Speaker 1 00:00:06 Podcasting from, from bed. I mean, podcasting
Speaker 2 00:00:08 To bad. So I have the video mic go two. So it's version two of the road, video mic go. I just said that it's got the USBC version it's primarily, uh, meant for on top of my camera, but I just plug in USBC directly to my laptop. And I have a jobby gorilla pod wrapped around my stomach and my thigh <laugh> and that's how I'm balancing this on my bed.
Speaker 2 00:00:40 Welcome back to the audience podcast. This is the, uh, this is the flavor of the audience series where Stewart and I sit down and we talk about some of the more, most impactful headlines that are in the podcasting space. At least the ones that we feel are most gonna be, are gonna be most impactful for you. The podcast creator, you know, really just rolling up your sleeves, doing the hard work, the marketing, the audio, editing, the scripting, the blogging, the monetization, all of that stuff. Uh, what we are gonna do is kind of do like a retrospective back about 30 to 45 days of things that have happened in the space that maybe you haven't heard of, or maybe you have heard of, and you just want to hear our opinion on it. And we're just gonna go through some of the headlines that we've curated onto a list. All of these links will be in the show notes as well. So if you're, Hey, what's that article you were talking about, it's gonna be in the show notes,
Speaker 1 00:01:38 You know, Matt, you put together like a pretty good list of, uh, stories that, that we could talk about. There's, there's one thing though, that's, that's not on your, uh, list that maybe isn't very, very specific to podcasters, but I think we have to mention, go for it. They've discontinued the iPod podcast. That's podcasting has quite literally outlived the device that was, uh, you know, allegedly designed for.
Speaker 2 00:02:03 I know there's a lot of like James Cridlin from pod news. He lives and dies by his, his iPod touch that he has because he's not an apple fanboy, uh, like maybe you and I are. And he's an, an he's, you know, fully on sort of Android in the Google world. So his only way of testing it, uh, iTunes, apple music, and all the apps and stuff like that is through his touch. And he is quite disturbed. I did see an article. It was just a headline. I didn't click through to see it, but as soon as they announce the retirement of the iPod, they immediately all sold out. <laugh>. I mean, what a way to sell your back inventory then saying, we're never gonna create this again. And everyone rushes to buy it.
Speaker 1 00:02:43 You know, it kind of reminds me of guided by voices, a band that I like a lot. And I saw them in concert back in 2011, when they announced that it was gonna be their final tour and everybody, you know, bought every show was sold out for that tour. Well, they they've put out like seven or eight albums since then. Quite literally, they keep, they, they keep touring. Uh, so who knows, maybe we we'll probably see some, uh, you know, snazzy new reiteration, uh, iteration of the, uh, of the iPod. We'll just call it something different.
Speaker 2 00:03:12 Yeah. I mean, I, I would, I wouldn't put it past apple to take something away from us and then give it back. <laugh>, you know, like the ports, uh, like the ports at our laptops, you know, when they took all those ports away from laptops, like the SD card, which I was, I too, I was like, oh my God, why? I just wanna slide an SD card from my camera into my laptop. Why do I have to buy a dongle? And then whatever, it was five, six years later, they put ports back, uh, on the Mac pros. Uh, so apple courage, you know, really, really progressing in that world. Hey, speaking of pulling the plug, Facebook pulled the plug, did I say pulling the plug, pulling the ports? That's what I was thinking. Speaking of pulling the ports and the plugs, Facebook pulls the plug on podcasting, uh, not even a year into Facebook's announcement of getting into the, the podcasting game.
Speaker 2 00:04:06 I know for one, you know, uh, obviously on bias, uh, working at Casto loving, open source, loving the RSS feed, uh, not loving a walled garden that is Facebook and algorithms and advertisements and all that stuff. As soon as I heard they were getting into podcasting, I just rolled my eyes. And I was like, I don't think this is going to be great for all of us. And sure enough, not even Facebook thought <laugh> that podcasting was gonna be good, at least for them, I have some thoughts. But do you have any, uh, kneejerk reactions when you saw Facebook shutting down the podcasting stuff?
