1 00:00:00,001 --> 00:00:15,500 Welcome to Podcast Answers, the show where I help you start and grow your podcast, answering 2 00:00:15,500 --> 00:00:20,660 any podcasting questions along the way. That's right, guys. I'm here. I'm still here. It's 3 00:00:20,660 --> 00:00:27,520 wow. Wow, wow, wow. Life is just crazy now. I've got four kids and they are all over the 4 00:00:27,520 --> 00:00:32,840 place. Not that you want to hear excuses though, but they are super, super busy. And so for 5 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:39,460 me, it takes me a little bit sometimes to do a podcast answers episode. But this episode 6 00:00:39,460 --> 00:00:46,640 is one that I thought was going to be is super, super, super important for us because essentially 7 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:55,480 what is RSS? You may have heard it. All of the old school guys know what RSS is. Everybody 8 00:00:55,480 --> 00:01:03,000 knows what RSS is if you're an old school guy, but what about those who are new school? 9 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:07,780 Yes. Randy black. Let's go. Let's go. Randy black is live with us in the comments and 10 00:01:07,780 --> 00:01:14,400 says let's go. So we're talking today about, about RSS, what it is, because it's super 11 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:19,480 important because a lot of times the new school people, new school podcasters, those who have 12 00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:26,540 come along since 2020 may not actually know what RSS is because they just think, Hey, 13 00:01:26,540 --> 00:01:32,240 I'm going to upload a podcast to YouTube and that's it. No podcasting is so much more than 14 00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:38,240 just a pod video on, on YouTube. Now I do podcast on YouTube, but that's not the only 15 00:01:38,240 --> 00:01:45,800 thing that I do. So RSS stands for really simple syndication. And essentially what that 16 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:51,040 is as it's like, I'm going to compare it to a radio tower. So if we're going back traditional 17 00:01:51,040 --> 00:01:55,880 radio broadcasting, we are going to, you're going to think of the person behind the mic 18 00:01:55,880 --> 00:02:03,320 and then there's the radio tower and the radio transmitter. RSS is essentially like your 19 00:02:03,320 --> 00:02:09,480 radio transmitter. And because essentially on a traditional radio, you speak into the 20 00:02:09,480 --> 00:02:16,360 radio, the mic, and then it goes up to the tower and gets transmitted out into the universe. 21 00:02:16,360 --> 00:02:22,940 And then those with the radio, the radio sets can tune into your broadcast. So the RSS is 22 00:02:22,940 --> 00:02:30,380 really just the radio tower and podcast apps are like the radio receiver. They get the 23 00:02:30,380 --> 00:02:38,500 signal and allow you to tune in to your show. So at its base, what is RSS? RSS is a text 24 00:02:38,500 --> 00:02:46,680 file that, that has all of the information about your, about your, your podcast episode. 25 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:51,440 So when a podcaster publishes a new episode, they upload it to their hosting platform, 26 00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:57,080 which generates this RSS feed. It's just a text file, but it has information about details 27 00:02:57,080 --> 00:03:02,820 about the episode, like the title, the description, the duration, where the audio file is hosted 28 00:03:02,820 --> 00:03:09,240 and such as well as the overall show itself. So title and description of the show. And 29 00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:16,940 then what happens is that that automatically updates at any subscribers. So if the, if 30 00:03:16,940 --> 00:03:24,800 you have a Apple podcast app or any other podcast app in general, it's gonna, it's gonna 31 00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:30,620 look, it looks every so often. So it checks either 30 minutes or an hour or whatever. 