In this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the one and only Mark from Captivate.fm.

We kicked things off by discussing the fantastic Podcast Show London 2024 that we were lucky enough to attend. Can you believe Mark has been attending podcasting events like this since way back in 2014? His experience in the industry is truly impressive. I couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy when he mentioned going to all those iconic events like Podcast Movement and PodFest in the States over the years. A girl can dream, right?

But what really got me excited was our deep dive into the world of Podcasting 2.0. For those of you who are still wrapping your heads around this concept, let me break it down for you. Essentially, Podcasting 2.0 is all about taking the traditional podcasting experience (let's call that 1.0) and supercharging it with a whole host of new features and capabilities. We're talking monetization opportunities, enhanced listener engagement, better analytics, and so much more!

Mark did an incredible job of explaining how Podcasting 2.0 works its magic through the use of specialized tags or enclosures within the good ol' RSS feed structure. These tags act as gateways, unlocking features that were previously unavailable or a real pain to implement. I mean, who wouldn't want an easier way to integrate things like cross-app commenting, alternate content formats (hello, video!), and even value-for-value contributions from listeners?

Now, I know some of you might be feeling a little overwhelmed by all this talk of Podcasting 2.0. But fear not! Mark reassured me (and all of you) that there's no need to panic. The beauty of this evolution lies in its seamless integration with existing podcasting practices. You can continue creating and distributing your amazing content as you always have, gradually adopting the new features as they become relevant to your needs.

And let's not forget about the benefits for us listeners! Podcasting 2.0 promises enhanced content discovery, seamless multi-format experiences, increased engagement with our favorite shows, and improved accessibility. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved in this wonderful world of podcasting.

Of course, we couldn't resist indulging in a little Star Wars banter (because what's a conversation without a few nerdy references?). Mark even shared the name of his very own Star Wars podcast, "Spark of Rebellion" – how awesome is that? I may or may not have pestered him about the possibility of a Podcasting 3.0 in the future, but you'll have to tune in to find out his thoughts on that!

All in all, this episode was an absolute treasure trove of information and insights. I walked away feeling energized and excited about the future of podcasting, and I hope you did too. So what are you waiting for? Hit that play button and dive right in!

Until next time, keep those podcasts rolling, and may the force of Podcasting 2.0 be with you!

Highlights:

• Unique microphone setup at Spiritland Media for recording
• Mark's experience at the Podcast Show London and involvement in talks and panels
• Insights about Captivate - hosting, distribution, and monetization platform for podcasters
• Podcasting 2.0 - enhancements to the original podcasting concept
• Evolution from Podcasting 1.0 to 2.0 and speculation on a possible Podcasting 3.0
• Role of AI in podcasting and dispelling concerns about AI taking over
• Tips for growing a podcast audience - being a guest on other podcasts, engaging with new audiences, and prioritizing consistency

Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:00:36 Captivate at the Podcast Show London
• 00:06:55 Understanding Podcasting 2.0
• 00:19:37 Exploring the Future of Podcasting
• 00:24:08 The Role of AI in Podcasting
• 00:31:38 Tips for Growing a Podcast Audience

🌟 Try Captivate.fm free for 7 days >> This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.

📧 Subscribe to the newsletter: https://veritysangan.com/newsletter

Freebies:

• ✅ Podcast Launch Checklist and Episode Planner – https://veritysangan.com/launchchecklist
• 🎉 Grow Your Podcast Audience 5-day Email Challenge – https://veritysangan.com/5daychallenge
• 🙋‍♀️ Podcasting – Getting Your Business Heard – https://veritysangan.com/podcastwebinar

[00:00:08] Verity: I just feel really penned in.

[00:00:13] Verity: It's brilliant. Tom, who is are you producing this, Tom? Do we call I I feel very posh if I suddenly say that Tom is producing this episode. Tom, you're producing this episode. Has very artistically and professionally pinned us in with these microphones because Tom from Spiritland Spiritland Media, we are very privileged to be recording in their space at the Podcast Show London today.

[00:00:50] Verity: But before we jump onto that, we need to talk about the fact that we're at the podcast show London. How are you finding it so far? Oh, it's wild. Absolutely.

