Who Wins Content Discovery? | Neil Mody, Headliner #695

0:04 I'm at Ginni Media Studios building in New York City. It's great to be here. This is the entrance to the gorgeous building. Looks like they're all already in the, the fall mood here in the building. But, uh, this is the building where I'm gonna do this week's New Media Show. So let's go in and experience this Hello.

1:00 This is the studio for the New Media Show, and that must be Ginni. Hi, Rob. Yes. Great to meet you, Rob. It's great to be here. I'll shake your hand on the phone. Well, welcome to the New Media Show. So, who wins content discovery is the big question we're gonna address today. A creator can publish a podcast, a video, short clip, or a newsletter, and a bunch of other stuff that can be created, a highlight video and all sorts of stuff that AI is helping people with. But how do those pieces work together and to build an audience and a business? So I'm, uh, Rob Greenlee, I've been doing this show for 14 years now, so I'm excited to be back.

1:43 I've got a terrific guest with me. Really, the big question that we're gonna talk about today is what wins content discovery when creators can reach people across so many different platforms, and And how much of that audience relationship can the creator keep under their direct contact with? And I think that's the big leverage that can come from a newsletter and capturing an email address. But podcasting in the creator economy, has distribution across video, social platforms, newsletters, like I said, and AI.

2:23 And the link between discovery and, holding onto that audience is really, at the end of the day, what we all need to think about. So stay with me here. Let's get into it. Welcome to the New Media Show with human host and Podcast Hall of Famer Rob Greenlee. [Intro music] So the New Media Show has a supporter membership plans now starting at $5 a month. So just go to newmediashow.com/support.

3:08 And I also have higher level packages too that include some consulting with me if you want to do that. And, thank you for keeping this show alive after 14 years. It's, uh, project that I took on after my co-host, Todd Cochrane, from Blubrry passed away. And so I, I'm excited to be here in New York City at a, a in-person studio. I've been doing that more here lately at the Ginni Media Studio in New York City. And this, as you can see, this is a, a studio session, but if you're listening to this, you probably wouldn't know one way or the other. But but if you wanted to see more information about, uh, this studio, go to ginnimediastudios.com, and I'm gonna put up on the screen the actual URL, um, so you can see that.

4:03 Uh, but it's G-I-N-N-I mediastudios.com So I'm excited to be joined by Neil Mody Woo-hoo … who's the CEO and co-founder of Headliner- … uh, who helps podcasters create and promote audio and video content online And he did, uh, just recently ask an interesting question online how podcast platforms can compete with YouTube on side. So, oh, and I wanted to mention, too, if you wanted to go check out Headliner, just go to headliner.app or ed- headliner So Neil, welcome to the New Media Show.

4:45 Oh, thanks, Rob. Uh, it's great to be here. I think this is my first time on your show. I think so. Although we've- I think so … we've spoken at least for, like, fi- f- five-plus years, I think, from your Oh, yeah back at Libsyn and- Lots and lots of content, uh, podcasting conferences. Yes, yes, yes. Uh, always a pleasure to meet you and, and talk to you and, uh, and thanks for having me on. Yeah, it's great to be here and, and helping me get this, this in-person studio set up. I- Yes … it's awesome to, to do these kind of productions. It's quite different than, like you mentioned a few minutes ago, we were talking about StreamYard and how, you know- Oh, I can't say what I said back then.

5:29 No, no, no, no. It's always good to do it in person, and I think that, that we're, we're gonna be talking about video, and I think that's, uh, you know, some of the value of some podcasts a- as well, just capturing some of the in-person stuff. And the, and the studio's great. Anyone need a space in New York, yeah, like, uh, Rob said, Ginny, on 40… What are we, on 45th Street, I think? Yeah. 40… Yeah, West 45th, I think. 45th. West 45th. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So- So it's, it's only like a 13-minute walk from Grand Yeah … if you land in New York. And probably the same from Penn Station, too. Right. It's pretty close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. But let's l- let's get into it. You mentioned about, uh, YouTube- Yes … and its importance for discovering now.

6:11 The 800-pound gorilla. Right, right. And, you know- … we, we've been talking about YouTube for years. Forever. So it's not something that's new. I know I, uh, I've been tracking what YouTube's been doing with podcasting, 2014. Mm-hmm. Even though they, they started, you know, about the Mm. It's just that it didn't have… Back in the early era of podcasting, it, video wasn't a thing. Yeah. Until we hit about, uh, probably- 2009 or so when video podcasting Mm. Um, but and increasingly after about 2009, YouTube's role in podcasting really started to develop.

6:56 And actually, YouTube had a little bit of a podcasting team back in 2014, just that it's not publicly known. Mm. ' Cause I, I worked with them. This is… Oh, and this is b- when Google pod- So Google had the Google podcasting team- And I worked with the Google podcast team too which was separate, which was separate from YouTube. Right. Right. And so this was even before that. Correct. I imagine, yeah. Well, I mean, look, uh, you know, one of the most famous podcasts there is Joe Rogan's show. Uh, keeping, you know, your political slants aside, it's still one of the biggest, biggest shows out there, has been on YouTube. And, and I think, uh, many, many creators now think of YouTube as their main platform.

7:42 And- Yeah, they do. Yeah … and that's, I think you reached out because I basically, you know, like, we've, we at Headliner have been, like, first getting the disclaimers out Team YouTube for f- probably since our- I know … our beginning. Right. Right? I know. So, so what we figured out early on was that audio is kind of a second-class citizen on the internet Okay. And the internet is a visual medium. People are looking at screens to make choices. Mm-hmm. And then they can go into, uh, a consumption mode- Right … where they're listening. But the decision criteria is generally a visual one, as opposed to the radio, which is a little less so.

8:29 Uh-huh. Right? And I think that difference had basically driven that wedge that made visual really important for podcasting- Yeah … versus right? And, and so we've been Team YouTube since the beginning, uh, trying to get all the audio shows up to YouTube since 2000… I think we s- we really sat in, like, 2019, I believe. Yeah. And back in, in the post I wrote, uh, YouTube used to be a bad word. We had podcasters who, who basically were very negative on the feature.

9:09 So there was… It was very polarizing. Mm-hmm. It was kind of two camps. There was a camp that said, "Hey, uh, this is amazing. Uh, I get all my stuff up to YouTube." Yeah. You know, we built automation for it. It was pretty much a seamless way to get all your audio up to YouTube. Mm-hmm. Uh, in fact, YouTube even released a tool, uh, to show you how, how they wanted to get all the audio. Again, we're kind of predating video podcasting. Yeah. But, uh, late 2000-teens and early two thou- uh, 2020s, get all this audio up to YouTube. So there were two camps: people who loved it, and then people who were absolutely against as- Yeah … a destination platform.

9:51 And I think there's still some holdouts. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure there is. Uh, and you probably know them more than me. Yeah. But, um, but we were educating people, I think, on, on the merits of YouTube. Yeah. Which I think has kind of shown up, uh, definitely with this wave of video podcasting. But I would say even for audio, there's still some, uh, naysayers and people arguing about, "Oh, you're not gonna get as many views on YouTube for your audiograms or your static image, image videos" Mm-hmm … and so on, but they're missing some of the value that YouTube provides Well, that and also YouTube launched their YouTube Music platform too- Mm-hmm … which, which maybe changed the conversation a little bit about audio on, on on, the YouTube platform.

