Speaker:

Can we make the podcasting technology invisible? This is the

Speaker:

future of podcasting, where we ponder what awaits the

Speaker:

podcasters of today. From the school of

Speaker:

podcasting, here's Dave Jackson. And from the audacity

Speaker:

to podcast, here's Daniel j Lewis. Daniel,

Speaker:

future of podcasting episode 50. Whoo. We're

Speaker:

50. I can feel the gray hairs coming

Speaker:

in. Oh. Dave, I hate to break it to you.

Speaker:

They all came in for you a long time ago. Yeah.

Speaker:

Actually, I was 29 when I got my first gray hair, which was also the

Speaker:

same year I got married. Coincidence? I don't think. I don't know. Anyway,

Speaker:

but we're talking about invisible technology? What what what

Speaker:

what's the idea here? I asked Dave if I could have

Speaker:

another soapbox on this because I wanted to dig into this further, and

Speaker:

I've posted some stuff on x Twitter about this. Way back in

Speaker:

2015, I did a presentation, a keynote,

Speaker:

on the future of podcasting, and we'll have the link to that in the

Speaker:

notes for this episode. I'd love for you to check it out because

Speaker:

while in hindsight, I kind of regret some of the ways that I presented

Speaker:

that, maybe not the most keynote worthy style of presenting the

Speaker:

information. To be honest, I am humbly proud, like in a good way,

Speaker:

proud, happy, I'll put it that way, happy with my predictions

Speaker:

because they're coming true and because they were

Speaker:

unique predictions where many of the predictions that people have for podcasting

Speaker:

basically comes down to the word more. You know, we'll have more of this, we'll

Speaker:

have more money, more podcasters, more celebrities, more opportunities, more this,

Speaker:

more that. Just put the word more in it, and that's all the predictions pretty

Speaker:

much out there. I had some specific predictions, not like

Speaker:

this company will do this thing, but some specific

Speaker:

things of what I think will happen in the podcasting

Speaker:

industry. And one of those was

Speaker:

the technology will disappear. And by that,

Speaker:

I don't mean our technology that we use

Speaker:

or the things that technology can do will cease,

Speaker:

but that the technological aspect of it

Speaker:

will no longer be visible to us. Just like with our

Speaker:

phones that we have and our computers, and there are a lot of things

Speaker:

that we do that are extremely complicated processes

Speaker:

that we do that we have no idea what's going on in the

Speaker:

background. We don't care. We shouldn't have to know what's

Speaker:

going on in the background. We just want to see our latest

Speaker:

email or the latest social post or we want the quick answer to our

Speaker:

question. We wanna know if so and so team won the game last night so

Speaker:

we can get a free donut from Kroger today. That's the kind of stuff that

Speaker:

we want to know. We don't care what kind of technology happens in the

Speaker:

background. I want that for podcasting. Dave, who is

Speaker:

it that you often talk about as your symbol for this? Well,

Speaker:

that would be aunt Cheryl. She's the person that when you go just copy

Speaker:

and paste that, she goes, what do you mean copy and paste?

Speaker:

So we want that person, and there's nothing wrong with aunt Cheryl, by the way.

Speaker:

But we want it to be easy. When I was talking with,

Speaker:

a member of the Apple staff at podcast movement, They

Speaker:

he just said this podcasting 2 point o's looks really interesting. He goes, but it

Speaker:

has to be easy, like, easy. And the

Speaker:

minute you're like, okay. First, you gotta do this and then the thing and

Speaker:

do the hokey pokey and turn yourself. Nope. We've already lost aunt Cheryl.

Speaker:

So it got easy for a minute there when we had Albie

Speaker:

kinda going in. Now we're looking for okay. We tried that.

Speaker:

We can check that off. That did work, but it's not long

Speaker:

term maybe the best solution. And I wouldn't even call that easy either.

Speaker:

Yeah. That's true. It was well yeah. Because you had to okay. Well, first you

Speaker:

have to set up a wallet. And then the other thing was

Speaker:

that nobody ever really asked, which was kinda good, but I didn't get

Speaker:

anybody going. How do I get my satoshis and get them into my bank?

Speaker:

It was always just, how do I set it up to receive them? I didn't

Speaker:

have anybody really, and they want to give them back. And so that was kind

Speaker:

of something I thought was kind of unique and in an

Speaker:

interesting insight that nobody was like, okay. How do I put this in my, you

Speaker:

know, wallet so I can go buy some groceries? And I'm like, well, I think

Speaker:

you can get a Mountain Dew with 4,000 sat, something like that.

