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Dave Jones is with us and Dave, for our audience, can you kind of give them a background of

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who you are and what you do? Yeah, I mean for my day job, I'm a sysadmin. I've been a sysadmin

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slash programmer for 25 years going on. And I guess that's relevant to what our project is now,

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just because Adam and I got to know each other, gosh, about 10 years ago, at least now, maybe a

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little bit earlier than that. And so we were in the same circles of tech stuff. And so we got to

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know each other. And because I was a sysadmin and a programmer as well, we ended up just doing a

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bunch of projects together. And that's kind of my background as it relates to the podcast index and

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that kind of thing. So how does the conversation about this podcast 2.0 and podcast index, how does

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that all get started? Just Adam giving you a call or sounded, at least in one of the podcasts, like

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there was a couple other people involved too, or was it just the two of you? It was pretty much the

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two of us. Yeah, we brought in a third partner just to help us. Both of us are very disorganized.

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And we were like, well, there has to be money involved here at some point. So we need somebody

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that will keep us straight and not let us do crazy things. So we brought Eric in and he just does

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back office stuff and helps us keep everything legal and straight. And he's a business guy while

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we go out and try to wreck things. But yeah, we got started. Adam just called me one day or texted

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me and said, hey, I've got an idea. Which if you know him is not an uncommon thing. He's got a

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million ideas at light speed. So that wasn't out of the ordinary. So he explains to you

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what this idea is, which was what? Well, his thing was, and I don't know how familiar you

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or your audience would be with No Agenda, I'm sure you are in a little bit. So his show has always

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been possible because he shuns advertising and just goes directly to his audience. And the value

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for value model is what he calls it. And so, you know, the idea being that if you're directly

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supported by your listeners without an intermediary, then you make yourself yourself and your content

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safer from censorship. And so he had the idea first to make podcasts to give all of podcasts

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all of podcasting that possibility to try to essentially break podcasting free from this layer

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of censorship that it has, which really is advertising that like most media, podcasting has

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ended up in an advertising model for funding. And so he wanted he's like, you know, let's let's try

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to take the value for value model that No Agenda has been so successful with and get make it doable

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for all of podcasting. So that was that was one of his ideas. And that, let's see, the other idea was

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to have a, a censorship free index, which can make that possible. So a directory, a podcast directory,

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where you could take that value for value model, and not just apply it to podcasters,

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but also apply it to app developers. And our feeling has been since day one, and this is what

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we discussed, when he very first brought this up, is that app developers have been left out of the

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value chain. And so you've got hosting companies that can make money and do you have podcasters

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you have podcasters that have various degrees of success with podcasting, but at least a fair

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percentage of them do make money. And but the podcast app developers, you really only have a

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couple of independent app developers that make any money at all. And the rest of the app, the

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podcast app landscape really just has survived on in app purchases or 99 cents on an app store.

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And so we tried to, we tried to basically make all of the podcast world accessible to that value

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for value direct donation model. And so that required us to have an index for that reason,

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but also an open API for the apps to hook into. So that as we developed these technologies,

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the, you know, what we're kind of loosely calling podcasting 2.0, as we developed that stuff,

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we could have a place to push it and, and allow people to hook in and get early access to cool

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technology, like chapters, funding, the value block, all those kinds of things that we've been

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that we've been involved in. And so that was kind of, that's the framework that we talked about from

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the very beginning. So what's your vision of how, how this plays out? Right now, it looks like you're

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gathering podcasts and getting the information out about what it is. So what is your vision of how

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is it a website that people go to where it's easily understood or, you know, how, how, how,

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you know, how do you get it so that the masses can easily understand it? What do you,

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what's your vision for that? We may be the worst possible people to create something that the

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masses can understand and easily hook into. That is not a good track record for us. But I think, so

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the goal here is to, is not a website. I mean, that, that's, it's almost, we almost have one by

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necessity. The real goal is the API, which is what the podcast apps hook into. And so that really

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doesn't need any, you know, to be functional, it doesn't need any sort of presence on a webpage at

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all. So at the application level, we're pushing us, we're, we're pushing data to those apps and

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to allow them to function as a podcast player. The issue here is that podcasts, the podcasting world

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is open and decentralized by its nature, which is what we're trying to preserve through technologies

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like RSS. We're trying to save that aspect of podcasting to keep it from being taken over by

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Spotify or these siloed private companies that want to basically take podcasts and stick them

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behind a paywall. So we're trying to, we're trying to take that technology and put a free API in

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there where app developers can hook into that and not have to run their own infrastructure.