10:36 Mm-hmm. So, you know, I think audio is one of those topics talked about You know, I think it's had a- a pretty negative impact on the, uh, overall kind of media podcasting content because- Mm-hmm. What's, what's had a negative impact? Well, it's, it's lack of focus on it. Oh, okay. Right. And- How audio's being overlooked … right. And it's- yeah I think we went through a very early era where, um audio was important because of public radio. Mm-hmm. And th- there was a lot of creativity going on there, very, very advanced productions- that were being done by, by the public radio side of things and creating storytelling, true crime- Mm-hmm … all those genres were, were huge.

11:26 And I just get a sense that there's not as much investment a- anymore. Mm-hmm. Um, and, because there's been so much financial pressure on being able to monetize those things and not being able to really afford the, the production teams that you need to be able to produce, has really put, put a crimp on it. I know I went to some training seminars with the CBC up in Vancouver. This was probably back in like 2018, something like that. They had a, a conference up there in, in Vancouver, British Columbia about, you know, podcasting. And I remember going to this webinar put on by the CBC, and they tried to teach us, uh, in like four hours how to do one of these storytelling Hmm.

12:18 And with- In four hours. Yeah, and the complexity of it was- Yeah … I mean, people walked out of this webinar- Yeah … like, their, their heads were spinning. It's like- It's an art form. I mean- You know, it, it- Yeah … was just so complex that there were so many tools that those creators Mm-hmm. And that's what we saw happen with, like, Serial, and we saw this happening with these, these, um true crime podcasts, and all this stuff was just the production quality was just unbelievable. But now we're being forced into this video era where it's probably cost-prohibitive for a creator to produce a show like that in a video form and be able to get a return on it.

12:58 Now, granted, I see on YouTube where, where, there are a lot of productions in there that are being done at that level now that are garnering millions of views now. Mm-hmm. So maybe we are shifting back somewhat to that storytelling era, but maybe it's coming into documentaries into YouTube or to and that may be where we were going even with Netflix, is just these really advanced productions. Now granted, that's not really podcasting though, so- Yeah … and that's part of the tension here. And can- w- where does podcasting really, do you think, Neil, fit in the creator economy right now?

13:41 I mean, where, I mean how much priority should we put on it? I know Apple has shifted- Mm-hmm … their, their emphasis with HLS to deliver video and HLS- Yeah and the audio experience is shifting to the audio from the video- Yeah … as the audio experience And I just- I mean- … feel like there's a compromise can, can we really produce the same level of audio quality in a audio track in a video audiences Well, I think- Taking it back to, like, the creator's point of view- Yeah I think what we have now, and the creators I speak to- Mm-hmm … is they don't wanna be limited to a particular medium.

14:29 Okay. Right, and that's part of- And so, and- … that creator economy- Exactly. So, so they wanna- Type of approach … be able to write a blog post if they want. They wanna be able to put out a podcast. Or the liquid content era, Neil. That's the- Well, I think, I think it's- Yeah … I think the liquid content touches a little bit more to, like, how to repurpose content throughout. But I think as a creator- Mm-hmm … there might be something they wanna snap a photo of, they might want to shoot a video of. They might- Mm wanna do a voice memo, they might wanna do an interview, they might … The, the … They don't wanna be tied necessarily to a particular medium. Yeah. Now, there are creators who are very happy in a singular medium, but, but I, I feel like … I mean, look, I j- I just … You know, last week I was in the Met and I was walking around, and you'll see the same artist who's known for sculpture do a painting and- Yeah and, and, and, and the creativity just oozes out of them, right?

15:22 In whatever- Mm-hmm … medium that they wanna pursue at that time. And podcasting's just another artistic form. And to your point earlier, I think what we have right now is on the narrative side. Mm-hmm. I think the challenge is, is probably this right-sizing of the industry, which I think has probably been flushed out. And so I'm actually looking forward to some of these starting again. Now, keep in mind, you know, there wasn't tons of investment when we're talking about shows of, like, Serial and, and those things happening- Mm-hmm … at that time. Mm-hmm. And there's still a lot of good narrative shows out there. I think what you have now is that just big money has come into podcasting, and so the expectations have got much higher.

16:03 But, but I- Yeah, but why, why have they gotten much higher? Is it just because, uh, podcasting is being seen as synonymous with kind of the mainstream now? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I mean, it's- I … And because of the audience … it's where the audiences are now. Exactly. It's because of the audience- Yeah … and because of that former investment, and because I think it's now a prize possession across media as well, right? And so, so what you have is all these different forces going on. I think you have creators who wanna create in whatever medium you want. Mm-hmm. You have businesses that have either, A, invested money, or B, even if they haven't, want high returns on their, on their dollars.

16:43 Yeah. And where monetization goes right now is generally favoring video, unless you can get a very loyal audio listener, which is still out there. But a hard game as well. And so, I mean, I'm no expert in this, in this stuff. I will say- I will say what YouTube provides, what the other platforms don't, is I think two things that really s- stand out is one is a global audience. Like, it's just- It's the second-largest search engine, right? Exactly. Yeah. And because of that global audience. Yeah. So, so, you know, call it three billion users.

17:26 I, you know, I, I know everyone's so tired of me using the same story, but, like, the globe is eight billion people, okay? So the entire planet's eight billion. Mm-hmm. You minus out children and so on, and you've got pretty much an addressable market of, like, six billion or so. Mm-hmm. And, and guess what? YouTube has half of them looking at it, uh, I think on a weekly basis. Maybe even more often, okay? Yeah. So no podcast platform has that. Spotify, I think, is getting close to a billion total across music and podcasting. They're not reporting podcast numbers anymore in the quarterly reports- Mm-hmm I believe. So… And I think at their peak when they reported it, it was somewhere in the 100 to 200, uh, 200 million range.

18:11 Excuse me. Apple obviously has probably got similar numbers. So you're talking about 100, 200 million on podcasting. Total maybe a billion. Apple devices, two billion. YouTube alone is bigger than the next two players combined. So that just gives it advantages. And then to your point around podcasting getting bigger and more mainstream, people will just consume wherever they are. Yeah. And I, and I think people are more in YouTube than they are in anywhere else, right? Except, except, as I pointed out in the, in the, in the blog post, social Yeah. And that, I think, uh, is the number one opportunity for anyone who's gonna try to fight with YouTube.

18:55 Uh, again, my post was… Look, if you look at- If you look at the last 10 years in podcasting, YouTube went from a bad word in podcasting- … literally- Oh, yeah, yeah … bad word in podcasting to the number one player in right? Yeah. And you also had Apple, who led the space- uh, go from first to third with Spotify- Or maybe even fourth … coming in. And maybe fourth, yeah- Yeah, depends on- … depending on what KPIs- Yeah, exactly … and metrics you wanna look at. Yeah. Right? And so, so what you have is a pretty big shakeup there. Right? And if you look at who's superseded- But that's all about audio, Isn't it?

