Spotify Chasing YouTube While Ads Fall Short - and JAR Podcast Solutions

James Cridland and Sam Sethi explore Spotify's mixed financial results showing strong overall growth but declining ad revenue, alongside their increasing focus on video podcasts at the expense of audio-only content.

• Spotify's ads business struggling despite growth in users and profit
• VP of Global Advertising Lee Brown leaving Spotify "by mutual agreement"
• Video consumption growing 20 times faster than audio-only on Spotify
• 16:9 image formats creating problems for traditional podcast artwork
• JAR Audio rebranding to JAR Podcast Solutions with focus on measurable results: Roger Nairn explains how brands now see real value in podcasts beyond CEO vanity projects
• RSS.com launching PAID (Programmatic Ads Inserted Dynamically) with $1 minimum payout
• YouTube CEO Neil Mohan claiming "it's all over" for audio podcasting as video dominates
• Acast financial results showing US becoming their largest market despite executive departures
• Apple iOS enhanced dialogue feature improving podcast listening experience
• Podcast image tag offering potential solution to artwork format challenges
• Secure RSS and podcast monetization models being developed for premium content
• Overcast apparently working on transcript features for podcasts
• Rode introducing Call Me feature for remote podcast recording
• True Fans positioning as a "value exchange" between creators and listeners

Visit Buzzsprout.com for the tools, support and community to make sure you keep podcasting.

Chapters

• 1:11 A Complaint
• 2:25 Spotify financials
• 10:37 Premium podcasts
• 18:07 Interview: Roger Nairn, JAR Podcast Solutions
• 33:02 Apple Podcasts enhance dialogue
• 37:07 YouTube being insufferable
• 41:49 Acast financials
• 47:19 RS.com launches PAID
• 51:19 Round the world
• 53:45 Jobs
• 55:41 Awards and events
• 1:02:12 The Tech Stuff
• 1:10:31 The inbox
• 1:16:42 Sam and James's week

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters In Apple Podcasts. Find them in the transcript or hold down the playback bar, or just listen to the whole thing. That dog won't walk itself.

Speaker 2: 0:10

The last word in podcasting news. This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi.

Sam Sethi: 0:19

I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Fans.

Roger Nairn: 0:24

It used to be that podcasts were a nice to have, something that brands were testing out and playing with. Now they're seeing the value, roger.

James Cridland: 0:31

Nairn from JAR Podcast Solutions on branded podcasts Plus financials from Spotify.

Daniel Ek: 0:37

The one area that hasn't yet met our expectations is our ads business.

James Cridland: 0:40

And financials from Acast.

Glen Glenday: 0:42

I'm particularly encouraged by the powerful momentum we're seeing in North America, which has been the primary growth engine again for us this quarter.

James Cridland: 0:49

Plus YouTube's Neil Mohan makes friends. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout, with the tools, support and community to make sure you keep podcasting Support that I've personally used this week and it's been like no other. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom. Yes, and just before we begin, Sam, I've had an email with a complaint.

Sam Sethi: 1:15

Oh, no, okay.

James Cridland: 1:17

And the email is from a I won't name him, but he's a very, very big LA radio personality Howard Stern's called us, hasn't he Wow?

James Cridland: 1:27

okay, amazing, very well known. Anyway, he says Hi, james, big fan here. I follow you on all the socials. I'm on, listen frequently to your podcasts and radio appearances and have even bought you a coffee in the past you have. Thank you, you have mentioned you use an automated tool to remove filler words like um and er on this podcast. Yes, we do, smart man. I edit mine by hand every day and it takes me more time than I'd like. I'm writing to ask if you could add you know to your list of filler words to be removed. You might not realise just how often it ends up on the podcast between you and your guests, but once one does, it gets maddening to listen to. Here's less than a minute from the most recent episode with six occurrences of you know as an example. Yeah, so I'm going to try really hard. Anyway, we'll find out how well I've done at the end and you know you're not going to be able to achieve it, don't you?

James Cridland: 2:22

Hey, very good.

Speaker 2: 2:24

We're sorry, but now it's time for more news about Spotify on the Pod News Weekly Review oh good, that jingle was very needed because it's going to be Spotify heavy to begin this show.

Sam Sethi: 2:37

The Q2 25 financial report's out and it looks like Spotify's still growing gangbusters. So what have they done, James? Well, I mean, they've done really well in terms of money. Financial reports out and it looks like Spotify is still growing gangbusters. So what have they done, James?

James Cridland: 2:47

Well, I mean, they've done really well in terms of money and they're making more profit 19% higher profit year on year. They've got more users using it as well up 11%. They've hit over 100 million subs in Europe as if anybody cares. And all of that, in fact. The only thing that they haven't done very well is their ads business. Their ads revenue has actually decreased by 1% to US$523 million. Daniel Ek even said at the beginning of his opening remarks that he's not happy.

Daniel Ek: 3:24

As I look at our progress, the one area that hasn't yet met our expectations is our ads business. We've simply been moving too slowly and it's taken longer than expected to see the improvements we initiated to take hold. It's really an execution challenge, not a problem with the strategy, and while I'm unhappy with where we are today, I remain confident in the ambitions we laid out for this business and we're working quickly to ensure we're on the right path, and we are seeing some promising signs in our programmatic business, which I think will set us up nicely for 26.

Sam Sethi: 3:57

Yeah, he's not happy, and I have to say that the stock market isn't happy either. The share price fell over 8% on the results. That's never good, but let's talk about throwing someone under the bus, james, somebody called Lee Brown. He's leaving the company by mutual agreement. Yay, really, yeah, good luck, mate.

James Cridland: 4:18

Mutual agreement, yes, mutual agreement. And guess what he was? He was VP of global advertising. So trouble at Spotify, one would guess. But still, there we are. But they did talk about video, didn't they? Back in December 2023, the company only had 100,000 video podcasts on its platform.

Gustav Soderström: 4:38

But now Gustav Söderström says that there are and there are now more than 430,000 video podcasts on Spotify. And video continues to outperform, with consumption trending higher and higher, growing 20 times faster than audio-only consumption since 2024. And more than 350 million users have streamed a video podcast on our platform, and that's a 65% increase year over year, so that's good news.

James Cridland: 5:04

Those figures do look quite impressive. I would say, though, that Spotify only launched their big video push at the end of last year, November 2024. I was there, and many larger video podcasts are also. As we reported earlier last month, I think most large video podcasters are given five grand of advertising to kick things off, which may mean that there's a temporary uplift. So not so sure about all of those numbers and how realistic they are, but this was a really interesting clip later in the earnings call, because I listened to it, so you don't have to. Sam Alex Nordstrom added this what's?

Gustav Soderström: 5:44

more. Users who watch a podcast consume one and a half X more than users who just listen.

James Cridland: 5:50

Yeah, so that is an amazing stat 1.5 times. What do you think of those stats?

Sam Sethi: 5:57

Well, it's something that Daniel X said on his LinkedIn mini video. They're measuring customer lifetime value now as a metric of value to the platform and I'm surprised they weren't doing it before. But you know, clearly this is their new buzzword internally and, yeah, one time, 1.5 times more Great. I think you know how sticky the platform is. I think you could convert that word customer lifetime value into listen time percent completed the ones that we use.

Sam Sethi: 6:31

And I think we're all going down the same road. Right, youtube uses watch time, so rest in peace the download. But this is where well, you know um sorry. I have to give it a kicking every now and again, and the reality is that you know I'm sorry. I have to give it a kicking every now and again, and the reality is that you know. Welcome to the party, spotify.

James Cridland: 6:50

This is what they're going to be metricing on as well that, but Spotify haven't been reporting time spent, listening time within the app. All they report on is monthly active users, and it would be more helpful, I think, if Spotify were to start talking about time spent within the app or time spent on Spotify. That would be quite helpful, I think, but clearly we don't have any of that data. What else have they been talking about in terms of, I mean, clearly, video, I guess?

Sam Sethi: 7:27

Video. Now you and I have talked about when will Spotify do live. You know, it seems that that's the one gap in their strategy. They bought Greenroom many years ago and sort of you know, stuck it in a back room somewhere, never to be used again. But the thing they've been doing now is they're putting more 16.9 images into the ui. Not everyone's very happy about it. They have put in a recent beta open the app. It says and watch on your tv for the best viewing experience. And we know that youtube is very big on the fact that they're a tv first big screen ui app and I think you know again the wannabe youtube company spotify are very desperate to copy them, so they've gone to the youtube style 16.9 images.

