Ep 92: What You Need to Know About Podcasting 2.0 – with Mark Asquith from Captivate.fm

00:00:00 Interview with Mark from Captivate FM at Podcast Show London

[00:00:00] Verity: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the lazy girl's guide podcasting. I'm here with Mark from captivate fm. Hi, Mark. How's it going?

[00:00:08] Verity: I just feel really penned in.

[00:00:10] Mark: I know. I'm a little bit I feel a little bit like I can't move myself.

[00:00:13] Verity: It's brilliant. Tom, who is are you producing this, Tom? Do we call I I feel very posh if I suddenly say that Tom is producing this episode. Tom, you're producing this episode. Has very artistically and professionally pinned us in with these microphones because Tom from Spiritland Spiritland Media, we are very privileged to be recording in their space at the Podcast Show London today.

00:00:36 Captivate at the Podcast Show London

[00:00:36] Verity: So I know, Mark, we're gonna chat about podcasting 2 point o. That is what we have been saying for the last couple of months that we're gonna catch up with. Trying to collaborate diaries is a nightmare, and then all of a sudden, we're in the same place at the same time. So we were like, right. Let's let's do this.

[00:00:50] Verity: But before we jump onto that, we need to talk about the fact that we're at the podcast show London. How are you finding it so far? Oh, it's wild. Absolutely.

[00:01:01] Mark: It's fascinating actually for me because I've been doing podcasting events since 2014.

[00:01:05] Verity: Wow.

[00:01:06] Mark: Yeah. It's crazy. And it was sorta weird because I always used to have to go out to the states. Mhmm. And and, I mean, you know, I used to go out to the states that often to I was at podcast every podcast movement, Podfest.

[00:01:19] Mark: I used to do, like, Matt

[00:01:20] Verity: Conner. Name dropping. Yeah.

[00:01:22] Mark: Well, so here's the interesting thing. A lot of people say that. Oh, it's wow. Podcast movement. And don't get me wrong.

[00:01:28] Mark: It's huge. It's amazing. To me, it's just Jared and Dan, 2 friends. Just and because there were there were so few of us back then. Yeah.

[00:01:36] Mark: So to to to, number 1, to to see this and to be part of this for the 3rd year and to see how it's developed and developing, you know, to have something like spirit land running this studio, for me, it blows my mind because I've seen so many try to get off the ground in the UK Mhmm. And and struggle because the industry wasn't ready for it. Yeah. And now here we are. So I'm I'm delighted by it.

[00:01:58] Mark: I think so, man, I get to meet great people like yourself that

[00:02:00] Verity: Oh, bless you.

[00:02:01] Mark: We've chatted online. We've done interviews. But, you know, to see you face to face, we would normally have to go to Chicago or something.

[00:02:07] Mark: So it's amazing. And

[00:02:08] Verity: especially coming up all the way from Jersey. There we go. I've dropped my little sob story, little violin story, and I came all the way over for this today. But, no, it's just it's fab, isn't it? It's like you've been, doing some different talks today.

[00:02:20] Verity: What have you been doing talks on? John 2, haven't you?

[00:02:23] Mark: Yes. So I did a growth talk this morning. It was supposed to be 3 podcast growth myths, growth myths that you can ignore. I ended up doing 5 of them. I always

[00:02:30] Verity: Oh, wow.

[00:02:31] Mark: Bonus. Over. Yeah. I always start making my notes. I was like, this might be a long one.

[00:02:34] Mark: And, then I put together a panel with Sarah Ray, who's the head of podcast sales at Global, and Jordan Harbinger, the cofounder what? The cofounder the founder and the host of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:02:45] Mark: We talked about the the future the the current state and the future of podcast monetization.

[00:02:50] Verity: Fantastic. Yeah.

[00:02:51] Mark: It was quite fascinating that one because it was very much with my global and Captivate hat on, it was very much a one foot in the big 1% podcasting world Mhmm. And then the other foot in the other 99%, the creator economist stuff. So that was quite an interesting panel, actually.

[00:03:07] Verity: Oh, amazing. Have you been to any of the talks yet and

[00:03:10] Mark: Not yet. I'm gonna see my friend Ollie Waters later. He's talking on the brand stage. I

[00:03:15] Mark: I've not a chance to get to them because we've got a booth as well as. So and I walked down literally, all I've done is you walk around the the hall and you're seeing people and talking to people, and it's so it's been it's been brilliant, but I am gonna probably hide in the back of the talk this afternoon.

