Buzzcast
Buzzcast is a roundtable discussion about podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. We'll cover current events and news, podcast strategy, tools we are using, and dip into the Customer Support mailbag to test our podcasting knowledge. If you want to stay up-to-date on what's working in podcasting, Buzzcast is the show for you.
Buzzcast
Apple Drops Episode Numbers: Why You Still Shouldn't Add Them To Your Title
In this episode, we discuss the recent updates in the podcasting industry, including Jordan's experience at Podconf, Buzzsprout's newest features, YouTube Music's official launch of podcasts, and the debate surrounding the inclusion of episode numbers in podcast titles after Apple Podcasts removed them in a recent update. Kevin also shares a cautionary tale about spoiler-filled companion podcasts.
View the DISCUSSION THREAD on Twitter!
📣 SOUND-OFF QUESTION: What is an unexpected outcome you've had from creating a podcast?
To have your response featured on our next episode, leave a voice message at podinbox.com/buzzsprout, send a boostagram, or tweet the answer @BuzzcastPodcast!
PODCONF
Jordan had a great time at Podconf & cannot wait to go again!
BUZZSPROUT UPDATES
New at Buzzsprout: Infinite Achievements and Improved User Roles!
APPLE PODCASTS REMOVES EPISODE NUMBERS
iOS 16.4 update removed episode numbers from Apple Podcasts episode titles. It may be tempting to add them back into the title instead, but there are reasons to not do so!
YOUTUBE MUSIC OFFICIALLY HAS PODCASTS
YouTube is slowly rolling out access to podcasts on their YouTube Music app.
SERIAL VS EPISODIC PODCASTS
Kevin recently tweeted about a bad experience because a podcast incorrectly sequenced their episodes.
Contact Buzzcast
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Thanks for listening & keep podcasting!
Are you seeing this? Like, is it the same? Are you getting the same UI is what we have in our show notes?
Jordan:Yeah. Does yours not look like that? Wait, let me look.
Alban:Okay. My didn't look like that because I was on the wrong page. Problem solved. Jordan, you went to Podconf this weekend. How was it?
Jordan:Yeah, it was such a different conference from ones I've attended in the past, because you know, it was only like one day, and they limited the amount of attendees that could go to it. So it was actually very intimate. And the whole thing took place in this small section of a hotel. And everyone was really engaging and fun. And it was kind of cool. So I got to meet some listeners of Buzzcast, which was really neat.
Alban:Oh, cool.
Jordan:Yeah. So I met Cassie and Caitlin from Pacific Northwest Haunts and Homicides, Joeanne-Marie from Everything and JACK and then Christina from Espooky Tales. And it was really cool, because they had a couple of keynotes throughout the day. But they also did like a speed networking event where you got to like, just sit down and talk to people about your podcast, and they talk to you about their podcast. And then I did two sessions on how to pitch your podcast to sponsors, which was super fun. And it was only one day, but everyone I talked to wished that was two days. So hopefully next year, they do extend it because it went so fast. And I was not ready to go home by the end of it. Yeah, it was great.
Kevin:That's that's a good thing, though. Right? Like you want to leave wanting more. You don't want to feel like, like Podcast Movement, great conference, but I do feel at the end, like I'm exhausted, I'm ready to be. And not saying that there's anything wrong with Podcast Movement. But there is something special about leaving a place saying, Oh, I just wish I had more time here, this was so great like, that ensures that you're probably going to go back versus when I look back on some of the longer conferences, I do just have memories of exhaustion.
Alban:Have you heard of this, that your memory of things is
Jordan:That's true. most influenced by the peak experience and the last experience?
Alban:So if you remember a trip, like two week long trips,
Jordan:I've never heard that. and long weekend trip, they kind of take up the same amount of space in your memory. And you really remember those two things peak experience and near the end. And I think that is why for me many conferences are really like my strongest memory from them is that was the end where there's four more hours to go. And I really want to break down the booth and get on the plane. And everyone's like, you really can't break down the booth yet. And so you're kind of just sticking it out. So I'm kind of partial to the, you know, maybe end it a little bit early and make sure that everybody really enjoyed every bit of it rather than, Oh, we could make this a six day thing, because there's some that are like they're like six days, they just keep going. Yeah, they take forever. And I think that maybe part of why I feel like just one more extra day will be a little bit nicer is just because there's not an expo hall. So you don't have all that it's just really genuine conversations, like on a couch with people. And it just it felt really intimate and so comfortable. And so I think that's why it was just like, oh, man, I could do like another day of this because it was just so chill. That's awesome. Yeah.
Alban:You said this was the first one in the Pacific Northwest.
Jordan:Yeah, this was the very first one. So I think it was a slam dunk for the first conference there.
Kevin:What exactly you said Pacific Northwest so many times. And I guess it's because I'm not from that area of the country that I don't know exactly. What is included in the Pacific Northwest.
Jordan:The Pacific Northwest is essentially just Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Okay. So it's very small, but it's just like, I mean, small, I guess compared to East Coast, that would be a lot of states, but
Kevin:But like Northern California is not included.
Jordan:Not really.
Alban:Why is it Pacific Northwest and not just Northwest? Because it's on the Pacific coast? Well, like the Northwest is on the Pacific coast. Right. So
Jordan:Because it sounds cooler.
Alban:Branding.
Jordan:Yeah. It's a hipster branding thing.
Alban:So we could be like the Atlantic Southeast. Kevin, that sounds a lot better. It does, doesn't it? The Atlantic Southeast were the Buzzcast listeners that you met. Did they go because you'd been talking about it on the show and you did dynamic content telling everyone about it?
Jordan:I don't think so. I think that they had their tickets before. And then one of the ladies she actually was just like talking about how much she loves Buzzcast. And I laughed and she was like, oh my god, it's you. That was really funny. Yeah so they didn't come becuase of that.
Kevin:She didn't really believe that she was talking to you until she heard the laugh.
Jordan:She knew I was from Buzzsprout. But she didn't realize that I was on Buzzcast.
Alban:That's funny. Well, congratulations to Pat who put this on founder Podinbox and sounds like they'll probably be another so that's a look for year two and we'll be sure to let everyone know when it's coming up.
Jordan:So Buzzsprout had a couple updates in the last I want to say a week or two. And Alban, can you tell us a little bit about what changes have come to Buzzsprout?
Alban:Well, the first one, it has been heavily requested for at least three years. And we call this infinite achievements. But that is probably not a great branding term. But for Buzzsprout, over a long time, we've had these achievements, you know, and you hit these milestones with your podcast. Oh, I got my first listen, I got my I've released 10 episodes now. Now I have 100 listeners, and you start, like, hitting these milestones over time. And at some number think it was 10,000 downloads, and maybe your 200th Episode published, they stop. And pretty much 30 minutes after we launched the first version of achievements, we got an email that was like, Hey, I think I maxed them all out. When's the next one coming? Oh, that's it. Congratulations.
Kevin:Yeah, we had a completed state. Like after you got that last achievement, then the main badge would say, like completed and you'd get a checkmark or something like that, like, wasn't a secret that you finished the game you completed all levels?
Alban:Do you know sometimes when you ask a question, you know the answer, but it's to kind of be like, I'm not complaining. But I want you to say the thing I know.
Jordan:well, there i ssomething so gratifying because you know, it's hard when you have something that you're working on. It's like a hobby or you know, something you're just trying to do yourself, and you don't want to like ask people to give you a pat on the back. You know, it feels kind of weird to be like, Hey, can you congratulate me. And so getting these achievements, it was them, you know, being recognized for their accomplishments without asking anyone to please recognize me for this.
Kevin:I'm going to date myself, but it's like there are people who bought Zelda on day one, and beat it. And they just couldn't wait results to to come. Like, when do I get more levels, I want to buy level expansion pack.
