347-YouTube Profanity Update, Industry Events, & Netflix Doubles Down on Video

0:04 Good morning, podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Wednesday, July 30th, 2025, and today we're unpacking podcasting's latest headlines from YouTube loosening up profanity roles and Netflix diving deeper into video podcasts to rss.com, finally making monetization easier. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse or Chatter, hit the share button. Bottom of the screen on Clubhouse, top of the screen on Chatter. And if you're listening via podcast, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give me about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:20 Good morning again, podcasting, Morning Chat. Thank you for being here. I am your host, your dancing host, Mark Ronick. And here with me on stage we have producer Ashley Feller, Dr. Fay, Alex Baelish, Sid Meadows, Nick Nallback. And over on the chatter stage with me, we have Jonathan Howard. Thank you all for being here today. I thought this morning was going to be even more challenging than normal. And first, let me say some of you may know, we have had some challenges as we've been figuring out this whole simulcast thing, both to Chatter Clubhouse and actually also to YouTube.

2:02 And we've had some technical difficulties lately. I'm using the App Club Deck to manage Clubhouse and it's been kind of conking out on us at some point during the show today. I'm going to be optimistic and say it's going to be smooth sailing, but if it's not, I'm giving it one strike and it's out. So if there is a technical glitch this morning, you will only hear it once, God willing. Also, I thought it was going to be challenging today because at the 6:00 hour, actually about 5:45 this morning, I got hit with a case of the major hiccups and I really thought it was going to stick around for Showtime. Thankfully it hasn't and I thought maybe we could real quick before we dive into all the headlines, anyone have any remedies for the hiccups?

2:54 What do you do when you get the hiccups, especially right before you press that record button? I mean, I was just basically going to roll through it and maybe get a laugh or two along the way. But you know, a lot of us don't want the hiccups during a recording session, especially if we have a guest or something like that. Ashley in the chat says drink a lot of water, which that is what I was doing. And I somehow in my one of my recent moves, I think I lost, I bought some kind of hiccup straw. It's like a special straw you can get. It's a hard plastic straw. It's actually, instead of a rounded straw, it's kind of shaped rectangularly. And it's it's built in such a way that apparently when you drink through it, well, first of all, it makes it really challenging to suck that liquid through the straw. And I think that has something to do with it. But it's just constructed in such a way that it helps reduce or eliminate hiccups.

3:56 And it worked like a charm, but I lost it, I think, in this move. I couldn't find it this morning. Anyone have any? Yeah, go ahead. I've heard so many different weird kind of remedies, like if you stand on your head and drink some water, that's supposed to do it. Occasionally when my husband gets them, I just scare the shit out of them. You know, all of a sudden I'll start talking to him in a very low tone and all of a sudden just burst out and, you know, scream or something. Yeah, and has it ever worked? Yeah, it really. I feel like it never works. I always try that to somebody and it, you know, then 30 seconds later there's the hiccup again.

4:39 I wish that worked better for me, but I don't think that works too well. Let's go to Greg. Greg, you have welcome to the stage. Do you have a hiccup remedy? Yeah, I'm going to jump back down in just a second. I did research at John Hopkins University. I have a foolproof remedy. Cover your nose and mouth and breathe in and out for about a minute and it gets rid of the hiccups. But wait a minute, if I'm closing my nose and my mouth, how am I breathing in and out? No, cover your nose and your mouth. It's like cupping. OK, OK, got it. It's like you're breathing your own breath because you're covering your mouth. I. Got it? Well, not a great thing to do at 5:45 in the morning when you haven't brushed your teeth yet. Nick, do you got something for us? I don't get hiccups very often so I have not tried this and luckily my wife doesn't listen to this show so she won't know that I'm telling you guys this.

5:37 So she gets them fairly often, way more than I do. And she will take a glass of water like a normal cup of water. And it's going to be kind of hard to explain. So imagine you're gonna take a drink of the water. You put your mouth on the edge of that cup. Well, imagine you are reaching across the cup on the other side, so not the side that you would normally tip the cup up to, but the opposite side and almost drink the water backwards if you will, Like you're tipping it away from you. And she will drink the water that way. And it baffles me every time she does it, but her hiccups are instantly gone every single time she does it. Oh.

6:17 Wow. No sense to me. Yeah, I have heard that that trick before and I've seen people do it and it worked well. I've also seen something about plugging your two nostrils with your, you know, each one finger from each hand, plugging that. And then usually it's easiest to somebody else actually lifting the cup up to your mouth and you drink, you know, lean your head back and drink. But, you know, if you're skilled enough, you might be able to hold the cup with the rest of your fingers as well. But yeah, that's another weird one I've seen work pretty well. But yeah, I have seen that one, Nick. There are foods like for instance, if I eat bread all by itself, No, not like a sandwich. But if I see a piece of bread and I happen to eat it because I lacks my bread, if I happen to eat it, then if I eat it too fast I will get the hiccups and it's only great. Yeah, I think that has something to do with it because I think the food kind of gets in a weird position as it's going down, and then it causes a weird airwave thing and that might cause the hiccup.