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Because the downside to the open decentralized podcasting world is that it can be very difficult

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to aggregate, let's just say a million and a half podcast feeds. That means you have to have servers

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that are constantly reading those feeds as fast as possible and indexing them into a database and

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then serving them up in a way that your app can understand. And for a lot of independent app

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developers who have no promise of making money at all, other than maybe 99 cents if they're lucky,

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the idea of running enough infrastructure on the backend, which may cost them four or $500 a month,

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that would be tough. That would be a tough sell because they, who knows how long, how many months

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they're going to have to go like that before they get any audience buy-in at all. So we said, well,

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why don't we make the infrastructure and then we're going to give it away for free.

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And just sort of eating our own dog food, that value for value model, we'll give it away for free.

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And then if it's helpful to app developers, if it helps them to get customers and it works out to

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where they're making money, well, maybe they'll give back to us and donate back to help the whole

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ecosystem. Is it a big investment for you guys to get this thing going?

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It's not cheap. It's costing us roughly around $300, $350 a month right now of hosting fees.

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And the first couple of months we paid for that out of our own pockets. And then in the last few

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months, last three months, we've had enough donations coming in to cover our costs. Now,

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the goal here was never to walk away with a lot of money. If we're able to cover our costs with

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hosting, that's really what we're aiming for. We just don't want to lose money, obviously.

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But so far, so many people have stepped up to the table and given donations and we've

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not had to pay out of pocket for the last three months. And so it's been great.

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That's great. So from the podcast's standpoint, how are you going to make it easier for them

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to get donations quickly from their listeners that they're in a position where they don't need

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advertisers, or they don't need to go through programmatic, or they don't need to figure out

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who to call to get somebody to help them sell ads because they're busy putting their content

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together? How do you make that work? Yeah, and that's the moonshot aspect of this.

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So the idea here is in order for that to really happen in a way that's... Well, let me back up.

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There's two parts to that. Number one is you have to take the payment processing out of the

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flow as much as you can because that's where the hit happens. That's where your PayPal's,

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Patreon's and those guys, when they get involved, you're looking at 10% off the top. And so that...

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And you're also looking at a potential point for censorship. And we've seen this, I mean, look at,

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to use an extreme example, lately, look at Pornhub. They got completely demonetized by Visa.

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And it's not just a Patreon or somebody like that that can demonetize you. In their case,

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it was the actual credit card processor themselves. And it didn't matter who that intermediary was.

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That's going to go all the way up the chain to where to the actual bank processing. And so

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our idea is in order to make a decentralized support, donation support model work, you really

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need to take all of that out of the chain if you can. And the only thing that does that really is

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crypto, is Bitcoin. And so Adam had been reading about a technology called Lightning, which is

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basically what they call a layer two protocol that sits on top of Bitcoin. And the Bitcoin Lightning

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network allows you to do very fast transactions, very small transactions, because it works, what

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they call off chain. So these are not standard Bitcoin transactions. They are transactions that

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happen off of the blockchain in small increments, and then they get settled up later in what's

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called a channel. And so he was reading about this technology, and we started putting some stuff

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together and just checking it out to see if it would be viable. And about, it's about a month and

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a half or so after we launched the index, we were able to prove out that that type of system would

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work. And so the idea here is that in your RSS feed, the way this looks in practical terms to try

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to speak clearly here, is in your RSS feed for your podcast, you can put a tag in there that lists

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out all of the various Bitcoin Lightning addresses that need to get paid as somebody listens to the

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podcast. And so the idea would be that app applications, podcast applications, player

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applications would read that tag in the RSS feed. And then once a minute, they would begin to stream

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payment back to the podcaster, because the podcaster has put in their, his or her Lightning

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payment address. And so once a minute, you're getting however many fractions of a Bitcoin,

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the listener has determined that your podcast is worth what they want to pay for it.

