The Feed. We have a Podcast Movement Evolutions debrief from Rob. New widgets for Apple Podcasts. Travel advisory for podcasters coming to the United States. What is a podcast? YouTube supports the No Fakes Act and Kai Chuck Exit. the YouTube podcasting team, and all of the stats, mean and median numbers, and geographic and user agents. Also, are you on the new dig?
We totally are. Hello, I am Elsie Escobar, Director of Community and Content for Libsyn, and this is Episode 291 of The Feed, the official Libsyn podcast, a podcast that takes it beyond how to podcast. Now, did you know that we promote you? You. in every episode. How do you do that, you ask? you send in your 30 to 60-ish second promo for your show or for one of your episodes.
attach it to an email and send it to thefeedatlipson.com if you don't have a promo but you want your voice on the show. Ask us a question or add to the conversation that you hear on an episode. Send us voice feedback. You can call us at 412-573-1934 or you can use SpeakPipe at speakpipe.com slash the feed. Remember. It is first come, first serve. So the sooner you get your info to me, the sooner I'll get you in the queue. And now on to our main conversation with Rob Waltz.
VP of Podcaster Relations at Lipson, as well as my co-host. Right after this episode's promo, I shake my head. Hello, ladies. Welcome to I Shake My Head, the podcast you never knew you needed. I'm Lisa. And I'm Sam. We've been best friends for over 20 years, surviving questionable choices. We've seen it all and probably caused half of it. We talk about everything, life, aging, pop culture, and all the nonsense we should probably keep to ourselves.
We're two women in our 50s pulling up our judgment pants and navigating life's chaos. New episodes every Friday, and we're proud to be part of the Women in Media Network. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. or at ishakemyheadpod.com will be the least stressful part of your day. Hello, Rob. Good generic time of the day, Elsie. How are you doing? Oh, just peachy. Here we go. Recording podcast.
As always. In my last house, I had the studio. It was up on the top floor. This time, it's down in the lower level. I like the top floor better for many reasons, but one of the big ones is flooding. Oh. Yeah, so I got flooded. So if there's... a little bit more echo. I'm trying to improve the sound in this room, but I had to take a lot of the stuff out that was
dampening any echo. So I'm going to be working on that to improve the sounds of the studio now that they did the restoration here. Yay! Tennessee! Love Tennessee! Lots of water! Oh my gosh, I mean... I hope that doesn't happen again, because that's just going to bring water to electronics. And that is no good. The worst part was I found that the water was coming in. around 8 o'clock or so on Friday evening. when I had a 5.50 flight out on Saturday morning. Oh, good Lord.
So I had to start pulling everything out of my office and the studio, getting everything out, pulling the carpet up and doing all that that night and then leave. from that Saturday morning to Wednesday, leave the house with my wife with this situation. Can anyone say doghouse? Oh. But we can talk about NAB later. It was fun outside of the flooding here. Okay, good. Well, all right, then. Why don't we go ahead and get started then?
By the way, big shout out to Rob with 2Bs for coming, stepping in for you. And we got some lovely feedback. It was great. It was awesome. You know, I was worried. being gone, that I wasn't going to have stats for people, and then... You had a lot of stats in there. We had a lot of, we covered a lot of everything stat related. We did have, there was so much stuff that I added to the show notes. And of course, you know, we didn't get to half of it.
Because, yeah, I had I actually created special show notes just for Rob. So then I copied and pasted only what we did cover to our. to this stuff here and then i added the things that we didn't cover and all of that stuff on the on here so Yeah. So anyway, let us begin. Do you remember when we mentioned that Dig was coming back? Folks, Dig is now open for those of you who have signed up for their waiting list.
And both Rob and I are there, but we do have things to discuss. Correct, Rob? Right. There's a one-time $5 fee to your credit card just to prove that you're human, really, to get your account. And my new dig username is podcast. I am at podcast, so I got it before anyone else did. Oh, Rob. Oh, Rob. So I'm just Elsie because I'm Elsie. Rob was taken. I tried Rob first. Rob was taken. Someone beat me to Rob. So then I went podcast and then it was available.
Oh, well, that's nice. I did try to go rough. Congrats on getting Elsie. I know. I'm so excited. I'm a big fan when I can get my name. It's all of a sudden I'm like, woohoo. So I got Elsie, just plain Elsie, which is great. And we are there, but we do have to mention again that there is a one-time $5 fee. to, I guess, join. I don't even know what we did to be part of this, to be groundbreakers. It says to be part of the groundbreakers.
to my user and where it is for this. I also did post, and I'll put the link in the show notes too, I did post my interview from 2007 that I did with Alex and Kevin from Dignation. And they're back and Dignation is back. It's nice. I'm a dig fan. I've always had it bookmarked in one of my favorites places to go and find news.
Right now, as you know, it looks like more of just a messaging board. I'm hoping it'll evolve into something more. We'll see where it goes. Yeah. And I think that they're building in public, right? So there is a place there where. You can see the overall feed, also the updates. And so they're letting you know, like the design that they're trying to put together. There's I'm assuming that these folks that signed up for the wait list are being added in there as folks who.
are very thrilled and committed to being a part of Digg. And I'm assuming that a lot of these folks have history with Digg and or are fans of the founders. And that's who's in there. I think that also that $5 entrance fee, if you will, is a bit of a deterrent. And I think it's on purpose. Because it is a instant.
I'm not going to do this for some folks. Right. And then there's some folks who are going to be like, what is this? And then are just going to do it because of history, because of FOMO, because of whatever, and would be able to do it. So I do feel it's so determined. And you know what? There's something about it that at first I was like, what? And then I thought, I kind of, I kind of like this. Not because of the money, but because.
And I kind of appreciated that to some degree. I'm still mulling over it. Right. It means you're going to have less spam and clutter in it early on. You know, I put up my first post was, hey, podcast assistants, if you have any questions about podcasting, please let me know. And, you know, and I had someone reply. And of course, the first question was about the playbook for distribution and monetization. So fame and fortune.
