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Transcript

The Next Generation Of Podcast Editors · Buzzcast

• 0:00
  Alban: John and I always love doing these, like, questions. We have a few we go to like, what conspiracy theory do you think is most likely to be true? That always gets good answers. You can only drink three different drinks for the rest of your life, what are they? And people think that's not very hard until they realize like no more Yoo-hoo. They're just like, No more YooHoo! I was like, that's easy! Get rid of the Yoo-hoo.
• 0:24
  Kevin: What if somebody was like, Yoo-hoo, Sunny D, and McDonald's orange drink. I'm going with those three.
• 0:30
  Alban: I swear, Kevin. We had one friend, there was no water in her answer. We're like, Oh.
• 0:35
  Jordan: It was me. That was me!
• 0:40
  Alban: I was like, this psychopath. I can't remember exactly who it was.
• 0:43
  Jordan: It was me.
• 0:51
  Kevin: Happy Valentine's Day.
• 0:52
  Jordan: Happy Valentine's Day. I tried finding like Valentines that said like, Will you be my co host? It is a special event recording on a holiday. So I thought we'd play a fun little game. Listen, Subscribe, Delete.
• 1:03
  Jordan: This is a podcast version of the schoolyard game, Kiss, Marry, Kill, which if you haven't heard of that, it's basically like a thought experiment for children in which you are given like three difficult decisions.
• 1:18
  Kevin: I don't really know this game.
• 1:19
  Alban: I know this game. I just love the you're like, it's a thought experiment for children of which of their friends to kill.
• 1:26
  Kevin: The Kill part is harsh.
• 1:27
  Jordan: It is harsh. I think it's basically like a metaphor for like not having something like in a very final way.
• 1:34
  Kevin: But I feel like it's one of the games where if my kids were playing it, I would be like, change it. You can do kiss, marry, and then like high five or kick to the curb. But you can't kill them. You can't kill anybody.
• 1:43
  Alban: This is also already the watered down version of this game.
• 1:47
  Jordan: It is, yeah. If you ever went to like summer camp or anything like that, there's definitely.
• 1:51
  Kevin: So I was not allowed to go to summer camp and I'm figuring out why.
• 1:54
  Alban: All right, so you're gonna give us three of our favorite podcasts.
• 1:58
  Jordan: Yeah, so I'll give you three podcasts and you have to tell me which one you'd casually listen to, which you subscribe to, and which you'd delete from the feed forever. You can never listen to it again. So this is Listen, Subscribe, Delete. I had you both send me your six top favorite podcast. This is gonna be a podcast that has a special place in your heart when you listen to on the reg. So Alban, you're round one. We start with Decoder, Fresh Air, and Dithering.
• 2:27
  Alban: Oof.
• 2:28
  Jordan: And Dithering, I hadn't heard of this one. Is this a new podcast?
• 2:32
  Alban: It's uh, John Gruber and Ben Thompson, doing two times a That's right, worth every penny.
• 2:35
  Alban: week. I think they started the beginning of COVID. But I'd read I think the fact that I pay for one of these pretty much locks Ben Thompson's Stratechery, I think since it first came out, that in is the subscribe, right?
• 2:43
  Alban: like maybe eight years ago, nine years ago. And Kevin has listened to read Gruber for years and years. And so both of
• 2:49
  Jordan: That's the Dithering?
• 2:49
  Alban: Yeah, I think Dithering goes in subscribe. So my what us actually, this isn't our top shows. But it's a paid podcast.
• 2:54
  Alban: So it's premium content.
• 3:03
  Alban: are my other two?
• 3:06
  Jordan: You have to listen to one and delete another one. So you have Decoder and Fresh Air?
• 3:09
  Jordan: Which one are you going to listen to and which one you're going to delete?
• 3:14
  Alban: That is not easy. They're both interview shows. Fresh Air is obviously Terry Gross, who's been doing interviews and I feel like I often cite her interview style is one of the best. She's interviewed everybody. So like, every time a celebrity passes away, it's like you go and at the top of the feed is gonna be a rebroadcast of her talking to him. I remember when like Anthony Bourdain past, she had like an incredible interview with him. So that's hard, but Decoder that is unique content.
• 3:43
  Alban: So Nilay Patel is the editor of The Verge and gets like the very best interviews of people in the tech space. I did not like this game. This is not fun. I think I still have to listen to Fresh Air. So it's a bummer. I'm sorry to The Verge staff and Nilay in particular. I'm gonna miss out on a lot of good tech stuff but um, yeah, I'm not gonna give up Terry Gross.
• 4:09
  Kevin: I don't think he's hurting for more downloads.
• 4:11
  Alban: Yeah, I don't think either of these shows are. So we've given an apology, apologizing to myself.
• 4:16
  Kevin: I think we should up the ante. Not only do you have to delete but you have to like actively try to get other people to not listen to it.
• 4:22
  Jordan: A campaign against it.
• 4:27
  Alban: Did you see Terry Gross at Podcast Movement a few years ago?
• 4:30
  Kevin: Yes. My favorite Podcast Movement talk of all time.
• 4:32
  Alban: Yeah, I think that was the best one that there ever was. So I'm still subscribed to ithering. And then I'll just have to actively go and download Fresh Air episodes. Yeah.
• 4:41
  Kevin: When you say listen, you have to listen like through like a web player. Right? You can't even
• 4:46
  Alban: No. You have to listen to like the worst podcast app. You have to go download some app we've never heard of with the most convoluted process.
• 4:53
  Jordan: For Kevin you have to listen on Spotify.
• 4:55
  Alban: Spotify web player through IE8.
• 4:58
  Kevin: Yeah. And for some reason, it will not work with Bluetooth headphones.
• 5:03
  Jordan: Yes, exactly. All right.
• 5:03
  Jordan: So Kevin, we have Akimbo from Seth Godin, the Rework podcast and Revisionist History. Which are you going to listen to, subscribe to, and then delete forever?
• 5:18
  Kevin: Okay, I'm gonna subscribe to Revisionist History. And I'm gonna do that because it's like long and I get into it, and I love it for car trips. And Malcolm Gladwell is a genius. So I'm subscribing to that. I'm gonna listen to Akimbo. I can do that. I can listen on the webplayer. They're shorter episodes. And the reward podcast is great, but everything that they've talked about is pretty much in a bowl as well. So I'm gonna grab all the books.
• 5:44
  Alban: Which you have already read.
• 5:45
  Jordan: That's true. Yeah.
• 5:45
  Jordan: Alright, Alban. So round two for you. We have Conversations with Tyler, Making Sense with Sam Harris, and then FiveThirtyEight.
• 5:56
  Alban: Okay, this one's much easier for me, I guess than the previous round for sure.
• 6:00
  Alban: Conversations with Tyler, Tyler Cowen and he's a economics professor, Tyler can talk about anything. So there's episodes about AI. And then there's episodes about technology and episodes about business and economics. And then there's one about Haitian art, and it's so impressive the depth of knowledge. So that was going to be there. Making Sense is probably my favorite podcast.
• 6:26
  Alban: And so I'm locking that in as my subscribe, and I could totally let go of FiveThirtyEight, I think. I don't really care for politics. I really like their kind of data driven way of discussing current events. And so I find that interesting, but I often notice that if I do listen, I'm not like fully engaged and so I can delete it forever and move on and probably the less than I'm engaging with American politics in general. So conversations with Tyler's I still listen, subscribe to making sense and I've let FiveThirtyEight go.
