No Engagement? Maybe You Should Check Your Website

Dave Jackson: 00:00
Ask the Podcast Coach for November 1st, 2025. Let's get ready to podcast. There it is. It's that music that means it's Saturday morning. It's time for Ask the Podcast Coach, where you get your podcast questions answered live. I'm Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting.com, and joining me right over there is the one and only Jim Cullison from theAverage Guy.tv. Jim, how's it going, buddy?

Jim Collison: 00:28
Greetings, Dave. Happy Saturday morning to you. Happy All Saints Day. A reaction for the church for Halloween. So we're glad you made it on Yeah, there you go. I'm glad you made it on the other side of Halloween. Welcome back.

Dave Jackson: 00:39
Yeah, you know, I think the whole ring camera kind of spoiled the whole trick part of trick or treat. You know what I mean? You can't leave steaming piles of dog poo on somebody's, you know.

Jim Collison: 00:50
No, no, you're gonna be like, hey Johnny, we we have film of you. Um although I don't think it matters on a night like that. Are you really gonna be able to find, you know, teenage mutant ninja turtle who left a turd on your porch? Not gonna happen.

Dave Jackson: 01:04
Yeah, but this it is getting, I don't know about you. I woke up and said it was 36 degrees outside, and I was like, oh, it is November.

Jim Collison: 01:12
Yeah, we listen, it's this is uh really one of those years we went from summer. I mean, it was still like 80 a week ago here. And then 30. Yeah, okay. Welcome to winter.

Dave Jackson: 01:24
The last Sunday it said it was 30, I think, five out when I got up and I had to scrape my car to go to church. And was like, somebody's lying, because if it's 35, it shouldn't be freezing on my windshield. So it's dang you, Alexa.

Jim Collison: 01:43
We don't say the other things anymore. It's the dew point.

Dave Jackson: 01:46
Oh, there we go. But of course, you know what'll keep it nice and toasty is that's right, a a good my Alexa is going crazy for some reason. A hot cup of Java, and that coffee pour is brought to you by our good friend Mark over at podcastbranding.co because he'll make you a whole website. He'll make you, you know, cool artwork, which is if you're watching this on YouTube, uh, he's made a bunch of mine, and uh he can make a PDF, anything that you want to look good in front of your audience. Because look, you can only make a first impression once. Mark is an award-winning graphic artist, he's a podcaster, which is you you don't know how great that is until you try to work with someone who's like, yeah, a podcast thing, that's that thing on YouTube, right? And you're like, no, no, it's not. So uh Mark's gonna sit down with you one-on-one, find out what you want to do with your show, let him be the marketing guy. You're the podcast person, and you're just gonna get that personalized one-on-one attention that you're just not gonna get any place else. So when you're ready to look your best, there's only one place to go. That's podcastbranding.co. Tell him Jave, Jave, yes, Jave and Dim sent you.

Jim Collison: 03:05
It's our combined name. That's right. Jave. Big thanks to our good friend Dan Lefebvre over there based on a true story, based on a true storypodcast.com. And he's been taking a little time off, but Project Blue Book is still out there. If you want to take a look at it, I I always encourage you. You know, Dan does some amazing cover art. And if you want to see how cover art should be done or could be done, I don't want to, no shaming, no cover art shaming here today. If you want to see how that you want to see some good art there, check it out. Based on a true story at based on a true storypodcast.com. And as always, Dan, thanks for your sponsorship.

Dave Jackson: 03:43
Yeah, since it's November, that means it's the first day of Napod Pomo, which I forget what it stands for. Yeah, you do a November challenge, which usually means I don't I'm already way ahead of the game. This is where I usually stop cutting my hair so by January I'll look like Jerry Garcia. But if you're doing the November challenge with a podcast, all I say is about the 10th, when you're a little crispy, you know, it's okay to stop. I've seen people that just burn themselves ragged because I I mean, on one hand, I love it because it just gets you to create, you're right. Get your reps in, go to town. So I love that part of it. But when it just burns people out to where they're like, oh, I can't do that. I'm like, well, realize you're not going to be podcasting every day. Maybe do one a week or two a week or whatever, but not every day. And yeah, the content creator's accountant. Yeah, it's true. Ralph is doing that. He's been podcasting daily for years, which I still think is madness, I tell you, madness. But if you got it in you, I mean, if you'll yeah, exactly. If you like doing it, do it. If not, I just to me it sounds like a great way just to burn your soul. I did it one one year I did it, and it was like, Yeah, I don't think I'm ever gonna do that again. And I was doing things like my top ten albums of all time, and I was just finding anything to to talk about. But in the end, I was like, if I was brand new to podcasting, if I didn't realize I'm just getting my reps in, I I really could see where in a way that could be you know a spooky way to just burn people out.

Jim Collison: 05:25
But so just just know that going in. Yeah, it depends how you make them, how much you know, depends the you know, my posting process is fairly complicated, right? It all the different places I send it to, and the different pieces that I do. I've actually with AI, the the actual show note uh part that used to be a burden, like I hated writing show notes, is now actually really enjoyable, right? As the AI is helping me do those things that I'm not very good at, and I've gotten it down to kind of my science, so to speak, where I do the prompts in certain order, I give it information in certain order. That has actually made the the for me, the posting process a little bit more enjoyable. So, you know, where or used to be a chore, and I would have Dave, I if I would have tried to do home gadget geeks style daily, that well, the interviews by themselves would probably burn me out. There's just a lot to it. But but you know, hey, you there there can be ways to make things easier for you.

Dave Jackson: 06:25
Yeah, Randy Black says I tried daily and made it about 15 days before I, you know, threw in the towel. Uh speaking of Randy Black, no show next week. I will be at Pod Indy shaking hands with the one and only Randy Black, along with uh Craig Van Slyck from AI Goes to College. He's gonna be doing a half-day seminar, doing a deep dive into AI stuff. So I'm looking forward to it. For more information, go to podindi.com. Dave says it could be a good way to get some people started. Yeah, that's the thing where I've done this many times where I use an app called Chronometer, and I'll start off and just be great, and I'm tracking all my food, and then somewhere around Thursday the the wheels fall off, and for some reason every Sunday I'm like, all right, back on the thing. So sometimes just a new month will be the thing to get you going. Realize though, if you're thinking of starting a podcast in 2026, if you start now doing the planning, doing the research, like you know, I maybe that's what a lot of people are doing now. This whole daily thing is they're trying to get their reps in. So when January hits, they're ready to do it for reels and you know, go to town. So instead of waiting like everybody else till January, and then they do their reps, and then they're ready to launch in whatever March or something like that. So yeah, uh Rich says, I did uh Vlogmas in 2020. Made it 22 days daily sports history. I went from seven to five days a week, have a kid with a heart condition. Well, that'll change your schedule real quick. Yeah, yeah. And then Ralph said, I love doing daily so much. I added another show and then another and then another, but only one daily. Yeah, that's that's that's my biggest regret, having so many shows that I was like, I I think if I had to do it again, I'd do one show and just make it amazing, as opposed to, yeah, I got three shows that are not bad, you know. So that whole nine yards.

Jim Collison: 08:28
But speaking of starting the different hold on real quick, it was a little bit of a different day, you know, five years ago, even five, six, seven years ago when podcasting was still fairly edgy. And like I think the edge is off of it. Like there's there hasn't really been any new technologies around it for a while. I mean, whole podcasting 2.0 tried to do that and had some success getting some new things, but there isn't really anything new. And then we've seen the advent of the mega podcaster, right? Joe Rogan started with serial and then some other ones. Rogan's kind of come on. I think you know, we're seeing this with the Kelsey brothers with new heights. And it's kind of I I don't, I just don't feel like it's as edgy as it used to be. Like, I think the even for the people listening, and I like Dave, in those early days, I felt like we were breaking ground. Yeah. We were like, yeah, we're out, we're rebels out here, we're gonna, you know, take stick it to the radio man, and then we got you know, we we're we can reach people you can't, and I I don't I don't feel that way anymore. I feel like, yeah, it's kind of mainstream and it's okay. I mean, I'm not trying to say we shouldn't be doing it. Don't hear me say that. This uh this is not a podcasting's over, you know, the everything's falling down. It's just like it's just not as it used to be. I'm a rebel. Like I but here's the thing.

