0:00

Travis, should we talk

0:00

about where Kevin is?

0:02

I don't know. Should we

0:02

talk about where Kevin is?

0:05

He's just not here. I

0:05

feel like somebody is probably

0:09

sitting there going, man. Isn't

0:09

there like somebody else who's

0:12

mostly on the podcast? They're

0:12

not there anymore.

0:14

It's true.

0:15

Kevin is out Tom is in

0:15

for today. But Kevin will be

0:17

back in two weeks. So you don't

0:17

have to. He's not gone forever.

0:21

If you listen to Buzzcast because you love the sound of Kevin sultry voice, he

0:23

will be back in two weeks.

0:26

I'm not taking over. I'm

0:26

not the new step heaven.

0:34

Well, today, we have a

0:34

special treat. We have a new co

0:36

host joining us, Tom buck. Tell

0:36

us a little bit about yourself

0:39

and kind of you how you got

0:39

started in podcasting? Yeah,

0:42

it's

0:42

my pleasure. Thanks for

0:42

inviting me, podcasting has been

0:45

a huge part of my world since

0:45

2009, was when I remember, like

0:50

actively listening to podcasts.

0:50

And it's kind of the same thing

0:53

as YouTube, where I was like,

0:53

This is so cool. I wish I could

0:56

do something like this, not

0:56

realizing that, like, there's

1:00

almost no barrier to entry. And

1:00

so it wasn't until 2019 that I

1:06

decided to start my own personal

1:06

podcast, I had done a few

1:10

through my job as a teacher,

1:10

like producing and setting up

1:12

podcasts for work. And that was

1:12

cool to be on that side of it.

1:17

But creating one of my own was

1:17

something I had never done

1:20

before. And I kind of just

1:20

jumped in, almost as a way of,

1:26

I'm so used to being a teacher,

1:26

and also making YouTube videos,

1:30

both of which require me to be

1:30

very succinct and very condensed

1:35

and like polished. And doing a

1:35

podcast was a way for me to do

1:40

something where I could just go

1:40

like long form and not be

1:43

interrupted and really, like

1:43

dive into something and it felt

1:47

so good. It was like therapy.

1:47

And that was what kicked it off.

1:51

And then I ended up currently

1:51

have like three podcasts plus to

1:55

get to guest hosts this one,

1:55

which is the best one.

1:57

Oh, thank you. And we

1:57

don't say so ourselves. Yes.

2:00

Tom, you're a you're a

2:00

high school teacher. Correct?

2:03

Yeah,

2:04

I'm a high school digital media teacher.

2:05

I love these said I like

2:05

a podcast, because that's a long

2:08

form. I don't get interrupted

2:08

and you're like, that is

2:11

definitely the that's something

2:11

that only a teacher would say,

2:14

Yes, I can't. I mean,

2:14

it's been weird this year,

2:17

because everything has been on

2:17

zoom so far. So it's, you know,

2:20

it's kind of the opposite problem. Like I almost wish kids would talk more. But in the

2:22

regular classroom, even though

2:25

I've got great students and

2:25

like, I feel my classroom

2:28

management is pretty decent. I

2:28

bet you can't go more than two

2:31

sentences without having to

2:31

like, you know, pause and wait.

2:36

Or I try not to shush because

2:36

it's so like, it feels so

2:40

demeaning. Yeah, but like, as a

2:40

teacher, there's, there's just

2:44

times where you just find

2:44

yourself like, and it's like,

2:47

oh, no, it's terrible. So having

2:47

a podcast, I can just complete a

2:52

thought, like a whole thought.

2:52

And it's wonderful.

2:57

Well, that's cool. So

2:57

like Travis said, the reason we

2:59

wanted you to hop on the

2:59

podcast, today's because you're

3:02

a new Buzzsprout. creator, you

3:02

joined the Buzzsprout creator

3:06

program. And one of the things

3:06

we said before we went live was

3:13

in our minds. I feel like a lot

3:13

of people listening this

3:15

podcast, you're on kind of the

3:15

same journey, as most of us,

3:20

except you're like a couple

3:20

steps ahead. So you talked about

3:23

your three podcasts, you talked

3:23

about the you're a teacher, you

3:27

also the way we connect with you

3:27

is through your YouTube channel.

3:31

Yeah, it's funny you

3:31

say that, because anyone who

3:34

makes YouTube videos, and I

3:34

guess the same is true for

3:36

podcasting. But my relationship

3:36

with my podcast is very

3:39

different than my relationship

3:39

with my YouTube channel. But on

3:42

my channel, where it's mainly

3:42

like audio and video tutorials,

3:46

reviews, things to help people

3:46

get better audio and video, I

3:50

try to basically act as though

3:50

I'm making videos for myself six

3:54

months ago. So I just kind of

3:54

think of like, what what did I

3:57

need help with six months ago

3:57

was struggling with what were my

4:00

questions. That's what I should

4:00

make a video now. And it seems

4:02

like that works really well.

4:02

Because then the people who find

4:05

it, it's like, I, I know them. I

4:05

know what they're going through.

4:10

And then creating the podcast

4:10

side of it was, it was almost to

4:14

be an escape from YouTube where

4:14

I spend way too much time

4:18

looking at analytics. And, you

4:18

know, every number and every

4:22

metric and I was like podcasts,

4:22

I kind of just want to start a

4:25

thing. And it wasn't until

4:25

several months after doing it

4:29

that suddenly people were like,

4:29

Oh, I was listening to this

4:32

episode and blah blah blah. And

4:32

I was like you were you were

4:34

listening to that. And I kind of

4:34

forgot that that's a part of it.

4:37

Like it's like oh yeah, a put

4:37

out episodes and then people do

4:41

listen to them and it it has

4:41

then grown into a thing, which I

4:47

mean I have not spent much

4:47

effort in promoting it other

4:50

than like putting some links

4:50

here or there. Because it's just

4:53

kind of been like side passion

4:53

projects, but it has grown a

4:58

community that I didn't think I

4:58

could grow through podcasting,

5:02

but it's been, it's been

5:02

incredible. And it's to the

5:04

point now where, even though I

5:04

feel like I'm very good with my

5:07

consistency, there's been a couple of weeks where I've missed a week, or like, wasn't

5:09

able to record an episode, and

5:13

people will send messages and

5:13

go, like, I was ready for my

5:15

Monday morning thing, and there

5:15

was no episode I just want to

5:18

check in Are you okay? And

5:18

that's, that's, that's been that

5:22

has been amazing to me. And

5:22

that's really motivating to kind

5:25

of keep it going and make it a

5:25

priority. Even though there's

5:28

also then full time work and

5:28

family and, and all of life, you

5:32

know, that exists outside of it.

5:34

So just to kind of like

5:34

recap some of this. You've got a

5:38

YouTube channel, yes, that has

5:38

something in the order. It's

5:41

like 40,000 subscribers. So it's

5:41

like, it's a decent size YouTube

5:45

channel. You have three

5:45

podcasts. You are a high school

5:49

teacher during COVID. Yeah. And

5:49

so I just want to make sure

5:54

like, you're also you're a

5:54

single guy that has all this

5:57

free time.

5:58

No, I'm married. We

5:58

don't have kids, we have two

6:02

dogs. Those are our kids. And I

6:02

say that with pride, though. And

6:07

luckily, aside from just being

6:07

genuinely awesome, in general,

6:11

my wife, who is the co host of

6:11

one of my podcasts is like a

6:15

content creator herself. So she

6:15

does YouTube and YouTube

6:17

coaching, which is great,

6:17

because she understands what I'm

6:22

talking about and what I'm going

6:22

through. And we're you know,

6:26

it's very similar. So when I say

6:26

like, I need to go lock myself

6:29

in the room on Saturday

6:29

afternoon, and like record

6:31

myself talking to nobody. She's

6:31

like, yeah, that's normal. You

6:35

should go do that.

6:37

Yeah, not the reaction

6:37

of most of our spouses, I

6:39

think, yeah, so I have

6:39

very appreciative of that

6:42

understanding.

6:43

So I'm curious, like,

6:43

you are certainly, you know,

6:46

down the pathway of being a

6:46

content creator, you know,

6:49

seeing a certain measure of

6:49

success, especially as someone

6:52

who's independent, and you know,

6:52

not getting a lot of support

6:55

outside of just the content, you

6:55

create yourself, right. If you

6:58

were to go back to when you

6:58

first started your YouTube

7:00

journey, your podcast journey?

7:02

Mm hmm.

7:02

What would be the advice

7:02

you would give yourself at that

7:05

point? Knowing what you know,

7:05

now?

