The Future of Podcasting Conferences

The future of podcasting conferences. 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, future of podcasting

episode number 49, the future of

podcasting conferences. I, I just came back

from Podcast Movement in DC. The capital of podcasting?

Yes. And, or as I like to call it, podcast summer

camp is really what it felt like. It was, I had a

great time. It was great to catch up with a lot of people, met some

new people. And in general, it was a good time, a

little different. They had all the sessions

minus the keynotes were in this ginormous

concrete room where all the vendors were. So the vendors were happy because

everybody was in that room to get to the different stages.

That's the good news. It was rather noisy, and people like to point

out that there was no carpet. And that is true, and I was very, very

happy to not be standing at a booth. Now Lipson did have carpet in

their booth, but if I had to stand there all day on on concrete in

a booth, my feet would be I'd wanna cut them off. So that was a

little different. How they got around it, because it did make it noisy,

is when you went to sessions, they had wireless headphones. And

you could basically just grab a pair and stay in there all day, and then

you would just click a button and it would go to different channels. And, eventually,

you would hear the sound of your speaker, the person on

stage, show up in your headphones. So that was kinda needed. It

solved the problem of, hey. The audience isn't gonna be able to hear me. The

side effect of that was, as a presenter, a, if you

had a massive plosives going on, you had no

idea. And I know I always try to make

people giggle. And so when you kinda tell a joke or something funny, and

you can't tell if it landed or not because you can't hear them, so that

was a little different. That reminds me of the

first podcast movement ever. It was Clinton from

Comedy Forecast, got a few podcasters together, including myself, to do

a comedy routine during one of the

gatherings of the evenings. And so I got up there. I prepared

this whole script and everything. It was hilarious, by the way. Thank you.

I got to hear it before anybody else. And I was like, oh, Daniel's gonna

kill with this. It was amazing. And then I felt

I I mean, I could see a couple people laughing.

I think you were one of them, and maybe someone else could hear me. But

no one could hear me, which was just so much the

metaphor of what podcasting is like, shouting in a noisy room, hoping that

anybody will listen to you. But that's what it was like

then for just that little thing. Yeah. That would

be stressful to do a conference every session like

that. I had the thought of, oh, why don't they do something like

everyone pull out your smartphones, use your earbuds if you already have earbuds

or use this thing that we provide to you and you could livestream it. But

then you would have the delay because there would be the conversion to

digital, the live streaming, the transmission through the Internet, all of that. So that

wouldn't work. So their in person thing, it kind of surprises me

that they would go with that as being less expensive

than probably some other kind of acoustic treatment. Yeah. I

just know when I was working with the New Media Expo,

and we had a session coming up, and we had 4 speakers.

It was a panel, and we had 3 chairs. And so I called,

the guy that was running it. I'm like, hey. We need another chair. And he

goes, are you sure? And I'm like, well, yeah. We don't want

this person that came here to talk to have to stand. And he's like,

oh, alright. And so it was in Vegas. We

had to have a union worker bring over a chair, and it cost us

$300 to have somebody move the chair. And I've heard

Dan Franks talk about podcast movement because, you know, there'll be times

when they'll have free coffee. Know, there's like a coffee station or whatever,

and it's insane numbers of 1,000 of dollars

for free coffee. Because when you've got 2,000 people drinking

coffee and they've all went out the night before to some Iheart

party, there's a lot of coffee the next morning. And there's the

markup too for the event. It always costs more to have

the food brought to the event. Yeah. But it's it's kind of

a catch 22 in a way because this particular one

I've always seen podcast evolutions as like the one

where the big networks go and, you know, they do,

upfronts where, hey. Here's what, you know, this particular

advertising agency can bring, and here are the really popular shows that you wanna

