The Feed. New updates to how episode artwork shows up in your show page in Apple Podcasts. The latest on short form video on social media, including a deep dive into the Instagram algorithm and best practices. A podfest and podcasting hall of fame recap. My new strategy building up the feed ecosystem by adding short form video in a newsletter.
The new Lark M2S by Hollyland, revisiting the best day of the week to release an episode. And of course, stats, this time geographic and user agent. Hello, I'm Elsie Escobar, Director of Community and Content for Libsyn. And this is episode 285 of The Feed, the official Libsyn podcast, the podcast that takes it beyond how-to podcast.
into keeping you podcasting with podcasting tips and information for the everyday podcaster. And of course, taking you inside Libsyn. Now, if you're someone who prefers reading or wants quick, highly actionable insights, subscribe to The Feed Insights, our companion newsletter. It's a summarized, easy to digest extension of everything we cover here sent straight into your inbox. So head over to the link in the show notes to sign up.
Now, if you're starting a podcast or simply looking to find a new home for your podcast, use the code THEFEED, all one word, to get your first month free. A quick reminder that this show is nothing, oh my gosh, nothing without you. We love audio feedback as well as promoting your episodes or your show. How do you do it? You attach your audio promo.
or feedback and email it to thefeedatlibson.com. You can also call us at 412-573-1934, or you can use SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com slash thefeed. Cannot wait to hear from you. It is first come, first serve. So the sooner you get me your info to me, all your feedback to me, the sooner I'll get you in the queue. And now let's get started with the conversation with my co-host, Rob Walsh.
VP of Podcaster Relations at Lipson. Hello, Rob. Good generic time of the day, Elsie. Oh my gosh, how are you holding up with the cold? You know, it's Nashville, and it's not supposed to be eight degrees in Nashville and seven degrees in Nashville. I thought I moved to the south. I didn't move south enough. My wife's saying that to me, she's like, maybe we need South Carolina or Florida. But they had snow too.
It is freezing here. Thankfully, there's no snow. I was going to say, how's your weather? Yeah, just plain old cold, cold, cold, cold. And that's about the extent of it. But you were actually in a place that actually also got snow. Not when I was there, but Florida definitely got some snow. It was blizzard in, what was it, New Orleans? It was crazy. And then you still have fires in L.A. You know, who would have thought you recorded two episodes and the fires are still going?
Yeah, in a different area now. So there's a lot of, by the way, thanks, folks. And I'm going to put a link again to Lance's GoFundMe just in case anybody would like to continue to donate because it would be incredibly helpful. But speaking of podcasters and Florida and all of that stuff, you were just at PodFest Expo. Yes.
And we'll talk about the Hall of Fame and then we'll talk about PodFest after that. But, you know, because the Hall of Fame was the fun part Friday night and the highlight of my week there, of course. I got to introduce Dave Mansueto and Tim Street. But Dave Mansueto probably had the greatest podcast Hall of Fame acceptance speech ever. I mean, I don't know how you top what he did.
I don't know how he did what he did. Why don't we play a short part of the audio here? This isn't the full part. We'll put the full part at the end of the episode. But at least here's a less than two minute snippet of part of Dave's acceptance speech. Sometimes when you don't know what you're doing, it's just dangerous and you just tread water the whole time. And that was the magic of podcasting. And it was because it mattered. Because at that time...
And now it felt like one of the most important things that ever happened. It felt like the absolute miracle that the internet could birth, that you could have something so special to break down all the walls. It's beautiful because it's about the free media. And what do we have left? What's great on the internet? What's still cool? What's still wild and out there and free and open and unlimited?
Not standing in anybody's way. And no gatekeepers control it. What is but podcasting, right? There are dangerous things out there. But the thing we can say about podcasting, the spirit that we love to create, that that's the magic. For me, that's the religion. The inception, the creation, the magical stuff. And the freedom, the freedom, the true freedom for content to go everywhere.
Wherever it wants to go, people can get it wherever they want it, whenever they want it, all that good stuff. No goddamn key keepers. So that's the threat. That's all I would say. Keep it as open and as wild as possible. Because it benefits us. And when does that happen? It's a miracle. It's a unicorn. And when you have a unicorn, you fight for that unicorn. You let that unicorn fly. You clear the airspace for the unicorn.
Because when the inevitable comes, it's going to be that unicorn that takes you to the glorious land of the podcast hereafter. But if you let that unicorn die, it's on you. Do not let the unicorns die. Do not let the unicorn die. As I said in my introduction of Dave, if Libsyn...
was the heart and soul of indie podcasting, then Dave Mansueto was the heart and soul of Libsyn. Dave, congratulations again on your Hall of Fame induction. And just for a moment here, Rob, I know that there's a lot of folks that are new. There's many people that are new to podcasting, and there might be some folks that are listening to this episode and don't really know who the heck you're talking about. Because when you say Dave...
Dave Jackson comes into the head. So let's just clarify here that when we're saying Dave, we're talking about Dave Mansueto. One of the four co-founders of Ellipsum.
more PR-y, I guess, you know, they marketed Libsyn a lot more and they were on your show podcast 411 back in the day. So we'll have a link in the show notes to listen to that episode so that you can get an idea of just the foundations of Libsyn. So that is who that is. It's Dave Mansueto. Dave Mansueto. And we will play the whole speech.
at the end of this episode. And maybe you can include my introduction of Dave so that people get a little bit more understanding of Dave. More context on that too. Yeah, I definitely will. I will tell Brian about that as well. But also speaking of Lance Anderson, that is somebody who I think way back in the day, he was so kind, including me in so much of what was going on with the LA podcasters in LA when I was there.
He supported me in so many different ways. He at that time, do you remember podcast user magazine? And he interviewed me for that and put me on the cover way back. And it was so lovely to be able to feel so at home in that. And that's also where I met. I think I already told the story, but that's also where I met Tim Street. So I got a chance to connect with those folks back in the day who was also inducted into.
the Hall of Fame, and of course, Jessica Kupferman, who's been amazing with me. And just, I'm glad. I'm glad that all of this happened. But anyway, you also introduced Tim Street. Yeah. And also, in the induction beyond Tim Street, there was Chris Christensen. And here's a really strange coincidence. In October 2006, Tim and Chris were back-to-back guests on Podcast 411. Oh, wow. What are the odds that I would have two guests?
back-to-back, that 18-plus years later would be inducted into the same Podcast Hall of Fame class. Out of all the podcasters out there, I mean, what are the odds that would happen? So it was really strange that when I went and looked and saw that. So I'll have links, because I had an interview with Tim, Chris, with George Robb, Lance Anderson, and Dave Matsuedo, so I'll have links to all of those in the show notes. But there was, of course, you did an introduction for Jessica.
Yes. And I wasn't there, like just as a note, I wasn't there, there. We both Jess and I recorded videos. There was more like video introduction with some of those that for us moving, being there and whatnot. So that was that was fun to be there by virtually. And Lance was virtual, as was Maria Thomas and Twyla Dang. So there was four folks that were there virtually.
