Tired of the Video Discussion? Thank, Spotify / YouTube #610

Todd and Rob in the afternoon. Afternoon delight. With Todd and Rob. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And here we are, Rob, for another edition of the new media show. How are you? I'm doing great, Todd. It's great to be back on the show on a new streaming platform. Yep. And, we are we are on a new streaming platform. And the reason was I couldn't get good video out of, restream.io. I couldn't record locally on StreamYard.

It seems like all these platforms have taken away the ability to get a quality video recording. And, so we're on Riverside and much kinda to my chagrin. So what more specifically did you see was the challenge with stream, with, Restream? Everything's great if your bandwidth is just always perfect because they don't do a local recording.

They record everything to the cloud now. So it it you know, when I look at Restream and I look at, StreamYard, they're using That's the same thing the Streamyard recently did was pull pull the the combined local recording. Yeah. I know you can still get the separate tracks, but you can't get the combined. Alright. So we'll see how this works. You know, right now it says 8% uploading on my window. Do you have an uploading button in yours? Do you have any indication? And it's showing 99%, 97%

upload. So it actually is tracking the the upload. Yeah. So for me, it's not because, you know, I've I had I'm supposed to have 30 up, but it just isn't tracking. So, you know, I'm watching the live video output right now and it's definitely not as good as essentially what what I would expect. And, so what that ends up with being is a real bad video recording. So I need a master video recording that is good. So when I'm traveling and I guess we'll test this and see

how it goes. I think if you got great bandwidth, you're probably okay. So to use Restream or or StreamYard, but, you know, I'm I'm more worried about having a quality video recording because I was looking at this stuff on YouTube and it was just caca. It was bad. Yeah. And it's good good timing for us to to be talking about the Riverside folks, and I'll just jump to that particular line item in our our news is that I guess the Riverside folks, raised another $20,000,000 in a 30. Funding round.

30? Yeah. Yeah. 30. Yeah. 30. Yep. And they already have a 165 employees. So, where are they? I guess they're spending their money to do this. Right? To make sure you get a good good video recording? I I think about the money they've got. And it just Part of their model, but I guess, well, I guess part part of their model is to build out other capabilities. Like, they they also announced, multitrack editing tools built into the platform too Yeah. For both

audio and video. So so I think what we're seeing is kind of a kind of a move towards these platforms becoming, you know, adding functional features, right, and making them more capable. So content creators don't don't have to be transferring files around and using other tools and all this stuff to accomplish what they wanna do. And the and the same thing is happening with the with the script platform too with, with SquadCast where they have the integrated tools so you can do everything

right there. And and, actually, they've started you know, a lot of these platforms are starting to add the ability to publish directly to to the video consumption platforms like a like a YouTube. Yeah. It's it's it's curious to me, for sure. But, you know, I think the thing that you know, I ever since they got money, they kinda changed as a as a company. So and Are you talking about Riverside? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know That's gonna I mean, what once you get to a 165 employees, that's

that's a big company. But it's it's amazes me they have that many that much money. And, it just goes to show you. I I think I think of what we can do if I had 30 extra $1,000,000 at Blueberry. You know? Jesus. And they raised 35,000,000 in 2022 I know. Couple years ago. I know. Right before, NAB. Right. And then in 2021, they raised 9,500,000 on top of that. So they've just since 2021, they've raised, what, 60 almost $80,000,000.

Yeah. So it's that's amazing. That's a big number for amount of money for this product, and it just surprises me that, you know, I just it just to me it's it's a extraordinary number. It really, really is. But here we are. We're using, their platform for a reason this morning. Well, you know, I'm back in the studio. I don't have to worry about these challenges of getting a quality recording.

You know, and I may have to do some thinking here now again on, you know, how to get a quality recording when I'm remote. Audio is fine, you know, and I I and and maybe no one gives a shit, to be honest with you. Maybe the audio recording and the video recording is good enough. But I'm kind of a perfectionist a little bit. Well and that kinda takes us into the big topic we wanna talk about is is are are we all tired of talking about video?

Yes. Yes. Indeed. Well, that's a very simple answer to that question, but, there's a lot of continuing ongoing chatter about the implications of of of video and and some of the things that we've said on this show, have kinda raised people's attention here lately, and James Cridlin's getting involved in this conversation as well. And and An interesting And and in fact, I was wrong last week. Apparently Apparently. Yes. You can, god. Didn't even wanna mention these folks anymore.

You can Well, Todd, you were actually giving them too much credit. They were gonna do it the the logical way, but what they've done here is break the models. Done. Oh, they broke it completely. So if I go in and find my listing that I am doing pass through on from Blueberry, my audio listing and I overwrite my and I put video on top of that, then they never ever serve the audio. I knew that part was right. That's why I was saying due to so I'm still advocating my same solution.

Is that you start a second show on Spotify if you wanna do video. Yeah. But they'll they'll actually overwrite your RSS feed. No. But I'm saying start a second show and don't and don't overwrite your original show. Start a second show. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't know the actual fine details on that if if they associate it with the publisher's name and somehow replace it I don't know. The same title of the of the series

Yeah. Or what the If if I if I go over there and create a new podcast and call it the new media show video version, which I'm not gonna do, then I haven't done it either. So it's it's just been it just feels like it's too much of a mess over there to even mess with right now until they get their model straightened. Well, I mean, I think what it ultimately you know, I think the chickens are gonna come home to roost on this at some point.

And, you know That's another topic I wanna talk about too is there's some folks making some 2025 predictions. So we're we're kind of in that time period right now too where people are talking about, well, are are people gonna get tired of a video and some point next year, there's gonna be a bunch of layoffs because everybody invested a lot in in video and it didn't work out. Or or are they, right?

Or will, you know, Google being you know, I I think maybe there's some semblance of, you know, reality there in that, you know, we could end up with, all of a sudden the major companies saying that we've had enough of this. We're tired. Let's let's move on. Yeah. Yeah. This is this is a time of kind of I've been saying this for a while, but it's definitely a time of convergence, from what people perceive as mainstream media type content.

And I think we're we're kind of blending these things together and it's making us kind of uncomfortable because we're we're calling out shows that have production teams or bigger studios, more like how mainstream media has produced their content over the years, and that's shifting over to the Internet side. And it's kinda like confusing. Well, you know, is it a podcast if it's distributed online, if it has a big team behind it, versus what we've all known podcasting to be

is kind of an independent medium. Anybody can do it. But are we shifting into a time where it's it's gonna be the full spectrum? Mainstream media is gonna be focused on it going forward. And the independent creators either get left behind or there's some way for them to continue to compete. And in some ways, there's some evidence that they can continue to compete. Yeah. You know, and continue to compete. And, you know, again, I the the medium's healthy.

You know, l a bit a little bit slower in the number of of new folks. But, you know, the I'm not worried from that perspective to be to be honest with you in in that regard. So, yeah, I'm I'm I I think we're gonna be just fine. You know, you you look at, you know, look at what we're doing. You know, we're we're trying to be very diverse working with new partners. Matter of fact, we announced a new one, this morning. And, and then, announced a new product on Monday.

We, you know, we we announced our podcast AI tools as a stand alone product on Monday so that, you know, now you don't have to have a a hosting account at Blueberry to be a customer. And you're gonna see use it. Oh, Okay. Yeah. And you're gonna see more of that from us too. I won't go into too many details. But, from a from a business standpoint, I can't be a one trick pony. I have to have, more eggs in my basket and a more diversified income streams.

You know, I have to protect, the company at all cost. And, so, you know, you'll see next year. Matter of fact, we've already preannounced one of those products. A news a new product called Creator Connect. And, and you'll notice I said Creator Connect, not Podcaster Connect. But, you know, basically, a product that will it's gonna integrate with Blueberry. You know, that's

the main thing. Yeah. Sure. So amongst Todd, that's smart because I think increasingly, people are creating content or thinking themselves as creators that have lots of distribution choices. And podcasts is one of them. It's not probably all of them. It's one of them. But, you know, it's it I saw something, and I had a quite a dialogue about it on my tech show. And matter of fact, I've gotten a huge amount of feedback from it already.