7:24 I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about, really, But yeah. All right, so there are some remedies for those podcasters out there. If you, like me, get your hiccups. Well, then you got first out minutes of our life we can't get back. Oh, everybody goes through the hiccups. I'm sure somebody is appreciative, although apparently Nick not so much. Nick is the exception to the rule. All right, with that, why don't we get into some news, shall we? So the way I I'd like to start things off is with some podcast data and Dr. and I will tag team this one first.

8:06 The number one podcast on Apple as of yesterday is who took Misty Cope. See, staying at that top slot. I believe I mentioned them last week, another true crime show and also number one on Spotify, of course, the Joe Rogan experience, and we might mention his name once or twice more today. We'll explain momentarily D and then I'll come to Dr. for some more top fives in just a moment. 1st, I also wanted to share that over this past week, 446,836 new podcast episodes were published. That's up almost 4% from the previous week. And also I thought I'd throw in, and this by the way, comes from Podcast Business Journal.

8:54 I'd throw in that new episodes in the last 30 days, 1.9 million, very close to 2 million episodes over the past 30 days, which is actually down 2.3% over the last month. Dr. Do you want to give us your top fives? This is Spotify top five. Number 5 is Crime Junkie. We haven't had that in the top five in a little while. Something scary is number. Oh, you know what? I'm sorry. I put it one through 6. OK, that's OK. Let me do it again. This is the top six, everybody. Sorry #5 is something scary #4 is good hang with Amy Poehler #3 is just creepy with scary stories #2 it's filled in the club the series and #1 is the Joe Rogan experience. Thank you, Dr. And I got to say real quick that it seems like the audio is a little weird.

9:56 I think my timpani kind of swallowed up what you were saying For number 2 #2 is Billions Club the series? Yes. And you have one more list. Today's random chart of the week is education. So #5 is IMO with Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson #4 is the Jordan P Peterson podcast #3 is anything goes with Emma Chamberlain. I'll give you another chance with that. OK #2 let's find out number one and #1 the Mel Robbins podcast. Now we want to talk a little bit about #2 #2. Dr. This is a clean show.

10:42 We don't talk about number twos on this show. Dad joke alert. Dad joke alert. Go ahead. #2 is let's find out. And I clicked on it and I think it's all about inducing sleep because when I clicked on it, first of all, Spotify starts out with two commercials on it, but I don't know why they start there, but they start out with two commercials. And then all of a sudden you hear, hi, how are you? It's all whisper. And one of the descriptions of the of an episode is tonight. Now you have to imagine that I'd I'd be whispering all this tonight. We're in the Universe Sandbox, a physics simulator of cosmic phenomena.

11:30 We start with some tutorials. So anyone who's reading the tutorial out to you is going to induce sleep. So that's what this has to do with. Interesting. And you know, I I always find it weird when there are podcasts or audio audio stuff. I can't think of a better word where it's meant to help you relax, right? And it's so it's a meditation, it's a sleep talk, whatever it is. And yet that they play obnoxious commercials, right? Like it's like, I I want to go to sleep. Stop playing commercials. Exactly. It was so jarring, you know? Hey, how about in Progressive Insurance? Hi, how are you?

12:13 I mean, it was just such a huge 180, it was crazy. It's really annoying and you know, if you're not paying for say, YouTube Premium and you're doing a meditation from YouTube, beware because halfway through that meditation, some kind of ad will pop up right in the middle of it and it's quite jarring. I refuse to do any meditations on YouTube. Although I should say, I used to. And maybe it's this is a good reminder to myself because I did actually bite the bullet and started paying for YouTube Premium and I got to tell you it changes my world. No more no more ads is such a great thing when you're watching YouTube. It's so much more pleasant some so much of A better experience. So I it's worth it to me to pay.

13:02 I think it's 10 bucks a month at least for now. We'll see how long I. So you know there's a workaround. I don't know if I should say this. There's a workaround if you go to the URL and you put a dash in between the T of YouTube and EU of YouTube. So YOU T-UB E. IOU2 yes, OK. And it's it's like a regular dash. For some reason it takes out all the commercials. Yeah, that'll help you with hiccups I hear too. Thank you, Alex. Alex very very annoyed by the hiccup conversation this morning I think. You'll thank us.

13:46 You'll think it's later. I hear if you go to that website it instantly downloads a virus to your computer. Shut up. So hopefully you haven't gone there. Are you just kidding? It just sounds kind of. It's not a website. I don't know. I found it, of course, on TikTok. So we'll see if we take out number one. It became much larger on my screen and it took out all the commercials. OK, good little hack. Thank you. We'll have to test that out. And guess what? It's open time. OK, go, go ahead. Go make your breakfast. I know that you wanted to cover a couple other things. We can try to get back to that. In the meantime, some events coming up if you are in the Austin, TX area today, there is a meet up for business owners who podcast and we'll put a link to that for more details.

