1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:18,600 Hey everyone, Ashley here with RSS.com. 2 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:21,860 In this episode, we're chatting with Sam Sefi of Podfans. 3 00:00:21,860 --> 00:00:25,840 We're chatting all about the platform and what it can do for both podcasters and listeners 4 00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:26,840 alike. 5 00:00:26,840 --> 00:00:30,840 Enjoy the show. 6 00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:34,720 All right. 7 00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:40,840 Well, I'm just really, really stoked that you could be here and I can't wait to hear 8 00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:44,520 everything that you're about to say because I know you're an OG in the podcasting world. 9 00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:46,960 So Sam, welcome to the show. 10 00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:49,000 Thank you very much. 11 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:52,400 Can you do us a favor and tell us a little bit about what it is that you do? 12 00:00:52,400 --> 00:01:00,440 Yeah, I co-host a podcast with the original OG, James Cridland, who is on Podnews. 13 00:01:00,440 --> 00:01:05,560 He does Podnews daily and we do Podnews weekly together and we do some Podnews live events 14 00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:08,160 and various other things we do together. 15 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:13,880 And I'm also the CEO of a new podcast platform called Podfans that's launched very shortly. 16 00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:14,960 Okay. 17 00:01:14,960 --> 00:01:17,200 That's exactly what I wanted to bring you on here for. 18 00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:18,680 What is Podfans? 19 00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:23,400 Okay, so Podfans is a brand new listening app. 20 00:01:23,400 --> 00:01:26,120 I've been working with my developers. 21 00:01:26,120 --> 00:01:28,080 There's only two of us building it. 22 00:01:28,080 --> 00:01:33,800 We've been working on it for a year, day in, day out, even on Christmas day we worked. 23 00:01:33,800 --> 00:01:42,320 And fundamentally we've built a platform that we think is in design terms, you know, we've 24 00:01:42,320 --> 00:01:45,000 gone for the Apple-esque end of the design cycle. 25 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:50,120 We're not, you know, we're not Apple, but we've gone for a high end quality design. 26 00:01:50,120 --> 00:01:54,560 We've built it as a, what we call a PWA, a progressive web app. 27 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:59,040 So it's not going to be a native iOS or Android app. 28 00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:04,320 It's basically, it works on the desktop, on your iPad, on your mobile phone, and it just 29 00:02:04,320 --> 00:02:09,440 detects the size of the product and then shrinks down to it. 30 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:17,560 But the goal of what we've done is to create what's unique about it is it uses a monetization 31 00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:18,800 thing called Sats. 32 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:23,280 Now Sats are funny tokens, money, if you want to call it. 33 00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:25,520 They're based on Bitcoin. 34 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:33,760 Now before everyone goes to sleep, Bitcoin, Bitcoin is a stable currency and a micro payment 35 00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:38,440 of the Bitcoin is called a Sat or a Satoshi after the inventor. 36 00:02:38,440 --> 00:02:40,200 Now let me step back. 37 00:02:40,200 --> 00:02:48,600 So when we look at podcasting today, podcasting has got four or five challenges, right? 38 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:52,320 First of all, any podcast who starts a podcast is like, how do I monetize it? 39 00:02:52,320 --> 00:02:53,880 How do I monetize it? 40 00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:54,880 So is it advertising? 41 00:02:54,880 --> 00:02:56,360 Is it sponsorship? 42 00:02:56,360 --> 00:03:02,040 Well, sponsorship is really hard to get because economic markets changed. 43 00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:07,920 Advertising, unless you're getting 10,000 downloads, so your $25 CPM rates aren't really 44 00:03:07,920 --> 00:03:08,920 going to kick in. 45 00:03:08,920 --> 00:03:14,120 So, you know, yes, Joe Rogan's are going to be fine and your top 10% but at the bottom 46 00:03:14,120 --> 00:03:19,360 end of that, the long tail, you know, most where most podcasts are, we're not going to 47 00:03:19,360 --> 00:03:20,360 be getting 10,000. 48 00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:21,920 We might get a thousand, which is brilliant. 49 00:03:21,920 --> 00:03:24,560 We might get 5,000, which is utterly amazing. 50 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:29,560 But in terms of advertising, it won't really sustain the podcast. 51 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:36,960 So when we started PodCans and Adam Curry, inventor of podcasting, is the driver behind 52 00:03:36,960 --> 00:03:37,960 this. 53 00:03:37,960 --> 00:03:40,920 He created a model called value for value. 54 00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:48,480 And the idea was, could we create a way to monetize podcasters where the podcast creator 55 00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:54,120 sets a value and the listener either agrees with the value or doesn't. 56 00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:56,360 Now again, let me take a slight tangent. 57 00:03:56,360 --> 00:03:58,040 I'm going to take two tangents. 58 00:03:58,040 --> 00:03:59,440 Sorry, Ashley. 59 00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:06,080 First tangent is if you go into a store in London, I assume this works around the world, 60 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:10,520 but if you go to a store in London and you go to buy a jumper, the jumper is actually 61 00:04:10,520 --> 00:04:11,840 an offer price. 62 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:13,000 It's not a fixed price. 63 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:17,240 So you can go and take that off the rail, go up to the counter and say, you've said 64 00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:19,160 this is going to be $30. 65 00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:21,200 I'm going to give you $20. 66 00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:22,920 And that is legal. 67 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:24,680 That's value for value. 68 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:25,680 They set a value. 69 00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:30,320 I get a value that I agree to and they could accept my value. 70 00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:31,840 So we've done that in podcasting. 71 00:04:31,840 --> 00:04:36,240 We've created a model digitally where the creator sets their price and me as the listener 72 00:04:36,240 --> 00:04:39,280 sets my price of what I will agree to pay. 73 00:04:39,280 --> 00:04:41,200 So that's the first step. 74 00:04:41,200 --> 00:04:46,280 Now because that couldn't work with PayPal or Stripe or any of the other payment modes 75 00:04:46,280 --> 00:04:51,800 because they take 3%, 4% of the payment as a gateway provider. 76 00:04:51,800 --> 00:04:53,400 And also they don't do micro payments. 77 00:04:53,400 --> 00:04:58,780 If I just wanted to pay 50 cents or 75 cents, couldn't do it. 78 00:04:58,780 --> 00:05:02,380 So this is where micro payments, the Satoshis comes in. 79 00:05:02,380 --> 00:05:11,080 So to step back about 15 minutes of this conversation, PodFounds is a listening app that basically 80 00:05:11,080 --> 00:05:18,360 one of four things that it does differently is it is a platform where users can pay their 81 00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:25,300 favorite content creators and sustain them in micro payments. 82 00:05:25,300 --> 00:05:27,280 So it sounds like it's similar to the Fountain app. 83 00:05:27,280 --> 00:05:28,280 Is that correct? 84 00:05:28,280 --> 00:05:29,280 Yeah, me and Oscar are mates. 85 00:05:29,280 --> 00:05:32,960 He's a fellow Brit, lovely guy. 86 00:05:32,960 --> 00:05:36,160 Oscar and I have got very similar thinking. 87 00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:42,800 So probably if I went and said, look, there are five pillars to both of our products. 88 00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:49,480 I won't speak for Oscar, I'll just speak for myself, but discovery, interactivity, monetization, 89 00:05:49,480 --> 00:05:53,600 community and basically gamification. 90 00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:56,240 So we both are doing those. 91 00:05:56,240 --> 00:06:02,960 So in terms of discovery, we support this new podcast index 2.0 extension to RSS. 92 00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:05,400 This is just a set of new features. 93 00:06:05,400 --> 00:06:10,040 So we've created both of us and our tool for PodFounds, a search engine where you can type 94 00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:14,920 in the name of the podcast, which is what most podcasts or apps will do, Apple or Spotify. 95 00:06:14,920 --> 00:06:20,360 But now you can also search for person, location, country, keyword, category, right? 96 00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:23,420 So a clever way to discover podcasts. 97 00:06:23,420 --> 00:06:29,360 Step one, interactivity is the ability to, Hey, have you ever wanted to go to the podcast 98 00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:30,360 you're listening to? 99 00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:33,880 You know, actually I disagree with what you're saying there or I love what you just said 100 00:06:33,880 --> 00:06:35,500 at that moment, right? 