Speaker 1 00:04:45 Not so much kneejerk reactions other than I, I never, I never had much confidence that Facebook was gonna be able to provide a really good audio experience for anybody.
Speaker 2 00:04:56 You and I are currently working on a new episode. That's taking a little bit longer because we're doing lots of interviews. Um, just lots of research and, and stuff like that, centralized versus decentralized in the podcast space. And, uh, yeah, I mean, anything where, you know, when you, when Facebook first announced it, uh, there were, you know, there were speculation of, Hey, I mean, because you know, Facebook and advertising, what's going to happen to my content is Facebook just going to scoop up my audio and, and just layer on top advertisers, right in the audio. Um, those things were all up for grabs. Like that kind of thing was up for grabs and their, and, and you kind of felt this coming because it was pretty strict on how you had to set up, it was only available in the us, but it was pretty strict in how you had to set up a podcasting account immediately though, tho those that, that got access to podcasting for Facebook, Facebook for podcasting, I don't even know what the heck the product was called immediately.
Speaker 2 00:06:00 They saw their stats jump through the roof, right? Downloads were going up, listens were going up. We had cast's customers saying, Hey, what's my, my graphs, uh, are just skyrocketing and what's the source. And of course it was Facebook, but it was very, it was almost like it was just, it was just fake traffic, right? It was Facebook loading it, counting it as a listen and the way that they pinged the servers. I mean, it was chaotic in the very, very beginning, which is kind of what I expected from Facebook, right. This Rocky rollout. But do I really, really trust the numbers that Facebook's reporting, uh, at the end of the day, I'm, I'm happy to see, well, I'm not happy to see it go away in all honesty. The more, even though it's a direct competitor, maybe to cast those, the more that's out there, the better it is for the entire market. But again, I, I am glad it's not Facebook. <laugh>, that's, that's doing this.
Speaker 1 00:06:54 Yeah. I don't even know that I even have a knee jerk reaction just because I've quite, literally never met anybody who uses Facebook for podcasting seriously, in all seriousness. That, that sounds crazy as mu as, as sort of ingrained in this world as, as I am, I've never like encountered anybody. Who's like, yeah, I'm using Facebook for, for my podcast. So I, I barely even have a reaction other than my, my, I guess my gut says that's not all that surprising.
Speaker 2 00:07:24 You know, the sort of the only big tech I say only, but Amazon hasn't done all that much. They're doing some things in the background. We have an integration with it. In other words, you can one click deploy your podcast to Amazon and that'll play in Amazon music and on audible, uh, for podcast listening. But the other big tech giant quite literally, probably the, probably the biggest in the world in terms of footprint would be Google. And we still don't know what they're going to do. I didn't link this up in our notes though. I should have, um, we still don't know what Google's gonna do with podcasting. Uh, and know, there's a big hypothesis that it's going to be just a YouTube focused thing. Um, and maybe roll that right into Google music, which pairs up to YouTube. Uh, but we still don't know what's gonna happen there. And that's sort of like the one that's, you know, with goo with Facebook dropping out, will Google continue or is it the same fate? I don't, obviously, I don't know
Speaker 1 00:08:27 If you strictly think about it from like a user interface, right. Google's horrendous as like Google, like Google play and, and all that. At least in my opinion, like I don't use it to listen to podcasts at all. <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:08:39 Yeah, no, I use, well, I have YouTube premium because I think it is probably one of the most valuable subscriptions that I have, like, in terms of like, what's your monthly streaming streaming subscriptions, just for the, the sheer fact that I can, there's no more YouTube ads. Right? That's a huge thing. Like I I'm willing to pay to not see ads on YouTube, especially when you have kids and they're watching stuff, forget about it. <laugh> removing ads. Fantastic. That also comes with YouTube music or whatever they call it. Maybe just Google music. I, I, I don't know. So that's the one I use just because I already pay for it. So I don't use Spotify or anything else. I, I just use YouTube and I, I do really like it. Um, it seems to work well for me, but I listened to no podcasts on YouTube, you know, but the Tom Webster Edison research, when he was there, he talked about Google or YouTube being the most leveraged platform for, for discovering new podcasts. So you do have to be on YouTube. I think if you're really trying to grow. Um, but the product is not built for it yet.
