We discuss our plans for Podfest's 10-year anniversary and how we aim to bring a large group of Buzzsprout podcasters along. So, if you've been tuning into Buzzcast regularly, this is your chance to join us at the year's biggest podcasting event!
Have you ever wondered how to leverage social media to expand your podcast? We've got some answers for you. In our discussion, we introduce Social Octopus, the game-changer in creating social media clips for podcasts. We also dissect the rebranding of Podinbox to Fanlist and why fans are the real powerhouses in the podcasting world. Then, we dive into the top podcasts of the year according to Spotify and Apple, and the exciting Podroll feature that empowers users to recommend their favorite podcasts.
We steer the conversation to a more controversial aspect of podcasting - ad-skipping. We unpack the ethical and legal implications of ad-skipping on podcasts and how the Audia app, which allows users to skip ads automatically, might impact podcasters and advertisers. This raises the question: is ad-skipping fair game or a violation of content creators' rights?
View the discussion thread on Twitter/X!
Links mentioned in this episode:
📣 Sound-Off Question: What has helped you grow as a podcast host, interviewer, or round-table moderator?
To have your response featured on our next episode, leave a 30-second voice message at podinbox.com/buzzsprout, send a boostagram, or tweet the answer @BuzzcastPodcast!
Contact Buzzcast
Thanks for listening & keep podcasting!
We discuss our plans for Podfest's 10-year anniversary and how we aim to bring a large group of Buzzsprout podcasters along. So, if you've been tuning into Buzzcast regularly, this is your chance to join us at the year's biggest podcasting event!
Have you ever wondered how to leverage social media to expand your podcast? We've got some answers for you. In our discussion, we introduce Social Octopus, the game-changer in creating social media clips for podcasts. We also dissect the rebranding of Podinbox to Fanlist and why fans are the real powerhouses in the podcasting world. Then, we dive into the top podcasts of the year according to Spotify and Apple, and the exciting Podroll feature that empowers users to recommend their favorite podcasts.
We steer the conversation to a more controversial aspect of podcasting - ad-skipping. We unpack the ethical and legal implications of ad-skipping on podcasts and how the Audia app, which allows users to skip ads automatically, might impact podcasters and advertisers. This raises the question: is ad-skipping fair game or a violation of content creators' rights?
View the discussion thread on Twitter/X!
Links mentioned in this episode:
📣 Sound-Off Question: What has helped you grow as a podcast host, interviewer, or round-table moderator?
To have your response featured on our next episode, leave a 30-second voice message at podinbox.com/buzzsprout, send a boostagram, or tweet the answer @BuzzcastPodcast!
Contact Buzzcast
Thanks for listening & keep podcasting!
Whatever you hit, that's the energy for the show.
Kevin:It's the best one I got. You got to think the people RODE, they spent probably millions of dollars in R&D, thousands and thousands of hours designing RODEcaster and then somebody had the job to come up with the default sounds and they went with the funk master.
Jordan:Yeah, someone got paid a lot of money for this, or it was an intern.
Kevin:The intern kicked the funk master vibes. That is the default sound they put on sound pad one, the first most prominent sound they want people to play when they get RODEcaster.
Jordan:But this is the RODEc aster Duo right.
Kevin:Yeah, so there's second attempt at it.
Alban:That's the upgraded sound, this premium sound right there, all right.
Jordan:Welcome back to Buzzcast. We're going to kick off this episode talking about some things that we have coming up. Alban, are we going to Podfest again this year? I know we've gone every other year.
Alban:We actually I don't think we've been every year. Oh, I've been every year. I actually when I talked to Chris about Podfest 24, there was a year that we did not go to, but it was.
Kevin:No, no, that was the year I went down by myself.
Alban:I thought that was correct too, but the very first time we ever went was the second one. I went when there were only 30 people and Chris said, yeah, there actually was a year before that. There was a Podfest where it was just him it was like a Podfest, I think it was like Chris and like it was like a dinner and he was like this is it.
Kevin:This is year one, oh, and so we didn't go to that one. Then we were invited to the private dinner.
Alban:He said there was a very small one, he goes, but you've been to like seven of the nine. And we then thought through it and I went. You know, the only one I ever missed was when Emerson was a month old, and so I didn't go. But Kevin went, he goes, kevin went, that's right, kevin did go. So you have been, you've been to all. We're going to say you've been to all of them, because the first one was so small that doesn't even really count. So we are going. It's the 10-year anniversary, I think it'll be our ninth and, if I'm being honest, it's the 25th of January to the 28th, and we are headed down and we're going to make it, make it a big thing.
Jordan:Is this the one in Orlando?
Alban:Yes, so they used to start in Tampa and then they moved to Orlando, so they're still doing Orlando. It's the Wyndham Orlando Resort International, a wonderful international hotel run by Wyndham, and we will be, we will be down there.
Kevin:It's like a Wheel of Fortune prize. You'll be going to the wonderful Wyndham Resort in Orlando.
Alban:Our hotel's getting away with names like this Wyndham Orlando International. Like all it is is just a descriptor. There's no real name there.
Jordan:Yeah, well, they have to do that because there's so many different branches of the same hotel in the same city.
Alban:That's true.
Jordan:So they have to like embellish on it a little bit more every time.
Alban:Well, we are going there. It'll be a lot of fun. One of the really nice things for us with PodFest is that we are in Jacksonville. Most of the teams nearby we have people who are remote, but everybody except Jordan is really within probably a four-hour drive of Orlando, and so Orlando becomes a lot easier for a lot of the team to go and spend a couple of days there, and it's really nice to not have to fly a bunch of equipment so we can take more swag. It just makes it easy for us where podcast movement ton of fun. We love going to love seeing everybody.
Alban:But on our side it's a bit more of a commitment to do everything because we're flying it all in and we're planning remotely, so a lot of the team will be there. We're going to have a big Buzzsprout party. We are going to take a bunch of Buzzsprout podcasters, so I'm sure a lot of people know from years past we have taken up two. I think the most we ever took was 500 people oh my gosh, and we are shooting to do that again. So I just finalized our deal with PodFest and we are going to get a lot of tickets and I want to take as many people as possible, but most of all, I want to take a lot of people from Buzzcast, so we need to come up with a way to take as many of our Buzzcast listeners first. So at some point I'm going to send out an email and invite people, but how do we give first priority to everyone who listens to the show?
Jordan:Do you think that they could just email?
Kevin:That's a pretty good answer. Jordan Nailed it.
Alban:I mean they could just email us. That was show content. I can tell you. We could email support. We could also do Boostagrams, as we could do any sort of interaction. You get a ticket. I was trying to think of what do we want and I was trying to create some show content around this idea.
Jordan:Okay, we could have them look under their seats and, mysteriously, the ticket is under their seat, wherever they're at, so we'll start sneaking into Buzzcast listeners' homes and taking things under their chairs. That's an idea.
Kevin:There's no bad ideas. There's no bad ideas.
