Welcome to Portland. Portland is sponsored by Buzzsprout. Here's fine. Over a hundred thousand podcasters like us to host, promote and track your podcast. And by riverside.fm, the easiest way to record podcasts and video interviews in studio quality. Anywhere just by using a web browser, we're using it now. It's the 8th of July, 2021. I James, Credlin the editor of pod news.net here in Australia.
And on Sam Sethi, the editor of Sam Talks Technology here in the UK with a very drunk United Kingdom. Probably not going to work today as we won the
football yesterday. And I'm Jim Bellis from podcast one and later I'll talk about a new free podcast hosting and distribution platform.
He will pod lands a weekly podcast where Sam and I delve deeper into the week's podcast news, where you're watching the football yesterday. I noticed that you watched some football game in a park over the weekend, which is very fancy. Yes, that
was quite hilarious. Actually it was England Ukraine and it was a comedy night. John Bishop and they couldn't start the comedy. Cause every time they started, England scored a goal. So they decided not to do the comedy till after the game. So we all ended up watching the game in a park. I probably make sense. Doesn't it here in Portland, the big news this week is should we all stop using audacity? It seems or dusty.
The open source audio editor is sharing data analytics with its new Russian company owner. James, tell me more.
I have to say I'm completely confused by it. So the app, which is an open source app was acquired, although I'm not quite sure how by a company called muse group in may, they're a company based in Cyprus. If you have a look at the website for muse group, then they have a privacy statement, which talks about their company in California. But weirdly this time they are trying to.
Some analytics data, not that much, but some analytics data with a company in Cullinan grant in Russia which is all very exciting. And I don't think anybody really Understands what it is they're doing and may they try to add analytics through Google and Yandex, but the developers all of the open source community were very Unhappy about that.
And so they reversed that, but what they've also done is they've requested open source developers to sign a license agreement, to contribute new code to audacity, which isn't how open source works. So it's. A little bit confusing. I don't know if you use audacity for anything. Sam
do still. I loved the script, but when I want to use music to auto duck underneath the voice it's just too complex, still in D script. The UI doesn't work. So I switched back to a dusty, which makes it really simple.
I use audacity every so often. from my point of view it needs rather a lot of work or Udacity to make it work a little bit better and to be simpler and more straightforward. Do you know, there are four buttons with magnifying glasses on, in audacity and they all do different things, which is brilliant, well done or dusty. I, so if they're going to use analytics to. Or dusty work better will. Great. I think that is a sensible plan.
The difficulty comes with audacity shipping, all of this data to Russia. and here's an example of what might happen. I'm not saying it well, but here's an example what might happen. It's illegal, for example, to promote inverted commerce, homosexuality in Russia. So if you want to make a podcast celebrating your gay lifestyle, There's nothing actually in this new privacy policy that says that they can't share the file name of your podcast and your IP address with the Russian people.
and the difficulty is that your IP address is also known by your Russian ISP by your internet company. They also have to share that with the Russian police and therefore, if you are making a pro-gay podcast, you could get thrown into prison. That doesn't sound to me like a fantastic plan. And I think if this was being done by audacity in California, for example if this was done under normal EU rules, then it would all be fine.
It's just the fact that they are shipping all of this information directly to Cullinin grad which is on the black sea. I think in Russia, it's just a bit weird and especially with everything else that they're doing as well.
it's a shame because, or dusty is the tool that many podcasts. To start editing their podcasts with cause it's free and it is quite powerful. you can do quite a lot with it.
Now they've posted a quick statement to address the concerns around the new privacy policy. They say it's unclear phrasing, and they're going to publish a revised version, which is all fine. But because it's open source, there are a number of forks which are already available. Which have taken all of this tracking out. so that won't be in there. and of course there are plenty of other audio editors. audacity is actually not that good, an audio to search for something complex, like a podcast.
