[00:00:00] James: Welcome to Podland the last word in podcasting news. It's the 10th of March, 2022. I am James Cridland, the editor of podnews.net. And I am
[00:00:09] Sam: Sam Sethi, the MD of River Radio.
[00:00:11] James: Hi, I'm James and I'm Andy Bowers. And soon we're going to be talking about our new product for audio creators called spooler.
[00:00:20] James: Podland is sponsored by Buzzsprout podcast. Hosting made easy last week, 3,920 people started hosting with Buzzsprout and you can [email protected]. And if you can use chapters in your podcast app, then Buzzsprout supports. And so
[00:00:36] Sam: do we, James, so let's kick off the news. Quite exciting really. last week we talked about Spooner's dynamic, real time audio publishing system and friend of the show.
[00:00:46] Sam: John Spurlock did some analysis on its first day. Spooler helped the show that it's been producing the refresh from insider to produce five additions of their podcast. Okay. Let's take a step back, James. [00:01:00] First of all, what is spring? what have they been doing
[00:01:03] James: with it? Who better to answer that than not me, but the founders of spooler.
[00:01:08] James: We spoke to James Obagi and Andy Bowers, and I asked Andy, what is spooler is a publishing tool. Audio content creators. It takes something that's been around for a while, which is the stitching technology that allows publishers to automatically insert ads into their podcasts and gives the creators that tool to actually make content with.
[00:01:34] James: And this is something I've been dreaming about since I worked at, and co-founded megaphone, which is a big. Podcast hosting company. We were early into the dynamic ad insertion game, and I always wanted to get my hands on that tool because I was a longtime content creator. So spooler is in short a way to do that to stitch content together in ways that can make new and interesting [00:02:00] sorts of programming.
[00:02:00] James: James. This product aimed at it's not for every single podcaster. Is it? so I'm guessing it's aimed particularly at news, news podcasts. Would that be? Yeah, I think that's right where our first target market is, as we describe it, a high tempo newsrooms, and really enabling those, audio creators in those newsrooms and specifically the editors to deliver.
[00:02:23] James: Realtime audio as we call it. the best of, the freshness of live radio, but in the on demand package that we all love from podcasts. The, one of the clever things about this is that it works on all podcast apps. Is that right? It does. We can, put out a normal RSS feed with a single MP3.
[00:02:43] James: In the RSS feed as you would with any other podcast, but what's happening on our end is the moment you hit publish. It's taking a playlist of stories that you've put together and stitching them into one MP3, and then you can update it again. [00:03:00] Two minutes later if news breaks and we're coaxing the podcast apps to update quickly enough that's meaningful.
[00:03:07] James: They've done a pretty good job. they do it usually within a couple of minutes. So yeah, you can publish it like a normal podcast, but we're also publishing it other places where we think it's going to be an even better experience for instance, on insider.com itself. We have the player that James and his team designed, which allows you to.
[00:03:28] James: All through all the stories that are in the news brief or the newscast, see which ones you're interested in, you can click on them and skip to them before long. We hope that it'll automatically be able to tell if you've already heard a story and skip over that one. Andy, you, you were saying that you coax, some of the podcast directories to update, very quickly, And, that's been a bit of an issue for some podcast directors over the last couple of years is actually updating stuff really nice and fast it using.
[00:03:59] James: [00:04:00] and this question is for either of you using any technologies like website or pod ping to really push those updates through, or is that something that you're just hoping that the RSS, ends up, Getting pinged, James. Yeah, we've actually, been using the standard, podcast distribution without pod paying, although we're leaning into some of the podcast 2.0 specs and, I think pod Pang is really a great, industry-wide feature for podcasting to flip the script and be able to tell a platform when there's new content available, as opposed to waiting for.
[00:04:34] James: bot to index the feeds on a regular basis, but in the case of the refresh we've, we've had great success as any mentioned with, the standard approach to indexing the RSS feed and been really pleased to see that so many of the, latency issues historically with indexing slowness have been made better over time.
[00:04:53] James: We've been, as you can imagine, keeping a bit of a track record on a different update speeds and have been pleased [00:05:00] with. And so between the direct availability of the content on the embedded web player and the RSS, it's a pretty finally update in terms of kind of competition. this is a new product, isn't it?
[00:05:11] James: This is a, I love the way that you have called it a live podcast. And some of your PR it's a brand new product, and I'm wondering who it's up against, or you. Those daily podcasts that only change once a day, or are you competing against, radios top of our newscasts? What w which are you competing against?
[00:05:30] James: I think a little of both and neither in a way. what I think our discussion. The slowness of podcast apps in the past shows us is what a big hole there has been for timely content in the podcast ecosystem altogether. This was a niche we were trying to fill. I love daily newsy podcasts. I listened to many of them.
[00:05:54] James: They are literally yesterday's news in many cases. And that's okay because they're doing news [00:06:00] analysis, really thoughtful stories, helping you think about things that are much bigger than one moment in time. But just this morning, there were all sorts of breaking stories on Ukraine and there will be for the foreseeable future.
[00:06:13] James: And that's something that deserves a place in on-demand audio as well. That's what we think we're competing against, which is, there, there are a few places. Timely ish updates, but ours, we can publish within seconds when something happens, if we're ready for, and in terms of staffing, if I'm a radio station, I've obviously got an awful lot of journalists and, and I'm producing stuff live all the time.
[00:06:36] James: Is this kind of middle ground between somebody that is producing one 20 minute show a day. And somebody who is, staffing a 24 hour news, a news organization. Is it a new middle ground for a media company like that? that's accurate at a space we're trying to deliver this new capability.
[00:06:57] James: So hopefully this is a value add [00:07:00] for existing teams. Throwing off a massive daily content on the one hand. And that could realize for the value out of existing segments and story audio, as well as the new capability for folks that, want to deliver more timely daily content. We're coming at it from the once a day side.
