Podcasting 2.0: What's Cooking in the Future of Audio?

Grab your spoon.

It's time for some podcasting.

2.0 stew.

This is the future of podcasting, where we ponder what awaits the podcasters of today.

From the school of podcasting, here's Dave Jackson.

And from the audacity to podcast, here's Daniel J.

Lewis.

Daniel, got your spoon ready?

Episode 51 is on the table, and it's cooling, so get in here quick.

I love the metaphors.

We have some interesting things to talk about, some multiple news items.

Now, the future of podcasting, when we talked about what we wanted to do with the show, was never going to be a current news kind of show, but more about what's coming in the future.

But along the way, there is certainly some good news, and we've got a pile of fun, good, cool stuff to talk about today.

Absolutely.

I'm looking forward to it.

Can I cheat and talk about how I got to play something early?

I mean, it's like six days early.

But today I got to play with the new captivate spark tool, which is an AI tool.

And it was funny because I was watching it, and it transcribes your file, and then it goes in and gives you multiple titles, multiple descriptions.

So again, you're in complete control, and it just does a ton of stuff.

But the one, because I saw that and I was like, all right, yes, multiple options.

And you get to give it a little bit of a prompt as it's making your transcription.

So the human is involved kind of.

Before, I'd have to go back and play with a little more, but it looked like it was either right before it made the transcript, I believe, or right as it was.

It's both, I believe.

Because what you're doing in the AI world, everything that we're doing with AI, is really just sending a single command to the AI system.

And all of the instructions of what it should do with that command are inside that command.

So it's not like you have all these toggles and things.

It's you describe exactly what you want.

Like, even with the upcoming Apple intelligence, some developer uncovered the actual command that is sent, and it gives all this extra context, including it even says, your responses should be in JSON format that look like this.

So what you're doing inside of the spark AI thing is you're adding to that command with some extra context.

So I believe it's using that both when it makes the transcript as well as when it does other things.

So, like, you can explain your tone of voice, you can add some other stuff, especially if you have certain things that are often misheard, like podcagement, for example.

I'm surprised that the transcription tool that I use with podgagement, so this is like circular here, the transcript tool that I use to transcribe voicemails that come through podgagement.

Get your own@podgagement.com actually accurately transcribed podgagement.

Even though that word did not exist.

I invented that word.

It did not exist anywhere on the Internet before then.

So either that AI transcript model was up to date enough that had seen it, or, I don't know, maybe it just guessed it, but I didn't have to explain to it.

However, I could have said, anytime you think you hear me say podcast engagement or pot engagement, or I could have said certain things like that.

I'm kind of telling it, autocorrect it to this or the audacity to podcast, I could say this is for the podcast, the audacity to podcast.

And I'm spelling it out so then it knows.

Never transcribe that word in the middle to as the number two.

And then it knows this is the proper noun.

Certain things like that where you're giving it some clarification or context.

Yeah, because captivate to me always comes up with something where they just thought outside the box.

And the one when they showed it, I was like, oh, there it is.

There's, there's the captivate I know and love.

And it is.

You can go into your podcast settings, like you said, you can say if you're serious or funny or whatever, and you set all that up, but then you can go in and have it suggest episode ideas.

And it does this by looking at your titles and your stats to see what's working.

And then the one that blew me away was, I did this and it came up with some ideas and it suggested guests, and the guests were like, one was about talking about podcast advertising and it suggested I reach out to Heather Osgoode and I was like, wow, that's, that's really intelligent.

So it was impressive.

I'll be interested to see when I finally get to do a whole episode and run through the whole thing.

But it was just one that, that was new.

And I guess as we're talking about people using new technology, we didn't really talk about buzzsprout, updated their websites.

And one of the things that they have on a buzzsprout website now is the part where you recommend other people.

The pod role now is now on their website.

So it was nice to just see that feature in use kind of thing.

So those were some things in terms of media hosts that were updating.

So that was just part of our stew.

And you know what I really like before we move on with the way that captivate does this, because some of these things, you can get third party tools that can give you this information or you could feed some of this into any kind of AI model yourself.

