Artwork for podcast In & Around Podcasting
Does YouTube Actually Care About Podcasting?
Episode 915th May 2024 • In & Around Podcasting • Mark Asquith, Danny Brown & Friends
00:00:00 00:37:13

Share Episode

Shownotes

We hear it on all the industry podcasts and publications/newsletters: YouTube is the preferred destination for podcast listeners/viewers (and let's not get into the whole "but it's not RSS" debate).

But for podcasters, it can be a different story:

  • RSS feed ingestion release was left wanting in some key areas
  • analytics are still not provided to podcast hosting companies
  • to do it properly, you kinda do need proper video

But can 2024 be the year YouTube "gets it right"?

  • they've advised they're updating the API to support better hosting company integration
  • they've added some new podcast-specific features to YouTube Music app
  • they advise they've heard podcaster frustrations and are committed to better support for audio-only creators

So, what do we think? Is 2024 the year Google gets podcasting "right" via YouTube? Join your regular hosts Mark and Danny as they ask the question: does YouTube actually care about podcasting?

Links to interesting things from this episode

In & Around Podcasting is a podcast industry podcast brought to you by Mark Asquith and Danny Brown.

If you enjoy the show, we'd love for you to leave us a rating or review on your favourite podcast app! You can also drop us a tip at https://www.inandaroundpodcasting.com/support, too!

If you're an independent creator who would like to co-host with us, please let us know via Twitter and we'll get you booked!

Please tell your friends that the show is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube, plus wherever else they may listen to their podcasts.

If you'd like your podcast trailer featuring in our "Wave File" segment, submit it via this quick contact form, please.

The podcast is also available at In & Around Podcasting.

Mentioned in this episode:

A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye

Join Sandy Kaye on A Breath of Fresh Air, a podcast that brings you intimate fireside chats with music legends of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Note from Mark: as a rock fan... I mean... you HAVE to check out this podcast!!

A Breath of Fresh Air

The Podcast Show, London, 2024

Get ready for over 150 hours of content from a lineup wall-to-wall with some of the most recognisable voices in audio and major players in the UK and International podcast industry. And of course, Mark and the Captivate team (plus, team Global!) will be there to give some merch away and to speak on pressing topics for creators, and the industry at large!

The Podcast Show, London 2024



This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Transcripts

Mark:

Hello and welcome to In and Around Podcasting, the inclusive podcast industry show that highlights a range of powerful podcasting perspectives. And today we are diving deep into whether this year is actually the year that YouTube one goes big on podcasting and two gets it right. Can a Google product possibly get podcasting right? Dun dun dun, TBC. We will dig deep into that in just one second. And today I am joined by just my regular co-host, the talent behind In and Around Podcasting, It is, of course, Mr. Danny Brown. Hello, mate. All good.

Danny:

All good. It feels like the dynamic duo. Like the dynamic dynamic duo was Del Boy and Rodders.

Mark:

The old.

Danny 1:03

UK listeners.

Mark:

I remember when that, you remember when that aired, the Batman and Robin one when that came out the

Danny:

Christmas,

Mark:

first.

Danny:

there was a Christmas episode.

Mark:

Yeah. Yeah. It was like the world just ended with how funny that was. It was. It was fantastic. If you're wondering what we're talking about, it's a British thing. Only Fools and Horses. Speaking of fools, if you'd like more of us.

You can subscribe or follow in your podcast app of choice you can get us at In And Around Podcasting dot com. And of course you can tell your friends that they can tune in at In and Around Podcasting dot com slash listen. So just get involved, you know, why not? Let's have a little bit of fun over on Twitter as well at in around podcast. Now it's a little bit of a different show this week. We're a little bit I don't want to say we're understaffed because the talent is still here. You know, Danny's still here. I'm still here. But we're normally joined by amazing co-host as well from the industry. But this week is the week before The Podcast Show in London. Everyone feels a little bit stretch, so it's Danny and I going deep into YouTube and podcasting. But I will say ahead of time, if you are at the podcast show next week, Captivate will be there en masse. We've got, of course, a stand, a booth. We're going to be giving away some merchandise. I'm going to be in two talks both about podcast growth and monetization, one flying solo at 930 next Wednesday and then one at 115 p.m. with the wonderful Sara Ray, the head of sales for DAX here at Global and Jordan Harbinger talking about the future of podcast monetization. So I'll hope to see you there and Captivate dot FM forward slash TPS24 that's TPS24 You can go get a free ticket to our drinks fueled meetup and I say drink fuel. I'm going to be controlling the drinks tokens. Everyone gets one. You know, we don't want any debauchery, do we? So Captivate dot FM forward slash TPS24 Danny Google Podcasts and it going.

