 Podcast is roundtable round 97 the rising costs of podcast plural there because there could be more than one So what's the deal? What are we actually talking about? Well in the description? I talked about how I actually asked is podcasting expensive and in the beginning no, it certainly doesn't have to be and What you might not realize and I don't think gets talked a lot about Rob you guys talked about a new media show we'll get to that but Is the fact that if you achieve? What I assume would be your goal to be really successful or at least draw a lot of people to your podcast Now, I think this has to be a whole lot of people But you don't realize once you get there it could cost so much money that either you can't afford it Or you didn't monetize and no one else is helping you support it So again, you can't afford it and then you have a big problem So we have perfect people on this round because Rob is he's at Spreaker And he does new media show and they they know the behind the scenes of heavy bandwidth lifts for popular Podcasts and then we have Glenn. We actually have like a case study Like real time. He's going through it. He's going through the transition Glenn so Glenn is going to let us know what he's doing, but let's meet the roundtable Daniel co-host welcome back Thank you. I'm from the audacity to podcast.com Daniel J. Lewis and I've had to invest in podcasting too. I remember that same decision where I was in Glenn's place many years ago thinking How am I gonna pay for this? So I'm looking forward to this Exactly, exactly Dave Jackson co-host welcome back. Yeah, Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting calm and silly me I like to actually talk about things I know about which means if I'm gonna talk about a blue yeti That now sits in my closet and gathers dust. I have to buy one So that's another fun-filled thing that you can run into You lost me. What was the connection there? Well, if I'm gonna talk about a microphone like I are you saying you don't know anything about this topic and you're trying to Excuse yourself. I know I'm trying to figure out how ways that I spend money that I didn't think about and that would be one That I keep buying microphones so I can talk about them firsthand Yeah, you need to autograph them and either give them away and get more subscribers or sell them I am I have a big problem selling gear. So I understand completely but hey, welcome back to the round table Glenn Hey, how are you Glenn the geek from the horse radio network horse radio network com? Very cool. And I think we're gonna get into more of what I'm going through right now for sure for sure and Rob welcome back It's great to be here Ray. It's been it's been a few months. So it's it's awesome to jump on here My name is Rob Greenlee and I I work at Spreaker and we're hosting platform and I do two podcasts I do one called the Spreaker live show at Spreaker live show comm and I also do one Called the new media show at new media show comm so they're both live shows They're not hugely popular shows. So I don't have this huge Bandwidth problem, but the new media show is a live and on-demand video program which consumes a lot of bandwidth on the podcasting side, but fortunately Todd Cochran from Blueberry has that one handled for us But yeah, I've got I I've had a lot of exposure to Handling shows that are really big like the Adam Krohle show and managing that bandwidth that needs to be Given to a show like that and it's it can be a challenge. It's not an easy thing to juggle popularity can come with a price Yeah, and I think that's your co-host is gonna join us I sent him the link you see might be available So Todd might jump in we have we'll have a lot of experience on this panel, but Let's just sort of hash out the premise a little bit more This applies to not only podcast hosting which I think we're gonna focus on because we're talking about how much does it cost to deliver a podcast and how do you do that and services and Budgets and all that stuff, but it applies to websites, too So hopefully we'll get into that a little bit and I've run up against that one So while this show certainly isn't gonna break any bandwidth records and I have to worry about that I mean, I'm going we're going to a very niche audience where I know the cap is I Would ever doubt it would date break 8,000 low and 10,000 so something like I'm using Hosting at Libsyn Dave works at Libsyn. It's fine My plan is going to handle that but Daniel you sort of alluded to the fact that you've made those decisions So where are you or is this or you were talking about a website, which we'll get to later actually both for me it was a media hosting and website Back in the early days of podcasting maybe before I'd started the audacity to podcast or shortly after I Had been self hosting my media on my own shared web hosting account through probably site ground or Or one of those you know shared hosting companies host five I think which is not unusual I mean, it's not unusual people do it whether they they know it's good or not It happens and if you have and always will have a small audience And I say this with great caution But you may be able to fly under the radar and neither get caught or cause problems So what I'm curious about that is that while that's true What about technical issues that you know, we talk you have to have you know has to allow head requests and all this technical stuff, right? I mean, so what is there anything you guys special here we go This is we start with the topic we branch off. Is there anything special about podcast hosting? Maybe Dave, you know, that's going to protect us that or do for us For podcast specific needs that a website host that is for websites isn't going to do Well, I just know when I talk to blue host and host Gator and a few other hosting They it's not the bandwidth. That's the issue. They're just not set up to have 4,000 people cycles. Yeah, that's it. They're servers going But but technically if you could get away if you could get away with it quote-unquote writes under the radar Which if you have a small show you probably won't ever pop up and I know big shows that have But you know Daniel, is there any tech tech technical things that like going to a lipson or blueberry would do for us? Or is it just if you can get away with it get away with it? Well, yeah There are some technical things first is bite range request is absolutely required That's what makes it possible for you to without downloading a show To simply press play on an episode and it start playing and that you be able to jump around in that episode to listen to Different parts without having to pre download the entire thing. That's a bite range request and that's now supported Almost everywhere except for maybe those rare places where you're really hacking things together like the Not necessarily this case But like the drop boxes of the world or the box net so the Google drives of the world those places that Are not designed for this kind of hosting at all or really any kind of public hosting But the other technical thing is to consider the bandwidth because It's not merely a matter of how much bandwidth you can support This is the illustration. I like to use look at the room. You're in whatever room. You're in that room can hold an unlimited number of people Just not all at once That's the way it is with a server. So they say unlimited bandwidth Just not all at once. So if with a podcast the big danger there is You release an episode and by default now many of these podcast apps are set to check for new episodes every few minutes some of them or maybe it's every hour or something but you're most likely going to have a large majority of your audience downloading your file at the same time and That's when you get into concurrent Connections and that can bring down a server like just as small as 50 concurrent connections downloading the same 50 megabyte or 100 megabyte file can bring down a server or cause a CPU spike or certain other technical problems like that that a CDN or a Hosting company designing for this kind of stuff has certain things in place including CDN content distribution network and other things in the technical back end that prevents that kind of Wave of new downloads from causing any crashing that you might run into if you're hosting your own media When we get to the website section, I I want to relate this also to RSS feeds It's actually what I ran into an issue, but there might be the difference between like a shared hosting and maybe that's the level up to like You know VPN or you know something that is more dedicated to you But Todd joins us not from his studio. I don't think we've had Todd Todd You've been here a few times. I don't we've never caught you in the studio, man You just don't like it to be there unless it's new media show or your own show Yeah, I'm with a client today. So I'm actually snuck out and went to the car and time I need to step out for about 30 minutes. Hey, but what okay, so what the headset sounds fantastic. What are you using a? 12 buck Chinese special Kudos to China on that one or you know, well, I'll just stop there But it's kudos that Mike actually you will need a link for that I people are gonna say what is he using because it sounds great So you could buy like five of those and as they break you could just replace it. I like it. All right, so that's what I do Yeah, all right. All right, so Daniel we talked to well, what was your specific situation when it came to media hosting that made you have to say You know, oh man, this is going to start costing me more money than I actually planned on it Or knew about in the future. Maybe did you know when you started a podcast? You know, you need to host your media, but you or did you and you're like, I gotta put this somewhere No, I didn't know because I started my first podcast before I totally understood what podcasting was and all of the considerations of stuff and like many podcasters when I started I looked out and I saw Lipson blueberry costs extra money on top of my website I need that I have unlimited bandwidth with my site five hosting account and