Speaker:

But, yeah, that was still too hard. The reason I've been thinking about this a

Speaker:

lot lately is looking at the inflection points within

Speaker:

podcasts and the podcasting industry. And where I

Speaker:

differentiate that is podcasting is the art of making

Speaker:

podcasts. So a podcasting app is an app that

Speaker:

helps you make podcasts. So Steve Jobs was

Speaker:

wrong when he said he was bringing podcasting to iTunes

Speaker:

4.9 way back in 2005. He brought

Speaker:

podcasts. But that was the

Speaker:

first major inflection point for podcasts since their

Speaker:

birth was when they came to Itunes 4.9 in

Speaker:

2005 because well, for me, that was my

Speaker:

introduction to podcasts. Dave, what was it like

Speaker:

listening to podcast before that? Oh, before that, it was insane.

Speaker:

I was using I know on the Mac, it was called iPad or X. I

Speaker:

think it was called Juice, and it had a big picture of a lemon on

Speaker:

it. And I would fire that up in the morning. It would

Speaker:

go out and check for new episodes. And while I was showering

Speaker:

and doing my hair and eating my bra, I'd come down, like, a half hour,

Speaker:

45 minutes. Hopefully, I would have, like, 5

Speaker:

or 6 episodes because there really weren't that many podcasts that I was listening to.

Speaker:

But there was no iPhone. There was no iPad at that point

Speaker:

even. And so I had this little thing called an iRiver 899.

Speaker:

I think it held was either 256 or 528

Speaker:

megabytes. And it back then, it was like, oh, holy cow.

Speaker:

And when you plugged it in, it looked like a little hard drive. So I'd

Speaker:

have to know where Juice had downloaded my files,

Speaker:

open up that folder, copy them, open up the iRiver, paste them

Speaker:

there, wait for it to transfer over, and then I would go out. And I

Speaker:

forget how I had them wired up in my car. I know at one point

Speaker:

I used, like, a cassette converter, and that sounded awful.

Speaker:

And I think I had I think and back then, that was huge. I had

Speaker:

an auxiliary in. It was so I think that's how I ended up plugging

Speaker:

this into it. But what was sad is I would listen to Howard Stern in

Speaker:

the morning. I'd start listening to all my podcasts, all 5

Speaker:

episodes that I had copied over. And by 3 o'clock, you're like, oh,

Speaker:

man. I'm on a podcast. And he was like, well, gotta wait till I get

Speaker:

home. So it was not a fun you know? And and to say the

Speaker:

technology was way like, you know, that's why when

Speaker:

you ask people, do you listen to podcasts? A, they thought you had to have

Speaker:

an iPad once the iPad was invented. That's why the

Speaker:

iPad was such a great thing because I literally would wake up,

Speaker:

plug my iPad into my computer, and that was it. I would

Speaker:

come down later, grab my iPad, and get in the car because everything had

Speaker:

already transferred over. It had already downloaded. And that was the first time

Speaker:

when Apple brought in podcast. It's the first and only time I've ever

Speaker:

actually seen hockey stick growth. Because I remember going into my

Speaker:

stats and just it was just it just shot right through the roof. I'm like,

Speaker:

what is going on? We're like, oh, it's the Apple thing. I was like, oh,

Speaker:

yeah. That might help a little bit. Well, and even before that

Speaker:

so that was complicated enough. How did you even

Speaker:

get the podcast? How did you discover them? How did you

Speaker:

even start downloading them? Where did RSS fit

Speaker:

into this? Well, the the first one, and I think

Speaker:

I have the clip for this, but when I downloaded Juice, the

Speaker:

voice of 1 Adam Curry came out. Nice.

Speaker:

And I was like, hey. I know that guy from the Headbangers Ball. So that's

Speaker:

what really one of the first things that got me into it. And I started

Speaker:

listening to The Daily Source Code, and then he would mention C.

Speaker:

C. Chapman from Accident Hash, which was a radio show. Okay. So

Speaker:

then you hear another podcast or of another podcast. How would

Speaker:

you get that other podcast into your podcast app? Oh,

Speaker:

yeah. You'd go over to let's say I was gonna listen to the scene scene

Speaker:

by Marcus Couch. I'd go over to his website. He'd have an RSS button.

