 Podcast is roundtable round 110. Are you ignoring half of your audience? It's really half of your potential audience. And that's just part of the headline from one of the stories we're gonna get into. So we have stories, we're gonna dig into them, part of the newer format here at the roundtable. It's gonna allow more roundtablers to join us because all you have to do is bring a couple stories. We use those as a jumping off point to have our discussion about podcasting. Hopefully we can take the nuggets away from the story that are sort of more evergreen and it can apply to all podcasters and you can take that back to your show and it'll help you improve. So podcastersroundtable.com slash guest if you want to sign up to be on a future roundtable. And yeah, this is helping get more new guests each time. New roundtablers all the time but I think we've had multiple shows now where there are multiple new roundtablers. So that's really good. Dave, co-host, welcome back. Yeah, Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting.com and looking forward to talking about tonight's subjects. Very cool, I hope you studied, Dave. I almost did almost all of my homework. All right, well, you'll get almost all of your pay. Yeah, sorry. All right, new roundtabler Michael, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. Michael Kicking Bear from the Native Opinion podcast at nativeopinion.com. We're a podcast about current affairs but we kind of put a indigenous or a Native American into the stories that we talk about, things that are in the news and politics. Very cool, and Katie, your first roundtable, welcome. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. I host a podcast called Let It Out. I've been doing it since 2013 and I love it. It's my favorite thing I've ever done and I just this week launched this thing called LaunchPod that helps other people start podcasts because it's given me so much. Very cool, yes, very cool. All right, so we can dive into our stories and of course, all of these stories that we talk about will be listed, they'll be linked at podcasherroundtable.com for round 110 and I should, I always try to start with the sort of title that I gave the round. So I think that story's important but I also don't wanna leave people hanging around going what the heck are you talking about? Seems like clickbait. Yeah, you're right, you gotta wait the whole round till you get to that part. But we're gonna start off with, what was it? Where did I pull that from? What, Dave, which one did I pull that one from? Was that from? It's the title that was getting me, Hidden in Plain Sight, Adjacent Content Categories. So this is from medium.com but Pacific Content who we're seeing produce a lot of podcasting content lately. Good stuff, I think. I don't know, I guess there's some type of new company, maybe sort of like a gimlet type but I mean Google, we talked about Google announcing their podcast strategy. I think they did it through this Pacific Content so big players all of a sudden, I don't know, people just come out of nowhere in this space so it's fun to find new people but they are saying here that essentially the takeaway of this article is that when you submit your podcast to Apple Podcast, when you're creating your feed, there are options to pick multiple categories to put your show in. Some people may only put one that's your primary category. Some people might not know what I'm talking about and if so, you miss something, you need to go back and put your categories. I don't know, wait, does Apple make you pick at least one category? Do you know, Dave? You have to have one, because otherwise it rejects you, it just says nope, you don't have any categories. That's good. I get that. It's actually good. I have to have at least one. Okay, good to know. And so you can pick all these categories and subcategories of categories. Like this one here would probably be under technology, maybe education, maybe how to, I don't know if they have that. I don't even know what our categories are. I know that I'm in at least three of them that are relevant to this show. They don't always have, sometimes you have to decide this one is most like my show, right? Yeah. So they're saying that in this article they're saying that picking their primary category sort of pigeonholed them. They were in a tech category, I think, and it got them in this mindset that that was their audience. That's who they're speaking to. And then they were reminded later on that, hey, this show, sure it's about tech, but it also is about like, I don't remember what it is, but it could be the history of tech or the business of tech. And that you are literally maybe cutting off half of your audience if you're not also marketing to that other, all those other audiences that your podcast could be long in. And so not to get stuck in that mindset or get pigeonholed in thinking this is the one thing that I have to talk about because it's my category, right? And so I don't know if they're saying to make sure you pick alternate categories in Apple Podcasts, there are some interesting aspects to that as it refers to the Apple Podcast as in, can you be found in those other categories? Do you rank in those other categories? And we can talk a little bit about that. But Dave, I don't know if you read this article, but for you, that primary category, was it really clear for you what to pick for the school of podcasting? Yeah, in under the technology category, there's a subcategory called podcasting. So, which is interesting. But that's a very troubled category for us. It is, because everybody goes, oh, that's me, because I have a podcast. I'm a podcaster, yeah. So, good luck ranking in your own category. Yeah, so I just went and looked at mine, I'm under technology, I'm under education, because I teach people how to podcast. And then I'm also under business, and this is the worst category ever, business, management, and marketing. Because there's, marketing and management are two completely separate things, but not in the world of Apple. But for me, I wanted it because of marketing. So, that's how I listed it. And the great thing about these is you can change them any time you want and see if it makes any difference. It's, I've always said that your podcast is a recipe, not a statue. And so, let's say you had, I don't know, 150 subscribers. Well, that might make you rank at X amount in this category. Now you're a big fish in a small pond, or maybe you're a small fish in a huge pond. And you're not getting into, because I believe, at least in the iTunes desktop software, when you say see all in this category, it shows you 300. Well, there's 400,000 shows in iTunes. It's weird, because you have to think about what to call it. I'm talking about the desktop version, so it's iTunes, dog on it. So, but you might go into, I don't know, some other category that now I've got 150 subscribers, now a big fish in a smaller pond. So, and that kind of goes back to the whole thing of how do people find your podcast? That's the big thing. When I saw this article, I'm like, because I've had people really freak out about categories, you know? I've searched for myself and I'm not showing up. And I'm like, if you're not in the, and I don't even know if it's the top 300. I just know it shows 300 of those. I was back channel chatting with Daniel today and we were talking about this. And even, I mean, up to the minute, we're like testing things out, right? So, your primary category, the takeaway is, make sure that you try to match your primary category, which is the first category, to your content best as possible. That's the one where you are, if there's a ranking system or there's any kind of chart, that's where you're going to rank, that's where they're going to rank you. The other ones, you can be found. So when you say all podcasts, and say you're a business show, I found several shows in the business category that were arts or their second category was something not business, but they were appearing in business. So if someone's browsing, at least on the desktop software, then we talk about apps, it's all different. Basically, the other takeaway is, if there is something to be filled out and your feed or Apple wants you to fill it out, fill it out and make it relevant to your show, don't leave it blank. And don't freak out. I think the only thing to really worry or think strongly over when it comes to Apple and stuff like that, or maybe your titles, and the stuff that actually helps people find you via keyword and stuff like that. But, Katie, now let it out, you said it's a name of your podcast? Yes. Okay, so we all know what that's about, right? Yeah, I have so many questions. So my podcast used to be a wellness-y podcast, so obviously my category, and I switched names about three years into it because I had a book come out called Let It Out, and my publisher wanted everything under the same name. And the name really works well for what I do. They're really long-form interviews with creative people. And so