[00:03:28] Verity: That sounds like good fun. I went and listened to Ben Cotton's talk, and then I spoke to her afterwards. And she was absolutely lovely, and I just completely forgot how to formulate sentences and words. And I was like, and she was that stood in front of me? But she was very sweet.

[00:03:42] Mark: Get that a lot, though. She has she's a very charming person.

[00:03:45] Verity: She is. But, also, I think she's somebody as well. I have I mean, she's only a couple of years older than me. I've literally seen her from her days of doing, like, children's TV. Right.

[00:03:54] Verity: So I feel like she's almost grown up I've grown up with her Mhmm. In, like, a weird kind of way, but never mind. Anyway, you mentioned Captivate. Tell us about Captivate first because long time listeners of the show will know about Captivate because I rave about it so much. In fact, I will just say I came down to the your guys' stand earlier and there was somebody and he was asking about Captivate and just, you know, talking about it.

[00:04:17] Verity: And I turned around and said, are you with them? And he was like, no. Not at the moment. Why? And he looked really scared of me.

[00:04:22] Verity: And I said, I have had amazing, amazing growth since switching to Captivate. I would totally recommend it. And then I kind of realized that there was somebody from Captivate there who was supposed to be selling it and not me. And I was like, I'm gonna go now. I'm just I'm I'm off.

[00:04:34] Verity: But what is Captivate? Tell me all about it.

[00:04:37] Mark: Absolutely. Well, that's super kind. Thank you. So Captivate is a hosting distribution monetization platform for podcasters. So at the most base level, we'd take the audio from an episode, turn it into an episode, and put it out to Apple, Spotify, and so on.

[00:04:50] Mark: We measure the analytics that come back off that. But the bigger picture is we help creators to grow. We we've got a mantra actually. We'll when whenever we create something as Captivate, it will either save you time or it will save you money or it will make you money. That that's the that they are the only filters that we run our feature list through.

[00:05:08] Mark: Not bad. And yeah. It's it's I mean, because that's what we all want. I'm a creator. Mhmm.

[00:05:11] Mark: And and I want that's why we built Captivate. And and and we're very specifically only focused on the serious creator. We don't there's no demarcation to us between a new podcast or a legacy podcast or a veteran or whatever else. There's none of It's just if you come to us and say, I'm serious. I wanna grow my audience, then we are probably the hosting platform

[00:05:29] Mark: Because we do so much more around that. We're we're essentially a work management system for podcasters now, and much more to come. We've got as you know, we're always releasing new things. So there are hell of a lot on the on the road map this this year.

[00:05:40] Verity: Amazing. I think what I loved so much when I switched over to Captivate was I was able to get rid of about 2 other tools because that you've just got so much that was in Yeah. 1 and don't worry, guys. This is not a pitch for Captivate. I'm just throwing out the different opportune you know, different opportunities there for podcast hosting, but no.

[00:05:56] Verity: And because I actually worked out yesterday. Actually, I was going down for some stats for the podcast. And my, listenership, my audience, like, so many of them have gone up about 300% since switching over to you guys, which to some people that might sound huge, to some people that might sound none, or very small. And no, I did not start with just one listener and now after 4 because that would be, like, you know, the 300% rise. But no.

[00:06:22] Verity: It's, so, yeah, there's a lot of tools and features in there. And I think what I really love about it, I will say, is that little embed, the link embed that you've got that you can put on social media. I haven't seen that on other

[00:06:36] Verity: Hosting providers. They might have it now different hosting providers, but it wasn't something when I signed up to you guys I'd seen before. And that I think is absolutely wonderful. But I'm not gonna turn this into a sales. But before anyone's like, oh my gosh.

[00:06:48] Verity: This is a sales pitch. What's she getting us to buy? I'm not getting you to buy anything. By the way, there's an affiliate link in the show notes to check that out. Anyway, no.

00:06:55 Understanding Podcasting 2.0 with Mark from Captivate

[00:06:55] Verity: We are here to talk about podcasting 2.0 because I think that quite often people hear this phrase bandied about podcasting 2.0, and they're like, wasn't even aware that there was a podcasting 1.0, first of all. So in a nutshell, how would you describe what podcasting 2.0 is?

[00:07:13] Mark: Yeah. So if you think about podcasting generally, it came off the back of RSS feeds, and we still use RSS feeds to this day. And RSS feeds were intended as a way of of pushing out rather than pulling in information. So that would be that typically would be like blogs and news articles, and what you could do is you could you could get an RSS feed, subscribe to it in an RSS reader, whether that was something like, something like a feed burner, I guess, or a Google Google News or I can't remember what else. There was there was,

[00:07:39] Verity: So back in the day terms. I love that. Yeah.