14:40 But I actually, I'll just tell you here, this is the Austin content driven entrepreneurs meet up. It's for podcasters, Youtubers, writers using content to grow their business. It happens at 5:00 PM Texas time at Round Rock Studio in North Austin. So if that is of interest to you and you're in that area, go for it. We also, of course, have podcast movement also come into Texas, Dallas, TX August 18th. I will not be there. I have officially decided not going to happen this year. I didn't apply to speak and I've got I'm going to be away for a week at this volunteering at that summer camp, right the week before.

15:23 It's going to just be too much for me. So I will not be there and hoping to find some people in this community that'll be there that can report and share what's going on there over the course of the week of the 18th. Also, we have POD Summit YYC that's in Canada, September 19th and of course the Empowered Podcasting Conference come in September 26th through the 28th in Charlotte, NC. That's our event and we would love to have as many of our community members show up, be a part of this event. We certainly have several of you speaking. Several of you have said you are attending and the more the merrier because that's what really this whole conference wasn't. Who inspired this whole conference is you, our community, the podcasting morning chat, the empowered podcasting community.

16:16 We all wanted some kind of big gathering and I figured let's do it and let's open it up to whomever wants to be a part of the community. And here we are, the second one in two years and really excited about it. Looking forward to having you there. So please come join empoweredpodcasting.com. A very inexpensive ticket when you compare it to a lot of the other conferences out there. So if you want to get a lot of good info, do a lot of great networking, come join us at empoweredpodcasting.com. All right, so now we're going to dive into some what we call news bites. These are some things that may strike up some conversation or just may be good information to make sure you have it in your back pocket. First, as I said in the intro, YouTube updated their profanity rules just recently.

17:13 Creators can now curse freely for seven seconds. I'll explain. In a notable policy shift, YouTube announced it will now allow creators to use strong profanity within the 1st 7 seconds of a video without impacting monetization. Previously, videos were swear videos, with swearing in the opening seconds risked reducing earnings. But advertiser expectations have evolved, giving creators more freedom. However, moderation still matters. High frequency profanity as well as swearing in titles or thumbnails will still trigger ad limitations.

17:53 And this just this just Rose raised a flag in my head that I have a client who is putting out an episode next week and they have the F bomb in the title. So I'm going to have to talk to them about that. This update follows extensive feedback from creators seeking clearer, more flexible guidelines. Anyone have any experience with this? So can I? Can I ask a question real quick? Sure. So it's within the 1st 7 seconds of the video. That's apparently what they say, yeah, because they're trying to. They don't want these videos to just start off with a lot of F bombs or whatever other words. People choose those profanities.

18:39 I guess I'm misunderstanding the the article and so it's allowing you within the first 7. Seconds. So it used to be, it used to be that really anything that if you dropped any bombs in those first few seconds, that was a strike against you with monetization. OK, when I picture that I'm like imagining you land on a video and it's going to hook keywords in. Yeah. And I I almost think that that's a strategy. Oh, I agree with you. And I think that's probably why they've just updated this to now allow being a little more flexible with language in those first 7 seconds. So I think that's the whole thing is creators complained, advertisers have have loosened up and so that combination YouTube said, all right, we're we're going to get a little easier about this. And if you if you swear a little bit in the 1st 7 seconds, we're going to let it go.

19:32 But they aren't letting it go as far as titles and thumbnails. So that's, that's the way that works. Janae, welcome to the stage. Are you up here to just be a part of the conversation or did you have something specific? Good morning, both. Cool. Absolutely, yeah. Happy to be here. Did you want to chime in? As well as sounds like let me look it up. So it's not free for all, just so it's making it easier for Youtubers to avoid. Accidentally breaking the rules, because sometimes they would accidentally say something and break the rule and like, hey, we didn't mean that. But now it says, hey, it's you're OK for that? OK, but I can see where they would accidentally the rules like within the show but not the first few seconds that that that would be a weird accident within the first few seconds. Ashley put a good example in the chat. She said she has a client who uses the word happy ass as a part of her sign on for every single video. That could be a prime example.

20:37 Like welcome to the show you happy ass. I don't. Know well even if that goes my happy. Ass life. Right, my right, my happy ass life. So that yeah, even if you just start the show. Hi, welcome to my happy ass life. Yeah. Or is that is that a strike against you? But it apparently now it's not going to be a big strike against you. So that's how that works. All right, so let's keep it moving. I think we've we've covered that. Here's some interesting news for you. Netflix is and we've talked about this briefly. There was some rumors a few weeks, maybe a month or two back. Well, now Netflix Flix is It's being reported again that they're quietly searching for an executive to lead its video podcast efforts as it continues to chase YouTube.

21:24 Everyone's chasing YouTube. In a street strategic move to rival YouTube's podcast dominance, Netflix is quietly on the hunt for an executive to spearhead its video podcast ambitions, Sources tell Business Insider. The unnamed role would sit with Netflix's licensing arm charged with recruiting and producing video. First podcast for mass audiences Co CEO Ted Sarandos emphasized the streamers excitement about partnering with creative driven, creator driven shows like The Side Men and Pop the Balloon during company's latest earning calls. Did somebody come off mic and want to say something?