Alban:So people have been asking for this, it's pretty much after it came out. And it took us about as long to make this update as it did for the original Zelda team to put out the second game, because three years later, achievements keep going. So the way it is written now is they go on for infinity. And this was a little bit of like a technical implementation. But there will be an achievement at 10 billion downloads, if you ever hit that, or achievements that go all the way up. And so a bunch of people we ended up deciding to send out for people who are well beyond the like completed state that hit all of them, we sent their most recent one, they would have hit. And so a lot of people got, oh, there's my big 1 million download button got sent down to me my achievement. And so it's relatively small, because a lot of podcasters haven't hit that yet. It doesn't affect a ton. But the people it does affect are mostly people who've been podcasting for a long time. And they really, really wanted this update. So we're excited that it's out there. And I'm excited to see every time somebody shares one of these in the Facebook group or on Twitter or anywhere else. It's always cool to see people's accomplishments. Yeah.
Kevin:And just like any good game sequel, the new levels are really hard, which really upped the ante. So for Buzzcast, for example, we have hit, I can't believe this, but we have 300,000 downloads, like oh, you know, so we got an email for hitting the 250,000 Download achievement. The next one is at 500,000. So if you look right now, we kind of have to double what we've done to get the next achievement. So this these new levels are tough, but we're gonna stick with it. We're gonna hit it.
Alban:We're gonna hit our million plays. Yeah.
Jordan:I think when you guys created the achievements, like three years ago, 10,000 seemed like yeah, that's a really good amount. Like that's doable. But it's also like pretty hard to get to Yeah, it's out there like this is going to take people a while. And I think with how much podcasts have grown in popularity, people were just blowing through this, so probably a little bit faster than what was expected three years ago.
Alban:Yeah, that could be the case. It's also just, you want to front load them because the beginning is where it's really really hard. Going from zero to 50 listeners like consistent 50 plays on each episode. That is so difficult. Yeah, that's much more difficult than going from 50 to 150. I actually just did an interview with Tom Buck because a YouTuber, it took them two years to get to 5000 subscribers and then about two and a half years more to get to like 130,000 and the beginning is the hardest part. And once you kind of have these unlock moments where things start clicking Well now it gets a lot easier. So I think that there's a bit of that that's built into the internet achievements.
Jordan:Yeah, it's kind of like the the snowball effect you know, when you ask people to tell a friend about the show if they like it or you know, something like that, like when people They'll start spreading the word. And then pretty soon you just have a bunch of people listening to it. So yeah.
Alban:The other small update that we rolled out was, we improve the user roles for Buzzsprout. So if you want to have team members on your podcast, you want to have you know, somebody who owns the podcast, and there's another, there's a co host, and maybe somebody else logs in to upload the episodes, if they edit them for you, maybe somebody else you want them to be able to put in the transcript or something, you want to have multiple people who can log into the account. And it's just not best practice to share account logins for everybody. So this is probably a few years old now. But we added the ability to have admins and editors. And the real differentiation was admins could do anything. And editors couldn't make permanent changes. So they could like unpublish episodes, but they couldn't delete them. And the only issue with that was you could have multiple admins. And sometimes admins would be in conflict and say, Hey, we're breaking up. But I was definitely the owner of the show. And the other ones like Oh, definitely not, I'm starting a new podcast. And I'm the owner of the show. And so now one of the improvements with user roles is there are three levels, there is a single owner, and it has to be designated when you know when you sign up for your podcast. And it's made clear to everybody who that is so that if there's ever an issue, you could solve that before things get a little bit dicey, then there are admins. And admins can make permanent changes to individual episodes, but they can't make permanent changes to the podcast, they couldn't delete the whole podcast, they couldn't redirect the podcast to somewhere else. Only owner can make a permanent change to the whole podcast. And then editors can't make any permanent changes. They're still kind of in the same realm where they can upload things, they can publish things, they can unpublish, they can make changes, but they're not able to make something that is irreversible. So that's a small change, hopefully, having a default there, it will make it a little bit easier for people to resolve any issues that they have when there is a podcast breakup, you know, it stinks if you know you've worked, your podcast is on for a few years, and you've built up this podcast and this back, you know, this archive, and then all of a sudden you start having to figure out like Who owns this and who doesn't. Now, that's a little bit more clear on the front end. And if you want there to be something different that you do need to like actually write a contract, then your spirit actually go do that, rather than just kind of assume, Oh, it's probably like a 50/50 situation and then find out somebody else locked you out of the account.
Jordan:Yeah. Which I imagine this happened a few times in the past.
Alban:Yeah, we only ever hear about it if it goes poorly. And so every once a while someone's like, Hey, I can't log into my account. We're like, oh, yeah, it looks like you change your password like 12 minutes ago. Oh, no, that's my co host. I know what they do. Oh, well, did you add them as an admin with unlimited permissions. So now we'll make a little more clear so that we can avoid any of those issues.
Jordan:So with the iOS 16.4 update came a change in the Apple podcast app, Episode numbers have been removed. This is kind of interesting, because for a long time, Apple podcast was probably one of the only apps that put the episode numbers next to the title. When you put that in your when you were creating the episode and you put the episode number in there. James Cridland actually posted an email from like, 2017, where Apple podcasts was asking podcasters to not put episode numbers in your title. And you know, just basically saying like, you won't be removed for it, but it's really heavily frowned upon. And so it's interesting that they've kind of changed in a few years here to now removing the episode numbers from their app.
Alban:Kevin, do you remember when they made this change? And added episode numbers? Is like a separate field? I do. There was this like the first Apple, everyone's put them in the title. And for some reason, that became the thing. And as much as it didn't seem useful, almost everyone was like episode 248. And then they would give the title and somebody that Apple's like, okay, that's not a great experience. Just put the title in. And then we'll give you a separate field for episode number if you want to upset number and then like, go ahead and take this out. And some people listen to it, some didn't. And then I don't know what podcast guru started this rumor, but there was a rumor. Apple is going to delete any podcast that has a episode number in the title, which didn't really sound plausible, but apparently it got enough traction that I think that's what this email was that they were like, we're not going to delete your podcast, but it's really not a great experience to have like half of the little field that you can see take it up with like, Episode 248. And so they're like just Go ahead and put it in this field. And my guess now is that just not enough people ever listened that eventually they said, You know what, we're just going to remove this field from Apple podcasts.
Jordan:Yeah, you know, I remember when I was researching how to start a podcast, you know, basically everyone's saying, Don't do episode numbers and your title. And, you know, we get people all the time in the Facebook community group, asking, like, should I put numbers in my title because all these other apps aren't showing the episode numbers by want them in there. And it's one of those things where people seem to be really divided on if you should have episode numbers in your title. Or if it can kind of mess with like your podcasts, SEO and things like that.
Alban:The only argument for it that I can see are really big, as in lots of episode, Evergreen podcasts. And so somebody's saying, we're talking right now about mitochondrial health. And, you know, we actually talked about like cell biology back in episode 248. Go check that out. And and maybe is an easier way to reference it. That is the argument that I've heard, I think that you could still just reference, here's the episode title, and I've linked to it. So I don't think it's like this massive benefit. My real guess is that people put it in there as some sort of like status symbol. How many episodes I've hit like, this is a pretty big number. I guess you could fake that and just start yourself off at like 84 podcasts and your first episodes really number 84.
Jordan:I actually think that it would mess with it. Because I remember, when Spotify released how their episodes search works, they specifically search like by the title. And so if you have like the word podcast or episode in there, it completely throws off the whole thing. So think about it, you know, if you have like 1000 podcasts that have Episode 124, and then they do the thing, it's going to be impossible to search because then there's 1000 things that start with 124.
Alban:It definitely is, you're taking up valuable real estate with something that's not useful. And so I think there was a good argument to get these out of the titles. And I can also see why Apple is even now deciding, alright, we're going to just take them out altogether, and not show it.
