Star Wars, RoboCop Returns, and Podcast Industry Metrics

You're tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek. For those listening, I'm on vacation this

week. There was no Tuesday episode again, and

that's why. When I come back, I'll be doing two

episodes a week again, so look forward to that.

So, some things that have been kind of on my

mind. One of the episodes, I think last week

we mentioned, Star Wars Lando getting cast is

a number of things. It's going to be interesting

seeing that. We're also getting, like, Carrie

Russell in an undisclosed role. I was wondering

how long it was going to be before they got Milly

D. Williams back in Star Wars, only because they've

had C -3PO, R2 -D2, Chewbacca... Luke, Leia,

Han, and they've killed off all of them except

for the Wookie and the robots. So the only one

they have left to kill off is Lando at this point.

Other than the ship, I think they'll keep the

technology because really anybody can do that

in the suit of Chewbacca. Anybody can do that

as well. But I think that this will be interesting

to see. Billy Dee Williams return is Lando since

he only did the first, you know, did Empire Strikes

Back and then Return of the Jedi and then you

had Donald Glover playing him in solo and I wonder

how his presence will be in this film between

the resistance and between the fact that he used

to do like all these armaments and used to do

all this kind of shady stuff in the original.

It kind of continued through the Empire Strikes

Back as well and he kind of turned and helped

flying what was originally his ship and I'm wondering

if that had to do with how the Millennium Falcon

came up missing. It was a deal with Lando at

some point but I guess we'll just have to wait

and see what capacity he's going to be in the

film. being that he's really the only link to

the past at this point that's left. But it's

hard to see what they'll do. It's really hard

to see. There's a lot of speculation out there,

you know, whether he's going to be doing something

similar to his Cloud City role or doing something

where he's, you know, smuggling. There's really

no... definitive way to tell what's going to

happen so what do you guys think on this like

it's do you think that we needed to have Lando

back do you think that they're just doing it

as like another way to throw an old relic of

Star Wars past in there or do you think that

he could actually lend something really interesting

to the story of the follow -up of The Last Jedi

in episode 9. And do you think Luke will be back?

I'm kind of wagering that he might with Obi -Wan,

the Ewan McGregor version, and possibly Yoda.

So we'll see how this goes in the next film,

but I'm kind of excited to see what happens.

So switching gears again to another film getting

some kind of a sequel. Deadline broke this news

that Robocop Returns is in the works with Neil

Blomkamp of the Elysium District 9, Chappie,

helming the film, which they're all pretty noirish

and could fit really well with this, but his,

you know... You know, his films kind of have

this social commentary aspect, which kind of

plays out in most media at this point. But I

wonder what route they're going to go with this,

of Robocop Returns, considering the original

films were all like Orion Pictures movies and

MGM. Type films and then and then having him

take over this whole thing not that the studios

mean anything But because neither one of those

are around anymore as far as I know But I Don't

know I mean he's I think he's got a number of

things between an untitled Terminator reboot

Masters of the universe Green Lantern core likes

a variety of films possibly on his plate, but

I would be down to see what they do with the

RoboCop returns and any imaging that they may

have for that. I don't know if it's necessarily

needed or warranted considering they tried to

reboot the film a number of years ago and it

flopped. I mean, it was an interesting take on

it, but it still wasn't the best rendition. There's

this other thing that kind of popped up that

I'm kind of Interested to see how this this turns

out as everybody knows Gaming or gaming leagues

have become this this huge thing now I remember

watching them on g4 TV after slightly before

tech TV got bought out by g4 which is I believe

Comcast owned and They used to have this show

where they'd have tournaments and they had like

Unreal Tournament or various, you know Half -life

or something Counter -Strike or some kind of

game like that. I remember Unreal Tournament

though specifically they used to have teams pitted

against each other to play three rounds of Capture

the flag or deathmatch or you know all team based

stuff So anyways overwatch since that's like

the latest and greatest thing on the net now

I mean, I've never played it or cared to but

It's uh An overwatch league has strike or struck

a milestone deal with Disney and ESPN Strangely

enough Activision Blizzard announced that the

overwatch league playoffs will be aired on a

ESPN and Disney XD which It's it's a huge step

for eSports and video, you know competitive video

gameplay, but honestly like I've never watched

or known where to watch any of this stuff before

and Not saying I would watch it but is this something

that people actually care to watch or is this

like something that is As big as they're making

it out to be like I'm not in this loop They said

that EA's Madden NFL 18 did broadcast an esports

tournament on ESPN 2 and Disney XD earlier this

year, but They're going to start doing the playoffs,

which I knew they did tournaments of a lot of

video games, but for this it seems a bit crazy.

