Speaker 0 00:00:00 Let's talk about the technology when it comes to centralized versus de decentralized that a lot of the, I don't know what to say, die hard podcasters. A lot of them are, are talking about like Spotify versus the world, or like Casto versus Spotify, or I want to own my feed. Where do you see the tech landscape? And is it important to you about, you know, is the RSS feed important to you at all in this conversation when it comes to centralized versus decentralized?
Speaker 1 00:00:26 Oh, it's essential because I am one of the people who you might consider fundamentalists. If it's not on an RSS feed, it's not a podcast.
Speaker 3 00:00:42 All right. So what you just heard is kind of a tension point, maybe that exists in podcasting right now that was Juka and Tua. She's the founder of L WC studios and apparently a self described fundamentalist about and what she was. I mean, the, the context there, Matt is you were asking her about subscription based podcast versus RSS. And for those who maybe are unfamiliar, there are people who will say if there's any type of paywall or if a podcast is exclusive to one platform and not distributed via RSS, it's not actually a podcast. What's your thoughts on that, Matt? Cause I know you've traditionally been a pretty open source RSS guy,
Speaker 0 00:01:20 The, in the iterations I've gone through about this topic, <laugh>, I'm a 60 40, okay. I'm a 60 40, where you have to at least try podcasting with traditional RSS first once. So you can appreciate open distribution and in the essence of, you know, a traditional podcast, but at the end of the day, if you're just creating this AR I, I guess I don't really care where you're putting it and what you're calling it. You know, if you wanna put a collection of 12 episodes onto YouTube, and the only thing you have is a static cover image that plays, and you want to call that a podcast. That's fine. People can still subscribe to it through the browser, in the app and stuff like that. You know, I think there is that fundamentalism of a podcast player app, where you can discover, subscribe, you get notified, you hit play, you can resume it's audio. You're never looking at anything really. And, and that's awesome, you know, as well, uh, I'm not gonna hold any creator accountable to the term podcasting if they don't, you know, if they're not doing it through RSS and I'm certainly not going to let the content dictate, uh, if it's a podcast or not, like if you have rec recordings of government, of local government meetings and you wanna call it fine, put it up there, it's a podcast in, you know, in my eyes, I'm not gonna let the content dictate it.
Speaker 3 00:02:38 I mean, I, I once edited a, an oral history that was distributed via RSS. It wasn't presented like a podcast. There was no theme song or, or anything like that, just straight traditional oral history, utilizing a speck of technology that is very important in podcasting. And that brings us to, I think, why, why we're here today. So this is the first of a three story or a three episode arc where we explore what you're calling centralized versus decentralized podcasting. And well, why don't you describe real quickly centralized versus decentralized. And then we're gonna hear from some people who have varying views of what that means
Speaker 0 00:03:17 <laugh>. Yeah. So the centralized starting with that, that's the, those are the big platforms of the world, right. Of the obvious Spotify, right? When, uh, Joe Rogan went to Spotify, the world thought, well, are we now going to see more of these, uh, you know, large podcasts going behind, uh, the, the wall garden that is Spotify. Um, and, uh, you know, that you have Spotify, you have Facebook lasted about six months in the podcasting space and they, they went away. Thankfully, uh, YouTube is still yet to, uh, uncover what, you know, they're gonna do, uh, with, with podcasting. And then of course you have apple, which, uh, I think within the last year rolled out their subscription podcast, which, uh, were set to only be, uh, listened to, uh, on apple, of course. Right. And, and not only listened to on apple, but managed through Apple's podcast connect, right? So that was a Uber close source system. And one that podcasters were, were certainly not used to. Now on the flip side of the apple coin, they were also one of the largest directories taking intaking, uh, RSS feeds from podcasters from around the world for the last 20 years. And we now have seen their lack of, uh, innovation in the podcasting space for the, for the open RSS side, uh, and a newcomer in the last year is the open source podcasting 2.0 movement, correct
Speaker 3 00:04:39 Me if I'm wrong, Kerry, the, the impetus for all of this or what got the wheels turned in, in your, in your idea, because the story's kind of been your baby Matt, you've been working on this. I've just been along for the journey, uh, your sidekick in this, so to speak, but you read an article by Tanner Campbell who Tanner's himself as a podcaster in podcasting consultant. Uh, he's, he's worked, he's been remarkably successful. I think working with a lot of different podcasters launch shows get caught some kind of value out of it. So we're gonna listen to the conversation you had with Tanner. I think he presents his arguments pretty well, but we'll let everyone decide for themselves. Like if after this series, they're, they're more centralized or decentralized