Speaker:

And because we were all nerds, I knew don't click on it. I had to

Speaker:

right click and copy and then go into the Juice

Speaker:

software and paste in the RSS feed. So then it would go out and

Speaker:

check, and you're like, oh, wow. Marcus has, you know, 5 episodes. He's been doing

Speaker:

this a long time. And then you would just wait for them

Speaker:

to download. And then, you know, like, okay. And then you'd

Speaker:

you'd put them on your iRiver and off you go. So those who fell

Speaker:

asleep through all of that wake up. Now we

Speaker:

have iTunes and Itunes

Speaker:

well, now we have Apple Podcasts actually, but Itunes was a major

Speaker:

inflection point in that it made all of that so much

Speaker:

easier that discovering a podcast or adding

Speaker:

a podcast was as simple as pressing

Speaker:

a button to subscribe, and that was it. And it added

Speaker:

it to your library. It would automatically check for new episodes every

Speaker:

I think the default might have been every hour or maybe it was once a

Speaker:

day back then. I forget. But it would check for it automatically frequently.

Speaker:

And if you had an iPad or even for a little while,

Speaker:

the Itunes app would synchronize with a Motorola Razr flip

Speaker:

phone, but you could synchronize your media. And other people

Speaker:

made special little scripts that could then synchronize what was in

Speaker:

your Itunes library with some other third party MP

Speaker:

3 player that you could take with you, and there were other things.

Speaker:

But Apple Itunes was a huge inflection point for

Speaker:

us because it made things easy.

Speaker:

It made it so easy that you didn't have to know what

Speaker:

an RSS feed URL was for a podcast you wanted. You didn't have to

Speaker:

copy and paste. You didn't have to try and do any of that. You

Speaker:

pressed subscribe. You searched for the podcast by name

Speaker:

or by subject, and you pressed subscribe. And we still have that same kind

Speaker:

of workflow today, although the language is mostly followed now, but it's

Speaker:

still the same basic thing. It's now just that simple. You

Speaker:

click or tap and you have it. None of this having to

Speaker:

worry about the RSS stuff. It's there. And

Speaker:

then look at other major inflection points within the podcasting

Speaker:

consumption and podcast creation, like the invention of the

Speaker:

iPhone. So the iPad was way back in 2002, I

Speaker:

believe, when that came out. The iPhone was

Speaker:

2,007, I believe. And so that was after the

Speaker:

invention of podcasting. The iPhone made it even more convenient

Speaker:

because then your device could do some of the synchronization

Speaker:

a little bit more for you, and especially when they started doing things like being

Speaker:

able to download the episodes directly onto the device instead of having

Speaker:

to synchronize through your computer, again, making the technology

Speaker:

disappear. And now people never connect their

Speaker:

smartphones to their computers to synchronize or transfer stuff hardly

Speaker:

ever, and that technology has disappeared. Think about it from the

Speaker:

perspective of the podcasting side. So

Speaker:

creating podcasts, we give Anchor a lot

Speaker:

of grief, but what did Anchor do

Speaker:

to the growth of podcasting? They brought a lot of crap into the

Speaker:

space? Yeah. They also made it easy. The word

Speaker:

crap. That sentence is still correct. They brought a lot into the

Speaker:

space. There was an explosion of interest in podcasting

Speaker:

because Anchor made it so dead simple

Speaker:

that, yes, it was super simple to make a lot of crap, and that's what

Speaker:

happened. But it was a win for the industry

Speaker:

because it was so dead simple. People didn't

Speaker:

have to worry about technology. They didn't even have to worry about

Speaker:

microphones or mixers or stuff like that. It was just open the app, press

Speaker:

record, press stop, type a little bit of text, give it a

Speaker:

title, press publish, and it's, you're a podcaster now with

Speaker:

whatever you just said. You're a podcaster now, and it's in the Apple Podcast

Speaker:

Store and some other places. It made it simple, and that created

Speaker:

a measurable explosion in the growth of new podcasts.

Speaker:

Yeah. A lot of them crap. Yeah. You didn't even need talent.

Speaker:

Exactly. But there are, I think, today,

Speaker:

a lot of talented now podcasters who

Speaker:

got their start because Anchor made it

Speaker:

so dead simple for people. Think about the gear that we

Speaker:

use now with podcasting. Dave, you and I have both

Speaker:

been around long enough to have experienced

Speaker:

having to mess with mix minus. The good old

Speaker:

days. That's something we haven't had to say for years. Right?

Speaker:

Yes. Mixed minus. That was such it was such a thing that, like, once

Speaker:

you got it, you got it. But getting the light bulb to turn

Speaker:

on was not easy at all. There are a lot of people that were like,

Speaker:

so I do what? I'm hearing an echo. What? And it's like, And

Speaker:

then trying to make it work like some gear, you would get these tiny little

Speaker:

mixers because people would hear, oh, I need a mixer to connect with my microphone.