I interview, I'll have a yoga teacher on one week, and then I'll have an actor, and then I'll have a comedian. So it's really diverse, so that name works. And then in the title, I have little lines and then talks about each of the categories. But I've gone between now, my main category is society and culture, personal journals, and then you can choose three more. So my question for you guys is, what do those second two down, do they even matter? Because I've played around with them all the time because I've put myself back into the health and wellness category because I used to be there and sometimes that fits. And also, does it matter if we're changing them around? Would that hurt the ranking? Because a lot of the times I'm in the top 100 on the app and then sometimes I'm number 70 and then sometimes I'm higher and then sometimes I'm not even in it on the app. So I'd love to know from you guys what you think. Yeah, and so it's funny because I was just in the software playing around. This is how much I don't worry about it, is I had to go try it out. It's not something I've looked into for a long time. It's not something to worry about too much. I think that primary category, like I said, the first one you pick is more important, but like Dave was saying, you could switch these around. So what if you're ranking really well in your primary category? I probably wouldn't mess with it. If you're not, if you think that your subscribers, your downloads are at a place where you think that maybe you should be appearing in those sort of charts in iTunes, but you're not showing, maybe you're not hitting the relevant category. You can switch the primary. But if you're doing really well, it's kind of one of those things like if it's not broke. Well, that's the thing, man. That's kind of where I have the question. I was just talking to a friend of mine who hosts a very popular podcast and she has had a podcast for a long time that's slightly less than me. And she was saying that sometimes she's actually starting a second podcast and that's to be cut on a totally separate feed starting from square one because she said that sometimes went because I used to be really high up in the rankings and that's why I started playing around with those categories because I'm not anymore and some podcasts that have started after me are really high up because they've gotten like a new noteworthy or they just have started. And she said that sometimes when a podcast is as old as mine is, it's harder to rank in some of those things regardless of what the download numbers are. Have you guys had experience with that? I would say that's not it. I would ask her why, like explain that. Cause that's, a lot of people get this thing where you only have eight weeks to be new and noteworthy and just saying the phrase still makes me throw up in my mouth just a little bit. But you can be, it should be new or noteworthy cause TV shows go in and out of new and noteworthy all the time. So that's really not, you can, I don't think the eight in fact, we've had podcasts that have not put out episodes for years. Like their last episode was 2015 and they're like number four because what had happened is when they like, let's say they were, they started in, you know, 2005 and they were like, they had no competition. So like everybody subscribed to that show and that's one of the key factors is how many subscribers. And so what happens is they have, they just dominate on subscribers. And now here comes your new show. You've got six subscribers, they have 950. So what happens is I had a friend of mine did a WordPress plugins A to Z. And for years he's like, we cannot knock this guy off and he hasn't had a show out in forever. And that's why this person had no competitions. Like Milton Burrell was the king of TV. He was up against the test pattern. All right. He really wasn't that funny in my book. So eventually that's, that's one of the things that can, can help you get up there is. When it comes to Apple, Dave says like as part only think about the word subscribers. Like that is pretty much what drives anything. First of all, I wouldn't worry about the charts. It's really not going to change the game for you at all people, people worry about it. They're like, I was here and I'm not. People aren't even actually finding your show that way for the most part. Yeah. It's just like a thing for me. Like I look at it, which is so silly. And I used to always be really high. And then I'm not and that was. It's all time Rob Walsh from Lipson. He figured he like went in the algorithm, but it's, it's factored in like the last seven days and then like the last weeks and then like all time. And it's really about subscribers. So I wouldn't focus on it. Like the key is that you're able to be found, I would say in iTunes or Apple podcast. That's a state. If people are searching for your content, you want to be found. And I'm the first thing that comes up. So, okay. Phew. Check that off my list. For sure. What I've seen is I've seen people that don't pick a second and third category. If you're using Lipson or PowerPress or whatever. And I'm like, pick something. Cause the only thing it could do is help. It may not help you a lot. And like I said, today I saw shows in the business category. It was not their primary category. It was their business was their secondary category, but they were showing in the business. So if someone said, I want to find a new podcast on business, they go to all podcasts in the business section, which is not inconceivable that someone would do that. They're just looking and Dave's saying those 300 that it show, that it shows. And those people are there. Their primary categories aren't education, but they may have a business element. They may appeal to that audience. So use your second and third categories that way. And I'm here to say, I don't think the charts make any sense because I'm beating myself. The podcast rodeo show, a show I've done for less than a year is beating the school of podcasting in the technology slash podcasting room. So that's where I just go, you know what, I got better things to worry about because that doesn't make any sense at all. Okay. Yeah, that's helpful. It's like trying to figure out YouTube's algorithm. Like do the things that are right and don't worry about the rest. Yeah. With the categories, one more thing. So for me, I have a podcast that covers, it could be, I could choose a different category and it would still make sense. So for those three, should I make them really different? Or like right now I have three different ones within society and culture. Like I have personal journal and then I have, I have simple cast open right now. And then I have philosophy and then the last one I have is health and wellness. So should I keep them, make them all super different or keep them all the same? I would aim for most relevant. Like if there is a super different one that is equally relevant, maybe it's good to have you show up in those places. But again, I think most people are gonna find it through. Search, if they're searching for a keyword or something. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, this is fascinating. Michael, I think you're trying to jump in a couple of times there with some thoughts. No problem. No, no, I don't like talking over other people or vice versa. Welcome to the round table. You gotta just step on people. It's like, it's a campfire conversation. We're just throwing stuff out. We've had too many beers. Gotcha. I thought that, I thought Apple purges if there's no activity after a while. If you don't post a new show or something to that effect, I know it affects rank, but I thought they also purged from the directory overall, no? No, as long as your feed is valid. The feed works. As long as it works, because there are, again, there are TV shows that go on hiatus for a while. And then there are TV shows that get canceled and there's still a community out there talking. I mean, there's a Andy Griffith show. I had my show deleted because the feed stopped working, meaning that they ping the feed and it's an error and that it stayed that way for quite a while because the service I was using went out of business and I kind of podfated that. And so then finally when Podcast Connect came along, I logged in and said, deleted or something like that. I said, whoa, wait. And so that was the end of that. Interesting. I haven't actually played around with our categories all that much. We're in, I would say, society and culture as our primary education and maybe history and politics, actually, somewhere in the mix. As some of the secondaries, maybe flip-flopping them around a little bit, but I really haven't, honestly, paid a lot of attention to it. Just, I think, like Dave said, make sure at least you pick one or maybe release one secondary and that's pretty much what we did. If it exists, fill it out. That's pretty much it. Because an important point that Daniel pointed out is that this isn't just Apple Podcasts and iTunes. A lot of other