Spotify Is Skipping Your Ads, But Is That Bad For Podcasting?

Spotify is giving listeners a new way to skip past ads, intros, and calls to action. Some podcasters are calling it the beginning of the end of podcasting, and some listeners are singing praises. 

We put the outrage in perspective, debate whether easier skipping could actually strengthen podcasting, and explore how creators can make sponsorships and calls to action too entertaining to miss.

We’re also celebrating several big Buzzsprout launches, including streamlined video distribution to Spotify and YouTube, a major WordPress plugin upgrade, and one-click submission to iHeart. 

We also get into the EU’s new AI disclosure requirements, consider when podcasters may need to label AI-generated content, and explain what AI tools don't actually fall under the AI Act. 

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Transcript

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Cold Open And What’s New

Jordan 0:00

Are we doing this as a cold open?

Alban 0:04

Do this as a cold open. I think what you just did was the cold open. Here we go. Here we go.

What's New For Buzzsprout

Jordan 0:16

Welcome back to BuzzCast, the podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzprout. Kevin, we have you back on the show. It's been a hot minute.

Alban 0:24

How many episodes did I miss? I don't really know because for everybody who's uh a listener, we batch recorded a few quick casts. Right. And we've been using them. And so I'm not really sure if you've missed one or two, I think.

Kevin 0:38

Okay. Yeah, I've been out of the office for a couple weeks. Um, but I don't know what that translates into in buzzcast time since we did the batching.

Jordan 0:46

Podcast years. Yeah.

Alban 0:48

And we might even have another batched episode of the quick cast left because last week I'm like, Jordan, can we get this episode out today? And she's like, sure. And we did the episode and we launched a few things. So Kevin, Spotify, YouTube for video podcasters is out and live for everybody.

Kevin 1:05

I know. Which is I think it's great that you launched that without me. Historically, I have been a bit of a you know Debbie Downer when it comes to Spotify and YouTube. And so I leave for a couple weeks, and you guys are like, here we go. Let's let's put it all out on all the platforms.

Jordan 1:18

Kevin doesn't all in.

Kevin 1:20

Right.

Alban 1:21

I think the the Spotify, I mean, everybody knows. I think we've already said this before. It was ready and it was out there for like a month. But it was one of those things that it just is not a good setup at like 90% done. And we're seeing all these weird edge cases, and we're like, it's got to be like rock solid, or else we don't want to tell everybody about it. So it was in beta for quite a while. YouTube, they've had this OAuth uh flow. They've they've locked that thing up. It's been they've probably had that for 10 years for all sorts of different editing apps to upload video. And so that was much simpler to do. Um, but now it feels really good. You upload one file and you distribute it everywhere.

Kevin 2:01

Yeah. I think it's a great update. I think uh so helpful for people, especially video creators, um, who had to log into Spotify and then replace their audio episode with a video episode and then always going through the YouTube workflow. If you are a video creator, you're probably very used to all these hoops to jump through. But if you're an audio person and you're just stepping into video like we are on Buzzcast, it just felt burdensome, right? To have to like add these two other logins and upload processes to our workflow. And so now being able to step into uh the video world without having a whole bunch of other steps that we have to jump through to publish. It's very nice.

Alban 2:39

But the more that we work with the platforms, I think we are going to see the moments where the ethos of podcasting and the ethos of RSS does like rub up against it the wrong way. And we've got a good story about Spotify later, where Spotify's building stuff that podcasters don't like.

WordPress Plugin Get An Upgrade

Alban 2:58

But you know who actually Buzzprout and RSS really aligns with are companies like WordPress. And Kevin, we got you on here. You weren't planning to be on the episode, but you launched a big update for WordPress. And so we wanted to get you on the episode to talk about it.

Kevin 3:14

Yes. So we've always for how many years? Like 10 years, maybe more, we've had a really nice, a very simple, but very nice WordPress plugin. And this is for people who self-host a WordPress site, not for people who use WordPress.com. But if you self-host your own WordPress site, there's been an official Buzzsprout plugin for years and years. And it allowed you to very simply drop in a Buzzsprout embed player without having to hop over to your Buzzsprout account, copy the embed code, flip back to WordPress, paste it in. And the WordPress experience itself has gone through a series of transitions over the past couple of years as they've had gone from like a very code, like having to know HTML code and CSS and stuff environment, to a now they call it everything is done in blocks, right? And so we needed to update our WordPress editor so it worked with where they finally landed. I think originally this uh the WordPress stuff started as like a plugin and it was very experimental. And now it moved to like official WordPress editing. So anybody who's been using WordPress for a while knows this. Over the past couple of years, it's become official. And so we wanted to update our plugin to work with the latest official uh WordPress publishing workflows. And so I jumped in and made some updates to our plugin to support all of their new functionality and added a few little niceties while I was in there. Like if you have uh an older episode that is not one of your most recent ones, and like and you're writing a blog post and you're like, oh, I actually want to embed an old episode. Now you can search right within the plugin and find old episodes quickly without having to scroll down through a very long list.

Alban 4:51

Oh, that's nice.

Kevin 4:52

If you're updating your homepage, for example, and you always want your most recent episode just to show up on top, there's an option just to drop in. Always the most recent, that'll dynamically update every time you publish. That's cool. Yeah, there's great things. And I think the last little thing that I did was if you want to embed like the multi-episode podcast player, which is like the bigger player that lists other episodes below it, you can do that and you can say only include episodes with these tags. So like if we tagged a bunch of episodes with, I don't know, episodes where we talk about Apple, episodes where we talk about Spotify, episodes where we talk about YouTube, right? Then you could put those episodes in their own little playlists without, again, without having to jump over to BuzzSprout to grab the code to do that.

