 Podcasters roundtable round 84 podcast apps who is listening that's all mashup There's a bunch of stuff in there. I think we're gonna talk about and This topic inspired by one of the new round table there's a bunch of questions And we're gonna we're gonna go off of that, but let's go ahead and well Let me tell you we are successfully streaming on the new YouTube channel the podcasters roundtable only YouTube channel Subscribe to it. I don't have the custom URL yet, but that's We are making an evolution here. We took a step forward Google fixed our issue I guess they didn't tell me but I asked and we're streaming live on that channel. So that's good Let's meet that round table starting all the way on my left new round table or Brian welcome Hi, good to be here. And what is your show? It's called building next cast so it's about My team building our podcast products, which is an app and other stuff other technology. We're building Very cool. And we're in the country area. You're in the US. Where are you at? I'm in Venice Beach in LA. All right Nice, it's always nice to know where people are. Yeah phoning phoning phoning in from and It's raining up here in Northern California. So hopefully you guys will get the same If not, we'll just give you ours. That's kind of All right, and Daniel J. Lewis welcome back Thank you great to be back looking for the perfect podcast app I'm Daniel J. Lewis from the audacity to podcast calm. You haven't built that yet Daniel. No, I'm not gonna even touch that I think about it often. Oh good, but I'm not gonna touch this. Well Daniel's gonna he is the co-host here So he's he it's implied that he's gonna have lots of questions But now we know he's gonna have lots of good topics to bring up. All right That's that's the funny laughter of our other new round table or Tony. Welcome Hey, great Ray. It's great to be here Tony Tolato from sci-fi talk calm podcasts since 2005 and still at Yeah, you're you're an og podcaster you're Yeah, I want to I know people started in 2004 but I came to the year after and I'm still at it and it's it's been quite a journey Isn't that so cool Daniel Daniel? That like we've been doing this, you know, almost as long Tony's been doing it longer than I have there's people out there We've never met them. I you know before the round table. I know contact with Tony. Yeah epic 10 year 11 year Journeys that people knew in podcasting and you're just now meeting them. So that's really cool Yeah, that's what's one of the great things about the round table is one of the things I like is you connect and And you know, you're always learning in this business and And hopefully that'll never stop. Yeah, that's the key I mean we say growing your show like as you go grows you go and it's we're always learning new things So hopefully everyone here who's watching things see a few people in the chat We're gonna learn something new tonight from other podcasters experience and Brian is pretty much a brand new podcaster. We were talking a little bit before We went live here and it was talking about, you know, people have been in a long time and he feels relatively new But that's great. Those are the perspectives we want. We have the the full gammon here. So Yeah, so again, this one sort of got launched by Brian If you know you go to podcasters round table comm slash guest you can submit topics and you join us here and You know, usually I pick like one topic, but all of Brian's were sort of related He has an interesting product And well actually why don't you tell us a little bit about What you're working on Brian Yeah, we're trying to build that ultimate podcast app and So we're starting, you know, kind of simple and we have a podcast about us doing it So we can try to engage the audience and other podcasters and shape our product based on feedback And we're just gonna, you know, run it like a start. Well, we are a startup But that sort of lean startup just iterate, you know, move quickly, build things and listen to your users. So That's generally what we're doing. We're going cross-platform. So we'll be on iOS and Android And on the web as well. And yeah, I mean, that's the basics Yeah, one of the things was cool as I went and checked it out because I look at the list who signed up and then I see the website One of the things I do check is are you still podcasting? And you submit, it could be like a year ago, you submitted it on the round table We're bi-weekly here, it takes a long time to get everyone through And so I check if you're still podcasting because that's kind of relevant If not, maybe there's a story there, but we've talked about pod fading in the past But I went over to your website, I checked it, I was like, oh, okay, nice, looks like a nice clean app It's got some interesting things to say about podcast and maybe some things that He might want to bring to the space and I was like, whatever, I mean, you know, another app Cool, and I'll get to some feedback about that in a minute But then I went and checked out the podcast and I pressed play to hear, you know, I always want to check out the podcast And I found myself, I was listening to the first episode, it's you talk about it on episode one or season one, part one And it's like the startup podcast. So if you've watched this into the startup podcast, it's that exact format Building a podcast app, which is extremely relevant to this audience So I highly encourage you guys to go check it out, it's done very well, the audio quality is good And, you know, then suddenly, but it's amazing to me, just having that human element of the podcast Suddenly I was like 50 times more invested in your success because I've heard you talking about it I'm nervous for you when you go pitch and all that stuff, so you definitely want to check that out But, you know, that that says something to say about adding a podcast for your business Obviously in this case is extremely relevant, but hey, Tony, what, how do you consume podcasts? I won't even, I won't even lead you too much. How do you consume podcasts? I mean, it used to be primarily through iTunes, but I actually discovered an app since, I mean, everything right now is kind of going through our phones It's what we use the most, and it's just really changed our lives So I discovered an app called Cast Box, they actually reached out to me, and my podcast is on there I also have an app too, I've had for a few years Daniel's checking it out right now, because I've not heard of that one See, look at this, I think that's something new already Yeah, it's great, you know, what they pitched to me also is to, I run a banner on my site And I even run a commercial for them, just to tell people about it And they also have pitched to me to, you know, eventually do some advertising on there as well That we would both share in that So that's a possibility for other podcasters to kind of register with them and to go from there So what's the value add that