services pull the information from the iTunes tag. So that information you're theoretically filling out for Apple, you're filling out for a lot of other directories because that is also where and they may treat categories very differently. They may rank you in each of your three categories. Who knows, right? Again, you can't worry about all these things. It's ridiculous. You can't keep up. It's just gonna waste time from creating content. Fill out what is there, what's given to you. Make it most relevant to your show and then move on because things are always gonna change how things are used, right? But I guess we should move on. Weird, there's a dwelling on this one, which is good. I think there's some good stuff there. Let's see, let's, Katie, do you wanna do one of your articles here? Or give us the gist of one of these? Yeah, I'll give you the gist. I found this article from Wired that talked about basically about how I think people were wondering, you know, our podcast actually, The Holy Grail for advertisers, which is something that I think about a lot. Like, well, it's kind of the Wild West of podcasting or it seems like that right now. And they were talking about, will this bubble burst and the gist of the article or what they said at the end essentially was, it's not a bubble, it's a boom that's only getting louder. And I wrote down that sentence because I liked it. And they said that on average, according to Midroll's data, 90% of a given episode, people aren't skipping through the ads and they're actually listening. And people, because the medium is so intimate, it creates this one-sided feeling of closeness, obviously with the listener and the host. And then people want it to be longer if they're commuting, it's in their ear. And so they will listen to the end of the episode. And I found that so surprising on mine, I do an ad at the end and I do this little trick where it's not a trick, it's just a weird thing that I made up with my community where I say an emoji at the end of the episode. And I say to comment that on my Instagram or to tweet that at me and at the guest. And I always kind of make a joke, if you're still listening to me rambling right now after the ads, and I'm always a little bit shocked that people always send me the emoji, it's like a secret code. And I guess it's not just my podcast and it hopefully isn't going away. Have you guys experienced that? Yeah, I mean, I think it's surprising to me not at all, but I think that this quote, this one little quote that they highlight here really sums up everything because it says, forget those worries that the podcast bubble would burst the minute anyone got a closer look. And so that part's referring to the fact that Apple is sort of open, lifted the hood and let us see the analytics, right? People worried, what we're gonna find out is that people aren't really, they're not listening and they're skipping ads. But it says, it goes on to say, it seems like podcast listeners really are the hyper-engaged, super supportive audiences that everyone hoped. So if you've been podcasting, you pretty much know this already, like the podcasters who do, because they've built community and they've heard from the community and they just know. And like you said, there are things like, you're just having fun with your audience and doing this sort of little Easter egg and you're seeing, oh my gosh, so many people use it. I've done the same thing, like a hashtag and just as a secret code on Twitter and it's like amazing. And it's not a surprise because you're giving valuable content that's highly targeted to one typically a niche audience, right? So no surprise. And ads typically these days have been host-read ads. So they're not, you know, and they're fun. They're not traditional ads always. So yeah, none of that is a surprise. And yeah, it's great news. I mean, it was definitely, it's always nice to have the research to back up, you know, what you think. And this will help obviously with advertisers. You know, staunchy advertisers from old media, they still wanna see things. And plus someone's putting their money and they want to have proof. So we've always been able to give them that proof, but for those that have been reluctant to sort of jump in and give more money, you know, if that is one thing you're aiming for, it should be more coming based on things we're finding out like this. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I had Jordan Harbinger on my show and I was doing some research listening to a lot of his shows and he, if I know Jordan cause he's Mr. I'm so prepared, it's ridiculous. Every time he doesn't add, he has some sort of personal story about the product. So it doesn't sound like an ad, but the ad, the story helps show the product in a good light. So it doesn't sound like you're being sold to at all. In fact, and then at the end, he usually has some sort of joke. So it's entertaining and educational, but it's also an ad. And I was listening to that going, you know what, that's a really good strategy. Cause it doesn't, before you know it, it's over and he's back to the show. And you're like, well, that didn't feel like an ad at all. So. I've talked about it before. Go ahead, Michael. I was gonna say, I think that if we are controlling our own inventories for our own content, it's not inconceivable at all that you have a personal experience with a product. Ourselves, we personally have no interest in taking advertisers on, we're self-funded, but what I've noticed for myself as a listener is I'm more apt to be interested in a product if someone has sort of explained what their experience with that particular product is. And then become more engaged that way. So I think there is something to have it, either talking about that experience or basically just that, I guess I lost half my train of thought. What do people do on Facebook with friends and family when someone's like, I need, I don't know, or even like communities that they trust, like nextdoor.com, I need a new lawnmower, I need this new service, whatever. What has anyone heard of one, anyone tried one? You want a recommendation from someone you trust, right? And someone who's actually tried it and will hopefully give you an honest answer, right? And so people worry, oh, this podcaster is giving you this item just because it's an advertiser. Well, if the relationship's done right, that person trusts the advertisers, they've used the product. And so, yeah, it's no surprise that when, when Ray tells me about a microphone that he's using right now, and it sounds great and he likes, that I'm more likely to go buy that thing, right? And I'm just picking out on Amazon review. It's even more important, I think, in service. Like, you know, so if you use a particular service, then an experience has been great. Yeah, I think that's valid as well. Well, I remember the time for a while, Gary V, Gary Vaynerchuk, was all over Snapchat. Like this is gonna be the next big thing, it's awesome. And I learned about it from some 14-year-old girls in an airport and I love it and it's great. This is the new wave, you should be on Snapchat, you should be on Snapchat. And then like a month later, it turns out, oh yeah, I'm also an investor in Snapchat. I'm like, oh, well that explains a whole lot, like why you're so into Snapchat. Yeah, basically shoot yourself in the foot. Yeah, that's what I was like, you should have said that up front, buddy. Yeah, there's a slight difference there because I consume, Gary V, his whole thing is just give, give, give and then ask once in a while, right? But I trust Gary V's opinion, Gary's usually right. And when he says that this app is like a thing, he's usually right. And he has a track record to prove it. You know, right now he's all about Instagram and he's definitely right there and he wasn't wrong about Snapchat. And yeah, he maybe, maybe he should have revealed it a little sooner, right? But I didn't then be like, ah, never trust in Gary or even if I thought he was trying to get me involved just because of that reason, you know, he's usually right about apps and what they have to say. Anyway, I trust his opinion or whether even if I like trust, I know he's probably right, even if he's just, even if it's a little spanish. I don't know, there's something to be said for that trust which I think is just a huge part of it. And yeah, maybe, you know, there's a bunch of disclosure laws and all that stuff you have to do. So, you know, but I, people worry about that. And I said, look, if we haven't, if I haven't established that trust, if you don't trust me, then just don't like either don't follow me or you know, whatever it is. Like maybe I, you know, tell me what I can do to work harder to make things more trustworthy. I don't know, like the key is that you have to be, go ahead, if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, it will be uncovered quickly and you will lose that audience. So it's to each his own. Yeah. I mean, this podcast that I'm wearing right here on my t-shirt that