all of this stuff and so for me a few things hit at the same time Among those were Launching a podcast network. So now I was hosting multiple shows using the same bandwidth with completely different audiences and On the website side also I started getting into WordPress multi-site, which is a major resource hog And so with all of this stuff hitting at the same time the web hosting company said hey You're using too much of our bandwidth Figure out what it is and fix it and stop So you went at that point you went to blueberry lips and is that what the decision was to just get paid hosting? I I moved the media started moving the media Yeah, over to lips and for one of the shows not all of them But the more popular one certainly the audacity to podcast I host over there and then I also use blueberry for stats So what here's a here's a question and I will get there This is I got so much to talk about Daniel What was the threshold? Do you know what the threshold was that that you started to be like oh I that you started getting warnings or you you know what I mean like can you tell by is it website visitors? Or was it downloads like on your show for me? There seemed to be no correlation For it. It was probably some invisible threshold that based on the particular node They put me on and who my neighbors were on that same server node that maybe the combination of all of these factors and some Kind of unique fractal of a situation here that I ended up being the victim of my own problem Okay, all right So when I tried to when I tried to pinpoint blue host and host Gator and I think host monster I nobody would ever give me an answer that question. What's the threshold? When do I know if I'm getting too close? They would never answer it right and hey So this is good segue into Glen and what's going on with you now You are we know well for those who don't know you have a popular network of shows and networks is another conversation Because everyone wants to start a network, right? And yeah, they don't realize Hey, I want to put 24 shows which Todd and Rob always talk about on to my shit You know my cheap hosting account and I want to you know, that should be fine, right? No problem But Glenn so your network is quite popular. So where's it at now? Why well, I knew nothing when I started 10 years ago So I did I wasn't even smart enough to look around for a blueberry or Lipson I was a website designer and I said well, you know, I've used host monster before I had a pretty good relationship with Them I had my own private customer service person So I just started it and hosted it there the only thing I knew and you guys are going to cringe I had this discussion with Todd and Todd I still haven't solved it. I still haven't done anything about it yet But feed burner was what I used just for the RSS feed and just hosted it at host monster Which has been fine for 10 years. I was on a semi-dedicated server. So it was me and one other company Last year the I started getting a flood of emails from listeners saying we can't get on. It's really slow I'm hitting play and nothing happened. So I call I call host monster and he said well You should have been off of this server about three years ago So that's what happened. I'm on a dedicated server with them now So you can't even be on a dedicated server. So what I mean some Dedicated server with them now I pay $250 a month for a dedicated server with them But you're telling me it sounds like you're gonna need to go to some real hosting that can handle they did probably the amount of Traffic your podcast is moving right? Can you give us some idea of that threshold? You know when I talked to them Dave's right about that when I talked to them I said is it the other I tried to blame the other company that was on our server and he said no He said no, this is you so with your network though You I mean you've got how many shows doing I would imagine well We have we put out about 80 episodes a month 80 episodes a month. Yeah, we have 6300 sound files on there stored on there now Well, how many downloads is it? Did you know it's a terabytes of data every month? I think when I looked Two months ago, we were at about six terabytes A month. Yep. Todd is sweating over there. No $20 we're gonna be making this all happen. So yeah, so I got lucky I actually had I had a good relationship with host monster have never had a problem with them I was gonna start costing you a Backside ton. Yeah, a buttload of money. So I mean you've monetized your network So I'm assuming that's gonna take a big chunk out of your profit. I would imagine. Oh, yeah It will definitely which is why I've been putting it off and haven't talked to Todd yet. Yeah Just because you know, it's been it's been You know working I know it's not going to work forever and I got to do something about it So I'm at that point where I have to do something. So Todd when a guy like Glenn comes to you He's got a big network. He's running it over on his own and he wants to move it over What is he staring down the barrel of in terms of cost? Well, we've been pretty public on our pricing If you're moving more than five terabytes, I can actually start working with you on on Pricing but if someone's just coming to me with a brand new network, they're looking at ten cents a gig but the you know as you go up in volume, I'm able to Lower pricing of course. So, you know, you can probably get down in the nickel range Per gig at at his level, but you know, it's it's you know Actually Glenn's in the pretty good situation right now. He's his traffic isn't too bad. I just I moved a guy Off a network his network bill with Incredible discounts is $8,000 a month. He just moved off SoundCloud Yeah, he is moving Let's put this way Hundreds and hundreds of terabytes of data a month So it's okay What are the thresholds you see so someone who starts they start with blueberry is Yeah, the same version you guys have I don't know what it's called Well, we start with a $20 account when when when does what what point does my show become popular enough where you I get a call from Todd It says let's talk we have to talk because there are well You guys have a different you have a philosophy for indie podcasters, which we'll talk about but if you give us some idea about that threshold Well, you know be honest with you I've got some podcasters that are moving 60 70 80 terabytes a month and they're on a flat rate plan So you eat it because they're Independent which means what how do you what what is it just because if you're not Corporation radio station if you were a business if you have a network You are commercial entity if you're a guy in the garage doing a show or a couple of guys in a garage doing a show Even if you're doing some advertising Your years are still in my view an independent content creator. Okay, where does Daniel fall because he does a network, but he's Andy He would be definitely though He would have to apply for a pro hosting account having a network He could host them under one account Even just with the audacity to podcast alone I've come to Accept that that is a commercial endeavor So when I buy software licenses or image licenses or anything like that I make sure everything I get Can be licensed for commercial use so even like I may be the one and only guy Georg said I am probably one of the very few if not the only one who actually paid for the aphonic Commercial license, you know that the $300 version because I realized that my income comes from my podcast and my income Then is over their reasonable limit so for me the podcast is my business and I recognize that as my business it means I Need to pay for business level services and you're very unique because we know podcasters come on you guys You're cheap, so like you don't want to pay and you are the only guy that paid for that a Lot of times it's it's a hobby or it starts that way and I mean there are hacks I mean we could talk about this could take us right into the path Hitted out of the park for me a new media show with the SoundCloud We had an announcement today that just did a slashed employees are shutting down like New York in San Francisco office Basically, they're sinking ship but we've been saying that for a long time until it happens It doesn't happen, but if you're a podcaster who hosts on SoundCloud that is one way you can pay But one price and get pretty much unlimited and you know and Taught you sort of alluded to the fact We did say that you had a guy move over from SoundCloud because he was pushing so much He was getting away with it. This is one of the reasons SoundCloud is going out of business. There's a whole bunch I'm sure but I don't know if you guys want to talk to that a little bit about the way people are getting around this because It can be tough if you don't have you start a podcast you don't realize that this thing could end up costing a ton of money If you're six if you're if you reach a lot of people we had a Podcaster recently the only reason we really kind of figured it out was that they called and said how do we set up 24 feeds and Powerpress and we're like, okay, great. We looked at their account. They had $180 a month account and I'm like Sorry, you can't run 24 shows underneath one hosting account. That's talk. So their bill essentially went from $80 based on the hundred and about 30 terabytes of traffic they're moving every month and they're out of Brazil Their bill went significantly north, but you know, it was funny They said, okay, they knew they knew they were moving that kind of bandwidth So they knew they knew they were sliding underneath the radar This doesn't sound like too much of a concern for what I would call the average podcaster. No, no not at all. I Think though there is that That moment though for podcasters where they realize I can no longer Keep painting with peanut butter as Dave puts it This thing I've hacked together to try and save $2 per month Isn't going to work anymore. I'm going to have to start paying and maybe even start having to pay a lot more than this and that's that moment where Yes, you can suffer and save a few dollars per month but By that point you