Adam Curry: Podcasting 2.0 for September 6, 2024, episode 192,
lunchroom. Quickie. Well, hello everybody. Hello boardroom.
Welcome to podcasting 2.0 your weekly board meeting where all
things podcasting are discussed. You want to know what's really
going on. You want to tune into this one. If you're a nerd,
you're in luck. We are the only boardroom that meets during
board member vacations. I'm Adam curry here in the cruise ship,
capital of Mexico, just north of Puerto Vallarta, and in Alabama,
the man behind the new BlackBerry takedown list say
hello to my friend on the other end. The one, the only Mr. Dave
Jones,
Dave Jones: a fun that that cashews, this, this bowl of
cashews here, if you can hear it,
Adam Curry: yes, I hear your cashews, your cashews. Yes, your
cashews.
Dave Jones: It's, it's like a, it's like a quick trail mix to
go along with the beef shake. And it's like cashews and
raisins, you know, why
Adam Curry: don't you fiber? Why don't you just mix it all into
one so you can have the cashews ground right into your beef
shake. No,
Dave Jones: the cashews are soft so I can chew them. And, you
know, mostly don't hear me, but
Adam Curry: you might have a new product if you if you could do
that, it might be something that could be marketable. Hey, I'm an
entrepreneur. I'm always thinking,
Dave Jones: it's like Bill, it's like Bill Maher said about like
young people thinking that communism is great
Adam Curry: socialism. I don't know if they think comedy is
socialism. Probably some
Dave Jones: do, some do comrade. But I mean, like that. He said,
you know, just because an idea is new doesn't mean it's great.
You can. What was this thing, he said you can cook in the
bathroom and shit in the kitchen. It's a new idea, but
Adam Curry: I haven't listened to a Bill Maher podcast in a
while, to be honest. He
Dave Jones: got, he got on a string of stuff I wasn't
interested in, so I kind of he fell out of my rotation. Oh,
Adam Curry: yeah, that happens if he's on the floor. I'm here
in Mexico, in the hotel room. And I'm always Mexico, yes, I'm
always, we're on vacation. Quotes, air quotes, vacation.
I'm always amazed that it kind of works. And this is the new
rig. This is, this is the new machine that you recommend that
I get, which is, oh, it's the Lenovo ThinkPad, the Oh, yeah,
Milka, yeah. It's great. Now here's what happened yesterday,
though, I'm a little concerned.
Dave Jones: Wait, by the way, I'm sorry I could not make it to
your surprise party. I wasn't.
Adam Curry: I know you were. I know I could
Dave Jones: not make it because Melissa was out of town that
that same weekend, buddy, stay with my daughter. It's
Adam Curry: more than okay,
Dave Jones: I tried. Man, I tried. I
Adam Curry: know you did. Tina's like Dave, Dave, really tried.
Dvorak didn't even answer the email invite. I said, Yeah, that
makes sense. There's a difference in my podcast.
Pardons, it was, I gotta tell you. Man, I was blown away. I
was surprised. There were people from all over the country who
came in for it on Labor Day weekend, no less, on Friday. My
plan
Dave Jones: was to do the My plan was to do the show and then
hop on a plane and then hop on a plane immediately and try to get
there. I couldn't find anything that was going to work, so I was
trying to figure out how to do it halfway from a hotel room,
because you would, because if it was on the same day as the show,
so if I'd have missed the show, yeah, I
Adam Curry: would have something. Yeah, it was for
those who don't know, my wife threw me a surprise party for my
60th birthday, and literally invited 60 people from all over
the country, and they came those
Dave Jones: who I didn't know. She invited 60 people. Like,
that was the magic. That's funny, yeah.
Adam Curry: So it was, it was good. It was really good.
Dave Jones: Anyway, what were you saying?
Adam Curry: Yeah. So I set everything up here, and I had
already tested out the rig at home, of course, you know, which
always involves a an interesting combination of USB hubs and
figuring out which port to put stuff in. There was a little
moment of fear, as for some reason one of the rodecaster duo
ports didn't come up, like, oh God. And then so I figured it
out. Then I get here, and I set it all up again, and I noticed,
Oh no, what? So for some reason, the we're doing currying the
keeper on Wednesday evening, and the and the Hindenburg recording
failed. And so of course, of course, I have the rodecaster
running his backup. So I'm like, okay, that's no problem. So I'll
just pull it off the rodecaster. And so then I what I had not yet
installed was the rodecaster central software that you need
to put it into transfer mode. So I got new machine, yeah, so I
got that, okay, and then it said, you can't transfer. Any
files until you upgrade your rodecaster duo. Oh, no, with
firmware, yeah, this is you never want to do that. Never
want to do that. And so and so it works. I'm able to get the
recording. But then the next day, I noticed that the second
USB audio device on the rodecaster, if it wasn't
receiving any audio, it would just disconnect. And of course,
I use that for everything, so let me just check and make sure
it's working here. Let me see it is. And so I was really worried
during no agenda yesterday. But I guess if it's receiving sound
up until a certain you know, I don't know if there's a timeout
I Daren O'Neal making me go into my control panel and turning off
the windows. Man, those guys suck. So you just be able to go
into this other panel and you say, okay, don't power down USB
ports to save energy. And that the issue? Well, I thought so.
And so that's no longer there. You have to now go into control
panel, go into find the root hub. Yeah, the device in device
manager, yeah, and, and, of course, these things are checked
by default, which makes no sense. Yeah, because, you
Dave Jones: know, everybody wants, everybody's you. What's
killing the planet is everybody's USB ports. Yeah,
that's, that's wonderful, exactly.
Adam Curry: And so I click those both off, and we do the show.
It's fine. And then maybe 15 minutes later, after we're done
with the show, the USB port had shut down again. So I'm like,
oh, man, is there some time around? I mean, the thing that
really changed, of course, is the rodecaster. So I don't know.
And if you go search for USB problems with a rodecaster,
that's an ugly search, because it's everywhere. It's just like,
there's all kinds of and I think it's just a function of USB by
itself. I don't know it's,
Dave Jones: well, this you the so you're on the duo. Yeah,
right now, yeah. I'll, you know, based on my experience and and
the experience that I've heard through the grapevine of other
people, the duo is kind of a fragile product. Yeah. I mean,
I'm not saying it's bad or people shouldn't get it, but
it's, it seems fragile. Well,
Adam Curry: you know, these things are hard to make, and
particularly if you're going to try, I tried it, you're going to
try and make it work with all different kinds of USB devices.
And of course, they have two USB devices which actually have
three different, you know, there's one virtual device,
which is the chat, which is what you know, is the built in mix,
minus anyway, I decided before we started this show, I just
reboot the rodecaster. Maybe that'll make a difference. And
so far so good. So let me just double check again, you know,
just, I just have to hit that ding every 10 minutes. It's kind
of like a dead man switch on a train. Yeah, if I don't hit
that, if I don't hit that thing, it shuts down. Well,
Dave Jones: I mean, I think, I think we get lulled into, based,
based on how we grew up. We grew up with hardware that was the
that where this had to say this. We grew up with with hardware
that had its logic. Its logic was arranged as a series of
tubes, tubes, tubes, or chips, or it was, it was do. The
hardware itself was doing the logic. But yeah, now that
doesn't end, but it's not like that anymore. Nowadays. It's the
the the logic is, is buried in software which is running in a
general purpose chip, yeah, or, you know, or many general
purpose chips on the board, yeah, so, but we still look at
this piece of hardware and we think about it as if it's
something, as if it's the way things used to be. It's kind of
confusing that you're like, Why does rebooting my mix board? But
because it's not really a mixing board. What it is is a computer
with a screen and some levers on, you know, some some sliders.
Yeah,
Adam Curry: no, that's true. And also Linux and, and, yes. And
then there's another problem, which we've run into, as we've
been testing stuff, you know, been working together for 15
years, building all kinds of projects. You get used to as an
old school computer user who comes from that world, you get
used to workarounds, and then you just use that workaround.
And you're so used to using the workaround that, you know,
things are fixed or have been updated or improved, and like,
oh, what? I don't have to do these 15 steps anymore. I can
just hit this one button, and it works because I just get used to
it, you know, because that's my from the Sinclair ZX 80. You
know, from those days, there were a lot of workarounds you
had to play with on the Sinclair,
Dave Jones: oh, man, one of my favorite episodes of John. G's
called causality show. Podcast is where he taught he goes over
this radiation machine that was, it was x ray it was x ray
machine, some sort of imaging machine that ended up giving
people horrible cancer, nice and the RE and the reason was
because there was a specific, I mean, he gets all into the
assembly language code of this of this machine. And what was
happening is there was these bugs in it where it would give
the operator of the machine a false message under certain
circumstances. And it just became known that you always
just hit Enter to go through that. So just ignore that.
Ignore that screen that it was literally part of the training
is ignore these three screens. Oh, man, and and when you in 99%
of the time when you ignore those screens, it worked exactly
the way it was supposed to. But 1% of the time, it would keep
the it would keep the shutter open long enough to give you
horrible cancer. Yeah, yeah, work around became, if you ever
have to tell somebody to do a workaround that becomes part of
the unwritten documentation of that product. And then if you
ever, if something ever doesn't, you know, but, but you lose the
sense of the fact that that was not the way it was supposed to
froze into me.
Adam Curry: Yeah, exactly. And we've even he had that with the
freedom controller. If you're there was something I was doing,
like, what? What are you doing? I was like, Well, I do it this
way. You can just hit command. L, oh, really,
Dave Jones: yeah, for, let's be honest, the freedom controller
is mostly that, yeah,
Adam Curry: yeah. So one
Dave Jones: of these days I'm going to rewrite that thing from
scratch, and it's going to end like with modern things, and
it's going to be amazing, yeah, maybe
Adam Curry: that'll be our retirement. I'm not too bullish.
I'm not too bull. Hey, I use it every single day. It's a part of
my life. So I love the freedom controller. And by the way,
that's, that's some software, man. I mean, I didn't even have
the login anymore. I don't think you have that running on a
server somewhere. And from time to time, you know, you'll go in
and look, and it's been up, you know, uptime 700 days or
something. It's just, it's a it's a beast. I
Dave Jones: have not read. I'm gonna, after the show, I'm gonna
log in and see what the uptime is on on that machine of yours.
I bet you it's years rock years rock
Adam Curry: solid. My brother, that's the Dave Jones experience
right there. It does not go down. So just before I started
getting everything set up, you know, I saw this, and this just
it made me sad, at the same time, made me very happy because
of this project that you and I started for this very reason.
Was it almost Is it four years? Now, I've been doing this for
four years. Is it four years? Started in August of 2020, so
more than four years? Wow.
Dave Jones: There you go. You're in the heart of the pandemic.
Man So Todd Cochran,
Adam Curry: CEO of blueberry, blueberry says it has been the
biggest week in a long time of show and episode takedowns at
everyone's beloved podcast platform. I'm going to think
he's talking about Spotify, maybe. And he says everything we
could review has us asking why we cannot see everything they've
pulled. But one thing is for sure, the political content is
the focus. So there they are, de platforming episodes and shows
and again, I'm just, I'm going to presume, not assume, but
presume that is Spotify. But it could be others.
Dave Jones: I think, I think I mean it. I think it's clearly
Spotify that I want to feed of that so bad. I hope he does
this. That's
Adam Curry: what you proposed the the BlackBerry list. It's
great
Dave Jones: Blackberry, yeah, I need, I need this list because I
want to see, like, an update in my podcast app, of all the weird
things that they do platform and try to, it's like a game. You
got to try to figure out why they did it.