Speaker 1 00:09:46 Can you even integrate your, your RSS feed into YouTube?
Speaker 2 00:09:50 Uh, I feel like you're teeing this one up for me, uh, Stewart, but good tee up. <laugh> so you can't yet. Uh, and that's the big question? Like what are they gonna do? Are they just gonna ingest RSS feeds or is it gonna be like this apple premium game where you have to, you know, manage your files at Casto and then go manage your files at apple? Right now, what we have for casts customers is you can republish your, your audio files to YouTube directly. So you authorize your YouTube account with casts, you upload your podcast, your podcast goes live, it goes to the RSS players and it goes to YouTube at the same time. So that's how we solve it. Now. I don't know what they're gonna do in the future.
Speaker 1 00:10:30 Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, that's good for convenience, but I mean, the analytics are separate, right? Like, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and, and that's, I mean that in and of itself, isn't the end of the world, but yeah. I mean, if you can gather the, the data and the analytics, all in one place from, from both YouTube and all your different directories, that's gotta seem like a game changer.
Speaker 2 00:10:49 And I suspect their analytics will be reported separately, just like we have to report Spotify analytics separately to our customers. So anything that travels or anyone that listens to your podcast over a standard RSS player or on the websites, we gather all that data and we display it right in our stats. If you're looking for your Spotify stats, you have to go to a separate Spotify tab. We don't mix the two, uh, only because of the way that Spotify reports the stats to us. Uh, we just have it on a separate tab. I suspect it'll be the same for YouTube as well. Once that happens. I mentioned Tom Webster before I said, when he was at Edison research, he is no longer at Edison research. We have two links from Edison research that are in the show notes. Right now we have the top 50 shows and we have the top genres in the us. The most interesting thing to me is the genres in the us, uh, as one can expect, Joe Rogan is still number one in top 50 shows, top 50 shows. Don't really seem to be moving all that much, uh, save a spot or two for some shows, but, uh, the genres is more the most interesting to me because I think that gives insight into the opportunity for a new podcaster. Like where can one succeed in podcasting and maybe picking a less competitive genre is the smart thing to do.
Speaker 1 00:12:09 There's two ways of looking at that. First of all, when you need, you know, we're looking at the top 50 podcast, you know, you've got Joe Rogan, number one, you know, a hundred million dollar contract at Spotify crime junkie the daily from the New York times, this American life. That's an NPR affiliate the office ladies, they're already famous Dateline N NBC, uh, you know, all, all this stuff, pod save America, all pretty good shows like this is, this is good stuff. But I think where your goal with that, Matt is like, not only should that help you determine how you think about the type of show you make, but also like where you focus or how you measure your own success. So in other words, not worrying so much about overall, like downloads and impressions, but connecting with that right audience. And then, you know, looking at the, at the best genres, I think will kind of help you dictate
Speaker 2 00:12:59 That. Yeah. One of the, I'm looking at the top 50 list. I know I said we weren't gonna spend too much time on the top 50 list, but what I do find interesting and, and what other creators might seem interesting if I'm doing back at the napkin math, it seems like. So they list the, the show, right? They'll they'll list the, the show title, and then they'll list the producer or the company behind it. And I think only 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, if I'm reading this quickly off the top of my head, uh, five of them are listened as listed as independent, uh, as in maybe not a major backing. And even though, you know, to throw a bone at Joe Rogan, uh, it is well largely just him and one other person. Uh, same thing for H three podcast, I believe. I mean, they probably have a bigger team right now, but they're not whatever they're, they're not NPR. They're not the N NBC. They're not the New York times. Like they don't have literally billions of dollars behind them. So that's kind of cool to see that, well, five, six, if you count, even some of the bigger ones are, are mostly independent, I guess it's a, a loose term, but five of them are listed as listed as independent. Um, which I guess is a, a cool thing to see, or not, it's either glass half full or glass half empty when you look at this list, I guess.