Jordan:Yeah, Alban, no bad ideas.
Kevin:There are illegal ideas, but they're not bad.
Alban:Well, if you want a ticket to PodFest, I'll make it easy. Reach out to us this week and tell us you want one. We are going to have a lot of tickets. I think they will run out. They will not run out before I send the email to everybody and say, if you want it, fill out this questionnaire. But if you are a Buzzcast listener, I would like to meet you. I would like for you to come, come to our meetup. This isn't Orlando. So if you're in Florida, it's really easy. If you're not, you can fly into Orlando. Reach out to us, so send us a boost to Graham. Send us an email at support@buzzsprout. com and say hey, I really want to get on the list, but reach out to us in some way in the next week and we'll make sure that you're on the list.
Kevin:I think that one of the challenges that we've had in the past is that we send out the emails letting people know that we have a bunch of tickets for PodFest. So if you want to go, get back to us and let us know and we'll get your ticket. The challenge has been that we've done that later than sooner, and so I think you should put it in next week's email, which means this show drops on Friday. The email goes out on Tuesday, so anybody listening to this show you have all day Friday, saturday, sunday and Monday to get your request in before that email goes out to everybody. But the most important thing is right now block those dates off on your calendar. What are the dates?
Alban:again, Alban, january 25th through January 28th Now with PodFest. I think the 26th is kind of like the first day. With all conferences. They have like this pre-day that not everyone needs to go to, so it looks like the 26th is the first real day.
Kevin:But you might want to be there on the 25th because we don't know when the Buzzsprout party is going to be here.
Alban:Yeah, we don't know all of this, but go ahead and block them off. Start getting your hotel rooms together.
Kevin:And when Alban says we want to bring people to PodFest, what he means is he wants to give you a ticket to PodFest.
Jordan:Yeah, we're not paying for flights.
Kevin:Right, that gets you into the conference and into all of the sessions, but it doesn't get you to Orlando. It doesn't get you to the Wyndham International Deluxe Hotel.
Alban:Wyndham Orlando Resort International.
Kevin:Drive. But once you're at the Wyndham International Deluxe Supreme then you can get into the conference. So you have to get yourself there and then, when you're there, you have to get yourself a hotel room or a tent or something and then you can go to all the. We'll get your ticket that gets you into all the conference stuff.
Jordan:And is PodFest one of those conferences where it's tiered, where you have the basic and then VIP and the super VIP, where you get access to different things, or is this just one ticket that gets you into everything?
Alban:I mean it's at the Wyndham Orlando Resort International.
Jordan:Drive Jordan.
Alban:So yes there is a premium level package. There's a VIP. I think that VIP gets you a special place to go hang out and you get snacks and refreshments and stuff. All the tickets we're doing are the Creator Passes, which those cover all sessions, so any education that you want to do, you get access to all that. And you also get to go to the Expo Hall, which is where you get to go talk to all the companies, try out mics, try out equipment and meet a lot of the people who actually build the products that you use. So I'm excited that everybody's going to get access to everything. I'm sure that we will have a couple of Buzzsprout talks and we will definitely have a Buzzsprout party. You get a ticket through Buzzsprout, then you will get access to all of that.
Kevin:Yeah, this is going to be great and like, don't underestimate the Buzzsprout parties. These Buzzsprout parties are epic, they're not. They're not like a party like in the sense of like a rave party with DJs. They're more just people who work at Buzzsprout are hanging out together in a room and you can come and usually we have beer and wine, water and soft drinks, but it's a cool opportunity to meet the team. Alvin, why are you laughing so hard?
Alban:I'm laughing because I'm the one who's playing this party and I just love this is like Kevin's and I's relationship for nine plus years Now. It's Kevin's like I don't underestimate our party, it's going to be awesome, I'm going to have to do it. I'm like I am hearing the promise of what I need to do, so I'm laughing going please don't. Kevin's doesn't just be like there's food, drinks and meetups. So I'm like okay, good.
Kevin:But I don't know, it's just the way you've always done it. I mean they'll probably be a smoke machine. There might be like wandering magicians doing magic.
Alban:Last year we only had three close magicians and, I'll be honest, we need at least four or five magicians this year. Sure the beats of demand.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:I think the one year you play into the party, Kevin, we rented out the entire bowling alley at downtown Disney and had this like massive event. And so when you start saying don't underestimate the party, I don't know what it's going to be because when you were the one doing it you went all out, so I could have been. Oh, we're doing a pickleball championship this year. There's a lot of pickleball interested, bus brunt, so who knows?
Kevin:You know that was an idea that we explored. It was, and it's probably worth mentioning that if there were any decent pickleball courts near the international window resort, we would have done that, but surprisingly there are not.
Alban:Yeah, Well, orlando, being like 112 degrees year round with 98% humidity, probably doesn't lend itself to having lots of pickleball.
Kevin:Yeah, but if you are going to visit Orlando, january, the end of January, is a nice time to do it. That's true. It would probably be in the high 60s, low 70s that time of year.
Jordan:Yeah, it's really nice.
Kevin:There's only like a two week window where you can survive outside in Orlando for more than 20 minutes, and this is it. That's true.
Jordan:Is this going to be one of those things where they need to have a pod fest pass to get into the exclusive bus route party, or is this going to be open to podcasters that are in the Orlando area if they want to swing by?
Alban:We've never turned somebody down. I mean, it's not like someone's going to show up and I'm going to go oh sorry, you can't have like a single beer and see our one magician. Now we're going to have to have a magician. We got to find it. Yeah, I mean, if people can't come to pod fest but you're in the Orlando area and you'd like to come by and hang out like that's a blast, we'd love to have you. We will have to figure out if that's doable, depending on where this is located. If we end up booking a room that's kind of inside the conference center, then people may not be able to get in. So we'll see none of that set in stone. But, mark Hoffinger, calendars reached out to us if you want to be on the list so that we get you a ticket for sure, and we'd love to see you.
Jordan:So in today's buzzbrow newsletter album I saw it towards the bottom of the newsletter that Buzzbrow's former director of video, jonathan, has started a new company called Social Octopus, and this looks really interesting. It looks like he's working on making shorts for podcasters, and do you know anything about this?
Alban:I do.
Alban:I mean Kevin and I both have kept up with Jonathan and he started the school company Social Octopus, the idea being a lot of people have started podcasts and then they get into video podcasts and they know that the way to grow their podcast is through these short form viral clips.
Alban:And one of the things that's tough is you can spend a lot of time crafting a perfect clip, or you can create lots of clips and see which the algorithm likes, and so what Jonathan's trying to do is start. He's got this company that's going to take your long videos and he turns them into lots of clips and then gets them up on all the shorts websites. So that would be TikTok, that'd be Instagram, it'd be YouTube and helps get them out to the world to try to build up some knowledge about your podcast, some brand equity, and so people are more likely to go and listen to it. So if you are using, if you're doing a podcast and you're doing a video podcast and you've got these assets and you're thinking I'd really like to experiment with shorts, we'll leave a link in the description, because we love Jonathan. He did great work with Buzzsprout and we would love to support what he's doing so if you are looking for a company like this, definitely check out Social Octopus yeah.