32 00:03:30,620 --> 00:03:34,680 It just checks that file and says, Hey, is there any new content here? Is there any new 33 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:41,780 episodes for let's say podcast answers? And if there is, then it knows what the episode 34 00:03:41,780 --> 00:03:46,200 is, what the title is, and then tells you to, to download, tells it to download that 35 00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:53,520 file. And so essentially again, RSS is like just being able to go out and it's, it's like 36 00:03:53,520 --> 00:04:00,400 the transmitter for your podcast. Now, what it allows you to do and why it's so, so important, 37 00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:06,140 because a lot of new year companies are saying, Hey, upload your file here, upload your file 38 00:04:06,140 --> 00:04:13,320 here, upload your file here. So for instance, podcasting on YouTube, and I'm putting that 39 00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:20,320 in quotes, they want you to upload your, your podcasts video to them. Spotify, if you're 40 00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:26,580 doing video with them, once you do upload to their host, what this allows you to do 41 00:04:26,580 --> 00:04:32,700 RSS as you upload it once. And then it goes everywhere because you don't have to because 42 00:04:32,700 --> 00:04:38,540 all of your applications and directories check that file and say, Oh, there's a new episode 43 00:04:38,540 --> 00:04:45,580 available. So it's really it allows subscription based delivery. So it allows you to say, subscribe 44 00:04:45,580 --> 00:04:50,540 to your favorite podcasts. And then it ensures that anytime that a new episode is delivered, 45 00:04:50,540 --> 00:04:55,440 or published, it gets directly delivered to your podcast app, users don't have to go manually 46 00:04:55,440 --> 00:05:00,640 check back for new content. This is automatic delivery makes following podcasts convenient. 47 00:05:00,640 --> 00:05:05,260 It's so easy, because you don't have to go to the website and say, Hey, is there is there 48 00:05:05,260 --> 00:05:10,880 a new episode? Now I do publish my episodes on my website. I do have a listing of all 49 00:05:10,880 --> 00:05:16,280 of my episodes and you can play them right from my website. But the beauty of podcasting 50 00:05:16,280 --> 00:05:22,500 is you don't have to do that. You can do that right in the app. Because the app just checks 51 00:05:22,500 --> 00:05:27,820 it and it delivers it when there's a new one there. The RSS again, is your radio tower 52 00:05:27,820 --> 00:05:35,000 to your broadcast. The great thing about this too, is it is, is it's so cross platform compatible 53 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:41,560 to all of the apps and all of the all of the the directories know how to ingest take in 54 00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:46,220 that file. And they can, they can be can be hosted on one platform. But as long as your 55 00:05:46,220 --> 00:05:52,100 podcast has an RSS feed, it can be picked up by any of the apps anywhere. So again, 56 00:05:52,100 --> 00:05:56,520 you want it doesn't matter if we're going back to the we're gonna go back to the the 57 00:05:56,520 --> 00:06:03,480 the radio days here. You're not saying only people who have a Pioneer receiver are going 58 00:06:03,480 --> 00:06:09,440 to be able to receive my podcast. You don't want that you want anybody who can speak radio, 59 00:06:09,440 --> 00:06:15,960 right? Anybody who can is producing a radio feed a radio, a radio transmission to be able 60 00:06:15,960 --> 00:06:21,880 to be to be able to be have their transmission heard by anyone who has a radio. And so our 61 00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:27,520 RSS is critical to that because it allows you to tell and have any user anywhere listen 62 00:06:27,520 --> 00:06:33,480 to anything. And the nice thing about that is because it does get a lot of apps don't 63 00:06:33,480 --> 00:06:40,440 necessarily use their own directories. They either use pod podcast index or they use Apple 64 00:06:40,440 --> 00:06:46,380 podcast. And so as long as you are submitting your show to one of those two directories, 65 00:06:46,380 --> 00:06:51,200 you can submit them other places too. But one of those two, a lot of people are going 66 00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:55,720 to be able to hear it because they will be able to find your podcast. The nice thing 67 00:06:55,720 --> 00:07:00,560 about this too is you have control. With an RSS feed, you have control over your content 68 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:06,640 that you publish. Because you can manage all of your metadata, all of your your feed, all 69 00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:11,680 of your episodes, ensuring that your updates are distributed exactly like you want. Now, 70 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:18,880 again, podcast apps may display it differently. And some may display links in your description, 71 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:25,000 some may not. But you have control over that and you have it in one place. You can go back 72 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:31,320 