325 - YouTube Updates, Introducing North Flow, and Industry Commentary

0:04 Good morning, podcasting, Morning Chat. Today is Wednesday, June 18th, 2025 and today we're breaking down big shifts in podcasting and media from platform shakeups to creator driven news. And we're joined by Simona Costantini to talk about the launch of North Flow. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're listening via podcast, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here. Good morning again, podcasting, Morning Chat. Thanks so much for being here.

1:23 I am your host, Mark Ronik. And on this very full stage with me, we have producer Ashley Feller, Sid Meadows, Dr. Faye, Nick Naulback, Amanda Sharp, Simona Costantini, and Dominic Lawson. Good to have the whole gang here. And thanks to those of you who've joined us bright and early live in the audience here on Clubhouse and perhaps maybe here on YouTube as well. We are trying to build the YouTube presence over at Mark Ronak. You can watch me live behind the scenes here and listen to the gang contribute all through YouTube Live. So come join and check it out over there if you don't mind. OK, Yeah.

2:09 So today it is news and comment day, so I should hit the button. And as I said, we are going to get into a lot of the headlines around the world of podcasting, including this new service, new product called North Flow that Simona is a big part of. And we haven't really gotten a chance to talk to Simona about the product, about how she connected. So we're going to get to that as well. But I will just first stop and say good morning, Simona, welcome back. Good morning everyone. Thank you so much for having me back. It's been a very long time. It has, it has and we it feels so. Nice to be back.

2:53 Yeah, we miss you for sure. We love having you here and it's great that I'm, I'm glad you were able to make it today and talk a little bit about North Flow. We'll get to it in a few if that's cool. Thanks. Thank you. OK, awesome, awesome. And I know Simona also submitted her application to be a speaker at Empowered Podcasting. So I'm really excited about that. We'll see if Simona gets accepted. You never know. She, you know, she, it's a little questionable, obviously kidding. Yeah, I think, I think Simona's a shoo in as far as that goes. So let's dig in to the news, shall we? So we'll, we'll get into the podcast data first to kick off the news. I have fixed my Wi-Fi, so hopefully I will be heard throughout the whole thing.

3:38 And by the way, Jonathan Howard has joined us as well. So some podcast data as of yesterday, June 17th, the number one podcast on Apple, Call Her Daddy, I think Call Her Daddy was number one last week as well, if I'm not mistaken, on Apple. And of course, number one on Spotify, the Joe Rogan Experience. We will hear Spotify's top five because Joe Rogan is usually on the number one spot. So we want to at least acknowledge some of the others that are at the top of the Spotify list. But first, over the last week, 198,155 podcasts published at least one new episode, and that's down just .1%. And that comes from Pod News.

4:23 Thank you, Pod News and Dr. You've got your top five lists for us. Take it away. So impressive, so exciting. YouTube has quote UN quote updated their chart and it's the same chart as before. By the way, when you say that, you're saying that basically it has not changed since they really almost since they announced that they were putting out these top lists? Right. The only thing that has changed is the date range. This right chart. So #5 is the Midas Touch podcast with you know the three brothers #4 is 48 hours #3 is Kill Tony #2 and #2 is Rotten Mango, and #1 is the Joe Rogan Experience. Shocker.

5:21 And do you have some other top fives for us? I do the top five of Spotify #5 is the past weekend with Theo von #4 is Ryan Trahan. I've never seen him before. He's very big on YouTube. Apparently he's #4 and #3 is the Jacksepticeye. I have not seen that on a chart before, so that's new. Number 2 is Spotify Presents and the number one podcast is Joe Rogan Experience. Oh sorry, I kind of mistimed that. That's the guy I kind of did too.

6:01 That's kind of my bad. I started it a little later than I was supposed to and that was a top five list for just overall for Spotify. Spotify overall for Spotify now, the random chart of the week is education. So education, the number 5 is I am over in my opinion with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson #4 is a show called the Let's Find out. Number three is anything goes with Emma Chamberlain #2 is the Mel Robbins podcast and the number one is the Jefferson Fisher podcast.

6:41 Nice. I love knowing that. I love knowing that. But I just I want to point out something for a second. Let's talk about the number 4 #4 was. Let's find. Out. Yeah, now I clicked on the preview of this and you were first met during the preview. Your first met with a loud, exciting commercial for Space Mountain or something like that. Some ride at some amusement park and then there's a silence and then you get 3 hours of someone whispering to you. Oh, really?

