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Transcript

Elevate Your Podcast Game with Cohost AI · Buzzcast

0:00
Alban: You guys want to hear a new podcast conspiracy theory I've heard?
0:05
Jordan: I just got a whiplash from that topic change.
0:08
Jordan: We just wrapped up a work cycle, and it was a really, really big one, so we have a new update for Buzzsprout called Cohost AI.
0:24
Jordan: Kevin, do you want to tell us what Cohost AI is?
0:28
Kevin: Let's start off with the basics.
0:29
Kevin: So Cohost AI it's an AI integration that we've built into Buzzsprout so that when you upload an episode immediately, some things kick off in the background and start doing some work for you to make your life as a podcaster easier.
0:42
Kevin: So the first thing that happens is that episode runs through a transcription engine and you get a transcript.
0:47
Kevin: Once you have a transcript, you can pass that into an AI language model and then you can start to ask it questions, and so some of the questions that we ask it are what would be good titles for this podcast episode, can you summarize this episode and where would be logical chapters, where should we put a chapter marker and what should we call it?
1:05
Kevin: And so all that stuff happens automatically.
1:07
Kevin: Now, when you have Cohost AI, that feature enabled on your podcast account So huge time saver The quality of the results are amazing.
1:16
Kevin: As we all know, ai is exploding right now.
1:18
Kevin: There's obviously some good and bad uses for AI right now.
1:23
Kevin: There's some very optimistic views on AI.
1:25
Kevin: There's some very pessimistic views on AI.
1:26
Kevin: We don't think this touches any of them.
1:29
Kevin: This is just a very practical time saving opportunity.
1:32
Kevin: Everything is kind of sandboxed to your one podcast, built off language models, and the idea here is it's an opportunity for you to possibly save some time in your workflow, reduce stress, get some ideas about how you can title your show, get some ideas for how you can structure your episode description and your chapter markers.
1:50
Kevin: And its massive benefit that it comes with a really great transcript at the same time And, of course, you can edit the transcript.
1:55
Alban: Yeah, the idea for this kind of came out of.
1:58
Alban: I mean, i think everyone in the company was like playing with chat, gpt and stuff.
2:01
Alban: And we're starting to see often you weren't going to be able to replace your work with using something like that, like chat, gpt, but what you could do is get yourself a really good starting point And it helped me in many ways break through writer's block.
2:18
Alban: And with podcasting I've always felt like you do all the work.
2:23
Alban: I feel like you prep the interview and you set it up and you get somebody there and you record and you have a great conversation, and then you go and you edit it and then it's looking awesome And then you upload it And then all of a sudden you're looking at oh, now I need to like kind of turn creative brain back on and write a title and a description and chapter markers and transcripts.
2:46
Alban: And then I have to be promoting And you know, the more that people tell you you need to do, the more overloaded you might feel podcasting And it just seemed like a perfect place for AI to step in and help you along the way, and so that's where the idea for cohost AI comes from.
3:06
Alban: You've done this, upload it and you're going to get five really good title ideas And even if one of those isn't the perfect title which I think one of them will be even if one of them isn't, it's going to make you know what the right one is.
3:21
Alban: And then you get a really good description of your episode and you get chapter markers and then obviously have that transcript, because we're running all this off that transcript It's nice because it's like that whole last leg of the journey is now being done for you And so you're taking all of your efforts and now your efforts can be focused on the editing and the content of the podcast And then it can be focused on the promotion later on.
3:47
Alban: But now this intermediate step that we, for a long time, people could get stuck on, we're going to help you breeze right through that.
3:54
Alban: Kevin kind of talked about a little bit how does this part of something bigger?
3:57
Alban: It felt right to me because this is much in line with things that we've done for years and years.
4:04
Alban: At Buzzsprout, when we first launched, one of the insights that I think Kevin or Tom had that I think was really valuable was people don't want to deal in megabytes and kilobytes and nobody wants to deal in file types, and so Buzzsprout will always just be how many hours you upload and we'll take that audio file and we'll make it right.
4:24
Alban: And then at some point people started talking about like ID3 tags and all this work you have to do.
4:29
Alban: And then we said, okay, fine, we'll do all that automatically for you.
4:32
Alban: You don't have to think about ID3 tags ever again.
4:33
Alban: And then we start doing ads and I didn't make content And we said you know it's such a pain to go through and try to figure all this out on your own where to find spots, so we'll build smart insertion point finder and we'll do that for you automatically Magic mastering.
4:48
Alban: You don't want to have to master your whole episode so we can take that piece off your plate.
4:53
Alban: I feel like our job is to identify where in this process can we bring in algorithms or AI or just very smart tweaks and bring those in to simplify this process for podcasters.
5:08
Alban: And what's nice is that it's not like this works for the small beginner podcaster and doesn't work for the large podcaster, because this works for anyone, no matter what you want your episode to be mastered, no matter what you want your files to have ID3 tags, no matter what, you do want to have a good title and description and transcript and chapter markers?
5:29
Alban: Well, now, with BuzzPro, you can upload that file.
5:32
Alban: It's going to get mastered, it's going to get titles, It's going to get descriptions, it's going to get transcripts, it's going to get chapter markers And that whole process is going to take you just the 30 seconds of upload And about an hour later you'll come back and you'll just pick which of those things you want and your episode's done.
5:50
Kevin: Yeah, with very few exceptions, most podcasters would agree that I want great titles, i want great descriptions, i would love to have chapter markers on my podcast, i would love to have a great transcript.
6:01
Kevin: The limiting factor is usually time, and so when you see podcasts that don't have all these things, it's usually not because it wouldn't be a good addition, a nice value add for the podcast to have it.
6:10
Kevin: It's usually because the creator themselves, they have constraints upon how much time they can invest in this production, and so what we try to do at Buzzsprout is find the opportunities for computers and software to help, and the driving methodology behind it is let computers do what computers do best and let humans do what humans do best.
6:28
Kevin: And so it sounds weird, because now you're introducing AI, like, oh my gosh, like isn't that taking away some?
6:33
Kevin: maybe, maybe not.
6:34
Kevin: What we do know is like, once you've done the creative part, once you've created the content, now the computer can adjust that and it can give you some suggestions, and some of those suggestions are so good that you'll use them, as is.
6:43
Kevin: Some of them are just starting points for you to be able to create the ideal title or description or chapter markers on your own.
6:50
Kevin: You're going to tweak them, regardless of how you want to use it.
6:52
Kevin: It's going to save you time.
6:53
Kevin: It's going to give you ideas.
6:54
Kevin: You're not starting with a blank slate anymore.
6:57
Kevin: You're starting with these really great suggestions that are generated by a computer, doing what computers can now do really well.
7:03
Kevin: It's also exciting that, as the technology changes and advances, there's more opportunities for this technology to help us.
7:09
Jordan: Kevin, you were the one that came up with the co-host AI name And it's so apt because as an independent podcaster, as someone who podcasts solo, there are times like after I am done with my recording edit.
7:25
Jordan: I've put in all this work with the episode planning and then it's time for me to upload the episode.
7:29
Jordan: I am so mentally exhausted that it is really hard to come up with a good title, the episode description, things like that, and it takes so much energy and thought processes And sometimes I really wish that I had a co-host that could help with that kind of thing with my solo podcast.
7:49
Jordan: And so I just love the name co-host AI because it does feel like that.
7:53
Jordan: It feels like I've done my part of the work and now I'm going to put it up here and then the rest of that's going to be done, and it's sort of like a partnership sort of feeling to it.
8:02
Jordan: The other day I uploaded my episode.
8:05
Jordan: I had to go meet a friend for dinner And instead of spending all this time trying to crank out this stuff, i just uploaded it, went out to dinner with my friend, hit a carnival with my kids, came back.
8:17
Alban: And that's awesome.
8:18
Jordan: And I had all that stuff done and it was just like so awesome.
8:22
Jordan: So, yeah, it's been really great And, honestly, the episode description that it pumped out was so much better than any episode description I've ever written on my own.
8:32
Jordan: I'm not ashamed to say it.
8:35
Jordan: It was so great.
