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So-- How much is that? [GROANING] Um, um, um. Um, um, um. [GROANING] [GROANING] Well, hello, everyone. We are live here on the podcast Editor Mastermind, which I like to describe as the podcast where we talk about the business side of podcast editing, not the tech. But we don't edit our own show. I'm Jennifer Longworth from Bourbon Barrel Podcasting. And with me today is-- Bryan Entzminger from Top Tier Audio.
And actually, this month I'm editing the show because Alejandro's on a month-long vacation to see family. So this month we do edit our own show. So if it's not good, you know why. [LAUGHTER] Not appearing are Daniel and Carrie. We miss them and wish them well. So we're doing something a little bit different. Bryan and I are going to talk about some news. This rolls across my Google feed. I have a Google Pixel phone. And if I swipe one way, it just gives me random news articles.
And Adobe is being sued for hiding early termination fees. This doesn't sound like good news, Jennifer. What's going on there? Well, well, Adobe's hidden cancellation fee is unlawful, the FTC suit says. So this is coming from the Federal Trade Commission. This isn't just me suing them because I'm mad that they took my money. Apparently, there is a hidden early termination fee in your contract that no one reads, right, when you say, I agree. Yeah. Somewhere deep down in there.
According to ARStechnica.com, it says that Adobe knew that canceling subscription was hard, but determined that it would hurt revenue to make canceling any easier. So they never changed the process. Even though the FTC started digging into this in 2022, indicating that their practices may be illegal, Adobe did nothing to address the harm. Adobe also provides no refunds or partial refunds to some subscribers who incur charges after an attempted unsuccessful cancellation.
Also says that cancellation fee allegedly used as a retention tool. And we know this from canceling cable and stuff, too. It's like, oh, but if you stay, dot, dot, dot. So I read through this a little bit because I didn't have any idea before you shared it with me that this was even going on. I've never been an Adobe user other than, I think, years ago I might have tried Photoshop or something like the free version back when they had one. I don't even know if they do anymore.
But it looks like essentially what they've done is they've moved the notice about cancellations into basically what would be sort of like an exhibit in a contract. It's like a separate page on the website that only pops up if you click the link that Adobe knows that nobody clicks to read the additional terms and service. And then it shows up as part of the cancellation process. And they have apparently also a convoluted process.
If you want to do it by phone, it's the typical cell phone contract type where you call and you talk to a person. But they don't have the authority to let you go. So then they transfer you. And after holding for 17 hours-- I made up the 17 hours. After holding for a period of time, you go to another person. And you have to start all over. Like, what's your password? What's your PIN number? What's your name? Why are you calling today? Oh, I can't help you.
Let me send you-- and it's like a series of that, just getting bounced around until the phone hangs up on you and you call and do it all over again is what it sounds like. For me, one, this is a little bit concerning if I was to switch to Adobe. And what I understand is that this is only in the initial year contract. So after that, I think it converts to month to month based on what I read. I don't know if that's true. So there would be a concern there.
But the other thing that got me thinking about this is I wonder if some of the ways that we write our contracts might also fit into this by making it potentially hard for people to cancel services with us. And while I hate to see a client go at the same time, it's got me thinking, are there things that I do with my contracts that might be similar? I don't have multiple people for them to call. I don't charge a cancellation fee. I do a minimum term, but I also have a 30-day-out clause.
So it's basically like, you can get out if you want to. I don't know, Jennifer, what were the things that you thought of as you were going through this whole Adobe, how does it affect podcast editors thing? Well, I am an Adobe user. And I'm just glad I've never had to try to cancel. And if it ends up being getting a class action settlement, I'm going to take my money and be happy. And those were some of the things. I don't know if it's going to go that direction or not.
But I've been using Adobe for quite a few years. And I've moved up and down levels, but I've never, I guess, never tried to totally cancel, or else I would have known about this before. And I would have been like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're trying to charge me that much. I think I saw Patrick is on as well. So Patrick, I think you're an Adobe user. Do you have any thoughts about the whole cancellation thing? I'd love to know what you're thinking.
Because I'm kind of an outsider in this one. I'm really kind of lost other than going, I would hate that if they did that to me. But I skirted that one by not using Adobe. There's something to be said about not being tied to a subscription model anyway. Patrick says that he was Googling it. He was not in the know. So if you're watching now or listening later, in the show notes, we'll have some links that we used to do our research. You're welcome to check those out.