Kevin:There's a lot of time involved with doing stuff like that, but there's also a bit of an art and oftentimes people miss out on that part. So they end up investing a whole bunch of time but they don't have the expertise or the long process of trial and error of trying to figuring out what makes a clip good enough that it could possibly get some reach and then maybe even, once in a while, go beyond that and go viral and start getting thousands of views and shares. And so I like the idea of a company coming along and saying, hey, we have that expertise, we understand the art side of it and we've done it for years and years and years and because we have some economies of scale, now we can provide that same level of service to somebody who's just starting out, so you don't have to go through all the pain yourself. So if you're thinking about exploring new opportunities for growing your podcast, growing your reach, and you have a video podcast Social Octopus definitely we're checking out.
Jordan:Yeah, I think he says here that even if you don't have any video content yet, they'll help you to make videos from scratch. So that's kind of cool too. So if you've even been just thinking about it and you need someone to meet with you and kind of come up with like a strategy for your content, looks like he does that too, which is really cool.
Kevin:Yeah, and a lot of people think that you can't use social video clips to drive traffic to an audio only podcast if you don't have a video component. But you actually can. I think I might be wrong about this, but one of the most successful or most viral TikTok things that we talked about on the show, like a year or two ago, was the. What was the mark safe, yeah, and I don't even know if they had a video component to that show, did they?
Alban:They didn't know they were just taking the audio from the podcast, or maybe they even recorded audio separately, but they were just using stock footage and some images. So I think there's definitely some space to just grabbing stock images that match up with what you're talking about and overlaying it with the audio from the podcast and maybe even over and putting on some captions. There is a chance for those to catch on, and I have been shocked by which ones catch and which ones don't. I've had some that thought this is for sure going to take off and they just don't do anything. And then we've had others on YouTube shorts that thought this is good and they've done exceptionally well, like thousands and thousands of views a day for long periods of time, and so it's really worth at least experimenting for a few months, and that could either mean experimenting on your own or it could be experimenting with a company like Jonathan's. But test it out and see. Is this a growth strategy for you? And if it is, it's wonderful that you've found a great way to grow your show.
Jordan:And if it's not, it's really wonderful because you get to say oh, I feel no more anxiety about all this social stuff because it wasn't for me, and you're able to put it to the side and move on Pod and Box is going to be rebranding to Fan List, and this actually kind of directly affects Buzzcast as well, because at the end of every show, when we do the sound off segment, we ask people to send in a voice message at podandboxcom slash BuzzFraut. And by the end of this month, december, we're going to be saying to send a voicemail to fanlistcom slash BuzzFraut. I love Pod and Box. It's easy, you understand what it is. It's an inbox, but it's funny because Pat mentioned that as the company has grown and developed and they've been just slowly meeting podcasters' needs, they realized that it's more fan-based.
Jordan:Which is something that we talk about a lot is that podcasts tend to grow based on fan input. Fans are really the ones supporting the shows, and so I actually think that this is a really cool reflection of how podcasting has met. What's the word? Metamorphosized Is that the word? It's just changed and grown in such a way because of how deeply people love podcasts and so, yeah, them changing to fanlist is just a reflection of how fans are really the supporting structure of podcasts.
Alban:I like the idea of the rebrand because for years I thought it was Pod and a Box.
Jordan:Oh, like Jack and the Box. Yeah, Jack and the Box.
Alban:And I was like what a strange name. Why is the pod in a box? And then Jordan's like we need to start using Pod and Box. I went, oh, that's how you like parse the word. Also, there's no A in there, so what am I doing? So I like fanlist. It's very clear this is a group of fans for your podcast and I'm excited to see what this means for new features for fanlist, new ways for podcasters to connect with their fans. We are a big fan of using Pod in Box. I'm sure we will love all the new features that we'll get with fanlist.
Jordan:So if you also use Pod in Box I know some of our listeners do and you'll probably want to use your Buzzsprout footer to change your contact information from podinboxcom to fanlist. And Pat says if you aren't able to change that, no worries, because if people go to your old URL at podinboxcom it will redirect a fanlist. So it's not a big deal. But yep, it's December, which means that all of the end of year lists are coming out. So we've got Spotify and Apple making news with their year-end lists, and what's kind of funny about these is people put so much weight on them, they get so excited about them, but really it's just based on whatever the companies want to base it on.
Jordan:So, I mean it's funny looking at the differences between Apple and Spotify. The top 10 podcasts of the year are almost completely different than Apple's. They do have some of the same people. Obviously, CrimeJunkie and Hubertman Lab are making those lists. But when you look at Spotify's list, it's almost always like the Spotify originals and I hope that they're basing that on download numbers and subscribers and stuff like that, but I'm not really sure.
Kevin:Yeah, well, it sounds like it could be cynical, but it's probably not. It's probably true that those are the most popular shows based on download numbers and engagement and stuff, but isn't that most likely also because they probably promote their shows the most on their platforms? So all during the year, when you're done listening to one show, they might be suggesting another. They're probably suggesting their own shows. They're running ads for their own shows. They're cross-promoting their own shows from other shows that they own. So it would make sense and that stuff's not happening on other platforms. You're not hearing shows for other Spotify exclusive podcasts when you're listening in Apple podcasts.
Alban:In the exclusive shows. You have to remember those were for everybody. Everybody could listen to Joe Rogan on whatever app they wanted or on YouTube, and all of a sudden, one day that was the most popular show was only available on Spotify. Right now, spotify still has something less than 30% of the podcast downloads across the market and if 100% of anyone who listens to Joe Rogan has to listen in the Spotify app same with Caller Daddy, probably the same with other podcasts on this Spotify top 10 list but as soon as those are, you know you're required, you've got to listen on a certain app that app is going to show. This is right near the top. So it makes sense to me.
Alban:What I do think is important, if you're going to put a ton of weight in these lists which I think a lot of people do Just remember who's putting out the list and what things are affecting the list. Sometimes there's lists that are just pure PR. It's like what are the top shows and they're not top based on downloads or they're not top based on anything besides top 10. I picked this podcast, so it's just the author's preference. Totally appropriate to put that out, but if it comes from a big company, it can at times feel like they're saying these are actually the top 10 shows. Another thing I often remind people is I mean the top 10 TV shows. Nine of those I'm totally uninterested in, and it's not because they're bad shows, it's just because media doesn't appeal to everybody. Not all media appeals to everybody.
Jordan:You're not really big into like the Real Housewives or anything like that.
Alban:No, that's the one that I love. Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Alban:Yeah but I'm looking down the list, I'm just so surprised. Apple's top 10, crime Junkie, the Daily I do listen to the Daily, probably about once a week. Dateline, nbc Smart List, this American Life I listen to this American Life, some Up. First, morbid Huberman Lab, hidden Brain stuff you should know. I think I've listened to an episode of almost all of these, but really only three of them do I listen more than once a month or once every three months. And then the Spotify list is kind of similar list Joe Rogan, caller, daddy Huberman Lab Anything Goes.
