Todd and Rob in the afternoon. With Todd and Rob. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Rob, how are you doing? Happy New Year. How are you? I'm doing okay, Todd. I did a doubleheader tonight, so I did my my podcast tips show just like an hour before the show. Well, that's good because I know that, essentially, you were just getting back last night, and we were unable to, you know Do our show a normal night. Right? Do our show the normal time. So here here we are on a on a
Thursday. I wanted to get this out because, next week I'm traveling. I'm back headed back to United States. Yeah. And, so yeah. So I'm I'm, I'm excited about being back, back in the back in the US and, on a a normal work hour, I guess. Hey. Before we get into the topic at hand today, I I you know, there was it's been making the rounds. I think it even made pot news. There's this thing going on about
the Honey plugin. And for those of you that don't know what the Honey plugin is, it's a product from PayPal, and, it's designed to help people find deals, find promo codes when they're essentially shopping. And it's been very nefarious for many, many years, and I, you know, I my codes for GoDaddy, ended up on that platform without me submitting it multiple times. And I've had to go over there and ask for those codes to be removed multiple times because they weren't ever linked to my affiliate
link. They were the code it was a code in gesture, but it when you clicked on it, it didn't get I didn't get any benefit from it. So So where does that benefit go, Todd? Does it, go to somebody else's affiliate account? Yeah. It goes to Honey. And but I've known about but my point was take my promo codes off. Don't have my promo codes on there because I had very exclusive promo deals for and I still did for a lot of services. And so I fought long and hard to get
my promo codes. People would always tell, I wish I get my promo codes are on, honey. Well, guess what? You're you're it means nothing. They're just using your promo code, but and they've hide they hide the affiliate link when they click through because I tested that it was not my affiliate link. So, so for many, many, many years, I have fought to keep my promo codes off the Honey platform. They make it look like they found the best deal with using one of my codes, but it was never my code. So
it's come to life. Scam going on here, Todd? I it sounds like a scam to me. Well, what's happened now is YouTubers have figured out through Audible and all these other affiliate marketing deals they've done that any person running the Honey browser plug in. Mhmm. If you're on a YouTuber's page, Todd's affiliate page, on Geek News Central for GoDaddy, anywhere you're at and you click the link, and this is the key because there's the
2 parts of this. You click the link and you go and you basically have the Honey app installed. It has a function where it basically, in essence, is replacing that action. It re re deletes the cookie. It it, intercepts the affiliate link. It substitute its own. It sets its own cookie, and you get screwed. You do not as a creator, you do not get the credit for that sale. So why why would a user install this? Is it does does it give you access to discounts? Yeah. They're getting discounts.
And and they they probably didn't know. They probably didn't know. They probably didn't know. Right. It was doing this. And now it's like all of a sudden these YouTubers have woke up that Honey is this thing that is your enemy. And I've known for years that this thing now I I knew because I was being very protective of my promo codes. So but there's a second part to this that no one's even talking about. And may maybe it'll become as a realization. A lot of affiliate platforms
okay. So as an example, Commission Junction. Mhmm. GoDaddy uses, when I first started doing deals with GoDaddy, everything was run through the company's system. So when someone came over then put a a Geek New Central code into into GoDaddy or I had a link that went to GoDaddy, it all got credited. It was all good. So when GoDaddy, basically, I think what happened was is they were they're trying to look for central management system. Maybe they didn't wanna build out their continued
building out their own affiliate system. So they started using CJ. And in CJ, I have exclusive deals in CJ that are not available to someone that becomes a normal GoDaddy affiliate. Mhmm. Those those deals are only available to me, and you can't find them listed anywhere. It's it's basically they're set up for Todd and and Geek New Central. So my first month, and this is years years years ago of using CJ, all of a sudden, I came my reports came in, and I'm like, I'm 80% down.
And I'm like, something's wrong. You know, we've been consistently hitting numbers month after month after month. And when my numbers will go down 80%, and all of a sudden my revenue is directly impacted, I went back to GoDaddy. I said, something's missing. Something is missing in this, and what it turned out was I had trained my audience to take the promo code and paste it at checkout. I didn't teach them to click the link. I teach them to use the promo code.
Yeah. So because they were going to GoDaddy direct and using the promo code in the checkout, CJ never saw that volume, never saw that traffic. Right. They only saw the traffic when the link was clicked on. Right. Is that sounds through their their tools? Right. And to their credit, they said, oh, yeah. Here's your codes being used. Here's the rest of 80% of your traffic that that is missing. We will do a recalculation, and, basically, they back the numbers back into CJ every month.
The CJ number is this big. The the promo code copy and paste method is this big, and I'm I get full credit for the traffic I send over. Now how many podcasters are using Commission Junction saying use my promo code and not telling them to click the link? And if the if they don't know this and the advertiser is not giving them credit for those manly pasted in promo codes at checkout, they're still losing money.
So it's not because he even through the Commission Junction site, they have a tool that allows you to enter that promo code in there. No, they don't. No. They produce links. Yeah. Well, I know that they did that. I thought for sure that they supported being able to put in a, no, The the data doesn't get fed back when you manually enter a promo code at checkout always has to be done at the at the merchant site. Is that what you're saying? Merchant site. So the merchant has to
say, okay. This came in direct because I told you go to GoDaddy. I told you to use the promo code. They never clicked the CJ link in my website. So so GoDaddy was good, and they they squirted away. And it makes sense that CJ would not see that traffic. It's not CJ's fault. Mhmm. Because where it may be a fault is there should be some interoperability where that signal was sent back to CJ to say, hey. This code was used manually. But if it but if someone's running a promotion
like this okay. So unlike my show, they've told listeners and viewers, click the link. Click the link. Click the link in the show notes. Click the link in the show notes to get the discount. Click the link. You're safe if you click the link so long as there's no Honey plugin installed on a browser by your listener. So therein lies. And so they basically have done, like, a class action lawsuit against PayPal for what and it is nefarious activity for me.
So PayPal pop popped up in this conversation. What does PayPal own it? Yes. PayPal owns Honey. Oh, okay. Yeah. So from my from my standpoint was I had known for years that I did not want any of my promo codes on Honey because I knew they were upsurfing. But what I didn't know, what was news to me was that they were bypassing my clicked link if they had something in the browser. I knew that my promo code was not giving me credit across.
So what it really means then is all these companies that work with Honey and also have relationships with creators need to stop using Honey. They're screwing their well, what it really does is it could con potentially let's say that you have a you're doing a show that is heavy merch, and people are buying a lot of merch online. They probably have this plug in installed, and it can cause your performance to go down. By how much? I don't know.
