Buzzsprout's new Android app; Zombie Google Podcasts and PodToo

What I quite liked about all of this is that Buzzsprout spent quite some time making sure that it wasn't just a lazy iOS port but actually copied over a bunch of useful stuff from the iOS app but also made it work properly for Android , which is good . All kinds of stuff in there . You managed to catch up with Albin Brook .

I guess we'd started a bit earlier , but we wanted to have a native experience , all the native Android functionality , not just be like a reskin of an iOS app , and so we worked with a team that really understood Android , and now we have a really cool Android app . Lots of podcasters are on Android .

I'm excited for them to have the same experience that our iOS customers have been using this whole time .

But now you have this companion app so you can check stats , you can get real-time notifications , you're able to share directly from the app and then you're able to effortlessly manage your podcast . So change a title , publish an episode , update a link , fan mail now works in there .

You can manage your pod role tons of little things , but those are kind of the main categories .

And again just getting a notification saying that james has finished uploading the episode and that the transcripts just finished . So , as a podcast creator , those little steps on the notification post-production are always good to know as well uploading the episode and that the transcripts just finished .

So , as a podcast creator , those little steps on the notification post-production are always good to know as well . Now , the other thing that you guys have been working on is some new podcasts . You obviously have Buzzcast , which is your main podcast , but you've got a new one out as well . What's that one ?

And so we started recording that newsletter and producing it as a podcast and it's wonderful because we've already done all the hard work . The hard work is picking the stories , is writing the newsletter is thinking about what do we really want to communicate to the indie podcaster , to the Buzzsprout podcaster ?

And so we put all that together and now it takes us about an hour to go from okay , the newsletter's done to the episode is published . Today is the second episode . You can download it in your podcasting app and listen along with the Buzzsprout newsletter .

So if you are a customer support team or you're just helping customers , you want your team to lead with empathy , to understand the customers . Priscilla , who leads our customer success team , does that podcast and definitely check it out . But those are the three shows Jordan does .

And the host of Buzzsprout Weekly is Megan , and so Megan writes our newsletter and so we're leaning a little bit more into having some more personality in some of the podcasts . We don't want it to all just be Kevin and I on Buzzcast , so now we're having a bit more people involved in creating the shows .

Co-host AI is now over a year old and we want to keep improving every part of us . I do think that there is a lot of AI hype right now , which you kind of need the AI hype to get everybody to start building the real use cases .

People are suggesting lots of ideas that I'm not 100% sure are useful for the podcaster , and so the way that we built co-host was here's some real definitive pain points . I do not like finding my chapter spots when I'm creating the episode . I know that they're out there , but I don't know the exact timestamp . It's nice for it to find it .

I don't love transcribing . It's great that it can find it . I don't like coming up with catchy titles and descriptions . It's wonderful that co-host AI can write those for me .

So , as we discover new use cases , specifically because we are using Buzzsprout every week and we're noticing this is a place for AI , I think we'll implement it , but I don't want to end up putting the cart before the horse and saying , oh hey , I could do this . Let's start trying to force its way into my podcasting workflow .

Podcast Movement largest podcasting conference in the world recently had a friend from law school reach out and said hey , I want to get into podcasting and he now works in DC . So it's like , well , good for you , you got to come over and check out this incredible conference and it's just a wonderful time .

You know , podcasters love to talk and we all have something in common that we love audio , we love creating and everyone's unique because they're creating shows about something totally different , and so you meet tons of interesting people and it is really one of the best parts of my job .

Whatever you're voting for in this election the NHS , affordable housing , decent jobs , the climate , human rights or any other issue close to your heart £14.50 . Two copies and a sausage roll .

I mean , you know , obviously they're available in both , but you'd have thought that the audio app would be the place where they would put lots of their podcast stuff , but no , this is a your Podcasts page . If you're on YouTube on mobile , then hit the you tab on the bottom and you'll find a your Podcasts page there .

If you're using the web , then it's on the sidebar and that just gives you a list of shows that you're subscribed to . I'm guessing if you're not subscribed to any , you might not see that In the YouTube Music app .

