Podcasting in the Arab states and in India; plus the two billion US industry

We speak with Stefano Fallaha from Podeo on podcasting in the Arab states, and Gotham Raj Anand from Hubhopper on Indian podcasting after YouTube. Plus, all the latest news from the podcast industry.

We use chapters here, so skip through stories if you're a lightweight.

Chapters

• 1:22 Podcasting hits two billion dollars
• 5:43 The Spotify Partner Program expands
• 7:40 Micropayments in X?
• 12:33 Audacy behaving badly
• 17:11 Netflix to get into podcasts?
• 19:34 Buzzsprout's subreddit
• 20:35 BBC Studios partners with Audacia
• 21:23 BBC tells presenter to stop
• 25:41 Interview: Stefano Fallaha, Podeo
• 55:37 Flight Story hires Leon Farrell
• 58:08 Are awards good things?
• 1:00:40 The Webby Awards winners
• 1:02:21 The London Podcast Show
• 1:05:16 Interview: Gautam Raj Anand, Hubhopper
• 1:23:20 Inbox
• 1:35:01 Sam and James's week

Transcript

Gautam Raj Anand: 0:00

The Pod News Weekly Review uses chapters. Use a modern podcast app to skip through the stories if you're a lightweight, or listen all the way through like an OG. It's.

James Cridland: 0:09

Friday, the 25th of April 2025.

Announcer: 0:12

The last word in podcasting news. This is the Pod News Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi.

Sam Sethi: 0:21

I'm James Cridland, the editor of Pod News, and I'm Sam Sethi, the CEO of True Crime.

Stefano Fallaha: 0:26

So True Crime is actually Sawal Iftarit, so it's the number one podcast in the UCC. But it's not only true crime, it's also a mix of cultural or personal journals.

James Cridland: 0:36

Stefano Falaha from Podio on podcasting in the Arab states.

Gautam Raj Anand: 0:40

Plus Ever since YouTube came into the market and they think about podcasts as a synonymous word with interviews. Plus.

James Cridland: 0:55

Gautam Rajanand from Hubhopper on Indian podcasting after YouTube and the two billion podcast industry, odyssey behaving badly and micropayments from X. This podcast is sponsored by Buzzsprout With the tools, support and community to ensure you keep podcasting, start podcasting, keep podcasting with buzzsproutcom. From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Sam Sethi: 1:20

James, let's kick the show off then. Right, do I go? Boom or do I go? Oh my God. Finally, I don't know which way I feel, but podcasting is now a $2 billion ad industry in the USA. Tell me more, james.

James Cridland: 1:34

It is. Yes, we have finally broken $2 billion. I have to say it was a bit of a surprise to me, given that last year wasn't a fantastic year for many people. Quite a surprise to see a significant growth for podcast ad revenue in the US. It broke $2 billion and in fact has earned $2.4 billion. According to the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers, who have put together the Internet Ad Revenue Report, in total internet advertising revenue hit $258 billion in 2024. So you know, podcasting is still less than a 1% medium, but still nevertheless pretty good news, I think.

Sam Sethi: 2:19

Yeah, it's great news, but how do they measure it?

James Cridland: 2:23

It's quite an interesting way of doing it. They actually talk to a ton of people, a ton of ad agencies and people who are actually buying podcast advertising, and asking them for their numbers. So it's something that they've done for some time, it's not unusual. There are a couple of other companies who do the same sort of thing, because obviously, at the end of the day, everybody wants to know what everybody else is doing anyway. So, yeah, but that's basically how they've put the numbers. Now the question, I suppose, from my point of view, is what's a podcast? Because obviously that will make a difference in terms of what this means for these numbers, given that you know YouTube may well be a proportion of that. You know how much you know. Can we claim YouTube, our podcasts in here and et cetera, et cetera. But still, I mean, it's still nice to see that we've bashed through the $2 billion ceiling, which we've been trying to do for a number of years now.

Sam Sethi: 3:28

Is there a European or worldwide report? I mean, do they extend the numbers beyond just the USA?

James Cridland: 3:36

There are some reports that I have seen from other countries, but it's a little bit more difficult to get that information, you know, on a comparable basis. So, yeah, I mean it would be lovely, wouldn't it, to see what the global figures are as well. Is anyone predicting three billion, particularly for this year? Because who knows what's going to happen, given the economy right now? Who knows whether or not everybody is going to go gangbusters later on in the year or if everybody's going to just pull back and not do any of that stuff?

Sam Sethi: 4:15

Would any of this be also a boom based on the back of a presidential election?

James Cridland: 4:21

Well, quite a lot of. You see, the difficulty with a presidential election is actually quite a lot of people pull their money, pull their ad money, until the election has actually happened, and so, of course, the election only happens in mid-November, so that doesn't necessarily mean a ton more cash. Now, what it means for radio broadcasters is it does mean a ton more cash because radio broadcasters normally get quite a lot of political advertising, not really seeing that for podcasting. So yeah, so I'm not sure, to be honest, I'm not sure that the presidential election actually helped these numbers. I'm not sure that the presidential election actually helped these numbers. I mean, certainly what we've seen is that people really didn't want to pay until after they knew who was getting in and then they can make their plans and everything else. And that's certainly what my business saw was not very much spending towards the end of the year and then all of a sudden, december, january, february quite a lot of money in the market. So yeah, so who knows what happens this year?

Sam Sethi: 5:40

Okay, well, we'll watch this space now. Moving on, the Spotify Partner Program was available in Australia, canada, the United Kingdom and the USA. It's now grown to nine new countries. I thought when I sent you an email, james, that I was being really clever. I found something, only for you to send me a link going no covered that March 27th I was like, oh, okay to send me a link going no covered that March 27th.

Sam Sethi: 6:08

I was like, oh okay, but it is still a case that on April, the 29th, they will be rolling out the programme in Europe.

James Cridland: 6:12

Yes, and this is good news for two sets of people actually. Firstly, it's good news for video creators in Germany, austria, switzerland, france, netherlands, belgium, luxembourg and Ireland. All of those places can apply for the Spotify Partner Programme and money from their podcasts, whether that's in audio or in video. So all of that is good news. But also it's good news actually for those of us who are in other countries Australia or Canada or the UK or the US because until now, you don't earn money from people in countries where the Spotify Partner Programme isn't available. So all of a sudden, you will get more cash coming in from the Spotify premium users in those countries as well.

James Cridland: 7:04

So I think I calculated 43% more people. Now, obviously, different shows are more popular in different places, but that's a big, that's a big exciting, you know push, I think, for potentially earning cash with the Spotify Partner Program. Of course, there's a lot of discussion about that right now. We had Maja Brohovnik on the show last week and she was talking about exactly that. But yeah, it's good news, I think, for quite a lot of people.

Sam Sethi: 7:38

Now, moving on, james X, formerly known as Twitter, made an announcement. Now, this is not directly related to podcasting, but I thought it was worth you and I discussing it, because they are adding wallet support and micropayments. Now, I've long said that when I was at Netscape, it was not Netscape that made the web, but it was Microsoft, and most people were surprised. Yes, netscape was a scrappy startup with the browser, but actually Microsoft, putting it into the operating system and making it one-click access for the mainstream, was what made the web take off. And I've long said that one company larger than you know, the podcasting 2.0 apps, if they adopt the wallet mechanism and also support micropayments and take it to the mainstream, will help us all in the podcasting world, and I think, sadly, it's x and not another company.

Sam Sethi: 8:34

But again, uh, this is the announcement from linda iaccarino, the so-called ceo, and again, nobody knows is she the ceo of xai or X? Anyway, that's another question, but this is exciting news. I haven't got any more details other than Visa are behind it and they are going to allow you to connect to your debit card and it is peer-to-peer payments. So any thoughts?

James Cridland: 9:01

Yeah, I mean. I suppose the question is, does this? I don't see the word micropayment in her announcement. So, yes, there are ways of paying, ways of paying people through the X money account, whatever that is. See anything around micropayments, because I mean, yes, that would be brilliant if there was ways of making micropayments to other people, then that significantly helps and, by the way, there is an open API for it. That significantly helps. Where we are in the podcasting world, I don't see that quite yet and I guess from Visa's point of view, well, where's Visa going to make the money? Visa's going to make the money from people loading their wallets, I suppose. Are Visa expecting to make money from each individual transaction?

James Cridland: 9:59

Because if they are, then clearly that's not going to work from a micropayment point of view.

Sam Sethi: 10:03

I'm suspecting that it's the same way that I use Stripe, where you do a transfer of fiat currency into SATs, so you load up your wallet and then from your wallet, you make those transactions and then you can withdraw from your wallet or you can top up your wallet again via Visa.

James Cridland: 10:23

I think they're the backbone not the transactional element. Yeah, so that's Stripe with a K, of course.

Sam Sethi: 10:29

No Stripe with a P.

James Cridland: 10:31

Stripe with a P.

Sam Sethi: 10:33

Yes, not with a K. Are you sure I'm using Stripe with a? P as my backbone, not Stripe with a K as a wallet.

James Cridland: 10:44

Yes, oh, I didn't realise that Stripe did Bitcoin. Have I been? Have I been fast asleep with that one? How bizarre. I have never spotted that before. Well, there we are. You learn a new thing every day. Well, there you go, so, yeah, well, yeah, so if if that's the case, then great. Of course they won't be using Bitcoin or anything. They'll be using X money, whatever X money is, doge, doge coin.

James Cridland: 11:12

I think is what I worry about. Well, yes, exactly yes, it'll be some weird thing that they end up using, but no, interesting. I mean, obviously, a lot of things need to need to line up in order for this to work for all of us. We need an open API. X needs to make money somehow out of this, I suppose, and you know, etc. Etc. Etc. But you know, it's interesting to end up seeing that you also mentioned that x have launched a merch store. Yeah and um, that merch store, which is called x drop 2 for some reason, um, that will allow users to buy merch using micro payments from their wallet they will allow them to use their wallet to make the payments.

