WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.200 Do people really just want summaries? There are 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.300 times when just the highlights are fine. If I 00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:11.439 miss the Yankee game, for example, I'm not going 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:15.880 to watch the entire 2 -3 hour game. The excitement 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:20.179 for me is watching it play out live before there's 00:00:20.179 --> 00:00:24.780 an outcome to know. If the game is over, I'm 00:00:24.780 --> 00:00:28.739 happy to watch the highlights. On rare occasion, 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:32.280 there's a movie I'm tangentially interested in, 00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:35.700 but don't feel like watching. So I might just 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:39.719 read the summary to know what happens. Many people 00:00:39.719 --> 00:00:42.039 will think this is blasphemy, but I did that 00:00:42.039 --> 00:00:45.920 with Breaking Bad. I did not care about that 00:00:45.920 --> 00:00:49.740 show until I just read how it ended. But most 00:00:49.740 --> 00:00:52.759 of the time when we consume content, we're doing 00:00:52.759 --> 00:00:56.240 it for more than just the dry regurgitation of 00:00:56.240 --> 00:01:00.219 facts. This is why I hate services like Blinkist. 00:01:00.759 --> 00:01:04.739 You're not reading a book. You are listening 00:01:04.739 --> 00:01:09.579 to a book report. But let's put a pin in that 00:01:09.579 --> 00:01:13.420 for a minute. Because I read a few months ago 00:01:13.420 --> 00:01:16.480 about a new app that I thought I would just kind 00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:19.099 of ignore. And then I started hearing more people 00:01:19.099 --> 00:01:23.060 talk about it and the idea of feeding long form 00:01:23.060 --> 00:01:26.439 content into things like Google LM. so that they 00:01:26.439 --> 00:01:29.739 could just get the summaries. So first, what 00:01:29.739 --> 00:01:32.760 is Sonar? Sonar is an iOS app I learned about 00:01:32.760 --> 00:01:35.620 a couple months ago that claims to do something 00:01:35.620 --> 00:01:39.980 fairly impressive. You give it a prompt on the 00:01:39.980 --> 00:01:42.180 type of content you're interested in listening 00:01:42.180 --> 00:01:46.200 to and then it clips a bunch of podcasts and 00:01:46.200 --> 00:01:49.140 seamlessly, seamlessly in heavy quotes here, 00:01:49.500 --> 00:01:52.840 edits them together. The idea is that you don't 00:01:52.840 --> 00:01:57.260 have to listen to an entire podcast, just the 00:01:57.260 --> 00:02:01.659 highlights. The problem is it promises what Blinkist 00:02:01.659 --> 00:02:06.700 promises, a dry regurgitation of facts from the 00:02:06.700 --> 00:02:11.120 content. And most of us don't consume content 00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:14.819 just for facts. And as a quick sidebar here, 00:02:14.819 --> 00:02:18.560 I did try this and it was really, at least when 00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:22.360 I tried it, only for sports. Basically. And so 00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:25.819 I thought, all right, well, let's let's get a 00:02:25.819 --> 00:02:29.780 Yankees. I'm a Yankee. I'm a Yankee fan. And 00:02:29.780 --> 00:02:33.740 it gave me so you can get an idea of when I actually 00:02:33.740 --> 00:02:38.539 tried this. It gave me a bunch of like really 00:02:38.539 --> 00:02:42.699 douchey broey podcasters talking about how happy 00:02:42.699 --> 00:02:45.699 they were that Garrett Cole needed Tommy John 00:02:45.699 --> 00:02:49.699 surgery, which even if you don't like the Yankees, 00:02:51.300 --> 00:02:54.639 Being happy that somebody is getting surgery 00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:58.460 that will put them out of their job for a year 00:02:58.460 --> 00:03:02.159 or more is just like a gross, like you're a gross 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:06.900 human being if you are happy about that. So like. 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:11.219 This is part of the problem, right? I don't know 00:03:11.219 --> 00:03:14.099 if that guy or those guys were joking. They probably 00:03:14.099 --> 00:03:17.759 weren't, but I don't have any of their personality 00:03:17.759 --> 00:03:24.389 and we do it. We consume content for the personality 00:03:24.389 --> 00:03:29.050 that goes along with the facts. We could just 00:03:29.050 --> 00:03:34.810 Google facts or ask ChatGPT facts. But an author's 00:03:34.810 --> 00:03:38.069 personality is what makes a book worth reading. 00:03:38.530 --> 00:03:42.990 A host's personality is what makes the show worth 00:03:42.990 --> 00:03:46.990 listening to. One of my new favorite podcasts 00:03:46.990 --> 00:03:50.960 is The Rest is History. New to me, not new in 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:53.960 the course of podcasts. But one of my favorite 00:03:53.960 --> 00:03:57.900 podcasts is The Rest is History. They'll do deep 00:03:57.900 --> 00:03:59.699 dives on all sorts of historical events. They 00:03:59.699 --> 00:04:03.319 actually did America in the 1960s last year leading 00:04:03.319 --> 00:04:07.479 up to the U .S. election. And it was fascinating. 