But what I really like that captivate did, since captivate is the podcast hosting provider, they are also making your RSS feed.

And they have Amy, their dynamic audio engine that can do dynamic content insertion, is that when it comes to the chapters, they will put the chapters into your chapter setting there inside of captivate so you can see it on the waveform.

You can adjust the positioning of those chapters if you want.

Also, you can have the AI find the spots that might be good for dynamic ad insertion, dynamic announcements, any kind of content like that.

And it can find those spots and you can see where they are and it puts those into Amy, their dynamic content engine, so that it's already there for you.

And that's great.

And if you don't really like where it put it, you can just slide it slightly to the left or right and it's fine.

And I love the fact that it explains why it thinks this is a good spot.

It's like at the 29 minutes, 27 second mark, we found this.

And here's why we think it's good, because they're, they're transitioning from one topic to the other, whatever.

So it just, it looked really interesting.

The other thing that we need to clarify, at least I had to clarify in the video where they were announcing this, they make it sound like you can't upload your own transcript anymore.

And that's not true.

You can upload your own transcript.

You can't upload your own transcript and then go, okay, now do all that magic voodoo stuff with the transcript.

They only do that with a transcript that they create.

So if you wanted to do those, like you mentioned the timestamps and things like that, it's not going to do that.

If, let's say you use cast magic and you uploaded your own transcript from cast magic, and Mark said the reason for that is a lot of transcripts are not good.

And so now you're trying to do these other tools and he said it really just put them in the front line of being tech support for all these bad transcription tools.

And they're like, yeah, we're not doing that.

So if you want the kind of features that Daniel just talked about, where it's coming up with ideas, where to put chapters and all.

It's like you've got to use their transcript, which makes sense.

And it's only a dollar an hour, which is pretty cheap.

That is great.

Anytime you add AI to any kind of program.

I know Canva added AI, I'm not sure how long ago, but their price is going up.

And they said one of the reasons why is we built AI and to make all these computer generated images, and when you got that AI thing in the background, it's not cheap, Preston.

But consider this compared to what the alternatives are like.

If you've got a 1 hour a week podcast and you're doing, let's say four episodes per month, that's 240 minutes per month or 4 hours per month.

The lowest plan on cast magic.

And we like cast magic, they do great stuff.

So this is not to degrade them, but just as a comparison.

If you're on the annual plan with cast magic, you're paying $19 a month for 30 minutes.

So 5 hours of content.

Or if you're already paying for captivate, you're paying $5 extra per month.

And it integrates directly into the hosting provider experience and your RSS feed and all of that.

So that's, I wouldn't be surprised if they raise that price in the future.

And if they do, it would still be a good deal.

And you can export the transcript, because I know working at podpage, it will import somebody's whatever it is SRT file, and that is not meant to be read by humans.

And so you'll look in the transcript section of a pod page episode and it's just junk.

And so I always export an actual just text file copy, paste it in there and you're good to go.

And so you will be able to export in a couple formats, they said text, and then if you want HTML, so if you just want to copy and paste it into your website, that's good to go as well.

It was impressive.

Again, just fun to see new tools and new ways.

In terms of the pod roll at Buzzsprout, these features are slowly being implemented.

And that transcript that comes from captivate is 2.0 enabled, which leads us to the next thing that's been updated.

Yeah, Pocketcast now supports transcripts, and this is fantastic because I wonder if they're taking the cue from both sides of this, because they already supported some podcasting 2.0 features.

Not a whole lot, I think.

Actually transcripts is only their number three feature that they support now, but they were already supporting some features that Apple doesn't support, but now the Apple supports transcripts.

I wonder if then they were seeing things coming from both sides, from the Apple side and from the independent podcasting 2.0 side, and they decided we're getting pressure on both sides.

Let's add this feature.

The transcripts are a great thing to add.

So having that inside Pocketcast is huge because after Apple, that's the one of the next biggest podcast apps out there, and it's cross platform, too.

So that is fantastic for podcasting 2.0 developments.

Yeah, if Pocketcast had a few more like the value for value featuring, right, streaming, Satoshis, et cetera, that would be my app because they have Android, they have iOS, they have a web based interface.