Kevin:I'm with you, almost I don't know if we agree or not. But I do think they should not be displaying them in the titles. Like especially if they don't want to encourage that behavior, right? Because a lot of people would look at the way that Apple had been displaying podcast episodes, and then just assume, Oh, if I want mine to display like that, I should put the episode number in the title. Right. And so that's encouraging a bad behavior. But I think what they've done is they've swung a little bit too far. Because now in the 16.4 update, they're not showing the numbers at all. And I think that's a mistake. Also, I think they should show the episode title in a way that clearly says, Hey, this is the episode title. And then they should find a another way, like, and I think on the main episodes listing, I think the numbers should be there, they should design a way to communicate that this is the episode number and it's separate from the title. So that's not how you get it there if you want it. But I do like it as a reference marker. I listen to podcasts that do this all the time that say go check out this episode number and it's a very quick way to scroll down, you need to know how far back you need to go like I'm scrolling through 100 episodes, or I'm just scrolling through 10. Like it's very convenient to jump back to an episode number versus a title. If somebody just says, Oh, we talked about that in the episode, whatever. shoehorn on a tree stump, and you're like now looking through, I don't know how far back I have to go to find shoehorn on a tree stump is that 10 episodes backers that 200. And so I think it was a good idea. I think episode numbers having that be a field in your RSS. Like that makes a lot of sense. I like displaying them, but they shouldn't be tied to the title the way Apple was doing it. So I think they made a mistake the first time I think the correction feels like another mistake. Maybe in iOS 17 or something, maybe they'll figure out a way to get this right. But as far as I understand it, they're not getting rid of the tag. They're not saying don't use the tag. They've just chosen his latest update to not actually marry it together with the title.
Jordan:Yeah, I mean, they could have just made the episode number like the purple color that they have in the app to indicate like this is separate than the title or put it next to the date in that like little gray font.
Kevin:That's right.
Jordan:Just I mean, I feel like just some sort of like visual shift would indicate this is not part of the title.
Alban:Yeah. So for people who are listening and not looking at what we're looking at, the way it used to show would be episode 823 dot and then the title 823. We're looking at a picture of Jordan Harbinger his podcast, and now that a 23 is gone. But as Kevin said, if you saw a 23 all the time, then you saw numbers like that you just probably would incorrectly assume this shouldn't be put in the title rather than figuring out this should probably be put in a separate field. So there may have been an issue with that.
Kevin:Yeah. And are we not going to talk about the most alarming thing about this whole thing which is used. This was a story from Podnews and James Cridland use the screenshot from the Jordan Harbinger Show showing what it used to look like in 16.3 and 16.4. Comparing the two side by side, and I follow Jordan Harbinger Show, I listen all the time. I love the Feedback Friday episodes. They're my favorite. What's going on with the cover art? Why is this microphone facing the wrong direction? What is going on? That's horrible mic technique, Jordan. Almost looks like Jordan is observing his cat. And the cat is podcasting.
Alban:And the cat is podcasting.
Jordan:That's right. Oh my gosh, I never noticed.
Alban:Yep.
Kevin:I listen to the show all the time. And I never noticed
Alban:It is a stylistic choice. And it's one of those things that like it only makes sense when someone points it out. But yeah, almost looks like the microphone is coming out of Jordan's chest. Right? know that
Jordan:Like, he's opening up his shirt, and that's coming out like Alien.
Kevin:So there you go. That's actually the real story. What's going on with the Jordan Harbinger artwork. And secondarily, Apple's displaying episode numbers differently now.
Alban:You can find it is in the metadata for individual episodes. So if you do click on episodes, you can see the episode number Kenya. Yeah, I was able to find it two different ways, but neither of them was able to see all of the episodes and their episode number and like scroll. So I could click into an individual be like, okay, that one's 400. So probably 238 A Long Way is okay about this one, and kind of guess. Anyway, small change that's interesting to the podcast nerds in the room, which hopefully are all of our listeners.
Jordan:A couple of weeks ago, YouTube made an announcement that podcasts are now available on YouTube music in the US. The twist is that they're slowly rolling it out. And none of us seem to have access to podcasts just yet. I did download their app, which is the first time I've ever used their app. It's a lot like Spotify, like freakishly like Spotify, it's very similar. But it looks like they're gonna have on the homepage, there's a podcast button next to like workout relax kind of thing. And then on the Explore page, you can also click a podcast button that will take you to the podcast. They're saying that for the podcast creators, you want to make sure that your podcast is in the podcast tab in YouTube studio. And they also say that you want to consider uploading a video with a static image or use audio grams for your video, and down the line, you'll be able to upload your podcast via RSS to both YouTube and YouTube music. So I know that a lot of podcasters are waiting until they do RSS and they weren't really sure if RSS was going to be a part of it. But they assure us that it will be down the line. I don't know how long that's going to be. But I might also wait until they have RSS to continue doing any videos on YouTube.
Kevin:Right? You're talking about RSS ingestion.
Alban:Jordan
Jordan:what?
Alban:Jordan
Jordan:What?
Alban:I have some breaking news. We have a breaking news sound effect that you could put in here.
Jordan:I could definitely put one in right here.
Alban:Breaking news. You are correct that when we started this podcast, like 30 minutes ago, none of us had access to YouTube Music podcasts. As of right now. My app has updated. Yep. And I have a podcast button.
Jordan:Oh my gosh, I have it too
Alban:Really?
Jordan:No way.
Alban:Both of us got the update since we started the podcast. Kevin, have you looked at yours?
Kevin:Yeah, I haven't. So Buzzcast Like we have our RSS feed being ingested by YouTube, but I don't think you have it turned on Alban. I think it's all private.
Alban:No, I've got Alright, this is weird. So here's a video that we made. It was a clip from Buzzcast From 2021. That's in here.
Kevin:Does it play the video?
Alban:Let me click it. Yeah, so it's playing the video. And then I can, it's got a little toggle here at the top. And I can flip over to audio and I can flip back to video. Interesting. That's kind of cool. Similar to if you watch any video podcast on Spotify looks like it's kind of a similar setup. There's lots of Buzzsprout videos in here, though. They're not ones that I would have called a podcast. They aren't like were chatting like we are right now.
Jordan:They mentioned that the podcast listening experience is actually different than it is with music on the YouTube Music app. So you can actually listen with the screen off without the premium subscription.
Alban:That was one of the things they shared with us when we were at on air. And that was the thing everybody was so excited or I guess it was technically hard a hot pod. When we got hot pod. They mentioned that and I tweeted it out. And so many people who use YouTube music were like this is massive. Because for them, the ability to lock your screen is going to be nice because eventually, you know, your screen turns off and your music turns off. That's a bummer.
Kevin:Yeah, so I clicked on the Dana Carvey and David Spade fly on the wall podcast. And they have that audio video toggle at the top, but it doesn't do anything. It just there's no video version of this podcast. So I can toggle back and forth. It doesn't change anything.
Alban:Oh, interesting. Yeah, I watched one just now that started off as a video. And then I toggled it and the video went away. So maybe that'll that toggle will disappear in the future when there's only an audio version.
Jordan:Yeah. I mean, you think that you would just be able to like, close the screen. And that would toggle it to audio only. But like there's an extra step.
Alban:I don't know why this causes me any sort of like anxiety or thought. But I started using the sauna. And so I wanted to search for a podcast about like, if sauna is like good for you or not. And I searched it in Spotify, because Spotify has good episode search. And I got some interview with from the Huberman lab. And when I clicked it, I think it was video. And so there was like a video version going. And then when I clicked to turn off my screen, I don't know why. But I'm driving, and it's playing. And I'm like, it's the video going like behind the turned off screen. And obviously, there's no video happening. But I think in my brain, I'm like, is there a video being streamed? Like, is that going through my data connection? And I'm like turning it on while I'm driving? Yep, the video still there? Oh, is it turned off or not? So maybe people like me would have been like, oh, you know, I'll toggle that off. And it gives you the sense of security that you're not using up your data?
