WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.919 We're joined today by a new person to the show 00:00:02.919 --> 00:00:06.799 for us. His name is George Lejnine. He is the 00:00:06.799 --> 00:00:09.259 CEO and founder of PodAnalyst. George, hello. 00:00:09.359 --> 00:00:13.220 How are you? Pretty good. George, now, I read 00:00:13.220 --> 00:00:16.460 a really interesting review about your product, 00:00:16.579 --> 00:00:20.500 both in PodNews Daily, but also in the podcast 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:23.519 TechStack. Now, it really piqued my interest 00:00:23.519 --> 00:00:26.579 because there are many analytic... platforms 00:00:26.579 --> 00:00:29.239 out there that look at how your podcast does, 00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:32.179 but yours is slightly different. So you're not 00:00:32.179 --> 00:00:35.119 focused on downloads. Tell me more about PodAnalyst. 00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:39.000 Yeah, it's a new analytics platform, like you 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:42.460 said, and we're following the ethos that Bumper 00:00:42.460 --> 00:00:44.700 and Dan Meisner have established of, you know, 00:00:44.700 --> 00:00:47.179 the famous article that they wrote, The Death 00:00:47.179 --> 00:00:49.359 of the Download. Back in the day, we had the 00:00:49.359 --> 00:00:51.799 hit counter of the internet on your eBay page. 00:00:52.250 --> 00:00:54.729 And that was considered sophisticated technology. 00:00:55.090 --> 00:00:58.270 But now that Apple and Spotify and YouTube are 00:00:58.270 --> 00:01:01.789 offering far greater telemetry, I think from 00:01:01.789 --> 00:01:04.769 the perspective of how am I performing, you really 00:01:04.769 --> 00:01:07.609 should just be looking at that. Downloads should 00:01:07.609 --> 00:01:12.390 be just an assist, really, for covering the overcasts 00:01:12.390 --> 00:01:15.489 and the podcast addicts out there that don't 00:01:15.489 --> 00:01:18.209 share telemetry yet. But John Spurlock has that 00:01:18.209 --> 00:01:20.909 project going on, but I'm not going to hold my 00:01:20.909 --> 00:01:23.400 breath for it. smaller podcasts to implement 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:25.400 anything to the degree that Apple and Spotify 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:29.040 have done. The idea is that you use pod analysts 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:32.700 to get first party data back from your Apple 00:01:32.700 --> 00:01:35.920 account and your Spotify account. And later on, 00:01:35.959 --> 00:01:38.040 we will have a version that gets the YouTube 00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:40.500 data as well. So they're the big three players 00:01:40.500 --> 00:01:43.019 in the market. We understand when you get the 00:01:43.019 --> 00:01:46.159 data back into pod analysts. First of all, is 00:01:46.159 --> 00:01:49.799 it you accessing your own Spotify for creators 00:01:49.799 --> 00:01:52.319 and your Apple? create a dashboard, pulling in 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:54.519 the data. Is that how you do it? Or is there 00:01:54.519 --> 00:01:57.959 a more automated way? Yeah. So the general onboarding 00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:00.439 process from the perspective of the podcaster, 00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:04.519 they go into Apple podcasts and to Spotify for 00:02:04.519 --> 00:02:07.480 creators, and they simply invite our special 00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:09.900 email address as if you're literally inviting 00:02:09.900 --> 00:02:12.599 us for the analyst role, which allows us to read 00:02:12.599 --> 00:02:15.520 your data. And we have some automation set up 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:17.259 to be able to pull in your data really quickly. 