• 7:05
  Jordan: All right, Kevin, round two. We have S-Town, How I Built This, and Land of the Giants.
• 7:08
  Jordan: These are really good podcasts.
• 7:13
  Kevin: Okay, let me get a point of clarification. If I delete S-Town I've already listened to it is it like wiped from my memory?
• 7:20
  Alban: Anything that's associated with Serial is done.
• 7:23
  Alban: You don't get season three of Serial, S-Town 2, you like you don't get those.
• 7:29
  Jordan: Yeah, you've broken up, like they've taken their stuff.
• 7:32
  Jordan: They packed the boxes. They're gone.
• 7:34
  Alban: This is such a rip off if I have to give up real shows that continue to put out stuff and you're like, Oh, I lost the eight part series already listened to it twice.
• 7:41
  Kevin: So I'm going to lose Serial, S-Town, and This If Sarah Koenig does anything else, you don't get to listen to American Life.
• 7:45
  Kevin: it.
• 7:45
  Kevin: Okay, fair enough. I'll do it.
• 7:45
  Kevin: I'll part ways. S-Town's gone.
• 7:53
  Alban: Wow, we just raised the ante like over and over you're like fine, don't even care.
• 7:58
  Kevin: I was already locked in.
• 7:58
  Kevin: I asked a clarifying question for no reason.
• 8:02
  Alban: Which of these are you subscribed to? Which are you listening?
• 8:06
  Kevin: This is this is easy also. Because How I Built This is going to, I'm going to subscribe to that. And I'm not subscribing the Land of the Giants. I'm just going to listen because it's awful anyway, how their subscription, their follow works. Like it always comes in whatever podcasts that I use, it comes in in a weird order. Yeah, I don't know what they're doing.
• 8:23
  Kevin: But I'm always having to scroll through that feed of episodes to try to find the one I haven't listened to. Or the newest one.
• 8:28
  Kevin: It's not on top. It's like they have it listed as like a serial podcast or something. But I think Overcast
• 8:33
  Alban: Serial, not episodic.
• 8:34
  Kevin: Yeah, I listen in Overcast usually to that. And it doesn't pop into the top. For some reason I'm always scrolling to the bottom of the list. It's a difficult anyway. So it actually probably make my life better just to, like, unfollow it, and just go to the web, plug in my headphones and listen to it that way.
• 8:47
  Alban: I found some seasons of Land of the Giants to be like really compelling. And then others like this dating games, one, I think probably like having never used a dating app I've dated and then married my wife since those really came into being that it's not all that compelling. And it's just depressing. I like anytime I hear about dating apps. I'm like, Yeah, that sounds not yet at all.
• 9:08
  Kevin: What is interesting I'm finding about this season isn't necessarily the tech story behind it, which is what has been interesting about the other ones, but this one is like the psychology and how it's like really kind of unhealthy for the world over.
• 9:18
  Jordan: Gamification of it.
• 9:20
  Kevin: Yeah. And the problems that these companies are trying to resolve not just to keep their apps popular, but also like not just break society in general. It's just a struggle that they're really having.
• 9:30
  Alban: Wait, I don't think Jordan can get out of here. Like you have to give us your top three podcasts.
• 9:36
  Jordan: You know what? I was like, Alban's gonna call me out because I've been mean to them and put them through the wringer. I came prepared. I picked my three podcasts that I listened to the absolute most. I knew this was gonna come.
• 9:49
  Alban: Now I want honesty. These are the three so when you were picking them you weren't going like, I don't know if I can get rid of that one.
• 9:57
  Jordan: It was very honest. Like these are like my three most favorite podcasts they listen to. I love them so much.
• 10:03
  Kevin: All right, let's do it.
• 10:04
  Jordan: So my first one, you know this, it's Hello from the Magic Tavern.
• 10:07
  Alban: Hello from the Magic Tavern.
• 10:08
  Jordan: Little bit of fantasy improv comedy. It's hilarious. I love it. Next one is Potterless.
• 10:11
  Jordan: And I don't know if you've heard of that. It's a podcast about a guy who's like in his mid 20s.
• 10:19
  Jordan: And he reads the Harry Potter books for the first time ever.
• 10:22
  Jordan: And it's so good because he starts out like knowing absolutely nothing. He makes fun of the book series, because, you know, it's a children's series.
• 10:27
  Jordan: And then by the end of his journey of it, like he actually has like people from the movies,
• 10:34
  Alban: Whoa.
• 10:35
  Jordan: on his podcast. Yeah, he's one of like, the main Harry Potter experts. He goes like LeakyCon, all this stuff. Like he's like, a huge deal now.
• 10:43
  Alban: LeakyCon. Leaky Cauldron?
• 10:45
  Jordan: Yeah, like Leaky Cauldron. LeakyCon. And so it's a conference. Anyway. And then my third one is True Crime Obsessed, which is like a comedy podcast where they watch True Crime documentaries and basically find the humor it.
• 10:57
  Kevin: My wife loves that. She keeps telling me to listen.
• 10:59
  Jordan: It's so funny. Your wife has good taste.
• 11:02
  Alban: Okay, so what's your listen?
• 11:04
  Jordan: This sucks because I listen to these on the daily.
• 11:07
  Alban: Not anymore.
• 11:08
  Kevin: I think we have to, whatever we do whatever we have to commit to for the rest of 2023.
• 11:14
  Alban: We got to I agree. I agree. We've got to do it.
• 11:18
  Jordan: I think my casual listen, I think it would be Hello from the Magic Tavern.
• 11:24
  Alban: Ooh, is only your listen?
• 11:25
  Jordan: No, I changed my mind. I change my mind. It's gotta be True Crime Obsessed.
• 11:28
  Alban: I think that's your I think that's your subscribe.
• 11:30
  Jordan: Hello from the Magic Tavern, I know is my subscribe.
• 11:33
  Alban: There's so many episodes
• 11:35
  Jordan: And then I think my listen is True Crime Obsessed.
• 11:35
  Kevin: Good choice.
• 11:39
  Kevin: And then I would delete Potterless.
• 11:41
  Alban: Potterless is gone.
• 11:42
  Jordan: It kind of hurts. But it's sort of for the same reason that Kevin has were like, I've already listened to like all of it. He does come out with like some special episodes, but like not a ton. But I mean, like Alban said, you can't listen to-
• 11:55
  Alban: anything involving Harry Potter ever again.
• 11:58
  Kevin: Whoa, you went all Harry Potter.
• 12:00
  Jordan: NO! That's not what we said!
• 12:02
  Alban: I'm just saying, you can't- I don't like these like, Oh, I picked one of my favorite shows is like a limited run series.
• 12:10
  Jordan: I mean, he actually makes like other really good podcasts like Horse, that podcast about like basketball that's really famous. And then he also does, like Meddling Adults and Newest Olympian. So he has a lot of like, really, really good podcasts. And that would suck because I listen to them all.
• 12:25
  Kevin: Alban just, he upped the ante so high. It's like, you don't want to make a bet with him. Like if you did a bet where you like, had to drink a gallon of milk like halfway if you lost, you're drinking the milk.
• 12:33
  Kevin: And Alban would be like, And you have to do- you could only drink milk ever again! The rest of your life, and you have to drink a gallon of it a day. Jordan, that was fun game. Thank you so much.
