89: Can We Use a Tracking Pixel?

0:00:00[Music]

0:00:08From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode number 89. Today's show is brought to you very kindly by our friends over at FreshBooks and MailRoute.

0:00:17My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined over on the other side of the globe by Mr. Jason Snell.

0:00:22Hi Myke, I saw a funny thing that was going around, a meme that was something about people

0:00:29who believe in the the earth is flat and the the line was something like there

0:00:35are there are members of the flat earth society all around the globe you're

0:00:40doing it wrong no no you can't no would it be a cross I guess yeah all across

0:00:46the flat plain that is the earth riding on the back of a turtle how are you so

0:00:53you doing well today except for this crazy meme you found it's Monday it's

0:00:57It's Monday morning, you know, it is a pleasure to spend my Monday morning with you and the

0:01:03listeners and to get, of course, you're listening whenever, but you're hearing Monday morning

0:01:07me when you hear Upgrade, usually.

0:01:11And it's good, like I always say, it's a good start to the week.

0:01:15I stay up late watching Game of Thrones on Sunday nights, so I gotta, you know, take

0:01:19and have a little more tea and try to wake up.

0:01:22But having kids in my house makes it easier to wake up because if I was just like you,

0:01:31you don't have a lot of people in your house who are on a normal human schedule.

0:01:39You've got one.

0:01:41For me, having the kids, my daughter has to be up and moving around before seven o'clock

0:01:47really and my son not too long after that.

0:01:49And so I could be one of those people who has a really weird schedule and sleeps until

0:01:5511 a.m. and all of that, but I can't because, you know, not only do I have the kids have

0:02:00to get out fairly early and then Lauren has to get out right about now, but, you know,

0:02:07also the dog, whenever it's light out, the dog decides now is the time to come and lick

0:02:13my face and demand that I feed her.

0:02:15I got a trainer out of that.

0:02:17But so yeah, so in the end, it's a, you know, I dream of being one of those people who can

0:02:22wake up at 11 in the morning and get about their business, but I am never going to be

0:02:26one of those people.

0:02:27So good morning is what I'm saying.

0:02:30We have a big show today.

0:02:31So we had an overwhelming amount of feedback that people wanted to hear more about kind

0:02:37of the business side of podcasting.

0:02:38Yeah, how the sausage is made apparently is the thing that we're talking about now.

0:02:42So we've got a lot of that today.

0:02:44We have a lot of follow up, but also later in the show,

0:02:47we're gonna be joined by Mr. Lex Friedman.

0:02:50You may know Lex, he is the host of many podcasts,

0:02:54including Turnin' His Car Around, and he's also,

0:02:57I wouldn't know how to describe him,

0:02:59we'll get him to describe himself,

0:03:00but he works for Midroll Media,

0:03:02working on their advertising.

0:03:04So Midroll is a huge podcast advertising company

0:03:09that kind of provides advertising to many, many huge

0:03:13podcasts including stuff like the Mark Maron show.

0:03:16So he is really in that world

0:03:19of leading podcast professionals.

0:03:21So we wanna get Lex's thoughts and opinions

0:03:24on this whole data and discussion

0:03:27that we had from last week.

0:03:28So that's coming up a little later on in the show.

0:03:30But first off, I wanna kind of go through some thoughts,

0:03:33some additional thoughts that I've had

0:03:35and to kind of clarify some points from last week

0:03:39based on listener feedback.

0:03:41So I wanted to kind of go through a few things about data with you, Jason, so we can talk

0:03:46about that.

0:03:47So I've got a few questions that we can answer.

0:03:49So question number one is, "What is the data that we do not want Apple to give to

0:03:55all podcasters, including us and everybody else?"

0:03:58And we should say there's no evidence that Apple's going to give this data.

0:04:02The New York Times story that set this off was sort of about people complaining that

0:04:05Apple isn't doing enough, making enough of an effort to gather data.

0:04:10And quite frankly, as the week has gone on and more people are talking about this and

0:04:15less people are coming forward to say anything, it really does seem to me that a lot of that

0:04:19article maybe isn't exactly how it seems.

0:04:22Yeah, I think that's probably true. And I also, something that tends to happen on the

0:04:28internet is your arguments get flattened into this, you know, very basic polar opposite

0:04:34kind of argument. And I think that's one of the reasons we want to follow up a little

0:04:37bit about here is there's I've seen some people suggest that what we are saying and other

0:04:43people are saying is that we don't think that there's a place for data in podcasting and

0:04:48that's not really true. So what's the data from your perspective Myke, what's the data

0:04:53that you don't want Apple to give?

0:04:56I really don't want Apple to take Apple IDs, iCloud IDs and use the information that they

0:05:04know about the people behind those and attach them to the shows that they listen to.

0:05:09Even in an anonymized way, I think there's very basic information that is fine.

0:05:13So maybe the stuff that we'd want to give is information about the listening of the

0:05:18show.

0:05:19I can see why some people would want to know that and we'll get into that in a minute.

0:05:22But the actual data about the individuals, I don't think that that data should be given

0:05:27unless somebody specifically wants to do it, like through surveys or something.

0:05:31a listener opts in to give that information. They say like, I am female, I am 25 years

0:05:37old, I earn this amount of money, I live in this part of the world. I don't think Apple

0:05:41should be providing that information without explicit opt-in from the listener. So really

0:05:46Apple shouldn't be involved in this at all. There should be, the podcasters themselves

0:05:50should create surveys as many do if they want to get that information. I don't think that

0:05:53that stuff should be taken from what would be people's iCloud IDs and given out because

0:05:59Because also that frankly doesn't feel like something that fits with Apple's core value.

0:06:04So I don't, and I don't think that, you know, we'll get into this later with Lex I'm sure,

0:06:09but I personally don't believe that that information is necessary for the type of advertising that

0:06:16we have been doing for years and has been in the podcast industry for over 10 years

0:06:20now.

0:06:21Right.

0:06:22It's the, it's that, uh, user tracking and, uh, the ability to, yeah, I mean, it's essentially,

0:06:27I think what is suggested in that article is that they want web style tracking where

0:06:33they can place—and this is where it breaks down from a technological standpoint—is

0:06:37like, what they want to do is place markers on a file somehow and have it be that this

0:06:44is where the ad is and please give us information about this and let us have a unique identifier

0:06:50for these people and send this back to us as we go. And you kind of would need to build

0:06:55an entire infrastructure around tracking to do that. And that's where it breaks down for

0:06:58me is I don't think Apple is interested in building an infrastructure around tracking

0:07:03based on the contents of your MP3 files. Which is not to say that not just Apple, but podcast

0:07:10app makers in general couldn't generate more data for their podcasters, although there

0:07:19are still challenges there. Like, if you're Marco Arment, how do you verify that somebody

0:07:24is the owner of a podcast in order to give them access to their personal data? Because

0:07:31you're not going to give all data to everyone, are you? That seems a little bit far-fetched.

0:07:36Apple, because it's got a directory, does have an advantage there that people have signed

0:07:41up essentially and submitted their podcast, and so it's tied to an Apple ID. But more

0:07:47broadly, there is data that anybody who makes a podcast app could generate if they wanted

0:07:52to, and it could be as aggregate or as anonymized as they want it to be. Now, I'm not sure I

0:07:57want people measuring all of this data either, and I'm not sure how useful it would be, but

0:08:04there are definitely data that you could get around people listening to shows because the

0:08:09the... We should mention, ATP talked about this this week in ATP 169, and they recommended

0:08:17us, so we should probably recommend their conversation about it. They all...

0:08:20- To close the loop.

0:08:21- They all snake around together. But Marco talked about this a little bit, and it's the

0:08:26idea that right now, the way podcasting works, it's an RSS feed. You see the feed gets updated

0:08:31and says, "There's a new episode. Here's the download link," and your RSS or your podcast

0:08:35app says "okay" and it goes and it downloads it. And so you get download stats. You get

0:08:42download stats that are very much like web file stats. You get an IP address and you

0:08:50know what client it was and some very basic stuff. And that's the end of the conversation.

0:08:54That's like that's the end of it. And so inside the app you could do something to measure

0:09:01does that episode ever get played? How many times did that episode actually have somebody

0:09:07press play and begin the playing of audio? You could also have an abandonment point,

0:09:13you could measure after, again it gets really complicated and how do you determine this,

0:09:17but you could say the average person got to this point, or 50% of people reached this point,

0:09:27or whatever. You could do that. So you could get the idea, which might be useful for podcasters

0:09:31if you do a three-hour podcast to realize that most people aren't listening past 45

0:09:35minutes. It would be interesting. That's possible. That would be good for advertisers to know

0:09:40where to put their ads is when people are listening. And you could go even deeper and

0:09:45say, do people skip audio in there? And even deeper would be where do they skip audio and

0:09:50are they skipping ads and all of that? You could go down the rabbit hole there. But every

0:09:54step you take, every, I guess, rung in the ladder down into the rabbit hole, I don't

0:10:00know, I've lost the metaphor here, it's more complicated the further you go, and the data's

0:10:04more complicated. And I can tell you from having a load of web data from my previous

0:10:09job, doing, you know, looking at all the data for PC World and Mac World and TechHive, that

0:10:15it's, it's too much data. The data is usually not used particularly well by anybody. So

0:10:22people talk a lot about collecting data but I'm skeptical about how useful it would be.

0:10:28So Apple already have some data that they could turn into something without needing

0:10:34to lock the system down, right? So there are statistics that they are able to gather that

0:10:39could make things more useful for people if they were to display them in a good way. Like

0:10:44Apple will know if the episode is downloaded or streamed, right? They know if somebody

0:10:48subscribes, they have that information, they can get through their apps. They know broad

0:10:53geographical information, so do Libsyn, the host that we use, they have that so like we

0:10:58know what state people are listening in and sometimes what city depending on how big the

0:11:04city is.

0:11:05Yeah, V Press has that too which I use for some some podcasts as well and and it's the

0:11:09same you know they're generally using a redirect so when you try to download the episode it

0:11:14logs that on the server and then sends you to download the episode and it gathers a little

0:11:18bit of data by measuring that request.

0:11:21And that broad data is useful.

0:11:23So the geographical broad data helps me make decisions of advertisers.

0:11:27So I'm able to say to an advertiser, 60 to 70 percent of our listeners are based in the

0:11:32United States, which is really useful when we have a product that's U.S. only.