probably have ways that your podcast is profiting you in some way that it's worth the investment or There's so much potential there that you haven't even tapped into yet Like even just if you went to your audience and you said We know that the downloads have been a little flaky lately We want to move over to blueberry or whatever service, but it's going to cost extra But the great thing is it will mean the downloads will be fast. They'll be consistent. They won't have problems You'll be able to get our episodes consistently We need your support Would you help us? I think your audience As long as you provide value to your audience I think they would step up and be happy to throw in a dollar per month or more If it meant for one thing keeping your show on And another thing meaning that your show would be more reliable in its downloads Yeah, for sure I mean, especially if your audience has gotten to that level right sounds like a good time for a patreon at that Or at that point they could just well even you're going to pay a paypal fee at somehow So, I don't know i'd give them patreon give more back, but Maybe it's the the teacher in me Because i'm used to having like You know you have your set criteria if you did you know if you got a 70 you got a c if you got an 80 percent you got to be So i'm just wondering Todd do you have any plans of coming up? with some sort of more Like because I can see somebody going hey, wait a minute. How come he gets to pay 80? I got to pay 8 000 and I realize that there are some people that are going to go Yeah, I know we've been flying under the radar But are you prepared for somebody to come at you and go that's not fair? Or have they already done that probably? You know, no, I I maybe in all the time that we've again I I just like you guys over there at libson we You know you this is the business I'm in and if I get a few customers that are using high bandwidth Then I I eat that and uh And I would be a hypocrite to go to that high, you know that high bandwidth show and say hey, uh, hey guys You know, you need to move to commercial example. I you know h3 They're a 6.3 million youtube followers and they're hosting with this three Yeah, I don't know and and they've got and they started a podcast and it's going trajectory straight up So, you know, they're they're pretty indie when it and you know, some would say well, maybe they're they're commercial But the way I look at them so far. They're looking pretty indie to me. So But you know, really the bigger problem is for the majority of in 99 of the podcasters They're never Going to get a call from me or from libson or from pod mean or whoever saying hey, hey, hey Um, what the what the call is going to come is and sadly it's It's the guys that are on in you know, quit promoting blue hosts because blue hosts is shutting down more podcasters right now than It's it's it's it's an epidemic There are very little threshold over there for them. But what ends up happening is they don't complain about the bandwidth They complain about your resource utilization. You're using too many server resources or There's too many open connections on their server. They don't often complain about the bandwidth. They always use a different excuse To bounce your media and and I we get them daily, you know, three four really three four five a day Oh, my host has shut me down help and it it runs the gambit. There isn't a hosting provider that You know, we've got a list. I think there's like 82 hosts that are on the list that we've gotten A podcast from that we're hosting their media on that shared hosting account So It's not a matter of It's it's just a matter of when you're going to get that email saying you're using too many resources Yeah, and in that case it's a difference, right? We've gone to websites I'm coming back through someone's all right, um So when it comes from your web hosts I mean, I guess if you're hosting it on your own media I ran into that with just my my media wasn't on there My rss feeds were on there and they were getting hit enough To then make my host say no, this is your it's getting it's getting hit too much Basically, the cpu was was getting spiked so You know, I mean this could happen not just with media I think it can happen to a popular website as well And that just might be you need to go to the next level of a website So you might not crest that uh, you might not break through that barrier of you need Really expensive media hosting, but you might need the next level of of website hosting, right? I ran into that too and there's same early days when um Well when I went into wordpress multi site, which is much more of a resource hog And I maybe didn't have the most optimized theme and some other things going on But I was regularly crashing the server and so I had to jump around I tried vps I tried dedicated server then I moved over to synthesis by copy blogger and was paying I think $150 a month over there And then they came down and said we decided you can't host multi site with us because it's such a resource hog So then I bounced around to other different places like I tried wp engine and wp engine service is fantastic But it's extremely expensive And brother holy cow And this was doing the the biggest popularity of the tv show once upon a time and The once podcast that we host then was getting I think 500 thousand views per month on the website Or some ridiculously high number something like that and we were running bb press a very popular Forum for the tv show and we still run that today. It's just not as popular anymore So all of this stuff the database today is still four gigabytes just for the database alone for this wordpress multi site So it was just Loading down Every place that I would try and the number of visits that we would get would mean we have these Exorbitant costs until I finally decided I'm going to learn how to run my own virtual private server manage it myself Which is in some ways one of the best decisions I made and also one of the worst decisions I made at the same time And so yeah, I save a lot of money running it myself But it also means there are sometimes I've broken it and had new idea how to fix it Well, that's often the trade-off in podcasting or you're gonna you're gonna trade something for your cash But hey rob, do you guys have a pro version or do you see this at spraker? Well, we have pro versions, but it's basically our regular plan So we you know, we're a platform that you know has some big popular shows But we don't have a huge amount of really really big big shows Um, so we haven't really had too much Issue with this stuff. We usually just eat it because we have so many little shows so I think you We're coming into a phase of the company when This is going to be an issue and we we're going through the planning process right now to be able to support that As as bigger shows host with us You know One thing also, you know talking about soundcloud They've been out there giving away free hosting plans to certain podcasters for many years And and you know that puts pressure on the rest of us Um speaker included. I mean I every week I get pitched by some Fairly large show that wants to get free hosting in exchange for something and and I think it's a it's a It's definitely a challenge. I mean if we take You just tell them that that business they're going out of business You know what I mean? It's an easy sell when you say, yeah, they're syncing their own ship and go ahead and go Yeah, I'll see you in a few months What the issue is with soundcloud soundcloud has put it themselves in a position where they're hosting all this stuff for free They're not making much revenue off of it. And it's music is the main hammer. It's not pod Yeah, exactly. They're getting hammered by music licensing fees. Let's just drain in them And my I mean my recommendation is certainly don't host on any platform that's involved in the streaming music industry I think that's that's a that's a mistake. I mean those models are Usually unprofitable. So it's it's not going to work I think moving over to a dedicated Hosting for podcast platform is a much smarter move for a bunch of reasons. It actually enables you to Better handle your rss feed because oftentimes the Depending on the size of the media file The the rss feed can actually be just as heavy as the download of the media file So if you're doing that all on your own self-hosted server It can be it can be it can take down your server just the rss feed. Yeah, I think that's where you'll see it first You guys you guys you guys are gonna get on my bad side here Yeah, just so everybody remembers 65 000 podcasters are serving their own rss feed today So don't tell me that you can't serve your own feed Not that you can't but I think this will be the first call you get when it comes to upgrading your podcast from the cheap $5 a month. This will be the first call you get. Well, there are certainly things that affect that like, um, even just A year or two years ago Lead pages, which is this service for making your own landing pages and pop-ups on your website and stuff like that There are ethical ways to do pop-ups But lead pages had a WordPress plugin that if you enabled a certain option in that plugin it would completely crash your rss feed And working with angelo mandato over at blueberry. He figured out a way to basically kick The lead pages out of the feed so it wouldn't crash Um, but certain things like that can happen That it's it's a bad decision. That's the thing. I wish that we could say WordPress was, um, you know idiot proof But there are some really intelligent idiots out there and can make really dumb decisions And I'll help you I'll help you out Todd because because here's what the problem Here's what a lot of times the problem is your website host is not Is not versed in podcasting they have a hard time telling you what it is how to deal with it One thing you just you just have a problem that no one can help you with or you're gonna have very hard time finding Someone to help with but this is one of the cases I would say you guys have now power press site So I love this because what I