Alban 5:31

And Kevin, this is uh outside of your project, but we do support WordPress.com hosting now. So we made an update to the embed player. And the way it works is you can embed episodes on WordPress.com. That was something that I think we've had people request since, I don't know, since I was doing customer support 12 years ago or something. People would write in and we'd say, We're trying to get approved by WordPress. And they created a path. So it's kind of a little bonus that we got in there. But if you're on WordPress.com, you can go ahead and use that as well.

Kevin 6:02

I love it. So full WordPress support now from Buzzsprout.

One Click iHeart Submission

Jordan 6:06

And also, we recently launched one-click submission for iHeart as well.

Alban 6:12

I went through all their directory listings on BuzzProut, and we were shocked at how many people were in tons of directories, but not in iHeart.

Jordan 6:20

Yeah.

Alban 6:20

And when we looked into it, we were like, oh, most of these audio listings are one click. We've added it over the years. You can just click it, submit, click, submit, click, submit. Not too hard. And iHeart was one of the few exceptions. And I reached out to somebody at iHeart and they go, We've actually got one click submission that exists. I just think we never connected with BuzzRout. So pretty quick uh update. But for everybody who's not in a few of the directories, this has gotten a ton easier. So you can hop in and you can go in any um directories that you have not submitted to before, you can just go and you can submit them. They're all really easy. And iHeart in particular is one that got a ton easier the last few days.

Kevin 7:02

I'm wondering where do most people like use the iHeart? I know it's an app. Like I can download the iHeart app onto my phone, but I think it's also very popular in a lot of cars.

Alban 7:11

Is that right? Yeah, I think it gets built into cars. Um, obviously they have an app. They are radio. I mean, like most radio stations are iHeart stations. So a lot of people, they just think iHeart is just audio content. And if you listen to their CEO and you listen to the iHeart team, they are all in on RSS, open podcasting, very much aligned with like the BuzzProp brand and indie podcasting as a whole. So if you're not listed in iHeart, I would absolutely recommend people to go and submit. You know, you're looking at something like, I don't know, one percent of all podcast plays are through iHeart, but that is you go and you do one click, you're in iHeart, and now you're gonna get on average 1% more plays for the duration of your podcast. I I click like 40 times if I could get that option.

Spotify’s Skip Ahead Button Controversy

Jordan 8:07

Okay, so there is a story that broke out from James Crivland at Pod News, and it's been swirling around the internet, and I've been seeing a few people saying that it may be the end of podcasting. Do you know? Do you have any guesses who the company is that this is surrounding?

Alban 8:27

That sounds like clickbait. This is it's definitely clickbait, but uh Kevin, we invited you on the episode because it's Spotify.

Kevin 8:37

Yeah, we I figured I mean, we have survived multiple waves of the end of podcasting.

Jordan 8:42

Yes.

Kevin 8:42

Oh, at least five or six, right?

Jordan 8:45

It's like the whole like mind calendar thing of like 2012. Like it's just the sky's falling and it's actually not. Yeah. So Spotify added a skip ahead button that will bypass an entire like ad read or even like a cluster of ad reads, and it'll skip sponsorships, like host red sponsorships, but it's also skipping intros and uh podcasters, like call to actions, such as like their listener support and stuff like that. So yikes.

Kevin 9:14

All right, first gut response. That sounds great.

Jordan 9:19

That's what a lot of listeners are saying. That's a funny thing. I'm seeing like a huge divide because a lot of listeners were like, this is awesome. I I don't have to like punch the skip button every like two seconds. But when I saw this on pod news, it was like literally the entire newsletter for pod news was about like Spotify is just ruining everything. And I was like, that sounds really dramatic. And so I went into Spotify and I looked up my podcast. And sure enough, I had the option to try the skip ahead button on my own podcast. And it literally skipped my theme song, it skipped my welcome to the episode, my housekeeping items, along with an every called action I had and just went straight into the story. And then after that, I have literally nothing else. And I was like, oh, actually that stings.

Alban 10:06

All right. I've got like six different takes that I want to get out on this. But first one, it feels a bit unfair that every time Spotify copies YouTube, that everyone's like, what has Spotify done? What have they done to us? And they're the worst. And you're like, but YouTube's this has been on YouTube forever. We didn't lose our minds over YouTube. On YouTube Premium, they will detect where people skip and it will just if it sees a high percentage of people skip this part of the episode, it just pops up, skip ahead, and I click it and it skips ahead. Oh okay, just think of it as this is the most boring part of the video. And so YouTube says, I don't even care if it's an ad or it's just a long explanation. We're just gonna let you skip ahead. And then Spotify adds it, and everyone, at least in the industry, I know why we're all mad because we're like as an industry, we sell ads, and so we really want those ads to continue to be effective, and so we don't really want people to skip them. And we've built this whole ad industry and podcasting around hey, people don't really skip these ads, and then Spotify goes, Yeah, but they probably should. They add the feature, and now we're all like, oh no, maybe that promise uh isn't gonna be true long term. I I saw uh Tommy Vitor, who's a host of Pod Save America, you know, really big podcast, tweeted, very cool of Spotify to try and destroy the podcast industry. What a great partner!

