Todd and Rob in the afternoon.
Afternoon
delight.
With Todd and
Rob.
Oh, yeah.
Alright. Well, back with the new media show.
It's great to have, you back with us
watching. Todd's here as well, and he's back
in in the US and Michigan. So he's
joining us from his studio build.
So how's it going today, Todd? It's not
the student. Right behind me is not the
studio build. I posted a picture on Facebook
that showed the partial studio build. So Yeah.
It's cool.
Maybe next week we'll be ready. So Okay.
We'll see.
But, yeah, I went I've been making multiple
runs to the storage unit and dragging stuff
back here. So the the I could not
have anybody here right now because it is
an ultra well,
let's just put it this way. I cleaned
up behind me.
And for Chris, if you didn't know, I
lost my other studio. I didn't get evicted.
I got at least terminated.
So
I had to vacate the location I was
at. So I had no idea how to
make sense.
Yeah. It just sucked, but, you know, it's
life. But and, hopefully, this new setup will
work, and if bandwidth willing, we'll be okay.
But
matter of fact, I was talking with an
alternate party,
yesterday about some additional bandwidth, so we'll see.
I asked the company, how much to bribe
you guys to bring fiber down my road
a mile and a half? And the guy
says, you know how much it cost a
mile to bring fiber? And I said, no.
I said he said, 70
$1,000. I'm like, I mean, if you said
10, I'd have to say, I'll write you
the check, baby.
70?
We're gonna have to go on a Kickstarter
to get that done. Yeah. Right.
Yeah.
And that would probably just to you. Right?
Is that the is there any other customers
that could get on that? Yeah. Yeah. Just
to me, but there's not enough customers from
their point, like, 6 houses or something. So
no no and no one's gonna say, oh,
yeah. I'll give you $10,000 at Fiverr.
Yeah. No.
That's true. But, anyway Well, we're Here we
are. So, yeah, so we're lucky to have
Chris Kramitzos with us, the founder
of Podfest Expo that goes on every year
down in Orlando. And,
Chris, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it.
Oh, thanks for having me. Last time I
saw Todd, we were hanging out in the
Philippines in Manila, so that was awesome.
Yeah. That was. And I was able to
Yeah. Hang out with Aya Sabu here recently
myself as well. So you guys got the
royal treatment. Her her and I just went
from business to business. I think we we
visited 5 different companies in, like, 8 hours.
So, yeah, so a little different visit with
her, but, yeah, it was good. Well, thanks
to both of you because your support really
helped us get Podfest Asia off the ground.
It was a shoestring, but we did it,
and it was awesome.
Yeah. And it's a little bit of a
sign of the direction that you're going to.
And that was a nice event and definitely
different perspectives, I guess. It's always every
Yeah. I think you're
lagging on us a little bit, Todd. So,
yeah, so I was wanting to have Chris
here to talk about his big announcement that
he had Yeah. A few weeks ago now.
But, yeah, a new
kind of partnership and
folks in in his company, actually,
Cutting Edge Events,
I guess, is the new company. Well, Cutting
Edge Events is new company or No. No.
No. Cutting Edge Events is a holding company
for Podfest,
and it's Got it. And the different things
that Podfest does. And we added 2 managing
directors, so 2 investors that are gonna be
working in the company to help us expand.
Nick Pavlinis,
who is he's been podcasting for quite some
time. He started with 5 minutes with dad.
He's also owns, part of Morgan James Publishing
Group,
and then doctor Glenn Vo, who is a
big influencer in the medical space.
So that's gonna allow me to do one
thing, which is focus on
building community,
going out to different places. We just announced
that we're going to Bogota, Colombia
at the end of the in early September.
So we're looking at really growing the international,
not only the US, North America, but really
growing tentacles into other parts of the world.
Yeah. That's awesome.
So so are you guys actually gonna have
an event in Colombia? Is that the plan?
Yeah. Yeah. I'll be sending out some information
shortly. So that one's gonna be a little
bit different than, Podfest Asia, which was a
Podfest specific event. This is Podfest is going
to a festival that's being held with creators
in Colombia,
in Bogota,
and we'll I have translator. Neil Gilarte is
coming down with me from Wow Style Media.
And then we're also gonna invite them to
Podfest. So think of that almost like a
foreign exchange program. Like, hey. You guys come.
So they're gonna have a room at Podfest.
We're gonna have a space at their event.
Issa is the head of the that that
conference that we're part of. She's really big
in the voice over
space.
So we're excited. Podfest is all about the
independence and helping the creators, but also now
we're finding this really big source of editors
that also we wanna bring to the fold.
So you can see a lot of stuff
that we're gonna do for the technicians behind
the scenes. We've always been very supportive, but
we're gonna be doing a lot more moving
forward.
So I also saw that you guys made
a change to the hotel venue as well
as the dates of the event. So, you
know, I have it up on the screen
so everybody can So, yeah, I I could,
I'm gonna tell you guys a great story,
but, basically, we had a hotel
confirmed.
They They knew they were gonna close down,
but they didn't tell us that.
A month later, they shut the hotel
down. I can't say much more all than
we have lawyers right now dealing with that.
Luckily for us and our relationships,
we got a better hotel. They felt bad
for us. They really found something for us.
So we found a home,
and it's at the Renaissance, which is an
amazing property. They gave us a really great
deal for our community.
But, yeah, the the hotel literally I don't
even know if it exists anymore.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. So I mean, I'm sorry. I wanna
be very clear. The one we're gonna have
it at, we have a great hotel now
for next year. Everything worked out. But, you
could imagine it's stressful enough with these kind
of,
businesses.
Having your hotel just shut down on you
just adds a whole different element of stress.
Well, and also if you have to, you
know, if you have to change the dates
too. It's a big cost too if you
think about it. All the materials, all the
things. So there's all kinds of stuff that
goes into it. Luckily,
we're working on it, and we have really
great members in our community that are helping
take on that case.
Mhmm.
Yeah. That's great. Go ahead, Todd. I there
must be some serious lag going on here
because I we're stepping all over each other,
so I apologize. So that's that losing venue
like that,
it I guess, maybe you can't even say,
but they still have your money? Or
It it let there like I said, there's
attorneys involved now. Unfortunately, a lot of these
bigger companies, when they see smaller events, they'll
say, hey. Go get representation.
If you we're not we're we're good.
They try and say it's force majeure. I
I don't wanna get in the weeds. That
basically means it's an act of god, which
it was not.
So, anyways, we we got a really strong
case, and we're gonna be fine. But in
the moment this all happened, Todd, while I
was heading out to Asia, by the way.
Like, while I'm flying out to Asia, this
is what I'm dealing with on top of
trying to get my flights there. So it
was great. So it all got settled. That's
why I was so happy when I got
to Asia even though I hadn't slept for
2 days. And then all these amazing people
were there, and Todd could attest. They were
so grateful, And that's what I really loved
about Podfest Asia in Manila.
Thanks to Ron,
who is amazing, that helped us with Pod
Machine.
I, who's amazing, who has architect my business.
We had some really great local leaders that
helped us put it on, but for those
that don't know, I almost didn't make it
because of just flights getting delayed all the
way through.
And then the language barrier in Japan, I
didn't understand exactly what I was being told.
But I wind up getting on the right
plane, and I got there with an hour
to spare. So it was so much fun.
Yeah. You you when you come dragging your
suitcase in, I'm like, oh.
Yeah. You had just got off the flight,
but that's one thing. You you hadn't slept
in a couple of days, and you you
did real well. You weren't too punchy. I
could see you near the end of the
day. Yeah. I probably got but I was
I loved it, Todd. It was so good.
And seeing you, like, there was a bunch
of us from the US. Once we saw
each other, we were making sure that everybody
in the Philippines was welcome, and then they
would I I mean, people come up to
Todd, say, can I get a selfie? It
was really nice just seeing how grateful everybody
was there. It was great. And for Todd
to share that with us, and thanks to
Todd, we had lunch provided because of blueberry.
So people were really that was one of
my favorite events we've ever done, Todd, just,
from the gratitude perspective of the audience. It
was really amazing.