8:36
Jordan: And the other thing that I really like about co-host AI and magic mastering those two features together it takes away the need for me to have a bunch of accounts with like a bunch of different things.
8:48
Jordan: I'm not having to have a lot of like tabs open on my browser and using like these different apps and stuff.
8:54
Jordan: It just completely takes that away.
8:56
Jordan: I don't need to do that.
8:57
Jordan: I don't need to like put forth the work to have these prompts or upload here, download here, then re-upload here.
9:03
Jordan: It's just all in one thing I upload the file one time and it's done.
9:07
Jordan: And, yeah, i've had a really great experience with this, so I'm very, very excited about it.
9:12
Kevin: Yeah, i think that's worth digging into a little bit.
9:14
Kevin: There is the possibility of working with AI tools on your own, outside of the Buzzsprout workflow, and so this is something that we're charging for.
9:24
Kevin: It's a premium add-on.
9:25
Kevin: It's not very expensive, but it's not super cheap.
9:28
Kevin: It's right in the middle.
9:31
Kevin: It's right in that sweet spot.
9:32
Jordan: Right in the sweet spot.
9:35
Kevin: The challenge is that the latest and greatest versions of this AI tech are still pretty expensive, and the cheaper versions of it there's a pretty significant quality drop, and so the challenge for us was to figure out how we could use the latest and greatest tech but also get the price down as much as possible So that was affordable for pro-sumer podcasters, and so I think we struck that happy medium.
9:57
Kevin: On our lowest plan is a $10 add-on, on the medium plan it is a $20 add-on and the highest plan is a $30 add-on.
10:04
Kevin: But price comparatively to the other tools that are in the market that allow you to do something like this, and that's actually just below what we're seeing across the board, and so that's great.
10:12
Kevin: But the question comes back to like isn't if you really want to introduce some of this stuff into your workflow, can you not do it with the chat GPT free option?
10:20
Kevin: And in some cases you can, and if that works for you, then I would totally suggest you save the money and do it.
10:26
Kevin: Like, everything that we try to do with BuzzFerrout is not first and foremost driven by the fact that we're trying to make more money.
10:31
Kevin: It's first and foremost that we're trying to enable podcasters to be able to create the most successful podcast they can.
10:37
Kevin: However, they define success And along the way we have to stay in business.
10:40
Kevin: So we can't do things, we can't operate at a loss.
10:43
Kevin: We have to generate some profit in order to be able to continue that mission.
10:46
Kevin: But if there are ways for you to accomplish your podcasting goals and by using free tools, then we say fine.
10:53
Kevin: The challenge is that that's not realistic for most podcasters, so let's dig into that.
10:57
Kevin: If you have, like a scripted podcast and your podcast is relatively short, like, let's say, under 30 minutes, there's a good chance that you can take the script of that podcast, pop it into chat GPT and then you can start asking questions about that.
11:10
Kevin: Like, if this was a podcast episode, can you give me some title suggestions And they can give you some.
11:14
Kevin: But for a podcast like BuzzCast and a large percentage of other podcasts that are longer and that you don't already have a transcript up front because it's not a scripted show, then how do you train chat GPT to be able to answer questions on it?
11:30
Kevin: To answer your, you have to be able to prompt.
11:32
Kevin: It Doesn't know anything about a show that's not published yet.
11:34
Kevin: In fact, doesn't know anything about anything that's been published since September 2021, i believe And so you have to feed it first before it can answer questions about it, and it has limitations on how much you can feed it.
11:44
Kevin: I don't remember exactly what those limitations are, but they're not huge.
11:48
Kevin: So if you do like a 30 minute show, even if you took your episode and you had it transcribed, and then you try to paste that entire transcript in the chat, gpt, it would say it's too long, it's too much information.
11:57
Kevin: I can't, so you'd have to start editing it down or you'd have to do it in batches Like this is the first half of my episode.
12:03
Kevin: This is the second half of my episode.
12:04
Kevin: Anyway, it starts to become cumbersome.
12:06
Kevin: So, because of this, there are tools now that are popping up specifically for podcasters to enable this type of thing, and we were seeing the benefits of that.
12:13
Kevin: We're also noticing that it's hard to kind of work with two different tools, and now you're copying and pasting things between two different things, and these tools are pretty expensive and you have to do a lot of research.
12:22
Kevin: You don't necessarily know am I getting high quality AI or I'm getting low quality AI, and so it was an opportunity for BuzzFright to come in and say you know what?
12:29
Kevin: we're going to go out and we're going to find the best AI partner we can.
12:31
Kevin: We're going to bet all of the AI solutions out there.
12:33
Kevin: I'm going to learn everything we can about the different language models that you can query against and that you can feed, and what are the best transcription services available and what editing options exist for correcting transcripts that have errors in them.
12:45
Kevin: How do we implement all that into a workflow so that it feels magical and seamless?
12:48
Kevin: And this is actually a tool that's saving me time instead of just shifting my time around.
12:53
Kevin: I used to have to creatively think about a title, but now I'm running through two or three different tools to be able to get a title.
12:58
Kevin: Well, it might have just been faster for you to creatively think about the title Maybe you're not actually saving time And so when we came back to those goals and we looked at all the options that were available, it made sense to build it into a workflow.
13:08
Kevin: We found a fantastic AI partner, which is our tools are powered by the team at Podium and they offer a standalone service as well, but if you're a BuzzFright customer, this is probably the way to go Just like when we did magic mastering.
13:20
Kevin: We did a similar type of research and looked at all the solutions that are available and we decided to license a technology from Alphonic which is best in class for mastering audio, and so we're super excited to be able to announce this, to bring it right into Buzzsprout, hopefully save a lot of people a lot of time.
13:37
Kevin: Jordan, like you said, you've tested it.
13:38
Kevin: A bunch of people on our creative team have tested it.
13:41
Kevin: We've been testing it a lot and we're super excited.
13:44
Kevin: It's the highest quality AI models that are available.
13:47
Kevin: It is fast, it's all integrated into the workflow And whether you use it as is because let's say, hey, i never did chapter markers before, so anything is better than nothing If you take that approach to it or if you take the approach up, i have always done chapter markers and I want to have a lot of control over them, so I'm just going to use this as a starting point.
14:05
Kevin: It's a great solution for that as well.
14:07
Alban: Yeah, i think the way to frame this is most of that cost is not in the chat GPT piece.
14:13
Alban: That is the relatively tiny amount of the cost.
14:16
Alban: The most of the cost is the transcription Getting a high quality transcription, which now all of our tests are.
14:22
Alban: These are coming back.
14:23
Alban: They're higher than any partner we've ever had.
14:25
Alban: So to get a one, you need a high quality transcript to feel a level of confidence that it's even valuable to put it out.
14:33
Alban: We evaluated tons of partners a long time ago that the transcript quality was not high enough, that it didn't even make sense to pursue, no matter what the cost would be.
14:43
Alban: And then if you're going to get a decent title and a decent description, you're going to need really high quality transcripts.
14:51
Alban: So it all comes downhill from that transcript, and once we have a really good transcript now a lot of things become possible.
14:59
Alban: We always really need a high quality transcript to begin with, and so that's kind of where we started, that we needed to have that in place, and a lot of these are things that I think are what are on the chopping block for a lot of solo podcasters.
15:14
Alban: They go okay.
15:15
Alban: I'm doing a lot of work finding the right guests and back and forth emailing to get them on, and then I record and I want a high quality recording.
15:24
Alban: So I'm using Riverside or Squadcast and now I've got this and like they're doing all this work, they're editing, and then they're like.
15:31
Alban: You know, i hear the transcripts are important.
15:33
Alban: I know some apps use the chapter markers, but I'm not exactly sure how important that is.
15:38
Alban: I'm going to skip that stuff because I'm doing this by myself And this is a chance for Buzz Prep to come alongside and be your co-host and help take off some of that burden from you so that this becomes a little bit easier.
15:52
Alban: I'm reminded by so many podcasters who for years were like four or five episodes in which is kind of where the weight of what you're doing can start to hit people the amount of time they're spending And they'd say things like so, should I just join?
16:06
Alban: like a network, and I almost always say, well, what's the value of the network?