7:22 Yeah, his last episode was 3 hours. The episode before that was an hour and 25 minutes, and the episode before that was two hours. And he whispers during the entire thing the. Entire Do we know? Why some it's Well, it is an ASMR. It says. For instance, the title of the last one is Lightspeed. Asteroids, chicks, the club, dinosaurs, impact, Terra Firma and hyper giants. ASMR, whisper. And the one before that was incredibly old book from 1658. Science, history, myth, folklore, ASMR, soft spoken. So yeah.

8:10 And he's #4 the education. Chart OK. That's kind of different and weird. And by the way, no name he doesn't. Apparently he doesn't have a name. So he's doing it anonymously. He's just, yeah, I think, I think I saw that, that his name under where the host name goes. It's it just repeats the name of the podcast. Right, yeah, right. So his his full of his pictures there. He's a nice looking man, but this poor man is going through life without a name, so I'm very sorry. So fascinating how ASMR does so well in podcasting. I mean, obviously it makes sense and it's just ASMR is so popular.

8:53 I was just sharing with Nick. It doesn't translate well here in an audio format, but I was just showing him, you know, with all this new improvements to AI video creating with Google's VE VO3, there are people out there now making ASMR videos of what looks like fruit, but that it looks like fruit made of glass. And the all AI generated and the quote UN quote, human hands are slicing, making slices through the fruit like you maybe would through a piece of fruit with a big butcher knife. And it's and it is emulating those sounds of maybe what you would hear when a knife is slicing through glass.

9:40 It's fascinating and oddly satisfying at the same time. I'll share it in the show notes if anybody wants to take a look at it. It's it's also visually very satisfying and appealing as well, so I'll share that with everybody in the show notes. Yeah, Hey, we have someone who's joined the stage who's hasn't been up here before. I don't. Yeah, well, that's Tally and we'll get to her in a moment. She is also behind N Flow, so Simona invited her when we coordinated yesterday, so we're looking forward to hearing from her as well. So let's get into some events before we dig into some news like NN Flow first, just wanted to get into some events this week. It's probably too late for most, but Vidcon is going on this week.

10:26 I know that community member Janae Sinead Ahmed Janae joins us regularly on stage in the mornings. He's there. I think he's there as of now. I know he was heading that way yesterday. So, and he's said he would give a full recap. Anything that he sees that might be of interest to us, he'll bring that back when he returns probably next week. I would imagine he, I don't think it's realistic to think he'll join us because I believe it's on the West Coast. So that would be 4:00 AM his time coming to join us here at our time. So we will get a recap from him. Also wanted to just shout out a few other things.

11:06 There is an online event coming later today, 11:00 AM Eastern Time, Build your own podcast media kit. And it's a workshop and it's actually hosted by Victoria King Meyer, who joined us a few months ago, sharing her strategy of charging guests to be on her podcast and how well that has worked for her. She's and I remember her talking about her media kit and a lot of people were very curious, asking a lot of questions about it. So if you want to create your own, including getting a a template from her, some guided advice, you can go there and we'll include that in the show notes. Again, it's an online thing.

11:50 It happens today. It starts at 11:00 AM Eastern. No, I'm sorry, Central time 11 AM central and also protect your podcast with easy, affordable legal strategies. Another online workshop. This is a free event hosted by the podcast lawyer himself, Gordon Firemark, somebody's name who has come up a few times over the past couple weeks here on the podcasting morning chat. So if you want to get some legal guidance with your podcast, go check that out. Again, link will be in the show notes. It's a live event Thursday the 19th, 10:00 AM Pacific Time. That's 10:00 AM Pacific Time. And if you are in Ontario, Canada, Pod the North community is holding a picnic that's in Hamilton and that happens June 22nd.

12:46 Again, links in the show notes for ya, so check that out at pod@podpage.com/PMC. You can get the episode and the show notes there or of course on your favorite podcast platform. And Podcast Movement comes August 18th in Dallas, TX. Good luck with the heat there. I have not decided if I'm going to attend this year or not. I haven't missed one in a long time, but I'm not sure if I'm going to attend this year, especially because it's so close to our event Empowered Podcasting in Charlotte the weekend of September 26th. If you haven't gotten your tickets, please, now is the time. It would make me feel so much better seeing people get tickets ahead of time as opposed to like last year, people who all buying their tickets very last minute.

13:37 Please don't give me the stress and the headache and the anxiety. And if you're going to go, please go ahead and get your tickets today. Go to empoweredpodcasting.com and you can get that info. Technically, we have closed speaker applications if you were thinking about doing that. That said, we're going through those speaker applications now, so if you still want to do it, you could probably slip one through and we won't know the difference. So feel free to add your application to the mix. And I'm not promoting that publicly other than right here. So you'll, you'll likely your submission will be seen if you submit it sooner than later. Let's see any other events. No, no other events.