to your your RSS, whoever's creating your RSS feed. Most of the time that's going to 73 00:07:31,320 --> 00:07:35,800 be your podcast host. It's going to be a person that's going to be listed, you know, the place 74 00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:41,320 that you're uploading your videos to. But you can go back and change that stuff. Or 75 00:07:41,320 --> 00:07:46,560 pull the episode. I've had an episode that I've had to pull before, if we're for content 76 00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:51,120 reasons that yeah, I was a guest, besides the point, but I've had to pull it. And so 77 00:07:51,120 --> 00:07:55,000 it was really easy for me to pull. And actually, that goes back to this where you if you distribute 78 00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:59,520 multiple locations with multiple hosts, you have to remember where did I put that at? 79 00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:03,840 Where did I? Where did I put that episode at? Because for me, when I had to take that 80 00:08:03,840 --> 00:08:10,360 episode down, I definitely easily quickly pulled it right from my RSS feed. And then 81 00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:17,920 that made it go away from a good majority of the podcast applications. However, I forgot 82 00:08:17,920 --> 00:08:24,360 that I had it on YouTube still. So I went out and I had to remove it from YouTube, because 83 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:30,840 they came back to me and said, Hey, you the episode is still available here. And and and 84 00:08:30,840 --> 00:08:35,440 so that was one of the things that I really enjoyed having an RSS feed because it was 85 00:08:35,440 --> 00:08:40,760 really easy for me to pull it from the places that ingest an RSS just by removing the audio 86 00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:48,040 file and removing the episode. So that's why it made it super simple and super easy to 87 00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:53,480 to go out and remove that episode. So again, guys, RSS is critical. A lot of the newer 88 00:08:53,480 --> 00:09:01,720 podcast apps and our podcast apps, podcast players, I'm gonna say that in quotes, YouTube, 89 00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:12,400 Spotify, whatever, is allowing it to, to, they're trying to force you into having a, 90 00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:20,120 a, having your episode uploaded on their site. And, and this is RSS, we need to keep RSS 91 00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:27,160 alive, I'm gonna bang on that drum forever, because it is, it is so easy to, and efficient 92 00:09:27,160 --> 00:09:34,080 to deliver it to all of the podcast apps. Now, Randy Black has reminded me in the comments, 93 00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:38,760 pod ping has revolutionized RSS distribution for podcasting, we need Apple to implement 94 00:09:38,760 --> 00:09:43,900 it and save themselves server load on the back end. So I will briefly touch into that. 95 00:09:43,900 --> 00:09:51,560 So we what what pod ping is, is essentially a notification system, a notification bus, 96 00:09:51,560 --> 00:09:58,280 because the way traditionally RSS works is my podcast app goes out and says, hey, RSS 97 00:09:58,280 --> 00:10:03,640 feed, is there a new is there a new episode? And it does that every hour. So that way, 98 00:10:03,640 --> 00:10:07,820 when I open my app, I know that there's a new episode, or I can get notified of it. 99 00:10:07,820 --> 00:10:12,080 And then there are certain things like Apple podcasts and other directories, where listing 100 00:10:12,080 --> 00:10:16,280 directories, those go out every how often 30 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, or whatever 101 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:22,220 it is, and says, Hey, is there a new episode? And so essentially, what that does is that 102 00:10:22,220 --> 00:10:29,560 puts a whole lot of strain on on the episodes, because our Yes, as Randy has reminded me, 103 00:10:29,560 --> 00:10:36,880 it makes it it's the person push versus pull. So pull is normally what your normal RSS is, 104 00:10:36,880 --> 00:10:39,560 where you're saying, Okay, is there a new episode? Is there a new episode? Is there 105 00:10:39,560 --> 00:10:44,520 a new episode? And that's really wasteful, because it has to take server time and server 106 00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:49,880 space and server cycles to come back and say, Yes, there's a new episode or no, there's 107 00:10:49,880 --> 00:10:57,180 not a new episode. And