[Speaker 0] I think it's time for Mike Delve World.
[Speaker 0] There it is. And here I am. This
[Speaker 0] is Mike, and you're listening to Mike Dell's
[Speaker 0] World number four thirty five for November twenty
[Speaker 0] ninth twenty twenty five. Happy Saturday. And this
[Speaker 0] is the pen I have a ultimate episode
[Speaker 0] of NAPOD promo twenty five. I have made
[Speaker 0] it twenty nine days. I have no doubt
[Speaker 0] I will do another one tomorrow. So we
[Speaker 0] will have succeeded in completing the NAPOD promo
[Speaker 0] challenge. Also, I'm growing a mustache for Movember
[Speaker 0] or I guess it's no shave November, but
[Speaker 0] I I decided I didn't wanna go with
[Speaker 0] the beard this month, so I've got what
[Speaker 0] could be considered a porn stash. I'll I'll
[Speaker 0] throw a picture of it on the post
[Speaker 0] for, tomorrow's episode before I, shave it off.
[Speaker 0] But, yeah, not a not a great look.
[Speaker 0] I I I look like a retired airline
[Speaker 0] pilot. That's what I always say. But, anyway
[Speaker 0] so today, I just wanted to kinda do
[Speaker 0] a little naval gazing when it comes to
[Speaker 0] podcasting. And, you know, just explain to you
[Speaker 0] why podcasting is so special. And you, as
[Speaker 0] a avid podcast listener and maybe even a
[Speaker 0] podcaster might already know a lot of these
[Speaker 0] things, but, you know, podcasting is very, you
[Speaker 0] know, well, not very, but it's just unique.
[Speaker 0] You know, there's not no other medium quite
[Speaker 0] like it. And, yeah, I think the main
[Speaker 0] reason that it is the way it is
[Speaker 0] is it's built on an open decentralized technology
[Speaker 0] called RSS. I'm not gonna bore you with
[Speaker 0] all the gritty details of RSS, but podcasting
[Speaker 0] isn't owned by any one company. It's not
[Speaker 0] owned by Apple. It's not owned by Spotify.
[Speaker 0] It's not owned by YouTube or any of
[Speaker 0] the other myriad ways that you can listen
[Speaker 0] to a podcast. But because of the RSS,
[Speaker 0] anyone can publish, anyone can listen, and anyone
[Speaker 0] can build an app or directory that uses
[Speaker 0] the podcast feeds. This means there's just no
[Speaker 0] gatekeepers approving what gets published. You know, if
[Speaker 0] I wanna say a curse word, I'm totally
[Speaker 0] able to do that. Now I don't do
[Speaker 0] that as much as I used to on
[Speaker 0] podcast just because, you know, unless it's really,
[Speaker 0] really, you know, gonna add to the content,
[Speaker 0] I I'm not gonna do that. But there's
[Speaker 0] nothing telling me that I can't, and there's
[Speaker 0] nobody telling me I can't. Now you guys
[Speaker 0] may not wanna listen to that stuff, but
[Speaker 0] that's your choice. That's the freedom of, you
[Speaker 0] know, as a podcast listener, there's, you know,
[Speaker 0] reportedly about four to five million podcast feeds
[Speaker 0] out there. Now active podcast somewhere in the
[Speaker 0] three hundred thousand range and, you know, active
[Speaker 0] defined by, you know, an episode in within
[Speaker 0] the last thirty days, which sometimes this one
[Speaker 0] has not been active. But I promise you
[Speaker 0] it's gonna be more active because I have
[Speaker 0] relearned my love for podcasting. You know, I
[Speaker 0] work in the podcast industry, and I've always
[Speaker 0] loved the concept, but actually doing one has
[Speaker 0] been, you know, an on and off thing
[Speaker 0] for me. You know, but I love it.
[Speaker 0] But, again, you know, you can choose to
[Speaker 0] use whatever app you want as a listener.
[Speaker 0] The creators have full control over their content.
