Alright. Today, we are joined by Kendall Brightman, the community manager at
Speaker:Riverside.fm. And as we've said before, Riverside is platform that we
Speaker:use for recording this podcast, and we're excited to talk a little bit about it
Speaker:and some of the really great new features they've just been rolling out
Speaker:continuously. It seems like every day I I pop onto Facebook,
Speaker:Kendall's posting something in the in the Riverside community group about, hey. We're doing
Speaker:this. We're doing this. We're doing this. So excited to talk about some greatest and,
Speaker:truthfully, by the time this updates, it'll probably seem like old hat. But Kendall, thank
Speaker:you so much for being here today. Yeah. Thanks so much for for having me.
Speaker:I'm really excited to talk about all the features we're releasing Riverside,
Speaker:and I'm glad that you're liking the updates. It's, it's fun to post them.
Speaker:I I love to see the comments coming in and see see creators excited
Speaker:about it. So that's good to hear. It's amazing when I first
Speaker:started using Riverside, when it really
Speaker:kinda in the early days when it was first released, it was this great platform.
Speaker:You know, one of the first out there that could record local
Speaker:ISO video on top of audio. Audio had been out a little
Speaker:bit before that, but the first one to do video, and I was like, oh,
Speaker:this is a great tool. Like, lots of podcasters should have a tool like this
Speaker:in their in their toolbox of production, whether it's
Speaker:for podcasts or, you know, YouTube or whatever else it is. But
Speaker:today, the platform has become so much more. Tell us a little bit
Speaker:about what is the kind of vision there at Riverside as it's, like,
Speaker:all in one podcasting tool. Yeah. I think I think that's
Speaker:really the vision is that we're, trying to develop to become this
Speaker:all in one podcasting tool like you just said. So the bread and butter
Speaker:of Riverside is really, as you said, like, the local recording,
Speaker:high quality recordings, so that even if you're remote, you're
Speaker:still able to get that studio quality. But from there, we've just
Speaker:been developing like, our focus right now has also become the editor.
Speaker:So being able to take the recordings that you do and
Speaker:edit them, whether that's through AI tools, whether that's through transcript
Speaker:Podcasting, and I think that really the name of the game
Speaker:well, I like to think the name of the game is Riverside is is that
Speaker:we're opening up, like, studio quality recordings
Speaker:for more people, getting being able to get more people out there to tell
Speaker:their stories. And so with that also comes being able to
Speaker:give more people, access to an editor, being able to edit their clips
Speaker:for social media, create show notes, just trying to make
Speaker:like, our goal here is really trying to make end to end the recording
Speaker:and editing plat the recording and editing process just a
Speaker:lot easier and smoother so that you can kinda get from record to
Speaker:publish with as little friction as possible. And
Speaker:so, yeah, I mean, there's a few different text based editors on the market, and
Speaker:you guys have kind of joined the fray in doing so. But you're starting to
Speaker:take it even a little bit step further. You have a lot of AI based
Speaker:tools. And what are some of the ones that folks who are recording on Riverside
Speaker:can use to take their recording and go straight from that into
Speaker:postproduction? Yeah. So, first off, I'd
Speaker:say the AI transcripts. And I'm not talking about transcript,
Speaker:based editing when I'm talking about this. I just mean that after you
Speaker:record, you get a really accurate transcript that then you can
Speaker:also use. Like, I love to use the transcript to put it in a chat
Speaker:gpt and say, hey. Can you make social posts out of this? Can you
Speaker:I used to say AI show notes, but we've actually also added
Speaker:that. So after you're done every Riverside recording, you get your
Speaker:transcript. You also get your AI show notes, and that has the
Speaker:summary, a few key takeaways, and then time coded
Speaker:kinda chapters. So you can really just copy and paste that
Speaker:right into your hosting platform as your description
Speaker:and, kinda just streamline that part of the process. And then on
Speaker:top of that with editing tools, I mean, we had a remove silence
Speaker:feature, that removes silences 3 seconds or more in your
Speaker:recording, and we actually just released our newest version of that AI
Speaker:feature that you can really record, whether that's 3 second
Speaker:pauses, one second pauses to be able to speed up the pace of your
Speaker:video. We're really leaning into AI as
Speaker:part of the idea of making things easier for creators. So
Speaker:we have AI chapters. So after you record, when you go in your
Speaker:editor, it's already split up by chapters and what you talked about in
Speaker:each of those chapters. So, those are just, like, 3 of
Speaker:the tools that come off top of mind that I and we just keep we
Speaker:keep adding more. I mean, by the time that this comes out, we might
Speaker:have more AI features in terms of audio,
Speaker:coming out to really clean up your audio. So really just trying to see
Speaker:like, there's so much that could be done with AI, I mean, as far
Speaker:as even show, besides show notes, like,
Speaker:social posts or blog posts that you can take your transcript
Speaker:and create a blog post out of it. So really trying to lean into
Speaker:that because, the more work I mean, we all know
Speaker:that when you're creating a podcast, the more work that you can kinda have done
Speaker:for you just creates more opportunities to do what we actually love, which
Speaker:is having these conversations, putting our content out there,
Speaker:connecting with the people that are listening to it, that type of stuff. And what
Speaker:I love about Riverside, what I've noticed is that you are you
Speaker:especially are very active in the Facebook group, the kind
Speaker:of the community creators group that Riverside has going there. And what I constantly
Speaker:see are people asking a question like, how do I do this?