advertise on. They do that kind of stuff, and there are a lot of meetings

at that. And Podcast Movement was supposed to be kind of for

the independent podcaster, and they were definitely

there, but not in the numbers, you know, like in the

past. And some people said, well, it was during the week,

so you had to take off work if you had a job. Other people

mentioned that not only did you have to take off from your job, but it

was the 1st week of school for many people. So that might have kept people

away. And so, consequently, there were a fair number of

people that were from, you know, for lack of better phrase,

industry, where I remember the last two sessions. I didn't get to go to them,

but I really wanted to hear them. One was, like, how to

record a podcast in today's modern situation or whatever it

was. And everyone on the panel was from radio. And I was like, oh,

this is a different point of view. I'd really love to hear this. And there

was another one that was, again, kind of ad agency kind

of panels. And that's fine. I mean, that's a that's one little bubble part of

podcasting. But it seemed like the industry people had kinda

snuck into what used to be the indie podcast.

I'm not sure why people weren't there before, but you it was at the

Gaylord Hotel. And if you've ever been in a Gaylord, it is a

small city under one roof. It's amazing. They're

I mean, it's just you see it. You're like, I can't believe this. However, those

are not cheap even though Podcast Movement always negotiates

to get a a cheaper price. But when they're normally,

whatever, $300, and they get them down to 2.50 a night, that

adds up real quick. And I don't remember what the price was for a room.

But by having that Gaylord, then you do get the industry people in

because they're used to you know, they're big shot smarty pants, so they they need

a big they're not gonna stay at the Holiday Inn or the Motel 6. So

it's kind of a catch 22. You need those people because those are also, in

many cases, your advertisers that will have their logo on the

front page, so you need that. But on the other hand, if you have them

in these really giant hotels, well, then maybe the average

podcaster can't afford it, especially if he has to take a week off

from work to pay for it. So it's it's just tricky how you do

it. You know, smaller venues, smaller hotels, from from what I

understand, and you can talk to this because I know you did a a Cincinnati

event. It sounds like doing a small event

is almost the same amount of work as doing a big event.

It's just a big event has more risk involved because you've got more hotel rooms

that you've paid for and things like that? Actually, I would say no.

It's probably not because well, it depends

on the level of quality that you want to attain.

I did Podcamp Cincinnati. I did most of the work on that.

I had some volunteers helping with a few things here and there, especially day

of, like, for setting up and checking in and all of that stuff.

But organizing it, scheduling it, all of that

stuff, that was pretty much all me. You remember how tired I

was. But bringing up Podcamp, that's a

blast from the past. And the whole reason why we're talking about this in

light of podcast movement, and we were planning to talk about this

anyway before podcast movement now that we just had a podcast movement,

the timing is still relevant. I thought of how it's

interesting to see the well, not rise and fall. It's not

like that but do imagine that on a graph, like the rise and fall on

a graph, but I'm not saying that the rise and fall of conferences

but of the type of conferences that we've had

where in the beginning of podcasting, it was all of

these small conferences. We had Podcamps

all over the place. Now are there any Podcamps, like,

actually called Podcamps at all? I haven't heard of 1 in a while.

It's kind of funny because it does remind me the reason

podcast movement came to be is because

of the New Media Expo had blogging. They had

video. They had podcasting. I forget what else.

But it was all these different genres of content creation under one

umbrella. I have a picture. It's me, Dan, Jared, and

Rob Walsh. And we kinda were all going, wouldn't this be

cool if it was just podcasting? Because back then, when

you were a podcaster, you weren't really because, again, video was really

expensive and insane to even get into. So, that's kind of where

podcast movement was born on. What if we just talked about podcasting?

And now that podcasting is so big, you do have kind of the

smaller podcast or hyper niche, and then you have the

big shows with the big budgets. And in some cases, it's not that they're

celebrities. They just end up being celebrities because they got so

popular. And I think that's something that may be a little

different is like, we didn't see the girl

from caller daddy. We didn't see like, we saw the guy from,

Diary of a CEO. He was a keynote, but you didn't see him after that.

He came in, did his keynote, was you know? Now he might have been someplace,

but I didn't see him. And not that it's really fractured.