Jordan:Oh, I didn't even think about that.
Alban:I mean, I'm sure that Spotify is smart enough that they're not sending the video file to my phone. But I think it's like it just kind of sat in my brain a little bit. I was like a wonder if that how that's working. You said Spotify, but you were talking about YouTube? Right? Well, I'm sure YouTube's smart enough to do this. But the one that had gotten me thinking was Spotify, right, YouTube. I mean, with YouTube itself. They're switching between like 15 different versions of the video, depending on how your internet connection is working. So I'm confident that they know how to do this. And I'm sure Spotify is figured out as well.
Kevin:What I'm interested in right now is, as you're playing a podcast, in YouTube music, they've got this little sheet at the bottom that says up next details are related. And if you click related, I think this is if you do is going to make it in podcasting, this is going to be a big reason why because they're so good at recommendations. So I'm very interested in how they're doing, how they're suggesting related stuff. I mean, this is a flushed out UI for related stuff, especially compared to most podcast apps, most podcast apps would just show you a couple, like if they're trying to make a recommendation. It's maybe I don't know, three or four other podcasts that are similar. And this is you might also like and suggested podcasts and more on health and wellness. And each of them probably have 10 or 15 different podcasts in each of the sections. And I'm sure that there's going to continue to be more and more and more because that's like YouTube's bread and butter, right?
Alban:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the benefit, and the downside to YouTube is, you watch one video, and it's got another one for you. That can be a big negative at 3am when you're watching videos needing to go to sleep. But you know, this is pretty cool. Like I'm playing one right now an interview with Stephen Wolfram, and it's got other AI type episodes of getting queued up right behind it and the up next. And so if I played through the end, it would autoplay to the next one. And these aren't like all from the same podcast, then it switches some to comedy and other things, I guess are related to what I've subscribed to on YouTube. One thing I'm noticing that doesn't work are any of the chapter markers. So on YouTube, you can put in like, here's the timestamp and you click in all those timestamps are links, you could click. And right now those are all you know, they're staying is static times.
Jordan:Oh, that's a bummer. I've noticed that all my links in my show notes don't work either.
Alban:Let me ask you to Jordan, are you talking about your podcast itself? Yeah. So we've seen this with Spotify. We've seen it with other podcasts hosts, Apple supports H refs like a clickable link that you have anchor text, and then you actually have a URL that it goes to and thinks Spotify. Correct me if I'm wrong, Kevin still only supports a full URL. Is that correct? Or is that wrong?
Kevin:I think you are wrong about that. Either you're wrong, or I'm going to be wrong.
Alban:As long as we cover both of our bases, there was a period where they didn't support Yeah,
Kevin:There definitely was a period. I think that change that though.
Alban:And the way that YouTube works is you can't have anchor text, and then it links out. They want to actually have a URL there. And so I'm clicking on a video. This is a Lex Friedman podcast video that now has the podcast version in YouTube music. And when I scroll down, he has full URLs there and those are clickable.
Jordan:I actually have full URLs for the apps that also don't support that. And they are not clickable.
Kevin:But you don't have the http colon slash slash or https colon slash.
Jordan:Oh, is that the problem?
Kevin:Yep. That seems to be the problem for your music.
Jordan:Anyway. So that needs to be changed. I thought just having the www was good enough. Like I could do the full thing.
Kevin:Yeah, I'm looking at your podcast. And why are there some episodes in here and some or not?
Jordan:Because it was like my little baby test. I didn't want to upload like 100-something episodes, because I had to make the videos too. I didn't want to do like 100 videos, and then upload them all. I don't have time for that. So yeah, I'm kind of holding out for when they actually do roll out the RSS integration. I will jump on that very quickly.
Alban:Well, this is cool. Congratulations to the YouTube podcast team who's been working with YouTube music to bring this out for everybody. I'll be really interested to see how this impacts podcast numbers, these numbers won't flow back to Buzzsprout just yet, but we will be able to see these numbers show up in our YouTube account. And so I'll be keeping a close eye and I'm sure we can maybe do some sort of check in at the end of next episode. Once these are been out for a little bit, we can see, have we gotten any place and how everyone's liking it. So if you do have YouTube music, and it's your daily driver for music, let us know what you think of the podcast experience.
Kevin:You guys see my tweet? No, I can ask that because I only tweet like once a month. So it's not gonna say Did you see my tweet? You're like, which tweet? No, I only tweet once a month. So you would know which one it was. So I've rarely listened to companion podcasts that go along with other things. But I thought I'd give one a try. Because the people who were promoting this particular companion podcast were promoting it in the podcast app that I was listening to. So I started watching this love and death show. I think it's a it's an HBO Max show or something like that. Oh, yeah. It's new. It's new, right? And they have a companion podcast. And I'm like, oh, I should, you know, never sport companion podcast before show I should try. So I go ahead and I load up the Love and Death companion podcast, I find it. I just hit the Follow button and I hit play. Right. And I had watched the television episodes one through three, and four was coming out that day. So I was gonna watch it that night. I think they dropped on Thursday. So it was like Thursday morning, I was gonna watch the new episode Thursday night. And in my car driving somewhere, find the love and death companion podcast, loaded up, hit play. And in the first six seconds of the episode, they say, Oh, I can't believe so and so is dead. Oh my gosh. Why did he just do that? Why did it ruins? Oh, it was terrible.
Alban:Whoa. So that's the most recent episode. Yes. Yes. You played the wrong episode.
Kevin:Well, this is what started my investigation now. So now I'm like, this was terrible.
Alban:You're investigating the companion podcast to a TV is investigating a murder.
Kevin:That's right. Something like that. Got it. And so I go ahead, when I get home, I look up the RSS feed. And I check it. And sure enough, the RSS feed is set to be an episodic podcast instead of a Serial podcast. So as soon as I follow when I start playing, it plays the most recent episode, not the first episode. So that's what I tweeted. I was like, Oh my gosh, you don't think these tags mean a whole lot like episodic or serial, but you just completely
Alban:I mean, that's a pretty niche case. But you do feel like the show has a big spoiler that's going to be late on if ever there was a time to put like, I don't know, the episode number in the title would be a show that was being released that should be watched listened to as the companion to a show that has episode titles.
Jordan:You know, what I actually recently started listening to On Fire with Jeff Probst. And it's like the companion podcast to Survivor and it's the first one they've ever done. But I noticed the same thing when I pull that podcast up. It pulls up the most recent episode, but they do talk about what happened in the most recent episode of Survivor so if you're not super caught up, you might hear a spoiler or something like that. So I think that is actually a really good case for saying, Hey, you should definitely do this cereal so that people don't accidentally start on the wrong thing.
Kevin:Yeah. And so after I had the spoiler, I like hit pause and like, oh, no, it was terrible. So then I go, I realized kind of what's happening. I go back, I download episode one, and I started listening to it and they acknowledged this in the beginning. So I'm planning Episode One, they're like, don't worry. We're going to be very careful about not giving any spoilers away and we're all only going to talk about the most recent episode. So you wish Yeah, you've been so careful. You completely messed up this one tag that wreck. Wow. And they also say that I'm reading for my tweet. Now the official Love and Death podcast is the seventh episode limited series. But the RSS feed, you know, I say I go on to say, but the RSS feed is that episodic and it should be serial. So it's like they recognize it's a seven episode limited series, like meant to be listened to in order, which is exactly why that tag exists.
Alban:Well, this should probably be, it'd be worth if you could try to figure out who is uploading the podcast and let them know about it. Because
Kevin:I did. Well, I tagged HBO, Max and Texas Monthly who are like two production companies behind the series. But it's I know where it's being hosted. And I know that that hosting company it's on, I think it's on Omni is what I found. And they absolutely support episodic and serial. So it's not like it's some, you know, shoddy third party hosts that doesn't actually support the tag or something. Yeah, like, um, these reputable hosts, they support the tag. It's just, I think it's HBO Max in Texas Monthly whoever's actually uploading, it didn't set the tag correctly. So not blaming the hosting company. I'm blaming the producers of this podcast.
