Buzzcast

Top Stories From Podcast Movement Evolutions 2024

• Buzzsprout • Episode 125

Share episode

Send us a text

Alban is back from Podcast Movement Evolutions in Los Angeles! We discuss all the big stories and takeaways from the week, including how podcast downloads are down but listening is up, what YouTube's up to with podcasts, and why video is killing more podcasts now than ever before.

View the discussion thread on Twitter/X!

📣 Sound-off question: What are your thoughts on adding video to podcasting? Is it a good thing or a bad thing for the industry? To have your response featured in the next episode, use the link above to send us a text message.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Support the show

Contact Buzzcast

Thanks for listening & keep podcasting!

Kevin:

I'm not even going to do it, not going to look at the outline.

Jordan:

I think you should look at the outline.

Alban:

I like that. Every episode is really just an experiment of like can we do less prep?

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

And it keeps working.

Jordan:

I work so hard on this outline and then Kevin's, like you know what, I'm not even going to look at it. I've got it like formatted. There's screenshots.

Kevin:

I don't mean it in an ugly way, I mean it in like I think I'm better when I don't. I don't know. If I prepare too much, then it's worse.

Jordan:

Yeah, your hot takes aren't so hot, right, that's right.

Kevin:

I have time to think stuff through I wreck it.

Alban:

I feel like I'm significantly better with prep. I think there are people who it's like you have to have everything prepped out. Priscilla is maybe even further along on the spectrum. She doesn't want to have everything lined up. I want at least like the main points in my head sketched out. So I need maybe like bullet points and Kevin's like I need to come in blank slate ready to rip off some fiery takes.

Jordan:

But it's different. If you're guesting on a show, right, I don't mind just showing up. If I'm guesting on another podcast.

Kevin:

That's how I approach this show.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Kevin's the guest. I'm a recurring guest.

Jordan:

A recurring guest.

Kevin:

Yeah, I'm like you know, like a recurring character on a sitcom. You're the Kramer that just like I was just thinking the Kramer More like the David Putty, I think of the Seinfeld world. David Putty, elaine's boyfriend, is he like the eight ball guy?

Alban:

He's the guy who did like the face painting for the hockey team I started watching seinfeld on netflix again and ever since in the room and she's like this is actually pretty funny.

Alban:

Yeah, it is funny one thing that threw her off, though, was, uh, the phones. She's like what is he doing? And I'm like that's what phones used to be like. She's like what? Why is that there's a cord'm like that's what phones used to be like. She's like what? Why is that it has a cord? I'm like, yeah, and if you didn't answer it, then they had to leave a message. Yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah, there's the whole episode about George's message, his greatest American hero message. You remember that?

Alban:

Believe it or not, George isn't at home. Please leave a message at the beep. I forgot that that was such a good one. They also play it like 10 times in that episode.

Jordan:

I never got into Seinfeld. I really loved Jerry's show on Netflix the Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee yeah, Do you ever watch that? That was great.

Kevin:

Great show.

Jordan:

Yeah, I don't know why they stopped.

Kevin:

Favorite guest?

Alban:

Who was your favorite guest? The only one I think I can remember watching was Michael Richards, the guy who played Kramer. It was kind of sad because his career didn't do anything and he was kind of like the first person who ever derailed his career with a cell phone video.

Kevin:

Evidently, rumor has it that Jerry is producing a new show and he's going to bring in Michael Richards for the show Whoa and people said that's crazy. He said I don't care, he's funny, that's all that matters to me.

Jordan:

That's a hard one. I think Ricky Gervais might have been my favorite.

Kevin:

Yeah, I saw that one. That was a good episode.

Jordan:

That was a good one. The.

Kevin:

Obama episode was pretty good.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Kevin:

I didn't know that I did Obama and Norm MacDonald.

Alban:

Oh yeah, I feel like I should go watch some of these if there's this many that are good.

Jordan:

Oh, it's all. Every episode's good.

Kevin:

One of my favorite scenes from all of television is Comedians and cars getting coffee with jerry seinfeld and sarah jessica parker. That was good episode too, yeah, and they're in the diner together and he gets like they just had coffee right and he gets the check and looks at it and he goes and then he like, she's like, what is it so much?

Jordan:

like he's just shocked and it was such like a little thing. But I mean, oh my gosh, even you just mentioning it like I could just see like yeah and then he starts talking to her about what are they going to tip?

Kevin:

and she's like I don't know, like 20 and he's like really so that this waitress is going to say I served coffee to sarah jessica parker and jerry seinfeld and they gave me 20, that's the story you want to tell four dollars a.

Jordan:

I liked her car. I think her car was my favorite.

Kevin:

I don't remember the car from that one.

Jordan:

Oh, it's so good. I don't know if you know the show very well, alvin, but he basically picks out a car that represents whoever he's interviewing for the show. And yeah, she had a really cool 1970s wagon of some sort that was just like the classic, like Brady Bunch wagon.

Kevin:

And it was really cool yeah. And there was another like behind the scenes interview or something that I saw, where he pays all of them, but he pays them in cash. Oh really, yeah, they don't like negotiate it ahead of time. So he invites them kind of like relationally, and so they don't even know they're getting paid, it's not a deal, and then he just gives them a big wad of cash at the end.

Alban:

How much cash?

Kevin:

I don't know, I don't, I don't remember that part, if he even said it. But it's a wad of a lot of cash that he gives them and he's like you know, it's your job, like I'm using this to make money. You're going to get paid for it. But it's better when it's not a business deal, better when I just hand you a wad of cash at the end.

Alban:

There's something that's like it's got to feel like more intense, getting all the cash, even if you're as wealthy as a lot of the people whose guests probably were. If Jerry Seinfeld was like, come on my show, I'll give you $7,000 or something, I mean that probably to them is like well, I guess I'll do it, but seven grand is nothing. But if someone hands you $7,000, $7,000 bills, I don't care how wealthy you are, you're just like whoa, this is a lot of money. Like it's got to feel substantial, yeah.

Kevin:

I'm betting you could probably figure it out, even if he never disclosed it because he had Obama on. So if he gave Obama cash Obama while he was president.

Alban:

He would have had to probably disclose that. I'm sure Obama would just give it back. But like, this is not all the work that goes into me handing.

Kevin:

Yeah, but Jerry was like. I do remember Jerry being insistent upon it. He's like you're going to take this, it's not a negotiation. So I wonder if he did that. Or I wonder if Obama was like just give it to a charity.

Jordan:

Probably To avoid it. That sounds more like what would have happened.

Kevin:

We need an internet sleuth to go dig into Obama's contributions and see if there's one from Seinfeld.

Alban:

It would be like the funniest scandal, though, if that's what ends up being like. A political issue is like whoa, whoa, whoa. Is this ever like, claimed we dig it up, jerry Seinfeld. Jerry Seinfeld handed a lot of cash to Obama.

Kevin:

And then they dig into some like laws that were passed and comedians get it Turns into Seinfeld gate, Jerry gate.

Jordan:

Did you see that? Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and oh God who else? Another president, Ron smartless.

Alban:

Joe Biden.

Jordan:

Was it Biden?

Kevin:

Yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Jordan:

they were they? Were they all three guessed it on smart list, oh jordan the actual president right now did I tell you I didn't know who was running for president this year. Did I tell?

Alban:

you that I didn't know if you took a guess you'd probably be right, jordan, this is like you're saying. I didn't know who is an iron man too. I only saw iron man one. I went. How would I know? It's a repeat.

Jordan:

We're running it back, baby I felt I didn't even realize it was like an election year and I was talking to somebody and they were. They were talking about like the campaign or something like that, and I was like who's running and they're like biden the campaign or something like that. And I was like who's running and they're like I didn't Trump and I was like what Again?

Alban:

what happened. So you know why Obama Clinton were on smart lists with Joe Biden to promote Joe Biden running for president. That's the story you were telling us and you're like who is the third guy? Oh, it's an iron man.

Jordan:

Who is an iron man too, I I don't keep up with this stuff.

Alban:

I'm so everyone listening now all of a sudden understands why you're so happy-go-lucky. You've've just been like what they keep doing, these elections all the time. I don't pay attention to them.