Speaker 0 00:05:22 Tanner, I found you probably not the way you wanted to be discovered, but when you wrote a post, uh, I, I can't remember the, the time, uh, the title of it at the time was using RSS to solve the problems facing podcasters today is like using HTML to catch a fish that, and your thoughts on Spotify and what I'll say as maybe your take on Spotify, air quotes, saving podcasting, that ruffled a lot of feathers. And then I remember, you know, reading your post at the time and being like, you know what a lot of this stuff makes sense to, to me, like, yes, this all, all the stuff makes sense. I felt like at the time people took it the wrong way or took a total offense to it because, well, like Casto, we're, we're very much, we need RSS, right? We want, and I want RSS to win the day. I don't want to hand it over to a corporation or an algorithm, but for all the things that make podcasting painful, your take is, well, maybe a Spotify can solve that for podcasters. Is that a fair assessment
Speaker 5 00:06:26 At the time? Yeah. I wanna say that that article was about a year old now, something like that. And yeah, that's a fair assessment of where my head was. It's still pretty much there with some nuance differences. And we can maybe talk about those.
Speaker 0 00:06:38 I'm a diehard sort of open source. Well, I shouldn't say diehard that's cuz there are mu people who are much more extreme than I am. I, I come from wor the WordPress world I've spent 15, 20, 15, 20 years there. Uh, I make a side income, uh, talking about WordPress on a podcast, on a series of podcasts. I love the idea of how the open source piece of software WordPress, not only can I just take it off the shelf and start doing what I want with it. I think it can enable people to have careers. I think of everybody going through COVID who lost their jobs or, you know, older folks who want to pivot into technology and they need a place to start like WordPress can enable economies almost, or, or at least it could take people who maybe in a hard way and have a side gig making websites for even just a few hundred bucks.
Speaker 0 00:07:26 Like I love what that does for an individual and maybe even a whole set of <laugh> of humanity. I see the RSS stuff the same way. And when we give it to say Spotify, I feel like that erodes, but I'm also not stupid. Like I think we need the competition. And that's what I liked about your position is we need somebody like a Tanner to pull us in another direction because it can't just be, you know, it can't just be sunshine and rainbows, RSS is gonna solve the world cuz it won't. And it's going to take a Spotify to compete with open RSS to make the friction that causes fusion reaction. No, is that <laugh> how energy's made. Yeah. We need that in order to innovate and keep everyone honest.
Speaker 5 00:08:13 I completely agree with that. And it might surprise people to know that I don't want podcasting to go close platform, but my primary focus and goal is to help people make money, monetize, find success, grow, whatever that means to them. And usually it means some amount of growth, some amount of money making some amount of covering their costs, some amount of, you know, increased advocacy reach or activism reach because you know, if you make some money, you can pay for some advertising. If you can pay for some advertising, you can reach more people. And the more people you can reach, the more you can do with whatever it is, passion that's driving you podcasting remaining open source is ideal. I don't know, from a technological standpoint how the discoverability issue is solved, how we level the playing field for people to work against people with money.
Speaker 5 00:08:59 Because right now, if you have money and I mean, if you have like a lot, if you, if you're the kind of per I have some clients whose marketing budgets are $30,000 a month, I think the highest is like $60,000 a month. When you have that kind of money, getting noticed is easy and there is no way in hell anybody who's a independent podcaster, you know, with very, very few 0.0, zero, zero 1% kind of exceptions have that kind of money. So they are never gonna be able to compete in the paid marketing space. If however, we had some sort of algorithm driven discovery engine, it would cease to be based on money or even popularity. And it would begin to be based on like behavior, listenership, behavior, user behavior, and the only way that I'm aware of. And I'm not a programmer, right? So I hope I'm not stepping outta my lane here, but I don't know of a way to study a user base without having them in a closed environment because I can study you Matt as Spotify, if you're using Spotify, but as an independent podcaster who hosts with Casto, for example, I can't study you if you're listening on, you know, apple podcast and then you're listening on overcast and then you're listening somewhere else.