I happen to work on, we do live shows in front of 3,000 people and it's a live show. And they don't record ads during the live show. In fact, we used to record ads, we record ads backstage before the show. Because they had to remember that timely. And we'd go out and the audience somewhere along the way would start to scream, do an ad, do the ads, wear the ads, we want the ads. It was crazy because the ads are so funny. They take such license with the sponsors and it works really well. And so the audience is literally begging for the ads just because it's really essentially almost as good as the content. So, you know, if you integrate it right, it's less of an ad, it's less of an ad. It's, it can be entertainment too. Yeah. So I'm not surprised by that at all, that article. It's like Yelp. Like we like Yelp. We like Four Square. Like before I go to a restaurant, I want to know what other people think of it before I do anything. So I find out most of the things that I like from podcasts or if I, and if I want something, I research it before I get it. So it's giving me help. Oftentimes how we find other podcasts too. Yeah, totally. We hear another podcast on a show we like already. You're like, Oh, well, if they like it, they say it's really good. I'll go check it out. Yeah. Because it's, you're already talking to people who like stuff that most of the time you like as well. Yeah. Cool. Michael, tackle one of these stories. Yeah. I thought I'd take a look at the announcement of pocket casts being acquired. My favorite podcasting. Yeah. It is. And it says here, I'll just read like the first couple of sentences. Excuse me, pocket casts, which is an iOS, Android and desktop app has been purchased by combined public radio group of WNYC, NPR, WBEZ, and This American Life. So the team announced on their blog that they are all joining the new venture and the ethos behind it will not change. But I guess for me, I'm not a pocket cast user, but I often wonder or get concerns sometimes when there's buyouts in the space. And I know it happens, but in particular with a piece of technology that you get accustomed to and quite frankly, a corporate giant comes in and screws it up, what do you do? Where does that kind of leave us? I mean, I think people worried about that with Skype sometimes to some degree that we as podcasters rely on it so heavily. You know, what if it becomes unusable? Well, that happened, Microsoft bought it. It wasn't a Microsoft product until maybe, I don't know, was it five, six, seven years ago? Yeah, yeah, and you know. And I can't say it's gotten better. That's the thing. But it's Skype, so we deal with Skype. And there are so many alternatives, but we won't get into that conversation. But yeah, and that is always a concern, right? It's like on one hand, it's good for the developers. Yay, I'm happy that you guys sort of got your payday and that something you've made, that you've worked clearly so hard on is being recognized and awarded. And again, Pocketcast is my favorite, I've been using it forever. And I'm definitely concerned like what's gonna change. And it's funny, the CEOs, if you've ever read any of the sort of company announcements, their blogs, they're hilarious. And so they took to the blog and they really gave a hard push to say nothing is gonna change. They're still essentially, it's gonna be a separate company. It's not, it's an NPR and a bunch of other public radio stations spotless. But you know, they are putting the guy, the guy who will be in charge, I get the new CEO I think of Pocketcast is an I Heart Radio clear channel guy, right? So something's gonna change. And their whole idea is how do we, they think it's part of the discoverability issue that they're gonna help solve. So they're going to make changes. They're also hinting at monetization for podcasters. So it's probably gonna be some kind of ad structure, like an AdSense type thing. So something's going to change. They assure us that the essential text can remain the same. But you know what, for me, I love it, but there are so many good alternatives. I'm not concerned. If they screw it up, I'm out of there, right? And they know that and they've announced that. They know that there's so much competition in that space that they have to sort of stay true to what they've built. Yeah, they have a whole bunch of things on their website where it's like OMG, this is gonna change. OMG, this is an, and they finally say going forward, things are going to be different. We'll be moving faster. We'll be more ambitious in the things we do and we'll have some amazing insights from the top podcast producers in the world to help guide our future. I mean, if you're not excited by that, then you're just not hooked up right is what they say. So we'll see. I'm with you. It's like, we got a bunch of radio guys behind the scenes now. It'd be interesting to see. The funny part is they're almost like, they're the second biggest app behind Apple podcast and that accounts for about 2% of consumption compared to Apple's like 70 something percent. I mean, so in context, it's still a large number, but no app is close. Right. Joyce is good. I mean, in my specific case, discoverability is not the reason I'm using my particular app. I use downcast personally and honestly, here's the reason why. It's the only app that I know of where I can swipe across the screen and fast forward. And if you're driving, that appeals to me, but that's the only reason. That's the only reason I stay with it. It doesn't get updated a whole lot and that type of thing. But the other reason I think possibly in terms of pocket casts, maybe this conglomerate didn't wanna have to sync a bunch of money into developing a new app. And so they look at the popularity of one and say, hey, you know what? We want that. And boom. They just, they're buying tech, they're buying built-in audios, they're buying a lot of things. What's the thing that was so weird about it? NPR has their own app, then there's radio public radio only. And so this captures all podcasts. Interesting. Because then there's radio public and there's a bunch of other ones. I'll say Hot Pod's take on it was pretty good. He had some good insights into, he's good at thinking, why might this be happening? So you can check it out. Yeah, for sure. Katie, what's your favorite? What app do you use to listen to podcasts? I've gone back and forth on so many, but sometimes I just use the actual Apple podcast app. Most people do. Numbers show that most people do. And I will skip, I will jump to overcast if they screw up pocket casts is what I'm saying. I've used that before too. I love overcast. That's my baby. Speaking of numbers, Dave, we have an article here from round table or Colin. Do you want to jump into that a little bit? The podcasting gear stats in 2018. Yes, this was interesting and we have proof of it. Katie's using the number one microphone. That is, let me throw this into the chat room. Price is right. Yeah, somebody throw that into the chat room. But yeah, Colin Gray over at thepodcasthost.com, a really nice guy from Scotland, did some sort of review, some sort of survey. I'm not sure how many people... 200, I think. 200 people took a survey and the number one manufacturer for microphones is blue followed by other. I was surprised that number two was other. But then there's Rode. I really thought Audio Technica would be up there. Audio Technica is number four. Because we live in a bubble, Dave. It's it. And then you got Samson, Zoom, Shor, Bairnger. iPhone is in there, AKG, Logitech, iRig. Yeti and the snowball of the number one and two spot. And Yeti is like double the next closest. Well, that's the interesting thing. We know that. Hile is not on that list. Yeah, not surprising at all. I mean, it's not really surprising when it comes in. Again, this is a podcasting rank of these months. You gotta go outside of the people who listen to this show who would listen to this show, which is almost such a tiny fraction of podcasters, right? I mean, I'm not going to assure that's 10 years old. Yeah, it sounds great. I mean, you know, you got a factor in where most people learn how to podcast, where most people get their information from. And it's just from like probably Googling something. And the Yeti, of course, is going to rank, you know, it gets it's in some of the more popular podcasting tutorials, whether they're right or not, it doesn't matter. But we could the thing is Katie sounds fantastic, right? And someone even just said that in the chat. Katie sounds great for a blue Yeti. That's the mic my co-host uses as well. It's all about knowing how to use the microphone. What do you guys recommend? I like the mic I'm using right now, the ATR 2100 or the Electrovoice RE320 are my top two. But what happens with your microphone, Katie, is because of the way it's made, they'll set it on a desk. And because you're fairly close to it, but people will talk and they'll be maybe a foot and a half. They'll have it set to pick up omnidirectional, like everything where