Alban:With Emma Chamberlain On Purpose with Jay Shetty. Crime Junkie, this Past Week with the Ovan Serial Killers Diary of a CEO. With Stephen Bartlett, ted Talks Daily. I've listened to quite a few less of these shows but again, the few that I have listened to I've probably listened to once every few months. So it just doesn't feel like I don't see this list and think I've got to dive in to figure out what is so exciting about On Purpose with Jay Shetty. It's okay that there's some shows that are out there that are very popular. That also may not be right up my alley.
Jordan:I think it has something to do with the demographics of the users of these apps too. People who use Apple. They're going to be a little bit older generation. They might have interests that are just a little bit older not old, I didn't say old but they have different interests. They're more interested in news, politics, finances, things like that, health. And then Spotify is really funny because it's mostly true crime and celebrity interviews. That's really their bread and butter.
Alban:Yeah, Well, the Apple Top 10 list has got many shows that are they started as radio.
Jordan:That's true.
Alban:Especially public radio. So or they're connected to a newspaper, legacy media daily, nbc Dateline, this American Life Up First Hidden Brain all come from some type of legacy media. And then, when you look at the Spotify list, there's a lot of YouTube stuff here. Joe Rogan, I don't know if Caller Daddy was ever on YouTube, but what's? Caller Daddy was connected with Barstool, right?
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:Very online culture. Huberman was YouTube, jay Shetty, I know, is on YouTube, theo Vaughan is YouTube, and so you kind of see there is a bit of a demographic split. But I also think it's interesting to see there seems to be this YouTube to Spotify pipeline and maybe like a radio and news to Apple pipeline. So it'd be interesting to see if that those converge over time or if they end up staying a little bit separate.
Jordan:Yeah, there was that study recently about how Gen Z mainly consumes like their videos and stuff like that on YouTube. Like even if they're watching like a TV show, they consume it on YouTube. So I think it has something to do with what you said with that pipeline to Spotify, because Gen Z is basically only using Spotify. They don't use other things. So I think you're right that there is just kind of a correlation with that. It's just a cultural thing for that generation that they consume those two mediums.
Alban:Yeah, and it does occur to me now, with YouTube trying to become more of a primary place for people to listen to podcasts, with YouTube music and all their efforts there, it does make me wonder how much is there going to be a break between Spotify's top podcast next year and this year or this year? They're very YouTube centric and I wonder if YouTube's goal would be let's keep those people over on YouTube music listening there and we don't want them leaving to go to Spotify. At least that would be their attempt. I'll be interested to see how that changes. As we talk about all these year end lists and recommendations, I would be remiss if we didn't talk about this podcast index API for the top recommended podcasts on Podrolls, because there are some great shows there at the top. Kevin, did you see this list?
Kevin:I did see the list. Jordan sent it out and it looks like right now Buzzcast is the top show.
Alban:So this is the Podroll feature that we added last week the recommendations where you can recommend a show and probably, since we talked it up so much on this show and we sent it out in our newsletter, a lot of the people who set up a Podroll, people who like Buzzcast and we really appreciate it because a lot of you added Buzzcast and it was enough that it pushed us up to the top of the list for this pretty new API. But what I love is these are real people. These are not algorithms. These are not a single PR execs decision about what the top shows are. These are what the listeners like. It just happens to be right now, primarily the listeners of this show, recommending their favorite shows, which gives us a natural boost.
Jordan:Hey, I'll take it.
Alban:So we're not. This isn't mass adoption yet, but that's how things start. You have to start it off and say we've now created the ability and there's a few apps are starting to add support for it, and over time we hope more and more people will use this feature to recommend their favorite shows so that there can be a little bit more of an organic way of sharing new podcast recommendations.
Kevin:Yeah, I think we need to do a better job of letting people know about the feature, because it really takes minutes to set it up.
Kevin:Like even if you just go in there and just list a couple of your favorite podcasts, it just takes two or three minutes to set it up, and the only way that it will be a compelling case will be made for podcast app developers to start supporting it and displaying these pod roles is if there are a lot of feeds that contain them.
Kevin:So if there's only a couple of thousand feeds out there that have pod roles in them, I don't know that, if I'm an app developer, that I'm going to take time to build that out. If there are tens of thousands, 20,000, 30,000 feeds that have recommendations in them, now it starts to become compelling, and so we certainly need to be continuing to educate all of the Buzzsprout customers and let them know that we can do that, and there are other hosts coming online with their own versions of this feature as well, so hopefully they'll be doing the same thing. So I don't know. We're not doing predictions on this show I hope and I don't think we're doing them on the next show I hope. But if I were going to have a prediction or a wish. I don't do predictions, right I switched this last year.
Jordan:Yeah, you just make wishes.
Kevin:I do right New Year's wishes. My New Year's wish would be for pod roles to start to make appearances in some of these new podcast apps.
Jordan:Speaking of new apps, there is an app called Audea that is using AI to take ads out of podcasts, and they're charging $5.99 a month for listeners to join their app so that they can listen to podcasts ad free.
Alban:This is an interesting idea. I guess they actually done this for radio before and they make the argument. I wish I'd had time to go research the legal argument that they're making. But their argument is something like all the app is doing is just determining when you would want to automatically hit that forward button and it hits it a bunch of times for you so that you skip the ads that are in the podcast. I feel like this is going to be a very technical argument over the legality of it, but ethically, man, this does not feel good. You're paying money to a podcast developer to skip all the ads that podcast creators have put in there to finance their shows. Yeah, it doesn't feel great, yeah.
Kevin:I mean, this battle is very similar to what happened in the TV space. It started, of course, with VCRs and then got a little bit hotter with DVRs. But advertisers have never been super excited about people recording media and then skipping over advertisements. So in order to avoid that avoid like getting a lawsuit filed against you most DVR manufacturers have not enabled auto commercial skipping. One did, and I don't remember the year of this, I could probably look it up real quick 2001. There it is the first entry on Wikipedia.
Kevin:But there's a company I don't know if you guys remember. There's a company called Replay TV. They were competitors to Tevo but were slightly less successful than Tevo. But one of the features that they had was called auto skip and it would if you turned it on, it would try to figure out when the commercials were on and it would just try to skip them for you. Now, obviously it doesn't work if you're watching live, but if you're watching a recording and you have auto skip turned on, it would just cut those commercials out and it would just save you the hassle of having to hit the advanced button or whatever on your remote, doing it yourself and you know at least watching the commercials really quickly and then getting back to your program.
Kevin:And so a bunch of TV networks or somebody I don't know somebody filed suit against ReplayTV. Now, this was going to be the challenge. We're going to figure out where the law stood. But unfortunately, during the lawsuit, replaytv declared bankruptcy, went out of business and didn't have to finish the lawsuit because I don't know what to call it Stay did or something like that, when a lawsuit is just no longer relevant and so the case just goes away.
