Podcasting 2.0 for March 21st, 2025, Episode
215, Traffic and Weather on the 8s.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome once again to the only show that
matters.
I don't care what you like listening to.
Is it politics?
Is it about AI?
It's all here.
Of course, if you're here for podcasting, you're
really in luck because this is the official
board meeting of Podcasting 2.0. We are
the only boardroom that makes guests bring their
own lunch.
I'm Adam Curry here in heart of the
Texas Hill Country and in Alabama.
The man whose static global hash map is
always up to date.
Say hello to my friend on the other
end, the one, the only, Mr. Dave Jones.
That went faster than normal.
I'm not finished tweeting.
It probably didn't go faster than normal.
It's the same every single week.
I try to hit the post, but sometimes
I scratch it, but it's always the same.
Yeah, that's what it was.
You didn't say my last name long enough.
There we go.
It's your fault.
It's my one day a week I get
to play DJ.
Yeah, especially since you hadn't done a booster
gram ball in like three months.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I'm too busy saving podcasting.
That's true.
I'll give you a pass.
Hello, boardroom.
Good to see everybody here.
Once again, everyone is all set and good
to go.
How's your week been, Dave?
Oh, it's good.
I found out I got a leak in...
I drove my wife's truck this morning, the
67 Ford, and it was leaky fuel pump.
Oh, no.
I hate that.
Well, I mean, it's got a 460 in
it, so it's already...
Why don't you just put the tank right
on top of the cylinder head in that
case?
Put it right in.
You know, spray the fuel into the blower.
She has a blower, doesn't she?
No, there's no blower.
I can just see Dave's wife with a
blower on top, big chrome job.
This is an F-250.
It's a 67 F-250 with a three
quarter ton axle.
It weighs like 8,000 pounds.
Is that a dually?
It's got the big axle for the dually,
but it doesn't have two tires.
Okay.
Well, you should get her an extra set
of tires for her birthday.
Hey, baby, happy birthday.
Here you go.
Oh, thanks.
Yeah, that's kind of needed.
I've had a bad afternoon.
Oh.
Yeah.
Well, my umbral, which I have...
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Installed under Ubuntu, but never upgraded to 1
.0 because it just all kind of worked.
I've been putting that off for so long
now.
Well, so the node quit and it was
kind of my backup node.
So I had, you know, I have two
channels open.
One from my start nine and then one
from the umbral.
And then I have a channel between the
umbral and my start nine.
So, you know, it's two routes, more or
less.
And lots of people, because that thing's called
Podfather.
So a lot of people connected to it.
And of course that stopped working.
And then like, OK, restart.
Restart the umbral.
No, nothing works.
Well, and this is where I went wrong.
You just typed upgrade.
No, no, it won't.
It won't update yet.
There's a whole process.
If you're not on, you know, if you're
on Linux, there's a whole process you have
to go through.
You got to export all your data.
Then you have to upgrade.
And then, you know, it has to start
for it has to boot from a USB.
My mistake was like, well, you know, maybe
you just need to upgrade Bitcoin Core and
the Lightning.
Yeah, that's it.
So when it came back up, not only
did that not come back up, it shows
starting.
But my vault warden also didn't come back
up.
Oh, so you run personal bit warden.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
How did that, how did that mess up?
I don't know.
That shouldn't even be anything to do with
the other stuff.
I'm assuming that's just a docker container.
Yeah, well, you don't know these docker containers.
There's all kinds of stuff that goes on
with that.
It's so I don't now I don't know
what to do.
Because now all my passwords, you know, and
I'm like, oh, luckily I have it on
the app.
And the app's like, no, I can't connect.
I thought the app would synchronize it and
it would just stick.
Nothing like single point of failure to make
your life interesting.
Yeah, my life is very interesting now.
But then for some reason, I have one
Tor window open.
Tor window?
What's a Tor window?
You know, a browser window under Tor.
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
And so for some reason, I can connect
to the vault warden with that.
But if I open a new window and
try to connect to the vault warden, it
says error in device or something, whatever that
means.
So this this means immediately export everything from
that open tab.
So I click export.
Nothing happens.
Can you see everything?
I can see everything.
I can search it.
Of course, I'm deadly afraid to close it.
I won't.
For sure.
So now I do have a vault warden
running on the start nine.
So I think now I'm going to have
to manually copy the things over that are
new since the last time I installed it.
So I'm in between like copy all the
vault warden stuff over and let this whole
thing die.
And eventually the channels will close.
And I can always, you know, it'll go
back to the node and I can always
get stuff off in the node with a
different wallet.
Can you control a that tab?
Copy, paste.
Well, unfortunately, no, because it only has the
entries.
You have to you have to click each
single.
It's no.
Yes.
Hey, you can't get it.
You can't get a page that just has
everything, everything exposed.
All the passwords are also hidden.
No, no, this is this this is a
this is a crop show, man.
This is really bad.
This is bad.
It's bad.
Don't you ever close that tab?
No, no.
This tab is going to stay open.
You need.
Yeah, this you need to you need to
encase this tab in carbonite.
Lucite.
Yeah, lucite.
Oh, man.
Anyway.
Well, it's kind of interesting.
I was listening to power.
Pop up a power podcast weekly review.
And I depend on you.
That's your beat.
Now I depend on you for that because
I don't ever have time to listen to
it anymore.
I feel bad.
It's not that I hate him.
It's not.
I'm not.
No, you're not.
I just don't have time.
No, but I totally disagree with them 100
percent on this episode.
OK.
Um, and there was something James said, which
did I say that we called this part
this podcast podcasting to point to piss off
Dave Weiner?
I don't think I ever said that.
No, we never said that and never did
that.
That's not true.
Maybe we said it as a joke or
something.
I can't recall it.
I could totally see us saying that as
a joke.
But, you know, that had nothing to do
with it.
So James like this project is full of
ego.
No ego.
My ego, my ego does not need satisfying.
This project is a project of love, baby.
It's all a project of love.
But they did have Matt Medeiros on.
I was not able to hear.
I didn't have enough time to listen because
I was, you know, messing around with the
umbrel.
And I can't mess around with the umbrel
and focus on a podcast.
That's very difficult.
Um, but this, of course, is, um, is
all due to the article.
Troublemaker Tom Webster wrote.
Troublemaker.
He's a troublemaker.
This is where you say, yeah, he's a
troublemaker.
Yeah.
Which I think I actually agreed with 99
.9% of, uh, of what he wrote.
And, um, you were smart enough as you
are because, you know, I listened to podcast
weekly review.
You booked the guests and you said, Hey,
I'm the booker.
You're the booker, baby.
Please.
Welcome to the board meeting.
Everybody.
The one, the only from sounds profitable.
The man with the golden voice, the pipes
of lavender.
Tom Webster.
You know, I, I'm, I keep going back
to, uh, vault warden and I have actually
not thought about, uh, my vault warden since
I escaped from a Burmese jail back in
1992.
This is what I mean.
This is a morning show guy.
He's got the voice.
You know, you need a couple, a couple
of sound effects and everything.
And it's not the same without your sidekick
though.
Carlos and the chicken.
Yeah.
All right.
Now I promised you when we got, when
we first started this off the air that
I was going to disabuse you of a
notion and this is going to surprise you.
Okay.
I have never worked in radio a day
of my adult life.
Well, this is a travesty and a loss
for the industry.
And you can see the results.
You've been in a radio station though.
Surely.
Oh yeah.
I've been in many, uh, you know, but
as a, as a consultant, as an, you
know, audience research guy, but, uh, like work
for a station, get a check from a
station.
Never.
Well, so what is your background, Tom Webster?
Uh, you know, it's, it's really survey research
and, and, uh, consumer behavior.
And I, I started, uh, in the radio
business doing that for a couple of radio.
Wait a minute.
Were you one of these guys, one of
these consultants who would come in, you'd have
the, the rollaway bag, the trolley bag, and
you come in and all this, all the
DJs would go, Oh crap.
The consultants here.
Were you one of those guys?
A hundred percent.
Oh man.
We used to hate you.
Like, Oh, this guy's going to come in
and tell us we're doing it all wrong.
You got to keep your brakes to 3
.7 seconds.
Well, it's given me thick skin.
I will say that.
I'll bet.
Okay.
Well, I have mad respect for you, man.
So when you show up, so when you
show up, does that mean a format change
is weeks away?
Someone's getting fired.
Your morning guy is no good.
Yeah.
It's never good when you see me on
the door.
No, uh, no, it was, it was more,
uh, to keep a, you know, a check
on, on how things were doing.
And, you know, I've done that in radio.
I've done that in TV.
I've done that in pretty much every major
media, but I've been, uh, exclusively digital audio
for the last 20 years.
Oh, okay.
So where did you start in digital audio?
Was that the days of real audio?
No, um, that was still kind of doing,
doing the thing that I do.
Um, and that was, uh, during my time
with Edison research, I, I joined Edison in,
uh, 2004.
I had, I had, uh, actually gone back
to school.
I went back and got an MBA in
consumer behavior.
So I knew what I was talking about.
And, uh, when I finished that, uh, I
went to work for Edison in 2004 and,
and, uh, ended up really building that, uh,
their digital audio practice, which, you know, podcasting
was obviously a huge part of it.
So this is the start of my 20th
year in podcasting.
Not quite as long as you have.
Oh, that's awesome.
Well, I'll have, you know, I have, I
have a degree from the Connecticut school of
broadcasting.
So yeah, CSB.
I know it well.
Yeah.
Uh, what was the guy's name who ran
that?
Uh, bill bulbous bill, we called him.
Did you ever meet him?
No.