7:08

I Yeah, that's a great

7:08

question. I started my YouTube

7:11

channel in 2017. And then my

7:11

podcast started in 2019. But I

7:16

think the advice could almost be

7:16

the same for both of them, which

7:19

is I, I was so wary of strategy,

7:19

when I got started. Just because

7:26

I like my number one value was

7:26

authenticity, and being open and

7:31

honest and authentic. And I was,

7:31

so I felt so bombarded with, you

7:35

know, ads everywhere, and

7:35

sponsored content and things

7:38

that seem authentic, and then

7:38

you scratch the surface a little

7:40

bit, and you realize, Oh, this

7:40

is not what it seems at all. And

7:45

I was so jaded by that. And, I

7:45

mean, I grew up listening to,

7:49

you know, punk and ska bands,

7:49

and California, which are all

7:52

very much, you know, no big

7:52

record labels, and you can't

7:55

sell out, bro. And like that

7:55

kind of stuff. And that just

7:59

like had been in my brain. And

7:59

so when I started creating my

8:02

own content, the idea was, it

8:02

just nothing can compromise that

8:07

authenticity, which I still

8:07

stand by. But what I didn't know

8:11

was you can actually still be

8:11

strategic and authentic at the

8:15

same time. And just and if

8:15

you're being strategic, it

8:18

actually just means you're being

8:18

smarter with your time and your

8:20

energy. So it's going to take

8:20

time, when you start something

8:23

new to sort of get your

8:23

bearings, figure out what you're

8:26

doing, figure out who it's for,

8:26

that's normal. But I would

8:30

encourage myself, like, Hey,

8:30

don't wait a year before you

8:33

actually like, admit to yourself

8:33

that you want to take this

8:36

seriously. Like, you can just

8:36

start taking it seriously from

8:40

the beginning. And that's going

8:40

to help you get your bearings a

8:44

lot more quickly. And I wish I

8:44

would have learned that lesson,

8:47

it would have saved me just so

8:47

much wasted energy, honestly.

8:51

So are there any

8:51

specifics that you would kind of

8:54

tell me like what questions

8:54

should people be asking

8:56

themselves if they are kind of

8:56

like, you know, three steps

9:00

behind where you are right now?

9:02

I would say

9:02

sustainability is key. I mean, I

9:06

would imagine someone who's a

9:06

couple steps behind me probably

9:09

has like, their equipment thing

9:09

I know, that's a very, very

9:12

popular question is, what gear

9:12

do I use? What do I need, and

9:15

especially when it comes to

9:15

podcasting, it's so accessible,

9:17

and things are so good. You

9:17

know, if you got your phone,

9:20

you're good enough to get

9:20

started. The bigger issue for me

9:23

is sustainability. And sometimes

9:23

people will have an idea where

9:26

they'll go, you know, I want to

9:26

do this podcast about this thing

9:29

where I talked to these people about blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, that sounds like a great

9:31

idea. But you could do four

9:34

episodes. And maybe that's fine.

9:34

Maybe you want to do like one of

9:37

my favorite podcasts ever is s

9:37

town, which is seven episodes.

9:41

And I've listened to it like

9:41

four or five times, like all the

9:44

way through. So if you want to

9:44

do like a limited run thing,

9:47

that's cool. But if you want it

9:47

to be something that you do for

9:50

a long time, it needs to be

9:50

something that's sustainable.

9:53

And that's whether it's a

9:53

podcast or YouTube or anything

9:56

so what what can you explore

9:56

what can you dive into That you

10:00

don't get tired of, and that you

10:00

could see yourself doing not

10:04

just, you know, five or 10

10:04

episodes of, but 50 100 200,

10:09

like before, things really even

10:09

start picking up because

10:12

oftentimes you have to make 50

10:12

or 100 things before it even

10:16

gets any traction at all. And I

10:16

think a lot of people sometimes

10:20

will make three or four episodes

10:20

and then wonder like, why isn't

10:22

this taking off? Why isn't

10:22

everyone finding it? Why am I

10:25

not on the apple homepage, or,

10:25

you know, or whatever, and so

10:30

that that sustainability, but a

10:30

big fear that I have found in

10:34

people is the thing that they're

10:34

interested in, they feel is

10:37

oversaturated, you know, they're

10:37

interested in talking about

10:39

technology, and they feel there's too many people or whatever it is. And I think it's

10:41

very important to remember that

10:46

that might be true, there might be other people doing it, it might be a saturated, market

10:48

saturated niche, but you have a

10:51

unique angle, unique

10:51

perspective, unique experience.

10:55

And if that's the thing that you

10:55

don't get tired of talking

10:58

about, that's gonna make you

10:58

able to sustain it like as as a

11:02

marathon rather than a sprint.

11:02

And that means I think you

11:07

should just go for it, because

11:07

the thing that makes you stand

11:10

out will emerge over time. And

11:10

that's what's gonna draw people

11:13

to you and help you build your

11:13

audience, your community, and

11:15

all those things that that

11:15

really do let you keep going

11:19

over a longer period of time.

11:21

I mean, there's some

11:21

areas that I mean, there's got

11:24

to be 40 podcasts about guys

11:24

talking about Apple products.

11:30

Oh, yeah. And I'm always like,

11:30

if whoever was the 41st to do

11:36

it, you are probably feel like a

11:36

total imposter, like, What do I

11:40

have to say, That's not being

11:40

said by all these other people?

11:45

Mm hmm. And I think that it's

11:45

not that you're talking about

11:49

something they're not because you're all talking about the same new iPhones, the new

11:51

MacBooks. But you are bringing

11:55

just a totally different

11:55

perspective, if all of them are

11:58

super techie, and you're an

11:58

attorney, and you're going yeah,

12:02

this is how I use it in my work,

12:02

or you're a teacher, and you're

12:06

talking about, actually, this is

12:06

a huge benefit, because most

12:09

people don't understand how

12:09

difficult it is to get 30 kids

12:14

with different computers using

12:14

the same thing. Well, now it's

12:17

gonna be so much easier because

12:17

of these features, you are

12:20

bringing an experience that is

12:20

unique, and that unique

12:25

experience is going to resonate

12:25

with some portion of the

12:28

audience.

12:29

Yeah, exactly. And

12:29

there's also just the part of

12:32

it, that's you, it's sort of the

12:32

intangible thing, where if even

12:37

if you are saying the exact same

12:37

stuff as somebody else, you

12:41

know, you have your personality

12:41

and your, your way of doing it

12:45

that some people just might

12:45

connect with more than others.

12:47

It's like being a teacher, I'm

12:47

kind of lucky that I the only

12:50

one who teaches my subject, I

12:50

campus, so no one knows what I'm

12:54

doing, which is great. But for,

12:54

for other teachers, and like I

12:59

started as an English teacher,

12:59

you know, if you have for

13:02

sophomore English teachers, the

13:02

curriculum is the same in all

13:05

those classes. But you will

13:05

have, you know, the same student

13:09

might transfer between classes

13:09

throughout the year and be like,

13:12

I really don't like this teacher, but I love this teacher. And it's like they're

13:13

doing the same content there.

13:16

It's literally like from the

13:16

same books. But it's the

13:20

approach that's entirely

13:20

different. And it doesn't mean

13:22

that a teacher is bad or good.

13:22

It just means that personality

13:24

wise perspective, why something

13:24

clicks, something doesn't click.

13:27

And the same is true for online

13:27

content, where, you know,

13:31

they're just, I have found

13:31

people on YouTube and podcasts

13:34

where there's just something off

13:34

putting to me about the way that

13:37

they do their themes, like it

13:37

doesn't, it doesn't land and

13:39

then I go to somebody else who's

13:39

doing the same thing. But I just

13:42

feel like it's so enjoyable. And

13:42

I don't know what that is. And,

13:46

you know, everybody has that

13:46

that's going to be able to, to

13:49

build that, that crowd or that

13:49

audience around you.

13:55

So one of the questions

13:55

we get pretty regularly are

13:58

people want to know how their

13:58

podcast is performing. And we

14:02

have talked about this. A ton of

14:02

times on this podcast, we talked

14:06

about it in our Facebook group.

14:06

And whenever we write a lot of

14:10

our blogs and our guides, I feel

14:10

like we ended up pulling in a

14:14

lot of data for people to

14:14

compare their podcast. And it's

14:19

not comparison trying to say

14:19

like, are you better or worse,

14:21

but just to kind of see if

14:21

you're on the right track. And

14:26

we realized, like, you know,

14:26

this was pretty popular that a

14:30

lot of people want it to be able

14:30

to see it. And so we've got

14:34

something new that is out by the

14:34

time that you're listening to

14:38

it.