Dave Jackson: 09:52
Where's the where's the rebellious in this? Because we'll we'll get uh Jeff, I pinned your question by the way. We're gonna circle back to that. But this guy says, are reality podcasts a thing? Uh a couple of my friends of mine, a couple of friends of mine and I get together a couple times a week and we sit around in BS while we watch football, baseball, or whatever. Other friends started stopping by and they said we should start a podcast and just record the BS conversations, which cover life topics in general or things happening in our lives personally. So we said F it and we started one in January. Our expectations are zero and our metrics are okay, but we have a blast doing it. That's the key. And everyone that comes over wants to record with us. Are there any other podcasts that are similar or do most have structure? Or our show is a train wreck, but that is kind of what we already know. Of course, we knew nothing when we started, and we have 20 episodes now. Wait, they've been podcasting since January. They do a couple a week, so they're not being consistent then. They should have let's see, this is uh Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like they're doing every other week, maybe. But anyway, I would love to know if people actually want to hear about other people's realities or if not. I understand listeners will flock to a good podcast, and I know ours is far from the from a professional uh cast. However, there is something entertaining in terms of value to it, but interested in everyone's thoughts. I know if we start on a particular niche, it could be easier, but we are content with what we're doing now. Thanks in advance for this. So there are two things that I like about this. One, we're having fun too doing it, and two, we are content with what we're doing. Well then keep doing it. Like, but I mean, it it's one of those words like, hey, I'm gonna call my friend that I've known for 50 years, and I'm gonna recon record the phone call. Should that be a podcast? Eh. You know, we're gonna talk about guitars, we're gonna talk about hot chicks in high school. Yeah, but it's like uh not every conversation needs to be made public. So I just answered them. I said, look, if you're making me laugh, cry, think, grown, educate, or entertain, if you're making saving me time or money, I'll listen to that. But if you're not, not. And my guess is I I would love to know what the name of the show is and go look at it. It's probably two hours long. They're doing it Rogan style, that they love to say. I don't know, but I just to me, you know, do people actually listen to this? If it's good, yeah, I'll listen to that.

Jim Collison: 12:23
But if it's not interesting, I mean, that's what the Kelsey brothers are doing. Right. I mean, they're just getting together and just talking about football, right? That's their thing. And I listen, I've listened to that podcast a couple times. It's not that good.

Dave Jackson: 12:37
No, it's not I I could I made it through maybe the first five minutes because it was all ads. The beginning of it, I was like, and they're like, Oh, you can get our new coat, you can do this. And I was like, You guys gonna ever talk, you know, because I like I like both of them. They seem funny and kind of koof, but it was like, when are we gonna get to the show, guys? Come on.

Jim Collison: 12:56
No, and they and Jason's you know was dropping the F-bomb like every third word. Like, I'm okay with that, but not that much, right? So you're like, you know, but that's what they're doing. I mean, they just they're brothers who got together. Let's just talk about things that are going on in our life. Now they hit a sweet spot where you know, listen, if Travis would not have found Taylor, we nobody in this audience would know who Travis Kelsey is. Just let's just be really clear about that, right? So, I mean, I know I follow the Kansas City Chiefs, but nobody here would have known, and maybe a few of you, but so they they hit they hit that lucky, you know, like all the the universe kind of came together. But I don't uh you know, listen, if it brings you joy to sit around and do those things, do it. Do it, exactly. We just don't think everybody wants to listen to you guys just be yesing.

Dave Jackson: 13:47
Yeah, Chris says having fun is a fine reason to do a podcast, but not everything is not everything we think is interesting is actually interesting, right? Unless you're a big celebrity, you you can't get away with just chit-chatting about nothing. It's gotta be, you know, I mean as much as Seinfeld is the show about nothing, it's really it's that's the topic, nothing.

Jim Collison: 14:08
And but I mean it was still weird and interesting and funny, and but even that is not work television, it had Larry David, yeah, it was Jerry Seinfeld. Like by that point, they had all become names, right? It it and they went through the first couple seasons weren't very good.

Dave Jackson: 14:24
No, it almost went off the air. Yeah, it took a while for their audience to to find them, which brings up this question, which there are two here that I'm just like, no, no, what? This one, I've it uh fear of starting is killing me. Says I feel like I have important things to share, but fear of starting a podcast or a blog, or a blog? You're afraid of a blog? Okay, and sometimes lack of inspiration, well, that's that's important, are holding me from starting. How did you start? And so for me, I always say when the fear of looking stupid or dumb or whatever has got you worried, when that is less than the need to serve your audience, you will start. But if your fear is way more than the I gotta talk about this, you're just not gonna do it. And I think that's what this person is is doing. So, but when you first start off, you don't have an audience. Like we all start with zero. And so, you know, you've got to go out there and promote it to get your first five people and then hope that two of those tell somebody else, and then two of those tell somebody else, like, etc. I don't know. Did I don't remember the only reason I was remotely worried when I started was I didn't know how to make a podcast. Like there wasn't I gotta figure it out. And once I finally did, and I uploaded it and saw it come down, I was like, okay, I got the technology down, now we just gotta talk. And that I don't know, maybe because of my background in in teaching and being able to talk on stage, being a musician, I don't know. I I that never although my very first performance in sixth grade, I sang in the choir, and the minute the last note was over, I ran to the side of the stage and threw up. Oh yeah.

Jim Collison: 16:26
Yeah, yeah. But by the time you started podcasts, Daves, you were a performer already. You'd been on stage, you played music, you'd been accepted in that form, right? You you you knew you had some confidence, you had taught, and so you knew how to stand in front of a classroom of people and do that. Not a lot of people get that get that public experience of being up in front of people and the jitters and the fear of failure, and all those things are super real, right? You know, I I hate to say it, but sometimes you just gotta do it. You gotta practice on a few things, you gotta get some confidence, you gotta do some scary stuff and and push push past that fear a little bit. Listen, I still get nervous. I get nervous before we start on Saturday mornings. Oh, yeah. So nerves are not an indication of fear. They're they're well, they are. Actually, they are, but you gotta kind of push through those and say, you know, I'm gonna be okay. I'm gonna be me. I'm gonna be okay. This is gonna be fine. Nobody's gonna die. This is gonna be great, or it won't be. It could be a disaster, but I'm gonna learn from it, you know. And so you, you know, I I I think at some point, if you're gonna do it, you've got to. I I would say if you if you're just that afraid, you're gonna have to trick yourself into this thing. You're gonna have to come up with something to get you in a spot to gain some confidence. You know, maybe don't do video, do audio only, don't use your real name. Do some, you know, we say this all the time. Do some practice ones. Do 10 of these that aren't gonna go anywhere. Anywhere. Get some reps, right? Get some reps.

Dave Jackson: 18:00
Yeah. Mark says you really need to figure out what you want to talk about, what's the topic. If you're struggling with that, then don't start until you do. Yeah, I always anytime I have somebody say, I want to start a podcast, I'm just not sure what to talk about, I go, You're not ready to podcast. I'm like, just not that you shouldn't. I'm just saying not now is not the time. Yeah, Chrissy from uh Creating Great Grooming Dogs, College Radio and Spinning Vinyl prepared me for podcasting. Yeah. And then Jeff C, if you go through life avoiding all fear, you'll lose all life's opportunities. Yeah, that's um, I mean, every time I hit go live on this thing, even though this morning I updated Ecamm and then I had to restart. And then first of all, I've now realized that instead of rebooting my whole computer, which I did anyway, but I've found out that I can that usually what I need to do is then restart the El Gato something central, blah, blah, blah, that ties it to the Stream Deck and everything worked. Like, but I've had weeks where everything has worked, and then we'll start the show and nothing works. And, you know, it doesn't kill you. So it's uh I always say the the worst thing that could happen is, you know, well, two things are gonna happen. Either A, you have a successful podcast, or you have a great story about that time when you started a podcast. I mean, it's you know, there've there was a time I started a show called New to Cooking, and I'd have to go look, but I think it has six episodes because it dawned on me, because I was kind of getting into cooking, kinda. And after about six episodes, it dawned on me, oh, you know why I don't cook? I don't like it. And so I was just like, yeah, and so consequently, the passion I didn't have that passion of like, oh, I got it, you know, it it started off cool and I bought a bunch of stuff from my kitchen, but you know, in the end, uh 90% of my cooking is, you know, chicken breasts on a grill, which then get nuked the rest of the week. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, how did you cook your lunch today? I threw it in the microwave for two minutes. You know, that's welcome to the show called Two Minutes in the Microwave. Well, you know, make anything you want. So it's uh it's not the end if you try something. Yeah, uh most uh fear or public performance anxiety, fear comes a lack of preparation and or content. Yeah, that's it. That's I mean, I spend like probably an hour this morning going through Reddit and getting questions and things like that. So I'm ready here to to do whatever we need to do, but it's it's it's not gonna kill you. And like Jeff said, if you push through, it's no big deal. But we had another one, another question that I saw that was like, hmm, and that's this one. What do posts on social media what do you post on social media and how do you engage other than posting about releases? And it says, as we all know, social media is a key part of podcasting. Is it though? And probably the number one tool to market your podcast. Is it really from what I see, there's posting and there's engaging? It's best to stay active, but how do your channels do that? And so to me, I summarize this as what do I say on social? And so when I see that, I kind of scratch my head because I'm like, well, if you saw your like let's pretend you're in a building and uh oh cool, but I don't see you, Randy. Randy says he's in the green room and I have my zoom up and I got nothing, let me give you I'll put this in the chat room, Randy. That's the link to eCamm. We'll we'll try that one. But to me, if if somebody was in the hallway and you saw them coming down, wouldn't you be like, hey, you know, Jim, how was your weekend? What's going on? Uh you know, be social on social media. That would be, you know, in terms of so he he had me where he's like, well, don't just say, guess what? Episode 16 is out. Instead, just say, Wow, I just, you know, just be social. And that's where I wonder sometimes if you know, that whole being social thing is just something that people don't understand what that means. I don't know. What do you think, Jim?

