Announcer 0:00

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

Sam Sethi 0:09

I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod news, and I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of Truefans.

Barry Luijbregts 0:14

We always keep innovating, especially when customers ask us for features. That's mostly what's happening now.

James Cridland 0:20

Barry from Pod Home on the AI Powered Podcast host. It will find the best moments in the episode and it will guide you through them. Kevin Smith from Snipped on the AI Powered Podcast app. And Apple Podcasts launches video for everyone. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout with the tools, support, and community to ensure you keep podcasting. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with Buzzsprout.com.

Spotify changes

Announcer 0:48

From your daily newsletter, the Podnews Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi 0:52

James, let's start off with A. Look, it's not an Apple story for the first story of the week, but it might be in there somewhere. Don't leave them out, you know. But Spotify, let's start with N then.

James Cridland 1:04

I'm surprised that Apple isn't the number one story. I'll I'll I'll tell you that. Okay. Um, but uh yes. Anyway, go on then. Spotify.

Sam Sethi 1:12

Mr. Producer. Spotify. Ashley uh Karma from Bloomberg is reporting that Spotify's laid 3% of its podcast team off. Uh that's about 15 people. What are they doing over there?

James Cridland 1:25

Well, who knows what they're doing over there? Um because Spotify won't tell us. Um, but uh it does look as if there are cuts in The Ringer, cuts in Spotify Studios. They may be the same thing these days, I really don't know. Um there's a special project lead, whatever that does, and there's a writer um who uh we know has gone. There's a show which has also been cancelled as well called New York New York. Um I am hearing all kinds of stories about Spotify changes. Spell the tea, go on, spell it. And every time I go to Spotify and I say, Oh, okay, well, this is what I'm hearing, and they just reply and say, That's very much not true. Um, there was another story that I heard, and I asked for comment on that, and they gave a comment that was basically, we have nothing to say at this time.

Sam Sethi 2:17

But they didn't say it wasn't true.

James Cridland 2:18

No, so you you you know, so there's there are things going on at Spotify, and I'm not quite sure what those things are, to be honest. My suspicion is that um is that there's yeah, there's sort of other things, uh, other things going on uh at uh Spotify, maybe quite a lot of big changes in terms of um how video works, perhaps in the future. I mean, certainly if they're looking at the standard um uh way of doing uh video, then there's probably gonna have to be quite some quite some uh change given that Apple has totally upended the you know the uh the the um the fruit cart or whatever it is that they're updating, you know what I mean? Um so I'm I'm just I'm just curious as to what's oranges, yes, exactly. Exactly. So I'm just sort of curious in terms of in terms of all of that. But um yeah, no, it's uh interesting times at uh Spotify. They've been um uh launching a few other things, haven't they?

Sam Sethi 3:19

Uh they have. So uh one of the things they've launched is a new tool for testing uh AI slop or to stop AI slop. Um they're doing it for music first, so they're allowing you to put in your artist profile something called artist profile protection, um, which basically says, Is this your track? And the artist has to go yes or no, basically. Um I wonder whether they'll extend that to podcasting, I suppose.

Apple launches video

James Cridland 3:45

Well, yes, that would that that would certainly be a thing. That would certainly be a thing. No, uh very interesting. They've um uh also Apple Music, if we're talking about um uh uh music services, uh Apple Music has also uh launched an integration with um a concept provider, I think it's Ticketmaster. Uh it is indeed. Yeah, so you can instantly buy uh tickets through there as well. So again, more of these integrations uh coming, which is interesting.

Sam Sethi 4:12

Now, okay. Apple launched iOS 26.4. Uh with it came the new video experience. Have you got it?

Speaker 6 4:20

Yes, I do. I have uh the brand new iOS 26.4. I mean, I've been running the developer beta for a while. Um, they snuck out a couple more podcast hosting companies who are supporting HLS video, Podspace, Riverside, OSHA, and First Story. I've heard of at least two of those, and I think that's really interesting, isn't it? That um we're now at a stage where we are uh welcoming uh Podspace, which is a small company based in the Nordic countries. Um and uh I'll be frank with you, I do not know who First Story are. Um so we're welcoming those types of companies into Apple Podcasts video. What we're not seeing is people like Spotify's megaphone, um uh Buzzbrow aren't there yet, uh, both of whom I'm I'm sure are very keen to get in. Um and uh we we're you know, so it's um it's interesting times. It's interesting times. And I wonder as people upgrade to the new version of iOS 26.4, whether or not um, you know, normal listeners will see the type of shows that they are expecting. So probably no Joe Rogan. Uh well, I mean definitely no Joe Rogan for now, uh no titles from the ringer, um, uh, but uh plenty more because um Spotify's megaphone isn't part of it. Um so uh you know, Apple saying that more content will roll out throughout the year, because of course they would. Um but I think it's going to be very interesting to watch and see what normies um think about this. There aren't too many shows available in video uh right now.

Sam Sethi 5:58

Yeah, but it's the old adage, isn't it? Build it and they will come. Well in this case, build it and they might not come, right?

Speaker 6 6:03

Well, yes, I mean, or or or indeed um build it in secret until a couple of a couple of months ago, and then uh ask people to come. That's the other sort of side of it. Um but apparently 48 shows um uh are in the Apple Podcasts directory now with video. Um the majority of those with A Cast, so ACast appears to have done all of its tech. Uh Art19 have 10 of those, uh, and then there's one or two for um companies like Omni, Transistor, uh, and so on. So um yeah, I think that that's it that probably tells you that um not everybody is up to speed in terms of video in Apple Podcasts.

Sam Sethi 6:47

Well, I think if you're companies like Buzzprout, you know, you've now got to get your HS story in place. So now you've got to decide how you're going to uh re-encode all the video. Then you've got to look at actually, is there demand from your customer base to get into Apple Podcasts? Because again, a lot of people we've always said that you know the long tail's probably not gonna be involved in this at all. I mean, most podcasters don't want to do video, yeah. Um and most of the big ten, as you said, Joe Rogan's call her daddy, might not do it. Not at least not to begin with. Yes. Um John Spurlock, friend of the show, has also uh given us a hat tip. He's said that Apple have updated the web app, but they haven't updated the Mac OS uh on the desktop, and they haven't updated the TV OS either. Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting.

Speaker 6 7:43

Yes, I know that TV, uh Apple TV does not have video podcasts. Um which makes very little sense. Um but uh yes, you were you you would expect that there would be um uh that there would be uh uh access to it on the macOS uh app. But uh yeah, if he's saying that it's not there, to be honest, I've not I've not actually had a look at that. But um but that's but that's interesting. Um but of course that does mean that um if you uh have Apple Podcasts installed as a PWA on Android, that means that you will see video, which is um gonna be curious. Um so yeah.

Sam Sethi 8:22

Given that the Worldwide Developer Conference was just announced, it's going to be on June the 8th to June the 12th. Uh you assume they're going to announce something to do with the new Apple TV being upgraded to support this. What else do you think might be there, James?

Speaker 6 8:38

Yes, we've been we've been wanting a new Apple TV uh for the first time.

Sam Sethi 8:42

Well it's just you personally, but yeah.

Speaker 6 8:45

Yeah. Um I mean I uh would assume that it's when we f finally see the iPhone, foldable iPhone thing. Um uh that there's been a number of stories recently about um Apple podcasts really changing how the iPhone is working and uh changing the design of all of that. I mean I I I think that they basically just changed the the design, so I'm not so sure about that, but certainly adding a foldable phone seems to make sense. The new Siri seems to make sense in there as well. Um I'm not sure necessarily that we will see too much more other than you know Siri actually being intelligent and the foldable arts.

Sam Sethi 9:24

Artificially intelligent, yes.

Speaker 6 9:25

Yes, yes, well, yes, indeed, indeed. But yeah, interesting times for um Apple. It is of note that when you are um told to upgrade, then Apple Podcasts with video is not one of the reasons. Um so the the screen that comes on talks about other things. Um so um I I'm not sure necessarily that um Apple will be really shouting about Apple podcasts with video until they've got enough content in there uh to actually make it um uh worthwhile. I also heard another interesting thing. Um you can probably tell that I'm not normally at home. I'm uh I'm at r in Riga in Latvia uh this the this uh fine morning. Uh and I heard another interesting thing from the conference that I've uh been at of somebody saying that Apple Podcasts is not uh it's still very popular, but it's not getting new listeners. So the new listeners are going to YouTube, the new listeners are going to Spotify. Apple Podcasts is still very popular because of habit, because people have used it in the past, and those people continue to use it, but um but it's not replenishing its audience with newer, um newer users. And I thought that that was a really interesting uh way of thinking about it, and there might be a bit of a bit of truth there that actually, you know, uh people who've grown up with podcasting are using Apple Podcasts, but people who haven't um have have never gone into the Apple Podcasts app.