22:05 I did because the line where Netflix is quietly on the hunt for an executive spirit, I mean, I kind of want to do the Elmer Fudd, very, very quiet, but it made the news. So they're quietly searching, but yet it made the news. Exactly. Well, so if anybody's looking for a job, you can check out Netflix and apply to be their executive. That would be some kind of job. I'd, I'd love to love to take on that kind of challenge. So stay tuned. We will see where Netflix goes with this as podcasts podcasting continues to infiltrate mainstream media, which is such a weird term for me to say out loud after, you know, the 1st 10 years I was podcasting, people would just look at me like I was crazy when I said I had a podcast cuz they had no clue what the heck I was talking about. And now here we are, Netflix adding executives for podcasting and Spotify is in the YouTube game. It's crazy how things change.

23:13 Got another story for you? This one. Pay attention, especially if you consider yourself a small creator, because there is a new way to make somemoneyrss.com just rolled out something called Paid PAID, and it stands for Program Programmatic ads inserted dynamically. And it's a big deal, especially if your podcast isn't pulling massive numbers yet. Even if you're getting fewer, and I'm not making this up, fewer than 10 downloads a month, you can start monetizing right away using the paid feature. This launched a couple weeks ago or a week and a half ago or so on July 24th, and it's let and it lets you drop ads into every episode you've ever made. No outreach, no ad sales, no setup headaches. So this is using dynamic ads.

24:06 The platform handles everything. It places the places ads based on things like where your listeners are located, the languages they speak, and of course what your contents all about. So it stays relevant. You just opt in with one click and boom, you're making money. Theoretically, potentially off pre rolls, mid rolls, post rolls, whatever works best for your flow. So you even get to control that. You can't approve each ad just yet, but you do get to filter out categories that don't vibe with your show. So the bottom line is it's a super simple way for small podcasters to finally get paid without needing to jump through hoops.

24:48 All you got to do is go to rss.com. You'll see some stuff about the new paid feature and you can opt in and you'll get all the details from there. How do we feel about this? I'm sorry. So just to be clearrss.com, is that not a hosting platform? I know RSS the RSS feed, but isn't rss.com isn't that a hosting platform? So this would be specific, this would be like an exclusive to this hosting platform. I think so, and you're asking that to simplify it. You're asking much like Bus Sprout has their own dynamic ads in inserts you have to be on Bus Sprout to take.

25:33 Advantage, and the only reason why I want to make it clear is because RSS is a common phrase that we hear all the time when podcasting. You're right because you have your RSS feed, but yeah, this is separate from that. And yes, rss.com is its own hosting platform and you can, you can get it for 1199 per month. And if you get it, that's if you get it annually. And if you're doing it monthly, it's 1599 per month to use their service. So pretty comparable to Buzz Sprout as far as pricing goes, except the difference is 1. One of the differences with RSS, you get unlimited episodes, unlimited audio, whereas you have a storage limit over on Buzz Sprout. OK, so we'll keep it going.

26:25 According to Nielsen, YouTube just hit another new high 12.8% of all TV viewing in the US and a big part of that bump came from school being out. So 12.8% of all TV viewing in the US is that new high that I was just referring to. Netflix got a lift 2 landing in the number three spot for the first time. Now some say we should keep this in context here. No major sports in June definitely played a role in shifting where people's eyeballs went. Dr. Do you want to take the next story about Edison Research? The new numbers just dropped from Edison Research, and they paint a pretty wild picture of where podcasting is right now. Americans are clocking in over 773,000,000 hours a week listening to podcasts.

27:22 That's up from 170 million in 2015. So yeah, we're talking about a 355% jump in just ten years. The average US listener is tuning in for 7.7 hours every week. Gabriel Soto from Edison says this isn't just about bigger audiences. It's about deeper engagement and more chances for advertisers to actually connect. And here's the thing, over half of Americans 12 and up are listening monthly. This isn't a side hustle anymore. It's it's, you know, it's mainstream.

28:04 So even if listeners grow eventually the growth, you know, eventually plateaus. The real win is in growing listening time. More hours means more ad space to work with without stuffing episodes full of sponsor reads and stuff like that. And that's a good sign for the health of the whole industry. Thank you, Dr. With that, I am going to go to Jonathan over on the Chatter stage and actually 1st I'm going to going to actually ask Jonathan to wait one second and I'm going to go to Nick because I know Nick has to bounce soon and I think he's got a headline or two to share. Go ahead, Nick. I know we had discussed maybe it was last week already the ChatGPT agent AI addition to ChatGPT that actually will open up a virtual desktop and browse or peruse the Internet on your behalf.

29:03 And previously I've been patiently waiting for this to come out. It was only available for the pro users if you're paying $200 a month and it is now available on the $20.00 per month subscription. So if you're a plus user, you can access that GBT agent. And so far I I never got to play with Operator when it came out, but so far I'm pretty impressed with Agent. I've only used it a handful of times, but I actually sicked it on some tasks at work for me and it did a pretty darn good job logging into the website that I needed to get logged into and filling out information, navigating the website.

