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Aug. 27, 2024
Modernizing Podcasting: Sam Sethi Talks TrueFans, Micropayments, and AR Technology
Are you ready to discover how to solve some of the biggest issues facing podcasters today? Dive into this episode with CEO of TrueFans, Sam Sethi, and learn about an innovative platform that's changing the podcasting landscape.
Sam Sethi is a seasoned IT industry expert with a rich background in radio and TechCrunch Europe. His venture, TrueFans, addresses critical podcasting challenges like discovery, interactivity, and monetization, making it the leading platform supporting most Podcasting 2.0 tags.
Today, we explore the TrueFans platform and its solutions for podcasting's persistent problems, including discovery, interactivity, and monetization. Sam explains how features like person tags, chapters, and transcripts can enhance your podcasting experience and how to leverage structured data formats and micropayment models for better engagement and revenue.
Mathew and Sam also discuss current podcasting trends including the future of podcasting, micropayment models, the evolution of online feedback, revolutionizing digital appreciation, and the podcast quality control crisis.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone serious about the long-term success of their podcast. Join us as we unpack the True Fans platform and its groundbreaking features, and don't forget to let us know your thoughts by dropping a comment on social media!
In this episode, we cover:
- The biggest challenges in podcasting: Sam and Mathew discuss the primary issues podcasters face, including discovery, interactivity, and effective monetization.
- The TrueFans platform: Sam details how TrueFans aggregates digital content, allowing users to customize playback preferences and payment options while promoting direct audience interaction.
- Innovating monetization: Learn about TrueFans' wallet feature, recurring payments, and how micropayments can help podcasters sustain their shows.
- Future technology trends: Sam shares his enthusiasm for AR in podcasting, the integration of technology into wearables, and how Apple's microchip platform is shaping the future of these innovations.
- Engagement through recommendation: Discover how the pod roll feature on True Fans can help in recommending other podcasts, driving new audience growth, and increasing discoverability.
Links and resources mentioned in this episode:
- Follow TrueFans platform
- Follow Sam Sethi on Linkedin
- Follow Sam Sethi on X
- Follow Sam Sethi on Threads
Sam’s favorite podcasts mentioned: Technology, Politics, and Sports genres
- Recommended: Meta Ray Ban sunglasses -
- https://www.meta.com/ray-ban-stories/
- Payment integration: Stripe -
- https://stripe.com/
- Enhance your podcast: Audio Technica AT 2020 USB microphone -
- https://amzn.to/4bPUARg
- Software for virtual interviews: Riverside -
- http://www.riverside.fm/?via=mathew
- Discussed topic: Breakdancing in the Olympics
Tune in and discover how you can leverage these insights to enhance your podcasting journey!
**As an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases of podcasting gear from Amazon.com. We also participate in affiliate programs with many of the software services mentioned on our website. If you purchase something through the links we provide, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The team at Podcasting Tech only recommends products and services that we would use ourselves and that we believe will provide value to our viewers and readers.**
For additional resources and insights visit podcastingtech.com or follow us on social media:
- Instagram: @mathewpassy
- LinkedIn - /mathewpassy
- Threads: @mathewpassy
- Twitter/X: @mathewpassy
- Facebook - /podcastingtech, /mathewpassy
PODCASTING TECH IS POWERED BY:
- Captivate - Easy, professional podcast hosting to create, grow and make money from your podcasts
- Podpage - Build a beautiful podcast website in 5 minutes
- Riverside.fm - Record Podcasts And Videos From Anywhere
- Castmagic - 10x Audio Content With AI
- Podgagement - Engage your audience and grow your podcast!
EQUIPMENT IN USE:
- Rodecaster Pro 1st Gen (No longer available). Consider the Rodecaster Duo or Rodecaster Pro II
- EV RE20 with 309a Shockmount
- Rode PSA1+
- iPhone continuity camera but previously the Logitech Brio 4k
- DCMEKA In-Ear Monitors
- BusyBox Smart Sign
Transcript
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Excited to take you around the world to England. We are chatting with Sam
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Sethi. He is the CEO of True Fans, and this is a
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really, really fascinating platform that is trying to help
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podcasters. But it seems like even beyond that now, more than just podcasters
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really get compensated for their work. He also does some work with Pod
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News, our friend James over there. So, Sam, thank you for joining us today. Hey,
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Matthew. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. So
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you've been in the IT industry for a long time. How did you
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kinda weave your way into getting interested in the podcasting space?