19:36 Audio and video, I'd say too. YouTube's advantage, I think- generational Uh, and, and then- And then you are- … platforms that are- Yep … more favorable to the up-and-coming generation that is increasingly creating content that appeals too. Totally. Totally. I think that's a big part of it too. Yeah. And I think, uh, for the nar- just to finish the point on the narrative- Yeah … or storytelling or documentary. I mean, yeah, we have these things. They're called documentaries. Yeah. And they're amazing. Yeah. I mean, you know, uh- And it's on YouTube today Ken Burns just … Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like Ken Burns documentaries on the Revolutionary War and, and all these things are- Yeah … they do great numbers. Now, they cost- Yeah … a lot to make but I- Well, they take a long time to make too.

20:20 Yeah. And they, they're usually made by teams- Mm-hmm … right? Which is exactly what the true crime folks and the- Exactly storytelling audio podcasters had to do too because- Yep. But I do wonder if AI's gonna Oh, I think it's already starting to help, right? And so we're, so we're gonna see smaller and smaller teams- Yeah … being able to produce higher quality- Hopefully … content. Right? Yeah. Um- I mean, right now I think we're in the AIs is just taking shortcuts, uh, mode. Yeah. But I think we're starting to get to a place where AI can start making things much better and, like, we're on the cusp of that. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm very bullish on both audio podcasting and video podcasting Uh, video, not just the chat shows that- Mm-hmm … uh, you're talking about that we're sitting on now, uh, but also other types of shows Uh, and people who've experimented- Yeah … I think they haven't got the math totally right, but it's not a complete, uh- Mm-hmm … waste Uh, but, uh, they're just early on, and I think that stuff is gonna just be more… And then look, uh, we've got another existential change happening probably in the next decade, where driverless cars are gonna be way more mainstream.

21:38 No, I'm serious. Like- I, I've got a Tesla that's got full self-driving. Right. I know exactly what you're talking about. And so- I mean, eventually we'll be watching YouTube videos on our cars. Exactly. So you, we're go- so you have to start thinking about these big shifts, and COVID was one. Yeah. And it impacted podcasting dramatically. Oh, yeah. And I would say pushed it towards video podcasting. Mm-hmm. What used to be not allowed- It's true. Everybody- … two people on a Zoom. Right. Exactly. Crappy video quality. Uh, no offense to Zoom. Uh, uh, but very- Well, it was more about the webcams, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The webcams weren't very good back then. But, like, stuff that was unacceptable- Right … to put on YouTube for a serious production was now, uh, aired on nightly news, uh, by the biggest media houses, uh, out there, right?

22:27 And so the quality got better and better- Mm-hmm … but still not at the same level of, of, of stuff like this in studio, but was acceptable all of a sudden to put- Right content out. And so COVID made a massive change. I think driverless cars will make another big change And I think the smart money is already invested in video. Apple was probably the last company in it, so Amazon, Spotify, obviously YouTube. And I would say even the radio companies are investing more and more in, in video. Yeah. You see that with iHeart and Audacy in the US, but also internationally. Yeah. And so I think everyone's preparing for the future of giving people either option, and I think that's a wise call.

23:10 Yeah, Apple really kind of missed an opportunity, I think. Which, which one? Well- No, I mean, they made it- I mean, on the topic of- I actually am bullish on Apple's opportunities still of video. I'm talking about the topic of video. Yeah. Apple has had video support in it since they started. Yes. Yes. Uh, this show has been in Apple Podcasts- As a separate feed, right? … as a video podcast. As a separate feed. As a separate feed- Right … for 14 years. Yes. So this whole concept that Apple is- you know joining the video party, it's more about their recognition that they have a role to play in that market- Mm-hmm right? Mm-hmm. ' Cause they've always supported it. Mm. It's just that it wasn't supported in a in an advanced way that supported the conventional distribution model of streaming.

23:59 Yeah. And, you know, like this show was an MP4 download for many years- Mm-hmm … which played- Do you still do it? Do you still do it that way? Yeah, I still do it that way. You do still do it that way. Um, because there is this other concept of an al- alternate enclosure- Mm-hmm … right? That can be added so the, the audio RSS feed that I have right now also- Mm … has a link to the video file. Mm. And then the video RSS feed has a link to the audio file. Mm. It's separate. Yeah. But what Apple did with their, their announcement was they took their own technology, 'cause HLS was invented by Apple, and they integrated into their platform, and are trying to merge the video and the audio together because they're seeing, I, I guess in modern use that the consumer wants to start a video and slide it in their pocket and just listen to the audio, I guess, is what- Well, I- Or they want to start watching a video and then transition into being able to listen to the- Yeah audio and not skip a beat there.

24:58 Yeah. I will go out on a limb and say no one's watching us anymore on this show. They're now… If they are here, they're still… But they might be listening, right? Yeah. It's not- And that's- It's not an exciting video. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. By any means. I mean, I wanna add stuff to it to make it- No, but- splashy. Yeah, but exactly. But, but so m- and I, I do that all the time now. Yeah. I basically get familiar with the guest quickly. Well, there's more places to consume audio. Exactly. And then go offline. Yeah, yeah. Well, I shouldn't say offline, but go to audio consumption on a ongoing basis, and sometimes that's just, uh, YouTube, uh, in a secondary tab. So- Mm-hmm … you know, like, but y- you can keep the listening going, and that's the advantage.

25:41 And I think all the platforms know that right now. Uh, you know, like, whether it be at the gym or driving or even at work or while you're cooking, all those places where as, uh, you know, I think James said, you know, your eyes are optional. Uh, where, where the eyes add value is in selection and decision-making, uh, and, and extra kind of, uh, confirmation if you wanna be listening to this. Uh, but then once you've made that decision, you can go back to audio or move into audio consumption and I think that's, that's the future of where podcasting Uh- Mm … if someone's got a, a guest on that I haven't heard of or s- or I… if I haven't heard of, I like to have an idea of who this person is so I could visualize it.

26:35 Mm-hmm. And, and, um, cover art doesn't do it completely. No. You know, that could be Photoshopped and so on. Yeah. Not to say video can't get polished, but, but still there's just something about being able to consume that for a few more seconds that gets you into a, uh, either the listening mode or not, at which place you could flip off. But yeah anyways, we're meandering. But, um, but I think YouTube… Look, uh, I think, I think YouTube's only solidifying its lead, But I think these other guys are going to invest and try to beat it because I think they have to.

27:16 Well, I think you're talking about the social media platforms. They're, you know, Instagram is a good example- Mm of, of what you're talking about to some degree, that there are other players out there that have significant audience that can jump into this potentially and make an impact. Their, their announcement to support horizontal video in addition to their vertical video, they have billions of users too. So- Yeah you know, can they compete with YouTube? And that, that's part of your, your thoughts on, on YouTube too is, is, uh, is there going to be an alternative? I, I'm skeptical that Apple's gonna be able to compete with YouTube on the video side So it, it may be able to hold onto that audio side.

28:01 Mm-hmm. But who's … Who, who do you think is the most likely competitor to YouTube? Is it TikTok or Instagram, do Yeah. Well, it's a good point. So actually, if you look at, uh, if, if you look at one of the graphs in my blog post, and hopefully you can pull it up here uh, Threads comes up pretty high in terms of podcast discovery. And so they've kind of intertwined IG and Threads. Mm-hmm. Um, and then this push to horizontal video- It's the Facebook platform. It's- Yeah, exactly … it's, it's global- Yeah. And so Facebook- … and it's got huge reach … Facebook's three bil- So Facebook- Yeah … so all of social's five billion. Yeah. Out of that six billion, pretty much every person on the planet, uh, any adult on the planet, and unfortunately some kids too- um, are on social media.

