Todd and Rob in the afternoon. Afternoon delight. With Todd and Rob. Oh, yeah. Well, Rob, here we are. I I am back in the rebuilt studio. How are you? I'm doing alright, Todd. How are you? I'm I'm good in my, well, those that cannot see behind or in front of me, my my I spent literally I I got everything done kinda wired up Friday. And then I literally spent all day Saturday, all day, and part of Sunday cleaning up, taking stuff I didn't need back to the storage units, sorting the assortment of
I've got big yellow tubs. Does anyone need a land cable? You've got a bunch of extra stuff I do too, so I get it. I and I have big yellow tubs, land cables, SDI cables, power cables. I mean, I probably get enough power cables to power half the country and just, you know, the little plugs that go into stuff. So, yeah, we're we're back. Studios dialed. Yeah. That I think 90% on dialed in still has some dark spots, but I I don't know. It looks exactly the same for those that have Yeah. That's
what I was gonna comment, Todd. It Yeah. It doesn't look like you moved. It doesn't look like I went anywhere. Right? So Yeah. So yeah. So it's it is there we go. The you know, it it doesn't look like a move. The only thing is the background's a little bit different. And the complaint I've had so far is it should have been uniform. But I'm like, no. That was the way it was designed was to be, you know, polka dotted. Now It's like me me, I've got black
and gray panels Yeah. Behind me on the wall, and it's it's more for looks than it is anything else. Yeah. Originally, this was the panel that was directly in front of me. So when I had the a wall, and there's no wall here anymore. When I had a wall, it was, that was what was in front of me. Of course, then I've got a TV here. So the only thing it really is different is all the furniture is the same. A few different camera angles. Stuff is a little bit positioned.
Plus, I'm about a foot further from the back. So there's about 12 more inches. So when I go to this view, that's much wider. You know, much much wider, of a view. And, of course, I turn the camera this way for this show, then I turn it back pointing towards the other monitors. But yeah. So, be honest with you, I was afraid that I was gonna have an issue with, you know, hand reflex and everything else. But the first night I did the stream, there was only one channel
up. The left channel was working and I scratch my head the show whole show, and it just was a pan setting on the TriCaster. Your audio sounds pretty good coming in. I see when we first connected, you said I'm, you know, blasting you, so you had to turn Yeah. Turn me down. Yeah. So from that act but the only other the only other risk is the bandwidth. And for those of you that wanna know how that's being structured, we're streaming on Starlink. So the outbound is going on Starlink, and
I watched the weather. The weather today looked good. So if the weather's bad, I'll flip it so that we stream on my point to point. You are coming in on the point to point. So I kept the stream separate, and so everything in the house is wired at a gig. Of course, you know, I have nowhere near that connectivity, but speed test done before the show. The only problem is gonna be is when it's bad weather, then all bets are off.
Yeah. Yeah. It could go sideways. So when you say point to point, how exactly does that work? Because I'm sure there's people that are Well, there that had no idea what that is. So there is a tower, 30 feet outside this wall. The wall is about 15 feet from me. I'm in 2 I'm in a 2,000 square foot, and the and the tower is 30 or 35 feet high. And at the top of that is an antenna that's pointing to another antenna 14 miles away. And that, that antenna plugs right into a a modem.
So it plugs plugs right into my, Ubiquiti device, and it says, okay. I get an IP blah blah blah. So, it's a PoE device. So it's power over Ethernet. It powers the antenna. And then that basically touches another tower, and that's how the communication goes is wirelessly. Now in the summer, which we're in the middle of full greenery here, the connection will be worse because I'm shooting a little bit at some point probably through treetops. Oh. Because it isn't exact. I can't see it.
And if I took if I stood on top of the tower and did my binoculars, and there's not a but in the winter, the signal gets better because the granary goes away. Right. Yeah. There's no leaves on the surface. Much leaves for so right now, my speed actually, my speed on that point to point connection, their company called DMCI is was when we tested today, it was about 35 megs. Now that's down about 5 up. It it varies. And I'm sharing with all the neighbors
that's on this. And then, of course, STARLINK is is usually good if there's no weather, but, you know, there's no wired connection here. We're all using you know, I'm on the edge of this. So so we'll see how it goes. So those of you that tune in live, if you're watching live today, and, we are up lit and live. We're up on podcasting apps. We are up on YouTube, Facebook, and everywhere else that we normally are. So if you're watching live and the stream gets weird, Not my fault.
Done the best I can. We will have a master recording unless Rob goes, you know, and freezes. Well, it can certainly happen on my end too. It's But you have a go ahead. But you're wired. You have a you have a much much higher probability of staying online than I do. But I have noticed I'm on Xfinity, cable cable connection. And I've noticed it's it's been a little not as reliable as what you would expect. Now I have
one trick left up my sleeve. So the STARLINK can fall over to the connection you're on. So STARLINK goes down, the way the thing is wired, it will fall over to the point to point. The point to point. If the point to point fails, there's no fall over yet. Now this is a long shot. My sister, she's got the same setup as I do. She has Starlink, and she has Point to Point. Now she the Point to Point, I cannot be on. She's, she's a county clerk.
Mhmm. So she's only allowed to have one machine connected to that wired, that she does election stuff. So that is that network is off limits to me. I can't use that as a potential backup because that intent is actually pointing to another tower. And I said, shit. If you had a if you had a if that was not restricted, I would make that the fallback to the fallback. Right. Because I can do that the way I'm wired here now.