That was the first question. So I went into a detailed explanation on how to monetize. I'm going to come back on the distribution part later. But I was just like, you know, there are a few key ways people monetize, right? Host red ads, programmatic ads, premium offering, donations, and then finally live events and merch. And then I just went into explaining a little bit on each one.
to give them an idea of what they can do. I mean, there's other ways you can monetize. There's indirect, you know, there's the, hey, are you building a brand and you're using this to do that, but that's not.
how i would take it this person was asking so i just went with the the five key ones for more generic podcasts oh my goodness gracious wow there are times when i i guess you know i don't disparage folks that want to know that from the get go, because like if I was getting into, I don't know, the coffee shop business. And I decided, you know what, I want to have a coffee shop. I would like to have a coffee shop brick and mortar here in my town.
And somebody is like, I have been building coffee shops for the past 10 years. I think I would ask, I would go, so what is the lay of the land as it pertains to the type of business? And income and that I can plan for. And if they disclose to me the reality of the situation. It's going to help me either move forward and or pivot. Right. So I think that in that respect, I. I would like to know and I would immediately out of the gate would like to know whether or not this is a viable business.
for my life and for what I can expect when I can start to live off of creating this coffee shop for myself. That would also be helpful to me. Again, I might say, I don't think having a coffee shop in this day and age is probably the best thing for me to be doing. Anyway, Dig, you can go and we'll have links in the show notes if you're interested, if you're an old Dig fan, and we'll see where it goes. But again, I'm a big Dig person, so I was happy and I'm glad I got it.
The podcast username and the second choice after Rob. Yeah. And if you happen to already be a groundbreaker like us. Can you follow me? I haven't even figured I haven't even played in there, but follow us. Connect with us. That would be awesome. Let me see if I go to you. I can message you. Oh, yeah, I haven't even I haven't even done that.
So I do not need, which is curious. Yeah, it doesn't show like a follow, but you can. Maybe it's just like you're participating in there, like for the moment. But anywho. You are welcome to do whatever you can. If you tap on the link. in our show notes and you want to connect with us on DIG, hey, I'm there for you. All right. So moving on, Rob. So the reason we had Rob here last week is because most of our team, including you, and then you went from one thing to thing, you were actually at.
In transition, I believe, from Podcast Movement Evolutions into NAB. But I would love to get a little bit of a debrief review of what you experienced over at Podcast Movement Evolutions. Yeah, Evolutions, in short, you have to remember the show. There's two different shows. There's the Evolution shows, which is in the spring.
winter time frame. And then there's the summer show, the main movement show. The main movement show is for everybody, intended for everyone, podcasters, business, but podcasters especially. The Evolution Show was more around the business side of podcasting. So there's a lot more people there to do deals. There's ad agencies there. There's all, you know, Oxford Roads and all of those folks and ad results.
Edwiz and other people like that. So we're more business oriented. So it's a smaller show versus movement. So there's less people, but there was still podcasters there, especially a lot of local ones. There was a lot of local Chicago folks coming in and talking. That was nice to talk with them. I did my session.
on basically metrics and what to look for and what's good metrics and show that. And we'll talk a little bit about here in a minute about the definition of a podcast because that was one thing that caused a little stir there.
This course, still a lot of people talking video. So there's always a lot of video conversations. And I was the one guy up there going, hey, you know, audio is still a thing, folks. Just want to remind you, and it's easier to do. And people have more time in the day to listen to audio. So don't forget that. Don't forget us over on the audio side.
But, you know, overall, really good. I had some really good meetings and some of that already turned into business. So, you know, I have to say from a business perspective, it was really good. But if you were a podcaster going there. there are probably less podcasters other podcasters for you to meet with than you would have at So as a podcaster, my recommendation is the summer show. But if you want to do business in the podcast space, if you have...
Business to business, especially from one podcast business to another podcast business, ad networks, that side of things, then that's the show, was the right show for you. But overall, as far as Buzz going, what was the big thing, the big takeaway? You know, it's still around. what is a podcast and some of the stuff that came out of the Edison Research survey that you covered on the last episode, which in my opinion, Ken, there wasn't anything shocking in that.
It was just more podcasts keeps on keeping on, right? Keeps growing a little bit. From an outsider's perspective, I'll ask, what did you hear? What was your FOMO moment? Was there anything that you were saying, I wish I was there for this or that? Am I going to be honest now, Rob? Yeah, you can say, look, you can say, look, I didn't have FOMO. Yeah, I had no FOMO. I had no FOMO. I think the only FOMO I had was for my friends. Like there were a lot of folks that I wish I could have hugged.
And seen and sat down and broken bread with. That was it. I missed, I think, people that I didn't see last year at Podcast Movement Evolutions. It's not Evolutions, just Podcast Movement. And I know that they were in Chicago, in the Chicago area. And so I thought, oh, I wish I could have seen them. But outside of that, I didn't really have too much FOMO. Yeah, I didn't. It was fine. I did something a little bit different, though. I had, just as a...
To let you guys know what we were doing on our side in terms of the stuff that we were caring about, we actually had a lot of team members that did a lot of fantastic sessions. Actually, you know what? That is one thing that I wish I could have seen in real life is attended the sessions that the Libsyn team put on, which is not necessarily just like rah-rah our team, but they were really quite diverse in the topics that they covered.