Kevin 11:44

So he's uh he's right off board on this is destroying all of podcasting. All right, let me let me jump in because I have some thoughts. Like, I don't think, generally speaking, I don't think YouTube cares what you're watching as long as you're watching something on YouTube. As a blanket statement, we can probably all agree to that. Obviously, there's exceptions. They don't want you, you know, doing, you know, terror activities or watching stuff that's illegal and all that other kind of stuff. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But generally speaking, as long as you're watching something on YouTube, they're happy, right? And so they are trying to build tools, and Spotify likewise is trying to build tools to keep people watching content on these platforms, right? And so the idea of, oh, a lot of people are skipping this content. Let's make it easier for more people to skip that content so that the overall watching and listening experience is more enjoyable, then it leads to longer sessions makes a lot of sense. I I mean it reminds me a lot of uh remember when the first like TiVo came out, the first DVR? Yeah. There was TiVo and there's replay TV. And I jumped in, early adopter, bought a TiVo, and loved the fact that I could just, I don't have to watch live TV anymore. I can watch time shifted TV and I can fast forward through all the commercials. That was fantastic. And then replay TV comes out and they have skip commercial button. And TiVo didn't have it because TiVo was afraid they were gonna get sued. Sure enough, somebody did sue replay TV. I don't remember what happened. I they they might have had to pull that feature and just go back to a regular fast forward or whatever. I don't know if this is if I'm jumping ahead too far too quick. I actually think the death of podcasting could be the opposite of this. Like I'm more afraid when apps start doing the the inverse, which is oh, we know this is an ad or we know this is a commercial or a sponsor read, and we're not gonna let you hit the fast forward button anymore. I think that's actually more detrimental to everybody in the ecosystem, which is because it makes the watching or listening experience more painful for people. So then more people will stop watching or listening or engaging or seeking out podcast content. Because they'll be like, you know, every time I find a show that I like, it's filled with these ads, and I can't fast-forward the ads, and it's annoying. And and like we are very much used to now when you're watching TV or you're watching something on the internet, or even if you're going to a movie or something like that, and you don't want to watch all the previews or the different Coca-Cola ads in the beginning, you just go 10 minutes late. Like we're adapting as a society to learn how to get around stuff that we don't like.

Jordan 14:14

Yeah.

Kevin 14:15

And so I think I would be much more concerned if they went the other direction. And which podcast creators would be like, yay, finally, you know, we're gonna get more ad revenue. But I don't think you would. I think you'd get less because I think you'd have less people engaging with your content.

Alban 14:27

To be clear, Kevin, that's what YouTube is doing and Spotify's not doing. YouTube says, Hey, you want to skip the boring part of this person's video where they sold a sponsorship themselves? Go ahead and skip it. But you know what's not skippable is the YouTube ads themselves.

Kevin 14:45

Yeah, but they're offering you a way around that, right? Which is by YouTube premium.

Alban 14:49

Yes. So they say you can pay YouTube one of two ways. You can pay for premium or you can pay us by we force you to watch the ads. Right. Now, over on Spotify, I think the a lot of the the reason that the industry, the Tommy Vitor's and of the world are angry is because they're like, my ad revenue is gone. You know, I'm selling ads, and you know, it's another zip recruiter ad, and that was gonna make me enough money for whatever I wanted. Yep. Spotify is trying to sell Spotify premium. And so all the listeners are like, what the heck's going on? I pay for Spotify Premium, I'm on the top plan, and now I jump in and I'm hearing ads. In their mind, I should not be hearing ads. And if you go look at this tweet, it's like dozens of people going, like, yeah, I hate all the ads. Why do I have to listen to ads if I pay for it? It's because this needs to be, I think, tied to some sort of ad sharing model between Spotify back to the content creators. And I'm not sure if that's gonna be, you know, it's feasible for them to add a full YouTube style. Anyone can get into the YouTube partner program or the ad program, whatever they call it. But it I think it's there's a misaligned interest here. You know, Tommy Beutral wants to sell as man put as many ads as are feasible, and Spotify's like, yeah, we actually want to take them out because everyone's kind of mad because they're paying us twice.

Jordan 16:17

It was kind of funny. There's there's a response to that tweet, and it says, I skip through every single ad where you guys do Magic Spoon, Lumi, Aura, BetterHelp, Helix, Bombas, the Tree Shippers, Zip Recruiter, etc. Skip. And I thought that was so funny because I was like, but you remember them.

Alban 16:36

Yeah. I think uh cave originally from uh guy at Red Circle, it was like, that's incredible uh recognition of all these brands for somebody who claims to skip them all. Yeah, which is good proof these are good ads.

Jordan 16:49

Yeah.

Alban 16:50

But let me take you back to the longest standing argument we've had on this podcast, which is audio versus video. The place that these ads are gonna get skipped is on the video version, because the video version is where you're watching the screen and all of a sudden this button pops up that says skip ahead. And so you click it because it's right there in front of you, and it's like you just your thumb taps it automatically. But when I'm mowing the lawn and I've got my hands on the lawn mower and I'm listening, and another, I don't, whatever, Helix Bombas ad comes up. I think there's a separate actually, a helix sleep comes up. I just listen to it and I go, no big deal. It's 30 seconds and it's over. And I don't even like consider I should skip ahead. It's just another reminder of a few of these themes. You know, one, our interests are always misaligned with the big platforms. That's okay, but we we kind of know that's the case. And audio is going to always have better playthrough data and better ad listening because you're much less likely to skip when your hands are busy doing something else.

Jordan 17:53

Yeah. And it doesn't show up on the lock screen, it's only when the Spotify app is up, too. So you you have to be actively looking at the screen for that skip button to show up.

