3 Things in Podcasting (VideoDub, Anchor, and Starting Right)
Joe: Hey everybody.
Uh, Joe Casabona here.
I thought I would try something
a little bit different.
This is inspired by, uh, Jimmy's
three things from John Boy.
But, uh, I thought I would try to do
a weekly stream slash podcast series,
um, called Three Things in Podcasting.
Uh, I, I'm certainly not the first
person to think of this or do this,
but, uh, I thought it would be fun.
And so, um, there were three.
News items that kind of came up that I
thought would be interesting to cover.
And so, uh, I want to cover them here.
The first one is a question that,
uh, Danny Brown posed on, um, various
writing websites, but I saw it on
Substack, I saw it through Pod News.
So, um, shout out to Pod News.
And it's, uh, three things I do
differently if I started podcasting today.
So.
I really like this question.
It's something I think about all the
time because I think that, you know,
if you're a long time podcaster, you
could fall into the trap of, uh, doing
or, or recommending things that worked
at one time, but no longer work.
And so, um, it's really nice to do
this kind of me focused retrospective
of like, here's what I did that
I, that I'd wanna do differently.
Uh, he says I would have a plan, um.
And, uh, you know, it basically, uh, this
is something that I think a lot of first
time podcasters fall into the trouble of.
I'm really good at talking with my
friends and so I'll just talk for a while.
And so, uh, he, he said the first
thing he would do is have a plan.
Uh, number two, he
wouldn't sweat the numbers.
This is so important, especially
starting out, like it feels like
you're just shouting into the void.
Um, and so.
Fully agree with that.
Don't worry about the downloads at first,
just worry about making good content.
And number three, he says he would
learn, he would've learned how to edit.
This was something that I knew from
the beginning I didn't want to do.
I edited the first couple of
episodes and I thought if I
want this to be a real actual
investment, I need to hire an editor.
And so I found an editor, so, uh,
I would strongly recommend this.
It's linked in the description
and in the show notes.
Depending on where you're viewing this.
So he also said, your turn, um, you
know, what are three mistakes you made?
And so I jumped into the comments
and, uh, I added my thoughts here.
So I said, uh, fantastic
post plus one on editing.
That's something I did early
on that contribute for me.
The three things that I would do
differently, number one is I would
have transcripts from the beginning.
Um, I probably waited about
a hundred episodes in.
To, uh, to get them, and I ended
up going back and paying for.
Uh, the back catalog.
And the reason I say that is
because first of all, they're a
huge, uh, boon for accessibility.
They're really important for
accessibility, and they contributed
to the success of my show.
I saw a direct correlation between
when I added, uh, transcripts and the.
Increase in my listenership, my
downloads, people joining my mailing list.
So I ended up paying for the first
a hundred or so after the fact.
And that was a big expense.
It was worth it.
But you know, maybe my show would've grown
a little faster if I had transcripts.
And of course that was in 2016
before AI transcripts were a thing.
Um, and so now it's even easier
and I would say even more important
to have those transcripts.
Uh, number two, I wouldn't ask
the same question to every guest
or the same set of questions.
I always ask the same five questions.
Who are you and what do you do?
Uh, tell us about your product.
Tell us about your first failure.
How did you build it?
Do you have any trade secrets for us?
And I thought this was like super
clever, like very clear format.
Um.
But it gets stale after a while.
Imagine if I was still doing that 400 plus
episodes in it would be pretty boring.
It wouldn't be compelling
content that's like, you know,
that's like a blog post, right?
Um, and so.
I wouldn't do that every time.
And that leads right into the third
thing I would do differently, which
is I would do more research on guests.
I'm on record as saying I wanna be
surprised along with my listeners.
And I realize now that that's, that
was just laziness on my part, right?
I didn't wanna do the research, I
didn't wanna put the extra time in.
And, uh, so.
You can't create a good story if you
don't know the story beats, right?
It's like saying, oh, I'm gonna
drive to this place, but I'm not
gonna look up how to drive there.
I'm just gonna drive
around until I find it.
That's a waste of time.
It's a waste of energy.
It's a waste of money.
