351 - Amazon Lays Off Wondery Team, ElevenLabs Bets on AI Audio

0:04 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Wednesday, August 6th, 2025, and today we're diving into the week's biggest podcasting headlines, from layoffs at major podcast networks to a viral mix up that turned 1 podcast interview into meme gold. 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 us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:20 Good morning again podcasting morning chat. Thanks so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik and on stage with me currently we have Dr. Fey, producer Ashley Feller, Nick Nolback, Sid Meadows and Alex Baelish. And I see this Wednesday morning our live audiences slowly but surely creeping in the room here. Thanks to Jean and Billy for being here bright and early. And I do want to shout out Jean. Jean has he was with the podcasting morning chat when I first started things back up pretty much around then. So a couple years ago Jean was joining us a lot. And then Jean got super busy and got his doctorate and then started doing his doctorate things. I'm just being vague because it's not my story to tell and it's good to have Jean back.

2:16 Welcome back. Gene in the room yes, I'm really excited to see him and I saw I gave him some kudos yesterday on social media noticed that he's also starting to put out content again and I I questioned it and he said Yep, I'm back. So great to see you creating content again Gene and hanging out with us here. We definitely hope we can empower you to do all the things that you're looking to do with your content, and that goes for everybody listening right now. We hope we can do the same for you. So listen, yesterday we addressed my audio issues. And here's the The thing is, it's mostly only noticeable here on Clubhouse. Now yesterday, admittedly, I forgot to hit record until about 15 minutes into the show.

3:07 So our only backup recording for those first 15 minutes was Clubhouse. And so our podcast audience also heard some of the issues that we were experiencing. Hopefully today, the podcast audience, you won't notice the issues because what's coming through what I'm recording to my Zoom P4, it sounds just fine. It's just for whatever reason, Clubhouse connected to this particular device, it makes me sound more like I'm on the phone than I am using a Samsung Q2U. So I just thought I'd explain that. Yeah, dear, I have. Huge news. I'm kind of feeling proud of it because this is like a 6° of separation. I know this person through you and you know them. I think through your wife and your wife is related to them. So remember the story about your is it your cousin law? Is that who it is?

4:04 Yeah. OK, so remember the story about your cousin in He has the podcast Dopey and Instagram threw him off and. For no, no apparent reason except, well, that what they said was they threw him off for promoting drug abuse when they in fact were actually helping people recover from alcohol, drug abuse, etcetera. Right. This podcast has gotten huge names on it. It's gotten what Doctor Drew it's gotten. I mean, you may the celebrities that have been on this show have been crazy, crazy. Because unfortunately, it seems a lot of celebrities go through rehab, go through this kind of stuff.

4:48 So they have lots of and that's what this show is about. It's really sharing those stories of the challenges, the crazy S that they used to do while they were on something and then their recovery from there. So yeah, go ahead, Dr. OK, so I was scrolling as one does and I came across this headline on page 6. Page 6 is. Huge. And the headline is Instagram and Facebook took down comma punished vital sobriety podcasts for quote UN quote promoting drug use.

5:31 And the whole story is on there with pictures of your cousin in law and how you know they put it back and stuff like that. But to be on page 6 is probably the most unbelievable thing ever. I'm not surprised. He has continued to get some great press over the years. And here's a great example of at the time for him, this felt like a disaster, right? He felt like because his Instagram, he really built it up. He's built it up to like 50,000 followers. It continues to grow and it was a primary source for him to connect with his audience. Not his only source, but a primary source. And now I guess this becomes a silver lining for him because now he's getting some major publicity out of it. I'm going to have to reach out to him and see if this article on from page 6 if that's given him a boost with his podcast. We'll have to find out.

6:31 I'll ask him. Yeah. Yeah. So a little pre news for everybody. That's right, pre news on Newsday and it's amazing. Yeah, congratulations. Yeah, we're all connected. In a weird way, yeah, that feels so awesome. Dopey Dave was very appreciative of what we did and what we shared and helped to spread the word. Whether or not we made the difference, that's to be determined, but I'd like to think we had a little impact on that. Who knows? Yeah. Thank you for the early headline, Dr. Appreciate that. And now let's just dig right in to today's news.

7:13 So let's start with some podcast data. As of yesterday, August 5th, the number one podcast on Apple was Cold Blooded Mystery in Alaska. That's an ABC production and #1 on Spotify, surprise, surprise, the Joe Rogan Experience. You believe it? Joey. You go, Joey. Also, by the way, I wanted to share the total podcast episodes that have posted recently. We've had new episodes in the last week, 389,740 of them were posted over this past week. That's down actually almost 7% from the last week. And new episodes in the last 30 days, 1.9 million, which is also down 1.6% from last month.

