Episode 10
· 01:09:18
Welcome to The Panel where bootstrapped founders discuss the realities of building better products and a better life. I'm Justin Jackson, cofounder of Transistor.fm.
Brian Casel:And I'm Brian Casel. I am in the process of launching Instrumental Components.
Justin Jackson:And once again, it's just Brian and I. And this is episode 10. So I thought it would be good for Brian and I to have a little check-in. We didn't preplan what we're going to say here. No.
Justin Jackson:A little check-in on how we're feeling about the podcast. How we're feeling about the format.
Brian Casel:I I've been involved in several podcasts, not not a ton of them, but everyone goes through a lot of iteration in the earliest episodes. Like Yeah. Mean, Bootstrapped like, my last podcast, which I was on for, like, over ten years, Bootstrapped Web, it it was just me for the first, like, fourteen episodes. And then Jordan joined around around episode 15. And then even then, like, we changed it up a a bunch over the years.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:I mean, how are we thinking about This one still feels very young and very like we're still figuring it out.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Here's just a bunch of thoughts off the top of my head. Part of this, I think, is that you know, my own curiosity kind of expands and contracts. Right? So I think originally, was like, Oh, I really love this idea of a panel of people.
Justin Jackson:There's all these interesting people I wanted to talk to and catch up with. Like, Matt Wensing had just moved on from Summit. And we were kind of in this mode of There's just lots in the air. A lot of change, a lot of topics.
Brian Casel:A lot of change going on.
Justin Jackson:And I knew that because I've done lots of podcasts with guests. I knew that getting guests every episode would be challenging.
Brian Casel:I know. I should've I should've like, because I've run into that same challenge before too, and I should've seen that coming. That, like, that is so much work.
Justin Jackson:It it's hard enough to get two people on the same show. Here's here's my grand universal theory about podcasts. The best show format for most podcasts is two co hosts who just do the show regularly.
Brian Casel:I think I agree.
Justin Jackson:And I know a lot of people like interview podcasts. The idea of a panel podcast is still interesting to me. It's just the actual scheduling piece is so tricky.
Brian Casel:It it is. There
Justin Jackson:are
Brian Casel:so many yeah. Okay. So I I first of all, I agree with you. And even for those podcasts that are, like, two guests and or two cohosts plus a guest, it's still, the cohosts that are the most interesting part of
Justin Jackson:it. Yeah. Yeah. I think also I've I've struggled with the as the show has gone on, I'm realizing that now I still there's still people I wanna talk to. Like, I I messaged a bunch of people today.
Justin Jackson:And I said, hey, do you wanna jump on last minute? And, you know, there's some folks that I think well, actually, there's one fellow that booked for our June 18 episode that I think will be super interesting. Okay. But the the the other thing about the panel format that's been tricky is that it it it's hard for it to not to devolve into the two of us interviewing one or two people at the same time. And there's just for myself, there's a lot of things I wanna talk about from my
Brian Casel:own life. Same thing. Like, you know, there are so many okay. I I I think we're on the same page on everything, but the yeah. Like, just guests in general.
Brian Casel:Like, any podcast, if you if you plan to do guest interviews, the first thing that's challenging about that is even if you have a process or even if you have like a team who's like handling the booking for you, one of the challenging things is that if you don't know the people who are coming on your podcast, like personally, if you're not friends with them or if you don't follow their history and everything, then interviewing a a like a stranger, somebody who's totally new to you, it requires I I gotta get up to speed on this person before I get before I go on air. And that means, like, extra time. And and look, we're just lazy. We don't wanna be doing that. And and it's not that I like, I love meeting new people, especially at conferences and, like, on the Internet and everything.
Brian Casel:And and Yeah. And there are so many incredible, awesome people doing awesome things that I don't know about yet. But but on the flip side, one of the things that I really, really miss about the years of doing Bootstrapped Web with Jordan
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Was that we had no guests. Yeah. We had no obligations, no tasks to do in between recordings. We literally just had a calendar appointment, and we showed up, and that was it. And so, like, it so when we're so I think our thought when we started the panel was, like, let's just invite our friends on.
Brian Casel:We already know what they're about. We can just invite them on. Yeah. Whenever. So we don't need to do that background research.
Brian Casel:We just know what they're up to, you know, naturally, which is true. So then I I think part of our thought with the panel was like, let's just, you know, wrangle in our friends like last minute. We'll keep it super casual. See who's around every every time we're and there is some value to that, right? Because it's like, okay, what's on our mind this week?
Brian Casel:Who can we get to come on the show this week and talk about that thing? Yeah. That that's great in theory. But then when even just doing it like every two weeks, it's hard to keep keep having that, like, serendipity happen every
Justin Jackson:Yeah. You know? I know we last episode, we said, hey. If you you're listening to this, reach out. And we did have some people reach out.
Justin Jackson:Again, I think what's tricky is that for me to be excited about showing up, there has to be some sort of zeitgeist going on. So like when Adam Waddon messages me and says, Hey, bud, I've got tons of shared history with him. If he's going through something and he wants to be on the hot seat, then I've almost liked those hot seat episodes more. Maybe we should have called this podcast the hot seat. Yeah.
Justin Jackson:But because
Brian Casel:We're gonna have to start, like, what we'll call, like, depaneling.
Justin Jackson:Depanel. Or d the depanel. That's not a bad name.
Brian Casel:So yeah. And like and then, like, this morning, we we were chatting about this a little bit and like, I my my mind starts to think about like, okay, this is a process problem. How do we like
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:How do how do we make this easier and streamline it? And and still, I don't I don't know what the answer is. But like one thought was maybe we keep the list of potential guests more limited to just a group of friends that we already know.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And and it's sort of just a a very closely, like, rotating Yeah. Panel. And then even but even then, there's the scheduling issues. So I don't know. Then we need, a spreadsheet or something.
Brian Casel:We get and we still gotta do, advanced notice with people.
Justin Jackson:Yep.
Brian Casel:But at but what you were saying earlier, the other thing that I sort of miss is and and what I've liked about these recent episodes is just the opportunity to get on the mics and talk about what's happening in your business and and my business. And and what's it not even just I I I do enjoy the the the traditional like Bootstrapper podcast where it's like updates of behind the scenes what we're working on. But I think we could also expand that out to still cover all the other topics that we that we've been planning on covering.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:It doesn't necessarily have to be about what what's happening in our business this week. Yes. It could it could just be our takes on all different, you know, like
Justin Jackson:Yeah. You
Brian Casel:I I really do love what what what Ian and and and Aaron have been doing with Mostly Technical. They they really cover a wide range of Yeah. Topics. We don't have to necessarily be like them, like the the Seinfeld of of podcasts. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. But but I just like the range, you know, getting into different stuff.