[00:01:05] Verity: Wow.

[00:01:19] Mark: I used to do, like, Matt

[00:01:22] Mark: Well, so here's the interesting thing. A lot of people say that. Oh, it's wow. Podcast movement. And don't get me wrong.

[00:01:36] Mark: So to to to, number 1, to to see this and to be part of this for the 3rd year and to see how it's developed and developing, you know, to have something like spirit land running this studio, for me, it blows my mind because I've seen so many try to get off the ground in the UK Mhmm. And and struggle because the industry wasn't ready for it. Yeah. And now here we are. So I'm I'm delighted by it.

[00:02:00] Verity: Oh, bless you.

[00:02:07] Mark: So it's amazing. And

[00:02:20] Verity: What have you been doing talks on? John 2, haven't you?

[00:02:30] Verity: Oh, wow.

[00:02:34] Mark: And, then I put together a panel with Sarah Ray, who's the head of podcast sales at Global, and Jordan Harbinger, the cofounder what? The cofounder the founder and the host of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:02:50] Verity: Fantastic. Yeah.

[00:03:07] Verity: Oh, amazing. Have you been to any of the talks yet and

[00:03:15] Mark: I've not a chance to get to them because we've got a booth as well as. So and I walked down literally, all I've done is you walk around the the hall and you're seeing people and talking to people, and it's so it's been it's been brilliant, but I am gonna probably hide in the back of the talk this afternoon.

[00:03:42] Mark: Get that a lot, though. She has she's a very charming person.

[00:03:54] Verity: So I feel like she's almost grown up I've grown up with her Mhmm. In, like, a weird kind of way, but never mind. Anyway, you mentioned Captivate. Tell us about Captivate first because long time listeners of the show will know about Captivate because I rave about it so much. In fact, I will just say I came down to the your guys' stand earlier and there was somebody and he was asking about Captivate and just, you know, talking about it.

[00:04:22] Verity: And I said, I have had amazing, amazing growth since switching to Captivate. I would totally recommend it. And then I kind of realized that there was somebody from Captivate there who was supposed to be selling it and not me. And I was like, I'm gonna go now. I'm just I'm I'm off.

[00:04:37] Mark: Absolutely. Well, that's super kind. Thank you. So Captivate is a hosting distribution monetization platform for podcasters. So at the most base level, we'd take the audio from an episode, turn it into an episode, and put it out to Apple, Spotify, and so on.

[00:05:08] Mark: Not bad. And yeah. It's it's I mean, because that's what we all want. I'm a creator. Mhmm.

[00:05:29] Mark: Because we do so much more around that. We're we're essentially a work management system for podcasters now, and much more to come. We've got as you know, we're always releasing new things. So there are hell of a lot on the on the road map this this year.

[00:05:56] Verity: And because I actually worked out yesterday. Actually, I was going down for some stats for the podcast. And my, listenership, my audience, like, so many of them have gone up about 300% since switching over to you guys, which to some people that might sound huge, to some people that might sound none, or very small. And no, I did not start with just one listener and now after 4 because that would be, like, you know, the 300% rise. But no.

[00:06:36] Verity: Hosting providers. They might have it now different hosting providers, but it wasn't something when I signed up to you guys I'd seen before. And that I think is absolutely wonderful. But I'm not gonna turn this into a sales. But before anyone's like, oh my gosh.

[00:07:13] Mark: Yeah. So if you think about podcasting generally, it came off the back of RSS feeds, and we still use RSS feeds to this day. And RSS feeds were intended as a way of of pushing out rather than pulling in information. So that would be that typically would be like blogs and news articles, and what you could do is you could you could get an RSS feed, subscribe to it in an RSS reader, whether that was something like, something like a feed burner, I guess, or a Google Google News or I can't remember what else. There was there was,

[00:07:41] Mark: It's really is back in the day, isn't it? And then Adam Curry and Dave put this alt this enclosure tag in there, which meant that you could say, okay. Inside an RSS feed, you can now put a link to some audio, And the RSS feed will tell anyone listening and anyone looking at this feed what the what the audio is, where to get it so that it can be played in an app, and then the title of the audio and the description of the audio are in these other tags within the eyes of it. So that's podcasting. Podcaster 2.0 is essentially trying to develop a number of features on top of the RSS feed.