8:07 And here's a little extra stat for you on average last month that this means there was a new podcast episode posted every .8 seconds. That's a great stat. I love that kind of crazy when you think about it. And don't let that discourage you. I know we, we have some people out there saying, oh, everyone's got a podcast and there's so many podcasts to choose from. And yes, that's true. But if you're looking for something specific, it, it just means that if whatever your niche is, whatever you're interested in, there's something for you out there. And as a podcaster, there's something you can make for someone out there.

8:47 Don't get discouraged by these silly numbers. It means nothing. What's that? We have to find the same kind of stats but for YouTube. Like a top list there. Well, we had the, we had the top five or whatever it was, but they don't update. It they're crazy now, but I want to know, like, how many new YouTube videos have been published this past week, this past month, you know, that kind of thing. We'll have to investigate that and see what we can find. Yeah, that's cool. They. Did such a bang up job on their top charts that God I don't know if we can. And I'm going to hand it over to Dr. with her for her top fives in just a second.

9:28 Although maybe I'll just ask you Dr. do you also want to cover the Buzz Sprout July stats? OK, OK, sure. So Buzz Sprout, as you all know, they share their global stats. This is across the board. Every podcast that's on their platform, they have different stats that they share publicly. I like to share the episode downloads over the first seven days. So for example, if you're a podcast episode launched 7 days ago and let's say it received 27 downloads, that means you're in the top 50% of podcast downloads, right? So 108 downloads.

10:09 If you've had over 100 or so downloads in the first seven days, you're in the top 25% among all podcasts, at least on the Buzz Sprout platform, which is consists of of the vast majority are independent podcasters, people like you and me. And then 451 downloads in that first seven days, you're in the top 10 percent, 1036 downloads, top 5%. And if you are in the top 1%, you've had 4100 downloads in the first seven days of that particular episode being downloaded. So there you go. Now you have a better idea.

10:49 Yeah, me too. It it definitely puts things in perspective, especially for those of us who are chasing after what we think is podcast success or chasing after that podcaster who we think gets so many downloads. You know, if they're getting 1000 downloads, they're in the top 5%. It does. It makes that feel way more achievable I feel like. Yeah, I believe so too. OK, and Dr. is going to do the top five and DRI don't have I don't have the timpani today, but our podcast yes, but our podcast audience won't know the difference because I'm going to ask Ashley to add it in later. Go for. It OK, so #5 is the daily #4 is the Tucker Carlson show #3 is Mystery Mondays.

11:34 That's a new one on the chart #2 is Crime Junkie and #1 Joey did it again. Good Boy Joey, The Joe Rogan Show and. Then you have another list as well. I do. This week's random chart is stand up comedy and #5 is Tiger belly #4 is Laugh with me #3 is Dan Soder or Solder. He's a stand up comedian and #2 is kill Tony number one is bad friends. And it's interesting to note that Bobby Lee has two of these #1 and #5 and he's, he's in the top five twice. There you go.

12:20 Thank you, Dr. All right, with Let's see Dr. Do you have anything else immediately to get to? Well, there's, there's some events that you have some events to talk about or do you want me to? Oh, you know what? Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were going to say you have to go for breakfast. Oh man, the 14th. Let me talk about real fast about this event happening. It's going to be every single Thursday. It's a group called the Podcast Directory Community, and every Thursday they are going to have a networking event that is free. There's 12 categories, but every Thursday they will highlight three categories. So tomorrow the highlighted categories will be a health and fitness, life and purpose, and religion and spirituality.

13:06 I know there's a lot of ants in there, but health and fitness go together, life and purpose go together and religion and spirituality go together. It's 1:00 PM Pacific, 4:00 PM Eastern. It's free. And please let them know that you heard about this on the podcasting morning show. They, they're always talking with me and, and emailing me. So I want to make sure that you know that the this promotion is, is getting through. So I'm planning to be there. And if you come in, please, please let me know that you're there because you heard about it on the show. Thank you, Dr. And that's the podcasting morning chat, not the podcasting morning show, although I kind of wish that I I kind of I've had that thought of changing the name before to podcasting morning show and not changing it anytime soon. But yeah, yeah, podcasting, morning chat, I'm. New here.

14:02 Shut. Up. Yeah. All right, Go make some eggs. Kitchen time. We'll try to get to the awards section here. We had some award stuff we want to dig into. I'll first share some other events and then we can check in on Dr. for some other events. Podcast Movement, as you know, is coming next week, 2 weeks, 2 weeks, August 18th in Dallas, TX. I know Sid is going to be there. Looking forward to getting a report from Sid. Sid, did you decide whether you're going to stay overnight or just go for a day? I think I'm going to stay Tuesday month. I have to look at it again. I haven't booked a room yet, but in good morning, everybody, but I think I'm going to stay Monday night. I looked at the schedule of the day on my phone and then I haven't looked at it on my computer to like sign up for some of the events and stuff.