29:48 It did it all and I just kind of sat back and watched it happen. What I found. Most impressive about the whole thing is it tells you what it's doing and it's kind of quote UN quote thought process throughout the whole deal. So as it was navigating the website, it was looking for a specific thing based on the task I gave it. And it was hovering over all of the different menu items and thinking about OK is this menu item make sense to where I need to? Go to find this specific area of the website and it went through all the different menu items and it was like, oh, this is the one that I probably need to go to. I'm going to click that one. And it clicked it, it got to the right location and it started filling out the information that I needed it to fill out. And it all.

30:33 Happened just from a prompt. I gave it a simple prompt. And it. Went to work for me. Wow. Definitely check it out. Play with it. See think of the different tasks that you have that are repetitive throughout the day. And I would hope if you're on a paid ChatGPT account, try agent. See if it'll just do the thing for you because you might be able to sit back or focus on other things. Well, the agent does the work for you. Yeah, maybe even things like those last minute steps and maybe last minute isn't the right word, but those final steps when you're going to schedule or publish a new episode, you maybe you have it do it for you.

31:14 Upload the file, put the title, the show notes, etcetera. See, See what you think Now, Nick, before you Jet, did you hear, I saw maybe last week there was a report that somebody used Agent for their business and it accidentally or just kind of went rogue and like deleted the company's entire database. I saw some stuff and I don't know if this is the same thing, but some of the AI code tools, like the coding tools, basically when you use those tools, you're basically giving it access to your entire code base. So all of the code, all of the files that exist for your that make whatever you're coding this AI tool, yeah, was running on autopilot.

32:02 They basically gave it permission to like update some stuff or make some changes or whatever, and it completely wiped out the entire app. Yeah, they had absolutely nothing left of it. And this was something that I think the, the person developing it like they were, they're a developer. They were building on this app. And then they started using this AI to like, help them speed up the process. And it basically killed months of work that they were working on. Yeah. That's a little scary, I'm sure Now everybody, everybody is now not listening to my my suggestion of trying to upload it for you. Upload your show, do the show notes for you. It's a little scary. So you may want to first try some light tasks 1st and see how it goes.

32:47 The good, the good thing with ChatGPT agent is it and it's actually in the documentation of agent itself is that it will basically analyze the steps that it's taking to determine if they are a high risk task. I actually watched this happen when it was navigating the website that it was on it, it popped up, it hovered over this thing and it basically a message popped up that said like OK, I'm going to save this. I was working on a change order for a construction project that I was doing or it was working on a change order for a construction project I'm doing. And. It went to go save and it hovered over the save and then you can see the text coming up on the thing basically saying like this doesn't seem like a high risk task.

33:29 I'm going to go ahead and click the save button. If it does encounter things that it's not sure about or it deems a high risk, it is going to stop what it's doing. And it is actually going to pop back in the chat and basically say, hey, I'm not going to do this, but you can take control over the screen and you can do it, but I'm not going to take that step. So basically it's saying I'm not going to mess this up, but I'm going to let you mess this up, but I'm not going to be the one to mess this up. And the same thing happens with any kind of login. So like I had to log into that website to access my projects and things like that. I had to take control of the ChatGPT virtual computer, if you will, log in and then give it back control because it's not going to say, hey, give me your password, give me your username. You actually have to physically log into those things. So there are certain tasks that it might not just completely run, like if you walked away from the computer and came back later, it might be sitting there waiting for your input because it's like, yeah, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to take responsibility for that. So it does have some safeguards built in. But yes, I agree to your point like you never really know. Yeah, it's funny.

34:47 Nick and I were talking last week about using Agent and at the time he hadn't had access to it yet. I did and he was encouraging me to test it to and then share some results with him. That stuff that Nick and I often do outside of our show. And I, I looked at the screen and I was like, Nick, I have no idea what I want to ask it to do. I just couldn't come up with anything in the moment there, you know, So you got to pay attention to some of those tasks that those repetitive tasks that you just don't feel like doing anymore and test it out, see how it goes. And yeah, use some caution, I suppose. Let's keep things moving and check in. Thank you, Nick.

35:29 And let's go to Jonathan over on the Chatter stage. And by the way, shout out to his Co host Mimi, who's joined us in the audience over there on Chatter. Jonathan, do you have some social media updates that may be of interest to podcasters? We have a whole lot of social media updates, but they're all little, so I'm going to go through a few of them. The first one is Facebook is streamlining its video strategy. So now all videos on Facebook will follow in the line of all videos on Instagram. They will be Reels. So that is going to be a change. It shouldn't change how you're really uploading anything. It's just going to be that they're all going in as Reels, same as on Instagram. No, not a huge change, Jonathan.

36:10 I ask. You real quick, can you explain that once more for me because I'm not quite connecting with that? Any video is going to go in as a real like on Instagram, there's no such thing as any other video other than real. OK, so all videos on Facebook are going to be real. So now it does not say, does not say if the if the format is going to be vertical video or horizontal video. And I haven't seen it ruled out for me yet. So I'm guessing it would be vertical video if everything's going to be a real, but I don't know. Yeah, because I do see some horizontal videos over on Instagram that are still under the real umbrella. So I would guess it doesn't matter which way it's shaped. And so on Facebook, when I first opened, I have all these reels, almost like a featured reels.