[Speaker 0] The technology has gotten such that it's a
[Speaker 0] lot easier to listen to podcasts. It's a
[Speaker 0] lot easier to to, create one. I mean,
[Speaker 0] anybody can, and that's pretty rare today. You
[Speaker 0] know? It, has another, feature of podcasting is
[Speaker 0] it's a much more intimate medium. You know,
[Speaker 0] a lot of, podcast listeners will say something
[Speaker 0] like, you know, I I really feel like
[Speaker 0] I know the host. And, you know, in
[Speaker 0] my case, I do know a lot of
[Speaker 0] hosts of the podcast that I listen to,
[Speaker 0] but that's because I can interact with them.
[Speaker 0] They're they're they're people just like me. I'm
[Speaker 0] a person just like you. You know? You
[Speaker 0] can reach out to me anytime you want
[Speaker 0] to, and, chances are I will I will
[Speaker 0] respond. You know? And another thing that you
[Speaker 0] can do with podcast and I'm specifically talking
[Speaker 0] to talking about audio. Technically, podcasting can also
[Speaker 0] be video, and you can deliver video just
[Speaker 0] like you do audio via RSS. Nothing particularly
[Speaker 0] wrong with that. But if I wanna watch
[Speaker 0] a video, I'm gonna watch it on my
[Speaker 0] big screen on YouTube or Apple Podcasts. You
[Speaker 0] know, if it's a, RSS delivered podcast, you
[Speaker 0] know, I can watch it on my big
[Speaker 0] screen TV. But I I'm talking mainly for
[Speaker 0] audio. So, you know, you can, you know,
[Speaker 0] you can take your podcast anywhere where you
[Speaker 0] drive, walk the dog, you work, or, even
[Speaker 0] flying. You know? I've been known to listen
[Speaker 0] to podcasts while flying my you know, flying
[Speaker 0] the airplane myself. You know? Don't don't do
[Speaker 0] it with anybody else in the plane, but,
[Speaker 0] you know, sometimes, you know, you can do
[Speaker 0] that if you want to. Again, not, not
[Speaker 0] necessarily, you know, something that you, you know,
[Speaker 0] you have to pay that much attention to.
[Speaker 0] You know? I I routinely listen to podcasts
[Speaker 0] while I blow the snow out of the
[Speaker 0] driveway or while I mowing the lawn or
[Speaker 0] or, you know, just washing dishes, whatever. I
[Speaker 0] can listen. I don't have to stare at
[Speaker 0] a screen. You know? It's it's definitely a
[Speaker 0] better medium for me. You know? I was
[Speaker 0] I was always a fan of talk radio.
[Speaker 0] You know? And I, worked in the print
[Speaker 0] business. A lot of times, I was working
[Speaker 0] night shift, and there's nobody else in the
[Speaker 0] building. And, you know, I'm just running the
[Speaker 0] machine or doing some, you know, doing something
[Speaker 0] on the computer, whatever. But I I don't
[Speaker 0] have to I didn't have to sit and
[Speaker 0] watch anything. I just listened. It was like
[Speaker 0] radio. It was better than radio. Because with
[Speaker 0] radio, you know, you don't get to pick
[Speaker 0] what comes on next. With podcast listening, you
[Speaker 0] do. I mean, you don't have to sit
[Speaker 0] still to watch the screen. You don't have
[Speaker 0] to scroll. You don't even have to look
[Speaker 0] at it. You just live your life and
[Speaker 0] listen. And it's very accessible. That's the other
[Speaker 0] thing. You know, you can launch a podcast,
[Speaker 0] and all you need is a microphone, a
[Speaker 0] computer, or even just a phone, some place
[Speaker 0] to host the files in an RSS feed.
[Speaker 0] And, you know, where you host your files
[Speaker 0] usually gives you the means to create an
[Speaker 0] RSS feed. Of course, I work for Blueberry
[Speaker 0] Podcasting, so I would say, hey. You know,
[Speaker 0] go over to Blueberry. We we we'll get
[Speaker 0] you covered. But you can, you know, you
[Speaker 0] can do it on the cheap. You know,
[Speaker 0] I started this podcast back in two thousand
[Speaker 0] five with a a laptop, which was a
[Speaker 0] pretty luxury item at the time. You know,
[Speaker 0] laptops weren't that, ubiquitous in two thousand five.