Sam Sethi: 11:59

So I am assuming they're micro. Okay, we haven't got the detail yet, but I'm assuming that it's micro payments. Otherwise it would be just a Visa card and that would be just nothing exciting on you.

James Cridland: 12:13

Yes, indeed, indeed, Although of course, that's what Apple and Google have both done. They've both essentially just put their name in front of a Visa or a MasterCard. But yeah, interesting to see what happens there with the ever reliable Elon.

Sam Sethi: 12:31

Musk. Now moving on, you had a story this week I'm just going to call it Odyssey behaving badly. Tell me more.

James Cridland: 12:39

Yes, although the suggestion of anything improper is absurd. Suggestion of anything improper is absurd. So once upon a time there was a company called Podcorn, and Podcorn was a way of earning money from your podcast. You tied it into Podcorn. Podcorn measured how popular your podcast was and Podcorn also sold. I think they sold host reads on your podcast if it was big enough. So that's what Podcorn would do.

James Cridland: 13:17

Podcorn is now called Odyssey Creator Lab, but back in the days when it was still called Podcorn, a number of podcast hosting companies did partnerships with Podcorn to basically say here are all of our users. All of our users want to make money from their podcast. So here's a quick button that will enable them to take part in Podcorn, which of makes a ton of sense. The difficulty now is that Odyssey's Creator Lab has launched, which is Podcorn. But what Odyssey have also done is they've launched a free podcast hosting company. So hooray for them. But of course, one of the first things they did is they marketed through email to all of their customers Hello, we are now called Odyssey Creator Lab and you should be hosting with us as well now. So basically, if you're one of the large podcast companies who did a deal with Podcorn. What you've basically done is you've handed all of your customers' email addresses and everything else to Odyssey, who are now promoting their own free podcast platform.

James Cridland: 14:33

So a bit of an oops from all concerned. Really, I think it's pretty bad behaviour on Odyssey's part. Odyssey clearly don't see anything wrong on Odyssey's part. Odyssey clearly don't see anything wrong. Odyssey's spokesperson told me some guff about being excited to be expanding our offerings. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. The suggestion of anything improper is absurd. Well, I think if you are all of a sudden mailing all of the customers that you were given from podcast hosting companies and saying, all right, screw those podcast hosting companies, come and join ours, we're free, is a bit improper, to be honest. But that's where they have ended up being. But I do know a number of different hosting companies who are quite annoyed at it, shall we say who are quite annoyed at it, shall we say.

Sam Sethi: 15:26

Yeah well, kelly Turner is the president and chief executive officer for Odyssey. Maybe I should ping her and see if she'd want to come on the show.

James Cridland: 15:33

Yeah, I mean maybe, although I would be surprised if she knew what Odyssey Creator Lab was. I think she's way, way, way up in the stratosphere. Oh really, in terms of that sort of thing, yes, I would have thought so, oh okay, sorry.

James Cridland: 15:46

Yes, but yeah, I mean, you know, who knows whether or not Odyssey particularly cares, but it does look, to me at least, as if they've been stiffing the podcast hosting companies who gave them a ton of customers. So it's a weird one actually Podcorn, because you might remember that we've occasionally carried stories basically saying are they still going? Are they still actually existing? Because it was very, very quiet from them for quite some time and that probably explains why because they were busy rebranding themselves.

Sam Sethi: 16:21

Well, they also had massive layoffs as well, so that was the other thing that we sort of highlighted.

James Cridland: 16:26

Anyway, there's. Odyssey for you.

James Cridland: 16:29

There's Odyssey for you and, by the way, now that Odyssey is out of bankruptcy and I'm not saying that Cumulus is going into bankruptcy but one of the things that has just been announced is that Cumulus Media is coming off Nasdaq because it can't keep its shares to above $1. And so Cumulus has basically gone. Yeah, you know what? Rather than investing time, effort and cost into keeping on the NASDAQ, we're just coming off. So that's what's happening for Cumulus, which, of course, is a competitor to Odyssey. So it's all going on in the US, isn't it?

Sam Sethi: 17:06

Now whizzing around the world and talking about the US. At least, that's what it's called. This week, the Netflix earnings call had talks about video podcasts, James. What were they talking about?

James Cridland: 17:18

Yes, but only a little bit. This is the clip. The next question is from Matt.

Sam Sethi: 17:22

Thornton of FBN Securities. Do you think video podcasts could perform well as a?

James Cridland: 17:28

category on Netflix.

Ted Sarandos: 17:30

So we're constantly looking at all different types of content and content creators. The lines between podcast and talk shows are getting pretty blurry. We want to work with kind of great creators across all kinds of media that consumers love, and podcasts, to your point, have become a lot more video forward and today we actually produce a lot of podcasts ourselves, part of our kind of publicity and publishing efforts. So some are really show specific, like Squid Game and Diplomat. Some are genre focused. Some are talent focused. We have a great one called you Can't Make this Up all about Netflix docs and they live everywhere. Podcasts live today, but as the popularity of video podcasts grow, I suspect you'll see some of them find their way to Netflix.

James Cridland: 18:11

Well, there we are. That's about as much as we know about Netflix's plan for podcasts. My suspicion, I have to say, is there's two sort of sides of it. One side is, netflix is making podcasts and they want the world to know about the fact that they're making podcasts, which is why they sponsored Evolutions, which is why they're a sponsor at the podcast show in London. And on the other side, netflix would quite like some cheap video programming. And who's got that? Well, it's the video podcasters. So, you could argue, would it make sense for Netflix just to make it really easy to submit a video show onto Netflix as well? Well, why not? I mean, it's free content for them, in the same way that YouTube gets all of this free content as well. So perhaps it's a plan, I don't know.

Sam Sethi: 19:03

Well, given that some of the reports that we've had from Edison research about how people are using YouTube on large TV screens as a means of consumption, it would make sense for Netflix to do the same, to get the similar content so that they can keep the platform app sticky. You're watching a film, you switch over to a TV show. Oh look, I'm bored of both of those. Oh, I'll just watch a video podcast.

James Cridland: 19:27

Yes, and that may well be the case, may well be what they've got planned. So, yes, so that is going on in the US. Also going on in the US, our sponsor Buzzsprout.

Sam Sethi: 19:39

Go on, james. Are you saying Go on? No, I was going to say I don't use it Subreddit. So I was going to say what the hell is a subreddit? Because I don't go on Reddit.

James Cridland: 19:48

Oh, you don't go on Reddit. A subreddit is just a forum. On Reddit it's just a group. But yes, there is one there for Buzzsprout. I have tried to be in a few of the podcasting subreddits in Reddit itself. It's an interesting place. The moderators have some interesting ideas. But knowing the success of the Buzzsprout Facebook group, I suspect that this might be quite good for anybody that wants to post on there. You don't have to be a Buzzsprout customer to post in there, so it's worthwhile taking a peek at. You'll find it just by searching for Buzzsprout in Reddit.

Sam Sethi: 20:35

Whizzing back here to the UK, your favourite people, the BBC. They're partnered with a global audio marketplace. Audacia, audacia, is that how you say it?

James Cridland: 20:45

Yeah, it's Audacia, I believe, although I was a bit confused. Kim from Audacia or Audacia? It's very difficult to know quite whether it's Audacia or Audacia. Anyway, they are. They've been both based in Singapore and in Australia and they are looking after BBC podcasts in Asia. So places like Singapore, malaysia, indonesia, the Philippines, thailand, south Korea and Vietnam. So that's quite a nice get for Audacia. So congratulations to them, I guess.

Sam Sethi: 21:23

Now this one. I don't understand Evan. Evan Davis, a BBC radio presenter, has been asked by the BBC to stop hosting the Happy Heat Pump podcast. It seems very innocuous to stop him doing that.

James Cridland: 21:34

It does, doesn't it? It's the Happy Heat Pump podcast, but there is a good reason for that, and here's Evan Davis.

Sam Sethi: 21:42

I'm a BBC employee. I take their shilling.

James Cridland: 21:46

They dictate the rules.

Sam Sethi: 21:47

They know they have to try and keep their presenters out of areas of public controversy and they have decided Heat pumps can be controversial.

James Cridland: 21:54

So they've asked me not to be involved. Yes, heat pumps are apparently controversial, right? So, yes, that's probably the thing I mean. To be fair, firstly, he's a flagship presenter of the news. So Evan Davis is one of those people that you have to be pretty careful. What he's getting involved in he presents at PM, which is the big afternoon news show on BBC Radio 4. So you've got that really needing to be as impartial as you possibly can. He's doing this Happy Heat Pump podcast with a co-host who is a lobby group employee for heat pumps. So that's yeah. So that's a thing.

James Cridland: 22:46

It turns out that the UK government is requiring new-build homes in the UK to fit technology like heat pumps, but other technology options are available, and so obviously you've got this lobby group person saying it's heat pumps or nothing, and heat pumps are brilliant. And the podcast I listened to you know an episode or two and you know this guy who's amazingly called Bean Beanland, bean Beanland, who is the curiously named Director of Growth and External Affairs for the Heat Pump Federation. He does say some, you know, criticism of the government and all that kind of stuff, and Evan Davis doesn't really push back very, very much. So, yeah, I think it's one of those difficult things. But unfortunately that means that Evan has been told that he can't really continue doing this particular show, has been told that he can't really continue doing this particular show.

James Cridland: 23:48

Cue lots of excited people all saying it's BBC censorship gone mad. And all of that because, you know, heat pumps are for some reason really controversial in the UK. Can't think why, but that's basically where that's happened. It should be pointed out that Evan Davis earns £290,000 to present that show, pm, on Radio 4. That's US$390,000. Den, which is the UK equivalent of Shark Tank. So he's on quite a nice watch. He doesn't necessarily need it for the money, but perhaps he did it because it was quite a fun thing to be involved in. But he's been told to stop.