14:20 And let's go to Simona and then we will. Actually, I'll give you a couple stories and then we're going to get into N Flow. But yeah, Simona, what'd you got for us? I believe Potapalooza is happening today also. It's an online event I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure it works today. And it's all online. It's all online and I think, I think the tickets are like 90 bucks or something like that. And it's a full day of, you know, watching different speakers, learning from different people in the industry, not just podcasting, but other things as well. I have a VIP option. It's from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Yeah, it is today. And yeah, they have about, I don't know, 200 people attending it.

15:02 It's all podcast related, guest experts. And yeah, you get to learn a lot of different things in the in the podcasting world. So in case someone is interested, I think it's $79. Sorry, not 90. It's $79 for a ticket. Awesome. Or VIP is 400. Yeah, so that's potapalooza.com spelled how it sounds, but just in case, P0P 0DA PAL, Double O za.com. Do we know who who puts this on? Do you know Simona? Yes, actually, Kimberly Crowe puts it on. Very cool, very cool. Awesome. Looks like they've got a lot of great speakers there. And that's like she said, that's going on now today. So if you're interested, check that out at potapalooza.com. OK, cool.

15:47 Thank you, Simona. And well, you know what? Since we've got Simona, let's dig in. Simona and Tally and Tally. Good morning. And by the way, how do I pronounce your last name? I I've never really asked you, and I don't like to pronounce names wrong. Hopefully I'm pronouncing the first name right. No, you got Tally right and it's Tally mellow and good morning. Good morning, Tally. Mellow. OK, got it. And you are. So tell us first, what's your position at North Flow? I am the CXO SO Chief Experience Officer and I also lead community. OK, awesome, very cool. So let's I'll ask either you or Simona and Simona I know is the Chief marketing officer.

16:33 What's the big idea behind N flow? What problem were you trying to solve for podcast teams? I guess really for people like me who has, who has clients that are, we're helping with their podcasts, How what, what's the problem that you're actually trying to solve with N Flow? So North Flow is a, the best way I like to describe it is that it's a podcast project management system. So and Tally, feel free to jump in at any point. So the idea behind it is that you have your entire workflow and we're taking all of the tools and all of the apps that you would typically use to produce your show. Not so much produce your show, sorry, more so the before and the after. Not the editing piece and not the recording piece, but to help streamline your workflow, to save you more time and to have a workflow that is cut and paste and that is efficient for you, for your team, and for your client in the review process as well.

17:29 Tally, do you want to hop in as well? I can say my one line, which which is basically the it's like Trello but focus on the podcast industry with some additional things to it as well. So it's not just what Trello does, but exactly yes. Exactly it kind of market kind of hybrids like the best of like Notion, which I still don't like to this day. Notion, Trello, click up Air table, all of the project management apps that you would have and it puts it into one. And I can tell you a little bit about how it works if you. Want to? Yeah, I would love to know and let me just ask. I believe the way I understand this is that it's designed for podcast producers, podcast editors that have clients.

18:16 Is this something that an independent podcaster could use? It is something that an independent podcaster can use, absolutely. So we have currently. So we just came out of beta on Monday, which was very exciting and huge, huge, huge milestone. And so you can use it as a solo creator, you can use it as an agency, and you can also use it as a network. And it functions the same regardless if you're working solo or if you're working as a team. Like all the functionality is still there. And so the way that it works and if you're interested in learning more about it, the easiest way would be to go to north flow dot IO and just join.

18:58 Like you can just add your e-mail and like create an account and you can explore it. But the other side or the other piece to it is essentially when you, when you go in, when you log in for the first time, you input your RSS feed. Once you put your RSS feed in, it'll automatically pull up your whole back catalog of episodes and everything that you've created before. And it'll also, we have some AI integrate AI integrations as well. And it'll also pull in three suggested episodes for you based on the past content that you've that you've already posted, which is helpful when it comes to creating, you know, creating podcast episodes. Because sometimes it's like, you know, what am I going to post? What am I going to talk about?

19:40 What episode should I share? Right. So we wanted to blend in some pieces of AI and more is coming in the future, but that's one piece to start. And the biggest thing that is going to save you is time and mental stress and like mental energy. That's like the biggest thing I use it for my podcast and like within my agency. And it's helped to streamline so many things that I didn't even think were chaotic or or broken, especially managing different people. Anyway, so you log in and you get your three different episodes. And when you create a new episode, and it's hard because there's no visual so I can't actually show you, but when you create a new episode, you can choose a. Template to go with your episode So essentially what happens is every time you have a new episode, you pull in a template and in that template you can have it pre loaded with anything that you need for your entire workflow. So it works really, really, really well for shows that you're producing on a weekly basis, even by weekly, monthly, whatever your frequency is.

