New Media Show – Podcasting Predictions for 2025 #611

Todd and Rob in the Afternoon. Afternoon to love. With Todd and Rob. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And here we are, new media show, a week before Christmas. So, Merry Christmas to you, Rob, and maybe, an advance happy New Year as well. That's true. Because we won't be doing a show, I think, leading up to that time frame of the New Year. So this is, I think, our final show for 2024. Yeah. And we'll be doing one almost immediately after Christmas. Yeah. But, not I do not think one before.

Yep. So I tell you, Rob, I've, you know, we I've been playing with all these online streaming platforms, StreamYard, Riverside, and, Restream. And I I sent a I got a message from Restream saying, hey, what do you think of our software? And I said, great except for one thing. It it would be they would have it totally nailed if they had scenes just like Restream and StreamYard does. Because in order for me to share a screen, I have to click share, click the screen through the whole process.

And then if I wanna turn it off, whereas in StreamYard in Riverside, I can have the stream frame pro set and I can just click between double shot like this and a shot as a screen with one click click click click click back and forth. I can't do my regular tech show on It's too hard. Yeah. I think it slows you down too much, doesn't it? Yeah. Because I I'm trying to read.

I've got to set it up over here in the screen where I can just matter of fact, I use a hot key and and swap it where Riverside, it just takes too many clicks and I'm this concobulated. I guess that's the word. Well, Todd, you know, the the there is one other option and it's OBS. Well, you know, I have considered OBS. Yep. You know, OBS is a bit of a learning curve. It is. Oh, yeah. So, you know, maybe maybe it's it would be okay to, you know, to go down that road.

You know, again, probably that's the one I should have went down the road with to begin with because, you know, I just paid Riverside, $400 or something for a year's worth of service or whatever, you know, whatever the cost was. And, I canceled StreamYard. So I'm on StreamYard until my subscription cancels, but I'm on you know, I paid for 2 streaming services and both of all 3 of them are well, they they're lacking. If if Riverside could fix this switching issue and I replied back to him. I said

this is the problem with it. I said this is why I said for just the interview show, it's perfect. But for doing a livestream switching show, StreamYard and Restream have got it nailed, but they don't record for shit. Excuse my French. Well, they did, take down the capability of, a a consolidated export of a of of a local recording. Yeah. Right? So so you can get one file with, all of the inputs all consolidated into 1. They shut that down for a

while. I got the impression that they were going to retool it to make it more efficient, because it did take a long time to export those files. It took, I mean I mean, for, like, an hour and a half show, which is oftentimes what what it did, it could take an hour and a half to export it. And Well that's a long time. Last week on this show, it took me literally I waited 10 minutes and it was ready. I downloaded it.

Yeah. And it's a little bit it's they they want you to edit in their platform and I have no desire to edit in their platform. So, you know, I guess that's what what is it now? $60,000,000 or something like get you or you know, I I don't know how much money they've earned. They're not earned, but had invested. You mean raised, you mean? Yeah. I would think for $60,000,000, they could make a better product. This is a, you know, this a one trick pony.

I think of everything I'm doing at Blueberry, and I'm like, holy crap. I could have built this for $60,000,000. Yeah. Well, that's that's a good point, Todd. You probably could. You know, and and Restream, the they've got it really close. Again, their studio is well, their studio is I they stole or not stole, but they copied StreamYard. So maybe it's gonna you're right. Maybe going back to the OG, going back to OBS is gonna be the key.

Yeah. At least until the platforms kinda get, get their act together a little bit more. I think I think currently StreamYard is probably the the leader of the space right now. But but they did take down that local recordings, which is what I was advocating for when I started to work with them. That just They Yeah. They implemented it, but it was kludgy. It didn't work that well. In in Riverside's got that nailed. So They got that nailed, but they got the other parts. Yeah. Yeah. Not not what you

need. So for me, it's I'm at a point where, you know and again, I know OBS to do everything I wanted to do. Or, you know, I haven't looked at Wirecast in a while either. So maybe even Wirecast. Yeah. It's probably a good one to look at. So, anyway, here we are. It's nearing the end of 2024. Oh, I had a call with Spotify yesterday. Interesting. A NDA call or a regular I don't think it was under NDA, but I was pretty straightforward. They wanted to talk about their video strategy. Oh, they did.

Okay. And I haven't got that call yet, Todd. I was, very adamant. Number 1, you're screwing people with this overriding of audio. I said you maybe there's 3% of people that will qualify for your monetization at 10000 hours. Yeah. I said that the and I told him how many customers we had that were using programmatic for not just advertising but for pre roles of promoting their content. Mhmm. It was pretty frank conversation and I even went into the poaching discussion. Oh, yeah. And,

you know, you're coming to me. We you wanna work together and every time my customers are over there and maybe asking a question on their support and your poaching. I said, how does that in how does that incentivize me to to work with you? Well, it also talk well of you. That's right. And, you know, and I I was frank about the feedback and they're adamant. They are not going to separate their I said you can fix this. They said

strategy, you mean? Right. Yeah. Then, you know, they they are all in and, you know, it doesn't matter if you have programmatic and you chose to go this route. And she was touting higher CPMs. And again, if you qualify, I said for the shows that qualify gonna compete with YouTube, they need to compete with YouTube because right now they're they're not. So that's the yeah. And then we had some other discussions that serve surrounding a future API and my explicit thoughts about that.

So it was pretty frank and, you know, is I think everyone listen to the show knows where where I fall on the spectrum on this. So, so do they say anything about pass through? I mean, pass through well, I'm on audio pass through, but they're never gonna do video pass through. Never. No. No. I was just thinking, this video strategy is trying to subvert the pass through strategy. Exactly. Yeah. Because they wanna control the experience. They wanna make it a streaming experience.

Yeah. And And that's what they've always wanted to do. Yeah. They've always wanted to rehost the media files. Mhmm. That's what they've always wanted to do. And this is just one way for them to chip a little bit more in that direction. Yeah. So, you know, they're all in and, you know, and I'm like, yeah. I've learned my lesson here. A couple of things. Okay. I I've obviously have customers to serve.

And if my customers come to me and in quantity and say we demand this, I I, you know, I might have to buckle and consider it. But I'm at the same point, I made it very clear, you know, and and we shared some of the emails, that we've gotten from our customers, on this remarketing. I said you need to have a discussion with marketing in regard to this poaching. So and I said, you know, and I understand the offering's free.

And there was some interesting commentary said about that too that I won't go into. The whole poaching conversation is a tough one because I think I think we all know it's a competitive marketplace. Right. And and everybody's it's it's the difference between ethical practices and unethical practices at the end of the day. That's the real argument. I think we all agree that the the podcasters should have the option to go where

they want to. Yeah. But it it's the tactics that are used and the approach that's used is what's in question. Yeah. And, you know, don't come to me saying we want you to implement a a, you know, this and that. And then it on the other hand, on the other side, you're saying, hey. Come on over. Migrate over here. That that doesn't bode well with me. Mhmm. So anyway, it was, you know, it it it I I was well, as as Mike said, he said, well, you got that off your chest.

Finally. Well, and and I was in my, you know, in our in Yeah. You know, they change much. Right? Yeah. So and I know there's some people out there who said, go do it. Yeah. But, you know, I I think it goes into, you know I think you have to speak up. Yeah. I think that's the only option that that we all have as an industry is that we gotta push back. I mean, that's what kept pass through Yeah. Is us, you know, pushing back. But they are not going to go through pass through on video and

and they are not. They are n o t going to support RSS for video ingestion. They are not. They are n o t not. I guess I guess if it was bigger, they probably might be more inclined. The problem is Apple has really kinda taken that out of the market to some degree. We'll have to see what Apple does here in the new year if we see them get more into video again. But that's up in the air right now. I

don't know. But I think it is gonna take Apple to make a bold step here for anybody else to pay attention. Yeah. For sure. So Yeah. But again, you know, going back to talking to customers, and this is what we do. You know, Mike and Dave and Sean on my support team are, you know, every day. And then we are asking specifically, what do you want? What feature do you want? How can we help you? And when you're talking to 50 to a 100 customers, you know, well, you know, probably 50 customers a day.