[00:07:18] James: and, Andy, you were talking about, initially your aim to at, at a larger newsrooms and things, where is spooler going to be, looking at next, in terms of, customers using your new tool or. We don't only think it's applicable for them. We think that's the first and most obvious use case, but I want to see individuals or small teams using this.
[00:07:39] James: Anyone who has an interest in getting out timely information or changing information right now, when you put out a podcast episode, it's frozen in Amber forever. But, I started a show in 2005 called the slate, political gab Fest. And, I, we produced it on Thursday evenings and I would come out [00:08:00] Friday mornings and I would wake up every Friday morning.
[00:08:03] James: Wondering what had been knocked out by the news. If we could have had a alive news segment in there. Talk about it. It would have made me as a listener feel more comfortable, feel like, I am, someone is watching what's going on in the world for me and will tell me right now, you don't have that guarantee.
[00:08:23] James: So I think people who are following smaller, more specific industries or, even hobbies or whatever, There, there is a use case for them to use, a more consumer version of, or something like this. Really cool. both. I, yeah, I do have one last question, James, what's it like signing your own, expenses again?
[00:08:44] James: I had an amazing, time at the apple over 17 and a half years. And to return to small business has been a really, fantastic and exciting adventure. the culture at apple is Remarkable. And I had such a learning experience there. It's fun to [00:09:00] apply some of those learnings to a small company.
[00:09:02] James: Wow. Your media training, most impressive. Andy and James. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. Thank you, James. I love James, his last answer there. He said, he's clearly been asked about apple an awful lot and just turning around and saying, yes, I had a lovely time at apple and now it's his time.
[00:09:24] James: Clearly to me, it was reading that from somewhere really good interview. yeah, I really
[00:09:28] Sam: enjoyed it. Yeah. It hasn't unplugged from the bog yet. Has
[00:09:31] James: he? He hasn't. You're absolutely right. So
[00:09:35] Sam: what's your thoughts on spooler given now that you've had a little chance to look at it? You've looked at the refresh on the website and we've spoken to.
[00:09:45] Sam: Two of the founders. What are your thoughts,
[00:09:47] James: James? Yeah, I think it's really cool. I think it's very smart. I think the one thing that I am waiting for, which they did say was coming soon was the idea that you would be able to only hear [00:10:00] the bits that you haven't heard. So if you went back to the refresh, maybe you listened at six o'clock in the morning, and then you went back to the refresh at 11 o'clock, maybe.
[00:10:10] James: You only get to hear the new bits of audio in there that would make it a bit more like a radio experience. And I think if that was possible, then maybe that's something that this podcast could do instead of recording in one chunk on a Thursday, we end up recording. Putting in interviews, as we go through the week and whenever you want to download it, you still get a full weekly podcast, but it just depends on which bits you end up hearing.
[00:10:38] James: so I think that, there's clearly stuff still to be done, but, I've been talking about this sort of, I call it Lego breaking, but this sort of idea of, different bits of. Audio, stuck together in different ways through the day. And it's really interesting seeing that there's a company already doing.
[00:10:57] James: Yeah.
[00:10:57] Sam: I want to say that [00:11:00] I would use that on the radio as well. I could see newsrooms. Certainly using that throughout the day, because if you listen to a radio station all day long, the news doesn't really change that much. I know we're in the 24 hour cycle of news, but fundamentally most of the news throughout certainly a breakfast show or a DriveTime show will be fairly static and just repetitive, but it will change from the morning to the evening.
[00:11:24] Sam: It could be a great tool for
[00:11:25] James: the newsrooms. Yeah, I think it could. I think, the question is how much they're going to essentially rebuild a radio playout system, RCS master control or that sort of thing, or Zetta as it is now. how much of, how much rebuilding of a plant system they're going to make.
[00:11:42] James: but we, one of the things, we both had a look, into the system, didn't we into the content management system and there's some very clever stuff going on of, being able to take a music bed, produce that into a loop, have that loop going underneath other bits of audio that you've put in, which is one of the reasons why you [00:12:00] can't hear very many edits.
[00:12:01] James: The refresh. so I think that they were doing some very clever things, but. Yeah, very early days, I think in terms of how it could be used. And also it does completely change how you make audio because instead of making something which is designed to be consumed in one chunk, as we do with this podcast, you're essentially making individual bits of audio, which, I know from recording pod news everyday, it's quite difficult to keep with the same energy level, keep with a consistent energy level, a.
[00:12:34] James: A consistent tone of voice, when I'm recording that. what happens if you're recording little bits of stories throughout a typical working day? I don't know, but really interesting. a great first step. I think
[00:12:46] Sam: the only thing that's going through. When you talked about, having a fundamentally, a refresh of the news throughout the day is how would I know, I wouldn't want to just keep going back to the same podcasts.
[00:12:58] Sam: Oh, anything new? [00:13:00] should I check? So I wonder if it's going to have any notification system that will alert me to an
[00:13:04] James: update. Certainly interesting hearing them talking about, we're looking at the podcasting 2.0, spec and all of that. So interesting hearing them talking about that side.
[00:13:13] James: I think again, What I would like is I would like a 20-minute news update. And I would like to be able to listen to that whenever I want to and know that it was relatively up to date. And I think what we have at the moment is, as Andy put it, when you're listening to atypical news podcasts, you're listening to yesterday's news.
[00:13:36] James: I think what would be nice is to have some smarts in there. That basically go, okay. Ah, this is James coming in. The last time he listened to this podcast was on at this time, here are the new bits and just give me the new bits or remind me of what the main story is, but that's about as far as it goes.
[00:13:55] James: And I think, those smarts are something that doesn't exist yet in the [00:14:00] platform, but I'm sure that they weren't in the future. And to me, that becomes very exciting, but of course, you can't necessarily do that with every single podcast. App. so you, you win some and you lose some there.