But, again, you have Yeah. Are you claiming that there's there's fraud going on here? Well, that's what the class action lawsuit is saying. That's what And the pay And And then PayPal is is is behind defrauding valid affiliates on their payments. PayPal paid, I think, $4,000,000,000 for Honey. That was the acquisition cost of I have to look at let me let me run the Well, that's I mean, the more I think about this, the more it becomes a criminal activity is what's going on here. This isn't,
well, it is Todd. I mean, if, if, if people are clicking on affiliate links in their platform and they're getting credit for that somehow. Yeah. That means that they're stealing revenue away from from the affiliate. And that is the definition of fraud. That's it's exactly what's happening is as as described in the lawsuit. Right. And they're they're acting they're act asking for injective relief immediately to have this this type of activity stopped. But it it's it to me, it was kind of like,
oh, yeah. I know they're they're now good. It's for me, it was no surprise. This has been going on for at least 10 years. I you know, before PayPal even owned it that I knew if my again, this is my situation is different in that my promo codes were showing up on Honey. Mhmm. But yet when they clicked on them, I got I got I got shit. I got 0.
Well, there's always been concern. I mean, I spent, I spent a couple of years managing a large affiliate program myself in the early days of the internet and, and worked with link share, CJ and they're very early years and built a very large affiliate program. And one of the things that I've heard you say over many years here, Todd, is that even those platforms have not been always giving full credit, to,
to to the affiliate links. And there's always been this kind of this gap between what, what they're showing in their platform as the, is the affiliate credits, right? Versus what the sales transactions are that happened with the merchant. Right? There was almost like there was an algorithm in there that was or kind of like a short sheeting of the bed to some degree on the links passing through link share and passing through, CJ,
back in those days. And there were other affiliate platforms back then too besides those 2, but those were the biggest back then. It's it's it's not in CJ's best interest to short sheet someone clicking on an affiliate link because they don't get paid unless that goes through. So in other words, if if if someone clicks on my CJ link, Yeah. And goes through and does a GoDaddy purchase, well, CJ only gets paid if that transaction happened.
So it would be it would be it would be against CJ's best interest, and I'm not pointing I'm not pointing a finger at all at CJ. It's would be against their best interest to to do anything bad. Right. Right. Right. But people have always wondered. I look at my outbound traffic on clicks, and I know what my outbound clicks are because Yeah. I track it every month. I've got the data in a spreadsheet. And and then I go back, and, obviously, people abandon cart. People don't always make a decision.
Right. If you get them to click, that's probably the chance of that converting is 10%. Right. If they actually click the link and make it to the shopping cart, make it all the way through and and do an actual purchase, it's probably 10%. Right. And whereas someone that has been on my site and taken my promo code and then got through the checkout process at GoDaddy, they're purposely looking, Even people searching on the web, they're purposely looking for a deal.
So they copy the the the promo code and paste it in at checkout. So it's up to the merchant to make sure they reconcile this activity that when a promo code's used manually to make sure that that gets credited back to CJ or have the mechanism in there that CJ gets the report says, hey. That that promo code was was used. I can just tell you from what I know, again, they go GoDaddy goes into their system, and they say, okay. Here's the numbers.
They they do a a a dollar amount add to my account and CJ, And CJ still cuts me a check, and I don't lose those sales. Now at the same time, I have had one of my biggest GoDaddy months I've had in many, many years in December. It was bigger than November. So I've been doing real well recently, with and I'm employing some new strategies and stuff.
But the long story is is if you're running an affiliate deal and it's a direct relationship with a vendor, the vendors come to you and said, hey, Rob and Todd, we want you to run this promo code whether it be audible, blah blah blah blah blah blah. And and the platform, you need to make sure that you have this conversation with them. Okay. Are are you guys reconciling manually entered promo codes? Are you you know, what is the process of making sure how long does my cookie
stay? So that's another piece too. Well, that's another one. That's the variable. Right? Is the variable how long when someone goes to the website from my affiliate link, does that hold or does someone else clicking another affiliate link overwrite my mind in your platform? These are the questions you have to ask. Mhmm. I know how long I have to convert a GoDaddy customer. They've
told me I'm not gonna share it. They've told me how long when someone clicks my link and it goes and they don't get through the shopping cart and they come back later, how long as long as they don't clear the browser cache, how long How long does that cookie last, Todd? How long does that cookie last for me to still get credit for someone coming back? Right. And maybe I'm just because I'm a tech guy. I kinda understand this to a point.
Can't say that I know it perfectly, but I know enough that when my revenue went down 80%, when we made the switch, that something was wrong. And maybe, to be honest with you, maybe that was a a good thing to have known because otherwise, I if I'd have been just starting out from scratch, I would have never went back to go date and said, hey, there's something missing here. Well, that's a that's a little bit of a hack in the system, right?
If you set those cookies to be, relatively short, then that customer can still click on that link. It's just you won't get credit for it. Well, I mean, what, what allegedly is happening with Honey is they were replacing the cookie or replacing whatever that is setting that, you know, setting that, and they were basically upsurping the system purposely. No. So, again, if you're not running the Honey browser, you're not screwing your
creators you're supporting. But if you're running the Honey browser, get rid of that thing, in my opinion. So it's a whole browser. It's not a plug in to a browser. Browser. It's a plug in for a browser. It's a plug in to Chrome? Yeah. Okay. It's one of those things that say and Amazon's got one too to help you find deals. And it's just like having you know, it's those little little icons on the top right above the Yep. I know it should be. Bar. Right.
So don't use that thing if you are supporting a creator network. Yeah. That's a pretty big scandal for a big company like, PayPal to get linked up with something like this. Well, why did they pay $4,000,000,000 for it? Well, obviously it it was making money. Right? That's the only reason. Right. Yes. I wanted to mention what one thing too about the early days of the, of the questioning of the, of the affiliate platforms
like CJ and link share. I don't think link shares around anymore, but, but those platforms, people would question their, their kind of their metrics out of those platforms. And I agree with you, Todd, that the that they had a motivation to convert as
many customers as they could. The problem that I think for many years and maybe you had some run ins with this early on because I do remember us talking about this, is it maybe those platforms were not as reliable and counting those those pass through links, and in in reporting it to you, maybe they were reporting it to the the, advertiser or the affiliate owner, but maybe they weren't reporting it so they didn't have to pay out as much money.
To to me, there's always been this question, and I bet you we can talk to any podcast advertising company that's in existence today. Mhmm. Why why does a host read a host read CPM campaign always always, without question, always perform better than a straight affiliate deal. Why? Same ad, same process, same messaging. The only difference is one is tied to an affiliate performance. The other is tied to a CPM performance. Why? That it's still that happening today.
So why is there a difference in performance? Same campaign, just different payment methods. I've always every ad deal now, again, I'm an exception because I get a hybrid deal. I get a base with GoDaddy then a performance based upon performance, but I still get a base CPM. Well, I don't get it's not even a CPM. It's a base rate. Right. That could be applied and create a CPM. Right. Yeah. They they back it out. You know, they end up in the end. It's it's, you know, how many customers did
we get? How much did we pay, Todd? You know, they do they do a CPA. What was that ultimate acquisition cost? It's almost like a guarantee is what it is. It is. Let me do something here. Yeah. But at the same time, I've done deals after deals after deals for years where and matter of fact, we are going to I have a new well, I'll talk about this partnership in a minute. I have a history of seeing how performance goes on affiliate, just straight affiliate versus CPMs.