Sam Sethi 10:53

Well, I had a similar conversation with a friend in the industry who was talking about gateway drugs in effect uh YouTube kids bringing people into the YouTube environment and Spotify targeting for music. You know, you talked about your own daughter who who's a teenager um or is about to be a teenager. Um, you know, her all of her friends are on Spotify, therefore the cool thing to be is on Spotify. And it it's I always think Apple I don't know. Apple music is just something I never use, I don't go to it. I uh you know, all that um uh Apple One, you know, the radio station, I never listen to it. Uh and also just because they're all disparate parts with Apple as opposed to an integrated solution, yeah. I wonder whether that's a trick they're missing.

Goalhanger adds a talent fund

Speaker 6 11:42

Yeah, well, you know, we will find out. I mean, you you know, arguably they would say no, it's all part of one solution, it's called the iPhone. Um uh and in fact, Apple wouldn't say that because you don't put the the word the in front of iPhone. So they would say it's all part of iPhone. Um and and there may be something to be said for that, but yes, um I mean it's gonna be very odd on the Apple TV for you to be going into the Apple Podcasts app to watch podcasts in there, but then going into the Netflix app to watch podcasts in there. I mean, uh you would kind of expect podcasts on the Apple TV to be in Apple TV. Um so I I don't know. But anyway, um all fascinating, all fascinating things to have a look.

Sam Sethi 12:25

Moving on then, James. Uh Goalhanger, yeah, the big UK production company that's going gangbusters, um, has released something called the Accelerator, which is aimed at content creators. It's a fund. Oh, goody. What have they done?

Speaker 6 12:40

I always look at these things, and you know, I don't want to be rude about Goalhanger, although that company has changed very much in the last six months from being a they've changed from being a very um you know polite, hungry uh company to uh a company with a bit of an attitude. Um so I'm not 100% um uh over the moon with what Goldhanger are doing anyway. These sorts of things to me, it's it's their content creator fund, it's called the accelerator. They will um support um uh high potential digital creators. They will give them up to 10,000 pounds in content investment, which is around So not money, not money, that's the critical. Aha, yes, I hadn't even spotted that. Yes, 10,000 pounds worth of um exactly uh production and experimentation. Yes, well I hadn't even noticed that because I I was there thinking, well, this is just a cheap way of um getting more people into the goal hanger now. But it's cheaper now because it's not even real money. Um yeah, I mean it does seem it does seem a relatively transparent way of um essentially looking for pitches for additional content and doing it in a way where you don't have to work too hard because people come to you. Um and yeah, it it it it it's not um you know it's it it's a sort of lazy way of growing your network, I suppose. But um yeah, but you know, I mean it looks all fun. Um the the folks at Goldhanger know what they're doing. Uh you certainly can't argue with that. Um and um I mean you know each creator will receive up to £10,000 in content investment to elevate production standards. Um I don't know if you've listened to any Goldhanger shows recently, but um they're all filmed for TV, they sound pretty bad. Um, they've lost most of the um of the audio specific production um that uh goal hanger shows have. So I'm I'm not even sure that I would take um uh uh you know um information from uh goal hanger in terms of how to make a good show, to be honest with you. But um maybe I'm just being a bit a bit grumpy. I'm still, you know, I'm still enjoying their shows. The rest is entertainment, it's very good. When Marina can get a word in edgeways, um the rest is politics is very good, when Rory can get a word in edgeways, so I think I think it's all fine.

Sam Sethi 15:11

Shh, don't mention the war, it's too soon for Alistair Campbell. Too soon. Too soon. Um if you want to find out more, of course, you can go to goalhanger.com slash the accelerator. And again, look, on playing devil's advocate, the other side of the fence, um, they're trying to encourage young people to come into the uh environment and come into the industry, and maybe this is their way of doing it. So look, good luck with it. It's it's another initiative that we should really applaud, um, whatever the outcome.

Overcast brings transcripts

Speaker 6 15:41

I think so. Um I would just point out that uh there is an apply now button on their website, and next to that apply now button is a big thing saying terms and conditions by applying you agree to the accelerator terms and conditions. I bet you do. Those will be interesting to read. So uh yes, maybe there's a maybe there's a thing there.

Sam Sethi 16:01

Moving on, James. Uh Overcast. Um, they are bringing transcripts, it seems, to Overcast, but not just one or two, they're bringing it for everybody, and even better, it will be free for everybody, says Marco Arment.

Speaker 6 16:14

Yes, um, I I I think it looks very good. It doesn't yet use creator-produced transcripts, so it's not yet using um the uh the careful one, for example, that I do on the the Pod News Daily, um, where I do go through and change people's uh uh spelling to make sure that everything's correct. It's not yet using that. Apparently that is coming though, um, which is good news. Um my understanding is that the transcripts are mostly being done by a rack of Mac Minis that uh Yes, I thought that story was fascinating. Yeah, that Marco Armant has bought. So this is a story that hasn't got in into Pod News yet. Um, but I think that's a fascinating thing. Um so um yeah, I'd love to learn a little bit more about that. But absolutely rightly, he turned around and he said this is an accessibility feature, and um nobody should ever be charging for accessibility features, and he's absolutely correct. So um so hurrah for him. Overcast is a pretty big deal because it is um in many cases the number three or the number four podcast app. Um it was always bigger than things like Google Podcasts. So for Overcast to be getting transcripts is I think a pretty big deal.

Sam Sethi 17:27

I I'm not sure. I I I agree with him about the accessibility part, but when you start to add things like timed links and other feature and function on top um of the transcript, then is that accessibility or is that feature and function?

Speaker 6 17:40

No, I think I think that is is feature and function, but I think certainly accessibility, adding adding transcripts, um uh I think that that makes perfect sense to keep that uh free and it's exactly the right sort of thing.

Sam Sethi 17:53

So are we setting the bar now for all apps to have to provide transcripts?

Speaker 6 17:56

I mean I would I would hope so. Um that to me would be the sensible opportunity, and arguably the apps that don't provide transcripts are operating outside of the law. Now you can argue that you can get transcripts from iOS and from Android. Um so you can actually do that on an entire device level. So I so they may be able to you know fall back to that and say, oh well, that's really how that works. But I do think that transcripts are something that everybody should have in there. Um now the question is really um transcripts for everything, as Marco is doing, or transcripts for any podcast which is providing them, um, as we do. So I d I don't know what the answer to that is, but I would personally like to see as many transcripts as possible.

Sam Sethi 18:46

Okay, I'm gonna just persist on this for a second. Should it be the host that provides the transcript or the app? Because um let me just play um devil's advocate for a second. Is it the case like with Buzzsprout, our sponsors, where we go in and they have uh an AI capability that gives us the transcript, speaker uh labels and you know, again, chapter titles. Um or should it be the app, you know, that then says, No, there isn't a transcript with this podcast, we will provide it. Because Adam and Dave on the podcasting to the o show this week were like, Well, hang on a minute, why are you providing something? Why are you changing my podcast that I haven't requested?

Speaker 6 19:31

Um, I think yeah, you know, you you you can look at that both sides and respecting the creator is what any good podcast app should do. But but covering for a creator that can't be bothered to provide accessibility is uh another side of looking at that. Um so I think from my point of view it it the the it's it's really easy. If you don't want people to be making automated transcripts for you, then make your own transcript. That's that's the bottom line. If you are um and this is why I get annoyed at Spotify who don't use the creator-produced transcripts, um, frankly, annoyed at Overcast right now who aren't using creator-produced transcripts and just making their own, um, I think that that's bad. But I think as long as they are taking a creator-produced transcript, if one exists, and then showing that, I think that that's absolutely fine. If you as a podcaster can't be bothered to make a transcript, then you know, on your on your own head be it. Um and ideally the app should be making a transcript or not. But I do think you know, at the end of the day, transcripts should be available. Ideally, the podcaster should be making those. Um, and if the podcaster isn't making those, it's open season if you as an app want to make a transcript. Um, as long as it's in the control of the podcaster, I think that that's fine.

Interview: Kevin Smith, Snipd

Sam Sethi 21:00

Okay, let's move on, James. Um now one of the apps I do like a lot is uh an app called Snipped, it's out of Switzerland. Uh the co-founder and CEO is a guy called Kevin Smith, uh, a seasoned AI person. He's done 10 plus years of AI, and he was a very smart man, by the way. He he came out of um Swiss banking, um, where he was uh involved heavily in creating um trading systems. So um now a few weeks ago you and I were talking about the use of AI within hosts, and I said I would love to, for my own company, TrueFans, create an AI agent called Kevin and Kelly, um, and that's my goal. Um, but I did mention that Snipped had been working on AI interfaces for their app for a number of years. Now, uh last year we interviewed Kevin and he was talking about the ability to tap your headphones when you found an interesting part of the audio you Listening to, and it would create a clip using AI. Well, this week they've extended their AI, they've now added a new uh feature which allows you to chat with any podcast you've listened to. You can automatically again remember certain parts of the podcast. They've created something called AI DJ. I'm sure you're very excited, James, to be uh hearing this. Um but the thing about the AI DJ, it does allow you to speak to the podcast, as I said, pause, play, uh, and seek uh content within your own player. Now, I was very excited about this because, again, as I said, for my own app, this is a goal that I'm trying to achieve. So I thought I'd reach out to Kevin Smith and I started off by asking him, remind me, what is Snipped?

