 Podcasters round table round one eleven one one one right across the board nice number Will Apple kick you out of Apple podcast soon to come if you're already in there. Are they gonna give you the boot? Why would they do that? Sounds like crazy talk, right? Well, it is but it makes for a good title Secure RSS. So we're gonna talk about that. I'm gonna talk about we got a lot of good podcasting stories to talk about tonight Including what else do we have checking Google to see if Your SEO is right. There's a whole anyways Dave will explain maybe we're not even talking about that I don't know Dave that we had some tricky stuff with that one 550,000 plus podcast in In Apple podcasts it does say active shows in the slug so we'll talk about that because that can't be right Where's the most popular? States that are the most most popular podcasts in every state here in the US and some loudness standard So anyways, let's meet the round table We have well Alan welcome to the round table Hello, this is my second time, but the first time didn't really count because the hurricane threw me off That's right. I'm last year when you were doing a topic about international coverage so thank you for having me again and hello to you and to Dave and The guy in California who's setting up his microphone. That's right Sean's gonna be joining us He's a he's a round table of the what do you call so a repeat round table? I don't know. I don't want to be careful. Yeah, he's a podcast round table veteran But gotta be careful because you know t-shirts t-shirts getting close Dave Jackson co-host welcome back. Yeah, Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting dot-com and Then Sean again, John Sean Thorpe who does support over at blueberry. Oh, he's popping up. He will join us. Hopefully Google wasn't being kind to his mixer. So we'll see if it grabbed his mixer at all. Otherwise, we'll take I hear you I hear your built-in microphone But I use you're still hearing my built-in. Yeah, we'll take what we can get at this point. So That's what it's gonna have to be I don't I don't know what's going on doesn't sound horrible doesn't sound horrible No, I mean that means he's close enough, right if you have to use the built-in get close. Yeah Except for all that except for background noise Roodle we'll put Sean on mute patrol. There we go. All right. Yeah, I'm gonna No, all right. I think he's got All right, it's gonna have to be tricky on the tricky on the on the turntables on the Okay, I'm babbling today. It's been a while. We've been going for a little while And I'm just I'm filled with I have all kinds of crazy energy today. It's been a crazy day videos I went and saw a podcaster talk Who just got an exclusive deal or Spotify signed him? He has a music podcast and they found him they signed him to a big deal And I wonder if I'm supposed to say this but he said because I was telling him how I thought Spotify kind of dropped the ball when it launched podcast now, they're finally letting other people in and he sort of Give me an idea that Spotify has like a maybe a board or they have something where they they have like their biggest goals And I guess podcasting is number one. So a huge priority. They're going all in They're paying podcasters some right when they excite they sign to exclusive deals Paying a lot of money to hire these people to produce a branded podcast essentially It's not only on Spotify. He can distribute other places, but of course it's gonna have some Spotify branding. So That's very cool. So I like that. I like paying podcasters to podcast All right, let's dive into some stories. Obviously we want to go with the lead here I want to bury the lead as they say maybe already have because it's been like five minutes But Apple will soon require secure Podcast feed. So I guess recently I didn't get one but Apple podcasts sent out a bunch of emails to podcasters Strongly encouraging podcasters to use a secure podcast Feed with an SL SSL certificate. That's pretty foreign too I would say even the majority of this audience like what the heck does that mean and It says in practice, this means a podcast RSS feed that starts with HTTPS Now you've seen this if you're banking or something you go there's a little lock on the icon in Google Chrome It's secure, right? Your information is cryptid as it goes back and forth That's about as deep as I'm gonna go with that But it says the email in the future the email says a secure feed will be quiet will be required for podcast analytics and also to submit new podcasts so Do you even know if your feed is secure? I guess is the first question. How do you find out but also? Does it mean that podcast currently in Apple are gonna get the boot at some point because they don't have secure feed? I do not think Even 50% 30% of people are ever going to come in contact with this information. They're not gonna know what it means It has to be YouTube simple and this is not YouTube simple So what does it mean for people who don't change the HTTPS as far as I know? I mean, I I would assume and I got some feedback from Daniel as well We do not think this means you're going to get kicked out of iTunes or Apple podcasts anytime soon Sean you and Dave both have probably been dealing with this ever since the emails came out Because you both do support one for lips and one for blueberry. Have you seen people panicking? for this I Wouldn't necessarily say on our end. There's been much panic, but definitely people are concerned about it and they are asking about it The kind of the way we're dealing with it is you know a blueberry we have to determine How they're generating their feed if it's a self-hosted feed or if they're doing it through us If they're actually doing it directly through blueberry then it's pretty much already there or Depending on what system they're using we may need to add SSL to what they're using but that's all stuff we do on the back end It's it can be a little more work if they're you know if they've got a self-hosted wordpress site And they're using the power press plug-in or some other method. It just really depends So how does if you are using power press plug-in so it's coming from your own website? how do you transfer to a secure RSS this this would be my recommendation the first thing you want to do is check with the web hosting company because you know your your feed lives on your website that's hosted by them and see what their options are for Adding an SSL to your site and most of them have Either their own service for example in my own case I use dream host dream host just has it right in their dashboard where they can add a let's encrypt SSL to your site for free and really all you have to do is just go into the dashboard Click a couple buttons wait 20 minutes or something and boom you're done And then the other thing that I did that's worked well for me is I went and just picked up a free SSL redirection plug-in that sends all All traffic to my website to the HTTPS side which includes the feed so in essence, it's just creating a redirect which you know, we've talked about those before on the roundtable and Pretty much everybody that's subscribed their individual Devices are going to see that redirect and just automatically switch over to the HTTPS feed And in my case personally and it seems to vary from person to person We don't really know why but in my case personally pretty much all of the major syndication points Apple Stitcher Google Play they Automatically switched over to the HTTPS feed the only one that I had to go in and manually update was tuned in so it's Pretty automatic for most people under most circumstances if they have to actually switch from an HTTP feed to an HTTPS feed, right? Okay, and Dave I mean, I'm on I'm on Libs and I have a couple different feeds But I think most of my stuff's on Libs and at this point and good news from what I know is I don't have to do Anything I'm hoping you're