Sam Sethi: 8:16

they've integrated it with the tv as a way to watch it. They're bringing push notifications now for new concert film from Miley Cyrus as an example. Oh, miley Cyrus, how exciting. She wasn't in your Aussie Top 100, was she no? No, well, you know should crown the house a bit, but you know anyone you claim anyone Oi?

James Cridland: 8:37

it's a Melbourne band as well, you know.

Sam Sethi: 8:40

I would ask the Finn brothers where they came from first, right. Anyway, let's get off our radio days Now. I don't know whether this 16.9 is very good.

James Cridland: 8:50

These 16.9 images. So they are the images that you get on YouTube. They're images that look like TV screens and they appear to be using those more and more for podcasts now, which essentially means because we are all producing square images and they appear to be just putting those in the middle of a 69. And basically, you know, this is only available on audio. It's a bit of a bad experience type of communication, I think, going on there, they clearly want people to be uploading video and maybe we'll see a little bit more of this that actually they will get very upset if we continue just to upload audio and they'll de-rank us from the algorithm and they will, you know, do other things in there as well.

Sam Sethi: 9:38

Well, I have a fix for you, james, or I have a fix for Spotify. The podcast image tag would fix this totally, because obviously with podcast image tag would fix this totally, because obviously with podcast image tag you can put multiple images. You could put in your square cover art, you could put in a tower or a 16.9. You could set the purpose for Spotify. So the actual tag would fix all of these problems for Spotify if they ingested the RSS feed with that tag.

James Cridland: 10:06

Yeah, well, I mean, maybe Spotify don't want to wear around it. Maybe the whole point here is that Spotify want the audio experience to look bad so that more podcast creators move over to video. But yeah, who knows?

James Cridland: 10:20

Spotify obviously has a thing called SOA, which is their way of linking from Spotify to a supporting cast premium stream or a Patreon premium stream or even one from Supercast. That has been going for a while. Spotify don't make any money out of those. You have been talking about secure RSS, as has Oscar from Fountain. The rest of the world is, I think, still waiting for your documentation. It's there. It's there. It's there.

James Cridland: 10:55

Sorry Scroll down the script. Good, excellent, well, that's lovely news, because there's also some new documentation, or a new proposal from somebody called Daniel Matthews. Now Daniel is basically trying to rebuild Spotify, soa, spotify's way of signing into a supporting cast stream, into open podcast apps, which I thought was interesting. But then the next thing that I thought very, very quickly was yeah, this looks interesting and it's a brilliant piece of writing, by the way, it's a really nicely laid out spec, but it has the same problem that Spotify's problem is is that, you know, obviously the podcast app doesn't earn any money from all of these paid feeds, and of course, that isn't the case for Apple Podcasts. It isn't the case with Secure RSS either, and so I'm just sort of curious as to I mean, obviously you will be turning around and saying that your Secure RSS tool is the best.

Sam Sethi: 12:05

So we've said in the past that you know the reason why Spotify SOA existed Spotify Open Access was because they didn't want to pay the Apple tax, and so they put the onus on the people like Patreon and Memberful to take the money from the user for premium content and then used an OAuth just to actually suck the data in and allow the user to pay. So that was the private feed function into Spotify and great, and that worked. Of course, things changed and I think and I've said before that I think Spotify is going to probably either kill or change the relationship for Spotify SOA, because there's money on the table a lot of money in the case of Patreon over $100 million last year in profit and so Spotify is going to sit there and go. Actually, you know what Advertising?

Sam Sethi: 12:55

hmm, yeah, that may be interesting, but we want to get more of this paid premium subscription money and I think they're going to go after it. Now the positives of Spotify SOA. Let me be clear. It means that if I get my premium content from Patreon, I actually could do the same thing to True Fans Fountain Podcast Guru if we implemented a similar mechanism as Spotify SOA.

Sam Sethi: 13:22

So if you're a podcast host like Buzzsprout or rsscom or Blueberry, you could replicate what Patreon do. You could say to the creator that you host the podcaster you host. Here's your freemium feed, but actually you can charge a premium feed, like Buzzsprout already do, and we will allow the apps to verify that you've actually paid and so you could have your content on any app. You don't have to have it tied to a single app, and that is the benefit of Spotify's model and the benefit of Patreon doing it that way and the benefit, I think, that hosts could do it. Now, you were right, james. It means that the apps make no money. I think that's just a contractual issue. You could have an agreement.

James Cridland: 14:10

Yeah, I think it is. I think it is. I think you could very easily build in, just like Apple has an affiliate deal already where you earn I think at the moment you earn the first month of anybody's podcast subscription I'm sure that you could build first month of anybody's podcast subscription. I'm sure that you could build that sort of thing in so that if the sale came from the app, then you end up sharing in that money somehow. It's not a part of Supercast or Supporting Cast or Patreon quite yet, but I'm sure that that could be doable and in which case that kind of fixes it. It does In comparison to.

Sam Sethi: 14:46

Yeah, as I said, the the way that daniel matthews has presented it is. It's a replication of spotify soa for an open rss feed with a premium and freemium model, and it's not a bad idea. The secure rss model that we put forward was fundamentally the user instigates the purchase, so the RSS feed has a paywall tag podcast, colon, paywall and then the app reads it.

Sam Sethi: 15:15

We present the data at the front end. So this audio book is worth I don't know $10. The user then pays the $10 on the app. The app confirms to the host that the payment's been taken and then the macaroon and the unencrypted version is sent down the line through a pod.

Sam Sethi: 15:34

ping and boom you've got access to that paid content, that premium content. Now, in either case, I think the issue is here At the moment. Today, what we ask people to do, listeners, if you're a creator, is listen to me on any app where you get your podcast, which is my freemium content but go here, set up a new account, pay there and I have to equally go and set up a new account and upload there, and so that splitting of the audience and splitting or additional work is what we're trying to get rid of. So, whether it's the Spotify SOA hosts take the payment or Secure RSS, where the app takes the payment we will see which one wins out. I don't know yet, but I think it's really interesting that we're both trying to combine premium and premium content within the same RSS feed. I think that's the goal. First, how you do the payments will work it out.

James Cridland: 16:33

Yeah, I think it's really interesting and you know, Daniel knows a thing or two. He's built Taddyorg, which is the same sort of thing, but for anime and webtoons and those sorts of things, webtoons and those sorts of things. So, yeah, I think there's definitely something there. It's just working out how you actually share that money and making sure that this isn't just another thing that we are asking podcast app developers to put in to their app without podcast app developers getting any money out of it.

Sam Sethi: 17:09

And, as I said last week, I think you know our sponsor and host, buzzsprout, has all the components. They have a wallet, they have subscriptions, they have premium subscriptions. They could implement this when, you know, the decision about how it's going to be done is finalised and they could be first down the road with it, because they've got everything pretty much there. It's just linking it all together now, indeed. Now, james. Moving on, JAR Audio has rebranded to JAR Podcast Solutions, which doesn't roll off the tongue as quick. Why, why have they changed?

James Cridland: 17:43

Why? Why would they change? Well, it's a little bit about positioning, but it's also so. Roger Nairn, who runs Jar Audio, tells me it's also what people are asking for in terms of podcasts. They're asking for measurable performance. They're asking for a lot of information to really justify paying for a branded podcast. I spoke to Roger Nairn and I asked him so why the new name?

Roger Nairn: 18:10

Part of it is obviously the fact that you know, podcast is evolving. You know audio and video, you know we do all of that, we do everything when it comes to the clients that we work with. So there's that, which is, you know, the simple answer. The larger, more sort of structural and strategic answer for us as an agency is because, you know, again, because the industry is evolving so much, you know, we're getting asked a lot more difficult questions from the clients we work with, specifically CMOs and brand leaders, and they all want to know sort of what is this podcast going to do for my brand? And you know, the great thing is that we've always had an answer for that. We've always been able to, you know, create great podcasts that happen to solve different business challenges, meet their business goals, and so the the podcast solution, the solution side to it all is, is something that we've always been doing, which is solving, solving, solving business challenges with podcasts.

James Cridland: 19:05

So you have a new system as part of this. It's the launch of the JAR system, which luckily stands for Job Audience and Result Exactly. Tell me about what that system is and how it works with you.

Roger Nairn: 19:18

Absolutely so. So everything that we look at, we look at through the lens of, of of this JAR system, as you said job, audience and result. So everything starts with a job. We, you know, when we sit down with a, you know, a prospective client, we always ask them, you know, what is the job that this podcast needs to be doing for you? And specifically, we work with brands, enterprise brands, midsize brands, and you know, going back to the, you know my original point of the industry changing.