And I'm really learning a lot more about podcast advertising overall, right? What exactly it is, what our team does, just so that we can, I can understand a lot more what's going on with the lips and odds side of things. And so what I did have do, though, was that Corey and Brian from our team. A few sessions that I chose specifically, I want you guys there and I want you to record these sessions because these are the sessions that I think are.
interesting to a lot of people. And can you record these and send them to me so that I can consume them and then... write about them. And I did, which was really kind of neat. So we published an article called What's Working in Podcast Advertising Right Now? Insights from Lips and Ads at Podcast Movement Evolutions. And I kind of broke down those three sessions.
into really high level talking points. I mean, come on now. This is not into what the sessions were about, but there were some really great information all the way around. So if you guys want to go check that out, the link is in the show notes. And I personally learned a lot.
from the sessions. So that I think is something that I wish I could have done more of and that I could have been there. And I did like I wrote notes and all kinds of stuff and listened as hard as I could because the audio wasn't. wasn't very good, if you will, because it was just like ad hoc recording. This was not made to be published anywhere. This was really just meant to be consumed. by our team. And so we put a little something together. And I think that was probably the most.
exciting thing that happened to me about podcast movement illusions so there's that god bless transcriptions let's just put it that way Yeah, except for the thing that was kind of sucky, though, was when there was like a panel session in there. And I could not like I had to really sit there and make sure that I labeled the right person because I didn't recognize their voices. You know, there's some people's voices that I can hear or that I know who's who.
And I know them enough to know what their voice sounds like. But there were some of these that I'm like, who is this talking right here? So that was the hardest part, I think. Now, one of the things. That was unique about speaking. They had three stages side by side, no walls between them. And it was a silent rave.
And what it was was on each of the stages, there was a red, a green and a blue light that would show up on your head. You got headphones. People got headphones. Yeah, yeah. And they put the headphones on and you could hear the speaker. So when you get up there to speak, everybody in front of you is wearing headphones. And you're looking and you're making sure they're the right color. And I had a really good joke because it was like two people when I was getting ready to get up there.
and the colors were set wrong. And so I'm getting ready to go and they set their colors right. But what I was going to do was say, OK, everyone, I want you to look for the people with the wrong color on their headphones right now because they can't hear me. And on the count of three, I want everyone just to stand up and point at them. Oh, my God.
And it was going to be something like, you know, what was the movie with Donald Sutherland, where at the end, you know, they point at the woman points at him and the aliens are all, you know, I want to have that kind of vibe going. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There we go. I was kind of going off of that feel. But unfortunately, they switched their colors to the right color just in time. Oh, my God. Joke didn't work. But anyway.
I'll hold that in my back pocket for the next time I ever do a silent rave. That would be amazing. I will say this. If you ever do a speech and you're up there and people are wearing the headphones like that, there is less laugh. because people use the laughter around them to laugh. Oh, headphones on. You don't hear other people laughing and you're self-conscious and you're not likely to laugh as much. Yeah. So you have to understand that when you give a joke.
Maybe all my jokes just bombed, but that you're going to get less of a response than you were expecting. It was definitely a weird vibe and feel. It just took a little bit to get used to it when you got up there and spoke. Got through my session and got through my slides and had 59 seconds left on the clock. Oh my gosh, that's great. I mean, it is hard sometimes when you have to. How long did you have? 30 minutes.
And you know me, it's hard for me to talk in that little bit. Yeah, I know. But I was afraid I was going to go over. I was afraid I was going to get through my slides. So I was happy I got through them all. Yeah. Well, that's good. So we talked about the definition of podcast. And there was a PDF that was released and there was a session, a keynote where they talked about the definition, really talked about the definition, long-winded talked about the definition of what it was.
And they released this PDF on the definition of podcast. And I kid you not, the PDF is over 20 pages. I mean, I told you, I like, I literally, when I was, when I clicked through and I saw that, I thought, oh, wow. Okay. It's a lot. 20 pages. Table of Contents, 11 different sections. So the sections are executive summary, forward, the business case for clarity, the origin, the business case for clarity, the origins of revolution, the shifting landscape.
listening to the data, research methodology, industry perspectives, attention and definition. Really? Attention, definition? Make it 20 pages? Okay. What we learned, the evolving perception of podcasting. And so what is a podcast, finally? And where do we go from here? And then in conclusion. And all of that from the table of contents, which is, by the way, way, way more words for a definition than my definition of what a podcast is.
Their table of contents had more words than my definition. My definition of a podcast has not changed in many, many years. And it is, quote, a podcast is audio or video content made available via RSS and listed in Apple Podcasts. That's it. I see zero reason to change that definition, nor any need for a table of content or executive summary or any of that.
Plus, plain and simple, if it is not an Apple podcast, then it is not listed in the hundreds and hundreds of podcast aggregator apps worldwide that pull from Apple's public directory API. That means you're not an Overcast and many, many other. And RSS feeds are still core to being a podcast. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. And you really should question the motives of those trying to tell you otherwise. RSS feeds mean you control your audience and distribution.
Just being in a walled garden, like YouTube with no RSS feed, means if you say or do something that gets you booted, you lose your audience. Period. Podcasts are about democratization of content. And you are not free if you do not have an RSS feed. I did get up there at Podcast Movement, and I gave my short and concise and, in my opinion, accurate definition of a podcast when I spoke to counterbalance the long-winded and confusing definition given in the keynote.
Again, a podcast is audio or video content made available via RSS and listed in Apple Podcasts. Don't like that? You can send us an email, thefeedatlipson.com, and argue your point, which I will be more than happy to go over in the next episode of The Feed in a kind and caring manner with zero snarky.
Now, listen, we do have to say what he said. Like, I literally have a screenshot of the presentation and it's not that much longer than what you said. Mind you, there is a lot of information in this PDF that is. you know, stating the case and giving a little bit of history and all kinds of stuff that way. But they basically say kind of what you say with a little bit more words around it.
which the podcast is an audio-driven, on-demand program rooted in the spoken word. Typically episodic and conversational, podcasts cover wide-ranging themes and formats. They are accessed via open RSS feeds or other distribution platforms and often supplemented by video. a little more expansive. And the video podcast, they do differentiate it, unlike your definition. Right. The screenshot of what you have was concise. The talking around the screenshot in the keynote was much longer.
Yes. And I think that that really does. So the video. But here's the thing. So, OK, so the video podcast has an episodic on demand program rooted in the spoken word where synchronized visuals meaningfully shape the experience, which I thought was kind of neat because. There are some podcasts that do have... a much more powerful visual experience when you put them on.