[Speaker 0] Obviously, there was laptops because I had one,
[Speaker 0] and the stupid little stick microphone that came
[Speaker 0] with it. And I was sitting on my
[Speaker 0] front porch in Lake Anne, Michigan, and I
[Speaker 0] recorded the first episode, of the benzoed report.
[Speaker 0] And I'm still looking for that episode, by
[Speaker 0] the way. If anybody runs across that, I
[Speaker 0] would just love to hear how bad it
[Speaker 0] was. But, you know, if you compare it
[Speaker 0] to YouTube, you gotta deal with all the
[Speaker 0] algorithms over there. You know, you gotta buy
[Speaker 0] all the video gear. And if you're gonna
[Speaker 0] be successful at all at it, you gotta
[Speaker 0] edit a lot and and just you know,
[Speaker 0] it's a lot of work and expense, and
[Speaker 0] YouTube can just decide one day, I don't
[Speaker 0] like you anymore. Poof. You know? They turn
[Speaker 0] off your channel. You're done. You know? There's
[Speaker 0] no no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
[Speaker 0] You know? YouTube is pretty free, but they
[Speaker 0] have that option. You cannot be canceled as
[Speaker 0] a podcaster. You know? If you wanted to
[Speaker 0] get into broadcasting, you you know, you gotta
[Speaker 0] either get a job somewhere, and, of course,
[Speaker 0] they're gonna tell you what to say, what
[Speaker 0] not to say, when to say it, how
[Speaker 0] to say it, what music to play, or
[Speaker 0] whatever. You know, some radio stations are more
[Speaker 0] free than others as far as that goes,
[Speaker 0] but, you know, you still gotta deal with
[Speaker 0] all that. Or, you know, if you're gonna
[Speaker 0] buy your own transmitter, I mean, that is
[Speaker 0] expensive. You know, try to get a a
[Speaker 0] a license for broadcasting. It's not easy. Even
[Speaker 0] the low power FM, which is supposed to
[Speaker 0] be easier. Yeah. They just don't do it.
[Speaker 0] You know? It's it's extremely expensive. You know,
[Speaker 0] in streaming platforms, you know, such as Spotify,
[Speaker 0] YouTube, you know, I would consider them streaming
[Speaker 0] platform. You get what I mean. Or, you
[Speaker 0] know, even Netflix. You know, you're not gonna
[Speaker 0] get a show on Netflix, you know, unless
[Speaker 0] you're, you know, doing some high quality thing
[Speaker 0] that costs lots of money. And then, you
[Speaker 0] know, you might get lots of money, but
[Speaker 0] there's not anything that, you know, not anything
[Speaker 0] in that business that is easy, cheap, free,
[Speaker 0] or simple. You know? Podcasting, like I said,
[Speaker 0] anybody can do it, and anybody can listen
[Speaker 0] to it. Also, you have global reach with
[Speaker 0] podcasts. You know, my podcast doesn't stop at
[Speaker 0] the US border. My podcast goes worldwide with
[Speaker 0] the exception of a couple places, but, you
[Speaker 0] know, a podcast we created right here in
[Speaker 0] Traverse City can be listened to in Iceland,
[Speaker 0] Japan, Germany, truck cab in Ohio, a Cessna
[Speaker 0] one seventy two over Wisconsin. It can just
[Speaker 0] be anywhere. You know, somebody on a John
[Speaker 0] Deere tractor out in Iowa. It's just could
[Speaker 0] could be anywhere. You know, chances are my
[Speaker 0] show is kinda local, but, you know, you
[Speaker 0] get the global reach, and it feels very
[Speaker 0] local. You know, I listen to a couple
[Speaker 0] of shows that, talk about Las Vegas. And
[Speaker 0] I almost feel like I'm a local sometimes
[Speaker 0] because, you know, I know some of these
[Speaker 0] places. And, you know, here I am in
[Speaker 0] Traverse City, and and I know what they're
[Speaker 0] talking about when they're talking about some restaurant
[Speaker 0] space in Aria. Yeah. I've been there. Or
[Speaker 0] I I can go there. I know about
[Speaker 0] it. You know? You know, you can also
[Speaker 0] do, long form content that you can't do
[Speaker 0] on radio or broadcast or even streaming. You
[Speaker 0] know? I if I wanted to go three
[Speaker 0] hours talking, I could go three hours, and
[Speaker 0] you as a listener could listen to all
[Speaker 0] three hours, or you could listen to ten
[Speaker 0] minutes here, ten minutes there, and consume the
[Speaker 0] whole thing eventually or decide it's not for
[Speaker 0] you and and leave. You know? That's the
[Speaker 0] beauty of, you know, podcasting. You know? I
[Speaker 0] don't know. It just, I don't know. I
[Speaker 0] love it. I you know, I'm I've I'm
[Speaker 0] falling back in love with it, I I
[Speaker 0] guess, is the right way to put it.
