Transcripts to Tags: How Podcasting 2.0 is Changing the Game with Daniel J. Lewis

Daniel J. Lewis: course, in general, but one of the specific things. Yeah. And that topic is podcasting 2.0, which I don't know anything about. I went to a session about it at Podfest and went, yeah. I know nothing about this. I need to have someone on my show to tell me all about this. I'm happy to help. So just as a overview, I've been hearing podcast 2.0 for a while, but I had no idea what it was. For someone who's like, well, I don't even know. I haven't even figured out 1 point o

yet. What is this 2 point o? And what's the basic overview? Yeah. Think about it as 1.0 first. We've had Daniel J. Lewis: podcasting 1.0 pretty much untouched since the Daniel J. Lewis: beginning. Sure. Along the way, Apple added some additional Daniel J. Lewis: tags, like we got the episode number field, season number field, and a Daniel J. Lewis: couple other things here and there. But besides that, podcasting Daniel J. Lewis: development and innovation has been somewhat stagnant for

Daniel J. Lewis: years. Even though the ability to extend Daniel J. Lewis: podcasting has existed since the beginning because RSS Daniel J. Lewis: let's get a little technical here. RSS is just a Daniel J. Lewis: particular flavor of XML code, and the

Daniel J. Lewis: x in XML stands for extensible. So Daniel J. Lewis: from the beginning, this thing, the core technology that makes the distribution Daniel J. Lewis: of podcast possible, RSS feeds, has always been Daniel J. Lewis: extensible, but people have tried to do things with it

Daniel J. Lewis: and extend it, and it's just not gone anywhere. So Daniel J. Lewis: when Adam Curry, the cocreator of podcasting Daniel J. Lewis: himself, decided to really start innovating more in the Daniel J. Lewis: space and to create podcasting two point o, then things

Daniel J. Lewis: started catching on. Then we started getting momentum, and Daniel J. Lewis: developers jumped on board, podcasters jumped on board, podcast Daniel J. Lewis: hosting providers, and even what's so exciting like, Daniel J. Lewis: we might do all of this innovation even if Apple and Daniel J. Lewis: Spotify and Google and all of the big companies never do anything with Daniel J. Lewis: the innovations we're making, but it's so exciting that

Daniel J. Lewis: as of a couple of weeks ago, Apple announced official Daniel J. Lewis: support for the transcript tag, which is coming from Daniel J. Lewis: podcasting 2.0. They don't say it's podcasting 2 point o, but Daniel J. Lewis: they do reference the podcast namespace, which is the Daniel J. Lewis: technical thing that is extending the RSS feed in order

Daniel J. Lewis: to enable those podcasting 2.0 feeds. So what Daniel J. Lewis: podcasting 2.0 enables is extra functionality Daniel J. Lewis: inside of a podcast app if you put this information in your feed and use Daniel J. Lewis: your publishing tool to put that in there, and the extra functionality Daniel J. Lewis: can benefit you, it can benefit your audience, it can benefit Daniel J. Lewis: developers making a better experience in their app, and it can even

Daniel J. Lewis: benefit those nasty advertisers. Oh, nasty

Daniel J. Lewis: There are ways that even the advertisers can benefit from this, Daniel J. Lewis: even if some podcasters don't care about them. This is really interesting to me because I've been very much the open source fanboy for a while. I love what this is about. At the same time, I remember Spotify or some people previously from Spotify shared some articles a couple years ago about how real innovation can never take place in an open environment, that you have to have a closed

system to truly innovate and that kind of stuff. This seems to be kind of revealing that as maybe not entirely true. What's your perspective? Not true at all. Yeah. Spotify Daniel J. Lewis: is, they're frustrating because that Daniel J. Lewis: is their perspective, is they only really know

Daniel J. Lewis: themselves. And even with the tools that they've developed with Anchor Daniel J. Lewis: or now Spotify for Podcasters, it's really about promoting Daniel J. Lewis: Spotify, and they look internally Daniel J. Lewis: for their solutions instead of externally. And that's really hurting the Daniel J. Lewis: industry because there's so much innovation happening that Daniel J. Lewis: they just won't listen to. People will ask them, when are you going to support

Daniel J. Lewis: podcasting 2 point o? And they're just like deer in the headlights, Daniel J. Lewis: and they just don't know what it is. They Daniel J. Lewis: won't look into it. They seem to not care. They Daniel J. Lewis: just decide, we're just gonna do our own thing. So, like, Daniel J. Lewis: even Daniel Ek, the founder, the head of, Daniel J. Lewis: Spotify right now, has come out and said certain things like

Daniel J. Lewis: RSS is holding us back. We can't innovate on top of RSS. I Daniel J. Lewis: think he even said something like we can't extend RSS. Daniel J. Lewis: And you heard me say it earlier. It is in the very Daniel J. Lewis: definition of what RSS is to be Daniel J. Lewis: extensible. So, yes, we can extend it. And will Spotify ever Daniel J. Lewis: support any of these new features? I don't know. Maybe now that

Daniel J. Lewis: Apple supports some of them, maybe. But the thing is that Daniel J. Lewis: we shouldn't be waiting on Daniel J. Lewis: these big companies to fix things. Instead, we should be Daniel J. Lewis: innovating regardless of what they're doing, and that's what podcasting Daniel J. Lewis: 2.0 has been doing. And it's just so nice to see some

Daniel J. Lewis: validation though from a big company like Apple. That's just 1 Daniel J. Lewis: feature, and transcripts would be we've had people talking about transcripts, Daniel J. Lewis: so I want to explain that one a little bit more first. People have been Daniel J. Lewis: talking about transcripts for a while, but pretty much what they've been talking about Daniel J. Lewis: putting in with your podcast is a block of text somewhere.