Adam Curry: It's, it's so asinine and and again, it just
proves that all these modern apps that that aren't, uh, on
any Silicon Valley you know, owned index. They are, they are
the literal freedom of speech platforms, or apps, or whatever
you want to call systems, because your speech is not, is
not shuttered. It's just, it's crazy. And I don't know, I You
never really hear anything about it, except this. In this
particular case, you know, just don't hear. And I want, I guess
blueberry has to tell, tell their podcasters, hey, this got
kicked off of Spotify. I would. I would think they would at
least
Dave Jones: I would, yeah, I mean, you would feel like a you
would feel like that's your duty to tell them, because they've
been just removed from a major platform, you know, and you're
hosting their show. Because if they just come to you and say,
Hey, this was where's my show, it's not showing up. Then you're
like, well, it got taken down, and we knew about it, but we
didn't tell you there's almost like, a more kind of, like a
moral, you know, or an ethical thing, where you feel like you
need to, you know, people. It's funny that I don't hear anybody
else. None of the other hosting companies mentioned this. But it
has to be happening everywhere. It
Adam Curry: must be happening to everybody. Yeah. And I remember
when there was a time when there was a couple of people tried
putting no agenda episodes up on YouTube and, you know, just the
audio. And I think one guy at some point was actually doing
chapter images, and, you know, making quite a production of it.
And one by one, these people would finally email me and say,
you know, I got three strikes now on your no agenda episode.
So, so I have to stop, because it's ruining my account. Yeah,
Dave Jones: is that like the innate in Eclipse guy? Remember
that, um, where he would do, like, little short, like, no, he
was, this
Adam Curry: is full episodes, which I was fine with. You know,
hey, if you want to maintain that, I don't care you. Go
ahead, you as long as you don't enable monetization and and one
by one, these would get taken down. And for what I mean, we're
just two old dudes, what are we doing? And, you know, Tina got
put in Instagram jail.
Dave Jones: Instagram jail. Didn't even know there was an
Instagram jail? Yeah,
Adam Curry: she got put an Instagram comment jail. So she,
she, of course, this is my wife, so she, she, you know, of
course, posted stuff about the the party, and then she says,
Oh, I can't comment even on my own posts. So what do you mean?
Well, they're saying, you have a time out. You can't post
comments for a week. I said, What did you do? Because I don't
know, yeah, what district? They won't tell they'll never tell
you. They'll never tell you. That's the crazy thing. It's
like, what is it? I said, You must have heard somebody's
feelings this. I don't Instagram if somebody reported you, I
guess I don't know what it is. It's crazy.
Dave Jones: Yeah, I would, I would like to, I would like to
hear from it that that shows you, okay, that right there,
shows you the difference. It just kind of dawned on me that
shows you the difference between podcasting and every other
thing, yeah, is you're in, you're you got deeply, you know,
you got muted on Instagram, and so you can't post there, and
that's just it. You're done. So you, I mean, you're, you're
toast, yeah, with podcasting, you got removed off Spotify. Did
anybody even notice?
Adam Curry: Yeah, right, that's a good point,
Dave Jones: because you now, you still show up in 47 other
podcasts, exactly, but eventually, and and on your own
website,
Adam Curry: you know, eventually people will figure it out. Like,
you know, maybe I should be promoting, maybe I should be
promoting, you know, different apps for people to listen to my
show on, you know,
Dave Jones: like, What do you mean?
Adam Curry: Well, if, if you know, you don't want people
getting used to listening to you on Spotify, and then all of a
sudden, one day, you're gone, you know, or anywhere or
anywhere. That's that's controlled by anyone else but
you and your feed. I mean, that's that's the beauty of it.
That's the beauty of what we've done here, which is good.
Dave Jones: And Melissa sent me an episode of a podcast the
other day of the she wanted me to listen to. And I was like, I
was like, Yes, send it to me. And so she texted to me, and it
was a Spotify link. And I was like, oh,
Adam Curry: oh, I get those. What do you do? I don't even
click on those anymore. If someone sends me a link to a
podcast on Spotify, I'm like, I just don't answer. I'm like, I'm
not clicking on that. And
Dave Jones: like this. This hurts me. It hurts my heart. You
know,
Adam Curry: especially from your wife. Man, what's wrong with
her? I
Dave Jones: know I was personally offended. So she's
using
Adam Curry: Spotify to listen to podcasts, and she's married to
the pod sage. I
Dave Jones: know I had to go check her CO two monitor to make
sure the room wasn't too hot.
Adam Curry: You know, I've Tina's on on on fountain. She's
been on fountain forever. She likes it so she she's good,
yeah, but she was listening, I think probably on Apple previous
to that. And
Dave Jones: I got, I got work to do, man, while we're
Adam Curry: on it, I want to remind everybody, if you're
having an issue with an app, getting it into the App Store,
because I got another one of these emails. There's been two
this month so far, the two in the past two weeks where the App
Store kicked the second, yeah, the App Store kicks it back.
Indie hub, the App Store kicks it back and says, You need
permission to access this content, which I do not
understand. Why this? There's some bug in there, in the QA
process that says, oh, you know, if it's, if it's this kind of an
app, accessing other content. And you know the clearly, the QA
process doesn't include if it's RSS, if equals RSS, then
approve. So I have a, I have a boilerplate E. Mail if you need
it, if you run into those problems, let us know, because I
think we've had 100% success rate when I send that, when I
send that email, and we have a link to our, you know, to all of
our legal documents and all that stuff this, it's a pro it's a
pro email. It always gets approved. So far,
Dave Jones: you'll just sail right through. Yeah, that. I
think they have a little wheel when they do approval that they
just spin it and they say, Okay, what? What are we going to ding
you on? And it's because, because 10 podcast apps can
submit that use the index. You know, four of them will get
dinged in this way, and six of them will just have no issue. I
don't understand it can be all of them, because we've only
needed to do this for maybe three or
Adam Curry: four. Yeah, it's like, All right, everybody,
here's another submission. And oops, that's not the one. Oh,
man, that's not what I wanted to do. Ah,
Dave Jones: no, you screwed it. I did. I do monitor. Here we go,
everybody, let's see. Do we want
Adam Curry: to approve this app or not? Round around, it goes.
Let's see. Oh, seems like they're accessing other people's
content. No, I don't think we can do that. Computer says no.
Bombshell, yeah,
Dave Jones: I finally got there. You got there. It was worth it.
Wait. What am I doing?
Adam Curry: So we
Dave Jones: my phone automatically bluetoothed over
to the rodecaster.
Adam Curry: Oh, cool. I had that. Oh, that's interesting.
All sudden, some
Dave Jones: sort of play. And I was like, What is this? Oh, by
the way, I wonder if I can pull this up. Actually, this is kind
of convenient, because
Adam Curry: are you going to play something from your phone.
This, this will go well, let
Dave Jones: me see if, can you see? If you see, if you can, can
you hear this? First of all,
Adam Curry: no, because no, because you could, because
you're not connecting with the with the chat to the chat
interface, I can hear it softly in the background. Can you turn
it up? Maybe it's just there you go.
Dave Jones: Is it? Yeah, yeah.
Adam Curry: That I had the pleasure of introducing these
guys with their debut. This was lifetime. How they're doing it,
either Todd
Dave Jones: Howe car thinks they can. I wasn't prepared for it,
but I was listening to sounds like me. It is you I was
listening to. I know this is the old bootleg from the bootleg
dance party episode. From
Adam Curry: the days, not here dance party, the three hour
episode, yeah,
Dave Jones: from March of 2023, that just, I was testing the new
overcast and and it just had, it was in my upload. So I'll listen
to that and listen to it for a while. And it sounds like during
the whole episode, it sounds like your your mouth is swollen,
or some really, you're sure you're talking right, yes, and I
never noticed that. I wonder if that was during your dinner. I
was just about to say
Adam Curry: probably was. It probably was during my dental,
uh, my dental escapades.
Dave Jones: Yeah, you're you're something was definitely not
right with with you, with your voice, your
Adam Curry: version. Well, thanks. I feel better now. Sorry
about that, now that I have a bootleg out there that sucks.
Dave Jones: That's a classic. That's the unlimited the bootleg
from, you know, recording that nobody will ever have a copy of.
So
Adam Curry: this week, an episode of our favorite hate
listen came out, which it was so now I'm gonna say something that
may sound sound unkind, but it's not meant that way. Please. I
listen. So there's a couple of podcasts. I listen to religion,
religiously. Pod News Daily. Every single day I listen to it.
I don't think I ever skip one. And I realize that it's kind of
like and I also, I think every day I will take a look at CNBC.
You know, around 830 my time, which when the market's open,
you know, I'll just, I'll just, I'll just, you know, because I
have the YouTube TV, I'll just pop it up and take a look what
they're saying. And so on CNBC, it's always the same thing. If
the market's up, market's up, time to buy. If the market's
down, market's down, time to buy, buy the deal. It's always
the same. And I realized that the pod news is kind of a bit
like that. It's always up, it's always good, it's number. It's a
lot of numbers. There's a lot of stats and numbers. And revenues
are up, profits are up. Number of podcasts are up. More people
are listening, which which is, to be fair, is is very, it's
very positive. Puts me in a good mood about podcasting. But then,
but then you get, you know, one of the top podcast by output,
probably production units that being N. PR, and the reality is
different, and I'm glad that you clipped it. I see you have eight
clips, so I don't know exactly,
Dave Jones: exactly what I brought a PowerPoint, yeah,
Adam Curry: but I think we should talk about this, because
this seemed to me, there's a lot of interesting things in here,
because it was only if was it 15 minute episode?
Dave Jones: If that 11 minutes? Yeah, it
Adam Curry: seemed like this was probably a fair representation
of the state of the podcast, industrial complex as it is
today.
Dave Jones: There's a lot packed into 11 minutes of this, of this
episode, and it was kind of like, as soon as I heard it, I
was like, whoa. We're gonna have to go back and deconstruct a
little bit of this. It's interesting from a lot of
different perspectives, not just from the, you know, not just of
the industry, but but on sort of the internal workings of a show
like that itself too, yeah, and the state of public radio and
all, all of these things. But the first, like, before we kind
of get into it, what I want to I want your opinion of the first
clip. I want your opinion if this, this is a pre roll ad. I
want your opinion if this is AI voice or not,
Unknown: okay, here we go. This episode is brought to you by
Progressive Insurance. What if comparing car insurance rates
was as easy as putting on your favorite podcast with
progressive it is. Well,
Adam Curry: first of all, why am I hearing this
Unknown: hiss? Yes, I'm
Adam Curry: hearing hiss in that clip.
Unknown: This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
What if comparing car insurance rates was as easy as putting on
your favorite podcast with progressive it is,
Adam Curry: well, that almost sounds like room noise. It
sounds like room noise.
Dave Jones: It wasn't though I pulled it directly out of the mp
three. I just chopped it up with Audacity,
Adam Curry: then I'm going to say that's not AI that was. And
I think I kind of recognized the voice. I don't think that was aI
I would I don't think they can, they can do that. They would
hate themselves so much. That's the only thing they have to do
over there is talk. They're going to replace that with
computers. I don't think so.
Dave Jones: But supposedly, these, these are based on what
they say during the show. These are, like, piped in,
Adam Curry: really,
Dave Jones: this is piped in, you know, copy so they don't, I
don't think they read this in house with one of their peoples.
They just got this from the advertiser, I guess. Let
Adam Curry: me listen to it again. Let
Unknown: me see this episode is brought to you by Progressive
Insurance. Now, that does sound kind of fake. What if comparing
car insurance rates was as easy as putting on your favorite
podcast? Yeah,
Adam Curry: you know, if I was producing this, I'd say, you've
got to reread that, because this is listen to how this reads.
This
Unknown: episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance,
I'd
Adam Curry: be like, Please, let's do it again. This episode
was brought to you by Progressive Insurance. That's
what I would that's what I would suggest. And then I'll use the
next piece. What
Unknown: if comparing car insurance rates was as easy as
putting on your favorite podcast? I'd
Adam Curry: say, Let's do that again. What if? What if
comparing insurance rates was as easy as putting on your favorite
podcast, there's no inflection here with progressive
Dave Jones: there's, it is, yeah. No, it is, yeah.
Adam Curry: It would be sounds. AI to me, yeah, I think you're
right, but, but whatever's going on, there's, there's some kind
of hiss or room noise in there that should not be in there,
Dave Jones: huh? That's, that's interesting. Number one, so,
like, the whole, this whole episode is about them.