Speaker:Or can I do this? And your response 99 times out of a
Speaker:100 has always been, we can't do that yet,
Speaker:or, oh, that's a really good idea. Let me, you know, submit
Speaker:that as kinda like a request for our developers to see if they can do
Speaker:it. And then it seems like for a lot of them within days or weeks
Speaker:or maybe a month or 2 if, you know, they're more complicated, but it seems
Speaker:like you are listening to the content creators and
Speaker:constantly trying to hear what it is that they want and implement them. Is that
Speaker:true? Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I would feel really, like,
Speaker:disingenuous if I was just Podcasting, like, yeah. We'll let we'll let the team know.
Speaker:But we really are like, I we are in direct
Speaker:communication all the time with our developers and our product team,
Speaker:And, it's cool to see. Like, when I joined, I
Speaker:was surprised to see that, for example, when we have feature requests, we put them
Speaker:in a system that kind of upvotes them. And so as more
Speaker:people request different things, it'll become kinda on the top of those
Speaker:developers' screens. But beyond that, like, we'll screenshot them and send
Speaker:them to each other on Slack, and you'll see kind of the product people
Speaker:saying, what if we added it to this tool? What if we did it this
Speaker:way? It's it's really cool to to see that process, and
Speaker:we really do listen to what people want and what
Speaker:people are needing in their content creation. And then I also think that a
Speaker:key part of it is that a lot of us use Riverside. So
Speaker:if we're creating, if we're doing webinars or if we're creating, we have a lot
Speaker:of people on the team that have their own Rodecaster on the side. So we're
Speaker:actually using it and developing it. And then those people in our company
Speaker:that do that, our product team will talk with them and say, even
Speaker:like, hey. If we're gonna add a text feature, where would you
Speaker:even look for that on your screen? So really just trying to,
Speaker:like, keep creators in mind. And then something else that I think is
Speaker:pretty cool is, that we have
Speaker:like, Riverside started a few years ago, and it's
Speaker:around the time that a lot of people also started their Podcasting. And
Speaker:I remember random time to throw Harry Potter in here, but I remember when
Speaker:we were talking about like, there was a documentary on Harry Potter,
Speaker:and they're talking about how the viewers actually grew with the with
Speaker:the main characters of the show. So people like, their target audience were, like,
Speaker:as they were growing up, so were were the people that were obsessed with these
Speaker:movies. And so it kind of feels the same here where, like, we
Speaker:developed this platform and a lot of people were starting podcasting
Speaker:around COVID. And so as they're developing, we're developing, and it
Speaker:feels like this really cool, like, creating and growing
Speaker:together, if that makes sense. I'm glad I got to throw Harry Potter in
Speaker:there. No. I mean, that makes a ton of sense. And in fact, it it's
Speaker:true because what I remember was I think Riverside really
Speaker:first came on the scene either shortly before or shortly after the
Speaker:pandemic began. And I remember that because
Speaker:in my old business, we wanted to start offering video editing, and
Speaker:I it became I was like, this is kind of a struggle. Right? You get
Speaker:the single feed from Zoom. It's it's, you know, not all that appealing.
