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Thanks for listening & keep podcasting!
My neck is still sore from the hotel. It's crazy.
Kevin:Hotel beds are so funny. I've heard a few people from our team say that is the most comfortable bed I've slept in at a hotel, and then I've heard people say that they hated the bed. This is a terrible bed.
Jordan:The bed was awesome, it was just the pillows. I just had like a really intense kink in my neck like the entire trip.
Kevin:Can I blame your mind right now? No, okay, did you know that if you go to the Marriott website, somewhere on that website is a list of beds for sale and every hotel brand under Marriott, like Courtyard and Element and Sheraton, and they all have like the Sheraton bed, the Courtyard bed, the Element bed. If you stay at one of their hotels and you're like this is the best bed I ever slept on, you can go on the Marriott website, find that hotel and buy that bed.
Jordan:Is it the used bed or is it new?
Alban:You know, what is weird is like I don't ever feel weird sleeping and yeah, of course it's a used bed.
Kevin:I don't want the bed from this specific room. They go in and pull it out.
Alban:Why is that so weird to me, when it's not weird to be asleep in a hotel?
Jordan:I know.
Alban:But if I were to buy a mattress from a hotel, I'd be like ugh.
Kevin:Yeah, because I can do a night in it, but I don't want it Every night sleeping in somebody else's bed that's been slept in by a lot of other people.
Alban:A few years ago I went somewhere and the pillow was bad enough. I was like man, I just love my pillow from home. Since then I just crammed into the suitcase and the pillows are bad got my home pillow right there. It's not like it weighs like you know four ounces or something. They're not heavy and it's just a good insurance policy.
Kevin:It depends on the type of pillow you have. I had a pillow made of buckwheat husks and it weighed about 20 pounds.
Alban:You haven't heard of the buckwheat husk pillow. I know buckwheat husk. That's like when you sit on a meditation cushion.
Kevin:That's what they're made of, oh my wife hates that thing, hates it. Because if it pops a hole.
Alban:Those things go everywhere.
Kevin:It is impossible to put a pillowcase on that thing because every time you flip it over, all the husks fall to one end and you have a giant like bowling ball at the bottom and nothing at the top. And then she's constantly flipping it, trying to get a pillowcase around one end of that thing. Oh, she hates it. She's like why do you buy this stupid crap? Hates it. You still using this thing? Oh, my gosh, I fought with it for probably a good year and a half. I actually slept really well on it. I liked the pillow a lot, but I had to give it up because it was either the pillow or my wife. I had to choose my wife. Couldn't you have just changed your own pillowcase? Well then, I just have the problem. I just move it from her problem to my problem. I don't want the problem either. It was a legitimate problem.
Jordan:Yeah, I have like a solid foam, like brick that is my pillow, so anything remotely soft like I would have fared so well in ancient times when they just, like, had a log under their head. It would have been perfect for me. Maybe that's why I should do it just bring like a plank of wood into the hotel and sleep on that.
Kevin:Or you could just probably go wander around the outside of any hotel you stay at and find one.
Jordan:A plank of wood?
Kevin:Yeah, probably A log, yeah some sort of log or something out there. Here we go.
Jordan:Welcome back to Buzzcast, a podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. We are those people at Buzzsprout. I'm Jordan, and joining me, as always, are my co-host, Alban and Kevin. Hi, guys.
Alban:Jordan, thanks for having us on the podcast, hey.
Jordan:Jordan. Long time, no see. We actually just got back from PodFest. This is the second recording in a row where we postponed a day due to travel and I have to be honest, I think it's actually been really good for me. It's forcing me to not be a perfectionist and just get the edit done. I think this has been good. This has been really good. So, yeah, we're fresh back from PodFest. It was quite a time. That was my first PodFest I've ever been to. Oh, really.
Kevin:I didn't realize that.
Jordan:Yeah, that was my very first PodFest I've been to, I think, like three podcast movements. I went to podcast movement evolutions and I didn't really know what to expect about PodFest, but I must say that PodFest was by far the busiest I have ever been at a podcast conference. Is that normal?
Alban:It's normal because we take so many people with us. So I think we gave away, by final count, 490 tickets. My guess would be somewhere in the order of 400, maybe 350,. 400 actually showed up, and so when I don't know. Third of the conference, half the conference are people who are from Buzzsprout. Then you get a lot of people to the booth, and so I don't think it's that PodFest is so massive. I think it's just that we have a high concentration of Florida podcasters or Buzzsprout people, and so they all come and it was really fun.
Kevin:Yeah, I think PodFest has been. How many years have we been taking people? Now Three, this is the third year. Fourth year, it might be the fourth year the fourth year but at some point Alban had this idea to this conference is in our backyard. A lot of people from our team can go pretty easily. Let's use it as an opportunity to connect with as many Buzzsprout customers as possible. And so let's say, we did that four years ago and it's been great, and we've just been building ever since then.
Kevin:I think we took a year or two off or scaled back for COVID, but in 2020, we did the big Buzzsprout bowling party and had a really big crowd at that point, and so, instead of doing our own conference, we kind of use this as an opportunity to connect with as many customers as we can in person. So there are certainly a lot of Buzzsprout customers that come to podcast movement and evolutions and other shows that we hit throughout the year. But this one we're intentional about. Let's bring a lot of people from the team and let's make it a really easy opportunity for as many Buzzsprout customers that want to come to this conference. Let's try to make it as easy for them as possible.
Kevin:So we invest as much as we can I think 60% 70% of our conference budget for the year. We actually put in a podcast, which is a smaller conference, so it doesn't necessarily make sense for everybody, but we use it as a. This isn't a big marketing deal for us, like we're not trying to get new customers, we're trying to connect with existing customers, and so that's what makes it so busy, but it's also what makes it so much fun for us and, I think, for all the other Buzzsprout people that come. It's like you already have something in common, besides podcasting, with a bunch of other people.
Alban:I've talked to a lot of people who do marketing at other SaaS companies and they're like oh, you do a lot with conferences, how does the ROI on that work? And like the ROI does not work. You're not getting a. Oh, we signed up enough people at $12 a month that we broke even. But the way that it makes sense for us is we take a lot of people, we throw a party, we bring our team and everyone comes home more invigorated for their job. You hear stories.
Alban:I had two different people tell me you know I was either thinking about hanging up the podcast and being done with it or I'd hit kind of a crossroads. I wasn't sure if I was going to really stick with it full time. And both of them say I got this email and then it said oh, it convinced me to double down and that's great for us because that's two accounts saved $24 a month. But for us personally as a team to hear we had that impact in someone's life, that really is worth a lot. And so many of the support team was the first time they ever went to a conference and it was so much fun. Multiple of them met somebody. They're like oh, I've answered your emails and you get to make a human connection between people who'd only ever corresponded over an email before.
Kevin:Yeah, I was surprised how many people from our support team recognized the names of people when they walked up to our booths.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:So you would think it would be common for the podcasters to recognize the support person's name, like, oh, lindsay, you've written me back and you know, oh, brian, you've written me back. Priscilla, you've written me back. This is great. But Lindsay and Brian and Priscilla and Megan and Blake were all there and somebody would walk up to the booth and be like I know you, I wrote you back last week. I'm like I don't know how they remember that. They write hundreds of emails a day. How do you remember that name? But I wonder if it's flattering, Like, is that a good thing if the sport person recognizes you? I mean, you're probably writing in a lot.
Jordan:I think so. I mean, they were treating these people like celebrities. It was really funny. There was like one guy in particular that I can think of where everyone was just like oh my gosh, it's him no way. And they're like taking photos with him. Like our support team was taking photos with this customer, yeah, because they just like adored him.
Kevin:So they had a really good connection.