gonna do it for me Dave is what I'm hoping that space is going We're working with Apple to basically say anybody that has a Libs and feed Can you please just throw an S on that bad boy and because it's it's been We've been HTTPS since probably, you know, like whatever you was saying 2014 wherever they announced it. We pretty much put that in place And it's always been there just waiting for the day when somebody said okay, it's time and that's basically what Apple did I know I just saw some place where Rob Greenlee from Spotify or Spreeker Spotify Spreeker Yeah, wrong ass Spreeker was saying that Spreeker is gonna basically do the same thing. Yeah, and work to Work with Apple to have them if you're using the Spreeker feed update it cuz Otherwise, it's you know, it's not a huge hassle, but it's a redirect and it's just something that the average podcaster that's You know putting out their sermons once a week Those people want to dig into that so it's it's just great if you can have it automatically updated Yeah, and that's the key is that You know trying to have a hands-off approach or trying to make content here and having to worry about this stuff there will always be changes one of the pros big pros of being on a Dedicated podcast media host is that you can see this is sort of being taken care of For you or in the case if you're doing it, you know creating your feet on your own website Sean's got some some ways to help you but they have support right even if you're like, I don't understand that That's what Sean's there for right. So I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, it's a plug-in basically the Okay, I think most people can install a plug-in I'm gonna know about that I I do it with the the main tool that Sean mentioned I use the the power press To create my RSS feed. I have been using RSS secure RSS feed and HTTPS on all of my website since 2014 and I do have all of my websites with WordPress The only thing that I did differently from what Sean said was I did not do it with a plug-in I did it by just putting the code directly into the that HT access file in fact Dream host has that in their wiki. They have the code to put in there to accomplish the same thing Without a plug-in. There are sometimes when it makes sense to use a plug-in if you have too many Mixed content where some of them are not true HTTPS and you need to have the plug-in do that But if you have control over everything and you're able to make sure that all of the images and things like that are are set up for HT for HTTPS Then then you can do it without the plug-in So there are some cases where you need to use the plug-in if you if you have lost control of some of the graphics Or things like that, but what the plug-in does the same thing it the plug-in adds that code to the HT access file Which is a file that exists on all Web servers in order to to tell The system what it's supposed to be doing. So yes, I do it with the same power press and I I believe I I'm trying to think how how far back I went But I at least the recent shows that I did I only submitted them with HTTPS So it wasn't an issue for me. So go ahead give good I was going to say there are other reasons why we should have this on our websites beyond the RSS feed Since 2014 Google results have been punished if we haven't had forced HTTPS on our websites Which was the main reason that I did it way back then and the goal is we want to have in all of the modern browsers like Chrome and Firefox we want to have a green padlock if you don't have the green padlock it means that something is mixed content and The best way to solve that is to fix any graphics that are not coded Any graphic that you put in and we're talking about with WordPress any graphic that you put in manually way back when with just HTTP then that's going to show up as mixed content because your your website is going to have some things that are secure and some Things that aren't so if you can fix those things manually You're better off but if you have lost control of that then you can use one of those plugins and it basically substitutes Anytime it finds anything local. That's HTTP. It substitutes it. It just it's it's only like a millisecond, but it slows things down a little bit and of course In general when we're doing a web a website with WordPress we want to have the least number of plugins possible because they can eventually conflict and slow things down a little bit, but we use them when we have to and Sometimes if I inherited a site from a client and it's just kind of I'm not going to invest 20 hours trying to find out Where all the all the things are then I'll use one of those plugins But for the sites that I make from scratch I do it without the plug-in and I just have the the redirect code in the .htaccess file So anyway anyone who goes to the website without because you know, nobody's going to type in HTTPS manually, you know, unless they're doing a test or something it just redirects and and Anyway, there there there's a related article later on in our in our rundown But I won't jump to that now, but that's just my my feeling Oh, and the other thing is with Chrome if you have a website This is important to say now if you have a website without HTTPS Chrome for several months have been punishing us every time someone goes to a form and they type in the first letter It'll say insecure in the upper left hand corner and when the next version comes out It's going to show that unsecure button All the time and a few months later. They've said it's going to become red So they're basically making fun of website that don't have HTTP access HTTPS at the beginning which is which is something that they they asked everyone to do back in 2014 and they're they're basically saying it's it's it's late already. So we're going to gradually punish Yeah, it's choose your pun. Choose your punishment. Do you want a slower site get punished by Google? You want HTTPS or HB? Whatever websites suck like there is always something to stay on top of and good luck with that But you know as when we comes to podcasting, hopefully your host will take care of it if not Definitely want to to look into it because I have some good notes on here We don't wrap this one up because we're never going to get on to the stories Which is always a problem here, but some notes from Daniel, which I want to include and He thinks also I mentioned that it's highly unlikely Apple will kick out non HTTPS shows out of Apple podcast But they did already say that such shows will not have access to podcast analytics So you want to have that if you want to get your analytics and new shows, which is where I think the most critical Point is new shows will be required So you'll probably have in some point in the near future submit a show and if it's not HTTPS It'll just tell you hey this needs to be secure and you know let's take care of that again if you're you know Build on Lipson or blueberry or something that makes it easy for you spraker. You name it. It's gonna have to worry about that But most Again, most web host companies will have some free SSL certificate option now, which is nice Let's see. What else did Daniel mention? feed burner Does support HTTPS if you're using the special custom way. He's doing it with the my brand It does not but blueberry actually Sean has a has a cool new option called podcast mirror Dot-com and it's basically feed burner But better and it has a bigger limit than feed burner So I would highly recommend if you're looking into that kind of option if you know why you might want that Definitely go to a podcast mirror calm as your option But alright, let's that was that was one of my stories that was one where we've chewed up almost half the episode So the round so let's get to some others again Podcasters roundtable.com slash 111 will have all the links to even the stories. We don't cover some good stuff in here so check it out and Dave You're next