they're presenting? I guess really the value is ease, it's just really simple to set up and to subscribe to other podcasts And I think you can even configure the player a little bit more towards your liking It's just ease of use, and it's something you can carry with you on your phone And I really like it, so I've been listening that way I don't really don't listen that much on computer anymore, I really listen either on Nobody does Yeah The stats tell, Daniel, do we know what those stats are? And didn't we cross like the almost 80% now or something crazy? Yeah, it's somewhere up near 75 or 80% Wow, that's amazing Yeah, I'm not surprised, I'm not surprised I mean, we take these things everywhere for God's sakes So yeah, it's great, I mean I've had my own app through my hosting service, Lipson, a few years now And it's also on Android and I also have it on iOS CastBox right now is only available on Google Play So that kind of opens up the market for Google Play although I'm on there as well You know, where I'm listed and people can find me that way But yeah, I really like it, ease of use I guess is really my main reason for it Cool, I mean, what makes it easier than say like the iTunes podcast app? Well, I don't know, it's just really convenient for me, I've actually never tried the iTunes app But you know, this one kind of reached out to me and I tried it and I go, you know, it suits what I need And I can pick the podcast that I can subscribe to and I have a little playlist set up And they make suggestions as well, I'm sure iTunes does that too Yeah, actually the suggestions kind of went out of the, you know, I used to get a lot of suggestions through the desktop But not so much in the app, which is I was kind of always hoping something they would solve But it's hard in a limited space, I use Pocketcast, I've used it almost since I feel like since I've been using apps And what's nice is they have a desktop version as well or a browser version And it seamlessly keeps track so I can go from my phone right to the browser and I don't lose It just picks up where I was listening. Daniel, what do you, what do you use to listen? I listen through Overcast on my iOS device Overcast, I did buy it when it was a one-time fee late last year, I think And I moved to it, I was using the Apple Podcast app, but I moved to Overcast when the Apple Podcast app had its little fiasco with iOS 9 And it wasn't working for a lot of people, so I start trying something else And since then I've become an Overcast subscriber because I decided all of the great value and content that I get from podcasts every day Is worth paying $10 a year for to have a nice experience to consume all of those So Overcast for me, I try other apps here and there, but I keep coming to Overcast as my favorite for a couple reasons Interesting So I'll lead off, so Emily, class of the little podcast, sent feedback in and I said people on the email list Make sure you sign up for the podcast around people.com slash guest I said, hey, send me your response to this or put it in the chat I don't know if anyone pre-populated the chat, Daniel, I want to check that out before we started But Emily said, I hope 2017 brings an end to what seems like a new press release every month With the so-and-so has come out with a new app designed to make podcasts discoverability easier So she sounds like she's in the Rob Walsh camp about discoverability She said she doesn't know about you, but she gets set in her ways She knows the ins and outs of the iTunes podcast app and even though sometimes she'll switch to Overcast just for one feature Of having 1.25 times the speed For the most part, she's happy with the podcast, the iTunes app And discovering podcasts through word of mouth or through other podcasts she's already listened to And this is coming from me as a podcast consumer, not as a podcaster So I would toss it over to you, Brian It's a crowded market, right? As you heard, we all listen on different podcast apps So what makes you want to build a business on another podcast app? Yeah, I don't think anyone's got it perfect yet And I'm sure everyone kind of agrees there's always something better But we want to add like a whole new element beyond what these apps are doing So I love Pocketcast, I love Overcast I've paid for Pocketcast to check it out So we're trying to do all this stuff but for free So that's the main thing is offering it for free You have to pay like $9 a month to get full access to Pocketcast I think, is it a month or one time? It's a one time, yeah One time just to get it on the web And we want to do this all for free And I feel like there's a business model behind it I've been trying to figure out how to do this for four years Of how to make a podcast app that has all the features that I wanted Including this extra content So that's our main first thing is When you're listening, so many times I listen to podcasts And they mention something that I can't see There's just a huge disconnect Every single show, no matter what type of show They're like, oh, they're watching a video And I'm like, okay They're like, oh, go here and you can find it I'm like, I'm never going to go find it Or go to this image And then you have to go to their site Or somehow find it, you can never do that Or they want you to click on their The book they're selling They have either their own book Or they're supporting their advertisers So it's the same thing that happened in the Startup Podcast The first season they mentioned a couple of times Let's build something where you can listen And take action and click on it right there in the app And that's what I emailed Gimlet for over a year ago Multiple times to try to say, yeah I've been thinking about this forever I want to build this So we finally did build it And we have our private beta And it was working really well It's amazing I probably should have got it ready to show But it's all working We have this tagging tool where the host can go on It's always free, everything's always free We're actually collecting all these analytics too So while people are listening We can give hosts analytics for free as well You mentioned the Gimlet thing And that's something where I think there's a very false premise That is being approached in some of the app development stuff Like when in the Startup Podcast Alex Bloomberg was talking about Oh, we got to make this app So that calls to action are much easier for people Because he said that he listened to this podcast Where they said, you go here Then you go here Then you do this Then you do that Then you do this Then you do that And that'll help support the podcast The problem is not the app The problem is the call to action And there are countless ways To simplify the calls to action And that's what podcasters aren't doing So I think that responsibility For the calls to action to be easier Is on the podcaster Not the podcast consumer Like if it's an app-based thing