37:03 Do you know what I'm saying? And then below that, here's the feed. So is that going to change? Since they're all reals, Everything is reals. Is that going to change at all? Yeah, good question. I guess that's to be determined. Yeah, Jonathan Jonathan's looking at me because he's using the camera feature over on Chatter. Like, yeah, I guess I don't know. We're going to have to wait and see. So yeah, I don't know yet. Dr. Janae, do you have something for us? Yes. So what Jonathan is saying is that just like Instagram is marking all their videos as Reels because they're marketing that term, they're bringing that same functionality over to Facebook. So you'll have vertical videos and rectangular videos, but they're all named as Reels. And that's what I've experienced using Facebook because that's my primary platform.

37:53 OK, got it. Got it. Thank you, Sinead. Appreciate that. All right, we're going to go back to Jonathan. Jonathan, go for it. Isn't it? And I just pulled up Facebook right now and I do actually looks like I have the update now and it's just saying Reels and short videos. And that has all the reels on there. Regular videos are still in the feed. So there we go. Yeah, that's what we're looking at. All right, Other things, 20 minute long reels on Instagram. Please don't. No, that's. A long reel it. Is it is And I mean, that could be a podcast episode for some people. It could be, yeah, yeah, it's a long real but.

38:33 The question really is if somebody is on a platform like Instagram or say TikTok even, are they really there to consume 20 minutes worth of content in one from one creator in one sitting? I don't think so. I think people are there for the quick hits, the quick, the quick dopamine hits, right. So that's, I guess to be continued, right. We've seen some of those kinds of moves before and so far I feel like they haven't worked so well. But we'll see if this is if they they're on to something this time. I don't know. I don't think they're 10 minute reels did well, so I'm kind of surprised they're going to 20 minutes. But hey, it is what it is. Restyle AII don't know if anybody has used this and I don't remember if I talked about this in in previous episode, but meta has its own meta AI app and they have restyle AI as part of that. There's a whole bunch of built in styles that you can use. I will share a video I'll share a link to a video that I did that kind of shows some of these styles, but it is now that restyle AI is now coming to Instagram. So you'll be able to access that tool in Instagram when you're creating your reels.

39:44 And then last but not least was I thought it was. I can't remember where it was now thinking. About. The grid. The Instagram Instagram grid, thank you. You're going to now be able to rearrange your grid and I think this would have been a great tool like 6 years ago when how your grid looked mattered. It doesn't really matter now, but you're going to be able to rearrange your grid. So if you were very aesthetic, you know, brand and you're really worried about. How your grid looks, you're going to be able to change that. Jonathan, so you said it would have mattered more 5-6 years ago. Why do you feel like it doesn't matter that much now? And why doesn't it count any like you were saying that was? Yeah, what? Just.

40:24 I'll leave it there. Yeah, 5-6 years ago everything was all about how pretty your grid was and when people went to your grid they would look at it and you know, care. The difference is now with SEO and everything, people are just looking for that one post that's going to answer their question or that one post that you know they're really looking for. They're not looking at your grid per SE. Some people might. It's not a primary landing spot though. I see. Thank you for the social media news, Jonathan. Appreciate that and real quick. And then we're going to get into a couple of big headlines we want to make sure to cover. First, I want to share that boomers are hitting play on podcasts. Some big news for Edison, some big news from Edison research. The 55 plus crowd is officially showing up for podcasts. And by the way, is 55 considered boomer? Because I think they're at age 55 years still. Between 1946 and 1964.

41:30 OK. Ask me how? Ask you what? How I know? Right. So OK, so 55 would it would still be actually Gen. X, but that doesn't matter. The bottom line is the 55 plus crowd is officially showing up for podcasts. The latest numbers show 27% of adults in that age group listened to or watched a podcast in the past week. That's up 19% from last year and way up from just 14% two years ago. And Nope, this isn't just YouTube views. Even without the video bump, the growth is real. The let's see here we have Edison's vice president.

42:12 President is set to unpack all of this and actually may have already done so over the past couple of days. So more information at Edison or on their YouTube channel, I believe. So if you've been writing off that 55 plus segment as out of reach, it's time to shift that mindset. They're here and they're listening and that speaks volumes because for whatever reason, some of my newest podcast clients, the last few of them have their audience targets that older crowd, that midlife and older crowd. So it's just good timing, I guess, on their part for launching a podcast over this past year, because boomers are are here and are real and are making a difference as far as those listening numbers go.

43:04 So pay attention, especially if that's your your content speaks to them. OK, Dr. Oh yeah, go ahead. Just wanted to add to this. So First off, let's be clear, 55 is not a boomer, that's a Gen. X. So don't throw those of us that are Gen. X is into that boomer category. OK. Don't throw us into that boomer category. I think what this is about. Is as we in that category closer to retirement. We're not looking to retire, we're looking for something else to do, right. We're looking for new things to learn for new skills up because you know, when our grandparents retired, they just retired, right? They didn't really do anything.