It's fine for, the old quick piece of work, but for something complex, like a podcast, because it's. disruptive editor. So it it's very difficult to, edit stuff. and then change your mind afterwards. frankly, if I was editing a podcast, the last thing I would use would be audacity anyway. but it is going to be interesting seeing what happens to, or dusty and whether or not we'll actually get a beautiful app that actually works much better as a result who knows. That algebra James indeed,
now RSS open or a closed shut case. RSS is the only way to reach everyone and the only way to make money everywhere. According to our CEO, Ross Adams, he gives five reasons why you need an RSS feed for your show. Meanwhile, anchor is preparing to only give you an RSS feed for your podcast, but only if you ask for one James, what's going on, what should we do? Is RSS dead.
No. RSS isn't dead. And I think it's really nice seeing Ross Adams coming out and saying, we are fully behind RSS. RSS is a really important way of the way that podcasting works so he's given five reasons. it's the only way to reach everyone who said. Is there any way to make money everywhere. RSS the ecosystem, promote innovation and forward thinking. RSS keeps the open ecosystem open, and then finally he says, and I'm not entirely sure I agree with him.
But anyway, he says, RSS means you and only you own the relationship with your listeners. and I think, from all of them, It's very interesting. Seeing a cast position themselves as being behind what podcasting is all about. Whereas you then have a look at for example, anchor and anchor have turned around and said, if you want an RSS feed in future, then we'll give you one, but you'll have to ask first. Which is a very different way of thinking about this.
great to see a cast jumping up and down about how important RSS is. I'm sure that people like Dave Jones and Adam Curry will like that sort of talk from Ross Adams.
there's a new free podcast hosting company out there, James, and you've got an interview with them.
Yes there is. I had this exclusive in pod news this morning. It's not necessarily an exclusive, I like calling them first looks cause people get very upset if you call something an exclusive. But anyway, the folks behind podcast, one very large popular podcast publisher in the U S have launched a free podcast host called launchpad one and launch pad one. A bunch of features, including access to some of the biggest podcasters in the world. I caught up with Jim Balas.
Who's the chief technology officer at podcast
one. We are one of the large podcast publishing and distribution sources in the United. We host over 200 some podcasts and we were recently acquired in the last year by a company called live by live. So now we're helping to take podcasts from audio, which was our specialty. We're moving more into the video and vodcasts realm
as well. So what are you launching?
So we're launching launchpad one, launchpad, one.com. It is a completely free. Hosting and distribution platform for anyone to be available, to host a podcast, all
major channels. So you launched something like this. I think two years ago, I remember puppies and beer at podcast movement. That was a winning combination. what's different with
launchpad. it was a winning combination and it was a lot of fun and launch pad. When we launched it two years ago, it was a great product. It was a fun product and it was very much. version 1.0, And just through the way that time, and I hate to blame COVID and the world and the economy, we didn't spend a lot of resources developing it and taking it to what I was hoping a phase two and three and beyond the product would be.
So since we were acquired by live a big focus of the company, Is what they used to call the flywheel. so we like to bring town in one vertical and help them to go amongst all other facets. So live by live, they do live video streaming concert events. they purchased slacker radio, so they have the streaming music and now we're their podcast arm. so our goal here is to now take this prod form and use this as a vehicle to find.
The next grade podcasts are that can not only flourish at somewhere like podcast one, but then can be brought into the fold with live by live, to become more of a multi-platform
star. Can you make money on this platform as a podcaster? How does that work? You can.
So for starters, we're launching with PayPal donation like features that's going to be the way to bring it in the outset. And of course, one of the things that we support and will help along with advice and what we can do, anything you sell yourself any subscription, sponsorships, you want to go and generate all you. That's not, we have nothing to do with that. We don't want to take that.
We have things in the coming months that are rolling out on the roadmap as well, where we're going to be building in pretty robust subscription tools. so you could sell premium content, a show level, episode, full programs, archives, anything you want to do. We're building that process out now. And while we don't offer it today, what we're going to be moving into.
in the future is a few more membership tiers that won't be necessarily strictly free tiers, but you'll be opt into advertising and opt into a lot more control over that as well as being able to do exchanges of advertising across the network with other programs and. One of our biggest new features is networks almost.