14:38

Yeah, so we are now on a

14:38

monthly basis, updating our

14:43

Buzzsprout platforms, stats. So

14:43

if you go into your personal

14:47

podcast, you see all your

14:47

download stats, and your apps

14:50

and your devices and stuff like

14:50

that. We are now every single

14:53

month showing you all the

14:53

podcasts on Buzzsprout and how

14:57

those apps are performing and

14:57

what those mean median download

15:00

numbers are and you know, the

15:00

countries that are popular and

15:03

the devices that are popular. So

15:03

you can kind of stack up your

15:06

stats and see how they compare

15:06

with, you know what other people

15:08

are seeing. And we'll leave a

15:08

link to these stats in the show

15:11

notes if you want to go and

15:11

check those out as we're talking

15:13

about it. But let's go ahead and

15:13

just go through these, and just

15:17

talk through some of the numbers

15:17

for October. So I imagined the

15:21

beginning of December, we'll

15:21

pull in the November stats of

15:24

let's just talk about the

15:24

October stats. So for all the

15:27

Buzzsprout podcasts, we in the

15:27

month of October saw almost 64

15:34

million downloads, which, when

15:34

we sent the link to Tom, he was

15:39

like, wow, Buzzcast is doing

15:39

really well. Yeah.

15:43

I was not prepared for

15:43

this. But that is an amazing

15:47

number.

15:48

Oh, yeah. So you could

15:48

see monthly downloads, how many

15:51

episodes were published by

15:51

Buzzsprout podcasters. We This

15:56

is all this is a subset of

15:56

people we call active

15:59

podcasters. And it's just if

15:59

people have pod faded, or

16:03

they're not regularly releasing,

16:03

we removed them from this data,

16:06

because that really will skew

16:06

it. You know, if we have a bunch

16:09

of people who aren't releasing

16:09

anything, yet, we've got a

16:11

section. I mean, probably my

16:11

favorite section is this podcast

16:15

app section is pretty common.

16:15

Like we see this in articles all

16:19

the time, Spotify is taken away

16:19

X percent of the apple podcast

16:25

share, Google podcast is

16:25

growing. And we hear all these

16:29

numbers. But one or two podcasts

16:29

isn't a good data point. But

16:33

across all Buzzsprout is a

16:33

pretty strong data point of

16:38

Okay, this is about how well

16:38

Google podcasts is doing. So we

16:41

want to just kind of go through this list and kind of give people a little bit of a taste

16:43

of what's on this page.

16:47

Yeah, and I think the

16:47

first app won't surprise people.

16:50

But I think depending on if you

16:50

consider yourself to be

16:53

knowledgeable about the podcast

16:53

industry, or seeing it from

16:57

fresh eyes, you might have

16:57

opposite reactions to the

17:01

percentage next to this app. So

17:01

the top app, no surprises Apple

17:04

podcasts. They've been the

17:04

number one app since the word

17:09

podcast was even a thing. Well,

17:09

it was iTunes before and then

17:12

they switched it but same app.

17:12

But the number next to that is

17:17

47%. So 47% of all the podcast

17:17

downloads across all the active

17:22

Buzzsprout podcasts came from

17:22

Apple podcasts. Now, if you have

17:26

been following the podcast

17:26

industry for some time, that

17:29

seems low, because typically

17:29

Apple's in the 60 to 65% range

17:34

when you look at some of this

17:34

other data. But if you're new,

17:37

you could be like, Wow, that's a

17:37

lot. That's like half, half of

17:40

all downloads come from Apple podcasts.

17:42

And this is Apple

17:42

podcasts the way that we have it

17:44

on a Mac. And on your phones, if

17:44

it's actually the app saying,

17:49

Hey, I'm Apple podcasts. When we

17:49

get further down the list,

17:52

iTunes will make an appearance

17:52

because there are still people

17:55

who are using truly using a

17:55

software called iTunes to

17:59

download podcasts. So it'll

17:59

still be there. And it's

18:03

actually doing pretty well. So

18:03

Tom, do you want to take us down

18:06

the list a little bit?

18:07

Yeah, sure. I mean, the

18:07

number two option is probably no

18:12

surprise, which is Spotify, at

18:12

24% coming in. And those were no

18:18

surprise to me, because those

18:18

are the big guys. What was kind

18:23

of a surprise was then the how

18:23

much the other platforms are

18:28

like fighting over the ones in

18:28

the two percents. And that seems

18:31

to be pretty competitive.

18:31

Because like Google is it 2.4

18:36

just a web browsers 2.1 I was

18:36

interested in actually a little

18:40

bit further down is the

18:40

Buzzsprout embed player because

18:42

I like use that on my website.

18:42

And that's 1.9% which I thought

18:46

was actually like a good number

18:46

for just people finding that

18:51

embedded throughout the

18:51

internet. So that actually makes

18:53

me excited. Yeah, and then

18:53

there's stuff down here that I

18:58

didn't even know like, Instagram

18:58

is point 1% kind of way down at

19:02

the bottom and I was I don't

19:02

even understand how someone is

19:06

actually getting a podcast on

19:06

Instagram. So that was

19:09

surprising to me.

19:10

We saw a few downloads

19:10

start coming through tik tok.

19:14

And I was like trying to figure

19:14

out like, How the heck is

19:16

anybody listening to a podcast

19:16

or tik tok? Like, yeah, there's

19:20

some way they can get a link to

19:20

get to a web page to play an

19:24

episode there. And tik tok is

19:24

the one that's requesting the

19:28

episode. And I was like, well,

19:28

it's, there are five people that

19:32

have done it or something, whatever

19:33

the number works. Yeah,

19:35

well, I do know, at

19:35

least for Facebook, and I'm not

19:38

a heavy Instagram user. So this

19:38

may or may not be true. But I

19:40

know for Facebook. If you're in

19:40

the app, and you click on a web

19:44

link, it actually opens a

19:44

Facebook internet browser,

19:47

whereas a jump over it's a

19:47

Safari or Chrome or whatever you

19:50

have on your phone. And so if

19:50

someone clicks a link from

19:54

within Facebook, and then

19:54

listens to a podcast episode, we

19:57

will see that as a Facebook

19:57

play. Yeah, so if you have

20:01

Facebook or Instagram showing up

20:01

in your personal podcast stats,

20:04

and that's a good indication

20:04

that the social media marketing

20:07

that you're doing is actually

20:07

working. And so that would be a

20:09

good thing. Good thing to see.

20:11

That's okay, that makes a lot more sense, then.

20:13

Yeah, so just to run

20:13

through Apple, podcasts,

20:16

Spotify, then a massive drop off

20:16

to Google podcasts, 2.4, then

20:21

just web browsers in general.

20:21

And then we get into some of

20:26

like, the very popular not pre

20:26

installed apps. So the number

20:31

one of those is castbox. 2%.

20:31

castbox, has a great player,

20:38

they have a really great team.

20:38

And we really like them. podcast

20:42

addict, which is the I think the

20:42

number one Android app for

20:47

podcasting. 1.9% Buzzsprout

20:47

embed player 1.9%. So that's

20:54

when you put the Buzzsprout

20:54

player on your own site. Then

20:59

stitcher who is been a big

20:59

player in the game for a long

21:03

time. 1.8, the Buzzsprout

21:03

website. So that's if you don't

21:07

have your own site, and people

21:07

are going to your site and

21:10

listening there. That's 1.5.

21:10

Obviously, that one is not

21:15

industry wide. Because if you

21:15

know, if you're on a different

21:18

podcast host, obviously, your

21:18

Buzzsprout site gets zero place.

21:24

Then we get my personal favorite

21:24

overcast at 1.5. And then I had

21:28

to get this one in there. 1.4 of

21:28

all podcast listens are coming

21:34

from iTunes. And those are

21:34

people who have not updated this

21:37

is how big the Apple is. In the

21:37

podcasting industry. More people

21:42

are listening on iTunes than on

21:42

I Heart Radio or pocket casts

21:46

they're listening to on an app

21:46

that should have been updated

21:50

years ago.

21:51

That's pretty wild,

21:51

even more than Pandora and

21:54

amazon music. iTunes is taking

21:54

more.

21:58

Yeah, it's definitely

21:58

surprised, was surprising to me.

22:00

But it's just interesting to

22:00

kind of go through this list and

22:03

see what else is there. Are

22:03

there any other sections that

22:08

kind of jump out to you guys

22:08

that you would like to talk

22:10

about?

22:11

The devices section is

22:11

really interesting to me? Well,

22:15

it's sort of device and device

22:15

type, which isn't really a

22:17

surprise, but the top two

22:17

devices are Apple iPhone at

22:21

64.7% and android phone at

22:21

22.8%. Which isn't surprising.