Justin Jackson:So I think this episode, we should do another update episode. And then whoever's listening, you can let us know what you've thought about these last three episodes. And, you know, we might listen to you or we might not because what the listener cares about is important. But the biggest thing I think I've learned, and I think this has been a running theme on our show so far, is there has to be some passion and some interest and some curiosity. And so, like, am I super excited about interviewing some people I don't really know on a podcast?
Justin Jackson:Not really. And that's nothing against, you know, people who are starting out or whatever. It's just like, it's just hard for me to that doesn't get me out of bed in the morning. You know? It's like
Brian Casel:That's exactly right. Like, we were talking about this today and yesterday as we were trying to figure out, like, last minute who's gonna be our guest for today. Right? And the way my mind was going like this. Like, okay.
Brian Casel:There are probably like one or two topics that I think are top of mind for me and I think for you. Like like for you, like one thing that you started to bring up last time was maybe like YouTube taking over podcasting. Yeah. And I think that's something we should get into. So and and that's also sort of on my mind at the moment too.
Brian Casel:And then like on my side, I'm I'm also really fascinated still with with AI and where this is going and what it means for the way that we work and everything like that.
Justin Jackson:Yes.
Brian Casel:So so these are like two big meaty topics that we should spend a whole episode talking about. So then my mind was like, okay. So then if if we're gonna bring on a guest, like, who would be a good fit for that kind of conversation? And and then it's like if we end up with someone who we just don't know, and now we need to spend our episode, like, kinda learning about their business and Yeah. And then and then we're just not even covering what we actually wanna talk about.
Justin Jackson:You know what might be an interesting an interesting tweak to this format would be the show is still called the panel. It's it's primarily you and I, but we do it live. And whoever shows up and watches the whole thing is on the panel. And then at the end, we ask the panel if there's anything that they want to bring up. Because there's always like
Brian Casel:burning That's interesting.
Justin Jackson:Like burning desires or burning not desires. Chris, cut that. There's always burning like Keep it in. There's always this burning thing that listeners have where they want to talk. You know?
Justin Jackson:It's like, oh, I want to get I wish I could I could respond to that or whatever.
Brian Casel:I like this. Right.
Justin Jackson:So it'd be interesting to do it live.
Brian Casel:Well, so before we even started the panel, you know, weeks ago, one thought for, like, starting a new podcast in 2025 for for me was like, it would be cool to experiment with some sort of live element Mhmm. Which I've I've never really done before. Yeah. We're already doing this on YouTube. So I I guess we could use like YouTube's live thing.
Brian Casel:I like the idea of a of a live show. I mean, we probably won't get a a lot of listeners actually hanging out live. Maybe we'll get some. That'd fun if we have a group that that returns. Let me understand what you're saying.
Brian Casel:So it would be like, we have, like, sort of a normal episode, just you and me talking about whatever topic
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:For the current current week for however long portion of the episode. And then there's like a segment near near the end or like the second half of the episode, which is like, okay, you've been tuning in. What like, got anything to add on on this?
Justin Jackson:That's right. Like, we go, okay. Let's go to the panel. And it could just be us reading out comments that people have left as we've been talking. It could be actually sending somebody an invite link and saying, okay, well, just jump on and chat with us right now if you're I used to do this quite a bit when I was live streaming a lot.
Justin Jackson:You know, somebody would show up in the like, Jack McDade would show up in the comments, and I would just, like, DM him while I was live streaming and go, hey, do you wanna just jump on? And then he'd jump on.
Brian Casel:I like where that's going. One thing that it might miss out on is people who wanna insert comments, but they listen to it later.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:So then I I guess you prob we probably get into a loop where it's like the following week, we're gonna do a little bit of, like, mailbag or catch
Justin Jackson:up. Yeah. Yeah. We could do some mailbag. Like, we've had people send stuff in that we haven't really responded to that I think would be interesting.
Justin Jackson:We've had people comment on episodes on social media and email us. We haven't really been following up on that. So this is a reconfiguration. The idea is to reconfigure it so that the panel
Brian Casel:We could still call it the panel.
Justin Jackson:Is the audience. Like, they're on the panel. It's kind of like on a talk show, like Norm MacDonald or Mark Marron. They might get interviewed, and then David Letterman would say, hey, do you wanna stay on panel? And then they would just kinda listen to the next interview the whole time.
Justin Jackson:But then they'd be able to come in at the very end and have their take or whatever.
Brian Casel:I I like this format, dude. Because I I think it I think number one, this gets back to what I think you and I were probably both excited about when we started this, which was like, hey, we have all these big topics that we want to be covering on podcasts, and this new show could be the venue for that.
Justin Jackson:That's right.
Brian Casel:And I feel like it, the last few weeks of trying to get guests on, it became more about, like, who can we wrangle last minute? And we got kinda got away from, like, let's talk about real stuff.
Justin Jackson:That's right. And it still allows us the freedom to have guests on. We can still do that. Totally. But I think it brings in this interesting element that hasn't really been done yet in a podcast, which is we've got people live that are interacting with us.
Justin Jackson:And at the end of the show, we'll go, Hey, here's here's what people have said. Or maybe if it it might make sense to just, you know, if people are commenting live to say, okay, I gotta bring in what, you know, Janet's saying right now. And Janet thinks that, Brian, your pricing sucks. And so then we could, like
Brian Casel:She's right.
Justin Jackson:Have a little you know? So the panel is out there watching and, you know, chirping away.
Brian Casel:Be cool if I wouldn't be able to do this, but, like, tweet while we're doing this. Yeah. Well Like, I I you know?
Justin Jackson:I mean, in the old days when I was livestreaming, I'd I'd use Restream, and it would simulcast everything to Twitter, YouTube, and
Brian Casel:There's probably an there's probably like an AI or soon to be an AI version of that. It's like AI is listening to our live show and is able to push out, like, updates.
Justin Jackson:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But people can comment on any platform they're listening on. Like, we could put it live anywhere we want.
Justin Jackson:You know?
Brian Casel:Yeah. I think I I think that's I I love this whole direction, but I also think that it'll probably take some
Justin Jackson:Massaging.
Brian Casel:Some reps. Well, some reps for us to keep it interesting on air. Like, we can't let that devolve into, like, lots of time of us just sort of, like, scrolling through random like, just like, bad, you know, bad radio.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. I think I could do it. I've got quite a bit of practice doing it live. I mean, if we really needed to, we could get somebody like our editor Chris Enns to actually just live produce the show too. That might be interesting.
Justin Jackson:Like, have him feeding us stuff. Like, I've I've heard I've seen some people do that as well. Like, you know, they'll have the whole episode, and then the producer will come on and say, okay. We've got some questions from the audience or some some comments.
Brian Casel:Well, I'm down to just, you know, try it next time or whatever. Yeah. I mean, you know, this time, I guess it'll just be like a normal episode, you and me. But, yeah, let's let's let's try to, like, at least, like, MVP this thing and and get going.
Justin Jackson:Next so we're gonna publish this hopefully tomorrow, which is May 30. So let's just say next Thursday, June 5, we're going to try to do this 12:15PM Pacific. What is that? What is that your time?
Brian Casel:03:15.
Justin Jackson:Three fifteen. We'll try it out.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Justin Jackson:I'm psyched. Cool.
Brian Casel:Alright. Mean, we we talked about all all my stuff last time. Let's get into your side of of things this this week.
Justin Jackson:I booked a last minute ticket to London, UK to go to the podcast show. The reason I decided to do that is because it feels like the tectonic plates of the podcast industry are moving, and I wanted to be in the mix. I knew there was going to be a bunch of important discussions that happened there. There were some things I didn't realize were going to happen that happened that ended up being incredibly important.
Brian Casel:Let me just a quick pause, like, just, like, set the stage. So this event in London Yeah. What is it? How big is it?
Justin Jackson:It's the it's the Europe the European Business of Podcasting Conference. It's been going on for four or five years. Always happens in the same location in London. It's two days. I think they said there was 10,000 people total.
Brian Casel:Oh, damn.
Justin Jackson:That seems really big, but I don't
Brian Casel:even know what that's like. I've only been to like micro comps where it's like 200 people.
Justin Jackson:Now see, now I've got to do some Googling live here. Yeah. 10,000 people attended in 2024.
Brian Casel:That's like a small city. Okay.
Justin Jackson:It's a really interesting setup. It's so in the middle, you can just imagine a giant exhibitor bazaar. There's just like a bunch of booths. There's a bunch of picnic tables set up for meetings. It's loud.
Justin Jackson:There's lots of like noise and people moving around.
Brian Casel:And this is for This is all about podcasting?
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Business of podcasting. So the booths would have been In the past, Spotify has had a big booth, but now they have they've actually interestingly enough, they did a big splash of these events where they signed up a massive booth. But now they just rent a private lounge where you can book meetings with their people.
Brian Casel:Interesting.
Justin Jackson:But there's still anyone that's making a big play in podcasting, Amazon, iHeart, Disney Interactive, they'll all have booths. And then there'll also be podcast production agencies, branded podcast production houses, consumer podcast networks like Wondery, people making lots of microphones and equipment and all sorts of folks there. Interesting. The reason people in the podcast industry go is it's the place for us to meet with all of our platform partners, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and to a lesser extent, Amazon. But then like all the the whole Pocket Casts team is there as well.
Justin Jackson:There's also for me, we've I've been really involved in this podcast standards project, which is made up of all of the hosting providers that are privately owned. So basically everybody except for Spotify for creators. And then as many of the independent listening apps as we can get. And we are trying to innovate and improve the open standard RSS for creators and listeners so we can compete with some of these closed platforms. So we're trying to make the open podcast ecosystem more competitive against these recent entrants like Spotify and YouTube and to a lesser extent Amazon Music and everybody else.
Brian Casel:So give me your current take on like, it seems like you're you're seeing a big shift or you're predicting a big shift in in the industry, but also, like, how does that impact you and Transistor?
Justin Jackson:So Transistor's growth has been up the last year. Month over month, we're getting way more trials than we were the previous year. So right now, things are okay. Things are better, actually. Some of this, I think, is because it could be because of a lot of reasons.
Justin Jackson:It could be because there's just more people more top of funnel kind of awareness about podcasts. And some of that is being driven by people who want to start a podcast on YouTube or people who want to start a podcast on TikTok or Instagram that a lot of people consider, for example, Reels on Instagram where people are talking into a microphone, a podcast. When I was in Chicago for the other podcast conference, I get every Uber I got into, I would ask them if they, you know, consume podcasts. And then my second question would be, how do you consume them? And, you know, one guy said, oh, yeah.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And said, well, where, you know, where do you listen? Or how do you listen? This is the interesting part. Now, when you ask that question, if you ask our generation, people know it right away.
Justin Jackson:Oh, overcasts, pocketcasts, whatever.
Brian Casel:Actually, before that, I'm curious about the first question. Like, overall, can you is there 50% of people who who say yes, they listen to podcasts? Is it more than that?
Justin Jackson:Almost everybody I ask, like, an Uber or something is saying yes.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Justin Jackson:And, I mean, there is some selection bias here. People who are in Ubers are you know, have an interesting use case.
Brian Casel:They're in the car a lot.
Justin Jackson:And they're in the car a lot, but they're also parked a lot as well, I think, waiting for their next ride or whatever. I asked this one guy, Hey, how do you listen to podcasts? And he goes, In some ways, he's like, I wonder what He's like trying to figure out what I mean. And I go like, Are you listening on Spotify? And he goes, oh, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
Justin Jackson:That's where I'm and he's like, yeah, I'm listening to all these
Brian Casel:Like, when you say podcast, his mind goes to YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Because he equates that with he's trying to get into the fashion business, and so he's consuming all of this content
Brian Casel:that I could see that. I I guess it's like the the normies, if you will.
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:When you say podcast, their mind is thinking like any digital content that they might be consuming on
Justin Jackson:any Any digital content that feels like they're learning something or engaging with somebody in this kind of dynamic where there's a host and there's a microphone, and they are it's different than, you know, fictional television. It's different than it's different than Mr. Beast.
Brian Casel:I think that there I I could see where this is going because it's like I think podcasts, we know them, as like the the techie podcast people, we know them as like, okay, that's that's a show that I'm gonna go seek out and I'm going to press subscribe. And now I can down, like, literally download their audio episodes onto my device. Like, there's a lot of work for me to go decide to to subscribe to somebody's podcast show. Right? Yeah.
Brian Casel:It's a very it's like a very intentional act. And that's what actually makes podcasts so difficult to grow. It's like to convince people to download them. Right? I think what the normies are probably It's like if you remove all that friction Yeah.
Brian Casel:It's like, oh, this stuff just showed up in my feed, I found it interesting, so I clicked it.
Justin Jackson:Yes. And they're distinguishing it in their minds. It's like, you know, right next to the quote unquote podcast reel they're watching where, you know, this guy's watching somebody talk about the fashion business, and he's learning and he's like, oh, this is so great. I'm getting what I want from this person. In the same way that you and I might have listened to a Bootstrapper podcast to get inspiration or knowledge.
Justin Jackson:The next reel might be somebody on a beach or somebody wiping out on a BMX. But he still considers that content podcasting content. I think one of the most interesting findings I've been rolling over in my head lately is I have this new kind of universal theory about podcasting, which is our generation How old are you, by the way?
Brian Casel:I'm 42.
Justin Jackson:40 two. Okay, so I'm 45. Our generation came into podcasts through iTunes. So our first experience with podcasts was very likely downloading them onto our desktop in iTunes, and then syncing them with an iPod. Did you ever do this?
Brian Casel:Yes. Okay. Wires.
Justin Jackson:Now, also interesting, a lot of people don't realize, but back then, if you look at the iTunes store, and the iTunes store had everything. It was where you went and bought your music is when where you went and bought your movies. And then there was a podcast store. And the podcast store had two big categories, which you could switch to on the top of the screen, audio and video. There was audio podcasts and video podcasts.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. And so I was, you know, downloading Leo Laporte This Week in Tech. I was downloading that to my iPod Classic and watching it on the bus on my way to work.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Like, video podcasts were sort of a thing that that never really took off, but YouTube obviously did. And
Justin Jackson:Basically, I think it did take off in the sense that some of these shows were massive and had big production budgets in the same way that YouTube shows have now. I think that context is important because I think everybody now thinks that, you know, video podcasts just showed up on YouTube and YouTube has owned it. No. No. No.
Justin Jackson:This is and you can still watch video podcasts on Apple Podcasts today, but they've hidden it.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Justin Jackson:So they went very audio first. Anyway, so we came of age with iTunes. And then there was a subsequent thing that happened, which was the app explosion on the iPhone. And so, you know, we went from iTunes to Apple Podcasts on our iPhones. But then simultaneously, there was this whole independent app explosion where people were looking at new apps.
Justin Jackson:There's like every week you're saying, what's new on the App Store? There's all these really creative independent developers that were making these beautiful app experiences. And that's where Overcast came out and Pocket Casts and Castro all these independent apps. That's our generation.
Brian Casel:Now okay. Let me pause you there because I still think that today okay. So if you take the whole the whole world and then you and then you slice it into the the people who listen to actual podcasts, like subscribe and download the audio to their device and listen like like we do to podcasts. Let's say that's like 50% of the world. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Within within the the podcasting listener base, I have to think that, like, 90% plus are using the Apple Podcasts app. And then only the only the even today in 2025, like, I I think I use Pocket Cast today. I I used to use Downcast. You have to be a super you you have to be both a super consumer of podcasts and pretty tech and web savvy to go seek out your an alternative podcast player, like a pod like a Pocketcast or a Downcast or a Overcast or one of these.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Like, that's a very small subset, I think, even today. And you would you would know this better than me, but that's that'd be my guess.
Justin Jackson:So I just was able to get a bunch of data from Coleman Insights who, along with Amplify, do the biggest consumer research study of podcast consumers in the world, and they they do this every year. They've been doing it, I think, for ten years now, something like that. It's very, very interesting. So I I would call our group legacy listeners.
Brian Casel:Okay.
Justin Jackson:Legacy listeners are basically 40 to 55. Today, we still drive most of the downloads. A lot of the legacy listening is driven by our age group. Our age group is also right now, we're essentially the new boomers. We are the wealthy employed professionals who have a high household income.
Justin Jackson:And there's a big the reason that podcast advertising rates have typically been so high is we are this very valuable cohort of consumers.
Brian Casel:And you can see it in the ads that we hear on podcasts. Yes. Like, the the types of products. And and this goes across all podcast. Like, I listen to the Mets Pod almost every week about about the New York Mets.
Brian Casel:Like, they're advertising like Cadillacs.
Justin Jackson:Yes.
Brian Casel:You know? Or you hear you hear a ton of ads for, like, Indeed because you you you are in the workforce or you're maybe in the hiring, like, workforce or a business owner or a manager. You see a lot of this kind of stuff. Yeah.
Justin Jackson:Yes. This legacy listener group is also actually, by the way, the group that's running the podcast industry. And so if, you know, if you pull our team, the transistor team, we're almost all of our in our forties except for we're older, basically. We would all say, oh, yeah, we you know, who watches a podcast? Like, we're listening on Overcast and Pocket Cast and Apple Podcast.
Justin Jackson:But that's because we're in this boomer legacy listener group. And if you look at Google most popular podcast apps on Transistor, the majority of the downloads on Transistor is Apple Podcasts, more than Spotify even. And I think it's because this age group is listening to the most podcasts. They've been doing it for a long time. Maybe the typical consumer might listen to one podcast a month.
Justin Jackson:This group is listening to maybe two or three shows a day. Like, they are enthusiastic listeners, consumers of podcasts. They're doing it on legacy apps like Apple Podcasts and Pocket Cast and Overcast, maybe Spotify if they're more in the millennial age group.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Justin Jackson:Here's what the data is showing. First of all, YouTube, in terms of people that say, I use YouTube most often for consuming podcasts, YouTube is killing it in every age group. So young people 18 20 four, 20 five to 34, 30 five to 44, 40 four 45 to 54, 50 five to 64. We're seeing percentages like forty four percent for young people in that next group, 25 to 34, 40 five percent. And the 35 to 44 group, it's 38%.
Brian Casel:About about YouTube, I could totally see that. Okay. So for me as a as a long time multi decade podcast consumer, I'm I'm one of these legacy listeners, you know, high volume of of podcasts that I listen to. Yeah. Up until recently, it has been a % through a Pocketcasts or a Downcasts
Justin Jackson:where it
Brian Casel:used to be Apple Apple Podcasts. Only in the last two to two years or so that podcast listening has expanded out into YouTube for
Justin Jackson:me. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And and I've noticed that it's interest and, you know, YouTube is like my it's like how I watch TV at home. If if I'm not watching like Netflix or Apple TV or something, I'm watching YouTube on my couch at home.
Justin Jackson:Me as well. Yeah.
Brian Casel:And I'd say the majority of the content that I pull up at night, like, you know, 10:11PM at night, I'm just hanging out, just kinda, you know, relaxing. I'm watching a YouTube I'm watching a podcast on YouTube. Yeah. And it's also interesting how the the shows that I watch then are not the shows that I listen to during the day. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:They're it's like a different set of shows Yeah. That I that I just find more interesting to watch than to listen to. Yes. But they are but it's like people at microphones on YouTube.
Justin Jackson:Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. And and, you know, in a lot of ways, I'm I'm similar.
Justin Jackson:So here's like I'm working on this piece right now. So if you look at YouTube, YouTube's killing it in every age group. Right? Then you look at Spotify. Spotify has has been doing good with the younger age group.
Justin Jackson:The younger age group, it's got pretty good pretty big numbers. But the Spotify number goes down as you go older.
Brian Casel:I on that with Spotify, I would I would assume that our age group still totally identifies Spotify as the place for music and not the place for podcast. I I happen to use Apple Music these days, but I was a longtime Spotify subscriber. And even then, like, I I sort of, like, refused to listen to podcasts there because, like, that's where I go when I don't want podcasts.
Justin Jackson:That's
Brian Casel:I want music instead. You know?
Justin Jackson:But this is the interesting one to me. Apple Podcasts. So when you include YouTube, you know, Apple Podcasts share, as in what what do you use most often to consume podcasts, it's highest in the forty five to fifty four age group. It's around 21. Goes down to 16% for those twenty five to forty four.
Justin Jackson:Nine percent for eighteen to twenty four. And this is kind of a demographic cliff that I'm talking about. Traditional podcast listening right now is under threat. Some folks in the industry have said, well, just wait until these eighteen to twenty four year olds graduate, they'll get a job, they'll be in the car.
Brian Casel:And they're not just going to change their behavior.
Justin Jackson:But that's the That's exactly it. That's why I talked about it's so important to understand that we are defined by the habits we were trained on when we were younger. And so we were trained on iTunes. But this younger group is being trained on YouTube. And just like my Uber driver, it's no different for him to go plug his phone into his car and to listen to YouTube while he's driving.
Justin Jackson:For him, it's not a big deal.
Brian Casel:You think about it, it makes so much sense. Like, I didn't even I think, again, it it comes back to that, like, complete YouTube completely removes all friction to discovery of content. Yeah. I didn't even I I said, like, two years ago, I started watching podcasts on on the television through YouTube. Yep.
Brian Casel:That wasn't even a conscious decision. I didn't I didn't say, like, oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna start making my habits change, and I'm gonna go start listening to some podcasts. Like, just stuff that I was interested in started showing up for me. Yes. And I and I clicked on it, and that's what happened.
Brian Casel:Like, it's just and and I think that's what happens for everyone. Like, it is just the feed. The feed is so personalized and so smart, the algorithm Mhmm. That it the algorithm works. And and that's the that's like, with podcasts, like, going to press subscribe on mostly technical podcasts, like, I happen to know those guys, so that's what led me to go seek it out and press subscribe.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. And and that's a really high friction activity to do that.
Justin Jackson:Yes. So here's so that's kind of the background. Now, again, it's hard to tell what will happen. Right? What how does this does this net out for Transistor over the next five to ten years?
Justin Jackson:Right now, my guess is there's a lot of well, one thing is this. If the 45 to 54 year olds are the new boomers, that's my generation. There's still a lot of us. We still have a lot of money. We're in our prime earning years.
Justin Jackson:A lot of those people want to start podcasts. So, you know, we've we've probably got another five, ten years just with that group even. They're gonna keep wanting to start podcasts. But I am worried about this younger group.
Brian Casel:I don't so okay. So let me let me poke holes in in the logic that you're saying. Yeah. Because Transistor is a hosting company. Right?
Brian Casel:It's not like like because I I are you saying that, like like, if you're seeing a drop off in the people who listen to podcasts through apps that would require their content to be hosted on a transistor, then then are you saying the next logical conclusion is that there are going to be fewer and fewer podcasts publishing and needing to host their content?
Justin Jackson:I think it's the CEO's job to be looking out at what's coming and to be wondering what are the threats to my business. And one of the threats is that if this younger generation is being trained on YouTube, and YouTube is everything. It is the hosting provider. It is the analytics provider. It is the main distribution platform.
Justin Jackson:It is the main consumption. It's where people consume it. It's the advertising network. It's everything. And if when people say, I'm going to create a podcast, and they just go straight to YouTube, that is a big threat for Transistor.
Brian Casel:That's what I'm asking, like, so you think that the trend is going to be that, like, all new podcasters who and maybe even existing podcasters, they're just gonna start to forego hosting their podcast anywhere else except for YouTube. Like, to to start a podcast, it'll just mean, like, all I need to do is put it on YouTube, and I don't care about posting it on my own website or distributing it through Apple Podcasts or through
Justin Jackson:Yes. That's a possibility. I'm not saying that's going to happen. I'm saying that's one of my concerns, and it's something I'm thinking about. There's another part of me that is the ideological part of me is concerned because a large centralized platform like YouTube, I think, if it took over the open web, the open ecosystem, the open way of doing things, I think we would lose a lot as a culture.
Justin Jackson:I also think I'm writing this other paper right now on I've done all this research on how open source and open protocols tend to spread out wealth. So if you think about the WordPress ecosystem, the WordPress ecosystem has generated enormous amounts of wealth for independent businesses. There's the freelancers, there's the theme designers, there's the plugin people, there's the hosting providers. Now there are big winners in that ecosystem like WP Engine. But even the big winners are nowhere near like YouTube scale.
Justin Jackson:The big winners have good revenue, but overall, the wealth is spread out much more than you would have with a large centralized vertical platform like YouTube or Facebook. In those cases, most of the wealth just goes to the people at the top. And there's another trend that I'm noticing with my kids that I think is relevant here. I know this is a lot, but just let me try to get it out and then you can Here's one reason I'm hopeful is when I watch my kids and their friends, and even people our age. This is happening in every generation.
Justin Jackson:Increasingly, people are realizing they are addicted to their phones. So my son started using YouTube in the browser because it was the only way he could block YouTube Shorts. Now in the app, if you open up your app right now, a lot of the times, YouTube Shorts will be at the top of your screen. Why is that? Because they know it drives engagement.
Justin Jackson:It drives addiction.
Brian Casel:I find them annoying too. I scroll past them.
Justin Jackson:It's so and it's hard to to scroll by them for most people. I'm seeing an opportunity here. The pendulum often swings back. You know, the the counter culture to disco was punk rock. The counterculture to streaming has been vinyl records.
Justin Jackson:And I do think there is a growing counterculture of people who are fed up with these centralized platforms, who are really like Instagram and Facebook especially have destroyed teenage culture. They've they've they've led to all sorts of negative effects on self esteem. And there's a lot of problems. Kids are realizing this. If you talk to them, they're like, this is a massive problem.
Justin Jackson:And podcasting, especially audio first podcasting so I I think video is gonna be part of the solution. But audio first podcasting is AirPods in, outside for a walk. AirPods in, doing some chores. AirPods in, or not AirPods in, but CarPlay on, going for a drive. It is away from your device.
Justin Jackson:You're not looking at your screen. You're not addicted in the same way. And I think there's an opportunity here. I think people will be looking for calm alternatives.
Brian Casel:I think there are multiple threads here. Just on the ground level for you and Transistor
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:Getting getting away from the the culture and society and Yep.
Justin Jackson:And But you gotta look at all that. All that stuff feeds
Brian Casel:into I I get it. I I agree with a lot of it, but I I disagree with some of it. Okay. But the but just in terms of, like, two guys talking about our businesses, and especially you in Transistor being a bootstrapped I think I think you're one of the leaders in the podcasting industry, but you're not a a like, one of these, like, huge, like, VC backed companies. Right?
Brian Casel:Like Yes. You're doing your thing in in your corner of the market, and and that thing is going really well. You you said you you grew this year from last year.
Justin Jackson:We've never had a down month ever.
Brian Casel:So just on that level alone, just keep doing what you're doing, man. You got a great product, great customer base. It's gonna keep growing. You're fine. I I wouldn't I I don't think that there's any strategic business case to be made that, like, any major changes need to need to be made.
Brian Casel:Maybe other than the the only opportunity for you in terms of, like, product and, like, product market stuff might be to maybe start to, like, integrate more with with YouTube. I I know you already do some stuff. I don't know. But I just don't I just don't see that the the market for wanting to host your podcast on a on a transistor, I just don't see that going away anytime soon. And you've got a great business on your hands.
Brian Casel:Don't don't don't mess with it.
Justin Jackson:To push back on that, I actually think this is something that more bootstrapped founders should be thinking about. I think this is a potential problem for PHP and Laravel. I think it's a potential problem for Rails. The pipeline problem is a real problem. Because the only way that products continue to grow is if a new generation graduates into adulthood for most of us graduates into adulthood and starts and becomes our customers.
Justin Jackson:And if we're over relying on a particular demographic, that's where you do face a massive threat. This happened in the nonprofit industry. A lot of nonprofits were incredibly reliant on actual boomers as donors. And what they weren't paying attention to was the data that was showing that Gen X and millennials and Gen Z were not donating to those causes at the same rate. And it decimated those nonprofits.
Justin Jackson:They didn't realize that this boomer generation, they start to retire and they start to leave this earth. And the only way that you get new customers is you have to be looking at that next generation. And this is a risk for
Brian Casel:Well, I actually a bigger opportunity for you right now. Because you were just talking about like, okay, there's this maybe there's this, like, potential or growing counter culture that that is still gonna embrace embrace the old, like, the traditional podcasting stuff. I actually think it's something else. I think that the opportunity is a little bit different. Yesterday, I was listening to Rand Fishkin.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. He was a guest on what's his what's his pocket? Like, Talking Too Loud, the Wistia guy?
Justin Jackson:Okay.
Brian Casel:He had him on. It was a great conversation. Like, they just published it this week. And and Rand has been talking about this for a couple of years. And I'm starting to hear this term float around more and more lately.
Brian Casel:No click marketing or or zero click marketing, zero click traffic. And the the the the base idea from that of that argument is like and it's true. Like, look, traffic from Google is decreasing for everyone across the board.
Justin Jackson:I don't think it's decreasing for us.
Brian Casel:That that could be true. But like, look, like, s e SEO traffic. Like, I was watching CNBC last night. Like, they're they're talking about zero click traffic. Like, the economy of blue links showing up in Google and driving traffic to to small businesses, that is going down in at the macro level across the board because all of that search volume is being eaten up by Google itself.
Brian Casel:People are getting their answers directly in Google without needing to click a link to go to your your website or my website. Right?
Justin Jackson:I can see that affecting some things. But if they're going to buy a product, they eventually have to land up on my website.
Brian Casel:Yeah. But but in general, like, there there are so many businesses that have always relied on SEO only.
Justin Jackson:Yes. I mean, if you're a content based business or an affiliate based business, I can see that being a a big concern.
Brian Casel:The the big idea that Rand was really pushing heavily in this in this conversation this week, and he's and he has been saying this. You know, Rand Fishkin is a guy who we were talking about, like, people that we really, trust and learn from. And he's a guy that I always kinda look to for, like, wisdom on marketing strategy. And where is where is the current state of play in marketing? You know, for years, he did those whiteboard video sessions on explaining how SEO works and and everything.
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:That has shifted. And and what he's pushing is this idea of influencer. It it is all about the influencer. Right? And he's not even necessarily saying that that every single person needs to become an influencer.
Brian Casel:But if you're a business owner, you need to be thinking about like, who are the influencers or or what are the platforms or or communities or places that are going to influence your customers to go hear about through word-of-mouth to go to go directly to Transistor because they're not gonna go through the front door that is Google anymore. Mhmm. Some some will, of course, but, like, that trend line is going down. I was on CNBC last night, I was watching the CEO of Cloudflare was was on with Andrew Ross Sorkin. Right?
Brian Casel:He was saying the the guy from Cloudflare, he had some stat what was it? It was something like, for every page that Google indexes, it used to be, like, for every two pages on the Internet that Google indexes, it it sends, like, a a click or a visitor or or or x like, a million a million visitors per something like that. Like, that that ratio is now up to, like, every for every six pages that it that they index. So, like, the the overall number of traffic coming through the Google front door is just decreasing across the board. And it's, like, obvious.
Brian Casel:Half of it is because of Google's sponsored links, and the other half is because half of the page is Google's AI answers. Right? Or people are just going to chat GPT. Or people are just not even even if they're not even using AI, they're just not trusting Google search results anymore because it's like all all gamed. It's all SEO.
Brian Casel:It's all sponsored. So they're going to the Reddits. They're going to their friends. They're going to these communities. They're going to YouTube.
Brian Casel:Oh, I trust that person's opinion on YouTube. They mentioned this product. Okay. Now let me go type in transistor.fm.
Justin Jackson:Yes.
Brian Casel:You know? And that, I think, is the is the opportunity for a company like yours. Because, like, for me, I'm a person who I'm thinking about, like, how where do I invest my time and energy and budget and resources on the marketing side of things. Mhmm. And I made the decision about a year ago that, like, given my situation and what I what I have in front of me, like, I think that should be YouTube.
Brian Casel:Because Yeah. Like, just creating videos, like, that is the easiest path to getting in front of new people to discover my products. And it's sort of working. Like, the first twenty customers on on Instrumentl Components are total strangers who discovered it through the YouTube algorithm just in the last six months. Yeah.
Brian Casel:You know? And and that is the only And Clarity Flow does get the majority of its customers through Google, but that is decreasing just in the last couple of months. And it's partly due to competition. It's partly due to just Google traffic in general decreasing. But we're still getting about the same number of new customers every month.
Brian Casel:It's just that like our word-of-mouth is starting to kick in a little bit more now. Yeah. I don't know. I I think that the opportunity in general for everyone, but especially for a company like yours is like if if the those advertising dollars, if those marketing dollars and or resources, whether you're a bootstrapped company or a more established company, if those need to go into influence marketing, influence based marketing and less from the pay per click and less from the investing in SEO, that means investing in podcasting and or investing in, like, creating content, be being a person like a human that is publishing content on especially on video on YouTube. So, like, being in that economy is a good place to be if if you're a transistor in my
Justin Jackson:opinion. Yeah. Maybe just on the I I wanna maybe I I think we're gonna have to close here. Sorry. I didn't let you we didn't talk about you.
Justin Jackson:But
Brian Casel:No. We don't. We don't have
Justin Jackson:I wanna talk about what we're strategizing about doing for video, and this is early. So my new thought that we what we might experiment with is someone could upload their video to transistor. The costs for this, by the way, are much more complicated and expensive. So we we got to figure out some things. They would upload their video to Transistor.
Justin Jackson:We would syndicate that to YouTube and to Spotify. We would consume their analytics APIs. YouTube will give it to us. Spotify, we're working on it, back into Transistor. So now you have your audio listening analytics and transistor and your YouTube and Spotify video analytics and transistor.
Justin Jackson:At the same time, we want to offer people an open alternative. And so right now, we're proposing a new spec, which is a podcast feed can have an alternate enclosure URL, which would be a streaming video URL. The problem right now with, like, the old way of doing video is that if you download those video files on the RSS feed to your device, it's too big. So using HLS, we would do streaming video. Pocket Cast is gonna support this.
Justin Jackson:A lot of other independent apps are gonna support this. And we're working with Apple to try to get them to support it. Now Apple this is difficult, but I think there's a big play for Apple here. One, they have premium podcast subscriptions and video content makes for great premium content. So if you want to pay.
Justin Jackson:But even more so, they have this Apple TV ecosystem. And right now, I have an Apple TV set top box. I'm using that to go to not Apple TV plus which I'm a subscriber to, not anything else. I'm using it to go to YouTube. Apple is losing, but I'm watching the same
Brian Casel:I feel like that's been the story with Apple for so many years in podcasting and content in general. Like, they're just they're not getting it.
Justin Jackson:This is the place for them to win because I'm watching the same content. I used to go home after listening to a podcast on my way home. I would turn on my iMac. There was a remote that you could pair with your iMac. And I would watch video podcasts at home the same way I'm watching video on YouTube now.
Justin Jackson:Apple could make this a first party c citizen.
Brian Casel:I hear what you're saying, but I I wonder, like, what is there are a few podcasts where I'm listening to it on like, through Pocket Casts, and then I know that they also published this one to YouTube. And I'll go into the show notes and I'll just click the link because I wanna I wanna I wanna hear the rest of this interview, but watch them
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Instead of listen to them. And like that happens from time to time with me. Yeah. So I wonder what you're subscribe what you're what you're proposing here. Like, how would it be better or different than like, what's what's the argument for a podcaster who says, well, I publish to YouTube.
Brian Casel:Why don't I just put my YouTube link in my show notes?
Justin Jackson:Well, first of all, podcasters are already telling us that they want to publish everywhere. So we've done multiple surveys of our creators. And when we ask them when where they wanna publish and we give them options, they say, I just wanna publish it everywhere. Like Yep. Wherever whatever app takes video, I want my podcast to be on video on in those apps.
Justin Jackson:The advantage now with podcast is that you could seamlessly switch between the audio version and the video version. So if you're like, oh, I want to see what they look like in this scenario, or now I'm home, I wanna switch to video, you could switch to video and watch it as a video at that point. The same way you can do I mean, again, this was you could do this on a lot of different pocket podcast apps for a long time. You can seamlessly switch between the audio and video version, Spotify, YouTube Music. A lot of people offer this now.
Justin Jackson:I think the advantage for Apple so one interesting thing about the open ecosystem is we we've always depended on bigger platforms. Like Apple has been a cornerstone of the open podcasting ecosystem. They they want to win in content. They're investing billions of dollars into the Apple TV ecosystem. And so if I'm going home and I'm watching stuff on YouTube, they're missing out on all that stuff.
Justin Jackson:But if I go home and I watch a podcast about severance on Apple video podcasts, At the end of that, they can recommend, oh, you like Severance? You might like Silo. You might like some other shows. They can integrate it into their ecosystem. The reason Netflix and YouTube and all of these big platforms are getting into video podcasts is because they want cheap TV content.
Justin Jackson:And they want things that will parlay into other parts of their business. Well, Apple wants that too. And so they have the marketing dollars and the platform distribution. You know, it's like, I don't know what their install base is, but it's like 60,000,000 or 80,000,000. Now Apple TV is built into a lot of, built into a lot of smart TVs.
Justin Jackson:Use that distribution.
Brian Casel:This is a totally maybe another topic for another day, but I I think this year, the last couple months with Apple in general, it's been really interesting to see them I don't know how closely you follow, like, the Apple specific news with their company and their product lines, but they are under fire. People are calling for Tim Cook Mhmm. To to wrap it up. And, like like, what you're describing, I think, the whole podcasting ecosystem with Apple is, like, a perfect example of, like, they're not getting it. Like and and and you see that, like, they clearly missed the ball with with AI.
Brian Casel:The Vision Pro was a flop. Yeah. Like and even like Macs. And and like, there are things that are becoming more and more frustrating with like, the devices and the OS systems and like. Yeah.
Brian Casel:I don't know. Like, I we're coming to the end of something. Like, the end of an of an era, like, the culture at Apple. Like, I mean, I love the I mean, I'm I'm an Apple fanboy throughout, but, like but we are there's a change going on here. And, like, I don't know.
Brian Casel:Like, I it's hard to see them being, like, the the leading player in some new thing.
Justin Jackson:I I agree. It's it's it's a long shot. But here's why I'm hopeful. One of the things that happened in London is that Apple, for the first time, invited all of the hosting providers to their head office in London, which employs thousands of people. I think it's like 3,500 people work there or something.
Justin Jackson:So they got us in. They got us all security clearance. We all got Apple badges, got taken in. And they did a whole event just for podcast hosting providers where they reiterated, this is now the twenty year anniversary of podcasting. We are the home of podcasts.
Justin Jackson:We are committed to the open ecosystem. We are so happy for all the work you've done lately to we've done a lot of work for Apple Premium subscriptions. We just launched direct submission to Apple Podcasts. I think they are increasing. Like, they're hiring more people.
Justin Jackson:They're expanding more in Apple Pod investing more resources into it. And they seem to be very focused on their legacy in podcasting.
Brian Casel:Interesting. Yeah. I could see that.
Justin Jackson:And then at the pod so they had this big reception for us. They were open. They had the head of Apple Podcasts there. They had all the product people. They had creator partners, all these people.
Justin Jackson:And they're just saying, let's hear what you got to say. Now, I've always had relationship with people there. And I send them ideas all the time. But this was like an official event. Then, for the first time ever, I think this is the first time this has ever happened.
Justin Jackson:Apple gave a keynote talk at a conference for Apple Podcasts. So Apple has a lot of rules and guidelines. Basically, nobody at Apple speaks at conferences. Try to think of a single conference that's not an
Brian Casel:Apple They only do events. They're not going to go out
Justin Jackson:to these conferences. Only do their own events. This may be the first time this has ever happened besides Steve Jobs or Tim Cook. But Apple did a keynote talk at the podcast show. And the message was the same thing.
Justin Jackson:Podcasting is celebrating twenty years. Apple is the home of podcasting. Open by design is their new slogan. So and they have basically a screenshot of XML, like an RSS feed XML. Mhmm.
Justin Jackson:And then they showed another slide, which was not just Open by Design in terms of RSS, but Open by Design in terms of enabling this ecosystem of independent apps. And then they showed Overcast, Pocket Cast, Castro. I think I think they're gearing up for something bigger. Now, it's a long shot. This is like I you know, my goal is to keep moving the ball forward in the open ecosystem because I'm passionate about it.
Brian Casel:I really think that that I think you you touched on it earlier, and it's exactly what was firing me up when I was doing Ripple.fm last year. Just sort of a project that that really went nowhere, but it's something that I still think needs to need I I can't believe that, like, this doesn't exist to me. That the fact that that in the open ecosystem, there is a social network sitting right there that nobody has created Yeah. Through podcasts. Yeah.
Brian Casel:Like, it's literally it like, the connections are already there. Somebody just needs to, like, have the platform to connect it. And honestly, I think that Transistor is, like, you're in the perfect position to do something like that. Like, it's insane to me that, like, I listen to, let's say, 20 podcasts pretty regularly. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:How am I not easily able to connect with the other listeners of of the same podcasts that I like to listen to. Mhmm. Like, the people who are listening to us, they are very much like each other. Yeah. They probably listen to a lot of the same sets of podcasts.
Brian Casel:They probably do a lot of the same things for a living, Probably probably around the same age, you know. Like, there should be a natural social network. And and I don't mean that, like, I don't mean each individual podcast creating their own community. That that happens. That's nice.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. But there should be a platform level community. I I think it's even more helpful if you're in the position of being a a podcast host. Yeah. Because you you already have the the network sort of set up.
Brian Casel:But there is an open a like, Apple actually offers an open API to you could search for any podcast and and say, like like, these are my favorites. Mhmm. So I I just think that, like, there's something there. Like, if if you're thinking about, like, areas to sort of step into to lean into the the open ecosystem and to have some sort of, growth lever for for Transistor, I I really think it's human community, human connection between
Justin Jackson:Yeah.
Brian Casel:Podcast listeners and and hosts, and and the natural networks that are that already exist just based on which which things people are subscribed to and listen to regularly. Yep. And that's also an area that YouTube is not YouTube is just focused on their content and their algorithm.
Justin Jackson:Right?
Brian Casel:And it's always gonna be huge. It's gonna keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. We we we know that. Yeah. You know, Apple is always just gonna be focused on like, yeah, they they want they want podcasts to to thrive and they want Apple TV, but really what they wanna do is sell more and more iPhones and and Macs.
Brian Casel:Yeah. The bootstrapped podcast host company, like Transistor, like, I I I think there's, like, there's either a a community play or a content play. Like like, helping people create content, helping people connect and listen. And like and and, you know, that could also be a play like again, we were talking about like, this is like zero click marketing. The way to do that is through influencer.
Brian Casel:The way to the way to do that is through there there is gonna be a growing hunger for like human led Yeah. Word-of-mouth, like away from the AI slop and the automated results that you see in Google and the and the stuff that that ChatGPT spits back. I wanna talk to my humans. I wanna talk to my people. I wanna be like, where where am I gonna go for recommendations?
Brian Casel:I'm gonna go into the private Slack groups that I'm in. You know, like
Justin Jackson:This is why investing in the open ecosystem and collaborating and coordinating with other providers and listening apps is so exciting to me. Because if we wait for Apple to do that, they're not going to do it, or they're going to do it wrong. You're gonna have to sign in with an Apple ID or some sort of bullshit. But
Brian Casel:Yeah. But that it's also not like their incentive. Like, they they don't want to be a social network.
Justin Jackson:That's right.
Brian Casel:You know?
Justin Jackson:But you could imagine an open protocol called TalkBack, where if somebody double clicks on their AirPods, they're listening to a podcast, and they're like, oh, man. They double click on their AirPods, and they can just quickly record something and say, hey, guys, I was just listening to you. I think Brian's right, Justin. Get your head out of the clouds. Okay.
Justin Jackson:So yeah. Done. That could get sent to the hosting provider as an audio clip.
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Justin Jackson:That's possible in the open ecosystem. And it would work on every it could work on every podcast app. You could have multiple ways of implementing that. It gives listeners a way of interacting with the host. It gives creators more content than you just bring all those clips back in.
Brian Casel:I I think also like that on the on the creative side is another opportunity. Right? Like like, yes, like, ever everyone who creates content, they do wanna distribute it to all the platforms. That's true. People have have been talking about repurpose your content.
Brian Casel:Like, they've been talking about that for years. Right? Everyone everyone wants to do it. Everyone does a half assed job at it. In reality, we're only actually active personally active on one or two, maybe three networks.
Brian Casel:Right? And then and then we hope that people find us on the other ones. But the way to do that really well and the and the the high level creators, they have a whole creative team. Like, if you look at like Gary Vee or someone like Mhmm. Like, you know, somebody just follows him around with a camera and then he has a whole team who's gonna cut it up into this is the YouTube version of his content.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. This is the TikTok version of his content. And it's all different. Right? Jay Klaus, we've we've had on this show.
Brian Casel:Like, he he does a really good job of he does generally a regular podcast interview, but his YouTube version is quite different. Mhmm. Much more optimized, much more engaging for the YouTube platform. Like, it's actually different content than what than what you would hear on the audio version. Yeah.
Brian Casel:But that is way too much work for a typical solo podcaster. Mhmm. Like you're saying with Transistor, that's another area where it's like, if you can make it easier to not just repurpose and distribute everywhere, but like, help me actually like cut up the version for YouTube
Justin Jackson:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And the version for LinkedIn. Or yeah, take take listener stuff and just like automatically like like like stitch it together into something that I can post or automatically post for me, you know, in, like, an optimized version for whatever platform. You know, that's that's also kinda
Justin Jackson:This is why I'm excited about the alternate enclosure tag for RSS is that you can still have your audio episode first, but alternate enclosures could include the streaming video version. It could also include a too long didn't listen version, which is three minutes long. So somebody could come to that episode and go, you know what? We've already been recording for an hour and eleven minutes. Someone could say, just give me the too long didn't listen version.
Justin Jackson:And on the hosting side, that could be generated with AI. We could just automatically shorten it, still using our voices, but just give us the three minute version of this one hour and twelve minute conversation. All of that's possible. Yeah. So those are the some of the things I'm thinking about.
Justin Jackson:I think we should wind it down here. But if people out there in the panel have responses to this, there are links in our show notes for recording an audio or video response through Clarity Flow. You can leave a reply on Blue Sky, and that will automatically show up in the show notes as a comment. You can email us. Yeah.
Justin Jackson:I'd love to hear what you think about both our conversation the meta conversation at the beginning and what I'm I feel like I just communicated like 10% of what I experienced in London. Like, had so many other things. I I met with Simon Hamp, the guy that made native PHP. There's all sorts of other thoughts floating around my head.
Brian Casel:It's it's a lot, man. Like, I I really think I think it's something that we'll probably continue to dig into. So was it June 5 is gonna be our next episode, and we're gonna try to do that live?
Justin Jackson:That's right. Although yeah. Because what's today is the twenty ninth. Yeah. So June 5 will be our next recording.
Brian Casel:By June? That's a week from today. Yeah. Okay.
Justin Jackson:Because we're gonna try to publish this tomorrow.
Brian Casel:Okay. Sweet. Oh, wow. Yeah. Alright, dude.
Justin Jackson:Alright. Thanks for listening to me, man. That was that was a lot.
Brian Casel:It's good. Yeah. I I wanna see where this goes.
Justin Jackson:Alright. Talk to you later.
Brian Casel:Alright. Later, bro.
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