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
Why Fake Podcasts Are Taking Over Social Media with Tom Rossi
Tom Rossi joins us as we take a deep-dive into the bizarre world of fake podcasts on platforms like TikTok and Twitter, unmasking the intentions behind these deceitful strategies. From an analysis of Twitter's recent rebranding to a conversation about the sponsorship opportunity to Rails World, this episode is loaded with insights for all podcast enthusiasts.
We're thrilled to announce a new Buzzsprout Conversations video with the incredible radio host, MTV VJ, and co-founder of podcasting, Adam Curry. Also, we delve into the potential of TikTok's new feature that allows podcasters to link their RSS feed to the platform. And did you know that some libraries offer recording booths for patrons? Discover more such intriguing nuggets in this episode of Buzzcast!
View the DISCUSSION THREAD on Twitter!
Special thanks to Tom Rossi for joining us! You can find him on Twitter (X) @tomrossi7
FAKE PODCASTS
Influencers and hustle bros are faking podcasts to look more official. Watch the wild and humorous video by Jaime French to learn all about it.
RAILS WORLD AMSTERDAM
Apply to the Rails World Podcast program for the opportunity to get a conference ticket, 3-night hotel stay, and a recording space! Deadline is August 7th, 2023.
TWITTER / X
Twitter is now simply "X".
COHOST AI FOR MORE LANGUAGES
Buzzsprout's Cohost AI now works with Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, Indonesian, Swedish, Czech, and Hungarian.
PODBASE
Podbase (by Charles Wiltgen) now tests whether or not RSS feeds follow the Podcast Standards Project standard for RSS feeds.
TIKTOK LINKS TO PODCASTS
TikTok is sending invitations to podcasters to link their RSS feed to the app.
RIVERSIDE MAGIC CLIPS
Riverside now has an AI tool called Magic Clips to find the best clips for social media.
PODBOOK
We got one thanks to Podium! Check out our How To Start A Podcast Podbook
BUZZSPROUT CONVERSATIONS: ADAM CURRY
Watch the interview on the Buzzsprout YouTube channel!
📣 SOUND-OFF QUESTION: What is your "why" or inspiration behind starting your podcast?
To have your response featured on our next episode, leave a 30-second voice message at
Contact Buzzcast
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- Email us at support@buzzsprout.com
Thanks for listening & keep podcasting!
What are you doing here?
Tom:I didn't realize I had my screen on. I didn't realize I was being recorded.
Jordan:You watch all of our recordings?
Tom:I didn't know I was in here. Sorry.
Speaker 3:Have either of you seen any of these fake podcasts?
Tom:I delete about 10 a day.
Speaker 3:I think we need to explain who's on the other line. Kevin's out today.
Jordan:Yeah, Kevin's gone. So for those of you who are listening and you don't recognize his voice, this is the co-founder of Buzzsprout, Tom Rossi, joining us on the show again.
Tom:Hello, thank you for having me on the show.
Speaker 3:So what are you deleting podcasts about Tom? I'm talking about stuff I'm seeing on TikTok. What are you deleting?
Tom:Oh, so many fake podcasts. People that sign up for a podcast about how to fix your pool leaks, and it's just an AI reading you know something about. I mean literally. It could be pool leaks. It could be how to pick an injury lawyer. It can be any different topic. Unfortunately, as AI voices have gotten better, these podcasts actually have to do a double take. Wait, is that a real person talking about pool leaks, how to fill them? No, it's actually fake.
Speaker 3:We used to see this a long time ago like an SEO play where they're trying to just build a bunch of random links.
Tom:Yeah, so what they do is they create the podcast, and then we recently made a change. We had to make a change so that free podcasts we no longer give them a website, so that way they're less inclined to just do it for the SEO purposes. But what they're doing is they're creating the podcast and then submitting it to directories like Spotify, who will create a page that's accessible on the web, and then they use it as an SEO gameplay.
Speaker 3:So have either of you seen these fake podcasts on TikTok and Twitter and YouTube?
Jordan:We'll get to that later.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's actually in the outline. It was a former social media platform. Have you seen any of these on X?
Jordan:So this is such a strange new trend for people to make fake podcasts. It's not them creating a fake podcast, making an RSS feed and distributing it. It's people who are on TikTok and what they're doing is they're putting a microphone in front of them, talking off camera like they're talking to somebody or posing to be on another show and then reciting a highly scripted, seo, heavy marketing thing. It's like a promoted post, but they're trying to establish authority by making it look like they're on a podcast. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 3:Is the whole play that they're just trying to get you to buy something, and so you kind of see it, so it feels organic, and then eventually you're like, oh, I guess I do need a new mattress cover for my bed.
Jordan:Yeah, I mean. It's people who are either trying to sell products or trying to sell their services. They're trying to say, like I'm an expert, you should buy my coaching thing, something like that. For example, this V-Shred guy that you see his ads all the time everywhere. V-shred. V-shred, you can look him up.
Speaker 3:I think you see his ads. I don't see his ads. No you can look him up.
Jordan:I don't know, but he seriously went so far as to create the backdrop like the red curtain backdrop that's on the Joe Rogan podcast, and he got an SM7B microphone in front of him and it looks like it was shot on the Joe Rogan podcast and people actually bought that. He was on the podcast and he's talking about how to build muscle, lose weight, how your diet should be. He's giving all these tips and then he's pushing it out as promoted posts and then people actually looked into it and they're like he never guested on Joe Rogan. It's literally like people posing they're on these podcasts and some of them it's really easy to spot because they don't link to their podcast anywhere in their bio. Nothing ever links to a podcast. They don't list it. But some of them especially the ones that don't understand how podcasting works they will have a nice microphone in front of them but it's clearly their phone audio being used for the clip so you can hear them.
Tom:This reminds me of the commercials right, where you've got a doctor talking about something and then down at the bottom it says you know, not a real doctor, or something like that. They just need to put a badge down at the not a real podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not a real podcast.
Tom:But they did it right Because it gave some sense of authority. Oh, the doctor says that you know I should do this thing. Well, oh, okay, and I bet it's the same thing with a podcast. Oh well, I heard it on a podcast that I should get this mattress top because it helps you sleep better, you know, or some statistic that they're quoting from it.
Speaker 3:It's so funny to me that I understand the person in a lab coat and you're like, oh, a doctor recommended this. Like medicine, I understand, like the credibility there, the idea that somebody was like they look like they're on a podcast and someone's like, well, this person's got to be legit, they got on a podcast. That's not the case. It's almost a negative indicator.
Tom:Isn't it just like an? What are those? Like infomercials. So it's like fake interview shows where they've got somebody on and they're just shelling their product, but it looks like they're getting interviewed. It's the same kind of idea, right, like oh, they're on the show, they must be legitimate. Well, no, not actually. They paid for the show.
Jordan:I mean, Disney did this too. They created a promotional like TikTok video and they staged a fake podcast of these actors talking about like the different bands that you can get and like how amazing it is. But it's not a podcast at all and they're clearly like completely scripted out. You can totally tell this is fake, this is scripted. But they're making it look like a podcast so that it seems more real. Yeah, so big brands are getting in on this too.
Speaker 3:So strange. I know, maybe it's one of these things that when it works you don't notice it, and so then it actually works, and when you do notice it, it's only the really bad versions. It's like a toupee. You know, everyone thinks toupees look bad. But it's bad toupees, good toupees. You never notice and you think that guy's got a great head of hair.
Jordan:So we have some quick topics from around the podcasting world and the social media industry. Tom first up. What is Rails world? Can you explain this to me?