So what we're really allowing you to do, and there's going to be a good way to do this is you can come on as a podcast producer as a company, big company, small company, I'm open to enterprise level here, but. you can come and make a sub network like white label on launch pad one. So we'll help facilitate that for you. So you can actually extend it out to your network of people or have a subset of series under you. So we're trying to build a whole.
More community podcasters, and there's going to be some monetization opportunities there with networks as well that aren't going to be available necessarily just for single
show offerings. And that's a big difference. Isn't it? Between you and some of the other podcast hosts in that you're building this specifically, for networks. Networks can take advantage of this white labeled, branded platforms for podcast networks as well. That's is that something that you see particular growth in.
It is. I think that's one of the things that when I look at holes amongst the industry and hosting capacities, I don't see that as a major space. And from the last time we were a movement when we had puppies and beer, that was actually one of the things that came up a lot was many producers that may be.
Not in one of the major metropolitan areas or they might produce 10 or 12 podcasts, not having a place they can go to and have one log-in or even offer their services more of a professional without getting into some of the rules. Heavy lift enterprise level stuff out there. So I think there's a void to be filled there that I am happy to develop this tool
and you're doing some quite nice stuff. You're importing, apple podcast reviews and things like that into the dashboard. And you also have a learning center called launchpad. Learn. Tell us about
that. Launchpad learn is something that we're excited to take BW here. I think one of them. One of the nice factors of being associated with and owned with, this platform we owned by podcast one is our access to podcast one. not only from a yes, we, as a network are always looking for good podcasts. There's in the next podcast. There's but. We also have the luck of having been in the industry for a long time and having a lot of great resources in a lot of our successful podcasts.
So with launchpad learn, we've decided to put that to good use. And we're going to go with offering articles from our staff and professionals that are in the industry, as well as having.
our hosts come in and do guest posts as well as other just industry experts we know of, and that are willing to, and wanting to contribute, because there's so much out there that you can learn about podcasting and how to podcast and tips and tricks that we thought what better thing to do than put it all in one place.
And especially when we have unique experience building networks and building towards, Influencers and people in social media, world building podcasts, we can put that spin on it and help show those people like that. Those groups of people, how they can be successful on a network like ours and through hopefully their own way level
network. And I think that's certainly one of the big differences between you. you look after it all. The large shirt shows Jordan harbinger, a friend of the show, and many others. And so you can certainly see that there's a wealth of opportunity and understanding there, which would be really really useful for people. the elephant in the room is obviously anchor. I have to say that word downtime. I'm curious as to what makes you better as a free host.
The elephant in the room is I'm not going to sit here and say that. Better than anchor because anger is a unique prospect as, as different than us. But I will say that we are going to occupy a unique space that anchor will not. I think our network appeal is a very large one and understandably, I think a big differentiator is the association with podcast. One obviously is owned by Spotify. So they have an association themselves.
in the world where Spotify is spending a lot of money on a lot of big pod-casters. I do think when it comes to. the wealth of podcasts that are out there, we're going to offer a different experience than necessarily anchor might as from a discoverability and a helpful growth
perspective, the benefit as well of being independent. Isn't it, you're not necessarily tied to one particular podcast host or one podcast company. And so therefore you can you can play on all of those individual platforms.
As funny as it may seem. Rome's the indie player now in the game where a lot of the other platforms have been bought up by major companies, especially with, Sean and our 19 recently with the Amazon purchase. I think there's since we're not owned by one of major players in this game, I think there's a, not a nice bit of independence there. And as a podcast, host and network, you can have a streak of independence instead of knowing that somebody else may.
So launchpad wine has just launched. Where can people go and find out more information? Yes, it is
just launched. They can go to launch pad one.com. It's spelled out one.com or of course you can find out [email protected]
as well. good, Jim, thank you so much for your time. Thanks James. I appreciate it. So we have another brand new free podcast hosts.
where do they make their money there? Okay. So they're going
to be making some money by having some advertising around some of the shows, but the main reason why they're doing this is so that podcast one will spot new shows, which are doing really well and jump in with them and say why don't we set all of the advertising for you? which I think is. Bright idea, I think will also be taking a little bit of money from those PayPal donations as well. but all of that is really nice.