22:26

But if we go back up to the

22:26

platforms or the apps, it falls

22:33

pretty aligned with Apple

22:33

podcasts and Spotify, which it

22:39

just saying it goes to show like

22:39

how much the device type that

22:44

the person is using plays into

22:44

the app they're using to get

22:48

your content. And then that goes

22:48

down. The next section below

22:51

that is device type. And the

22:51

insane amount of people that

22:56

listen on mobile, which is

22:56

almost 90%. So to me, like as a

23:01

podcaster, that gives you a lot

23:01

of insight into how people are

23:05

consuming your content,

23:05

someone's listening on a phone,

23:08

that might mean, okay, they are

23:08

really using earbuds or air pods

23:12

or whatever. Or they're

23:12

listening in their car, which

23:15

means all of those weird little

23:15

sounds and plosives and whatever

23:19

and your audio production might

23:19

be a lot more prominent. So I'm

23:22

like, oh my god. Okay, that

23:22

means I need to really make sure

23:25

to tighten up the production

23:25

side of things.

23:29

Yeah, and one thing that

23:29

every once in a while, we'll get

23:33

this question, or we'll see it

23:33

pop up in these podcast

23:36

industry, Facebook groups, is

23:36

what about smart speakers? What

23:39

about Alexa devices? You know,

23:39

it seems like everyone and their

23:42

brother now has Amazon listening

23:42

to them. 24 seven to see when

23:47

they need more toilet paper. So

23:47

when are we going to see this

23:51

big bump in podcast listening on

23:51

Alexa devices? Well, right as of

23:57

October, then percentage of

23:57

plays that came from smart

24:01

speakers. So that would be both

24:01

Amazon Alexa devices. And you

24:06

know, anything else that be

24:06

categorized as a smart speaker

24:08

is point 3%. So, so still, like

24:08

even though it seems like this

24:15

is a voice first platform, it

24:15

makes sense that if someone's in

24:20

the house, doing chores,

24:20

whatever and they want to listen

24:23

to a podcast, they would throw

24:23

it on their, you know, Amazon

24:25

Echo. It's still such a small

24:25

portion of podcast plays. So I

24:32

mean, we'll see if this

24:32

eventually shifts, but at least

24:36

for right now, podcasting is

24:36

very much a mobile phone centric

24:40

experience.

24:42

Yeah, I think that's a

24:42

great point, Travis. So you can

24:44

kind of get twisted around the

24:44

axle a little bit trying to

24:47

figure out how do I make sure

24:47

that I'm optimized for Siri and

24:52

Alexa, and all these various

24:52

platforms. I mean, we actually

24:57

got an email from Apple recently

24:57

that we'll be in touch. about

25:00

this later in the show, but one

25:00

of the things that they did

25:02

include in there was how to

25:02

optimize for Siri, which is a

25:07

good thing to know. But you

25:07

don't want that to become your

25:10

focus, the thing that you should

25:10

be optimizing for are your

25:13

actual listeners, first of all,

25:13

and especially their experience

25:18

listening on mobile devices. So

25:18

a couple of the other sections

25:23

in here, you can see the top

25:23

countries and territories, this

25:27

is going to skew to English

25:27

speaking countries, not only

25:31

because English speaking

25:31

countries do listen to podcasts

25:34

more, but because Buzzsprout

25:34

itself is only an English. And

25:40

so I imagine if you're on a

25:40

podcast host that also was

25:43

translated into Spanish, that

25:43

you would get a lot more Spanish

25:46

speaking countries or into

25:46

Mandarin, like it just depends

25:50

on, you know, I think that this

25:50

is skewed because of Buzzsprout.

25:53

But 50% 51%, United States 6.5.

25:53

United Kingdom 5.3 in Canada,

26:02

4.3. In Australia, 2.8 in

26:02

Mexico, and 2.6. In the

26:08

Netherlands, which to my great

26:08

grandfather who immigrated from

26:13

Holland, you'd be proud of this?

26:13

Well, yeah, it's it kind of

26:16

gives you a little bit of a feel

26:16

for whether or not your podcast

26:20

is reaching more an

26:20

international audience, then

26:24

Buzzsprout podcasts on a whole.

26:26

Yeah. And I think the

26:26

statistic that most of our

26:30

listeners will be very

26:30

interested in, because we've

26:33

talked about it before on the

26:33

podcast, is I'm getting X number

26:36

of downloads, I have this many

26:36

episodes, Is that good? And

26:40

that's always how it's framed.

26:40

Is that good? Like, am I doing a

26:43

good job. And quite often people

26:43

think that the number of what a

26:46

good podcast is much larger than

26:46

than it actually is. They look

26:52

at, you know, maybe other

26:52

platforms like YouTube, where

26:54

you see these creators that have

26:54

millions of views on their

26:57

videos. And they think well, in

26:57

order to be a successful

27:00

podcast, I need that equivalent

27:00

metric. And they don't realize

27:05

kind of the the playing field is

27:05

different with podcasting. And

27:09

so if you go to this global

27:09

stats page, and you scroll all

27:12

the way to the bottom, you'll

27:12

see episode downloads within the

27:16

first seven days. And so this

27:16

statistic is representing when

27:21

you publish an episode, within

27:21

that first week that it's live.

27:25

How does your podcast episode

27:25

stack up against other podcasts

27:29

on Buzzsprout and the median

27:29

number, if we were measuring 100

27:34

podcasts, and we picked podcast

27:34

number 50. out is 28. So if your

27:39

podcast episode is getting more

27:39

than 28 downloads within the

27:44

first week of it being released,

27:44

you are in the top half of

27:49

podcasters on Buzzsprout.

27:51

And you can go actually

27:51

see this exact number in your

27:55

Buzzsprout dashboard. Our whole

27:55

goal with pulling out this

27:58

number was to give you one

27:58

that's very clear that you can

28:03

compare with your own stats,

28:03

we're trying to make sure that

28:06

you can see it as a one to one

28:06

comparison that if it's a daily

28:09

podcast, or you're publishing

28:09

once every two weeks, that

28:13

you're still able to do that

28:13

comparison, this is really

28:16

giving you an idea of how many

28:16

subscribers there are that you

28:20

can ever measure subscribers.

28:20

Um, this is gonna get pretty

28:24

close.

28:25

Yeah, and we would we

28:25

would call a subscriber somebody

28:27

who listens to every one of your

28:27

episodes. Which, you know, Tom

28:32

coming from the YouTube world

28:32

subscriber on YouTube doesn't

28:35

mean quite the same thing. No, not at all.

28:37

He's thinking like, oh,

28:37

wow, I got 40,000 subscribers,

28:41

every video is going to get at

28:41

least 40,000 views. And they

28:44

don't.

28:47

I mean, as, as someone

28:47

who spends a lot of time

28:49

creating videos for the

28:49

Buzzsprout YouTube channel, it

28:51

seems like the ones that are

28:51

like, really special to you that

28:55

you put extra heart into, like

28:55

nobody else appreciates. And

28:59

then it's like the throwaway one

28:59

where it's like, ah, I guess I

29:03

gotta, you know, publish an

29:03

episode on this Thursday. So

29:05

I'll just make a quick one. You

29:05

know, yes, throw it out there.

29:08

It's like that's the one that goes nuts.

29:10

For the longest time.

29:10

The most popular video on my

29:12

channel was a video that I made

29:12

from the time I have the idea to

29:17

the time it was uploaded was

29:17

under two hours. And it's like,

29:21

for over a year the most popular

29:21

video on my channel. And I made

29:25

that video while I like there's

29:25

another video I was making,

29:29

where in that video I go like

29:29

hey, I think I'm gonna make this

29:32

other video now and like so I

29:32

make the video in the video. And

29:36

the other video is when I put so

29:36

much effort into and I don't

29:39

even think it cracked like 1000

29:39

and then the one that was the

29:43

afterthought was literally like

29:43

the channel defining video for

29:47

like a year. So you never know.

29:51

You definitely don't.

29:52

So let's roll up this

29:52

list a little bit. I can go

29:55

through this one and maybe you

29:55

guys could do one of the next

29:57

two sections, top 25% If you get

29:57

73 plays in that first seven

30:03

days releasing something, you're

30:03

in the top 25% of podcasts, top

30:10

10% 231 place, you're in the top

30:10

5%. If you're getting 534 place,

30:20

and you're in the top 1% of all

30:20

podcasts on Buzzsprout. If your

30:25

podcast receives 3263 plays per

30:25

episode, whenever the episodes

30:33

been out for seven days, so all

30:33

these numbers grow over time, we

30:38

can definitely see on all of our

30:38

podcasts, older episodes are

30:42

often the largest, because

30:42

they've been around for a while

30:45

and more people can find them.

