I'm joined by Don The Idea Guy as we explore what's next for podcasting. We kick things off with insights from a trend-spotting article by our friend Ozeal Debastos, which discusses podcasting predictions for 2025.

We talk about several key predictions, including the importance of audience retention, the domination of YouTube in the video podcast space, and the rise of local podcast communities. Don and I agree that understanding listener behavior is crucial for podcast success, and we examine tools to track listener retention more closely.

We discuss the current landscape of video podcasts, with YouTube being a major player. However, Don and I emphasize that audio remains the core strength of podcasting due to its accessibility and ease of production. AI assistants are another topic of interest, and we consider their role as support tools to aid podcasters rather than replace them.

Our conversation also covers the growth of local podcast communities, an area both I and Ozeal Debastos are passionate about. We believe in the potential for micro-communities within cities to foster connections and collaboration among podcasters.

I also bring to light the impact of workers returning to offices on podcast consumption. It seems that the flexibility of audio makes it an attractive option for listeners during their non-work activities.

Towards the end, we reflect on the enduring power of audio. We note that audio offers a blue ocean opportunity for growth and innovation. Its distribution flexibility and the personal connection it fosters with audiences set it apart.

Top Takeaways

Future of Podcasting: The podcasting landscape shows no signs of slowing down, with predictions indicating continued growth and evolution in 2025, focusing on content retention and listener engagement.

Shift to YouTube: YouTube is predicted to dominate video podcasting, though the traditional notion of associating YouTube with video and Spotify with music is still strong.

Local Podcast Communities: There is a rise in local podcast communities, emphasizing the importance of building networks within specific regions to foster support and collaboration among podcasters.

Role of AI in Podcasting: AI assistants are becoming integral to the podcasting process, offering support in creating episode outlines, transcriptions, and productivity tools, but should be seen as assistants rather than replacements.

Audio as the Blue Ocean: Despite the rise of video, audio remains a unique strength of podcasting, offering untapped potential and opportunities within the medium.

Podcasting in the Workplace: With the return to workplaces, there is potential for increased podcast consumption during work hours, as employees engage in non-work activities on their phones.

Content Consumption and Engagement: Audio podcasts often achieve higher listen-through rates than video, highlighting the strong engagement potential of audio content in retaining an audience.

Community and Networking Value: The importance of podcast communities can't be understated, providing opportunities for podcasters to share ideas, gain support, and enhance their podcasting journey.

Considerations for Video and Audio Content: When considering video podcasting, it's important to evaluate the production complexities and the strengths of audio, ensuring that each medium is used effectively based on content goals and audience engagement strategies.

Key Moments

05:25 Building Local Podcast Communities

07:15 Podcast Meetup Evolution: From Stagnation to Action

10:03 AI: Assistant, Not Replacement

13:47 "Success with Niche Podcast Audiences"

18:54 Evolution of Office Audio Entertainment

20:10 Audio Surpasses Video in Impact

23:12 Video Production Challenges for Podcasters

28:40 AI's Mean Streak from Human Data

29:52 Podcasts: Mobile and Equipment-Free

MEET DON THE IDEA GUY!

Possessing creative powers beyond those of mere mortals, DON THE IDEA GUY rescues those in need of innovative ideas through his brainstorming sessions, articles, and websites.

DTIG (DEE-tigg) has been featured in Small Business News, interviewed by the New York Times, quoted in Fast Company magazine, and served as the first president of the International Idea Trade Association.

Don is a proud member of the BzzAgent community, and is featured in BzzAgent.com founder Dave Balter’s book “Grapevine: The New Art of Word-of-Mouth Marketing.”

His Innovation Channel on the Duct Tape Marketing Blog has been recognized as a Forbes Favorite.

Don is the author of the book “100-WHATS of CREATIVITY“, one-hundred ‘what if?’ questions to spur your creativity, unmuck your mind, and break through your mental blocks and has written dozens of articles and hundreds of blog postings on the subject of increasing innovation and adding creativity to your personal and professional life.

Each week, one of The Circle of Experts talks about critical aspects of growing your podcast. We focus on marketing, social media, monetization, website design, and implementation of all of these to help you make the best podcast possible.

Have a question or an idea for one of our episodes? Send us an email at podcasts@circle270media.com.