Daniel J. Lewis: And even worse, putting that block of text in a PDF Daniel J. Lewis: file that someone could download. That is not accessible, and Daniel J. Lewis: the whole point really of transcripts is for accessibility. Yes. Daniel J. Lewis: They're a little bit better than nothing for search engine optimization,

Daniel J. Lewis: but it was just so limited what you could do before. Now there is Daniel J. Lewis: a specific tag in the RSS feed that enables you to Daniel J. Lewis: upload a transcript format, not just a PDF, a block of Daniel J. Lewis: text, but an SRT or a VTT file, which Daniel J. Lewis: is a special time stamped where it's line by line with time Daniel J. Lewis: stamps in it, you can upload that with your episodes so that in a

Daniel J. Lewis: modern podcast app that supports the transcripts, it can play Daniel J. Lewis: like closed captioning in a show. And that's great not Daniel J. Lewis: only for the accessibility to hearing impaired Daniel J. Lewis: people, but also just understandability. Like, if Daniel J. Lewis: someone was trying to hear, wait, what was that thing that they said? I couldn't Daniel J. Lewis: quite hear them, or they said it too fast, or I didn't quite get that.

Daniel J. Lewis: They could enable the transcript for a moment, see what was said, Daniel J. Lewis: or maybe they're trying to jot down exactly what you said because it was such Daniel J. Lewis: an inspirational quote that they want to write it down verbatim,

Daniel J. Lewis: and they can see that from the transcript. And that kind of idea Daniel J. Lewis: of using excerpts, that's something else that some of these apps could Daniel J. Lewis: start to build in where we've had all of these apps before that let you

Daniel J. Lewis: clip audio. Well, you can have an app that has a little bit of Daniel J. Lewis: AI to it to recognize where a sentence starts and ends, and Daniel J. Lewis: let you very easily clip the last sentence that you heard Daniel J. Lewis: or the last 2 sentences because that would be enabled through the Daniel J. Lewis: transcript. And and that's just one feature here with

Daniel J. Lewis: the transcript. Some of the other really exciting features Daniel J. Lewis: are the ability to have what we call cross app Daniel J. Lewis: comments, which would be where you could comment on a podcast

Daniel J. Lewis: episode inside of your podcast app. So none Daniel J. Lewis: of this going somewhere else to comment on the episode, but you comment in Daniel J. Lewis: your app, and then someone in a different app Daniel J. Lewis: could see that same comment and respond to it, and the podcaster could Daniel J. Lewis: get involved with their own app or third party service like Podgagement Daniel J. Lewis: or something else. So it's creating this engagement around the

Daniel J. Lewis: episodes inside of the app. There are other features

Daniel J. Lewis: like live streaming. If you do live streaming like you guys are doing right here, Daniel J. Lewis: what you could do is is powered by the thing called the live item Daniel J. Lewis: tag, which is like a new item or a new Daniel J. Lewis: episode in an RSS feed, but it's wrapped with this live Daniel J. Lewis: item tag instead of a normal item tag, and that Daniel J. Lewis: enables these modern podcast apps to recognize a

Daniel J. Lewis: couple extra features that you add in to say when you're going live. So, Daniel J. Lewis: like, when we went live tonight, if you use the live item tag Daniel J. Lewis: in your podcast RSS feed, someone with a podcasting 2 point Daniel J. Lewis: o compatible app would see that notification that you're Daniel J. Lewis: going live soon, and then when you go live, they

Daniel J. Lewis: would receive a notification to be able to tap in that. And Daniel J. Lewis: inside of the podcast app, they could listen to the Daniel J. Lewis: episode live being recorded. That's some of the cool Daniel J. Lewis: stuff. So much more that is around engagement, around Daniel J. Lewis: enabling extra features for your podcast, or ways that Daniel J. Lewis: things can display better. Like, one of the other really cool things is

Daniel J. Lewis: the person tag. Think of it as adding credits to your podcast as a Daniel J. Lewis: whole or your individual episodes. So, like, if you look inside of Daniel J. Lewis: Apple Podcasts, for some of the podcasts, if you look down at the bottom of Daniel J. Lewis: the listing, you'll see a picture of the hosts and cohosts.

Daniel J. Lewis: Well, that right now inside of Apple Podcasts, that's all proprietary Daniel J. Lewis: stuff, but we have the ability to do that with RSS feeds now Daniel J. Lewis: so that you could very easily see who the hosts are for this Daniel J. Lewis: particular episode or the show as a whole, and then the apps can Daniel J. Lewis: expose that information and cross link it. So if you tap on Brian Daniel J. Lewis: Inspiner, you would get to see all the other podcasts that Brian

Daniel J. Lewis: has been on or been a guest on or hosted. That

Daniel J. Lewis: kind of thing can be brought into the app. So Daniel J. Lewis: all of this stuff, then so many more features too, is Daniel J. Lewis: about giving the podcaster more control, more features, Daniel J. Lewis: giving the audience more ways to engage with the podcast and learn about Daniel J. Lewis: the podcast, and giving developers more opportunities Daniel J. Lewis: to make their apps better and a more engaging experience to

Daniel J. Lewis: keep the audience inside of the app. And even for Daniel J. Lewis: advertisers, there are opportunities like being able to better Daniel J. Lewis: track consumption of an episode or track the Daniel J. Lewis: engagement a little bit better or like with chapters. That's another Daniel J. Lewis: thing, another really fun feature. We've had chapters in podcasting for a

Daniel J. Lewis: while, and a chapter is think of it like this. If you're listening Daniel J. Lewis: to an audio podcast, and then an image pops Daniel J. Lewis: up at a certain point for your sponsor or something that you're talking Daniel J. Lewis: about. Maybe you're talking about Hindenburg, and so you display the Hindenburg Daniel J. Lewis: logo and a link to Hindenburg that's made possible with a

Daniel J. Lewis: chapter when it happens in the middle of the episode. We've had chapters Daniel J. Lewis: for a long time before, m p 3 chapters, enhanced AAC Daniel J. Lewis: podcast, but the big problem with that was they were embedded in Daniel J. Lewis: the media file. So if you have ever wanted to change the chapters, Daniel J. Lewis: you had to change the media file. So if you wanted to update Daniel J. Lewis: a chapter, especially for the audience that already downloaded your