20:41 You don't ever have to go back and figure out what is your workflow, What are the specific things that you need to do for each episode? Like everything is already there and the template is customizable. So productions, we have clients that are in, you know, they they have like a similar package, but everyone has something a little bit different. While I can go and I can create a custom template for each person and apply that to their episodes so that I never have to worry about what is that small little detail that client X has that client Z doesn't have right. So that's one piece. In addition to that, in addition to the actual workflow, workflow piece, we have an integrated booking calendar, an integrated intake form, so all of your assets live directly in there.

21:26 So you always have everything you need. You don't need to go to the Google Drive to go to the Google Forms or job form or type form or anything like that. You don't need to go to Calendly. You don't need to go to DUB, SODO, wherever else you're going to go and use your booking calendar. It's all integrated right there. And we also have like a bird's eye view, production schedule view. So you can create your production schedule directly in there, change things around, move things around. But the way that it's set up, you could also create seasons. So you don't just need to look at it in, you know, June, July, August, September, October, November. You can plan for season 1, season 2, season 3, and you put your episodes in there directly. So it's really versatile that you can use it for each client and for yourself as well in in different ways. And you can set it up exactly how you need it. Need it set up Tally, do you want to add anything? I feel like I've been talking for like 95 years. You did a great overview and my brain's still loading, so I'm glad you're doing all the time.

22:25 Tally's an hour behind us. Oh, yeah, OK, it's early it. Is. Well, OK, cool. Well, it sounds like a very robust product and sounds certainly like something I could use. I mean it, I've kind of makeshifted some of that myself with Trello, and it's not perfect. It's a little clunky because some of what I'm doing, it's not really how Trello is designed to do it. And it sounds like you guys are, you know, really making this customized for the podcaster. And Simona, I have to ask you, you've got a lot going on, right? Like I'm thinking about it. It's like, OK, so you're the CMO of North Flow. You run your own agency, you have a podcast that you host. How are you managing all of this? Or are you?

23:14 North Flow N Flow, Yeah. And the additional thing too, Mark, that I haven't really shared or talked about at all online is that Sean and I, so Sean is my partner, Sean and I started up a speaker coaching and booking like programs slash service that we do together. So we work with different podcasters and entrepreneurs to help get them booked on, on different stages. So there's also like that layer as well. How do I manage all the things? I mean, I don't, I don't know that I ever really have an answer for that because I keep saying like, oh, the chaos will die down, but like it doesn't. So I think it's just life. No, but I mean, I have, I've created boundaries in my life. And like, you know, I try and take weekends off.

23:56 I don't take calls Mondays or Fridays. That's a big one. And so that's been really, really helpful to like limit how many calls I take. I really don't like taking calls on a Friday so I don't do. It I'm totally with you there. I keep telling myself I need to block off Friday and I don't. And then when I get a boatload of meetings all of a sudden lined up. I'm really disappointed about my Friday. I know it's the worst. And you look at it and you're like, Oh my God, why did I do this to myself? 30 minute, like a 30 minute meeting is fine, but the rest, no, thank you. But also I wanted to share two other things because we actually haven't talked about this publicly yet in terms of like N flow overall. Before you do, before you do, let me just go to Sid real quick because I think Sid's got a question and then we'll we'll find out about that. Go ahead, Sid.

24:36 Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Simone. It's great to have you back. And I did have a question. So as the podcaster, if I signed up for North Flow, can I invite my team to it? So I have a YouTube editor, I have a podcast editor, I have a marketing person. Can I invite them to it or do you do not? Does my editor, who's really my podcast manager, does she need to set it up and then invite them? Just curious. No. So you can set it up, you can create it and you can invite them and tell you can totally happen, but you can invite them as well. But the way that N Flow works is we decided to do it per show versus per seat. So a lot of different apps do it per seat.

25:18 Like I know Trello, cause Mark, I use Trello as well. If you have more than three people, you're paying like double the price type of thing. But no, we did it per show. So you can invite as many people into your show as you need. And you can also invite people just as collaborators. So they don't actually need they, they can create an account, but they don't actually need to create an account, but you can invite them as a team member and then they can join your team in that way. So in my account, so I have like my account, I have vote productions and then I also have, I'm a part of North Flow's team. So both of them show up in my workspaces on Northwest. So you can invite people but it works based on show, not proceed. Very cool.