Obviously, one that was not virtual, Chris Chrismosos. Chris Grimitsos. Sorry, Chris. Don't ask me to ever pronounce anybody's name. That's why we do NRN. So Chris Grimitsos, who runs PodFest, and he got inducted. Congratulations, Chris. As we mentioned, George Harab, Lou Mangiello, who's right down there in Florida. Tom Webster was there. Tim Street.
As I mentioned, I did the introduction. He was there. His family, he's originally from Orlando, so he had nieces and nephews there, so he had family there. It was great seeing Tim. Great doing the introduction to Tim as well. Yeah, it was a fun evening. It was great. Congratulations to the entire class of 2025 Podcast Hall of Fame.
And I want to shout out to Rob Greenlee, who did a great job, and Corey from Lipson for organizing and getting this, and Wendy as well. So there's a lot of people behind the scenes that helped make the podcast Hall of Fame actually come together with the ceremony. And then Rob Greenlee was running it to get the election and all the results. So kudos to everyone behind the scenes that made that happen.
Yay. And just to give a quick voice also to Maria Thomas, who I don't know, actually. So that's one of the only people I don't really know, Maria Thomas. I hope to get to know her a little bit more here. And Twyla Dang, who I think is probably one of the most wise and just her level of expertise in so many different levels of the podcasting industry.
Her genuine nature and her down-to-earth approach and her enthusiasm to help us all thrive is really unparalleled. In fact, I think I told a story. I wrote this on LinkedIn. There's a lot of women that come into podcasting who sometimes they come into it in the way to sort of like make money off of the folks that are looking for a solution to a problem. Because as you know, podcasting is not necessarily the easiest thing to do.
There's a lot of women who come in and are always like, I don't know how to start. Where do I go? And then people create products and services and all of that stuff. And I've seen many come and go that do that. And I'm always wary. I'm always like, oh, my God, do you actually know what you're saying? And I'm very protective of our community. And Twyla came into the scene and I was on Instagram, actually.
swiping through stuff. Right. And then this like women in podcasting thing came up for me. And I was like, what is this women in podcasting thing? I've never heard of this person before. And she was having a Sunday, some kind of Sunday Q&A thing where it was you get to ask her anything. And I was like, OK, who is this Twyla? So I signed up because I most of the time I sign up for a lot of these things and I put myself in the, you know, the student.
I want to know what the experience is. And I was blown away, Rob. I was blown away. I was like, oh, OK, she's amazing. She knows everything. And I feel like, wow. So from then on, I have been a huge fan because everything she creates is on point and solid. And this is one of those things where I.
It's like when you hear somebody that gives solid advice and you just go, oh, my God, everybody needs to listen to Twyla. That's how I feel. All right. But what else? What else happened at PodFest? Well, obviously, Libsyn had a booth we were exhibiting along with myself. Emilio was there, Brian, Gory. And Brian had sessions on video. I had the luncheon to learn, talked a little bit about.
not video. So I had, my section was a little bit more of the, look, you don't have to do video. And here's the reasons why audio has some advantages. And if you're one of those people that are sitting there going, I really don't want to do video, then don't do video. There's a lot of people saying, oh, you have to do video. You don't have to do video. And that was kind of what my message was. And then it was just the normal stuff that I talked about in the state of podcasting.
We'll get later on, I talk a little bit, maybe in this episode or the next, because we've got a lot for this episode, about the best day of the week to release episodes. That was an item I went over. You know, I thought my session went well, and it was fun. It's always fun to speak, right? When people are eating and finish eating, and yeah, now we're going to go over stats. Now that your belly's full and you're tired.
So it was always fun to try to make that where people don't pass out and hit the floor and get a concussion or something like that. But other than that, I was on a panel. So thanks to Michelle for having me on her panel. And we were talking about using podcasting for storytelling. So I got to speak twice. But a lot of traffic, a lot of good questions, people coming to the booth. And for the most part, most people coming by were great.
And we had one fun story I'll have to tell you offline that I can't talk about on the show. It involved a woman close to 70 and her less than 30-year-old cameraman. It was quite an interesting story. But overall, it was great seeing people. That's the best part about the events is getting out and seeing people. Now, of course, there was a lot of people asking where Elsie was. So Elsie, you were very, very missed.
Oh, that's sweet. Well, good. I had a lot of really wonderful things about PodFest this year. I was checking out the virtual side of it, at least on the social end. And I was impressed. I was impressed with not necessarily the volume, because that wasn't really what I was looking at. I was looking at the quality. The quality of posts that people were putting out there were very different than in the past, meaning.
They were a lot more thought out. They were a lot more meaningful is what I told my team, where it seemed like folks were really having moments. And that's something that you can't quite grasp. You can't really quantify that, right? If there is, we were always thinking, we always measure things by volume, but I can tell you that the folks that attended PodFest this year are more than, I would say about 90% are going to be coming back.
Because they had an experience. They had something happened at that event that really gave them the feeling of being understood, being heard, getting information, connecting with people that were like them, and they want to go back. So in that respect, it was quite lovely to see overall. Yeah. Chris does a great job with the conferences. He knows what he's doing. It was well run.
I think the biggest theme I took away from questions that I was asked, it was mostly independent podcasters, and it was about growth. How do I grow? How do I grow? How do I grow? So a lot of questions about growth and talking about watch out for snake oil and don't go to anyone that's promising, guaranteed growth. You've got to stay away from those kinds of services. But growth was always and has always been a big question, and that was what we saw there. And then after that, it was...
about monetization, but most were at the stage where they were really still growth heavy. That was their focus. Which, by the way, you should always be growth heavy as a focus. Monetization will come if you grow. And we'll discuss. We'll discuss some of those things more in depth, I think, as we go through this year. Because, like you mentioned, it's not a one-size-fits-all. And the definition of growth, depending upon who you are and what your goal is, is really how you...
measure into what that looks like for you. You've got a little thank you for Matthew Passy. What did Matthew Passy do for us this time, Rob? Thanks, Matthew, for finding this next one. And it was when working with one of our pro customers, he found that it looks like Apple Podcasts is no longer displaying show-level artwork in the podcast store or apps at the episode level. So when you see a list of episodes,
you may now see that many of the episodes are missing artwork. If you have the episode artwork in there, right, if you go and upload custom artwork for each episode, it is still showing in the list of episodes. Even if you're uploading the same show level artwork, it's showing it. But if you're not uploading artwork at the episode level, then the show level artwork is no longer showing. What happened in the past,
Apple would show the show level artwork, which we put in the feed as a default. But for some reason, Apple now is saying, oh no, that's just your show level artwork. We're not going to show it. I guess they're looking at the file name and realizing that's the same as a show level. In short, if you do not have specific episode level artwork, or if you have not manually re-uploaded the show level artwork at the episode level,
then an Apple podcast, it will no longer show the show level artwork at the episode level. You're fine at the show level, but not the episode. Remember, Seinfeld's a show, Bubble Boy and Puffy Shirt were episodes. That's our definition. Your choices to get artwork at the episode level is to have custom artwork for each episode, which we have recommended forever on here, as long as we've supported it. Or you can re-upload the show level artwork,
I do not recommend that. As if you change the show-level artwork down the line, then on a per-episode basis, you would need to update it, which is really a pain if you have a lot of episodes. Essentially, if you do not have unique artwork for each episode, then just accept that for the latest updates of Apple Podcasts, it will no longer show the show-level artwork at the episode level. And that could change in a future update. But for now...
