That's what I need to do. I just need to get angry so Kevin, what did you go for? Did you get the seal? Did you get the walrus? What's your uh, what's your podfriend?

Kevin: 0:28

Oh my gosh, I did not know what you're talking about. Fi rst, you're talking about the NFT.

Alban: 0:33

Yeah, there's a dolphin. There's walrus or are you a whale? You mean the whale? Let's look at this. The price was three Etherium and the total value they're valued at $18,000. So right now that's a that's a pretty awesome opportunity. So pod friend is fight friend is the first NFT project dedicated specifically to audio enthusiast don't actually think that's correct. It thinks there's something called like speaker heads while back. But inspired by and created for podcasters podcast friends and the audio industry professionals. We invite you to join a diverse global community of amazing people who love the medium of podcasting. So this is the latest opportunity slash scam. You get allocate to each of those as you see fit, but I just ran across it and it was cracking me up. So these are artworks of walruses, and they're wearing clothing and some of them say podcast on them. I don't know what this has to do with podcasting. But the project looks exciting.

Kevin: 1:42

They totally missed an opportunity. I would have jumped all in if they had the the narwhal you know, Mr. narwhal, from Elf.

Jordan: 1:49

a rt. Do narwhals travel in pods? Because that's, that's our whole thing. It's

Alban: 1:53

like, okay, so that's why they picked these animals for"pods". Because they travel in pods.

Jordan: 1:58

Yes, it's, they're clever. I don't. I can't even I mean, I get it.

Alban: 2:06

I - we're looking at a laser eyes podcast shirt.

Kevin: 2:13

A dolphin with pierced nostrils.

Alban: 2:16

So I'm actually pulling this up on OpenSea, which for anybody who's into the NF T space, these do exist? Yeah. I don't know if people have bought them.

Jordan: 2:24

I don't know, either. This website, I don't know if they were going for like early 2000s MySpace graphics or what but I mean, it's it's definitely giving me like flashbacks to early internet days. And I love how they like, really stuck to the sea theme by using the Google Lobster font incessantly. Like when I saw I was like, oh, that's lobster. I imagined they were just designing it. They're like, "Ah, perfect."

Alban: 2:56

[laughs] Google lobster.

Jordan: 2:59

Did you see that? At the top of the page, it said coming May 2022? It's like June. Yeah. Like it's I don't know if it's even launched yet.

Alban: 3:10

I think that's pretty typical for the NFT project space that things are launching in the past. Same for maybe the Eevee car space. I was looking at the Hummer tra EV today. And it said that they were going to start producing them in fall 2021. And like, time got weird after 2020. But I was like that's in the past. And this, this truck doesn't exist right now like searching online. I'm like, does this exist yet? No, it doesn't. So these maybe are in the same group as the Hummer truck. Yeah, maybe it will launch maybe not, we will see.

Jordan: 3:44

Yeah, I can't get over there valuation of what you get with the NFT. Like, I and I tried googling some of the things like they talk about the one VIP ticket to the next podcast star live event. And I think it's really funny that the value is $2,497 But you're pitching to compete for the grand prize of $5,000. So if it's you and a partner going to pitch your podcast, you're going to be spending close to $6,000 to maybe win $5000 Like it just doesn't make sense.

Alban: 4:17

I don't know there are a lot of events that I'm not 100% sure exist.

Jordan: 4:22

They don't exist. I did an extensive Google. I went--I deep dove, man. I was just like where are they getting this? And yeah, no it doesn't exist.

Alban: 4:31

Right before you through your you refinanced your home to go all in on buying a couple of the whales.

Jordan: 4:38

You know, I came close and I was like, You know what a quick "Goog" would do me some good here and and yeah, I could not find any of this stuff.

Alban: 4:50

Buyer beware. So maybe this is not the NFT project for the audio space.

Jordan: 4:56

We should do an NFT project. Reply All did an NFT episode. Did you listen that?

Kevin: 5:02

no, but I'd be I'd be interested in listening to it because because my opinion on NFTs is is low. I think more people are losing money in NFT's that are making money. And the few that are making money are being very loud about it and it's pulling a lot of people in. And then a lot of people are getting burned.

Jordan: 5:17

Reply All's NFT was hot garbage.

Kevin: 5:21

Oh, they didn't do a good job with it?

Jordan: 5:22

No, it's not that it's just that, like, I think that there is how do I put this? I think that there's like a cheeky thing about NFT's where NFT's are not supposed to be good. But that's the point. Does this make sense? So like the graphics that you buy, the NFT's that you buy, are usually like really crummy graphics by like some artist and a lot of it looks like really like half baked or kind of like 90s, early 2000s vibe. But I kind of feel like that's the point of it. It's like you remember, in the early 2000s, when you decorate your MySpace profile, with those little like gifts of sparkly dolls or like the sparkly-- it's, they're embracing that kind of aesthetic. Yes. And so I think that's actually the point of the NF TS is that they're embracing that kind of weird, early internet and nostalgia it. But no, you should listen to the episode. It's fascinating. Actually, I had no idea anything about NF T's until I listen to that.

Alban: 6:22

Which of the guys from Reply All got cancelled? (PJ) PJ. He now has a crypto podcast called Crypto Island. And so if you want more Reply All-ish type content about crypto stuff, there's some pretty funny episodes in there.

Jordan: 6:43

How is the podcast show in London, guys?

Kevin: 6:47

Okay, all right. So

Jordan: 6:51

Moving on. All right.

Kevin: 6:54

No, I'm just I'm just gearing myself up. Because unlike a lot of podcasts, conferences that do a really good job of making sure that presenters do not push their own goods and services, the podcast show in London seemed to go in another direction for a good percentage of their talks. Like there were a lot of talks that were titled, like how to grow your show with and then you know, insert brand sponsor name here, or how to take your podcast to the next level using, you know, feature from company XYZ. And so that, to me is a bit of a turn off, because I don't want to go to a conference and then hop into toxin here commercials. I don't know if that's just like, if that's part of the way that this conference is set up. And then they do other conferences. This is kind of like part of their shtick what they're known for. Or if that was just hey, this is the first year and we got to make sure that we at least break even on this thing. So we can do it again, bigger and better next year. So I don't know exactly what it was. But that was a little surprising to me, because none of the conferences that we attend regularly do stuff like that, you submit a talk and you get accepted. And your speaker, there's a lot of stuff usually around, Hey, you can't get up there and push your own products and services. It has to be educational. And if you're going to talk about a feature or benefit of something that you offer, then you also need to say what else is available in the marketplace. And so this felt a little bit different in that regard. Now, the venue, I mean, London is awesome, the weather was pretty good. I mean, it's always raining in London. And so we had some good weather and some bad weather. But the venue was really cool. They're getting ready for the Queen's Jubilee. That was neat, because they were getting London already for all the festivities that were happening next week. So the timing was good. I enjoyed the conference, the the networking space was good, again, but again, like people who go for the content, a lot of people go for content, a lot of people go just for networking, if you went for networking, you probably loved it. If you went for the content and talk I think you might have been had some disappointed people.