Roger Nairn: 19:45

You know, it used to be that podcasts were sort of a nice to have, you know, something that brands were testing out and playing with. Now they're seeing the value in a podcast playing a key role in their marketing ecosystem. But that doesn't mean that it can just sit there and be a fun little toy to play with. It actually has to have an ROI behind it. So what does it need to do? Let's say you're a brand that needs to engage with a specific audience. Or let's say you want to increase your thought leadership, or you need to educate an audience on something, or maybe you just need to engage with them via great entertainment. That's the job. That's the job that this podcast needs to do. So then there's the job. You know that's the job that this podcast needs to do. So then there's the audience.

Roger Nairn: 20:27

Now, obviously, we want to know who is it that this podcast is meant for. But, more specifically, you know, how are they engaging with content content these days? What other podcasts do they like? You know what are the other things that we need to know about them in order to truly create something that's, you know, of high value to them. And then there's the result. So, at the end of the day, when you know, what can we point to to say this podcast was successful? How can we measure that? You know we work with a bunch of incredible partners that help us measure. But also, you're looking at all the different analytics and everything that we have access to these days as an industry. You know we're building, you know, custom stacks, depending on the clients we're working with. That allows us to point to that success. But then there's the success of the podcast, but also what we want to be able to consistently deliver on is you know, how is this podcast impacting the brand specifically?

James Cridland: 21:20

And that's something we're always looking at, and so how are you measuring some of those results? I mean, what are you going back to a client with and saying this was a successful thing because X, you know, typical marketer answer.

Roger Nairn: 21:32

but it depends, you know, and everything is going to be unique and different for a client.

Roger Nairn: 21:38

But, you know, a lot of times we're measuring brand lift. So we're working with, you know, signal Hills of the world who are helping us with brand lift studies. We're obviously looking at the qualitative and quantitative side of podcasting. So we're looking at, obviously, the quantitative side, which is downloads and the actual engagement rate. We're looking at listening to the consumption side of it all. But then we're also on the qualitative side, looking at reviews and comments and we're running surveys and we're doing everything that we need to be doing in order to, you know, get as much, you know, input from that audience and feedback from that audience and filtering it back into the project. But also we are using a ton of different stacks to measure conversions. We're, you know, doing different things to connect the actual podcast to the brand itself. They're measuring different impacts the brand is having on trust and authority via different surveys that we're doing. And we're also, you know, able to measure things like loyalty and things like more likelihood to purchase from or more likelihood to engage with, you know, via survey as well.

James Cridland: 22:46

I'm sure that many of the people who are enjoying this podcast, I'm sure that the one person who's enjoying this podcast is curious about brand lift, because I hear that phrase an awful lot. To be honest, I don't know what it means. What does brand lift mean?

Roger Nairn: 23:13

Yeah, I mean brand lift is a totally. It's a catch all right In a lot of ways, and it's what does Brand Lift mean? So I'll give you a perfect example. We once worked with American Express on a podcast called Build it Braver, and when we worked with Signal Hill, we developed a survey that one of the questions we really wanted to know is how is listening to this podcast going to increase or perhaps decrease the consideration? In this case, a small business owner has, in, you know, subscribing to an American Express business card, and so in that case we were able to measure a certain percentage that the podcast had an impact on and we're able to quantify that. In some cases, we're looking at, you know, things like awareness. You know, did you know about this brand before listening to the podcast? And sort of, how does that impact it after you've listened? So it really depends Again. Marketer's answer.

James Cridland: 24:11

It depends. I think you know, way back when I was writing radio commercials, we used to talk to direct clients and talk to them about the purchasing ladder and basically your job as a you know, as an advertising copywriter was to get that brand one rung higher in that ladder. I mean ideally more than one, but you know what I mean. So if you were thinking about buying a bed, where would you go? Well, you go to this company and that company and the other company and you wanted to move that person higher in that purchase ladder which I guess is one part of of of a brand lift it sounds as if it's, um, as if it's got quite a lot of other things in there as well.

Roger Nairn: 24:52

Well, I mean and and to flip that on the, on the other end of it, you know, we think about a purchase funnel which which always starts with the sort of top, top level awareness, you know, understanding what the brand is. So you know podcast plays a good role in that. But then, more importantly, there's the engagement side of of of you know, the, the funnel. So how long, you know, how long can we keep their attention and and sort of capture their interest and keep it? And we always talk about a podcast through jar as as, as you know, a good podcast is sticky, it keeps a listener as, not only as a subscriber, but it actually gets them, you know, more into the ecosystem of the brand itself. So great podcast is great for that mid funnel which would be considered consideration. This is when they're starting to educate themselves about certain topic or certain product or understanding, you know, certain categories, so podcasts can be used for that.

Roger Nairn: 25:43

You often see thought leadership sort of in in that sort of tier, and then there's the concern and then and then there's the conversion itself, it's the actual purchase, and you know we can talk about this for days. You know some podcasts are are better than others when it comes to conversion, we're of the mindset that podcasts as a whole podcast themselves like a full branded show are not what I would consider to be a good investment. If you're looking for quick conversion, podcast advertising is but an actual podcast itself. You've got to build up an audience. You have to layer in a lot of advertising, frankly and talking about yourself and the brand, and that's not what a listener wants to experience when they listen to a brand show. They want you know great. You know great narrative that just happens to be brought to you by that brand, but you know some shows are better than others when it comes to those conversions.

James Cridland: 26:35

And looking wider at the whole world of branded podcasts, do you think companies are taking branded podcasts seriously or is it sometimes still seen as a bit of a CEO? You know, indulgence.

Roger Nairn: 26:49

Serial CEO wink yeah, no, it's, it's, it's. I knew that's what you wanted to say, right, you know, I'd say it's sort of it's a it's a mix. I would say that it also very much depends on the brand and how seriously they take the relationship they have with their audience as a whole. I wouldn't necessarily put it into the podcast sort of field. So, you know, you see a lot of brands that are very, you know, focused on themselves, focused on, you know, talking about all the great things that they're doing, and that's not what content marketing is about. You know, on the flip side, you see brands that are just doing an incredible job of of of providing a ton of different content that happens to be coming from the brand, and so they're, they're the ones that take the podcast a lot more seriously because, you know, frankly, I think they just have a ton more respect for their, you know, for their audience, you know, respecting their time but also just understanding them more and having a bit more of a deeper connection with them.

Roger Nairn: 27:51

But we do still see, you know, we do still see a lot of the brand leaders saying you know, my CEO wants a podcast, just as like from a purely, you know, from a purely like a functional production standpoint, it, you know some CEOs can be great. You know some CEOs are founders and they've built this company and nobody knows. You know the ins and outs of a certain category better than them. But then, but then sometimes, sometimes they're just frankly difficult to work with because they're so busy and to actually produce a podcast with a CEO as a host is incredibly challenging. Just because you got to nail them down as far as timeline goes and what, what in our experience, what's happened, or what? What tends to happen is the is the show loses its cadence and momentum because you know so, and so will fly off to Davos for the week and screw the podcast schedule and you know, know, screw the production schedule, like I got to go here and there and what ends up happening is, unless you've got a really good runway of episodes, things get really disrupted.

James Cridland: 28:57

Yeah, you've mentioned American Express. Who else has JAR worked with recently?

Roger Nairn: 29:05

Who else has JAR worked with recently? Well, recently we just did a podcast with the Wharton School of Business, which was actually a collaboration with Accenture, and then we've also done some stuff with Deloitte, and we continue to do a lot of great work with Amazon. But we've also worked with Cirque du Soleil, lush pretty much every vertical. We've done a show in Very nice.

James Cridland: 29:28

My wife works in the circus here and we went to watch the Cirque du Soleil in Vegas and I was the person pulled out of the audience to go and perform. I don't think she's ever forgiven me and perform.

Roger Nairn: 29:46

I don't think she's ever forgiven me. I have a. I have a secret. I have a wish to do a show entirely based around the people that get pulled out of the audience.

James Cridland: 29:57

Oh yeah, that would be a gosh that would be a thing.

Roger Nairn: 29:59

Actually, just as a side note, I remember once going to a Cirque du Soleil show in somebody I think it was Mexico and about five minutes before the show was about to start and everybody was in their seats, all of a sudden the lights dimmed, not to the point where you knew that the show was starting, but something was about to happen and all of a sudden this woman came out of the ceiling. She was hooked into a like a big hula hoop beautiful, like gold hula hoop and she started to sort of spin around and eventually she landed right in front of this couple and took out a box and handed it to the man there and he proposed to his girlfriend and it was like the most amazing proposal. It was awesome, you can't beat that right Wow Gosh was awesome.

James Cridland: 30:47

You can't beat that right Wow Gosh.

Roger Nairn: 30:48

Yes, let's make sure that my wife won't hear this particular podcast, because my goodness, I was with my wife at the time and I got an elbow in the ribs.