Sam Sethi: 24:36

I highly recommend, if you can find it, listen to Gary Lineker's exit interview with Amal Rajan about why he's leaving the BBC. Exit interview with Amal Rajan about why he's leaving the BBC. The impartiality element is dealt with very nicely by Gary Lineker there.

James Cridland: 24:50

Yes, well, there's the impartiality side, but there's also the creative, and I think Evan Davis used an interesting phrase. He said you know that they've been, you know the BBC have been very helpful and blah, blah, blah. And he says they're very unkeen to stop me doing things that I find rewarding. And I think actually, yeah, you know there is a certain amount if you're a creative person, you want to do rewarding things, and he found this funny little podcast to be quite a rewarding thing to do, but of course, that all of a sudden gets into trouble with you know, all manner of exciting issues. So, yeah, so you can kind of see his point really, but yeah, it's an interesting place.

Sam Sethi: 25:41

Interesting place Moving on Middle East and Africa. Podio is a Dubai-based company that recently announced the completion of 5.4 million of funding. Congratulations to them. Their CEO, Stefano, talks about their plans to invest in their global expansion and grow their AI capabilities, and I was interested to find out more about what they were going to do. He also discusses two exciting new announcements, James, so I thought let's kick off. I started off by asking Stefano who or what is Podio?

Stefano Fallaha: 26:23

Podio. We started a couple of years back with the aim of amplifying the region's voices, because we always felt that the Middle East and North Africa region, and specifically the Arabic culture, is always lacked in terms of global visibility on a global media scale, and so we always wanted to sort of crack that medium and help people with stories get their stories out there. And podcasting, as we both know, it is one of the most powerful ways to get our stories and our voices heard. And so we started by looking at the different challenges in the market. Obviously, first challenge was supply, which is the content creator part dived into what can we do to help creators sort of simplify their process to create? So we localized the end-to-end tools for recording production, post-production, distribution and monetization. And so, if we look at the numbers, before we entered the market we were probably at less than 2,000 podcasts in Arabic across the entire Middle East and North Africa. And the way we tried and started going after that market was looking at the real challenges and really the gaps in that market, and we started building tools that very localized tools as well, to help creators get their podcasts up and running, and that number has skyrocketed to tens of thousands of creators over the last couple of years. So that's something that we keep on doubling down on, because we believe that this is just the start of the journey of amplifying voices out of the MENA region. And so, if we look at the different gaps, supply was a gap, demand was also another gap, and then, obviously, monetization and revenue is also the third gap, and so we look at it as a trifecta that keeps on continuously improving itself, and the beauty in the model or the and so we look at it as a trifecta that keeps on continuously improving itself, and the beauty in the model or the platform that we built was that they all feed into each other. So, really, network effects have a big play or a big role in scaling organically a market, specifically when we localize the entire platform to be very culturally relevant, the entire platform to be very culturally relevant.

Stefano Fallaha: 28:27

So a bit of context as well on the region. So the region is one language, which is Arabic, but really divided into sub dialects, and so you have probably more than 20 different dialects across different countries, and so it's as if we're operating in 20 different markets, because Saudi creators don't listen to the same content as Egypt audiences. And then the UAE is also a very cosmopolitan country, so you also have these different dialectical changes that we need to adapt to. You also have the different dialects that we need to localize for, and so the key components or the key areas we're really optimized for was hyperlocality when it comes to the product, but also when it comes to the content, and making sure that once the supply is up and ready, then the demand is also localized to the different channels, and so obviously we do distribute and creators obviously come in the platform upload or record. One click reaches all the platforms.

Stefano Fallaha: 29:25

So Apple, spotify, all the typical streaming apps, but also we went above and beyond that and started plugging in with channels where consumers typically listen on, and in this region, radio was predominantly the main platform where people consumed audio content.

Stefano Fallaha: 29:42

So that was one area where we started plugging in. These integrations helped creators maximize their reach, but also improved the content, or the curated content on these off-peak hours. Another side of the story as well is we started looking at channels where we can integrate audio on the go and help commuters specifically consume podcasts. So we plugged in with the RTA, which is the Road and Transportation Authority in Dubai, which operates Hala Taxis, and so we partnered with the OEM, which is Binary Media, and creators just upload or distribute the same way, distribute on audio platforms. They could also reach all these avenues that we have integrated and implemented directly into the platform. And so, from a macro perspective, if you look at it, we became sort of that infrastructure or the pipes of the industry, helping creators simplify their production, maximize their reach and monetize through different avenues which I believe we'll get into in a bit.

Sam Sethi: 30:41

Well, let's get to it now. What is the monetization strategy? So, is it traditional DAI? Is it host-read? Is it other forms of monetization? Tell me more.

Stefano Fallaha: 30:52

So they are the typical forms of monetization so programmatic, direct sponsorship, host-read, branded or white label production, so really not very different than the typical monetization schemes.

Stefano Fallaha: 31:05

Also, something that we're definitely getting into and is tipping and donation and gifting, so really similarities with the different social platforms that are available, which I believe is something that, sam, you know with TrueFans, you're also an expert at and it's definitely something where you see value. So that is, we're always going to help creators maximize their revenue, from maximizing fill rates to simplifying the brand or the agency connections with the creators through a marketplace or even through the creator economy or Patreon model. That is also applicable to any form of content. If we also look at podcasting, we always say it's one of the most engaging, intimate medium, but reality is the engagement between the creators and the listeners is still not there. It's not on par with the claim at which the industry or which reality of how consumption happens, and so that's something where we see is a big opportunity and something to double down on which really gets us excited, because that's really part of the trifecta that's just going to continuously get better and better over time.

Sam Sethi: 32:09

So in the front end is there a Podio app that people are downloading as well. Because I think when I look at what you're doing, I look at Podimo out of Denmark and I see so many similarities because they've created their own app, they've created their own content and, again, maybe that's something you might look to in the future as well. They've raised a ton of money and they are looking at creating regional studios for content. So their strategy is exclusive on-platform subscription, less in the advertising play and then freemium out to the end points, maybe a week or two weeks later with advertising supported to raise revenue around that. So do you see that Podio will eventually get into creating and being a creator platform not just helping the creator, but actually creating your own content?

Stefano Fallaha: 33:07

So that's a very good question, sam. Our core ethos is we are not producers and we are not a production house. We are an independent, sovereign tech podcast platform, and that means that we do not get into the production of podcasts. We get into the enablement of creators or podcasters. We do have our own Podio app, which is one channel at which we distribute the podcast to, but we are distribution first and not destination, and so that means that we do not care to consolidate audiences in one place. The same way, spotify wants to consolidate podcast audiences by doing all these exclusive deals or Podimo consolidating as well, or acquiring pieces of content to put them on the Podimo app right.

Stefano Fallaha: 33:55

Each one has its own strategy. What we've seen, according to our experience and very localized experience in the market, that is something that is not only challenging to do, but comparables with music, for instance, where people typically pay for music in the region. This is a region where people tend to not pay for content in general. That behavior is changing with the likes of Shahid, which is the number one streaming VOD platform in the region, and I believe that the alternative to that is always going to be giving the opportunity for the audience to decide for themselves. Here's a great piece of content I want to donate or I want to support it. I can support it, but it doesn't mean I'm going to get a paywall or I'm going to get a walled content, even for some duration.

Stefano Fallaha: 34:46

And that also goes to reinforce our mission as a platform which is continuously helping creators get more audiences, bigger reach and more revenue. And the beauty in our business model is that it is aligned with more reach, because the more we help creators maximize their reach through radios, taxis, airlines, different integrations that we've done the more we help them monetize, the more everyone makes money. And so I believe that is a continuously reinforcing the open podcast ecosystem and continuously really going after what creators want, which is more reach and more money. And so that is what Podio really stands for, and we did start out of the MENA region, but we have and we've already started our global expansion.

Sam Sethi: 35:30

Nice. Now, one of the other things that to mind is the Indian market. When I interviewed Gautam Rajanand, with local dialects and with local platforms were dominating the market space. So you had Ghana and a few other platforms, but then along came Spotify, then along came YouTube, then along came Amazon and they seem to be dominating as the platforms of distribution endpoint consumption. So within the MENA region, do you have a footprint of Spotify, apple and YouTube yet, or is it local content points that are dominating now? And if they are, do you see them remaining as a dominant player?

Stefano Fallaha: 36:17

So the region is pretty much diversified in terms of consumption. So Apple podcast is still predominantly the consumption platform on the audio side. On the video side it is YouTube, and when it comes to more localized play, I mean, the Podio app has significant footprint on the demand side as well. But it also acts as a companion app for creators, and so creators can also record on the go what they do is. They just open up their phone, they send the link to their friend or their guest. We could have both done that interview on the Podio app, for instance, and from the Podio app you could either click and distribute everywhere or you could become a listener, and so from that point it acts on both supply and demand, which creators and listeners really see value in because they're building on their own communities. But again, to us it is another channel that is really growing organically because it is a very localized podcast app to listen to.

Sam Sethi: 37:14

But we do not want to consolidate audiences on that app just because our core business model scales as we help creators get more reach now, given that localization of language is one of the critical pillars of what you're doing, do you think you will support something like the alternative enclosure and language translation? So one of the things I think the podcast world needs to do. I, mr Beast, recently said it on another podcast 15% of the world speaks English, the rest of the world doesn't, and he's very keen on getting language translation and audio dubbing into his videos because he gets the extended reach that he wants. So if you want to extend the reach of the Arabic stories, are you going to extend that to translating them into English so that dumb people like me can listen to them, because I don't speak Arabic?

