Welcome to Digital Podcaster. My name is Dylan Schmidt, your host. And in this episode I want to share some findings and takeaways I've had after completing a 90 day experiment I set out to do. So to add a little backstory here. First, a quick update on doing this podcast today for the month of May because I feel like I need to just say something. First things first. Before I started this challenge, I was definitely worried about if I would run out of things to say. And then I started this challenge of doing a podcast today. And I gotta say, the ideas are just flowing. It's coincident. It's a coincidence that at the same time, my allergies have been on fire lately. And I've just been leaking. Sorry, that paints a picture. But the ideas have been leaking as well. I've been just just in a wealth of ideas. And I really I unless it just great timing with lining up with doing a podcast today. I got to give credit to doing this challenge a little bit too. And the challenge, I think came up on the podcast, I love challenges. And that leads me to what I want to share with what I've learned during this 90 Day experiment. So adding some facts story here, so you know what I'm talking about. In case you didn't know, 90 days ago, I was sitting on the couch at night with my French Bulldog Wednesday Adams. And I had the I was just scrolling social media is like six o'clock. I'm home alone. didn't think anything of it. wasn't trying to think of some new account I wanted to start wasn't thinking of like, How can I add more onto my plate I already feel busy enough or there's other things I want to focus on. So I'm just scrolling social media. And for some, like just spark of it was probably way in the back of my mind, or something I don't know where the idea came from, just popped up right in front of me like it just clear as day exactly what I wanted to do. And that was make news for people who don't like the news because myself. It's not like I hate the news or something. It's just the news to me is so divisive and opinion driven. And I just see it pull people in directions that maybe they don't even mean to be pulled in or I don't know it's in. It's not like a right left center. Whatever type of thing. It's just, I mean, speak to sound old over when the news was just facts. You know, and I just I don't know something about the news. I just because I don't feel like I have time for it or something. And so I'm like, I want to make news for people who don't like the news. Do I know anything about the news? Not really, I'm busy doing a bunch of other stuff that I don't really make time for the news. But it popped in my head in an instant of, hey, I want to make news, we will do like the news, which means it's going to be very short. And I'm not going to look at the camera. Because I had a podcast episode. I think this is what sparked it. I had a podcast episode with a man named Josh Terry on here, Digital Podcaster. And he has a large Tiktok following As of recording this. He's got like over a million followers on Tiktok. And he will read from his computer off to the side not looking at the computer or not looking at the camera. And his content is great. It's super great. But in the episode with him he had talked about I don't even think I had recorded the episode yet with him when I had came up with this idea. But he looks off to the side and just reads a script to something that he wrote. And then that's it. And I was like You want me to try the same thing with news. So within literally like five or 10 minutes, I just go. Alright, it's all here. I write out the script. It just says and I've set it for 90 days in a row now and I forget what I say but I have it saved on my notes here. I just say the top three news headlines for today's date. So as of recording this, it's May 18. This episode's gonna go may 19. So this is what I would say. And this is today's news. By the way, this is what I read earlier. The top three news headlines for May 18 2022. Ex cop pleads guilty to manslaughter and George Floyd killing us accuses casino tycoon when of acting as Chinese agent, North Korean leader Kim slams officials in maturity in response to COVID outbreak like and follow her news as a boy. I say the same exact way. And I've gotten a little better at saying it. Because I've repeated that script so many times. And this case, the script hasn't all came to me in like five minutes. And the script hasn't changed. In 90 days. I hadn't I have no reason to change it. And I didn't like sit on like how am I do this all that stuff? So I was when I was sitting on the couch before I recorded it, I believe. I was like, what would I call it? And I promise you on my life, this was not like premeditated, like everything I'm saying here is true. I always, everything they say is true, just because it seems a little far fetched, even to me, I guess. And the name simple social news comes into my mind. Like, there's no way that domain is available. That sounds pretty, you know, that sounds quite, I don't know, simple and probably taken. Sure enough, it's available. And if you've done any Google searches or anything like that, recently, for domains, or