Uh, I actually have never been on the
campus there, but I'm, I certainly met many
people, the campus, the campus, the assemblage of,
uh, domiciles.
Yes, exactly.
Exactly.
Bulb.
He had this big bulbous red nose and
we, and we just called him, Hey, bulbous
bill.
How you doing?
And he, I forget he, I was at
MTV and he said, Oh, come on by
and do a seminar.
I'm like, whatever.
Okay.
You know, I'm sure he loved that.
Oh, of course.
Bill was a great guy.
I don't know if he's still doing that
or not, but then he, he gave me
the, he gave me a, a certificate.
I'm a graduate honorary degree.
So here's another thing I'm going to drop
on you, Adam, which you did not know.
Uh, during that time, uh, when I was
doing research for, you know, I was doing
research for radio stations, for podcasting, audio books,
you name it.
Uh, at one point in the two thousands,
I did music research for radio Veronica, which
I believe, you know.
Yeah, wait, but I was gone by then
because you were, you were, you were, you
were gone by who was, who was your
contact over there?
Oh, you're asking me to remember something.
Unico, Unico, Unico glory.
Yeah.
How funny.
Yeah, no, this is, this is after, after
Veronica left the, uh, the, the literal pirate
ship, uh, and became a, you know, respectable
organization.
Yeah.
Well, I was there when they were respectable
organization, but this is when they went commercial.
They went, were they on am only at
the time?
Hmm.
I don't think so.
No, but again, what is this?
What is radio Veronica?
Um, you're leaving me out here.
Oh, I'm sorry.
So radio Veronica was one of the many,
uh, pirate ships in the North sea, um,
in international waters like radio, me amigo, radio
Caroline, and all the kids would be listening
to it on, on their long wave radios
because, you know, it's because obviously, um, you
know, people have to have high fidelity to
enjoy music, but no, that proved it because
there was plenty of FM in, in the
domestic countries, but there was, it was all,
uh, government controls and it sucks.
And so they, these, they were these outlaws
and the way you get into the public
system in the Netherlands, you have to have,
uh, an X amount of members and members
were counted by you subscribing to their TV
guide.
So there were literally 15 TV guides and
you had to be a member for, I
think, five guilders at the time, maybe 10
guilders a month.
And so they, they were so popular that
there were these huge demonstrations in the Hague
where the government system, like, you know, make
Veronica legal, bring them on board.
And so they just collected enough people spending
their 10 guilders a month, um, to become,
um, uh, an official part of the Dutch
broadcasting system.
And they grew like wildfire.
I mean, they had, they had, I think,
2 million members of their magazine for a
country of 14 million.
That's quite a lot.
At the time it was 14 million.
And, uh, and so that's when I came
in and they really only, they had radio
and that's why they had only Friday and,
but they were given TV too, and they
didn't know what to do.
So they said, well, we'll just do some
music on television.
That's how I started with the countdown show.
And then later they went out when you
could do commercial radio in the Netherlands, because
I think, you know, be careful what you
wish for.
Uh, so then they, they jumped out and
they went as a commercial station and then
RTL bought them is a whole mess.
The brand is now effectively dead.
So good work, Tom.
On the advice.
And it's, I was sort of consulting.
Yeah.
I was the Ted McGinley of radio.
I, when I, when I, uh, when I
came into your sitcom, you knew it was
in the last season.
So what's really, what's really cool now that
I hear all this backstory, uh, and I
do want to, I want to hear about,
uh, sounds profitable, but in essence we are
getting a $10,000 free consultant to visit
from a consultant who knows what he's talking
about.
Well, when you put it that way, uh,
$10,000 or however many Gilders, um, the
Gilder no longer exists.
A lot, a lot of Gilders.
Yeah.
There aren't any more Gilders.
So, so poor one out.
So when did you start a sounds profitable?
Uh, so I did not start sounds profitable.
My partner, Brian Barletta started it almost five
years ago.
And I joined up about three years ago.
And you know, when Brian started it, it
was, it was kind of an ad tech
newsletter.
Um, but we had this idea together that
we could build the thing that podcasting really
lacked, which was a trade association for the
industry side.
And well, and you, and you laugh because
yeah, you laugh because, uh, it is, it's
really been herding cats.
I mean, cats are more cooperative, uh, to
try to, to put an organization like that
together.
So we just sort of built the thing,
uh, until it got big enough that, that,
uh, we just kind of declared it.
Well, here's, here's an odd question then.
How come we've never spoken before?
If you're going to build a trade organization,
I think you would have at least sent
me an email.
Well, see now.
Not that I would have done anything with
it.
Well, there's a, there's a very distinct focus,
I think, to, uh, I think to where
sounds profitable started.
Um, and that, you know, it definitely started
on the ad tech side.
And that's, that's where it grew out of,
but it's, it has grown out of that.
And now you and I are talking, I
mean, ultimately my, my personal mission in all
of this, and I've said this repeatedly is
to do what I can to remove obstacles,
promote the medium and grow podcasting so that
it is actually a source of careers for
people.
I want people to be able to have
a career in podcasting.
And I, I, I remember a couple of
years ago I was flying, um, back home
from Toronto and I'd, I'd gone to speak,
I think at, uh, radio days, North America
in Toronto.
And I was coming back through us customs
at Pearson airport.
And the customs officer asked me, I was,
and I had global entry cause I've had
it for years.
Right.
And I, I'm going through the global entry
line and the customs officer asks me, what
do you do for a living?
And, uh, I don't know, I was possessed
by a demon or something.
And I just said, I'm a podcaster.
And he looked at me, he goes, and
you, you have global entry.
This is what I'm trying to fix.
Adam Curry.
This is exactly what I'm trying to fix.
Well, okay.
Thank you for clarifying that because, um, when
I, to me sounds profitable is I thought
it was still ad tech.
And so I guess it sounds like you're,
what you're saying is that it's, it's grown
into to be a different thing now.
It has, you know, I mean, we put
out a lot of, you know, obviously research
is sort of the, the hammer that everything
looks like a nail to me.
So we do a lot of that now.
Um, and it's, it's really all about insights,
advocacy, uh, and trying to promote, you know,
and trying to get in front of buyers.
And that is not necessarily your world.
And that's probably why, uh, we have not
necessarily crossed paths, but, uh, you know, we're
trying to remove the obstacles that, uh, brands
and buyers and advertisers have to investing in
the space because the more money gets invested,
the more careers can happen.
So who pays you?
How does sounds profitable become profitable?
Yeah.
Well, there's, there's two income streams.
One, uh, we have a very profitable, uh,
methamphetamine.
Oh yeah.
You have been on radio, Tom Webster.
You can't lie to me.
These jokes are too good.
These are good.
They're, they're not that good.
Um, no, I mean, this is sort of,
I think the, the, the genius that Brian
had when he started it, uh, there's a
flat structure to sounds profitable.
It's all partnership.
It's a flat 500 bucks a month.
That's it.
And it doesn't matter if you're SXM or,
uh, just starting out production company or, uh,
or, you know, an ad tech tool company.
It's, it's the same for everybody.
Wow.
Okay.
And what do they, and what, what do
they get for that money?
Just your, they get your, uh, industry, uh,
sort of inter engagement in order to build
the industry to then hopefully get to raise
their ship as well.
Is that the thinking?
Well, you know, they get, first of all,
they brush up against, uh, my aura, which
I think you're feeling now.
Yeah.
Uh, well, I mean, there's some, there are
some tangible benefits.
I mean, yeah, there are the altruistic benefits
that, uh, you know, supporting us is helping
to, you know, we've had a, uh, we've
established a major presence at South by the
last three years that keeps growing.
We're footing the bill for that and we're
getting, uh, all of our partners involved with
it.
So we're getting, you know, we're getting podcasting
in front of people.
Basically, we're doing all we can in non
-podcasting events.
Were you getting USAID money?
So, uh, no, no, I, I understand that's
hard and harder and harder to come by.
Uh, so we're not getting...
Podcasting NGO is what they do.
No, but do you, um, this, this is
interesting.
So if you are, um, so if you're
an advertiser, uh, you, you want something like
Sounds Profitable to be what the Podcast Academy
tried to be, but has regularly failed to
come to fruition.
Yeah, I think so.
I mean, I, I think, you know, we
are, uh, you know, personally in my, in
my career, in my speaking and the things
that I've done, I've tried to serve the
individual creator, uh, as much as I can
throughout the entire 20 years I've been in
the space.
Um, and you know, I've, in some cases
I've, you know, robbed from the rich to
give to the poor.
Right.
Um, but, uh, you know, ultimately in, in
almost any agency, there's a champion for podcasting
and we want to equip that champion with
everything that we can with, you know, credible
research, uh, industry insights to, to equip them
to be able to go in and convince
their, you know, whether it's the leader of
their brand team or an, or an advertiser
that the podcasting is a great place to
spend your money.
So that's a part of what we do.
Uh, partners also get consulting partners, get access
to our research database, which is this incredible
searchable archive of stuff that I've built.
Um, and they get access to private events.
They get access to our Slack channel, which
has over 2000, uh, industry insiders in it.
Uh, it's pretty active.
Um, you know, we're all going to be
a podcast movement evolutions.
We maintain a lounge there at all of
the major podcasting events that our partners get
access to, to, uh, you know, have meetings
and things like that.
Um, so, you know, we, we've tried to
build a community that at least shares a
common goal of promoting the space, even if
they have different means and measures to do
so.
So I'm sorry, Dick, I was just going
to say, it's being in the advertising industry.
It's like, it feels like being, um, like
a tax collector, like the people benefiting from
what you're doing, complain about the difficulty of
the process and the complexity of, you know,
the buying and all that kind of stuff.