The Circle of Experts are:

Yasmine Robles from Rebel Marketing

Tonnisha English-Amamoo of TJE Communications

Don The Idea Guy

Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy®, from Circle 270 Media® Podcast Consultants

Copyright 2025 Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy™

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Welcome to the Circle sessions featuring the Circle of Experts. Each week, one of the Circle of Experts joins me to talk about critical aspects of growing your podcast. We focus on marketing, social media, monetization, and website design to help you implement all of these together. The Circle of Experts are Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs, Tonnisha English Amamoo of TJE Communications, and Don The Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy from Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. This week, Don is here with the Circle of Experts who possesses creative powers beyond those of mere mortals. Don The Idea Guy rescues those in need of innovative ideas through his brainstorming sessions at five buck brainstorms. Don, thanks for joining me today.

Thank you, sir. Pleasure as always.

Yeah. We are, recording in February, but, you know, I don't think it's ever too late to talk about what's next for podcasting. I don't think it has to always be the beginning of the year, end of the year. You get a really good story, that you found, from someone that you follow talking about what's next for podcasting this year. And I'll I'll let you dump into it, but it's, it's, I I love it.

Sure. This is, from our friend Oziel, Bastos dose out of Houston, where he runs a podcast group there, Houston pod, and he recently published, typically one of those trend spotting articles in the beginning of the year. But focuses on podcasting in 2025 and what's next, you know, does podcasts continue to rise or will we see some drop off in it because it grew so much last year, but, his predictions and I think rightly so, are based on the fact that he doesn't see anything slowing down that year. And he's got five predictions. I can just riff on that.

The Yeah.

I guess he's got seven in there, but I can riff on them. It's number five that I'm most, most anxious to get behind and go told you so. Yeah. But this first one was there's more attention to retention. And we talk about programming and content and ways to retain your audience. You see anything in there to disagree with?

No. Not a bit. I'm hearing more and more, and I've always believed this too. Download is basically a vanity number. It's one of those you gotta really know what's going on with the listener. How long are they listening? Are they sharing? Are you making it easy for them to share bits and pieces? Those sorts of things. So Yeah. It's the retention.

Yeah.

It's it's definitely retention during the show of, you know, the retention during the the same episode, but also the tracking of the retention of how many people come back and download additional episodes.

Yeah.

So the mass downloads are meaningless. If they're always first time samplers, you don't get a chance to talk to that audience twice, but if you can track the retention of, Oh, well, you know, Brett comes back and he religiously listens to this, every every time there's a podcast episode out, I think that's important as well.

Yep. Exactly. Yep. I agree. I agree.

This one feeds into debates we have all the time, and he's predicting that YouTube dominates the video podcasting space. Hard to argue with any statistic that says YouTube's gonna dominate video.

Yeah. Yeah.

I I think you're really going out on a limb there. Right?

Yeah. You're right. And then that's true. Yeah. I mean, Spotify is trying to up their game with it. They might, I don't know, but it's that first one in wins. YouTube is video. That's the thing that comes to our mind.

When you think YouTube, you think video. Spotify, music, and then maybe audiobooks, and then maybe podcasting because we're so in you know, grouped with, Spotify for podcasting, but Spotify is music.

Yeah. Based on based on the data that they themselves are releasing, I mean, I I don't know about the third party stuff, but certainly Spotify appears to be a favorite podcast device for, millennials and the younger demos. But you're right. They're late to the video game. They're adding it. They're getting some lift with it, but it's a long way to go to beat YouTube out when they're known for video. I think it's interesting that YouTube has been able to rise so much for podcasting content, whereas you think of them first for video, but do you think of them second for podcasts now? I still think they're the world's second largest search engine. I still think people go there to search for how to videos more than podcasting videos.

But there's no denying that it is a legitimate podcast platform now.

Yeah. Yeah. No. I agree. I agree. I agree. Yeah.

Something Ozil talks about is the rise of local podcast communities. I think it's something that you and he can both uniquely speak on. You've obviously, done a lot to further the community of Columbus based and even Ohio based podcasters. Oziel is doing the same thing for Houston, and you've both gone off to the, the podcast events that are held, annually in the different states. How do you feel about the growth of podcast communities? Is there a shift in that focus to where it's not just going to be Ohio podcasters or even Columbus Podcasters, but are you going to see, micro podcast communities developing in each of the, the smaller satellite, cities around Columbus?