social media names, you'll find that like, pretty much everything's taken. And I was shocked that simple social news.com was available for the great price of $12 a year, and the social media handles were available. I'm like, Okay, that's a huge, like, it was almost like just this big sign of going, Yes, this is you're doing it. So within, I think we're talking like 515 minutes, here I go, Oh, I got the I got the name, I got an idea of what I want to say. And I got the domain. And then within within the hour, first hour of having the idea, I got a whole website, simple like landing page up. That just, I used card.co, I think it's card.co to get a simple web page up. And then just you can enter your name and email. And eventually I'm going to launch a daily newsletter. But for now, I'm just publishing on Tiktok and Instagram. So I go, we're still within the first hour here of having this idea. I go sit down at my desk and record a video using the script. And I post it to Instagram and Tiktok. And what do you know, so it's getting much of us? And I started getting some meme comments. People are just like, we don't need this. I don't know. It was like, I forget what this man said something like, I don't know. He said something like, you don't like we don't we need more investigative journalism not now, whatever this is, or something like that we have too much of this or something. And I'm like, thinking to myself, yes. I don't really get mean feedback on a lot of Digital Podcaster stuff. Maybe it's because the podcasting community, the people, I attract her way nicer. People. And I don't have much experience in new I have no experience in news and started getting but I kind of always kind of felt like weird not getting I mean, I get some negative feedback on Digital Podcaster. But I was kind of felt a little weird not getting any because I'm like, I don't know, not that I'm trying to like, make people mad. But I'm like, because it's like, everyone's so positive. I'm like, where's the negative? Why is no one telling me anything? Negative because the internet. I know, it's not like this not just overly positive all the time. But hey, that's cool. I'm not trying to put out into the universe. I'm trying to attract that people. So, so universe, if you're listening, please, please cancel any requests made on that behalf if you took that as well. It's not a request. And so I started getting a couple of negative comments like, This is dumb. But then I also got some positive comments that were like, this is perfect. I've been looking for something like this. And I'm like, Oh, this is perfect. We got like, polarization now that I'm trying to polarize people, but the feedback of like, this is the worst idea. And then people saying this is the best idea. And to me, I was making it not for people who wanted more investigative journalism. That's not me, like I have not the investigative journalism person. I don't have time for that. I don't have any desire for that. But I do have a desire to experiment for one. And to make something really fast and that someone might find valuable to kind of create, I guess, leverage that right? Like, this is very simple for me to make, but it helped a lot of people. Like who wouldn't want to do that? So I start doing it daily. And I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna do it every day of the week, except Sunday. And and I guess because I was like, Okay, well, this is going to be kind of scary too. Because for one I didn't know how much of a time commitment it was going to be. It was just a spur of the idea now I'm like, what I'm gonna start doing the news but because of the feedback I saw and then the views and I was like, there's some I'm onto something. And and so yeah, I post it and then I keep I just do it in the afternoons but then I'm like, You know what this is? I'm forgetting and I'm tired by the end of the day and plus with the outweigh the algorithm works, most people wouldn't see it until the next Day. So I started posting it early when I wake up around or not when I wake up, but like when I started the day around like 7:45am Pacific. And that seemed to work best because I could fit it in my schedule. And the more I was doing it, the faster and easier it was getting. So now it takes me about 15 minutes to do. And I took a week off. When I took a week off of the internet like a couple of weeks ago now. And nothing happened. That was cool. But I wanted to share some takeaways I've found through doing this, because I think it's to me one of the most interesting social media and content experiments I have seen or have had the pleasure of participating in I guess, and I'm trying to explain, like my reasoning on how I came to this, because I don't want it to be like, Oh, he's trying to influence people or this way or that way. I'm not. It's not the tell you the purpose of the news. So explain. Let me explain more, I have to explain myself. So Tim Ferriss, author, speaker podcaster wrote a book called The Four Hour Workweek that came out a number of years ago, 15 years ago, I'm guessing, I don't know, 20 years ago, I don't know it's been a while. And he talks about