Daniel J. Lewis: episodes, you couldn't update it. They would have to redownload it, but would they Daniel J. Lewis: wouldn't even know to do that just to get new chapters. So podcasting Daniel J. Lewis: 2.0 has what we call now super chapters, and that

Daniel J. Lewis: extends things. 1st, it moves it outside of the media file Daniel J. Lewis: into a separate file so you can update those chapters Daniel J. Lewis: anytime, in the podcast apps that support these modern Daniel J. Lewis: chapters will check the chapters every time your audience engages with

Daniel J. Lewis: your episode, so it looks for any updates. You can do really cool Daniel J. Lewis: things with that that can help you as the podcaster, help the audience, even help Daniel J. Lewis: advertisers too, like maybe an advertiser, you're using Daniel J. Lewis: dynamic ad insertion, and you can then make whatever that Daniel J. Lewis: chapter link is for your advertiser, you can switch it out based on whatever

Daniel J. Lewis: your advertiser is for that or whatever you are promoting. Maybe you're Daniel J. Lewis: promoting a limited time thing. So for Daniel J. Lewis: this week, the image of that chapter is something that says, like, Daniel J. Lewis: this week only, and then, a few days later, it

Daniel J. Lewis: says 2 days left. And then after this week, that image then Daniel J. Lewis: says, sorry, this isn't available anymore or check back later or something Daniel J. Lewis: like that, and that's all done without your having to Daniel J. Lewis: reupload your media file or anyone having to redownload the

Daniel J. Lewis: episode or anything like that. It's much more dynamic. So it's Daniel J. Lewis: so much more engagement is possible with podcasting 2 point Daniel J. Lewis: o. So since we're a show by editors for

Daniel J. Lewis: it's in the RSS feed. So most of it would then Daniel J. Lewis: be something that if you're only editing the audio or Daniel J. Lewis: video of the episode, Daniel J. Lewis: and eventually someday coming to Adobe Audition and Daniel J. Lewis: Audacity recently started implementing transcripts in Audacity, Daniel J. Lewis: there's the option and the opportunity for you as the Daniel J. Lewis: editor to go ahead and get that transcript for your

Daniel J. Lewis: client. And as you're editing the audio, Daniel J. Lewis: you're able to also refine the transcript a little bit because you're Daniel J. Lewis: familiar with what's in the episode. Like, for example, when I edit my own transcripts, Daniel J. Lewis: and I use an AI system to generate my transcripts, but one Daniel J. Lewis: of the things I look for is I always look for, proper nouns

Daniel J. Lewis: and URLs, and I go back and correct those. Because, like, just my own Daniel J. Lewis: domain, for example, theaudacitytopodcast.com, Daniel J. Lewis: there are several things that the AI often gets wrong. Like, Daniel J. Lewis: sometimes it doesn't include the word the in the Daniel J. Lewis: domain. Sometimes it has that as the space

Daniel J. Lewis: audacity to podcast. Sometimes it says the 2 is the number Daniel J. Lewis: 2 instead of t o. Sometimes Daniel J. Lewis: it hears audacity as some different word Daniel J. Lewis: like oddity or something else like that, and so weird things Daniel J. Lewis: like that can happen. So I just look for any occurrence of, like, Daniel J. Lewis: .com, .org, .net based on whatever I remember saying in my episode.

Daniel J. Lewis: I look for any occurrence of a slash to make sure whatever comes after the Daniel J. Lewis: slash is correct. So like theaudacitytopodcast.com/microphones. Daniel J. Lewis: So I check to make sure that's correct, And those proper nouns, I Daniel J. Lewis: can check. So this is because I'm familiar with my own content and Daniel J. Lewis: what I said in it, I can correct the transcript. So you as Daniel J. Lewis: editors could also do that same thing, especially if you're working

Daniel J. Lewis: with a tool. Now several of them are starting to let you see the Daniel J. Lewis: transcript in your editing workflow. You could very easily Daniel J. Lewis: see, wait, that transcript doesn't match what was just now

Daniel J. Lewis: said. I'm just gonna correct that really quickly. And, yeah, that does Daniel J. Lewis: take a little bit more time, but then that's a value add that you Daniel J. Lewis: can offer to your clients to say, by the time Daniel J. Lewis: this episode is edited, I can also provide for you the

Daniel J. Lewis: transcript. It's AI powered, but I did a little bit of touching Daniel J. Lewis: up as I was going through and editing your content to make sure Daniel J. Lewis: your names, brand names, proper nouns were all correct, and your

Daniel J. Lewis: URLs are all correct. You can offer that. As well as Daniel J. Lewis: since you're working with the audio, you could either Daniel J. Lewis: by AI powered or just as you're making it, you could take Daniel J. Lewis: note of the time stamps for when the subject Daniel J. Lewis: changed because those could be chapters, and you could offer Daniel J. Lewis: those chapters, even create the chapter file for

Daniel J. Lewis: your client so that they could upload that in their system or copy and Daniel J. Lewis: paste it. So that could be something too that's coming then Daniel J. Lewis: from the audio editing process. That then is Daniel J. Lewis: a value add for you to then give to them and

Daniel J. Lewis: say, here's something else. Now your podcast can be podcasting 2 point Daniel J. Lewis: o compliant because here are these 2 things I've done for you that you can Daniel J. Lewis: then add in your publishing tool, or if you work with the publishing Daniel J. Lewis: tool yourself, certainly, you can do a lot more for them with Daniel J. Lewis: podcasting 2 point o. So I do publish for,

provide them this chapter's file, and their host doesn't support it. Like, that's kind of an embarrassing situation to be in. I'm charging them for something that they now can't use. Do we have to stay on top of this? Like, what are your thoughts?

Daniel J. Lewis: It is something that I think that you can encourage your clients to Daniel J. Lewis: make sure that they're using a hosting provider that supports podcasting 2 point Daniel J. Lewis: o or at least gives the flexibility that you can add Daniel J. Lewis: these tags in manually yourself, which gets complicated.