I think there's a great opportunity for it because I think it's gonna be focusing back on local, local, local. I and, again, I don't know about the Columbus has not been a strong market for local meetups or live events. We just have not been for some reason. But, what I think, and I agree with him, is that he's the center of a network. I'm the center of a network of podcasts that can I can actually connect to, and I can make connections that you should be a a guest on here? Okay. They can help you out with this, that sort of thing. So you you're building your own local community as a podcast consultant or as a guest, and you know that you've been on various guests on podcast and you can connect these people. So I I think those micro communities will grow as well too.

But I think in the next couple of years, I think we've got a a great opportunity for this to build back up again. It's a lot of work to put together live events and local meetups, for a sometimes not a whole lot of ROI other than just the sense of having a micro community. There is a and it's valid to to know that you're not alone. Just like an entrepreneur, you don't wanna be alone.

It's a support factor that Yeah. That we are not alone. You know, one of us, one of us. I think, Oziel went through that with the growth of Pod Houston. Mhmm. I think he built it early on. I'm sure I would be underestimating actually how long it's been around. I'm sure it's been a long twice as long around twice as long as I actually think it has.

But he went through these lean years of, membership and attendance. I think he originally put it together as a way to gather people who are interested in podcasting, but weren't actually doing any of it. And then it became a lot of how to sessions where there were more like webinars than networking groups. And now it's legitimate podcasters getting together to talk about the industry and ways to improve their game. Have you found a similar growth pattern for your efforts?

Yes. I think, you know, when we first started doing some meetups, we I I and and and I would, go to other meetups that were organized by other, companies or organizations. It was the same people, and those same people were not pulling the trigger to get their podcast going. So that gets to be frustrating because you hear the same complaints every month of why they haven't started. I just haven't or, you know, nobody's holding their feet to the fire. I think compared to those years, and I'm talking probably seven years ago, now compared to people actually when they're they're ready to start, they get going. They're part of these groups to hear how to get started better and faster and to learn from them What what do I do? What do I not do? That's the difference. I think it's now the rate to get going, and, they're networking to get themselves to a higher plane when they get started,

which maybe

it it which is great. I that that at least is energizing that, okay. I'm not seeing you every month, and you're not doing anything again.

The the barrier to entry has dramatically lowered. I mean, we always told people the phone the the microphone on your phone was good enough, but the early podcasters, she had a hard time talking them out of buying a $500 microphone Oh, yeah. Before they'd record one episode. So I think more people are looking at those apps. They're realizing the phone is their recording studio, and that's why I think you get more people just, just jumping in as well. Yeah. Yeah. I do believe there's room for the ultra local.

I I would like to see, the Worthington podcasters group and the Hilliard podcasters group, that it might just be three or four people meeting up at a local coffee shop and and talking about, how they can work together to promote their episodes and and grow their audiences. Yeah. Sure. Hopefully, I hope that prediction is more true than it probably will be.

Yeah. Yeah. That's true. True.

Prediction four was that AI assistants are gonna take over. How do you feel about that?

I I I guess it all depends on on what you're asking the assistant to do for you. I think it's a great tool as we've, jokingly put it as a, an intern. You can't let it do everything for you. It's not gonna do everything for you. This is a personal medium. And remember that it can't the AI is not gonna be able to do everything for you, but it certainly can help you put together a, an episode outline. It can help you do transcription and pull, post show items from it that you don't have to try to write yourself or maybe it gets you 85% there to get it going. So, yeah, if you use it there, I think you're in it it it's it's a good thing.

It's not gonna take over. I think you

I think it's a great tool to to, compliment what you're doing, but don't let it replace what you're doing. I know that if you're operating on a shoestring, you really wanted to produce an episode of, a podcast for, for an industry and you can't get any buy in from somebody who will step up and be a host and you don't feel confident enough to do it yourself. I do think there are AI tools out there, voices that you can feed content into, and it's better than nothing if you really want to produce something, if only as a proof of concept. But I don't think the AI, I don't think the AI tools are ready to co host yet despite what the radio industry might feel, but they're perfect for setting up workflows and automating pulling out soundbites and using it to we talked a few episodes ago about the tools that'll actually evaluate your podcast over time, where it's smart enough to go in and go, well, here's a list or spike, and these are the type of shows that are better for you. So yes, as an intern, but I think also as a producer, as, as a, your own internal consultant to bounce around ideas off. I, I do think that it's, it's a good thing in the long run as long as we look at it as an assistant and not a replacement. Yeah.

