Apple Podcast Regulations and Podcasting Industry News

You are tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek Hello and welcome to Altered Geek I'm your

host Steve Megatron Phillips if you're wondering

why it sounds a little strange it's because I'm

recording this at the same time that I'm sitting

with a laptop in front of me, and I don't have

my microphone so it's a little bit different

sounding today. Fly and Solo didn't want to record

my normal nights that I record, so this might

be a little late on this day that it's coming

out. Normally I record Monday nights and Thursday

nights for the podcast, and it's been a struggle

lately with just being kind of... weirdly depressed

on everything so It's just I get home and the

the efforts not there However, I do have the

effort right now. And so with that we're gonna

talk podcasting Not burnout not anything depressing.

I promise you it's all well There might be some

depressing aspects to podcasting itself, but

not anything that's related to me So without

further ado gonna keep keep going on this We

have some news about, well, Apple. Apple is cracking

down on tagging. So if you've not been following

the guidelines, Apple has been basically attacking

people that have show titles, author tag, and

geo ID manipulation. So basically they're just

filling it with keywords and tags that could

get them. back in the day is according to the

algorithm more able to get into the new and noteworthy

or the you know the the best of type thing so

anyways Apple is now and this has been kind of

in the pipe for a couple months but they really

haven't it really wasn't in the public consumption

for the most part unless you're deep into the

podcasting world They said that Apple's gonna

start suspending those show listings until they

can Correct it so there's been a major increase

in shows getting suspended then any other time

and They're just gonna keep going through the

directory suspending violators and sending emails

and so it kind of leads to question Should we

have alternative and I say this because Apple

controls I would say at this point probably 85

to 90 percent of the market just being realistic

because Google podcast really hasn't I mean they

they were Apple play music podcast which was

an obscene long name so now it's Apple or Google

podcasts and they they just They don't have Quite

the network that that iTunes has built up over

the years and it's unfortunate, but that's just

kind of how it is and I have this feeling that

we're gonna end up in this this period of time

where Apple is gonna start making Basically dictating

things and with and don't get me wrong The whole

thing with Alex Jones, and I know people are

familiar with this because one the guy's a douchebag

whether you like him or not There a lot of these

platforms were suspending his quote -unquote

free speech Which is it not only against the

Constitution because there's so many windbags

on network television or It's basically censoring

somebody that you don't like what they're talking

about if that were the case like half of TV would

be canceled like it's not It's not even a question

of it. It's you got to have both sides even if

they both suck and and so like I feel like with

his whole suspension and him only having a few

avenues left like Twitter or his website or wherever

it is that he hasn't been suspended from yet.

But I know iTunes suspended him, Facebook, Google,

YouTube, because of his, you know, whatever discrimination

or hate speech. Again, I don't follow Alex Jones.

I think he's the biggest tool in the world. I

used to work for The Blaze, which is a conservative

libertarian talk network. And they love to poke

fun at this guy Because he's such a weird person

Again, I'm not knocking him or anything else

just a lot of the stuff he talks about strange

but again, it's it's censoring and So it leads

you to wonder if you should be putting all your

eggs in one basket And we've been putting our

eggs in Apple's basket for so long at this point

that it's almost It's almost not Very Nice to

be thinking about them in the sense that they

could pull the plug on you tomorrow and Being

that a lot of these third -party apps for podcasting

or directories that that are out there Pulled

from iTunes a lot of these these websites that

are that are now popping up all over the place

They're pulling your iTunes feed Which is increasing

your iTunes downloads, but at the same time if

iTunes kicks you out of their network your whole

markets gone and So I think that it's kind of

a mistake to be throwing all your eggs one basket

now granted Google SoundCloud like I SoundCloud

is terrible for podcasters. It really is it's

not I know that people still use it for that,

but it's not a good platform. You should be using

somebody that specializes in it, whether it's

a Spreaker, a Podbean, a Libsyn, or somebody,

or Blueberry, somebody like that that specializes

in podcasting. I wouldn't be going to SoundCloud

when there's specifically music, and then most

of it is just, you're not getting... The analytics

or a lot of the stuff that you should be and

they haven't updated their platform in over five

years so it's it's having worked with them and

Omni studios and Google and stitcher and I heart

and Spotify and a few of the others Spreaker

blog talk radio SoundCloud is not very intuitive

or helpful I'm personally hosted on Spreaker

at the moment We used to be on blog talk radio

and we moved our whole archive over to Spreaker

to get better analytics, to get all of our shows

under one login because it was ridiculous before.