[Speaker 0] And, hence, you know, I've got a a
[Speaker 0] little project coming, which you'll find out about
[Speaker 0] tomorrow if you haven't already got the clue.
[Speaker 0] But, anyway, we'll see how that goes. You
[Speaker 0] know, and it can still have a lot
[Speaker 0] of huge growth. Now, you know, everybody's talking
[Speaker 0] about video podcasting and big platforms and all
[Speaker 0] that. You know what? You can get a
[Speaker 0] simple little podcast app over at new podcast
[Speaker 0] apps dot com in one of the podcasting
[Speaker 0] two point o apps. Subscribe to any RSS
[Speaker 0] feed you want. And most podcasters that know
[Speaker 0] what they're doing have their RSS feed easily
[Speaker 0] accessible, and, you know, they can you you
[Speaker 0] can just copy paste that in there and
[Speaker 0] subscribe whether or not and subscribe doesn't mean
[Speaker 0] pay money. Follow is the new word they're
[Speaker 0] trying to use, but I guess it doesn't
[Speaker 0] really matter what they call it. But, you
[Speaker 0] know, you put that in your podcast app,
[Speaker 0] whatever that app is. And whenever a new
[Speaker 0] episode comes, it pulls it down, puts it
[Speaker 0] on your phone or your computer or whatever.
[Speaker 0] You know, when podcasting first started, you had
[Speaker 0] to do it on a computer, and then
[Speaker 0] you synced it with your m p three
[Speaker 0] player. Now it's so much easier. You got
[Speaker 0] a phone. Most people have a smartphone, and
[Speaker 0] even some of the dumb phones have a
[Speaker 0] podcast app on it. And, you know, it
[Speaker 0] automatically shows up on your phone. Whenever you
[Speaker 0] wanna list, You just bring up the app
[Speaker 0] and say, hey. I wanna listen to that.
[Speaker 0] You hit play, put your earbuds in, stick
[Speaker 0] it in your pocket, or link it to
[Speaker 0] your Bluetooth in your car or however you
[Speaker 0] choose to listen. And you can do that.
[Speaker 0] But, you know, it it's definitely something that
[Speaker 0] is free for both the listeners and the
[Speaker 0] podcasters. Free as in freedom, not, free as
[Speaker 0] in free of cost. I I mean, you
[Speaker 0] guys still gotta pay for your phone plan
[Speaker 0] or your Internet connection or the device itself
[Speaker 0] and your earbuds and, you know, all that
[Speaker 0] as a listener. And as a podcaster, you
[Speaker 0] know, I've got a pretty elaborate setup here,
[Speaker 0] but you don't need this much, gear to
[Speaker 0] make it work. But you can have, you
[Speaker 0] know, little podcasts about whatever, you know, little
[Speaker 0] passions and, you know, I I don't expect
[Speaker 0] to set the world on fire with this
[Speaker 0] show. You know, I got, you know, got
[Speaker 0] a core group of listeners that I hear
[Speaker 0] from. I've got, you know, a fair number
[Speaker 0] of other listeners that I never hear from.
[Speaker 0] And I can tell that from my statistics,
[Speaker 0] and they're all over the world. You know?