Tom:Sure, yeah. So all of the technology behind Bus Brow is built on a technology called Ruby on Rails and it's an incredible framework. It's just a joy for us to work in. So anybody who writes any of the code behind Bus Brow, we just we absolutely love this framework. I'm not overstating by saying that it just changed our lives when we discovered it back in maybe 2006, 2007, when we started using it. And they have a new conference starting. This will be the first year. It's called Rails world. It's going to be in Amsterdam. And we reached out to them. We said, look, Ruby on Rails has been an incredible thing for us. What can we do? How can we help with the conference? And they said, well, great thing that you reached out, because what we want to do is have a podcast booth at the conference and we want to sponsor podcasts, being able to come to the conference record at the conference and promote it.
Tom:And so we were like oh, this is perfect for Bus Brow. So Bus Brow will be sponsoring Rails world, the first conference for Rails world that's ever existed, and we are going to be helping to send podcasters there that are in the software industry that want to go to the conference.
Speaker 3:That's cool. Are you going to be at Rails world in Amsterdam?
Tom:Yeah, so I'll be there and a couple other members from our team will be there, so we were going to go just to go and then, when the opportunity came up, to actually be able to support it. It's just a great way for us to be able to give back to that community that we have benefited from so much over the years, and so I'm really hoping this can be a long term way for us to give back to that community.
Speaker 3:Well, if there's anybody who listens to this podcast that also has a show about Ruby on Rails, make sure you go to Rails world and meet up with Tom and the rest of the programming team. It's cool that you're doing that, Tom.
Tom:Yeah, check us out on Twitter too. If you have a podcast and you want to apply for the sponsorship or accepting applications, I think until August 15th for any podcast that wants to go to Rails world, that wants to go learn about Ruby on Rails, or they already know and they use Ruby on Rails, you can apply for that sponsorship.
Speaker 3:So, tom, you said check us out on Twitter. Jordan, did you have an update about that?
Jordan:Yeah, I sure do. Twitter is now X Check us out on X.
Speaker 3:Check us out on X. I don't think my wife's going to like it. When I go to that website, she's like what is this on your phone?
Tom:I got to check my filters. I don't know if it'll let you through.
Jordan:I'm sure everyone knows about this, but just in case you've been living under a rock, the Twitter bird logo has been replaced with what Elon Musk is calling interim X logo.
Jordan:So I'm not sure if they're sticking with that or just trying it out, but he did do that huge light up X sign in that logo, so I think it might be what they settled on. What's interesting is that I heard that the app also changed its handle to at X instead of at Twitter, and if you go to at Twitter it redirects you to at X. But here's the thing a guy who was already registered as the at X social handle and they just like no warning, didn't pay him any money, booted him and took it over, and that's so crappy. I mean, it's not like they couldn't do that. They are X, so they can just do whatever they want. And that's kind of the risk that you run with being on these social platforms, and you know we've talked about this a million times. So I think it just kind of proves that social platforms can do whatever they want, including take over your profile.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's kind of the worst case scenario. I think that's what everyone's really hoping never happens to them. I put a lot of time and effort. I was an early adopter of some platform it's kind of my go to and for some reason my continued success is no longer aligns with the platform. I mean, I don't think this is the specific scenario I'm afraid of. Like I'm going to get on some platform that will rebrand to Albin and like take away my handle, you never know. But man, I mean, what a bummer when you realize, oh, I have no recourse. I've invested years and years into building up this little account but now I've got nothing. And you know it's not like you're going to get paid because you never really owned it. This was always rented space and eventually the landlord has the right to evict you if they don't want you there anymore.
Jordan:Well, I know that a lot of websites have updated their footers to reflect the change of name from Twitter to X. Should podcasters do this, or does anyone care?
Speaker 3:I mean, maybe if you are a podcaster who's like, primary way of connecting was through Twitter and for some reason, that's where you've decided you're going to be long term, maybe your audience is still there. I've seen some communities have like left and others have stayed. If you're going to use it as your main thing, I guess eventually call it by its new name. But yeah, I think it's probably not a big deal for 99% of podcasters.
Jordan:Cohost AI has a couple new updates. What are those?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, so this one is really important for a handful of people, but for most people this won't be huge. We've added a lot of language support for cohost AI, so there's Tom. What is it like? Seven more languages now?
Tom:Yeah, and more like they're. They're continuing to add languages, so this is accomplished through our partnership with podium, who is providing those AI services for us, and they've done a great job of bringing on these new languages and we've already started to see some of our podcasters take advantage of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really cool. It's one of the things that if we were doing this all ourselves, that it would be very slow, I think, for us to onboard new languages, but then having a partner allows us to move a little bit more quickly here. So, while our focus is on something very big and exciting that Tom's been doing for the last few months, that we're also able to have things like cohost continue to get updates. So it's very cool.
Tom:I have a quick update that I think a lot of our podcasters would be interested in. You've heard us talk about the podcast standards project, which is a bunch of people in the industry that have gotten together to advocate for open standards and really offer up some type of certification of People that are doing things in a way that we've agreed really make the most sense to keep podcasting growing strong, innovating, and so one of the people that really participate is a gentleman named Charles Wilchin, and he has a podcast RSS feed validator called podbase, and it's one that we link to all the time in support whenever anybody has questions about their RSS feed or validating when they're trying to move their feed to buzz sprout.
Tom:If there's ever an issue with validating feed, we send them to podbase, because it's a really good looking validator for your RSS feed. And so what they've done is they've actually started to validate what we call the, the first generation or the PSP one standard of what an RSS feed should look like. And so now if you go to podbase and you validate an RSS feed, you'll see a section down at the bottom which talks about all those things that are included in that PSP one certification. The good news is, buzz sprout podcasters don't really have to worry about this, right, because we do everything for their feed and we are big advocates of what the podcast standards project is doing, and so they really don't have to worry about it.
Jordan:In our last quick news item here, tiktok is getting into podcasting.
Jordan:Apparently the reason why I say this is a quick story because this is actually really interesting and it's something that I've wanted for a really long time.
Jordan:I think I had mentioned in a previous buzzcast episode that I would give anything For them to link.
Jordan:When I use a sound on a tiktok video, I would give anything for them to link to a podcast, and it looks like this is finally happening. I actually Reactivated my account for Dreamful on this to like try to test it out, but it's not available to me yet, or at least I haven't figured out quite how to use it. But they're sending a podcasters invitation where you can go to an upload icon. You can link your podcast, enter the link to your RSS feed and then you can select the episode and then use that episode for the sound bite for your tiktok videos. And I know that tiktok has actually Extended their videos to be up to 10 minutes, so this could be really good for podcasters. There's there's a lot of podcasters that have found success with promoting their podcast on tiktok. Obviously it's not fit for all podcasters, but you know if your target audience is on tiktok or if your content is really appropriate for tiktok, then this is a really great opportunity for podcasters.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I saw this on X X dot com. Marcus de Paula wrote. Tiktok just sent out messaging about adding our podcast to their app and he posted a screenshot of this. It looks like you're linking your RSS feed to your tiktok page and then you can select the episodes. Do we think that this is like podcasts are being added as sounds so they could be used to sounds with other video, or it's like a link out from your account?
Jordan:I think it's both Okay. I think it's a link out from the video Using the sound of your episode. I don't know what it links out to. That'd be interesting to find out. Like I said, I haven't gotten to test this so I don't have a lot of information on it, but it does say that viewers will be able to listen to your podcast episode from the linked videos. So I'm excited about it. But I don't think that tiktok is getting into like being a podcast player because it's episode. It gets based on the episode, so I think you have to like link your RSS for every episode. Hopefully not. It'd be great if you could just link it one time and then just choose the episode that you want to use.