I've always believed that a podcast is audio or video, right? And it can be PDFs, but I don't want to go even go there right now for this. From the beginning, there have been audio and video podcasts. And yes, there's YouTube. But that's different. There's audio and video. There was Tiki Bar TV. There was Ask a Ninja. There was Chad Vader. There was others that came out that were podcasts. video or podcasts available on RSF.
And really, to me, it doesn't matter. A podcast can be audio or video. It can be a mix. Some episodes can be audio, some can be video. Some people do the hybrid mix on the RSS feed. And many key podcast platforms have supported both audio and video since the beginning. Libsyn has since day one, right? Since 2004, Libsyn supported audio and video, made it available. Podbean supports audio and video.
So I don't think you have to separate and say that there's a video podcast is a separate definition. I think you can cover it in one definition of podcast is audio or video content. And by the way, I think one of the things that I actually kind of appreciated is the shorthand of it that was in this slide that it said, quote, if it works with your eyes closed, it's a podcast.
And I kind of didn't dislike that. Although, obviously, there's audiobooks and there's this new way that I have found. Well, new since 2020, actually, because I started to do this. In 2020, during the pandemic, when I was binging everything that I could get my hands on, I started to consume a lot of streaming shows like on Netflix and, you know, things like that with my ears. So I consumed almost all 24 at the time, seasons of Law & Order SVU. When I was taking walks.
Like I had it playing in my ears, but I wasn't watching it, which is could be a little weird. But I find that my favorite TV or streaming shows and or movies. I tend to appreciate consuming with my ears with the occasional glance at the screen. when I want to catch something else. And so I tend to gravitate.
towards consuming content that I can primarily consume with my ears and that the visuals aren't as important that said i understand i can hear people freaking out over there in terms of movies and stuff there are some movies and shows that you must watch Because the subtlety of the visuals is pivotal.
to the storytelling. That's where you get all the insights. I get that. And in that case, I will actually sit down and watch them, but they go on like a very specific shelf, if you will. This is when I have the time to sit down on my couch. and focus on consuming this content versus the majority of the other content I consume on the go all the time. So I can see how that can expand, but...
disagree with the fact that if I can't watch it, and I can still listen to it, it's a podcast to me. Like I'm, whatever, I can hear this and this is just fine. So we just did 20 pages of what our podcast is. So we did. And by the way, you guys, there's going to be a link in the show notes. So please feel free to read all this stuff. on your own. I'm all for you learning all the things and what people are saying. Go check it out.
hear people's opinions. You make your own. You have a way of consuming your own content. you have a point of view, develop it on your own and follow your own instincts. Like, just make your own decisions is my big thing now. But don't make them based off of just a little bit of information. step through, hear conversations, download PDFs with lots of information.
And read what's up. And make your decisions based on that. All right. We got some new widgets from Apple Podcasts. Apple News. Quote, Apple Podcasts introduced. two new widgets to help users stay up to date with the latest episodes of their favorites and followed shows. In addition to the existing Up Next widget for Apple Podcasts, now users also have access to...
Followed Show Widget. Your listeners can create a new widget for your show when they follow it. Library Widget. Your audience can add their most used parts to the library to their home screen, specifically latest episodes saved, downloaded. You can encourage listeners to follow and create a widget for your show. Listeners can quickly access episodes from the home screen, lock screen, or today view. Learn how to set up widgets on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
The new widgets are available now with iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4. So I went and put that new widget on. So now I actually set it up. So I've got a bigger widget, one of the ones that's about the size of four icons on the first screen. But if I swipe to the right... And that pulls over now the really big widget. And now my big widget shows the most recent episode that's cued or I'm listening to plus three behind that that are up next.
So this way, it makes it easier for me to say, you know what, I don't want to listen to the one that's next. I want to listen to the one that's after the one that's next. So anyway, for me, it just made it a little bit easier consumption on that. So I played with the new widget. Thank you, Apple, for making it easier for listeners to listen and find the content they want. So episode 289, we talked about a show getting turned off on Spotify for creators and the person losing their show.
We did get a response back from Spotify on this after we had aired that episode and it wound up being about copyright issues. So here is the response from Spotify to get this out there and quote. It seems that the account was deactivated because it has reached the strike limit on copyright infringement. These strikes are specifically related to NMPA cases, which have seen significant escalation over the past couple of weeks.
If the affected party wishes to appeal, they will need to resolve the matter directly with the National Music Publishing Association, NMPA. to get the show reinstated. It's important that they reach out to NMPA directly to resolve the issue. dmca-notice at nmpa.org. Hope this helps, unquote. And it does. So thank you, Spotify, for that answer on this one. And this leads to two important reminders for all podcasters. One, do not use music that is not podcasting.
If you're not sure, don't use it. And you can Google Podsafe to see what that is. But basically, it's all the non-licensed music. Even a few seconds is not allowed. Number two, and this is an important one. Make sure your email address with your hosting company, the address you have on record with the hosting company, how they're going to contact you, is one you check regularly. It's one that works.
So when you have a copyright issue like this, you get the email about strike one and then strike two before there is a strike three. or any other issues with your account. There are many times where I've tried to reach out to a podcaster and they have an email listed with us and I get a bounce back undeliverable. So folks, just make sure your email address you have with your hosting company is a valid and working email. So something like this doesn't happen to you. Two reminders, lessons.
And I did talk to the podcaster and I explained to him the situation and it is what it is, but he, you know, you can't use music, folks. You just can't do it. Especially nowadays, it's like not great at all. All right. You've got one here from Canada. travel advisory for Canadian podcasters. Yeah, I know. So this was on Instagram, by the way. You can find some of this information, too, like on regular news links out there. I just don't have any of those. I should have really. Oh, I do.