Then it's on the podcast consumer To make that call to action easier And the consumer has to use that app So then you end up running into situations Where you have to tell people Okay, if you want to do this call to action Then go download this other podcast app That's different from your favorite podcast app Find our podcast, re-subscribe Then you can click on this thing I think it's the wrong approach To this kind of issue Yeah, it's a long, slow process That's what I see it as Where it's not going to happen overnight And yeah, it's not going to be for a year Maybe until someone has Or we have enough momentum behind it Where people will actually start using it And then they won't have to go And get that second app So yeah, we're starting feature by feature Adding in this is our first feature Adding in discussion threads Live discussion threads right in the app So the idea is to just slowly Add enough features And get to the point where it's as good Or better than any other app And then our real momentum starts from there I think if you make an app That meets some needs People will say, oh well You gotta go try listening in this one And they'll migrate, word of mouth It will help if it becomes that thing That solves those problems I am kind of interested in the problems I will say when I listen to your podcast Because the app, at least It wasn't out, or it's not out I couldn't get it, right? But you had the images on the webpage And I could tell that This was something that would be integrated in the app Kind of like the old days Where we had the... I'm blanking on the name What's the name of the type of podcast? Enhanced Enhanced podcasts Which is really... You're sort of creating an app That allows probably an easier way To do an enhanced podcast Especially now we have phones And tech has changed so much And I did enjoy the images That went along with it It was fun to see you at Facebook Or at your pitch meeting So I think that can be really good I think one of the challenges With Enhanced podcasts They're not looking at their screen At least when it's audio podcasts But it doesn't mean that people Can't or won't You know Because we had Enhanced podcasts And that kind of just died on the vine Are you familiar with Enhanced podcasts? Do you remember those days? Yeah, so I'm familiar with it I wasn't familiar with it at the time But we've also thought about that From day one is that I'm never just sitting there looking at it So it's very easy to swipe Through all the content at the end And there's a summary So you can just swipe through That was that Bookmark this Someone mentioned something An hour ago You can scroll through it And find that exact moment We have text, links Anything you want to put in it Indexables for Google Cross-platform, it's going to be on the web too So you can search and find Google results will show up and it will get you To that point, exactly that point in the podcast Because of our tags So that's populated from the users? Yeah, so we have We have all options covered Where either the host Tagged their own content We're tagging content for popular shows And then we're even trying to Look into an approved Wikipedia-style model Where approved members of the community Can tag their favorite big shows So it's something like Startup podcasts They might not tag it themselves But we already have people Listeners of the podcast who Have been tagging content for them Because they listen and then they just add a few tags Press save and then it will appear in the app So they're doing the community a service And then they can get points Kind of like Reddit or whatever you get Karma points And the kind of working well along this Idea Is Overcast kind of does this right now And there are some podcast apps Podcast plugins like Simple podcast press that do this Where you can place a timecode in your notes And it will be automatically detected So that If you say at 5 minutes 13 seconds We start talking about this In your show notes you put that And then simple podcast press reads that That's in your RSS feed Overcast also reads that So you can tap on that spot What could be cool How does it show it though Because I see no overcast interface Where does it show the content Yeah it's in the notes Same place as The podcast app for iOS So the way that most of these apps Are doing it Is that it's inside of The cover art Overcast if you swipe up on the cover art Then you start to see the notes I think it's pretty similar on the podcast app For iOS you either tap the cover art Or you swipe up But then overcast will automatically detect Those Time codes But what could be cool Is then an app like yours or something else Recognizes Whenever there's a line That starts or ends with a timecode Or that includes a timecode in brackets Or something like that Certain formulas that filter it out And then it generates a table of content In case the podcaster didn't do that themselves We actually had a listener Suggest that and said He would be willing to help us He codes For living himself And wanted to do it So yeah we definitely would want to do that Because some of them already have Chapters, even chapter marks In the podcast So the difference here We're doing it Right in, you don't have to do anything So the podcast player is just Part of the screen and then As you go As you go past it It just changes right there and you can click on links The image is changing and there's a link Associated with the image It's basically in the podcast But doing it right in the full screen And then you can scroll Up and if there's More and then you can have All the discussion thread would be right there too So if you scroll past the content You would always have that live discussion thread Live as in That moment of the show Yeah Hey Tony I mean you've been doing this So long Right? When we talk about how do you You said you're on Lipton so is that pretty much how you Get your analytics about your audience Actually I use also Blueberry for my stats Kind of going back Years ago When I started Libsson had Problem with their stats And there was even one weekend Where the stats were inflated That was to the point of being ridiculous But I found that Blueberry They really worked on their Matrix and they really have it down I really like The numbers have been Where they should be And not going crazy all over the place So I use them And it just redirects them So that they can Sample the downloads Where they're coming from and all that Do you know anything outside the numbers About who's in your audience? Do you have interaction? Do you run polls? I Basically on Twitter People on Twitter interact with me And As a result of doing this a while A lot of publicists have found Because I'm an interview driven Program and I deal With a lot It's not just The big boys but also The intermediates that maybe Do a B movie or Somebody who's kind of breaking In A few years ago I interviewed And this weekend he has