0:11:36So that's, you know, but I feel like for me, that's as far as it needs to go in most instances.

0:11:41But you know, many people think differently.

0:11:43We also can find out through Libsyn which application or device is being used, which

0:11:49is just, I don't really think that's very useful, that's just an interesting tidbit.

0:11:52I don't really know if there's much you can do with that.

0:11:56Apple could also kind of provide information on related shows, so they know what you subscribe

0:12:03to, right?

0:12:04And they show like, on the store, people that subscribe to this like this, but they could

0:12:09maybe generate more graphs for people or maybe charts that kind of show the correlation between

0:12:14shows?

0:12:15Yeah, yeah, they could. They could.

0:12:18I don't know what you'd use that for, right? I'm just thinking these are the data points

0:12:21that they have.

0:12:22Yeah, so there's data around. I think that's one of the things that we mentioned briefly

0:12:26last week is there's data around. And I'm skeptical enough about the complexity of getting

0:12:35more data and then the... I'm skeptical of whether that data really would get used in

0:12:40a good way. And I'm not saying in an evil way, I'm like in an effective way because

0:12:45it's very hard to parse that data and understand what it all means. And if you've got different

0:12:50sources, then you can't really compare them. So that's problematic too. Also, there are

0:12:54other sources of data. We've talked about some of them here. Let's also not forget things

0:12:57like surveys. And you may think, "Well, surveys aren't data. That's you're asking people to

0:13:02tell you who they are and all that and those can be skewed. It's true, that said, radio

0:13:06and television have used surveys to determine the life and death of every TV and radio show

0:13:10ever since the beginning of those two media because that's how they've had to do it. And

0:13:18although now there are technological things involving DVRs and things like that that are

0:13:22part of the mix, for years and years the way the TV industry and the radio industry dealt

0:13:27with this is they had a panel of viewers or listeners and they would measure them in their

0:13:32homes or they would have them fill out surveys telling them what they watched and they would

0:13:37use that to determine ratings. So, Midroll does this, Lexus company, they have a demographic

0:13:43survey that they use. It's not a listening per episode listenership but it's a demographic

0:13:47survey. You know, you basically can say what's your age and race and profession and gender

0:13:52and "Have you ever bought things on a podcast?" and stuff like that. And it's optional, not

0:13:58everybody has to fill it out, but they've used that to compile demographic data that

0:14:01lets them sell better to advertisers and lets advertisers target shows. They know if an

0:14:06advertiser is targeting menswear, they want to advertise on a show that skews male, and

0:14:11if there's somebody who's advertising a shaving product for women, let's say, that they want

0:14:16of thing that's going to be female skewed. And that data is there, age and income and

0:14:22all sorts of data like that. You can collect that now, and although it might not be perfect,

0:14:27I would argue maybe none of this data is ever going to really be perfect.

0:14:31Yeah, my feeling about that stuff is the surveys are fine, because it's opt-in, right? This

0:14:36is just where it just starts to get a bit, "What is your personal tastes?" And I just

0:14:41don't like the idea of data being taken about our listeners, about them meaning

0:14:47for it to be or knowing that it is, when for so long it hasn't been. So like if

0:14:51you're listening in Google, you're listening in Spotify, you're listening in

0:14:54Stitcher, you're giving that data. These services are created in a way

0:15:01that they are able to get more from you because they're locked down and that's

0:15:05the idea right? They don't use the RSS feeds, they have their own stores and

0:15:08and they're able to learn a little bit more about you.

0:15:11But you're opting into that, you know,

0:15:13whether you read the terms of service or not.

0:15:15But you know, my whole thing is just not liking the idea

0:15:18of Apple changing it under people's feet.

0:15:20- Yeah, and people don't understand that too.

0:15:22I actually heard from people,

0:15:23I heard from somebody yesterday who said,

0:15:25why aren't there incomparable episodes on Stitcher anymore?

0:15:27And the answer was,

0:15:28I never submitted a comparable to Stitcher.

0:15:32And when somebody complained that there was something wrong

0:15:35with our feed on Stitcher,

0:15:37I wrote to Stitcher and said, "Take our feet off," because I can't actually measure listenership

0:15:44there. I have no access to whatever statistics they do have because I don't have an account

0:15:51there, and yet somehow my podcast is in their system. So I asked them to take it out, but

0:15:55that person was like, "Well, what about Stitcher?" And the problem is that you risk being in

0:16:01a situation where somebody said to me the other day, "I don't want to have an Audible

0:16:06app for the Audible podcasts and a Howl app for the mid-roll Howl podcasts and an Apple

0:16:13app for these Apple exclusive podcasts and then a podcast app that gives me the free

0:16:19standard podcast. I don't want all those things. I want them all in one place. And that's one

0:16:22of the risks of doing something like this is... And I guess that's what they're saying

0:16:27in a way that people in the New York Times article is basically, "Please, Apple, find

0:16:34us, don't make us build our own app and wall this off, just let us monetize this stuff

0:16:38and charge for it and things like that inside your podcast app. And I just don't think it's

0:16:41going to happen because that's a whole lot of overhead and it totally changes what podcasts

0:16:45are to do sort of like paid, gated podcasts in, and even if Apple supports it then, can

0:16:52Overcast support it? Can Pocketcast support it? I don't know, it's kind of a mess. So,

0:16:58yeah, it's a mess.

0:17:00So that's our follow-up for the time being. We'll get back to this conversation a little

0:17:04bit later on in the show. But you have some exciting podcast-related news over at The

0:17:09Incomparable this week.

0:17:10I don't think it's news. It's literally counting. But we've been doing The Incomparable for

0:17:17essentially 300 weeks, and that means six years almost have passed. And that means that

0:17:23we did episode 300 over the weekend. So people can check that out if they like. It's kind

0:17:29of a meta episode. It's sort of really two episodes stuck together. First one, we talk

0:17:34about sort of how our consumption of media, you know, books and movies and TV shows and

0:17:39comics and stuff has changed over the last six-ish years since we started podcasting

0:17:43about it. And then there's a silly segment after that where we do things like draft favorite

0:17:49episodes and answer listener questions and talk about topics we wish we would have covered

0:17:53or topics we regret how we covered it or episodes we wish we were on but weren't and

0:17:58to all of that. So there's a lot of that in there. But I wanted to bring this up because

0:18:07I think it's interesting, and again, apologies to people who don't really care about anything

0:18:12but us talking about computers, but I think in terms of making things on the internet,

0:18:18one of the questions is how do you stop if it's something that is recurring. Anybody

0:18:23who's had a blog has had to deal with this, right? Which is, once you start a blog, you're

0:18:27sort of like saying, "I'm going to post on it regularly," and then at some point you're

0:18:30like, "Oh man, how long am I going to keep posting on this thing? Maybe I should stop."

0:18:35And I was thinking about that because, you know, I had this idea, it's very clear from

0:18:39the early, you know, first 20 episodes of The Incomparable that I was not thinking about

0:18:45the fact that this might go on eternally. And so I made a decision basically like, "Wouldn't

0:18:55it be fun to try this?" And it has resulted in me hosting and editing the vast majority

0:19:02of 300 straight weeks of podcasts. And so my question for you as somebody who does this

0:19:08too, these are serial mediums, they have subscribers, you're sort of supposed to keep feeding them

0:19:14over time. How does that factor into your decision about wanting to commit to start

0:19:22something? Does that hang over your head? And how do you factor in, because you've

0:19:27done this a few times now, how do you factor in when to move on and when to say, "Okay,

0:19:31I know that I said I would do this for a while, but a while is over now and I'm going to

0:19:35go do something else."

0:19:36It's such an airy-fairy answer, but for me, like, it's just about feeling. Like,

0:19:42so I, you know, I always start a show and it's like, well, the show has begun, right?

0:19:46There is, with some exceptions, no end in sight, like, we're just going to start this

0:19:50and off we go. By the way, the Ring post, the wrestling show on the incomparable, still

0:19:55in production, I'm still working on it, I'm sorry for everyone that's waiting, I promise

0:19:59it's gonna be good but, TL;DR starting something before San Francisco WWDC was a crazy idea.

0:20:08Still working on it, I'll have more soon. My feeling on this stuff is I wait until the

0:20:13show just doesn't feel exciting for me anymore and when I'm at that point where I'm not interested

0:20:19in it is probably the time for me to move on from it.

0:20:23Because if I'm not interested in it,

0:20:25then how can I expect everybody else to be interested in it?

0:20:28It kind of feels unfair.

0:20:29If I'm not excited and putting my all in,

0:20:32then I'm not really doing the right thing

0:20:34by the people that are committing their time to listen.

0:20:36I feel like it's kind of unfair to them.

0:20:38So when it gets to that point,

0:20:39I do, and I've always done one of two things.

0:20:41I either end the show or reboot the show.

0:20:45And I've done those things in various different ways

0:20:48over the six years that I've done this stuff.

0:20:50And that's what keeps things going for me.

0:20:51I don't have anything that has reached the heights of 300.

0:20:54Do you know what?

0:20:55I probably never will.

0:20:57Maybe except the pen addict.

0:20:58I think that might get there, right?

0:21:00Just because there's no reason that that show would end

0:21:02and we're over 200 now.

0:21:04- Exactly.

0:21:06- Because it's the only thing that stuck around,

0:21:07but for whatever reason,

0:21:08it's the only thing that stuck around.

0:21:09- Across three networks.

0:21:11- Yeah.

0:21:12- It has remained intact.

0:21:13- Exactly.

0:21:14Maybe it's just because me and Brad

0:21:17just have this fun show where we talk about the thing that we love every week and the

0:21:21thing just keeps on moving.