But she has Starlink as well. So I said, well, if my Starlink goes down, your Starlink's gonna go down because it's gonna be the same the same situation. So all told, $240 a month to maintain this connectivity. Now, I was at the local fair and the company was there. I told the guy, so who do I have to bribe? Bring fiber down my road. He said, $70,000 a mile to bring fiber to my house. Oh. Now do we have any benefactors to the new week show? Yeah. It's if it gets to that point, we'll just quit.
Anyway Yeah. I think that's a glimpse of the challenges of what's been termed for many years. The their their rule Rural robin. Yeah. Right. Is is just the cost of doing it is astronomical. I know that the US government has created a a multibillion dollar budget to bring Internet connectivity. I know all about that. Know that they've really ever done it. So So The government paid Frontier again. We've Oh, did we did we freeze? I can hear you. Rob, I can hear you.
Yeah. I I could hear you talking, but you weren't moving. Yeah. Frontier Frontier was I think Go ahead. Yeah. I think it's safe to say that the dream of, ubiquitous Internet access, fast Internet access is not really No. Come to fruition No. For whatever reason. They It's usually money. Yeah. So Frontier was giving the a big massive pot of money, and they're they they were told to expand. They have spent none of that in this area.
0. None of that money the government allocated to expand rural broadband was spent by Frontier. 1,000,000,000 I mean, 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars, and they they've not spent a penny of it because it costs $70,000 a mile to bring fiber down. So yeah. Cost that much. It shouldn't cost that much. Well, by time you get permits and crossing roads and digging under trench, I agree it shouldn't cost that much.
But right aways, I you know, it it is it and here's the here's the challenge is we spend all these 1,000,000,000 of dollars sending money overseas, And yet, I'm a mile and a half from, a Spectrum connector. The last the last plug is a mile and a half for me. Yeah. And I offered to pay to have that line brought down the road. At the time, it was only $12,000, which I thought it was a great deal.
And they told me I have to get 50% of the people on the road to sign up for Spectrum for a commitment of 2 years before we would bring it down even though I paid for the cable. I'm just like, you got to be kidding me. Alright. So, anyway, welcome to New Media Show, everyone. We're talking rural broadband. Right. Well, it's an issue for still a lot of people out there that wanna get access to online media. You know, I think we're we're in an era where, you know, the broadcast television and
all the stuff is in decline. And and getting access to the Internet is kind of your pathway to information and work and all sorts of it's it's a critical component now. Good or bad, depending on your your opinion about it. But, yeah, it's and it these kind of things impact podcasting too. Yeah. I mean, it's people can't get online. They can't get to your content.
So again, those that have connections, you know, it's just kind of a given, you know, you get pissed off when your your service goes out for a couple of hours. But 2 years ago, we couldn't have done this. This is why I had this. That's why I had the office in the other town. Because when I first moved here, 15 megs up, 3 megs no. 3 megs up, 15 down. That was it. It's all we had here. That's not gonna work. Yeah. For for 4 years.
And then Starlink came. I got Starlink. And then just recently, as as I was being evicted but not really evicted. That's the wrong word. Having my lease terminated, same thing, they up the point to point speed. And this is like, I better hang on. I better keep both these services. But as you just saw, you you you did you know? So anyway That could be on my side too. Yeah. Who who knows? And we're on Zoom. To know. Yeah. It's hard to say. I I would suspect it's the connection.
We'll we'll see how we do over the whole show here. But, hey, how about, Patreon? How about Patreon telling, all their, creators, sorry. 30%. You're gonna you're gonna get, all the money you're getting via someone that signed up for a Patreon via iOS is gonna get 30 Apple's gonna get 30% of your rev. Yeah. I guess that's not an incentive to sign up through the iOS app. So, you know, here if if Patreon had a set and had some fortitude and was strong,
they would say, fine. Cancel the app, and we will only be do business via PWA and the web. That's what people are gonna wind up doing anyway now. Well, you know, it's very, very hard, Rob, to tell someone that is doing stuff on their phone. That's true. If you have someone that is consuming all their content on their phone to go and say, you can't we don't want you to do anything on the Patreon app. We don't want you to consume content
on the Patreon app. We want you to come in and use a PWA, which most people, their eyes glaze over. It it's this is, you know, it is this is so think of you if you were a podcaster today, and you have now you're now taking a a 30% haircut. Well, Todd, let's get really clear on what they're doing here because it it kinda says 2 things here. It says, Apple will take 30% of all creator payments Creator. Creator payments Right. On the iOS app. Yep.
Apple is already taking 30% of all the creator payments, which is the payments made by the the listener or the viewer, right, through the app. Right. So so what this is is Apple's gonna take 30% of all creator payments. So if you set up an account on Patreon through the iOS app, that that payment that you make to Patreon is gonna have a have a deduction made before the money makes it to Patreon. So what's patron gonna do? They're probably gonna pass that cost on.
Well, what they're gonna have to do is come to the website. Cancel anything that you're doing through the app. Yeah. But, again Yeah. But if you're already signed up through the app Yeah. If you're already signed up through through the app, then that means that Patreon's Yeah. Costs just went up. Then it was a little bit of a gray area Patreon was working on. So Apple's getting its cake and eating it too in dub double whammy. Yeah. I'm surprised that Apple wasn't taking 30%.
Well, that's why that's all creator payments up to this point. That's why it was operating in this gray area. Right. Yeah. So So you know, build your as I have learned, first hand, here we are. You know, here we are in the new we're in the you know, we're in my new space. Do not build your castle on rented land.