Tom:But yeah, seems like we've seen this before, right, where social media platforms are trying to figure out how to Capitalize on podcasts to drive engagement, and so they try different things. I mean, facebook is what. There's maybe been three or four different attempts to Figure out how to incorporate podcasts into the social media platform, and so this is probably just gonna be tiktok's first attempt to figure out how it is. How does this play in? You know, the field that they've created? A tiktok, though? Isn't their whole business model like trying to keep eyeballs on the screen and the most engaging way possible, where Podcasting content especially the type of content we think of when we think of podcasting is content that you're listening to while you're doing something else? Right, statistically, that's what people are doing when they're listening to that content, so it seems like it's kind of counter to what tiktok wants to do, because they want your eyeballs engaged on the screen.
Speaker 3:So I think that this is trying to continue this tiktok. You know what tiktok does, so it says you link your RSS feed to your account, you select an episode and then you select videos to link to your podcast and I think that's like an individual episode and so maybe it's being used as a sound like. Imagine the audio from your podcast, a little clip of audio from your podcast being used along with some visuals. This is how we've seen people grow podcasts. You know, we've seen lots people who are doing this manually. I wonder if this is tiktok trying to help, but or help people grow their shows. But I think you're right, tom. Like they're not gonna want you, they want you watching the fake, the fake podcast. They don't want you going to listen to a real one and then listening in an app.
Tom:Yeah, now that's more engaging. Yeah works for clips, like if you could scan through it and pick out a clip and then put video behind the clip. That seems like that would work. But you figure just on Buzzsprout. Well, 85% of our podcasts are more than 10 minutes long. So what are you gonna do with a podcast it's more than 10 minutes long? Sharing on tiktok? It just seems like an inappropriate platform for it.
Jordan:See, I don't agree with that because I think that there are people who are doing video for YouTube, so if they get to use that video also on tiktok there's lots of Podcasters that will take stock footage of things. So we saw this with mark safe podcast. They had stock footage of people on a roller coaster with the audio of them talking about that, and so you can I'm sure that you can link to that episode, select the clip that you want to use From that episode and then like import whatever video you want to on top of it. I got really excited because we had just talked about the fake podcasts on tiktok, so it's gonna be a lot easier to spot these fake podcasts because they won't have that click to episode link associated with the videos.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like Thomas said, this has been, you know, experiment 200 from a social platform saying, hey, this podcasting stuff's kind of attractive. It's a bunch of free content, we don't have to pay anybody, it's actually high quality, it's got a lot of fans. What if we just also did podcasting?
Tom:the company previously known as Twitter's, tried it multiple times.
Speaker 3:The company formerly known as the Facebook tried it. Many times. We've seen it from everybody said they're gonna do it and then they try it and then maybe they're doing it, who knows? I'd be excited if tiktok can love podcasts for what they are Audio first experiences that are probably not gonna happen in the tiktok app. They're mostly you're listening when something else is happening in your life. Tiktok and podcasts are just so different in my mind, so it'll be interesting to see if they Accept. What we're doing here is we're helping introduce people to podcasts but then they're going somewhere else which just Seems extremely unlikely. But maybe there's an ads play or something where they're like oh, you can use this and you can boost these videos and promote your podcast. You know it's hard for me to understand when is the Venn diagram of like what listeners or viewers want on tiktok, what tiktok wants and then what the podcaster wants, like what is the use case?
Jordan:that kind of satisfies all three and I think I'm just struggling to figure out what that will be well, if any of you have Received this invitation and have been able to play with this new rss link into tiktok, let us know, because we would be very interested to find out what that experience has been like. So a couple weeks ago, I noticed that Riverside had a banner on their website that said something magical was coming. I was really curious what that was, because they were keeping it pretty hush and so it is called magic clips, and what they do is they take your Riverside recording, where you have Video and audio and you can push a button. I actually played with this. It's very cool. You can push a button. They run it through a AI process that selects clips that it finds interesting and puts captions on them. You can edit the frame around the video. There's different things that you can play with in their editor and it's pretty slick.
Speaker 3:Yeah, friend of the pod, Steven Robles did a video about it and I was, I think, the first time I saw it.
Speaker 3:Steven works at Riverside and it looks really good.
Speaker 3:I would want to play with it a bit, but it's really cool because you can kind of make those tiktok style videos really easily now and You're picking out a few spots and saying, hey, this would be an interesting clip, and and you can pick one of a handful of kind of pre-made templates, which are pretty much all the templates you would need, and now you've got that nice photo, you know, the nice video of somebody's face talking into a microphone and then it switches to the other person talking to a microphone looks kind of like this fake tiktok clips we talked about earlier and you can make them real and you can put them out there in all these places with short form video.
Speaker 3:It's cool because right now we filmed this show on Riverside. I think we actually record video and we've never made clips because we're not making long-form video. But maybe is there a world where you're creating clips just for, you know, getting the word out there, and Then you're directing right over to the podcast if people want to listen to more. Might be an interesting thing for us to test out could be a great way to promote long-form content.
Tom:It's with short form content right, like the clips. You don't have to feel the pressure. If I have to make engaging, I've got a 45 minute podcast. I don't have to worry about 45 minutes of engaged video. I can just do, hey, a clip that helps sell, you know, the bigger long-form content.
Jordan:So I did actually test this out on some buzzsprout Conversations, recordings which are pretty lengthy some of them can be, you know, upwards of like an hour and a half for those recordings. So I thought it would take a long time for it to process and so I clicked it and it did not take long at all it was maybe two or three minutes and then it would generate 11 to like 18 clips. It's nice because it Titles the clips what it thinks it should be titled. So you know, for example, the one that we did with a Tom Buck, it would have a clip that said excuses and solutions or the problem with external pressures and starting sooner and things like that just basically the context of what the clip was about.
Jordan:And I Think it was fairly good at selecting interesting clips. It didn't really select things I would personally choose, but what I found in their editor is that you can actually highlight things that you want to be included in that clip and you can Unhighlight things that you don't want to be. So maybe if it included a little section where someone started to get off topic Just briefly, you could actually cut that from the clip. And it's pretty smooth process. You can edit the captions and things like that. Yeah, I think it's pretty cool. I think it'll be useful for people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd love to run the experiment. Maybe we have right now, when we do these bus route conversations videos and we put them up. We also chop into a few clips that we have a editor who makes those, but it would be interesting to be. Maybe test Alright, let's just use the fifteen that Riverside comes up with and post all those and see, like, what is the outcome to these actually pick up and are any of them getting traction or do they end up just kind of like stalling because they are perfect? You know, the proof is In the results and so I'd love to test it out and maybe we should start up a tick tock that we just are using it as a testing ground when we're just posting tons of these clips and see what happens with them.
Jordan:That's a great idea. Have you fun to deal. So now kind of going in the opposite direction of the clips.
Speaker 3:The clips are hey, take a podcast and make it shorter. Our friends over at podium have actually gone the other way with something they called pod book. We talked about this a few episodes ago About how they will try to take your podcast back catalog and write the first draft of a book for you, and I think we sent a lot of people over there to test this out and as a thank you, they sent us I don't know what is this, jordan. They sent us a.
Jordan:They sent us a draft of our how to start a podcast book. They let us know that it needs editing, typesetting, and it gets you eighty percent of the way there, which eighty percent is fantastic, frankly, if you're writing a book. They said to know that there's many books for every episode, which is a byproduct of the process, which makes sense to me. So it created eleven chapters for our how to start a podcast series and it reads really nicely. I have to be honest. I wonder if we can link to this, should be linked to this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, especially if it reads really nicely. This comes from the how to start a podcast podcast that Jelana and I did last year.