00:02:17.689 --> 00:02:20.550 So once I get the data back into my pod analyst 00:02:20.550 --> 00:02:24.870 dashboard, again, what is it that I get to see? 00:02:24.969 --> 00:02:27.389 What's the critical things that you've done that 00:02:27.389 --> 00:02:29.469 are uniquely different from what everyone else 00:02:29.469 --> 00:02:32.949 has done? So I think everyone has to have kind 00:02:32.949 --> 00:02:35.830 of some table stakes measurements, which is unique 00:02:35.830 --> 00:02:38.669 listeners. That's the big one. Listening hours 00:02:38.669 --> 00:02:41.250 or whatever variation of that terminology you 00:02:41.250 --> 00:02:43.650 want to call it. And of course you get plays 00:02:43.650 --> 00:02:46.789 and followers if you still care about that metric. 00:02:47.340 --> 00:02:49.479 But the big thing that we are really focusing 00:02:49.479 --> 00:02:53.520 in on is your listener retention functions. We 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:57.780 have a really interesting user interface to basically 00:02:57.780 --> 00:03:00.300 show you all of your episodes that you have done. 00:03:00.479 --> 00:03:03.020 And quickly at a glance, you can start seeing 00:03:03.020 --> 00:03:07.560 outliers beyond just like, oh, this episode had 00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:10.460 1 ,000 listens. This episode had 700. What happened 00:03:10.460 --> 00:03:13.099 here? When you're looking at 100 episodes, you 00:03:13.099 --> 00:03:15.740 might get lost. And so we use a lot of color 00:03:15.740 --> 00:03:19.060 to... kind of visually represent how you're doing 00:03:19.060 --> 00:03:22.319 in terms of cool things. Like someone creates 00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:25.979 a promo episode saying like, Hey, you know, vote 00:03:25.979 --> 00:03:28.740 for us in some award show. And it's interesting. 00:03:28.840 --> 00:03:32.439 We saw they got like one fourth of the amount 00:03:32.439 --> 00:03:35.479 of starting listeners, but their retention was 00:03:35.479 --> 00:03:37.960 almost perfect. So everyone who was listening 00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:39.740 with either washing their dishes and just couldn't 00:03:39.740 --> 00:03:42.800 press skip on the episode, or these are your 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:44.960 super fans, but like, that's the kind of stuff 00:03:44.960 --> 00:03:47.949 that you just. wouldn't even be able to do by 00:03:47.949 --> 00:03:51.189 looking at Apple or Spotify. They provide you 00:03:51.189 --> 00:03:54.770 this data. It's putting it together that is the 00:03:54.770 --> 00:03:59.289 real value in using Pod Analyst. So when you 00:03:59.289 --> 00:04:01.750 say putting it all together, so what would I 00:04:01.750 --> 00:04:04.370 do with the data that you've given me? How would 00:04:04.370 --> 00:04:07.409 I improve my podcast? So that's the interesting 00:04:07.409 --> 00:04:10.840 thing. We don't want to go down this... AI route, 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:13.139 because quite frankly, I don't see it working 00:04:13.139 --> 00:04:15.000 really well right now. I'm not going to speak 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:17.540 for the future. But this is kind of the thing 00:04:17.540 --> 00:04:20.379 that I was talking with you before the show about 00:04:20.379 --> 00:04:23.139 the difference between, say, a bumper and a pod 00:04:23.139 --> 00:04:28.139 analyst. You need to come in and still apply 00:04:28.139 --> 00:04:30.699 some analytical thinking. We're going to give 00:04:30.699 --> 00:04:33.360 you all the data and present it to you in a very 00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:37.240 visually appealing way. You need to look at the 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:39.240 numbers. Like we're saying, hey, this episode 00:04:39.240 --> 00:04:42.920 performed incredibly poorly. Why? Well, you need 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:46.040 to go look at it and you can click into an episode 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:49.540 and go into your retention curves and see, hey, 00:04:49.620 --> 00:04:54.279 we had 50 % of people drop off because they heard 00:04:54.279 --> 00:04:56.139 your pre -roll and they're not interested. That's 00:04:56.139 --> 00:05:00.220 a very common effect. Or why did people just 00:05:00.220 --> 00:05:02.500 straight up leave halfway through the show? Like, 00:05:02.500 --> 00:05:05.300 was the content I was doing poor? We provide 00:05:05.300 --> 00:05:08.500 you. the ways to see that. But you, at the end 00:05:08.500 --> 00:05:10.180 of the day, still have to make that interpretation. 