28:47 But, um, but pretty much everyone's on it in some way, shape, or form across all these different channels. And so, uh, social's the best untapped, uh- Yeah … medium for any platform. And, uh, and I- Well, they're gonna build apps for the smart TVs and- Mm-hmm … and- Mm-hmm … give that experience a shot on those platforms. You know, um Apple has had the Apple TV platform for years, and they've had a podcast But o- one of the things that I see Apple making the mistake is, is that they don't put, uh, platform apps on other, um other competing platforms, right?

29:30 Yeah. They don't build an app for Roku, build a app for the Fire Stick. Mm-hmm. you know, which a lot of people are starting to use those devices now. Are there, yeah. Right? I mean, I think that's always been something on the Apple side. You know, r- uh- I think Apple Podcasts for web took a while to get to a good place, but they've upgraded it. So I think- Yeah … I think they're committed to try where our audience is. Again, I think they get to a place where, where does the investment bear the most fruit? Is it within platform or is it out of platform? They have obviously some platform advantages that they could take a- take advantage of.

30:12 But I think, um, I actually, I'm actually pretty bullish on, on Apple- Yeah … out of, out of the lot because, uh, because we've, uh, well, we, we kind of… And this isn't private information, but we've been working with them on, on social templates, which we released, uh, I think it was over the summer. Uh, and so they're really committed- Mm-hmm … uh, to try to help creators push people to Apple Podcasts. Now, there's a lot of hoops to make that happen- Right … both on the infrastructure side, the awareness side for creators, and then on the ROI side for creators. But I think they're trying to work those things out, and I think, I think in order to compete with YouTube and maybe Spotify as well, uh, they're gonna have to get those pieces right.

31:03 But I, I, from what I see, they're actually committed to it, and I think making some strides. Well, that's good to hear. Yeah. That's good to hear. Yeah. I know. I can't c- I can't comment on the off-platform software support or, like, you know, experience support. I think you're right in pointing it out. But I think back to, like- I think your point is generally that, like, look, if you wanna beat YouTube, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to- We're gonna just compete with them. Yeah. You're gonna have to do a lot of things. Right. Um, and I think my thing, my, my view, number one, social. You gotta win on social. It's the biggest pond on the Internet. Mm-hmm. Second is search.

31:44 Now, that was closed off, but via AI- Yeah … uh, and LLMs, you can now… What? You're, you're gonna tell me no? Or- No, no, no. I th- I'm, I'm seeing a lot of stuff with, uh, AI right now that could kind of break the stranglehold of all- Yeah … these platforms. Ex- exactly. I mean, why do you think Google- People will be able to spin up their own consumption platform. Oh, oh, uh, that via a tool. Yeah, I'm just saying about how to get information people's default way is shifted from Google Search- Oh, yeah, yeah uh, and to your point- Definitely … YouTube's the second leading search engine on the, on the Internet because of all the content they have.

32:26 So I think that door has always been closed, uh, for any other company- Yeah … but I think it's, it, there's another door that's opening that's getting bigger and bigger, which is AI LLM search. And, um, and third, I think toolkit. So th- those were kind of my three, uh, suggestions in the blog post. Win on social, try to get into LLMs- Mm-hmm … uh, figure out, that's a partnership deal that needs to happen. Uh, I'm sure Apple can pull that off on device with whoever they partner with. Yeah. Uh, and then third, uh, third is the toolkit, and I think if you, if you, we haven't even talked about YouTube Studio- Right uh, but it is, I think, way ahead- Oh, yeah.

33:12 It's the- … of all the other pla- all the other kind of- It's, it's the- … CMS platforms … it's the platform that, that YouTube Studio that's really created a lot of envy- Mm-hmm … in the podcasting space- Mm-hmm … 'cause a lot of those brand advertisers would love to get that level of metrics- Yeah out of podcasting. Yeah. Which is possible. Which is possible. Yeah. I think some of it is, is like you, you said, the shift towards streaming and the legacy, the legacy way of looking at podcasting as offline or asynchronous, et cetera. But I think, I think investment in those three channels- Mm-hmm … gives people a shot. I, I think social's Underutilized by any big platform right now Well, it's complex for a content creator to really do what they need to do on all these platforms.

34:04 Right. And I think that's the opportunity. Whichever platform solves that, I think it's Spotify- Is AI going to solve that? Well, I think AI is a piece of it, but I think if- Yeah you think about the platform, like what, what a creator wants to do is understand kind of the full cycle and attribution and like, "Hey, I put out these posts." They're doing all this work themselves. Whichever platform helps the creator figure out their, their entire kind of flow from, creation to consumption better and easier, that's where creators will move, and I think YouTube has done that. Uh- Yeah … and that's why we have so much in podcasting, and we don't have that right now. I would say the, the other thing on Apple, my two cents are I think in, in a weird way Their privacy initiative, uh, which I think is good and valid- Yeah … works against them in podcasting, though.

34:58 It does. Because podcasting's main monetization is obviously advertising. Yep. And so they-- I think they're kind of caught in two worlds there, where to win on podcasting, how do you, how do you solve for privacy, where most advertising, to your point, most of these brands are getting data that Apple generally Yeah. And, and I, I respect Apple for respecting people's privacy. Um you know, you look at the new iPhone that they've they put out and the new update that they just pushed, uh, all the iPhones to with the Apple Intelligence platform- Mm-hmm … built I think Apple is investing in AI technology to build into their platform, but it's going to be primarily isolated to their devices.

35:52 Mm-hmm. On, on, on device. I, I think it's not gonna be like a normal Yeah. Yeah. They'll offload whatever they need to or- And I think that the Microsoft platform, Windows and stuff, are gonna head that way too. Mm-hmm. I think ultimately all the operating systems are going to be really AI operating systems. So you're, you're not so keen on Apple. I'm actually more bullish on Apple, but where do you think-- where do you-- so where-- who can beat YouTube, in your opinion? Anyone? Or w- 10 years from now… Okay, let me ask it a different way. So in 10 years, YouTube was a bad word, uh, well behind anyone else, almost didn't exist. I know you said you worked with a small team there, but d- Yeah … w- wasn't on the radar of anyone in podcasting- Mm-hmm … uh, in, in 2016, 10 years ago.

36:38 2036, do you think YouTube has just run away with it? Or who's, who- I think that, uh- Or it's a new entrant? … what'll wind up happening is, is that I think, uh, these big platforms will build Uh-huh into all the AI platforms, or, or, or the ones that won- Uh-huh … the AI wars. Uh-huh. Uh, because I think we are coming into a era where there's gonna be some of them Mm-hmm … get acquired by others, be a consolidation- It's- … probably down to maybe three platforms, ultimately. And so the advantage there goes to Google, though, right? Between Apple, uh, Spotify, and Google. Well, I think you have really th- three players.