Alban:Well, they probably don't know. So maybe we'll link to that tweet. And if you're listening to this, you can go give Kevin's one tweet a heart. And maybe we'll get a little more visibility on this.
Kevin:Yeah, I don't have any followers on Twitter. So. But that's the lesson. I feel like I gave companion podcast to try. And now I'm like, I don't know that I'll ever do it again. Because they spoil my show. For me,
Alban:I think it's hilarious was the first six seconds like you could easily have been like, Oh, we're about to talk about episode four. This is so exciting. And you would have been like, oh, no, wrong, one, stop. No, there would have been no harm, no foul.
Kevin:And yet, they played a clip from the show. And it's one of the actors saying I can't believe so and so is that I'm not going to reveal who's dead in case you haven't seen it yet. And it's based on a true story. So maybe they're also thinking everyone knows the true story. So they know who's going to be dead anyway. But I didn't actually know the true story. So I was just following along the episode by episode with the story, right. So I didn't know who and they set it up the episode before they set it up like on a cliffhanger like somebody was going to die. And you just didn't know who
Alban:You were going to know.
Jordan:One thing I really wish Apple podcasts had was the ability to sort ascending and descending on their podcast, because so many podcasts that are cereal, don't mark their podcast cereal. And so I'll go and try listen, and I have to like scroll all the way down when I start a new podcast to start from the beginning drives me crazy.
Kevin:Right? That wouldn't make sense, it would almost be like that you as a listener, you could override the setting that the podcaster put in case they got it wrong, or just in case you choose to listen to them in a different order. So this could be a stereo podcast, but I don't necessarily care. Like I just wanna hear the most recent anyway. Or vice versa. This is an episodic, they all stand on their own. But I want to actually really enjoy these. I want to start from the beginning and listen to all of them.
Jordan:Well, I think Apple, they might have a setting for this. So if I could fix it, that'd be great. But they also when they queue up the next episode, they have a thing where they will play the next episode. But instead of playing the next episode, like in the podcast episode sequence, they play the most recent, so it like jumps up and then I have to stop it and then like scroll all the way back down again, to get to like episode three.
Kevin:It's a tough problem to solve. I talk to people about this all the time. It's like everyone has their own preference for how they want to listen to podcasts and what they in their mind thinks should come up next after they finish an episode. So I'm perfectly fine with my podcast playing app. When I get done with one episode, queueing something up and going to the next one. The question is which one? Like how are you going to choose that? And everyone has their own mental model for how it should work? And it's almost like I think a lot of people choose their podcast app based on the app that gets closest to the mental model that they want it to follow. You know, so overcast, does it their way Pocket Casts does that their way Apple podcast does that their way. And it's kind of like that's one of the main things that people use is that, oh, when I get done listening to an episode, it plays the next one that I would probably have chosen myself without me having to choose it. Which makes me think that there's an opportunity here for podcast playing apps to like put a Configuration UI around that and then letting people figure out what works best for them. And then maybe that app could gain in popularity, because it would fit more mental models for how that should work with them. But it's tough. It's a tough question. Like I'm asking myself, if I were writing a podcast player app, how would I do it? And I would probably do the one that follows my mental model, but then it's only going to be popular with people who think like I do.
Jordan:And you ask the big red Done button.
Kevin:When I smash that Done button, what is it going to play?
Alban:I remember listening to an episode with Marco Arment, who built Overcast and he was describing how he uses his own app. And it was totally different than how I use it. And so I think that If there is some flexibility, and I don't know if that flexibility is just that you can use the same exact app and just ignore some of the features and other features, or you know, what you constantly use. I pretty sure that when I finished an episode, like it goes to silence, like mostly I don't have another thing queued up, I don't use playlists, they I just mostly listen to single episodes. And then if it's quiet for a little bit, maybe that's a healthy thing.
Kevin:Well, I'll tell you the closest I've got to figuring this out for myself, again, if I were building a podcast app player, what I would want, I want to be able to follow certain shows. And then when I load the app, like the default screen, I want it to show the most recent episodes chronologically from all the podcasts that I follow. And then I just want to be able to put my finger on one of them and drag them up and down that list to rearrange the order in which I want to hear them. And then I just want to swipe away the ones I don't want to listen to. I love that and like that's it, the simplicity of it. And then so it's always kind of playing from the top down of that list. And as I'm listening, if I'm done with the episode, I'm gonna smash the done button, and it wipes off that list, and just goes to the next one down. And so if there's something I want to hear next, I can scroll down that list, find it, and I can just click it and swipe it all the way to the top. And that'll be playing next. That's my mental model for how I want these to work. I've never been able to find an app that does that.
Alban:Yeah. Do you know YouTube music is got some of that? What? Yeah, they're up next.
Kevin:But I do not want this stuff buried away in like a playlist thing. I just want the default view of the app to be that list of all the episodes. And every time I load it up, the newest ones come up on top.
Alban:I did notice when I was just playing with YouTube music, the next which isn't necessarily like what you've subscribed to, because I wasn't subscribed to any of the podcasts. But it had here's, you know, 15 that you might listen to after this. And I did have that. I don't know what the name is. There's not a hamburger icon, but it's like two lines, which kind of indicates like reorder. And if you tap that you could you know, reorder, which one would play next. And you could also swipe to delete. So some of that functionality is there, Kevin, he may become a YouTube music guy.
Kevin:Maybe I'll give it a shot.
Jordan:It's time for sound off the segment where you our listeners send in your tips, tricks and podcasting advice. Last week, Kevin posed the question, what podcasting related conspiracy do you believe?
Alban:Didn't we have a little bit of a controversy last week?
Jordan:We did. It was it was the question that Kevin interrupted Alban's question for and said that-
Alban:was my question.
Kevin:Yeah, this isn't a question that Alban asked all the time at like social gathering.
Alban:I do ask similar questions as social gatherings and always gets some totally deranged answers, which is a positive. I do ask people what's the most unbelievable conspiracy theory that you think is probably true?
Jordan:And then Kevin use that as the basis for this podcasting related one.
Kevin:Yeah, I didn't try to steal it is my own question. I said, Alban, why don't you ask the question like you do at social gatherings? Like really interesting question about conspiracy theories.
Alban:Jordan, can we get a little tape check here?
Kevin:We're not gonna, we're not gonna play this back.
Jordan:I-Okay. Confession time, I cut it because you two were going back and forth so much about it that I cut it down to so it did sort of sound like Kevin's own question, but it was definitely based on questions that Alvin himself poses. I can confirm this. In a shocking turn of events. Absolutely nobody came in with a response.
Kevin:Nobody, nobody wants to own the conspiracy theories that they believe.
Alban:Yeah, nobody wants to tell you what conspiracies they believe.
Jordan:Well, you know, who will tell us a good podcasting related conspiracy? Is Chat GPT. So I went to Chat GPT.
Kevin:When all else fails, we'll ask the robot
Jordan:I said I need a really good podcasting, conspiracy. And he delivered. So Chat GBTs conspiracy, here it goes. A secret society of podcasters, known as the poduminati is led by a shadowy figure known only as The Podfather,
Alban:We know that there's actually a real person.
Jordan:The Poduminati's goal is to use the power of podcasting to influence public opinion, control the media and ultimately establish a new world order. Members of the Poduminati includes some of the most popular and influential podcasters in the world, who use their shows to spread propaganda and shape the beliefs of their listeners.
Alban:This just sounds accurate at this point.
Jordan:It does. The Poduminati's true power, however, comes from their control of the major podcasting platforms and their ability to manipulate algorithms to promote their own content, while suppressing dissenting voices. Those who oppose the Poduminati are labeled as podcast heretics in our system, and are systematically silenced and marginalized. just only a select few are privy to the Poduminati's true agenda. And even they are not safe from the group's reach.