Speaker 5 00:10:15 I can't deploy that. What I would imagine would be a pretty complex discovery solution, a across this decentralized landscape, I don't know how you would do that. And I think that if we can solve discovery, then that's great. That'll solve RSS from not go. Obviously it's never gonna go away. It's a speck of technology that will never go away. But I think that will prevent these big, you know, monolithic megalithic companies from becoming, you know, really in control of the medium, which would be ideal. But I don't see how that doesn't happen. I'm a very practical guy. Like when I give people advice, I'm trying to give them advice for the future, I think is going to be the case, not for the ideological future. I hope is the case. And I think that I'm, I don't know that I'm unique globally in that way, but I think I'm kind of unique in this medium, in that way. I
Speaker 0 00:11:03 Know you're a pretty big proponent on growing a podcast through advertising through let's say pay per click is a term that may, maybe most people know Facebook adds that kind of thing because you can target that demographic. The challenge that I have with on one hand, like I welcome this is, this is funny for me to say, but like I welcome the challenge of Spotify. Not that Casto could ever compete with Spotify just because of the sheer size of them versus us. Uh, but I welcome the challenge of David versus Goliath because I think it will spur innovation across the industry for smaller folks like us. But the thing is if Spotify was the YouTube of podcasting for discoverability growing an audience, man, I, I think back to what it was like 10 years ago on Facebook, when Facebook said, have everybody like your, your, your Facebook page and then you pushed everybody to like your Facebook page and you could reach those thousand people with one post and then fast forward, you know, 10 years later and you reach 8% <laugh> and if you want it roll the dice and boost your post for 25 bucks, you might reach half of your audience.
Speaker 0 00:12:14 I see that same thing happening to Spotify if Spotify were to win in that case, because in the beginning of that gold rush, yeah, like there's there's money to be made, but then five years later, there's a thousand good morning podcasters on Spotify. And now Spotify says you wanna reach your audience, you know, boost your episodes, boost your podcast and pay us. That's what I'm a afraid of. If Spotify were to be crown the champion in, in discoverability, maybe not a bad thing, but that's what goes through my head when I hear these things.
Speaker 5 00:12:45 I think it's maybe an unavoidable thing. I think you're right. I mean, a lot of people don't understand why one would need to advertise. They just think, oh, Facebook is an evil corporation that now wants my money cuz they know they've got me. They've got me by the, you know, by the short Harris, let's say, and they can't, uh, I, I, they know I'm not gonna leave and build somewhere else and maybe that's some of it, but most of it is, you know, and these are gonna be somewhat arbitrary numbers. It's been a long time since I've seen this data, but the average Facebook user has like 400 friends. They have, they like thousands of pages. And there has to be a way for Facebook to determine for the one hour a day across the span of a day that someone is on Facebook and that number's actually getting less and less how to prioritize what of all those many, many options you see in those brief little spas of time.