0:21:22It sounds familiar, right? I mean, The Incomparable is a similar story and one of the reasons

0:21:27that I think, I think you're right, it's about feeling and I would say it's almost

0:21:31like about feel, like this feels like it's probably a good idea to do it and I don't

0:21:36know where it's going to go but let's try it, let's do it. And with The Incomparable,

0:21:40the premise is so flexible and some would argue completely unfocused. It's about anything

0:21:44that it's not about pens, right? It's about, you know, it's not a show about a TV show

0:21:50or all TV shows. It's about TV and books and movies and comics and whatever, right? And

0:21:57that is unfocused. It leads to people saying, you know, I've got to skip episodes, which

0:22:01somehow is, it's fine. People are like, "Oh, I don't know about this podcast. I'm not interested

0:22:07in everything in every episode." And what I always say about the incomparable is, "That's

0:22:10The only person who's interested in everything in every episode is me. You can pick and choose,

0:22:14it's fine. But what that's given me as the person who makes it happen every week

0:22:21is, it's been flexible enough to sort of handle what I'm interested in. And that

0:22:27if my, I didn't think of it at the time in these terms, but looking back 300 weeks,

0:22:34I would say is, I think it would have been a grind if all I could talk about on that

0:22:42podcast was one topic. Like, I mean, even like books, right? I think it would have gotten

0:22:48to be a grind, or movies or whatever. Like, and I would have been looking at comics and

0:22:55TV shows and whatever else, the ones that were not part of it, and being kind of like

0:23:01wishing that I could talk about them. So in some ways, the reason that it's lasted and

0:23:06that it hasn't become a grind for me where I feel like I need to end it is because if

0:23:12I'm not interested in that topic, I just talk about a different topic. And I'm allowed

0:23:16to sort of like follow my interests and follow the interests of the panel, and that's been

0:23:21helpful. So it's, you know, and that's built right into it, which is also why it's not,

0:23:26I think as popular as it probably could be if it was super focused on something, but

0:23:32I'm okay with that because I don't think it would have lasted if it had been super focused

0:23:37on anything.

0:23:38And with the podcast network thing now we've got some stuff that's more super focused.

0:23:41I can do that Sunday night podcast about Game of Thrones for 10 weeks and then stop for

0:23:47a year and then go back to it.

0:23:49But for the main show, I think it's that.

0:23:52It's just the way it's built in.

0:23:54eclectic enough to keep me interested after this time. I should also say I'm very bad

0:23:59at quitting things. I'm a—I'm a—I am. I'm really bad at it. I mean, we've talked

0:24:03about my job, right, and how I had that job for essentially like 17 years and even the

0:24:08last two years when it was terrible and I should have quit and it was obvious I should

0:24:11have quit, I didn't quit. But it's true. I am a person who sticks with things, which

0:24:16I think is an admirable trait in a lot of ways, but I am always questioning myself about

0:24:23am I sticking with this because I want to do it, or am I sticking with it because I'm

0:24:26too stubborn to say that it's over?" And like the blog that we did in the 90s TV, the

0:24:34zine I did, the fiction magazine that I did on the internet, Intertext is the same way,

0:24:38where Intertext especially, where like it was obvious for like about three years that

0:24:41I could manage maybe one issue a year, and it took that long for me to be like, "I

0:24:48need to stop, right? I can stop this. All I have to do is say it's over, but sometimes

0:24:55it's hard to say that. So, you know, that's an issue here too, but I'd like to think that

0:25:01I've learned and gotten better at it. But yeah, anyway.

0:25:05But anyway, congratulations to you and all of your fellow panelists for hitting 300 episodes

0:25:11of The Incomparable. Thanks. It's a big number. We should also

0:25:15mentioned the Mac power users hit it a little while ago and I was very

0:25:17impressed by that because I told David Sparks when I was talking to him that

0:25:22like I know how many episodes that is that's a lot that's you know and on one

0:25:26level all you have to do is just keep putting them out like I said 300 weeks

0:25:30pass and there you are but it's a different thing to to I mean to do it

0:25:37that long is it's it's kind of special and and I appreciate it when I see it

0:25:43And Penavic at over 200. It's amazing.

0:25:46Yeah, MPU's up to 321 now.

0:25:49I know. Well, they do those bonus episodes. We used to be ahead of them, and now we're

0:25:52not.

0:25:53That's the way they do it. Penavic's moving to daily, just so we can take you down.

0:25:57Oh good. That'll get your numbers way up.

0:26:00We're coming for you.

0:26:02Yeah.

0:26:03This week's episode is brought to you by FreshBooks. FreshBooks are a company on a mission to help

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0:28:10so much to FreshBooks for their support of upgrade and Relay FM.

0:28:16So we had a bit of follow up regarding cellular connectivity in watches from our friend, Anze

0:28:22- Tomić, yes.

0:28:24- Anche is a fantastic podcaster from Slovenia.

0:28:28- Yes.

0:28:29- He has been--

0:28:29- He'll be so happy that we pronounced his name

0:28:30and set his country right.

0:28:32- I know, well, we try, you know, what can we say?

0:28:34- And we met him in person, so that's nice, he's very tall.

0:28:37- Yeah, he came to the upgrade meetup, was it last year?

0:28:40- Yes, it was.

0:28:42- There you go, so last year, and Anche,

0:28:44he tries out lots of products,

0:28:46like he does lots of product reviews and stuff.

0:28:48- Yeah.

0:28:49- For his shows.

0:28:50- They bring him cell phones in a paper bag.

0:28:52he reviews them tips them out of the bag yeah it's going um and one of the things that he has been

0:28:56reviewing recently is the LG watch urbane second edition and this has a nano sim slot in the watch

0:29:04it has a speaker and a microphone so you can talk into it like on phone calls and this something

0:29:09is quite cool that and she said that the antenna for the for the like all the calls and stuff are

0:29:14in the watch band but this makes the watch band non-removable which is sad for you yeah which is

0:29:19is very sad for everybody. And he says that it's kind of ridiculous to use for phone calls,

0:29:25right, to talk into the watch, but it does work. Like the speaker isn't that loud, it

0:29:29gets a bit crackly, and I like that his overall kind of feeling is the "watch as a phone"

0:29:35concept technically works, right, like you can do it, somebody is doing it, it is working,

0:29:41but it's not really that cool.

0:29:42Yeah, he says it's cool like, it's cool in Knight Rider or something like that. Kit,

0:29:47and get me, right? But not in, that's an old TV show, but not in real life. So it's, yeah,

0:29:53this is why I was saying last week that I feel like, we got some good feedback about

0:29:58this. I actually, I think I was fortunate to have that experience of having the second

0:30:03gen Kindle with a cell stuff built into it because a lot of people were saying, oh, I

0:30:09hadn't even thought of something like that because, you know, it's sort of not something

0:30:13you think about unless you've actually had a device that did this, this sort of like

0:30:16it's paid by the vendor, it's very tightly metered,

0:30:21like how does Amazon get away with it?

0:30:22They control the software that's on it.

0:30:24So even if you had something like that,

0:30:25this included with the device on slow speed networks,

0:30:30you never really even see that it's there.

0:30:35And since Apple in this case would control the software,

0:30:38you wouldn't really need to worry about data usage.

0:30:40The data usage would be pretty limited

0:30:42because Apple would limit it because it's paying for it,

0:30:44or it's got some sort of agreement with a cellular provider to limit how it's used so

0:30:49it doesn't destroy that network. And the more I think about it, I mean, this is why I think

0:30:55this is the right direction for something like Apple Watch because it gives it conductivity

0:30:59without it becoming your phone. Like, and I think like having it only have access to

0:31:04data is a part of that too that, you know, you can talk on your Apple Watch now, but

0:31:10but it's using your phone. Now if they can do it so that even if you're nowhere near

0:31:14your phone, phone calls also ring your watch and you can pick up your phone, you know,

0:31:21a cell phone call to your cell phone on your watch, that's good, but I don't want another

0:31:24phone number for my watch. But that may be doable. It may be similar to the stuff they

0:31:31do in your house with sharing your phone calls and texts and things across devices. It, you

0:31:39know, if they're maybe if they're on the same carrier probably not if they're not.

0:31:43But anyway I think it's an interesting idea and I'm I would rather do that than have it

0:31:48be something where I have to pay $10 a month to add my watch to my AT&T plan.

0:31:52Yeah I'm not keen on the idea of these two things being separate like it's you know as

0:31:58we spoke about last week the idea of it being able to work independently but to understand

0:32:04that it is tied to the phone. That's the key here really.

0:32:10I want to just cover a little piece of news because I really am very interested in what

0:32:14you think about this. Out of the blue last week, there's news that came that Apple has

0:32:19invested $1 billion in a Chinese ride sharing service, like a big Uber competitor in China,

0:32:26called Didi Chuxing.

0:32:29Tim Cook gave a bunch of comments to writers.

0:32:33He's saying that they've invested a billion dollars

0:32:35in this company because it will better help them

0:32:37understand the Chinese market.

0:32:39And they said that this deal reflects our excitement

0:32:43about their growing business, Didi Chuxing,

0:32:45and also our continued confidence in the long term

0:32:48in China's economy.

0:32:49This is as much about sending signals

0:32:52about their seriousness in that country

0:32:54it is about helping Didi build a ride sharing platform," he said. And then Tim, he tweeted

0:33:01a picture of him in Beijing hailing one of the Didi taxis. What's going on? What is this?

0:33:11I don't know, other than I could say it suggests something about Apple's commitment to China,

0:33:18not just to the world, but to China

0:33:22and to the Chinese government.

0:33:23- Yeah, I feel like this is more of a way for them to,

0:33:28they're not necessarily,

0:33:29a lot of people are speculating that,

0:33:31oh, this is them trying to understand cars.

0:33:34I think it's just they found a company

0:33:36that was doing pretty well that they could invest in

0:33:39so it looks good in Chinese business.

0:33:41- Yeah, it could be.

0:33:44Ben Thompson from Stratechery wrote a piece today,

0:33:47I think it's a subscriber piece that I liked.

0:33:50And I liked it for his forthrightness

0:33:53about the fact that he says,

0:33:54"With China, nobody really knows."

0:33:56Because unless you're on the inside,

0:33:59nobody really understands why the Chinese government

0:34:01does what it does, and it does what it wants.

