Buzzsprout's new Android app; Zombie Google Podcasts and PodToo

In this episode, hosts James Cridland and Sam Sethi discuss Buzzsprout's new Android app, the New York Times putting podcasts behind a paywall, the fate of Google Podcasts, and YouTube adding a podcasts page. They also interview Alban Brooke from Buzzsprout about the company's podcast hosting platform and new shows, and Russell Harrower from PodToo. Additionally, the hosts cover events in the podcasting world, including Podcast Movement and Podcast Asia, as well as discuss topics like podcast transcription, monetization, and the growing Podcasting 2.0 community. Throughout the conversation, the hosts provide insights, analysis, and commentary on the evolving podcast landscape.

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Interviews in full in our Podnews Extra podcast.

Transcript

James Cridland: 0:00

It's Friday, the 28th of June 2024.

Speaker 2: 0:04

The last word in podcasting news. This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi.

James Cridland: 0:13

I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True.

Sam Sethi: 0:18

Fans.

James Cridland: 0:18

In the chapters. Today, buzzsprout launches an app on Android. Why has the New York Times put its podcast behind a paywall? Google Podcasts is it finally dead? Youtube adds a your Podcasts page Plus.

Russell Harrower: 0:33

Hi, I'm Russell Harrow, the founder of Pod2, and I'll be on later to talk about turning podcasts into radio.

Alban Brooke: 0:40

And I'm Albin Brooke, head of marketing at Buzzsprout, and I'll be on later to talk about Buzzsprout Weekly and the new Android app we just launched.

James Cridland: 0:47

They will. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout. Podcast Hosting made easy with easy and powerful tools, free learning materials and remarkable customer support From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi: 1:01

So, james, let's kick off. Buzzsprout has launched their app on Android. So, unlike Apple, buzzsprout has managed to find a way to get an app to Android. Imagine that. What's going on?

James Cridland: 1:12

Imagine that. So Buzzsprout launched for iOS a couple of months ago. It's been downloaded over 20,000 times, apparently has hundreds of reviews and a 4.9 star rating in the App Store. So Buzzsprout for Android is out now. What I quite liked about all of this is that Buzzsprout spent quite some time making sure that it wasn't just a lazy iOS port but actually copied over a bunch of useful stuff from the iOS app but also made it work properly for Android, which is good. All kinds of stuff in there. You managed to catch up with Albin Brook.

Sam Sethi: 1:49

Yeah, I know I caught up with Albin Brook. I thought I'd ask him, you know, what the Android app was all about. I asked him also what they're doing in regards to video, and so, yeah, a really interesting chat with Albin.

Alban Brooke: 2:00

We just launched Buzzsprout for Android. We launched Buzzsprout for iOS a few months ago, and as soon as it came out, we got hard to work on Buzzsprout for Android. I guess we'd started a bit earlier, but we wanted to have a native experience, all the native Android functionality, not just be like a reskin of an iOS app, and so we worked with a team that really understood Android, and now we have a really cool Android app. Lots of podcasters are on Android. I'm excited for them to have the same experience that our iOS customers have been using this whole time.

Sam Sethi: 2:34

Now look, let's go back to so feature parity. So remind us what features the iOS and Android app have then.

Alban Brooke: 2:41

So the apps we launched to be the best companion you could get for your podcast. The way we thought about it was so many podcasters, podcasting isn't their day job, so they're not at their computer all day and we want you to be able to release your episode where it's still best to create it, which is on your computer. But now you have this companion app so you can check stats, you can get real-time notifications, you're able to share directly from the app and then you're able to effortlessly manage your podcast. So change a title, publish an episode, update a link, fan mail now works in there. You can manage your pod role tons of little things, but those are kind of the main categories.

Sam Sethi: 3:22

Yeah, and I've found it really useful. I remember when you first launched the ios app and with fan mail and it was over a weekend that I got it and then we started to get ping and it was like suddenly all these fan mails are coming through and they are little dopamine hits, they're great. And again just getting a notification saying that james has finished uploading the episode and that the transcripts just finished. So, as a podcast creator, those little steps on the notification post-production are always good to know as well uploading the episode and that the transcripts just finished. So, as a podcast creator, those little steps on the notification post-production are always good to know as well. Now, the other thing that you guys have been working on is some new podcasts. You obviously have Buzzcast, which is your main podcast, but you've got a new one out as well. What's that one?

Alban Brooke: 3:58

We just launched a podcast called Buzzsprout Weekly. We've done a weekly newsletter. I think we've sent it every Tuesday for I don't know six or seven years and at some point I think I was listening to Pod News Weekly Review or maybe James's Daily podcast, where he read his newsletter and I went why don't we do this for our shows? And so we started recording that newsletter and producing it as a podcast and it's wonderful because we've already done all the hard work. The hard work is picking the stories, is writing the newsletter is thinking about what do we really want to communicate to the indie podcaster, to the Buzzsprout podcaster? And so we put all that together and now it takes us about an hour to go from okay, the newsletter's done to the episode is published. Today is the second episode. You can download it in your podcasting app and listen along with the Buzzsprout newsletter.