Alban: 8:47

For me, it was a ton of fun to meet people that we've been friends with online for years. You know, lots of people who we know from the podcasting space are based in Europe. This was really one of the first Premier podcast shows that they could go to. And they did a really, really good job making it cheap so that people could afford to come putting it in a good venue. Like Kevin said, there was great networking, all those pieces, I feel like they hit on all those cylinders, perfect. But I got the same vibe as Kevin because each of these stages was sponsored by a pretty big sponsor. And it did feel like the talks that I went to and this could just be the ones that I went to. It felt very Hey, this is the sponsor this stage. And so there's going to be a lot of talk about that sponsor. There were a few talks I was in it just felt a little heavy handed. They also it was a bit different of a focus than some of the shows I've been to that we go to Podcast Movement and pod Fest and black pod festival and lots of shows that are really focused on the creators. And it does did feel like the podcast show was also highlighting a lot of really big podcasts. And they were setting up live have recordings and doing stuff for fans to interact with the podcasters. I did wonder if a little bit of what Kevin and I experienced with some of the education talks was, maybe we're primarily had been going to education focused conferences. And now we had one that was a bit more straddling the fence between creators, but also fans of the medium. So that could have also been a little bit of what we were picking up. But it was definitely impressive how professional it was their very first year,

Jordan: 10:31

it looked really cool. I saw some like photos, and it looked massive, and it looked well put together. But yeah, I could see how if it's just like, basically a big commercial event, that's not very fun for the podcasters that paid money to go there just to get pitched to sign up for different companies and different apps and whatever. Yeah,

Kevin: 10:51

I will also say they didn't really have like a main stage that can hold a lot of people. And so on the first day, I think it was, yeah, it was James Cridland was giving a talk about podcast apps that I was interested in. And we showed up maybe five minutes before the talk was gonna start, and the room was already full. So that was a bummer. Because you know, you had to, you could stand outside and wait for somebody to come out, and then they let you in. But then you'd be missing other stuff. So we had to, you know, make a decision. And we chose to go find another room that had availability, but there was no, I think, maybe the largest room maybe held, maybe, or just say Alban, like 100 people tops,

Alban: 11:24

maybe like 150, if there were people standing outside or standing, it didn't feel like they were, they were all pretty intimate settings, which would be more of what I think of as like a breakout room. at other conferences, there wasn't a main stage wasn't

Jordan: 11:39

there, like a few 1000 people there,

Kevin: 11:42

there was a lot of people there. And so that was the problem, if you wanted to, if there was a talk that you definitely wanted to see, you had to get there, at least 10 or 15 minutes early to make sure that you could get in the room, they had a decent number of seats, and they also allowed some standard room. But then at a certain point, the conference organizers would like stand in front of doors and just be like, you know, fire code or COVID issues or whatever. Like that's enough people in the room. We're not letting anybody else in the US. They just pack you in. Well, not all of us, but Florida. Yeah.

Alban: 12:07

Florida, Florida was like we don't recognize fire code. But the UK, they're very thoughtful about making sure that they follow the law. Yeah. One highlight for me was I was gonna miss one talk that was about podcast promotions on you with Twitter spaces. And so there are people talking about promoting podcasts and how to grow podcast with Twitter spaces and kind of mixing a live element with your recorded show. And that was right when my COVID test was scheduled. So I had to leave the conference hunter to go get tested. And as I pull up Twitter, they actually put the whole thing on out as a Twitter space. Oh, that's cool. And from the stage started taking calls and people's questions about Twitter spaces. So ended up missing the talk, and then getting to be a little piece of the talk and being up there and speaking but I don't I love seeing them using that tech. I think I really like when podcast conferences or any conferences are not overly careful about hiding every talk, you know, like you can only get it if you're like a premier level and you pay extra to get access to this. Yeah, the ones that just put it on YouTube. I'm like, I think that's just the right way to do it. Let people know that these are good talks. People are coming for the networking and the connections and meeting people and the serendipitous moments in the hallway. That's why people are going to the conferences, but also the talks. And so I feel like the talks putting up out to the rest of the world and letting more people get access to it is always a positive. So at least for that talk, I saw that they did it. And I thought that was cool the organizers to allow it maybe even to promote that. Alright, Kev, so a week ago, we recorded an emergency emergency is that right word? A bonus episode Buzzcast to talk about Buzzsprout ads. And now it's really out in the world. Both sides are open advertisers and the podcaster side. So how do you feel?

Kevin: 14:08

It's been a bit of a whirlwind. Like, anytime you launch something big, you know, I think the biggest surprise is that, you know, there's things that we are aware of, that we think might be issues, but then we're like, no, no, no, like, that's gonna be the minority of people who have that case, or have that need or that want. And in the first couple days, you're like, oh, gosh, we were so wrong about that. So it's been a little bit of a scramble. We've been building and testing and deploying little updates as quickly as possible. What's super exciting is how many people who are interested in jumping in and trying it out both on the podcaster side and on the advertiser side. That's been it's been really good and really helpful because that's what we need right now is we need people coming in and giving it a go giving us their feedback, letting us know what we got right where we missed the mark a little bit and how we can make adjustments. I'm both I'm amped up and I'm exhausted at the same time,

Alban: 15:01

what are the things Tom always says, and I think this is so good. This has really shaped the way I think about us putting things out for Buzzsprout is, we'll never know less than we know right now. It's he always says it when we're thinking, this is exactly how this is going to work. We know that what how people are going to use it, we know exactly what they need. And Tom goes, that's what you think. And it's based on research. And it's based on talking to people, and we've thought through it, and we've come up with our best idea, we will never know less than we know right now, once things start going out into the world, we start hearing from a lot of people not who say they will use it, who are actually using the thing we built. And then you learn a lot more what things are important that you didn't know were important. What things did you think this is the ultimate most important piece of it, that ended up not even mattering? One example that I can think of was, when we built our affiliate program years ago, I was like the number one thing will be editing the URL for your affiliate link, knowing not one person even asked about it. And as soon as that one came back, I was like, Oh, I would have put that on the like, must be built roadmap, and instead ended up on the nobody cared piece. And it's interesting with Buzzsprout ads, what we're seeing, there's lots of things that you know, I had in my mind that were must haves. And we're learning a ton of stuff like a lot of people just seeing them running ads and experimenting and looking now for more insight on what is a good promo look like? Can you start building case studies? I honestly have not thought let's start making case studies for the marketing. And now that's bumped up pretty high on my list. Because a lot of people have said, we want to hear lots of examples of good promos that are actually getting people to convert from a listener of the ad to a listener of the podcast, I actually

Jordan: 16:51

tried when because there were a lot of people in the Buzzsprout community group that were asking. Okay, so how do I make a profile for a podcast? How do I make a commercial for my podcast? And I was like, Oh, I don't think we have anything for that yet. And so I went to Google it. And there's nothing out there for how to make an advertisement promoting your podcast, there's plenty of things where it's like how to get advertisements on your podcast. And honestly, like, it's so hard to be like, how do I make an audio commercial, and there's just nothing out there. So I think that this is a really good opportunity for us to create those kind of materials for podcasters.

