My tip this week - now, more than ever, force yourself to do the hard things. For me, it's working on my business. The only way I'm going to do it, is to block some time, sit down, and do it. What does that mean for you?
Riverside.FM has officially launched, as a remote video recording platform. Plans go from $20 to $50 a month, depending on if you want video and how much. I haven't tried it yet - but it's getting good reviews, including from Hillary Clinton.https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/rverside-fm/?utm_source=podnews.net&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=podnews.net:2020-11-12
Spotify has its biggest acquisition yet - buying podcast host Megaphone for $235 million. Spotify has already bought The Ringer, Anchor, Gimlet and more. Reaction to the deal is mixed. It really seems Spotify is, to paraphrase Pinky and the Brain, trying to take over the world.
Also this week, Spotify seemed to float the idea of a subscription model - surveying its listeners to see if they'd pay anywhere from $3 to $8 monthly. https://gizmodo.com/looks-like-spotify-is-considering-a-subscription-servic-1845613780
Anchor is now IAB certified - meaning your downloads are real, not just from bots. I still don't trust them, but here's their press release. https://blog.anchor.fm/updates/iab?utm_source=podnews.net&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=podnews.net:2020-11-06
Daniel J. Lewis of MyPodcast Reviews says Apple added another 100,000 podcasts in October, bringing its total to over 1.6 million shows. https://mypodcastreviews.com/podcast-industry-statistics/
But don't be intimidated - as Libsyn's Rob Walch reminded us at Podcast Movement Virtual, 8 of 9 new shows don't even make it to a tenth episode. If you can commit to good quality content for the long haul, you've got much less competition than you thought.
As always, if you want help launching, editing, consulting or anything else with your podcast, you can find me online at www.jagindetroit.com - send an email to jag@jagindetroit.com, or find me on social @JAGinDetroit.
Welcome in, I am Jon “JAG” Gay. My tip for the week, is that now, more than ever, you've got to force yourself to do the hard things. Stress is at an all-time high in the wake of the election. Coronavirus is getting worse by the day. It's very easy to just fall into things that are comfortable and that's how you can spend your day.
I know for me, I can easily spend hours tweaking the EQ of a voice on a podcast or recording a podcast or editing a podcast. For me, the biggest challenge is working on my business. I am not a business-minded person. I'm more the day-to-day guts stuff, more so than the long-term “strategery” as Will Farrell would say.
So for me, I know in the coming weeks, as I wrap up some bigger projects for the year, I have to block time on my calendar to sit down at my desk, focus on my business and work on my plan for 2021. If I don't block off time to do it. It's never going to happen. So whatever is stopping you, whether it's your personal or your professional life, something you hate doing, something you feel like you have to tie yourself to a chair and put a dog shock collar around your neck to actually do- the first step is blocking time in your calendar to do it. Otherwise you will always find something else to do.
Onto podcasting news for the week. Riverside dot FM seems to be the hot new thing, and full disclosure, I haven't tried it yet. It is a remote recording platform that records both audio and video and doesn't buffer because it records everything locally and then uploads it. I'm a big fan of Squadcast. I am part of their ambassador program. I've been using them for a long time with great success. Squadcast may do video in the future, but right now they're only audio. So Riverside to me is interesting and I'm hearing great things about it. Even Hillary Clinton has endorsed them- that link in the show notes. But from what I can tell the plans range from $20 to $50 a month, depending on whether or not you want video or just audio, and how much recording time you need. But their plans do only go up to 10 hours per month beyond that you've got to contact them. So I'm going to keep my eye on them. If I have a chance to try it out, I will let you know what I think of Riverside.fm. Seems like it's a higher quality video recording than Zoom.
In other podcasting news this week, Spotify has made its biggest acquisition yet. They bought podcast host Megaphone for $235 million. Now this is that coming after Spotify has already bought The Ringer, Anchor, Gimlet, and more. It's going to give them more access to data on users and listening and consumption as well. Reaction to the deal is mixed, but it really seems like Spotify, to paraphrase Pinky and The Brain, is trying to take over the world.
And also this week, Spotify seemed to float the idea of a subscription model, surveying its listeners and seeing if they'd be willing to pay between $3 and $8 a month for premium, ad free content. For me, that content has really, really gotta be worth it. I mean, I'm a cord cutter. I have YouTube TV, but I add in Netflix and my wife's added Disney Plus, and next thing you know, we're paying almost as much as you're paying for cable. So all these little five and $10 and $20 a month, things they add up. So I’ll be curious to see what happens with Spotify, this idea of a subscription model, but they've gotta make that money they’re investing back somehow.
The podcast platform Anchor is now IAB certified. What that means, if your host is IAB certified, is that your downloads are certified legit people and not bots and everything else.
So people find when their host becomes IAB certified, their download numbers drop and they freak out. But really it's a more accurate number. All the bots and spam is not being counted in your downloads. I still don't trust Anchor because of questions around ownership and piracy. But if you're just dabbling in podcasts and you want to try something for free, Anchor is out there.
Daniel J Lewis of My Podcast Reviews says that Apple added another 100,000 podcasts in October, bringing its total amount of shows to over 1.6 million. That's actual shows, not specific episodes, that number of course way higher. But don't be intimidated. Libsyn's Rob Walch pointed this out at Podcast Movement Virtual last month, eight out of nine new podcast shows don't make it to episode number 10. They podfade and get tired of it and let it fall by the wayside. So, if you can commit to good quality content for the long haul, you've got much less competition than it appears.
As always, if you want help launching editing, consulting, or anything else with your podcast, you can find me online at jagindetroit.com, or email me jag@jagindetroit.com. All those links and contact info will be in the show notes as well as in our closing credits here. As always stay healthy, stay safe, and I will talk to you next week. Lata!