Alban:I wish I could name some names. I wanted to hear who's part of the pod dooba nominee except for the pod father who no one knows who that is. Right?
Jordan:Chat GPT was probably scared to name names.
Kevin:it's interesting how these these language models come up with this stuff, you know, because it's trained on conspiracy theories. So it has obviously ingested a bunch of them and understands like what a conspiracy theory is, so we can write one. What boggles my mind is the creativity of the models themselves. Like, how much of that is pieced together from other conspiracy theories? And how much of it is just like freeform creativity that's been programmed in somehow?
Alban:I mean, all those themes are pretty common and conspiracies right like, Illuminati, it's swapping and pod. There's a figure who runs it all, and influences the media and influences world leaders and nobody could ever go against it. Like that's like all conspiracies, right.
Kevin:The part that makes me a little bit uncomfortable is that I have maybe anticipated that we wouldn't get a lot of responses on this one. So I was thinking to myself, what's a podcast conspiracy theory that I might believe, or maybe there's a part of me that believes and it's not too dissimilar from what Chet GPT just wrote, Oh, really? So I'll tell you, I'll share with you what I came up with in terms of podcasting conspiracy theories, okay. And it's based upon this segment in the pod news newsletter every day where James goes and says, who are the top podcasts in Apple podcasts and Spotify? Right. And he I think he wrote a bot or something that just checks the charts and reports back and Julia Louis Dreyfus, new podcasts wiser than me, I think, is the new one. That has been number one on the Apple podcast charts anyway, for maybe the last couple of weeks. Good podcast, I downloaded and listened to a couple of the episodes. And it is a really good podcast. But my conspiracy theory is that I'm not 100% that that's actually the most popular podcast, because it could be that that is the most beneficial for them to promote as the number one podcast. And so I'm not saying they're lying. But it's possible that their charts could be skewed in such a way that only the podcasts that are beneficial for them, or people who are partnered with or podcasts that it makes sense to be number one become number one, so
Jordan:the algorithm selects based on like the network that's publishing, right? Or what do you think?
Kevin:Well, it just seems suspicious to me that like the podcasts that always get the most promotion, like it feels like charting, number one could also be part of the promotion. I don't know that I trust or believe that that really is the podcast that's getting the most downloads and plays on Apple podcasts at any given time. As much as I believe that, hey, this podcast has been heavily promoted on Apple podcasts for the month leading up to its first release, and now it's released. And so yeah, maybe it would start there for a couple days. And it is good content, like it's a good podcast, but I just know that there's a huge media push behind that podcast. And so part of that relationship could easily be like, well, we need it to chart at number one for a while, like, even if it doesn't, it still has to chart there. Right wink wink, you know.
Alban:Let me give a non conspiracy answer to this. We do know that charts are influenced by they said it's like heavily influenced by velocity, like not just people listening, and it's like the top show, but it's new people subscribing. And that's a heavy weight. And we know that it's been in new and noteworthy. And so I'd imagine if it was number one in new and noteworthy. And it's not just the raw number of people who listen, but it's heavily skewed towards shows that are adding a lot of new listeners, you could see that that would really bump it all of a sudden. And now the numbers are really going up. Right?
Kevin:It's just a bit of it's a bit it is a total black box of how they come up with what the algorithm is that drives the charting position, and how you get to the top. And so it for me, it just is reminiscent of the Billboard Top 40 was a big conspiracy back, I guess, maybe the 80s and the 90s. The payola issues that they had with record labels, paying local radio stations, to play songs that they would get popular. And then they would report back to I don't know, whoever manage the charts or whatever how many times the song was played. And then that song would get the top 10 or the top five or the number one and then it would become hugely popular whether it was a great song or not, because they were getting paid off the planet. And so I guess the podcast conspiracy that I'm putting out there is how much of that is taking place in these big podcast directories like apples charts, like Spotify charts? I don't know. I just think it's ripe for corruption.
Alban:A conspiracy theory you believe or just a conspiracy theory that could be real.
Kevin:It's one that I just made up when I was thinking about what podcasts conspiracy theories might I believe I could believe I don't know anybody's putting it out there for me to believe. But I just created it myself. And I think it's plausible. I might, if somebody made an argument, I'd be like, Yeah, I think that you could be right.
Alban:Do you know that the New York Times bestseller list is like this?
Kevin:I didn't know that. But I would also believe it. I believe anything, man.
Alban:There's some relatively sophisticated algorithm. I wish I had looked this up before about trying to figure out which books are being bought and sold a lot. And so they get they all these data points. But there's like this niche industry that if you sell a book and republish a book, you pay them to go buy your book, and they go, and they buy it in the selects locations that will highly influence the New York Times bestseller list. So you go and you pay them 50 grand, and now they're gonna go by, I don't know, 2000 of your book, but they're going to buy like 12 of them at a specific Barnes and Nobles in New York. And then they're going to go to Amazon and buy enough to get it to start charting wherever the places are. And they do it. And so New York Times is like, Okay, well, looks like that book is definitely selling, because they're looking at the places that these firms are influencing.
Kevin:Well, that's not super different than if you just went on one of these podcasts, promotional services and bought a bunch of downloads for your podcast. But I don't think that's what like laminata media is the one that's behind the wiser than me podcast, I don't think there's skewing the numbers like that, I think is just a relationship deal. I think they're just calling whoever's in charge of editorial content at Apple podcasts. And they're just saying, hey, this, this podcast needs to chart number one, we're putting a ton of effort energy behind it. It's a really solid podcast. But we needed to chart number one, how do we make this happen? And they're making a deal.
Alban:But isn't that kind of the same as like the payola thing from the 70s and 80s. Like, they're all the, hey, we're going to do this thing that is in the gray area, we're going to buy books and specific Barnes and Nobles, we're going to pay DJs to play the music that's not on its face, like immoral. And that, but what will happen is, if we fake it long enough, eventually it starts to look, why is that not immoral? To say to a radio station? Hey, I'll pay you if you play my music. That doesn't sound like that's wrong. Right? Why is that wrong?
Jordan:It's like buying a billboard. Yeah,
Kevin:I don't know. What I was saying was immoral, was like buying 2000 books from a location to for the intent purposes of getting to the top of the chart. I also think it's wrong to pay radio stations to play your music to get to the top of a chart. Yeah, that's I'm saying, if those are the purposes behind it, then that is immoral,
Alban:it starts in the gray area of doing something that doesn't feel like it's immoral. And the intent is to legitimize your position in the charts. And so all of a sudden, your music that would not have made it there on its own, all of a sudden appears to be a top 10 hit. And eventually, that kind of snowballs into it actually is a top 10 hit, because you're no longer paying for it. But now it looks legitimate, or you pay to get into the Spotify playlists, or you're buying the Barnes and Noble books. And now you're on the New York Times bestseller. So now the book is bought by Barnes and Noble, and it's put up on the front area and more people are buying it. Or in your conspiracy theory version of this, you get up into the apple podcast charts. And now you start looking like a huge show. And so you stay there. Is that right?
Kevin:Yeah, I think it's right, you know, the arguments against I want to take a second to pause and remind anyone who's listening that this is a conspiracy theory and a silly one it that. Actually, I'm not actually suggesting that this is real. I'm just saying I might possibly believe it if someone were to make the argument. Okay, so that said, I do think if that is the way that the system works, like the New York Times bestseller list, if you write a book, and there are people like the top 10, people who are on that list, if they're all sending out people to buy their books for them, then there's no way for you to compete unless you do it yourself. And that was the argument and the whole payola case with online radio stuff is it was like, in order to ever have a Billboard Top 40 hit, you had to pay radio stations. And so it became this barrier of entry for people who weren't signed with record labels because they didn't have the money to pay radio stations. And then they were forced into these record deals, which were not good for them, they were heavily skewed towards the record labels and the record labels were like, look, we have got to put out half a million dollars in the first 30 days of your song or at least to get it on these radio stations. So that's why we're gonna get 95% of the return on this song that you created. And so it ended up messing up the whole industry and artists ended up taking the biggest hit of all for that stuff. And so let's just say any of that was happening in the podcasting industry, then it would be the same thing like a show like ours without, you know, a million dollar promotional budget behind it could never hope to get into the apple charts like rank on the top 10 And the apple charts because we don't have the relationships or the money or the influence to break into those charts. Regardless of how popular our show is.