Kevin: 17:31

Well, there hasn't been an opportunity to get a whole lot of data around that yet. But now we're we have a tool to be able to provide us with the data. So we're going to be able to look and see which promos are performing better than others. And we'll get that in a couple of different ways because we're not doing attribution or listener tracking. At this point, we haven't figured out a non creepy way to do that, that we're comfortable with. So we're holding off on it. But we will get feedback from the people who use the tool, they will tell us whether they thought it was successful or not. And then we'll have we'll be able to see reorders. So if somebody runs something and then they reorder it, then then you can make a good assumption that they found it valuable. And based on that we can start looking at the promos that are running and how they're structured and what they're saying what they're not saying, is their background music. Is that or not? How are they transitioning in and out? How long are they and we can start to do case studies. And that's what album was talking about before, like the idea of starting to look at case studies and figure out what are the most effective promos, and then teaching people how to create those for themselves.

Alban: 18:22

So I give a couple pointers based on the ones that I've already seen that are performing well. And then things that would carry over from other marketing ads and other best practices. This is the stuff that feels super basic when you hear it. But it's really good to make sure when you're recording, like you need to say the name of the podcast at least twice. And it's really good to intro it right at the beginning. Because if your voice ends up being similar to the voice of the person on the podcast, make it clear like you're a different person. And you're talking about a show, and then give the one line like why would people listen to this show, if there's any sort of social proof for why the shows doing really well. So we've listened to some pretty big shows that have come on and said that they hit number one in Apple podcasts, or that they were celebrated for some award like anything you can provide, even if it's pretty small, is a really good thanks for people go there. Okay, there's some level of quality, making sure the audio quality of the ad and matches the tone of your podcast is good. Because if it doesn't sound good in the ad, they're gonna assume that the podcast will be just about the same. And then at the end, there needs to be a clear call to action. And the clear call to action on all of these ads is go and listen to this podcast, click the link in the description. And the links will be in there for you. And so people can go and click in their favorite podcast player and now they can listen to the podcast. So you really want to drive them to actually take that action right away. And I've seen a few that instead of just saying listen to the podcast, they're actually doing more of a promo for a specific episode. So they're saying I interviewed this person, it was really interesting. Here's why it was interesting. Go and listen to the episode now link in the podcast description. And so people are going, that's the podcast I want to listen to. And then that becomes the, you know, the gateway to listening to the entire show.

Jordan: 20:19

Our podcasters, who are looking to advertise on other podcasts are able to upload more than one advertisement and run multiple campaigns through the Buzzsprout ads program.

Kevin: 20:29

Yeah, well, yes, and no, the you can only run one out at a time. But as soon as your ad is complete, then you can run another one, and you can switch out the audio file. So the reason that we wanted to limit to one at a time right now is that we didn't want multiple ads for the same podcast appearing in the same podcast episode. So you would get matched since it's the same podcast, you'd get matched with the same group of podcasts that it would be eligible for. And if you had multiple versions of your ads, then they could accept multiple versions. And it would be possible that two ads for the same podcast would get inserted into an episode. And so while we're learning and figuring out a better way to handle that, and building the tech around it, we're just limiting it to one running out at a time. So you can have one ad running, and then you can queue up another ad that's ready to go. So as soon as your first ad completes, you can start the second one. So instead of doing like a 10,000, download by you do to 5000 Download bots, but by the first one started running, as soon as that one completes, you have the other one ready to go. You fire off that one. And then you know, check your stats, check your results, hear from your audience, ask, Hey, is anybody new to the show? Have you found this through a podcast ad? I'd love to hear about it, let me know, determine which ad you felt was more effective, then do the big by without one or run another test?

Alban: 21:36

Yeah, what we're seeing a lot of people do is they're running the smaller sized ad buy. And then they're checking their stats. So you know, run it, especially when you're on a smaller show, this is really easy to see. If you're only getting 30 plays and you by 10,000 downloads, then you're gonna see oh my gosh, I just had a bump of 20 new people who are listening to the podcast now. That's pretty big. And especially if you started your podcast promo, you know, at a time when you didn't just release a new episode, like that's going to be a big spike. And then you can get comfortable maybe it's we aren't able to give you exactly the right numbers yet the complete one to one stats, but you can see pretty close, okay, something like 20 people join the podcast, that makes sense for my show, I'll run it again. So go check the data and see do I actually see a difference here. And if you do, and it's a difference that makes sense for the amount of money you spent, go try again, or you can maybe tweak the audio and maybe take into account some of those best practices that we've talked about. And I'm sure we'll have to put together some videos and some case studies to really help people understand which ads are the most effective, because the difference between a great podcast promo and a bad podcast promo is becoming very clear right now that there is a big gap between those. And so you know, once we have the data, it'll be really interesting to teach people those best practices.

Jordan: 22:59

I think one of the things that I've seen in the Buzzsprout community group that people are most excited about is the dynamic content that goes in along with the ad promo playing in the episode, the fact that, you know, it inserts your advertisement for your like your promo for your podcast, in the chapter marker section of the podcast that's playing on that it shows the podcast artwork, and the directory subscription links, the blurb about the podcast, and then it also dynamically inserts the link in the show notes of the podcast that's playing on. And people have been really surprised by that. And I think it's really cool. Yeah, we're

Kevin: 23:36

trying to make these ads as effective as possible. And so one of the challenges when you're listening to something, you know, especially a promo for another podcast, is that oftentimes they'll tell you about the show, and they'll say the name of the show, and then they'll say go find it in whatever app you listen to. And I mean, that's a little bit burdensome. And so we asked ourselves the question, how can we make that easier? And the answer is, like, just familiarize themselves with it. So if they have a podcast app that uses chapter art, like let's show them the artwork from that podcast, so they can at least see visually what they're looking for when they go search for it. Oh, can we do something in the show notes? Yes, we absolutely can we have the dynamic content capabilities. So let's use that. Let's go ahead and insert a link right to that podcast in the show notes for the episode. And then like do we have Apple links or Spotify links like two of the most popular listening apps available, let's give them links directly if you listen on Apple podcasts, or if you like Spotify, let's link directly to their podcasts there. So they can just tap on it and then click follow. And so we're trying to make it as easy as possible for these ads to be effective for the advertiser without being disruptive to the podcaster itself. Because then as soon as the ads are complete, all that stuff can be dynamically pulled out of their episode and they have their beautiful clean content again, ready for a new ad or no ad however they want to go

Jordan: 24:47

and do you know off the top of your head what podcast players will actually show the dynamic screen that has the artwork that has the blurb?