Kevin 18:06

Yeah. Right. Anytime I'm watching video content, it is so easy to get me to, it's a little bit of a FOMO feeling. Like I am so easily bored while I'm watching video content. And I think it's because I am bored. That's why I'm watching video content. We're going out for family dinner at six o'clock. And so I'm sit on the couch at six o'clock because six, if we're dinner's at six, that means we don't actually leave at 6:30 because nobody's ready. But I'm ready. So I sit there and I look at my phone and I am now bored. And so maybe I open up Instagram or maybe I open up YouTube or something. I'm just like, I am bored. Show me something, but I'm bored. And so if if you got to an ad, like I'm going through it, or I'm skipping to the next video or something like that. I am not bored when I'm listening to audio podcasts. I am doing something else, but it's not taking my full attention and I've got space for something else. And so that was a great example you gave, Alvin, like mowing the lawn. I'm not getting my phone out, my hands are sweaty, everything's like, I'll listen to it. It's totally fine. I'm not bored. I'm not looking, I don't feel like I'm missing out on something more engaging or better content or whatever. I just want to listen to something instead of this loud grinding gears of a lawnmower. Or I'm walking my dog. It's beautiful out. I'm enjoying the weather. Not really in Florida right now, but I can do something else. Like I can't have a conversation with my dog. I know some people can. I haven't learned that. So I want to listen to something while I'm doing that. Or I'm at the gym and I'm on the treadmill and I need something to pass the time. And if I can engage my mind, like it helps. I don't need to skip every ad, but I'm not bored. And so I'm not like feeling like I'm missing a better video right behind this one. Right.

Alban 19:36

That was a wild trade ride, Kevin. We took we went through. I'm sitting there waiting for the whole family. I'm sitting on the couch. What's going on here? Too. I can't have a conversation with the dog and I'm mad about video. Main points all landed, but uh, you kept I was locked in.

Jordan 19:53

I don't disagree. It's it's funny that you say that because James had like cited a bumper study where they said that people say that they skip more than they actually do, because a lot of people are like, oh yeah, I'm always skipping the ads, I'm skipping the ads. But it said that fewer than 10% of the ad breaks that bumper had measured were actually skipped, which is that's nothing. But YouTube videos, I would I'd be interested to to see, like, I'm sure that's way higher.

Alban 20:23

Oh, I I'm sure it is. We have a note in here, Jordan, where you said there's conflicting reporting about whether or not the Spotify ads are skippable. And I went and researched that and I have an answer for you. So this feature shows up whether or not it's Jordan's podcast and she sourced the ad herself, or if it's a megaphone podcast and megaphone sourced the ads. I really think this is coming from hey, a lot of people are skipping these sections. Maybe we should let people skip these sections, not coming from a, you know, anti-competitive side where they're like, oh, we're gonna block everyone else's ads and only serve our own. Really, if I kind of look at it, I'm like, I feel like they're kind of doing the same thing YouTube is in a little bit nicer of a way. And again, it's audio first. Spotify is audio first, even though they offer a lot of video now. They're an audio first company and app. And I just think way fewer people are really gonna skip ahead. I think the number, you know, maybe we see the buffer number moves from 10% of ads get skipped to 12% or something. I don't think this is a massive change. And uh, I don't know, it's not killing the podcast industry. You know, I think the the guy's still gonna remember the zip recruiter and the helix ads.

Jordan 21:41

Yeah.

Kevin 21:42

Yeah, I think I think the biggest thing with that stuff is repetition, right? Most of these ads start off with the Casper mattress, like it's the best night's sleep I ever had. And you hear that before you even have an opportunity to skip if you are in a you know, skipping mode. And if you hear that week after week after week because you Watch the show or listen to the show every week, you're just getting that like brand name dropped into your memory over and over again. I shouldn't say this, but it's like I actually would never even use Rocket Mortgage because I'm so annoyed at how many Rocket Mortgage ads I hear. Like at a certain point, it becomes like an anti-ad, right? Like I'm just so annoyed by it.

Alban 22:20

So years ago, um, I'm in law school, and one of my friends was he was an undergrad and he got a job at Geico. And I he was doing he was doing ad creative. And I remember being like, Why do you want to go do ads for Geico? Like those are the worst ads. And he goes, The worst ads? What are you talking about? And I'm like, the dumb gecko and the caveman and this. And I'm like naming every one of the bad ads I could remember. And he goes, Albin, before we started doing those, Geico was known and considered by less than like 7% of the insurance market. Nobody knew who we were, and nobody ever considered Geico. He goes, now it's like 98% know who we are, and 70% are considering these are made up numbers by me, but like the number was a 10x increase. And he goes, You're not trying I'm not trying to convince you we're writing great ads. I'm trying to get when people make that once every four-year decision to sign up for insurance, that at least Geico is considered. And I went, Oh, I'd assume this whole time it was like Nike where you're trying to show me LeBron James and Jordan and you're showing me these great athletes. And I'm like, Nike is cool, Nike is good because the best athletes use Nike. No, Geico is just in the hey, you've heard of us, right? Awesome. I'm just trying to make sure. So some of these, you know, the Rocket mortgages, they're probably just in the hey, you're gonna pick us if we can get you a slightly better rate. And I just wanted you to go to the website one time during that picking a mortgage process. Right.

Jordan 23:52

Yeah. You know what's interesting is I didn't realize that the like skip analytics were how they were determining where to place these skip ahead buttons. Like that didn't occur to me. For some reason, I thought in my mind that it was they're based on transcripts, which sounds like a lot more difficult.

Alban 24:10

I technically don't know for Spotify. I do know for YouTube that you can see that retention curve, they show it on YouTube, and you could see it's as soon as that curve spikes that they go, hey, you probably want to skip ahead because everybody else is.

Jordan 24:24

Well, I think if that is the case, which I kind of hope it is, because that would be great, honestly. Um, I think it could incentivize more podcasters to get creative about how they work in their call to actions, how they work in their brand mentions into the podcast so that it's a little bit more organic and not just like immediately skippable. So it's not like this like ad break. There's plenty of ways to creatively work things in or mention things. So if you mention like I have listener support set up, if you go to this like website and you can go here. Anyway, last week we did a bonus episode about this. Like, if you just work it into the conversation enough, then that actually kind of works as a call to action in itself.