And I love the fact that you can just, for me, I'm constantly switching from my computer to my phone, and so I love the fact that I can be listening on my computer.

And their web interface has all the features.

A lot of times when you go to podcast Guru has a nice web interface, but it doesn't have all your playlists.

You just have all your shows and things like that.

Even Apple now has a great web interface, but they don't have your playlist.

And you know me, I love my playlist.

Well, Pocketcast has it all there, so it's Pocketcast.

You could be Dave Jackson's number one recommendation.

Just throw in a couple more value options there.

I know, Adam, right now, Adam Curry is kind of pushing to have all the apps, at least have that.

I'd have to go to podcasting two.org to figure out which tag it is that has not so much the Satoshi one, but the one where you can put like a link to PayPal or buy me a coffee.

The funding tag, yeah, he's hoping that people will start putting that funding a little more prominent in apps.

But yeah, albin over at Buzzsprout had an episode and he's been playing with different apps, and he was saying how much he liked Pocketcast because he was saying how much you could share with it and make clips and things like that.

So that's what made me check it out.

I was like, I need to go look at this.

There are a lot of really nice apps.

It's just a matter of, I want one that have all the fun things, plus the playlist, plus the streaming stuff.

And right now, I think my favorite, at least this week, is podcast guru.

It's Apple and Android.

It's got a web based version.

The web based version is occasionally a little bit behind, but that's okay.

And they do the streaming Satoshi and I can use my own.

In this case, I'm still using my Albie wallethood, which is nice because then, like true fans, I like true fans, but I have to use, I have to fill it up in true fans and use it in true fans.

I don't believe at this point I'd have to double check.

I can use my, I used to be able to use my get Albie address in true fans, and I think now I have to use the true fans wallet, but I could double check on that.

But speaking of true fans and Sam.

Sethi, yeah, Sam really picked up the mantle that we were dropping from a recent episode, and he decided to resurrect the podcamp idea.

And he's putting together a podcamp 2.0, which I think is a great name for it because it's both kind of the future of podcasting content as well as it is sort of a resurrection of the podcamp idea.

I'm not sure if there have been any podcamps for a while, and Podcamp is actually a trademark term that you license.

So I pointed some of this out to Sam and he said, we're going to embrace all of that.

There is a little bit of leeway that you can have with that.

Like you might remember when I did Podcamp Cincinnati, I did charge an admission fee for that.

It was very small, though.

It was, I think, ten or $20 for that for the two day conference or two day event.

But Podcamp 2.0 will be overseas, somewhere near London probably.

And we'll have the link in the notes for more details on that.

There's no set location, no set date yet.

It's just right now a concept putting out the feelers and the interest, and I think it will be fantastic.

And what's cool I love about this is that this shows the reach of international podcasting.

Now, is that a major new thing in podcasting is going to happen first overseas, not here in the US.

And I say overseas for us us people, but we are overseas to them.

We are the others for them.

But that's awesome that they'll be doing that.

And I don't know if I'll be able to make it.

I would love to make it over there anywhere overseas someday would be fun, but especially for Podcamp 2.0.

Love to support what Sam is working on over there, but we might have something like that over here in the US at some point, as Dave and I kind of hinted at a couple episodes ago.

Yeah.

When I saw it on LinkedIn, I think it was, and I said, okay, good, I can start saving now because it's not a cheap flight.

Well, I mean, anytime I see Sam or James or, you know, mark from Captivate or Colin Gray, anybody I see come to the states from overseas, I'm always deeply appreciative of that, just because it's a lot of money to fly, and then when you throw in the hotel and everything else, it's like, holy cow.

So, yeah, I'm going to try, but I cannot promise.

I don't know, maybe you have to do a GoFundMe account for.

Or you and I could carpool over there.

We'll be there in a month.

Yeah.

And Sam is.

I mentioned true fans.

He's, I guess, not so much waving the white flag, because true fans is a PWM, a PWA, a podcast.

Web or podcast.

It's a.

It's a web app.

And for whatever reason, not everybody loves web apps.