on the list. Why don't you choose one of you've got three so good job? Let's let's stick with the theme of getting kicked out of of Apple. I love it So how do you get kicked out? It's really easy if you try to to spam the system There was a a keynote at Apple that James, I don't know what James's last name was but he was mentioning the different ways that you can get kicked out and one of them is is if you are actively Trying to scam the system and in spam the charts and things like that and he twice he said yeah, don't do that Yeah, don't don't just what would be so When I want to do when I want to test this out, how can I scam the system? What would that? What are they looking for? Well, there was a company that you could spend $15,000 with I'm not doing that and somehow I don't know if they were Sending money to people to go to your local Apple store and subscribe to your show on every Apple product or what the deal was but they were somehow manufacturing subscribers and So don't fake subscribers Don't fake subscribers. Don't write robots to you know, just sure do it the old-fashioned way with talent and a little elbow grease And then the story I put out here is from this weird company That was doing they were basically repurposing other people stuff So they would take the very top shows the Joe Rogan's the this American life whatever the two dope girls and the company was called owl tail and It was something like they called it like the top five and what they would do is they would actually they thought they were gonna be Okay, cuz they weren't taking like let's say they were doing it to my show not that I'm a top five show But whatever they're doing my show. They weren't making a copy of it. They were still I was still getting the download But somehow they created the system and this is where things got bad not that that was good But then they came up with a system that once the episode was done. They'd play an ad that the Podcaster was getting zero cut off and didn't know they were doing it and so Apple somehow figured this out and politely said Yeah, a buh-bye and the good news is that Apple is policing stuff within its store, right? And it's gonna kick out hopefully the cheaters when it can find them I'm not concerned about telling you not to cheat and get kicked out if you cheat and get kicked out See ya like I would yeah, you you don't have really there's no room for you here I don't you know, I'm more concerned about what someone could be doing You know You know not being malicious not trying to cheat the system. They just think it's good tactic like keyword stuffing, right? You know, what are what is something that someone in this audience is there something in did they give a list or something? I mean what is something someone could be doing right now? innocently That would get them kicked out Well, I've seen people that won't get accepted because They'll put one of the seven like there's a Right, but you can get kicked Can you get have you guys seen people can get kicked out for those things too, right? Like putting bad words in the title and not putting explicit Yeah, I had to help somebody this week that they had one episode that was explicit They didn't market and so Apple They so when they say take them out this means that they they temporarily turned them off or I mean what happened? Yeah, from what they had said they were removed so it wasn't deleted It was still like in their you know podcast connect, but they're like you need to fix this You need to go market explicit and we'll put it back in did they Inform the podcaster and most people would not know if their show got turned off It sounded from the person like they had been informed subscribe to your own show by the way Yeah, that's that's the big key and so they had gone through and they'd fixed it But you can't then resubmit your feed because when you go to resubmit it it goes Hey, this is already in here even though. It's not in there. It's like it's it's right. It's it's archive so I she had to deal with Apple to Get it back in there, which she eventually did but it took like a good week Sean and your support role. Have you seen people accidentally do something that got them in trouble? Yeah, usually what happens is In many cases Apple will actually send The podcaster and email but the problem is is the email is very vague It just says your podcast is no longer listed in our directory. Thanks. Have a nice day So then they contact us and we begin the troubleshooting process because sometimes there's just a technical issue with the feed and We just have to advise them on how to fix that but in every case At some point they have to contact Apple support directly and go, okay Well, I've made these changes to my feed. Please look it over and then usually within a few days of everything's good the show gets reinstated into the you know into the Apple podcast directory and It can be a struggle sometimes because as I said those emails they send tend to be vague So if we can't immediately just go, oh wow the feeds invalid because this is broken. It's fixed this then Usually the next thing that we do is we say, okay Well, you need to contact Apple directly and ask them why they took the feed out and they will tell you But it's that whole kind of extra step It would be much better if in that initial email they send they actually said we delisted you here's why Yeah, and then you can just fix it But instead you get the generic message you have to go ask them why and if we can't figure it out, you know They'll they'll tell you so yeah, I would say yeah, and sometimes yeah, and sometimes it is, you know, that whole explicit thing They're getting a lot more Just watchful of that so I would kind of suggest just any any kind of Uncertain language just keep it out of your show title keep it out of your episode title keep it out of any of your notes that are potentially going to make it over to You know Apple's directories which for most people is going to be your main show notes So, um, you know, it's they're they're not they don't necessarily care if you've got explicit language in your podcast itself But they don't want to see those words and episode titles They don't want to see even show titles and you know public places where someone who's just searching their apps might come across it Yeah, I find it interesting in the opinion section at the end of this article that dave link to it says if submission To apple podcast is a manual process questions ought to be asked about why these were approved in the first place Sometimes things can happen after right submit one change it afterwards So that could have happened But what I find interesting is that do we know is you know as things grow it becomes harder to curate things Manually do we know is the apple submission process still manual do human ears check it every We have what do we I think we have an article about five hundred and fifty thousand shows which we mentioned in the In the lead in here Sean you shake your head and yes Is every submission to apple still get checked by an actual person So far as I know There is a point where a human does have to validate it And what are they looking for that's the last step That i'm not a hundred percent sure obviously they're looking for because you can submit a classic trailer episode, right? Which is like 30 seconds of nothing basically. Yeah, exactly. That's why all the time we kind of You know people talk about oh well I want to launch and I want to launch on this specific date and if they if they're hard and fast on it I've got to be everywhere on a x then we go Well, what you need to do is put out the trailer episode so that you're already listed everywhere on your on your launch date And I'm sure a human listens to that I suppose More than anything else. They're just looking to make sure that maybe the audio passes kind of a basic level of listenability and then That you're not saying