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Welcome to another episode of Spoken Life Show. Thank you
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for being here. I have a solo presentation that I
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did at Podfest in Orlando in twenty twenty five here
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very recently discussing becoming a creator versus a podcaster. Thank
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you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate it. So
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here it is.
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My name is Rob Greenley. I've been a podcaster for
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twenty years. Actually, I started in the radio back when
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I started the radio, it's about twenty four twenty five
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years ago. But been podcasting for, like I said, a
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long time. I've made a lot of changes and evolutions
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over the years as far as being a content creator
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and that's what I'm increasingly thinking in myself as But
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as you can see up on the screen here, I've
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got a company now. I've worked for Podbean, lipsyn, Spreaker,
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podcast one. So I've had a long journey and working
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with content creators and working with podcasters and have seen
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the evolution of the podcasting space happen over many years.
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And I think we're at another inflection point. And that's
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that's kind of the theme of the topic that I
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want to talk to you about tonight or today. And
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I also have a like a podcast creator community as
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well as everybody else does these days. So if you
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wanted to scan the qure code, that'll get you into that.
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And it's really a podcast network of sorts. It's an
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area where people can collaborate with me, do a one
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on one calls and things like that, so I can
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actually help you kind of strategize as we move into
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this new era of podcasting. And so this concept of
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going from being a podcaster to a content creator is
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not really a huge shift, but I think it's a
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mental shift that we all need to be starting to
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think about and actually probably pushing forward, because I know
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that's the choice that I made a couple of years
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ago to start really focusing on being a content creator
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again and focusing on, you know, moving what I've been doing,
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which has been primarily audio, over to other forms of media,
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which is a video and short form long form content.
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And that's that's what I want to talk to you
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about today, is is that the podcasting space has been
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very traditional in its view of being in an audio
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only platform. I'm not saying all this to say that
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audio isn't a very important and aspect of podcasting. I
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believe it is, But I do also think that the
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winds of not so much change but evolution is happening
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in the medium where if you want to be successful
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now and I think a lot of the really large
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content creators now are seeing this pathway. And I think
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it's good that we as an industry understand the shifts
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that are happening at the upper echelons of this medium
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so we can adapt and be stronger as we think
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about our strategies and how we want to approach being
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a content creator. And I think that's the big thing,
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and being a content creator really involves a lot of
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aspects around creating content for all these social platforms TikTok, Instagram.
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I've been doing live content more than ever over the
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last year or so. That was under contract with stream
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Yard for a year to create content on their platform
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to help podcasts make this shift if they want to
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add video to their portfolio. And and I think, you know,
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it's not a requirement, and I'm not up here to
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say that you know this is this is really the
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path forward, But I think if if you want to
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add video to your content offering, it can add a
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different dimension to your your content and who you're going
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to reach with your content, and I think that's very
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very powerful. It's all about audience, right, So as you
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think about what the audience is looking for, increasingly, they're
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looking for a balanced diet of audio video because they're
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they're likely consuming this content increasingly and in different kind
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of areas of their life. Right, So audio plays well
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in a in a very portable medium. On your phone,
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you can listen anywhere you know, you're waiting in line
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to get your license renewed or something like that, and
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you can be listened to a podcas asked, you can
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be watching a video, to a short form video, and
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I think that's what's happening. But more and more people
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are shifting over to consuming content on smart TVs. As
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people are moving away from cable television and things like that,
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they're looking for online content. And you know, I know
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with my own consumption process, I'm I'm consuming a lot
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more video off of like a YouTube platform or a
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Netflix or Rumble or a bunch of different video platforms.
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And so you're seeing this bifurcation of the creator economy
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that's happening right now. And I think each one of
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us has to decide you know, and I know this
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is a track about AI, and I think that there
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is a a piece to this that involves AI that
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can make it possible for you to be more efficient
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in what you're doing around being a creator. And that's
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kind of like the the more more detailed level of
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the kind of tools that you use, you know, like
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with what Larry shared with you is terrific advice as
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well and using AI to your advantage. But this is
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all about appealing to audiences, right, So podcasting, and I
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think a lot of people forget this. Podcasting at its
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core was really a medium that was trying to be
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efficient in how it was going to reach audience, right,
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and an audience through this RSS syndication concept right where
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you publish it once it goes to all these listening apps,
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and that was very efficient. But we are moving into
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an era where more of these big platforms want you
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to have our direct relationship with them, right Spotify, Apple,
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you know, x TikTok, all those platforms. There's no one
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place to publish necessarily unless you're doing live that will
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get you into all those platforms. Now, so we're all
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being challenged to become overloaded with work because I think
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that's the big obstacle as we look to the future
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here is is that we're each one of us are
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going to have to decide because we just don't have
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time unless we have built a big team. And that's
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what a lot of these big content creators are doing
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is they're they're adding you know, virtual assistance, and they're
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adding people that can support them because the demands of
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being a content creator now are so great that you
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got to get help, you know. But if you want
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to be a solo creator, what you have to do
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is you have to get niche, and you have to
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get focused, and you have to figure out which platforms
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cater to your audience and who you're trying to reach
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in the best way possible. And that's where it kind
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of backs up into becoming less of a podcaster and
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more of a creator. Right So you have this, you know,
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you just kind of open your mind to the possibility
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that maybe taking taking a more inclusive strategy.