Alban 25:05

And this is exactly Jordan, you just reinvented what TV shows did during TiVo. So when TiVo was at its height, the biggest show on TV was Lost. And I remember when we would watch on TiVo, they started putting fake pieces of Lost into the commercials or in the middle of the commercials. So you'd be skipping ahead, and all of a sudden you'd see the smoke monster like run across the screen. You go, Oh my gosh, you just you just skipped ahead. Go back, go back, go back. And you go back and you'd watch the end of the Burger King commercial, and then it's like three seconds of smoke monster, and you went, Oh, they got us. And then you're skipping ahead the new commercials. But they made you watch just a little bit of the commer more of the commercials. And I think the best ad will always be, you know, the Bill Burr, Sherry's Berries type ad that it's content. And Conan O'Brien needs a friend, very good at this. And there's lots of shows. Like, make the ads somewhat enjoyable so people not only listen to them, but they also associate them then with you, the podcaster.

Kevin 26:09

And another, I know we shout out Pod News all the time, but another shout out to Pod News because we sponsor that show. And I was just listening a couple weeks ago, and they were talking about um, I don't know, some like, oh, I think Sam was actually talking about how he does support for his TrueFans app. And James, just being a great partner for us, said, Oh, and if you want to learn how to do good support for uh your apps or your products, you should check out happy to help. We never ask him to do that. He just knows he takes an interest in what our company does and the content that we produce and just wove it right into a very natural point of a conversation that they were having. That is so much more valuable than them taking 30 seconds out of the show to do some ad read that you know we sent them.

Alban 26:49

Right. It would be totally inauthentic and it would be a total off the wall 30 seconds, and everybody would go, uh, roll my eyes. I want to skip ahead. Right. Yeah, it's much, much healthier that way.

AI Disclosure Rules For Podcasts

Jordan 27:03

This is kind of fun. We're going back to our roots, like our buzzcast roots of like just covering random like current events and like working into the episode.

Alban 27:13

Kevin leaves for a few months and then we bring him back to his least favorite topics. We're like, hey man, we're talking about current events. Yeah, we're talking about AI regulations and we're talking about Spotify ads. Tan I am.

Kevin 27:24

I'm not reading the news. I'm not stressed out.

Alban 27:27

You're sitting on the couch waiting for your kids. That's right.

Jordan 27:32

Well, I think a lot of people have been stressed out about this act. And I mean, there is an article within the act that just uh came into play and it directly uh influences podcasters. So that's why people are like actually paying attention to it now.

Alban 27:49

Okay. So what what do we what do we have?

Jordan 27:51

Well, basically, the European Union is asking people to put uh some sort of like AI disclosure on their podcast if AI is used in the podcast. And this is like content creation, it's for like social media posts, it's for like everything. And something that I do want to be clear about is that it's not podcasting in like a personal sense. So if like you're a hobbyist podcaster and you know, you're getting like 25 downloads and you aren't making money from your podcast, this doesn't apply to you. It's going to be most likely for podcasts that are commercial in that they're, you know, making money from their sponsorships and they are actually generating revenue from their podcast.

Kevin 28:34

Yeah. So I was joking a bit before. I did read this article. I do, I do think it's interesting. And I think it's like the first of many new regulations that we're going to see around AI generated content. It is getting harder and harder to differentiate between uh like real people talking and even if you're watching video, like what a real person looks like. I know this because I'm getting more and more videos sent to me from my mom. She's like, look at this. Somebody trained a golden retriever to do backflips into an Olympic pool. Check this out. Yep. Like, yeah. So um, right now the elderly are mostly being felt fooled. Um, but soon my generation will be being fooled, and then sooner or later the kids will be being fooled. And uh so it's the first of many, I think is the point I'm making. And um I I I'm not totally against it. Like generally, I'm not a regulation advocate, but in this sense, it it's very easy to create information that could be dangerous and have some consequences. So it's good to start thinking this stuff through. I like the idea that they're just like, just put a disclaimer, just say this isn't actually you know a human being who's sharing their thoughts and opinions. It is a computer-generated AI spot thing. And those are the thoughts and opinions that you're seeing. And now you can do with that what you want. Like, I think it's a fine place to start. I don't think it's a big ask. I do think my reading of this article was that they actually want it in the content itself. Like you can maybe put it in like the description of your episode, but they actually want the content itself had to have a disclaimer on it. Yeah. And and I don't, I don't think most serious creators like have to worry about this right now. But content that is like foolable, like it could fool people, it could trick people, it could scare people, it could cause a bunch of unnecessary videos being shared with you from your parents. Uh, let's just go ahead and let them know that it's not real so they don't have to share it.

Jordan 30:29

So I was dropping my daughter off at uh school today. And on my way back, I was listening to the radio, and they were doing like a news segment thing, and they were talking about how there was this guy who was 38 years old, and he saw a social media post that was like a deep fake of like a news anchor, and they were saying that there were these capsules that were buried in the front yard by the government for like any house built after like 2005. And so you needed to like dig them up because they were like gonna come get them. I don't know, it was something like that. And so he dug a 14-foot hole in his front yard, and then he hit like a water main line, and then it flooded the whole street, and the neighbors were all upset because he couldn't differentiate this like AI thing. And I told Alvin, oh, I heard this crazy story, and I was like, but I can't find it anywhere. And so now I'm wondering if that story was AI, like totally faked, and then they're talking about on the news, and I'm like, ah, I just don't know.