James Cridland: 30:58

Exactly right, Roger. Thank you so much for your support. The Pod News newsletter, which I know that you've been doing for many years, much appreciated and thank you for joining us.

Roger Nairn: 31:06

Thanks so much James Appreciate it. Thanks for everything you do.

Speaker 1: 31:11

Hey, you with the ears. If you are enjoying this show, you should also be enjoying the Pod News Daily podcast. It's five minutes long, every day with your daily update for podcasting and on demand. It's like the email newsletter, but ideal for you if you can't be. Thank you. Now back to these two guys.

Speaker 2: 31:41

The Pod News Weekly Review with Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Sam Sethi: 31:50

James, we mentioned last week Apple iOS 26. I've got to get used to the numbers they came out. Keep going. I don't think I'll ever see iOS 100. No, never going to happen, right. Just realize the finality of my life. Yes, no, never going to happen, right. I just realised Funality of my life.

James Cridland: 32:06

Yes, actually that could be a new game. What a way to find out.

Sam Sethi: 32:10

Yes, I've got 26 summers to go. I'll probably get to iOS 50. Excellent, nice job, sam. Now the next version that is coming out is it's got something that you mentioned last week called enhanced dialogue, which takes the background noise or music and removes it. Even Now, you've done some playing around with it this week.

James Cridland: 32:31

Yes, I did some playing around with it. We couldn't write about it before this week, because as soon as Apple gives you a development version of iOS, they say you are not allowed to tell anybody what you're just about to end up seeing. Now lots of YouTubers seem to post willy nilly about it. But I thought, well, let's be nice and only cover it once it's available to the public, and that's all good. So the enhanced dialogue thing is just a little button within Apple Podcasts and you press it and it does kind of the same job, as you know, adobe Podcasts can do in tidying up audio or that sort of thing. It normalises voices as well, with different volumes, and it just makes things easier to listen to.

James Cridland: 33:22

The one thing that I would say is that it works very well on the phone, really nicely on the phone. It doesn't mess things up too much. It does make voices sound a little bit thinner, but it doesn't mess them up too much. The one thing that I'm really surprised at is that it's not available through Apple CarPlay, because in the car, I find is really the time when you need it to be really clear. You need to be able to hear the voices, and you don't appear to be able to turn it on from Apple CarPlay, which I think is a bit of a miss.

James Cridland: 33:53

There is also a new feature for Apple Music, which is Auto Mix, which tries to make songs flow together a little better, like radio stations do. For the type of music that I listen to, it does a pretty good job, but if I'm playing the type of music that my daughter listens to, it tries to beat match half of it and it doesn't sound great, which is a little bit weird. But anyway, I'm quite impressed with it so far. So it's been nice to end up using that rather than YouTube music, which I've been using for the last year or so. Anyway, the Australian government has just announced that YouTube is going to be banned for people under 16. So we'll have to have a rethink about where we get our music from. Yeah, absolutely.

Sam Sethi: 34:36

Try Facebook first. Try Instagram, try any of those things.

James Cridland: 34:39

Well, they're actually banning those as well. So all social apps are being banned for kids under 16. Youtube was an outlier, because obviously YouTube has quite a lot of educational content on it. But Rupert Murdoch has got to the Australian government and said, nah, you should be banning it. And the Australian government has said, whatever you want, mr Murdoch, and that's basically as far as it's gone.

Sam Sethi: 35:03

He might not be able to do that soon. He's got a $20 billion case against him, but oh, I just realised. I wonder by iOS 50 if Siri is useful by then.

James Cridland: 35:12

Anyway, oh, now, now. Now my favourite, by the way, on Siri has been trying to use my Apple Watch and saying you know, set an alarm for 10 o'clock and it hasn't been capable of doing that on any of the developer beaters.

Sam Sethi: 35:29

Did it ask chat?

James Cridland: 35:29

GBT. Set an alarm for 10 o'clock. No, I've got no idea what you mean. And it says oh, I'm sorry, I don't know how to do that Really. Anyway, it's fixed now.

Sam Sethi: 35:38

Okay, Bless them Well done One feature a year. Yes, it'll be useful eventually. Now, uh, youtube have been crowing a little bit. This week, neil moham put up a article on linkedin saying it's been a big week for youtube, our incredible community of creators, artists, viewers and advertising partners. Basically, there's a article in the wall street journal and in the New York Times saying that YouTube's growth in the living room is basically exploded. We've been talking and referencing this for weeks now. Neil Cern says that YouTube is now the most watched video platform on the TV, and so Neil Mohan's been crowing and you know it was very funny. Their advertising revenue has increased 13% year over over year, reaching 9.7 billion.

Sam Sethi: 36:26

So I left a comment on me on linkedin. Nobody nobody from youtube would have responded are you profitable? Yet? That was my comment because I thought well, you know, they're sitting and telling you how much revenue they're generating, but they're not telling you how much profit they're making. And we've said this before, they've not split it out alphabet. And I guess, if you know, you've got massive infrastructure costs to run that whole thing, plus probably all the staff. I just wonder you've said it as well when are they going to announce whether they're profitable?

James Cridland: 36:59

Yes, Well, yeah, I suppose the question is that they probably don't need to announce whether they're profitable or not, because it's all part of that. So the only thing yes, you're absolutely right, the only thing that Google has released is revenue numbers, and they don't release the fact that they've got all of these complicated storage costs, their content caches. I mean, it's easier for Netflix because Netflix has a finite catalogue of a relatively small amount of videos. Youtube, obviously, you know everything is available and everything is available you know all over the world, and it's very, very complicated for them to cache a lot of the content which is on YouTube. So, yeah, I'm fascinated in learning how profitable it is.

James Cridland: 37:52

There have been some blog posts which have tried to work out how profitable YouTube is. There's a blog post which I'm looking at at the moment from Howie Mann and he writes about startup strategy and he reckons that YouTube has a profit margin, an operating profit margin of around 15%, which I would be fascinated by if that's true, but I can't see it. Personally, I think it must be so expensive to run that thing.

Sam Sethi: 38:27

Yeah, and what I love, if you like, going to see comments on LinkedIn. It was just. I love it. Oh, Neil, you're amazing. Oh Neil, Wow, Wow, man, that's cool and like yeah, yeah so reveal the numbers. Neil, Tell us the truth.

James Cridland: 38:44

I mean, neil comes over in all of his bragging, as being a deeply unlikable man. I mean, I'm not sure that I like Daniel Ek very much, but Neil Mohan just comes over as deeply unlikable. Youtube have no interest in communicating with the podcast industry. No interest in communicating with the podcast industry. They released, you know, videos and how-to information on their blog and didn't bother alerting any of the podcasting press. It's almost as if they don't care about us. Yet here we are rushing towards YouTube with open arms, saying you're the future of podcasting and I just don't get it. Really don't get it. But you know that's what the industry wants to do. Come and grab some stickers from the podcast movement, because I have stickers with my views.

Sam Sethi: 39:35

Well, just to reaffirm why you don't like Neil. The CEO said it's all over. Video podcasting on youtube has won the battle. Audio podcasting might not pack up its mics and go home. There you go. Thanks, neil wow, and he said that on linkedin no, this is a taken from an article by frank rassiopi in the substack and I clipped out the quote taken in there.

James Cridland: 40:01

Yeah, yes, gosh, it's just yes. It's just yes, it's a, it's a thing, isn't it? Oh, yes, yes, claims that it's all over. What a cheery, cheery man.

Sam Sethi: 40:12

Anyway, moving on, James talking of financial numbers. Acast released their Q2 financials as well, and I just wanted to see well, I've titled this section what's the Real Story? What's the Morning Glory Taking Oasis, because ACAST obviously have a new CEO. We've seen Ross leave, ross Adams. We've also seen Emily Villate, the CFO, leave. Yeah, just something doesn't feel right. It's not passing my smell test and I'm not sure what it is. So tell me about their numbers first and let's have a little chat.

James Cridland: 40:48

Well. Their sales grew by 27% to $63.6 million. For the first time, the US is now ACAST's largest market, with sales growing 70% in the US.

Glen Glenday: 41:02

I'm particularly encouraged by the powerful momentum we're seeing in North America, which has been the primary growth engine again for us this quarter. In fact, for the first time ever, the United States was our largest revenue market for a quarter. While this quarter included some one-off costs related to leadership transition and our upcoming main market listing, resulting in an EBITDA loss, it's important to highlight that our underlying profitability continues to improve On the back of scaling revenues. Our adjusted EBITDA margin improved by five percentage points year-over-year to reach 3% in the quarter. This development clearly demonstrates our strong growth and enhanced underlying profitability.