30:45

But this gives you a strict, you

30:49

know, really good comparison

30:49

point to your podcast. If you've

30:52

only been podcasting for a

30:52

couple months, and you're

30:57

starting to get close to that 28

30:57

number. Well, that's

31:00

exceptional. You know, I often

31:00

try to think of if these were

31:03

real people that you could see,

31:03

would you keep being excited to

31:07

do your podcast? And I can tell

31:07

you like if somebody asked me,

31:11

Hey, would you come talk about

31:11

marketing to this group of 28?

31:14

Well, I wouldn't do it now

31:14

because of COVID. But if

31:17

somebody said, come speak to

31:17

this group of 28 people and talk

31:22

to us about marketing, I would

31:22

show up every week, I would not

31:28

miss it. Especially if it took

31:28

me an hour to do it. And it was

31:32

an IT, I gave them an hour

31:32

content, I would show every

31:35

week. But there's something

31:35

about when it's on a podcast and

31:39

you see it as that number, not

31:39

as a person that it can get very

31:43

tempting to disregard it. And I

31:43

guess I should say all these

31:48

stats that we're quoting, are IB

31:48

certified and compliance stats.

31:53

So you can really compare these

31:53

to your Buzzsprout numbers. If

31:57

you're on another host, it may

31:57

be slightly different just due

32:00

to how they are measuring

32:00

everything.

32:03

So next, let's tackle

32:03

the episode duration. Because

32:06

that's another popular question

32:06

we get like, how long should my

32:08

episodes be? And the great thing

32:08

about podcasting is there are

32:13

basically no rules. I mean, so

32:13

the only rules you have to

32:16

follow are, if it's explicit,

32:16

you have to mark it as explicit.

32:20

But other than that, you know,

32:20

and adding a title to your

32:24

episode, you can literally do

32:24

whatever you want. But this is a

32:26

very common question. So we

32:26

wanted to give you the breakdown

32:28

of out of all the Buzzsprout

32:28

podcast where did the where do

32:31

they land. And so for the

32:31

shorter episodes, those less

32:35

than 10 minutes, that's about

32:35

12% of all the podcast episodes

32:41

that we see on Buzzsprout. And

32:41

then, as you could guess, 10 to

32:45

20 minutes would be a little

32:45

higher 14%. And then the large

32:50

majority, more than half of

32:50

podcasts fall either between 20

32:55

and 60 minutes. So 32% or 20 to

32:55

40 minutes, and then 24% or 40

33:01

to 60 minutes, and then the

33:01

super long ones over an hour, or

33:05

18%. And so you could say that

33:05

the average podcast episode on

33:11

Buzzsprout is somewhere around

33:11

the 30 minute mark. But that's

33:16

still less than a third. So it's

33:16

not like, Hey, this is the magic

33:21

number. If you have a 28 minute

33:21

32 second podcast, you will be

33:27

successful. But we did want you

33:27

just to see like the breakdown,

33:32

you know of kind of what the

33:32

episode durations look like,

33:35

Tom, when you're putting your

33:35

podcasts together, what do you

33:38

think about as far as how long

33:38

they should be?

33:41

I that's where I go

33:41

back to thinking about myself as

33:44

a listener, because obviously

33:44

podcasts be any length, but I

33:48

know that for me and my

33:48

listening habits when I scroll

33:51

through and I see an episode

33:51

that's like 10 minutes long, I

33:54

usually don't listen to it.

33:54

Because when I listen, I use I'm

33:57

usually like doing something

33:57

where I want to kind of live in

34:01

that podcast world for a while.

34:01

And so I love it when episodes

34:06

are 45 minutes an hour, you

34:06

know, some are like two hours,

34:10

two hours. So I love kind of

34:10

longer episodes. So I try to

34:14

keep mine at about an hour. And

34:14

I found that that for me works

34:18

really well. It's manageable to

34:18

create seems like that's what

34:21

the people who are listening

34:21

enjoy it. This data is actually

34:27

very, like comforting to see

34:27

that kind of around that range.

34:31

Because sometimes all you know,

34:31

sometimes you just come up

34:34

short. You're like this

34:34

episode's 42 minutes, and I'm

34:36

like, I was too short. And I

34:36

know there's no right or wrong,

34:39

but it's nice to know like,

34:39

okay, now it's about the average

34:41

of what everybody else is doing.

34:41

Okay, I feel better. So the next

34:46

section, which is how often

34:46

episodes are published, is very

34:50

interesting because I think you

34:50

can put a lot of pressure on

34:53

yourself to try to keep up a

34:53

schedule or, you know, really

34:57

crank out the content and the

34:57

first time stat is every zero to

35:02

two days. So it's almost a daily

35:02

episode is only 7%. So not a

35:07

huge chunk of people are doing

35:07

nearly daily content, three to

35:13

seven days. So that's kind of

35:13

getting into that weekly range

35:15

is 40%. And then eight to 14

35:15

days is 38%. So between those

35:22

three days to 14 days, basically

35:22

one episode every week or two is

35:26

78% of podcasts, which is, I it

35:26

makes me happy to see that

35:32

because I feel like that's such

35:32

a manageable for the average

35:35

person, that's a manageable

35:35

production workload. But then we

35:38

jumped down to 15 to 29 days is

35:38

14%. And episodes published

35:45

every you know, once every 30

35:45

days is 1%. So very few people

35:50

doing that.

35:50

And one of the reasons

35:50

for that is if you go much more

35:54

than 30 days, I'm not exactly

35:54

sure what the number is, then we

35:57

probably wouldn't consider you

35:57

an active podcaster. And so

36:02

you'd probably drop off of this

36:02

list. But this kind of makes

36:05

sense that you know that seven

36:05

days is what we actually

36:08

recommend, because it helps you

36:08

get in a regular cadence. It

36:13

helps your listeners know when

36:13

to expect your podcasts you

36:16

start fitting into their lives.

36:16

I mean, Tom said earlier, if he

36:20

missed a week, people write and

36:20

say, I was ready for my Monday

36:23

podcast and Where was it? It's

36:23

because I have podcasts that

36:28

especially when I had a commute,

36:28

I was like, This is my Monday

36:31

morning commute podcast, this is

36:31

my Thursday night coming back,

36:35

because it would always release

36:35

by the time I was, you know,

36:38

ready to drive home. And it's

36:38

really nice to have some of

36:42

those podcasts he can like look

36:42

forward to through the week,

36:45

especially as you really learn

36:45

to love them. So I really like

36:49

those weekly podcasts and then

36:49

seeing the eight to 14 days.

36:53

Well, that gets the semi weekly

36:53

podcasts. And the people who

36:57

miss sometimes. So maybe their

36:57

average is like nine days, it's

37:02

just because they're publishing

37:02

weekly, but they every once in a

37:05

while miss one. So they fall in

37:05

that category to 78%. It makes

37:10

me very happy to see most people

37:10

are landing three quarters,

37:14

people are landing, either in

37:14

once a week or twice a week,

37:18

just kind of where they're, you

37:18

know, their release schedule.

37:21

Yeah, those are those

37:21

are exciting numbers, because I

37:23

did just want to point out too,

37:23

that, at least on YouTube, one

37:26

of the questions I get all the

37:26

time is, you know, how often do

37:29

I need to be uploading for

37:29

YouTube to like, you know, help

37:34

me or, you know, for people to

37:34

find my thing. And at least in

37:37

the YouTube world, it really

37:37

doesn't matter the way that it

37:40

used to anymore. And you'll see

37:40

and you're recommended on

37:43

YouTube, like, you'll get videos

37:43

from 10 years ago that suddenly

37:46

it just thinks you need to watch

37:46

that video now based on your

37:48

history. And when it comes to

37:48

podcasting and stuff, I kind of

37:52

think that it's the same, I

37:52

don't think there's a magic

37:55

thing where I have done four

37:55

episodes this month. So now

37:57

Apple is just gonna promote the

37:57

heck out on my podcast. I think

38:01

though, kind of what we just

38:01

touched on, it's more about you

38:06

as the creator, getting into the

38:06

rhythm where making the thing is

38:10

a part of your life. And then

38:10

equally as important, it becomes

38:14

a part of other people's lives

38:14

if they, you know, if they're

38:17

just sort of randomly getting

38:17

these episodes, they never know

38:20

when they're going to show up.

38:20

That's not going to let it

38:22

become a routine where they do

38:22

expect this day, I can listen to

38:26

this podcast at the gym, when

38:26

gyms are open or on a commute

38:29

when I had a computer, whatever,

38:29

but it needs to fit into

38:33

people's lives. And I think when

38:33

you're just starting out, or

38:36

maybe when your numbers are not

38:36

as big as you expect them to be,

38:39

that feels presumptuous for you

38:39

to think that I'm going to make

38:42

a podcast that's going to be

38:42

part of someone's life. But you

38:45

absolutely can. And it

38:45

absolutely will become that and

38:48

they're not care. They're not

38:48

digging into your statistics and

38:51

going like, Hmm, this isn't in

38:51

the top 50% of Buzzsprout

38:54

podcast, so I shouldn't be

38:54

listening to it. They just want

38:58

they just want the thing that

38:58

you're making if it lands with

39:00

them. And the only way that they

39:00

can find it is if you just keep

39:04

kind of consistently making out

39:04

so long story extra long I, I

39:08

always recommend that people

39:08

have consistent schedules, not

39:11

for the platform or an algorithm

39:11

or anything but for themselves

39:14

and the community that they're building around it.