• 12:47
  Jordan: When Apple Podcasts originally released the host images, which are like the profile pictures at the bottom of the podcast show page, and it links to all of the shows you've been guesting on the shows you host things like that. Super cool. So when they first launched that, it was announced, like this is only available to select podcasts. And so everyone went, Okay, that's just to certain people, right. And then I found out probably about, I don't know, I want to say six months later, it wasn't only available to select podcasts, even though they were saying that. But you could sign a waiver that they have available on their host and guests page in the Apple podcast support for creators. You could sign like this, like photo release form and make sure that you have your photo that fits within their certain specifications. And you can email it to them. And say like, Hey, here's the host photo for such and such podcast, I've signed the waiver done all this.
• 13:44
  Jordan: And it might take a while like it takes like a few weeks. But your host photo would show up.
• 13:48
  Jordan: Podcasts that had just started were able to do this, podcasts that only had like a couple 100 downloads were able to do this.
• 13:55
  Jordan: I know people who did it. But recently, my friend Angie, who hosts the Four Things for Your Podcast, she has some clients that are podcasters. And she tried to send in one of her clients photos for their host photo. And Apple comes back and they said we aren't accepting requests to add new host and guest images. So we create these images based on relevance popularity in Apple confidential algorithms. And that's exactly what they sent her. But this is new, because she had done this a whole bunch. I've done this whole bunch.
• 14:27
  Alban: I have a theory of what's happening here. I think that something changed, but I think I have a theory of what happened.
• 14:32
  Alban: Okay. This has always been the rule, right? The rule was, Apple has a proprietary thing. They realized like, hey, the top like 100 shows, we'd like to have their images. This would be a nice experience. If there's an interview with Barack Obama, there's his photo at the bottom, you click and then it's like, Oh, he did like five other interviews and you could listen to those. That was a cool experience. And then here's what I think happened. The way internally that Apple set this up was they were requesting images and when they requesting, I bet they sent this page that you just shared with us. And we're like, Hey, here's the PSD, here's the release, email, your info. And when they were doing that, I think you just were sneaking them in. And so you're sending in images. And they were like, oh, okay, I guess and some support person was uploading and creating profiles for you. And eventually, they got wise to how these were being submitted. And they're like, none of this is request only. That's my guess.
• 15:27
  Alban: Is that your guests, Kevin?
• 15:32
  Alban: Kevin's nodding his head.
• 15:34
  Kevin: Yeah, I think that is my guess. I forgot I was on the podcast for a second. I can't just nod. Yeah, so I do agree with that. But I think it was a loophole, not necessarily like a rule change. That's my guess, though.
• 15:46
  Jordan: Here's my thinking. I think that it was not a loophole, they provide all the information on the Apple page, like they provide all of that.
• 15:53
  Jordan: So it's available. So it's really easy for any podcaster to go look at that information on the Apple podcasts for creators, hosts and guests. Like you can just Google it, they have all the information that you need to provide to them. They have the PSD file that you use as a template for your profile, and you can send it off to them.
• 16:14
  Jordan: Everyone had access to this. And so like, I think what happened is maybe because it was not an automated thing. But it was rather one of their support staff doing the uploading, they probably got so overwhelmed with the growth of people figuring out that you could just submit it yourself, even though they say like, it's only for select shows. Maybe they had to like start saying like, Okay, we got to cut this off at some point. I think that's what happened. I don't think it's a thing where, you know, podcasters were being like sneaky little snooks, and like weaseling their photos in there. I don't think it's anything like that. I think they made the information available.
• 16:53
  Jordan: And then podcasters were able to send it in, and then they realized that that was a mistake.
• 16:57
  Kevin: But then they've always said available for select shows, I think what you're saying is that they seem to be pretty lax on what they consider a select Show. And now they seem to be tightening up a little bit again, on what they consider a select Show. Right?
• 17:09
  Jordan: Yeah.
• 17:10
  Alban: It actually it feels a little bit you're like, well, that loophole was a pretty big loophole. And so we just kept going through the loophole, and then they closed the loophole.
• 17:18
  Alban: So it wasn't bad that we were doing I don't think you're bad that you got only one of us has a host image, right?
• 17:23
  Jordan: Yeah. Because I was trying to get your guys' on there. And somebody, Alban, would never get me his host image, I should just grabbed it from the internet.
• 17:34
  Kevin: Here's the thing, we all have host images. If you go to buzzcast.buzzsprout.com, which is the website for Buzzcast. And you click on hosts, we all have images there. And they are all available in the RSS feed.
• 17:44
  Alban: Ooh, what's that part of Kevin?
• 17:47
  Kevin: That is part of the podcast namespace.
• 17:49
  Alban: Oh, that's awesome. So is this readily available for anybody?
• 17:52
  Kevin: It is in modern podcast apps, which, unfortunately, the people who use that terminology, don't include Apple in that category, Apple Podcasts app in that category, they would call them a legacy app, not my words, other people who were more snarky than I am, because I actually like Apple Podcasts app. But I do think it would be really great if they would start recognizing the person tag, which is the name of the tag that we use to put these host images in there and showing them up, Apple Podcasts could still do, Hey, for select podcasts, we're going to go the extra mile, we're going to do the photo release, we're going to, you know, not only include the photo, but actually link that photo to other podcast episodes that this person was in. And that's available for select shows, which is maybe their top 100 or top 200 or however far they want to go however much manpower they have. For anybody else, Hey, if you have it in your feed, we'll use it and display it. But when you click on the person, it's actually going to go to the whatever URL you specified for that person, it's not going to open up another page within our app that shows the other episodes because that takes too much manpower on our side, I think that would be great.
• 18:47
  Jordan: It would be it'd be a lot easier on Apple staff to just adopt that. Like they wouldn't have to do all that stuff by hand. So it makes sense to just do that.
• 18:57
  Kevin: Yeah. And you don't really need a photo release. I'm again, I'm not a lawyer, Alban's a lawyer, he could tell us, but I don't think you need a photo release. If I'm saying right in my RSS feed, Here's my image and here's the link that I want you to link to, like the release is kind of inferred at that point.
• 19:10
  Kevin: Right? Putting it on the internet publicly.
• 19:12
  Alban: I imagine. Yeah, that's an implied release. But what I think is here is that Apple is a type of company that wants to make sure that things are very clean, very organized, very, they're very particular. And the page you sent us, Jordan, it's like you send us an image. And he's be these exact specifications. And the person's lips have to be about this place on the image and their eyebrows at this spot. Very particular ways they want the image. They want to be high quality, and they probably don't want to just pull in a random like anime avatar that I put into my podcast namespace URL, or, you know, whatever wild photo people decide to use as their profile photo. So I could just see like, even though I really want podcast apps to adopt this, I kind of think it'd be a little bit less likely for Apple just since that's the kind of company they are, they want complete control over all the visuals.
• 20:06
  Kevin: I get it. But you're also like embracing Creator content, like they have to approve podcast artwork, Episode artwork, they do that manually.
• 20:12
  Kevin: And I get it because they want to check for offensive stuff and all that kind of stuff. But then once they, you know, approve it, for the most part, you can change your artwork at any time, and they really don't come back unless people file complaints against it. I think you just kind of have to let go of that a little bit. You're a distribution application for Creator content, right? And so you can have guidelines, and you can say, hey, if somebody reports that as inappropriate or something, we're going to pull it, we're going to look at it at that point. But they're not scanning everybody's, you know, podcast artwork on the regular to figure out if it's continues to meet guidelines after the initial submission.