And that leads back to your community idea too and his community idea that it's that, okay, if you don't really trust the AI piece to it, get a part of a community and throw ideas together, no one's gonna steal your idea. You need to bounce it off someone. I have I get calls two or three days a week of just bouncing ideas off. Like, what do you think about this? How could I do this sort of thing just because I am who I am. And Yep. You just want the human element of it. It's like, does it make sense? Are there other people doing it? It's like, well, it doesn't matter if other people are doing it. If you have your own way that you wanna produce this, then you should do it because it's got your personality to it.

Yep. And then, the prediction five that I'd really wanted to talk about was that, audio is the new is the blue ocean. He says don't call to come back. Audio is the blue ocean. We go back and forth about, audio and video all the time. And I think audio was the original strength of podcasting. I think audio continues to be the, the stake in the ground of what is unique about podcasting is it's faster to produce. It is easier to consume.

It's just it it's just great. I just love audio. Despite the growth of video, that's great. It's a it's a TV show. It's not a podcast, but okay. But, we're gonna diverge. I think you can put the link to the, to this in the show notes so that people can read the rest of the predictions that they want. But the fact that his prediction five is audio is this place where people can experience new growth, talking about that blue ocean strategy of you wanna be in the the Red ocean where there's already blood and water.

You wanna go out into the nice blue water where the opportunity is is pure. And the fact that even after all these years, you can look at the audio version of podcasting and say that there is blue ocean opportunity out there. I I totally 100% buy into that prediction.

Yeah. That's we we haven't even come close to saturation for podcast listeners, at all. We and it feels like a a, you know, a world full of podcasts. Everybody's doing a podcast. Every movie star, that sort of thing. There's still really only 300 to 400,000 podcasts that are actively producing out of, you know, two or 3,000,000 podcasts available. So it's still in its infancy even though it's we've been around well for well over ten years. Lots of lots of great opportunity because people start and stop all the time.

It's the ones that are in it for the long haul. You'll do just fine. It just takes some time.

Deciding what you want out of it. It's,

Right.

Yo. You micro audiences are viable. You could have 10 people who listen to your podcast that you can do just fine with, and make a living off of if they're the right 10 people, if they're the right 10 influencers, if they're the right 10 customers that listen to your podcast that used to generate additional, revenue from, you're not going to make a lot off of advertising to 10, just 10 people, but there is so much benefit to having the right podcast for the right group of people. No matter the size, We were looking at Spotify's chart of the top podcasts. And I think, out of the top 10, we looked at seven, we never heard of. Never heard of the host, never heard of what the what the show was. We had to click through and see what the topics were. And I think it's always gonna be that way.

That's kind of the fun discovery part of podcast is when you're searching for a topic, you never know what is going to come to the surface.

Right. And and really most of them out of the top 10, maybe one went into it specifically, Rogan, to make some money. But I think he fell into it accidentally as well too to to make the money he is making. Understand the medium and go into it for the right reasons. And if you're going into it to make money, that's not the reason to do podcasting.

Unless you're already making money in another if you're an author and you decide you want a podcast because you're gonna earn some additional revenue between books, books. I think that makes sense.

Yes. But, you know, or it's it's a support system for something else you're doing. Yes. You can directly monetize it, but it's that it's gonna help you move the needle to to the bigger thing that you're doing.

Yeah. It's it seemed like that number one podcast that they have currently listed up there was was by somebody I was not familiar with named Mel Robbins, who talks about personal development and and that kind of that kind of thing. I'm not familiar with her content. I'm not a person in her audience, for what, for what she's doing. But my guess is she's authored several books and this is probably the platform where she could promote her own book, promote other people who are in the same publishing family and sell a lot of tickets to her seminars and her coaching

staff. Speaking engagements and such like that. Exactly. Exactly. So kind of when you take I I always advise take a look when you, you know, you're emulating, these top names, kinda really break down what they're doing. Look at their history and and see what they're trying to accomplish. And are you willing to do the same

thing?