So it was good to see podcast one, jump back in with launchpad one, and hopefully it will go rather better this time than their original launchpad,
but it does show a slight trend, which we've been talking about here on potluck, which is hosting becoming a commodity anchor, give it away. I say, give it away. It's at their expense. Nothing's for free. And it's a growing model because your statistics show that more people are moving towards anchor we're launch pad. Provide them with the number of podcasts they want in order to, identify new platform podcast is that they can go and partner with.
it should do. I think quite well in terms of just, there are already a thousand podcasts in the launchpad one platform and there are a ton of it. Two podcasts one, presumably sometimes there'll be using unsold ad inventory in those podcast. One shows to promote the launch of launchpad one. if they're bright and clever, so I think that's probably a good thing. And certainly talking with Jeremy very keen on RSS and very keen on the whole openness.
I found it interesting that he's talking about this being independent and how podcast one is seen now as an independent in this world, where of course, all of the big podcast hosts certainly the enterprise ones are owned. predominantly by large organizations simple costs and the rest of Omni studio and so on and so forth. In fact, the only ones that really aren't owned by large organizations are Libsyn and Buzzsprout and pretty well everybody else is.
So that's, interesting to see his point of view.
watch this space about those two. I think so. So all square in love and war for the first time, major podcast apps, display episode notes in the same way. Hooray. I think as pod news earlier this week, you were testing James that the description field or the major podcasts apps now sport H ref make URLs clickable. Should you now want to keep an episode note below 4,000
characters? So if you keep an episode note below 4,000 characters, which is the maximum that apple podcast supports, then you're pretty well guaranteed that it will display as you want it to on the three big apps. So Spotify, apple, and Google podcasts. they've never actually all. Support it just the real basics. So an href link. So that's a link where you have a ugly URL, hidden behind some nice words paragraphs an, unordered list and a list ident.
That's a bullet point Everything supports that. And everything also makes your ELLs clickable automatically, which is fantastic. So this is the first time I know it's 15 years, but this is the first time that all major podcast apps show episode notes in the same way, which is a tremendous step. So well done us. I think we can pat ourselves on the back there. Really good to end up seeing.
And that does mean that if you are linking off to a, whether it's sponsors, whether it's more stories, whether it's books to go and read to whatever it is, then all of those links should just work in the major podcast apps. And that should hopefully mean that other podcast apps will follow suit as well. So all good news. I think Sam.
The podcast index has launched a new end point by doin goods are a permanent ID for your podcast. James, what are they up to at the podcast
index? They are continuing to implement new things. two things that the podcast index is doing. Firstly, this good. So the idea is that you can give a unique ID to every single one podcast out there. And then it doesn't matter if they move podcast hosts. You still know that it's the same podcast. Sounds simple. It's never been done before. and so it'd be great to actually see that happening and what the podcast index is doing right now is building for every single podcast in their database.
but if you set one directly, that will always overwrites podcast indexes. So that's a good thing. there's a bug that they've already found, or not necessarily a bug, but it's an interesting use case. I have a bunch of different RSS feeds that I use for partners. So if you're listening to the pod news podcast on evokes, because I volts is particularly bad at setting user agents, I have given I vote say specific RSS fees now that has made its way into the podcast index.