always want to tell people who are not tech who not they're not us They're not down in the weeds. They don't want to they don't want to turn the wrench on their podcast They just want it to work, right? Squarespace is a nice option for a nice website, but they also they don't quite get podcasting It's there's a lot of broken elements there So you guys now have power press sites which you're going to take that you're going to manage the WordPress in an appropriate way So they can serve it. So I think that's you know, there's a nice plug And it and it runs like a rocket ship and I know because you guys know what you're doing for it That's the key And we and we got something else coming too. So, uh, I can't say anything you can make announcements on this show No one listens to this show Would just be very careful when you have a web person working on your website because I've had This happened twice where they let in and literally like they deleted power press And I'm like, what are you doing? That's the rss feed They're like so you put it back and everything came right back But they're like, oh, I didn't know what that was for and we're redesigning it I'm like, oh jeez. So be careful when you wet the wet the Because that guy knows a whole much more about css than I do But he knew nothing about podcasting and just shot it right in the foot. That's often the divide I mean even I'm someone who knows a lot about podcast I don't know a lot about websites, you know enough to be to be dangerous and get in there and do what I want But you know, there's a clear divide there between knowledge and not a lot of people have the knowledge in both of those to handle What you need but glen so where are so you're self hosting but you're looking to move And it's going to cost you a lot of money Todd made a good point. Yeah, I'm an example of somebody who can self host and It's been working, you know, and and the other thing too here is it's not necessarily money I don't think money has been the thing that stopped me in the beginning I just didn't know any better in the beginning what I was doing and Then I got so busy trying to sell ads and keep my company running And it worked. I just kept doing what I'd done before and it worked I had no reason to look anywhere else because what I was doing worked I spent more time trying to sell ads and get sponsors and make a living doing this So, you know, it's not always the money. Sometimes it's just the time and and it wasn't broke So I didn't have you know, it just wasn't broke You know, burners still worked and and I understand that that's probably going to break someday I've never had a problem with that. I never had a problem with my server till last year To with with my serving company and I never had a problem with feed burners So that you know of it doesn't mean your feed wasn't down and didn't know it That's right except my listeners usually let me know that So, you know, I don't know if Todd's heard that before but it was just something I just I was just doing it and And doing my business and I just didn't give it any thought to be honest Well, sure I'm sure a lot of the people that Todd and Rob see are people whose stuff has broken and now they're panicking Right. I mean people move for a reason right Todd, right Rob Well, you know the big panic when their hosting writer says you've got 24 hours to move your media I've never had a podcaster Contact us because their site's getting shut down because of their feed I've had the podcasters get shut down because that they're media So we've had podcasters. Of course, I've had problems with their feeds, you know, everyone does some people like to we never have problems with our feeds Well, okay, we see the twitter post too. So Well, Todd it's It's the combination of hosting your media files and your rss feed on the same server And perhaps also making some other bad decisions. Yeah, yeah, right But you know, I did want to say one thing and I know we're on this hosting Meme and and and I'm very serious. I know that we're all competitors here You know, we've got three four different podcast offerings In the house today, but And I don't like to really wave a red flag when one is not needed, but I am really worried about the sound specifically The soundcloud users that have their sole point of presence on Soundcloud if they their show and their feed is on soundcloud There is a there could be a mass level extinction event for podcasters coming So if you are in that situation where you just have your show and your feed only at soundcloud You need to make some preparations now To be prepared and that doesn't mean you can come to any one of this and we'll take care of you But and you don't have to leave soundcloud But at least put some preparation into in case something does happen down the road At least put an insurance policy in place that you can flip the switch if you need to Use the tools to build the platform Don't build your platform on the tools I repeated this joke or this thing I keep run a running joke in my last episode of the audacity to podcast I think a year or so ago when blab was still a thing god rest its soul There was a guy who came on to Dave Jackson's show and was like bragging about how big he was on blab Where is blab today? Clamor even you know, what if someone was saying oh, I'm big on clamor. Well clamor is gone Yeah, but that guy that guy I've heard from that guy and he's actually huge on anchor right now Soon soon to be somewhere else. I mean so that's here's that's fun that takes us into another space here Hacks the way people are getting around this Um, some people are you know anchors got now a podcast offering. I would not suggest going that way It's not did you not know what they're doing really with that They know there's a good service, but this is a bad play so far. So don't do that people are using soundcloud We've discussed the dangers of that and having insurance spend Hey, look an insurance plan is probably saying you should have it for no matter where you host Your media always have an out when your podcast breaks if you can or at least have a plan know who you're going to go to Right. The services you have here today have amazing customer support. So know who you can go to when something breaks and um, you know, some people They're doing heavy lifts on archive.org Which to me in my opinion is abuse of the system. That's not what it's built for but I know big shows existing on archive.org Um, I don't know if you guys, you know, if you know any other ways people are You know Some people are going to try to get around this. They don't either don't have the money. They didn't monetize their show Where's the money going to come from? Yes, they could ask their audience, but that's not immediate How other ways I'm even seeing this with a service. I run my podcast reviews.com It's the service that gathers your global podcast reviews from all 155 itunes stores plus stitcher plus more coming And there is a free plan, but I very specifically say on where you see the list of the different plans For the free plan. I call it now personal and underneath it says personal use only and underneath that There's a check spot where it says commercial podcast allowed and it has a x in it No, not commercial podcast allowed on that in the faq I have a section that defines what a commercial podcast is in the terms of service Most people aren't going to dig that deep So you're going to have to approach them and say look you are in a commercial podcast They're not going to do it voluntarily on the sign up page where there's the checkbox They need to click to say yes, I agree to the terms of service Specifically when they're signing up for the personal plan I have it display in there. So it's conditional if they're signing up for that plan It says and I agree not to use this personal plan For a commercial podcast and that links back to the other things that define It's still something you have to enforce. That's going to be easy. I gotta go in and cancel my account click So I see this happen. It's happened just today again Someone signed up for the personal use only plan with what I define as a commercial podcast now Some people may not agree with my definition of a commercial podcast I've tried to find an actual hard line For defining this so I'm not in the business doesn't matter. You are in that position. It's your business. Yeah, you got the rules So for me Like what I and maybe commercial isn't the best word but uh, so I'm open up to different words But I say if it's a podcast about business in a business category run as a business A lead generator for a business or it's sponsored by a business. It's a commercial podcast So I get these people who um Will sign up for the free plan So I send them this series of emails to let them know and some of them will come back to say Oh, it's still a personal podcast. I'm not making money with it But you're talking about business you're You may not be making money yet, but you're positioning yourself as a business or you're positioning this as a business subject so Bottom line is you're just mean Yes, I am glim what I I didn't have anything. Oh, it was Dave. It was Dave. You guys You know, you sit next to each other. He looked insane. Well, what what are we talking about? What's the the next plan up? Uh, Daniel, isn't like five or ten dollars or fifteen or something five dollars a month Yeah, so that's the thing that drives me crazy Is we already know this though Dave. We're all cheap up here. This is not happening So, you know, that's why you have to enforce it. They're not gonna self not gonna self-regulate. Yeah, that's true So, you know, so for new podcasters who are coming into this I mean you've seen on this panel a lot of people started and said I knew nothing I didn't know where to go. I didn't even think to go there So as a as a new podcaster who's who's starting listening to this show or maybe they, you know They're either starting or they have started. It could be 50 episodes in What should be thinking about as you continue to try to grow your podcast You want to get people to your website? You want to