how in it like, yes, maybe some of the ideas in that book are a little outdated, I guess. But in that book, he talks about how like, just stop spending so much time on consuming the news, people over consume the news. So what to do instead, something he says something like if you're walking down the street, or whenever you're out and about, and you see the newspaper, you can get all the news you need, really, unless you want to go deeper on something, but you can get the important pieces of information. They put that all on the headlines. So you don't need to spend so much time digging into the news and all that stuff, save time, save be more productive by just consuming the headlines. So Mike, I guess that's where the idea I didn't come that Tim Ferriss Four Hour Workweek part didn't come out in my head before I made this news thing, but like it came out, maybe like a day after or maybe after, maybe even like an hour after I came up with the idea of website and social media and stuff. And but I'm like, Oh, this makes perfect sense. That's who it's for. So I call it news for people who don't like the news. And it's, you know, it's a little, it's not like people, you know, so one of the biggest questions I've gotten asked for people who have mentioned it from have been, where do you find the news? So I go to Fox and see it at no, just kidding, I don't, I don't go to those. And I'm gonna butcher the name. This is how much I don't pay attention to the news. But I go to Associated Press, and I go to Reuters, routers, routers, whatever. Because what I found through looking this up a little while ago, is I've gotten the news from the same sources. So every morning, and I've done this the same process since I very first started, the only variable in this experiment has been the news headlines. And I got something interesting about that, too. So the whole thing was I'm gonna do this as a 90 day experiment. So that's why it's kind of like a mark of an end of a chapter. And I'll share a little bit about what I'm doing next year. So I, what I do is I open up Reuters routers, Reuters, I guess it was called Reuters. If I'm saying it wrong. I'm sorry, Reuters on one web page, and then AP Associated Press on another web page. And then I go through and I like kind of just look back and forth and see what like the top headlines are on the front page. And sometimes the news on the front pages or just either like even Associated Press has like opinion pieces. And those don't make for the types of headlines that I would read on simple social news because I'm not I'm not trying to share opinion. I'm just trying to share facts. And in those are the headlines that I'm looking for. So like today when I read you X club X club, ex cop pleads guilty to manslaughter and George Floyd killing that's not an opinion or US accuses casino tycoon when of acting Chinese as of acting as a Chinese agent. That's not opinion either. That's just that's what's the process of the news unfolding is? So yeah, and yeah, there's more detail behind the US accusing casino tycoon when you know. So it's not like I don't I don't give room for all of that all of the news is condensed down to 15 seconds. The purpose of it is again, just read the headlines, like some important headlines. And that's how we get the news. So it's not opinion it's not there's no influence. I don't even look in the camera. I've never looked in the camera on the simple social news. I have never I think I might have responded to one comment at one point maybe on Instagram, maybe maybe. But I don't respond to comments. I don't engage with comments. I don't know I don't even look at them now. And the whole thing takes me about 15 minutes or less, to record, edit, grab the headlines everything. And it's been such a fascinating experience because I've been able to just, I don't know, it's something about like, publishing everyday. For one, there is a lot of there's a lot of magic that happens in that like for the Creator, like myself. And then I think, and then just the process, right, the process of editing and making gathering this quick script and things like that. And what I find interesting too, is like, still, well, one, it's interesting, because like, the shot never changes, I'm at my desk when I record it. And it's funny because like, I have to get over the hump of like, some days, I'm just tired. Like, I personally know that on Mondays, I've like the news headlines are usually a little bit more exciting, I guess, I don't know, not that exciting, like, ooh, but they seem to be a little bit more juice here. And then sometimes by Friday or Saturday, especially, it seems like things just kind of mellow out. And that's I don't have any data to back that up. That's just again, like, what I've feel when it comes to seeing the headlines, but I don't know, I've only been doing this 90 days. And this is a guy who doesn't consume the news. But I noticed like on Monday, I'll be tired, and I'll be recording and just going, you know, go, I don't know, it's only 15 seconds. But as you just see, my eyes look a little bit puffier or something, it's like maybe the food I ate over the I noticed