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I guess to your.
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Media, how you're distributing your media, and figuring out the
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most efficient ways of actually doing that. So that's what
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I challenge everyone today to think about, right is, is
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for the kind of show that you're doing, what's the
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best platforms that you need to be working with, and
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how are you going to reach new people that can
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grow your audience, Because at the end of the day,
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podcasting has always grown from word of mouth sharing, right,
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people suggesting your show to other people, and so that's
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been a very powerful method for many years. It's proven
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out in the research though. Many will tell you that
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more content is being discovered in YouTube now than ever.
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Right people are thinking they're watching a podcast, They're going
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to YouTube, and they're searching for their favorite podcast in
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YouTube more and more because YouTube has changed their messaging, right,
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they've added a podcast playlist, which always makes them a
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podcast consumption platform, which in some ways is true and
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in some ways is kind of not true. A lot
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of the content that lives in YouTube is different than
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the content that lives in podcasting, and the success on
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YouTube doesn't always translate into success as podcasts and going
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the other way as well. So this is a complicated
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area that we all have to figure out and navigate
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for each one of us in our individual content and
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doing research in the market to understand who the other
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shows are that are working in your genre or creating
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content that reaches the same type of listener if you
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can kind of see what they're doing and people can
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share information. That's been one of the strengths of podcasting
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since day one is the ability to share and learn
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from others too. So if you can friend somebody else
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that's in your genre or something like that, you guys
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can swap stories, right, because often in times you're not
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really competing with even the people in your own genre
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because each show is so unique. Right, So you're you're
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able to kind of coalesce audiences from a bigger pool
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if you kind of learn from others and you make
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the slight adjustments to your strategy. So let me talk
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a little bit about long form and short form. So
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you have these these two areas that we all have
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to wrestle with, right. It's one of those big areas
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of conflict in the podcasting space is that you know,
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should you do short forms, should you do long form?
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And what's the right length? What's the right duration? And
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I think as you think about your content that you're doing,
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you can do long form, create short form. From that,
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you can also focus on just creating short form content
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and then maybe occasionally do long form. So there's kind
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of two ways of approaching this, and fortunately AI is
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really helping with this. AI is able to help you
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streamline your clip creation process if you're looking to do
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some some vertical videos, but also if you want to
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create short versions of you of your audio show, you
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can do that now with AI, which hasn't always been
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easy to do in the past. But you also have
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to look at AI with a little bit of a
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skeptical view too, because AI is not human. Now, like
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Larry said, you can you can train it to be
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more like you. And I think that's what the future
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looks like, is that these AI tools are gonna learn
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so much about you that they're going to be able to,
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in a lot of ways replicate what you're capable of doing.
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That's good or bad depending on one's view on that.
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It's not an entirely rosy picture. But you know, at
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the end of the day, what is the audience going
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to trust? That's actually the big bigger question, right are
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are we going to have to label AI generated content
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as AI generated content? And we may see a shift
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towards people like saying, well, I don't trust AI content,
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it's not authentic. I'm going to want to listen to
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real humans. As we may see tags in content now
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that would identify it as AI created, human created, So
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we may see this kind of bifurcation on this. But
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the short form and long form content really plays into
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your strategy of what you're trying to do with your
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audience and what you're trying to do with your content.
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At the end of the day, your podcast is you
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and what you want to do. But increasingly there's pressure
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on all of us to say, let's go out and
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look at the market. Let's go out and look at
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what people want, what other people want, not necessarily what
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I want. And I think that's the biggest challenge. I mean,
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I spent twenty years in this medium trying to do
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content that helped me in hopes that it would help others.
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Right.
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So I would create content based on my passions, my interests,
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what I wanted to learn about because I was getting
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a multiple benefit from it. I was building a network,
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I was building knowledge myself, and hopefully through that process,
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I was helping others, right, And so I was doing
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long form, mainly hour long content, And if you look
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at the stats, the top two hundred podcasts are averaging
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about sixty minutes. So you know, I'm not saying that
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that's the ideal length. The ideal length is what is
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right for you and what you're trying to accomplish with
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your content. How many days a week are you publishing?
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Are you publishing once a week, once a month? There
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is no ideal format for this, but I have seen
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a lot of evidence from talking to a lot of
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content creators that publishing more frequents, more frequently actually results
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in faster growth. Now, how you can sustain that? I
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talk to some people that want to do content five
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days a week, Right, That's hard to sustain over the
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long run, and you run a risk of burning out
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on that. And it depends on what's involved in the content.
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If you're doing like maybe five minute shorts every day
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of the week, that's that's can be a good way
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to grow as well. But typically podcasting if you look
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at the audio side as a deep engagement medium, right,
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so you want to get people to listen longer. If
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you look at YouTube, YouTube, it's very difficult to get
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people to listen longer. People are used to bouncing around.
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It's almost a little bit like broadcast radio when people