16:10
Alban: And they're like sponsors And I'm like, well, are you big enough that you need sponsors?
16:15
Alban: yet No, not really.
16:16
Alban: And we start talking and almost inevitably would come down to I just want to be able to be able to be able to do that And I just want someone else there, i want someone else alongside me And I wish I had a co-host who, like, did a third of it.
16:29
Alban: They don't even have to do half, they could just do some.
16:35
Alban: And that's what we're trying to build in as many ways as possible.
16:38
Alban: Buzzsprout wants to be your co-host, so that if you have a solo podcast where it's mainly you, or you've got a real life co-host who just doesn't have the time to do everything and the way for you to outsource it and make it as streamlined as possible.
16:52
Alban: And that's what we're building And I'm super excited with the results that we've had so far.
16:59
Kevin: Yeah, so, like when we say that Buzzsprout is the easiest way to help you launch a successful podcast or run a successful podcast, the first thing that most people think of is that, well, your UI is then easy to use.
17:11
Kevin: And obviously, yes, we start at that same place as well.
17:15
Kevin: Every tool that we build, we want the UI to be as immediately understandable as possible.
17:19
Kevin: I don't really love the word simple, because sometimes things that are the easiest to use or the most obvious, it's never simple to get there, but at the end they look very simple, and that's a win when we can do that.
17:31
Kevin: But in order to accomplish that goal, it really goes way beyond what we're just doing in the interface.
17:36
Kevin: It also has to do with, like, taking a concept of an idea, which is how can we make podcasting easier for people to be able to achieve their podcasting goals, and a lot of that is UI.
17:46
Kevin: A lot of it is also exploring the latest technology trends, And right now we're talking about AI and then figuring out, well, which AI partners are available, or what are the different language models that are available, what are the different transcription services that are available, and you could create a UI, a really simple way for people to evaluate all of them, to say, oh, here are all the options and you can choose which one you want and you can turn things on or off, and you can figure out.
18:08
Kevin: Here's some good prompts to get you started, but then you can write your own.
18:11
Kevin: But we don't think that's really that much easier.
18:14
Kevin: That's just like paralysis by not analysis but an overwhelming options, and so I think the real value that we're trying to provide with Buzzsprout is to figuring out what is the best way to craft all of this technology and all these ideas together to provide a really simple, unified solution that just works.
18:32
Kevin: It's just simple and it just works.
18:35
Kevin: Cohost AI is a really neat experience where, instead of uploading your episode and then, while it's uploading, you have an opportunity to start giving a title, start giving a description, start giving.
18:43
Kevin: We've actually changed the workflow quite a bit, and so this is a heads up for anybody who wants to try the feature Plan about 30 minutes in advance of when you actually want to go in and set the title and description.
18:54
Kevin: Upload your episode about 30 minutes early, because the way Cohost AI works now is that you're going to upload that episode and then it's going to go to work in the background.
19:02
Kevin: It probably won't take a full 30 minutes, but if you have like an hour, hour and a half episode, it might take close to that amount of time for it to do all the transcription and then get all the prompting done through all the AI engines, get all those results back, put them all together and then it's going to shoot you an email and say your episode is now ready for your review And then you're going to click a link in the email.
19:20
Kevin: It's going to jump you right back into Buzzsprout and you're going to have all of this information And it's a really fun experience, like one of the things that we were overwhelmed with we're just kind of giddy about.
19:29
Kevin: It is like we're running our podcast episodes through it.
19:32
Kevin: You get these results back and you're like, oh my gosh, somebody just listened to everything we said and they summarized it really well And it feels like kind of magical, like oh my gosh, you really got what I was saying.
19:44
Kevin: We're like, yeah, i mean, it's not a person, it's a robot, but it still feels fun that somebody understood you and helped and then summarized your point and came up with a really fun title for it and recognized when we stopped talking about this and we started talking about this.
19:56
Kevin: It's a fun experience.
19:57
Kevin: So, yeah, give yourself 30 minutes heads up and then have some expectations going in, like it's a fun experience And I hope that everybody who tries it has some delight.
20:08
Kevin: That comes out of actually seeing this language model understand what you were talking about and summarize it in a really fun way and break it up in a fun way and give it a cool title or at least give you ideas that get you excited.
20:19
Jordan: That feeling of delight that somebody actually listened to it.
20:22
Jordan: I really felt that because, you know, i have a fiction storytelling podcast where I tell a full story for a whole hour And it actually, when it transcribed it, it pulled through the themes that were throughout this bedtime story and it pulled out the moral of the story and the main characters and how they interact with each other And it kind of like wove this lovely narrative in my episode description summarizing the story and like the wonderful adventure that this little girl's going to go on and what she's going to learn in the end.
20:57
Jordan: And I was just like, wow, that's crazy, like that it fully analyzed the story and just pulled through so much rich information that didn't even occur to me.
21:09
Jordan: Because in my mind it's like listen this really cute story is adorable.
21:13
Jordan: Bye.
21:16
Alban: This would be pretty good show notes actually.
21:19
Jordan: Yeah exactly.
21:20
Kevin: Yeah, i'm glad you're picking up on that and I hope a lot of other people do as well.
21:23
Kevin: There's a lot of nuance there in the AI tech and that's why it's important to work with AI experts, because co-host AI is different than just feeding a script into chat GPT and then giving it some prompts to get like.
21:37
Kevin: can you summarize that for me?
21:38
Kevin: There is a lot of technical expertise and understanding about how AI works and how these language models work that you can.
21:46
Kevin: if you have that expertise, you can use it to be able to apply very sophisticated advanced prompts that give you very high quality results in a way that somebody without that expertise could not just do on their own.
21:59
Kevin: You'll see there are people now who are starting to sell courses to teach people how to prompt AI to get the best results.
22:07
Kevin: Like this is a new area of expertise that's going to start to emerge, and there's a very limited number of people in the world who actually know it well enough.
22:15
Kevin: I don't know how many people then know it well enough to teach it.
22:17
Kevin: I don't know how great any of these courses are, but the majority of us don't have any of these skills right now.
22:22
Kevin: There's very few people that do, and so that is also what you're getting with co-host AI is.
22:26
Kevin: they're not just prompts, just saying, okay, here's the transcript, now give us a summary.
22:30
Kevin: They're actually very advanced prompts to be able to generate high quality summaries that are applicable to episodes, whether they be fiction, narrative podcasts, like like Jordan's, or technical podcasts like Buzzcast or anything else, homeschool podcasts or real estate podcasts or anything else.
22:47
Kevin: It's super exciting.
22:48
Kevin: It's one of these things a little bit like we might hear about it later, like jumping into an ice bath, like no matter how much you talk about it, it's kind of different, like when you experience it.
22:58
Kevin: I hope that when people try this for their own podcast, i hope that they feel some delight or they're shocked or their expectations are exceeded in some way.
23:06
Kevin: That's really what we're trying to do.
23:08
Alban: Kevin, what you're saying reminds me so much of these like affiliate sites.
23:12
Alban: If you search something online, you're like what's the best air purifier?
23:15
Alban: before we all started recording, we're all talking about our air purifiers And you search that the page you're going to get is like here are the top 20 air purifiers.
23:24
Alban: Like there's not an opinion there.
23:26
Alban: There's maybe there's one at the top of the page, but it's like the page that's supposed to give you the result is also the page.
23:32
Alban: That's kind of like here's all the results.
23:35
Alban: But the thing we really want and this is what I have in my life for certain areas like I have a friend, if I want to know about coffee stuff, like I just message Ron and I say Ron, like what coffee maker should I get?
23:48
Alban: And he just sends me a link and we're done.
23:50
Alban: Like he doesn't tell me well, here are the 15 things you need to research before you could ever know.
23:55
Alban: And I feel like we had to learn this lesson at some point.
23:59
Alban: Where I would write these blog posts were like here's all the things you should consider And here's all the options.
24:04
Alban: And I think the recommendation came from Pat Flynn and he said you know, if you're recommending like four things.
24:10
Alban: You're not really recommending anything.
24:11
Alban: You need to have an opinion and tell people what the opinion is.