00:05:10.680 --> 00:05:15.199 Okay. So I get to see the histogram of how my 00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:19.139 episode has flowed. I can then make subjective 00:05:19.139 --> 00:05:21.800 changes to my next episode based on that. Oh, 00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:24.360 okay. Lots of people fell off at 60 minutes. 00:05:24.379 --> 00:05:26.839 My show's one hour 80. Clearly no one's listening. 00:05:26.980 --> 00:05:30.779 Let's shorten the show or that topic about a 00:05:30.779 --> 00:05:33.269 new... product didn't really strike with anybody. 00:05:33.470 --> 00:05:35.389 So maybe I've got to be careful of what topics 00:05:35.389 --> 00:05:38.050 I use. Okay. So that's how you're looking at 00:05:38.050 --> 00:05:40.670 doing it. Now it's currently in beta from what 00:05:40.670 --> 00:05:42.930 I understand. So it's free for everyone still 00:05:42.930 --> 00:05:45.370 to use. And there is a version that you say that's 00:05:45.370 --> 00:05:48.610 going to be free for life, but there is two price 00:05:48.610 --> 00:05:51.350 points. What are they? Oh, so, so the two price 00:05:51.350 --> 00:05:54.649 points is one is free. One is $49 a month. Right. 00:05:54.730 --> 00:05:58.370 Again, what would I get for my extra $49 then? 00:05:58.550 --> 00:06:01.629 So I like to think of it as, If you're on the 00:06:01.629 --> 00:06:03.930 free forever, the way we measure it is we say 00:06:03.930 --> 00:06:06.589 you can add all of your podcasts. So there's 00:06:06.589 --> 00:06:09.129 no limitation on that. What we do is we say, 00:06:09.209 --> 00:06:11.490 okay, across your podcasts in the last 30 days, 00:06:11.509 --> 00:06:13.310 how many unique listeners did you have? If you 00:06:13.310 --> 00:06:15.569 had less than a thousand, we consider you a free 00:06:15.569 --> 00:06:17.970 forever user. You get basically almost the entire 00:06:17.970 --> 00:06:20.769 tool set. You miss out on some of the team planning 00:06:20.769 --> 00:06:23.370 type stuff, you know, bringing your whole team 00:06:23.370 --> 00:06:25.430 with you. In the future, there's going to be 00:06:25.430 --> 00:06:28.069 some tools to see at a network level, how your 00:06:28.069 --> 00:06:30.600 whole network is performing. But those are really 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:33.160 not tools. If you're running five shows and you 00:06:33.160 --> 00:06:35.680 get 200 listeners each per month, that's not 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:38.339 relevant to what you need as a podcaster at that 00:06:38.339 --> 00:06:40.600 point in your growth. On the other hand, if you 00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:43.120 have millions of downloads, sure, 50 bucks a 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:45.600 month for the premium plan and you get everything. 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:48.100 Plus you get better support directly from me. 00:06:48.220 --> 00:06:51.519 You recently released a new version. That's still 00:06:51.519 --> 00:06:53.819 in beta, I assume, so you're not actually a release 00:06:53.819 --> 00:06:57.740 yet. So 2026 is coming up. What are you planning 00:06:57.740 --> 00:07:00.139 on bringing to the platform? When do you think 00:07:00.139 --> 00:07:03.519 it will be a full release one candidate? And 00:07:03.519 --> 00:07:06.120 what else do you think you want to do in 2026? 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:08.939 Yeah, so we're getting closer and closer to that 00:07:08.939 --> 00:07:11.279 finish line. And when I say we, I do want to 00:07:11.279 --> 00:07:13.939 mention this is a team of one. So I am the founder. 00:07:14.079 --> 00:07:16.660 I'm also the developer. I'm also the support. 