It's just there are different people on different levels, and that should

be a good thing if we can get the people that have found

some success to, you know, share with the people who are just starting, that would

be awesome. And I think that shows the growth and maturity of the

industry, where in the early days, it was like, hey. Are

there any other podcasters out there? Let's try to see

if enough of us exist or can travel to the

same place to maybe share a space with another

conference. You know, there might be a podcasting session

at a conference. There might be a podcasting track at a couple of

conferences, like New Media Expo or Social Media Marketing World, these,

like, social media or new media style conferences, and then

podcast movement was born. And at the same time, there were

smaller podcasting conferences. But what it feels like is happening is

we started with these small independent

regional conferences, then we grew up

into the big national and international conferences.

And it feels like now we're getting back into the small

again because some of the things that you said and some of the things I've

heard from other people who have attended some of these conferences is they

often feel like there's no one like them. Like, I

know one person who attended one of these big conferences. He

has a podcast that he does just for fun. He does make some money from

it, but he does it just for fun. And he went to a conference, and

he said, I'm never going to a conference again because it's

all about how do you make money, how do you build a business, how

do you and I feel like maybe he just went to some of the wrong

sessions, but that there was that perception.

And he wanted to go just to hang out with other podcasters

and have the conversations or learn about things like, hey. What do you do

when you feel like you have nothing to podcast about? What do you do

when you feel like your audience doesn't love you anymore? What do you do when

these things or do you ever run into these struggles? And

I see now while these big conferences will continue and I

think definitely should because it's good to have industry

level events where industry level stuff can

happen. And indie podcasters can go to that kind of thing.

And certainly, I think, have a space there and deserve to still be

able to speak there as well. That's where you can hear cool announcements. Like

it was during podcast movement that Apple announced

the new Apple Podcasts on the web. It's not an Android

app, but at this point, maybe that won't actually happen. But it does work

on Android now. So that kind of thing, that happened, it

seems, timed that specifically to happen during Podcast

Movement. And lots of these big companies have the meetings at Podcast

Movement or these other really large podcasting conferences.

Those should definitely continue, and I recommend podcasters make their

way to one of these big conferences at some point. Yeah. That

is a key point because they did have that podcast movement

one evening. I didn't go to the opening kind of networking event. I was

at a, I was actually at NPR watching a tiny desk concert, which

was great fun. And that's because of my podcast story because I

knew somebody who won tickets. But, anyway, I think it was, like, the 3rd

night. They just had they had these big huge hallways, and they

just set up a table and put a sign. It was like, this is the

Christian podcaster meetup. This is the I own a

studio, meetup. There was one for nonprofits,

one for and so it was kind of fun to just go down the hallway

and just network with people. And that really is, I think, one of the biggest

benefits. So you you do kind of get that, is there anybody here like

me? And that's, I think, one of the biggest benefits because

sometimes we just feel like we're the only person in the world that's, you know,

talking about this subject. So when you find somebody else, you're like, oh my gosh.

I'm not weird. There is somebody who still likes this. Well

and that's where I see this new movement of

conferences happening that now we're getting back

into the small conferences, but not small like they were in the early

days where it was just any podcasters wanted to get together with any podcasters.

Now I see those niche podcast conferences happening.

Like, the Spark Christian Media Conference for Christian

podcasters. There are other podcasting conferences

for other niches. And that's what I would love to

see more of in the future is, hey. How about we have

a podcasting conference all about sports

podcasting? And that's it. Every session is something

about sports podcasting. It might be only a 1 or 2 day

conference. It might have only 1 or 2 tracks. That is

okay. When you niche down to something like that, in fact, you

might only want a single track

because if it's already niche, it's very possible everyone who's

coming wants to attend every session in that niche

because they are tightly involved in that niche. Yeah. In the early days

of Podfest, I think they considered the second one. I

considered the first one. But it was in Florida. It was

next to a Ramada Inn that was okay. It wasn't super

fancy. And it was one room. There's one room for it.