Kevin: 24:57

I don't know off top my head the list. Yeah. It's, it's not short, but it's not everyone. So, like Apple pod, like every podcast listening app will get the dynamic content. So that would be the links to the podcast that's being advertised, and the links to Spotify and Apple. And what's really nice is like in Apple, if you click the Apple, Lync and Apple, it doesn't jump you out of the app, it just opens up a WebView, within Apple podcasts. And I think then, like the WebView, actually, like closes right away. And it brings you to like if you searched for an apple podcast, so it saves you that whole step of having to search. Spotify does something similar. Overcast opens a WebView. If you just click like the title of the show, but if you click the Apple link, I think it actually just shows you the podcast and overcast like you searched for it. So there's a lot of really nice things that these apps are doing just on their own. They just happen to do it. Like if you pass on Apple podcasts URL and overcast it will just show you that podcast and overcast so you can subscribe, right? Oh, I

Jordan: 25:54

didn't know that. I had no idea that that was a thing you could do. I think the other thing that people are really excited about, and me too, honestly, is the pricing for the advertisements, because I think it's really great to get 5000 downloads for $100. And when I started making money with my podcast, I decided to test out paid advertising. And I did it on podcast addict, I did it on Spotify. And it was very expensive for not that many impressions. I think podcast addict was actually good because it gave me like, I want to say I spent $200. And they got me like 7000 impressions. But my listeners on podcast addict did not increase at all, like, not at all. So I spent $200 For nothing. And then on Spotify, I spent, I actually got a discount because they were doing a promo and I spent 200. And like $75 to run an ad on Spotify. And it didn't get me nearly as many impressions but it did get me some subscribers. But I think that, you know, having this ad listened to on a podcast that's in the same category as what you've approved for your podcast, I think that that's going to be a lot more valuable than what you're gonna get with advertising on the platforms.

Alban: 27:13

One thing we realized is I kept talking about spend $100 and get 5000 downloads. And the very first day had two people reach out and said, I think I know you're saying but 5000 downloads. That's how many times my ad is going to be played. I'll reach 5000 listeners. But I'm not going to get 5000 downloads for my podcast, one person reached out and said, Hey, actually didn't get the 5000 downloads I was expecting. But now I'm realizing that's probably how many times my ad was downloaded. Yeah. And I only got 25 downloads, you know, new downloads for my show. And it was just an interesting thing that you know, in your own brain, that makes perfect sense. And then once you start writing stuff, it becomes clear like, oh, let's update that language. So for anyone listening, you spend $100, and we'll get your advertisement and other shows, and you'll reach 5000 listeners, but they may not all decide to come over and listen to your podcast.

Jordan: 28:13

I could see how people get that mixed up. And I don't even think about that. What was it that Apple had the other day was a worldwide wide developer conference. Yeah, Twitter was kind of blown up. They made some announcements. Yeah, not a lot about podcasting. I do know that they announced that this is so stupid. I was like, Oh, they announced that there would be the ability to unsend text messages that'll be

Alban: 28:40

really useful during arguments. If you guys argue over text, you send something and then you're like, Ah, got me. I'm gonna edit that guy.

Jordan: 28:48

Yeah, well, I've actually had on more than one occasion. There's a lot of people in my life with J names. And I have accidentally texted like my boss instead of my husband or vice versa. And there was one time that I thought my boss was mad at me. She wasn't and I texted my husband. And then I accidentally texted that to her. I texted my boss about her. And that was mortifying because she did not respond.

Alban: 29:20

Kevin, I have a friend who texted somebody on a group Slack channel or something like internals tool and said This person should get fired. And then he hears from in the office what the hell he goes, Hey, man, sorry. But yeah, let's talk.

Kevin: 29:40

Yeah. From the cube next to him. What the hell do whilst while we're talking about web dec, did you guys notice that Apple is building in the ability for you to use your iPhone as a camera now? Yeah, off your laptop or Whatever display you're using, which I thought is super, super interesting, like, there's been a lot of criticism over the years of why isn't Apple including better webcams in their laptops, even this new studio display they came up with doesn't have a great camera. The studio display XDR, which is 5000 starts at $5,000 doesn't have a camera built into it. And maybe this has been the plan all along, or this has been the response to people complaining about the new cameras they're putting in their studio displays, but for whatever reason, they are now going to allow you to connect your iPhone to your Mac, and then use those cameras as like for streaming or video recording. And the quality looks amazing. Like all the effects are there you can set up like you know studio lighting, you can do the portrait mode and have your background blurred out. It looks like if I were selling 4k webcams, I'd be nervous right now.

Jordan: 30:48

Yeah, I'm just this year invested in a $200 Logitech webcam, which I like, but I don't like it nearly as much as my jillion dollar iPhone camera. Dang it.

Kevin: 31:03

That's so so whether you do video or not even if you just do it straight video for your audio recordings, like being able to use that and have a really great image for your interviews is a fantastic upgrade.

Alban: 31:13

We kept hearing at the podcast show. In a lot of talks, video podcasting is taking off video podcasting is doing exceptionally well on YouTube. It's really nice because it can be chopped up into social videos. And everyone was talking about how the new wave of podcasts are gonna be driven by video. But then every time I talk to more people who are actually interacting with podcast creators, they'd say, I don't know, man, a lot of the people I know are, you know, struggling to set up a microphone, a USB mic, they're not really looking to set up a camera and record and then get into editing and then upload to YouTube. Like that's a whole nother level of tech. And so when I saw this thing that Apple's doing, I tweeted about it, because I was saying this is what we've been doing on Buzzsprout conversations. When we were recording video with people, we always asked, Hey, could you set up a recording with your iPhone, and then share that video with us. And we use that video for YouTube videos, we never could use the webcams because they were never good enough. But the iPhone videos would be exceptional. And if we're able to open the door for everybody who has an iPhone to now have a camera of that quality to record video podcasts. I think the amount of people that are about to upload video content, video podcasting content is about to skyrocket. It's gonna be really, really cool, especially for things like riverside.fm and squad cast, who are now going to be getting much, much better video content, the beginning, people can then later on use to edit and send to YouTube. So it's going to be a really big game changer for video podcasts. Yeah,

Jordan: 32:57

it's gonna be so nice, so much better than recording on your iPhone and then trying to like align it with audio that you record to your computer. Yeah, so much better. Apple did announced that they were going to be doing something different with apple core media and the HTTP user agent key. And that's a little above my understanding. If you could explain that, to me, like what that means. That'd be great.