If you're not seeing artwork at the episode level in Apple podcast, that is why. So thank you, Matthew, for finding that. I'm a big proponent of episode artwork. I do it. I love it. I think it's great. Me and you are probably lockstep on that. We think every episode should have unique artwork. Absolutely. It looks great. It looks great. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't, my workflow obviously isn't going to be bothered. So let's say somebody who doesn't want to bother.
They don't want to bother. This is annoying. Is there something wrong with that? Like, what does it look like? It just looks like it doesn't have a visual component to it. Or is there like a black box or something? There's no box. It gets awkward when you have some episodes with episode artwork and others didn't. So then you see some with and some without. And that was the situation that happened here for the original show that was going, why is my show level? Why is my artwork not showing? Because they had.
kind of like this one show had like three different types of episode types that they have in their show. And for one of those types, they have custom artwork and the other two themes on the shows, they don't. So like every third episode had custom artwork. So when you look down the list, you would see every third episode had artwork and two that didn't, then one that did and the two that didn't because they were just using the show level artwork for those other two. But for some reason on the,
the one theme that they did, they had custom artwork. Ah, so then it's noticeable. But so all this to say, folks, like Rob and I mentioned, we love the look of unique episode artwork. It really does visually make an impact for people to just like look at the difference. People like to see difference in that way.
But if you don't have episode artwork for each of your episodes and you don't have the bandwidth to be creating this and it makes making you feel like, oh, no, I have to do something else. Just know that it's just going to be a line, like just a list, a list with no images. And if that doesn't bother you, then don't do it.
That's all I can say there because it does not help. What you could do is create, I don't know, three different templates in Canva and then just rotate between the three different templates, throwing an episode number on each one and maybe a little blurb or text to make it look unique. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of how I do it. I mean, in a fancier way. That's kind of how I work. I have templates, right? So I have, I think for our latest, I think I have five.
So I have five different colors that are basically the same with five different images of you and I. And then I just go down the list like, you know, this is going to be episode 285. So I just go to the next color pattern and I just do it in a pattern. So, folks, you can with that Canva integration make it really easy to have unique artwork at the episode level. That's where I'm going at. And it really does look better.
And if you are using our YouTube integration where we convert your audio to video, you have to do it. I mean, you don't have to have to, but you really have to do it because it looks horrible if you don't. Yeah, that's something that's on my to-do list. I'm going to work on having us redesign our YouTube image. It's been a while since that's been updated. And again, those are also...
template-based. So I don't have to reinvent the wheel. I really leaned heavily into title and number, meaning that's the thing that changes. I just change those things. The background has different colors, but I don't ever tweak it. I'm going to see if I can get a different type of template that maybe is a little bit more eye-catching. But I do understand the lift that it takes sometimes to do that, folks.
Do your best. I think lean into if you don't have graphic design skills, if you really feel like this is going to be a huge step for your workflow to get episodes out, take it a little bit bite at a time. You are not going to be penalized as far as I can tell from your description. It's just going to look like it's not optimal for delivering the image in Apple Podcast. But take your time and just start to think about it. Focus on.
The way that I've done it, focusing on the number and focusing on the title of the episode and having that be sort of the centerpiece of what you see versus a total new visual. There's people who do that and it's really nice, but I personally don't have the bandwidth to do that. I need something that I can do really quickly myself because we don't really have a dedicated graphic person who's going to be working on our stuff.
So that's the way that's easier for us to do. But thank you for that, Rob. And thank you, Matthew Pazzi, for your paying attention to that. When I have pro customers asking me, what's a good example of showing a unique artwork? I just show what you do, Elsie. I just show the feed. I show them the feed and they're like, oh, okay. And that usually wins them over to what they should do. Yeah. So thanks for making my job easier. Yay. Next up, we got an article from PR.
news online titled Breaking Into Podcasts, Media Relation Tools. This is geared towards those in the PR world, and it gives some nice quotes about the podcast space and our influence. But I want to go back just how I started my PodFest speech on the state of podcasting. I did my summary for 2024. My summary was very simple. It was two sentences, an interview that happened, an interview that didn't happen. That's how I summed up 2024 in the podcast world.
because the one that happened and the one that didn't happen at the end of the day had more press coverage than anything else that happened in the podcast space to the masses. And I don't think I have to explain what those are, but this article here, again, is reaching out to the PR folks and telling them, hey, podcasting is a really influential space and you want to get in with podcasting. So here's one of the quotes that jumped out at me, or actually two of them, for this article.
Quote, in her Neiman Lab 2025 predictions, the journalism piece, podcasting becomes the primary strategy, not an afterthought. Joni Deutsch, senior vice president of podcast marketing and audience development at the Puglomerate, writes, quote, at a time where traditional media trust continues to hit historic lows. Oh, does it ever.
Podcasts can help longstanding organizations establish stronger relationships with audiences and in the process drive real change in how people think and engage with the news. Unquote. Podcasters have more and more influence. And in a niche, if you're in a niche, that means you have more and more influence in your niche. And lean into that. Leverage that. Use that to get...
to different events to talk. I'm not saying abuse it, but use it to give yourself opportunities to even increase your influence even more. So if you're in a niche, find the biggest conference about your niche and make sure you go and get press coverage, get it paid for. You don't have to pay to go to your niche conference if you're in a travel niche. Like Chris Christensen, he was telling me he was up in New York this current week here.
speaking at a conference, and I've talked to many other podcasters in different niches that go to conferences. They get great interviews. They get usually great access, VIP access at the conference and don't have to pay, you know, to pay for your hotel room usually, but you don't have to pay for the passes. So again, more so than ever before, people are realizing that podcasting is where the influences are. And I'll have a link to the article so you can read the whole thing.
There's another one with Ashley Carman that I have yet to read that has been talking about that. And I think that's something that stood up about that is how's it going to scale? Like, is there going to be like the podcast grounds and how many and do all the people need to now be on podcasts and what podcasts are they going to be on? Is it all the podcasts? Again, it comes down to niches, right? What are you looking at now? When you talk about the general election.