Sam Sethi: 4:55

Now, who's producing this for you? I mean, it's not you and it's not Kevin, so who's working on it?

Alban Brooke: 5:00

Well, jordan is the podcast producer for Buzzsprout, so this is now the third active show she has. We do Buzzcast, we're doing Buzzsprout Weekly and we also have a show that's about how Buzzsprout does customer support, so that's called Happy to Help. It's not podcasting specific. So if you are a customer support team or you're just helping customers, you want your team to lead with empathy, to understand the customers. Priscilla, who leads our customer success team, does that podcast and definitely check it out. But those are the three shows Jordan does. And the host of Buzzsprout Weekly is Megan, and so Megan writes our newsletter and so we're leaning a little bit more into having some more personality in some of the podcasts. We don't want it to all just be Kevin and I on Buzzcast, so now we're having a bit more people involved in creating the shows.

Sam Sethi: 5:53

You've had AI now for a while. Have you seen a rapid adoption of usage? Have you got plans to make enhancements to it? What's the planning around AI?

Alban Brooke: 6:06

We have made enhancements, so we've changed some things with how you edit the transcript. We've added social sharing so that we can write tweets, we can help write blog posts. We want to create that social content for your podcast. I mean, it's something we're really interested in. Co-host AI is now over a year old and we want to keep improving every part of us.

Alban Brooke: 6:30

I do think that there is a lot of AI hype right now, which you kind of need the AI hype to get everybody to start building the real use cases. People are suggesting lots of ideas that I'm not 100% sure are useful for the podcaster, and so the way that we built co-host was here's some real definitive pain points. I do not like finding my chapter spots when I'm creating the episode. I know that they're out there, but I don't know the exact timestamp. It's nice for it to find it. I don't love transcribing. It's great that it can find it. I don't like coming up with catchy titles and descriptions. It's wonderful that co-host AI can write those for me. So, as we discover new use cases, specifically because we are using Buzzsprout every week and we're noticing this is a place for AI, I think we'll implement it, but I don't want to end up putting the cart before the horse and saying, oh hey, I could do this. Let's start trying to force its way into my podcasting workflow.

Sam Sethi: 7:31

Last question, then, on podcast movements coming up the middle of August in Washington Buzzsprout, I assume, will be there Is the whole team going, because you weren't at the one in LA, so can we expect to see you all there this year?

Alban Brooke: 7:44

Well, I was there in LA, but just me. Sometimes, with the ones out in LA which are a little bit smaller and mostly are more industry focused, we were sending smaller teams, but I think it'll probably be three or four of us will go up to DC this year. I am super excited. Podcast Movement largest podcasting conference in the world recently had a friend from law school reach out and said hey, I want to get into podcasting and he now works in DC. So it's like, well, good for you, you got to come over and check out this incredible conference and it's just a wonderful time. You know, podcasters love to talk and we all have something in common that we love audio, we love creating and everyone's unique because they're creating shows about something totally different, and so you meet tons of interesting people and it is really one of the best parts of my job.

Sam Sethi: 8:35

Will you be presenting at the event?

Alban Brooke: 8:38

I think Tom has a couple talks. I sometimes will pitch them. Sometimes they're accepted, sometimes they're not. So we will see Brilliant.

Sam Sethi: 8:46

Alban Brook, head of marketing at Buzzsprout. Thank you so much.

Up the Vote: 8:49

Thank you for having me Are you voting in this general election? Of course you are, but some of your friends might not be, so help them out. It's simple Get your phone out, text free friends and ask them to vote. Whatever you're voting for in this election the NHS, affordable housing, decent jobs, the climate, human rights or any other issue close to your heart £14.50. Two copies and a sausage roll.

James Cridland: 9:15

Yeah.

Up the Vote: 9:16

What there's more you can do than just vote. Enough is enough. The topic needs to change. I want to say it, mate Triple the vote. Oh, and don't forget to bring your ID. July 4th, the. And don't forget to bring your ID, july 4th.

Speaker 2: 9:27

The Pub News Weekly Review with Buzzsprout.

Sam Sethi: 9:34

Podcast hosting made easy. Now YouTube. We're not quite sure, or at least I'm not quite sure. Are they fully into podcasting or are they just sort of dabbling on the edges? But they've added a your Podcast page, james. Does this mean that they are now really going for it?

James Cridland: 9:56

Well what it does. So this is on YouTube, not on YouTube Music. For a start, I thought that podcasts were going in YouTube Music, not really on YouTube, but no it's. I mean, you know, obviously they're available in both, but you'd have thought that the audio app would be the place where they would put lots of their podcast stuff, but no, this is a your Podcasts page. If you're on YouTube on mobile, then hit the you tab on the bottom and you'll find a your Podcasts page there. If you're using the web, then it's on the sidebar and that just gives you a list of shows that you're subscribed to.