Stefano Fallaha: 38:11

Definitely.

Stefano Fallaha: 38:12

That is all integrated into the Podio Creator product, which is our web app, and so we have add-ons as well, where you can click or add to cart, either dub the podcast or your episode to a different language.

Stefano Fallaha: 38:27

And now we're getting into the localized dialects and so if you're a creator from Saudi Arabia and your audience is predominantly in Saudi Arabia, but you also want to unlock the Egyptian market and the Lebanese market and the Jordanian market, then you would be able to dub your entire podcast within the different localized sub-Arabic dialects.

Stefano Fallaha: 38:48

Obviously, that gives us a big advantage because reality is, 90% plus of the supplier of podcasts in Arabic are hosted and distributed through Podio, which means that the amount of localization and inputs that we're generating really help creators get these localized versions of their main Arabic podcast to tap into the sub-dialects. And that also means that, let's say, creators or podcasters in markets that have lower CPMs in the region can localize or dub their piece of content and get it into a higher CPM market like Saudi Arabia or the UAE or Qatar, and that also helps them unlock higher CPMs from a programmatic perspective or even from a direct sponsorship, post-read perspective with the same piece of content. So definitely that is all streamlined as well through our web app in the form of add-ons, so usage-based add-ons.

Sam Sethi: 39:46

Okay, and who's the number one podcaster in the region? Please don't tell me it's Joe Rogan. Please tell me. No Good, thank God Right, so is it local language creators.

Stefano Fallaha: 39:59

It is a Saudi creator. His name is. It's called Sawalif Tariq. He's a big YouTuber as well, so this is where you see the merge between audience growth on YouTube, and that consequently means he's the number one podcast across every single top chart, mainly in the GCC area. So it is not Joe Rogan.

Sam Sethi: 40:18

Good. And in terms of the content categories then, what are the dominant content categories? I mean, is it crime, thriller, comedy, religion, a sport technology? What's dominating the listening behavior out there?

Stefano Fallaha: 40:35

So true crime is actually Sawal of Tariq, so he's the number one podcast in the DCC, but it's not only true crime, it's also a mix of cultural or personal journals. So this is where the two categories really come together. The next one in line is, I believe, a business podcast, so that is more related to interviews and technology and then comedy, naturally, so these always shuffle between the top 10. It is a very diversified market as well, so there's not one or two podcasts that you know continuously challenge each other. It's really more of okay. Here's a creator that we know. What we're also noticing is that creators tend to want to expand their scope of categories. So there comes at the time where we had one creator where they were doing only sports interviews with, specifically, basketball interviews with basketball players, and then they got to a point where they started expanding to different sports. So they started looking at soccer, they started looking at different athletes in general, and that is common in the region. I'm not sure if you've seen that Sam in your markets.

Sam Sethi: 41:49

Yeah, I think brand extension is coming out. I mean, people are looking at trying to widen their reach. So yeah, I can imagine I haven't looked at it specifically but yeah, I think that would be a natural extension. Yeah, so, given that you've got the platform, you've got the regional language support and you've got the monetization, which is the critical part, you successfully raised 5.4 million dollars last year. Congratulations by the. I know how hard that is, so what are you going to do with all the money?

Stefano Fallaha: 42:22

So, yeah, definitely it was a challenging, obviously, time to raise. So it was last year as well. We started pre-AI hype, so that was even more challenging and also, if you look at the regional market, we're also not in very high liquidity market when it comes to fundraising. But for us, we were able to raise that money because we proved that our ecosystem makes sense at scale and we proved the model in relatively one of the most complex languages when it comes to dialects and when it comes to markets and so proving that entire ecosystem model with a blueprint or playbook to replicate across different global languages. So you've mentioned 15% English. Then we're looking at the 85% when it comes to global languages and we are definitely globalizing that product across the top 10 languages in the world. And that is just to reinforce our mission, which is looking at the stories and the voices from these underrepresented markets or underrepresented or repressed stories and voices across the world and help them reach larger and global audiences. And so there's really a lot of cross distribution that's happening. The more we can improve the localization, the more we help these creators reach larger audiences.

Stefano Fallaha: 43:47

The fund it was led by Orasea Capital, based out of the UAE. We have participation from Iptikar Fund, which is a Palestinian fund. We have participation as well from Cedar Mundi Ventures, from Razor Capital, which are based out of the UK, and repeat investors, and we also have a big roster of media execs based out of the US, based out of Europe, that really believe that we're looking at a massive market and the potential for the time that's going to continuously grow with time is just, you know, insurmountable in terms of potential for the content world, creators and creators becoming content companies, as opposed to sources or main media, mainstream sources that are disseminating information the way they used to disseminate information, and so that is also where the biggest opportunity is, in my opinion, is transforming or enabling podcasters to maximize their offerings in terms of reach, but also in terms of monetization, and this is where lots of cross-collaboration in the industry need to happen. I'm really, really confident and optimistic about the podcast industry in general and where we're heading, and I believe that, as Podio, we're really building that infrastructure or ecosystem.

Stefano Fallaha: 45:15

And these lesser looked at markets because obviously they're not profitable markets at the beginning. You're not looking at high CPM markets. You're looking at markets that don't have supply, that don't have demand, and reality is we have that blueprint and playbook to go into a market scale supply, scale demand, make that market profitable, rinse and repeat, really doubling down on the mission that we initially had.

Sam Sethi: 45:38

Now let's touch on the two topics I really don't want to touch on, but I know we're going to get asked. So the first one is video and where is your heart and mind with relation to video and distributing to YouTube?

Stefano Fallaha: 45:54

Yeah, so that's the topic of the industry over the last couple of months. Reality is at the core. Podcasts were always an audio first medium. I think where that is heading is video is predominantly winning in terms of reach. Reality is youtube has probably or on the verge of cracking that discoverability medium that podcast apps couldn't figure out. What I'm fearing is that the podcast has a community, and that is when you went to listen to a podcast and you were following or, part of that, subscribing to a community.

Stefano Fallaha: 46:37

The way podcasts are being discovered on YouTube today are typically through algorithms, which, in a way, is counterintuitive to the core offering of the medium, which is community first. What we've seen, on the other hand, is that lots of audiences are discovering the piece of content on YouTube or on other channels, but they're not going to watch that 40, 50 minute episode. They're going to go and look for that podcast and subscribe to it and listen to it on one of the audio platforms. And so what we're building as well is sort of a mechanism to help that transition, that transition from discovering the piece of content on one of these channels and converting to listen to it on an on-demand podcast app, and that, in a way, is something that we've been relatively successful in doing, because, when we look at our different distribution channels on radios, on airlines, on gaming apps, on taxis we want to help creators, help get them discovered and really convert the audience that discovered that show to follow or subscribe to that podcast, and so we've seen it work.

Stefano Fallaha: 47:46

So I don't see it not working, even in the case of YouTube or even in the case of video. So that is where, personally, I think the industry is going to move forward. Video is going to have a big role in discoverability, but not in consumption as a whole, and I also think it's generally a good thing to uplift that entire podcast industry. I'm optimistic about the way the industry is moving forward and I don't see it as a threat. I see it as a compliment or an amplifier to the medium itself.

Sam Sethi: 48:23

Now, you said it right at the beginning of the interview about radio being a major distribution network, and one of my personal focuses in 2025 is around live podcasting. I think that's a massive opportunity. I think when you think of radio and live radio, it's the distribution over the network. Now, a podcast that is live distributed over a podcast app or through the live item tag is equally, in some people's mind, just radio, because it's just that consumption in the immediacy. Are you planning to support something like the live item tag? Are you planning to support live capabilities for broadcasting of your content creators?

Stefano Fallaha: 49:12

Definitely, sam. We stand for wherever and however creators can get discovered and generate more revenue. And if the live aspect is going to help with that and could be with the tipping, could be with the gifting, then this is definitely what we stand for and what we're going to do. So the way we look at it is we believe in on demand audio first, but that doesn't mean we're not going to support live audio or video in general, just because it will help creators get their word out there. So this is our North Star and the how we're going to have to navigate according to trends, according to how consumers are behaving, how consumers are consuming, and we're just going to be committed to that North Star. And whatever route or whichever route we're going to have to amend or adapt or even optimize for, then we stand for that Because to us, just creators are our North Star and we're going to help them reach and we're going to help them with monetization.

Sam Sethi: 50:16

Okay, we've kept it to last. You have some exciting news. Tell me more.

Stefano Fallaha: 50:22

So some exciting news always related to these two metrics, these two North Stars. So we have signed with SMC, which is Saudi Media Company, which is the largest ad rep in the GCC the largest ad rep in the GCC. So that is really exciting for us because that's a new chapter in terms of maximizing monetization when it comes to brands and agencies, connecting them with the relevant creators, so programmatic sponsorship and creator economy in general. So that's something that we're super excited for and really kicking off that as of this month and it's all about forming these partnerships to continuously reinforce our core North Stars. And we also have our newest joiner to the team, wee Fen Thang, who joins us from TikTok. Previously she was with Spotify and previously was with Google, so sales manager for the three companies, and she's a really big believer as well in podcasting. And she joins us on this new chapter as well this month to again double down on our North Stars.

Sam Sethi: 51:33

Congratulations. I'm really excited for you. That's two big news stories there. Now, with all of this in mind, with the new hire, with the new advertising partnerships that you've got, I assume you'll be raising more funding. The overall goal then. Where do you see yourselves in a year's time, if you can extrapolate that out?

Stefano Fallaha: 51:52

Sure.

Stefano Fallaha: 51:52

So we see ourselves at a position where we really optim optimized for the Middle East and North Africa market and really maximized the potential when it comes to educating brands and agencies on the importance of podcasting, the high ROIs and ROAS that podcast advertising has.