So I'm not entirely sure what to think of this.

I know that they're going to have television

distribution for esports events over a single

weekend of like 10 total hours over four networks

and three days between Disney, ABC, ESPN and

Blizzard. um representing the commitment to the

esports tournament so i i'm not quite sure what

to think of this uh because they're saying that

the the sponsorship even on this is and and spending

revenue are gonna hit you know 65 or 655 million

and 224 million respectively by 2020 and and

they're saying that it doesn't sound like uh

Much but the NFL only raked in 1 .3 million in

revenue in 2017 so they're kind of gaining on

like professional sports with with video games

and Yeah, I guess currently the playoffs will

be live -streamed on In addition to ESPN Disney

XD on twitch mlg .com and the ESPN app and Disney

now Is this something that that people watch

a lot of like I mean, I know Like I'm an older

generation. I mean technically I fall within

that, you know, 18 to 34 realm but is that this

like that big of a deal of of watching video

games get played Like I've never been one to

watch like let's plays online on YouTube or twitch

of people playing video games So like I've never

understood the draw for it I've attempted to

do like Some of the video games on YouTube before

and it just doesn't it doesn't resonate with

me the same way It's just playing it for pure

enjoyment. It's and having an audience watching

me like there's there's a difference almost like

I get it if you're doing a tournament and it's

like money on the line kind of thing, but I I

just don't I Mean, I guess it's not that much

different than watching the old g4 TV except

It was I mean, I guess it's kind of a competition

game show thing kind of like what we were raised

on with with some of those video game based or

game show based things on Nickelodeon back in

the day, but I I'm not really Familiar with this

territory. And so if anybody has any ideas or

thoughts on it, feel free to comment on the the

post on the website But yeah, I I'm a little

astounded that this has gotten so large over

the last few years. Well in other conversations,

I found it interesting that YouTube is finally

going to have a feature that will notify creators

when videos are stolen. Instead of having to

find out through the grapevine, I guess they're

releasing a tool for creators that It checks

to see if their videos are being stolen. Now

every time a video is uploaded to YouTube, the

service will scan and check if the content already

exists or is very similar to other videos on

the site. It will only identify complete videos,

not clips. So the tool, which YouTube is calling

the Copyright Match Tool, will roll out to creators

with more than 100 ,000 subscribers starting

next week. So it sucks if you're not one of those

people. So it will roll out to more users over

the next few months. Creators who use the tool

will be notified if copies of their videos surface

on YouTube. If the tool finds matches, creators

can then decide what action to take. They can

either do nothing, contact the person who made

the copy, or ask YouTube to remove the copy.

So they kind of show the process. Yeah, so it

says you have to be the first person to upload

the video to be considered the original creator

by the tool. So there's the possibility that

someone else copies your video that's already

on Vimeo or Facebook and uploads it to YouTube

before you. YouTube already has a similar program

called Content ID, which helps copyright owners

find people using their content without permission.

Content ID is more limited in its availability

and like this new tool, it also allows content

owners to monetize unauthorized uses of their

work. So I think that's a good thing. because

I know like Randall, I believe it's Randall Ng

and he's had this issue numerous times with a

lot of his Transformers videos and it's unfortunate

that it happens as much as it does but I think

that this will kind of curb that being that there'll

be no incentive to steal other people's videos

and try and monetize them if you're just gonna

get screwed in the end for doing it. So I think

that it's a really, really good thing in a sense,

but it also can be bad, like it said, if you

weren't the first one to upload it. So I thought

that that was kind of a nice innovation that's

coming along for YouTube because usually they're...

doing things that have been harming the lower

subscriber people. But I guess that eligible

content creators will see a copyright section

in the left navigation in YouTube Studio, which

is like their new beta thing that they've got,

which doesn't quite have all the features yet.

But I guess the company removed about 8 .3 million

videos for community guideline violations in

last quarter 2017. and their content ID system

hasn't changed since 2013, so this is kind of

their way to remind creators that they should

kind of be on the lookout. It says that creators

can flag a message for the offending channel,

request a removal, or just archive the match

to not take any action. YouTube reminds creators

that just because they find a match doesn't mean

it's automatically copyright infringement. It

could be fair use, fair dealing, or a similar

exception to copyright and thus allowed to be

posted by someone other than you. Unless they're

taking your exact video and posting it, which

would be kind of complete douchery. So yeah,

that's a little craziness there. So I thought

I would jump into a little bit of podcast stuff.