that you know You are the you know happy super clean podcast and it's just a 30 second line of expletives That you didn't mark explicit. They probably won't accept that But they're not going to obviously sit there and listen to every last minute of every last thing that gets submitted because there's no way They could have time for that And and that explicit stuff that they're spewing is over a bed of music that you don't have the rights to play the rights right Which is going to you know, that's a big issue Now with spotify. Yeah music is going to get real tricky But I guess that's a whole other topic on its own Sean let's just stick with you and have you pick one of your stories Sure. Well The one that I think is pretty relevant what we're talking about here is there was a recent Tech crunch article about how apple is quote as i'm as i'm saying quote hosting 550 000 plus podcast And the main reason I want to bring it up is I just feel that's kind of Bad reporting to say that they're hosting because they're obviously hosting I'm sure apple probably produces a few podcasts in house that they actually post But we know that you know podcast hosting companies or other systems are actually hosting I guess they're distributing them and I don't know in this case if The tech crunch reporter is just parroting a term that maybe they were You know given by apple or what exactly their source was So I just wanted to kind of call that out because we do deal with this Terminology a lot especially from new podcasters. We always hear how do I upload my podcast to iTunes Well, you don't actually upload your podcast items You're just adding show to their directory and your actual media files are passing through from wherever you host them So I kind of feel like that just doesn't help That misunderstanding in general when people see that term it in a publication like tech crunch, which a lot of people recognize But outside of that I do appreciate that we have this Kind of confirmed I guess number from a you know reputable source As far as how many listings there are in apple podcasts Because I know Todd Cochran's been saying for a while that it's over 500 000 And that's obviously from the information that blueberry pulls internally But that's you know, there's not like a press release out there about that So it's nice to see that number because then it's just one other thing that When we need to talk about podcast to the wider world and somebody still goes ah Isn't that just some guy in his basement like well, there are over 500 000 of them. So Um, yeah, I think it's it's good information to have that train. He hates you I know it's he knows he knows the conductor knows you're podcasting like he's I had I used to live that close to a train, but I saw I get it But they make what's funny about the article is they they actually make two What seem like big airs in the in a single sentence they say they're So here's the sentence apple podcasts currently hosts Not right north of 550 000 active shows. I doubt these are active shows, right? These these are probably 550 000 shows exist in the directory I would say what do you guys let's who wants to venture a guess Dave? How many of those you think are actually active and then of course we're talking about a subjective term here I would say 200 000 you think yeah, you you don't even think half shows. So by active What do you when it's subjective? What do you think when I say active show? What does that mean to you to me? put out an episode Within the last year the last year. So you that's a wide burst which I like Appreciate that TV show podcast. I can remember that yep, and they go like two months So, you know if they have let's say a half a year because their show I mean today in podcasting was from 2000 whatever six me rob Uh, gary Leland and that show technically is live. It's active You know because we we paid the bill and and the hosts are still there, but You know and it's amazing because it still gets downloads sure and it's like really old outdated material But that counts and that's why people complain all the time. They're like my show Is active I publish every week on the same topic of a show that hasn't published in three years And they're they're beating me in the charts. They get more subscribers I mean even if the con doesn't mean the content is is out of date or even if it is people want To listen to that in particular content and they subscribe not knowing that another episode is not likely to show Up anytime soon. So which is I don't know. I don't know if that's a problem I mean people have always stated that as a problem But allen, do you think that's a problem if you're a current podcaster? You know, is that a legitimate beef? I podcast every week, but I can't beat the show in front of me which more people are subscribing to but doesn't put out Active episodes. I don't expect to be discovered in itunes. Oh even better I I I don't count on that. I mean if if I get any listeners there. That's wonderful But I don't count on that and I do promotion outside of there. So You know, I I don't lose any sleep over that. What's your what's the best? What what's for you the best way people have found your podcast either by you doing it or something That it's I am not sure why but I have an advantage that that I take that I take advantage of Maybe that's redundant, but I I publish a half a dozen articles in pro video coalition magazine and I I am able to promote any of my other projects at the end of those articles So I think that a certain percentage are are being picked up by readers of pro video coalition magazine Which is an online magazine. Is it related content? some of it is I have four active shows and Uh, two of them are tech One of them has to do with health. So even uh, you know, and it's not in english But you know people worldwide read read pro video coalition So they might be interested themselves or they might just Tell a friend about it and the players are actually there embedded at the end of the articles So that's an advantage that I I I take advantage of and I also use You know twitter and and and facebook to promote them but I do not count on itunes and I I really don't know, you know in my stats I can see how many people are listening through itunes or apple podcast But that doesn't mean that they discovered it through there, right, of course Yeah, and so I mean I think a good takeaway for the audience is that you are going To an audience that already exists right and I have found for videos for You know podcasts get in front of the audience that is most likely to want to hear it I'd be curious, you know, if you list your Four different podcasts, you would think that the tech ones should do better And it would give you some idea that it maybe it's coming from pro video coalition But at the root of it, you know team up with somebody I mean what you're what you're not most people's owners realizes that like you said it's read worldwide I mean it's on the web, but that's a highly trafficked Website has got a lot of traffic. So it brings a lot of people in touch Potentially with your content. So if you're a podcaster and you're looking to get more exposure again, you know We talked about gaming the system and itunes like don't spend your time doing that If you are you're probably just not the type you're not in it for the content You're in it for something else You're trying to make a quick buck or something and again I don't I don't care about that like those people will be gone and they're not watching this show But team up team up with someone who has your audience because Alan's doing that and it's working out really well from him Exactly. And the only thing I'll add to that is that doesn't mean that I don't want to be in in Of course itunes. I do want to be there or apple podcast. I want to be Everywhere, especially the places where the listens count And the only place where I am and I don't know