Jordan:

The ignorance is bliss thing. I'm committing so hard to that. That's my mantra for this year. Welcome back to Buzzcast, a podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. I'm Jordan, and with me today are my co-hosts Alban and Kevin. Hey guys.

Alban:

Hey Jordan, Thanks for having us.

Jordan:

Thanks for having us. I'm forced to have you here, yeah, no.

Alban:

Kevin, before we started recording, announced that he actually was just a recurring guest on the podcast. He's not an official host.

Jordan:

That's true, that's true.

Kevin:

I am a recurring guest. It's good to have you back, Albin, though Wait, you're the guest, I'm the host. Yeah, but you were out last episode, yeah, and both of us were out for the Snapcast, which Priscilla and Jordan did a great job taking care of.

Jordan:

Thank you.

Alban:

Yeah, enjoyed the Snapcast, enjoyed the episode.

Jordan:

Yeah, I feel like Priscilla and I have a little bit of podcasting experience together under our belts now that we've started the happy to help podcast, so that was a lot of fun. It was just the two of us recording a snap cast and just talking about whatever we want to talk about. What are you? What is this?

Kevin:

I'm telling you that I have a lawnmower going outside my window.

Jordan:

Oh, I thought you were saying like that's what that was.

Alban:

I thought you were double fist.

Kevin:

I'm mowing the lawn, I'm sweating. I'm telling you that I'm pantomimed.

Jordan:

I literally thought, like you are pushing this way too much, move on.

Kevin:

Like I'm dying. No, I was just saying I had to mute for a second every time he drives by my window.

Alban:

People who listen to this podcast don't know, but we're always on video, even though we don't record video, and we've got Kevin doing this like double fist bump motion. I think it's a like great job. Pump up the energy.

Kevin:

Jordan's seeing you're pushing this too far. Kevin's like oh no, I'm miming a lawnmower, it's so obvious. Okay, lawn Bower's gone.

Jordan:

So this episode is pretty much just going to revolve around the biggest stories from Podcast Movement, evolutions and Alvin, you were the only person from the Buzzsprout team to go to Evolutions this year. How was it?

Alban:

I was the field reporter. I went to Podcast Movement Evolutions by myself, jordan, you went by yourself last year.

Jordan:

I did.

Alban:

It was awesome. I had a great time. In previous years Evolutions, I think, started and then was really centered around LA and being part of the larger media scene. So the first year I went there were lots of people from Netflix that were trying to learn about shows, or people from HBO that were trying to learn about shows, or people from HBO people from production houses. It was very celebrity podcasting related, very industry focused. There were podcasts turning into video like Hollywood, la kind of stuff. It was one of the reasons for a few years we were like are we really going to continue going to podcast movement evolutions? Not because it's not a good conference, it's a good conference, but it's not our audience. Our audience are indie podcasters. So I did go.

Alban:

This year it was kind of a last minute decision had a booth, went to a couple of talks, met with people. It turned out it was a really good decision. So Jared Easley, one of the co-founders of Podcast Movement, started doing local meetups around the area and doing those local meetups, a lot more of the people who came were indie podcasters, people looking to start shows, and we met I met a lot of podcast listeners there. So it was a really good time Really enjoyed it. Let me shout them out Doug from Stories and Strategies, paulette from La Vida Ma Chevre, tracy from Auntie Talks and Listens and Steven from Podbrother Nation Got to meet them and chat about Buzzcast and if I missed anybody I really apologize. I was taking photos of people's name tags to remember. Oh, I got to shout them out on the show and I've got so many name tags I took photos of that I'm pretty sure had nothing to do with Buzzcast. I was like I need to differentiate these better.

Jordan:

What was the thing with the Podcast Standards Project?

Alban:

The Podcast Standards Project is a group of podcast listening apps and podcast hosting companies that are trying to take a lot of the really cool kind of cutting edge things that podcasting 2.0 is doing and bring them in and standardize.

Alban:

Okay, these are things we're all going to put a concerted effort behind getting adopted in the podcasting space. So we all went to lunch, got everybody together lots of podcast hosting companies we have the product manager for Pocket Cast there, ellie and we just talked about tags that everybody was excited in. Three tags we talked a lot about were the person tag, which is what we use for hosts, and all the host information. We talked a lot about transcripts and we talked a lot about pod role. So everybody building support around those three tags and then trying to reach out to all the different apps that we think would be interested in these tags and how to get more adoption. So it's great to see so many people get together and rally behind expanding RSS as a format for delivering content in unique ways and try to make sure we get more and more of those things that are being built on the podcasting 2.0 side all the way through to the listening apps and, ultimately, to podcast listeners themselves.

Kevin:

Yeah, the podcast standards project has been a really it's a tough project because it's, for the most part, is a lot of competitors coming together and agreeing to do things that we all wouldn't like necessarily see eye to eye on. Like that's why we're competitors right, like we're trying to differentiate ourselves from each other and carve out our own little space in the industry, and yet this project is saying, no, let's come together and agree on things that we can all do the same way. And so it's hard to do that and things don't always move as fast, but if we're going to make progress for the industry overall, then it is necessary to be able to do this, and so it kicked off about a year and a half ago and we had some really good momentum. Early on. Things slowed down, but we did make some really good progress, and a lot of hosting companies had added support for transcripts over the past year, and at the same time, apple was working on transcripts to be able to display them in the podcast listening app, and so it was really kind of nice to see all that come together. Of course, the Podcasting 2.0 project itself had a lot to do with that. That's where the transcript started, and so podcasting 2.0 project, podcast standards projects, hosts, apps and then the biggest listening app, apple, like all coming together to make this big shift, this big technology leap forward in podcasting over the past year, year and a half has been amazing to see, and so all of these places have played a part in it.

Kevin:

One thing that has been lacking on the Podcast Standards Project side has been the communication.

Kevin:

So, since all of the hosts that are a part of this group and the listening apps that are a part of this group, like I mentioned, we all compete with each other it's hard for just one of us to step forward and say we're going to be the spokesperson, like, let's say, buzzsprout, put ourselves in that position and we're going to be the spokesperson for the podcast standards project. Well then it would be hard for all of our competitors to like rally around it in a public way because Buzzsprout's the face of it, right, that's not good, and, conversely, if one of our competitors do that, it would be hard for us to do that Like, oh yeah, look at how good our competitors doing at moving the industry forward, and so it's been an awkward thing. And so that problem was also solved at Evolutions, where Sam Sethi, who is pretty independent. He does have a listening app that he's working on, but the listening apps compete less than the hosting companies, and so he said listen, I'm more independent than any of you. I'd be happy to be the spokesperson, or what was the title that was given?

Kevin:

Alban, do you remember?

Alban:

the exact title Chief.

Kevin:

Evangelist yeah, chief Evangelist, exactly what's exactly what we need, but basically letting the public know what's going on with this group and how this group is making an impact and how it's working with other companies or other groups to be able to move podcasting, and open podcasting specifically, forward. And so thank you, sam, for taking on that task, and we're excited that there'll be more communication coming out from again. Not that work hasn't been being done, but the work that's being done wasn't being communicated very well, and so Sam's going to step up and fill that role. So fantastic news there.

Jordan:

Yeah, and he's perfect for that, so we'll be excited to see what he does.

Alban:

A few other things from Podcast Movement Evolutions. I got to go see James Cridlin's opening keynote where he talked about all the different listening apps and the grades given by everybody in the industry. He always does this report card where he sends it out. He says, hey, if you want to give feedback on any app like, give feedback. What apps do you like, what do you use to listen and how does it work and what could be improved? One of the most encouraging things is every company that's been mentioned at least all the really big companies Amazon, apple, spotify, google, youtube they all say we want a full briefing and the whole teams get briefings on what's going on inside of the industry and what do people think about their apps. So it's a really good way for that feedback to go all the way back to the developers. Overall, apple Podcasts got the top marks. People are really excited about their adding of the transcript tag and transcript support. In general, youtube got pretty low marks because their way of supporting podcasts is going to be copying all the episodes and making them into videos. It's a bit clunky of a process and that kind of came out in all the reviews. But the highlight was James got a video from Adam Curry, the co-founder of podcasting, and he had a message for everybody at Podcast Movement Evolutions on 20 years of podcasting and it was really nice. He really pumped up the crowd. He got everybody excited about podcasting in general, gave a ton of credit to Dave Weiner all the work that they did together in launching podcasting and I just loved this quote.