Supposedly, it's about them switching to How to Host red
ads. That's what this is about. Well, there's
Adam Curry: a there's a lot going on in that episode. Like,
hey, you know, the part that I liked was advertisements, or
what we call sponsorships. Oh, okay, so All right, there you
go. It's advertising, yes,
Dave Jones: and maybe, I mean, just based on that ad that pre
roll, maybe it's not that you weren't doing host red ads.
Maybe that's not. Maybe part of it is that your ads that you're
piping in suck. Well,
Adam Curry: I would reject if I was that bad, if I was the
client or if I was the agency, I would have rejected that. I
said, you need to reread that. That's not exciting. It's it's
dull, it's boring. There's no inflection. So whether it's AI
or not, I would have rejected it.
Dave Jones: And the and pre roll number two on that episode was a
house ad for radio lab. So that's not encouraging, right?
Yeah? Like that. That would have been a better. They should clip
that out of this show that would have been a better. Yes.
Adam Curry: Him sorry, but,
Dave Jones: like, okay, so, but clip two is, he's talking about,
we're gonna, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna do host red
ads. Now
Unknown: we're gonna have a conversation, you and me about
something that we're doing at the show that's kind of
big. Yeah, it is big. And wow, Dave, I'm
Adam Curry: hearing that same room noise in these clips.
Dave Jones: It's not my stuff.
Adam Curry: I'm inclined to believe you at all times well,
Unknown: caster duo,
Adam Curry: I don't think so. I'll listen through it. We're
going
Unknown: to have a conversation you and me about something that
we're doing at the show that's kind of big.
Yeah, it is big, and that decision is for us hosts to
start reading some of the ads that listeners will hear on the
podcast, not on terrestrial radio. Of course, that's got
different rules now we haven't read the ads on the podcast
until now, and there's a really good, if obvious reason why
we're about to, okay,
Adam Curry: hold on a second. This is bugging me, really. It
really is.
Dave Jones: I don't know what that could be. Let me listen to
it on my side and see what it sounds like. Let me
Adam Curry: just let me see if I can pull out that episode in pod
verse that's really bugging me. I don't understand it.
Dave Jones: Yeah, I get it on my copy too, of the clip, so it's
not something coming from your side. Let me just let me get a
podcast
Adam Curry: on media. Hold on. Here it is. Latest Episode. Let
me just play it from here.
Dave Jones: Okay. Listeners support it. WNYC studios, I hear
it already.
Unknown: Welcome to the midweek on the media Podcast. I'm Rick
glass, wow. And I'm what are they recording
Adam Curry: that? Where are they recording this? That doesn't
even sound like a like a studio. Hey, Brooke,
Unknown: hi Micah for this week's
podcast. Wow, they're
Adam Curry: recording that their desk or
Dave Jones: something. They got together in the lunchroom for a
quickie.
Adam Curry: I saw that, please.
Dave Jones: I don't know. I don't know what that I mean,
like, that's not their typical, no, that's not their PP said,
maybe it's over zoom. Maybe they did a zoom call. Oh,
Adam Curry: man, that's really bad. Well, anyway, let's listen
to it again and we'll just try and forget the horrible, you
know what? No wonder no one wants to advertise on that show.
It sounds like crap. We're gonna
Dave Jones: have the audio guy. The audio guys, the last round
of layoffs.
Adam Curry: All right, you guys, here's a pod Mike, everybody.
You can do it. Good luck. It'll be great. Don't worry, you can
do this. Podcasters all over the world do this. You guys can too.
Unknown: We're gonna have a conversation you and me about
something that we're doing at the show that's kind of big.
Yeah, it is big, and that decision is for us hosts to
start reading some of the ads that listeners will hear on the
podcast, not on terrestrial radio. Of course, that's got
different rules now. We haven't read the ads on the podcast
until now, and there's a really good, if obvious reason why
we're about to
Adam Curry: wow. Okay, that's really surprising.
Dave Jones: So the question is, why? Because a really good
reason,
Adam Curry: because advertisers aren't getting enough return on
investment from dynamic ad insertions is my guess.
Dave Jones: Yeah, the the the first this, the first part of
the answer is sort of a hand wave. He says, you know, he's,
he's like, you know where, you know, blah, blah, blah, D, Dai,
and then this, but the second part is where, where all the
action is, and that's, that's clip three.
Unknown: Recently, some outlets like current and CNN have
reported that this month, in mid September, our producing
station, WNYC, plans to cut at least 8% of our workforce again,
again, yes, and this is after a substantial round of cuts. This
time last year. Last
year, we lost a producer, so did some of our other shows, and we
lost friends around the station too. They're gone now. They're
Adam Curry: gone, vaporized.
Dave Jones: Yeah, the audio gal was the first Yes, it's obvious.
Adam Curry: I think, I think you're spot on with that. They
fired the actual, they say producer, but it's really the
guy who set him up and does the engineering. This is, this is
very disappointing from NPR, somebody.
Dave Jones: So now they just got, now they're just telling
each other what Mike is telling Brooke. Hey, Brooke. Turn up
your Yeti Blue, just turn it a
Adam Curry: little bit hard. That's it. Yeah, you blue, yeah.
Why did she laugh? That's a very good point. Cotton Gin. These
are worth analyzing. I'm gonna pick apart every single breath
and sentence in this recently,
Unknown: some outlets like current and CNN have reported
that this month, in mid September, our producing
station, WNYC, plans to cut at least 8% of our workforce. Well,
Adam Curry: this is okay, so this is interesting. Instead of
saying, you know, here at NPR, we've made decisions, no,
they're saying other news outlets are reporting that we
are going to cut our staff.
Dave Jones: Yeah, I noticed that that's an
Adam Curry: interesting way of announcing this news. Let's
listen to the next
Dave Jones: Yeah. I don't know how to take that either, because
it was they're as if it's as if they're not, as they're talking
about themselves in the third person, as if they themselves
are not part of this, of their own lives. Or, I think it's
weird, or, how
Adam Curry: about this? Maybe they didn't know about it. They
heard it from CNN and current. Why? I don't know why they
mentioned current, and they're pissed that they had to hear it
from other sources.
Dave Jones: Oh, and so maybe that's why they got it. Maybe
that's why they did the lunchroom quickies, because they
were, this is sort of a, you know, they're
Adam Curry: going rogue. Yeah, that's why it was only an 11
minute episode. It's rogue. Let's go. Let's show these guys
what this is. Horrible. The I can't believe they're doing
that, and they and it's all over the place. Everyone's talking
about it. Let's do an episode, and let's be critical of them.
And
Unknown: again, again, yes, and this is after again.
Adam Curry: That's not very funny. Brooke, she's laughing
Dave Jones: again, a lot of unexplained, unexplained
chuckling in this that I don't understand. It's horrible
Adam Curry: when, when you're when people get fired and you
have to downsize. It's not a laughing matter, although she
still has a job. Maybe that's why
Unknown: she's laughing again, again, yes, and this is after a
substantial round of cuts. This time last year.
Last year, we lost a producer, so did some of our other shows,
and we lost friends around the station too. They're gone now,
Adam Curry: wow, so is it no Are they no longer friends when you
don't work with them? Brooke, they're gone. Now I don't talk
to them anymore. I've removed them from my speed dial,
Dave Jones: so the chop and drop is in full effect, yeah, at NYC
and NPR in general. I mean, in this, the the reason for the
chop and drop, he's going to give he's he's going to go into
a a brilliant economic analysis here. I'm
Unknown: not going to pretend to be some
Dave Jones: Sorry. No good.
Adam Curry: No, I was, I was going to add to that, that we
should probably mention that you know that a year ago, I mean,
NPR over hired in their podcast division because of the
incredible, hyped up market that existed on the, you know, the
tail end of the pandemic. And of course, it was, it was a great
time for podcasting. It was everyone was either listening to
a podcast or making a podcast, and supposedly doing both. And
they just over hired, thinking, This is it. You know, it's, it's
going to keep on rolling. So that I've
Dave Jones: been saying that, I've been saying this for a
while, is that the the bizarre thing about NPR and these public
radio shows is that they still show up in the top of all the
charts. Yet they've, they've, like, essentially fired most of
their staff. They're not they're showing up in the top of the
charts, but they're not making any money. Yeah, that's
troubling.
Unknown: I'm not going to pretend to be some ad expert,
but the economy is funky, and for all kinds of reasons,
companies are spending less money on advertising, and that
is really hurt WNYC,
Adam Curry: the economy is funky.
Dave Jones: Yes, this is the economic analysis. One economy
is funky, Funky. It's and then, and also all sorts of reasons.
Yeah, those are the those are your two
Adam Curry: You mean, like companies aren't making money.
People are having a hard time making ends meet. Prices are
through the roof. And advertise. There's been a pullback in
advertising, although you wouldn't know it.
Dave Jones: Those are the reasons. These are reasons.
Unknown: I'm not going to pretend to be some ad expert,
but the economy is. Chunky and for all kinds of reasons,
companies are spending less money on advertising, and that
is really hurt WNYC. I know it's hurt all kinds of media, but
it's really had an outsized effect on the podcast industry.
Like we mentioned, there were layoffs over here last year at
the time, our president LaFontaine Oliver cited a
decline in advertising, what we call sponsorship, we saw that at
other companies, like Pushkin industries, which is Malcolm
Gladwell podcast company, they cut, like a third of their
staff. Laist, which was formerly known as KPCC, got rid of some
of their podcast only shows. NPR cut over 100 jobs. So kind of,
everyone's feeling it, but we're, we're all feeling it, I
think especially rough,
Dave Jones: hmm, these, all these shows, he mentions, they
all have too many people. They all have, yeah, they all have
one thing in common. They're, they are way over staff, staffed
and over, over produced for what they are, yeah, that they have
too much overhead, and you it's not sustainable that the change
let me, I'll cut to the I'll jump to the end real quick, just
to say that I think the real change that's going on here
harvested, at least they have a joy department. Yes, they do.
Maybe that's why they're laughing,
Adam Curry: hey. But good news, you're fired. Good news your
joys are
Dave Jones: the the the change is not from is not host red. The
real change they're talking about is not host red versus
automatic insertion. Yeah,
Adam Curry: it's, it's the real downsizing.
Dave Jones: The real change here is pre roll versus mid roll.
That's what they're going to be changing. That's what's coming
they're gonna put, start putting the ads in the show. It like on
the media, which is a, you know, on the media always has a pre
roll and a post roll. They don't interrupt the show midway
through, yes, because that goes against what's gonna happen.
That
Adam Curry: goes against our journalistic ethics.
Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, exactly which they were, which the they
will talk about that aspect in the middle, but in a minute. But
I think that's, that's what they're trying to prep everybody
for, and why they did this special episode is because they
know that it's going to be jarring when they drop an ad in
the middle of the show, whether it's host read or dai or
anything, that's what the real difference, I think that's what
they're not saying out loud, is they're going to start sticking
ads in the middle, in line, essentially, maybe even native
ads. We don't know that would be. Well, I think, and I think I
have an idea about, about one of those? What one of those may be
here in a minute. But the one interesting thing is he talks
about ad money in relation to to what their their current
situation is, versus ad money being sort of the gravy on top
of donations, which are the meat? It happened, the queue
dropped the queue. No,
Adam Curry: no, it happened. The the USB crapped
Dave Jones: out. No, let
Adam Curry: me see if I reboot boot. No, I have to it. I can, I
can bring the USB back up. Wow, this sucks, but then I have to
essentially restart M airlist Again,
Dave Jones: so maybe I can play it for a month. No, I'm
Adam Curry: doing I got it. I'm already there.
Dave Jones: I'm already good, yeah,
Adam Curry: here we go. I'm
Dave Jones: gonna eat some notes. Here it is, right?
Unknown: But as a public radio show, we're not just relying on
ad money. It's just an area where we have some potential for
growth. We still have the membership model. That's when
listeners, like you guys, support us, and that still is
our most reliable source of funding.