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Oh, through large corporates into startups of my
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own. I was running TechCrunch Europe. I,
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I then started on the radio, and I I, you know, scratch
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an itch. Right? I didn't I'd never done radio. I used
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to be Microsoft's professional presenter at the big events they used to do. Hello.
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Good morning. Welcome to Microsoft. Let me tell you about the latest version of
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Office. It's amazing. That was my job for a while,
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and I was a techie. So, when somebody said, let's do radio, I said, well,
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yeah. Never done it. Try it. Radio led me
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into wanting to interview because of my TechCrunch background
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a lot of people. So I was into eating the heads of various
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big companies, and that was fun. And that finally led me to doing
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a podcast festival with Cara Swisher and James
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Cridland and various others. And then
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lastly, I said to James, hey. Fancy doing Pod News Weekly together,
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a longer version of your Pod News daily? And he said, yeah. And I was
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surprised, but I was happy. And 3 years later, here we
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are. I mean, you do not waste time.
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Kara Swisher is one of the titans of the tech industry. I
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used to work with her a little bit when I was over at Dow Jones,
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and so that is a fantastic person to have started your
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podcasting journey with and then to be working with the amazing James Cridland. I mean,
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you're just, swinging for the fences every time, you step up to
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the plate. I think I think it's called ignorance. Just ask, and and and they
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they just happen to say yes. It was like, great. Thanks.
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I love it. The it's sort of the, ask for forgiveness, not
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permission, philosophy. Just go for it and see what happens. You'll see
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more of that coming up when we talk about True Fans.
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Excellent. So tell us exactly how the True
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Fans platform came to be and why
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this is a platform that podcasters should be paying attention to?
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Okay. I really wasn't gonna do one, and then
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somebody else approached me to do a branded advertising
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based platform. And I was like, no. Not interested. Not interested. And then, actually,
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I got into podcasting 2.0, listening to Adam and Dave
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on the Podcast Index show, and I was like, this is
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quite interesting because of my technical background. I like tinkering.
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So started to add things, and then it was like, oh, you know
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what? This is really cool. And then the more and more I got into it,
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the more and more I wanted to do my own thing, so I did.
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And today, yeah, we are the number one platform
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that supports most, if not all, the podcasting 2.0
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tags. We are pushing the boundaries of what I think
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podcasting is, because I think there's so much more
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to come from podcasting, but I think, you know, you have to get to
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the bleeding edge of it and then pull back from it a little bit to
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allow people to catch you up. But we're at the bleeding edge right now, and
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it's great fun. For those who don't really
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understand, what is podcasting 2 point o? What are some
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of the features that are starting to really
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power podcasting or I should say, like, really supercharge
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podcasting now? Well, first of all, it's not a unicorn. It's not a
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mythical creature. It is actually very simple. It's just taking
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what is podcasting and trying to fix some basic
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problems. I think there's 3 basic problems,
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discovery, interactivity, and monetization.
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Discovery is not, you know, I want to be Joe Rogan.
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No one's discovered me. No. Discovery is I've got a brand new podcast. How do
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I get out of the 4,000,000 people who've produced another
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podcast and at least get above the parapet and a 100 people to hear me
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or a 1000 people to hear me? And so discovery is
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1. Interactivity, how do I leave a comment back to
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the creator if I'm the listener, and monetization
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beyond just advertising or host read ads or DAI. So
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with discovery, the first couple of tags are really cool. The person tag,
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hey. I don't know what Matthew looked like. Now I've got an image of him
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with the person tag in the RSS feed, and that's displayed
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in the app. Oh, okay. Some people will go, I wonder what Matthew looks
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like. I know what he sounds like. Now I can see it. Second
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one could be, this is a really long podcast like James and I do
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an hour an hour and a half podcast. We break it down into sections. And
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now with chapters, which is another tag within the podcast in 2 dot
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o, we can then say, hey. Look. You might love to hear what
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our top story is. You might love to hear what events are going on, but
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you've got no interest in all the tech talk that we do. Just skip it.
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But now you have a index that you can
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visually see of the structure of the podcast.