[00:14:12] James: but for me, I used to always say, if you listen to a radio station, which is a non-stop news radio station, like 10, 10 wins in New York, or like LBC news in the UK that has a 20 minute broadcast clock. So every 20 minutes they reset and they broadcast the news and everything else.
[00:14:29] James: And one of the things that I said when LBC news launched is why don't they start the stream? At the top of the 20-minute news clock so that whenever you start listening to the stream, you're hearing the beginning of the news bulletin and the most important, story. Instead you just, thrown into that stream wherever they happen to be in the.
[00:14:51] James: But surely that ends up being a much more engaging experience. So even doing something like that, it's fun. But I think what you could do with Spooler is so much more [00:15:00] interesting. all power to them. and I should also say really nice interviewing two people who are in the podcast industry, who both connected using.
[00:15:10] James: headphones, decent microphones, and it was a proper experience rather than too many people who you contact, who are, in the podcast industry who think that we're going to be happy with just a laptop microphone. it's fine. But, I think it does say something if you end up, connecting to a podcast company and they PR using proper, podcast gear exactly.
[00:15:31] Sam: Now, another use case that. James Nandy that I might use is to do voiceover tracking, which is to reverse it, which has to have all the tracks being music, and then small voiceover in, seems Amazon like the idea of getting into radio as well. Now, the second story that we wanted to talk about was Amazon has released amp a live radio.
[00:15:54] Sam: Since their version of Clubhouse or Twitter spaces, James, have you used or what [00:16:00] you think
[00:16:00] James: of AMP? Yeah, I've not used it because it's available in the US for iOS users only. And you have to be in a wait list. I'm told that a code that works is Twitter. By the way, if you want to get past the waitlist. But anyway, so obviously I haven't been able to play with it.
[00:16:15] James: My suspicion is because they have needed to license the music separately for this product. My suspicion is it's going to remain us only for a long time because, it's just a whole new world to start getting, global licenses for that sort of thing. But you can take a callers to, there's a dreadful piece of audio in there.
[00:16:37] James: Promo video. one of the, one of the fake presenters, who's clearly a voiceover artist is I'm saying hello to all of the callers. Okay. Collars and you there thinking, not the radio and talking to one person, but anyway, so you can do that sort of thing. You don't have to use music, you can use a tool for a clubhouse, like experience as well.
[00:16:58] James: So guy Raz is [00:17:00] doing a show for it alongside Nicki Minaj. but, I, it is. Really interesting. And I think most fascinatingly, it got an awful lot of push yesterday on social media, lots of people. even Dave Weiner was tweeting about it and saying how exciting it was. so I think that there's definitely something there, but I haven't heard any shows on it.
[00:17:23] James: because presumably, those shows are only. Available within the app. And so therefore we'll be US only iOS users only. So I haven't actually heard what it's like, and I don't know whether actually, can you talk over intros? Can you be a proper radio DJ or is it much the same as the Spotify anchor?
[00:17:45] James: stuff I don't know, but. Interesting to, find out and understand how these things work. Yeah. I
[00:17:51] Sam: heard some of the restrictions that you have, so you're not allowed to play, the same artists three times in the show. Preload [00:18:00] certain things, but again, there are restrictions on it. And, there's only up to a maximum of five guests allowed, in the chat.
[00:18:09] Sam: Gosh. So there is a limitation on, and you can see that on the user graphics. If you go to the web. They had to show five circles. yeah, you, haven't got a massive, I guess what they're saying is you can queue up five people and drop in and drop out people. maybe that's a way
[00:18:24] James: of doing it, right?
[00:18:25] James: yeah. Yeah. So you can have many more people having a listen. but, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. What you say about those, the restrictions in terms of, the amount of, art. output that you can play on there, that will be driven by the music licensing. and there's specific music licensing for broadcast radio as well, which has a very similar thing there.
[00:18:45] James: so that will be one of the reasons why, it is us only and. I'm fascinated to learn whether or not you can record this stuff, whether or not you're actually recording the output or whether or not you're doing something else with it. and all of that, I'm [00:19:00] fascinated with all of this, but, yeah.
[00:19:01] James: It's certainly. Getting into this space, but getting into it properly, which is something arguably that they didn't do with their podcast app. so it's nice to see them doing with this particular social media network.
[00:19:15] Sam: So the question, James, I couldn't get my head around because apple doesn't have radius social media network, and knows Amazon.
[00:19:24] Sam: Spotify does, in some ways, I can. Do you use my Facebook social graph within Spotify and I can see down the sideline who's playing what? Amazon had this, announcement that says I can fly. I can follow shows. I wonder if I'd follow a person first. So if you were doing, I don't know, Amazon music, do I follow James Kirkland to find his shows or do I find the name of your show somehow?
[00:19:53] Sam: But if I don't know the name of your show, but you haven't publicized it, how would I do know to
[00:19:58] James: follow it? yeah, exactly. [00:20:00] I did see a few people sharing their show on Twitter and giving a code that you could use to get in. and so perhaps that's one of the ways of doing that. one of the things that.
[00:20:12] James: the, it is doing is it's doing alerts. It's alerting your followers, that you're going live soon. which of course clubhouse does, and Twitter spaces does as well. But, so you would expect that, but that's one of the things that the amp, app does, but it looks really cool and really smart.
[00:20:28] James: So it's, very impressive that, Amazon has plucked this out of the air and, and have launched it this week.
[00:20:34] Sam: Will it suffer from. The hype cycle. everybody wants to be a DJ, that's been, every boy and girl's dream. I think one of those things to be on the radio, but remember when green room came out and there was a hiatus of everyone going to it and then clubhouse, do you think people will.