Alban: 33:22

So iPhones have a lot of pretty advanced libraries that help people build apps do things. And one of the things is, hey, go get an audio file for me and play it through the phone. And so when it does that, what ends up happening is the iPhone goes to the person who has the audio files like Buzzsprout, and says, Hey, I'm an iPhone, give me the file, but doesn't tell like what app is asking for the file. And this really doesn't matter for a lot of people. But it does matter for Buzzsprout. Because we want to know, is it castbox That's asking for this audio file is Apple podcasts? Is it a totally new app that's starting to gain some adoption, because we want to use that data for podcasters podcast ads. And so something Tom has been talking about for quite a while that really people were misinterpreting some of these generic requests as Apple podcasts and maybe over inflating Apple podcast numbers, because they weren't figuring out where the plays are actually coming from. One of the things that came out in WWDC is a global variable called Avaroa. Asset HTTP user agent key. I don't know what any of this acronym stands for AV you are, whatever. Maybe URL asset HTTP user agent key is probably the average. That's that's not the name of it. Anyway, what it could do is now podcast apps are going to be able to say, Hey, I'm a podcast app and my name is x, and they can say what they are, even if they're used Make some of these libraries. And it'll be really nice because if this gets adoption, then it'll be better and better podcast stats for everybody. So everybody on Buzzsprout, you know, this would be a good opportunity for us to talk to developers that we think are doing this incorrectly. And we could say, now you can update it. And we can get even better stats so that everybody sees that your podcast app is actually gaining market share and is doing really well.

Kevin: 35:23

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense for Apple, they should have done this a while ago, because Apple, at least in the Buzzsprout stats is probably under reported a little bit. I don't think it's major, but it by a small degree, we under report, because we do not include things that don't specifically say, Apple podcasts or iTunes. So if something starts coming in as apple core media, we just throw that under unknown Apple device, and or unknown Apple app, I think is actually what it's called in the UI. And so we'll see that number shrink, and then we'll see the correct apps that are now properly identified themselves, get the proper attribution. And as those numbers start to shake out, then we'll feel more confident about moving the remainder of those numbers into Apple podcasts. Hopefully, within the next year or so we'll start to be able to get a more accurate picture of the apps again, I don't think it's going to be huge shift. But the more accurate we can get the better. And so I think it's a move in the right direction.

Alban: 36:13

So Kevin, you said, you know, this apple core media change may shift some numbers for Apple podcast, but I was looking at the Buzzsprout platform stats that we just released. And Apple podcasts seems to be shifting the numbers themselves, or at least the listeners on Apple podcasts. Here are the numbers from right now, this is May 2020, Apple podcasts crossed Buzzsprout had over 45 million downloads. And that equated to 40.7% of all of the downloads that we served. Spotify, 28 million, so quite a bit smaller at 25.3% of all those downloads. So 40%, Apple, 25 for Spotify, if you go back just a bit over a year. So let's go back to March of last year, both Apple and Spotify were neck and neck at 29.4 and 29.3%. And it's just incredible. To me, at least I don't know if this is, you know, Apple has changed more with apple core media, or they've just been doing a really good job of marketing Apple podcasts or bringing in more people into podcasting or something's changed with the podcasters that we have. Or maybe my conspiracy theory of Spotify promoting anchor and megaphone shows could be accurate. But to go from neck and neck at 2929. To Apple now leading 40.7 to 25.3 is pretty incredible shifted just over a year.

Kevin: 37:53

Yeah, and if you look at the numbers associated with those percentages, Apple was doing around 25 million plays a month through Buzzsprout. And Spotify was around the same 25 million plays. Spotify has now grown to 28 million, but Apple podcast has over 45 million this apple podcast has almost doubled in that time when Spotify is just like, slow steady growth. And so yeah, Apple is killing it in terms of the number of podcast episodes that they're they're serving.

Alban: 38:20

You know, it's interesting, because I remember when we started publishing our platform statistics, a lot of our competitors who weren't sharing these stats, were saying, hey, just to let you know, we don't have the similar stats, we're seeing Apple is much bigger than Spotify still. And we said, you know, we're always open to hear more of what everyone else is seeing. That's cool. So please share them. But we're just sharing what we know and what we see ourselves, which is their neck and neck, at least for the shows that we host. And it's interesting to see over the year, the numbers have really changed. And, you know, these are the same stats. And these are the same way of computing the stats, we didn't change anything. It'd be interesting from now, I guess, to check in with some of our competitors and say, Hey, are we closer to being in alignment that we see a similar view of the marketplace rather than a year and a half ago where it was pretty different?

Jordan: 39:11

So I actually just checked my Dreamfall stats to see if it was comparable to what the global stats are for the rest of Buzzsprout. And Apple podcast is still sitting at 6% of my total downloads. So I was really hoping that I would get a piece of that pie. But I don't

Alban: 39:29

what do you ask you Does your Dreamful regularly have long segments of white noise?

Jordan: 39:35

No, it doesn't. I do have some segments of ambient music but I have not tried white noise on my podcast yet. So

Alban: 39:43

do you guys know where I'm going with this? Have you read this article in Bloomberg?

Jordan: 39:48

It makes me mad.

Alban: 39:49

Okay, Spotify podcasters are making $18,000 a month with nothing but white noise. This is another just awesome Deep Dive by Ashley Carmen, formerly at the verge now at Bloomberg, it's a story of a few different people who are running ads on podcasts in Spotify, that the entire podcast content is just white noise. One of them was somebody who I think was trying to get white noise to help his baby sleep. And he created a podcast on anchor that was 12 hour sound machines, no loops, or fades, and uploaded it to Spotify. And somehow, the Spotify recommendation algorithm saw it as like, oh, there's some people who are really into these 12 hour white noise podcasts, it started getting recommended. And it started being the lead for a lot of searches. And very, very quickly, it looks like he's getting 100,000 listeners play his show every day. It's just kind of background noise to their life. I mean, that's just a wild number, if you think about it, and both of these podcasters have started adding pre roll ads to all of their shows. So they are making a little bit of money on the podcast plays. And by the time that you get 100,000 daily listeners to your white noise podcast, those numbers start adding up. So it was just a funny story about how the algorithms can work. And if you master them, it can turn out that sometimes you can get lucky that this

Kevin: 41:20

is so this is so sad, though these people hate the environment, like the idea that you would want to listen to white noise, which is the same thing every time I met. I mean, maybe you can choose between like leaves rustling,

Alban: 41:32

it's he did change it. And then people got angry, because they were like, No, that my baby can only sleep to the one white noise like you just messed me up.

Kevin: 41:41

Now this is my point is like Spotify stream only. So it's not like downloading and playing that same file over and over. So every time you log in and listen for 12 hours, you're sucking up all this bandwidth and using all this energy, and people complain about like crypto burning the earth with all the energy. But I'm totally fine listening to Spotify white noise for 12 hours.

Jordan: 42:02

You know, I mean, that's what happens with my podcasts. That's why my download numbers are so high is because people have it set on autoplay, and they turn on when my episodes fall asleep. And then the rest of my episodes play out. Like my numbers getting milked. I don't have that many listeners, but they're listening to the episodes like back to back to back. So I'm kind of responsible for the same problem environmentally, there. Sorry. But I do think that this is maybe a case study for keyword optimization in your podcast. I think that this is like the ultimate example of that. Like he just you know, no fluff. 12 hour sound machines fades. Yep. And people are like, yep, that's what I'm looking for. Then they click it subscribe.