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The third one that you might be interested in is transcript. Hey. I want
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to follow along. Actually, I found a section that I found really interesting. I'm
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gonna cut and paste this, and I'm gonna share it with my friends on social
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media. So person tag, chapters, and
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transcripts are 3 really low hanging fruit examples of what
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we're doing with podcasting 2.0 to extend the discoverability
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of podcasts. So
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the more information in the RSS feed, interesting. Right?
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Helping with the discoverability. But I think right. Let's talk a little bit
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more about the monetization piece because I think that also kinda
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lends to the second part, which is interactivity. Right? For the
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most part, podcasters interact with their fans
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through a third party platform. Right? Whether it's getting a rating or review
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through Apple or now comments on Spotify or, you know,
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whatever sort of communication box they might make available
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on their website or through digital media. But now it seems
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like communication be a little bit more direct with podcasting 2.0.
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Is that Mhmm. Is that an accurate statement? Yeah. I mean, I think look. Let's
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be fair. YouTube's had comments for a long while. Spotify's just added them.
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There are other ways of adding interactivity back to the
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creator, but I think what you're seeing there is
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siloed comments. So if your podcast is both
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in YouTube and Spotify, you've now got 2 comment silos
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that you have to go to to respond to. The
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goal of what we're trying to do with Podcasting 2.0 is
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the fabled cross app comment. So the idea is that I leave a comment
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in true fans to this podcast, someone else on fountain leaves a
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comment in truth, to this podcast, and someone in Podcast Guru
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or Podverse leaves a comment. But, actually, those comments
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cross fertilize into all of the podcasting 2.0 apps.
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So you pick the app you want, but, actually, as the
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creator, the conversation from all of your fans is in
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one app and then visible in all the others as well, not siloed
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like you'll find in Spotify or YouTube.
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Right. And it's interesting you bring that up because we had guests
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recently who talk about, you know, one place where podcasters really do struggle
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is they think this is just a one way street. They think they talk to
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their audience, and that's it. But the most successful podcasters, the one who are
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really excelling in the space, they are conversing with their audience.
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So having that ability kind of making that communication
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easier, will certainly make it a lot easier for people to be successful with
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the space. Now the next piece of this is the monetization. And, again,
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that's a form of communication. Right? You are if you pay somebody to listen to
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their show, you're communicating to them. I like your show. So how does true
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fans enable that? Okay. So
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let me just take one step back to go 2 steps forward. One step back
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is when I was at Netscape, we Mark Andreessen was
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my boss and he never invented a micropayment system on the internet,
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a way of sending small amounts of money.
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Why why don't we just do it with PayPal or Stripe or or credit
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card, right? Because the fees taken by those monetary payment
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gateways is just too high to send small micropayment amounts.
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So in the absence of a micropayment system in web 2.0, we
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invented likes, hearts, thumbs up, and those were
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the way that, people like fans or
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listeners could give sentiment back to the creator and say, I liked
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what you did. That's great. But none of that was useful to the creator.
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They couldn't monetize it in any way. So
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fast forward to today, what we've come up with is a a mechanism
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that, yes, it uses Bitcoin, but that's because it's a digital
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currency. But the core goal of it is I can
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say, Matthew, I really liked what you did there. Here's a
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1000 sats. Here's a 100,000 sats even. The amount is
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irrelevant. I mean, a 100,000 sats is about £20, but a 1000
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sats is about a pound, right, or a dollar. So you you really what
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you're saying is I want to do the same as I did in web 2.0.
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I wanna give you a thumb up or I wanna give you a heart or
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a light, but I wanna attach a micropayment value to that as
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well, which you can then take to the bank. Because in the aggregate, if you've
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got a 100 listeners or a 1000 listeners and they're all giving you some
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small micropayment, that might be 10 or $20.
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But when you aggregate it altogether, which is probably more than you
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could get being a a long tail podcaster like most of
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us, from advertising. So it's, again, a way for
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your fans, as you said, to to give you back sentiment, but also to
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give you back value. So how does that
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work if I'm a podcaster? Right? How do I engage
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with true fans, get set up so that I can start to receive
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these micropayments? And then, I guess, importantly, if I'm a
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listener, what's the incentive to
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to do this when my content is still pretty much available for free in
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other places? Sure. So let's let's take that in 2 parts.
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Let's take the last part first. So yes. Content's free on
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Apple. If I pay a subscription to Spotify, I don't have to pay anymore.