Danny:

Gone.

Mark:

Gone. Oh.

Danny:

No more.

Mark:

Is that. That's pretty much. I think James report on it is sort of. It's all just dying now worldwide, isn't it?

Danny:

I think next month's the final cut of the final countdown is on. Bah bah bah bah, oh - demonetized. So, yeah, final countdown for the rest of the world is next month and they'll say it's gone forever.

Mark:

Wow. All right. So here's the deal. And so YouTube stepped in. Obviously, a Google product we know is the second biggest search engine, the search engine in the world easy for me to say and we know that many, many people listen to podcasts on YouTube depending on the data that you look at. It's clearly a destination, I think personally for two reasons. I think people watching podcast and we'll get to that later. You know, physically watching a Joe Rogan or Jordan Harbinger or watching, you know, whatever they like and, you know, actually watching it, whether that's on a TV or whatever. But also number two. Somewhere like in an office environment where this can be passively listened to when it's in a browser tab and you're not watching anything, you get it on where you work, but you're actually listening to a podcast. You don't have to have Spotify open. You don't have Apple Music or iTunes open. So it's just there in the background. So I sort of understand it. And we know that YouTube Music is now included in podcasting features, but what happened a few months ago? Tell us about the RSS ingestion thing that I feel that was at Podcast Movement last year. What's the what's the current status of YouTube and RSS ingestion?

Danny:

Yeah. So I mean the up and up of the towards the end of last year, maybe August, September time maybe, and allowed you finally to add your podcast RSS feed to YouTube so they'd pull it in, pull your episodes in, as opposed to manually adding them and creating a playlist which was the previous option. So it made it allegedly easier. But you still need a YouTube channel for that. If you've not got one, you've got to go through an approval process, etc. You get signed up to YouTube. So yeah, the process itself, once you've got the channel, was fairly straightforward, but a lot of people, myself included, or we had a chat about it, James has spoken about etc., wasn't impressed with how it was being put forward and it was still glitches where you know, talk about advertising, talk about if you change your audio file, the episode comes down replaced by a new version. Oh, that kind of stuff, no analytics into your podcast hosting company, probably the big one. So yeah, it's it's good to see YouTube open up the RSS feed, but it's left a lot to be desired still even now with YouTube Music coming out.

Mark:

But I'm still telling people just to do it the proper way. I'm not even we're not ingesting this. I mean, we've been a bit behind on the edits on this one, which is another thing like the time and doing a proper video podcast is really tough. We we were going to do the edit internal and just didn't get the capacity. So we've got Steven our video editor back on board to go through the back catalogue and to to do the future episodes. And it's I feel like that's one of those, you know, one of those issues, you know. We're... We're, we're a podcasting company and we are suffering with the lack of ability to get anything edited because of the time it takes to do it. So I feel like there's a there's a number of other unseen challenges there as well. But, you know, regardless of those, I'm still doing for this show and even for the Golf Lovers podcast that I do some Spark of Rebellion stuff. It's native upload because it's actually. There's actually no benefit, in my view, to ingesting your RSS, because if you think about it, like I said, well, like you said, the it doesn't YouTube doesn't behave like a normal podcast app in that if we if we keep the episode GUID, which is a unique identifier for anyone that's listening, that is not a tech nerd like us, a GUID is essentially you and a unique identifier which will say, okay, here in my RSS feed is a podcast episode and here's all the data associated with that podcast episode. If any of that data changes update that episode using this GUID in the podcast apps with this new information. So if I change the title of my episode, Apple Podcasts and Spotify say wait a second, we know this is the same episode because it's got the same unique identifier behind the scenes, but I'll look at that this, this data about it, this information about it, the title or the location of the MP3 file. The file name has changed. YouTube doesn't do that. It's just a way of dragging. Audio RSS feed, dragging it in and sort of leaving it there and not really respecting the RSS feed beyond that. So that even I would say I would say more than the analytics is the genuine issue because the analytics presents different issues later that we'll talk about. But it just feel like that feels like a really weird implementation. And if, if we're being nice or naive, however we want to do that, we could say, Well, this is MVP, but it's YouTube and it's podcasting. Should it be MVP? Seems weird, man.