24:15
Alban: That's what we're trying to do And so, over and over and bus sprout it's we think your files should be in this file format and they should have these types of ID, three tags, and they should have this type of encoding and they should have this type of mastering and everything is built together and there are making decisions for people.
24:35
Alban: But the whole goal is, if you want to trust us in the way that I trust my friend JB about Apple products, it's like when you send a text and they send you the link back and they say here's what you should do And you go cool, now I don't have to like dig into it.
24:48
Alban: Hey, i don't want to try to be a creative director for a podcast company.
24:52
Alban: All I want is just like give me some really good titles and I'll tell you which one I like the most.
24:56
Alban: Boom, we got it And now we can get you all these features that we've been talking about for years transcripts and chapter markers and descriptions and all this stuff.
25:07
Alban: This really cool is podcasting to that stuff.
25:09
Alban: Now it's all going to be implemented in your podcast without adding the burden onto you, and so I'm very excited to see more and more people using it.
25:18
Alban: We launched it, i feel like, earlier this morning and already had a handful of people who've turned it on, so I'm really excited over the next few weeks to see more people get exposed to it and try it out and hopefully help streamline their podcast quite a bit.
25:36
Jordan: Have you seen on Twitter Lauren Passell?
25:39
Jordan: she started, i think it was, on January 1st.
25:42
Jordan: She said more podcast ratings and reviews in 2023.
25:46
Jordan: This year I'm going to try and leave a podcast rating and review on Apple podcasts every day, even if it's like one sentence.
25:52
Jordan: Can I do it?
25:53
Jordan: So far she has been doing it and it's really fun to be keeping up on the thread and seeing how she's leaving these awesome reviews for podcasts.
26:03
Alban: Is Lauren listening to all of these podcasts?
26:06
Alban: I know she listens to a ton And I'm always impressed by how many podcasts she knows about or recommends to people or has knowledge of, because I think, for how much I work in podcasting, i could probably only really recommend or review 20 or 30 podcasts.
26:23
Alban: This is such a big undertaking and this thread just keeps going and getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
26:31
Jordan: Looking at the reviews that she's leaving, it looks like she's actually listening to these podcasts.
26:35
Jordan: She leaves some pretty detailed reviews on this, so I think she might be, but she has a newsletter called Podcast Marketing Magic, which is really great, and I thought that this tied in nicely, because they wrote a blog or an article about how to get more ratings and reviews And I thought that this was actually kind of a cool thing to talk about, because podcasters one of the things that they say a lot, one of the myths of podcasting is that ratings and reviews help the algorithm find your podcast and things like that, which is not true Ratings been disproved by Spotify.
27:12
Jordan: Apple.
27:12
Jordan: They've come forward saying, no, that's not how it works.
27:15
Alban: Yeah, those are the same people, though they say leave me a rating and review in iTunes, it will help people find my podcast.
27:21
Alban: I don't think it's been iTunes since like 2016 or something.
27:25
Alban: Yeah, ratings reviews are great because they are the social proof for your podcast.
27:31
Alban: It helps people who are trying to find a show figure out does this show actually have followers?
27:37
Alban: A lot of times on YouTube you are clicking around on a couple of videos and you see someone with like it has 10 views and they have two subscribers.
27:47
Alban: You're kind of a little wary, like does this person know what they're talking about versus someone else?
27:52
Alban: and you're looking it up and they have a woodworking shop and they're talking about woodworking and then all of a sudden you realize they've got 200,000 people subscribed to the channel.
27:59
Alban: You're like, okay, this person knows Well podcasting.
28:03
Alban: A lot of those stats are not public.
28:05
Alban: But what's public?
28:06
Alban: are people leaving ratings reviews saying I really enjoy the show?
28:09
Alban: They have a lot of expertise in this area.
28:12
Alban: You can learn the tone of the show.
28:14
Alban: Is it funny, is it serious, is it in-depth journalism or is it three people going on and on about podcast microphones, like we are?
28:23
Alban: Like you get a feel before you start investing in the podcast And so that way it's really, really valuable.
28:31
Alban: So it does, in a I guess, a roundabout way, help people find the podcast, help people figure out the podcast for them, even if it doesn't affect the algorithms at all.
28:41
Kevin: Do you guys ever read reviews before you listen to a show?
28:44
Kevin: Oh, absolutely.
28:46
Jordan: I actually don't Like sometimes I'll just scroll down and see like okay, they have 1.3,000 reviews and they're at like 4.2 stars.
28:54
Jordan: It's probably great.
28:56
Kevin: I totally do for shows that I'm discovering myself, which doesn't happen all that often, but every once in a while I get into a situation where I don't have a recommendation or, through all the podcasts that I listen to, no new recommendations on the horizon.
29:07
Kevin: So I have to go discovering, like spulinking down into the directories myself, and at that point I do like.
29:13
Kevin: It matters to me how many star reviews they have, and so I will usually swap over to Apple Podcasts, if that's not the app I'm already in, because it has the most, and so I'll try to look up podcasts there and see just how many people have rated it and how many people have given it reviews.
29:29
Kevin: I don't necessarily read many of the reviews, but one or two sometimes, but I will say, on the other hand, if somebody recommends a podcast to me, then I don't even care, i don't care if it has like one star by 5,000 people.
29:41
Kevin: If my friend said oh, i really like it, you should check it out.
29:43
Kevin: That supersedes the ratings and reviews.
29:45
Jordan: You know, i came and verified this but I heard it.
29:48
Jordan: Word on the street is that if somebody has a bad experience, they will tell 10 people about it, but if they have a good experience, they'll probably just tell one person about that good experience, and I think that reviews are kind of a reflection of that.
30:03
Alban: A lot of times, Yeah, i've felt that with podcasts I don't think I've ever gone out of my way to leave a negative review, but I definitely we constantly are talking to podcasters.
30:13
Alban: We had one recently.
30:14
Alban: We got a pretty negative review And those do kind of stand out.
30:18
Alban: I think You kind of, i guess, if we're willing to go out of our way and say, hey, this podcast was stunk or my Delta flight was messed up, i want to kind of complain about that online.
30:28
Alban: You kind of want the corollary there as well, the oh, i actually had a really wonderful experience listening to this podcast, or my flight was a great experience and I got extra cookies or something, i don't know.
30:40
Alban: You do want to have both sides of the coin represented to give people an accurate view of what they're going to get into.
30:49
Jordan: So some ways that you can get more views for your podcast, and this is what they have listed on podcast marketing magic And I really love these ideas.
30:57
Jordan: They say have confidence in asking for a review and make the call to action a little different so that listeners don't just tune out the request.
31:05
Jordan: Because it's one of those things If you say the same thing over and over and over again, people kind of check out.
31:09
Jordan: So like I know this call to action.
31:11
Jordan: So if you try to change it up a little bit and maybe like say that you are doing a giveaway or say something else, so an example that I can give is Payne Lindsay at Tenderfoot TV.
31:24
Jordan: When they released their podcast High Strange, he was posting on Instagram saying like leave a rating review for High Strange and say that Terry Carnation sent you.
31:35
Jordan: And if you say that you'll be entered for a giveaway and Terry Carnation is a character in one of Tenderfoot's other podcasts, radio Rental So it's one of those things where he's speaking to like the deep fans, like the fans that know who this character is, and then they're going to go leave a rating and review.
31:53
Jordan: So that's kind of a fun way to ask for reviews, kind of do like a nod to your listeners.
31:58
Jordan: Another one that I saw that I thought was really interesting is to read the ratings and reviews on podcasts, and you guys know Ooh, interesting Jordan Interesting.
32:11
Jordan: I hate when people read like good reviews of their podcast on their own podcast.
32:15
Jordan: It is one of my biggest pet peeves.
32:17
Jordan: But one of the examples that they give that I think is so fun is that there was this fitness comedy podcast that when people would leave a review, what they would do is they would take that review and they would make up a funny like fitness routine based on the person's username.
32:34
Jordan: So I think something like that is kind of fun, because you're not just like reading good reviews on your podcast and like saying how awesome it is, but you're also kind of like bringing your fans in and giving them like motivationally review because they want you to like roast them or something.