Stefano Fallaha: 52:11

And the beauty is that there is big appetite from big agencies to really get into the medium, because the medium has really proved over and over again that it is a medium that has high retention, high engagement and high ROAS and it's on us as a platform and as an ecosystem or larger community of creators to make sure that that message is heard and budgets are maximized towards podcasting. So that is the roadmap, obviously for the next year and obviously doubling down on all the different languages that we mentioned and help just continuously optimize for our mission and just amplify more voices from different languages and stay true to our vision. And stay true to our vision, stay true to our ability to maximize and amplify the reach of creators and add in more distribution channels as well. So partnering with more partners, distribution partners and channels to help creators maximize their discoverability and obviously help them convert these newly acquired audiences into their own community of audiences and listeners.

Sam Sethi: 53:22

Nice Look. Congratulations, stefano. It's been a joy to watch your growth and your journey. I look forward to it. Are you going to be coming to the London podcast show?

Stefano Fallaha: 53:32

I am hoping to. It's just that schedule might interfere with something that or a previous commitment that I have in the region, but I'll hope to catch you there the last thing if someone wants to go and learn more about podio, wants to use it, where would they go?

Stefano Fallaha: 53:46

podioco, that's all. If they're creator or listener or an advertiser, they'll find everything on our platform, on our web app or, if you want to sort of also explore, creating tools on the go or listen to, obviously, the global library of podcasts and more localized or regional shows, and there's also the Podio app that they can download and listen on.

Sam Sethi: 54:08

I just had one last question that went through my head, I'm sorry, one about the diaspora, because clearly there is a massive Arabic diaspora that exists. Are you finding that that diaspora is also coming to Podio? As a customer?

Stefano Fallaha: 54:22

So the fourth market in terms of demand for us is actually the US, which is all Arab expats that strive to listen to localized stories, and so what we're sort of dubbed as as well in that diasporic community is that Podio is a cultural bridge. It's a cultural bridge between the region and between the expats that are sort of silenced or left out from what's happening on ground, from the stories that are happening on ground, and so that is something, as well, that we really sort of are proud of, and that's something that is going to be the core aspect of what is going to bring these global audiences together. Today, we're the cultural bridge for Arab expats. Tomorrow, we're the cultural bridge for the top 10 languages that we're adding to the platform.

Sam Sethi: 55:09

Nice, stefano, great to meet you, great to talk to you. Thank you so much. Speak to you soon, my friend.

Announcer: 55:14

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James Cridland: 55:21

Stefano from Podio in Dubai. I last saw him at the end of last year. Good to hear that he's made some good announcements there. Talking about announcements, you've got some more, haven't you here?

Sam Sethi: 55:36

Yeah, flight Story. Stephen Bartlett's company has made, they say, a critical hire. Somebody called Leon Farrell, who's joining them. He was at Warner Music Group and he drove revenue for Dua Lipa, muse, ed Sheeran and many more. It's interesting that it's a music hire. That's one of the things that I was interested in.

Sam Sethi: 56:00

But also he or Stephen has gone into a long sort of explanation about where he sees the market excuse me, where he sees the market. He's talked about the creator economy much more and he's talking about how, in phase one, influencers were an ad space. You know you could put paid billboards basically you can put ads against them. In phase two, influencers became employees and they started working with the brands. In phase three, influencers became equity partners. They started taking shares in the companies that they were promoting and now influencers are equity partners. They started taking shares in the companies that they were promoting and now influencers are the entrepreneurs. The slice of the company wasn't big enough. So people like Mr Beast have taken on a whole series of companies themselves KSI, logan Paul and they're making millions and billions for themselves. So Stephen's saying that basically, the use of podcasting and influencers is now changing as a role and they've taken this guy, leon Farrell, on to lead the creative ventures at Flight Studio.

James Cridland: 57:05

Yes, and there are a lot of creator conversations that Stephen Bartlett is currently involved in. He will be at the podcast show London, or rather, the team from Flight Story will be at the podcast show in London, and they have a session called the Creator Economy is Dead. Welcome to the era of creator entrepreneurs. One thing that I would say on that is that creators aren't necessarily entrepreneurs. Some of them can be. That Stephen Bartlett is a good example of somebody that can also be an entrepreneur as well, but quite a lot of creators just want to create stuff and they don't want to run their own businesses. So it's good for some people, maybe not so good for others. But yeah, they will be doing a big session on this at the podcast show London, which has a ton of fascinating things going on there as well.

Sam Sethi: 58:08

Awards and events. James, there isn't particularly one coming up in terms of awards, but the New York Times had an interesting article and they posed the question are awards really worth the entry money? They were talking about how so many of the big awards now you have to pay two, three $4,000 to enter and they're asking is the return on investment really worth entering an award?

James Cridland: 58:33

They're asking is the return on investment really worth entering an award? Yes, probably, I would guess from somebody that was a little bit grumpy that they didn't win an award. It's usually the way of these things. Yeah, and the New York Times article is specifically about the podcast awards the iHeart Podcast Awards, the Ambi Awards and the Signal Awards and some podcasters are fearing a money grab. Of course, there are plenty more shows that aren't, or plenty more awards that aren't. These three as well, three as well.

James Cridland: 59:11

Um, so you know, yes, I mean you know, the there's particularly um, uh, you know, um, uh, a quote from Jason Hock, who is a podcast producer and entrepreneur Um and um, yeah, it's um, it, it, you know it's, it's the usual, the usual um, you know, conversation of oh well, you know, have to pay a lot to enter awards.

James Cridland: 59:36

Yeah, you do, because awards, actually, if you want a decent award ceremony, it costs money. And if you want decent awards, they cost money. And if you want judges, if you want to make sure that you get decent judges rather than some of the ways that some of these shows are actually chosen, then that costs money as well. So you know, this guy seems to be really surprised that, firstly, you have to pay to enter awards and, secondly, you have to pay for the award itself as well, which is what normally happens in these things. So, yeah, it's a bit sort of sad that you get these knocking emails after a while. But you know, there you go. I suppose people are always going to write nasty things, aren't they about things?

Sam Sethi: 1:00:26

Pay your money, get your rewards.

James Cridland: 1:00:29

Well, yes, but you know on the other side, if you don't enter awards, you're never going to win them. So you know, you've obviously got that side of it as well.

Sam Sethi: 1:00:39

Now, talking of awards, the Webby Awards have announced the winners. The event is going to be on the 12th of May at Cipriani in Wall Street. But again, james, the big winner was Dan Toberski's Hysterical. He seems to have won everything this year. He's won so many other awards. He's won Amby's, he's won Apple Awards. I should really listen to it, I guess.

James Cridland: 1:01:04

Yes, I know I keep on thinking that as well. Yeah, he's not necessarily the big winner. He is one of the winners Kara Swisher also winning for an appearance she made on the Possible podcast. Lots of other winners in there as well. I had the exclusive of the podcast winners in Tuesday's Pod News this week. And particular congratulations to Club Shay Shay from iHeart Podcasts. They won both the Webby Awards and the People's Voice Award for Best Creator or Influencer Series. You know, winning both the Webby Award and the People's Voice Award is obviously a very important thing that only the very best Webby Award winners get.

Sam Sethi: 1:01:57

Oh, come on, has anyone else done this?

James Cridland: 1:02:00

Just asking, oh yeah, oh, yeah, sorry, yes, I forget, that was one that I won. But yes, but the full list in the usual Pod News fashion, you know, linking to the trailers and the artwork and everything else you'll find in the podnewsnet website.

Sam Sethi: 1:02:21

Now the London podcast show is coming up very soon, 21st, 22nd of May. James who's going to be headlining as partners there yes, so they have signed.

James Cridland: 1:02:34

This is a deal that has apparently taken months to do, but both Global and iHeart are the headline partners of the podcast show in London. Now, that is interesting because iHeart is not a company that has any business in the UK, any business in the UK, nor any business in Europe. Iheart is a purely US or North American brand. It also has brands in Latin America and here in Australia and New Zealand, but it's nowhere in anywhere in Europe. So it's interesting seeing that they are one of the two big sponsors. The other big sponsor, or the other big headline partner, is Global, which is a radio company that also owns Captivate, based in the UK. So what are iHeart doing there? Who knows? There's an interesting thing. Anyway, lots of media partners, lots of exhibitors, lots of paid partners and everything else all involved. There's a big list of them in the Pod News website this week.

James Cridland: 1:03:43

And, yeah, I'm looking forward to being there, as are you, sam, because I know that you're coming, because this very show is live on the second day towards the end. So we're looking forward to doing I'm sure everybody will be delighted to know just a 30-minute version of this show. So that should be fun. I've already been chatting to a couple of people who will be coming. Danny Brown from Captivate. He will be coming. They've allowed him out of Canada just for this. Excellent, so he gets to, was his Scottish accent fading.

Sam Sethi: 1:04:20

Did he have to come back and get some more?

James Cridland: 1:04:22

Scottish in him. Well, nobody will understand him in London, of course will they, but there we are Transatlantic voices.

Sam Sethi: 1:04:32

Yes, the good news is, next week we will have Jason Carter, the organiser, the owner, the CEO whatever title Jason would like to have on the show to tell us more about what's going on at the London Podcast Show.

James Cridland: 1:04:45

That will be an excellent thing. And talking about Danny Brown, I am on the podcast that he puts together in and around podcasting this week, and so if you've not had enough of me although, goodness, then you can get another hour of me on that show as well. The Tech Stuff on the Pod News Weekly Review. Yes, it's the stuff you'll find every Monday in the Pod News newsletter. Here's where Sam talks technology. What have you got here, Sam?