Alban:But that's what happened to ReplayTV Sounds like probably a mootness. It would be. The case is moot because there's no one to sue anymore.
Kevin:There's nothing at stake anymore. I never thought mootness would be a legal term, oh yeah.
Alban:Mootness, mootness, it's. Something is moot. It is the point. The argument is moot. There is no more argument to be had.
Kevin:Well, so that's what happens with ReplayTV, and I think, in order to just avoid the whole legal battle, you've never had companies like Tevo, comcast, spectrum, all these other DVR providers. They've just steered clear of the future. They can certainly do that. It probably there's not a technical hurdle that needs to be overcome. It's like the fear of the legal battle, and so I think Audia is the new ReplayTV. These are a smaller company, I guess, and I hope they're protected in some way, because they're definitely opening themselves up to legal trouble. Now, whether anybody thinks it's worth the effort to go after them or not is another question. But the argument of hey, this is no different than just, you know, we're just automatically hitting the fast forward button for people. Well, I don't think the law is clear on that yet and I don't know that you want to pay to figure that out, because it's probably going to be pretty expensive. But I don't think there's clear legal ground that what they're doing is fine. But there's not clear legal ground that what they're doing is not fine either. It's just you know who's going to be the first two chump companies that want to fight this out and spend all the money to figure out what the law actually is, where you can get protections and where not.
Kevin:But Albin is absolutely correct You're not going to be making a lot of friends in the ad space doing this, but maybe that's they don't necessarily want friends in the ad space. They want people who like podcasts and want to skip the ads, and like that's the customer that they're targeting. So I don't know, like I don't know that I would say, oh, ethically, this is super wrong. I think they have a customer who they're trying to provide a product for and they think there's enough of them out there. I think it's a little unscrupulous. Maybe that also means unethical, I don't know. But anybody who would pay for that probably just doesn't want the ads in their podcasts anyway.
Kevin:And maybe you would hope that if the podcaster provided them an alternative, like if you provided me a subscription option that didn't have ads, I'd pay that, but since you don't, I have to use this service. Like a lot of people run ad blockers on their browsers. Like do you think that that's morally objectionable or unscrupulous? I don't know, because I can't get this website any other way. You don't offer me a premium version of this website without all these ads on it and these ads are very distracting to me. Or I might have a condition, whether it be ADD or if I'm prone to seizures or something. But flashing things on a webpage don't help me consume your content, and if you don't provide me another method, then I might have to use an ad blocker.
Alban:I mean this is an area that is a developed area of law, but I think most of the controlling cases are pretty old. There's some old cases with, like the AP, where people would read the newspaper early in the morning on the East Coast and then they would telegraph all the way to the West Coast and say read the story and say here it is, and they'd write it up in the paper and they'd publish it. So they never actually had to do any reporting. All they were doing is because people on the West Coast are three hours behind Seems different than skipping ads. Well, this mooching off of somebody else's work to create a piece of content. The case that you were talking about, kevin, I think is Sony Vatamax, which was like people recording stuff onto a VCR and then watching it later and maybe skipping the advertisements. But I think that there is something morally objectionable, because the content is being created by somebody and the creator is saying, hey, look, I need to be paid for the content I'm creating and if you think it's valuable, the understanding is it's paid for some way. Sometimes it's a premium subscription, sometimes there's a paywall, but sometimes it's hey, you can do it, but just look at this little silly ad for 10th of a second so that some way you will buy a Casper mattress. And now I'm getting some money.
Alban:And when this company reached out to Pod News, they said because of how our technology works, it doesn't result in less revenue for podcasters anymore than someone manually skipping an ad. I think that's true, which, to my knowledge, doesn't negatively affect revenue per episode today. I think that that is wrong. So here's why If somebody is actually skipping the ad they don't actually hear it at all then they're correct, like whether an app skipped it for you you skipped it doesn't really matter. But the thing is I do skip a lot of ads, but I don't skip all ads. There's plenty of times where you just listen to the ad because you don't have hands free to go over there and start hitting the plus 30 seconds and if the ad has a good hook, you stick around and you listen to it. It's why the rates for all radio and all podcast advertising are something like two cents download, because the value is so much higher than that.
Alban:But we know a percentage of people are skipping. If all of a sudden that became 100% of people who use this app skip 100% of all ads, now the value of those advertising dollars goes way down, the advertisers will just say, huh, for some reason we used to buy $1,000 in ads and we'd sold $2,000 to Casper mattresses. It was great. But now we spend $1,000 on ads and we only sell $800 of Casper mattresses. So all we're comfortable spending is 400 bucks, because when those numbers change, people skip more ads. Then there will be less money flowing into the ecosystem and that will hurt the creators, and so it takes a little bit of time. But if the marketer see our numbers are going way down, they're going to spend less money on this revenue stream and it's why YouTube blocks people from using ad blockers now.
Kevin:Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I mean you're making a pretty big argument around ads, Like you shouldn't lump in. It's going to hurt creators. Creators is a huge category of people. A very small percentage of like Buzzsprout creators make money through podcast advertising, Sure. And yet when you say it hurts creators, you're saying it hurts all of those people. That's definitely not true?
Alban:Well, you know, that's not what I'm saying, right? No?
Kevin:I know that's not what you're saying, but that is what the argument is that is being presented, and it's not just you that's saying that, and that's why I'm pushing back on it, because I think that oftentimes the narrative that gets put around stuff like this is that it hurts creators, and that's just. It's just too big. It's a blanket statement. It doesn't hurt all creators. Is it possible that if apps like this become popular and we find out that they are legal, that podcast advertising doesn't make sense anymore for the majority of brands and podcast advertising goes away? Yeah, that's possible. Does that necessarily a bad thing for creators? May or may not be, and I would say, if it is at all, it's for a very small percentage of them. The majority of creators who make money in podcasting are not making it through advertising it. They're making it through subscription services, through Patreon pages, through subscription services, live shows. They're using it as a marketing channel for their business. That's the vast majority of independent creators how they make money through their podcasts.
Alban:It's not these ads, I think it does hurt creators as a whole.
Alban:Now, I was saying it hurts the creators who are running ads because they're not going to get as many opportunities in the future, but it actually hurts everybody.
Alban:Okay, so that point is made, but as a whole it does hurt the industry because this issue doesn't show up for New York Times, it doesn't show up for YouTube, it doesn't show up for Spotify, it doesn't show up for platforms, because they say, hey, look, if the advertising isn't going to work this way, we're just going to shut it down. We're just going to lock you out from even reading a New York Times article until you pay. We're going to make sure you can't skip our ads in these platforms. We're going to make it so you have to watch the ads. That doesn't work in podcasting because we have an open protocol. And if we're having people come into the industry and are saying, hey, we're just going to try to skip all the ads because technically it's feasible and we say welcome you with open arms, well the creators are going to eventually say I got to go behind all the walled garden, I've got to go behind the paywall, I can't be out here in the open ecosystem anymore, this really cool thing we've built.