32:53
Alban: I used to always try to get us to read the reviews Good, the bad, the ugly, like I wanted to engage our audience.
33:00
Alban: and Jordan, the minute that you got here, you're like we are shutting this down, there's no more reading reviews.
33:06
Alban: I will edit out any of those comments No patting yourself on the back on this show, but if we find a way.
33:14
Alban: it would be so much funnier, though, if we were getting five star reviews to our own, like audience was roasting us or something.
33:20
Alban: then we could read those.
33:22
Kevin: Oh, careful, now That will happen if you ask for it.
33:27
Jordan: It's one of those things like you want to ask for more reviews And I think that that's probably a good thing, because you know you want to get people that are going to say nice things to leave a review to kind of like offset the people that might have like something negative to say.
33:39
Jordan: There are times and I've seen a lot of podcasters struggle with this where they just get a review that's just like downright nasty or, you know, like spammy or doesn't make sense to their podcast.
33:52
Jordan: And, albin, you mentioned that we had gotten one of those and it was just like this malicious review and I actually didn't know this, but we were able to get it reviewed because it went against Apple's terms and conditions.
34:06
Jordan: So, kevin, how'd you go about getting that removed for us?
34:10
Kevin: Well, it's a pretty simple process There.
34:12
Kevin: I think it's podcast support.
34:14
Kevin: Is that the email address for Apple?
34:16
Kevin: If not, we can maybe get it corrected in the show notes.
34:18
Kevin: But there's an email address that you can email Apple and they have a very clear guidelines of what is appropriate for review, what's not.
34:26
Kevin: A review that is dishonest, abuseful, harmful, misleading or bad faith can be removed.
34:31
Kevin: You just have to bring it to their attention, and so if you ever get a rating that falls into any of those categories, you can just shoot them an email and kind of make your case and they will review it.
34:39
Kevin: It should probably be pretty clear cut things that are subjective, like they're probably just going to let roll, but if it's a clear violation of their policy and it does not, it's a misrepresentation of your show or what you said, then you can absolutely get them removed and they shouldn't have to sit around forever.
34:54
Kevin: One has bad days, and if you happen to catch somebody when they're having a bad day or something that you said unintentionally hit them sideways, there are ways to remedy that.
35:03
Alban: Yeah, i mean a one star that says this podcast is not interesting and I didn't enjoy it.
35:07
Alban: That's a legit review.
35:09
Alban: You know, that's somebody's opinion of your podcast.
35:11
Alban: But I remember somebody.
35:13
Alban: She criticized Barstool Sports on her podcast and her reviews.
35:18
Alban: She got hundreds and hundreds of one star, just like personal attack reviews.
35:23
Alban: And eventually Apple let's like the nuts who are leaving those reviews leave them.
35:28
Alban: And then they went through and they nuked all those reviews because those are not actual reviews of the podcast.
35:34
Alban: They're not really.
35:36
Alban: Hey, here's what's good about the podcast and here's what's not.
35:39
Alban: You can have a honest one star review and you can have a dishonest five star review.
35:44
Alban: There's not a correlation between the two.
35:46
Alban: But if you're talking about, you know I dislike this person or kind of is a personal attack or it's just totally off base.
35:55
Alban: I mean, there's sometimes you'll get some that truly like it's hard to decipher even what the comment is about.
35:59
Alban: Any of those like those aren't constructive And so you can ask to have those removed.
36:05
Kevin: I will say this I've been in podcasting for 16 years and I've emailed Apple twice, Once for a review that was left on this podcast and once for a review that was left on my son's podcast.
36:16
Kevin: So Well, what was the one on your son's podcast?
36:19
Kevin: I can't remember, but it was pretty ugly, and I was wondering like it was one of those cases where it was like, if that was left about an adult, I don't know if it would have violated their policy or not, but because it was a child, I just wrote them and said, hey, they just said this about a child, I'm not sure if this violates your policy.
36:34
Kevin: And then they wrote back and I said it's been removed, don't worry.
36:36
Kevin: So yeah, if you have special circumstances around your podcast too, like if it's for children or if it's for disabled or marginalized groups or something like that, if you feel like I don't know if this is a clear violation, you can always ask.
36:47
Kevin: And that's kind of what I did with my child's podcast.
36:49
Kevin: And they wrote back and said, yeah, we're going to take that one down, because some of the stuff is subjective and case by case.
36:54
Kevin: So it doesn't hurt to ask if you feel like it might qualify.
36:57
Kevin: But also at the same time you always kind of have to go into it with, like, if it's not a clear violation, they might not take it down, and that's just.
37:05
Kevin: You know.
37:05
Kevin: There's a lot of stuff on the internet that's not necessarily fair all the time, but we know the people at Apple are trying to do their best and some of these things are just subjective calls.
37:13
Alban: We see it a lot of times on YouTube.
37:15
Alban: I mean, we get a ton of comments on YouTube, even if those aren't like ratings, reviews.
37:19
Alban: We're getting a lot of feedback and the vast majority of it is positive and is kind, but sometimes you know, if video is out of date or somebody feels like they didn't learn the thing they were expecting, they feel like they were misled by the title or something like that and you get something pretty rough.
37:38
Alban: The thing to remember is people being frustrated with you is not always indicative of like something you did.
37:45
Alban: You know they can be having a really bad day because their child is in the hospital or something, or they just lost their job And then they went on YouTube and they saw a video and then they were just like that was the thing that made them mad.
38:00
Alban: I mean, this was my experience of being a waiter was finding out there are people who every day, are just having a very rough day and somebody you know is on the receiving end and when you're waiting, like a lot of times you do end up on it.
38:13
Alban: It's not that it's okay, but it helped me to remember.
38:16
Alban: Not all of these are about me.
38:18
Alban: They're often about the person leaving the comment.
38:25
Jordan: So you'll remember I think a couple of months ago Google announced that they were removing the podcast from their search results and it kind of like sent people into like a oh, is Google podcasts like disappearing?
38:37
Jordan: What's going on with that?
38:38
Jordan: And they've made a new update to their search results.
38:42
Jordan: So if you search for, like a genre of podcasts or something like that, their podcast carousel will still come up with podcasts, but when you click them now they have buttons that directly you to Spotify or Apple podcasts or their website directly and they'll open in the app when you're on the mobile search.
39:05
Alban: Oh, nice.
39:05
Alban: So help me remember this.
39:07
Alban: Like it was, if you search for something and it pulled up the podcast episode.
39:12
Alban: Little widget I don't, widget isn't the right word but you could listen to the podcast inside of Google, like right on Google.
39:21
Jordan: Yeah.
39:21
Alban: It really wasn't the best experience, because not many people want to listen to an entire podcast in a little mini player in their Google browser And now we're getting links to the actual podcast.
39:35
Alban: I mean it's pretty nice because it's not just linking up to Google, it's linking out to the website for the podcast is linking out to Apple podcasts, it's linking out to Spotify, which you know as a combination like that's a vast majority of the podcast players.
39:49
Jordan: Yeah, what's interesting about it is that the Google podcasts button, where you can listen on the Google podcast app, is actually only viewable if you click more listening options.
40:00
Jordan: Like it has like a drop down and it expands And for some reason they're hiding their own podcast app in that And I wonder if it's something to do with the launch of like YouTube music podcasts or something like that.
40:11
Jordan: Maybe they're going to integrate that down the road.
40:14
Jordan: I don't know.
40:15
Kevin: It seems like I'm getting mixed results.
40:17
Kevin: So when I tap Buzzcast, for example, i do have Google as a main option, but maybe it's because Spotify we're not listed in Spotify, so maybe they promoted themselves.
40:27
Kevin: Other shows are all Spotify and Apple podcasts, with the Google option being under the all listening options.
40:34
Kevin: So if you want Google to be a main option, i think you the suggestion would be to do like we do and remove your show from Spotify.
40:43
Alban: That's the hack.
40:44
Alban: I do like this because this is a good example of if Google was just trying to promote their own interests, they would just put Google podcasts only, or they put Google podcasts at the very top and then put a bunch of weird options, and then they would put Spotify and Apple and they'd try to downrank those.