Alban: 42:47

Well, this is not a totally new thing. I think a bunch of people saw it and immediately started going and trying to upload white noise to anchor podcasts and get into the Spotify thing, he was gonna be their big break. This isn't new. I mean, it's something that's been in YouTube for a long, long time. If you search relaxing music, or relaxing video or anything like that sleep noise. There are cons on YouTube. And they've got I mean, some of these videos have like 300 million plays. I mean, just really, really high numbers and all they are just kind of like relaxing stock images, and music that's kind of sounds like you're in a yoga studio. And maybe it helps you relax during a stressful day.

Jordan: 43:39

Focusrite has come out with a new audio interface called the Vocaster. And they have vocaster one and two. And I took a look at it. And I actually, I'm all excited about this one. I think it's very cool.

Kevin: 43:49

I mean, Focusrite has been a company that we've liked for a long time that these two products seem like they've replaced the Scarlett Solo and the Scarlett 2i2 and maybe not replaced but they're you know the updated versions of these. We've been a big fan of the 2i2 for years. We've used that in our studio. And it's just a workhorse. It's like the simplest thing ever you plug it in, you don't have to have any software, any drivers, it just works. All the controls are right there on the device itself. It's got a nice aluminum enclosure. So we've always felt comfortable throwing it in our suitcase and traveling with it. And the audio quality is great. The one drawback has been that the preamps are a little weak, they're nice and clean, but they are a little weak. So if you want to travel with an SM7B or something like that, you also have to throw in a fat head or a cloud lifter, something that gives you a little bit more power from your mic. So this is a nice addition. And that's like the first thing that I want to talk about is that the preamps are stronger and better. So that reduces the amount of equipment that we have to travel with which looks nice.

Alban: 44:45

I really liked it. Kevin, you're juxtaposing this against the 2i2 which we have recommended I think now for over seven years. Previous versions of the 2i2 at least what I keep seeing is audio interfaces used to be entirely analog thing, and now they're becoming more and more digital over time, they're getting digital interfaces, they're altering voices digitally. And a lot of those are improving the voice. But they're alternate. And then you have to have drivers installed on your computer. And maybe there's even some controls that are in a little piece of software on your computer. And I get why companies want to do all that. I also think, at least for the people that we're often educating and talking to, I'm not a huge fan of adding things onto the computer. I'm like, let me just plug things in and let it work. And I know that there's something about the like, tactile knobs of the to eye to that I just love. I'm like, I just turned this thing. And I know it gets louder the other way it goes down. It's not some infinite scrolling wheel that you can just keep turning. And it's only digital. So I want to play with these. I want to see what they're like. But overall, like, I'm just so high on what they replaced. These look gorgeous. They're really pretty. Yeah, I really want to use them in person and see like, are they significantly better? And is the usability as high as the previous ones. Because that'll be a really big factor for me and whether or not it becomes like our go to recommendation.

Jordan: 46:16

And I think like one of the things that's really great about these vocasters is that they're very minimal in how they're presented. They're minimal in only offering the best features. That's not a ton of bells and whistles. But it's enough, that's impressive. And I think that it's a really good alternative for people that are a little like me a little less tech savvy. Like I said in the last episode, I got the RODECaster Pro and it was super overwhelming. For me, there's a lot of knobs and buttons and like a touchscreen and all this stuff. And it was honestly like, really scary for me to learn how to use that. This looks just really simple. You know, I'm looking at the vocaster one, it only has two knobs on it. And then there's three buttons on top. And it looks like they have an enhanced feature with four voice presets. I'm assuming that that's according to what kind of voice you have, like if you want like a bass heavy voice or a lighter voice for like female voices. You can also record device audio with Bluetooth, but that's only with the Vocaster two. And then they have like an easy button, which I think does the auto gain to automatically set mic volume levels. And then they also have to loop back channels that you can do theme music pre recorded calls or anything like that. So it does have a lot of features. But not too many. It's like they just said okay, what is the basic need for most podcasters? And how can we meet that in the easiest way possible.

Kevin: 47:47

But at the same time, if you found yourself not knowing what half of those things that Jordan was just mentioning, actually do then you understand our concern. Our concern is that what you had with the Scarlett 2i2 is that almost anybody regardless of your level of experience, could get that out of the box, figure out how to plug it into a computer, get microphones plugged into it. And it would start working. Like when you plugged in your headphones. You heard yourself when you opened up zoom or Skype or Hindenburg or audition or whatever and you hit record. It started recording. It just worked. And now there's a whole new line of products that require software before they start working. One of those is the wave XLR from Elgato. The other one is the audience EVO four or EVO eight. Yeah, that's what I was gonna just talk about. Yeah, number of inputs that you want. And Albert and I both had the same experience, because we wanted to check out these new things in the past couple of months. We got them in our office, we plugged them in, we're getting ready to use them for a podcast. We're like, oh, let's try out this new thing for this episode. And when we plugged them in, nothing worked. Why isn't working? What's going on? Is everything plugged in correctly? Our cables, right? Yes, yes, yes, everything's fine, but it's not working. And then we installed the software, and then it started working. And so like you have to install the software, you have to understand the software, you got to figure it all out before it starts working. To me that's concerning. For beginners, I feel like it's a pretty big roadblock that I have to run the software every time before I can go in and jump in and start recording and whatever app I'm recording

Alban: 49:09

it. So a few times that I've run into these issues, when I moved from using an SM7B to MV7. And the MV7 has a similar like we want you to run this software for some bonus features on the computer or use these little touch pads on the mic. And what I noticed was if I bumped the microphone, the USB cable in the back would just pop out. Well, as soon as that popped out, you just plug it back in. But because now it's a it's all digital, it's not analog. All of a sudden things want to boot back up now into the Hey, you just turned me on state. And that is a really bad experience. If you're in an interview and there's a little bump and now this cable is out and now you have to restart or you turn on your computer and every time you turn on your Peter, you have to make sure you open the software. So I think that may be Kevin. I are like the old curmudgeons. Now we're just complaining about this kind of stuff. But I feel like we love software, we build software, this is our job. So we're not against software. But there's times where it just feels like we're adding features, that I'm not 100% sure they're actually going to improve the experience. And that will be what I want to see. Are these voice profiles. Like there's lots of voice profiles that we use on our own voices? Are they ones that are going to be really useful? And is the usefulness of those voice profiles? Is that outweighed by now there's a another kind of hidden feature in this vocaster? Or is it going to be pretty easy to use? Earlier in the show? Do you remember when we turned it on, I said, I'm having a hard time getting my audio into my ears. It's because I'm using the Elgato wav XLR, which I love. But it has one dial and one button. And I had to keep clicking through to the mixer interface. I hate that and trying to turn it then I needed to go and then flip back into the headphones and then turn the headphones up. And so just kind of re clicking the same one button over and over. And it actually would be simpler to just have three knobs turned the three nodes as they needed to be turned rather than altering what state that button and knob and constantly to be able to edit things. So all that to say, let's see, I'm excited. Focus right makes tons of really good stuff. We love the scarlet two eye two. I'm excited to get our hands on one of these and test it out. But now you know my bias that I'm an old man now I don't like I want things with like old fashioned buttons on them.