Daniel J. Lewis: I'm working on the website. We didn't even mention this. Podcasting2.org Daniel J. Lewis: is now the home of podcasting 2 point o. It has a lot of technical Daniel J. Lewis: technical information there, but we're also working on making it a Daniel J. Lewis: whole lot more user friendly, and podcaster and Daniel J. Lewis: audience friendly and speaking in regular terms that Daniel J. Lewis: mere mortals, the rest of us can understand, but we really wanna

Daniel J. Lewis: focus on the benefits through that site. So one of the things I'm making Daniel J. Lewis: there is a tag generator. So even if Daniel J. Lewis: like, from since I mentioned Libsyn, Libsyn Daniel J. Lewis: 4 lets you actually manually insert RSS tags. I Daniel J. Lewis: think Podomatic also lets you Daniel J. Lewis: manually insert some RSS tags yourself. So even if they don't Daniel J. Lewis: support some of these features, if you have that ability to put in the RSS

Daniel J. Lewis: code yourself, you could generate that and put that in. But the Daniel J. Lewis: the big thing so if someone is let's say they're Daniel J. Lewis: going to Spotify for podcasters, why would you have them Daniel J. Lewis: as a client if they're gonna do that? But that aside, if they're going

on It's a conversation we've had. Yeah. And if they're going on a Daniel J. Lewis: platform like that, you could encourage them to do something Daniel J. Lewis: different, but if they're really set on whatever platform it is, Daniel J. Lewis: I mentioned Spotify for Podcasters because that's probably going to be the last Daniel J. Lewis: ever to support podcasting 2 point o. What you could do Daniel J. Lewis: is if they just will not switch, you still

Daniel J. Lewis: have an option of a couple services are starting Daniel J. Lewis: to enable you to layer on some of these features. Daniel J. Lewis: Like, Blueberry has a service called podcast mirror, Daniel J. Lewis: podcastmirror.com. It was free for a while. Now it does

Daniel J. Lewis: cost. There is no free plan. You might remember the old Daniel J. Lewis: days of FeedBurner where we would take an RSS feed that Daniel J. Lewis: was not a podcast RSS feed and turn it into a Daniel J. Lewis: podcast RSS feed with feed burner through what back then they had the Daniel J. Lewis: smart cast feature. Feed burner is completely rebuilt now. It's Daniel J. Lewis: really just pretty much a feed proxy service. You still can add some of

Daniel J. Lewis: that podcast information. Don't use it like that, but Daniel J. Lewis: what podcast mirror from Blueberry, the podcast hosting company, Daniel J. Lewis: what podcast mirror can do is it can take a podcasting 1 Daniel J. Lewis: point o feed and turn it into a podcasting 2 point o Daniel J. Lewis: feed, allowing you to add some extra stuff Daniel J. Lewis: on mainly the main top level. So you can't add

Daniel J. Lewis: the episode transcripts, at least not yet. You can't add Daniel J. Lewis: episode level information, but you could add things like Daniel J. Lewis: the value for value, Satoshi streaming. You could add Daniel J. Lewis: things like the person tag at the top level of the Daniel J. Lewis: podcast. You can add a few other things like that to the

Daniel J. Lewis: RSS feed. So you'd run your feed through podcast Daniel J. Lewis: mirror, and on the other side, you get a new feed URL Daniel J. Lewis: that then has some of these podcasting 2 point o features. Daniel J. Lewis: That does cost. Right now, it's I believe it's $60 Daniel J. Lewis: a year with Blueberry. I don't know if it's even part of their Daniel J. Lewis: affiliate program that you're getting any kind of affiliate payment if you referred

Daniel J. Lewis: people to them. I'm not sure about that. But it's a proposal that you could Daniel J. Lewis: include with them to say, alright, if you want Daniel J. Lewis: transcripts and chapters, I'm happy to do that for you. That's going to be Daniel J. Lewis: this little add on, an additional service, and we're going Daniel J. Lewis: to have to set you up with PodcastMirror so that

Daniel J. Lewis: you can take advantage of a few of these more features. Although, Daniel J. Lewis: unfortunately, chapters and transcripts are not something that PodcastMiner can do Daniel J. Lewis: Right. Yet. They said it's just a technical limitation right Daniel J. Lewis: now, so it's something I'm sure they're working on. So when I had these

Daniel J. Lewis: for so long. It's just the truth that we have to be honest about Daniel J. Lewis: is that they do not have native support for podcasting 2 point o Daniel J. Lewis: features built in. So if you have a client that's really Daniel J. Lewis: interested and wants to take advantage of the podcasting 2 point o features, Daniel J. Lewis: The places that I personally recommend are if Daniel J. Lewis: they like a WordPress workflow, then Blueberry because it's all right

Daniel J. Lewis: there with WordPress, and it integrates really nicely and everything. If Daniel J. Lewis: they're not wanting a podcast focused workflow, then the Daniel J. Lewis: other 2 places I highly recommend are Captivate and Buzzsprout. Daniel J. Lewis: Both of them are really good with their podcasting 2 point o support,

Daniel J. Lewis: Captivate more so than Buzzsprout. And I think that Captivate, Daniel J. Lewis: while they don't have the most podcasting 2 point o features, Daniel J. Lewis: I think that they've implemented them the best, and Daniel J. Lewis: Buzzsprout, I would say, is the easiest. I think that

right now. One thing I'm wondering is I would love to be able to use the live item tag, but I don't think that that's currently supported natively by Captivate. Is there a workaround other than PodcastMirror? Right now, no. Daniel J. Lewis: But that is something that you can do with Podcast Mirror Daniel J. Lewis: because, technically, even though it's a live Daniel J. Lewis: item, it actually goes at the channel level. So it would go

Daniel J. Lewis: before the episodes. It doesn't go inside an episode. Daniel J. Lewis: It basically goes before the episodes even though it is an episode, Daniel J. Lewis: technically different. So that is something that could work with podcast Daniel J. Lewis: mirror. The support for these specific features Daniel J. Lewis: is changing as some of these developers are implementing support,

Daniel J. Lewis: and it's changing in the apps too. So that's why podcasting Daniel J. Lewis: 2.org exists is to help track some of this so you can