41:01
Alban: But this really looks like Google is saying Hey, we know, apple podcasts and Spotify are number one and number two Website is often number three and we're number four And that's the way they've ranked them.
41:12
Alban: Google is right there in the middle, spotify is on the left, websites on the right and then Google is down below that, and it just feels like a very useful experience for listeners who are trying to find new podcasts through Google.
41:25
Alban: You know, i think this is like maybe like the best UI we could have ever hoped for.
41:29
Alban: I would not have totally expected them to do this, so I think it's really cool that they're sending all this traffic out to Spotify and Apple and websites.
41:36
Kevin: Yeah, it is nice.
41:37
Kevin: And now I imagine when we searched Google for Buzzcast specifically, we did not find this in the search results.
41:43
Kevin: But when I searched for Buzzsprout podcast, then about halfway down I start to see popular podcasts and Buzzcast is listed as one of those.
41:53
Kevin: So I think if you're looking for your podcast, you might want to put in the name of your podcast, but also put in, like the genre, category or podcasts, like this or something, the name of your show and then you might be able to see it.
42:04
Kevin: But it seemed like just searching for the name of our show anyway didn't produce this UI.
42:09
Jordan: And I'm just wondering they only have Spotify and Apple podcasts And I know that those are like the two biggest ones, but I'm hoping that they roll out the other podcast apps.
42:19
Jordan: That would be nice to have that listed as well so that people could just open it in their preferred app.
42:25
Jordan: It doesn't have to be in one of those two.
42:27
Kevin: Yeah, i agree, i don't know where they're getting the listings from.
42:29
Kevin: Google does Google things, and so my initial thought would be like oh, you would log into your Google podcast manager And that's where you would make sure all your links are correctly set to Apple podcasts, to Spotify, to everything else.
42:43
Kevin: But I have a feeling, google being Google, that they're probably not relying on that data.
42:47
Kevin: They're probably putting this together on their own, using their search engine to go out and find podcasts, to categorize them themselves, to figure out when they're going to show them the results and then figure out how they're going to link to them their own Google way.
42:58
Kevin: But I don't know for sure.
42:59
Kevin: So if anybody has input on that, yeah, we'd love to hear it.
43:04
Kevin: Maybe we can follow up if we get more information.
43:10
Jordan: It's time for Sound Off the segment where you send in your tips, tricks and podcasting advice.
43:14
Jordan: Last episode we asked was an unexpected outcome you've had from creating a podcast.
43:21
Alban: Did we get any answers to this, or was it a no show, like Kevin's question last week?
43:26
Jordan: We got many answers to this one.
43:29
Alban: So let's go, yes.
43:31
Jordan: So album one.
43:32
Kevin: These are not contests.
43:35
Alban: It is definitely a contest.
43:36
Alban: as soon as you, you were like trashing by like two weeks ago, You're like no, no, we're asking about the conspiracy theory.
43:42
Jordan: It became personal after that.
43:45
Kevin: All right, all right.
43:45
Kevin: Well, we got some good responses.
43:47
Kevin: Let's dig in.
43:48
Jordan: We do have to mention that our boostograms are not working, and so we haven't been getting boostograms for the past like months.
43:55
Jordan: So if anyone has been sending in their answers, maybe that's where the conspiracy theory responses got lost.
44:01
Kevin: Maybe that is the conspiracy theory.
44:03
Kevin: How did our booster grams break?
44:05
Kevin: So I've got to figure this out.
44:06
Kevin: We do experiment with our feed from time to time, and so I might have broken something.
44:10
Kevin: I need to go back and check the code and get that fixed, but I'm going to put myself on a two week deadline for that.
44:16
Kevin: So by the next episode we hope to have the boosting capability back.
44:19
Jordan: Yeah, and apologies to anyone who sent in their responses and we didn't read them.
44:24
Alban: Apologies to Dave Jones, the person who's coded up like 90% of all the boostogram stuff, who probably did boost us in the meantime and added stuff, edited it out, so we will figure it out.
44:34
Kevin: Yeah, that's a good question too is where does Satoshi's go when they don't make it here?
44:39
Kevin: Because I tested this.
44:42
Kevin: I went into the fountain app and I boosted a test boost and I said, hey, jordan, and I sent like 5000 Satoshi's and we never got them.
44:49
Kevin: So, like the AI robot, eat them.
44:51
Kevin: Where are they?
44:52
Kevin: There's only so many.
44:56
Alban: Well, one other thing before we do go into sound off is we also got a new subscriber in the last two weeks.
45:02
Alban: Sarah Bria sponsored the show with a recurring sponsorship, so thank you, sarah.
45:09
Alban: She picked the celebration emoji and, sarah, we're celebrating you today, so thank you so much for sponsoring and supporting Buzzcast.
45:18
Jordan: Let's get into our responses to.
45:19
Jordan: Was an unexpected outcome you've had from creating a podcast.
45:24
Marie: My name is Marie and my podcast title is bloomier mind.
45:28
Marie: My little brother is really, really special to me and he has a health diagnosis that he's been living with it for years now And he and I don't talk as much as I would like to.
45:38
Marie: And he said you know, i was having a really hard day today and I listened to your episode and it made everything easier, and ever since then he has been listening to my episodes every week.
45:48
Marie: You know, it's a way that connects us that I did not anticipate.
45:52
Marie: Podcasting is a way that I can serve people in the moments that they need me most, when maybe our times don't match up or I don't have the time to be on a phone call with them for an hour.
46:01
Marie: It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever done and I'm so grateful.
46:05
Alban: Wow, that is really powerful Yeah.
46:08
Jordan: Yeah, i got a little emotional with that one.
46:10
Jordan: Yeah, i think about how intimate podcasting is.
46:13
Jordan: It's such a deep connection And it's like you're just talking in someone's ear And so it is kind of that feeling like you're a little bit closer to somebody And so maybe if you didn't keep in contact with somebody and for them to listen to it and it feels like you're talking directly to them, like I could see how that would have a huge impact on someone that was feeling, you know, a little bit distant from you.
46:36
Alban: Yeah, I mean, I could think of a lot of times where I know the person and I also listen to their show and I love it.
46:41
Alban: It's kind of like you can make a phone call and you know the person is going to answer and they're excited to tell you about the thing that you always talk about.
46:48
Alban: And yeah, maybe we all need a little bit more of these personal podcasts that friends and family can check in with every once in a while.
46:55
Jordan: Oh, that's so smart.
46:56
Jordan: Instead of like a family newsletter and do a family podcast.
47:01
Jan: I'm Jan Johnson.
47:02
Jan: My podcast is Women of the Northwest Ordinary Women Leading Extraordinary Lives.
47:07
Jan: The benefit that's happened for me which is a super surprise is the long term friendships I've developed with those that I've interviewed, even over the past year and beyond.
47:19
Jan: They contacted me for advice or have told me little things about their lives or shared the podcast with others, and I just love it.
47:28
Jan: It's been really exciting.
47:30
Alban: I love that so far, these have been friendship related and relationship related.
47:34
Kevin: Yeah, relational benefits.
47:36
Kevin: I love this.
47:37
Kevin: This is very cool.
47:38
Kevin: Yeah, i also picked up on the fact that it's Women of the Northwest, not Pacific Northwest.
47:42
Kevin: Me too, kevin, not the Pacific Northwest, it's the Northwest.
47:46
Kevin: It's a much more inclusive podcast, which I appreciate, jordan Hey I have to tell you.
47:51
Jordan: I looked it up and I found the answer.
47:53
Alban: What is the answer?
47:54
Jordan: It's called the Pacific Northwest because back in the day, when they were first going out west, the Northwest was what is now like the Midwest.
48:03
Jordan: So then what they did was they called it the Pacific Northwest when it was up in the other side of the states.
48:10
Alban: So some guy was in a covered wagon, stopped halfway and he's like this is it, This is the Northwest, It's.
48:18
Alban: Somebody else had to be like all right, we made it all the way to the Pacific.
48:21
Alban: So no, it didn't.
48:22
Jordan: No, it's the Pacific Northwest, because everyone on the East Coast was calling it the Northwest.
48:26
Alban: Okay, Well, thank you for writing in, Jan.