Jim Collison: 22:24
I mean, certainly it's a it's a platform for influence, right? Depending on how you're doing it and what you're doing and your creativity. You know, we we at Gallup, we spend a lot of time thinking about what we post on our social media channels and the way we present ourselves and the graphics that that we put out there and the excellence that goes into those. So, you know, I think there's a lot of I mean, social can be just social, it can also be a lot of influence. And it's it can be an area for creativity. And you know, if you can create stuff that uh that other people respond to in a way that's positive for your brand, it can be very good. I I don't think, you know, if you're gonna just be social on social, then just know that you're it's it's probably not gonna, you know, you're not gonna be out there influencing tens or hundreds or thousands. But you can go about it intentionally and you can you can have accounts like that. I mean, it can be a big influencer space to go out and influence people. I mean, the people have whole careers on YouTube and TikTok and like I mean, they're making career money on some of these things, so it can't happen. Yeah, it can't the crazy thing, Dave. I watched this guy on YouTube, should not be popular. Should not. He shouldn't be popular. He he he is it's he rambles, he does some interesting things, he's not I mean, he's he's not particularly well dressed or good looking. He doesn't give doesn't give fashion advice, like he's not, he just he's he's he's just doing things, right? But there's something about him that keeps me coming back. And you know, he just ran over his chainsaw with his with his you know backhoe. And I was and so he's talking about how he broke his chainsaw and he showed it and you know, and it's like it was interesting to me. Like it's his life. It's like a he's like become a friend. And I don't, you know, when I get on here on Saturday mornings with you, I don't say, Dave Jackson, you better be exciting today or I'm out of here. Right? I don't say that because I'm hanging, we have a relationship. I think our chat room does too. So, but can it be? Absolutely. Like if you're you know, if you that's one of those channels that if you're missing, you're you're missing opportunities.

Dave Jackson: 24:40
Yeah, Chris Nessie says, comment on other people's posts, yep, and interact with the people who would be interested in your content. Yep, that makes sense. And he said, and if you say enough good stuff on your social media, people will click on your profile and make sure you have something on your I that always drives me nuts when people say stuff in Facebook. I click on their profile and then I can't, there's nothing on their Facebook profile about their podcast. I'm like, okay, that was an opportunity wasted. So Mr. Clinton here is saying, laying here in the hospital, that's no fun, after having bladder removal surgery due to cancer, as I'm watching your show live, she said, You surely enjoy watching podcasts. I had to laugh. Well, you know, there's nothing else to do. So I'm glad to see that we are we are better than nothing there, Jim Collison. No, no, no, no.

Jim Collison: 25:28
Listen, the fact that that he's in the hospital watching this, thank you for doing that. I listen, we we hope you're on a road to recovery. Recovery, yeah. You're you're that's uh that's certainly a big deal. And and you know what, Dave, this is an opportunity like here we can interact real to in real time with a person somewhere in the world doing something I mean significant in their life and say, get well. You can't nobody can no other me other forms of media can't do that. This is one of those think about relationship building, this is one of those things. So so heal well, heal well, my friend, and and sorry for your sorry for your ailments, but but heal well.

Dave Jackson: 26:11
Well, and speaking of interacting with people, if the buttons will work, yes we are. We're bringing up the one and only Randy Black in theory. Oh see, I thought I had this all set. I had assigned him to No. Double click to add a case. See, I had I assigned him to camera three, it was all gonna be great. Okay, so how do I this double click a camera source? I did that. Okay, we'll do this, and I will say the video source is Randy Black on camera two. There he is, the one and only. I thought that was gonna be so cool. I'm all set. You did. So how are you, my friend?

Randy Black: 26:54
I am fantastic. I'm looking forward to next weekend hanging out in Whiteland, Indiana for Pod Indy. Yeah. Actually, got a call from Thursday evening, got a call from Brad Miller himself asking me to take part in something there at the event. So excited about that. It is it is actually my first in-person podcasting event, so I'm kind of excited. And hey, I get a met Dave Jackson in person, so I can't complain about that. There you go. Exciting. So I wanted to hop on and I just wanted to shout out and give a testimonial to pod chapters from Daniel D. Lewis. I decided like I did some beta testing on it for him, so I had seen it, but I hadn't really dove in and heavily used it. It has changed my workflow from about 20 to 30 minutes to put together chapters for an episode and everything with the interface I had with my media host at the time to chapters are generated and pretty good in about 13 seconds.

Dave Jackson: 27:56
Yeah.

Randy Black: 27:56
It's AI, the AI tool he has is really awesome.

Dave Jackson: 27:60
Yeah, I've asked the podcast coach murders every thing I've ever run it through because we have 87 different topics by the time the show's done. Yes. And Daniels is the one that has come closest. They all, I don't know why, but none of them. We spend, I don't know, two, three minutes on thanking our awesome supporters. That never gets picked up. I don't know if I need to go, we're going to a new chapter now, AI thing, you know, but it it's uh but no, Daniels is really, really cool.

Randy Black: 28:30
So I I was able to take I started I started using the transcription there and quickly ran out of credits. So I have Mac Whisper anyway. So I did all my transcription with Mac Whisper and then uploaded the transcript and used Daniel's AI tools to produce the chapters. And I went through 16 episodes of Shooting It Straight and 68 episodes of Bible Bites and have everything done, chapters on everything, links to the to the chapters and everything in my feed. Did it all in an you know, I did most of it while setting at a conference uh up uh for for work uh while listening to vendors tell us about products. I did most of it while I was there, and it I mean, workflow-wise, like I even have it like because I'm on a Mac like you guys are. I have some automator, automator stuff set up on the Mac. So when I download my media file, it just moves it automatically to where I need it so I can upload it from one place without having to drag and move files and everything. Yeah. Um, so it's it's even it having Daniel's tool has improved my workflow even that much more to make it that much easier.

Dave Jackson: 29:36
I have a question because you snuck it in there. You said the host I was using. So who'd you move from and who'd you move to?

Randy Black: 29:43
Self hosting. Uh I've got a CDN set up with Bunny.net. So I'm running everything goes into the website. They're WordPress websites. Everything uploads there, but it copies over automatically to Bunny for the CDN so that everything gets distributed that way. And the CDN is not very expensive. I mean, they do a minimum charge of a dollar a month. Yeah. And even when I was even when I was doing the music show and had all that stuff going through that CDN, I never tried paid more than two or three dollars a month. Yeah. Because their traffic their traffic volume that they allow is dramatic. Like I went from I went from like 300 and some mags used on Bible Bytes before I moved everything over to I'm up at like 3.5 gigs of moved in two days, and that cost me four cents. And then you use gonna guess OP3 for your stats? OP3 is my stats, and the way John has that set up, as long as the even when once you put the redirect in, even if you're even if your podcast GUID gets changed and that just got really nerdy for a lot of people. It did. Even if the podcast GUID in the feed changes, because the redirect's in place, he keeps the stats. So it's all still there. Yeah. I I had I had I moved like, and it's nothing against the guys at Podhom, Barry over at Podhom, they're amazing. They will do some, they do great stuff. If you have like, hey, can we add this feature? He'll say, Let me talk to my developers, I'll let you know. And usually within 48 hours, they have it on. They're pretty good. I just wanted to cut some costs.

Dave Jackson: 31:18
Yeah.

Randy Black: 31:18
Well, I knew I went from I went from I went from there like I think it's $16 a month for the hosting with them to running this on the on the CDN, and I'm gonna save, I'm gonna save money that way. So I picked up the cost of using pod chapters from Daniel.

Dave Jackson: 31:32
Well, and I know you were really into the streaming Satoshis. Did you see that kind of just not stop? Yeah, it's it's it's just one of those things like that.