Speaker:But then all of a sudden, Riverside pops up and you get these
Speaker:isolated video tracks, and that really helped
Speaker:us be able to offer better video
Speaker:editing options than we could before that. And so right during the
Speaker:pandemic, a lot of people are stuck at home. A lot of people are thinking,
Speaker:how am I gonna get my message out there? How am I gonna communicate with
Speaker:the masses? And so a lot of them were starting Podcasting around the same time
Speaker:that Riverside was popping up and starting to implement all these great
Speaker:features. I I love how
Speaker:you recently added something about speeding up the
Speaker:pace of the conversation. What's that all about? Yeah. So that
Speaker:actually it's a really cool feature to me because a lot of the time
Speaker:like, I'll watch TikTok videos or something, and I'm like, how do these
Speaker:people talk so fast? And as you can already tell, I'm already a
Speaker:I'm a fast talker, But you wanna, like, I've been
Speaker:told sometimes, but, like, you wanna speed up your video
Speaker:but without kind of sounding I used to work in in
Speaker:television news, and we'd always speed up the videos, and then everyone would
Speaker:sound like a chipmunk while you're editing. So this
Speaker:idea is that you're able to speed up the videos, but without
Speaker:it distorting the sound of your voice. So that's all
Speaker:about cutting out silences. So, the new feature
Speaker:that we have with set pace, you can really just take a toggle and take
Speaker:it from your original pace to natural, to fast,
Speaker:super fast, and just kinda toggle it back and forth and see how
Speaker:the video changes, or you can export 1 in a
Speaker:natural pace and then export a clip in super
Speaker:Passy. And so those were really
Speaker:again, we're just we're looking at content that
Speaker:creators are creating and then responding to that and
Speaker:saying, okay. How do we create something that's
Speaker:gonna be more friendly for social, and that's gonna help
Speaker:creators do it in a way that they're not individually picking out
Speaker:every bit of silence. So, really, again, just trying to make it, like, if
Speaker:not one click, then just a couple clicks to get you towards your final
Speaker:product. You know what I also found interesting was, you know, as you said, this
Speaker:was kinda created around the same time. Lots of people were starting their Podcasting,
Speaker:but I I'm often surprised by the
Speaker:types of uses that people talk about having with Riverside in the
Speaker:group. Like, oh, I wanna use it for x or I wanna use it for
Speaker:y. Talk to me about some of the ones that you've heard people talk about
Speaker:and maybe any that really surprised you. Yeah. I
Speaker:actually like, the 2 that come to mind are actually about businesses.
Speaker:So, you know, podcasting is kind of the general use case, but
Speaker:then I spoke with, with a
Speaker:creator who interviews CEOs in, like, c
Speaker:level positions, and they just sit down for an
Speaker:hour, and we'll have a conversation every week. And then they'll take
Speaker:that and, like, either they will break it up for
Speaker:social clips to just get the CEO out there in front of
Speaker:in front of users on social, or they will create
Speaker:internal videos based off of it. So that's one cool
Speaker:kinda use case. But the other one that's actually been pretty
Speaker:cool for me to see is that because especially with things like the
Speaker:editor and making it easier to edit, you're able
Speaker:to open up for businesses more people who can kinda get
Speaker:in on the creation process. So somebody like me. Like, I'm a marketer.
Speaker:I'm not a video editor. But if I record something or if
Speaker:somebody else on my team records something, I can go in and edit it and
Speaker:make social clips and put them out there. And so,
Speaker:in that case, I don't have to send it to my video editor, have that
Speaker:be added to the millions of projects that he's working on for really what is,
Speaker:like, a simple video. I'm cutting out 2 people having a
Speaker:conversation. But what we're seeing more businesses doing is that
Speaker:their their social, their social media managers are
Speaker:now video editors or their head of communications can
Speaker:be, and so it kinda allows more people
Speaker:to be using it. And then on top of it, I mean, like,
Speaker:there are a ton of just really interesting
Speaker:kind of podcasts out there. I Samson the other day where a guy was podcasting
Speaker:while he was, like, driving an Uber. So you could see,
Speaker:like, which I don't know. I don't know how if, I want my Uber
Speaker:driver podcasting, but you could literally see people,
Speaker:like, walking like, coming into his car, walking out of his car as
Speaker:he's recording this podcast, and it's was really a moment that I was like,
Speaker:wow. You can you can really record from anywhere. Yeah. I don't
Speaker:know how I feel about it it's even less about, like, the privacy issue
Speaker:of I didn't ask to be on your podcast when I signed
Speaker:up for Uber, but more just the even though you're not you don't have your
Speaker:hands on your phone, like, clearly, you're not a 100% focused on the
Speaker:road. Right? Like, that's just Oh, yeah. That I'm always bothered by whenever
Speaker:I see content creators who are doing something while driving. That's,
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, it was it was more of, like, an extreme use case,
Speaker:but I those are definitely ones that pop out to me. But, like, we see
Speaker:people also, like, with documentaries or something like that. They'll
Speaker:record, like, their talking head kind of videos or record an
Speaker:expert, and they're able to still get the high quality that, like,
Speaker:it matches up with the rest of the documentary, things like that.