101 00:06:35,500 --> 00:06:36,500 And leave a comment. 102 00:06:36,500 --> 00:06:41,440 Now that's common on YouTube, but you try that on Apple and Spotify, it doesn't really 103 00:06:41,440 --> 00:06:42,440 work. 104 00:06:42,440 --> 00:06:46,200 So in the podcasting 2.0 namespace, we've created these things. 105 00:06:46,200 --> 00:06:50,080 They're called boosts, they're comments with a micro payment. 106 00:06:50,080 --> 00:06:51,680 That's what a boost is. 107 00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:54,680 So I might say, Ashley, I loved what you said at minute 44. 108 00:06:54,680 --> 00:06:56,160 And I'll go, you know what? 109 00:06:56,160 --> 00:06:57,640 I'm going to reward you for what you said. 110 00:06:57,640 --> 00:06:59,160 I'm going to give you a hundred sats now. 111 00:06:59,160 --> 00:07:02,360 A hundred sats is 0.0001 cents. 112 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:03,440 It's nothing. 113 00:07:03,440 --> 00:07:05,200 It's micro of micro. 114 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:07,760 And that's the idea behind micro payments. 115 00:07:07,760 --> 00:07:11,880 Now you think about it 20 years ago, right? 116 00:07:11,880 --> 00:07:12,880 I'm going to stick you back. 117 00:07:12,880 --> 00:07:13,880 Sorry. 118 00:07:13,880 --> 00:07:16,800 I'm, this is all over the place, but there is a reason, right? 119 00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:20,160 So I was a Netscape product marketing manager for the original browser. 120 00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:25,840 And one of the things that Mark Andreessen, my boss, uh, is always wanted to do or did 121 00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:28,280 want to do was create a micro payment system. 122 00:07:28,280 --> 00:07:29,760 He couldn't do it. 123 00:07:29,760 --> 00:07:36,240 Um, and the result of that was that in order for social media blogging or any other digital 124 00:07:36,240 --> 00:07:41,800 content, we got hearts and likes and all those sorts of things as sentiment analysis. 125 00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:43,840 Hey, I really loved your blog post heart. 126 00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:47,520 I really thought that post you wrote meeting was great clap, right? 127 00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:49,560 Or tweet, you know, heart. 128 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:52,280 All of that was a sentiment, but there was no money. 129 00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:56,680 So you couldn't, you could write all your life, film all you like, but, and take a million 130 00:07:56,680 --> 00:08:01,400 hearts to the bank manager and the bank manager goes, so what actually that makes no sense. 131 00:08:01,400 --> 00:08:02,640 I can't pay you. 132 00:08:02,640 --> 00:08:03,640 Right. 133 00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:08,360 So then we had advertising as a way of monetizing and look, no one wants advertising. 134 00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:09,360 Right. 135 00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:10,360 We really don't want it. 136 00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:12,240 We do it as a dirty thing. 137 00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:17,080 We do because it has to pay for what we want to really do, which is our podcast. 138 00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:23,320 Um, so we accept advertising and often advertising is intrusive or it's non related. 139 00:08:23,320 --> 00:08:26,560 So it's not contexted to the podcast content. 140 00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:33,240 So advertising is not a great model either, but that's what we had before micro payments. 141 00:08:33,240 --> 00:08:37,680 So discovery interactivity with boosts monetization. 142 00:08:37,680 --> 00:08:43,160 We've talked about gamification is another thing that's coming to podcasting is the idea 143 00:08:43,160 --> 00:08:48,520 of going, Hey Ashley, are you the number one fan of X podcast? 144 00:08:48,520 --> 00:08:49,520 How do we know? 145 00:08:49,520 --> 00:08:51,520 Well, Sam might be the number one fan. 146 00:08:51,520 --> 00:08:53,720 Well, you were the first to discover it. 147 00:08:53,720 --> 00:08:55,880 You played it longer than Sam. 148 00:08:55,880 --> 00:08:57,480 You shared it with more friends. 149 00:08:57,480 --> 00:08:58,720 You left three comments. 150 00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:00,480 You left two boosts. 151 00:09:00,480 --> 00:09:02,360 You liked it, blah, blah, blah. 152 00:09:02,360 --> 00:09:07,720 So you've earned points for all of those activities and that shows you are higher ranked than 153 00:09:07,720 --> 00:09:08,720 I am. 154 00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:14,400 Suddenly you can create badges like discovery badges or Ashley is the super fan, whatever. 155 00:09:14,400 --> 00:09:19,720 And then of course rewards come to super fans and the way the rewards come are in pod fans 156 00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:20,900 for certain me. 157 00:09:20,900 --> 00:09:27,120 If you're the super fan of a podcast, you get a split payment of the money that the 158 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:28,500 podcast is getting. 159 00:09:28,500 --> 00:09:32,880 So the podcast might get a thousand sats and you're the super fan. 160 00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:36,100 You get 1% of those sats. 161 00:09:36,100 --> 00:09:41,480 So your activity, your time, yet has value. 162 00:09:41,480 --> 00:09:47,320 So discovery, interactivity, gamification, monetization and community and the community 163 00:09:47,320 --> 00:09:52,560 part last part is we've built a complete social network inside a pod fan so you can follow 164 00:09:52,560 --> 00:09:53,560 friends. 165 00:09:53,560 --> 00:09:54,560 You can create playlists. 166 00:09:54,560 --> 00:09:55,920 You can share playlists. 167 00:09:55,920 --> 00:09:57,600 You can communicate. 168 00:09:57,600 --> 00:10:02,440 We've got this feature called co-listening, which is really, really cool. 169 00:10:02,440 --> 00:10:06,360 So let's say you and I were listening to another podcast. 170 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:10,080 I go onto your profile and I go, wonder what Ashley is listening to right now? 171 00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:13,040 And it says Ashley's listening to this podcast. 172 00:10:13,040 --> 00:10:17,920 I click a button next to it and I jump in exactly at the same moment and time that you're 173 00:10:17,920 --> 00:10:22,000 listening and you see my face appear in your profile. 174 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:24,480 You now know that I'm listening with you. 175 00:10:24,480 --> 00:10:27,760 So they might make a comment, Hey Sam, what did you think of that? 176 00:10:27,760 --> 00:10:33,360 And we can have a conversation about the podcast as we're listening together without having 177 00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:34,880 it to be live and all that. 178 00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:38,800 There's lots and lots of cool tools that are coming to podcasting to make it much more 179 00:10:38,800 --> 00:10:47,080 I guess, interactive, rewarding and yeah, those sorts of things. 180 00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:48,320 I think that's really cool. 181 00:10:48,320 --> 00:10:54,020 Everything that you said, because I mean, you're basically not just monetizing engagement, 182 00:10:54,020 --> 00:10:58,560 but encouraging people to actually connect over their favorite podcasts. 183 00:10:58,560 --> 00:10:59,560 Yes. 184 00:10:59,560 --> 00:11:03,520 I mean, it's called Podfans for a reason. 185 00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:09,480 It was based on Kevin Kelly's seminal blog called 1000 True Fans. 186 00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:11,560 I don't know if you've ever read it. 187 00:11:11,560 --> 00:11:16,960 And I highly recommend everyone who's watching or listening to this to do so, because what 188 00:11:16,960 --> 00:11:23,620 Kevin Kelly wrote was instead of chasing a million likes or a million people, just focus 189 00:11:23,620 --> 00:11:29,680 on your community, find your 100 or 1000 True Fans, get them to pay you something for the 190 00:11:29,680 --> 00:11:31,640 content you create. 191 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:36,320 And therefore you will have a sustainable podcast or a sustainable business. 192 00:11:36,320 --> 00:11:42,040 So imagine if you had a podcast where each one of your fans paid you 10 pounds a month 193 00:11:42,040 --> 00:11:46,880 and you had a thousand fans over the year, that's a hundred thousand dollar business. 194 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:47,880 Boom. 195 00:11:47,880 --> 00:11:48,880 That's great. 196 00:11:48,880 --> 00:11:50,500 That's brilliant. 197 00:11:50,500 --> 00:11:57,320 So that's the basis of what Fountain, what Podverse, what Podfriend, what Podfans are 198 00:11:57,320 --> 00:11:58,320 doing. 199 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:06,000 What the podcasting 2.0 apps are doing is we're trying to make it so that people reward 200 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:10,600 content creators with real money and not just likes and hearts. 201 00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:13,160 And therefore they have a sustainable podcast. 202 00:12:13,160 --> 00:12:14,160 Yeah. 203 00:12:14,160 --> 00:12:18,440 I heard about the book that you referenced by way of Pat Flynn's Superfans. 204 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:19,440 Yes. 205 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:24,080 That's kind of where I first was introduced to the idea of, okay, if you get $10 a month 206 00:12:24,080 --> 00:12:28,480 and you have a, from 1000 fans, you have a six figure business. 