Randy Black: 31:44
The value proposition there, it's just well, it there is no value proposition there at this point because of all the problems we've had with with the way Albi handled things, the way that the wallets are going, key send is being not necessarily deprecated, but not supported. Like if you set up an umbrella, a little home server, yeah, and install the bitcoin install a Bitcoin node and install a lightning node, by default now, that lightning node with LND, key sends turned off. You have to manually go in and turn it on. So you even if you got it set up and got your channels open, you wouldn't be getting any sats. Well, that answered my question. If if if you tapped out, I'm tapping out. Because I st I'm still paying for it. It's not necessarily a tap out, it's just something has to change. Yeah, something has to change for it to to to pick up the proposition or doing it. Like I still like the umbrals, the umbral node is still here. It's right under the desk. It's it's got Bitcoin node running, it's got the lightning node running. I've got helipad running on it because helipad was awesome, but I have no sats on it right now because I took everything out and just pulled it all out instead of letting it sit there. I'll get hit with, or I did get hit, I don't remember when I pulled it out. You know, there are gonna be some taxes on that, but it's not a huge amount. And I was able to actually use that, actually use those funds that were sitting in that node to to buy my son an iPad. So I'm not gonna complain about that too much. Awesome.

Dave Jackson: 33:06
Well, what uh what website are we promoting today?

Randy Black: 33:09
Let's let's shooting it straight is on hiatus with Jim's passing. It is coming back. I don't have a I don't have a date yet on when it's coming back. When I leave Pod Indy next Saturday, I'm heading south to Louisville to visit Jim's daughter. Jim's daughter is going to take over the seat behind the mic. She needs to keep it going. So she's she's excited, she's ready. So I've got to go Monday evening to Jim's business. I'm meeting his wife there and getting all the equipment together to take over to her and get her set up next weekend. We'll record some stuff while we're there just to get some stuff done and then start recording remotely with her. But I don't have a date yet. So let's let's talk about Bible bites and how everybody should listen. Uh, if if you if you don't have a chance to get to church, you want to get a little bit of a lesson in there. Currently, going through a series on women in the Bible. I think today we just had an episode come out that was about Hannah. So there's more coming. I'm still working on that. That series actually the plans for that series run through, I think, beginning of May. So I've got I've got stuff planned out well in advance. Um Bible dash bytes-bytes.com. There we go. BY T E S. Yes. Looking at I'm looking at a Web3 domain potentially, so I might I might be moving that. Uh so it might end up being somewhere else. Because there is with the web three domains, there is a dot podcast TLD. So Mike might consider making that move. But it's working well. I'm not complaining. I've got you know a solid, you know, classroom and a half, maybe two classrooms, depending on on the week of people who listen. And it's just a way for me to share the stuff I'm studying and learning and and try to get the message out for people who may not may not be a Christian, but they're looking for something to enhance the faith in their life. There you go. All right, my friend. Well, thanks for stopping in.

Dave Jackson: 35:01
Awesome. I'll see you next Saturday. All right, man. See ya.

Dave Jackson: 35:03
Bye.

Dave Jackson: 35:04
See you, Randy. The one and only Randy Black. Gotta love that.

Jim Collison: 35:08
In true, in true promoter in influencer fashion, he said, it was just funny. He said, Well, I we won't talk about this one because it's on a hiatus. But then he talked about it and promoted it. And then he came back to the one he promoted. So, Randy, good job on on promoting and not and not promoting it. Well, that's all good.

Dave Jackson: 35:26
We got two questions I want to hit. One is Ralph's, we're gonna hit that and then we're gonna go back and get Jeff's question. But he said, What is the value of self-hosting? Well, remember when there first of all, I gotta remember Randy is a network admin for an entire school system. So I believe if I remember right, he prefers geek. He's not a nerd. So Randy has a different skill set than most of the listeners of the show. Very intelligent dude. So with self-hosting, much more manual work, maybe a little, I don't know if much, but there's more work. No IAB stat well, he's using OP3. OP3 is not IAB certified, but you only care about that if you have sponsors. So it's cheaper, but it's and he's smart. In the early days, this is what doesn't work is when you upload your file to WordPress. WordPress is meant to serve web pages which have text and graphics, which are itty, itty bitty bitty bitty. And then you upload a 60 meg MP3 file, and 300 people try to grab that MP3 file at the same time. It's not bandwidth, it's not storage, it's resources because that website host is now going and it can't keep up. So where he's using a CDN, a content delivery network, which is meant to serve media files, uh, along with many other things. So I used Bunny back in the early days of podcasting 2.0 to serve my JavaScript. Yes, let's geek out, shall we? And that's what he used Bunny, and it is, it's much cheaper. And if you use OP3 for the stats, so you would have which is just a redirect that for the record you probably don't need. I I know so many people will put podtrack, then op3, which is by the records, op3.dev. The nice thing about it, it makes your stats public. So if you ever want to share your stats, you can do that. But I'll see people have pod track, then op3, and then some other company I can't remember, and then another one. And you got to realize, because I had somebody this happen this week at at Podpage. Somebody's like, hey, my my last three episodes haven't imported. And I went over and they had so many of these, and one of them had like given up the ghost. They were done. And so when one of those breaks, none of your files download, and your feed breaks, and all sorts of other fun stuff. So the the advantage is in the long run you can save money because it is. That's bunny is dirt cheap. I'll put a link in the the chat here in a second, because I believe I have an affiliate for them. But it's not where you log into you know, whoever, captivate buzz sprout, everything's in one place, and so it's a matter of is this extra time you're taking to do these things worth the 12 bucks you're paying for hosting?

Jim Collison: 38:20
I don't know. Jim, do you use a CDN for anything? I don't. I use Maple Grove Partners, which is kind of self-hosting, right? I mean, yeah, he's just a host provider, he's doing all he's taking the complexity out of it for you. He's not a mainstream, you know, he's just a small host provider. So I like to say I'm self-hosted, but I'm using someone else that you know when my things break, I call Christian. Yeah. I I think now Randy's like truly self-hosting, like he's doing all of the work. 99%. We just lost to 99% of our audience right now because we're like, I don't want to, I don't want to do the complexity. 99% of the people should not help self-host, like pay the money, it's not worth, it's not cheaper. I mean, it it it is maybe in money you actually pay, but in time you put into it, probably not. Not for most people, right? You know, Randy's got some special skills. They sound like Liam Neeson. It does got some special skills. Special skills. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jackson: 39:24
And if I if you don't download my show, I will find you and I will kill you. Find you and I'll kill you.

Jim Collison: 39:30
Yes. So it it it is if you've got those skills and you can do it fairly easily and you like doing it, great. That's one percent, right? The rest of us, just buy hosting. It's you're fine, it's okay. Yeah, you know, but and then buy a host provider that you like. Like they're all the same. They're all the same, right?

Dave Jackson: 39:49
Well, here's the thing PowerPress does the heavy lifting for me. The reason I don't PowerPress is I I still use it on the school of podcasting because it's been there for 19 years, but I don't use it for my feed because a bunch of Germans liked my site once, and they liked it a whole lot to where whatever that's called, a denial of service or whatever, they were just pounding the school of podcasting. Well, that was my feed. My feed was on my website. And so they I at the time I was hosted on hostgator. That is so back in the day, because it was you know four dollars a month or something like that. And that's actually back when hostgator support wasn't bad. And they're like, if you could do anything to get your feed off of your website, they're like that'll they're just pounding your feed for some reason. So I redirected my blueberry feed to the Libson feed and I let them take all the bandwidth. And so that's why, and that's also if you ever wonder why Blueberry, the make well, the the whatever, they're the the patrons of of the PowerPress plugin, why did they make podcast mirror? Because sometimes you want your feed off your your website, and so their podcast mirror is basically an alternative to feedburner, which is a whole other thing. So, yeah, the Jeff, the one and only Jeff C, since most people are using AI for creating show notes, and for the record, I like Captivates AI stuff, cast magic, which I bought on App Sumo has done apparently a lot of not that it was bad, but they're AI show notes now. I was like, whoa! And thanks to Mark Johansson for pointing that out. He was like, You need to go watch a couple videos, and so AI show notes were were pretty good, but he says, you know, since AI is creating show notes, will this cause even more people to not read show notes since they're now AI? That's a great question.