Rogue One coming out My last podcast I played a segment of that interview Where What happened to him after this movie He did called Monsters and he was like Interviewing with all these people In Hollywood and look where he is now It's great to get those people Early on too But yeah Twitter has been really good for me To interact with people Who are more comfortable talking to me That way Much more than through email I'm on there every day And I get notices all the time And also people Kind of One of the bad things about it Not bad but people kind of push Their stuff on you Or what they're doing Mostly writers But I've also discovered some really cool Indie films that way too And I've had them on this guest as well Yeah and so I kind of ask Because I think Brian this is probably another Another area you're looking at At changing right I mean you listed Podcast download numbers and analytics And then as a topic To discuss Probably a while ago but I may not remember that but I think you know I ask That based on because we know our numbers We know downloads and stuff like that We get geographic numbers We don't get Information about our audience Per se Daniel I mean do you I'm photobombing Daniel He's doing a selfie thing Daniel had Have you done a poll How do you know more beyond the numbers That Lipson or Blueberry or whoever you get Analytics from How do you know more about your audience A couple of places so first of all The Blueberry or Lipson numbers They're all available so don't think I know Dave Jackson is probably like We fixed Lipson a long time ago Well Dave should have been here then Not on the floor at a podcast conference I use both so it's you know I'm not saying they're bad The downloads can help you know Where your audience is coming from Beyond that some people Get access to iTunes site manager Which is their special partner portal For invited partners And such that can give you some demographic Information But outside of that the best way to find it Is asking your audience One of the cool things that I've done recently Is and this may be The one and only reason That you might want to set up I'm going to get all marketing speak here for a minute A lot of responders Sequence on an email newsletter Please don't faint at those words It's basically an automated Email that goes out I've set this up I've had this for a while But I decided to change my welcome email So that when someone subscribes to my email list The first email they get Says thanks for subscribing And then I ask a question I ask what's your podcast or tell me about your podcast Or if you haven't started a podcast yet What's your interest in podcasting And I do say in the email just hit reply And in the PS I also put in there I'm serious I want you to reply to this email and tell me I made that change Just earlier this week at the time of this recording And I think I've already gotten back Dozens of responses Of people telling me Who they are, what their podcast is about The name of their podcast And it's not taking a survey Or anything like that It's just asking the question And I can read through those answers And then I can get Sure I could try and turn that into data So I can look at Oh I've got 99% this kind of audience Or something like that But it just gives me a feel For my audience So like most of the people who are responding Are saying I have a podcast already So I'm keeping that in mind Most of the people who are subscribed Or at least new subscribers already have a podcast They're not interested in launching But there are a couple who are interested So it's that direct connection The direct communication I think that gives the most value And sometimes In a way going with feelings Like how do you Feel about the people you're interacting with What's the general vibe you're getting from them It doesn't always have to be about Data and numbers, it's about relationships Absolutely One of the things I've done is Through the years I've done surveys And I've gotten a pretty good Feel of what my audience is And I mean I've The range has been like from 18 To like 70 Because of what I cover But I would say probably the core Is probably between I'd say about 21 to 34 And Most of them work professionally Most of them own homes Most of them are married And I've also interact with people Where people With the devices available have listened to me In their cars Or on the way to work I get that a lot on the way to work In the morning Have you guys changed your show at all Based on having more knowledge about Who's listening? What I have done is I think what I do is I release Things like a little earlier Like technically everything comes out Friday but I do it like a Magazine type program Interview program I release it Thursday night And people that take it to work Can download it that night Or have access to it that night So that they're ready to have it in the morning So that's I've changed to Make it easier for the audience To get the product a little earlier So Brian this is a spot Where you feel like you could add something Right? So yeah We If we have A significant number of users to our app Then we could know a lot more Because we know Everything that goes on in the app Down to the second Of course we're not going to track you personally Or try to get your personal information But just general data Of who's listening when So we have way more analytics Than just demographic data If people sign up with Facebook or Twitter Then we can have more demographic info Whatever they provide to Facebook or Twitter Then we can grab that And we can also grab When they're listening to the second So we can give you a Graph of your episode and the duration And then you can see your listener account As it changes over time And know anything Anything you can imagine So anytime you have people on your platform You can measure that stuff Whether you share it or not is another story So I think the analytics you get on YouTube Are absolutely amazing You can see pretty much what everyone's doing You can make adjustments To your content based on that If everyone's always dropping off at the same point You can cut that out Well, not necessarily Because when you're looking at stats That come from a single platform You're looking at stats in a box But they're statistically significant at some point Right? You only need a large sampling To give some idea If you look at YouTube stats What's on YouTube? It's video And you see, oh, people tend to drop off After so many minutes or so So that must mean short videos work Well, how long is Star Wars? That's way too long Aren't people leaving Star Wars five minutes in? But that's a movie It's a different context That's what I'm saying If I want to find to my YouTube channel I can do that based on stats Here's the thing, more information I mean, it could hurt You could do stuff that you don't want But most of the time, it only helps Well, like we see this with Stitcher Where