Alban:And then he'd said he'd run into a ton of issues. He's like this is my support team, the support team for my podcast, and so I think there's always there's some people who write in more often and once they realize like, oh, someone writes back, then they are able to take advantage of it more. So you start seeing their name and you're like, oh yeah, I think I know this guy. There was one back when I did support a long time ago and you know, I thought about him all the time.
Kevin:He's actually since passed, but it was funny that everyone's alive, see him right in and I go, oh cool, great to see that he's still podcasting yeah, one of the things that separates, and we've had Priscilla on the show and just talked about this recently not too many episodes ago I think we did a deep dive into our support team and everyone on support and talked a lot about it.
Kevin:But our support team is set up not just to answer questions Priscilla went into depth on this so maybe, jordan, you can link to that episode. But our support team first and foremost answers questions, absolutely, but they also encourage and motivate and want to cheer you on and help you be successful, and so I think that's what they got to experience in person like the results of that when you connect with somebody in person so you could write back on email thank you. That means a lot. That's one thing, but it also means it's like seeing that person, like standing across from them and being able to thank them in person, being able to take a photo with them, interacting with them in real life. A lot of that gratitude just hits at a different level, and so I think that's really fun for both the customers and our support team and everybody on it.
Jordan:Yeah, I think that out of the entire Buzzsprout team, podcasters were by far more excited to see the support staff than anybody else, like they did not care about us.
Kevin:They're the celebrities yeah, they're the celebrities, yeah.
Jordan:It was really cool to see.
Kevin:I would also say let me tell you this this happened to me more than once. I'm embarrassed to say I am standing at the booth, I'm wearing a name tag that says Kevin, and somebody would come up to the booth and they'd be like hey, I'm a Buzzsprout customer. And I talked to him for a second and they'd be like I listen to Buzzcast. Like every time you come out with a new episode, I love it. Is Jordan or Alban here? And I'm just are there only two people on that show? But then I'd be like, yeah, there's Alban right over there and there's Jordan. And they'd be like, oh great, and they'd run away to one of you two and I was just standing there. That happened twice. Oh no, two totally different people.
Alban:Somebody came up once and we're all there. Both of our name tags were backwards and she was like which of you is Kevin and which is Alban? Oh yeah.
Jordan:Yeah, yeah.
Alban:And so I was like all right, you guess, and I just gave this grumpy like Spotify's, like grumpy like rant, which was way overdone, not the way that you would have done it at all. And then she goes, you're Kevin.
Kevin:I was like no, yeah, she actually said that our voices sounded similar to her.
Jordan:I mean, you guys sounded similar to me when I was first listening to. So yeah, I can see it.
Alban:Okay.
Jordan:I think the funniest thing for me was that I was recognized by my laugh a couple times and particularly we were in the Buzzsprout meetup like the party that we had. And when the listeners came running up and she said, jordan, I heard your laugh. I was in the hallway. I heard your laugh and I texted my friend and I was like, oh my gosh, jordan's here and she's like where and she's like I don't know. I was like what.
Kevin:Oh my gosh, you're playing like Marco Polo with your laugh. Quiet, quiet, quiet. There she is, over here.
Jordan:How can you be in a?
Alban:conference center with like hundreds of people and they're like Jordan's here.
Jordan:That's great I know it was funny.
Kevin:Dude, you have a very great and also very distinct laugh.
Jordan:I didn't think so.
Alban:I think it's more distinct on the podcast, though, because there's something about laughing into a mic that really like catches it.
Kevin:Yes.
Alban:And your laugh isn't as intense or the same laugh.
Jordan:But thank you, it's not as obnoxious.
Kevin:I didn't say that. I don't think it's obnoxious at all. I think this is what saves the podcast is Alban and I make lame jokes and there's some people who think it's a laugh track. It's actually Jordan just being super nice to us all the time.
Alban:Jordan's a human laugh track. She's like you guys are killing it.
Jordan:You guys are so funny.
Alban:Oh man, back in the old days with Travis, travis would go okay, moving on and we would find it funny that Travis found it so unfunny. Oh man.
Jordan:Well, yeah. So, speaking of the meetup party, that was such a good party. We threw a great bus, brought meetup at PodFest. I don't even know how many people showed up. Do you guys know? Do we count? Something like 250 is my guess I would have said between two and three easily, no way.
Alban:Because people come and people leave, which you have to remember. That's how parties work. But at one point Dave started counting and he goes yeah, you got like almost a 200 before he stopped counting and there was a ton of people in line to get food at that point.
Jordan:Yeah, so line was crazy yeah.
Kevin:He just counted the people sitting at the tables and it was that 200, and there was at least a close to 100 people in line, probably yeah.
Alban:It was pretty big. So what we started out is just a meetup. The first meetup we ever did was we took people. I want to say this is 2018 PodFest. We took maybe 20 people and we said we should do a meetup of everybody and get together. And so we just started telling everybody we are going to have a meetup, and there was a bar just down the hallway. We pointed at it, we said we're all going to meet up there at like four and we're just going to buy drinks, and it was such a hit.
Alban:My favorite moment from it, though, was I just told the bartender I'm going to pay for the tab for everybody, but to make it easier on you, I'm going to tell everybody just beer and wine. And could you just and it was so fast we're like could you just give us a bunch of beer? And then we handed out, and she put it all in a bucket, and then Tom grabbed the bucket. And Tom is walking around handing them out to people, and then she starts freaking out because it's my to her, my credit card. And she comes over to me and she's like who's that guy? He said he's with you and he took the whole bucket.
Alban:And which guy? And she points him out. Tom sees us point at him and he does this like uh hands, like he's tilting back a drink with his head and he's like mock drinking a beer. And I'm like I have no idea who that guy is. She's like, oh, we got to get the bucket back. Oh, my gosh, tom, I'm going to this point and give it away 40 drinks. I'm like no, that's the, that's the co-founder of the company.
Kevin:You're good, there's no way that's legal Anyway, like even if it is the co-founder of the company, like Tom's not checking ID.
Alban:Oh for Tom to play bartender.
Kevin:That bars should operate, but everyone has to start somewhere. So that's where we started, and now we're following the letter of the law. We have legitimate bartenders.
Alban:We had real bartenders checking IDs, real food made by a chef.
Kevin:We had a real sign. We had a real photo booth thing like backdrop where people could take pictures with their Buzzsprout friends.
Jordan:With real balloons.
Kevin:Uh-huh.
Jordan:Whose idea was the balloons? The balloons were awesome.
Kevin:Well, priscilla put that all together. I tossed it to her as like a you know, we were just making jokes in the office about, like you know, priscilla, did you book the magician, did you do this, whatever? And somehow she might have said it first like, oh, it would be fun if we actually had a place to do like a photo booth or something. And I was like that would be. And then I jokingly made her you know she's like, but you know we're a day and a half from this event, there's no way we're going to get this done. Totally joking, but also like, if you know Priscilla, you know that she was like up for the challenge, she was going to accept the challenge, yeah, and I was like, yeah, I mean, for a normal person that would be impossible to do, but like you could probably get it done Right. And she's like I don't know.
Kevin:I was like, well, I mean, you want to be mediocre, if you want to be exceptional, you would probably do it Right. And then she was like totally in. And she like researched all the balloon companies and found somebody. And then there's all these logistical problems with getting access to the room early and yet, yeah, no-transcript. Crushed it, got him in, got it set up. It was awesome she also we, albert and I ordered like a sandwich board signed to put out front. And Again I was just like you don't know if you're not like good with lettering and stuff and she's like, no, but my dad is. And so she took it and she went, met with her dad that night and they did this awesome signboard with hand lettering that looked like, I mean, priscilla's dad could have been a sign maker In the early 1800s. It looked great.