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Right? The reason that you want to do that is we
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don't want our favorite podcasters to pod fade. Now
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if you're a podcaster, you have basic costs. It's
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the cost of hosting, the cost of kit, the cost of
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time. Now if you then go, oh, you know what? I'm just making
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no money from this. This is taking me 3 or 4 hours each week. I'm
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wasting my life. I I I give up. Now you might have an
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audience who loves you, but they've not been enabled to give
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you any form of value back. You can't qualify for
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advertising of any significance. And so you go, I'm going away and
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everyone's gone, oh, if only I could have supported Matthew, he would still
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be here today. So it's a choice to support you. It's not
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a need to support you as in I have to pay. It's a
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I choose to pay model. So now the second part of
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the model is how do we do that right.
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Up until now until about probably even a week ago,
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it was really difficult to get money into a
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wallet. Now a wallet is a physical entity that
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just holds micropayments. So you take your dollars and you convert them to
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micropayment. Think of them as Fairground tokens, and you put them in
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a wallet. And then when you come to listen to a show, you can choose
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to listen and pay on a streaming per
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minute basis. So I'll give you a 100 sats per minute, or I can give
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you a one off payment, a boost. So those are the ways that I
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can pay you. Now up until last week, you
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would have had to have opened a bank account with something like MoonPay,
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done a know your customer, so give your passport, your driver's line.
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No. Nobody in the world was gonna do that. It was too many hurdles
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to cross just to make a small micropayment. So with
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Trufans, what we did last week, we gave you the option to
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onboard literally 2 clicks. You get an account, and you get a
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wallet for free. You then can top up that wallet
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with one click Apple Pay or Google Pay. So you say
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I want $10 click, put your thumb or put your face whatever mechanism
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you do for validation, and we put that money into your wallet.
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Equally, when you join Truefans, we give you 5,000
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sats to play with. We say, hey. You know what? We know this isn't all
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new. We know this is a little bit early doors. So here's some money
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anyway just to get you started. Now 5,000 sats is
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$2. Right? It's not gonna break my bank. It's not gonna make you
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retire. So it's funny money. It allows you to
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understand. And the way that we do it we use gamification to give you that
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money. So we don't just give it to you. We say, look, do your first
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boost and we'll give you some value back. Do your first
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streaming episode, and we'll give you some money back. So we're
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teaching you how the platform works while valuing
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your time and attention by putting money into your wallet.
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Now the way the money works is, when you choose to
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support a podcaster that you like, the money
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is peer to peer. It goes from your wallet directly to their wallet. It
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doesn't go through a third party gateway. It doesn't go through a bank account. It
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doesn't go through any other mechanism. It goes from
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yours to theirs, and that's it. It's a direct peer to peer payment, and
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that's what's beautiful about it. It's that you are giving the
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money, and you know all the money you give goes directly
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to that podcast creator. So that is going
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to beg the question, how does Truefans
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make money if you're not taking any piece of that
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action? That seems to be one of the primary ways that a lot of these
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supporter podcast support, you know, platforms
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seem to work. No. We we we take 1%. Oh, and, you know, just to
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be totally transparent, we take 1% of every transaction. And I think, you know,
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we're not charging you for the app. We're not charging you for the wallet. We're
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not charging you for anything else, and we give you some money to start with.
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I think if you if you choose to give money, we take
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a 1% transaction. That's what keeps the lights on. I think that's pretty
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fair. That's 100% fair.
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So okay. What other features can
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podcasters or or, frankly, podcast listeners enjoy
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while they're on Trufans besides just being able to
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support their show, you know, with these payments?
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Look. You don't have to pay to come on to Truefans, by the way. So
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for example, if you didn't wanna pay, don't pay. Just
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turn up. We've got all the podcasts that are in the podcast index. Just
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play away. We've also added though music,
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audiobooks, films, online courses.
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And so, again, we're not really restricting it to a
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100% just podcasting. We've gone broader. Now why? Because all
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of those are delivered via RSS, and they are
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fundamentally, we're an RSS marketplace. We we aggregate content
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that's delivered via RSS and allows you to play it back in
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the form you want. So if I wanna watch a film, I click
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the the play button on the film, and I can watch it as a,
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stamp or I can watch it as full screen. I can then choose to pay
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to stream that or I can watch it for free. So, again,
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whether you're watching, listening, or interacting,
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yes, there's multiple forms of content, digital content available in
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Truefans. It's so interesting that you're bringing
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musicians onto the platform. Why are they
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finding this an intriguing proposition? And is this
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kinda helping them skirt some of the limitations of the music marketplace?