So are you one of those people that kind of search

for a particular kind of podcast or are looking

for essentially a podcast only edition of like

Google? I was introduced to the site Listen Notes,

which is strictly a podcast search engine which

has about 525 ,000 podcasts listed in their directory

with like 32 .6 million episodes. And so for

instance, if I type in like AlterGeek, it will

say, you know, AlterGeek by GeekCast Radio Network

have a link to like the iTunes. the direct website

through Spreaker. You can do the email. You can

search the episodes itself. You can see what

episodes have come out. You can see, you know,

share them. So, yeah, it's... It's kind of interesting

to see this type of thing happen. Although they

could use a lot of work on their iTunes address

because it doesn't play it right. And then their

RSS feed, which redirects to your actual feed.

And the website address is totally wrong too.

It's an interesting service. And it tells you

how many episodes of the podcast are out to the

state, when it first started, what language,

what country. I was turned onto this site a while

back and I think that it's a good resource for

at least finding stuff if you don't want to go

through iTunes or you don't want to search Google

and you want to find something more direct and

find something by keywords or find something

by organization. And it even has a random podcast

like this category so it will find something

along those same lines. Whether it works or not

is a different story. But it's interesting to

see this different service that can help you

find something other than using iTunes. I'm not

a big fan of iTunes at all. I find it to be annoying.

I find it to be kind of a headache to navigate.

I use it out of necessity, but it doesn't necessarily

mean I like it. And this service isn't perfect

either. Like I said, the iTunes address is wrong.

The RSS feed is the viable option that does work.

You can search the episodes. You can play the

episodes directly from there. You can download

it. So it's it's a good way to find the shows

the other problem I kind of have with a lot of

these services like this though is like cast

cast box and listen notes they both have this

ability where they kind of mask your RSS feed

so if you subscribe to it, it's through their

service which I find kind of distasteful and

kind of underhanded because you're you're subscribing

to RSS feed of theirs that redirects elsewhere

and it's not directly your Your feed at least

initially it patches through theirs Plus I don't

like the fact that they have like create a clip

from the episode Which I find to be a little

bit odd that they have that built in but yeah

So there is that service. I mean it does it does

well with that and then we have the fact that

metrics are such a un -standardized system. And

this was a problem I ran into at my old job that

I worked was the metrics were atrocious. They

were difficult to get. You had to break it down

really funny between all the different sources.

So if you were on, let's say Omni and SoundCloud

and Google Play and Stitcher and iTunes and iHeartRadio,

you had to break it down all kinds of funny and

each service doesn't play well with each other.

There's no standardization. There's nothing that

records the data in the same way. So I would

love to see a standardization, but they're saying

that it's unlikely to have a significant impact

on advertisement involvement. But they're saying

that networks are moving to try and change this

because it's still very much the Wild West on

figuring it out. And with the medium growing

the way that it is and tracking the podcast downloads

and listens Is kind of just all over the place

like I mentioned it's it's there's no standardization

a lot of the services are lacking in a lot of

areas And it just makes it difficult it makes

it overly confusing where it shouldn't be Say

what you will about the Nielsen content for radio

and television It's at least a standard that

everybody plays by. And so I think that there

almost needs to be one like this for for podcasting.

But I guess the International Association of

Broadcasters, IAB, released a set of proposed

guidelines for podcast publishers in 2016 and

a second set in December in a push to better

regulate metrics across the industry and. a particular

podcast network like Wondry has taken upon themselves

to become one of the first commercial podcasting

companies to adopt this standard, hoping that

other networks and publishers will follow suit.

And a lot of them started to opt in, or at least

partially. And I feel like that the rest of the

internet needs to have this standard. Granted,

I mean, we're on Spreaker. It's a lot better.

resource to read our metrics, and it's easier

to get the information, get exact numbers, get

more of a breakdown of the podcast compared to

Blocktalk Radio. But even then, it was better

than having them on my own server and having

to try and figure out what people were actually

listening to, how long they were listening. Because

the way that it was recorded on our backend was

it would say that... you know there was a hit

or a download of it but that doesn't necessarily

mean anything so listens and downloads are two

totally different uh methods of recording the

information so i i'm all for a way of of trying

to have a guideline set up or some type of you

know filtering out duplicates and other source

number inflations and I think that that's one

of the things I enjoy most about Spreaker is

that I actually have a unified dashboard where

you can get the entire network's worth of metrics,

like all their statistics. I can get them separately.