When I went to have a look , if I scrolled down 17 screens long , then I eventually found a thing called your Shows in the YouTube Music app , so it does exist in there as well . Not quite sure why it's not called your Podcasts , to be honest , but still there we are .

Consistency has never been one of Google's strong points , and yes , so I mean there is something there and a little button . If you want to add more podcasts , it links you straight to youtubecom slash podcasts .

And then they actually got a Microsoft office czar who would then dictate what was going to go into the product . But blimey , yeah , your shows , your podcast , that's two teams , that's for certain .

I saw you would expect to see a bunch of popular things called podcasts , but what you actually see is something from a company called Midas Touch talking about Trump and all of that , which has got nothing to do with Australia . Next , philip DeFranco , wealthy white couple used adopted black children as slaves . I think that's more American nonsense .

The NBC News nightly news full broadcast . That's not a podcast . What on earth is that doing in there ? From June the 26th that was yesterday as we record this and then somebody called Dr Mike I can't believe . I have to say this it's got nothing to do with podcasts at all .

There is then a rail which shows popular podcasts , and the popular podcast that it is promoting is the Diary of a CEO , which I suppose is popular in the UK . It's not popular here . Lex Friedman , pbd Podcast whatever that is never heard of it . Rotten Mango not heard of that .

The H3 Podcast , which I have heard of and Lo-Fi Girls Radios , and there is nothing in here with the exception , possibly , of Diary of a CEO and Lex Friedman that I actually recognise at all in here , and I write about podcasts all the time .

Yes , google Podcasts was supposed to have died on either Sunday or Monday , depending on which bit of Google Podcasts you looked at , whether it was the email that we got , which said June the 23rd , or whether it was actually having a look at Google Podcasts Manager , which said June the 24th .

Either way , it was supposed to die outside of the US on one of those two dates . And well , here we are . We're recording this on Thursday night , my time in Australia , and zombie Google Podcasts is still alive . If you've got the app installed , then you can play podcasts in it . If you don't have the app installed , then you can install it .

It's still in the iOS and Android app stores outside of the US . Google Podcast Manager is still accepting new shows as well , so I don't really understand what on earth Google is playing at . I don't know if you remember this , sam , but I remember when Google actually cared about things . It's very clear that they don't care about anything anymore .

Yes , it was only doing 4% of total downloads , but it was the number three most popular podcast app in the world . Three most popular podcast app in the world . So it was doing , frankly , better than every other podcast app out there , apart from Spotify and Apple . But they've managed to kill it , except they haven't killed it .

I mean , I just do not understand what Google is playing at . So it's another thing which is still not quite in the Google graveyard , but very close , I think .

It's all to do with reaching more people than anybody else does , and I'm sure that that's the case . What's always been interesting and quite amusing is that Triton , who also have a US podcast ranker who , by the way , are owned by iHeart they have never measured iHeartMedia , so they've always said that SiriusXM is number one .

That must have annoyed somebody at iHeart rather considerably , because they are now being measured by Triton , which means that the iHeart audience network is now number one according to both PodTrack and now Triton .

So , yeah , really really interesting numbers , and I am currently working on a story around what those numbers are and , who knows , maybe this time next week we'll have a little bit more to say about that .

To get 5.4 million downloads , which is about 1 million downloads per episode , is not bad . So congratulations to Maud Lust being number one there . Ma podcast , like all podcast rankers of this type , only measure participating publishers . In the UK , podcasts have more listeners than ever , according to a new study from Edison Research .

Some really nice data from the UK . In their Podcast Consumer UK edition . The data says 42% are monthly podcast listeners , 30% listen weekly . And in people news , jess Mott has joined AdLarge Media as Director of National Digital Partnerships . There's an SVP of Client Services at Adopter Media , adam McNeill . He's been working for that company for quite some time .

Some interesting things going on in Australia , with Lizzie Young being the new CEO of Commercial Radio and Audio . That's the company that looks after radio broadcasters but also runs the Australian podcast ranker here as well . Also , billy Hartman has joined workflow automation and ad management company Frequency . He is apparently an audio ad veteran , so good for them .