37:20 You, you have Google, you have Microsoft, and, Mm-hmm … are the, the, the kingpins, really of the future of- Because of distribution advantages right now … of their current install base- Mm-hmm … and their focus on hardware. Mm-hmm. And their, their focus on You know, just the power that they have based on the data that they have. Um and also, you know, AI is gonna, you know… But you have to factor in Anthropic, and you have to factor in OpenAI. How do they munge in here and even- And, and to your point, social- … even rock … don't, don't underestimate social.

38:01 Right. You know? It's basically whoever has the best distribution advantage. S- And this is, this is why I think, like, S- I think Spotify's big mistake- Right … is not winning on social. They could've invested… Instead of, obviously they made a ton of mistakes, but, but, you know, like, they have, they have music, and they have, they have a great UX, they have, they have a great app, et cetera, et cetera. But they never won- Right … outside of Spotify, right? Uh, and that's- Yeah … that's where you need it to win. Yeah. So. One, one, one platform that we haven't talked about, which is huge, is TikTok. Mm-hmm. And, and you think about Instagram.

38:43 Yeah. And you see those two being very similar to each other in what they do and their scale of reach. Yeah. I, I would say. Yeah, I think, I think, and I, I, I forget- I should- TikTok's, TikTok's big. I mean, we, we publish… So our, on the Headliner side, we publish the most videos to YouTube, number one- Mm-hmm … um, by a wide margin. Number two is IG. Mm-hmm. Um, but TikTok's coming up there. I mean, it's beating s- most of the other social platforms now. Mm-hmm. Not all of them. But I think TikTok's becoming bigger and bigger. I mean, obviously you don't have to go, you, you don't have to, you don't have to go far to know how much impact it's been.

39:30 And- Right … and I think, um They've, they, they've been dabbling in podcasting as well. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think, look, all these platforms need to figure out which of the mediums they could at, at the, A, minimum support- Mm-hmm but B, really control and win. And I think, look, Link- LinkedIn has done something with podcasting. Uh, we just talked about IG, we talked about TikTok. X has full episode support, which we haven't talked about. Yeah. So they're, they're well on, they're well on their way in podcasting. Has, has- This show is on X- Right as well as LinkedIn and- Exactly. So all these platforms have distribution advantages over the Mm-hmm.

40:15 It's, they don't have the repeat listening, long ki- long-term listening do. Uh- So could the, the announcement that Instagram is gonna support, uh, horizontal video be that kind of like the clue of- what- I think they're just testing … what the direction of all this stuff is gonna go, where the, those platforms build TV apps- Yeah … and they shift and- Well- And maybe YouTube has 10 direct competitors at some point. Well, I think, I think all of media is in Right … in some sense. Right. So any, … I mean, look, uh, the war of attention is on. I'm not the one who came up with it.

40:55 Everyone knows, you know, you've got 24 hours in the day, 16 hours. What do you watch? Yeah, what do you- What do you listen to? Exactly. Right. And again, don't underestimate the driverless cars thing. Like, that's a- Oh, yeah you know, that's a decent chunk of time, uh, that's opening up for someone to win. Um- Well, I, I mean, in the Cybercab, you hop in the Cybercab, there's not even a steering wheel and pedals. Mm-hmm. And the only thing you can look at is out the window or out the windshield, or look at the screen- Yeah … which is a pretty big-sized and you can play games in there. And there, there's also been a lot of talk about, um, the consolidation. I know, um this gets talked about, a, a fair amount on Podnews too, is about how we're, we're moving towards platforms that consolidate all sorts content now.

41:45 Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Whether it be audiobooks and it's all in one place. Mm-hmm. And Apple made, made a choice many years ago to create separate apps- Break it up. Uh-huh … for all of these- Uh-huh … platforms. Mm-hmm. And so it does feel like we're moving back towards … You know, I know Sam Sethi keeps talking about this, you know, moving back towards an era where people go one place and they get a bunch of different- Mm-hmm content. And that may be a little bit about what's going on here. And but I do, you know- Platforms that are specific to a particular type of experience also has value too, right? Yeah. I mean, that was kind of my point. You know? It's easy to just throw a bunch of stuff in there, and it just crowds the market.

42:28 A lot of criticism has been given to Spotify because, you know, music and podcasts are, and now video are all mixed together, and so the audience- Sure … gets fragmented, right. Yeah. I think, look, pros and cons. My two cents on this is kind of like bundling and unbundling. This kind of kind of- Right … g- goes on and comes… There's kind of a swing this way and that way. But I think over time these things kind of just keep happening, right? And so, like, the breakup or consolidation views is just a question of where we are in the cycle. And then and then on the second point, really around, The second point… Sorry, I was thinking about that consolidation view.

43:09 There's one more point I wanna add there, is that I think these platforms have the ability to test out these other things And that's just what we're in, right? Pod- Like, video podcasting has taken the medium to a place where it's now applicable- Yeah … to my point earlier about audio being a second-class citizen. Now with video, you're a first-class citizen on the web, and so everyone's, everyone's IG feed almost has some podcast content in it. I mean, obviously the algorithm is shifting more for me, but like, but generally speaking, this, like, look, people are even faking it.

43:51 You've r- Yeah. You've seen those stories. Like, this is just part of all consumption Yeah. And I, I, I do increasingly think about w- what's, what's the future of RSS too? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, we've… I mean, Apple has embraced or, um the delivery of video through an API. Mm-hmm. And so right now, most of the consumption of podcasting now via RSS is primarily audio only. Mm-hmm. So my… I just wonder, are we m- moving into an era, and this gets back to even to to your platform- Mm-hmm … you know, He- Headliner how do you see the content distribution evolving?

44:35 Are, is it gonna shift more towards APIs, Do you think I, I don't think you have a gi- So the short answer is yes. I, I don't know if I'm a big fan of that, but I would say- Yeah … I would say that's where everything's going. Yeah. When you don't have one of the giants, and now I don't even think you can in third or fourth place even But, but no one's out there really advocating for it. They're RSS friendly and they want to support RSS, but at the same time they're doing these other ways, these alternative ways for monetization or control or what have you. Whatever the reasons might be I think we're in this world where RSS is slowly dying.

45:19 Uh- Yeah … I don't think it's gonna completely die, but I think it's, it's slowly, uh… it provided a lot of value, but I think the g- if the giants control the ecosystem, and again you don't have a, you don't have a giant that's pushing it another way, I just don't see, um I just don't It does kind of feel like if you think about… to take us back to talking about AI here too, i- if these big platforms build MCPs, which will- Mm-hmm … give access to individuals to create experiences based on content that's in like a Spotify or a, YouTube, you know, and it may get to a point where YouTube, it's in their best interest to allow people to create their own consumption experiences just by prompting, right?

46:11 Mm-hmm. Create this type of an experience, give me access to my, my catalog of content that I like to consume. And, um you know, it can all be done through voice prompts or text prompts or can create a lot of different things. I do wonder how this is gonna play out, know, it could be… the future could be powered by YouTube or it could be, s- some sort of a, a application integration type of a thing inside of AI. But I don't know. H- how do you see this playing out? I'm seeing so much interesting things happening even with my work with AI and being able to build, anything I want to build, right There, there isn't any limitation.