Speaker 5 00:13:38 And the only way for them to do that, that I can think of is to run an ads platform and Spotify will have to do the same thing. I mean, there are already running an ads platform and I am disappointed thus far in its functionality for podcasters to reach podcast listeners. It's not completely terrible, but where I pay for perhaps, you know, between one and $3 per landing page click through. So somebody clicks on a Facebook ad, they, they land on a simple Lander, like a charitable link, for example, and they click one of those options. That's happening about one to $3 per acquisition on Spotify, that's happening at like four to $7 per acquisition. And most podcasters are not. I mean, <laugh>, I don't have to tell you guys, I'm sure. You know, and I'm sure anybody listening knows we are not flush with cash, right? So to pay $7 for a podcast subscribe, but we're follow now. What makes that worth it to us? Do we have a $56 product on the other end of that podcast? Because if we don't, that is a very expensive CPA for essentially feeling better about the size of our show
Speaker 0 00:14:49 On one extreme, uh, at least in the context of this conversation that we're having, we're going to be talking about the value for value model, uh, one that, uh, technically Casto supports through, um, hooking up a lightning node wallet in the middle where most of cast's time is spent is subscription podcast or private podcast or members only podcast. And then on the other extreme is advertising with that, you know, 20 maybe if you're lucky $25 CPM per thousand, do you see a, a middle ground for where podcasters can safely monetize their show? Is it all three? Do you land somewhere on that spectrum of value for value? Just pay me what you think I'm worth, whether that's a dollar or a thousand dollars, uh, or, Hey, get this premium content or, you know what, screw it. I don't wanna do any of that hard work, just slap a Coca-Cola ad on my show and give me whatever Coca-Cola's paying me and then take away. Spotify's cut
Speaker 5 00:15:51 In order for the Coca-Cola ad to be of any value, really, to anyone you need to have pretty much at least a thousand regular listeners. Cause that's gonna give you your one M right? So you're gonna get 25 bucks for that. Most of us. And again, it's been a couple years since I've looked at this data, came out from the, uh, Omni blog. It's something like 50% of all podcasters have fewer than a hundred listens in the first, I think it's 30 days of release of an episode. And if we take that to be equal to the number of regular ongoing subscribers, which we can't sorry, followers, which we can't really do, but you know, whatever we can, I guess then that means that 50% of all podcasts have fewer than a hundred subscribers, which is never gonna work from the CPM model. I mean, maybe you will accrue that over the year.
Speaker 5 00:16:36 You might make a couple hundred dollars off of that, but, uh, maybe not even that. So I don't think that that's the safe way to get started. And I don't necessarily, I'm not against the idea of starting with ads to use them as an agitator for getting people to subscribe, to ad free versions of the show. I think though the problem with that, where that used to work, at least with my clients, we're going back maybe like 5, 6, 7 years. It used to be that podcast listeners found ads to be absolutely abhorrent and they would do anything to avoid them. But at this point it's almost like they're like, oh, here's another ad. I'll just sit through it. And I won't pay for the, you know, the, the ad free feed so that using them as an agitator is becoming less and less of a viable solution.
Speaker 5 00:17:21 So ads for me are mostly out unless you have, uh, a crude, the kind of listenership that makes it financially worth it as far as premium content. I actually also don't like this model. I really like super cast. I have my qualms with Patreon, but there was a article put out. I don't know, it was probably three years ago by I think it was the outfield or the outlier or some blog you can, can find it. It's like less than 2% of Patreon creators make a full-time living. I think it might even be, have been a par oh, a living wage, an hourly wage. That's what it was. So they were making less than whatever minimum wage was at the time. And it was only 2% of the whole audience. So I think that creating content that you're already creating for free, doesn't provide a super great value proposition for anybody to give you $5 a month, especially when they don't have to.
Speaker 5 00:18:20 And I think podcast listeners by and large, they know that if your podcast disappears, even if they like it, even if they authentically enjoy it, there's somebody else that's gonna fill your shoes because it's very unlikely that you're the only podcaster podcasting on your topic. You're delivering it in your unique way. And that has value. And that's where the one to 3% of people who will listen, will subscribe and wanna support you in a larger way. But if 50% of podcasters and I think like 80% of podcasters have fewer than then 1500 or a thousand regular listens in the first 30 days then, I mean, one to 3% of a hundred is three. One to 3% of a thousand is do the math. I'm terrible math. It's not a lot of money. So if you're gonna try to monetize that way, well, that's also a numbers game.
Speaker 5 00:19:07 I am, you know, I prefer to have people try to grow their shows through the use of paid methods, but sometimes those paid methods are not built into the budget. They don't have funding, which is another reason I try to help podcasters find funding for their podcast ahead of actually starting it, which is easier than you would think it was, especially if you're a local podcaster, especially if you're in a, in a niche that is particularly, I don't know, popular at the time. It can be easy to find someone to give you a couple thousand dollars for the year to be the headline sponsor of a brand new show, all based on the promise of what it might become or, you know, the people that you're speaking to other ways are player FM player FM, I think is probably one of the best players to advertise on.