[00:07:41] Mark: It's really is back in the day, isn't it? And then Adam Curry and Dave put this alt this enclosure tag in there, which meant that you could say, okay. Inside an RSS feed, you can now put a link to some audio, And the RSS feed will tell anyone listening and anyone looking at this feed what the what the audio is, where to get it so that it can be played in an app, and then the title of the audio and the description of the audio are in these other tags within the eyes of it. So that's podcasting. Podcaster 2.0 is essentially trying to develop a number of features on top of the RSS feed.

[00:08:16] Mark: So these are called tags. It's a little bit kinda geeky and a little bit techie. Now, frankly, it's boring because

[00:08:21] Verity: Not to me.

[00:08:22] Mark: No. Well And not to me. Not to me. It's your business. But it it actually at its most basic, it is boring.

[00:08:27] Mark: It's basically, okay. Here's a tag that goes in an RSS feed, and if an app that is reading that RSS feed supports it, then a feature will be unlocked. Okay? So we're essentially adding features to podcasting. So examples of this would be the funding feature.

[00:08:46] Mark: So with Captivate, you can sell memberships. You can sell, you can ask for tips. You can collect, revenue from people, and they can they can pay you for whatever bonus, exclusive, or whatever that is. Previously, you just say, right. There's a link in my show notes.

[00:09:01] Mark: That's cool. And it would it would it would be to the lazy girls podcasting slash whatever, and you would make that up. Mhmm. With something like podcasting 2 point o, there's something called the funding tag or the funding feature, and what that will allow is that, okay, Captivate because we've got the funding facilities to be able to to to allow you to make money. We could say, well, I'll tell you what.

[00:09:24] Mark: Let's put the link to that inside this funding tag, which means that if an app like Apple Podcasts or any other listening app was to say, wait a sec. Every time we see a funding tag, just put a button on the podcast episode so that when a listener clicks it, it will take them straight through to being able to give Verity some money. That is that is the ultimate goal with this is is this symbiotic relationship between what the creator needs, what a hosting platform like Captivate can include in its interface, which will then send data and information through to a listening app that will turn it into a feature. And that's what this is all about. It's taking this range of features, like funding, like the geolocation, like things eventually, things like cross app commenting.

[00:10:15] Mark: That's the movement is to take our assess and turn it into a 2 point o and to make it make it more useful to everyone. So it's there's a long way to go, but we're making strides. And we've got, there is something called the podcast standards project, which Captivate is a founding member of. There's Oz, Transistor, Justin and and John at Transistor. There's Podbean, Libsyn, Blueberry, Buzzsprout, any host you can think of, rss.com, and we all collaborate.

[00:10:43] Mark: And we all get together. We've got a lunch tomorrow.

[00:10:45] Verity: See, now that's interesting.

[00:10:46] Mark: Yeah. We just all get together, and we do work together.

[00:10:48] Verity: I think No

[00:10:49] Mark: one believes it.

[00:10:50] Verity: No. I was gonna say, I think that is fascinating. So remember you put something up on Twitter. It was a while ago, and it was a lunch where you loads of people across different platforms got together. And I was like, you don't see that in different industries, Like, you would not see that in different industries.

[00:11:05] Verity: But there's something about podcasting where it's like, hang on. We've got this thing. How can we make this better for all of the podcasters as opposed to I think in other industries, you'd very much see it as, oh, well, that's an exclusive feature for them, and then these guys have gotta figure out how to do it on their own or, like Yeah. And I just think that is almost the beauty of podcasting of just how everyone just wants everybody else to do well. It's quite a nice little happy place over here, isn't it?

[00:11:29] Verity: Where I

[00:11:30] Mark: got into it. Or, genuinely, I I got into podcasting because I was recording my own content. And I went out to NMX in Vegas in 2015, 2014, and, had this idea for a couple of companies. We just started podcast websites, which is our first company, and, actually, I had an idea for another company that I own, which we don't do much with. It's some it's a very specific type of start up that's working behind the scenes.

[00:11:53] Mark: I had the idea for that all those years ago back then, and that was my first ever actual genuine podcasting idea. But the reason that I got into podcasting in earnest was on the back of that event and how collaborative everyone was. Because I came from, like, the design and digital industry. Everything was cutthroat. Everything was let's you know, we're gonna we're all gonna pitch for this work, this software development work, or this website work, or this branding work, and we're gonna you know?