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:20.199 But also I want to shout out to Jim Serico. He 00:07:20.199 --> 00:07:23.540 is my advisor. He's formerly of Cadence 13. Great 00:07:23.540 --> 00:07:26.639 guy, really helpful. So going back in terms of 00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:30.680 2026, January is probably where we want to cut 00:07:30.680 --> 00:07:32.779 it and say, hey, we're delivering you value. 00:07:33.060 --> 00:07:35.560 You know, from the hobbyist to the professional, 00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:38.259 there's something here that is now worth it. 00:07:38.379 --> 00:07:41.579 And we're already seeing this where I think it's 00:07:41.579 --> 00:07:46.339 something like 25 to 45 % of our weekly active 00:07:46.339 --> 00:07:48.740 users are just coming back. There's a certain 00:07:48.740 --> 00:07:51.430 proportion that. in a surprisingly large amount 00:07:51.430 --> 00:07:53.670 that comes back literally every single day. I'm 00:07:53.670 --> 00:07:55.910 looking at these people logging in and you can 00:07:55.910 --> 00:07:58.790 start seeing some patterns. But the big thing 00:07:58.790 --> 00:08:02.629 that I want to bring to 2026, which I have hinted 00:08:02.629 --> 00:08:06.209 on LinkedIn in comments and stuff, is to be able 00:08:06.209 --> 00:08:09.569 to share your podcast measurement information. 00:08:10.009 --> 00:08:12.829 And I want to really caveat this up front. We 00:08:12.829 --> 00:08:14.990 are not in the business of selling your data. 00:08:15.370 --> 00:08:17.050 If you don't want to have this feature, it is 00:08:17.050 --> 00:08:19.329 an opt -in. You have to explicitly state that 00:08:19.329 --> 00:08:21.389 you want to share your data. You want to provide 00:08:21.389 --> 00:08:24.509 as a granular of capabilities to this, going 00:08:24.509 --> 00:08:27.589 all the way from, hey, I want to invite my advertising 00:08:27.589 --> 00:08:30.250 partner. We've been doing this forever. You know, 00:08:30.269 --> 00:08:32.850 say like an acquired in JP Morgan. Let's give 00:08:32.850 --> 00:08:35.490 Jamie Dimon a permanent access to this whole 00:08:35.490 --> 00:08:38.690 platform. Let him see what's going on. Or, hey, 00:08:38.730 --> 00:08:41.240 we're working with HelloFresh. we're going to 00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:43.419 do these next three episodes, show them these 00:08:43.419 --> 00:08:44.899 three. They don't need to see everything else. 00:08:44.940 --> 00:08:46.899 Maybe we'll show them a few previous episodes. 00:08:46.980 --> 00:08:49.919 Like this is how we normally perform so they 00:08:49.919 --> 00:08:52.940 can set a good return on ad spend metric for 00:08:52.940 --> 00:08:56.360 themselves. And going all the way to, hey, I 00:08:56.360 --> 00:08:59.700 want to, you know, when Spotify said, hey, we're 00:08:59.700 --> 00:09:01.200 going to share your numbers. And if you were 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:03.139 in the club of awesome, I want people to know 00:09:03.139 --> 00:09:06.059 how I'm doing. Then we want to offer, hey, here's 00:09:06.059 --> 00:09:08.600 your public information. And the huge advantage 00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:12.120 for podcasters and advertisers here is, as a 00:09:12.120 --> 00:09:16.379 podcaster, you're probably used to, hey, I'm 00:09:16.379 --> 00:09:21.379 Sam from Sam's awesome ad agency. Please invite 00:09:21.379 --> 00:09:24.539 me to Apple. Please invite me to Spotify. Let's 00:09:24.539 --> 00:09:26.919 hope that there's no technical issues. That's 00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:29.539 just a huge waste of time. One login, one invite. 00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:32.679 For the advertisers, no login at all, just to 00:09:32.679 --> 00:09:35.179 type in a code or something like that. Just really 00:09:35.179 --> 00:09:38.990 simplifies the whole process. Let's just go back 00:09:38.990 --> 00:09:41.830 a little bit about George. So you've been in 00:09:41.830 --> 00:09:44.850 a developer mode for quite a while now. One of 00:09:44.850 --> 00:09:46.690 your first products you sold to a company called 00:09:46.690 --> 00:09:48.809 Radio .co in Manchester. What was that product? 