Speaker 2 22:48

Yeah, Snipped is an AI-powered podcast app for anyone who listens to a lot of knowledge podcasts. So the typical diary of a CEO, listener, modern wisdom, Huberman lab would be some of the classics, I would say. And the feature that we're most known for, also where our name comes from, is the so-called snipping. What that allows you to do is whenever you hear an amazing moment, some insight that you want to remember or maybe share with someone, you can just tap your headphones, and our AI will save the moment that you just heard and summarize the insight for you. And this results in what we call a SNP. And this SNP now lives in your knowledge library. You can automatically sync it to your notes app. So if you use Notion or Obsidian or an app like ReadWise, and of course you can share it with a friend or your team at work. Yeah, this is really where we started. From there, we've over the years added more and more AI features, always focused on the listener. How can we uh enrich the experience of the listener? How can we help them get more out of their listening? And always in mind with this focus of yeah, people who listen to knowledge-rich podcasts. Like we actually see podcasts as one of the largest knowledge libraries in the world. And we still think, even though podcasts are exploding, we still think it's so heavily underutilized.

Sam Sethi 24:07

Now, you've come out with a new update to SNP. Tell me more. What have you announced?

Speaker 2 24:12

Yes, so just yesterday we launched the first version of our AI DJ, as we call it. Before I tell you what it is, I'd love to start from where this internally started from. So we basically have two starting points. And I think, you know, you're one of the people who actually also knows a lot about this. AI agents are taking over the world. And we actually think there's a lot of value that can be created for podcast listeners by using AI. But it's also at the same time so easy to get lost in all of these possibilities and like to forget what the listener actually wants to do and be much more guided in, oh, this technology is so cool. Look what I can do here, look what I can do there, and forgetting, like, okay, what's actually the problems that users have. So for our first version of this AI DJ, we really wanted to nail down one very particular pain point for users and bring this out as the first version. So what we ended up now solving is I don't know about you, but for me, like obviously I love podcasts, but I just can't keep up anymore. There's just so much amazing content out there. I have an episode queue of more than 400 episodes deep. And I just know I will never get around to listening to these. And every single one is an episode I manually selected. I saw it, I thought, this is amazing. I want to listen to this. So I can't keep up. And there's almost two categories of podcasts. There's like the podcast that I 100% will listen to or listen to the entire thing. And then there's the other episodes where I am actually interested in it, but maybe I'm not yet so familiar with the show. I don't know the guest yet. Maybe it's a bit like a topic that's a little bit on the side. For example, in in our announcement yesterday, I used an example about a longevity on the diary of a CEO podcast. Sounds super interesting to me. But given that I have these 400 and odd other episodes, I just know I will I will now cue this up and I will not get around to listening to it. So what we released yesterday is hopefully the solution to this problem. Okay, tell me more. So what the AI DJ does is when you're listening to an episode, you can activate the AI DJ. What it will do for you, it will find the best moments in the episode and it will guide you through them. So that way you can listen to get the best moments in one quarter of a time and have the AI DJ help you maintain the context of what's going on when you jump from one moment to the next moment. And yeah, with this, basically, I can listen to four times as many episodes. And in particular, all of these episodes where I was a bit, you know, it's not the one that I'm 100% going to listen to definitely, but I still want to experience a bit of it. And yeah, this is basically in a nutshell.

Sam Sethi 27:00

Okay, I've got several questions there because in an episode that's long form, let's take the diary of a CEO, as you mentioned, you're using your AI DJ to find the best bits. How does it know what the best bits are?

Speaker 2 27:13

Yeah. So I can tell you two things here, like what we're doing today and what we have planned for the future, because I think this is one of the areas that are super exciting to work on. So today, how it works, it's really the AI having access to the entire episode and really guided by what are the core moments given the overall topic. As you know, in a typical episode, they drift off into some anecdotes from the private life or some other topics on the side. The Dire of the CEO always at the end of a show has this question that was prepared by the previous guest without knowing who the next guest is. So all of these sort of deviate from the overall topic of like the longevity, the core message. So it really tries to stick to the core message and pick out the moments that you need to know to understand the storyline of the core message and then guide you through these moments.

Sam Sethi 28:04

Okay. So is it five or six different elements of the single podcast? Because James and I had a review of a product called PodShrink a couple of weeks back, and Pod Shrink took the whole two hours of Pod News Weekly Review, and a bit like Notebook LM, it shrunk it down to a one-minute synopsis of the whole episode. So what I'm trying to understand is is the snipped DJ shrinking the episode and then regurgitating back. So, hey, by the way, Sam, you want to listen to this episode because it's so cool and there's the bits that you want to listen to, or is it skipping to the sections of the individual parts of the podcast and saying, this bit's really interesting. Now listen. Now let me take you to another bit. Now let me take you to other bit. Which way is it doing it?

Speaker 2 28:50

It's the latter. So basically, the way to think about it, so we're not taking any content from anyone. The only thing that this AIDJ actually does is we've given the AIDJ control of your player. So the AIDJ can do four things: it can hit the play button, the pause button, the seeking, and it can talk to you. And those are the only things that it does. So we're not taking content, we're not summarizing content. The AIDJ is only controlling the player to jump to those moments. And with the speaking to you, it's not about giving you a summary. It's just to help you follow along. Because if you skip a couple of minutes, it's very easy to lose context. Remember, people are not watching, at least in our app, we're audio first. It's so easy to lose context. And then suddenly there's a new voice that comes on and it's like, oh, who's this now? What are they talking about? So it's more the AIDJ acts like a moderator in this moment. And maybe one more comment here the whole topic of summaries. One thing that is 100% clear to me is that summaries cannot replace the original podcast episode. And this is independent of whether the summary is made by AI or by humans. It's just in the nature of it. You just lose so much of what makes the podcast special. So summaries have their place. I think they're amazing to help you choose what to listen to. I think a lot of podcasters already do that themselves in the show notes to give like, hey, here are like a couple of the key takeaways that you're going to learn about in this episode. But you're just not going to replace listening to the real voices and the real person telling their own story.

Sam Sethi 30:28

But one of the things you talked about the original version of SNP was tapping your headphone to create a SNP. Can the AI DJ now do that for me? So can I say while I'm listening, hey DJ, just take a clip from here?

Speaker 2 30:41

Well, you can still do that. The way that you would do that is by tapping your headphone, not by speaking to it.

Sam Sethi 30:47

I just wondered whether the DJ now had a control mechanism. Because one of the things I really would like an AI assistant to do when I'm co-listening, let's say, let's call it that, is oh, you mentioned the word regurgitated. I don't know what that means. Click. DJ, what's regurgitated mean? Oh, it means this, Sam. Oh, lovely. Move on, right? Blah, blah, blah. So if I'm listening to a podcast that's got some very, let's say, terms that I'm not aware of or a concept or knowledge that I just want to understand before I move forward with the podcast. I would love the assistant, the co-listening AI, to be able to pause the audio, tell me what it is, and then let me remove on. Or just I get to a point, oh yeah, okay, take a clip from here, please. Save that for me later, right? I don't want to be touching my ears or doing something. Because again, that opens up the possibility that I'm in the car listening and I don't have my headphones in. And I just want to just have a voice interface in my car to say, take a clip here.

Speaker 2 31:47

So that's what I was just wondering where you're going with it. Yeah. So you mentioned a couple of really interesting examples. Some of them we actually already have. So you mentioned the car. So you're actually already able to take a snip in the car, but you just tap the button on your steering wheel instead of your headphones. Okay. So it's actually linked to the skip back button that almost all modern cars now have on the steering wheel. The another another aspect that I wanted to mention is we do actually have something that currently we're not calling AI DJ, but we're calling auto snipping, where you can let the AI choose to take notes for you automatically. This is one of these features that either you love it or you hate it. So our users are like there's really like a 50-50 split on that feature. But basically, if you do not want to be actively choosing, oh, this is the moment that I want to save and just want to make sure that you have at the end of an episode like the most important insights taken as notes, you can turn that on. Now the voice interface. Now that is something that's super interesting. And I think that brings us to like where do we see the AI DJ heading into the future?

Sam Sethi 32:59

Yeah. Where is it going?