And I remember the vendors were on the walls, the back

walls, and then there were tables in the middle, and then you had a

stage. And everybody got to get the exact

same information, and then there'd be a break. And we'd all go out in the

hallway or whatever and talk about what we just saw. And then

after, you know, the break's over, you'd go back in. Same thing for,

Joe Pardo used to do I I think he now calls it Indy

PodCon. Back then, it was called, Mid Atlantic

something, and that was one of my favorite conferences ever. He

always called it Philly, but it wasn't. I don't know where it was, but it

it was, you know, outside of Philly, And there was a Wawa, which is just

an oversized gas station. And if you went across the street, there was

a Wendy's, and it was in a Holiday Inn. And between

I don't mind Holiday Inn. Get more value based than that?

Yeah. And because, really, all we did at the Holiday

Inn, number 1, it was nice that where the

a water at the Gaylord was $9 for a

bottle of water. And at the Holiday Inn, you know,

a beer was maybe $3. And this is probably 10 years ago.

And if you you know, like I said, if you wanna go crazy, you could

go to Wendy's across the street. But I remember by the end of that and

there were probably I'd say a 100 to a 120 at that

one. And by the end of I think you got

there in the middle of the day, like, on a Friday evening. We had a

little meet and greet. There might have been, like, a opening ceremony, and then it

was almost all Saturday, and then everybody went home on Sunday. So it was really

almost a one day kinda thing. And by the end of it, you

had met everyone there. And I met some of those people

at Podcast Movement. Like, I hadn't talked to them in a long time. It was

great because, one guy's name is Raff, and he does a

served podcast. It's all about helping people in the

military transition back into just being a civilian. And

when he told me about all the stories he had, and it's just not as

easy as it sounds, I I stayed up probably till 2 or

3 in the morning talking to him at that conference going, you gotta launch

this thing. Because every time he'd say something, I'm like, that was episode 1. Why

aren't you releasing these? And so you do build

relationships with that. And I think even Joe brought in

food. That was the other thing. He didn't really charge a whole lot, but, you

know, you have to be careful because you do kinda get what you pay for.

But that was an amazing event. And I think,

if I remember right, I think Blueberry, Libsyn, you know, some of the

hosts did help sponsor it because, again, it it's

there's a lot of time put into it, plus you wanna market it and

things like that. So that that's my favorite time. And what's kind of,

I I don't wanna say sad because I'm with you. We need big conferences. It's

nice when we get everyone together. But the minute we have

a really good small event, people are like, this is amazing. And it

makes sense because you're like, I want everyone to experience this great

thing that I just went through. But the problem is when you make it ginormous,

now you've got to find a hotel that will hold you. I was at one

conference, and it was the last day, and people are starting to check out.

And the guy's going over his bill, and he's like, well, I paid for a

resort fee that I never used. He's like, I was in was

in the conference, and he was just going through the bill. And he's like, why

do they have these things at such large hotels? And I was

like, because there are thousands of us now. You can't do

3,000 people at the Holiday Inn. There's there's not that many

rooms. So the bigger the hotel, the bigger the price,

the bigger the risk if they're buying a bunch of, rooms in advance. So it

is kinda tricky when it gets bigger, and, it's a lot of

work. And you think about what can you really fit into

the big conferences anymore because you can't really have

just a full day of a sports podcasting

track or a TV after show podcasting

track or a Christian podcaster track or, you know, all

of these things. There's just not the space for that. And besides that, there

are all of these other things happening at the same time at a large conference

like that. So that's where I see the future of these

podcasting conferences is going to become niche

again as we'll have the small events

of a couple dozen or a few dozen people, and that can be totally okay.

Like, you and I also went to that event that David Hooper hosted

in Nashville several years ago. And

there, he he brought in Little Caesar's Pizza for everyone. It was

at a place where we could have fountain drinks there that we could

easily have during the breaks or anything like that to have with the pizza.

And that was great. I made some great connections there too. And, also,

when it's small like that, it truly does become a

more intimate connection because you can get the audience

involved much more. And that's what they did in that

small one day conference. They got the audience involved.