0:34:04So even though Ben is, I would say,

0:34:07from perspective of like people who write about Apple

0:34:10and other technology companies, fairly knowledgeable,

0:34:14even just because he is in Taiwan, that he understands things about Asia and about China

0:34:20that the rest of us don't. But he said, "Look, I have no idea either because unless you're

0:34:25inside the Chinese government, you really don't know what's going on here." It seems

0:34:29to be Apple sending a signal to China about its commitment and being a good citizen and

0:34:34being a part of the Chinese economy. Does it mean something about Apple's position on

0:34:39ride-sharing, specifically, does it mean something about Apple's position on building cars? You

0:34:46know, I'd say maybe, but the overriding thing I would say is that this seems like it's about

0:34:51China. It's about, you know, Tim Cook famously has said that he thinks China will ultimately

0:34:56be Apple's biggest market. It's already the second biggest market, the greater China segment,

0:35:01and I think that's only gonna, you know, that's gonna continue to grow. Apple wants it to

0:35:06Apple sees China as a market of huge potential and it's hard for Western companies in China

0:35:10sometimes and the Chinese government makes it hard because they want to, they have their

0:35:17own interests at heart. They have China's interests and the people in the Chinese government's

0:35:21interests at heart. And there's some suspicion, I think, a lot of times of companies from

0:35:26the West doing, you know, making their investments in China and I think Apple has played that

0:35:34game pretty well of showing their commitment to China. Apple's business model works fairly

0:35:38well in China. And so that, I don't know, that's my gut feeling is that this is about

0:35:44Apple putting down more roots in China and showing to the Chinese government that it

0:35:50is absolutely serious in this. Now whether this is something that was like Apple's idea

0:35:55or was D.G. Chuxing's idea or whether it was the Chinese government's idea to push Apple

0:36:03into this investment, who knows? Who knows? I feel like this is the equivalent of nuclear

0:36:09arms talks. This is high level stuff, but I do feel like that's some of what's going

0:36:16on here.

0:36:17Because whatever Apple is doing in the automotive industry, they're not looking at creating

0:36:21an Uber competitor. I just don't think that's what they're doing. So I don't think this

0:36:26is it. And also knowing Apple's previous trajectory in investments, they wouldn't invest in a

0:36:32a company like this if they were planning their own service. They would either buy it

0:36:36or leave it alone. Right?

0:36:38Right.

0:36:39This is just a fascinating out of kind of character story.

0:36:44They may not be allowed to buy it anyway, right? It's a Chinese company. So this may

0:36:48be the, you know, you want to be in this market but we're not going to let you buy our company.

0:36:52Well, but they could buy Lyft or Uber, right, probably, if they really wanted to do that.

0:36:56Yeah, that's true. I suppose. I don't know. Yuck.

0:37:02This is one of those things that is, and this keeps happening, right?

0:37:06Because it's a different company under Tim, because it's his company, not Steve's company.

0:37:10So over the last couple of years, I feel like we've all been saying constantly how different

0:37:15it is, this is new Apple.

0:37:17And this is the number one of those things.

0:37:20But they've never really done anything like this before.

0:37:23Making a big public investment in a company that is kind of completely unrelated to what

0:37:27they do in another country and you know making a big song and dance about it

0:37:32like they usually keep these things pretty quiet. Is that unrelated though? I

0:37:36mean these are all app based. It's tangentially related. Sure. Like Apple

0:37:41make computers and software and this is... Unless we know that they've got you know

0:37:46a car initiative going too that makes it a little less tangential but yeah. But

0:37:51it's you know it's just a very it's just very peculiar it's just very peculiar. I

0:37:55I don't disagree. It is a strange thing.

0:37:59But exciting at the same time because it's weird. Right? Like for me and you, this sort

0:38:05of stuff is super exciting because this is new. We're getting to talk about and consider

0:38:11things that we've never considered before when looking at Apple. Like, why are Apple

0:38:15investing a billion dollars of their money into a Chinese ride hailing service that we've

0:38:20never heard of before? I don't know. Let's think about that. And that's what I find to

0:38:24be really interesting, right? Who knows what they're doing here. And I'm interested to

0:38:30see where it goes. It feels like a lot of this, like the timing, you know, is really

0:38:34kind of related to the earnings calls and stuff like that, right? Like, how are you

0:38:38going to grow your business? We're now going to invest in upcoming companies. Okay, great.

0:38:42Here's the stock price increase, you know?

0:38:44I don't know. I guess we'll see. Should we move on to our exciting next segment?

0:38:50We should indeed.

0:38:51All right, well, before we do that, let me tell you about one of our sponsors.

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0:41:22Hey, mailbagging. Mailbagging! I keep saying it. You didn't give me the chance. I was so

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0:41:39Everything you'd want from the people handling your mail. Thanks Mail Route.

0:41:42Thank you Mail Route. So now we are very lucky to be graced by the EVP of Sales

0:41:48and Development at Midroll Media and all-around podcasting nice guy Mr. Lex

0:41:51Freeman. Hi Lex. Hi how are you? Good thank you so much for joining us today. We

0:41:56have to realize from our listeners that they are very interested in hearing more

0:42:01about what happens in podcasting and one of the things that Jason suggested last

0:42:06week is why don't we talk to you about the things that we find interesting and/or concerning and you

0:42:13could tell us why it's all okay right that's kind of the thinking here i'm okay with it i will say

0:42:19you know i i listened to your episode uh from last week and i listened to atp's episode from

0:42:23last week we were talking about it and there's parts of it that were in total agreement on and

0:42:27parts of it there were less agreement on i feel like it's important that i disclose all my biases

0:42:33obviously I work for a podcasting company. I sell some of Jason's shows. I have sold

0:42:40some of your shows and some of Marco's one show, ATP at least, in the past. But I just

0:42:47want to make sure that I disclaim all of those things so that all biases are revealed.

0:42:51Yes, I used to be your boss. You have a podcast, although it's dormant right now that's at

0:42:56the incomparable. There are lots of connections here. That's fine.

0:43:00Which is why you're the perfect person.

0:43:01Yeah, you're one of us and you're one of them.

0:43:04You are also somebody who understands what we do, which is ever so slightly different

0:43:11I think from some of the larger shows and the way that we're approaching.

0:43:14So I have a bunch of questions and points that I would like to discuss with you, Mr.

0:43:20Friedman.

0:43:21Go for it.

0:43:22I think fundamentally, one of the things that we're talking about is all the stuff that

0:43:26was in that article but just in general what data do you feel from the

0:43:31conversations that you've had that advertisers would like from podcasters

0:43:37that they don't currently have? What are the things that you hear about the most

0:43:41that companies that are willing to advertise want but can't get? So the thing

0:43:45that we hear from the bigger advertisers who either are in the space or are

0:43:50saying I can only get into the space when the things that they're asking for

0:43:53the most are they want to know how many people have actually heard the ad right

0:43:57they're looking at us as digital and so they're saying hey when we buy what we

0:44:01consider digital ads on YouTube we know who clicked the five-second skip button

0:44:07who watched the whole video who fast-forwarded as soon as they could or

0:44:10who saw the entire ad we want to know that for podcasts now what I tell them

0:44:16is I don't have that number my guess is I'll never have that number the if we

0:44:20were ever gonna really have any version of the number would have to come from

0:44:23Apple and they're never going to give it to us.

0:44:26But the thing that I tell everybody, and I genuinely mean it is, if we had that number,

0:44:31it wouldn't change the price, right?

0:44:33It would change what the metric is that we're using against our CPM.

0:44:36So we'd say, okay, let's say that 40% of the people who listen to a podcast listen to the

0:44:41ads.

0:44:42I hope it's a lot more than that.

0:44:43Let's say it's 40%.

0:44:44I wouldn't suddenly charge only 40% of what we're charging today.

0:44:46It would just say, okay, the number that we're using as our multiplier is now this actual

0:44:49listens number, so it's still the same price.

0:44:52The market has proven that the pricing is fair on these things.

0:44:55And it's really, they're just, you know, I used to and still do deal with all the direct

0:45:00response advertisers that you guys were talking about last week.

0:45:02You know, everybody with their offer codes up to and including mail route.

0:45:07They can track every single thing that's happening.

0:45:09But I would say that mid-roll's business over the past three years has evolved from 90%

0:45:15direct response to about half.

0:45:17And so we're doing campaigns with Wendy's and Dunkin Donuts and Allstate.

0:45:24Where's my Dunkin Donuts ad on the incomparable, Lex?

0:45:27So far they're only buying Bill Simmons.

0:45:30But the brands that we've landed are Head & Shoulders.

0:45:34Head & Shoulders did a campaign and they didn't spend...

0:45:40I think you guys even made references, maybe Marco and company did, to the fact that big

0:45:44brands coming in aren't necessarily going to spend bajillions of dollars, right?

0:45:47They're going to test it out just like everybody else.

0:45:49But the folks who are coming in are cautious because we don't have more measurement.

0:45:54And then the folks who are on the fence keep telling us, "Well, I need to know exactly

0:45:57how many people heard the ad," which you guys made the point last week.

0:46:01Well, do you know how many people saw your ad on the billboard or in the magazine or

0:46:04on television or on the radio?

0:46:05The answer is, of course, no.

0:46:07But they believe all the numbers they get for those things, right?

0:46:09They believe that Nielsen numbers are accurate.

0:46:11Right.

0:46:12Would it be safe to say, given my background and seeing print salespeople as well as digital

0:46:17salespeople, would it be right to say that there's really a disconnect where people who

0:46:21are used to buying digital, like you said, they expect web metrics for everything. And

0:46:26even if podcasting is more like radio, except with better stats, because we do have some

0:46:32statistics, that's not what they're used to. They're used to having rafts of data to use

0:46:38to make their buying decisions.

0:46:40- That's fairly accurate.

0:46:41And you know, when we talk to ad agencies,

0:46:43you know, like the giant ad agencies

0:46:45in Madison Avenue and whatnot,

0:46:48sometimes it's their digital team

0:46:49and sometimes it's the radio team.

0:46:51We're too expensive for the radio team, right?

0:46:53The prices that radio gets typically are very, very low

0:46:56and they're typically selling spot.

0:46:57If you're doing, meaning like a prerecorded 30

0:46:59or 60 second spot that they play on the radio.

0:47:02If you're doing host reads,

0:47:04like most of us are doing in podcasting,

0:47:06that's typically local talk radio

0:47:08who was selling host-read style spots.

0:47:10And so when it's the radio buyers talking to us

0:47:14and we're like, no, we don't have day parts.

0:47:16Like they want to know what hour

0:47:17is the ad going to run all the hours?

0:47:20The ad will always be running.

0:47:21- It's five years from now the ad will run, yeah.

0:47:24- Yeah, so it's most of the buying,

0:47:26I would say probably of the agency buying

0:47:28greater than 95% is coming from digital buyers

0:47:30who like you said, they're accustomed

0:47:31to digital style numbers

0:47:33and that's what they want from us.