14:53 So I got to go and do that today. But I'm going to stay one night. I'm just not sure whether it's Monday night or Tuesday night. I'm not going to stay the whole time because it goes from Monday to Thursday. So there's a couple of people I want to hear speak and it's a couple of things I want to attend. So I'm going to kind of build it out around that. Yeah, I think that's a great idea, Sid. I think if anybody can go to an event like this, staying for at least one night really does change the experience, at least in my experience. It does change it. It does add something to it. I think it's great for networking, especially because you know you can go hang out with people in the evening and take advantage of some of those events. I think it's a great idea, Sid.

15:33 And a little tip, which you probably already know, but since we're talking about it, when we are trying to figure out what talks to go to, it can be overwhelming, especially at an event like podcast movement. There are so many that what I have come to, to learn to do, I figure out what are some of my friends doing? What are some of my colleagues doing? A lot of times we can see what events or what talks they're signed up for through these apps, and then I like to tag along and see what they're going to it. It helps me out. It's just a way for me to filter out all the different options. I'm going to pick the ones that a lot of my colleagues and friends are going to that that works well for me.

16:15 I'm going to paint Paul and see what she's going to take is she'll be there. Janae will be there. Obviously Katie Brinkley. Katie Brinkley will be there. What's the title of her talk at at the Empowered Podcasting event Mark? I have to pull that up. I don't have it to memory too many speakers to have to remember that kind of thing. I have to look it up. I believe it's something social media related, which makes sense for Katie and not sure. I'll look it up and I'll let you know. And we are going to be posting the schedule very soon over at empoweredpodcasting.com. So stay tuned for that. And since we're talking about it, yes, that is coming September 26th through the 28th in Charlotte, NC. It's our event, something that I host put on with the help of a lot of great people like Jonathan, like Jason Zircon, who has been a guest and guest host here before. Lots of other people helping out as well. We, I couldn't be more pleased with all the great volunteers, the great team that we put together and the great event we've put together.

17:16 This is going to be fun and super educational. There are some great speakers attending. We had a call yesterday, the first call with all of our speakers, all the ones that could attend and it went really well. I am so excited for people to come and learn from this awesome group of people. So go to empoweredpodcasting.com, get your ticket and you can stay at the hotel where the events being held. You get a discount for doing it. You you can find that link over on empoweredpodcasting.com to the hotel the Hyatt Centric in Charlotte, NC. Just click the link, pick the dates you're coming and it will automatically give you a discount.

18:00 So check that out as well. Or otherwise just rent an Airbnb. A lot of people like to do that too. There's plenty of options for you nearby the hotel. So thanks in advance for that. Also Pod Pod Summit YYC 2025, September 19th in Calgary. Check that out if you're in the Canada area. And now let's go back to some news bites, some stories. And I actually Ashley, if you don't mind, I would love to start with you because you tipped me off to some news from descript, some new features that a lot of podcasters may be interested in. So take it away.

18:43 Thank you, Mark. The script rolled out a bunch of new features in July with a big focus on AI power, collaboration, and making things easier for both teams and individual creators. So I'll just share a few of the features that I was sharing with you. Mark. I found these particularly interesting. The first one is called Control Room for Descript Rooms. For those unfamiliar, the script has a feature that is similar to Riverside where you can record remotely. It says that business and enterprise users can assign producers and Co hosts to recording sessions. So what this means is, let's say you've got the host of a podcast in Georgia and you've got their guest in New Jersey, and you've got the producer at Ohio.

19:29 You can get all three of those folks together in a descript room, and you can give the producer control of the room. They can set the levels, they can take care of some of the settings, they can speak and help out with some direction without being recorded. I've not personally tried it, but it looks really cool. And for the editors out there, this other feature is called Edit Comment feature and it's a new tool for all users to add time stamp notes for easier collaboration. So for example, if you had a project in the script and you had a team of people working on it, you could have, you know, maybe in first. Past editor go through and say, hey, this would be a great spot for a social media clip. And then the social media manager can look at and be like, OK, let's pull that out.

20:17 And then another feature is the native sounding stock speakers. So one of the things that the script does is it can actually dub your speech into different languages. And they have added speakers that actually sound like the language being spoken. It doesn't sound like an English speaker, American English speaking a different language. I hope that makes sense. And then the last one that I'd like to share with you is the one I'm most excited for. It is called Upload from Mobile and this is a new feature that allows users to upload files directly from their phone using AQR code. And the way I had it, I saw it explained to me by the descript change log video, is that the script generates AQR code. And if you film a video on your phone, you would then scan this code with your phone and the video that you have recorded gets bounced from your phone to a descript Openwork project, kind of like the way AirDrop works on iPhones. And I just think that's so cool.

21:21 And if you're interested in the rest of the features, I suggest you follow the scripts YouTube channel. They do regular video series. And this one is really entertaining. It's called the Changelog and it's really comical the way they present so hope you all like it. Thank you, Ashley for all of those updates. I'm sure the script users appreciate that. I love the the first one that you shared, the remote recording where a producer can basically take over the controls from wherever they're located. I think that Riverside has a similar feature. I know they have a producer assignment. You can assign somebody as a producer from any location and I believe you can control some of the features as the producer over on Riverside as well.