Daniel J. Lewis: see what features are supported in what apps. And there's going to a spin Daniel J. Lewis: off-site, by the way, that I've actually been working on longer Daniel J. Lewis: to show a whole grid of, like, this is how Daniel J. Lewis: this feature works in this app, or this is Daniel J. Lewis: supported fully in this app or partially in this app, even Daniel J. Lewis: down to stuff like what apps support hyperlinks in their show

Daniel J. Lewis: notes, that kind of thing. But that's a spin off site that's not Daniel J. Lewis: completely podcasting 2 point o related, but right now Daniel J. Lewis: podcasting 2.org, if you go there and, like, if you look at the Daniel J. Lewis: podcast namespace section and you click on a tag, then you can Daniel J. Lewis: see the publishing tools and the hosting providers that Daniel J. Lewis: support that tag, so that if that particular

Daniel J. Lewis: feature is really important to you, then you can know this is what you should Daniel J. Lewis: recommend then to your clients to use. And thinking

Daniel J. Lewis: the version that will include support for the transcripts. So that Daniel J. Lewis: will be inside of Apple Podcasts as of 17.4. Daniel J. Lewis: Other popular apps, Podcast Addict supports a few of these things. Daniel J. Lewis: Podcast Guru is supporting some of these things. Daniel J. Lewis: Pocket Casts has done some work to Daniel J. Lewis: support things, but they not fully, but they are Daniel J. Lewis: excited about it. They just haven't done all that much yet.

Daniel J. Lewis: I don't quite know what's going on there. But then there are other apps that Daniel J. Lewis: are more independent. Some of them programmed by 1 Daniel J. Lewis: person somewhere, and the best thing to do is go to Daniel J. Lewis: podcasting 2.org, and there's an apps page where you can then Daniel J. Lewis: see here are all of the apps for right now, you can pick a Daniel J. Lewis: platform. Like, you wanna see what's everything that works on iOS, what's

Daniel J. Lewis: everything that works on Android. You click on an app, then you get to see Daniel J. Lewis: the list of here are the features that this app supports. So Daniel J. Lewis: you can know, oh, this is a really good one, or try it out yourself Daniel J. Lewis: to know how good it is that supports all of these features. These are important

Daniel J. Lewis: to my client. So this is why I'm going to suggest Daniel J. Lewis: that my client then promote to their audience Daniel J. Lewis: and encourage them even saying things like when they start Daniel J. Lewis: to use some of these features, they could say things Daniel J. Lewis: like, hey. If you need the transcript for this episode, did you know Daniel J. Lewis: that I put transcripts out with the episode and you need a special

Daniel J. Lewis: podcast app to play it? Get the new podcast app through, and one Daniel J. Lewis: of the places that you can send them is podcastapps.com or newpodcastapps.com or modernpodcastapps.com or Daniel J. Lewis: podcastin2.org/apps.

Daniel J. Lewis: They all pretty much have the the same information. It's just different domains, different Daniel J. Lewis: designs on these things, but encouraging then your clients Daniel J. Lewis: to encourage their audience to use a modern podcast app Daniel J. Lewis: to be able to take advantage of these features and Daniel J. Lewis: to really focus on how does this benefit

Daniel J. Lewis: the audience. That's the thing that I think is always important to Daniel J. Lewis: to bring this back to is even though we can get excited about some of Daniel J. Lewis: the technical things or, oh, this is going to be so cool to make this Daniel J. Lewis: possible, we need to really think about does the audience Daniel J. Lewis: care? Not just even the podcast editors, but the people that Daniel J. Lewis: we're editing for their people, do they care

Daniel J. Lewis: about this kind of stuff? And we can encourage them to care Daniel J. Lewis: by pointing out the benefits of things like the transcripts, the Daniel J. Lewis: engagement, the interactions, the opportunities Daniel J. Lewis: to stream money to their favorite podcast through the value Daniel J. Lewis: for value system that the the streaming Satoshis and all of Daniel J. Lewis: that, that kind of thing focusing on that end

Daniel J. Lewis: user benefit. One of the things I'm wondering,

Daniel J. Lewis: Well, if not you, because some of your clients are might not even be Daniel J. Lewis: listening to any podcast about podcasting or keeping up with podcasting Daniel J. Lewis: news because maybe they're just so busy creating their content and then Daniel J. Lewis: doing whatever else they do, running their business or their hobbies or their Daniel J. Lewis: life, that they're just not interested in what's going on in the podcasting

Daniel J. Lewis: industry. So this can be opportunities for US Daniel J. Lewis: podcast editors to step up and help educate your Daniel J. Lewis: clients on here are some new cool things that you could do with your Daniel J. Lewis: podcast. Would you be interested in taking advantage of these features? Daniel J. Lewis: And I think that those top few features to really point Daniel J. Lewis: them toward would be transcripts, chapters,

Daniel J. Lewis: and cross app comments. Those are the the big things that really stand out, I Daniel J. Lewis: think, that don't cost any money, don't get involved that Daniel J. Lewis: aren't involved with the crypto and the streaming Satoshis in case anyone is Daniel J. Lewis: afraid of Bitcoin. But the Bitcoin thing, the streaming Satoshis is Daniel J. Lewis: kind of nice to be able to do, or micropayments

Daniel J. Lewis: we could call it. I think those are some of the the Daniel J. Lewis: top things to really focus on for the Daniel J. Lewis: audiences. I'm actually glad that you mentioned that. The cross app comments, of course, sounds great to me as a podcaster. I've always thought it's ridiculous to have to send people somewhere else to have the conversation. Right? We're having this. We wanna extend our conversation, so please connect with me on, I don't know, Circle. So or Facebook

or whatever. So I I love that idea. Is that even implemented? Yes. It is. And it is Daniel J. Lewis: very cutting edge right now. It's a little bit complicated. There Daniel J. Lewis: are some issues that need to be figured out, like moderation abilities Daniel J. Lewis: and such, but it is something that is being worked on, Daniel J. Lewis: and it is, I think, the most exciting feature because it is very Daniel J. Lewis: audience focused. It's engaging. It's something a podcaster can get