0:47:35- Right, so couldn't it be argued then

0:47:37that rather than trying to fight to get the data

0:47:41and trying to educate companies like Apple

0:47:43as to why they should provide the data,

0:47:45that maybe the effort should be focused

0:47:47on the advertising agencies about the way

0:47:50that podcasting works, about the benefits of the medium,

0:47:53and why it should be thought of more like radio

0:47:55but in the digital space.

0:47:56I guess it feels like there's a disconnect

0:47:58that because it's on the internet,

0:48:01it should be like web ads.

0:48:03- It could be argued.

0:48:05And I don't disagree with that mentality,

0:48:07but I have to think carefully because of my job

0:48:12and not wanting to offend people who buy ads from me.

0:48:15The reality here is this, right?

0:48:17Agency ad buyers are just like you and me, right?

0:48:21They wanna be able to do the best work they can,

0:48:23ideally with the path to least resistance.

0:48:27And so they're accustomed to buying

0:48:29what they know how to buy.

0:48:30- Right.

0:48:31- And the number one way we get agencies buying

0:48:34the number of Dunkin Donuts of course comes through an ad agency they don't do themselves

0:48:37but the only reason Dunkin Donuts bought was because somebody at Dunkin Donuts told the agency

0:48:42oh my god Bill Simmons has a podcast he talks about Dunkin all the time buy ads on it and that then

0:48:46gave them the push to do it without that happening without the brand having a podcast advocate saying

0:48:51I want to buy ads on that show yep they wouldn't have come and that very frequently is the way that

0:48:55I sell ads for Relay right like we will either have somebody contact us who works in that company

0:49:02to say that they want it to happen or I speak to somebody who asks the question

0:49:06inside of a marketing team and someone puts their hand up and be like I love

0:49:09those shows. Right and so I think yes we can keep

0:49:14working to try to convince advertisers this is what we have.

0:49:17I'll tell you what some of the problems are and I think

0:49:21that you guys fairly but still did this I think you maybe

0:49:26mischaracterized the meeting or why people went to the Times last week

0:49:30because I was not at the Apple meeting, I can say that.

0:49:35Whether mid-roll was or wasn't, I couldn't say,

0:49:37because I'm sure that Apple would have anybody

0:49:38who attended sign an NDA.

0:49:40That's just my guess, knowing how Apple works.

0:49:42- The article did say that.

0:49:43- Right, exactly.

0:49:44And so, my guess is, people simply,

0:49:47people at the time said, "Hey, what were you doing

0:49:51"at Cupertino?"

0:49:53Person from various local podcasting companies who I like,

0:49:56and I'm like, "Oh, well, I can't really tell you,

0:49:57"but I'll tell you off the record kind of thing."

0:49:59don't think that people want specifically to complain,

0:50:01is my gut.

0:50:02But here's what we have today.

0:50:06There are competitors in this space,

0:50:07companies selling podcast ads,

0:50:08who claim to have the numbers that advertisers want.

0:50:11We get asked, I swear to you, every single day,

0:50:15I have 10 salespeople now,

0:50:16every day at least one of them gets asked,

0:50:17can we use a tracking pixel?

0:50:19And we say, no.

0:50:21And then they say, but competitor X,

0:50:23and I'll tell you after we are done recording

0:50:25who the competitor is,

0:50:26but they say competitor X says they can do that.

0:50:29And no, they cannot.

0:50:30Like, you guys know how MP3 players work,

0:50:33how audio files work, you cannot embed a pixel in there

0:50:37that somebody will load at the time the ad shows up,

0:50:39unless it's in some custom app,

0:50:41which is where none of the listening happens, right?

0:50:43Still, 60 to 70% of the listening is happening

0:50:45in iTunes or podcasts.

0:50:47And there's no mechanism by which you can report back,

0:50:49but they're being told that there is.

0:50:51So I think people in part went to Apple

0:50:53because they wanted to say,

0:50:54"Guys, liars are saying that this is how they can stop."

0:50:59And if you can give us some kind of reality to attach you so last week you guys were saying

0:51:04Because Apple doesn't stream the files. They can't do this

0:51:06My understanding from anonymous sources is they absolutely could do this like they already can report to you on who's streaming versus downloading

0:51:13I think a large percentage of people are streaming in podcasts and in iTunes without even knowing it, right?

0:51:17They just hit the play button. So it starts streaming right and Apple knows even though they're just kind of passing through the file

0:51:22They know how far you've gotten I have seen a report from Apple on completion rates. They don't actually make it available

0:51:28I don't see one every week. I saw one one time that was anonymized and wasn't about any shows

0:51:32I deal with but they could do it

0:51:33They own they own the app if you've got the player app you can get the you can get the stats

0:51:37That's that's absolutely true. If you it's it's stats from your your player

0:51:41I want to go back to something you said though because I thought having worked as you as you did we you know when you would

0:51:46Visit our office in San Francisco having worked with digital salespeople

0:51:48You know, it's a tough job and they are being how do you measure? How do you measure the effectiveness of a salesperson?

0:51:57Who's selling digital and one of the things is is they've got to have good relationship with clients because they got to make the sales

0:52:03How does the client measure effectiveness with a branding campaign on digital and it's hard right because like you said there's a leap of faith

0:52:10With numbers from radio or TV or something like that

0:52:13And so I understand the impetus here from the salesperson and from the person at the agency

0:52:19Which is like, you know, how do I get I'm so I'm an agency ad buyer and unless Duncan is telling me

0:52:24I want Bill Simmons

0:52:25I need to justify where I'm putting money, and if I have no numbers that will convince

0:52:32my boss that this is a good buy, why would I do that? Why would I go down that route?

0:52:37And so you end up, even if we all feel like, "Oh no, actually, this is a really good

0:52:41medium and you should do it," I can see just from a personal scale of the people in

0:52:46the chain, the person who has to sell the ad, the person who has to buy the ad, that

0:52:51it would be difficult because they need to show proof. And more and more, the only medium

0:52:56that has proof proof that everybody's used to is the web. And so they start to say things

0:53:01like, "Can you give me pixel data?" even though that does not exist.

0:53:05And so what we've started doing is, when it's a big brand, like if it is a Dunkin' Donuts

0:53:11or a Wendy's or that kind of company, we'll try to do a recall study for them. And surveys

0:53:19Advertises are what they are, right?

0:53:20But it's the only thing we can do.

0:53:21And so when brands are advertising on television, in theory they're going to say, "Hey, let's

0:53:24do some kind of brand lift study.

0:53:26Let's do some kind of surveying, some kind of sampling to say, 'What ads were in that

0:53:30TV show?

0:53:31Can you remember without us helping you at all?

0:53:33Can you tell us unaided, they call it?

0:53:35Can you recall who the advertisers were in that episode?'"

0:53:37And then once they say it, they're like, "Okay, yeah, you saw an ad for X car company.

0:53:41What car was it?

0:53:42What did they say about the car?

0:53:43What were the features?"

0:53:44So we've been basically doing that on some podcasts that have brand advertisers.

0:53:47in the post roll at the end of the show,

0:53:49they'll say, "Hey, listeners, if you have two minutes,

0:53:50"go fill out this survey."

0:53:51Now, it's a very, it's some kind of survey bias, right?

0:53:55Because it's only people who've listened

0:53:57to the end of the show.

0:53:57It's people who like the show so much

0:53:59that they're willing to go fill out a survey

0:54:00that has no reward for them of any kind.

0:54:02They don't know why they're filling out the survey

0:54:04or what it is, 'cause we don't tell them,

0:54:05"Hey, we wanna ask you about the ads you just heard,"

0:54:06'cause that would already skew your results even further.

0:54:09So people go in and they tell us,

0:54:10but what's amazing is, exactly as you'd expect,

0:54:13the numbers are really good.

0:54:14People listen to the ads.

0:54:15It's not like radio and television where they ignore it,

0:54:17or magazines or the web.

0:54:19They actually pay attention to the ad.

0:54:20So they can tell us, oh yeah, I heard the ad.

0:54:23I can remember who the advertisers are.

0:54:25And more than half the audience says,

0:54:27I'm more likely to eat at that restaurant

0:54:29or shop at that store now that I've heard that ad.

0:54:32So we can get the right data,

0:54:34but now everybody wants a recall study,

0:54:37and there is a finite amount of listener patience

0:54:39to keep hearing recall studies

0:54:40and keep following up on doing them.

0:54:42But that's the only, if it's not a direct response campaign

0:54:45where you can track coupon codes or vanity URLs,

0:54:48that's all you can really do is try to do some brand lift.

0:54:50I will tell you, there was one restaurant chain that said,

0:54:55all we're really looking for is, and I'm quoting here,

0:54:57all we're really looking for is asses and seats

0:54:59at the restaurant.

0:55:00And I said, well, how will you tell

0:55:02if the podcast helped that?

0:55:03And they're like, they said a line that I've heard

0:55:04from numerous advertisers, which is,

0:55:07they think that overall 50% of all their brand advertising

0:55:10is effective and they just don't know which 50% it is.

0:55:12So as long as the numbers are trending

0:55:13in the right direction,

0:55:14they keep doing everything that they're doing.

0:55:16- I used to work at a very large company, a global company,

0:55:19and I worked in the marketing teams

0:55:20and I used to sit in meetings

0:55:21where the digital advertising people would sit

0:55:25and they were basically of that idea too.

0:55:29This seems to be like a prevailing thing.

0:55:31It's just like, we know we're putting all this money in

0:55:34and we know something's happening.

0:55:36We have no idea what is causing it, but we know it's good.

0:55:39it was it was a very interesting thing to see and it's because that sort of

0:55:46brand advertising exists in another medium is why I think that it you know

0:55:51it can and does exist in podcasting but then when you start putting the data in

0:55:56it I think it fundamentally changes what the advertising is because if you're

0:56:00again you know whenever we've gone over this but if you're looking at this is

0:56:04more like radio, but you have to pay digital. I know it gets tricky, but it's asking for

0:56:11data to exist that doesn't exist, right? And then how do you, I don't know how you start

0:56:16to combat against that. Like companies just have to go along with it, right?