207 00:12:28,480 --> 00:12:33,520 And I think it's fascinating because yes, we all want to monetize our efforts and things 208 00:12:33,520 --> 00:12:37,160 like that, especially since podcasting is a lot of work. 209 00:12:37,160 --> 00:12:40,280 But at the same time, we're all craving that community. 210 00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:45,640 And it sounds like what you're building is a way to have the community built around something 211 00:12:45,640 --> 00:12:47,920 that we're already passionate about, which is our podcast. 212 00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:48,920 Yes. 213 00:12:48,920 --> 00:12:54,360 And I think again, going back to that interactivity, having that feedback loop for your fans, being 214 00:12:54,360 --> 00:12:55,760 able to message them. 215 00:12:55,760 --> 00:12:57,280 So it's not a one way communication. 216 00:12:57,280 --> 00:13:00,080 So, Hey, Oh, Ashley's just sent me a boost. 217 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:01,080 Great. 218 00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:03,040 Well, what about me sending something back to Ashley? 219 00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:04,040 Right. 220 00:13:04,040 --> 00:13:08,920 How do we, you know, that that's what we're craving because as you said, podcasting is 221 00:13:08,920 --> 00:13:13,800 a very lonely sometimes, especially if you're a solo podcaster. 222 00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:19,240 I used to have a podcast called Sam Talks Technology where I interviewed industry leaders, 223 00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:21,120 but that was a solo podcast. 224 00:13:21,120 --> 00:13:24,480 And sometimes that is a really lonely place to do it. 225 00:13:24,480 --> 00:13:28,200 With James and I bouncing off each other, it makes it a lot easier to do. 226 00:13:28,200 --> 00:13:29,200 Yeah. 227 00:13:29,200 --> 00:13:32,400 It's a lot less of a grind that way too. 228 00:13:32,400 --> 00:13:33,400 Yeah, exactly. 229 00:13:33,400 --> 00:13:39,800 But, but being able to communicate with your community, the people who are your true fans, 230 00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:42,360 that also is a real bonus. 231 00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:44,360 Absolutely. 232 00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:47,200 And one of the things that you mentioned, the co-listening, I like the idea of that 233 00:13:47,200 --> 00:13:51,200 because it kind of reminds me of the Facebook watch parties where you could like interact 234 00:13:51,200 --> 00:13:54,920 and watch things with your fellow, you know, Facebookers. 235 00:13:54,920 --> 00:14:01,360 But the idea of doing it in a space that's not connected to social media, it sounds really 236 00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:05,280 appealing because, you know, right now, one of the big things that's happening with all 237 00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:08,800 aspects of social media is we're starting to all feel like, like you mentioned, you 238 00:14:08,800 --> 00:14:10,480 know, advertising is very disruptive. 239 00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:14,480 It's feeling like everything's intruding on what we're trying to get, the messages we're 240 00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:15,800 trying to learn. 241 00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:20,760 And so if we're not in a space where while we're hearing our favorite podcast or talk, 242 00:14:20,760 --> 00:14:24,520 now we're getting an ad for, you know, whatever it is they mentioned or whatever it is we 243 00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:30,720 liked, I think that's kind of neat that we're, we're kind of almost bringing it back to 244 00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:36,800 the pay to, to, to see your favorite people, but also you could just show up and hang out. 245 00:14:36,800 --> 00:14:38,600 And that just sounds really exciting. 246 00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:39,600 Yeah. 247 00:14:39,600 --> 00:14:43,200 You know, the one thing I'd say is look, we pay for music. 248 00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:45,840 Look, I'm old enough to remember Naps, right? 249 00:14:45,840 --> 00:14:51,160 Peer to Peer music, where we, where we shared music and tried to bootleg music because we 250 00:14:51,160 --> 00:14:52,880 couldn't afford to buy it, right? 251 00:14:52,880 --> 00:15:00,720 It was pre Spotify and, and that whole model was driven by people wanting to have music 252 00:15:00,720 --> 00:15:03,840 and willing to pay a little bit to get it. 253 00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:08,800 And when Spotify came along and said, look, just pay 9.99, you can have everything, right? 254 00:15:08,800 --> 00:15:12,240 You know, it's like the Chinese buffet pay, you know, 9.99 eat all you like, all listen 255 00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:13,240 to what you want. 256 00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:14,240 We all went great. 257 00:15:14,240 --> 00:15:15,360 And that was job done. 258 00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:19,160 And we didn't bootleg music the same way with audio books. 259 00:15:19,160 --> 00:15:20,240 We're now used to doing it. 260 00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:24,440 We all have a Netflix account, a Disney account, an Apple account, a prime account. 261 00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:28,680 I mean, we, we subscription to death, right? 262 00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:34,000 And that whole thing now is going full circle to the next stage where people are saying, 263 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:37,040 look, I just want to pay per minute for content I consume. 264 00:15:37,040 --> 00:15:40,240 So I don't want to pay for the whole of the track music track. 265 00:15:40,240 --> 00:15:41,520 I don't want to pay the whole of the video. 266 00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:43,760 I don't want to pay for the whole of a podcast. 267 00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:46,320 I want to pay for the bit that I consume. 268 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:48,880 So in podcasting, for example, you might look at chapters. 269 00:15:48,880 --> 00:15:53,200 You might scan down the chapter and go, Oh, there's a chapter about pod fans. 270 00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:55,200 Oh, I want to listen to that. 271 00:15:55,200 --> 00:15:58,920 Then no, if I want to listen to the rest of this, you just listen to that one segment 272 00:15:58,920 --> 00:16:05,880 and you only pay for it as opposed to pay in advance for the whole podcast or whatever. 273 00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:08,720 So yeah, I think we're moving to a new model. 274 00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:13,520 It's going to take time for people to grasp it, but value for value per minute payment 275 00:16:13,520 --> 00:16:18,760 using digital micro payments is the next wave of the web. 276 00:16:18,760 --> 00:16:21,480 Yeah, it definitely sounds like it. 277 00:16:21,480 --> 00:16:26,520 And it sounds like it's, um, even though people might at first blush, be like nervous about 278 00:16:26,520 --> 00:16:33,240 it, like I feel like it's giving back control to both the podcaster and the listener because 279 00:16:33,240 --> 00:16:37,640 now instead of, like you said, an ad that I have no choice but to listen to, or maybe 280 00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:39,600 skip ahead 30 seconds. 281 00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:44,080 Instead, I can just listen to what I came here for and enjoy the message. 282 00:16:44,080 --> 00:16:47,280 And if I do like it, then maybe tip my host. 283 00:16:47,280 --> 00:16:48,280 Yeah. 284 00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:54,520 And I think, I think what you've got to also remember is, um, you know, um, with, with 285 00:16:54,520 --> 00:16:59,760 podcasting again, you know, we get dynamic ad insertion and most people, this is the 286 00:16:59,760 --> 00:17:04,120 dirty secret of podcasting that people don't like to talk about, but it's true. 287 00:17:04,120 --> 00:17:06,320 You know, I'll say it. 288 00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:08,000 I skipped forward all the ads. 289 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:09,600 I don't listen to them. 290 00:17:09,600 --> 00:17:13,120 I stopped before the end because I don't want to hear the end. 291 00:17:13,120 --> 00:17:17,880 I really don't listen to the preamble if they're boring, you know, telling, telling me about 292 00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:19,520 what they did with their cat this week. 293 00:17:19,520 --> 00:17:20,520 I don't really care. 294 00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:23,440 I only want to listen to the meat of the podcast that I will listen to. 295 00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:25,200 And that's all that I should do. 296 00:17:25,200 --> 00:17:32,720 Yeah, paying for podcasts is very wrong right now it feels right because we get it for free, 297 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:33,720 right? 298 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:34,720 We get it. 299 00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:39,520 Um, but if you don't pay for your favorite creators and they're not getting the money 300 00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:42,560 from advertising and let's be honest, subscription doesn't work. 301 00:17:42,560 --> 00:17:46,440 Apple pushing subscriptions really hard and they don't really work properly. 302 00:17:46,440 --> 00:17:49,120 If I said to you, how many subscription podcasts do you have? 303 00:17:49,120 --> 00:17:53,320 How many have you got? 304 00:17:53,320 --> 00:17:55,720 I had one for a minute. 