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Spotify is the dominant player right now in music as we all
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know, and they keep changing the rules on
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musicians for the number of plays they have to do
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in order to qualify for a payment. The number is just going up and up
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and up, and most independent music artists who are starting out in the industry
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just don't qualify. A bit like podcasters have to, you know
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people say, you have to have 10,000 downloads before you qualify for an
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advert. The bar is just too high for musicians that are starting out.
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So what they realized and recently learned so
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actually the cover art can be the album art, the episode can be the
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track, and they can deliver it in a structured data format
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using RSS. That can be played out on podcast
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apps just as a podcast would. And so they go, okay. Step
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1, I get that. I can reach a new audience. And now step 2, this
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new value for value micropayment model means I get paid
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directly by my funds. Now this weekend or last
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weekend in Nashville, they did a concert, a live concert, and you had
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several artists there, and they generated 4,000,000
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sats just around $3,000 from people on
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podcasting2.0 apps around the world watching
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live to these artists through a video playing a
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concert and say, yeah. Love that boost boost boost
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stream some more sats boost. And in the aggregate
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from everyone around the world they made 4,000,000 sats. Now
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you know, again, these are early examples, but let's go
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fast forward 3 or 4 years when the mass market does understand this and
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gets on board. Wow. That 4,000,000 could be 40,000,000 or
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400,000,000 because people haven't got a mechanism they
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understand today to reward or incentivize or
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value content. But once the mass market understands this
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model, who knows what the numbers will be?
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I mean, it does sound like you're playing a real long game here. This isn't
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the we're gonna overtake Spotify in the next year No.
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Execution. No. Okay. So as I said, my background was
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in the browser wars with Netscape. Right? The the thing was
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I remember saying to people when I first joined Netscape when I left
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Microsoft, hey. It's called a browser. It's the web. Yes. It
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starts HTTP. No. Colon forward slash forward slash
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www blah blah blah. And everyone went, oh, you know,
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you're kidding me, Sam. No one's gonna understand this rubbish. It's
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Swahili. Go away. Go away. Alright? And I said, no. This is
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the future. And can you imagine, Matthew? So of my friends who I was
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trying to get to convince them to come on to this thing called the web,
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the problem we had was even when they jumped through all the hoops of
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finding a browser, getting on board, there can you imagine? They ended up with
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this gray screen with flashing lights, and I said, yes. That's the web. It's
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amazing, isn't it? And they went, no. No. That's not amazing,
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Sam. And it took HTML 2345,
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CSS 123. It took the crash of the web 1
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dot o. It it took Amazon and Google to arrive.
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The web did not arrive day 1 fully born, fully formed,
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fully working. And the same is true now. When I
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say to you, it's a wallet. You need micropayments. They are
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micro tokens that you exchange. It's a peer to peer system. People look
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at me and go, no, Sam. Never gonna catch on. You're talking
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Swahili again. Like, I look, bear with me because
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the business need or or the critical need is there. Right?
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There is a problem, and this is the way to fix it. It may take
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time for us to make it simple. It may take time for
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adoption, but those two things will happen, and it could be 2
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years or 3 years from now. But, you know, early
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adopters are on the platform now, but then we'll get the next group.
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It's gonna happen. It's just a case of when, and it won't be tomorrow.
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But, yeah, it will be soon. Well, given
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your track record so far, I will definitely be paying close attention, and I will
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try and learn Swahili. It's actually working out so well for you.
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So if I if I pull up my podcasting tech page here on
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Trufans, we'll we'll have a link to it in the show notes below so you
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can check it out as well. There's a feature on here called the pod roll.
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What is that all about? Okay. So,
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historically, when people used to do blogging, they used
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to put a recommendation of other blogs that
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they would love. Right? Oh, I love Matthew's blog. I love James
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Cridland's blog. You should if you like my blog, these are the ones you should
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read. But we wanted a similar thing in podcasting. If you
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like this podcast, how about these
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podcasts? And therefore, the creator can recommend
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other people's podcasts. And that's where we got to. It was
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lovely. It's very simple, and a lot of hosts now
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support it. A lot of apps support it. You know, True Fans was the first
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one to do it. But it just means that your fans
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can say, yeah. I trust Matthew. I listen to Matthew every week, and now he's
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recommending me these other ones to listen to. Sure. I'll give it a
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go. And some of those will convert to fans of other podcasts, and some of
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them are going, no. Gave it a try. Not my cup of tea.