Danny:

Well. And that the interesting thing is when you look and I'm sure we're talking about the YouTube Music app, you know, versus Google Podcasts app, but when you look at just the features on YouTube Music app, if you've uploaded the video natively and you've got an existing playlist that you've created manually, you know, for the show, YouTube, much like Spotify, will play either audio or video version, but they don't do that with the RSS ingestion feed, even though the options are, you know, through podcasting two point oh. So it feels like audio only is still very much a second. You know, we come back to Sam Sethi, his definition of podcasting when it comes to some players, it's still a second class citizen, I feel, when it comes to YouTube doing it properly, at least for audio only. And that's where we are. Podcasters are do primarily audio only. Obviously we have video as an option, but as an audio only podcaster, it does feel YouTube isn't really pushing too much behind us. It's just another way to say, Hey, let's get more content onto our platform. Now we can go up against Apple and Spotify and try to take their listeners and audience away.

Mark:

Well, let's think about let's think about podcasting in a second. You know, this whole what is podcasting? I think we'll get to that in a second. But I want to talk a little bit about this idea of dragging the audio in and getting a bit more of share of ear, not just share of what I'm watching, but share of ear only because that sort of then speaks to the fact that YouTube has been a little bit weird with the dynamic ad insertion, you know? So I like to assume that I'm a podcaster and want to run my own dynamic ads. The first iteration of that was you kind of you simply cannot have ads in your podcast. You just can't do it. You just cannot have ads. And if you do, then we will take action. And the reason for that seems to be that YouTube has a creator program, rightly so. I get that, you know, and I get that YouTube wants to monetize and pay out creators on the basis of their own monetization model, which is fine. I totally understand that. And then this all came out and said, No, no, no, you can have sponsors, but they can't be dynamically inserted sponsors. But you what you can say is that here's a bit that's a sponsor bit that I'm doing like a host read on and I'm declaring it. So it's sponsored content and it was all a little bit. Not backtracking, but they had to clarify a little bit and it just felt a little bit messier. But I think the point that I'm getting to is that it's very clear that right now YouTube seems to want you to be a YouTube creator, and they are just trying to make the way that you get content onto YouTube if you're already doing a podcast easier. It's not genuinely quote unquote podcasting and it feels like the RSS part of it is more of a it's more of an importer than it is RSS support. You know, that just feels like because, like you said, you put together the fact that you can only monetize properly through the Creator program and it only drags the audio in the first time. That it just, it just feels like it's been done as an import tool.

Danny:

Yeah. And I think that's all is it's an add on, right. They want you to create within the Creator studio and upload your videos their, use all their tools and then check a box, this is a podcast, great we'll send that as a playlist and that will audio playback on YouTube Music. But it seems a complete opposite from an Apple where they physically want you to create audio. I mean Apple's supported video since two thousand and five back in the old iTunes days. So they know but they just don't really push it as an option because they know YouTube's got video locked down. But Apple gives you tools to create audio only content and feed that out, etc. And it just feels like YouTube's doing the complete opposite. And there's no real benefit. I look at my analytics, I get maybe one or two plays, views, listens, whatever you want to call it, on my RSS ingested feed episode. And then I look at when I do the video version of that, I'm not big. I've not got a lot of subscribers still under fifty. I get my YouTube channel, but I get a decent amount of views because that's how the algorithm set up. So it's not that RSS is there, but it's like, is it real in there if no one's really using it, You know, thinking of YouTube as audio, really, I don't know.

