Conversation with Hari Gopalakrishna of Boomcaster

And it's like a pretty big package for a good price, good value. But there you could have to joke a bit surprises. It's not the finest grade, so you could have all kinds of things that were put in it. I'm joking now, but it's a good cuppa for the price that you're getting. And I like that it's still that you could get that. So there you have this free trade and global trade because in Sri Lanka, former Van Ceylon and we recommend you stopping the recording before hanging up the call.

No, yes, keep on. We'll talk about all these nice features here. So it's a good in Ceylon, in Sri Lanka as it is called now, it's big export. Tea is big export. So this kind of package and this product, it still have been around for a long time and it's like an agent that have found them and been good at putting them in the grocery store. So it's a black tea and I prefer it with a little of milk, a splash of milk. So it's pretty hot now.

So maybe iced tea would be better in a way, but it's my daily drink.

But I hear that that could be a so called a stumble block. Block. And I really feel that in technical things with tools there, I want it to be very simple, easy only to press a button. So could you tell a little bit about that boom cost of what we are using? What's your idea mission? Why did you?

Almost nonexistent at the time we could record just audio, even video wasn't an option back then live stream tools were just live stream tools. They were not podcasting tools. So there was a little bit of a bifurcation in the market. There were live streaming tools, then there were audio tools. So I really wanted to bring together all of these to make it easier for someone who wants to share their views with the world, which is what podcasting is all about, right?

Being able to freely talk about there you go. I like that.

And today I feel pretty good about where I am with the simplicity and the capabilities that I offer in that package, where someone can fairly easily get on and do the things they want to do, whether it's live streaming to YouTube, LinkedIn or Record in high quality video, audio, all of that, really in a few clicks.

And you can't just start streaming. You have to get approval from them to stream and they want to make sure anyway, I think they're getting better. I don't know how much live streaming happens on that platform. That I do not know because YouTube seems to be the king of streaming still, right?

And how would you look at it? As a content material, like a product? Because we all have ticks, for example. And when you listen to it and you're live compared to Audio. It could be in a different way, but I like it again, as I have on my site, Teapot Media. But I could help individuals, organizations, brands, personal brands and companies and so on. Small business owners to find their personal diamond like a facets.

I know your situation, your person a little bit more now and how you could reach out and you could see a facet of your life and your career and what you're doing and what you're passionate about and that's fascinating. Also, as you said, podcasting, often it's about message and it was the T shirt that I'm wearing. But when I'm talking now about it in the later on forthcoming edited post production episode, then you will not see the T shirt.

But of course I could put an image, I could put a chapter in it of a selfie, for example. So this is Podcasting 2.0 but it's nice to see it if you're now live. But I'm very realistic. I don't have a huge following on YouTube if it will be on Twitter also in the future. But what's going on with Twitter we will see but that will be a nice also destination, I think and I think personally they will move along more of it but then it's depending on what you call it.

So I'm both for the original one and especially to support the RSS feed but then also to protect it and preserve it, but also to extend it and we'll come back into that and that's what we are doing now with you live. So one namespace tag called live item tag and I have talked to you about and I'm not a tech person so I have to wait for my main podcast host like Captivate to implement it in the future but then of course they have to see a model.

They have done a lot of adding lots of podcasting 2.0 features recently and great job there but then of course they have to see is it any demand for it? But here we are in an early age, you could say, doing live streaming, sending boost to grams at the same time being almost like a co producer of a content because you are having chat functions and so on. It's lots of things going on, but in the past, as you are talking about this hybrid of Vlogging, you have to explain what you mean by that.

Or like, it's both. Podcasting, it's live and it's video. And now I look at the screen at the bottom, I see the YouTube symbol, I see the Facebook symbol and the LinkedIn. Then the multitasking is if somebody will start talking, because then you could do that comment on things like on LinkedIn, on Facebook and YouTube and I'm concentrating on our conversation, but it's great to have this potential and possibility right, again with thoughts and ideas and questions. So you're taking away Harry.

It's great the way it is and I want it to continue. Right. So that decentralization element of it is really amazing. The other part is monetization. Right? I think you've mentioned that and I think that's really cool because I think that may come in with the live element as well. I think that's when probably that would really kick in really well. But that monetization element is big and I think it's important.

And then, of course, the other features that you just mentioned, all these new features that we're adding to podcasting. So really I'm a big supporter of it. As a small company, we sometimes operate linearly when we develop not sometimes, always linearly, go with feature sets. Right. Because we have a small team and it's like, hey, we're going to go do this first or that first, should we do this later or now? So they have to make some really tough choices along the way.