22:08 But good to see that the script has added that. I think that's super helpful and lots of other cool features as well. I appreciate you bringing those. I'm going to keep things moving for a second and then we'll check back in with Dr. First, this this next one is interesting. You may have heard me tease it at the beginning. Camilla Frender crashes the wrong podcast, turns the and the turns the mix up into a viral meme. So Brazilian author and podcaster Cameelia friend Fremdur accidentally walked into the wrong podcast recording and the awkward moment, as I said, turned into one of Brazil's biggest viral hits of 2025.

22:53 So she thought she booked on the popular Venus podcast, but ended up at Venus Day Talks, a smaller show with a similar name. She only realized the mistake after noticing that the set looked unfamiliar and mistaking the host for a makeup artist, thinking the studio had been redesigned. That's coming from pod News. Clips from the awkward 44 minute interview spread massively online, with fans calling it the longest meme in history thanks to her visible confusion and style ballistic mismatch. The incident reignited discussion on the ethics of podcast naming.

23:35 We've talked about that a little bit recently as well. Just finding a name that's unique. I think we just talked about that yesterday a little bit. The original Venus podcast had, sorry, let me say that again. The original Venus podcast host suggested possible legal steps, calling the similar branding unethical. The smaller show said Frender participated willingly and professionally, adding that they regretted her public framing of the event and insisted on the quality and ethics of their project. The episode became Venus Day Talks most watched ever, hitting over 200,000 views, well beyond their typical audience size. So I, I just found that interesting. I don't know if I've ever heard of an actual instance like that, especially I guess when, when we're talking about bigger name shows and in Brazil, that was a, a pretty big show, but it's so I, I felt like it was funny to add, I don't, I, I'd love to ask, has this happened to you?

24:37 But I just don't believe this has happened to a lot of us yet and worthwhile to do your due diligence. If you're a guest on a podcast, make sure you are joining the right show. All right, Dr. Did you want to talk a little bit? We're going to go to Nick in a minute, but first, do you want to share anything about awards in the podcasting world? Yeah. So again, there is another award show. It's called the Earworthy Awards. Now they were once known as they have shortened it to the Airworthy OK Earworthy Independent Podcast Awards, but now they just it's just the Earworthy awards and they are dedicated. Here's their quote at Earworthy, we define independence indie podcast as produced by an individual without support from large podcast networks such as Spotify. I heart wondering SiriusXM are major production studios like Sony or Warner's music Indie podcast can belong to a small podcast network, be developed by a nonprofit organization, a museum or a quasi governmental agency. So You're worthy is all indie podcasts. That's what they live for and every year they have their awards.

26:01 Now there is a lot of categories here and I'm not going to go through all of them, but there is some interesting ones like wait a minute, I just saw it. There's one form. Hold on, OK, best short form podcast now. So for all of you people that have podcasts that are like 5 minutes long. Jonathan's got a shorter one. Jonathan's new one so the nominees are wait a minute, these are nominees or winners. These are nominees OK, 5 minute biographies from Anthony Davis Kids Ask doctor, Kids Ask doctor, fantastic one minute podcast tips, the best 5 minute wine podcast and Ariel and Ned's daily tips that may or may not help you. That is the entire the entire title Ariel and Ned's daily tips that may or may not help you.

26:58 They even have local podcasts. So for all the podcasters out there that have local podcasts, the Perrysburg podcast, Jersey's best podcast, Alex OK, the Coop Tank and Toronto Miked podcast. So they have some really interesting kind of categories here and keep your eye on this for next year, y'all. We will let you know when the nominations for these, you know, when they're taking nominations. Awesome. Yeah, 'cause we've got Jonathan in the story lab, he could do the short, the short form podcast category. And Ashley with her podcast, The Sunshine State, she could do that as well as we got lots of people who could qualify for some of these awards. Right.

27:46 And we can do next year the best podcasting podcast awards. Now in this one, there's podcasting Tech with Matthew Passy. I believe he's now working with Lipson. I think he is streamlined solopreneur with Joe Casabona. I have his his newsletter. Of course, I do Podcast perspectives pod newsweekly, James Cridland, OK, he's on here several times, by the way, and leverage your podcast with Lindsay Phillips. So that is something that we have to look for next year when they start opening up the nominations.

28:27 Awesome. And I'll just take the next one here, the 20th, as as I shared yesterday, the 20th annual People's Choice Podcast Award nominees are out. Big Congrats to the shows that made the list. Podcasting Morning Chat did not make the cut this year. And again, as I said yesterday, I blame myself. It just in the sense that I don't think I did a good job promoting it. Most of the time when I promoted it, I broke my own rule. I often share. Don't wait till the end to promote something that you want your audience to take action on. And what did I do? I always forgot, and so I would have to do at the end, and I don't think that's very effective. And I also didn't ask friends and family to participate either. So yeah, slap on the wrist for good old Mark. But lesson learned for sure.