• 20:44
  Jordan: I just don't understand why they don't add this as an ability on the podcast creator dashboard.
• 20:49
  Kevin: Don't you dare. Don't you dare.
• 20:52
  Kevin: No, like another proprietary solution to
• 20:52
  Jordan: What?
• 20:55
  Jordan: something that breaks an open standard? No, we don't want to just do this in Apple, if we want to put this information in.
• 21:00
  Jordan: It's because of wherever my podcast is consumed. I want my photo to be available and my link to be available. I don't want to have to go into Spotify and do it there and apple and do it there and Google and do that.
• 21:08
  Jordan: That breaks the whole point of RSS distribution, really simple syndication.
• 21:14
  Jordan: I completely agree with you. I totally agree with you on that. But if the reason why they don't do it is because they want to have it like linking to all the different things? Then I say add it.
• 21:27
  Kevin: The answer is get over it. It's not like, make it more proprietary.
• 21:31
  Jordan: Who get over it? Like the creators that can't upload their host photos?
• 21:35
  Kevin: Apple should get over.
• 21:35
  Kevin: No, there's things that they can have full control over the Mac that I'm looking at you guys on and my iPhone and iPads like full control, make them beautiful, make them fully controlled, locked down the software, I get it, it's a different, it's a different proposition than like a Unix box or Linux machine. I totally get that great. Do it all day long.
• 21:51
  Kevin: When you're distributing content that's published openly on the internet, then do it in an open way. Like when I look at a website in Safari, like they shouldn't have to approve what that website looks like. His job is just to render the website.
• 22:04
  Kevin: Same thing with a podcast app, just render the podcast, take all the podcasts information that's available the RSS feed and just render it render it however you like. Make it beautiful, make it usable, make it a great experience, but render the information that's in the feed. That's the job of that app just like a web browser.
• 22:18
  Jordan: Well, hopefully they will do that in the listen to this and they'll go you know it.
• 22:21
  Jordan: That's a great idea, Kevin.
• 22:24
  Kevin: Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to sound aggressive. I really do like Apple Podcasts.
• 22:27
  Jordan: Yeah, no, we love Apple Podcasts and Apple Podcasts treats thei'r creators really, really well.
• 22:32
  Kevin: Agreed.
• 22:32
  Jordan: So it's honestly surprising that there'd be certain features that are garden walled against, like smaller creators.
• 22:39
  Kevin: I think it's good. I think it's good. I think what they did is they tried something. And now they're saying, Yeah, we're pulling back on and, do. Do, please pull back on proprietary features as much as possible. But I do, I do think it's a good idea to support posting guest images.
• 22:51
  Kevin: And the great news is that they're now available in RSS feeds, thanks to the podcast namespace.
• 22:59
  Alban: So Jordan, you actually got access to Adobe Podcast now?
• 23:03
  Jordan: Yeah, I actually signed up for it, it used to be called Project Shasta.
• 23:06
  Alban: Yeah.
• 23:06
  Jordan: And I was really interested in it. I signed up to be like, invited to the beta program, like back in October.
• 23:12
  Jordan: And then one of the guys we work with, like, posted about it. And then I realized, like, I'm pretty sure it's open to everybody now. They just like never invited me.
• 23:20
  Alban: Oh, really?
• 23:21
  Jordan: Yeah, I think it's I think it's open to everybody be interested find out but I finally got to try it out. And the Adobe podcast features, they're like aI powered, software's what they say. And so there you have a mic check. And you can like click a button and say, How's my microphone setup in placement? And then it checks like the distance to the microphone, the gain, background noise, and if there's echo.
• 23:43
  Alban: Yeah, so both of these are public right now. I use the mic check. That's actually a really popular micro tool that a lot of websites have that are like, hey, check your microphone, make sure it sounds good. This is cool that it actually is giving you recommendations. And I found the recommendations to be pretty good, at least for me that I was getting better quality audio when I followed their things, and then enhance speech, similar to like magic mastering taking bad audio and trying to clean it up a bit. I ran one test file and it sounded pretty good to me. Have you run more than a few Jordan?
• 24:16
  Jordan: I did try running an episode of Dreamful through it.
• 24:21
  Jordan: And what I noticed with it is that it works really really good on awful recordings. But if you have a really quality recording, it actually kind of distorts the audio and it makes the recording worse, which I thought was really interesting. And I'm not sure why that is. I think it's kind of like when you over edit something and it sounds just like really compressed and choppy. It definitely did that to any audio that I recorded using my microphone setup.
• 24:49
  Alban: It's tough thing to get right and you know, if you get a really bad recording, you know, at some point there's just not enough data in there to make a great recording. So, Magic Mastering does is a really good job of this. And I like seeing other people are getting into this space and trying to clean up audio because there's a lot of great recordings out there that they would be greatly benefited by just a bit of mastering work. And if you're not somebody who understands that space I'm not, then it's a little bit painful and it's really nice if you can run it through a tool and get something out on the other side that's quite a bit cleaner.
• 25:24
  Kevin: Yeah, I mean, it's a hard thing to get right. And Auphonic has been the leader in this space for a long time, and other people are coming in and trying to figure it out. And they've just got some catching up to do.
• 25:33
  Kevin: So I'm not saying it's like they can't Adobe won't catch up at some point. But it is a tough problem that they're trying to solve. And a phonic has not only figured it out, but they figured it out as a result of a mass amount of work over a long period of time with a lot of really smart audio engineers and computer programmers behind it, which is why we partnered with them for magic mastering so a phonic drives the algorithm that powers magic mastering, and that's why we chose him. So it's great to see other people pushing into this space. But I do think it's might be a while before people get like off on it is the gold standard that they're all shooting for and trying to achieve.
• 26:06
  Jordan: Yeah, something that I definitely noticed about their enhanced speech is that I don't think that it levels the loudness to the required LUFS.
• 26:17
  Alban: Like -16, -19 LUFS.
• 26:20
  Jordan: I don't think so, because it sounded a lot quieter than when I ran my audio through Magic Mastering because I run every single episode through Magic Mastering, I compared the two and the audio was just like louder, crisper than it was when I put it through the Adobe. So that was kind of a disappointment.
• 26:36
  Alban: So the big piece is that they've actually Adobe, everybody who's using Adobe to edit audio, it sounds like it's Audition is what most people are using right now?
• 26:47
  Jordan: Yep, that's what I use.
• 26:48
  Alban: And it's super high end.
• 26:48
  Alban: I think once Descript was really the first ones who said what if you were editing like you're editing a Google doc is how you edited your podcast, you are changing the words. And Adobe Shasta, now Podcast, beta looks like it's their attempt to kind of follow the same pattern, right?
• 27:08
  Jordan: Yeah, in the browser window, you can record directly into the Adobe Podcast by yourself or you can actually like send an invite link to somebody to join you in a recording. And what it does is when you stop recording, it transcribes the audio. And you can edit very similar to Descript, where you can delete words and stuff like that. But something that really surprised me with that is that they're transcribing the audio for you to edit, but there's no option to export a transcription, which seems so counterintuitive to me.
• 27:38
  Jordan: But I mean, maybe that's something that they're coming out with in the future.
• 27:42
  Alban: That's why it's beta.
• 27:43
  Jordan: Yeah, hopefully.