Mark:

Well, I want to I want to preface this next statement from me by saying that I do think every podcaster should be on YouTube only because it's better to mop up a few more listeners than it is to miss out on those few more listeners. Right? That's the preface that I'll put in here. But we see it with the golf show. Okay, So we run a golf podcast. We've got LIV media credit. So we go on site and the guys, Ben and Jay, more often than me, go out and they'll go like, Ben went to Jeddah. Jay went to Miami. We got some good interviews with like Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson, John Rahm, Matt Wolff, Bryson, all sorts of players. Right? When we put that up on audio, only channels. Okay. It it, it can use the same title as the YouTube video, but it has to be YouTube considered first, the SEO, the algorithmic work has to go into the YouTube first. So I'll give you an example of this. We probably get on average, I dunno, 600-700 views per video unless we report on something relatively timely and we deal with it as such when it comes to the title and the description. Right. So there was Tiger Woods came out, he said something six months ago about LIV, the PGA Tour or whatever, and the title that we use for YouTube was Tiger Woods said what completely hyperbolic, you know, the usual thumbnail stuff. Eight thousand views. The podcast still got three hundred per episode. The point that I'm getting to is that YouTube is such an advanced search algorithm that there's an entire industry that has sprung up about an around work in that algorithm and becoming a successful YouTuber. And I think there's a lot of misconception around what is put my podcast on there and I'll I'll, I'll grow you what you want. In fact, arguably the best way to do it is to be a YouTube creator mindset and use that thought process as a podcast. And I think the reason I'm saying that is the YouTube is always going to be a channel that is video first, and it's always a channel that is focused on delivering what it believes to be relevance. Like Google, we don't necessarily think like that as podcasters or audio first producers. We just think, Hey, I see it all the time. I even see on some of my shows where the title is just like, Here's this cool news about Star Wars. I'm like, that title shot in. Like what

Danny:

Yeah.

Mark:

a shocking title. Whereas as in, you know, put my SEO hat on my title in, you know, when I really sit down and think about it, my title then becomes, will there be an Obi Wan Kenobi season two? And they always do better. And then it goes on to YouTube. It tends to do better if it gets ranked or whatever. So the point that I'm getting at is that YouTube is a completely separate channel. He's got separate needs. It's got separate desires as a as a as an algorithmic need. It's got a different type of audience. It has That's why we do jump cuts. It's why we do graphic because you got to keep the attention. Boom, boom. I'm flicking between things all the time. I've got ads popping up and it just to me, it just feels like it could it can it can offer as much help as it can hindrance for podcasters because if you are, you know, it's fast forward a year I've ingested my RSS, I'm all in on YouTube as a podcast. Oh, guess what? Nothing's happening because I still don't have the time to market. I still don't have the time to do the SEO research, still don't have the time to use TubeBuddy to do all the keyword research and description research and do my thumbnail research and split test all the thumbnails. So all I end up doing is putting it on that I get six listeners and I'm still annoyed, I'm still whole. It's just one more thing that's really hard to do. So it's a to me feels a double edged sword. Do you know? I just feel I just feel like it's like if you were if you was if you were Apple, you go out and you help people like they did that to create all the marketing assets. They create all the education content like Spotify did buying the hosting companies. They sort of made the barrier to entry really low. YouTube is just like, Yeah, that's called stick it on our platform. That'll be fine. I dunno, unless I've missed something. I don't know.