[Speaker 0] I I had a listener in Antarctica, part
[Speaker 0] of the year, you know, when, they were
[Speaker 0] down in, in Antarctica. And I actually reached
[Speaker 0] out to them, you know, said, hey. You
[Speaker 0] know? And I didn't know who they were,
[Speaker 0] but, I never did hear back. But, anyway
[Speaker 0] but you could have a podcast about anything,
[Speaker 0] or you can find a podcast about anything.
[Speaker 0] I mean, you go into any of these
[Speaker 0] podcast apps and you search for a subject,
[Speaker 0] and you're more than likely gonna find more
[Speaker 0] than one on that subject. Certain subjects have
[Speaker 0] a lot more. You know, there's a lot
[Speaker 0] of comedy, a lot of true crime, a
[Speaker 0] lot of religion, a lot of politics. There's
[Speaker 0] there's all the stuff that you can get
[Speaker 0] in podcast that you're not gonna get anywhere
[Speaker 0] else. And and the other thing, you know,
[Speaker 0] podcasters that I know, you know, they're worried
[Speaker 0] about competition. You're not competing with other podcasters.
[Speaker 0] If, you know, if I'm interested in flying,
[Speaker 0] I subscribe to many podcasts about flying. You
[Speaker 0] know? There there's some that I favor more
[Speaker 0] than others. But, again, you know, I subscribe
[Speaker 0] to those, and I usually listen to most
[Speaker 0] of them that I subscribe to. You know?
[Speaker 0] You look at my phone, it's ridiculous. I've
[Speaker 0] got, you know, just all kinds of podcasts
[Speaker 0] on there, and I'm, you know, I'm an
[Speaker 0] avid listener. I don't have as much time
[Speaker 0] to listen as I would like, but, you
[Speaker 0] know, going into this winter season, I'm gonna
[Speaker 0] be spending a lot of time on the
[Speaker 0] tractor, and and I got my, Bose noise
[Speaker 0] canceling headphones that I wear and, you know,
[Speaker 0] when I'm on the tractor. And and I
[Speaker 0] that's what I'm listening to. I'm listening to
[Speaker 0] podcasts. I got a playlist, and it just
[Speaker 0] blah blah blah blah blah. You know? And
[Speaker 0] and, you know, and and it's an intimate
[Speaker 0] experience. Again, you know, if you're listening to
[Speaker 0] me on earbuds, I'm right in your head.
[Speaker 0] You look out. You know, you don't get
[Speaker 0] that with, you know, listening to the radio
[Speaker 0] sitting over on the workbench while you're doing
[Speaker 0] something in, you know, it's right there. Or
[Speaker 0] if you wanna listen to it on the
[Speaker 0] big, you know, speaker in the in the
[Speaker 0] workbench in the garage, that's, you know, again,
[Speaker 0] your choice. Well, you know, where you don't
[Speaker 0] get the choice of that. You know, when
[Speaker 0] you're watching TV, you gotta stare at the
[Speaker 0] TV, and you gotta watch all the stupid
[Speaker 0] commercials. I I don't watch a lot of
[Speaker 0] local TV or any TV, really, a normal
[Speaker 0] TV because I can't stand the commercials. I
[Speaker 0] you know, now some of them are kind
[Speaker 0] of funny and, you know, I do watch
[Speaker 0] a little bit of the local news from
[Speaker 0] time to time, you know, that kind of
[Speaker 0] thing. But, you know, the commercial load on
[Speaker 0] TV is just insane. And, you know, and
[Speaker 0] some podcasts. You know, there are a lot
[Speaker 0] of podcasts out there that overdo the the
[Speaker 0] ads and stuff. YouTube too. You know, if
[Speaker 0] you're not paying YouTube for a premium subscription,
[Speaker 0] you're gonna get all kinds of commercials. And
[Speaker 0] even if you pay for the YouTube premium,
[Speaker 0] you know, they have, host read endorsements. And,
[Speaker 0] you know, that's fine. You know, the YouTubers
[Speaker 0] need to make some money, and and that's
[Speaker 0] that's okay. But you as a listener of
[Speaker 0] a podcast can choose, you know, hey. This
[Speaker 0] has got too many commercials in it. I'm
[Speaker 0] not gonna listen. You know? But most of
[Speaker 0] the time, the the podcasters, you know, they
[Speaker 0] have a little commercial here or there, maybe
[Speaker 0] a pre roll or a post roll, something
[Speaker 0] like that that, isn't true too intrusive. You
[Speaker 0] watch YouTube without having premium. They cut right
[Speaker 0] in the middle of somebody's sentence. It's just
[Speaker 0] ridiculous. You know, and same same thing with
[Speaker 0] radio. You listen to talk radio. You get
[Speaker 0] ten minutes of the program and four minutes
[Speaker 0] of commercials or something similar to that. I
[Speaker 0] don't know. I haven't listened to it enough
[Speaker 0] lately. Since Rush Limbaugh died, I haven't really
[Speaker 0] listened to a lot of talk radio. I
[Speaker 0] do listen to Ron Jolly in the morning.