39:16

Yep. So if you want to dig more into these stats, we'll leave a link in the show notes

39:18

for this episode. And if you

39:22

check back in the beginning of

39:22

December, you also be able to

39:24

see the November stats. So

39:24

you'll be able to compare how

39:28

podcasting is growing or how

39:28

apps are moving around month to

39:32

month. And this will be

39:32

something that we update on a

39:35

monthly basis. So you can kind

39:35

of keep track of how the podcast

39:38

industry as a whole is shifting,

39:38

as you know and be able to see

39:42

kind of how you're doing in the

39:42

grand scheme of things. So Apple

39:47

just sent a lovely email to all

39:47

the podcasters that have a

39:51

podcast on Apple, Tom, I'm sure

39:51

that you got this email as well.

39:55

Oh yes, talking about their

39:55

beautiful, wonderfully designed.

39:59

I'm trying Think of all my Tim

39:59

Cook words, a embed player, that

40:04

magical magical Yes, it just

40:04

works. It's like magic, courage,

40:08

a new, a new embedded player

40:08

that allows you to embed your

40:13

Apple podcasts listed podcast on

40:13

your website. So when you go

40:20

through a podcast hosts like

40:20

Buzzsprout, or to my knowledge,

40:23

basically every other podcast

40:23

host, they give you some code

40:28

that you can drop on your

40:28

website to allow people to

40:31

listen to your podcast directly

40:31

on the internet, as opposed to

40:35

going into an app to your

40:35

podcast. Well, now Apple has

40:38

come out with their own embed

40:38

player that you could use if you

40:41

wanted to, on your own podcast

40:41

website. So just looking at this

40:45

NBA player, what are your just

40:45

initial impressions of kind of

40:50

the design and the layout? And

40:50

how they how they put it

40:52

together?

40:53

Yeah, I'd start with

40:53

saying like, I think this is

40:55

truly an answer to Spotify as

40:55

embed player, we'll talk about

41:00

the big drawback that these have

41:00

in a second, I'm sure. But

41:03

Spotify was pushed off, maybe

41:03

now. It's an answer to the

41:07

Spotify embed player because

41:07

Spotify started saying, Hey, why

41:12

don't you put this nice looking

41:12

player on your sites, it's got a

41:15

nice Spotify logo. The one big

41:15

downside to it was your podcasts

41:21

had to be on Spotify to get it.

41:21

And to when people click

41:25

Subscribe, it says, Well, you

41:25

know, the only place to

41:28

subscribe to Spotify, right? And

41:28

then it only open Spotify apps.

41:32

So I mean, we just talked to

41:32

these platforms, stats, and

41:37

Spotify is only a quarter of all

41:37

podcasts. Listen, so for three

41:41

quarters of your listeners, that

41:41

stunk, you know, now they have

41:45

to go and try to figure out what

41:45

to how to find your podcast. And

41:49

now Apple said, Alright, well,

41:49

if people are going to do this,

41:53

if they're going to be putting

41:53

Spotify players, they might as

41:56

well be doing an apple player.

41:56

And we're Apple, we can make

42:00

stuff that looks beautiful. That

42:00

works really well. We know more

42:04

than anyone It feels like about

42:04

podcasting. And so they made

42:07

this player. Um, they too have

42:07

added in the same limitation,

42:12

which makes sense, obviously,

42:12

for these companies, but they

42:14

say, Oh, I mean, this is very

42:14

Apple esque thing. It's like,

42:19

Oh, we we weren't aware that

42:19

other people had podcast apps,

42:22

because they're like, the best,

42:22

the best way to listen to a

42:25

podcast is on Apple podcasts, on

42:25

your Mac, you know, maybe on

42:29

your iPhone, maybe on your iPad.

42:29

And so it just pops up in the

42:33

apps directly. So that's a big

42:33

drawback for this. But yeah,

42:38

sorry to hijack that question,

42:38

Travis. I mean, what do you guys

42:41

think of the design?

42:42

I mean, it's a Delta

42:42

that kind of jump in there,

42:45

apple, apples design, you know,

42:45

I'm a fan. I appreciate it. But

42:53

it does kind of it bumps up

42:53

against this question that I've

42:57

had, when it comes to embed

42:57

players is I've been actually

43:01

wanting an apple one in the past

43:01

because that is where most

43:04

people listen. And it's where I

43:04

listen to my podcasts and and

43:07

that kind of stuff. But I have

43:07

always had the question of what

43:10

about the people who don't

43:10

listen on Apple? What when

43:14

someone goes on Android device

43:14

to your website, and others as a

43:18

player, yeah, they can stream it

43:18

from your site, but there's

43:21

nothing they can click to open

43:21

it on their device. And it I

43:28

don't know if this is the question or not, but it kind of highlights the importance of

43:29

importance to me, at least of

43:32

having a player that not only

43:32

lets you play it from your site,

43:35

but also lets them then choose

43:35

where they want to then go get

43:39

more of your show or, you know,

43:39

then click the little subscribe

43:43

notification button. Because I

43:43

might be going way off topic

43:48

here. If so I apologize. But

43:48

I've been using I speak

43:51

passionately because I've been

43:51

using the Buzzsprout player on

43:54

my website for a while now, for

43:54

all three podcasts. I have a

43:57

podcast page, three podcasts,

43:57

each one has a player. And up

44:02

until recently, one of my

44:02

podcasts was on anchor. And

44:05

there was Buzzsprout. And it

44:05

bothered me and I even told

44:08

Kevin this when he and I first

44:08

connected, I was like the

44:10

Buzzsprout player looks so nice

44:10

and is so functional. And the

44:13

anchor player like does not look

44:13

the same. It's not as great.

44:16

It's it's very OneNote. It's you

44:16

can listen to this one episode

44:20

on this one platform right here

44:20

at the end. Whereas the

44:23

Buzzsprout one that I'm using,

44:23

you can kind of scroll through,

44:25

you can see a bunch of episodes,

44:25

you can customize the color, so

44:28

it matches like the layout of my

44:28

site, exactly how I wanted it.

44:32

And then there's a little button

44:32

you can click. And not only do

44:35

you have apple and Spotify but

44:35

you can scroll through and like

44:39

all the new mentioned overcast

44:39

that's like right there fourth

44:42

on the list. So if even though

44:42

that's only 1.4 or 5% of people

44:47

listening, they can still in two

44:47

clicks get to their platform of

44:52

choice and that to me like that

44:52

openness, that versatility is

44:56

hugely valuable. So the design

44:56

is great. I don't think But the

45:00

functionality is quite there.

45:00

From what I at least one on my

45:04

website.

45:06

Yeah. And I see this is,

45:06

you know, in addition to kind of

45:08

answering the Spotify embed

45:08

player when they released that

45:13

this is almost like the next

45:13

step from when Apple fixed, you

45:17

know, the viewing a podcast in a

45:17

web browser page, which used to

45:22

be terrible, like it used to be

45:22

completely non functional. And

45:26

then they're like, well, what if

45:26

we took like a super light

45:28

version of the apple podcast

45:28

app, and formatted it to look

45:32

nice in a web browser, and you

45:32

could click a button to open the

45:35

actual podcast app. That's kind

45:35

of what this is. But for your

45:40

website, so the functionality is

45:40

the same, you can see, you know,

45:44

the recent episodes, you can

45:44

click to start listening to one,

45:48

you can't see the show notes.

45:48

For these episodes, there's, you

45:53

know, so you can only see like

45:53

the four or five most recent,

45:56

and then if you want to see all

45:56

the episodes you have, you have

45:59

to click a button that opens the

45:59

podcast and Apple podcasts. So

46:03

it's almost like a preview of

46:03

your podcast in Apple podcasts

46:08

with some limited playing

46:08

functionality. So if you're

46:12

thinking about should I use this

46:12

embed player or my Buzzsprout

46:15

embed player? Definitely you use

46:15

your Buzzsprout embed player,

46:19

as long as the guy who

46:19

runs the Buzzsprout YouTube

46:21

channel tells you.

46:23

That's right until I

46:23

changed my my tune.

46:26

Jobs. Can I correct

46:26

something? Yes. It does have

46:30

show notes.

46:31

Oh, it does have show notes.