I had a basically, I saw people on TikTok preparing for the TikTok shutdown. So they're all promoting now. Hey. I'm I'm a run instant Donald Trump's getting into office and he threatened to shut them down. Well, no. He actually has hinted he might save TikTok. Oh, okay. But he hasn't really committed. So, you know, I I think chances are 5050 whether or not he actually, if if he actually saves TikTok on January. Well, he can't do nothing till 20th. But January 19th is the is the shutdown day.

So now Oh, now it's already set. Yeah. So, you know Boy, that's that's awfully coincidental that it's the day before the inauguration. Right? So let's, you know, let's just take a let's take a a a comment out of my playbook. You know what? I've been pooh poohed. And a matter of fact, Tom, you you pooh poohed me recently. You know, I can't understand what you said that, you know, the grass is looking mighty green over on some of

these sites. Well, I've always said, you build your brand at the risk of someone changing their business model. And lo and behold, it wasn't a business model. It was the political winds that are changing the model. Right. And with with that said, if TikTok does get shut down, which I very well think it could be, You have got a whole 150,000,000 people that have been on that platform. Not all of them creating content, but a whole bunch of them are and monetize and guess what? They're done.

Their livelihood, their way to make money is gone. So, you know, I I'm I have no illusions. I like TikTok. I'll I like it. But I have no illusions that the Chinese state government is also involved. They have no illusions that they they they are. It's just the way they are. They they are insidious. You know, people may they say, Todd, you're

crazy. But if you're in China and doing business in China and the China state comes in and says, you shall do this and you shall not tell anyone what you're doing and you shall give us this data, that's what happens. And there's some evidence that that has actually happened and, you know, you why what you wouldn't have the NSA and everyone else saying, essentially, you don't install TikTok on your phone. But at the same point, you've got these competing commercial instruments, YouTube.

You've got Instagram, Facebook, and everyone else that want reels to work. So, you know, those companies would love to see TikTok go away. Because billions I was gonna say, you know, you have to look at who benefits from Right. Is is having something to do with maybe pushing for it. So they're pushing forward even though they're, you know, they're you know, you don't hear too much. Then you got the government saying this is bad and they're spying.

And you got the creators in the middle and saying, hey. Don't take my livelihood away. And, you know, YouTube and Facebook, they're waving. Come over here and we'll give you, you know, some some some pennies for your for your for your creativity. And the advertisers will have to move. So it Same thing happens when a podcast hosting platform shuts down. Right. Who benefits all all the other podcast host? That's right. So there is a, you know, there is a cause and effect here.

Yeah. And, you know, I I don't dare ever fly through Hong Kong. I just don't. I don't ever dare hub through there as much smack as I've talked about China for so many years on my tech show. The risk. I'm not taking the risk. And, you know, the chances that roll me up are slim, but I also had an interesting job before. So, you know, they they might want to roll me up. And it it goes back again to

alright. Where you build in your brand. Now, you know, Dodge, we're talking about building on you.com. Well, I'm I'm a podcaster and guess what? TikTok goes away. No sweat for me. I'm I'm continuing. I'm good. I'm not locked in in any way over there. I'm not investing time over there. I'm not I'm I have an issue at all. Yeah. Last week, though, we did get some boost, and I missed it. I apologize. And some came in afterwards. Love the idea of split testing to your

point. I think it would require work on both the media host side and the app side to ensure good delivery of all episode artwork created down correlated downloads or plays related to specific artwork by like the idea. Oh, yeah. So someone is talking about a b we talk about a b testing of media within apps and, album art and all that stuff, episode art. Mhmm. And then,

2000 stats from Silas on Linux. He says Blue Sky injecting RSS doesn't seem super unlikely to me because it's not really a platform. Every profile count is its own website. It's like everyone already has an RSS feed except that Blue Sky protocol isn't JSON based. It's unlikely, but they could take in RSS. It doesn't go that much against their model, although I don't think RSS feeds are usually signed. Yeah. Most are now. Most of them are h t t p s. Blue Sky

feeds are signed. It's standing for authenticated transfer. Oh, plus from testing, we know Blue Sky doesn't derank post with external links in it. That's the reason I think brands and people are going to it. Again, I think it's just a segment of populations going to it. Being able to use the audience you built somewhere else too, Blue Sky isn't against external stuff, which makes sense. Not yet. Yeah. Papa HD. Yeah. How they all started. Started too. Yeah. And then 5000 Sass from Papa

HD. Hi, Rob. Greetings from Montreal. The frontier between audio and video and podcasting is more and more and more blurred blurred here too. So we got some feedback class from last week's show, at least even on boost, you know, and using those new modern podcast app. We are lit and live, by the way. We're streaming the show. Audio as well as video on all the major platforms.

But so, you know, whatever happens to TikTok doesn't so I'm not saying that, the chances of YouTube's not gonna get banned. Facebook's not gonna get banned. Spotify is not gonna get banned. That ain't happening. All US companies. Why? Right. Right. Rooted. Right. Companies. Yeah. Well, Spotify is not. Spotify is European European country. I can't remember which. That's from Sweden. So Oh, yes. Sweden. Part of the that's a that's a NATO ally. So

So yeah. So, you know and and so, you know, again, I, you know, I hate to say it this way. Don't and believe me, if if TikTok goes away, I'll get some time back. But it still remains the number one place for me to find real news about specific events going on in the world that I don't find anywhere else. I can easily find okay. So There's a lot of it. There's a lot of it going on on x too. But but at the same time, I I can't find reels on x about what's going on in Syria.

You know, you So you find just regular videos? Yeah. Have you seen any mainstream news covering Syria? No. They've been covering this the CEO shooter. You know, so, which is, you know And all of the UFOs flying over New Jersey. Right. Right. That's the other one. Yeah. You know, it's Drones. It's real easy. If you guys in New Jersey wanna figure out this drone thing, it's called a it's called a 12 gauge shotgun. And You can get arrested for that, Todd.

In New Jersey, you can. In New in Texas be advocating for people to shoot down the road. If something's over my property, hovering at a couple 100 feet, It's illegal to discharge a firearm like that, Todd. If it's over your property, it come matter. Okay. Well, it it depends on the state you live. You can't shoot down. That's that's certainly true. You can't you can't shoot airplanes down. No. Don't get me wrong. Yeah. You know? Well, that's that's exactly why

they're gonna come after you. Yeah. Well, you know, if it's dark. Which all these things were flying around in the dark. Right? Yeah. They look rather suspicious. I thought it was interesting. The the other rumor that was flying around that, I guess, there's, some mother ship from Iran that has come off the eastern coast, and they're they're launching all these drones into into the East Coast of the US. It's the UFO invasion is what it is, Rob. Right. Over Jersey. Right. Right.

Just Jersey. I I know it's there is certainly something up in the sky. Right? I mean, I've seen old videos. I'm sure you have to They're big. There is something a little bit unusual going on here, but there's also a lot of, you know, freaky stuff going on with drones. Right? Yeah. So it's it's I mean, there's big and small. And and now we're talking about flying cars and,

you know, all this kind of stuff. So the technology has reached a point where we can do a lot of interesting stuff, and there may be a lot of interesting stuff that we don't know about. It's gonna end up being some college students. You know? That's what it's end up gonna be. Right. It's a it's a college fraternity prank. Right? You know? So, you know, who knows

what it's gonna be? So Yeah. But Well, Todd thought I saw, in in pod news that James Cridland broke the the news about, I guess, a new and improved Apple Podcasts on Android. Oh, yeah. That they they basically fixed a bug. Okay. Is that what it was? Yeah. It was it was in, you know, and we kinda laughed about it because we knew, we had talked about it internally. And, actually, we had sent messages over to, to, to the gang over there when they introduced this thing, and,

they fixed the PWA setting. That's what they did. Oh, okay. So now you can actually make it a PWA. But potentially is it bypasses the Google Store. Well, you know, we have a PWA for Blueberry podcast stats that you can install. Right. So it's not rocket science, but you people aren't used to installing apps that way. That's why they the same way that the the the Google podcast. Right. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So So yeah. But, you know, it's great.

So if you want to install this on your Android phone, just go to podcast, dot apple.com in your Chrome browser Right. On your Android phone Yep. And you should be able to get it get it set up. Yep. And you put an icon right on your right on your phone, and it'll it'll act just like an app. Just like the Google Podcast one did. That's right. So, you know, here we are. And, you know, it's it's a pretty big deal.