Sam Sethi: 1:05:16

Well, one of the things that we've tried to do is not just have UK voices or American voices or English speaking voices. We've tried to go further, the interview with Podio being one example to understand about the Middle East market. And one of our friends over in India is Gautam Rajnand and he runs Hubhopper, and from time to time we want to catch up with him to find out what's happening in the South Asian market, but also what's he doing specifically with Hubhopper. And they recently announced that they've integrated with Headliners Eddie to provide AI powered text editing and transcriptions. But they've also announced that they've now integrated with YouTube to provide ai powered text editing and transcriptions. But they've also announced that they've now integrated with youtube to provide video podcasting um, so one of the first hosts to actually support direct video podcasting. And they've also launched a new um guest and host matching service.

Sam Sethi: 1:06:10

I best think that's the way to talk. Talk about it. It's called a mic match or, and so, yes, I thought I'd reach out to gotham and find out what's going on with hub hopper and what's going on in india. And I start off by saying one of the things that we had talked about recently was video and podcast hosts supporting it.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:06:29

Tell me more about what you've done with video integration yeah, I mean actually, you and I are in a couple of groups and we are seeing polarized stances with the hosts and their approach to video podcasts and how podcasting is changing, I think. For us, as a philosophy, I think podcasts are whatever the consumer wants them to be. At least in a couple of years ago, podcasts denoted or implied a technology, right, and now it's changed more from a technology to a conversational style, and that conversational style can take place across any format. So, as an organization because we know that the pain point and the want of the creator today is to be omnichannel and the assumption of the consumer is that podcasts can be anything Our goal is to facilitate distribution, not just into audio but also into video and social from one platform alone and social from one platform alone.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:07:37

So I mean, right now you're looking at Hubbub distributing directly into YouTube along with all audio platforms, some of which are exclusive just to us because they're in the South Asian market and emerging markets. But going forward, you're going to see us integrating with very many different video platforms as well, some very large names of course we don't need to guess between the two of us and then, in the future, extending that forward to also automatically distribute into social platforms from Hubhopper. So objective is upload once, distribute everywhere. So yeah, that's pretty much our thought process right now and we think that this echoes very strongly and true with creators. So what's?

Sam Sethi: 1:08:17

been the uptake with video from your user base. So what have they said?

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:08:23

Okay. So it's been really good actually, and let's talk about the negative side. So first is, we saw a slowdown on the number of audio creators. So it's not just a one-sided push, it's also a pull down from the other side. I don't know how many hosts or how many folks would admit to this, but we've actually seen a deceleration in the number of audio podcasts being created, and ever since we enabled video distribution via YouTube just now we've come back to Cetris Paribus. So the uptake has been touchwood really good, because we also do a thing where if you upload an MP file to upload to YouTube and, in the future, other video platforms, we will automatically also convert it into audio and distribute it into audio platforms. So we want to make it such where, even if you're uploading an MP3 file, you will have the ability to convert it into a. Even if you're uploading an mp3 file, you'll have the ability to convert it into a video file, which is an mp4 file, and distribute it into youtube and vice versa.

Sam Sethi: 1:09:21

So either way, we want to get you into as many platforms as possible so are you going to use the alternative enclosure to then have one feed with both audio and video in it, or are you going to have two separate feeds?

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:09:35

so you're aware, and we already do support the alternate enclosure tag, but once again, we want to leave this to the creator's discretion, so we give them the opportunity and option of leveraging the alternate enclosure tag, but also, if they so wish, to have different feeds for these shows and operating as being completely different because they're different media formats.

Sam Sethi: 1:09:59

That's fine from our side as well are you considering creating a alternative format which is hls, so instead of having m3 and MP4, having a single HLS format which could be a funny thing because we have a lot of exclusive platforms- that we distribute to.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:10:39

We created the standard for the way they were actually taking in podcasts. So we helped build their entire ecosystem of having podcasts on their platform up and assisted their tech team. So we thought that this was a really interesting opportunity for us to distribute via hls, because we'd also be able to tell creators you know drop off rates till what point people were consuming, which is unfortunately a major you know pain point for creators where they don't really know their finishing rates or completion. So we did that and integrated successfully and this had, you know, positive impact on our server costs as well and hosting costs. Did this for a couple of years with a few companies, giant companies which have 500 million monthly active users.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:11:28

Unfortunately, then came the time where people wanted to start standardizing towards what Spotify were doing and what the largest platforms are doing. So these companies then came back to us and said, ok, we've been doing HLS for a really long time, could we please actually go back to MP3, or rather go to MP3 for the first time? Or rather go to MP3 for the first time? So for an organization that actually tried to be future forward with HLS four years ago, we unfortunately, due to market forces were forced into the old school structure of doing things. We're very happy to try it again. I think it has positive benefits for everybody involved. We just wouldn't need the DSP the consumption side platforms to be open to doing it. All of our tech stack is still ready to support it. It's been built in that way.

Sam Sethi: 1:12:20

Well, with my CEO of TrueFans, I'll tell you we already support HLS, so you can always try it with us if you want. But the other thing I'm looking at, Gautam, and maybe something you want to look at there's a new update to hls called low latency hls. So one of the things you were talking about with hls was six second chunks of data and therefore you could measure performance based on where it dropped off. You can actually do low latency hls and it's a one second chunk and it's actually a standard that they've updated on HLS, so maybe it's worth looking at that as well.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:12:56

Thank you for that. I've actually taken a note of that. I didn't know about this. Thank you so much for putting it on my radar. Thank you.

Sam Sethi: 1:13:04

No worries Now. One of the other issues with video is cost cost of distribution. What are you finding from your own experience with the cost?

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:13:15

look. There's no way to argue against it. It is a cost. My hope is that it is a short-term cost which, over time, will get commoditized, the same way as today we look at audio hosting costs, which are actually quite affordable. Today they used to be very different, even five, six, seven years ago.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:13:41

I believe the same thing will potentially happen on the video side of things, and different hosting providers when I say hosting providers, I mean infra providers will battle to a point where these costs will actually be bearable both for us as well as for the customer, because the last thing we want to do is one is either bleed too much money we are open to take the first hit on it initially and not put too much of the burden on the customer but going forward, we would also want it to be such where it's economically viable for us as well as for the end creator, as well as for the infra company. So I mean it should be a win-win. I know this is a very diplomatic thing to say, but we've already seen it happen before on the audio side of things, so there's no reason why it shouldn't happen again. The second thing that I would actually believe is that if with video podcasts. If we pass on a little bit of the cost to the customer, the potential for monetization is generally a little bit higher on the video side and this is no surprise to anybody.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:14:46

So if we're charging a slightly higher amount for video hosting and video distribution, the hope and the assumption is on our side that the monetization for the creator should also be commensurate and they should be able to pull that much capital out of it. So at the end of this entire scenario, if we're looking at each individual creator having their own P&L and a balance sheet, they shouldn't be hit too badly Right now. We're not pushing these costs heavily onto them. We're taking a large burden of it to balance sheet. They shouldn't be hit too badly right now. We're not pushing these costs heavily onto them. We're taking a large burden of it because otherwise it'll shock the system. But over time we'd want it to be such that their monetization is strong enough that they're able to withstand a little bit of slightly higher hosting charges on the video side, at the same time hoping that macroeconomic forces will prevail and you'll see generally video hosting becoming cheaper at an infra level.

Sam Sethi: 1:15:42

I agree. I think scalability to network usage should come down with more access to it. Now, congratulations on doing that. That sounds very exciting. Now, the other thing I wanted to talk to you is a new feature that you've launched, or a new site you've launched, maybe called Mic Match. Now tell me more about Mic Match.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:16:03

Okay. So thank you so much, sam. I think the last year has been really interesting in podcasting for everybody, because we've even seen major changes at a data level, like, for example. We've even seen major changes at a data level, like, for example, we've seen the peak days for creator upload changing. Now we're looking at peak days for creator upload sitting between tuesday and wednesday. Peak days for consumption is happening on friday and saturday.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:16:28

You're looking at the hours of consumption changing. You're looking at devotion and religion, which I told you the last time I was on this call, being the top genre for consumption by a big margin. You're looking at that margin shrinking and education is now coming and catching up very, very quickly. And I think a large portion of this is actually because people have begun to think about podcasts in a slightly different way ever since YouTube came into the market and they think about podcasts as a synonymous word with interviews, basically, podcasts equaling interviews. That creates a whole host of new problem statements in the market, and these problem statements may have been there always, but they've just been, you know, lifted up to a large degree. So the problem statement that I'll state to you, which you probably have also felt, is the chasm or the pain point between podcasts hosts not being able to find appropriate guests and podcast guests who are aspiring guests that may be leaders in their own space, who all want to be on podcasts because it's a showcase of their domain authority not being able to find how to actually be on shows. So we did a little bit of research in trying to understand this place and this chasm and found out that this problem was much more painful than we had initially thought it was, because even people that were domain leaders and market leaders in their own fields, the only way that they were able to reach out to podcasts in their vicinity was through word of mouth, because the only other options that they had at their disposal in a market like India, other emerging markets, etc. Were they would have to put it up on Instagram, which is something that they wouldn't do because they've been in the industry that they've been in for 15 years, which is quite embarrassing for them to do. So they wouldn't do it. They wouldn't put it up on LinkedIn either. At best they would, you know, slide into a creator's DMs or write into them in email on LinkedIn, or they would cold mail them. That was their best case scenario and then they'd get lost in a barrage of mails or DMs that the host was already getting, despite this person being a potentially appropriate guest, and the host on the other side was having the opposite problem statement, wherein they were getting a lot of people that wanted to be on their shows, but very small percentage of them actually were appropriate for their shows, so only like 15-20% of them would be appropriate for their shows.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:19:09

So think about Mic Match as nothing but a Tinder. Think about Mike Match as nothing but a Tinder. For podcast hosts and podcast guests. No-transcript fill in details of what they're specifically looking for takes you into a very clean user experience. You get weekly suggestions on potential guests or potential hosts, which are marked with a particular percentage of how strong your match is, and then you can start a conversation with these people and if the conversations begins to move forward, the feature already has a crm in it, so you, together between you and your potential next guest, can then move each other across the crm and both of you keep getting notified as the crm position is changing. So we've got a lot of positive feedback and critique in the initial days of the things that we're doing wrong, as well as the things that we're doing right. So, in order to get a lot more feedback right now, we've kept it completely free, both for hosts and for guests.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:20:13

So come one, come all, go to micmatchio and give it a whirl and please be brutally honest. We know that at an MVP level, there's a lot more that we can do. We just believe that this is a broken marketplace problem that can be solved. And, sam, I'm just sort of giving you a little bit of peek into what could be in store in the future is that this isn't the only broken marketplace in the podcasting space. There is still a broken marketplace with people that want services which are ranging from editing to animation, to, etc. And podcast hosts. There's another broken marketplace between brands across the board and podcasters. So I'm maybe jumping the gun, but if you've created something that actually joins people effectively, that somewhat sticks together a broken marketplace, you have the opportunity of solving defragmentation to quite a little bit of a degree and helping folks along the way, but still long ways for us to go Early stages. It's a beta product, which is why it's free. Please kindly use it, go for it and tell us what you like, tell us what you don't like.