26:00 And then that actually leads me to a question about as far as inviting people. So if I were to, if I wanted to invite a client to that show, right? Like it's their show that I'm producing it, do I have the ability to do that and can't do I have the ability to hide certain things from them? Like if there's internal back and forth going on, not that anything we would want to say anything insulting anyway, but there may be sensitive stuff that we're talking about that the client doesn't need to know about. Can we hide that? Yes. And Tally, do you want to explain a little bit about that? Yes, there's. Two ways that you. Can do it. It depends on the client really. You can.

26:40 If it's one of those clients that they want to be involved in everything, they want to know everything, you can invite them as a member. But if it's a client that's very hands up and you know, they just need to participate in the test here and there instead of the having them as a member, you can have them as a what we're calling right now as a contact. And what happens is like they will get access to that specific task only. And you can add them to multiple tasks and, and they don't even have to login. I think that's the best part. They'll just get an e-mail and they'll click, but they're still able to upload anything that you request. Or they also are able to make comments. And even like we have an editor, they're able to like on a text editor, they're able to write their own things there. So it's like they have full access to those specific tasks as well, or at full, completely full access to that specific show.

27:39 So if you have like 5 different shows that you're writing and you want a person just on one show, you can do that as well. Awesome. Very cool. This is sounding like you guys put a lot of thought and effort into this, and I appreciate it. And yes, so far it's everything we've asked. Yep, Yep, we do that. Yep, we do that. It's very cool. All right, so Simone, let's take just a few more minutes and learn a little bit more. What else did you want to share with us? Two like 3 really quick things. The first one is they've actually been so we're for Co founders. I joined last year so like this time last year, but they've actually been building the product since before then and talked to a lot a lot of Tally's talked to hundreds of podcasters and creators to really understand what are the pain points and how can we solve them. So there's been a lot of intention put towards it. Everyone who joins has a hand in helping to shape the future of north flow.

28:32 What do you need? What products what like what feature requests do you need and what would you like to see? So that's a huge one. We really rely on our community to help us shape the future of the product. But two things that we haven't announced publicly yet, but we will be, we're launching like an affiliate program. So you don't have to be a N flow user to be part of the affiliate, but you can, you can grab your affiliate link that's a 25% affiliate. So you can sign up for that if you're interested, just send me a message or send tally a message and we can get you set up there or get you the link. And we're also looking for UGC creators to help us share about the product as you're using it, as you're creating it. And we'll throw you some kickbacks for doing that as well. So if you're interested, Mark, especially if you wanted to try it out for the, you know, for, for your agency and if you wanted to, you know, create some content in the process, then there would be things that we would talk about there. But we're, we're doing like an invite only first round for UGC creators and then we'll open it up to everyone. That's it, I'm done.

29:32 I love that, I love that. And I would love to learn more about that program for UGC creators. I yeah, I I could see us doing a lot of fun stuff together. So yeah, I will reach out about that for sure. Tally anything else you want to add before we move on. No, I think Samana covered at all, but nice to be here. Yeah, glad that you are here and congratulations to both of you and the whole team there on the official launch. And we're looking forward to seeing how this transfer, how this grows, and we're glad to help help it grow however we can. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. OK, so with that, let's dig into some other news there is.

30:16 So I wanted to play this for you. Actually, Apple launched a new podcast, A star-studded scripted podcast called Easy Money and it's starring Sebastian Maniscalco, the comedian. I've talked about him a few times, one of my favorite comedians and one of the hosts of my favorite podcast, The Pete and Sebastian Show, and they're offering early access. I'll let me explain 1st, I'm going to 1st I'll tell you a little bit about it. Then I'm going to play you their trailer because I think a, it's look, I think we're going to learn a lot from the trailer. You know, yes, this is produced by Apple and it's going to be, it's going to sound like it's produced by a big company.

31:03 And I think there's still a lot we can learn from that when we're thinking about designing podcast trailers for our podcast. I'm sure Dominic will also really appreciate the trailer as well-being the storytelling narrative podcasts that he does, being that he does those, I think he'll appreciate this. So it is called Easy Money, the Charles Ponzi story, so the infamous person who has forever now known as the Ponzi schemes. The official launch will be June 23rd. The it's hosted by journalist Maya Lao with, as I said, Sebastian Maniscalco voicing Charles Ponzi. It's an 8 episode Apple original docudrama. I think it should be called a Pod You drama or a podumentary or something.