305 00:17:55,720 --> 00:17:58,320 I had one for about three months and then I canceled it. 306 00:17:58,320 --> 00:18:02,960 You don't feel like you want to do that because you go, well, why am I paying for this Athena? 307 00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:06,160 But if you could then say, look, I'm going to pay you. 308 00:18:06,160 --> 00:18:10,760 So an hour's podcast might cost you 6,000 sats, right? 309 00:18:10,760 --> 00:18:16,720 If you were paying a hundred sats per minute, that 6,000 sats is probably less than 50 cents. 310 00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:22,600 I mean, if you can't pay your favorite podcast of 50 cents to support them, keep them going, 311 00:18:22,600 --> 00:18:27,240 then you probably will find they'll end up doing what we call pod fade and just disappearing 312 00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:29,640 because they'll get bored and not making money. 313 00:18:29,640 --> 00:18:30,640 And then you'll go off. 314 00:18:30,640 --> 00:18:31,640 I really like that podcast. 315 00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:32,640 Why did they go? 316 00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:35,640 Well, because no one paid them. 317 00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:36,640 Yeah. 318 00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:39,920 And that's one of the most depressing things in the world is pod fading. 319 00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:40,920 Yeah. 320 00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:46,800 And so look, I'm not saying that we're going to have this new world of digital wallets 321 00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:49,080 and all the micro payments. 322 00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:55,360 And I know rss.com support digital wallets and all big, I'm just as we do it pop that, 323 00:18:55,360 --> 00:18:58,200 but people have to get used to this vocab ring. 324 00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:01,280 And one quick story for there for Ashley. 325 00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:06,880 As I said, I was at Netscape when the browser was first in, in brought to mass market, right? 326 00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:09,680 And I remember going to talk to people. 327 00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:11,300 It's called a browser Ashley. 328 00:19:11,300 --> 00:19:13,080 It's on TCP IP. 329 00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:15,200 That starts with HTTP. 330 00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:20,840 Take with me Ashley colon forward slash forward slash www dot something something.com. 331 00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:24,800 No, there's no search engine yet, but you'll be fine. 332 00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:29,280 Now, if you imagine those days of trying to explain what a browser was and what the web 333 00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:34,520 was and how to find your way around it, it was sounded like me talking Swahili. 334 00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:37,760 We're in exactly that same cycle. 335 00:19:37,760 --> 00:19:39,440 I tell you, it's a micro payment. 336 00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:41,000 I tell you it's called Satoshi's. 337 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:44,560 I tell you there's a digital wallet and you can pay per minute. 338 00:19:44,560 --> 00:19:49,480 And you're looking at me, oh, I don't know what's the deal is ever going to catch on, 339 00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:50,880 but it will. 340 00:19:50,880 --> 00:19:52,520 And that's my belief. 341 00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:57,320 So yes, that's what we built pod fans around. 342 00:19:57,320 --> 00:19:58,320 I hope it does. 343 00:19:58,320 --> 00:20:01,240 But what you were describing kind of reminded me, I don't know if you've seen the viral 344 00:20:01,240 --> 00:20:07,080 clip of newscasters that were trying to explain what email was, you know, back when it was 345 00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:10,560 first becoming a thing and it was very amusing off to send you that video. 346 00:20:10,560 --> 00:20:16,520 Oh, please do because before Netscape, I was a systems engineer at Microsoft and I was 347 00:20:16,520 --> 00:20:21,520 there when we first used to demo Windows for work groups, it was called. 348 00:20:21,520 --> 00:20:27,400 And it was a Ethernet connected local and area network mail system that Microsoft had 349 00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:29,000 for exchange. 350 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:36,400 And I just remember this room of senior execs looking at me and I'd get an Excel spreadsheet 351 00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:43,880 and I'd create a table and I create a chart in Excel, then I'd do drag and drop into Word 352 00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:47,240 and they want to cut and paste into one. 353 00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:48,920 And then I go, it's dynamic. 354 00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:52,600 And then I go back to the Excel spreadsheet and I change a number and the chart would 355 00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:54,520 change in Word. 356 00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:55,520 It was amazing. 357 00:20:55,520 --> 00:20:57,640 And then I go, don't you worry. 358 00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:00,160 Now I'm going to me email it to my colleagues. 359 00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:04,800 I mean, you forget sometimes how crazy. 360 00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:11,520 So many 20 years ago that we, we, we had that world where, you know, just taking an image 361 00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:16,720 or creating a chart and putting it into a document and emailing it to a group of people 362 00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:19,000 was the bleeding edge of computing. 363 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:20,000 Yeah. 364 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:24,600 I can't even imagine where we're going to be in the next 20, 30 years. 365 00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:27,640 I mean, just as far as we've come just in the last 30. 366 00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:33,100 I mean, I remember back in, in high school, first finding out about dial up, like, can 367 00:21:33,100 --> 00:21:35,320 you get off the phone so I can get on the internet? 368 00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:39,600 Like that's just so wild that nowadays we don't even think about it. 369 00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:43,600 So I'm sure that, you know, if, if this does continue to be a thing, which it sounds like 370 00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:49,760 it will be, people are going to start to get used to it and it'll just become second nature 371 00:21:49,760 --> 00:21:51,680 just like everything else that we're currently enjoying. 372 00:21:51,680 --> 00:21:52,680 Exactly. 373 00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:58,320 I mean, I mean, if I wanted to send you an email, I just say, Ashley, what's your email 374 00:21:58,320 --> 00:21:59,320 address? 375 00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:00,800 And you go, oh, it's this, this and this. 376 00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:01,800 Right. 377 00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:03,560 So you think, don't think twice about it. 378 00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:04,560 Right. 379 00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:05,560 And then I don't think twice. 380 00:22:05,560 --> 00:22:09,960 I go to my email client, I type in that, whatever you gave me address, type my words and I click 381 00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,800 send and it magically appears in your inbox. 382 00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:17,200 Now nobody needs to know that I went through an IMAP4 or a POP3 server or blah, blah, blah 383 00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:18,400 and how it got to you. 384 00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:19,400 Right. 385 00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:20,400 No one cares. 386 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:25,080 Well, your, your wallet address is like your email address. 387 00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:27,080 Mine is sam at getalby.com. 388 00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:32,960 But I could change that to be samsethi at me.com, which is my email address. 389 00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:33,960 Right. 390 00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:39,280 And then instead of an email client that you would go to, you'd go to your digital wallet 391 00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:42,720 on your laptop and you go, right, I want to send Ashley 10,000 sat. 392 00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:43,720 Right. 393 00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:45,200 Ashley, what was your wallet address? 394 00:22:45,200 --> 00:22:47,440 And you go, it's Ashley at getalby.com. 395 00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:48,440 Great. 396 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:49,440 Thanks Ashley. 397 00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:53,440 I just typed that in 10,000 sat, click send and boom, instantly that would appear in your 398 00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:59,200 wallet, peer to peer, not through a bank, not through a third party gateway directly 399 00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:00,200 to your wallet. 