Speaker:

And how do I get the mixer connected to my computer? Oh, now I need

Speaker:

a USB audio interface. And now with this tiny mixer that I only

Speaker:

spent $50 on, how do I do mix minus with this? And

Speaker:

it's, like, it's not possible where you have to do this convoluted thing with

Speaker:

the auxiliary output, the auxiliary sends, or maybe you do something where it's

Speaker:

like the left and right balance of the audio. It starts getting complicated.

Speaker:

Now huge credit to RODE, I think, really led the industry. I'm

Speaker:

not gonna say they're the first on this, but they certainly

Speaker:

led and continue to lead the industry with the innovation of the RODEcaster

Speaker:

Pro. And that one device, when the

Speaker:

Rodecaster Pro came out, that one device

Speaker:

designed for podcasters made so much of the

Speaker:

technology just disappear. Yes. There's a mix minus

Speaker:

toggle switch inside of the Rodecaster Pro, but that's

Speaker:

it. And I think out of the box, it's doing the mix minus

Speaker:

for you. Yeah. So you don't even have to think about

Speaker:

it at all. It just works. When I

Speaker:

first got the Zoom PodTrak p 4, I was going through all

Speaker:

the menus looking for the mix minus setting, and it was

Speaker:

so bad. I actually had to look at the manual.

Speaker:

I was trying to think, what is it? And then finally, you know, I think

Speaker:

I emailed support, and they're like, yeah. It's just there. It's on already. You don't

Speaker:

have to turn it on. And I was like, this is amazing. So,

Speaker:

yeah, it's that's another one where you take it for granted. It's kind of

Speaker:

funny now when you stumble across old pieces of

Speaker:

technology and you're like, oh, I remember I remember mixed minus. And I remember,

Speaker:

you know, you even right there, you said you the whole panning sometimes. You could

Speaker:

pan things different ways to get separate tracks, all sorts of weird it

Speaker:

was just we're all just hacking everything good because nothing was made

Speaker:

for podcasting yet. But that technology, the

Speaker:

actual thing that technology is doing hasn't disappeared, but our

Speaker:

view of the technology has disappeared that now it's just we plug it in, we

Speaker:

turn it on, it is plug and play. Or even look at stuff

Speaker:

like as much hate as we give to the Blue Yeti microphone.

Speaker:

Right. It was accessible. It was easy for people. They

Speaker:

go out to Best Buy or Circuit City, and they buy the microphone,

Speaker:

or they plug it in, and they start recording. And let's not forget its predecessor,

Speaker:

of course, the brilliant blue snowball.

Speaker:

I always think that there's this doctor who a series of

Speaker:

these episodes with these particular characters, the Ood,

Speaker:

who hold their brains in their hands in a little ball that is then

Speaker:

connect with this like it looks like an umbilical cord to their heads, and their

Speaker:

brains are in the ball. And they talk, and it, like,

Speaker:

glows as they talk. So I always I did this the first time I

Speaker:

held a Blue Yeti. I did I went live on Instagram

Speaker:

video, and I said, you know, we must feed. We must feed

Speaker:

because that was a line from when you meet the oud because that's that's what

Speaker:

it like, it's this giant softball sized microphone,

Speaker:

but it was easy. Yeah. Because you just plugged it directly in. It

Speaker:

was a USB microphone. You're like, wait. I don't need a mixer or anything. Nope.

Speaker:

Just plug the microphone in. So Yeah. And you look at other things

Speaker:

too, like Spotify. Okay. They're doing a lot

Speaker:

that we don't like in the podcasting industry,

Speaker:

but we have to give them credit that like Apple did

Speaker:

with bringing podcasts to iTunes, Spotify bringing

Speaker:

podcasts to Spotify has made podcast consumption

Speaker:

easy for countless people because it's right

Speaker:

there with their music so that they can listen to

Speaker:

their music, they can listen to their podcasts, and now they can listen to audiobooks

Speaker:

through Spotify too. That is brilliant for them to put it all there

Speaker:

and make it easy. It's kind of funny though that

Speaker:

now Apple has split out the different media consumption

Speaker:

from their app. And that might eventually happen with Spotify where we'll have a

Speaker:

Spotify podcast app and a Spotify music app and a Spotify audiobooks

Speaker:

or books app or that might happen someday. But while it's

Speaker:

still all in one app, they made it easy. They made

Speaker:

the technology disappear. They made other podcast

Speaker:

apps disappear. And that is what we

Speaker:

need to do in the future of podcasting and with podcasting 2.0

Speaker:

development and stuff. And I know everything starts out geeky. So I'm

Speaker:

not saying, hey, we need to make this dead simple on

Speaker:

arrival or else it's dead on arrival. I'm not saying that.