The primaries are going to be where it's really important next time around, right, for the national primaries, for the Democrats and Republicans, because next time through, right, two brand new candidates, both sides. So we're going to be starting with 15, 20 candidates on each side in two years. Two years from now, after the midterm elections are over, two years from today, basically, is the start of the next presidential election.
And that year, 2027, throughout 2027, is going to be a time where the smart candidates are getting out on the podcast to help build up two things, their name brand recognition and support on the ground from local activists, because it's a chance for the local Democratic people and the local Republican people.
who are the ones that go and knock on doors and do the canvassing, to hear the candidates in a long-form format that they may not have heard and get exposed to candidates. Because there are some people that I know, friends of, that are in the Democratic Party, they are canvassers. They are people that go out and they will embrace the candidate. But you want to be in the primary embraced if you're going to run. And then there's going to be other ones that are going to get on for...
not national campaigns. And then that's going to be harder, right? You're going to have to find the local podcast, the ones that people are listening to locally that you can get on. That's going to be a little tougher on the politics side. But outside of politics, then we deal with the niches. And that's where you want to get word out to your niche if you are a company that services that niche. And you want to make sure you really get out on every podcast on a niche, whether it be travel or
football or whatever it is that you're servicing with your company, you really want to reach out into podcasting. And I think that's where the bigger impact comes, right? Forget the grandoise election part of it, but just think of the everyday day-to-day part. And that starts now. And if you are a business servicing a certain industry and you don't have a podcast strategy, you have a big hole in your marketing strategy. That's the way I look at it.
So, OK, I'm I'm only thinking through this because I'm like, let's say I have a famous podcast, right? Because most of them are true crime, celebrity driven pop culture types. If you want to reach the masses, you know, they record early. You know, a lot of those guys have a schedule. I don't know if I want to have like, what if I'm talking to like who all of a sudden have 25 candidates?
Well, first off, true crime podcasts are probably not going to fit really well unless there is a true crime podcast about a certain crime where one of the candidates has a connection to it, right? Someone's doing a true crime podcast on Gabby Patino and the candidate running is Skleese or from Long Island and who happens to be where she was from, right? Maybe there's a connection there.
I don't think true crime is going to be where it is. It's going to be more along the Society and Culture podcast. You're going to want to get on the Nick Files. You're going to want to get on, obviously, Joe Rogan's and Theo Vaughn's and Lex Friedman's and All In podcast. And some of the ones that were reached out to that have guests and talk about this. And, you know, if you're a Republican, you're going to look at Tim Kast. If you're a Democrat, you're going to look at Bulkwart.
There are definitely, you know, best of the left you want to get, even if he doesn't normally do it. And David Pakman, as we said before, there are a lot of podcasts out there that both sides can reach out to politically. But I think the bigger impact comes down to you're doing a podcast on or you're doing a product for Tesla's aftermarket product, right? Something that's an addition for the Cybertruck. You want to get on all the Tesla podcasts. You want to make sure that's part of your marketing strategy.
In many cases, some of these companies will start their own podcasts. But I just think podcasting has just finally got recognition for the influence that it wields. Yeah, I would just advise, I guess, folks who are really approaching podcasting as a strategy to be very clear, eyes wide open on...
The expectations of results based on whatever it is that they're looking to measure. Which brings me to measurement. How are they going to measure? And how are they going to choose the podcast that they go into? And what are the expectations ongoing to said podcast? And as somebody who creates content, to thinking about being, and I've said this before to my own people. I don't think I've ever said it. I might have said it on this.
podcast, but this is something that I teach because I have found that I have this podcast. There's not very many people who listen to this podcast in that maybe are the people who hire me outside of Libsyn or that don't know what I do or what I think. And there's a lot of other thoughts that I have that are outside podcasting that I don't have an opportunity to have a podcast about, but I am asked to go on podcasts a lot.
So every time that I go on a podcast, I do my very best to record my end of the conversation with video on my side only. And I have a library of LC content that I have yet to touch because who has time? But I still have it. I have all of my personal thought leadership that I have captured. I do not expect.
people who are episodes that I'm on to promote me in the way that I know I want to promote myself. So I have that content that's mine and on my computer with my voice that I've said. And so if you are looking to campaign being on podcasts, it's your job to make sure that you promote yourself.
Because podcasters don't do a very good job at that. And they might focus on something that is not what you want them to focus on. So I'm just saying. Well, Dean Phillips, if you're going to run in two years or thinking of it or his people, reach out to me. We'll talk. All right. But speaking of new strategies, I've actually decided to do a little something different for our podcast, for The Feed.
And I'm kind of creating an ecosystem around the brand. So I'm making a little mini brand of the feed. So the feed, this episode, this podcast is like the big thing, right? It's the thing that everything comes from. It's where we want ultimately people to come to follow the show. That's ultimately what we want is to grow our audience in this fashion because
of, you know, the amount of information that we share and how much helpful stuff that we put out for the, not only for the Lipson folks, but also for the industry overall. But we do understand that over 60 minutes of listening to a podcast about podcasting, sometimes that's not for everybody, right? That is not for everybody. So I thought, well, how do we...
How do we start to gain more audience by just expanding the brand a little bit? So I'm testing out the feed mini, which is less than three minute short form video that I'm going to be posting and all the social channels that have video with them, where we are, where Libsyn is. So primarily Instagram and YouTube. And yes, I am still publishing that little video on LinkedIn and Facebook.
And also adding it to threads. And it is a standalone little mini piece of content where we give them some of the, you know, the keystone actionable things that we cover in an episode, condense down with helpful information of what that is, and then make a soft pitch to, hey, if you want more nuance, listen to the whole show, to the whole episode. And then we also have...
The Feed Insights, which is the newsletter. So I've sort of started to rebrand the newsletter that goes along with our podcast. And it's the same, but in a readable format. And that one is a little bit more in depth. I'm trying to figure out what the best format is for that. So stay tuned for how I massage the way that I deliver the information on that one. But again, I wanted it to be a standalone product.
So when you get it in your inbox, you're able to read the most important things that you need and you're going to get everything you everything inside of that newsletter of the top things that we talk about, of the main key things that we are putting out, actionable stuff that you really need to know. And then again, a soft sell of.
listening to the whole episode for more if you want to put it in your ears and whatnot. So those are two things that I'm doing. And I would really appreciate it if you went over to our Instagram profile and follow Libsyn and just check out that video. And if that little video is helpful to you, share it with your people. And because it is less than three minutes, it gives you some really good podcasting stuff.
And the newsletter itself, I would really appreciate also that you subscribe to the newsletter. So I'm going to put a link in the show notes for all of that stuff if you're not subscribed. And if you can reply to the emails and let me know if you found it helpful or not, that would be amazing. But that's how we're trying to do it all. And that way you stay connected to the podcast, the information, and still get all of that you need in the way that you want to consume it.