[00:08:21] Verity: Not to me.

[00:08:27] Mark: It's basically, okay. Here's a tag that goes in an RSS feed, and if an app that is reading that RSS feed supports it, then a feature will be unlocked. Okay? So we're essentially adding features to podcasting. So examples of this would be the funding feature.

[00:09:01] Mark: That's cool. And it would it would it would be to the lazy girls podcasting slash whatever, and you would make that up. Mhmm. With something like podcasting 2 point o, there's something called the funding tag or the funding feature, and what that will allow is that, okay, Captivate because we've got the funding facilities to be able to to to allow you to make money. We could say, well, I'll tell you what.

[00:10:15] Mark: That's the movement is to take our assess and turn it into a 2 point o and to make it make it more useful to everyone. So it's there's a long way to go, but we're making strides. And we've got, there is something called the podcast standards project, which Captivate is a founding member of. There's Oz, Transistor, Justin and and John at Transistor. There's Podbean, Libsyn, Blueberry, Buzzsprout, any host you can think of, rss.com, and we all collaborate.

[00:10:45] Verity: See, now that's interesting.

[00:10:48] Verity: I think No

[00:10:50] Verity: No. I was gonna say, I think that is fascinating. So remember you put something up on Twitter. It was a while ago, and it was a lunch where you loads of people across different platforms got together. And I was like, you don't see that in different industries, Like, you would not see that in different industries.

[00:11:29] Verity: Where I

[00:11:53] Mark: I had the idea for that all those years ago back then, and that was my first ever actual genuine podcasting idea. But the reason that I got into podcasting in earnest was on the back of that event and how collaborative everyone was. Because I came from, like, the design and digital industry. Everything was cutthroat. Everything was let's you know, we're gonna we're all gonna pitch for this work, this software development work, or this website work, or this branding work, and we're gonna you know?

[00:12:35] Mark: Really? And so I've always tried to advocate

[00:12:58] Mark: So that's cool. You know, I love that.

[00:13:15] Verity: But anyway, back to podcasting 2.0. So I guess how I'm kind of hearing it is podcasting OG 1.0, whatever we wanna call it, that was the literally just we are transmitting the information. Mhmm. We are just like, this is it going from a to b. And this podcasting 2.0 is we're now making it more user friendly and giving you more options.

[00:13:57] Verity: It is just like a game add on really, isn't it? To just really amplify and build up. And I think it's probably safe to say that most people, in fact, every podcaster is gonna be using these podcasting 2.0 features without even realizing it because so many people have got all of these different. It seems like everyone's got, like, you know, buttons to press and do all these different things. I mean, you guys have just introduced the YouTube section as well.

[00:14:29] Mark: It's a it's a naughty implementation of podcasting 2.0. Okay.

[00:14:34] Mark: 2.1. Yeah. 2.01. So it is essentially there's a tag in podcasting 2.0 called the alternate enclosure. So the way that podcasting works is you've got an RSS feed that's got loads of data about any number 1, the show.

[00:15:19] Mark: So geeky way of saying, podcasting 2.0 has got another tag, which is called alternate enclosure. Now this is intended, was intended, primarily for use in translations. So you and I are talking. Now we're talking in English. You send it off to AI.

[00:16:03] Mark: And you just upload an English and a Spanish to one episode, and the host takes care of the rest. Okay? So very geeky. What we did was we saw the and we did this. We've been thinking about this for a long time then.

[00:16:29] Mark: Look at this setup. It's amazing that Tom's

[00:16:32] Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Everyone needs a Tom, but, unfortunately, Tom is mega talented, ergo, more expensive than my little Star Wars podcast can afford.

[00:16:40] Mark: But we also want to do good video content. So what we do is we might just we just fluff it. We go on Riverside, and we do talking head videos. And there's you and I talking head vid like we did for in and around podcast. Yep.