Stitcher has traditionally been A streaming-only platform And in Stitcher, you get to see Your consumption stats and see how far Along people listen A downfall of that is That could be a Stereotypical behavior of Stitcher users Where they are streaming And they stop And that's when it stops And more apps that give us that information Because having Lips and stats vs. Blueberry stats vs. PodTrack Have them all You can get a better idea Are they correct? Are they accurate? Are they measuring similarly? Can you make any correlation? Not a lot of apps are giving that info If iTunes would give us They could tell us length of listen From the app, they could tell us that That would be Length of listen to me, if not very interesting I think is important There's some stuff that can be gleaned from that So Brian, you want to share Length of listen, which would be great I think I think it's very important Even for me personally, I only have 15th episode, the other night I released, but I had a drop off At around episode 4 or 5 And I don't know why Was it the previous episode That people stopped subscribing Or was it that episode I don't even know Length of listen You can see exactly Up and down, you can see when people Skip even Skipping is good, are they skipping my ads? Yeah, well that could be Bad ultimately for you You want to know that, right? You can see if they still got the impression People have to assume You're going to skip ads anyway For me, I would want to know If they got the impression of my service At least, so if they caught the beginning They skipped, well at least they got the brand awareness Right, as bad as it can be for you Meaning you're going to discover that a lot more people Than you knew before skipping your ads It can work the opposite, you can say Hey, I have a significant amount of people Who are listening to your ad Full listening to the ad or They're listening to 10 seconds, so get your message Get it in the first 10 seconds Making those adjustments, again I think It's really helpful Yeah, and we definitely Want to give Of the podcasters out there That aren't the big dogs We'll get all this for free That's awesome, that is really awesome I mean one of the things I've done is I've tailored My program To a certain length So that people don't drop off I mean I think I only produce One show that goes over an hour Because it's done A podcast version similar to what we're doing tonight Only it's just on pop culture But it's actually been very popular But I try to keep them at a certain length So that people don't You know fade out Another thing too is I don't spend a lot of time At the beginning of each of the shows Just kind of rambling about nothing And then finally getting into it I just dive right in So a person, you know I explain what's coming And then we just go right into it Into the meat and potatoes So they can enjoy it And get into what the flow Of what the program is That's listening to your audience I definitely appreciate that We try to start pretty fast here It's partly because of the production style But I do enjoy that I will say that if Dave is tuning in Dave, have fun there in Florida But if you're tuning in, even in the archive Thanks for checking us out Dave Dave right now is saying Yeah, he's a little worried He likes stuff to cost something Because then he knows it's going to be around Because free is a very tough business model Right Brian? Yeah, well that's why We only expect the people To pay that have the ability to pay So if you're not making any money as a podcaster Then how are you going to pay? So if you're making money as a podcaster And this stuff is relevant to you Then you will have to start paying So I mean it's the same It's like standard, right? So it's freemium, it's not just ad base No, no, it's freemium, we don't want to do ads I don't want to do ads at all, I've heard of other I know I'm not an old timer expert on the Poggots industry, but I've studied it enough In the past year to know what not to do Overcast, look at what they've done Marco Arment has done Overcast, aside From the pre-installed players Overcast is probably the most Popular player on iOS And First released it, it was free And then he sold a premium version So there was a free version and a premium version Then he changed that around To while everyone gets all the features But if you subscribe as a premium member You get extra features on top of that And More recently though, he said That's not working, that's not Growing the income as much as he needed it to So he switched it now to Everyone gets overcast And Nearly all of its features for free The only features that I think you don't get Are the features that cost him Like uploading your own media So you can listen to it later on Overcast That makes Doing now is he is displaying ads In the app, so that way the majority Of people who use the app Get to listen And get all the features they want But there is the minor interruption And the way he does the ads are very tasteful So there's the minor interruption Or the distraction of the ads And then if you become a patron Or you subscribe Then those ads are removed And I haven't heard him say anything Whether that's working, but I can see that Working better for him Because of that model But you're approaching it from the other side Where it would be patcasters would pay To have access to the data you have Right? Yeah, definitely. And so it's always free To the consumers. We don't want any ads We're trying to make it a business It could be hard. I don't know if it's going to work But Yeah, we're trying to actually have a team Like we have four guys We're going to be building this Every day and improving on it And I think we can We can make it happen Without interrupting people with ads Or charging them on anything If we have the hosts that want the data To pay for it. I've talked to hosts that They're like, oh, I'd pay you $200 a month I was like, oh, really? He said he'd pay me and I was like, okay And then also we have some other ideas too You talk about support with overcast How that you can donate So we want to put in tools For hosts to charge Any way they want They can ask for donation They can charge for a one time special episode They can monetize their back catalog of episodes We're just going to provide the tool There would be a one-click payment option With Apple Pay, something like that Because we have controlled the app We can do whatever you want We can put a paywall in front of one episode That's only using Nextcast Would have that paywall And that's a little disruptive That's a pricey thing to get Right now If you want to do that through an app Basically paywall It's not cheap What do you mean? Yeah Yeah, so we just Hopefully hosts would want that I'm just one host There's definitely enough It's just that it's not available to You're talking about the average podcaster The indie podcaster I think in line with that If you have a level