James Cridland: 41:39

And that is probably the big exciting news, and why the stock market loves them is probably the big exciting news and why the stock market loves them. The number of listens, though, decreased and has decreased further. So they decreased last quarter and they've decreased again this quarter. Possibly some of that is due to YouTube and the fact that it's all over for audio podcasting, so maybe it's part of that. So you know the number of listens is going down, but they are doing much, much better in terms of revenue. So perhaps you know the number of listens is going down, but they are doing much, much better in terms of revenue, so perhaps that's the only thing that matters. They did make a much larger operating loss this quarter, but part of that is the costs related to the change of CEO and the change to the CFO as well. The company now owns 445 people, which is nice Not owns, but employs. You know what I mean.

Sam Sethi: 42:27

Yes, it's not the slave trade. No, you will come to work. Well, who?

James Cridland: 42:33

knows, but yes, it's been interesting because I get a lot of releases from ACAST. But one I didn't get was the fact that the CFO and Deputy CEO, emily Villard anyway, the fact that she resigned two weeks after Glendale's appointment. She's off to a global games company. Also after Glendale's appointment, matt McDonald ended up leaving. We discover he was Chief Product Officer at ACAST and he ended up leaving last month as well. He's had a lovely holiday in Sicily, which is very nice, and he of course came to ACAST through Radio Public, which the company bought. So there's quite a lot of changes going on there and I'm just sort of curious as to what those, you know why all of these changes. What do you reckon, sam?

Sam Sethi: 43:26

Well, as long as it's by mutual request, we're OK.

James Cridland: 43:31

I mean, I know that, ross. The reason why Ross has stepped down, it seems clear, is a health reason and we wish, and we do wish, ross all of the best. But that wasn't made very clear in the press release saying that he was going and the fact that you then get the CFO going, the chief product officer going, nick Harnett, who used to be their marketing and PR director. He has now resurfaced. He's working for Audio Always and his own marketing and comms company called Little Wolf Media.

James Cridland: 44:03

So I suspect that there's going to be even more changes to come in Acast. I suspect that Greg Glendale is going to make quite a few changes because it's a very different set of people. You know, all of a sudden the Americans are running the shop. America is where the success is 70% sales growing in that particular region. It seems like a very different company now than it did two or three months ago and I suspect that all of the contacts that we have will be whittled away because all of a sudden it'll be America running everything rather than it being run from Europe, and that seems to be a bit of a shame.

Sam Sethi: 44:46

Well, you know, they have still been pushing out the boat. Acast announced a global partnership with Magnite, which I don't know, but you may well know, James, that's allowing them to have the world's largest independent supply-side platform for advertising. That sentence means nothing to me, by the way, if I the way.

James Cridland: 45:03

Well, a week after Spotify made the same announcement. So I think we can possibly say something for that. It's essentially it's a big buying system that quite a few ad buyers use and it just means that Acast stuff will be available on there. So that's all you know. That's all nice, obviously, but yes, I don't think there's much interesting there. That's kind of business as usual.

Sam Sethi: 45:27

Now moving on then, James rsscom friends of the show and just for clarity, you are a advisor, so getting that out of the way early, I've announced something called PAID what's.

James Cridland: 45:38

PAID. Paid stands for Programmatic Ads Inserted Dynamically. Paid stands for programmatic ads inserted dynamically. Yes, and it's all to do, of course, with getting paid for your podcast. So typically, what has happened in the past is you need to be big enough for one of the big podcast sales companies to sell advertising on your show, sell advertising on your show, and that's fine, but it doesn't necessarily work for everybody. So what paidfromrsscom is?

James Cridland: 46:11

Firstly, it's available to absolutely everybody on the RSS platform as long as you have 10 downloads a month. I think most podcasts probably should have 10 downloads a month. I'm sure I've got a podcast somewhere that hasn't got that anymore. Yes, so as long as you've got that, then that's what happens. It automatically sells pre-roll, mid-rolls and post-rolls for you. You have control over how many of those are actually inserted and where they're inserted if you want them to be. So it's quite nice from that point of view.

James Cridland: 46:44

It'll be interesting to see I have a podcast on there. It'll be interesting to see whether that makes any money at all, but we will see, I'm sure. But I think this is a really interesting move, a really interesting plan. One thing that is worth knowing is that Blueberry and Libsyn also offer this sort of service. They have a minimum payout of somewhere in the region of I think it's $20 for Blueberry, $50 if it's Libsyn, and RSS's payout minimum is a dollar. So you are going to get paid faster, but I think it's very interesting. I think it's what we'll see more of is podcast hosting companies also selling advertising inside those shows as well, and of course Buzzsprout has that sort of thing, but not allowing anybody to buy ads. It's only ads that you will hear from other podcasts and that sort of thing. At least, that's all that we get, certainly on this individual show.

Sam Sethi: 47:47

Yeah, and look, I think the interesting thing was the $1 payout. I wonder whether that will remain when they start to see the fees that are thrown around, because that $1 will certainly be eaten up quite heavily, which is why most companies tend to bundle it into larger amounts, because the fees stay static, so you're not having $1.25 every time you do your $1, whatever.

James Cridland: 48:10

Yeah, I believe that the way that they have sorted it out is that the minimum is essentially the PayPal fee. So, as long as you're going to get more than the PayPal fee, as long as it's not just going to get eaten up, then you'll get paid. And I believe that the PayPal fee differs on individual countries as well. I think it might be free in Mexico, for example, and a dollar in the US. But, yes, worthwhile, taking a look at, worthwhile, seeing whether that works for you. If you're moving from a different podcast host to rsscom, then I think that they give you six months free anyway, so that's worthwhile. Although, why would you move? Because you know Buzzsprout is obviously the best place to have your podcast, with everything that's available on the Buzzsprout platform. Who?

Sam Sethi: 49:00

are our sponsors. Hang on, save it. Save it for the end of the year. We need that sort of script for the end of the year when we get renewed yes, steady James, when we desperately try to get renewed for another year. Too early, my friend, too early. Keep it in the back. Yeah, there we go Now whizzing around the world. What's happening in Europe, james?

James Cridland: 49:17

What is happening in Europe? Well, there's a top 100 European creators list. You might have looked at the time list, for example, but how much European representation did they have? A big fat zero. So now there is a list of European ones, except it's put together by one person, and I'm always sort of slightly nervous about lists put together by one person. The one that I'm really looking forward to is the big list that is being put together at the moment gets revealed at Podcast Movement, which is a top 100 podcast of all time, voted by more than 300 different podcast professionals and hosts, and all of that stuff that is being released at Podcast Movement and I'm really looking forward to that. I sense that there will be an awful lot more European stuff in there. There may even be stuff in there that isn't in the English language. Who'd have thought it?

James Cridland: 50:15

So, worthwhile watching out for that. That, I think, is being unveiled on the first day of Podcast Movement in Dallas in just three weeks. Also, the Lovie Awards. They have extended their entry deadline to August the 8th. That's a European awards, representing it's basically the European Webby's. From what I can understand, I think it's run by the same people and it recognises European internet excellence in the fields of culture, technology and business. Obviously, I own, you know, two Webby awards, so why would I need anything else but some good Breaking news, breaking news.

James Cridland: 50:51

Yeah exactly Some good reporting there from Andrea Koskaj from Eurowaves. Also in Canada, there is money up for grabs from the government Well, not necessarily from the government, but from a big indigenous organisation. They have given a total of 200,000 Canadian dollars, so that's about £1.50, to no, it's not two indigenous podcasts, so nine indigenous podcasts sharing in some of that money. So many congratulations to them. Maybe that's something that we should do here in Australia as well.

Sam Sethi: 51:22

I really wish it was £1.50, because that would mean skiing in Whistler would be cheap. It's not, it's not, yeah it is. Right now Jobs. I saw this one and I thought it might catch your eye, james. Netflix is on the hunt for a video podcast exec as it tries to catch YouTube. The podcast role would sit inside of Netflix TV and film licensing arm under Laurie Conklink Great name, conklink, yes.

James Cridland: 51:50

Yes, great name. Conklink, yes, yes. And Ted Sarandos, who is almost as likeable as Neil Mohan, ended up saying that we're really excited about some various shows that they are talking about, and a wide variety of creators and video podcasters might be a good fit for us, particularly if they're doing great work and looking for different ways to connect with audiences. Yeah, they will be a great fit with you if you don't pay them any money to be hosted on your service, like YouTube, like Spotify. So yeah, of course, of course, netflix would like some podcastage as well. So, yes, anyway, it'll be interesting to see whether or not anybody, or who, grabs that particular role. There's also a few other people moving. Alexander Damiano Ricci is leaving his position as chief operating officer of Europod, which is a very interesting podcast agency based in Brussels, and Anya G Spence, who was podcast marketing at Sony Music Entertainment, has now moved upwards as senior marketing manager. Hurrah, so that's a. So that's a good thing?