Yeah. It was. And I think what it
really
shows me and, of course, with the big
event in Florida in the I guess in
I I guess it was we termed this
in the winter. It's not even the spring.
Right. I just it sets a different,
perspective for me because I'm sure some of
the folks that were
in Manila may come to Florida.
And and I think it just this would
be a good extension. We'll see if you
guys are able to do this next year.
But I think that just the
seeing what's going on in the international market,
I and I talked to Rob about this
quite a bit when I got back.
I I didn't know what to expect from
the panels. I just really sat back and
listened.
And the folks that are running networks out
there, it would have been the education that
they were providing
was equal to, if not greater than, maybe,
a session I'd set in at a regular
event here in the United States.
So it would the level of content, the
level of information being shared
was really right there at at level 10.
It wasn't like we were year 1 into
event and the content and the the speakers
and stuff weren't up to speed. No. The
education level of the content was really up
there and then the nuances
of
the of the community. And one thing I
always just thought that was interesting is no
one was talking about
CPMs or anything. I was like, okay. Is
this a big secret?
And I think just culturally wise, they don't
necessarily go too deep talking publicly about money
because I got 2 or 3 of them
cornered and then said, hey. You beat around
the bush a little bit, but what are
you guys actually seeing for advertising? And they
told me. I was like, oh, it's same
as the United States. Awesome. And
to me, that kind of
solidified
the whole
conversations that they were sharing with the folks
that were there. Now, obviously, there was a
lot of VAs, a lot of creators, a
lot of editor not a lot as many
creators, a lot of editors.
So, hopefully, round 2
of that event will have more
of the actual creators come as well.
I was shocked at how many amazing editors
that we had and what really cued me
in because I know I'm putting on the
event like Todd. I was discovering the same
thing he's saying. We were discovering in real
time, and that's why you have to do
these events because that's how you discover this
stuff. When we had Jack Baldini, our attorney,
go up there, and they were not asking
the same questions that US people would ask.
They were asking very detailed
trademark copyright infringement stories, and I think a
lot of them have dealt with so many
different creators. And in Asia, they rip off
things a lot more quicker. Like, things get
ripped off left and right, I guess. So
it was very eye opening to how astute
they were in that field. Whereas, like, in
the US, someone will ask a question, what
is a copyright? What is a trademark? That's
not what they were asking. They're asking, what
happens if I'm working on something and this
guy stole it, but I'm the editor, and
now they wanna sue me? So it's interesting
to hear these kind of questions, and it
was eye opening
what you're saying, Todd, how how in-depth this
audience was, the people we were pulling from.
It was really eye opening for me.
So, Chris, on this
new strategic partnership that you've got with these
2 new gentlemen coming in, and and I
know this is you've been a one man
band
along with the support team, of course. Yeah.
We have a great support team. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. But, you know, I'm excited about this
from just a because you stretch pretty thin,
my friend. Correct.
And so I find that to myself all
the time. I think, oh, man. I'm a
little bit too stretched too thin.
So it's good to see you've got these
other folks coming in and helping you out.
And how's that changing?
What what's it been so far for the
business and for the event? How do you
feel today? Here we're August, and we're, what,
we're 4 or 5 months away, whatever the
date is. Rob, maybe put that back up
there. But
how are you feeling today as far from
an organization standpoint
as compared to where you would be normally
without this extra help?
I I probably feel overwhelmed. I don't feel
overwhelmed. I actually you'll appreciate this. I feel
like I'm not doing enough, and that's the
whole point. Does that make sense? So because
I'm used to doing a lot of the
things.
Now I have teammates that could hand off
different things. So we have already had record
sales
this far out, people purchasing tickets way in
advance than we normally would have. And Nick,
I believe these is part of Podfest. So
we had other people that were interested, but
they just weren't part of the community. And
you guys know this community is very special,
and I've kept it that way. So finding
a cultural fit was priority number 1. So
Nick Pavly has been a great partner to
work with, so has doctor Glenn Bo.
They also have a lot of connections on
there and that they're gonna be bringing in
just different sponsors, different access points that they
have that'll help the conference grow.
But one thing that they have told me
and I've told them, they go to community
comes first, and that's the key to Podfest.
That's what makes us so special. So that's
where we're focused.
And, I mean, I I start the pod
tour next week. I'll be in, in Georgia
for the pod tour,
and then I'll be at CreatorFest,
which is not our event, some other event,
but we'll have a booth there.
And then we'll be going to at least
20 to 25 cities on the low side
across North America,
making sure that we reach podcasters where they're
at and just keep growing
growing Podfest.
Do you see a lot of the changes,
Chris, being really on your outreach, marketing, local
events, just trying to drive more attendance to
your events and also on on the international
side? Or is it more
diving into what actually goes on at the
events, or is it just a combination of
both?
So a happy number for us for Podfest
would be for Podfest
US, somewhere around 3,000 attendees
overall would be great.
And then, focusing internationally, and that's where my
focus
I'll be doing a lot of the US,
but that extra time, what Todd just said,
that frees me up. Mhmm. Building those relationships,
just trying to figure out where we're gonna
be in Asia because
I could just tell you my gut feeling,
and part of this is gut and also
numbers is we could attract about 500 people
next year in Asia. Well, that takes some
research and work to figure out where we
wanna be at while the operations are running.
So we're excited about the expansion inside the
US as much as outside, but we think
we could tie this in. So one of
the great case studies is a bunch of
people did hire people out of Asia
to work with them side by side
at a premium,
but the US podcasters obviously still get a
good a good deal,
but they're also paying a little extra because
they want people that are well versed in
our community. So I I know we have
one YouTuber that hired a full time person
to work for themselves
out of Podfest Asia. I know a few
other relationships got made. So we wanna creep
keep creating those extensions of people working together
across culturally. We are in a global world
anyway. So Podfest is getting internationalized, and it's
gonna happen very fast.
Do you see a lot of growth
potential for the event outside of the US
too? I mean, are you thinking about Europe?
Are you thinking primarily about Asia right now?
We like Latin America and Southeast Asia, if
I were to be honest with you, for
our growth.
For a couple reasons, Europe is slightly mature,
but we also like, like, the scrappy independence.
So that's our MO.
Mhmm. And we find that, like, Colombia,
Philippines, Indonesia,
possibly maybe down the road, we do Singapore,
but, like,
those are areas that we think lend really
well to our brand.
And I wouldn't be surprised if one day
in the near future,
there's a Podfest that's getting 10,000 people. Might
might not be the US, but it'll be
somewhere in the globe showing up. Obviously, we'd
have to figure out if we can even
do that, but don't be surprised if there's
a huge event outside the US that's pulling
thousands of people that are coming forward. Our
our our community is special. I mean, Todd
was there. I mean, people loved hanging out
with them. They loved hanging out with us.
I literally could I people didn't stop coming
up to me, thanking me for us coming
out there. I'm sure they were thanking Todd.
They were just coming up to us. Thank
you for being here. Thank you for acknowledging
us. We see those individual part of our
community.
Yeah. They've had
no they've had no events. They've been on
their own.
So they either do something virtual. There may
you know, there was another event that happened
just here recently in
either Singapore.
I can't remember. Some event. I I and
we didn't hear too much news. Yeah. Malaysia.
We didn't hear too much news out of
that event.
Just like when I went to Saudi, it
was the same thing. It was just a
huge
eye opening
to me. And there is definitely,
you know, takeaways that I brought back to
the team. This is why I went to
Cebu here recently.
To be to be honest with you, the
quality of people that
the workforce in the Philippines has largely been
known for many years to be They work
a lot of jobs overseas. Matter of fact,
when I was coming back,
the guy that was sitting next to me
was on his way to an oil rig
in Louisiana, south you know, out in the
gulf,
working for a big, multinational.
And I was talking with him, and he
he goes out there and does 10 weeks
in, on the oil rig, and then he
goes back to Philippine for 6 weeks and,
you know, back and forth. He's flying more
frequent firemiles than I am.