And it's the CPMs always perform better. And I've and and I I've always said, someone, please tell me what the difference is here. And I truly believe it's about that disparity of lost sales somewhere from the click to the purchase. Or it's just not being triggered in the database. I'm sure that the referral happened just not being counted properly because maybe you have a coding error or something in the platform that misses every
every couple of clicks. Right? Again and again and again across multiple vendors. Why is this the case? I mean, it would be a way of driving up ROI. Well, to the advertiser The, the, the, the, the advertisers, please, because they said, oh, we got all these sales. We don't have to pay. But if you, as the, as the affiliate, link provider, don't get credit for it. They don't have to pay as much. A lot of people run their own in house affiliate systems.
Yes. Yeah. So there's always this potential of double checking that. Right? So you have basically a a each time that link so you can add, like, a layer to the URL that will help you track it separately. Right? Blueberry runs a very simple affiliate system.
And the cookie, we we basically, 30 days that it and it maybe is not a cookie, but, basically, if someone comes to Blueberry from a promo code from an affiliate, we hold that basically, if they come back within 30 days, a person still gets credit for the sale. And and we can see that. We've you know? And we we we paid out 5 figure bonus checks this year to our affiliates, and we pay core a matter of fact, we pay our, affiliates now, every I think every month. And we see the performance.
I go right in the system. I can see how many time promo code was used for x y z. It's very, very simple for us to track. I've never had an affiliate complain. Matter of fact, we've had it so good that affiliate code plus, you get longer. If you use a a Blueberry affiliate code, you get 60 days free to begin with instead of 30. So we we make it even a better bonus, more more value to the affiliates to use this to fill. So well, you guys are
giving 30 days free. Well, you when they use your promo code, you tell them they get 60 days free. So it's a better deal. So we're not we're not Right. Overriding and under making the value of their affiliate code less. So yeah. And we just go ahead. So what areas of an affiliate program with the technology that's implemented do you see is there a potential of manipulation, I guess? Or Well, this what Honey has
done. They've interpreted Well, yeah. Yeah. I'm talking about like a link, like a, like a CJ. What could they do? Could they, in mid campaign, change the duration of the cookie? Could they could they do other things? They could. Well, usually well well, no. Not well, yes. They could change anything at any time. Right. Right. Yeah. They could. And part of the thing is that that that referral could still happen even even without an active,
activating cookie. Right? A person has a link to that U. R. L. Maybe stored in their their their bookmarks or something like that. Or they have it, it's still gonna work. Right? It's it's not gonna stop working just because the cookie expired, is it? Yeah. As long as they use the link or the promo code. Right. Yeah. If you even have to have the promo code. Right? And if you for us, at least, at Blueberry, 30 you come back the customer comes back within 30 days, you still get credit.
Like, again, there's factors. If they've cleared their browser cache, that's gone. There's nothing That's gonna kill it right there. Gonna kill it. Yeah. Yeah. So and and, you know, it's something that we, you know, we periodically test. I you know, I think we've got it on a 90 day Yeah. Rotation or something like that. We test the infrastructure and make sure it's holding. And it so, again, it's something that we go back and look at, but we've never had had issues.
So, yeah, this whole situation and, again, how many people have got the Honey app installed? Well, let me let me let me Google that. How many installs of the Honey plugin. Honey browser. I think you can actually find out on, probably the plugin page. It shows how many installs there are. So, yeah, so 17,000,000 people have that thing installed. Yeah. Okay. No. 20,000,000 monthly visits to join honey.com. 20,000,000 monthly visits.
So that tells you how much people are using that site to save money. Because if be people can find out if, you know, they if they don't have a promo code already, that's where they go to get one and save some cash. Mhmm. But if you are a if you've got this installed in your browser and you're clicking on a YouTube affiliate link for Audible or whoever, you may not have given a penny to that creator.
Yeah. So, you know, it's just, you know, I I saw a discussion about it this this past 2 or 3 days. I just like, oh, you guys don't understand? You guys you guys are just, like, figuring this out now? You know? You know, again, I didn't know that they were doing this for it. You know? Again, I was worried about my promo codes even just being on Honey.
And, and, again, I have to go over there once once in a while and and peruse, you know, to make sure that that they're not running any of my promo codes because I know that I'm getting ripped off. Mhmm. So Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yep. So, yeah. So we should probably move on to talk about the topic that we've teased for tonight. I know all of you have been patient, if you came here to hear that topic.
But, but I don't know if you wanted to start off, Todd, but there was an article that Nick Quach, our famous, you know, our our our fellow that, I think we came close to having him on the show at one point. Yeah. Good. Oh, Nick. You wrote an article in a vulture magazine, talking about, will video kill the audio star in 2025. And you know, it's a, it's a, it's a provocative
headline. There's no question about it. I mean, I think at the end of the whole story here, I think the, the, answer, is maybe what most people listening to this maybe hope are hoping for. But, but it's also an interesting story because I think, as we've seen happen, the rise of video and the perception of it as, has shifted the conversation in the podcasting space a lot. I mean, just this article is
an example of it. And, and I think addressing the elephant in the room is really the only pathway forward because a lot of, like you've said, Todd, being people maybe have a perception that that video is now the priority and and it's and it's really not that simple. So so what the thought is is that, you know, that this is a major shift that's being driven by these big platforms, YouTube, Spotify and a lot of the big major content networks out there have, you know, gone all in
on, on the video side. And, and, but Nick's contention is that that's really been driven by mostly by video posting to social media. Just in a in a general sense. And that would include like X and Facebook and Tiktok and stuff. I think we talked about this last week too. But, and that there's this perception that there's a delivery or not a delivery, but a discovery benefit, right? That people are able to discover new podcasts in these video platforms. Right?
And that's what the research is continuing to show is that, that Youtube is now the number one place to discover podcasts that are perceived as a video. Right? So that's that's kind of what's going on here. And that the audio only stuff is kind of getting left on the sidelines. And that there is this perception that the video side is getting this this cool factor that audio, it doesn't have anymore. And and so I think that's kind of where this is coming
from, right? Is that, you know, this this conversation happened many years ago, Todd, as you remember in the early days of podcasting where it was, will the podcast? What was it? The the podcast star kill the radio star was the conversation back in the early days of podcasting. Right. I'm sure you remember that it was like a headline in in I think one of the big national, USA Today or something like that. I think
Adam Curry was featured there. So so it's funny how we're seeing this kind of similar kind of, you know, position being taken here. Well, you know, any comments about that so far as we move through this? If we think about the discovery piece, this is not the first time anyone this show has heard this. I've always said that podcasting is not I have a discovery problem. You you have a a Google problem. Notoriously Especially now. Right?
It could get yeah. I mean, even now in this an opposite situation, but let's think pre AI. 90 percent And also when when Google Podcasts had a had a platform, right, in search. 90% of podcasters do an absolute horrendous, horrible I I I can't let's use the most derogatory words we can. Shitty write up and shitty titles for their podcast episodes. Mhmm. And it still exists today.