43:53 And I think our generation and you know, doesn't really is not really interested in that. So we're looking for new things. So I think that's one of the reasons why you see a rise in that demographic listening because they're really looking for some other things to do and explore and to learn and continue. Just because we get getting close to that retirement word, we're stopping. Thank you, Sid. Yeah, I'm with you there. And Gen. X, just just for the record, is definitely the best generation thus far since we've started labeling generations. So now the Boomers are trying to make a difference, I guess. Yeah. Janae, did you have something? Yes, Gen.

44:34 X is the best. He just. He was chiming in really for that. Just trying to be subtle. All right, I am going to go to Dr. for our next story. This is about Time magazine and their top 100 list. Another top 100 list. This is story #5 Dr. if you're looking, do you want me to play the clip first? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead and play it first. All right, so I'll play a clip. This comes. From Barstool about Time's top 100 podcasts that came out fairly recently in July. Let's hear what Barstool has to say about this list. Time magazine released their list. Of the top 100 best podcast of all time, and it's just one of the worst goddamn list you'll ever see. Right off the bat, we're going to start with the fact that Joe Rogan is not on the list of top 100 podcast of all time. You see their bodega boys all time classic caller daddy. Of course there's a couple of they got right Conan for sure, but 90% of these like who the fuck listens to these? They listed sports as one of their top categories. Part of my take.

45:40 Not in it. Shannon Sharp, not in it. Spit and Tricklets, not in it. These are like the biggest sports podcasts of all time. I don't know what's going on in music. I don't know if any of these are music, but Joe Budden know where to be found. Nori drink champs not on the list. Roy Amal Nowhere. Tim Dillon, Shane Gillis, Tom and Bert, your mom's house. All of the none of the comedy podcasts are on here. It's the biggest thing. In the world the last decade. At the end of the day, Despite that rant literally one second ago, I don't get bent out of shape about these things. This is like how always Sunny has never like even been nominated for an Emmy. This is how the Grammys are always a joke. Anytime there's like a list of, of, of journalists or, you know, high and mighty self important assholes making a list, they, they never get it right because they're not humans, they're robots. They don't know what regular people listen to and enjoy. And clearly with some of the omissions, it's about, you know, politics or grudges or, or just personal bullshit. Joe Rogan makes like a billion dollars podcast. OK, I'll be on there.

46:37 And I realize the world is very big. The Internet is huge, and there probably are a ton of people who listen to all these lame shows. But to omit the ones that really have true fans and a huge following and have been a massive success is just asinine. There you go from barstool. Sports How do you really feel about the top 100 Dr. Go ahead. You want to add on to this, So yeah, as you. As you heard, time.com has released its list of 100 of the best podcasts of all time. That's the way they have titled it, The 100 Best Podcasts of all time. And the glaring omissions of Joe Rogan Experience has set off fireworks across the industry. Now many are pointing out that leaving off Joe Rogan along with heavy hitters like Bill Burr, Tim Ferriss, Adam Corolla, Joe Budden, the podcast, Art Budden.

47:31 I'm sorry, Joe Budden, we had to talk about that. Anyway, it kills the credibility if they're not on this list. Time called their selections the most innovative quote, Innovative, influential and informative listens in the history of the medium. UN quote. But critics note that the list ignores several shows that shaped podcasting as we know it. Some shows did make the cut and deserve their spot, including Hardcore History with Dan Carlin, Revolutions by Mike Duncan, Beautiful Anonymous, Welcome to the Night Vale, the sporkful, and the Memory place.

48:11 Still, there's been some backlash that a few podcasts with fewer than 1000 reviews and in one case only 6 episodes released back in 2019 were included, while major powerhouses were left out. Data compiled from podcast rankings over the past 20 years highlights the 10 most frequently recognized shows like This American Life, The Joe Rogan Experience, Crime Junkie, My Favorite Murder, The Daily Radio Labs, Stuff You Should Know, Serial and The Ramsey Show, and also NPR News. 4 of those, Rogan, Crime Junkie, Ramsey Show and NPR News did not appear on the Times 100 Top list. So one take away is clear.

49:02 For a medium driven by audience loyalty, a best of all time list that overlooks these fan favorites is bound to spark some heated debate. And I took a closer look at the list and there were an amazing amount of podcasts that had not been published in years. Here's some examples. There is a show called 2 Dope Queens, not published since 2019 and they're in the list. They're in the top 100. Yes, they are. All of these that I'm going to that I'm going to talk about are all on the list. The Big Dig 9 episodes only hasn't published since June of 2024. Bodega Boys hasn't published since 11:21 November 21. The last days of August 7 episodes in 2017. Then they re re release the same episodes in 2019. There's a show called Moon Phase six episodes 2019. Well, I think we, I, we definitely. Get the picture as far as these small or, you know, shows that really not most of us don't really know about. It's just weird.

50:14 It's just really weird. Weird. Weird. Yeah. And it makes you think that if these shows have not published since those back years, were they on last year's Times List 100 list? Did they have a list last year? Did they have a top 100? I don't know, let me. See the times they released its list of. I mean, I don't know with that, that would be worth checking out because if they weren't on the list last year, why would they be on the list this year if they haven't published a single thing And in one case 2017? And is it weird that a top one? 100 list of all time, specifically, it's produced every single year. Like it to me, it's like, doesn't that list basically have to remain mostly the same, at least for a little while? I feel like after a year maybe one or two might slide into that, that top 100.