400 00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:06,040 And once people get that and understand how that works, that is the magic that will happen. 401 00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:11,080 And then that will slowly evolve into, well, what else can I do with my magic wallet now? 402 00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:12,880 Well, I can listen to content. 403 00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:14,840 I can give sentiment feedback. 404 00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:16,400 I can do all sorts of things with it. 405 00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:17,400 Yeah. 406 00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:22,680 It's going to take time for it to catch on, but when it does, it'll go fast. 407 00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:23,680 Yeah. 408 00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:27,920 At the same time though, it doesn't sound like we're taking away the idea of a free podcast 409 00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:28,920 listen experience. 410 00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:29,920 Okay. 411 00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:34,600 It sounds like instead we're just enhancing the ability to give back to the people you're 412 00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:35,600 listening to. 413 00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:36,600 Is that right? 414 00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:37,600 Correct. 415 00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:41,520 So value for value, as I said, so I, as a podcast creator say, I want you, I want you 416 00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:44,840 actually to pay me a hundred sat per minute. 417 00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:46,360 And you go, nah, you know what? 418 00:23:46,360 --> 00:23:47,360 Zero. 419 00:23:47,360 --> 00:23:48,360 I'm paying you nothing. 420 00:23:48,360 --> 00:23:49,640 I'm just taking this as normal for free. 421 00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:50,640 Right. 422 00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:51,640 And you can do that. 423 00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:56,240 You're just setting your value of zero on the content creator. 424 00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:59,120 Now that's, that's what you can do and that's fine. 425 00:23:59,120 --> 00:24:03,440 And probably if it's a brand new podcast, you've never heard, you probably will set 426 00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:04,440 it to zero. 427 00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:06,720 You'll probably say, I'll give it a little bit of a listen. 428 00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:08,120 They're not bad actually. 429 00:24:08,120 --> 00:24:09,560 I quite like this one. 430 00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:13,280 Then you might say the next time an episode drops, I'll give them 10 sats per minute, 431 00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:14,280 not a hundred that they want. 432 00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:15,760 And maybe the next time it's 50 sats. 433 00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:17,720 And eventually you might go, you know what? 434 00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:18,720 I'll give them what they say. 435 00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:21,200 It's a really cool podcast. 436 00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:23,120 So it takes time. 437 00:24:23,120 --> 00:24:26,500 It takes trust, but yeah, you can set the value to zero. 438 00:24:26,500 --> 00:24:28,500 You don't have to pay. 439 00:24:28,500 --> 00:24:30,460 Cool. 440 00:24:30,460 --> 00:24:31,460 That's good to know. 441 00:24:31,460 --> 00:24:35,080 Cause that's obviously going to be the one thing that's going to scare people is, oh, 442 00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:36,720 well, everything's paywalled now. 443 00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:38,720 I'm just going to go listen to the guy that's free. 444 00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:39,720 Yeah, exactly. 445 00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:41,920 No, no, you don't have to pay. 446 00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:47,680 It's a, it's an opt in model rather than an opt out model. 447 00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:48,680 I love that. 448 00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:53,680 But again, it makes it feel like you're having more control over the transactional experience. 449 00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:54,940 So I like that a lot. 450 00:24:54,940 --> 00:24:58,040 So when, when do you anticipate that pod fans is going to roll out? 451 00:24:58,040 --> 00:24:59,040 Like, is it in alpha? 452 00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:00,680 Is it going to be in beta soon? 453 00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:01,680 Like what's going on with that? 454 00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:02,680 It's in alpha right now. 455 00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:03,680 We've got a wait list. 456 00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:10,620 It's a very long wait list at the moment because we are in bug crushing moments. 457 00:25:10,620 --> 00:25:15,360 So what we're doing right now is bringing on three or four people a week, getting them 458 00:25:15,360 --> 00:25:20,800 to play with it, say all common known, you know, really hammer this, see what it does. 459 00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:22,440 And so far so good. 460 00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:29,120 We've found a couple of minor UI, more UI features that people go, didn't expect that 461 00:25:29,120 --> 00:25:30,120 button to do that. 462 00:25:30,120 --> 00:25:34,880 Or I thought that would do X or Y rather than that didn't work. 463 00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:36,860 And you know, is a proper bug. 464 00:25:36,860 --> 00:25:40,000 So we're making just some minor, minor changes. 465 00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:45,080 I mean, what, what happened to the pod fans is when you come on, you come on. 466 00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:49,120 Now you might have an RSS.com wallet from Alby. 467 00:25:49,120 --> 00:25:50,440 You might not. 468 00:25:50,440 --> 00:25:55,880 So you come on, you put your name in, you've got an invite code at the moment, but we'll 469 00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,200 remove that eventually when we're in the beta. 470 00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:04,520 So you put your name in, you say what currency you want your default currency to be. 471 00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:06,920 So dollars in your case, Ashley. 472 00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,480 And then you say connect my wallet or give me a wallet. 473 00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:11,480 Right. 474 00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:15,120 Well, either you either have a wallet and you want to use your current wallet or you 475 00:26:15,120 --> 00:26:16,120 say, I don't have a wallet. 476 00:26:16,120 --> 00:26:17,120 Give me a new wallet. 477 00:26:17,120 --> 00:26:18,120 Right. 478 00:26:18,120 --> 00:26:22,360 And it will create a wallet for you in our onboarding process. 479 00:26:22,360 --> 00:26:24,200 I talked about gamification. 480 00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,040 So what we've done is we've gamified the onboarding. 481 00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:33,640 So you put in your basic details, you connect your wallet and suddenly we've given you 200 482 00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:34,640 stats. 483 00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:35,640 Well, what was that for? 484 00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,200 Well, for joining and for connecting your wallet. 485 00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:42,040 The next thing is you can connect your Twitter account, your social account. 486 00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:43,040 Great. 487 00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:44,280 We'll give me another hundred sats. 488 00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:45,280 Oh, this is nice. 489 00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:48,400 I'm earning some money from just my activity. 490 00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:55,040 Now each of your Twitter followers, people that you follow, um, might have a number against 491 00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:56,040 it. 492 00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:57,040 I need the number of people they follow. 493 00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:02,600 We will, if you invite any of your Twitter friends, we will give you the exact number 494 00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:03,600 of their followers. 495 00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:07,560 So if you've got a friend, he's got 300 followers and you invite them and they join, we'll give 496 00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:08,560 you 300 sats. 497 00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:09,560 So it was a bit of fun. 498 00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:13,680 Again, just all your friends have values so that you can gamify bringing your friends 499 00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:15,040 up as well. 500 00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:20,360 And then when you go and start to play your first podcast, then, you know, the money then 501 00:27:20,360 --> 00:27:21,680 goes flows the other way. 502 00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:25,400 You then pay if you want to, or you set the value to zero. 503 00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:29,160 Then you can boost, you can clip things, you can share back. 504 00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:33,000 And eventually you understand that the model is gamified. 