I think you probably have your setup just to pick up what's right in front of it. And so people end up sounding, I can smell one. As soon as I turn on like, ah, blue Yeti three feet away, set on, because it just sounds like they're in a tunnel or the bathroom. So you gotta know, like, select the right polar pattern, get close enough, maybe pop filter if you need it, if you're that close. You know, Katie, right now, if maybe you hit your elbow on the desk, do that. You'll see that. You'll pick it up because the stand is on the desk. You see a lot of us here, all the rest of us have boom arms. That's just to get away from that issue. But I mean, if you literally go back to probably, I don't know, round 107 or 106, you'll see a different mic in front of me. Like I'm changing it up all the time. I'm using a shotgun mic. Typically this is a four video type microphone. It may never leave this boom arm. I absolutely love it for podcasting. So it's about polar pattern and just knowing how to use your microphone most of the time. Yeah, my co-host uses that mic. He uses it on a table. It does kind of drive me nuts because every time it gets bumped, you can hear it. It also has a switch on it that's extraordinarily loud. So when he wants to mute it, it just makes this really loud snap noise. I can make an example. I can give you a. There you go. There you go. And again, it's just about knowledge. Know your gear, right? Know the limitations and how to get around them. I mean, Katie, you could put like a mouse pad. That's funny. Even putting like a mouse pad underneath the Blue Yeti would create some type of barrier. I've done that with some of my microphones. Yeah, or even just a towel. If you're just aware of it, these things, people rag on the Blue Yeti because they say it's extra sensitive. It's a condenser microphone. But again, it's about polar pattern. And condenser microphones do, they have a faster response to sound and audio and all this stuff and they pick up more frequencies. In theory, they're a little bit more sensitive. But again, knowing your gear is what's going to help you produce good microphone. Outside of the $29 microphone, and there are actually some decent $29 microphones, but outside of picking one that's just really poorly built, you can get good audio from affordable gear. Yeah, but the number one mic was the Yeti followed by the Snowball SM58, ATR 2100, Samson Q2U, ATR 2020, which is I have that one too. That was my first real podcasting. Yeah, Rode Procaster, Rode NT1, Zoom H1, which is interesting. That's just a portable recorder. A Rode Smart Lab, a smartphone, the Rode Podcaster, sure SM7B, Rode VideoMic, Zoom H4 and an MXL990. Yeah, and as far as recommendations go, I always tell people ask me first because I need to ask you questions about where you're recording, how you're recording, what you're recording, right? So it's always a depends, it depends, type answer. I do a lot of video stuff, people want to know what's the lens I should get. Well, what are you shooting? I mean, it always depends. That answer sucks, because you do just want, you're like, just give me the answer. And a lot of times, if I'm just gonna give you the answer, I will give you the number three microphone on this list, which is the SM58, a classic bin through the dirt, literally microphone. So the ATT mic, it's been around for as long as I have been here anyway. I use the one down that, I record in person and I'm always running around New York City, so I use the Zoom H4N audio recorder and just record my intros on this now and that works well and people are always shocked. The built-in microphones on that, right? Which are really good, but they're super, I mean, like I would say they're stereo microphones, first of all, I think you can set it to mono, but they're stereo microphones, so typically it's not for voice, but I have boomed it overhead and used it as a microphone. It sounds fantastic because they're stereo microphones built for picking up ambient sounds and the condensers, they sound great, but they're very sensitive to like plosives and wind and stuff, so you just have to know those things. That's it. Yeah. Yep, cool. Well, yeah, I don't know, and I don't know if this was, Dave, what did you say? The best part was dynamic versus condenser and a large people said I don't know. Yeah, they don't say what the number is when I'm looking for that again. 50% condenser, I would say 40% dynamic and 10% say they don't know, which is again, not surprising. Most people do not start a podcast and go as far down the rabbit hole as we do here on the show. That's true. And then in terms of software, no big surprise there. Audacity followed by Adobe Audition, followed by GarageBand, so Reaper, which is another one that's like next to nothing, and then Hindenburg coming in at number four. Free and or affordable happens to be at the top of every list. Go figure for something that is typically a hobby, not shopping. Awesome, well, let's move on. We got another good 15 minutes here. I think everyone's got a story, so we're actually gonna get to second stories. Dave, I don't think you've actually had a story, but since you're promoting your own blog, I actually put it on here. I put it on for Dave, he didn't put this on here. Dave, why don't you give us a story? Well, it's just one of those things again that people like the bright, shiny, free thing. And the problem is, and what I'm talking about is anchor.fm, and I've heard even Gary Vee did an article about podcasting and said, oh yeah, check out anchor.fm, and I'm like, no. Anchor's been very smart because they're connecting with what they would call, what people would call influencers. They're getting into the right spaces. I've noticed that anchor has paid enough attention to realize that the biggest YouTubers, Gary Vee is 1 million percent about podcasting. He thinks it's the biggest thing. And great, I mean, he's late to the game, but he's not really, it's still early. Fantastic, now we have someone else who's highly influential, pushing into a new audience that didn't focus on podcasts before, now they are, but every number one YouTuber is now starting a podcast in the last year, I would say. Definitely in the last six months, but anchor knows this and they're getting in. Whether they're good or not, they're getting to that crowd and they're spreading like crazy. Well, who's Casey? What's his name? Casey Neistat. Yep. I understand, Mike. They built his studio. No, no, they went in, they're so smart. I mean, you want Casey Neistat promoting your product? For sure. And this creates an issue. It goes right back to what we talked about, about trust and promoting something. Anchor is potentially really bad. Like I actually have loved Anchor through the years. It used to be, I used to call Anchor the best app I'm not using. And it was when it was a different app. It was an app that you could just sort of record voice and people could respond in voice. It was amazing to get messages back from your audience so people were following you. It, their voice, it changed the interaction. It was amazing. And then they switched from that, I guess, that wasn't doing enough for the bottom line and they became a podcasting app. Now that's what they are. They keep changing their format and over the years, they've raised over $15 million. They even have a thing now where they'll, you can, they'll give you $1,000 for having the most listeners or recording multiple people and all sorts of other things. So they're, they're burning through a lot of money. They're buying Casey a new studio. And, you know, I don't mind that. The thing I hate is all these articles, none of them point out the things they're doing that are really like, they don't even hint them. And one of those is they, they say, yeah. Well, I think that's it. No one reads terms of service, Dave. Well, not even that. I mean, that's a whole other thing, but the fact that they will, and they sound like they're going to do a favor for you, we will submit your show to iTunes for you. But, but they, they don't explain, oh, by the way, later when you want to see your iTunes stats, you can't because it's under our login. And nobody, you know, the Gary Vee's of the world, nobody's mentioning that. I'm like, that's really a big- They don't know. I guarantee, I'm not saying they're not being negligent, but I bet most people do not know this. Right. So I emailed the company and I said, look, is there any way you can use your app without having you submit it to iTunes? I asked them that three times and three times they would come back and I finally said, it's a yes or no question and they still wouldn't answer it because the answer is no, you can't have a show over there unless you tell it to only show to your anchor followers. In other words, the only people that can see you are on anchor and that's it in the little anchor bubble. Because basically you don't have an RSS feed at that point, which means you're really not a podcast. At that point, you might as well be, I forget