WEBVTT 00:00:01.360 --> 00:00:04.350 It's Friday, the 29th of March 2024. 00:00:05.959 --> 00:00:14.375 This is the Pod News Weekly Review, live at Podcast Movement with James Cridland and Sam Sethi. 00:00:15.221 --> 00:00:18.650 I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News here in Los Angeles in California. 00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:22.530 And, strangely, I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Funds, also here in LA. 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:34.551 Strangely, yes, we're here for Podcast Movement Evolutions and it's all very exciting and you can probably hear we're just sitting in the speaker-ready room, which is all very exciting. 00:00:34.551 --> 00:00:39.030 Anyway, in the chapters today, the Pod News report card has been unveiled. 00:00:39.030 --> 00:00:41.247 When is a listener not a listener? 00:00:41.247 --> 00:00:52.673 Pocket FM, which is an India-based audio platform, has secured $103 million in funding and Hi, this is Gautam Rajanand, the CEO and founder of Hubhopper. 00:00:52.933 --> 00:01:00.451 I shall be on the show later to discuss the growth of Hubhopper podcasting in emerging markets. 00:01:00.771 --> 00:01:01.171 He will. 00:01:01.171 --> 00:01:03.362 This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout. 00:01:03.362 --> 00:01:11.674 Podcast hosting made easy with easy and powerful tools, free learning materials, remarkable customer support and a new iOS app. 00:01:12.319 --> 00:01:14.165 Live from Podcast Movement. 00:01:14.165 --> 00:01:17.593 This is the Pod News Weekly Review. 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:20.040 James. 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:21.284 Right, let's kick off. 00:01:21.284 --> 00:01:23.227 Wonderful keynote. 00:01:23.227 --> 00:01:24.831 I'm not saying that because I'm your friend. 00:01:24.831 --> 00:01:26.554 I'm saying that because it was a wonderful keynote. 00:01:26.554 --> 00:01:29.948 Quick highlights what was the highlights of the keynote? 00:01:31.159 --> 00:01:35.471 Well, the highlights of the keynote were, obviously, I was very good and very handsome and very funny. 00:01:35.471 --> 00:01:37.962 No, that wasn't the highlight at all. 00:01:37.962 --> 00:01:40.786 The highlight of the keynote, I mean really it was two. 00:01:40.786 --> 00:01:42.188 It was well, it was three things. 00:01:42.188 --> 00:01:48.195 It was looking back at the year, looking back at what podcasting has gone through, and all of that. 00:01:48.195 --> 00:01:59.653 Then having a look at the PodMuse report card, which we'll get onto in just a second, and then finally a video from Adam Curry, the podfather himself, which got a number of rounds of applause. 00:01:59.653 --> 00:02:01.085 He's really good. 00:02:01.085 --> 00:02:06.688 I'm imagining that 80% of the people there were, oh my God, it's Adam Curry, this is amazing. 00:02:06.688 --> 00:02:12.260 And 20% of the people there were who's this man Exactly? 00:02:12.260 --> 00:02:13.062 Rather worryingly. 00:02:13.062 --> 00:02:17.625 What's he talking about and what's he got to do with the whole podcasting thing? 00:02:17.625 --> 00:02:18.545 He invented it. 00:02:18.545 --> 00:02:19.847 That's what he's got to do with it. 00:02:19.847 --> 00:02:21.568 Anyway, that was really cool. 00:02:21.587 --> 00:02:23.990 The Pod News report card was really interesting. 00:02:23.990 --> 00:02:35.358 It was just having a look at whether you know some of the apps have got better, some of the directories have got better, whether people had specific issues with specific apps. 00:02:35.358 --> 00:02:43.500 Apple did pretty well again, seemingly number one in most of the results, which was good to see. 00:02:43.500 --> 00:02:50.127 Lots of people moaning about the Apple ID, though, and actually the whole thing of getting a new podcast into Apple. 00:02:50.127 --> 00:02:51.151 Yeah, it's still too new for YouTube. 00:02:51.151 --> 00:02:51.711 It's not easy. 00:02:51.711 --> 00:02:54.568 So that was really good. 00:02:54.568 --> 00:02:58.688 Lots of quite negative comments about YouTube. 00:02:58.688 --> 00:02:59.972 Imagine my joy. 00:02:59.972 --> 00:03:05.549 I'm meeting the product manager of YouTube Music at 2 o'clock this afternoon Excellent. 00:03:05.549 --> 00:03:08.568 Imagine how that's going to go down. 00:03:08.568 --> 00:03:09.491 Sneed of his security. 00:03:09.491 --> 00:03:11.605 Imagine how that's going to go down. 00:03:11.605 --> 00:03:14.848 But yeah, but all in all, a very positive thing. 00:03:14.848 --> 00:03:30.348 It's really nice to be able to take a bellwether of the industry every year, and if you want to go and take a peek, then you'll find the latest report card in the pod news uh newsletter excellent now. 00:03:30.748 --> 00:03:35.240 Um, generally, how has uh podcast movement evolution been for you this year? 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:36.081 yes, be good. 00:03:36.081 --> 00:03:41.753 It's been um much more positive than uh it's been in uh, the past. 00:03:41.753 --> 00:03:44.808 I think denver, in colorado, there was this feeling that you know um sort of deer stuck in the past. 00:03:44.808 --> 00:03:48.219 I think Denver and Colorado, there was this feeling that you know sort of deer stuck in the headlights type of thing. 00:03:48.219 --> 00:03:51.265 I think people understand what's going on with the industry now. 00:03:51.265 --> 00:03:54.634 I think people are comfortable about where the future is going. 00:03:54.634 --> 00:03:59.687 So, yeah, so from that point of view, yeah, I thought it was it's been quite positive. 00:04:01.445 --> 00:04:10.241 You've been on a stage having a nice polite conversation with other people in the industry yeah, I think my opening line was advertising is the emperor's new clothes and it doesn't work. 00:04:10.241 --> 00:04:13.110 Yeah, that went down well, didn't it? 00:04:13.110 --> 00:04:13.450 No? 00:04:13.450 --> 00:04:28.211 So, uh, me and rob walsh were on a stage together, which is with the first um, and uh, I called out fundamentally, I'm not saying advertising doesn't work, it does right, people buy advertising and I place it in ads and they're all great well done. 00:04:28.740 --> 00:04:35.153 What I'm saying is that, actually, fundamentally, the metrics and the tracking are all based on a belief system, not a known system. 00:04:35.153 --> 00:04:41.048 Like, you don't know if I listen to the ad, you don't know how long I listen to the ad, you can't measure it and you can't measure it. 00:04:41.048 --> 00:04:48.336 So, on that basis, you're just telling me that so many people listen to the whole of this podcast and please believe us that they listen to your ad. 00:04:48.336 --> 00:04:53.951 Right, and when I ask people to put a show of hands up for how many people skip past ads, fundamentally most of them did that. 00:04:53.951 --> 00:04:59.264 Yeah, so these are things that we had, but it was a lot of fun talking on stage. 00:04:59.264 --> 00:05:04.574 That I asked from Rob was why isn't Libsyn supporting the podcast in 2.0? 