505 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:39,120 So sometimes we're paying you because of activity and sometimes you're paying a creator because 506 00:27:39,120 --> 00:27:41,360 that's what you want to do. 507 00:27:41,360 --> 00:27:45,940 If you create a playlist, for example, in pod fans and someone plays your playlist, 508 00:27:45,940 --> 00:27:49,560 you get paid because you were a creator of that playlist. 509 00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:56,120 So suddenly your time and your attention for everything you do on pod fans has value and 510 00:27:56,120 --> 00:27:58,440 that's why we gamify the system. 511 00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:02,320 So yeah, so you get given a wallet, you get given 10,000 sats by the time you finished 512 00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:06,880 your onboarding and you've got some funny money in a wallet you can start to play with 513 00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:08,560 see how this system works. 514 00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:09,920 It's pretty safe. 515 00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:11,880 That's good. 516 00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,840 That's actually what I was going to ask you is how's the security and safety of it? 517 00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:16,840 Yeah. 518 00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:20,520 I mean, first and foremost, you're not having to get a credit card out. 519 00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:24,100 You're not having to make any personal purchase. 520 00:28:24,100 --> 00:28:32,400 So we're giving you satoshis as part of your onboarding gamification profile. 521 00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:33,400 So great. 522 00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:38,480 So if you get 10,000 sats, you listen to three or four podcasts and you go, nah, this is 523 00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:39,480 not for me. 524 00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:40,480 I don't like it. 525 00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:41,480 You've lost nothing. 526 00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:42,480 We've lost nothing. 527 00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:44,080 Safety job done. 528 00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:49,040 If you then decide I really like it, yeah, you have to then top up your wallet. 529 00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:51,400 And the only way to top up your wallet is two ways. 530 00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,420 One is to be more active in the podcast platform. 531 00:28:54,420 --> 00:29:01,640 So earn money from your activity, sharing, commenting, clipping, or you can go to a third 532 00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:03,960 party bank called Moonpay. 533 00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:05,640 It's an accredited bank. 534 00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:11,960 It's a partner of Alby's where you can put in your Apple pay or your Google pay or your 535 00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:19,200 credit card and you can put in 10 pounds or $10, you know, in 10, $10 will give you probably 536 00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:21,520 300,000 sats, right? 537 00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,920 There's quite a lot of money suddenly that you can pay with. 538 00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:32,440 And so the idea eventually is that you will trust the system that you're helping support 539 00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:33,440 your favorite podcasters. 540 00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,760 You're earning some money as well. 541 00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:38,920 It's a bit of fun while you're doing podcasting. 542 00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:42,600 And at the same time, when you do need to top up your wallet, it's through a secure 543 00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,720 bank is not through me or some third party. 544 00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:48,840 And so that's quite nice. 545 00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:52,040 It reminds me of the early days of Amazon. 546 00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:58,640 When Amazon first came out and people go onto amazon.com, they put things in their basket 547 00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:00,760 and then they wouldn't put their credit card. 548 00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:02,480 So then they'd rig up a call center. 549 00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:04,200 Hi, yeah, it's Sam. 550 00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:05,200 Yeah, I've got basket. 551 00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:06,200 Yeah, it's full. 552 00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:07,200 Yeah. 553 00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:08,200 50, 50 quid. 554 00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:09,200 Right. 555 00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:10,200 Okay. 556 00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:11,200 Here's my credit card number. 557 00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,120 And you'd read it out to them because you didn't trust them. 558 00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:14,120 Right. 559 00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:18,200 And then eventually you go actually prime and it was called one click and you went, 560 00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,400 okay, I'm going to put my credit card in one click. 561 00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:22,400 Oh, that worked. 562 00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:24,360 I've done this three times now. 563 00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,360 They've not taken any other money out from my credit card. 564 00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:28,360 Feels good. 565 00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:29,360 Okay. 566 00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:30,360 I will now trust them. 567 00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:31,600 And now no one thinks of it. 568 00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:35,240 You know, it's just put your credit card into into Amazon. 569 00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:38,120 You get your prime account and guess what? 570 00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:39,120 Click a button. 571 00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:41,720 Next day, the thing arrives in that same way. 572 00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:46,680 We will get people to realize your wallet is very secure and very safe. 573 00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:54,920 It's your wallet and you can top it up either through activity or through credit card payment. 574 00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:55,920 That's awesome. 575 00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,200 To know that it's secure is probably going to help people feel a lot better about it. 576 00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:04,480 So with the pod fans, do you anticipate that this will be a really good way for people 577 00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:08,200 to promote their show to kind of increase the number of downloads that they're getting 578 00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,640 or do downloads even matter anymore at this point? 579 00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:12,960 Downloads as a metric doesn't matter. 580 00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:17,400 We've created a brand new set of metrics with a company called Bumper. 581 00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:25,400 Bumper is Jonas Voest and a couple of the other guys who've come out of Pacific content. 582 00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:29,000 So a really good analytics company in Canada. 583 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:34,880 And what we do is because we have a pay per minute model and even if you're not paying, 584 00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:36,440 we're tracking you per minute. 585 00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:38,760 So we know how long you've listened to a podcast. 586 00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:44,280 Let's say there's a 30 minute podcast and we know you've listened to 20 minutes. 587 00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:51,680 So we will show you 20 minutes, a percent of that as a percentage completed and the 588 00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,800 amount of sats you've paid if you have paid any. 589 00:31:54,800 --> 00:32:01,160 So those three metrics together, which are, you know, time, percentage completed and the 590 00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:07,520 value paid are much, much, much more powerful than, Oh, I just downloaded it. 591 00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:12,080 Because you know what, if you've got Apple and it's set to auto download, you've never 592 00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:13,120 heard of it. 593 00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:17,320 But the podcaster runs to the advertisers, Oh, 10,000 downloads. 