I'm not going to drop them in the chat tonight because there's too many and I'll drop the wrong one and then I'll start crying and it will just be sad. But you're welcome to use that. We would encourage you because this guy's not a lawyer. He's barely legally inclined. So just, yeah, be careful. I have a love/hate relationship. As a user, I hate subscriptions. I much prefer buying a license and then paying for upgrades if they charge for upgrades.
I realize that in the end, it probably works out the same and it makes it easier for the developers to make things work. Ideally, they don't have multiple versions of Adobe running at the same time because everybody upgrades because they're all on a subscription.
But there's actually some research around piracy and what I understand is actually the biggest reason most companies move to a subscription model is because it's been demonstrated that a low monthly payment does more to fight piracy than digital rights management type things would do. So they offer it on a, they'll call it low monthly price and then people that can't afford or would balk at a $300 purchase price, which is probably not inaccurate for Adobe Audition if you were to buy it outright.
This is what, two years of subscription, something like that, it's probably not that far off, but they're willing to say, well, I'll spend 20 or $30 a month on it and it actually does more to protect the company's revenue because people are willing to pay that over time. But again, as a user, I hate it.
I don't want the companies to lose money to piracy, but also if I bought the software, I don't want to have to wonder if I have a lean month, am I gonna lose the key piece of software that makes my business possible? - But as someone who now has people paying me on subscription, I kind of like getting their money every month. - Yeah, and if they cancel, they'll stop getting your services, right? - Right.
- And so I see that argument, but at the same time, you could make the argument that if they're not getting ongoing support and they're not getting upgrades, then there are no services being rendered once the license has been purchased and they just stop paying the subscription. I get the model, not arguing that.
I do like the monthly revenue myself, but I also have no expectation that I could do my work one time and keep getting paid every month for one of my users to not use any of my resources. It'd be one thing if there were servers in the background running stuff, gotta pay for that, totally get that. If I just did something one time and they use it over and over, I'm not quite so sure on that. Maybe if it was a creative work, 'cause then you've got copyright and all that stuff.
- Yeah. - So Jennifer, are you gonna cancel this to try it out and tell us what it was like? - Nope, not gonna do it. - Did you see that Adobe's also in the news again a little bit on the whole AI training data set and stuff like that? - Yeah, I did see that. Artificial intelligence and machine learning.
And this is from research.adobe.com that Adobe's saying, yes, at Adobe, we use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning to solve problems in content understanding, including images, videos, documents, audio, and more, for recommendations, personalizations, search and information retrieval, prediction and journey analysis, blah, blah, blah, blah, and on and on. So they say, yes, we use this stuff. And then folks are saying two things you've sent me here.
One says that, yes, they're using whatever is stored in the cloud can be used to train their generative AI. And other things say, no, that's not true. - I also found another article that I didn't get in the notes in time, but they did issue a statement saying that they're not using their training data for generative AI, which I think is the big concern.
I think what's going on here is that they're using machine learning and AI to understand how users are using the product and to further tune the product. But I think there's a fine line there between using that information to develop and tweak tools. 'Cause I think about the Adobe podcast, the one where you can edit the transcription or something, kind of like Descript. I think there's gonna have to be an element of AI in that, because it has to recognize voices.
The thing about this that concerns me a bit, and with their statement coming out, as long as they stick to their statement about not using it for generative AI, I think that's reasonably good. But I'm concerned about security. I don't use any of their products, but if I had a client who is providing me with content, some of which is going to hit the cutting room floor, think about, oh, I forgot the guy's name.
We had a guest on who was editing for financial institutions, and there were some strict rules about what could and couldn't be in the final episode. What if some of that content from an episode that was supposed to have been cut was captured by a generative AI training algorithm? I've got some concerns about that, but I think the big thing is to be aware, as an editor, whether the tools that you're using, how they use AI.
Could your client's information end up being part of a training data set without their permission? This kind of gets in the weeds, and maybe it's a little bit draconian, but could the way that you set things up for your workflow become part of a preset that they create so now all of your competition has access to the same thing? I know of a few people who consider their workflow a competitive advantage, whatever that is. They won't share it.
They've got a special thing in mastering or in processing or whatever that they won't share with anybody. What happens if that becomes part of a preset now that's not attributed to them, they don't get anything from it, and now all of their editing competition has at their fingertips exactly what they do? I know the software that I use, Hindenburg, has been very clear that they don't keep or store any user data.