00:09:49.129 --> 00:09:51.409 It was an iOS app called Pocket Streamer. It's 00:09:51.409 --> 00:09:54.350 still in the App Store. And basically what it 00:09:54.350 --> 00:09:57.830 lets you do is if you have a Shoutcast compatible 00:09:57.830 --> 00:10:01.269 radio station or you're a Radio .co customer, 00:10:01.470 --> 00:10:04.590 you could go live directly from your iPhone. 00:10:06.190 --> 00:10:08.009 There's an awesome YouTube demo that they've 00:10:08.009 --> 00:10:10.029 done where they went out to do an interview in 00:10:10.029 --> 00:10:13.669 some area of London and, you know, they just 00:10:13.669 --> 00:10:16.269 brought a microphone, walked around. So that 00:10:16.269 --> 00:10:18.490 was kind of culmination for me having worked 00:10:18.490 --> 00:10:21.850 at Live 365 previously. And another product that 00:10:21.850 --> 00:10:24.950 you built was PodcastDB. What was that one? So 00:10:24.950 --> 00:10:28.490 PodcastDB was basically, think of like, the closest 00:10:28.490 --> 00:10:31.029 competitors I would say is Listen Notes and Podchaser. 00:10:31.269 --> 00:10:34.970 So kind of a Zoom info for podcasters is the 00:10:34.970 --> 00:10:38.720 best. easy description. And that one has been 00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:42.159 sold and has just recently been sold again to 00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:45.840 some company in Dubai of all places. Now with 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:48.299 this one, I mean, what is your exit strategy? 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:50.220 It sounds like you're going to build a really 00:10:50.220 --> 00:10:53.759 cool analytics platform with a big three, eventually 00:10:53.759 --> 00:10:58.679 Spotify, Apple, and YouTube data. It does feel 00:10:58.679 --> 00:11:00.960 like it's one of those products that would live 00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:03.899 within another product as well. As in, I can 00:11:03.899 --> 00:11:07.200 imagine a hosting company saying, yeah, we want 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:10.259 this because this adds super quick value. It 00:11:10.259 --> 00:11:12.679 could be an Aqua higher stroke product purchase. 00:11:13.179 --> 00:11:16.779 Is that your thought process or is it too soon? 00:11:16.820 --> 00:11:18.980 You're just building a product. I would say it's 00:11:18.980 --> 00:11:21.399 probably too soon. I've definitely, it's definitely 00:11:21.399 --> 00:11:23.720 gone through my mind about what this could turn 00:11:23.720 --> 00:11:26.440 into. I don't think Daniel Ek from Spotify is 00:11:26.440 --> 00:11:28.120 going to be writing me an email anytime soon 00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:30.519 for an acquisition, given that he already has 00:11:30.519 --> 00:11:32.799 half of the data, but maybe he's interested in 00:11:32.799 --> 00:11:34.639 the other half. And, you know, I'm open to that 00:11:34.639 --> 00:11:37.120 conversation. But no, it's actually an interesting 00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:39.600 question. Working with hosting companies, I've 00:11:39.600 --> 00:11:43.460 heard so many people mention that to me. I would 00:11:43.460 --> 00:11:45.919 love to do that. If Buzzsprout, I believe they're 00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:48.299 one of your sponsors. I love their show, Buzzcast. 00:11:48.539 --> 00:11:50.759 Listen every single Friday. I listen to this 00:11:50.759 --> 00:11:53.059 show every single Friday too. But, you know, 00:11:53.059 --> 00:11:55.039 it would be awesome to work with them. I think 00:11:55.039 --> 00:11:57.399 it would just be a very awkward conversation 00:11:57.399 --> 00:12:01.320 with Apple and Spotify of like, hey, so we have 00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:05.179 100 ,000 logins that we need to handle. Like, 00:12:05.240 --> 00:12:08.220 what do we do at that point? I think it's more 00:12:08.220 --> 00:12:10.840 of a logistics problem rather than a technical 00:12:10.840 --> 00:12:12.970 problem. But it would be an awesome thing. So 00:12:12.970 --> 00:12:15.610 just to put this out there, the reason that we're 00:12:15.610 --> 00:12:18.870 even offering