Adam Curry: I don't believe that. I think that's a lie. The
most reliable source of funding from NP. I knew the the CEO
before this one and the and LaFontaine, and that was ya
Ramon, also known as Lee Masters, because he's the guy
that hired me at MTV. And he was, he was Lee Masters, was his
DJ name but wmmr,
Dave Jones: it's a great name. It's almost as good as John
Holden, but yeah, no, I
Adam Curry: like Lee Masters. Lee Masters. Hey everybody, it's
Lee Masters. Wmmr, hit radio. So he became the he became the CEO,
and I met him at some conference a long time ago. I don't
remember where it was. Was, and it was nice just to catch up
with them, of course, because we hadn't seen each other for many,
many years. And he said, You know, I'm probably going to
retire. He actually had some health issues. I think he even
had a heart attack after he left. And he says, but I'm
working on this endowment. And so they've had these endowments,
which are, like, 100 million dollar endowments. I mean,
really, really big stuff. And that is that's really their,
their main reliable source of funding. Of course, it's fixed.
And how much you can spend per per year is fixed. The actual
and a lot of people think the government funds them, but the
the money that goes to NPR from government, it's like one and a
half or 2% of their their overall budget. But to say that
it's coming from listeners like you as as that's the biggest
source. No, that's not true. And I think the ad money, this is
incredibly important.
Dave Jones: But this is WNYC, though she's talking about, not
NPR, the mothership. So that may I believe, I believe that direct
support is probably a big part of their stuff.
Adam Curry: Nice. I still think that it's an NPR station, so I
still think that they get a lot of their funding, particularly
from these, from the NPR programming through the well,
that's actually a good point, because NYC is a content
producer as well as a station. So maybe it's just, we're really
just talking out of our buttholes here. But maybe it's,
maybe it's just the production budget that they just don't have
the budgets anymore because, I mean fresh air. I mean that's,
that's one that gets GBH, yeah, I think so. So Wow. All right,
let's hear that one more time,
Unknown: right? But as a public radio show, we're not just
relying on ad money. It's just an area where we have some
potential for growth.
Adam Curry: What a lie, Brooke,
Unknown: we still have the membership model that's when
listeners like you guys support us, and that still is our most
reliable source of funding.
Adam Curry: Well,
Dave Jones: I disagree with you. No, I disagree with you. I
believe her. I think she's because if we look at Spotify
earnings, that clearly shows that they're that so much of
their budget comes from their their actual revenue comes from
Premium subscribers. It their the ad money cannot support it
alone. Yeah, like they cannot. If I believe I believe her 100%
that she's that she is saying that donation, without the
donations, they would be completely toast. Well, she's
Adam Curry: saying something else. She's saying reliable. So
I would agree that people sign up for monthlies and that it's
reliable, but people also, you know, when they when times get
tough, they stop their sustaining donations. So I think
it's reliable, because it's constant, but it has to be going
down.
Dave Jones: Yeah, that's, yeah, that's possible, yeah, and she's
and they're trying to boost the advertising so that they can
smooth, smooth it all out across the board. But the, you know,
clip six is an interesting one, because it's obvious this
conversation is it's meant to sound off the cuff, off the
cuff, but it's very scripted. And to me, this is where we kind
of get into the meat of things.
Unknown: Our issue is that a show like on the media, a show
about the news that's deeply edited, that features original
reporting that isn't just like a couple people sitting around a
table shooting the breeze like this is an expensive show to
make. I think that's why it's really good, is that, is that we
have really smart people, and we compensate them fairly for, oh,
Adam Curry: hold on a second. We're not just a couple of
morons with microphones sitting around a table. You know, we've
got professionals doing this work. You know, we have editing,
we have in depth reporting. Well, why don't you use some of
that incredible talent to make your your sound good?
Unknown: Our issue is that a show like on the media, a show
about the news that's deeply edited, that features original
reporting that isn't just what
Adam Curry: does deeply edited mean? Sorry, I'm sorry for
interrupting this and picking it apart to this degree. But what
does that even mean? It's deeply edited?
Dave Jones: Well, the you know, he's we aren't like the other
personality driven show where it's just two people talking
it's not who we are. I mean, he's saying that, like, that's
exactly who they are. They that, if you listen to on the meat,
that's so funny, because they're supposedly about the media. They
hardly ever talk about the media. They just. You're they
call up the show is they call up somebody from a university,
yeah, and ask them a bunch of questions. And that's the show.
It's literally two people talking most of the time.
Adam Curry: Yeah, you're right. And by the way, no agenda. In
three and a half hours twice a week, we play between 70 and 90
clips, and we do it live, so we there's no deep editing, but
there's real work that goes on there. Anyway, there we go. Our
Dave Jones: they're essentially, they're essentially the same as
these other two people talking shows, except their budget is 10
times higher, right?
Adam Curry: Exactly, all right, and they like to compensate
people fairly, yes, okay, our
Unknown: issue is that a show like on the media, a show about
the news that's deeply edited, that features original reporting
that isn't just like a couple people sitting around a table
shooting the breeze like this, is an expensive show to make. I
think that's why it's really good, is that is that we have
really smart people, and we compensate them fairly for for
putting a great program together, whereas there's this
other big style of show, which is just kind of like the the
personality driven chat shows and those, I think, are having a
bit of an easier time securing ad money, perhaps because, whoa,
Adam Curry: whoa, whoa, whoa, that's interesting. So first of
all, they have really smart people, not just a couple of
dummies, who sit around your personality driven and just talk
and and because of that, they're making the money
Unknown: shows and those I think, are having a bit of an
easier time securing ad money, perhaps because they're not
always talking about the news and because, and then I
Just say it, Micah, it's because they're more commercial. Yeah,
yeah. I mean, I don't want to speak too generally here.
It's not a bad thing. It's just not what we are, yeah, okay,
fair
Adam Curry: enough. Well, whoa. This is, this is the best clip.
So we're not commercial, and therefore we're surprised that
we're not getting commercials. Hello, hello, hello, you said
it. We're not commercial, not first of all, every single,
every single podcast talks with two people and a microphone
personalities is talking about the news. It may be sports news,
it may be general news, it may be political news, they may be
show business news. The world is news and and how this is tone
deaf. Yeah,
Dave Jones: they Yeah. They say. They say, Well, maybe those
other shows are making more money because they just don't.
They just avoid the news. Have you watched these shows? That's
all they talk about. It's like that.
Adam Curry: But she says, she says it. She says, Go ahead,
Michael, say it. We're not commercial. There. We're not
commercial. What does that mean? I listen to your podcast.
Dave Jones: I really do that. Geico. That. Ai voice, Geico
commercial at the very beginning. It sounds pretty
commercial to me. Yeah,
Unknown: bit of an easier time securing ad money, perhaps
because they're not always talking about the news, and
because I just say
it, Micah, it's because they're more commercial. Yeah,
yeah. I mean, I don't want to speak too generally. Here. Not
a bad thing. It's just not what we are, yeah,
okay, fair enough.
Adam Curry: It's not, we're not commercial. I don't understand
what, what
Dave Jones: is who we are. What
Adam Curry: does that mean? We're not commercial.
Unknown: Commercial. I
mean, in that
Dave Jones: take, they, take advertising. They, they're, are
they a non profit? No
Adam Curry: commercial definition. Uh, occupied with or
engaged in commerce or work intended for for commerce,
suitable, adequate or prepared for commerce. They have commerce
all over the place. It's called, sponsored by but there's all
kinds of companies who want to be associated with their I would
say Commercial Content, and they've been the podcasts of it
advertising from, I think, almost day one. Well, not, no,
that's not true. But once podcast advertising kind of
started rolling, they were doing it. That's that. That is an
elitist stance, which is bull crap. It's very commercial
content.
Dave Jones: Yeah, the real issue is they've isolated themselves.
They've isolated themselves into, like an into an
ideological corner. There it is. And your content is scripted and
not very and not exciting. It so, I mean, that's, that's the
issue. It doesn't have to do with commercial versus non
commercial, or whether you talk about the news or don't continue
to talk about the news. It's just, it's just sort of a
boring, ideological corner, even people who are hard, partisan
sort of people, they get tired of listening to them. Your own
side. Talk about stuff all the time. This model of sort of that
hate, Inc model the Taibbi, no expression of this, of this
throw where the media has been thrown to extreme, ideological,
ideological sides of the political spectrum, that is so I
think that that is wearing down. I think it's, I think it's past
its prime, and it sucked a whole lot of the media into these,
into these weird, little ideological spaces, and now they
can't get a lot of them can't get advertising, because their
audience became smaller and smaller and smaller. Then that
audience became bored with it,
Adam Curry: maybe, but at the same time, everyone's going
through this, they're not unique. I think if anything, I
just spilled my coke all over everything. If anything, yeah,
don't worry. It'll just be sticky. If anything, they are.
It is ideological. They they just, they hate advertising.
They hate being the whole concept of being commercial. It
just, you know, oh, we're better. It's a better than
thing, and ads are down for everybody. I mean, you may not
hear it from the pod casting industrial complex advertising
outlets, but it is, I mean, it's just a fact. It's down. It is
just down, and it's down for them too. And now they're
saying, Well, you know, we're hoity toity. We're smart people,
and we like to compensate our people fairly, and so, you know,
they're just commercial, no, it's down for everybody. And
they have listeners. They clearly have listeners. Wasn't
that always, isn't that always? The metric is, like, if you're
the top of the podcast list, then you have listeners. But
there's just not enough ad money. They're blaming anything
but, but that the truth they are on the media. The on the media
is the name of their show. They should just be saying,
truthfully, advertising is down all over podcasting. There's
issues with metrics. We had the iOS 16 pocalypse, you know, the
download pocalypse. We had all kinds of stuff going on, and
they're just being dishonest here. And they're, they're
making it sound like, you know, they're like, they're victims of
their incredible smartness. It's disgusting this.
Dave Jones: Well, they, you said they have listeners, they have
downloads. Well, that's, we don't that's, we don't know how
many listeners. That's part of
Adam Curry: the download metrics problem. We have a metrics
problem. Well,
Dave Jones: you know, because these, a lot of these NPR shows,
go way, way back in podcasting. And it could be that, that they
just are sort of still, they still have a wave of auto
downloads that are historical in nature. And if, if there was
sort of a great podcast reset that happened, and everybody
had, everybody's playlist got wiped, and they had to start
over today and resubscribe without a
Adam Curry: good point, you know. And they have shows that
are daily, and have a lot of, you know, really regular to
maybe on the media. Think, is three times a week. And maybe
the ad pocalypse hit them much harder than anybody else. It's
it's Yeah, yeah. The download pocalypse, the download
pocalypse, download
Dave Jones: pocalypse, yeah. In clip seven, they talk about year
of Jubilee, yeah, that's right. Nathan the the parasocial
relationship. Now, this is a term. I have no idea what it
means, and I have not looked it up, but they they talk about it
in clips of
Adam Curry: it, and there we go. I'm having a tough day today.
Dave Jones: Man. USB, down,
Adam Curry: yeah, hold on a second.
Dave Jones: I don't know what.
Adam Curry: I don't know what to do about this. I mean, this is,
if this happens on Sundays, no agenda, it's going to be, it's
going to be an issue. There's, there's some time out that is
just, it's messing with me, all right. Clip seven, hold on a
second. Yeah, maybe don't spill coke on it. Hey, thanks. Yeah.
I'll jiggle the hand. Here we go.
Unknown: I think what advertisers like about hoster Ed
ads, what they like less about the kind of sponsorship ad where
you have the like voice actor whose name we don't know, who
reads the ad, is that advertisers they want to
piggyback on the trust that audiences feel with their
favorite personalities. You know what's often called the
parasocial relationship, and so the fact that we have not read
those ads has limited the number of ads we can get. And so we're
kind of drawing from a smaller and smaller pool of companies
and organizations that want to pay us to have ads featured on
our show. What
Adam Curry: do you think they mean by. Parasocial
relationship.