What I love is that there's a main dashboard,

unlike Blogtalk, where I had to have a different

email account for every show to log in. And this

particular dashboard I can manage all of the

shows I can create new shows on a fly in this

I can assign Hosts to manage their own show Tell

us how many episodes when there's last updated,

you know, whether it's nine ten hours ago or

You know two months ago Going to you know all

the way down to like years ago and and how many

episodes What I love about the statistics, though,

is it tells you total plays, total downloads,

total likes, total followers, total time spent

listening, either through Spreaker, listening

apps, mobile apps, iHeartRadio, embedded players,

doesn't take into account downloads. And then

they have the likes, the geolocation, plays and

downloads, demographics, sources, devices and

followers. And it's kind of nice to see how many

people are actually getting the shows from iTunes

or Apple Core Media for like iPhone, iPad, you

know, browsers like Firefox or iHeartRadio. And

so it kind of helps build up the numbers showing

how many downloads you get between all of them.

And it's nice to have that breakdown, like it'll

even tell how many people downloaded from Blocktuck

Radio, it'll tell how many people downloaded

from... uh... you know the speaker website or

or android or uh... geekcastradio .com uh...

how much of an impact the website's having there

uh... thisweekengeek .net alteredgeek .com like

so i i can tell whether it's a total waste of

time to put the shows on those sites and uh...

and then it'll give me like the total per show

downloads and uh... it's It's a very nice tool

to have these standards finally Although it kind

of sucks because we had a certain type of standard

and counting on Blog talk that we no longer have

from years ago of the data retention so But it's

again. It's it's nice to have the information

that you need So we're coming up on five years

of the podcast and I mean we'll have a couple

episodes before we hit our five -year anniversary

but what are some moments that you guys want

to hear about what are some moments that stick

in your mind from either geek news or from this

podcast of things that have been covered things

that maybe haven't been covered some things that

you would like to hear or see or Things I've

suggested in the past that I've never gotten

to I'm kind of fishing for information here and

kind of hoping that There's something that will

draw you guys And in your attention and and again,

I really really want to have a Conversation so

I'm pretty open and a lot of things despite the

fact that Some of my views and some of my opinions

of shows have changed over the years. I still

have a pretty solid thought process on a lot

of it that I still think that I can offer some

of that information. Let me know by going to

feedback at alterngeek .com or comment on this

episode post on Facebook, Twitter or geekcastradio

.com. So, continuing the bit on podcasting, do

you guys, when you browse podcasts, do you just

strictly listen to them, do you pay attention

to the description, or do you like shows where

they have transcriptions for the podcasts, or

do you find them better if they have transcriptions?

because one of the things I noticed from a podcast

site is they said that more often than not, people

prefer to have transcriptions. I know that it's

good for search engine stuff and I know that

it's good for show notes purposes and marketing

and promotions, but is it something that you...

something that interests you to have on a show

that you're listening to. I don't personally

pay attention to any of that. I pay attention

to what the topics are and then kind of go from

there and listen to it. But I would be interested

to hear what you guys had to say anyway on the

subject matter. And then where do you guys consume

your podcasts? for instance there's another article

that says the best podcast directories and where

to list your podcast and so like they have like

apple itunes or podcasts connect spotify which

our shows are now on stitcher google play music

which is google podcast now same basic thing

Tune in radio which our shows are on And then

we have it on Spreaker and we have them on The

website so I mean we're pretty much all over

But yeah, so where do you guys get your shows

typically from because I I'm not I Am I'm not

For any of them in particular like I use them

as I need them any of them really But I know

that's like in the past we use zoom Like the

zoom network when Microsoft had their their thing

out, which is apparently no longer relevant So

yeah, let me know what you guys think on that

anyway, so Yeah, I think that about closes this

episode out. So if there's anything you guys

want to talk about, anything you want to converse

about or geek out about, you can email feedback

at altergeek .com or myself at Twitter at SCP

-21 or at altergeek and I'll get back to you

on that. So until next time, get altered, get

geeky with the Altergeeks.