the one walkie talkie app. But the other thing I think- Boxer. Boxer, yeah. Yeah, that's what it was when I started. Basically it was Boxer. Yeah, so the other thing I think that's a little weird about it is they say things again, like, hey, we'll put you on an Apple podcast, Google Play Music, and then they say over pocket cast. Well, here's the thing, overcast and pocket cast, pull from the back end of iTunes. Once you're in Apple podcasts, you're in overcast, you're in pocket cast. So when somebody says, hey, we'll help you get in there, that to me just shows they're clueless. It's all technically they're right and they're trying to make it a feature and clearly they're going off to an audience that wants super easy. Like, I don't want to learn how to make an RSS. So they're being, I think that they are promoting a feature that they don't really have, but they're being a little gray hat about it. But adding it as a thing, but it is true. I mean, they will get you in pocket. It's like saying, hey, if you buy this car, you get an AFM stereo and 100.7 will be on that. It's like they had nothing to do with that. Right. You know what I mean? I also think, I'm sorry, I was gonna say, I also think that it's, they're going after first timers. Okay, they're definitely going after people that don't know the space at all that want, that have a message that they want to get out there. The other question I would have for them is, why are they updating their app twice a week? Well, because they're always coming up with a new feature so that they get more PR, like they now have a thing where you can find a co-host. And now I'm waiting for it to turn into a dating app at any time now. Michael, when you say that though, I hear conspiracy theories. So what do you think is happening? No, not really. Why does that, why does that actually peak your, you know, why are you concerned about that? Well, I do wonder if it's kind of a strategy because depending on what kind of a user you are, I mean, I'm sort of paranoid before I do updates, right? So I'm constantly looking at what needs to be updated almost on a daily basis. And I honestly do. I see anchor forcing an update every single, you know, like almost twice a week. And I don't see a true new feature. It could be a way to, maybe it's a way to signal to you to keep putting the app in front of your face saying, hey, don't forget us, don't forget. I've tried to use it like twice for promotional purposes only. I would never, ever hand them, you know, my RSS feed, which is I think part of Dave's argument or they just want to create a new one. Well, the real danger here, right, Dave, at least what I'm hearing is hidden in the terms of service. Yeah, they have a thing. That too, yeah. By submitting user content through the service, you hereby do and shall grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive perpetual, meaning forever. Yep. I hate this word, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid, sub-licensable and transferable license, meaning they can transfer your stuff to somebody else to use edit modify, including the right to create derivative works of, aggregate, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, anybody asleep yet? Cause I know when we get into legal speak. Display, perform, and otherwise fully exploit the user content in connection with the operation of the services. It's being the right word, I think. Yeah. So, and it's one of those things where they're just basically saying, oh, by the way, when you put stuff on our platform, it's ours for ever. When you cancel your account and leave, your podcast that you've done here at Anchor, it's ours. Yeah. They keep it after you've leave and cancel your account. So it's dangerous, right? Yeah, the only thing that's missing is like an evil voice. They know an evil voice. The price of free and easy here is someone else owns your stuff. Right. And they also, they have the same business model as SoundCloud, which is, well, actually, they have a worse model than SoundCloud, which is you can upload as much stuff as you want because apparently bandwidth and storage are free. Well, then if this truly is the thing, if they're dangerous in this way for ownership, don't worry, they won't last long because we know that model. It's about three years, usually is about the lifespan. And I know today, I mean, you know, hand to God, I moved three people from Anchor today and it's not fun because once you get the RSS over, now you have to go battle with, it takes about a week and a half to get your RSS stats onto your Apple ID. It's not impossible, but it's a couple of days every time you email Apple to say, hey, I need this, then they email you back, then you email them back, okay, I did the thing, and then they email you back. So it takes about a week to get- Take away is like, go through a little bit of the upfront pain and do it right. Yeah, exactly. Always, we've talked about since the beginning, I think literally the very first round table was something called something like control of your show or something like that. And it's, you know, own your stuff, man. You got all your own stuff. What about Spotify? Where does that come into play with all? I would love to know what you guys think of that because recently where I host mine, simplecast just moved over and I was like, cool, it's another place, but then does that hurt with the rankings and like what we were talking about before? Well, my, can I promote something right? You can promote something. Do what you want. That doesn't mean you'll be here next round, but do what you want now. New and Noteworthy.info explains how New and Noteworthy in the iTunes rankings is just, you know, I had a friend of mine, well, it was Lipson. Elsie Escobar had a show called Thanks Podcasting. It was on the front page, not New and Noteworthy, the front page of iTunes. And she maybe got a couple hundred downloads, like in a week. It's not the 10,000 downloads which that you think it is. So, but I had somebody today, they do a show. It's called like the classic album podcast. And I was really surprised because I expected them to be playing the music and they don't, they just talk about the album. But as you might imagine on Spotify where a lot of people are listening to music, they get boatloads of listeners on that platform because they were like, hey, where are my Spotify stats? Well, Spotify, if they're doing the same thing to all the other hosts that they are to Lipson, they give us a download of their stats once a day. And right now they're about four days behind doing that. So, and right now, if you try to submit your show to Spotify, they have basically said, we're not putting any new shows in till June because what happened was they were completely overwhelmed by the number of people that jumped on their platform and they realized, it's kind of like, hey, let's have a small party and you open up the door and you're expecting like six people and some chips. And like a bus pulls up with 50 people and a kegger. And you're like, wait, what? So they basically had said, hey, we're not stopping this but we need a bigger boat basically. So they've gone out to get a bigger boat and so in the long run it'll be fine. But no, I'm a fan of any, I don't care how you listen. I just want you to listen. So if you want to listen to me on Stitcher by all means or Overcast or Pogetcast or iHeart, I mean, every time I add a new platform, I get about 3%. There is something to the consideration of what is that platform's terms of service. I think there were some issues. I think people, I think back a while ago, back in the day, there were some Stitcher concerns. I know, I mean, if you decide to go on Stitcher, they're going to put ads in your content that you're not gonna get paid for. So you need to know what's on that platform and as long as you're okay with that, it's fine. But at the core of it, Katie, you own hopefully your RSS feed. So whatever platform you use, you can take that RSS feed with you and move to another platform and the content is yours. That's the key. It's kind of where you are hosting and sort of building your podcast on top of that platform, but distributing to different directories, as long as you're okay with whatever that directories they ain't gonna do to your audio when you submit to it, it's good. I'm happy to give directories my audio or my show to rebroadcast, but I wanted to pull from my feed so that I'm getting the download stats. And make sure your media host is a media host. I had somebody today, they have 188 episodes on a platform that builds apps and now they wanna leave. And they went to them and said, hey, I need a 301 redirect, which is just basically in non-geeky terms, it's a change of address form. And the company went, ooh, we're not sure if we can do that. And if you can't do that, if you can't fill out a change of address form, your audience won't follow you. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of why you don't use a app company to host your podcast. I've always loved your analogy about RSS feeds, Dave. Liking it to a terrestrial radio station antenna. I think that really is proper. And then the apps are just like a different, there's a Panasonic radio, there's an RCA radio, there's a LG radio, whatever it is, and they all tune into your station. Well, that station is your RSS feed. And just like when a DJ changes records, it goes out all over all the radios. When you put out a new episode, it goes out all over the apps. Yep, exactly. Awesome. Well. I think Spotify's been great for the space simply because I think it just shows growth in our space, quite frankly. Welcome to the party. They've dropped the ball so many times with the implementation that it's annoying, but I mean, ultimately, I don't care as long as. And Pandora's coming. Yeah, right. I hope so. Where are they though, you know? I'm trying to see here. Yeah, I'm getting double digits per episode on Spotify, but I'm a podcast about podcasting. Right. But again, I look at like last month, they had 26 people that listened on Spotify. That's a classroom of people, a very full classroom of people. That's about what we're getting too. Yeah, it's double digits. And that's the shotgun approach is put it out to the hundreds of platforms that exist and hopefully your audience is on one of those, right? Or you pick up a little bit of audience here, you pick up a little bit of audience there, and it all adds up to a decent size audience. And again, it's always, you never know who that one person's listening to. You might really reach two people on Spotify, but that person might be someone who can take your podcast really far or introduce it to a lot of other people who maybe don't listen on Spotify, right? So. Is this where we do our PSA announcements as well? Yeah, if you've never listened to your episode before you upload it, now is the time to put that into your workflow because when you upload to things like Google Play Music and Spotify that don't do what we call a pass-through, they make a copy of your show on their server. When you go, oh crap, I got 10 seconds of nothing in the middle of this and you fix it. It used to be you could just upload it to your media host and you'd be fine. Now getting those two places to update is a major pain in the butt. That was always a problem with stitchers. If you wanted something changed, you didn't have to contact stitchers. I'll just leave it. But yeah, at least at a minimum, a spot check. I'll scrub through or put in a play. You might not have time to, I don't have time to listen to a one-to-one an hour of my podcast, but looking at the editor for gaps, like big giant gaps or where the ends are, scrub through, you'll catch stuff. You'll catch stuff for sure. Oh yeah. I edit every episode every week and that's exactly my fear. It's like big chunk of silence that I didn't see. And typically it's not much of a problem. Like Dave's saying, you can replace it at your host, but for the platforms that take it and do their own version, they do that for stats and all kinds of different reasons. But yeah, those are becoming more prominent. I think Google does it, Stitcher does it, Spotify does it, I think. So whatever, something to know, definitely. I think we have time to squeeze in one more. Katie, do you wanna give us, you've got three on here, so let's go with one of more of those. Sure, yeah, another one I put on here was about women podcasting, and I thought that could be an interesting perspective. It was a little bit older article, but I think it is one. It actually ties into the other article too, because one of the problems, the other article we had on here was peek into 2018's top podcast problems. And one of those is diversity, and I think it has something to say about getting more women in the space too. So definitely Google. Yeah, it did. Yeah, and I think it was a really interesting article in The Economist, and I think this platform, like I said, it's given me so much, and I think just more people coming to it will bring hopefully more diversity, but I think one thing I wrote or one thing I noted from the article was just that finding a small niche and making, it can make finding an audience difficult, but the greatest strength of the medium is that the creators have freedom, which encourages innovation and building a creative community or an engaged community. And I think that, I don't know, I just related to a lot of it and I love the intimacy of podcasting and I love women hosted podcasts and it's said in here too that I love this part too. Listening to a female hosted show is actually a feminist act, whether you mean it to be or not, and I liked that. Yeah, we definitely, I mean, every space should be reflective of the world at large, right? So getting more diversity in the podcasting is key. I think we've seen big strides, we've made big strides in that in the last year or two. Definitely. Definitely seeing a lot more diversity in podcasting and that's good. I do like, you know, it's funny, even if you want to go at it from an advertiser perspective, people always want to know about money. Oftentimes women make the purchasing decision in the household, right? So like, and you know, I have a daughter and she loves baseball, but you know, sometimes she'll say, you know, why isn't there many girl baseball players? And it's really heartbreaking to me because I'm like, hopefully someday because, you know, you need to see people who are like you, you know what I mean? To actually believe that that thing is attainable. And so it's attainable, but we definitely wish that we had more examples of that. So leading by example, so yeah, I think having, you know, more women in podcasting, you have that female voice along with other different ethnicities and races, everything you need. If, you know, the goal of podcasts everyone wants, at least in this sort of space, podcasting to grow. And we are still, what is it like? Monthly listeners, I think Americans, it's like 20% or something. It's a huge number. And it's sustainable. Like you can actually build a business on top of it, but there's so much more room to grow and you need to get out in front of every type of audience. You're not gonna do that if you don't have people, you know, leading the way who are reflective of that audience. Very true. We're a Native American podcast and which is growing in and of itself, but also indigenous women podcasts are also starting to grow this past year, which is really, really good to see. We've helped a few shows get started and yeah, I just hope that continues. This article says the internet trolls who thrive on abusing women in public eye tend to be kept at bay because listeners seek things out based on interest. And, you know, one of the limitations we talk about with podcasting all the time is that it's not necessarily as easy to participate. I can't just comment or, you know, see comments, but that's an interesting aspect that it does. I, you don't, I mean, I don't know, Dave, Katie, any of you, you get a lot of hate mail. Like you don't find that audience. It takes a little bit of work to become sort of a podcast audience member. And on top of that, to actually then give feedback. It's not necessarily easy. Yeah. Yeah, if someone's gonna put in the two hours to listen to my entire show, they're not gonna, it's not easy for them to come and say something to me. And I've really knock on wood and make a lot of noise with my noisy Yeti mic, but I haven't had any negativity at all in this community. It's just been really loving and like a nice hug every time I put something out. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing. It's, depending on where they're at, I mean, Apple's making it a little easier to leave comments now if you're on the phone, but it's still, now you've got to type with your thumbs, have fun with that. And so I always say, when you get that one star review, that still took a lot of effort. You inspired that person. Now, not the way you wanted to, but you still inspired that person. And that's a good thing because, if you name anybody who's super famous, it's usually a love hate relationship. Howard Stern, you either love him or you hate that guy. Anybody on, you just say the word Fox News and people either like throwing up or going, oh, that's my team, you know? So when you inspire somebody to do a one star review, that's, it's weird, but it's, and it's hard because I still remember my one star review. I've had a couple over the years and it's like, remember the one guy was just a bad show with bad advertising. I think that was the whole review. And you just go, you know, but. And it's too bad they don't give you a better avenue for responding to reviews and comments. Cause on YouTube, I find a lot of times, first of all, killing with kindness works more times than I would have thought on YouTube just by answering the question of people like, oh yeah, I was having a bad day and what I really meant was this. So it could be one tiny thing that makes someone comment and oftentimes you