Alban:I feel like what we're witnessing right now is the birth of a conspiracy theory, because you're saying I don't believe this, but I could believe this, and then we talked about it, and you say it as if it's happening.
Kevin:No, I actually don't believe it at all. I know too many people who work at Apple podcasts and none of the type of people that would be okay with this. So I actually don't believe this at all.
Alban:I just imagine that there's people who are listening to this, like half listening, like, mostly you listen to podcasts, and then they're gonna be like, I heard Apple actually pay to get up there. Wow, I've heard that too.
Kevin:You know, another way you get up there is by spreading misinformation, which I think we're doing right now.
Alban:This isn't happening.
Kevin:Soon as our podcast gets that misinformation label, we're going to chart Alright, so that's probably enough of that conspiracy theory, questions gonna end up getting us all canceled? I don't believe it. It was a ridiculous conspiracy theory. I'm just saying it would be a silly one that would have answered our stand up question. Well, but nobody read it in with it.
Jordan:Well, I think we should try out. So you took sound off question last time, and we had no responses. So I think it's Alban's turn to do a sound off question. We'll see how it goes.
Alban:Maybe I would have given a different question if the goal was to get as many but this is what I thought about earlier this week, I had an interview with Tom Buck. And we talked a lot about what benefits have you gotten from your podcast and from your YouTube channel that are not monetization? Because he has now monetized his full time job as YouTube. But like what things that happened in your life because of creating something?
Jordan:I like that question.
Kevin:Yeah, that's an excellent question.
Alban:Well, one, a YouTube comment is how he met his wife. No way. Yeah, spoiler alert for the end of that episode.
Kevin:Well, that's like the winner right there. Find your life partner, because you've created a podcast or YouTube channel.
Alban:Anyway, it's interesting to go listen to the story. But I would like to know like what other stories to be able to have what has happened to you because you started your podcast? What good thing did you make friends? Did you connect with people? Did you learn things? Did you get a job? What has your podcast led to? The only caveat I put on it is like, let's not do like, I was able to monetize with Buzzsprout ads or I got money. Like any non monetary like direct I made this money stories. Those are the ones we're looking for. Those are the ones we'll prioritize. So I'd love to hear those stories. What did your podcasts do for you?
Jordan:So to have your response featured on our next episode, leave a 32nd or less voice message at pod inbox.com/buzzsprout. Send a booster gram or tweet the answer at Buzzcast podcast. And as always, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
Kevin:All right, so y'all ready for Mother's Day? Oh, you shouldn't sigh about that. Jordan you don't have to do anything. Right? Well, you have a mother.
Jordan:Here's here's the thing at this point in this month, it's like one more thing for me is to think about Mother's Day. I don't know what it is. But like my kids school, just crammed everything humanly possible into the last two weeks of school. I've got a school play, choir concert, we've got parties fiestas, the fifth grade barbecue, we have kindergarten graduation, and we have the Esperanza thing. And then we have the field day and I have so many sign up sheets coming into my inbox. I want to like die. And now I'm just like, oh my god, mother's days next weekend, don't want to do it.
Alban:I like the parties and fiestas those are totally separate, or different.
Kevin:It's almost like the school wants you to be just as excited that school is out as the kids are. Because otherwise we'd be like revolting. We'd be like, Oh, I don't want school to be out like kids are gonna be home all day. It's gonna be another thing for us to deal with. So because of that they make the last week of school awful, or the last couple of weeks awful for the parents as well. So we're all thankful together that school is finally out.
Alban:Yeah, my daughter's school the way they've solved- Apparently, we didn't use up enough of the like Hurricane days this year or the weather days.
Jordan:You have weather days?
Alban:Yeah. And they're all for hurricanes. Yours are for snow, ours are for hurricanes. Funny, we didn't use up enough of them. And the resolution they came was instead of any school a few days early, or taking days off at the end of the year. Instead, what they're gonna do is half days for the final week. Oh my gosh. And I was like, That is not a huge inconvenience to us. But I was like, imagine, you know, if you're, if you have a full time job, and you're used to getting off work and go pick up your kids, you get off and you go over there three to pick them up. Imagine now if like for the full final week, you have to be there at lunchtime.
Jordan:Well, it's not just that it's also like it's one thing if school gets out early, and then you're like okay, well, I have to find daycare a few days early or I have to find a babysitter or send the kids camp like whatever. But when it's half days, that means you have to like arrange transport and the childcare all in one day for an entire week. That's So annoying.
Alban:So anyway, that's that is what our school has done. Kevin to answer your question for Mother's Day, I need to figure something out good.
Kevin:Well, that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you guys about, because I thought for the benefit of anybody who sticks around and listens to the ridiculous post show on this podcast, that we could try to help people who aren't ready for Mother's Day yet, because I know that we are all always prepared and ahead of schedule. And so why don't we share what we've done for Mother's Day preparations and hope that it could help somebody young?
Alban:Well, I've been getting Twitter ads for two products. Okay. One is a stainless steel necklace. And it's like a pendant that has the name stamped of all the children.
Kevin:Okay, number one sound like Jordan v into that is a
Alban:big crystal thing with like, bubbles with what inside of it like, it's like, there's like bubbles inside the glass or the crystal so that it looks like a picture. And the picture is of the mother and her children. Oh, I have not purchased either these items yet. I'm debating which of these is better.
Jordan:I think if you were to take like, let's say 10 moms, their kids are different ages, whatever. And you were to ask them like, what do you really want for Mother's Day? I think that they would say, a clean house and dinner ordered in? Like, I don't think that it would be anything special. Maybe like sleeping in a little bit. But I don't think yeah, this seems
Kevin:to be a big difference between Mother's Day and Father's Day is it seems like a good gift for a mom is to basically not have to be a mom for a day.
Alban:Yeah, you're right. That's exactly it's getting edited out. No, it's
Jordan:absolutely true. Accurate. Yes.
Kevin:And for Father's Day, a good gift isn't necessarily that a good gift for Father's Day is like, I mean, there are some people who are like, I just want to go play golf with my buddies for Father's Day. And that's, that's totally fine. But the more common thing is like, Oh, we're going to celebrate you as a father by spending the entire day with you. Yeah, making you really feel like a father going to barbecue to go to work all day, and you're not a fuck yeah, so we're gonna, you're gonna do a barbecue, and we're gonna play in the yard. And you're gonna do all these things with the kids all day long, which also is kind of like mom gets a day off. Like, and I don't mean that in a negative way. I think it's probably accurate, because moms probably spend so much time doing mothering type stuff that they that is a good gift for them. And fathers don't get to do as much as they would like to. So it's the opposite for them on Father's Day. And I don't have any issues with this stuff. I think it's actually great. But it's interesting the contrast between those two.
Alban:So is that your recommendation? So do I cancel the pendant necklace with children names on it for my
Kevin:I will tell you this, that tchotchke buying stuff has wife? never gone well for me. So I had a few years where I've tried that. And it's never pretty.
Alban:I'm sure those gifts are not actually the gifts that land this someone's like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I wanted. But they're more of the Oh, no, I am supposed to do something for this thing that happens in 10 days. What can I do? Right? I guess I'll do that thing I just saw on Twitter. Okay, boom, done.