if I'm We practically get no traction there anyway, but you know the the Google play music nobody you know, we don't we don't get credit for it But it's such a low number of listens that it doesn't matter So I think the trade-off in that case makes sense But I don't want to be on anyone where where I'm not going to be counted in my in my general stats So but I definitely itunes. I mean it would be silly not to be there But I don't count on that to find new subscribers if I if I get them great But I I don't worry about it otherwise So Alan, why don't we just stick with you and go ahead and pick one of yours You pick either of these three stories that you have pick one that you would like to which one which one is more interesting to you Because I obviously there's two here on loudness and there's one on a 23 Continuation of the other let's go with let's go with the the last one because it's a little it's recent It's very recent and again when we talk about secure rss The letters even though everyone has gotten an email from well, okay No, like 150 emails about re-signing up to our list or the gdpr xyz 10 spam you think Let's talk about that. Okay in English the the acronym is gdpr which is general data protection of I can't remember what the r stands. No one cares Uh But in any case the the the the european government the the Yes, you're in the european community and this that a lot of people thinks that they just did it a month ago Because people didn't really hear about it too much in the us before but they actually did it two years ago in april so I'm actually a little bit more than two years ago they announced it and a lot of people thought That if they were not located in europe or they didn't have clients in europe that they weren't Under their jurisdiction, but as it turns out they are but I actually think it's a good idea Even if you're not concerned about getting a fine from the european government And I imagine that they're probably, you know, they have the money they probably have lawyers in the united states On on payroll to to give to make examples and and and fines Organizations, but I think there's a really good reason to do this Even if you're not concerned about that fine because that's debatable whether whether a small Content communicator whether whether they do online radio or podcasts or just text or whatever they do What maybe they even they just have a blog But I think there's a good reason to do it and it has to do with transparency So hold on let me stop you because I don't think I think most people are lost at this point What are you going to be fine for and what do you have to do? okay The first thing you need to do if you can you have to have a published Privacy policy on your website. Okay, so that does that just text does it have to pop up? But what is it just at the bottom? It's it's it's subject to interpretation all of the ones that I did I did it in between because I personally cannot stand pop-ups. So what I have I don't got the bottom I have a floating thing and as soon as you press accept it goes away forever At least in that browser on that computer We have the same problem with this as we're going to have with secure and most people this information will not reach Most people who have a website and you could argue that that's their Problem or their faults, you know, we'll be interesting like the Napster days when they start suing grandmas for downloading the Dixie chicks, we'll see, you know, then things will change but Um, you know, most people are not going to employ this Most people do not have any idea about how this would even be done. I Tried to do something with the email list here sent out an email six percent of people opened it You know, does that mean I have to burn my entire email list because they didn't re-sign up for the new terms of the gdpr Am I going to be fine? You know, it's so confusing depends how how you interpret it if you if you are able to determine Whether all of them are outside of of the european community or in what's called unknown territories because they block their ip when they signed up to your list then You you would probably be okay Not burning them But if you if you want to be completely strict about it, then you then you're supposed to burn them So it's the only one nation It's interpretation But if you know that they're in europe and they did not Upped in then then you're playing with fire by leaving them on your list Right, it's just like using a cd senior intro music in theory Someone will hear it and they'll sue you but you know, it's up to you to gamble for podcasters Is relevant because if you have a website if you have an email list two things I think you should have as podcasters although this is one reason why It might be a good argument for podcasters don't need a website even though I think you do but uh, dave did you do anything For this as it regards to in regards to your podcast. Did you send out gdpr? Or my podcast no for the school of podcasting website. Absolutely. Yeah, I added a privacy policy But you have an email list for your podcast, right? Yeah, and so for that. Um, yeah, I sent out the thing But I didn't um, did you get responses? Do you did you did you then? Not did you then delete all the emails for people because you you know mail chimp you can filter by like Europe you're up and stuff like that and theory we now have to like get rid of those people I refuse to answer that question on the I'm trying to incriminate you here live. Dave. It's recorded Dave gets the fifth amendment. Yeah, that's it Luckily, I don't have that big of an email list. That's something Here's a here's a little 10 second tangent when I move from a weber to mail to a convert kit Never ever turn off your old mail system until you verify that your emails are in the new system So I downloaded the zip file Uploaded all my other lists and as I'm getting ready to upload the last big one the school of podcasting I went over to a weber and said, yeah, you're done They're like, are you sure because we're gonna burn the bridge and I get burned that bridge And I uploaded the zip file and it said this is corrupt I think like like declaring email bankruptcy It may not be so bad to just start over on the email list The new people you get are the people are probably actually open your emails I find so many people on my list You know, I mean, it's hard email open rates are they're tough I mean a good open rate would probably be like, I don't know 17 20% I don't know what good rates are but they're they're lower than you would think so Most of the stuff for the the business side. I'm relying on stripe Like I don't I don't I can go in and look at credit card information, but I'm assuming now when somebody Cancels their subscription. They're gonna just you know wipe out. I don't know how you do that How do you wipe out somebody's information and then what if they want to look at the history? It's the whole thing's messy, but I'm relying very much on the technology that I use to Save my butt Yeah, it's um, I with all of these things again I just I know that less than 20 of all people are going to know what to do or even going to hear about it I'm actually going to make a change So it'll be interesting to see how these things shake out in the future But let's see if we can have a dozen clients who read the article and came to me and asked me for help For different degrees either on their website or to change everything at mailchimp and and that's why these are good, right? It keeps it keeps the people like that and it keeps people like you me and business Oh, it's not my business But if you do consulting there's work for you always because the powers of b are going to change things and confuse everyone Um, I may be hiring one of you soon to just fix my stuff It's funny because one person who contacted me he said I asked By webmaster and he said that webmaster it's not our Our responsibility