46:54 I'm- Mm … I'm sure you guys are probably using AI to write code now and- Oh, yeah. Totally … and, and it's only gonna get better and faster. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm writing my own prototypes. I'm not bothering my engineering team anymore- Yeah. That's awesome … uh, which is great. Uh, it gets me back into being engineer again kind of. I, I, I feel like Claude's my engineer, I guess. Yeah, right. But, um, but I think, uh, I don't know. I don't know where it goes. I think your point on ins- MCPs is, is great for plumbing, but I, I, um, I think everything's dictated by convenience to the user, to the, on the consumption platforms. I w- I was just talking to someone about Netflix's, s- drop in stock, uh, over the past y- you know, six months or so on, just done a round of layoffs and so on.

47:43 I know that they've just entered podcasting. But my, my two cents on it was, look, all the other platforms have, like, leveled up on the UX. Like, uh, you know, when I, when I see Paramount or HBO- Mm-hmm … or, or all these other stream- Hulu, all these other streaming platforms, a few years ago, uh, when I went into their apps, I was like, "Well, guys, like, just copy Netflix. What the hell is this? This is, like, clunky and bad, you know? Like, just copy Netflix." And- Yeah … and lo and behold, like, now I feel like everyone's copied Disney. Like, everyone's copied Netflix kind of.

48:24 Yeah. They have their little angles. But, like, in terms of user experience, they're all amazing. Like, they're all very good. I'm sure there's some people who are like, "Oh, no, this is so much better and this is so much better," but for the average consumer, I think now, now it's just a fight over the content, right? Right. And so that's why you have all this licensing stuff. So I think going back to where AI will, will do it, I think whoever can build the best experience, the content, I think, will become available wherever. That's always been the mission of RSS. Yeah. I think, uh, I think Spotify's strategy around exclusives pretty much didn't work. Yeah. Uh, so I don't see… YouTube's never really been in that game- Mm-hmm … except obviously they're trying to do that with TV for sports and, and so on.

49:11 I just, I think who can provide the best experience, which, sorry to keep bringing you back, but this is why you had me on the show. But I think that's point three. YouTube Studio for the creator is very good. I think if whoever can figure out the experience for the podcast consumption experience, beyond just longti- long, loyal listening- Yeah … which is where the apps have advantages in audio. But I think as they keep on playing there, whoever can solve that, has a good chance. Because I think the thing with YouTube is, is they have to build for every type of video, like ASMR, cat videos, MrBeast. You know, like this conversation, you know, I could have a quick rundown of every question I've asked you, you've asked me.

49:59 Mm-hmm. Like, there's just so many ways to slice and dice our content- Yeah when you know this is the type of content. Not to say YouTube can't do that, but it's much harder for them to do it than a podcast, uh, app. Yeah … you know. And so I think whoever can invest in building that has a good chance too And I also think that RSS could have a place in the AI's Yeah and, and, and it could be that- I- … that, that source, that open source for content. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So we may find, you know, while there's a lot of content creators now that are Only publishing to one or two platforms- Mm-hmm … [Mic bleed] TikTok creators or they're YouTubers or whatnot.

50:47 Mm-hmm. Or even the Whatnot platform too- Yeah is another one. Um, which is combining, you know, commerce with live, live video- Mm-hmm … which is an interesting platform too. Uh, it's- QVC … growing very rapidly. I've heard numbers that the, the Whatnot 650,000 users a month, uh, right now. So they're… It's gonna take them a while to get up to the scale of a TikTok, but, um they're, they're like a direct competitor of TikTok now on the vertical video side. But- Yeah … but I do wonder about, uh, where human judgment comes in. I know your platform currently grades clips, you know, short-form clips using some AI, and it… And a lot of platforms are doing this now.

51:32 Uh-huh. To, to help creators decide what they're going to share and what they're not gonna share. Yeah. And how do you see that evolving? Will AI, do you think, Neil, um, get to a point where it can really judge content more accurately based on real data around what is gonna work and Do you think, is it gonna get to that point, you think? I think, um, I think it already has gotten to that point. Oh, you think it's gotten to that point? Yeah. I think if you think about all the signals you have to pull in- Yeah … now properly between social and what's going on, it's just really hard. Uh, not to say- Yeah … that people can't beat it, but I think on your average, uh, your average creator should, should be thinking about letting the LLM, especially when it comes to language.

52:25 Yeah. I think these things are built around language and understanding that. I think they have- Okay … an ability to kind of synthesize that. But, uh, but going back, but I think, uh- A podcaster or creator needs to figure out their voice and their differentiator. Mm-hmm. And so there's still, there's still a role for them to, I think, shift and gear the AI towards what they Right. And that's really where I think, uh, you know, I think autopilot mode, we're not there yet. But I think in terms of- Yeah … in terms of taking signal from AI and, and using your own judgment, I think we're definitely Yeah.

53:07 I see a lot of content creators on YouTube that are putting up, you know shows talking about how to, how to optimize your content to- Mm-hmm be successful and stuff, and these, you know, these top 10 lists and things like that. They talk about going to one of the big steps is doing research on your topic and finding examples of other content that has, that's in the similar genre that you're wanting to do- Mm-hmm … that has reached scale, Right And then just kind of copying that format- Mm-hmm … and redoing it. Ob- Yeah … obviously not, uh, cloning it precisely, but- Yeah … putting your own spin on it.

53:52 So I'm seeing this kind of movement towards a lot of copycatting going on as, and that's kind of over time, I gonna remove the human creativity layer. But it's emphasizing- I think for the- … the, uh, the talent requirement. Yeah. I think the- And the production ability. Yeah. I think the mean has gone up, right, on terms of because everyone has access to these tools that they didn't. And so, so the number of hours kind of needed. But hopefully, the maximum goes up, but through creativity still. Like, w- I think everyone's warned, like we can't just get into this homogeneous uh, world- Yeah. If everybody's making the same kind of content- The same crap. Right … trying to go after the same audience.

54:32 Exactly. So this is where- It becomes commoditized. Exactly. And then I think that's where you'll get creativity to break things out of, right? And, and you see this on social, you know. Uh, look, we were kind of the, you know, we, we were, and still are probably the biggest company in, um, in, in getting audio out to- Mm-hmm … to social media. But, you know, people got tired of it over time. Like, you know, it's like, you know, audiograms are fine, but they're not working anymore. Yeah. And so, so there, there needs to be kind of this evolution- Well, there's a higher expectation of- Yeah, exactly … what that experience is, right? Exactly. Yeah. And, and, and you'll see that in video too, and so on. And so, so AI will work towards generally what's best right now.

55:17 Mm-hmm. What humans have to do is kind of figure out the next thing. Not to say AI can't play a role there. I mean, I think we're all still grappling and trying to understand what the limits of this stuff will be. I think on the creative side currently And given podcasting and, and the medium itself is a creative medium- Mm-hmm … we have a distinct advantage So- Yeah uh, but my point is, you know, I think you b- I think in terms of, like, analyzing and understanding language- Mm-hmm … this is, like, what the A- LLMs at least are built to do.