Kevin:Yeah, if you go to Amazon right now and go in the search bar and just type M, it will autocomplete Mother's Day gifts. And if you take that recommendation and buy anything from the next 10 pages that come up, it'll be a failure. It's true. Because your wife certainly knows everything that's there and doesn't want any of that.
Jordan:I think another thing to consider too, when selecting a Mother's Day gift is, I feel bad. I'm gonna use this as an example. My husband for the first few years that we were married, he would be very considerate, because I'm very particular about how I like things, right. So he would buy me something, but it would be something that would be a project that I could finish to my liking. So like he bought my desk, but he bought it unfinished, so that I could select what finish I want and then refinish the desk, right? Yeah. And it's one more thing. I just like, I don't have the bandwidth to finish projects to like, do some more things. I don't want to make more decisions. And I think that's kind of a common theme. For a lot of mothers too, is like we don't want to make any decisions. Like don't ask us what we want to order for dinner. Don't make us decide that. Just choose what you're going to do. And then do that and we will be fine with it.
Kevin:Err on the side of making a dinner that I don't even like Yeah, but I will like the fact that I didn't have to choose it. And that's more important than how it tastes. Okay, that's good advice.
Alban:All right. I've checked in with Amazon right here at the top. This is just very unfortunate idea. It is a blanket and it's kind of one of these word art blankets where it's like 15 Different fonts all mashed together. You know I'm talking about oh, no, my wife our home ain't no castle, but life ain't no fairy tale but still you are my queen. Love your grumpy old husband. Okay. Fine. The image is a day ret plagiarism from the old man and his wife from the Pixar movie. Oh, you have seen the movie Up, you would know the first five minutes as a story of their love until she dies an untimely death. Yeah. And then he's alone. And this is in the Mother's Day section. This is the this is one of the top results. Well, one of the main points
Jordan:of that sad story was that she couldn't conceive like she couldn't be a mom. Understand? Nothing about this. Nothing about this work.
Alban:Yeah, that makes no sense. It's almost like a threat. I don't know. I mean,
Kevin:it's not, that's not a good get. All right, so offer some practical advice. So my oldest child is 17. So I've had a few chances of getting this right. And I've tried to also be a good son to my mom and do something for her on Mother's Day, as well. I will tell you the best gifts that I've done, let's eat share that the biggest wins. All right. So um, for my mom, like getting her something at this stage, like when I was young, it was easy, I would go to the little school store and I buy her something from the school store, it's best I could do, she would always like it. Because it's so now I'm a grown person, and I have a career and I have some money. Now she wants things like real value. And I always miss. And so we've come to an arrangement where she will put things in her Amazon cart that she wants, and then I will log into her Amazon cart. And I will check out one or two of those things that I think I would like to give her that works for us. She's happy. She knows what she's getting in, she likes it. My wife does not operate the same way. But my wife is not my mother. And so I've now my kids are old enough where I put the burden on them that they have to pick out to give to mom. And my responsibility in this is to make sure each of them get her something that is thoughtful, right doesn't have to be the world's most expensive thing or whatever. It just has to be thoughtful. That is working for us the and I think like the most happy thing is that we now have a daughter who's 17, who knows her mom really well and knows what her mom likes. And so she tells her brothers, what mom would like and finds helps them find things that they can afford. And they buy it all and I help them wrap it. And then we have a nice Mother's Day. And then yeah, I do the super doubt on Mother's Day. So mom can sleep in as late as she wants. She doesn't have to clean the kitchen or make any food. She doesn't have to make any choices. She doesn't have to walk the dog. And as best I can. I tried to prevent my kids from yelling for mom at all during the day. Like hey, Mom, I'm like no, no, no, it's mostly your mom. You can only yell dad, and I can help you with all things.
Jordan:That's exactly what my husband does, too.
Kevin:That's my best advice. What do you guys have?
Jordan:You know, for my mom, what we've done is we will go get pedicures together. Oh, that's fine. Yeah. And then we'll go out to lunch together. And yeah, it's just like this nice thing. And it's just time spent pampering and then eating good food. And then we both go home. And that's kind of our special thing. I love that.
Alban:So this will be my seventh attempt at doing Mother's Day for my wife. Her birthday is the day after Mother's Day this year. So it's always right around Mother's Day. And so often she gets the like Christmas birthday present combo pack, right? Where it's one thing, and most of what you would want to be given our Marine has very strong taste. And so like she likes getting close, but like she wants clothes that she picked, and there's things she wants, but she enjoys the process of like researching and finding and buying stuff. So almost never Is there anything I'm going to buy her that's going to land she'd be like, Oh, this is even better than what I would have picked out. But what she really loves are trips. And so this year, I said something is gonna happen after our daughter gets out of school on the 19th. And we'll be back by Sunday night. So I am in the process of planning a trip that my wife doesn't know what it is. And I've so far had two different trips not work. First was there weren't really any good flights. The second one was a little bit too far of a drive. So I am open to trip ideas, but I'm in the process of planning in the next 10 days. A secret trip.
Kevin:And you're bringing your daughter. Yes. Oh you our family trip? Yeah.
Jordan:Oh, oh, yeah.
Kevin:About this anymore. Well, I
Jordan:just I was trying to think of like what could be like a really like relaxing, romantic trip sort of thing, because that's where my mind went. But if you have your daughter like that's not gonna work either. So you you actually do have some restrictions on like what you can do, because you also have to keep your daughter entertained. So she's not like getting stir crazy staying in like a cabin or something.
Kevin:Yeah, my wife has asked before she's like the best Mother's Day gift you could get me is like a trip like a hotel room. And I was like, Oh, where do you want to go? And she's like, it doesn't matter. As long as no one else is there. She just wants a hotel room to herself for 24 hours actually
Jordan:talked about that too.
Alban:So she just wants you to get her like a nice hotel. In Jacksonville, I don't even think she cares if it's nice. You're at the Marriott, like run up there and just be alone.
Jordan:There's a hotel. I'm not even joking, like four blocks away from my house. And I've thought many a time about asking for one night they're like for a gift.
Kevin:I think moms get so little alone time. That'd be it's hard for us to understand as husbands. I don't feel like I get a lot of alone time. But you get enough just a little bit each day, but they get none. And so you're just so starved for just some quiet?
Jordan:Yeah, kids are always coming like you came and like go the bathroom without like a handle to the door or something. Like you can't do anything. Everyone is always trying to get you. You have no privacy.
Kevin:Yeah. So think about that Alban.
Jordan:Yeah, maybe it's just by herself.
Alban:So the trip that I get Marie, that she knows a trip is coming, and we go to the airport, and then we're like going through security. And then there's only one ticket and they go, Oh, you don't have tickets. And then we both just stopped the security. And she just walks through. And it's like looking back like, oh, no,
Kevin:I still think you're overthinking it. I think that the answer could be that you have like one of the storage unit pods delivered into your driveway and you say you can go in here for 24 hours and we won't bug you. And she'll be like, Oh my gosh. You guys kicked.
Jordan:Yeah, I mean, you you could do just like a staycation. Or if there's like some sort of Airbnb somewhere, just by herself would actually be a huge gift. Because I think that's what we've with the consensus that we've reached is like, for Mother's Day, moms just don't want to be mom for like 24 hours.
Alban:Well, I will check in. I've not been swayed by any of the Amazon purchases or any of the advice on this show. I am pretty locked in. I've known Marie half my life at this point. Okay, pretty sure this is it. Yeah. And a trip that she didn't plan and didn't have to think about and just because to show up and she would want her daughter to be there since she's an only child.
Jordan:She's a better mom than I am.
Alban:So there will be lots of I'm sure my daughter and I going off to do stuff so my wife can go to the spot or something. Yeah, but I will work some of these things in. I will consider the storage unit idea, Kevin.
Kevin:Yeah, I might have a coupon if you need one. Happy Mother's Day.