the free forever plan is because 00:12:18.870 --> 00:12:21.289 we want to encourage the whole industry to adopt 00:12:21.289 --> 00:12:25.350 that downloads are the new metric. And no one 00:12:25.350 --> 00:12:27.750 else is offering a free plan for anything right 00:12:27.750 --> 00:12:30.009 now. I'll call out my competitors and my friends 00:12:30.009 --> 00:12:32.710 here. So we've got obviously Bumper. We've got 00:12:32.710 --> 00:12:35.970 listener .com. We've got podstock .io. They're 00:12:35.970 --> 00:12:39.669 all on the same mission. Hey, downloads is the 00:12:39.669 --> 00:12:41.899 new thing that we need to be doing. I'm going 00:12:41.899 --> 00:12:44.559 to come in and say, hey, I'll take one for the 00:12:44.559 --> 00:12:47.279 team. I'll offer a free plan because this is 00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:49.659 what we need to be doing as an industry. You 00:12:49.659 --> 00:12:52.000 say downloads. I'm still not a believer that 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:53.980 downloads is the metric. I'm a believer that 00:12:53.980 --> 00:12:57.279 listen time is the metric. It's still early in 00:12:57.279 --> 00:12:59.519 the morning here in California. I meant unique 00:12:59.519 --> 00:13:03.120 listeners, episode consumption. I totally threw 00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:05.419 you for a quick one there. Here's the thing. 00:13:05.460 --> 00:13:07.659 We don't even measure right now. We would like 00:13:07.659 --> 00:13:10.039 to add support for a few of the big hosting companies 00:13:10.039 --> 00:13:12.200 because we shouldn't throw away downloads because 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:14.240 depending on your show, for example, Accidental 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:17.500 Tech, they constantly say, hey, a huge portion 00:13:17.500 --> 00:13:19.759 of our listeners come from Overcast because obviously 00:13:19.759 --> 00:13:23.600 that same show is creating that podcast app, 00:13:23.759 --> 00:13:26.299 Marco Arment. For them, downloads might actually 00:13:26.299 --> 00:13:28.980 make sense to analyze. But for the majority of 00:13:28.980 --> 00:13:31.659 shows, we have all the telemetry that we really 00:13:31.659 --> 00:13:34.129 need. to make at least a directionally correct, 00:13:34.309 --> 00:13:36.730 if not a perfect representation of your show 00:13:36.730 --> 00:13:39.470 from the data that Apple and Spotify provide 00:13:39.470 --> 00:13:42.750 you. I think downloads are a good indicator. 00:13:42.909 --> 00:13:45.570 They are a metric. I think it's really interesting 00:13:45.570 --> 00:13:47.649 with a platform like yours is that people can 00:13:47.649 --> 00:13:51.320 see their conversion rate from... I don't know, 00:13:51.320 --> 00:13:54.779 let's say 4 ,000 downloads to 600 plays. That 00:13:54.779 --> 00:13:57.919 again is a good metric to understand. Why am 00:13:57.919 --> 00:14:00.000 I getting all these downloads, but people aren't 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:02.080 auto converting into playing? That's another 00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:04.600 metric to look at. I think something that has 00:14:04.600 --> 00:14:06.700 been on the mind, you know, the uncomfortable 00:14:06.700 --> 00:14:10.419 question of like me as a podcaster, right? Let's 00:14:10.419 --> 00:14:12.379 just pretend I've been working with Nike and 00:14:12.379 --> 00:14:15.100 we told them, hey, we have 50 ,000 downloads. 00:14:15.240 --> 00:14:18.539 They cut us a check every month. They have a 00:14:18.539 --> 00:14:21.980 fairly consistent. Return on investment, return 00:14:21.980 --> 00:14:23.980 on ad spend, however you want to call it. And 00:14:23.980 --> 00:14:27.919 we have a George Nike 50 coupon code. And so 00:14:27.919 --> 00:14:30.059 they can track where it's coming from. And I 00:14:30.059 --> 00:14:32.259 think what's interesting to kind of look at here 00:14:32.259 --> 00:14:35.740 is, well, if you were getting 50 ,000 downloads, 00:14:35.899 --> 00:14:38.279 but you're actually getting 10 ,000 unique listeners 00:14:38.279 --> 00:14:41.519 and 10 ,000 of them actually listen to that ad, 00:14:41.700 --> 00:14:44.639 nothing changes fundamentally for Nike because 00:14:44.639 --> 00:14:48.100 they put in, say, $100 and they generate $300. 00:14:48.970 --> 00:14:51.870 That doesn't change. But now what you can say 00:14:51.870 --> 00:14:54.190 is, hey, we can now assign actual dollar values 00:14:54.190 --> 00:14:57.710 to listeners rather than back in the day where 00:14:57.710 --> 00:15:01.389 it's like, hey, maybe someone went crazy and 00:15:01.389 --> 00:15:03.809 started doing fake downloads to your show. Your 00:15:03.809 --> 00:15:05.669 hands might be clean, but you don't know that. 00:15:05.850 --> 00:15:08.350 We need to rip off the Band -Aid, have everyone 00:15:08.350 --> 00:15:10.610 establish a new baseline, and work with that 00:15:10.610 --> 00:15:13.529 because the new baseline, which is unique listeners 00:15:13.529 --> 00:15:17.110 and retention, consumption of the content, what 00:15:17.110 --> 00:15:19.820 portion was consumed. should be the thing that 00:15:19.820 --> 00:15:21.940 we're looking at. Now, one of the other challenges 00:15:21.940 --> 00:15:27.399 that I've seen is currently AI bots are all over 00:15:27.399 --> 00:15:29.820 the place consuming content. We did some analytic 00:15:29.820 --> 00:15:33.000 reviews recently and we were seeing Claude and 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:36.460 OpenAI and the Facebook bot and the Google bot. 00:15:36.620 --> 00:15:39.720 And they're not just downloads. They're actually 00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:41.960 listen bots as well. They are actually playing 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:44.899 the content and consuming the actual podcast. 00:15:45.850 --> 00:15:48.750 How are you dealing with that, both in the download 00:15:48.750 --> 00:15:52.450 number, but also more importantly in the unique 00:15:52.450 --> 00:15:54.970 plays and the listen retention time? Because 00:15:54.970 --> 00:15:57.549 what you don't want to be doing is conflating 00:15:57.549 --> 00:16:02.789 the listen time number with bot listens. So the 00:16:02.789 --> 00:16:05.549 good thing is, if you're using Apple or Spotify, 00:16:05.690 --> 00:16:08.769 I really hope that Claude is not smart enough 00:16:08.769 --> 00:16:12.149 to be able to access iPhone apps. We are seeing 00:16:12.149 --> 00:16:14.730 the bots actually. I mean, it might not be iOS, 00:16:14.850 --> 00:16:18.950 but web -based access. Web -based is, again, 00:16:19.009 --> 00:16:21.590 going back to the download numbers. So with Apple 00:16:21.590 --> 00:16:24.110 and Spotify, you can actually even see this in 00:16:24.110 --> 00:16:26.669 your iPhone. You can go to the podcast app and 00:16:26.669 --> 00:16:29.889 tell Apple to reset my identifier. And then that 00:16:29.889 --> 00:16:32.409 way you get de -linked or you're now being tracked 00:16:32.409 --> 00:16:35.190 as a new listener. But I think in terms of the 00:16:35.190 --> 00:16:38.529 amount of listener fraud. And the whole bot activity, 00:16:38.809 --> 00:16:41.009 I think, as far as Spotify and Apple is concerned, 00:16:41.250 --> 00:16:43.850 we're talking about getting that data from Apple 00:16:43.850 --> 00:16:45.809 and Spotify, not from your hosting provider saying 00:16:45.809 --> 00:16:48.330 Apple and Spotify, because I can lie about my 00:16:48.330 --> 00:16:50.950 user agent too. I can be on my Android phone 00:16:50.950 --> 00:16:52.990 and tell you that I'm listening from Apple Podcasts. 00:16:52.990 --> 00:16:55.889 It's very, very trivial. This is not trivial 00:16:55.889 --> 00:16:59.659 to break. So I think this is the world that we're 00:16:59.659 --> 00:17:02.399 in. I think I agree with our interview that we 00:17:02.399 --> 00:17:04.940 did with Dan Meisner and this interview here, 00:17:05.079 --> 00:17:07.019 that this is the new metric. We've been banging 00:17:07.019 --> 00:17:09.440 this drum now for a couple of years, and it looks 00:17:09.440 --> 00:17:11.660 like the tools are now appearing. We still have 00:17:11.660 --> 00:17:13.980 the ultimate problem, which is I like the big 00:17:13.980 --> 00:17:15.880 number of the download, and I don't like the 