Speaker:

I think we need to constantly think of how can we make

Speaker:

this super easy. Dave, you've asked me a

Speaker:

question a couple of times on the kind of advice I would give.

Speaker:

What is that question? Yeah. I had somebody

Speaker:

ask me, hey. You you talk about this 2 point o thing, and they were

Speaker:

talking about the streaming satoshis. And they're like, how do I get started in

Speaker:

that? And I was kinda like, well, you go to oh, wait. You're in the

Speaker:

US. Yeah. And that's where I was kinda I

Speaker:

guess I need to find I mean, I know originally, I I was doing something

Speaker:

with Telegram. I don't even remember how I did it. I just remember there was

Speaker:

this thing, and you put it in. And setting it up on the index is

Speaker:

pretty much the same, but the whole wallet thing is the part that's gotten we're

Speaker:

we're all kind of in a holding pattern right now. I I know we could

Speaker:

do probably something with fountain. I know in terms of receiving

Speaker:

no. For sending sats, Sam over Truefans

Speaker:

has a setup, so it's super easy to fill your wallet and then

Speaker:

send to people. But if you're the podcaster looking to receive,

Speaker:

I'm kinda like, fountain, I think.

Speaker:

So what so what would be your answer to that? What I would

Speaker:

love to say is talk to your hosting

Speaker:

provider, and they can help you get set up with it. Years ago,

Speaker:

now at this point, it was podcast movement, I believe, 2021.

Speaker:

I was talking to Tom Rossi from Buzzsprout, and so maybe he'll remember

Speaker:

this conversation, but I shared a vision of what this could look like. And

Speaker:

this is the vision I would still love to see. It's developed a bit more

Speaker:

since then. And I touched on this previously in our episode about the

Speaker:

future of ad slots. This technology of streaming satoshis

Speaker:

and boostergrams and such, I love it. I love what

Speaker:

we've built. I think it's a fantastic foundation.

Speaker:

Now it's time for all of that technology to disappear

Speaker:

because I think the whole thing of getting a wallet, that shouldn't be

Speaker:

necessary. The whole thing of learning how to

Speaker:

even go to the index or connect your wallet or there's a

Speaker:

hosting provider. I don't wanna throw them under the bus, so I'm not gonna name

Speaker:

them. But they do a lot of things very innovatively. And they have a

Speaker:

field where you can add your value information, but they have this

Speaker:

drop down for when you add your wallet.

Speaker:

And even I, with understanding of some of these

Speaker:

things, I sometimes don't know what am I supposed to pick from

Speaker:

these things that use the Cyrillic alphabet, but I

Speaker:

have no idea what that means. It's like, is it

Speaker:

the the, you know, the x y z wallet type or is it

Speaker:

a satoshi or is it a a whatever, a hash or is I don't

Speaker:

even remember what it was, but I remember that someone

Speaker:

else, unless they were told, use this option,

Speaker:

they're not going to know, and they shouldn't have to know. Even just

Speaker:

simply copying your wallet address into your podcast

Speaker:

feed, I think you shouldn't have to do that. So the vision that I

Speaker:

have for this is I would love to see,

Speaker:

let's follow this from the very start. The

Speaker:

podcast apps, I think, should make wallets

Speaker:

where the podcast consumer simply

Speaker:

purchases tokens. We don't even have to call it Satoshis. We can because that's

Speaker:

probably what's going to power it. But we could call it credits,

Speaker:

tokens, Satoshis, whatever. They put

Speaker:

some money into this podcast app. That

Speaker:

app then converts that to whatever digital

Speaker:

currency necessary, and then the podcast

Speaker:

consumer can choose where that money goes.

Speaker:

Then the podcast app will send that to the podcaster.

Speaker:

Now the podcaster, of course, needs a way to receive that money. That's where the

Speaker:

podcast hosting providers, I think, need to get into this. And I know there

Speaker:

are certain concerns about custodial wallets

Speaker:

and cryptocurrency exchanges and some of this stuff.

Speaker:

I think and I I am not a lawyer on this.

Speaker:

Please keep that in mind. So this is not legal advice.