Speaker 5 00:19:48 They have a couple of packages. They're like 2000, 4,000, 6,000 and 8,000, I think are the price point breaks. And of all the ones that I've worked with in the past, that one has the lowest CPA and they can actually track because they're the app. They can actually track whether or not you get the subscribe or the follower, whatever it is in the app. It's like one buck, two bucks, you look at overcast and they have ads as well. And I think this is a function of how popular those platforms become as the advertising portion of those platforms become as the longer they exist. Because as a business, if your advertising platform is very successful, you're gonna get a lot of demand. And if you get a lot of demand, well, there's gonna be the ability for you to maybe up your rate a bit.
Speaker 5 00:20:34 And that's, you know, that's a business thing. I, I don't hold that against anybody, but right now the cost per acquisition in like the business category on overcast is like, I mean, it's insane. You'll spend 22, you'll spend $1,200 and you'll get like 55 new subscribers, which again, takes us back to who the hell has that kind of money and is an independent podcaster who has to grow. So the reason that I lad Facebook ADSD so much is that you can start for a very cheap amount of money, you know, five bucks a day, $150 a month, which I understand $150 isn't cheap, but it's, I think in the case of display ads or paid up marketing of any kind that it is definitely on the cheaper side of things. And when you say $5 a day, a podcaster thinks, okay, I could probably make that happen, right.
Speaker 5 00:21:18 I could have a yard sale and I could probably come up with $300 or I could probably come up with $600 worth of stuff. I don't need around this house anymore. And I could put it towards this, or I could drive for Uber two weekends a month, and I might be able to make that and I could develop an advertising budget for myself. That's feasible. You use that money in the first three months. The strategy that I employ is using that money to drive people to your website. I love WordPress by the way, Matt WordPress and Elementor as a combo or just ridiculous. And you guys have that great plugin that you offer so that, you know, you can have all of your, you know, have all your episodes get pulled right in there automatically. And that's great driving people to your website so that your Facebook pixel can capture some demographic behavioral interest data about the people who are clicking and visiting and driving people, not just through ads, but from your podcast itself, for some reason to the website, no matter what it is, you know, show notes, pictures that you can't show in an audio only format, like anything to get them there so that your pixel can start to learn demographically, who they are, not literally who they are for those of you concern with privacy, just demographically, who they are, where do they live, how much money do they make?
Speaker 5 00:22:29 What zip codes are they in? Like what are their general interests so that you can say, okay, well, it seems like a really good portion of people live in the Northeast and they seem to be interested in this, that, and the other thing, which Facebook isn't gonna tell you, but that pixel is gonna know. And then you can say, all right, well now I wanna start creating ads that are based on what that pixel has learned about my target audience and, you know, for $150 a month of buy-in, it is not a huge risk. So it's a very low risk way to get started. And you wind up getting like, you know, you're like 20, 30 new listeners a week, which is not huge growth, but if you're a podcaster, who's gonna, I mean, we've got 4.1 million podcasts in the podcast index, right? And I think as of April of this year, the podcast host said that there were only 500 and some odd thousand of them that have published in the last 60 days.
Speaker 5 00:23:22 People quit. Most of them quit. And it is my firm belief that the reason they quit is because they are spinning their wheels. They're losing steam and they feel like they're just wasting their time. And that is a, you know, from a human psychology standpoint, that's a terrible feeling. It doesn't feel good to feel like I'm doing this work. I care. People say they like it, but I'm not growing. And I feel like that $150 a month is the cost of some, some regular recurring, dependable growth that keeps you saying, oh, people do care. And it can slowly get you to a point where maybe you can throw something in there. That's a, you know, on an alternative monetization option, not necessarily extra content, but something like I've got a course on this, or I have a, this or that on this, or I have a discord maybe you guys would like to join my discord for, you know, three bucks a month or something, you know, at the end of a year, you might have a few thousand listeners and one to three of them throwing you $3 a month.