That lets someone get in Affordably If it was $5 a month for analytics Or something like that You would get more Do you want $500 Or do you want $55 We'll have tiers We'll have tiers And if we take donations Instead of Describing different ways that we can make money So we can allow it to be free If we offer We take donations The host would just give us 5-10% of the donations Because we give them that tool Yeah, so exactly Everyone's using Patreon So they're hacking the system So we're just trying to bring that into the app In the email That I sent out about this episode Around I asked one question I said What feature would you put Into the ultimate podcast app So Daniel, you think about this All the time Set it yourself And put it into the ultimate podcast app What do you think is missing from Either the way you consume Or something you've noticed What I would want to see put Into an app and I know this is Real close to existing Is the ability to Share or save What I just heard So you're approaching it from the listeners You're the podcast consumer right now Yeah, and maybe we should have said this No, I just made me think of it When we talk about podcast apps There's this subtle difference Between the word podcast and podcasting So like a podcasting app Would be something like Boss Jock Or Road Rec Recorder Or something like that That helps you to create podcasts Definitely exclude those So my perspective here On podcast apps You're even talking about from consuming Not as a podcast producer Like what do you want On your listeners have access to It's interesting the first thing you came up with Was something for you personally As consumption I know Clammer is really close To this and Clammer I think is the closest We can get to this, it'd be great if it was built Into the app because even the Clammer experience Because you're working with different apps The Clammer experience just It's impossible for it to be as smooth As you'd want it to be I think the overcast to Clammer connection Is about as good as it's going to get What I'm thinking is like from my perspective As a listener I'm listening to let's say Social media marketing world with Michael Stelsner And in there His guest mentions A website to go to As a tool for something they're talking about And I think oh I want to remember That tool Now if I'm in the car If I'm busy Whatever the case I know I could try to remember to go to the show notes So right now my process is I've stopped the player and I tell Siri Remind me to do this Remind me to look at the show notes For episode 65 When I get to my office But what would be great is to Like bookmark that section And it'd be a 30 second or so section That I can jump back to later Audible does this really well Audible is not a podcast app But with their audio books Bookmark It bookmarks and creates an audio excerpt Of the last 30 seconds And then I could go ahead and share that If I wanted to or just have that saved For my own reference That's for me as a subscriber to podcasts That's what I wish was built into all the apps Yeah That's a great idea Someone suggested to me What if you could even have a little cheat code Like with your earphones And you could press up down volume With curry warriors Up up down down Yeah I think that's an amazing idea And would love to put that in I really wish That could exist but the problem is So many headphones are different And Siri I think would be the closest thing Even like the Siri commands Right now Aren't that good Someone said at one point That when you're listening to a podcast You could tell Siri Remind me about this later I have tried that in Overcast In the podcast app In other apps I don't know what these people are talking about But you can do that. It does not work At least for me. I don't know Maybe I'm saying the wrong thing But it will not remember That episode at all Or let alone that section of the episode For me Interesting Either from either as a producer What you'd like to have your audience have access to Or a consumer As someone who listens to podcasts Yeah, I think the thing is To be able to You know what Daniel was talking about I think that would be so important Like on my shows Like if someone wants to hear Like a quote or something Or just a reply To a question over To be able to save that a la clamor Without having to You know, go back later And try to find the time Exact time where it's said I think that would be huge But it sounds like as far as A lot of the other things that Brian is working on It's certainly singing A song that I want to hear So it looks like You're on the right track As far as from a producer Yeah, it's hard It's just the ideas And it's just the matter of doing them all Right, so what's the biggest barrier Than to getting your version Of a podcast app out For you, what's the biggest barrier Just for our company Yeah Well, it's just building technology We actually had to rebuild the app recently And Building technology is hard I'm not a coder myself I'm a product manager Getting a product out the door Is very hard And it always takes twice as long as you think So, yeah Wow I mean, Brian I know it's not easy, so man I know you have some sleepless nights, I'm sure Yeah Yeah But keep fighting the fight, man, definitely I mean, that's the goal We're trying to be sort of self-sufficient So we don't have to rely on funding We don't want to rely on outside funding And we just want to My goal is to just do this as long As it takes and just keep Making it better and doing Audience feedback And just go for years until it works The hard thing is With there being so many Podcast apps out there There really has to be A huge value To the listener To be for them To switch apps Or is there enough listeners That you can We talk about in podcasting when it comes to advertising I need a thousand true fans How many people Do you need to actually be Sustainable is a good question Because you don't necessarily need to You asked me a question Can anyone disrupt the giants The bigger companies in tech Apple, Acast, Overcast, Pocketcast And do you even really need to do that Alongside, you know I don't know if you know what it would take To sustain you but You probably don't need to win over A massive percentage of The podcast audience to be successful Yeah, I don't think we do And then like you said Daniel You just have to have something that's so much better That you go to That's the kind of idea Apple doesn't care about podcasts They don't make any money off it So they're not trying to do anything special Yeah, okay So they I think We can do something special Even if it's just an add up Of all the things we're adding Like okay we have comments so you don't have to go to twitter As a host you can talk to people Right in the app or fans can talk to each other We have the payment system You have better discovery You have the live content shown in the episode You have bookmarking If you have all this Better