And so I guess he's going to turn true fans into an actual app that you could have on your iPhone, your Android, etcetera.

And so that's coming in the future, and that's.

I know.

He's put so much work into Truefans FM.

I was like, it's.

To add that on top of the work, I was like, oh, holy cow.

Because just with my limited amount of supporting apps at Libsyn, I just was like, oh, are you sure?

Are you sure you want to do that?

Holy cow.

But speaking of iPhones, someone I know got a.

A new, a newer, older iPhone, a slight newish new to you phone I am now rocking.

I was on an iPhone twelve Pro, I'm now on an iPhone 15 Pro.

And I noticed some things.

So not all of this is new.

One of these things I'll talk about in a minute is new, but on the, I forget exactly what generation they added this, but it's definitely in the iPhone 15 Pro, and it's then definitely in the iPhones yet to come after that.

And other devices have this, too.

And it's the always on display.

And what this does is the display is designed so that it can illuminate only the areas that it needs to, and it can run in a very low power mode.

Bye.

Kind of like dropping the frame rate way down or the refresh rate, technically, is what it's doing.

So it's doing this so that the display can remain on, but it consumes very, very, very little power.

It's essentially giving the power only for the pixels that are lit up.

That's basically a way to think of it.

So the display, as the name implies, is always on.

That doesn't mean it's on at full brightness or everything is visible and moving and animated on the display.

But, like, the clock is on there right now.

I'm looking down, I see the date and the time.

I hid my wallpaper background so that's not lighting it up.

I just have a solid black background.

But I had a thought as soon as I realized, oh, yeah, I've gotten always on display right now.

I wanted to test something, and sure enough, it worked.

So I fired up podcast Gurudev.

I loaded up the latest episode of no Agenda show where they have rotating cover art with the chapters and what I saw on my iPhone.

While it was technically asleep, the display was still on.

I could see the COVID art change for each chapter.

I did not have to wake the phone.

I didn't have to move the phone.

I simply looked down and I could see it now.

It was a little dim because my phone wasn't pointing at me, it wasn't plugged into a charger, anything like that.

But still, I could see that the COVID art was there.

So think about that technology as it starts to go into more and more devices that always on displays.

We've had them in the Apple watches for a long time, and I know some Android devices have had them for a long time, too.

So I know this technology is not new.

It's new to me.

And I'm realizing some implications for podcasting with this, especially with what we're trying to do with podcasting.

2.0 super chapters.

Imagine being able to have any kind of engagement that you can put in the future in a chapter.

Being able to be visible on a display that is always on and probably always able to show you whatever that thing is.

Pretty cool.

I know.

I've said, when Adam and John on the no agenda show start discussing the artwork, many times the phone is in my pocket and I'm like, I've heard people say if you're in the car and you have some sort of carplay going on, that's actually really cool to watch it change.

That's where I actually first noticed it.

Now, I don't have Carplay, but with this new iPhone, what I do sometimes is I plug it into a charger.

I use the magsafe thing so it just sticks magnetically onto this charger.

You know, the thing that people often have where their phone is attached to their dash in some way or in front of their air conditioner vent.

Well, I had my phone there, and I'm just used to seeing that the display would turn off if I'm not actively needing navigation directions.

But in this case, the display stayed on because it's always on display.

And the COVID art for the podcast I was listening to was visible and able to change, even though I was not interacting with the phone.

So that meant I didn't have to touch it, I didn't have to do anything with it.

It was just there.

I could see it there in my car.

I didn't even need car play for it.

It was just there.

And I love that.

And imagining the potential for that in both our phones and other technologies we might have in the future as podcasts get more interactive based on what happens in a chapter, I think there's some great potential there.

Well, and the nice thing about that always on display is it enhances the actual experience of just consuming the content.

When I lived in Cleveland, there was a nice restaurant.

They had great food, but the parking lot was always too small, so you had to kind of drive around the block and find a place to park.

And then it was just everything about it was kind of a hassle to where the experience of actually getting the food, eating it and leaving was kind of a hassle.

And so when you, anytime you can enhance the experience to make it easier or just more interactive, I think that's going to be a bonus for anyone.