Speaker 2 33:00

So one way how to look at the revolution that's happened with AI is that we've gained the ability to talk to machines. And this opens up the possibility of all of these apps that we're using, all of the entertainment or media apps, that so far it's mainly been a one-way communication stream. You know, I'm on YouTube and YouTube pushes stuff to me. And in the other direction, you only get very little information back. YouTube gets some click data, like where I hover on a bit longer, and the same for Spotify, the same for us, the same for TrueFans. Now you can actually have two-way communication between the user and the application. And you can start to build recommendation experiences that are not just based on some proxy metric like click data or the whole optimizing for time on sites that was made famous by Facebook. But you can actually let the user communicate what is important to them. So this is something that I'm in general very excited about, not just in podcasts, but I think it's a mechanism that as long as media platforms implement this, and then we want to do this for SNP, it actually gives a lot of power back to the user for them to decide what their experience should be like. And basically having an algorithm that works for them instead of an algorithm that only works for the platform to optimize some, I don't know, how can I show more ads? So, yeah, so this was a little bit of a meta level, but this is basically the meta level on top of AI DJ, how I think about it. So, what I want AI DJ to become is your personalized, customizable AI agent that finds and curates the best content for you. And you decide how you want to have that, what content is important to you, what not, and also how you want to listen to that. You, for example, mentioned, hey, I would love to jump in and ask a question. That should be possible for you to do. Other use cases that we heard from users is some say, hey, you know, every time there's a big claim being made, I would love to have some kind of fact-checking. Because, you know, it's so easy to listen to these podcasts, and everything sounds so credible. And then afterwards you find out, well, actually, there was nothing behind that claim. Another thing that someone told me, one of our users, is he would love to hear opposing views. You know, something comes out, a new topic. For me, the example that I always use here is universal basic income. There are so many different takes on this, especially now in the context of AI. And I'd love to hear a different side of this story. So if this comes up, can you please, my AIDJ, can you please go out there and find maybe someone who, you know, sees this in the other direction? So all of these are different ways of consuming the best spoken audio content, but it's up to you. These are now just examples that I've heard. I don't want to put this on you that you have to do it like that, but how I see the future is you should be able to choose. If that is how you want to consume it, then tell your AI DJ and it will prepare the experience for you in that way.

Sam Sethi 36:01

Look, I've always said podcasting is predominantly an audio medium and we have a text-based interface to it. Let me type out a comment. Let me search using my keyboard for whatever it may be. And why don't we have a voice-based interface into our favourite podcast apps? As we say, most people are on a train or maybe they're going to work in the car or walking the dog, the phone's in the pocket, they don't want to keep getting it out. So I think voice interfaces are the way forward. I've got two quick questions for you. First of all, what's your background in AI? Where did you get all your AI street cred from?

Speaker 2 36:38

So I started with AI now more than 10 years ago. So the backstory is actually that I studied quant finance. Basically, I studied mathematics and economics, a lot of working with data, a lot of working with numerical programming to basically come up with all of these mathematical models to do quantitative trading or to analyze risk in the stock market, asset pricing, derivatives pricing, all of these kind of things. And it was just at the end of my studies. I was actually already working for the biggest bank here in Switzerland. A friend of mine took this course called Machine Learning. And he comes to me and says, Oh, Kevin, you really have to take this class. Like you will absolutely love it. And I remember my first thought was like, what kind of weird name is that? Machine learning. Like, what is that? That doesn't sound like anything I'd be interested in. But I had a look at the slides, and within a weekend, I was in love. You could say, I'm not kidding. It had all of the great things that I loved about what I was studying with quant finance. Like all of this, the mathematical part of it, the deciphering data into something useful. And it didn't have the stuff that I was less interested in, like the whole banking aspect of it. And so, long story short, I ended up quitting my job at the big bank such that I could do machine learning 24-7. And I ended up joining an early stage startup here in Zurich where I built up the AI team over five years. And that startup got acquired at some point. And yeah, after five years, I also then decided to go in a new direction and I started SNP.

Sam Sethi 38:09

Amazing. Kevin, congratulations on the launch of DJ. If I wanted to find out more about Snipped and I want to find more about AI DJ, where do I go?

Speaker 2 38:19

So the best is to open up your phone, go to the app store or Play Store and type in Snipped. It's spelled S N I P D. And you will find our app, download our app, and uh have fun. Great.

Sam Sethi 38:33

And will we see you in London for the podcast show?

Speaker 2 38:36

Definitely, definitely. Tickets are booked, flights not yet. To do that. No, I will definitely be there. We don't have a stand or anything, but I will be there if you want to hit me up, contact me on LinkedIn or on X. So yeah, hit me up. I will be there. Happy to always happy to talk to other people in the podcast industry. Amazing. Kevin. Thanks so much. See you soon, mate. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. See you soon.

Interview: Barry from Podhome

Speaker 6 39:00

Kevin Smith from Snipped talking about AI within the podcast app. Ah, I think we should have more AI, Sam.

Sam Sethi 39:08

You don't mean that, James. I know you will. But um uh well, I did think that there's some interesting things going on, and one of those interesting things is going on at Podhome. Uh Barry Lubrex, who is based in Holland, um, started well, last year adding some AI smarts to the Podhome platform, and he's now starting to add more and more using things like Claude and Claude Pro and various other tools. Um, they did have before integrations through webhooks and Zapier integration, but now they've taken it one step further, and you can now use Podhome AI to generate transcripts, chapters, clips. And also, I thought I'd find out what else he's been doing with it. So I asked Barry, remind me again.

Speaker 1 39:59

Tell me what is Podhom. Uh so Podhom is a podcast hosting platform. It's now about three years old. We're very much on the podcasting 2.0 features. So we do all sorts of things like live podcasting, chapters, transcripts. We have a little Podhom AI helper that helps you to create all those things, including titles, descriptions. It does it all automatically. And one of our big points is that you can do unlimited shows and episodes and all of that for a very reasonable price, at least we think. And so we always keep innovating, especially when customers ask us for features. That's mostly what's happening now. People want to automate things, for instance. So we build lots of stuff for that. So, for instance, for automation, what we started building was an API that is like an endpoint that people can call, that they have a key, it's all secure and such. And then you can use that within your own programs. So you can program against it, and then you can get your episodes, create new episodes, create a show, get your analytics even, all sorts of stuff that you can do with that. Basically, almost anything that you can do through the pod home UI. So if you go to the actual app on your browser, you can also do through the API. And customers are building quite amazing things with that. For instance, one of our users has a website where he says if you donate this amount, then we publish the next episode earlier automatically, for instance, which you can do with the API. That's very cool. But that's obviously advanced, right? So you need to program against that and actually make something yourself. We also have more, let's say, low-code options. So if you're using Zapier or a program like that, that is basically a when this happens, then I want that to happen kind of workflow. We have a plugin for that that also uses that API in the background. And there you can say, well, for instance, when a new episode publishes of my show, because you can schedule those, then I want to do XYZ, like put a post on social media, on Instagram, for instance, with the episode title, description, and all that type of metadata that you get from the Zapier integration. And there are more things like that, including create an episode, for instance, when I have a new file in my Dropbox that is an MP3 file, automatically create a new episode for me, and then do a whole workflow with that, for instance, which makes it super easy to just click together a workflow to automate your podcasting thing. And now that type of stuff is already pretty exciting. But then nowadays, I don't know about you, but I'm talking to my AI all day to just make it do stuff, to code, for instance, to do whatever. I don't even Google anymore, I just ask my AI, which might not be the best thing. But that's the reality where I find myself in, just talking to AIs all day. And so as I'm in that interface, like in ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini, what have you, I thought, wouldn't it be cool if we can also just now say, hey, create a new episode in Podhom, upload to this file that I have here or there or whatever, and publish it and do all the things that I want to do with it. And so we enabled that, which turns out is pretty easy to make, actually, with AI as well. So what that is, is an MCP server, model context protocol. That is kind of how AIs talk to APIs, so to other platforms, like my platform or for instance to TrueFans. And then it understands what it can do with that. So an MCP server is basically a layer around the API that we built, and that exposes it so that AIs can talk to it. So we enabled that. It's pretty easy to just set that up in, for instance, your cloud, and then you can just say to Cloud, Hey, how many downloads did I get today, for instance, for uh show XYZ? And then it shows me. And then you can ask follow up questions like drill down which countries, which apps, what was it the last 30 days, how does it go? compared to this show, blah blah. And you know, with the power of those AIs and that those now have access to Podhom, you know, then that creates this very interesting use cases. And basically you don't have to leave your AI anymore. You can just say, all right, cool, now create this episode with this thing and this artwork and this description or you know what, create a description for me. Listen to the episode and make it for me. And so now you can just do that. We just enable that and that is included like always with all the other options as well in your regular subscription. And so users are now testing it. It seems to be working well. We will be expanding it where needed, changing it where needed. And you can use it with almost all your favorite AIs. Not everybody works perfectly with MCP yet, like ChatGPT for instance. They have a different standard but they can work with the API if you just give it that that also works. But the rest uh basically works because MCP is kind of becoming a standard for AIs. And I say becoming because you know it's so early days still right all this stuff is pretty new still. But it works and it's you know it's very cool.

Sam Sethi 45:08

When you first started building it was there a challenge around getting this understanding to the user you're comfortable all day talking to AIs. Did you find that the user was comfortable suddenly talking to the AI?

Speaker 1 45:22

Yes, because this is a much more natural use case than for instance using Zapier where you still you know you need a bit of technical knowledge and you need to log into all your connectors and make sure that it all works. Because now users just use natural language like you just ask it what you want it to do and then it just does it. So there's not really a user manual. The most difficult thing is to set it up and that just works by you feed it a URL and then when you ask something about Podhom hey list all my shows for instance then it will automatically pop up a window where you just log in with your normal credentials and that's it. So it's super easy and that actually uses OAuth which is an authentication protocol.