than any other app out there I think I asked on the past rounds Where's the like button in my podcast app I can't like an episode Or like a show Or have the producer see the interaction I would love I use twitter I get notifications on my phone, instagram What if my podcast app told me About what my audience was doing Just a little bit of feedback It's highly motivating When a podcaster gets a piece of feedback People email you When that first time happens It becomes real But to keep that constant interaction With your fans, youtube I get comments, I see it, I respond We talk Why isn't that happening on a podcast app So that's my ultimate feature I want my podcast app to work Like a social app Are we social media or not I love it You're here Yeah Why isn't my app telling me What's going on That's powerful There's a pitch I've never heard that one I love it, I'm writing that down I've heard of recommend button So you recommend it And then we can have algorithms That leads to better discovery But if you can get a push notification That someone liked it I know Yeah A feature that I've seen In a custom app Before A couple years ago There was an ambitious podcaster Who started a whole network about TV shows And it was called TV Talk And my wife and I hosted a show For them on TV Talk Great concept I think they had some trouble With just finding the right funding for it But they had an app They had a network But the brilliance in this app Was they had what they called a talk back feature And that was that In the Player There was a button you could press Right there while you're listening to an episode And it would stop the playback And allow the listener to record feedback And it was supposed to then send that feedback Directly to the podcaster They did even try some things Where it would include the feedback At the end of the episode So that people could hear what other people hear You think that's nice until Sounds like anchor You get trolls That's when it's not so nice And that's cool Anytime you can make that two-way conversation easier Is cool And of course we always have to deal with the trolls Starting super simple Just that feedback It's amazing what that can do for a podcaster To see someone Interact a like It's so easy to like something on Facebook That's why you can get hundreds Of likes as opposed to one Email or even a tweet response You know what I mean The lower the threshold, the easier the interaction The more people will actually have the interaction Yeah The social element Incorporated with the app would be huge For podcasters That's a lot of fun You have on here Who did have a general overall How to get podcasting more mainstream Are we mainstream yet? No I did an episode Where I just walked around LA and interviewed random people And asked them if they knew what podcasting was And what they thought of it Even in LA, they didn't know Did not know Just by the numbers What is it, 17% of Americans Listen to podcast monthly So it's definitely not mainstream The material definitely helped And it's going that direction But I would just love to Beyond our company Make podcasting more mainstream in general I'd like to think about ways to do that And yeah What's the Are we on the road to mainstream? There's not a barrier necessarily Other than time Yeah Education I think People aren't even educated about it They didn't know They thought this was just some weird thing That Apple put on their phone You know how Apple forces you Here's your presentation You're going to get a blackberry with all kinds of grud So much random stuff on Apple that I don't want So this girl is like I just thought it was some bogus thing that Apple I don't want that And then some people are like When am I going to listen to a podcast? When are you not going to listen to a podcast? Like brushing my teeth listening to a podcast Time People just need to figure it out What we need is some organization Like a third party organization With a lot of money That's passionate about podcasting To then just sponsor Like do a media blast Where they buy billboards all over the place Yes, billboards and newspaper ads And television commercials And take over this whole Facebook live Advertising campaign That doesn't make sense It's a podcast campaign And it just be about Hey, there's a whole world of information That you didn't know existed Check out a podcast today or something like that I wish someone Billed in here Or just There's no big company behind podcasting Because there's no real business model And it's all everyone's individual The host job to make their own money There's nothing that supports the system Where there's enough money for someone to do that That's what rattles the system The whole ecosystem of information today That's what makes podcasting So different And why I think so many people Struggle like traditional media people Struggle and want to change the space And conform it to their models Is because podcasting and blogging Are very closely Knit together And it's so much of Something that just bucks the system That's why I called my podcast To podcast because you really have to have Your capacity To go against the system Of gatekeepers and designated channels To host your own message With your own voice And the world just needs to discover that passion Some good stuff in the chat So Mark, he says Still explaining to people what podcasting is here In Australia and how to download them So he's pushing through And still finding that barrier there But Emily, this is great She took out billboards with just the ghost logo on it And people went nuts Trying to figure out what it was And she had to tell her parents What Snapchat So if people start asking the question Right, yeah, so I think the billboard idea Right, if we if the if Most people aren't listening to podcast There's probably a reason, right And it may be because they just don't know it exists So get people talking Get people asking Get people asking what is a podcast What does that mean, right And certainly, I think you can Within a group of three people Someone is going to be able to be The informative one on that one Yeah, I think, you know, one thing That I think has to happen is Podcasters kind of have to Band together And kind of promote their own medium And I'm trying to get Like different podcasters on my program Just that cover the same things That I do from a different perspective And I think that will That will grow slowly Like we've been doing over time It won't be that sort of We will be mainstream And you would think that if that was it That we would have accomplished that already Because I think we have International Podcast Day Which is really just about exposing people to podcasts On one day, but I think all podcasters Can do a generally good job Of at least once in a while Saying hey, listen to my podcast Or you know what a podcast is I periodically ask But yeah, I mean I think We have to continue that for