They're at the bottom because they were shared on this post. Here is the Instagram post. And this came from the At Pod Camp Toronto and At Can Pod Awards account. Quote, important travel advisory for Canadian podcasters. If you're heading to the US for podcasting industry events, be aware that Canadian travelers have recently faced increased scrutiny at the border. Some travelers have been detained for weeks due to visa issues or denied entry for political views.
Before you travel, double check if you need a visa or additional travel authorization. Past refusal expired visas or perceived work intentions can trigger extra scrutiny or denial of entry. Delete sensitive messages or social media posts that could be misinterpreted or are critical of the administration. Carry proof of return travel and reason for visit, conference invite, hotel booking, work contract. Have a lawyer's contact info handy.
Appoint a Canadian contact who will check in on you to confirm you arrived safely. If you go silent, they should follow up. Turn off devices before crossing and disable biometrics. You can refuse a passcode, but may be required to provide face ID or fingerprints for a search. Do not sign anything without legal counsel. Request to contact a lawyer on your country's embassy. Be prepared for delays as tensions can last hours or even days.
Your Canadian contacts should be ready to raise alarms if you go missing in the system. Consider your options. If you have the flexibility, you may want to reconsider traveling to the U.S., especially if you're part of a marginalized group. There are fantastic Canadian podcasting events that won't put your safety or freedom at risk
Stay informed, stay safe and share this with a fellow Canadian podcasters. And there are sources for all of this, which I will put into the show notes as well. I believe I also have. a link from, gosh darn it, I think it's... either Wired or one of those articles where it actually... breaks down how to travel with your digital devices. Here's a very simple. If you don't have to travel with your computer overseas to any other country, you're best off not. That's one thing I've read many times.
Now, sometimes you have to travel at your computer, right? You need it. And I should point this out, too. If you are a left-leaning podcast, LGBTQ+, podcaster, there's certain countries you don't want to leave, go to. I mean, you don't want to go to Dubai. There's certain countries in Africa you don't want to go to that are Muslim-based. And if you're a conservative podcaster...
There are countries now like the UK and many in Europe, France, that you probably don't want to go to if you've got a very strong online presence. So this mess is just not for Canadian podcasters. I would say for American podcasters traveling abroad, looking at your political spectrum. You need to be careful which countries you go to, especially ones where being gay or lesbian is illegal in the country you're going to go to. You really have to be very careful there.
So I always warn people about that. That was always one of my big concerns about even listeners of podcasts, if they got tracked and you have to be careful what you listen to sometimes. Not just issues coming into the U.S., there's issues going across any border and from any country to any other country. If you don't need your laptop, highly recommend you leave it behind. Because I've heard horror stories of people's laptops getting confiscated and for unknown reasons.
Yeah, so all of the things. I wish that I, oh my gosh, you guys, if I find the article, I was sorry, I was distracted because I was trying to find, I keep things and I don't know where I put them. So I did bookmark this article. I just don't know where it went. So if I do find it, I'll put it up. If I can't, sorry, y'all, my brain. And I know I can't travel to France right now. The French government was trying to get us to take down a podcast. And I said.
And because the person insulted someone. Oh. Yeah. And they go, well, that's what they said was against French law. I'm like, well. In the email, you told me they don't even live in France and you wanted the IP address where they live. And I'm like, well, we're in the U.S. and we believe in free speech.
Unlike the French, I go, we believe in free speech here. And I go, their content is protected. I go, now, if they said anything where they promoted violence, please let me know and give me the time code. And then the guy would probably be back. Okay, thank you for the note. If we come across anything, we'll let you know. So I'm like, maybe I shouldn't travel to France.
Well, but kind of keeping on to the same type of vibe, I guess. YouTube just released this article that is titled YouTube Supports the No Fakes Act. Well, I mean, this is proposed. This is a bipartisan bill. And it's proposed by Senator Chris Coons, Democrat from Delaware, and Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Republican from Tennessee and right around the corner from my house and I drive by your house all the time. The No Fakes Act tackles the growing problem associated with unauthorized digital replicas. So AI generated content simulating a person's image or voice. that can be used to mislead or misrepresent. This can really be an issue in audio where it gets really tough to tell a real person from AI. I mean, it's getting really tough.
We need to take a look. But audio, wow, I've heard some audio that it was hard to tell. I mean, you can barely tell. And if you're driving in the car and at 65 miles an hour. and it's windy or you have, you know, it's loud, you don't have a good insulated car, it's really going to be hard to tell. So in a podcast move in evolutions, I met with a company offering to do AI ad reads in the voice of the host.
So there, AI learns a host's voice, and then you have it create the ad read that gets stitched in, and you think the host voiced it and thus endorsed it. The FTC, by the way, has been really, really clear on this. If you use AI to generate any type of ad read, you must at the beginning, not the end, but the beginning, state the following ad is using an AI-generated voice.
Again, not at the end or the middle, but at the beginning for podcasting. Because I talk when we go, oh, well, we can add something at the end. No, no. Podcasting from the FTC's perspective is people are going to listen to it on demand. So they're listening. through it linearly they're not dropping in so they want the message at the beginning because you might not make it to the end streaming by the way you have to do beginning and end
Because someone might pop in in the middle and miss the beginning because of when they come in. So if you're doing audio streaming, you have to have... Kind of, if you're doing something like this, you have to give your disclosure before and after something. letting people know that there's some sort of involvement as a sponsor. You have to say it before and after, or in this case, it's fake audio and the host didn't actually read it before and after. Podcasting is at the beginning.
Just something to think about on that. And I talked to the guy about it and we kind of went back and forth. He was like, well, okay. But the No Fakes Act is going beyond that. And because, you know, in those cases, the podcaster is, I prove it, right? I prove you to use this, right? I'm really busy. I don't have time to do the ad read. Sure, go ahead. Use this service. Use my voice. Put it in.
I don't like that, by the way. But you definitely have to disclose it. But the no fake sex goes beyond it in saying people aren't allowed to copy a person's voice without their permission and use AI to create. content and ads. That's really what this one comes down to is creating content to make it sound like you're Joe Rogan, right? Or look like you're Joe Rogan and creating content around that, creating a whole podcast around that, around his voice.