Jim Collison: 41:50
I don't think people know. I mean, for the most part, that with AI, like even when we did a boy at work, we did a bunch of AI voice work this week. It's it's just one of those things that you know, we had we had a need for it. And what I find with AI voice, uh voice cloning is kind of what we've been calling it. When you tell the person it's AI, they treat it differently than when you don't. Oh. Right? I and so go ahead. Oh, I just have a great example of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jackson: 42:19
I'm listening on Spotify, and this band comes on, and I'm like, man, I really who is this? I really like them. And this has happened at least three times with this band. And when I hear them, I like it because I don't know who it is. And then I see that it's Wolfgang Van Halen, it's Eddie's kid. And because he doesn't sound like Van Halen, if I know it's him, I'm like, well, this doesn't sound like Van Halen because it's not. It's he doesn't want to sound like his dad. But there are times knowing what it is will switch the way you think about it. So when you're talking about if I know it's AI, well then I'm like, well, I'm looking for like I just last night I I brought back, just because I felt like it, the podcast rodeo show, which reminds me we have to talk about checking your stuff. But there was a I listened to a podcast about copywriting, and in her description, she said deep dive. And I was like, because when I see deep dive, all sorts of red flags go off in my head that like what you're reading is AI. And I'm like, well, it's a copywriter, though. Surely she's not writing like her show description is not written by AI, but you never know. But I mean, I I used I went back, I've seen old posts I've had where I said deep dive before AI wasn't even born yet. So, but getting back to Jeff's question, delves.

Jim Collison: 43:45
That was that's a tell telltale. Delves and m-dashes. Well, so and it I even did an experiment one time where I gave people two tracks that I had made and said, Tell me which one is AI. And I played both, and they would they would pick one or the other. And I said, What if I told you they were both AI, right? And so we right, yeah, yeah, yeah. A little Microsoft uh that's the name of that. They did a campaign like that one time, anyways. So I think in the writing piece, we're gonna get it's it's kind of similar, right? You you might know, you might not know. And then the other the other thing happened to me the other day. I was doing some recording, and someone is they were listening to me recording, and they said, Oh, you said that like the AI. Like, what because we had an AI version of me saying they had been listening to that a whole bunch as they were trying to get the so they were trying to get this video piece together. They were listening to the gym, the AI gym. And so then they're listening to me actually talk, and they're like, Oh, you talk like your AI. Like, that's because it's me. Yeah, that's right. It no, it talks like me. So I think in in some regards, when we don't know it, it's different. Like it, you have you have a different, you you kind of have a different you you judge it a little bit differently. I think in written show notes, listen, we're not really writing show notes for people anymore. I I don't know if you guys know this, but this is the conversation in chat. Very few people actually go out and see your show notes, right? The ones that do are super engaged though, and they expect to see some things, right? Chris says, I can't wait to read the show notes, said no one ever until you have that really engaged listener who says, You said you'd put it in your show notes. I went and looked, it's and it's not there.

Dave Jackson: 45:38
And that's oh, they I will re- I will write you a sternly worded letter. If I'm listening to an author, you you you've you've convinced me I need this book, and I go to the show notes and there's no link to the book.

Jim Collison: 45:51
Oh like, hey, so you're not writing it for the you're not writing it so that it's gonna be a New York Times bestseller. You're writing it so that for that person who wants to come and who needs that information, and two, you're writing it for the bots. You know, five years ago you were writing it for the Google crawlers, right? So that you could get today, you're writing it so that you are getting all the AI bots that are out there for generative AI. And, you know, the the biggest piece of advice that AI itself gives you is restructure those notes with FAQs. Like AI loves FAQs right now. So if you're not including FAQs as part of your show notes, you're probably missing some. I don't can't tell you what you're missing because nobody knows the algorithm that makes the LLMs that make these things, but that's what they say. So are we is you know, are people flooding to your show notes? No. But you have a very engaged, if you have a very engaged audience, you're gonna get from time to time somebody who ghosts. And then two, you're really writing it and ask AI itself, how should these notes be structured so that you crawl them better or more or whatever? That's not a bad idea.

Dave Jackson: 46:57
That's what you're that's what you're writing it for. Well, and Chris says, add this into your show notes prompt, include links to everything mentioned in the show. Yeah, I uh captivate does that, and they said that's because they heard me mention it on the show. Because I would go I would go into Cast Magic and I'm like, and name all the companies and list all the links, and that way Don't trust the links though.

Jim Collison: 47:22
Don't trust the links. No, they're gonna make my AI will make those links up. For sure they will, right? You know.

Dave Jackson: 47:29
And I said in the podcast rodeo show, which Glenn said, I'm still a subscribe to that show. So it's been a year. It was September of 2024, was the last time I did that. And the I said podcast rodeo show, and it put it down as podcastradio show.com. And I was like, Nope, you're close. Nope. You know, it's a bad name. It doesn't check them.

Jim Collison: 47:51
It doesn't check them, it does not check your links. Like it it is and for those sites, those weird sites, like where like, you know, let's just use podpage. Yeah, say podpage, say they're they act say somebody else had podpage, so they needed podpage.hq or podpagehq.com. Was there a AI is not gonna get that right. Not right now. It may get better in the future, but it will absolutely get those things wrong. You have to check your links for sure.

Dave Jackson: 48:18
Well, speaking of checking things, so I went to this this show. It was called Talk Copy to Me, which I kept having poison run through my head, the band. Yeah, talk copy to me. And I went to her website and she does uh I guess we're gonna throw shade. It was a good show for the record if you go listen to it. But on her front page, she mentioned that she can help you with her podcast. And on her front page, she had a link to Google Podcasts. So oopsie. Yeah. And so I mentioned that this morning, and Jim's like, let me go look. And he's like, Oops. And I'm like, when he goes, I have a link to Google Podcasts. So if you back when we mentioned it in like March that Google Podcast was going away, you should probably remove that. And you went, Oh yeah, I'll do that tomorrow. And then, well, some of us forgot. So I had to go look.

Jim Collison: 49:10
I didn't even think twice. Like I forgot. I use Daniel's social subscribe icons, and which are fantastic, by the way. And I totally forgot. So it's a it's one of those how often do you look at your own subscribe page, right? You know, it's it's maybe worth setting an alert for, you know, once every six months, do you think, to go out and say, hey, what's died? What's new? Should I be adding new things to my subscribe page?

Dave Jackson: 49:34
There were all sorts of stuff on that particular website on the on podcastrodeoshow.com that were like, whoa, that's like I had an old email form there that goes to nothing. I had a lot of stuff going to nothing. And then to make matters worse, I went to her contact page to say, hey, just so you know, you have Google Podcasts on your front page, you might want to remove that. Oh, and by the way, I gave you a winnie. You know, I really like the way you you started off your show. And I filled out my name and my email and the message, and I hit send and her form or whatever she was using. Yeah. So I could not contact her to let her know that her Google podcast was on. And it was like, so if you want people to contact you, go use your own contact form just to make sure it works, make sure it's not going to spam, all that kind of stuff. Because when I looked at the site, I was like, wait, this is pointing at I had a bunch of stuff it was pointing to that doesn't I've changed. And I'm like, well, it's only it's been a year, you know. Yeah. Jeff said I had a Google Plus link for years, but didn't know to let it go. Holy cow, do you wait? I gotta find David Lee Roth. Where'd he go to? Because we actually, or we could just no I can't quite get that. Woo! I was looking that or this. There we go. There we are. The one and only Bangs naughty bits gave us a super chat, a super whatever that's called. Yeah, a super chat. So thank you for that, my friend. From the one and only, thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of human mind. There we go. So appreciate that. And he's over there. If you want to see Bangs, he's one of the moderators over at the uh the R, however you say that in Reddit, but it's the podcasting. There's a that's where half these questions come from every morning. I go over there and see people asking things. Is Reddit's still a thing? Like people still oh, and if you listen to the SEO people, everybody should have their own subreddit because it gets crawled all the time. Like AI loves Reddit to to crawl. So I was like, huh, interesting. But yeah. So I have to check it out.

Jim Collison: 51:51
I have to check it out. I didn't think it was a thing anymore.