[00:17:05] Mark: If you put this episode out now of you and I talking in audio only, but you put this on YouTube as well, just take the YouTube link or the integration and stick it in this area in Captivate on this episode, and what we'll do is we'll assume that that is the alternate version. It's and we'll use that alternate enclosure tag. Wasn't intended for that, but now it's everyone's like, oh, actually, we should probably do that. And what that means is from a a listener's perspective that I can I can go on your website, and I can when I click the episode, I will get the audio version and the video version, and it's no more work for you theoretically to set that up? If you embed your podcast player on Twitter, I can press play on the audio, but I can also there's a little video icon.

[00:18:17] Mark: That's what we want.

[00:18:22] Verity: And you're coming up with the ideas that people need.

[00:18:53] Mark: So there's education, and that's part of podcasting 2.0, but it's so complex and heavy that people, they're just simply not gonna adopt it anytime soon. But YouTube embed

[00:19:04] Mark: It's podcasting 2.0, but no one notices. The listener just thinks, I watched the video version. I didn't know that existed. So that's, I personally, I believe that's where podcasting 2.0 is and should be headed is that that invisible layer of technology. You know?

[00:19:34] Mark: It's a big movement, but it will take some time, but we'll get there.

[00:19:45] Mark: Probably. Someone just decides, don't they?

[00:20:07] Mark: So the first web 1.0 was very much, I can make something that is information and give you that information that you can consume.

[00:20:45] Mark: Podcasting probably doesn't have those cataclysmic shifts. You know, if you go from consumption of information to two way creation to blockchain, they're very different cataclysmic moves in what the web was. Podcasting, I don't think will have those just the the size of the developments that the web would have. You know? Because it's not as, obviously, clearly not as big.

[00:21:23] Verity: Yeah.

[00:21:31] Verity: Yeah.

[00:21:40] Verity: Well, I think this is the crazy thing, isn't it? It's because, I mean, even, like, today, you go around, you're having a look at all of these amazing stands and all these amazing ideas that people have got in all the different companies for the different ideas. And I guess there's a big question as well around AI for podcasting and how much AI do you use and at what point because, I mean, I know of people and this isn't knocking on me. This is just, you know, making it making the conversation, but, you know, there are some people who they'll have AI come up with the ideas, AI write the script. You've even got podcast now where AI read the script Right.

[00:22:47] Verity: And I was like, that's not the moment. That is not what I meant, but that is just the result of getting up at 5 AM. But you know what? I'll probably leave that in because it's something it's quite funny, and he just looked at me, and I was like, no. No.

[00:23:08] Mark: No. Nothing takes over, does it? It's one of those things. Everyone's scared of everything, but it's you know, we're not yeah. Are we are we closer to Terminator than 1984?

[00:23:23] Verity: Haven't watched Terminator. Use a Star Wars reference.

[00:23:27] Verity: I haven't seen Terminator. Tom Tom, our

[00:23:33] Verity: Tom, have you seen them? Tom's not seen them either.

[00:23:38] Verity: Please use a Star Wars reference.

[00:23:46] Verity: I was gonna say there's only, like, what? How many films are there now?

[00:23:52] Verity: Right. Plus all of the series that they did.

[00:23:56] Verity: of back out,

[00:24:00] Mark: Oh. I I I'm flabbergasted. Well Same. We're not close to the droids taking over. Let's put it that way.

[00:24:31] Mark: Of course you do. So Captivate will do we've got an AI project that we'll do what we do in a Captivate way, so we'll do what everyone else does because, you know, that's cool. We'll just yeah. You want your show notes writing? That's easy.

[00:25:01] Verity: So Hey. It's, like, so connected to the podcast.

[00:25:12] Mark: I don't see there's that much risk in it. If you understand it's just there to get you some way of the way there, it's not it's not there to take over. Mhmm. It's just it's there to help you to start something, whether that's give me some episode ideas. Whether that is give me some episode titles based on this transcript, all this audio.

[00:25:46] Mark: And you think, oh, well, I I'm not growing, so I'm not gonna bother with SEO and then just quit podcasting. I'd rather AI helped you with that one. Yeah. Do I think, everything should be run through AI? No.