51:10 But overall it's like you can't keep updating that list every year and changing it around. That doesn't make sense. Hard time. That's published, yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Cool. Well, well, thank you, Dr. Appreciate that. I want to jump into this next story. Do you really need to learn then what this is? This is what neuroscience is saying about reading versus listening. There's an ongoing debate in the learning world. Do we need to read or is listening enough? Podcasts, audio books, they're everywhere now, and they're awesome for when you're on the go. But here's the thing. Science is pretty clear that listening and reading hit different parts of your brain.

51:52 They're not the same. Listening brings in the emotion, the tone. It makes it personal. Reading, though, that's where you really slow down and lock in the information. You focus deeper, you absorb more, and the brain scans back this up. So even with all the convenience and growth of audio, I don't think books are going anywhere. There's still something essential about picking up a book, slowing down, giving your brain that different kind of work out. But I think ultimately both matter. This is. Like reading from my favorite topics and I'd listen a lot. Yeah, especially on my walks. I listen a lot. Part of the problem I have with listening to books, especially if there are professional development related books, there's usually there's a framework or To Do List or something and it's kind of hard to dot that down while you're exercising or walking or whatever it might be. But this past week?

52:50 On our vacation. I read and finished two books that were not business related books, not professional Thelma related books, just stories, right? Just books. And I had to tell you, I was just enthralled with the characters. I couldn't put the books down. I just was like, and it just reminded me how much I love reading and how much that reading can really bring you along in a story, which we can do that in audio and in our podcasting, right? Jonathan talks about that a lot. But I just was reminded how powerful just simply reading a book was, and that just taking the time to read, not necessarily about how to be better tomorrow, but just reading for the fun of reading.

53:35 So I think everybody should embrace both the audio and the written and grab a book and read it. If you need some recommendations, I got plenty. Yeah. Yes, Sid. Definitely both, as he said, big reader, big listener as well. We're always hearing about the different podcasts he's listening to and the different books that he's reading. Yeah, thank you, Sid I that's the bottom line. I think both is important. If you really want to build your knowledge on this, on the topic, I would say do it all. Read the books, watch the videos, listen to the podcasts. I mean, there are so many different ways that we absorb information. And I think if you really want that edge, if you really want to learn as much as possible, you got to bring in all the different modalities in order to do so. I just found that an important article to read. We're we'll wrap up with this one Joe Budden's podcast Empire and he since Joe Budden was mentioned earlier when we were talking about the top 100 list, it's his empire is on track for $20 million in 2025.

54:45 And for those of you who don't know Joe Budden, former hip hop artist turned podcast mogul. And in a revealing New York Times profile published on July 22nd, Joe Budden opens up about how his podcast network transformed into a multimillion dollar empire, raking in over $1 million monthly on Patreon alone and avoiding traditional ad models to maximize profit and control. So just giving you a little more specifics, 1,000,000 per month from 70,000 subscribers across tiers ranging from 5 to $50, making Patreon a critical growth engine for the his empire. His network is expected as mentioned to exceed 20 million in total revenue this year with over 12 million coming from subscriptions alone.

55:42 What I appreciate is Budden manages a small selective in house advertising team, limiting itself to three sponsors at a time to retain ownership and avoid compromise. I stand and applaud Budden and his team for that because we see so many of these very successful podcasts that are quite lucrative taking too much advantage of advertising on their podcasts and Riddle those shows with ads from the moment you press play through, through the whole episode and even at the end. It's really obnoxious and annoying and I think really ruins the listening experience.

56:23 And I respect the fact that we want to monetize our shows. So I appreciate that a big show like this has put their foot down and said, yeah, we'll do it, but we're only doing a limited number per episode. Props to Budden and his team and it's in house. He said that they were in house. That's kind of significant, absolutely. Absolutely. The network operates with 30 plus contractors, including high cost hosts and is even investing $2,000,000 in buying a waterfront studio space. And bottom line is this is a great model also for black creators. Budden is challenging mainstream media norms, showing a blueprint for community driven creator owned success in an industry where most struggle to break 6 figures. So kudos to what they're doing over there. OK, we are at the 8:00 hour, so it is time to wrap things up today.

57:24 We are back tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern. If you've listened this far, please go to podcastawards.com and give us a vote for the Adam Curry People's Choice Award and or the Education Award. All you got to do is sign up. It takes a minute. It's totally free to do. Look for us under those two categories. Choose from the drop down. It's all alphabetically listed and we are under T for the podcasting morning chat. Please give us our our your vote. If we've been of any help to you whatsoever at any point in your journey, if you've found us even today, if it's your first time and this was an informative, helpful episode, please give us your vote. Would appreciate it and if you don't feel like giving us your vote, at least go give us a review on Apple, leave us a rating on Spotify, show your support if you would be so kind. So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody take care.