If you go through and look at the episodes and the show notes of 90% of podcasters, what they have done is they've they've created this great beautiful, sometimes content, and then they shoot themselves in the foot by having this horrible metadata. So we've been a product of our we we've been a the outcome, crap out Right. Means shitty discovery. So we've been we've had our own we've been our own worst enemy in this regard. Number 2, the search in these apps has been horrendous.
Just Right. Freaking horrendous. Yeah. That has been bad. It's been really bad. No one has done search well in apps. And the reason is they have to invest in little infrastructure. They have to have some servers. They they can't just pull the Apple list and expect to have good search results in their apps. Most apps have done a shitty job in discovery
of just simple search. We're not talking about surfacing shows, having tops, you know, top shows that so we've been our own worst enemy at least on those two regards. Right. You bring in video, the video piece, which I am a very, very honest. I have never I focused on the web. I never focused on YouTube. My I put a title in for years, I just put a title in in a smidgen, just a smidgen of description, kinda like most podcasters do. So why hasn't my content on YouTube surfaced
and grown a channel? Because guess what? I didn't do the things necessary on YouTube to grow my channel. I didn't have beautiful album art. I didn't play the YouTube algorithm game, blah blah blah blah blah. So same things apply. So if you're a podcaster and you're part of that 90% that's doing shitty on your web based publishing and you put it on YouTube, you're still gonna have shitty results because you have to do a certain thing over there to be discovered.
Your proven point, your channel's growing. You take time in doing the metadata. You take time in, you know, putting the stuff in that's gonna make your content found. So again, I think it'll and look more attractive. I mean, it's a game of it's kind of like playing a game of billboard, right? Yeah. I mean, you have to have a good marketing billboard on
on YouTube. And to some degree, that's the case with podcasting to you still have to have that compelling cover art and you have to have, you know, increasingly really should have episode art. And we've run episode art. At least I've run episode of Art Art on Geek and the Central for years, not on this show. We started it when the AI stuff came because I was, you know, I was able to create some AI crap, and half the time isn't a 100% as good as it should be. But at
least it's something different. But the the end result is the reason some people are finding some finer success is they have they went over there and they're following the rules. They're following the YouTube algorithm rules. And the problem is is no one has ever
really said in the podcasting space. Here are the podcasting rules of what you need to do to have Rich show notes and, you know, all and we don't know what Google's doing today with, the any auto generated transcripts or if they're even generating transcripts still of shows. And also to move a little deeper into this article, a certain segment of shows are doing well over there. So I that I believe wholeheartedly that he termed it chit chat shows. That would be You and Me, a chit chat show
Yeah. Are doing well on YouTube from a video standpoint. And, yeah. I think they are. I mean, based on based on what I see. And they have nice sets. They've spent some money, you know, they got Some do, some don't, Todd. It's it's really kind of a hit and miss on that. The majority that are succeeding you have a nice set. You have a nice background. You've invested in a little bit of motif. It's not completely boring. Look at me. I'm here in a, you know, condo unit. There's nothing behind me.
So though, Todd, I would say I see some very successful, shows on YouTube that have backgrounds just like yours. So it's, it's more about the content. It's more about how it's presented. And what the topics are is what I'm increasingly seeing. How timely is the topic? How is it a zeitgeist for people's interests, Right? And then what the algorithm does over there is it matches those interest areas that they pick up from their users. Right?
And it and they drive attention of those users to that content that matches their previously consumed content. Right? So it it does this matching to the consumer with the content. And if the algorithm sees that this content from this creator that is in this kind of topic area has good engagement, has deep listening, deep watching. Right? So they're listening to, you know, 10, 20, 30 minutes of a of an hour show or something like that. They will be more likely to recommend it
to more people that have that interest. So if you have a large pool of people that have an interest in a certain topic, right, or a certain kind of niche issue, and it's very emotional to people are finding huge success on covering like the UAPs and the UFOs, stuff like that. And they will do like 2 hour episodes just sitting around throwing up on the screen, the videos from New Jersey, and they'll be gathering 25,000 live live viewers.
It it's in some ways, it's the same pattern that I saw even in the early days with live audio. I saw that to some degree, it depends on the topic. Right. There was a show that I worked with on on speaker that was using their live audio system and they they were talking about, you know, like Ghostbusters. I mean, not, ghost hunters, right? So they were talking about, you know, hunting ghosts on this live stream. It was
like a 3 hour live stream. They were garnering 6 to 10000 comments and and 10,000 views. And I think that's kind of what's happening here with YouTube. It's not so much about podcasting. It's around more focused on topics that are the people have an interest in. Right. And in making them timely, making it. I mean, if you look at what's going on, too, with politics and what's going on with with a lot of the
the breaking news that's going on. Right. With the the the blowing up of the Cybertruck and stuff like that, that blows up huge on YouTube, too. Right. So you and and YouTube will feed you. It's just like being here's what they really have accomplished. They replaced news. They replaced mainstream news. Yeah. They have. Well, podcasting and YouTube have replaced news. Well, YouTube specifically because they're really, really good because there's there's Well, in x
x is also one too. Right? But, again, I I don't see well, to an extent, I I don't see media on x. I see a lot of chit chat on x around these themes. And every once in a while, there might be a media clip intertwined. But I think that what YouTube has really mastered from this perspective is if if you got on an hour after the Cybertruck blew up or the New Orleans incident That's what people are looking for. And and, basically,
people aren't looking for it. Go YouTube has got someone in a in a center saying, okay. Right now, this Cybertruck and the New Orleans and these 100 topics are trending globally. Yeah. That's because people people are are signaling to the algorithm that they have an interest in that. But I also think that the people at YouTube are sitting there prioritizing the the this stuff. I don't think it's being done manually, Todd. Oh, I bet it is. I bet a large point percentage of
it. The top stuff is being driven has to be. Why? You know, they would they why if you're YouTube, you've got people, you've got a ton of people that are probably assigned to each category, say this is trending. Let's go ahead and make sure that I'm sure that they have people that are watching. Why wouldn't they? You know? Because it's it's slow. It's slow. It's not gonna be as effective and as fast as a algorithm would be.
Not if you have someone there 247, and you have people that are watching that. Do they I'm sure some of it is a logarithm base, but I I bet you a big percentage of it. Todd. I mean I mean, just look at Facebook. It's the same way. YouTube is not the really, really said what how they do that, but there's a lot of manual manipulation on what gets driven to the top. Has to be because the otherwise, you wouldn't see the same channels again and
again and again and again and again. You'd see a more variety of of channels. There are definitely channels that are getting getting higher priority, surfacing of discovery than, you know, the the top 10% are just they're there all the time being promoted. Well, it also I mean very rarely see anything that's brand new in my in my YouTube home feed. Very rarely. I see it all the time. So, yeah, they say they feed me the same shit.
Well, it's true because you have a history of being with it or maybe you subscribe to their channel. So there are signals that the algorithm is picking up around your interest, graph. Right? And one thing for sure is we don't do that at all on podcasting. And I know, and I think we have a massive amount of data analytics envy going on in the medium right now. I don't think that I think the challenge is is I don't think people engage the audio in that way. I think in audio It's never been viral.