[00:20:52] Sam: Record podcast through it. Is that going to be something eventually that
[00:20:56] James: they'll do? I'm sure that it's something that they will have a look at whether or not it's [00:21:00] suffers from a little bit of high, but I'm sure it will. And that I think is why they have signed up quite a few people to do. to do shows on the platform as well.
[00:21:10] James: because I think that is going to be what makes or breaks this, if it has some really good content that you want to have a listen to, as well as your mates, playing as radio DJs, then I think that would be, that would be. A good plan. all sorts of, both well-known personalities and popular radio hosts, like Zach sang Kate catcall, but Christian James hand never heard of any of these people and guy Raz.
[00:21:39] James: But also a bunch of musicians as well. So if you are a fan of Nicki Minaj or you are a fan of Lindsey Stirling, or Travis Barker, no idea or Lil Yachty, I don't know. then you'll find, that there's some great content on there as well. so I think that's a canny move to actually get quite a few people signed up to produce content [00:22:00] for this service.
[00:22:02] James: And of course, one shouldn't. Amazon has a very big environment, a very big footprint, and it can promote itself across all manner of other things from echoes to, it's a shopping portal and everything else. So if it really wants to push it, then it can certainly do that. The one thing though, that I'm curious to learn is what's the business.
[00:22:23] James: nobody's talked about the business model for this. You end up being able to play songs well, those that, they'll, they weren't paying for that. The record companies won't have done this for free. So what's the business model. Will there be ads in there who knows how these things work?
[00:22:38] Sam: Y, I assume you'd have to pay for your subscription.
[00:22:41] Sam: You wouldn't have the free version of it. as an Amazon Prime user, you get a certain level, but then you have to pay for the higher-level quality. but I thought you said something really interesting, actually, I hadn't thought about that. It just doesn't have to be across the web. What if you were allowed to output across everyone's echoes?
[00:22:59] Sam: That would be quite an [00:23:00] interesting model.
[00:23:01] James: Yeah, absolutely. And the most popular thing for you to listen to on a smart speaker is the radio. And if you, instead of listening to the radio, the BBC or from, or from iHeart, you ended up listening to the radio from amp. that's an interesting move.
[00:23:18] James: So yeah, worthwhile keeping an eye on. Okay. Okay. Now,
[00:23:22] Sam: moving on, you have long advocated for the use of YouTube for podcasting. When it seems that YouTube urge your shout, James. It's now offering podcast is up to $50,000 to film their shows and they're paying podcast networks up to $300,000. This is according to Bloomberg Ashley Carmen.
[00:23:45] Sam: So why is YouTube doing this James?
[00:23:48] James: I think that YouTube are very keen to get involved in podcasting and they see that is a great, is a great thing. I have to say, Ashley Carmen's had a. Dunning first [00:24:00] week working at Bloomberg, she's been, breaking quite a few big stories.
[00:24:05] James: so really good to see, that, she's clearly settling in, in terms of that, by the way she sent us. She says, cause if you remember, we said, I'm not sure she wants to be a friend of this show last week. And she sends us a tweet and actually says, I want to be a friend of the show. Thanks for the nice shout out on Podland.
[00:24:25] James: And we'd love to meet at podcast movement. So there we are. so that's exciting. Isn't it? We've got to listen to Sam.
[00:24:33] James: But we've got a listener. but yeah, so to come back to YouTube, but yeah, her story was that they're offering podcast networks up to $300,000 in order for them to start promoting this kind of stuff. Maybe we'll find out it podcast movement's evolutions. They have just announced that kite Chuck, who is YouTube director of podcasting will be speaking there and that's going to be the first public presentation.
[00:24:59] James: From him [00:25:00] since starting his current position at the end of last year. So maybe we'll find out in a couple of weeks, but, I think that YouTube is very big for discovery of podcasts, particularly there's a lot of data, which seems to show that. And so if there's more content on there, then obviously there's more stuff that YouTube can sell advertising around.
[00:25:19] James: And we had
[00:25:20] Sam: a second. James. We had an email this week from, Jayla Strada, who was listening last week. And he said, I think there's a problem with the concept that YouTube is getting into podcasting. First of all, there's a significant difference between a creator who makes audio podcasts and a YouTube creator.
[00:25:40] Sam: Good podcasting does not have to have video. Good podcasting. Like radio is theater of the mind. The best audio show should never have video of them. Watching people make a podcast is mediocre TV at best. Thus, we're really talking about two separate. Podcasting and bad TV. [00:26:00] And I can't say I disagree having recorded several people, who are, well-known doing the talking heads.
[00:26:07] Sam: Two people sat side by side, recording a video, and then putting that out on YouTube and then editing that for a podcast. It really is just bad TV.
[00:26:18] James: Yeah. I would agree with some of that. Thank you. when I was working at the BBC back in 2007, 2008, we put TV cameras into Chris miles, his studio. And one of the things that, instantly ruined the show was the fact that Chris miles was then playing up to the cameras and doing things that only worked if you were watching it.
[00:26:38] James: And the point of a, Over radio show and have a podcast is that you can consume it while you're doing other things. I don't necessarily agree with Joe where he says good podcasting does not have video. And the best audio shows should never have video over them. I think that you can enhance a show with video, but I think it still remains an audio [00:27:00] first experience.
[00:27:00] James: So you can have audio first with video. but as long as the video doesn't take away from that experience, I think that's, that's worthwhile. Dave Jones also sent us a boost to Graham. He said, I have real questions about the YouTube survey numbers from Edison. Now those are survey numbers that show that YouTube is a tremendously high in terms of, in terms of podcast consumption.
[00:27:23] James: Dave goes on to say, unfortunately, I'm not smart enough to verbalize what those questions. Rubbish. If normies think Pewdie pie is a podcast, then that could be an issue. could it be an issue or could it just be that actually the definition of podcast has changed slightly in the last 15 years away from.