Alban:

Rss is truly the honey badger of digital distribution. No matter what they try, they cannot kill it. And it really does feel 20 years where the web has gotten so much more closed and more closed and more closed and there's more gatekeepers and there's more platforms in control and there's fewer ways to distribute your content online directly to your listeners or directly to your readers, or you're always going through somebody else, and RSS really is this one thing that continually dodges and moves around and helps people reach directly to their audience. So it's a wonderful way to kick it off. And then, really amazing talk by Amy Poehler, who came in and talked about all of these absolutely hilarious shows that she's working on or has recently done. So I ended up subscribing to a few of those, but it was so exciting to see somebody who's been so successful in comedy and in video and on TV, come in and say that my favorite way of consuming media is listening to podcasts, and actually it's probably my favorite type of media to create Somebody who had so many successes in very visible spaces.

Alban:

Oh, that's cool. Somebody who had so many successes in very visible spaces and then went into podcasts he goes. This is where I'm really the happiest. It was so affirming.

Jordan:

Yeah, I was jealous. I really wanted to see her.

Alban:

I was way, way in the back so I was zoomed in with like an 8x camera. I kind of see her.

Jordan:

Last year at Evolutions, when I saw that Lance Bass was going to be doing a thing, I got there 30 minutes early and I sat like right front. No shame, I was like the first person in the room.

Alban:

A few years ago I went and saw Will Ferrell and I feel like I got a really good seat for Will Ferrell. I think, that might've been one of the COVID years so it was a little bit lighter of a group, but it's always fun. They get great guests. I think being in LA helps them reach a bit more of like the celebrity podcasters and bring them in.

Jordan:

One of the big stories to come from Evolutions was the Infinite Dial by Edison Research, which they said I thought this was interesting is the longest running survey of digital media consumer behavior in America, so they've been doing it since 1998. And it's been really interesting to see just how much digital media has grown since then. And I actually really enjoyed this particular report because it seems like there's a lot of concern in the podcasting community about this massive dip in download numbers and then the dip of ad revenue that came along with that, and so it's felt a little bleak in the community chats and things like that. But after hearing the data from Edison Research I really can't help but feel hopeful and energized about the future of podcasting.

Alban:

We talked about this a little bit offline, Jordan because it feels, on one hand, like we hear news about layoffs and we're hearing news about bad things in podcasting and shows are shutting down or maybe somebody is not going to keep going, and on the other side, we're hearing never has there been more money in podcasting, there's more listeners than ever. And on the other side, we're hearing like never has there been more money in podcasting, there's more listeners than ever. And how did those make sense? They feel like they don't. My argument is just that the industry has shifted from.

Alban:

We had about three years of this post-COVID podcasting world where there was a ton of growth and there were 0% interest rates and there were tons of companies coming in flush with cash going. We want a piece of growth and there were 0% interest rates and there were tons of companies coming in flush with cash going. We want a piece of this podcasting pie. It started with Spotify, but it extended to lots of big companies, including Amazon and Facebook there are just so many and it was just a period where, if they could get listeners and they could get talent, they were going to spend for it and they weren't going to stress what's the business model. How is it going to work out? That period has ended and a new period of okay, how are we going to make money? Has started.

Kevin:

Yeah, so we started talking about the infinite dial. But this is an interesting point is that download numbers are down, so that reduced numbers does not mean reduced listens is the next thing that they said. And so they say monthly podcast listening in 2024 is higher than it's ever been by 5%. Yeah, so help me understand this. Download numbers are down and monthly podcast listening is higher than it's ever been.

Alban:

Yeah, when a podcast is downloaded, it's not necessarily listened to.

Jordan:

Yes.

Alban:

And when Apple podcast said hey, there's some downloads that are happening. People are definitely not listening. If you don't listen to three episodes in a row, we're not going to keep downloading it for you. The industry saw a dip in overall podcast downloads. But when you talk to people, which the infinite dial does, they're talking to individuals. They're saying I'm listening to more than I used to listen to. And the argument is a bunch of episodes were being downloaded and Apple said no one's listening, so we don't really need to do that anymore. And I think Apple was right. And so we're getting more people listening and less computers are sending files back and forth.

Jordan:

Yeah, james actually had an interesting idea in Pod News Weekly Review of having a tag where it would show that the episode was downloaded, but then, after the episode was actually played, the platform could indicate that the episode was played, and so it would be like a differentiation from the downloads and plays yeah, it's a.

Kevin:

It's very interesting idea. It had been tried years ago by npr. They came out with the spec that they called rad. They came up with a way to do it technically and then they asked. They published the spec, they asked podcast apps to participate and there was massive pushback by all the public app makers. Most notably, and loudly, was Marco Arment from a creator of Overcast, who said like it will be a cold day in hell before I send this data back. I'm paraphrasing there.

Jordan:

I mean, do you think that they still hold that feeling, though with?

Kevin:

I think Marco probably does. He was very strong about it. Basically, marco's position at the time again, I'm summarizing this from years ago but his position at the time was that podcast creators get enough data already to inform their advertisers and for their advertisers. They have enough tools at their disposal to be able to make the connections between whether the ad buys are worth it for them or not. They don't need more data and so I'm not going to provide it. I'm not going to provide data that invades the privacy of my listeners. I'm not going to prompt my listeners with questions about like do you want to provide this data or not and then code my app, for you know, if people say yes, it works like this, people say no, it works like this. He's like I'm not going to take on, you have enough data. Go and sell your ads. So that was his position.

Kevin:

I would say I agree with Marco in that you have probably enough data to sell the ads that you want to do. I don't know that you have enough data to sell them at scale. I don't know how scalable it is. So for large companies that want to do large buys, it does start to become more difficult, but for small, independent podcast creators. You certainly between the data you get from your podcasting host and then being able to log into platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can get the data that you need to be able to provide advertisers with what they would need to be able to place a buy On a non-scaling system. That would work.

Kevin:

If you're trying to get whatever Athletic Greens or Rocket Mortgage or somebody who buys thousands of podcast ads, they need something that scales more, so they don't want to get thousands of emails from podcasters with screenshots from their Apple Podcast Connect account. They need something more, like a data feed that comes into their dashboard that they can then analyze how many podcasts are we going to buy? Are we going to continue to buy this one or this one? And they need to run through their spreadsheets. That becomes harder, and I think what Marco was saying is I'm not interested in solving problems for them. I don't care about them. I care about independent podcasters and I care about independent podcast listeners. That's not a world that I want to develop tech for, and so other hosts have come on the scene, like Megaphone, and Spotify has built their player around technology that Megaphone supports to be able to solve the needs of those people, but to say that the needs of those people are the needs of most podcasters, I think there's a big disconnect there. You know, what athletic greens needs is not what jordan needs to run dreamful, and so I don't know that we'll ever get enough independent podcast listening apps to be able to support something that would do a callback and say whether the episode has been listened, because you know.

Kevin:

Here's the other thing. As soon as you do that, as soon as you get apps reporting back that not only was this episode downloaded but the person listened to it, then what's next right? How much was listened to? 10%, 20%, 30%? Did they listen to the ad? The ad was at, you know, minute 23. Did they listen to that part? Did they skip the ad? The ad was at, you know, minute 23. Did they listen to that part? Did they skip the ad? What speed were they listening? We're listening at 1.5 x. Did they back up at any? Do we? We're going to get rewind data? They listened to a certain segment twice. Did they listen to the post roll?

Alban:

I can tell you right now they didn't rewind to listen to that again.

Kevin:

I'll tell you yes but I'm just saying it's a slippery slope, right, like if you give a mouse a cookie.

Jordan:

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Alban:

You were thinking of if you give a mouse a cookie.

Jordan:

Yeah, kevin and I are on the same page here, like the advertisers, are the mice.