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Let's just say that's 10 satoshis, a satoshi is 100 millionth of a Bitcoin. So let's just say that's

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10 satoshis. Well, every minute 10 satoshis are getting paid back to that podcaster directly into

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their Bitcoin wallet. And so we've proved that out that it works. And through some guys that we

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that we have hooked up with at the Sphinx.Chat app, they have a Lightning, they had already had a

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Lightning chat app. And so they just dropped, essentially just dropped podcast player into

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that app. And immediately we were able to hook up everything to the API to the index, the podcast

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index, and begin streaming money. And it works. I mean, we're doing it every single day. Now it's,

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it's a future, it's a future looking technology. But it also works right now. It's just a little

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complicated to get into. Are you going to be able to make it work with cash being that a lot of

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people not only don't understand Bitcoin, they probably don't buy any or have any or exchange

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any. So how do you how do you make that work with cash for the podcast? That's kind of universally

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known in the, you know, in the Bitcoin world is the onboarding problem. It's like, there's so many

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cool Bitcoin things that are hampered by the fact that it's a challenge to get Bitcoin in from cash.

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So we decided at the beginning, you know, we're not going to try to get into that if we can help it.

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Now, that doesn't mean that we're completely avoiding that because one thing that we're doing

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right now is we've been talking to somebody that it's not right. I'm not ready to talk about it

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publicly. But we've been talking to a lightning provider. And the ideas here are for them to handle

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a a dollar to Bitcoin conversion process. So the the the great thing about this

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is the Bitcoin community is is so zealous, you know, they love things like this, anything that

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causes cryptocurrency and specifically Bitcoin to be more accessible and more usable. They love a

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challenge like that. So as soon as you know, it became known that we were involved in this space,

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they the Bitcoin guys just jumped in there like, you know, with both feet and we're like, yeah,

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we want to do this. And so we've just been contacted by everybody. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't

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think that I think that's going to be a solved problem. I think it's going to be a solved problem

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fairly quickly. Great. So the you mentioned the podcast apps also making money in this new,

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in this new way of doing this. So how how how do they do they are they taking a piece of the

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podcasters revenue or is it some other way they'd be making money? Yeah. And well, that's

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one thing that we've that we've talked about since the beginning is that it's not this doesn't work.

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If everybody doesn't get a piece of that action. I mean, everybody in the podcast world, nobody,

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nobody needs to be left out of that. Because the the the truth is everybody contributes to this in

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some way, the app, the aggregator, the index, the the podcaster, the hosting company, there's so many

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people in the chain, that everybody needs to be able to be to have a piece of that. And so the way

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that the the value block is what we call the way the value tag works in the new podcast namespace

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is you can just specify this you specify, okay, these four, you know, lightning addresses are

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going to get paid every minute. And one of them may be, you know, 98, and you specify percentage.

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So let's just say 97%, you say 97% of this of the payment each minute is going to go to the podcaster,

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which is which is me, 1% is going to go to the app, 1% is going to go to the hosting company,

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1% is going to go to this API that I'm using. And so you you can specify all the different

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people in the chain that you would like to see get paid. And yeah, and so for the apps, what we're

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we're recommending like a 1% split. And but the interesting thing is, it's a new market. So who

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knows what that will end up as you, you know, if you if you leave that in the in the listeners hands,

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they may really love your app. And they may say, Well, yeah, I want to give you an extra,

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you know, 5% on top of that. And so as soon as you take, you know, that is an interesting thing,

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too. As soon as you take out this idea that there's a set price for this one particular service,

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and you move to that mindset of the value for value, where you say, I'm going to give you this

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value. And you give me back what you think is worth whatever that is, if it's five cents, or if it's

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$500, I'm not going to tell you what to give me you give back to me what you think it's worth.

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When you when you put those tools in somebody's hands, it's amazing what people will do. I mean,

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we just in the short lifespan of our show of our podcast that we we do a weekly podcast on

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Fridays called podcasting 2.0. That is basically just a running Adam calls it the board meeting,

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because we don't usually we don't usually talk during the week much. But if you take that show,

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for example, that's been running since August, I mean, some weeks we get, you know, $10 of donations,

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and another week, we may get, you know, 1500. But it's just a matter of what people heard that week,

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what they saw us do, and how much they thought that was worth to them and the rest of the ecosystem.

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So we've been you guys have been gaining some some traction with the whole with the with companies

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like I think Libsyn is one and companies like that to get more podcasts in the index. Correct? I mean,

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what is what is it that you can talk about it in terms of companies that are that are known right

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now? Yeah, that's pretty much I don't think there's anybody that's not known at this point. It's

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Buzzsprout, Libsyn, blueberry, they're they're working, they're developing, they're, they're

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spending some dev time right now to get hooked into to our stuff. Captivate transistor fireside.