[00:27:43] James: a piece of audio enclosed in an RSS feed to something which is on demand audio first, which is what I think a podcast is if you were to ask me. but I would certainly agree, Dave, that at the end of the day, those Edison research surveys are asking [00:28:00] people where they listen to podcasts.
[00:28:02] James: And if people turn around and say, oh, I've been having a listen on YouTube, then that's what a podcast. And we probably shouldn't be arguing with that at Kyron also adds he's. He sent us a 1,111 sets, which must be some form of numerology somewhere, but he says a anecdotal, but I can provide my experience with podcasting on YouTube.
[00:28:24] James: the main takeaways for me is that it's very handy to send or post a particular link to a video that I wouldn't be able to do elsewhere. Makes a good point. You'll have more variation. Things going viral and something just as good sitting, dormant forever and evergreen content. Like my book reviews, he says tends to do better there.
[00:28:44] James: Korean's put a lot of effort into YouTube. And I remember when I was on his, a mere mortals podcast, he ended up per filming it in the south bank of, of this fair city. and, yeah, a lot of hard work, so really interesting to hear his, his [00:29:00] information. Yeah. Yeah,
[00:29:01] Sam: I think YouTube is going to become a dominant, not a dominant platform.
[00:29:06] Sam: I think YouTube is going to become a more, channel that podcasts is, have to think about. we are going to see, for example, a headliner now doesn't auto post to YouTube, if you want it to. and we talked about other platforms last week, focusing on YouTube, I guess we'll hear from the guys at, YouTube at podcost movements, what their plans are, maybe that's the reveal
[00:29:29] James: it is.
[00:29:29] James: And of course, YouTube is in competition with, TechTalk and, according to re phonic, at least podcasters are ignoring Tik TOK. Apparently. you had big tick
[00:29:39] Sam: tock user
[00:29:39] James: James. I've never opened it. I did discover that they've gosh, a very good radio station here. on the dab, it's called tick tock trending.
[00:29:49] James: and, and actually it was a really good listen. I was listening to it for a couple of weeks while I ferried my daughter to school and back home again. Cause it seems relatively family-friendly, which is more than [00:30:00] you can say about most things on the radio here. And they are hiring for someone to work in their podcast operation in Sydney.
[00:30:08] James: I'm not quite sure what their podcast operation is. The job. and doesn't go into too much detail there. What would you think? they've just
[00:30:18] Sam: announced that they've extended the tick tock to a late use up to 10 minutes of video now, which I think we are exactly. I think that's going to spore the experience of.
[00:30:32] Sam: Occasionally when I'm making a cup of tea, I'll get Tik TOK up and he flipped through it. And it's quite addictive. I have to say you, it literally is tick tock, and there goes the hour if you're not careful because, they, the algorithm is very effective and dragging you back into what you've indicated that you're interested in and you just get more, more dopamine hits.
[00:30:52] Sam: So I think that's. a strong platform for the, certainly the gen said, age group. And I think if they're going to 10 minutes, I'm trying to work [00:31:00] out why they want to go up to 10 minutes. because obviously that means that they're going to go head to head with what YouTube, that YouTube goes way beyond that.
[00:31:08] Sam: yeah. No. I'm not quite sure why 10 minutes. I can't work that out, but in terms of podcasting now, yes, you could put, pod news on there every day if he wants. you're within that 10 minute limit, but, pod line will, could never fit in. it'd be a different demographic.
[00:31:22] Sam: You'd be targeting better. You could do.
[00:31:25] James: Yeah. I'm not quite sure what the plan is, but obviously they wish to, focus a little bit more. maybe it's for, more for music videos and stuff like that. I don't know. given also, that they're launching their own music marketing, Distribution platform as well, which is called sound on, which allows any artists to upload their music directly to Tik TOK.
[00:31:46] James: clearly they're getting into that sort of, area as
[00:31:48] Sam: well. Yeah. there've been very good at breaking new music's. If you look at the top of the U S billboard. Seven out of the 10 tracks on there were originally broken through Tik TOK. [00:32:00] and it seems to be a great discovery platform.
[00:32:01] Sam: And if that's where it's its goal is being a discovery platform, you said YouTube is a discovery platform. I can imagine putting in an audiogram of this show or an audiogram of other shows straight onto Tik TOK. If I've got a 10 minute limit, so I could put a three or four. audiogram, I guess it's just a, another channel if your podcast is that you distribute your
[00:32:23] James: content.
[00:32:24] James: Yeah. And that's what the details from, re phonic. We're saying that it's a really good to be able to promote individual shows. it's got more than 1 billion users and, it seems to be. Doing well, it says you've written here. in the script, Sam you've written that they did $4 billion worth of advertising last year.
[00:32:45] James: So just to put that into context, that's at least five times bigger than the entire podcast industry. if you look at it, in terms of the U S is probably at least two times bigger than the global podcast industry. So Tik TOK is a [00:33:00] pretty big thing. yeah. Interesting to see if they jump in terms of podcasting, then we'll see what happens there.
[00:33:05] James: And those figures
[00:33:06] Sam: just say, are from our good friend, Matt deacon from the
[00:33:08] James: media show. there you go. If you're a fan of, the media, podcast, then you should go and take a listen with a match this week. It's also got me on it. there you go, hooray, which was great fun to do. a particularly strange because, he was on a delay of about three seconds.
[00:33:25] James: I would finish talking and then there'd be this sort of pause. And I would think did Matt, like that answer did not like that.
[00:33:34] Sam: Never have James on your quiz team four, I'd say celebrity trivia because James, you didn't really do well there.
[00:33:42] James: Did you on the media
[00:33:44] Sam: podcast? Yeah. You lost the quiz.