Sam Sethi: 1:21:24

I'll be brutally honest, I'm not a great fan of matching services, but that's because you don't like. I'll be brutally honest, I'm not a great fan of matching services, but that's because I don't use them myself. But I can see the need, I can see how you've implemented it and you know ranking guests and I saw a service recently from jim james who actually did a post ranking of the guest based on their tone, their speed of conversation, their expertise. That was quite interesting as well. So I think you know I can imagine you with Mike Match, being able to then upload, host the interview, an ability to say, oh yeah, this guest was great and here's the AI report on them and here's what the transcript said about them, etc. I think there's so much opportunity there, I can see them, etc.

Sam Sethi: 1:22:10

I think there's so much opportunity there I can see and I love the idea, like fiverr, being able to find video editors or ai people or maybe just somebody who's a publisher or a script writer or whatever. I think that's a lovely broken market, I agree with you. And then branding for the long tail, I think, is again another broken market. So, yeah, nice ideas like them. So, gotham, congratulations on all the work you've been doing with youtube and video all the work with mic match. Tell people where they can go again to find out more about hub hopper and mic match hubhoppercom, and if you go to hubhoppercom, slash pod news, we'll create a specific link for that.

Gautam Raj Anand: 1:22:46

We'll give you a few months free as well so that you can play around with it and tell us what you like and what you don't like, and then micmatchio is anyways free. So come one, come all. Please tell us your thoughts and where we can improve. There's a bunch that we can do, I'm sure, but exciting days ahead and looking forward to it. Thanks, sam, for always telling us and telling me about these incredible new things. I'm going to look at low latency HLS right now, in fact, after this call, and yeah, catch you later today possibly.

Sam Sethi: 1:23:17

Thanks, Gautam, Speak to you soon. Bye mate.

Announcer: 1:23:20

Boostergram, boostergram, boostergram, super Super comments Zaps, fan mail. Fan mail.

James Cridland: 1:23:37

Super, yes. So many different ways to get in touch with us Fan mail by using the link in our show notes, super comments on True Fans, boosts everywhere else. Or email, of course, we share any money that we make as well between us. It's weekly at podnewsnet, by the way. Our email, uh address and all of that, and um, a ton of um, a ton of boosts. All of a sudden, seeing loads of boosts, although, I have to say, most of them from true fans, although there's a fair amount from the fountain app, uh as well. Um, what have we got here, sam? We've got one from Matt Cundall.

Sam Sethi: 1:24:10

Yeah, matt says. Excellent interview with Amaya from Spotify. Appreciate the demystifying of Spotify video. Yes, it was a good interview. Well done sir.

James Cridland: 1:24:18

Why? Thank you very much, and good of Amaya to come on John McDermott 4,444 sats, that's nice. Thank you, john. I wish to complain. He says Does he want the 10-minute complaint or the full half hour? I love James's comments about copying bosses on email so much I almost emailed him about it. That would have been not getting it. So now you guys get sats Brilliant Double four, double four, double ducks, or $3.79, according to True Fans Tech. Yes, thank you, john. He of course launched a couple of weeks ago White Smoke, a podcast all about how the next new pope is chosen. It's almost as if he knew that something was going to happen there, but still. Yes, yes, it's almost as if he knew that something was going to happen there, but but still yes, yes, yes, conclave came out six months too early, that's all what else have we got here?

Sam Sethi: 1:25:18

222 to a row of ducks from Bruce the ugly quacking duck. I got lost, looked up Google Maps, ended up getting my wires crossed. Still found my way back to news. Thanks again for for PodNews. You guys are a great team. Thank you 73 on the call out.

James Cridland: 1:25:34

Yes, thank you, bruce. From the late bloomer actor 375 sats. I love the SPC concept from John Spurlock. Yes, that was in last week's show as well, wasn't it? He says it can't come quick enough. I feel there's only one real metric we need and that's a retention metric, perhaps coupled with listener data. I don't care that much about download data. No good if I have 1,000 downloads but they all stop listening under 10% in. But if I've got 50 downloads and they all average 90% or more of my show, then that's data worth knowing. Now, john does actually have the concept of that retention data in the SPC as an example. Where do you sort of stand on the SPC, sam? Are you thinking it's an excellent plan or is it a bit naive from John's point of view?

Sam Sethi: 1:26:33

No, I don't think it's naive. I think you know we do need to share this data back with hosts. It's what you know late bloomer actor is looking for. Right, we have that data. He has that data actually in his creator's dashboard because I know he uses true fans. But, um, what john's asking us to do for the metadata high level, you know, um, number of listeners, number of followers, total time listened, um, that stuff we can share with hosts. But, as I said on the interview, um, it's a quid pro quo. You, you know, if we're going to give you, as a host, this data, what do we get back in? It's more of a business deal, you know. Will you promote us as a app on your platform? Will you write about it in the newsletter? Will?

Sam Sethi: 1:27:17

you encourage people to come to us, because why would we do it otherwise? So I don't think it's naive, I think we need to work together, but there needs to be you scratch your back and I'll scratch mine, um, or the other way around, even Um, but um, no, I think it works. I think the the the problem is the array of data that John wants, which is, um, where people uh, listen up to and where they drop off. That's slightly um information that I don't know yet. I don't know what I'm going to do with that because, again, one of the things we want as apps to be able to do is to, you know, create pro accounts, and that has to be some value in creating a pro account, and that's potentially first party data given back to the creator.

Sam Sethi: 1:28:04

Now, some of that data I know you said is is the data, is their data right, fair enough, but without us writing the tools, they wouldn't have the data. So, um, accessing the data and then allowing the creator to choose, with a permission to share back to their host, is probably the way we will do it, so that we're not the ones making that decision, but it's the creator themselves saying yeah, I've got all this data, I've paid for it. It's in my creator saying, yeah, I've got all this data, I've paid for it. It's in my creator's dashboard and, yes, I'm going to share this data via SPC back to my host. I think that may be the way it goes.

James Cridland: 1:28:38

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens and whether or not any podcast apps you know jump in and start sharing that kind of information. I think it's a very clever technical solution, but I think, yes, there's definitely some business conversations to be going on there as well. I guess what else have we got? We've got Lyceum with 2222sats a row of ducks. James, I know somebody who could do email training. I'm not really looking for email training, I'm just saying that that's a really good way to get rich. That's all I'm saying. Anyway, he says fellow podcaster, david Steenholm, his title is Struktur, the structure guy. Check out his podcast. Done All the best, martin Lindeskog. I'm trying to pronounce that in the same way that Adam Curry does. So, yes, lyceum. Thank you so much for that. Yes, I think that is an easy way to get rich is to teach people how to use email.

James Cridland: 1:29:43

Silas on Linux sent us a couple of a bag of Richards. Don't call it Sam Talks, true Fans or True Fans Weekly Review. Call it True Sams. Ah, now this is your new podcast, isn't it? Have you got a name for it?

Sam Sethi: 1:29:59

Yes, we're going to just call it. Creators, oh Creators. Yes, it's very simple, and it's basically Claire and I. We recorded the first episode yesterday or it will land on Monday. Yeah, so we're just finishing off the editing and then, yes, it will be James in your new podcast apps for you to find Very nice.

James Cridland: 1:30:19

Is it going to have a trailer?

Sam Sethi: 1:30:21

It is going to have a trailer as well, so yes, you'll be able to use that. No, we just thought very, very simply. It's about helping creators monetize their fandoms, and so it's all about creators. So we're going to highlight um independent podcast creators and independent podcast musicians. Um invite some of those maybe on the show. Talk about what's uh available for them to make money as creators and how they can do it. So, yeah, that's sort of uh theme of the creator show.

James Cridland: 1:30:50

What Silas also says is speaking of Tim Cook being the worst thing to happen to Apple. Not going to agree or disagree with that, but Tim Cook has been serving as CEO for longer than Steve Jobs ever did. Think about that, something that I hadn't considered. So, silas, thank you for that. And he also sends um a row of ducks, um, uh, quoting uh me, or actually quoting Maya, uh, who, uh, I fervently agree with sticking video in an RSS feed is a bad user experience. And, uh, silas says that's a really bullshit statement. The RSS feed does not dictate user experience. Ah, but in this case it does. In this case it does, because putting a massive, great big RSS, a massive, great big video file in an RSS feed is not great, is not a good plan, but is it?

Sam Sethi: 1:31:42

I mean we don't put the MP3 in the RSS, we put a pointer to it.