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Felcom leaving somebody out. We there's they're listed on our on our website under there's an

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apps page there that lists out everybody who has connections to us. But one of the things that

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that we're trying to do is, you know, it seems a little weird to have Apple be sort of the main

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directory for podcasting, when they're also a private company, you know, a big humongous private

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company. And so the the idea is that for Apple to be sort of the default directory for something

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that's supposed to be an open ecosystem that nobody owns and controls, we're trying to shift

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to that center of the universe back to something that is open. Now we're we're not a nonprofit, but

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all like you can literally listen to our show and hear how much money we have. I mean, we we

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spell it out every week. So we tried we're saying, well, we're not a nonprofit, but we're extreme,

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like extreme transparency in our financials. So if you listen to to the show, you can see exactly

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what's going on, we're transparent, we build everything in the open on our podcast index.social

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is the name of our social website where us and all the developers that are in the project

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participate. So if you were trying to shift that universe back from having a private company,

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sort of running podcasting infrastructure to putting it back into a more open community led effort.

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I heard Adam teasing Apple a few times, do you need to have them in there? Or does it really

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matter if they're in there? Because really, you're gonna have all the other hosting companies anyway,

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and they're all basically feeding Apple the same stuff or does it matter?

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Yeah, well, you know, Apple's very interested, they know they know what's going on here.

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And, you know, Adam's talked to him a few times. And there's no there's absolutely no animosity at

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all. You know, those those guys are great. And they're going to get involved whenever they feel

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like it's right. And so but we you know, we're not we don't have any real need for them to be

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involved at this point. Other than just it would help with adoption of the namespace,

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because there's sort of two products. These are two kind of, I guess, parallel projects

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that that feed off each other. There's the podcast index, which is the API. And that's

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the effort to make a decentralized, non Apple centric, or really, it's not just Apple non

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corporate centric index that can't be that's free of censorship. And then there's the podcast

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namespace, which supports that effort, but also is usable way outside of us, like all the technologies

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that we talked about, like the value tag, the transcripts, funding chapters, all these things

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that we're doing, everything we do is all in the in the podcast namespace. And that doesn't depend

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on the podcast index, that's completely usable outside of us. Talk to talk about the tags a

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little bit so that people that are listening or that are reading this understand what you're

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doing with tags and why it might be important to the average podcast. Yeah, and that's that's

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interesting, because it's a RSS is an old technology. And it's very extensible. You can add new things

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to it very easily through name through what they call namespaces. And but the funny thing about it

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is that that that technology is so hidden from the modern podcaster that a lot of times they just

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don't even know about their feed, or what's in it or anything like that and don't care, which is fine,

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you know, that's not for them to care about necessarily. But when you begin to add new

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things to RSS to extend it, you do have to have some sort of knowledge about about that, because

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that may be stuff in there that you want. So the podcast namespace is our effort to take a lot of

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the things that the podcasting world has been wanting for many years, and just do it. Because

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what we found early on was that podcasting has the decentralized nature of it that we've talked about

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leaves it open to just no progress. There's a lot of people that sit around and talk about, you know,

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hey, podcasting ought to have this, but they don't ever do anything. Or a lot of times things get

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tied up in standards groups, or, you know, standards bodies or working groups or 501 seats,

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the nonprofits are formed in order to look at doing something, but nothing ever actually gets done.

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And so we said, well, let's just do it. I mean, why not? Let's try it. And so we put together

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namespace with five of the tags that we knew immediately that people had been talking about

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and wanting for a long time. And one of those was the lock tag to, well, that wasn't one that had

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been wanted for a long time. That's one that we kind of cooked up. But that was an idea of being

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able to lock your feed so that people can't import it or pirate your feed. There was the

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transcript tag, which Buzzsprout had already been working on, and already had sort of a working open

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spec for, but it was only usable between Buzzsprout and one app. So we said, okay, well,

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let's refine that and stick that in the namespace and then everybody can use it. So we've got the

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transcript tag, the funding tag, which is an attempt to simplify a few other tags that existed

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to try to point people at donation links like PayPal or Patreon. And then the, see, you got

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log, funding, transcript, oh, and chapters, the chapters tag. And the chapters tag is our effort

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to take chapters out of the MP3 file itself, because that's typically the way it's done now.