Speaker 1 00:14:20 Yeah. I, I mean, I think when you just consider now, what, what podcasting has become the fact that there's, there's five of those who for all intents and purposes are competing with, let's say, you know, wander and Vox media, uh, Kona O'Brien right. I mean, it's, it's, it's really, it's, it's really pretty wild. When you think about it, that an independent creator is, is charting not far off from, from Conan O'Brien that's, that's, that's absolutely wild to me.
Speaker 2 00:14:49 Let's take a look at these top us genres. We had comedy number one news, number two, society and culture, three true crime, four sports, five TV and film six. And then in the seventh spot, which is where I spend a lot of time business. And I bet that's not even, I bet that's business like, like real business with air quotes. I spend a lot of time listening to, you know, business E podcasts from like small businesses. Uh, I bet it doesn't really count that much there, but maybe it does. I don't know. This is an interesting list and, and technol what the biggest surprise for me was technology was number 16 on the top genres. I would've assumed that to be way up at the top because on YouTube, that's pretty at what I think anyway, it's a pretty big genre for, for YouTube, but maybe it doesn't perform well in audio for obvious reasons.
Speaker 1 00:15:44 I can't believe leisure, beat out technology.
Speaker 2 00:15:47 <laugh> yeah, I know. I know that is pretty crazy fiction with all of the investment going into like fiction podcasts, like, like Marvel. I think there's a new Batman series that's out too on Spotify question mark. And I, I was like, man, with all that money being poured into those, those sort of like, uh, fiction podcasts and secondary podcasts that go along with a film. Yeah. I expected that to be a little bit higher. Uh, so our other article right alongside this and some good news, uh, I wrote down this note in our, uh, script, uh, when everything else feels like it's going down, it's nice to see something going up, which is, uh, apparently podcast listening listenership, at least in the us podcast is attracting more new listeners than ever. According to new research, over 50% of daily podcast listeners began listening in the last two years, uh, based off of Nielsen's podcasting today report, uh, us listeners have grown by 40% in the last three years.
Speaker 2 00:16:47 Uh, the data suggests that podcast advertising drives an aided and aided, uh, brand recall of 71%. So podcast listenership going up, that's a good thing. There was a little bit of a dip in the beginning of the year where I, I saw on Twitter and I saw some of our colleagues and even competitors saying, Hmm, I think there's like a little dip happening. Like people started going back to work momentarily <laugh> and then, uh, they're like, yeah, yeah, we're done with this audio stuff. But apparently Nielsen says, you know, listenership has gone up and I'm sure it has for sure. Uh, nothing boost, audio and podcasts, like being locked up for two years, literally. <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:17:26 Well, can't people like can't people listen to their podcast on the way to work. Like, let's go it on, why are they, why they, why are they yelling? Just cause they have to go to work now.
Speaker 2 00:17:36 Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know now they're just like yelling at themselves. Why am I back in the car? <laugh> like, I don't even have time. I don't even wanna listen to audio anymore.
Speaker 1 00:17:44 Um, yeah man, screw the screw, the drive time, like morning radio and all that. It's all just commercials anyway.
Speaker 2 00:17:50 Yeah. You know, it's one of the things I think that again, like our research that you and I have been doing for the centralized decentralized topic, uh, I, I think a lot of people have gone into podcasting. Well, I think, let me say it this way. I got into podcasting because like listening as a listener many, many, many years ago, uh, because I mean, there was no other content, like the ones that I wanted and back then it, it was tech, it was very tech related, but I think one of the most listened to podcasts, I, I listened to back then was I think it was called a, was it called a guy and a girl. It was like a, it was a boyfriend and girlfriend that used to live with each other. They were like one of the very first podcasters. And it was just, they were just podcasting, like talking about life.