And with the ultimate goal of, hey, send your promo to the show, send your audio feedback to the show. I think I'm going to have a little promotional piece inside of the newsletter that's going to highlight some audio sent in to the show and maybe talk about you a little bit. So there's that. All right. So you got some gear here or? Oh, no. No, no, no. That's right. There was some more new gear announced.
also at CES that I had not seen. And actually, our video editor, Brian, has this, not the latest model, but he has this, and he showed it to me last year when he got it. And I was like, oh, that's kind of neat. And then I saw that this was released, and I fell in love with it, first of all, because of the price, and second of all, because of the discreteness of it. So what is this?
It is a small little lavalier microphone called the Lark M2S Mic. It is from Hollyland. And the range of pricing for this little lavalier set of microphones really is $119 to $149. And this is a little bit from an article that I found about this.
They are a new 2.4 gigahertz wireless microphone system with dual transmitters and multiple options for receivers. There is a camera receiver with a 3.5 millimeter analog output and USB-C output, along with minimalistic receivers for mobile phones. So USB-C and Lightning versions.
The transmitters are designed to be minimalistic without a logo and are capable of recording up to 24 bit audio. But there is no 3.5 millimeter input and no internal recording. OK, now I want to pause right there, you know, and I'll have a link to what these are. So the reason that I'm bringing these up here, it's not because they're like the latest and greatest in terms of technological capabilities and all of this fancy stuff.
It's because they are small, Rob, and they are so discreet and you can put them beautifully on your shirt and you don't see. It's exactly what they say. They don't have it's minimalistic and they don't have the logo in your face. Not to say I don't love logos on my gear because I am a fan of brands and I really appreciate that.
But when it comes to lavalier microphones, it is so annoying to me. I love the Rode lavalier microphones that they have. They're great. The sound is amazing. It's a square box that you have to put on top of your shirt and you see this giant square. Then we have the Shore ones, which again, I love Shore. I love, love, love, love Shore. But they're not small. Let's just put it that way. They're not small. These ones are small.
And they just kind of disappear. And that is why I love them so much. And they're so affordable. For the upper range of this, it's $149, which is, to me, amazingly affordable. And if you don't want to go the whole hog for this, $119. And anyway, I really love it. I think that this is going to be a purchase for me because...
One of the reasons I don't really love the higher end microphones that I just mentioned is because of the look. And listen, the look is a thing for me. I don't want to get all cute and then have a thing sticking out of my shirt. What I liked was the nine hour battery life. Oh, yeah, they do have that. Because you always have to take what is the full battery life, cut it in half. So now you think it's really four and a half hours a year from now.
And then, okay, does that cover two hours worth of recording? That's right. You want to make sure you cover at least two hours. And at nine hours, battery life, it'll definitely cover you for what you need to do. Yeah. And Brian said he used it on the show floor over, I'm not sure which conference he was in using. He said it was pretty good. Again, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles. And that's okay. Because we were just talking about, it said that it didn't have any internal recording.
And I have to say, I've never like bought a lavalier microphone based on the fact that I wanted the thing to record. Like I just, that was not something I was thinking through because I'm like, isn't it recording into something? So that's not a deal breaker for me. It might be for other people, but not for me. So I really love that. Anyway, that is my spiel for this.
Because I'm excited by this product, and especially because it's so cute and small and minimal. Ka-ching, $150, gone. Gone. Yeah, $119 on the loan, but $150. Anyway, link in the show notes. Link in the show notes. All right, so we have our first email here, Rob. Hey, Rob, I have a question. What I'm wondering is, in your many years of podcasting, have you found...
that there is a best day of the week to release an episode? And if so, why do you think that is? Regards, NR. Pause. I want to pause for a moment before you answer. This question comes in all the time. This needs to go into the Feeds Hall of Fame. You know, I'm going to create that. The Feeds Hall of Fame questions. This is kind of almost like the number two question behind the length of an episode. Yes.
And I actually created a slide and I, in the slide, I put in the latest presentation I did at PodFest. I put that right after the length episode. So here's my answer. And then I'm going to get into some of the data behind that because, you know, I like data. I said, if you are doing a business podcast or one whose audience is going to commute to work, then Tuesday morning or Wednesday early mornings are the best days times. Reasons for that is.
there are less holidays during the year on those days. So if you're doing a weekly podcast, there's less holidays, less days you're going to be hitting like that. Additionally, many people take long weekends with Mondays or Fridays off. At Libsyn, we see Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the biggest days for downloads. If your podcast is more focused, however, on, say, 21 to 35-year-olds, 21 to 35-year-olds and or pop culture spin, then Thursday afternoon is the best.
Reason for that is for that group of people, the weekends going out starts on Thursday, and you can give those people something to talk about with their friends over the weekend on, you know, something they listen to on their drive home from work on Thursday. This is why Roseanne Barr releases on Thursday. That's the exact reason that she releases on Thursdays, afternoons, so that people driving home can hear something that Roseanne Barr said in an interview and be able to talk about it with friends when people are out.
over the weekend. For all others, just release on the daytime that fits best in your schedule. And that was kind of my response. And then I said, okay, I want to make this into a slide. So what I did was I took the Libsyn calendar, holiday calendar, which we just got. And, you know, this is per the Tuesday, Wednesday, early morning. And I said, well, let's see where the holidays are.
So this year, 2025, and it changes every year, right? Holidays move around. There's some of them that aren't specific days, exact day like, you know, Veterans Day, which happens to be a Tuesday. Well, there's five Monday holidays, one Tuesday holiday, which is Veterans Day, two Wednesday holidays this year, three Thursday holidays, and three Friday holidays. So that's your breakout. So again, as we said, less holidays Tuesday, Wednesday.
Maybe next year there might not even be one on Tuesday. I'm not sure. I'd have to look at that. But the point is, if you're doing a weekly show and you don't want to be impacted by holidays and also want to get the most people that are going to be listening, again, because of long weekends, you know, Mondays and Fridays tend to be taken off, then Tuesday, Wednesday is best day. And, oh, we're eating the dog food. What day do we release, Elsie? Tuesday. All right. So.
We believe this. That's why we do it on Tuesday. Then again, then I showed this slide Thursday early afternoon. I showed, you know, an example of like the All In podcast, which actually is Friday or Saturday, but their idea is to get it for the weekend for people to talk about it. Roseanne Barr is really that perfect example of the Thursday afternoon. And then the third item is just when it fits your schedule. If the first two items don't work for you, if you can't release on Tuesday, Wednesday, by the way, you can finish the episode on Sunday and schedule it.
For Tuesday, just remember that. But if, say, for example, you have a podcast that is more timely than how it fits into your schedule, that would be the last option. So there you go. Those are my three recommendations on when to schedule an episode per weekly shows or every other week in case of this show. All right. We've got another listener email here. Just.