Speaker:

But my perception of things looking at the

Speaker:

industry is that when you are

Speaker:

handling and holding someone else's money, that's when things

Speaker:

get complicated. But if you are selling them something

Speaker:

or you are regularly paying them out for something, that's when things are

Speaker:

simpler. Like you look at all of these affiliate programs that you can

Speaker:

join. I have an affiliate program for Podgageman. I'd love for any podcaster

Speaker:

to join that affiliate program and recommend it to other podcasters. Most of the

Speaker:

way that these affiliate programs work is that you earn a certain amount of

Speaker:

money. And then probably once a month, usually near the beginning of the month

Speaker:

or maybe near the end of the month, you get paid what you have

Speaker:

earned up to that point or up to a certain cutoff point

Speaker:

for accounting for any kind of refunds or anything like that. They're

Speaker:

not managing your money for you. It's you've earned this

Speaker:

amount and we will pay you this amount at the end of this

Speaker:

particular term or waiting period or anything like that. That's the way it could

Speaker:

be for podcast hosting providers where they set up

Speaker:

maybe they need only a single wallet on their

Speaker:

side. So they set up their own Albi Hub or whatever technology

Speaker:

they need to do that is invisible to the podcaster. They

Speaker:

receive the payment. With the payment, there's the information of what

Speaker:

podcast it goes to, what episode it's for, you know, all of that stuff that

Speaker:

currently we talk about being in the TLV record. Maybe it will be in some

Speaker:

other thing like an activity stream in the future. Whatever technology that

Speaker:

is, doesn't really matter in this context. But they get that information.

Speaker:

They then can add that to a balance to

Speaker:

the podcaster, and the podcaster can then either

Speaker:

set up something that's automatic or maybe it's a manual payout,

Speaker:

but then just they decide, I want to get my payout,

Speaker:

and then it goes out to some other place where it's less

Speaker:

complicated. Like, you look at Coinbase, what Coinbase has done in the United

Speaker:

States. Coinbase is working really hard to follow all of

Speaker:

the laws, and they're doing a much better job than places like Binance

Speaker:

US and many other places who had just decided, nope. We're not going to

Speaker:

even serve people in the United States. Or if you're from the US, you cannot

Speaker:

use our cryptocurrency platform. But Coinbase, it's

Speaker:

even a publicly traded company. I do not own stock in Coinbase. I do

Speaker:

use Coinbase, but I don't I'm not invested in them currently.

Speaker:

They do have a lightning wallet feature, but it's the

Speaker:

traditional style where it does this kind of invoice

Speaker:

thing in the background that is still a little bit technical.

Speaker:

But to get that money then from the podcast hosting

Speaker:

provider to your Coinbase wallet, From Coinbase,

Speaker:

then you can take that cryptocurrency, convert it

Speaker:

to dollars, deposit it into your bank account. And even

Speaker:

that could be a little bit easier. Yeah. But I think that

Speaker:

is fairly easy right now. Once you're in that

Speaker:

space of having an exchange account, you're very familiar with the concept

Speaker:

of depositing and withdrawing and converting between different

Speaker:

currencies and tokens and such. But this whole process

Speaker:

should be invisible. I think it should be as simple for the

Speaker:

podcast consumer of, I wanna upload $10.

Speaker:

How many credits does that give me? Okay. It gives me this many credits. I

Speaker:

want to disperse these credits across these podcasts in this particular way.

Speaker:

Those podcast hosting providers receive that, then

Speaker:

they disperse it to the podcasters, then the podcasters can choose when they

Speaker:

want to redeem that, or maybe they just withdraw it when they want

Speaker:

to. That's what I'd love to see. Yeah. If you think about it,

Speaker:

PayPal, if you think about all the stuff that goes on there where

Speaker:

when you say I wanna pay $18 to Daniel

Speaker:

using PayPal, it goes behind the scenes, goes to my

Speaker:

checking account, removes $18, sends it to

Speaker:

Daniel, goes into his PayPal, and then Daniel can throw it into

Speaker:

his account. And it's not invisible because you have to click the

Speaker:

PayPal button. But once you log in, you're done. At that point, it's

Speaker:

really easy. So if you think about in the I don't remember

Speaker:

what I really don't remember what life was like before PayPal. Right.

Speaker:

I guess you had to send somebody a check. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's

Speaker:

been around for a long time. But and now there are other

Speaker:

you know, there's Stripe. But Stripe has a thing called link now that

Speaker:

when I go to stuff, because I've used it once, it's like, oh, do you

Speaker:

wanna use your link information? I'm like, sure. And it puts in

Speaker:

everything. I think the only thing I have to do is put the little three

Speaker:

digit code for my credit card to to prove that it's me. So that's pretty

Speaker:

seamless too. So, yeah, if things are getting easier, we just need

Speaker:

to and like Daniel said, we aren't gonna do this

Speaker:

overnight, but that's where we wanna go. Yeah. And when it gets to that

Speaker:

point, I think that's when the companies like Apple who are

Speaker:

saying, you've got to make this easy, that's

Speaker:

when they can start supporting that same kind of thing too. And in the

Speaker:

background, maybe there can be multiple protocols. I

Speaker:

think Bitcoin is a great way to do this because what we can do through

Speaker:

specifically the lightning network with Bitcoin, Maybe it's something

Speaker:

else that can come about in the future. But the whole point is whatever

Speaker:

technology is happening behind the scenes, podcasters

Speaker:

and especially podcast consumers should not have to

Speaker:

care at all what it is. It should just

Speaker:

be a seamless transfer of value

Speaker:

from the consumer to the podcaster.