Speaker 2 00:18:39 He was like a comedian, I think. And I don't remember what her job was, but it was like this very voyeuristic look into one's life, which now you call like vlogging on YouTube. And I think they got married and then they got a divorce, but they still do the podcast. Like, it was a very interesting, you know, space back then, but it was because of content that was not available on radio or even television for that matter. So where am I gonna get this content that I'm supremely interested in podcasts and now YouTube of course, but podcasts for sure. And I think, you know, if you're home and you've got this hobby and you, it's not gonna be on Netflix or Amazon, you're probably gonna turn into a podcast and you know, I think that's good. And I think that's great for creators and listeners at the same time. I mean, it's obvious stuff because we live it and breathe it. But it's certainly one of those things where, you know, when you're starting your podcast and even if it's a very niche topic, um, I think the audience will eventually come to your show. If you, as long as you are, you know, as long as you don't give up, of course, number one. But as long as you're, you're promoting it as best as you possibly can. Number two, uh, I think the, the listenership will show up.
Speaker 1 00:19:54 Yeah. I mean, that's, that's kind of the, the sound kind of like a broken record. If you've listened to any of the episodes I've put together before, but it's, it's like Eric Newsome magnificent noise says, you know, it's, it's that idea of form and function, right? Figure out kind of what function you want your podcast to, to meet, to meet and then make a form, a format really that, uh, that speaks to that
Speaker 2 00:20:21 To contrast the news. <laugh> that the, the going up podcast sat satisfaction according to this, uh, article podcast satisfaction peaked in 2016 and has since been declining steadily, they're pointing towards, uh, ratings for podcasts. Uh, I I'll just come clean. It has been a while since I have rated a podcast though, I also haven't. Well, I was just about to say, I haven't really subscribed to any new ones, but I have subscribed to the always sunny in Philadelphia podcast as of late and smartless, but I don't rate those because I'm just thinking and being truthful. I don't rate those because I'm like, they're celebrities, they don't care. Uh, but if, you know, but if it was like, if it was like you Stewart, if you were like, Hey, I'm launching this new podcast, can you check it out? Yeah. I'd go rate you. When was the last time you rated a podcast?
Speaker 1 00:21:22 Yeah. So similar situations, less known creators that I really wanted to help out by, uh, giving them a good rating. Like I listen to, like, I listen to WTF and, uh, could O'Brien needs a friend. I listen to all the pineapple street media stuff. I don't really ever rate those because, uh, I don't. Yeah. I never feel like they, they need to help. I, I, I read the article that, that you sent me as far as like people leaving like one star reviews and like negative comments. I, I kind of feel like that's like the Yelp type phenomenon now where it's like, yeah. Like to people who have a bad experience are more likely to make it known than the people who had a good one, particularly for something, you know, the more, the more well known someone comes typically the more, uh, polarizing they become.
Speaker 1 00:22:13 I thought it was a good example. They used here of like, you know, the daily, well, they're gonna be talking about politics. So naturally that's gonna be a little more polarizing than, you know, someone giving out business advice, most likely. So I don't know. It was kind of hard for me. I'm not really, you know, you're, you're far more inclined and knowledgeable about, you know, the lot of these trends than I am, but, uh, that, that was what I read. And I thought, eh, someone that just kind of comes with the territory, I feel like,
Speaker 2 00:22:42 I think the excitement around the medium wears off, right. It's like everything else. Uh, when something new comes on the scene like podcasting everyone's, whoa, what's this podcasting thing. You get this rush of early adopters, you know, probably 10 years ago, when you were listening to podcasts, you were more inclined to go leave a review because it was new. It was cool. Yeah. Let me engage in this kind of new air quotes technology. And then just over the course of time, humans are like, yeah, I don't get time for that anymore. Right. It's like commercials people. You probably used to watch commercials when they were watching television. And then after a hundred years of, of commercials, people were like, you know what, nah, I just, I want, I don't want commercials. I wanna skip this. Or I'm just gonna leave the room and do something else.
Speaker 2 00:23:28 Or, you know, now look at my phone instead. Or so I think we just get conditioned to this stuff and people start to fall off, uh, doing that. And second, like everything else in podcasting, it is not a seamless experience. So I can't just pick up my, and when Stewart says, Hey, leave a, you know, liken or rating and review on iTunes, or I keep saying iTunes I'm so used to that in apple, I would then have to go, okay, minimize my pocket cast app, open up apple podcast, find Stewart show, cuz I don't use apple podcast app. And then leave you a review. I mean, I do it for you, Stewart <laugh> but I probably wouldn't do it really for anyone else unless they were a close friend. So I, you know, there's that friction point, which is a lot of things in, in podcasting. It's not easy. Well,
Speaker 1 00:24:15 Well I'm flattered that you would do that for me. Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:24:17 Hey, no problem.