Right? It's never had a viral There's no podcasting has never really had a viral component to it. Yeah. Cereal. But again, it was again a shove. It wasn't a it was not a piece of topic type of a show. Right. Right. They never there's never surfaced trending topics. So trending topics tends to benefit, from live. Trending topics. It's just content that's put up. No, no, no. I'm just speaking more generally
now. I'm saying that, that like, like what we're doing right now, we could, we could launch this show and go live to talk about the cyber talk explosion. Right. And garner a big audience because everybody wants to hear the latest news. But at the end of the day, it's the reputation of the channel. How much traffic does that channel
on average generate? I mean, I see it in the back end metrics is that it is tracking, your history, of what a prior video has had, and it will compare it to what this video has. And it will tell you the difference between those viewer numbers. It'll say your average video gets, you know, a 1000 views at this point in its publishing time compared to this video. This new video gets 10,000 views. Yeah, right. So
it creates deltas on that. And that's a signal to the algorithm to keep either promoting it or backing off. If it's not continuing to grow, then the the algorithm will stop promoting it. I've been remiss here, and we've got comments coming in from YouTube. Beatty Bubbles says 19,000,000. I believe that was in relation to Honey. Oh, Honey. Okay. Dave's Fit Life says, what I often find are the micro clips of podcasts. Those are very entertaining. I watch many, many entertaining. I watch many, many
micro For sure. Of Rogan, Earnhardt, a few others. That being said, I never watch either shows in their entirety. Beauty bubble says the basics are still relevant collaboration, acknowledgment of audience, and a thorough think tank may get behind. Just some thoughts. Dave, content is still king for me. Beauty bubble podcasters could rule this. It's true, but you have to be timely, And most podcasters are not timely.
I concur with that sentiment, Todd, over holiday discussion, my family members mentioned as discussion, not movies or shows, but which YouTube channels they follow even from the elderly. So, so again, I think just like in podcasting, I've got a bundle of audio shows that I listen to. On YouTube. I have a bundle of content that I watch. A matter of fact, during Christmas New Year's, majority of those YouTube creators took off and were not creating content.
So this the 10 or 15 shows I follow religiously took the holidays off. I'm thinking, what a miss. What a miss. They would have gained more because and so what I what was YouTube serving to me during the holiday period was definitely more stuff I've never seen before. So Yeah. Because there wasn't as much new stuff. Right. But it's YouTubers have this thing that's basically, and this is the big difference between YouTube and podcast, is the YouTubers are always chasing a ball.
It's like jumping it's like jumping into a Yeah. Big can be taken out of the boat, on a lake, and you only know how to doggy paddle. You don't know how to swim. You just know how to doggy paddle to keep your head above the water. YouTubers, I feel like you're putting in the lake and thrown in, and they're dead doggy paddle, doggy paddle, doggy paddle, doggy paddle. They gotta keep up. Gotta keep up. Gotta keep up. Gotta keep putting content. Gotta put gotta chase the algorithm.
Gotta gotta be irrelevant. Gotta be relevant. And it's it eats them alive. Well, that's what that's what YouTube wants. They want this this feverish pitch around content creators. That's what they want. Whereas whereas podcasting, I get to consume it when I want to. It's gonna be there. It still has that element on. It's it's it's it's for me, that's the beauty of podcasting. I'm behind on one of my shows, the podcasting 2
point o show. So I'm gonna be binge listening to this thing on my flight back on, like, the 4 episodes I'm behind on. I'm gonna be binge listening, you know, in the airplane. I'll probably have to go back and relisten twice because I'll probably fall asleep a few times because I'm leaving it, like, you know, late at night to fly on JL to get back, and I'm stuck in Tokyo for a while. But, anyway, it it it is a it's a different thing that content is there. And Right. Is it timely? Some of it
is. Some of it's not. So this is what we have to really I I have no desire for Rob for you to call me and say, hey, Todd. The the Cybertruck just blew up. We need to go live right now. And I'd be like, Rob, I'm Well, that's not our genre anyway. So But, you know, that's that's the main point is, Rob, I'm I'm I'm having a beer. I I That's why a lot of these shows are not, cohost shows. They're they're solo creators that are that are just doing like a live live
talk show. It's the it's the Rob Greenlee show is kind of what a lot of these shows are. Right? And people will just go live whenever there's a breaking news story. I I would have so much. First of all, do they they don't have a life, number 1. Number 2 Yeah. And number 2 I'm not saying you don't have a light, Rob. You go live on a planned schedule. So you you're not tasting I do. I'm I'm living old school, Todd. You're not tasting headlines. I can't imagine having to live
like a news anchor. If you choose to do that, you're gonna be wildly successful. No problem. You're gonna you're if you're chasing headlines and you go live the minute something happens, great. But But you also have to know what you're talking about too. You can't just bullshit people. You you have to spend, you know, at least 5 minutes doing a real research before you go live. Right? Yeah. You have to dig into it a little bit. David says, David De Silva says happy New Year,
BB Bubble. This is the place to be at, David, to begin a wonderful year. I agree. Man, I would take that opportunity. You know? So, again, I I I think it's really all you know? Again, I think certain content does well, but no one's gonna come on here to listen to a storytelling podcast. No no one, you know Yeah. I mean, what I mean You know, that's I mean, I guess it depends on how it's produced, Todd. Yeah. Again. Again, I it I know a lot of that format
is a tough production. Right? It's not easy. And so I think there's you know, this article was such that I'll I will give Nick a little. I gave him this much credit. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. Right? That's a lot to ask from you, Todd. I give him any credit. Especially for me. But I'll say it was it was it was okay. It was it was a pretty good written article. Yeah. Some of it made sense.
But Well, in the end, he I don't know if you went all the way to the bottom, Todd, but he's he he does bring it around to more more of, you know, your your position on it. But it's, it's just it's this, shiny object scenario that's going on right now that we've had. Yeah. Right. I mean, I mean, we've had this stuff before, but it's it is a little bit more, you know, it's it's it's it's a little bit more of the shiny thing. Right? It's the it's the glitz. It's the and I see
this with the difference between lives. So like what we're doing here, I don't know that live in this format does very well, on these video platforms. What I see with my own content that I make is when I prerecord it and I do a bunch of editing to it and I add a bunch of sizzle and transitions and stuff like that, they typically do a lot better. Sure. But they also, it really depends on the topic. It really depends on the topic. If if that topic is top of mind with other people.
Yeah, it's more likely to do better. And I guess the algorithm has some way to pick that up because my numbers go way up when I have a topic of a video that I did that that really kind of matches with what people are thinking right at that time. Well, Beauty Bible says, try it. Tell us a story. Well, I'll tell you a little story. Which part are you gonna tell a story about? Well, I it's it's completely not related to what we've been talking about, but I'll tell us Okay.