get people to your show and subscribe? You know, it sounds like most don't have to even think about this But it's good to have it on your radar, right? It's good to know that when it comes to your website There are different levels of hosting Certainly if your website gets popular enough you might need to be on it. Well, I have a question I don't know who can answer this of the three hosting companies we have here. Do we have any new? I just assumed all new podcasters were going with one of you. No, no way There's 20 25 different providers now that are out there. So there's There's you know, there's a new service that pops up every day Yeah, and there's there are two that I know of that are testing the free model again Which will crash and burn in about 12 to 16 months But hey, so Rob and Todd, where do you think the majority of podcasters now? You guys probably do capture the majority. Do you think or is that Is that wrong? Do you think you think we saw a report on that today, didn't we? I would say between the top four, you know, soundcloud Lipson blueberry and spreeker and probably Potomatic Yeah, those guys are capturing probably 90% of the new accounts and the rest are probably self-hosted or archived or something free, right? Some type of some type of well free, but some they're somewhere else That's probably not podcast specific hosting. There's there's some bad like I think there was one was like sermon cast or something like that There are a lot of people that don't go with those like anytime. Yeah, if you've never heard of it Yeah, and and that's another case where it's a company that's jumping into the bandwagon And then you go well, you just need to redirect your feed and you find out that they can't So be careful of those You know, I I welcome the the competition in this space because it keeps everyone that's been in this space for a while Keeps them on their toes keeps them moving forward and uh, you know, we look at every new competitor that comes in and what they're offering and And we keep an eye on I'm sure they're keeping an eye on us You know, we keep an eye on libsyn we keep an eye on sprakers, you know, we all do that on each other So I think it's uh, I think it all keeps it keeps the space moving forward to keeps us innovating Yeah, but this isn't something This isn't something you hear talked about the the the price of pot This is called the rising costs of podcasting and it's sort of just a play on words But as you get more popular your costs can go up, right? Or this may be a reason rob why at podcast one You probably sign these big names because they can't if they start a podcast They're going to get a bandwidth bill. They can't handle right from the start, right? Well, I mean a lot of them, um You know, and we haven't talked about this part yet Is that there is a whole another section of the podcast hosting business that is um different than Lipson and blueberry and stuff. Um, they're the art 19s the the panoplies the Those that do hosting at the you know, we're really focused on advertising, right? So they're looking for really big shows They're providing that ad dynamic ad insertion technology the targeting all that kind of technology to to the mix and those folks Oftentimes have to pay for their bandwidth plus a licensing fee to get access to the technology Plus the the hosting platform will split the ad revenue with them as well So you know, and that's that's what my my experience at podcast one was some shows They pay for their bandwidth at some discounted rate because the platform is able to aggregate enough Terabytes or gigabytes of data that they can get their cost structure down So it's actually less expensive to go oftentimes with one of these big networks To to host on you pay the bandwidth But then you also have these other fees that you pay and sometimes It's it's worth it for these shows to move in that direction And and I think that's somewhat what's happening in the space today too Is that more and more shows are moving to these these these platforms that are focused on Monetizing and and dynamic ad insertion in the hopes of being able to monetize archives And a lot of those shows are perfectly happy to pay the 10 cents a gigabyte or whatever because they're making money on the other side on the advertising side And that that's what the model was a podcast one was under as well as that, you know The adam crawler show paid podcast one to per gigabyte to host his show But yet there was an ad sales agreement between the two companies That that defrayed those costs. So So that's the other side of the of the space You know and and one thing too that they can bring to bear these networks, including even us is that You know, I've got a podcaster right now that is they've had explosive growth and um They are the medicine for Yeah, and and they're having challenges monetizing. So their networks going faster than their costs Then they well, they basically can't keep up with cost So, you know, I really said listen, we want to make sure this podcaster survives So they get over this hump and we'd put in a year's worth of uh Uh pro hosting form at a very low low price so that they could at least get to the point where there's their network can grow and and start Generating revenues. So that's another thing that you can Leverage as you can come to someone like us or one of these other groups and say, hey, we're growing or we're exploding We need some help. Can you give us some discounted hosting rates so that you can so that we can get You know over the hump here, so And you know one thing to consider even if you're like moving either your media hosting or maybe certain other aspects You could do this with Is there may be in that transition period there may be a way for you to Not retroactively make all of the changes but to start doing it From that point forward and uh, so you're not then immediately transferring All of these terabytes of files over and all of this huge need for so much data You're transferring it over a little bit more slowly so you can kind of ramp up the cost Or that way then the majority of your audience is getting That faster download from your media host or whatever you've chosen to do That's not always possible in every situation But like for example, if you have five microphones and you realize, okay, the microphones we have aren't that good Let's upgrade. Well, you could upgrade all five of those microphones at once and have a really big bill Or maybe you can upgrade one microphone per month or one microphone every couple of months And yes, it's a slower way and it won't be such a drastic increase in quality But it's more affordable One thing that we forget is you know, and I relate to this a lot is when I started my podcast there was Let's be frank. There was no uh unlimited hosting out there And I literally had like 10 shared hosting accounts I'd post every episode in a different shared hosting account and I would burn through the One terabyte or whatever traffic I had in two or three days. I'd move the media file This was the game we played in the early days So, you know when libson and other companies came around and started offering the model that they had it was like Oh my god, this is this even possible So, uh, wait scandal. Did you host on libson? I was going to ask the same thing In the early days, I was not a uh, we were hosting in the early early days, of course, I hosted on libson in the early days It's great kumbaya. I love it. All right Then we just dug deep. We dug deep. We dug to get that one out. I love it But and not it went well. Anyway, you guys Yeah, no, I mean that's a good point there Yeah, I started doing it uh back back before What libson was even up and running so Yeah, I had my own Colocated servers that I built from scratch and then I had to admin them I had them in two different colocation facilities. I remember the early days. Yeah Yeah, I was actually hosting other people's live streaming and on-demand Programs I I had a total of five servers um That I had I wound up taking them down and just Doing it other places like at libson and things like that you know back when I went to work for microsoft um But yeah, I had to build out my own my own kind of data center kind of function And was a little bit of a a early libson is what I was We're starting to see I think this group has uncovered several surprisingly big podcast and companies Hosting on places that we probably of thinking isn't really bad idea like even maybe using feedburner or something I don't know how much I want to dig into that but You know, there are some big shows So if if that sound cloud goes away, it's going to get very interesting You're going to know about it because some very big shows are going to have some very big problems very fast And there are other things too to consider like facebook with facebook groups What if someday facebook decides okay, you can't charge in any way for people to join your group and when that happens paradise will fall And there will be other major concerns, you know A lot of people will suddenly be in panic because that means their membership site That's basically just paid access to a facebook group can't exist or it would be in violation of terms so there are this This philosophy of investing Plays through I think every aspect of podcasting and here's the thing and it is Investing and that's the way you need to look at it for every expense That I have Been timid about and thought oh this means I'm gonna pay this new bill every single month or whatever it is For every one of those expenses or I would say almost every one of them After I started paying for it I found some way to save money somewhere else or to cover that expense generate new income or I found that my life afterward Was so much better And it was worth then that investment I you know We've been talking all about hosting here But that's not even if I even if I make the switch tomorrow and pay the higher hosting costs Which I'm gonna have to do that's not my basic expense every month You know when you're running it as a business and and we have 32 hosts and we pay most of them something