Yeah. And the same well, it's not the same topic, but there was some discussion on social media over the last couple days about, you know, the the desire of many in the industry to get rid of the download again. Again. Right. And it it's all it always revolves around primarily the same issue, and it's access to listener user data. Right? Yep. It's the same thing that that Rad tried to do through NPR is getting access to player data of sorts. Right?
And somehow the the industry would like to shift to this concept of of monetization that's, gauged based on, the attention that is obtained, by by the podcast. Right? And what the engagement is of the audience as a metric Right. Versus using a download, which it it seems like a lot of people are are against really anything in regards to to the download, because they think it's it's basically an empty box of data. There there's just not enough
data for what the expectations are. And my pushback to this whole discussion is, to some degree, is be careful what you wish for because this plays into the narrative of the large proprietary platforms. That's right. And there was some pushback on that too saying, well, that's not necessarily the case because all
the big platforms currently support RSS. But what we have seen over the years is a gradual erosion and growth of perception whether it be, at all the proprietary platforms of direct upload models starting to be deployed. Yeah. Right? And so, you know, if you have fewer listening platforms, right, then it's a more viable option for each of these platforms to enable direct upload strategies, especially these big platforms that have basically
acquired or purchased podcast host platforms. Yep. Right? That's part of a strategy to have a direct upload relationship with content providers. So Right. There's a danger here. And I was just calling it out and people were, you know, getting all spun up about this whole concept that that well, we need better data in order to to get better CPMs and demand. You know, it's that's been the story for everything. You know? It has been. This is not a new conversation.
Brand safety brand safety is gonna help get higher CPMs. IB certification is gonna help get better CPMs. GARM is and we gotta we gotta talk about GARM. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm going to here. I've You know? Some stuff I wanna pull up about. Because there there is a house of cards around GARM. It's Well, it's already fallen. The whole Well, I know. But the the whole the fallen with 2 people. You know? That and I'm sorry to say, but the damage has
already been done with GARM. So, you know, just because they the World Federation of Advertisers decided to close-up shop because the the water was getting a little too hot, on that topic, doesn't mean that all the platforms that adopted Garm are just doing what they're doing. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go back to okay. So we we've kinda covered 2 or 3 things here. We've talked about Patreon and and and the idiocy that's going on there.
Yeah. And and then this next topic, you know, it just Yeah. I know. You know, someone, I can't say I have to be careful. Fact of Todd being careful, I made a comment in a Slack group. And I and someone is asking, oh, Garm is gone. And I I said good effing riddance. Yeah. But And you and you know There's a reason why it was very easy for them to shut that down. Right. And and and I said, riddance of the 2 people and the shell game that was being played.
And then someone came back and said, oh, that's not gonna change how we're gonna do business. We're still not gonna advertise on certain shows. And my response was, you should divulge that. You should say you you you if you're using this, I said to the company, you should declo disclose if which shows and which episodes you have said are brand risk, are whatever reason. You you should disclose this to the community, to the podcaster, and and, let's let's just lay the cards where they lay.
That didn't go over. That went over like a fart in church. Well, Todd, there's a much deeper story of this. Oh, boy. No. The whole Garm thing was really kind of a a face for the real platform that's behind this, and it's called it's called NewsGuard. Yeah. And so I oh, I you're gone, Todd. I know. I put you I put you front screen. Oh, you did? Okay. So this is the the actual company that's behind what, Garm was all about. This is the actual actual company here. It's at newsguard tech.com.
And as you can see on the front, it's all about, tracking election, misinformation and detecting misinformation. And so, you know, and then creating a reality ratings for news outlets. Mhmm. Right? So this is this is essentially the same thing as what Garm was being being accused of. Yep. Yep. But this is the this is the master platform for this whole initiative. That's why it was so easy for them to shut down Garm was because this is all this is still going.
Yeah. Well, you know, then Elon needs to sue them or whoever the masterminds, you know, the group behind this. They they they they should you should go after them. Yeah. I I just it it's this the simple I saw something on CNBC, and it was on a YouTube channel. Mhmm. And it was basically, you know, you either love or hate Elon Musk at this point. But he he was basically, asked by CNBC. You you say some stuff on your channel that makes people not wanna own Teslas anymore.
And he he, and, you know, and and makes people nervous about advertising, and he paused. I mean, he paused for, like, an uncomfortable 30 seconds and kinda looked away. He was doing a a a recall. And and, again, I I I don't know what That's that's typical Elon, though. You know? And and and he basically come back and referenced a movie. And it was like, gosh. I I wish I could quote it. It was so classic. And then, basically, he was just basically saying,
Pac's hand. And I'm being nice. I'm using nice words. I'm gonna say what I wanna say because it's my right to say what I say. And stuff that's been deemed misinformation today has turned out to be real 3 months later, and he referenced the the laptop, the hunter laptop. We won't get into politics here, but that was one example. Right? We have many, many more because of COVID and everything else. So you have all these people that think they know best. They think they are God.
They think they're smarter than everyone, and they think that we, as consumers of content at large, don't know our ass from a hole in the ground and should Mhmm. Be basically treated as children. So I'm at a point.
Yeah. That if you're working with if you're a podcaster and you're working with a company and monetization is the name of your game, and you say anything controversial just like I did just a second ago, which would probably make this show brand unsafe, You need to consider who you're working with. Yeah. I don't do any third party tracking. None. None. 0. My partner that does host right ads doesn't either. Yeah. And guess what? It is the way it is.