And this is something that is on my radar and I would love to make it easier for yourself and other streamers to be able to do this again the same way I've tried to make it for other platforms. Right, you're recording, but you can just do a checkbox and you're able to stream. Right? So it's just as easy as it's going to get. And I would love to get to that face for Podcasting 2.0.

And Adam where he had this idea now, because you could apply this on music also to the artist and to the COVID art, album art, to studio musicians, whatever, all kind of things. But then they took up an idea, for example, at a conference for indie speakers like that are not, how do you say, not there to pitch something, but to talk about their expertise or passion or whatnot, to be sitting and listening at the same time, having it live.

And then have some kind of QR code for this wallet, you could say for better word, like streaming satoshi or sending a boostogram. I mean, that interaction that could be really interesting, what could come out of that. And then of course it's nice if it's easy to set up for a non techy person, that you set it up and you going live.

And then you would know that it will be destinated on different platforms and also that you then could have it archived and then you could do other things with it also in the future. But then it's all these technical details. So how is your approach to that when you are developing features and thinking of what good, what to add?

And then you could go on the other end like, hey, it's really good, but it's complicated to use. So walking the middle line and being balanced is really complex. If anything, that's the hardest thing in making any sort of software. Right. I try my best to collect very regular feedback from folks like yourself who use it regularly and others, and I try to keep a pulse on it. What are users struggling with? Are they seeing something that they're

confused about? Are they getting messages that they're so you said that there was a little pop up that just went right through, right?

And that could prevent us from finishing up, let's say a download or upload, if that we're trying to do an upload. So it's just kind of simple reminders and things like that and warnings and kind of messages just to kind of prod the user, whether it's a host or a guest, to say hey, you're recording, everything is going great, this is what you should do at the end.

And we're continuing to optimize the experience and actually we're working on just on Monday or Tuesday we're going to release some new features and one of them is I'm looking at redoing the icons that you see at the bottom. I think there's one too many icons or buttons, right? And I want to be giving that control to you as a host to decide what you want to see there and so you can pin whatever buttons you want and then leave out the ones that you don't want to see.

I will be changing the layout slightly to make it usable. We're also adding some other things like you sometimes want to start a podcast instantly and not want to schedule or if you wanted to, let's say, use a single static link to continue recording and you want to be able to change the name of the session and the dashboard later. So all usability things like continue to focus on making sure that it's super easy and simple for a host to be able to use it, but also for the guest even easier.

Right. Because the guests should not be worried about anything when they come on.

Yes. So right now it's saying and this laughs you learn about it and then you forget about it because so technical but I see it's something going on with your Lufts. Yeah.

right level of volume? What happens in the web browser is that some of that may be compensated for but in the local recording where you're recording really high quality, we want to make sure that you have the right level of and again, we have other mechanisms as well. You have the green bar on the there, I see that it does a very similar thing.

It's not an integrated value but it's real time and it tells you if you're going into yellow and red, you may want to tell your guests to kind of back off a little bit because you may be clipping, right?

Right, because what a co cancellation is doing, it is doing some audio processing to manage when folks talk over each other, we talk simultaneously and it's trying to do processing to enable that but in the process the audio will get impacted. So if you just turned on a cocaine that processing will not happen on either side.

Of course you can control it by the user but when you fear a host you get on and you see somebody not wearing headphones, I would recommend that they suggest ad up a headphone to wear. I mean, that would be a good recommendation but if they don't, then just leave the echo cancellation on and that way you would be fine.

Now, if you were to change this during the recording session, nothing bad is going to happen, it's just that on the back end when we do the local recording, the local recording will split into two parts.

But I see now and I will put you a little bit of a spot then you definitely need a podcast like a tool that I still use because it's only audio and you could have several guests also you have a green room function and some prefer that also or it's good like a backup.

We had an issue when we used another one, olitoo's own call recorder when something was happening with Boom, Coster, and I have added with ringer, et cetera, in a way, it's good to have several ones, but of course you have to pay for that also. But what I was saying is this how you could develop a service and a product over time. And Ringer, they had their own because one of the co founders, Sinclair, Tim Sinclair, he is like a radio presenter and announcer and sport commentator and so on.

So he created a podcast called my Worst Interview Ever. And then he had guests talking about things mishaps and what could happen and so on. And then the whole thing, of course, the backdrop, so to speak, is that it's so easy to use ringer. So in the future you don't have to have at these missps. Of course it could happen also. And they had always when you develop a product and things changes, like we talked about Chrome and the new version, what could happen

then you never know, right? But you definitely should have a podcast or live streaming or what do you have a made up word there also, what do you call it, vlog orcasting videocasting? Yeah.