Dave Jackson: 51:54
Oh, but I'm here to tell you it's the same questions every week. It's it's you know, video. How do I do video? I want to do a three-camera shoot with no microphones in the shot for under a hundred bucks. And you're like, uh, no, you know, there's that. Speaking of that, though, here, straight from Reddit, let me share my screen. I I I'm can, I'm gonna read this the way it's written. I'm can use the camera on my iPhone for recording my video podcast. But, and he said, I've searched this quite a few times. So thank you to that person for actually searching Reddit. So many people just go there and go, how do I grow my audience? and see that, you know, that's been asked 14 million times uh a day for the last 20 years. I've searched this quite a few times on here and see many people saying, just use your iPhone camera, but don't waste money on a separate camera just for your podcast. But how has everyone been transferring their footage from an iPhone to editing software like Adobe Premiere? So I like this guy. If he's got Adobe Premiere, he's not trying to do this on the cheap. He said, I've used Wii Transfer in the past, but anything over 10 minutes is impossible to send. And I don't want to have I don't want to record two hours and then have to wait four hours to upload to then just download on a different computer. To this, I ask, you're doing a two-hour video show? Holy cow. That's a long time to hold people's attention. This is why I've been looking into having a camera that we can just pop out an SD card and plug it into a card reader and be done. How has everyone used the iPhone method and made it possible for a video podcast? I have separate mics, so no worries. And since we're sharing my screen, if I go to there is a software called Camo Studio, and it basically pops up and it says no device detected. But anyway, you can plug, you basically wirelessly connect your phone. There I am. So there's my my uh that's me. Hi, there's me. And I can come in here and say, uh, there's all sorts of stuff. I can auto adjust, I can white balance, I can all this stuff on the right-hand side, and I could also, I'm assuming then, take OBS or some sort of recording thing and use this as a camera, and then you know, so if I like look, I I want to look like a Smurf. Ooh, that's cute. There we go. A little Halloween coloring for us, you know. Daddy, I want it now. I look purple. So it's pretty cool. It's nine, I think it's 99 bucks for lifetime access, but camo is another way that you could, and I believe I don't know if that works on PC or not. I know it works on you know a Mac. And I I almost kind of want to go, if you want to do video, get a Mac. Just get a Mac. And I used to hate people that said that, but it's kind of true in a way.

Jim Collison: 54:47
So he has phone link now. So if you just put in search, if you're if you have PC, just search phone and uh you have the application called phone link. And then you can you can share files that way depending on how you're connected. So if you connect with a wire, I would recommend USB-C wire to it. It'll transfer files between your phone and your PC pretty easily now. If if you have a Mac, it just works. You don't need to, if you're going if you're going iPhone to Mac, that just it just it there's a couple ways to do it that are pretty easy. That was my thing. Use phone link.

Dave Jackson: 55:30
Phone link. I know on a Mac you can do the airdrop thing. That would take a while for a two anything's gonna take a while for a two-hour video file. And I'm sure he's shooting an 8K because you you're 16k or 1 million K or whatever we're up to today. Chris from Castahead.net, highly recommend camo. Super easy to use on the fly. I use it often as an alternative camera. Jeff C, I use camo in an old f iPhone to have an overhead shot for product videos. Yeah, it's also great on an iPad. And then Chris from Podcastic Audio. Apple is uh the best for creators. The iPad is great. I use it as a monitor for camo when filming away from my desk. How cool is that? Yeah.

Jim Collison: 56:14
The I use iPads can be really helpful. They can be very, very helpful.

Dave Jackson: 56:19
Rich says I use NDI HX camera on my iPhone 6 and then bring in the second shot over NDI. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. NDI is amazing. I don't know what that stands for. Not doing it. NDI. Sorry. So and you're yeah. So yeah, Ralph found it, must have gone over listening to the podcast rodeo show.

Jim Collison: 56:48
I forgot I had a service interface, by the way.

Dave Jackson: 56:50
Ah I forgot I had a service. It's still there. If you go to DaveinYourpocket.com, it's coaching without calendars. Uh that does sound a little weird, doesn't it? Like Dave in your pocket.

Jim Collison: 57:05
Are you happy to see me or do you have a Dave in your pocket?

Dave Jackson: 57:11
But that was something I was trying. And I find so as I'm going through the podcast rodeo show, Mike, oh I forgot I tried this. And I found an old ad and put it in the middle of it. So yeah, always fun. You know what else is always fun? Our awesome supporters. They are great, they're amazing. We we almost should rename them the amazing supporters, but that sounds like some sort of, I don't know, Marvel movie coming out in the spring. The awesome, the amazing supporters. And so we are talking about these people here. So, and I need to update this slide because we have lost a few. Thanks, government shutdown. But we're not going to talk politics. But I've had a few people like, hey, I'm not making money, so you're not. But thanks to all those people. And also, Ralph updated one of his shows, which we'll talk about here in a second. But the show is brought to you by the school of podcasting.com where you get courses, you get coaching, and community use the coupon code coach when you sign up for either a monthly, a quarterly, or yearly subscription. And yeah, if you need some honest feedback on your show, check out podcasthotseat.com. I will go over an episode that you pick, and I'll go over your website. We'll look for that low-hanging fruit that you might have missed. And it's all there at podcasthotseat.com. And when you're at ask the podcastcoach.com, you're looking at podpage. And if you want a tripod page, it's simple. Go to tripodpage.com. If you want to learn pod page, go to learnpodpage.com. Or Jim said it earlier. If you go to podpage HQ in YouTube, I just put out a what I where did this phrase come from? Soup to nuts. What have you ever heard that? Oh man, it's from soup to nuts. And I'm like, No, I'm gonna look it up though. I'll look it up right now while we're talking.

Jim Collison: 58:57
We'll cut it.

Dave Jackson: 58:58
Yeah, but it's it's from picking your colors to putting content into it. There's a a video on our YouTube channel there. And if you need more Jim Cullison, look at him scurrying, trying to find that answer. Well, then uh go over to theaverage guy.tv and check out Home Gadget Geeks. And uh it's time for the supporter of the week. And so this is where if I can get my I really every week I say, I'm losing this PC. I need both my monitors, but I uh swapped out some artwork because while he's still doing the growth and grit show, uh Ralph is now the content creators accountant. Find that at Content Creator's Accountant because it's not just about making money as a content creator, it's keeping it. And that's what Ralph is gonna help you do over at Content Creators Accountant. And I just realized there's a shuffle button on this show or on the uh wheel of names. And so we're gonna shuffle it, we're gonna shuffle it again and one more time, and then we'll click spin and who we'll be the featured supporter of the week. It is the ladies. Is it going to stay there?

Jim Collison: 01:00:07
I'm not seeing it on screen, Dave. You're not. Well I only see the I only see the there we go. There we go. There we go. Oddice, there you go. It did spin.

Dave Jackson: 01:00:17
It did spin. It did. And it came up on the ladies from keep the flame alivepod.com. When are the Olympics coming up? Because that's what they cover.

Jim Collison: 01:00:26
Oh let's see it's 25, 26 next year? Maybe it's the winter? I think so. Because we just didn't we just have Paris for the summer. I think so.

Dave Jackson: 01:00:34
So so they've uh they'll be over there covering the games for us. And if you're a fan of the Olympics, well then you'll be a fan of that show because they do it very well. And if you found the show to be entertaining maybe we saved you some time we saved you some money we saved you a headache maybe we kept you educated simply go to ask the podcastcoach.com slash awesome you don't have to do the $20 value to be on the wheel of names you can be it could be as low as five dollars a month but thank you to all of our awesome supporters and so with that let me where did the soup the nuts yeah it's it's it's a dinner phrase in a full course meal you would start with the soup you would end with the nuts sweet they had some sweet or this is yeah this is like this this phrase has been around a while so I I don't know I like to start with dessert myself that's just my that's just the way I go in so cake or cookies.

Jim Collison: 01:01:38
Well that's my whole thing like when did nuts become dessert in the old days before they had you know the like modern ice cream and pie yeah that's true. Yeah maybe that's uh we we haven't always lived in this kind of decadence that we have today this processed food decadence the decadence world of ice cream tasty I'm not going back i listen i'm not i'm not going back listen cavemen ate organically and they only lived to be like 30 years old so i don't want to I'm not they their life was terrible I'm not going back to that I I enjoy my cakes and cookies and desserts yeah we have an oldie but a goodie speaking of how the same questions are asked on Reddit all the time how's my progress so far you see this a lot hey friends brand new to podcasting I'm wondering how my numbers look to experienced serial podcasters so far I've published eleven episodes in 11 days and have 45 total downloads I'm in the saturated tech and AI news space but on the weekends I try to change it up for a day gaming on Saturday and last week single topic meta industry analysis we talked about the AI bubble for 10 minutes.