00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:18.279 small number of the unique listeners. That's 00:17:18.279 --> 00:17:20.420 the problem. If you want a pat on your back, 00:17:20.420 --> 00:17:23.019 then go look at your download numbers. But let's 00:17:23.019 --> 00:17:27.190 just say your value of creating a podcast is 00:17:27.190 --> 00:17:31.490 to spread the message, not to generate advertiser 00:17:31.490 --> 00:17:34.349 interests, then you shouldn't be looking at the 00:17:34.349 --> 00:17:36.190 download number. You should be looking at your 00:17:36.190 --> 00:17:39.349 actual consumption because at that point, you're 00:17:39.349 --> 00:17:41.730 just lying to yourself. You can still use Pod 00:17:41.730 --> 00:17:44.769 Analyst and keep selling to Nike with your downloads 00:17:44.769 --> 00:17:47.710 because now what you can do is you can look at 00:17:47.710 --> 00:17:50.609 your content, see that, hey, that pre -roll that 00:17:50.609 --> 00:17:53.470 we do, we lose 40 % of our listeners every single 00:17:53.470 --> 00:17:56.160 time. People are not even getting to the content. 00:17:56.660 --> 00:17:59.440 We can see this. The data is there. Spotify and 00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:01.839 Apple and YouTube are telling us that. Let's 00:18:01.839 --> 00:18:05.960 go one episode without a pre -roll. Or maybe 00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:08.480 we do a cold open. We do 30 seconds, and then 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:10.920 we throw in, I guess, not technically a pre -roll 00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:13.420 at that point, but not a mid -roll either. See 00:18:13.420 --> 00:18:15.259 how that impacts it. Because let's just say a 00:18:15.259 --> 00:18:17.039 friend told me to listen to this podcast, and 00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:20.299 I'm listening to... the 50th Geico ad this week. 00:18:20.420 --> 00:18:22.059 If I'm in a bad mood, I might just not listen 00:18:22.059 --> 00:18:23.839 to it. And maybe this podcast could have become 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:25.359 the one that I listened to for the next decade. 00:18:25.500 --> 00:18:28.059 So you want to improve your content. Why wouldn't 00:18:28.059 --> 00:18:30.660 you want to do that? George, if I want to get 00:18:30.660 --> 00:18:34.400 onto the beta and onto testing Pod Analyst, where 00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:37.599 would I go? Podanalyst .com. Just click any of 00:18:37.599 --> 00:18:40.240 the buttons that say start free forever. Right 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:42.700 now, everybody, it doesn't matter the size of 00:18:42.700 --> 00:18:44.880 your podcast, how many podcasts you have, you 00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:47.750 can join. 24 hours after you sign up, your data 00:18:47.750 --> 00:18:49.869 will start appearing there. And then somewhere 00:18:49.869 --> 00:18:53.750 in January, probably, we're going to switch over 00:18:53.750 --> 00:18:57.289 to paid subscription. But as I said, the free 00:18:57.289 --> 00:18:59.710 forever, let's push the industry forward. Let's 00:18:59.710 --> 00:19:02.609 encourage everybody to adopt this metric. And 00:19:02.609 --> 00:19:04.950 I'd love to see people start using once the share 00:19:04.950 --> 00:19:09.069 feature comes out to see more public, large podcasts 00:19:09.069 --> 00:19:11.049 come out and say, hey, this is actually how numbers 00:19:11.049 --> 00:19:13.089 really look. Because I think that's the other 00:19:13.089 --> 00:19:15.829 thing. Get everybody comfortable. Hey. 10 million 00:19:15.829 --> 00:19:19.450 downloads, 1 million listeners. Same return on 00:19:19.450 --> 00:19:21.890 ad spend. But now you have that precision and 00:19:21.890 --> 00:19:24.109 you can see it. George, congratulations. Thanks 00:19:24.109 --> 00:19:26.470 for coming on the show. Happy Christmas to you. 00:19:26.490 --> 00:19:28.849 Thank you. Happy New Year. You too. And good 00:19:28.849 --> 00:19:31.890 luck with the release candidate in January. Absolutely. 00:19:31.950 --> 00:19:32.490 Thank you so much.