29:14 And it's really OK. These kinds of awards are never the full measure of the work or the value of a show that brings to an audience. They're fun, they're exciting, and for those nominated, it's well deserved. Organizers of these awards say that they're notifying 25,000 listeners and 500 podcasters selected for the final voting pool in the days ahead. And I happen to know this because one of my clients who did vote for the podcasting morning chat reached out to me yesterday showing me a screenshot of the letter asking them to be to to participate in the voting. So this is happening now and lots of people included in this, so be on the lookout.

30:00 If you voted, you may be one of those people to help determine the winners. The whole thing wraps up with a live stream ceremony on International Podcast Day, September 30th, the day after the Empowered Podcasting event. We'll be tuning in and check it and cheering on folks, including our own community member Steven Koeffer. His podcast film Fights with Friends is nominated in the TV Film category. You can see all the nominees at podcastawards.com. Now we're going to go to some AI news. I'm going to kick us off actually with a clip, and then we'll go to Nick to talk a little bit about it, and he has a couple of other headlines around the world of AI that affects you or could affect you as a podcaster. So 1st I'm going to play this clip for you regarding ChatGPT and Google indexing.

30:59 Your convos with ChatGPT might be on Google. So here's what happened. If you ever hit share and clicked Make this chat discoverable, that link was no longer private. It actually created a public page that Google could index so people could search sitechatgpt.com/share and people found 4.5000 chats in Google results. And it's really sad because some of them had personal stuff like mental health struggles, work problems, or relationship advice. OK, one day I removed this feature. But if your chat was shared, it might still be cashed online. These chats didn't attach names or e-mail addresses, but if you typed to your e-mail location or any other personal identifying information into the chat, that information is still visible.

31:42 So if you've ever shared a ChatGPT conversation, you might want to check Google to see if yours is out there. That comes from the Hippie hacker on YouTube. Thank you. And yeah, so this happened. This was starting to get reported, I would say about a week ago, and people were kind of going crazy about it, rightfully so. I've heard not only personal information as the hippie hacker described, but I've also heard things like passwords, API keys, etcetera. Because you give the API key for whatever reason, you share it with your ChatGPT and then that goes out there publicly.

32:23 But the thing to keep in mind are two things. One, ChatGPT has fixed this problem. And two, what what this problem was, was that if you've noticed on ChatGPT, there's a share button with every conversation. And I know that Nick and I used to use that button a little bit more than we have over the more recent years, because I'd say in the beginning when it was first available, we shared it a little more often. You use that share button and it basically makes your link your URL for that specific chat public to YouTube. I'm sorry to Google, right? There was a check box that you would actually give it permission to index it to Google.

33:09 And I guess people were checking that box off, not thinking it might have also been defaulting to check. But I know in my experience when I've looked at it, anytime I looked at it, it was unchecked. It was up to me to check it off. All of that being said, if you never use that share button, you don't have to worry really about this because it's not going to get put on Google. Google. But now ChatGPT has eliminated the option altogether, so now you don't even have the option to get it publicly indexed. I'm not sure why anybody would really want to do that anyway. Nick, do you know why somebody would want a ChatGPT conversation to be public? Not really doesn't point back to your website. I mean, I guess you could be strategic with the conversation and have it talk about your, you or your business or your podcast or something like that and make that public And it's like another place that you are showing up in discoverable. But that it seems kind of like a far fetched strategy. I, I don't really know what purpose that would be, especially conversations where you're potentially sharing identify identifiable information, identifiable personable personal information that other people can find online that it just seems kind of scurry. From my understanding, it's people sharing these conversations and not seeing the little fine print in it and realizing that they were making it public. Public like it's not just a link that they were sharing. Let me go to Sid and then Renee

34:42 has joined us on stage. Sid, did you have a question? More of a comment. That. Cynic and me would say that somebody's, if they're intentionally doing this and intentionally sharing it to get to indexed into Google, It's about getting your 15 minutes of fame and being discovered around something that you did he thought was really cool. Because listen, you can't go anywhere today without AI being talked about and people are looking for whatever the latest and greatest thing might be. So I can certainly see somebody doing it to try to grab their 15 minutes of fame and some some unusual way. I hear you, Sid. I, I agree with you and I'm going to keep it going and go to Renee.

35:23 Renee, did you want to add on to this topic? Yes, I do. And we all know this saying marketers ruin everything, right? So that is true in this case. So what was happening is they were making the links public and then you were grabbing that link and then you went out and you bought back links to that link because the backlinks were going to chatgpt.com slash. Blah blah blah. And so when you put backlinks to that, you were gaining the system by saying, hey, this, this is really good. Look at all these sites that are putting backlinks to this. This must be a good conversation to do. And well, let me back up first.