because we're in the u.s. There's a key word him I said I said to him it's a legal question You don't ask a legal question for someone who's not In in that field either ask your own logic or ask your lawyer But don't ask your webmaster a legal question Just come to a decision and then decide whether you want to do it or not But you know, it's just it's not it's not that person's field of expertise when someone comes to me and they use the word webmaster I know they haven't asked a question about the internet since like 99 So that was the term here. I know Exactly, that's why I need to say the source it rings bells. I'm thinking yep I can see why I need some help master a podcast question. You know just yesterday. Dave. I was checking my hit counter And it said my podcast is doing amazing Yeah, I'll be at the little under construction gift on the bottom of my website So I I think this is a good idea even if you're not worried about a fine from the european Oh for sure. Yeah, if you can I think you can avoid a civil Lawsuit by having the policy published. So I think it's a good idea to have it Yes, if you can do these things and if you're listening to this show You are the type that would actually take action on this the 2% of us do it, right? I mean, you know, of course protect yourself for sure Yes, if you can do it And you're aware and you have the know-how or reach out and you should definitely do both of these things I don't think the majority will but It's good if you do that's the benefit of hopefully listening to this show. You don't get sued We're aiming for that here at the round table. Um, let's try to get a couple more stories in Uh, Dave Do you have something else interesting here? What is this? file format this is now so we this is Hot debatable stuff based on read always read the title. We should always read the title because then it gives us context is uh, technical analysis of top podcast and what it's looking at Is I thought okay. We're doing different one. I like the file format. Is that the same one? Yeah, same one. So I like what you the title you have in the thing It says file format. Are we worried about space and download speeds highly controversial? Yeah, so I've always told people, you know, you should be doing 64 kilobits mono 32 kilobits Did I say 32 64? No I'm all I'm breaking the debate here mark maren does like 23 it's something crazy low Crazy low kilobits. I thought it was 53. I remember it was this odd It's low. It's it's odd, but it's like under even like what we recommend at the low end Yeah, because I usually say 64 mono or 128 stereo 32 Stitcher was one of my complaints. Stitcher used to take your file and make it like 32 and they always even the ceo in talks would He would Offer this as a benefit and I think maybe that's partly what this article was as a benefit to the end user when it's like clearly It's for them. It's saving them money, right? I mean all those the larger the file size the more bandwidth They got to pay for Uh, but you are able to get that changed if you're very interested in that for stitcher and I don't know if they've upgraded that But anyways, go ahead Dave. Yeah, so what they did is they analyzed the top 100. I'm assuming that's out of apple podcast and I was surprised that uh 77 were stereo and 23 were mono because I've always thought mono mono mono unless you have if you're really crazy about your music If you're doing some sort of thing that needs that stereo separation, you don't really need stereo I use joint stereo which I which I have always called the middle ground the happy place the goldilocks setting Now can you just I don't want to I don't want to put you on the spot What's the difference between joint stereo and stereo? We've hit on this before and not a hundred percent clear Alan might know because he is into that stuff Sean may know because he's nerdy as well like the rest of us but For me, it's the benefits of mono way the benefits of stereo. It's like a fake stereo But it it makes it smaller. I don't know go ahead. What what I remember about it is that it instead of Including the information from the left and the right what it does is it includes the differences between them So it's it's a it's a way of doing compression of the left right balance So that's what I remember about it and and I At there was one time in the past where I was using that but I'm not now. I'm doing 128 stereo Now he went up most people don't go up Sean. Is that sound What you know about joint stereo? Yeah, my understanding is pretty close to what Alan is describing when you're doing true stereo You are taking you know the source audio and you are Encoding it exactly on the left and the right side is what's in the original source So in essence what you're really ending up with is a file that actually has two complete mono sides in it Whereas obviously you've got a mono file and it's only got one channel all the way through Well joint stereo kind of looks for Those differences between the two channels And when it sees a difference it puts it in there But then otherwise it mostly kind of keeps it one channel across each side It's it's kind of hard to explain but I like that essentially what's happening Now that works for me because what I like about it is that I again like I said my Completely untechnical explanation is that it's a benefits of stereo or fake stereo with the benefits of mono So if you have music It sounds like it's smart enough to kind of know there's some stereo stuff going on It's not going to just make that music automatically mono, which is going to sort of center it in your forehead It won't waste space. Yeah, it's great. It's compression. Just like alan said Yeah, so anyways, that's why I love it, but it's not always a default Yeah, I like it a lot. So anyways the graph shows that 53% are doing 128. I was surprised Almost 15% are doing 192. Yeah, well people don't know this is again people do not know this stuff Right and then you you actually go up to 256. There are eight people eight people eight percent You know, so these are really high and these these are the people that upload one file It's whatever 30 minutes long And then they want to know why they're out of storage space at their media host because you're you're using this giant file size And I was always worried about download speed I was always worried about space on people's phones And it just may be the case that nobody cares about that anymore We all assume that if you're listening to a podcast you have Not at all. Yeah, the thing for me is I have like an artificial limit. We are an international medium, right? So you have to think that way. I mean here in the us Yeah, we have incredible bandwidth for a lot of people but even the middle of the country a lot of people don't You have to think about people subscribe to probably a whole bunch of podcasts So you should you should have some consideration for the end user and the bandwidth they may have cell phone plans Um, a lot of people don't have the ability to download a really big file like that and to do it Not just your show, but multiple shows. So, you know, I split the middle this show right here Oftentimes comes out 64 kilobits mono because we run 45. We always run an hour sometimes hour 20 So once I that 50 megabyte sort of threshold for me even 40 is pushing it I've seen complaints from other podcasts that I work on You know from people who are in other countries saying hey, this is 55 megabyte. I can't download this not everyone's on wi-fi, right? So it is something to consider and that's why I enjoy joint stereo, but I'll do like a 96 joint stereo But it's a sliding scale for me. I don't know about you guys, but I'll go anywhere from 64 mono up to I don't do 120 anymore Because I find 96 joint stereo I am not really hearing a loss and I'm pretty picky about those things Technically, maybe you can hear some loss, but I know, you know Sean, do you do us? Do