Kevin:If I want to monetize at all, If I want to monetize through ads, monetize through ads or monetize through subscriptions no not at all. If you just use your podcast as a marketing channel, you don't need to do that. If you sell premium content through a subscription service, you don't need to go behind a walled garden to do that.
Jordan:I think my question is does this take out just the dynamically inserted ads that have a different voice? It's a completely different person, like a commercial style or does this also take out sections where you're doing a call to action or a host read ad Reading through this? I don't know.
Alban:I think their goal is to go for all of it, because they're using NLP, they're using audio classification, so I think they say to remove commercials, but I think the goal's got to be to take all of it out. Yeah.
Kevin:Probably just the programmatic today, I'm guessing. But with AI tools, as technology gets better, they'll probably get better and better at taking more and more ads out, even if it's a host read ad, Even if it's integrated into the content.
Jordan:See, and that could hurt all creators. Because if creators are relying on doing a call to action for listener support or running some referral program, affiliate marketing, if it takes that stuff out too, then they're not able to monetize or something other than ads.
Alban:So, Kev, let me ask you this Are you going to download this app?
Kevin:Oh heck, no. No, I mean this app wouldn't be for me, because I like supporting podcasters and all that stuff. I'm just wondering how do we define what is moral and what is not? What is the rulebook for that? So the example I was going to give you was if I decide I'm going to launch a podcast listening app and the key feature for this app is it going to be that it plays all podcasts backwards Like would you find that morally objectionable? You can't understand the content. That's not the way the publisher designed. The creator wanted it to be listened to.
Alban:I would not think that that was immoral. You've got me on that one. I would say.
Alban:One of the reasons that I find this to be objectionable is that it does not appear there's any way to opt out. And so if you're a podcast that is saying here's kind of the trade-off, listen to a couple ads and then I make some money and I'm going to put all this effort into making this show, and when people say, ah, it doesn't really matter, I'm going to get around the ads. I'm like I love getting around the ads by paying for the content. I do it for a lot of things. But when people just do it because they're like, well, I don't want to do it, I just don't want to pay, I don't want to pay attention to the ads, Then I feel like this just feels really slimy. Maybe I'm not going to say it's morally wrong, but it starts feeling pretty slimy. And then when I find out you can't even opt out because they just assume that it's not really a bad thing at all, I'm like this now feels this is getting into unethical territory.
Kevin:Yeah, well, I think you can license your content in whatever way you want. And so, again, I think I don't have any way like legal clarity on this stuff. Like if I don't want my podcast listed in Spotify and they insist on listing it anyway, could I take any sort of legal action against them? I don't know. Now, spotify doesn't want that bad PR, so they won't do it. They're saying no, our reputation of being creator friendly is more important than it is to have every single podcast that exists in the world, whether they want to want to be on here or not. And so if you don't list yourself in Spotify, or if you are listed somehow and you write in and say I don't want to be here, they'll take you out. Now this app doesn't seem to be doing that. Could I sue them? Of course you can sue anybody, right? I could sue them. I could spend some money, I can go sue them. Now, will the lobby on my side or will the lobby on their side? I don't know. Maybe if I had a license that specifically said you can only link to my content or something, if I give you explicit permission and I've given permission to X, y and Z directories, but I didn't give it to you. I might have an argument, still might not win.
Kevin:But that's what I'm trying to say is like there seems to be a lot of people who are not happy with what they're doing, and what I'm saying is like, do we really have the right to be not happy about it? Because we're publishing content unencrypted on the open internet for people to consume and now we're just frustrated that somebody built a player that just plays it back a little bit differently than I intended it and that's hurting my business model. Well, who's like? That's on you to figure out, that's not on them. I don't know, I don't like it, I don't support it.
Kevin:I'm not saying I would build something like this or I would even download this app and use it. I don't think we can look at them and say, oh, you're bad people for doing this. No, they found a loophole. Now I think somebody either needs to challenge it legally or figure out a better business model, figure out a better way to make money. I'm just kind of arguing from a devil's advocate perspective. I don't necessarily know that I really believe this, but it seems like everyone's all unified all together pretty quickly in the podcasting space about. This is clearly wrong and I'm sitting here on the sideline thinking I don't know that it is. I think maybe you're just frustrated because your ad model again has another hurdle it has to overcome.
Alban:I'm not really worried about audio. I mean, it's a $6 app. No one, I don't think this is going to take off. I would not guess that this is going to materially impact anybody's podcast earnings, so I'm not worried about that. I want to use it as the case study to think through why does this feel slimy and why is it? I mean, with your hand it seems like you are more interested in like well, it doesn't feel like it's illegal, it feels a little strange, but I don't think it's like a moral, and I feel this intuition that it's slimy, and so I'm just trying to piece apart. What is it that gets those?
Alban:And I think the part where we disagree is that I think the intention of the creator is important, because if someone's creating a piece of content and they say what I really want out of this is a relationship with my audience, which I think is the better way to build a show, then we shouldn't pull that part out of the show.
Alban:We should try to be respectful of that. Legally, we don't have to, maybe, but we should. And if it's somebody who says the type of show I make, the thing that I find important is getting to put in a bunch of purple mattress ads Like, okay, if that's what's important to you, I don't really want to hear it, but I will play along with your show if I want to listen to it, and it just feels a little bit gross and it feels like we're okay with it because it's only happening to the big shows and it's probably not going to really matter in the long run, and I think that it just it doesn't feel right to me that we are not really taking into account. This is how shows monetize and if we want to support a really big, diverse ecosystem of podcasting, we also should be at least a little bit looking out for those really big shows.
Kevin:When you say we who do you mean?
Alban:People who love shows, people in the podcasting space and we podcast listeners.
Kevin:I don't know. It's kind of a conflict, because I think I also support, like, creative ideas and when you publish stuff on the open internet, like you're doing so so that people can use that however they want, however they want to listen to it, using whatever app that they want to use, even if that app happens to be objectionable to some people, that's where I'm torn. I agree with you, albin. I do not like this business model. I do not think, ultimately, this is in the best interest of like the spirit of podcasting, but I also don't think it's my place to come in and do something about it Like. This is the open space, and so either the open space says, yeah, we're going to do stuff and support stuff that feels slimy, or we're not. And if we don't support stuff that feels slimy, it goes away. This app is not going to go anywhere, it's not going to do anything. It's too small.
Kevin:Exactly, if we were to have a bigger one, a bigger one or whatever, I think that they would then be a legal challenge and we'd have some legal clarity around it. But if it were my job, if somebody said, hey, kevin, it's your job? There's no clear laws about this. All I'm saying is that I think I'd want to think about it more than my gut reaction, because, you're right, my gut reaction is oh, that feels wrong. That doesn't support the independent creator or large podcast house that has to run ads to support their show.
