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 2025 Is The Perfect Time To Start Your Podcast
If you've been on the fence about launching a podcast, this episode is your sign to go for it! We're breaking down why right now is the absolute best time to start a podcast.
We'll discuss why podcasting is still the least crowded content platform, how technology has made it easier than ever for creators, and bust some of the biggest myths holding people back from starting their podcast.
We also touch on how independent creators may now be eligible for White House press credentials, a look back on Podfest 2025, and some of the coolest marketing strategies we saw there!
Sound-Off Question: What is the creator path you've taken?
Links mentioned in the episode:
- White House Press Application
- Signal Hill Insights: 142 Million Opportunities for Podcasting in 2025
- SNL Podcast sketches: Medcast, Father-Son Podcasting Microphone, Serial: The Christmas Surprise, Banger Boyz, AI Software
Contact Buzzcast
- Send us a text message
- Tweet us at @buzzcastpodcast, @albanbrooke, @kfinn, and @JordanPods
Thanks for listening and Keep Podcasting!
Either of you know who Karoline Leavitt is?
Alban:No.
Kevin:Okay, she is the new White House press secretary. So for our US listeners, of course you know we have a new president of the United States. International listeners may not be aware, but you probably are. I'm sure they know Because it's kind of yeah, it's kind of a thing yeah, we have a new president, so we have a new press secretary, and the new press secretary said something very interesting yesterday. I don't like where this is going. Don't worry, it's not political and it's related to podcasting. Ok, we'll see. I got a clip, listen up. Here we go.
Karoline Leavitt:Whether you are a TikTok content creator, a blogger, a podcaster, if you are producing legitimate news content, no matter the medium, you will be allowed to apply for press credentials to this White House.
Kevin:And, as I OK, did you catch that? Wow, that is a bombshell.
Kevin:So are we going to be White House correspondents?
Kevin:Yes, it's the first thing she said whether you are a podcaster.
Alban:First thing, it wasn't a TikTok creator was first, oh well it doesn't matter.
Kevin:TikTok's going to be gone anyway, it doesn't matter.
Kevin:Yeah, they're going to ban TikTok.
Alban:Then we'll be first. Wait, by the way, TikTok's back. I thought it was gone.
Kevin:Yeah, it's back. I think it's back to like April or something, until Mr Beast or whoever buys it, whatever.
Kevin:Yeah, don't bury. The lead Podcasters are now invited to the White House.
Kevin:That's pretty cool. I mean this has to be because this was like the podcast.
Alban:The podcast election.
Kevin:Yeah, the podcast election.
Kevin:Yeah, there's a whole bunch of screwy politics involved. This administration does not like big media and what Trump calls fake news and all that kind of stuff, so they are inviting more independent I think, in their opinion, more aligned journalisms that they think will give a more accurate representation and ask hopefully fairer questions. But whatever, doesn't matter, I don't want to get into all that. What I want to get into is we need to immediately go to whitehousegov, slash new media and apply for press credentials. We cover news, I mean it's podcasting news.
Alban:So you're going to be there raising your hand and go like what does this administration think about the new Spotify open off that they've set up for private podcasts? Don't you think they should just use the open podcasting standards? I don't like this Swedish company coming in here. They're like oh, I hear you, mr Finn. Thank you again for that question.
Kevin:Yeah, I want to hear the administration's position on open podcasting.
Alban:I think this is great, all right.
Kevin:Okay, let's see here. So whitehousegov slash new media interested in joining a future White House press briefing yeah, hell yeah. Share your information below.
Alban:Can I be? I don't want to be on this call.
Kevin:It's not a call, you get to go in person.
Alban:There's no way it's going to be you and like 400 people who are like solo podcasters, giving their hot take on the news.
Kevin:This is so easy to apply for you just need first name, last name, email, your social account, phone number and zip code. Done, done. This is going to take two seconds.
Kevin:Social account. Is that like our, like our, uh, like our podcast web address, or something?
Kevin:I don't think so it says paste a link to your primary social account. So I think you could do your podcast web address.
Alban:Yeah I imagine they're gonna pick people who are the word legitimate in that quote, I think, is gonna do a lot of work. It's gonna be like you've got to be of a certain size and probably a certain political bend, like they're not just going to pick anybody.
Kevin:We'll see, let's find out. The statement was a legitimate news source and I think we are legitimate. I don't know how you we're legitimate. We're a news source about podcasting news. Whatever I'm applying, I'll keep you updated. I think this is big news. I think this is big news.
Kevin:Welcome back to Buzzcast, a podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. All right, so let's take a look back on our experience at PodFest this year. We had a blast meeting listeners, meeting Buzzsprout podcasters, new podcasters as usual, it's always a good time.
Alban:Yeah, it's great. We take a lot of people, and so we ended up the first day with like a line at the booth.
Kevin:Yeah.
Kevin:Right. So we predicted the key chains were going to be good. Yeah, the laser engraved key chains were going to be a hit.
Kevin:Or there was going to be a fire and we were going to be the cause of it. I think those were the two predictions.
Kevin:Yeah, there was no fire no no, it was correct.
Alban:I mean, day one there was a line and I would walk down the line and I'd say, hey, what are you in line for? People were like I don't know what's up there. I just saw a line so I got into it.
Kevin:Yeah, I had that too. I was like, hey, are you in line for Buzzsprout? And they were just like I guess.
Alban:This is such a good thing to remember that if there's a line, people are like oh, whatever's, the front is going to be really, really good, and I think it made the key chains better. So some future marketing stuff we just need to like, manufacture a line and then people will be like just hire extras in the conference.
Kevin:Yes, that's day one of the conference. We go around, we hire extras, we pay them 10 bucks to stand in line and when you get to the front of the line, just go circle back, get in the back of the line.
Kevin:I got to go for a second time. This is so good. Yeah, there was a line. I had predicted that I could make a key chain with custom podcast cover art in two to three minutes. The reality was more like four minutes per keychain, and so it was hard to make any progress on the line. The line kept getting longer, day one, not shorter, and so for day two we switched things up and we let people just write down the name of their podcast and then circle back in an hour or two to pick up their keychain. That was a much more efficient way, so people don't have to stand there the whole time.
Kevin:Yeah.
Alban:And we also had Dave there. He was pulling artwork and doing some of the design work.
Kevin:right, yeah, that was the best way is. When Dave was there, who's a lead designer here at Buzzsprout, he sat next to me and he took the list and prepped all the artwork and then he would hand it off. He'd drop in a shared folder. I'd grab it out of the folder and I was just grabbing artwork printing a key chain. Grabbing artwork printing key chain that's really cool.
Kevin:Yeah. Do we think that we'll do this again for future things, or are we going to kind of tweak it a little bit?
Kevin:I think there's some optimization still to be had. I don't think this is a setup that I'd want to travel to. So the great thing about Podfest is it's here in Florida, so most of the team drives to it. Of course we have other people who live outside of Florida. They fly, but I don't think this is a rig that I want to bring if I have to get on a plane. Yeah, it's just. We already bring so much stuff. It's already a lot to deal with travel wise to make sure everything shows up. You make plans around all the stuff you're bringing. Then if something gets delayed or doesn't show up or you forget one chord or something, you're running around to Best Buy and everything and trying like. The hassle involved with that is is high, it's a lot of mass, and so I do think we'll do it again. But it's this may be a pod fest exclusive offering.