Someone saying thank you. Do you want to read that one? Yeah, it says, Dear Rob, I wanted to sincerely thank you for your guidance in helping me promote, oh gosh, Dadkane Marry Son on Apple Podcasts. Thanks to your advice, my podcasts have been featured in the new and noteworthy section, and I couldn't have achieved this without your support. I truly appreciate your help and look forward to continuing this journey. Thank you so much, Rajneesh. I hope I didn't butcher that too bad. All right, so moving on to just...
I think that most of you all found out, you know, TikTok was banned for a tiny little bit. There's a lot more nuance to that, folks. I understand what happened. I'm not going to cover all of that stuff. In fact, I'll put some links so that you can figure out what went down and what didn't go down in terms of TikTok a little while ago. Anyway.
Just letting you know that everybody else is also getting into the vertical video party. Now there's an article on The Verge and also lots of communications from these platforms that now Blue Sky and X are featuring feeds that are TikTok-like because, you know, we don't know what's going on with that. Vertical video isn't going away. It's just being actually being a part of everybody's.
place now. So here's a little bit of a quote from The Verge. Quote, we had to get in on the video action too, said Blue Sky, with the launch of customizable feeds for videos, users can swipe up or down on these feeds to flip through videos and create targeted feeds that only pull video content from specific hashtags, such as BookSky, feeds that riff off TikTok's BookTalk reading community.
X similarly started rolling out a new video tab to users in the U.S. on Sunday, which appears as a circular play button in the app's bottom navigation bar. From there, you can explore a personalized feed of recommended videos reflecting the real-time nature of X across sports, entertainment, news, and more. X said in an announcement, end quote.
Now, Instagram now has upped their time for Reels, no longer 90 seconds. It's moving it to three minutes. And they made some announcements, if you will, on Instagram about Reels ranking and some quick tips for Reels, which I have condensed for you all.
In case you want a little bit more information about that for your podcast and or you want to at least see what's going on with the Instagram algorithm and ranking and all of that stuff. Quick tips for Reels. Number one, avoid posting videos with watermarks or logos. Instagram deprioritize them in reach. Number two, keep your Reels under three minutes. Shorter content performs better. Number three, use engaging audio. It doesn't have to be trending, but the right music or dynamic sound makes a difference.
Number four, post regularly and stick to a theme. When your audience knows what to expect, they're more likely to follow. Number five, don't be afraid to experiment. Use Instagram's trial feature to test Reels with non-followers. If it performs well, upgrade it to your profile. And then there's how the Instagram ranking works because this is where you can really leverage the platform. So there are two types of ranking.
There's connected reach, which is these are the accounts that already follow you. And then there's the unconnected reach. And these are recommendations served to users who don't follow you yet. All right. So for both of those, the key signals are average watch time. So the longer somebody watches whatever you're putting out, the better. Number two, likes per reach. How often people hit the like button.
Number three, sends per reach. So how often someone shares your content with a friend. So for the average watch time. Yeah. Would it not be better than to be closer to three minutes? Actually, no, Rob, because I think it's the watch time ending. Meaning, I don't know if you've seen when you're watching a video on any of these, like sometimes they'll loop and they'll start over and you're like, wait, what? What happened? So actually the shorter.
you finish, you finished watching the video. If it's a three minute, you might swipe away before finishing. And so that affects it, which is why they want it to be shorter. If it's like seconds, it's going to get more watch time. But here's an important nuance on that. For connected content. So those are people who already follow your account. Likes matter slightly more than cents. So obviously when people follow you,
and they like it, that's enough for them to do it. For unconnected content, sends are more important than likes. So if you send that content to somebody else, it automatically makes it bump up a little bit more because that's what they're wanting. They're wanting the behavior of you sharing content with somebody else, and that makes it big. I assume that it doesn't matter whether or not you're texting a reel to somebody.
or whether you are putting it in your stories or DMing it to somebody. Or I wonder if there's also some kind of algorithm that if you share from Instagram to threads, it's not your content, but maybe you're putting it out there for somebody else. Maybe that actually boosts it too. But across the board, time watched is king. So if your reels aren't performing well, check the insights, which is a pain in the behind to do. Look at those metrics.
watch time, likes, and sends to understand what's working and what's not. And if you're worried about posting too much, they want you to try Instagram's trial feature. So what is that? You actually put the thing up there, right? You put your reel up there, you put your video up there, and then it gives you an option to do a little trial. And so what it does is it releases that reel only to people who don't follow you. So it's not sending it to your followers.
followers with too much content and then you only then but then you switch it right but then you switch so that yeah if it performs well forms well you can do it and you release it to your people too so this is like a comic going on out to the club and trying some new jokes and then the jokes that go well he puts into a set that he does on friday nights but he goes out on tuesday nights when there's no one there and tries some jokes
And then it makes it in his Friday, Saturday set. Yeah, that's totally what this is. Correct. So you can promote your best performing content to your audience without overwhelming them. So you get an opportunity to kind of like test things out and see how things do outside of the people that are following you. Right. Because that could be a little bit annoying. I could understand that. So the whole point is that you need to experiment, analyze and keep refining it.
So the growth, at least on the Instagram side of things, is really all about testing and learning. Now, I know that this feels overwhelming. It feels overwhelming to me. Hey, listen, even just dealing with a small snippet of video and posting it can feel overwhelming because you have to write the description and you have to make sure like that whatever the main image is for that thing shows up. It's just a whole thing. So I get it. I just wanted you to know what this is.
So in case you do and are playing with a little bit of video, you're able to repurpose that little bit of video for just a snippet. Even if it's think about it, like you don't even have to do a three minute thing. Maybe it's really something silly or funny that you said on the video and you just remember, oh my gosh, that quote would be amazing. And it's really 30 seconds of fun. Put it up there with some good music in the background, some trending music or something and see how it performs.
And I haven't experimented yet, but who knows? Maybe that's a good way to figure things out. I will be talking more about this. If this is something that interests you, I will let you know what I see out there. And especially with the other places where the video is moving out. Rob, I did take a little bit of a snippet of the feed, me, myself. And I posted a couple of YouTube shorts because I'm doing that on my own channel. And I got one that hit.
I think the last time that I checked, it had like 1,500 views the last time that I checked on there, which is really nice. That's never happened before. I've never had that happen. And I think that part of why it hit is because it was a snippet. It was a small little snippet. It wasn't in-depth. And I even got a comment, which is really nice. Yeah. So I had 1.5K views on that.
I think I said your podcast itself is not an asset unless you make it so. I said that last episode. So that was something that resonated with people, which is really nice. Now, the first reel that I put out there got seven. No, YouTube shorts. YouTube shorts had seven views and the other one had 1.5K views, okay?
So that seven is like the joke just bombing. Not even a slow clap. This is in YouTube shorts. So this is a whole other thing, right? And you don't know. You don't know what you don't know. Like every single one of them. And so choose the one that you want to kind of play with. Use the other ones as just like amplification. And hopefully people will come and listen to your podcast. All right.