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If you want to put chapters in your show, you typically have to bake it into the MP3 audio file.

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And so that's fine, but it's a little bit inflexible because once you upload the show,

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if you want to remaster it or something like that, it can be difficult, a lot of heavy lifting to

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rearrange the frame headers and that kind of thing in a way that doesn't break. So we said,

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well, let's take the chapters out of the MP3 file itself and stick it in a separate file that can be

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included with the RSS feed. And so now this allows for rich chapter building tools to be created

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that don't have to touch the audio. They can exist alongside the hosting company's user interface

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tools and allow you to create the chapters after the fact, after you upload your audio. And so you

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could listen along and add the chapters as you go. So that was the other tag that we came up with.

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And that was what we call phase one of the podcast namespace is putting those tags in.

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Before you go on to the next piece of what you wanted to say,

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let's just say I'm a podcaster, I use Spreaker to host my site and I want to insert chapters

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into my show because I don't have chapters. Tell me how I do that now with your technology.

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To use the podcast namespace with Spreaker, you would have to beg them to do it.

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But essentially, you have to get them to adopt because we have not heard from them.

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Currently, Bussprout, let's just say you want to do chapters, Bussprout supports that.

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Fireside supports that. Transistor supports that. Captivate supports that. Or I think Captivate's

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doing it right now. Blueberry. So one of those hosting companies we mentioned before have all

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committed to adopting those namespace tags. They either already have them or they're about to have

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them and they're going to have the tools to do it. If you're with Spreaker, we just want to contact

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them and tell them to do it because that's how they need to find out about this stuff. They need

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to hear from their customers. So if I go on to the website, can I upload my show myself and become,

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even though it's hosted on Spreaker, it doesn't work that way. The hosting company has to be part

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of this. Yeah. We do not do any hosting or processing of the podcast anyway. All we do on

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the index side of things is we're an aggregator and a backend for apps. And then we also have

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spearheaded the namespace project. So basically what happens is once a new tag is finalized,

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we put support for it into the index software so that now we pick up that data and we're able to

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hand it back to the apps that use our service. But we don't process or manage the audio or hosting

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or any of that stuff. So if I was with Lipsyn or Blueberry and we were down the road and everything

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was humming, then I would go on their website where I upload my show and something different's

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going to be there that wasn't there six months ago that will help me figure out chapters and figure

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out transcripts because they're going to make it easy for the average podcaster who has no clue how

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to do any of this. They just want to do a show. It's going to be on their site. Yeah, that's exactly

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right. That's the way it is with, if you're hosted on Buzzsprout right now, all those things are

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there. Because of you guys, because they've incorporated your technology. Right. That's

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exactly right. And so you have all and same with Fireside. If you go to Fireside, all that stuff's

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there. Transistor, if you're logging into your account, you'll see those things there available

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for you to put into your show. Yeah. Got it. So take us like what's down the road here. I mean,

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how do you feel like it's done or, I'm sure it's never going to be done, but what is your vision

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of saying, we've got it to the point where is it going to be that it's being mass used by all the

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hosting companies or is it going to be something that you've finished writing? How's it going to

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feel somewhat finished? I think it's the way I envision it going. And I think you've seen this

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already is that there's a flurry of activity at the beginning because a lot of this stuff is just

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pent up demand. People have been wanting like a location tag, a way to put your, let's just say,

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if you're doing a podcast about Western Africa, people want to be able to somehow tag West Africa

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in their podcast so that other search engines, podcast search engines and podcast indexes can

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aggregate that stuff together and say, here's all the popular podcasts about West Africa, or here's

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all the podcast episodes that have talked about the Eiffel Tower. So you have this idea of location

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tagging within podcasting is something that has been wanted for a while. And so we've put that

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into phase two. So that's going to be a tag that will be finalized within the next couple of months.

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And then people within the user tools of their host can tag a location in their feed. So there's

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things like that that are pent up demand for information to be included that we just are saying,

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okay, let's just do it. Let's push it in there, make sure it looks good. And let's, let's get the

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ball rolling on that. But as those things, as those sort of low hanging fruit, you know, as those

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as those things come get in there and get baked in and get finalized, there will be fewer and

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fewer of those. And so then I think the activity will fall off. But that'll be good though, because

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that'll let at least for us, for our vision, that will let us focus more on that second goal, which

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is trying to get the podcasting world less dependent on advertising. So that, and that's

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a harder problem to solve clearly than put some tag in the namespace. But I hope, I really hope by

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the end of the year, I hope by the end of 2021, that we'll have a very robust namespace. And

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that we'll have, you know, I hope that we have a lot of hosts on board, we already do have a lot.