Speaker:So, yeah, it's super cool to see just really, like, how people take
Speaker:it, whether that's in business or in their Uber driving business.
Speaker:So, you know, to that point, right, because this platform allows you to record
Speaker:with people anywhere, anytime, It, you know,
Speaker:eliminates the need for people to be in person to still get high quality
Speaker:content, but it also means that you have a lot of people who are joining
Speaker:podcasts, joining conversations without
Speaker:somebody on-site with them to help them out, right, without someone physically holding their
Speaker:hand and whatnot. So I guess what would be your advice to
Speaker:both the content creators and also just to the
Speaker:guests as far as how to ensure they get the best
Speaker:content out of this platform. I mean, it is it's easy enough, but,
Speaker:right, if you do what are the few tweaks that if you make, you'll get,
Speaker:like, the really just the, you know, recording out of it?
Speaker:Yeah. I like, my recommendation is if you can
Speaker:get your guests to use their phone as a webcam,
Speaker:That is my top recommendation because, we make it
Speaker:easy to connect your phone. Also, if you have a iPhone and a Mac,
Speaker:you're able to connect to via continuity Samson, and
Speaker:that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm recording on right now. Same here. So
Speaker:yeah. And so, like, your laptop camera is only gonna be able to go up
Speaker:to 7 20 p. So no matter if you make everything look
Speaker:amazing, like, that's the quality that you're gonna get. So my first thing is
Speaker:that if you have a guest that's, like, game to try to connect their phone,
Speaker:it's really a lot easier than you'd think. And in that case,
Speaker:you're just able to get a lot better quality. Asking
Speaker:them to wear wired headphones, I have heard from many an audio
Speaker:editor. And so but my main
Speaker:kinda recommendation is that you're gonna wanna pick a few
Speaker:things that are most important to you. So, for example, if you want that high
Speaker:quality video, asking if they can connect their phone or why wearing
Speaker:the wired headphones. When I see a list of, like,
Speaker:face a window, wear wired headphones, connect with this, do that, like,
Speaker:it becomes too much, and you want them to really, like, come into the
Speaker:conversation, like, as if it's a normal
Speaker:conversation. You know? The more that you try to, like, set up and
Speaker:and create this moment, the more like, the less
Speaker:natural they're going to be. So a really good point.
Speaker:Yeah. I just find that, like, it's also why I, there are different
Speaker:settings within the Riverside Studio. Like, I disabled my countdown
Speaker:only because I felt like, there's a countdown once you press record that
Speaker:takes you down from 5, only because I feel that sometimes when you're about
Speaker:to record, you get a little bit more upright, you get a little bit
Speaker:more like, I want to put as as little friction
Speaker:between person and having that conversation as possible.
Speaker:But little things like, if you there
Speaker:we have on our community group, or we're going to be posting them soon, like,
Speaker:a quick list, a quick checklist of face don't have a window
Speaker:behind you, face a window, but trying not to
Speaker:kinda overload them with as much information.
Speaker:If we had a very similar list that we would give clients
Speaker:to pass along to their guests, And if I can make one
Speaker:recommendation, the last thing on that list, smile.
Speaker:It is people always forget that, one,
Speaker:obviously, this is a video, you know, visual medium that we're using it in. But
Speaker:even if you're just using the audio off it, people can hear the difference
Speaker:between someone who is smiling and excited to be on your
Speaker:podcast versus the person who's like, Tech. Thanks for having me. Right? Like, if this
Speaker:Samson doesn't sound like they wanna be here, why do I wanna listen to that?