Even when they brought in their whole transcription thing, they were really clear, all this happens on your computer. None of this is sent off anywhere for anything, 'cause they're dealing also with news reporters, right? Sometimes news reporters are interviewing people who can't be named.
That would be something terrible to send off to, I'll pick it, rev.com, and then discover that they were using that as part of a training algorithm, and then the Justice Department found out that that was available data that was in there, sent a subpoena, now that stuff's out in the open. I get the concern there. What are you thinking about, Jennifer? - When it comes to AI, there's so many different things to consider, I mean, is it plagiarism if you use generative AI and claim it as your own?
Is my stuff being stolen? Is my stuff being repurposed? How far does this go? - Right, and that's really a big challenge, because as a user, I use Cast Magic, which I know is using the GPT four-point something, and I've got some concerns about that, like some ethical concerns.
It's been deemed as not illegal for them to have that training set as of right now, but it does make me wonder, 'cause I can't really, I don't really understand the lineage of what was used to train that algorithm, because let's be honest, it's just a bunch of data with some algebra thrown on top until it gives you a result that sounds reasonable, right? It's not actually smart. But that's a concern for me. I'm not dissing it, but that's the reality. It is not an intelligent thing.
It is only a bunch of machine learning that says these word combinations generally fit together within this context. It does range some concerns, because I like having access to the tool, it saves me time and money. At the same time, at some point, is it going to be determined that the lineage of that data set is suspect? - And I wanna answer Patrick's question real quick. He says, "Are we still talking about Adobe?" Or is this something else?
And the, yeah, the bridge was the articles that we found, this was from Reddit, "Adobe is not training AI with your cloud files," this person who claims to work for Photoshop says. "Adobe has never used anything in our storage to train a generative AI model, not once. If we ever allow people to opt in for generative AI specifically, we need to call it out and explain how we're using it." I work on the Photoshop team at Adobe and have to answer any questions.
- That, however, does raise questions for other tools, right? There are other tools out there that are using AI. We're not saying it's bad. We're just saying be aware, because it may matter to your clients. I know for my day job, they have very strict guidelines on what can be provided to any kind of AI tool and very strict rules on how it can be used. It can't be proprietary information. It can't be used as part of any training algorithm outside of the benefit of our company.
We can't, for example, load something up on Microsoft's LLM and allow it to be used outside, because they can't guarantee that none of that will ever reappear. It's really concerning, especially for people and companies that have proprietary information that they want to keep that way. - Yeah, you can't just, didn't people get in trouble for trying to make something a little simpler terms and threw in a whole user manual of proprietary information or something like that?
- Probably. (laughing) I mean, that sounds like something that early on you'd think, "Oh, that's great. I could totally do that," because you don't realize that every query is creating more training data, unless, I think there are parameters, but yeah. Patrick also says he'd be concerned if he was a Descript user. I didn't want to call it any company names myself, but that's one that I'd be concerned about. There are some other tools out there claiming to do similar stuff.
I'd be a little bit concerned about that. I am transparently a little bit concerned about Cast Magic, not for any of the shows that I'm currently working on, but if I have a show where the host is concerned about that, that's probably something where I would want to outsource the writing rather than using an AI tool. You taking notes there, Jennifer? - I'm asking ChatGPT how to use it best. No, I'm just kidding. I hadn't pulled up the question of the day yet, so I was doing that real quick.
- I was thinking maybe you were gonna ask ChatGPT how to raise your prices. - Oh, what I use ChatGPT for is to double-check myself when I do a talk or come up with a proposal or whatever. I think this sounds right, but let me ask ChatGPT, what do you think? Hey, tell me five steps to do whatever, whatever. And it's like, here they are. I'm like, great, that's what I said. All right, and so I'm not using it to generate ideas for myself. I'm double-checking to make sure I'm on track.
That's how I use ChatGPT. Or to kill time and write limericks when I'm bored. - Let's not do that on the air. I'm concerned about what might come up. So I think about a month ago, we did talk about you raising your rates, right? 'Cause you've got an influx of clients. It's more than you can handle. You've realized you have to charge more to pay for your contractors. How's that going?
- So I have quoted the rate, the new rate twice, and the first one, they told me upfront, even before I quoted them, we're not ready to make a decision yet. We're just gathering information. But they didn't go, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're charging that either, after I did give them the number. And they have opened the proposal more than once. So that tells me that maybe they're still discussing it. - Or they're showing all their friends, you can't believe what they're quoting us.
- I can't believe this. I'm like-- - It's so low. - Ah, I know, right? It's still low, but it's better than it was, 'cause I literally doubled my 30-minute rate. And the 60-minute rate close to doubled it. Didn't quite double it, 'cause, anyway. - So you shared your rate twice. You told us about one. - Yes. So the second one, she said yes to the new rate. - Awesome. I think at this point, out of a sample size of two, 50% success rate sounds pretty good.
- Well, and I always have people who don't get back with me, no matter what my rate is. Even if my rate was my old $40 per episode, which I confess I did that when I was starting out and didn't know any better. I mean, people still don't get back with you. - Now, I think this is all new rates. Have you adjusted rates for any incumbents, or is that all staying flat? - No, that's, no, because I just, ugh. You've known me long enough to know I hate that conversation.
Even thinking about that, even though I just wanna raise 'em by like $5, just by $5. Ugh, just can't, can't do it. So it's just new people coming on until I finally crack and raise my $5. (laughs) - So Jennifer, what would help push you over the hump? Is that something where we just need to ask everybody to send you an email and tell you you can do it? - No, I mean, I know I can't. I just, the motivation's not quite there.
- Okay. - I think if I looked at things differently, I'm like, look how much money you're leaving on the table for just $5 an episode, just $5. - Yeah, you've got that magic spreadsheet. Can you use that? - I do have the magic spreadsheet, and I need to have it tell me what to, I think I started crafting the email once. Hi, your rate's going up by $5. But I never did it or sent it or anything. I mean, and there's some clients who've been with me for like three years.
Okay, raising them by $5 over a course of three years, that's fine. But then there's people who are really new, and they'd be like, hey, I just started paying you. Why are you raising my rate $5 already? (laughs) - Does your contract not specify a term or something? - It's a year. - I wouldn't expect you to change those. - No. - So you mentioned a calculator, if there's somebody listening, well, actually, were you aware that there's a rate calculator in the Podcast Editor Academy?
- I am not a part of the program. - Yeah, so if you were, there's a rate calculator in there to help you understand what you might need to charge for a project. And for those that are watching or listening, that's at podcasteditoracademy.com. I have an affiliate link, that's not it, 'cause I don't remember it. So if you're interested, go sign up. I think there's still a free trial. Check and see if your rates are gonna get you to your financial goals, 'cause that's a big deal.
- Well, my old ones were not. - Yeah, and you're at the place now where I think you've really gotta consider your expenses, right? What does it actually cost you to do something? 'Cause it's now not just you as overhead, right? Now it's, and somebody else too. - Yeah, I've got three sub-editors, and then I have a lot of people who saw me in the Podcast Editor Club say I had an agency who wanna work for me, but I'm kinda picky at this point, 'cause I haven't filled up the three people I have.
So I'm not wide open. I just ask, I'm like, oh, are you an editor? I have an agency, and then I got DMs, emails, comments. (laughs) So people wanna work, but. - Yeah, so it might be worth mentioning, we did talk to Daryl Darnell, what, four weeks ago, something like that? I know you were part of that conversation, but for those that are interested, if you're looking to hire people, he did have a pretty good process for bringing people on.
He didn't walk us through all of it, but he made it pretty clear that it's not just, do you have a pulse, do you say that you can edit, here you go. - Yeah, I did that. That doesn't work. - Having a pulse? - Yeah, I mean, I have two editors who are really, really good, and then Mawaan, who's still learning, but he's getting there, we'll get there. And then I had someone else who didn't edit in my style.
- Okay. - So I was like, ah, I don't know if this is gonna work, 'cause that's not how I do it. And I want people to edit, like me, what Steve says is, he has trained most of the editors that he's worked with, 'cause he wants them to edit in his style. - Yeah, and that's fair. In a previous life, if you will, I worked as a manager at a fast food restaurant, and you would not believe the amount of time I spent explaining to the people that worked there that they should just follow the recipe.
You put a bun, 'cause it was a McDonald's, you put a bun, you put exactly the amount of ketchup they say, exactly the amount of all the things, and the answer would always be, but isn't mine better? And I'm like, it doesn't matter, they didn't show up to McDonald's to buy a Bob Burger, they showed up to McDonald's to buy a McDonald's cheeseburger, and that's what they expect.
You might be thinking you're delighting them by giving them something different, but the reality is that's not what they think they're buying. For something that's what you do, where the stakes are much higher, I totally get that. - Yeah, I have one client, and they're very country, and they talk a little slower, and just a real more casual. You can't edit that the same way you edit my scripted business show.
So I gotta coach my new people who are still learning this editing thing, I'm like, yeah, you tried to edit that, like you edit this one, and that doesn't work. So like I said, for how many years I didn't wanna manage people. (laughs) - Yeah. - Oh well. So we have some other news that you brought up that you wanted to discuss about Apple.
- Oh yeah, they announced on WWDC, and I missed the whole livestream thing, I got it later on the feed, they were talking about it as well, but Apple is in the process of adding the ability to record calls on the phone. I understand this is gonna be in the Notes app, that it'll be recorded and it'll automatically transcribe it using some kind of magical AI type stuff. But this to me is really interesting, because in the past there have been very few good mobile recording options.
In fact, I had a client at one time who actually runs a telecom company, and who was trying to do VoIP with his own stuff, and even that, he couldn't get set up properly to make it easy to record a double ender.
So I'm really, I'm interested to see how this turns out, not because I think that you're gonna get studio quality out of it, but I wonder what this does for that guest who just can't be bothered to do anything but call in, maybe somebody who's on tour or something like that, they don't have access to good internet, but a phone they can do.
I'm wondering what that'll be, I've got some concerns, are you gonna get two tracks or one, probably one, is it gonna sound like a high quality phone call or a low quality phone call, I don't know. I think it's something to keep our eyes on, especially if we have, once we understand what the quality might look like, and I don't have the fancy phone that it'll work on, but once we start to understand that, if a client does, what happens if it's better than Zoom?
- Oh, if it's better than Zoom, what do you think is gonna happen? - Zoom is almost the defacto answer for anybody who thinks it's too hard for a guest to fire up a Chrome web browser and connect. And if this is better, could that end up being a better solution? I don't know, but I think it's something to keep our eyes on. - Are you an Apple user? - I am an Apple user, I've got, actually my iPhone is my camera right now. - Okay. - 'Cause I'm lazy and plugging it in works, and I like that.
But I think it's something to keep our eyes on, either for good or bad, I don't know which it's gonna be, but I can almost guarantee that at some point it's either going to be a solution that a guest is considering or should consider. - And it says this will only work on iPhone 15 Pro, Pro Max, and any future AI-compatible iPhone models. - Yeah, it won't work on mine, I'm on a 14. I knew that wouldn't happen. - So a regular iPhone 15 or older won't get access.
- Right, and my assumption is, since I'm an Apple person and this is brand new and just announced, it's probably been available on Android for like 20 years, and I just don't know about it. (both laughing) - I've never tried, I'm an Android person, I got a Google phone, I don't know, I haven't tried. Maybe, I don't know. - Does that sound like something you'd ever want to have your clients do? - I hosted a show five years ago for someone, and we had a guest who just could not connect.
And we had to do some kind of workaround, I don't know if we used Ringer with the app on the phone or if it was something else, but this might be handy. If, if, as the host, you record yourself on your real mic. - Oh, that would be even better. - It might make editing a little more challenging, but at least the host would sound good, and then you'd get the whatever from the guest on the phone, and then put those together if you could do that.
- I was once a guest on a show where the host used an actual telephone conferencing service to place the call, and the sound was actually pretty atrocious. Like it was about the worst possible phone call you could imagine, not like huge background noise, but just like heavily bandpassed, heavily compressed, exactly what you'd expect out of a conferencing service. The only saving grace was that the host sounded as bad as I did, because they recorded both sides the same.
- Right, but I like the host to sound good. - I do too, especially if it's me, 'cause I'm vain. - Well, true, true, but thinking about talk radio, the host always sounds good, and then the caller's calling, and they sound like they're on the phone. - Yeah. - Okay, same type of thing. So the host, I think the host needs to sound good. - I agree. - The best they can be. So if you did this phone call thing, if you were able to record your own side, that would be good, I think.
- You have currently like, I think 600 clients or something. - Yeah. - Have any of them asked yet about video support on Spotify? 'Cause I saw that they rolled that out maybe a week or two ago. - No, because if you work with me, you don't host on Spotify. - No, no, this is for shows hosted elsewhere. - Oh, okay, well, I only have like two people who do video, so no. - Okay. Yeah, so this one is interesting.
Not super far into the details, but they have apparently added the ability for a show that's been added to also have a video component. I think, if I understand correctly, you still have to go to Spotify and manually upload the video. My understanding, at least for some early testing by somebody else, I think it was PodNews tested it, if you upload a video, even if they're playing the audio version, the video audio is what plays every time after that.
So I'm not quite clear on that, but it looks like that might be, it sounds like there are several people that think that might be Spotify trying yet again to get away from open RSS feeds and move to more of the YouTube we only serve it up ourselves model. I don't know yet how that's gonna shake out, but I was wondering if you'd had anybody ask about it. - I have not, the people who do video with me do it because of YouTube. They don't do it because of anything else.
They're not thinking about the other things. They're just thinking YouTube or shorts and reels. - Do you have a lot that are doing video or is that still pretty small? - That's still pretty small. - Do you have any that feel like they have to do video and they just can't, they feel bad that they can't get it done? - Ugh, I have two clients that are what we call video first.
- Okay. - The one guy, not those two, he started audio and then was like, "Hey, we could do video too 'cause I have a YouTube channel." I'm like, ah, okay. And then I have another client who I'm not sure why she got into video, but she did. - I keep hearing sort of both sides of it. One is you need to do video and the other one is actually you don't, so don't let it hold you back. I was just wondering if any of your clients deal with that. - That's what I say is no, you don't.
Don't let it hold you back, but if you want to, just stick up a camera and go 'cause the statistics say that people are more likely to listen to the whole thing if it's audio only, but they won't watch a whole video. That's been my experience as a watcher, as a creator, and based on the research. Some of the research is maybe two or three years old, so it could be a little bit out of date, but that's what I've always seen. - I can't remember where I saw it.
I need to find that up again 'cause I tell people that all the time when they say, "Do I have to do video?" I say no. And I also heard the top podcasts and Apple podcasts don't have video anyway, so. - I think some of that is maybe a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy in that Apple does do video, but they don't make it easy to find the video-only podcast or the video-first shows. It doesn't have its own special landing page that I've ever found.
So as an example, I wanted to find some podcast apps, just sort of check and see if they support video, and if they do, do they support actual video or has it just stripped the audio and just take the video and play the audio?
And I had to go find a show that I knew was video, so that I could go find it in Apple Podcasts to make sure that I was using the right show, like that kind of thing, rather than just going, "Show me a podcast that's video," 'cause all that gives you is a bunch of YouTube links now. Thank you, Google. - Yeah, well. (laughs) So also on Spotify, they have changed things too about recording and uploading, and people got mad, and I wanted to say, "It's a free service, shut your mouth."
- Yeah, and I think this is, what, maybe like four weeks old now? This is not breaking news. - No. - I've kind of gone through a couple of different cycles. I'll call the first one the "I'm a jerk" cycle, and the second one is maybe I'm a little bit concerned. So the "I'm a jerk" cycle was exactly what you said. It's a free service. If you're serious, just shut up and use Riverside like they're telling you, or Descript, or use something like that.
But the other part of it is I'm going, "Will this be the straw that broke the camel's back "for some shows? "Probably so." - That they can't do it all in one place? - It's just one more hoop to jump through. They're not willing to jump through that final hoop. I get it, because not all of us have the benefit of 10-plus years of working in audio like you and I have. And some of them, like me, like you, are balancing a job and a show and other things in their lives.
Maybe they don't have the bandwidth to now go through that. I'm assuming there's extra money to be spent. I don't know, maybe they've got a freebie going on. Would that be enough to push them over the edge, and is it sad to see a show go? Maybe a little bit. In my mind, there's an assumption, or there was an assumption, that if you're using Spotify's tools, your show is probably garbage, right? You're not willing to invest anything in it. But that's not always true.
Not every podcast is Wayne's World in the Basement, right? Some of them are good, and they're just doing it on a really tight budget because they don't need to pay for stuff. And I would hate to see those shows go away. Not because I necessarily am listening to them, but somebody might be. And is that a market that then doesn't get served? Maybe so. - I don't know. I don't send people to Spotify for a podcast or so. - I don't either.
It's not that I'm trying to necessarily discourage people from using it, but I've had, and I continue to have a little bit of the perspective that if you can't afford $20 a month for Libsyn or Blubrry or Captivate, I mean, they're all in that 15 to 20 range, typically, you probably can't afford me. - Right.
- It's not like I'm trying to say you have to spend an extra 20 bucks, but if you're gonna spend the money on me, why not get the extra tools that come with a hosting company that really is a hosting company, not a media distribution platform that has a hosting arm. I'm willing for somebody to talk me off the wall if you disagree. We can have a discussion about this. It's not like we think Bryan's right.
(laughs) With that news, it did get me thinking, because I did see an AppSumo deal come up for some software called libretto. It's supposed to be similar to Zoom or some of those other things. We'll have a link in the show notes for you when we get this published. But I'm thinking that might be something that's a one-time purchase that might be worth recommending to a potential client.
If they really wanna do it themselves or if somebody's really concerned about Spotify going away and what's it gonna cost for me to use Riverside or Zoom and then do all the editing myself, I don't know how good it is. Haven't tested it. Might just be something that's worth checking out. - It says, "Podcasting made simple record "high-quality audio and video "and edit like a doc on a text editor." This is libretto. On AppSumo.
- Yeah, but let's not kid ourselves because Zoom also says they give us high-quality audio and their version of high is different than mine. - I'm just saying. I'm just reading. - I know. (laughing) I appreciate you, Jennifer. (laughing) - I don't know. It looks pretty cool. And it's only $49 for one code. But if you want to get the whole thing, it's $98 for two codes. It looks like if you want really good audio, get the two codes. - I looked at that.
I'm just not in the position right now to spend money on software that I literally don't need. - Don't need. - 'Cause it would totally be me just going, "I wonder if this is gonna turn into something." - Right. - Or, "I wanna test this out so that I can recommend it." And not gonna do that. Patrick gave us a ha-ha. I'm not sure what that is. I'm wondering if it's the audio quality. (laughing) I don't know. - You found some other tools on AppSumo recently too. What else did you find? - I did.
There's one other that I found on AppSumo. And this actually came up. I found this first in "Build a Big Podcast" by David Hooper. He was just talking about it. It's called BreezeDoc. It's a document signing tool. It's actually created by the AppSumo team. It's one of their originals. So it'll probably be on a lifetime deal forever. Forever in quotes, of course. But it's gonna be something similar to DocuSign. I have a service that I use for my contracts called SignWell.
But that's not available on a lifetime deal anymore. It was when I bought it. But if you need to do contracts for clients, if you need to do guest agreements for your guests, or if you have a host that you're working with that needs to do that, this might be worth sending them to. 'Cause you can upload a template. You can define who needs to sign where, get 'em signed and get everybody legal. To be completely transparent, we've never had a guest sign permission to be on this show.
Partly because we've got four hosts and no one of us actually owns the whole thing. So who do we have 'em sign with? We haven't figured that part out yet. We'll maybe get that up. Patrick says he's still thanking me for the tip on DXRevive. Well, Patrick, if you wanna spend some money, I'm your guy. I can tell you all the things that I wanna buy and haven't. But I don't wanna spend your money frivolously.
But yeah, that was one that's worth, I think, checking out, especially if you don't already have a contract solution. If you're using Dubsado or something like that, probably not a value add. - And then under Tools, you also have Episodes.fm. Tell me about that. - Yeah, this is great. I actually heard about this one on the Podcasting 2.0 Show, but it actually has nothing to do with Podcasting 2.0, so don't think about crypto or anything like that.
It's just a tool that you can use to share your show that has all the subscribe links already built in. And it actually selects what's available based on the device that they open up. So if they open up on an Android device, it shouldn't be showing them all of the Apple-only tools, but it's got a ton of different apps. And you can share either the show, or you can share an episode from the show. It has a player, so they can click through right there, and then they've also got the subscribe.
And the way it's set up, if you click through once and you choose an app, you can set it to default. So anytime you get one of their links, it'll just automatically go to your favorite app. It'll just redirect. This is an example of how I wish the really cool embedded player from Captivate would work. I love Captivate's embedded player. It's beautiful. If you open it on your phone, it takes the whole screen, got your cover art, looks great. Click play, it's right there.
But if you wanna subscribe to the show, you click the three little buttons, then you click the follow button, and it's hard from a subscriber standpoint. This kills it. It's super cool. Totally free, at least for now. I've already recommended it to a client, just going, hey, if you wanna make it dumb simple for people to find the show and subscribe, share this link.
I understand the whole share your website for SEO stuff, but if you wanna make it easy for people to subscribe, I have not found a tool that makes it easier. Super slick. Doesn't matter what app they're using. - That's cool. And I just typed in a show, and then I clicked on something and it said, nope. It's not available on that one, so I gotta go submit the show. - Yeah, I think it pulls from the Apple directory, but I'm not entirely sure on that.
I don't know anything about the stuff behind the scenes. I just know that it works. Patrick asks if it's kind of like pod.link. I think so. I've never used pod.link though, so I can't answer that. - Oh, now I've got, my cookies are getting all confused. I'm gonna have to close my browser or something. It's fine. I'll test it again. Any other fun tools that we need to know about right now, or is that it for now? - That's all I have for right now. I mean, there's always fun tools.
If you're listening or watching and you're interested in finding out more about specific kinds of tools, let us know. Maybe there's something that we've got in our toolbox that we don't think about that would be valuable to you, like DX Revive for Patrick. I actually am using that on almost a weekly basis now on one new show that I have that's live recording in a terrible room every week. That's just what it is. There's no fixing it. It's not an audio first experience.
It's a live first experience. And DX Revive to the rescue, I promise you. - And where do you get that? - That's at, oh man, who is it? Accentize, I think. Yeah, accentize.com is the website, and then DX Revive is the tool. They have two versions, an inexpensive version and a more expensive version. I bought the more expensive version 'cause it has more buttons.
That you can click, and I've found value in clicking the extra buttons, so I use that to justify having spent the extra money, and I hope that I'm right. - Okay. - Are you ready for the podcast, or the AI question of the day? - I am, and let's, okay, here we go. If you could interview a single inanimate object from history. - From history? - That's what it says, from history. What would it be, and what would you ask it?
So if you can interview a single inanimate object from history, what would it be, and what would you ask it? - Oh man, there's so many directions, 'cause my first thought was characters from books, but those aren't necessarily from history. - No, so it has to be like a real thing, I guess, is what it's saying. - Man, these are hard questions, Jennifer. You gotta give me a layup here. - Well, it tells me the same question every time, and I have to keep refreshing until it gives me something new.
- I think, since this is totally made up, I would probably go and ask the Cray supercomputer if it could ever imagine a computer being better than itself. 'Cause at the time, that was the beast. There was no other that was better. And now we walk around with something better in our pockets called a phone. - Yeah, the only thing that is coming to mind, the only thing that is coming to mind is the Liberty Bell. How'd you really get that crack? - See, I was gonna say Liberty Bell,
how'd you get cracked? (laughs) - I was like, that is seriously the only thing coming to my mind, and I don't know if it's 'cause this is the word history or what, but. - And Patrick says that he would ask Plymouth Rock how it all really went down. I think along those same lines, I'd probably ask conjunction junction, what was its function? - What was its function? (both laughing) - But I know, Patrick, you're talking about the real Plymouth Rock, not that pretend from the '80s.
- Yeah, well, Bryan? - Yes? - If someone wants to be a guest on this show, what do they need to do? - Just head on over to podcasteditorsmastermind.com/beagest and fill out a little form there. It'll ask for your name and some information. It'll ask you whether you have a topic suggestion or a question or you wanna be a guest, and we take all of those. I would say we also take feedback.
If you just wanna tell us how much you love us and how amazing we are and how you wish that we were millionaires or something, that is an excellent place to do that. But also, if you wanna be a guest, podcasteditorsmastermind.com/beagest. - And I am Jennifer Longworth with Burp and Barrel Podcasting. You can find me at burpandbarrelpodcasting.com or anywhere, Burp and Barrel Podcasting or anywhere where there's bourbon. And next to me is? - Bryan Entzminger. You can find me at toptieraudio.com.
On the socials on Facebook. I have socials in the other places, so people can't use them, but pretty much I'm a Facebook addict, and so that's where you'll find me. And Patrick says, "Mwah!" (Jennifer laughs) - Thanks, Patrick. Not appearing are Carrie Caulfield at Carrie.land and Daniel Abenroth, rothmedia.audio. And that's it for tonight. Thank you all for joining us live or on the recording. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music) - How much is that?
(man grunts) - Are you hitting the button or my? - I am. - All right. - I think. - You think, okay. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]