So that just shows you the level of,
workers that are
basically almost going everywhere in the world. But
at the same time, there's this burgeoning
industry
largely started by call centers. But now
you look at like AFG has 57
highly educated top engineers
in the country
doing engineering work, outsourcing for companies here in
United States.
She's a facilitator of it. And I went
to another
business and it's I believe it's called a
BPO.
And there were 600 people that were doing
everything from bank finance to, I mean, the
full Monty of skills.
So
what the advantage really is, at least in
the Philippines, is everyone speaks English.
So
that gives less misunderstandings, that kind of stuff.
So
I can see why
we had so many editors. And I actually
visited a couple of businesses. We're podcast editing
companies where all the gentlemen do or ladies
and gentlemen do in that company all day
long is edit edit podcast.
And
I was pretty blown away just that was
just external of the event from Podfest. So
it just made me realize there was opportunities
there to to hire some really good people.
We also had the senator. Remember, Pierre Gaetano
stopped by? Yeah.
So I when I was best friends, he's,
like, the top senator in the Philippines. Like,
when we say top, they wanted her to
run for president, and she declined.
So she came by to hang out, and
Aya just told me she I think she
started a podcast because she was so inspired
by all the podcasters there. They also Todd,
I don't know if you picked this up,
but they they love audio dramas in the
Philippines. And I did ask why
when they were kids, they would have audio
dramas. If you you think about
what people could afford, if they couldn't afford
a TV, they had a radio, and the
radio would play audio dramas, and they would
paint the pictures. So they have a deep
love for, audio in that country,
so I I had no idea. These these
different things you discover.
We brought Wally Green who's a a former
pro ping pong player,
and we knew that would be a hit
because we did our research. Asians love any
kind of, like, ping pong or table sports.
And
I think Pia, the senator, actually has a
private
indoor tennis paddle tennis. It's a new thing
now. And she stole them for a couple
hours and had them play at her place.
So it's these things don't happen unless you're
in house for it to happen. So it
was just a lot of fun. It was
hot just like Florida, I would say, but,
you know,
nothing out of the norm for me out
here. We just got whack with the tropical
storm last week, so half my yard is
still underwater.
The tropical storm last week, so half my
yard is still underwater. One thing it surprised
me too, and I haven't told this story
yet, I visited a newspaper,
Sunstar. I went out seeing Sunstar's operations
in Cebu,
and they basically have seen the handwriting on
the wall. Now here in the United States,
we know that physical newspapers,
people are not buying
USA Today or the New York Times in
paper format.
That's just a declining
just a completely declining market. While at the
same time,
the digital piece is
obviously ramping up and everyone's using
going to these traditional websites online.
But, you know, they're basically saying, how do
I survive
this changing market? And they've essentially used all
their editors, all their writers,
all their people that do visual media and
they basically become a media company.
And so they still doing the
the business of
newspapers
while that still
continues, but at the same time they have
this new pivot on a digital marketing.
I thought it was brilliant. You've got all
these qualified writers, you got all these people,
this is what they do. They've done media
for
their lifetime,
and now we're just gonna switch to do
digital and you're gonna be like a regular
agency.
And I I thought it was an incredible
pivot
for them. So I think, wow. How come
some companies or some of these media companies
in the United States haven't made that pivot?
I think they recognize it, and
really saw the handwriting on the wall and
decided, okay. Things are changing. We need to
change. If we don't change, we're gonna be
extinct.
And so for me, I thought it was
a brilliant pivot. And, of course, they're serving
local businesses and companies there,
in the Philippines overall.
But I come back myself and said, why
isn't the why isn't newspapers that are dying
here
not doing that? And there's some
writers and all the creators. So what are
all those creators doing now? They're doing podcasts
and YouTube channels and stuff like that.
Outside of the US and Asia and other
places, that it could bring more of a
potential
base of attendees for your Florida
conference?
That will
probably still be your primary event.
But doing this outreach all around the world,
is that gonna help grow your Orlando event
every year?
Almost certainly. For sure. It's gonna grow Orlando,
and it's we're really growing,
a very solid foundation.
Mhmm. We had the one thing that surprised
me because I I don't that was my
first time in Southeast Asia. Todd's probably more
expert because he's traveled a lot. We had
people from Vietnam. We had people from Singapore.
People came in, and I would talk to
them, and they're like, hey. I'll see you
at Podfest.
And what was interesting, they were putting flight
trackers to when they got a good price
on a flight to come out
that far out. So,
yeah, we're gonna see a lot of cross
cultural exchange, but I would love to also
vice versa. Right? Instead of half a dozen
of us from the US next time,
let's get 20, 30 people that wanna come
out there and hang out with 4, 500,
people in Southeast Asia. So I think you're
gonna see it. That's the whole point is
to see it all across. Obviously, the our
US is, right now, our HQ,
but the other branches should grow quite rapidly.
Yes. So we got a question from the
audience from David
Menendez
de Sylvia
who asked the question, what can an indie
podcaster expect to bring home as like a
benefit or a windfall from actually
getting involved in a big podcasting event. So,
Chris, I don't know if you wanna address
it. I'm sure you think about that a
lot.
Yeah. So, like, one,
you meet a lot of technical
individuals. So there's a lot of really experienced
editors that you meet. A lot of times
people are looking for different people to work
with. The tips the the education is incredible
that people are sharing on how to grow
on what you wanna do. And then the
collaborations. At Podfest, we do have an influencer
meet and greet. There's also the hall of
fame, which we love. But the collaborations
to learn from how the whole ecosystem was
built is there. I always tell people, like,
if Todd and Rob are in the room,
go say hello.
And they always they chuckle a little bit.
I'm like, no. They're the reason why the
rest of us are here. Todd's got a
story given Steve Jobs feedback directly,
but that's not a common thing. So, like,
those are the people you at least wanna
talk to. I know when Todd teaches, it's
always action packed. He's always updating his stats.
So people always say to me, hey. That's
the 4th time I've seen him speak, but,
man,
that's good to know what's going on because
Todd updates his stuff. He's not telling you
what happened 3 years ago. He's telling you
what he sees today. So I think that's
really important. For me, it's the community really
because let's say you're successful, you're doing well,
you wanna see your friends and see how
they're doing, and the collaborations
are ginormous to see your friends and compare
notes and see how they're doing. But Podfest
does
I I I'm obviously very biased, but I
do believe we have some the best, if
not the best education for independent podcasters
because the education is given by them. Majority
of the educators are applying. We go through
literally 500 submissions,
and we make sure we don't ask the
question.
The question we ask is how will this
serve the community and is something that they're
looking for,
and that creates superior education on the stage.
Yeah. I think that's the thing that a
lot of newer podcasters need to
have as a takeaway is that all of
us, Todd and I included,
we started off earlier in our podcasting career
going to conferences and being involved in. Sure,
I was working for companies at the time
that gave me that capability. But it's also
building your connections inside of the industry and
learning from others. And I think that the
industry really has been built historically
off of sharing and helping each other.
And I'm hoping that that will continue. I
think I have seen a little bit of
a decline in that as people have gotten
competitive in this medium
and not sharing and helping others
as much as they probably could. And that's
a big thing that happens at these conferences
is people are sharing and giving,
hopefully good information
to others. It's not always good information, but
it's also
something that you have to, as a content
creator, as a human, decipher for yourself what's
good information for you. It's not always a
perfect fit. But these things are all about
building community and building
independent
creators and not so much
entirely focused on kind of the business side
of podcasting per se. But I there's a
component that's coming to your event as well,
I'm sure.
Yeah. There's networks that show up. There's connecting.
There's networking. It's all there. But Yeah. At
the end of the day, we wanna make
sure that your time is well spent with
great people having a good time and comparing
notes through
the camaraderie. Like, Todd mentioned Aya. I met
Aya through Jim Cirillo and David Allen Moss
in at the Cleveland pot tour stop last
year. I have to mention that we love
to get out to the Philippines.
I've always had a great ex when when
I was a kid, I had a really
great experience with the Filipino
family that I was on a class project,
and it was me and another Greek kid,
a Filipino kid, and, Michael Chang.