James Cridland: 1:31:45

No, no, no, but you know. But even putting a pointer in there, it's not a great user experience for video, because you need multiple different versions of video, you need multiple different resolutions, you need all kinds of all kinds of things that just sticking one video file in there is not good for anybody. Uh, in there is not good for anybody, um, and at the end of the day, um, you know, if you can't, if you, if you can't stream it, um then then it really doesn't work from a point of view of a playback uh experience. There's a reason why YouTube works the way it does and doesn't just download the you know the 1080p video to your device. You know it works that way so that it can look the best on whatever device you actually have.

Sam Sethi: 1:32:35

So- which is why low latency HLS, I think, is a way forward.

James Cridland: 1:32:39

Correct, which is why streaming is certainly one of the ways forward for video. I think that that makes a bunch of sense. So, silas, thank you for your sats. Don't agree, but very kind of you to get in touch and talking about people who I don't agree with, 1,173 sats, which is something from Seth, and Seth just says Apple is evil, and I'm not sure I agree with that either. I don't think that Apple is. I don't think. Certainly, if you were to look at Apple in comparison to Google or Microsoft or Facebook, I think Apple will come out pretty well out of that, and I don't think that that's particularly fair. So, yeah, so I don't agree with that either, but thanks for the stats.

Sam Sethi: 1:33:28

I'm more on the side of Seth than on yours. I think Apple has turned evil. I think the stuff that they've done recently with the App Store and the way that they've behaved with the European Union and the way that they are treating certain people, I think yes, well, they've just been fined, haven't they?

James Cridland: 1:33:48

Very well, They've just been fined another, you know, bazillion dollars. Yes.

Sam Sethi: 1:33:54

And what did Tim Cook do? Went straight to Donald Trump to go and say go and tell those naughty Europeans off for me please.

James Cridland: 1:34:02

Yes, I paid my million dollars earlier on. This is where I get my comeback. It's government. It's how it works. Thank you so much to the excellent 18, our power supporters. You can join them at weeklypodnewsnet for your kind amounts of money every single month. They are Star Tempest, brian Entsminger, the late bloomer actor, james Burt, john McDermott, claire Waite-Brown, mazzilene Smith, neil Velio, rocky Thomas, jim James, david Marzell, cy Jobling, rachel Corbett, dave Jackson, mike Hamilton, matt Medeiros, marshall Brown and Cameron Moll. You can join them if you like. Just head over clutching your credit card to weeklypodnewsnet. You can start for just $3 a month and get in that list, and that'll be a splendid thing. So thank you for them. What's happened for you this week, sam?

Sam Sethi: 1:35:03

Well, I had a weird epiphany moment. So we are putting creators as a podcast with Buzzsprout Thank you to Alban and I was checking out co-host and I was going through various features and one of the things that I wanted to do with the creators podcast was also to create a blog post with a screencast in it. So, let's say we were talking about a new technology with a screencast in it. So, let's say we were talking about a new technology. I can reference it and say, oh, by the way, in this episode you can go to read the blog post and see the screencast of how this works. And then I went to Buzzsprout and I realised that CoHost, their AI technology, does our transcriptions, it does our show titles, but it also pre-creates a blog copy that you can put straight into a blog post. And I thought, wow, okay.

Sam Sethi: 1:35:53

So I actually went and took the interview or the episode that we did with Maya Prohovnik and I went and looked at what Buzzsprout wrote about that whole episode and I've cut and pasted that into True Fans, into the blog for Pod News Weekly Review, and so you can now just create blog posts instantly from audio shows. So I think it's quite a nice thing. I would love to work out a way where we could automate that in some way, but I don't know how we're going to do that yet. But I do know Dave Jones is working on something related to that.

James Cridland: 1:36:28

Oh, interesting, have you been on any? In fact, I know this. I saw you in some newsletter this week, in some competing newsletter. Not competing, James, not competing, no, not really.

Sam Sethi: 1:36:44

No, andrea lovely Andrea that she is invited me on to Eurowaves to talk about a little bit about, obviously, true Fans, but I was also talking about the industry and a lot about AI. I mean, I'm very gung-ho on what we're doing with AI and yeah, so I talked a little bit about that and I'll be presenting and demoing at the London Podcast Show some of our new interface that we're working on related to AI as well.

James Cridland: 1:37:12

Very nice, too Excellent. It would be worthwhile finding out a little bit more about that. What else is going on? We mentioned Stripe earlier. That's Stripe with a P. It is yes, that's Stripe with a P it is yes.

Sam Sethi: 1:37:30

One of our things that we did was we created one click top up of your wallet via Stripe in TrueFans. That was something that I thought was a very quick feature and you said it earlier. There are a lot of people giving us boosts from TrueFans and that's because I think it's easy to do it from TrueFans. I'm not saying it's not easy in other apps. I just think we've done an easy method.

Sam Sethi: 1:37:52

But one of the criticisms we had was that I've accumulated all this money in my creator's dashboard. How do I get it out? So we've basically allowed you to either enter your third party external wallet and then you can just move your sats from one wallet to another so from a true fans wallet to a fountain wallet or a podverse or a podcast guru wallet or, if you prefer, you can convert that into fiat money and you can do a one click withdrawal straight back to stripe and you can then say I've got 10 000 sats and I want to convert that back into pounds or dollars. We'll tell you how much that is. You click the withdraw button and it will appear in your credit card or your bank account. So, yes, one click access.

James Cridland: 1:38:37

Very nice, very nice. And you're getting very excited about another book which you're not going to read, but you're going to get somebody else to read for you, because that's the way you roll. I understand how this stuff works, but it's from Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Famously, sir Tim Berners-Lee in the opening of the London Olympics in 2012. Famously, the American commentator saying well, I don't know who he was, but the inventor, of course, of the World Wide Web, and he ended up actually unveiling at that very ceremony, something saying this is for everyone and that's his new book, isn't it? You're very excited by it.

Sam Sethi: 1:39:25

Yes, I think the title about it is, you know, and I think, given where we are in the world today, with where the internet's fragmenting and where everything is changing, I think the reminder that he invented this for everyone, for humanity, I think, is a telling time. Book's coming out in september. You can pre-order it now. Um, although, like that American commentator, I didn't go as big a faux pas as that, but I did, as you may recall, sit next to Tim Berners-Lee over lunch.

Sam Sethi: 1:39:55

And I did turn around to him and say what do you do? Yes, so. The classic. Yes, at which point he said I invented the web. Yes, dig a hole yes humble brag indeed. Um, anyway, james, on that, that embarrassing note. Uh, what's happened for you this week?

James Cridland: 1:40:16

well, um, I wrote a thing about the new location tag, which, um, I think is you know. We're just getting ready for that to um, for the revisions of that to get into the new podcast namespace. So you'll find that blog post over at podcastnamespaceorg under the location tag in there. I've remembered that I own that website. Might as well do something with it. But the point of the blog post was really just to point out the benefit of the open street map functionality in there. It's very easy, I think, for quite a lot of people just to put the lat alone and think that they've done everything. And yeah, you can do that with the spec.

James Cridland: 1:41:05

But it's not really going to be a particularly exciting experience. And I think what I'm excited about is being able to turn around and say show me, make a big map of lots of podcasts which are to do with wineries, for example. Don't even make a map, just show me All of the podcasts which are to do with vineyards in the south of France, for example. You can do that with OpenStreetMap IDs. You can't do that with just a random lat-lon point on the map. So this will help you get real visibility for shows.

James Cridland: 1:41:50

So please go and read that in case you're thinking about implementing the podcast location tag, but you're thinking about being lazy and not using OpenStreetMap, because it's a super useful thing and will really make you know, allow us to do loads of really interesting things. If you are, for example, producing a podcast app which is all about shows from churches, let's just say, then you could use the OpenStreetMap IDs to actually give not just maps of those churches but lists of those churches where they all are. All of that a different way in to the podcast information, and I think quite a lot of this is all to do with. So far, everybody is just using podcast apps. Where you go in, you search for a podcast, you listen to the podcast, but actually we can organise the world of audio in lots of other ways as well, and I do think that the location tag is one of the most exciting things there from that point of view.

Sam Sethi: 1:43:03

Anyway, there we are. You know that we use the new format for you in Pod News Daily, if anyone wants to see it.

James Cridland: 1:43:11

But we are switching to OpenStreetMaps from Google Maps for the very reason you just explained Hurrah, which is an excellent thing, and also a few things on my personal blog. There's something about FreshRSS which I have just gone to use. Instead of spending lots of money on a paid for RSS reader, I thought I've got these boxes hidden away. I might as well use them, so I've thrown that on there of how to install that. A few other things and perhaps one thing. It's a little bit sweary, but there's a radio station here in Australia which, um a sounds rubbish um, and really sounds not very good at all. But also um B has been using an AI voice for the last six months and no one has noticed, probably because the radio station sounds so appalling I would doubt that anybody's actually listening to it. But anyway, it's worth a read. If you want to go and have a look at that, jamescridlandnet slash blog is where you'll find that.

Sam Sethi: 1:44:17

I love the line. It's the Milli Vanilli of Sydney radio.

James Cridland: 1:44:21

Yes, milli Vanilli. Remember them, my goodness. And that's it for this week. All of our podcast stories taken from the Pod News daily newsletter at podnewsnet.

Sam Sethi: 1:44:32

You can support this show by streaming stats. You can give us feedback by using the Buzzsprout fan mail link in your show notes. You can send us a super comment or a boost or become a power supporter, like the excellent 18 at weeklypodnewsnet.

James Cridland: 1:44:46

Our music is from TM Studios. Our voiceover is Sheila D, our audio is recorded using Clean Feed, we edit with Hindenburg and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzzsprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting. Get updated every day. Subscribe to our newsletter at podnewsnet.

Ted Sarandos: 1:45:06

Tell your friends and grow the show and support us, and support us. The Pod News Weekly. Review will return next week. Keep listening.