you have a sliding scale? Is it always the same for you? I'm almost always 96 kilobit joint stereo and I've been that way for Over 10 years 10 above years at least. I just feel like what you like what you say, right the the sound quality between 96 joint and 128 is just not that procedural to my ears I think I have pretty good ears and you still get a smaller file size usually a more manageable file size And to me it sounds a bit better than 64. Yeah Unless I have a very specific reason, you know, if I'm working I do some audio production freelance If I have a client that says, you know, my target is this Then I just give them the 96 unless they make a specific request otherwise And I think that works well for most circumstances now I guess if I really was putting out a really long show then I might consider Because that file size thing is important and we do need to I think keep that in mind, you know, I'm I'm fortunate in that You know, I do live in North America. My data plan on my phone is more or less unlimited I don't download podcasts anymore. I just stream them. It doesn't matter if I'm on wi-fi if I'm out But I understand that I'm fortunate to be able to have that and not everybody does Yeah, for sure. It's funny how many things we've talked about on this round That are that just add to the uh, it gives fodder to the idea that podcasting is too hard, right there These things we talk about A podcasting needs to be easier to be more inclusive of everyone and so Again, I think in the pre-show I talked about how podcasting really needs to be as simple as youtube Um, it's kind of upload and move on to your next content So we've talked about a lot of things and I can understand why some people think this stuff is hard and There's part of me that enjoys the difficulty because it does weed out some content That's just bad or not there for the right reasons, but We want everyone to have a shot. So uh, definitely hopefully some of these things and I think in most cases We've heard that, you know, if you Spin the money on a decent host, which doesn't often mean a lot more money Just means a little investment in your show. You'll uh, like a blueberry spreeker lips and there's a few of them Um, it helps with a lot of this stuff now related To I talked about the podcaster I went and saw today who got picked up by spotify Now he may have a A bigger reason it's a music show and if he's using music from spotify that they're letting him license He may have a reason to do 128 stereo, right? And so different considerations for every different kind of show but alan Uh, we'll go a little bit more this can again We're gonna make podcasting sound extremely difficult, but let's try to keep it real real short But briefly tackle one of these Lufs the loudness Units full-scale loudness standards for a podcast Seems that you've got an article here about it being increased and I spotify is one of the reasons for this Spotify is one and al x al e x a is another one. Oh, yeah, not we can't say that out loud I got you no, but we're talking about the echo devices from amazon whose character is al x a and For different reasons rob walsh and I happen to agree about this and I'm sure dave has heard rob talk about this but Both because of amazon and because of spotify. They've basically raised the bar and Some people might say and some people might think that i'm going to say is sexist But i'm talking about technical things now. Some people might think that al x e x a is hot Or hot er and and she is but i'm not talking about the way she looks. She doesn't even have any appearance I'm talking about the volume the loudness that we hear Both she and spotify are minus 14 which is too Lou or too lu Louder than what was the De facto standard for online content up until before they did that and that's why I decided to do it and I published two articles about it and the second one was was about How to accomplish it and the first article covered how to do it with with alphonic and it said that hindenberg journalists was adding it and then in the second article I Went into much more detail. I got a lot of screenshots Most of which I made myself And some were supplied to me by adobe But the good thing is that it's much easier now to do this if we want to Okay, so I missed the core of this, but i'm assuming First of all, you missed you missed the uh the play on words with al x a being hot or hotter But we're not being sexist. We're saying that she's louder. So we're catching in a technical way Yes, she's she's she's hot. Um, my question is what? So what what loudness are you? processing or producing your Show at because of al xa and because of spotify. I'm now doing minus 14 instead of minus 16 Which is what we were doing before. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not well Let me explain the problem if you don't if if a listener hears your show on an echo device Uh, and they're going to hear al xa's voice much louder than than your show And that's not a good experience and it's going to it's going to make it seem like you don't know what you're doing Because they're going to no one's going to then no one's going to listen and think it's the producers fall I'll first first of all, they're going to think man This little box is screwed up But I have what I'm and not you know, I'm obviously being a little ridiculous But most people will not know the reason why al xa sounds louder than than the show and and and again Again almost no, I did it. I did it. I don't have one. I don't have one of those devil machines So I don't know why I don't have to worry about it. We're screwing up Dave But um, so does he spell them like yeah So, okay, so you made the case my question Dave, you had the podcast about about our friend here um with an a Are they pulling is it a separate file because here's the thing. I'm not producing it minus 14 It's too loud again. We're talking about another issue that almost nobody as podcasters They're going to most people are not doing loudness spec Right and at some point. I think the platforms. Here's here we go This is how it's fixed and it's going to how it's going to happen platforms are going to start doing it for you Okay, itunes podcasts whatever they they have this as an option used to be on your ipod you could set like Hey, do this thing that makes everything is called sound check And it does it for you So again, this cannot be up to the producer a good producer will know it a good producer will do it The majority of people are not going to know it or do it so I think the platform is going to do it when we submit to the a and Spotify are they getting a are they taking their own file xa is a pass through And spotify actually Re-download, yeah, they they which is which is bad because it's taking our quality a generation down But we can't control that whether we're at the level that it wants or not They're they're going to re-encode it So I can tell you for me. I'm going to stick with minus 16. I think it's accurate I think it's the best way to go, but that's again, it's subjective in its opinion I follow a produce new media at produce new media paul. He's amazing But again, if you are into this stuff, everyone's going to produce at whatever level they think and they change it on us Some platforms want something different depends where you're going Also, if you're if you're going to be sending the same show to the bbc It has to be at minus 18 right, but that's different Because that that's terrestrial radio exactly if you're if you're sending it to an atc channel in the united states It's a different number. So it depends where you're going But as long as that's not but but then we've broken the wall of podcasting and we don't care about those radio people We absolutely don't care Well, it's it's literally a couple decibels. I've looked at the difference between the two and it's like you're Perceptionally, Dave. It's about perception and your ears are