Sam Sethi 46:05

And so where do you see it evolving into I mean have you got a roadmap of ideas and features that you want to continue to evolve this?

Speaker 1 46:15

Yeah definitely so as users are using it more that's also kind of good for our servers because they don't use the web app as much anymore. But I can see much more use cases here for instance recording your podcast with AI where we can have like an interface in the AI because you can do that as well. Have little pop-ups and custom UIs that the thing shows to you. So that can be an interface for people also to just record and automatically upload your episode so that you don't have to you know don't need any third party things like the script or other recording software. So so that's one use uh yeah the possibilities are endless really yeah we're following the users what they are doing and what they what they want next yeah but the old expression if you ask your users they'll ask for faster horses not a car just be careful.

Sam Sethi 47:08

Now when we last spoke obviously you talked about it earlier today as well you talked about live podcasting that's a feature that a podhom has and I remember you said that well as part of live podcasting we have to record the live show in order to turn it into an episode and then you said well we're going to also do remote recording so have you got the remote recording service working as well now not yet.

Speaker 1 47:35

We are still working on it because it turns out that's actually a difficult problem. Ask Claude I'm sure I'll just knock one out for you yeah but still you know latency and echoes and all sorts of weird things that happen when people connect you'd think in 2026 this is a solved problem you know people just talking over the internet but you want very decent audio and and perhaps also very decent video as well like we discussed in a previous talk that we did where we said you know video not really our thing but now you know it's also easier. So we do for instance now also support the alternate enclosure where actually a lot of users are using that to upload their video versions and so supported platforms that support it like TrueFriends for instance if people then go to an episode there they can just switch to the video and back to the audio or whatever whatever the user wants so have you been watching the Apple announcement I'm sure you have what are your thoughts I think that's very interesting because that means that a lot more users will consume podcasts as a video perhaps right so they just they now have the choice like they already did in in Spotify although that's a closed system where you can just switch to the video and back again if the podcaster chooses to upload the video there as well but now it's kind of a more of an open standard more ish because it is restricted to hosting partners that have access to the API to do that with Apple for now. But it's very interesting yeah that first of all I find the technology very interesting HLS which means that you don't just download a huge video file on your local device because you know the the real use case is people are using this on their phones maybe out and about over cellular you don't want a two gig video going down there. That that's unworkable. So HLS streams it in little tinier packages so that works much better and then also you could theoretically see where people are how much they listened or watched of the episode so yeah we're watching that very closely also for audio perhaps with HLS we'll see what what happens there but I think it's a very promising format and also promising move.

Sam Sethi 49:58

Yeah HLS master playlist can contain multiple video and equally audio file formats and I think the Apple requirement is that you do have an audio format within that list. I I worry that it's not delivered through RSS it's not delivered through the alternative enclosure it's not in the primary enclosure it's a bit of a walled garden that only works with Apple. So again you know as you said Spotify's a closed wall garden YouTube's a closed wall garden it is a bit worrying when the likes of you and I and many others within our community support open standards and we're trying to make it an open ecosystem that the bigger players as usual are going closed. We've seen this story before with internet browsers with Microsoft being a very proprietary closed browser and then you had Netscape as the open browser and the yin and yang fight started and long term open wins but in the short term closed often wins so it's that race I guess with the other thing that you mentioned a little while but I just wanted to get an update how are you doing with the app the app is actually doing fine it needs some love as it's been a while since we've done an update there but it works.

Speaker 1 51:16

I use it as my daily driver of course because that was kind of the primary use case easier own dog food yep yeah yeah so you know sometimes there are some unfortunalities like with offline for instance in weird scenarios where the internet pops back up or something like that. But it works very well I think we'll also add video support soon because that is relatively easy to do just detect what it is and then just actually show that in a good way of course yeah we do have a lot of users actually that are using this daily I can see that in the back end although we do not gather any personal data just analytics to see what's going on there. So that is very promising what we do not have yet and I don't think that's coming is a V4V payment system in there with a wallet that you have so that you can send Satoshis or later on other stuff maybe to to podcasters we don't have that because that yeah might make it very difficult with laws and regulations here in the Netherlands to actually do that.

Sam Sethi 52:19

Yeah and look we've had this conversation ongoing and I think you've had a very sensible view of it which is yes I'll jump on board when I think there's a market adoption I don't think you're gonna be the person who drives the market I think you've you've said look I think you know there may be in the future and I think we're beginning to see it you know stablecoin now has become much more adopted by MasterCard Visa Stripe PayPal fundamentally if you ask me I think that in 2026 is where we will switch I think the micropayment model the the concept of paying small amounts of money from a fan to a creator that works the value for value ethos is irrelevant of the underlying mechanism for payment but where I think the Bitcoin lightning network has struggled is in two parts one is Bitcoin is seen as a a value of store of uh you know people that are becoming less and less interested in trading Bitcoin and keeping it because of the incremental value increase it's more like gold digital gold than it is a transparent transaction. And I think when you start to see everything has a lag but I think Visa and Mastercard if if big ifs they add the capability on your credit card to just do the payment in the stablecoin and not have the massive fees that are associated with normal transactions then yeah you might just say right I go onto Podhom I put in my Mastercard and it's got stablecoin on there as well as fiat transactions and I say yeah I want to pay a small amount of money from A to B using my stable coin that may be where we go where the big payment providers don't take a fee and they support a micropayment currency.

Speaker 1 54:15

Yeah maybe yeah I think yeah probably I'm not a big fan of the stable coins but they will probably enable you to send fractions of your fiat so like a tenth of a euro which is all that we're asking for really to begin with. That's all exactly so we we do have like a workaround so we have support pages so if you host your podcast you can just click that on and boom you have a support page and then your listeners can go there and then they can donate one time or recurring and that uses Stripe so your listeners can donate with their credit card or whatever. Yeah Stripe supports their Apple Pay so that does make it easy but it's not in the app.

Sam Sethi 54:55

So is that the funding tag that you're using there correct okay so and look we we do you know stripe backend I think is a wonderful back end it does a lot of really cool stuff in that again I think they have just bought or they bought six months ago a company called Bridge which was a stablecoin provider so nothing to write about right now but I think the arrow direction may be going that way. I'm curious why don't you like stablecoin?

Speaker 1 55:21

I mean you're a hard man to please well I think you know once we have that it might be the replacement for our fiat ones and zeros that are in our normal bank accounts and then we have our let's it's called a digital wallet that might be the end all of everything and can control everything. So then the stable coin providers or whoever provides that wallet can see what you spend it on can also control what you spend it on and maybe can control you know how long stable coins last maybe you cannot save them for a couple years you have to spend them they expire stuff like that. So although the technology is very promising I I'm curious to see how it's going to be used.

Sam Sethi 56:07

Yeah you can worry about it there's a lot of potential for evil yeah yeah yeah no I mean one scenario was put out that your your boss basically looks at the fact that you're buying alcohol on the Sunday but you need to be on a top presentation on the Monday so you go to pay for the alcohol and you can't buy it because your boss has blocked it. I mean that these these are very dystopian thoughts but you know black mirror in that it may well happen moving forward last question Tim really with with live and I'm equally curious with live what is the adoption because live as in the Lit tag has not really set fire. I mean you're one of the only hosts I think that really provides the end-to-end capability provide the server and the function rss.com went about 80% of the way down the road they they provided all the lit tag functionality but they didn't actually provide a server and we haven't really seen any of the other big hosts do it. So what is the uptake and and and what are the downsides for you in terms of is it an extremely expensive model or is it you know a a yeah an application that you know it was quick to do and and it's easy to implement yeah so like you said we we supported and provide everything that you need so you just click it you say I want to use a pod home server and it just works.

Speaker 1 57:31

You can also use your own server if you have one but we want to make this type of stuff which is pretty advanced very easy and then you just go do it. The hardest part is to set up a connection to the server from your local machine and we explain that with but for instance which is an application you can install broadcast using this thing.

Sam Sethi 57:51

Yes that's what it stands for I don't think that's what it stands for.

Speaker 1 57:55

Yeah and that works well adoption amongst our users is pretty high we have all sorts of people going live there's one show that goes live six days a week for instance for three hours long like a real radio or show there's others as well that do that almost daily weekly definitely yeah we have lots of live going on which is good and you asked you know is that complicated expensive to run for us not really so we have these ice cast servers that act as a live server we just run a couple of those load balanced and making sure that they if one fails you still have something that runs and they're pretty cheap actually to run they they don't need a lot of resources to run and then to support lots of users checking in so no not really it it all fits within our $1599 a month model.