Speaker:And so we always include that as a last step for everybody. It's like, alright.
Speaker:You've got this. You've got this. You've got this. Now smile and have fun.
Speaker:Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I would also say what makes a
Speaker:huge difference is, like, eye level camera. If you're gonna have that,
Speaker:like, I've seen so many videos where the person has, like, it on
Speaker:clearly on their laptop camera, and they're kinda just, like, looking down at
Speaker:it. And it really just like, even just having
Speaker:them put their laptop, if that's their the the,
Speaker:webcam that they're gonna be using on a stack of books, Just having it
Speaker:eye level is makes so much it makes such a difference.
Speaker:You know, that might be me then requesting in a feature, which is the ability
Speaker:to arrange the boxes on the recording the way I want it. Because
Speaker:right now, I have you kind of squished in and we're stacked on top of
Speaker:each other. But I'm on the top, and you're on the bottom. So I'm looking
Speaker:down a little bit to watch you, whereas I should you know, I wanna
Speaker:be looking at you at the camera level. So maybe if that's not a request
Speaker:that's already in the making, you can, drop that to the developers. I'm gonna drop
Speaker:it to developers either way, but I do know that it's something that we're that
Speaker:we're aware of. So I hope that we can have some updates for you on
Speaker:that because that and editing layouts too, are definitely
Speaker:definitely on our radar. Yeah. I mean, there are there's obviously a
Speaker:little bit of room for improvement, but I think to your point earlier, if you
Speaker:are not a full time video editor, if you have not done tons
Speaker:of video editing in your life, if you don't have the budget to outsource this
Speaker:to a professional video editor, the nice thing is that you can go from
Speaker:recording to editing and put out a really
Speaker:nice product. It is not gonna look like, you know, it came out of
Speaker:Hollywood or it's not gonna look like, you know, Joe Rogan kinda setup, but it
Speaker:is going to be quality enough that you can stand by it. You can post
Speaker:it. You can be proud of it. So encourage folks to use it. Just
Speaker:I we, you know, we have questions that we ask everyone, but before we get
Speaker:to that, you know, you have a interesting background in
Speaker:journalism and you mentioned, you know, working in television, But you've
Speaker:taken on this role as a community manager, and so many
Speaker:podcasters need to have a community. They need a
Speaker:Facebook group. They need a way to interact with their audience. So just wondering, what
Speaker:have you learned in that role as a community manager that maybe you can pass
Speaker:on to Podcasting a way to improve the way they connect to their audience?
Speaker:I would Samson. Yeah. First of all, I was actually gonna mention this
Speaker:when we're talking about the stacking. I'm just so used to, like, I was in
Speaker:I worked at NBC News and Bloomberg News before this. I've gotten so used
Speaker:to just, like, looking in a camera as if it's a news hit and being
Speaker:like, back to you. You know what I mean? So I'm always just, like, looking
Speaker:at this camera rather than my computer. But, yeah, my
Speaker:background is in television production, and I was a
Speaker:political reporter. And so my biggest piece of
Speaker:information when you're starting a community is to not assume
Speaker:anything and to listen. And by that, I mean,
Speaker:like, I'm from, oh, the world of journalism. So when
Speaker:I started the community, I I was like, okay. Or when I started my community
Speaker:manager role, I was like, okay. People want to
Speaker:network. Like, they want like, I'm coming from a place that, like, who you
Speaker:know is your currency, how you speak, like, having that kind of
Speaker:community of sources and things like that. So I came into it being, like,
Speaker:networking. That's the name of the game. But then what I did was I
Speaker:actually took time to speak individually to community
Speaker:members. And once I dug in, I realized that my assumptions
Speaker:were partially correct. Like, people do wanna network, but, like, if
Speaker:you dig into it deeper, they wanna network because they wanna
Speaker:learn from each other or make their podcast better in some way,
Speaker:whether that's finding a guest for it, whether it's promo
Speaker:swaps, whether it's having a mentor that they can ask,
Speaker:like, have you used this mic? So it's
Speaker:it's a lot about learning. That was the main driver, and I wouldn't
Speaker:have found that out unless I spoke with people and actually listened.