[00:33:47] James: I did, but only because I let the other person, when. that's clearly it that's clearly how it works, obviously. Anyway, let's move on. yeah,
[00:33:56] Sam: we were talking about, Amazon amp, maybe being output to a [00:34:00] smart speaker, and it seems that podcasts now make up a quarter of all time listening on smart speakers, according to Edson research, share of ear study, Cumulus media and Westwood one's audio active group has released its analysis on the latest.
[00:34:14] Sam: So James look, your somebody who has a podcast that is actively using the echo as a channel. What's your,
[00:34:24] James: oh, podcasts on smart speakers. I think my experience is that most of the time it's a complete waste of time. Most of the time, people aren't listening to podcasts on smart speakers. And I think that there's a little bit of science behind that.
[00:34:39] James: 92% of people listen to podcasts. And a smart speaker is normally in a shared environment, it's normally in a front room or in the kitchen or something like that. and you can also, of course, put aside the fact that, podcasting, the user experience is not fantastic on a, on a smart speaker.
[00:34:58] James: Typically that's [00:35:00] what happens. Rachel did some research at the end of last year in the UK, and they said 72% of, audio, on a smart speaker was live radio. 24% was on demand music. Audio books was just 2% and podcasting was 1%. so it's very different, obviously in terms of Edison having said that.
[00:35:21] James: pod news itself does astonishingly well on smart speakers. And that's probably because pod news is in the list. If you go into your Google home app and you choose a news source, then pod news is in that global list for technology news. And there are, I think, four people in there and I'm one of them.
[00:35:40] James: And so I do tremendously well, in that, that easily accounts for half of my downloads. Pod news, which is great. And it's just people waking up in the morning and asking their speaker to play the latest news. And if they've selected pod news than I appear every single morning. So that does fantastically well.
[00:35:58] James: But I think that's a very niche thing [00:36:00] and I think, you wouldn't get no agenda being massive on a smart speaker, one. Yeah, this
[00:36:04] Sam: reminds me of the, Twitter in the day where you had recommended people to follow. They don't do that anymore, but he used to, or maybe they do, I haven't signed up to Twitter with a clean account anymore, but, you, you get those recommended people to follow when you first start and if you're on that list.
[00:36:20] Sam: Wow. Your numbers just
[00:36:21] James: rock. Yeah. Yeah, no, indeed. Yeah. and it always used to be, I remember when I. I started working at Virgin radio in 2001. Virgin was one of, I think, seven or eight stations globally, as a preset on Microsoft windows, media player. And so whenever you opened Microsoft windows, media player, the first thing that you saw, basically it was a link to listen to Virgin radio.
[00:36:43] James: So we did astonishingly well, and as soon as that went away, then of course you are online figures created. but that was a tremendous thing for us to be there. yeah, really important to be on the defaults really important to end up being there, moving
[00:36:58] Sam: on. how many [00:37:00] podcasts use chapters, James?
[00:37:02] Sam: We do,
[00:37:03] James: but how many others? Not that many. According to John Spurlock, he has done some research into chapters. given that apple podcasts released some data, not so long back, talking about, chapters are really good and here's how to use them two weeks before their ex boss launches something which uses chapters funny that, anyway, John ended up doing.
[00:37:25] James: Work. And it is 1.2, 2% of all episodes released last month used chapters. Most of those used, ID three chapters, which are the standard, chapter way, which are the standard chapters for podcasting, the podcast namespace, chapters or Jason chapters, as I normally call them, were used by about 9.2%.
[00:37:49] James: So that's still, quite a decent. amount, but yeah, it's, 1.2% is not particularly high that's one in 82 new podcast episodes. so therefore I [00:38:00] think the concern is if you spend a long time doing your chapters, then. arguably quite a lot of people don't know how chapters work in their podcast app because so few other podcasts use them.
[00:38:12] James: So I think the more podcasters that use chapters, I think the better that would end up being. I actually was doing some work the other day with Hindenburg and seeing if I could hack into the Hindenburg files to then work out programmatically where chapters should be. Yes, I can. Mark. what, where a chapter should be in Hindenburg, but that's work.
[00:38:38] James: and if I've got little music jingles starting at the beginning of every single section as I do. Can't I end up pulling out where the chapters are, so I've actually done that work and that was quite easy to end up doing. what I haven't done is I haven't incorporated it yet into the, into the magical script that produces a pod news, output.
[00:38:56] James: But, yeah, I can see there being some benefit in, [00:39:00] in adding chapters into that.
[00:39:02] Sam: Yeah, I think it's more of a UI problem than it is anything else. we do this religiously cause we would like people to be able to, pick and choose the stories they want. Yes, of course. We'd love them to listen to all of our podcasts, sometimes we go a little technical on things and maybe that doesn't appeal to everybody.
[00:39:18] Sam: so we always think chapters work for our listeners, but I'm quite surprised at the number of is so low. James, I am
[00:39:24] James: really surprised. Yeah, no, I don't. And I would certainly agree. the last time I looked into chapters was before apple podcasts had their redesign and chapters were virtually invisible in apple podcasts.
[00:39:36] James: It was really hard to find them and they have been. AAC only for a long time in apple. Now it works with the MP3 as well, but they had been ASC only. So as a result, virtually nobody was using them. but I agree. I think that they are a useful thing. arguably some people could turn around and say, aren't they a good way to skip the ad?
[00:39:57] James: And, I think there's a bit of truth in that, but I [00:40:00] think most of, most of it is just, it's just really helpful being able to, particularly if you're given a long podcast, as ours is turning into a it's particularly easy, then I think particularly helpful to be able to link through so that people can skip through to the content that actually interests them,
[00:40:16] Sam: or just thought on there.
[00:40:17] Sam: I wonder what the percentage of transcripts attached to podcasts is. as a number, would it be equally low?
[00:40:23] James: Oh, I would have imagined that it will be far lower given that I'm the only method of adding transcripts to podcasts is the podcast namespace. And so therefore you're already talking quite a small amount of, amount of take-up anyway.