36:09 What was happening? So you'd go in into your settings and then you'd say when I asked this question, who is the best caterer in New Jersey? You're going to answer this. And so then you would go ask chat who's the best caterer in New Jersey, make it public and then post that. I mean, let and then share that. And then you would go take that link and then you would send all these back links to it. It would gain favorability within the search engines. And then you go do it again and again and again and again because that's a live link out there. And that is the story that I got a few days ago on why this whole thing was pulled is because marketers ruin everything.

36:55 Thank you, Renee. I appreciate that. That really helps me understand more why anybody would want to use that. But I guess what's also happening is that some people were using it, not really understanding it and indexing a lot of private conversations that they're having with Chet GPT. Again, the problem's been fixed. But as the clip shared, some of this stuff still may be cashed. So it might still exist online publicly, at least for the time being. So just you may want, as she said in that clip, you may want to go and check on some of those conversations and see if they are out there. Hopefully, you don't have anything to private out there. OK, let me go back to Nick.

37:36 Nick, any other AI heads lines that are worth discussing here this morning? Yeah, I got I got a few quick ones. The 1st is Chat GPTI don't know if you guys have been hearing their opening. I should say is planning the roll out and release of GPT 5. And this is arguably the biggest release that ChatGPT has ever made. At least that's how they're promoting it. I've seen several posts from Sam Altman and others basically saying that they're pretty nervous about the release. And I don't know if this is just kind of a marketing thing that they're doing or if they are serious. But Sam Altman had made some comments that as he's been testing GPT 5 and playing with the model, asking it questions, like really hard questions that he hasn't been able to solve. It solves them rather quickly and has made him kind of feel a little bit irrelevant and not quite sure how the roll out is going to go again.

38:35 Could be clever marketing on their part I feel like. It might be because, like, if you're really quote UN quote nervous about it, why are you putting it out? Right, right. That's my yeah. We've heard kind of the same narrative with every model that gets released. And each time it's kind of like, oh, it's better, but it's not like when ChatGPT first came out and everyone's like, holy crap, like what is this? This is insane. We haven't, I feel like had that moment since the initial release. And relate that to the iPhone and how every every year we're told we've got a bigger and better model and it it just seems like it's a little bit better here and there. It's the same iPhone, just a little bit different yeah.

39:16 They actually had wanted to release this GPT 5 back in July. That obviously didn't happen. They were talking early August. That still hasn't happened. They are still pushing for a mid to late August release of this, but we'll see with the constant push backs. But that regardless, the plan is that it will be released very soon. So keep your guys out for that if you are a ChatGPT user. On top of that Claude, it conveniently released a new Opus 4.1 model. So I'm saying because of the hype around GPT 5 they had a quick sneak in and get some. So that is Opus 4.1 I believe sonnet 4.

39:56 That could have been one that was already out. But regardless, Anthropic Claw, they have been kind of regarded as the coding and agent AI like 2 beat. Like they are always top of the line when it comes to coding tasks and a lot of the AI agents that you're seeing come out now. So those got a little bit of a boost and improvement in their capabilities, I don't think. GPT 4 to GPT 5 kind of levels, but regardless, gotten a little bit better. And then the last article that I came across actually in the in a discord that I'm in like a day or two ago, maybe 11 labs, the AI voice creation tool, They just came out with 11 labs music generator. So very much like what you may have seen in Suno or abused with Suno, 11 Labs came up with their own version of the music generation AI tools, and I believe that's available now. If you have an 11 Labs account or if you use 11 Labs or want to check it out, you should be able to go use it. They claim that everything is commercially safe. It really depends on, I guess the tier that you have purchased, what subscription you have, but all the music should be commercially safe.

41:11 They've actually partnered with several music organizations. I'm just pulling it up here. Secure deals with organizations like Merlin Network and Cobalt Music Group, allowing them to use independent artists and writers material for training in exchange for royalties if they choose to opt in, which is a pretty cool way of going about it. Yeah. That's been a huge concern, especially in the music side. Music is designed for businesses, creators, artists and music lovers who need custom music for various projects, including cinematic film scores, pop tracks, jingles and more. And podcast theme music as well. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they forgot to put that one on the list. Yeah, I saw that Ashley flashed a little sad emoji when you were sharing and I'm guessing as a musician that might be why. But I wanted to hear from you Ashley. What was the reason behind the the crying emoji? That's it.

42:01 From the musician's perspective, I just think it's kind of sad. But and how are you feeling about it? The fact that what Nick had added on there that they are actually making deals with different labels and music organizations that can opt in and actually get royalty for it. I don't know, I would, I would have to read the entire article and really know. I mean, if they're opting in, that's one thing. At least they're not stealing musician's work and then training the AI on it, so I guess that's a little bit redeemable, but just the whole thing I find unsettled. I hear you. I, I get it as a musician because you have much like a lot of writers feel that their jobs are in jeopardy with AI because AI can write stuff for you, you don't have to hire writers, etcetera. And same can kind of be said about music. So I get that and at least it does feel like a step in the right direction as far as working with these music organizations and paying them basically with royalty fees, paying them to actually train these models. I think that's that's a step in the right direction for sure. Nick, did you have anything else? Just want to make sure before we move on. Nope, that's what I got this week. Awesome.