Okay. Actually, I'll tell you something I learned. So I'm still here in the Philippines, and the Philippines is a heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy Christian country. Mostly Catholic. Of course, if you get into Mindanao and some of those places, a heavy Muslim influence too. But Christmas here is like they start celebrating Christmas, like, in September. I'm not kidding. The mall decorations go up, and you're hearing Christmas jingles from September to January 1st. It's absolute
freaking insanity. I mean, they they they celebrate Christmas. So one would expect in a predominantly Catholic country that on Christmas Christmas, everything would be closed. In America, on Christmas, predominantly everything is closed. Something they open in the afternoon. It's not as much as it used to be, but everything here was wide open. Malls were open. Restaurants were open. Everything was open. And I'm like, I'm like, what what is this? Then in America, New Year's, the bars are open.
It's this celebration time. It's time to party. Right? Right. Everything's closed here on New Year's. I mean, locked up tighter than a drum. Not a bar one open. And I'm like, what the heck is going on here? So it's anyway, there's your story. It's it's, I'm still baffled by it, but New Year's is when family comes together, has dinners, and celebrates together. Christmases where they all kinda just do their own thing and go out and have, you know, eat out in town and blah blah
blah blah blah blah. I I I'm It's just I'm just it's the opposite. Now I know America is not as locked down at Christmas time as it used to be, but it's, anyway, there's there's beauty bubble. There's your story. Has nothing to do with our topic, though. That's right. Nothing to do. Well, there's probably live streams from like, you know, churches and stuff going on that night on Christmas Eve. But, yeah, you know, that's that's what was going on. Or the Tabernacle Choir or something. Right.
If if I was chasing the YouTuber algorithm, I would be doing stories every day on what was happening today. Mhmm. But, again, some channels in YouTube are not designed that way at all. You know? But what I'm looking forward to most right now is a guy that's got a cabin out in the Canadian wilderness, and this dude is a beast. He's he's I don't know. You know, I think about every episode he's gonna die,
you know, from something he's done. But, you know, and it may not I mean, for a lot of content, categories or genres, doing it like that really works. You know, I was just watching like, like a video, long form video that was following, a couple that was living out in the amongst like 5 feet of snow in a blow up cabin. Right? You know? And and it just goes on and on. All you do is watching them, you know, create fire in a fireplace and cook. Right? So, but, you know, to date
Yeah. But to Dave's point, I probably fall more into his category where I see clips of something, 8 minute clips of it, and I'll watch that. And I've never watched the full full episode of a show. And what's a full episode of a show? Right? People are smart. They pulled they said, okay. The, you know, the 2 hours we talked here was the 8 minutes. It was really It was actually consumed.
Right. That's why it's so important, Todd. And I've learned this here over the last year or so, is that the first, like the first one minute of any video that you do on youtube is critical because if you don't get to the point, they're getting to the point somewhere else. So they leave, they leave. So your, your tendency when you start your podcast is to kind of talk about personal stuff and all that stuff like that. That doesn't
work on YouTube. That's right. So you have to get, you know, so when you put in your cover art or your your thumbnail, what the topic is, the audience is expecting that in the first 30 seconds you're going to be already diving into it. Yeah. So, so that's, that may also explain a little bit of why maybe the video that you're doing with your podcast doesn't match with YouTube. Yeah. Because the first 5 or 6 minute is nothing is not
when it targeted to it. It's kind of like what we did at the beginning of this show was, you know, I had put out there in my metadata and in my cover art, or we were going to talk about a particular topic. And but when we started, we spent the first 10 minutes talking about something else. Right? So so that may have impacted how many people stuck around to actually watch watch the video. So I don't even title my stuff before I go live. Well, that's that's I hate to say, but that's SEO 101, Todd.
Yeah. On on YouTube. I don't. I know very few people watch live. So my goal is later on, it's when they're going to come catch it later. Well, and and then also in the metadata, we have new media show and geek new central in the name. So a person that's watching this video doesn't know if it's geek news central or new media show unless they see our logos. Yeah.
So it just depends on your approach. I mean, I played around with all these different formats, whether prerecorded live, with guests solo, you know, I didn't hear. I just screwed myself. It's a but anyway, I mean, it's Yeah. There's lots of differences between these two platforms. So, Jeffrey says, try going to channel you'd rarely see and hit the thumbs up a bunch of times on that channel. You will see that stuff on your feet. I never up
thumb ever anything. I watch on a television, so I never thumbs up content at all. You can't actually do that in the You can. And the TV apps. You can, but I don't do it. There's a you can thumbs up, but I never thumbs up content in What what TV are you using to to watch? I'm using I've got a regular Chrome. It's it's you can you just up button the dingleberry, and it's the Oh. Is there. The Chrome? Chrome? Well, what it's whatever the YouTube app is on televisions, they're all the
same. You can do a thumbs up on content. I just never do it. I can see comments. I can see I can see everything. Okay. So you're playing this to a smart TV that has the YouTube app on it? Watch on a Okay. On an app or my, Jess said, so log logarithm, man. The thing about logarithm, they have to be developed by people. Yes. I agree. Well, the yeah. Yeah. The algorithm does. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But I would say over the next couple of years, though, AI is gonna be updating the algorithms because they are gonna be the algorithms. So, AI is gonna be driving all this. And and I think they already are. That said, I think we have to realize here that those that are gonna go do video are gonna go do video, and we just need to keep, making sure that
we're moving the bar. And, again, moving the bar, it means that Apple and and maybe this is why Spotify seeing success is they're surfacing stuff, whereas Apple is not surfacing content at all. I think they're trying. Todd, I think this whole metrics thing is really gonna push the envelope on this. I think there's so much that's being made available through these proprietary platforms now that the expectations are increasing on the part of the sponsors and advertisers
as well as the content creators. They're just they see podcasting as like a black hole of information. There's nothing there. I mean, I'm not saying there's nothing there, but there's there's there's it's quite a bit less. Well, the you know, it's because they wanna remarket to you. And Well, they wanna know how far people are listening to your content. It's what they're really
wanting. Because if if they have an ad in at 10 minutes into the program, they wanna know how many people are actually still listening to your show 10 minutes in your program. Not dummies. They're backing that out in performance. They're doing that on YouTube too. Yeah. That's not enough anymore, Todd. That's the problem now is that the expectations of increase has nothing. I mean, it does have something to do with performance, but I'm not sure that's the only metric that
the people are looking at. I think that that duration of consumption is also being considered in an ad placement now. So, so if you want to do a campaign now, you have to show your metrics on on what the consumption is of of each of your ad breaks. And they will prioritize running ads in a particular ad break because they know that that's that's why they all want to run and premium. You continue to talk to 10% of the podcasters out there that are getting advertising. The 90% are not.
What do you mean? I I continue to talk to no. Well, again, you're saying that this is all ad based. That definitely covers 10%. The changes that no. I'm saying all the changes that are being pushed for are being being pushed by the monetization prioritization that's going on in the industry right now. Well, for those that are monetizing, then they have to figure that out. The other 90% don't care.
Yeah. But I think as we have seen mainstream media move into podcasting, their expectations are moving with it. Well, again, for the 10% that are getting advertising, they're gonna have to deal with that. The other 90% don't have to worry. Which means that that's gonna that that influence is gonna pass down to everyone. Well, what's gonna happen is is, because of that, we'll never get the $3,000,000,000 or whatever we wanna get to. That's right.