Alban 31:31

I think this story is really only gonna matter for companies like Inception Point AI, the one that had like they had like 5,000 episodes across 3,000 podcasts and they're publishing nonstop because it was AI content that was trying to be professional. And it wasn't trying to be fake news, it was trying to be we are creating timely content faster than anybody could actually create a podcast. So um, something happens in the news. We create a whole documentary series about it and we publish it that same day so that we skyrocket in the charts and we get a bunch of ad reads. And this EU regulation, it's like we're not trying to worry about people who are running stuff through magic mastering and cleaning up EQ. You know, that's using a computer, it's using algorithms, but it's not AI as defined here. It's not AI that you you used uh Chat GPT to come up with your script. This is like you're using a fake voice from Eleven Labs, a cloned voice or synthetic ad read. You changed what Jordan said. Uh, maybe you use something into script that does that. A human didn't even look at it, kind of like the inception point. It has to be in this type of content that is really uh AI created, but it also now has to be somebody who's not trying to lie to you because they have to actually put in there, hey, by the way, AI made this. It's like the law is not gonna make it do anything if it if the law is, hey, every time you lie to someone, you have to tell them you're lying. Like nobody's gonna it's not gonna get used. So I think the only people that this really applies for are people who are kind of like holding themselves to a very high standard. Uh Jordan heard that I misspoke, and so she changed one word, and so she goes, Okay, I'm adding I used AI to clean up um when Alvin misspoke. I think that somebody like Inception Point is gonna have to put this in there because their advertisers will throw a fit and the EU eventually will say, Look, we see you've got 40,000 episodes out there and you're not disclosing it as AI, it needs to be. But for the person who's doing a joke and they're like, Oh, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna tell everyone there's a capsule in the front yard, like Jordan's guy heard about. Well, they're they're not gonna say, by the way, this is AI. They're gonna go, that's the whole joke, is that now the guy's gonna dig the 14-foot hole. That's the goal. You know, if it's saying some celebrity is actually a lizard, they they that's the goal. So they're not gonna tell you. I don't know, like it's not a bad idea, but it's like we're making a law to stop the people who are already trying to break the law.

Kevin 34:16

Yeah. And I as I'm thinking through this, like just to be clear, my perception, I don't live in the EU. So that disclaimer aside, I do feel like they're more sort of like leading edge with regulations like this. We have some states in the United States that are the same way. Uh, California is one. Like they were the first to do, um, they're more aggressive on gun control, more aggression, more aggressive on like environmental policies and stuff like that. And they they sort of test out these ideas, and the rest of the United States says, like, well, how does it work out after a few years? Is it good or is it bad? And if it's good, then more states adopt these things. And if it doesn't work out that well, it doesn't go as far. And that's kind of my perception of how the EU does this. So, like, it from that perspective, I'm kind of fine with the EU like trying it. But like, personally, I would rather see the platforms handle this. Like, I would rather see YouTube make their rules around this and they decide what they're gonna do and live with the consequences and like let the market help you figure out what are the right calls and what are the wrong calls. I would much prefer that instead of regulation.

Jordan 35:15

Very American of you.

Kevin 35:16

Yeah. But you at the same time, you kind of need somebody to go first. And so if they if the EU's been sitting around waiting for YouTube to do something or Apple Podcasts to do something or Spotify to do something, at a certain point they're not doing anything. Like, I guess you kind of have to force their hand a little bit. I I it's just not my first, it's not the first tool I'd pull out of my toolbox to do it. That's all I'm saying.

Alban 35:35

If you pay attention to like listen notes and podcast index and even Spotify, all three are pretty aggressive about hey, we don't like this podcast. And so every once in a while we get someone who's like, hey, uh, I submitted my podcast and it didn't go through. And we look and we're like, yeah, it's obviously you're just trying to upload songs and get them into Spotify. This is not legit. And Spotify will notify us. We're not accepting that. That sounds like fake AI content. Yeah. Um, listen notes and I think podcast index are both very strong on they're trying to catch kind of scammy content and especially um AI content. I think that's a pretty healthy spot because we get a signal back. Hey, we've identified we don't like it. And Buzzbrock can look and go, Oh, yeah, uh, two of the three already don't like it. Yeah, it's a pretty good sign, like there is something off about this podcast. And the bad guys are not gonna disclose themselves. Um the it's really the people who are dealing with it, or the people in the Facebook group right now who are all like, hey, I use an auto leveler that I found. Does that count as AI? And I don't want to cause a bunch of anxiety among somebody who's really just trying to share their voice with the world, and they're using like the smallest bit of automation just so that they can get their podcast out once a week and now they're hearing, hey, baby, you you gotta watch baby. Baby.

Kevin 37:00

That's a weird podcast you're listening to, Alvin.

Alban 37:03

Hey, you can't uh hey, you can't you have to disclose that. You have to disclose that. Uh, I don't think it's a big deal for them.

Jordan 37:09

Well, and if they do want to disclose it, like if they are using AI in the capacity where they are changing things, they are, you know, using those generated voices and stuff like that, which is understandable. There's plenty of people that do it in a very tasteful manner. You don't have to apply those changes, you don't have to apply disclosure to any episodes that were made before August 2nd.

Alban 37:32

So oh, so if you snuck any uh AI fake stuff out there before August 2nd, you're good to go.

Jordan 37:39

You're in the clear.

Kevin 37:40

Yeah. And just a note to anybody who creates podcasts who's listening to this, don't pull out all the flubbed words and don't create, don't, don't use overdub and all these technologies to fix all the like let it be real. I I think as a listener, I I'd never mind it. And I when I have conversations in real life, people mess up their words. They say something and they're like, oh, actually, like now that I'm saying that out loud, I want to say it differently. And they'll they'll rephrase it. And I love it when podcasts have stuff like that in it because that's why I'm listening. I have I want to have this connection. I want it to feel like it's authentic. And so don't make it perfect anyway. Like, let it roll.

Jordan 38:17

Yeah, baby. Let it roll.

Alban 38:22

Now you have to leave in, Mike. Oh, yeah. Oh no.

Jordan 38:28

I know what I'm doing.

Fan Mail

Jordan 38:35

All right, guys, let's get into some fan mail. First up, we have a message from Derek from Intentional Teaching. And he says, I'm listening to your quick cast about the challenges of video podcasting, and you're naming all the reasons. I never want to do it. So much extra work from beginning to end and a much bigger ask for guests.

Kevin 38:53

I'm 100% convinced of two things that seem opposite, and I'll try to connect the dots.

Jordan 38:58

Okay.

Kevin 38:58

One, there are a lot more hoops to jump through in the video podcasting world, but those hoops are like getting smaller. The hoops are going away. I don't know what the analogy is. The hoops are getting bigger and easier to jump through. There you go.

Jordan 39:10

Opposite.

Kevin 39:11

So I don't think like a year from now or two years from now, it's going to be nearly as hard to do video as it is today. Cameras are getting cheaper. There's new new ways to like use your phone as a camera. Editing software is getting better. Like it's going to get easier and easier and easier. So there's that. And then there's also audio is awesome. And you don't ever have to do video, regardless of how easy it is. Regardless of if there's like a tiny drone that just follows your whole day around and then edits into a beautiful, concise episode and automatically publishes on your behalf. You still don't have to do that if you don't want to. Um, there's still a wonderful world of audio that will always have a time and place in this world, regardless of whether like the guy says it's popular right now or it's on a decline right now or whatever. There will always be some level of audience for that. And we'll go through different cycles there. So I don't know how we balance both of those things other than to say, I think it's just an individual decision. Like I think most people, the vast majority of people who podcast, podcast because they like it, they enjoy it, they get something out of it. We always say, like, what's your why? Because that's like the most interesting question for podcasters, because we all have our own unique why, right? Like you never get the same answer. Well, you you oftentimes get the same answers because I want to get rich, I want to make money. And we always say, Well, that's the only wrong answer to do podcasting. Wait, that's why I did it. Any other answer is typically fine. Yeah. And Jordan, you are in the small minority who said, I want to make money and then actually accomplish that. But it's like the same thing of like, why do you play the lottery? Because I want to win the lottery. Well, a very few number of people are actually going to actually win that lottery. Right. But if you just play the lottery because I like picking numbers every week, that's a blast. Then keep playing the lottery. Well, you're saying, Yeah, I need to find my why for playing the lottery.

Alban 40:46

Right. I do like that it's Derek from intentional teaching. Like, he's being intentional. I've thought about it, I've considered video, the pros and the cons. And I say the cons are everything I don't want to do, and the pros are all there for audio. It's problem solved. And our goal will be to make both audio and video easier every day for you. And at some point, if that switches, you might switch. And I've already seen a few people who've said, I tried video for a period, it didn't really land for me. I didn't love it. I'm going back to audio. And I would not be surprised if we saw a bit of a bit of a resurgence in a few years when everyone's like, Yeah, I think just doing nonstop vertical video just burned me out. I really just want to have a two-hour chat type podcast. Yeah.

Jordan 41:34

And next up we have a voicemail message from Matthew from Girl Dad Nation.

Matthew 41:39

Hey Buzzcast, this is Matthew from Girl Dad Nation. I love the episode about how to script a podcast. It got me thinking about my time doing some stand-up comedy. I would do open mic nights, and I realized that whenever I stuck too close to the script and try to get the words exact, I could never get the flow right. But when I just had an outline, I knew what the premise was and I knew where I was going with the punchline, then I could flow into it, feed off of the energy of the room, and deliver a much better performance. I think the same is with podcasting, knowing the key points that you're trying to hit and just using the energy of the podcast to guide where the discussion goes. That is gonna deliver a much better experience.

Kevin 42:24

Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait. That was so tight, so concise, so well spoken. I have to ask. Matthew, was that scripted? I know. Where's the AI disclosure, Matthew? That's what I want to get. He delivered it beautifully. He delivered it beautifully.

Jordan 42:40

I know. He has such a good speaking voice.

Kevin 42:42

He does. Um, I uh and and that resonates with me 100%. I hate public speaking uh in general. I love podcasting. I'm I'm I'm pretty comfortable podcasting. I hate looking out in the audience though, and like trying to figure out am I, you know, are my points landing with people and stuff. And it totally throws me off kilter. I hate that. Um, and so I thought the solution to that was to script it completely and then memorize it and then just deliver it flat. And I'm no good at that either. So yeah, I think the outline works better. And and then if you mess up, like you have no choice. You just gotta go with the flow, like when you're live. We we mess up all the time. Jordan makes us sound better than we actually sound in real life, but I agree. I think outlines are way easier to rip off of.

Jordan 43:27

Yeah. All right, and then we have a message from Sarah from Wish I'd Known Then. And Sarah says, Thanks for the episode about scripts. It gave me some great ideas. We've always shared questions with our guests, but now I'm going to include some details about the why behind the questions, which I think is such a great idea. Um, and she also says, I'm listening on a road trip through Wyoming. Highly recommend Yellowstone and Bighorn National Parks. Kevin, you just went to Wyoming not that long ago, right?

Kevin 43:52

Yeah, we were out there last year. It is beautiful. Um, I will say if you go on that trip, and I highly recommend you do. Preload some podcasts, download them ahead of time, because cell phone coverage in Yellowstone is poor. Not good. Not good.

Alban 44:07

My Yellowstone recommendation is go to Yellowstone and do not stay in Yellowstone.

Kevin 44:12

Yeah, you gave me that recommendation. It was a good one.

Alban 44:14

All the all the like places to stay in Yellowstone, it felt like very 1990s Disney vibe, where it's like they have you captive and they know you're gonna spend $14 for the worst chicken nuggets you've ever eaten. I was like, it's just like the accommodations aren't great. And it was like day three. I was like talking to my wife. I was like, I have to get some real food. Like, we can't keep eating this food. And so we load up, we drove an hour and 15 minutes out of the park to the nearest town, went into some barbecue place and just loaded up on barbecue. And I was like, this trip just got so much better. We're taking like we're gonna load up on a bunch of food, we're taking it back in because I can't do any more of these chicken tenders.

Jordan 44:54

You know what's crazy is I could I live so close to Yellowstone, I could like sneeze on it, and I've never been.

Alban 45:00

Oh, you would love it. Really? You would absolutely love it.

Jordan 45:03

I'm a little bit scared of nature, and especially like volcanoes are probably like my biggest fear in life. They don't have volcanoes there. They have geysers. Yes, they are. Oh, it's too spooky. I can't do it. I'm scared.

Kevin 45:15

It's not lava, it's just boiling hot steaming water. Yeah.

Jordan 45:19

I don't know. I I see enough people getting like mauled by animals and like geysers and stuff like that. No, that's real.

Kevin 45:25

It'll all have AI disclosures soon.

Alban 45:29

Jordan, if you ever totally safe like the Bellaggio hotel in Vegas with like the water fountain shooting off. Yeah. It's like that, except that it's like you know where it's gonna be, it's natural and it's boiling hot. Like, don't jump in there and you're good to go. And it is so beautiful. It's so amazing.

Jordan 45:47

I've always scared I'm gonna be like one of those people, like it's gonna be like a cartoonish, like I'll be walking on the trail, and then I just like trip and somehow like fall into it or something. Like, that's where my brain goes.

Alban 45:57

There's like seven ladders. There's all this stuff like blocking you from getting ladders, not ladders, fences. Yeah. Blocking you from going, you would you're not gonna accidentally fall into a geyser.

Kevin 46:08

All right.

Jordan 46:09

Well, thanks everyone for writing in. And until next time, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.

Post Show: Flooded With Thoughts And Prayers

Jordan 46:21

Oh gosh. So my kids started school this week. Well, actually, my youngest will be starting school tomorrow. But what's really crazy is we got an email from the school district that my daughter's school flooded and so she won't be going there anymore.

Alban 46:39

Like a like a pipe burst or something? No, it's the guy. It's the guy, the guy dug the hole. Oh my god, dug the hole and broken place.

Jordan 46:47

That was the guy. I should just go look.

Alban 46:50

Oh my god, she hit the water maid.

Jordan 46:53

I just I are schools just like stressful? Are they just stressful? So I had her going to charter school, which is like I mean, it's an art school. And so like no one's very organized and it's like a little chaotic. And so I was like, you know what? Enough of that chaos. I'm gonna put her in the public school that's just like down the street from our house. And that's gonna be so much simpler, easy peasy, great year. And then we got an email that apparently there was like a new roof put on this school over the summer, but they didn't actually put it on correctly. Like there were actually like big holes in the roof that they didn't seal up.

Kevin 47:29

Yeah, common problem with roof.

Jordan 47:32

Yeah. And we had this like freak storm, and the whole school, like they posted videos of it. There was like just water pouring from the ceiling down into the rooms on like all the floors. And so they were like, Well, sorry, the kids can't go to school. And so now she's in like a flex space, like across town, and we went and saw it. And it's like each classroom is like a cubicle where it's open space to all the classrooms in the elementary school.

Kevin 48:00

Is this gonna be for the whole year or just for a couple months while they fix the flooding problem?

Jordan 48:04

They said that like thoughts and prayers will be there by Christmas. I was like, Oh my goodness, holy cow.

Alban 48:11

Wait, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no. You you can't be the person responsible for the problem and then offer the thoughts and prayers. You need to be other people do that. You say, Oh, I have to fix the roof. Then other people say, My thoughts are with you, my prayers with you. But not, you can't be the person who's like, hey, we did collect the money, we did put on the roof, we left a big hole in it. Thoughts and prayers were able to fix it.

Jordan 48:35

Whoopsies. Yeah, it was it was bleak, and like everything's like in a circle. So they put the library in the center. Like you walk into this big building and they put the library in the center, and all the bookshelves just make up the library, like they did like a circle. And then they have these big cubicles that each fit like 20 kids, like just lined in a circle around this weird circular library thing. It is it's a strange setup. And I've had to tell Emmy like this is not what public schools normally like.

Kevin 49:06

I I really don't understand stuff like this sometimes. I I I don't under I don't like claim to understand the extent of the damage of how much water could come through a f like holes that nobody noticed until the storm came. But it just sounds like setting up a whole nother school miles away has got to be harder than like can we not just delay school for a couple weeks while we put some I don't know, tarps over the holes, vacuum out the water, dry the space, and move on with life.

Jordan 49:33

I I literally like I saw the videos of it, the walls were crumbling. It was ex it was extensive damage that they didn't notice. Like, I don't think anyone was in the building for weeks and then they saw it.

Alban 49:46

Wait, wait, wait. So they replaced the roof during the summer. Nobody went back in, and it was just kind of sat there for weeks as slow leaks filled up and ruined the whole building, and then somebody went in, they're like, Can't wait for school next week. And they went, Oh no, there's no walls here.

Jordan 50:04

Basically, yes, or ceilings. I'm laughing, it's terrible, but it was just like, holy crap, this has been a week.

Alban 50:13

What's crazy, Jordan, is that right now Idaho has wildfires, yes, and multiple stories of freak flooding, right? Everyone is playing for rain in Idaho right now, and also trying to fix their roof and fill up the water mains guys are digging up. Like these have to be connected problems somehow.

Jordan 50:32

Get me out of here. I don't know. There's a curse bestowed upon the state.

Kevin 50:37

All right. Well, sorry to hear about that. Thoughts and prayers. Thank you. And um, let us know how it goes.