Maybe not that many, but maybe 40, and you're asking them what do you want and you're talking to them on the phone, video isn't doesn't come up. And and we, of course, we were keep hearing it everywhere, Todd. I mean, you can go and Again, you're hearing it in the You're hearing it in the video realm. You're not hearing it. We're not hearing it as as as a podcast host. Oh, okay. Well, that's that's a separate kinda

Right. Distinct pot. Right? But I think more broadly, if you if you read across all of the 2025 predictions, articles, and quotes, and across all these different platforms, you know, whether it's Quill or if it's you know, a lot of the publications out there, they are touting just like what I have in our outline here, this came directly from chat g p t. The these are the the the leading topics that are leading the discussion that's happening on other websites and other media

properties about podcasting. And it's it's like this dominance and this shift towards video. Well, again is the number one topic. I mean It may be a number one topic, but again, it's I think it's advertising driven largely. Well, yeah. But at the same time, I don't know a lot of podcasters that are really focused on monetizing their videos, though. I mean, it's Oh, okay. Podcast Everyone is

creating everyone is creating content. I I look at the massive surge of people that have turned on programmatic. Money is always That's all audio is what Oh, but Is what I was trying to say is that the the the emphasis around monetization is still primarily focused on audio. Uh-huh. But if you shift this over to, like a YouTube type platform or a Spotify platform, that's where the conversation kinda changes. Right? It's it's getting monetization from that platform, not a central advertising

strategy like with podcast. Well, most of people are doing video or baking in their own ads already. They are they're they're using live live host reads. Yeah. Of course. What most of them So it's the same strategy. Well yeah. Though though there's more of a dependence on the, like, the AdSense advertisement on YouTube and the If you qualify. That would be surrounding it on Spotify. Yeah. If you qualify.

Well, yeah. But that's what I'm talking about is that that's what people are talking about are those differences between I agree. But the majority don't ever qualify for a penny from YouTube and or Spotify. Well, there's 3%. What I'm talking about here. Well, if it's if you're talking about Google AdSense ads, it is. You have to qualify for that revenue. I'm not disputing that. That's that's obvious. That's in the market. And and that was my comment. If you go

back to our conversation about Spotify. So Spotify wants to compete with YouTube. They need to actually compete with YouTube because right now they're not. And if they don't, they're gonna lose. There's no point in them going down this video path if they don't compete with YouTube because everybody's just gonna go to YouTube. Well, what it is is they if if you don't hit their mark, they're just gonna monetize the content around you

and they're gonna make lots of money. And the media creator is gonna get 0. And just like on YouTube, if you don't qualify get a lot of people watching video on Spotify unless they get a good aggregation of content. Well, they are, you know, they're all in. I know, but the last number I saw was 250,000. So Oh, 250,000 there, 250,000 shows doing video? Well, then there's only there's only 400,000 active podcasts. So that seems like a pretty good number. Yeah. But I'm I'm talking about a video

strategy as well. So if you contrast the 250,000 to what Spotify is doing to the Oh, yeah. Yeah. 10,000,000 on YouTube Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's like, you know, they're playing with I think there's more than 10,000,000 shows on YouTube that are potentially Probably is. I Yeah. I just know it's in the multimillion where Spotify is just saying, well, we have 250,000. Yay. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. In the in the video market, that's that's pennies to dollars. And we also, you know you know.

Yeah. Again, I I think that my opinion is 2025 videos, the chickens are kinda home to roost in regards to people figuring out if their investment. I have no doubt people there's gonna be a number of shows. They're gonna say, let's let's try this. But then and then they're gonna have to look at their if if if number 1, they qualify for video or or for advertising. Number 1, if. And number 2, is it pay enough even if they do qualify to make it worth the time and effort to create quality video?

It's a lot easier to qualify on YouTube than it is. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So this conversation is really about YouTube. It really isn't. I mean, let's be honest. Spotify is a bit player in the video side currently. They wanna be something bigger, but they're not really that big yet. So So, you know, we'll see. Video's gonna be in the conversation. I have no doubt. You know, I I you know? And sadly, we're gonna have to talk about it to much the chagrin of many people listening.

But I think that there is a bigger thing happening in podcasting that potentially could be really the the true story of what's heading into 2025. I think we're just gonna continue to hear. But, again, I I temper the yeah, it's just obvious where where I stand on this. You know, I've been doing video for years. I've made a nary a penny from any platform on video, not a penny. Yeah. But you haven't been focused on it

either, Todd. Well, you know, but I've also done a 1,000 plus videos on YouTube and have made nearly a penny. Content doesn't make make make a strategy. Well, exactly. So this is this is where the majority of content creators are like me. They don't have a video strategy.

Yeah. But that's part of the new discussion that's happening now is that these these bigger content creators and newer ones that get into the space wanting to have no. Not not just bigger, but increasing numbers of people that are are thinking about a video strategy in tandem with their audio strategy. And what that's doing is that's putting a lot of pressure on content creators. And that's part of this changing discussion. It's not right now. It's not entirely all about being

a podcaster. It's all about being a content creator. I think the pressure really boils down to, peer for I I I again, I think and again, it's the majority of the people are chasing dollars. And they think that they're going to do better doing video than they are audio. And in the end, great content will I've talked to many people that at the same time have said, well, there's it's easier to gain traction on video. And I'm like, okay.

Yeah. So the the what I was hoping to accomplish in this episode today was to talk about what what people are talking about out there. Right? Currently, right now, what what the general consensus of what people think about what's coming in the next year. And then what I wanted to dive into is what we think is gonna happen versus what everybody else thinks is gonna happen. And we've kinda gone down this Yeah. Yeah. This path and talk to you by details before

we actually set that up. Obviously, number 1 is the video conversation is gonna continue. And I think we about Yeah. Killed that to death. You know, one of the things I think is gonna happen is podcasting, in my opinion, is in 2024 cemented its position in the in the media space. And I think that as we move into 2025, people are going to take advantage of that and really start setting themselves up. Not only number 1 for the next election, which, you know, it's only 2 years away in America.

But also understanding that the power, podcasting has and getting the full story out on something and maybe people have kinda had a an moment although we've known this for years. So I I think part of the what'll happen in 2025 is that, we will we will have become the mainstream media. Yeah. And I I think that increasingly, the the advertising markets around podcasting are starting to realize that. And there's a lot of layers to this.

They're go I don't know, Todd, if you ever listened to the media roundtable podcast with Dan Granger. I don't have I don't listen to his show. He's the CEO of, Oxford Road. Yeah. Because I'm not focused on advertising. So Right. They recently did a merger with the with the was it the Veritas folks? Or not Veritas, but Veritone, to make the the largest

podcast ad buying agency. So I occasionally will tune into that podcast to actually listen to them all talk that are heavily entrenched in the the podcast advertising market and what they're seeing out there. And and it's really fascinating to hear the things that they're talking about now, especially after the election. It's it was a different conversation before the election, and now it's a different conversation after the election.

And and it's really interesting to talk about that from from from the standpoint of what what is being thought about in that area of the market around, the ad buyers, the brands, the the networks, how a lot of the big, ad buyers are not wanting to necessarily buy wide, which I think we both know has been one of the problems Right. Is that they're increasingly focused down on shows that they they feel safe buying into because they've historically brought ROI.

And and we've seen the simultaneous reduction in, in the realization that brand safety and suitability is a criteria that should be as highly valued as it was just 2 months ago. So it's it's it really speaks to the changing landscape of So that doesn't bode well for a lot of podcast? Well, from that perspective, yeah, but it's also a pullback from brand safety and suitability. Oh, so you're saying they're pulling back?

Well, they're pulling the brands are are are focusing down on shows that they have a history with, that they know haven't created a problem for them from a brand perspective, and have always brought strong ROI. And and that seems to be what's happening too. And then there's also this growing tension too around, and we've talked about this many times on the show around ad load. And an ad load is increasing, especially amongst the big shows. So what we're seeing is in the research

is starting to show that there's pushback. And I think we've talked about this on the episode before that there's increasing concern about pushback around ad load in, you know, it's the number of spots. How many spots per break? How many pre rolls? How many how many mid roll spots are is the increasing conversation? And now they're talking about, you know, that there's some sort of a limit to how many minutes of ads in a in a podcast. Well, surprise, surprise, surprise.