And Azil Enriquez recently joined Salem Web Media as the new podcast marketing coordinator . Lots of exciting things happening there .

The keynote is from NPR's Emily Kwong , but we also have a bunch of other people speaking , including somebody from Indonesia who has translated their show into English using a company in the Philippines . We have got , I think , somebody from the ABC who will be talking about whether video is actually a thing in terms of podcasts , so that'll be interesting .

Anyway , if you fancy a journey into the sweltering heat of Malaysia , then please do September the 3rd . Tickets just $99 and you can use the code PODN10 to save even more on that . And there are more events , both paid for and free , at PodNews Virtual events or events in a place with people . And if you're organising something , tell the world about it .

It's free to be listed at podnewsnet slash events the tech stuff on the pod news weekly review yes , it's the stuff you'll find every monday in the pod news newsletter , and here's where sam talks technology .

We've been chatting for a little bit , but I want to find out first of all who or what is Pod2 ?

The beautiful thing about Pod2 is that we also podcast all of the radio shows , so it allows people to be on demand , and I guess the whole system was basically use Dropbox or send the file manually through WeTransfer , and when you've got 700 radio stations that you need to syndicate a show to , that gets time consuming very quickly .

Yeah , so basically it's make a show and then get it on radio as quickly podcast to broadcast , rather than afri pods , which we were talking to kevin last week , taking a live radio feed and then putting that out as a podcast , and what you're doing is helping podcasters syndicate their content to multiple radio stations , correct ?

So it needed my syndication partners that we get shows from to be able to upload the shows somewhere where I could program all of the data that needed , all the shows , so that I knew for that time period , even if I was dead , my station would keep going . So so that's how it came about .

Honestly , there's no real like oh , I was bald one day , it was literally you might die . Let's go and create something that will keep your radio station on it okay , so in perpetuity , right , okay , um , now fast forward .

My actual background is coding and developing , so I'm just a nerd at heart and to me it was like here's a problem , we can fix it , let's fix it . Radio is so powerful . It's a way of telling stories , it's a way of connecting to the community , it's a way to just let people in your local area know what's happening .

And that's kind of been lost , I hate to say it . Like commercial radio is literally about shouting ring up now to win $10,000 . It's not about that breast cancer survivor or that nonprofit or the homeless . Where's those stories ? Those stories , sadly , have been moved to podcasts .

I'm not saying sadly , but meaning it's actually harder to find those stories because you're competing with god knows how many podcasts . They're sometimes really hard to find and a lot of our clients who use pod 2 they go . I just want to be found . I want to be connected to people . I want to be able . I want to be connected to people .

I want to be able to make a business out of this . I want to be able to share my knowledge with the world and this is where , if done correctly , radio can be the voice for the people . It can be the place where you share ideas . It can be the place that you connect A lot of people . A lot of people go oh , radio can't be interactive .

Drm1 is the first to basically bring comments and polls and questions and all that kind of stuff into radio so that when you're listening , if you like something , tap it and it will take you somewhere .

We hope it will be called Medium equals Radio and what we're trying to create , and what we have created manually , is a DRN1 radio feed , a publisher feed , but it's a radio feed . We try to differentiate between different feeds . So Wondery would be a publisher feed and then you might get an audio book feed and then you might get a other feed .

So DRN1 has at the moment 12 shows in that publisher radio feed . And what we're talking about now is you going to use what has been made part of the podcast in 2.0 standard , the publisher feed format .

So you're going to take each RSS feed and you're going to add a podcast publisher with a URL link to this feed that you're going to create so as a business pod . Two will manage the hosting , manage the technical challenges of adding this new publisher feed and then managing that publisher feed on behalf of DRM one , and we're going to see if that works .

Step one Then we're going to add the live item tag to the shows and then see if we can create a schedule out of that . And then thirdly , and the bigger challenge is how do we take syndicated shows that you've got across multiple radio stations ?