Kevin: 51:49

And you guys did mention that it's beautiful. And I agree with you. But if you will notice that the majority of the product shots that they're putting out there are like top down as soon as you look at the side for some reason. It's from the top it is gorgeous. It is like this high end like throwback vintage look to like high end 70s or early 80s high end audio gear type design aesthetic. I love it. And then you look at the side and they it's like a rubberized coating around the side that they splatter painted.

Jordan: 52:17

It's not splatter painted. It's recycled materials. So it's got like a mica kind of effect to it. Oh, I

Kevin: 52:24

I'm telling...I promise you, Jordan when you see it in don't know. person that will be a mistake.

Jordan: 52:28

I thought I thought you were Mr. Environmental.

Kevin: 52:31

Oh, I don't care about the material, but like even recycled material, you can paint. It doesn't have to look like splatter paint.

Jordan: 52:37

You know what's funny is actually kind of like the I like the textured side. (I do too) Oh you do too?

Kevin: 52:43

No, it doesn't go together. It clashes. It's like the aesthetic. No,

Jordan: 52:47

I feel like it has like an organic kind of thing to it.

Alban: 52:50

I could tell you Kev so I've I've held one of these

Kevin: 52:52

I saw I saw one at the pod show. But it's a miss. The way the treatment on the side is a miss from the top down. You're like, oh, I am living back in that 70 show and I just walked over my friend's house and he's showing me his dad's new high end stereo. And it's amazing. And then I look at the side and I'm like this was now we got into a really bad

Alban: 53:11

Oh recycled materials. Oh terrible.

Kevin: 53:15

Recycle materials. That's fantastic. I'm glad they did it but painted.

Alban: 53:18

So you're all for recycling but you just don't want people to know that recycling was involved. It's like the Coke can. You like the Coke can because it's recycled from other aluminums but you're like "Don't tell me it's recycled? I don't want to know that"

Jordan: 53:30

The speckled stone look was hot in the 70s I mean they had like countertop. (No.) Yeah, yes it does!

Kevin: 53:39

No this doesn't look like stone.

Alban: 53:41

I love this in depth review of gear we do not have so it'll be I will be very excited to follow up on this. In the future. Does Alban hate the New Age buttons as much as you think he will is their software that they should never have been involved and, does Kevin is he is triggered by the formica countertop look of the recycled materials is much as he appears to be right now.

Jordan: 54:11

I like it I don't know maybe it's

Kevin: 54:12

it's it's like a poor representation of a starry night.

Jordan: 54:18

No, it's not.

Alban: 54:20

That looks great.

Jordan: 54:23

It looks just like recycled like plastic to me. And I love the look of that like I love when there's like just the speckled

Alban: 54:32

I can't believe you hate this so much Kevin. I'm looking at this and I go oh, that looks good.

Jordan: 54:36

Yeah, so it has like the lovely black and it's like outlined with that red. I don't know what is that like metallic seam.

Kevin: 54:44

Look at this. This is the ugliest thing I've ever seen.

Jordan: 54:46

It's so cute. I actually love it.

Kevin: 54:52

To each his own. You're both fired.

Jordan: 55:00

Do you know what time it is?

AI Voice: 55:05

It's time for Buzzboosts.

Alban: 55:07

Alright, Dave Jones, almost 2000 Satoshis he said, Jordan, I think this is in reference to your last episode that you did. Wow. I thought the math jingle on my show is naughty Jordan. I hope your mom doesn't listen. So yeah, maybe mark the last one as explicit.

Jordan: 55:26

I am. I was so scared.

Alban: 55:30

Jordan reaches out it says, Hey, can one of you like approve this episode? And I was like, I trust you. It's good. She was like you want to you listen to the episode. Kevin like all is it do it? Like yeah, I've been going to bed. What's our I don't know.

Kevin: 55:47

Think I just sent her back one of the like, hot pepper emojis.

Jordan: 55:50

Yeah, nobody. No, I couldn't get anybody to listen to it. Like from the company. Like nobody would listen to the episode and be like, Jordan, this is fine.

Alban: 55:58

Is this on brand? I'm sure it's on brand. We trust you. Oh my gosh.

Jordan: 56:02

Just like oh my gosh, like they left me alone for two seconds. And I take it to a whole other level. But it's okay. It's fine. Yeah, my mom does not listen. So I'll get on that front.

Kevin: 56:15

Dave, thanks for the boost. And you send us another one for a few more sets this time. 4635 different Dave Jones, love the new ad tech in the future, will I be able to request a specific podcast for my ad to run on? I can see myself wanting to run an ad for the podcasting to auto show on Buzzcast or at least get in the queue. So no, you probably won't be able to choose a specific show that your ad runs on. But you will only run your show in podcast categories. That makes sense. So you're going to be like in news technology categories like that. So it's only going to run in shows like that. And we're exploring all the best ways to do that. And so things might change in the future. But absolutely. We'd love to see you run a podcast ad for podcasting. Tito. I love that show. And I think more people in here about it. So do it.

Jordan: 56:58

Next one is for one Satoshi is from Nathan gathright. And he says, Can you send a single set? Yes, you can. Apparently.

Kevin: 57:08

We got it. Yeah. And then

Jordan: 57:10

he also sent 765. And he said since the release of iOS 15. Last fall, apples allowed us to rate Apple podcasts in the app store. And I saw the average rating go below two stars. That makes a lot of sense. With iOS 15.1. They added an IT app prompt for ratings confusing a lot of people into thinking they were reading the show they were listening to not the app. My harebrained theory is this is where a chunk of the five star reviews have gone. That's a really good theory. Ah, that's interesting. That's a solid theory.

Kevin: 57:40

Yeah. And so just to clarify you like sometimes when you're using an app, it'll pop up and say, Are you enjoying this app? If so, would you like to give us a rating and you can rate it right there without even leaving the app. And so he's saying Apple podcast added that. And people might be thinking that they're rating the show, instead of rating the app?

Alban: 57:56

Yeah, I mean, to further talk about this, like if you pull up in the App Store, and he searched for Apple podcasts, I'm pulling up now. It's got a massive amount of five star ratings. 4.9 average, that's really good for any app, especially default app. And then I scroll down to the let's look at the number one five star rating for the Apple podcast app, the Apple podcasts app should be reviewed as this is a great podcast player. I love this feature. I love that it can easily follow a show. And it starts out the best things come in threes. That seems to be the case with the hosts of connected and accidental tech podcast, the host of each show bring a different perspective to Apple and tech in general. Like this is a review of this person's favorite podcast. It's not a review of the podcast app. So I think that Nathan, that's a really interesting point that people who are thinking they're giving a positive review to an apple, a podcast hosted everything out, let's say.