Sam Sethi: 52:59

well, just means that there's a job again for someone in podcast marketing at Sony well, maybe if they're replacing that role oh, okay, well, I assume they're not killing. That would be a bigger announcement. Sony have stopped doing podcasting. That would be a bigger ruck and awards and events.

James Cridland: 53:16

We have the first list of nominees for the british podcast awards 2025, which is nice. Those will all be announced in I think it's october. Yes, thursday, the 2nd of october. London's o Also nominees for the 2025 Earworthy Awards have been announced. Now, podnews itself doesn't credit people who get nominations because, let's face it, if we were to do that, that would be the only thing that the PodNews Daily newsletter would end up doing. But on this podcast, we can throw that to the wind, because not just one, but two nominations for the 2025 Earworthy Awards for this very show. Who knows why, but anyway. Well, I've asked that question many a week, but anyway, the awards recognise indie podcasts and podcasters. We get to find out who's won on August, the 26th, so very much looking forward to seeing if we've got any. Finally, sam, any awards for this little show to put in our, you know, awards cabinet or whatever.

Sam Sethi: 54:27

Yeah, I won't tell you what my wife said. Oh really Nice. Yes, yeah, thanks for this support, darling. Yes, moving on, yes, so there we are.

James Cridland: 54:39

What else is going on? There's the UK podcast consumer. That's exciting. That's next Thursday. That Edison Research is doing as an online webinar It'll be. I don't think that a podcast consumer has been a thing that Edison Research have done before, so it'll be quite interesting to see how the UK podcast consumer differs from the US podcast consumer, Worthwhile giving that webinar a watch. Of course we will cover that in the Pod News newsletter. I wonder if they're using Spotify's funnel yes, exactly, spotify Super listeners.

James Cridland: 55:12

Yes, spotify's funnel, that's what we all need. Or, indeed, as I was talking to Roger as well, the ladder I think we were talking about ladders and funnels with Roger as well. I know who knows what's going on and, of course, podcast Movement 2025 in Dallas and Texas. I have stickers you should stop me and grab one, but there's lots of exciting things going on there. I have learnt about OSHA, who is. They have on their stand something called Pod Wars Battle for Visibility, and it is a. The booth will let podcasters check how visible their shows are, which will be nice. So that's how visible they are in podcast search apps. Quite a nice idea. So if you're going, you should probably check that out.

James Cridland: 56:03

Also happening is a study called the Podcast Growth Study, with a couple of companies, strategic Solutions, research and point-to-point marketing and a few more keynote sessions being announced Tom Webster speaking and sharing some more research, undoubtedly, and the excellent Aussie podcasters Tony and Ryan will also be there as well. So it's going to be quite fun. I'm looking forward to it. I've just had my first email inviting me to alcohol, so that's nice. So I've said yes, please. So that should be fun. But yeah, it should be a fun time, and hoping to bump into Adam Curry, who, of course, is also speaking at the event too. Has he been upgraded yet? Has he been upgraded yet? I don't believe he's been upgraded, and I would understand why. But actually, how cool would that be to essentially have the entire exhibition hall being impossible to get into because everybody's watching Adam Curry.

Sam Sethi: 57:02

That would be amazing.

James Cridland: 57:03

I think that would be brilliant. So, yes, I'm very much looking forward to seeing that. And also, by the way, speaking about about adam curry, his new godcaster app is now available on the app store and that's that's an interesting ui almost as interesting as the two fans ui. They're both very interesting, right and yeah, and worth a worth a peek at.

Sam Sethi: 57:24

I'm gonna put that on my website, james cridland. It's very interesting, it's an it's very interesting.

James Cridland: 57:31

It's an interesting UI.

Sam Sethi: 57:34

Yes, I won't put what rating you put against it, but I'll just take it from there.

James Cridland: 57:38

Unconventional Exclamation, mark no no.

Sam Sethi: 57:43

Well, you know why go with the norm? No, exactly. No, have you got your puppies there as well?

James Cridland: 57:49

I don't have puppies, but I have just sorted out a very exciting bit of marketing for the Pod News newsletter, which I'm fascinated to find out how it works. So I won't tell you too much about what it is, just in case it gets taken away from me. But we'll find out what it is on the actual day. But I ended up having to approve some advertising copy. It's really weird when you have somebody else writing advertising copy for you, and the advertising copy that they gave me was a picture of a cup of coffee with a wolf on it for some reason, and then the line start your day, the pod news way.

Sam Sethi: 58:30

Okay, yeah.

James Cridland: 58:32

And I thought that's lovely, but could we use this coffee instead?

Sam Sethi: 58:37

So, anyway, I would say, yes, you've changed it.

James Cridland: 58:39

Yes, I guess, but yeah, but that's all going to be fun as well. One final event to tell you about If you speak Italian or even if you don't the Italian Podcasting Festival 2025 has been announced. It's both in person and also online. The online event is happening on International Podcasting Day. Alberto Batella will be probably speaking Italian at that event from rsscom, and James Cridland that's me will be probably speaking English at that event as well, and looking forward to taking part in that.

Speaker 2: 59:11

The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review.

James Cridland: 59:15

Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. And here's where Sam talks technology. What technology have you got for us, sam Well?

Sam Sethi: 59:22

potentially very exciting. Overcast Marco. He has been dabbling, it looks like, because John Spurlock would, wouldn't he Look at the code? I mean, come on, john, there's more on. Tv to watch. Go and get your YouTube channel out. But anyway, john, lovingly, has looked at Overcast Transcriber, which seems to suggest that Overcast is going to be adding transcriptions very shortly.

James Cridland: 59:47

Yes, I think what John does is for fun. He reads the latest unmatched user agents on OP3 to spot if there's anything exciting going on. And one of those user agents is, yes, overcast Transcriber, which is very exciting. If that's the case, then, yes, I would only hope that Marco is using the podcast transcript tag. That would be great if he did and save himself the hassle of transcribing everything. And also, while he's there, can you please turn on the funding tag as well? That would be really helpful.

Sam Sethi: 1:00:20

Shouldn't it be turn on again the funding tag?

James Cridland: 1:00:24

Well, turn on again. He didn't use the funding tag. He actually used a really nice clever sort of you know kludge before where he was just looking for Patreon links and supporting cast links and those sorts of things. So now that he's, you know, now that he's working very heavily on Overcast again, it'd be lovely if that feature would come back. I know that he said that very few people used it. That's kind of not the point. The fact is, people used it and the more that it's used, the better for us podcasters as well. So it'd be lovely if it was in there, Please, marco. Thank you very much.

Sam Sethi: 1:00:57

I think timing is golden.

James Cridland: 1:00:58

I mean, it could have been that it was so early that people weren't aware of what to do with it, and he was worried and also, I think he was nervous about Apple App Store, and I think what we can now say is that there is absolutely no worry about putting those funding links into the Apple App Store, because there are so many podcast apps which have them in there now. So, yeah, I think that that's a good thing. What else has been going?

Sam Sethi: 1:01:22

on A platform I've not used myself. Podsqueeze launches a website builder designed for podcasters.

James Cridland: 1:01:28

Yes, it's another company producing websites. The interesting thing about this one is that it is free, and so if you are a free user of Podsqueeze, you still get a website for that, so that's quite a nice thing. So that's going on, and also, rode have been busy as well, haven't they?

Sam Sethi: 1:01:49

Well, they've been busy, but I'm not sure I'm going to use it. So they've launched something called Road Call Me which allows you, if you've got a Rode Pro or a Duo, to update it with a free firmware update, worrying. Every time you do that Don't reduce my settings to zero and reset it to everything. I can't remember what I did, but it's basically an idea that I suppose. It's a bit like what we do with Clean Feed. I guess what they're trying to do is allow you to invite users to record a show remotely. It says it's got ultra low latency, studio quality remote connectivity and they've partnered with a company called vortex communications to do this.

Sam Sethi: 1:02:32

so the idea, I guess, is that if you've got a piece of hardware roadcaster pro 2 or duo- you can record and interview your guests and send them out a web link if they don't happen to have another roadcaster.

James Cridland: 1:02:47

So yeah, yeah oh, yeah, I think that looks really interesting and I would like to play around. So, yeah, either a Duo or a whatever. The other one was Quattro, quattro, let's call it a Quattro. So yes, I'll be able to have a play with that. But yeah, to me that is a very interesting move because it essentially takes away Riverside or Descript or any of those services, or, indeed, you know, clean Feed that we use from this side as well. So, hmm, yeah, well, if he doesn't.