Jordan:I had no idea her dad did that and lettering. It was so good. So, good, yeah, it looked amazing.
Kevin:I mean, she was the project manager for all of it. She ran it all and it was all done within 36 hours, from nothing to everything you saw in 30s.
Jordan:That's crazy.
Alban:It's funny that that trick works, kevin, that you can know that certain people are Motivated by hearing. You probably can't do this, yeah, and yet even when they know, because I'm one of these people you do it to me all the time.
Alban:You're like you probably can't do this and I'm like, yeah, I can, I bet I can. I know you're doing that and yet I still. It still works. You would think that it wouldn't work. And if you tell me something's gonna be easy, then I'm like no, it's not very hard, probably can't even do it actually.
Kevin:Like I think it just becomes more fun when it's like a challenge, like there should be no way to actually get this done, and it also lowers the bar right, like the expectation is nothing and so anything that you pull off then becomes a win, even if, like the sandwich board lettering wasn't that great, but it was great. So then it was like amazing on top of amazing.
Alban:Yeah so that's actually the same as what Jordan was saying earlier about buzzcast. We've pushed it back two times To be one day later when we record. And you were saying, it actually makes it easier for you to edit because it takes some of the pressure off.
Jordan:I didn't say that. I did not. I did not say that makes it easier to edit you correctly. It's much easier and I said I said I said that's forcing me to not be a perfectionist. But not being perfectionist is actually like pulling teeth for me, like there's things I noticed I want to fix and I like my husband will be like in the room while I'm editing right and he'll just be like, let it go, let it go, just like he's just cheering me on like you can do this. I'm like okay.
Alban:Or he's singing frozen soundtrack, you're not sure which.
Jordan:But no, I just I, I don't know it is not easier, but I think it's been good for me. It's forcing some serious growth.
Kevin:You know you work on like your physical health, your mental health, and now I'm working on like my podcast, health yeah, it's good to have constraints and I think it's a good lesson for any podcaster out there, because it feels like constraints should be constraining right, but actually constraints are freeing. So if you say, you know, I'm only gonna give myself, you know, one day to edit something, that is a lot more freeing than it is have a whole week to do this edit, because you will take like the tasks will fill the times that you give them, and so you will spend time on things that don't matter, things that aren't important. You will quickly reach the point of diminishing returns where now you're only spending time on things that only you will notice, and when you do that long enough, that's how people get burnt out. That's how people say I can't keep doing this, it takes so much time and yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you put constraints on yourself, it's actually freeing to be like you know, I have to decide now what matters and what doesn't.
Kevin:That feels good to say, oh, this doesn't matter and this does, and I'm gonna spend time on the stuff that matters and I have time to do other things and I have a life outside of this and this is a hobby and it should be constrained to. You know, hobby time not shouldn't be life-consuming and at the end of the day, it should give more than I put into it. Right, and so this idea. We use this in the software side of our business. When we're building things, we always put deadlines on things. We work in certain time increments, we call them work cycles, but it's for the benefit of Embracing constraints is actually more freeing. You get a better product out of it and you're healthier.
Alban:Yeah, everything competes against this perfect idea in your mind until you say and here's the budget. So if you were to get a car, you told your 16 year old you're gonna get a car, what do you want it to be? They would include every feature, and then every feature ends up being a $300,000 car and Everybody will feel like let down. But no matter what you put out, whatever a car you pick. But if you say it's got to be safe, has to be able to get you to school and the budget is $8,000, then that is a freeing constraint, because then they go okay. So I'm not gonna worry in my mind at all about Zero to sixty time. I'm gonna worry more about does it have space for my friends in the backseat? Yeah, okay, now I found something. And you focus on what really matters rather than Focusing on every possible feature that you've never even imagined beforehand.
Kevin:That's true, I like it. I mean, priscilla pulled all that stuff together for the party the you know the sign work and the balloon stuff within a couple of hours Of scrambling the day before the event. And now, could we have started that six weeks earlier? Yes, and would it have been maybe slightly better? Yeah, maybe, but did it matter at the end of the day? Would the experience that you know people standing in front of some balloons and taking a picture would would have been that much different? No, but it would have taken a heck of a lot more time, and that would have been time away from Priscilla leading her team or interacting with customers, or x, y and z, a lots of other things it could have taken away from. And so those Constraints force you into those positions of just like. At the end of the day, I can only focus on the things that absolutely matter, and so it becomes crystal clear what the tasks are, how to accomplish them and then.
Kevin:You move forward. So anyway, long way of saying Priscilla did amazing.
Jordan:She did, and I honestly feel like we need to have a little photo booth moment at like every bus brought me to. It was so much fun.
Kevin:I really hope that we do that, and you have to put it all together in two hours or less, actually so each time yeah, each time will actually lessen how much time you have to put together.
Alban:We'll see until somebody doesn't get the balloons there and they're like what. I cannot believe this happened.
Kevin:I only had six minutes to organize it.
Alban:We also get to meet a lot of people. One of the highlights for me we think his name was John from question everything. A podcast Lives up in Atlantic Beach, probably not more than 15 minutes from where I live met John and his wife. We met Jessica Bowser, I think is a fan of the podcast, who does Virginia outdoor adventures. Jen who Jordan you ended up going to a theme park with. I don't know if she's a listener of the show, maybe future listener of the show.
Jordan:She's not. She doesn't know who I am. We spent the entire day together at Universal, oh she doesn't know. She hung out with a celebrity all day Celebrity saying she, she literally had zero idea who I was and was just like praying. I wasn't a weirdo.
Alban:So I know you are and I make the same prayers.
Jordan:Right, yeah, then there was also a Juan and Ellie. They came to the meet up and came and said hi to us.
Alban:Oh, yeah, and.
Jordan:Lisa.
Alban:Oh, we saw Claire, so that was exciting to see her and then I feel like I saw a lot of old friends I hadn't seen in a while. Colin Gray from the podcast host I was there. We're also runs. Alatu Elsie from she podcasts and lips, and Daniel J Lewis from my podcast reviews was inducted into the podcasters Hall of Fame while we were there. That's right. Yeah, congratulations to Daniel. I'm not sure I knew who the other inductees were, but I knew him. Kevin, did you meet anybody or did you run into old friends?
Kevin:I did, but I'm not a name dropper. They were some of the People.
Alban:They're very famous people and they don't really like it when I bring them up.
Kevin:But I'm not gonna say which. I met tons of great people. They're all amazing. I think that's that's my most favorite part. I mean it is fun being at the booth. It's fun being at the parties and getting everything organized, but just being able to interact.
Kevin:I can't remember the names of the two guys from West Virginia who flew down and I don't even remember what the name of their podcast was, but we were cracking each other up for like 20 minutes at the party, just random stuff like West Virginia backs and knowledge. And I was sharing some West Virginia stories about stopping into a diner one time on a road trip at 3 am and they knew exactly what I was talking about. They didn't know the spot but they were like oh yeah, those spots are all over and you were in a mining town. Yeah, that was. I was saying like it was so weird. It was 3 am, I was in college, we were hungry, we pulled off the side of the road, were trying to find anything that was open and there was like a little Restaurant, like it looked like in somebody's house, but it had a sign outside that said open and food, and we went in and there's all these families there three.
Alban:Wait, I'm sorry you get 3 am.
Kevin:You went into somebody's house and look like a house, but it had a restaurant sign in front of it and it said open. It was like 20, open 24 hours, and so it's like this is the only place we're getting food. Let's go in. And there was, you know, like six to eight little tables set up and they were all filled. They were like on a wait at 3 am they were all filled with families mom, dad, kids, sometimes grandparents.
Kevin:What and we were like this is the beginning of a horror movie. What is happening? Why are they all up at 3 am Eating? What meal is this? This isn't dinner, it's not breakfast. What meal do we eat? I don't know.