James Cridland: 10:26

I'm guessing if you're not subscribed to any, you might not see that In the YouTube Music app. When I went to have a look, if I scrolled down 17 screens long, then I eventually found a thing called your Shows in the YouTube Music app, so it does exist in there as well. Not quite sure why it's not called your Podcasts, to be honest, but still there we are. Consistency has never been one of Google's strong points, and yes, so I mean there is something there and a little button. If you want to add more podcasts, it links you straight to youtubecom slash podcasts.

Sam Sethi: 11:05

Hmm, that worries me. That reminds me of the days in Microsoft. You often got two teams developing. I remember with the Microsoft Office team we would have the Word team and then the Excel team putting different icons for different things, and they were actually similarly in function and then eventually somebody went no, no, no, stop. And then they actually got a Microsoft office czar who would then dictate what was going to go into the product. But blimey, yeah, your shows, your podcast, that's two teams, that's for certain.

James Cridland: 11:36

Yeah, I mean that's not great. And then, when you link through to YouTubecom slash podcasts, well, what do I see in there? I see something marked popular episodes. Now I'm in Australia, I I see something marked popular episodes Now I'm in Australia, I'm a YouTube premium subscriber. So what would you expect? I saw you would expect to see a bunch of popular things called podcasts, but what you actually see is something from a company called Midas Touch talking about Trump and all of that, which has got nothing to do with Australia.

James Cridland: 12:08

Next, philip DeFranco, wealthy white couple used adopted black children as slaves. I think that's more American nonsense. The NBC News nightly news full broadcast. That's not a podcast. What on earth is that doing in there? From June the 26th that was yesterday as we record this and then somebody called Dr Mike I can't believe. I have to say this it's got nothing to do with podcasts at all. There is then a rail which shows popular podcasts, and the popular podcast that it is promoting is the Diary of a CEO, which I suppose is popular in the UK. It's not popular here. Lex Friedman, pbd Podcast whatever that is never heard of it. Rotten Mango not heard of that. The H3 Podcast, which I have heard of and Lo-Fi Girls Radios, and there is nothing in here with the exception, possibly, of Diary of a CEO and Lex Friedman that I actually recognise at all in here, and I write about podcasts all the time.

Alban Brooke: 13:13

So it's kind of?

James Cridland: 13:15

I'm kind of there thinking really is this, really is this really the thing that's going to work? But I don't know. I'm sure that Google know what they're doing.

Sam Sethi: 13:26

Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that in a minute. In fact, let's talk about it now Google Podcasts. What is it doing? What is it? Is it alive or is it dead, james?

James Cridland: 13:39

Shock of putting it back together seems to have been too much for him, he's dead, jim.

James Cridland: 13:50

Yes, google Podcasts was supposed to have died on either Sunday or Monday, depending on which bit of Google Podcasts you looked at, whether it was the email that we got, which said June the 23rd, or whether it was actually having a look at Google Podcasts Manager, which said June the 24th. Either way, it was supposed to die outside of the US on one of those two dates. And well, here we are. We're recording this on Thursday night, my time in Australia, and zombie Google Podcasts is still alive. If you've got the app installed, then you can play podcasts in it. If you don't have the app installed, then you can install it. It's still in the iOS and Android app stores outside of the US. Google Podcast Manager is still accepting new shows as well, so I don't really understand what on earth Google is playing at. I don't know if you remember this, sam, but I remember when Google actually cared about things. It's very clear that they don't care about anything anymore.

Sam Sethi: 14:55

Was that when they were in their don't be evil phase before they became?

James Cridland: 14:59

evil? I think so. I mean it's just bizarre. I mean Google podcasts of all of the write-ups that I've seen, everybody says, oh, it closed over the weekend, it didn't, it's still there. And all of the write-ups I say say Google Podcasts failed to be successful. It was the number three most popular podcast. Yes, it was only doing 4% of total downloads, but it was the number three most popular podcast app in the world. Three most popular podcast app in the world. So it was doing, frankly, better than every other podcast app out there, apart from Spotify and Apple. But they've managed to kill it, except they haven't killed it. I mean, I just do not understand what Google is playing at. So it's another thing which is still not quite in the Google graveyard, but very close, I think.

Sam Sethi: 15:49

I've found the answer, james. What's that? It's when John Spurlock left. That's it. When John Spurlock left, google, it all fell apart.

James Cridland: 15:58

That was the answer yes, yes, no, I think you're absolutely right.

Sam Sethi: 16:02

Now, james, I never understand this, so you're going to have to explain it to me again.

James Cridland: 16:14

Who's now number one? Oh yes, so PodTrack have always claimed that the iHeart audience network that's all the shows that iHeart sell is the number one network in the US. So that's how iHeart gets to turn around and say number one for podcasting. It's nothing to do with the iHeartRadio app. It's all to do with reaching more people than anybody else does, and I'm sure that that's the case. What's always been interesting and quite amusing is that Triton, who also have a US podcast ranker who, by the way, are owned by iHeart they have never measured iHeartMedia, so they've always said that SiriusXM is number one. That must have annoyed somebody at iHeart rather considerably, because they are now being measured by Triton, which means that the iHeart audience network is now number one according to both PodTrack and now Triton.