00:05:04.574 --> 00:05:08.480 His answer was you're all bullies and you bully us, so I won't do it. 00:05:09.420 --> 00:05:10.543 Well, there we are. 00:05:10.543 --> 00:05:15.172 Yes, Well, there we go, anyway. 00:05:15.172 --> 00:05:17.985 Good, what can you say to that? 00:05:19.321 --> 00:05:25.444 Not a lot, but we shook hands at the end and politely walked apart, but I don't think that me and Rob are going to go for a drink together. 00:05:25.444 --> 00:05:26.949 Let's put it that way no, brilliant. 00:05:26.949 --> 00:05:30.029 Now, moving on, what's this, james? 00:05:30.029 --> 00:05:32.949 Spotify is now offering video courses in the UK. 00:05:33.399 --> 00:05:34.665 Yeah, I thought that this was interesting. 00:05:34.665 --> 00:05:50.000 They are offering video courses, so if you want to learn I don't know learn how to be on a panel and not have a big argument, then you can go and then you can learn how to do that in Spotify video courses. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:52.048 It's a new idea. 00:05:52.048 --> 00:05:54.247 It's only available in the UK, which is interesting. 00:05:54.247 --> 00:06:03.487 The idea is that you can watch maybe one of the courses and then you might want to pay for the rest, so it's another income stream for Spotify. 00:06:03.487 --> 00:06:15.733 Currently working on it Looks like an interesting and good idea, and I think you have already spotted that there's an opportunity in the podcasting world as well, haven't you? 00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:23.834 Yeah, barry at Podhome and I were talking about Barry's got a number of online developer courses that he's done through RSS delivery. 00:06:23.834 --> 00:06:32.836 So medium equals courses was something that we added to test it, and it's part of phase seven of the podcast namespace anyway. 00:06:32.836 --> 00:06:35.403 Yeah, um, and so we added it and it works. 00:06:35.403 --> 00:06:45.552 And with the value for value model, barry set a value for what he wants, his own minimum for what he wants paid, so he's not doing what I'd say was podcasting. 00:06:45.552 --> 00:06:49.908 So he's saying, yeah, I want you to pay as little as this, but you can pay more. 00:06:49.908 --> 00:06:52.221 Yeah, um, and I think that's interesting. 00:06:52.221 --> 00:06:58.802 I was going to ask you a question there how is spotify charging from books and courses? 00:06:58.802 --> 00:07:02.656 Are they going through the apple pay model or they got their own model? 00:07:02.656 --> 00:07:04.244 Because I've never really bought anything? 00:07:04.283 --> 00:07:11.199 yeah, I believe at the moment that they chuck you out to their website and they then take the payment for themselves, right? 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:12.083 So therefore, it's not. 00:07:12.083 --> 00:07:17.446 You know, you don't pay the Apple tax, the Apple 30% tax, so I believe that that's how it works? 00:07:18.161 --> 00:07:22.750 Yeah, because when I looked at the audiobooks, every one of the books was included with my subscription. 00:07:28.500 --> 00:07:29.144 Yeah, you get a certain amount. 00:07:29.144 --> 00:07:34.870 I think you get 30 hours or so included in your subscription and then you pay for the additional stuff, so which you know I think makes a bunch of sense. 00:07:34.870 --> 00:07:47.966 But yeah, I mean another thing that Spotify is selling and good news for audio potentially, and Spotify have also paid more than nine billion dollars to the music industry last year, they say, which is always nice to see too. 00:07:48.766 --> 00:07:52.682 Yeah, I mean is that, although top end, how? 00:07:52.682 --> 00:07:54.365 How evenly distributed was that? 00:07:54.666 --> 00:08:03.843 Well, I mean, it'll be going to the record companies, so it's up to the record companies to do a good job of passing the money on, of course, which they may or may not do, so who knows? 00:08:04.345 --> 00:08:07.684 All right Now, James, when's a download, not a listen? 00:08:08.605 --> 00:08:19.745 Yes, this was an interesting blog post from Dan Meisner, canada's Dan Meisner, who doesn't like the word listener, and he believes that downloads are done by downloaders and listens are done by listeners. 00:08:19.745 --> 00:08:44.850 I think there's a lot of quite sloppy language in podcasting, and I think one of the things, things, one of the reasons why I'm very excited about standards and making sure that we use the same words to describe things as each other is precisely this that there's a lot of confusion out there with even things like a listener versus a download, let alone anything else. 00:08:44.850 --> 00:08:55.652 And so dan um is um, basically picking us up on some of the language that we use, and um, yeah, I think that that makes a ton of sense yeah, I read that whole report. 00:08:55.751 --> 00:09:05.106 The thing that I mean I think I knew already, but worriedly was with spotify and apple, anything over zero is considered a listener. 00:09:05.106 --> 00:09:13.654 Well, with autoplay, when it skips onto the next track, next track, like for an episode, I might have done that by mistake, but that's now registered as a listener. 00:09:13.654 --> 00:09:15.897 That's clearly not the right thing to do, right. 00:09:18.580 --> 00:09:29.365 Yeah, I mean, you know it doesn't register as a download until you listen to 60 seconds or more, but, weirdly, if you're a listener then then yes, you're absolutely right, it's, it's anybody that's listened to more than zero seconds. 00:09:29.365 --> 00:09:35.162 Um, yes, it doesn't seem to fit into the iab definition. 00:09:35.162 --> 00:09:38.871 It doesn't seem to fit into you know too much. 00:09:38.871 --> 00:09:44.365 And again, this is why I think a podcast standards group is a good idea. 00:09:44.365 --> 00:09:48.121 Um, to just firm up some of the language that we're all using. 00:09:48.121 --> 00:09:57.222 I mean, even apart from anything else, I think ACAST calls a host red ad a sponsorship, rather than a host red ad. 00:09:57.222 --> 00:10:11.528 I mean, you know, surely it makes sense for the industry as a whole to call, you know, to call something the same thing, to help advertisers, to help other people understand what's going on. 00:10:11.528 --> 00:10:15.647 So I think, just you know, yeah, aligning languages is always a good plan. 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:23.005 Well, Dad, if you're listening, I'd love to get you on to the Pod News Weekly Review to talk more about this. 00:10:23.340 --> 00:10:28.807 I'm sure he would be delighted to take part okay, uh, drink, drink. 00:10:28.847 --> 00:10:30.451 We're going to talk about ai, james. 00:10:30.630 --> 00:10:34.341 Oh, brilliant, yes, yes, um, uh, interesting. 00:10:34.341 --> 00:10:44.224 A number of different content guidelines, um, that were changed this week youtube now requiring disclosure about the use of ai in certain circumstances. 00:10:44.224 --> 00:10:46.605 So youtube's YouTube now requiring disclosure about the use of AI in certain circumstances. 