No. And I that's the that's the end of the line on this one is is that that is what's gonna hold back. And I believe it's probably already been holding back podcast revenue on the advertising side is because the brands are seeing a whole nother level of data, about their buys. That's why they're buying into the big shows that they know that they're going to get a pretty much a guaranteed ROI
on. They're not branching out into other shows as much because they there's just not a deep set of metrics to know if they work. I don't know. I mean, it's these are these are tough topics to talk about. I mean, in the podcasting space because it it doesn't make the industry For those that are chasing dollars. It's Yeah. And increasingly, that's what every pod new podcaster I talk to. That's the number one question. How do I make money? We don't hear that at all.
That's that does not I don't know what to say, but this article kind of kind of Again, again, it I'm the one that's dealing with the customers. I know you are. If I'm not hearing that. But it could could be that the customers that you're attracting are not prioritizing that. Well, again, what are my what are my primary biz what are my primary categories of customers? Audio podcasters, probably.
Well, they're no. They're they're We're not really doing doing much with businesses, their news channels, their tech. Right. So, you know, are they chasing advertising? Most of them are not. Right. Let's see here. Do we have some money come in? Let me look. Speak of monetization. We got a 1,000 sass from BR Happy. Heck, yeah. V for v. Yeah. That was a comment from the last show. 1700 one set from BD Natsis. Have you checked into Boomcast or is an option for live streaming and recording?
No. I have not. There was a good article. Dave Jackson put up a good article on Facebook about the dilemma that we've been having with this show on when I'm traveling on all these platforms, Riverside's podcast, all these platforms. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit of everything, but none of them have everything. Yeah. So yeah. I would tend to agree. It's it's a mixed bag right now, you know, on on all these platforms. So boom cast or we have to have to look at boom cast.
But this article at the end that Nick Qua wrote, and this is a quote directly from the article says video is unlikely to kill the audio podcast sector, but will continue to coexist and shape the medians, the mediums trajectory in hopefully complementary ways. So I think that's the that's the takeaway, from what he wrote anyway. If if the Apple team, you know, starts paying a little more attention to video, that could help too not making it a second class citizen in the platform.
You know, I have full attention of coming out with a new new option at Blueberry for video, but, again, the demand has been so low. I keep dropping it down on the priority list. Yeah. I guess. We just don't have customers asking for it. I guess all all the attention around videos really at the end of the day is really centered around what YouTube is doing. Yeah. I think at the end of the I mean, I was thinking about that the other day about, and I think we talked about it or
I did on my show last week. Podcast tips. I talked about, Spotify is podcasting efforts and podcasters need to be aware of of of that platform. We we had some interesting comments from the last show, you know, and I've seen other people start to say, when when when will you wake up podcasters to what's going on? You know, when will you wake up? So To for Ned saying this about What aspect of it, Todd, are you talking about?
Wake up to what? Wake up to Spotify or Wake up to the fact that, you know, Spotify's not gonna be putting money in your pocket. Yeah. To that extent. You know? Ferdinand, I turned up my volume level a little bit, so hopefully that helped. Someone said the volume sounds low today. So I upped my volume a bit. Yeah. Apologize about that. So in some ways, really, I think at the end of the day, the the the dilemma between audio and video is really driven by context of the content.
Certain content is going to lean lean itself. Probably a little stronger on the video side than other types of content. And it depends on the preferences of the creator too, you know? And, but the influence of these big platforms, Todd is, you know, I don't think anybody can argue with that. No. Yeah. And if, you know, and if, this, it could be the downfall of the entire podcasting space. Yeah. Well, you know, Nick doesn't really in this article
address that question, Mark. I, I know James Cridland has expressed that concern publicly as well that, you know, these platforms threaten the, the centralized monetization fair strategies that many companies have built and implemented, invested lots of money in to create. And, and once we get into a situation where all of us have to upload directly to these platforms, which is clearly the direction that things are moving towards, It's I don't know what that future looks like, unfortunately.
Well, Spotify is saying, you know, that they're potentially will have an API at some point to submit video. But the problem is it's still going to overwrite the audio. Right? Yeah. Right. Their, their priority is video now going forward, which is interesting given that they're a music platform primarily. Right? And you saw YouTube as a video platform prioritizing music. So they're both kind of moving towards each other.
I just don't know that Spotify has really any significant momentum on the video side. That's, that's kind of my observation. They do. They claim they have significant, they want to, right? Because it's very profitable and if they can get that, that audience from them. Right. Right. Exactly. But I just, you know, youtube is such a juggernaut out there that I don't think there's anybody that is even in the realm of competition with them. Well,
here's the thing I hear. This is what I'm hearing the where there is an opportunity. Yeah. Is in platforms that don't censor. Oh, right. Rumble and And even they Who else? Yeah. Even they, to a point. So I think if you Yeah. I think it's a If that non censorship thing is a tough This is tougher this is where there is a path forward for content creators. In that, if you are having content that is being suppressed, demonetized, taken down,
What are you talking about? Take a lot to have content taken down these days. Mhmm. We get copyright strikes on this show just out of the blue, and we're not running music because the algorithm thinks we're running music sometimes, which is bizarre. And it's like 18 minutes into the show and I have to say there's no audio here. There are no No. There's no No music, you mean? Right. And, I think that there is a opportunity for podcasting to serve those shows that are regularly being suppressed
and demonetized. And, yeah, so whenever I hear and my friend, it just happened yesterday. I was in a chat group and someone said, oh, I and and this was a video that was put up on, not LinkedIn, but it's one of the pay services that's for video. They bought livestream. What's the name of that video service? For people people that have they they Vimeo? Vimeo. So private a private group, private video put up, nothing that was in the video was adult in nature, and they took the video down. So Oh.
So if you have a platform that is a paid platform that you're paying for, and they're still taking content down, because some weasel in a chair doesn't like the content. There needs to be a place for content to live that, is is will avoid sensors. And as some weasel in a chair that says, oh, I don't like this video. My sensitivities have been hurt. I'm going to remove it from the platform without any reason. Gun content. Well, this is being picked up by brand
safety algorithms now. Some gun gun content, adult content. You just anything that this slightly controversy, that could cause some weasel. Again, I'm using the word weasel, broadly here because they're the ones that are removing this content. Someone that sensitivities are, you know, someone sensitivities got hurt. I mean, it's amazing. You pay for Vimeo, you think they would take videos down and they're doing and again, the video did not contain any adult content at all.
So there is a there is an opportunity for some content to reside other places. And I think that is something that we will promote is that we are a platform that is basically if you're being taken down somewhere else, so long as you're not killing someone or you're doing hate speech and that kind of thing, come on. Yeah. But what is hate speech? So yeah. That's the problem. That's so, you know, we've clearly defined what we'll accept
and won't accept in terms of service. And again, I would say that we're pretty I think most podcasting companies are pretty open to a large majority of content long as you're not invoking violence. So there is a place then for this content that is being suppressed by by these mainstream media companies. So so maybe that's where we where we fit a niche. And, and then it's a retraining of an audience that, is being cut out of content that they want to get access to.