So basically, it's almost like putting IP on people's image and voice, which is needed. And FYI, there's a really good video by Renee Ritchie at the end of the article. And I also mentioned that for two reasons. One, it's really good. And two, Renee stopped by the Lipson booth at NRB. Oh, cool. See, that's the kind of person I wanted to meet.
That's what I would have wanted to do. Yeah, but that wasn't at Podcast Movement. That was at NRB. Oh, that's right. Yeah, so him and Lauria Petrucci were there at NRB and they both stopped by and said hi. NAB. Oh, sorry. NAB. Yeah, my bad. Had that on my head. NAB. Anyway, so they came by at NAB and came by the booth and said hi. We talked for a little bit. Great to see Rene. You know, he's now with Google.
So congratulations on that, by the way, Renee. And we talked about some old content that we had. He had hosted with Lipson. He wanted to see if he could get it back from some shows that he had ended. And I said, yeah, I think we still have the content. So Renee, you owe me an email on that, which ones you wanted.
But again, we'll have a link for the post from YouTube. And I'm really grateful that YouTube is getting behind this. You know, Libsyn's behind this as well. We don't, if you create content in someone else's voice. that you don't have the rights to, that is in violation of what we consider our copyright in terms of service. But I hope this bill... by Coons and Blackburn gets passed. because we do need this now with how good AI has become.
And it is getting better and better all the time. And soon you won't be able to tell on the video side if it's real or AI generated. We're within two years of most people not being able to tell. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. And, you know, I did see something on threads that came up again, which was somebody talking about almost exactly what you're talking about that happened. that it was using his image, right? The guy who was posting his image and an influencer, in quote, guest.
And it was a podcast video in quote video. Like it looked like it was a video podcast being recorded. With microphones, two people sitting across each other, you know, with it was like a vertical video for more for social. Right. And it looked like there was an interview happening between the host and his guest. And neither of that was true. They were all AI generated. The voices were theirs, meaning it wasn't them speaking, but it was AI generated voice, AI generated video.
And it was an ad. The influencer that the guy was interviewing was talking about a product and selling the product. And she didn't even say that. How about that? And I look, I saw it. And of course, you can kind of sort of see if you look at it hard, you can see that it's AI, right? If you sit there and look at it. But most of the time, people are just scrolling. Right. They're not going to look at it to such a degree that are going to go, that's not real.
Especially if you are a fan of the person that's either being interviewed or the interviewee, you would just immediately kind of like take a little glance and you would just. I don't know, agree or think that it's an endorsement. Isn't that horrible? They reached out to the company. I forgot the name of the company. And they tried to make it stop. It's wrong. Absolutely. Not great whatsoever. So I'm glad that this is happening for sure.
All right. So here's another headline. After YouTube's rise to number one, a platform podcast had Kai Chuck exits. And this is on Radio Inc. So there'll be a link in the show notes there. So they got it 50 percent right. Kai Chuck did exit, but YouTube is not number one. It really isn't. It really is Apple Podcasts, then Spotify. And from 99% of podcasters, you're lucky to get 2% from YouTube.
That said, there are a few big podcasts that do well there, but it is definitely not number one for podcast consumption. And it is sad to see Kai Chuck exit from YouTube podcasting team, which he built up. He started on the podcast team back in 2012, which I think was right about when or right after we started with the ability to push podcasts to YouTube.
So we go way back and we'll miss Kai here at Lipson. And it does not look like his position is going to be filled, as it's reported by Radio Inc. that, quote, YouTube has not named a successor as part of the transition process. Its news and civics partnership team, led by Tim Katz, will absorb the company's podcast partnerships team. So Tim Katz is now the one that's overseeing the podcast partnerships team. Interesting. Yeah. I have to go check. I don't know if I've ever talked with Tim.
But yeah, sad to see Kai go. I've talked to him a few times over the years. And, you know, he really did work hard to bring in podcasting on the YouTube side and make them available. Still, YouTube's great. for discovery and everybody should have their podcast there but it's still We released PRs per new ad deals. And I'm going to be really quick summary on this because we are running long here on this episode and we'll have links to these.
Nick Vile, we did a new deal, extended deal, and follow up on our previous deal with Nick. So we have Nick hosted with us now exclusively the next few years. Podcast Heat Network, which is a wrestling podcast, including my favorite wrestler, Jake the Snake Robert. So it was great to actually have to do the import for someone who was my favorite wrestler from back in the 80s.
I had no idea you had a favorite wrestler. That's not something I have. I do not have a favorite wrestler. Jake was my favorite. Yes, he was a heel. He was my favorite when he was a heel. I got to see him live at NASA Coliseum. It was either the summer of 85 or the summer of 86.
It was one of the two. Me and my friend Joe went to go see that. It was one of the funniest and... best nights going to an event me and yo went to that and it was just great being there at nasa coliseum the wwf at the time and um got to see jake wrestling Anyway, we also had an ad deal with 10% Happier with Dan Harris. Not to be confused with Sam Harris or Dan Carlin.
So really happy to have that show. It's a big show. So, um, which by the way, we have the others. So now we have that whole little trifecta. We have Dan Harris, Sam Harris, and Dan Carlin. Wow, look at you with all the, wow, there's a potential for issues. I already emailed to someone I messed up and got.
said Sam Harris when I meant Dan Harris. So anyway, but yes, glad to have that trifecta on board of those, you know, three, the podcast heat network and Dan Harris, 10% happy with Dan Harris and Nick Vile. The last Dan Harrison and the podcast heat network, those shows moving are moving over to us. So they're new.
I'm not going to get into details of the PR, but I will put links in the show notes for all three deals. And it's great to be working with all these shows for the next few years. Right on. And speaking of PR, I do want to read a little bit here from this one. This is a PR sent over from Daniel J. Lewis, and I'm going to read this quote. Podgagement completes migration of six years of podcast charts and rankings.