Speaker:So some of that was from user calls. Some of that was from
Speaker:going to other communities and just seeing what the conversations are
Speaker:like, going to Reddit and filtering based on,
Speaker:like, the most popular Passy, like, what gets people
Speaker:talking, excited, engaged. It's almost like
Speaker:if you think about your community like a party. You know? Like, what do
Speaker:your people want at the party? What kind of music do they want at the
Speaker:party? What kind what time does it start? You know, like, understanding
Speaker:what they want and delivering that. And I think sometimes it takes
Speaker:going to other parties to do that is what I mean. Like, seeing where
Speaker:where they're, like, congregating, seeing what they're excited about.
Speaker:So as you build your community, I would say, like, maybe
Speaker:you're not able to reach out directly to your listeners. But maybe,
Speaker:let's say that you have, like, a health and
Speaker:wellness podcast. Maybe it's about going to Facebook groups that are
Speaker:about that and just seeing what people are asking, what's exciting to
Speaker:them, and then not spamming them with your content, but,
Speaker:like, engaging with them to make yourself part of the
Speaker:party and then kinda be like, also, there's a pretty cool
Speaker:party happening over here, and it's mine. Why don't you come over? You
Speaker:know? So I think that it's about just it's it's about listening
Speaker:and understanding and then reacting from there. It's so
Speaker:interesting because as podcasters, what we want are listeners.
Speaker:And it's you know, what you were saying, which I I totally agree with,
Speaker:is one of the best ways for you to get more listeners is you
Speaker:have to listen. And I don't think a lot of people figure that they think,
Speaker:well, I've got the microphone. Everybody should be listening to me, but, no. What does
Speaker:your audience want? What is your community looking for? What is it that's gonna resonate
Speaker:with them? And maybe you are one of those people who just
Speaker:knows, but most of us don't. So you're gonna have to go out there and
Speaker:ask the questions and and find it out. So, once again,
Speaker:Kendall is the community manager at riverside.fm. If you haven't checked out that
Speaker:platform before, we encourage you to do so. We'll have a link to it here
Speaker:on the bottom in our show notes so you can check it out. And as
Speaker:I've said, all the interviews that we've done up to this point have been through
Speaker:this platform. So I've been a big fan of it and been using it forever.
Speaker:Before we let you go, I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions that we've
Speaker:been asking everyone. First of all, just on tech stack real quickly,
Speaker:I know you're using a Shure MV 7, kinda see that working right
Speaker:there. And as you've mentioned, using your iPhone continuity
Speaker:camera, any other tech in your life
Speaker:that you personally wanna get a hold of? Is there
Speaker:some device or or something out there you're like, I really wish I can
Speaker:get x, whether it's out there or something that someone needs to
Speaker:create for you? Well okay. So I will say that I'm in
Speaker:my I'm in the Riverside office right now, and we're building our
Speaker:studio. So these are, like, low hanging fruits, but I'm just, like, trying to
Speaker:build up a studio here. So I'd say this is, like, studio for beginner. I
Speaker:wanna get an Elgato, key light only because then you
Speaker:can, like, you can, balance through the white balance from your
Speaker:computer and kind of like, right now, I have a ring light that kind of
Speaker:is set to 3 different modes, like, kind of more yellow, blue, or
Speaker:white. So I want something that you can actually, like, program on
Speaker:your computer and really change the settings there. So,
Speaker:from one of my colleagues, Steven, who has a crazy setup, he
Speaker:recommended the Elgato. So we're looking looking into that. And we had the pleasure of
Speaker:chatting with Samson, and, yeah, he's he's not the first or the last to,
Speaker:mention that being one of the things that they want. Yeah. Well yes.
Speaker:And Steven's setup is crazy. He's, like, a whole smart home thing where he could
Speaker:adjust the lighting. And now compared to that, this
Speaker:is a really low hanging fruit, but I really want a
Speaker:boom, like, a microphone boom arm. They call it a
Speaker:boom arm here? In in TV, I remember they called it that. Like, a Kinda
Speaker:like this. Exact exactly like that. Wow.
Speaker:Now you're just bragging. I'm kidding. But it's
Speaker:just like I like, the importance of that for
Speaker:me is just to be able to type and have my arms around and feel
Speaker:like I'm not gonna knock the microphone in that way and just as as few
Speaker:things that I can have on this desk. So my, like,
Speaker:very beginner kind of wish list is that Elgato key
Speaker:light and probably a road. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. This
Speaker:is the PSA 1 plus. This is a I it's funny because I had the
Speaker:boom arm that, literally when I left my last
Speaker:job in radio, the engineers, like, I'm giving parts away to people who I know
Speaker:will use it. Otherwise, they're gonna get scrapped. And so I had this it was
Speaker:a nice mic arm, but, you know, after a while, I got a little janky,
Speaker:and I just upgraded this about a year or so ago. And the other
Speaker:day, I was chatting with someone, and they were talking about the Elgato boom arm,
Speaker:but not the one that hangs down, the one that comes up. It's like what
Speaker:they call, like, a low profile arm. And I'm sitting there thinking like, oh, man.
Speaker:I really want that. But as you say it, one of the reasons why I
Speaker:like this is because it keeps my arms free. Right? If I need to reach
Speaker:around on my desk or something like that, I'm not banging into it as you
Speaker:said. So Exactly. I want something from the side, yeah, that kinda,
Speaker:like, hangs down, and then I we I'm, like, facing
Speaker:a wall right now, so my dream would be to kinda have, like, some sort
Speaker:of tripod to hold my phone out of the wall, because right now when I
Speaker:type, it's, because the tripod's on the desk, it can get a
Speaker:little, like, a little shaky. So, really, my my whole thing's about,
Speaker:like, stabilizing and lighting right now. That's that's been my my goals
Speaker:here. So good to know there's not an earthquake where you are recording from. Yeah.
Speaker:Or else or else you'd really see it in this video. Out outside
Speaker:of the things that Riverside is doing, is there places where you'd like
Speaker:to see improvement in the podcasting space in general,
Speaker:whether it's from the you know, on the creator side, on the publisher
Speaker:side, on the listening side? Like, is there just something that if you
Speaker:have the power to wave your arm and say, I wish we could do this
Speaker:in podcasting? Mhmm. Oh, for sure. I
Speaker:would say I think there needs to be more support on bigger
Speaker:platforms for indie podcasters. By that, I mean,
Speaker:like like, everyone is listening to Wondery
Speaker:or, like, you know, those bigger kind of, like, conglomerates.
Speaker:Media companies. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And it's always like that. But
Speaker:I really wish that maybe, like, Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts would push up
Speaker:some of that independent creator content because people are
Speaker:making really incredible content, and then you
Speaker:go on to Apple Podcasts, and it's all the the Wonderies, the
Speaker:Dear Medias, that kind of stuff. So I really wish that there'd be a little
Speaker:bit more celebration of, like, what people are kinda
Speaker:doing on their own. I don't know how that would I mean,
Speaker:my first thing would say, like, Apple Podcasts kind of featuring those a bit
Speaker:more. But, yeah, that's been that's been something that I wish
Speaker:because I've discovered so many podcasts since I've joined that now I've kinda
Speaker:told my friends about it, and they've loved them. And then
Speaker:you like, they wouldn't have been able to find it otherwise, and there's so much
Speaker:good content out there. Yeah. That's, in a conversation we
Speaker:had recently, we were talking about how it wasn't that long ago that
Speaker:this space was dominated by independent creators and that
Speaker:big brands and media conglomerates were like, that's cute, but we're not really
Speaker:interested in now. The tables have totally turned. There's lots of money and lots of
Speaker:big companies. Everybody's making a play for podcasting, and it's kinda, like I
Speaker:said, push those more independent voices off to the side. So
Speaker:I unfortunately, you know, Spotify has an interest in promoting their
Speaker:big ones because they're paying those creators and, you know, same thing
Speaker:with Apple. Right? Wondery is selling subscriptions, so Apple is
Speaker:kind of incentivized to be like, well, yeah, let's sell more subscriptions because we're getting
Speaker:a piece of that. So it is a it's a hard thing to to
Speaker:reconcile. Exactly. And then you also see a lot of creators now making
Speaker:their own networks. So, like, I talked with a creator who has an AI podcast.