We have our people that do the editing our people are our biggest expense and time you guys all the same thing I mean your biggest expense is always people And so you know That's only a small portion when you get bigger of your expenses the everything else the aphonics and everything else costs more The more you do the more they cost so all of those expenses added together still wouldn't Are still is going to greatly exceed a hosting cost that we have You know you have come of age when you get your cdn bill and you can't pay it on your credit card anymore And you have to do a bank transfer You know that when that one comes you go And you got the Cylon thing this is back this is old quick days man Usb Cylon effect. I still get it with all my mac hosts about after an hour and a half Interesting. So maybe it's yours mac. Am I back? You're back. All right now We all know that and it's all race fault if you start one podcast or two You start two or three or You know, uh, glenn's case. What are you up to 39,000 something? It's insane And that's when you then get into okay now I need an editor And that's another thing because you you want to edit your own shows Some of us like Todd's the master. He just you know, he lets it rip and no editing. It's on but a lot of people want to edit So that's another expense. I know a lot of people love to use mail chimp Which is free until you get popular and then you start sending a bunch of emails So those are things that you don't think about that all of a sudden, you know Because there's not enough you're still 24 hours in a day. Our biggest expense every year is travel That's our biggest expense every year because we go to shows we go to events travels our biggest expense now I always try and offset it with sponsorships, but it's still our biggest expense every year But what brings you the most sponsors travel? Yeah, so it does it. Yeah, exactly Yeah, that's a good point though. I mean i'm on mail chimp and at some point Literally, they're just an email is going to show up and say yeah, you need the next level Yeah, you can't send any more emails like, you know, and there's no real plan for that doesn't be like Am I going to pay it or not? Right? I mean, it's really what it's going to come down to and you got to make a decision now There the the people who are the most passionate are probably the people who want to have 30 shows on a network Right, but it's it's their hobby. They're there every week It is it is the guys are gals in the garage in the spare bedroom And they just want to do more they discovered this mean they want to do more And they have to do it with less maybe necessarily because they don't have And have the budget there's doing it, you know, what about Some people and those in those cases where the passion is high They're not interested in in a business or making money from their podcast is is evil Right, there's a there's a point where you do probably need to think about Where you do need to think about monetizing in some way for different reasons Maybe even changing your philosophy of oh, what are we doing here? We do want to keep going We want to grow it So we have to start making money and I know this is often the pitch for saying Hey, if you're going to discuss a book on your podcast, put the affiliate link And maybe you can at least cover the cost of your hosting is something I say all the time and Then this is when it comes home to roost when you realize These costs are getting a little bit more than I expected when I started this thing When did it become evil to make money? By the way, I You just you just not go to the meet-ups. You didn't go to the early meet-up When I walked into the second what was now podcast movement more or less It was the what it turned into blog world and but that out in Ontario, California Me and paul culligan said hey, we think we can monetize this thing and they just about tartan feathered us They were like what it's art man. What are you talking about man? You can't that's like pirate radio There's a divide. I mean, I don't think that that exists the way I used to that I'm using it to prove a point But you know when you when you if you're doing this pure passion There may be a reason different reasons to think You know you might incur cost that you did not expect in the beginning And it might be at least at a minimum nice to cover those costs Jeff goins just came out with a book and I was a Joint venture partner for the launch of this book and I was a very bad joint venture partner because this is the first Any of my following are hearing about this book from me But he released a book that I think is great along this thought and it's called real artists don't starve And that's the truth we need to realize is that if you're changing the world If you're making someone's life better If you are having fun There's going to be some point where you're going to have to pay for this somehow I don't know where it came from but there's this Perveying perspective that once we get on the internet Everything should be free because you look at most other hobbies and people I would say youtube is the problem Yeah, so say believe youtube for that Um, but most other hobbies people aren't thinking oh, I want to get into coin collecting But how can I collect coins for free? Yeah? Yeah, how can I steal some great coins for free? It doesn't really happen. I know there are of course Exclusions and such and there are ways to participate in a hobby for free But to really get the most out of even a hobby out of the enjoyment of something You have to spend And we're in the most expensive hobby there is Horses Oh, man. Just hay burners. That's all they are. Yeah, you know the most expensive hobby there is Even more expensive than golf although. I have heard that it costs less to care for a horse than it does for a dog Is that true? No You've been lied to You've been lied to I would think just the food alone would be food and just everything you're you're paying I mean board if you're boarding a horse in most places now You're paying two hundred and fifty to four or five hundred dollars a month For one horse just to board it Yeah, just to board it David's gonna scan the chat in case we have something we want to bring him from there But what one of the questions? Yeah, that someone did bring up Jason said do you believe we need to up our game on the audio quality? I occasionally see articles about that saying listeners are becoming accustomed to The higher audio quality from podcasts like npr and such I see Dave having a conniption over there Oh, I have a I have a co-host that wants to make an appearance. I'm trying to make him chill out Oh the cat I'm saying I say I mean I Forget why yes always like always try to be improving right? I mean and yes at some point I mean if it's garbage and they can't hear you if they can hear you it's fine It's subjective, but you should be trying your best. I mean at a minimum, right? I don't know what you guys think but Yeah, there there's this point where yes, you may not be The pristine audio quality of these major networks and producers and they're spending thousands of dollars I would say you can't be I would say that Daniel the the audio that comes out of your studio from a from a monologue solo That's not gonna sound any different. I mean does npr have a slightly better microphone Yes, but is there room more dead? Not necessarily. I mean like if it's quiet in your room It's quite in your room and you got all that acoustic paneling you built yourself So I don't think it's hard to compete with that sound You're not what you're not doing is going out on the street gathering clips and and mixing a bunch of stuff together That's a different thing, but it's not good doesn't go to your quality Right. There's there's this level where for each little bit of performance And this applies in so many areas and in places But for one point increase in performance The higher you go the more exponentially the the investment required to reach that additional point. So like You know the atr 2100 usb microphone or its cousins that are related to it as Popular as that is it's a good enough quality microphone. Is it the best? No But it's so much better than your internal microphone Will people hear a noticeable difference if you go from that microphone to something like the re 320 or some other Much more professional microphone. Yes, they may hear that difference Especially if you do it within the same episode, but they may not notice the difference the most Important thing is your technique. It's how you use the tool more so than the tool itself I think I think we have Even heard it here that a lot of people when they start have to make the decision They start and they figure out a way to get it done Then they they grow it. It doesn't mean they got super popular But things may have broken or it's just not as easy And they're like, you know what I I should look into paid hosting And I find a lot of podcast when you start you don't know you just you don't know what you need, right? So you I've had had to have this conversation a lot of times and explain why Paid hosting is better people think you're just trying to sell them So they're like where you got an affiliate link and you're just trying to sell you something And it's like well actually it's experience But and I even had to I started off on blip.tv and it was free and I hacked it to use free audio And that became a problem, right? So I eventually went to to hosting, but What's that conversation? I mean if we can help the new podcaster or even the podcaster has been doing it for a while what beyond Bandwidth I mean you got someone who's handling it. What are you know? Todd and rob and you're getting people on the platform and they're trying to make that decision Do I want to it doesn't matter if $20 is a lot to them? It could be a lot at some point It's a lot to all of us. I think who's who's an independent and starting out What are the what is the what are the arguing points or what are the the pluses? For getting a podcast hosting that's you know, I I don't hear people complain about costs anymore I