This was released on April 10th, 2025. After months of intense computing, Podgagement's six years of hourly podcast charts and rankings are now available, making Podgagement the most detailed charts and ranking provider to replace Spotify's retired chartable. Quote, we've been recording the charts and rankings every hour since 2019, says by engagement's creator, Daniel J. Lewis. It took a few months to convert and optimize our trillions of records.
So and all. But I'm thrilled to finally have this available for podcasters. Now with six years of data at their fingertips, podcasters can build strategies and track their success beyond merely download metrics. full feature suite, including tracking these global podcast charts and rankings is available in the constellation tier at $19 per month per podcast with discounts available for yearly subscriptions, nonprofits, and large numbers. So if you are looking for a replacement for Charterball,
per the tracking of your show and the different podcast charts, which is what Chartable started. This is the solution you were looking for. Thanks, Daniel, for all your work on this. And we'll have a link to podgagement in the show notes. All right. And now we're moving into your special time, Rob. Your special time. We have been meeting. Where's that promo? Where's that promo from? I know. Where's that promo? From the great marketing podcaster.
That podcaster that really cares about growing a show, where'd that promo go? I guess there's no podcasters that care about growth. Oh, my God. Send those promos to Elsie, the feed at Libsyn.com. Okay. Now let's get into the stats and get both stats for this. So this is the whole month of stats start off that we're going to start off with median and mean numbers to see how your show measures up.
or your client show. The median and mean numbers are based on all episodes released on Libsyn and Libsyn Pro in the month of February with downloads measured until the end of March. On average, each file was about 45 days old. This is, again, per all shows hosted on Lipsyn Lipsyn Pro, the median number for February was 125, which is down a smidge from the 127 in January.
The adjusted mean average right throughout the top half percent and any files with 3LS downloads adjusted mean for failure was 1120 down a little bit from January when it was 1143. 5.5% of all downloads for episodes released in February were in the 5K range or greater for downloads. This is down a smidge from January's 5.6%.
And then here are some numbers to measure against and put things in perspective. If your episodes are getting over 125 downloads after 30 days, you're better than half the show. If you're getting 500 downloads or more, you are better than 72.4% of the shows or you're in the top 27.6%. If you are getting more than 900, you are better than 80% of the shows. More than 2,600, you're better than 90%.
More than 5,600, you're better than 95% of shows. More than 1,500, you're better than 98% of shows. And more than 27,000, 15,000, I should say, right? Did I say 1,500? I meant 15,000. 15,000, you're better than 98% of the shows, and 27,000, you're better than 99% of the shows. February's numbers were, for the most part, either down a little or the same compared to January.
All right, now we're going to get into stats for geographic and user agents, and we'll do the geographic part first. This is March for downloads geographically from all sources. And the U.S. came in at 61.3%. Canada. at 5.4, UK at 5.2, Australia 3.4, Germany 2.6, Sweden 2.2, Spain 1.3, and Japan at 1.1. That's everyone over 1. Those below 1% in order for the top 20. And for March, we had Philippines and Ireland move into the top 20. I don't remember if we had Philippines.
And between March and February, those with changes greater than 0.2% were the U.S. going up from 5.94% to 61.3%. India dropping from 1.2% to 0.9 and Switzerland going down from 0.9% to 0.6%. Of course, check your stats to see how you measure up with these numbers. And then now, finally, for user agent information. And this is for March across all shows globally hosting on Libsyn and Libsyn Pro for IEB stats.
Mobile downloads were at 86.59% of all downloads going directly to a mobile device. It was down a bit from February's 86.9%. Computer downloads were then up a bit to 12.98%. And then home voice attendance plus set-top boxes held steady at 0.43% in. The iOS to Android ratio for March was 3.61 to 1, and this was up a smidge from February's 3.52 to 1 ratio. And mobile aggregator apps, not from Spotify or from Apple in March, were at 10.85% of all downloads.
And the big dog in the aggregator apps is still Apple Podcasts app and iTunes and the Apple ecosystem. Coming in at 47.6% of all downloads for March. Number two for March was Spotify, 20.7%. Then Overcast, number three at 2.8%. Number four was podcast at 1.7. And then iHeartRadio at 1.1%. And that was everyone over one. Then those, what I call in tier two, those between 1%.
under 1%, but greater than 0.3% in order were Podbean, Amazon Music, CastBox, Podcast Addict, AntennaPod, Evox, and Player FM. And then followed by those are tier threes. in order between 0.2% and 0.02%. Downcast Pandora, TuneIn Radio, PottyMo. SXM, the Android app, Fountain, Deezer, Newspaper Plus. Finally figured it out. I'll get back to that, a little story on that at the end here. Podcast Guru. Playdio, Cast, BeyondPod, Castro, RSS Radio, Podcaster, Snip.
RSBN, Real Life App Android, Air Podcatcher, Dogcatcher, Mixerbox, and Podverse. And then many, many more that come in under 0.02% of the Tier 4s and that we weren't mentioning yet. Again, those were all based on IEB numbers. Now, I mentioned Newspaper Plus for the first time. We have had this newspaper user agent showing up for a while, a long while, and I could never figure it.
And then Elsie, you asked me about it. And I'm like, I got to look it up again because Elsie's asking. I got to try to figure it out. But my phone, for some unknown reason, was not next to me where it normally is. Fine. So I went into the Apple App Store and I searched for newspaper.
And I found it. It was called Newspaper Plus. So Newspaper Plus, and I did confirm, and I got the app, and I downloaded it on my phone and on the Mac, and I tested it, and I was able to confirm with a show I have to do these testing that when you see newspaper, in your lips and stats, It is the Newspaper Plus app.