And what I want to be able to do is to say this is the same podcast that you've probably already got anyway. so that's been quite an interesting use case that Dave wasn't quite expecting. So I gathered. There's some work going on to fix that. but that's all pretty good. So that's one thing that podcast index is doing, the other thing, which I think is brilliant, that podcast index is also doing is nothing.
and what I mean by that is there's some work in terms of value for value where they've worked out. Wouldn't it be nice if, for example, so we've got two guests on this week. Wouldn't it be nice if we could share the santosha is that we get from this week's show with those guests. that kind of makes a bunch of sense. It's not possible at the moment with the standard.
it would be possible if we changed what the standard is, but what they have said is no, we're not going to change the standard because no one wants that yet might change the standard in the year. That's fine, but until that point, we're not going to start fiddling around with new standards. And I think that is also a really good thing and a mature way of making sure that we move forward in terms of new ideas and features in RSS. Now
talking about bugs though, as you were just a minute ago we found a bug or you're reporting on a bug. I think we talked about it briefly. That after the uphill updates to the podcast client, why not? lots of other podcasts are reporting their numbers in terms of downloads had started to be. Now we found the solution to this bunk.
Yes.
So apple bless them have fessed up and said there is a bug in the new version of iOS, 14.6. there's a bug, which means that your phone is not automatically downloading show. that doesn't mean that people can't hear your show. That's all fine. just when you press the play button, it starts it starts streaming it in inverted commerce. and it will also be fixed with the next software update for iOS and that's all good. And I think that's brilliant apple being open.
What it does mean though, and I've talked to a number of different podcast hosts. and the podcast hosts I'm talking to are talking about a 30% drop top in apple downloads that they're seeing at the moment. And this is essentially all of those orders automatically downloaded shows. so overall you're probably seeing an 11%, 12%. Across June a little bit more and maybe that $7.7 million in terms of ad revenue, or maybe it isn't because actually these were all automatic podcast downloads anyway.
so maybe that's just essentially priced in to the way that we charge for ad revenue But really interesting seeing that there has been a bug in apple and if your numbers have been going to. And Sam, you were talking about our numbers here on the pod land podcast have been going down. And this is probably one of the reasons why it is just the fact that there's a bit of a bug in the new apple podcasts app.
I wonder if it's a bug or a feature, actually. you could turn it around if it means. That's the number of active listeners because it works when you click play, then that might be a good thing for podcasts is to know, instead of going well, my numbers are high because auto downloads show they're high, but actually from the people who've started to listen to the show, to the people who are actively listening to the show. This is my true
number. I agree. And I think what we're actually seeing here is we're seeing better numbers that actually more adequately reflect the amount of listeners that we have rather than the amount of downloads that we have. And one of the frustrations that I've always had is if you're comparing apple downloads with say Spotify or Google podcasts, apple will always be inflated because apple does auto downloads by default and neither Spotify or Google does.
I haven't turned on automatic downloads for the last year or so, because the Australian government won't allow me onto a plane, so therefore there's no worry about that sort of thing. so I think it has sparked a number of conversations around what the actual real numbers for podcasting is. And I think, interesting if the numbers is at the moment about 30% of podcasts, downloads are.
automatic downloads that never get listened to if that's the actual number, then it's quite nice to know that from apple only. And it's quite nice to end up knowing that, and maybe we should just be taking all of Apple's stats down by about 30%. Cause that's what we're actually seeing.
as I said, is it a bug or is it a feature? So James, a couple of weeks ago or last week, James, we had an interview with Ariel Nissen Blatt about the podcast taxonomy. Now we did, there's a thread going on Twitter. That was really interesting by Misa Yusef. and it was talking about the type. Fees, I guess podcast is, can have the podcast. Taxonomy has done a great job in trying to define the type of jobs. And I think. Highlight the type of fees that those jobs should get. Did you see that?
The thread?
it's a great it's a great thread from Misha Yusef. And what it essentially says is this is how much I produce a really ought to be earning. And this is how much, And editor ought to be earning, and this is how you should be charging for your work in terms of podcasting and everything else. It's a really good piece of work. And I think it's, it's always nice to see people sharing all of this kind of information. I linked to it the other day from the pod news newsletter. and Ameesha ought to know.
a big voice in podcasting which is always good. She's been involved in loads and loads of things. but she turns around and says, there's a load of really bad advice out there. Here's the advice that I have to educate people about how things are paid and and what people actually do. that's really good to end up end up seeing.
