Podcast Pontifications

Yesterday, Brian McCullough used Overdub to generate the last half of the Techmeme Ride Home episode for that day. It was an excellent side-by-side (or first-then-second) comparison of Brian’s actual voice and the Overdub recreated voice. It was eerily good.

But it wasn’t perfect. For advancements in this area, perfection is approached on an asymptotic curve, and the uncanny valley is quite deep. 

But it’s good enough for podcasters to make use of today without taking us humans out of the equation. Here’s how:

A New Podcast Ad Format - Beyond host-read, pre-produced, and producer-read ads, any podcast could effectively have a custom voice-over “person” ready to kick out ads at any time.

Customized Canned Content - Having “canned” intros and outros save time during the production process. But there’s a tradeoff for the convenience: they can’t be customized. Uness your voice talent is made of silicon, that is. Tweak the text a bit, feed it to the system, and you have episode-by-episode customizations to your intro, your outro, and any relevant parts in between. Best of all; they sound human. 

Localizing Podcast Episodes - How many more people could your podcast reach if it was available in a different language? So far, it’s taken a lot of money and time to localize podcast content. But if your voice-talent pool is silicon-based, you can spend all of your time getting the localized script perfect in that language, and leave it to the system to generate the audio.

Non-Critical Narrative Bits - Sometimes, a solo-effort narrative episode would be made better if there were other voices were adding color to portions of the episode that otherwise sound “flat”. Can you give those bits to the AI to have a convincingly-human voice on those instead of yours? 

Giving Voice To NPCs In Podcast Fiction - At the risk of being accused of taking money out of the mouths of hard-working voice actors, some of small, single-line parts in a podcast fiction story could be synthesized on smaller productions that lack the budget to pay for a narrator on every single part. 

I have no plans of turning Podcast Pontifications over to an android anytime soon. I’d lose a big part of my daily therapy if I did that! Nor do I think you should worry (or dream) about this tech getting so good that your own voice is no longer required. But if you decide to use an AI as your co-host, I totally want to listen.

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Read the full article and share with a friend: https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/do-androids-dream-of-being-on-your-podcast

Follow Evo on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Podcast Pontifications is published by Evo Terra four times a week and is designed to make podcasting better, not just easier.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

You’ve developed some valuable podcasting skills that others - individuals or companies - might be willing to pay for. And they might as well pay you, right? 

But that’s not the only way to work. You can, if you choose, invest in an opportunity to work with someone on their podcast. 

Without fail, I triage every inbound business contact through this binary lens. Contrary to what self-described life coaches or business gurus will tell you, this isn’t a pass/fail decision flow. I’m quite happy to take purely business transactions and provide quality podcasting services to my happy clients in exchange for their money. I’m equally as happy to provide similar (if not the same) services as an investment toward an opportunity that might develop in the future.

With the gift of hindsight, I can confidently say that out of all the clients I’ve lost or fired, none have been a surprise. I knew at the very beginning of the relationship that I probably shouldn't take the job. Sometimes you take jobs you can do but don’t really want to do. There’s no shame in that. So don’t beat your self up when the money starts looking less attractive. Fire them (when you can) and move on.

For every “well that worked out nice!” story I have, there are two or three that never panned out. That’s why the biggest rule in investment (or gambling) is to never gamble (or invest) more money than you can afford to lose. I don’t lament the hours lost. Sunk costs are just that. Focus on what you learned from the deal that didn’t pan out and move on.

On occasion, truly uncertain opportunities present themselves. Maybe the client is way too big for you, but they still want to talk. Maybe you can’t figure out the podcasting angle, but they’re terribly excited about an audience you’ve never considered and know nothing about. Or maybe you’re invited to a lunch meeting (if we ever have lunch meetings again) because someone you respect wants you to meet with someone else they respect sight-unseen.

I’m quite good at sizing up opportunities. But I know the world beyond my bubble of influence is filled with opportunities I can’t see. When a window beyond my immediate world opens, I have to look through it. Don’t you?

I might specialize in podcasting, but I’m a generalist, with a broad set of skills that enable me to plug into almost any podcasting project at any stage. However, there are certain aspects of the podcasting process I can do, but really don’t want to do.

For example, I can confidently state that social media management for podcasts, while something I can do,  is something I don’t ever want to do.

In contrast, there are lots of podcasting services I’m offering to clients that I don’t want to do forever, like post-production work. Yes, my firm obviously provides post-production work as part of our services, we no longer offer post-production as an ala carte service. 

But fair warning: Be prepared to be very wrong about those convictions. When I got into podcasting-as-my-business in 2016, podcast advertising was squarely in my Don't Ever Want To Do category. How naive of me. Fast forward to today, and my firm is handling a modest-but=growing book of business managing podcast advertising, either buying ads or selling them. As it turns out, it’s fun, engaging, and meaningful work that we’re happy to provide.

Though it’s been a struggle these last few months, I almost always bet on the future. And even if I don’t, I'm almost always thinking about the future. If that means I don't get paid to work on a really cool project I feel has the opportunity to become something I want to be involved with, I'm going to take that bet. 

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Read the full article and share with a friend: https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/saying-no-to-podcasting-jobs-yes-to-podcaster-relationships

Follow Evo on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

Buy him a virtual coffee to show your support.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit Simpler.Media to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Podcast Pontifications is published by Evo Terra four times a week and is designed to make podcasting better, not just easier.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

You’ve likely heard the news the administration of these United States is putting the squeeze on Tencent, a company from China that runs or has an interest in the social apps TikTok and WeChat. I don’t know what ownership stakes Tencent has in podcasting. And at least for the purposes of this article, I’m not fretting Americans’ loss of access to TikTok or Wechat. But it does allow for a great framing to talk about what balkanization could do to podcasting as we’ve known it for the last 16 years. 

Countries get to decide what will and will not happen inside their borders. They also control what travels through their borders. Take, for instance, India’s stance against content flagged as “Explicit” in Apple Podcasts. According to my friend Rob Walch from Libsyn (and I’ve zero reasons to doubt the veracity of his claim), if you flag even a single episode of your podcast as explicit, the entire show will not be displayed to users of Apple Podcasts in India. 

The current administration’s beef with TikTok and China’s retaliation could just be the opening salvos in an ill-fated battle of wills that could both escalate and spread to other countries. It’s the ramifications of the retaliations that concerns me. 

There are a few podcasting apps that have Chinese connections. Will they get caught up in the purge? And will China in turn block podcasting apps owned by American companies? Or will either country (or both countries) place onerous demands on tech companies, making it too arduous to operate, resulting in self-imposed geo-banning?

When the citizens or subjects of a country are no longer able to use a popular podcast app to listen and/or find new content, they won’t stop listening to podcasts. They’ll find another app that does work in their country.

Are your podcasts listed in that new app? 

My go-to-source for relevant podcast directories and apps is maintained by James Cridland of Podnews.net. Check out his aptly titled page “How to add your podcast to every directory” and make sure your shows are listed on all of those places. And if not, fix it!

My globalist leanings are on full display, but I think it’s important that your podcast be available everywhere and to everyone, regardless of how their government feels about your government. Furthermore, I think it’s important that podcasters continue to grow their audiences outside of the base where their current advertisers want impressions. 

To think otherwise is anathema to me, and rather short-sighted. 

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Read the full article and share with a friend: https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/surviving-the-balkanization-of-podcasting

Podcast Pontifications is published by Evo Terra four times a week and is designed to make podcasting better, not just easier.

Follow Evo on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit SimplerMedia.pro to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

I had three difficult conversations yesterday. With each, I knew what I was getting into, so I had a little time to prepare. Before the fight gets too heated, or as quickly as possible can once the heat is on, I orient myself on understanding the worst that can happen. 

But not doom-and-gloom outcomes that aren’t probable. One way to avoid catastrophic thinking is to reframe it: What is the least acceptable outcome - to you - that can come from this?

Looked at from this perspective, the range of possible outcomes quickly narrows. Most often, the least acceptable outcome is a severing of the relationship. For me, losing a client - and the revenues they bring in - is the least acceptable outcome. But it is still acceptable.

Sometimes the difficult conversation isn’t with a client, but with the people we work with on the podcast. Maybe our cohost. Maybe a producer. Or maybe someone else who works behind the scenes. Once again, you need to know the least acceptable outcome before you do anything. 

As before, it might mean a severing of the relationship. And maybe that means you’re the one who leaves. That’s OK, as long as you have it as your least acceptable outcome. Clearly, if you own (or think you own) the show or a portion of it, then it’s a lot tougher for you to see leaving as the least acceptable, but still acceptable, outcome.

But it’s not always easy to walk away or show someone the door. One of the biggest challenges is entanglement. Before you unleash your least acceptable outcome, you need to think about the pain and suffering you’ll go through just getting them out of your system and processes.

If you’ve done some really dumb things like tied all clients together in a single hosting account, getting an ex-client’s show out of there is going to take effort and probably continued conversations with someone you don’t like working with! 

Similarly, if you need to fire someone from the team, how much havoc can they do until you get them unplugged? Do you have a plan for rescinding access - all access - in a moment’s notice? If not, you should.

For either situation, what sorts of written agreements exist, and what do they say about terminating the relationship? Is there a time-dependency that requires 30-days notice, for example? What about payments - future or past - owed or un-invoiced? And who owns what? Gaming this out now will save you a lot of headaches in the future. 

Not everyone has the luxury of kicking out a pain-in-the-ass client. When a client is responsible for 50% or 90% or 100% of your revenues, it may seem impossible to show them the door. 

Fortunately for me, my client roster is broad enough that I can survive the loss of a problem client. I’ve worked hard to eliminate every scrap of unnecessary entanglement precisely because of this reality. That allows me to quickly cut ties. Not every working podcaster is in a similar position of privilege, I understand. 

Some conversations are worth fighting over. Some aren’t. Keeping your focus on the end of the fight - your least acceptable outcome - can lighten your load when you’re in the thick of it.

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Read the full article and share with a friend: https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/podcasting-conversations-worth-fighting-over

Podcast Pontifications is published by Evo Terra four times a week and is designed to make podcasting better, not just easier.

Follow Evo on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit SimplerMedia.pro to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

Podcasting and co-working is on my mind once again. Yes, in the middle of a pandemic where getting together in close proximity is a terrible idea. Noted. But there’s a huge supply of commercial real estate driving down rents, and we’re finding ways to manage life with the virus. 

I’m in no way saying things will go back to the way things were anytime soon (if ever), but we will emerge from isolation sooner or later, probably with a reimagined set of social norms. Perhaps with that comes a reimagining of shared spaces that work well for podcasters? Now might be a great time to start that planning, as it’ll take a while. 

I've been thinking about a few different ways to build a shared podcasting space. The easiest and most obvious the standard co-working space. But for podcasters! Other than good sound conditioning and dedicated sound booths, our needs aren’t all that different from others who use traditional co-working spaces. 

Maybe your re-imagined podcasting space is designed to run a collective podcasting business? Like-minded podcasters could pool their resources and skills together, providing complimentary services to one another or to third parties. It could be good for getting a group edit (very different than editing audio) on a clip or episode. Or the other members of the collective could help push and promote content from other members.

Or there’s the classic startup incubator model podcasters could follow, testing the “legs” of a podcast idea, as well as its sustainability. A podcast incubator would need to provide time and expertise to those being incubated, which means the incubator needs seasoned podcasters from multiple disciplines to make it run. Oh, and money.

Running a podcast accelerator would mean a cohort of podcasts go through a set curriculum or program to help them grow really big. In exchange for valuable services that precipitate that growth, the “owner” of the accelerator takes an ownership stake in those podcasts. Everyone’s skin is in the game. 

As enamored as I am by the idea of running some sort of podcasting co-working space, I also know reality is oftentimes a lot less glamorous. Lofty ideals aside, it comes down to the ability to create a place that offers things that podcasters either can't get or would pay too much to get on their own.

Co-working spaces that only exist to get stir crazy people out of the houses don’t stay around long. To be successful, a co-podcasting space will have to be both cheaper and more convenient. Not either/or. It must be both less expensive and more convenient than going at it alone.

So that minor (kidding) hurdle aside, I do like the idea of getting the podcasting band back together. Maybe next year?

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Read the full article and share with a friend: https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/getting-the-podcasting-band-back-together-again

Podcast Pontifications is published by Evo Terra four times a week and is designed to make podcasting better, not just easier.

Follow Evo on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit SimplerMedia.pro to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

Human’s climb up the evolutionary lateral ladder may have given us the twinkling lights of the heavens, but we still don't want people to see us until we are ready for us to be seen. Our true and authentic face, hair, or body has probably only been witnessed by a select number of people with which we have an intimate relationship. For everyone else; we wear pants.

Almost everyone in every culture around the world contributes at least some portion of their income to industries with the express purpose of repressing our authentic self to the world. Grooming and clothing are basic necessities of life. Almost everyone on the planet is willing to spend money to make sure that we look better than our authentic selves for almost every interaction with the outside world. 

So why don’t we make the same decisions when it comes to our voice?

While we can’t change our physiology to make drastic changes to our voice, we certainly can enhance our voice to make it more publicly pleasing. Just like we have the option to comb our hair instead of living with bed-head, we can do the equivalent with our voice and exercise some control of how it is presented to the world.

The voice I hear in my headphones as I record Podcast Pontifications is different than the voice you hear from your earbuds when you listen to my episodes. Specifically, my voice has gone through six filters -- the same six filters, using the exact same settings -- before you hear it. 

I use presets in my own audio recording the same way I use presets in my grooming routine. I mostly brush my hair the same way every day. My eyebrows get bushy in the same spot (yeah, I pluck my eyebrows), and the same spots on my face need the same application of foundation to make me less splotchy. Oh, and I almost always wear pants. And I always wear pants the exact same way. 

But thanks to this global pandemic, our in-person interactions are starting to resemble broadcast radio/TV a lot more. Our meetings -- for business or for pleasure -- are on Zoom. And while we spend plenty of resources making sure we and our environment look great on camera, we’re leaving our voice to fend for itself.

I wouldn’t show up on camera without running a comb (or at least my fingers) through my hair, putting on a shirt (hey, it’s hot in AZ), turning on my ring light, and tuning my webcam settings, I probably shouldn’t be sending out a “clean” signal of my voice. 

My prediction: We’ll see a shift toward pre-processing of our authentic voices as we try to better control how our authentic voices sound when leaving our environment.

If I want to make sure my authentic voice is the authentic voice I want to be out in the world, I’m going to have to make a hardware investment.  And that’ll probably change how I produce podcasts from now on. Because I want to be the one who controls my authentic voice before it’s released to the wild. Do you?

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Read the full article and share with a friend: https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/correcting-your-authentic-podcasting-voice

Podcast Pontifications is published by Evo Terra four times a week and is designed to make podcasting better, not just easier.

Follow Evo on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit SimplerMedia.pro to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

Think about the two audiences your podcast serves: Your avatar (a stand-in for your larger audience) and you, the creator.

Troubles arise when we see those two audiences as distinctly different from each other, each with different wants and needs. But when we overlap those two like a Venn diagram, we find power in the overlap. The more those two circles overlap, the more power we have.

The things you say (or allow to be said) on your program are clearly important elements. But there’s more to audience/host alignment than just agreeing on content. Things like...

Show Format -The format of your podcast, from cold-open to fading outro music and all the parts between, has a lot to do with its success, failure, or stagnation. Chances are, the current format of your show is something you wanted. Something you then imposed on your audience. Remember, the number of hours a month your audience spends listening to you is a but a fraction of the number of hours they spend listening to other podcasts.

So you have be in the audience. Yes, that means listening to your own episodes every time they come out just like a listener does. But it also means listening to other shows to see if there are new or better formats your audience is aware of... but you are not. 

Cadence - Are you publishing new episodes on a cadence that works for you, for your audience, or for both? Yes, weekly is a common standard. But how true to that are you really?  Thoughts like “What if I released an episode every five days?” or “Maybe I should drop a just-for-fun episode the same day I’m releasing my last episode of the month?” violate your established cadence, and require careful consideration before implementation. 

If you’re finding it difficult to see a chaotic release cadence might negatively impact your audience, then your perspective is still from the outside looking in. 

Non-audio elements of your podcast - Encouraging, or at least enabling, your audience to consume your podcast without listening to the audio files seems anathema. But not everyone can listen, yet they still want the content you make. Thinking from inside your audience with that perspective, you absolutely should accommodate. Live video, edited video, fully-written article, carefully crafted email newsletter… those are just some of the formats you can adapt to your audience’s advantage.o me.

Personally speaking, I want to give my audience every chance to digest the things I have to say, however they want. To me, that’s part of being a creator.

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Read the full article and share with a friend: https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/confronting-your-podcasts-avatar-from-the-inside

Podcast Pontifications is published by Evo Terra four times a week and is designed to make podcasting better, not just easier.

Follow Evo on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit SimplerMedia.pro to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

A note of caution before we begin: This was not the topic I had planned to cover on today’s episode. But my brain went on a tangent 15 minutes before showtime, and it’s kind of in control of what I do. So here we are, pontificating on the fly!

One of the cool features Captivate.fm offers (I promise this is not a commercial for Captivate.fm, though I am on their Advisory board) is some insight into the number of unique individuals who have ever downloaded an episode of your podcast. 

It’s not a secret that some people will listen once to an episode of a podcast and never listen again. Better said, a lot of people will download an episode of a podcast once, never to download another episode or that podcast again. Harsher reality: They might never even listen to the file they downloaded.

I’m going to share with you the numbers of unique downloaders for my show. Actual, real numbers. Not indexes. No rounding up. The real numbers from today. But I need you to understand that “unique downloaders” is not the same as the number of unique downloads. Advertisers care about unique downloads of episodes where their ads appear. Podcast owners, showrunners, producers, or others who work on the program should care more about the total number of unique people the show reaches. And it’s the latter I care most about and find most puzzling. 

Today’s unique downloaders: 22  - Unique downloaders today doesn't mean a lot to me. I suppose it might give me some insight into how many die-hard fans await new episodes with bated breath each day. But it’s probably too narrow of a window to make much of a difference to me. 

Yesterday’s unique downloaders: 148 - This timeslice is a little more interesting. It’s helping me understand the scale of my “subscribers” or the dedicated people who grab an episode -- either automatically or intentionally -- the day it’s published. But even though I produce a daily show, this is probably a too narrow timeslice for me to focus on.

Last 7-Days unique downloaders: 399 - This is the first viable candidate for a metric that answers the question: Is my show growing? For me, it directionally lines up pretty well with my average 7-day downloads my episodes see, which is about half of that. I just wish I had a historical chart to examine so I could track change over time. Something for the suggestion box!

Last 28-Days unique downloaders: 755 - On the surface, this seems to be a better candidate than 7-Days for the proxy metric for audience size. It’s a big enough timeslice to get all the stragglers in there as well as a few opportunistic listeners. But it’s also starting to point out the problem implied in today’s topic: 755 different people downloaded at least one of my episodes in the last 28 days. Roughly speaking, one half of them didn’t keep downloading.

Last 90-Days unique downloaders: 1,667 - I’m not going to shout that my podcast’s audience is around 1,600 people. A timeslice this wide captures a lot of noise from one-time downloads or other human interactions that resulted in a download that was never intended to be listened to. (Bear in mind that my show was on break for ~70 of those 90 days. So 2/3rds of those tracked were not downloading new episodes.)

All-time unique downloaders: 3,134 - If the 90-Days number was noisy, we’re approaching near-complete signal loss for this timeslice. But it’s a big number, and podcasters like to see big numbers. (Nota bene: I moved to Captivate earlier in the year. So “all-time” for me is like 6 months.)

Let’s rip the bandaid off: Thousands of people download this show, but I’m only converting around 10% of them to regular listenership.

Does that seem troubling to you? I think we podcasters often have this romantic notion that once someone listens to an episode of our show, they’ll likely stick around.

The numbers I shared above refute that. It’s entirely possible that I’m not meeting the needs of those who downloaded well enough to get most of them to return. But another way to look at it that 10% conversion number is… well, as a conversion number. And a 10% conversion rate is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, it’s pretty fantastic. Marketing is weird! 

“So How Do We Recapture The Listeners Who Got Away, Evo?”, you’re probably asking. Yeah, I don’t know. Sorry, but I don't really have an answer, beyond questioning the entire premise. Did you ever have them to begin with? A download isn’t a listen, and even a listen isn’t guaranteed that they’ll become a regular listener.

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Read the full article and share with a friend: https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/how-do-podcasters-recapture-the-ones-that-got-away

Podcast Pontifications is published by Evo Terra four times a week and is designed to make podcasting better, not just easier.

Follow Evo on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit SimplerMedia.pro to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

Podcasting and video were never a perfect fit. Video podcasting been tried and mostly failed for years. Some audio producers who pre-date podcasting -- radio personalities -- have had accompanying video programs for some time. That fact wasn’t lost on the first wave of OG podcasters (Hi, Todd!) who’ve built video recording into their podcast production processes. And while I know that some of the video shows of podcasters are rather successful, video podcasting never really became a widespread thing.

Unless we’re purposely creating video content designed to be consumed in video places, ala YouTube. When we do tailor our video efforts specifically for video channels, it can work fairly well. There’s also outside pressure form live video services and platforms. Not just Twitch, but also live video on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and just about every other social platform. 

But all the while, those podcasters that dabble in video are treating these new platforms as something different than their podcast episodes. With a few notable exceptions, successful video efforts from podcasters took something more than just turning the camera on while they recorded an episode.

Then the pandemic hit, normality went out the window, and many of us found ourselves suddenly on or watching video quite a lot. Some live video platforms, either serendipitously or opportunistically, quickly rolled out features like virtual backgrounds that might have seemed frivolous in normal times. Now, instead of your cluttered kitchen in the background, you could make it look like you were dialing into your conference call from anywhere. 

The proverbial pump had been primed if you will. A few weeks days ago (time is dilated), big- spender Spotify continued their efforts to upset podcasting’s Apple cart when they announced a select group of their original Spotify-exclusive podcasts would be available in video. I hesitate to call the a “video versions” of the podcast episodes… because that's not really what they are. The video and the audio are two sides of the same coin. They aren’t versions, per se. They’re kind of the same thing. Whether you watch the episode or you listen to the episode, you get the same experience from the episode. 

More interesting is the seamless switching between watching and listening. If you start watching at home and then get in your car (like you have anywhere to drive to in the middle of a pandemic), the episode seamlessly switches to Spotify’s in-car app, but only with the audio, exactly where you left off. And when you arrive at your destination and want to resume watching the episode, it just works.

I’m not qualified to speak on how complex the tech puzzle really is. But I am qualified to tell you that it’s really, really hard to make content that works well both audio and video form for those of us who have the option of using our eyes and our ears or just our ears. 

But we podcasters are getting better at video. Many of my podcasting friends (Hi, Scott!) have started regularly-scheduled live video shows once or twice a week. They're using new (to them) software and finding creative hardware solutions so that their video sessions are more than just static shots of talking heads, which evidence proves few people want to see.

Maybe these new efforts will (finally?) allow video podcasts to come back from the dead.

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Read the full article and share with a friend: https://podcastpontifications.com/episode/are-video-podcasts-back-from-the-dead

Podcast Pontifications is published by Evo Terra four times a week and is designed to make podcasting better, not just easier.

Follow Evo on Twitter for more podcasting insights as they come.

And if you need a professional in your podcasting corner, please visit SimplerMedia.pro to see how Simpler Media Productions can help you reach your business objectives with podcasting.

Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.

Thanks to an episode of Desert Oracle  I discovered an Arizona-based band called Giant Sand. After making a list of all the people I wanted to yell out for not introducing me to this band when I first arrived in Arizona back in 1997, I was struck by the difference in how music is presented to new listeners in 2020 versus how podcast episodes are presented to the uninitiated.

Rather than presenting me with the most recent track released by the band or making me wade through a list of the ~30lbums they’ve released, the app made it very easy to listen to the very best -- most popular -- tracks from that band. And I loved that. 

On the home screen of most podcast apps, they do present podcasts based on popularity. But that’s the entire podcast. Which episode should a person brand new to that podcast start with? And which episode after that?

Imagine a podcast app working more like the music streaming apps. Someone tells you of a new show and you search for that show by name on your listening app. This imaginary helpful app then presents to you the very best episodes of that show for you to listen to first, allowing you to quickly confirm the recommendation given was right for you.

That’s a very different world than we live in today, podcasters.

No, this is not going to work for all types of podcasts. Time-sensitive episodes that cover “the news” or current events like The Daily or Geek News Central have shelf lives that expire in single-digit days. Serial podcasts like Serial or Valence must be presented in order from the first episode.

But this concept is perfect for timeless, evergreen podcast content, Shows like Sleep With Me or The Snooze Button each have favorite or stand-out episodes. For those shows and the vast swath of the podosphere that is also timeless content the forced adherence to linear episode consumption in apps runs counter to what music app developers have figured out.

As I've said previously on this show, the most recent episode of your podcast isn't necessarily the best episode of your podcast. Yet it’s the one that the apps present to new listeners and would-be subscribers first. See the disconnect?

If you’re thinking of just using download data to determine popularity, there’s a problem. Podcast episode downloads often (usually?) happen automatically, which is why you see a spike in downloads the day your release an episode. Having episodes automatically appear in podcast listening apps or other distribution channels is one of the magic powers of podcasting, and that magic adds noise to our data. 

Podcast hosting companies could give us better data, helping identify when an episodes bucks the trend. They could also better report on repeat listening, connections between episodes downloaded by the same unique user, and other insightful data that could help us build truly timeless episodes our listeners want to listen to over and over again.

Podcast apps have actual-play data, giving them great insight into actual listening behavior that could help present the best timeless episode to a brand new listener

Maybe, as we approach the third decade of podcasting, the value of repeat plays and the interconnectivity between episodes will be realized. I’d actually bet money on that, as the much-more-data-savvy app makers now listing podcasts in their apps will force that change. 

They’ve solved the problem for music. They’ll solve it for podcasting too. 

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Mentioned in this episode:

Support For Abortion Rights

While Americans overwhelmingly support the right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately, that right is no longer protected everywhere in the U.S. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24th.