55:57 Right. Uh, and so not using it at this point at least as a reference probably a, a bad idea. But obviously I'm very biased. I'm, I'm actually very surprised. We wrote we wrote all our own code- Mm-hmm … non-LLM To figure out clips. Uh, and then we started using LLMs more, and there was a, a very large amount of overlap. Uh, and so I'm actually, we're actually at the point where I'm actually trying to do, like, blind tests of human, uh, picked clips versus LLM-generated clips. Oh. Because I think, uh, I think there's negative baggage around AI clipping, uh, right now.

56:44 Well, humans still select which clip that they wanna use. Yeah, that's, that's all true. Even though your AI will say this one is probably a higher virality- Yeah … or whatever is the- Yeah … the tagging that people put on various clips. Yeah. Yeah. So we're, we're in the middle of this right now, figuring all this stuff out. Yeah. But I was very surprised that all the years of, like, our algorithm development, um, and we're getting a large overlap with LLMs at this point But I think, I think, uh, yeah, I've been impressed. The more, uh, the more I un- uh, the, the more I use AI, the more impressed I am by it. You know, but again, I don't do super creative work. So So what do you think, just based on what you're seeing in the market, um, the human moat is right now around what do you have to become creator- Mm-hmm … um, now to stand out?

57:38 Mm-hmm. I'm increasingly worried that w- we're probably in the next year, we're gonna come into an era where there's gonna be an accelerated amount of, um entirely AI generated Mm-hmm that are going to start capturing more- Mm-hmm … and more audience share. Yeah. And, what are those skills that a human creator needs to emphasize? I'm, I'm- Mm-hmm … also seeing other people that are ins- you know, teaching content creation now talk about those, those human elements that could be considered to be moats Yeah. I mean, I'm no expert here, but I think, look, you know, use your humanity to your advantage.

58:21 Uh- Yeah … and I think if people are asking if you're an AI bot, you're, you're, you're, you're in trouble, you know? Uh, and then, uh- Yeah … I think, uh, and, and look- And whether or not it's true or not. Yes, I am a robot. Uh, sorry. I had to. But I think, I think the real thing is, is- Consum- uh, g- on the consumption side, I think people are already kind of negative on it, and so, you know, this is your entry point because I think, I think there will be a bifurcation here, and there'll be- Yeah … people totally fine with it or don't really care. But I think the kind of other cohort's still gonna be the larger one that wants the human touch and experience and so on.

59:06 So you just gotta ride that wave. Uh, and, um, you know, we've had a bunch of creators ask us to do, like, these, like, HeyGen-type, uh- Yeah … videos where, like, it's them, but they're not really talking, and it's still kind of robotic. I would say it's getting closer. It's getting to the place- Mm-hmm … where you can substitute. To your point, maybe this is where you're going, and I think we're gonna see that. Yeah. And my instinct is, is you're gonna have to have disclosures around, uh, how much AI is used. Or is the disclosure gonna have to be really, uh, what's human? Mm-hmm. Uh, the opposite. Yeah, right. Instead of what's AI- Yeah … it's gonna become what's human.

59:49 Yeah, I mean, I think, I think all this is gonna happen, and then you're gonna see the split world. And then where that goes, I think depends on where the AI companies can take it and where humanity wants to fit AI, and we're figuring that out as we go right now. Mm-hmm. So. Yeah, and AI could really s- it, it could really solve a lot of the- Yeah … the, the, the struggles that a individual creator Yeah … in being able to Yeah. I mean, I, I actually… So I'm super into this uh, area. Yeah. So I did my graduate work in philosophy, actually. And, uh, j- so I- Oh … read a, a ton in philosophy of mind and so on.

1:00:29 And there's this book, uh, actually, it just came out to be a movie that supposedly d- was a, either a bad adaptation, I haven't seen it, but called "Klara and the Sun." Uh, it's, um, Ishiguro, very good, uh, I think he's a Nobel Prize-winning author. "Klara and the Sun," I highly recommend it. It's probably the best book I've writ- read in the past, like, five years. Uh, and, um, it's about a future, uh, world where, uh, you have artificial friends. And there's this part in the book, uh, spoiler alert, where the AI, uh, essentially says to the human, "I could never do a certain… I couldn't substitute for a human." And I think, um, and I think that's kind of where this is all going.

1:01:15 Maybe I'm biased because of the book, but, Yeah … but I highly recommend it for anyone who's into this. It was actually a very, uh, uh… it was a good view of the future, I think. Um, or it just makes you think of what, what we have versus what AIs have And I do see kind of like quite a spectrum of how people are perceiving, the type of content that they create. I know I've been experimenting a lot with doing content out in the real world- Mm-hmm … right? Not in a studio or not in StreamYard and- Mm-hmm … other, other types of, uh, environments. And it's interesting, uh, that there's huge traction in getting out in the real world- Yeah … and doing, doing your show, you know somewhere that's, unusual.

1:02:04 Yeah. Right. And, and what… Like, bringing it back to YouTube, so they've got live streaming, they've got- Yeah … all… You know, I think, and, and back to the original point- Well, is live even gonna last here? Or- Yeah … is it going to be like that proof of life concept? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it's- Or is it even gonna be proof? Yeah. Well, we'll see where it all goes. Yeah, I, I came across a new platform out in, uh, Seattle that is, it's called, uh, NuanceLabs.ai. Oh. And it's a, it's a platform that's specifically working to build human, kind of conversational video right?

1:02:48 Mm-hmm. So I could conceivably have a, uh, AI of Neil here that I could be having a conversation with, and it would look exactly like Neil, and it would- Mm-hmm have the inflections and the mannerisms, and it wouldn't have that latency- Mm-hmm … um, that has been so associated with ' Cause I've ha- I've done episodes of this show with uh AI as my co-host before- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm … just to play around with it, but it was all audio, right? Yeah. But we're coming into a time when the AIs are getting good enough Do that- Be video same experience with video. Yeah. And- I think so. Uh, and the AI ones, I mean, I've seen some of these episodes. I think Reid Hoffman did one. There's some philosophers- Yeah, I saw that same one … have done a- Yeah, I saw that somewhere.

1:03:29 Yeah, so there's been- That was like a year and a half ago. Yeah, it's been- That was a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. And, and to my point, you know, they're, they're interesting, but then again, you know, I don't know if… I don't know where we are on the Coke/Pepsi test on this, like- … whether you knew or didn't know, but, like, you… it made you, made you not appreciate it. It, it, it's awe, it- it's awe-inducing or, like, it's amazing in one way- Yeah but the content just doesn't land the same way. And maybe that's our human biases and so on. Yeah. I get that. But again, I think that gulf is gonna take a while to- Yeah … for people to get over, and that's, you know, that's the opportunity still for creators. And, I wouldn't- I mean, uh, I'm not the first person who said this.

1:04:14 This is the best time for creators ever to be out there. Uh and the platforms- Yeah … are fighting over your content and, and monetization. We haven't talked about monetization, at least with competing with YouTube but that's, that's probably the other- Right … leg of the stool- It is … that and you mentioned early on around ownership of your audience, that's, that's an angle That none of the big platforms want to actually let go of, for obvious reasons. But that's an opportunity if someone can figure out that. And obviously you have Substack and Beehiiv kind of, or, uh, Patreon too, I guess. But you have a bunch of platforms that are trying to work that angle.