And finally , the fourth big problem problem , just to add to the pie , is we're then going to try and geolocate those in a way that means that if it's they show syndicators across multiple geographies as well that it's not made available . Let's just take a step back . Podcasting 2.0 where do you think the world is right now ?

Sorry , I just realized that's a massive question to address , right ?

I'm very anti big corporate platforms that take podcasters who , let's be honest , we pay rent , we have to put food on the table , we have to pay for the mixes , we have to edit . It costs us creators a lot of time to make these great shows .

The problem we have with platforms and I won't mention names is that they will put ads all over our content and they will not pay us , so they'll ingest our content , they will tell us that we're not allowed to put our own ads in it or programmatic ads in it , I should say and then they will put their own programmatic ads in it and if you do not meet the

minimum requirement to generate revenue , that company will take those dollars and use it for them . Now this is where it bugs me , because podcasters are no different to musicians . We are creators , we create beautiful content . We deserve to get paid . As simple as that no , I fully agree .

They're trying to find the audience who will then support them . That support can be in micropayments , it could be in subscriptions , it could be through buying merchandising or tickets to events . So , yeah , it's all going the same way .

That youtube pays dollars per stream or cents per stream . If they're ingesting our content , then I expect that they would be paying our content creators . Even if it is just pennies or not even a cent , like if it's 0.0008 cents , that is still better than nothing .

And that's where I just think that we need , like a podcast creators association , to actually say look , we need to be treated like a creator , because it is our copyright material that we are giving a platform and we're happy to give it .

But if you're not going to support V4V , then pay us through some sort of means and don't put these stupid rules saying you have to get 10,000 subscribers or whatever . It is Like you're making money , let us make money .

So these are real conversations that we're having with creators , and this is why it's exciting to be part of the Podcasting 2.0 community , because we can see that our creators want this . It's just how do we educate the listeners ? There has to be that we work together as a community .

We can't just go oh well , I'm not talking to you because you're a competitor of mine . I love talking , like some of the best people I talk to is todd from blueberry . It's a fantastic conversation we have . Just because it's not about competition , it's about okay , well , this is what we're doing . What are you doing , like ? Help each other ?

And what it basically says is in the podnewsnet slash RSS feed , I have skip days of Saturday and Sunday because I never publish on those days and so therefore , please don't even bother coming to my RSS feed and having a look . And I thought to myself well , that's interesting . That's a piece of information in terms of the spec that was added in 1997 .

And I was basically thinking no one will support this at all . It's a complete waste of time , but it's also tiny and so therefore I might as well add it to the RSS feed anyway .

I added it to the RSS feed and it turns out that that has dropped the traffic to my RSS feed by 4% on Sunday compared to the previous Sunday , so it does seem to have worked 800 fewer requests , which is a nice thing . So , yes , just sort of worthwhile having a look at the actual spec .

Hence why I get a little bit grumpy when I see people trying to reinvent wheels that have already been invented in the RSS specification . But I think you know , skip days is a really simple and straightforward one . Sorry , are you becoming Dave Weiner now ? I'm not becoming Dave Weiner . Dave Weiner now that he's podcasting again .

Gosh , he's turned into the grumpiest man on earth in terms of podcasts , hasn't he Moving on ? Congratulations , john Spurlock . Op3 , now measuring over 17 million IAB style podcast downloads a month .

Should we set ours up , James ? Should I put TikTok as one of our end points ?

They very kindly put this show onto YouTube for us , so it's worthwhile having a play with , I think .

It's one line in the RSS feed and then it's an additional ping that you're making anyway . If you're making a pod ping , then just make an additional ping to the WebSub hub that you are currently currently using . So I don't see that there's any particular issue with supporting both of those no , it's just um who doesn't support pod ping now though .

Oh , I mean , plenty of people don't support pod ping um the um . You know , if you have a look . I mean , you know apple doesn't support pod ping um , spotify doesn't support Podping . There's a bunch of people who don't support it . It's much more complicated on the podcast aggregator's end than it is if you are a podcast host .