Kevin:Well, he explained it to me. He said how long ago was this? And I was like, oh, it's like 30 years ago, so when I was in college. And he's like yep, you were in a mining town, so all those guys get breaks between shifts, but they work those mines 24-7. Oh, so then they meet their families in the middle of the night and have a meal with them. It's the only time they can see them. And so the moms, you know, get the kids up, get them out of bed and say let's go eat with your dad. And they go eat with them and then they go back to work. And he said most of those minds have been shut down since. That's not happening anymore. But he's like that's what you were experiencing.
Kevin:I was like, oh my gosh, because I thought West Virginia was just an insane boys. But now that makes a lot of sense. That's hilarious. But yeah, we were cracking each other up. Those were fun conversations. Uh, I spent a lot of time talking with some people who have different political views than I do. That was fun. We were kind to each other, explained that we see things very differently but we can still get along. That was a lot of fun we saw.
Alban:Meredith, friend of the podcast.
Jordan:Yeah, so if you missed out on podcast and you want to come see the Buzzsprout team at a podcast conference, the next one that we'll definitely be at is podcast movement in Washington DC, and that's from August 19th to the 22nd, so it's probably going to be real hot and humid, but it's going to be a good time.
Kevin:Yeah, and podcast movement is always a fun conference. It's a great conference. The team that we bring is a little bit scaled back. Uh, we sometimes go to evolutions. Not, we haven't made a decision yet for definitely going to this year's evolutions or not, but we'll definitely be a podcast movement. But if you only want to do one podcast conference a year, if you only have one in you and you want to see the most Buzzsprout people, it's Podfest.
Alban:Yeah, If your criteria was maximizing. The buzz sprout team, it's Podfest. The podcast movement is the is the big boy. It's the one where you're going to have probably hundreds of talks and you're going to have tons and tons of people and tons of exhibitors.
Jordan:Apple podcasts announced. Transcripts are now available for English, French, German and Spanish podcasts with the iOS 17.4 update and I believe this will be out of beta and spring for all iPhone users. Is that right, Kevin? Is that what you read?
Kevin:That is what I read. Okay, and Apple's usually on time with these press releases that they put out when they're talking about releasing software on a certain date. They usually hit those dates. I've read somewhere around March.
Jordan:Okay, so now, when this was announced, it was pretty much pandemonium for like a hot second, because one of the ways that they get these transcripts is by automatically transcribing the podcast episodes. But this has been going on for a while now because the search engine in Apple podcasts, uh, would comb through the transcripts that were, like until now, hidden. So it's basically just them unveiling the transcripts that they had already been creating.
Kevin:Yeah, I mean that's speculation and it's probably good speculation.
Jordan:Yeah.
Kevin:You know there've been rumors that I think maybe Apple confirmed some of that um at some point but then said it was maybe isolated to like the top 200 or 500,000 shows, I don't know, but there for years and years there've been rumors about this and then I think some people, through some ancillary evidence of trying to, you know, search for shows and seeing things that weren't in the description, weren't in the title, like well, how did they know that show was about that? They must be doing some transcribing anyway. So all a moot point at this point, because now we know Apple has been transcribing, and probably for a while, and now they're rolling them out in the UIs for Apple podcasts on iPhone and iPad with the next iOS release and I can imagine that this would some point come to Apple podcasts on desktop as well.
Alban:Have either of you used it Like do you know what it really looks like when you're listening to a podcast that's been transcribed?
Jordan:Yeah, I actually installed the update yesterday and I took a look at one of the episodes and it's really beautiful. I mean, apple just does everything so lovely, and they definitely did that with transcriptions too. You know, it has just like the pretty kind of blurred color background and then the text comes up. And it's interesting because when you start playing an episode, down at the bottom of the player there's like a little button that has almost like a speech bubble and you click that and it highlights the text of the episode as it goes. And it's kind of cool because you can search the episode for a word of phrase if you want to jump to that point, or you can tap the text to play from that point in the episode. So it has a lot of functionality too, which is really nice in the app.
Kevin:Yeah, this adds a massive amount of accessibility to Apple podcasts and I think it's a little bit early to say this, but I'm thinking that anybody who this would benefit from an accessibility standpoint. This feels like they've knocked it out of the park in terms of if you have any sort of disability or that allows you to be able to digest content better by actually seeing it and maybe reading along at the same time you're hearing it, and that doesn't necessarily mean that you have a hearing issue. It could just be cognitive issues or other Like. Oftentimes, people learn a lot better when they're listening along and reading on at the same time, but this functionality is going to be the best experience for anybody with issues like that. It's fantastic that Apple, with this release, has made a huge leap forward in podcast accessibility for anybody with any sort of issue or just enjoys this type of experience better.
Alban:One of the big wins is that they're also pulling in transcripts from the transcript tag, and this is something that Buzzsprout worked on with the podcasting 2.0 crew back in 2020 was when we launched our transcription tool set and started helping Buzzsprout podcasters transcribe their episodes, and it's really awesome to see Apple has stepped into this and they I mean they could easily just said the easiest way for us to do it is to throw money at the problem and just transcribe these episodes ourselves, and we think we did a good enough job.
Alban:Um, but instead they've said if you already have a transcript and you want us to use it, we will honor the transcript that you've already done. And so they are once again embracing the open standard, and it can seem like, I think, a little thing, especially to people who are not is much inside podcasting as we are, but that's a really big deal to have the largest podcasting app embrace a community led standard, and now that's going to make it so much easier for YouTube and Spotify and everybody else to say okay, if this is how Apple's going to do it and these are already going to be made available, and now the podcasters have more incentive to put these together. It's just going to make it so much easier to coalesce around. An open standard for everybody, yeah.
Kevin:Can I, can I blow your mind right now? I'll be.
Jordan:Yeah, that is such a podcaster move. Can I blow your mind right now About to drop some knowledge?
Kevin:That's a joke, but I don't know if you guys know this story or not and I don't want it to sound like I'm tuning. You know Buzzsprouts horn being on Buzz, the team Buzzsprout here. But, uh, there are some tags in the podcast name space that we're more involved with than others and this happens to be one of those ones that we were very heavily involved with. So when we started doing transcripts I think it was all the way back in 2019. We start, we teamed up with um Temi and we were offering transcripts within the Buzzsprout app. So we're starting to get a lot of transcripts into the system and we saw the advantages of being able to link those transcripts in the RSS feed. So we've reached out to a lot of third party player apps and said we have these transcript files, we want to put them in RSS feed so that you can use them in your app. Would you be interested in working with us to make this happen? So we've reached out to you know pocket casts and overcasts and um podcast addict and every everybody. Well, the only app developer that wrote back with any interest was Xavier from podcast addict wrote back and said that is a really good idea. I like it. I see the vision for it, let's do it. And so we came up with what the tag would be and, uh, like, we basically came up with a spec ourselves in a box.
Kevin:Podcast name space did not exist at this time and there was no podcast index. There was nobody else to talk to, so it was just us and podcast addict. So we started doing it and we actually had it working. We created the tag, we had the transcripts. Xavier from podcast addict hooked it up and we had transcripts working. Now, it was a very small subset of podcasts at the time. It was just, you know, a handful of people on Buzzsprout were using it and a handful of people were actually seeing those in podcast addict. And then, probably within a month or so of of getting a version of that working, the podcast index launched and so we reached out and got in touch with Dave and Adam at the podcast index and somewhere along the lines, the idea of moving RSS for podcasting forward emerged and the podcast name space became a project, and so we said, hey, well, we already have this transcript tag that we're using. That's. You know, it's not going to go anywhere because it's just us doing it with one app with the podcast names. So he's been interested. Dave and Adam said yeah, we'd love it. So it might have been the first tag if not the first one of the first tags that was put in as a proposal to the podcast name space project. It was accepted in phase one and now here we are four years later and it has been adopted by the largest podcast playing out in the world.