0:56:21It doesn't, it also, the web, I feel like it has skewed this because with the web, direct

0:56:25response is so powerful. Everybody wants to measure, I mean, that was my experience of

0:56:29IDG. It's like everybody wants to sell direct response. Everybody wants things, click-throughs,

0:56:33click-throughs, what are the click-throughs? And that misses the most, I would say, powerful

0:56:40and lucrative portion of advertising, which is brand advertising. And for people who don't

0:56:45know about this, it's the difference between an ad that makes you feel good about a company

0:56:49and its services or products, and an ad that wants you to call a phone number or go to

0:56:54a website right now. And on the web, a click-through is like you're picking up the phone and dialing

0:57:00to buy that vegetable slicer. It's direct response. They can measure that click. And

0:57:07the problem is branding advertising doesn't really work like that. An old boss of mine

0:57:14used to say, "You have to be considered to be bought." Your brand's legitimacy is a part

0:57:19of this, the importance of you getting business. And all those Squarespace ads, I think Squarespace

0:57:25Although they have some direct response, Squarespace's campaign on like every podcast was a branding

0:57:31campaign because what they want is if somebody thinks I want to set up a website, that Squarespace

0:57:36is the first thing that comes to mind. And I think it's been very effective at that.

0:57:40But like Coke, Coke doesn't want you to click on a box in order to get a Coke in your house.

0:57:46Right? Coke wants you to think, "Oh yeah, Coke, I like Coke. I should buy Coke the next

0:57:50time I go to the store or the next time I need soda, I should get a Coke."

0:57:54Or Vizio is the example I give.

0:57:57Vizio did a lot of advertising because they wanted to be seen as a television brand and

0:58:01not the cheap TV that is at Costco.

0:58:05And the benefit there was not direct response.

0:58:07It was the brand got better.

0:58:09But you get branding without clicking on things and without direct response, so it's very

0:58:12hard to measure it and you don't know if it's working or not.

0:58:15I think that's all exactly right.

0:58:17I don't disagree with any of it.

0:58:19And the one thing that you mentioned last week, Jason, on this show was ideally there'd

0:58:25be some way to sample it, right?

0:58:26Because advertisers are asking for data that they don't have from anything else except

0:58:30the web.

0:58:31And we even know that the data they have from the web is bogus, right?

0:58:32Just because the impression was served doesn't mean anybody saw it.

0:58:34Could have been an ad blocker, could have been off the page, whatever.

0:58:37A lot of people have the ads turned off, a lot of things messing with it.

0:58:41But if there was some way to give them sampled data the way they have for television and

0:58:46radio, I think advertisers would accept it in a heartbeat.

0:58:48But the problem is, to get sample data, you need Apple and Google and Overcast.

0:58:55Every app with an endpoint there has to participate.

0:58:58Let's say that Marco came to me and said, years ago when he first launched it, I asked

0:59:02and he passed.

0:59:03He said, "No way."

0:59:04Yeah.

0:59:05If Marco said, "Hey, Lex, pay me this fee and you can have access to my listener behavior

0:59:09data."

0:59:10It's not useful, right?

0:59:11Because I think, Myke, you said last week that 60% or something of your listeners come

0:59:15from Overcast, which is obviously atypical for the industry overall.

0:59:22If I were only sampling Overcast, which is, I don't know, I don't have any percentage

0:59:25in front of me, but it's a single digit percentage of say WTF with Marc Maron.

0:59:29It's a very different audience potentially from people who are listening to it on SoundCloud

0:59:33or in Howl, like whatever it is.

0:59:36So getting data from any one app is not useful.

0:59:38It has to be true sample data across everything to be at all relevant.

0:59:43You mentioned it as a good idea, which it is.

0:59:45I don't think it's possible to get.

0:59:46Well, I mean, you would have to get it from a survey.

0:59:49I mean, you'd essentially have to build a Nielsen survey style thing of podcast listeners.

0:59:54You'd have to recruit a panel on, I guess, websites and maybe by putting advertising

0:59:59and podcasts saying, would you like to join our panel?

1:00:01And you'd, I mean, it would be a huge effort to try and create something that you would

1:00:05have to feel at least somewhat confident is a statistically significant percentage.

1:00:11How does it work on radio?

1:00:12I mean, I did it once where they sent me a booklet

1:00:14in the mail.

1:00:15- So today on radio, they give you a thing

1:00:17that's always listening to what you're listening to.

1:00:20- Oh yeah, and it's like Shazam, Access.

1:00:23I think they do that for some TV ratings now too.

1:00:25- They do that for some TV ratings too.

1:00:26TV, I mean, basically what podcasters,

1:00:29what podcast companies are saying to Apple is,

1:00:31be like TiVo, give us the DVR data that you have,

1:00:33tell us what people are watching and listening,

1:00:35tell us how far they get.

1:00:36'Cause TiVo is able to make that data available,

1:00:37and does, they do it all anonymized,

1:00:39and as a soul-sucking advertising salesperson,

1:00:42That's the data I want.

1:00:43Like I would love to have anonymized bulk data

1:00:44of who got where.

1:00:46But with radio, it's like listening over your shoulder.

1:00:50Hey, did you hear that ad?

1:00:51Are you hearing that ad?

1:00:52And they know, because when you're in the car, right?

1:00:54If you aren't listening to a podcast for some sick reason

1:00:56and an ad comes on the radio,

1:00:58most people who are driving jab at the preset buttons,

1:01:00they go to the next station.

1:01:01So they have these little listening devices

1:01:03so they can know which ads did you hear.

1:01:05And then, you know, the radio companies

1:01:07add some giant number to it and say,

1:01:08okay, that's the number of people we have

1:01:10listening to our station when the ads are on.

1:01:11And it's all bogus, but it's bogus that's accepted by advertising buyers.

1:01:15Yeah.

1:01:15All right.

1:01:16So I have a feeling about this and this is kind of, I guess it's kind of selfish,

1:01:19but I'm just thinking about my own business here.

1:01:21So like you mentioned a moment ago, Lex, about the fact that we skew so much on

1:01:25our shows towards third parties and all of this discussion is around what Apple

1:01:29can do, what Apple can do, because in more mainstream shows, Apple is the 60, 70%,

1:01:34where for us, we have third parties in that.

1:01:37Even incomparable.

1:01:38It's like 60 or 70% Apple, right?

1:01:40because again, it touches more on mainstream topics.

1:01:43So making these kinds of changes,

1:01:45asking a company like Apple to provide this data,

1:01:48is this not a scenario where the needs of the many

1:01:53could affect the needs of the few, right?

1:01:55So it's gonna make massive changes potentially

1:01:57to the business where I,

1:01:59and many other niche kind of podcasters

1:02:02can't give that data, and then that then affects

1:02:06the way that we can do business, right?

1:02:08- I think it's a reasonable concern.

1:02:10I think it's partially a marketplace concern,

1:02:12if you know what I mean.

1:02:13Like it's the same way that if,

1:02:16that when there were 100 blogs using AdSense,

1:02:19they could make more money than when there's a billion blogs

1:02:22using AdSense, 'cause there's just,

1:02:23there's less of that to go around.

1:02:25I don't think though that it,

1:02:27I don't think it negatively impacts your business

1:02:29in a measurable way, is my guess.

1:02:31Because if it means that more advertisers

1:02:32can trust podcasting, and they can get in and say,

1:02:35"Oh, okay."

1:02:36So if they're saying that Marc Maron gets,

1:02:38I'm making these numbers up, 650,000 downloads,

1:02:40and 580,000 people get all the way to the end of each episode on average,

1:02:44now I know people is in a podcast.

1:02:45So I think to me, and I am trying very hard to be as unbiased here as I can,

1:02:49although I can't escape what I am and what I do,

1:02:52I think it probably ends up lifting all boats.

1:02:54Because today, I wish I had more tech shows, right?

1:02:57I wish I still sold all the relay shows,

1:02:58because the niche, the audience there is so strong,

1:03:02and so, and Sir Cuse was talking about this on ATP,

1:03:04like the audience is so pre-identified as these are, you know,

1:03:08tech-centric people with affluent incomes

1:03:12and eagerness to spend on well-recommended products

1:03:15that make sense for them.

1:03:16They do really well, right?

1:03:18It's a relatively easy sell, all things considered.

1:03:21So I would be surprised if, let's say that,

1:03:24because the WTF size shows of the world

1:03:26had more listener behavior data,

1:03:28that advertisers said, "Well, I'm never gonna buy

1:03:31"from ATP or from upgrade again,"

1:03:33because they still, once they've proven to themselves

1:03:36that the industry works, I feel like when they want

1:03:39to reach the tech audience, they're gonna know to come here.

1:03:41And I'll add this, if you listen today

1:03:45to a show like The Talk Show or ATP,

1:03:49you hear on those two shows in particular,

1:03:53shows that I really love and like shows that I have sold

1:03:55in the past, you hear today the same six to 10 advertisers

1:04:00most of the time, I would say 90% of the spots

1:04:02are maybe six to eight advertisers across those shows.

1:04:05And that, to everyone's point, that's a really good sign.

1:04:09That means the show really works for advertisers.

1:04:11If you hear different advertisers,

1:04:12every episode of the show,

1:04:13is a show that doesn't work that well for advertisers

1:04:14'cause they don't renew.

1:04:16So the fact that they have the same advertisers

1:04:17again and again is very reassuring for them.

1:04:20But when I look at it, it's like grrr,

1:04:23because I'm seeing all these brands who wanna get in

1:04:25who are coming to me and saying,

1:04:26"Hey, do you have any giant tech shows?"

1:04:27I'm like, "No, not anymore."

1:04:29But the advertisers are there, right?

1:04:31Maybe neither Marco nor John would wanna run ads

1:04:34for the Aaron Sorkin Steve Jobs movie.

1:04:36But we ran a big campaign for the Steve Jobs movie, right?

1:04:39And I literally just had somebody come to me last week

1:04:41about a new book about Steve Jobs that's coming out

1:04:44and wanted to know, and I'm like,

1:04:44"Well, I can put you on these shows,

1:04:46"but if you want these other ones,

1:04:47"here are the people to contact."

1:04:48But I think that they're probably,

1:04:51all those shows are doing very well,

1:04:52which I don't think is telling tales at its turn,

1:04:55but they're doing very well financially, I mean.