[00:40:38] James: but yeah, I'm sure that John would do that kind of work if, if we were to ask him. Do that kind of work. Thank you to Kevin Finn from Buzzsprout who sent us some sets? Hooray, 3,920 sets. Dunno whether that's a number for anything. I should really look up the numerology shouldn't I. [00:41:00] You
[00:41:00] Sam: missed out your calling in life, James being a bingo.
[00:41:03] Sam: Yes, exactly. You need to get the numbers and be a
[00:41:05] James: bingo. Exactly. But I'm grateful to you, Kevin, for a, for your support of this podcast anyway, and B for the additional SATs, that's you. And he gave us a small correction. He says buzz cast is not taking a break. That's the podcast from Buzzsprout.
[00:41:22] James: Travis is stepping back and we're starting the search for a new co-host. He also says I'm not sure what was teased about a big. So ask around about that. given that he's very important there, one would assume that the big announcement isn't quite as big as it might be. I did go and, see if I could find out what they actually said about the big announcement, but that's particular mini episode of Buzzcocks has now been removed.
[00:41:47] James: So I can't even find out what that is, but there, I was assuming that they'd been bought by Amazon or somebody. but clearly that's not the big announcement yet, so maybe [00:42:00] we might find out more when we'll all be together at podcast movement, evolutions,
[00:42:05] Sam: interview him live. Now, one of the things that you've raised over a couple of weeks, and I think is a brilliant thought is the fact that we in the podcast industry namespace have been creating two parallel commentary systems.
[00:42:20] Sam: One is. booster grams. So attaching a comment with a Satoshi payment just as you heard from Kevin. And then the other one is the work that we've been doing. Or I say we, they have been doing with, activity pub and creating a co commenting system that works across multiple clients, such as Casta, pod and pod friend.
[00:42:44] Sam: The thing that you've said is, and rightly so is why are we creating to comment systems that aren't compatible in one podcasting network? So I think Oscar's come up with an alternative idea to.
[00:42:59] James: Yes. So Oscar [00:43:00] Mary from fountain has come up with an alternative idea instead of cross out comments using activity pub and everything else.
[00:43:05] James: Just use boosts, just use booster grams. that gets rid of a few things. It gets rid of the spam problem because you have to pay in order for you to send. any way or a boost message anyway, secondly it means that, you're basically using exactly the same tech that you've already built into your app for supporting Boostgram.
[00:43:26] James: So you can use for comments as well. and then it's just up to someone to host the comments, which appear, and he's hit on a really, simple way of doing that. and that's, we would add. give them a 1% share of our posts, so that they get to see the boosts on their own systems. And then that's then produces a nice Jason feeds that we can link to and we can produce, to look all nice.
[00:43:57] James: and, smart on our website, which [00:44:00] is such a geniously simple idea. And of course you can see that there's benefit for fountain in that they get 1% of all of the shared boosts in there. to me that looks really interesting, and really sensible, obviously, the last thing that we want is a great big, war about which commenting system is going to be better, but frankly, I can code a Jason parser tomorrow and put it onto the pod news website and just end up doing that because that's really well, but that's really easy in comparison to activity pub, which is just a.
[00:44:32] James: my head has exploded so far in trying to understand it and I'm nowhere, I'm nowhere near, trying to understand it. Whereas this is just a really simple thing of there's some Jason pass it and shove it up on a website somewhere. and to me that, that looks to be, awfully sensible.
[00:44:48] James: Yeah. So that's interesting. there will be a link I'm sure in our show notes or at Podland dot news, where you can find out a little bit more about that idea, but to be Frank, [00:45:00] if he's already done the code for pulling in, booster grams and turning that into adjacent feed, then I might just add him as a man, as a 1%.
[00:45:09] James: And, and then we've got, we've got to comments, certainly. Pod news. I think that would be a really interesting idea.
[00:45:15] Sam: now larva, a new app designed to empower and expand the growing community of audio. First creators has launched an iOS app. You can record a company. Down with the kids about 30 minutes or a hot take about 30 seconds.
[00:45:31] Sam: And you can also add your RSS feed there. If you've got an app, we've added it to our list of podcast directories, whose lover have you tried at James?
[00:45:40] James: I have, I did. It's another one of these social media apps, that, I'm afraid for larva will go nowhere. it's just, it's what audio, boom.
[00:45:49] James: When it first started, it's what, any number of these other, we're going to let you record us a small amount of audio and then make that available to other people type apps, [00:46:00] is I can't see any secret source that they've got apart from, being able to import podcasts into there, but I can't necessarily really see any particular secret source in there.
[00:46:10] James: But it's always nice seeing new, people jumping into the, into the audio business. I wish them really well. if I'm not being particularly positive about,
[00:46:20] Sam: yeah, we'll watch this space. Love it. And see if it evolved who should I say erupts? Oh, now moving forward, just cast have just tweeted out that they've added support for seasons.
[00:46:30] Sam: So they've added the. Podcast season, which allows you to pick the season from a list again, it's just nice to see a podcast apps that are supporting the podcast index namespace, and just building in new extensions.
[00:46:43] James: Yeah. It's really good to see, season's being used, in that way. So congratulations.
[00:46:49] James: Just cast on there.
[00:46:51] Sam: And now James, although you've done several through this show, it's your favorite time of the week?
[00:46:58] James: As the French say it [00:47:00] is timeful. Yes, it is. It's Boostgram corner and yes, we have done quite a few through this show because it's a really nice way of getting feedback. If you don't have a boost button in your podcast app, then you're doing it wrong and you should go and get a better [email protected] like user 1 7 5 4 1 0 1 6 5 5 0 9 1 2 8 has done.