• 27:44
  Alban: Did you actually play with editing? My experience has been, there's lots of these tools that try to edit in a browser. And I know someday we'll get there. The fact that like Figma can edit really big and complex artwork pieces means that this is going to probably happen at some point for audio and video. But my experience has not been great. With many of the tools I've done. What did you think of actually editing audio in the browser?
• 28:10
  Jordan: It's really cool, it's a lot more robust than I thought it was going to be like, you can upload audio files from your computer, they have stock music that you can add, like they have like bumpers that are five seconds, or like intro songs that are like 15 seconds. And you can also put like placeholders for like an ad read in the future or a segment that you want to insert or something like that, which is pretty cool that you can do that. And it kind of just goes down and everything's in a block. So you'll have like, a block of your audio where you're talking and that will show as a transcription, then you can have a block of like music and it shows up as like a waveform, and things like that. And then they also have like templates that you can use or when you are done with a project, you can save your project as a template for future use. So if you just have like the same format for like an ad read or something like that, you can actually save that as a template to use in the future to make the process a little bit more streamlined. And that was really cool. Um, one of the things that I found to be the most glaring issue with it is, so let's say you record a 15 second ad read or something like that, and it doesn't come out quite right. You can't just click the block and delete it.
• 29:23
  Jordan: You literally have to double click every single word and hit delete, delete, delete, until you deleted every single word in the editor. And then it will delete the block.
• 29:35
  Alban: So you have a block of all these words that have been transcribed that are tied to audio and you can't delete a group and say this whole segment wasn't good. Instead, you have to go through and delete each word.
• 29:46
  Jordan: Yes.
• 29:47
  Alban: Yeah, I'm sure it will, hopefully they update that there's no way. I mean, the benefit to me of the descript Style Editor. That's what I'll call this paradigm. The benefit is you when you're doing audio editing it can be very tricky to remember exactly where something happened. And you're looking at a whole segment that was like four minutes long, and you're like, is that good? Or does it fit better? Like 10 minutes later, I'll move it around a little bit like Frankenstein the edit is how you say sometimes Jordan Yeah. And you can't do that if it's one word at a time moving like the benefit is, oh, this is a block that I want to move somewhere else. So I feel like that's got to be coming.
• 30:24
  Alban: Because that needs to be in there. Yeah,
• 30:28
  Jordan: it's pretty obvious. But they do have things where you can click a block for like music or something like that, you can fade it in, fade it out. You can also set one of the music blocks as background music underneath, like as bedding underneath, you're talking, which is pretty cool. I don't know if their AI just like automatically decides how loud it should be. Or if you can adjust that I'm based on how basic this is. I don't think that you have controls. So there are some things like that they have filters as an option. But the only filter so far is the enhanced speech. So I wanted to test their audio recording and filtering out, I made sure that my recording environment and equipment were not great. I have the heat running in the background. I'm using my MacBook Pro microphone, and honestly, I'm sitting I want to say about three feet away from it. Pretty bad recording pretty bad. And then so what I did was I sent an invite link to my husband, and told him to find like the worst place in our house to record using only his cell phone. Yes, very accurate. We very bathroom like. Yeah, so you pick the worst place to record. So that's impressive.
• 31:45
  Alban: Thank you. Great job, Josh.
• 31:48
  Jordan: Yeah, he nailed it. So then I sat down, and I use the Adobe podcast to record it. And I had the enhanced speech filter on while we recorded so this is what it sounded like: Testing, testing. 123 Here is the same recording with the Adobe speech enhance filter on sounds pretty good, right?
• 32:09
  Josh: Yeah. And I can see-
• 32:10
  Alban: Holy cow.
• 32:11
  Josh: Jordan started recording.
• 32:13
  Alban: Whoa, that's- So that was him on his cell phone in the bathroom. And you joined the mic MacBook Pro speaker three feet away thing?
• 32:22
  Jordan: Yeah. Like I was sitting really far from my microphone.
• 32:24
  Jordan: He was holding his cell phone about he said a foot away. Like we were purposefully trying to get the absolute worst audio we could. And it didn't sound that bad.
• 32:34
  Kevin: No, it actually sounds really good.
• 32:36
  Alban: Yeah, yours was significantly better than his, in my mind. His felt a little bit flat. But like the getting to there is very impressive.
• 32:44
  Jordan: It really is. So if you're recording with somebody who doesn't podcast like they don't have any podcasting equipment actually think it's a really good option.
• 32:52
  Alban: Yeah. How did the remote recording stuff go? So that's pretty much like they built in something that would be comparable to like Riverside is what we use here, Squadcast, Aoom, something like that?
• 33:04
  Jordan: Sort of, yeah. So you, there's just a link where you can invite guests and you enter in their email address. So he had to sign in, and then it looped him into the recording.
• 33:15
  Jordan: And it showed him as like a waveform. And I could see live like while he was talking, it was kind of a bummer, because it's only waveform. So it's kind of like just having like a phone call. So you can't like see any faces or anything like that. But it is recording live. And then once you stop recording, it saves the conversation as a single waveform, which I also didn't like.
• 33:38
  Alban: Ooh, so you didn't get separate tracks for the two of you?
• 33:41
  Jordan: Nope. But it was interesting, because what it did was once it transcribed what we said it actually separated us out into little blocks. So each time one of us was talking, it became a separate block. So it kind of separated it but it didn't. I think that this is actually a really, really good option if you are not very tech savvy, or you just want to make a very simple podcast. Like if you don't have like a very editing heavy podcast, this is actually pretty good option.
• 34:11
  Alban: Yeah, I mean, Adobe is known for their software, and they've got some of the best engineers in the world and Audition is what a lot of the best sound designers and editors in the world use. So I'm excited to see what they do sounds like it's still got some beta properties there. And there's some stuff that we look at and go, well, we need something better. That's not a good indication of whether or not it will get there at some point. I think it probably will. So it's exciting to see that they're kind of stepping into this space and helping more people get started with podcasting.
• 34:44
  Kevin: Yeah, and I should mention that, you know, Hindenburg, which is been a long standing favorite of ours at Buzzsprout. They have released and I missed the presentation yesterday, but they have released a new version of the Hindenburg editor. And I think the big thing again I missed the presentation. So sorry, I'm getting this wrong. But I think the big thing here is that they're doing something similar to like what Alban was talking about with the Descript style of editing, they are doing transcription as you either real time record or drop a previously recorded audio file into the editor. It transcribes it, and then it lets you edit from the transcript. And they did say something about it in the press release that I read that they've kind of like flipped it on its head, the idea that like the script being a edit in the text format first, like being the primary UI, or that being the the problem they're trying to solve. And Hindenburg saying like, No, we're like a waveform audio editor first. But we want to provide a really great way of going and editing the transcript. And so I'd be really interested, I can't wait to get my hands on the latest version of Hindenburg and see what they do. But that sounds like a really interesting approach to the problem. There is this land of in between something like audition, being like, think of it in the video world, like a Final Cut Pro or something. And then Apple comes out with this thing called iMovie. That just makes it like really simple for non professionals to create really great home movies, it looks like this is kind of what's happening in the podcast space, there are audio editing applications, comm does digital audio workstations that are super powerful. And that's where Adobe edition lives and Hindenburg kind of lived in that space a little bit, not all the bells and whistles of audition.
• 36:18
  Kevin: And there's some others as well, like logic and everything else.