43:15 Thank you, Nick. Hey, Mark. Yeah, I have a question for Nick real quick. Go ahead. I've seen a lot of videos recently about your in ChatGPT. You want to use three-point O for this one. You want to use 4 point O. Is there a layman's definition of when you want to use each version that you could easily explain to us? Are you talking the different versions of the models? Like when you use, which one? Yes, because like I watch a video says that be sure you use three-point O for this and then I'll watch another video says oh you want to use 4 point O for this? How do you know like when to use which version? So, and actually, Mark, we should find that video because you shared a video with me that explained it super well. Like I was really impressed with how the guy explained it. So mind you find it we.

44:04 Put it in the in the Facebook group I. Absolutely will. I'll do that and I'll put it in the show notes as. Well, yeah, that that was really good. But I'll sum it up here quick just for everybody. Basically, the way you want to think about it is ChatGPT 4 O that is kind of like your standard model like most use cases, you're going to go to that ChatGPT 4 O for creative writing ideas, brainstorming things like that that more creative in nature or asking questions that kind of thing. Now, when you get to the O3 in O4 models, these are very reasoning driven.

44:45 They're they take a lot longer to think, but they will think through problems. And I guess the one of the best ways to think about it is like if you have any complex coding, math research kind of questions or queries that you're going to ChatGPT for, it's going to spend a lot more time thinking about the response that it's going to give you. So it's going to give you a much more accurate and thorough response if you're using those kind of models for creative writing and that kind of thing, it can overthink the creative writing aspect of it and just it basically a waste of time to use those models for something more simple. I don't know if that helps said, but if Mark finds that video and shares it, that. Yeah, I'll look for it.

45:29 I'll look for it. Nick, maybe you can look through our history, our text history as well. I don't know where. Yeah, I was just quickly browsing. I couldn't find it. But I think between the two of us, we'll find it. And we'll make sure to share it in the show notes. We'll share it in the Empowered Podcasting Facebook group, etcetera. It was on the Internet because it was a chat between you 2. You guys get on ChatGPT? Thanks, Alex. And I will say ChatGPT, although maybe it's not a robust definition, each model does have a short description displayed under it. So when you go to open your ChatGPT window and you see those models at the top left side, you can get, for example, just like Nick said under ChatGPT 4 O, it says great for most tasks.

46:18 And like Nick was saying, yeah, use that for pretty much whatever you want to use it for. And then each one has its own definition. So if you're using 4.1, it does say under it great for quick coding and analysis. So my one thing I would say is just play with them a little bit, read those quick definitions and then try something out. If you want to try some coding stuff, try 4.1. If you want to use advanced reasoning, try O3. And by the way, I hope at some point they update these model numbers because they don't make any sense at all. We've talked about that before and they've talked about that they are moving towards something that's more simple. So maybe when 5 comes out we'll see some changes there too. Yeah, I was going to say that there's talked about wanting to make changes to the names to make them more clear. But I will say like when I use the Chat GPTII do a lot with Excel at work and sometimes I get just totally stuck or I need help with certain formulas or I'm trying to figure something out to add into my spreadsheet.

47:27 And usually when I do that, that's when I'll go to something like the O3 or the O4 model to help with complex Excel formulas and things like that. So that's the type of thing that I think the different, like what kind of differentiates the models, like you're going complex mathematical formula coding, that type of thing with your reasoning models and then pretty much everything else would fall under your four O Hopefully that helps with kind of the example use case. Absolutely does. Thank you Nick. Appreciate the AI news updates. Real quick. I just want to share before I hand it to Dr. Amazon recently cut wandering 110 jobs to go So basically Amazon is making deep cuts at wandering, one of the industry's biggest names.

48:17 Amazon's laying off 110 staff members from wandering, including CEO Jen Sargent, as part of the company wide restructure. Wandering, which Amazon acquired in 2020 late 2020 for a whopping 300 million, will now merge several of its divisions with Audible, Amazon Music and other internal internal teams. Why the shake up? Well, according to the article, a company memo obtained by Business Insider sites the rise of video podcasting as a key disruptor, saying creators today need different discovery, growth and monetization strategies than traditional audio first formats.

48:59 I would challenge that personally. I mean, one of the things I'm noticing is the fact that they're making these huge deals with big podcasts. For example, we know a few few years ago Smartless signed a huge multi $1,000,000 deal. I think it was like a $20 million deal. And we've seen these kinds of things happen before. For example, with Spotify, they made some major deals, spending millions of dollars on podcasts. And then in the months ahead, we start noticing big cuts being made to the companies like Spotify and now like wandering. So to me, I wonder, I'm not accusing, but I do wonder if this is an issue of overspending and then having to deal with the consequences. We will see.