The problem is you just, when you search newspaper on the iOS, it never shows up in the search results because you're getting this local newspaper and that local newspaper's app and all these local newspaper apps all over the country and the world. So that was why it could never show up. But for some reason on the Mac OS side,
it showed up and it was like they're a fourth place i'm like wait there it is newspaper plus let me see and and it's just ios and mac os but um looks to be more ios usage than mac os so anyway finally figure that one out. I mean, nobody out there that tracks user agents. I've looked, you know, in the other directories of people that had tracked user agents and they had newspaper listed as unknown. We finally have it. So folks that are listening to this can update their user agent directories.
It was one of those ones, you know, when you have something just gnaws at you just there and you see it over and over and you're just like, I really wish I knew what that was. That was one of those ones for me. And it came in at 0.05%. So it was right about where I thought it was going to come in. All right. Now, outside of aggregator apps, there were browsers.
And Firefox and other came in at 9.7 percent. And then Chrome at 1.9 percent. Overall, all browsers combined were about 12 percent downloads in March. We really still do need to break out that Firefox on the other part of it. Hopefully we'll have that breakout sometime this year. But yeah, that is it for the user agent reports. And I know people are going.
He's so interested in newspaper. But there, you know what, there's, I know at least two or three people listening right now going, ha, that's what newspaper is, finally. So if you're one of those two or three, you're welcome. All right. Where have we been? We mentioned we were at Podcast Movement Evolutions. I was also at NAB the first week of April.
I don't have a summary to go over. I do need to do that. I did go around NAB and looked at some of the different devices and stuff that were there. And I have a couple of things to report on. So I try to go over that. I took some pictures and stuff. Try to go over that on the next episode on some of the things I saw that I thought were interesting.
And then where we're going, we have a few people from the Libsyn team that will be at the podcast show in London in May. Sadly, I won't be there in that group. And then the podcast movement is in August in Dallas. Those are the two next ones. There's a couple other shows we're looking at going to in the fall, and we'll hopefully have more information on that. And what do you have here, Elsie? Oh, my gosh.
I'm opening up my mentorship experience, the eLeague for a summer session. I usually don't do this. So this is kind of great. And it's a five week mentorship experience. It's really for seasoned podcasters, creators and podcasting professionals at a crossroads.
This is for if you've been doing this thing for a long time, you're feeling like things aren't really working, you're kind of getting burnt out and you don't know what you need to do next. This is not for beginners. This is also not like a beginner tip. You know what you're doing. You know that you do it well. You're just looking for clarity and you got to know what's going up next. Right. So like how to how to continue podcasting and or not because.
I also advise people as to or help you figure out whether or not you should just. The program is from May 12th to June 15th, and the final application deadline is May 9th. I'm going to be doing a live Ask Me Anything About It on April 21st at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. You can come in with questions and applications are open by the time this goes live. All links will be in the show notes for you to sign up for anything.
and apply. But again, this is if you're tired, if you don't know what you're doing, if you kind of want to take it up a notch, if you're just confused, it's all get out. So you'll just... move forward with me. And by the way, the feed audience gets 40% off. By the way, it is application only. You do have to apply. Not everyone that applies gets in, but if you do get in, you can use the code THEFEED40 altogether, THEFEED40, to get 40% off.
And you will be able to put that in as you, when you get into the checkout screen. But again, you have to write that code down, people, and only you all are getting that 40% off coupon. who you want. So write it down. And then once you do cash out, not everybody gets to that page though. So you have to write it down and then you'll be able to get 40% off. And by the way, folks, the solution is not hiring somebody with podcast promoter in there.
title from LinkedIn. And I have a funny story on this, Elsie. Oh, no. So I had a guy whose podcast was with us and his numbers were clearly not organic. in multiple red flags. So I told him that, and then he says, oh, I have this marketing company. So he fires that marketing company. Then he hires another company to promote his podcast.
And I said, look, this is still not legit. There's multiple red flags. Here's the issues. He goes, well, I'm going to put you in contact with the person I'm working with. what he does and the person's email address was I won't give their name but it's name redacted podcast promoter at gmail.com oh no and then they're arguing with me oh no They're arguing with me that, no, it's really organic. And they send me shots of their Facebook promotions they're running.
including the shot, like the names of like six other podcasts that they're working with. I'm like, oh, thank you very much for that. information okay you want to block that one and block that one and then i said look i go this is clearly not organic i mean they're coming in via vpn and the person like tries to argue well some people are very worried about their security so they're using vpns now a lot more
So I just finally said, I finally said to the person, I go, you're not good at your job. It's very clear. This is not organic. I go, you might want to look for another profession. Oh, no. Yeah. And then I copied the podcaster and I said, hey, to the podcaster, if you want to have a talk about this, just me and you, let me know and I can go over with you why this is all BS.
Oh my goodness gracious. But yeah, this was, it was just funny. The email address name or it was basically the name and literally it was name. Podcast Promoter at gmail.com. I'm like, are you kidding me? Oh, my God. Don't pay for those scammers. If you're going to need help, check out Elsie's links in the show notes, which she talked about for real help. Okay.
Yeah, I'm not doing this at scale, people. Again, I'm keeping it very, it's like super. Yeah, I don't do more than 20 at a time. So I'm just letting you know that's like top amount because I really. Like I'm there for you. Right. And. So yeah, yeah, no. Hey, maybe you should register Elsie Escobar, podcast promoter at Gmail. Oh, my God. No, I can't. Don't even. Because. Yeah, no, that's bad. I'll go register LC podcast promoter at you there. No, don't do that, Rob. Good Lord. Oh, my God.
Hey, if you're looking to start or switch up your podcast home, you can always use the code THEFEED for a free month with us. the feed for a free month plus with us when you sign up. If you'd like to move over, we'd love to have you here, but you know, Hey, that's a little bit of promotion for lips in there.
And finally, don't forget to send in your feedback for anything we did or did not mention on this episode, especially if you have a disagreement on the podcast name and you want a non-snarky response from me. Wink, wink. Anyway, you can record that feedback 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 the feed. All right. Well, folks, thanks so much for hanging out all the way till the end. And we will chat with you in a couple of weeks. Bye. Ciao.