can clear that up and either people change it or they just become less of a hater, right? And holds them a little bit more responsible. But you know, one thing I do a lot on YouTube and so you're going to get a lot of thumbs down. You're getting a lot of negative comments. But one thing I, what changed sort of my mindset is YouTube, even if you get thumbs down like I actually almost kind of want them because as opposed they're better getting a thumbs down is better than someone taking no action on your video because for YouTube it signals engagement. They don't care if people didn't like it. They just care that people actually gave more information that says, you know, whatever reason. So it helps them. So it doesn't necessarily thumbs down don't necessarily hurt your video because YouTube wants engagement. But I don't mean again, we're guessing in algorithms but just a way to sort of flip the switch. I mean, like Dave said, that one sort of view it took effort. So it's not like they just didn't put any thought of it and they just hit the star and you can't do that. So for me, when I go to an Amazon, whatever, if I'm looking at something and I see all five star reviews and not a single like yeah, I'm like, wait, but when I see somebody give them a three and it's like, hey, it came and had a broken screw in it. That's why I'm giving it a three or whatever. And then you see the conversation people are having. I'm like, okay, I can I actually trust these reviews. So it might actually help. Oftentimes it's not even something that I've been applies to you personally. They're like, it came two days late and I was leaving for a vacation. So I was like, that doesn't really have to do with the product and you can go off of that. You're like, okay, well, I'm not there because then they'll stay in the same review. Otherwise it would have been five stars and would have been great. You're like, okay, well, I can order this. Our audience has been extremely engaged. Our show is now about as long as the no agenda show. So we're about two and a half hours every week. And we actually pulled the audience just to see because our content can be somewhat controversial. We talk a lot about racism, for example. And we started touring around with maybe doing the show shorter and we got a lot of, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Because we found out that they like to engage with, we fill up in some cases half of their day right after we release on Mondays, right? So they like that during the work week that it actually takes them time to consume our content rather than sitting there and trying to knock it all out in two and a half hours. We thought for sure they're gonna say, yeah, we'd really like you to do a 40 minute show. And as it turns out, they really like the long form content and they like the engagement of the type of content that we're delivering. So yeah, it's very, very, getting those reviews is very, very important and it's good feedback too. Right, I mean, in some cases it's hard to see the one-star review, but try to take it as constructive and maybe they did and Dave in your case, they wrote something and maybe that episode did have bad audio or maybe there's something you can do to improve the guest's audio. I think I might have put an article in here. There's literal research now to support what I've been saying that good audio is as important as good content because your guests will be discredited, people are held less trustworthy. This was about scientists. And as I've always said, make your guests look their best. So it's something they wanna share. But anyways, so hopefully you can take it in context and build upon it, but definitely don't be careful about giving the squeaky wheel too much attention, right? Because oftentimes most, the silent majority will not have an issue that this person had. If you're seeing this review up again and again and again, then you have something to be fixed. Yep. But also- It just may be that the people that are not your target audience for some reason keep finding your show. Right, and that's actually made me think of something as Michael was talking about how his audience reacted. It's not a surprise because those are your subscribers. Anyone who would get in touch with you or is engaged, they like the show. They've already said, I like the show the way it is. So a change, people don't like change. It's not surprising. The interesting question though is, well, if I did go to a half hour, would I then get a whole, could I grow this thing much more, right? So yes, maybe the community loves it, but I may hit this sort of ceiling of the community who wants a two and a half hour show. So immediately you think, oh good, I'm doing the right thing. And you are because you go to community. But then maybe there's a space to spin out a shorter form to reach out those people who do maybe actually turn off because they don't want it or they just don't have time. It could be something there. No, that's very true. And like Katie had said earlier, it's a commitment on their part to listen, right? So in our case, actually, I think for our next step, what we're actually considering now is, okay, do we go to two shows a week, even if they are slightly shorter? But again, we don't want to make that move until we in essence poll or ask our audience what they think about that. So yeah, they're exactly what you just said is so true. The one mistake I make, and I still laugh when I think about this, I once did an announcement, I kind of an audio poll of people and I said, hey, go to, and I had a link set up, go to this link and let me know if you think the show was too long. I did it at the end of the show. So anybody who thinks my show was too long was already gone. So everybody was like, I think it's perfectly fine. So it was one of those, I'm like, you know what? Nobody said it was too short. I'm like, you know why? Because anybody who thinks my show is too long has already tuned out. Yeah, there's always something to learn. Like hopefully we just learn from our own mistakes and move on. Don't delete them. So move on, just do it better next time. But anyways, we'll leave it there. I know Dave think actually has to run off to record another podcast. He's that popular. Yeah, I got about five minutes. That's all right, we're gonna wrap up. Dave, thanks for joining us for another round. Well, thank you very much. Dave Jackson from the schoolofpodcasting.com. Awesome. And Michael, your first time, hopefully you had a good time. Thanks for joining us. I did, thanks very much. On your way out, give us that one podcast link that you want people to go to. Check out your show. Oh, just nativeopinion.com. And I would just want to thank all you guys and because I've learned a lot from all you guys. So very much and thanks again. Yeah, I appreciate it. Well, thank you. We do it for you guys. People listening. Otherwise, Dave and I would just be on Skype talking to each other and we wouldn't record it. Katie, thanks so much for your first round, Dave. Yeah, thank you so much. I'm excited. I learned so much today. And I'm so excited to dive into your archives and get to know all three of you more. This was a delight. Thanks for having me. Very cool. Where do you want people to go? Let it out with me. Katie Delbao, sort of rhymes. Is that, what's the URL? katydelba.com and if you just, I'm just a quick Google away, my name. Cool, I'm very curious. Where do you, for On the Let It Out Show, where do you, what's the URL you send people to for? Does it have its own website or does it live on your, on Katie Delbao? It lives on my name website, katydelba.com, yeah. Cool, that's always tricky too, right? And you have a good name, but then you have to figure out how do I, how do I send people to a place? Obviously, cause letitout.com, if you can get that, kudos, but unlikely. Yeah, I'm actually switching over, this is maybe like a boring aside, but I'm switching over to letitout, but I just did letitoutwith3ts.com, so that's what it will be soon. Very cool, all right, well, if anyone out there who is still listening, we should, Katie, why don't you give us the secret emoji? Oh, okay, let's do the lightning bolt, cause that's my favorite emoji. That's very cool, I don't think I've ever used, I love them. Oh, okay, well, make it your homework this week and use it, cause it's a great one. What do we want? We want the lightning bolt and a tweet. Yeah, or in an Instagram, where are you guys mostly? Well, yeah, I love Instagram, so just at podcast helper with the lightning bolts that you made it this far and maybe a tip or what you like, doesn't matter, just do the lightning bolt to at podcast helper, that'll be a lot of fun. I'm gonna do it right now. Very cool, I love, like I said, emojis. Anytime you give me an opportunity to say less, surprising, say less, use, say more with less, whatever. I can't even say it. Lightning bolt emoji, podcastersroundtable.com slash guest, we'll get you on, see you for 111 wave goodbye, we're out of here. Bye.