But it's also a good way for us, all of us, including myself, to learn. So just knowing him, it's been a great experience. And Marcus is a big fan of Boomcaster and he recommends us to others. So I'd like to do some of that with Marcus and continue to and that's part of what I'm thinking about because what I really want is to kind of, like you said, help podcasters,

right? And so we would want to invite other people that are experts in certain technology or certain elements of podcasting and be able to guide the users in real time as a live session, right? So I'd like to continue to do that. But what's been stopping me has been the time that I spend.

But as we talked about the gatekeepers and doing your own thing and it's interesting with this competition and what's coming on. But then, as you said, marketing, because it's other players. Out there that during the time that you have been around. And as I talked about Ringer, they were one of the first doing long distance recording with an app for a very long time. They were the only one. What I knew about and also to build that technology.

But then, of course, you have come around in competitors and then you could be happy with your market share. Of course. And then as I said fine tune it, you don't have to do everything and when you have bigger companies that have more resources that have, how should I say very pressure and demand that they should really show result yes you dare to comment on anything about me?

So in some way that's also caused me to focus on the product more than just trying to figure out how to have an expansive user base. But right now I would say we've gotten to a stage where we feel very good about the product and I need to do more of marketing and that's not been a focus of mine, right? So as you asked me earlier in the session hey, you're not getting out there and nobody knows you and not enough people knows about the product.

And it is true, if anything that is my biggest challenge. Not many people know about Boomcaster but on the flip side, like you said Ringer and others I want competition. That's perfect. I would love for all of our podcasting community to know that there are other tools that are available for them to record in super

high quality, right? And whether they choose us or somebody else or Boomcast or whatever that is immaterial if they were to know that there is a difference in the quality of audio coming and video coming. Out of an application or platform like boomcaster and zoom. That's a good start. But right now our biggest challenge is that most people don't recognize or realize the difference and don't know the difference.

And so there's a little bit of education that needs to happen in the industry and as people learn more about it, they suddenly open to oh wow, okay. So that is a big difference. That is a night and day difference. I mean, 20 times compression rates. So it's like zoom just kills it in terms of quality. So kills it in a negative way. It compresses such a small file that you don't get the details in the sound. And especially in a podcast. In a podcast, people are listening to you very closely.

Sound is very intimate and the quality is super important. And you're competing against studios and professionals that have good quality audio systems, good editing workflows. And so at minimum, what you should do is get off of zoom. Right? You pick any of my competitors or boomcaster, doesn't matter. But I would say that is your first step.

Also if you had like a headset like the simple Airbuds that has a Fred how do you say the cord with the microphone that's included in iPhones and so on, then it would sound good.

But I like it to have a concert like this later on I will have that was also Danny Brown that gave me a tip about this boom arm that you can have like under called and I am a cat person called Elgato or something like that. But that is also investment and how to hook it up and so on. But again, then if you have a guest or a co host and what should you think about and invest without maybe naming brands or whatever. But do you have any recommendation there for

future uses of your service? Or if I will come on a show as a guest or maybe a co host.

But mine is just $80 and it's an ATR, very common. You can Google one of the top used mics and this would be one of them and it's under $100. And just buy a headphone that either plugs into that or plug into that or just make sure that you have another headphone that plugs into your laptop. So regardless, some way to raise the quality of your audio would be good because that's going to make a difference. The type of hardware that you use to capture the audio is going to make a difference.

Boomcaster cannot improve the quality of what's coming into Boomcaster.

The one that I have is Roder and I like the style of it and it's pretty handy and it's easy to use and then you could connect it with several ones into your computer if you would be not doing live but sitting in a room. So that's why I picked that. But I haven't played around with all different kind of microphones so that's something to think about for the future. But then you also really how friendly or like Pod Friend to adding a feature.

I don't know how much demand it was on it, but I told you about that. I don't want of course I do editing as little as possible. I want to have a raw thing, but I want to if we have our ticks or pauses that are too long, so to speak, you could remove it. But the editing program that I'm also doing post production and could also do a simple recording if it's needed. So it's all or two. It's interesting they have even now on hosting service.

I mean, it's not their main feature but in a way you could do everything in all the two now. And it's created by Colin Gray, that is a podcaster since a long time have written great content about podcasting, the podcast host and he has now created this online community and also built for non techy people. So there you have it that you could have like in ringer, you could get in several, how do you say it, tracks or files, whatever.

But when you put it in and same here at you in all the two, it is like one track and if it's everything working as it should, then it's no problem. Of course, if it's something happened at the same time, then it could be a challenge. But you created this. Could you explain a little about that? Because you have a web recording also that is good enough, but then you have a studio quality with different tracks.

But you recently added a feature that I was asking for in a way I don't know how many others are doing that. So could you tell a little about that background and story and how this is unique and thanks for that because I'm very happy with it.