To all of us, our parents were from
other countries,
and we all grouped up and we had
to go do a class project. Anyways, one
of the kids, we went to the house
after
school, and the parents didn't feed us because
culture, I guess, they don't feed the kids
till later. Well, me and the other Greek
kid, we like to eat, so we were
starving.
The next day we went over to
my buddy, Asinjo's house, and his family's from
the Philippines.
But this time, we told our mom, so
they gave us, like, an extra thing to
eat in case there was no food after.
But they roasted a whole pig, and I
said, what's what's this pig in paella? Who's
this for? And they go, for you guys.
I'm like, we're like 14 year old kids.
Like, who are you talking about? And I
just I the hospitality,
both parents were nurses, great people, because they
still had the the scrubs. They had just
come off of work,
and they literally made like, when I tell
you they put out a spread, I never
forgot that. And that's one of the reasons
I was like, I wanna get back out
to the Philippines because it I just still
remember the warmth of that family.
And I, Ron, all these amazing people, they
let out the red carpet for us out
there. So it was an incredible journey.
And, you know, I think the thing people
have to remember too, because if if you
haven't traveled much overseas, I've I've really seen
a lot of the world. I've been fortunate
too.
And there's some places that are
rife with poverty, and it's very sad.
But what I think
we ex what I was exposed to was
incredible
working spaces,
more modern than even maybe what you would
have oftentimes here in the United States
on
nurse on staff, childcare
on staff.
All these things that you hear about big
companies like Google and other folks being able
to provide their employees,
they're doing this
within these BPOs
for these folks that are working for American
companies, and it comes as part of the
package.
So I was just astonished, to to be
honest with you, about this about the work
well, basically, where they were working. Number 2,
the policies around working where no one's being
abused and people are being
paid at probably higher wages than they would
be able to earn in a local
company.
So I I was pretty astonished just from
that aspect
as well. And, again, had that wasn't even
related to the conference. We're just we're at
this beautiful
facility.
And
again, like Chris said, happy to have us
there and glad we're here and thank you
and,
yeah, the whole 9 yards. So
there's something to be said. I think if
you are working in a big city like
New York City or something like that, you're
used to these types of
big working facilities, but not everyone lives in
a big city and has this type of
exposure.
I I was pretty blown away. But, again,
oftentimes,
you've had this perception. Part of my challenge
of hiring offshore
was
I was worried about I didn't wanna be
that company that ended up in the news
for
not providing the right type of facility, the
right salary, the right benefits, all those types
of things
that often you hear about companies people hiring
people that they have got that locked down.
Hey. You don't have to worry about a
situation where
someone's gonna be taken advantage of. And I
think that was a that was separate from
the event, but it just goes to show
you where
at least the Philippines is in in regards
to that type
of if you're hiring VAs, I recommend that
you hire a VPA through a BPO.
That person will be absolutely unequivocally taken care
of. They won't have to work from home.
They can come and work with other people.
You're gonna pay a little bit more for
that, but I think that's ethically the way
to go,
especially for folks that are thinking about hiring
VAs. And, again, there's companies in like Ron's
company
that is doing this ethically,
and the people you're hiring is getting paid
a fair wage.
And to me, that's more important than that's
important to take care of people. So that's
why I've had hesitated
in going offshore. I just didn't wanna have
an I guess the better word is an
ucky feeling. Is that the right word to
say? And, Todd, you said some of those
buildings are are world class. I mean, they're
world class. Right? For fields on the like,
energy efficient at the highest level.
Yeah.
And the owners of the building's a weird
part of it is they're, like, 33 years
old. Like, you'll meet people
in the US. Usually, it's like you you
have to work your way up. They're growing
so fast. It It could be a 33
year old that owns a skyscraper. It's the
craziest thing when you see it. And they're
just so grateful that you're there. They're welcoming
you, and they got they always got ping
pong tables
on top for what what's not saying for
break rooms. That's awesome. Yeah. Thing, you'll take
breaks because I said when we brought Wally
over there, and, obviously, Wally plays ping pong,
they're all excited to challenge him. And they
grouped up around him, and anytime someone got
a point on Wally, they all started yelling.
They were so excited. And I said to
Haya, thank you for bringing in the ping
pong table. She goes, what are you talking
about? So this ping pong table is here
all the time. That's what we do during
breakout.
Just a really cool thing to see the
employees taken care of better than some US
circumstances, honestly. Absolutely.
Personally.
And in the
audit
the one company I was talking to in
Cebu,
ongoing education is just default.
You you have no choice. If you're gonna
even if you let's say there's 20 companies
that have people within this BPO.
Everyone
is getting continuing education. Everyone.
Doesn't matter which company you're working with. It's
just part of the package.
So I don't know. I'm like Chris, I
was pretty much blown away and it changed
my perspective quite a bit.
And we will, at Blueberry, be hiring some
people out of the Philippines for sure.
And BPO stands for business process outsourcing.
Yeah. It's a 3rd party company that helps
support basically guarantees your results. If something doesn't
work, they got someone else that could do
the work. And the main thing about it
too is you're guaranteed that
you are not gonna end up on some
list because you've taken advantage of someone because
you paid them less than you should be
paying them.
So
that that is not gonna happen. And a
lot of the employees that are in those
have been with companies for many years. They
because
you're very fair in compensation.
So
Yeah. It goes over time. I think the
when people would get people and brag about
them paying someone a dollar an hour or
whatever. The now you got these middle companies
that have Rob, one thing that I noticed
I don't know if you noticed this, Todd,
and I did ask Aya about it. I
said, hey. A lot of the girls have
braces. And she goes, what do you mean?
And I go, I just noticed, like, a
lot of the girls in their late twenties,
early thirties have braces.
I go, is it cheaper here or something?
She goes, no. It's pretty expensive.
And I go, why they have braces? She
goes, because they're making good money now, and
they invest in themselves. So, like, here, when
you're a kid in the US, usually your
parents get your braces.
They're they're now over the last decade, like
what Todd's saying, they're making good money. So
now they will put it aside to get
braces and things like that, because you notice
it when you see all the young girls
at a certain age have braces on,
and it's because they're doing well and they're
investing back in themselves. So I I I
thought that was pretty cool to see.
Now wages for local companies I hired, like,
in grocery stores and other businesses, I'll be
frank. The the pay rate's pretty atrocious.
It is not what I would it's not
equitable.
So but it's what the market demands and
where folks are coming in, they've spent money
on education. You have people with bachelor's degrees
that are working at McDonald's.
That gives you an idea how it changes.
You're not gonna be a teenager going into
McDonald's in the Philippines and getting a job.
And I don't know what McDonald's pays in
the Philippines, but I know the BPOs are
paying a hell of a lot more. And
and the quality people you're getting educated, you're
you're high you're getting bachelor's degrees, master's degrees,
PhDs, depending on what you want in your
job spec that those folks are available. Just
like here in the United States. Don't get
me wrong. We've been big proponents of hiring
in United States. But I guess I guess
for the podcasters listening, if you're hiring a
BA,
please be cognizant of what you're paying them.
So what does that mean, Todd, to be
cognizant?
Is it to pay them more? Is that
what you're trying to say? Or I'm just
curious. If you're paying a VA
and a lot of the VAs are working
for more than one people. If you've got
someone for 40 hours
a a month,
you should be paying them
a month's living wage that is
not as Chris said,
at this minuscule rate.
And I don't really wanna quote the pricing,
but
you should not be let's put it this
way. If you've got a VA for 300
dollars
a month and you're using them at a
partial basis, let's say you're only using them
for 10 hours a week and they can
have 3 other clients,
well maybe that's fair for 300 a month.
But if you're using that person for
20 hours and you're paying $300 a month,
you are underpaying
significantly.
And people say, Oh my God, Todd. That
sounds low. Well,
the average wage, like I said, people that
are on the working in a local community,
it's very low. And they don't make nowhere
near that. So again, be cognizant of what
you're paying your VAs outside of the United
States.