594 00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:18,800 How many people listen to it? 595 00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:19,800 Nobody. 596 00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:20,800 I don't know. 597 00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:21,800 I have no idea. 598 00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:25,040 And then, you know, that ad, and I was telling you the dirty secret of podcasts, you know, 599 00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:29,000 that ad that's third into your podcast and no one listened to it. 600 00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:30,000 Because guess what? 601 00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:34,200 They downloaded and listened to 10 minutes, but that ad was a 25 minutes. 602 00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:39,080 Well now, so downloads are a rubbish, rubbish metric. 603 00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:48,200 What time listened, percent completed and value paid gives you a much stronger. 604 00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:51,440 So yes, I listened to 60 minutes of your podcast. 605 00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:52,440 Great. 606 00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:56,920 I know how far you got and 60 minutes is 80% of your podcast. 607 00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:57,920 Great. 608 00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:02,120 So 80% of my podcast you listen to and you paid me 4,000 sats. 609 00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:03,600 Amazing. 610 00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:04,600 That's real value. 611 00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:09,160 And that's how the metrics, the next generation of metrics are coming along. 612 00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:11,160 So yeah, that's what we do. 613 00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:16,640 Yeah, it definitely sounds like doing that, like looking at those metrics shows, yeah, 614 00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:21,580 okay, I may not have a lot of downloads, but I have engaged loyal fans that really care 615 00:33:21,580 --> 00:33:22,960 about what I say. 616 00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:27,360 And you know how much they paid or how long they listened or how much they completed. 617 00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:29,040 Those are the much more valuable. 618 00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:34,000 And as an advertiser, that third ad, they can go, hey, Ashley, you know that ad that 619 00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,960 was in your podcast that we dynamically inserted? 620 00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:37,960 Did anyone listen to it? 621 00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:38,960 Oh yeah. 622 00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:39,960 You know what, Sam? 623 00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:40,960 There you go. 624 00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:45,200 80% of my customer base listened to over 90% of my podcast. 625 00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,360 They heard your ad, you know, maybe they've skipped it. 626 00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:49,960 Shh, don't tell them that. 627 00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:56,040 Other than that, other than that, at least they got past your ad and they might have 628 00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:57,040 heard it. 629 00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:59,040 So that's the best you can offer. 630 00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:03,520 I know you said you're in alpha now, but when did you say about that beta is going to be 631 00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:04,520 rolling out? 632 00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:09,640 Looking at probably the end of July. 633 00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:19,440 So the beta is really us taking the desktop app, which is what works now and making that 634 00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:23,120 desktop app a progressive web app. 635 00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:27,520 So making it work on your mobile and on your iPad. 636 00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:29,680 And so it's not hard. 637 00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:34,000 What we've done is we've gone for the model of complete all the features, create all the 638 00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:39,280 functions, make sure it works, remove all the bugs as best we can, never remove all 639 00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:40,280 of them. 640 00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:45,560 And once that's all tested and functioning and we think we're good to go, then we then 641 00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:50,720 start to work on how do we shrink it down when somebody's got it on a different screen. 642 00:34:50,720 --> 00:34:54,640 And so that's going to take us three, four weeks of time of development to do that. 643 00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:56,760 So that's when the beta will open. 644 00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:04,080 And so we'll go alpha now, come to podfans.fm, beta probably July is what it's going to take 645 00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:06,000 us to do. 646 00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:10,800 And then, yeah, hopefully fingers crossed, we will have people then go, yeah, I love 647 00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:16,960 it or I can use it on my mobile or I can use it on my desktop, same app. 648 00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:21,120 So if someone wanted to get an invite now, what would they need to do? 649 00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:25,040 Just come to podfans.fm and just click the join the wait list. 650 00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:29,680 And yeah, we're opening the doors slowly to various people. 651 00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:30,680 Okay. 652 00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:34,000 Well, it sounds like it's rocking and rolling. 653 00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:37,280 Like we're on the cusp of this thing and we're going to see some really big things happen 654 00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:39,080 very, very soon. 655 00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:43,280 Well, as we wrap up here, I have to bring up one thing that I always do. 656 00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,880 And I have to ask you the one question I ask everyone. 657 00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,920 What's one question I didn't ask you in this interview that you really wish I had? 658 00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:52,840 Oh, good question, Ashley. 659 00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:53,840 I like that. 660 00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:58,640 What was the one thing I didn't reveal? 661 00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:05,680 What or how will you overcome Apple and Spotify's market dominance? 662 00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:10,480 Okay, then that, let's hear the answer if you've got one. 663 00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:11,480 Yeah. 664 00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:14,120 So with Spotify, Spotify's in big trouble. 665 00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:18,720 Not because of podfans, they are in big trouble period as a business because the exclusives 666 00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:20,800 haven't worked. 667 00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:25,120 They have a, what we call a fixed price model. 668 00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:28,320 So you pay 9.99, you pay 14.99. 669 00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:30,160 That is what you pay, right? 670 00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:32,000 Family or individual. 671 00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:38,220 And the problem you've got is that the record companies are wanting more of profit. 672 00:36:38,220 --> 00:36:42,080 So they're squeezing Spotify from the top. 673 00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:49,320 Spotify can't increase the price significantly at the bottom because if you and I had to 674 00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:55,360 pay 29.99 for Spotify, we just jumped to Amazon or Apple, right? 675 00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:56,400 Because guess what? 676 00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:57,840 They won't increase it. 677 00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:03,520 The problem Spotify has got is Amazon's got Amazon, the food stores and the home delivery 678 00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:04,520 and all the things we said. 679 00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:09,560 Plus they've got films, plus they've got books, plus they've got all these other things. 680 00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:15,680 And they've got all these other revenue streams, Spotify's pretty much core business is music 681 00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:18,840 and books and podcasts. 