Speaker:He's doing a network of other AI podcasters. And so it's smart, but
Speaker:I just wish that there were ways to really, like, uplift
Speaker:more voices. Yeah. Well, Well,
Speaker:speaking of which, I'm gonna give you a chance to do that because the last
Speaker:thing we always ask everybody is their favorite podcast that they're listening to.
Speaker:So what's 1 or 2 that when those episodes drop, you are
Speaker:immediately listening to or, you know, you're not gonna let those, just hang
Speaker:out in the library for too long? Okay. This is, like, kind of
Speaker:embarrassing, though. So I listen to a lot of,
Speaker:like, reality show Podcasting. That's okay. It's just be it's just
Speaker:because I like to just, like, listen to a Podcasting. Like, either it's true
Speaker:crime, and lately, I haven't been as into it. I go up and down,
Speaker:or it's, reality television podcast.
Speaker:So my embarrassing one, and it's just my I'm just gonna be
Speaker:completely honest. It's called Reality Gaze, and it's 2 gay
Speaker:men who are hilarious talking about reality
Speaker:TV. And this is what I mean when, like, with, like, independent Tech of
Speaker:podcasters. So I was, like, sitting here listening to them
Speaker:laughing alone, and then I found their Facebook group.
Speaker:There's, like, 20,000 people in that Facebook group. I don't know if that's exactly
Speaker:the number, but it's, like, 1,000 and 1,000. And so
Speaker:it's really and then I joined it, and immediately, it was just like, wow. There
Speaker:are all of these people like me that are listening to,
Speaker:like, this hilarious reality TV show
Speaker:recap podcast. So that's my embarrassing
Speaker:one, but then I feel a little bit a little bit,
Speaker:not what's the what's the word? A little bit validated by the fact that I
Speaker:found this Facebook group, and I'm like, there are more of you. So
Speaker:that's my little shout out, and I hope you don't judge
Speaker:me for it. There is absolutely no judgment here. That's the beauty of
Speaker:Podcasting that everybody can find something
Speaker:that is special to them, and it could be
Speaker:huge, grandiose, you know, general mass appeal, or it
Speaker:can be really tight specific
Speaker:niches. And even that niche, it doesn't have to be
Speaker:what you're talking about or who you're talking to, but just the
Speaker:filter for which you are talking about it. And so I'm
Speaker:sure there are lots of reality show, you know, Podcasting
Speaker:reaction shows and whatnot. But, you know, the fact that you found this one that
Speaker:speaks to you in a way and obviously has a huge community that supports
Speaker:it, I think that's exactly what makes this medium so great. And,
Speaker:yeah, judgment free zone. You listen to what you wanna listen to.
Speaker:No. I I just, like, I I listen to a bunch, and it's just there's
Speaker:some hosts. Like, I think that that's a really important part of this, that there
Speaker:are some hosts that you just connect to more that you can be
Speaker:recapping. Like, I hear so much people saying, oh, there there
Speaker:are enough podcasts. Do we need another podcast? You'd never say that about, like,
Speaker:do we need another book? You know? Like, Netflix and Hulu put
Speaker:out the same storyline at the same time, and still people
Speaker:watch both and then talk about which one they like more. So if,
Speaker:like like, there are so many like, there will be so many
Speaker:podcasts recapping the same exact episode of the same exact reality
Speaker:show. It's about finding a host that you're like, I just enjoy
Speaker:every minute of hearing you talk about this topic. Well and
Speaker:I think you're you're highlighting the thing that makes a good podcast
Speaker:great is that Mhmm. When you feel that connection, when
Speaker:you stop feeling like a listener and you feel like
Speaker:the host is in the back seat of your car chatting while you're
Speaker:driving. Right? And it feels very intimate and very connected,
Speaker:and you feel a bond with them. If you can accomplish that, you're doing
Speaker:something really special. And, you know, it
Speaker:might take some time, but you should be able to find success with this space.
Speaker:And in the meantime, if you're thinking about doing that and you need to connect
Speaker:people remotely, can't emphasize enough that we like
Speaker:Riverside.fm. Kendall Brightman is the community manager for
Speaker:them. We encourage you to check them out. And, so grateful that
Speaker:you took the time to chat with us today, and I'm sure with all the
Speaker:new features you guys are coming out with, we can, do this again in a
Speaker:few months. Yeah. I would love that. Thanks so much for having me on. This
Speaker:was great.