Mhmm. I I I at what point at what point do everyone just you know? I guess those that are eating from the the advertising, you know, trough have to accept that, you know, these executives think they know best about your content and, what brands would you know? I'd rather have a content some content be a little bit on the edge, a little spicy. Mhmm. And if if an advertiser comes in there and advertises with that, that tells me that that brand really stands for something. And what does they
stand for? Freedom of speech. And I mean, that's pretty important, but I'm just Todd. Yeah. Todd, I would say that there's not a lot of data or evidence that an advertiser advertising on a show that's considered to be brand unsafe, has any significant, reduction in ROI. So there isn't a lot of solid data behind this practice of of using these tools. And if you go to, the NewsGuard website, they do have a area on the website that specifically refers to podcasting. Oh. So
so here I'll Hey, Rob. Bring that up. Before you go there, I wanna go back. We got an email I got a text here on YouTube from Eileen. She says, hi, Rob and Todd. This is a quote from the email I got from Patreon. And I know this was the case, so we did we failed to mention it. We want to really care about one thing. This will not impact your existing membership at all. Apple's App Store fee only applies to new membership purchased in the iOS App Store beginning in November 2024.
Okay. Well, that's good to hear. So that's it is good, but so this gives you from August 14th until November 1st to change your strategy on who you are talking to for new Patreon, and people that renew that maybe their credit card went dead. But, anyway, go ahead, Rava, in this podcast, quote, unquote, reliability ratings.
Yeah. So the the this is on that same website that I just pulled up a minute ago, and it just points out what I was just saying is that the whole GARM discontinuation is just kinda like a Smoking news. Front or this whole thing. Yeah. So this is actually the foundation of it. And I've I discovered this on their website, you know, probably 6 or 8 months ago. And I wrote an article about this whole thing on my my robgreenley.com blog just to let people know about what's
what's happening here. It's really podcasters need to understand what's really going on here. It's being portrayed in the industry as this opportunity for people to, you know, get get more advertising in their show because they've been evaluated and they're considered safe, but there is kind of a darker use side to this. And and I do think that there is a risk, and we may be seeing, it happen, and we just don't know it yet. But the this same technology could be applied to the listening
platforms Yeah. Yeah. As well. Right? Of course. So not just to the advertising side of things. Rob, you should see the emails I get from the from the big s. You you should see the emails I get, and we we get the email says that this episode has been removed because of blah blah blah. And we go listen to the episode. Yeah. And I am astounded Right. By the number of episodes that get removed over there. Mhmm. And I'm like, this is not safe for your platform? And we and we inform the podcaster and
say, hey. They they have taken this episode down or they have suppressed it in search. We tell them what they've told us and nary a podcaster that is and we get these weekly. Nary a podcaster that we inform ever does anything. Why? Why don't they call them out? Why don't they scream? I'd scream bloody murder if what if our show showed up on a list. Now I had our writers over at, Podcaster News. I I asked them to write a article on podcasting and RSS and the importance of RSS feeds.
Mhmm. And the reason the reason I asked this is because more and more, we're getting people on the phone that are migrating to Blueberry from other hosting platforms, and we ask them what is your RSS feed? And they go, what is that? I don't understand. I don't don't know what you're talking about. Or consultants that don't know what the RSS feed of a of a podcast is. Mhmm. And this article says, in evolving landscape of podcasting, one technology remains a constant linchpin, RSS.
Despite its pivotal role, a growing number of podcasters in the teams lack a fundamental understanding of RSS and its significance. The knowledge gap presents risks that could impact the openness and accessibility of podcasting itself. Going back to what you said here a little while ago about these platforms wanting to go to streaming, want to abolish the download Mhmm. The it's this ongoing suppression of information.
What how how can it be a podcaster that is creating content does not know does not know his RSS feed does what it does today. It is it is this is this is an existential threat to podcasting, And it's coming from people from Spotify and a few other platforms Mhmm. That It's been going on for years now. It it's just been this kind kind of undercurrent in the industry Yeah. That that it just happens a little bit at a time and
a little bit at a time. And and people raise, you know, red flags like us, and it's like then people kind of crash on top of us and say, oh, that that's that's that's old curmudgeon talk. Well, they're they're they're not talking to podcasters every day like we are. Right. This this is not this is not Todd just, oh, doom and gloom. This is this is me looking in the rant channel on Blueberry's, Slack channel, and the the team going, I got another one. Doesn't know what what their feed is.
And all these topics are somewhat related to each other. Yeah. Part part of a larger move in the industry towards the domination by proprietary platform. Right. And that's what the fundamental struggle is of podcasting 2.0 is, is fighting back against that. Absolutely. And, and giving this concept of innovation into the open standard. I I and I'm just gonna call a spade a spade.
Mhmm. Robin Elsie over at the feed, and Rob Walsh's complete lack of even wanting to consider RSS 2 podcasting 2 point o and the benefits of that and pooh pooh ing it, it it you know, that is it's Lipson has, made their bed. And, obviously, they lost their CEO. He left. So there's absolute chaos over there. So this this I this this concept of we we're not gonna do any of that stuff because it's it's it's just for 5%.
Well, you know, in the end, getting in bed with the devil, being a couple of these companies that are doing what they're doing, it could be it could be the end of the industry. Well, I guess, you know, and it's it's not so much that they're they're they're the devil in some way. I'm not saying that okay. I'm not referring to Libsyn. I'm referring to third parties. No. No. But I, you know, I know that, Libsyn has been very vocal over the years around its its privacy positions, its its Well
positions on Not lately. Ship. Well, I think those values still exist. I mean They do. I've I've talked to them and they do feel pretty strongly about it. But I do think that there is this tension in the industry that is coming in around these new concepts, and it's being driven through the advertising side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, but what a lot of people don't realize when they look at the big picture of these topics is that the advertising side is like 10% of the market. Right?
So as far as total numbers of podcasters, right? And so you, you're kind of shaping the industry based on a small set of content creators that, are are trying to do whatever they can, to cater to the advertiser. Yeah. Right? And this is a little bit this is the the same kind of ideology that came out of broadcast radio. So so in some ways, you know, like I used to work at podcast 1, I admit it for a year. And that was a company that had its roots
in broadcast commercial syndicated radio. Right. And just about everything that we did at that company was focused on the advertiser, what the advertiser wanted. Right? At the end of the day, that company really caters to advertisers. That's who their customer is. The the listener is the product Right. Not the customer. Well, and that's the way it is at Spotify. The listener is the product. And that's the ideology that's coming into podcasting
increasingly. And if we see that fully develop like it did in broadcast radio, then podcasting is gonna be just like broadcast radio. Right? Yeah. Do we want that? Do we want over commercialization? Do we want high ad loads? I don't think the industry really wants that. And I do think that there's a recognition that ad loads at 16 minutes an hour is just not a sustainable model for the podcast
side of things. But I do think that these larger media companies would like to get back there again because it's means that they've been able to recover their revenue that came out of commercial radio side. So this year, for the podcast awards Mhmm. Record number of shows didn't enter the RSS feed, when they registered. Yeah. So we're starting to see a shift away from RSS. And those out there that
kinda shoot me down on that Yep. Are are kind of not really looking at the, the kind of arc of this over the last 10 years. Of the 300 entries, how many do you think didn't put their RSS feed when they registered that I had to go back and say, give me your RSS feed? And I forced them to get I I could look it up, but I forced them to send me an email with their RSS feed. How many do you think there was over a 100 that made the slate that didn't enter the
RSS feed? And then I had some decide, oh, I don't have an RSS feed. And I'm like, well probably don't they probably don't even know where to get it. And and then I went I went I said, well, you you're on Apple Podcast, so you have to have an RSS feed to be on Apple Podcasts. And I looked it up. I sent it over to them. Guess where everyone everyone that didn't know they had an RSS feed, what platform do you think they were on? Spotify. Megaphone. Oh, well, that is Spotify. Spotify.
Yeah. So I'm not I just see. I'm just seeing stuff. I'm just Well and and it is true also on on a lot of the the larger podcast hosting platforms. It's not easy to find your RSS feed URL in the interface. And it doesn't help that some podcasting companies give you 10 RSS feeds, one for each destination, but we'll leave it at that. There's another juicy one over on Podcaster News. Why podcasters should think twice before trusting Spotify?
So it's a very enlightening read. I think people should go over there and read that. Take your time and go through that. Make a comment on it, please. Mhmm. So, you know, all we can do here is fight fire with fire at this point. And, like Mike says in the chat, without RSS, freeing and open podcasting is dead. Well, it becomes a a market of proprietary platform. Right. Gatekeepers. Right. Like,
like like YouTube. Yeah. Gatekeeper. Yeah. And and but the but the issue that was being discussed in this thread online was, having an aggregation of player data back to, let's say, a blueberry or a Clemson or what, whatever. And and I guess YouTube has been the only large proprietary platform that has enabled like an API share back, but not everybody's adopted it or not everyone has got access. Right. Well, I mean, it's not based on the same, you know, I'd be, be 2.2 compliant
data. It's based on YouTube's Right. Criteria. I'm not sure if they're compliant with the IAB on the audio side. They may be, but I don't know offhand. I did see the Podscribe is now 2.2 compliant, which is, is it pod scribe? Is that owned by Spotify too? I don't know. Yeah. We're going through our recertification right now.
Yeah. And on a kind of, not a direct related topic, but I do know that we've talked about in prior episodes, we've talked about revenue growth on the advertising side and podcasting and how, you know, we're constantly making projections about, you know, we're going to be at $4,000,000,000 and next year and all this stuff, and it's been 5 years that they've been saying that. Yeah. I do I I did see that Iheart, put out their financial report, q 2 2024
showing that podcast revenue. So this is a positive thing, I suppose, if you wanna look at it that way. It was up 8.1% year over year, but its growth is slowing. So this is another thing like like we were talking about is that the projections and what has happened in the past, the growth is slowing. And so so but Bob Pittman said that, you know, and this is what every, every CEO says is that, well, next quarter, we're going
to be up double digits. Right. And that's exactly what these, these forecast reports were saying too, is 12% growth. Right? But it's actually coming in at 8%, which I guess given the market and the the economy, 8% growth is, I guess, could be considered good news. Well, Rob, I must to those who've been living live and lit today. On the audio stream, only you can hear me. For some reason, you can't hear Rob. It must be another pot turned down.
I can probably fix it, but I'm not gonna jump up at this point and do it. So Okay. I I it's no wonder we're not getting any boost because they can't hear you. Yeah. Okay. There you go. I missed I missed one one setting. Damn it. Well, I guess, I guess you need to go watch this on one of the big, large proprietary platforms like YouTube. Well, go to new mediashow.com and, you know Well, you can do that too. Right? Get get you know, we'll have audio and video again back on the, you
know, on the show too. So but, you know, I don't know. It's I I I don't wanna be this doom and gloom guy. I don't either. But these are these are the facts. These are what it's actually happening. And, you know, I mean I mean, we we we can all put, you know, roses on on the table and make it look good or whatever, or or we can really be honest about this and and really see what's happening. And and as as an industry, you know, we do have power to to do things if we want to change here.
So it's just, it's like a lot of things that are happening in our world right now. We have big choices ahead of us around the direction that we want to go with our, our country, our nation, our planet, our earth, all sorts of stuff, and not everyone agrees on what that path forward is. But I think the big thing is is that we all need to be able to share ideas and talk about this stuff so we do make the right decisions here and not, you know, not get maybe bamboozled
into something that we don't really want. Well, we did get 1,776 asked from Martin. He says, hey, Todd. I hear you, but not Rob. But maybe you haven't started yet. Liberty boost of 1776, Martin Lenescott. You know, if I'd have read this earlier, I'd have known that. So Martin, it's it's Todd's problem. He he screwed it up. 1701 stats from Mike Dell. Welcome back to the studio. Garm, death is good. Garm, death is good.
Well so, anyway, yeah, that was kind of my that was my big shoot the shot thing this thinking about this past week. What what else is on your your list, Rob? I know you have some other things. Well, I think those were the big things. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I did wanna talk about this audio audit that I saw pop up in the pod news newsletter. Thank you, James Cridland, which I will be seeing him and you at podcast movement next week. So I'm excited
to go back. So I don't I continue my streak of being at every, main podcast movement event since the very first. Don't eat me, James Cridland. Right. Right. Exactly. But, anyway, to kind of kind of move forward with this audio audit company, it's basically I don't know how new the company is, but it gives your podcast a score for audio quality and shows how you can improve.
Now, I guess it has a tool that, you know, it talks about all sorts of, of little aspects of your podcast, and I can actually pull it up. And what's interesting is, we we have we are using Auphonic to master our media. So curious here that they said that, we were too loud, considering we are using the podcast spec, 1916 Luvs. Okay. Yeah. I was gonna pull this up here. Trying to see if Let's see if we can find it. Yeah. Hang on here. Oh, yeah. Here it is.
Okay. So I submitted the pot, the new media show to the platform, and it's really easy to do that. All you do is just pipe in the name of the show on the screen of the, of the website. It's called audio audit. Io. And so it'll basically pull in your most recent episode. I think on the free plan, I I I'm not on a paid plan, but this is this is what comes back with your episode. It basically has the the sound in front of you that you
can play. And there's little bars vertical bars that mark various places in the audio that they've identified as possible issues. So this last episode with Chris Chris Karmitzos got a 9 out of 17 for a 52% evaluation. And so Who are they? How do they know audio? I don't know. That's exactly the issue. Right. So they came back with these, these warnings or pass. So it basically goes through a whole list of factors. No one's putting metadata in. No one's putting cover images again. Chapters,
those are externally supported now. The they don't know what the hell they're doing. Yeah. And then I guess, Todd, our our bit rate passed. Of course. It did. The number of channels, which I'm not exactly sure what that means. Nope. Mono versus stereo. We're doing mono. Right. And then sample rate past sample width past. So that must be like a normalization score. It's what that might be. And then, loudness past. Peak volume, there's a warning. And it looks like noise floor past,
quiet channel pass. I'm not sure what quiet channel is. Silence at the beginning warning. Yeah. Because when there's none. Yeah. Right. And silence at the end, we passed. So silence in the middle, we passed, restarted sentences. I'm not sure if that's like a, like a word. Kind of saying a word over and over again or a sentence over. I'm not quite sure what that means. And then this was a big flag to me as profanity and swearing. So it it has a a content safety
Wow. Mechanism in here, and I guess we pass, Todd. I guess We're not we're not gonna pass on this one. Unwanted noises. There was a warning. Well, here here's the thing, and I just brought you back to full screen. Okay. The the simple fact that they're saying you need metadata, you need chapters, you need images means they don't have a clue on what's happening in modern podcast apps. Mhmm. Nary a clue. The image isn't picked up by anybody. That was something that left over from 2004.
Putting metadata, only thing that's in metadata in most audio file now is ad insertion markers. No one's putting metadata in audio files no more with the, you know, episode number, title, and none of that stuff. The simple fact that they have though those first three in there means that they don't know what they're what what they're doing. You know, they're using some old spec. And the other rest of the stuff, I don't know. But I I and and I'm gonna pay for this? Yeah. Whatever.
I can build one of these. Yeah. And it doesn't, yeah. It does offer a breakdown description for each one of these things if you click on it. I I didn't actually click on it. And it it does appear to be incorrect because it is claiming that that there is no cover image. Yeah. There isn't. We don't have a cover image in our no. We don't. Well, but we do have episode cover art. But that's separate. That's not put in the metadata of the audio file. That's in the RSS feed. Right. Okay. So they're
they're evaluate it's not clear on this. Yeah. They're they they they want It does say, was it included in the audio file? Yeah. That's stupid. And there's no reason to do that? No. Not anymore. So they're they're they're basing their whole service on incorrect Yeah. Absolutely. And they don't know podcasts. Out of date data. Yeah. Out of date pack you know, those first three things are out of date. Of course, you can have Apple chapters in metadata if you so choose to do that.
Oh, it's saying that, it's it's wrong if your audio file is not in stereo, which I I would say is incorrect. Incorrect. Right. There's no reason why an audio podcast like this has to be in stereo. No. We're not doing some soundscape or anything like that. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's not even stereo when it's recorded. So why would you put it out of stereo? It's just a waste of bandwidth. Yeah. What it is. I record in stereo, but I publish in publish in mono. Yeah. It's it's gonna be mostly the same
audio on both tracks. Yeah. Same thing. You're just wasting file size. Right. Totally. And it says here okay. So 441 was detected. So and then sample width is that. Oh, okay. 16 bit. 16 bit. So I guess we passed on that loudness. Okay. So peak volume. So it came up here, said it detected a a 0.57 dB at some point in the content. So Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Noise floor pass. Okay. Silence at the beginning. Let's see what it says. Not enough silence was found at the beginning
at the start of the track. Less than 0.5 seconds. Oh, great. People we saved everyone 0.5 seconds of listening time. So who's who's judgment? It's this it's whoever these whoever these guy whoever's who what does it say about? Who who is doing this? And they expect people to pay for this? Come on. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that you have to be so have a certain amount of silence at the
beginning. I mean, I tend to put a little bit of silence at the beginning or a fade up at the beginning, but I I don't think you have to have a lot of that. Chop chop. I'm done. Right. Restarted sentences. We think we detected a section of speech that may have been restarted. So they're not sure. They suspect Suspect. We think we detected. Being that we didn't edit the audio, there's no overlap. Right. Edit and then is what it is. Unwanted noises. Okay. Let's see what this is.
It says it detected 6 unwanted noises in the audio. Maybe it was Chris was outside. Maybe the the crickets or something that we were hearing. Yeah. Yeah. It lists an animal, a bird 2 birds Yeah. And a throat clearing. Oh, probably. And a zip. And some sort of a zip. So I don't know if if we zipped up our shirt or something like that during the No. Well, that's that's funny. Yeah. So and then it also creates a transcript, which looks like is incorrect.
So anyway Yeah. Okay. I took it's a company in progress, I guess, might be the take on. I'm sure they'll be at Podcast Movement and coming around and selling their wares. You you know, you know, I have gotten AI is gonna be the thing in podcast move, but I probably have gotten 10 emails. And I'm and and I'm sending responses like, we're we're building our own AI. We're not doing integrations. Happy to talk to you about what you're doing. You wanna come show me demo? Great.
That's not going over well. Yeah. I would imagine that. How did you build your own AI? Not that complicated. Okay. So I'm on their website. Oh, don't we're gonna give them more credit, Rob? No. I'm just trying to see how, you know, who these folks are. Oh, okay. I guess they're based out of the UK. Mhmm. It's alright. Well, I hate to dog on you folks. But yeah. Well, there might be a benefit here if they can kind of get it more up to date with the standards and podcasting.
Right. Yeah. I don't know where they got, I don't know where they got some of their information. That's for sure. Yeah. So, anyways, anything new going on with, Blueberry? You know, it it, we're just busy. You know, busy busy busy busy. I I'm in a stage of I'm calling it, nitpicking stuff. So going through and see something and not quite liking it's and how it functions or what it does and just that kind of stuff we're we're going through. The team is,
busy building. We have, a very major project that is underway. Recertification is underway. We're having to build some things to make sure we meet all the the belly wickets that, they want, for recertification and just, you know, some normal stuff. And, so, you know, we're giving away our Thrive package this month. So anyone that's a hosting customer with us can try all of our Thrive features. So the big challenge, you know, here's the thing. When you have a big customer base,
they're just off doing their own thing. And even though you have a email that you send in a newsletter and everything else, People call us to say, how come you don't have this? And we're like, we do. And they're like, really? And you're like, yeah. Well, just, you know, get on the screen share. And they're like, oh. So, you know, it it can be hard to, you know, it just so we're working on educating the customers within the platform itself.
A little pop ups and notifications and, and it just when you got such a big thing, it's not surprising that people don't fully know what's going on within the platform. Mhmm. So what about you? You got anything going on? What's new with you? Just just trying to, you know, get myself all pulled together and get myself ready to go to podcast movement. So yep. So it's I've been playing around with the with the app. I I don't know if you've been playing around with it much and Which app?
The podcast movement. Oh, yeah. I've been getting, yeah, lots of requests. I wish I could talk to someone without accepting something. It's it's hard to chat with people without accepting, excuse me, wanting to do a meeting or something. So that's the only thing that really is annoying with the app. Todd, I also noticed, I don't know if this is not new, but it's I I guess it's new to
me because I tried to do it. But I did notice that the Apple Podcast Connect website, no longer works with Windows. Oh, you must have are you using Safari? On Windows? Oh, I have no problem. It's just I use Chrome to get in. That's that's what I just did, and it comes back saying, this requires a device with iOS 17. Yeah. Here I can actually You need to send that to Ted. I've been talking to Ted about a different topic, but, here, let me show it to you. So you can't log in to podcast connect?
Not off of a a Windows 11 machine with, Chrome. So it says right down here weird. So it says right down here, I can scroll Yeah. I see it. I see it. Wow. That's weird. That's not good. At the down here? Yeah. It says requires a device with iOS 17. I've got a Windows machine sitting over here. I'm gonna try it as soon as we get done. Well, that's odd. Hey, Mike. If you're listening, we need to test that. That's weird. Mhmm. Of course, a lot of my team members are on Macs.