Danny:

No, I think you're right. It's a very different mindset. And you mentioned, you know, hyperbole. I always say hyperbolic. It's hyperbole, but that has to be the way you do it on YouTube because you need to gain that attention of people looking at screens and, you know, thumbnails, etc., choosing what to to watch. Because on a podcast app that the screen is very small. So you don't really look at the artwork, that's where, you know, the intimacy I feel of audio Podcasting comes with a trust with our creator, etc. So I do feel that if you if you want to succeed on YouTube, you have to have a video like you say, you have to get into the mindset of shouting it from the rooftops why someone should come and watch this video as opposed to Mr. Beast or whatever. That just doesn't work. If you try to. I feel on audio podcasting, you see your audio suffer like your listeners would say, Well, this is change. They clearly focus on on video. And so I've been with the show for five years. I'm not important anymore, but I'll find another one. So I feel if you do try and start on both equally, I feel it's going to suffer. But one of them's going to start. Well, we know YouTube is going to suffer. We focus on audio and I feel vice versa. If you focus on YouTube and just try audio as a second option, just upload your audio in a way you go a feel your audio, listeners will start to, you know, disappear. It's just different mindsets. It's for me, it's intimate with audio. It's like one person in your ear, so to speak. With video, it's very much my party. I've got all this stuff going on and I, I'm going to mingle here and go there and go there. But as of audio, I'm just going to go one on one, you know, get together.

Mark:

I want to talk about analytics. I want to talk about listener behavior. I want to talk about whether it's easier to start a podcast using two channels than it is just one, actually. So we'll get to that in a second because I think this is quite interesting. But before we get to all those bits, I just want to tell you a little bit about this.

Analytics is such a big deal and I want to come to that right at the end because I think that's something that everyone's quite interested in. Should we be pulling analytics into our podcast hosting platform from YouTube? Let's save that for the end, because I think that's quite a big discussion. What I want to just quickly hone in on is this this concept of it's almost it's actually the same concept, but there's two different perspectives I want to look at. The first perspective is this idea that as a creator, if I'm a podcaster and I've been creating an audio podcast, first and suddenly someone says, You've got to be on YouTube, but if you put a static image on YouTube, it's probably not going to do great because the algorithm is not going to be that keen to that. Potentially it wants good videos that is, you know, natively considered and put together to engage viewers. And coming from being an audio first producer and creator, suddenly you need cameras and actually you're going to need lighting and all that sort of stuff to make a decent video. I mean, we're using Riverside now. The videos are all right. It's all talking head stuff. It's just in is all right. But it's not Joe Rogan, it's not Jordan Harbinger, it's not My Therapist Ghosted me, or The News Agents, it we're not sat in a studio with amazing light and it's not, it's not a show that is built for video. The same coming from the same angle. Sorry, From the same point. From a different angle. From a viewer's perspective, unless the topic or you are such, if unless the topic is so demanding of your attention, or if you are such a fan of the creator that you will consume any content or the interview, i.e. that you'll consume any content that they put out. It's better to watch a well-produced Piers Morgan interview with the woman that supposedly was the Baby Reindeer stalker. The Joe Rogan stuff. Whether you love or loathe Joe Rogan, it's a produce show. The News Agents, Jordan Harbinger. All of these podcasts that go to video first, all that they incorporate it, higher budget video. As a YouTube viewer, we want to get to the point quicker. We want the jump cuts. We want all that YouTube ask feel because it keeps our attention. So the point I'm getting to others, is it easier to either, number one, start a podcast as a video show and make the audio secondary because you'll arguably get better edited audio anywhere from that than it is to go from being a podcaster. That's traditionally an audio only. And then you've got to get into video that feels like a no brainer. And then to kind of top that question and run alongside it. If we go audio to video, do we really stand that much of a chance of building an a YouTube channel audience? Because we're competing people that are video first and are doing everything that YouTube viewers want. So yeah, a lot to unpack there but just just kind of brand dumping on you that.

Danny:

Yeah. And it's always good on a Monday to get brain dumped on. Yeah, I feel if you're going to start a new podcast thinking about video, you should go. Probably video only is your, or not video only, video is your lead. But like you said, to do it properly, you do need to make sure that you've got good lighting, good cameras, you know, maybe multi-camera like Tom Buck does what he's like, podcast gear show, etc.. So if you you have to do it properly to even start to compete with the creators, who've already got this locked down because they've got the audience and you're going up against that. I feel with audio it's a more of an even keel. All you have to really. What about your audio quality and and your marketing obviously. But the main thing, audio quality . With video, you've got so much more involved in it. So if it was a new creator, possibly think of video first with good audio. As an existing audio creator - again, it kind of ties back to what you're saying about you look at Jordan, you look at Rogan, and you look at the The News Agents with Global's production behind it. There's a lot you need to do. And I feel the jump from audio is why you see on Reddit so many people saying, hey, I'm starting a YouTube channel. It would go my podcast and I'm really struggling. Give me some tips. The reason you struggle is because we've got to the mindset of putting audio first and what that takes and the process for that. But now you've got camera, you got like you got action to go. The old Def Leppard song. So it's just as there's so much to add to. And I do feel that they are two separate things. It makes me wonder, apart from getting the more content on the platform, why YouTube even bothered with RSS ingestion? Because it's a still two very separate things. There's no real benefit apart from maybe getting another dozen listeners to your podcast that at the moment it doesn't feel like it would benefit to, you know, being an audio creator and put a static up on YouTube. It's just a waste of time. So you have to you have to get at video first mindset and that costs money. You know, Mr. Beast was talking about each video like each of his big production videos cost two and a half million dollars to make. Like, that's one creator. That's that's a Hollywood budget for an ad or whatever, right? Crazy. So that's what you're going up against, really?

Mark:

And the the idea of YouTube dragging all this in, let's put our cynical hat on is clearly a way to get some long tail inventory. Yes, just get as much content on there as possible to show as many and surface as many ads as possible. And yet it's a drop in the ocean right now, But it's a way of just getting that inventory, that supply onto YouTube. That's clearly the way. And it just leaves the question unanswered. Really. I don't even know if we can answer it. Does YouTube actually care about podcasting? I don't know the answer to that. If you talk to anyone in the industry, I don't think they're. No, I think you you've got the hopeful creators. This is a game changer. It's not a game changer. It is not a game changer. We thought that with Amazon. We thought that with even Spotify and Spotify has done wonders for podcasting. It has whether you love Spotify or not. It's got a lot of people thinking about it, but we thought Amazon was going to be a big deal. We thought the idea that you could sort of repurpose things and stick them on YouTube was going to be the next big thing. None of it is. It's all just another channel. It's all just something, something that requires more native content. That's it. I want to I want to touch on two other things. We've got a slightly shorter episode today, but I want to touch on two of the things, dude, we're going to get to analytics last. But is it a podcast? If it's on YouTube or if it's only on YouTube, where do you stand on this?

Danny:

I don't really care. I used to. And I just feel life's too short to be, you know, so protective. I mean, obviously, we want to protect podcasting, that's our hobby, our job, our love. But I feel when you get to that stage where you're getting nit picky, that it's not an hour, it's not a podcast, if it's on YouTube, cause it's not got a RSS feed. Come on. Really doesn't matter. So, no, I don't care. I really don't. It's content. You're a creator, whatever that content looks like and whatever it lives it's your content and listeners consume it.

Mark:

Yeah. And it's become that become the Hoover problem for me. Any OnDemand audio that's not an audiobook is a podcast. I'm it don't matter where I get it from and it's I agree with it I mean you know I run a company that builds RSS feeds. No one stands to lose more if I was RSS was to go away, but who cares? You know, I would rather a creator said, I'm going to start a podcast on YouTube like you see in Podcast Movement community. There's always someone ooh, it's not a podcast. Shut up, just let him do it. Let him get on with it. Like, don't be the person that to burst that bubble because you've got something that you want to say, like, well done on proven your point.

Danny:

It's like Grampa Simpson shouting at the cloud,

Mark:

Yeah,

Danny:

you know.

Mark:

exactly. I always use this this sort of example of, you know, if my mom says to me, I'll listen to your Star Wars podcast on YouTube. You're like, Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy, Tiger. It's not strictly a podcast, is it? I uploaded it natively and she's just gonna be like, I'm not listening to that again you absolute twonk.