31:50 Or Pod You drama. Yeah, it's a hybrid of immersive audio drama and an investigative storytelling format. It unpacks the rise and epic downfall of the man who defined modern fraud in just nine whirlwind months in 1920. So, Apple. It's exclusive access for Apple TV Plus subscribers who link their accounts. They can get the full 8 episode series on June 23rd. Non subscribers can stream the 1st 2 episodes immediately with with the rest dropping weekly through August 4th. So it's an interesting format, right? It's free for everybody. It'll be a weekly show for everybody. But if you're really into it and you are an Apple TV Plus subscriber, you can get the whole thing upfront. I like that model.

32:41 I think that's a cool model. It is their first scripted podcast for Apple and a crossover of dramatic voice talent and as they say here, lip smacking production values. Plus the staggered release strategy rewards TV Plus subscribers while keeping broader audiences hooked over time. It marks a bold shift in how audio is distributed and consumed. And I will say it is an audio only show. It is not video. So wait, if that, if it's that was my question, that's why I waved my hand. I can't put anything that's in the chat. It's not working for me. But so if it's an audio only show, what are they doing for it on Apple TV?

33:25 They're releasing it still as an audio only show, but they're giving they're basically giving you access if you link link it somehow. They allow you to link your Apple Plus subscription to it and then you automatically get the the full series from Apple. That's so cool. Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to play the trailer for everybody. It's 2 minutes and I think it'll keep your attention. Here it is. You want to know the easiest way to make $1,000,000? I'll give you a hint. It isn't ransom or armed robbery. I'm talking a simpler way, a cleaner way. No guns.

34:07 No brute force. All it takes is a trustworthy smile and an understanding of one simple truth. There's nothing people crave more than easy money. In 1920, a broke immigrant became one of the richest, most famous men in America in just nine months. He stole the. Equivalent of 1/4 billion dollars. Changed American finance forever and made sure the world would never forget his name. Over 100 victims are tied up in this $39 million Ponzi scheme. The judge called it one of the largest Ponzi. Schemes in history. This banking empire was nothing more than a massive Ponzi scheme.

34:49 That name was Charles Ponzi. What Ponzi did was pretty ambitious, which is maybe why he gets it named after him. You know, even 100 years later. We assume trustworthiness, and that makes us sitting ducks for people who just deliberately earn our trust in order to RIP us off. See, anybody could steal a wallet in the dark, but getting people to hand over their money willingly again and again? That's how you make history easy money. The Charles Ponzi Story is an Apple original podcast produced by At Will Media, a docudrama series hosted by me Maya Lao featuring award-winning comedian and actor Sebastian Maniscalco.

35:32 If I had one question to ask Charles Ponzi, if he was, you know, across the table, I want to know his end game because with a Ponzi scheme, there is no way to get out of it. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts. Who's ready to make? Some money. That to me is a podcast trailer. It's storytelling, it's sound treatment, it's all the things. And I absolutely am enthralled by it. I I'm excited to hear it. And actually, I am an Apple Plus subscriber, so I guess I could start listening to that now. So yeah, check that out if that's of interest to you. And I say kudos to Apple.

36:18 I think that's all I've got for them. So also just wanted to share with you, Spotify just rolled out podcast transcripts across a bunch of their shows or shows hosted on their platform. They're auto generating them by default, but now creators can upload their own transcripts using standard VTT or SRT files, which means time stamps and speaker names are part of the mix. And early reports are showing it's might still be a little buggy for some people, but it is a solid step forward. I feel like we even mentioned that not too long ago that they didn't offer a lot of flexibility when it came to transfer transcripts. So it's cool to see that also in the news. Trevor Noah's What Now podcast is leaving Spotify and heading to SiriusXM starting July 1st.

37:10 When it launched, it was the first Spotify show that didn't go exclusive, and that marked a shift in their podcast game. His $4 million deal was pitched as a smarter play for Spotify, but now he's moving on. This week's episode happens to be with a conversation with, I should say, Jon Stewart. I'm going to skip ahead and I'm actually going to go to UDR. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the new tweaks happening on YouTube? Sure do. OK, so this is directly from the video that they put out once a week. I guess YouTube for creators or something like that. Let's see product stickers.

37:54 Up until now, tagged products appeared as a banner in the on the bottom left corner of the short. Once clicked, that banner opened a list of tagged products for viewers to shop. Now, the shopping button on the shorts is getting an upgrade. So when you tag products in your shorts, viewers will see a shopping product sticker. Tapping that sticker image redirects them straight to the retailer's website for that item. If you've tagged multiple products, tapping that down arrow will reveal the full list. So this Dr. this is like this is basically still, this is Shorts competing, I think with TikTok shops. And it's just amazing to me how TikTok has really transformed that game.