Kevin:That makes sense.
Alban:We got some really nice shout outs on social media. Lots of people in person really like them. But these are two now that stand out to me. There was a podcast called the 1% in recovery, or two now that stand out to me. There was a podcast called the 1% and recovery and they said we don't have like the best artwork for their podcast. They're like it's not going to translate really well to making a key chain, and so, kevin, you actually designed them like circular podcast artwork yourself and printed it on this key chain and they posted about it on social media that they're using it and they're using the QR code.
Alban:People are scanning it and they're listening to the show.
Kevin:This was like a day three extra little bonus that we snuck in for this customer of ours. We we on day three we were like we're out of key chains and we, we totally were. I had like five in reserve in case somebody came to pick theirs up off the list and for some reason it got missed, and so I was just holding a few back, and that did happen a few times. So a few people came up and we had made a key chain for them. I remember making it and somebody else had come and grabbed their key chain. And we did. This was something we did not anticipate happening. People would walk up to the booth and we were talking to other people and I think they thought like, oh, these are cool key chains, I'll just grab one and they grabbed somebody else's key chain.
Kevin:that was coming back to get it, my key chain was stolen. Yeah, I think, buzzcast was stolen too.
Kevin:We had a BuzzCast one that was taken too.
Kevin:Yeah, and so we had to take them all off the table and put them in a box and like hold them back so key chains would stop getting stolen. So I think we did like just do a text version of the 1% keychain or something 1% recovery keychain. But it got taken and so I had to make another one, and Dave was gone at this point and so I was like I'm not making keychains today. Anyway, these are just all for pickup. So I was like why don't you come back in an hour? I'll crank out something for you. And so, yeah, I did sit there for you know 15, 20 minutes and I made like a custom logo. Yeah, this podcast was fun.
Alban:Very cool that you did that. I love that they picked it up and it obviously meant a lot. And then we got another shout out from the two bald guys sports podcast who also posted. They use like the Memojis of themselves and because they don't have hair, it translates really well to podcast artwork. And it translated pretty well to the key chain.
Kevin:You know what? This was the thing that surprised me the most with these key chains, because I really thought we were sticking to like font solids only, and then Kevin starts cranking out. There was one with, like this woman's face on it and it looked gorgeous. It was like an engraved woman's face and it had the shading and it was beautiful and I was just like, oh wow, I had no idea that we could do things like that too.
Kevin:Yeah, I think that is what set it over the top.
Kevin:I mean, yeah, the fallback plan was just, we were going to have a couple different fonts that you could I don't know, maybe choose from, or we would select one that would kind of go with the theme of the podcast and we would just write the name of your podcast on the front and on the back would be the QR code. But at the end of the day, it wasn't. That didn't take that much longer, just to take some elements from their existing podcast artwork and do our best to translate that into. You know, something that would look good engraved on these leather key chains, yeah, and so it was an extra minute or so per and we're like, let's do it. You know, a minute or so per, and we were like, let's do it.
Kevin:If we couldn't do it, we couldn't do it. But that's what we decided to go for and I think that really made it more special to people because it was representative of the artwork that they were using, not just the title of your podcast, but actually there were themes, like we were using the same fonts, we were using as much as we could, images If they had, especially if they had like a line art logo or something like that, we could bring that in.
Kevin:That would print really nicely on these keychains, and so everyone who picked up a keychain it really felt like this was a custom item built for their podcast. And that's been the goal for a long time is trying to figure out how we can personalize a gift for them at our booth. Not just come and grab a sticker, not just come and grab a t-shirt. That stuff's all great, we love that stuff, but making something specific for your podcast and didn't somebody write back and say that they'd already used their keychain a few times to like share their podcast with people, like they already had people scanning their QR code?
Alban:Yeah, Claire, friend of the show from Creativity Found, wrote in and said your freebies are the best, especially the keychain. Already made use of the QR code while out and about when people ask about my podcast.
Kevin:I love it.
Alban:I do think, kevin, the difference is you actually designing it, because there's so many times you go to a conference and I think, because we go to conferences, that I, when I'm you know, just an attendee, I know kind of roughly how much each of these things cost. You know, you can get a pen with your logo on it and people will grab it. But no one's like cherishing the pen, the 50 cent Bic pen with a logo. But there are some companies that will kind of go all in on a piece of swag that when you get it you're like oh, I want to hold onto this for a long time, and I think there's something to like. You invest quite a bit more in making the key chains. You invest quite a bit more in making a really nice piece of swag. Sometimes those have much higher return on investment. Even though the investment is so much bigger, people are going to keep it.
Kevin:Another thing that I think was a lot of fun at PodFest was obviously the Buzzsprout Podcaster Party. I heard word on the street was we had 250 podcasters at this party. It sure felt like it because we had filled that room up. It was such a blast and we had drinks and food and a really awesome photo booth. People could print out photo strips as many as they wanted. It had like the Buzzsprout logo and Buzzsprout podcaster party on it and it was just such a good time. I love our Buzzsprout podcaster parties.
Kevin:I do too. What I really like about them is I think it lowers the intimidation factor of you're at a conference with a lot of people. You know you have podcasting in common. It's going to be an easy connection with somebody, but then when you go to a talk or something, for example, you start to have a connection with the people in the room Like what did you just think of the talk they gave? Or how does that translate to your podcast or something?
Kevin:This is an opportunity to bring all Buzzsprout people together in a room. So even if you don't know anybody else, when you walk in there, you know hey, we're all podcasters, we all use Buzzsprout. So it's like there's a couple of things that are easier. I don't know. Conversation starters, questions you can ask like what do you think of this new feature in Buzzsprout, or something I don't know.
Kevin:I happen where people kind of walk in.
Kevin:They might like look around, does anybody look familiar?
Kevin:They might go get a drink, and then they they approach a group or they sit down at a table and then it's this, this conversation stuff starts to happen and I love creating spaces like that for our customers, or it's easy for them to I don't know, make a friend, and my hope is that it goes beyond the conference, that it goes beyond the one hour buzzsprout party that we have, that they exchange contact information, that they can be a podcasting buddy for this person.
Kevin:So maybe I came to this conference and I didn't have a podcasting buddy, but now I have two or three and we connect in the Facebook group or maybe we swapped phone numbers so we text each other once in a while, we follow each other's shows now, and if that's what you take away from a podcast directly, but now you have a podcasting buddy, that is worth the price of admission, that is worth traveling to this conference, that's worth paying for the hotel room. I really think that's one of the most valuable things that we do for our customers is creating environments for them to connect with other people.
Kevin:Yeah, absolutely. And I love what you were talking about with people connecting on Facebook and stuff, because the opposite is true too. If you stuff because like the opposite is true too you know, if you're involved in our Facebook community group or if you're involved in, like the Reddit group, and so you get to know these people online, and then you get to be together at this party, at this conference, and run into each other and be like, wait, is that you? I mean, I've had that happen so many times with some of the members from our Facebook community group I'll be like, oh my gosh, we talk all the time. This is so crazy. To meet face to face, it's just, it's cool.