Uh, and it's the same thing with, uh,
with not doing research on your guests.
I'm not saying you need to make it
like a deeply researched profile, but
know the things you want to cover.
And have some semblance of the answers
that the guest is going to give so that
you can lead them down the path that
you want them to take your listeners.
I think that's really important
and that's definitely something
I would do differently.
Okay.
So the next thing is, um, this is
something I've been thinking about
a lot and I really haven't been
able to put into words, uh, how.
How to best describe it, I guess.
Um, and Neil Lio, uh, OG podcaster.
Lots of, uh, lots of strong opinions.
Opinions.
I really appreciate.
Um, he, I think does a
really good job on Twitter.
I.
Of, or x of talking about
Spotify for podcasters.
Uh, and I guess this was based on, I
haven't listened to the episode yet,
um, Neil's, uh, in the uk and so he
got the jump on, uh, Sam and James, uh,
POD news episode this week, which is.
Also in the uk.
So, um, you know, they talk about the
lack of differential between anchor
quote unquote, which is Spotify for
podcasters and other paid hosts.
So he does a really good
job of breaking this down.
And I'm just gonna kind of
cover the, the high level stuff.
It's not very long thread, but,
um, do you want to mention them?
Um, there's very little difference
between listening experience, right?
So like, if you're hosting
on Spotify for podcasters.
Versus, uh, he says Captivate.
I would say rss.com.
Um, your listeners are probably
not going to know the difference,
especially if they're listening
in an app of their choice, right?
Maybe they'll see a difference if they
visit the podcast's website, right?
Some podcast hosts have a better
website experience than others.
But, uh, there's very little
in the sound quality, right?
But there's a huge difference.
He says in terms of the creator
of, of you, the podcaster, right?
Features, uptime, data
ux, and tech innovation.
Um, this is really important because
Spotify has proved that they are willing
to just capriciously kill things, right?
It is a free product for them.
And just like Google has a
graveyard full of free products.
Because Spotify for podcasters is
not a direct generator for them.
Uh, they are willing to make changes to
it in order to make it more profitable.
Right.
Um, the same thing is with
okay with Google, right?
With Android, I think it was,
uh, Sergei Brynn, one of the
founders of, of Google said.
Android is a drop in the
bucket as far as our revenue.
Like Android could disappear tomorrow, and
this is a few years ago now, so maybe it's
different, but I doubt it's different.
Uh, Android could disappear tomorrow
and it wouldn't affect our bottom line.
I don't know that Spotify would say
that about their hosting, like their
free hosting arm, but it's definitely
not the streaming subscriptions
and it's definitely not megaphone.
So, you know, you, you
need to worry about that.
Right.
Um.
And then he, and then he says in
the next point, right, like, there
was really sketchy terms for anchor,
uh, around, um, IP right around your
content and zero regards for privacy.
Uh, piracy was rampant.
Uh, and so it was, uh, a
blatant lack of customer care.
Um, and, and like he
said, it's very opaque.
Really it was, it was shady, right?
This is the main thing that I would
say to people in the beginning.
I haven't used it in a while.
Um, the benefit of a paid host are
accountability and innovation, right?
This is if you're paid and their
bottom line relies on making a good
product, then they are encouraged
to make a good product, right?
Spotify.
Uh, like I said, this is, or like he
says, like Neil says, this is rented land.
This is not for you.
It's something for them to get
more data and more content on
the platform to make their money.
They're not advocates of RSS and
they're doing pro proprietary 2.0.
They want people to stay on Spotify.
This is why they tried.
To get exclusivity with
their biggest podcasts.
That didn't work out for them,
but it probably works out for
other, for smaller podcasters.
Right.
They're encouraged to just stay on the
platform and keep people on the platform.
Um, and, and like he says here, his
last point, if Spotify for podcasters
ever goes to the wall, always a
possibility as it happens given their
recent moves, there's always a risk of
them taking podcasts down with them.
We've heard horror stories of
podcasters, income from Spotify
for podcasters disappearing, right?
Uh, the show is gone, the revenue is gone.
That's scary and there's nothing
you can do about it, right?
If you're living in an apartment building
and the guy who owns the apartment
building decides to sell it, and the
buyers decide to knock it down, there's,
in the United States at least, there's
very little that you do about that.
Right.
At the very least, you have a very
short timeline to find a new place to
live, and that's gonna upend your life.
Right?
And so rented land is not great.
Free products are rented land.
So I just, I really liked,
uh, Neil's take on that.
I think he describes
things really succinctly.
And I wanted to highlight that.
Uh, the last thing of, of my three
things in podcasting is Riverside
introduced video dub this week.
I love Riverside and I
am AI suspicious, right?
Um, and so they introduced video dub.
No more endless retakes, rerecord,
and corrections, correct.
Your transcript and video dub will
use AI to make it look and sound like
that's what you said in the first place.
I would encourage you to watch the video.
It is very impressive.
Uh, Steven bla does a really nice job
of, um, of, uh, going through this.
So the video is real impressive.
Um, that said, I am suspicious of this.
I, like, I don't, I'm suspicious of ai.
Um, and I, it.
It worries me a little bit, um, that this
will be used as a crutch to make mediocre
content to fix later is maybe what it is.
And like sure.
AI can come up with opinion even though
people try to write, um, just using ai.
Um, I think it's very
impressive technology.
I guess I'm highlighting it here
because I'll be curious to see.
How it's used and how it actually
works in the real world, right?
Because DS script has the overdub feature.
And I don't know, I
could tell it's not me.
I don't know if other
people can tell it's not me.
I've used it in the past.
Um, because like I've said,
like a sponsor's name wrong
and I was away from my machine.
Um, and like in emergency
situations, this is amazing, right?
But if it's like.
Oh, I messed up this whole section
and I don't feel like rerecording it.
I'll just use this video dub feature.
You know, I think like little
fixes, it's, it's probably fine
and it's gonna be a time saver.
Um, I, I fear that people are going
to lean on it, just like there are
people who are like, Hey, you can
write a book in 48 hours using ai.
Like, yeah, it's gonna
be a pretty crappy book.
Um, so I just wanted to highlight that.
Those are the three things.
Um, I, I do wanna do
one honorable mention.
Uh, and I'll cover this
more for rss.com next week.
Um, but rss.com, uh, we are rolling
out, um, or we're talking a lot about,
I should say, um, live podcasting.
Uh, and so we have it, we have it out now.
Uh, I'll be doing a video on how to do
this and it's, uh, really exciting stuff.
Um.
I'm live streaming right now.
I think it's really a fun way to
engage your listeners and create great
content, um, that maybe is a little
bit, um, a little bit less pressure.
Like there, there's, there's lower
pressure for live streaming, right?
When you live stream,
people don't necessarily.
Expect, um, here we go.
Uh, people don't necessarily expect that
it's going to be super polished and Yeah,
like for when this, when I roll this
episode out, um, I'll edit out the middle
part where I got really confused, but.
I'm really excited about this
'cause it's another way to engage
and interact with your listeners
and create really good content.
Um, and, uh, like I said, I'll be covering
it more next week for rss.com, but just
shout out to rss.com um, because it's,
uh, it's really exciting like live shows.
The podcast feed for apps
that support it is super neat.
Uh, if you liked this, head over to
podcast workflows.com/join and subscribe
to the show or join the mailing list.
I'm gonna try to make this a, a weekly
thing, um, if not at least fortnightly.
I'm sure there's always gonna be like
three things that I could talk about.
I really like the format, um, and it's
a, uh, an interesting way for me to
continue podcasting, uh, and adding stuff
to the podcast workflows content library.
Um.
In a, in a, in a summer.
That's gonna be really busy for me as I
work on a bunch of pretty big projects.
But I wanna keep the ball rolling here.
So if you like this, let me know.
Leave a comment, um, on the
video or reach out, uh, you know,
uh, via email joe@casabona.org
or on the podcast workflows.
Um.
Contact page.
Again, all of that's gonna
be@podcastworkflows.com slash join.
So thanks so much for listening.
Uh, and until next time,
I'll see you out there.