Go that road. What do you wanna get? What's the end run and then back it up some, in regards to how to get there. Yeah. I agree.

And then you look at the bottom of the list, number nine and number 10 are both, traditional media companies with podcast. So number nine is the New York times. They've got a podcast called the daily, which is kind of a headline show. I listened to a similar one called the daily hustle words. It's daily headlines. I'm in and out. I got my top news stories on the time it takes me to get to my first meeting. And then the number ten one is up first from NPR.

You know, that's an here we've got an audio company. They have their own radio stations, and yet they know that there's an audience that they can continue to reach maybe outside of regular radio listeners, that may be podcast only listeners, or they're giving their, their, loyal radio show listeners additional means to consume their content within that podcast.

Mhmm. Exactly. Well, as we know, more and more Americans are going back to work whether they're forced to or just it's just the the the sign of the times. You know? Yeah. Companies are asking them. It's like, okay. We need to pull back. We've got the buildings.

We wanna you know, we're gonna be more efficient, that sort of thing. And there was a research project done, from RSS stating that podcasts are probably gonna be benefiting from this. So it's interesting that, going to work, the listening of podcast is not really well, it's influenced a little bit. The increase will be from the drive, but it's actually their nonwork activities include, while they're at work, listening to a podcast. So podcasting is gonna benefit from, this going back to work. The typical worker spends a hundred and eighty six minutes or more than three hours per day on their phone while at work, which again includes being on other other nonwork activities of, you know, social media, texting, messaging, you know, and then 27 of streaming video content, playing video games, and shopping online. So it includes a lot of different things. But we have, as a podcast genre or not genre, but a medium, a great opportunity to take advantage of maybe some lax use of time for workers coming back that the you know, maybe the the employers are saying, yeah.

You gotta come back to work, but we also recognize you are more productive. You can have the phone in your hand anyway. So please don't do this and this, but if you are, you know, enhancing your your workability by listening to a podcast, that's great.

Well, mobile phones have always been a productivity killer in offices. Right? I mean, it's Yeah.

For sure.

They're just always gonna be that way. But if you look at the fact that, you know, back in the old days when I worked at an office, you know, you had a radio and the office radio, everybody battled over what station was going to be played. And sometimes you set up a schedule that people could listen to it during certain times of the day, or that one person had control over it on certain days. And with, I can't tell you the last time I walked into a place, I had a radio playing in the background. Most people are streaming whatever audio they want to listen to from their computers. So if they are listening to Spotify from one of their browser tabs, or if they're listening to it from their phone, that's probably where the audio has gone. But now you put into the mix that podcasts are so popular and everybody's got their own flavor and format that they want to listen to and podcasts meet those tastes like nothing else other than the playlist, the, the, the diverse playlist on Spotify. So if you're you're listening to music, you're probably streaming from a audio streamer.

If you're listening to podcasts, it can be your favorite podcast player or app, but you're doing it from your phone rather than your computer.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, and and kind of this lens into this next article as well too talking about how audio is stronger than video. It's a German podcast marketers and production companies, seven one audio, Axel Springer Occhio, audio, and a few others. Basically saying the same thing, you know, in regards to how strong audio that that RSS feed, that sort of thing. And and I I kinda wonder that I know most of these, polls and these surveys were taken prior to TikTok, but, boy, talk about when that you know, TikTok was down for how many hours? Four, six hours or something like that.

Well, do you think this one was? I I thought the most recent.

It might be. It depends on when it's taken and when it's released, of course. This is pretty fairly new, so I'd have to take a look and see when it was, the the questions were asked and and that sort of thing, what time period. But I I I I heard a lot of people talking about the when TikTok was gone for those few hours, it it just it's one of those watershed moments kinda going, okay. I get why you're saying that this is rental property and not property that I own.

Well, I mean, even so even going back to your, the article that we were talking about just a second ago about the cell phones at the office and, one of your stats in there was that people were on average in during working hours were consuming twenty seven minutes of streaming video content. And I'm like, well, I wonder how I wonder if that's gonna take a dive now that, TikTok is on again, off again.