Yeah. If someone's making 500 a month I
don't know about podcasting, like, stick to what
Tata, but 500 a month is a good
salary there. So if you can make 6,000
a year, that's good. If you're making anything
like 7.50 or 1,000 a month, you're doing
really well.
And then I I did ask Aya to
take me to the where the poorest of
the poor there, so because I wanted to
see it. So to give you a frame
of reference for what Todd is saying, so
we just told you what I would say
the upper middle class are doing.
When you go to the poorest people,
they're buying drinks for 2 I I forgot
what their denomination is, but, like, like a
penny.
Yeah. Peso. So you could buy, like, a
drink for a penny in the markets, like
you see on TV when they go to
poorest places, dogs roaming around.
And then they don't they can't afford to
buy cigarettes by the pack, so they buy
them by the stick.
So I I was asking. I said, why
did he just pick up 3?
He didn't get the whole pack. They can't
afford it. So the it's like a peso
for a stick, a cigarette stick.
So that's what you're talking about. So think
about that if they're buying a drink for
a penny
and 3 sticks for 3¢ or whatever.
And that's a lot of money because it
they're at the bodega, so to speak, the
corner bodega there.
And so when you're doing 500 a month
or more, you're doing really well because those
people, what Todd is saying, they're taking care
of their family too. They're not just using
that money for themselves. The older generation might
not have the education or speak English as
well. So there that money is, like, fueling
the entire ecosystem.
Yeah. I think from, like, the cigarette by
the stick is, like, 12 pesos. So that
would be, like, 20¢ that they would pay
by the stick if they're buying it like
that.
8 pesos to the dollar is the
is exchange rate. Currently, 57.5
right now, I think. But I also, at
the same point, if you get someone that
has a bachelor's degree and has experience,
600 is actually too low
per month to pay. What do you think
about a 1,000?
I think if you have someone that has
experience with a bachelor's degree, it's probably gonna
be around $1,000.
Now if you get someone that has an
MBA,
you're probably talking 12 or $1300
a month
with an MBA with experience.
That is paying
way beyond
way beyond national average.
Whereas
a doctor
in the Philippines,
believe it or not, may not make 2
to $3,000
a month. So it gives you some perspective.
If they are a city doctor, if they're
a country doctor, they might be making 1200
a month.
So it just gives you the deltas, but
this is why you have such enthusiasm
for folks that are working for foreign companies
and doing a fantastic job.
It's life
changing. Yeah. So let's change topics a little
bit and wrap up with Chris here a
little bit and talk about what's coming up
and how maybe our viewers here or listeners
can get involved with,
Podfest right away. I know he I you've
got the pod tour coming up here, Chris.
So Yeah. If you're Atlanta I know Dave
Jackson's flying in from, Ohio to be a
part of Atlanta next week, so feel free
to come out August 14th.
I'll be at CreatorFest after. That's a private
event. But in case anyone wants, let us
know. We could get we got some codes
there. The tower right around the corner, early
September.
And then we'll be posting Eventbrite links within
about a week. Most of these events are
free. You could just register on podfest .com,
hit pod tour,
and join us in the different cities that
we'll be at.
And then if you would like get our
newsletter, which we release once a week, we
just release 1, this issue, podfestmessenger.com.
Larry Roberts is a editor. He does a
great job putting everything together.
Feel free to subscribe to that. But hopefully,
we'll see
many of your viewers and listeners over at
Podfest.
It'll be our 11th
year
in person.
We
the way the luck worked out, we never
miss an in person year. So it'll be
11th consecutive year of Podfest.
Yeah. So you've got a lot of events
come coming up. The people around the country
can can We're gonna post a lot more.
So that's just the open. Oh, you are?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is just the open.
By the end of August, you're gonna see
because we work with local leaders, so we're
also working with their schedules.
And then I might be at a bunch
of them, but other team members will be
at other ones.
So we're excited. We had a huge audience
in Toronto last year. So we're excited to
we think Canada has so many people hungry
that wanna get together, and they just haven't
had the opportunity.
So what usually goes on at a PodTuber
event? What's the program look like? So this
year, the theme is video podcasting. We just
think video is a big thing. We saw
that out in Asia.
So the theme will be just a couple
of tips on how to look good on
video, how to produce really good video.
So that's this year's theme. So we just
go through 10 different steps.
But that's about 20 minutes of the presentation.
The rest is if we have some veterans
of Podfest, we might bring them up to
do some q and a, like, very informal,
and then we all hang out and chill.
Give everybody a code on-site to join us
at Podfest.
You see there Cutting Edge Events, which is
the company that runs Podfest.
Scroll down a little bit. You'll see it
right underneath. We have over 31,000 people that
have attended our events. So, like, on Eventbrite,
that's, like, almost unheard of. So we've hosted
I can't I don't even I lose track,
so I don't even wanna say the number
because it doesn't sound real. We've hosted a
lot of events supporting podcasters all over the
world now.
So
I'm really grateful to that because when we
post an event on Eventbrite,
I think we're over 60 RSVPs, and it's
a week out. We'll have well over a
120 RSVPs for Atlanta.
How many show in a free event? About
50 percent. So 60 people show up. We'll
have a great time,
and then we give an opportunity to join
us at Podfest. So Atlanta is a great
city for us. We'll probably go there again
before the year's up,
but we just love it up there.
So it goes from 7 to 9 PM
EST on
Wednesday, August. Yeah. So format 7 to 7:30,
late networking. Everybody's saying, hey. How you doing?
Where you've been? Welcome new people.
20, 30 minutes of presentation. We keep it
very simple.
If I have a PowerPoint, I have images
that correlate with the handout literally because that
way, if we don't have PowerPoint, we don't
wanna stress out. Here's the material.
And then and then after that, we just
connect. We just hang out and then off
to the next step.
Okay. Yeah. And then back to Orlando and
then Clearwater.
So there's
and then Yeah. We get to I'm here
in Florida, Colombia, Bogota. I've never been, so
I'm excited. It'll be my first time in
Colombia.
Yeah. It's awesome.
One thing about Colombia is
as you know, brush up on your Spanish
because
they're not as much there's not as many
English speaking people in Colombia as there is
in other Latin American countries. So that's a
real heavy Spanish. So brush up on your.
And
will do. Will do. And I got Neil
Gilarte who'll help on that one. But the
fact that you say that in the Philippines,
it's very easy to get around.
When I was in Japan, not everybody speaks
English like they do in the Philippines.
And the people of Japan are so respectful.
They give you exact directions.
So
little things like they don't tell you, like,
hey. That's the last bus. If you miss
that, you're not getting another bus. They just
tell you, here's where the bus stop is.
So you learn a lot about cultural differences
in communicating,
but I had a good time in Japan
too. We spent since I was over in
Asia, Todd, I think
what I learned out of this is don't
be so for me, it's always been like,
oh my god. The plane ride's so far.
But then you get there. You're like, why
haven't I done this?
You're like, what over that dumb little logic.
So I'm excited to expose my family to
those countries in Asia. I was just so
impressed, with the people and
and everything.
It's people say, oh, it's, like, fly out
of Chicago to get to Narita is 13,
13 and a half hours, but you're gonna
sleep part of it.
And, you're gonna arrive, like, at 5 o'clock
in the afternoon, and you'd be able to
get your
easily get around and get your, hotel and
sleep the night and then be ready to
rock and roll the next morning. So Japan
is a great destination.
All of Asia is not that hard, but
it is a typically, depending on how many
connections you have, will be a 24 hour
day. But once you're there, then if you've
got 7 or 10 days to spend there,
then you're good.
But, you know, one thing I tip for
you for Japan, Chris, is Google Maps
will get you around the subway
in a big it's fantastic.
It's unlike any other place in the I'll
be using it next time for sure.
Yeah. Because you have to get tells you
even what level to go on for the
train. Wow. Sometimes
yeah. And it'll it'll it'll say, okay. Go
in this exit and turn left.