Dave Jones: I'm gonna have to look, I'm gonna have to look up
the definition of that. See, parasocial. A parasocial means
relating to a connection between a person and someone they don't
know personally. Oh, okay, okay. That means, aren't the you never
heard that, sir,
Adam Curry: aren't it? Okay? I'm just gonna call bullcrap on
this, isn't it? Purely because host red ads have a much higher
CPM than inserted ads. And as you pointed typically, yeah, and
as you pointed out, they're, they're gonna be in the show
itself. They're not going to be, you know, just just pre rolls,
it's going to be in the middle of the show, so in the middle of
the content. That's always going to be a higher CPM. So what
this, what this sounds like is, well, we want the advertiser
said we want this. And they're like, Well, okay, and you'll get
$21 CPM, if you do it like this, versus $3 or whatever the going
rate is for for an inserted ad sounds like that to me,
Dave Jones: or for the AI, I mean that that AI voice in pre
roll can't be paying that much. No.
Adam Curry: I mean the pre rolls. Just don't, if I can, you
know, from what I've heard from Todd, I think it's between, you
know, maybe one and five bucks or something. It's it's not,
it's not, it's not big. So,
Dave Jones: you know what? Why do advertisers like host red
ads, and why are they willing to pay so much more, so much higher
of a rate for them, it's, you know, on they, they like to,
they're, they criticized earlier these, quote, other conversation
shows that are, you know, those shows, let's think about Rogan,
uh, throw call her daddy in there. Um, Lex Friedman show. I
mean, all these types of shows, it's not like that. A host read
on that show is much different from a host red on a highly on
what he calls a deeply edited, scripted show like on the media,
yeah, because the pair, that parasocial relationship he's
talking about exists in those other shows, because there's a
sense with the audience that they're hearing what the host
really, truly thinks. And believe me, because they because
they
Adam Curry: Yeah, Joe, I was gonna say, believe me, they're
pissed about this because they're not going to get more
money, and they have to do the worst thing, which is give up
their journalistic integrity.
Dave Jones: Yes, and that that's the thing, is you, you can't
when you're listening to an edited show that's clearly
edited and clearly scripted, there is no sense of connection
there. You're not gonna, you're not gonna be able to get the
same type of, sort of return on a host red from that type of
show, because the there's a sort of, like, there's a distance
there between the audience, and that distance has always been
part of NPR. And by the way, you listen to NPR, you know you're,
you don't feel, you don't feel like you would ever be allowed
in the room with these people. Well,
Adam Curry: it's the lunchroom where they're recording, so I
guess I am allowed in there the commissary.
Dave Jones: This is I feel, I feel like, I feel like the NPR
hosts typically are going to shrimp cocktail parties in
Washington, DC.
Adam Curry: Shrimp deals with the chocolate fountain,
Dave Jones: yeah, yeah, the fondue or whatever. But they get
into the ethics of it, the, you know, the Chinese firewall,
yeah, here we go.
Unknown: Which is not to say that this has been some, like,
super straightforward decision. We are thinking through the
ethics of this, and we're trying to internally figure out what
our boundaries are, which I'd like to ask you about. I mean,
what do you think should be like, the basic rules for how we
choose ads and how we read them?
Dave Jones: Okay, stop, stop. Here's another. See, this is
scripted. He is not winging this and saying, Hey, Brooke, I know
I'm throwing this to you for the first time, and we've never
discussed this before.
Adam Curry: Let's go back to the beginning of our analysis here.
This is an emergency episode. They decided to do themselves
because they're not happy with what's going on here, and
they've and this is what it comes down to. This is really
what it's about. This piece here.
Unknown: Well, I think we need to steer away from our coverage
areas so that we don't raise eyebrows or. Questions about
conflicts of interest. So that's pretty obvious. So no political
ads, obviously, or ads from entities we're likely to cover,
for instance, big media companies or the oil and tobacco
industries, because we've covered their misinformation
campaigns, and we may still, obviously, if you start reading
ads, it could raise eyebrows and questions about conflicts of
interest. I just want to be clear, the ads, whether or not
we read them, aren't going to change the stories we take on or
how we report them. Yeah.
Look, we've always had a firewall between the editorial
side of what we do and the business, and this ad thing is
not going to change that whatsoever.
Adam Curry: Well, you're going to be pretty limited. Are they
going to do pharma ads?
Dave Jones: I just okay, you stole you stole it. You knew
exactly where I was going, that the within, I guarantee that is
the one thing they did not mention was Pharma. Yeah, I
guarantee you. I guarantee you. Just like I predicted that
Stephen Bartlett would be the keynote speaker, I guarantee
you, within six months of them starting this, they will be
running pharma ads or or if not, if they don't run pharma ads,
they are going to cover some pharma topic negatively, to
juice pharma into advertising with them, to get them to shut
up. I guarantee you, which is,
Adam Curry: yeah, which is pretty much the, okay, that's
the modus operandi of television. Is what you're not
advertising. Oh, well, ozempic seems to be killing people, but
zepbound, oh, that's doing pretty good this.
Dave Jones: They have not had a pharma ad. Within three months,
there will be a there will be some ad about ozempic leading to
more suicides, so, or something like that. So the
Adam Curry: problem that NPR, or maybe they've recognized it,
maybe not podcasting in general, you cannot create artificial
scarcity because you're not on a 24 hour clock. They had it
really good for, you know, 35 years, however, long NPR has
been around, and the minute you get to podcast, advertising,
there's no scarce scarcity. It's like we have unlimited inventory
for as many people as download or listen to the show. It's
unlimited. So you can't create the scarcity. So the only
scarcity there is is within the show itself, which is limited
to, in this case, you know, 11 minutes. But let's say it's a
half hour show. You can have only have so many ads inside the
show that the hosts themselves will read. And when podcast
advertising first started, I was one of the pioneers of that,
because I'm not anti advertising. I just thought we
would be able to make the advertising industry smarter.
Failed was, you know, codes, code Bongino, you know, it was,
it was per inquiry, and that's a different model. So you you do
the ad, and the success of the ad is rated based upon how many
people use the code or use the link. And by the way, NPR, we
have solutions for some of this. You can use chapters. You can
use chapter links. There's all kinds of things that you can do.
Funding tag. Funding tag for your for your most reliable
source of income. There's a lot of things we've created that can
help you solve this if get you pull your head out of your ass.
And by the way, this is not new in 2017 this is the this is a
classic clip that we play over and over again when NPR was
still just NPR, not even really doing, not even focusing on
podcasting, it was already clear that this is an advertising
outfit. Okay, moving on to money. How are NPRs, corporate
underwriting revenues holding up in the recession? And what about
foundation
Unknown: grants?
Two different stories. Underwriting is, underwriting
is, is down. It's down for everybody. I mean, this is, this
is that. This is the area that is most down for us, is in, is
in sponsorship, underwriting advertising. Call it whatever
you want, yeah, call
Adam Curry: it whatever you want. Yeah, it, that's what
happens. 2017 is what I have on this clip. That may not be the
original team. I think it's 2017 but I think it's, I think it's
older than that. I'm not sure how long ago we played that, but
yeah, that's what happens in a recession. It just happens. But,
and if you have too many people, then people have to go. And if
you think that you can make the same amount of money on podcasts
just because there's some bogus release about then, of course,
they're pissed about Kelsey, the Kelsey brothers. Your body's
smart list. It's just a bunch of nerds sitting around a table
with the actors, mere the celebrities that they're getting
paid. Your content is well worth money. Me to me,
Dave Jones: oh, it's the Kelsey thing is, it's even worse. It's
not even nerds, it's jocks. Yeah, that's even worse, jocks
Adam Curry: and Swifties. So Well, welcome to the Welcome to
podcasting NPR, where you take a vow of poverty to to make your
programming. That's what it is. That's what it is. Try value for
value. Try asking people say, hey, you know what? We put a lot
of effort into this. Why don't you send this back, whatever it
was worth to you. Man, would it be great if they just tried it?
I think they would do great at it. They really, would. They
really, really, would.
Dave Jones: I think Nathan, I think Nathan gad in the in the
boardroom is, I think he's spot on. It's a repeat of the fall of
newspaper. And he says it's a repeat of the fall of newspapers
playing out again. The firewall between the newsroom and the
necessities of the business model isn't sustainable,
correct? Yeah, I agree. And that firewall is not a firewall. It's
just an impediment. And
Adam Curry: all newspaper, almost all newspapers, are
losing money, except one that I know of is the New York Times,
because people are buying a game. They're buying a
subscription to Wordle. And I think they're also in that
package, getting the sports outfit that they bought, which
is very specialized content that you can't get anywhere else,
which is super firewalled. And, you know, sorry, they just not
buying it for news. So, yeah, take a look at newspapers. NPR.
You know, people that are doing news aren't making money. News
is just what it is. Twitter is news. That's what people take
for news. You want to be in depth, you're going to have to
ask people to support you, because advertising, they're
just not the model. There's a humongous
Dave Jones: building. It's a huge, beautiful, modern building
in downtown Birmingham, and it was the previous headquarters of
the Birmingham News. And the Birmingham News built this
building. I don't exactly, I don't remember what year, but it
was maybe 2010 and within they built it right before the
demise.
Adam Curry: What a great time to do that. Timing people, yeah,
Dave Jones: they must have spent $50 million on this building,
and within two years they were, they were completely out of it,
and now it's owned
Adam Curry: by an insurance company. Oh, is it empty? Is
anyone in it, or is it empty?
Dave Jones: It's been no, it's, it's owned by an insurance
company. Now, wow, yeah, but that mean it was the this feels
the same way. It feels like it feels like going, it feels like
what happened at the end, you know, leading up to the
pandemic, and then the pandemic just sort of polished everybody
off, with this sort of mass all we're going all in all the chips
into podcasting. And then, yeah, rug pull,
Adam Curry: and it's okay, but let's just admit it and move on.
And by the way, yes, I like her voice. I'm not a big fan of her,
just as a person, she seems very mean. I've, you know, I just
don't like her, but I, I don't mind. I'll listen to you with
the crappy audio. That's okay, if that's all that you can do.
Ultimately, it's about the content. And, yeah, you'd want
it to sound good. But I and I listened to it for different
reasons that may be intended. IE, it's a hate Listen, but I
listen to it and I'm a regular listener, and I don't think
they've ever pitched me properly once to support them.
Dave Jones: Do you support? Never heard it? No. I've never
missed an episode of On the media, and I've not missed an
episode in probably two years, and I don't remember ever being
asked for
Adam Curry: money. Also, I want to support that show, and I
don't want to support NPR in general, so give me those give
me those options. NPR. Want
Dave Jones: any of my money going to radio lab or whatever?
Adam Curry: No, I'm with you there. All right, should we take
a break and play a song? Just ease in, just a weekend. Okay,
this comes from the value verse that's out there. And I love
this track. Nice and easy. DJ, yo, oh yes, baby. How young were
you?
Unknown: I remember my mother
singing this song. You
Oh, let me try and sing it for you. I
can't understand, oh, yeah, why your love is so put to me, oh,
yeah, I can't understand why your love is so true to me. Ah.
Oh, why your love is so wide. I haven't been the very best I
could, but you still are so good. You wrote my name. You owe
my name in the book of life. It is your gift, the gift of Jesus
Christ, who can comprehend I cannot I know what you done for
me.
You came to Earth and showed me how to live. You died on the
cross and I was set free.
I can't understand why your love is so good to me. To me. I can't
understand why your love is so true To me. Oh,
Adam Curry: that's right. See Brooklyn, one, 112 a Jesus song,
that's
Dave Jones: right. I get like a Destiny's Child.
Adam Curry: Whitney, Houston, Destiny's Child. Yeah, yeah. I
really like that song.
Dave Jones: That's a good track. Yeah, I like that. I
Adam Curry: mean, it sounds like real musicians, you know, sound
like someone really blowing the horn there at the end. It was
nice that the value verse has something for everybody.