Kevin:So I'm super excited to have been a part of that just long history. You know I'm not. I'm not. We don't deserve any credit for being inventors or any of that kind of stuff. We were just contributors and there's a lot of people who contribute to the podcasting name space and the podcast index is definitely has is we don't deserve any more credit than anybody else. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying it's really fun to be a small part of a community of people who are working together and now we've kind of broken into the mainstream in a lot of ways.
Kevin:This is like kind of that damn breaking of what we've been doing. There's recognition at high level from a big company that has a ton of market share and somewhere, but depending on who's statue look at, between 60 to 80% of all podcast downloads happen in this app, and now they've recognized this project that we've been working on. They said hey, there are, there are some really good things about what you're doing. So, that said, that's just a fun note, and if you're a fan of Buzzsprout, you can also be part of that too, like because you know, if we didn't have our customers, we wouldn't be able to do this type of work. So everyone on team Buzzsprout all the way from customer all the way to founders, co-founders, everyone between, I think, should you know feels a little warm fuzzy about in some way. We all helped facilitate this, and what this is is. This is making podcasts more accessible to more people through the most popular podcast app in the world, so that's no small thing, so be proud of that. One of the things.
Alban:I remember, kev, when we were first talking about the transcription how transcribing and then then working in apps could work, is you said well, I'd want it to work exactly the way that lyrics mode on Apple music works and we pulled it up and you could see it highlighting and that was the UI and it sounds like what you described a second ago and how it's going to work in Apple podcast is very similar to that.
Kevin:I actually had that vision in my head and a few years ago I was talking to I don't want to say the name of the Apple employee, but one of the Apple employees at an event and before I could even get it out, the person said back to me, just like we do in Apple music, and I said yeah, and they were, you know, giving me the nod that we're we're a few steps ahead of you and I was like, yeah, that's fantastic Podcast karaoke mode.
Kevin:So, yeah, I've been hoping and hoping for a long time. Um working with Apple and it makes sense and this is not a knock on them, but you know, they don't talk about stuff before it's ready, and ready to them is an amazing, stellar experience and this happened just like that. Like they don't talk about stuff until it's ready, and it's really good and it's something that you're super proud of, um, and that's the way this happened. So I wouldn't expect anything else and I I I can't say enough nice things. I'm going to try to say a few nice things, but I really can't say enough nice things about the team of people who are working at Apple podcast at Apple. They are working for a big company and they have a lot of systems in place about what they can say and what they can't, and what they can commit to and what they can't.
Kevin:But at the end of the day, these people care about podcasting and they continue to do things to move podcasting forward in a healthy way. Like I don't think there's anybody on that team who wants to own or control podcasting and I think we're very lucky because they have the most popular listening app in the world and they don't have to be these types of people and they don't have to be doing these things, and so we're very lucky to be in an industry where somebody with that much power and influence in the space seems to also really care about it, and so my hats off to them. And again, if you don't like Apple podcasts or whatever, great, it's not my default listening app, but I think it's a really good app and I'm really grateful for the people who are stewarding it and the people who are on that team. They are good people and we're lucky to have them in the podcasting industry.
Alban:Yeah, matt Medeiros wrote a blog called Apple Podcasts Embraces the Crazy Ones about how the transcript tag is part of this podcasting 2.0 movement that is trying to improve podcasting, but in an open way, and how it was counter to many tech companies in 2006 when Apple added podcasting to iTunes, but it was very it's very countered now when I think Facebook and Spotify and YouTube and many, many other companies have said, oh, we could actually make money off of this if we tried to own podcasting, and really the one company that has the best chance of we could own all podcasting would be Apple.
Alban:And Apple has continuously decided to support the open podcasting ecosystem. And he wrote RSS is an unsung hero, not only in podcasting but for the web, a clumsy but powerful open standard that big companies like Google and Spotify don't want you to focus on. Why empower our users to broadcast their podcast the entire world when we just want them to stay in our app? Is how the boardroom meeting might go, and I mean the biggest company in the world, depending on the stock market day, is Apple, and this meeting could be happening at Apple headquarters, and it is. You know, the world that we live in does not have to be a world where Apple says, oh, we want to embrace the standard. Instead they could say we're going to do it our way and forget everybody else who wants to do it anyway different. And so it is really lucky and we are very fortunate to have advocates inside of Apple for the open podcasting ecosystem.
Kevin:Yeah, and it's massively powerful, like, at this point, apple is not just. This isn't just a win for independent podcasters in the Apple app. This also probably unintentionally like I don't know that Apple cares about this, but it does put a lot of pressure on Spotify to also implement something similar when using the same tag. It's like when Apple embraces a standard whether it be one they create them for themselves or they create an open standard they basically put their stamp of approval on it and they're so big that it just can. That becomes Now it's official, like that is a real standard now.
Kevin:And so there is the podcast namespace, which a lot of people look at as a standard, saying there's a podcast standards project which is saying let's take a subset of these and let's, as you know, hosting companies come together and at least agree amongst ourselves that these are the standards that we're going to work to implement.
Kevin:But now that Apple is coming and said, okay, here's one of those that we're actually going to implement ourselves, like that is locked in. So now for Spotify to come along and say, oh, we're gonna do transcripts as well, but we're going to use the Spotify podcast namespace and it's gonna be like this. That's just like the chances of that happening or working or catching on or so, so, so much smaller today than they were a few weeks ago, and so I think that Spotify does have a lot of pressure on it right now to look at supporting transcripts, and the way that they need to probably do it is the way that everybody's gonna be doing it now, which is the open, standard way. So this fantastic, huge win now, all that said, excitement and thank yous out of the way. Should we talk a little bit about how this works?
Jordan:We definitely should. One thing to Be aware of Apple sent out an email to Apple podcast connect users requesting that you accept updated terms and conditions for both Apple podcast connect and and the Apple podcasters program. If you are enrolled in subscriptions and they say in the email that it's to maintain access to Apple podcast connect, I don't know if that's saying that you'll lose access to your dashboard if you don't accept. Is that what it's saying?
Kevin:Yeah, I mean, usually they put it up as like a. It's not a paywall, but it is. There's a wall that is now in front of your access to Apple podcast connect, which is the terms of conditions, and you can't get through it until you accept them. So if you don't want to accept them, you're no longer gonna get access to your podcast connect. Gotcha.
Jordan:Yeah, and you definitely want to do that, especially if you are offering subscriptions, because you don't want to lose your subscribers.
Jordan:But I logged into my Apple podcast connect and it popped up as like a yellow Bar at the top of the page and it was really bright and it was hard to miss and I just clicked it and was able to, you know, check the box and submit and it was done.
Jordan:Setting up transcripts and Apple podcast connect.
Jordan:Like we said, apple Automatically transcribes the podcast episodes for you, but they're all so offering to Use, imported from your host.
Jordan:So if you're with Buzzsprout and you have the SRT or VTT Transcription files, then you can also have those imported into Apple, which is good if you want to edit because I noticed that in Apple I was not able to edit at all the transcript that they provided for me but all you do is you just log into the dashboard and you go to your podcast, you click the show tab and then there's an option on the left-hand side called availability and when you click that, you're able to open Transcripts and there's an option to only display auto-generated transcripts by Apple or Display transcripts that you provide from your podcast host, and you can also do this on an episode level.