Sam Sethi: 1:03:35

By the way, I happen to have a spare roadcaster pro 2 sat doing nothing. So what you're more than happy to have it what, oh, it's from your radio station, isn't? It.

James Cridland: 1:03:43

Yeah, I had a backup, so of course it's been doing well, maybe, maybe when I'm I I'm in london for two days at the beginning of set of the middle of September. Very happy to have that. So maybe, yes, maybe, we should catch up then. That would be a good plan.

Sam Sethi: 1:03:58

Right, Very nice. Now, Olby, it's the wallet capability, the thing that we all used and got very excited about with micropayments about a year ago and everyone was building wallets and doing streaming sats Sort of slightly taken a bit of a dip down recently, hasn't it, James?

James Cridland: 1:04:18

In fact, I got an email from them the other week saying that this podcast still references Albi in the payment tab, and can we please take it out? And so, of course, because I think I've put 1% into my Albi account here, which of course I now think, I've put one percent into my albie account here, which of course I now can't actually even get into, just purely for the stats. So I need to remind myself to take them out. Have they done anything more interesting?

Sam Sethi: 1:04:41

well, there's been this whole push towards bolt 12. And what and what's bolt 12? Okay, so the way that the whole thing am I going to regret asking yes, you are.

Gustav Soderström: 1:04:52

You shouldn't have done that you can edit this out later so bolt 12, it just simply means recurring payments.

Sam Sethi: 1:04:59

So the idea is that you get an invoice is the way that it technically works. So, um, when you get a payment, you're getting an invoice presented and I'm paying against the invoice and now you can recurring payment. So it's great for things like subscriptions. And again, this is really useful for things like hosts, who may want to set up a recurring subscription, for I know secure payments, I don't know. You know monthly payments, and now you can set up an invoice and that invoice can be paid and it can be automated and all these sorts of nice things. Now, weirdly, we we sort of built that into true fans in another way, because we couldn't wait for bolt 12, but it's there now if you want it, and it's.

James Cridland: 1:05:43

It's a way that hosts really could use it rather than apps more right, and if you want to learn more about bolt 12 by way, there is a really good website that actually explains it in an easy to understand language. It's at bolt12.org. And the exciting thing, as I'm sure that you'll be delighted to know, is that you can use Bolt 12 already on Bitbanana, on Plasma, on Lampo, on ROYGBIV or on Zeus. Yeah, catchy, catchy, lucky us.

Sam Sethi: 1:06:20

I would say. I would say look, the whole thing is quite useful. It's a technology that's migrating. So we've gone from KeySend to LNAdress and you know most podcast apps aren't supporting that yet. I know fountain does we do, I'm not sure on the other apps. And again, you know it seems like this technology is taking forever to come around, but it's here now and if all be supported as well and they support ellen address we just all have to update to the latest, greatest versions of micropayments and then hope people will now catch on and start to use it. But you know we've had to go two steps back to go one step forward.

James Cridland: 1:07:02

Yeah, well, there we are. That's usually the way of these things, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 1:07:05

Boostergram, boostergram, boostergram. Super Super comments, zaps, fan mail.

James Cridland: 1:07:18

So many different ways to get in touch with us Fan mail by using the link in our show notes, super comments on True Fans, or Boosts everywhere else, or email. We share any money that we make too. Now, talking about Bitcoin and streaming payments, as we just were, I mentioned this time last week that we'd had no mentions at all, no boosts or streaming payments at all. Last week. It turns out that there's a reason for that, and it turns out that the reason for that is that my own node lost all of its channels whatever that's supposed to mean and so, basically, it's been unable to receive any money. It is now able of receiving money, as long as it's not more than one set, because that's all that I've got left, weirdly, so I need to fiddle around with that a little bit more to get that to work. I've managed to open a couple of channels, now one to the podcast index, so that's nice, but I need to do some clever balancing now and it's all very complicated, and I wish that I didn't have to.

James Cridland: 1:08:16

But thank you. If you have sent us a message last week, just know that we probably haven't received it, but that's kind of you. Don't think that you shouldn't this week, though, because that would be very kind of you. We did, though, get a fan mail, and you can just click the link in our show notes. Thank you to Buzzsprout. And this fan mail comes from Idaho and somebody called Jordan, who I suspect is Jordan from Buzzsprout, and she says Sam, nice, save. I love your passion and conviction on this and I agree with James correctly.

Sam Sethi: 1:08:53

I've got no idea what you're talking about. This was sort of saying hey, buzzsprout, come on, host, what are you doing? Blah, blah, blah. You need to up your game.

James Cridland: 1:08:59

And then I sort of saved it with they've got all the parts, they just need to pull it all together well, jordan says a good portion of the attention needs to be on the adoption of features by the apps supplying them to audiences. Otherwise, why build something that nobody can access in their preferred daily driver?

Sam Sethi: 1:09:19

chicken meat egg, right. I hear this from blueberry all the time as well. Oh yes, no one's gonna do this until the apps blah, blah, blah. What you really mean host is we won't do anything until Apple do this, and that's fundamentally it. And this is Rob.

James Cridland: 1:09:35

Walsh at Libsyn. Good luck.

Sam Sethi: 1:09:36

Yeah, this is the. You know we won't do anything until Apple's done it. Blah, blah, blah. Right, If we all wait for Apple to do anything, as I said, ios 50, I might actually be alive for it. We in the podcasting 2.0 community have to take leaps of faith. Right, you have to decide. Yes, this feature isn't going to be used by more than one percent of people today because, guess what? That's where we are. But you know, we can't implement these things. We have to set a path and others strangely follow, like apple, then implement things like TXT and other things on the verify tag and Spotify do implement the namespace and start to support things. They are slow, but if we don't implement stuff first, then guess what? We will never have it. And it's chicken, meat, egg and so sorry, hosts. The answer is we won't do it until apps do. It isn't a good enough excuse.

James Cridland: 1:10:31

The answer is we won't do it until apps do. It isn't a good enough excuse. Yeah, and I also think you know particularly Apple, because Apple won't, probably won't ever, build a alternative to the Apple premium podcasts tool that they have written, because they earn 30% from that, and why would they? So I totally get that Apple isn't going to put that functionality into their app, but there's an awful lot of other apps out there. So, yes, it would be nice if there was a bit of sort of meeting in the middle at Podcast Movement this time round, and I know that there's going to be not just quite a lot of meetings between the members, but also meetings for anyone that wants to to go and have a look at, for example, how the location tag works Alberto is going to be talking about that, so I understand but also a bunch of other things. One of the things I've asked this week from Dave Jones is can we please have a clever API into podcast index that actually pulls the location information out? And as soon as we've got that, I've said I will write a fancy map of all of the podcasts out there in the world that you can then go and find podcasts based on where they are or what they're about or you know, or all of that stuff. Very happy to end up putting the dev time into that, because that would be great fun to actually see it from the other side of it as well. So, anyway, lots of stuff going on.

James Cridland: 1:12:04

If you find yourself at Podcast Movement and you want to make your head spin, then pop into the podcast standards folk and see what they're up to. And we should say thank you so much to our power supporters. There are lots of them. Weeklypodnewsnet is where to become a power supporter, like Rachel Corbett, who's very important and runs her own pod school here in Australia. Or Dave Jackson, who's very important and runs the School of Podcasting in the US, or Matt Medeiros, who's very important and runs thepodcastsetupcom. Yes, all of those people and many more are our power supporters. Please, if you can join them, if you get value from this show, that would be very kind. Weeklypodnewsnet is where to go. So what's happened for you this week, sam? I?

Sam Sethi: 1:12:54

had a. I don't know if it's an epiphany moment, but it certainly feels something that I've been struggling with what to define TrueFans as. Is it a marketplace? Is it a platforming with services? And neither of those terms really resonated with me. They sort of seem to be, you know, just the same old, same old as everyone else.

Sam Sethi: 1:13:15

And I sort of jumped on an idea called the value exchange, and I'm sure I saw it somewhere else. I'm not saying I've claimed it as something new that I've invented, but it seemed to resonate very well with me that podcast creators, musicians, audio book publishers, et cetera, are creating the value and on the converse side, you've got tangible and intangible value from fans. So tangible value is very obvious. That's streaming sats, micropayments, super comments, subscriptions. But there are intangible values as well, such as sharing, such, as you know, feedback, and so the value exchange is how I'm trying to now use around the word TrueFans, so I've used it in the way. True fans is a value exchange where creators provide value in the form of podcasts and provide value back in the form. Sorry, listeners provide value back in the form of streaming sats, as an example, et cetera, et cetera. So value exchange feels like a good term that I'm going to hang my hat around for true fans.