Kevin: 58:54

Yeah, I don't think that's a harebrained theory at all. I think that's highly plausible. That's very insightful. Good job, Nathan. All right. Our next one is 2931 SATs from Brady Nall says Buzzcast is my favorite podcast that I've ever heard in the history of podcasting. I can't imagine any way that any podcast could ever be better than this. It is truly amazing. Well, three out of five stars. Nailed it.

Alban: 59:19

That was good. I also liked that these were happened to be back to back. That's great data with like a very thoughtful like, Hey, I think I figured out what's happening here. And it's just

Jordan: 59:31

you know, I really love that. The listeners are running with the three out of five stars. I'm very happy with it. Just embrace it. Have fun with it. It's great.

Alban: 59:42

169 SATs from Ross when sent us a link to a Twitter post and we'll we'll link to this. This is ridiculous. I can't believe that people watch this whole thing. Well, it gets better later. Good and it's a very long and exceptionally well done song about me there's a girl singing to her boyfriend about I don't really care about your NFPs and your crypto exceptionally good. Ross, I guess does not appreciate our crypto talker. I think he's just said he gets a well produced video but we liked it. I glad I stuck it out for more than the first five seconds because I got some laughs out of it. It took me a little while to get into this mindset.

Jordan: 1:00:38

Yeah, you gotta stick to it. I mean, honestly, the song like slaps, especially when the other people come in it is good. I think I might.

Kevin: 1:00:47

I'm gonna load it up on my phone and make it my power song while I'm working out.

Jordan: 1:00:54

Alright, so the last one we have is 873 one clap Speech and Debate podcast. Buzzsprout is the greatest you all are how I learned about podcasting. Buzzcast is my favorite podcast. Thank you. That is awesome. Thank you. That's how I learned to is Buzzsprout. So I vibe with that.

Kevin: 1:01:12

Right? Check it out. One clap Speech and Debate podcast. Thank you so much for supporting us and listening.

Jordan: 1:01:17

All right, I think that

Alban: 1:01:18

thank you for all of you for listening. And until next time, you

Kevin: 1:01:22

totally stealing Jordans deal.

Alban: 1:01:23

I didn't mean to sorry, Jordan. I'd

Jordan: 1:01:25

got the last thing you do it.

Alban: 1:01:26

Now you got to do it.

Jordan: 1:01:27

Kevin, you do it. You do it.

Kevin: 1:01:29

Someone do it. Alright, so that's all we have. All right. Thank all of you for cash. Now we both doing it. All right. That's all we have for Buzzcast We are total pros at this. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you. Weeks, keep podcasts

Alban: 1:01:43

keep podcasting. Kev, what are you wearing? I'm sorry. This is weird. This. This okay. We're not going back to the way of Jordans old. I'm sorry. I

Jordan: 1:02:00

guess I was gonna say like, what's,

Alban: 1:02:02

what's this thing on your wrist?

Kevin: 1:02:04

This is a whoop strap. Whoo. Whoop, strap. It's like a fitness tracker like Apple watch or a Fitbit. Or core ring. Or, you know, these things are all the rage today.

Alban: 1:02:14

Is it? Is it the one from Amazon? I

Kevin: 1:02:18

would go to whoop.com. And I would buy it I think No way. It's something else. W H O P

Alban: 1:02:23

It's whoop.com.

Jordan: 1:02:24

Like W-H-O-O?,

Kevin: 1:02:26

yeah. Yeah, yeah. Whoop.com. So my son is a high school swimmer. He's very into fitness tracking. He got it a few months ago, and has convinced me that I need to get this. He said it's life changing. And so we started doing a little bit of research on whoop. And we found out they have a podcast, and it's hosted on Buzzsprout. So I was like, absolutely getting a whoop strap. And I'm supporting this company.

Alban: 1:02:53

I have some follow up on this already. One. When you're in high school, everything is life changing then, and I don't know there's 100% correlation between him getting the hoop strap and his life changing. That's just this the course for high school, but to what is the difference between this and all the other fitness trackers because this isn't the only one you have now kids you've got like a Fitbit. And do you have an aura ring,

Kevin: 1:03:19

I never got the ring. I never got the Fitbit, I had an Apple Watch. And my problem with the Apple Watch it was just too bulky on my wrist all the time. It's kind of heavy. And I just I just didn't I don't like wearing a watch. I don't wear jewelry at all.

Alban: 1:03:31

The whoop strap is the size of an Apple Watch. It just doesn't have a screen.

Kevin: 1:03:36

Well right now it has the battery charger on it. So let me take that off. And it's really just a strap. There's really not much to it at all. It feels very lightweight. It's very comfortable. Like I really don't feel like I have anything on my wrist. So I'm enjoying that. And now I've had it on my wrist for about four hours. This is new, it's it's comfortable. So that's a win for me. And it's anybody who I've seen wearing them have like praise it, they love it. They're like this the best fitness tracker that's ever existed. It tracks your sleep, it tracks your your workouts and they have all their own, like proprietary stats that they've come up with to help you figure out not only what type of exercise you're getting and just keeping track of that but like how effective it is for you tracking your resting heart rate and your heart rate while you're working out and they have these things called like Stripe scores and all these other things. You can create groups you can compete against each other you can you know, it's the whole it's the whole thing.

Alban: 1:04:26

That's actually really cool. The firt I liked that the first feature though you had was basically feature parity with a bracelet you're like well it looks great and it fits on my wrist. Like that's a bracelet.

Kevin: 1:04:38

Well I just wanted to feel like I'm not wearing anything. And with the Apple Watch that was a total mess. I knew every second of the day that I had that thing on my wrist. And the ring the core ring thing like that's not gonna work. I can't wear a big bulky ring.

Alban: 1:04:51

Yeah, I've done the I did the aura ring for a while as like my wedding band. I just did not like taking it off all the time too. charge it, I would constantly forget to put it back on. So I dropped the aura ring. I think for a little while I did a Fitbit but now I'm just an Apple Watch person.

Jordan: 1:05:10

You know, looking at their podcast, they have 4.7 Out of five and it's 485 ratings. Oh, that's a lot of readings. Yeah,

Kevin: 1:05:19

they're like the real deal. A lot of people it's like it's like with a lot of things. You don't necessarily know how big something is until you stumble upon it yourself or somebody introduces it to you. But it since my son started wearing it. I started noticing and on other people. It's very popular a lot of people are wearing I actually

Alban: 1:05:34

think I've seen this before. I think that Lloyd from stream here has one Kevin

Kevin: 1:05:38

Yeah, Marshall has one two that he wears. They did not know that there was a podcast. So I told him like we all gotta go check out this podcast. Start listening. All right, well,

Alban: 1:05:46

you heard it here first. whoop.com It's

Kevin: 1:05:49

actually pronounced Whoop whoop.

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