Jordan:So if you have a particular episode that you want to either have Apple Transcribe or you provide, you can do that by going into the episode itself, and down at the bottom there's like an audio and transcripts section. Now I think that they are Only doing this for new episodes that are uploaded from here onward, because I looked at some my older episodes and when I went to toggle to Transcripts that I provide which I know that I provide them because I have co-host AI enabled but I didn't see them in my Apple podcast connect. So I'm interested to see you know, with this next episode that we publish, will that actually be showing up when I toggle between the two?
Alban:I'd recommend, for anybody who's trying to parse, all of those options. If you are creating a transcript and you're putting in time to edit it, that is going to be better than any machine-generated transcript. One of the things Jordan noticed was anytime we transcribe our names, my name is always misspelled. It's not the end of the world, but like the only person who's going to ever fix that would be one of the three of us, and so our transcript will update it to the right name, but all the other ones wouldn't, and so I would just go and toggle to Display the transcripts I provide. But if I don't have one, yeah, auto generate. That's great. So if you're using Co-host AI or using another tool to create a transcript, you're going to put in the most effort to making it as accurate as possible, and that's going to give everybody the best experience possible.
Kevin:Yeah. So let me talk through some nuances. One I made a mistake in the Facebook group yesterday, I think. I posted in there answering somebody's question and I said there's a way to turn it off completely and that was my understanding. That's wrong. Well, it's right and wrong it's, but it's mostly wrong.
Kevin:The way to not have transcripts on your shows at all is to not accept their terms and conditions.
Kevin:If you don't accept their terms and conditions, I don't think the feature will enable for you on your podcast and I think this is this is still not locked in. But once you accept those terms and conditions, then I think your options narrow to two, which is Apple can trade a transcript and display it, or I'm going to provide my own, and if I don't provide one, then you can. Also an apple can generate one. So you only have two options. Once you've accepted those terms and again, I'll try to get some clarification on if you don't want these at all and you don't plan on providing your own, I don't know that you have a choice except not accepting their terms and conditions, because I think the updated terms and conditions say one of the Requirements of being an Apple podcast is either you provide or allow us to provide a transcript, which makes sense because they are mostly concerned about accessibility and they're probably doing this for some type of Just covering themselves for many copyright claims.
Alban:Somebody says oh wait, there's a copyright violation. I give you an audio and Then you transcribed it into a new fixed medium. That that's not okay. And Apple saying well, we're going to transcribe it, so we need you to accept these new terms and conditions. You're not giving away the right steer podcast, you're not. The Apple doesn't own it. It's just going to be. Apple does probably have a license now to transcribe it from. This is Audio and now it is also available as a transcript. That's probably 99% accurate.
Alban:Yeah, but I'm sure you're also releasing them from liability if there are any inaccuracies which makes sense, and nobody ever reads the transcript and goes oh, I'm filing a libel lawsuit based on a transcript. They would listen to the audio too, and then they'd go okay, actually, that's like slightly different.
Kevin:Alright. So one other piece of nuance that we should discuss. One of the things that you're going to be able to do is you will be able To log into your Apple podcast next account and see the transcript that they've created. Now, as Jordan said, you can't edit in there, but you can see it, which means you could copy it to your clipboard, paste it into the transcript editor in Buzzsprout and Then make any edits in there. But what that will not, we will not be able to then get that. We call it an HTML version of the transcript. We will not be able to take that pasted in version that you edited and create an SRT or a VTT file from that. Oh, so that is not the workflow for editing your transcript and Apple podcast. So, again, copying what Apple does, pasting it into our transcript editor and then making the changes that is not going to then update in Apple podcast players Okay, so if you need full control and edit control of your Transcripts and Apple podcast, what you need to do is use one of the tools that we integrate with or one of the tools that we sell.
Kevin:So we sell co-host AI that's built into Buzzsprout and that gives you transcripts and it has a transcript editor, and if you edit those, then we will be able to create SRT files and VTT files and send them to Apple. So that's one way to make sure you have full control. Another way is like we integrate with some tools like Descript and I think, since Hindenburg does transcripts now too, I think they'll be updating their integration and those files come into us in a way that we can create SRT and VTT files. So Because of the way those files are formatted the SRT and VTT files are formatted we have to have basically a timestamp on every single word in order to create those files. So when you just copy and paste from Apple and then edit in a text box, we're not getting timestamps on every word, every word. So we technically cannot create the right file type that Apple needs to update, and so this isn't us trying to be controlling or trying to sell more co-host AI. It's not any of that. It's just like it's technically impossible. We don't have enough data and Apple is not providing you with all the data that we will need To be able to do it. So when you copy and paste, you're not getting timestamps on every word, but if you use co-host, we get timestamps in every word. If you used the descript integration, we're getting timestamps in every word. I imagine the new Hindenburg update will give us timestamps on every word. So there are lots of options for people who need full control, but you're gonna have to use one of those things. Just editing your transcript in the text field within. Buzzsprout is not going to update. The Apple podcast transcript makes sense. More information to follow.
Kevin:I know a lot of people are excited about this and a lot of people a lot of questions about it. The good news is that we have time, like I think earliest is March and the latest is whenever spring ends, so sometime in spring. This is gonna happen. Between now and then, I can't imagine Us doing anything short of you know, we'll probably post some videos about this. We'll probably talk more about it on Buzzcast. We're sure we'll have help articles that come out about it. We'll probably have blog posts that come out about it.
Kevin:There's gonna be a lot of excitement and continued questions and answer documents and everything all happening, and we're gonna add some stuff probably into Buzzsprout itself to cut off some of these questions before they hit our support team. But our sport team is also coming up to speed on the stuff. So it's early days, but it's super exciting and it is really good for open podcasting. So thank you to Apple, thank you to the hundreds of people who've worked on this tag, to all the independent app developers who have worked to implement this stuff to get Apple excited about it as well. Getting us to this point, open podcasting is healthy and exciting, and this is just it's fantastic news. So stay calm. A better world is coming, with more accessible podcasts into Apple podcast, but we have some time.
Jordan:It's time for sound off the segment where you chime in with your answers to our podcasting questions. Last episode, Alban, you proposed an experiment to see if we could get higher engagement Through a new channel of communication and by George, I think we did it. I think we, I think we cracked the communication code with audience members. You introduced a Phone number for people to text phone numbers have been around for a long time.
Alban:People have been texting for a long time and it seemed like our podcasters Like texting as much as my wife and I like it too, so we had a lot of people right in and what I liked about it was it was a lot of new people. When it's boosty grams, we have like a core set, that boost. We have a core set, the read it. Chat to us on Twitter, core on email, and I just think that text is another group of people to reach out. So it's lots of new listeners and I was excited to hear from them. Jordan, you want to read the first one from nine five four one the first one says Alban is right.
Jordan:Period, always period. Alban, is there a reason why you had me read this one?
Kevin:9-5-4-1. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, let me get my phone here. Something's not right, Hmm.
Alban:It's not me. Kevin's going to check who is me. What of my interactions was? The first person who texted the text line wrote like oh, I'm using Cast-o-matic and it's working. And I was like oh, thank you so much. What's your name and podcast so that I can give you credit on the show? Kevin Finn podcast name Buzzcast. I never miss an episode.
Kevin:I was the first one, but I did not write. Alban is right always.
Alban:No, you did it. Alban is right, always was from an anonymous number, but not me, hey.
Jordan:Right, that's great Sure Jan.
Alban:If 9-5-4-1 reaches out again, maybe we'll ask them for a. These are the last four people's phone numbers. If we give a number, we're going to ask people to give names next time. But if we give a number, that's the end of the phone number, so you can identify yourself.
Jordan:OK, so we got a lot of responses. It's so funny because normally when we ask people to respond to us, we get like three on a good week, right yeah three is a good week right. I mean we have what 10?