Speaker 5 00:24:21 You might have some income to do a little bit more advanced advertising like player FM, for example, that I, that I mentioned, it's a slow burn. And I have just always been very honest with people about how hard it is and how much concerted full-time very business like effort. It takes to be successful. Now, of course, I'm gonna work against myself here. Sometimes it doesn't take that. I have a podcast called practical stoicism. I started it this January. I haven't so much as shared one, single listen, tweet, nothing. I've done, no ads. I've promoted it in no way whatsoever. It currently gets 20,000 downloads a month. And it only has 19 episodes. And I have no way of explaining to you how that happened. Other than I chose an underserved niche. And I create pretty good content and have an okay voice. Sometimes that happens. But the number of podcasts I've created for which that has happened is exactly one <laugh>. And the rest of them took a lot of work. And I think that in general, they just take a, a ton of work.
Speaker 0 00:25:21 So put the sort of hobbyists and I, and I I've seen you, or at least I think I've seen you do this in,
Speaker 5 00:25:26 You're gonna get me killed
Speaker 0 00:25:27 <laugh> in, in your, in your, I don't wanna say arguments, but in your, in your, in your take of, of all of this stuff online is let's take the, the hobbyist podcaster aside. Who's like, I just wanna do this for fun. I don't care about any of this stuff. Like put them to the side for a moment. What you're saying here is look, it, it takes the business mindset to run a successful podcast, you know, minus the unicorn shot. Like, Hey, I just did an awesome show and people latched onto it. That's one in a million. Um, but if you want to succeed in a crowded, uh, uh, competitive market, you have to think business, you have to think pixel ads, Facebook, uh, websites, email lists, uh, conversion ratios, landing pages, products. Like you have to think of this whole thing as a business. So who cares if we give a little bit to Spotify, it's just part of your operational cost. Like that's okay. Uh, you gotta pay the Piper and out of the 100% of this pie, 35% of it goes to someone else and you might keep 65%.
Speaker 5 00:26:36 Well, I think that 35% is extremely unfortunate. I really don't like that. Apple keeps so much of, for using apple, as an example, keeps so much of what people pay for a subscription. I mean, are you kidding me? It's already a lot of work to get somebody to, to get that 1%, to get large enough, to even have a 1% and then for Spotify to take. And you're always asking for such a small amount of money, right? It's like, oh, $5 a month. And Apple's like, sure, I'll take, you know, 30% of that. I think that's a, you know, a super, I'm not gonna say it, cuz it's a family show. I think it's a super jerky move. And I don't like that. They do that. But also what do we do if we don't have that? They are making a lot of things more possible for us, not just Spotify, but you know, apple as well.
Speaker 5 00:27:23 And these platforms are investing a significant amount of time and money to make these things easier. Maybe even more accessible, more lower barrier to entry. I mean, anchor is free and that's a, you know, that's a $20 a month barrier to entry removed and they're doing that and they're hosting that audio. So they've gotta make that back somewhere. So 30% is a little too high for my taste, but, but the idea that, you know, you have to pay the Piper, there are other people involved in this and they deserve a cut of helping you to be successful. Yeah. I generally agree with that.
Speaker 0 00:27:57 Yeah. It's like the YouTube thing. Um, you know, I've, I've been doing YouTube for a while now and um, my only successful, one of my only successful YouTube channels is about 15,000 subscribers. And I make a few hundred bucks a month on Google ads, but I never looked at it as, oh God. Like this will pay the bills completely. I always went into YouTube with the mindset of there. Ain't no way I'm gonna compete against everybody else. I simply don't have the time, but it's a nice, like at the time when I started it, I had, you know, brand new kids and I had three kids, three young boys now and buying a lot of diapers. So this few hundred bucks a month was good, but I always went into it like, yeah, there's this advertising thing. But the real thing I want you to do is go buy this product or at the time go hire me. And, and I would work with you, um, you know, at the time. So kind of the same Mon feeling, uh, in this world is look for most of us, the podcast, won't be the only thing. And maybe going into it with the mindset of you need split incomes or revenue streams and approach it that way. Because if one goes away, at least you have these other things here to see.