James Cridland: 1:14:17

Yeah, I think that's nice, and you have a fancy graphic which is one person giving some money and another person giving a present, and I think that that's exactly right. I think whenever people talk about value for value, quite a lot of people instantly start thinking about streaming sats and all of that kind of stuff. It really isn't. It's asking for stuff. It's asking for money or asking for time or talent, and you know and Adam talks about that very, very well every single time that he does talk about that. I hope he'll talk about that podcast movement where he's speaking as well, but that's an important thing.

Sam Sethi: 1:14:54

The other thing we are launching this week is the ability for podcast creators to buy space on our homepage and on Carousel. So that was just a nice little thing we added, and we put up our HLS live server now into beta, so we're testing the ability to offer live item tag HLS services. So if you want to do live podcasting, we will be able to offer you that very shortly. Very good, very good. Now, james, what's happened for you? I'm going to start off with the word ouch and then sit back and have a coffee while you tell us why I've said the word ouch.

James Cridland: 1:15:33

And I was looking at the word ouch and I was thinking why is Sam written ouch in there?

Sam Sethi: 1:15:37

And I was looking at the word ouch and I was thinking why is Sam written ouch in there? Anything to do with a car maybe?

James Cridland: 1:15:43

Ah, yes, Now. So I have my little brand new electric chariot which, yes, there was some hooner, as I believe the phrase is, in Australia.

James Cridland: 1:15:52

I'm sure that's not the word you used at the time who was coming up way too fast behind me and gosh, and I saw my life flashing between my eyes. Thankfully he managed to swerve just in time. So I just have a big scratch on my bumper and, yes, so I was rather, rather irritated at this guy, but anyway. So, yes, so my beautiful, my beautiful new car is no longer scratch-free. But you know, it's just a tiny little scratch on the bumper, so it won't buff out, but I'm sure that I can easily fix it without having to talk to insurance companies, because nobody wants that. Nobody wants that, no, the only other thing that I've been doing so, firstly, I switched web browser a couple of weeks ago away from Orion, which I was using, which is lovely but so unstable that it was getting a little bit frustrating. So I've moved to Vivaldi because Evo Terra said it was good, and it is. It's very good, so very happy with that, and none of the nonsense of Google in there. Also and this has got nothing to do with travelling to the UK in the next month or so, well you're going to profess your love for Keir Starmer in case you get

James Cridland: 1:17:04

stuck in a prison and also travelling into the US as well. Nothing to do with that. But what was interesting? I bought a subscription to a VPN. So I use Proton, which is fine, but I actually wanted a VPN. You know, use Proton, which is fine, but I actually wanted a VPN. You know Proton, know who I am. They've got my my you know credit card details and all of that kind of stuff, so there's a really easy link back. But I then thought to myself well, I wonder whether there's a way that I can get a VPN without actually putting any personal information in there at all.

James Cridland: 1:17:39

And I don't know if you've played around with a VPN called Mulvad no, it's got a picture of a mole on it, because Mulvad is one of the Scandinavian languages probably Swedish, I would guess, for mole, but really interesting. So you can buy a subscription with them. It's five euro a month, so it's not much at all. You can buy a subscription with them using your credit card, but obviously then they know who you are and your credit card knows that you've bought from them as well. So that's a thing. But also you can buy a voucher from Amazon. So you go onto Amazon, you pay your money and Amazon sends you through the post a very nice sealed envelope which has a voucher number on it.

James Cridland: 1:18:33

And then you go onto the Mulvad website and they give you a random account number. You then type in the voucher code in and that is literally it. So I don't even have a password for this thing, I've just got an account number which just works. Yeah, and this code which, so far as I can work out, is impossible for anybody to work out who that account belongs to. So I thought that was a really clever idea for something which is really, really private, of buying a physical voucher from Amazon. Amazon send that to you. So Amazon know that I have bought a Mulvad subscription, but they don't know which, because there's no correlation. And so, yeah, I just thought that that was interesting and it's an okay VPN. I mean, it's not brilliant, but you know it's as good as any of these things are but I just thought it was a wise idea.

Sam Sethi: 1:19:30

Yeah, vpn sales in the UK went 70% or more up through the roof this week.

James Cridland: 1:19:36

Yes, so I understand. And in fact, proton VPN, which is the other one that I use, that has had a more than 1,300% increase, week on week, of UK people buying it. Yeah, which is astonishing. Yeah, so Is this just so that you can watch dirty movies? No, no.

Sam Sethi: 1:19:58

But every 14-year-old's just listened to exactly what you just said and gone to go to a mole van now. Thank you very much. I don't need daddy's credit card. No, no, it's this age verification that the UK has put. I actually have a VPN US set on mine because I want to get hold of Meta's developer releases early for my silly sunglasses, but also it means I don't get bloody cookies everywhere as well in Europe, so I oh, the cookie banner yeah.

Sam Sethi: 1:20:29

I don't get any of those now because I set myself to a US and of course it just goes oh okay, you're from the US, we'll ignore you. But every time I turn it off and go back to the UK, I'm clicking yes, accept, accept, accept accept. And then it's like oh really, please.

James Cridland: 1:20:45

Yes, it's just it's such. I notice this whenever I travel into Europe. I notice that, firstly, some of the websites that I go to simply aren't available at all. So iHeartsInsideRadiocom, for example, which sometimes covers some interesting stories, that if you try it from a European IP address, it just says you're not allowed to have a look at this website.

Sam Sethi: 1:21:07

Yeah, exactly.

James Cridland: 1:21:08

Yeah, so I noticed that an awful lot. But I mean, you know, I suppose on the other side, the amount of you know, the amount of data loss that is going on in the Australian market at the moment is just ridiculous. I mean, qantas, my airline, has just spent you know, goodness knows how much time trying to clean up a big security hole of theirs, which has meant that people have walked away with virtually everything that can be used to identify me. You know my name, address, my date of birth, my mobile phone number. You know. All of that information has all gone, and this is after you know, I think about four other large Australian companies have done much the same sort of thing.

James Cridland: 1:21:56

So I guess you know there are things on both sides, but yeah, I mean imagine Google and Facebook being so delighted that now, if you want to use their websites to search for naughty pictures, that you have to send in a driver's license. I mean, you know Google and Facebook, so hang on a minute. Uk government, I mean you know Google and Facebook, so hang on a minute, uk government. You want us to scan all of the UK's driving licences into our massive system so that we can sell more advertising around them? Brilliant, no, that's absolutely fine. We'll definitely do that. They must be delighted, yeah.

Sam Sethi: 1:22:36

There's a really interesting new podcast out called Revolution Sosocial, from an ex twitter developer called rabble. Uh, he's I don't know who he is. In terms of his, his first two podcasts have been very impressive. Yeah, he's had jack dorsey and, uh, cara swisher as number two he was the person that hired jack dorsey, I believe.

James Cridland: 1:22:54

wow, okay, and, and interestingly, you, and interestingly you go onto their website and there are four different podcast apps which are being pushed Apple Podcasts, spotify, youtube Music and Fountain.

Sam Sethi: 1:23:12

Oh, very good, they're very well done. They've done well, haven't they? Yes, congratulations, yes.

James Cridland: 1:23:18

So, yeah, so it's certainly interesting seeing it. But, yes, no, I should have a listen. I'm a member of EFF, the Electronic Freedom Foundation, but they irritated me by backing Meta in some stupid thing that Meta was doing and, in a fit of pique, I said cancel my, cancel my account immediately. I'm not going to, I'm not going to give you any more money if you're going to support Meta. And they actually sent out a blog post the next day and apologised and said that they shouldn't have supported Meta in the first place. And then and then asked me if I wouldn't mind rejoining. No.

James Cridland: 1:23:57

So yes, see, you have influence, james, you have influence, yeah, well, don't know about that, but anyway, yes, we should possibly stop talking about all of that and tell you that that's it for this week. All of her podcast stories taken from the PodNews daily newsletter at podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi: 1:24:14

You can support this show. Maybe you can, we don't know. We'll find out next week with streaming stats. Who knows, who knows? You can give us feedback using the buzzsprout fan mail. That works and you can send us a super comment, which does work, but it just may not get to the other end and become a power supporter, like the 21 people at weeklypodnewsnet yes, our music is from tm studios, our voiceover is she D, our audio is recorded using Clean Feed and we edit with Hindenburg, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout.

James Cridland: 1:24:44

Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Speaker 2: 1:24:46

Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet. Tell your friends and grow the show. And support us, and support us, the Pod News. Weekly Review will return next week. Keep listening.