going to bleed Well, it does. I know for me, I have a daily briefing on the woman in the tube So I'll wake up and say what's new and she'll play I think it's like a bible verse of the day and then she'll play something Like here's something you can do with the woman in the tube And then when the daily show comes on And they get that bad bad bad that horn thing it blows my head off So they do need something to adjust the volume level because they need to just do it themselves Like I mean npr comes on. It's like new from npr. We're still dealing with this So like the reason this exists loudness standards exist in television radio is because People produce music to be louder than the next person people produce Uh commercials so that you are so that they Stick out they want it to be like in your face and they want to stick out a commercial so that you actually hear it So the platforms Need to be adjusting to whatever they want it to be they need to do that. However, they're going to do it, but As a good producer I want to clarify rey what that means if if if you're asking amazon to do that They're ask you're asking them to make a copy and Do a generation loss And also screw up our our stats. So i'm be careful what you wish for well I mean doesn't I mean some stitcher does there's pass through stats too like stitcher will actually send us through Stitcher stitcher stopped re-encoding about a year ago All right, but even then there are still something like spotify We'll send stats to libson even though they're taking your file So it depends on the information that they want to pass through because they have it Exactly. It's a toss up. I would agree that it's a good idea for them to do it as long as they guarantee That they're going to send the stats Across and maybe and what i'm saying too is maybe the maybe the apps can do it, right? Like the ipod used to I don't know if it was coming from the ipod or what but Maybe it's a solution that can be handled in an app. I'm sure marco will figure it out at overcast and and And I think he already has it there is this feature in overcast and guess what? He's not taking your file. So it's already being done By the app. So i'm the app should be yes. I agree with you and app can do it I love voice boost on over there you go. There you go Because I never have to you know, I set the volume and then it's usually pretty close Unless somebody just is clueless and again. Yep. No, I look there it is I mean I again I agree. I think a good producer knows these things I just don't think the majority of people podcasters are ever going to come in contact with any of this So And I just want our medium to grow so it needs to be easy again needs to be easy I don't know. What do you think sean? Where are you producing at? Loudness Loudness wise, you know, I'm still I still might my target is still somewhere in the the negative 16 Lofts range for the the final output and that's what i'm going to continue to shoot for I think kind of my overriding thought on this at the moment Is so far as I know None of these syndication points that includes apple that includes Amazon spotify anybody that even makes a suggestion as far as A loud consideration They are all suggestions. They're not actually evaluating your audio and going nope. You're off We can't have you on our platform And the reason I say that is the reason I say that is I don't want people who hear this To have another freak out moment and go. Oh, no, I've got to make sure my audio is At negative this or negative. Sean just doesn't want the support call right I don't mind though. So, I mean, I don't I don't I wouldn't prefer a rush of them But but you know, we we talk about it in this episode like podcasting does sound hard when people don't understand everything And for me personally, I'm just geeky enough that I kind of know how to do this I have a system in place that seems to work, but I I don't know for sure that it's the best But when people just happen to come to me and they go i'm concerned about this loudness thing I say try alphonic for sure. Got it figured out. They'll get you there With the the the least amount of work on your right. Yeah, for sure. Alphonic was the first one to add Minus 14 to the list of course minus 16 is still on the list But they they had it before any of the other apps that I eventually covered and covered their Screenshots and everything alphonic alphonic offers whatever you want it to be depending on what you're going to go on with your preferences Georg from alphonic is very good at iterating. And so yes, he is not taking a side He's making available to producer to have the tool that they want, which is which is really cool Yeah, alphonic is uh Is a big hit for me. We love alphonic. Yes um Let's see Thanks for putting up my energy today. I told you I had a weird energy man. I'm just ready to like let's go rounds Let's go around her. So we covered uh a few stories. I we got most of what's on here that's about Our time I should let the live people go back to their lives But if you have anything else to quickly add feel free otherwise We will uh, thank you and uh, give us the the one url the one podcast you want Anyone still listening to check out And uh, that'll be it. Sean Thanks for joining the round table. Sean is my uh, he's a go-to for the round table when I need some technical stuff I bring on Sean. So thanks Sean. If of course, if you know if you're close to 10, this will be the last time we see you But thanks I still got ways to go. I think maybe this is round table number five for me. So I've still got a few Opportunities left, but thank you. Right. It's always an honor to be here. Uh, you can find me at My my I guess my main website. That's Sean shawwn.mx. Everything I do is listed there Very cool and alan thinks we made it. No hurricanes taking out the uh broadcast tower It's not even raining the internet's held up. It's not even raining. All right. Well summer summer here in the u.s So although miami summer probably still means are you in miami's probably still means yes Yes, i'm in coral gables, which is adjacent to miami. Very cool. All right. Well, where do you want what you have several podcasts But where do you want us to find? Just have them go to alan tepper.com which is double l a n t e double p e r And then everything else is available from there. Very cool. Yeah, check out alan stuff on pro video coalition. He's Highly technical. He did he dives into the stuff. He goes deeper than I I have the patience for so I appreciate alan and all the good stuff. He's doing over there and uh Very very good. And uh, what is the state where you live because you obviously live in a state Where you are able to use joint stereo without a prescription, right? Yes, california, of course I've been using joint for years here in california. So joint stereo is legal. No prescription Yeah, I I just bought joint stereo on the corner before this episode. So And this one will be coming to you in joint stereo. Actually, it's mono. I uh Okay, i'll stop going with the joke. I got rid of all the junk. All right. Dave jackson coast Please reel it in here, buddy. Yeah, you can find me at school of podcasting Dot com Who an hour goes fast and that's good because in this summer I shut off the air conditioner people are sweating podcasters. We uh We sweat for our craft. There we go your art All right, everyone podcasters roundtable.com slash guest if you're still listening You're the type of person that would go over to there and sign up so we can get you on to a round Again, it's much easier. You don't have to have a topic even though. I need to change the email form I probably need to ask you about gdpr first. So maybe that may ever happen but we will bring you on a couple stories and uh We'll get some we'll learn from your experience. That's it round 112 next time Wait, goodbye Man, no, that's the wrong the mouse doesn't work. You got to use the trackpad