There are a bunch of podcast hosts who do support it . There are a bunch that don't , and from that point of view then it's easy enough to support it if you're a podcast host . It's nowhere near as easy if you are an aggregator . But that's fine , we don't have to worry about any of that stuff .

But you know , I'm a big fan of if it doesn't cost any more to support multiple standards that are out there . I mean Dave Weiner . Talking about Dave Weiner , as we were earlier on , dave Weiner is very grumpy about WebSub , which he's only just found out about , and he says that this is a rebuild of RSS Cloud , whatever that was .

And I noticed that his new show has an RSS Cloud link but doesn't have a WebSub link . I mean it must be amazing , waking up after a long snooze to find out that things have moved on without you . But yeah , so , yes , but I think WebSub is a fine thing . Pocket Casts , for example , supports both , so that all works .

So thank you very much . That is shared by Sam and I and we normally just spend it on a beer for other podcasters , so that's a nice thing . Thank you also to our power supporters , who are paying mostly $5 a month Dave Jackson , mike Hamilton , matt Medeiros , marshall Brown and Cameron Moll . If you want to join them , weeklypodnewsnet is where to go .

So what's happened for you this week , sam ?

We're now putting in a new merchant tab onto every podcaster and we will enable artists and podcasters , if they want , to upload merch and then to be able to buy it directly through either Stripe or use fiat currency if they have it in their wallet . So , yeah , that was quite cool . We'll have that working . James , you might be able to help .

I tried to find blogs from podcast publishers that existed , so I went to wondery and I went to um , the rest is politics and various others , and none of them have blogs anymore . I mean , is is , is it official ? Blogs are dead now .

Quite a lot of the newer companies just don't bother with RSS feeds at all anymore . And you know , I notice a bunch which have stopped working for some reason . I mean Fountain , for example . You'd have thought that Fountain would have had an RSS feed and it did at one point . It doesn't anymore . So you know there are a bunch of these , of these tools .

But yeah , I mean I , I follow I'm trying to work out how many RSS feeds that I follow to put the Pod News Daily together . Quite a lot , is the quick answer . It's yeah so , but yeah , they're just not very easy to find and they don't do them in a very easy way .

But , yeah , so you need to look quite hard to find out where those RSS feeds are . I'm currently following 241 RSS feeds into the big list that I currently look through , and I'm sure that I'm missing a ton of them as well .

So now I can be in threads with my uh account and I can post automatically to mastodon or plex or anywhere else , and that's really cool . Except they don't on sport . Except you can't , though .

It coincided with school holidays , so my daughter ended up coming along and we showed her the crocodiles and all of that , and the kangaroos and the Tasmanian devils and all of that . So that was fun . So enjoyed doing that . And what else has happened for me this week ?

Not an awful lot else , really , apart from that , next week I'm off to Kuala Lumpur to speak at the Asian Broadcasting Union , which should be fun . And oh no , there was one other thing that happened this week which was quite fun . I voted , sam . I voted for your country .

There's a website in the UK where you can see what the you know what the calculated guess is of who is going to get in , and I went to have a look for Southgate and Wood Green , which is the constituency where I used to live and therefore the constituency where I still vote , and it says there is a 100% chance that this is going to be held by Labour .

100% chance that this is going to be held by Labour . 100% chance I actually get in to Australia . What time do I get in ? I get in . Oh how exciting . I get into Australia at just after nine o'clock at night , UK time on the 4th of July , and so I get in . It's very early in the morning and so I can then get home . I've got an hour to get home .

Then I can sit in front of BBC News and I can watch your entire country falling to bits .

So , yes , I'm very excited about the fact that I'm flying during voting where there's never any election news because there can't be by law , and so I land just before they can start saying and according to the exit poll , reformer in or whatever it is .

If you enjoy the podcast , the Newsletter's better , you can find it at podnewsnet and the Pod News Daily , wherever you get your podcasts , particularly if you're a fan of Shaun of the Dead this week , and there are longer interviews in the Pod News Extra podcast as well .