Speaker 5 00:29:02 Yeah. For people who are trying to create podcast as a product, as in that is the thing that is going to be productized and make you all the money. That is the toughest row to ho I think by far, and it is much, much easier to niche down, have another product somewhere else. I mean my podcast, good morning, podcasters. I think I have fewer than I think I have between 200 and 300 listeners daily within like the first 24 hours. And here I am trying to help people grow podcasts. Some people might say, well, you've only got that many podcaster podcast listeners. So what the hell do you know? And the answer to that is that podcast is never intended to grow. Nevermind. The niche being incredibly narrow. I don't know if there is a more niche or niche than podcast for podcasters, but that podcast growing has nothing to do with whether or not that podcast is successful enough.
Speaker 5 00:29:54 Some hobbyist podcast will say, haha, I've got Tanner. He's saying it doesn't matter if it grows. But the reason it doesn't matter is because that podcast is a business card. That podcast is a way that people who might work with me, clients who pay me a really fair income might decide whether or not I really know what I'm talking about. So I don't care if that podcast ever grows. I care that the people who find it get some help out of it. And I care that the potential clients who find it, see it as evidence of the fact that I know what I'm talking about. And that's exactly how it functions. I mean, I can get one client for one month and it will pay for all my time that has to do with creating that podcast. And I create an episode every day. Podcasts are most easy to monetize when they are a part of your marketing strategy.
Speaker 5 00:30:38 When they are the product you have got a lot of work to do. And passion is important obviously, because you're gonna go months, maybe years before you're making even what you would consider to be a fair part-time income. Passion's important, but passion is only gonna take you so far before you, you are burned out and you quit. And a lot of people quit and I want less people to quit because ultimately if you're just gonna sign up work for six months and then quit, like why, like what are you doing? You're frustrating yourself for six months instead of just, you know, putting in a little planning ahead of time and maybe going further for longer and accomplishing some broader things. Now I understand hobbyists, which I prefer to call. They're more like passion, podcasters or enthusiasts. I think I've come to that word as being better. Cuz I've always felt that hobbyist is kind of,
Speaker 0 00:31:28 Uh, a genre to itself.
Speaker 5 00:31:29 Well, it's almost like you're putting somebody down. Like it's like calling someone an amateur, which to me as a golfing fan amateur doesn't mean the same thing as, as some people will take that to me, but I, you know, oh, you're a hobbyist. I feel like this very tive. It's not a nice thing to say to somebody, but I've also learned recently that people do like the term and don't feel that way about it at all. So it takes all kinds and there is a certain kind that I show up for. And it seems like hobbyists are maybe not, not those individuals, which is, you know, all more power to them. Uh, they're just not the people that I show up to help. Mostly.
Speaker 0 00:32:03 You did. Uh, when you were coming back from Vegas, I think you did like an eight part Twitter audio <laugh> on your Twitter. And I
Speaker 5 00:32:12 Like to talk so much. I cannot be alone in the car.
Speaker 0 00:32:14 Yeah. This is when I, I hurt my back and I was just laying in bed watching and I wanted to respond to, but I couldn't, I couldn't literally physically couldn't. Um, and I think at one point like towards the end of the audio, you said something like, should we bring the enthusiast to the table? And my gut reaction is we should, because I don't have, have a perfect way to like stitch this in, in words. But like,
Speaker 5 00:32:41 No, no, I think I get it. I think I get where you're going. So the, the, the, for anybody who didn't hear it, which is pretty much everybody who didn't hear it, <laugh>, uh, my position at the time was there are those of us who are looking at podcasting as a medium and industry for which we are responsible in guiding its direction in developing it, technically in making it better in increasing opportunities for people who take it seriously as a creative or business medium. And I think I'm one of those people. I think you two are two of those people. I think that's a lot of people. And then there are people who will tell me and they usually identify as hobbyists. I don't care if it grows, it's more about fun. I don't need to make money. And I'm thinking, okay, well you all don't have as much invested, let's say ideologically or just strategy wise.