And it can help with the retention of information that you're sharing, too.

Or think about stuff that maybe you really need to show people.

Like a chart.

Now, of course, that's in some way optimized for display at that size.

So not extremely detailed.

But if you need to show a bar chart or a pie chart or something like that, that is only a few bars or a few divisions of the pie, you can show that easily in an image so that people get that extra context to see what you're talking about.

Or maybe there's some kind of visual context so they're able to associate that with the information that you're giving them, and then they can more easily put that into action, remember it better.

Or just the entertainment value of it, like with no agenda, where they put up the different cover arts that they're talking about, the artwork that they got submitted for it, that's just the entertainment factor to see that and laugh at it.

Yeah, because you'll hear them be like, well, we were going to use this, but this was horrible.

And this.

And then you look up and you're like, yeah, that was not good.

But I mentioned earlier about how I, I love to switch from my computer to my phone.

And this is another thing that you're talking about with, I guess it's called mirroring with your phone.

Yeah, this is brand new.

It's in macOS sequoia.

So it is only between iPhones and macOS sequoia computers, which are the more recent computers.

It runs on my intel iMac, so it's not an M one or M four, whatever, exclusive thing.

But you do need the latest versions of the operating systems on the mobile device and on the computer.

But what this lets you do is you can mirror your iPhone again, you know, brilliant name.

How'd they come up with that?

You're mirroring your iPhone to your computer, but not only able to see what's on the iPhone screen, but interact with your iPhone.

So it's basically, if you could imagine taking your iPhone and gluing it to your monitor and then being able to click on things with it, with your mouse, it's like that.

So you can scroll in apps, you can type through your computer into your iPhone, you interact with the apps and the newer, the phone is like, this didn't work all that well on my iPhone twelve Pro because it was an older model.

It did still work, but just wasn't as smooth.

It works a lot better on the iPhone 15 Pro and will work better on newer generations as well.

But this made me think, all of those podcast apps, you can now have them on your computer through this way and the developer doesn't have to do anything extra with this.

I know that there is already the possibility of installing some iOS apps on an Apple silicon Mac, but the developer has to allow that.

In some cases, there might be things where they have to do a little bit extra work to actually make that function.

This, they don't have to do any of that.

So if you have your iPhone, maybe you don't have the always on display, but you want to be able to see the artwork change while you're listening to a podcast still through the iPhone, you can activate iPhone mirroring on your Mac and be able to move that window to wherever you want.

And so you could see that artwork change, or you can interact with your app, your podcast app through your phone, but you are using your computer.

This does also exist already and it's possible on the Android side as well.

So I know, I'm not saying this is a radical new thing.

That's first time ever.

But the possibilities for this now cross platform and what often happens in the world of technology is, let's be honest, Apple doesn't invent a lot.

They certainly innovate and a lot of things, a lot of competitors products are made better because of the competition that Apple raises with stuff.

So when Apple makes something like this so super simple, you don't have to install anything.

If you're on the latest macOS and iOS versions, think about how that can challenge other companies to make it as seamless for them, too, like Windows and Android, to seamlessly stream the Android device onto Windows so that you can interact with your Android smartphone through your Windows computer or maybe even interact with your Android smartphone through your Mac OS computer, if you're one of those psychos who works like that.

But that is something that could be done and that could be made simpler because of the demonstration of look how easy this is.

And I'm interested in the potential for these things, like with the always on display, the iPhone screen, mirroring some of these things.

What kind of innovations will that inspire?

What kind of new potential for both consumption and even for creation?

Because think of it this way, too many of the iPhone apps you can use to make a podcast, basically, you can use those through your Mac now, too.

I don't think.

I'm not so sure about if it can use the microphone connected to your Mac or the camera.

That would be the.

I just don't know because I haven't thought to even test that until just now.

But that certainly that will be possible at some point, if it's not already possible.

Well, and as you said that I thought about it because Marco has a very much air quotes, web based version of overcast, but it doesn't have all the, it's just a list of your shows and you can listen to it and it works.

It's fine.