We had so many logins, 35 shows, 35 emails. It's

not helpful at all. And we can also assign contributors

so that people can update their own shows on

there without having to necessarily log into

Three different logins five different logins

ten different logins and I can check all the

stats at once like it's just there's so much

Better uses for a host like that now Omni does

the same thing and If you guys have any questions

on podcast hosts or ones that I recommend or

ones that I've used Just let me know in the comments

or or email me or contact me on twitter at scp21

or at altered geek But We have the whole issue

now, though, that if iTunes takes you out, you're

kind of gone from 90 % of the net at this point.

Google and SoundCloud, what I was getting to

before, they mirror. Basically, they pull your

clip from They pull your clip from your original

RSS feed and they They basically they host their

own version and so the stats are completely separate

from anything else you have going and it's It

kind of sucks because honestly They they're there.

They should be aggregating all of it in one one

feed So whatever you're getting on those two

they're on their own like the the stats are separate

Now, if you're doing iHeart, you're doing YouTube,

you're doing Spotify, you're doing Stitcher,

they all get pulled into wherever your RSS feed

is. So there's no worry there. I mean, you can

check them there and see what you're specifically

getting on those, on those platforms, which you

should have a dashboard on those if you're a

podcaster. But again, it's kind of... It's really

weird how all of these things break down But

yeah, it's it's definitely worrisome Which makes

me want to double down and have more of the stuff

back on geek cast radio at this point, but We're

still gonna be on Spreaker. We're still gonna

be all over the place, but I Keep an internal

archive of all of the podcasts so if push comes

to shove we can kind of move in a different direction

fairly quickly so there's also other news out

there if you're also a a podcast or some of that

just likes quality gear if you're a gamer if

you're a youtuber if you're just anybody like

that lodge attack I'm a big fan of Logitech Anyway,

I've always been a big fan of Logitech. I've

always gotten their their wireless mice. I've

gotten their their webcams. I've gotten Headsets

like one of my first headsets with a microphone

was a Logitech the clear chat pro USB Headset

Loved that headset they came out with a second

version which the controls were on the cord instead

of on the headset, which I'm not as fond of this

version that I have, but it was the only way

to get the same basic design for the clear chat.

And it makes me sad, but again, I kind of knew

that I wasn't going to get the same one. And

I guess you can buy the other one. It's like

130 bucks on eBay or Amazon or something. But

what makes me excited about this is they're known

for their gaming and for all their other peripherals

well Logitech just bought blue microphones In

blue if you're not familiar makes a lot of the

best USB sound quality microphones on the in

the market Not only for like iPhone, but they

also make them for like portable use they have

they have like I have the Yeti not the Yeti Pro

but I have the Yeti they have a bunch of different

styles they have like portable USB ones they

have little ones they have headsets they have

you know they have a lot of stuff so Logitech

announced at the end of July that they bought

blue for 117 million in cash which adds to their

their already current portfolio of brands like

Astro Gaming, Jaybird, Logitech G, and Ultimate

Ears so and the thing I like about Logitech is

that they don't tend to they don't tend to screw

with the the sub companies that they've bought

out they kind of let them do their own thing

with like bigger corporate money funding them

So like they reap the benefits, but they let

them kind of just continue on their mission and

do what they're gonna do Which I think is kind

of the right way to go about this Because then

you don't have all this corporate meddling or

anything now I what I do see coming down the

pipe is that Logitech will eventually take some

of the blue microphones or technology and replace

their technology and their webcams their headsets

And even remarket some of these blue microphones

with more of a gamer aesthetic on the outside

with the blue gear on the inside as a part of

their Logitech G or Logitech gaming hardware.