Dave Jackson: 01:02:51
It wasn't very popular so I'm thinking of switching it up it wasn't. Well I wonder what it as in the whole show anyway bubble part wasn't popular. Yeah anyway just curious how many downloads compare is this really a slow start for a normal for 11 episodes to which of course I asked hey did you get some feedback before you launched because authors have rough drafts actors have dress rehearsals athletes have you know preseason because it might be that you put out a rough draft and you're now wondering why it's not growing so that would be that but if you go to buzzsprout.com slash stats you can see that Apple Podcast is 36% Spotify is 28 and if we go down here somewhere yeah their average their median meaning 50% get more and 50% get less is 28 downloads after the first seven days so that's not 30 days. I wish they would change that to 30 days yeah that would be that's more the benchmark. That's why that number's so low because I always wondered but if you take that 28 and times it by four you've got 116 that's about to me I think the average because I know Libson's average I think the median over there is again a hundred and something and the Libsen average is around a thousand. That doesn't mean that Libson gets you more downloads. In fact these days Libson's been having a bad month I don't know what's going on over there but this is something host provider can't get you more downloads Dave is that is that what you just said I just said that it public don't they all don't they all advertise that if you come to them they will make you the best oh yeah we're we're the we're well here I'll just give and I like these guys I'm I'm not gonna throw shade I'm just gonna pick on them a little bit but everybody does this okay but when I go here by the way if you're using acorns I could earn 26 20.6% by using whatever affiliate link they just put in here but when I see stuff on any any media host here where it says share your episodes on social media almost all of them do that. Embed them on an external website all of them do this. Automatically distribution of your episodes to all the listing platforms they all do that it's not a feature you know you're gonna get analytics they all do at and every website you know now this one they have dynamic ads so if you want your three cents a down or you know 0.003 cents a download but you know if I go to let's go to Podbean you know they're all gonna say the same thing. You're a hosting and monetizing platform. And how do they do it? Well you're gonna create like a pro. Where's their features at? But all their features are you know turn your passion into a new income stream. See they're getting a little you know with Podbean AI just use AI and money will fall from the heavens don't they they're not doing their typical thing.

Jim Collison: 01:06:07
They have analytics you have an app yay you can live stream on Podbean you know where's the snarkiness listen there are some though like I think like podcasts.com which those guys have not updated it is still a thing and they haven't updated that site in a thousand years. So while we say all podcast sites are the same and I I say it jokingly or maybe not a little bit there are some out there that are definitely not keeping up with the Joneses.

Dave Jackson: 01:06:44
So I love this I would look you can upload it and then play it. Yeah I hope so you know easy podcast sharing into all the apps of course and statistics and you know yeah and it doesn't work sometimes it's been a I I I subscribe to as many as I can just so I can kind of stay on top of them in what they're doing.

Jim Collison: 01:07:07
And that's one that hasn't updated in a while. So fire beware, you know they're not all the exactly the same but when you think about the big players right that are out there it's pretty much what you want to use at this point, right? We've kind of reached parity among the big seven or eight yeah and then yeah Mark says most people going in don't know this.

Dave Jackson: 01:07:30
Yeah that's true. That's true.

Jim Collison: 01:07:33
That is true. Yeah it's good it's good to know us us seasoned folks bitter I would say seasoned and bitter stop asking the same questions it's it it's just part of well and Rich says I use dynamic slots for my own stuff.

Dave Jackson: 01:07:48
Could my calls to A go for my newsletter things like that. Yeah so like like RSS.com lipson has ads I think I made 17 cents last month in libsen on my building a better dave show because it gets no downloads at all but uh you know and and I have to wait till I get to 50 bucks. So sometime in 2030 I will get my 50 bucks from lipson. And that's not a lipson thing that's a dynamic you know it's it's 0.003 cents a download and that's kind of the same for most of those. So if I move to Spreaker or if I move to rss.com which has ads or Red Circle you know the the dynamic ad thing I have a guy I want to get on Zoom with him. He's telling me no no man I got $30 CPM for dynamic stuff and I'm like okay I'm willing you know show me the money but I just I don't know anybody that's doing that and having that kind of CPM and even that okay I get 300 downloads I'm getting $30 per 1000 so that means I made $10 maybe which $10 is better than nothing. The ads come from usually the same places one begins with a T. You'll hear them a lot from crap Tom Webster and Brian Barletto sounds profitable. There's like three companies that do all the ads and they all do the same thing. So it's all going to be Geico and whatever you know and but and that's also you'll notice if you click play on a show and nothing happens and then an ad comes on that's what's going on is behind the scenes it's it's sneezing. Bless you it's it's going out and getting the ad and dynamically inserting it into and it's figuring out where you are the listener so we can talk about you know Carl Jones Chevy go down to Carl and get yourself a Chevy you know and so that's always always kind of freaky. I had two I felt bad I had two ads this week at the beginning of a show which to me is a horrible way to start your show and they were in Spanish of which besides Yocomo Manzanas which is I eat apples that's all I know and how to count to four you know and I was like so there's there's some ad spend that was not well done I was like I don't know why you think people in Akron are speaking Spanish but there are definitely some but yeah so yeah Mark is saying if you put out more building a better Dave episodes you'll get more downloads. Yeah that is a very that's just my therapy I almost put out one today realizing that Neil Young is the guy from Petticoat Junction which really really really dates me. But any Southern you know the old there's always that old Southern guy that talks like this. I don't know what tar nation you're doing you know and then I was like if that guy started to sing, you know, old man look at my I'm like wait Neil Young is the old Southern guy in in these old shows you know so and that was almost a building better a better Dave. So that is the genius that goes into building a better Dave or just the fact that I hate getting old which is slowly most of my episodes over there like well can't uh like I can't sing a high A anymore not that I ever should have but if I try to do that that's not going to work. Here's a fun one speaking of starting podcasts. Wait Jack has a question what platform are you using to stream now? No I am using Ecamm Ecamm live I think I have do I have yes there's a link to Ecamm StreamYard for the record we were talking about this on every Friday we do lunch with Dave at the School of Podcasting and Chris from castahead.net said you know it's expensive but it works because we're talking about Riverside Riverside just added a new feature which I went oh no because when they add a new feature that means it's probably also going to cause some bugs because that's just you know hey here's the good news is here's a new feature and we threw in some bugs just for fun. But you can now I need to go back and watch this video but it it appeared that you could now plug two USB microphones into the same computer. So if you if it's you and your co-host and you're in the same room you could get separate tracks on the same computer in a browser and I that's one that I go I gotta go watch that again because that sounds almost impossible. But I I saw that in there. So yeah Jack unfortunately eCamm is for Mac only if you're looking for something that's not stream yard you could use I I tried these guys for a a month and they weren't bad. It was a little little e cam y versus a stream yardy but not the price and it was EV mux which if I had anything to say them I would go I would go get a new name. That's just just not mm-mm so Ken says have regular downloads is better or worse than putting them up when you want I don't know for the fans questions having regular downloads is better or worse than putting them up when you want so you you like weekly versus whenever like you just do building a bit of better Dave whenever you have something when I feel so moved yeah and I just to me I I got that lesson from the one and only Ray Ortega who I'm going if I can remember I'm going to nudge him I want to bring back podcasters round table. I missed that show but Ray did an episode called the Podcaster Studio and he went from being super consistent to not but when he put one out it was always amazing and so that's where I'm like always I is I would rather bring consistent value if I can't deliver a consistent schedule because I just knew it was good. Yeah Randy says that would be really hard to do on Windows Windows needs the device to have her separate UUID again Randy network admin guy to see them as different devices a lot of USB microphones don't do that and use a single yeah this is where if you had two Samsung Q2Us a a PC computer won't know which one's which so yeah so when I I need to go back I just saw that in Riverside and was like wait can you can you can you do that? That seems crazy. And so just to show you and this is where if you haven't seen Riverside let me share my screen it's it's a little you know there's a there's a lot going on in here and I think if I go into my projects or if I go here see I I'm not in here enough to know what I'm really doing. That's Heidi. She's gonna be on the show I think next week for the school of podcasting but somewhere in here you can go in I'll have to do this when I know what I'm doing. Because I don't so meanwhile over in Notejoy I need help picking a podcast name she says my friend and I are wanting to start a podcast but we can't for the life of anything think of a name we narrowed a setting down to filming and recording in our car so we made a few segment names and lists based off of that vibe that kind of doesn't make any sense. I'm gonna name the show about where I recorded so welcome to Dave's spare bedroom and Jim's basement that that that wouldn't make any sense. We have a list of words and we feel like we have good ideas but we're stumped any idea is welcome doesn't have to include just the words segments include carpool confessions what's on aux if they want to be a listener or watcher hitch a ride see because they're all in the car but that's not about what the topic is unless you're talking about cars. So there is if you go to the Google and because I don't know where this is but if I go buzz sprout podcast name generator podpage also has one of these you can go in here answer some words and do that. I don't know if it's gonna let me do that because I'm probably logged into Podpage survey says I am I guess if I logged out because it's in the footer if you go to podpage.com at the bottom somewhere down here is a podcast resources podcast name generator so there's another one where you enter a description of your podcast and some answer some questions and it will spit out an answer. So if you're looking for that my always thing for a a podcast is if I go to someone and say I'm doing a show called Riding Through Indiana what do you think it's about that person should probably go I don't know either horseback bicycle or motorcycle through Indiana you know you to me you want it to be obvious you want it to have keywords like Jim has home gadget geeks. There you go he's got home gadgets that's what people are looking for in geeks.