But if I could then mirror overcast on my computer now I've got all my playlists, et cetera, et cetera.

I just wish we could, I don't know, hold down Marco, maybe waterboard him a little bit and get him to put some 2.0 stuff into that app.

Yeah, a lot of exciting things.

And again, they're all kind of, if we think about it, they all are somewhat going to make the experience more entertaining, more engaging, and just get more people listening to podcasts.

So very, very cool.

Just by the way, in the interest of full disclosure, Dave and I are affiliates for some of the things that we talked about, like captivate and such.

They are not sponsoring this.

They did not ask to appear on this.

We each have our own affiliate links.

And in fact, if you want to sign up for captivate through our affiliate links, I guess you could pick which one of us is your favorite because we'll have our links in the notes, too.

But nonetheless, we're talking about this stuff because it's interesting and fascinating, not because we get paid for it, but if you want to pay us, you can certainly send us a booster gram, stream us some sats, send a donation offered to sponsor us, maybe we're open to it.

And speaking of streaming sats, I did listen, I'll put a link to this in the show notes.

Adam Curry was on the new media show with Todd and Rob today.

And if you've been kind of like me going, hey, the whole streaming Satoshi thing is kind of glitchy now, we kind of lost our Albie connection, and he said that both he and Dave Jones have been approaching multiple companies and it's coming.

So if you're like, well, what are we going to do?

What's, you know, Alby kind of, especially if you're in the US, you know, Alby kind of became a non player and we understand why.

Nothing wrong against those guys.

But from what I understand, there are, they're looking at multiple options, so we won't have just one solution for this going forward.

So I'm looking forward to whenever they announce that and whenever it's ready.

I know there one was Zebedee.

I think it was something with a z.

And they're putting things into place.

So fear not, we have not lost the streaming Satoshi.

And there may be again, just, I know they were already talking about instead of every second stream or every minute or whatever it was, that in the future, apps may wait and do it every 15 minutes and send one big chunk of sats instead of just these little streams, which we understand it's a lot in some cases to handle.

And as it gets more popular, that could be more of a problem.

Yeah.

And I don't think there's really the need to stream those payments.

I love the ability of saying basically for every minute I listened, send this amount.

But who says that that amount has to be sent exactly the moment that you listened?

Certainly there are privacy concerns with that.

Yes, I can understand that.

But most people, I think, aren't too concerned about that yet.

But the word that I love that you used is several.

Because before this Alby apocalypse, it was just Alby, pretty much everyone was just saying, yeah, you sign up for Alby.

Sign up for Alby.

Integrate Alby wallet into this.

Use the Albie thing.

I'll be this, I'll be that.

Yes, there were a couple of other competitors, but everyone was pretty much pointing and putting all their eggs in the Albie basket.

Now that that's closing, at least in that aspect that we've been used to.

So I'm not saying Albie is closing.

Don't, don't get fearful over that.

But just the way it's working is changing.

It's in some ways getting more complicated, but that is, but then that's created this competitive atmosphere where then more companies are stepping up and saying, well, maybe we could do something.

Or maybe like what Sam is doing with true fans is where he is using that new technology that Albie uses so that that's making it easier for Sam to make it easier for his users.

That's what we needed, is not just a central place, but a decentralized idea that multiple companies can do.

That's exciting.

Yeah.

And it is drop dead easy in true fans to fill up your wallet.

And so what I've been doing is I'm going to have probably my, I'll have two apps, one that I will listen to non 2.0 enabled shows, and then I'll have all my 2.0 enabled shows, maybe in true fans because it is really easy to fill up that wallet.

But speaking of streaming Satoshis, number one, I think in the last episode we mentioned how Saturn might have been having a bad day, and we hope that they, you know, nothing bad.

Well, apparently whatever it was has been solved and they're back.

So that's good.

And I went over to see if we had any new boosted grams, and at least according to my Saturn dashboard, we don't.

But we do appreciate everyone who does stream as they listen.

We always deeply appreciate that.

So no boost to grams.

And with that, I think that's going to do it.

Then for this episode 51 of the.

Future of podcasting, keep boosting and keep podcasting.