This feels like it's a great place to go to our only promo of the episode. This is promo. This is this promo is from Podcast Coaching for Kingdom Entrepreneurs. Take it away. Did you know 95.2% of podcasters quit before reaching two years or 100 episodes? The point where real growth happens. Don't let that be part of your story.
On Podcast Coaching for Kingdom Entrepreneurs, I share the tools, strategies, and encouragement you need to stay the course. Whether it's mastering your message, building consistency, or overcoming overwhelm, this podcast is your guide to thriving as a kingdom-minded podcaster. You're called to amplify your voice and make an impact. So don't podcast alone. Tune in to Podcast Coaching for Kingdom Entrepreneurs today and let's grow together. All right.
All right. Thank you. And that was our only one because the other one was actually corrupted because you that sent it in, sent it in corrupted. Oh, wait, never mind. By corrupted, I meant there was nothing attached as in you didn't send anything in. Bad marketer. So send in your promos to Elsie. There were two bad marketers this week as a minimum that we could have had in. But you lost. Opportunity lost. Done. Over. All right. Now let's get into stats. Geographic and user agents.
And first up this week is country breakdown for December per download geographically from all sources. And here we go, top 20. U.S., 60.3%. Canada, 5.4%. U.K., 5%. Australia, 3.3%. Germany, 3%. Sweden, 2.2%. Spain, 1.2%. India, 1.2%. And that is everybody over 1%. Rounding out the top 20, under 1%. Netherlands, Japan, Mexico, France, Colombia, Denmark, South Africa, Poland, China, Belgium.
New Zealand and Brazil. For December, we had Colombia back in the top 20. And between December and November, those with changes greater than 0.2% was the US dropping to 60.3% from 62%. Canada inched down to 5.4% from 5.7%. UK inched down to 5% from 5.4%. And Sweden inched down.
from 2.5 to 2.2%. Of course, check your stats, see how you measured up against these numbers for December. Now, per user agent info, for December, across all shows globally, hosting on Libsyn and Libsyn Pro for IAB stats, mobile downloads were 87.25% of all downloads going direct to mobile devices. That's down a smidge versus November's 87.28%.
Computer downloads were up a smidge to 12.32%. Home voice attendance plus set-top boxes were at 0.43% in December. The iOS to Android ratio in December was 3.23 to 1, which was down a smidge from November's 3.32 to 1 ratio. Mobile aggregator apps not from Spotify or from Apple in December were 11.04% of all downloads. And the big dog in aggregator apps is still...
Apple with Apple Podcasts app, iTunes, and the Apple ecosystem coming in at 44.97% of all downloads in December. For number two in December was Spotify at 24%. Number three, Overcast at 3%. Pocket Cast came in at 1.8% for four and iHeartRadio at 1.1% in fifth. And now is everyone over 1%?
Those under 1% but greater than 0.3% in order were Podbean, Amazon Music, Podcast Addict, CastBox, Antenapod, and Player FM, same as last month. And then following up those in order from 0.3% to 0.02% in order, Downcast, Evox, Google Podcasts, they're all getting something. Pandora, TuneIn Radio, Podimo, Fountain, Podcast Guru, Deezer, BeyondPod.
Podcaster, Castro, RSS Radio, Real Life App, Android, AirPodcatcher, Snipped, Dogcatcher, Podverse, and MixerBox. And then many more that come in less than .02 that don't really weren't mentioned. Again, those are based on IEB numbers. Outside of aggregator apps, there were browsers. Firefox and Other came in at 8.1%, and Chrome was at 2.4%. Overall, browsers combined were around 11% of downloads in December.
So there are your stats. Next up, where have we been? Obviously, we were at PodFest in Orlando in the 2025 Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which I mentioned. I was also a guest on the Generations of Wealth podcast. We talked about podcasting, pod fading, audio versus video, monetizing a podcast, and much more. Derek, thanks for having me on the show. Link in the show notes to the episode. Folks, if you're looking to have a guest,
talk about podcasts, Star Wars, Star Trek, or why Jessica Fletcher is really a serial killer, just email me, rob at libson.com. Happy to come on and talk about it. And you will never be able to convince me that Jessica Fletcher is not the serial killer. There's no way that's happening in Cabot Cove if she's not involved. All right. Elsie, any place that you were at? I was working on getting my own email.
ready. So if you want to sign up to just stay up to date as to the goings on of me, there's going to be a link in the show notes and you can find that out. It really is just for you to keep in contact with me, some thoughts that I might share here and there, podcasts that I've been on, episodes that I've done, you know, where I'm going to be in terms of attending some of the conferences and just stuff like that, a home base.
I don't really have like a content plan for that. It's not like you're going to get an email from me every week or every other week or anything like that. I'm still figuring it all out. I'm here just to, you know, for anybody who wants to really be in touch with me and what I'm going on to. That's what I've been working on. So there's a place that you can opt into that. Yeah. Now, where are we going, Rob? Well, in February, I'm going to be at NRB in Dallas.
near the end of the month. Podcast Movement Evolutions in Chicago in March. Then at that, we're going to have a few different sessions. I'm going to be, well, we're changing the title of my session, I think. It was How to Tell if Podcast Stats are BS, but we're going to soften that session a little bit. Matthew Bassey, Studio on a Budget, Create Track. Anthony Civelli and Steven Pickens are going to do
Two Sessions, Host Red Ads That Work Authentically. Authenticity is the new ROI on the profit track. And then YouTube Ads and Beyond, the rise of video podcast dollars. Karen White is going to be with Brooke Collins, Audience Targeting Campaigns, Podcasts vs. Streaming Industry and Brand Track. Brian Connington is going to do video podcasting on a budget, quality content without breaking the bank. And then let's see, Steven Pearlstein is going to do...
Unlocking YouTube Analytics for Podcast Success. And then finally, Bob Kane is also moderating a panel title, To Be Determined. We got a few different people speaking at that. So we got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight sessions at Podcast Movement Evolutions where we've got somebody speaking from Libsyn. Hope you can make it to those sessions.
NAB in Las Vegas in April will also be, and then podcast show in London in May. So at least one show each month for the first five months. Please, folks, if you are not going to the shows I just mentioned and you host on Libsyn and want your cards at the show, please send me an email, rob.libsyn.com. Switching gears.
To where are you going as in the audience? Well, if you're looking for a job in podcasting, make sure you go to podcastingjobs.com. As of the middle of January, 2025, we had two openings listed there, both remote. One is Director of Creator Partnerships, and then we also have Director of Podcast Strategy and Operations. Again, go to podcastingjobs.com to learn more about these openings and potentially others. And if you're looking to start a podcast or switch up your podcast home,
you can use the promo code THEFEED, all one word, THEFEED, for a free month plus with us. So you get the rest of the current month free and all of the following month for a new show starting up. Yay! And finally, don't forget to send in your feedback for anything we did or did not mention on this episode and your promos.