the food has a big effect on how I look in the mornings on camera. And so I find that interesting. And then what else. I also the views, and people disagree, occasionally I'll look at the comments, but most probably don't. Because after I post, I'll move on with my day. And I have a reminder on my phone every morning to publish because even though I've been doing this over and over and over again, I still forget sometimes. So I'll forget to post because I'll just start going on with my day. And because I don't check it regularly at all, I just forget it exists. So I do it. And then I move on with my day. And it's been fascinating because I think it's up right around at least 6000 followers on Tiktok. Now, it's been interesting because I just don't engage with it. It's like I put it out in the world and just move on in something about that. That power it gives me to not be attached to content. Because I try as hard as I can not not as hard as I can, I guess because it's I feel like it's the harder I try sometimes the harder gets with, with not being attached to content, but like sometimes, you know, as best as I can, with Digital Podcaster maybe because more goes into it. Maybe because some of it is more of opinion based content. I try my best not to get attached to that content too much. But naturally, anyone's going to be you know, we're all human, we all have, you know, things like that, like we're going to be wanting to feel one way about our content. So I do get feelings towards my content of like, oh, this doesn't do good, or this wasn't well received. But I usually, you know, default back to, it's probably an algorithm thing, like something just got views not showing you the exact right people. So I can kind of like justify that in my head with a news thing. I find it interesting because nothing really changes everyday except the headlines. And so I'll see positive comments sometimes, like, please don't stop doing this. You don't know how much I've been looking for something like this. Those are like the common ones I get. And then the not nice ones that are just like this isn't news headlines, or these are the top headlines. And we're just like, Okay, I don't know, I didn't, I didn't spend a lot of time on these. But like at the same time, these are headlines right now. So if this was something 12 or 16 hours ago, I'm not going to really include it. And I'm not trying to make the most sensational headlines by any means. I'm just trying to choose the ones that seem the biggest. And that is subjective, right. But I have three headlines. So there's all these constraints I work with. There's a script, because I'm following a beat. Like I say, the first line of every video has been the top blank headlines of blank. And then I go through headlines and then like unfollow, for news, a simple way. And the only thing that changes the headlines, but yeah, it's like how do you choose the top three, I could stress and go on this and that. I just, you know, there's no committee I'm going to with like, what are the top three headlines? If this blew up and grew to some big thing? Then I was like, I don't know. And it was like some news company. I don't even know what news. I was about to say CNN because they were a news company. But then I realized they just had that CNN plus kind of didn't do so well. I don't think they're looking to probably invest in. But I don't even know I don't even know like and then my second thought was like because it's simple social news. It only makes real sense to I have to do this with a with a company that is fact based, like Associated Press or Reuters or whatever it's called. Yeah, I don't know. I just didn't when I think of news. I just like NPR, I guess I don't know. I don't. Not a news person. But I have been really. I've been almost I would forget to talk about it, but have the reminder my phone. So yeah, so I just been finding it interesting. And originally my idea, and it's funny, because I was getting views early on, and I still get views. It's growing steadily. But I'll get people that ask me that find out about it in my own life. They go, Great. How are you making money with this, and I'm like, this takes me less than 15 minutes a day. It's been such a fun way to deliver news to people. Most of the time, it's fun. It's actually kind of sad, because most of the time news is not very fun. I also started it before the whole Russia Ukraine thing. So that was interesting timing. There was like a time that it was like a week I think before the Russia Ukraine war happened. So are really sparked there was like that tension building up of it. Like it was like Russia was saying that they were just doing drills and things like that. But there was no actual like, Oh, this is going on. So that was interesting to to kind of start it before that. And then I'm like, reading these headlines. And I'm just like, This is wild. I feel like at times I feel like I'm narrating World War Three or something. So that was interesting. has been interesting, too. And now it's interesting to to kind of mark where it's at, with what I've seen looking at, or relaying the news each day is Russia and Ukraine are still always in the top headlines for the most part but the not the stories but the the news changes every day. It's like obviously but the the news over there changes every day like today, I saw a headline like Russia claims 700 surrendered and things like that and I just some of the those headlines, I have trouble relaying in the top three headlines, because it feels a lot like it's disinformation. But it feels not important, I guess, in the scheme of what people need to hear to move on, like, hearing that. And that's the struggle of what's important, what's not, but hearing that, like an ex cop involved in the George Floyd killing, like, pleads guilty to manslaughter feels more important to slot in then you are the Russia claiming that I don't you know, I don't know if that's true. I don't know. So it's been hard. Not hard. But there is that balance that like kind of walk there? So am I going to Oh, yeah. So people ask me, like, how are you going to make? How are you gonna make money with this? And my first thought was, I don't know, which is fun. Like, let me just do it for fun, because I'm not I didn't do this with the idea of making money. My second thought was immediately, like, something on the idea of I love coffee every morning. And I've wanted to launch a coffee, coffee for podcasters. Like a Digital Podcaster digital pot of coffee, who has come up with these like names on digital pod coffee, there's something in their pod of coffee pod, coffee pot, I don't know. But I wanted to launch because the logo was like a little globe, like a little graphic globe. I wanted to launch some type of pre sale of a mug and a coffee because you can make custom coffee online. And I said I was gonna do that at the end of the 90 days, but I don't think I am because the other part of me was like, what if this goes really well, like, I don't know what the end of the 90 days will look like. And now here I am at the end of the 90 days. And it didn't blow up. I guess as much as like the audience didn't go like, I've got 500,000 followers, you know, and there's ways that I think I could make it better. Like I said, there's like 6000 or so on tick tock. And there's ways I can make it better. That doesn't mean like, you know, in a week it can grow whatever, but I just don't have a huge interest in monetizing it still, and I have huge interest and just doing like another 90 days or something. Because it's just been great for me. Just like this podcast The day has been as far as publishing daily and just not feeling the friction. It's kind of like going to the gym, you know, where you go to the gym. The first time if you went if you've if you've never gone to the gym, and then the first time you go is exhilarating and scary. And you almost judge every trip to the gym like it's, it's good or bad or it's, you know, how did I do today all that stuff and Then once you've been going to the gym for a while, years, you just go to the gym, it's like no big thing. You're just like, Yeah, I just went to the gym, it was nice, like I need to go to the gym to get some ideas out or not ideas to get some energy spent in this way. And that is how I feel now with the publishing. And I didn't think it would be this way. But this is a realization I've had afterwards is, the more I publish, the less of a thing it becomes. And I don't feel any attachment to it necessarily good or bad. Because I'm acting with good intentions. And I'm putting forward what I can afford, just like going to the gym, of, you know, I thought, I'm gonna go to the gym one day and be the rock, or I'm gonna go to the gym the next day and be the person that's the first time going, because I've been going to the gym for years. I'm just me, I'm dealing. And that's how I try to show up with the content is I can't show up in one video and just be like, This is amazing. I'm this guy who has been doing this for years. No, I've been making content regularly now for barely a year. Next month, it'll be a year. And I've only been making really solid, more video content for like, I don't know, nine months, eight months or something. People think I've been doing this for years. No, it's been less than a year. I've been helping people behind the scenes with their podcast for years, and helping people with their content for years, but actually making content myself. No, it's only been like eight months. So when you hear me talk about a lot of these realizations and stuff. A lot of that comes from me, literally in this moment discovering what it is, and what I'm experiencing. And I wish I had someone relaying that kind of what's in their mind. To me, I guess when I was at like a stage of not knowing what to talk about, or not knowing the tangible benefits and things like that. So that's a big part of the reason why I like sharing this type of stuff with you. I just wish I don't know. It's like that transparency is gold. To me it is at least I hope you find it to be interesting, too. And the feedback I've gotten from people that listen to the podcasts I've said, so I'm going to, again, have not changed everything up like I'm not going to be someone I'm not to make the content. And