The challenge is again Now now the next position we we should take thought is that Apple should make a native Oh. Android app. Right? We've been saying that for years. That's the next logical step in this conversation. Yeah. So, you know, a PWA is, you know, the here's the challenge again. And I think Android users may be a little more adept in installing a PWA than iOS users. So Then yeah. Right. Totally. So, you know, we could see a,

a bump. I'd love to see all of a sudden the Apple Podcast app reach 3, 5, 6, 7% on Android. That would be a beautiful thing. Yeah. It needs to replace at least the stats for for Google Podcasts, right? That would be great because they were actually starting to grow that, before they killed it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Actually had good percentages. Success equals death. Right? Yes. So there is, take away from that. And, you know, James did put some installation instructions. Yeah.

Pretty simple. Yeah. Very, very simple. And it's basically added to your home screen. It's very, very simple. And then choose install. That's right. But, again, you gotta be using the Chrome browser in Yes. You do. Your Android, which you do have options. You don't have to use the Chrome browser in Android, which I do. That's likely going to be the default browser on Android. I would think. I would think so too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it doesn't have to be, but No. It doesn't. No. No. You can run

probably all of the other browsers. Yeah. Zillow, Firefox, all that. I contend still there's a reason why, Google does I mean, excuse me, why Apple has not done a a native app. I just think But you can't get a deal done with Google. Well, I I think I think I think those that are in charge over in the, you know, what do they call the Apple spaceship? You know, I think Tim Cook is would is probably saying it'll be a cold day and you know what before we build a a native app for Android.

You know? Because it's It's odd. It's the same thing that's that's currently going on with email between all those big tech tech bohemous. You know, even Microsoft and Google and Apple is that their their email platforms don't work with each other either. Right. Right. There's always been these kind of, like, you know, behind the scenes tech wars that have been going on between all these companies. I mean, I used to work for Microsoft, so I saw it firsthand

that everybody's trying to undermine everybody else. And it's like yeah. They they It's always bad for the user. That's the problem. They they they want a reason to, you know, give people if if you don't if you want the Apple Podcast app so bad, buy buy an iPhone. Right. You know, don't go out and buy an Android. Pick sides. That's right. Pick sides. Just like politics now, Todd. Yeah. You gotta pick sides. Oh, we're past the political season. Let's I'm not I don't talk about any politics.

I don't know that we really are, Todd. I think we still have to get to an inauguration first. I don't know. Okay. Well, again, let's let that go. Yeah. Let that go. Okay. You're tired of it. So right. You know? And thank God I'm not in you know, I I missed the the the onslaught of everything that you all had to deal with. So, yeah, it's true. Yeah. Though I don't think we're really done. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Keep keep going, Rob. Keep stirring the pot here. I'm not I'm not pushing on

details. I'm just saying that the, the old saying goes, well, I should probably even say this, but the fat lady hasn't entirely sung yet. Yeah. And meanwhile, I've it's been very interesting for me. We've hired 3 new employees, and, they're here in the Philippines. And it was a very interesting process, and I I don't wanna go into much detail, but we used a agency, that, has facilities where people come in and

work and very modern, beautiful. I toured it, met the team, you know, on they got doctor on-site. Not not a doctor, a nurse. Just a I mean, an amazing work facility. And, we're one of their few American customers. They mostly have, Australian companies they work with. But, I was recommended this company from a close friend of mine, Aya, out of Cleveland or Cincinnati. And, the it it's

I'm impressed. There is a little bit we're trying to know what we're really trying to make sure that they understand is our culture. And what I'm kinda calling the blueberry way and making sure they understand the blueberry way. And, so just like any new employee, there's a ramp up period. You know, trying to get people you know, we make it we give them homework and what to read and listen to and including

a bunch of podcasts to listen to. And, but, when they get down and get ready to rock and roll, I'm pretty impressed with the output so far. Very, very, very impressed. Not a lot of hand holding up to this point. So so far folks is out there? Yeah. Very much so. And, they were shocked because we work a 36 hour work week here. And, we cut everyone loose Friday at noon. And right now I've got them all in an office.

And then sometime mid January, we'll transition and we we just want them to be collaborative in the in the early months. And, sometime in January, maybe early February, we'll let them just to work from home. They won't have to come to the office anymore. And, the, the best thing I can say is they they were just blown away that we would say, okay. We're we're paying you for 40 hours, but you you know, on Friday, you're done at noon.

And the the that that concept just a matter of fact, even the I had to send a special note to the to the agency. It says, listen. We're, you know, they're not working, but they're getting paid for it. Completely foreign concept. I mean Right. I mean, like, they the the management company is, like, trying to wrap you mean you mean they don't you're gonna pay them for 40, but they only have to work 36. I'm like, yes. That's that's, you know and, Are you crazy? What's what's going on

here? Yeah. And also, the way they term is you get 45 hours, but they get an hour for lunch. So you you still get 40. But yeah. Yeah. But it's it's been it's been interesting. The main thing that I was shocked about was the benefits package and insurance in another country to see those outlays of how much they pay for taxes and and because it's, you know, the here's a salary then everything above. There's cost plus a fee to the agency.

And you definitely can go cheaper just going a VA route, but you put yourself at risk with the government if they don't pay all those fees themselves. Right. And They can come back after you probably. I you know, and I just don't wanna do that. And, so Yeah. It's just like hiring any other employee in the United States. There's overhead above salary. You pay your portion of Social Security and insurance and, you know, all that stuff that goes along with it.

So, and they're pretty pleased about our vacation policy around the holidays too. I would imagine. Yeah. So what did you think about our announcements with Adobe? I I you've yet to see a lot of the details about it. So I don't know if you wanted to share more more details. It's it's more of a collaboration and we basically you know, I I talk to everybody. I talk to Descript. I talk to all of the major recording platforms and no one wanted to do a deal. No one wanted to do an integration.

They all were on their own and, they they didn't wanna take my money. Now here's the crazy part, Rob. Even Riverside, they didn't wanna take my money to do an integration. I was willing to write a check to do an integration. And When you say integration. What does that kind of look like? What it could have happened? What I wanted was is you have an experience within Blueberry, either an SDK or direct link to launch into a recording platform. Oh, right in the tools. Right into the tools

and no one wanted to do that. And I was like, here, take my money. And I and I still don't understand it. Why that probably would have been a $100,000 a year deal, potentially, you know. Is there some some some concern, Todd, that they wouldn't be able to give the users the full spectrum of features if they if they did that kind of No. I of a deal? I I don't know. So I said, okay. No one wants to do a deal. Fine. I'm gonna go out and do a collaboration. I gotta do step 1.

Step 1 is, okay, here, Blueberry hosting customers, you get a better deal than everyone else. You get a 60 day free trial Right. Of their platform. I direct link. They have to be a Blueberry hosting customer. They have to they they can link to the offer through the dashboard. And once they get into Adobe, they use Adobe just like they would Adobe Podcast Premium, Adobe Express Premium, just like they would if they had logged in directly at Adobe.

There is no integration to bring the media back to us, but it's just basically 60 days, you get to use a product for free. And then we hope that you'll like it and convert, and Adobe is improving your product. I think they're a good bet, that their their online platform's gonna increase. And if you're doing audio only, it's fantastic. You can invite someone to do an interview.

And so my main goal was to give those brand new podcasters that land into our platform that may be a little lost on what to use to record. Here's and we're gonna put right for brand new customers. They're good for 30 days. They're gonna see a message that says, hey. You get a free 60 day trial of Adobe Podcast and Adobe Express Premium. Click here. Record your podcast. And then we have some tutorials on how to bring the audio back. And then,

there's no integration or click from Adobe. So there is no true integration. It's it's just a collaboration at this point. So if I get enough But those podcasters can actually record a guest. Yeah. A remote guest into the tool and then take advantage of the Adobe's noise reduction optimization tools? Everything. Yep. Is that how it works? Yeah. Okay. And in in they've got a road map for that product. They didn't, of course, disclose

to me what that road map is. But the mains my main goal is within 60 days, a new podcaster is gonna figure out, do they wanna use Riverside? Do they want to use Descript? Do they wanna use Hindenburg? Do they wanna use Adobe edition? So but maybe for a good portion of them, that's enough. The the Adobe Podcast product will do everything that they want from an audio standpoint. And we will basically have the ability then to, for a better word, get them to episode 1.

And, you know, I could have built an in house recording platform. But who wants to spend a year doing that and then maintaining it? I don't wanna I don't wanna build a a Restream. I don't wanna build a Riverside. I don't want to. There's enough of these platforms out now. Yeah. And in resource engagement, a huge huge developer, you know. And again, you know, if the product is never gonna be as good as a Restream or Streamyard or Riverside, it's never gonna be as good.

So the chances are when a podcaster is, done with, you know, kinda getting their feet wet, they're gonna make a decision move somewhere else. So, you know, my my strategy was basically let's, you know, let's get them enough time to get started. And, you know, we talked to Adobe about this. It was very open. Says not everyone's gonna convert to a paid customer, but some will. And, really, the only skin off Adobe's back is they gave the podcasters an extra 30 days

free. Because everyone gets at least 30 days free if you go to Adobe Direct. So Yeah. What's interesting about, Adobe doing this with you is the fact that Adobe has video tools too. I guess it's just kind of an obvious question. Are they going to get into the video side of doing this too? Because it feels like, I mean, if you're going to do something like what we're doing right here, right, you might as well have have the ability to see the other person that you're

doing the show with. Right? And and it it feels like that's the long term direction of where this is going. It's not so much maybe to create videos, but to at least see the other person that you're talking to. Their bread and butter is At the bare minimum. Yeah. Their their bread and butter is Adobe software. You know, the whole breadth of of software. Right. And Yeah. But I don't believe that any of their software does what we're talking about. No. No. Well, I don't it does enables

a video call Yeah. To record. But Adobe Podcast does this without video? Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So will they make the jump? I I I don't know. But Certainly could afford to invest in it if they wanted to compete or they would buy somebody. But Yeah. Maybe they buy Riverside. You know? Who knows? You know? I think I think Riverside has been moving closer and closer to a deal with, Spotify for Well, they for

years now. That's the reason why I think they stopped the integration with us because we had you know, our goal was to get done with Riverside, get done editing, and send the video just like people from Descript can do right to Blueberry. You know, there's a one click submit to Blueberry on Descript, and there isn't on Riverside. We did the work on our side and they didn't do the work on their side. So and then about that time, they got their money and then they announced their Spotify

thing. So once again, you know, so I don't know. I for me, what what I'm really it should become obvious is I'm filling holes. If I've got holes at Blueberry of stuff that's through the entire production process You should be. I'm filling filling holes. Exactly. And and you're also adding AI capabilities too. Right. Right. Increasingly people are wanting and it's just it's so hard to predict, exactly how the AI thing is going to roll into podcasting and really

change podcasting. I mean, it's been moving that direction for a while, but I just get a sense that very soon things are gonna go and and you've been warning about this for a while too. I've been hearing you on your your your tech show, your geek news show, for a long time. This this coming wave of AI Yes. May come in and impact things in a way that, we just can't even comprehend right now. Well, one thing is for sure, we're tracking what tools people are using at Blueberry.

And, yeah, we predicted before we launched the product that people wouldn't use the preproduction tools as much as they use the postproduction. Postproduction. So probably on a scale of 4 to 1. In other words, for every 4 uses of there's people that use it for the full breadth. And 1 in 4, basically, use it it's entire all all of the entire tool offering where 3 and fours don't use preproduction,

but they use all the postproduction stuff. And that was kind of aligned with what we thought the usage would be in the beginning. And those that are using the preproduction tools almost to a show are interview shows. So they're using the tool to put in the the guest bio, links to guest content, their LinkedIn page. And then, basically, by using the API that we're using and how it's improved here, we're able to basically come up with questions for the guest.

And it just helps them a little bit with their you know, gives them a starting point. It's not by far a complete solution because we only come up with 10 questions. So so we'll see how the Did you write, yeah. Did you write any custom prompts that have form fields that can be filled in to help people generate the consistent Yes. The prompts have already been prewritten for for That's right. Yeah. Okay. They do in, you know and again, from a preproduction standpoint,

you need to tell us. Okay. Give us a description of what this episode is about. What is the goal? You know, and if people actually fill in all that data, then the the system uses that data in part of the prompt that we've written. You know, as an example, they link to that. Also does it also analyze the audio you upload to to to do the same? So once you upload the audio, we create a transcript.

And then from the transcript, all our prompts are coming up with a title, coming up with a summary, come up with bullet points, help me with the the art and the chapter files. The weakest part of the whole system at this point is the episode art generation. I've been actually working on that this week. Right. I can get a much better Is it a oh, go go talk. I can get a better output out of, chat g p t than I can out of our out of our prompting system.

It it's just there's something, through the API that they have not I don't think it's at the same revision level, model. So that's why we're just not getting this and it's expensive. That's the most expensive. The the cost of creating 2 images for episode art is the same price of doing everything else we do with the tool. All the other prompts that we do. So the image generation is expensive. And I've also noticed that because the image generation tends to be error filled, people

make multiple requests trying to correct it. And we only let them do up the cost. We only let them do 2. So we don't let them do more than 2 on a production. And we limit it per month too on the number of images just because if I didn't, I would lose money. That gets back to the quality of the output. Yeah. If the quality output matches what the podcaster is looking for, then that there's no need to generate a second one

or a third one. Right? So, you know, that's something we have to continue to work on is the you know, in the episode art, it's important. But, you know, it's better than nothing at this point. And, you know, but, again, there's sometimes I go sad that's that even in our own system, I'm like, well, that was crap. And I go back and run the same problem. Like that? Yeah. And they run the same prompt on chat gbt. So, again, you know, it'll get better over time, but

I don't know. Yeah. I saw the chat. G p t was was down. Yeah. It was it was down this evening. Yeah. And they just really sore us. I'm sure they're just getting hammered. So I don't know. So I went over and used Grok to create, the the episode description for the show. Oh, you you did. That's what she uses Grok? Yeah. Chat Chat g p t wasn't available, so I thought I'd go over and use the the x rock and see what the output comes from that. It was it was usable. Yeah. You try

Claude. I like Claude. Bet Claude is better actually in summarizing right now than chat gpt is. So Yeah. I haven't tried Claude. Yeah. I pay for both. Not a big fan of the of the Gemini platform. Just having a hard time. Yeah. I'm not having good I I don't use Google's products at all. So as far as AI stuff goes. Yeah. I I I don't know why that is. I mean, have they just done a poor job of kind of marketing that? I think they're they're behind. They'll catch up, but they're behind.

That's interesting. Yeah. I didn't I didn't know that they were buying I kept hearing rumors that they were they were only behind because they haven't had had the confidence to release their their multiple ahead generations of their AI or something. But maybe that was a lie. I don't know. Yeah. So you you announced the podcast hall of fame inductees. Yes. We did. Yes. So there's 11 of them, Todd. Yes, sir. I had one one more. So we went Because of it. 8 last year to 11 this year. Because

of a jump. A three way tie. Right? Is that why? Four way. Four way. Oh my god. Yeah. Well, that's saying something when 4 of the folks got equal number of votes. Yeah. I couldn't leave off one of those 4. I just Right. Right. Didn't make sense for me to do that. I I wasn't gonna put my thumb on the scale of who I wanted to. Right. Just and there's a that's amazing. From the force It's amazing it came that close with 4 of the candidates getting equal votes. It tells you something.

I don't know what it tells me, but it tells me something. Yeah. I I see James was complaining that there's no outside US inductees. But Yeah. And I I was on the the Pod News Weekly podcast earlier today, clarifying that situation. And it's it's definitely more of a challenge organizationally, for for the the the podcast hall of fame because, I mean, all the board members, except for 1, are US folks. All the past inductees are US folks, and

those are the people that vote. So the the challenge that that I is expanding the board from other parts of the world, bring expertise into the kind of organizing and voting community and and and expand the number of people that vote. Yeah. Prior to every election that has expertise from various parts of the world that can, you know, weight that to be weighted,

it to give everybody a fair shot. Because we're I mean, right now, it's it's very weighted towards being somewhat of a of an awareness and popularity vote to some degree. I mean, though I did in the ballot, I did put a description of this person's contributions and tried to do that. I could probably do a better job of that, but I just don't know that people are gonna spend a lot of time reading a multi character description. I actually did because You did? Yeah.

Because there was some people I was not aware of. And Yeah. Well, that's the challenge. Right? Is that is that if most of the people are US based and US knowledge people that are doing the voting, those people are going to gravitate to people that they have heard of before or have some, you know, knowledge of right to vote

for. Yeah. So so if we're gonna expand this internationally, I've got to have a a voting base that has, you know, some less not so much less, but just more complete coverage of podcasters outside of the US. I'm not exactly sure how to come up with a formula that makes it entirely fair because it it may not be fair for some period of time, unfortunately. But I can also keep building it out. Right? And to add people from various parts of the world that can get in there

and vote. And the other challenge that I have is actually getting everybody that's supposed to vote to actually vote. Right. Right. So that's the that's the next level tier. So there's a lot of stuff to work on. And, Todd, you can fully appreciate it. I mean, you're you're the whole big awards yourself, and voting is a challenge. There's no question. Right? Yeah. I'm glad I don't I I'm glad I've simplified the podcast awards to the way I have, to be honest with you. Yeah. Because,

yeah. I'm just it it's it's a but it's what's amazing to me, I never review or or reveal the vote totals. But the the delta between on many categories between the winner and is always single digits. Interesting. It's always very, very close because what we've done is we make sure let you know. Sure. Some shows are gonna get, you know, a 100,000 nominations.

Well, when I allow 20,000 people to come back in and do the 2nd round of voting, If I was to just I would if I did not weigh and I put a put a thumb on the voting scale. So basically, what what we do is we know who every person has originally nominated. We we can see. And then what we do is we make sure that the voting pool is even. AKA, the show they got a 100,000 votes doesn't have a disproportionate number of people in the final round to vote.

Otherwise, it would make no sense whatsoever to have a second round. Right. So in the end, the voting pool, matter of fact, 75 percent of it probably doesn't even have there might there might not be someone they even nominated or maybe just one. So, you know, we try to make sure that the the final voting pool is even from a waiting standpoint. Mhmm. And it's a pain in the ass to sort that out.

Yeah. But I have a third party do it and they have some sort of machine learning they've done to be able to to sort. Because the people that nominate are the ones end up doing the final vote. So we have 20,500 people that participate. We allow 500 of the participating podcast to vote too. And believe it or not, most of the participating podcast don't vote. That's a funny thing. We have we we invite 500 of them to vote. I get, like, maybe 20%

come in and do the final vote. But I have a I have a minimum number. This is nothing I do. I want to have at least 18,000 people that have voted for at least 3 shows. So usually, in that one month of voting period, if I look like I'm behind, I add another 5,000 voters to the pool to get to Hit your number. Hit my number. And then so in the end, it, it basically all evens out and that's why the vote deltas are so narrow. And I so I always tell people making the slate is the important thing.

Right. If you make the slate, then your value of being in the slate is that's the value. Winning is great, but the value is being in the slate for the following year. And on the website with the link to their but that's a whole another story about people knowing. Well, and you're different too because you're you're doing kind of a public vote, which is Yeah. Public. And what? Yeah. But this is this is all internal. Doing. With how many people now? 30 some

or whatever the number is. Well, I think with the new inductees, I believe it's 51 people now going forward. So it's a good good number of folks. Yeah. And I just got got word on my master of ceremonies. So I'm I'm I'm gonna be announcing that here in the next couple of days here. Big name or yeah. No. I mean, I mean, he's got a very popular podcast. Oh, okay. So it's just he lives in the the Florida market area. So he was close. And I've I've known him for a long

time. So I've been a guest on his show before and and that that kind of stuff. So I'm I'm I'm very familiar with him. And he's a he's a terrific guy. You know? He's a former CEO of companies and stuff. So he's he's very, very good. But it's just, yeah. Yeah. I wanted yeah. I know last year we we had doctor Drew. I kinda set high expectations with who we had last year, that would probably be be hard to to

match again. Right. It's just a matter of finding somebody with integrity in there and really cares about being a podcaster and really understands the the grind of it to get up there and kind of be the master of ceremonies for it. So And, financially, it's a lot cheaper than doctor Drew. Yeah. That's that's that's that's definitely another bonus. Right? Yeah. So yeah. So the event is actually January 17th at at

Podfest Expo. So if you're not familiar with it, actually, if you wanna read more about the Hall of Fame, just go to podcast hall, h a l l.com. And that website has all of the inductees, pictures and description of their of their background, and that's on the Hall of Fame news, kind of navigational link on the upper right hand corner of the of the website. But if you scroll down, you can see last year's

ceremony. And if you wanna get tickets, if you wanna attend in person, there's actually a sign up page that's in the, tab, ceremony to actually get a get a ticket to be there in person if you want to. But the whole event is gonna be recorded, And then it's gonna be put out on on YouTube and some of the other social platforms on on, January 20th is the plan for that. So no live, just recorded? We're not gonna attempt live this year. So that that is a it is a risk that,

the event podcast wasn't willing to take. Okay. And I I don't have a problem with that. I think, it it actually will probably produce a better product. It'll probably have have a secondary time to promote it and things like that. So I'm I'm hopeful that that that'll work out good. And so, yeah, if you wanna sign up and be there in person, we would love to have you. And if you happen to be going to podcast, it's the ticket price is $49. Okay. So just to let everybody know.

So So, you know, the I'm looking at this list, of all the inductees. Inductees. You know, the one I was the one I did not know was George George Hrab. But he also was known for another show than what you have in the bio. It was, a science show. I have it. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm just drawing a blank on it. Yeah. Me too. What it is right now. But he won, his category in the podcast awards

for many years. He basically, I think he is part of our basically, when shows win a category 5 times, they're no longer eligible to win the category anymore. Yeah. And we named the category after the show. Like a really great guy. Oh, he's I mean yeah. He's gonna be there in person. He's a show. Actually. Yeah. Actually, 10 out of the 11 folks that are going to be inducted will be there in person is the current, path that I've been told. So it's, and you look at Lance Anderson that's

on that list. You know? Oh my god. Absolute pioneer in the space. Yeah. And most people say, who's Lance Anderson? Yeah. Again, these are some folks that have been around a while. Chris Christensen. Again, another, Lou Mingello. Total. I mean Total pioneer. Yeah. Absolutely. Chris Jessica as well. You know, it's so The She Podcasts? Yeah. And, you know, it's this whole list. Now I was not familiar with, is it Twila? How do you pronounce her name? Twila. Yeah. I was not familiar with her at all.

And, but after reading her her bio Yeah. I mean, again, Dave Mansuto. And most things well, who who the who who is Dave Mansuto? Well, to be honest with you, podcasting probably would not have gained the speed it had had not it him and a few other folks over. And he was one of the founders of Libsyn, cofounder. Well, he was really the, the ringleader of the group. Absolutely. You know, of that rags. Those early days. You know? Yeah. Exactly. There's

a whole story behind that. And hopefully, I can get Dave to to share some of that on stage. So So, you know, he he is, and I ran into Dave at, podcast movement. He was at the event and, we got caught up and he's got big hair these days. No. Actually, he got his haircut. Oh, really? Yeah. If you go to the the hall of fame website page and go to the inductees page, I I've uploaded a new picture of him, and it's all clean-cut now. What? Well, he wasn't clean-cut when I saw him

make podcast movement. He was he was looking pretty hippies. So Yeah. Yeah. I had that that conversation with with him because he did a call with me, and it was like Who's this person? This is your public picture, but, yeah, I did a call with you, and you look like this. It's kind of not gonna make sense to people. You're gonna walk in the room and you're gonna say, who is this guy? Right.

Oh, so his his his head shot he sent you is is is looks neat and trim, but is he still looking pretty bushy? You know, and like a like a stitched hat and stuff. Right? And if you look in in Maria Thomas, house familiar with her. She's a trailblazer. Yeah. Real trailblazer in this medium. You know? And then, of course, Chris from Podfest, Chris Krumos, and, you know, of course, Tim Street. My god. You know? Yeah. This guy Early, early video podcast. Unbelievable. You know?

And, of course, Tom Webster's in that list too. So, it's a great lineup. Fantastic. Oh. At least in my opinion. I agree with you. I think it's it's it's But there's good as I I could have hoped for. You know, what what was also interesting about it, Todd, is that there's a lot of big names that I had on my list. Right. People that are very well known They're very famous. Huge shows, celebrities. Yeah. Huge shows. But these these are the folks that got the votes.

So we should also recognize, you know, how we're gonna handle in the years forward people that decline to be inducted? Because we've had a couple of those. We've had 3. And how do we do how do we because people are gonna say, how come he isn't or how come she isn't? How do we do they have to publicly embarrass them either. Wanna embarrass them either or I mean, I don't know that they would be embarrassed, actually. I just I just don't

wanna mention them because, you know Yeah. People would get a get a negative impression about it. I'm not sure that's fair. And in a and and they declined for? Just personal reasons. Reasons. So Yeah. Yeah. So, anyway, great great list. But, Rob, what what what is the, what's your prediction for 2025? Oh, I had I had a comment that came in from in YouTube said, David says, I was thinking of swapping to Riverside once

my current Streamyard plan ends. Should I worry about potential deal with Spotify? You know, I think you never know. And luckily, there's alternatives. Riverside isn't the only game in town. So Right. You know, if you want to have a quality recording then you're not using like, when I'm in the studio in Michigan, I will not use Riverside because I've got the TriCaster. And I get a master recording that's, you know, really a master. You know, 40 gig master video file. I think you just have to

pick one that you like. And the reason we've switched to this is because I wasn't I'm perfectly happy with Restream, but I just can't get a good local recording. Then there's no opportunity to. Well well, to give a little bit of background about what's going on with StreamYard with that, I mean, they did have a audio outage this past week Oh, really? Where they had a half of a day where audio just wasn't getting captured in the platform. So they fixed that.

So it's all corrected now, but but they did announce they were pulling back, the the consolidated or combined local recordings export. Right? So so currently, in order to get local recordings out, you you have to download the separate tracks. Right? And it's still In in video form and then you have to merge them together. Now they they have said that they're going to bring it back, but they're gonna have to reengineer

it. Right? So it's much more efficient. Now my experience with it was that it could take so let's say you did an hour and a half, recording. So you did a live stream and it went for an hour and a half. It could take close to 2 hours to export it. Wow. So which is, you know, that's even after it was uploaded, processed. Is their server wasn't downloading so fast? I don't know what the technical reason was, but it took forever to get that file out

of there. That was one of the reasons when we were using StreamYard for this show that it it took me so long to get you the file. Right. Yeah. It's because it had to do it, like, overnight, because I wasn't gonna sit there in front of my computer. Yeah. Yeah. I'm waiting for it. So so so hopefully they'll get that fixed. And it looks like what Riverside is doing here is they're really optimized for uploading while we're doing the show. Yeah.

So I'm at 99% here. Me too. Where with StreamYard, you could look after you're done the show and it would be like at 20% or something like that, even on the upload side. So everything was just a lot slower. Right? So they they pulled the plug on it. And so now they're they're rearchitecting it, and hopefully they'll be able to roll it back again. But So, Rob, I'm suspecting because there's no local recording. I didn't don't think this going on here now. Oh. Oh, you don't think it is?

I don't I'll find out when I'm done, but they have an editor that combines you and I recording. So maybe it's gonna be the same thing the StreamYard is doing, but it's working. So we'll I'll see how the process goes at the end. Okay. So it's capturing separate files, but it doesn't create necessarily a combined file until you do that in the editing tool. I don't know. What you're saying? We'll find out. I I don't know at this point. So we'll we'll see. Because some, someone said that,

Facebook was being funky. So that's exactly why I want, 2 masters. Even if I have to use their editor, it'll be better than because the key is getting the quality output. So, Yeah. I did a show, earlier, earlier today on, SquadCast. Mhmm. So it wasn't my show. It was someone else shows it being a guest on. And and it seemed to it seemed to work pretty good. Did they have was it uploading at the same time that you were recording? Same deal? I didn't actually I actually know.

Actually, it's the tool that the the Pod News Weekly Uh-huh. Sam uses. I was on that show today. So yeah. So there's lots of choices out there, and and I've I've heard of a couple other companies that are in the wings out there that are maybe coming, that could give people more choices in this area. But it it it just does seem like a a hot area. It's continuing to

be a hot area. But but, Todd, if you wanted to move into talking talking a little bit more about the the predictions for 2025, or we can hold off on that and do a whole show just on that. If you want to. Maybe we can talk about other people's predictions. Yes. Okay. Which is what's in the notes. Right? And by the way, my my comment about Dave Weiner last week got some Yeah. Some I'm just glad I didn't say it. Right? I mean, it's I don't disagree with what

you said, Todd. I just you know, I've had so many run ins with Dave Weiner myself. I don't wanna Now now Dave didn't hasn't said nothing to me. Well, he probably didn't see it. So You know? But, you know, I am my my over on Blue Sky. Yeah. My exactly. So my my, my opinion still stands. Yeah. Because he he was he made some ridiculous statement this week about it's insidious what podcasting point 2 o is doing. He said it was insidious. He's not gonna endorse it ever unless they

change the name. It's insidious. What he said. Right. I'm like, it's still open, Dave. It's it's all being run by guys that are, like, hardcore open. He probably thinks it conflicts with the the nameology of the of the podcast RSS 2 point o, spec. So what he want what does he want us to call it? Advancing podcasting in RSS? O, Todd. Oh my god. Or 2.0.1. Maybe because he's pissed off because he's the RSS 2.0. Right. Exactly. And he doesn't like podcast so we had to call it podcasting 3.0.

What what happened? 0.0. Yeah. He would probably approve it if if he's able to create a new namespace. Yeah. So Which they they did, but he wants to be the one to to do it. So today's the day, Rob. As of well, your time in about, 3 or 4 hours, the, chartable redirect goes away. I thought it was the aliens were gonna land. Well, you know, we we we basically put out an as long as people have updated PowerPress and all of our dashboard customers, the redirect

from Blueberry are all gone. I was curious who I got an email from. I got an email from, I won't say who, but a very, very prominent company in the podcasting space. And they said, hey. Are you guys gonna programmatically remove Chartables redirect? And I said, yes. We are. You know, and we we did that on Monday. Isn't there some risk in doing that that you're gonna get a huge amount of redownloads? I don't think so. Okay. So the We're not changing the source media file. We'll see.

Yeah. We'll see. So the GUID's not changing. So No. The GUID's not changing. We're just pulling the redirect out of the and if the apps don't if the apps aren't equipped, depends on what triggers the apps. It's up to the apps to behave. So, but, yeah, there's potentially 31,000 or how I don't know how many we had total. But There were 31,000 that were that were utilizing

it. Yeah. So It's a big chunk. You know, and it just shows you and this is something this is one of the reasons why for years, we did not really endorse some redirects. In matter of fact, in our system, when you add a redirect, we we add we give this big warning. Right. That basically that basically says we are not responsible if this redirect provider goes down. You know? They have a a router outage? Yeah. You know, we we've we've had failover plans since 2006.

So we we because we've been running redirects since 2006. So we know the ripple effect of what happens when a redirect server goes down. You know? So we have a backup to a backup. You know? We went to the 2nd tier before where the main redirect server went down, and we have a a 7 seconds is our transfer time. So if that redirect server goes down, so within 7 seconds, the other re redirect server picks up. And then if that server Yeah. It's really, really mostly

concerning around latency. Right? So what once you stack all these up into latency, then that trigger Well, it's not necessarily a latency issue. It's if if I can't serve that redirect and send that request on, that media file is not getting delivered. Some period of time, right, then then it fails. Well, when the server fails and we're watching that server every 5 seconds, we're making sure it's working. Mhmm. If it hits 5 seconds, it says it's not here anymore.

2 seconds later, the other machine takes over. Okay. So there's a fall. Yeah. There's a a fall over. There's a ranking fall. Right. So because if that request process. And we then we go to that machine, and we don't automatically go back to machine 1. Our own our phones start ringing and text messages and, you know, so you'd get that at 2 o'clock in the morning. And so that machine takes over, then I've got one left in another data center

that's sitting there just idling. So if machine number 2 falls over, I've never had to go to machine number 3. Thank god. But I pay for that stupid thing every month. Just in case. Just in case. And they're all in they're all in different data centers because there are data center outages. So, you know, I don't put 2 in the same data center. That would be stupid. Because I immediately fail 1, fail 2, fail 3.

So if we figure if we get to 3 data center failures in completely different regions, there's something bigger happening and we won't be so much put to blame. There's some other big Internet thing going on. So we see it all the time. We see, we see who because if we're first, we see all the time other sites go down. People just don't know it. Yeah. Yeah. So we have big, big warning. But, anyway, everyone that hasn't updated their charter will redirect. They're gonna be dead.

I think we're we're running out of time to spend too much time Yeah. Predictions. There was a few things that were mentioned that you had here in the Yeah. Of course. Yeah. It's kind of it's kind of centered a little bit about. Yeah. What's happening with video. Right? Yeah. And and how that plays out. Even involves Brian Barletta from Sounds Profitable. Yeah. You know, Tom Webster has been commenting about this. And So

so the Brian comment is interesting. What so go in we have time to talk about what Brian said. What did Brian's Okay. Okay. So the context of this is that, you know, kind of kind of in the big picture, there's some talk around, summer of 2025. Are we going to see companies that went all in on video Yeah. Start laying people off because it didn't convert. Right? Or it didn't generate enough revenue to

justify the investment. And that there was comments back and forth between, you know, with James Cridlin being on the the media roundtable episode, talking about, what's happening with the video stuff and Spotify and stuff. It's the same thing that we talked about last week that that, the just the weird stuff that's going on with video and how it's changing the medium.

But Ryan basically has written a a article around kind of similar topics here, but, saying that he says and he points out, firstly, if you upload video to Spotify, then essentially, you're replacing the audio totally. Yep. So and that's what we talked about last week to some degree, and that's what, Todd, you've said that Today. You yeah. You weren't fully grasping the scope of this. And it and it, and it basically

replaces the RSS feed. Now I guess that that that there is some some questions about some of the details around this that are yet to be clarified. And and Brian doesn't really clarify some of the loose ends here, of exactly how that is triggered. Right? What you have to do to actually trigger that. The impression I got was is that when you create an account, somehow there's a linkage made between you as a podcaster and existing feeds that you have in the Spotify infrastructure. Yep.

And it links them together somehow. And I don't know how you avoid that is my bigger question. Oh, I see. Yeah. So and what what Brian's concern was is that this is if this happens, so you basically upload a video to Spotify and you have a a pass through relationship through your podcast host into Spotify, that video episode will replace your RSS audio file with the audio that comes out of the

video. Right? Mhmm. And if that happens, it kills any kind of programmatic advertising you have built into your RSS based audio file. And and, you know, all that goes away. Right? So you basically have lost your ability to monetize your audio podcast in Spotify. And then it's all lives in the Spotify world, which is what Spotify has always wanted to do anyway, was to cash and rehost every media file that's uploaded to them just

like YouTube Yep. Has done. And what's interesting is what you you know, everybody just accepts that that's what YouTube does. But people have this expectation around Spotify because of a historical orientation there of expectation that were set by you and I, Todd, pushing back on Spotify saying you're not gonna have our content unless it's passed through. Right. So there's a lesson to be learned here. Right? And if we fall over too easily, then guess what? They get what they want.

And we've lost control of our ability to monetize our show through a central host. Right. And I had a little bit of a discussion with James, on Mastodon. And Yeah. Yeah. I saw that. And my essence was listen. People are using pre rolls on Blueberry for many different things, announcing events, announcing a special guest, announcing an episode content. Yeah. And it's it it basically saying, hey.

If you're if you're listening down if you're you're listening to episode 25 by the way, episode number 1, I've got ex guest right now. Make sure you're subscribed or whatever. Or having t shirt sales or whatever it may be. Or I have a live event in Something. Yeah. LA on 16th. And we we have a huge number of shows that are using that feature alone. And they're not doing any advertising. They're doing

their own advertising for their own show. So, essentially, my point was everyone on Spotify will never hear those pre rolls if you go and do this video thing. So that's why I still say have 2 listings. It's worked for this show. We've had 2 listings from the beginning. We have a new media show audio, new media show video. Right. And we get I think this split is 80 20 or something like that. 80 80 percent audio 20 percent video.

Why? Because this is the way we've done it for 15 years or however long we've been doing this show. So Yeah. Yeah. So when they say, oh, you're gonna do you're going to disadminish your audience. No. You're not. Well, you may actually based on I had Glenn Rubinstein on my on my podcast tip show many months ago and we talked about this because he was working with clients that were doing exactly what we're talking

about right now. They were uploading video and didn't didn't realize that it was replacing the hardest thing. Yeah. And they did that. Audio and and their overall numbers. And we talked about on the show. Their their overall numbers, dropped. Right. And they lost money. Right. So their their audio, which got converted from the video file to replace the RSS based audio, had lower numbers than the RSS based audio that was going into the platform.

Past, sometimes they pick winners and losers. They have different agreements with different Put the thumb on the scale. Is that Well, no. They have different agreements with different vendors. So some people, they will I I'm not saying they do, but my prediction is is that some people probably get their programmatic and audio still the way it is and

the audio doesn't step on it. I would bet you there's a class of shows that are not impacted by this, but I think they would have to have a special agreement with Spotify. Yeah. I think that the thing that we talked about last week was so let's say you're able to successfully preserve your RSS based Right. Episodes in Spotify

Yep. And then you wanna upload a video file to that, is there a way that you can do that where Spotify won't realize that that audio from the video you just opt out shouldn't go over and replace your RSS based audio feed. And that's the question that I don't have an answer to. Is there a way of doing that, or is the only outcome here is that you create 2 separate audio versions in Spotify? One that's not linked up with the RSS feed. One that's linked up with the video

file. And I think James even said that actually, technically what's happening is that the audio is just playing. Yeah. Yeah. From the video. Without the video is what they're doing. It's not like they're extracting Yeah. A difference. It's the same video file that's playing. It just being played in a audio experience without the video. Love Dave Jackson. That's a little little confusing to say, but I love Dave. Visualize how that would work. Yeah. I love Dave

Jackson. He says, Spotify laid off 17% of its workforce in 2023 while reportedly paying artists or the labels just 0.003¢ per stream. So 3 tenths of a penny per stream in 2024. The company hit record profits while this its CEO's network jumped to 7,000,000,000. Don't you think it's time to put a

wrap on corporate greed and exploitation? And he goes on to say from a musician friend of mine, remember this as we sit and wait and see how many crumbs we'll make when we power Spotify's new video program. Please, sir, can I have some more, please? You can't spend exposure at the grocery store. Well, that's always been the currency that these platforms has have traded on is your value for giving us your content for free is we give you, the opportunity to reach people. Right?

Get audience. And everybody's clamored to get that. Right? Yeah. So what was this thread that John McDermott? He was responding some stuff that we talked about here. Yeah. Well, I mean, he he listens to the media roundtable. He listens to to, James Cridlin and his Pod Weekly, and he he just caught up with the last two episodes of our show and, and he's, he's being a little snarky about kind of the whole

situation around video, right? Where that's going. And, and and I think it's, you know, it's you spark some interesting conversations about this, that are, you know, bringing to the fore. I think at times, he's not fully understanding what's entirely going on sometimes in our discussion. He's And that's okay. Well, he he say Todd fun perspectives. Todd Cochran, a new media show, had a lot to say about video, and all I

can say is preach. Todd is right. Listen to the episode below and know what Todd is right. Todd is right. Todd is right. Thanks, John. I think you're perfectly right too. Yeah. I think I wrote a comment on Facebook saying, well, John, why don't you tell me exactly what Todd was right about? So, you know, Yeah. But it We had some fun with it. But it does, you know, anywhere in the closing moments here, it does boil back to we have to remember. Do what you wanna do, ladies and gentlemen.

Audio still, in my opinion, is, you know, we're here to stay. And, you know, I I I know we've lost some people because we're talking so much about video. But, you know, it's a real comment. Not so much today. But Yeah. We the real the commentary has to be had. And It's just too juicy to to pass up. I mean And and Rob, you know, it hasn't helped that you've, you know, you've dove in for a penny you're in for a penny and for a pound here, you know, for, You gotta play both sides of the issue.

Yeah. You do. So the element. So I'm the protagonist of sorts. So I had a a coffee and I got halfway through my coke here on the show today. I've Oh my gosh. So you're operating on caffeine here? I'm operating on 3 hours of sleep. Yesterday, I had to get up a little early to get some stuff done with my visa and some other stuff going on. So I had very a very I had a 20 hour day yesterday. And, then I only slept for 3 hours. So yeah. There's

one last Go ahead. Little comment about what John posted as part of this thread that you're referring to here is that he he said that you were right, and James agreed with you too. And I have a hard time disagreeing with you. It's not like I disagree with you on this this particular point, but it was more about, you know, how how we're seeing these these big budget productions, right, that are going on on YouTube. But, you know, they have like 25, 50, 60

people working on it. And they so happened to have a audio version in Apple podcast, and all of a sudden they're a podcast. Right? And it's that's been going on with mainstream media for a decade now. Right? Where, you know, they have the big studios and producers and executive producers and and cameraman and all sorts of stuff, right,

that that run those. And I think the the the thing that's happened here and is that those folks are not in the mainstream media studios as much, and they're doing it more Yeah. From their homes. You know, from a from a from a studio. Yeah. From an office building. You know, studio. Yeah. What's funny though, I remember in the early days of doing video, I used to take a picture of my studio. People, like, oh my god. Mission Control. You get all those monitors. You got that switcher.

You you're running a professional studio. And I'm thinking, yeah. I'm a one man show. I'm 1 man 1 man pushing the button watching the chat. Yeah. Exactly. Making sure the camera's focused. I'm doing it all. And so you see some of these guys on YouTube that are doing like I do. I have this great setup. I got a great background. And, you know, and I assume they're sitting there pushing a button. No. Yeah. No. When I saw their back end operation, so that looks like Fox. Looks like Fox News.

It looks like the, you know, the the what you see in a big truck. It's a Super Bowl. You know? Well, I mean I mean, some of them are like that. There's other ones that are, you know, that are using, like, maybe maybe 4 or 5 different cameras. Yeah. And have 4 or 5 people in the back. Between them and right. They have a green room and they have someone there doing makeup and, you know, there's no makeup that happened in my place.

Well, I mean I mean, Todd, I think, you know, just just like that new RODECaster video that you have, is capable of, I guess, up to 4 cameras. Right? And you can switch them right there. So, you know, that that's like a $1200 box. Yep. And anybody can get access to that kind of video switching tool that you can do. You can really do productions just like you see with those really big shows. You don't have

to have 50 people working on it. And if I was, I would probably knowing what I've learned about that box, I'd probably not have bought it. Well, because it's only the reason I don't wanna buy it is because it's only 10:80. Oh, I ain't worried about that. Everything goes out for podcasting when me goes out at 720 anyway. I know. But that's gonna be changing.

When you look out a couple of years and everything's gonna be at minimum 4 k. Well I mean, even even the cameras now that you can get these portable cameras, Rob, like the Rob. Are actually heading towards 8 k now. They do not want to see you and I in 4 k. Rob, I'm looking at you in 7 20 p. And You don't wanna look at it. No. Because what's gonna happen is all of these wrinkles that are already here Well, Todd okay. Okay. Now we're going down the rabbit hole here. The all these platforms have,

you know, appearance filters in them. You know that. Right? Oh, god. Well, we're not okay. I'm gonna be I'm I'm going to gracefully the inverse of what you're talking about here. Is that right? Okay. So so you're gonna apply some filter and make yourself look 20 years younger than when people meet you in person? They're gonna say Everybody's gonna say shit. You're old. My god. You look different. Everybody's doing it. Oh. They've been doing on their iPhones

for a decade. That's that's catfishing. We're not we're not doing catfishing here. That's why we all have we don't have faces for video. We're not pretty we're not pretty Do you wanna be be be relevant in your seventies and eighties? We will do, podcasting when you're seventies or 8. And I will look 70 years old. And I'm not pretty like Adam Curry. I know. Okay. I I'm not I'm not a, you know, I don't have hair anymore.

I do. But I I trim it so that I don't look you know, I have bald strip going down the middle and tried to do the the old man flip over. Nope. You know? And I'm not putting Grecian in my hair and coloring my hair, doing any of that. I'm not getting Botox. You know? No. Why? That money is better spent on beer. You're not gonna get a, a a rug on top? Oh my god. No. No. Thank you. No. Thanks. Mm-mm. Okay. Alright. We are long. I'm gonna go back to bed for a

couple of hours. So this show is gonna be a little later. So when are you back in in Michigan again? January 7th. January 7th. So I fly back the 7th. I'm actually back in the studio on 8th. So Okay. We won't have a show that week. Okay. Oh, we are booked for doing a live new media show. I it it won't be live stream unless we try and do it, Todd. But, but it will be recorded, at Podfest. Podfest. Okay. So What what what time slot did we get? Last day, last hour?

No. Actually actually, it's Thursday 16th. Oh, wow. At, 3:30 PM. Are we gonna get a room? Are we gonna be on a stage somewhere? Don't know. I'm not sure yet on that. Okay. Alright. So let's look at the calendar here. I'm good for show next week. And then Okay. Things get kind of Let's do our our our full predictions. Next week? Next next episode. Okay. And then a no show on Christmas, obviously. And Right. Right. We should be okay to do a show on no. The next show then is is the first.

So next week will be our last show for a couple of weeks unless we do something early. But I'm on vacation entire week of 23rd. So we'll figure something if shoot for the first thing. The first is new. Second. Yeah. Yeah. First time gonna be hungover. So maybe maybe I don't drink, Todd. Okay. Well have

that issue. If you wanna do actually, for me, the second actually, if you wanna do a show on the afternoon of New Year's Day, I can probably do that because it's actually gonna be the second for me. So I'll be recovered. Oh, we shall see. Yeah. We shall see. Alright, everyone. Thanks for being here. I'm Todd at blueberry.com@geeknewson@geeknews@ atgeeknews.chatonmastodon. Of course, at NMS podcast for the show. Rob? I'm on x as well at Rob Greenlee.

Like, I've been there since, 2007, and I'm also on YouTube at Rob Greenlee. On Instagram, I'm on Facebook. I'm all on all of the the normal regular social media platforms. So just put it to you that way. And I also have a website, robgreenley.com, and I do a show usually on Thursday nights, called podcast tips. And so I've been talking about some deep diving topics on that show here lately. And and so, if you wanna send us an email, you can certainly do that.

Send to Rob Greenlee, and that's with 2 e's on the end, at, g mail dot com. We'd love to hear from you and and share any little tips that you have about what you're hearing in the in the podcasting space, and maybe we'll talk about it on the show. And we did not get any boost today. So, I guess you'll be boosting when you listen. So we do appreciate, those of you that are using a new

modern podcast app for at podcast apps.com. Just to let everybody know, if you have an Albi wallet, you're gonna need to Convert it. Get in and do something with that. Yes. Can we write I know I still need to do it too. Yeah. And transfer it out. I'm running my own node, for my but for Blueberry, we moved it into their hub. So 11,000 satoshis a month. So that's the only drawback, which is not that much money. But with crypto at a $108,000 now. It was a 108 today? Yeah. Well, was it no. It was it

went to 107. It's a $100,800 was last night. Oh, okay. Yeah. I didn't see it go up that high. Yeah. So anyway, great time to cash out crypto. But is it gonna go to 200? That's the question. Maybe not. Yeah. Man, we'll we'll see. I don't really see that there's much of an upper limit to where this can go. No. When they're having, it happens every 4 years. It can go even more nuts. Yeah. So I'm I'm not super whole yeah. I did a whole episode with on my my trust factor show with Gary Leland.

You're you're a few weeks ago. I'm sure Gary's pretty happy right now as much You're talking about Bitcoin. Yeah. Because he puts on a a a Bitcoin conference in the spring or summer. I think what's to be honest with you, when my mom's happy with Bitcoin price, that's saying something. You know? Some people done very, very well, especially when you bought in it, like, 13 or 20,000. Or lower. Or lower. Yeah. Alright, everyone. Thanks for being here. We'll

we'll see you next week, Cameron. Take care. Okay. Bye. Bye.