So again, it's a new space, but you know, at

the same time, not really, because they've been

kind of in this market for a long time. I used

to get the little desktop Logitech microphone,

the little cheap $9. thing which I I just kind

of Had before I got the clear chat pro In it

sucked don't get me wrong when I started all

things transformers version 1 .0 I had that microphone.

I had I had the $9 You know set it on your desk

with a little stick. It was it was terrible but

It worked it did what it had to do I mean it

didn't sound the best But it did what it had

to do and so when I got the clear chat pro about

I don't know 10 15 episodes in It sounded infinitely

better. Although you could hear my breathing

which was just as bad and then I think about

I don't know sometime in 2009 in spring of 2009

I I got I got the, uh, Logitech, uh, or not Logitech,

the Blue Yeti microphone. Uh, which is awesome.

I -I love the Blue Yeti. I've had it since 2009,

so it's -it's nine years old now. Uh, still truckin'

along, still sounds great, um, but uh, yeah,

so anyways, Logitech says that - You know joining

up with blue and their microphone lines is logical

adjacent opportunity with great synergies obviously

like I said In Logitech is a leader in studio

quality microphones, you know our blue Is a leader

in studio quality microphones over the past 20

years You know the yeti the snowball and in a

lot of professional recording artists to use

it podcasters use it so it's pretty popular and

So, I'm really, really excited to do with this

technology. Stay along. So, as for other news,

there's a company out there called PodKite, and

PodKite is doing something that... not... well,

let's just put it this way. Nobody else is doing

this so it's basically all of your podcasts ranks

and reviews in one place So they're touting this

get discovered increase your downloads and stay

on top of feedback So you can track your podcast

it's supposedly what it does is it gives you

Real -time ranking you can find out anything

about anybody's podcast so basically you can

get real numbers their attempt is to Track The

stats of the podcasts in in effort of stopping

a lot of the faking of the the stats and and

also you get to see reviews so Now you can get

your iTunes reviews. You can get your iTunes

reviews on places like Mypodcastreviews .com

there's a couple apps and WordPress and then

there's Omni Studios bundles it in So you can

have all of your, you can filter it by the United

States, you can change the tab, you can get it

other countries. You can get your Apple Podcasts

and Google Podcasts rankings included. They're

working on getting more such as Stitcher and

a lot of these other platforms. So you can track

your rank, you can get it all in updates and

a weekly thing. So basically they're gonna have

you know market intelligence for it, so You can

find out you know the the rankings in all 20

in 28 countries and all categories track your

rankings in the podcasts and Android handsets

Compare the podcast that you were about You can

get email alerts when your podcasts are trended

or featured Find the the least competitive categories

you can have There's just all kinds of stuff.

So I guess they do play with Apple podcast Google

podcast Spotify and stitcher with more on the

way Which is good news? And then they kind of

give a lowdown so you can contact them you can

get rankings and you can get reviews And find

out the name of the shows and everything else

so it's kind of an interesting concept when you

think about it considering everybody's in this

Tizzy now to try and get The most accurate stats

possible and it seems to be this thing. That's

Like the like a golden unicorn like it's weird

if you can find it And So it's It's definitely

something to to be aware of and to look into

I don't know if I'm gonna sign up for it necessarily,

but I think it's still an interesting concept.

The funny thing is Steve Jobs states in 2005

that when Steve Jobs and Apple announced they

would support podcasts and iTunes, he said that

the future was podcasting. And here we are 13

years later and it's getting heavy duty now.