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We also did that for music artists where it's
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like this music track you like, these are the other
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places that you might wanna hear. Other shows that played that music track because
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you might like the other shows that played it. And the last one
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we did was called a publisher feed, Matthew, where I like
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Smartlist or I like this podcast. It happens to be also
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part of a bigger group of podcasts by podcast network.
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You know what? I didn't know that Smartlist was part of
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Wondery. Click. Now I can see the whole of the Wondery group.
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Oh, right. I might try a few Wonderies. So we're trying to use
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this as another form of discovery. You know, we go back to that early problem
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of discovery. Pod roles and publisher feeds are
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examples of technology to help us discover other
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podcasts. Is there a plan, or are you seeing
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where podcasters are monetizing that suggestion space? You know,
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if if you're a big enough podcast, you've got thousands of fans. I can
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imagine being that recommended show would be a a big
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boost to your audience and valuable. I'm sure that people will
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start to do swaps and charge for those swaps. That's gonna be the nature. But
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that's actually, thankfully, something that True Fans doesn't wanna get
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involved in. We don't have any plans to get in between what
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podcasters and podcasts wanna do. Right? That's that's up to them because
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why would we, and what's the point of trying to police that? That's your choice
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to your fans of your recommendations. If if they
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feel that you're selling them a pub, you
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know, and it's a bad recommendation, guess what? That might have
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other issues for you further down the road. So it's it's your trust with
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your fans If you feel that the,
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recommendation is worth giving and you still wanna charge for it, that's fine. That's
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up to you. But, yeah, we won't get involved.
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Okay. So for the podcasters listening who are like, okay. I'm intrigued.
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What should they do? Well, thank you. Please come to
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true fans dot f m. Sign up. So you put in your name, validate
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your email. Boom. You're into the system. You've got a wallet.
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We then ask you to complete a number of tasks that teach you how to
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use the system, and then you can then simply
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take the money that we've given you and start playing, or you
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can then top up your wallet using Apple Pay or Google Pay. We added
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one other option as well because we saw, users,
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you know, don't want to be constantly topping up their wallet. So we've
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added a recurring payment model. So if you wanna put in
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$5 or $10 or whatever amount you want as a recurring
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payment, And we do it through Stripe. So, you know, it it's validated through
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Stripe. It's not just my personal bank account giving you money.
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So you basically say, yeah. You know what? My my podcast budget
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is $10 a month. Just re top up my wallet
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every every month with $10. And after that $10 is gone, I'm
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not gonna be giving any podcasters any money, but at that point, I'll wait
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till the next month. Or you can manually top up if you feel like you
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really want to. So we're trying to make this
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a totally simple fit and forget
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solution where don't even worry about the fact they're called
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Bitcoins and SaaS. Think of them as just fun tokens that you're
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giving just as you would a heart or a like, but this happens to be
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a token with money. And you were just giving that to your favorite podcasters
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if you want. As I said, you don't have to give anything to listen to
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podcasts on Truefans. It's a choice. Okay.
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So as a reminder, we've been chatting with Sam Sethi. He is the CEO
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of True Fans, and he's also the host of
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the weekly show for Pod News where he talks to James about what's been
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happening in the space. As a reminder, then like you just said, make sure you
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head to true fans dotfm to claim your show. Or even if you're
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not a podcaster, go on there just to become a listener so you can support
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your favorite show in the podcasting space using all their cool features in the
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podcasting 2.0 ecosphere. So, I mean, this is
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probably an obvious question, and you you're obviously working on it.
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But are there other places maybe in podcasting where you'd like to see some
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improvement, whether it's from the content creator side or
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from the listener side? One place I'd love
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to see an improvement is hosts validating the content that they
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publish on behalf of creators.
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We this week had a host allow
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a 14 megabyte cover art image in the RSS
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feed. Yeah. So they
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uploaded 40 megabytes to this host. This host is
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now distributing that through Apple, Spotify,
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Podcast Index. No validation on that at all
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because 40 megabytes on an app is just gonna
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crush the app, right, in terms of loading that page. That was
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not just at the cover art. That was at every episode cover art
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level as well. So this one podcast was over
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300 meg in size. Now there was no validation being
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done by the podcast host at all, and that just blew my mind.