Daniel J. Lewis: excited about. It just has to be supported, and Daniel J. Lewis: there are some little hurdles to be worked through. But I think Daniel J. Lewis: that this year, 2024 for the record, we will have Daniel J. Lewis: this solved, and it will then be more by other

Daniel J. Lewis: apps. Right now, it's just kind of a lot of stuff is questionable Daniel J. Lewis: and a little bit seemingly complicated, but some people are Daniel J. Lewis: saying, no. It's not all that complicated for developers to support this, Daniel J. Lewis: but it's going to get easier. And that's the cool thing about all of this Daniel J. Lewis: is that the technology will disappear

Daniel J. Lewis: in the sense that we won't have to care about the technology. It can just Daniel J. Lewis: get to the point of you publish a podcast episode, Daniel J. Lewis: and now you can comment from whatever app you want. You the actual Daniel J. Lewis: technology you use doesn't matter. That's coming. We're working toward that.

Daniel J. Lewis: So that's definitely one of the exciting things. I I think I can't remember if Daniel J. Lewis: I said it too, but chapters would be I think another really cool thing that Daniel J. Lewis: could help break up the content, make the content more reviewable. Daniel J. Lewis: Yeah. That does mean it's also skippable, but would you rather your Daniel J. Lewis: audience abandon your episode or skip to exactly what they

Daniel J. Lewis: want? That's a good question that you could ask to your clients if they're saying, Daniel J. Lewis: well, would won't they be able to skip? Yeah. And that's a good Daniel J. Lewis: thing. Yeah. And David says that they're using it. I'm assuming that he's talking about the cross app comments. That, to me, seems like the no brainer because I have never talked to a client who said I'm getting too much engagement. I wish people would stop getting back to

me. Right? What I always hear is I'm talking into a vacuum. I never hear anything. I ask people to email me, and they don't. Yeah. Of course, this can't necessarily fix that, but it certainly removes a hurdle. Oh, for sure. And that big Daniel J. Lewis: hurdle of stepping outside of the app, Daniel J. Lewis: that's a big one because once you leave the app,

Daniel J. Lewis: then where do you go? And when you're outside of the app, there are all Daniel J. Lewis: of these other distractions of other apps or you get on Daniel J. Lewis: to Twitter to send a tweet, an x Daniel J. Lewis: tweet, which sounds like you're tweeting your x, that's not it.

Let's not do that. Yeah. You get on there and you want to send a Daniel J. Lewis: comment and then you get distracted by, oh, here are these other things I'm reading Daniel J. Lewis: or just if you're doing this while driving, well, don't.

Daniel J. Lewis: You can't do that. But what if it could be Daniel J. Lewis: so that while you're listening to a podcast and you have something you wanna Daniel J. Lewis: say back to the podcast, you just press a button Daniel J. Lewis: and start talking, and let go of the button or press the button Daniel J. Lewis: again. You stop talking, confirm it, send it, and that's your Daniel J. Lewis: app. That's your comment, and it's posted in the app, and it's posted in

Daniel J. Lewis: all of the other apps. It could be that kind of thing, and Daniel J. Lewis: it's right there inside of the app. So keeping people inside Daniel J. Lewis: of the app then makes that that, Daniel J. Lewis: process for people to engage so much more seamless because they Daniel J. Lewis: don't have to go somewhere else then. And so one of the things also I've

Daniel J. Lewis: might also like or listeners also listens to. That's all algorithmically Daniel J. Lewis: generated, and you can't control that. So maybe, you know, Daniel J. Lewis: you've got the I Love Cats podcast, and then Daniel J. Lewis: down at the bottom is the Cats Are Evil, Let's Kill All Daniel J. Lewis: Cats podcast. You don't want that recommended on

Daniel J. Lewis: your podcast. No. Apple for some reason decided you've got enough crossover Daniel J. Lewis: audience between these 2 podcasts that they're recommending that, or Daniel J. Lewis: maybe you get more control of that with your own recommendations

Daniel J. Lewis: and that's powered by Podroll. You could also recommend your other Daniel J. Lewis: podcasts that you host or your clients could recommend their other podcasts Daniel J. Lewis: or other podcasts that they think are very relevant, have some Daniel J. Lewis: opportunity to cross promote, even maybe selling some

Daniel J. Lewis: cross promotion there. What this does then in the apps when Daniel J. Lewis: you put in this pod roll, and I hate the name, Daniel J. Lewis: but the pod roll comes from the idea of blog roll, and some people Daniel J. Lewis: don't even know what blog roll was. It it's really just it's a Daniel J. Lewis: word to describe recommending other podcasts.

Daniel J. Lewis: So think of it as recommendations. You put in there Daniel J. Lewis: a certain number of podcasts that you want to recommend, whatever that number is, and Daniel J. Lewis: then these podcast apps that support it can then display that, and they Daniel J. Lewis: might display it in different ways. It might say something like this podcast Daniel J. Lewis: also recommends these, or you might also like Daniel J. Lewis: just like Apple Podcasts has, but the thing is the podcaster

Daniel J. Lewis: is in control of this. And that presents Daniel J. Lewis: all kinds of opportunities then for some of the collaboration between Daniel J. Lewis: these different podcasters and the cross promotion or just growing Daniel J. Lewis: the other podcasts that that same podcaster hosts.