They got them up on stage doing certain things,

workshopping certain ideas. You can do that a lot more with

a smaller thing. So if you listening right now

have been thinking, I really wish we could have a track

about this at Podcast Movement or Podfest.

Maybe you could do that yourself. Have a conference in your

area. Find a local conference room or meeting

space that's big enough, that's close enough to food, maybe close enough to

some inexpensive hotels. And that could be far less expensive

for people to attend if they want to. You

wouldn't get the big name celebrities, probably

not, unless one of them lives nearby and podcasts about that

thing or is in that niche. But do you really need

that? I think it's these smaller things

that might interest podcasters a bit more sometimes

to go to, not on a recurring basis, but to be able to

try more and more of them. I could see maybe

presenting at something like a TV show or

movie fan podcast conference where it's all about how to podcast

about TV shows and movies. I could present a session there and I could

if I was still hosting a podcast about a TV show, I'd love to network

with other people also podcasting about TV shows.

We've seen Christian podcast conferences. I wasn't able to make

it to the latest one. I really, really regretted that. I really

wanted to be there. I just couldn't make it happen, But that

can be a thing too. And, like, speaking also of in that Christian

realm, I went to National Religious Broadcasters

Convention, an RB show in Nashville earlier in

2024, and I got to speak there on podcasting. And

that is religious broadcasters. It's mostly the

big broadcasting corporations and

ministries there. But I was surprised

that there were even some smaller podcasters, some

independent people looking around, talking to vendors,

going to some of the sessions. A lot of stuff didn't really apply to them.

I'm glad that they got value from my session, which was about how to start

a podcast. But it was that same kind of thing where the indies were in

this space where they could get some value from it but

not the whole thing. The whole thing was too big for them. But

they still got to be inspired. They got to see some of

these people speak. They got to meet some of these people,

these, quote, celebrities, unquote, that they might not have ever

gotten the chance to see, meet, listen to, or anything like

that because it was a big event. But then

at the small events, you get to have the conversations, the connections

that you don't get at the bigger things. So I feel like the

future is going to become small again

in size, but also more focused

with the niches of these different conferences. And even

especially with stuff now like what we're doing in podcasting 2.0,

like the streaming satoshis and all of that, the value for value and

boostergrams and all of that. Imagine a conference, a

whole conference that could work like that. We recently had that music

festival where it was all value for value for the music festival. Imagine a

conference like that where you could get in maybe

for free. Maybe there's a small ticket charge just to

cover certain expenses or something. But then maybe, like, you

distribute your satoshis or whatever currency it is

to the sessions you go to, or maybe they're automatically distributed

to wherever you go. Like, when you check-in on the app into a certain

session, then automatically your, whatever, 100,000

satoshis goes to that speaker. And then for your next session, your

100,000 satoshis goes to them or whatever the value is. 10,100,

whatever that thing is. But that could be a really neat idea of

building a conference like that. I think it should still be niche

enough to attract that kind of audience that could do that kind of

thing. Like, a Bitcoin conference would obviously work with something like

that. But a cryptocurrency podcasters

conference, perfect for something like that because already everyone

going there knows cryptocurrency. They're familiar with

that exchange, and it's just a little bit more of a stretch

for them to do that. So the perspective, I think,

is being opened up by what Podcasting 2.0 is showing

is possible to do. Even just with an RSS

feed that we've discovered, like with the value block and things that you can do

and wallet switching and all of this kind of stuff. You could do that

same thing in a conference. But even without that technical

aspect, I want to see more

smaller, local, niche podcasting

conferences, whatever the topic is.

Because you might get one session on that subject at a big

conference, but you could have a whole conference about that one thing.

Yeah. And the other thing about that is what

if you say, well, I've I've booked this place. It holds

a 150 people, and then we sell out of tickets.