• 36:21
  Kevin: And now there's a simpler version of these tools. But a lot of people were saying they were too simple. And then like the script came out, and they said, Hey, we're gonna take a totally new approach, you're gonna edit text, and it's gonna add audio. And I what I think is there is a sweet spot in there somewhere. And a lot of people are trying to figure this out.
• 36:36
  Kevin: So Hindenburg is trying to figure it out, Adobe's trying to figure it out, what I get really excited about is I feel like this, as people start to figure this out, what it brings is a couple of things. One, it makes audio production, like available to the masses, right, you start to eliminate some of these technical hurdles of I don't know how to add audio, so I can't be a podcaster. Well, we're starting to find companies that are trying to make it simpler for anybody been able to do that and produce high quality audio. And I think it really opens up the possibility that you can do legit mobile podcasts, like from your phone, you don't have to sit behind a laptop or computer anymore. And you don't have to have very expensive headphones, and expensive microphones and all this stuff like that might be a reality in the next couple of years, that I could just send somebody a link, they could click on on their mobile device and hold their phone up to their mouth and just talk and we can have a real high quality podcast interview, that's gonna require some stuff like that we're seeing being developed now with this like enhanced speech feature that Adobe is putting in this product. If I'm talking to somebody, and they're in a very echoey room, like the sample that Jordan just played when her husband was in the bathroom, that's gonna sound terrible, until we can get the technology available to clean that up, make it sound good. And it sounds like they're on the right track.
• 37:42
  Kevin: So I love the idea that regardless of your preferred method of editing a podcast, that it's going to be simpler, and it's going to sound better, even if you're recording in the bathroom. Even if somebody you know a plane flies overhead while you're recording or if you're outside in the park like that we can clean all this stuff up because it's going to make podcasting more accessible to more people.
• 38:03
  Jordan: So Alban, you have been trying out a new podcast app. Do you wanna tell us about that?
• 38:09
  Alban: Yeah, I'm testing a new podcasting app called Fathom.
• 38:12
  Alban: It's on iOS. I don't know if there's an Android version yet.
• 38:15
  Alban: But I talked to the founder a little bit, named Tyler. What's different is it's kind of putting yourself out there is like an AI powered podcasting app. And besides just like a buzzword, I think it's actually got some cool ideas. So at the bases, they're kind of doing the similar things. Did you ever use Clipped or Air, Kevin?
• 38:33
  Kevin: I remember, I remember them. They were to make what we'd call sound bites, right?
• 38:37
  Kevin: Little clips from podcasts and share them on social sites there.
• 38:41
  Alban: Well, their first piece was everything's transcribed.
• 38:44
  Alban: And so as soon as everything's transcribed, they started saying like, Okay, now we've transcribed everything. Now, you can do all sorts of stuff, we can create cool clips, we can create share features, we can I think airs whole thing or clip one of them was actually like importing them to a Notes app for you so that you could like save notes from podcasts.
• 39:03
  Alban: Fathom's kind of using the same ideas, you're getting a transcript. And so you can see the words as you're listening to the podcast transcripts. When I was testing it, we're pretty good. They're not perfect. You know, they got both of your names, right. They may not get Alban perfect, but then they also are creating lots of clips.
• 39:19
  Alban: So some of these clips are user generated. But the rest seem to be they're doing something to identify this looks like a good little clip from this episode.
• 39:32
  Alban: And then they're creating a recommendations of a bunch of podcasts by giving you clips. So you kind of just swipe through and listen to a clip and it's of some like three hour, you know, Huberman lab podcast and you listen to it for a bit and you go, Oh, I'd be interested in learning more about you know, sleep schedule or something. And now I can tell that a four hour episode, so you're just kind of getting to like dip your toe into some of these really long podcasts. It can be a little bit muddy. To be given a entire episode to try to figure out if you like something or not. And over time, it's supposed to get better and better and be serving you up lots of clips, I didn't use it long enough yet to start getting super focused clips.
• 40:14
  Alban: Most of the clips I got were for shows that already told the app I've already using. But it's kind of combining a few things that we've talked about on this show the ability to get a transcript, which is important for accessibility. And also you can just read along, it's really nice, you can copy pieces out of it. Then you've got the clipped pieces where you can share clips and start building a little bit of a social following and connect with people over the podcast. And then podcast discoverability. You know, we've talked about this hundreds of times on the show. It's hard to find new podcasts, it's hard to recommend podcasts. It's just difficult to commit three hours to seeing if a show is something you enjoy. And seems like Fathom is least one of the few that is really trying to figure this out. So I'm interested to keep playing with it. And we'll report back but that's what I'm testing out and if anybody listening to this also has used it. You know we'd love it. If you reach out, send us a buzz boost send us something on Twitter and let us know what you think.
• 41:20
  Jordan: We have a new Buzzboost jingle submission and this one's from Bradley Weaver from the podcast Bradley Weaver's Family Fun Club. And he wrote us a jingle that he says is the antithesis of one from the previous episode.
• 41:49
  Jordan: Don't you feel so zen?
• 41:53
  Kevin: It's lovely.
• 41:54
  Alban: I feel like it's the beginning of Western that buzz boost Western.
• 41:58
  Kevin: A really happy Western, no one's getting shot.
• 42:00
  Jordan: That was really great.
• 42:00
  Jordan: In our Facebook group, Kevin Lowe. He's one of our listeners and a podcaster with Buzzsprout.
• 42:07
  Jordan: He wrote a post and he said, You've given me a whole new way to think of being blind with today's episode. It's like my entire world is a podcast. So this is in reference to when Kevin talked about Podfest and people were saying like you don't look the way that you sounded. So Kevin, you know, being blind, he's saying, I have to imagine what everyone looks like anyway. So his whole world is podcast. He said, everyone I meet, I only know them by their voice. There's no in person conference to reveal what someone looks like, Well, unless I nudge the person next to me and ask them what's that person look like? And more times than not my ideas way off. So thanks, Buzzcast. I'm not blind. I'm just a really big podcast enthusiast in that I live like a podcast. That's so great.
• 42:53
  Kevin: That's great. Thanks for sharing that Kevin.
• 42:55
  Alban: Have either of you ever done who I don't remember what it's called now, but there's this used to be this exhibit there was touring, that was about like, what it's like to be blind. It was called like in the dark or blind or something. And you'd go into a room then it's completely black. Like they blackout all light. So there is nothing you can't see your own hand in from your face. And then somebody who is blind comes into the room, and then walks you through this whole exhibit and his room after room after room.
• 43:24
  Alban: Kind of saying like, here's a grocery store, like let's explore it and see what it's like for oh, okay, everybody follow me here. Now we're crossing a street. Let's try to cross the street and ended there like there's a curb there. And it was such a interesting experience. You know, like you're realizing, you know, all these things that seem totally normal, easy when you have sight like they're like, you know, this is a really different experience. So I don't remember what the name of it was, but I'll have to look it up my wife and I did it and it was really incredible.
• 43:55
  Jordan: That's cool. So in addition to the you don't look how you sound comment, Dave Jones sent us a Buzzboost. And he said, Kevin, I've created your image in my mind and you're gorgeous!
• 44:10
  Alban: David Jones has actually met you in person so that's very kind Dave. But uh, you're not getting away with it. Mere Mortals Podcast sent us to to to to all the ducks in a row. I got one ad while listening to Adam on JRE. Thankfully, no more. I'm hoping the app will learn I've never bought something by clicking an ad after hearing or seeing a random ad. Fools hope but a man can dream, can't he?