Speaker:

And if a few places in between take a small

Speaker:

cut, that's okay. As long as, of course, they disclose that.

Speaker:

I think that's totally okay and should be that way because those

Speaker:

places have some expenses when processing these things. And

Speaker:

also they should be compensated for their work that they're doing

Speaker:

in making the process easy. And to throw this back to the episode where I

Speaker:

initially kind of shared a little bit of this idea when we were talking about

Speaker:

more potential for ad slots, Sam Sethi from truefans.fm

Speaker:

had sent us a boostergram, and we didn't read that in our last note.

Speaker:

And he had mentioned something about our not reading that, and that's, I think,

Speaker:

a a great conversation to have. But something that he wanted to point out

Speaker:

and something that we briefly touched on in that episode is

Speaker:

another layer to this that we can still

Speaker:

think about. And what he said in his comment is the extra twist

Speaker:

is the user in their settings can set a minimum streaming

Speaker:

value. For example, 100 sats per minute for your

Speaker:

time and attention to listen to an advertisement.

Speaker:

If the advertiser only offers 10 sats per minute in

Speaker:

then the advertisement is skipped by true fans. However,

Speaker:

if the value offered is 100 sats per minute or

Speaker:

more, then I hear the advertisement. But I still have the choice

Speaker:

to skip if I don't like the advertisement and the streaming sats

Speaker:

stops so the advertiser is not paying if I don't listen. So

Speaker:

this is talking about some cool things you can do that Sam is doing with

Speaker:

True Fans, not only the option for the podcaster

Speaker:

to pay their audience in sats if they listen to

Speaker:

ads, but also certain things, ways that the

Speaker:

podcast consumer can change how they're paying

Speaker:

in sats and some of the skipping and stuff that goes on. That kind of

Speaker:

thing, the way that I explain that is probably kind

Speaker:

of confusing and scratching some people's heads. The idea here that I

Speaker:

want to touch on and why I'm bringing this in right now is that can

Speaker:

also disappear, but potentially be reserved

Speaker:

for apps that are promoted specifically for this thing.

Speaker:

So imagine if, like, with this podcasting 2 point o stuff that we've got with

Speaker:

value and all of these other great features, you can promote those

Speaker:

apps. And then you could even tell your audience if you would like

Speaker:

to earn some satoshis listening to my podcast or if you

Speaker:

want the opportunity to hear my podcast ad free while you're

Speaker:

streaming satoshis to me or exchanging value or

Speaker:

whatever language that we use, streaming payments would be better,

Speaker:

then use this app. Use Truefans or use whatever

Speaker:

app because then that unlocks these new things or

Speaker:

that helps you to skip the ads if you are paying this amount. So

Speaker:

then you are incentivizing them with an experience. That

Speaker:

experience could be skipping ads. That experience could be

Speaker:

getting paid for listening to the ads if they switch

Speaker:

apps, but still making that technology

Speaker:

aspect disappear. That's what I would love

Speaker:

so much to see. I know that a lot of this stuff is still

Speaker:

technical, and it will continue to be for a little while.

Speaker:

Because even back in the early days of podcasts and

Speaker:

podcasting, it was technical. That's why it was predominantly

Speaker:

tech based shows and predominantly men because

Speaker:

techy stuff stereotypically attracts more men than it

Speaker:

does women. But that has changed over the years

Speaker:

as the need for the technology aspect has

Speaker:

changed. Then now it's made it more accessible for people

Speaker:

who don't care about the technology. That's the thing

Speaker:

I would love to see is that for podcasting, well, it is basically

Speaker:

mainstream now because the majority of the population consumes podcasts at least

Speaker:

on a monthly basis. To make that even higher, I think

Speaker:

we need to make it so simple that people don't have

Speaker:

to think about technology to get it. It's not like podcasts are only

Speaker:

for geeks. And and I think we've crossed that point years ago of that

Speaker:

impression of, oh, podcasts are only for geeks or even the

Speaker:

impression that, oh, podcasting, creating my own

Speaker:

podcast is only for the geeky people who know how to work the technology.