sure Definitely educate as much as possible And that will probably never stop I did learn something recently About what you're talking about International There is sort of a barrier and I think There is room to grow That's going to happen soon I was just recently traveling in South Africa And the Philippines for some reason It was kind of a random combo I started interviewing people For a future episode of the podcast About what's up with Podcasting in their country And it seemed like a lot of the problem Was they just didn't have the data To even download a podcast They were aware of it, but they're like It's not big at all, everyone has to pay This one girl said I don't have a wifi at my house So she has to use data for everything So just downloading She can't even download it at her house To use it later So everything producers need to consider And we've talked about that before on this show You, in most cases, get to decide The size of your file And you really, since we're a global medium You really have to push out a file That is friendly to everybody And you're talking about these countries that have data caps So that's something I've wrestled with Over the years a lot Because in the beginning I was like I want this to sound pristine And it sounds amazing And my five second intro of music I think it's very important as a producer Yeah, very, very important Guys, I have a question I'm seeking advice here I've actually been approached By a company to run ads On my podcast They even have sponsors already The thing is What they want me to do is to change My RSS feed What do you feel That tells me something right there That sounds like a raw deal for you Exactly, they want to do Yeah, why does your sponsor want you to change your RSS feed? They want your show It's the company The company is called Open Stream And they're the ones that want me to change it And then they can run ads Okay So my reaction was I don't want to jump into that I would not do that So there are a couple things That different ways that people do this And the main problem is Most of the ways that traditional people are Approaching advertising in podcasts Doesn't work because people skip it I skip Any kind of dynamically inserted ad Which is where the ad is inserted Yeah Well, there's a podcast I'm actually about To unsubscribe from Because the ads dynamically Inserted are so annoying It'll be the person is like Well, special guest Here's the most amazing question ever I'm asking you this question right now But before that Let's take a break and talk about it And it's completely inserted That's bad on the production though Yeah, that's too old school Your show is worth more Than dynamically Automated inserted ads And your RSS feed is something To protect with Yeah, I agree I agree If they really want to be on your show You can have If they're really Is it something you would promote To your audience There's something that can be worked out Where you stay in control Of your RSS feed I'd be very cautious When people want to approach you Just I would protect my RSS feed Yeah, thank you, I appreciate that That's the way I was leaning But I wanted to get your guys So I appreciate that There were more topics on here I didn't even cover How to make the podcast ecosystem Better as a whole Be on the round table There you go We're listening to this As we head out here If you want to add anything else Feel free and let us know Where we can find your show So that everyone tuning in Can go check it out So Brian, thanks for being A new round table Good luck If there's anything else That we left out, feel free Let us know where we can find that When's the app coming out Or is that too many spoilers No, it's coming out very soon We're rebuilding it It'll be in early January It's great You can go to buildingnextcast.com It's our podcast site www.co.co We just want to connect with anyone So I would encourage anyone To find me on Twitter On any Email, the website, whatever Just say anything like, oh, this sounds great This sounds stupid, or here's an idea So my big question is Are you going to advertise on podcasts? Are you going to sponsor some podcasts? Oh, for Yeah, maybe, I mean We'll do anything we can Most of us will organically Talk about us because they like our products They definitely will Yeah, I'll try that Even if it's going out to some podcasters And giving them full access To the stuff for free So they can review it and try it Most people will have it for free So the hope is, yes Most podcasters will use it The smaller half Of the podcast world will use it Get it all for free anyway Cool I will check it out for sure I would mention it if I really like it That sounds like an approach That app, I can't remember the name That took the approach with Tony They came to him and said, we have an app We'll exchange a little something here And you can promote your audience Something to think about Where can we find your show? Buildingnextcast.com Nextcast.co The podcast is on iTunes Because we... Very cool Tony, thanks for joining us We've got all newbies here Thank you so much Anything you want to add? The best way is on iTunes It's sci-fi talk And also on my website sci-fi-talk.com You can download and listen to it there as well It's been a great year We've tripled our numbers From last year How did that happen? I can't let you go without telling me Everyone wants to know how to grow their audience Keep an eye on it Literally It's going to be... We have a lot of shows But right now we have about 260,000 downloads What was the... Can you pinpoint why you got tripled the amount of listens in one year over the previous? It really started at the beginning of the year I think phones Reason one Also that I I've also expanded my reach a little bit I'm on iHeart Radio as well Which is great And then also You know, also A lot of the sites that you mentioned on your previous show You know, iTunes Or iTunes Radio Things like that That I think had a lot to do with it And expanded it as well I find that I get a bump At the beginning of every year When people get devices They get holidays Make sure that you have fresh content And I think that Todd Cockner Always gives that sort of The holidays, people are getting new devices Make sure your content is all Oh yeah, no repeats Awesome We may not see you for a while After this round, we don't know We're pending baby But thanks for joining us once again Thank you. I think Our request here is simple For the perfect podcast app All we want is a combination of Anchor, Clammer, Speakpipe, Twitter Netflix, Facebook, YouTube, Google Patreon, and we want it for free And we want it everywhere That's all it is It'll be done in January Just mark that off Check it out I'm Daniel J. Lewis From TheOdacityToPodcast.com Awesome Thanks everyone so much PodcastsRoundTable.com Slash guest, sign up Check out the archive, we will see you next time On round 85, wave goodbye See ya Alright, good time