• 44:36
  Alban: That's interesting, though. I feel like they left out the most important part, which was whether or not they're a subscriber to Spotify Premium because that's a conspiracy theory that Kevin wants to test.
• 44:50
  Alban: So mere mortals podcast hope you reach out and let us know the answer to that.
• 44:54
  Kevin: I can't imagine he pays for Spotify, but you never know.
• 44:57
  Kevin: People have done worse things.
• 44:57
  Kevin: All right. And Genebean wrote in and said, Listen to y'all talk about Adam and rip on Spotify was fun, but also really timely as I'm listening to you just after I listen to the Podcasting 2.0 Board Meeting. So I'm just making a little bit of a weird face. I hope we don't rip on Spotify too much. We're just trying to keep them honest, Spotify is doing some cool stuff in the podcasting space, but they're also doing some stuff that we don't love. So just want to run it all through the filter of we're interested in supporting podcast creators, and we'd love the podcasting space in general. So thanks, Genebean.
• 45:24
  Kevin: Appreciate your comment. And he also sent a row of ducks popular number, I guess.
• 45:30
  Jordan: Last episode, I talked about PodConf. The first podcast conference in the Pacific Northwest and Tony, the PNW Husker said, Hey, I'm in Vancouver. I have two small podcasts with Buzzsprout. I'd be interested in possibly helping out if you need it, let me know and maybe we can chat. So hopefully, I'll get see Tony at PodConf in Portland.
• 45:50
  Alban: And it looks like Pat reached out to Tony on Twitter.
• 45:53
  Alban: And so we're helping connect people to podcast conferences.
• 45:56
  Alban: So that's exciting. And then Chantel reached out on Twitter as well. Thank you for mentioning dynamic content. I had no idea. So this is kind of like good news. Bad news. Kevin.
• 46:08
  Alban: The good news is we did talk about dynamic content and more people are learning about it.
• 46:11
  Alban: But maybe the bad news was somebody were on the marketing team wasn't doing a good enough job telling people about all the features that we have inside of Buzzsprout. So I'm excited to figure out new ways to educate people about dynamic content, so they get to use it.
• 46:27
  Jordan: Alright, I guess that's it. So thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
• 46:34
  Kevin: We don't talk about sports. But we did talk about sports a couple episodes ago, and Jordan said you don't watch sports on TV. Did you watch the Superbowl?
• 46:41
  Jordan: No. I was actually trying to call my mom about the new like Harry Potter game on Xbox. And she wasn't answering.
• 46:47
  Jordan: I was calling her calling her calling her-
• 46:49
  Kevin: You call your mom to talk about Xbox games?
• 46:51
  Jordan: I call her mom for everything. I was really excited. She finally picked up I'm like, Hey, I'm trying to get ahold of you like about like the Hogwarts game. And she's like, well, we're watching the Super Bowl with your grandma right now. I was like, Oh, okay. I didn't even know that was going on.
• 47:03
  Kevin: You didn't even know that was going on.
• 47:05
  Alban: Jordan, are you calling because you're trying to play the game or you're talking about the like, controversy that people are trying to boycott the game?
• 47:11
  Jordan: No, I was calling her to be like, my mom and dad are like super in Harry Potter too. And I was like, you have to get this game. Like you must play it.
• 47:18
  Kevin: Your parents have an Xbox?
• 47:19
  Jordan: Yeah.
• 47:19
  Kevin: And they play video games?
• 47:20
  Jordan: Mm hmm.
• 47:21
  Kevin: This is blowing my mind.
• 47:22
  Alban: This is definitely blowing my mind.
• 47:23
  Jordan: I have really cool parents. But my dad just like he gets stuck on like Red Dead Redemption, and it's hard to get them on anything else. But he is so into this Hogwarts Legacy game, like both of them were texting me while they're playing it last night. Yeah, it was very fun.
• 47:36
  Alban: Jordan, you know, this game has been canceled, right?
• 47:38
  Jordan: No, it has not.
• 47:39
  Alban: Yeah, it has.
• 47:40
  Jordan: It has not. No.
• 47:41
  Alban: There's a whole this is how I found out about it.
• 47:44
  Alban: Because there's a whole website dedicated to which streamers have streamed the game so that people can boycott them because it's a Hogwarts game. So it's Harry Potter, JK Rowling, and JK Rowling's canceling? Yeah, now you're gonna get it for this
• 47:59
  Jordan: I am not gonna get it.
• 47:59
  Jordan: They're looking specifically at comment.
• 48:02
  Jordan: Twitch streamers. Like I'm not a streamer. I really should be. I think I'd make a killing on it.
• 48:05
  Jordan: But I'm, I'm not on their list of people to target. And I don't know, I think it's gonna win game of the year. It's so good.
• 48:12
  Jordan: But anyway, okay, Super Bowl.
• 48:15
  Kevin: Well, if you didn't watch the roll, I don't know that we can talk about it. I was gonna have you know, a little discussion around some Super Bowl commercials. And something in particular that I noticed but was it the QR code? Well, I so I wanted to start off by just asking you guys like what was your favorite commercial?
• 48:30
  Alban: Maybe probably my favorite show was that just static QR code? There was like scan for free like digital gift.
• 48:37
  Alban: A hurry.
• 48:37
  Kevin: Yeah, they that started last year with the Yeah, calm right. I think they're going to do it. And then somebody tried to bring it back this year.
• 48:44
  Alban: Well, this one was so stupid. All my friends who know that. I have played video games on my phone and none of them have. They're all like, oh my god free digital gift scan. It's get it like I'm blowing it guys.
• 48:55
  Alban: I can't get my phone out!
• 48:59
  Jordan: What company was it even? Like.
• 49:01
  Alban: It wasn't like it seemed like a Clash of Clans knockoff or Gem Rush 2000. I don't remember what it was fun. Just tried to make it seem like you better do it quick.
• 49:11
  Kevin: So I mean, there was some interesting stuff. I think that happened with several ads this year. One of them. I don't know if this is true or not. But I read online that Budweiser had exclusive like beer advertising rights to the Superbowl for many years. And so that's why you would only see Budweiser and Bud Light ads during the Superbowl.
• 49:28
  Kevin: And they were they were always good ads. They're like a big production value, high production value. But for years, they were the only beer and this year, I guess they'd let that go or expired didn't renew it. And so you saw lots of other beer ads for the first time, which is interesting. Like I never even really thought about it. But once I read that, I assumed it was true. And I thought back and I was like oh yeah, it is only Budweiser ads. So that was kind of interesting. Like how much money did they pay for the exclusive rights? I didn't dig into it at all, but I can't imagine it was worth it. Like they basically had to buy out all the other sponsors.
• 49:57
  Alban: I mean, alcohol is a really, really profitable business, Kevin. Ambev is the biggest in the world. And I think a lot of that is the popularity of Bud, Bud Light and all these other alcohol waters.
• 50:09
  Alban: Yeah.
• 50:15
  Kevin: Interesting. I mean, I've never thought about it in terms of like how that could relate to the podcasting world, because we're not huge into the ad game.
• 50:20
  Kevin: But like, if I don't know Casper mattress was going to sponsor a podcast, would they sponsor it in such a way that they put into their terms that you can't advertise? You can't accept advertisements from any other Mattress Company or something like that?
• 50:32
  Jordan: Yeah, that, yeah, there's certain sponsors that I work with that I cannot be working with competitors.