46:32

Yeah, you just have to

46:32

click on an episode. And then it

46:35

would start playing it on the

46:35

side. And when you do that, it

46:39

has the show notes right there.

46:41

Yes, but they're not

46:41

formatted. And they're not

46:44

formatted. You get a preview of

46:44

the show notes. You don't get

46:46

all the show notes.

46:47

You get a preview. Yeah,

46:47

maybe like the first hundred

46:50

words of the shownotes. It does

46:50

drop the formatting, which is a

46:54

bummer. I mean, I'll be honest,

46:54

if Apple podcasts was still the

46:57

90%, I would be very, very

46:57

tempted to use this. Let's say

47:03

if we talked about all these

47:03

people who have Apple podcasts.

47:06

I think if you are one of the

47:06

people who your podcast is about

47:09

Apple, you probably should be

47:09

using this because yeah, your

47:13

listeners are almost all on

47:13

Apple devices, or you're

47:17

probably kind of proselytizing

47:17

anyway. And you're trying to get

47:20

people to move to Apple. So this

47:20

is a good way to do it. Yeah, I

47:23

mean, it looks, I think it looks

47:23

great. I don't want to say too

47:26

much negative, except that it is

47:26

tough to recommend something

47:29

when it's going to be a pretty

47:29

rough experience for someone

47:34

who's not on Apple. But it does

47:34

have some good features like

47:38

it's if people have dark mode

47:38

selected on their, their device,

47:42

it switches into dark mode for

47:42

them. It's responsive so that it

47:46

works on mobile devices. And on

47:46

desktop, it looks really pretty

47:53

and it will match, you know that

47:53

Apple aesthetic. So it's got all

47:57

that going for it. And obviously

47:57

it's going to be updating, you

48:00

know, this is similar to the

48:00

Buzzsprout player, it updates

48:02

when you add a new episode, it's

48:02

going to be there right on the

48:06

top. And so you don't have to

48:06

think, oh, after I publish, I go

48:11

back and re update my site, this

48:11

will update for you

48:15

automatically.

48:16

Yeah. And then when you

48:16

go to the page, where you can

48:20

get the code for the apple

48:20

podcasts and bed player, they

48:24

also provide some other things

48:24

that are actually really

48:27

helpful. So one is you can

48:27

generate a short link that links

48:31

to your podcasts and Apple

48:31

podcasts. So if you're sharing

48:34

links, I mean, this is this is

48:34

something that, you know, unless

48:38

you physically take someone's

48:38

phone, open Apple podcasts and

48:41

subscribe to it. It's like how

48:41

do you text someone to link to

48:44

your podcast, especially if you

48:44

don't have like a dedicated

48:47

website, if you know they have

48:47

an apple iphone, you can get

48:49

this short link, then just save

48:49

it in a note and you can send it

48:53

to people to help promote your

48:53

show. And then they also give

48:56

you the badges like the thing

48:56

that says listen on Apple

48:59

podcasts, they give you the app

48:59

icon, even a QR code. So you can

49:03

have a QR code on a business

49:03

card. And people can you know,

49:08

scroll over it with their their

49:08

phone and it'll open your show

49:11

on Apple podcasts on their

49:11

phone. So there's some cool,

49:14

like additional assets and

49:14

resources for helping people

49:19

find your show on Apple

49:19

podcasts. And so if you find

49:22

yourself consistently promoting

49:22

your show to iPhone, listen,

49:25

users and Apple podcast

49:25

listeners, then these could be

49:29

some really great resources to

49:29

include on your website, on your

49:32

social media platforms and those

49:32

kind of things. What's the final

49:35

word on the apple podcast

49:35

player? Well, I

49:38

mean, I could answer this

49:38

who's it for, in my mind, anyone

49:41

who's using the Spotify player.

49:41

And you do not have a podcast

49:45

that has a contractual

49:45

relationship with Spotify. I

49:49

would switch over to this and

49:49

the people that I know who are

49:51

using Spotify player, mostly

49:51

podcasters who I think they're

49:56

on hosts that don't have a good

49:56

player and so they just wants

50:00

Something that looks really

50:00

good. And I think this looks

50:02

better than the Spotify one,

50:02

it's got, you know, Spotify is

50:07

half the size of Apple as far as

50:07

listeners. So now you've made a

50:11

better experience for a lot more

50:11

listeners, though I still, in my

50:15

mind, I would still recommend

50:15

moving to a host, they had a

50:19

player that was platform

50:19

agnostic. Or, if you like the

50:24

host you're on, you could use something like a third party player, like fuse box, fuse

50:26

box.fm, I believe. And that has

50:31

a lot more functionality. Just

50:31

because you want to make it as

50:36

easy as possible for people to

50:36

click that subscribe button, and

50:39

bam, be subscribed to your

50:39

podcast, any bit of friction we

50:43

put in there is going to reduce

50:43

the number of times that people

50:47

do click through to your podcast.

50:52

So in the last episode

50:52

of Buzzcast, we did a lot of

50:55

listener questions. And there

50:55

was one that we wanted to

50:58

answer. But Alvin had a good

50:58

idea, which was instead of us

51:03

speculating on what the answer

51:03

is, let's go right to the

51:06

source. So Alvin, why don't you

51:06

talk about the conversation that

51:09

you had with the the creator of

51:09

listen notes. Alright, so

51:12

we got a question from

51:12

Jordan, listen, notes just

51:15

released Listen, score and

51:15

global rank. And she was a

51:19

little confused on how that all

51:19

is determined, and just wanted

51:24

to talk to it. So I actually,

51:24

for a long time, have useless

51:28

and notes. And I feel like I've

51:28

connected to women a few times.

51:34

And so we got him on the line.

51:34

And I just want to ask you some

51:37

questions. A little bit about

51:37

what listen notes is and how

51:42

you're doing all this. So could

51:42

you just tell me, what is listen

51:46

notes.

51:47

Hi, everyone. Hi,

51:47

Jordan. These are nauseas

51:52

podcast, search engine and

51:52

database. You can think about

51:55

your IMDb for podcast. So IMDb

51:55

is a database for movies,

52:02

listeners is a database for

52:02

podcasts. We have a website

52:07

designer Comm. You can go to

52:07

website and then search podcast,

52:11

search podcast episodes, like

52:11

how you use Google. We also

52:14

provide an API for developers.

52:14

So developers want to build a

52:20

podcast app or website, and they

52:20

can use our API to access to the

52:25

polocrosse database.

52:26

That's awesome. I use

52:26

listen notes, because one of the

52:29

really nice features you have is

52:29

you do a much better job at

52:33

search than almost anybody else.

52:33

And so if I want to learn about

52:37

a particular thing, especially

52:37

when I want to learn about a

52:40

author in a book that she or he

52:40

is written, I can search their

52:46

name. And it's not like they the

52:46

name doesn't have to be in the

52:50

title, it could just be in the

52:50

transcript and other places. So

52:54

you're able to pull back much

52:54

better episode recommendations

52:58

than I think anybody else on the

52:58

web.

53:01

Thank you easily

53:01

descent knows it was a side

53:04

project of mine, and I wanted to

53:04

search episodes. So you was

53:09

early 2017. Back then I couldn't

53:09

find a good tool to search

53:14

episodes. So most podcasts

53:14

require you to subscribe to

53:19

podcasts first, and then find

53:19

episodes to listen. But I listen

53:24

to tons of podcasts. I don't

53:24

want to subscribe to one another

53:28

podcast. So yeah, I wanted this

53:28

to so I believe as a side

53:33

project. And now I've been

53:33

working on it full time for

53:36

three years.

53:37

That's awesome. I really

53:37

love it. Because you have a

53:40

really small team, it's you. And

53:40

I know you've you've kind of

53:43

worked with some other people.

53:43

But it's super awesome to see

53:46

people who are kind of forging

53:46

their own path in the podcasting

53:50

industry, and providing

53:50

something totally different. I

53:53

feel like everybody else is too

53:53

afraid because they think maybe

53:56

Google will come do it someday

53:56

maybe somebody else will try to

53:59

steal my thunder, and you just

53:59

cruising on and making it better

54:04

and better every year. One of

54:04

the things you just launched. So

54:07

let's talk about George

54:07

question. The listen score and

54:10

global rank. What are these?

54:13

Yeah, so this score is

54:13

basically a simple numeric value

54:18

to estimate the popularity of

54:18

podcasts. You can think of it

54:23

like Nielsen ratings. So they

54:23

Nielsen ratings about TV and

54:29

then we barely call it one a

54:29

simple way to get a rough sense

54:35

how popular podcast is. And the

54:35

and the radio is, is ranging

54:41

from zero to 100. The higher the

54:41

more popular. Yeah, and the

54:47

global rank is basically to rank

54:47

based on this end score.