[00:26:06] Mark: And do I get it to do other things for me, like maybe get some sound bites and, you know, do do a lot of the leg work. Yeah. Of course. And that that I think is the important distinction. If you can remove the leg work without sacrificing the quality, then use it to your heart's consent.

[00:26:24] Verity: Absolutely. I completely agree with you. I think it's it's that differentiation, isn't it, between thinking that it's gonna be an all or nothing kind of thing. But actually, if you use it as a tool, then, like you said, it gets you closer to where you wanna be. So I use AI to pick out time stamps, for example, because I am horrible.

[00:26:50] Verity: I don't tend to use it for episode titles because I don't know why, but AI always generates something for me, which has got the word, like, powerful in it. And I'm like, what is it with AI and the word powerful?

[00:27:09] Verity: Yes.

[00:27:14] Verity: in your life. Skyrocketing. It likes to Yeah. And I likes to skyrocket things.

[00:27:32] Verity: Maybe that should be an episode, though.

[00:27:35] Verity: You give that to AI as a prompt. Give that to chat gpt and see what it actually throws back at you.

[00:27:47] Verity: I like that. Yeah. See what see, you know what, though? I have to ask you, though. My husband and I have this debate quite often.

[00:27:55] Mark: I'm in.

[00:28:01] Mark: Oh, he's the man, isn't he? He's the he's the glue.

[00:28:04] Mark: He's like he's like the person the droid that just nudges everything in the right direction, isn't he?

[00:28:10] Mark: Anakin would be dead because he would've he would've died in revenge

[00:28:15] Mark: Arthur is the the glue of it all.

[00:28:19] Mark: He knows everything, that thing.

[00:28:29] Verity: They're, you know, trying to blow up all these ships and do like, start with this war and, like, whatever they're doing. But, actually, they should have just blown up r 2d2

[00:28:42] Mark: Literally, he always gets them out of it, doesn't

[00:28:49] Mark: I really enjoyed Force Awakens.

[00:29:00] Verity: get on board. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I can get on board with that opinion.

[00:29:11] Mark: What a wild thing. Right? Just at the end, it's like,

[00:29:15] Mark: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love the force awakens, but it was I got what people say about it being a remake of a new hope, but I was sort of alright with that because I don't know how else you would have restarted it.

[00:29:27] Mark: Well, you I agree. I mean, I would have been well up for none of the sequel stuff. I have to admit, I would have been well up for it. But I have to admit that I don't know how else you would've started it.

[00:29:48] Mark: I know. I know. Right?

[00:29:52] Mark: But we didn't. We didn't.

[00:30:08] Verity: Line up. I mean, I was sat there in the cinema going what they predicted the fact that that ship was going to dismantle in that way.

[00:30:31] Mark: No. Sort your films out.

[00:30:41] Mark: of that? Not a fan of any of that.

[00:30:46] Mark: But I would imagine he's livid.

[00:30:51] Mark: We've got a very good domain, actually. Spark of Rebellion, which is the first episode of, Rebels. And we we managed to get sparkofrebellion.com.

[00:31:10] Verity: They're called the PODcast, and they were like, nobody's taken it. And you're like, why is no one taken a name that literally says the podcast?

[00:31:19] Verity: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's just but yeah. So they've got the POD part card.

[00:31:40] Mark: But you've gotta go where your listeners already are. So you've you've gotta go where people are listening to podcasts. Just be guests. Do this that we are doing. And if you can't be guest if you can't be a guest, then collaborate on feed drops and promo swaps and trailers.

[00:32:14] Mark: Mhmm. Go where they are. Go to as an example, go to Star Wars celebration with a t shirt on saying I have Star Wars podcast.

[00:32:22] Mark: Yes. We went to London. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:28] Mark: We looked out.

[00:32:30] Mark: Oh, I'm so jealous. We looked out. It was good as well. We got us all the announcements and stuff, which is brilliant. And then jealous.

[00:32:47] Verity: Sure. You know?

[00:32:52] Mark: that's the second thing. The third thing is, you will often obsess about having a perfect episode, and good and shit, good and out, good and released is better than perfect and sat at home on a shelf. Definitely. So you've gotta just give yourself a bit of time back by just understanding that, yeah, the edit could be better. Could the quality of the sound be better?