That's when I'm like, well, that's proof of concept. Now you can raise your

your ticket price a little bit and do it more maybe do 2 a year

instead of 1. I would much rather go to a conference

where everything you see is like, oh, this is exactly what I need. I know

Steve Stewart has done that at Podfest. They have a whole

track for editors, and they do try to make tracks. It's usually like

beginner, intermediate, monetization,

promotion. So they kinda try to niche down. But to have not only

to say now, hey. I want to do a a podcast

event for authors so we can talk about how to promote your

book and how to podcast and value for value for authors or

whatever. It's like, wow. These guys are talking exactly, you know, what I came here

to hear. So that would be, be interesting.

And I know you mentioned Podcamps. Podcamp was a really small

gathering. Well, it was intimate. And it was usually

I think in some cases, it was, like, at a library. I don't know. I

only went to 1, and they had it in a very small theater on

a college campus. And the whole point was you'd have I

think anybody could speak, but you had to kind of register ahead of time.

I think I could be it's been a a while. And then you

were encouraged that if somebody started talking and you're like, this isn't for

me, you're allowed to just get up and leave, vote with your feet, and go

find another room. And so I went to podcamp.org. Do

not go there. It hurts your eyes. It's it's a pod it's a

page from, I don't know,

1998, maybe. I don't know. It's it's bad. It's a old weird looking

Wiki. I know Chris is it Chris Brogan was the guy that started those

back in the day? So maybe we need to, reach out to

Chris and go, hey. Let's dust off podcasts. Because they were a lot of

fun. It took a little organization. How long do you think

somebody needs to promote it to get people to show up?

Probably 3 to 6 months from the Yeah. The 3

to 6 month region could be just saying this is going to

happen on this date, location, and schedule pending.

But, like, with the Podcamp, a lot can happen last

minute. It fits into this idea of unconference

comes really from a bar camp was a different idea of

programmers getting together and some people just getting up and doing

a session, some people just sitting together and programming together, and some people

having conversations in the hallways. That's where this kind of unconference

idea comes in where, yes, there might be a schedule, but there are

also blanks that anyone is welcome to fill in that blank. And I've

seen that happen a couple of times before where someone just says, hey. I'm

gonna do a session about this. Anyone who's interested, come down to this

room and join me for this session. And they get a few

people show up, connections made, lots of fun had.

When it's smaller, it doesn't have to be big.

I know that sounds like or super profound

maybe. But what I mean by that is you go to podcast

movement, and you see they've got these huge

props on the stage. And many of them

are branded specifically to that

conference at that location. So it's not like

it's the same podcast movement prop year after year. Well, they did

have a prop like that for a while. I don't think they're using it anymore.

But the branding was specific. They've got

screens all over the place, big fancy lights, all of this stuff.

You know, it's a whole show really, just the conference

itself. A smaller conference doesn't have to be that

big. A smaller conference can be a

projector on a screen, And that's your stage.

It can be smaller. Some of these conferences might even be

the possibility of having a conference so small that you don't even need

a sound system. Although, I always recommend a sound system and

always record whatever you do at a conference, record it.

But there's so much potential in these smaller

niches. I know the default is gonna be like, well,

wouldn't it just be easier if you did it online? And sure. But

I think we can all agree it's not the same. Yeah. And I was trying

to figure out why I identified it. It's because

when you go to these conferences, you end up making memories.

Mhmm. Whether whatever you do even if it's just hanging out in a

hotel lobby, chat with those 4 guys. I remember it was

me, Todd Cochran, and oh, I can't remember. But there were, like, 3

guys. But I remember we were all being super vulnerable. And I was like,

man, if this is being recorded but we're all able to kinda let our guard

down and and really talk about it. And like this last time, I went

to a a tiny desk concert at NPR. I got to see the

Clydesdales with, my buddy, Bruce. I went to lunch with

Monica Rivera. You know? And these are things that you just can't do

online. It's you know, you can do the little networking sessions, and let's all do

an icebreaker. And there's nothing wrong with that, by the way. That's better than nothing.