38:43 You know, it was all created because originally creators were doing stuff with Amazon and promoting the products and sending people from TikTok to Amazon and Amazon, I'm sorry, in TikTok, I guess decided, you know, this we're we're losing on an opportunity here. They created shops and I think there's more to come in this competition because I think Instagram is working on stuff similar as well. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. So in AUS experiment this May shorts with these stickers saw over 40% more product clicks then those with the old shopping button. Stickers are generated for the first product in your tag list, but you can reorder your tags to choose which item gets the spotlight. Size and placement can only be adjusted in the main YouTube mobile app, so if you've uploaded via Desktop or Studio mobile, head to the YouTube app to tweak your sticker. Previously tagged Shorts will keep showing the old shopping button.

39:51 Shopping product stickers are rolling out globally, except for South Korea for now, with plans to expand there soon. The next item on the YouTube Tweaks is about communities. YouTube has mentioned communities before, and now they're available to all creators who already have access to. Posts communities give you a dedicated space on your channel to foster ongoing conversation no longer tied to a specific video like comments or live chat. Subscribers can post directly to your channel without needing to pay for membership content.

40:33 Right now, you can't restrict your community to members only, but members can post alongside everyone else. Eligible. I'm sorry, eligible creators, you can turn it on by tapping the pencil icon on that Channel page and toggling my community, quote UN quote, My community. You can disable it at any time. You can decide how long someone must be subscribed, one day by default, or up to a week before they can post again. I think this is a big move. I think this is a big move creating this community section for creators to interact with their community aside from in the comments of their individual videos.

41:16 I think that this really can, yeah, this can create a ton of engagement and really take a channel to a new level, in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, I think so. And for now, communities live on Android and iOS only, and all posts must follow YouTube's community guidelines. And let's see one another tweak that they've done. Moderation and control. They say we're still talking about communities, but this is about your existing moderation tools and blocked word list, which will apply automatically. You can choose to hold all posts for review or let subscribers post immediately. Flagged content is held for review by default. You and your moderators can remove any post. It will soon you'll even soon you'll get even more personalization and modernization Modernization. Yeah, options.

42:15 Sorry, it looks like another word. Something. Everything from sorting post by top what's most engaging, to newest chronologically and to finer grain filters. YouTube has found that active creator involvement leads to best communities. Duh. So don't be afraid to jump in and guide the conversation. Thank you, D Yeah, thank you, Dr. And in other news, this is a report that came out. This is from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights and it's about podcasts, audio and video. And look there this I I feel like this is important to discuss and I'm curious what we'll get into it you. So what it's saying here is it dives into who's tuning into podcasts in 2025, how they're finding new shows and what keeps them coming back.

43:17 And what really stands out is, yes, YouTube continues to grow as a legit podcast platform. People want the option to watch. But audio, according to this report, still owns the podcast space. The Spring 2025 Podcast Download Load report gives us some real insights into what's shifting in audience behavior. And for anyone creating content, selling ads, or building platforms, this is the kind of data that I think is important to to take a look at. So for example, audio is absolutely still the primary way people are consuming podcasts, even though we we all believe, and I say that loosely, that we're in this video forward era because 72% of weekly podcast consumers say they listen and or watch podcasts. And of those, only 4% say they exclusively watch podcasts, 96% listen in some form, 96%.

44:23 Even among YouTube users, 40 percent, 45% of their podcast time is spent just listening, not watching. And 58% of podcast audience consumption is still audio only even at 42% actively watch video podcasts now and then. If we dig into some YouTube stats specifically YouTube is now, and we've heard this from other reports as well, the most used podcast platform reaching an all time high of 39%, ahead of Spotify at 21% and ahead of Apple Podcasts at just 8%.

45:04 But again, you know, I think that there has been a lot of assumptions made because of the rise of YouTube. People have made a lot of assumptions that will that means that we got to get on video and what the reports, all these different reports that continue to come out are saying is yes, people are consuming podcasts over there and it looks like sounds like the vast majority are listening 44% of new podcast listeners. So podcast newcomers started their latest show on YouTube and smart TV's are now used by 32% of weekly podcast consumers to watch or listen to podcasts, second only to smartphones. This is the last one of the last things I want to share with you from this survey or this report.