54:51

So what I'm what I look

54:51

at right now for Buzzcast, which

54:56

will put this interview on

54:56

Buzzcast Buzzcast listener score

55:01

is 41. And that's out of zero to

55:01

100. Yes, yes. And what's going

55:07

into that score.

55:09

So basically, we

55:09

develop a mathematical model to

55:14

calculate the score, based on

55:14

first party data and third party

55:19

data by first party data ID and

55:19

like website activities, you can

55:25

imagine people come to our site

55:25

to search, to listen to

55:31

podcasts, play episodes, browse

55:31

pages, so we can get pageviews.

55:38

And then people at podcast to

55:38

playlist, create clips, things

55:42

like that. And by third party

55:42

data, basically open web data,

55:48

like media benches. If polycast

55:48

is mentioned, by New York Times,

55:53

Washington Post, a bunch of

55:53

online media, this podcast is

55:57

probably very popular, right?

55:57

Also a podcast could be been

56:02

sent on social media, right? So

56:02

these days, our open web data,

56:07

anyone can look at the data,

56:07

Corolla data, and then do some

56:12

transformation and case by case

56:12

basis to count how many times

56:18

this product has been sent.

56:18

Also, there are websites that

56:23

you can find reviews, ratings,

56:23

items, and other size. So this

56:28

kind of data we also use. Yeah,

56:28

there are a bunch of other

56:33

signals, we couldn't reveal too

56:33

much. Because we don't want

56:38

people to gain the system. Also,

56:38

we we would tend to the air, we

56:43

then we would use different

56:43

data, different signals, or we

56:48

would remove certain signals our

56:48

calculation in the future.

56:53

Right. So this is called

56:53

actually it is for quite a while

56:57

we've been using this score

56:57

internally, for our search

57:01

ranking, is one of the ranking

57:01

signal we use is kind of like

57:06

PageRank, or domain authority in

57:06

SEO. Right? How do they

57:13

calculate this kind of number?

57:13

Well, also, they also take many

57:17

signals on the open web.

57:19

So what we're doing is

57:19

you're kind of combining things

57:22

you can see on other sites

57:22

you're combining. How often

57:26

things happen on your site.

57:26

people search for that podcast,

57:28

though. Yeah, podcast is a good

57:28

fit. For some of the search

57:31

results. Maybe people are

57:31

clicking or adding it to

57:34

playlists, things like that.

57:34

Yeah. Um, so what is a good

57:39

score? I mean, one of our

57:39

podcasts is Buzzcast has a

57:44

listen score of 41. The other

57:44

one has a listen score of 50.

57:49

How good is that?

57:51

That's pretty good.

57:51

Because most more most podcasts,

57:55

current score beyond 20. Okay,

57:55

something either. Yeah, so

58:01

absolute value, doesn't matter.

58:01

The match is a relative score,

58:06

you need to compare with other

58:06

score other podcasts in your

58:10

same domain. Now, you are a post

58:10

pawlikowski company. Okay. You

58:16

may you may look at other

58:16

podcasting companies, podcast,

58:20

right. Compare we said, Yeah,

58:23

okay. And then global

58:23

rank, I think they're very

58:26

related, right? global rank is

58:26

just giving you a percentile for

58:31

your listen score. So it's,

58:31

could you explain a little bit

58:34

more about that? They'll just

58:34

tell you like, compared to 100,

58:38

podcasters, you're probably in

58:38

the top 50 percentile or

58:42

whatever percentile?

58:43

Yeah, we simply link by

58:43

distance goal. And if we just

58:50

talk to one, European 1%, then

58:50

you do point 1% out of 1.7

58:58

million podcast, globally.

58:58

Awesome.

59:01

So yeah, so how to start

59:01

a podcast is a top 1% right now

59:06

and then, like Buzzcast, 2%,

59:06

yet?

59:10

We only we only sold a

59:10

top 10%. Okay, for top, top, top

59:18

10% and podcasts for now. was

59:18

most podcasts. Well, if you if

59:25

we, you know, in top 10% maybe

59:25

you don't want to know your

59:28

ranking.

59:30

Yeah. And if it's pretty

59:30

low, then probably there's a Oh,

59:34

so if I look at like the daily

59:34

it actually goes beyond that. It

59:36

says top point. Oh, 1%.

59:39

Yeah, yeah. It's a

59:39

pretty cool euro is one of the

59:43

most

59:45

well, that's super

59:45

interesting. What should people

59:47

do if they want to improve their

59:47

listening score? Is there any

59:51

benefit to improving their

59:51

listen score beyond looking good

59:54

on listen notes,

59:55

okay. My eyesight would

59:55

disappoint you don't don't try

59:59

to improve Throw your distance

59:59

goal is focus on creating good

1:00:03

content. Okay, grow your

1:00:03

audience. Because we don't we

1:00:07

don't want people to gain the

1:00:07

system. This score is also used

1:00:11

in our ranking editor, right? If

1:00:11

you artificially increase the

1:00:16

score, maybe you're doing a

1:00:16

pretty high, you know, ethos, so

1:00:22

please don't do it. Okay,

1:00:22

so you heard it here. First, do

1:00:25

not try to improve your

1:00:25

listening score beyond doing

1:00:27

anything, except just grow your

1:00:27

audience by putting out great

1:00:31

content. Yeah, um, well, if

1:00:31

people want to learn more about

1:00:35

listen notes, and especially

1:00:35

these two new things that you've

1:00:38

launched, where should they go?

1:00:38

And is there anything you'd

1:00:41

recommend them to read?

1:00:43

Yeah, so we have a

1:00:43

blog. So these are notes comm

1:00:47

slash blog. So you can you can

1:00:47

read some articles, behind the

1:00:52

scenes, how we operate this and

1:00:52

knows, and some of my very

1:00:57

opinionated point of views?

1:00:57

Well,

1:01:01

I've seen I've always

1:01:01

followed you on Twitter. So I've

1:01:04

seen a little bit of it, and I

1:01:04

love it. Okay, we need more

1:01:07

people with opinions that are

1:01:07

informed by actually working in

1:01:12

digs. I think it's great. Well,

1:01:12

thank you so much for joining

1:01:15

me. And hopefully, we get you

1:01:15

back on the podcast sometime

1:01:18

soon.

1:01:19

So thank you.

1:01:23

Well, Tom, thank you so

1:01:23

much for hopping on squad cast

1:01:26

with us today and contributing

1:01:26

to the show. I know a lot of

1:01:29

people appreciated your

1:01:29

perspective. Where can people

1:01:32

find you online? where's the

1:01:32

best place to connect with you?

1:01:34

Yeah,

1:01:35

thanks again, so much

1:01:35

for having me. The best place to

1:01:37

find me is youtube.com slash Tom

1:01:37

buck. Or you could just visit my

1:01:42

website, which is Hi, my name is

1:01:42

tom.com. And that URL makes me

1:01:47

laugh every time.

1:01:49

That's phenomenal.

1:01:49

That's like, what was it? When

1:01:52

everybody signed up for MySpace

1:01:52

and you get your first friend?

1:01:54

Do you know how often

1:01:54

from 2006 to 2008? Every time I

1:01:59

introduced myself to someone to

1:01:59

be Hi, I'm Tom, they would say

1:02:02

my space Tom. flashbacks every

1:02:02

time I hear that. Like, I'm

1:02:07

surprised that he hasn't

1:02:07

reached out and asked to buy the

1:02:09

domain from you.

1:02:10

True. I mean, he's got the

1:02:10

money for it.

1:02:14

So yeah, so Hi, my name

1:02:14

is Tom calm and our call to

1:02:17

action at the end of the

1:02:17

episode. Rather than going and

1:02:19

checking out our YouTube

1:02:19

channel, click the link to go

1:02:22

and check out Tom's YouTube channel. He just did a great review on the new shore MV

1:02:24

seven, which he was rocking

1:02:27

today in this episode, with a

1:02:27

slight modification, which I

1:02:31

imagine you may or may not see

1:02:31

in a future episode on his

1:02:33

channel.

1:02:34

Yeah, it's a the

1:02:34

plosives This is a great

1:02:37

sounding microphone, but the

1:02:37

plosives are a huge problem. And

1:02:42

I put the windscreen from the SM

1:02:42

seven B on it, which actually

1:02:47

almost like it works. I mean, it

1:02:47

fixes the post problem. It just

1:02:51

looks a little janky but it's

1:02:51

not too bad. But it makes the

1:02:55

mic so much more usable. So

1:02:55

yeah, go check that out. And I'm

1:02:58

sure that will pop up in future

1:02:58

videos as well. Awesome. Well,

1:03:01

thanks again for your

1:03:01

time. That's it for us for

1:03:03

today. And as always keep

1:03:03

podcasting