[00:12:21] Mark: We we were gonna get put down by other agencies. They were gonna say that we weren't good enough just so they would win the work, and I was that was off. You know? Just what a what a terrible place to be. Got into podcast and went to these events, and I was like, wow.

[00:12:35] Mark: Really? And so I've always tried to advocate

[00:12:38] Mark: And and, you know, PSP, the podcast standards project is a is is I didn't lead that. It was I think it was Justin and a few of the other guys, but we were there from from day 1. And it was just nice to see that it still exists. 10 10 years later, 2, 4, $6,000,000,000 in ad revenue running through the depending on who you listen to and read. But, yeah, we're still collaborating.

[00:12:58] Mark: So that's cool. You know, I love that.

[00:13:00] Verity: Amazing. I love that so much. And, yes, we've got Tom who's happily producing this episode over there. And, yeah, it is it's all it's all it's teamwork. I don't think you would have this kind of opportunity in other other circles, which I just find absolutely fascinating.

[00:13:15] Verity: But anyway, back to podcasting 2.0. So I guess how I'm kind of hearing it is podcasting OG 1.0, whatever we wanna call it, that was the literally just we are transmitting the information. Mhmm. We are just like, this is it going from a to b. And this podcasting 2.0 is we're now making it more user friendly and giving you more options.

[00:13:38] Verity: It's almost like buying a game install pack, isn't it? And being able to say we're taking it from the basic game, and we're now giving you all of this that you can really level up your podcast in which ever way Yeah. You you want to. So I guess when you put it like that, anybody who's kind of panicking and thinking, oh my gosh. Podcasting 2.0, I don't get it.

[00:13:57] Verity: It is just like a game add on really, isn't it? To just really amplify and build up. And I think it's probably safe to say that most people, in fact, every podcaster is gonna be using these podcasting 2.0 features without even realizing it because so many people have got all of these different. It seems like everyone's got, like, you know, buttons to press and do all these different things. I mean, you guys have just introduced the YouTube section as well.

[00:14:22] Verity: How is that part of podcasting 2.0? Or is that just is is that looking at it a bit too roundabout?

[00:14:29] Mark: It's a it's a naughty implementation of podcasting 2.0. Okay.

[00:14:33] Verity: 2.1.

[00:14:34] Mark: 2.1. Yeah. 2.01. So it is essentially there's a tag in podcasting 2.0 called the alternate enclosure. So the way that podcasting works is you've got an RSS feed that's got loads of data about any number 1, the show.

[00:14:48] Mark: It's like a box of data. The box is information about the show, and then inside that, you've got these little episodes that are little packets of information. And in there, you've got the title description and what we call the enclosure tag, which is where the MP 3 file lives, and that's how the apps know. When I ask for a title and I want to read it on Apple Podcasts, that info comes from that tag inside the RSS feed. If I want to press play, when I press play, theoretically, the file has been downloaded from the link in the enclosure tag in the RSS feed.

[00:15:19] Mark: So geeky way of saying, podcasting 2.0 has got another tag, which is called alternate enclosure. Now this is intended, was intended, primarily for use in translations. So you and I are talking. Now we're talking in English. You send it off to AI.

[00:15:35] Mark: You get, actual human to translate it into Spanish. And what happens is that you say, right. Episode 125 is here. Press play, and then an app, theoretically, could see that you'd put the Spanish version into the alternate enclosure tag and say to the listener, oh, if you want this in Spanish, press this play button, or here's a drop down to choose. Press play, and we'll give you the Spanish version.

[00:16:03] Mark: And you just upload an English and a Spanish to one episode, and the host takes care of the rest. Okay? So very geeky. What we did was we saw the and we did this. We've been thinking about this for a long time then.

[00:16:14] Mark: Sam Sethi from Pod News and and True Fans, he was like, why don't you do this? And then claimed the idea, Sam, but he was he was on the same page as us in that what we thought was look. Everyone wants to do video podcast, and it's really tough. It is. It's a pain in the neck.

[00:16:29] Mark: Look at this setup. It's amazing that Tom's

[00:16:31] Verity: a Tom.

[00:16:32] Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Everyone needs a Tom, but, unfortunately, Tom is mega talented, ergo, more expensive than my little Star Wars podcast can afford.

[00:16:39] Verity: Not bad.