Speaker 1 00:24:18 You know, the, the thing is, is, and this is, this is just sort of guesswork here, but I mean, you know, a lot of, a lot of people say, you know, they, they listen to their podcasts when they're doing other things. So like you said, it's not always very seamless, right? I mean, if you're doing chores around the house or if you're driving in the car,
Speaker 1 00:24:37 You know, where they have the little plug that says, Hey, please rate and review on, uh, you know, apple podcasts, people. Don't, it's not that people are just like, nah, screw them. I ain't doing that. It's usually just kind of a matter of yeah. Like, yeah, but driving, yeah. I'm, I'm I'm driving right now or I'm, I'm washing, I'm washing the dishes or, or, or, or whatever. So yeah, far far be it for me to contradict this article cuz like, I, I will definitely, uh, I think that was written by Becca butcher. So I'll concede to her knowledge on this, but yeah, sometimes the, the, the title of the article I thought was just a little confusing. Our podcast's getting worse. I mean, I, I, I mean to, to me, I don't really ever, I've never judged quality of someone's work based on the ratings and, and reviews. They're, they're getting necessarily, I mean, there, there are people I think who get, who get a lot of good coverage and deservedly. So, but yeah, I think, I think like for all the reasons you just mentioned, and I think, you know, market saturation, there's just, there's just a, there are a lot of podcasts. I mean, I know we say there's not too many and there aren't, but now people have, now people have more options than they ever had.
Speaker 2 00:25:47 One of the things that is <laugh>, I don't, I don't have this written down, but again, I'm gonna, for the third time, I'm gonna pull on our, uh, centralized, decentralized, uh, topic here. One of the things I really love about the podcast 2.0 spec is there are things that cross over as long as the app support them. One of the things that they're working on is commenting and commenting would, you know, in a perfect world, if I'm listening into pocket cast and you're listening in overcast and both apps support podcast, 2.0 commenting, and Casto of course would have to support it as well. Then your comment left in overcast. I would see it in pocket cast. That's a, that's a perfect world. They're doing it now with things like clips where you can save clips of a show and those clips are then broadcasted across all apps that support it.
Speaker 2 00:26:48 So if we launch this show or publish this show today, or whatever we could clip, we could make our own clips and say, Hey, these are the best three clips right here for this show. If you wanted to listen to just these three clips, you could do that. And those three clips would appear in the podcast apps across the world. Now it's a big stretch because all of these podcast apps have to support it, but these are things that are really gonna help creators. Uh, so we should all be, you know, hoping that these standards get adopted because it's, it's only gonna be better for podcasters. Otherwise the big, uh, distribution points, apple, Google, Spotify, they'll just keep it in house because that's, that's the name of the game in big business, all just stuck and enclosed in this platform. Whereas this other stuff that we're all doing in the industry is across, uh, across everyone in open source. So we'll save that as we dive more into that, <laugh> into that episode. That'll be a great one for sure.
Speaker 1 00:27:46 Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm stoked for, uh, to really do more, do more work on that. And obviously it's gonna be, it's gonna be a lot of fun to, to share with everybody.
Speaker 2 00:27:54 So stay connected to everybody, uh, cast.com/audience. This is your, I don't even know what we're calling this monthly news update. <laugh> I don't know. I play, this is where Stewart plays like the news jingle coming in, like, you know, and tonight's nightly news casts.com/audience. If you have a topic that you want to email Stewart, and I just send us an email, hello, casto.com. Tweet at us. Casto HQ on Twitter. Uh, and we'll work in your, uh, question comment. Audio file. If you wanna send us a voicemail, we'll work that into the next episode that we sit down here and do we hope everyone enjoyed it? Hope you learn something. We'll see you in the next episode.
Speaker 2 00:28:39 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 casts. Use our coupon code audience 20 that's audience two zero. When you sign up for a new
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