And but yeah. So
the trains are the way to go in
Tokyo and anyway, it's most countries have better
train station train situations than United States. You
know? I'm riding Amtrak, and it's like my
chair is dirty. So I'm like, you you're
not gonna find that in a
Japan was the trucks, you could see your
reflection in the trucks. I've never seen that
before. Like, they like, trucks that work trucks,
like oil tankers. You could see you're it
was it would be in front of us,
and I could see my reflection.
And they use it every day, and yet
they clean it meticulously. So it was incredible.
It it just I don't know, I went
to one of the Moss brothers, which is
like a fast food in Japan.
And
the lady looked at me and repeated my
order back, looked at my eyes, asked if
I agreed to the order, then she pointed
to the pictures. I mean, the level of
detail even at, like, a fast food place
was incredible.
Well, you may have got that in Japan.
You may not get that in the Philippines.
No. It wasn't that was in Japan. I
I'll be very clear. Philippines is more you
can have a good time, but you're not
gonna get that. Sometimes you get a get
your order read back to you, then you
get your order and you're like, this isn't
what I ordered. But, you know, it's just
culturally different every place. When
I was able to go over to Thailand
for the first time in 30 years for
7 days, and
nothing has changed there. But the food, I
thought, my god. I could become a vegetarian
in Thailand because the food was just, I
mean, off the chart and inexpensive.
So it's just those types of things that
you know, those little things that are
cool to do when you're in specific countries,
not less doing the the tourist thing. And
I know you got to do a little
bit of tourist stuff while you're over there,
which was good because awful long way to
come just to do business.
Yeah. And I've never been to Asia, so
this whole conversation is new to me. So
it's great to hear. Definitely. And, Chris, thank
you so much for joining us today. Thank
you both, and thank you for all that
you guys have done for the podcasting ecosystem.
I don't think people I know your audience
probably realizes, but I try and tell the
podcast audience like, hey.
There's people I helped build the steps that
we're all stepping on, and thank you for
laying the foundation many years ago and still
being
on top of it today, which is that's
hard to do.
Chris, we gotta give credit, though. There's a
lot of new people doing a lot of
great things too. So Oh, yeah. We're learning
from them as well. I go to events.
I like I try to it's hard for
me. I try to listen more than I
talk, and it's amazing
the
ideas and what people are doing in the
space right now. So we may pave the
way, but I tell you what, there's a
lot of folks now that are doing some
incredible work out there. And and I think
we've started to see some of that.
Those folks, you see them at your event.
We see them at other events
putting out great information. So it's one of
those situations where you can treat dog tricks,
and then I think that's what both Rob
and I try to do is try to
stay up on stuff.
And we're not perfect. We're still a little
bit of ultra mudrid in certain ways.
So much for so many years. It's hard
for us not to be a little skeptical
of some things and
yeah. So And when you do your video
focus, remind folks that there is video podcast
in Apple Podcasts even though they've made it
a second class citizen.
Well, hopefully, that'll change in the new year
maybe. So who who knows? Right?
So yeah. So if you have an interest
in going to Podfest at a new hotel,
I guess
that that new hotel, I get a sense,
is literally a newer hotel. So it'll be
a Yeah. It's world class. Better experience.
Yeah. Yeah. Very nice. Thank you guys for
having me on. I really appreciate it. Yeah.
Well, thank you, Chris. Bye, Rob. Bye. Bye.
Alright. Well yeah. That was good. Kind of
a little bit a different topic than normal.
We do here a little bit of more
inside baseball, I guess. I don't know. I
switched to a different Internet connection, so it
seems to be doing better.
It's more stable. It's like Are you not
on Starlink?
Yeah. I'm not on Starlink right now. I'm
on my point to point right now, so
it seems to be working better. So
lesson learned there, I think I'll be using
that here on out until it fails. Hey.
By the way,
there was a article in Podnews today talking
about how Spotify is now
trying to poach
podcasters.
Basically, they're advertising
their services
against us directly to
podcasters
on
Spotify.
So
on the I'm
we're doing fine.
And because
Spotify has
haven't killed us yet,
free isn't always
everything,
I I just want
to remind people.
And I I think it's really critical
that
those of you that are listening that are
podcasters,
I think it's I think we need to
remember
what you give up.
What you're giving up when
your podcast is on Spotify
and when you're hosting at Spotify.
And I think it's
really I think it's really critical to remember
that
audience privacy is nonexistent.
You basically had sell out your audience is
being marketed to,
and you, the podcaster, are earning 0.
They're being remarketed to outside of Spotify.
Remember that Spotify is paying almost nothing to
music artist.
They the only reason they're paying them is
they have to,
and Spotify is not a friend of RSS.
On top of that,
they own Chartable and they own the form
former pod sites, which I now is I
think rolled into Megaphone
or maybe it's actually part of Spotify.
They can take all your IP data from
those two services and target your listeners again
and again, and you get nothing.
Now if that doesn't matter to you,
if any of those points don't matter,
you don't care about your audience privacy, you
don't care about your audience being resold to,
then
just remember, this is what is happening.
For years,
people got tired of hearing it. They'd say,
Todd, what are you doing with stats data?
We don't do nothing with it. We don't
resell it. I've had people try to buy
it. I've had people try to buy insights.
So we've had people offer very big checks
for us to give up information.
Probably into the tune of several $1,000,000
over
the life of the company that we have
said no.
You know? So
I think
just remember that. And when you have this
urge to save some money, which isn't your
choice,
just remember that you are the product
and your audience is the product.
And also I think, Todd, think thinking about
the broader industry too, if everybody
shifts over and does what Spotify would like
everybody to do,
it's also
potentially could be
a cause of the other little piece of
news that came out today, which is,
I guess, there's rumors of a fairly significant
podcast hosting company has lost its CEO and
has sold part of its business. So
sometimes what triggers those kinds of things are
when too many customers leave leave a platform
and they're not viable anymore. And I think
we've seen this happen many times over the
years. So this isn't a new thing. But
I think in this climate right now, it's
we may see it happen
more where there's some of the smaller hosting
companies
struggle because of efforts like what Spotify is
doing to siphon off paying customers
off of other platforms into a free platform
that may not be good for the overall
industry of podcasting.
If I was a betting man
and knowing the structure,
I have stock in blueberry. We have stock.
It's privately held stock.
I have to give well, I have a
we have some rules around stock sales.
So it's not like I can just go
and say, here's my stock. It's me. You
wanna buy it. It's not as simple as
that. But some people are holding
a different kind of stock that they very
well could sell.
If I was
I
have a feeling I know who this is
and it's not gonna bode well for them
long term based upon everything that's been going
on. I will just I'm I'm gonna hold
judgment till if it's announced, if it's if
we
see something come out.
Yeah. I don't know I don't know who
it is either, but this type of scenario
typically happens inside of
a larger company.
And you said major. He used the word
major. So who's a major Right.
Podcast host?
If you're a podcast host, I don't know
if we would be considered a major. We're
not in the top 3 or 4.
Right. So
major
I could envision this happening
inside of I'm just speculating right now, inside
of, like, Amazon or inside of, like, an
Iheart or somebody, like, that wants to pass
on
some
okay. The CEO doesn't have stock.
The heads of those at Amazon and stuff,
that no way it's from them.
It's gotta be
one of the top regular 5 traditional companies
from a structure standpoint.
I know which CEOs have gotten stock.
Okay. It doesn't say anything about stock. It
doesn't say anything about stock. Yeah. I think
it said something about stock. It said It
said sold part of its business to someone
else. Well, that that mean that mean well,
if you sell part of your business, that
is stock usually.
Well, it could be
a technology or a platform that you're selling
to someone else.
In pod news, he said let me go
find it. Well, I have it right in
front of me. Yeah.
They said
Has lost its CEO and has sold part
of its business to someone else?
Okay. So if you hold
stock
and you sell your stock, you have sold
part of your business. Well, sure. Sure. But
it doesn't say stock specifically.
So stock is usually associated with a whole
company, not a part of a company.
Well, it depends on how much I hold
a percentage of blueberry through my stock.
And
k. If you took it to mean that,
Todd, that means that
they're selling
a part of a bigger
company.
Right?