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But I think if, if at the end of the 2021, if we had a really nice namespace with a lot of

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accessible new things that people could put in there, in their podcast, and let's just say 50%

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of the hosts on board, I would be very happy. Great. So do you think there's really a big

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desire for transcripts and chapters and things like that? Is it really something that's important

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to podcasters? Or is it a small group of podcasters and people in the industry that are that are

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asking about those? And, you know, what's your, so what's your thought on that? And those,

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or, or to the users, is it good to have a choice for them to be able to put it in there so that it

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will help grow their show and they just don't know it? Or, you know, what's the reason for

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including those things? Well, what we've seen, it's an interesting question, because I think,

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I think it's sort of a mix of all of that. Because what we've seen is, number one,

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hosters are going to do, they're going to implement what their customers are asking for. And so, if

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their customers are not asking for location data to be in the podcast, well, they're probably just

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not going to do it. They're not going to put that, they're not going to spend the developer time

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to put that stuff in there. And so there's, that's sort of one way to answer that question.

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Another thing to think about is that the more, how do I say this? The podcasting ecosystem,

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the open free podcasting ecosystem is sort of locked into trench warfare right now with

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specifically Spotify, because Spotify is buying up, you know, they're buying up large portions

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of podcasting right now. And those private apps that don't play ball with the rest of podcasting,

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they have the potential to do all kinds of interesting things in the app. They can do

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these things like location, person search, people search, transcripts, they can do all of those

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things. Now, a lot of them don't yet, but they will. And if the open podcast ecosystem is not

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prepared to have feature parity with what the private siloed apps can do, well, then that's a

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problem. It will kill slowly the open podcasting world. So there's, the other way to answer that

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is just, we need these things just to maintain relevance and feature parity and innovation in

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this space. And then I guess the final way to look at it is, yes, there are plenty of customers who

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are podcasters who want this information. But there's also plenty of podcasters that want it,

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but don't know they want it, because it's cool stuff that they could put in there, but they may

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not know that they're missing it. So lastly, what do you want the average podcaster to know or do

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that will help? I would say that number one would be good, go check out some of the apps

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that support this stuff. One would be Podfriend, which is a web based app. I think it's just

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podfriend.com. Another one would be podverse.fm. Another one would be hypercatcher that's on iOS,

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podcast addict, support some of the tags already. Go check out some of those apps that support the

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tags and look at how they work and look at the cool stuff that they can do. Because it's kind of a,

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it's really a different experience. So when you're looking at, let's just say, if you're looking at

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no agenda show on hypercatcher app or on podfriend, you're seeing in real time, as things

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are being talked about on the show, you're seeing pictures come up or images that they're talking

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about, articles come up. I mean, it's almost like being in a, being in a slot in a PowerPoint

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presentation is pretty amazing. And once you get like person in the person tag, the new person tag,

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or the location tag, you can come up with all kinds of rich, immersive data in a podcast.

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And it's just, it's a different, it's a real different experience. And so I think one thing

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I would say is go, go check out some of those apps and what they can do. And the other thing would be,

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if you think that that stuff is really cool, and it's something that you would want to put

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in your podcast, well then ask your host if they're not one of the ones that participate yet.

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And then what we have seen is it does not take much to convince a host to jump on board with this,

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because the host, the podcast hosting world is very competitive. And so if somebody's wanting

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something, and you know, if let's just say that you're at Spreaker, and one of your customers

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are seeing all this cool stuff happening over at Buzzsprout, well then you need to support that.

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You may lose customers that way. So I would say those things, go check out what it can do,

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and then go talk to your host. And make sure that, please push the podcast so people can listen in.

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I mean, every Friday, I think comes out right, or once a week, you and Adam talk about exactly

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what's going on. So let everybody know what that is again. It's Podcasting 2.0 is the name of the

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show. We're not on Apple or Spotify. It's an RSS feed. So we're eating our own dog food, man. So

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you'll have to go get the RSS free from our homepage, which is podcastindex.org,

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and manually plug it into your podcast app. Yeah, it's every Friday. That's right.