1:04:57I think they're probably even leaving money

1:04:59on the table though,

1:05:00because they're so direct response focused,

1:05:02because there are brand advertisers

1:05:03who want that audience so badly,

1:05:05and the same way that people would pay a premium

1:05:06to be on, to have their ads run on the West Wing,

1:05:09speaking of Aaron's work,

1:05:10and even though its audience was smaller than friends,

1:05:13it was a different kind of listener,

1:05:14or a different kind of watcher in that case,

1:05:16and I think that's the same situation

1:05:17that ATP and the talk show have,

1:05:19and because they can't give the brands

1:05:22what they want necessarily,

1:05:23the brands aren't coming to them.

1:05:26- But it's also-- - The brands.

1:05:27- The brands.

1:05:29- Brands, Marco will love this part.

1:05:30- The thing is though, like,

1:05:32I keep going back to it, then when we can't hand over that data, like so someone says

1:05:36to us like, oh, there this big brand advertiser comes, this movie comes and they're like,

1:05:41okay, and we've advertised here and there. And we want that data, we want those listener

1:05:45number data from you. And we say, well, we can't give it to you. Doesn't that then affect

1:05:49it though, because we don't have the information that they know has told them that it works

1:05:54in other places. And if NFA podcasts, which doesn't use one of the big platforms as its

1:05:59primary way of distribution cannot give that data to a new advertiser.

1:06:04Does that not put them on a bad foot with them?

1:06:07I still don't think so.

1:06:08Because I think that if they're able to prove to themselves that in general people listen

1:06:14to podcasts pretty far through.

1:06:16And if they're able to prove to themselves that yes, this medium is going to work because

1:06:19they can get over whatever hurdles they have today, then you're able to tell them, "Look,

1:06:25more than half of our audience is so opted into this medium that they went and got a

1:06:28different app like they took it a step further because they they felt you know

1:06:31we're a pro level listener we need more access and we need better features and

1:06:35be able to get through more shows and subscribe in more ways like I I think

1:06:40that you know if you got first of all if you got to the point it was an overcast

1:06:43specifically and suddenly companies like yours were hurting I know the guy who

1:06:47makes overcast you could maybe convince him to change his mind a little bit on

1:06:51how he approaches it but I doubt it you'll still have 10 to 20 percent of

1:06:55of your audience at least using iTunes, right?

1:06:57Or using Apple.

1:06:58And you'll be able to have a sample just from that.

1:07:01You can tell them, look, you've seen that the medium works

1:07:03from these other things, from these other shows,

1:07:05and a portion of our audience that's doing this

1:07:07has these great or even better numbers, let's say,

1:07:09comparable numbers, and we assume that the overcast piece

1:07:14is even more engaged based on the fact that they've opted

1:07:16into using a different app and have gone out of their way

1:07:18to make it easier for them to listen to the show.

1:07:20- We also, we are very focused on niche advertising, right?

1:07:25- Yeah.

1:07:26- And I agree that there are quite a lot of advertisers

1:07:28that they frequently sponsor all these shows.

1:07:33And one of our big goals here is to bring new people in.

1:07:35And we have a couple of companies that we've brought on now

1:07:37which are different.

1:07:38Also have lots of buy, right?

1:07:41They're buying lots of shows over many weeks

1:07:43and I think our listeners are starting to hear those.

1:07:45So we are focused on trying to broaden that net,

1:07:48but it's still within our niche.

1:07:50And one of the things that I think about

1:07:51is the reason that our CPMs,

1:07:53which is the cost per thousand listeners are so high

1:07:57is because the advertisers and the content

1:08:00and the listeners match up so nicely.

1:08:02If the net, if overall everyone starts to go broader, right?

1:08:07So we're all going broader with bigger brand campaigns,

1:08:10wouldn't that drive the CPMs down

1:08:12because the fit is not so tight?

1:08:15- It's an interesting question.

1:08:16Not so far in practice, I don't think it's impossible.

1:08:19You know, the broader an audience,

1:08:22the less valuable it is to an advertiser.

1:08:23I think that's true.

1:08:25But if the brand specifically wants to reach

1:08:28that kind of audience, then it's very valuable to it.

1:08:30It's like real estate and everything else.

1:08:32It's worth what people pay for it.

1:08:33And Dunkin' Donuts, in its case,

1:08:36didn't even care so much who Bill Simmons' audience was.

1:08:38I mean, they did, but they were more interested

1:08:39in the fact that Bill Simmons grew up with Dunkin' Donuts.

1:08:42He's a sportscaster, he grew up in Boston,

1:08:44where Dunkin' Donuts is, and he talked about it organically

1:08:47in his columns that he wrote all the time,

1:08:49so they said, "We want him to talk about us for pay."

1:08:51And his very first ad was like four minutes long

1:08:54talking about his childhood where every day

1:08:56he would take his allowance money

1:08:58and go to Dunkin Donuts after school.

1:09:00But so, I think that advertisers are gonna say,

1:09:05look, we're trying to reach,

1:09:06like honestly, podcasts are helping them reach people

1:09:08they can't reach anywhere else, right?

1:09:10Men 18 to 30 something aren't watching TV

1:09:15nearly as much as they used to.

1:09:16And if they are, they're watching stuff that's streaming,

1:09:17doesn't have ads.

1:09:19but they're listening to podcasts in big numbers.

1:09:22The kind of, the people who listen to your shows, right?

1:09:26This well-educated, high-earning listener,

1:09:29tech-centric listener, is again, not watching television.

1:09:32They're listening to podcasts.

1:09:33This is the place to go to reach them.

1:09:35And advertisers definitely want to reach,

1:09:37that's why CBS might have the top-rated shows,

1:09:40but maybe doesn't get as much ad dollars,

1:09:42because they don't have the top-rated shows

1:09:43amongst 18 to 34-year-olds,

1:09:44the people who spend all the money.

1:09:46I used to be an 18 to 34-year-old, those were the days.

1:09:48And, but so it's like, overall my gut is that if,

1:09:53to be honest, it's mostly an intellectual discussion

1:09:58because well, except for my part,

1:09:59because I don't think Apple will ever do it.

1:10:01But if Apple were to say,

1:10:02"Hey, we're gonna provide some anonymized data."

1:10:04Even if it wasn't show specific,

1:10:05but just industry specific saying,

1:10:06"This is the percentage of people who listen

1:10:08in these categories of shows all the way through

1:10:09or whatever."

1:10:10If we had, I don't think they'll ever provide that data.

1:10:14But.

1:10:15- So what are you gonna do then, right?

1:10:16Because I mean, this whole conversation is focused around how good this data would be

1:10:20and how much it's going to help the industry.

1:10:23But I think we're all in agreement here that pigs will fly, I think, before you get any

1:10:27of this.

1:10:28So what happens?

1:10:30So one of the points that ATP was making was, what you should really be focused on, advertising

1:10:36industry and podcasting industry in general, is how do we get more listeners?

1:10:39How do we get more people into the space?

1:10:42For me, it's a chicken and egg problem, right?

1:10:44Howard Stern renewed his I'm not saying Howard Stern's an ideal podcaster

1:10:47But if you take if we take as truth that he is hugely popular and that Sirius XM is built on Howard Stern

1:10:54He's too big for podcasting

1:10:57No podcasting company can give him the money that he wants because the advertising dollars aren't there yet

1:11:01Now Wall Street Journal ran an article a couple months ago saying that the entire advertising industry for podcasting was 35 million

1:11:07Which is like laughably wrong

1:11:09So there's there's real money in podcasting

1:11:14But there's not Howard Stern money podcasting

1:11:16So part of the reason that people like me are so eager or wish that Apple would

1:11:20Succumb and give us more data so that we could woo these advertisers because those advertisers have the bigger budgets right like even

1:11:26Unlocking the fortune 100 of podcast advertisers of which we've cracked here at mid-roll. I don't know 10

1:11:32There's a lot of incremental money into the space because it's not like it's gonna stop working for the Casper's and

1:11:38Square spaces and mail routes of the world. It's gonna keep working for them, too

1:11:42So my feeling is the more people we can the more money that the industry can make

1:11:47The more big talent will come in there the more big talent that's there the more listeners will get because today

1:11:53I don't think there's a vast untapped market of tech podcast listeners who aren't yet listening to tech podcasts

1:12:00I think for the comedy space that ear wolf sits in which is part of my day job

1:12:04I think we've hit you know

1:12:0690% of the people who want to hear that kind of content are listening to it right now

1:12:11Then there's a big untapped market of all kinds of other people who don't know what podcasts are don't know how it works for

1:12:16For them podcast app iTunes and overcast are all too difficult right now

1:12:21Figuring out how to connect their phone in the car is too hard all those pieces getting like if my car could download the episodes for

1:12:27Me automatically and be synced with whatever app I'm using so that I could just get in the car and push the podcast button and start

1:12:32Listening to the latest episode of upgrade that's that's where the industry has to go

1:12:36But to make all those things happen to make it get that mainstream

1:12:39It's gonna have to be all the things happening once bigger talent coming into the space

1:12:43So that you can get bigger shows and making it all easier so that more and more people are getting in there as listeners

1:12:48So what are we gonna do? We're gonna keep doing we do it, right?

1:12:50We're gonna keep having these same conversations advertisers explaining why they can't have the data that they want

1:12:54And trying to reassure them that doesn't matter

1:12:57And we're gonna miss out on some advertisers. There's gonna be some folks who we I

1:13:02Have a trip to Detroit next Monday a week from today

1:13:06To talk to the kinds of companies kind of companies there you can you can guess what kind of companies

1:13:10Some of them have tried podcast some of them are looking to do bigger and better things

1:13:15But it's an open question as to whether all of them

1:13:18Well, I used to think I used to tell everybody you look if we get one movie studio advertising as movies of us all the

1:13:23movie studios

1:13:24well

1:13:24it actually did happen with TV stations right a lot of TV networks do tune in with us where they're saying hey tune into this

1:13:29Show at this time and I'll tell you just as a quick aside

1:13:33sometimes they'll say, "Hey, we only want the ads to run up until the time the show premieres. After

1:13:37that, can we pull the ads out?" It's like, no, we're not going to do that. You are very old school

1:13:41and you're thinking you are a crazy, but that's what we're dealing with. I was going to ask you

1:13:44about that. Does that hurt podcasting, the fact that you cannot guarantee a listen and that the

1:13:48ads, the ads are kind of baked in and then stay forever? Oh, hell yeah. That's why some people in

1:13:54the industry are moving to inserted ads, right? Even if it's effectively a host-read spot, they're

1:13:58trying to pre-record the spots and inject them at the time of download so that you might hear the

1:14:03the host reading an ad for you know Squarespace this week but if you listen

1:14:07next week you'll hear an ad for a TV show that comes out that week. Yeah that's

1:14:11one thing I noticed I downloaded cereal recently the first season and the MailChimp

1:14:16ads were gone. Yeah and that's very common, it's gonna get increasingly common.