Speaker 5 00:33:36 You're not approaching this in the same high risk way that the rest of us are. I mean, you guys have a whole career around this. <laugh> I have an entire consulting business around this, the future of podcasting, I think arguably, and, and when I say arguably, I mean, you can disagree with me on this, but I think it's at least a fair point to discuss that the future of podcasting probably means more to those of us who feel responsible for shaping it and making it better than it does to somebody who says, eh, if I don't make money, it doesn't matter. Eh, if marketing doesn't get better, it doesn't matter. Discovery doesn't get solve. It doesn't matter. And the, but those people want to have a place at the table of ha of what this medium should be. And I think my position probably still is, and I don't mean this cruelly.
Speaker 5 00:34:23 It's just, you know, if you want a seat at the table and you really want to shape what this industry is like in the future, don't tell me you don't care about growth or monetization or discovery because those are the things we're all trying to fix. And a lot of people got mad because, well, I mean, you know, the way I talk, people just think I'm mad all the time, but, and that did come across maybe as pretty matter of factly, but some people weighed in and were respectful in their weighing in and said, you know, there are opinions that might come up. You might change some minds. If those people are able to sit at the table and they might, you might see some opportunities or get some new ideas that you wouldn't have come up with on your own. You know, it's a whole diversity and inclusion argument really. And they had a point. I don't know if they've changed my mind necessarily, but I see where they're coming from and I respect the position. I just don't think I agree with
Speaker 0 00:35:12 It. Tanner Campbell Tanner helps.com. You have good morning podcasters, practical stoicism and retold myths and tales question mark, that's still going, correct.
Speaker 5 00:35:21 That is actually transitioning right now to folklore and mythology. I'm playing kind of the SEO game with the title and seeing how it goes. But that is a daily, eventually podcast that just shares not just shares. I think it's important. You can listen to the trailer right now and figure out how important it is to you that shares, uh, cultural stories from around the world, dead cultures, uh, from anywhere and everywhere so that we can get to know each other a little better. That's pretty important to me.
Speaker 3 00:35:50 Well, that was a constructive conversation. More or less. I, I enjoyed it anyway. I learned a lot.
Speaker 0 00:35:56 Listen, I'm always happy to, uh, debate with Tanner, uh, on these topics. I, I appreciate that he came, uh, onto the show and shared his opinion, shared his beliefs in podcasting. I think I appreciate the world of having the Spotify's competing. I hate to say it with Casto <laugh>, but, but comp you know, being in the space and, and doing the things that they're doing, because without them pushing the envelope on the corporate platform side of the world, um, then the open source movement wouldn't have anything to, uh, sort of, you know, rebuttal with right. To come back and say, okay, if you're going to release this feature in Spotify, well, now we can release a similar feature in the open source world and give it access to, to everyone. And I do appreciate that, that challenge that we all, that we all face.
Speaker 3 00:36:42 Yeah. And speaking of open RSS and podcasting 2.0 and innovation, where we, you, uh, got to talk with the pod father himself, Adam Curry. Adam's the host of the Noah agenda show. Not one I really listened to, but I do. I do appreciate and respect Adams like innovation and thought and advancing podcasting. And he's a big proponent of value for value. If you don't know what that is, Adam will tell us and we'll hear the full conversation in the next episode.
Speaker 6 00:37:13 If you really ask me, what would I pay to hear the Beatles? I want to hear hold your hand. I think one of the best love songs ever written I'll pay $99. You know, if you ask me, so we learned how to ask people to send in, and you know, someone who makes $35,000 a year, $5 is a big deal. Someone who makes $135,000 a year may be 50, is a little easier for them. But again, that's value that the creator cannot determine. So the next show we looked at our PayPal and sure enough, there was a lot of $3 still, but there was also people sending $5, quite a few sending 50 and a couple 500. We never look back from that moment on,
Speaker 0 00:37:53 Hey, there, listener it's Matt, before you go, I want to offer you the aspiring podcaster two special items. Number one, if you haven't started a podcast yet, or you want to find a better podcast hosting company, start here at Casto use our coupon code audience 20 that's audience two zero. When you sign up for a new
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[email protected] get access to our courses, videos, and templates all for free. Thanks for listening to the audience podcast today. We hope we're helping you become a better podcaster. All that's left for you to do is share this episode on social media buy for now.