00:10:46.605 --> 00:10:48.047 So YouTube's new content guidelines very interesting. 00:10:48.047 --> 00:10:57.033 They basically say you have to tell us if you're using AI to firstly, make a real person say or do something they didn't say or do. 00:10:57.033 --> 00:11:03.980 B alter footage of a real event or place, or. 00:11:03.980 --> 00:11:05.134 C generate a realistic scene that didn't actually occur. 00:11:05.134 --> 00:11:10.855 So if you're using ai to make stuff up, then you have to say so, unless it's obvious, in which case you don't. 00:11:11.717 --> 00:11:15.471 Apple podcasts also sent me an email in typical apple form. 00:11:15.471 --> 00:11:18.740 Sent me an email saying we've updated our content guidelines. 00:11:18.740 --> 00:11:20.826 Gave me no further information. 00:11:20.826 --> 00:11:22.450 So, of course, thanks apple. 00:11:22.450 --> 00:11:35.711 So I have to sit there and run a diff on the previous version of the content guidelines and the new version of the content guidelines and there's a a few bits of eu legal language in there, but the main change is again, um, ai. 00:11:35.711 --> 00:11:45.293 So if you use ai, then you have to mention that it's very unclear what they mean by use AI. 00:11:45.293 --> 00:11:52.746 We use AI for some of the descriptions potentially, and is that using AI? 00:11:52.746 --> 00:12:05.427 I don't know, but anyway, apple are asking for the use of AI to be prominently disclosed in both the audio and the metadata, and Apple also want their transcripts to be correct as well. 00:12:05.427 --> 00:12:09.350 So yeah, a bunch of AI things. 00:12:09.350 --> 00:12:11.628 I think just these companies are getting worried. 00:12:12.962 --> 00:12:20.405 This feels like covering your backside, because there's no way they're going to be tracking every podcast and listen to every episode. 00:12:20.405 --> 00:12:22.143 I agree, so I think this is. 00:12:22.143 --> 00:12:24.750 We told you that you couldn't do this. 00:12:24.750 --> 00:12:31.653 Therefore, when you get sued, we are not going to get sued, because we warned you and said that you had to mark and you forgot to mark. 00:12:31.919 --> 00:12:35.711 I agree, I agree, I think I think it's a lot of legal backing. 00:12:36.780 --> 00:12:42.808 The one conversation that I've had with someone from Apple here has been around transcripts. 00:12:43.890 --> 00:12:57.927 He, or indeed she, was saying that weirdly, some of the podcaster-generated transcripts that are being submitted to Apple are actually worse than the automated ones that Apple would actually generate for themselves. 00:12:57.927 --> 00:13:10.254 And so, firstly, they said, stop doing that, stop just generating automated transcripts that you don't actually go and check. 00:13:10.254 --> 00:13:25.697 And then, secondly, I was saying well, would it be interesting to have a tag in the podcast transcript tag to say whether or not this is completely AI, auto-generated, or to say whether a human has actually checked this? 00:13:25.697 --> 00:13:39.892 I mean, so if I go into the Buzzsprout app and change the transcript, which I can do, then that should flag to Apple that a human has actually checked this particular transcript. 00:13:39.892 --> 00:13:51.541 And maybe if no human has bothered to actually check it, then at least Apple knows that, that you know this is an automated transcript from the pod news weekly review, for example. 00:13:51.541 --> 00:14:00.648 Um, and I shall fess up now, I don't normally check the transcript for this particular show, wow yeah, wow, okay news to me, breaking news. 00:14:00.727 --> 00:14:10.386 Anyway, there we are, okay, uh, yeah, I think, uh, I think transcripts will have to get better, um, but yeah, it's a good way to flag it now. 00:14:10.386 --> 00:14:14.519 Moving on, james, this was a storage that really flummoxed me. 00:14:14.519 --> 00:14:32.669 Yes, um, I'd not heard of pocket fn particularly, and then when they came out that they'd raised a series D D, not A of 103 million dollars, not rupees, I was like, wow, who the hell is Pocket FM and why did they raise the money? 00:14:32.669 --> 00:14:33.432 Tell me more. 00:14:33.740 --> 00:14:36.067 Well tell me more about series D, not A. 00:14:36.067 --> 00:14:36.690 What does that mean? 00:14:37.019 --> 00:14:45.177 It's the fourth round of raising, so you'd have your seed round, then you'd have your series A, so the valuation is basically very low. 00:14:45.177 --> 00:14:54.991 You're probably in the five million valuation for the business and rate a million and then, as the business grows, you fundamentally are saying that we're worth more, so we're going to raise b, then c, then d. 00:14:55.541 --> 00:14:56.884 okay, that's all it is. 00:14:56.884 --> 00:14:57.726 Well, there you go. 00:14:57.726 --> 00:15:07.921 So, yes, it's um, it's an audio platform, um, it has audio books in there, it has podcasts in there, various other things as well. 00:15:07.921 --> 00:15:11.892 It's actually raised more than £196 million so far. 00:15:11.892 --> 00:15:15.668 Four rounds, yeah, yeah, which is quite a thing. 00:15:15.668 --> 00:15:23.576 Now, interestingly, the way that it works is you buy coins and then you spend coins on the content within the app. 00:15:23.576 --> 00:15:25.279 They heard you, james, on the content within the app. 00:15:25.279 --> 00:15:27.447 They heard you, james, the fairground token. 00:15:27.447 --> 00:15:30.970 Well, yes, and I'm there thinking well, that sounds interesting. 00:15:30.970 --> 00:15:35.509 Why can't we be doing that? 00:15:35.509 --> 00:15:48.051 Why can't we be, instead of talking about sats and bitcoin and all of this other stuff that quite a lot of people are quite worried about, why can't we basically turn around and say, oh OK, well, you know, it's just coins. 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:48.841 Yeah, you could. 00:15:48.841 --> 00:15:53.873 And I loved what Rohan Nayak, who's the CEO, said. 00:15:53.873 --> 00:16:07.374 Pocket FM's business model is microtransactions, not subscriptions, and what he's saying is that he's using their own coin to do what we say about value for value. 00:16:07.374 --> 00:16:10.403 Yeah, and what's nice about the way he's done it? 00:16:10.403 --> 00:16:12.869 He can set that coin value to anything he wants. 00:16:12.869 --> 00:16:16.466 Yes, yes, yes, I think that's one way of doing it. 00:16:16.466 --> 00:16:18.043 So how have they got? 00:16:18.063 --> 00:16:27.245 away with that, because Pocket FM isn't a bank right, but it kind of is a bank in this particular case, because it's an in-out purchase, like a game, right? 00:16:27.264 --> 00:16:36.672 So fundamentally they're not saying that the coin has any intrinsic value outside of their platform, Just as by a gun on one of the gaming platforms or a new car skin. 00:16:36.672 --> 00:16:41.275 Yeah, so fundamentally there is no real value to the coin. 00:16:41.275 --> 00:16:47.081 Okay, so it can do that that makes sense. 