Alban:

Yeah, I think it's nice that there's like one type of media that you download and a little bit of data goes back and it says, hey, somebody somewhere in Northeast Florida listened to your podcast or at least downloaded it, and they're like, okay, cool, and that's me and that's all that's really sent back. There's not tons of other data and it's just like. You can listen to it. You cannot, it's your own decision. You're not on YouTube or Facebook or something where all of this is just kind of tracked. And it just feels a little bit like you didn't watch my story on Instagram. I can see that you didn't watch my story and now my feelings are hurt. It's just like if you want to listen to my podcast, you can, and if you don't, you don't need to.

Kevin:

It feels a little bit healthier, and I mean that's part of the fun of podcasting. Right Is like there have been support requests. There have been discussions in the Buzzsprout Facebook community group about hey, I published my podcast and my family member in Ohio told me they listened to it, but I'd checked my stats and I don't see a download in Ohio. Your stats are broken. And then sometimes we have to report back and say you know, it's possible because we get location data based on the IP address. So your family member was probably using like a VPN or something, so it reported them that they probably were using a white lie to get out of talking about your podcast.

Kevin:

That's. The other possibility is that they might not have actually listened.

Alban:

Yes, we don't know, Few other things that came out of the Edison research. Female podcast listening is up 15% and it looks like a third of people are listening to a podcast every week. A third of Americans. A third have listened at some point and a third have never listened to a podcast. Now I find this data to be unlikely. I think if you think you've never listened to a podcast, you probably have. It was something like 16% said I'm not even aware of what a podcast is. So I'm glad that they were part of this data because they definitely know now, because they did a whole survey about podcasting.

Jordan:

That's true. That's true. Yeah, so it's people? No, it's. That was a statistic that shook me to my core. I was just like 16%. I was just like the end double for a second. How is that even possible? 16% of people have never even heard of a podcast.

Alban:

Wait, I got to actually say I think this does make sense now, and I now know why.

Jordan:

Oh, okay.

Alban:

Edison Research does two things. They do this long running media survey, but they're really known for political exit polls. They do lots of political stuff. Well, what did Jordan tell us earlier? I was not even aware there was an election this year. She's not the person who's like hardcore Republican, hardcore Democrat. You're not the moderate who's thinking. You're not the person who says I'll figure it out later. You're the person who goes election, who's even running. That's who this 16% is. It's just the jordans of podcasting. Is the podcasting version? It's like I stay out of that podcasting stuff.

Kevin:

That's not for me just blinders on jordan probably loves these surveys because if they ever ask you like you know there's an election this year you check no, they have no other questions for you at that yeah, oh yeah you're, you get your coupon for a free chicken sandwich Perfect.

Jordan:

So one of the slides online audio brand used most often and they use this in the context of like music listening apps. But a lot of these music listening apps you can also listen to podcasts, so I was kind of wishing that it was actually more just like the podcast brand used most often, but we'll take what we can get. And what surprised me here is that Spotify had a massive share and then right next to that was YouTube Music, and it's so funny because I don't know anybody that uses YouTube Music. But apparently what's interesting is YouTube Music, youtube music but apparently.

Alban:

What's interesting is YouTube music, according to this, is really popular for people over the age of 35. 23% are using YouTube music and 55 plus is 22%. So I mean, that's like huge. Only thing I would wonder. I didn't go to this presentation so I can't tell if this is true. But the way they ask about podcasts is they ask have you ever listened on this platform? And for that question, my answer for YouTube is yes, I have listened to podcasts on YouTube. Yes, I do sometimes listen to podcasts on Spotify, but I listen on Overcast.

Kevin:

I don't know. I find it less interesting than the two of you. I think that how you ask the question would very likely skew this data in a very big way, and so, since I'm not seeing how they ask the question, I'm not sure that I take a lot away from this.

Alban:

Kevin is unskewing the polls.

Jordan:

Okay, so I watched this after the fact on YouTube, the number one keynote watching app, and the context that I got was that, like, the sequential order of this was you know, how do you consume audio? I don't think that this actually had anything to do with podcasts when they asked this question is what I'm trying to say, but I was still very surprised to see that YouTube music was like coming in hot for Spotify in some of these.

Kevin:

Yeah, but I think a lot of people might mistakenly just see YouTube and be like that's YouTube.

Jordan:

Ooh, yeah.

Kevin:

You know, they don't notice that. Youtube music is a separate app.

Alban:

Yeah, I thought something similar when I looked at social media usage and Twitter drops off a cliff in the last year.

Jordan:

What happened?

Alban:

Well, it dropped off a cliff because I don't use Twitter anymore, I use X. So I wonder if, just like, rebranding killed a bunch of people's response rate. You know, people were like I used to use Twitter, but now it's called something else. Or maybe they say, did you use X? And people are like I didn't use X, I wouldn't use that. I think that, just like these questions are pretty variable depending on how you ask it. But overall, great data. It was interesting. Two thirds of Americans use streaming audio every week. A third are listening to podcasts every week and we are getting close to breaking. 50% of Americans are listening to a podcast every month. So it'll be exciting in the next year or two to cross that threshold.

Jordan:

It's definitely gone up a lot from last year, so it's exciting stuff. Another big topic to come out of last week was YouTube podcasts. Youtube had a keynote speech about podcasts on their platform and something that stood out to me during the speech was that they're pushing the term show instead of podcast a lot, and I think Steve even mentioned a story about his son talking about podcasts and he redirected him, saying like no, it's actually a show, you listen to a show. And that really struck a chord with me and it made me just kind of I don't know, it gave me pause Like are you trying to sort of like change the narrative of what podcasts on YouTube are? You know what I mean, and I think it might be directly related to sort of what James had indicated that you know podcasters are not very happy with YouTube podcasts and so maybe they're trying to just kind of like shift it a little bit to. It's like oh, it's not a podcast, it's a show. When it's on our platform, it's no longer a podcast.

Alban:

How are they differentiating between a show and a podcast?

Jordan:

It's just sort of in the terminology that they used. You know, when I was watching like the keynote, they were saying things like you know, if we don't think about this like a podcast and we think about it like a show, then we should put like show art front and center, or you know things like that it was. It was just the way that they were saying if we think about it as a show and not a podcast, it's almost like they don't recognize podcasts as like this, I don't know, it's like its own thing.

Jordan:

Yeah, it was just, it was just really weird.

Kevin:

Yeah, I think this makes sense. This reminds me of years ago, when Spotify was just entering into podcasting and they were signing a bunch of podcasts to go exclusive on their platform, including Joe Rogan, john Gruber, who's a really notable Apple apple blogger, journalist type person. He runs a daring fireball and he has a couple podcasts that he does. He wrote a really great article called I don't remember the name of the article, but it might have been all podcasts or shows, but not all shows or podcasts oh, I think I remember that yeah yeah, it was a fantastic read and it was what is spotify doing and is what they're doing.

Kevin:

Is it really really a podcast? And so he was making the argument that we shouldn't be calling these podcasts, that we should be calling them shows. When they're exclusive to the Spotify platform, it's no longer a podcast, right? Because podcasts like the definition that we've all come to know and understand about podcasts is that you can kind of consume them everywhere they're open and distributed widely and freely. This was different what Spotify is doing, and I could see YouTube kind of coming to that same realization on their own.

Kevin:

Like, how comfortable are we as YouTube saying, oh, podcasting, YouTube is just another place you can consume podcasts, versus we'd rather people think about these as shows, shows that you consume on YouTube, and when you think about the show, we want you to think about where you get it, which is YouTube. We don't really want you to think about it as a podcast, because a podcast, if you get tired of listening to it here on YouTube, you can just go grab your phone and go listen on Apple Podcasts in your car. We'd rather you not do that. We'd rather you come back to YouTube later to finish watching the show that's on YouTube. So I don't know that that's what they've thought about, but that's what it reminds me of. Is that argument? And I kind of like that way of thinking, Like when you associate the content itself with the platform, then that doesn't really feel like a podcast anymore to me.

Kevin:

I've never been one to go all in on the oh. We have to be so strict about our definition of what podcasting is only because it doesn't matter how us in the industry define it. It's how the world accepts the term that really matters. And most people when they watch like talking heads having conversations on YouTube, they call that a podcast. So it's a losing battle to try to fight that, to say it's not a podcast. You need to understand the difference. But I could see YouTube embracing that perception that exists out there and saying how can we use this to our benefit, which is oh, I watched the Joe Rogan podcast on YouTube. Would it be better if I watched the Joe Rogan show on YouTube? I could see how they would say that's probably a better way. We'd rather people think about it like that, Because if you think about it as a podcast, you can get it anywhere, but if you think about it as the Joe Rogan show on YouTube. That's more in alignment with them keeping people on their platform.