So it saves you that additional step of having to edit it. And then we will take all of the customization that you have in your studio, whether you added a logo or you added an intro or you had some media that you played during the session. All of the things that you did during that session we will capture and the final output is going to have everything and it will use local recording which is, I would say not impacted by any network challenges or network blips.

It's going to be super clear audio, super clear video and in high resolution. And so you will get a final output like you would get in a zoom, but this time with a fully customized view that you chose and it will be high quality. I don't know of any other application that does that today automatically with all the customizations. We're excited about it.

There are some other requests that we're getting to improve that further with maybe, let's say for example, you're in the session and you want to let the we have a producer view, which is completely different than what's that I asked.

So the producer will not be recorded from an audio or a video perspective. But they can choose to come on the screen. Like if they have an ability to come on the screen and give guidance to the host and the guest. And they can also show up as a little video box, but they will not be recorded and they will not be seen on the stream.

And then look at LinkedIn as I did. Is LinkedIn up now or is somebody saying something in the chat? Yeah, that's perfect. I haven't done that also. And that's why you need to have episode, video tutorials, blog posts, whatever, how you do, because maybe I'm not scared of the wrong word, but I'm using the standard and I like your T shirt wear and the logo type a boom Coster. But of course, I could have teapot immediate. I could brand it by myself. Compared to like YouTube.

Then you have this YouTube thing, right? That's why Vimeo is a competitor, a strong competitor in that way. About this feature, wow. I will tell Deborah about that. That's testing out because then you could have Michael checking everything and I like the personal thing personality. If something happening, then he could pop up and say, hello, here's the producer or the tech guy or whatever. Or saying shipping in and saying something is happening or whatnot.

Or you could have like a moderator correct it's.

Or if you want to pull somebody in into the session, see as a host, if you want to really stay focused and not mess with buttons, that would be a good option. Now, if you have your clients, I know Martin, you consult and you provide guidance to a lot of clients. And if you choose to help someone with a podcast and you want to remain in the background while they do there, all you have to do is just when you create a session, there is a copy link option. And there's a drop down.

And you can choose Producer Link and send it to anyone you want as a producer to the show. And they can log in and you'll still have to admit them. So you will know as a host if there is a producer in the show and if they have joined the show or not. So nobody can just come in without your permission and that's important to us from a security perspective.

But yeah, I haven't really done personally a lot, but I probably should. And it's part of the challenge that I have with is I haven't really gotten out there much. And that also could help Boomcaster a little bit if I did.

So this similar you could do in Heartland. For example, you could have about this fusion about podcasting. And again, you have to repeat, what do you call it, video casting. And then live streaming and podcasting, and then now live podcasting with adding this value for value. I mean, talk about these things, but also about branding, marketing, what you could use it for.

And I will do last year shout out to Small Business Trends and Sean Hessinger that I had the honor to be a short like 15 minutes of small business and talking about podcasting for small business owners and so on. And that was interesting because when you get the questions, you get the answers. But it's very easy to get into your bubble on an online community. You could talk about this kind of thing.

So definitely I have to send you some information about that and you could check it out and we will do a follow up. But do you have any ending words or thoughts about what's coming in podcasting, the new podcasting you said, or development of podcasting like Podcasting 2.0. This live item tag probably is an episode as it is by itself, but do you have any thoughts about that or reaction or comments? Yeah, I think that's something popping up.

So now we're launching annual plants and things like that. And so that's coming out probably in about two to two weeks or so from now two to three weeks. But I'm thinking about what we're working on as well on some other areas. And this Podcasting 2.0 is of high interest to me and I'm in the process of assessing the development load on it and try to figure out whether we can really I think if I can enable that because very few podcasting tools or platforms today allow live streaming, right?

So maybe my direct competitors don't really offer live streaming, so it would be a good opportunity for podcasters to kind of check a box and go live on that platform. But again, I have to assess the workload and like I said previously, it's somewhat of a linear approach for me, it's one or the other. If I pick something, something else is going to go fall off the shelf. But it's of really high interest to me and I think I want to be able to support this community as much as I can.

And if I can enable that in any way, that'd be awesome.

I know again, captivate is very good of how you could prepare like research and show notes and links. But then it's also you find your own style and see what's working, not. And here is the challenge to test with. It's fascinating. When you come up with ideas, how much should you get into the show notes, how much will show up? I had this example with Pod friend. Now I'm babbling here, but I did over 70 links. So when on the podcast play that it cut off after 25 or something like that.

And then Morris, maybe I have something various settings, but I could of course open it. But it's not so often that you have so many and Danny Brown has written about that also how you do it in a you find your personal style, but also for the listeners, for the viewers and so on. So it's things that I'm thinking about, but then you have to test it and see what's working and so on. That's great to put that into also, because you have people who are interested in that also.

What kind of tools have you used?