[00:16:40] Mark: But we also want to do good video content. So what we do is we might just we just fluff it. We go on Riverside, and we do talking head videos. And there's you and I talking head vid like we did for in and around podcast. Yep.

[00:16:53] Mark: I also don't wanna pay for video hosting because it's expensive. Guess who's good at it? YouTube. So we'll put it on YouTube, maybe get some more viewers as well. And then what we did was we said, look.

[00:17:05] Mark: If you put this episode out now of you and I talking in audio only, but you put this on YouTube as well, just take the YouTube link or the integration and stick it in this area in Captivate on this episode, and what we'll do is we'll assume that that is the alternate version. It's and we'll use that alternate enclosure tag. Wasn't intended for that, but now it's everyone's like, oh, actually, we should probably do that. And what that means is from a a listener's perspective that I can I can go on your website, and I can when I click the episode, I will get the audio version and the video version, and it's no more work for you theoretically to set that up? If you embed your podcast player on Twitter, I can press play on the audio, but I can also there's a little video icon.

[00:17:50] Mark: Guess what? It will slide up and show you the video version and related videos from your YouTube channel. So it's another way of cross promoting stuff. So it's it's a really sounds weird because it's a really basic implementation, but it's so useful to creators. And that's I think is a really good example of, like, podcasting 2.0 working behind the scenes, but no one really noticing it, which is all all all good.

[00:18:17] Mark: That's what we want.

[00:18:18] Verity: I was gonna say, surely nobody knows that it's happening. That means it's working well.

[00:18:22] Verity: And you're coming up with the ideas that people need.

[00:18:24] Mark: Because education is so tough. If you said, you know, as an example, you want to use the podcast in 2 point o value for value stuff. You need an Alibi wallet, which is a it's a, Web 3 point o blockchain based wallet to allow the transfer of minuscule pieces of Bitcoin called Satoshis to be streamed to you on a value for value basis. Right? What the heck does that mean?

[00:18:53] Mark: So there's education, and that's part of podcasting 2.0, but it's so complex and heavy that people, they're just simply not gonna adopt it anytime soon. But YouTube embed

[00:19:03] Verity: Mhmm.

[00:19:04] Mark: It's podcasting 2.0, but no one notices. The listener just thinks, I watched the video version. I didn't know that existed. So that's, I personally, I believe that's where podcasting 2.0 is and should be headed is that that invisible layer of technology. You know?

[00:19:23] Mark: I want a listener to be able to pay you for subscriptions and memberships and tips without knowing that it's powered by by podcasting 2 point o. You know? That's the goal. So and we'll get there. We will.

[00:19:34] Mark: It's a big movement, but it will take some time, but we'll get there.

00:19:37 Exploring the Future of Podcasting with Mark

[00:19:37] Verity: Absolutely. And I guess I'm gonna ask the question then that there's probably some people thinking, is is there gonna be a podcasting 3 point o?

[00:19:45] Mark: Probably. Someone just decides, don't they?

[00:19:48] Mark: They just someone just one day just goes, oh, it's now we're on podcasting 3.0. I think oh, flippancy aside, I mean, 2.0's got another 10, 12 years before its mainstream. It has. It has. The way that web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 came about was all through functionality shifts.

[00:20:07] Mark: So the first web 1.0 was very much, I can make something that is information and give you that information that you can consume.

[00:20:17] Mark: That was Web 1.0. Then about 2008, 2009, we had a lot of development around things like asynchronous JavaScript, things that could happen on screen while you were interacting with it. And web 2.0 came about, and that was the ability to interact with and create things on the web using a browser, not just not not downloaded software. So that was the difference between 1.02.0 when it came to web. And then 3.0 was very much this blockchain decentralized underpinning, and that was 3.0.

[00:20:45] Mark: Podcasting probably doesn't have those cataclysmic shifts. You know, if you go from consumption of information to two way creation to blockchain, they're very different cataclysmic moves in what the web was. Podcasting, I don't think will have those just the the size of the developments that the web would have. You know? Because it's not as, obviously, clearly not as big.

[00:21:12] Mark: And it's still very much a consumer led and creator led environment as well. It still is, like, you have to create something for me to consume, and I have to want to consume that thing from you.

[00:21:23] Verity: Yeah.

[00:21:24] Mark: So someone at some point will just go, right. Yeah. This new set of features, this is now 3 point o.

[00:21:31] Verity: Yeah.