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So we have to anyway, by by the very nature of of
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Truefans, we compress all images because we need to make
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sure they're fast and quick loading. We also need to validate
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the RSS feeds to make sure there's no empty missing
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titles, which we often get, or duplicates. Or there's so many
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errors within RSS feeds that could be killed at
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source by the host by saying, hey. You know, you filled that
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field in, but you filled it in wrong. Or you know you've got an empty
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field here. Before you click publish or before we send it out,
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why didn't you just go back? You know you forgot to put the season one
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number in or you forgot to put something in this field, But none
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of that's being done by hosts, and it just blows my
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mind that we have an industry that is not taking just a
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one step validation before publication.
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I I can't even imagine, though, as the host, what that's doing to their bandwidth
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cost, putting 40 megabyte artwork in there. And and I'm
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honestly surprised that it's not getting flagged. I I know
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with other platforms, they won't even let me proceed if my artwork is too big
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or or or the wrong size even though bad artwork can absolutely
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break your show on Apple. I don't want to name it because I'll
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Matthew, I'll tell you offline, but I'm not gonna name it here in shame. Right?
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But but, fundamentally, you can then go afterwards, and you can go and have a
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look for yourself. It is crazy. Just crazy.
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What about technology wise? Is there a piece of gear or a piece
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of software, something that is on your podcasting wish
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list, whether it's something that's out there that you just haven't, you know,
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pulled the trigger on and bought or something that you wish somebody would create?
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In terms of technology that I haven't bought, gosh, that would be, no. There
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isn't. I'm just a geek. I
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mean, I'm I'm running a Rodecaster 2 here. I mean, yeah, just I love I
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love geekdom. I'll tell you about one piece of
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technology I recently bought that I do love, and I bought
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my Meta Ray Ban sunglasses, and I just
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absolutely love them. They have a camera and a video in
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them. They have AI built into them. They look super cool like
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Ray Bans, and I everywhere I go with them, I
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just have them on. And if I wanna take a photo, I just go, hey,
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Matt, to take a photo. Hey, Matt, to do a video. I wanna take a
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call. I can answer it. If it's a WhatsApp or Instacall, I
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can basically also show you video of my first
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person view from my glasses. It's just the coolest thing. And then the
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last bit is I can ask when I look at a building or an
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object or a cup of tea or whatever it may be. Hey, Meta. What's that
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object? And they're all dang. Go and use the AI and tell me what it
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is. Maybe give them some history about it. So while I was in Greece
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recently, it was great walking around and asking MET to tell me what
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was going on, what this building was, and just I can hear it in my
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own ears. And it's not interrupting anyone else, and I just think
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it's such a cool piece of tech. And I basically walk my dog with Mohs
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sunglasses on listening to podcasts, and it's you know, nobody has to
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worry that, you know, I've got 2 things stuffed in my ears, and there's a
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car about to run me down. So, yeah, Meta's Ray Ban
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sunglasses are pretty cool as a new piece of tech. I'm
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gonna have to check that out. I I gotta tell you, when I get bored
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with podcasting, AR is the next space that I wanna jump into. There's
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so many fascinating things that could be done over there, that I'd love
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to to be a part of all that. I think I
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think the the the way that glasses will evolve will
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be the entry point technology into AL. Yeah. Yeah. I
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mean, the VisionPRO are incredible.
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Just I I tested them out and the experience is just mind
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blowing and I can't describe it. You know, you really just have to experience it,
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but they're not practical. Once everything that they're doing is
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practical into a frame like this, it's a
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total game changer. You know, we won't have to carry around these
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phones anymore. No. Well, you know, it may be that the phone is still in
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your pocket as the the primary primary driver. But
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I think if you look at Apple, they've got a a, I think it's
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an m one or maybe it's a a separate named chip in the
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AirPod Pros. You have a chip within your phone. You have a chip
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within your, Apple HomePod. You have a chip within
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your m one or m four chips.
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Apple has secretly built their own
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microchip platform in in
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public, but nobody's talking about it. Now add glasses to
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that. Add the watch to that, and you suddenly see a wearables market
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where suddenly the glasses is an extension of your phone. It's an
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extension maybe of what's on your wrist, an extension of what's on your laptop.
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Only think they know that they will be able to shrink that
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technology down from that big visor. I mean, if anyone remembers
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the first mobile phones, you carried a battery around, and they were massive.