Alban:It was a lot of responses, I think it's a combination that texting made it easier. We had a disagreement about how much texting would make it easier, or at least we talked about it, and I think the question ended up being pretty good. If there were no stats, how would you measure podcast success? Because even on channels we've had for a long time, we got a lot more responses than normal.
Jordan:Yeah, and we did get some questions in the text line, but we're actually going to save those for next episode so we can go a little bit more in depth. There were some really good questions that were asked and we want to actually like take our time with it, so we're not going to do that this episode, just hang tight for next episode and we'll answer those. But the sound off question for this episode I had asked if there were no stats, how would you measure your podcast success? And Mark Steadman, who we actually talked about in the no Stats 90 challenge, said biased, but I'd measure and check off the small repeatable tasks that helped me grow and improve my show and check in with my audience to see if I was on track. Sounds smug, as it's like just do better, but it's more like keep going, but track the stuff you do, not what you get.
Alban:Yeah, and I mean same as anything that takes a long time. You have to be tracking. If you're trying to get healthier, you have to track going to the gym. Don't track your weight every day, because weight fluctuates, the results of your podcast will fluctuate. Track am I putting in the work day after day, because if you are, eventually those lead to pretty big wins. We also had a text from Molly at Small Business Hustle In regards to podcast acts.
Alban:I think the problem is more that those who are the loudest are the stats obsessed. While I'm ecstatic receiving 20 or 30 downloads on an episode, but I barely promote myself that's a great point. The people who are promoting themselves and are saying, oh, look at all these big numbers that I've done, look how much I've grown over time yeah, they're probably the people who are a bit more stats obsessed. The people who are getting a lot of value from wow look, I impacted one person's life Isn't as likely to be the person who's going to post on social media. So there's a bit of a measurement bias there. Yeah, that's good.
Kevin:Matthew from Girl Dad Nation wrote in and said my wins, beyond download numbers, include personal growth as a dad, new friendships with guests and other podcasters, community engagement through events and conversation starters at parties. If I had time to go to parties- Spoken like a true dad. Yeah, great, thank you, matthew.
Jordan:We actually got an email into support from Anthony James and Anthony said his broader measures of success include becoming part of an incredible community, finding enormous hope and inspiration, finding a community of listeners who support the podcast financially and finally, again, as we talked about the unexpected changes in him personally. So thank you, anthony.
Alban:Yeah, those are all themes we've talked about and, I think, excellent points. Warren from JadedHR wrote in and said I judge success without stats if I can get my wife to listen to just one episode. Open to any suggestions. Personally, Warren, I'm confident. My wife has not ever listened to Buzzcast. I have heard from one of my younger siblings that my mom has, but no suggestions there.
Jordan:My husband will not listen to anything I do, so no.
Alban:Kevin, has Keena listened to any of your episodes?
Kevin:No, but I played some episode for her so I forced her to listen to them.
Alban:So you pull up your own podcast, you get in the car, you guys are on a road trip and she's like oh, let's listen to some music. And you're like oh, I really want to listen to this podcast. And it starts off with you and I arguing about pickleball or something.
Kevin:Yeah, usually I'll find a funny clip or something and I'll play it and I'll say hey, listen to this, what do you think? And she'd be like yeah, that was good. And I'm like you're not excited, that wasn't the best podcast segment you've ever heard. And she's like no, it was great, it was great, You're great.
Alban:I'm so proud of you.
Kevin:Yeah, all right. Jen from Guides Gone Wild says, the thing that motivates me besides stats is oftentimes when I start thinking about fading into oblivion. A listener will email or DM or even recognize my voice at an outdoor event and tell me that the conversations inspired them to try something new. I almost cry for happiness.
Jordan:Wow.
Kevin:So that is amazing. It's like Jordan laughing and someone coming up to her and saying hey. I know who you are Same title Exactly, and Jen is also super interested in the texting experiment because she texted us and was listening from Google Podcast. So I actually had to copy and paste the number because the link didn't work, but was happy to do it and participate in our experiment. So thank you.
Jordan:And Andy, host of Do's and Dad's podcast. How I Measure Success is listener feedback. They tell me how life-changing the episodes are. Most of the feedback, I guess, in person word of mouth, not via feedback channel. Oh, that's really cool.
Alban:Yeah, I think, depending on the type of podcast, you might have a bit more of a connection to people in your local areas. You might get more face-to-face feedback. Probably not as much from a show like Buzzcast. It's a bit more focused on worldwide, from 8-8-4-0, how I measure my success with people talking to me out in public about it and the opportunities I've gotten from sharing my stories and living with my disability. Yeah, I think that's really awesome. Another one that says it's the connections that they're forging with third listeners.
Kevin:Kyle from the Parley podcast wrote in said stats are nice, but it's always more entertaining to get interaction from your listeners or, even better, some value for value boosters. So that's cool. Kyle's using value for value and some of his listeners are sending him booster grams, which we do on this show as well, so that's fantastic.
Jordan:And then we got another response from a number 3452. I feel like I'm reaching people. When I get responses back from an inquiry I've proposed, then I would feel like some strides have been made to a successful podcast. Nobody likes cricket sounds, even if you know you have listeners. So I think the thread that is being pulled through all of these responses is engagement, which is so funny Because that's what we were trying to test out is how can we get more engagement? And I think that that is by far the most important thing If you were to not look at statistics in your podcast growth, if it's the sense of community and how much you're able to interact with people, I think that that is the common thread that we have here.
Alban:I mean I would argue that it's much more valuable than the stats. The stats are really only valuable in that they signify there's probably people out there who care. But people telling you they care, recognizing your voice at an outdoor event, people sending you money through a booster gram all of these answers talking to somebody you've impacted their life because they're living or their lives have been improved from hearing the story of you living with your disability all of those are much more valuable than oh, I got another 1,000 listeners. So I love hearing all of these answers because to me, this is why we're podcasting.
Jordan:All right, Alban, I think it's your turn for our soundoff question for next episode. Do you have anything?
Alban:Well, we already have saved a couple questions from the text line to do a bit of a mailbag in two weeks and I know we're going to have a couple questions. What if we solicit a few more questions for topics and do a bit of a mailbag episode?
Jordan:Fun, let's do it.
Alban:All right. So if you have a question, click the text in the show notes, send us a text, send us a booster gram, reach out on Twitter. But any of those ways, let us know. What do you want us to discuss on the next episode? Maybe give us your thoughts, feedback on what's happening with transcripts, what you are excited about in podcasting? It's much more open-ended. So send in your mailbag questions and comments and thoughts and opinions and hot takes.
Jordan:And again that number is 855-951-4230. And with that, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
Kevin:OK. So I've seen you guys have probably seen these things, these social things, whatever. My wife sent me one the other day because it's like Super Bowl related, where they're kind of like would you rather, you know, get a million dollars and do this, or 20 million dollars but you have to do this, like those types of things. Would you rather Super Bowl? Yeah, would you rather yada, yada, yada. So the one that was sent to me and that I thought was interesting to think about. But I went further back in the channel and I found a bunch more. So I thought it'd be fun if I asked you guys a bunch of these questions. We can start off with the one that was sent to me, but I don't think it's as relatable to both of you Are the podcasts related, or is these just?
Alban:No, it's just fun.
Jordan:Oh no, is this like Super Sports related or?
Kevin:No, some of them, a lot of them, are sports, oh.
Jordan:OK, OK.
Kevin:I tried to find ones that weren't as well. Ok, so they're relatable, ok. Ok, so we can start off with the one that was sent to me, and this is more Super Bowl related, but this is kind of like just for Alban. So I just want to see where you land on this album. See if you align with me. Ready, $1 million now, or you can have 10 carries in the Super Bowl, Like you can choose whatever team you want to carry for, but 10 carries in the Super Bowl to gain five yards for $10 million, $1 million.