Instead, I'm just going to go. That's brilliant. Thanks for listening. What did you think of it? That's pretty sweet. I appreciate that. And you know, from listening to it, the more I understand the word podcast, the thing, and they can learn more about it by Googling it, or we might say in the show, you know, go and get it on Apple and Spotify and suddenly my mum's thinking, Holy crap, I can actually get this elsewhere. This is amazing. What is this thing? And from there you might discover other podcasts that are audio only because she's fired up Spotify and she's not just listening to Bon Jovi anymore. She's listening to Bon Jovi podcasts. So you just. I just feel that, you know, everyone sort of whines on about Spotify being this gatekeeper. I feel like there's a lot of people that have installed themselves as gatekeepers of podcasting by just by virtue of just going. It's not strictly a podcast if it's on YouTube, you know, and it's not delivered via RSS. Well, guess what? I'm not entirely sure. I don't know, but I'm not entirely sure that Spotify for Podcasts delivers via RSS. I'm not. I think it might push it in via an API call. Guess what? I can upload audio directly to Apple. We can send from Captivate to Apple via API if you're doing the Delegated Delivery stuff. I said years ago that rss didn't need to be a thing in the future. It could all be done via API or JSON or some other way of doing it. And everyone was like, You're an idiot, Mark. And guess what? Now we can do API stuff. My point is not that RSS should go away and I hope it never does because I think it's growing and it's becoming a thing that is expanding into its own version of RSS for podcasting with the two point oh stuff. But I just feel that we need to get over it a bit and just let people like when we got into the industry, people let us live and let live and enjoy what we were doing and we became passionate about it and built a damn company that helps thousands of podcasters. Let other people do the same.

Danny:

And I think that's what you see. It's like the gatekeepers are the people that pushed against the gatekeeper is now become the gatekeeper. And when you become that, it's like, Well, why should I listen to you? Because you told me Gatekeeper was bad, but now you're a gatekeeper. So should I stop listening to you? Because I should if that's the advice you're going to give.

Mark:

They've just become Anakin Skywalker. That became the thing that they set out to destroy. Bloody gatekeepers, right. This Why would do this podcast isn't it should have the.

Danny:

Just to talk about Anakin Skywalker.

Mark:

Yeah, just to do Star Wars references and talk about podcasting.

Let's talk analytics then for the last few minutes. Everyone wants their YouTube analytics in their podcast hosting platform. Actually, right now I don't. I don't want that. I'm not going to lie. If I, if we do get that, which YouTube has said, it will do theoretically. But the podcaster would have to authorize the hosting company to get data on their behalf, which. All right, that's cool - bit of a barrier, but it's all good. There's no direct pass through to the host like we get from Spotify. I'm know I don't really want this. And that's not to say that I'm against it. It's just I'm not clamoring for it. And if I did have it, if I got my own YouTube analytics, I'd want them separate dude.

Danny:

Yeah.

Mark:

I'd want them separate because that's a first party platform. They control the the ecosystem within a within which a viewer is viewing and they can show you data, you know, drop off points, peaks, troughs, whatever. But it's like we said when James was on the IAB exists, podcast advertising is sold via the IAB. Guess what? YouTube doesn't allow our podcast advertising. It's not measured by the IAB in the podcast guidelines sense. So to feed them in would be problematic. It would cause all sorts of issues. So it would it wouldn't track properly. If they were piped in I'd just want them on a separate tab, dude. That would be all right with that. Okay. It's just a view of the analytics. But do you think because podcast is we sometimes make more of things like this, like I could just log into YouTube and get my stats. It's a thirty second thing. It feels like it's like as if people put this, Oh, get analytics and the hosting platform is like, put it on a pedestal. But there's not a huge feature based benefit to that in my view.