1:14:20Everything that just about everything we sell today is still baked in right the

1:14:23ads are there and until and unless we strip them out by hand which just

1:14:27doesn't happen but the industry in some places is really trying to move to

1:14:32inserted spots like that where it's inserted on demand as you download it because they

1:14:36know your geo when you're downloading it and they know the date when you're downloading

1:14:39it.

1:14:40The risk to me is if you go down that route, it gets really easy to say, "You know what?

1:14:46We could take a prerecorded Geico ad for a $3 or $4 CPM and just put that in if we didn't

1:14:53sell the spot."

1:14:55That's when podcasts really start sounding like radio and it's when listeners really

1:14:58get alienated.

1:14:59ads are so cheap because they don't work that well.

1:15:00It's not the host reading it and listeners start tuning it out.

1:15:03And it's like, think of how good you are at ignoring every commercial around you.

1:15:07As soon as it's a prerecorded spot, doesn't do anything other

1:15:09than take you out of the podcast.

1:15:11Uh, so I've been holding that off as far as I can.

1:15:13Yeah, I agree with you.

1:15:15I, I I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of having my, you know, host

1:15:19red spots, uh, dynamically inserted.

1:15:21We, we actually hear a lot from people in Europe about how so many of the ads on

1:15:26the relay shows are obviously, and most podcasts, right, are, they're often very US-centric.

1:15:32And the reason is exactly this, which is everything's just baked in right now. This is, I mean, it

1:15:37is very primitive in that way. And yes, if CBS wants to have that ad for CSI Cyber stop

1:15:43running because they canceled it, you can't. You just, you can't right now.

1:15:48Yeah.

1:15:49Do, I have one follow-up before we wrap this up, which was standardized data. Like one

1:15:55of the things that I know that your podcasters that you were selling for have to do, because

1:15:59I'm one of them, is supply you with data. And the challenge is that the data right now

1:16:03is not just limited to downloads, let's say, and streams, but it's also not standardized.

1:16:09And I know that NPR had a white paper about this a while ago, this idea of trying to create

1:16:15some standards, because right now a number, and I can say this from personal experience,

1:16:20a number on SoundCloud and Libsyn and Feedpress, it's not the same number. Like the numbers,

1:16:29and it's hard to tell what the real number is, but they're not measuring the same thing

1:16:33so far as we can tell. And so therefore, even when you say this is a show with this many

1:16:38downloads, what downloads means is unclear.

1:16:42Yeah, it's a problem. And there are the same companies that claim they can put in pixels

1:16:48will say, "Hey, this show's doing one and a half million downloads an episode where

1:16:51it doesn't rank in the iTunes top 500."

1:16:53Because they're saying, "If we tweet it and Twitter uses the SoundCloud embedded player,

1:16:59then every one of this person's followers counts as a potential listen, so we're going

1:17:02to count those as listens."

1:17:03That's literally the math they've been using.

1:17:06We've seen shows move from Libsyn to SoundCloud and have their numbers go up.

1:17:09We've seen shows move from SoundCloud to Libsyn and have their numbers go up.

1:17:11We've seen them both go down when they make those switches too.

1:17:13It's a problem.

1:17:16Everybody's trying to use some amalgamated algorithm, which is also the name of my cover

1:17:20band that looks at bandwidth usage by file and session length if you're streaming it

1:17:28on the site and other variables to try to come up with what the right download number

1:17:31is.

1:17:32But it's impossible to really measure peer downloads.

1:17:35We get a surprising amount of shows who come to us and tell us, "Hey, we do 200,000 downloads

1:17:39an episode," when they're measuring it just by server stats, not really since their server

1:17:43is chunking the file and they're getting a quarter or a fifth of what they think they're

1:17:46getting.

1:17:47And so we get to be the bearers of delightfully bad news for disappointed podcasters around

1:17:51the world.

1:17:52But it's a problem.

1:17:55I like SoundCloud's numbers and I like Libsyn's numbers because I appreciate what they're

1:17:58trying to do and how they're trying to do it.

1:18:00And I think it's more exact than anybody can get on radio or TV, even though it's still

1:18:04clearly vague and inexact overall.

1:18:08I actually had one more thing before we go, which is Lex did leave that tantalizing point

1:18:11out there that there were things that we said that he disagreed with last week.

1:18:17Have we failed to cover some of those now?

1:18:19Because this would be a good time for you to say, what else did we, do you think that

1:18:22we got wrong?

1:18:23I only have one minute, but we covered the one which I think that you can use, that Apple

1:18:28could give us access to listener data even without serving the files.

1:18:32The only other thing is, and this is, I know this is way more than a one minute conversation,

1:18:36But you guys on both shows, this one and ATP, you guys talked about how we don't want this

1:18:42to become like the web or like YouTube because those things are ruined.

1:18:45At the same time, I spend a lot of time every day on the web and on YouTube and I understand

1:18:49what we're saying when we say that the web is ruined or the YouTube is ruined, but it

1:18:52also still gives me a lot of joy, a lot of information and a lot of entertainment.

1:18:57So I recognize and I like you don't love advertisers trying to follow me around every website I

1:19:02visit and everything like that.

1:19:03But the fact that YouTube advertisers can get some kind of aggregated data about how

1:19:07many people pressed the skip button versus how many people didn't, doesn't bother me

1:19:10that much.

1:19:11It certainly doesn't negatively impact my overall YouTube experience.

1:19:12So I just wanted to put that out there that I know it's easy for us to say that YouTube

1:19:17and the web are ruined, but I still love both YouTube and the web.

1:19:20So I, there's-

1:19:21Yeah, but loving them for the content is very different to, like when we say ruined, it's

1:19:25like the advertising business in those is significantly worse.

1:19:30Like YouTube CPMs are horrific.

1:19:34That I get.

1:19:35The only other piece I'll put out there is, we didn't talk about the idea of advertisers,

1:19:40I'm sorry, of podcast companies selling episodes on iTunes and how like, do you really want

1:19:45to cut, like that's not something that I'm personally advocating for.

1:19:47I'm not super interested in it.

1:19:49By the same token, advertisers who are trying to find ways to make more money for podcasts

1:19:54so that the, like, we have to, we want these advertisers,

1:19:58we want podcast creators to find a way

1:20:01to make it profitable, right?

1:20:03We can't say just, you know, just make great stuff

1:20:05and you'll make money is the same thing.

1:20:07Like we can't, we shouldn't yell,

1:20:08I'm gonna get a point eventually, I promise.

1:20:10We can't yell at developers who are putting out free apps

1:20:13or 99 cent apps and saying,

1:20:14you're not building a sustainable business.

1:20:16Think about how to really make this big.

1:20:17And, you know, think that they're thinking about it wrong,

1:20:20but then turn to podcasters and say,

1:20:21guys, you're trying to think about ways

1:20:23monetize this better, just make great content.

1:20:26It's the same.

1:20:26It's really the same opposite sides of the argument being made in two different

1:20:29ways.

1:20:29Cause I think that it's right and important for podcasts companies to figure out, Hey,

1:20:33what can we do to make these podcasts and make more money?

1:20:35Cause what I love about I'm going way over time, I'm going to get missing my next

1:20:38call and you wouldn't believe who it's with.

1:20:39But if the, if, if what I love about this job is the podcasters can make the shows

1:20:47cause they're getting paid, right?

1:20:48Otherwise they couldn't make this art.

1:20:49The listeners can hear the show only because the podcasts are getting paid.

1:20:51Like most hosts wouldn't be able to keep doing the show if they weren't making

1:20:54money from it.

1:20:54So the listener gets to buy in and then the advertiser typically sees good results.

1:20:58So it's truly in that sense, a win-win-win right?

1:21:00The show exists because they're advertisers and the advertisers are happy because

1:21:04they can advertise on that show.

1:21:05So when we see the podcasters are trying to figure out what can we do to make more

1:21:08money, it's the same thing that developers are trying to do, right?

1:21:10Let me make this a subscription thing, even though that's not what people are

1:21:13interested in necessarily.

1:21:14They're like trying those pieces because they're trying to figure out a way to

1:21:17make it a sustainable business.

1:21:18We're going to do this forever.

1:21:20but this fundamentally ties into the misunderstanding

1:21:22or the difference in opinion between me and you

1:21:24is I agree with everything you just said,

1:21:25so I say leave it alone.

1:21:27Lex, thank you so much for joining us.

1:21:30It has been an absolute pleasure to have you.

1:21:32Where can people find you and the work that you do?

1:21:36- The easiest place to find me is just go on Twitter

1:21:37and look for Lex Fry,

1:21:38and then you'll find everything from there

1:21:39'cause I'm all over the place,

1:21:40but this has been a delight.

1:21:41Thank you so much for having me on.

1:21:42- Thanks, Lex.

1:21:43- Lex, it's always a pleasure.

1:21:44You go and take that next call.

1:21:46- Bye-bye.

1:21:47- Say hi to the president for me.

1:21:49I don't feel like we've got anywhere Jason I could do that for another hour so I'm sure

1:21:53we'll continue to have this discussion. I again hope that everybody who said they liked

1:21:59this discussion last week enjoyed it this week as well. We have come to the end of our

1:22:04time for this episode if you'd like to find some links for today head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/89

1:22:11as always you can find Jason's lovely work over at sixcolors.com the incomparable.com

1:22:15and he is on Twitter @JSNEL, J S N E double L.

1:22:18I host many shows, the lovely Real AFM.

1:22:21I also sell the ads at Real AFM.

1:22:23You can find me on Twitter, I am @imike, I M Y K E.

1:22:28Thanks again to our lovely sponsors

1:22:30who we hold so dear, Mail Route and Freshbooks.

1:22:33And thank you as always for listening.

1:22:35And I look forward to receiving your feedback

1:22:38for this week's episode.

1:22:39As always, the best way is via Twitter.

1:22:42You can use the hashtag #askupgrade

1:22:43Or you can just tweet to me or Jason and we will find it. Thanks so much for listening

1:22:47We'll be back next time until then say goodbye. Mr. Snow. Bye everybody

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