Yeah. I mean, what we saw over the last 6 months was really driven based on audiences having an interest in kind of cutting edge controversial content. Right. And I don't know that that that moderation and stuff is really going to decline that much. I think as the technology gets better, it's going to be easier and easier to scan video to scan the audio looking for keywords. I mean, all these platforms are pulling transcripts now, so they have access to every word or phrase that's used in this.
Any of this content, like even this this show right now, we're streaming to all of these big platforms and I'm sure they're analyzing every word we say. I'm sure. Yeah. And if we say something that doesn't fit the models that have been built, then there's a there's a flag room, you know, thrown up and and it's true and the contents driven down.
Right. It's, you know, it like Elon said, you know, you can say whatever you want to say, but there's no guarantee that there's going to be anybody that actually sees it because they don't need to be suppressed. You know, doing a new show with a tech show. There's stuff I cover there that are, you know, they're talking about embezzlement and there's all kinds of words that are, you know, that are surfaced that would would probably trigger some a logo somewhere.
So again, I think that, the suppression units at YouTube and Spotify or wherever else they belong and the AI giants that are killing content, then, you know, what is podcasting? Well, podcasting in its traditional sense is a is a is a last bastion of free speech. It's a place where you can go and not be suppressed and have your content deplatformed, then you still can have distribution. And I think if we continue to to remind people of that
Yeah. Then when they get pissed off, when I get the email, Todd, you know, 3 of my videos on such and such platform was taken down. What can you do for me? I'm like, hey. Got a solution for you, brother. You know, come on. That was a podcast. It's we've got it for you. We can you know? And, no, it's not free.
But, if you believe in your content and you have an audience that's supporting you, few donations here and there, supporting the value of your content, you can pay that that bill and continue to talk about what you want to talk about and do video if you want to do video. Right. Now this article from Nick, had one little historical warning in it, which brings back a little bit of the past that may be reflect maybe, but let's talk about how, how the situation might
be different now. But, back in the mid 2,000, 2010s there was a push towards video and podcasting. Right? That was the pivot to video era is what he calls it, which led in the article he said led to resource misallocation and platform driven failures. So the monetization models weren't built quite well back then around video online.
Right? So a lot of these companies venture back companies that were doing video podcasting back in the early days of the medium invested a lot in building, you know, quality content, podcasts, video podcast content, and a lot of them sold out, and went out of business. Let's look what's happened to Twitch. Right. And so there is a history of
that happening here. I guess what we have to say now is that this is a different era and legacy media is not ruling over the online media space quite as much as it used to. So and a lot of those big media creators and big media producers or whatever are moving to the online space. So we may be seeing kind of a a big historical shift, that is different than those early days. Well, I I think that, in the end, consumers are going to, are going to decide.
I I think that's, in the end, what will It's a generational choice. Right? Yeah. What is the the the youngest 2 generations? What are they choosing? So That may be what the path is. I know you've been saying that about podcasting for a long time. People don't listen to radio because the younger generation doesn't tune into it anymore. So Yeah. So I think it's one of those situations where, I guess for a better word, we'll we'll find out. Time will tell. Yeah. We will.
And we probably won't be here, but yeah. Yeah. You know, and it's it's there is not you know, I I I see it in Blueberry's business. It is not without challenges. And, you know, we're looking at everything and making sure that we're, you know, we can survive the the change to the dichotomy of podcasting. And if we're seeing it, others are seeing
it too. So because there's, you know, I I I think there's no one's talking about it, but I think there is real risk out there, yeah, from a business sense, in the podcasting space. So Yeah. Plan. You know, time will tell where that, where that leads. And hopefully, you know, the economy hasn't helped it either, but I think we've seen this. I think it's more than the economy at this point. Yeah. I thought it was interesting his comment, Nick was comment about the ecosystem fracturing.
He says that the platform specialization, is is a kind of a key driving point here. Podcasting may be split into sub ecosystems and then he goes on to list YouTube, Spotify home for video based mass appeal chat casts. Apple podcast is supporting narrative public radio style content. Mhmm. He's showing his bias there when he says that. I think overall he did a pretty good, you know, did a pretty good piece. So yeah. So, anyway yeah. Alright. So I think we should get out
of here. I've got another show to record. You you Oh, you do? Yeah. I got my regular show to record after this. So I'll be back for everyone. And if you wanna hang out a little later, probably about an hour, I've got a meeting at 11. A triple header going on here. Yeah. So, but the next show, might be Podfest because I'm traveling.
Okay. I don't get back until, like, when I arrive in Michigan will be about the time we do this show on Wednesday, and I'm gonna just be I'm probably gonna be a zombie unless I sleep on the on the airplane well. So, I'll I'll let you know if I'm in a shape to do the show. We'd have to do it Wednesday night if we're gonna, if we're gonna do it. So I'll I'll let you know where my my brain is if I can muster up. And first of all, I gotta get the studio turned on from Cold Iron.
So, yeah, it's been shut down for a while. For two and a half months. I'm sure that's gonna be fun. And we're doing this show, on stage at Podfest on the on 16th. Who's gonna be joining us? Right now I have confirmation from Rocky Thomas is gonna be there with us. Oh, okay. And then there's one other gentleman that hasn't a 100% confirmed yet, but he was trying to make it. So how's the podcast academy? Or the hall of fame? Hall of Fame.
Yeah. I'm sorry. It's not the podcast academy, but yeah, yeah. It's okay. It's coming along. Okay. We're, we're pulling the, the, the overall video production together, pulling all the elements together and all of the, you know, all the pieces are coming together. It should be together here, you know, within the week, it should be all buttoned up and ready to go. Awesome. Okay. See if I can do this correctly here. Let me find it.
Don't forget, you can go over on [email protected] and get subscribed to the show. Of course, I'm geek news at g mail dot com at Geek News on x and at Geek News at Geek News dot chat on, Mastodon. Rob? Yeah. I'm on x as well. Again, the, found at Rob Greenlee and on Facebook on LinkedIn. Also on YouTube at Rob Greenlee as well. So I have my own channel over there with a bunch of different shows going on there.
So you can reach out to me via email if you want rob, dot greenleygmail.com. Happy to hear from you and, connect up. And if you're going to pod Fest, reach out and we'd love to meet you there. So, so can always catch the show again at newmediashow.comforward/live. That's where it resides besides all the other places we restream to on X and Rumble and Facebook and Twitter. And, yeah, we've had a good variety of people come in from a variety of different areas today. So,
thanks for being here. And, Rob, we'll see if I'm not so jet lagged to do a show next week at there at this time versus 3 o'clock. So, Okay. As David says, let's make great podcasts this year, and let's make podcasting great again. Okay. That's kinda dumb. That's, right. Yeah. We just lost 50% of the audience. Yeah. I think that I think there's a a new acronym for that that we need to come up with, Todd. Yeah. Probably not probably not the best one.
Alright, everyone. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next time. Bye bye. Okay. Bye.