So
Jimmy I don't know. We'll find out if
there's any truth to it.
Yeah. We'll see.
Again, it's like
the speculation journal at this point. Right.
Right.
Yeah. I mean I mean, it could be
completely
incorrect too. So Yeah. What's actually happening? Because
it could be just a rumor of nothing.
Yeah. Because, actually, this has happened in the
past too. I think James had something that
came out a couple months ago that was
about some company
selling or something like that that there was
gonna be some big announcement that happened with
that, and it never happened.
So Well, I I know some insider baseball
on that, and I can't say anything without
So Without it was a sale of something
that didn't I
no.
Okay. So
so how is that different?
Well, let's just put it this way. There's
always people there's always people that are sending
me emails saying, hey. We'd love to talk
about buying your company.
And let's say you go into a due
diligence round and then you get close to
a term sheet, and then you get the
term sheet and it's not so so great
terms and you say it packs in.
So I've shredded a few term sheets in
the past.
1 in particular that can't get sued anymore
by him.
So what you're saying is it may have
been pitched, but it didn't happen. So Yeah.
I got pitched and, yeah, when the cell
phone was next to the shredder and it
was that was the end of the conversation.
But so there can be
deals are getting close,
and then the deal doesn't go through.
And Well, I think that's probably more common
than the deals that go through.
Yeah. I'm sure.
So so then someone is and if you're
a public company, technically, none you can't really
you have to I'm a private company. I
can probably say whatever I want now. I
might get fired
for saying it,
but if you're a public company there's definitely
rules
on what you can say because it could
drive make the stock do this and you
get in trouble with the SEC.
So I'll see what see if there's any
again, I I have my Ouija board out,
and we'll see how it goes.
Yeah. I also saw that the brand safety
is back in the news big time.
The the last Good. I'm glad I'm glad
Elon's suing him.
Yeah.
Was it Elon as well as Rumble?
Well,
x actually x is some essentially, Elon is
suing Yeah. Garm.
So
I I personally think it's well deserved.
I was a little bit surprised by the
video that was put out by the CEO
of of X.
Linda
Meuker. She made some of the comments that
she made in there. I thought it was
really interesting
that they had discovered
significant evidence
of kind of collusion
amongst advertisers
to specifically target those 2 platforms.
And
now or individuals.
Yeah. We've yeah. Yeah. Right. And it's interesting.
We've talked about brand safety and suitability and
those platforms in Garm and things like that.
And Garm is definitely in the crosshairs right
now
of a rating system that is proving to
be
giving people a tool to
moderate content.
It's not so much as innocent as I
think many would like to
project it as being. But, you know, I
think if you're on the advertising side of
this
space, increasingly,
those GARM
criterias
through brand safety are getting integrated. And I
know that there was some news that came
out the last week or so about the
benefits of having brand safety tools built into
podcast hosting companies.
And, increasingly, I think we're starting to see
that start to develop now.
So that would cause a a situation where
those brand safety tools were made available
to content before it was published,
which has been, like, the opening
that has held those platforms back is that
it was only applicable to
past content. It wasn't being used to prevent
the publishing of current content.
And so if that can be if that
technology can be integrated in with podcast hosting
platforms,
that means that when you publish
and when you upload an episode, it automatically
goes into the brand safety tools and gets
rated
before it even is actually made available
on a public.
Well, I think those companies have integrated that
should be called out.
I don't know who else integrated. I have
a pretty good idea of at least 2.
Yeah. No. I know of a couple too,
and they're out there proactively
about it and promoting it as it's the
next great thing to slice bread. And
I just wonder if
they're they may regret that here in the
next
few months that they've been out there so
much
getting in front of it. Right. I think
every company that's hosting company that's doing that,
it should have to disclose and their podcasters
should know that their content
might be being subjected to, some downward pressure.
And that's all I'm gonna say at this
point. Hey. I wanna share today. Sure. Today,
I'm using
well, I have 2 of these. This is
called the AudioSigma
Pod
Mobile. This is gen 1. The unit that
I'm using today is much more advanced unit.
But what I'm doing with this today is
powering my SMB 7.
I have the ability to send a monitor
out. So we're live and lit. I believe
we are, unless I've touched something. Well, I
don't see it working right now, but I
know that we've been live and lit
most of the day. How come I don't
see nothing on the monitor anyway? But, anyway,
the only thing this thing doesn't do is
record.
It's got the ability to have a no
an equalizer,
denoise.
It's got some functions, basically phantom power and
the like.
So why isn't that working? Oh,
I got a cable that is goofy.
My apology here. Anyway, so we've been live
and lit, but you might not have heard
anything.
So anyway anyway, this is from Audio Sigma,
and I've been using this here as the
studio is being built.
When I did my
tech show on Monday,
I used this with, on screen recording. I
went old school. I recorded with Adobe edition,
not using any third party tools. So this
is a great tool for anyone that is
looking to, have a rig that will go
on the go. And the amplifiers in this
thing is
they're off the chart. Beautiful sound come out
of this.
Audio Sigma Pod Mobile.
And you hear podcast movement.
Oh, it's Audio
Sigma. It's called Audio Sigma, s I g
m a.
And it's currently being sold purely through, a
partnership
with with the BSW.
But they will have we're gonna give 2
of these away at Podcast Movement.
So if you're going to Podcast Movement,
we'll have 2 of these Pod Mobiles
to to utilize. Again, very small,
comes in a nice carrying case. Matter of
fact, I didn't have a carrying case for
my original. And I saw the carrying case
that he delivered the new one on and
I went on Amazon and tracked it down
and ordered another a second case
so that I have both these now and
a hard case when I need to travel
and so forth. But it's a great you'll
be doing a solo show and this integrates
with we're using StreamYard right now. So it
it's seen by your computer as a DSP.
Mhmm.
Yeah. I see it's got a it's got
an Ethernet,
port jack on the back of it here.
Yeah. That's for daisy chaining them.
So this doesn't connect to the Internet.
It just daisy chains.
So if you wanna it comes with a
USB c as you see in the bottom
Yeah. Right here
that connects to your computer.
And then
the mini jack on the
bottom left, one is an aux in, one
is a audio out, then headphones at the
top. Mhmm. On the backside of this are
selectors too for
denoising.
I don't know if they show it, the
back side of it or not. Yeah. I
don't know. I can't see it if it
does. Yeah.
But on the back, there is selections again
for equalizer,
and it's a preset levels. You can set
4 different level or 3 different levels, denoiser
as well.
You have a mix
feature here where you can basically
left right people.
Yeah. So it's a great unit. I'm
I I love the work that the
originator I I when I first saw this
couple of years ago, I bought one on
the spot right out of his bag. And
he I got the second one here just
a a week or so ago. And but,
anyway, if you're looking for a real nice
portable kit, this is it.
Do these have a good kind of gain
boost in it for an SM7B?
The amplifier in this is off the chart.
Nothing. There's no,
that I know of at this price range,
this is what there's no lift booster on
my SMB 7.
This
is pure
purely and I only got the gain cramped
maybe
a quarter.
So, yeah. It'll it'll handle an SMB 7.
No problem whatsoever.
Okay. So here is the This is
domain name, if you wanna go Yeah. Read
more about it.
I'll send it to stop by the Blueberry
booth, and we're gonna be giving a couple
of these away. There are some
criteria to win,
but maybe we'll have it hooked up to
a computer you can try. He's gonna be
at Podcast Movement
at the, I believe, the BSW booth. He'll
be there with these units.
If you're going to podcast movie, you definitely
wanna go.
And once you hear this thing,
there's no
in my ear, Rob. None. 0.
There is no So it's a very quiet
preamp is what it sounds like. It's fan
it's fantastic.
I don't hear any background noise whatsoever.
It's as clean as anything I've ever used.
It's this is the sound out of this
is cleaner than the
broadcaster.
Yeah. So what's the okay. So the price
is typically
$359?
359.
Yep. And they have a single unit.
Yeah. For 2 basically, it can handle 2
people. Or again, like we're doing here, we're
tied into
StreamYard.