Sam Sethi 58:50

Yeah nice I mean I had a radio station we did live broadcasting over the web as well as DAB yeah we use but from from our studio and then yeah yeah it it was this is we're talking six years ago seven years ago COVID time frame whatever that may be and you know once you work out how to do it it's pretty simple click this do that go live right and it's the configuration of the icecast server that just takes a little bit of time I've always wondered though why can't we integrate all of that butt capability within you know when you go to StreamYard I don't think about but I don't have that issue I have a button and I say I want LinkedIn and I want Twitter and I want this and I click a button and it says go live and it works. So how can we as a podcast industry make live broadcasting as simple as the way that StreamYard did we can we just need to to do it.

Speaker 1 59:49

So earlier we were talking about a live or a recording capability that we're working on it should just be in there as well that can just connect to the icecast server and do that. Obviously that's it's difficult to do to do it well and with good audio quality and make sure that it works even if your internet is not super fast and all those types of restrictions. But that's kind of the thing we we are also working towards because like you said that's the biggest hurdle because not everything is contained within our platform you do need to set up a little application on your own device and have a little configuration there.

Sam Sethi 1:00:26

And that's often the the most questions that we get yeah no I just think I mean again I haven't gone down the road yet but we are looking as true fans I should say we when I talk about pod news as well I'm not I'm talking about we as in CEO of true fans we are looking at long leave and yeah these are the challenges I think complexity is fail simplicity and I think if you can hide the complexity you have the opportunity to bring on what I'd call normies because if you're having to get someone to set up bus and talk about ports and talk about ice cast URLs I think you know 90% of people are lost. Yeah maybe not 90% they maybe that's too high but I think you know again if we can make it as simple as possible maybe we'll get a wider adoption.

Speaker 1 1:01:13

Now 2026 what's it looking like for pod home what's the other plans that you've got in mind so many things that we want to do always small improvements you know make things faster cheaper to run that's the type of thing that's always going on so perhaps more automation use cases we already heard for instance zapier now does a couple of things but we also want to make that do everything that you kind of can do in in the app and then also create uh connect tours for make dot com which is kind of also like Zapier but a different just a slightly different format. We'll probably expand the API and also the MCP capabilities a bit more based on feedback also and what we see happening there. And we'll continue work on our recording feature so that yeah we just want everything to be in the platform that you just have a button and boom you have a podcast that's kind of the dream and we're working towards that do you see um AI chatbot type interfaces in the app side of the equation you're talking about using it on the hosting side of the equation what are your thoughts on using it on the app side yeah I I don't know I don't really see the use case yet so for instance I could what we do in pod home we have pod home ai for instance and that does transcripts chapters description identifies people all that type of stuff for you it would be very cool if something like that would be on your device in your podcast player app like the pod home player app or on the true fans app for instance and you just say oh this episode does not have chapters would be cool if it did have chapters boom let's just press it and now I have chapters and I can see what it's actually about. That would be a cool use case but also I don't really want to mess with content that chose not to have chapters because then you're augmenting things that you don't really have the permissions to so that's a bit of a slippery slope. But something like that so the summary episodes for instance if I have a a Lex Friedman episode of eight hours I don't want to listen to the whole thing. Just give me 20 minutes of it just pick the best best things of that something like that would be very cool. But it would have to be on device I think because if you if you have to do an API call to open AI or Claude or something it's going to be very expensive and then you have to charge users or minimize the experience that I don't like that. But I think that is coming like smaller models that will run locally on device on your iPhone for instance maybe later on that can be contained within an app.

Sam Sethi 1:03:58

So there are use cases definitely but by then perhaps maybe even Apple has an AI assistant that might just be able to do that for you right there in the US Yeah I think Apple may well go down that although I don't think it'll be called Siri you never know Siri might find a break Gemini right yeah licensed licensed by Apple one more time yeah no I I think there are companies that have been doing some interesting work in this space snipped out of Switzerland's done some really clever work with Kevin. James and I were talking about a company called PodShrink you know which was a good example of shrinking down a large um podcast episode down into one minute two minutes and using like notebook LM type functionality I do think there are interfaces like Spotify have DJX I find you know it's very limited but I think it's an interesting arrow of direction where you know I I'm I'm in the car I'm hands free and I'm you know I'm getting input and I'm giving input back you know so you know play me X go to that playlist whatever whatever um I do think there are AI interfaces to apps that will come and I think it'll be interesting because again look if you put your phone in your pocket and you've got your AirPods on can I just use an AI interface right you know find me that episode from Barry where he mentioned X whatever right boom there it is there's a transcript there's a section play it back to me right I think there are ways that we can use a voice interface with AI in a voice medium which is what podcasting is yeah but I think that the the OSs will have that at some point it this was supposed to be Siri 10 years ago already right that worked but at some point it will work. Yeah Barry thank you so much congratulations on all your AI work. It sounds very exciting where can people go and find out more about Podho

Speaker 1 1:06:00

It's very simple. You just go to podhome.fm and you can see everything there. And you can also start a 30-day free trial right there.

Sam Sethi 1:06:08

Surely you've got to rename it to podhome.ai now. Nah. No. Barry, will we see you in London this year at the London podcast show?

Speaker 1 1:06:19

This year, no. I thought it was already it was already. No. This year. No. Maybe next year.

Sam Sethi 1:06:26

Not going to be able to have a beer with you. What can I say? Barry, take care, my friend.

Speaker 6 1:06:31

Speak to you soon.

Sam Sethi 1:06:33

Thank you.

Competition in podcasting

Round the world

Speaker 6 1:06:33

Barry from Pod Home. And uh if uh the uh idea of AI helping you with your podcast uh sounds an exciting thing, uh then you should take a look at BuzzBrough, our sponsor. Uh they have a thing called Co-Host. Co-host is very clever. It does um automated transcripts for you, it will produce for you automated uh show notes and all of that sort of thing. It will produce a title if you can't think of a good title for that. It'll even give you uh clips and things like that uh as well. Buzzsprout.com to learn more. Um, James, if a podcast is published and no one hears it, does it count? Now, this is uh about a uh story that we covered um earlier on in the week about competition in podcasting. Um I've heard these numbers before, but it's always nice to see updated numbers. So the total number of new podcasts, um, or rather the total number of new podcast feeds, because let's be uh uh careful on what we're talking about, uh uh last year, 207,000. So if you're there thinking, you know, there's a lot of competition in podcasting, well 207,000 is quite a lot of new shows. But then go to the bookstore, because just in the US, new figures say that there were more than 4 million new books published last year. More than 4 million. So if we think that we've got to too much competition and it's all very, very difficult with podcasting, my goodness, you should you should be selling a book. Um, but I thought that was a fascinating, uh, fascinating stat um from um the uh ever-intelligent Tom Webster um and worthwhile sharing. I wonder how many of those books are actually read, James. Uh well, I I would uh totally agree. I mean, uh how many of the books that I've bought are uh are entirely red uh as well is certainly a question. Uh right, let's go around the world. Um Australia is doing some work on the future of measurement, um, which sounds uh very exciting. That's the IB in Australia doing that sort of thing. Um weird um stuff going on with CNN. Um they are making some of their shows look like podcasts. They're putting great big microphones in shot, they're sort of kind of recording. I mean, Jake Tapper's show appeared to come from his office, and there was a cheap sofa in there, and there were things on the wall and everything else. It's it's all a bit weird. So I'm I'm not really sure what CNN is um playing at, but there again, I mean, you know, for CNN uh um uh th they can just play around at the moment because uh who knows who knows what their new owner is going to be playing around with.

Sam Sethi 1:09:10

Well, I was gonna say, I mean, I thought Larry Ellison was gonna make cuts when he got the company, not before he got the company.

Speaker 6 1:09:16

Exactly. I mean I mean, none of that, none none of the whole thing. I mean, it's all very sort of, oh, let's make this look really cool and we'll fill our uh our desks full of junk and you know, put these massive, great big um microphones there, and really, really, is that really what you want to do? But you know, uh, I suppose that there is a visual language around podcasting, and what that's potentially saying is that lots of people love podcasts, and so therefore CNN wants to look as if it's like a big podcast, very weird, very strange.

Sam Sethi 1:09:49

Um, so I think it's if you can't beat them, join them. Um maybe that's where what was even funnier though, James, was Fox News hosts were all laughing about it, and then I think in a couple of weeks' time, if they have to do it as well, I think they won't be laughing anymore. I don't know. It's it's very weird. No, it is very strange. Now, zipping over to Africa, James, what's going on over there?

People and jobs

Speaker 6 1:10:11

Yeah, there's a radio broadcasters convention um happening uh in Joburg, um, at the venue in Green Park. Um, um, and yes, uh lots of broadcasters, content creators, but talking about podcasting, um, talking about unlocking the podcasting economy, strategies for production, distribution, and monetization. Um, there's a lot going on in South Africa right now, um, in terms of podcasting, an awful lot going on in South Africa. And actually, here in um uh in uh Riga in Latvia, where I've been um talking with uh a lot of different people from uh radio around the world, um I ended up bumping into um uh somebody else from um uh from South Africa uh talking about what um the future of um of uh podcasting is uh down there. His name is Francois Rutif, and um he sounds nothing like that. Um, but um he's working for Iono.fm. Um and um he he was saying just how much podcasting has changed uh quite recently in South Africa. So uh probably we should um get him on at some point. But um yeah, really, really interesting, really interesting. Um people and jobs moving uh people are um doing things. Uh so um John Turnus. Who's John Turnus, Sam?

Sam Sethi 1:11:38

Well, it's a name that you uh shouldn't get to know, I believe. Uh the bookies, uh so uh uh you know it seems to be yeah, hot favourite. Um hasn't been mentioned by Trump this week though, but the hot favourite for the Apple CEO job, that's what he's a senior vice president for hardware and engineering. I mean they are saying that they will only uh promote from within, so yeah.

Speaker 6 1:12:04

No, I yeah, and it makes perfect sense to promote from within for Apple, I think. Um interesting to see hardware, which is the bit of Apple which is very successful, um, essentially running the whole thing. Um the software and the uh software design is um uh yeah, quite a lot of people are saying less than nice things about that. So uh here's hoping that um if John ends up with glass, like yes, they're quite glass, um, and all these curved corners. Um so hopefully um uh we will learn more about that. Um the BBC um is to get a new director general. Um in case you don't know what a director general is, I don't blame you. Uh it's the CEO basically. Uh Matt Britton is tipped to get the job. Britain for the BBC. Uh I see what they've done there. Um he was head of Google for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for more than 10 years. Um so he has no media background. Hopefully, he will get a deputy. If he's clever, he'll get a deputy with that media background because he will definitely need that. But what he does have a good background is um is uh being part of a very large organization, being able to steer change within that, and being able to get people um to uh at least understand what their mission is. So that should be interesting to see. Matt Britton, um, head of the BBC. Um uh who's head of Crosswires? Um, the podcast festival in Sheffield in the UK. Nobody knows because they have um been advertising that. Uh a managing director job going uh for Crosswires in Sheffield. That should be very exciting.

Sam Sethi 1:13:43

Downside, you have to live in Sheffield.

Awards news

Speaker 6 1:13:45

No, I don't believe that that's the case, actually. I bet you do. I bet you uh it's it's a nice place, Sheffield. It's a nice place. I used to I used to work there. Yeah, it's a nice place. I haven't been north of Watford for years. So that's good. Um and uh changes at Global Studios as well. Craig Hunter is joining Global Studios as managing director. Now he comes from STV, I believe. Um it's an interesting move. Oh, right, yes. Well, it's an interesting move for um for Global to have a um you know a big a big name um uh managing director of that a particular company. Um but uh yes, um uh that should be um a good thing to watch. So he ends up um it says here, we'll work closely with Global's group CEO, Simon Pitts, and Chief Broadcast and Content Officer James Rear. Um James is a very bright uh chap. So um yeah, it's it's gonna be uh it's gonna be interesting. You know, a proper executive uh in terms of that. And in awards news, um the there's a new podcast awards. Brilliant. Hooray. Um this one's called the MPN Awards, it's run by the Marketing Podcast Network. They're open to everything.

Sam Sethi 1:14:59

And you made space on your shelf, because yeah, obviously it's new awards.

The Tech Stuff

Speaker 6 1:15:02

Any podcast in the marketing podcast world. I did take a cursory look through their website to try and understand what a marketing podcast was, and I don't really know. Um so there we are. But anyway, um, if you are running a marketing podcast, maybe a marketing podcast is one that you you know, if you don't know what a marketing podcast is, then you're you're not in the target market. Um but uh however it works, um nominations close at the end of April, and the signal awards are now officially open for entries uh as well.

Announcer 1:15:32

The tech stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

Speaker 6 1:15:37

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology. Well, we talked about the iOS 26.4, which is live, so that's great. Now, uh Sam, have you, for TrueFans, um uh did you uh get um a hundred million dollars uh in a funding round last year and just not tell anybody about it?

Sam Sethi 1:15:56

Yes, yes, I completely 100%. I I I I'm not Pinocchio. No, we didn't, sadly, not that much. Um no, not that much, but it looks like Blue Sky have.

Speaker 6 1:16:08

Yes, it looks like Blue Sky have, which is weird. What a weird thing to do. An entire company which is based on trust, and they've hidden the fact that they've been sitting on a hundred million dollars. Um uh and it's Bain as well, which is uh Bain is one of the uh is one of those interesting venture capital companies that is um uh leading the charge for in shittification, uh if you ask me. You look you look at what they invest in and you look at what they do to those companies, it's not a good thing. Interestingly, Bain um is the current owners of the uh Virgin Australia Airline, um which I've not been on for a long, long time. So um uh yeah, um you don't want to get those, they come down fast then. So there's a new interim CEO at Blue Sky, um uh Jay Gruber, um uh no longer at CEO. Perhaps um that's got something to do with this, who knows? Um, but uh yes, so uh interesting times for Blue Sky, interesting times for Mastodon as well. I did see some figures recently which said that Mastodon had like um uh loads and loads and loads of users, but most of those users have now gone away. Um so Mastodon is much, much smaller than it used to be. Um so I don't know the truth to some of that, but um yeah, you can probably understand that um the excitement of Mastodon for many people has has uh gone away. Um but uh yeah. What are No Mono doing?

Sam Sethi 1:17:39

No mono, uh the Swedish company with a uh production in a box. Um they've added new stellar mics, they've also increased their video production as well. So they're very excited that they now support both audio and video and have some new mics that work with iPhones.

Speaker 6 1:17:58

Yeah, I think what they're doing, if I've read the press release correctly, I think what you do is you record the audio with your mimono um magic box, you record the video with whatever it is that you want to record the video with, and then magically, through the power of AI, it syncs the audio that you've recorded on one device with the video that you've recorded on on a different device. I think that's what it's doing. Okay. Um which sounds very interesting. Um does sound like a bit of a one-trick pony, but it does sound interesting, so yeah. They'll be at the London Podcast Show, we'll go and have a look. Uh they will, they will indeed. Uh British Airways, um uh how exciting. Uh you can now listen to uh audible podcasts on British Airways. More than 250 hours of podcasts and audiobooks will be available for free. Uh if you travel long haul with BA. If you travel short haul, then tough, you're not even getting a telly in front of you. Um but if you travel long haul, then you get chapter one, which is on the short haul. You get access. Yeah, pointless. What happened in chapter four? I don't know. We'll come back. Don't know, we'll come back to that. Um uh uh I now um uh Cafe Pacific, who was who I was on last week, don't have any podcasts in their system at all, which I thought was interesting. Not a single podcast. Um so uh yeah, it's um uh differences for you know differences for horses and courses there. Um I was trying to remember whether Finair had any. I'm not even sure that Finair had any as well. So um, yeah, anyway, um uh if you want to go back, you will find an earlier Pod News Weekly review where we interview um the people from um one of these companies that actually uh does all of the um hard work with getting uh podcasts into in-flight entertainment. It's a company called Sparfax, and you can go back and um find that in this very feed.

Sam Sethi 1:19:51

Quick note Amazon celebrated 20 years of Amazon S3 in AWS. How does old does that make me feel?

Speaker 6 1:19:59

Yes, 20 years of Amazon S3, and they still haven't made it easy to use. Or cheap.

Sam Sethi 1:20:05

Um and finally, I only mention this. The OnlyFans CEO has passed away at the age of 43. Um I mentioned it because several people in my village still think that I'm the CEO of OnlyFans because they they come out and say, Oh, I've heard, I've heard you're the CEO of OnlyFans. No, nothing to do with it.

Speaker 6 1:20:26

Can you give me a discount, Sam?

Inbox

Sam Sethi 1:20:27

Yeah, exactly.

Announcer 1:20:28

Boostigram, Boostigram, Booster, 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.

Speaker 6 1:20:42

So many different ways to get in touch with us. Fan mail by using the link in our show notes, boosts, or email. We share any money that we make uh as well between us. Um, thank you to um uh Bruce, the ugly quacking duck, who has sent um uh two uh rows of duck uh uh who sent yes um a row of ducks twice. Yeah, yeah, that's that's what I'm trying to say. Uh 4,444 sats. Excellent. He says, enjoyed the episode. Our governor here has passed a bill where taxes still come out of our tips. Boo. Oh, well, there you go. That's uh that's that that's the downside of a federated system. Um so um so there's a thing. Um Ralph E. Owens Jr. Now uh Ralph ended up joining us as a power supporter last week, um, which was excellent. And I said I would love to know more about Ralph. Um I really should get in touch. Promptly forgot because I've been busy. Um, so thank heavens that he has got in touch with us through fan mail, which is another thing that our sponsor, Buzz Sprout, offers. And it says here, hello guys, this is Ralph E. Owens Jr. calling in from Houston, Texas. Just want to take some time. Oh, I was right, Houston, Texas. Uh just wanted to take some time to show my appreciation for all the value that you give to the podcaster community. I was so surprised to hear my name called on the Pod News Weekly Review. My wife really got a kick out of it. Thank you so much for the shout-out.

Sam Sethi 1:22:04

Not until she found out he was paying. And then she was like, What?

Speaker 6 1:22:08

What? You're paying for what now? Why are you doing that? It's free. Um and he says, again, I've been podcasting since 2024, so roughly two years. Immediately once I got into podcasting, I started looking for resources to follow. Stephen Robles suggested that I follow you guys. Thank you, Stephen. And it's been an absolute delight listening to you daily and weekly. Um my name is Ralph E, as in Edward Owens Jr., I thought it was E for excellent, Ralph. Um and the name of my podcast, ah, it's called the Leadership Sovereignty Podcast, where we help everyday working individuals to use leadership principles in order to advance and promote their careers. You could do some of that, Sam. So if there's anything I can do, I've got no idea why I say that. Um so if there's anything I I can ever do to support you guys, please do not hesitate and let me know. Thank you so much. Cheers. Thank you so much, Ralph. That's very kind. That's something my mother would have said to me. Have you thought of any leadership principles?

Sam Sethi 1:23:02

I have to say, no, I've got a story. Right. So so uh I started off having a part-time DJ job, and uh my dad said it wasn't a sensible career, so I ended up being an army officer. My mother was super proud because being a typical Indian mother, she could boast and and and tell everyone that my son's in the army, he's my son. My son's a part time of the city. Yeah, didn't work, that didn't work. Right. So I left the army and I came out and and worked in Microsoft, so that was fine for a while and and all those things. And then when I started getting into entrepreneurship, A, she couldn't say the word, B, she didn't know how to tell her friends, so she just didn't tell them anything of what I was up to anymore. So yes, I was an entrepreneur. I don't know what that means. What do you do?

Speaker 6 1:23:46

And I had no idea what I told her. Oh well. Uh we've got some uh messages from uh true fans as well, haven't we?

Sam Sethi 1:23:53

We have indeed.

Speaker 6 1:23:54

Not not only fans, I should again point out uh true fans.

Sam Sethi 1:23:58

I haven't opened that account. Um right, so let's go. Seth Goldstein said, Congrats to TrueFans FM and Sam. Yes, that's to do with our video hosting launching last week. So thank you very much, Seth.

Speaker 6 1:24:10

And uh yes, and he also says a terabyte is quite a bit. Yes. Uh no, it's more, it's more than a bit. It's it's a bite, either. It's a terabyte.

Sam Sethi 1:24:18

Uh and then yes, I did slip up by saying it was a download. Yes, the download, in my humble opinion, is dead. Uh it's a stream now.

Speaker 6 1:24:26

Um and uh Silas uh drops us a message saying, lads, any plans for podcast show London? Are you going to do drinks night again? For me to awkwardly sit at silently, or another attempt at podcamp? Well, um probably not podcamp, but podcast show London drinks. Um there are discussions ongoing, aren't there, Sam? There are, yes.

Sam Sethi 1:24:46

I'll be sliding into people's DMs later in the month, as they say. Great. Yes. Yes. Uh yes, there are plans.

Sam and James's week

Speaker 6 1:24:54

Yes, excellent. Yes. No, it uh it should be it should be fun. There should be uh yes, it it might be it might be the biggest event um that we have done, uh which isn't difficult because all of the other events are quite small. Or it might not. It just just depends whether yes, it depends as to whether um uh yes. Uh and uh Neil Vellio um uh dropped us a message. So Pod Tential bought the IP from Voxalize. No, I don't think so. Um this is a whole different thing. Uh Wade Kingsley from Pod Tential is actually here as well. Um but uh yes, no, it's um it it it's uh it's uh not any IP from anybody else. Um so um so there we go. Anyway, uh Neil, thank you for that. Thank you also to the excellent 24 supporters um uh who have gone to weekly.podnews.net and they're giving us real money, um, which is uh very kind. Ralph Eastett Jr., for example, John Spurlock, I've heard of him, um, Zileen Smith, uh, David Marzell, Rachel Corbett, and Dave Jackson to name but some. Um we super appreciate that. That actually really helps us with the uh drinks and things like that. So uh thank you so much uh for doing that. So, what's been happening for you this week, Sam? Um you've been doing uh video uh streaming now. Um uh has it all fallen apart or is it all working beautifully?

Sam Sethi 1:26:15

Uh no, I it's fallen apart. No, I'm joking. Uh no, it's working beautifully. Um it's it's it's one of those things that again we're we're onboarding the first few uh testing testing, but it's looking good so far. Uh we've added a watch time metric as long alongside our listen time metrics. So, yes, because we stream the MP4, we don't download, it means that we can measure how long you've watched as well. And what's cool is if you switch, a bit like the Apple switching, if you switch between watching the video and then go to the audio, we then automatically start calculating your listen time. So you'll you'll get what the listen time is for the audio section and you'll get the watch time for the video section.

Speaker 6 1:26:56

Very nice. Um uh are you are you going to be at some point um being one of these Apple podcast um partners and doing all of that stuff?

Sam Sethi 1:27:05

Yeah, if you can't beat them. Yeah, if you can't beat them. Uh yeah, we are we you you know we've been given kindly thank you to Apple uh access to their secret API key, and we are now testing the final parts, so uh I think we'll get their approval. Um, but yes, HLS delivery through the API. We also do HLS delivery, which is quite nice because we all we were doing it before the Apple announcement, so it hasn't required as much work as some other hosts possibly. Um so we support it in the alternative enclosure, but also through this API key as well. Very nice too. And the last one, James, you'll be very happy to know. We refactored all of the old B API payments and we are now doing comments as well. So next week, hopefully, you'll start to see comments appearing in your what's it, your um your runway app as well as Have you updated the um Yes. Yes.

Speaker 6 1:28:03

Oh well Well that all sounds exciting, doesn't it? Yes. Um yes, I'm not using a um I'm not using a um uh a node of my own now, so everything is going into the strike app. And so uh yes, is if if you're supporting that, uh then uh then that's excellent news. Let's uh let's wait and see what we get indeed from the system.

Sam Sethi 1:28:25

Yes holds his breath, counts to a hundred hopes.

Speaker 6 1:28:29

Yes, no indeed. James, so what's been happening for you? Well, uh so I have been on a number of long flights, um, and I'm currently in Riga in Latvia. Uh the first time I've ever been to Latvia. Um I had a day off a couple of days ago, and one of the places that I walked to, it's got a very small town centre, it's got a nice um, you know, old town in the middle of it. Um and um it uh uh uh during during Soviet times, uh Riga was going to be the financial capital of um of the Soviet Union. So quite a lot of the buildings here are quite grand and quite a lot of the roads are quite wide and all of that, which is you know, so it's a fascinating place to to wander around. But anyway, I just sort of had a wander around and walked to the Russian embassy. Um, and you might be thinking, James, why did you walk to the Russian embassy? Because what happened here when Russia invaded Ukraine is that the first things that the Latvians did, given that we've got a border to Russia right here, the first things that the Latvians did is that they changed the name of the road outside outside of the Russian embassy um to be called Independent Ukraine Road, basically. So the address of the Russian Embassy is at the Russian Embassy, Independent Ukraine Road, Riga, which I just think is brilliant. Um and and and they've also put a massive, great big uh portrait of um Putin, but looking like a death mask, staring at the embassy um from the building on the other side of the street, which happens to be a state uh museum. Um so yeah, I mean that you know they're not messing around, the Latvians, I'll tell you. Um but it's been really nice. It's been uh it's been a fun place to be. Um I caught up with um a number of Latvian podcasters, um, both at the uh conference, but also uh but also um you know just in the pub and all of that. So yeah, that was uh that was uh really good. I was I was very jet lagged, but it was um but that was great fun. So I've really enjoyed it.

Sam Sethi 1:30:32

You are jet lagged at the end of that sentence.

Speaker 6 1:30:34

Yes. Oh yes. Um but no, it's been uh it's been a fun uh it's been a fun uh time. So uh later on today, I'm heading all the way back again. Um the delay in publishing the Pod News Weekly Review last week was that um my hard drive had filled up on my MacBook, uh, unbeknown to me. And so what the Mac does is it goes, oh, it doesn't look look as if you've got an awful lot of space. Um I will just put all of this stuff in the cloud, um, and then you know, you you don't really notice that it's doing that, it just takes slightly longer to um open a file because it has to go and grab it from the cloud. Um, except you do notice that when you're on a plane and the uh and the internet is very, very slow, and you realise that all of the audio from last week's show was in the cloud. So that was annoying. It meant that I couldn't uh edit it at the time that I had thought that I was going to uh to uh edit it. So um anyway, I've made some space now. Uh so that is all good. Anyway, um that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories taken from the Pod News Daily Newsletter at Podnews.net.

Sam Sethi 1:31:39

You can support this show by streaming Sats. You can give us feedback using the BuzzProut fan mail link in our show notes, and you can send us a boost or become a power supporter, even better, like the 23 power supporters at weekly.podnews.net.

Speaker 6 1:31:52

Our music's from TM Studios, our voiceover is Sheila D. Our audio is recorded using CleanFeed, and we edit with Hindenburg. And we're hosted and sponsored by BuzzProud. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Announcer 1:32:02

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