00:16:47.101 --> 00:16:50.732 Yes, so it's because you can't turn a coin back into money, no right, which, of course, with sats you can't. 00:16:51.455 --> 00:16:53.763 So it's a very good way of doing it. 00:16:53.763 --> 00:16:54.104 I am. 00:16:54.104 --> 00:16:57.659 I met another uh platform that's starting to do that, called she economy. 00:16:57.659 --> 00:17:10.846 Um, I know who's been doing that, so I think what was really interesting to me, though, was in the pitch deck they gave for investors, they've talked about pay as you go right and microtransactions. 00:17:10.846 --> 00:17:18.267 So clearly the investors understood the model of V4V and understood that that has long-term potential value. 00:17:18.267 --> 00:17:20.667 Otherwise, you're not raising the 103 million. 00:17:20.667 --> 00:17:21.482 I don't care who. 00:17:21.482 --> 00:17:22.386 You are right, yeah. 00:17:22.386 --> 00:17:34.886 So what really pleases me about this deal is more that it actually rubber stamps the model of microtransactions more than it does SaaS right, so, yeah, really good deal. 00:17:35.220 --> 00:17:35.780 No interesting. 00:17:35.780 --> 00:17:46.915 And I wonder how much of that is because it's an Indian company, because it's based in India, because it's because, you know, indian people are paid in slightly different ways and all of that. 00:17:46.915 --> 00:17:56.313 I wonder whether that particularly lends itself to that it wasn't the only Indian company who you have ended up talking with. 00:17:56.539 --> 00:17:59.128 Yeah, I didn't realise this was India Week, but it must have been. 00:18:01.902 --> 00:18:02.968 Who did you end up talking with? 00:18:04.222 --> 00:18:11.691 Well, I often term myself a coconut brown on the outside, white on the inside because I'm very culturally unaware of what's going on in India. 00:18:11.691 --> 00:18:30.634 Yeah, and so I picked up the phone to Gautam Anand, who's the CEO of Hubhopper, one of the big platforms for hosting out in India, and I wanted to know more about Hubhopper, but also I wanted to know more about what's going on in the Indian subcontinent in terms of what mobile devices, what genre of podcasts they listen to. 00:18:30.634 --> 00:18:34.069 So, yeah, I asked Gautam tell me more about Hubhopper. 00:18:34.619 --> 00:18:36.627 Started about eight and a half years ago. 00:18:36.627 --> 00:18:40.790 I was actually on a very different career trajectory at the time. 00:18:40.790 --> 00:18:42.847 I was working at Barclays. 00:18:42.847 --> 00:18:57.500 I essentially thought I wanted to be a banker all my life, and this was predominantly because my entire family was from that background, and I found myself choosing possibly the most boring job within the corporate bank that I was in. 00:18:57.500 --> 00:19:04.060 As I mentioned, I was at Barclays, so I was a senior risk and research analyst straight out of college. 00:19:05.002 --> 00:19:11.213 As you can imagine, with that kind of role, I had to spend a large amount of time on my own copious amounts of time on my own. 00:19:11.213 --> 00:19:23.276 Adding insult to injury, what Barclays had done is they had put firewalls across most platforms that one would normally visit to bide their time and make their workday slightly more fun. 00:19:23.276 --> 00:19:33.587 So I couldn't visit all of my usual suspect platforms and serendipitously happened upon podcasts and I'd never consumed a podcast before. 00:19:33.587 --> 00:19:41.593 And when I say I'd never consumed a podcast before, I think I can speak for the entire nation at that point in time in the verbiage of podcasts. 00:19:41.593 --> 00:19:54.534 So I started to actually listen to podcasts as a way to upskill myself at work and, you know, just learn things on the go, as one usually does, and very quickly. 00:19:54.534 --> 00:20:04.368 However, I started to fall down this Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole, where I started to replace all of my consumption habits with podcast consumption. 00:20:04.368 --> 00:20:05.921 I didn't even know when it was happening. 00:20:05.921 --> 00:20:07.345 It was very subconscious for me. 00:20:07.345 --> 00:20:14.388 So I started to ditch the newspaper in the morning and I was listening to news related podcasts on my way to work. 00:20:14.388 --> 00:20:17.523 On my way back from work, I was listening to hobbyist content. 00:20:17.523 --> 00:20:26.952 While at work, I was listening to, you know, self-development, self-growth content, and I was listening to a large amount of true crime and horror content in the evening. 00:20:26.952 --> 00:20:33.288 I'm also somebody that doesn't like sleeping in silence, so I found podcast to also be a great aid for that. 00:20:33.288 --> 00:20:47.109 So I started to sleep with the speakers in my pillow, which is not necessarily the most advisable thing to do, and, especially if you're married, I can tell you, don't tell your wife that you have this weird quirk until you're married to them. 00:20:47.109 --> 00:20:49.075 So I still do that. 00:20:49.075 --> 00:20:51.800 Till today, 14 hours a day, I listen to podcasts. 00:20:52.201 --> 00:21:10.961 It was basically during this journey of mine, this consumption journey of mine, that a few thoughts and questions started to gnaw on the back of my mind, and I wasn't able to shake them off at the time this was about 2015-16, podcasting was already a subculture in the world, but you cannot imagine what a subculture it was in India. 00:21:10.961 --> 00:21:12.944 It was not even a subculture in India. 00:21:12.944 --> 00:21:19.124 It didn't exist, and I saw that there were a large amount of opportunities and headrooms for this space. 00:21:19.124 --> 00:21:36.151 So it was, of course, aiding with multitasking, which, with people's dwindling attention spans on the one side and people's insatiable appetite for content increasing on the other side, it felt like a no-brainer that people are going to turn to audio in the days to come. 00:21:36.151 --> 00:21:38.768 The second thing was that it was passive. 00:21:38.768 --> 00:21:40.227 It consumed less bandwidth. 00:21:40.227 --> 00:21:50.920 And then, when I started to go a little bit deeper luckily my boss didn't know this at the time, but I started to spend a large amount of my research time where I was supposed to be researching other organizations and other industries. 00:21:50.920 --> 00:21:53.849 I was researching the podcasting industry at work. 00:21:53.849 --> 00:21:59.647 Good my thing, good use of time. 00:21:59.808 --> 00:22:14.487 From the standpoint of a total addressable market, the podcast market had very strong potential for growth because it had lower barriers of entry in terms of literacy, both on the creator side and the consumer side. 00:22:14.487 --> 00:22:24.090 It had lower barriers in terms of language, both on the creator side and on the consumer side, and it was a cheaper medium to create in as well as to consume in. 00:22:24.090 --> 00:22:27.652 But yet there was a discord between the fact that all of this opportunity existed and it was a cheaper medium to create in as well as to consume in. 00:22:27.652 --> 00:22:35.829 But yet there was a discord between the fact that all of this opportunity existed and it felt all rosy and amazing on one side, but then on the other side you just weren't seeing this growth taking place at all. 00:22:36.740 --> 00:22:45.247 So I wanted to actually understand this a little bit more and by this point I think I reached a slightly unhealthy level of obsession with the medium. 00:22:45.247 --> 00:22:47.250 So I spoke with my family. 00:22:47.250 --> 00:22:52.763 They were incredibly supportive and I left Barclays and I wouldn't even say to set up Hubbopper. 00:22:52.763 --> 00:22:54.769 First year was just exploratory. 00:22:54.769 --> 00:23:08.132 I was just trying to understand the space so left Barclays and set up shop at a coffee shop initially where I created a bunch of alias email accounts so that it looked as though I had a larger team than I had. 00:23:08.132 --> 00:23:10.468 So I had various different names. 00:23:11.319 --> 00:23:31.278 As they say, got them, fake it until you make it, fake it until you make it hours speaking to different people across the industry, across the radio industry, across media conglomerates, across individual creators, across potential listeners, across. 00:23:31.278 --> 00:23:45.840 I would actually sit in ubers this was a really fun experiment where in india you would actually have non-music audio content interspersed with music content on the radio, because there are not many radio channels that are there. 00:23:45.840 --> 00:24:04.821 So you're actually seeing, you know uber drivers that were listening to what you would call podcast content and then I would ask them whether they've ever heard the nomenclature podcast and none of them had and they essentially would shrug me off and, you know, sort of pawn me off as somebody that was wasting their time. 00:24:04.821 --> 00:24:17.103 And even when I spoke to people about podcasts, there was always a belief system that people had that it was content that was only meant for the West and it was essentially content that was not necessarily relatable. 00:24:17.103 --> 00:24:25.867 And I think a large amount of this is also because of how the name of podcasting came about, which helped the Western market in adoption, but not necessarily the Eastern market. 00:24:25.867 --> 00:24:41.711 So with the Western market you saw the word podcast come from the word of iPod and broadcast coming together and it was an amazing marketing stunt from well, apple didn't do it consciously, but essentially it benefited Apple very greatly. 00:24:42.251 --> 00:25:19.582 But from the rest of the world that were more Android focused, they started to look at the word podcast and they started to associate it with people that had Apple devices, which came from a very specific demographic of society, so they didn't feel that it was necessarily content that was meant for them, while at the same time you were looking at this entire populace also being very addicted to storytelling related content, listening to religious narratives 24 hours on loop, so they had big patterns of consumption in non-music audio content but weren't necessarily pinning that along with the word podcast. 00:25:19.582 --> 00:25:25.608 So there was a little bit of confusion with the word and the terminology on one side, with understanding what the space was about. 00:25:25.608 --> 00:25:51.246 And then, finally, I think the biggest problem statement that we found was when we went and started to speak to creators or people that wanted to create in the audio space and just I was appalled and shocked to see how fractured and fragmented the creation process was, because, at least from the creator's perspective, at that point in in 2015, they thought they needed to go to a studio or they needed to purchase equipment at home, which cost them money. 00:25:51.246 --> 00:25:59.511 Then they needed to go to audacity, which would take them a large amount of time or they would give the work to a post-production expert, would cost them money. 00:25:59.511 --> 00:26:02.715 Then they would need to find something called a hosting platform. 00:26:02.715 --> 00:26:06.720 They didn't know what a hosting platform was which would create a syndicated feed for they didn't know what a hosting platform was which would create a syndicated feed for them. 00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:08.426 They didn't know what a syndicated feed was. 00:26:08.426 --> 00:26:21.133 Then they need to take that syndicated feed and manually go and deposit it into consumption site platforms and, ironically, all of the consumption site platforms at this time, because this was before music platforms had adopted podcasts. 00:26:21.133 --> 00:26:26.332 These were only platforms like your Stitcher, tune in cast box, playerfm, etc. 00:26:26.332 --> 00:26:37.502 So their podcast would launch in these platforms but then there would be no uptick for their shows, so they'd get no consumption, they'd get no analytics, they couldn't understand the analytics and they couldn't go to any brands. 00:26:37.502 --> 00:26:51.104 So all of these things sort of taken into you know, sort of consideration together, it was no surprise to me that, while there was opportunity in this space, the space wasn't growing because the supply side was choked and the supply side was very fragmented. 00:26:51.846 --> 00:27:33.393 So, after bouncing around a little bit, what we started to do was we started to try and solve this problem at its core in trying to make the creation process a lot more seamless and try to make the process a little bit more horizontal, so that somebody that comes to our platform should be able to if not to 100 degree, at least to an 80 degree perform all of the requirements in their podcast journey under one roof itself, whether that's hosting, whether that's recording, whether that's distributing, whether that's editing, whether that's analytics, whether that's getting their embedded players or their micro sites or creating private podcasts, whatever have you, and then we'd aid in a system along that and they could also listen on the platform. 00:27:33.835 --> 00:27:47.921 So that's the thesis through which we were trying to build this, trying to limit the fragmentation, and very luckily, the market picked up on that endeavor and, as one often states, the market often tells you what it needs. 00:27:48.542 --> 00:27:58.468 So we understood another thing that the market needed in a very dire way, which is that the creators needed distribution to platforms that were pertinent to them. 00:27:58.468 --> 00:28:06.031 So we couldn't wait for platforms to go live with podcasts, because that would be a very long journey for us. 00:28:06.031 --> 00:28:14.240 So instead we started actually going to platforms that already had content but not podcast content, and started to take them live with podcasts. 00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:27.371 So if you're looking at companies today like streaming giants, like Ghana or Wink MX Player or Daily Hunt, et cetera, et cetera, we took about 15 platforms live with podcasts that never had them before. 00:28:27.371 --> 00:28:44.950 So, from the creator's perspective, they were now being able to host, record, edit, distribute, get analytics, create marketing collateral all of that but also, more importantly, they were landing up in front of audiences that were pertinent to them, and this was very important from emerging market context. 00:28:44.950 --> 00:28:48.807 Yeah, so that's pretty much where we're at and it's been a wonderful journey thus far, man. 00:28:49.661 --> 00:28:50.726 It's a great journey. 00:28:50.726 --> 00:28:52.105 Some questions in my head. 00:28:52.105 --> 00:28:57.667 I love the fact that you know podcasting because of the association to the iPhone. 00:28:57.667 --> 00:29:02.990 You were telling me when we're offline that I think it's 98% adoption of Android in India. 00:29:02.990 --> 00:29:05.398 Yeah, and there's a very specific that I think it's 98% adoption of Android in India. 00:29:05.420 --> 00:29:20.689 Yeah, and there's a very specific connotation to Apple devices in India, which is that Apple devices are meant for tier one city folk that are very fortunate, that come from a large amount of privilege, etc. 00:29:20.689 --> 00:29:26.692 And Android phones are essentially used by well 98% of everybody else. 00:29:27.559 --> 00:29:36.405 So there's also another operating system out in India called KaiOS, and I think there's a very popular platform called PodLP out there. 00:29:37.729 --> 00:29:38.289 Yes, there is. 00:29:38.289 --> 00:29:43.923 So we've spoken with the folks at PodLP and KaiOS is basically. 00:29:43.923 --> 00:29:49.388 It's been built on the kernel of Android itself and it's been purchased by Jio. 00:29:49.388 --> 00:29:59.638 So that is a very interesting play, because there's an entire world of phones called feature phones, which is somewhere. 00:29:59.638 --> 00:30:21.231 If you think about the phones that we used to have back in the day, which are the Nokia phones that we all used to carry around, and smartphones, and imagine if both of these had a baby, that's a feature phone, so they have the ability to have basic applications on them, and KaiOS is basically a very dumbed down version of Android and it's growing very rapidly. 00:30:21.271 --> 00:30:38.178 Yes, so, in terms of the platform itself, you said it started off with I would have guessed mainly English speaking podcasts, but since you've been going about eight years, what is the predominant language? 00:30:38.178 --> 00:30:48.295 Has it moved to Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati I mean, there's so many dialects in the Southeast Asian community or is it predominantly still English? 00:30:48.476 --> 00:30:48.576 No. 00:30:48.576 --> 00:31:26.464 So actually, if you want to look at the top languages, we have people making content in 22 languages currently on on hubbub, which is quite cool, but the top languages are hindi, english, tamil, marathi, spanish because we also do have creators from other parts of the world bengali, malayalam, which is what folks speak in predominantly places like bangalore, and, and then punjabi would sort of be at the bottom end of this yeah, and I would imagine then, in terms of saturation, india would have most podcasters. 00:31:26.585 --> 00:31:31.816 Pakistan, bangladesh, sri lanka where would they rank against India? 00:31:40.109 --> 00:31:41.798 Oh, I would say quite a way behind. 00:31:41.798 --> 00:31:50.314 Like, even if you're looking at our creator breakup today, you will see creators from Pakistan, bangladesh, sri Lanka, but our second highest creator cohort comes from the States, after India, and I have a thesis on this. 00:31:50.314 --> 00:31:59.806 I think because when we look at our distribution, we distribute podcasters to a slew of platforms which they otherwise don't necessarily get access to. 00:31:59.806 --> 00:32:15.347 I think probably creators that are either looking to reach emerging market audiences or diaspora that's sitting in these markets does find HubOper appealing because they want to reach audiences outside of the usual suspects, where we also distribute YouTube. 00:32:16.490 --> 00:32:21.026 Right, and so in terms of one question I'd like to ask you. 00:32:21.026 --> 00:32:23.811 We've talked about Android phones and feature phones. 00:32:23.811 --> 00:32:32.280 One of the things in the West is we have generally very fast broadband, so podcast sizes tend to be quite large. 00:32:32.280 --> 00:32:40.259 We don't really consider having small podcasts in terms of, you know, downgraded audio so that the file size is small. 00:32:40.259 --> 00:32:50.188 Is that file size very critical in India because the phones and the cost of broadband and access is expensive? 00:32:52.032 --> 00:32:53.916 There are two points that I'd actually add here. 00:32:53.916 --> 00:32:56.431 That's a really good question because it's a layered question. 00:32:56.431 --> 00:33:08.440 On the one side, so we distribute about north of what 220,000 odd podcast episodes and the average episode length is 16 minutes. 00:33:08.440 --> 00:33:11.351 So it's much shorter than what you'd see in the West. 00:33:11.351 --> 00:33:14.426 And now there are two reasons for this. 00:33:14.426 --> 00:33:23.913 One is because most people on average will have started their consumption journey when they were children by consuming on the radio. 00:33:24.493 --> 00:33:34.999 And in radio, as I mentioned, consumption was very interspersed between music and non-music, because there are only about 12 radio channels and they're all fighting for the same amount of time. 00:33:35.420 --> 00:33:43.118 So people's consumption habits weren't necessarily in consuming hour-long conversational radio, which you see in the west. 00:33:43.118 --> 00:33:52.750 Over here, people are consuming very short, you know, bursts of content, and that's kind of, I believe, translated when people have moved from offline to online. 00:33:52.750 --> 00:34:26.056 However, when you look at broadband as another factor, I actually believe India is an outlier here, because India is the cheapest internet on earth, number one, number two it's actually shockingly better in terms of quality than one would imagine in terms of the breadth and what we've seen over the last four or five years, while podcasting has been growing, the availability of 4G and 5G capability across India is phenomenal, even across tier two, tier three cities. 00:34:26.056 --> 00:34:35.871 But yes, I will say that because the general length of an episode is shorter, automatically the file size is shorter, and because the file size is shorter, it's not necessarily that much of a problem. 00:34:35.871 --> 00:34:40.893 So I think the consumption habit has automatically solved this problem statement to quite a large degree. 00:34:42.646 --> 00:34:47.137 You talked about short podcasts, but that to me sounds very odd. 00:34:47.137 --> 00:34:56.057 I understood why, from you know radio consumption, but India's super famous for Bollywood and three four-hour films. 00:34:56.057 --> 00:35:06.135 So it seems very odd that you've got, you know, a nation that's used to consuming long-form content that then goes to short-form content for audio. 00:35:07.646 --> 00:35:09.733 That's actually such a good point that you bring up. 00:35:09.733 --> 00:35:15.969 I think it's because when people consumed audio content, they were used to consuming it in a shorter format. 00:35:15.969 --> 00:35:27.599 But when people were consuming immersive, movie based content, it was meant to be a family experience that everybody went to the cinema hall together and then they enjoyed this hyper reality kind of experience with Bollywood. 00:35:27.599 --> 00:35:35.871 So they're considered very different in that way, in terms of what the consumption experience itself needs to give folks. 00:35:35.871 --> 00:35:42.469 And you also see people, I'd say, in India, consuming in a sort of staggered format. 00:35:42.469 --> 00:35:49.067 So they'll consume a little bit, then they'll stop, then they'll come back to the same episode, then they'll consume a little bit again, then they'll stop, then they'll come back again. 00:35:49.067 --> 00:35:52.936 So that's, I would say, one of the reasons why you'd probably be seeing this. 00:35:53.456 --> 00:35:55.882 So what are the biggest podcasts in India, then? 00:35:55.882 --> 00:35:56.945 What's number one? 00:35:56.945 --> 00:35:58.753 What's the genres that are number one? 00:35:58.753 --> 00:36:00.800 Is there a standout podcast? 00:36:00.800 --> 00:36:02.606 You know the Joe Rogan of India. 00:36:04.789 --> 00:36:09.018 So, if I was to ask you this question, what do you think it is? 00:36:09.018 --> 00:36:13.692 Because I think that'll be a fun game in terms of consumption first, and then I can tell you. 00:36:13.711 --> 00:36:27.471 In terms of creation, what do you think is the highest I would say spiritual and meditation type podcasting, and then maybe bollywood related gossip celebrity podcasting. 00:36:27.471 --> 00:36:29.375 Um, I'm not sure. 00:36:29.375 --> 00:36:31.820 As I said, I'm the original coconut. 00:36:31.820 --> 00:36:33.885 I'm brown on the outside but white on the inside. 00:36:33.885 --> 00:36:47.215 I have a very poor knowledge of india and what what culturally is being influenced there I think you're underplaying yourself because your first initial thought was correct. 00:36:47.456 --> 00:36:55.206 The top by a long mile in terms of consumption there is I mean it is ridiculous is religion and spirituality. 00:36:55.206 --> 00:37:05.056 And, anecdotally, everybody knows that christian sermon podcasts still are among the largest in terms of the number of podcasts being churned out in the world. 00:37:05.056 --> 00:37:16.887 But in terms of consumption, just the sheer difference between this category and the rest is, I mean, it's earth and moon level difference. 00:37:16.887 --> 00:37:19.152 And I'll give you an example as to why. 00:37:19.152 --> 00:37:19.512 So. 00:37:19.512 --> 00:37:36.619 Imagine a user base that is coming to platforms to consume one podcast which only has one episode, and they'll come and consume that same episode, which is called Hanuman Chalisa, and they'll listen to that same episode for 12 hours. 00:37:36.619 --> 00:37:44.510 And they'll come back the next day and they listen to the same episode again for 12 hours without the expectation of a new episode ever coming again. 00:37:44.510 --> 00:37:46.454 It's such weird. 00:37:46.454 --> 00:37:58.445 I would say it's such an outlier behavior pattern that exists Because these people never want a new season, they never want a new episode, they're very happy with that one episode and that one episode will last them forever. 00:37:58.445 --> 00:38:03.338 So you're looking at religion and spirituality essentially leading the fray here. 00:38:03.826 --> 00:38:15.353 Post that comes education and self-development, because a lot of people still associate podcasts directly with education and self-development and self-growth, so they're trying to upskill themselves with podcasts. 00:38:15.353 --> 00:38:24.719 Then comes horror and true crime, because I think across the world that's probably a genre that definitely does really well. 00:38:24.719 --> 00:38:35.005 However, I recently did hear that in Indonesia is one of the only markets on earth in which the true crime genre does not do well at all. 00:38:35.005 --> 00:38:38.900 I don't know whether this is factual or not, but I heard this anecdotally. 00:38:38.900 --> 00:38:45.461 After horror comes romance and you can call it light erotica, which is pretty much what does well. 00:38:45.983 --> 00:38:49.931 Bollywood is very low on this list in terms of consumption. 00:38:49.931 --> 00:38:51.653 Yeah, it's very low on this list. 00:38:51.653 --> 00:39:04.914 On the creator side, you will see storytelling content being created the most, interview-based content being created the most, then self-development, self-growth content, along with business content. 00:39:04.914 --> 00:39:10.998 Then you see the arts, and then comes religion and spirituality in terms of creators creating this content. 00:39:10.998 --> 00:39:28.487 So if I was to prescriptively ever tell anybody which genre should they create and if they just wanted to have a successful podcast in terms of downloads, I would say go with religion and spirituality, because not too many people are creating it, but if you're creating in it, you're automatically going to be a bestseller. 00:39:28.989 --> 00:39:36.710 Now one of the trends we're seeing in the West certainly is celebrities getting into podcasting. 00:39:36.710 --> 00:39:39.094 We go from Meghan Markle. 00:39:39.094 --> 00:39:44.367 We got you know TV actors and actresses doing very well within the genre. 00:39:44.367 --> 00:39:49.766 Some people say that the celebrity driven podcast is becoming a bit passe. 00:39:49.766 --> 00:39:50.268 You know it's. 00:39:50.268 --> 00:39:51.932 Oh no, you've got a podcast. 00:39:51.932 --> 00:39:53.306 Have you're an actor or an actress? 00:39:53.306 --> 00:39:54.748 Your agents asked you to do one. 00:39:54.748 --> 00:40:04.414 But um, again, looking at the indian or the south asian, disparate is the bollywood actor and actresses, who've got massive markets. 00:40:04.414 --> 00:40:07.907 Are they trying to get into podcasting as well? 00:40:09.190 --> 00:40:12.215 yes, they are, but I would not say that they're leading the fray. 00:40:12.215 --> 00:40:24.128 So, again, if you look at the West, my favorite podcasters are folks like Aaron Mankey, or shows like Casefile or Bedtime Stories or how I Built this, etc. 00:40:24.128 --> 00:40:38.034 And I think a podcast, in terms of its longevity, is going to be more successful and much more impactful if the person who is creating that show is known because of the podcast itself. 00:40:38.034 --> 00:40:47.235 The brand of that person is not larger than the podcast and they came into the world of prominence because of the podcast. 00:40:47.235 --> 00:40:48.757 I said now look at aaron mankey. 00:40:48.757 --> 00:40:56.733 He's gone and created books, he's written books, he's created audiobooks, he's got an amazing deal with Amazon. 00:40:56.733 --> 00:41:04.286 You've got folks like Mr Ball and similar scenarios, and we've actually got data because we've got celebrities who have created their podcasts via Hubbopper. 00:41:05.532 --> 00:41:10.108 I don't know whether I should be saying this, but because I'm speaking at a slightly more macro level, I think I can say it. 00:41:10.108 --> 00:41:10.568 It's fair. 00:41:10.568 --> 00:41:32.195 You'll see a massive consumption spike for the first two, three episodes, which will peter out, yeah, and as opposed to, I believe, a much more healthy graph, which would basically be like a, not a U-shaped graph, but a graph that's, you know, sort of growing incrementally but growing steadily, month on month on quarter, year on year. 00:41:32.195 --> 00:41:40.873 I generally think that those podcasters are even from a brand's perspective as well as from an audience's perspective it's more worth your while and more worth your money. 00:41:40.873 --> 00:41:45.929 I hope I'm not Something that's very differing from your opinion on this. 00:41:45.969 --> 00:41:51.385 No, no, there are a lot of celebrities who get into it, who aren't very good and who peter off. 00:41:51.385 --> 00:41:58.025 I mean Sarah Ferguson, the princess, the Duchess Sarah Ferguson, who was married to Prince Andrew. 00:41:58.025 --> 00:42:01.307 At one time she produced a podcast, two or three episodes in. 00:42:01.307 --> 00:42:01.829 It was awful. 00:42:01.829 --> 00:42:08.943 I don't think Meghan Markle has done very well either, but you know there are other celebrities who do well and build an audience over time. 00:42:08.943 --> 00:42:12.289 The one thing you didn't mention was cricket. 00:42:12.289 --> 00:42:20.041 I'm amazed as a podcast genre, I would have thought that would carry a lot of weight within the South Asian community. 00:42:21.583 --> 00:42:34.717 You know, I won't lie in the fact that I'm amazed at times as well, and I wish I had a very quick and sharp retort to tell you why that was, because I personally do not understand why that's not the case. 00:42:34.717 --> 00:42:40.074 I think maybe it's because of a lack of really well-created shows within the cricket genre. 00:42:40.074 --> 00:42:47.853 We have, I would say, about 20 odd shows I'm just giving you a rough estimate that have been created on hubbub. 00:42:47.853 --> 00:42:53.958 They've had good uptake, but I don't think that there are any call-out shows like, like. 00:42:53.958 --> 00:43:01.380 If you throw certain categories at me right now, I'll be able to tell you the call-out shows that exist within this subcontinent. 00:43:02.061 --> 00:43:15.420 But if you throw cricket at me, I can probably share four or five names, and some of these names are, let's say, driven predominantly because they were originals by platforms. 00:43:15.420 --> 00:43:20.092 So they're I'm saying podcasts and air quotes, because they don't have an RSS feed. 00:43:20.092 --> 00:43:27.028 So essentially, they're being powered and they're being pushed into the world very aggressively because of those platforms itself. 00:43:27.028 --> 00:43:41.911 But we would never see those numbers because either platform X or platform Y or platform Z is purchasing this content and is pushing this content out like a Michelle Obama type podcast in which it's marketing dollars, that is, in the growth of the podcast. 00:43:43.079 --> 00:43:51.646 So in terms of platforms, you know, obviously here in the West we see Apple, spotify and now YouTube becoming the dominant players. 00:43:51.646 --> 00:43:53.927 Is that mirrored in India as well? 00:43:56.088 --> 00:44:10.358 No, they would not be in your top five At least, I mean, I can speak for the 200 or 1000 episodes that go out from HubHopUp. 00:44:10.358 --> 00:44:21.132 You'd see in Indian platforms, certain Indian platforms that do very well, in no specific order, platforms like GanaWink, hungama. 00:44:21.132 --> 00:44:27.047 You know these platforms actually do incredible numbers and definitely not platforms to miss. 00:44:27.047 --> 00:44:35.577 If you're a podcaster, you should definitely think about these platforms because they have less competition on them, they have less creators on them and they have a large amount of users. 00:44:35.577 --> 00:44:40.692 So it's a nice hotbed where you've got less supply and nice healthy amounts of demand. 00:44:42.702 --> 00:44:55.153 Now, one thing I read in podcast daily was the government's cracking down on Google Play Store, much like the EU crackdown on Apple's store, with the fees that they're charging. 00:44:55.153 --> 00:45:05.092 Do you think that Google is going to reduce its fees or do what Apple's done, which is dig its heels in and do the minimum that it has to do in order to comply? 00:45:06.621 --> 00:45:10.083 I think they will, the minimum that it has to do in order to comply. 00:45:10.083 --> 00:45:11.527 I think they will and, again, I can't say for certain. 00:45:11.527 --> 00:45:25.023 But I'm very fortunate to be part of a few different groups on within the startup ecosystem which have, I mean, if you are to state, the top 100 entrepreneurs of the country who drive change at a government level. 00:45:25.023 --> 00:45:28.251 These groups essentially have all of those folks. 00:45:28.251 --> 00:45:37.331 So I am very fortunate to be a passive person within these groups that is able to read this information prior to them coming out in the news. 00:45:37.331 --> 00:46:02.684 So I read the discussion that they have, I read what they're thinking about as a plan of action to go to the government with, and then, three hours later, I'll see an article about what was discussed on that group and it's completely surreal to see and they're a very strong community of folks Touchwood, touchwood for every entrepreneur in this ecosystem and they're all together driving change. 00:46:02.684 --> 00:46:07.780 Each of them is very powerful in their own right and when they come together they're an iron fist. 00:46:08.362 --> 00:46:12.846 I cannot state in any scenario that I am a strong contributor in this. 00:46:12.846 --> 00:46:23.295 I am passive on this Rolodex of you know Goliaths, but that being said, I definitely believe Google will have to make certain changes they already have. 00:46:23.295 --> 00:46:26.197 In fact, they've had to backtrack a little bit. 00:46:26.197 --> 00:46:41.211 So they removed many of the major applications, I think three weeks ago, from the google play store, and there was a massive uproar because the folks that you're removing these applications from it's not because of any. 00:46:41.211 --> 00:46:53.402 I'm not saying that they're not to be trifled with for any other reason other than the fact that they built the startup ecosystem and you're talking about the startup ecosystem in one of the most active startup ecosystems on earth today, which is India. 00:46:54.123 --> 00:47:01.086