48:31
Alban: We appreciate it And that is a very cool to hear.
48:33
Jordan: Yeah, i actually relate to this too, because I've made so many friends from podcasting, so that's really cool, jan.
48:41
Kevin: Seems like I've lost more friends through podcasting, but to each of them.
48:49
Matthew: Hey guys, matthew from Girl Dad Nation.
48:51
Matthew: Since creating a podcast, i've been able to connect with people that I would have never been able to before Really great conversations with other dads and definitely been inspired to create some more awesome adventures with my own kids.
49:04
Matthew: So it's just helped me in so many ways.
49:07
Matthew: Thank you so much for what you do.
49:09
Matthew: Hope to see you at the next conference in Denver.
49:12
Kevin: Yeah, absolutely.
49:13
Kevin: The next conference in Denver, we will be there.
49:15
Kevin: Girl Dad Nation what a cool idea for a podcast.
49:18
Kevin: I actually just brought a girl and a boy to the Taylor Swift show, which feels like something that you might have been talking about on Girl Dad Nation.
49:29
Alban: I like the connection to trying to draw.
49:30
Alban: They're like I did take my daughter and son and son.
49:35
Kevin: He's also a huge Taylor Swift fan, so, yeah, that's great.
49:39
Jordan: This reminds me, alvin, you did an interview with a bottom million from the Short Box podcast, and he had a very similar story about getting to interview people that he would have never met otherwise had it not been for his podcast, and so I think that could also be a really common theme in benefits with podcasting is just the opportunity to connect with people you would normally not be able to.
50:05
Alban: One of the themes I'm kind of getting from these so far has been at least online.
50:09
Alban: It is really awesome that we can connect with new people.
50:13
Alban: That was the promise of the internet was like anyone around the world you could talk to.
50:16
Alban: But there still is something that feels a little bit weird to bridge that gap.
50:22
Alban: To start, I remember once somebody reached out on Twitter and like I'd read a bunch of stuff that he'd written and I thought it was like a really interesting person.
50:30
Alban: And he was like, oh, do you want to just hang out on Zoom for a bit?
50:33
Alban: And I told my wife and she's like this sounds weird.
50:36
Alban: Like why are you getting on Zoom with some random guy?
50:38
Alban: And I was like well, I've done like dozens of podcasts with random people and I never thought any of those were weird.
50:44
Alban: This is just a podcast, We're not recording it.
50:46
Alban: And it's funny that, like your guard at least my guard went up a little bit.
50:51
Alban: My wife went up a little more as soon as you heard somebody wants to talk and just hang out And maybe podcasts are like the low risk way of doing that and saying like, hey, could I interview you for a podcast And maybe it turns into you like some of the same things, and maybe you become friends.
51:07
Jordan: And on Twitter Sarah Rossett, And I still don't know if she's going to have to tell us if we're saying her name correctly.
51:13
Kevin: You have to ask her.
51:14
Kevin: I think it's Rossett.
51:15
Jordan: Sarah, is it Rosette or Rossett or Rosette, i don't know?
51:20
Jordan: She says so many things new friendships, new business opportunities and the ability to feel comfortable or at least not shaky voice, nervous when I'm a podcast guest or speaking to a group.
51:31
Jordan: On Zoom, holy cow, i fully agree.
51:35
Jordan: I get like the nervous jitters every time I have to do some sort of like presentation on the company Zoom.
51:40
Jordan: I cannot stand it and I don't know why, but it does help being in front of a microphone more often.
51:47
Alban: Yeah, the first few times I did it it was weird, i did not like it, i was hyper.
51:52
Alban: Analyzing.
51:53
Alban: Everything I said Took a couple of years, i'm sure, to get fully comfortable with it and just start talking normally.
51:59
Alban: And I also have to point out Sarah Rossett is one of our Buzzcast subscribers and supporters, so thank you, sarah, for supporting the show as well.
52:09
Alban: We now have multiple Sarahs, both with no H, so Sarahs with an H.
52:14
Alban: Maybe someday we will get one as a subscriber.
52:17
Alban: Yeah.
52:19
Kevin: Get on it.
52:20
Kevin: We need some Sarahs with H's.
52:21
Jordan: This is the quality content that people come to us for is the discussion of Sarah with H.
52:26
Jordan: I think the question for next episode sound off should be what do you need to do as your pre-recording ritual?
52:36
Jordan: Yeah, i thought about this because I always have to brew a cup of throat coat tea, and like I have to do that before every single recording.
52:46
Jordan: Albin, you eat a bag of flaming hot Cheeto fries, right, that's true, he does that during the beginning of the recording.
52:54
Kevin: I did that one time.
52:59
Jordan: All right.
52:59
Jordan: So yeah, send in your response to what do you need to do as your pre-recording ritual And to have your response featured in our next episode, leave a 30 second voice message at podinboxcom, send us a boost to Graham, which hopefully we'll have fixed by next time, or tweet the answer at Buzzcast podcast.
53:15
Jordan: And, as always, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
53:22
Kevin: I got a text from John Pollard, who's our head programmer on the team, and he got an email from a company called the Pod Company, and I don't know if he was researching like ice bath stuff or if the Pod Company somehow thought that he was interested because he works at a podcasting company.
53:40
Kevin: Anyway, they have this little ice bath product that they sell for $120, which is way less than any other cold plunge setup like a real one with a chiller, and that's like a permanent setup.
53:51
Kevin: And he knows that we've been joking about oh, we should get a cold plunge Like that would be fun to try, but they're all very expensive.
53:59
Kevin: And so he found one for $120.
54:00
Kevin: So I said, fine, i'm in for one, i'll try it.
54:03
Kevin: And so I bought it and it came, and Alba and I had this meeting.
54:06
Kevin: And I said so, instead of meeting at the office, why don't we just meet at my house and we can take a cold plunge before we meet?
54:12
Kevin: you know, activate our brains.
54:14
Alban: This thing sounds like a great deal until you realize what it actually is is like imagine the little pool that you used to put in the backyard for your kids.
54:22
Jordan: It's like that level of build quality And so it's like the plastic ones that you get the grocery store It's plastic as like PVC pipe holding it together And it's like kind of like a very small bucket.
54:34
Alban: I mean it's a bucket that's big enough for either of us could get in.
54:37
Kevin: You cannot do a two person polar plunge This is a total solo activity No but I don't know that we really want to.
54:43
Kevin: I don't know that we want to do it too personally.
54:45
Kevin: It's just pictures of us like hopping into, like a cold plunge You're like yeah, no, unless it's, unless it's an ocean, I don't think we should be cold plunging together.
54:54
Alban: All right.
54:54
Alban: So Kevin's like all right, bring a bathing suit, We can do a polar plunge.
54:57
Alban: And I'm like, all right, not a big deal.
54:59
Alban: And I get there and Kevin has this thing down to 35 degrees.
55:04
Marie: Oh, my God.
55:06
Alban: He's like.
55:06
Alban: So I bought like six bags of ice and they melted immediately and then I went and I filled up my like ice chest twice.
55:13
Alban: So this thing is just ice and there is water in between the ice.
55:18
Kevin: It's, it's it's the consistency of like a 7-Eleven slushie.
55:22
Alban: Yeah, there's ice all the way down.
55:24
Alban: Kevin tells me this hurts more than you think It's shocking And I'm like, ok, i bet it is, but I'm kind of in the back of my mind like we used to always swim in really cold water.
55:36
Alban: Yeah, i don't mind the cold.
55:38
Alban: I actually like the cold a lot.
55:40
Alban: This is not going to be a big deal going out in 35 degree weather without a shirt on, cold, but it's not like super cold.
55:46
Alban: And then I did it instant.
55:50
Alban: Like my legs start cramping and it is shockingly painful, shocking, like I was struggling to breathe instantly.
56:01
Alban: I remember all the breath techniques that my wife learned for like giving birth, and I'm like I got to breathe through this and breathe through it.
56:10
Alban: Kevin's like just make it to a minute and a half and your hands will go numb and then they stop hurting.
56:18
Alban: I couldn't do it.
56:19
Alban: I got a minute.
56:21
Jordan: But is not like the first level of like hypothermia.