[Speaker 0] He's on our local WTCM. I listen to
[Speaker 0] him periodically in the morning, and and, you
[Speaker 0] know, there there there's quite a bit of
[Speaker 0] commercials, but that's alright. It's, you know, good
[Speaker 0] information. So, you know, you choose what you
[Speaker 0] wanna put up with. So, anyway, I'm just
[Speaker 0] you know, I wanted to do an episode
[Speaker 0] here for National Podcast Posting Month, Naypod Pomo.
[Speaker 0] Go check it out over at naypod pomo
[Speaker 0] dot o r g, I think. Is it
[Speaker 0] okay. Is that an org or a com?
[Speaker 0] I think it's an org. Naypod pomo dot
[Speaker 0] org. Yes. I am correct. Oh, maybe not.
[Speaker 0] Hang on. Nay pod pomo dot org? Oh,
[Speaker 0] maybe they got a problem. Oh, don't go
[Speaker 0] there now. Nope. Account has been suspended. Uh-oh.
[Speaker 0] I don't know what happened. They're probably really
[Speaker 0] busy this month and ran out of, bandwidth,
[Speaker 0] but it is napod pomo dot org. Go
[Speaker 0] go look on Facebook. There's a, napod pomo
[Speaker 0] Facebook group that, that is active. So, yeah,
[Speaker 0] that's crazy. It must have just went down.
[Speaker 0] Hopefully, by the time you hear this, because
[Speaker 0] I'm recording it a day early, by the
[Speaker 0] time you hear this, maybe she'll have it
[Speaker 0] back up and running. It's, Jennifer. I never
[Speaker 0] can mess I I always mess up her
[Speaker 0] name, Navarante or something close to that. Sorry,
[Speaker 0] Jen. Anyway, you know, she listens sometimes. But,
[Speaker 0] yeah. So, you know, in in honor of
[Speaker 0] that, I and, just I'm just happy I
[Speaker 0] actually made it all the way through. And
[Speaker 0] and this year, I I have to say
[Speaker 0] it was easy because I got my setup
[Speaker 0] here to where, literally, I open up one
[Speaker 0] program, hit a couple of buttons, hit the
[Speaker 0] record button, lean back in my desk chair
[Speaker 0] here, and talk into the microphone. And when
[Speaker 0] I'm done, I save the file. I run
[Speaker 0] it through a couple of processes, post it
[Speaker 0] on my website. You know? I you know,
[Speaker 0] do a half hour podcast takes me about
[Speaker 0] forty minutes. You know? Well, it depends on
[Speaker 0] how much I prep for it. It because
[Speaker 0] a lot of times I just flip the
[Speaker 0] mic on and start talking as you can
[Speaker 0] tell, but, not always. You know? Sometimes I
[Speaker 0] do prep a little bit. But, you know,
[Speaker 0] for the most part, it's a, you know,
[Speaker 0] ten minutes on either end and and it's
[Speaker 0] done. It's published. It's out there. The world
[Speaker 0] can get to it, and it's just something
[Speaker 0] that's sort of special. So with that, I'll
[Speaker 0] leave you till tomorrow. And tomorrow, I do
[Speaker 0] have a bit of an announcement and a
[Speaker 0] few, other little things to tidy up before
[Speaker 0] the end of the month, and I will