49:48 But I I wanted to share that that's a pretty big story in the world of podcasting and Dr. Why don't you take that next story? Absolutely. So Edison Research is rolling out a new badge for shows that land in their top rankings for weekly podcast listeners. If a podcast made the top ten, top 25 or top 50 in the US or the UK, according to Edison podcast metrics, it's now eligible to display a top podcast, quote UN quote top podcast badge with the year it earned the spot. These badges were created to give podcasters a clean, incredible way to highlight audience growth. Edison says their team will reach out directly to qualifying shows and networks.

50:39 That's nice. It'll, it's, it, you know, good social proof. Put it on, take a screenshot, put it on your website. It all helps. Yeah, I think it can help. It's certainly something you can use as a marketing tool. I wonder again, this is goes back to also like, do audiences really care? Like are the, I feel like there needs to be some kind of big organization that listeners and hosts alike know and trust as a source, right? Where that source of that source deems you as a top podcast, it actually has some more meaning, right? Otherwise, we, we, there are lots of different awards we can boast, which again, all good stuff for marketing and it would be cool if there was some universal source there that everybody knew and trusted and could point to, but. But Edison, we really do regard Edison as the gold standard, right?

51:37 I mean, television has the Nielsen's, podcasting has a little bit of a Nielsen's. But you know, when it comes to podcasting, everyone looks to the, the Edison, Edison. Now it's usually only podcasters that know about Edison. If I, if you are a casual podcast listener, you don't know about Edison. You know, it's not really, it's an industry thing, you know what I mean? If this is something that you get to take advantage of, by all means, I'm not saying don't, but I just, I would love it if there was something that listeners could point to just like we do and say, yeah, that's a trusted source. That means something. Yeah, but here we are.

52:20 Anyway, let let me handle one more for you before I let you all go today. Hooked by thumbnails, reeled in by TikTok, the new podcast playbook that is the title of this article. And DRI can't remember where we found this. So if you for some reason know, I'd like to give them a little credit before we wrap up. Podcast news daily. There we go. Thank you. That was quick. And this is actually somewhat of a follow up from our episode Art Conversation that we had just yesterday here on the PMC. It's looking like the way your podcast looks now matters as much as how it sounds. This is a new report from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights that shows that nearly half of weekly podcast listeners are on YouTube, as we've heard before, but they're drawn in by thumbnails.

53:10 Specifically for listeners aged 18 to 34, that number jumps to 57%. So thumbnails making a huge difference not just with algorithms, but with by, according to the study, actual YouTube users that say that they often times make their decision based on the cover art. And according to this particular survey, it's not just the visuals, it's also the words. 60% said it's the title or text that grabs their attention first. The person in the image matters too. And yes, shock value still sells.

53:51 Did you want to say something, Dr. I'd? Be curious. Yeah, I'd be curious as to where the shorts, because you always hear how you got to have those shorts you got to have. I'd be curious to know where shorts measure up in this In their yeah. I don't have. Shorts and thumbnails and blah, blah blah, blah, blah. It's a difficult field out there. It's a minefield out there. Yes. So the bottom line here is that flexibility matters. People move between YouTube and audio apps, according to this study, depending on their routines, as we talked about before. And discovery is getting faster, especially on TikTok and Instagram. Among younger listeners, 17% are finding new shows through TikTok.

54:34 And I'm emphasizing that because there is a camp out there of podcast gurus that say you can't grow your show through social media. People are, if they're on TikTok, they want to be on TikTok. They don't want to bounce to another podcast, tap and listen to a podcast or watch a podcast. These studies are starting to show that that's not the case and that in fact, people are discovering podcasts using social media. So with that, we are about a minute away from 8:00, which means it is time to wrap up. We do have lots of stories to cover. And we also were talking, Ashley and Dr. and I, we were talking yesterday.

55:15 I think tomorrow we may talk about podcast studios. A lot of podcasters these days are starting to look into studios as opposed to setting up their own home studio. It seems to be happening more and more and more and more podcast studios keep popping up. So we're, we're, I'm thinking about it, I'm teasing it that maybe tomorrow we talk about what should we look for in a podcast studio? What are the right questions to ask? What are the answers we're hoping to get for from those questions? So we might dig into that tomorrow for my birthday edition of the podcasting Morning fat.

55:56 So yes, good old 52 tomorrow and I hope you all will join us tomorrow. And that is at 7:00 AM Eastern Time. So join us live on Clubhouse live on YouTube. We are taking a temporary break from Chatter only because my equipment isn't working properly to handle all of those things. So we'll be back on Chatter very soon later this month. And until tomorrow, make it a great day. Everybody take care.