And so if it's comment on my thing, I want them to be able to do that. So I'm totally with that. I would love to be able to get people into one place that's distraction free so they could focus and then move on with their lives. Thinking about this, again, putting on the editor or the producer or the podcast manager hat, are there things that we need to be careful of or cautious about when it comes to Podcasting 2

point o and our clients' shows? If you are working with Daniel J. Lewis: transcripts, this is something that you need to watch out for is Daniel J. Lewis: potential liability. If you're working Daniel J. Lewis: and you might not always know what to look for because Daniel J. Lewis: it could come up in random places, but just an Daniel J. Lewis: example here. If your client Daniel J. Lewis: said in the podcast, let's not kill puppies,

Daniel J. Lewis: but the transcript didn't catch the word not. So the Daniel J. Lewis: transcript would say, let's kill puppies. You have to watch Daniel J. Lewis: out for that kind of thing. That could be very Daniel J. Lewis: problematic because then what if it's some kind of medical advice that's being Daniel J. Lewis: given? What if it's financial advice or anything like that Daniel J. Lewis: that if the wrong advice is practiced, then

Daniel J. Lewis: it puts someone in trouble, the podcaster in trouble. And then the podcaster would Daniel J. Lewis: say, well, I didn't personally write that. It was my editor who Daniel J. Lewis: put that in there, so then you're in trouble for having something Daniel J. Lewis: that wasn't correct. That kind of thing is not very

Daniel J. Lewis: likely to happen. You would have to look out for Daniel J. Lewis: the kinds of fields where stuff could get in Daniel J. Lewis: more trouble like the scientific, medical, financial, legal Daniel J. Lewis: fields. Some of those would be more to be very, very Daniel J. Lewis: careful with those kinds of things. Some of the other dangers of Daniel J. Lewis: this would be overselling the dream of this because all of these

Daniel J. Lewis: features are great and everything. The unfortunate Daniel J. Lewis: truth is that as of February 2024, Daniel J. Lewis: the apps that support all of these cool features make up Daniel J. Lewis: about maybe 2 to 3% of the global Daniel J. Lewis: downloads of podcasts. Excluding Apple, I'm guessing since

17.4 isn't out yet. Of course. So that will significantly change. But, Daniel J. Lewis: like, the live item tag or cross app comments or things like Daniel J. Lewis: that, not very much support right Daniel J. Lewis: now. So if you're telling someone about, hey. Let's get you Daniel J. Lewis: involved with cross app comments, and then they expect to see it inside Daniel J. Lewis: of Spotify, that's not gonna happen. So you have to be careful not to

Daniel J. Lewis: oversell what's possible. But the cool thing is that the Daniel J. Lewis: podcasts that support these new features Daniel J. Lewis: and promote the modern apps that support these features, Daniel J. Lewis: they see a completely different shift. So instead of Daniel J. Lewis: for most podcasters, Apple Podcasts is going to be number 1, and then

Daniel J. Lewis: Spotify number 2. They some of these platforms see or Daniel J. Lewis: these podcasters see significant shifts where instead of it being Apple Daniel J. Lewis: at number 1, it's whatever the particular app is that they Daniel J. Lewis: recommend the most as number 1. And then Daniel J. Lewis: their audience more of their audience is able to take advantage of those Daniel J. Lewis: features. I was checking my stats because I was like, pretty sure Apple is

our winner. And I shouldn't do this because I'm on a show, but I did it anyway. So, yeah, Apple's still our winner, but we we don't really push the other app. So we do have some of those 2 point o features enabled, but we haven't spent any time really promoting other apps. Is that something that you would encourage a show like us

that's really for the editors to do? It could be, especially because the Daniel J. Lewis: editors need to be familiar with what are some of these cool new features coming Daniel J. Lewis: so that they can better promote it to their clients. You can Daniel J. Lewis: better promote it to your clients, and it would be nice to then try Daniel J. Lewis: some of these things. And where this can then trickle Daniel J. Lewis: down to the podcasters and what they do is not only just recommending

Daniel J. Lewis: these apps in their podcasts or saying, hey. You might wanna try this other Daniel J. Lewis: app, but they might decide to change some of their marketing Daniel J. Lewis: instead of making their Apple Podcasts or Spotify link the Daniel J. Lewis: most prominent link on their website. Maybe instead, Daniel J. Lewis: they're linking to one of these other apps that a couple of them

Daniel J. Lewis: are cross platform. Some of them are only Android, some are Daniel J. Lewis: only iOS, but they could make those decisions if Daniel J. Lewis: they decide, wow, this experience is so much better for Daniel J. Lewis: my audience. I really want to get my audience moved over to this Daniel J. Lewis: other app. They can make those decisions to stop saying, find us

Daniel J. Lewis: an Apple Podcasts or wherever get you get your podcast. They could instead instead Daniel J. Lewis: say, well, I really suggest they don't say podcast apps in Daniel J. Lewis: their calls to action, but they could link to their Daniel J. Lewis: page where their page then has those

Daniel J. Lewis: modern apps more prominent than anything else. And then the Daniel J. Lewis: audience can start to move over, especially if Daniel J. Lewis: the podcaster is educated by you, the editor, Daniel J. Lewis: and the podcaster then educates their audience on this is the Daniel J. Lewis: benefit you would get by switching over to this other app. On a personal level, I've been on a quest to find a good podcasting 2 point o app that is cross platform because I like Cast O Matic, but

it's iOS only, and I don't like that. I've been checking out Podcast Guru, but their list feature is just abysmal. Like, they've got a lot of things figured out really well and but, like, I put things into a list so I can listen to them or I have it on them. Anyway, I'm gonna shut up about that. I do have a, a question that's a little bit uncomfortable to bring up. But one of the things that we were looking for is how well represented is the broader community within the podcast two point o

space. And what I noticed is almost all of the voices that I'm hearing are male. And I'm wondering, are there any women involved in this? Is it truly a dude thing? And if so, like, what can is there anything that can be done? Well, here's the thing, Daniel J. Lewis: and this some people might not like the way that I put this. I Daniel J. Lewis: mean, I I have to refer to stereotypes here because Daniel J. Lewis: stereotypes exist because they're kind of true in many cases.