Alban:

Yeah, I can definitely see that it's also more in alignment with the audience of podcast movement. If that's what they were trying to say, I know what some of the pushback they've gotten was. We support podcasts and then we all go well, you don't support this, you don't support this, you're doing this, which is different. So you get a lot of pushback for the industry going. That's not really what podcasting is. You're kind of doing a YouTube style thing and if they're saying, okay, we're not going to use that word, we'll use the word show, which you know, late night talk shows and Netflix shows and there's YouTube shows and there's audio shows. They're all shows and so we're doing a show.

Kevin:

Yeah, take your podcast and put it into YouTube as a show. That's better. And now you can't come down on us hard about not being a really good podcasting experience. We're like hey, we're not podcasting, we're letting you put your podcast in YouTube as a show.

Jordan:

Yeah, that's it. That's exactly how it felt. It was just almost trying to sort of change that narrative where control it a little bit more.

Alban:

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, steve was the one who's been working. He's been working on podcasting for a long time. He also worked at Netflix, I think. So that would make sense that he'd worked at Netflix and then he worked on Google podcasts and for him to be like all right, we're going to have this type of content on YouTube, but it's probably in a way, more analogous to the stuff I was doing when I was at Netflix and less analogous to the stuff that I was doing when I was working on Google podcasts. I wonder if that came from him. He was like let's just call these shows and kind of start sidestep all the disagreements about all the ways that we're not living up to the podcasting name. Instead, talk about all the ways through to a great job supporting shows.

Jordan:

So in the keynote the first person to speak was Kai Chuck and it was just sort of regurgitating the same like oh, we're the number one discovery for podcasts and blah, blah, blah, blah We've heard like a million times.

Jordan:

But when Steve got up there about a little bit more towards the end of his bit he talked about the product development around YouTube podcasts and some of the things that I thought were interesting from what he said that they were working on in YouTube podcasts.

Jordan:

And some of the things that I thought were interesting from what he said that they were working on in YouTube podcasts is that they're working on things with YouTube music.

Jordan:

That sort of reminds me of features that you can get in apps like, I think, overcast, where you can trim the silence and stuff like that for the podcast episodes and then mark them as played. But then also they said that with content creators designating their content as podcasts, that will inform the algorithm that it needs to treat that content a little bit differently than how they treat normal like YouTube videos. Because he said that on YouTube the next video isn't always the most logical thing to recommend to a viewer. It might be something that has similar content or maybe goes a little bit further into the rabbit hole that they have, and they're saying that podcasts don't really need to be treated that way. A podcast listener is probably going to want to listen to the next sequential episode. That makes sense, and so they actually have the algorithm recommending the next episode, as opposed to like a different podcast with, you know, perhaps some similar content.

Kevin:

Well, I mean, if it's a serial podcast, that would make sense. If it's episodic, no, it doesn't make sense. Like somebody who's listening to this episode now, real time, if you're listening in YouTube music when this finishes, you don't want to start hearing the last episode we played two weeks ago.

Alban:

But that's how most podcast apps work, right, Like your Apple podcast. If you finish an episode, doesn't it start the next.

Kevin:

No, it goes into your queue. You're up next queue, which is like the way I had mine configured, is that it's taking the most recently published next episode of the shows that I follow, so it would go right from our show into a different show, like haven't listened to pod news weekly review yet, so it'd start playing that. It would jump between the shows that I follow and so not to take away from again. I didn't watch the presentation so I don't know how they pitched it, but to me it sounds like somebody who doesn't really understand podcast listening.

Alban:

I think the way I listen to podcasts is that way. I don't ever set up a queue. I just click into an episode of a show, of a podcast and then it plays and when it finishes at least an overcast since I don't have a queue set up it just jumps to another episode that's unfinished in that podcast. So if I autoplay it's always in that same podcast and mostly I will pull it open and go okay, we'll go on, listen now and scroll through and click something.

Kevin:

Yeah, I don't think that style of listening is very familiar to YouTube, because their whole team for years and years and years has tried to solve this problem of how do we get people not to close YouTube, and they've gotten really good at that, and it sounds like they're going to try to figure that out for podcasting too, which could ultimately be great. But I'm sure, just like their early attempts in video probably weren't winners out of the gate, I don't know that this one's going to be a winner either, out of the gate, like I don't know what the YouTube music podcast listening experience is. I'm assuming you can follow shows right and get some sort of notifications when new episodes are dropped.

Jordan:

I installed it, but I never opened it, so I don't know.

Kevin:

None of us use it. We don't know what we're talking about. Who knows, so who knows? But there is an opportunity maybe for YouTube to possibly disrupt the way that people like.

Kevin:

Most podcast listening apps, whether they be what did I say First party, like an app that comes on your phone, or a third party that you have to go and be intentional about installing yourself they pretty much, for the most part, follow the same patterns. Right, there's some sort of way to follow or subscribe to a show, and then it tries to give you some ideas about how you might want to listen. So like here's the newest episodes from all your shows. Do you want to listen that way? Do you want to create a smart playlist? Do you want to? They give you different ways of kind of managing that. It's possible that YouTube could be big enough and have enough engineers on their team and smart enough people that have already figured this out for video that they could come figure out a new way to listen to audio where you don't even have to follow shows or subscribe to shows anymore. It just starts to figure out your patterns, because YouTube's really good at that, and then I don't know how they do it, but they always. Whatever they serve up next. I always like it's always the next thing I wanted to hear.

Kevin:

If anybody can pull off that magic trick, it's going to be somebody like YouTube. Now there's going to be purists who are like I don't want that, I'll never want that. There are people who use Spotify is really good at that for music, right, it's kind of their killer feature. They're supposedly much better at this than Apple, and so why some people will never leave Spotify. But then there's also like music purists who are just like. I know exactly the next song I want to listen to. I have crafted my playlist perfectly. I am the DJ of the party. I do not want an algorithm serving up the next song.

Alban:

Or you're the person who actually who listened to the whole album straight through, right? Maybe that's why I'm that type of person for podcasting. I True, right? Maybe that's why I'm that type of person for podcasting. I'm definitely the most times I'm like I want to listen to this album. I think I grew up in the age of CDs, so that was the way you listen to them. Maybe that's the rhyme listening to podcasts that way, like it's on a cassette tape.

Jordan:

I'm the same way. I binge like podcasts. I will just binge for a week a podcast, you know, like back episodes and stuff like that, and then I'll move on to another one and then catch up. So I'm kind of the same way All right.

Kevin:

Well, thanks for the update. Good luck to YouTube figuring out podcasting.

Alban:

There was also an interesting article written by the podcast host where they surveyed a hundred independent podcasters to talk about how they were using YouTube for podcasting. Yeah, I love this article and there's some really interesting takeaways here, but most of all, a quote from Colin Gray. He said video is killing more podcasts right now than anything else or anything else ever has. Preach it, brother. And he says that's due to the pressure that podcasters are feeling about creating video component for their podcast. Agreed, I've said this quite a few times.

Alban:

The reason people aren't starting podcasts is because it's not the technical issue. There's some technical issues. You have to get a mic. I have to learn how to talk into it. I have to learn how to do some basic editing. There's some technical things to solve, but more than that is an emotional thing to solve. I'm nervous about putting my name out there. I'm worried I'm going to sound dumb. I'm not sure. Do I? Should I even be talking about this, or maybe should somebody else be talking about it? You know there's way more qualified people out there.

Alban:

You're dealing with all of this type of things and the mic selection piece and the how do I upload an episode to Buzzsprout piece. Those are more often the kind of convenient excuses that let you get out of the uncomfortable emotional issue that you are dealing with. And as soon as you say, and to promote the podcast, you also have to be on video and you have to learn how to edit and you have to learn how to do all this extra stuff and you have to put it on YouTube. And then you've got to cut those clips into three different types and then you need to upload those to TikTok and Instagram and you need to have a Pinterest account. And as soon as you tell people all of that, they go oh, great news. I never have to face this, I never have to think about it, because I already felt a little bit uncomfortable about it. And when you just explain to me something that takes 40 hours a week, oh, I already have a job, so I can't do it.

Alban:

And I think that's why we see so many people say things like if only I had a team or I could go full time, then I would make podcasting work. Well, I always think that's a silly excuse. But the more that we tell people you need to be doing video, you need to be doing social, you need to be doing nonstop promotion, a newsletter and a blog as well. Well then they'll just say easy answer I've already got a job, I don't need a new job, and they can just quit. I think it would be much healthier for us just to say hey, you can do podcasts by themselves, it doesn't have to be a big deal, and you can play with it, you can experiment and if you like it, keep doing it, and if you don't? We'd have so many more people be successful in podcasting than if we said here's the tried and proven, perfect Joe Rogan plan that involves video and social and everything else. It's just overwhelming.

Kevin:

This to me, this concept or idea that in order to be a successful podcaster, you also have to do a YouTube video channel or something, or create video, some sort of video component to whatever you're producing in the podcasting world. I think it's similar in my mind to saying to somebody who wants to write a book that well, you're really not going to be successful as an author unless you also create a movie.

Kevin:

I think it's the dumbest possible take on podcasting that I've heard, maybe ever in the history of podcasting that I've been in as long as I've been.

Alban:

Whoa, you've been on this show way too long for that to be true.

Kevin:

Kevin, I'm going to go find some hot take, yeah, and so, like I get really fired up about this because podcasting is different than video and I don't want to be a negative Nancy apologies to anyone named Nancy out there Negative Nathan, negative Nathan. Yeah, I don't want to be a negative person about video, but it is different and so could you use video to help grow your podcast? Absolutely, do you have to? No, are they the same thing? No, they're not at all, and all of the points that Alvin just made are true. Plus, the fact that they are different should make anybody who's really passionate excited about podcasting getting more people interested and excited about podcasting and helping people start and create and continue podcasting.

Kevin:

Stop telling the lie that video is critical to your success as a podcaster, that that is the way that you're going to grow your show, that that's the next best thing that you can do for your show. Does it make sense for some shows? Yes. Does it make sense for shows that reach a certain threshold? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not saying that. We're saying it's not a universal rule that applies to everybody. It is not a requirement to get started.

Kevin:

If you hate video, if you never want to do video, that doesn't exclude you from podcasting by any stretch. You can have a huge, successful, positive impact in the world in a very successful podcast without ever doing anything in video, and anybody who cares about podcasting should be reminding people of this the moment they mention video. If you want to push through that, if you understand you don't have to and you still want to, wonderful, let's go have a conversation about video. But to feed into this lie that it's a requirement or at some point you'll have to or you should get to know it or to have any success or achieve any goal in podcasting is probably the worst lie that's being told in podcasting, at least right now.

Alban:

Think about other areas. And how does it sound if someone said I'm trying to get a little bit healthier? What should I do? People are like oh, you should try to drink less soft drinks and they'd go great. We all know if you were to stop drinking soft drinks and drink water instead, you would be healthier. But imagine, another friend goes if you really want to get healthy long-term, you're going to have to be lifting weights. And then this person is like about to start to drop the Coke. They're like oh, now I guess I'm going to have to learn about lifting weights too. I don't know about that.

Alban:

Somebody else comes in and says and you've got to be running pretty much every day for 45 minutes. And somebody else comes in and says if you're not eating organic, I don't know what the point is. And somebody else comes in and says seed oils we got to talk about that and doing these cold plunges. And you just start getting more and more people saying there's additional things. All of those might end up being good things, but for somebody who just asked a first question of I think I want to do something for my health, I'm looking at cutting back on something that's not very healthy. And they got one good answer and they're kind of excited about it. Maybe I'll replace soft drinks for water. For them to get 40 additional pieces of recommendations about how to fully optimize their health is not helpful. What they will do is they will just go. This is way too much. I'm just going to stick it out. I'm kind of okay the way I am and we know that it doesn't work to overload people with tons of stuff.

Alban:

And if they just want to podcast, then good. If they just want to blog, then good. If they just want to blog, then good. If they just want to do a social media page, good. They're all great ideas. If you're drawn to one of them, do it. But, adding on, basically say the only reason to do any is if you do all well, you're just going to do none and you're going to be here. I mean, I've told the story dozens of times on the show, but there's people that I will see at podcast movement every year and they will say, oh, I'm about to launch the show that we've talked about for two years prior. They've been thinking about it for years because they've probably been overloaded with all of the ideas and yet if they just started, they would probably be a great podcaster and they would have had the bandwidth eventually to say do I want to experiment with video? They could make that decision on their own terms, but being added all of this stuff is really, really overbearing.

Jordan:

Yeah, and I think it's just like the media is just really hyping up video podcasting. I don't think that there's really a whole lot of truth to it, and there was a quote in this article I really love that says the rise in number of podcasts on YouTube and the rise in listeners using YouTube to consume podcast content is not the same thing as a rise in video podcasts. These scenarios should not be conflated. I think that's exactly the story that's being spun by YouTube is that video podcasts are on the rise. Well, are they?

Alban:

I think video shows are on the rise.

Jordan:

Yeah, video shows are on the rise.

Alban:

I think there's lots of comedy shows that are done on YouTube and are also repurposed as a podcast. We talk about a lot of these big names that have done YouTube shows that have turned out to be successful podcasts and are also repurposed as a podcast. We talk about a lot of these big names that have done YouTube shows that have turned out to be successful podcasts, but that doesn't mean that if we start making Buzzcast into a weekly show and we all get together we record it on video, that that's going to blow up. This isn't really the type of show that people want to watch on video. I do not have the face for a video podcast, so we could just let it be audio only, because that's what we all are excited about and we don't have to feel like we're missing out just because we're not also doing 10 other things.

Kevin:

Yeah, I would go so far as to say that anybody who really cares about podcasting if they're pushing a video component for people who are starting out, that they're really doing a disservice to the person who they're talking to and the podcasting ecosystem overall. I don't have any hard data on this, but I just know the amount of energy and effort and money and technical knowledge that it takes to produce high quality video versus audio is in order of magnitude harder. So we're talking a minimum of 10 X harder. Anybody who's gotten one or two or three DSLRs or even filming off of an iPhone or a high-end Android and getting 4k video and trying to capture any amount of that you know a 30 minute segment or something onto a computer. It takes gigs and gigs of space. It takes some of the most powerful you know laptop or desktop computers in order to be able to edit that efficiently without your computer crashing multiple times, keeping the audio and video in sync, getting the lighting right. The complexity is enormous and the reality in any sort of creative effort that we move forward with whether it be blogging or writing a book or doing a weekly newsletter or podcasting the harder it is, the less likely it is that the fewer amount of people that will be able to stick with it long enough to be able to see any sort of success.

Kevin:

Okay, and so what you're talking about is? You're talking about what the Alban's analogy earlier, of somebody who wants to try something that is relatively easy on the scale of like how much time it takes to try it, how much it costs to try it, how much technical knowledge is required to try it and then you're putting on this requirement that in order to really be successful there, you have to do this thing. That is massively hard, massively hard, like even the people who have the highest end computers and are pretty technical and are into all this technology stuff as a hobby. So many of them try this and still fail. And that's what you're going to give as an alternative or a prerequisite, or even, hey, do you think this is a good idea? So I'll go back to Alvin's fitness analogy, because I like this.

Kevin:

If somebody walks into a gym and meets with a trainer day one and the person says, yeah, I want to get in a little bit better shape, so I'm going to start on the bike for five minutes, and then, as soon as they get done with the bike for five minutes. They're like what? No, no, no, you'll die, you can't do it, you're not ready for that yet. It will kill you, you'll feel like you failed, it will take you out of this and you won't make any progress on your fitness journey, and that's really what I want for you.

Kevin:

But what we have is the exact opposite having in the podcasting industry who are saying yeah, you're right, we do need to get you on that scrap arc, we do need to put on a thousand pounds. You got to start doing that because if you don't, you're never really going to make it on your fitness journey. Terrible advice. The worst advice and I love this article, the way that they frame it is that video is taking out more podcasters. It's the biggest deterrent to podcasting we've seen in a very long time.

Jordan:

I tried buying into that a little bit and I, like you know, before I started working for you guys, I upgraded like some of my equipment and I got a backdrop and I got these like color lights and I was like I'm going to use this stuff for videos, even though my podcast doesn't actually need it, cause I was like I've heard from so many people that it helps your podcast grow. So just doing video for social media, if I was just doing like a five minute thing as a podcast, as a Snapcast, it's going to take me, let's say, 10 minutes just for like setup recording done. It's going to take me that long, but recording a five minute video would take me like an hour. It was just like so insane how long it would like, even not including the prep for it, because I'd have to like plan things out, make sure everything's like looking good and you know all this stuff. I mean it would just take me forever to record a five minute video and did it matter in the end? No, so yeah, I'm with you.

Alban:

I feel like you actually undersold it there a bit.

Jordan:

Did I undersell it If you were going to do five minutes of video.

Alban:

I feel like the last time I did a five minute video and it took me eight hours, I was going, oh, that's pretty good. I was proud of that and it was because I had a uncomplicated video and I was able to script it out real quick. I filmed it. Now, there's people I know who get really fast at this.

Jordan:

Yes, I can think of a few.

Alban:

There's just like you don't go into the gym and look at the biggest guy and go. Whatever he's doing is what I should be doing. You should actually go and look at the person who's one step ahead of you and go okay, how do I follow them? And I loved seeing all these podcasters not who are doing millions of downloads. That's not who I want to look at. I don't want to see the person who's just signed a nine-figure deal with Spotify. Let me go find the person who's been relatively successful, who's gotten some cool connections from podcasting, who's talking about their passion is consistently putting out new episodes.

Alban:

I talk to thousands of these people every year and the pretty consistent thing is they have jobs and they go. I'm really into this topic whether it be pens or crochet or it's Dungeons and Dragons or it's something totally different and I love talking about it on a podcast and I get together me, me and two other people and we record and we clean it up and we post it and then they might tell you about some marketing stuff that they experimented with and that could be any number of things, but they almost never started with. I'm going to do everything and I'm going to pretend that I'm a media super athlete, media super athlete, and thus I'm able to do all of the TikToks and the Instagrams and LinkedIn and YouTube posts and everything I need to do. They mostly will start with one thing and grow, so maybe don't trust the hype.

Alban:

Lots of people are getting on to YouTube podcasts because they made it very easy to onboard your audio podcast. But I would say, if you do it, just let it go into YouTube music. That's great. Now it's out there and then see, does this really take off? And probably won't, because it's audio only, but it might give you a little bit of a taste of what might be out there for you. But don't imagine that the video component is a must-have for your show, because it likely isn't.

Jordan:

It's time for SoundOff, the segment where you send in your responses to our podcasting questions. So, first off, I got a text from Paulette, host of La Vida Ma Chivre, and she says met Alban at PME. He's such a Leo, maybe, and I don't know what you did, but she was like so spot on. Well, anytime people tell me that they're into astrology.

Alban:

I ask them what's my sign? Because I'm like, if you think it has predictive value, you should be able to tell pretty easily.

Jordan:

Yeah.

Alban:

So I think we went back and forth and I was like I'll answer questions about myself, but then at the end of it you have to come up and tell me I don't know if she did any digging after the fact like that maybe my birthday is on social media. But she's right, I am a Leo, so maybe it's all true. Maybe I'll change my stance on astrology now.

Kevin:

Well, I don't know. I don't know if, like nailing, one sign is enough to convince me. It's going to need more than that for you, Kevin. Yeah, I want.

Alban:

I want another text message to come in. I want you to nail my sign and Jordan's sign. Yeah, but without looking the birthdays up online.

Kevin:

I think that's I don't know that you can find my birthday online. Maybe you can birthday online, maybe you can.

Jordan:

Derek Brough, host of the International Teaching Podcast, wrote in asking I think I heard y'all say once that ratings and reviews don't actually do much to gain attention for a podcast. Is that true? Should I be using some other call to action at the end of my podcast episodes? He's probably referring to me saying that, if I remember correctly. I think apple said that like ratings and reviews don't actually apply to like their algorithm at all yeah, that's right, yeah, and so it's just like this thing where people like troll others to make them feel bad.

Kevin:

So I, I don't think, or remember that jordan doesn't like ratings and reviews, so a more positive spin on that same thing would be to make yourself feel better as a podcaster. So if you want to ask your audience to give you ratings and reviews, and you like that and they're generally nice and uplifting, there's nothing wrong with that. Back to you, jordan, with the negative take.

Jordan:

Okay, you're correct to reel me in. I let my distaste for reviews come through a little bit too strong there, but I personally believe in the one-shot rule for your call to action in your episode you should just ask them one thing that's meaningful, and I think that that should be to reach out to contact you or recommend the podcast to a friend or family member, because we all know that word of mouth is like the strongest thing that you can do when growing your show, or to support the show you know through like a donation or something like that. I think that that is much more meaningful than to leave a rating or review.

Jordan:

So, that's my take.

Kevin:

Yeah Now I would say, as someone who, just within the past couple of weeks, went back and looked at all the ratings and reviews that we've ever gotten for this show. It was fun to read them and we've been doing the show for a long time and we have a good number of them, and it was fun to go back to the very beginning and see some of the early reviews and then even some of the more recent ones. I like it.

Kevin:

I don't think it's valuable enough. Like that little dopamine hit is not valuable enough that that would be our one and only call to action or our main call to action that we'd want to use on our show. But every now and then, every you know three or four episodes that we do. Is it a bad thing to remind people to, hey, you can do this and we like them, like or at least two of the three people on the show, like there's nothing wrong with it. But remember it's your show and so whatever helps keep you motivated and keeps you podcasting, then do that, but no, in terms of helping your show get discovered more, at least with Apple, for right now, everything that they've said about it is they do not use the number of ratings and reviews you have. That's not a factor in how often they surface your show.

Jordan:

And Andy, host of Dudes and Dads podcast, asked question what service are you using for texting if I want to implement it for my podcast?

Alban:

Andy, we are using something called Slick Text, but it's like $30 a month. It's not cheap. We used it for some other stuff, so I ended up tacking it on and we've kept it going because we've had so many responses. But my real answer to you is check back in next episode of Buzzcast. I want to follow up on this question and give you a much better idea.

Kevin:

Oh, Alvin's working on something. Let me read one. We got a boost here from at creativity found. Hey gang, I hadn't expected to need or want to use the app, because I do most of the things on my desktop anyway, but I have found myself using it. It's very well planned and presented, which is perhaps why I've turned to it and saved myself a trip from my sofa to my desk. So thanks for making things a little bit easier, and that is Claire. Thank you, claire. Send us a thousand sat boost with that message.

Alban:

DWEV wrote us and gave us 2024 sats and said spot on about podcasts of any size being able to create a community. As part of monetization, as Adam Curry says, you can encourage your audience to exchange value for value with time, talent or treasure. I always love that because sometimes the best thing you can get from your audience is not them sending you a few dollars. It's them participating and making show art for your show or editing or maybe doing a transcription for you or something else. A better way to build community is to have people give some of their talents, their time or their treasure. So great piece of feedback there.

Jordan:

And then in the last episode, tom asked what ways do you have for your listeners to contact you? And Sarah Zett, co-host of Wish, I'd Known. Then a podcast for writers about lessons. And Sarah Zett, co-host of Wish, I'd Known. Then a podcast for writers about lessons learned, said Hi, buzzcast. We have a Facebook group for the podcast that everyone can join, a Gmail for the podcast and recently started a Slack channel just for supporters. We also talk about which conferences we'll be at and plan meetups. Oh cool.

Kevin:

That's great. That's a lot of stuff.

Jordan:

I didn't even think about meetups being like a way for people to contact you. But yes, that makes sense. I don't know why that didn't occur to me.

Kevin:

The ultimate contact.

Jordan:

Yeah, it's the ultimate yeah, the human interaction yeah.

Alban:

Daniel J Lewis from Audacity to Podcast wrote in and said I started using my own service Podgagement as a way that my listeners can contact me either through a written message or a voicemail that gets automatically transcribed, and then I link to that, plus my episode address and my voicemail phone number at the bottom of my show notes.

Kevin:

All right, I'm throwing a flag on that. I'm sorry, daniel, you know I love you. He's one of the greatest guys in podcasting. But I know you know how to boost with sats and if you're going to write in with an advertisement for your own product, you could at least throw a few sats out there, All right. So podgagement, it's a very cool service. If you're not familiar with it, go check it out. Daniel J Lewis is the guy who created it Great guy. But come on, send some sats with your advertisement.

Alban:

And we got a final answer from a number ending in 8267. Come over the text line. I provide an email and a Discord server on most podcasts for feedback and contact. On one show I have a voicemail line by a service called cal8.com, that's K-A-L-L-8.com. I've not been to that website.

Kevin:

Gosh another advertisement.

Alban:

It might be.

Jordan:

Is it an?

Alban:

advertisement If 8267, if you have a financial interest in this, cal8.com, honestly, the number being in there, I think it's call8. Call O-K-A-L-L. It's call8. But you can get a voicemail line through Google Voice as well, right?

Jordan:

Yes.

Alban:

So another option. But I love the idea of the Discord server, especially if your audience is the age and kind of the disposition that they're probably using Discord already. It's great to get them in there and so everybody can connect to each other.

Jordan:

And then do we have a question for the next episode.

Kevin:

Well, I'll just ask something about. I think the topic I was most passionate about today was the idea of like video being necessary in podcasting or not. I would love to hear, after hearing our thoughts on it, what are your thoughts. Share your thoughts on how harmful is it that many in the podcasting world have been boosting up the requirement, or how necessary it is to be able to create a video component to your podcast. Do you believe that's true or do you believe it's not? Are you doing it or are you not? Are you a purist and you will always do audio only, or do you might have some interesting video down the road? Just, whatever your thoughts are, I want to hear them. So smash that text number in the description of this episode and text us your thoughts. That is the most efficient way for us to get your feedback. There are other ways, but the texting is what we're really leaning into. So smash the text button, send in your thoughts. Can't wait to read them on the next episode.

Jordan:

And the number you can smash is 855-951-4230. And, as always, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.

Kevin:

I want to hear Alvin's cool story about the eclipse, but before we do I want to ask Jordan, you posted something in our little company chat yesterday about the number of people who were searching for eyes hurt right around the time of the eclipse.

Alban:

Yeah.

Kevin:

And you had a story about your husband whose eyes hurt. What in the world?

Jordan:

Okay, oh my gosh.

Alban:

Jordan, I couldn't stop laughing when I read this.

Jordan:

This is I wish I could show you. Okay. So back in 2017, we were exactly in the line of totality and so we bought the special glasses, took lunch off of work to go look up, right. So we were prepared. This time we were really far from it and so it was like are we going to see it? I don't know. So we didn't really put a lot of planning into it, right? And so my husband had this idea where he got his polarized sunglasses and he took electrical tape and he put the electrical tape over the sunglasses but just left the absolute slightest slit in the middle of it, and he thought that if he looked up, that would help him view the thing that would protect his eyes and when.

Jordan:

Instead, what happened is because it was so dark. From the electrical tape, you know his pupils like dilated and then you look up at the sun and it's just like the rays directly into the back and his eyes were hurting for like an hour afterwards, but he didn't try it for very long, thank goodness. Yeah, that's bad.

Jordan:

But I actually had a better idea. I put my cell phone up on a tripod sort of thing and I pointed the camera up at the thing, and then I used my Apple Watch, the little camera viewfinder that it has to see, oh yeah.

Kevin:

To see what it was seeing.

Jordan:

And that worked perfectly. That was smart, yeah, thank you.

Kevin:

Yeah Well, I don't have any cool eclipse stories. No one in my family burnt their eyes out. Yeah, and I did not go to the path of totality, but, Alban, you did you went to the where'd you go Indiana.

Alban:

We went to Cincinnati and then we drove over into Indiana. We weren't planning on going until, I think, friday. I literally saw a tweet from some guy liquor store guy about how exciting that. Yeah, yeah, great guy, follow him. Great liquor store guy. About how great the eclipse is and if you're, you know, if you're less than four hours away and you're not making an effort to go, your priorities are wrong. And talked about how amazing it was.

Kevin:

That's the thing with Liquor Store Guy. He will shame you.

Jordan:

He got me, he's into peer pressure In 2017,.

Alban:

We went to North Carolina and we're there, we're in the path of totality and also a cloud was in the path of totality and also a cloud was in the path of totality and it rolled in front. So we kind of saw like a hazy donut in the sky. Yeah, and it was like it was fine. I remember I'm sure I watched it was like whoa, but it was cool that it got dark and it was windy and all the birds freaked out, but the donut in the sky was like not that impressive, so we weren't going to do it.

Alban:

I saw this tweet from Liquor Store Guy. I got excited. I went to Deltacom. There's cheap flights into Cincinnati. I get them on points. I'm going to go. My wife is like I don't want to go, but if you want to go, you and our daughter can go. I'm like I don't want to go, but if you want to go, you and our daughter can go. I'm like, all right, we're going. Flew to Cincinnati. My brother was north of Cincinnati, so I've met up with him and my nieces and his wife and her family and it was awesome. It was so much cooler than I expected.

Alban:

All the same things again. It's gradually covering it up. You're looking through the NASA approved glasses and you see this cool shape. It's starting to look like a crescent and then the crescent's getting so tiny and then it pops and it's like the second that it goes from 0.01% of the sun to zero. The Corona pops out all ofa sudden and the whole area goes dark and it's cold and it gets windy again and the birds go crazy. And then you just see this, like I mean it's the Corona of the sun. It's just like this flowing giant halo of light and it is so hard to describe, but it was absolutely beautiful. I have some video of it and everybody's just like. It gets so loud with everybody. It does feel spiritual.

Kevin:

And you have a liquor store guy to thank for it.

Alban:

I get it. I've been DMing liquor store guy about this, my eight-year-old daughter. We're two minutes into it and she runs over from her cousins just in front of us and hugged me and was like thank you so much for bringing me.

Kevin:

Yeah, I mean core memory achievement unlocked right.

Jordan:

She's going to remember that forever.

Alban:

And then I posted that online and liquor store guy said I felt my eyes welling up just reading about this. Yeah, so he's a softy. It it was very cool. Uh, traffic was intense. Um, you know, we made our flight. We flew back last night after the eclipse, but it was a phenomenal experience. There's another one in 20 years and if I'm still around, I will probably try to go see that one because it was very, very cool.

Kevin:

The difference. Well, maybe you can become, you know, the next generation's liquor store. Maybe you can find some people at that point to inspire and shame into bringing their kids. You can find some people at that point, to inspire and shame into bringing their kids Liquor store guy.

Alban:

He traveled a lot and he also messaged me. He was like I was so nervous that, because I mess, I actually sent him a message and said I'm just letting you know I booked these flights, I booked a hotel, I got a rental car to drive, all based on this tweet. Like I saw the tweet, I left the app, I went to deltacom and did it all right then. And then I came back and your tweet was still up and he goes. I really hope you have clear skies. And he said while he was there, he's like filming the whole thing, he's doing this whole thing with his family. He's like I was so nervous. I was like that guy online, like I hope he gets a clear shot, but it all worked out.

Kevin:

You should share this story with Elon Musk, because people say Twitter is dead, but it's not. This whole connection took place over Twitter.

Alban:

Yeah, edison Research said that nobody was on Twitter anymore, but me and Liquor Store Guy are. We're having a great time.

Kevin:

That's great. I'm so happy to hear that you had that experience with your daughter. Shout out to Liquor Store Guy for making it happen.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Alban Brooke

Host
Head Shot

Jordan Blair

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Finn

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

Podnews Weekly Review Artwork

Podnews Weekly Review

James Cridland and Sam Sethi
Podcasting 2.0 Artwork

Podcasting 2.0

Podcast Index LLC
Podcasting Q&A Artwork

Podcasting Q&A

Buzzsprout
Buzzsprout Weekly Artwork

Buzzsprout Weekly

Buzzsprout
The Proffitt Podcast Artwork

The Proffitt Podcast

Krystal Proffitt