[00:21:32] Mark: But I think it'll be more. I think it's probably more a case of it will just be 2 point o for the next 10, 12, 15 years, and then who knows where podcasting will be at that point.

[00:21:40] Verity: Well, I think this is the crazy thing, isn't it? It's because, I mean, even, like, today, you go around, you're having a look at all of these amazing stands and all these amazing ideas that people have got in all the different companies for the different ideas. And I guess there's a big question as well around AI for podcasting and how much AI do you use and at what point because, I mean, I know of people and this isn't knocking on me. This is just, you know, making it making the conversation, but, you know, there are some people who they'll have AI come up with the ideas, AI write the script. You've even got podcast now where AI read the script Right.

[00:22:14] Verity: And then, you know, it gets uploaded. And you kind of end up thinking, where's this gonna Mhmm. Where's this gonna go? I mean, from my point of view, it's not something that really worries me because the podcast that I like to listen to, in my opinion, you couldn't get the stuff generated through AI. You know, the conversation, the quirkiness, the things like me like, I I was interviewing somebody earlier, and I asked them we're talking about websites, and instead of asking them what does a podcast website need, I managed to ask them what does every podcaster need to have a podcast for?

[00:22:47] Verity: And I was like, that's not the moment. That is not what I meant, but that is just the result of getting up at 5 AM. But you know what? I'll probably leave that in because it's something it's quite funny, and he just looked at me, and I was like, no. No.

[00:22:56] Verity: No. We need to scale back on this. But the point is that AI can't create that quirkiness of of conversation. But I'd love to know if you got any thoughts about AI use in in podcasting, or do you think it's gonna take over?

[00:23:08] Mark: No. Nothing takes over, does it? It's one of those things. Everyone's scared of everything, but it's you know, we're not yeah. Are we are we closer to Terminator than 1984?

[00:23:18] Mark: Yes. But are we closer to Terminator? Probably not. Do you know what I mean? You're gonna smoke.

[00:23:23] Verity: Haven't watched Terminator. Use a Star Wars reference.

[00:23:26] Mark: Tom, did you hear that?

[00:23:27] Verity: I haven't seen Terminator. Tom Tom, our

[00:23:29] Mark: Bertie's not seen not. Tom.

[00:23:33] Verity: Tom, have you seen them? Tom's not seen them either.

[00:23:36] Mark: This is wild. I'll use a Star Wars reference.

[00:23:38] Verity: Please use a Star Wars reference.

[00:23:40] Mark: It's a Star Wars, Tom. Are you joking me? Oh, no. Interview terminated.

[00:23:46] Verity: I was gonna say there's only, like, what? How many films are there now?

[00:23:49] Mark: But you've only got 19 to watch, mate. You'll be fine. Yeah.

[00:23:52] Verity: Right. Plus all of the series that they did.

[00:23:55] Mark: You've got weeks worth

[00:23:56] Verity: of back out,

[00:23:57] Verity: If you start now, you'll be done by Christmas, I reckon. Well No?

[00:24:00] Mark: Oh. I I I'm flabbergasted. Well Same. We're not close to the droids taking over. Let's put it that way.

[00:24:06] Verity: Gotcha. Okay.

00:24:08 The Role of AI in Podcasting: A Discussion with Mark from Captivate

[00:24:08] Mark: But I AI is always useful for getting you 50, 60, 70, 80 percent of the way there, and that whether it's 50 or 80 depends on what you do and how you do it. Do you get the best results that should be published from AI? Of course not. Do you get help from AI? Yes.

[00:24:31] Mark: Of course you do. So Captivate will do we've got an AI project that we'll do what we do in a Captivate way, so we'll do what everyone else does because, you know, that's cool. We'll just yeah. You want your show notes writing? That's easy.

[00:24:42] Mark: You want some titles suggesting? That's easy. But we'll do some other stuff that no one else is doing, which we've got planned and and and and we'll be like, inevitably, like, we always do with Captivate. Someone will just go, why didn't we think of doing that? But it's only because we're creators, and we want, you know, I want I want I want to be lazy, frankly.

[00:25:01] Verity: So Hey. It's, like, so connected to the podcast.

[00:25:03] Mark: Who would have thought of that? Exactly. But the I think the role of AI is is interesting. I I I don't see it taking over. I don't see it posing a problem.

[00:25:12] Mark: I don't see there's that much risk in it. If you understand it's just there to get you some way of the way there, it's not it's not there to take over. Mhmm. It's just it's there to help you to start something, whether that's give me some episode ideas. Whether that is give me some episode titles based on this transcript, all this audio.