45:55 This is about platform loyalty. 72% of YouTube podcast consumers say that they'd switch platforms if their favorite show moved elsewhere. So if you, you know, we're on say, Apple, you moved somewhere else. They'd the 72% of your audience would follow, 51% already listened to the same podcast across multiple platforms, often choosing YouTube for discovery and audio apps for utility examples like in your car. And lastly, podcast hosts. And we have another story about this if there's time. But podcast hosts ranked number one in influence at 59%, and that's ahead of social media influencers at 19%, celebrities at 14% and radio hosts at 9%. So my question and, you know, yeah, I would love it if somebody would feel like answering it. Come on up.

46:54 If you're listening live or if you're already on stage, why do we think video continues to get pushed so hard? Why is it getting shoved down our throats that we must have video? It's because of big YouTube. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's what it is. I feel like, yeah, I'll bite my tongue for a second. We're going to go to Sid, and then we're going to go to Simona. Go ahead, Sid. We talked about this a little bit before, but I do think the younger generation, which is part of the 44% that are likely discovering podcast for the first time, right? I would imagine if you broke that down, it's mostly the younger generation. They're typically a video first watcher listener, right?

47:35 So that's probably part of it. In addition to, you know, it is YouTube, right? It's such a powerhouse brand. I also think something that you said a minute ago, which is important is they'll follow the podcaster, which I think is fantastic, right? That if you switch to a different platform when exclusive or whatever, that because of you and because of your show, which is that's the loyalty that we want, right? That's what we're trying to build is that loyalty to us and our show, regardless of where it is, that they will come with us. And I think that's a really, really important statistic. I'm absolutely with you there and I have another statistic. Let me pull this up just as far because you were talking about the listeners and the the demographics there. Let me, well, I can't find it.

48:22 So let me go to Simona and then I'll share that with you. Go ahead, Simona, your thoughts? Well, I just think it's because people see other people doing it and they want to do it too. You know what I mean? Like everyone wants to not everyone. It's a big general. That's a big generalization. But a lot of the people that we work with in the agency, they all want to have a video component because they want that that for social media, they want the clips, they want it as an additional thing to give to guests. They want that visibility on YouTube as well. But this is a whole other conversation that I'm happy to join you for one day, but if you're not optimizing your content on YouTube, you're still going to get lost. You know what I mean? Like it's not enough to just turn on your video and upload it. It's its own beast. It's its own search engine. So I think it's FOMO.

49:04 I think people want to be on video as well because everyone else is on video. Quote in air quotes everyone else. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you there. So let's see here what I was going to tell you is here we are that podcast watchers do, and I say watchers do, skew younger to Sid's point and are more male. Let me read this accurately. Podcast watchers skew younger and more male than those who prefer audio only formats. Also, 42% now prefer actively watching podcasts. That's up 30% in 2022, while 30% maximize video to listen in the background. 57% of 18 to 34 year olds have clicked on a podcast based on its YouTube thumbnail, making visuals a high leverage growth tool.

49:54 So speaking to what Simona was saying, really taking advantage and utilizing everything about YouTube, making sure that you're optimizing your podcast for that platform. So to give you the best shot at discoverability. So yeah, interesting stuff. And I think the really, I will say that, and I continue to say this to my clients, if you want to be an audio only podcast, there's plenty of room and plenty of opportunity there. I still want you to use video because I think that that just gives you more flexibility, more options with your content and how you distribute it. So you don't have to put out the whole episode if you don't want to as a video, but you'll have that video for things like clips that you can share on social media.

50:43 And I hope hope that that gets you some more exposure. But I just think that it's important to have video, but not important to produce a full episode each and every week or every day, whatever your cadence is. I think that's important for us to remember. It is not the don't believe the hype, as the old song says. Let's see here how much time do who came off Mike? Did somebody want to go ahead, DRI? Did well, you know, for people who are hesitant about doing video for no other reason, I mean, I just read a story about there are doing something with their communities. So just for pure engagement with your listeners, I think it would be a good reason. Yeah, I agree.

51:28 Absolutely. OK, so listen, here's what I'm going to do. We only have about 5 minutes or so left, so instead of digging into a whole other story, we are going to hold these. And a reminder that we are not live tomorrow at 7:00 AM Eastern Thursday, because it's Juneteenth. In honor of Juneteenth, we will not be broadcasting our show, but we will be back Friday, 7:00 AM Eastern, covering some more headlines around the world of podcasting, answering some mailbag questions. And of course, it's a Friday, so we'll also celebrate our wins from this past week, so please join us. Friday, 7:00 AM Eastern. And a reminder, we do this normally over the summer every Tuesday through through Friday.

52:13 We are taking Mondays off this summer. Join us at 7:00 AM Eastern, live on Clubhouse, live on YouTube, or if you can't, just catch us on your favorite podcast platform a couple hours later. So until Friday, make it a great day everybody. Take care.