359 - Podcast Movement Recap, Digital Twins by Hey Gen & New Gemini Video Features

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Wednesday, August 27th, 2025, and today we're breaking down the latest podcasting headlines from podcast movement 2025 highlights to Taylor Swift's surprise guest spot and engagement, plus Adam Curry's take on why local podcasting is powerful. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse or YouTube, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen on YouTube and I'm sorry on Clubhouse and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're listening via podcast, please share this 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 Ronick and currently on stage with me. We have my Co hosts Dr. Fey, Jonathan Howard, Nick Naulback, producer Ashley Feller and Sid Meadows. And good news if you joined us yesterday live or if you heard the podcast after the fact, we were having some technical difficulties with Dr. and it wasn't actually Dr. It wasn't. It wasn't me. It wasn't. Me. It wasn't me. It wasn't me. I know you were very excited about you even posted to the Facebook group let making sure we all knew it wasn't you. It was not. Clubhouse had an update and the update screwed up all Android users.

2:06 We we didn't get to Nick yesterday but after the show when we suspected it might be an Android issue thanks to Billy Thorpe, Nick came on and did a test with me and we couldn't hear Nick either as an Android user. So we knew right then and there. But the good news was there was an update this morning, so now we are able to hear everyone. I'm not the worst. I'm not. The worst? You are definitely not the worst, no. And by the way, good to see some familiar faces in the audience. Dan, welcome back. I, I please forgive me if you were here yesterday and I might have missed it, but good to see Dan, Good to see Chris Baglio again. Austin, good to see you, Sharon as well. Janae, Michael, Greg more regularly I see here. And Greg, sometimes.

2:57 Yeah, great, too. So there you go. It's good to see some of the familiar, familiar faces. And also there's Billy Thorpe. Speak of the devil. Just mentioned, Billy, that you had helped us out yesterday troubleshooting. It was an Android issue, and it's now resolved. All right, so with that, did I want to say anything else before we get into the news? I guess not. I feel like I actually had something to say, but I can't remember. So here we are. Thank you, ADHD. So let's first get into some podcast data for this is as of yesterday, August 26th, 2025, the number one podcast on Apple, the Huberman Lab, and a very popular podcast and not one that we've mentioned a lot as the number one on either platform, Apple or Spotify. So that's something a little bit new. And #1 in Spotify, the Joe Rogan Experience, what a shocker. And that's why we'll go to Dr.

3:59 in just a moment to hear who was on the top five list on Spotify, since Joe Rogan tends to always claim that number one spot. By the way, over the last week, 411,836 pop podcasts published at least one new episode. Might sound like a lot, but that's actually down from the previous week at about 431,000. And here's a little extra stat for you. Over the past month, 1.9 million podcast episodes were published, also down from last month at almost almost 2,000,001.987.

4:41 All right, Dr., let's hear from you and get some Spotify charts. OK, here we go. Spotify charts #5 is Crime Junkie. Oh, Crime Junkie, There you been #4 is Matt and Shane's secret podcast, which I don't think I've ever said that out loud before. So that's new. Number 3 is dot. There we go, Diary of ACEO with Stephen Bartlett. Number 2 is good hang Amy Poehler #1. Is. Joey Rogan. Little Joey. Hey, Joey. Good to see you all. Right, what's our random chart of the week? Well, Random Chart of the Week was inspired by you, Mark, because you go to your improv class every day and these are improv podcasts.

5:31 OK, so #5 is the Broski Report with Brittany. Broski #4 is the viral podcast with Chelsea Lynn and Paige jinn #3 is the Nateland podcast. This is an interesting one because it's hosted by Nate Vargas. Oh yeah, Ryan Bates. OK. And #2 Basement yard and #1 it's a commercial break and that is with some people that I cut off, so I can't see who it's with. Now, what did you want to say about #3? That was the Nate Lynn podcast. Yeah, Nate Bergazi, who is like the number one money person in comedy right now.

6:15 Brian Bates and Aaron Weber and Dusty Slay. And I didn't even and you know, Nate is a Nashville guy, so I didn't even know that he had a podcast, but he sure does. And I just might want to hit him up to see if he needs him. He probably doesn't need to produce. So that's it's just, you know, I'm wishing on a star, so never mind. OK, there you go. Thank you, Dr. for those top fives. Appreciate that. And welcome to the stage, Matt Bliss, who has joined us. By the way. Matt, how are you? It's been a minute since we've actually talked to you and I know you were on a bit of holiday and also behind the scenes starting your own podcast. So how are you?

6:55 I'm good, I think it's ships in the night for us. I've definitely been in the PMC at least. In my. Yeah, that's it. But look, you're you're off doing important stuff like we can't expect you to be here all the time. But yeah, I'm good. And the podcast is going well at the moment, I think not in terms of analytics stuff. It's still a fledgling podcast in that stage. But I'm starting to do the episodes that I really wanted to do as part of rethinking podcasting, and the one that came out today is about podcast failure. Why? The data doesn't necessarily tell us what people are telling us. It tells us and how I think podcasters should think about their own approach to finding success in podcasting.