But I was trying to figure out, like, what's the difference between networking

online and networking in person? I'm like, I think there's just something about

shaking somebody's hand, giving somebody a a hug, or whatever it is. It's

that personal it's just another form of communication, I guess, that

just makes it, I think, a little deeper. Yeah. And I think of how

many conferences, online conferences, and summits that I've

registered for. Do you know how many I have actually attended

to the level of engagement that I would have attended a live

conference? Take a guess. 1?

0. Okay. And I've paid for some of

them too. And I think it's so much is mindset

of some people might think, oh, I can watch this or I can,

quote, attend, unquote, this while I'm doing other things.

And then you just forget or you get distracted or you don't make the

time for it. Whereas if you're going somewhere, you're taking time off

maybe, but you're present physically and much

more mentally because you're present physically. So here's the

question to you, Dave, the challenge. When are we going to

do the future of podcasting conference?

Well, that is a good question. You could do something like that. We could have

a one day conference where every session during the

day, it's a single track conference. Every session is

something about preparing your podcast for the future. Now a lot of

that would be stuff like podcasting 2 point

o things. Some of it could be things about upgrading

certain podcasting technology, like maybe really talking about why

you need to replace your old live music

mixer with something like a Rodecaster Pro or whatever the newest

technology is. Or it could be certain conceptual

things, like how to prepare your podcast

for your death or how to cancel proof your podcast

or certain things like that that are all focused on the future of

podcasting as a whole as well as the future of your

podcast and how to ensure the future of your podcast and

leverage these new things to make your podcast better.

We could do that in a one day conference, maybe even a 2 day conference.

Don't nail us down on it, anybody. But Yeah. Definitely, something like

that could happen. Columbus, Ohio is halfway between my house and your

house now. Thinking that. Yeah. Know, that would be crazy if we

did that because that is also where we supposedly met.

Yes. I think so. A long time ago. Yeah. That would be

interesting. Just an example and, again, it's kind of always

weird when you quote no agenda because their audience is

huge, but they have people doing meetups. Their

audience has their own little, like, gatherings. It's it's not so much a

conference, but it's that, again, physical connection of seeing people eye

to eye. And they're usually at a restaurant, so they're eating food together, and

it just builds that bond. And, you know, it doesn't have to be

super crazy. I used to do the Northeast Ohio podcasters meetup,

and we met, it was really cool, at a local radio station. And so

they let us use kind of their conference room, and and that was cool. But

then when COVID hit, we moved online, and

then we got really used to doing it online because we weren't

eating food. It was just basically hanging out and leaving, and so we didn't really

lose anything by going to, online. But, yeah, the wheels are

turning in my head. Since you looked at this loony old man.

Exactly. Alright, Daniel. Well, we've been gone a little

bit, while I was out and about. Have we received any Boostagrams?

We got a bunch of streaming Satoshis and a couple of Boostagrams from

Sam and CreativityFound. So thank you so much for sending

those, and make sure that you're using a podcast app that can

send value back. So think about what value you got from this

podcast. Consider sending that back through a podcasting 2.0

app. And if you want to make some money, I have an

opportunity for you that Dave has given me permission to share. I have

revamped the Podgagment affiliate program. So even if you

don't use Podgagment yourself to engage your audience and grow your podcast, which I

think you should, but you can recommend it to other podcasters

and earn some nice commissions from it and even some

other cool things that can happen by being an affiliate. If you're interested in that,

I'd love to have you as an affiliate. Dave is an affiliate, and

he promotes it. He gets paid too. I love sending Dave money every month. I'd

love to send you money every month too. You can check it out over at

podgagement.com/affiliates.

And the link will be in the show notes. And I think that'll do it

for, this episode of the future of podcasting. If you

know someone who's been thinking about maybe creating a a

some sort of event or is just interested in

podcasting 2.0 and the future of podcasting, go to that share button

and send it on over to them. We would greatly appreciate that. Or just tell

them to go to future of podcasting.net. But that is gonna do

it. This one is in the books. Keep boosting. Keep podcasting. And

maybe start your own podcast conference or 2.