hear people wanting to save time And and you know create content get in and get out. I say that a lot on you know You myself I like to get into my content and get out and continue my life. So Um, I think for the majority of podcasters out there They know that they're going to invest a little bit of time and money to make it happen So I don't hear an argument about cost. So what I do see what where's the time savings coming? Now, why am I paying for to save time? How am I saving time by by getting blueberry? Well, I don't want to you know, my famous saying is post upload publish You're in your dashboard. You write your blog post you upload your media publish. You're done. You're out and each you know each service has its own selling point, but I think the Really the key is every podcaster graduates into a system and learns to be efficient. So, um You know, and I often call it graduating they graduating from basic hosting Maybe they're self-hosting they get a notice from their Their their hosting provider. They have to jump over and it's a graduated step. So Um, yeah, I like that. I like that Yeah, I got a top battery. It's going to go dead here. So I might have to leave soon when you when you blink out will You're good. I'll be your way and you're out I hate to see people go the other end of the spectrum and they'll go spend leaves $2,500 on equipment that they don't need So I like Todd's idea of graduate, you know start off with a this microphone and then move to the next You know, don't don't I would skip the self-hosted part. I just go right to a media company but I've known people have spent money on Video cameras and soundproofing and this and that might great. What's your shows about and they go? Yes, the part I need help with and I'm like, oh, you got to be kidding me But Dave you work for a media company. Okay. So now you do you didn't before so but what's the Where's the difference? I'm sure Jump into that one being self-hosted. I'd never when people talk to me recommend self-hosting I always say go to the lipsons of the blueberries because it's easier. It's just easier than doing it yourself It is somewhat complicated to do it yourself. So it's just easier It'll save you time for the 20 bucks a month, which probably they will never have to spend more Time is money. It's it's just easier. I don't think people realize time is money like it You know how that's the biggest problem right now. It's time Time is always your biggest problem when you're growing a company It's not always money. It's time I remember before it was a podcast when it was just audio on a website And having to go into my web stats to figure out how many times an mp3 was played that was a nightmare So just stats alone trying to see, you know, where people are coming from and things like that The fact that I have to dig through a log file anymore That that was a huge time suck I can pay for stats without getting hosting those that's one nice thing blueberry, right? You guys offer stats without hosting so that may be your first sort of I pay for this thing, right? I want better stats. I pay for stats Or you can't even get blueberry stats for free. Yes Yes, there's free version which you will graduate from when you realize you want more stats, right? So, you know, I can insert my tagline grows you go like these are all the same concepts You know, I think for me always the key is to get people started and ideally we get them started in the right direction And hopefully You know, I think most of us here would start you on hosting and that's based on Experience of doing it for a long time. It sounds like many of us. We didn't start that way So it's not atypical that you start and you don't choose hosting. I think most of us started in a different time Sure, but regardless Yeah, but it was a different time host. Even when hosting was an option. I went free Let's not get ourselves until free was a problem Yeah, see, I always tell people the the problem is you as we said at the beginning You might not have a problem But when you do now you have a problem because you have an audience So you're having a problem In front of a whole bunch of people because you wanted to save Five bucks a month. That's a good one. No, we got we lost the battery and Todd Watching the video version. He just literally dropped like this is like a game show If you don't interrupt in enough time Off No, I actually have a trigger uh the glen and I will I will get good. I'll reject you So what you don't want to be is uh the monks who Would hoist people up on this little rope elevator up to this level on this to view this monastery on this big cliff and so it's this long ride up with this a little elevator that's Supported just by this one single rope and this family is going up with this monk as he's pulling them up And the family looks up at the rope and notices it's kind of getting frayed and they ask the monk When do you replace that and the monk says uh when it breaks? Well, you know too, we we I didn't start out planning to have a network I started out having fun talking to my one co-host with one show And then all of a sudden I'm got sponsors and I got we got you know 16 shows and I'm here 10 years down the line I didn't plan. Oh, I did it was supposed to be a fun little project. So I think that's how you know, maybe some of you could address that but I think sometimes it surprises us And that's that's why this one is called the rising cause of like like you don't Everyone here started for fun. I mean you talked about we all started a different time Yeah, we started at a time when it was passion that lit all these podcasts on fire Literally just blew us right up on fire. And so We didn't plan for these things, but we've all had to grow into some different, you know evolution of our show Yeah, also, I I think just to kind of throw in here a little bit too I think when there's a lot of new people starting and podcasting right now that um Don't really know very much about how to podcast And I think going going with a hosting platform that's got a long history of building the tools and the functionality that's needed to To do it the right way that's compliant with apple and compliant with the various Um distribution platforms And has been optimized based on experience and based on usage Is a big value. I mean five dollars a month. I know speaker has five dollar a month plan and and people can get started Very easily and get a show up and but still there's this huge Learning curve that they still have even making a platform easy to use low cost I think that and i'm starting to see this more and more too and the people that I talked to Is that I think we're starting to dip into content creators that are that are coming from the same kind of um thought processes as What went to youtube very early and I think they're starting to expect things to be almost free More and more and and I think what what we are talking about this show is kind of like two ends of the spectrum, right? There's the there's the very kind of beginner people that don't don't know how to podcast just get started They object to even paying five dollars a month actually And then you get the other end of the spectrum where guys are paying ten thousand a month or more for their bandwidth And so somehow the hosting platforms have to cater to that extreme and you know if I refer to speaker speaker plays at the The beginner end we try and offer a lot of easy to use tools And and it's low cost people can create multiple shows on the platform For five dollars a month. So we're not limited as quite as limited So I think we're a platform that really makes it easy for people to get started, but We're not great at catering to those big guys which other platforms are catering to So I think we we have the spectrum and people just are coming at it more and more I mean, I feel very strongly that we're in a content era right now Content is just exploding online in this medium. You know, you talked to Todd or Dave, I mean you probably are seeing the numbers too. There's just so many new people Coming in creating podcasts right now. It's crazy. They it's It is kind of a little bit of an explosion. I wouldn't say it's a hockey stick growth, but it's certainly Probably twice as much as it was Three years ago. Yeah That's not what don't be fooled It fooled YouTube is not giving you anything for free. You you're giving them content. They're getting ads Yeah, it's a perception, right? It's a perception. They give you all the tools they give you Everything that you need and podcast hosts aren't you know, I mean, here's the thing if you go There are other podcast hosts and I guess I won't mention them But you are going to go there and you're going to exchange. They're going to put ads in your stuff I mean a today Dave, you're telling me anchors inserting ads if you go to even a platform You think oh, I'm getting distribution on spreeker and I mean not spreeker. Sorry On a stitcher and they're giving me a bigger audience. Yeah, you're trading it for ads They're stitching in ads that you don't Have control over we did a survey with our patreons the other day and it was interesting They we asked why do you bail on a podcast similar to what you you were asking Dave And the overwhelming was the sound quality sucked that was number one on the list They the sound no matter how good the content was if the sound quality sucked they weren't saying And the second thing is if irrelevant ads interrupted the podcast Sure that we do a lot of ads, but they're all relevant and there's things that that are people buy But when those relevant ads just pop in at weird times in the middle of a sentence they bailed That's a whole nother round table that rob would love to be on we could talk about dynamic ad insertion and the perception of that and the title ads Did you know that 15 minutes will save you 15 percent? Hey, I'm out working it's working on Dave Working on Dave. Hey, Alexa ask me. Oh, never So is that a new new advertising campaign for lipson Dave? Yeah It's going to be 15 off. Yeah, no, that's that's the geico ad don't you I you know my dad always said because we