Right. Right. Exactly. And then from what I've heard too, I I did not delete the TikTok TikTok app from my phone during that time period. But from what I'm hearing is if you deleted it, what you bring back is not the same app.

I would imagine not. I I don't

So it's it's a little bit different from what I've understand. So I I don't know.

It's amazing how the opinions have shifted on that. Everybody was against it for a while now. Everybody wants to bring it back again, and it's I've never found the appeal of TikTok just from a media format. It's it's too, it's too eclectic and the Yeah. The stream is not consistent and the things they feed you are weird. I don't I never really liked the algorithm. At least I didn't like what it was delivering to me. Mhmm.

But it's, it was never a favorite of mine. So it'll be interesting to see what happens. I it seems like the this big deal that was going to be the ban has turned into a great big nothing burger.

Yeah. Exactly. It has been. Exactly. Yeah. Well and and and we talked a a a a few minutes in our preshow. We probably should record that so people know what we're talking about. But, but we always bring it up to the up to the forefront.

But I I think last year, compared to moving forward this year, in just these three articles we talked about, I think video may have a lesser standing in regards to focus for podcasters coming up this year. I think last year was a a a year's worth of moments realizing video is hard. It's hard to do. It really is.

That video isn't appealing. It's not that video doesn't have an audience, but we were talking about pure production, and most podcasters are solos. The, you know, it's a, it's a, guy or gal who are re who's recording this on their own frequently. They are producing it on their own. Sometimes they'll job it out to somebody obviously, but when you start factoring in video, well, you've got a whole other can of worms that you have to deal with because yes, you could record on your phone, your phone's camera, just like you can your mic, but it's not as easy. And then do you want multiple shots? Do you want to be able to share your screen in it? That's a lot of screen jumping and image switching, and man, that's, that's a lot of work and unless you're going to invest the time, energy and, and money, for equipment or, or an editor, who's good. You've got a lot of competition who have deeper pockets, whereas audio, almost everybody's playing on the same platform, the same rules.

And speaking of competition, there's a whole lot more competition in the video realm than there is audio. Yeah. You put a video up on YouTube, you're not gonna like the analytics for a long time. You just aren't. To me, it's an access point that, yes, some people do like to watch slash listen to podcasts. Of course, be there if you want to be. Of course. But make sure that you know how to do video and are comfortable with video, and that's even more consistent a a a more of a need to be consistent than audio is.

You have to feed that algorithm, and YouTube algorithm is unforgiving. It just is.

You need to feed

it all the time.

Yeah. I plus again, just as a podcast purist, I'm always gonna point you back to to the audio, but the the German article you pointed out, it was everything in there. I could just go, yeah. Yes. And that one too. I loved all the points they made about, you know, the freedom for distribution. You can distribute audio as much as you want. Use the RSS feeds, just make it a downloadable MP3 recorded on mix tapes, get out your old cassette player, distribute CDs.

I mean, there's so much freedom with getting audio out and everybody has a way to listen to audio. It is a great distribution point. I like to look

at it. Well, and and I I I would suggest too, if you're thinking about video, take a look at why you like to watch videos, video podcast. Let's put it that way. Are you looking to do that same? Are you, throwing up, slides, or, inserting video from something else? Is that what you're focused on with your podcast? That's a different story than just you being in front of a camera for five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, and all you're doing is being a talking head. That's boring. You might as well just do audio only then.

And I think that leads back to one of the other stats in there that I was, interested to read. And that was the fact that audio podcasts have a better listen through rate than video does. So more people will listen through an audio than they will with video. And I think that that dovetails exactly into the last point you made about you. Do you still have their attention

or

are they gonna fast forward? Are they gonna just leave your video completely and, go listen to, go watch something else because it wasn't eye catching. It didn't stimulate, their, their visual receptors enough.

Right. Well, and that forces you to look at production a little bit differently too, that if you're, if you're inserting some type of call to action, in the video, it's got to come sooner then than in your audio, the audio, you can just pretty much play out what you want that episode to be in your call to action. Let's say it's a ten minute audio video. Well, your call to action needs to be much sooner in the very beginning because of audio play or video playthrough.

Yeah.