Danny:

Yeah, I think the only main feature benefit would be just like the one stop shop, right? You've got everything. Like we do it with legacy analytics. If you move from another host over to Captivate, you can pull over your legacy analytics and we'll display it. But it is separate because we can't confirm that it's IAB, and IAB can measure separately anyway. It depends on the host. So it's it's not something that would be integrated within your or it shouldn't be integrated with your your analytics. And I feel it's more a timesaver more than anything. But yeah, if I want YouTube analytics, I will go to YouTube because they're second to none. Apple's got great analytics, Spotify has got great analytics, but but YouTube, that's like the Gold piece de resistance when it comes to data about your your audience. And I don't feel you could easily splice into a podcast hosting company And if you're doing YouTube, as we say, should it be audio? Probably not. Should be video as very, very different from what you're going to get at your hosting company. So I can see the benefit and I know at the weekend I was having a chat with Verity, who was our very first proper guest about analytics in hosting and Captivate, etc. and you jumped on on that one where I was speaking out of turn. So yeah, it's, it's something that would be nice for an ease of use thing. I think that's it. But as far as actual data splicing and all that kind of stuff, but some very different

Mark:

It is. It is It is like having your Google Analytics data in your podcast hosting platform and don't get me wrong. It'd be great. But unless you're creating like the HubSpot of podcasting which people have tried to do but this, there's such a variance in data that you've got to be great at what you do. You know, Captivate and the hosting companies are great at being podcast hosting platforms, and if we get that pass through, data, of course will display, but we'll have to display it. How YouTube cuts it - can we give you insights? Yeah, if we've got two datasets to compare your podcast downloads, audio only via RSS and here's your YouTube stuff. Can we map trends? Can we compare performance? Yeah, but let's not be under any illusion. There will be two separate datasets and two separate intents, two separate types of user and listener and viewer that are doing very different things and searching with different intent and searching at different times of day and searching with different outcomes that are required. You know, I'm searching for how do I unscrew a screwed in screw that the head is sheared off on. You know, I'm not getting that from a podcast. I'm a no no. That's a very flippant example, but you take my point. So, yeah, I just it's not as simple as it'd be cool to have my data that would you would, but it's just not apples for apples, you know?

Danny:

No, exactly. And that was actually a very pertinent point, because my Shure yoke, whatever it's called, screw got messed up to my mic. So I had to actually go and Google all that to find a video and I got in touch with it, ehm Shure's team, because of that video. So that's actually a very pertinent example. Weirdly enough.

Mark:

You are welcome. Mind reading? Complete.

Danny:

Back to the Jedi trick.

Mark:

Jedi mind trick. All right, let's stick a pin. And it's a bit of a it's a funny subject this mate because it's, it's going to keep coming up. So I feel this has been a bit of an overview, a bit of a primer for the state. Yes. I mean, that's a little bit of a a bit of a you know, here is the current thinking from a leading hosting platform and I know we'll delve into it maybe get someone from YouTube on. Obviously get Mr. Cridland back on get a few of the people from a creative standpoint to look at what they'd really want from YouTube and this but this has been it's been a pleasure man. Always nice nice nice chat to start the week off.

Danny:

Yeah. It's always nice chatting with you. And I know we do in Slack anyway, it's always nice coming on and talking podcasting and like you say, it's a great way to start the week.

Mark:

All right, you beautiful podcaster, let's wrap it up. This has been In and Around Podcasting. I've been joined by Mr. Danny Brown. And I am, of course, Mark Asquith, the MD and co-founder here at Captivate. You can find us at in and around podcasting dot com in your podcast app of choice and inevitably on YouTube where we publish natively for a variety of pre discussed reasons. Let us know what you thought of the show. You can let us know. Over at in and around podcasting dot com slash review. Is it Danny, it's slash review.

Danny:

Slash

Mark:

That's

Danny:

review.

Mark:

right. Thank you. In and around podcast intercom slash review. And if you're going to be at the Podcast Show in London next week, stop by the booth, come get some merchandise and come to our meet up captivate dot FM, slash TPS

24. Danny, I'll see you next week dude.

Danny:

You won't see me in London, mate. Bugger.

Mark:

Sorry about that.

Danny:

Have a good week. That looks an awesome show, as always. But yeah, I'm looking forward to the next conversation and our new our guest co-host that pop on for the next one.

Mark:

Sounds great, man. We'll be out there live, the Podcast Show, recording some stupid stuff like we did over in Los Angeles earlier this year. So until then, look after yourself and just keep enjoying your podcasting cause it matters what you do. See you soon.

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube