So you say, I want to support you for three pounds a month, and when the next episode drops, I will give you the value of that episode only. So the episode might be worth 50p or a thousand sats. Welcome to Fanzone, your bite -sized guide to getting the most out of the TrueFans podcast app. In each episode, we'll discuss an aspect of the app and hopefully answer any questions
you may have about it. Plus, when you listen to Fanzone in TrueFans, you can earn as you listen and use your earnings to support your favourite podcasters. I'm Clare Waite Brown, independent podcaster and all -round podcast enthusiast. And I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO and founder of TrueFans. We've covered a lot so far in this first series of Fanzone. And in fact, Sam, this is the final episode of the first series. I don't know whether to cry or go phew. I don't know
which way to go. But there's more to come. We've got more series. Indeed. Now, we have already talked about the icons. on the show screen. So back in episode six, which is called the show screen, we covered, you know, all the kind of things you see on the show screen. And we also said that we would talk in more detail about the hand and heart icon in a future episode. And now that time has arrived, that future episode is here. Can you tell me a bit more about that
icon and what it does, please, Sam? So that icon is the funding icon. And there are two ways of funding or supporting a podcast. In your host, if they support the funding tag, which is one of the podcasting 2 .0 new tags, you can put in a URL to a third party funding platform. So for example, Claire, you buy me a coffee, but some people use Patreon. Some people use PayPal,
for example. So when we as an app read your RSS feed, if you've put a URL in your RSS feed for the funding tag, it will then display as a link within the podcast page. So when somebody clicks on that heart icon over the hand, it will take them to the page that you've chosen for them to give you more support. But we've noticed that
90 % plus of podcasts do not. have any support for the funding tag now either their host doesn't support it or they have no url in that actual tag field so we decided that we as true fans would create a funding capability for true fans so when you click on the heart icon and they don't have an external funding link then it will pop up with a box that says i'd like to give this podcast three pounds three dollars three euros you choose your currency it's yours to
choose the amount now that is your monthly budget what happens is that amount is allocated from your true fans wallet so you're not actually paying again it's just allocating it from your true fans wallet now the difference between us and other third -party funding supporting platforms If you pay Patreon or you pay Buy Me A Coffee three pounds a month, if the creator does no more work, you still end up paying them that three pounds. So what we do is we use what's
called value for value. So you say, I want to support you for three pounds a month. And when the next episode drops, I will give you the value of that episode only. So the episode might be worth 50p or a thousand sats. And that's the amount that gets taken from your £3 budget. And as those episodes drop, it comes out of your budget. Once that budget is empty, we do not take money from your main wallet. So you're not actually going to get your main wallet emptied.
You've limited the amount for that podcast to the £3, £5, £10 that you wanted to give in that month. And that's all that happens. At the end of the month, it then renews. So we will then take another three pounds from your wallet and allocate that back to that podcaster. So as they produce more podcast episodes, they get paid. So we think that's the fair way of doing it. You get a new episode and then you pay them in advance for that episode before you listen. Brilliant.
What I don't understand is the actual streaming thing of it. What is that rate set at? So you set that rate. In the information icon, you have to set a value for play. So the way that it works is that even though you set a budget for three pounds a month, you still also have to set the value you're willing to pay for an episode. When you go in, you say, I'm willing to pay 10 sats or 10p for each new episode times the amount of time. which will give you the total value
for that episode. And that is the value that we will then subtract from your £3 budget so that you can basically pay that creator for the new episode. If you don't put a value in there for play, then we don't remove any money from that budget because you've not said how much you want to value that episode up. Okay, cool. So we do explain that. I hadn't realized that was connected to the streaming, which we do explain
in the streaming icon episode of Fan Zone. And we do talk again then about how to set up your defaults. And the icon on the episode as well changes from a currency icon, so pounds, euros or sats, to a supporting icon, which shows you that you've supported that podcast. And it will also show you on the episode how much you paid. to support that episode. And that means you can just listen to that episode multiple times without actually having to pay for it the second or third
time. Okay, brilliant. Thank you so much. Thank you, Claire. Thanks so much for listening. There are lots more episodes of Fanzone for you to get stuck into and that show you how to make the most of the fab features that this forward -looking podcast app has to offer podcast listeners and creators alike. We'd love to hear from you. You can send us a comment on TrueFans, more about that in the Fanzone episode on comments, or email support@truefans .fm.