It's really ironic how this is starting to switch. We were talking about a lot of these same ideas 2 years ago, 6 months ago. Right? Longer than that. Probably further back than that. Yeah. And and now that the political landscape has changed, now brand safety and and suitability is not so much on the table anymore. So How the winds how the winds change? Yes. How the winds blow in different different directions. But I'm not sure it really bodes well

for the industry. I know that the industry is really, at least on the advertising side, is very focused on, you know, trying to figure out, well, there there are people saying that the advertising market globally for podcasting is gonna hit like 4,000,000,000 Yeah. Whatever. Globally. But in the US to narrow it back, is still gonna struggle to get over 2,000,000,000. So so which is what we've been talking about for all this time.

Because as you see these big brands pulling back from running a lot of, diversity in their I mean, in the number of shows that they're running their campaigns in, that's narrowing the amount of ad buys. And and but at the same time, I don't know what's happening with CPMs because CPMs are now all of a sudden kind of tight lipped now. Nobody wants to share those anymore. You've noticed. Yeah. I noticed Libsyn stopped publish them. Yeah. Because what it is is they're going down.

Yeah. They're going down. It is. It is. And it's also, one of the factors here is ad load. That's what these buyers and these folks on this podcast are talking about. It's like, well, you know, if you have a big show and you wanna have, you know, 2 ads and a pre roll, 2 ads in 3 mid roll breaks in a 45 minute show and then 2 ads at the end and then try and throw in a couple of host reads. You know, you've you've got a You've got a problem.

Right. Exactly. And it's gonna give your audience this perception that, god, there's a lot of ads in podcast now. Well, you know, it's already been the case. And we've been we've talked about this for more than a year. And I think I think, honestly, the, what we're we're monitoring what's coming across in programmatic. And my CPMs are going up in programmatic. And, that, you know Because there's fewer ad load in your Yeah. And and we purposely limit it.

And that's what also what was talked about on this too is that they're these buyers are increasingly looking for opportunities to run-in shows that have fewer But they but they're not willing to pay more. Well, that's the tension of the medium now. It's like it's like, you know, I'm a podcaster, and I'm gonna make maybe more if I cut back to maybe 4 ads an episode. But am I gonna make the same if I have 8? Rob, you know, it's it's also a little bit about being greedy.

Well, it is. So let me, you know, let me just, you know, you know, my show, my key New Central show. It's all about great at the end of the day. And, you know, I have done consistently good. Not consistently great. I've had I had some months in, you know, in years past where I was making 13 to $15,000 a month, with GoDaddy. Those were incredible months for one end. And for, you know, consistently running in a show.

But the majority of those months of running a single ad was in the 3 to 4 k round, which most podcasters would be thrilled to make that kind of money from one advertiser for their show. Regardless of of the CPM, for the average podcaster and I call Geek News Central an average podcast. This is not doing astronomical numbers. You know, it's not it's not doing, you know and again, for consistency, it's been good. And I and would I

love to make more money? Well, everyone would love to make more money, But it's just it it and it hasn't passed my audience off. I haven't disgruntled them. They they I do the minute and a half or whatever I do for my host read. In fact, the copy for the host read did not change for, like, 3 years. It was the same copy and still maintain. So I'm I'm a outlier, obviously. But if you're running 5 ads, you're just being greedy and you're you're disenfranchising your audience.

Well, but that from these ad buyers, from when I was hearing them talk about, that's actually a light load. So that's that's at the optimum end of the spectrum. YouTube doesn't even force that many ads on you. But there's there's also, these standards that the Oxford Road has come up with that that have, like, recommendations. So they have their own kind of, like, standards that they're pushing out to the industry.

I don't know if you knew that, Todd, but they're they're pushing out to push back against this ad load increase that's going on. And even to the level of of saying for each mid roll break, a maximum of 1 minute of ads. So per per break. So it could be a 15 second, could be, or could be 15 seconds in a 30. If you're doing that type of a load, the break should be 30 seconds. If you're doing 6, 7 yeah. First of all, it's

I quit listening to shows. I have purposely listened to some shows that I wanted to listen to that had never listened and the ad load was so high. I said to hell with this. It sounds like it it's worse than TV. Yeah. So and, again, they're gonna have to figure it out. I know what we decided and we've never had a podcaster come back and said you're not serving enough programmatic for my show. Not one. I don't think they even knew that they could. Right? Well, we tell them what we

limit it to. We're very clear in our documentation. And no one has said, hey. Turn me on to unlimited. Yeah. Also, you know, we the the podcasting 2.0 folks and I'll make this a prediction for 2025. They're getting the and it may not happen until mid 2025, but they're getting the decentralized monetization model kind of fixed. Matter of fact, I had conversations with, Get Alby this week and, and make transfer

my wallet out of there? And making well, you can create a hub, but it costs you 11,000 sats a month, if you want to use their hub or you run your own node. And most podcasters are not gonna be able to run their own node. Blueberry customers can have a wallet. There is no pressure to push to a hub right now. They will let you know you should, and there's a reason for that legal wise, because of regulatory money handling rules, that, you know, they have to push you into running your own hub.

It's it's just a thing. But if we get this other piece fixed, you'll be able to use listeners. We'll be able to use When you say a hub, are you talking about a cold wallet? I don't know what you want. I I I basically, I run my own node for Geekness Central. Basically, that node means What does that mean? I have a Raspberry Pi that runs all my I have my keys and everything on that Raspberry Pi and Okay. It's just a memory device is what Well, it's it it runs. It

does the transactions. I can send satoshis and receive satoshis and Bitcoin, and I have my wallet all on my own. I control it. I don't use a third party. I have a GetAlbi wallet, but I don't send any money over there right now. I send it all to my personal node and I or hub or whatever you want to call it. So what, GetAlbi has done is you've got a wallet with them now. They want you to have a hub so that you control and manage your own hub and it's really pretty automated.

But the end goal is is that you are basically paying for that service and you are you because they are no longer the the money transfer agent. I I don't know the full rules but it it basically, you know, it gets them out of the situation where the government says, well, you're hosting all this money and you don't know who these people are and people could be money laundering and and so they they had to move into this new model.

But what's happening with podcasting 2.0 is they're working on a new system. It's called Bolt 11 or something like this and where you'll have the ability as a listener to use something like Stripe to be able to send donations, micro donations to to other podcasters. And again, don't even let me get into the technical discussion because I don't understand it yet. So maybe That's that's that's that's one of the the limitations of all this stuff is the complexity. Yeah.

So Misunderstandings that people have about them because I've got a cold cold storage wallet. I've got Bitcoin. I've got Yeah. Satoshis and Albi and all all this kind of stuff. But, you know, trying to figure out, you know, how to move it out of Albi to somewhere else. You don't have to move it out. Typical recommendation is to transfer it into a cold storage, which would mean that it it's aligned with your Bitcoin. Well, again, it is already. So the hub Well, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In in

But currently currently, Albie is storing Satoshis. Right. My other account is storing actual And they've got a way with this new hub system to be able to cash out. So you can just you can send money. Send Yeah. Send money. Alright. It makes it easier to get stuff out. So but it again again, it's 11,000 sats, a month to be able to run that. So you they have enough SATs coming in through donations or Right. So Yeah. And on on Blueberry, I don't run

a I run I use their hub. And then for my stuff, I run my own. Anyway, long story short, that's not for everyone to do that, obviously. Mhmm. Matter of fact, they don't recommend it. So that, you know, we've got it figured out on Albie for our podcasters. We had a long discussion this week. But so I think value for value A lot of people interested in Bitcoin now though. Yeah. And and we've had a huge, you know, we still have a huge number of people that are doing this value for value model.

And matter of fact, we we received last week a bunch of, you know, inputs from people. You know, I I I saw that Trufans has has the ability of a wallet now. Yeah. And and basically, they've they I won't even go into the depth of this, but Sam's done everything he can to make it real easy for people for listeners to participate. Yeah. What was the other thing on your on your list, Rob? I've got my own prediction list. What was some of the things you had?

Well, just this you know, I think we've talked about some of this stuff in the past, but I don't know if you've been reading all the other predictions that people are making, but it's it's, it's quite a quite a huge number of people that are getting in the predictions business for sure, is what I've noticed. It makes for good, SEO. Right. Right. I guess so. Yeah. But this whole question around, you know, the expanding meaning of the word podcast is that It's already kind of that's sailed.

Well, it has. It's just increasingly meaning something different to audiences than it does to content creators. Oh, it's it's that that ship has sailed. They're making a prediction on that? Well, I am I am saying that it's going to keep keep expanding, and that the creator economy, which is term podcasting is absorbing into that. I think it's already been redefined on the listener side. Yeah. And it's

you know, we'll see what happens. I mean, there's other folks that are saying that we could see some platforms just start thinking about the this concept of shows, you know, versus Oh, I think they already have. Right. No. But I mean, start to change the name and the interface. That's what I'm saying. So we'll see, you know, whenever I talk about the term podcast, usually I'm talking about what the listener or the viewer experience is. Not so much what the podcaster is thinking

about. But that's what I wonder is if we're gonna see a transition away from the word podcast as we see this competition happen with all these platforms that are playing in the the space of podcasting now that are not RSS Babes podcasting. But that's only 2. We'll see. What's that? Well, that's really only 2 platforms. No. I think if you expand your perception of what the creator economy is, it definitely includes a lot of other platforms. You know, like TikTok to

x No. TikTok's gone on January 19th. To a you know, there's other platforms out there that are supporting podcast distribution. Well, again, I think TikTok's gone on January 19th. So take them out of the equation. I don't know. I think there's a better than 50% saying he Yeah. He may save it. Yeah. I think there's a better than 50% chance that it's gone. He says that, but he says there could be other platforms that will step in to replace it. So I'm given I'm given 51% it's gone.

Really? Wow. Yeah. So we'll see. I might be wrong. But it's gonna piss a 150,000,000 people off. Then maybe make creators think twice about where they build their brands. Well, the the exact quote that I heard from Donald Trump was he said that, that there was a lot of people in that generation that voted for him. Right. Right. But he also, same same breath says, there'll be other platforms that can step up and and do this. So, you know, gotta know the full context. They

already exist, don't they? I think they already exist. Yeah. YouTube and Instagram and whoever else does reels. And Facebook and Yeah. But again, a lot of those creators in TikTok said they're not moving there because they hate YouTube and they hate Facebook. So we'll see. Well, then they're they're out of luck, aren't they? Yes. They are. So anyway Yeah. We we continue to see it that, obviously, the AI piece is gonna continue to grow. I think that it I think it's tempered

a little bit. Initial excitement has been but people are starting to realize how powerful of a tool it can be to help with the creative process and also to help with the post production process. So I think that's gonna it's gonna do well. Yeah. Mhmm. I I think that's gonna continue in 2025. I think it'll be a pretty mainstream discussion. Yeah. AI is gonna have an increasing role, I think, looking forward, that it's kinda hard to predict how soon the impacts

of that are going gonna be. But, I can see it really being transformational in a lot of ways, beyond what we've already seen. Yeah. And I know that there's talk that, artificial general intelligence or on the customer superintelligence is coming within 18 months. Is what I've heard quoted from some experts. Well, I think agents will be here before any of that. Agents. Yeah. Definitely. I think that's gonna be the big revolution. Yeah. If if it if the agents do what? And, again, I it could

be 2 agents. Already do a lot of stuff, Todd, with these agents. Oh, yeah. Already have been But they're not truly agents yet per se. Not agents you can trust explicitly. That's for sure. Well, the the agent technology has to be able to get access to large, aspects of your data in order to fully function properly is what what it is what I've seen. I've seen one that was built for Google Chrome, on the Google platform. It's like the go browser

agent. Have you seen this? No. Todd, it basically takes all the information that it, it has access to in your Google docs and your Google, scary area and can actually, get an email in and actually respond to the email based on the information it can gather, and what you tell it to to do. And it will respond to all your emails and it'll it'll Yeah. Well for you. It'll log in to all these things. Yeah. Good luck with that.

I'm not That's where it's going. I'm letting any agent respond to my emails and but an autonomously do that. It's not happening. And then the ability to train your own agent. Oh, that's been going on for a while. I I I But this is this is part of that. Right? Well, I have my own know you as well as I have my own doppelganger. Yourself. I have my own doppelganger already as as a gbt. It is. Yeah.

So what does it do though, Todd? I've fed it the information I want to feed it and it writes stuff for me. Okay. So you've written prompts. So I've given it all of my blog post. I've given it access to stuff that I've written. It is already online and say, okay. You know, if you take this information and then, you know, when I want a topic written on, you can write to that topic and then I'll go in and edit it. It writes in my voice. Digital doppelganger. Everyone should have one.

But I control it. The other tool that I can see being a a powerful thing is, an agent that books guests and Good luck. Yeah. Responds to Oh, those. To to general inquiries. I'm already getting spammed by those types of things and it's they're worthless at this point. It's because, you know, we get I get requests for, Podcast Insider and Geekness Central for guests every day. I get 20 emails a day saying, hey. We'd love to be a guest on your show. And I'm like, I don't have guests.

Well, that's part of where the intelligence comes into. Right? Yeah. It's pretty stupid at this point. So it doesn't sound like a very smart agent No. That would actually just spam people of sorts. It needs to be able to analyze the compatibility and find the contact information and go through proper channels, right, to to do that. Well, Rob, just wait till quarter 1 And, well, we already announced it. We're, you know, we're we're launching a,

Yeah. That's just a crack in the in the proverbial opportunity. It's about becoming a full service podcast hosting company and and making sure that, you provide everything you can so they don't have to pay for third party services. So, I think you'll see GUESSmatch Pro coming from Blueberry in quarter 1. Mhmm. Yeah. So So and there's other aspects of this too. You know? I mean, you look at all these platforms, you know, like a Descript and other ones that are taking care of certain

aspects of your post production and No. You look at our partnership we just did with Adobe. You know? I don't know what the full scope of that is. Well, it's basically, an extended free trial and then more to come. Well, it doesn't tell me what it does. You you haven't used Adobe Podcast Premium or Adobe Express Premium? Okay. So recording platform. Just like this platform except it does it for audio. Yeah. But does it do automated editing? It has an AI platform. Yeah.

Okay. So you pull out It again, it's silences and Well, again, it's it's in its early days. So it's not as fancy as the script. But, again, don't bet against Adobe. I wouldn't betting against anybody. I'm just saying that these tools are Oh, yeah. Are are coming, and there's gonna be processes that are gonna be established by these higher end. But I do like Adobe's approach that they want to make sure that the audio still sounds natural and not compressed like

the script does. That's Well, that is a tweak. Well, then they should tweak it because I I I choke every time I listen to a a Descript edited show. Yeah. Well because it's obvious that people don't breathe anymore. Yeah. Well and and it's also obvious that they don't say a lot of 's and 's. Mhmm. Right? Exactly. And we're we're all robots. One thing that, you know, you made a comment on a thing that Fredlund had posted, which actually made my list, about podcaster advocacy.

I'm calling it podcaster advocacy where Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think we've talked about that on this show for many years. Well, the $7,000 is, you know, fine for having a show on a directory, you know, from an open RSS feed and, you know, that Italian group that, you know, you know, and they've got a little bit of egg on their face because they had someone else's logo on their website that they weren't supposed to be and, you know, and and, you will pay.

I I maybe maybe, podcast is to start to wake up a little bit. And There's always been people out there that wanna kind of push the envelope and push towards being being a little bit of a scam. Right? Well, I think, you know, I think creators are gonna push back. And I hope they demand better terms and ethical practices and transparency. And, you know, we've been we've been heavily focused for many many years on privacy.

Not only that, ethical AI. We actually have a, you know, a statement in that regard. Free speech. Yep. So did you draw AI content lines? We basically talk extensively about what our system does or what our system doesn't do. Yeah. But are you guys taking a position on what should be identified? We have not publicly came out with that, but I've been very vocal and gotten massive pushback. Massive pushback from creators that don't want to disclose.

So there has to be there has to be something that's flagged. There has to be in my mind, I know what that looks like. But if you really get granular on it, there can be 7 levels of of disclosure. How would that ever be created? It can. It's it's self reporting and, you you know, at this point, it can't be it probably can be partially detected. But, but again, I think when it goes back to podcaster rights, there is no rights mechanism. AI gets so good, Todd. We can't tell.

I don't know. We'll see. We'll see when we get there. But I still I still think that it's got a ways to go before it's it sounds like a human. You know, it it it's 50% of the way there at this point. So a couple of years? Sure. It could really, you know, do do do but the thing is a robot can't do live. So all these people talking about doing video. Well, all these people talking about doing video, and they're not gonna be able to use AI to do video. Not using their me.

Not and that's probably They could create a live live AI generated version. Of course. And it that could be entertaining if it's completely an a if it's disclosed. Right. But do you want your likeness to be saying stuff for you that you can't control? Not me. Well, that's that's an interesting question. I would love to kinda pull that one

apart. Well, do you do you, you know Because is it really true if the AI fully understands you and has been fully indexed in But I'm not writings and all your opinions. Just like with this show, Todd, we we've done, what, 600 plus episodes where we've talked about podcasting. If a platform were to index all this Yeah. Which one has, what would they know about us? I've always said I needed a clone, but also I want a clone that I can control. So Yeah. We'll see.

I think, again, we're gonna see more podcasters driving for more rights but they it's not codified unlike music artists where it's codified. So does there need to be a political movement to codify all digital creator rights, podcaster rights, YouTuber rights? And you and then, you know, all this content I I don't know. You know? We we we strive for openness but then do we want do we want CRM? I don't think we want CRM. Not CRM. Digital rights management. So I don't think we want DRM.

At least I don't. But, you know, will will podcasters start to unionize? You know, who knows what they're gonna do? Well, that's part of what James James Crudland raised as it as a topic was, you know, having a professional association that kinda set standards for the industry. Well, there's a couple of them that are trying. Yeah. The podcast professional association is Yeah. Trying to get off the ground. And then Sounds Profitable is trying to make

this sounds profitable. They're trying to shift. Yeah. So but again, it's not they're focused on advertising, Sounds Profitable is. So that's largely, you know, they're they're you know, and they've got a great audience over there that that's their focus. So, you know, do we do we have an you know, I'm being an advocate for podcasters when I talk to big companies.

Who who you know, as a hosting provider, I just wonder if other hosting providers are just saying, yes, ma'am, yes, sir, or are they being advocates and advocating for podcaster rights? You know, we're we're very, very, very vocal about it when we talk to people. I don't know if So when you say podcaster rights in the context of who are you talking to? You're talking about advertisers? No. I'm talking to big platforms. Platforms. Okay. Yeah. Just like the conversation I had with Spotify. Yeah.

You know, advocating that, hey. You did this strategy for those that choose, you're screwing up their DAI. You're screwing up their programmatic. There's you're screwing up their their their promotion stuff. And and having those moves on the part of of Spotify and what we're increasingly seeing through working with a YouTube platform where it's gonna push the industry into more of a, like, a music licensing model.

I I don't I don't think people have enough guts to stand up and say no. They're so allured by the opportunity. You know, again, it's a trade off. The trade off is, do I wanna be in this platform and potentially be exposed to audience that I don't have and grow my show for free? Is that does that have enough value for the trade off? Well, music artists said no. The trade off's not enough. You have to pay to stream my shows even though they get paid, Jack.

So the music artists were ingrained from the early days of Napster and everything else that happened to to say you you're gonna use my content. You will pay me. So it came out of a a business model that was based on profit to begin with. Podcasting never was out of came out of a you know, when you when you had people cutting albums, they had representatives for distribution and sale and

blah blah blah. It was all a whole marketplace chain to make sure that artists that were successful and had platinum and gold and while these other records got paid and became rich. Now not all artists be And the model that that's it. The model that we're living in today is the fact that content creator has to really to pay to have distribution. Well, they're paying in content capital. Well, that plus they're actually I mean, even use x as an example. If you want to stream live to x, you have to

have a blue check mark. Right? Which is what, $8 a month or whatever that is. I mean, you can't get your content onto x unless you have a paid premium account. So, you know, it's just it's a wild dream of mine that shows with stand up and say, hey. You know, using my content, you're getting a free ride. But again, 50, 70, 80 percent of podcasters are not making any money anyway, so they don't care. So the trade off they get in exposure is enough of a value for them to stay there.

So, you know, it's a pipe dream to think that podcasters will revolt. And Is that in and if that does happen, it's gonna be with the really big shows. Yeah. With the big shows. Which if I think back to the early days of podcasting, I used to work for a company called Melodio in Seattle, which was a very early, podcast distribution platform on mobile phones. This was back in 2005. I had to do a licensing deal with NPR to get their podcast into my distribution platform.

It wasn't necessarily a paid thing. Right. Right. We didn't have to pay, but we had to actually come to an agreement and the content was gonna be used and presented in a certain way. And there was there was structure behind it. Yeah. Today, it's like the wild wild west. Right? It's kinda like, you know, people just throw content around like it's worthless. Mhmm. And it's

and it does start. And as we look at these platforms like YouTube and Spotify increasingly wanting to host it themselves and monetize it themselves, they're basically profiting on the back of people that have taken time and effort to create the content. But there's no clear kind of compensation for that. Well, it's it's it's not an issue until you add video. You still can monetize your content. Well, but video is going to push the conversation.

Again, if you're an audio producer, you can still run your programmatic and you still get paid for having your content on Spotify. And if you want to maintain that, then you set a second channel, which you Spotify does not want you to do. They're not gonna stop you, then you have a second channel with video only, which I advocate for. Especially if you're a small content creator that will never make that hurdle. What you what how are you gonna get hurt? You're not.

I don't know that we know for sure still if you can create a second channel with the same No. Name of a podcast. Yeah. You can. You can you can go into Spotify and create a new listing, with the same name. No issue. And you just can label it video. No issue. Do it all day long. Did you hear that from them? No. That's that she already knows that's happening. That's what they talked about in the call. Oh, yeah. That's what I said. Yeah. Yeah. People are already doing that.

And smartly so if they don't want to interrupt their audio revenue. And and if you're not qualifying for and they don't do CPM, by the way. They do RPM. And I couldn't get a ratio of what CPM to RPM really meant. I think it's the same. No. It is not. It is not. It's not the same? It is absolutely not the same. So is it only different based on how it's counted or It's counted based amount? Or It's counted based upon did someone listen to the ad and did did was how long someone listened.

There's it's not a CPM model at all. It's an RPM model and it's made up of many many factors that she wouldn't even fully define. Oh, okay. And it I asked what is the ratio? Is it 50% CPM, 75%? And she wouldn't tell me what that ratio was. She said we don't publish that. So it's obviously lower. RPM stands for, revenue per 1,000. Is that what that means? Mhmm. Or does it mean reach per 1,000? Maybe it's reach per 1,000 or revenue per 1,000 or something like that. Maybe it's reach.

So again, it's not CPM. So again, then then alright. The CPMs might be great. But what if you have a 1000000 views, but they only pay you for 500,000? So it's all hocus pocus. Right. So if if they're evaluated based on how many ads were delivered to a verified listener. And there's a ratio between premium and non non premium. There's some factor there. So, again, I can I can step on the pedal as much as I want in that model? So it just means more money for Spotify.

So going back to predictions, I think niche podcast networks are gonna expand. Seeing a lot of success with daily wired and and folks like that. I think we're seeing more more niche podcast networks really consolidate and, it just makes sense that it would. I think we've seen a couple of the the large podcast networks acquiring smaller podcast Yeah. Networks. I think the Evergreen podcast net network has a has acquired the the rights to individual podcasts as well as, networks of shows.

So what I'm saying is so there is a consolidation on the content side. What one thing that with that, we're gonna have to do as a community and all apps are gonna have to get on this bandwagon. They're just gonna have to in order to move the space forward. The interact and Tom Webster alluded to this in his sounds profitable piece today, or was it yesterday? That we have to have enhanced interactivity. So the podcasting 2.0 has a mechanism. It hasn't moved very fast.

Cross app comments where I comment on one app and it makes an a comment on another app. We have to do that in 2025. We absolutely have to solve that because what is driving people to go to YouTube or Super Chat. People are able to have this interactivity. People are able to donate and chat. We already have the functions kind of built. It's not refined yet to be able to check to submit tokens or submit satoshis

as comments. But the the the value as an example right now, here's a comment that came in before. 1,111 SATs from Silas. He says, at at a time a lot of people are going to Blue Sky but it's around for years already. In that way, the AT protocol work is set up for a great future better than activity pub even though activity pub hate to hear that. So that was a comment that came in live on the last show.

Mhmm. And some of this was actually he goes on to say Apple already has a 4 different native apps on the Play Store. 1 has a 2.9 star and the others aren't better than the 3.6 to Apple Music apps, MoveIT, iPhone, and Beats and and Beats app. But say really really made PWA is better than a crap native app, by the way. So again, it goes back to if we have interactivity that the listeners can participate in, that's gonna move the whole needle so far.

Because number 1, what does it do? You if you're having consolidated conversations across all apps, what happens then? You you have a podcaster that gets excited and starts embracing the other things that we've been trying to accomplish with podcasting 2.0. Yeah. I mean, does One drives the other. To think of of there's an analogy that can be drawn between what we see on the social networks. Right?

So you you post a post on to, let's say, Linkedin or Facebook or whatever, and you see a flow of comments. That is a static piece of content. That's right. So but the the commenting comes in over a multiple day period of time. Right. And then it kind of fades out. Sure. So as you think about it though, does that translate does that approach translate as well to on demand audio and video as it does to text? I think

so. Because if you you can go to those individual solo piles and go to LinkedIn, x, all these platforms and look at the various comments. If if number 1, if you posted to social media on this episode. But number 2, if you have in all the apps and again, everyone has to get on board. This doesn't work. If you get on all the apps and there's this interactive flow of commentary that's happened during an episode, and you know that you can contribute to the conversation no matter where you're at.

If if you're on overcast and you're listening as oh, that was really cool. And the app has a flow of timeline full of comments that have showed up. You can add to that conversation and it feeds back to the app that it originated with. So there's this there's a thread that could be incredibly valuable.

Add the component of being able to have an ecosystem where I like Rob's comment and I can send Rob some money for his comments or I can send money to the shows and Rob gets a share of that because you made a really good holy shit. You have this whole new ecosystem now that no one else has. And you should be able to plug in, the comment stream that comes off of the social platforms too because because I know that that StreamYard has that ability. But there's no time yeah. It it does.

But the key is it has to coincide with the timeline of the show, you would think, or maybe see the whole thing. We are we are getting in our own way. Everyone's got these little piles. If you want to grow the app Equisier and have these apps outside of Apple, outside of Spotify, if you want these all these apps to survive and to thrive, you gotta have some cooperation and you need to adapt. And you don't have to share in marketing. You're just sharing in listener comments. That's it.

And that's the only common thread is the the conscious thread. You get that in you get that in 15 apps. That will change podcasting. That will change podcasting for those listening to audio. Is that way do I have time to go to LinkedIn, Twitter, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah? Do I have that time to do that as a content creator? What if I audiences is is engaging with that show on all these platforms too. It can be live or it could

be on demand. They're engaging in YouTube and probably on Spotify because it's easy. It's a very easy to engage mid listen. It's not easy to engage mid listen on a podcast app. Not easy at all. Cross app comments solves that. But again, you have to get these these app developers that understand the bigger picture here. So we're only talking about audio at this point. Yeah. Well, it could be video too because the the the modern podcast app support video. So it could be a combination thereof.

So they could make a make a connection to the x's comment, API and Facebook The challenge is is I don't think there's anything that is a timeline. It would be a part of a comment, but the, you know, the value is I send a timestamp. I'm able to timestamp in the content where I made the comment about something. And if someone sees something,

they could jump to that. There's just so much value there for building the ecosystem, not only to get listener engagement, tie in monetization, it it's it's kills 2 or 3 birds in one stone. The mechanism has already been defined. It's just getting people to in to implement it. If they In a world that is increasingly becoming fragmented. Fragmented. They can still remain fragmented. You can have overcast. You can have pocket

cast. You can have fountain. You can have all these apps that are fragmented apps, but keep the comments centralized. Holy crap. If you can. Yeah. If you can. You know? And and it's that that's to me is would be if I could have one dream feature for the entire 2025 is that mass adoption. I think it would change. I think it would be. I think it would force. It would force those other platforms to potentially play ball.

And if Apple saw big adoption on 15 apps that had cross app comments, they they may not because of a privacy thing. But, wow, the power there would be huge. What are some of your other predictions, Rob? Do you see especially on big shows, do you see a lot of comment streams on podcasts in Apple? I don't think there's there's no mechanism. Just, review. There's no No. No. I mean I mean, just the quantity of people actually commenting about episodes that they watch. Well I was just curious.

You know and I both know that's very hard right now if I if we have people to email the show. And the only reason is because we share our email. And a small percentage of shows are going to a small percentage of listeners are going to comment. Just a small number. It's just the way it is because it's hard. It's a separate process. They have to open their browser.

They have to send they have to figure out, oh, it was geek news atgmail.com or it was [email protected] and then they have to type it out the the comment. But imagine being in the app listening to the show right now live or listening to the show later. And I'm talking about something that intrigues them, and all they have to do is just tap on their app and leave a comment. Yeah. I was just, I happen to go to the Joe Rogan podcast

in Apple Podcasts. Yeah. And just But there's Looked at the amount of Reviews. Well, it's ratings is all Yeah. Yeah. Give you a count on Yeah. And it's just that's just a ratings thing. That's a one and done. So there's there appears to be a lot of comments in here in in in ratings. I mean, he's got 200,000 ratings in here, but that's a for that show, I think that's a that's a pretty low number. But that's a one and done. Give it a 3 star. You can't make multiple ratings on Apple.

You do it one time for the lifetime of the show. I'm talking about this ongoing conscious stream of commentary. Okay. You know, across all platforms, that to, you know, I'm Yeah. People are pushing for it, but, again, really slow and we have to quit thinking about being in our sometimes you have to do stuff for the common good. Why did we instant why did we implement all the podcasting 2 points off at Blueberry? We did it for the common good.

I wanna help make sure that we are ready to rock and roll when everyone else catches up. I agree. It'd be cool to have that. And and it just takes a cup 2 apps to start. 2 apps 2 apps do the link up, and that's big news. Wow. You make a comment on Pocket Cast and you can make a comment on, fountain and those show up those comments show up on both apps. And then someone else, oh, I wanna be part of the party. And then 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, it's solved.

Because you're not part of the cool kids club of doing something cool and in innovative. And developers and marketeers are 2 different folks. My developers like to do a lot of stuff and my marketing team likes to do a lot of stuff. But my marketing team drives what the developers do. Most app based are are not marketing first. They are they are developer based first and then marketing second. So So how would a app like a listening app, look at that opportunity, as a benefit to them?

I think that they would that's a huge news. I think 2 apps put their heads together and say, hey. Look what we've got and publicize that. And companies like MindComm on and sell podcasters, listen. You know, here's something new. We would include that in the newsletter. We would we would we would and it the more parties that got out, then it's a story. Then it So so would the the podcast hosting apps or the hosting platforms like Blueberry, they could also consolidate those those Absolutely.

In the the hosting platform. That's right. Because they could they could tap into the same tap into the same thing and put that right in. And there could be a reply button right in our platform for host to come in and say and and just they wouldn't even need to do it in an app. They could do it right in right in our platform. They could reply to every show comment there was. And that that that's a dream. And here's a cool thing, that would feed back into the ecosystem.

And if you have a platform like True Fans, guess what? That commentary resides on True Fans too. That whole Yeah. That whole and podcasting 2.0 is already doing this to an extent for those that are participating. So all of the the shares that happen through the platform don't have to go through a central No. Repository. They all get shared through a

shared connection to API. And it's basically, Podcasting 2.0 has, and again, I'm not even how to explain it, but it's, and this is gonna make some people roll their eyes, but it's blockchain based. So the commentary goes It's like a ledger of sorts. Yeah. The commentary goes into It attracts each of the and since that blockchain is open Mhmm. Then it can be shared to anyone that connects to it. And Dave, if I just explained it wrong, I forgive me, but that's that's my understanding.

But anyway, that of course. And so there does have to be a centralized place to have this stuff, but it's already established. And companies of mine Anybody can tap into that Right. And pull it into their own app. And we're writing a check every month to support podcasting 2.0 to make sure their servers stay online. So the ecosystem not only that, it goes back to the bigger picture.

Whereas if the listeners are or the podcasters set a split to go to Podcast Index, anytime the monetization piece goes in, it helps pay for the service that's supporting this stuff. Yeah. We just all need to understand we how do we survive? You know, Dave Weiner making his complaints. How do we survive? We have to work together. Yeah. There has to be some place where that happens. And it's happening. Where is that? It's happening, but we just need the developers to get off their collies.

And that's a word that means your your your buttocks get off your Okole's. These other companies to talk to other competitors is probably where the challenge is. Well, I you know, I don't I think this is a competitive advantage for apps to do this. And I think it would be incredible to advance and it leads to other things. So But but wouldn't this be one of the first times that, like, Pocket Cast did a codevelopment with It's not a it's not even like a Believe it or not. Or something.

Believe it or not, it's not even a codevelopment. It's already established. All they gotta do is implement it. Just plug into it. Plug into it. That's all they have to do is just plug into it. But if 2 of them did at the same time and said, hey, we're supporting. You see a comment come here. It's gonna come over there. Doesn't matter what's happening on the back end. So if if one listening app does it, but nobody else does it It's worthless. Then then it's not very useful. No. It's

not useful. It's only useful when you have mass adoption. And I think True Fans has adopted it. Podcasting Index has adopted it. So So the more apps are plugging in, the more value it has. The more value. At the beginning, there's kind of a very narrow Right. Value which may get in the way of it getting traction. Right? Well, you you know, do you want to fight off the beast? The beast. And and I should say plural, beast with an s? The beast. Right. Yeah.

So we have to have enhanced interactivity. Yeah. Yeah. And I think this would it would transform podcasts into more dynamic and active experiences. It would really I'm I didn't come up with this. Adam Curry came up with this or someone that came up with this. This wasn't my idea. I'm just advocating for it. I think one of my last predictions is is I think we're gonna see a explosion again because of the economy change and the perception of

what's gonna happen with the economy. I think we'll see a lot of business podcast to launch that haven't launched, Because I think they're fully understanding that AI search is screwing them. They're gonna have to have other ways to that you have if you're not if you don't have a social presence on every platform and you don't have a message on YouTube, you don't have a message on a podcast, you are going to be l o s s t. Oh my god. L. L o s t? L o s t. Oh, how it it make sure my head

yeah. You are gonna be lost because search is gonna lose you. Yeah. And are it's already happening. And that's where kind of AI can come in with this too. Well, AI is going to screw search. So you have to have an online presence. You have to. And if you do queries and chat GPT and I believe in even, Gemini with Google, it it comes up with attribution source But again, it's not like Google, and it's limited in response. So if you are in those results, you are lost.

So you have to have another not in those results. That's right. And, I'm looking a lot of search results. I'm like, I'm saying holy shit because not Oh, in the AI search? That's right. You look at AI search and stuff that you trend for for your keyword ranking. And if you don't show up in that, you're done. D o n e. Done. You are you do not have a presence on the web no more. It's big. It's a big deal.

So if you don't have a podcast, if you don't have all this other stuff on social media, no one will find you. Right. So if we do a search in chat I'm just doing chat g e t. For this Or think about a business, Rob. Like, what would you search for in relation to this show? I would probably, discussions on podcasting. What are the best shows for discussion on podcasting? And maybe that is or what are the best podcast best podcast shows about podcast? Podcast show. Yeah. Yeah. What are the best

podcast about podcast? Maybe that's the search result. Alright. Well, podcasts. So this is in chat. Gpt Search. 4 4 point, Omni or Or whatever it is for. Yeah. Well, of course, it comes up with, ours as number 1. So it is my account. Yeah. So what was the search term that let me go over here and find I said best podcast about Podcasts. Okay. Let me go over here and and do it on mine. Let's see here. I wanna do search the web. Best podcast

on podcast. I'm just gonna use that. And then and it ranks our show number 1, The Feed, the official podcast from Lipson, number 2, Dave Jackson, school podcasting, number 3, And Buzzcast, number 4. Podcasting 2.05. Podcraft, number 6. Pod News Weekly Review, 7. So Podcast. So editors, mastermind. Ours in my search, it gave me two results and new media show doesn't show up in either. So and it shows a show that is not producing podcast episodes anymore.

So, you know, so again, it varies biased towards the towards the interest of the user too. So I think what you have is this. Here's the realization. As more businesses understand their web traffic's dropping, they're going to have to adopt more extensive social media. You're gonna need to be on Reddit. You're gonna have to have again, you you you gotta have all this stuff now that's external to be found or to be heard. You know, a big national business is not

going to be affected. But, you know, if you if you do a web search on say in your town, what is there more than one business of, Rob? How many? Okay. I'm gonna put in like a like a restaurant. I'm a say recommend a lawyer in Coldwater, Michigan. And Coldwater is a small town. And I'm doing a a a web search. It list, you might consider if you're seeking legal assistance. It gives me 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 results. And of those attorneys, I know I'm familiar with 3 of these firms.

So there's 8, which is not bad. Not a bad list for a small town, but I guarantee you there's more than 8 lawyers. Some maybe and this these are all references from lawyer.com and other places. But what if you don't show up in those searches no more? Used to be you could scroll deeper and you can't scroll deeper. So what if you're a lawyer and you're not in this list? Then Yeah. So I don't know how you game. You don't game. There's no gaming. The AI

You don't. AI platforms to to rank you They're in a in a query. Their strategies and we've been doing those strategies for the past year and a half. But, again, it's about being wide. Simple. You have to be seen everywhere. You have to be seen in more places. Thus, if you're a business, that's why I made the prediction that businesses, if you don't have an online podcast, YouTube channel, everything, you might not be found anymore as people shift. You what what you think you wanna find.

Exactly. What you necessarily want to find. Yeah. Because I changed my query to top podcast about podcasts without bias towards me. And it probably removed it, didn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So again, the dynamics of search are going to change dramatically. And OpenAI has already said they're going to make search free for all of their customers. And then now what am I have to do? I have to start buying advertising with OpenAI? Well, I'm sure that's what's coming next.

Yeah. So the open web is is important as it's been since ever in in eviction or a beginning, but, you know, kingmakers are the real gatekeepers now with search engines and, the AI search. They are the gatekeepers to traffic to your website. Okay. I changed the query to be top podcasts, about podcasts based on audience size. Mhmm. How does it know that? I know. Well, that's the only other metric. Right? Yeah. So what other qualitative search query factors?

We don't know. We don't know what they're using for a qualitative. We have no idea. Again, it's getting data. And what is considered a top? Anything. Well, maybe that's where, you know, again, a new media show, a top podcast about podcast and the metadata, you know, who might influence that. Will it? Who knows?

It doesn't influence the search engines because the search engines have figured out how to, you know, to basically, avoid the fluff that we've all used for years to try to get traffic to our websites. Okay. I did a, I I changed the query to podcasts about podcasts based on audience size. So I I removed the word top. Yeah. And it came up with a classification, based on a a list, that has large audience. Uh-huh. And then a short list of medium

size audience. Okay. And then another, another list, says niche audience. Oh, did we make any of those? Yeah. And then one that said emerging audience. How does it know? Which list did we end up in? We ended up in the medium sized. Well, considering Just below Buzzcast, which is the Buzzsprout podcast. Okay. So Buzzsprout is talking to their their podcasters. Which which people in public can Yeah. That too.

So, you know, I you asked me to look at our stats and, you know, we're still hovering 14, 15,000. So does that consider are we small at 14 or 15,000 people that listen to a podcast about podcast? I don't what kind of time frame is that? Oh, that's we've been running those numbers for years. No. But is that, like, per episode or monthly or Oh, yeah. Per episode. It's per episode. Okay. Yeah. Because it shows here large audience is the the podcast host podcast.

Well, that's extremely meta. I have never listened to it. With Dave Jackson. But I I would we'd have to ask Dave what his audience size is. And then Podland News is the third one on the large audience. Oh, so that's Kridlin. Right? Yeah. So they do it daily. So I would assume that their audience is pretty big. Of course, you can look at o p 3 and actually see how big Podland is. So it gets back to and and it's the same thing that happened with Google search

too. It was really, you know, what queries, what prompts Mhmm. Are are people using to find content in there? I don't see any links to anything in this list. I guess if I added, if I added the term add links. I'm just gonna try to find the pulls the the links to those shows. And I found it occasionally where it will actually, make a mistake. It'll pull Oh, yeah. Something different. Okay. So I had the same query and all I did was add

the words add links. Mhmm. And it actually pulled up a categorization or actually a a list of shows and actually shows the cover art image with the results. And where they link to? They show the reference information. It actually it doesn't actually show the actual URL. So let's see if I click on it. It doesn't actually go anywhere. Spurlock, you need to search on your website so I can search for a show. I don't see a search button. I was

gonna look at Podlands numbers. These are all public numbers, but, you know, how do I get to it if I am not using an API? Yeah. But I found yeah. I found it interesting that it was pulling the album art from the podcast in the in the chat GPT results right next to the the short description Mhmm. Link. So that is more like a search query. Yeah. Okay. So here is o p three analytics for pod news. They've had 1,281 downloads the last 7 days, 55 100 downloads in the last 30, 5667

downloads in November. So, you know, compared to that, we're definitely bigger than their show just by the OP 3 data. So but still, that's a you know, considering he's got how many people subscribed to the newsletter, that that's still a pretty great number for him. Yeah. You know, not many shows are getting 5,000, you know. So, you know, he's got a good tuned in audience there. So this this output from chat GPT looks increasingly like a web page. Oh, yeah. Exactly.

And thus, my prediction on why search is going to fundamentally it already is changing. You look at perplexity as well. You know, I'm starting to see in my stats logs. I'm looking at it very heavily. And by the way, we're way over on time. I'm looking at those referrals and I got a lot of stuff coming to the website that has no referral data. And OpenAI is purposely not showing if you're getting traffic from them. Oh, good. And you can experiment

on your own. All you have to do is, put find some obscure page on your website that gets very very little web traffic. Do a search query in in in chat gpt that drives that result. So you can find that exact page and and then you click on the link in chatgpt, then you go to your web logs and look and okay. That that traffic isn't defined where it came from. So Yeah. You just increasingly it looks like you have to be very, very specific to it.

And hence Gets gets back to prompts, and it will deliver to you what you specifically asked for. Yeah. But if you ask a question like, what is the best podcast hosting company, which is subjective, then, you know, you can see where I start getting, because it doesn't give me blueberry in my results. Maybe it will for you. But, again and, again, it's pulling from webs. So if you've had a bunch of web reviews that ranked you high, you may show up in the list.

So, again, it's about being wide. It's about being seen more places. Yeah. I did that same query, Todd. It it was best podcast hosting company. Yeah. And it came up with Buzzsprout, Number 1, lips and tooth, Captivate 3, blood being 4, anchor 5, transistor or anchor isn't even Right. Anchor's gone. But again, the model is old. So yeah. Red Circle 7, Spreaker 8, SoundCloud. SoundCloud is even coming up on the list. Yeah. So now but if you ask it, what is

the best podcast host for WordPress? And we were right there. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's again, it's the how the question is asked. Right. Yeah. So, again, if you're a business and you relied to be in that first 10 or 15 search results in Google and people are looking at this data and if you're specific enough in chat gpt, you'll get the answer you're looking for to an extent. But what are you missing? And that's the worry. You know, what are you missing? So

Yeah. I did that same query. Best podcast hosting for WordPress and it does bring up, blueberry number 1. That's right. So again, it's because that's what everyone's talked about us for years. Yeah. Yeah. So we have some some stake in that, you know. Yeah. So, again, I think there's anyway, that's pretty much I I have more on my prediction list, but Rob Yeah. Go go ahead. And do I mention a couple more Let's see here. Me look and make sure I've got everything I wanted covered.

Yeah. I I've got everything I've I wanted to cover. So I went through all my Good. Stuff here. Good. How about you? Anything additional? Yeah. I was just gonna mention, I I I think, we're gonna see a lot more global expansion of the podcast medium on the listenership side and also on the business side too. I I know that I heard some a lot of lot of discussion that the business side of podcasting is not really very developed outside of the US. I mean, it is in Canada and, you

know, Europe and places like that. But once you get beyond those Western countries, it it becomes challenging. Yeah. So, you know, a lot of the best practices that we've come accustomed to here in the US are just not built out in those markets. But it's probably coming. So, ladies and gentlemen We can call a what are what what are your predictions? Yeah. You know Send us an email. Yeah. Absolutely. Link or post online and send us a link to it. And, let's see here.

Obviously, you can send Rob an email at [email protected]. And, let's see here. I'm [email protected]. So easy to do that. Of course, you can we always want you to make sure that you're following us live and that, you follow our social as well. Yes. I do have lower thirds set up. I just haven't been clicking them. Yeah. Oh, I that that sucks. It only stayed up for 5 seconds. I gotta change the setting on that. Atnmspodcastonx. But I don't know. It's been an interesting year.

It's been an interesting year. Yeah. It is. Definitely been been a been an interesting year. So we'll see if 2025 turns out to be a better one for podcasting as we kind of transition into something. Well, I'm you know, I think, I have a couple of predictions that I'm not going to make, but I would suspect we'll see some I'll just leave it at that. I I I think we may see some business failures in 2025. Yeah. I would agree with you that that that will likely happen.

There's clues to some significant platforms out there that have been involved in podcasting that are maybe not doing so well. Yeah. Yeah. And even some emails that I've gotten about, basically, hey. We'd like to talk. So when people are sending emails and wanting to talk, there's potential of someone not doing financially well. And the and the layoffs and the hiring continue. You know? That that that's the thing. So it's definitely a a reshuffling of the deck that's going

on in the medium right now. Yep. Transition is happening. Indeed. Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Again, I'm [email protected]@geeknewsonx@[email protected]. Rob? Yeah. I'm on x as well at Rob Greenlee and got my own, YouTube channel, which I'm really up updating with, content to that at Rob Greenlee as well. And then you wanna send me an email. Actually, you just showed it on the screen. [email protected] will actually work as well.

Yep. Sierra, make sure I missed didn't miss any comments. New phone. Who's the I don't know. I heard an AI okay. 3 to 4 k med. Yeah. And Rick says, I'm thrilled if someone buys me a coffee. Yeah. I I I agree. That's where it is. I think we had quite a people watch on YouTube but not a lot of commentary. You know, I must be sleepy. So alright. We'll get out of here and,

yes. If you have any influence on Riverside, easily switching on screens, would be greatly appreciated and not the Kludge way they've got it right now. That would solve my issues. Otherwise, maybe OBS is in my future. Okay. Rob, thanks. We'll see you in 2 weeks. Yep. After the the New Year. Yep. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays and happy New Year, everyone. We'll see you next time. Podfest is coming up soon. That's right. We'll talk about that on the next show.

We're gonna be doing doing an episode of of this show at Podfest. So And, have you been working on a guest list? Yeah. Oh, okay. Good. Rob handles that thing. The other stuff I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, everyone. Thanks. We'll see you next week. Yep. Okay. Yep. Bye.