that's what I guess my biggest realization has been, is not needing to change up a lot at all, honestly, not even needing to change up anything. And it's fascinating to me that some content just does better than others based on the algorithm, the time of the day people's interest, things like that. And this, the key has been just showing up regularly. And I know that I get better at reading the headlines, although I like edit it the gaps in between other words. So it's like how you know, even if I mess up, I can just do it again. But I just keep showing up. And it's been like this podcast, the day two is like I just keep showing up. And that's what I love these challenges, I guess is just showing up and seeing what happens. And it's not about making the most engaging, entertaining piece of content the world has ever seen, though, although that would be beautiful, and fascinating and fun. I would be so burnt out. So all I can do is all I can do. And that is just share what's on my heart, what's on my mind, and what message I want to get across. And today that was simply just sharing my take aways, and what my experience has been like. And it's been fun. I guess if I had to put it into one sentence, it's been fun, comma, because it's good to use one word senses. It's been fun, challenging, at times. exhilarating, because watching it grow on certain days, like I posted one video and it was like 20,000 views and I was like, what? Nothing's changed. That was like I if I had to guess it was like somewhere in the middle of the challenge. It was like maybe date 40 or 50 or something. And it was like, there was something that Oh, no, it was. Oh, yes. Okay, so this was a little conflicting. So not conflicting. Because I'm not really attached to the views. Like, honestly, yeah, yeah, I want to see it grow. But it's not like I get anything if it grows, because what am I going to I'm like, not trying to become a news cat. I don't know. It's it's an experiment as much as it is for like a social experiment, as it is for an experiment on myself. And that's why I'm trying to share all this in real time with you. So yeah, so the the news headlines affect the views, of course. And there is an AI it's like aI Now I see why also news companies, they really go after the sensational headlines. Because I don't go I don't I don't I literally copy and paste the headlines from Reuters or Associated Press. And what is I guess you could say interesting about that is because I don't alter the headlines. It's just, again, the facts. So when there's just like on Saturdays when the news headlines are just seem to be rather I don't know. just seems like a lot of news isn't happening quite as much on Saturdays. There's just like not as many views, because probably people are sticking around like, whatever nothing happening. It must tell the algorithm or something. It's not that interesting. But there was a plane in China that crashed all the people on board passed away, that had a ton of views. And, and nothing had changed that day. But I just it was just weird, because part of me is like, I make these videos every day. And when I go on a post, that is when I'll see usually the previous day's views, and I noticed that the video from the previous day had all these views. And it's weird, because my attachment, I guess, to the work that I'm making, I'm like, Yeah, I want people to see it. Like I want to see it. But at the same time, it's kind of sad, too, because it's human lives for one. And all these news lines are like, it's never like the good news. And so and then it's just so sad, of course, a plane anytime someone passes away, let alone a plane of people. So it was weird because of like, oh, that video did really well. Part of me is like, cool. And then other parts like, but it's not good news. So that's not cool. So I don't know if that's actually tried to like, bum bum us out right at the end of this. But I just wanted to share that because it was strange. And I think that was probably the most viewed thing. But it's like, yeah, the news is depressing, most of the time. And that's why I try to limit my intake and the output is really short. So that is the first time I think I've really shared much about that. I hope that offered something to you. If there was a particular section or part of this episode that you were like, I like this, your feedback drives me forward. On the news ones I don't really care about the comments. I don't respond to him, like I said, because they don't matter. But on this on Digital Podcaster it means a lot to me when you say I liked this part because it helps me feel like it's more of a conversation and I just I don't know it's like I need your praise I need your love No, not that I just need I need a we all need feedback and stuff like that I guess but I just really appreciate if you ever reach out hello at Digital podcaster.com and let me know any particular parts you enjoyed because that helps me know what to lets me know I get some heard for one but also lets me know that there was something that you liked. So I hope you have a nice day and I will be back tomorrow for another episode. Talk to you seen