7:37 Sorry, shameless plug there. No, I, I, I mentioned it and it's OK. We like to share each other's podcasts here and you want to share the name of it again, So if people are interested in that episode. Look for rethinking podcasting can be confusing because in the cover up I've put RE colon thinking because it's a clever name, but drafting off the back of rethinking with Adam Grant, I figure that for SEO and searchability, having the colon there doesn't really help. So if you're searching for it, it's just rethinking all one word podcasting. Or go to rethinkingpodcasting.com and have a listen and find the subscribe links there. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate that.

8:18 OK, so with that, let's keep things moving and let me tell you a little bit about some podcasting events coming up that you may be interested in first. Well, Dr. did you want to hit this one first 'cause I see you have your initials next to it. I figure maybe you want to talk about it. Oh OK, I'm I'm a little busy trying to chew my cat off my desk, but OK because become their favorite podcast guest live. So if you have ever wanted to become a podcast guest, there is an event that teaches you how to do this and it is on Thursday, August 28th at 10:30 to 11:30 AM Eastern Time and it's free. It's free.

9:05 So learn how to be a podcast guest and get seen basically and rebooked. Very nice and I see your initials next to the next one too. Go for it. Sorry, OK, let's see. The 7th Annual Afros and Audio Podcast Festival has been announced for October 16th through 19th in Baltimore, and this year's festival features workshops, live shows, panels, and community meetups that foster innovation, collaboration, and long term sustainability for indie podcasters or creators. And you can get the details. We'll have them in the show notes.

9:45 Very cool. Thank you. Dr. Yeah, Afrozen Audio Podcast Festival. They put a lot of lot of love, heart and passion into that project. I was talking with them last year to potentially sponsor advertise it and it was right around when the hurricane hit in Asheville. And so it kind of threw everything off and I wasn't able to coordinate that, but they really put a lot of love and care into that event and have my full support for sure. Speaking of other events that put a lot of love and care into, we have the New England Podcasters group September gathering that September 13th in Westford, MA, also in Canada on September 19th, the podcast Summit YYC 2025.

10:36 That's like I think I already said it in Calgary, Canada and the business and podcasting networking event for female entrepreneurs that happened September 23rd and that is hosted by the Female Entrepreneurs Business and Podcasting Society. I'll put a link to that in the chat and also in the show notes for anyone interested. And of course, Empowered Podcasting, our conference, our community getting together in Charlotte, NC, September 26th through the 28th. And I'm going to give you guys just an honest update. It everything's great. It's it's happening. We're going.

11:16 And yesterday, about 25 hours ago, I was considering pulling the plug and I'll be honest a little bit more and say the only reason why I probably didn't pull the plug. Well, it no, I can't say the only reason, but a big reason why because if I did, I would just be out several $1000 because I'm on the hook for that with the hotel. So why, Mark, why would you cancel it? You've been talking so much about it over the past few months. Why would you want to cancel? I have had crappy luck. I'll just say that I whatever the reasons may be, but with the sponsors, I keep getting turned down. And what's really frustrating is one of the sponsors I that I felt was most promising, I have been trying to coordinate with for months.

12:11 They were a sponsor last year and it went really well for them last year, but I think there was a lots of behind the scenes stuff going on there. There was some turnover at this particular place and I think that turnover caused lots of delays. And then just a day or two ago, I got a letter saying they were already scheduled out their budget for first promotion sponsorship advertising for quarter three. And that was just really kind of annoying to me because it's like, hey, I've been at it for almost a month, I'm sorry, almost a year trying to get you guys to come back. So the quarter three thing just didn't feel great to me. Anyway, yes, I'm not mentioning who that is. Some of you may be able to connect the dots from previous episodes and I still love them and I think they might still participate in some way.

13:03 Anyway, between that and sweating out ticket sales because just like last year, it wasn't until the last minute that people were really starting to get their tickets. And so with waiting for those ticket sales to happen. And yes, of course, we have a bunch of tickets so far and we're probably about halfway to our goal at this point. But it's still nerve racking because I'm on the hook for all this. And despite what you might think, I'm not. My business is not loaded to be able to afford something like this, but I've made the commitment to it. I'm financially on the hook to it. I love the people attending it.

13:52 And so I'm just going all in on it and I'm going to be whatever happens. These are lessons for me and the event itself I'm really excited about because we've got some of the best people I know personally speaking at this event and they happen to know a heck of a lot about podcasting business and growth, as well as starting both business and podcasts. So this is going to be a great event. It just might give me some extra Gray hair between now and September 26th through the 28th. So with that, I ask please, if you're considering going, go get your ticket now empoweredpodcasting.com you can get your ticket. I can say because we have had some solid ticket sales even though not where I want them to be. We've had enough where we are starting to run low on our hotel block.