So this a okay. So this will tell
you something. This is an Adam Curry approved
device.
Adam tried building
one of these on his own
and spent a lot of money and couldn't
do it. This is
the same
I turn It's a pretty high end unit.
It's a pretty high end unit.
It's it's a high end unit. But it's
Yeah. I'm gonna tell you 289
for
just a single
track input. Right? Worth every penny.
And then a 199,
it looks like for another single, it's called
the Mike Hero.
Yeah. So you have to look up the
difference on these. And some of those are
older models, I believe. 199, I think. But,
Yeah. That's what this one is here. It's
199.
But the new one's got all this DSP
processing
on it. Makes it, completely it's the the
difference
between the unit I've had for a couple
of years
and the unit that I've just got, it's
even though the unit before was fantastic, this
takes it to a whole whole new level.
It's a 100% better than the first unit
that came out, and I thought the first
unit was
pretty doggone good.
So when it says it can accommodate up
to 10 participants, does that mean if you
get, like, 5 of these things, you can
daisy chain them? Yep. Yep. Sure can.
Through the ethernet port? Is that what Yep.
Is that Yep. How you would do it?
Okay. Yep.
So you could have as many as 10.10
people all on 1.
Right. One chant or one show. Yeah.
If you have that many guests at a
table. Yeah. You know, and and if you're
gonna if you think about a Rodecaster, you
can have 4 people.
Alright? So you think about the price of
a Rodecaster, but 4 is it.
So if you're gonna be doing some sort
of round table thing where you have 6
or 7,
there's not a lot of devices out there
unless you hump a mixer
to be able to It's true. But that
mixer is gonna be pretty big.
And it's gonna be big. These are just
throw these in a suitcase.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean So just 2 of them
would get you 4 people, which is Right.
Right. It's really is most
that you're ever really gonna need, I think.
But, like, we're going to CES, I could
see having a third one.
But, you know, the only disadvantage of this
is it doesn't have onboard recording. So you
have to record
3rd party. So either you record because I
was running StreamYard and Adobe edition here on
my Imac,
and it handled it just fine. Adobe edition
was recording. The Imac StreamYard was doing its
thing too. So I really had to double
back up because StreamYard recorded locally
and the the device I use edition. So
maybe your MacBook would only be able to
handle just doing StreamYard,
but, yeah, I'm pretty stoked about this product.
Fully endorse it, Dan. I don't get paid
to say that.
Yeah. Well, it's not an
there's no endorsement deal going on this one.
Right? No. It's just my recommendation.
I will say he did send me a
free one. So he sent me this. Yeah.
Maybe there should be though. But
So
but, you know, I and what's interesting was
is when I introduced him to Adam,
Adam gave him a whole bunch of feedback.
I wish I had this and this.
And when he built the next gen, he
basically him and Evan,
my understanding is they collaborated together
And that's why this now has a denoiser.
It's why it has an equalizer.
It's got a
ability to do split on
I don't fully understand that there's a record
mode, so maybe it sends back a single
channel or or a split.
It it says split stage and normal.
So I'll have to look at what that
means. Maybe it means it sends
2
2 individual tracks back for those of you
that like to edit.
It's got a loop back function I'm not
using. It's got phantom power,
and you can even plug it into external
power supply, but I'm running it right off
USB.
It's working just fine.
So Yeah. Anyway, that's
what we have.
That's the audio sigma.comforward/
podmobile. So if you're listening to this in
the audio version and you wanna go check
it out, it's audio sigma.comforward/podmobile.
And so, Todd, let's quickly talk about in
the last couple of minutes about your People's
Choice Awards.
Yeah. Slate was announced.
Right. Yeah. Slate was announced on Monday,
and we've we've got about 20,000 listeners cashing
the final ballot.
So you can go through the list of
folks that were nominated.
So we've we've made it to this next
stage.
So what we look at next is the
way we came up with the list of
people that are voting
is we know,
because they have a login,
who voted for what. So when we extract
our
we had a this year,
a little over 3,000,000
people participated.
900 shows, around 3,000,000 people were down from
last year.
3,000,000 people participated in voting, and then we
have an option in the when they signed
up to vote for the nomination,
they can opt in to be part of
the final slate voting.
And then what we do is we know
who voted for what, so we do a
waiting on the list.
So that as an example,
and I'm not gonna say a show name.
Let's say show 1. Let's say show 1
had a 1,000 people
nominated, and show 2 had
700
nominated. So in the end, if we woulda
just took 20,000 and we probably would've ended
up with
more people for show number 1 in the
final voting pool. So what we do is
we adjust it. It's weighted
so that no show,
has an advantage over another show when it
comes to final voting. And it's pretty tricky.
It takes my team over at 1 Technology.
It takes them about 24 hours to get
that list together.
So
that's where we're at. We're in final voting
now. Some of the core categories were a
little short.
This year, we didn't have as many Spanish
entries
There's not as many Asian shows either.
That's interesting. Yeah.
Yeah. It's awesome that it's coming up here.
The awards are gonna be given out at,
with the end of September. Right?
September 30th.
Yep.
As part of,
international podcast day.
Yep. So
that's awesome.
So
trying to think, is there anything else that
we might want to talk about, Todd? Anything
top of mind with you? I know.
I guess, say,
there's always stuff going on in the news.
Yeah. I don't have anything pressing right now.
Trying to think here if there's anything that
jumps out.
But there's always new things that are coming
out on the technology side of podcasting. I
guess, Auphonic has launched a transcription tool, I
guess, which I guess is
new. Looking at anything else, I guess the
ambies are now open for entry too. I
think that's
we could probably call it a day, Todd,
if you want to. Alright.
And apologize earlier for my weirdness in the
streaming connection.
That's okay.
That's gonna be the challenge here. That's the
thing I've got I'm worried about the most
is and it's raining.
If it's raining hard, I'm done. I won't
be able to do anything.
Spot as a Starlink goes down, my point
cover. It's a cloud cover. The cloud cover
the Starlink is more affected by rain,
but the point to point still is too.
It's affected by heavy rain. So
I'm pointed in an antenna 13 miles away.
So that's what this stream is right now.
So anything gets in between that,
heavy rain,
that signal doesn't do as well. Can slow
it down. Right? Yeah.
And Starlink just does not survive heavy rainstorms
at all. It's bad.
Really bad.
Yeah.
And just to let everybody know, 2 podcast
movements coming up in a couple weeks too
down in Washington DC on August 19th through
22nd.
So
if you haven't booked yourself for that, that
would be a
good event to attend if you're inclined.
Absolutely.
So well, anyway, Todd, we should probably sign
off once you tell people how to find
you. Atgeeknewsonx.geeknews@gmail.com
on the email. Of course, you can reach
me at
unmaskedon@geatonews.chaton
if you're on a mastodon account.
So those are the 3 primary ways.
Yeah. And I can be found at x
as well at Rob Greenlee and on LinkedIn
and YouTube and all of the platforms like
that
as well. And
definitely come back and check out the show
next Wednesday. I'm assuming that we're doing a
show next Wednesday. There's no conflicts that you
have? Okay. I don't have any conflicts.
So I think next week, we'll we'll just
come back and just do our regular show
with you and I, Todd. And Okay. And
because I know we've been on a a
guesting spree lately, so I think it's time
for us to get back to our core.
And that's talk about the issues in the
medium. So
so Absolutely.
Yeah. Sounds good to me. So
well, thank you, everybody, for being here for
the show today. And
this is our website, new media show dot
com. That's where we post all of the
podcast episodes,
you could keep up with and check out.
And then, obviously, on all of the
the main podcast listening
platforms, we have an audio and video feed
so you can consume the show in its
video form
if you would like on Apple podcasts, like
we keep saying. And then and then also
on a couple of different YouTube channels to
off of my YouTube channel as well as
Todd's.
And so so we're trying to embrace all
the new stuff, aren't we, Todd, that we've
been doing for 12 years? Yeah. Well, we're
not embracing nothing new. It's just optional here.
Right. Exactly.
So, all right. Take care everybody.
Thank you so much.
Yep.