so and so what pod ping essentially does is it allows directories 108 00:10:57,180 --> 00:11:02,080 and apps and everything to listen to this huge giant message feed, right? Essentially 109 00:11:02,080 --> 00:11:07,000 saying, it's on the blockchain, it's on the the hive blockchain, but essentially, it's 110 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:11,160 just a listing of podcasts that are updating podcasts that are updating podcasts that are 111 00:11:11,160 --> 00:11:15,760 updating. And you can go to podping dot watch and see this happen live. It's kind of cool. 112 00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:21,080 I sometimes have that just a web page up in my podcast or in my, in my browser. So that 113 00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:29,400 way I can see what's happening. But essentially, you as a as a host or a a directory, you can 114 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:34,000 have that set to you can just be watching that. And so every time you see a new, a new 115 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:39,280 episode come up on pod paying, then you go out and pull the RSS feed for it. And what 116 00:11:39,280 --> 00:11:44,140 Randy is saying here is essentially, Apple, I mean, Apple is a huge player in the podcast 117 00:11:44,140 --> 00:11:50,600 in the podcast, complex comp ecosystem. And so they pull a lot of feeds a lot. And so 118 00:11:50,600 --> 00:11:57,680 their servers are constantly checking, constantly asking for new episodes. And so if if they 119 00:11:57,680 --> 00:12:02,240 were to implement this, they would not have to do that nearly as often because there's 120 00:12:02,240 --> 00:12:07,880 a lot of podcasts and hosts that are using this pod ping technology. In fact, if you're 121 00:12:07,880 --> 00:12:14,400 listening to me live right now in a podcast app, new podcast app, you you that new podcast 122 00:12:14,400 --> 00:12:18,440 app got notified that I want live because I sent a pod ping out right before I went 123 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:24,460 live. And so pod ping is a great is a great technology. And it's super easy to implement 124 00:12:24,460 --> 00:12:30,460 as far as the the notification goes. And so yeah, Randy, I totally agree with you. We 125 00:12:30,460 --> 00:12:35,640 need to see hopefully Apple, you know, and Apple has been listening to podcasts, podcasting 126 00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:40,700 2.0, they know they've implemented a lot of the new podcasting tags, not a lot, they've 127 00:12:40,700 --> 00:12:43,980 implemented a podcast tag, and they're starting to implement another one here, or they have 128 00:12:43,980 --> 00:12:47,380 implemented another one here. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens with 129 00:12:47,380 --> 00:12:52,740 Apple over the next the next couple years or months and stuff and see if they implement 130 00:12:52,740 --> 00:12:58,960 some more of the new, the new tags that we've got over here in podcasting. So that's a brief 131 00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:04,860 rundown of it in why it's super important. Because again, you're not your RSS feed is 132 00:13:04,860 --> 00:13:09,140 is your lifeblood to your podcast? Yes, you can have video and I'm streaming to YouTube 133 00:13:09,140 --> 00:13:19,020 right now. And yes, you can do that. But you need to have a broadcast tower. Otherwise, 134 00:13:19,020 --> 00:13:22,640 your podcast is not a podcast. I'm just gonna go out and say it. It's not a podcast if you 135 00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:30,360 don't have a RSS feed or a broadcast. So if you need help, I would love to help you out. 136 00:13:30,360 --> 00:13:36,420 If you've got questions, what podcasting questions do you have? Go to podcastanswers.com/ask 137 00:13:36,420 --> 00:13:41,220 and that will allow you to ask your questions for me that I can go ahead and put on an upcoming 138 00:13:41,220 --> 00:13:47,340 podcast episode for this show. Again, if you want to ask podcasting questions, I love helping 139 00:13:47,340 --> 00:13:53,040 people podcast. And so get out there, ask me some questions for future episodes. If 140 00:13:53,040 --> 00:13:56,920 you need help one on one, I would love to help you one on one set up your podcast or 141 00:13:56,920 --> 00:14:02,480 do something with podcasting for you. You can go to podcastanswers.com/contact and 142 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:08,020 we can do a one on one consultant. Thanks, guys. Have a great week and keep podcasting! 143 00:14:08,020 --> 00:14:12,060 Bye! 144 00:14:12,060 --> 00:14:14,120 you