I mean, you've got for dummies podcasts on podcasting,

how to market with podcasting. So there's a lot

going on in the podcasting space. And even now,

there's jobs that are taking place that are strategically

only podcasts. I was, at my previous job, I was

the head of radio and podcasts, head of distribution

for radio and podcasts. And it was... Very doable

in my skill set. I I was really good at it. The

unfortunate part is is you know, sometimes when

organizations need money That's that's a problem

and so, you know, they downsized essentially

so I have no ill will I just you know, that's

just what happens So, uh, so yeah Beasley media

group is the first company Specifically putting

people in charge of podcasting because they're

going to unveil a company -wide podcasting strategy

later this year. Four of Beasley's current employees

were given the added title of podcast captain.

The captains will be responsible for assisting

the local markets in evaluating and partnering

with local content providers, along with helping

the company's overall mission of building a larger

podcast community. And so they have podcast captains,

basically program directors. and on -air personalities,

one in Boston, one in Philadelphia, one in Detroit,

one in Charlotte, and it says they're thrilled

to have new podcast captains help lead creative

process at Beasley Media Group and continue to

develop and grow the company's podcast strategy.

So, yeah, I mean, that would be like the dream

job for me if I could get it. on air host or

something like I I want to be directly involved

with podcasting and that's that's been my passion

since 2007 2006 like it's something I know quite

a bit about but it's again it's it's something

that you just kind of have to keep up on because

it constantly changes just like everything else

Especially with radio kind of melding in with

the podcasting world at this point or or even

video Like shows are basically simulcast and

all the different methods So it's it's a little

crazy that in less than you know 15 years on

-demand podcasts have been you know becoming

this key part of media And in luring advertisers

in the market and it's growing and how much it's

worth and in the the scope of the different styles

of podcasts and different content types that

are out there because it says that you know according

to like an Edison research that 124 million Americans

listen to audio podcasts including 73 million

on a monthly basis and in the fact that podcasts

are getting to the point where they you know

kind of sit along with other forms of premium

media like video and books TV and music It's

it's just crazy at this point And there there's

reviewers of podcasts now that that people you

know review podcasts So it's it's it we're in

a totally different generation different world

now It's kind of this natural progression for

people that are on the go That like things like

Netflix that like for instance Now that I'm driving

again now that I work outside the house, and

I don't have to listen to radio for my job It's

nice because in this in a sense Not that I didn't

enjoy some of the content But when you hear the

same doom and gloom on everything on every show

and every network It gets a little I don't know

depressing It's nice in the sense of being able

to download multiple shows of different podcasts

of different hosts, different types, different

genres. You can have this nice mixture of content.

And so what are some shows you guys listen to,

some shows that really interest you, whether

it's self -help, entrepreneurship, business,

marketing, podcasting? pop culture films TV Just

you know creativity design just what kind of

podcast you guys listen to I I listen to a variety

of different shows and I have everything from

some of the geek cast radio shows that I've been

meaning to catch up on Like geek responsibly

I've got Like Gary Vaynerchuk, I've got various

other people like that I've got Like Dave Jackson's

podcast Just a variety of different content,

so let me know What you guys listen to I'm really

interested I I know that this is a booming market,

and I promise the next episode I'll have some

of the listener feedback stuff I'm planning on

doing something on the show with Dodd if I can

get him wrangled down He hasn't been feeling

well last few weeks I seem to have this this

this lull that at night I just have zero energy

But if I get up like early in the morning again,

and I start recording I have like this new like

found passion and zeal for for doing My craft

and doing my creativity. I think it's because

I'm not burnt out yet by the end of the day I

just feel tired from just working and it's because

I have to drive I have to go out of the house

and I come home and then you know I'm ambushed

when I walk in the door by my my my kids and

my wife my dog and you know and I love it I just

it I I also like time to like wind down so when

it gets to the end of the night I just don't

feel like it anymore for the most part so I may

have a few interviews lined up I'm kind of in

talks with some people just waiting to hear back

but not interviews for jobs but interviews for

the show I am employed so It'll be it'll be interesting

if I can get some of those but until next time

Get altered get geeky with the alter geeks