Alban:They almost always recognize Jordan from her laugh. I've been talking to someone and they heard it and they go. Is that Jordan? I think I just heard and I'm like, yeah, that's over there. One of the things I really loved was we met at least two Buzzcast listeners who had written in for our marketing episode, where we took a bunch of podcasts and we came up with marketing ideas, and two different ones came up, not only told us but showed us that they had taken the advice or had modified it a little bit and made their own thing. So I feel like we got to go into both of these.
Kevin:Oh, yeah, yeah. I was very proud and excited of our listeners when they showed up with their grill and marketing tactics.
Alban:D Sparkling Life Coach. So the idea for hers was she has lots of like essential oils and she talks about on her podcast and so there's lots of things like lavender and sage and all these different things that are really easy to grow. And so the idea was seed packets related to her podcast. And she came up and she gave us these little things she'd made these gifts, and part of it was seed packets with stuff about her podcast and all this information and has QR codes on there and all the information for Kevin so that, even though he doesn't have a green thumb, that he can grow all these plants himself.
Kevin:I love this.
Kevin:I mean, d is an exceptional person.
Kevin:Of course she's not just somebody who listens to buzzcast, but she's just become a friend and we get to bump into her from time to time and I think she's from the Orlando area, so it's always fun to see her. We'd actually one of the wonderful things about these we knew she was going to be there, so we were able to prep her key chain in advance for her and bring it, so she didn't have to wait in that long line. But I will say this she brought us each gift bags and they were incredible gift bags filled with lots of promotional swag for her stuff, so that we could see all the stuff that she had done, but also just some nice things for us, because I don't know, just because she's an awesome person and I had the thought that it takes a level of bravery to bring a gift for somebody, and I just want to let you know that if anybody listens to the show and if you're ever going to be at a place where we are in person, don't be afraid to do it.
Kevin:I love it. Kevin loves gifts.
Kevin:I talked about it all weekend and when Dee walks up and she has this little bag, I'm just so grateful, I'm so happy, and not just this podcast, but any podcast that you listen to. If you have an opportunity to meet these people in person, don't hold back. Bring them gifts. They're well-received, we love them. Bring all the gifts you have and I just want to encourage more of that. Not because I want more gifts, but I love connecting. I do want more gifts, but I also just love connecting. You know that the work that you're doing is connecting with people and they want to meet you and they're grateful and they want to get back. I just love this whole thing.
Kevin:We need more people like D in the world, and so I just wanted to point that out and say that if that's in you somewhere but you hold back because you're a little bit shy or a little bit nervous, you're not sure how it'd be received.
Alban:it's received well, I've gone on a bit of a kick with this lately, Kevin, because it's hard to create stuff when nobody seems to really care about your content. And we make this show now every week and pretty regularly. I'm like, does this really matter? Is anyone really listening? The numbers don't ever feel like real people. And then we go to a conference and we meet 15 people who listen to the show and I had people asking about the 50K I ran and different life events I forgot we'd even talked about to the show and I had people asking about the 50K I ran and different life events I'd forgotten we'd even talked about on the show and it was so awesome.
Alban:So what I've started doing is I'm like how do I become a better fan of the things I already like? And one of them has been on YouTube, just commenting more on videos, Because I know when we create YouTube videos, like sometimes you don't get many comments and I watch these woodworking videos that are, like you know, less than 1000 views, and if you comment and say something kind and say like how well you thought they did, or really like talk about what they're doing, they always respond and always positively. And so now I started commenting and then some channels will have this like tip jar set up and so when you comment, it can like send them $5 as well. And it's so funny. Like I watch a video, I thought it was really good.
Alban:I give them $5. It taught me something that I'm going to use in a project and every one of them is like this is huge, oh my gosh, Thank you so much. And like I feel like I know how it felt to be on the other end when Dee brings us this little gift basket and it feels so embarrassing to write a comment because you feel like this is probably a huge channel. They would never care, it doesn't mean anything to them. But I'm pretty sure from my experience being on the creator side and now seeing the reception leaving these comments, it is a big deal to creators and if we want to have better fans of our shows, I think we should do our best to be better fans of the content we really love in the world.
Kevin:I absolutely agree with that. I mean, I've had listeners like send me things in the mail like books or you know just something that they created. And it's so funny because one of the first ones that did that, he and I have actually been friends for about four years now, like really really close friends, and Caitlin, you know, she sent you guys like pickleball paddles and then she came to Boise and I went out to dinner with her and we went to like Universal together and I just think that it is one of those things where you feel like they're not going to be receiving, you know, 12 hours at a booth and then another three hours after.
Alban:I mean, the conferences are so intense. They're not like physically intense, they're just like tiring, because you're talking all day and having a big thing of Krispy Kreme donuts. I was like, well, this is awesome, Get that sugar spike.
Kevin:Yeah, exactly. I do have to say that there's another side of this coin. I love the idea of be the type of fan that you would want to have, and I think in podcasting, this is such a great opportunity, because podcasts typically don't have millions of fans no Right, they have hundreds. Big podcasts have hundreds, and so be the type of fan that you would like to have for your show. Now there is a line, of course and I'm reminded because I just recently saw this but Justin Nunley, he's the guy on TikTok that always starts his his like little short TikToks. He's like listen, did you know that? And he does like something funny and he usually like cuts in to another video before that. But he does have millions of fans and he has recently had to deal with people showing up at his house. Oof, yeah, don't show up at my house.
Kevin:Yeah, I think great advice, but there is, there is a line, and so, um, absolutely, and Justin, I thought, said it really well. It really resonated with me. He said, like, when he's out in public, if he's at a trade show, even if he's at the mall, he's like and you see me and you want a selfie and you want to talk? Great, I'm in a public space. Fantastic, let's do this all day long. He's like but please don't come to my house, and I guess this has been happening. This is not a problem, obviously, that we have.
Kevin:No, but in general, of course, I think that's kind of where I started was. I was having the thought of, like be a great fan to people who are creating content and let them know you appreciate it and stuff, and don't hold back, don't be shy, because at least on the creator side for this show, I know that it's really well received, it's really well appreciated. Now, again, there is a line. So don't show up at people's houses, don't? You're talking to us at a conference and we're like oh, it's late, I got to get up early. Don't be like, oh, just give me 10 more minutes, like, whatever. You guys know the rules.
Alban:Yeah, I mean, if I showed up your house, Kevin, without texting or calling you first?
Kevin:you'd be like what? Why are you here? What are you doing? That's true. I do not like the sound of the doorbell. I don't either the surprise doorbell ring.
Alban:It could be.
Kevin:Um, another marketing tactic that I saw some of our listeners, uh, sass and sips they have like this boozy podcast where they watch lost or reality shows, things like that, and she took Alban suggestion of putting their tags on, like you know, liquor bottles or something like that, and she, she tweaked it a little bit and I love this idea. This is so good. So she bought these like food grade pouches with the Sass and Sips podcast logo on it and, of course, the QR code, and then they mixed cocktails and sealed the pouches.
Kevin:Oh wait, they made those cocktails themselves.
Kevin:They made them, they mixed them. Oh, I didn't know that.
Kevin:Yes, I thought that they had somebody make the whole thing and package them and ship them to them.
Kevin:Okay, yeah, so they had like these like little cocktail mixes and they put it in these like pouches and we're handing it out at pod fest, and so people were able to have these like cocktail pouches with, like these bendy straws. It was so cool, oh they're so good. Oh, this is the best.
Alban:My favorite part of this story probably going to be Kevin's favorite part too is when they came to the booth. She said oh, I loved that you talked about the show on the podcast, but my original idea was like make a cocktail that's related to the show and then go like put it on the liquor bottles at the liquor store.
Kevin:Yeah, yeah.
Alban:And she was like, had the exact same reaction Kevin did, which was no, that's illegal, they're not going to let you do that. They're going to kick you out of the store.
Alban:And she was like I literally was out loud saying no, I'm not going to do that. As Kevin said it so she was right with you and I think this is a much better implementation Actually making the cocktails, sealing them. It's got a big QR code, sass and sips and you've got a nice drink and you've got a nice promo there. Very, very well done.
Kevin:It was very well done, yeah.
Kevin:I have to say that I do feel like they swapped out one illegal activity for another. I don't know. I don't know that it is legal to mix your own alcoholic drinks, seal them in pouches and then walk around a hotel conference center handing them out to people. But, that said, it wasn't so illegal that anybody objected.
Kevin:No, in fact, I saw a lot of people walking around with those.
Kevin:Yeah, everyone was happy to receive one and no problem.
Alban:Another idea that we got from PodFest with marketing was from the Cycling Men of Leisure podcast. So these things called dot cards, which are just like little stickers which I guess have a tiny NFC chip in them. So similar to the podcast beacon we talked about a few episodes ago. But this is just a really simple. It's like a sticker. It can have a QR code on it, but you just put your phone near it and it registers the NFC chip and we could go right to their show. So really well implemented. You just had it on the back of his phone and I really liked it. So really well done. Cycling Event of Leisure. Those guys were hilarious. I really enjoyed talking to them.
Kevin:Yeah, they were great. That's actually a pretty. It's economical and it's environmentally friendly, because you're not getting a whole bunch of like business cards and stuff that people are going to toss Like. You just have this card that you're going to tap and like honestly, look at the price here, they're not that bad.
Alban:What's the price?
Kevin:I don't know. It's like 20 bucks for a dot card.
Alban:Oh, okay, yeah, so really cheap.
Kevin:And I, so that's pretty cool, yeah, and it might be worth pointing out that the Buzzsprout app does allow you to do this right from within the app. There's a few times when it doesn't work exactly, and I don't know if it's like a mismatch between the different versions of operating system that you might have on phones or something, but let me just tell you how it works. You can tap straight into the Buzzsprout app and then you can tap share and then, once the share screen is up, you can put your phone near anybody else's phone, at least, like if they're both iPhones or if they're both Android phones. It works more consistently, but then it would like shoot the link to your podcast straight to their phone. What you didn't know, that you knew, that you've seen us do this.
Kevin:No, that's so cool. Maybe I heard of it, I just forgot or something, but that's so cool.
Kevin:Yeah, you can do that. So if you just want to experiment with how this type of thing would work, just download the Buzzsprout app, launch it and then click the share icon and then hold your phone near another phone and you'll see both phones kind of like, do a like a weird thing that says I'm pushing one thing from one phone to another, the other person accepts it, and then your Buzzsprout website with links to all the different apps and Apple podcasts and stuff just pops up on their phone. It's very cool. But the dot card thing is just a faster way to do it. So you can start experimenting with it with the buzz right out for free, and then if you're like, oh, this is actually really cool, I'd like to even streamline this even further, pay 20 bucks and get a little dot card thing.
Kevin:Okay, so in this episode I want to talk about why 2025 is the best time to start a podcast, and the reasoning for this is that my husband is launching a podcast this week and he was talking to me about it and he's like I don't know, I'm feeling all this doubt because I feel like podcasting is just oversaturated and you know we're in a niche that's too big and I just I had this moment of like you're married to me, like you should know better than anybody that it's not that. Like how, how can you have doubt about launching a podcast? Right the same day that this happened, I saw that there was a piece in Signal Hill Insights called 142 million opportunities for podcasting in 2025. And I was like, okay, january is the time when people are starting new things or starting new podcasts, and so I just wanted to kind of go over the reasons why someone should start a podcast in 2025.
Kevin:I like this article. Jordan Tom gave a stats talk at PodFest. Did either one of you get to pop in and see any of that?
Kevin:No, I was at the booth the whole time. I didn't get to see it. I was so sad.
Kevin:Yeah, yeah, same. Well, I didn't get to go either, but I did get to see some of his presentation before he gave it, so I was reminded. I've seen this number before. This was an updated version of the number, but I'm always shocked whenever I see this and that is.
Kevin:A lot of people talk about how many podcasts exist in the world, but very few people talk about the number of podcasts that are still actively publishing things.
Kevin:So there have been tons of millions and millions of podcasts created over the years and most of those are still available somewhere, but those are not necessarily publishing new stuff, and the majority of listens that a podcast gets happen within the first couple of days of publishing a new episode.
Kevin:So if we follow that line of reasoning, we can assume that the vast majority of podcasts that are not publishing currently are not getting much listenership. And so really, if you want to compare, like, what is the opportunity, what exists in podcasting, you want to see how many shows are actively publishing episodes, because that's kind of the pool that you're jumping into right, like those are the people who are really competing for listenership, and so that number, like a generous look at that number, is around 400,000. There's about 400,000 podcasts that are actively publishing content on a regular basis. That's based on a 90 day window. We didn't do this. I just asked Tom real time if he could give me a 30 day look back instead of 90 days, because in that number, in that 400,000 number, there's still probably a lot of pollution that happens in there.
Kevin:Yeah.
Kevin:Which is mean a lot of people who hop into podcasting publish two, three, four episodes in their first four or five weeks of saying I'm a podcaster, but then they still die out. So whatever, maybe it's 10 or 15% of that number still isn't real.
Kevin:Or the AI ones that just seem to be spamming, yeah, that are created all the time, yeah exactly, but I don't think there is a media channel meaning like YouTube, podcasting, blogging, whatever.
Kevin:That is more tight, and especially when you think about how tight it is compared to the level of engagement which comes along with it. So even if let's just say there was this other short form video content thing that popped up that started to get a little bit of traction, it's not going to be smarter than 400,000.
Alban:No, for sure.
Kevin:And even if it were, you're not going to get 20, 30, 40 minutes of engagement during that small little thing, and so the opportunity in podcasting is absolutely massive. Your total engagement numbers will be lower, but the total engagement time will be like orders of magnitude higher, and the pool that you're competing in is much smaller.
Alban:Yeah. So if we're talking about 400,000 active shows, compare it to 51 million YouTube channels that are active, 200 million active Instagram accounts, a billion TikTok creators that are posting regularly.
Kevin:Yeah.
Alban:Like those numbers are so regularly. Those numbers are so so much bigger and the idea that we all have this. Whatever I'm starting, it's probably too saturated and it's only because we're comparing saturation levels to oh, I wish I just bought Bitcoin 10 years ago. I wish I just invested in that stock that just skyrocketed back when it was really low. I wish I'd started the podcast back when nobody was in competition with me, which, yeah, it would be nice that we all knew exactly what to do 10 years ago and had done it.
Alban:But in 10 years you will look back on this moment and you either did something or you didn't do something. You started the podcast, you hung out with a friend, whatever the thing may be, that could yield some benefit. You're going to wish that you started, even if you start and you run it for a year and go. Okay, that was fun for when it happened, but I'm going to shut it down now At least. In 10 years you'll go oh, remember that fun time where we had that podcast for a bit. So there's no downside here. The only thing is we sometimes wish we had everything and it was easier and it was better, but like, that's not how it works.
Kevin:Well, and isn't it strange that there's like this weird attitude towards podcasting. Like, you hear people all the time being like you have to be on Instagram, you have to be on Tik TOK, you, you have to be on YouTube and you have to make shorts and you have to do this and that, and there's something about podcasting where there's this idea of everyone has a podcast. So it's not true. Everyone has an Instagram, everyone has a Facebook, but not everyone has a podcast. But I hear that all the time. They're like oh yeah, like of course I have a podcast because everyone has a podcast. It's like no, actually a lot of people do not.
Kevin:Yeah, real time update. Just got some numbers back from Tom. You guys want to guess. If we take the number from 90 days to 30 days with the number it does, it was 400,000 at 90 days. What do you think it drops to? We look at 30 days.
Kevin:I would guess. I'd venture to guess, just based on like how many podcasts published bi-weekly and weekly, that it would be like 300,000.
Kevin:Yeah, I think I'm with Jordan. Yeah, you're in the ballpark.
Kevin:No way 334,000.
Kevin:Whoa 334,000 in the last 30 days.
Alban:Which pretty much says that if you don't publish a podcast episode for 30 days, you take a month off, you're probably going to take three months off and then you're probably going to fade.
Kevin:Yeah, I mean, the odds absolutely go way, way up. There are very few podcasts that are active, that skip 30 days or more between publishing something. Yeah.
Kevin:Right, there are a few like we know, a few like hardcore history and stuff like that, Like there are plenty of times when they go more than 30 days without publishing, but that's not generally what we would consider a cycle of an active podcaster. So I think that's a really good number and even if we just had it a little bit to make up for those shows that you know only do episodes once every five weeks or more, I think you're looking at competing with 350,000 podcasts Like that's the size of the active podcast industry right now.
Kevin:And Alban, you had mentioned something that was really interesting, saying, you know like, oh, we all wish that we could go back 10 years and have started like way back then, knowing what we know now. But what's interesting and this was mentioned in I forgot to mention the articles by Paul Reismandel but something that he talks about is, you know, back when Serial started, like back when it had this boom, everyone was like, oh, I wish I could go back to 2014 and start my podcast. Then Podcast listening has gone up from 42 million back in 2014 to 142 million today. So it's actually better that you start your podcast this year as opposed to 2014, because there's more audience to share.
Kevin:Alban, do some quick math for us. Let's just say there was an equal distribution of podcast listeners across all podcasts and we have 142 million listeners listening to a show just one one listen per month, and we have 350,000 active shows. How many listens does each podcast get? 405. Wow, is that real? Yeah, no way, yeah.
Alban:I think podcasts like YouTube and everything else on the internet follow this like power law distribution, where most get a smaller number and then a few of the really top podcasts get massive numbers. Yeah, and so the. You know, for every buzzcast that's out there, there's 10 other buzzcasts, but there's one, hardcore history, and there's one Freakonomics radio, and you know they're. They're getting millions of plays, no matter what.
Kevin:Oh, and you know what I actually misread this it's 142 million Americans.
Kevin:Yeah.
Kevin:But if you look globally, it's 464 million people globally listen to podcasts, so this is way more than that.
Alban:I think whenever we talk about I wish I could just go back and have started then One. Obviously there's the hindsight bias, but the gear was more difficult 10 years ago. There was not as much well-written stuff online teaching you how to podcast. It was well less known like how to get started. Podcast hosts were not as good. There were not as many YouTube videos about it.
Kevin:Host meaning hosting platforms, not talent.
Kevin:Oh, I felt like the people behind the mic Host, meaning hosting platforms, not talent.
Alban:Oh, I feel like the people behind the mic Buzzsprout was not as good as it is today, 10 years ago, and everything was harder and the only benefit you got was that it turned out podcasting kept getting bigger over time. But the same would have been true in 2004 as well. If you just started then, it was mind-numbingly difficult to get started, and yet it turned out to be pretty valuable if you started in 2004 as well. If you just started then, it was mind-numbingly difficult to get started.
Alban:And yet it turned out to be pretty valuable if you started in 2004. The real thing to remember is there's going to be a 2035 and it's 10 years out, and in 10 years you'll go. Man, I wish I just started that podcast back 10 years ago. It was a little bit more difficult than it is now. I can do all this cool editing and stuff on my phone. I just talk into it with my friends. But it would have been nice to have done it back then and we could have started building up a listener base and had a little bit of a community built. Well, go ahead and start it now and see if it's something you like, and if you don't like it, then great. You get to go move on to woodworking or something else that you'll enjoy.
Kevin:One of the things that a lot of successful podcasters have in common is that they typically have followings across different forms of media. So a lot of podcasters that I follow now I didn't find them originally through their podcast that I follow now I didn't find them originally through their podcast, like I followed their writing first. So maybe I found them through like the case I'm thinking of, like through blogging first and then maybe I followed them over to Twitter started emerging and I followed them on Twitter and then from Twitter, maybe they launched a newsletter and then I got into the newsletter space and then they launched a podcast. I started following that and then maybe they started a YouTube channel.
Kevin:I started following that and I don't always continue to follow them everywhere, like a lot of the podcasters I follow are still blogging, but I might just listen to their podcast now instead of reading the blog. I might've just moved, but they still have me as a fan, as a follower, and some people would still consume all of it. So some people will read the blog, subscribe to the newsletter, listen to the podcast and follow them on YouTube and maybe on Instagram and TikTok and everything else. But wherever you start to build some following, it doesn't preclude you from going into other areas and it actually helps translate, like when you launch other stuff. Think about the idea of a lot of people say I would really like to start podcasting but I wish I had a following, and that's absolutely true. But you can start your following. I don't necessarily think podcasting is the best place to start growing a following because it is harder.
Kevin:There's no algorithms involved in kind of surfacing your content and stuff. There might be other places that are a little bit easier to start building a following, but if that's not where your passion is right away, then I think you're going to have more luck doing something that you're excited about doing and sustaining it long-term than just going and saying, well, I don't really want to create a YouTube channel, I really hate TikToks, but that's how you have to build a following, so I got to do that first. You're probably going to burn out. No, I'll stick with it.
Kevin:But the point I'm trying to make is that doing anything and sustaining it for a while. So maybe podcasting is the thing that you're super excited about. And then you decide, actually, I want to take some of these thoughts and go into more depth with them. I actually want to write pieces around them, or something I want to launch a blog. Well, that blog is going to be much more successful if you have a podcast following, and vice versa. And the same thing with I want to start capturing more short thoughts and putting them out on platforms like X or Blue Sky or Mastodon or something like that. Again them out on platforms like X or Blue Sky or Mastodon or something like that. Again, how do you launch your Blue Sky account and get 100 followers overnight? Well, you have other channels that you've already invested in and you've sustained and you've built some sort of following. So then when you say, hey, I'm now on Blue Sky, then boom, overnight 100 people from your podcast start following you on Blue Sky.
Alban:I'm reminded of the journey we've taken with Buzzsprout content, because we started by just writing a blog and then eventually we were like when we send emails, people mostly appreciate them. So we started sending emails telling people when we published a new blog and that was easier because we'd already built a little following on the blog. But we've also had written a bunch of content and we kind of found a bit of a voice. So it's easier to translate that into the newsletter. And then when we thought about starting this show, it was easier because we'd already written some stuff. We'd already thought about what we would talk about on a podcast and it wasn't one-to-one but it made it easier to start the podcast and then we could promote the podcast in the newsletter. And then when we started YouTube well, now those blogs actually translated into YouTube scripts pretty well, so it's made it easier for us to start doing video. And then when we wanted to experiment with short form video, instead of starting from scratch and filming all the short form video, we were able to chop up some of those YouTube videos and try and eventually say, oh, this isn't exactly the right fit, but we were able to do that experiment because over time we'd been building up this library of ideas and each one ends up kind of feeding the others.
Alban:The moral is you've got to start somewhere. And if you try to spend all your time thinking, would it have been better for me to start on Twitter or Facebook, or maybe LinkedIn's, where it's at no, I think it's actually newsletters, or maybe I should do it all at once, it's just you've got to start somewhere. And if the one that you're attracted to is podcasting, well, 2025 is a very nice time to start because there's lots of opportunity. The tech is easier than it's ever been, there's a good amount of people listening to shows and people regularly decide to turn off the podcast. So if you stick it out for five months, you're going to be in the top group of podcasters pretty quickly and you'll be able to start building the listenership. And if it turns into a blog someday awesome, that's really cool. Into a blog someday awesome, that's really cool. That it helped you get there.
Kevin:You know you mentioned that the equipment, like the tech, is so much better than it was. So I mean, when we were at PodFest, shure was a couple booths down from us and I got to see the MV7i, which is a microphone with an audio interface built into it. It used to be that you would have to have, like your microphone, you'd have to learn how to do the mixing and the EQing on the interfaces and you'd have to have, like, all this setup and it was expensive and it was bulky and it was hard to learn how to use all this tech. I know this from personal experience. I'm just not a tech person. It's hard for me to understand it. But now it's like they have these apps that go along with these USB microphones and now this USB microphone has an audio interface like built into it and so you can do the de-essing and you can do the noise gate and you can do all the EQ settings and then, if you want to have a co-host, you can literally just plug their microphone into the back of your microphone.
Kevin:Oh, wow.
Kevin:Yeah, can literally just plug their microphone into the back of your microphone. Oh wow, yeah, it's crazy. I mean they had like an SM7B plugged into the back of an MV7i, like what. You know what I mean. It's just been like the last five years that tech has advanced so much to make the barrier of entry so much smaller. For someone who just isn't used to this background in radio or audio engineering or whatever the heck you have to have.
Alban:Well, there was a period that all of the editing software was just repurposed music editing software, yes, and we didn't have anything made for voice. And now we've got lots that are made for editing podcasts and make it a lot simpler. And there was a period where, if you had the SM7B, you could not find a single audio interface that could actually drive it, so you had to get a cloud lifter added into the middle or a Fethead, and now you can really get away with it without having a cloud lifter, because a lot of audio interfaces can provide enough gain for the SM7B.
Alban:And this is 10 years, and I'm just picking out ones specific things that were annoying for me. But, like you, couldn't ever plug two microphones into the same computer. It would never, ever work in 2014. It can work now, and there's so many things that have gotten better and gotten easier. I mean, magic mastering is probably maybe the biggest example. If you had bad audio, you were just in terrible luck.
Alban:You're going to have to learn how to master it and try to fix it, and it probably wouldn't be able to be fixed Now. You run it through any number of audio cleanup tools and it gets better. And if you use something like Magic Mastering it gets a lot better.
Kevin:That's huge and it's getting more affordable.
Kevin:Yeah this is a point that can't really be overstated that the barriers of entry in podcasting are extremely low, which I think makes it a really compelling place to start to build a following on your creator journey. I understand there's this enticement around video, but I would just say I think Alban, you're going to agree with me here, because Alban and I have created a lot of video content together and over the years, when you look back at all that video content that we created, how many times did we walk out of the recording studio at the end of the day just feeling like that was fun. This is, this is so great. I wish that we got to come in here tomorrow and do that again. I think for me it was like never I can think of one.
Alban:You and I filmed a video on microphones. We were throwing microphones back and forth. I remember walking out of that and being like, okay, I could do this every day.
Kevin:That was fun. It was hilarious because we were tossing around very expensive equipment and Alban almost dropped really expensive mics a couple of times. We should have had another person in the studio.
Kevin:Yeah, but this was a very unique circumstance we were. We had to record these videos, mike, as as he would talk through each mic, he had to kind of get it out of the shot. But we were, uh, this was right. When COVID kicked up everyone Like we. We weren't even really supposed to be in the same room, and so we were trying to stay at least six feet apart from each other. We were both masked up, or he wasn't, because he was on film. I was masked up, and so Alban couldn't like hand it to me, couldn't get, and so we were like we just got to throw them. Got to throw them.
Kevin:Cdc says we can't get within six feet, we have to toss them. And that was a fun day because I mean, we kind of made a joke out of it. But more often than not, most times, it's just kind of a grueling process of do that shot. Did I say the word right? Is the lighting right? Oh, I forgot. You're wearing glasses and there's a weird reflection. You can see the lights in the glasses. Film that again, you said the wrong word here.
Kevin:It's not as easy as just rerecord that one word and we'll fix it in post. It's like no, because there's video associated with it, I got to re-edit it. It's just this grueling, awful process. I know for me I've said this a million times, I'm not an extroverted person the idea that I would continuously create content involved with other people and stuff sounds draining. And yet every time we record the show and I get done at the end of it, I'm like that was fun, I enjoyed those conversations, it's life-giving and I think that gets overlooked so often.
Kevin:When people think about creating a podcast, how do you make it fun? Is it gonna be fun? Because it has to be in order for you to continue to invest in it and for it to give more than it takes for me long-term. And so, yeah, everything is getting easier, and that just is fantastic, because the stuff that's getting easier is usually the stuff that's a little bit grueling, that ends up taking the fun out of the fun thing you're doing.
Kevin:Most people start podcasts out of the fact that they're together with friends, they're talking about a subject matter consistently with a group of people and they're like this is fun to talk about. We should probably record it. Other people might want to hear our thoughts on this stuff, and so many podcasts are launched in that way. And so, keeping it fun, reducing the barriers of entry, taking out the technical expertise and know-how that's required to start podcasting, is making huge strides in that area, while in most cases, the video world is going the other direction. In order to be successful and to stand out in the video world, you have to be doing more and more and more, and so it's higher production value, more extreme content. I mean, mr Beast has pushed it to the most extreme limits imaginable and beyond.
Kevin:Yeah, he's got like an Amazon series now.
Kevin:Yeah, and so like, how do you stand out in that place? Some very small like independent creators have started to carve out their own little niches, but it's usually the short form stuff is where they're kind of emerging because they've kind of found a niche there. But the video world like the idea that you're going to create a compelling 40 minute visual podcast that is more giving to you than it is taking and then compete in the YouTube world of 50 million plus channels that publish on a consistent basis is that is a hill to climb.
Alban:Yeah, well, I can think of three different YouTube creators who I've followed for years who've recently stopped posting on YouTube or have come back and said, yeah, sorry, I disappeared for months. I just burned out on YouTube because we were doing more and more. The production value kept going up. Then I started having to hire and I was just kind of burning the candle at both ends and I'm working, but then I'm also managing a team and I never was good at managing a team and I got away from the thing. That was fun. It's so easy to be on the other end of it, the audience side, and go.
Alban:Well, I like the old videos with low production quality. Why don't you just keep doing those and have fun? And I think it's because video it's so much more enticing and it has such a strong pull to higher and higher production value. Where podcasting, you can keep getting better and better at podcasting, but a lot of that are those are personal skills that you're developing how to better tell a story, how to better craft the episode, how to better research, and you can keep scaling it up and be like oh, now I'm doing a lot more work for every interview, but the level of the team required. The time requirements there's so much lower than video and I don't think I have a single podcaster who I've ever heard. That same story.
Alban:I just kept growing the team for the podcast. It got so big that I just burned out and I quit. So sorry, but I'm back. But that has happened a bunch of times with video and it's why I'm more and more skeptical of video and the do-it-all approach, whether the do-it-all is blog, twitter, podcast, podcast, newsletter, youtube, whatever it may be Like. When people say I'm going to do all four things at once, I'm like, honestly, any of the four, pick any of the four and do that one and let the other three sit until you're ready to take something else on, because the goal is really start something now and be doing something in 10 years and if you can do that it's probably going to go pretty well. It's doing too much burning out and then resenting the whole process. That is the real failure.
Kevin:Yeah, and I think if you still are finding excuses to not start your podcast in 2025, one that I hear a lot is, you know there's already podcasts on this topic and what am I going to say? That's different, and to that I say that you have your own perspective, you have your own voice, you have your own life experience, you have your own personality, and there's so many podcasts I listen to that are just like other ones, but I prefer them so much more because I like the hosts, and so those are the ones I'm subscribed to, those are the ones I follow and those are the ones I share with friends. So I think that it's really important to keep in mind that you are a unique person and you have something to say, even if it might be a little similar to someone else like it's not the same. So those are all good reasons to start a podcast in 2025. All right, so let's get into SoundOff.
Kevin:Actually, we have a follow up from Steph from Geopats Podcast. She had talked about how she was using YouTube, so I know that we just talked about how hard YouTube was, but it seems like Steph has found a minimal way to do some promotion on YouTube, and so she mentioned that you know what she does is she started making like YouTube shorts and all she's doing is publishing the static image to YouTube through the Buzzsprout RSS. So this is doable. That seems really doable, and she's gotten more subscribers, she's gotten more views and watch time on her YouTube channel from that, and so that's an easy way to do some promotion on YouTube.
Kevin:So I do think there's not a ton of compelling reasons not to use the RSS ingestion stuff that YouTube has built out and Buzzsprout has integrated with, unless you plan. We have said like the caveat is, if you do plan at some point to launch a YouTube channel, that it could have some negative effects on the algorithm's interest in picking up your content, because typically these shows are low performance, meaning they're not video first. If anybody clicks on them, they do typically click off pretty quickly and the YouTube side of it not YouTube music, but the YouTube side of it is generally not going to favor this content. And so if you plan on doing anything more YouTube down the road, you should probably think about is this the right strategy for me or not? Now, if you say no, then why not?
Kevin:Why not have your podcast in as many places as possible? There's nothing against doing that, and if it works for you, if you like launching that YouTube app, flipping over to Shorts and just recording something quick and it's low effort, low energy and it's giving you life, have at it. But I will say that I don't love the strategy in terms of a long-term grow the show marketing effort only because we haven't seen a ton of success with it. So I love the fact that Steph's writing and she's saying, hey, this is something that's working for me. And that doesn't mean I'm saying, oh, it's your, your unique snowflake, it's not going to work for anybody else. But but typically, generally, overall, I've seen a lot more cases where it doesn't necessarily work for people than it does, but if it does, awesome for you. Because because effective marketing channels are so hard to find for podcasts.
Kevin:So I love the fact that it's working for Steph, but please take it with a grain of salt and say, hey, it might work for me, it might be worth experimenting with, and if it does double down. But if not know that it's not, I don't think Steph is prescribing that everybody should do this thing. It's working for me, which is very cool.
Alban:And one of the smart things she did was she actually split the static channel that she hooked the RSS feed up to. She split it off from the channel that she puts motion stuff up on. So it's nice to keep those separate because you don't want to give the algorithm the idea that some of your content is really not that compelling because people click off, because it's just the static image. Some's more compelling because you're doing full video. So split those up yeah, probably the best way to do it.
Kevin:Yeah, that's great.
Alban:All right. Next up was D Spark, life coach. Uh, congrats on being cited by. Tech radar is the best podcast hosting provider. I wholeheartedly agree. Uh, thanks D. Yes, Tech radar um did a nice little write-up and they talked about a bunch of podcast hosts and had both brought up there at the number one spot. So thank you.
Kevin:Yeah, and that was fun to see on pod news too, because James Cridland did a little like drum roll, like best podcast host is dot dot dot and I opened it and I was just like, yes, buzzer out.
Kevin:That is nice. Those are nice surprises. It's it doesn't seem to happen all that often anymore. I don't know why, but like you know, like wired and fast company and stuff used to go through different categories of software and stuff on a regular basis and kind of do a roundup and kind of give their top picks. But I guess that content is less engagement driven for them or something recently, so that there are not many people doing them anymore. So it's been a little while since we've had one of these bigger publications do a roundup of podcast hosting and it was a complete surprise to us and so that's super fun Often.
Kevin:Another thing that can happen from time to time is that you'll have some of these publications reach out to you for comments or because the person writing the article doesn't actually want to do all the research themselves. They want you just to give them a spiel. And then it gets worse than that. I mean, sometimes they're like and maybe you should buy a sponsorship too to our public, and so it can get shady. This one was not anything like that. The author of the article did all the research completely independently on their own. We knew nothing about it. It was just a fun surprise. We popped up in pod news, saw the article click through and our team was super excited. It's fun to see these things once in a while.
Kevin:All right. So our standoff question last episode is what part of your podcasting process will you never automate Do you not want to remove with AI? So Fernando from Travel's Plans podcast and Fernando says that he's fan number one of Buzzsprout but you'll have to fight off D for that spot. He says recording AI the process is I'll never automate is editing. People keep saying that AI will give creators more time to create. For me, editing is the moment I create. It's when I put together a story and soundscapes for my audience. I need and want complete control of that process.
Alban:I love it. Thank you, ferdando. Damien, the DM, wrote in. What I'd love to automate is audio cleanup, especially the crosstalk and other tracks, because we record in person. I'd also love if AI could recognize change in conversation and make markers when we drift off topic and away from the story. What I never want to automate is the actual story and content editing so interesting, we've got two for editing. Yeah.
Alban:I don't think I could ever let another person control the actual content edit. I love that idea of AI recognizing when you're kind of getting off topic. That would be useful in the editing process. It was like it seems like you drifted for about 10 minutes here but then you circled back, so this may be a potential edit area.
Kevin:You know where I would actually prefer, that is, in Riverside. When we're recording, a little like alert shows up and it's like rabbit trail alert, rabbit trail.
Alban:Oh you want it real time. It just said alert. It's like bring it back, Alban, Don't do that.
Kevin:Steph from Geopats wrote in and said I do AI sound cleanup but I'll never let AI edit, meaning like make cuts in my episodes. I'm a control freak at heart and keeping the pace of the speakers, I doubt AI would ever get that skill down. Heart, heart, heart. Ai for show notes, drafts and titles.
Kevin:Love all that stuff. Thanks Steph Lamar's Iowa. We have been using notebook LM to compile research-based resources into an outline to get us started in script writing for the science of parenting. We also use AI to help us create podcast descriptions and social media posts Awesome. I also use notebook LM a lot. I love it so much. It has helped save me hours upon hours of researching topics. I mean, it's just amazing.
Alban:Jacob, producer from Got Any Cows, said what I refuse to allow AI to take over in my podcast is the authentic interactions between people on the podcast. I am 100% with Jacob on this. I can give up the editing, probably because I've given away the editing on this show forever. I've never edited this show, but what I really love is, like you know, the person to person interactions.
Kevin:So thanks, jacob and said that he had really enjoyed listening to the latest episode what AI should and shouldn't do in podcasting and currently uses AI for two parts of the workflow, which is episode transcription and the episode summary, and says that AI gives a great first draft which I rewrite, which is exactly what you should do with AI. And then it was interesting because Gabriel went on to say that he went in and used Gemini to create a podcast episode of his own where he had Gemini come up with a good podcast episode and then argue different points in it, and I went and listened through the episode. It was very interesting. So thank you so much, gabriel, for sending that in. This is great.
Alban:It is interesting We've got such different views. I feel like Gabriel and Jacob are on different ends of the spectrum here, where Jacob would say, no, I want the interactions to be always between people, and Gabriel is looking at adding Gemini into the mix there. Another thing Jordan, you point out the Accidental Bicycle Tourist podcast. I read that and in my brain read Cycling Men of Leisure. So we've got multiple cycling podcasts out there. We need to connect all of you.
Kevin:Yeah, I got to do some cross promo, all right, and so what should our sound off question be for the next episode?
Alban:Well, we talk a lot about the value of starting something now and Kevin talked about you know this. There's a path where you listen to somebody on a blog and then you end up following them to other mediums. What is the path that you've taken that got you to podcasting now? Did you start by creating content on LinkedIn and then you went to a blog and then the blog turned into a podcast? What did that journey look like for you? And you know just you know short what things they were and why you. Maybe why you started because I'd love to hear those paths, because they could help new creators find. Okay, there is a bit of a evolution along the way. I will change, so don't feel as locked in.
Kevin:I love that. All right, so have your response featured on our next episode. Go ahead and tap the Texas show link in our show notes and we'll read your response next time. So until then, keep podcasting. Did you guys see that there was a skit in SNL called Medcast?
Alban:Yes, I think I watched two or three and I saw this. Yeah, I did, I did see this.
Kevin:I thought it was so funny.
Kevin:I did not like this.
Kevin:Why not? Did you take personal offense to it? Was it just too close to home?
Kevin:Well, yeah, I don't know, I didn't think it was that funny and I think that I'm fine with people taking jabs at podcasters and podcasting and this whole genre that we love if it's funny, but at the end of the day, this particular skit I didn't think was funny enough for me to be okay with them poking like taking a jab at podcasting.
Alban:I mean like the line. So, for anyone who hasn't seen it, the setup is some men my age, like 35 to 50 men are not going into the doctor enough, so we pretend it's a podcast. So you go in there and you're interviewed by a doctor and his buddies and they treat it like it's a podcast episode and they're getting all your medical info and giving you advice and there's some pretty good lines in there. He's like he's like man, we're going to party today. We're having a great time. By the way, like how often do you party? He's like oh, yeah, I party. He's like okay, how many beers would you say in a typical week? You're partying?
Kevin:He's like uh.
Alban:And at the end, like they're trying to schedule the follow up and they're like, wow, it's been a great time.
Kevin:We'd love to bring you back on the pod like three to six months. Does that sound good? It's like, wow, you'll have me. There's some good lines, see.
Kevin:That's what I thought was so funny is because, like, they're making the appointment fun and it's more like a podcast interview than going into an appointment, and I actually think it's pretty smart, because a lot of people are like taking medical advice from podcasts yeah lands of podcasters and hot water in the past yeah, I well, I think that's the part that bothered me a little bit is that I do think there's a bunch of advice happening on podcasts that you should not listen to, but I also think there's a lot of good stuff and I I did chuckle a couple times, like I admit I did chuckle a couple times, but I didn't like at the belly rolls that I got. So they've done couple of other podcasting skits on SNL and I laughed a lot more at those. The. Uh, the original serial one where they had like Chris Kringle was somebody that they were looking into in a serial style podcast. I thought it was hilarious.
Kevin:It probably didn't get the response like from the audience of non podcast fans that they got from like real podcast fans, because they nailed like the voice of Sarah Koenig and her interview style and like some nuance and how she says stuff. Like the impression was really good and the editing that they did was very much in line with serial and so that's the stuff that I thought was hilarious. But for a general audience that wasn't a serial fan they might not have thought it was that great. And then they did the one with the two podcast mics for the father-son to have conversations. Yeah, the the father son podcast set up.
Kevin:Oh, I didn't see that.
Kevin:Oh yeah, we got to link all these in the show notes.
Alban:It's like, basically, a podcast is not hooked up to anything, that you're just like chatting with your dad and it's a way for guys to talk to their dads.
Kevin:Right, yeah, I thought that was really good too, like I do want to see more podcast fun content coming into mainstream stuff like SNL, that's very cool. This particular one, I don't know, missed a little bit for me.