Kevin:But if I think about it a little bit more, there's also this other side, which is, hey, this stuff's out on the open internet and we want different types of apps popping up with different business models and different experimentation and using technology in different ways.
Kevin:And should there really be laws or rules around how this stuff can all be, or should be, consumed or not? Like, maybe, yeah, there's some lines somewhere that we have to draw, but I just don't know that they are as clear black and white as it seemed like I was seeing on X and I was seeing in some of the reporting about this app that came on. It's like everybody knew right away where those lines were and I thought that's I don't know. When I see that I know exactly where that line is, do you, do you really, do you really prudent to step back and think about it a little bit deeper? Give it five minutes before you make a judgment on it, that's all. And so today I was just trying to argue the other side and to see can I make an argument for the other side. I don't necessarily believe in the other side, I was just seeing if I could make that argument.
Jordan:To bring it back around to. I know that we got off on this tangent about whether or not it's legal. I think that there are things that this company is doing that could actually affect creators, and I think about it in the sense of, especially, fiction podcasts or podcasts that are world building. A lot of them I think of, like Welcome to Night Vale Valley, heat, hello from Magic Tavern. They will have ads that add to the storyline of the world that aren't for real companies, and so if this app takes that out and these fiction podcasters can't say, hey, no, that's part of the story.
Alban:You know, what Jordan you just made me think of is that's what TV shows did for a very short period of time with that Tevo competitor. I remember watching Lost and when Lost was the biggest show, that was the one everyone was jumping through the ads and what they started doing is they would do like two commercials and then there'd be this little fake piece of the show commercial thing that looked like Lost and they'd put it in there for like 10 seconds. So you had to stop and then you'd see it and you go, oh, we have to go back. And then you'd go back there and try to watch that little bit.
Kevin:Yeah, I don't think it was. I don't think it was fake. I think it was part of the show, and then they do a couple more commercials. That's where the evolution goes. You know, another broadcast where nobody skips ads is the Super Bowl. Like, a lot of people just watch the Super Bowl for the ads. That is the show for them, and so this is again.
Kevin:I don't want to want to stir open this argument from a new perspective, but I think the challenge is not with the technology. I think the problem is people don't want to hear your ads. Do something better. People don't want to hear your ads. Now they might be effective. You might be using all sorts of crazy technology to target just the right ad to the right person at the right time and get them to buy something. But people don't really want it and so they will skip it if they can. There is a market. If somebody did this well, probably, and made it super easy I don't know about for podcasts, but like in the TV space, we saw it Like. This is why people love DVRs and stuff and video on demand, and but whatever you're right, it's always going to go both ways. It costs money to create the stuff. There has to be some sort of business model behind things once they move beyond the hobby phase, and one of the ways to do that is advertising, and most of the time people don't want to pay that.
Jordan:It's time for Sound Off, the segment where you send in your tips, tricks and podcasting advice. To kick off this segment, we have a few booster grams. The first is from Sam Sethi, who says few Thanks for nearly giving me a heart attack, but the pod rolls work really well both in the host side and app side. Hashtag boom. What's next? Wallets, Smiley face.
Kevin:I think that's for me. I think I gave him the heart attack with my LinkedIn message so I wrote something. He misinterpreted it. Now I'm trying to figure out how I can misinterpret what he read. Is he really thanking me for nearly giving him a heart attack, like literally? It's a weird thing.
Jordan:I think it's sarcasm. I'm sensing a little sarcasm.
Kevin:I'm going to read it as improperly as possible and send him some flowers. Quick recovery from your heart attack, all right. Next up is Gene Bean. Bravo for owning up to your mistakes. Seriously, it's not an easy thing to do. Thanks, gene Bean. That apology tour is never fun, but we make some mistakes, we own them, we get better. It's how we grow, and so thank you for recognizing it. It's not easy, it's not fun, but we are better at the end, so we'll keep doing it.
Alban:Last but not least, Dave Jones said hey, next time John Pollard does his tech support shift, will you let him know? I don't have very many listeners on my podcast and could you please take care of that. Thanks, Sounds like Dave Jones is trying to get a couple of extra stats added to his podcast. Dave, you can change your podcast stats anytime you want. Just go and take a screenshot of that stats page and change the numbers to whatever you want them to be. They're just as legitimate as if John changed them to back end.
Jordan:That's true, all right. And our question not last episode but two episodes ago was what is a podcast you wish existed but doesn't? This can be film and TV spin off podcasts or podcasts from your favorite celeb, et cetera. And our first response is from Eldritch History. I think there should be true crime podcasts about the deaths and horror movie franchises. It seems like a natural fit and could be a fun way to recap with the different spin before a new movie comes out. This sounds like maybe a satirical spin on true crime podcasts.
Kevin:Yeah, and it's also like fan fiction, right, yeah, like he's saying like build more of a backstory about the murders that happen in these horror films.
Jordan:Ooh, that would be so cool if it was like from the perspective of like a detective that's in this fake town where all these murders happen.
Kevin:I think there's a key in that he said in horror films. I don't watch a lot of horror films but I imagine in horror films there's a lot of murdering and death that happens and the film itself is not about investigating probably the crimes. It's more about like following the next murder and what's the next big scare that's going to happen. Yeah, that's true.
Alban:So what the story is really? It's like the dateline episode of someone who's like investigating the 16 murders in this Texas chainsaw house or whatever.
Kevin:Yeah, the main characters know right, they know it's the guy where's the hockey mask who's going around chainsawing people up. But maybe the police are completely befuddled.
Alban:They're like look, we looked at the ex-girlfriend, very likely Also the guy with the mask Interesting, he was wearing a mask even during the interviews, the interrogation he did. Great, all right.
Jordan:Next up, we have a response from Neil.
Neil:Hi, this is Neil Benson. I host the Amazing Haps podcast on BuzzFrood. I was a big fan of the West Wing TV series and its companion podcast, west Wing Weekly. The podcast I would most like somebody to create, if former President Trump ever wins another presidency, would be a behind the scenes podcast from life in his Oval Office. It could be called the West Wing Wacky Thanks Buzzcast.
Kevin:If you imagine.
Alban:I think this podcast would instantly pass Joe Rogan on both Apple Podcasts and Spotify. I think it would. Yeah, if there was a weekly behind the scenes of probably any Oval Office, I'm sure it would be massive.
Jordan:I don't know why, but for some reason I'm picturing it in the style of curb your enthusiasm, or the office where it is document, yeah, where it is documentary style. But it's also a little ridiculous. I feel like that would be with any form of government. You could do that.
Kevin:Yeah, it would definitely be like comedy satire, though it shouldn't be real because I bet the reality of it is pretty boring. You know, if you don't have like Aaron Sorkin writing snappy dialogue, it's probably pretty boring.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:I would listen.
Jordan:Well, thanks everyone for sending in your responses to our question. Albin, I think that you were up for our next question. Do you want to do that, or can I steal it for myself?