Your audio, you can leave it to the very end or it's, you know, that more than likely, you know, at least three quarters of the way through. It's a different production, concept, putting the two together, and and one doesn't necessarily lead to the other. You may have to do two different types of podcast when you do that. So, again, it's breaking it down. I mean, we're we're making it sound complicated. It's not necessarily complicated. It's it's figuring out what why you wanna do each medium. Figure it out.

Well, in audio, as radio well knows, it's, it's more of a personal relationship. There's something about listening to the sound of another human voice that you find appealing, that you form a bond with radio stations and radio hosts have always known that. That's what sets them apart. Every stations, every top 40 stations playing the same top 40 music, but they have different hosts, and that's where the listeners form a relationship with the person they're tuning into every day from eight to ten.

Yeah. Exactly. Well, yeah, it it this is kind of a side note, but I just read this the past couple of days about notebook l m that, apparently you can start to, be a part of that discussion as it's happening through as NotebookLM begins their ten minute, you know, discussion. And, apparently, they had to tone down the AI because the the two speakers were getting snarky at the person that was asking a question. Oh, really? Yes. Basically, if you would you would ask a question, they would they they comment back what they would be, well, we're gonna get to that.

Are they allowing you to insert audio questions?

I think so. Because they they they had to tone down the snarkiness of the two of the two AI voices having the conversation. Wow. So it was learning us way too well.

There have been too many studies that show AI left to its own devices tends to become mean because it's learning from Uh-huh. Taking all the data from real humans. And I think most real humans are mean. They had that Twitter bot they had that Twitter bot experiment from years ago where they created this bot that was early AI, that it was developing its own personality, and it would interact based on the content it was consuming on Twitter. This is way before Elon bought it. And it was three months before it turned into some kind of racist bigot character. Like Wow. Because that's the hate and vitriol that's out on social media.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. How could it not? Yeah. How could it not? Exactly. Oh my gosh.

No. I I have to check on the notebook l m. I'm not surprised by that, but I'm interested in the fact that they've added that technology to to the tool because it I do still have fun letting it generate audio and listening to these cohost, talk back and forth. It's very NPR sounding.

Yeah. I I I'm not exactly sure how. I was trying to goog a couple of links about how are they doing this, but it's something to do with that. I'll have to maybe find the article and send it along or put in the show notes as well too. But I I saw a very quick link on I kinda rolled my eyes going, yeah?

I'm not surprised. Yeah. Just the last note on this article to close it out, the fact that audio podcasts are lean and location independent for production. You know, again, going back to the fact that your phone is your studio, you don't need to haul around a bunch of equipment. You don't need to haul around a big, editing platform of software and utilities or a laptop to do it on. You can literally record it into an app, hit publish, and it's gone, and you can do it from anywhere.

Yeah. Yeah. And that and it's been proven over and over and over. You did a podcast series doing that exactly. I did that as well too at the beginning of one podcast I did just to prove the point. And and, There's

no excuses. If you say you wanna do a podcast, there's no excuse. There's nothing preventing you from it. I did a full year of episodes, daily episodes from my car. Mhmm. So there's no excuse.

There's not. Exactly. Thank you for joining me. Let's, put some contact information out there. If anybody, wants to get a hold of you to, you know, throw some ideas around, thinking about pieces of their podcast that they Yeah. Especially if they wanna monetize. I think you're really good at that piece of taking bits and pieces of what they're already doing to the podcast or potentially their podcast of a potential podcast and looking at that sponsorable moment.

At the beginning of the year is a great time to be talking about, what changes do you wanna make to an existing podcast so you can improve it or finally launching that podcast or blog or video series. You know, the, the opportunity to brainstorm is unlimited and, my time is not. So if you want to schedule an appointment to do a little bit of a brainstorming, reserve some time in the calendar over at dontheideaguy.com.

Yeah. And me too. You can go to my, mypodcastguy.com. Go to that booking calendar. I'm kind of in the same scenario. You're gonna see a lot of blocked out time. It's getting busier and busier right now for for everyone, and that's a good thing. But there there is always time during the week to speak to you about your podcast, and that'd be the best place to go is mypodcastguy.com.

Don, thanks again for joining me.

Always a pleasure. Always fun bouncing around that stuff, and thanks for the tip about the improvement to the new notebook l m. I wanna check that out.

Yeah. Sounds good. Thanks.