Daniel J. Lewis: Look back to the beginning of podcasting itself. It was Daniel J. Lewis: almost all male dominated both on the audience side and the Daniel J. Lewis: producer side because podcasting is very geeky, Daniel J. Lewis: and geeky stuff tends to attract Daniel J. Lewis: more men than women. That's just kind of the nature of the differences

Daniel J. Lewis: between men and women. So because of that, because Daniel J. Lewis: podcasting 2.0 right now is still very geeky Daniel J. Lewis: and technical, although it's already gotten easier than it was a Daniel J. Lewis: couple of years ago. Because it's kind of geeky, that tends to Daniel J. Lewis: attract a more geeky audience, which tends Daniel J. Lewis: to be more male. That said,

Daniel J. Lewis: there are some women in the space. I don't think there are Daniel J. Lewis: any women developing the apps themselves, but I Daniel J. Lewis: know that, she goes by Dame Jennifer. I don't know what it is with Daniel J. Lewis: Jennifers and podcasting you guys, but, there Daniel J. Lewis: is, yeah, a woman who is involved and excited about this, has

Daniel J. Lewis: supported it, and she is not a programmer. She's Daniel J. Lewis: an animator actually, and she just is passionate Daniel J. Lewis: about podcasts, and so she's become somewhat of an evangelist for Daniel J. Lewis: this and supporting it and helping communicate about it and Daniel J. Lewis: make little videos here and there and things, and that's something that she's Daniel J. Lewis: able to do, interested in doing even though she's not developing.

Daniel J. Lewis: And I'm sure there are others. Well, Daniel J. Lewis: take, Elsie Escobar, for example, has said in Daniel J. Lewis: the feed, Lipson's podcast, that she said some of these features Daniel J. Lewis: are so exciting, but how do we communicate this? How do Daniel J. Lewis: we explain this? Or there's limited support. She's bringing out the fact that,

Daniel J. Lewis: yes, there's this truth. Well, her saying that in Daniel J. Lewis: a recent episode of Libsyn's The Feed is what really Daniel J. Lewis: pushed James Cridland and I to finally make Daniel J. Lewis: something happen, and that's why we launched podcasting 2.org Daniel J. Lewis: to try to solve that problem of people don't

Daniel J. Lewis: understand this, or how do we market this? So Daniel J. Lewis: that we're hoping that then something like that resource instead Daniel J. Lewis: of someone like Elsie Escobar see saying this is Daniel J. Lewis: great, but instead she can just say, this is Daniel J. Lewis: great. Go here to learn more. So she could become an

Daniel J. Lewis: evangelist because she said she's interested in this. As far as, like, where Daniel J. Lewis: else there are men or women, I don't really pay attention Daniel J. Lewis: to that. Sure. So I can't really say. And please don't ask me about Daniel J. Lewis: skin color or ethnicities because I really have no idea. At all interested in

that. I was more interested because it is something that I look for, and I'm of the opinion that there are probably some of those women out there, we just don't know who they are, and I would love to see because I came in late, but I'm familiar with the history. I would love to see us shortcut that cycle. Right? So I recognize that it's following a

similar pattern. I would love to see us shortcut that. So if there are women out there that are technically minded or just wanna be that evangelist, my

encouragement would be please do it. Right? And some of these Daniel J. Lewis: features, again, speaking in stereotypes here, I think, Daniel J. Lewis: Brian, you and I can probably talk about podcasting Daniel J. Lewis: for hours on end to someone and never let them Daniel J. Lewis: speak at all Because sometimes we can just really nerd Daniel J. Lewis: out, and then the other person's just like, okay.

Daniel J. Lewis: Bye. But for women, Jennifer, you Daniel J. Lewis: probably again, I know I'm speaking in stereotypes, but Daniel J. Lewis: women stereotypically connect more emotionally, Daniel J. Lewis: and they review conversations in their minds when Daniel J. Lewis: they're away from the conversation. They really like the Daniel J. Lewis: conversations with people, and what I'm leading this into

Daniel J. Lewis: is cross app comments. So, like, even for women Daniel J. Lewis: podcasters, this presents a great opportunity for them Daniel J. Lewis: to have those conversations more with their audience, Daniel J. Lewis: to build more intimate connections with their audience, to engage on a Daniel J. Lewis: deeper level right there inside of the app. So Daniel J. Lewis: it's not just about, hey. I'm gonna make my podcast look

Daniel J. Lewis: better, or, hey. I'm gonna offer transcripts, but it can be about Daniel J. Lewis: making those deeper more personal connections Daniel J. Lewis: with the podcaster and their audience and even enabling the Daniel J. Lewis: audience to connect more with each other, Daniel J. Lewis: building a community. And that's also a big Daniel J. Lewis: thing of what podcasting 2.0 can do is to help

Daniel J. Lewis: then those relationships be fostered. I did wanna hit we had one other comment from David, helping a lot of people he met at Podfest get rolling on some two point o features, telling them about getting workflows in places and getting the mainstream will put them ahead of the game. So, yeah, I think that's that's absolutely great. And, you know, again, my heart really is just how can we get as

many people as possible enfranchised in this? Because I think it's good For us as editors, I think we do have to kinda take that step back and go, okay. How do I make sure that this is valuable for my clients? Because it can be it can feel the people like we're pushing stuff on them. And I don't think that's that's not my desire. But at the same time, I do want people to take advantage of what's out there. I'm gonna shut up about

that. Jennifer, did you wanna move on to the Poddecks question, or did you have something else? Nope. I was moving on to Poddecks. Time for the Poddecks question of the day. This is where, Daniel, you get to choose a number between 1 and 4. We actually have physical cards. These aren't even available anymore. So choose a number from 1 to 4. 3. 1, 2, 3. You know, we mentioned sometimes there are some that don't make it on the air. You managed to do that. Choose a number between 13. 3.

Okay. Maybe you should look at all the choices before we start

Daniel J. Lewis: books, and videos and stuff. I was a reseller for Focus on the Family and Daniel J. Lewis: some other providers, and my mom had Daniel J. Lewis: a business also selling Christian books and bread baking supplies and Daniel J. Lewis: certain stuff, and her business was called simply good things.

Daniel J. Lewis: So I thought, well, I'm gonna have the kids division of my mom's Daniel J. Lewis: business so that she can handle all that legal stuff, And so my Daniel J. Lewis: business would be SGT Kids, but then, like, certain people Daniel J. Lewis: started calling it sergeant kids and Sergeant. Yeah. That's what I thought

can get that in the queue. And then if it's really about how you land