb mail, a like Debon. You can you also send us a super comment like most people do, or become a power supporter like the 23andme, and be a power fan at weekly.podnews.net. Power fan, eh?

James Cridland: 48:32

Uh our music is from TM Studios. Our voiceover's Sheila D. Our audio is recorded using CleanFeed and my mobile phone this week because the the Wi-Fi in this hotel is rubbish. But then, you know, if I will stay in the cheapest hotel. Uh, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting. Who said YMCA?

Announcer: 48:52

Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnews.net. Tell your friends and grow the show. Support us. And support us. The pod news weekly review will return next week. Keep listening.