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Right? And now look at what we carry around. You know? So I think it's
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just, again, a time thing, but you can see the evolution of technology,
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and it's super cool, and I love it. And I'm with you on AR. I
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will say that's the 4th wall that I'm waiting to happen.
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I can't wait to see what you come up with then. Last question. And, you
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know, this is probably a tough one because of what you do and the platform
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that you run. But do you have a favorite podcast or 2 that
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you know, I'm sure you listen to a bunch, but is there a few that
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when they drop, you're stopping what you were doing or you are, you
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know, stopping what you're listening to and going straight to that show?
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My my personal hobbies are politics, sports,
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and technology. Right? So there are several technology shows like
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Adam and Dave's on a Friday night. I drop everything. To my wife's
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disgust, on a Friday night, 7 o'clock, for 2 hours,
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I'm still listening to podcasts while cooking dinner. And she's like, will
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you just stop? You've been doing it all week. I'm going, no. No. No. It's
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live. I have to listen now every Friday night. We can't go out on a
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Friday. We can't go to parties. We can't go to theater. It's
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just awful. So that's one. And I love
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politics shows. Like, in in the UK, there's one called Newsagents. There's,
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the rest is politics. There's the American ones. I'm fascinated
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by American politics, so I listen to a lot of American
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politics shows. So, yeah, politics, sport,
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and technology. They're my 3, go tos. Sir, are
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you having a grand old time with the Olympics on? Amazing. Yeah.
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I mean, again, I I it's not the most
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exciting Olympics, I think. I don't know if you agree, but I
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not the named characters that we used to have in the past. You know? There's
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not a Karl Lewis. There's not a Usain Bolt. There's not a, you know, Mark
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Spitz or or or, you know, whatever. There's nobody that I
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feel that wow. I mean, I think, Simone Byers
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is the the biggest name in the Olympics. Right? It's a name that
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everyone would know. But I couldn't name the rowers. I can't name any of the
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sprinters. I can't name any of the long distance runners. They're just not on my
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radar, and they're not as well known. So I'm watching it because I'm
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a sports addict, but I'm not watching it because I'm going, I must watch that
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100 meters. Usain Bolt's gonna be in it. Right? Just not doing it because
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of that. And it's interesting with Simone Biles. I she's an
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incredible athlete, right? I've will not not say a bad word about her, but part
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of her fame is a result of what
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happened 4 years ago. Right? If if she had just competed and did her thing,
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you're right. I don't think we'd having be having the same conversations around her.
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But that being said, she's been incredible and deserves
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everything that she has earned, during these Olympics. So, but, yeah, I
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agree. It's it's, you know, it there are more
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names, but none that are really as popular.
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That being said, the Turkish shooter meme is probably the closest thing to
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a superstar that have come out of this Olympics, thus far.
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Yeah. I think I think there will be names
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that we will get to learn, but I just watched the
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men's 100 meters, and I I just didn't know anyone in that race. It was
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and it's a great race, and it was very fast, and it was on the
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line splits, but I was like, yeah. Okay. Well done, America.
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Unlucky Jamaica. I mean, he did they were I had no
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interest in any of the runners particularly. I just I watched it
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very objectively. Just, yeah, it's a great race. Whereas when I
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watched Usain Boltzk, yes. Win that 3rd gold. Go on, mate. Break
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a world record. I felt more passioned. Let's see what
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happens when breakdancing, starts to starts there. We have
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been chatting with wonderful Sam Sethi. He's the CEO of true fans. Make sure you
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check out your show at true fans. Fm and and frankly, go on there and
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try checking out your favorite podcaster and see if there's a better way you
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could support and communicate with them there. Sam, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so
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much for joining us today. Oh, Matthew, thank you so much for inviting me. It's
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been a pleasure too.
Sam Sethi
CEO
Sam Sethi, an innovative entrepreneur in the podcasting industry, embarked on a journey to forge his own path. Fueled by passion and a vision for the future, he founded a pioneering platform that now stands as the leading entity supporting the majority of Podcasting 2.0 tags. Driven by a belief in the boundless potential of podcasting, Sam continually pushes the boundaries of the medium. By operating at the cutting edge of the industry, he is not only advancing podcasting technology but also setting a pace that allows others to catch up, all while enjoying the exhilarating ride on the forefront of innovation.