[00:33:23] Mark: You know? Don't sweat your show notes. If you can't do them, you can't do them. Mhmm. So I think people, they bite off too much because they see too much going on, and they think I've got to do every facet of podcasting, like the newsagents does it, or like Jordan does it.

[00:33:43] Verity: Yeah. I think that's such a key point. I was talking to somebody in was it a Reddit forum or whatever it was recently? Discord, that was it on Discord platform server. It's gonna call it completely the wrong thing then.

[00:34:11] Verity: What is it that you seem to think that you can do as an individual that, like, if you're comparing yourself to Steven Bartlett, for example, brilliant podcast, but we also know that Steven Bartlett has got a huge budget going into diary of CEO. He's got specialists in all the different, you know, social media platforms and doing his, collabs, you know, all these different things. So I said, why are you trying to do all of that and achieve the same output by yourself? Because that's not it's not it's not comparable. So I completely agree with you.

[00:34:48] Mark: Long time ago. Wow.

[00:34:58] Mark: I forgot it would be remade, actually. Yeah. It's recent, I think.

[00:35:13] Mark: Oh, they get you?

[00:35:19] Verity: And I think, you know, just kind of going back to that point about, budgets and what have you, we know that there's a lot of very, very big podcasts out there who actually they're not using the most expensive microphones. They're not using amazing studio setups. They don't have Tom.

[00:35:37] Verity: I feel like we need a counter of how many times we've actually mentioned poor Tom's name. Will you, like, walk into the camera later? Just oh, at 9. It's good thing it's not a drinking game, isn't it? Yeah.

[00:35:55] Mark: Yeah. We're just making it up.

[00:36:03] Verity: People don't have these, you know, these big budgets and and what have you, and that's okay. Yeah. It's it's okay. And, like I said, there's a lot of very, very big shows, very popular shows that don't have massive, But she is very open about the fact that she just records But she is very open about the fact that she just reports it in her kitchen if needs be. And, like, her kids run-in every so often.

[00:36:41] Verity: Sarah blogs have, you know, have the same have the same thing? I think we strive for this perfection sometimes that it only exists in our own heads It is. In some ways, it's

[00:36:57] Verity: Yeah. Absolutely. Because at the end of the day, if people like the content, they'll come to your show, and they'll stick around for that as well.

[00:37:07] Verity: Yes. It is. Absolutely. Okay. I'll ask you for one one final tip, and then I'll stop talking because Tom's a bit like, come on, Baratou.

[00:37:18] Mark: I think the thing is when someone's finished listening to a podcast, they're looking for the next thing to listen to. You just gotta make sure that next thing is your episode. Yep. And a lot of people think it's they'll the the people will just go back through the catalog. Unless they're a fan, they're not gonna do that.

[00:37:39] Verity: Mhmm.

[00:37:49] Mark: It's easier for the host to just say, if you like this episode, we think that this will match up with episode 17 really well. So just scroll back and find episode 17, or there's a link in the show notes. That's the the the biggest and best way of keeping people sticking around is just make it easy for them to decide. Don't even make them decide. Just give them the next episode.

[00:38:21] Mark: What do we have? Like, the last few episodes might have been, around the pandemic. They might have been around biohacking. 10 episodes ago, we did another one around Israel and Hamas, so they'll they'll they'll recommend that one, not just go back and listen to the back catalog. They'll say episode 121 Yeah.

[00:38:44] Verity: It is. It's it's really specific as well. So I can't think off the top of my head for an episode to link to. So everyone listening to this episode, scroll back to number 54, and we'll see whatever We'll see how

[00:38:55] Verity: Exactly. It's probably not at all. It's probably gonna be something completely off the wall. I'm gonna have to look up what episode 54 is, but links in the show notes. Check out episodes.

[00:39:10] Verity: It's been great to chat, and let's go explore the show a little bit more and go network, learn, and thank you so much for your time.

[00:39:19] Verity: Or my colleague

[00:39:21] Verity: sat there the whole time not being drunk.

[00:39:25] Verity: Absolutely. Other fizzy drinks are available.