Dave Jones: That's your industry. Let's see, that's your
six cent what? What did you say that podcast listeners are worth
six cents per hour?
Adam Curry: Six cents per hour? Yes, I have not, unfortunately,
because, you know, I have been trying to do a bit of
vacationing with my wife. I have not listened to pod news, weekly
review, but I do know that Russell from Australia is is on
the show this week, and he has started the pod fund. Have you
been following this?
Dave Jones: I've vaguely understand what, what it is some
sort of like, some sort of pot where apps can or podcast app
developers can apply for some funding. Well, is that the way
it works? Yeah, I
Adam Curry: think so. It's okay. It's interesting. So, and I
really love the sentiment behind it. Of course, it's like, well,
without podcast apps, hosting companies have less of a future,
I think is kind of what he's saying. And the idea is that
they have some kind of key that they so he says he's taking 5%
of his gross revenue, giving that to podcast apps that based
upon how many downloads they're seeing from each app. That's the
key that that that creates the split of that fund. And in order
to qualify, you can't be a corporate app, or at least not
a, I don't feel it's just corporate app, but an app that
also comes from a hosting company and and you have to have
a minimum of five podcasting 2.0 tags that you support, huh?
Dave Jones: Well, on the media would qualify for that because
they're not corporate.
Adam Curry: No, it doesn't go to on the media. It goes to the app
developers. Oh, okay,
Dave Jones: my man, yeah, that's. Think that's, I mean,
it's pretty neat idea. I mean, you would, and it's, if you have
a relationship, I think the application type thing is kind
of cool, because you have a relationship with the person,
with the the developer, and, you know, that's because it's going
to be honor system, and you would need to have that sort of
relationship, though, that there's some trust built in
there. That's a that's a neat idea. I like it. I mean, I'm a
fan of all. I'm a fan of all these different ways of trying
to make these different financial models work. Because
when I mean, you know, that's a weakness within podcasting, when
it's a weakness within all open source systems, is, how do you
get some funding to this to the parts of the system that need it
the most? And
Adam Curry: I have to say it's been the hosting companies that
have supported us with the most value for podcast index. I would
Yeah,
Dave Jones: absolutely, yeah, for sure. Yeah, Marco supporters
for a long time. But I mean, other than Him, the bulk of the
funding, you know, like that, those, like big chunks that we
need to pay the the hosting bill every month that that has been
hosting companies. So, yeah, I mean, it makes sense. And I mean
hosting is, if you do it right, if you do hosting correctly, you
can make money. Um, yeah, it's a good margin. It's got a good
margin business. But you know, as long as you don't,
Adam Curry: don't have any popular shows or offer video
downloads, that seems to be a tough one.
Dave Jones: Now, video, let's talk about video for a second,
because, oh
Adam Curry: no, we become the new media show. Can I be robbed?
Can I be Rob? Please?
Dave Jones: Yes. You pitch, you pitch yard stream, or whatever
that thing called yard
Unknown: stream.
Dave Jones: What's it called?
Adam Curry: You stream, yard stream,
Dave Jones: yard. That's good. The so the video stuff, because
me and you are working on the side project. And video, you
know, is a piece of things, is a piece of podcasting. But, and
Todd was talking about, I think last week, he was saying that,
you know, he's going to take a risk, and he's going to go all,
you know, sort of all in on video podcasting. The the issue
here, though, and this needs to be said is the video, I don't
think can work well, as is intended in the podcast concept
without support for alternate enclosure, and because every
podcast app is going to download the full video when you when you
first hit play, right, right, yeah, it's just the way it's
gonna work,
Adam Curry: yeah, unless You have some signal there. This is
video. This is alternate. This is how I want you to access it,
HLS, or whatever it is.
Dave Jones: HLS, yeah, we need the alternate closure with an
HLS stream in order for video to really work in podcasting,
because nobody The other thing, nobody wants to download 15
gigabytes worth of podcast videos to their phone. So
everybody's going to keep that on streaming, which is what it
should be, because that saves the hosting companies the
bandwidth. So these should all be stream first, type, type, me,
episodes. But in order to make that happen, you're going to
have to do HLS, because the is, as soon as you hit play, what
it's going to do is it's going to download a, you know, a half
a gig or a gigabyte video file before it ever has, before it
ever begins to play about and so I just think that, like, as part
of this whole thing, I'm a I'm a huge, hey, let's do it, man.
Let's do let's go all in on video over RSS, but we've got to
make sure that we're doing it over HLS, because otherwise it's
going to hurt and it's not going to be a good it's not going to
be a good experience for the listener either, because they're
going to it's gonna be that overcast thing where he switched
download, where you hit play and you have to wait,
Adam Curry: yeah, I, you know, I just find the whole thing
wasteful. If people want to, want to do video, do video on
YouTube or rumble or those are platforms, they're understood.
Yes, technically, we can do it. We can also do PDFs in podcasts.
You can do all kinds of things. I don't think the the apps are
conducive, which will bring me to another point in a minute.
It's, you know, I don't think video is killing audio. So I
think there's a, there's a, you know, it's clear the demand for
audio is huge. A lot of people will say that they Oh, yes, I
watch Rogan but they really just have the YouTube app, and they
may glance at it from time to time. But a lot of its audio
that just closing the blocking the screen and listening to it.
I just don't, I don't think it has a future in the podcasting.
I'm off. I'm not against it. Obviously, put whatever you want
in there, but I just don't see why it matters. So look NPR
there. If they did video, they'd really be out of business.
Dave Jones: Oh yeah, for sure.
Adam Curry: You know it's, it's expensive, it's a pain in the
butt. There's okay if you want to call a YouTube show, a
podcast, do whatever you want. I think there's something
different that we need to consider now you're done with
video. Because, I mean, we can talk about this for until the
cows come home.
Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, I'm done. I just, that's just,
that's just the point is the video. I don't think video can
work without a streaming, without a streaming solution,
which is art, which has already been built. It's there. It's
already works. Peer tube, peer tube combined with POD verse,
Go, look. Go check it out. It works perfect.
Adam Curry: Oh yeah. I mean, podcast guru does all. I'm
surprised at all these things that pop up with video that
people just jam and video like David Icke, yeah, he just does
video pod. I don't even know how it works, but it just shows up
and it works, and I wind up listening to it. I, you know, I
usually just close the screen and I'm I don't care too much to
watch. If I want to watch something, I'll watch something,
but I think that's, you know, we've discussed this, Dave,
that's just people chasing metrics, that it's more about
the metrics that YouTube can provide than it is about the
video, right? I mean, I think that's really, really what's
going on there.
Dave Jones: I was talking to a person the other day, and they
said his wife was a marketing person who's just joined a new
company. And he said that she was telling him that her boss
was, like, had done this video, put it up on YouTube, and was
just saying, like, you know, I've got, like, I've got over
1000 views on this video. It's great. And so she went in and
started checking the stats, and, like, almost every one of the
views was some sort of bot. And it was, like, one or two seconds
of playtime. That's yeah, oh
Adam Curry: yeah, oh, there's that, yeah, there's that, yeah.
I was, I can't find the article. I think Spurlock posted it, and
it was, it might have been one of those Hollywood Reporter
articles about the top podcasters, the top celebrities.
And in this case, the article was about what it was like. It
was about the apps. Was that pod news, you know, the biggest
complaints in podcasting and and the top complaint was the apps.
Did you see that?
Dave Jones: No, I don't. I must have missed this article. Maybe
Adam Curry: someone in the boardroom can find it for me,
but I think, but there were a number of comments, and I have
to say it was Kara Swisher at the top, another one of my
favorites.
Dave Jones: So this wasn't just average listeners. This was
people in podcasting. People
Adam Curry: in podcasting, yeah, and, and what they were kind of
saying was, the apps are confusing. There's no way to
find what's trending. There's, you know, there's no
recommendations, a whole bunch of things that, you know, we
have semi solutions for, and I just want, and it was, it was,
it was enlightening, because they see a podcast app as a
platform. So, you know, YouTube is a platform, and YouTube will
recommend. But there's, there's, you know, ways, just here's what
I think has happened from day one, because of the very nature
of podcasting, it's been a very democratic display. So here, you
know, it's like an inbox. You know that there's no there's
barely any priority or preference. And you know, even
though an app will have different features and have, you
know different certainly for playback and for some
organization, there's, there's no personality in the app that
is telling you what to listen to. There is no, I don't know of
a single app that where you open up that app, it says, Hey, Adam,
here's what I think you should listen to today, or because you
listen to this, or here's what's new. Apple has a little bit of
that in their charts, but it's not really even in the app. It's
more, you know, it's more on the. On the podcast page. And I
would, I would like the app developers just to consider, um,
trying out some stuff that is non democratic. Promote things,
promote things that you because I think most app developers can
probably see some of what their of what their users are doing.
If not, you probably should. I mean, I think you have every
right to to see what they're doing, not to sell it to
advertisers, but to try and and, you know, maybe if someone's
listening to a show that has a pod role, throw up those things
the next time they open the app. Try not to be so democratic.
Does this make any sense? What I'm saying here,
Dave Jones: you mean, I think maybe what you're saying is that
we, most of the independent, most of most of indie app
developers in the podcast world, are fans of open source and free
and open software, and you're saying that sometimes that goes
so far that it limits their their ability, that limits their
desire to do things that would maybe conflict with that. Here
Adam Curry: it is. A Hollywood reporter. I found it okay. None
of the apps are great. Colon top podcasters reveal biggest
challenges. So these are the top podcasters say of it, what you
will, with more people tuning in than ever. Theo Vaughn, Bill
Simmons, Rachel Maddow, there you go and more. Explain what's
still holding the medium back. Rachel Maddow, it was actually
mad Oh, not Swisher, interchangeable. As far as I'm
concerned. None of the apps are great. We don't just need
curation and charts. We need national rational organization
and America merit and a word Adam can't pronounce merit,
meritocratic. How to help me? Dave,
Dave Jones: like a meritocracy, yes,
Adam Curry: but how do you say meritocratic? Is it
meritocratic? You said it meritocrat? Yeah. Meredith, we
need a meritocratic way for the best and most relevant shows and
episodes to circulate efficiently. It's hard for me to
understand why we're still saddled with such uniformly
clunky, unintuitive user interfaces at this point. This
is a very good point. And even though it's coming from Rachel
Maddow, I think that point is well made. We've always gotten
into a democratic way of displaying podcasts and kind of
a search and find where you know it's, I think it's okay to put
personality into your app and say, I mean, by the way, why
wouldn't you do an app that highlights left leaning
political podcasts or conversely, right leaning
political podcasts, or show business or sports, and call it
that is that really bad? I think it adds a tremendous amount of
value, because you can't please all the people all of the time,
and just the pure nature, like you said, where we come from in
the open source Kumbaya, everyone's equal. I think it's
been hurting the experience that app developers can can create
for their users.
Dave Jones: Yeah. I mean, you can start with, I think, I think
the problem might be, well, first of all, it's easy to
criticism is easy. Solutions are hard, of course, and you know,
and so I understand it's a valid criticism that she says that,
you know, these, these interfaces are clunky, and that
kind of thing that you're right that is valid at the same time
trying to fit relevant information of that type onto a
small device and present it in a way that makes sense, that
doesn't look jumbled and weird and disconnected. That is a hard
problem, and I think that that is part of that's part of the
issue there on the developer side. The other, the other part
is the everybody getting the same shape, like you said, is,
you know, there's, there shouldn't be some sort of, like
hierarchy you don't want to highlight, but I think, you
know, starting with something like pod role and your own
internal metrics. I mean we do that. I mean, we do a form of
that on the index. I wish it was even more. I wish it was even,
even like more intense of taking sort of a survey of all of the
the episodes being requested in. Assigning scores to the podcast
based on based on episode request volume, and that's how,
that's how our own internal search ranking system works. So,
you know, we take a list of known podcast apps that we
trust, and then we see how many times they've asked for data
about a particular podcast, and the more times they ask, the
higher the rank. Some
Adam Curry: some other examples, some other examples. Fountain is
hands down. The value for value when it comes to streaming, SATs
and lightning payments is hands down. The app that everybody who
understands what that is uses, they have differentiated
themselves even further by integrating nostr. So they're
going after a very particular audience that they believe will
grow. Of course, it's also alienated people. A lot of
people like, I'm not interested in that. So which is good and
bad? Bad, they may lose some people who are just not
interested in seeing a nostr timeline. They may gain a
multiple of that by people who are interested and the concept
of boosting and zapping and all of this stuff. So that's a big
differentiator. Other examples, are okay. So ellenbeats.com
Ellen beats is very, very specific. It's for music. Wave
Lake app, it's for music. I think there are many you could
do. A value for value donation app, where you, first of all,
you find all of the shows that have a funding tag, and maybe
you go into all the NPR shows and find their link, to their to
their funding page and add that in. I mean, I'm just saying
there's, there's so many different things that apps could
do individually that may attract not necessarily the wide
audience, but a smaller audience. Remember, my whole
thing this year is, the future of media is small, that you can
find a smaller audience that would appreciate that and would
gladly pay you to continue to do that.
Dave Jones: Yeah? Yeah. I think, well, the smaller you get, the
more rationale there is for being supported by that niche
you serve. Right? Yes,
Adam Curry: yeah, you should. Thank you. That's exactly right.
It is the paradox. And so I think both pod verse and
fountain started the development teams initially wanted to make
clipping and sharing of podcasts easier, and I think both of them
moved away from that, although pod verse has and I just
evaluate, but what people send me, so if someone shares a clip
with me from a podcast. It's almost always pod verse. It used
to be overcast. That has changed now. Now it's pod verse for
whatever pod verse is doing. People like that sharing
mechanism. I'm just and I'm not telling anyone what to do. I'm
just saying I think there's opportunities, and we're hearing
it from so we're hearing it for some of the the biggest names in
podcasting are saying, help us organize this differently.
Rachel Maddow has her own ideas of what that means. I think what
she really means is make sure I'm on the home page every
single time. You know, I think there's just so much
opportunity. I'm not a developer, so it's very, very
easy for me to talk about this in this way, but I'm just here
to help identify that there are the differentiator between
podcast apps. I think it's time, you know, yes, people are always
going to use certain apps for certain playback functions,
certain you know, the the way the silent, I hear this all the
time, the way the silent skipping works, the way the
multiple the high speed generation sounds. That's a big
that's a big category, but I just think there's so many other
things that are possible that you can draw in a smaller
audience that will be much more likely to support your app when
you ask them to, because of the work that you've done into
highlighting that particular feature, instead of everyone
trying to be all things to everybody.
Dave Jones: But I think you're gonna see it with true fans too,
where because Sam is going all in on activity pub, similar to
the way that Fountain has done with noster. And I think what's
going to happen is you're going to see you're going to see true
fans links and true fans based postings. You're going to see
them start to pop up all over the fetaverse. And when that
happens. Yeah, it's the app itself is going to gain more
action. Yes, I completely agree, touching a a specific audience.
I
Adam Curry: completely agree, you know, which?
Dave Jones: No, I think not. I think you're right. I mean, I
never really thought about it that way, but it makes sense.
Yeah,
Adam Curry: well, it was that article, you know. Let me see
what else there was, because there were some other things
that were said, like, okay, you know, the biggest challenge is
marketing, particularly in the news sphere, says Ben Shapiro,
so maybe, you know, there, maybe that's just a different view.
Look at the top news apps. I mean, everyone has categories,
but try not to do all categories. Try to focus on
something
Dave Jones: well. I mean, maybe we can help in this way, like,
maybe we can publish more data that helps this even more. Like,
like, you know, we have about 4600 podcasts being followed
through the pod, through the podcast, a activity, pub bridge.
Maybe I can publish the list of all those shows, and so that
way, that's a good idea. Every you know that these shows are
being listened to by people who are also on the fediverse and
probably have and that tells you, okay, well, here's an
audience, here's here's a list of shows that are clearly
relevant to people in activity, pro and so therefore, I mean,
like, then you can do something with that information
Adam Curry: and, and I don't want to put this under the
general category of discoverability, because that's
different. This is personality. This is personality of an app
that draws people to this app. And other people recommend that.
Oh, you know, it's like, I only like new shows. And so, you
know, this app recommends that to me, and it does this, and it
has these highlighted and whatever it is. And as I said,
you know, like, I think your example of the of activity, pub
of the fevers, is spot on, spot on for for true fans. I think
you're right. And and, you know, and so you have fountain clearly
tapped into nostr. And I hope it grows. I hope it grows really,
really big. And I think it can, you know, and they should, and
it's, although I was against it initially, now I'm thinking,
that's a great idea. Focus on that.
Dave Jones: Well, it fit it, aside from the technology, I
mean, the technology itself, argument that's different. But
like from a perspective, from from fountains perspective, they
are a they're heavily Bitcoin focused on that. They know that
they have a strong Bitcoin focused audience. So why would
they not do the nostr thing? You know what I mean? Like, yeah,
that's where a lot of their audience is. So it makes sense.
Adam Curry: That's what I'm saying that. And what they did
is they took the risk of pissing off people, which they did. And
I know that they did, and they know it at the for the upside of
well, we're going to give this core audience who already
understand Bitcoin and already understand value for value and
boosting, because they are by far the biggest with the most
transactions, not always the highest amount, but certainly
the by volume. And add to that, to that, to that audience that
that already understands it and wants it and wants more of it.
That's a bold decision. It's not necessarily for me, but it's a
bold decision. It's good. I mean, I think that's really
good, and
Dave Jones: I and I think he knows that over time, he'll just
smooth out those initial rough edges and make it where, I mean,
like, I don't think anything's really on a longer time scale,
gonna hurt? Well,
Adam Curry: it's okay. The future of media is small focus
on an audience that you can reach and completely satisfy you
can't be I mean, why do people buy different radios? Why do
people buy different television sets? You know, there's all
kinds of, well, I'd like this because it has Netflix built
into it. I like this because it does that. It this has 3d I can
put my 3d goggles on. It switches automatically. You
know, there's all kinds of things. And that
differentiation, it just really hit me when I when I saw this
Hollywood Reporter, and particularly from Rachel Maddow,
who I really am not a fan of, but, like, you know, she's
saying something very interesting here. This is a
powerful statement. It's like i It seems clunky. It doesn't fit
to my worldview or what I understand of curation or
promotion. And, you know, by the way, you could build quite a
business out of it seems to be like a dirty word. And I'm just
unlike NPR, I'm commercial. That seems like a dirty word to say.
Well, you know what? You can buy a spot on the homepage of my app
to promote your podcast. That's like, it's like, not done. You
know what? I mean. Yeah.
Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, that's not your dog.
Adam Curry: I can, I can hear your dog. Yeah, your dog is not
Dave Jones: happy, yeah, no, I'm but I'm okay with that. I'm
totally okay with, like, sponsored, you know, placement,
because if somebody cares enough to spend some money to put that
in, you know that to promote that into in an app that I that
I respect, I'm okay with that. I'm fine with it. This is all
right.
Adam Curry: You know, when about the end of the world, there was
such an opportunity. I know we talked about it when Joe Rogan
came back on onto open RSS, podcasting, as far as I know,
not a single podcast app went, Hey, we've got Joe Rogan back.
Click here. Obvious one, you know, it's like, Hey, you can
get Joe Rogan here. No, you don't need Spotify come to us.
Dave Jones: I mean, such a good point. And
Adam Curry: you can do that from a you know, for all of these
things, there's so much you can there's so much that can be done
with this content and and the podcasters would endear you. Oh,
wait a minute, you're promoting my show. I mean, what? What is
one of the top things? How do I game apple? How do I get, you
know? How do I get to Yo, you got to have this many new
subscribers and this many five star reviews make it to just
something you do. Doesn't have to be a democracy.
Dave Jones: I've seen this for a long I've said this for a long
time that, you know, writing a podcast app is incredibly
difficult. No kidding, when you the first, the first, the star,
all these, uh, sort of, writing an RSS feed reader is considered
sort of like a bootstrap starter app, and then you and then, and
that's so not true, because to do it well, and to do a podcast
app Well, takes years and years of commitment. It is not, oh, it
is so not easy and like, that's I've I've got mad respect for
every single independent podcast app developer that that exists
and like to be able to to be able to take all this data and
plug it into this tiny little interface and do it in a way
that doesn't feel just like a complete garbage dump, and that
just that just takes talent. And we all know that user interface
design is literally the hardest thing in the world to do well.
So, so how about focus? Maddeningly difficult. So once
Adam Curry: you have your basic interface design and all podcast
apps are like email, here's your, here's your here's your
list, and here's your inbox, and here's the new stuff, and you
can organize it kind of like an email that's RSS readers the
same way, but people choose different email clients for
different reasons. Why is there so many people using proton
mail? Because they provide reasonably simple to use
encryption, and there's a feeling there of, okay, my email
is secure. What do people like about Gmail? Is Gmail so
incredibly great? Well, some people like it because it's
unlimited storage, which is not really true depending on how
much you use. I like the hjkl navigation of it. You know, it's
all these different features that are very specific to
specific email clients, and that's why people use them. A
lot of people like Outlook. Why? Because it integrates with the
with Microsoft Office, and these, these are all the types
of things that I think it's well overdue time for podcast app
developers to at least start thinking about, what can I do,
what is unique to me, what is unique in my skill set, that I
can do that will maybe not be the most general app for
everybody to use, but will attract this audience and that I
can bring this because once someone who likes encryption
sees proton mail, they tell someone else how you should use
proton mail. Yeah,
Dave Jones: even what you're saying is that, is that app
developers should not be afraid of having an opinion
Adam Curry: precisely. And it's, it's a it's a very, it's all.
You know what it is, it's it's the same hurdle as asking for
money in value for value. If it's a hurdle you got to get
over. And most people don't really want to do it because it
feels dirty. Doesn't feel right for some reason. But we're going
to do it right now by asking people to support us with some
money. Let's do it. So I hope, I hope that came across as what I
wanted to communicate. Because I think so, because I really see a
future for everybody, and I would use different apps for
different things. I already do. I already use, you know, if I
want to share something, I typically will use pod verse,
but. Know, Fountain has their own way, their own sharing
thing, which is not particularly something I like with the wheel,
but, you know, it's like, every there's audiences for all this
stuff, and there's there's a lot of audiences. And, you know, we
don't need to compete with Apple. Apple, in fact, is at a
disadvantage. We know that we can do. They're really trying to
be all things to all people, and and they're slow. They can't
develop things, and they have to be all things to all people. And
you can have a smaller, very dedicated, and I believe,
supporting user base, which doesn't have to be very big.
Think about it. If you had, you know, 1000 users, and they're
all supporting you with, you know, $1 a month. It starts to
get more interesting, probably, than what most are getting now.
Just a thought. So looking at the boost that came in during
the show, well, there's a guess who's at the top. Sam Sethi,
yeah. And the good news is true, fans can now federate comments.
Listen, did
Dave Jones: you get it working?
Adam Curry: I guess so. Listen, stats and more to all activity
pub clients. So there you go. Nice, Sam is Sam is finding his
niche, niche. You want to say something? I
Dave Jones: need to I need to I need to check and make sure that
it's working. Because he was said he was having trouble the
other day getting it to federate out. Uh, wonder if he's posted.
I don't see him posting anything else about it. Here's the fir,
oh, okay, wait, let's check this out. Is it working? Here's the
first ever comment from true fans in the podcast, 2.0 show
published by activity. Pub, Oh, yep, I see it. Nice, nice,
excellent, very, nice,
Adam Curry: excellent. So, yeah, that's that should definitely be
on the list for your ever growing list is getting some of
those activity. Pub, stats out. That's cool. I like that. I like
that idea.
Dave Jones: I'll do that. Yeah, I'll do that. I'm actually,
actually was coding in the, in the I spent, actually spent
quite a bit of time coding, uh, yesterday, last night in the
podcast, podcast, index, activity, pub, bridge, trying to
do some troubleshooting, putting in some some new stuff, trying
to make that thing more stable. So I'm in that code base right
now. Awesome. 3333
Adam Curry: from Chad F he says, I like Russell's pod fund idea.
I've been wanting something like this for a while. Well, your
request has been granted. Dr Scott, 4567, don't you know?
Video Killed the Radio Star, kidding. Lol. Side note, I'm
currently publishing my wife's podcast in two separate feeds.
One is for audio with an alternate enclosure for video
and the other for video with altered enclosure for audio.
Well, that's interesting. I guess that's necessary still to
do it that way. You know,
Dave Jones: you know, what I would love is, I would love if
Apple podcasts app would support HLS through an alternate,
alternate enclosure tag, and then they could and then they
streamed the Apple Keynote, the Apple live events.
Adam Curry: Yeah, their own podcast app, yes,
Dave Jones: yes. They publish it. They published a video over
HMS. They do.
Adam Curry: They do and
Dave Jones: and they have, they currently have no way to watch
their own live events, own their own devices, without just going
into Safari and web page. They should do it within their
podcast app. And everybody has a feed, silent, feed of just the
of the apple live event feed or something like that. Yeah, it
pops up in the podcast app, and there you go.
Adam Curry: So that's a helipad being triggered by Darren
O'Neill with 33,333 sets that has, you know, you got to hit
the big number for that. And Darren says it's all rock and
roll to me. Thanks for all you do. 1111. From Randall black and
John's Creek studios. Good job thinking about saving the
bandwidth for listener slash user and server demand for the
hosting providers go podcasting. 1234, from dreb Scott, he says,
Keep alive. Yes, I need to keep alive for my USB. Actually
switched the USB port so now I'm on the the main USB port, so I
don't have a pre fader listening capability, but at least it's up
and up and running. Sal to crayon, 111 from upbeats. Got
together in the lunchroom for a quickie. Dave Jones, they
weren't in the pipe for that audio quality. He says, Yeah,
that's true. No, five by five. That's right. Booberry with
6666, going to be running lights tonight for Ace freely. Oh, wow.
Fingers crossed. There's time before the show to onboard him
with an. And give a quick rundown of musicsideproject.com
Well, yeah, I'm gonna definitely have my fingers crossed for
that, brother. That'll be a good one. Yes, please. 1234, from Dr
Scott. Show title, Dude, where's my show? Actually, I kind of
like lunchroom. Quickie is the one I'm going with. Side note,
kiwi, irc.com, is down, so I can't get into the boardroom at
work. Oh, that's too bad. Didn't realize that the 777, from Dr
Scott keeping the rodecaster alive. Unfortunately, that all
comes in on a different a different interface, but I
appreciate it. Brother, another 1111, from salty crayon howdy
boardroom got a dumb question for you all. There's no such
thing on the stats page of podcast index.org It says that
there's 4,258,428 podcasts in the index. On the value for
Value tab, it says only 21,126 are V for V enable. Does this
mean that there is four that 4,000,236 231 that don't even
enable them for V for V. When I tell people about V for V and
the index, I want to have my info Correct. Got to be five by
five. Go podcasting. Yeah, that's correct. Yep. That's
right. That's so this, technically, anybody can in the
index. Anybody can enable themselves through podcaster,
wallet.com, or one of our many partner, APIs, but that number
is, is just index. That's not feeds, even that's indexes.
That's index count, right? Yeah, so if we have the shim in place,
yeah, there you go. Yeah. And another, let's see. That was
1000 from chat. F, who was actually listening pre stream.
Thank you very much, Chad. F, that's our boosters live during
this vacation episode. Dave, what do you have on on the
PayPals and the monthlies and other boosts? Sam
Dave Jones: says, If you reply to a true fans dot social
posting. It doesn't go anywhere currently, but they're going to
make that visible in true fans itself. If you somebody replies
from the fever, just an, just an on a live update, okay?
Adam Curry: Thank you, Sam.
Dave Jones: We got, yeah, we got some, I guess, some PayPals. We
got the blueberry team. $300
Adam Curry: Whoa, hello, blueberry team. Shot Caller, 20
inch blades on the Impala. Thank you very much. There it is.
Proof is in the pudding, keeping us alive.
Dave Jones: Says, Go podcasting from the blueberry team, hold
the line. Yes, we
Adam Curry: will hold the line. Holding the line.
Dave Jones: We got another, see, we got another. PayPal from
Oscar Mary, $200 bam.
Adam Curry: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Dave Jones: Check your CO two. CO two might be too high. I
don't even start the show until CO two hits 1000 I'm telling
you, when
Adam Curry: I was telling divorce, get fun, I was telling
Dvorak about that story about what's that guy, Bartlett, the
die of a CEO, and that when the CO two monitor hits 1000 then he
stops the interview. And your Dvorak's response was, dude,
open a window. So good one, yeah, makes total sense.
Dave Jones: Yeah, Occam's razor. Do the simple thing. We got some
booster grams. We got, oh, wait, wait, wait, you know what? We
had a last minute,
Adam Curry: last minute donation,
Dave Jones: a one off $10 from see Brooklyn. 112, go
podcasting. All right, brother,
Adam Curry: thank you very much.
Dave Jones: I almost missed it. Man, that was a close one mere
mortals. Chiron Sasha Richards, 111, through fountain. He says,
Enjoy Mexico Adam, some of the most beautiful and diverse
landscapes all jumbled into one country for the police,
Adam Curry: though it is indeed, it is indeed, it is. It is
beautiful here. Too bad about all the cars
Dave Jones: that's I heard Karen's Police Story. If you've
never heard it,
Adam Curry: he has a Mexican police story.
Dave Jones: Oh yeah, yes. It involved prison time. Yes. Uh,
Chris. Oh. Chris lass from Jupiter, broadcasting, net worth
20,000 SAS through fountain. He says, killer value to the
community this week and taking time to talk patiently with
Robert Lipson, good work. Really been enjoying the board meetings
recently. Happy belated birthday. Podfather.
Adam Curry: Oh, thank you very much, brother. Appreciate it.
Dave Jones: See we got gene bean, 2222 row of ducks there,
cast O Matic, he says, for location. I hope it utilizes
latitude and longitude so that it can be easily correlated to
any mapping tool. Well,
Adam Curry: it's an option, isn't it? Hasn't that always
been an option? Long and last,
Dave Jones: straight up. Yep, straight up. Sir Brown of
London, 11. 948, through cast O Matic, he says, I have to boost.
I have to boost at the mention of tiles. Dot pod, ping.org, it
does link to episodes.fm. Already for most, and it will
link for all when it is upgraded to handle encoded URLs instead
of iTunes IDs. Yes, we are all
Adam Curry: waiting, waiting with bated breath. We can't
wait. We can't wait to use episodes.fm for everything,
yeah, tiles, dot pod, ping.org, is pretty, pretty cool to look
at.
Dave Jones: Gene bean, 2222 coming in again. He says, preach
it. Brother Dave, general comment, not about a specific
thing, just in general. Just
Adam Curry: in general. Good work. Yeah.
Dave Jones: Preach in new in Newy in new AB in new way this
e, n, e, u, b, y, in way, B, and we be, I don't know, 20,000 SATs
through fountain. He says, Can you make a suggestion of a good
podcast hosting company, homepod, Libsyn blueberry, who
appears to be supporting the most 2.0 features, who has best
value split set up in terms of ease, love the show. Keep
blazing new trails. Well,
Adam Curry: if you go to podcastapps.com, I believe you
can set filters there, so you can say, I want to have hosting
companies and what they support, and that's a good way to really
see who provides what.
Dave Jones: Yep, choose the filters of the tags you want
supported and yeah. Have have have a shot. Yep. Let's see we
got Mike Dell Oh, I know Mike. I've heard it 1701 Yeah, 1701
that's the star. Star Trek boost through fountain. He says,
finally got my wallet refilled. Well, good for you, Mike.
Adam Curry: What? What is this? How is 1701 A Star Trek boost.
I'm not familiar with the numerology of Star Trek
Dave Jones: because the the designation number of the
enterprise is NCC, 1701
Adam Curry: D, Oh, of course, of course, I should have not got
it, got it. Got it. Got
Dave Jones: it saturated. Blogger, the delimiter, 27,000
SATs. He says, Yeah, through Fountas, through fountain he
says, howdy, biz bros, Dave and Adam. We're approaching an era
of total unemployment for humans,
Adam Curry: it sounds like another AI boost.
Dave Jones: We're already two years into the Gen AI with LLM
revolution, and in just two more years, the humanoid robot
revolution will begin, soon to be followed by AGI. The only job
that might remain for us humans will be content creation. With
that in mind, I recommend checking out the mp three
podcast in 4k YouTube videos of bandrew says podcast equals BSP,
podcast, it covers topics relevant to content creators.
Yo, CSB,
Adam Curry: well, that means we're good to go, Dave. We have
employment for the rest of our lives, for as long as we may be
here. We got
Dave Jones: some monthlies. We got Chad Farrow, $20.22 Thank
you. Jeff. Kevin Bay, $5 uh, thank you. Kevin Cameron rose,
$25 pod page is Brendan over there in the gang, so he's $25
Adam Curry: we've been they've been advertising on pod news all
week. Podpage, have you heard that scene? Yeah, that's good.
Dave Jones: Mark Graham, $1 new media, $1 thank you guys.
Randall black $5 just Morocco $5 and Emilio Keno, Molina, $4
Adam Curry: well, thank you all very much for returning value,
for the value that we provide with podcastindex.org the work
that goes into that the board meeting, we are tickled pink,
and would ask everybody to consider supporting us. You can
go to podcastindex.org down at the bottom of that page, past
all the funky stuff and the tiles and the carousel, there's
a red donation button. You can send this to your fun Fiat
coupons through PayPal, or, of course, use a modern podcast app
to boost us, and that will typically get read on the show,
which also, if you put a note in your PayPal, we'll read that as
well. Thank you all for supporting the entire project
known as podcast index.org, and podcasting 2.0 and a special
announcement, if you are listening live right now, yes,
special announcement live on the stream next, after we after we
disconnect, will be a live session from oistin Berger. No,
you remember we played some of his music on the last show.
Dave Jones: Yeah? Now, okay, yes, I got him confused with
who's the guy that does all the AI stuff? That's the we figured
out later. His music was, oh,
Adam Curry: Richard grease. Richard grease, that's
Unknown: it. Richard
Adam Curry: grease is, let me see, where's his let me. See,
I'll give you a little preview of some of his musical stylings,
if you recall. This still cracks me up. This is his mosquito
mystery track. Oh, that's
Dave Jones: right, yeah, he's Dutch, right? No, he's
Adam Curry: well, I think he lives in Holland, but I believe
he's Danish. I think Danish. Okay, I think so. So make sure
you listen for that. I'm definitely as as I'm wrapping up
and getting ready for to head down to the pool. I'm definitely
going to be listening to that. He's interesting fellow,
interesting fellow. All right, brother, Dave, thank you so
much. Another another week in the can. What are you doing this
weekend?
Dave Jones: We got my daughter has a she's got a concert
tonight, and so we're gonna go watch her play. She's playing
playing guitar in her band. Oh, nice. And, yeah, you
Adam Curry: want to mention the venue where people can go and
check her out
Dave Jones: at the firehouse in downtown Birmingham. All right,
excellent. Well, yeah, cool.
Adam Curry: And is she streaming that live like she should be
Dave Jones: negative. No streaming live,
Adam Curry: no live stream.
Dave Jones: All right, board day, one day we will get that
word. Yeah, you
Adam Curry: bet boardroom. Thank you very much for being here as
always. We will return next week, on the Friday, bringing
everything that's happening in podcasting, right here in The
Weekly board meeting for podcasting, 2.0
Unknown: You have been listening to podcasting 2.0 visit podcast
index.org for more information. Go podcasting.
Yeah, it is big. You.