14:50 So if you want to take advantage of the discount, then you got to you got to jump in now and you can get the link for the hotel that will give you automatically the discount when you book your days. Just go to empoweredpodcasting.com and you will be all set. And and also by the way, some hope for sponsorship because our friend Janae, who we'll get to in a moment. Our friend Janae was at Podcast Movement last week and as a friend of this community, as a friend of mine, he was actively pursuing potential sponsors and partners for Empowered Podcasting. And I have an inbox of probably 6 or 7 e-mail connections that Janae made between me and these companies. And one of them was already responded ready to speak to me. So there's lots of hope and lots of gratitude to Janae. So I will first just say thank you, Janae and we'll, we'll get to you in a moment 'cause I want to hear from you and Syd when we talk about podcast movement.

15:53 But first, let's get to some news bites. These are some news stories that I don't know, Dr. and I felt felt like interesting and may not be big conversation starters. But if you want to respond to any of these, by all means stop me at any time and chime in some fresh data out of podcast movement from the podcast landscape. And no, that is not AI terminology. The podcast landscape is an actual company. The then they're saying that listeners are tuning in longer than ever. Weekly podcast listeners are now averaging about 6.3 hours a week, which is up 5% from last week, which is a pretty solid jump. And the full breakdown is coming in a free webinar next Thursday, September 4th at 2:00 PM Eastern. You can find out more if you go to Pod News and look up the podcast landscape there.

16:57 And Speaking of Pod News, this comes from them and something they found in Variety magazine that caught my eye. Apparently video podcasts can't win an Emmy. And I think we did announce this several weeks ago, probably a month or two ago that the Emmys were going to recognize podcasts. But a a spokesperson said that podcasts are not eligible if it's a straight video recording of the audio podcast. So bad news everybody. The podcasting morning chat won't be getting an Emmy this year because we are an audio first podcast. And the only video we have is of me. Well, and your voices, but me and that isn't apparently not eligible, which honestly feels a little odd in some ways, considering how much content so many podcasters are pushing out to video right now and doing it just straight up as an audio podcast on camera. But hey, on the bright side, the Golden Globes just introduced a new podcast award.

17:55 So one door closes, another opens. I do want to just ask, do we think that that's fair that that if the Emmys are giving some sort of podcast award, is it fair that they don't want to recognize an audio first podcast that just Simply put a camera on them and recorded? What does everybody think? I'm curious. Go ahead, dear I. Think it's I think it's fair. I think it's fair. I mean, the Emmys have been around for a million years and it just feels very television Y, you know, very television centric and until podcasts get into that mainstream of television, I think it's fair.

18:41 So maybe not now, but maybe later on. I hear you. I think it's, I think it's relatively fair because it if, if nothing more, it's creating a filter for the Emmys when they are going through the the different award submissions, right? Because there are so many podcasts that simply turn on a camera and just do their thing. Whereas, you know, we talk about let's say our friend Dominic Lawson. Now I don't know that his would qualify either. But when we start talking about podcasts like his but which is happens to be audio first. But if he did video to accompany those documentary narrative style podcasts, those feel like, yeah, that could be more Emmy Award-winning because there's it's a different approach to the typical podcast, if that makes sense. All right, let's keep it moving.

19:40 Speaking of awards, the Golden Mike Awards, one of the toughest and most prestigious honors in broadcast radio and TV news, just opened up submissions to independent podcast producers across the country. Pretty big deal. If you want a shot at it, you've got a you've got from September 1st through October 3rd to get your entry in. That's the Golden Mike Awards. You can Google that or go to the show notes and we will share it with you there. Dr. Are you still cooking? I think she must be still making breakfast. And no problem. I'm going to go to Nick and say hello to Nick and get a little bit of AI news. I like to. We used to do it toward the end of the show, but Nick usually ends up having to bounce a little bit early and I want to get to the AI news. So Nick, good morning to you.

20:29 What do you got for us? Hey, good morning. I got a few headlines for you guys today. We're coming back into Google Gemini. We got a couple updates from the folks at Google. Free users of Google Gemini, so you don't have to pay a single thing can now access a limited amount of VO3 video generations. So they've initially that's been blocked off the start for Ultra users, then they expanded it up to the pro users, the $20.00 a month model. And now they are actually giving everybody a chance to create videos with VO3.

21:11 And a reminder, the VO3 is the model that not only generates the video itself, but it can include sounds, voice, pretty much everything. It's a whole video and it's wildly impressive. So if you are, if you have a Gemini account or if you have a Google account, really you can access Gemini and VO3 just by sucking the little drop down or the little tools icon of selecting VO3. So go play with that. It's kind of fun. It's funny I hadn't seen lately it for a long time. When VVO 3 came out, we at least I was seeing in my feed so many videos generated with VO and they were all, they were all pretty cool and so realistic and some of them really funny.

21:57 But I feel like I haven't seen as many of those anymore these days. But I have a feeling now that they've just released this, we might be seeing a lot more of those again. Just people playing with it really and doing fun creative things with it. I don't think most of the time it's not being done to trick anybody. It's more being done just to play and share what people are doing with it. And I'd be really curious. Like some of those are. Like very obviously AI generated videos like you said, just playing around and having fun with it. But I would be curious of the other videos that are in your feed, if any Gemini stuff has kind of kind of meshed in with the. Content that you're.

22:39 Actually watching the creators taking advantage of their content and infusing BO3 model videos into it is there. I mean, there are a lot of creative ways to do that and I, I can't say for certain, but I would think with Gemini free users being able to access VO3, that might open the door for their tool called Flow. And it's essentially a video editing tool that allows you to stream together multiple AI generated clips. If you have a chance check out Flow and see what that's all about because it it goes beyond just saying OK generate me an 8 seconds left of whatever.

23:24 Like you can string together multiple 8 second flips that maintain the integrity of the video to create all the full-fledged piece of content. It's a really cool when they keep it iterating on. It's really fun to play with. And Nick, great point. Like I know I have personally, although not with VO3, I have absolutely generated AI video for some of my content, specifically as B roll. If I need it for whatever reason, I'll just sometimes just have AI generate it for me and it saves me a lot of time and effort. So yeah, I'm sure we're probably seeing more of that and not even realizing that.

24:05 Anything else, Nick? Yeah. So theme of Gemini and then I got one more that I think will more and more of a discussion. Staying on the theme of Gemini, they just upgraded their image generation tool and primarily in the editing side of things. So previously we've seen these AI image generators, you put in a prompt, it generates an image, and then you say, OK, I don't like that, I want to change that, or I want to make additions or subtractions or just edit the image. And when you do that, typically will generate a brand new image, probably losing everything about the image that you originally liked. And then you're simply fighting the AI model trying to get some stuff back and change others. Now, the way that they're image editing is supposed to work is you can either generate an image or you can upload an image and basically just describe what you want changed in the image and it will maintain the integrity of it while making those changes. So it's almost like using AI Photoshop, edit your images and whatever.

25:11 Right, right and what they're doing, what I saw Nick, is that they're not wait, how what did I see? Oh that it's not like we're when sometimes if anybody's done this, if you give ChatGPT an image, right, you upload a photo and you want to just do something with that photo, it recreates the photo. It doesn't actually keep the photo intact. And so it's never the same. It never looks quite the same. If it's a picture of you, it definitely doesn't look exactly like you anymore, right? But with what Nick is talking about, with what Google has introduced or opened up for the public, you can feed it your photo and it keeps it intact. And then you can do things like say, you know, change my shirt into whatever a blouse, right?

26:01 You can do all sorts of things with it. You can say, you know, add a Lamborghini behind me, right? And, and it'll do it. And you know, like Nick said, it'll keep the integrity of the actual original and just add in those things or remove things or change things for you. I think it's super cool. I think again, anything like this, when we talk about AI and graphic design, the first thing that I always think of relating it to podcasting is for cover art. And if you've been following the show for any period of time, I love to do use AI for cover art. Yesterday I happened not to, but in over the past couple of months, that's how I create my cover art and I love it.

26:43 I love what it generates. It saves me a ton of time. And these days, now that most podcast players display your episode art, it really adds a nice touch. So I just wanted to make sure people understand why do we talk about these AI tools if they're not specific to podcasting, but any kind of content creation tool? I think most of them could be tied back to podcasting. OK. Anything else, Nick? Yeah, the last one, and I was kind of excited. I got an e-mail last night from Hey Gen. And if you don't remember, I talked about Hey Gen. a while back. Generate episode video for the AI briefing. It's essentially video avatar software and creates very lifelike video audio and you feed it out a script and then the AI avatar reads off that script. They just released what they're calling Digital Twin and the the technology existed.

27:46 You could already kind of do this, but they've really put the pedal to the floor with this tool now and you can basically upload a one to two-minute video of yourself talking using a range of emotions, hand gestures, all this stuff. And they can take that video that you created and turn it into a digital twin. And what makes this so much more powerful than what had already existed is it can actually portray emotion. It can get more enthusiastic with. The hand gestures, the facial expressions, all of that. And it's all designed to fit with script that you provided. So now we're going just beyond here's a, a talking head moving their hands around and yeah, it looks pretty good, but there's you can tell there's nothing behind the eyes. They're, they're really improving and revamping it with this digital twin and I, I think it's limited access right now, but something I definitely want to try to play with, especially I think their previous version you had to upload almost like 30 minutes.

28:54 Of video. Content of you just talking at the camera in order for it to generate anything, and now it's about 1:00 to 2:00 minutes of you speaking and it can create that twin for you. Wow. And this was the one I figured would probably spark a little bit more conversation as to how and why the hell would I use this thing. Yeah, that, that is the question. And I saw Sid flashed the death emoji. So Sid, good morning to you. What? What's with that? Why use the death emoji while Nick was sharing about that? Yeah, just not good morning, everybody. I'm just not sure I'm a fan of being cloned, right.

29:37 And like officially the emotions, I mean everything about that. I'm just not sure that I'm a fan of that type of use of AI in cloning you because then potentially, I don't know, to be used in bad ways, I think so I'm just not sure that that's something I'm a fan of. OK, that's fair. And I I'm sure you're not alone. Let's check in with Jonathan and then we'll go to Matt Bliss. Go ahead, Jonathan. Good morning. I also feel not not only is it creepy with the emotions and the stuff that is probably never going to be right anyway, it's still going to feel weird. But you need your when you're creating social content, it needs to have some element of view in it. And using the digital twin, to me, is kind of shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to creating the content because it's not going to portray what you want it to 100% portray. And it's not going to add that human feel to your content, because it's not a human.

30:33 Yeah, and that's fair. And I guess what Nick is saying is the claim about this digital twin thing is that it's going to feel a lot more realistic. You know, I see here it says some of their the things that they're touting is minor mirrors your gestures, expressions, mannerisms, adapts to your script, speaking every line how you would says it moves like you naturally from head to toe, feels unmistakably you, not AI. So that's the claim about it. I'm not saying you're right or wrong. I'm just saying, they're saying that this one is going to look way more realistic, but that's, I guess, to be determined. Let's go to Matt and hear what Matt has to say about all this. Go ahead, Matt.

31:17 I have two big takes for people to consider as part of this because we're starting to transition again into a hyper realistic phase of AI and people are still feeling the ick about it. And I'm not making a judgment either way. But the first thing I'd like anyone thinking about this for themselves to consider after that first reaction of this isn't a human, this is, you know, not genuine is it's probably not the fact that it's AI. It's more that there's the possibility that someone could clone you that gives you the ick. It might be every other circumstance that could happen beyond you electing to use it for yourself and perhaps putting yourself in the shoes of someone who's taking the the negative case against the use of it as a product. And in cybersecurity, I see stuff like this all the time. Like we are still using passwords to log into stuff these days and yet our privacy has never been more interrupted and vulnerable because we use plain text passwords regardless of the amount of technology that can be used on top of it. So I want people to consider first that AI in this instance with hyper realistic clones can be used for an intentional good purpose.

32:37 There are plenty of more cases where people would use it for I'll. That's the first thing. The second thing, and I see this a lot as well when I see AI generated posts, is that whether the consideration for people would be different. If like on LinkedIn, you can easily tell that something has been spelled out by ChatGPT without much work being put into the prompt. If instead of people pretending or at least seeming to pretend that it's something that they wrote, if instead they said from the desk of not calling you out, Mark. But I'm just going to say because you're at the top of the list, Mark Ronick's AI assistant. And then you're kind of removing the onus that people have to figure out and there's some sort of deception that's taking place. People presuming that you're trying to be genuine by tricking us.

33:30 If you acknowledge that it comes from AI and yet the post still has value, which I know Sid has talked about previously that it's the use of AI does not imply that it has no value. It may imply that you're not being genuine, but perhaps it's the thoughts about the deception that are giving us the ick. And if you know, the, I know there's an entire subject about people employing AI roles as part of their entire teams, but differently. If people acknowledge that AI can have a place, it can allow you to do a bunch of different things, still share the content genuinely that you need to just via a different means and you acknowledge that it's being used. All those things together might change the landscape of how things are acknowledged.

34:15 But you know, that's just two big ideas that won't really land anywhere particular, but something for people to consider when they approach these things. Not just the gut reaction, but the other aspects of how we and why we think about these things the way we do. Yeah. Thank you, Matt. Very well said. I don't even feel like I need to add on to that. I appreciate that. And I totally agree, agree with your perspective and I saw Nick was agreeing as well. I don't know. Nick, did you want to chime in at all or shall I move to Janae? I just wanted to add quickly, I mean, we see these tools pop up and our initial thought as content creators is, OK, how am I going to use this in my content? Am I going to use this to replace the content that I'm creating so that now I don't have to create it because I can have this avatar created for me.

35:08 But thinking beyond that and thinking about the ability to personalize outreach and connect with viewers on another level, like everyone loves personalization. And tools like this allow you to say, get into someone's DMS on LinkedIn with a personalized video or an e-mail list to address users individually, like stuff like that. I mean, we've seen it with just text. I mean, e-mail marketing, you can plug in the the bracket subscriber name and now it automatically plugged in their name into the e-mail to personalize it. And even though we all know that these tools are being used, it still adds to the e-mail and you still feel a little bit more like, hey, there trying to reach me.

35:56 They're talking to me specifically. I feel like this is just the next level of that. So even if we're not thinking of, OK, how can I replace myself with a digital twin of myself, there are still, in my opinion, applications where this could be useful and effective. And Lady Hustler Rhyma, she posted in here, you can insert in your CRM and hear you on boarding clients or brands from around the world. And she's actually played with this tool a lot and she fed some of her stuff into Capka. Sorry, I'm just reading through it as I'm. So it's not even optimized. Pick up my shoulders. OK. Yeah. Anyway, there are plenty of ways to implement this stuff without necessarily making it your sole content driver, just in my opinion. Yeah, I mean the similar example is what I said, right, is I'm, I use AI sometimes for things like B roll, right. That that's an example where I think, yeah, using tools like this, specifically AI tools like this, where I believe that's it's OK to do that, but using it to to solely drive all of your content that I might have an issue with. Janae, I'm going to give you the final word because I really want to get back to you about podcast movement and also want to hear from Sid as well.

37:15 So yeah, what did you want to say about this? Hey, Jen, Digital twin stuff. Hey, good morning, everyone. Hey, Jen is amazing. I've actually been hearing about this digital twin since last year. And in fact, we just had an event here in DC where we had set up a green screen, set up a camera and had people ramble on for two minutes so we could create a digital twin for them. But not only just that, the digital twin aspect, but we're also, they're also ingesting books and, and content that you've created. So then it's paired up within large language model and your digital twin. So then you can actually have a conversation with yourself or somebody else can have a conversation with you.

37:58 So there's a ton that he that is here. And here's the funny part. Only 1% of the world population knows about it or using it. So again, it's up to us if we want to use it for good if you want if or if you want to use it for bad. So what I did, I have been playing with Hey Jen. I actually changed my wardrobe like 1015 times, recorded too many videos and I uploaded to Hey Jen and, and what's cool is with the avatar, you can have up to 300 different looks in your avatar alone. Now it's a cool tool. And I think the more we are aware of the tools and what they can do, the better it is.

38:41 We can then guide them. And yes, it's kind of creepy. And in fact, on YouTube, there's at least five different Youtubers who have over multi million followers shared, shared the same video or said, hey, this is AI version of me. And this is the, you know, this is the Hagen version of me. They didn't mention the software, of course. But then they're like, Oh my God, this is so creepy. And then they had created a video and send it to their friends, kind of convincing them that they're going to be quitting YouTube. And at the end of it, they're like, hey, this is an AI. And then I'm not actually quitting. But yeah, it's, it's a really powerful tool. Again, like you said, Mark, these are there's amazing tools in the podcasting space, in the technology space and how we use them is completely up to us and how it's saving US time and creating that community or connection with the people. And that's why I love going to in person events because then I people can play.

39:40 OK, that was your AI. This is your real thing. You know, that's where physical events are going to be so much more powerful. Yeah. Thank you, Janae and thank you for the segue about different in person events. I'm going to go to Dr. and have her share a little bit about podcast movement and that will lead us into hearing about your experience in SIDS. Go ahead, Dr. The podcast Movement has announced last week that they acquired Sound. I'm sorry, sounds profitable in a 7 figure deal. Sounds profitable is still going to do what they do best, digging into research and insights and Brian Barletta Barletta, I'm sorry, Brian Barletta he's stepping in as president of both podcast movement and sounds profitable brand. The idea here is to merge their event experience with research side of things, grow internationally and just make the whole industry stronger.

40:39 I'm really curious to see where this kind of goes. Sid, let's get you in on this conversation. What are your thoughts about this acquisition? I don't really have any thoughts about the acquisition. I've never heard of sound whatever before they made the announcement so I can't really talk about. Was there a lot of buzz, Sid? Was there any buzz around that at Podcast Movement? Because I know they announced this on the first day, so was there a lot of hype and buzz around it? There was a little bit of buzz around that people were talking about it. They did a keynote and they talked about in the keynote, but I had to, I can only stay for 15 minutes of the keynote because I had a customer call. So I had to jet up to my room to take a call. So I missed whatever it was they were talking about. A Gym 8 jet 8 might have some more insights on it. So again, I didn't know who's sound whatever was before they made the announcement and I actually thought it was reversed.

41:28 I thought sound it bought podcast movement and then somebody corrected me. So it just my lack of knowledge of this particular aspect of the industry. Yeah, and there are, there are people that are on the fence, I've heard in the industry about this. I think there are some people that are all for it. But I think people are concerned that now this is going to make podcast movement very much corporate. I think they always kind of got that rub a little bit that it's so corporate and not really catered enough to the content creator, the the independent creators out there. So there's this concern now of that. Matt, did you want to comment at all on this?

42:09 Yeah. But kind of on the lines of what you were saying there, Mark, that I was actually surprised to see it, but I'm not in the American market as much as as all, all you peeps are. So I probably wouldn't be super aware of it. I've been aware of Sounds profitable for quite a while. They do a lot of work in the data-driven space and I'm very transparent about the data they share about the USUS podcast market and merging with podcast movement is interesting. They're kind of bringing James Cridland along with them. Pod news is a big part of that merger too, which I thought was interesting. But I think a lot of people are starting to get rubbed the wrong way with it moving corporate. But I wonder how many people are actually familiar with the work that Tom Webster and Brian Bartlett are doing as a result of the work that they've undertaken over the last few years and the stuff they do, it's really not for public consumption.

43:01 The things that they talk, like Tom Webster, forget about it. Like the audio essay, he is just a champion at it. He's been doing that kind of thing for 20 years. But the overall sentiment they have is really driven at big companies looking to improve their ad spend and for some podcasts that can consult with them to figure out what their ad driven strategy will be like so that they can make money. And it's the making money of things that sometimes brings the ick into it. And as soon as you start combining, you know, different, I can't even think of a metaphor that is an Australian, but like if if the in the 711 slushy machine, if you like getting a bunch of different flavors and mixing it together, some people can look at that as a bit of an aberration. And particularly in podcasting, the sentiment that I'm seeing, likely the same that you saw on LinkedIn, Mark, from Twila, I think was that the merging of these things creates a big corporate entity that controls events, communications, and advertising in the podcast space. And people are also looking at it with a lack of diversity and representation as part of it as well. I think it's it's hitting a lot of buttons for people. But personally, I say this as a white male in a completely different country.

44:27 I see it as a massive opportunity for people to learn more about podcasting in a really healthy way. But they kind of have to prove themselves at this point. They've they've made the big the big merge. Now it's time for them to show what they can do. Now, thank you for that breakdown. I think that was really valuable and important to to share. So thank you for that. And Dr. Did you want to add something? Just that, you know, Tom Webster is just it. It makes me tingle. He's so into those insights and stats and he's so prolific when it comes to podcasting. He's just a huge podcast guru and I'm more concerned with what what's going to happen with Sounds Profitable podcast. It sounds like nothing's gonna happen. I mean, it sounds like they're gonna continue as usual with the same leadership in place.

45:23 That's what it sounds like, but. You know. Well, I we shall see. Does it sound profitable? Exactly. Thank you, Janae. I want to check in with both Janaid and Sid since they attended podcast movement. Since Janaid, you're off mic, let's go to you first, would you? I'll go to you guys and ask you about the good, maybe one good, one bad, and one ugly from your experience there, if you've got any. So Janaid, feel free to pick one, good, bad or ugly, please share. All right, I go with you ugly. OK, I like to go with good. I appreciate you starting with the ugly.

46:03 Go ahead. Because the ugly thing is I've been to the last three Podcast Movement events and the first one that I went to was in Denver, Co and they did it at the Gaylord. Now I didn't know anything but what I discovered was Podcast Movement had a deal or had a contract with Gaylord Convention or Gaylord Resource Center to dude only at the Gaylord. So next year they were going to go to San Diego Gaylord and I was like that would be fun. But anyways, so they were in Denver, DC and then Dallas. And then the thing that I noticed was the number of sponsors dropping and Mark when he said I'm having trouble getting sponsors. Well, Podcast Movement also had trouble, yeah, sponsors because from last year and the year before they had 62, then last year was 46, and this year there's about 27 total sponsors. And it felt a lot smaller than last year. There was about a total of 1500 people. So why did the merger happen?

47:09 Well, This is why, because over the years, I believe Podcast Movement lost its vision of who their target audience was. You know, we thought it was corporate, but apparently they also had forgotten about it. And then the other thing that also happened is they also cancelled next year's podcast Evolution. This is prior to them announcing the merger, which sounds profitable. So what's happening? Well, we, we kind of see what's happening in the industry in the area. So maybe this is a good news that sounds profitable, hopefully is profitable and now coming together with supporting podcast movement. And in fact, next year's smaller podcast movement event is actually going to happen at South by Southwest. And then there are other bigger event is going to happen in New York.

47:57 So that's the ugly people are feeling the pinch, corporations are feeling the painter like this is not really working where we thought it would. But what's what's funny is that we are podcasting student industry still is in infancy even though it's been around for 20 years. But from the growth of it, it's not seeing the same kind of growth as YouTube has over the years. And that's it for me. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you, Janae. Appreciate that take and those numbers as well. Yeah. And it does make me feel a little better it in the big picture, it makes me sometimes now ask myself, well, why did I do this? Why did I start these conferences if they're so, so much trouble now to secure the the same kinds of partners as in the past. So, but in the short term, it does make me feel a little better.

48:49 It makes me understand that it isn't just me or empowered podcasting. Sid, I want to come to you. This was your first experience at Podcast Movement, so I'll start with you asking. Please share anything good about the event that you experienced. Thank you Mark, it was my first podcast event ever to attend so. And I'm a little bitter about that, only because I really wanted Empowered Podcasting to be your first event. Sorry, I only went to this because it was local and because Paula gave me a free ticket so. Understood. There was. Lots of different things. As a take away, I'm actually going to go to the bad first. Sorry, I know you asked. Me for that but. I'm going to kind of tag on a little bit of what Janae said, which was the venue.

49:35 I didn't realize I had a contract with the Gaylord, but that hotel here, I'm sure they all are, is humongous. And I felt like I had to walk a mile to get to where the meeting, to where the event was, right. So it's just really big. Didn't feel very intimate, felt very, you know, spread out. Everything in the Gaylord is expensive. Anywhere you eat, I mean, drink coffee was, you know, it's a Starbucks, which was like $8. I mean, All in all, it was just like really expensive. But the one thing that really stood out to me that and I'm, I'm on the change that I think this is good or bad, was the way they did it. Because they had a big meeting room where they had the vendors kind of in the middle. And then they had stages kind of sporadically around and they had a couple stages in the middle to kind of nestled amongst the vendors. And so everything was open.

50:24 But the way you heard the speaker that you wanted to go to was you put on a headset and there was a banner that had the color of the headset, right, which is great. It also gave. So I mean, that was cool, kind of like a silent disco kind of thing. And so you got to also see which stages, if you will, had the most crowd. So if you're unsure which one you wanted to attend and the one next to you was a lot bigger than yours, you could just change the color of your headset and you could listen to the person next to you, right, which was really cool. The really bad part about this was all those stages, I don't know if you noticed this, but all the stages in the middle were group discussions or panel discussions. And if you were a solo talker, you were out in the hallway and they had these like talks stages, if you will, which is a podium and then chairs and tables. But those people didn't give, weren't given headsets. So that's where Katie Brinkley was on the outside in the hallway, and I felt really bad for her. She mentioned this the night before. I felt really bad for her because she didn't have a headset and she had a screen, like she had to talk so loud because two stages down was another person talking and there was all the general hallway noise, right? And so, I mean, I really felt her talk was really, really good.

51:43 If you were coming to Empower Podcasting, she's giving the same talk. I would highly encourage you to listen to what Katie has to say. I think she's one of the smartest minds out there as it relates to marketing and stuff like that. So I felt bad for her just because of the situation that she was in. So to me that was it was good and bad relative to that. But I mean, the top thing for me was just meeting people. I mean, Paula was the first person that I met just randomly saw her. I did have to be harassing Simona and text messages like where the heck are you? Come on, I need to meet you. Right Kind of thing is interesting. I met Janae and I'm talking to Janae who lost his suitcase and Janae looks at me because my name badges turned around. He looks me and goes tell me your name again. Kind kind of funny.

52:29 But you know, from a meeting people perspective at the cocktail party, somebody asked me about something I listened to and I opened up my podcast app and they happen to see the podcast that I follow and this guy said oh that guy is here. And 5 minutes later, that guy walked into the room and he's actually somebody that I follow on TikTok, same as Tyler. He talks about financial tips. He's a former financial advisor. And a few months ago, we started a podcast and he's got millions of followers between TikTok and Instagram and equally the number of clones. And it was just really great to, I walked up to him and said, hey, I follow you. I really appreciate your kind. It was just really great to meet somebody that you follow. So I felt a little bit like I was fan boring around it, but it was really cool to meet people like that. So I mean, for me, the top good was just all the people that I got to meet that I have never met in real life. I love that.

53:22 Thank you, Sid. Yeah. And that that's the one of the big reasons why we created Empowered Podcasting is to make sure it did feel a little more intimate, that it didn't feel so big and spacious. And for some people, that might be overwhelming. We wanted to create a space where you can get all the same valuable information, like a Katie Brinkley speaking at our conference as well. We wanted to provide that, but also provide real opportunity to network, to meet people that you follow, meet people that you're, that you're learning from for the first time ever. The whole intimacy, intimacy thing is really important to me because I've always felt a little bit lost at these conferences, even knowing all of the people in the industry that I do.

54:12 It was missing something for me, and I think that had to do with the intimacy. So that's why we have Empowered podcasting here. I appreciate that Sid and the silent disco thing real quick, I did my IDJD, my first silent disco. I don't think I told you guys this when I gave you my recap, but I got to DJ a silent disco at that summer camp at Camp Footprint when I was volunteering. And it was also my first experience ever doing it. And man, is that fun, especially as the DJ, it is such a rush to try to get everybody to tune into your station. There's something about it.

54:52 When I would see it, my color was blue. So when I would see that I got the majority of those headphones all turned to blue. It was the most exhilarating feeling. It was awesome. And then of course, on the flip side, when you see all of the blue changing to green or another color, it's a gut punch. But I'm proud of myself. 52 year old guy doing that. And I will say, I think I had the majority of the audience the majority of the time. So I'm pretty proud of myself being this quote UN quote old man and being able to entertain all these kids with music. All right, listen, we are almost out of time and we didn't get to some of the stories we wanted to get to, including Taylor Swift turning to turning into her first podcast appearance ever, turning that into a global event on the New Heights podcast. It was pretty epic.

55:46 I did get to listen to it on my way home from my road trip last week and really haven't ever really listened to a full episode of New Heights. I have seen very few interviews or really know that much about Taylor Swift. I have seen her documentary and she's always impressed me and I'm full. She has my full respect. Oh my God, you're a Swifty. No, I'm not a Swifty. Not a Swifty, not yet, and no, not yet, not yet. But I totally respect her and her music and what she does, and I really respect how she handled this podcast.

56:29 Jonathan just left and tomorrow we're going to break down this interview a little bit more and share a little bit of what what we can learn from an interview like this. So I know, oh, well, it's Taylor Swift. Mark. Well, of course, you know, it's going to be a big thing, but this was her first ever podcast appearance and the way that she handled it, of course, with her big announcement about her new album. On top of that, I there's a lot to unpack here and I think we will do some of that tomorrow. We have some other things planned for tomorrow as well. We'll get to those when we kick things off at 7:00 AM Eastern, as we do every currently every Tuesday through Friday, 7:00 AM Eastern.

57:15 And then if you miss us, you can catch us on your favorite podcast platform just a couple hours later. So until tomorrow, make it a great day. Everybody take care.