[00:25:29] Mark: That's cool because I might not be a marketer. I might not be an SEO person. That's alright. Mhmm. And I'd rather you had an AI assistant doing a little bit of the work that gets you 10% closer to being very good at one aspect of podcasting that you might struggle with, like SEO or whatever, than just flounder.

[00:25:46] Mark: And you think, oh, well, I I'm not growing, so I'm not gonna bother with SEO and then just quit podcasting. I'd rather AI helped you with that one. Yeah. Do I think, everything should be run through AI? No.

[00:25:59] Mark: I I think you'll lose a lot of the the humanity. Would I get it to write my show notes? Yes. And I do because I hate writing show notes.

[00:26:06] Mark: And do I get it to do other things for me, like maybe get some sound bites and, you know, do do a lot of the leg work. Yeah. Of course. And that that I think is the important distinction. If you can remove the leg work without sacrificing the quality, then use it to your heart's consent.

[00:26:22] Mark: Yeah. That's that's my view.

[00:26:24] Verity: Absolutely. I completely agree with you. I think it's it's that differentiation, isn't it, between thinking that it's gonna be an all or nothing kind of thing. But actually, if you use it as a tool, then, like you said, it gets you closer to where you wanna be. So I use AI to pick out time stamps, for example, because I am horrible.

[00:26:41] Verity: I'll be listening to something, then I'll be like, oh, damn. I actually needed the time stamp from, like, 30 seconds ago. So timestamp for me, brilliant. Show notes, absolutely. What's the other things I use?

[00:26:50] Verity: I don't tend to use it for episode titles because I don't know why, but AI always generates something for me, which has got the word, like, powerful in it. And I'm like, what is it with AI and the word powerful?

[00:26:59] Mark: Well, it's like it's trained on weird old blog posts as well. It's like it's figured out, okay, the you need a a pile of, surreptitious sort of hyperbolic

[00:27:09] Verity: Yes.

[00:27:10] Mark: You know? 3 ways to 10 x your something by doing these 2 simple hacks

[00:27:14] Verity: in your life. Skyrocketing. It likes to Yeah. And I likes to skyrocket things.

[00:27:18] Mark: It's like some idiot entrepreneur trying to sell a course every time it does you a title. I have to admit, but it's, we used it for the Star Wars podcast because there's it like, imagine AI trying to make a hyperbolic title out of a Star Wars podcast. It's virtually impossible.

[00:27:32] Verity: Maybe that should be an episode, though.

[00:27:34] Mark: Yeah. We should try it.

[00:27:35] Verity: You give that to AI as a prompt. Give that to chat gpt and see what it actually throws back at you.

[00:27:40] Mark: Give me a sales a guru esque entrepreneur title for this Star Wars stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. I might try that.

[00:27:47] Verity: I like that. Yeah. See what see, you know what, though? I have to ask you, though. My husband and I have this debate quite often.

[00:27:52] Verity: It's about Star Wars. Star Wars writer, not podcasting. But

[00:27:55] Mark: I'm in.

[00:27:57] Verity: Would Star Wars have ended the same if r 2d2 was not there?

[00:28:01] Mark: Oh, he's the man, isn't he? He's the he's the glue.

[00:28:03] Verity: He is.

[00:28:04] Mark: He's like he's like the person the droid that just nudges everything in the right direction, isn't he?

[00:28:09] Verity: Yeah. Yeah? Absolutely. No.

[00:28:10] Mark: Anakin would be dead because he would've he would've died in revenge

[00:28:13] Verity: of the city. Yeah. Everyone would be dead, I think.

[00:28:15] Mark: Arthur is the the glue of it all.

[00:28:18] Verity: Absolutely. No.

[00:28:19] Mark: He knows everything, that thing.

[00:28:20] Verity: He does. Does he? Do you know what, though? This is what my husband and I have said so many times. Like, they're trying so hard to blow up all these different ships and do and Tom doesn't have a clue what we're talking about.

[00:28:29] Verity: They're, you know, trying to blow up all these ships and do like, start with this war and, like, whatever they're doing. But, actually, they should have just blown up r 2d2

[00:28:37] Verity: Because, I mean, if r2d2 wasn't there, I think every single film would have finished in about 5 minutes.

[00:28:42] Mark: Literally, he always gets them out of it, doesn't

[00:28:44] Verity: he? He does. And even at that I mean, we don't really talk about the fine do I do you like the new 3?