Yeah. Yeah. That that that's that's that's a that's a problem. If it's saying that. Yeah. I had to access it. Yeah. I was trying to make a change to one of my podcasts that that I have in Apple, and and I I was forced to go use my iPhone. Yeah. So if you're on Windows and using Android, I don't think you can work with Apple Podcasts Connect anymore. Mike says you can't log in with Mac and Chrome. So you have to use Safari? On on Windows?
No. On a Mac. You can't log in with Mac having a Mac and using Chrome. That's this is that's bad news. So they're basically making it a requirement that if you're a podcaster and you wanna get your podcast into Apple Podcasts This is this is have to be on This is unacceptable. That's unacceptable. On a Apple device. Yeah. And the majority of the non modern world is on a Windows machine. Yeah. So I don't know if this is this is just a mistake. Or That that's bad. That's really bad.
Yes. I'll ask Ted about it. Yeah. Randy's asking, what do you think the RODE, r o d e, micros I mean, we're still seeing the screen, Rob. What do you think that RODE will do with Mackie for the long haul. What do you think that RODE will do with Mackie? Did RODE buy Mackie? Yeah. Oh, I missed that. It's been a while now. My guess is they'll turn it into a like it is a more professional line of mixers. Mike said, correction. It just did work for me again,
Chrome, Mac. So he was able to log in with Chrome and Mac. No. Windows is the question. Yeah. The Windows is the question. So we need to try a Windows machine. You know, I didn't know that RODE had bought Mackie. That's interesting because, you know, I've got a Mackie mixer over here with stuff that this thing can't do. It's got channel inserts. And the reason I have a yeah. I have a Mackie mixer too that I probably should sell, but it's just You know? Just
sitting in the box. In order to do this show with the way we're doing, I'm using a channel insert, and you're hearing me from a channel insert on it. Now the RODE, we we were doing stuff with the RODE too, being able to do the show this way as well. So just the way I'm wired here is different. So I I there's always gonna be a need for big mixers. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Big professional for studios and stuff like that. Yeah. Definitely gonna be a need. That's what Mackie really excels at is, like,
the 12 channel Right. What, you know, wide wide mixers. Yeah. Most most podcasters don't need that. No. When I was taking doing, like, going to CES and stuff like that, I you know, we would have 8, 9, 10 channels wired in, with 10 different inputs and lots of was beginning mix out and, you know, for a podcaster, you don't need that. The RODECaster is fine. Why do I have mine wired here the way it is? Because I have this equipment. I don't have to buy anything new. You know? That's the key here.
It's the welcome beauty bubble for taking your seat and joining the show. Another angle is to follow is to be reminding the Friedman Group is parent company of RODE. So I don't know much about the Friedman Group. I'm assuming they're out of Australia. Road is out of Australia. Unless, I don't know if the Friedman Group is. So I I don't you know, Mackie's a a major brand name. I wonder how much they spent to buy Mackie. Well, they're they're based up in Seattle. It's where their Freightman is?
No. No. Mackie is. Oh, Mackie. And Rhodes in Australia. I'm 90 99% sure. Correct. So oh, that's interesting. So I, you know, I missed that bit of it's been a while then. So I bet I missed that part of the news news cycle that that happened. My guess is that they're gonna take the road technology and integrate it into more Mackie professional. Yeah. Mixers would be my guess. So there was I laughed on a article over at Podnews. It said, run your podcast ad too often, and it won't work as well.
That's according to latest Podscribe performance benchmark q22024. Are you are you surprised, Todd? I'm not. My tech show, Geek News Central, has been brought, to you by GoDaddy for 1700 episodes in a row for 19 years. How many, ads for GoDaddy do you have in your podcast? That's the question. 1. Okay. That's the answer. That's not what they say here. It's not? Let me go back and and find this here. I think I rolled off it. Run your podcast ad too often. And what do they mean by too often?
Too frequently. Does that mean multiple is it about in the same episode or ep multiple episodes in a row? Correct. Oh. In the same episode. Of course, it's kinda gonna work well. Right. That's what I say. It's not a a revolutionary thought. If you're running if I run my GoDaddy ad twice, I would have a revolt. There would be there I my my audience would would fall off a cliff. They would they would say, screw you, Todd. I don't wanna you already told us once.
I didn't read that. I I thought they were this was assumption on my part that it was Yeah. Okay. And also Here's the Mackie website. And I think what you'll see is a lot of lot of similarities to Oh, yeah. So I think if you look at the actual hardware devices that are catering to the live streaming market, like, in podcasting market, they look a lot like a, a road caster pro. That's interesting. Yeah. By the way, it do you know what the ugly baby talk is, Rob?
Well, it's a common term to to refer us to starting out ugly. Right? Well, you know, anytime I get an email from a podcaster that says, I'm I'm a number I'm a 5% rated listen notes podcast. Oh, there you go. Okay. And I'm like, oh. I'm feeling it. I know where this is going. Gotta have the gotta have the ugly baby discussion. Right. You know? Okay. Let me do this. Don't eat me,
James Crigland. Why are you reporting, James, on listen notes saying that July saw the lowest number of new podcast this year? You know, their their data I tell people, disregard anything that that company says about your show, because everyone's a 5% show. He says, technically, the number of new remember refers to new feeds. Many new podcasts been launched on defunct feeds for shows that Especially if you're, if you happen to be putting out 2 episodes a week, you're you're probably in the
5% range. Right? Right.