• 50:38
  Kevin: Right. And I'm imagining right now, it's, you don't have to pay extra for that. It's just just kind of there sneaking it into the deal. If you were big enough to be like Super Bowl level, then you could be like, yeah, no, if you don't want to stick any other beer out, you're gonna have to pay us a lot of money for it. Hey, anyway, little inside advertising thing that popped up. The other thing was like, there was some controversy around the Disney ad. So Disney had this beautiful ad. Jordan, I don't know if you've seen it. But it was a beautiful ad about like, 100 years of Disney. And they showed all these clips from all these magical Disney movies with like war memories and stuff. And then people got really upset because Disney just announced that they were laying off 7000 people, but they paid $7 million for this ad.
• 51:16
  Jordan: But I mean, you need advertising.
• 51:18
  Alban: Yeah, they have to do advertising. Yeah, to make sure that they have a business so that they don't have to lay off all the people.
• 51:23
  Kevin: The optics on it weren't- You don't want to lay off 7000 people and spend $7 million.
• 51:28
  Alban: I think there's this like, it's hard to sometimes filter between the there's an actual controversy here and there's like a, hey, what if there was a controversy about this thing? And like, at what point is it really a controversy? I mean, there has to be some percent of people that are like, Oh, that's questionable, but I feel like there's somebody out there who finds everything offensive.
• 51:50
  Alban: Somebody found the Sarah McLaughlin ad offensive. Right.
• 51:55
  Alban: Did you see that one? Kevin?
• 51:56
  Kevin: That was kind Yeah, you could definitely tell that was gonna offend some people. Um, YouTube ran a Superbowl commercial. You remember seeing it Alban? That was a good commercial. Okay, so the YouTube commercial featured Keyboard Cat, which was like one of the most viral videos that has ever lived on YouTube and became a huge meme. But it's that fat cat wearing that blue shirt, and it's playing the keyboard.
• 52:21
  Kevin: Right. And so what I thought was super interesting about that was Super Bowl commercials traditionally have massive budgets behind them. And they're notoriously expensive to run these ads. And so I was wondering, I haven't been able to find anything yet. Probably because it's so new. But the original person who uploaded that video was Charlie Schmidt.
• 52:37
  Kevin: And it's a very famous video, but I do think that they had to pay him anything to use that video in their Super Bowl commercial, I would hope and the cat I hope well, the cats unfortunately has passed on.
• 52:47
  Alban: Did you look this up?
• 52:48
  Kevin: Yes, I looked this up.
• 52:49
  Jordan: RIP Keyboard Cat.
• 52:51
  Kevin: So I think the original release date, according to Wikipedia was 2007. Cats, you know, the cat had some age on it at the time already. It was overweight and passed away shortly after the video was released. Just letting you know about the health condition that the cat suffered.
• 53:10
  Alban: Healthy at any weight dude?
• 53:13
  Kevin: Well, not for this cat.
• 53:13
  Kevin: And maybe some cats, but not this one.
• 53:16
  Alban: I'm sorry. Is this in the Wikipedia that was overweight?
• 53:19
  Alban: That was important, or did you add that in?
• 53:22
  Kevin: No, no, no, the owner of the cat. I'm just, I'm just reporting on how the owner describes his cat. He actually named him fatty. And I don't know if then it was like, you know, a self fulfilling prophecy. If he named it when it was tiny, and it became fat. Or if he changed the name after it got I don't know. I don't know anything about it. I just know the cat's name was fatty. And I'm really just asking the question, like, did somebody upload a video to YouTube, and then YouTube turned it into a Superbowl commercial and didn't have to compensate the original owner of the video?
• 53:52
  Alban: I think they've got to pay them?
• 53:54
  Jordan: Well, unless when you made an account with YouTube, that you're going to upload the video that there was some sort of like terms and conditions in there that they then own that content.
• 54:05
  Kevin: I think their terms and conditions say they can do whatever they want to do with your content. Once you put it on their platform, then they don't owe you like, I mean, that was sick and rebroadcast it, they can use it however they want right. Now, if they use if they put advertising around it like on the YouTube platform, and you remember the partner program, they share revenue with you. But I don't know if they take your video and just use a Superbowl ad if they owe you anything.
• 54:25
  Alban: I think you're just like guessing this, right?
• 54:28
  Kevin: I'm totally guessing.
• 54:28
  Kevin: This is how I do life, man. I just do conspiracy. I'm not a reporter. I just throw out things that I'm thinking. Yeah.
• 54:35
  Kevin: So I was thinking, what if somebody you know, I don't know.
• 54:38
  Kevin: Like, could it ever touch podcasting this way? It's touching the video world in this way. And I don't know what the rules are what they have to owe them. If YouTube contacted Charlie Schmidt and said, Hey, we want to use your video for Superbowl commercial, can we work out a deal? Or if they just said, No, we can do whatever we want with it. So we're going to use it.
• 54:53
  Jordan: Would that fall on the hosting companies? Or would it be on the platforms that it's distribute had to. Because YouTube's a host.
• 55:02
  Kevin: I think it'd be on the platforms you distribute to. So if you like, I think if you put your there's there's terms and conditions around submitting your podcasts, like Spotify, for example. And I think that means a spike. Now, if you host with anchor they can, it says that they can use it for however they want to use it. Right? It doesn't say they don't own it.
• 55:19
  Kevin: Right. They don't own it.
• 55:19
  Kevin: They're not claiming ownership.
• 55:22
  Kevin: But I think what they're claiming is that they can use it however they want. I don't know if that would be applicable, like if this podcast is on Spotify, but if it were, and I'm sure they'd probably want to use Spotify ever runs a Superbowl commercial, they're probably
• 55:34
  Alban: I don't think they're putting this content in a Super Bowl ad. I don't think we have to worry about that potentiality.
• 55:40
  Jordan: Maybe Joe Rogan.
• 55:43
  Alban: It looks like this cat video has already been the subject of two lawsuits in federal court. Schmidt has been rigorously defending these copyright claims. And people replaced remember the three wolf shirt?
• 55:58
  Jordan: Yeah.
• 55:58
  Kevin: Yes.
• 55:59
  Alban: So somebody made like the three fatso shirt and playing the keyboard. And then Threadless countered and said, Actually, he gave up his copyright. When he asked people to upload videos tributing his cat after it passed? I'm guessing that he was compensated. Kevin, that would be just wild to me. If you gave up the rights to have your stuff rebroadcast on Superbowl ads, by putting it on YouTube, that seems so unlikely for me to think that that that had any chance of being a legit conspiracy theory, I would want to go actually see someone claimed that that happened?
• 56:39
  Kevin: I would think so. But isn't it more fun? Just to think that Charlie was just at home, watching the Super Bowl, and then all of a sudden, his video popped up on the screen? For fun.
• 56:51
  Alban: He loses it.
• 56:52
  Kevin: No, he's super excited at first. He's like, I can't believe this. This is great. And now he's the next day he wakes up and he says I'm gonna sue them. I'm gonna sue their pants off. Anyway, that's what I want to talk about. I thought that was really cool that somebody's viral video made it to a Superbowl commercial. Maybe it's not the first time but it's the first one that I noticed. Yeah, I'd be interested to find out if the original upload person Charlie Schmidt, if he got compensated if that was part of a deal, or if they're just like, Nope, you can we can do whatever you want with your stuff.