1:04:56 I think A- AI could have a role in that- Mm-hmm … at some point. Mm-hmm. How so? they could create those direct relationships. I mean I think RSS still has- And circumvent and- Right. I think RSS still has a, a way of doing this I know Adam Curry talks about that he, he wrote his own consumption app- Mm-hmm … [Mic bleed] is able to access all the content that he wants to consume- Mm-hmm … through RSS. Mm-hmm. I, I wrote- Um, you know- I wrote my own consumption app as well right through the AI. He built his own app- Yeah … inside AI. Yeah. Same with me. I mean, uh, you know- Yeah … I'm a big… I think you probably saw it or we might have talked about it, but I, we, we built this prototype called TLDL, Too Long, Didn't Listen.

1:05:39 Too Long, Didn't Listen. But, and people are f- I'm gonna probably run this- That never happens on this show this episode through this too, but, like, I, I'm at the point of, uh, content uh, um, over capacity on my ability to consume. Mm-hmm. I'm, uh, uh… And so what I… And I've never liked the text-based summaries or scanning of a headline because- Mm-hmm … the magic of podcasting is the actual audio, uh, or, you know, or the video at times, right? But it's- Yeah … it's text-based representation of this is just not the same value. Right. And so, and so, so I bu- we built this little thing that gives you little clips of podcasts.

1:06:23 And so I built my own wrapper on top of it that, like, every morning, I get all the shows I follow. I get little snippets of every show- Mm-hmm so I can decide what is worth listening to that day. So it's… And I, like, it's amazing. I follow, like, 30, 40 shows now. Most of those shows, I would've never because there's just no way to stay on top of shows. Yeah … and I've listened to episodes, obscure episodes from stuff I've followed, that, like, now I can just never feel guilty about throwing, hitting follow. Uh, because before I was like, oh, I can't follow another show." Like, I just- Yeah … too much noise, et cetera.

1:07:06 But now I, now I can kind of quickly just And so I think that, again, back to g- back to, you know, the point, like, the podcast consumption platforms can beat YouTube Through experiences like this where- Mm-hmm YouTube, again, they could build something like this, but it's really hard for that to work across all the different types of video. Who knows? We'll see. Well, and all these different platforms too. I mean- Yeah … podcasting in its roots is a one publish to many consumption- Mm-hmm … experiences. Mm-hmm. And I think that has a lot of power, and it's, not a power that YouTube I mean, now granted, they have a huge number of apps that they've installed in other devices and other platforms and things like that for their platform.

1:07:56 But to have that diverse distribution, you know, uh, is I think the big question I have in my mind is will a platform like Instagram if we publish, HLS streams or we publish video into RSS, if we really double down on that will we potentially see these other platforms embrace it, uh- I think so. They want the content. I mean, I think, I think they will. And, or there'll be tools like us. Like, you know, we publish … I think we just pulled the measure. We published almost three million videos to YouTube over our lifetime, and many more to social. But you're a great example of that kind of publish once and it goes- Yeah a lot of places.

1:08:38 Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And so we did that for v- audio to video. Right. And now doing it for video to video. And so, like, I think these things will start, you know, like, hopefully positive for us as a company, you know? Like, I think- Yeah … they're all happening. I think if you've got … If a creator wants to get to audience on certain platforms, the tools will get built, and hopefully they'll just get more economical over time. Or to my point earlier, the platforms themselves will subsidize this stuff. Uh, and that's what happened with the, the initial stuff with YouTube for us. And like, I just think that's, that's what has to happen for people to compete. Mm-hmm So what's the best pathway for a, uh, a content creator to work with, uh, the Headliner app?

1:09:27 Well, it's simpl- uh, it's simple. It's actually … We have a very generous free tier. So- Yeah … like, no- uh, just sign up and use it. Uh, we've got a ton of stuff for video creators now. Obviously our, our kind of roots are in audio. Mm-hmm. Right. But, uh, but now o- o- l- over the past year, year and a half, we've really invested in video becoming a first-class citizen in Headliner too. Uh- Yeah. You know, like, uh, just as we tried to get audio to be first-class citizens through video, we, we now needed to do the inverse and have video become a first-class citizen i- in- inside of our app, kind of the inverse of what happened on the web. But we've done a tremendous amount of work there, and we're continuing to do a ton of work there.

1:10:12 And so our hope is … Look, we think creators make amazing content. Mm. Most people in the world don't know it exists. Right. That is the … That is why Headliner exists to try to solve for all that content that people create, get it in front of audience. Uh, that is what discovery is. Right. Go to where the audience is so that they can discover your content. And so whether it be social or YouTube, other video platforms now- Mm-hmm … as well, uh, or across the web, we want to get your content out there So that's what we've always been focused on Do you see a time when you're going to push content into AI platforms?

1:10:56 Uh, say more I just think as people replace their search processes- Oh, yeah, yeah um, with AI queries. Do you see a pathway for content discovery, um that you could have a, a role in with Headliner? I don't know if Headliner's the right right company to tackle that. Okay. Uh, I do, I do think it's a big opportunity though It's something I've been trying to figure out a little bit. I- I've been thinking about it more and more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, well, w- w- what would I type- Yeah … into AI to, to find- Yeah … shows that I may have an interest in- Definitely … right?

1:11:37 Yeah, and that, and that was kind of the, one of the points in the blog post I mentioned- Yeah … the AI search. Uh, but we, we wanna hit people wherever they are. Yeah. I think AI search might be… I don't know if it's the right opportunity for us, but I'm definitely- I definitely need to look at it more. Uh, the one that's really been big over the past year for us is getting us across the web. So any article on the web, like any news publisher and content, we can, we can essentially advertise your podcast on any website that accepts ads. So, you know, g- it just all goes back to Right. Getting your podcast in front of the right person at the right time, which is really what discovery's about.

1:12:21 And so we'll figure out whatever medium it is, and maybe it's gonna be the LLMs in the future. I'll get back to you on that. Okay. Fair enough. Well, Neil, uh, thank you so much for- No, thank you … joining me on the New Media Show. Well, it's a pleasure to do this, uh, instead of a bar at Podcast Movement or something- Right, exactly … uh- Yeah … to do it in person and on your show. Um, and I appreciate, uh, all you've done for podcasting, Rob. I know you've been at, uh, the kind of forefront of it for, for decades now. Oh, yeah. Uh, long w- long before me too. Uh, but some of you guys have, uh, brought in podcasting to where it is, and you're one of them. And so I really appreciate you and what you've done for it, so thank you.

1:13:03 Well, well thank you, and I, I appreciate Ginni Media Studios for- Yes for hosting us today and- Come check it out. Yeah. It's a great place to- Yeah, and, uh- … to record your podcast, audio or video. And it's ab- only like a couple minute walk from Grand Central- Yeah, there you go … in New York City, so. Yes. So set up a, a recording session with Jenny So well Neil, thanks again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody out there for s- spending the hour plus with, with us today. I appreciate it. I'm gonna cut this episode down and have a highlight version too, but but yeah. Thank you, and go to, go to newmediashow.com and check out all the archives. I've had lots of interesting conversations with lots of, uh, leaders in the media space right now. And and, I think there's some interesting insights about where all this is going, So I appreciate it.

1:13:56 Thank you