You can record that feedback or promo and email it to us, thefeed at Lipson.com, or you can call us 412-573-1934. Or finally, you can use SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com slash thefeed. Right on. And remember, guys, if you want to listen to Rob introduce Dave Mansueto and his full speech, it's coming up here. So don't turn it off if you have made it this long.
All right, everybody. Thank you so much. And we will chat with you in a couple of weeks. Ciao. Bye. Early in the fall of 2004, Dave wanted to get a podcast going. When he looked around, he realized there was no low cost or easy way to do that. But rather than focus on just his own needs, Dave realized others would need this type of a solution.
So he reached out to his friend Dave Jacan. And then with the help of Matt Hoops and Marty Mulligan, they created a service that would allow anyone to become a podcaster, a service that was very affordable, was easy to use, and thus Lipson was born. Folks, in your time on this planet, you will meet a handful of strangers that cause a true inflection point in your life. A little over 20 years ago,
I met one of those people per my life, and it was on a podcasting email list. Dave reached out to me, and then a few months later, with the prospect of a monster bandwidth bill, I became a Libsyn customer. I talked about Libsyn so much over the next two years. In 2007, Dave said, I should come work for Libsyn. Thanks, Dave. You definitely changed my life.
And by creating Libsyn, Dave also unknowingly became an inflection point for many other podcasters and many, many audience members of those podcasters whose lives they changed. If Libsyn was the heart and soul of indie podcasters, Dave Mansueto was definitely the heart and soul of Libsyn. After Libsyn, Dave could not stay away from podcasting.
And with Hoops, they started iOS podcast studio app, Boss Jock, again with the goal of making it easy for anyone to become a podcaster. Dave, I want to thank you for all your contribution and influence in the space and for your friendship over the past 20 years plus. Folks, please join me in welcoming Dave Mansueto to the podcast hall.
You get the call that you're going to get something, that people are going to acknowledge you for something. And it's a blessing and it's a curse because you've got to stop whatever you're doing and you've got to look around and say, what does my life mean? And what can I say about it? And do I deserve any of this? And I definitely don't deserve any of this, but I love it all. And I want to say that Libsyn was absolutely a group effort.
And we had a team of the coolest guys and girls and people in the world, and it transcends just the, just lives in the service. We all were in college together, and all of us, people played in bands, people were poets, people were artists, performers, and we loved technology. And it really was always about, can we find technology that helps us out, selfishly, of course.
But can we help out our friends? Can we lift everybody up with tech? And we worked together on compilations and poetry books and websites that nobody ever read and all sorts of things. And this was David Chican, Matt Hoops, Marty Mulligan, myself, a million other people that if I could read this list in Pittsburgh around the time of the 2000s, it was just such a wonderful place to be because the magic was there. I wrote a bunch of notes. Screw the notes.
Here's what's important. The people that I want to thank, because first and foremost, let me say this story. Former Hall of Famer, still Hall of Famer, may not even remember me, but I remember him, Jesse Thorne. We were at the Podcast Expo, and he came up to us, and this was the first 2005 or 2004, whatever, at the beginning, which were tumultuous times.
Things were rocky for Libsyn because we were just kind of trying to keep the engine room running, et cetera, et cetera. And Jesse Filman came up and he said, he looked at us and he said, all right, guys, you're going to get your s*** together? Because it's really messed up. But I'm not leaving. So get your s*** together.
And that was everybody. That was all of our customers. The sweetest people in the world that supported us. They were paying us to build tools for them. It felt completely reciprocal. And they cared and they forgave us for so many shortcomings. And it really was the thing. Sometimes when you don't know what you're doing, it's just dangerous and you just tread water the whole time. And that was the magic of podcasting. And it was because it mattered.
At that time, and now, it felt like one of the most important things that ever happened. It felt like the absolute miracle that the internet could birth. That you could have something so special to break down all the walls. And it was Dave that named Libsyn liberated syndication. And I think it's beautiful because it's about the free media. And what do we have left? What's great on the internet?
What's still cool? What's still wild and out there and free and open and unlimited and not standing in anybody's way and no gatekeepers control it? What is but podcasting, right? That is it. And at this time, every year, there's something, right? But there's always...
Threats just in life. They're threats. The abyss beyond. The dark void. Stare into the void. There are dangerous things out there. But the thing we can say about podcasting, the spirit that we love to create, that that's the magic. For me, that's the religion. The inception, the creation, the magical stuff. And the freedom, the freedom, the true freedom for content to go everywhere.
Wherever it wants to go, people can get it wherever they want it, whenever they want it, all that good stuff. No goddamn kid keepers. So that's the threat. That's all I would say. Keep it as open and as wild as possible. Because it benefits us. And when does that happen? It's a miracle. It's a unicorn. And when you have a unicorn, you fight for that unicorn. You let that unicorn fly. You clear the airspace for the unicorn.
Because when the inevitable comes, it's going to be that unicorn that takes you to the glorious land of the podcast hereafter. But if you let that unicorn die, it's on you. So here are my thanks. Like I said, look, I'm the bloviating idiot of the group, all right?
And I can grovel really well. Dave Chan's a better orator. Marty Mulligan was the first guy on PHP I ever knew in the world. And a poet. And a writer. And he cooked best for us every night. Gourmet meals. Matt Hoops. For me, absolute... A warrior. A warrior for something awesome. And the best looking guy in the group. And I love him and I'm working with him today. We're on the boss jock journey together. And I hope to be in...
All sorts of messes with these guys forevermore. But let's talk about some of the other wonderful people. Mom and dad, they supported me, no matter how crazy the ideas were, and they were all crazy. Nico and Mark Bullis, the guys that were some of our first, they taught us how to be a startup. We didn't know what we were doing. We were from the University of Pittsburgh. All right, it was great. Anybody from there? No diss, but, you know. I studied theater, it's not whatever.
My loving partner, Sarah, thank you for keeping me inspired. She's got the best taste in the world. Oh, it's so important. The people here. Dave Jackson, you've been a sage. You've kept me floating when things weren't floating for me. Magic, Todd Cochran, don't take this the wrong way. You were always podcast Popeye for me. Never pulling your punches. Boom! Always bringing it right to the nose. And I love you for it every time.
Chept us on our toes. Gary Leland, the podcast pickle, damn it, again. A guy that would just check up on me and say, like, how are you doing? What's happening? It means so much. I miss him here. Rob Greenlee, the white knight of podcasting. Stoic. Powerful. Wise. Elsie Escobar, namaste. Thank you for dinner. Corey.
And Brian. And Emilio. And Rob. Thanks for letting me get the crazies out. Rob Walsh, you are Clarence from, what's that movie? It's a Wonderful Life, thank you very much. The originals. Adam Curry, you were my first. And Dave Weiner, you make me want to be a better geek. Thank you all very much.
I'm going to use this hopefully to hold the door open for some other amazing people. There are all so many more out there that deserve to be here. Probably more than me, definitely more than me, but I appreciate it. Thank you all so very much.