56:25
Alban: I don't know how to express this.
56:27
Alban: It hurts so much more than I expected, so much more.
56:33
Jordan: I imagine that it would feel like just a million, like pinpricks, like just getting stuck with like a million needles in your body.
56:40
Alban: That sounds wonderful.
56:41
Kevin: So a lot of people have come over my house and done it since then And I've told all of them the same thing It hurts way more than you could ever imagine, or, you know, it's not probably the worst pain you've ever experienced in your life.
56:52
Kevin: Like I can't compare it to childbirth or something like that.
56:54
Kevin: All I can tell you is that what you think it's going to hurt, it's going to be 10x What you're imagining it is going to be, and that might not be the worst ever, but it's worse than you think You think.
57:04
Kevin: I'm just going to get in this cold water for three or four minutes and it's going to hurt, it's going to be uncomfortable, but I'll be fine, and it's like it just absolutely takes your breath away.
57:13
Kevin: Now we should pause because you know we don't have the biggest podcast in the world, but there's a few people who listen to this.
57:20
Kevin: And since we've done this, albin, i've gone onto Google and I typed in like what are the risks of taking a nice bath?
57:27
Kevin: And the American Heart Association, heartorg, has a big article and it's the title of it is you're not a polar bear.
57:34
Kevin: The plunge into cold water comes with risks, and when you read it, it's like this is extremely dangerous.
57:39
Kevin: Extremely dangerous, yes, oh no.
57:42
Kevin: And so for some people and doing it properly, doing it the right amount of time, breathing and stuff it can be done, you can reduce the risks, but there are a lot of risks of doing it, and especially doing it like jumping in naïve to the risks If you have heart issues or anything like that it's extremely dangerous.
58:00
Kevin: So I just want anyone who's listening who thinks like, oh, the guys on the podcast did this and they were fine, i'm going to go do it.
58:05
Kevin: Don't, don't Research first.
58:07
Jordan: It hurts and you could die.
58:08
Kevin: Talk to you doctor, figure out right if this is something that you should or should not do, or how you should do it, and take all the necessary precautions.
58:15
Kevin: Do not listen to us.
58:16
Kevin: The way that we did it was not safe and not smart, and not only was it painful, but it was also very dangerous.
58:22
Kevin: That out of the way, let's get back to the story.
58:26
Jordan: I just want to say that I'm reading this article and it's scary.
58:32
Jordan: Within minutes, the loss of heat begins causing other problems.
58:35
Jordan: Blood rushes away from the extremities to the body's core to protect vital organs.
58:39
Jordan: That leaves arms and legs without good circulation, which can lead to a loss of strength and coordination, and the rapid loss of heat can also lead to hypothermia, which I said.
58:49
Kevin: Yeah, there's a part in that article that says that you can die within a minute, and Albin and I were trying to go for three and four.
58:54
Kevin: Yeah, oh my gosh.
58:55
Kevin: I think his first one was a minute and a half.
58:57
Kevin: Then he got out for 10 minutes, then he got back in for like three minutes.
58:59
Alban: And then I did another one for two minutes where I was shivering the whole time and Kevin goes you got to get out, And I'm like no, I'm fine, I'm fine.
59:06
Alban: It's like you were not controlling that shivering.
59:07
Alban: And I'm like, OK, I'll get out, but you have to help me because my legs are numb.
59:12
Kevin: Because I can't stand up anymore.
59:16
Alban: It does not surprise me to know that there's health risks involved in this.
59:19
Jordan: There's actually like this technique where it's like a mini polar bear plunge, where you just fill up, maybe like a popcorn bowl with ice water and you just stick your face in it for like as long as you can stand, and apparently that actually is a treatment to like relieve like anxiety and like depression, because it just it forces the endorphins.
59:40
Jordan: It's like that whole thing where you're putting your body under like stress.
59:43
Jordan: You have your face in ice cold water and you're just holding it there, so you're putting yourself through more stress.
59:49
Jordan: So then when you're out of that stress, everything's fine.
59:51
Jordan: Nothing's as bad as that.
59:54
Kevin: Yeah, that sounds like the smart, much smarter way to start.
59:57
Jordan: Yes, that's the baby step.
59:59
Alban: Have you listened to podcasts about this, Kevin, since we did it?
1:00:02
Alban: Yeah.
1:00:03
Kevin: I mean, that's where where the idea started coming from.
1:00:06
Kevin: I think I listened to like a Huberman lab.
1:00:08
Kevin: There's a lot of podcasters who are into it like health and wellness stuff.
1:00:11
Kevin: Huberman lab, you're right.
1:00:13
Alban: Yeah, He definitely says talk to a doctor and I was like I'm probably good.
1:00:20
Jordan: It's fine.
1:00:20
Jordan: OK, you broke your wrist right When you were snowboarding.
1:00:24
Jordan: Did that hurt when you got in the water?
1:00:27
Jordan: Because I know like sometimes like cold can like really like exaggerate those kind of like bone pains.
1:00:34
Alban: I don't remember anything specific around my wrist.
1:00:37
Alban: I felt it most in my ankles because just the way that you sit kind of crisscross when you get into the tub, like your feet are fully extended I don't know what the way to say they're pointed, like if I was doing point in ballet, like that's how my feet are And so they're, and then they want to tighten straight and they can't because of the shape of this like ice pod thing.
1:01:02
Alban: So that was the part that my pain was focused on.
1:01:06
Alban: My hands hurt a lot, but my feet and ankles were, were next level.
1:01:10
Jordan: So I was picturing like a round pool.
1:01:12
Jordan: This is like oblong kind of shape or what.
1:01:16
Alban: Let me see if I can.
1:01:17
Alban: Can you see this Jordan?
1:01:20
Kevin: Oh, that's got to be a chapter art.
1:01:21
Kevin: Is that going to be chapter art?
1:01:27
Kevin: It looks like you Yes, Oh my gosh.
1:01:36
Kevin: He looks so zen, doesn't he?
1:01:37
Kevin: I'm in a lot of pain, right there.
1:01:47
Jordan: I'm in a lot of pain right now.
1:01:52
Alban: Jordan.
1:01:52
Alban: You see what I was saying.
1:01:53
Alban: Like this is not a like it's impressive.
1:01:56
Alban: They can do this for $120 or whatever the price point is.
1:01:59
Alban: Like it's cheap, much I mean, it's orders of magnitude cheaper than the other ones, but it still is.
1:02:07
Jordan: It literally looks like the tubs that I put my kids, those big plastic tubs of the ropes on the side.
1:02:12
Jordan: You guys are like inside of it.
1:02:15
Jordan: They look so over there.
1:02:24
Kevin: Oh yeah, we're bringing it to the next.
1:02:25
Kevin: The next bus route team meet up.
1:02:29
Jordan: It's going to be our team building exercise.
1:02:31
Alban: I think we just need to do like we have a doctor there, You can do your consultation.
1:02:36
Alban: If you can make it to four minutes, you win a roadcaster.
1:02:40
Alban: I did meet someone in the sauna, Kevin, who was talking about it.
1:02:47
Alban: Then he was like, oh yeah, you know, you got to get it down below 50.
1:02:51
Alban: And I was like below 50.
1:02:52
Alban: He's like, yeah, 40 to 50 is the sweet spot, and work your way down to the low end of 40.
1:02:57
Alban: I was like the first time I did it guy worked at 35.
1:03:00
Alban: He's like, oh, I would not do that.
1:03:06
Kevin: It's hard to control the temperature of water when you're just dumping in ice.
1:03:08
Kevin: It's not like I have a thermostat.
1:03:10
Kevin: Wait, there is a thermostat.
1:03:12
Kevin: Right, there's a?
1:03:13
Kevin: there's no, there's a thermometer which is different than a thermostat.
1:03:17
Alban: Thermostat is like regulating and the thermometer is just telling you That's right.
1:03:21
Kevin: Anyway, this was just.
1:03:22
Kevin: it was not a company purchase, It was a personal purchase, but just an experiment.
1:03:26
Jordan: you know, just something to try it out And yeah, sounds like BuzzFraut needs to get one in the office.
1:03:34
Kevin: Maybe not.