were my wet my three brothers We were all entrepreneurs. He always said success is going to come with problems But those problems sure beat not having success Yeah, so deal with those problems as they come along be happy. You're successful and just work it through So, you know what if your show grows like crazy and you're becoming successful figure it out It sure beats the people who are out there that are feeling that they're not successful But are still doing it week after week. So the alternative still I think the alternative still is not as good Hey, and if your numbers are low, you have something to beat there's a silver lining in there Low too Well, anyways Good I've got a question for you guys Uh, do you think it's possible to have a better podcast? Uh, because it has advertising in it No, better is a is a tough word in that sense. I know it is I I have an answer for that. I used to listen to a show. I didn't like the show. It was on Webmaster.fm. I forget the name of the show But the only reason I listened is their ads always brought up some service that I'd never heard of And most of the time it was something I wanted to dig in later It was some sort of web building tour or whatever the hosts were all like, hey, dude It's you know morning radio guy and it was like uh and they had too many ads actually But I listened for the ads, but that's you know, that only happened once Yeah, if you had the super bowl where people tune into the ads or it's a very Very rare exceptions. I love a youtube show and I think they probably distribute via podcast film Right is fantastic, right and these guys have ads for website hosts and stuff when they make Basically they teach filmmaking and when they do a short little film wrapped in the ad They are some of the best. It's better than sometimes their content And I will watch and rewind so you have to be extra talented to make that work So I would say it's possible but for the majority except in our case I'm lucky that way because horse people are addicted to horses. They spend all their money on horses They're always looking for new stuff So we do product reviews on a lot of our shows And we do we do a lot of commercials It's it becomes content and they care about it because they're always looking for the next best saddle They're always looking for the next best bridle. They're wanting to spend their money on horse stuff So we're in a little bit of a different niche that way than a general show Because our people really do want to spend their money on horse stuff. Yeah, hey glin. I'm watching on video I want to know what microphone you're using But this is the $15 bearing her see our podcast just got better We could spend 15 minutes talking about it But we're not going to expensive mic over there and I hate the thing So I've always come back to this one. See we're practically doing an ad here, Rob But anyways Rob, what were you getting at? Oh, I was just taking a little bit of a contrary view because I've I've heard many people say that You know adding advertising to your podcast is not going to make it a better show Mostly no, I would say mostly yeah and and but I think like is There are examples where that's contrary And I think the examples are in the niches I think the examples are in the niches like mine if you have a hiking podcast if you have a golfing podcast If you have a a podcast where people spend a lot of money on what they're doing Then they care about products and I think that's a big difference If you if you do a good job bringing it to them not just it's it's uh chrysler made an ad and they Right, yeah, you actually didn't read the copy right or actually they recorded themselves And we only advertise stuff. We actually use as hosts courts of course, and you've got to make it entertaining I mean I used to love listening to howard stern read ads because he'd be Almost making fun of the product. I have yet to hear I don't listen to a show But I hear a lot about hell bill burr who's another comedian that his ads are fantastic because he just Goes he's not reading the points He's just making up stuff and it's hilarious and half the reason you remember it Is you like I can't believe he just said that in a commercial sure I give credibility to advertisers who have Conductors Who they let say anything because I'm like these guys are they're making a joke at this ad Practically, but obviously the creator is okay with it and it all you know So I give credit to those people who are forward looking enough to know It's okay to let your you know to let them free with the ad You know, we can blame paul harvey for all of this I mean when paul harvey said buy gold bond every old person in the country bought gold bond Uh, he's the one that started host red ads Hey, Dave, I gotta I've got a got a question for you. So did you sell those? those those positions with those pictures behind your head is Someone he asked to glenn the same thing is he's one that makes all the money I think he took a page who actually the question is who was first. I think it was I don't know. We're at the same time. Actually. I think yeah really Glenn paid me glenn paid me ten dollars for this picture of him right here in the car If you're watching if you're just listening to the audio version because almost all of you are Glenn have pictures of their audience behind them. It's a good reason to tune in It's a little studio that group right there is paid because there are patreons That's how you get on the wall. There you go. See, that's why glenn makes the big bucks. Mine are free I did learn don't turn on the fan when you have a bunch of pictures or or make sure they're really taped to the wall Well, so if you're wondering why there's a couple spots I turned on the fan and and people went flying. Yeah I can still see people. I see miss. I'm just blowing off my fans Rob, you're right. You're right. That's the line of the night right there Yeah, I mean you're supposed to turn your air conditioner off from your podcast anyways for that better sound quality So Rob, you're in a perfect position there No, ac Rob's ac is broken. So thanks for joining us. Anyways, we're going to wrap up here If you have anything to add that we missed uh, go ahead and interject that but otherwise let us know where we can find Your podcast one of your podcast now. Here's the thing Dave. You're right. I start two, right? So I have to actually give this disclaimer now. I think you can't you can't give one You got to follow the rules. Actually the round table is all about breaking rules. So do what you want any Daniel j. Lewis Thank you so much for joining us Thank you. I'm from the audacity to podcast.com and to throw in an extra answer to Rob's question about Sponsors out into the podcast. I remembered that a couple years ago One of the episodes of my podcast was sponsored It was the last time I've done an ad spot on the audacity to podcast episode 225 was how to prepare yourself for video podcasting or live streaming And the sponsor was harry's razors. Yep. I remember that made my show better Because I knew when I was going to do that sponsorship spot that I wanted to build content around it to make it relevant And so I got two full episodes Of content at least two episodes, but I did first how to prepare yourself for audio And then the other was how to prepare yourself for video. So I used the sponsor to inspire content And that that worked out great and i'm harry's customer still today a pain customer by the way But you can check out all of the non-sponsored podcast episodes of the audacity to podcast and all of my other content At the audacity to podcast.com and follow me on social places at the daniel j lewis And and that is the key the key is is that relationship because you're now putting a third It's a third wheel. You've got a relationship with your audience and now you're going to advertise your sponsor They're a third wheel on that date. So you better find a way to make them To make everyone happy. So anyways, we're we're now g but dave jackson. Thanks for joining us Yeah, dave jackson from the school podcasting.com and we kind of mentioned this earlier I know steve said it in the chat room As much as we all hate to pay for stuff. It's still probably cheaper than golf Or insert your favorite hobby or bowling or or horses. Yes so if you have a Starbucks a lot of days If you buy too many starbucks a lot that you could have paid for your podcast hosting Sakura it robs in seattle. So he's probably he's probably gonna get evicted from his house I live actually five minutes away from the corporate headquarters Actually, I have a bumper sticker on my car that says it's cheaper than horses. So yeah, I agree. Yeah, there you go Speaking of horses glenn. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, don't let don't let the fear of cost stop you from succeeding All right, let's deal with that when you get to it Yeah, horse ready? Yeah, just do it any and if worse comes or worse and you shut it down, but you did it You did it or you find a way to pay for there's always a way There's always a way. All right. Hey Rob. Thanks for joining us once again from your non air conditioned Home open up the windows man. Seattle. I know exactly what the breeze blow in right? Yeah, well, thanks for having me on your show again. It was great. I can be found online The the main show I do is my speaker live show. So speaker live show.com So only one I'm gonna play that one for you. Don't worry about it Do do a show with Todd Cochran to ever say there you go. See Todd had his spot and you can fill in his plug for him So Rob gets to by proxy The new me to show is one of my favorites. So I would definitely give that a shout out So yes, thanks Todd Cochran. He was ejected, but you know, he'll be back. So And we'll see all of you for gosh. What are we approaching 98? We're getting there. We're about to graduate I'm going to order my cap and gown. It's getting So excited so join us for round 98 next time podcasters round table calm And slash guest if you want to sign up and be on a round table and get John here at some point So thanks wave. We are out. See you guys