Jim Collison: 01:17:08
So you know that worked out well I I haven't done a lot of things right podcasting sometimes but that name worked out really really well.

Dave Jackson: 01:17:17
Yeah so where podcast rodeo show is a horrible name that's why I changed it later to podcast hot seat but podcast rodeo show a wasn't supposed to be a real show it was a show I plan on doing for a couple weeks while I tested a a media host and then the audience was like no don't stop you're saying everything we're thinking so but that wasn't supposed to be a real show because people understandably think it's about the rodeo and then they like wait this guy's just talking about shows so that's not a a good name at all let's see here's a fun one I don't I don't totally agree with you Dave.

Jim Collison: 01:17:54
I mean I know you're you're dissing on your own title but the podcast rodeo show is one of those that yes maybe on initial read you're like is this rodeo thing? But I think the word rodeo is enough especially with your graphic to give people an idea of what they're of what they're getting and then once you've been there once or someone says hey you know you need to listen to the podcast rodeo show they don't then it it you blow right past the problems with that right and so I I don't I I disagree with you a little bit on your own hard hardening to yourself. That's I don't think it's I don't think it's terrible.

Dave Jackson: 01:18:37
Yeah well I finally added a tagline and so now it's podcast rodeo show reviews and first impressions of your podcast.

Jim Collison: 01:18:44
Yeah right on right on oh I I know you're hard on yourself on that one but I don't I don't know if that I I this is an area where the the inflection in the title like when we when we create sorry I'm so low here my back is struggling no that's all right earlier it was hurting so bad the this is where the the the the the I don't know what to call it nuance the the wording in it someone will help me in chat room the it helps with it right I mean so once it gets going it's simple yeah it's the rodeo show right and people would say have you listened to this week's rodeo show I I so I I don't think it always has to be a hundred percent clear exactly what it is because sometimes those things are boring right well yeah they're just that's those are those are boring titles.

Dave Jackson: 01:19:33
It can help but yeah if you've got content that makes people go oh you got to listen to that but the other thing I forgot to check was I came over and I was like you know nobody's signed up for this in forever so I came over and I clicked on get reviewed and I was like oh okay and so I came down here and I clicked on the review me button and it took me over to Fiverr which is what I was using to process it and Fiverr then I logged in and I'm like what's going on all of my gigs have been put on hold because I needed to fill out some tax something some sort of tax information of which I then clicked on that to fill that and speaking of checking stuff that page wouldn't let me fill out my tax stuff. It just sat there and spun I was like what is like this is just a whole night of things not working. So I ended up just to make it easier I set up the rodeo show now to use buy me a coffee you can sell stuff through buy me a coffee. So I basically oh that's another thing so you go over to buy me a coffee give me my 20 bucks and then when that goes through I now use tally.so which is a free tool you can use to make forms. You can also use Google forms I just like the way tally looks it's it's got kind of a smoother look but I bought there's a thing on app sumo and you know how people talk about have having a uh minimal viable product and I went over because they I I use tidycal I used to use Senfox they have a bunch of built-in tools that were built by App Sumo and so I was like you know what it it can't be that bad and so I bought their I think it's called form robin yeah 19 bucks and I was like okay but it's if you want a very I mean this is like minimal viable product to like ridiculous like I couldn't put a logo on the form I could barely change the colors and it worked but I was like no when I can get more functionality from a free service like why would I pay and I know it's $19 for life and yes they're gonna fix it but I came over here and said hey let me this is a free tool Tally T A L L Y dot S O and although I I need to fix this banner because it cut it off but you know I was like I'm not paying that 20 bucks for a barely like minimal viable working tool for for 19 bucks. So I do not recognize I'm I like a lot of Absumo stuff and here's the really cool thing they say hey if you don't like you know their product within the first 30 days well for me it was like the first 30 minutes. I went wait I can't do that and I turn around and said hey I would like a refund and I woke up this morning they're like hey so sorry you didn't like that thanks for the feedback and I got my 19 bucks back. So and then they said please remember that it takes five to whatever 10 business days to to get that and and speaking of that topic I cannot stress this enough if you have a problem with any company reach out to the company because I see a lot of people on Reddit that say things like hey man Spotify took down my show which they say a lot on Spotify there's a lot of people getting flagged for music that they swear they have the rights to like they bought royalty free music and it's still like they took the episodes down on Spotify which is just a Spotify thing. And I always say what did Spotify say when you approach them and their answer is I didn't I I just came here to see if anybody else is having this well that's not going to what if 10 people said yeah it happened to me too which is what happened but it didn't really you know fix their problem I go go to the people that can fix the problem Spotify or if you're having a problem with captivator BuzzSprout or whoever pod page you know don't go to social media because A so many times I see people give a blatantly wrong answer because they don't understand the basic mechanics of a podcast and they're like no you just upload it to Apple and I'm like that's not really how that works. So always reach out to the company that you have a problem with and give them 24 hours. I will say I was really disheartened with Red Circle because I always say if you're going to use free use Red Circle don't don't use Spotify. And I went over because I have one show on sp on Red Circle and I noticed in Pocketcast that it had my the the website it listed in apps was to go to the Red Circle website. I'm like no no so I went into Red Circle I'm like I need to add my website to that and you couldn't do it and when I realized and their help desk said yeah you can't change this it's you we're always going to point people and I was like but I'm paying you nine dollars a month and so I emailed them waited 24 hours got no response and then it was bit it been like a day and a half and I'm like hey hey just for the record you're hijacking my brand and that's a deal breaker. Can't believe I can't change this you know so thank you but good night. And oh by the way F you and anything that is even close to your AI automated thing because it it only you know cheesed me off even more and it took them three days but they finally got back and said we're so sorry. Sorry for the delay and we've updated your show to show your thing you're right that that's dumb and then they had some weird reason why they couldn't do it but maybe I need to give people thirty six hours to reply but again when it's free even though I'm paying a whopping nine dollars a month so always reach out to that.

Jim Collison: 01:25:26
So you say good good day sir good day.

Dave Jackson: 01:25:30
I I that was you know I pretty much I it was a sternly written letter. I was really pissed because I because I promote them all the time I'm like look if you got to do free go red circle and then I was like wait what so I need to now email that guy and say can you clack like is this something I got because I complained or are you guys going to fix that because that's kind of not cool because they make their money through those you know 0.003 cents a download ads which I've made I have the logical weight loss podcast on there and that still gets because it's evergreen content. And I think I made I don't know eight dollars or something not enough to pay for the hosting but I actually made you know more than 37 cents or something like that. So just a reminder no show next week I will be at Pod Indy. If you're anywhere near pod indie stop by and grab yourself a ticket. Jim what is coming up on I just realized I talked for about 12 minutes and you haven't said a peep.

Jim Collison: 01:26:30
My apologies for that my back's hurting it's fine. I've been in the chat room I've been helping them out in the chat room it's absolutely fine.

Dave Jackson: 01:26:37
We have Gavin Campbell this week he of course is we we talked a little bit he got a whole season on a segue uh robot lawnmower so we spent some time talking about that if you're an un if you're an unraid guy there's been some updates to unray that you might want to check out and then we talk a little bit about local AIs and so just and it Gavin's a great guy if you just want an interesting conversation because Gavin's interesting check it out today home gadget geeks.com I saw a video remote controlled robot snowblower and I was like oh yeah I'm like I I would take that over in that space yeah I was like that we're talking $5,000 Dave they're yeah they are that's the thing they're five thousand dollars so you gotta that's a lot of snow blowing yeah that's like I can buy you can buy a lot of winter coats for five grand yeah exactly a lot of teenagers a lot of money to clear my driveway for that kind of thing anyways what's coming up for you Dave I am um because you know I like to talk about dead people um ace freely died and um what what kind of blew me away was how much influence that guy had because in my opinion when it comes to lickety split like wow how did that guy do that that's not Ace Freely like I was playing his stuff when I was 12 not that he's bad he's just not um Zach Wilde Zach Wilde has done things like 30 feet from me and I just go I have no idea how he did that on a guitar but this guy had a huge influence so my point my one word sentence of the show is you don't have to be the biggest bet baddest whatever in your genre to still have influence um and there's a whole bunch of other lessons about that and how he did some really cool business stuff he did some really bad business stuff but uh so we'll be talking ace freely and podcasting on this week's um school of podcasting so remember no show next week we'll see you in two weeks take care everybody