And then the people that actually pay for
it, you know, by their listening or watching
the ads, hate the experience.
It's like, it feels like sometimes I'm just
imagining being in the advertising industry in general,
probably you probably get hate from both sides.
Yeah, I mean, on the one hand, you
know, I certainly want to promote the medium
and I want to talk about why it's
a great place to put your money, why
it's a great place to invest so that
creators can get paid.
On the other hand, it's not easy, right?
Uh, it, you know, we still don't have
great tools to monetize the incredible long tail.
Most of podcasting is long tail, right?
You know, and we don't really have great
tools to, uh, to open access up to
that in a way that's, uh, you know,
acceptable to a lot of advertisers.
And that's something I'd like to change.
Well, so this is interesting because when you
say tools, that means measurement, I'm presuming, um,
the, the feeling I've had for a long
time, and I, um, uh, I used to
be on the advertising or on the, uh,
advertising based content side.
I built a company, uh, didn't exit, didn't
do so well.
It was very difficult for a whole bunch
of reasons.
Um, I, I'm always thinking that, you know,
we started off with this horrible metric, this
metric called downloads, and that's pretty much what
the industry has standardized on.
And the feeling I get is that people
don't actually want to know the real numbers
of people listening because it will probably be
significantly less than the downloads.
Yeah.
You know, we've already been through a period
of time like that, right?
I mean, there have been a number of,
uh, haircuts that people have taken on their
download numbers.
And, and, you know, if you're with a
podcast host that adheres to the IAB certifications
for what counts as a download, right?
You know, minimum of, you know, X number
of seconds within 24 hours and yada, yada,
yada.
Uh, that, that measure gets better and better
and better.
Uh, what irks me though, is when I
hear these arguments from people and yet they're
still buying radio and have you looked at
how radio ratings are done or have you
looked at how TV ratings are done?
Oh, they're shambolic compared to what podcasting has.
So, you know, a part of it is
making them better.
Yes.
But another part of it is just like,
come on, wake up.
What's your real reason?
So, okay.
Well, that, that is my question.
What is the real reason that, is it
because they can't get a single source?
Uh, they feel more comfortable with a big
company like Google.
Uh, what, what, what do you see is
the real reason?
Yeah, I think, you know, there's the reason
there's the stated reason.
And then there's the actual reason.
I think the stated reason, uh, single source
does have a lot to do with it.
Right.
And, you know, I'm sure Adam, you know,
from your radio days, although, you know, I
forget what the authority was in, in, uh,
the Netherlands that, that was.
Right.
I know about Arbitron in the US.
Arbitron, which is now Nielsen.
And, you know, it is, uh, there are
pluses and minuses.
Yes.
It's a single source of truth.
Uh, but as a, you know, veritable monopoly,
uh, it's sort of difficult to make changes
for the better, uh, changes for the better
do happen slowly over time.
But, you know, the, the way that radio
is measured in, in major markets is with
a, you know, a little, uh, passive listening
device, uh, called the PPM.
It's like a little beeper kind of thing.
And, uh, the problem with it is that,
uh, the sample sizes are really, really small
and, you know, and that actually had a
major impact on a lot of radio stations
that used to survive with low audiences, but
high time spent listening, right?
Think like urban formats and smooth jazz and
things like that.
And, uh, you know, the sample sizes went
down with PPM and some of those stations
became untenable because they wobble too much in
the rating.
So there's pluses and minuses.
Now that's the stated reason.
But underlying all of that is the number
one goal of, I think the average media
buyer, the average, um, you know, sort of
brand team employee, the number one goal of
all of them is this don't get fired
and doing what you have always done is
safer than all of a sudden moving new
money into this medium that you haven't invested
in.
So it's, uh, and that's not meant to,
you know, sort of denigrate an entire industry
people, uh, you know, all at once.
I like to do it over time.
Um, but, uh, but it's, it's a valid
concern, right?
It's, it's a lot of times, you know,
in bad times, people, there's a flight to
safety in terms of what they invest money
in.
Um, and we're trying to make the case
with the research that, that we're doing and
everything else that podcasting is actually an incredibly
safe place to put your money.
So how do you get from that and
that knowledge to it's the apps?
Yeah, well, here's my concern.
Cause that's what you wrote about and I'm,
I'm in agreement with you for a whole
bunch of reasons, maybe different than yours.
Uh, so were you just, uh, shaking the
basket or what was the point?
No, I mean, well, I guess I kind
of was shaking the basket and I'm, I'm,
I was doing it really to shake, uh,
a number of baskets, right?
I, you know, I guess I shook your
basket a tiny bit, but I'm hoping that
I shake some baskets at the industry level
though.
Um, and, and it's really because of this.
We're not industry, Dave, we are.
You're not, you're not.
Thank you, Lord.
You're not, I don't, I don't think you,
I don't think you want to be, um,
but here's the thing, right?
You're all putting a lot of time and
passion into improving podcasting through the open RSS
standard.
And what I see every year is the
share for open RSS declining and the share
for closed systems like YouTube and Spotify, uh,
growing and growing and growing.
And I think a lot of people have
gotten hung up on YouTube, uh, being, you
know, really the number one source for podcasting
now.
And by any measure, I think people have
gotten hung up on the video part of
that.
And I don't think it's just the video
part.
Interrupt you for one second.
Um, Spotify is part of the open RSS
ecosystem.
I mean, I don't actually participate in myself
for other reasons, but you can just have
your RSS feed going to Spotify.
So technically that's a part of the open
system.
No.
Uh, I mean, are they, uh, how are
they doing with all of the, uh, all
of the tags you all are working on?
Irrelevant.
The content, the content, the content is, is
to me, it always comes down to the
content.
Okay.
So why work on podcasting 2.0 then?
Well, we started the podcast index.
Podcasting 2.0 is this show.
That's an important differentiator.
It kind of morphed into this is podcasting
2.0, but we started the podcast index
for one reason.
And one reason only is that Apple had
become the center of the podcasting universe and
they were deciding what goes into podcasting or
not.
They were deciding what content was okay.
And in fact, there was a, a recent
example of, uh, Andrew Tate's podcasts or episodes
being taken off of Spotify.
And we simply won't do that.
We're, we're just, unless you're breaking a U
S law, we're not going to do that.
So that's the main reason we did it.
And what came from that is all these
developers who had ideas who said, I want
this, I want this, I want this.
And then Dave and I never set out
to do this.
We just rolled with it and went, okay,
we'll kind of coordinate that and we'll see
what we can do.
And that has become colloquially the, the podcasting
2.0 group, but really, and you know,
with some apps that came along with it,
but there was never a mission of we're
going to do X, Y, and Z.
Other than we want to have an open
index where developers can come, can do whatever
they want.
And that's probably the most enjoyable.
And at the same time, most disappointing.
The enjoyable part is we've seen enormous successes
with, uh, music, uh, Ellen beats being in
my mind, a success.
Now, a success means a group of people
who are happy.
Um, the fountain app I think is a,
is a runaway success for the people who
want to use that and want to do
value for value and want to use the
lightning network.
It's they're, they're running a great show over
there.
They love it.
And the people who use it, love it.
And that to me is success.
I don't think we, Dave and I ever
had the idea of, well, this is going
to change podcasting knowing fully well that Apple
is slow to move.
And quite frankly, I was blown away when
they implemented the transcript tag.
I was like, Oh, I would never expected
that.
So, but it, but when it comes to
success, it's always the content that drives everything.
And that often is left out of the
conversation.
You know, it's like, well, the apps are
this now.
I mean, there there's only so many good
pieces of content that people listen to and
people want to advertise on.
And it's very segmented, just like everything else.
You know, look at the streamers, look at
the networks, look at radio.
There's so much choice now that you have
to redefine what success is.
And I think that's what I'm looking for
is what do you call success?
What do you call good?
And well, here's my, here's my concern, Adam.
And that is, and I say this not
as a slam against YouTube, but really as
an incredible compliment to YouTube.
YouTube has built a hell of an app.
And the podcasting industry has gotten a little
bit hung up on the video part of
it and not the every single other part
of it that makes it a great app.
And the more, uh, you know, as, as
people, more and more people discover podcasting, they
never have to download a podcast app.
They never have to even know that one
exists.
That's, um, that's right.
They're just going to YouTube.
And here's, here's my issue with that.
My issue with that is the future of
audio and with the radio industry in incredible
decline, right?
It has declined every single year for about
the fifth, the last 15 straight, uh, you
know, numbers under 35 are really, really not
great, right?
The radio industry is going down.
Spotify's focus is music.
YouTube's focus is video.
Uh, where, where are people going to get
the audio habit?
How is spoken word audio going to remain
a part of people's lives if it's not
getting put in front of them every day?
And increasingly it's not.
And so my concern is that the, that
the podcasting industry such as it is, or
those of us that have a stake in
it, uh, do what we can to showcase
audio and do what we can to showcase
the communities that can build around audio and
make those more visible, make them easier to
use so that people don't just default to,
to apps, which yes, you can get the
content, but that's not their main job.
It's fun.
I was, you know, if you think about,
um, you can make the case that Apple
is the number one defense against this thing
that you're describing, uh, but merely by the
fact that they have a, an app on
the phone by default that just, that is
called podcasts.
But I mean that so that when somebody
says, Hey, I was listening to this podcast
and here's the name of it and here
it was really cool.
And you flip open your phone, the first
place you're going to go is you're going
to tap on the podcast, but you know,
app, because that's what they're calling it.
They're calling it a podcast, but that's really,
you know, so you can make, you can
make the case in that framework that, that
Apple has been the main bulwark against the
sort of subsuming of podcasting into closed systems.
I mean, cause like I was reading your,
I was reading your article, um, uh, the
new one you put out this week and,
um, you made this comment, you said, uh,
that the shortest path, he said, uh, you
were talking about, uh, Matt and you said
he read my piece, had a reaction, then
took the shortest path from idea to audience,
meaning that he posted a video on YouTube.
I think initially I disagree, I disagreed with
you.
And then I did.
And then later I did agree with you,
but I'm not sure if it's for the
same reason.
And so, um, what did you mean by
shortest path?
Can you make a, define that?
Yeah.
So, um, basically all of the tools, you
know, Matt had an idea pop into his
head, right.
And, uh, and I've, I've looked, I've shared
this with him.
It was, it was not what I wrote.
So let's just establish that.
Um, but, uh, the title of what I
wrote, I think triggered an idea in his
head and the, he wanted to get it
out as fast as possible.
And the, and this was how he did
it, right.
It was very easy to turn on the
camera and, uh, and boom, all of a
sudden he's on YouTube and he's on YouTube.
Uh, it was easier to put his content
on YouTube.
It's easier to find his content on YouTube
and he has access to the largest potential
audience on YouTube.
And so without even thinking about it, it
was his default reaction.
And I'm concerned about that for, for audio
and for podcasting.
Okay.
Let me, I'm glad to hear you.
I'm glad to hear you explain that because
this is what, there's a lot wrapped up
in what you just said.
I think that for, when it comes to
sort of, um, uh, the, like debundling some
of that stuff into individual pieces.
I think some of those individual pieces really
matter because it would, because if you think
about it, um, what I was thinking initially
when you said that was speed, I'm like,
well, you know, I can, I can record
an audio in, uh, I can record a
15 minute audio clip, upload it to, um,
my podcast host and have it out in
podcast apps in just as much time as,
as YouTube as recording a YouTube video, perhaps
quicker because I'm, I'm not so concerned about
video edits, but then I'm like, well, but
here's the, it's really that last part that
you said, you, you said biggest potential audience.
And it's the last part that I think
is kind of the killer and something that
we're going to have to deal with is
that if I record audio, upload it to
my podcast host, and then it gets distributed
out through the decentralized RSS ecosystem, then if
I want to share it, I don't know
what to do.
Like it's that last step in the chain,
because what, like what, what Matt did just
as an example, you know, record a video,
post the link on social media to YouTube.
If I record an, if I record my
podcast, what link am I going to share?
I mean, episodes.fm, a direct link to
the Apple podcast web app.
There's this really hard, almost sometimes like impossible
idea of that you hit where you're like,
well, how do I, how do I get
a link out to this to people?
That's the benefit of the closed system is
that it all goes through one entity.
And so you always have one link.
It's always a link to Twitter, a link
to YouTube, a link to Spotify.
There's this one distribution link and podcasting.
You have all, what your best hope is
to get all these little badges for these
different podcast apps on something like episodes.fm
because there's one, there's no one single, like,
um, you know, we've complained about this before.
There's no one single handler for this thing.
This like podcast colon slash slash, then something
that opens your default app on every, on
every platform.
And so you, and you, you could say
that that's a good thing in the sense
that because there's no default podcast app way
to specify that per device, that it's kept
people from, it's kept YouTube even more at
bay from taking over podcasting because they could
just register themselves as the default podcast app
on your phone.
And now the thing that, you know, now
we're all screwed, but at the same time,
it just really makes that last piece of
the chain that you described.
That's, that's where everything seems to fall apart
in my mind.
Yeah.
And if I could, you know, let me
just kind of shortcut to the end here
a little bit.
If I could wave a magic wand, let
me tell you what I really want.
I would like, uh, the, you know, the
publishers and the people investing, uh, money right
now, all of a sudden to become video
podcast publishers to devote a chunk of that
money instead to collaboratively building an absolute showcase
app for podcasting that everybody promotes.
And right now, you know, a number of
the publishers have their own apps, but in
some ways, they're dividing up the pie before
it's baked.
And if, if the industry could collaborate on,
let's build a showcase for what podcasting could
be.
And that, uh, and that effort includes the
people working on the podcast namespace and podcast
index, right?
That everybody's working together for this so that
you have developers working to make the tools
easier for creators.
You have interface designers making things more, uh,
more sticky for consumers.
And we have, and we start to build
all of the trappings of the things that
YouTube has been perfecting for years.
And then, then we have something that really
showcases podcasting for podcasting sake.
And isn't just a feature on an otherwise
music app like Spotify, uh, or, you know,
or whatever it is on YouTube.
But I just, I feel like we're getting
distracted by video.
Well, okay.
Um, a couple of things.
So first some history, uh, in 2008, podcasting
was humming along.
I've told this story before people were like,
oh, this is great.
This is fantastic.
I'm listening to all these different voices, all
these different kinds of shows.
And then YouTube comes and Facebook comes and
Twitter comes and, uh, podcasting is page 23
below the fold and it, it lingers along,
grows five, maybe 10% year over year,
just kind of hobbles along.
Then all of a sudden 2014, 2016, uh,
we get cereal and cereal came at a
beautiful moment because we also had the streamers
coming in and people were showing up at
the office, bleary eyed because they had been
binging five seasons of breaking bad.
And here was true crime, arguably still the
most popular category in audio, uh, not video,
by the way in audio.
And you couldn't binge it.
You had to wait for the next episode
became water cooler talk.
Um, the most powerful sentence in broadcasting across
the spectrum is wherever you get your podcasts
and my experience.
Um, and I could easily, I could easily
go with ads.
It doesn't really matter, but there's 800,000
to a million people a week who listened
to the no agenda show.
And, um, we've only ever done audio, but
if you look at the stats for whatever
they're worth, um, 11% listen on our
website.
Um, 17% listen on pod verse because
I've talked about it and told them there's
a better experience there.
Um, but ultimately people are coming for the
content back to the pirate ships.
You could listen to all kinds of high
fidelity stuff in the Netherlands, you know, uh,
on your portable radio, but people would go
outside, aim their antennas to get the long
way version of the top 40 hits that
they weren't getting.
It's always about the content.
And I think what you're describing is a
place where there's the long tail.
So, Hey, you got some, you got something
that 10 people like you're part of the
long tail, you know, uh, the, the buy
makes more sense.
You can buy across, you know, this huge
swath of, um, of content.
It doesn't really matter what it is as
long as you get, you know, the metrics
done.
And I don't think that's, that's really what's
going on here.
Um, there's just like blogging, uh, people, you
know, people started blogging cause they had something
to say.
And then we had RSS feeds of blogging
of blogs.
And, uh, then it became like, well, I'll
just start a blog and I'll stick some
ads on it.
I'll make money.
And it turns out that really isn't, that
really doesn't work that way.
People want to read or listen to, or
watch things that they're genuinely interested in.
And even, you know, your example of push
button radio.
Well, yeah.
I mean, you, you, you don't have one
button on your radio.
You've got five or back in the day.
Now it's, now you have presets and, uh,
oh, they're in ads.
Boom.
Want to click over here.
Oh, I don't like that song.
Boom.
I'm going to go over here.
I don't like what he's saying.
Boom.
And you know, it's back and forth, back
and forth, back and forth.
Um, people come to content and content that
is desirable will be marketable and will be
interesting for advertisers.
Now that we've kind of gotten rid of
all the, uh, the deplatforming stuff.
I know you said a bad word or
whatever.
I think that's kind of gone by the
wayside.
Advertisers are smarter than that.
Advertisers are smart, but there's, there is no
easy way for them to buy because there's
not a single platform.
I think that's what you're describing where all
audio goes into.
And I just don't think that that matters.
It's when people want some kind of content,
they will jump through hoops.
They will beg, borrow, steal to get that
content no matter where it is.
And that's the thing that YouTube is not.
YouTube is millions, hundreds of billions of videos
of crap and an algorithm that keeps you
stuck in it.
And that's, you know, that's a great platform
to advertise on because, you know, people are
scrolling and TikTok does the same thing, basically
Instagram.
But audio is something that you sit down,
you enjoy.
And I believe that if you take out
the discoverability part, which you're correct on, there
is no real discoverability other than what's always
worked in podcasting is, hey, if you heard
that show, you're going to hear it from
a buddy that your research probably shows that.
Rarely do people search for, I want a
podcast that has X, Y, and Z and
it pops up and they're good to go.
The content is what is always left out
of this conversation.
I don't care if it's audio, video, or
a blog.
The content is what matters.
Here's the sad truth about that, Adam, is
that, you know, you brought up radio and
the five buttons and things like that.
And, you know, I can tell you from
years and years of looking at consistent data,
if you are listening to something at home,
if you're listening to something at home, right?
Most of the time today that we spend
listening to things at home, we are listening
to streaming or podcasting.
We are listening to digital audio, right?
It's well over half of what we're listening
to, right?
Same people, same universe, same humans in the
car, overwhelmingly AM, FM radio.
It's not just about the content.
People act differently when the apps are different.
People act differently in different environments.
It's just not easy enough in the car.
Well, that's what I'm talking about.
Okay.
Fair enough.
I think we're in a transitionary period right
now.
And Sirius XM, they were very smart.
They got all the car manufacturers on board
and probably a large initial portion of their
listeners came for the playlist.
We didn't really have an alternative.
We, I think we had Pandora kind of
at the time, didn't really have Spotify playlists
easy, which of course is, you know, secondarily,
it's killing the artist.
But then Howard Stern, he was the big
driver for Sirius.
And that industry has always been in dire
straits.
That's why they had to get together and
they've got expensive satellites and there's all kinds
of financial issues they have.
But they were in the cars.
TuneIn tried to do this with radio stations
and they found out that they couldn't really
make a business out of it.
The in-car entertainment manufacturers, they tried a
lot of different things.
And I think we're just now getting to
the point where people are plugging in their
smartphones, but they don't have a way to
get radio yet.
I mean, TuneIn kind of, but they, and
I think the, it always comes down to
the content in the car, which is what's
the time, what's the traffic and what's the
weather.
I think that's why people are tuning into
radio in their cars.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
And that is something that podcasting has not
cracked yet.
It's fun.
This is an interesting conversation because if you
think about one thing that caught my eye
over the last couple of weeks was this
surge to, you know, these, these number ones,
these charts from Apple and Spotify, they never
really changed that much.
I mean, Apple changes more than Spotify does
because it's more of a popularity trending chart
than a, than an actual total listenership chart
and that kind of thing.
But Spotify one, especially is just, I mean,
it's Joe Rogan.
I mean, it's Joe Rogan every single week
for years now is number one.
And then all of a sudden somebody else
goes to number one and that always catches
your attention because you're like, Whoa, okay, wait,
something happened.
And the Mel Robbins podcast went to number
one on Spotify and in Apple's chart.
And so they caught my attention.
I'm like, what, what is this?
I mean, I've heard the name, but I
don't know anything about this show.
So I go and just start doing a
little bit of research on who this is.
And, um, you know, find it, find myself
on her website and just start looking through
the content on the website.
That's about her podcast content.
And it reminded me.
So what I saw immediately was, I guess,
you know, this is a, this is a,
the, the episodes were laid out in a
sort of grid.
Um, and then all the titles were, they
look like they were right out of the
YouTube playbook.
So one of the titles was six sneaky
ways people are disrespecting you.
And then another one was, if you're feeling
uncertain and anxious, you need to hear this.
And, and the next one was get back
on track.
Five evening habits to wake up focused, recharged,
and in control.
These are all, these are, these are made
for YouTube titles.
And it's like, you know, the, the listicle
format, um, all it's, all it was missing
was like the shocked face thumbnail, you know?
Um, but yeah, it's like thing.
Yep.
Right.
But this, so what it reminded me of,
let me indulge me for a second here.
What it reminded me of is.
So I went to a funeral a few
years ago, the happy portion of the show.
Yeah.
This is where we jazz everybody up.
I went to a funeral, um, uh, a
friend that lives near me, um, had a
family member pass away.
So we go to the funeral.
This is this huge, it's at a humongous
mega church and I'm not a big church
guy.
I'm like, we, we've, I've never been in,
in a big church.
Um, and so in one, I mean one
like gargantuan mega church.
And so this is a church that's around
here and I knew about it, but never
been.
So the funeral's in this church and we
go in and then there's like the, the
viewing, the bot, the viewing of the bot,
the wake and all that kind of stuff.
And then later is the actual church service.
And so the viewing and everything is in
this sort of side, uh, chapel area.
That's, uh, on one side of the parking
lot.
And then once that was over, everybody walks
across, uh, to the main sanctuary, which is
gigantic.
And so, um, there's this, I become aware
of this like low level, um, there's speakers,
speaker systems throughout the whole entire campus.
And I get this, I become aware of
this like low level, like, um, note, this
just sort of like playing out, you know,
call it a, you know, call it a
C sharp.
It's just playing all the time.
Just so low, it's almost imperceptible.
And then we walk across into the main
complex and there's this, there's still this, this
note playing on, on, on this, uh, audio
system throughout the entire church.
We go in, we sit down, we start
talking, uh, we, uh, they start doing the,
you know, family start speaking, all this kind
of stuff.
And then at one point in the funeral,
um, the praise band comes in and just,
and, and goes into this, the first song
of, of a few that they played.
And it was the exact key, exact chord
to fit that note.
And it was just like, boom, right.
And you, you realize, I realized at that
moment, I'm like, wait, this is all orchestrated.
This is all one giant, like, this is
all connected.
Um, it's an, I've been living in for
the last two hours in a connected experience.
That's like so curated and, and sort of
like manicured.
And that's what I feel like with, with
what I'm seeing with YouTube and, and, and
its influences having a pocket.
What's happened is people have become so good
at seeing the YouTube algorithm and what it
wants that they've perfected it now.
Um, and now it's, it's getting pushed into
everything.
So it's like, it reminds you of that
Charles Taylor, the idea we talked about a
few weeks ago of every sort of paradigm
has built within it, uh, the ingredients that
will ultimately cause people to shift away from
it.
Like it's inevitable that like, like these behavioral
and social engineering tactics eventually will be discovered
and replicated.
And then somebody comes along and brings it
all together into this perfect package that just
like drives your brain off a cliff.
And that like, so that's what I feel
like is happening here is the YouTube paradigm.
I mean, we may be at, what I'm
saying is we may be at peak YouTube
right now.
It, if, if it continues down this road
where everything becomes, you know, I said this
on the, on the show last week is
I'm, I'm just as consistently disappointed in my
YouTube home feed as I am in my
podcast app feed.
Um, it just becomes like very quickly, I
run through a couple of things and then
there's just nothing else that interests me.
And I think it's because it's most, it's
becoming this kind of stuff, six sneaky ways
people are disrespecting you.
There's just tons.
There's so much of that because it feeds
the algorithm, but it also dries out like
meaningful content where, where people are doing things
other than just trying to juice the algo.
That's really well said.
I mean, I, I enjoyed that.
Thank you.
And, uh, it also kind of exposes a
truth, which is that I have trained myself
to speak at C sharp for years, um,
at that tone.
So I'm hoping that I thought, I thought
that sounded familiar, Tom.
Um, I, I, of course I, I thought
about you coming on and, and how we
can help and what ideas we can send
out there.
And I personally am someone who believes that
we have, uh, uh, that we've, we're stuck
in a direction of the inbox podcast app.
And I think that's part of the problem.
And I have advocated for quite a while
now.
It's like, have an opinion, have a podcast
app that has an opinion.
And I always use the Rachel Maddow app
as an example, uh, who has literally said,
I want, you know, how come I don't
have an app that shows me stuff I
want to hear.
And she, she nailed it.
I wonder if we still have that clip.
Um, she really nailed it.
Let me see.
Rachel Maddow.
Um, I don't remember what that was called.
Uh, but she was saying, Oh, the apps
are no good.
She was literally saying a version of what
you were saying, because what she wants is
she wants to see her shows pop up.
She wants to see Chris Matthews and, uh,
uh, you know, and Ali Valshi and, uh,
and the Midas touch and, you know, all
the, that's the stuff that she's interested in.
And there's a huge opportunity to create that.
And it doesn't even have to be AI.
You can just feature those types of, uh,
those types of shows and have an opinion.
Um, so that's what Fountain does.
Fountain has an opinion.
They have a social network.
They've integrated with Nostr.
They have an opinion about how you monetize
and that those money, then that monetization is
a comment at the same time.
Um, True Fans has an opinion.
True Fans wants you to come here to
be a fan of someone.
And we need, I think we need many
more like that, that, that content creators, I
hate the word, uh, producers can point people
towards and say, Hey, here's a great place
where you can, where you can, um, you,
you can enjoy this platform.
Now taking into account that there's really, and
you just look at the numbers.
Yeah, there's four and a half million podcasts,
but over the last 60 days, only 427
,000 have updated the last 10 days, 243
,000.
That's a pretty small pool.
And I'd rather be in that small pool
than, uh, than on YouTube.
But what if we made your life, the
podcast industrial complex is life easier.
And I'm just going to throw this out.
What if all of the modern podcast apps,
which account for, you know, if we could
get pocket casts, I don't think we can
get overcast for anything.
It'd be great if we could.
Um, if we took a stance and said,
Hey, we've got to change something about the
podcast, the advertising side.
And what if they all reported in actual
listen times into a nonprofit place where you
could then have actual numbers.
These would be numbers that would be a
sample, but it might be large enough to
say, Hey, this is probably what's happening across
the board.
Would that be something that the podcast industrial
complex would embrace and say, wow, now I
really know what my ROI is because I
know X amount of people heard my ad
at this particular moment in the show.
Or is that just pie in the sky?
No, it's not.
It's not pie in the sky.
Right.
I mean, you know, one of the issues
I think with the, uh, I have not
been to the podcast industrial complex.
It sounds like something in rest in Virginia.
You are the cornerstone, my friend.
What are you talking about?
We are.
Yeah.
We are a small company of four humans,
Adam.
I don't know that we are in that
cornerstone mortar.
You're the mortar of the podcast industrial complex.
We're, uh, I'm from, I'm in Boston.
We're the bubbler on the first floor.
So, uh, we're the bubbler.
No, I, you know, I, it absolutely would
help because you know, right now, again, with
YouTube and Spotify's share increasing every single year
in podcasting, uh, those are closed systems in
terms of the metrics that people have access
to, right.
You get access to YouTube metrics and they
define, uh, you know, a view significantly different
to how you and I might define a
listen.
So it would absolutely help and it would
provide some, uh, some safety and some clarity.
It's not going to fix everything because again,
there's a lot of inertia on the buy
side.
Uh, but you know, without a doubt being
able to have player metrics, um, and that's
something certainly, you know, we, we would love
to get more and more of from Apple
as well, uh, would help.
And it doesn't have to be the whole
universe, but if it's modelable, it can be
a proxy for something.
Uh, and it's a place to start.
What, what is your daily driver podcast app,
Tom?
Uh, for me, it's Pocket Casts.
Pocket Casts.
What, so what is your, if you were
to think of an idea, is it, well,
let me ask you this first, is it
Pocket Casts your daily driver because you think
it comes closest to the vision that you
laid out or do you, or is it
just sort of the best of the things
that you don't like?
It's habit.
And that's, yeah, it's habit and habit is
everything, right?
The habit and default thinking are everything.
It's why when somebody tells somebody about a
show and that person is interested in it
and they say, where can I find it?
The other person is very likely to say,
oh, just search for it on YouTube.
It's habit.
What, so what is your, if you, can
you lay out what your ideal podcast app
would be?
Yeah.
I mean, I think it has a finite
number.
Do you see it in your head is
what I mean?
I do.
I, I see it in my head.
I have a vision.
Yeah.
All those years that I was locked in
a vault in Burma, uh, this vision came
to me and, and to me, it, it,
it smells an awful lot like radio and
it is radio, but it is your perfect
station, right?
We can do that with music.
Uh, we need to be able to do
it with spoken word.
And, and I go back to what Adam
was just talking about, about having an opinion.
Um, you know, if I am interested in
true crime right now, I can either assemble
my own true crime network with, uh, you
know, a magnifying glass and a bunch of
searches, uh, or I can settle for one
company or one publisher's version of that.
Right.
But surely there's another middle ground there.
Surely there's a way that I could push
my true crime preset, uh, and it's always
filled with the content that I want.
Exactly.
Well, wouldn't this be a pot, an app,
just an app?
Cause I, cause when you said push button,
that triggered a lot of things in me
and, and Dave and I are actually working
on a project right now where radio stations
are now all moving to apps.
And I think they're right.
Uh, the apps that they have are pathetic,
uh, but they're moving to apps for their,
uh, listen live and, uh, on demand.
And, and, and it's successful for them in
many ways, you know, but as long as
they have the transmitters burning, you know, oil,
uh, to keep them running there, it's going
to be hard for them.
But wouldn't it, your push button be, here's
my true crime app and you open it
up and your serendipity and all the things
you're looking for is right there because, oh,
here's the latest episode of this one that
I'm already listening to.
Uh, here's something that is similar to it.
It would just be a bunch of, and
this is what the podcast index was really
built for to create these types of experiences
because you can do that.
You can, you can create an app, which
is your push button and it will feed
you stuff, uh, in a, in a certain
category.
Isn't, isn't that what you're asking for?
Yeah.
I mean, I think a lot of, uh,
you know, a lot of the creator side
of things is very focused on the lean
forward listener.
Um, and I, I want to also focus
on the lean back listener, not, it's not
a false choice.
Uh, it's a, it's not a, it's not
a binary thing.
Um, and I, and here's the thing, and
I, I listened to the show last week,
um, and I want to talk about the
daily sticky thing a little bit, uh, just,
just for a heartbeat, indulge me.
Um, and when Dave invited me to come
on this week after that, I thought, okay,
there it's they're inviting a vegan to a
steak dinner just to watch his face.
Oh man.
We're lovers, not fighters, brother.
We love, we love everybody.
Um, here's, here's the thing that really, here's
the thing that really concerns me.
Um, in the, in the article I wrote
last week, not this week's, I published a
graph that showed the conversion of people who
have, uh, ever tried a podcast to a
monthly consumption to weekly consumption.
And the ratio of weekly, not even talking
about daily, the ratio of weekly consumers to
those that have ever tried it, uh, it's
50%.
Right.
And that smelled bad to me.
And so I did a gigantic survey about
it, which I just got back.
And I'm going to talk about a podcast
movement evolutions where I compared that exact ratio
with 15 other types of media that we
consume.
And sure enough, it's very close to the
bottom.
And yes, Adam, you're right.
We don't, podcasts are not the same thing
as the radio.
They're not the same thing as scrolling through
your TikTok feed.
But if podcasting is, you know, 11th or
12th on that list in terms of actually
a thing you try versus the thing that
you make part of your regular existence somehow,
uh, then it's very forgettable.
Right.
And I, and I would like to make
podcasting more of a, more of a friend
for people because people don't fire their friends.
It's just, it feels like podcast, you know,
podcast apps originally, and they've always been this
sort of like, it's, it's the radio and
a little out of Adam said this before,
it's the radio receiver.
And, and your, the idea is that you
just like a radio dial, you're just going
to go find the content you want within
your app.
You know, part of the problem now is
the, the dot, this dial is now 4
million ticks long, you know?
So you, I mean, it takes like 20,
you know, 20 years to, to find the,
the thing you want if you're starting from
scratch with nothing.
Um, but you know, the, I guess, I
guess is there, you know, from that, from
that standpoint, there's no, you're not really the
entry point.
It's not surprising what you're saying because the
entry point into podcast, anything really, it, it's
difficult.
It really is just that podcast icon on
your iPhone.
Because I mean, the whole debate about what
is a podcast is, is tedious and, and
it's boring.
Um, I mean, really it's, if you, to
me, if you say that, if you call
your show a podcast, then when I opened
my podcast app, it should be there.
That's the bottom line.
Yeah.
If it's not, then it's not, it's like
turning on the radio and this radio show
is not the then, you know, it's not
a radio show, but it feels like if
you're, whether you land on YouTube or whether
you land in a podcast app, eventually, if
you intro into podcasting through some route, eventually
you're going to hit a show that's not
on YouTube.
And so you're going to go have to
go find it somewhere else.
And that somewhere else is going to weave
you back to some sort of podcast app.
And then you're in the ecosystem in some
way.
Um, I don't know if that's ideal, but
I don't also don't know if it's avoidable.
You know, so, so Dave and I have
an interesting proof of concept where we are
creating, it's an, for all intents and purposes,
it's a specific podcast app.
You can get it on a webpage, but
you can also, there's an app coming as
well.
You can get it in an app and
it's specific to geographic location.
And so I'll just take my own hellofred
.fm as an example.
So I have, um, and just, just call
it an app cause it will be, but
it's on a webpage right now and it
has a live stream.
The live stream is music exactly like K
-Love and there's promos for podcasts that are
in this app.
And the results of that is that of
the 100 people a day who listen now,
100 of those no longer listen to K
-Love.
They listen to Hello Fred here in Fredericksburg.
Why?
And there's my app before.
Why?
Because they get the same music, but it's
all, it has local content.
The most important thing of that, by the
way, for them is it's 73 degrees right
now on main street in Fred.
But I find that they all are very
happy because they know that if they want
to find the latest podcast from something in
Fredericksburg, they go to this app and they
don't care if it's on their phone.
They don't care if it's on a webpage.
They don't care if it's on, uh, on
hellofred.fm. They don't care if it's on
the church website.
They, and they all say the same thing.
I love it because all the stuff I
want from local from here is right there.
I don't have to think about it.
I have to search about it.
And so that's an app with an opinion.
And I, and I, and the response I've
gotten just from a few times, like I
said, on Rogan, like I think hyperlocal podcasts
is the way to go.
I have hundreds, hundreds of emails from people
saying, wow, I never considered that.
I never considered I could just do a
podcast for my town, for my community, for
my section of the city.
I had to write up a page for
people to tell them how to get started,
hyperlocalpodcast.com.
And then of course, directly point them to
Dave Jackson school of podcasting because I can't,
I can't teach everybody how to podcast.
Um, I think there's a shift taking place
now.
I don't know if it helps the advertising
side of it, um, but it may for
local advertising.
But again, we've, we've gone astray.
We've been stuck in our same inbox model,
which can be handy if you just want
to find something.
But most people hear about something from their,
from their neighbor, from their friend, from their
family member.
And the serendipity and the discovery is in
a very small set of things that someone
else has programmed.
If it's a specific experience, which we should
have a hundred of by now.
Yeah.
Right down to, um, you know, and I
can see you can have the true crime
app.
You can have the true crime with Gore
app.
You can have the true crime with, you
know, with, uh, only, uh, people getting out
of jail after 20 years.
There's a million different experiences we can build.
And now it come now, this is the
big one.
It all comes back to what's in it
for the app developer.
This is our major problem.
App developing an app is hard.
It's, it's tedious.
It sucks ass.
It's a time suck.
It removes you from your family.
Um, there's, and the platforms pull the rug
out from under you at regular intervals.
There's that happens too.
Um, although I, you know, I, I, yes,
it happens.
Um, so this is the problem.
We're either developing stuff for love because we
want to build this.
And then, and I, I think most of
the podcast apps that have a premium version,
I think they're reasonably successful.
It keeps them, you know, I don't think
know anyone who's quit their day job except
for the fountain guys, but they did get
a, they did raise, uh, some investment money.
Um, that that's, that's the problem who is
going to build.
And we've been, Dave and I, we've been
talking about this for a year and it's
not happening because there's no money in it.
And people are struggling just to build the
app itself.
We've made it very easy or much easier
with the podcast index.
You don't have to do a lot of
the heavy lifting, but how do we stimulate
that growth?
If it's the advertisers who want something, then
they need to pony up.
Yeah.
I mean, your favorite podcast, like Tom's favorite
podcast app, uh, pocket cast.
I mean, they, they really had hard times.
It's, they were lucky to survive financially when
WordPress bought them.
I mean, I feel like they were on
their last legs because of, you know, NPR
and all those kinds of things that happened
with their history.
It's, it's not, especially at their scale, that's
not, it's not cheap.
And yeah, it really comes down to what
we said a few weeks ago.
I mean, there's you with, within podcasting, there's,
there's this, um, you know, feast or famine
thing.
I mean, you're, you're not, you're either going
to be doing it for the love of
it, you know, or you're going to be
doing it for, for, for, you know, or
it's a full-time gig and you're making
plenty of dough.
It's, there's really no in between.
Well, I'll tell you the, the, uh, the
thing that can, it concerns me and I
want to step back just, uh, societally here,
because I, I, Adam, I agree with a
lot of what you were just talking about.
Um, my, you know, one of my concerns
about, uh, you know, again, circling back to
Dave, you talking about the, you know, optimizing
for the YouTube algorithm and all of that
is it sort of creates one country, right?
And we have been through this before.
It, it's something, uh, I've, I call it
the Donny Iris problem.
And, you know, Adam, as a, as an
ex DJ, you may remember Donny Iris who
had hit, uh, Alia, right.
And, uh, when I, so I've done programming
research for 30 years and, or, you know,
back when I started, uh, doing a lot
of research for radio stations in the radio
industry, there were massive regional differences in music.
And like at any time you would do
a music test in Pittsburgh, Donny Iris was
number one, right?
Those days are gone.
And the regional differences in musical tastes have,
have disappeared.
Uh, that that's happened because of centralized playlists,
uh, it's happened because of the kind of,
you know, uh, spot of spotification of, of,
uh, of playlists and national tastes and things
like that.
Um, you know, when Ed Sheeran puts out
a new album, all 20 tracks become the
top 20 on Spotify, that kind of thing.
Uh, and so, you know, regional tastes actually
disappear and that's not a good thing.
Um, and so when you talk about apps
with an opinion, a podcast app with an
opinion or something that's hyperlocal, uh, now's the
time.
Because those distinctions will disappear, right?
If it doesn't matter where you're from, if
you don't feel a connection, uh, to your
local community, uh, then we are all going
to get our media in the same way.
And we are all going to start making
the same choices and it's going to be
increasingly difficult to break out.
But what happens then, and this is what,
what I'm seeing, what we're seeing is there
is an incredible hunger for it because radio
specific radio's problem is not necessarily digital audio.
Radio's problem is they've given up on local.
Facebook has eaten up all the advertising from
the local retailers.
So they've, they've given up that it's, you
know, Elvis Duran used to be the guy
in New York now is in 15 markets.
So the only localized part from New York
is C100 New York and it's 73 degrees.
That's it.
And I think people still tune in for
the 73 degrees part and your local traffic,
et cetera.
Um, but I have proof, I have proof
that people are desiring something that is local
for them and, and it can be all
kinds of, I mean, we have a guy
here who does a five minute weekly podcast
about what's happening in the state Capitol.
And why do people like it?
Because it's Matt, we all know Matt.
He's a, he's mad.
He walks around as Ben Franklin on July
4th and he does that.
And so, you know, and, and if I,
I'm not doing it, but I know I
could go out to retailers and say, I
have a hundred people a day from Fredericksburg
listening.
I can get money for that.
I can sell that.
I don't, I don't desire it.
I don't want to, I don't have to,
but I could if I needed to.
Um, so going back to local and having
an opinion and somehow, somehow creating these, and
maybe it doesn't have to be an app.
I'm, you know, I'm just seeing that it
doesn't have to be an app per se.
People will type in to what they think
is their phone.
You know, I got duck, duck, go.
Do you have a browser?
No, but I got duck, duck, go.
Okay.
And they type in, you know, hello, Fred,
D O T F M.
They don't even know how to type in
a URL anymore.
And like, oh, there it is.
Click, boom.
Oh, there it is.
Listen.
And there are, they're already off listening on
experience.
They don't realize that it's a, it's a
PWA or it's just a webpage.
They're able to listen to something.
They can lock their screen.
They can connect it with Bluetooth.
That's a stretch, but they do.
Um, if they're, if they're serious enough about
it, but they have to be interested in
it and it only comes from experiences that
capture people in that moment, but it's all
going to be fragmented.
The idea of a podcast app is your
radio.
I think that's just over.
I've said this many times.
It's just over.
You know, and yeah, YouTube, you know, the
algorithm is kind of your, your app within
an app, right?
You know, that's, well, I mean, think about
it, think about it this way.
I mean, if you have right now, there's
four and a half million, you know, total
podcasts in the index, you know, we, and
we, we understand that not all those update,
but there's that's four and a half million.
Imagine some future scenario where there's, where there's
a hundred million.
Now there really is no way to centrally
handle all this stuff.
I mean, there, it just becomes, you, you're
gonna be forced in that room, you know,
in that scenario to, um, like niche yourself
because there's no, there's not going to be
a backend that has a hundred, 150 million,
200 million podcast directory for you to search
through.
Um, it's all, it's really only doable right
now because it's small.
By the way, I volunteer to do a
daily, uh, traffic report for hello, Fred with
fake, fake helicopter noise.
You're in, you're in, you're in flying above.
I'm flying above Fredericksburg right now.
You're in.
Yeah.
I mean, we can man the mic for
every, uh, for every, uh, hurricane.
Yes.
I mean, I've all fake high school basketball
games.
Well, well, just so you know, the kids,
uh, at the local high school, they're creating
a podcast for hello, Fred.
And it's about the Fredericksburg Billies, our award
-winning girls basketball team.
And they're just, they're just going to put
together a podcast and they love it.
They're fine with it.
And you know what they love the most?
Like people come up and say, Hey, I
heard, I heard your podcast.
It's so much more than a like, or
a thumbs up, et cetera.
So the landscape is clearly changing.
I think the most, the biggest breakthrough that
could happen for digital audio would be for
all podcast apps to use the lit tag,
the live item tag live.
Yeah.
It's astounding what kind of an experience that
is when you can listen, you can, you
can select, I mean, I've been doing live
streaming, uh, no agenda for almost 17 years.
And, you know, we have bat signals and
stuff fires off and the podcast and people
get the podcast apps just for that.
Like, Oh, well, when they, when the, when
the boys go live, then I get an
alert and I tap on it and my
podcast opens up and boom, I'm good to
go.
You know, when you just check in with
pocketcasts on that and see where the, because
that's something that they would be riding up
their alley.
They've added a lot of 2.0 features
that the live seems like a missing component.
Yeah.
Apple should add it.
I mean, they, they could, they could capture
the entire radio system.
Everybody could shoot down the transmitters overnight.
Well, cause then you get your, then you
get your traffic and your weather right there
I mean, you know, you get all that
stuff because it's live.
Yeah.
And then, you know, the combination of having
a live stream in an RSS feed with
podcasts, whether it's all the same or whether
like we're doing where you, you have a
feed of different podcasts that have been selected
for you in the most recent episode is
available.
These are the types of things that we
have to be thinking about.
And so as far as podcasting 2.0
goes, whatever we want to call it, it's
really about the app development.
You're right, but it's not about the features.
It's about the opinions.
Well, I think it's about shared experience.
And that I think is what live offers
you.
That's one path to shared experience.
Whether that's, you know, the comments section on
YouTube or, or everybody, you know, kind of
checking in a chat in a chat room
that they're sharing an experience and it's when
an experience is shared in real time that
it has velocity, right.
And then it just doesn't sort of languish.
So, uh, you know, finding ways to make
podcast content, uh, more vital and, uh, you
know, that, that sort of knocks on your
door a little bit more aggressively and, and,
and gives you that kind of shared experience,
I think are all good things.
Maybe we're approaching this from the wrong direction.
Maybe the hosting companies should be doing more
of this work with app developers.
Hmm.
You know, maybe, well, yeah, yeah.
I mean, thinking about it in that regard,
like if, if the issue is the apps
aren't, if you may, if you make an
app experience, wonderful people will, people will talk
about the app experience and they'll, they won't
just talk about content.
They'll be like, Hey, you need to check
out this app because this app is giving
me a great experience.
And radio gives you live podcast apps, give
you on demand, but there could easily, now
that we have this live technology in 2
.0, there could easily be apps can easily
add the live component in.
And so, and then now you get both
in the pod in, in your app.
And now you've got, now, now you really
do have a sort of like a, this
natural transition over to, and, but see, that's
where YouTube is hamstrung because they're not going
to do the small niche live thing.
I mean, that's going to be a local,
those are going to be local podcasters doing,
you know, doing, doing their thing because it's
for the love of it.
They're not going to, they're not going to
get, they're not doing this for ad for,
for RevShare or whatever through YouTube.
That really could be a way to drive
podcasting, the podcasting apps as a sort of
unique experience.
Well, I'll, and I agree and I'll add
to that.
And I, I kind of forget because it's
so normal for me.
Whenever I'm doing a podcast, I'm always looking
to the right out of the corner of
my eye because there's the, in this case,
the boardroom during no agenda, it's called the
troll room.
And that is an ephemeral experience that people
just completely.
So on a show day, we have anywhere
from two to 3000 people listening live.
And a portion of that is in our
chat room, which is just an IRC chat.
It just scrolls by, you know, it's like,
it's, you know, someone says something horrible.
I don't have to worry about it because
it'll be gone in five seconds.
And, you know, we have a tag for
that actually.
It's never been implemented.
I don't know why, historical reasons.
But these types of these types of things,
even a replay of that, I mean, it's,
it's all, it can all be built, but
there's only so many app developers and they
are set in their particular path.
And I think it's scary for them to
change, honestly.
And, you know, the more I think about
it, the more I'm thinking, why isn't Buzzsprout
the media company?
Why aren't they, why aren't they, why aren't
they attracting people like, hey, be on our
true crime app?
That's interesting.
You know, they, they, they have the money.
Yeah.
They are the, those companies most consistently have,
have revenue out of the whole deal.
You know, I'm thinking about, you know, the
troll room and things like that.
And, you know, I don't know how many
research webinars I've done in my life, you
know, a thousand, uh, and I always do
them live and I always pay attention to
the chat room and, you know, at least
two or three times in the course of
a webinar, I'll acknowledge somebody saying something in
there.
And it doesn't take much.
Ultimately, people want to feel seen, they want
to feel seen, they want to feel special.
And if there are ways that we can
do that in podcasting, I don't think it's
a, it's a very difficult lift.
Just hasn't been tried a lot, right?
It is part of live.
It's a part of the live show, certainly
that you do.
Uh, but it's, you know, it has to
become more a part of podcasting.
If we're going to continue to create that
shared experience that people want to gather around
the water cooler or whatever it is and
start to talk about what we do because
no one else is coming to save us.
You're, you're caller number 12.
Well, uh, we'll give you a, we'll give
you that experience right now, Tom, as we
are about to thank some people who've been
boosting during the show, which is actually sending
us money.
It's sending us money through the lightning network.
It's Bitcoin, which, uh, James Cridland says is
a Ponzi scheme.
So hang in there and see how it
works because people feel special.
When I call out Cole McCormick with 11,
11 sats coming in from fountain says I'm
live streaming Sunday nights.
He's promoting something.
I've been enjoying it more and more each
time I do it.
Yeah.
All right, Cole.
Uh, Marta Linda's code 1701.
That would be the enterprise boost.
Did the super comment spaceship booster Graham arrived
to your spaceship location?
Why?
Yes, it did.
He says, go pirate radio, free radio, uh,
from my ego netcast site, free radio history
and pirate radio, uh, radio North Sea.
Okay.
That by the way, that's live interaction, Tom.
That is boobery who just boosted 17,776
Satoshis, which is about 16 bucks.
Then he says we're wrapping up the first
season of the skirmish with the satellite skirmish
streaming lit May 10th, 2025, four bands, longer
sets, new artwork.
And mama Bury is joining the fray as
a boost alert artist.
Beware of the blooms.
And Eric PP just came in with 33
33.
Yeah, this, this is, this is see people
can trigger these sounds live.
I don't know if you ever listened to
our show, but they can.
Yes, I am aware of that.
Yeah.
Which you might've heard beeping here and there,
uh, 22, 22 from salty crayon.
Dave, here's your beef Wagyu sticks courtesy of
the beef initiative family owned and operated founded
by first-generation farmers Sawyer and Abby Cottrell
in 2021 transitioning from commercial Angus to premium
Wagyu cattle, beef, beef initiative.com as a
whole long URL there, which you can find
on fountain.
TJ band name, the beef initiative.
Yeah, well, the beef initiative.
Yeah, that's a good band name.
That's sort of like a punk version of
the style council.
Oh, poor Paul Weller.
One 11 sats from sir.
TJ.
The wrathful don't know how you pick that
Christian music plays on your hello Fred stream,
but you should check out the DC talks
album.
Jesus freak.
One of my top favorite Christian rock albums.
Door fulls are around just busy surviving.
Thank you for your courage.
Okay.
I'll check that out.
Thank you.
202 from salty crayon bat signal activated.
Yes, of course.
And we're glad that you caught that.
And I hit the delimiter there with comic
strip bloggers.
So Dave will thank some of the people
who have supported us with the PayPal's and
the monthly's.
Yeah, we got one.
We got one PayPal this week from the
guys at buzzsprout $1,000.
Now you're talking.
Shot Carla 20 is blaze on the Impala.
How many?
How many CPMs would you have to have
for that?
Tom Webster.
I'm really bad at math.
CPM CPM math go.
Yeah, I'm really bad at math.
So don't ask me that.
We got a couple of boosts.
Thank you.
And we're and I've pinged Tom and Kevin.
We got to get him back on because
it's been too long.
Well, we have.
We have something to talk about.
We have something to talk about now.
And it's like, hey, you guys should be
making apps become a media company.
See loss on Linux and it's 2222 through
fountain.
He says the problem is overcoming known habits.
People know how a search engine and browsing
the internet works, even though that may be
more effort than when you have a podcast
app set up.
You don't need to learn the new thing.
That's why in e-commerce, allowing checkout without
registering an account is super effective.
People don't want to do chores like filling
in your name and everything in a sign
up page or learning what a podcast app
is.
What's RSS?
What's a good podcast app, et cetera?
Good points.
Yeah, I agree.
Very good points.
We've got.
Oh, and then the delimiter.
We just had one boost from the from
the weeklies.
Comedy strip blogger.
Eighteen thousand and ten sets through fountain, he
says.
Howdy, Dave and Adam.
I'm sure that among your listeners, there are
people who could use fasting to get healthier,
not just fat.
So I recommend free financed by voluntary donations.
Fasting app from easy fast app dot com
called easy fast available for iPhone, Android and
Apple.
Watch the easiest, most beautiful, comprehensive and accessible
app for fasting made by someone who actually
fasts.
Adam's gal pal DC girl recommended it.
So it must be good.
I use it to yoke CSB.
CSB is an amazing guy.
He promoted that on Curry and the Keeper
as well.
He's he just boosts people and and buys
the airtime.
And if you're not into fasting, the beef
initiative, don't forget about the beef.
The beef initiative is the thing, man.
It really is.
It's you should look at it.
You should look at beef maps dot com.
You can find your local rancher and you
can buy direct from the rancher.
It's every every month, 20 pounds of ground
beef.
It's cheaper to is so it is very
weird.
But for some reason, it's cheaper to get
20 pounds of ground beef shipped to me
from Texas than it is to buy it
locally.
I know it's crazy.
It's crazy.
I know.
I don't know why.
I mean, like whatever.
But they they sent me a note the
other day and was like, would you like
since you do this so much?
Do you want one pound packages or two
pound packages?
They're like they're now they're like bespoking my
packaging for me.
Who was this?
Was this KNC?
KNC.
Oh, nice.
Very nice.
Yes.
Go ahead.
Well, that was it, right?
You're done.
No, I've got monthly.
So I got new media productions.
That's that's a boy.
Todd over blueberry.
Thirty dollars.
Thank you, Todd.
Gene Liverman.
Five dollars.
Michael Hall.
Five dollars and 50 cents.
Timothy Voice.
Ten dollars.
Trevor is Satan's lawyer.
Five dollars.
Where's the six six six that he used
to send?
He's not doing the right numbers anymore.
No, he's just he's his interest is waning.
Oystein Berger.
Five dollars.
Jorge Hernandez.
Five dollars.
And Michael Goggin.
Five dollars.
And that's our group.
Thank you all very much.
Oystein Berger will be on the live stream
right after we're done with his his crazy
music podcast, which you can, of course, boost
on the modern podcast apps.
And thank you all very much for supporting
the podcast.
This is the podcast in 2.0, but
you're really supporting the index.
It keeps everything rolling, keeps the the servers
humming along.
Thank you, especially to the bus bus sprout
guys.
We appreciate those monthlies.
That really does help.
Tom Webster.
I'm so glad that you came on.
I'm glad that we got some radio experience.
Finally, you got a little chance to talk
with us.
Get on the mic.
It's a mic time.
Get some mic time.
It's a mic time.
Yeah, I'm starved for it.
Do you feel like we've learned anything from
this?
Have we have we gotten anywhere?
Have we have we have we triggered some?
Will there be a new article that you're
going to write?
I guess that's what I'm asking.
You know, if if we have done nothing
more than pleasantly pass the time in a
way where that pleasantry is passed along to
the audience, that is enough.
That is that is sufficient.
But these things are continuing to to ruminate
in the back of my head and they
won't disappear.
That's for sure.
OK, well, we we really appreciate you coming
on.
Say hi to your partner, Brian Barletta.
And what are you doing this weekend?
I I'm entertaining two teenage boys this weekend.
That sounds not really wrong.
It sounded really wrong.
Yeah, no.
Yeah, my yes, I have my wife's sons
are staying with us.
OK, OK, all right.
So video games basically is what you're doing.
Video games all weekend long at Tom's house.
You know, and board games.
We've we're really getting into board games lately,
which I'm thrilled about.
So I'm telling you, these kids, man, they're
going back to some traditional things.
Are they are these phones, board games?
Yeah.
Are they zoomers or they they got to
be zoomers, you know?
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
Very nice.
Dave, are you going to have some downtime?
Will you be doing sheetrock?
Oh, no, I'm fixing a I'm fixing a
mechanical fuel pump on the city.
I'm already getting 11 miles to the gallon.
So now I now I find out that
I'm dumping an extra half gallon between tank
fill ups on the ground.
All right, Tom, we'd love for you to
come back if you next time you write
a scathing article.
Be fun to have you.
And I didn't scathe.
There was no scathing.
No, I took it exactly the right way.
And you're you're you're speaking my language with
in to a certain degree.
We may have different approaches to it.
And I think that you'll see there are
there are changes ahead.
A lot is happening.
And hopefully some app developers and hosting companies
take this to heart.
The stuff that we talked about, because I
think there's a lot of opportunity and it
definitely is not.
You're right.
It's not a video conversation.
That's that's the reddest of all herrings I've
ever seen.
Yeah.
But it's fun.
It's fun to do.
You know, it sells a lot of video
gear, I'm sure.
Well, I appreciate you having me on and
I will give you the the highest compliment
I can offer is that this show doesn't
suck.
Oh, yeah, that's the that's the bar we
wanted.
That's exactly where I want to be.
Thank you very much.
Boardroom will be back next Friday, right here
on podcasting 2.0. Podcasting
2.0. Visit podcastindex.org for more information.
I mean, cats are more cooperative.