Alban:Now there are teams that when they have a really good offensive line, the average time that somebody gets hit is like two yards beyond the line of scrimmage. So I guess if you're just running but I'm not going to last five carries Like I will get hit one time and something will break. I think people don't understand. You think your first hit you're out for the rest of the game, 100%, You're done. Your muscles and ligaments and everything are protected by muscle mass, which I don't have. I mean you could just slide.
Kevin:You could just like they hope your line opens a hole and if they do, you go for it and you just slide.
Alban:Yeah, and the moment you start to slide, that's where you're down, which will be maybe you made zero yards. I think that's the best case scenario, honestly, is I didn't lose yards.
Kevin:I was a little optimistic.
Alban:I thought maybe I could get five yards, Maybe but would you do that for the chance at 10 million? That was what you said I might. I would not do that, Everybody.
Kevin:I think I might be dead. I'll probably be dead after the first hit, but I think it would be fun. All right, I got one for Jordan $5 million now, or $1 per step for a full year.
Jordan:OK, so I get like 800 steps a day working from home. Yeah.
Kevin:So I have already done a little bit of math for you.
Jordan:OK.
Kevin:So if you average 20,000 steps per day, 20,000 steps a day, that would put you at 7.5 million. So you'd be up to Do.
Jordan:you know how many steps I had. Ok, like going to Universal from before they opened until after they closed. I clocked 15,000 steps and that was the most active I have been in the last 10 years. Ok, there's no way I'll take 5 million right now, like it's not going to happen.
Kevin:What are you going to do, Alban?
Alban:I'm 100% taking the dollar per step. And, kevin, my goal is hitting 18 million. That's my goal. 50,000 steps a day yeah, I'm quitting my job and I'm going to walk. 50,000 steps a day.
Jordan:That's my oh, I didn't think about that.
Alban:That's your full time job.
Kevin:I'm a step walker.
Jordan:You're going to be one of those guys with like the high arms like doing like the soccer mom walk down the street.
Kevin:Are you doing like the same route every day, or are you going to the mall I might, or every day is a?
Alban:new adventure. I might just like hike the Appalachian Trail in the middle of this whole thing. I mean that's going to be a lot harder. But or maybe I'd just be like I'd hike, I'd walk across America for charity, but also secretly to make my 18 million people Like what a great guy. He raised all this money for charity.
Kevin:OK, we'll do a couple more. So how about this one? Stay the way you are now, or you can get $20 million, but you have to wear ski boots every weekend.
Jordan:Ski boots.
Kevin:Jordan, that's easy.
Jordan:Yeah, every weekend let's go.
Kevin:You don't even ask any questions about it. Like ski boots every weekend, from midnight Saturday, so like Friday night, when you, if you go to bed before midnight, you have got to wake up at midnight and put ski boots on and you have to wear them until you know.
Alban:1159 Sunday every weekend for the rest of my life, for 20 million.
Kevin:Yeah, you got sleep in them. I mean they're on your feet and they can't come off.
Jordan:Or is it until you get the $20 million? Like do you get the $20 million at the end of your life and that case is not worth it?
Alban:No, you get it now and it's magically. You have ski boots on forever.
Jordan:Oh, but like the second, I don't wear them on the weekend. Like the spells undone and like the money vanishes, it turns into a pumpkin.
Kevin:I guess money's gone and anything you bought with the money is gone. That's right.
Alban:Let me ask this Did I get in this alternative universe? Did I already get to do the step thing?
Jordan:Am.
Kevin:I already a millionaire.
Alban:I can make 18 million some other way. There's no way I'm going to go. Oh, I want 38 million, but I have to do the ski boots thing and ruin my quality A life.
Kevin:These are totally different than this one's terrible. Well, I feel like you're overthinking it.
Alban:I do not want to wear ski boots the rest of my life. I would actually say never, ever wear ski boots again and you give me $50 to do it.
Kevin:That one I want, all right. So what are you doing? Alban Jordan says she wants 20 million. What are you doing?
Alban:I'm honestly going no, I'm not doing it.
Kevin:All right, here we're going to end on this one. Okay, this is my favorite one. All right, $10 million now, or a billion dollars, but you always have to have the special marble on you. You always have to keep the special marble with you. If you lose the special marble, you lose everything that you have bought or whatever money you have left. Yeah, special marble. So this is all about how good at you are not losing things.
Jordan:I will not lose this marble. Hear me out. Here's what I would do. I would get the marble surgically inserted beneath my skin, behind my neck.
Alban:Behind your neck. Why would you?
Kevin:choose, not just like in your thigh or something, but you're going to put it in this, like just in your neck. I guess, it's your first choice. You have this big lump hanging off the side of your neck all the time that looks like a goiter Jordan.
Alban:People are going to be like you want some of this iodine salt and you're like why does everyone recommend iodine salt? A giant neck goiter.
Kevin:So you're going to sew the marble to your body.
Jordan:Maybe. Oh, what if they like, put it in my belly button. I looked like one of those like troll dolls with like marble in my belly button.
Kevin:Whatever you want to do.
Jordan:That's what I would do. I'd have a magical belly button worth a billion dollars. Okay.
Alban:I think I'm doing the magical marble thing. Kevin, I'm going to take it. I'll probably just get it made into like a necklace and wear it and put an air tag on it or something that's what Frodo did and you know what happened. Frodo destroyed the ring. It worked.
Jordan:I don't know. I think he lost it at one point, if I remember correctly.
Kevin:Air tag doesn't help you, because if you utilize the air tag, that means it's already lost. How far away can I get from this marble? It can't leave your person like millimeters.
Jordan:It's got to be on you or on your pocket or something. What's it got in?
Alban:its pockets. Yeah, I'm going to take the marble. I'll keep the marble.
Kevin:I would say at any given time somebody could ask you where's the marble and you have to produce it within one second. Jordan's like look at my neck.
Jordan:I got this like lump. I just show my belly button. A little blue marble in it All right, so you're both marbling, okay.
Alban:All right. What are your answers for these? Kevin, you're running in the Super Bowl. I think I'm going to run in the Super Bowl.
Kevin:Terrible decision, okay, absolutely terrible decision. But I'm thinking about the money difference, like a million dollars. First, what was it?
Alban:10 and possible permanent disability.
Kevin:Yeah, but I would probably run in the Super Bowl for free. If they said you can take a run in the Super Bowl, I'd probably do it for free.
Alban:I know you're taking a dollar a step. Definitely a dollar a step.
Kevin:And 10 million or a billion. I think I'd be happy with 10 million. I don't want to have to worry about keeping track of it. I'd like to be such a stressful life. You're always worried about this marble, unless you do the surgical implant thing that Jordan did, which is a pretty good idea, yeah.
Jordan:I'm a genius.
Kevin:Maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll steal Jordan's idea and implant it, but not in my neck, bro.
Jordan:What about your belly button?
Kevin:No, I think I'm just going to go like in my thigh or something. Okay, all right. Well, anyway, I thought those were fun. I found them on Instagram. It's bread basket three or three if anybody wants to follow them. They have a bunch of other fun games.
Alban:Wait, ski boots, Kevin. Are you wearing ski boots? Oh, I hate ski boots. That's a bad.
Kevin:I hate them. It's like the most uncomfortable thing. 20 million, or stay the way you are. Yeah, I got to wear ski boots probably. Well, life's terrible now, but Monday through Friday party Saturday, Sunday are my work days. That's when I'm wearing my ski boots.
Alban:Oh yeah, I didn't even think it. You got 20 million. You got 20 million Just switch the days of the week. That's right. You say I only work.
Kevin:Well, there are no rules. I only work on weekends at my desk, I don't move.
Alban:I snowboard every weekend.