I'll put the link in the show notes, but I think it's worth a read because I guess when you're looking, as she was saying, high budget non-fiction podcasts usually have a 350,000 to 750,000 budget, then, people should be getting a decent wage. Per day, she's looking at a thousand pounds a day should be a starting reasonable rate for consulting for an individual or an organization. I think it's just the lower end of podcasts. And most people think, just because you can do a podcast, it's simple.
How can you therefore charge so much money for editing?
Or advising. And I think we're seeing a bunch of large organizations who are doing podcasting because they think it's really cheap and really easy to do and not fully understanding both the skills that are involved in it because they don't do audio. But also not necessarily understanding, what a sensible wage is. A Misha works for Barack Obama. she is both the creator and host of tell them I am which high ground puts together.
And also she's been working on the Michelle Obama podcast and that Bruce Springsteen born in the USA thing. so she knows. A thing or two. And I think certainly if you are a if you are someone who is learning your particular trade, it's really useful to actually understand what type of money is actually around in the podcast industry, at least in the professional podcast industry.
And there's clearly a big difference between that and the sort of podcasts that this is, for example, where you are not earning a thousand dollars a day. Sam. So far as I'm aware,
I thought that's what I had in my contract. How well?
no, it would be a good start if you actually had a contract. Okay.
For the people's choice podcast ward, the oldest podcasting wards are now open. Yes. News is listed. Yes. There you go. What are you listening then, James? so
pod news is listed. Pod land is not, but pod news. Is listed in the podcast awards. You'll find us under politics and news. please, if you wouldn't mind, if you like this podcast, then I'm sure that you're like the pod news podcast as well. and please, if you wouldn't mind vote for pod news in the news category, you could vote in the Adam Curry. People's choice award, if you really wanted to, although frankly, I've got no chance of winning that, but it would be just nice to win something.
please you can go and do that. Add podcast awards.com. That's podcast awards.com vote early vote often don't vote often. That'd be. Now Sam, we had a little bit of feedback from Daniel J. Lewis friend of the show. I've decided that everybody who I mentioned from now on is just going to be friend of the show if that's okay.
Daniel J. Lewis friend of the show was hearing you talking about Facebook podcasting last week, podcasts are now available in the Facebook app in the U S if you're one of the chosen special people I think Sam, you were saying that there was only one problem with the Facebook podcasts app and that's is that you can only put one show in there in your podcast page. and Daniel, J Lewis says I have the Facebook podcasts feature and Facebook has two podcasts in my page settings.
Not only one there you go.
I will let you know when I get access to it. It's what I read, obviously. So I can only go on what I read. but one, when I get access, if I can have more than one podcast feed into my page, I'll be a
very happy boy. When they roll it out to the other. 0.7% of everybody in the world. Then that will be a fantastic thing.
James, what's been happening for you in Portland this week,
I ended up speaking at an Arabic, a podcast conference, which was jolly good. so I enjoyed doing that pod lines. the other day also I spoke to the podcast academy members only this morning or last night, if you're listening to this in the U S. it was all about a whole world of opportunity. And if you're a member of the podcast academy, you will find it on their website at the beginning of next week. and it's available for you free. I was also on the apple insider podcast.
I said some positive things about apple who'd have thought it. you can find that in a full transcripts at the apple insider website as well. And next week, I'm very much looking forward to taking part in radio days, Africa, which has already started it's a two week long conference about radio in a continent that really loves its radio. Podcasts well-worth popping in having listened to some of those individual sessions. And I will be in the closing ceremony at the end of next week.
What's happened for you in Portland this week, Sam, you're going to a big fancy party over the weekend. Aren't you?
the hope is that I'm going to a big fancy party. It's the British podcast awards at Brockwell park in London. It's on Saturday, July the 10th, between two and 5:00 PM. And thank you to the PR people who did invite me. oh, you
D you did get an invite.
I will let you know more next week. What happened?
Yes. that should be all good. And that's it for this week. Come back to Podland next time you can follow us in your podcast app or where at Podland dot news on the web. And I should say www dot Podland dot news really ought to. Text on the web com visitors there. And if you have
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