Alban:Yeah, go ahead and steal it.
Jordan:I can steal it. Yeah, I can steal it.
Kevin:How would you say no, it could be the worst person ever.
Jordan:He could say no. He could say no, Jordan. It's my turn.
Kevin:There's too much excitement in your voice. You're like I've got something really exciting I want to share.
Alban:This is a good, I know this is a good question, so let's hear it.
Jordan:Yeah, so I am working on kind of like honing my skills as a podcast co-host and as a moderator of conversation. I want to hear from you what you have done to grow as a podcast host and, you know, an interviewer or a moderator of like a round table discussion, what things you have found helpful in your journey with that or maybe other podcast hosts that you really admire their style. So, to have your response featured on our next episode, leave a 30-second voice message at potinboxcom, slash buzz throughout, send us a boost to Graham or tweet the answer at buzzcast podcast and, as always, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
Kevin:Here. Let me give you an editorial note while we're talking about music. When I listen to Buzzcast, oftentimes we have a post show. But when there's a post show, I don't always get the full outro music. It like fades out the past last three seconds and I don't get that final beat.
Jordan:You want the beat.
Kevin:I want the beat.
Jordan:Oh, okay.
Kevin:And I want people who don't know about post show hear that beat and then they stop and they move on with their day and they don't get the post show. It's only for insiders, it's only for people who know you got to hang out and wait for it.
Alban:So you actually want it to be more like the hidden tracks on CDs?
Kevin:Or if you're using a new podcast app and you see the chapter for it, you'd know it's there as well. You're using a legacy app and you just hear that beat hit and then you stop and move on. You miss it. What do you think?
Jordan:I think adding like another degree of difficulty to accessing our premium post show is a great idea.
Kevin:The harder we make it for people to hear that, the better. That's what I hear you say, joy, all right.
Alban:There really was like a thing that only happened with physical media. That went away, the hidden track. Now, if you were on Spotify, listen to a song and it said like 12 minute song and you listen to three minutes, you'd know, oh, there's something else here.
Jordan:Yeah.
Alban:But you just did not get that. There's no way to know that with the CD except if it you just always seem like someone was broken, so you just skip to that song. Unless you left it on, you'd realize there's a hidden song in here and it was really hard to get to it. Yeah, that's how you want the post should be.
Kevin:That's how I want the post should be, and I want it to be disappointing too.
Alban:None of the hidden songs were good. I don't think there's ever like we should try to figure it out. But what was like the best hidden song on a CD? I don't feel like they're ever. They didn't put like great songs in there. There's often like a skit or something.
Kevin:I don't remember any hidden songs that I was like listen to more than once. You know who else does something like this is Marvel. You know when they do the after credits stuff. I always feel like it wasn't worth waiting around really you guys feel like that?
Jordan:no.
Kevin:You must be bigger Marvel fans or something than I am, but whenever I go to one of these movies with my kids, they're always like, oh, we go to the studio and wait and it's a long time. There's a lot of credits.
Jordan:I think you have to be a fan because you pick up on small details that actually tell like a bigger Story. Yes, so I'm trying to think of an example. I think it was one of the Avengers movies. Nick Fury picks up a pager, pages somebody, and all it does is like shows, like a digital logo, which if you didn't know what superheroes logo that was, you wouldn't get it, and it just be like why is he picking up a pager? And then like that's it. But everyone else is like that means they're doing like after Marvel, like freaking out. But if you didn't know that it would just be a guy holding the pager and it's like big whoop. Why do we wait like five minutes of credits for this?
Alban:Well, isn't the whole point of the Marvel one? It's not that they think it might get by people they know if you're a big fan, this is gonna be like really big news for you. You're gonna be excited now and you're gonna help build the buzz for this new movie and they'll feel like really in the know because they they know about the pager or whatever.
Kevin:Okay, I'm getting it now, so. So what we need to do is work into our post show Like some sort of subtle hidden hints, like exciting things that we don't want to tell people, but we drop hints to them.
Jordan:Oh, like new features coming out down the way and things like that.
Alban:Yeah, I think the reason that would be tough for us the tease would be the reason we don't talk about things we're building is because we always want the opportunity to change directions when we think it's the right thing to change. Marvel knows we are making a captain Marvel movie years and years in advance. They're committed to it and it's going to come out. So they can tease it because they have like a year or two of marketing built in. We aren't doing that and so I feel like for us to tease something. We could tease something that never comes out because we say here's the tease and we've went in a different direction.
Kevin:So It'll be tougher, but maybe we can work one in you know, one of the most notable ones was when Apple came out with that. What were they calling it? The air pad or something like that? Was that wireless charging mat? Air power, air power. Yeah, and I think they said something like we don't do this often, but they decided to show something that was a prototype and then turns out it bit them. They couldn't figure out how to do it right or do it up to their standards, or something.
Jordan:They never released the product is that the last time that they did that? I?
Kevin:think it might have been like one of the first and only times they've done that.
Alban:Yeah they also said the thing about we're going to transition from like Intel max to the Apple Silicon max. They have that whole bit where they're like and the next Mac will be the Mac Pro, and they kind of gave a hint. It was like the end of the year and then it didn't happen.
Alban:They said it only leaves one, one Mac left, yeah, the Mac Pro and they said the whole transition will take two years, and so everyone was like, okay, so by end of year 2022, it's out for sure. And then everyone waited and never came out. And I think it's just it's hard to promise things that far in advance or without making everything about making sure you hit those promises. It's a very strong commitment to make that far in advance when you're trying to solve the problem, and Sometimes solving the problem is, oh, actually this isn't the right problem to solve, that's the solution, or let's go to totally new direction. So making that huge promise, they can come back to buy you quite a bit.
Kevin:So maybe we'll leak something, but probably we won't yeah, you don't want to have to, like you know, say something and then backtrack and, you know, try to figure out how to undo a promise that you made.
Jordan:Yeah, I don't think that we have like the throngs of Marvel or Taylor Swift fans trying to figure out like our secret messages, like little breadcrumbs, so I don't know if we have to worry about this.
Kevin:Maybe, maybe not. You know what I think would be interesting. I think people should interact with us before our next show and see if they could pick up Like, just take a guess. We just had a conversation, we talked about some stuff. Were there any hints in there? What are your predictions for what we're working on or what's coming out in the next couple weeks, or maybe early in 2024?
Alban:So do we just say there's something big at some point in the next year? What is it? And if you guess the biggest thing in the next year, we will just be very proud and we still won't tell you if you're right. Well, they'll know when it happens, and then we'll say on here probably Gene means the one who gets it. That's my guess. We'll say congrats to Gene mean and Sarah Rossette like those are.
Kevin:Those are two. Maybe people submit better ideas than this, the idea that Will pivot quickly.
Alban:Sarah's correct again three guesses in a row and she's like I'm so good at this, but really it turns out that she's actually been doing the product development, for Buzz brought a whole lot. We're kind of just like when Sarah say oh yeah, build that.