Speaker 3:Yeah for me to say this is the level we want it to be at. It would need to be a adequate substitution for that podcast so that somebody could read this and, by reading the pod book, they would be able to start their own podcast, since that's the content of the show that they used. Do you feel like reading this, that somebody could just read it, not having the other materials there, that they would be able to go and start their own show?
Jordan:You know? I really do think so. It takes the topics that you guys discussed, especially, you know, in episode two where you talk about like podcast format, it actually takes your podcast formats and breaks it out into like number one here's an option, number two, so number one you can do interviews, storytelling, news, education, scripted fiction For like some ideas. And then it takes all the tips that you gave in that episode and sort of elaborates on those tips and really flushes out certain things that you may have mentioned and really deeply explains why those tips are important to keep in mind. And it also has ordered them really nicely.
Jordan:So you're kind of going through the process of, you know you're laying the foundation of creating your podcast, which you guys started with, and then it's getting into more of the technical side of things, such as like creating your cover art or, you know, audio editing, how to choose like an audio editor. So there's just different things like that. It walks through everything that you guys went through on the how to start a podcast podcast. I think that it's easy to read and I think someone could potentially read this and just get started.
Tom:I think it's a great example of what, realistically, we should expect from AI. You know people get frustrated. It doesn't go to 100%, doesn't get everything all done. But this is great. It lays it all out and now you can go fill in the gaps, you can go add in the things Media different, right. It's distinctively different when it's a book than when it was a podcast. So now you can go in and take it to that 100% versus. You know, oh well, it's not where it needs to be. Well, it's getting started, right. I would much rather play the part of an editor than a creator, especially on something like a book.
Jordan:You know. The other thing about this is that it also seem to capture the tone of you and John in this podcast, so I'm gonna read this here because it sounds like something you guys said. So this is a paragraph out of one of the chapters about editing tips. As podcasters, it's easy to compare ourselves to the likes of this American life or cereal, but here's reality. Check. Those podcasts have teams of recording experts, storytellers and audio engineers. You, on the other hand, are probably sitting in your closet just starting out, and that's perfectly fine. Everyone starts somewhere. I mean, come on, that's such a good paragraph, it's so good beginning of that sounds like gel on.
Speaker 3:In the end of it sounds like me. That's funny. I'd be interested to go back and see how similar that is to what we actually said. I know pod book is made by our friends over at podium who also are helping us with all of our tools. So thanks again for sending that over, and we're excited to see other ways to help connect podcasting and tools together and make really cool stuff.
Jordan:Yeah, and link to this PDF so you can read it yourself and see how awesome it is until we saw it as an ebook.
Speaker 3:Yeah, make sure you click it now so you get it before time up. Puts a four dollar ebook price on it and uploads it to kindle four dollars.
Jordan:Earlier we have mentioned, buzz brought conversations and we have a new episode of that out and it's with the pod father himself, adam Curry. Albin, you got to interview Adam Curry. How was that?
Speaker 3:No, it was a lot of fun. We know Adam through our work with podcast index and podcasting to auto, and then I met him in person. We've done other interviews so it was not as intimidating as it would have been maybe a few years ago, having never spoken to him before that, but it provided an opportunity for me to try to dig into a few Adam Curry stories that didn't really know much about. So we knew a lot about the early days of podcasting and how he co founded it. But if you start searching Adam Curry and start listening to some old episodes, like the stories that come out Our wild, I think you cut this part from the podcast. Was like Adam, if this whole world turns out to be like the simulation theory is real, you're the main character. Maybe I shouldn't plant that seed in his head, but we're all NPCs. Yeah, so he is.
Speaker 3:That kid moves to Amsterdam when he's young and he's really interested in listening to the radio. So he just starts a radio station and his parents help him and it's a pirate radio station. He's putting up this little antenna on his roof and broadcasting to his friends and then he gets into a little bit bigger of a pirate radio station is a show at night and then he gets picked up and he does real broadcast radio and he's doing really really well with that. He gets picked up by MTV and he goes, does that really well. He's the first VJ on MTV and so he's got so many stories with like all these famous, famous musicians and then he quits MTV.
Speaker 3:This is a I think this came from an old interview, maybe he did with Howard Stern, maybe like 10 years ago, and he quits MTV and Howard Stern's like you're an idiot, like you, quitting MTV is the biggest mistake. He's like no, I'm gonna start an online advertising company for this thing called the internet and just that like 92, 94 sells that in 99 for like 850 million dollars or something. And so right before the dot com bust, he has a helicopter company. He co-found podcasting. He's got like four shows now that are all very successful and it's just cool to hear his story that he's kind of just going from think he enjoys to think he enjoys and he is so invested in it that after a while they seem to work out for him. So it was just a total fun to kind of dig into the lesser know stories, the stories I didn't know much about and kind of hear what the podcasting journey has been like for him.
Tom:I like Adam, yeah, he's such a nice guy, he's so nice to people, but he is strongly opinionated. And being able to do both of those things to hold those kind of opinions, those really strong opinions, and still be a nice guy like that's hard to balance and I think he does a really good job. It's something we talk about in our culture here, right, like we want people to have opinions that they feel strongly about, but we want to be nice and there's ways to do that, and I think he epitomizes that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I kept getting that feeling from him, tom, so it was like he wants to be friends, he wants to be friendly, he's being kind, and yet he does not shy away from telling you when he doesn't like something that you're doing. And he doesn't seem to be. I mean, I am the opposite side of this, so there's something there for me to learn. But he doesn't seem to like put up a wall once. He goes like oh, now there's a riff between us. I can't say this thing because it might make you mad at me. He just seems like he's okay. The people are mad at him, so he has strong opinions and he says them.
Speaker 3:And he says working with YouTube is a huge mistake. You should never work with YouTube. They're just gonna mess up podcasting, and knowing like there's a chance that we end up working with YouTube doesn't bother him that. He said that, though, and he just moves on. We're talking about video, and he's like honestly, I hate video. F you for doing this on video. He's like I think you should be doing it on audio. That's why I was into podcasting and we go yeah, actually, that's a fair point.
Jordan:It's so funny because I actually didn't know a whole lot about Adam Curry other than you know. People just say like, oh, he was an MTV VJ and he co-founded podcasting and that was really the extent of my knowledge of him. But listening to your interview, I was so enamored with how he would like have a hobby or he'd have like a niche interest, and somehow he was on that train talking about it way before it became popular, way before it boomed, and he did this several times, like he did this over and over and over again in his life, like he's just like Always so far ahead of where everyone else in the world is and it's so weird and it's fascinating, but it's weird.
Speaker 3:Well, he's doing this now with podcasting too, and especially value for value. We talked about value for value a bunch, but the thing he's worked on with Dave Jones quite a bit is using the lightning network, which is kind of part of Bitcoin, to make a, so podcasters can send money or receive money for their shows. And I think when I hear that, I just hear this is like so niche, like it's probably not going to catch on and that doesn't seem to bother him, and so he's just like this is a good thing. This is probably the way it should work. I like this, I'm just investing in it.
Speaker 3:And he then combines other people who kind of see this person's blazing the trail now feels a little bit safer to invest a bit of my time. But there kind of has to be the first person to say I don't care if anybody else does this, I'm just going to do it because I think it's cool and I think it's interesting. And it seemed like there were quite a few times that he had this vision. He wasn't really worried about it. He starts, and especially with his open source projects, you start attracting other like-minded people and they're like oh, I'm happy to invest in this now that there's a small group of people who are really interested in moving the ball forward.
Tom:Well, it's interesting to think about podcasting with everything you just described, because that's what podcasting was right for years. It was the exact same thing where there was a small group of people that could really pull it off because the technology required to be able to do it. It was just much harder than it is now, but now anybody can go and launch a podcast, and I think that that's kind of where he is in terms of the crypto stuff. He recognizes that, hey, maybe there isn't a way to do micropayments right now, but I see a day when it's going to be as easy as it is right now to order a microphone off Amazon and launch a podcast. So I wonder if there's some similarities there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I actually called that out explicitly. I was like back in 2001,. He starts podcasting with Dave Weiner, who is kind of the father of RSS. He convinces Dave like there's something here, and they kind of cobbled together what becomes the first RSS spec for podcasting, the enclosure tag. Then he has a podcast called the Daily Source Code where he's talking every day about hey, here's the improvements people are making to podcasting. Just keep up to date with this one show I have, and then you'll know about the person who's building a new podcatcher like the podcast apps, and he's just talking about it and people who are interested in it start listening to that show. And I was like this is the same thing you're doing now with podcasting 2.0. You found another Dave. I was like it's another guy named Dave, dave Jones this time, and they start another podcast, the podcasting 2.0 show, and then they are podcasting once a week and they're bringing on guests and they're kind of creating the I don't know the hub for people who are interested in improving podcasting. And they've done it now for I don't know a few years and it's great. I mean it's a really great way to kind of draw together a community.
Speaker 3:One of the points he made, I never this is not ever clicked. He was like the amount of people that invest in podcasting 2.0 now that are putting in time, you could not hire these people. He's like they are not hireable. Some of them are people like Tom, who have their own company so they're not interested in working for you.
Speaker 3:Some of them I won't name are so like a grating of personalities that he's just like yeah, they work well together, like they don't like each other at all but they'll come in and they'll contribute and then when the other person they don't like comes in, then they'll move, they'll kind of back away and he's like it's a way for us to coordinate. He's like even some of the people don't like me at all but they see it's important for podcasting to be open and to continue growing and so they're willing to contribute. And it's just a totally different model of how you can organize a project. And it was kind of illuminating for me to think like yeah, you really, there are some groups. You couldn't hire all these people and it's only because it's donation based and it's opt-in based that you're able to get so many different personalities together to work on a project.
Tom:Have you guys seen the music podcast that he started? I think it's another good example of ways that you can really disrupt an industry right when you're able to actually go directly to your listeners of your music and be able to. As a creator, you're connecting directly with your consumers, the people that like your content.
Speaker 3:So what's happening here? He's doing a podcast that's a radio show and he's playing music and he's kind of being the DJ for the music.
Tom:Yeah, one of the things that you can do with the value for value tag in your RSS feed is you can, on an episode by episode level, you can dictate who gets what for that episode. So a musician could, for example, have their music played on his podcast and now whenever anybody streams sats to that particular episode, they're listening to it really. Then that content creator gets paid for it. You can boost it. I really like this song. You can boost it so he can highlight musicians, and the musicians can get paid for their work, which is really difficult to do outside of some type of micropayment solution like what we've done with value for value. So that's one application of it, but they want to expand it so that any band could go create an RSS feed with their music and they could distribute it to their fans, and now whenever they release a song, they're just getting paid based on the sats that are getting streamed to them.
Jordan:That's exactly what Sam Sethi is doing with pod fans. He's making it easy for people to set up that split. You can do it by episode. He showed this to me and I was just fascinated by it. I could literally split up the income that I get with my editor so she could get a share of it. I could split it with the people whose soundtrack I use throughout my episode and I could split with those musicians and he also had it so I could set up to split with my super fans and sort of gamify that support. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking now it sounds like oh, what's in it for the artist to not work with a label and not get paid for their music in the traditional way and instead just kind of release it almost for free and just hope that people will give money back. But this has been around near 20 years now. I remember I think the first band to do this was probably Radiohead with an album called In Rainbows, and they just put it online and said there you go, take it and pay what you want. I don't know. I mean, tom, you've probably seen this at like Christian concerts, maybe back in the 2000s, like they have the CDs out there and they'd be like pay what you think is appropriate, we just want you to have it if you want the music.
Speaker 3:And more and more bands are doing it and I think the reason they do it is because they make so much little money on the actual sale of the CDs. Now when it was CDs they did, but now the streams they're making so little. They're like I make all the money on the tours and the merch anyway, like I might as well just give this part away for free and then monetize the real monetization side. So you know, I could see it working. It's cool, it's a fun way to do it and I just commend Adam again for like going on this limb. I think I would not have the patience to be like I'm going to do a radio show podcast where I do music, I kind of play the DJ and I only pick music that's submitted through these you know new directories. There's no way I could do that Not do it well, but also I'd have the patience. So it's very cool to see him blazing this new trail again.
Tom:Yeah, right, that's what's funny. It's the new trail again, right that he's doing something similar to what he? Did with.
Tom:Headbangers Ball, yeah, but now he's doing it in a whole new medium. Going back to Podfans too, I think what Podfans is doing is really cool as well, because they're bridging the gap from both sides of making it so that it's good for Jordan to be able to go in and manage her podcast, but it's also good for listeners, and so listeners can go in and support podcasts. Simply making that transaction it's just so hard. I mean, fountain is probably the most mature in terms of streaming sat and taking advantage of podcasting 2.0 stuff, but it's still pretty daunting. And so Podfans and what Sam's doing will hopefully be the next iteration of continuing to try and make it easier and attract different audience. That maybe wouldn't do something like Fountain, but they might do Podfans.
Jordan:Yeah, I'm somebody who gets easily daunted by these new concepts and learning new. I mean, look at me with Twitter slash X. I struggle so hard on that platform. I struggle with things that are a little bit complicated and I really enjoy when people like Sam or like Buzzsprout take a concept that is really complicated and technical and daunting and streamline it to be very friendly and approachable and easy to use. So I think that this might be moving in a direction where it's more easily adopted by people who were hesitant at first. It's time for sound off the segment where you send in your tips, tricks, podcasting, advice. So we can start off with some boostograms. We have quite a few from last time we recorded.
Speaker 3:The first one, we got 5,000 sats from Genebean. How could there be broad excitement around a feature such as podcast social interact tag when hosts are not supporting it? It seems like it would pair well with the new social posts bits and cohosts. Ai Like Sam, I like seeing this added. Tom, what are we at with social interact tag?
Tom:We run the risk with any podcasting 2.0 feature. We run the risk of alienating customers because they don't understand it. Just with the wide adoption of transcripts, for example, which we've been doing in our RSS feeds for a long time now, it still creates confusion for our users because they're like well, why don't I see it? Why, when I go in, we know that the majority of podcast consumption happens on Apple and Spotify and they don't respect any of these tags. And so their listeners are saying I want a transcript, for example, but they don't see it. Well, why? Well, because they're in Spotify or Apple, and so then they write into us, but I have a transcript, why don't they see it? Why doesn't it work? And so the same thing with a social interact tag, any tag that we adopt, you run the challenge of how do I communicate that to our podcasters so that they understand? The majority of your listeners won't see this thing that we're asking you to do, and it's a heavy lift.
Speaker 3:We also got a boost from the late bloomer actor regarding cohost AI. I love it Now if I could upload video and get cohost to generate clips from that, like the tweets, but video snippets. That would be cool. I could do that in Riverside FM, but the workflow in one medium would be great and will save money. Love your work, team. Thank you so much for the kind words. That's interesting idea of way that we could do it. The start accepting video and then start pulling out the clips like Riverside is, it's just the addition of video is a big deal, and so I think, if busprout ever does, forays into the world of video have to be a pretty big thought process. It would be a pretty big for us. Tom, are you excited about accepting petabytes and petabytes of?
Jordan:video files. Yeah, tom looked a little panicked right there, yeah.
Tom:For all the listeners. Yes, there's some panic on my face when we talk about video.
Speaker 3:Yeah, brian Trewick, who leads the infrastructure team here, is listening to this podcast right now, going oh no, what do we do with it?
Jordan:All right, we also have a I don't know what to call this a whole flash mob of Become a Fans from Gene Liverman, nathan Gathright, Dave Jones and Brian Ensminger. I wonder if that's Podfans.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's got to be Podfans or something.
Jordan:It's got to be.
Speaker 3:But everybody's saying it's Insins Become a fan All right, you guys are fans, I'm a fan, so thank you everybody. We appreciate it.
Jordan:And then we also got a tweet from Sarah Zett saying hey, at BuzzCast podcast. I went to an author conference in St Paul recently and visited St Paul Library. Their central library has a recording booth for patrons. It's a cool and helpful idea. She tagged me in this and I feel so, seen. There's a CrossFit gym moving in next door to me and they are currently jackhammering out concrete for the last week, and so I really wish that my library had this sound booth. I would give anything for it right now.
Speaker 3:It's a cool thing for a library to offer. Jordan and I both actually worked in libraries when we were younger and you know, with the internet there's some part of what libraries provided, which is being able to look up tons of information, isn't as applicable and it's. You know, over the last 20 years you see more and more library start doing internet access at the library and start offering other services. I like the podcasting, or even like a video room where you can record something that's important to you, get it out to the world, because Most people don't need an entire setup at home. You know it's expensive to make it is. You know it's hard to learn how to run everything, but there's tons of smart people at the library and it would be great if you could walk in and they say, alright, hit, record, and then we'll give you the audio file when you're done.
Jordan:You know there's a lot of things that libraries do that many people don't even realize. You can check out audio equipment from a lot of libraries. You can check out video cameras. You can check out computers to like, take home and use. I recently discovered this and it's been so much fun. I've been checking out board games From libraries before I decide if I want to buy them. So we're talking about like 60 $80 board games. I'm just not sure if I want to buy it. I can check it out from the library and play with my family, decide if I like it and then buy it if I want to. It's so cool. Libraries are awesome.
Tom:This is become a public service announcement for libraries yes which I am a huge man of the library support your local library. They do a lot your local library.
Jordan:So last episode, kevin asked have you ever been to a podcast conference? If so, was it worth it? If not, what is keeping you from attending one? And Albin raise the stakes by saying that we have some podcast movement tickets up for grabs for those who respond.
Speaker 3:I think it worked it worked, but it also wasn't perfect, because I didn't realize we got a lot of answers. I think everyone who answered if you want it, we got about the right amount that we can give everyone a ticket. But what I didn't do was say something along the lines up but make sure you let us know that you want the ticket. We want to make sure that people are actually going to attend. So if you hear your name in this section and you are interested in getting a free ticket to podcast movement 2023, which is in like three weeks and Probably when you listen to this, two weeks in Denver, we will all be there. It's going to be fun.
Speaker 3:I always love podcast movement. I love going to these kind of conferences. So if you hear your name, reach out to us at support at busbrockcom and put in the subject line ticket to podcast movement 2023. And I'll just make sure they tag Jordan and I and then we will contact you on how to get your free ticket. We've got a list of people now. You'll be first come, first serve and if anybody else wants one, go ahead and write us in as well, but you'll just come in after the people who put these in today.
Jordan:I have a quick question that I think might make a difference on who redeems their ticket. Do these free tickets also count towards virtual attendance?
Speaker 3:I don't think so. The goal is to give these to people who will attend in person. So I would need to check with podcast. My impression is that they want people who are going to come in person these. Also, they don't include food, lodging or travel. Anytime we've ever given away tickets to things, I know there's still like a financial burden that goes into flying and taking time off and everything else. Unfortunately, we're not able to cover all of that, just covering the ticket price. But we would love to do that for you. So if you're on this list, let us know. The first person, unsolved histories. Love the name of the podcast. Hey, this is Joe with unsolved histories. I've never had the chance to attend a podcast conference. The main roadblock has been the expenses involved in going between travel cost, accommodation and conference tickets ads up quickly. Totally agree, 100%. That's a reason that I think a lot of people don't attend. If getting a free ticket to podcast movement makes the difference for you, let us know. We would love to take you.
Tom:This is from twilo zone media asked your question. Never have been. Can't afford to. The closest conventions are literally thousands of miles away from me. I don't fly. I can't afford to take the time to drive any of these events, and then couldn't afford them even if I got there.
Tom:Totally understand yeah, as someone in Idaho, it's so much more expensive for me to go to conferences than people who live in California, florida, new York, because there's just no direct flights anywhere, so it's so expensive yeah, it's tough to get there, but I tell you like, even if you can only go once every whatever five years, just provide so much energy being around all the other people, just something about being in person with other people that are dealing with the same struggles you're dealing with. But I get it. It's hard.
Speaker 3:Hearing these makes me so appreciative of bottom elegant and the jacks podcasters unite group that's here in Jacksonville. It is a big deal to go to a podcast conference. I don't know if I would have attended one yet If it wasn't part of my job. It's just, it's a big deal to fly somewhere, stay there for a few nights. You know you could easily spend a thousand dollars and four days of pto to go. That's a big deal for almost everybody.
Speaker 3:And having a local meet up I get a lot of those benefits. Maybe I don't meet as big name podcasters, but the thing that's really valuable is talking to other people who, like I'm really into this thing you are. They tell you about one of their struggles and you go oh yeah, I do that, but I do it with riverside, that's what I use like oh cool, can you tell them about a equipment issue you have? And they're like I should just get a cloud lifter. I've actually got an extra one, I'd love to give it to you and you're like whoa, this is such a awesome opportunity to connect. So maybe we need to start finding a way to facilitate some smaller meet ups around the country so that people don't have to travel as far.
Tom:Yeah, I think it's a really good point that you can get a lot of the value of a conference at a local meet up, and so maybe, if you're too far away to be able to go to a conference, start a meet up, see if you can find other podcasters that are within driving distance that you can meet. I mean, but our group only meets what? Once a quarter? Yeah, like you can do that, so once every three months.
Speaker 4:Our next response is from Barnabas hi, I'm Barnabas, host of the kids could podcast. I've never gone to a podcast conference because I think it's too expensive, I don't have time and I feel like it will not be helpful for me. I'm the only podcast in my niche, so some podcasts have touched on similar subjects and I don't believe I will get the social element out of it very well. Most of the panels are for me unimportant or I can get in other ways. So yeah, those are my reasons.
Jordan:I want to listen to his podcast so bad it's funny because some of the people that I've connected to the most have podcasts completely unrelated to the ones I have. One has like a trivia one where he has people from jeopardy on a show and he's like super awesome. And then there's someone else who is like an influencer coach and I get really cool tips about like Marketing on social media from that person. So you don't have to have people in your niche to really make a good connection and make the most use out of like meeting with people.
Speaker 3:Barnabas, you've listened about every good reason not to go and so we may think that there's maybe a bit of a social aspect that you may enjoy. But also, yeah, they're expensive and you don't really see any talks you're interested in and you know time off isn't something you want to take. All those other things totally valid reasons. I get it and thank you so much for being a fan of us cast next one is from Brian.
Speaker 5:Brian from Brian's one pod. I went to the podcast show in the UK A little bit disappointing because it was all about monetizing your podcast and really didn't find anything for those starting out on the podcast journey, loving us cast and always look forward to listening to your episodes every week.
Speaker 3:Thank you, brian. We appreciate you calling in and leave us the message. I went to the podcast show as well, kevin. I went last year and I kind of got a little bit of the same feeling. There's something that just doesn't feel right to me. When everybody's talking about monetization and we see the real numbers behind the scene and the real numbers are like two percent of podcasters are monetizing in some way, and most of them not to a large extent, it feels, I don't know, kind of alienating. If you go to these shows and everyone's on stage talking about like this is gotta be your day job, it's gotta be your real thing, you gotta make money off of it. And you can look around the audience and you know most people aren't making money off of this. Most of us are doing it for the joy of it, because we're sharing something that's really important to us. So I feel you, maybe we need to get you to come over to podcast movement in the states or maybe a podcast needs to do something over in the UK for you.
Speaker 6:Alright next up we have Brooke. Hey, best friend, my name is Brooke Benton and I'm the host of sweat. Like a mother. I have not attended a podcasting conference, partly because I worry the tech is gonna fly right over my head, that I'm not gonna understand any of the jargon these other people are talking about, at least when I get my education from other podcasts. I can piecemeal enough together to live by. But I'd love to give it a chance. I have a master's degree. I'm a professional life coach I know well being. I would love to understand podcasting a little bit better and use it to promote my brand, brooke.
Jordan:I do not have a master's degree and I figured it out and I'm garbage at tech, so I am living proof that you can figure this out. You know I found that going to these conferences, I was also a little bit concerned about the same thing. You know, like, is this gonna go over my head? Am I not going to understand the jargon? But I find that the people who are usually speaking at these sessions that you go to happen to also be independent podcasters who have been in that place, and it's really great when you can go up and ask some questions afterwards too. If you don't understand, all right, next up we have Matthew.
Speaker 7:Hey BuzzCast Matthew from Girl Dad Nation. I've never been to a podcast conference before, but I'd love the opportunity to attend podcast movement Denver. I started my podcast shortly after my second daughter was born and life has not slowed down. I'm now blessed with three girls, keeping the Girl Dad Nation brand going strong. Would be awesome to meet up with you in my home state of Colorado. Love what you guys do.
Speaker 3:All right, matthew, you're in. You're one of the first people to explicitly say that you want the ticket, so we have one earmarked for you. So just reach out to us at support at buzzbrowcom and make sure you put in the subject line podcast movement 2023, and we will get you the code so that it won't cost you anything. We're excited to meet you there. It'll be a lot of fun.
Jordan:Then we have D-Nite.
Speaker 8:Hey, this is D-Nite from the Pardon, the Interaction podcast. Don't mind that title, we're not actually pro-part. Anyway, my first time attending a podcast conference was Podfest 2023 down there in Orlando, and it was fetching awesome. My ticket was on the house, thanks to you guys at BuzzBrout. My favorite part was seeing you guys show up on day one smashing drinks and ready to party, only to be slowly drained day by day until the end and you look like zombies from Carlit doing it. 10 out of 10 would recommend.
Tom:I remember D-Nite yeah.
Speaker 3:D is Derek, right? I think so. Yeah, I remember Derek. I remember your voice too Well. I'd love to get you out to podcast movement 2023. You can see how I've seen Podfest. Let's get you over to podcast movement.
Tom:Yeah, I'm not sure if smashing is the right word smashing drinks but definitely having an opportunity for us to get together in a very casual environment. Yeah, that's what we want to be able to do. We look forward and we'll definitely be doing it at a podcast movement again of having some forum for us to be able to get together and hang out. Maybe we'll smash drinks, I don't know we will fade.
Speaker 3:I could tell you from having been to like 10 podcast conferences. Day one, energy's at a peak. The final day you're like barely dragging yourself to the airport. So, yeah, it's just. You talk to people nonstop, all day, every day. Even though Tom and I are, and Jordan are all extroverts even we get talked out.
Jordan:That's true, I love socializing. All right, then finally, we have David.
Speaker 9:Hey team, it's David here of the Lake Blumer actor podcast in Adelaide, south Australia. I love your work, love your show and, in relation to podcasts, I haven't made it to any shows yet because I don't even think there's been any in Australia, certainly not in Adelaide, and I've just kicked the airfares for the Denver one and it's $3,042 return, and that's not even including accommodation or getting out to the mountains, which would be brilliant the joys of being an indie podcast advertiser. That's why I haven't been yet. Thanks, tim.
Jordan:Oh man, $3,000 to like I was complaining about Idaho's flight. I have nothing to complain about.
Speaker 3:And, to be fair, this is Australian dollars, so those I don't know if that works that way.
Jordan:That's a lot. Oh man. Well, yeah, in Australia. I don't know. Do they have any podcast conferences in Australia?
Speaker 3:I think there are some, because James Cridlin, the editor and founder of Pod News, is based in Australia and I'm pretty sure he's done some events in Australia, or at least gone to some, so we will absolutely need to highlight those when we see them. I think, honestly, hearing more of an international audience answer this question makes me think we need to start highlighting more international conferences as they come up. So thank you everyone for calling in. I love your answers. These were a ton of fun to hear. It's also fun just to hear people who are fans of the show. And again, for anybody who is looking for a ticket, just reach out support at BuzzBrowncom, put in podcast movement 2023 in the subject line and we will make sure you get one.
Jordan:We need a sound off question for the next episode. Tom, you are our honored guest on the show. Do you have a question for our listeners?
Tom:Yes, yes, I do. I often speak at conferences about stats, because so much of our technical work revolves around capturing stats, and one thing that I always do is I talk about success in your podcast, like, how do you define success? And so my question is what inspired you to start your podcast? What was the thing that got you over the obstacle to actually start that first podcast? What was your inspiration? What is the why behind your podcast and I'd love to hear that from people.
Jordan:Ooh, that's a great question To have your response featured on our next episode. Leave a 30-second voice message at podinboxcom, slash buzzsprout, send it in a boostagram or tweet ex the answer. Post the answer at buzzcastpodcast. And, as always, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
Tom:Is everyone excited about the new Ahsoka series coming out?
Jordan:The Ahs what.
Tom:Ahsoka.
Jordan:I don't know who that is.
Tom:You don't know who. That is Star Wars. She's a character from Star Wars Rebels.
Speaker 3:Is it Star Wars Girl with like?
Tom:long powerful female Jedi slash no longer a Jedi. A spoiler alert. Yeah, it is.
Jordan:She was in the Mandalorian. Yeah, that's right, that's right, yeah.
Speaker 3:So you're saying the Jedi kicked her out for being a strong independent?
Jordan:woman. She left, she quit. Is that the animated series that's coming out?
Tom:Yeah, Well, she came out. She was originally an animated character in all the different animated series and then now they're doing a live action show and it looks awesome. It looks really good, and Grand Admiral Thrawn, too, is going to be in it. He's the bad guy.
Jordan:Tom, you'd be so proud of me. I started watching Star Trek Strange New Worlds and it's so good.
Tom:It's so good yeah.
Jordan:Did you see the Belowdecks?
Tom:crossover. I have never watched Belowdecks, but I heard that there was a crossover and I'm not caught up on it.
Jordan:I've never watched Belowdecks either, and the crossover was just, it was so good Was it funny. It was so funny. Yeah, it was great. And Only Words in Building is coming out in like a week.
Tom:You saw the trailer.
Jordan:Yeah.
Tom:It looks really good, it's such a good show.
Jordan:It's such a bummer because there's so many podcasts like shows and movies coming out and I'm so frustrated because they are all true crime. Like they're all true crime. There's not any that are I don't know. I really wish that they would make one about like a lecturer who, like starred a movement with his podcast and it's like a motivational, inspiring kind of thing. Or maybe a stand up comedian that's struggling to make it and then he makes a podcast and he, like it, catapults him into like stardom through his podcast. I want to see stuff like that. Like I'm so tired of seeing all these murder podcast shows. There's so many other things you can do. Maybe oh no, there's a writer strike, so I can't even like get anyone to help me with that, but whatever, Chat GPD.
Speaker 3:Yeah, was it a startup turned into a show with Zach Braft? Was that any?
Jordan:good yeah, it got canceled after one season though, yeah, it existed.
Tom:No, it was not good yeah it was not good, but I feel like it was kind of early. It was before there was a lot of understanding about podcasting and stuff like that. It's a bit of a punchline right now, too, where people will talk about podcasting like oh you can always do a podcaster.
Speaker 3:It's almost like something to make fun of, because it's like the Florida of digital media.
Tom:But you think about podcasts like what was WeWork was a podcast, wasn't it? The whole WeWork collapse was a podcast. There was a Jeffrey Epstein like deep dive. That was a podcast that turned into TV shows after what's your name? No, the girl who was the fake bill. Theranos yeah the bad blood.
Speaker 3:We talked about this a few episodes ago, I think. Where we went through, there's just so many shows that they started as a podcast and it gets validated. This is a good story. And then Hollywood or Netflix or somebody shows up and is like, hey, we'll buy the rights to this. We already know that people are interested in it. It's got a story arc already built in and now we can kind of just lift it and turn it into a show. We'll see more of that over the next few months, as with the writer strike. Maybe they can swoop in and grab some podcasters rather than pay the writers who have been doing it forever.
Tom:I think it's interesting the way that all the different medias play off of each other. Now, where I heard a guy in a podcast and I went and I found out that he wrote a book, I read his book and then I watched YouTube videos that he was on, you find out, and then they all feed each other. Or there was somebody that was on a TV show and then I go immediately and I look and I say, oh, has he ever been on a podcast? Oh, now he's on a podcast. I go and I listen to the podcast. Oh, he's also got a book. Then you go, get the book, and so it's like it doesn't matter where you start, but they all kind of feed each other. And so I wonder if the same is true with storytelling where you've got a. I watched this silo, did you guys watch? Silo, yeah, so good, so good, so good so.
Tom:I went, I got the book right. If there was a podcast about the book, I would listen to the podcast about the book that I read because I watched the TV show. It's just one big media circle, or maybe maybe it's just you like the topic or whatever the thing is, and so you want to consume as much of it as you can.
Speaker 3:I think the podcasts that work really well in this genre are like the watch along podcasts. They're, you know, like HBO did some for Game of Thrones.
Jordan:Survivor.
Speaker 3:And there's office ladies Like these shows that are kind of about the, these podcasts that are kind of about a TV show, and I think it's really nice. If you're a huge fan and maybe you know you're like Tom, you're into all the Star Wars and Star Trek things and your coworkers are kind of into it, but not as much. You're like all right, I have like a little bit of a desire to talk about this and explore it and think about it, but unfortunately I don't have enough people in my life that are into it as much as I am, and so you pull up the podcast and you're like oh, these are kind of like my friends are really into this stuff, like I am, and it's a great way to feel I don't know a connection to, especially if there's like a piece of media out there that you really enjoy.
Tom:Did you guys watch the Wheel of Time series? The Wheel of Time series was on Amazon Prime. The new trailer just came out, like last week, for the next season and it's the same thing. It's a book series that I read. I love it, and it's like got a cult following the new trailer came out. I'm on YouTube yesterday just watching people watch the trailer and they they pause the trailer and they're like oh my gosh, do you think this is so-and-so from the book? What do you think the scene is? And they're like setting up and I'm like, yeah, I'm wondering the same thing and I'm watching it and it's like this is. It's like what Alvin said. It's like you're watching it with your friends, even though I don't know these people, but we have this thing in common. You know, this love for the Wheel of Time.
Jordan:So my husband and I were just talking about this yesterday because he saw like Instagram Reel and it was a clip of a podcast and they were talking about we really like the show what we Do in the Shadows, Except Vampire One, with like Tycho Wattiti.
Jordan:Like he directs that it's so funny but like a lot of people don't watch it. And so we were listening to this clip on that Instagram Reel and it was just people talking about like funny things behind the scenes of that show or did you hear about this? And so this is like him actually doing this and he was just like man, that makes me want to watch it because nobody we talk to, or that makes me want to listen to that podcast, because nobody we talk to has ever watched that show. And I was just like, yeah, that's the magic of like podcasts is like if you have nobody to talk to about something, you can surely find someone who has watched that like odd show that you're obsessed with, and they are also obsessed with it and they're going to talk about it. And it feels like you're having a conversation.
Tom:There's three podcasts.
Jordan:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, when you guys talk about it and it's your shows I'm like I would never listen to that. But then I'm now realizing that I've done this myself and so it's just a little bit more validating to your point. I've watched this really dumb sketch comedy on Netflix called I think you should leave.
Jordan:Oh my gosh, josh loves that, love that, oh my gosh, I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3:It's so right in my like the app. The humor is perfect for me, and yet it's so strange that I have struggled to get other people to like it too. And then my enjoyment of it was like really increased when I went on to Reddit and I found that there's a whole like subreddit about people are really into this show and they're just posting like memes and jokes from it or talk about the episodes, and my enjoyment of the show increased by talking to random people on the internet about it and I think there's something to it that if you really enjoy something, you're like I love West Wing, but if you just like West Wing by yourself, then you just like it by yourself and you almost feel a little bit like yeah, it's a little embarrassing. I should probably keep that to myself. No one else really is into West Wing right now.
Jordan:Yeah, you can like connect with all the men in their mom's basements, like on Reddit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all the polysci and law majors. They're like, this is going to be me.
Tom:You know, the opposite is true too. So I started to watch the new season of the Witcher and then I did the same kind of thing. I went out and I started to read about it and it took all the. I was like now I don't even want to watch it, there's so much hate for it.
Jordan:Witcher fans are brutal, they're just so upset.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Witcher is such an interesting like franchise, isn't it Like it starts out as books and somehow they make a show out or a video game out of it right, Video game. And the video game is super popular. But the guy who wrote the books is like so, like frustrated by it. He's like, oh, this is totally ruining the books and I'm like no one was reading the books until that video game came out.
Tom:And I guess the writers on the show were making fun of the author and the books, the source material, and so it's just, there's all this negative and what's his name is a big fan.
Jordan:Henry Cavill.
Tom:Yeah, cavill was a fan of the books and so he quit. I mean, we don't know why, but one of the things is that they know he had issues with the source material not being adapted well.
Jordan:Yeah, he told them. If you like stray from the source material, like I'm out, I'm not going to do it anymore. And it's so funny because I keep saying things online because Liam Hemsworth is replacing him on the show and I keep seeing things online where it's like how hot do you need to be that people are upset when it hums with brother, like it replaces you, you're like, ah, that's not the same.
Tom:But I think it's funny that it was the opposite effect. So I was totally into it. I would have been fine watching the season until I started to connect with all the people that last time I watched it I connected with and was like, hey, don't we like this new show? And now it's like no, we hate it, tom, we hate it.
Jordan:You know what You're right I?
Tom:hate it, I'm not going to watch it.
Jordan:You're just like oh okay, I guess I hate it too.
Speaker 3:So what's the lesson here is, make sure that you curate your podcast listening habits or your social media habits so that you're connecting with the audience that you do want. We actually want the filter bubbles in this instance.
Tom:Make some rabid fans to go out there and engage your audience.