682 00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:23,480 So they can't afford to subsidize that business with another business. 683 00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:28,160 Whereas the other two can keep the price low and even run them as loss leaders. 684 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:30,680 So Spotify's got a really hard problem. 685 00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:33,480 As I said, podfans is based on variable prices. 686 00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,440 You only pay for what you consume because you only pay for what you consume. 687 00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:40,080 If you're a low consumption person, then you'll only pay a little bit. 688 00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:42,560 And if you're a high consumption person, you pay more, right? 689 00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:43,680 That's great. 690 00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,000 Whereas with Spotify, they can't change that. 691 00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:47,720 So that's their big Achilles heel. 692 00:37:47,720 --> 00:37:51,000 And I think you'll begin to see that will cause them. 693 00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:52,000 They're still not profitable. 694 00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:53,000 They've IPO'd. 695 00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:54,160 They're still losing money. 696 00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:55,160 They're bleeding staff. 697 00:37:55,160 --> 00:38:00,560 They got rid of 200 people last week, had a podcasting. 698 00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:03,040 They are just in a bad place, right? 699 00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:05,600 They won't say it, but that's where they are. 700 00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:10,320 By the way, audio books aren't paying them either because they have to do a jump out. 701 00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:12,680 So they really are on a squeeze. 702 00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:14,160 Apple is slightly different. 703 00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:18,440 I mean, Apple could kill this whole industry tomorrow if they made Apple pay a micro payment 704 00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:19,720 system and said, right, you know what? 705 00:38:19,720 --> 00:38:22,640 We're just going to allow you to pay with Apple pay and no fees. 706 00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:23,640 Wow. 707 00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:24,640 We're all dead. 708 00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:28,520 So Apple is still very scary in this business. 709 00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:33,120 So I think Spotify is the target market I want to try and aim for. 710 00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:39,560 I think we've got features or the podcast index 2.0 name feature like person, tags, 711 00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:44,680 people, all the discovery stuff we talked about earlier, its location. 712 00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:45,960 We've got interactivity. 713 00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:52,640 So we've got lots and lots of things that the industry and pod fans do that Spotify 714 00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:53,640 don't do. 715 00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:56,640 So I think that's the target we would go for. 716 00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,880 And you might say to me, have you been here before with this? 717 00:38:59,880 --> 00:39:00,880 Yes. 718 00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:05,720 We were at Netscape when we took on Microsoft and Microsoft lost. 719 00:39:05,720 --> 00:39:06,960 I've been in this fight before. 720 00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:09,880 It was called the browser war and I was front and center. 721 00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:13,960 This is the podcast war and I'm front and center for this one as well. 722 00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:18,480 Well, I guess we need to all get our armor on for this war. 723 00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:19,480 Indeed. 724 00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:20,480 Bring it on Daniel. 725 00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:21,480 I'm ready. 726 00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:22,480 Well, that's fantastic. 727 00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:28,800 And I can't wait to, I mean, personally, I'm going to definitely be going to pod stands 728 00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:33,520 and I'd like to play with an account myself just to see what there is to see. 729 00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:34,520 Yep. 730 00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:36,520 Well, you are going to be invited in. 731 00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:39,520 No problem at all after this. 732 00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:40,520 Fantastic. 733 00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:41,520 That's good to hear. 734 00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:45,320 Well, thank you so much for being here and telling us all about what we can expect from 735 00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:46,600 pod fans. 736 00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,320 And I guess it sounds like the future of podcasting. 737 00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:52,200 I'd like to think so. 738 00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:53,200 I would too. 739 00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:54,200 Absolutely. 740 00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:57,360 Well, is there anything else you wanted to share before we wrap up? 741 00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:03,760 No, I think, I think the one thing people have got to look at is again, complexity is 742 00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:04,760 failed simplicity. 743 00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:10,920 That's one of my favorite sayings and this world of micro payments and wallets has been 744 00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:12,480 very complex to understand. 745 00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:17,360 And it's the job of people like me and Oscar at fountain and Mitch at pod first and multi 746 00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:24,160 the pod friend to make it easier so that the end user, the listener doesn't have to think 747 00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:25,880 twice about how to do this stuff. 748 00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:27,520 It's second nature. 749 00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:30,000 So I think give it another six months. 750 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:31,320 I think it will be second nature. 751 00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:35,600 It will be common fair for people to talk about a wallet. 752 00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:41,040 Do you know there's 50 million podcasts wallets out there already today? 753 00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,120 No, I didn't. 754 00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:46,880 And somebody gave me a really interesting stat. 755 00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:53,600 Back in 1996, there were roughly 50 million users on the internet using a browser. 756 00:40:53,600 --> 00:41:00,680 Just how many there were then if you say the wallet and the browser are similar sorts of, 757 00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:06,240 you know, learning technology to get on, then we are pre web one dot. 758 00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:09,840 We are still not in the hype cycle of growth. 759 00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:15,160 So I think there's a long way to go in this, this platform new world and Value for Value. 760 00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:18,800 But once it does take off, boy, oh boy, will it be big. 761 00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:23,560 Well, that it definitely sounds like if anyone doesn't have a podcast now, they've needed 762 00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:24,560 to get on the train. 763 00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:25,560 Indeed. 764 00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:26,560 I love it. 765 00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:27,560 Well, thank you again for being here. 766 00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:28,560 Pleasure Ashley. 767 00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:39,560 Thank you for inviting me. 768 00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:44,120 Well my fellow podcasters, we hope you enjoyed the insights, tips and ideas shared in this 769 00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:45,120 episode. 770 00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:50,360 To learn more about launching and growing your own show, head over to rss.com backslash 771 00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:51,360 blog. 772 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:55,680 And if you're ready to launch a podcast of your own, you can get started for free with 773 00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:57,160 your first episode on us. 774 00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:22,360 Thanks for tuning in.