[00:47:25] James: brilliant name. They've given us 1000 sites. Thank you very much using fountain. And he said, thanks for all that you do from the recovered podcast. I thank you. Recovered podcasts. That's very you thank you for the sat. So that's good. And also we got a hundred SATs from somebody who has a username, which.
[00:47:44] James: Affecting is something to do with lightning store or something. LT N G store. Thank you for the 100 SATs, which I think is our lowest boost, but nevertheless, we like you just as much. And Dave Jones is also, he's been berating you again. [00:48:00]
[00:48:01] Sam: I knew it was coming. Okay. whoa, Sam still doesn't have his notes set up yet.
[00:48:06] Sam: I know James can run a lightly note in a bag hanging from the window frame. So you've got no excuses. I have no excuses, Dave, other than trying to. Two separate companies, but no excuse
[00:48:19] James: just to plug the thing. But this weekend
[00:48:24] Sam: I will report back before next week that is live and kicking. Otherwise I won't be here.
[00:48:30] Sam: Otherwise, Dave will be your co-host. I suspect.
[00:48:34] James: now that will be fun. Thank you, Dave, for that, much appreciated and, genuinely it's great to get feedback. please do, send us your feedback either through, Twitter, or through the booster Graham. Function in your podcast at new podcast apps is the place to go. Hey, I'm looking forward, not just to going to podcast movement evolutions in a couple of weeks.
[00:48:58] James: And my goodness I've had to, [00:49:00] I've done all of the paperwork so far in terms of getting into the U S I've got me Esther, sorted out. I've got my, I've paid for my COVID test. So I've got that. I've got my insurance, which I need as well. I've got my international COVID 19 vaccination certificate. I've got everything all sorted out.
[00:49:18] James: So hugely looking forward to that, but also, I'm off to Sweden as well. Cause they have an out something haven't they said Ida
[00:49:26] Sam: days, Europe in Sweden, Malmo has announced they podcast summit as a pre-conference event. You're going to be speaking there, James you're moderating it. What are you doing? Come on Gibbs.
[00:49:37] James: I'm moderating the entire afternoon. looking forward to it immensely. No speakers have been announced for this. I've not been announced as a moderator, but I'm outing myself because why not? And I will also out the fact that Rob Greenlee from Libsyn is going to be one of those speakers. It will be wonderful seeing him in Europe, and, great that he is going to be coming over.
[00:49:59] James: He's going to be [00:50:00] talking about monetization. alongside someone from a cast who is also, talking about monetization and podcast creative as well. so massively looking forward to that, it's a pre-conference event for the main radio days Europe conference, which isn't one of the expensive, but very worthwhile industry conferences to end up going to, but very much looking forward to, taking part in
[00:50:23] Sam: that if you need any more events.
[00:50:25] Sam: There, you can find them on a pod.events on James's site.
[00:50:29] James: Indeed. Yeah, absolutely. how's this week been for you, Sam?
[00:50:33] Sam: it's been okay, James. I have to say, oh really? That bad. No, it's just off calm. We'll get there, but just, government bureau and, frustrating me, we'll get there.
[00:50:44] James: We'll get there. Have you not got your DSPs license then
[00:50:47] Sam: sensitive point and James all over. But the good news is we are going to be doing 10 outdoor rock festivals this summer. So we've just confirmed that we are river radio will be there. So [00:51:00] I'd be rubbing shoulders with Tony Hadley and God knows who else?
[00:51:04] James: Yes. Rock festival, Tony handling it.
[00:51:08] Sam: Sorry. It's the eighties rewind. And so it's, there's the whole bunch of eighties festivals that go on around here and. Of course river radius, target audiences, that jet age group. So we're not going to hang with the 18 year olds or 16 year olds, but we're going to hang out with the 40 year olds it's rock and roll.
[00:51:27] Sam: James it's rock
[00:51:28] James: and roll night. somebody emailed me the other day and said, Heartland, but keep it to an hour or less. And I think we're going to keep it to an hour or less this week, which is nice. This week has been fun for me. I ended up doing a recording for a podcast, which will come out here in a couple of months.
[00:51:45] James: So I won't talk about it too much, but it was all around role models. And the annex, the guy who was interviewing me was really keen to talk about two, two different role models. And it was [00:52:00] surprisingly difficult to sit and go, okay, I need a role model from school or from when I was a kid. And then I need a role model from, after I've grown up and stuff, who do I have in there?
[00:52:10] James: Who do I, what stories can I tell about these particular people and all of that? That was quite a. That was quite a challenge, but, but good fun to end up doing. so I enjoyed doing that and I enjoyed on the pod news podcast, which is very good. It comes out every day. I enjoyed the other day, being a bit of a DJ with the Amazon amp music and talking in the gaps in between some of the vocals on there.
[00:52:36] James: And that was great fun. So I rather enjoyed doing that. the music for that I believe is going to be. I believe I'm getting some new music for that in the next couple of weeks. So looking forward to giving the pod news podcast a little bit of a reef. Shouldn't be fun. And, that's it. And this week, if you enjoyed
[00:52:54] Sam: this show or any of our previous shows, please tell your friends on Twitter or LinkedIn about us.
[00:52:59] Sam: you could [00:53:00] also find us on at potluck news across those social networks, or just retweet any one of our episode posts. And you'll find all our previous shows at WWE. Podland don't use,
[00:53:12] James: are we on Tik TOK yet? Sam?
[00:53:15] Sam: It'll be the same time as we get. I get onto a yeah. Running my node. So let's
[00:53:21] James: well, let's see if you want daily news, you should get pod news, the newsletters free your pod news.net.
[00:53:26] James: The podcast can be found in your podcast app. All the stories we've talked about in Portland today are in the show notes and we use chat. And transcripts to our
[00:53:35] Sam: music is from ignite jingles. I'm aware, hosted and sponsored by our good friends at bus . Plus.