Sam Sethi: 17:07

So for the first time, iheart is now number one in both, which is nice so there we are, so we don't have to look again, because they're going to be number one forever now.

James Cridland: 17:18

I think that they will. Be given that they have 76% more than SiriusXM in terms of average weekly downloads, I think that there is definitely something there to have a look at. So, yeah, really really interesting numbers, and I am currently working on a story around what those numbers are and, who knows, maybe this time next week we'll have a little bit more to say about that.

Sam Sethi: 17:45

Let's whiz around the world. Germany, james is another one. Germany has launched a podcast ranker from MA Podcast. I'm going off for a coffee. Tell me all about it.

James Cridland: 17:58

You can just be very, very quick. It's just another podcast ranker. This is a German one. It's been going actually for the last couple of years, but May 2024's Ranker is out. Maud Lust is number one, which is a true crime show. 5.4 million downloads in May, which is pretty good. Given that there are only 132 million German speakers in the world. To get 5.4 million downloads, which is about 1 million downloads per episode, is not bad. So congratulations to Maud Lust being number one there.

James Cridland: 18:33

Ma podcast, like all podcast rankers of this type, only measure participating publishers. In the UK, podcasts have more listeners than ever, according to a new study from Edison Research. Some really nice data from the UK. In their Podcast Consumer UK edition. The data says 42% are monthly podcast listeners, 30% listen weekly. And in people news, jess Mott has joined AdLarge Media as Director of National Digital Partnerships. There's an SVP of Client Services at Adopter Media, adam McNeill. He's been working for that company for quite some time. Some interesting things going on in Australia, with Lizzie Young being the new CEO of Commercial Radio and Audio. That's the company that looks after radio broadcasters but also runs the Australian podcast ranker here as well. Also, billy Hartman has joined workflow automation and ad management company Frequency. He is apparently an audio ad veteran, so good for them. And Azil Enriquez recently joined Salem Web Media as the new podcast marketing coordinator. Lots of exciting things happening there.

Sam Sethi: 19:46

So events James Podcast Movement is coming up August the 19th in Washington. James, you wrote you've been hearing intriguing discussions about a podcasting 2.0 event. Who's that from?

James Cridland: 20:00

I'm just basically trying to get you to spill the beans out there.

Sam Sethi: 20:04

Oh yes.

James Cridland: 20:06

I wonder what it was was. I was very careful with it. I said either virtual or perhaps in a physical space. Is there anything going on about a podcasting 2.0 event?

Sam Sethi: 20:16

yeah, you will be the first to know. You know that. But yes is the answer, it will be both and it looks like we've got the green light, but I'm now putting together the final discussion pieces. But yes, the answer is there will be both a physical and virtual event. So watch this space. I promise by next week I will have the final details for you.

James Cridland: 20:40

Oh well, that's all. Exciting Also happening Podcast Day Asia taking place on September 3rd in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, which is where I'm going next week. Podcast Asia is programmed by Pod News and lots of very exciting people who already signed up for that. The keynote is from NPR's Emily Kwong, but we also have a bunch of other people speaking, including somebody from Indonesia who has translated their show into English using a company in the Philippines. We have got, I think, somebody from the ABC who will be talking about whether video is actually a thing in terms of podcasts, so that'll be interesting. Anyway, if you fancy a journey into the sweltering heat of Malaysia, then please do September the 3rd. Tickets just $99 and you can use the code PODN10 to save even more on that. And there are more events, both paid for and free, at PodNews Virtual events or events in a place with people. And if you're organising something, tell the world about it.

James Cridland: 21:48

It's free to be listed at podnewsnet slash events the tech stuff on the pod news weekly review yes, it's the stuff you'll find every monday in the pod news newsletter, and here's where sam talks technology.

Sam Sethi: 22:01

I thought I'd whiz down to your part of the country on the other side. I've now got the geography of australia worked out, where you are and where Perth is. It's nowhere near you really. You're nearer to London than you are to Perth in some cases. But that said lovely guy Russell Harrower over at Pod2. So I thought I'd ping him. We've been chatting for a little bit, but I want to find out first of all who or what is Pod2?

Russell Harrower: 22:28

So Pod2 is a hosting platform that allows people who want to get their radio shows syndicated to radio stations around the world in an easy URL method. One of the advantages for us is that we're actually able to track listeners live, so we actually report back to the radio show and say, look, you got for this episode 3000 listeners. The beautiful thing about Pod2 is that we also podcast all of the radio shows, so it allows people to be on demand, and I guess the whole system was basically use Dropbox or send the file manually through WeTransfer, and when you've got 700 radio stations that you need to syndicate a show to, that gets time consuming very quickly.

Sam Sethi: 23:17

First part is you are a standard podcasting host. You've got lots of clients. Second part is you've got this cool, I suppose, broadcast to podcast solution, but in your case it's podcast to broadcast. It's the other way around, right? Yeah, so basically it's make a show and then get it on radio as quickly podcast to broadcast, rather than afri pods, which we were talking to kevin last week, taking a live radio feed and then putting that out as a podcast, and what you're doing is helping podcasters syndicate their content to multiple radio stations, correct?

Russell Harrower: 23:50

Yeah, very correct. So basically, the idea came from me. I had to have brain surgery to remove a growth, not cancer, thank goodness. My background is I own a radio station and I need that radio station to run without me. So it needed my syndication partners that we get shows from to be able to upload the shows somewhere where I could program all of the data that needed, all the shows, so that I knew for that time period, even if I was dead, my station would keep going. So so that's how it came about. Honestly, there's no real like oh, I was bald one day, it was literally you might die. Let's go and create something that will keep your radio station on it okay, so in perpetuity, right, okay, um, now fast forward.

Sam Sethi: 24:37

So that's really how the idea came about. So we've sort of covered off. Why pod 2? And where you came from. What is your technical background in all of this? You said you were in radio, but were you in radio as a broadcaster or as a technician, or both, or what was it?

Russell Harrower: 24:50

so I loved radio since I was a kid. I was that typical kid with a tape deck and playing the song, and then with the microphone, the commentating, and so I've been volunteering a radio station since I was 16, on and off. My actual background is coding and developing, so I'm just a nerd at heart and to me it was like here's a problem, we can fix it, let's fix it. Radio is so powerful. It's a way of telling stories, it's a way of connecting to the community, it's a way to just let people in your local area know what's happening. And that's kind of been lost, I hate to say it. Like commercial radio is literally about shouting ring up now to win $10,000. It's not about that breast cancer survivor or that nonprofit or the homeless. Where's those stories? Those stories, sadly, have been moved to podcasts. I'm not saying sadly, but meaning it's actually harder to find those stories because you're competing with god knows how many podcasts. They're sometimes really hard to find and a lot of our clients who use pod 2 they go.

Russell Harrower: 26:01

I just want to be found. I want to be connected to people. I want to be able. I want to be connected to people. I want to be able to make a business out of this. I want to be able to share my knowledge with the world and this is where, if done correctly, radio can be the voice for the people. It can be the place where you share ideas. It can be the place that you connect A lot of people. A lot of people go oh, radio can't be interactive. Drm1 is the first to basically bring comments and polls and questions and all that kind of stuff into radio so that when you're listening, if you like something, tap it and it will take you somewhere.

Sam Sethi: 26:40

We are all about trying to make radio as interactive as possible, and it's powered by pod 2 but you and I have been talking about over the last couple of weeks is a thing that we're proposing to the podcasting community. So it's not a standard yet. We hope it will be called Medium equals Radio and what we're trying to create, and what we have created manually, is a DRN1 radio feed, a publisher feed, but it's a radio feed. We try to differentiate between different feeds. So Wondery would be a publisher feed and then you might get an audio book feed and then you might get a other feed. So DRN1 has at the moment 12 shows in that publisher radio feed. And what we're talking about now is you going to use what has been made part of the podcast in 2.0 standard, the publisher feed format. So you're going to take each RSS feed and you're going to add a podcast publisher with a URL link to this feed that you're going to create so as a business pod.

Sam Sethi: 27:53

Two will manage the hosting, manage the technical challenges of adding this new publisher feed and then managing that publisher feed on behalf of DRM one, and we're going to see if that works. Step one Then we're going to add the live item tag to the shows and then see if we can create a schedule out of that. And then thirdly, and the bigger challenge is how do we take syndicated shows that you've got across multiple radio stations? And finally, the fourth big problem problem, just to add to the pie, is we're then going to try and geolocate those in a way that means that if it's they show syndicators across multiple geographies as well that it's not made available. Let's just take a step back. Podcasting 2.0 where do you think the world is right now? Sorry, I just realized that's a massive question to address, right?

Russell Harrower: 28:48

No, no, hang on. Let me answer it, because I think this is a really good question, because I literally did a post on copyright and I spoke with a great lawyer, a friend of mine and to me. I'm very anti big corporate platforms that take podcasters who, let's be honest, we pay rent, we have to put food on the table, we have to pay for the mixes, we have to edit. It costs us creators a lot of time to make these great shows.

Russell Harrower: 29:20

The problem we have with platforms and I won't mention names is that they will put ads all over our content and they will not pay us, so they'll ingest our content, they will tell us that we're not allowed to put our own ads in it or programmatic ads in it, I should say and then they will put their own programmatic ads in it and if you do not meet the minimum requirement to generate revenue, that company will take those dollars and use it for them. Now this is where it bugs me, because podcasters are no different to musicians. We are creators, we create beautiful content. We deserve to get paid. As simple as that no, I fully agree.

Sam Sethi: 30:09

I fully agree and and I think actually, the way that podcasting is going, with live shows of their podcasts, with merchandising, um, looking at multiple revenue streams different ways, I think podcasters and musicians are in the same boat that you know, in the the long tail, they are trying to find their audience. They're trying to find the audience who will then support them. That support can be in micropayments, it could be in subscriptions, it could be through buying merchandising or tickets to events. So, yeah, it's all going the same way.

Russell Harrower: 30:42

Look, I'm most probably the odd one out where this is my view, and some people will hate me for it, but that's okay. I just think that if a company is going to make money off of well, let's be honest platforms have to pay musicians for the music, whether whether or not they play an advert or not. That youtube pays dollars per stream or cents per stream. If they're ingesting our content, then I expect that they would be paying our content creators. Even if it is just pennies or not even a cent, like if it's 0.0008 cents, that is still better than nothing. And that's where I just think that we need, like a podcast creators association, to actually say look, we need to be treated like a creator, because it is our copyright material that we are giving a platform and we're happy to give it. But if you're not going to support V4V, then pay us through some sort of means and don't put these stupid rules saying you have to get 10,000 subscribers or whatever. It is Like you're making money, let us make money.

Russell Harrower: 32:02

So these are real conversations that we're having with creators, and this is why it's exciting to be part of the Podcasting 2.0 community, because we can see that our creators want this. It's just how do we educate the listeners? There has to be that we work together as a community. We can't just go oh well, I'm not talking to you because you're a competitor of mine. I love talking, like some of the best people I talk to is todd from blueberry. It's a fantastic conversation we have. Just because it's not about competition, it's about okay, well, this is what we're doing. What are you doing, like? Help each other?

Sam Sethi: 32:43

It's. The rising tide raises all boats strategy fundamentally in the community, and the community is very good at that, russell. Look, if anyone wants to find out more about Pod2, where would they go?

Russell Harrower: 32:54

They can head over to podtoocom. You can find me on the podcastindexsocial under Russell. You can stalk me on 2Fans I'm on there, so yeah. You can find me on LinkedIn, so, russell Harawar. So yeah, that's where they can find me.

Sam Sethi: 33:11

Russell. Thank you so much, mate, and yeah, we'll have an ongoing conversation about radio to podcast or podcast to radio.

Russell Harrower: 33:19

Look forward to it.

James Cridland: 33:19

Russell Harrawer from Pod 2. There are full versions of that interview and all of the others in the Pod News Extra channel. What else is going on, Sam?

Sam Sethi: 33:29

Well, I saw you talking about something called skip days. I mean, we were talking with Russell about adding the update frequency to his shows, but you used something called skip days. God, I had to get an old 1.0 website out and flick back through it to find what you were talking about. What is skip days?

James Cridland: 33:49

Yes. Well, it turns out that the RSS standard includes two things one called skip days and one called skip hours, and this is the standard, so you can add these into your RSS feed today. And what it basically says is in the podnewsnet slash RSS feed, I have skip days of Saturday and Sunday because I never publish on those days and so therefore, please don't even bother coming to my RSS feed and having a look. And I thought to myself well, that's interesting. That's a piece of information in terms of the spec that was added in 1997. And I was basically thinking no one will support this at all. It's a complete waste of time, but it's also tiny and so therefore I might as well add it to the RSS feed anyway. I added it to the RSS feed and it turns out that that has dropped the traffic to my RSS feed by 4% on Sunday compared to the previous Sunday, so it does seem to have worked 800 fewer requests, which is a nice thing. So, yes, just sort of worthwhile having a look at the actual spec. Hence why I get a little bit grumpy when I see people trying to reinvent wheels that have already been invented in the RSS specification. But I think you know, skip days is a really simple and straightforward one.

James Cridland: 35:15

Sorry, are you becoming Dave Weiner now? I'm not becoming Dave Weiner. Dave Weiner now that he's podcasting again. Gosh, he's turned into the grumpiest man on earth in terms of podcasts, hasn't he Moving on? Congratulations, john Spurlock. Op3, now measuring over 17 million IAB style podcast downloads a month.

Sam Sethi: 35:36

Nicely, nicely phrased, john, very impressive A headliner, Neil Modi, out of the New York area. He's now announced that you can also post your podcast to TikTok. You can already do that to YouTube using Headliner to TikTok. You can already do that to YouTube using Headliner. I thought this was quite cool because TikTok really is getting a high volume traffic. Should we set ours up, James? Should I put TikTok as one of our end points?

James Cridland: 36:06

for this show. I mean you're welcome if you like. I gather that what it does is it grabs individual clips and shares those. It doesn't automatically post the entire show, because nobody will listen to this show entirely on TikTok, but I think it'll do some quite clever things. Yes, by all means, have a play with the headliner. They very kindly put this show onto YouTube for us, so it's worthwhile having a play with, I think.

Sam Sethi: 36:34

Now this one I do want to ask you a little bit more about. Castro now supports WebSub. Now I do know what WebSub is and I do know what PubSub Hub is, which was the original name for WebSub, but Pocket Cast also supports WebSub and Podping. My question is is why should we support both?

James Cridland: 36:55

um, I think we support both, because we kind of have to support both. Um, web sub is used far more widely than pod ping is. Web sub is also used by rss readers and there are an amount of people who listen to shows using rSS readers as well. And so I think actually supporting you know, supporting WebSub, it takes no additional time really. It's one line in the RSS feed and then it's an additional ping that you're making anyway. If you're making a pod ping, then just make an additional ping to the WebSub hub that you are currently currently using. So I don't see that there's any particular issue with supporting both of those no, it's just um who doesn't support pod ping now though.

James Cridland: 37:42

Oh, I mean, plenty of people don't support pod ping um the um. You know, if you have a look. I mean, you know apple doesn't support pod ping um, spotify doesn't support Podping. There's a bunch of people who don't support it. It's much more complicated on the podcast aggregator's end than it is if you are a podcast host. There are a bunch of podcast hosts who do support it. There are a bunch that don't, and from that point of view then it's easy enough to support it if you're a podcast host. It's nowhere near as easy if you are an aggregator. But that's fine, we don't have to worry about any of that stuff.

James Cridland: 38:21

But you know, I'm a big fan of if it doesn't cost any more to support multiple standards that are out there. I mean Dave Weiner. Talking about Dave Weiner, as we were earlier on, dave Weiner is very grumpy about WebSub, which he's only just found out about, and he says that this is a rebuild of RSS Cloud, whatever that was. And I noticed that his new show has an RSS Cloud link but doesn't have a WebSub link. I mean it must be amazing, waking up after a long snooze to find out that things have moved on without you. But yeah, so, yes, but I think WebSub is a fine thing. Pocket Casts, for example, supports both, so that all works.

Speaker 2: 39:09

We've only got one boost this week as well. Has anything gone wrong? Sam Instagrams, boostergrams and Fanmail on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 39:15

We've only got one boost this week as well. Has anything gone wrong?

Sam Sethi: 39:18

Sam the Olby apocalypse yes, we've got 500 sats from Alan C Paul.

James Cridland: 39:28

He's basically just yes, he's just basically given us 500 sats as a boost.

Sam Sethi: 39:31

Yeah, I was trying to read what was the message. No, there's no message. There's no message. Alan C. Yeah, I was trying to read what was the message. No, there's no message.

James Cridland: 39:34

There's no message. Alan C.

Sam Sethi: 39:36

Paul, thank you.

James Cridland: 39:37

Thank you also to streams from people listening the Late Bloomer actor, brian Entzminger, cole McCormick, alan C Paul, dave Jackson, frillis that's a good name Frillis Gene Bean, nick Adam Curry I've heard of him C Brooklyn 12 and Dwev. We got a total of 14,078 sats in boosts and if you add all of those up then that's a total of $8.86 this week. So thank you very much. That is shared by Sam and I and we normally just spend it on a beer for other podcasters, so that's a nice thing. Thank you also to our power supporters, who are paying mostly $5 a month Dave Jackson, mike Hamilton, matt Medeiros, marshall Brown and Cameron Moll. If you want to join them, weeklypodnewsnet is where to go. So what's happened for you this week, sam?

Sam Sethi: 40:29

Quite a bit really. I've spoken with Guy Martin and Nathan about a new merchant proposal, so we enabled events. This week we did our first event with Podlife that's now totally live on True Fans and we sold our first tickets. So that all worked perfectly. We're now putting in a new merchant tab onto every podcaster and we will enable artists and podcasters, if they want, to upload merch and then to be able to buy it directly through either Stripe or use fiat currency if they have it in their wallet. So, yeah, that was quite cool. We'll have that working. James, you might be able to help. I tried to find blogs from podcast publishers that existed, so I went to wondery and I went to um, the rest is politics and various others, and none of them have blogs anymore. I mean, is is, is it official? Blogs are dead now.

James Cridland: 41:30

Um, yes, and I saw you posting about this on Mastodon earlier on there are a ton of RSS feeds from podcast companies. I mean Acast has one, osha has one, audacity has one, blueberry has one, and so on and so forth. But yes, they are really sometimes can be really hard to find. Quite a lot of the newer companies just don't bother with RSS feeds at all anymore. And you know, I notice a bunch which have stopped working for some reason. I mean Fountain, for example. You'd have thought that Fountain would have had an RSS feed and it did at one point. It doesn't anymore. So you know there are a bunch of these, of these tools. But yeah, I mean I, I follow I'm trying to work out how many RSS feeds that I follow to put the Pod News Daily together. Quite a lot, is the quick answer. It's yeah so, but yeah, they're just not very easy to find and they don't do them in a very easy way.

Sam Sethi: 42:38

It was only. I thought it'd be a really interesting idea to get a RSS feed, let's say from Wondery, about what they're up, to add that to a tab. So we work with you to have the news feed for Wondery and then maybe we'll put their blog feed next to it. Again, just aggregating things around where you're listening. Couldn't find it.

James Cridland: 43:00

Yeah, of course that makes perfect sense. Makes perfect sense and unfortunately, it's very hard to find many of those. Quite a lot of them haven't used the automatic. I mean, you know, there certainly won't be a little orange RSS button on most of these sites, which, as you'll notice, there is one on the PodNews website on virtually every single page. But, yeah, so you need to look quite hard to find out where those RSS feeds are. I'm currently following 241 RSS feeds into the big list that I currently look through, and I'm sure that I'm missing a ton of them as well.

Sam Sethi: 43:38

So, uh, yeah, the other thing that I was really interested in your toy glasses. Oh, my toy glasses are superb. I mean, talk about freak people out, um, yeah, but the cool thing about it is, uh, yes, they're Ray-Ban Metban meta sunglasses with video, audio and live streaming and ai, um, but meta turned on um fediverse support in threads. So now I can be in threads with my uh account and I can post automatically to mastodon or plex or anywhere else, and that's really cool. Except they don't on sport. Except you can't, though.

James Cridland: 44:14

Can you because because threads haven't haven't to Mastodon or Plex or anywhere else, and that's really cool. Except they turned on sports. Except you can't, though, can you what? Because threads haven't Facebook meta? Haven't they done something with threads just for the Europeans, which mean that it doesn't work?

Sam Sethi: 44:28

Oh no, they haven't turned it on for Europe, but clearly UK's no longer in Europe. So hurrah, the first ever benefit of being in Brexit. Yes, that is it. We are no longer considered European by Facebook. So they gave us access.

James Cridland: 44:43

You might not be able to afford to eat anymore, but at least you can get access to threads on your toy glasses.

Sam Sethi: 44:51

Oh God, yes, that's about it.

Alban Brooke: 44:53

So yes.

Sam Sethi: 44:55

Anyway, what happened for you this week, James? Oh, there, help us. Yes, that's about it.

James Cridland: 44:56

So yes, Anyway, what happened for you this week, James? Oh, there's a thing. So today was quite fun and you'll hear from her next week the podcast professor Kim Fox, who is based out of Cairo and does Podfest in Cairo every year. She was in Brisbane and so we went to have a look at kangaroos and things and did all of that, so that was fun. It coincided with school holidays, so my daughter ended up coming along and we showed her the crocodiles and all of that, and the kangaroos and the Tasmanian devils and all of that. So that was fun. So enjoyed doing that. And what else has happened for me this week? Not an awful lot else, really, apart from that, next week I'm off to Kuala Lumpur to speak at the Asian Broadcasting Union, which should be fun. And oh no, there was one other thing that happened this week which was quite fun. I voted, sam. I voted for your country.

Sam Sethi: 45:58

Hang on a minute. You're an Australian citizen. Now, why are you getting a vote?

James Cridland: 46:02

But I'm a British citizen as well, and the good folk of Southgate and Wood Green, as the constituency is now called, the good folk of Southgate and Wood Green deserve me, somebody who lives 10,000 miles away, choosing their next MP. So I went to. What I loved about it is I went to the. There's a website in the UK where you can see what the you know what the calculated guess is of who is going to get in, and I went to have a look for Southgate and Wood Green, which is the constituency where I used to live and therefore the constituency where I still vote, and it says there is a 100% chance that this is going to be held by Labour. 100% chance that this is going to be held by Labour.

James Cridland: 47:02

100% chance I actually get in to Australia. What time do I get in? I get in. Oh how exciting. I get into Australia at just after nine o'clock at night, UK time on the 4th of July, and so I get in. It's very early in the morning and so I can then get home. I've got an hour to get home. Then I can sit in front of BBC News and I can watch your entire country falling to bits.

Sam Sethi: 47:29

Yes, I'm going to be doing the same or, if you like, it better that way reassembling itself.

James Cridland: 47:31

I'm going to be doing the same or, if you like it better that way, reassembling itself. But yes, that's going to be hilarious. So, yes, I'm very excited about the fact that I'm flying during voting where there's never any election news because there can't be by law, and so I land just before they can start saying and according to the exit poll, reformer in or whatever it is.

Sam Sethi: 47:58

So, yes, I'm looking forward to that. Oh God, if that's the case, you better get a spare room mate, because I'll be on the first flight out.

James Cridland: 48:04

Yes, I would doubt that very seriously, but anyway. So that's all of that is exciting, isn't it? And all of that is going on, so, yes, so we'll need to work out when to record this show next week, but that's it for this week, though. If you enjoy the podcast, the Newsletter's better, you can find it at podnewsnet and the Pod News Daily, wherever you get your podcasts, particularly if you're a fan of Shaun of the Dead this week, and there are longer interviews in the Pod News Extra podcast as well.

Sam Sethi: 48:31

I was just going to say just a hint to America. We do our elections in six weeks. It's done, it's over, Not a whole bloody year. Anyway you can support this show by streaming sats. You can give us feedback using fan mail or send us a boostgram. No one would have heard that part, James.

James Cridland: 48:47

We're okay, and I would say just as a hint to both the US and the UK here in Australia, you get fined and a criminal record if you don't vote Exactly. So there you go. Our music is from Studio Dragonfly, our voiceover is Sheila Dee, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Podcast hosting made easy.

Speaker 2: 49:07

Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet.

Alban Brooke: 49:13

Tell your friends and grow the show and support us, and support us the.

Russell Harrower: 49:18

Pod News.

Speaker 2: 49:18

Weekly Review will return next week. Keep listening.