00:04:08.219 --> 00:04:11.439 I could have just read the Wikipedia page on 00:04:11.439 --> 00:04:15.439 the 1960s. But what fun is that? I got to listen 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:18.600 to, I think it was a six part series. with two 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:21.660 history buffs, both British, so like that was 00:04:21.660 --> 00:04:25.500 also a really interesting perspective, talking 00:04:25.500 --> 00:04:28.519 about this and adding their personality and perspective 00:04:28.519 --> 00:04:34.180 to it. Sonar threatens to do what AI writ large 00:04:34.180 --> 00:04:38.319 threatens to do to content. Remove the personality 00:04:38.319 --> 00:04:42.899 in the service of spitting out facts. But it 00:04:42.899 --> 00:04:45.439 also highlights a much bigger problem in the 00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:50.339 content creation world. And that's that most 00:04:50.339 --> 00:04:54.560 content doesn't strike the right balance. There 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:57.959 is a reason Blinkist is popular and that Sonar 00:04:57.959 --> 00:05:03.100 might take off. Very few content creators, authors, 00:05:03.379 --> 00:05:06.779 writers, whatever, strike the right balance between 00:05:06.779 --> 00:05:10.399 facts and personality. My friend Justin Moore 00:05:10.399 --> 00:05:14.040 does this exceedingly well in his book Sponsor 00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:17.480 Magnet. The Lonely Island Seth Meyers podcast 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:21.040 and How We Made Your Mother both do this very 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:26.180 well in audio form. But most business books are 00:05:26.180 --> 00:05:30.939 fluff and most podcasts are meandering unstructured 00:05:30.939 --> 00:05:36.019 messes. This Is Strategy by Seth Godin, considered 00:05:36.019 --> 00:05:39.699 one of the greatest marketers of our time. His 00:05:39.699 --> 00:05:42.540 latest book This Is Strategy is literally just 00:05:42.540 --> 00:05:47.920 blog posts. It's just blog posts. Fake Doctors 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:51.680 Real Friends, a Scrubs Rewatch podcast, which 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:53.920 I was really excited about because Scrubs is 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:57.160 one of my favorite shows, spent little time, 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:02.160 very little time on the actual episodes. And 00:06:02.160 --> 00:06:04.199 so I stopped listening to that. Maybe it's gotten 00:06:04.199 --> 00:06:08.040 better, but I stopped listening to it. The main 00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:10.980 difference between Sponsor Magnet and Lonely 00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:14.579 Island and Seth Meyers podcast versus this is 00:06:14.579 --> 00:06:17.220 strategy and fake doctors real friends, is the 00:06:17.220 --> 00:06:20.560 former ads personality while delivering on their 00:06:20.560 --> 00:06:26.300 promise. The latter do not. So what can you do? 00:06:27.459 --> 00:06:30.399 Well, you can make content for your audience. 00:06:31.319 --> 00:06:34.019 This sounds simple, but something I've learned 00:06:34.019 --> 00:06:37.139 both from podcasting for over a decade and from 00:06:37.139 --> 00:06:40.560 coaching podcasters. is we don't do a good job 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:45.000 of defining our audience. I am convinced Seth 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:47.240 Godin could tell me that this is not true to 00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:50.439 my face, but I am still convinced Seth Godin 00:06:50.439 --> 00:06:54.180 put together this strategy as a way to monetize 00:06:54.180 --> 00:06:58.199 his blog and nothing else. Zach Braff and Donald 00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:01.420 Faison, two guys who I think are great, I love 00:07:01.420 --> 00:07:04.399 their work, but they basically treated the podcast 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:07.019 as a public way to catch up with each other and 00:07:07.019 --> 00:07:11.089 their friends. The best thing you can do is have 00:07:11.089 --> 00:07:15.310 a great answer to the question, who am I talking 00:07:15.310 --> 00:07:19.449 to? My friend Seth Silvers says that you should 00:07:19.449 --> 00:07:22.430 act as if you're talking to one person. Picture 00:07:22.430 --> 00:07:26.689 them and create content just for them. Make them 00:07:26.689 --> 00:07:33.490 a promise and deliver. So I realize I've formed 00:07:33.490 --> 00:07:36.509 this opinion by putting in very little time with 00:07:36.509 --> 00:07:40.209 Sonar. But my concerns about the direction of 00:07:40.209 --> 00:07:43.870 content creation started with AI when it began. 00:07:44.730 --> 00:07:46.649 And I'm worried that it's just kind of starting 00:07:46.649 --> 00:07:49.389 to sound generic as a whole. So perhaps it's 00:07:49.389 --> 00:07:53.009 time for me to revisit Sonar. Maybe I'll like 00:07:53.009 --> 00:07:56.870 the format. Or even better, perhaps I'll discover 00:07:56.870 --> 00:08:02.269 some more podcasts to actually listen to. That's 00:08:02.269 --> 00:08:04.350 it for this episode of Streamline Podcaster. 00:08:04.430 --> 00:08:07.339 I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you think 00:08:07.339 --> 00:08:10.740 about this or any topic, how AI is affecting 00:08:10.740 --> 00:08:15.720 content creation. You can write in over at streamlinedfeedback 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:18.920 .com. That's streamlined with a D feedback .com. 00:08:19.259 --> 00:08:22.000 Thanks so much for listening and until next time, 00:08:22.579 --> 00:08:25.180 I hope you find some space in your week.