Speaker:

No. It's now much simpler. So now the people who

Speaker:

don't know about the technology, don't need to know about it, don't have the

Speaker:

time, don't care about it, can still create

Speaker:

podcasts and distribute it through the podcasting ecosystem

Speaker:

without the technology because the technology is

Speaker:

disappearing. And that's what we need to do. With all of these

Speaker:

innovations in Podcasting 2.0, I plead for everyone thinking

Speaker:

through new innovations. Focus on how it's going to help the

Speaker:

podcast consumer first. And keep an eye to the

Speaker:

future of how can we make this technology disappear.

Speaker:

For the podcaster, maybe it's as simple as toggle the

Speaker:

switch or fill in this field with something super easy.

Speaker:

And for the consumer, making it that easy to

Speaker:

toggle this, enter your credit card information, start sending money to your

Speaker:

favorite podcasters, whatever that is. That's my dream for the

Speaker:

future. To dream the impossible

Speaker:

dream. Yes. It's not just for old geeky guys. Now

Speaker:

it's for wives who wanna secretly learn how to murder their husband and get away

Speaker:

with it. Well, see, I wasn't going to go stereotypical. You're the one

Speaker:

who Well, another thing, though, that has it's it's

Speaker:

slowly being phased out. I know with Patreon,

Speaker:

if somebody wants to listen to your show

Speaker:

not on the Patreon app, they have to still right click on the

Speaker:

RSS feed and copy and paste it where things like Supercast,

Speaker:

you basically when it signs up, it goes, oh, hey. You're on an iPhone. Do

Speaker:

you wanna listen to this in Apple Podcasts or I see you have Pocket Cast

Speaker:

installed? It somehow has some magic voodoo going on that it

Speaker:

knows what apps are on your phone and says you wanna listen to this one.

Speaker:

You go, oh, yeah. Pocket Cast. I love that app. Click. You're done. So

Speaker:

that's something else that's, again, getting much easier than it used to

Speaker:

be. And even that can still disappear to the point where you don't even have

Speaker:

to present that choice. It's just, I wanna support this podcast and get

Speaker:

this bonus content or skip the ads or or whatever.

Speaker:

You do that all within the podcast app. You never leave the

Speaker:

podcast app. You never have to switch your feeds or anything like that.

Speaker:

It just works. Yep. And it's possible. It

Speaker:

it it really is. Well, you mentioned the one Boostagram.

Speaker:

Do we have any other boostograms? We had the one from Sam. We also got

Speaker:

one from creativity found, and we mentioned this in our last

Speaker:

episode, but we didn't read the message. And so to read that message,

Speaker:

creativity found said it came a bit late to this episode. This was about the

Speaker:

episode Podcasting More Than Just Podcasts. They said,

Speaker:

holiday listening and liked the discussion around what more

Speaker:

slash differently you can do with a podcast format. I have planned a step by

Speaker:

step course format around the future of podcasting 2.0

Speaker:

with explainer episodes where guests tell me what the thing

Speaker:

is and why it's good, then practical episodes teaching the

Speaker:

listener how to do the thing. Still a talk show, but we'll

Speaker:

use the 2.0 features to teach the 2.0 features. I

Speaker:

love meta stuff like this. Inspired by books I

Speaker:

have worked on as a text editor, and this comes from Claire

Speaker:

Creativity Found. Thank you so much for that boostagram, Claire.

Speaker:

238 sets. And that boostagram, by the way, from Sam was

Speaker:

204 sets. So thank you so much for those boostograms. And we

Speaker:

continue to receive streaming satoshis too from, like, Brian Entsminger,

Speaker:

Randall Black, and Johns Creek Studios, Sam, and others. So

Speaker:

thank you so much. And as we record this, we hope this is

Speaker:

temporary, but we usually look at our boostograms

Speaker:

through Saturn. It's saturn.fly.dev. And

Speaker:

right now, they're not having a good day. We got a whole lot of nothing

Speaker:

and spinning going on. So hopefully the guys and gals at

Speaker:

at Saturn are figuring out what's going on. That's always kind of

Speaker:

spooky when you see that. I I love their dashboard. It was very easy. That's

Speaker:

where we could see who our top supporters were and things like that. So, hopefully,

Speaker:

they've just got, I don't know, a power outage somewhere,

Speaker:

something super simple to fix, though. Alright, Daniel. Future

Speaker:

podcasting episode 50. That is gonna do it for this episode.

Speaker:

Thank you for letting me have a soapbox again, and remember, keep

Speaker:

boosting and keep podcasting.