[00:28:49] Mark: I really enjoyed Force Awakens.

[00:28:52] Mark: I didn't like The Last Jedi, and then I've come to love it. And The Rise of Skywalker, I despise. Okay. Yeah. I can

[00:29:00] Verity: get on board. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I can get on board with that opinion.

[00:29:03] Verity: But the, I feel like if r two d two would just, like, come to life at the beginning of that

[00:29:11] Mark: What a wild thing. Right? Just at the end, it's like,

[00:29:13] Verity: oh. Yeah.

[00:29:15] Mark: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love the force awakens, but it was I got what people say about it being a remake of a new hope, but I was sort of alright with that because I don't know how else you would have restarted it.

[00:29:26] Verity: Because you've not done it.

[00:29:27] Mark: Well, you I agree. I mean, I would have been well up for none of the sequel stuff. I have to admit, I would have been well up for it. But I have to admit that I don't know how else you would've started it.

[00:29:38] Verity: No. No. And do you know what? We had that conversation as well, but, yeah. Just no offense to anybody who took part in that and, you know, god love Carrie Fisher.

[00:29:48] Mark: I know. I know. Right?

[00:29:50] Verity: But I just don't think we needed.

[00:29:52] Mark: But we didn't. We didn't.

[00:29:53] Verity: I don't think we needed it. And do you should I tell you we weren't even gonna be talking about Star Wars at all. But should I tell you the thing that really wound me up about the final trilogy is they have the ship, which was crashed in the sea, and they had this knife thingy that just happened to

[00:30:08] Verity: Line up. I mean, I was sat there in the cinema going what they predicted the fact that that ship was going to dismantle in that way.

[00:30:16] Mark: And then they've had to ret comment. There's a book that came out because I that was the biggest bugbear for me as well. Right? And they had to retcon it by saying that the knife was made by that Okio Piston guy after the. And I was like, if you've got to explain it in a book Yeah.

[00:30:31] Mark: No. Sort your films out.

[00:30:33] Verity: Yeah. No. That I feel like there was some, like, post post script writing thought processes, but just didn't Yeah. What's the fun of any

[00:30:41] Mark: of that? Not a fan of any of that.

[00:30:43] Verity: I like to think George Lucas wasn't as well.

[00:30:46] Mark: But I would imagine he's livid.

[00:30:48] Verity: Yeah. What's the name of your Star Wars podcast just so that everyone can check it out?

[00:30:51] Mark: We've got a very good domain, actually. Spark of Rebellion, which is the first episode of, Rebels. And we we managed to get sparkofrebellion.com.

[00:30:58] Verity: Do you know what? I know somebody who, managed to get, what's it called? Podcast as in, like, the podcast. Yeah. Because they're print on demand.

[00:31:10] Verity: They're called the PODcast, and they were like, nobody's taken it. And you're like, why is no one taken a name that literally says the podcast?

[00:31:18] Mark: That's hilarious. Yeah.

[00:31:19] Verity: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's just but yeah. So they've got the POD part card.

[00:31:22] Verity: The podcast and what that is that is marketing. That is that really, really is. That is out of box thinking. Right then, we are I'm gonna ask you quick fire then. 3 top tips, anyone starting a podcast or has got a podcast and is struggling to grow?

00:31:38 Tips for Growing a Podcast Audience

[00:31:38] Verity: Three top tips to help them.

[00:31:40] Mark: But you've gotta go where your listeners already are. So you've you've gotta go where people are listening to podcasts. Just be guests. Do this that we are doing. And if you can't be guest if you can't be a guest, then collaborate on feed drops and promo swaps and trailers.

[00:31:56] Mark: So we were doing that 10 years ago manually. It was a nightmare to manage it, but we all did it. That's the first thing. The second thing is, underutilized, really, is is flip that around, go the other way. So there's gonna be a lot of people that know about your topic, Star Wars, but they've got no idea what a podcast is.

[00:32:14] Mark: Mhmm. Go where they are. Go to as an example, go to Star Wars celebration with a t shirt on saying I have Star Wars podcast.

[00:32:21] Verity: Did you go this?

[00:32:22] Mark: Yes. We went to London. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:24] Verity: We tried to get tickets, and I was in a virtual queue for about 45 minutes.

[00:32:28] Mark: We looked out.

[00:32:29] Verity: Got on.

[00:32:30] Mark: Oh, I'm so jealous. We looked out. It was good as well. We got us all the announcements and stuff, which is brilliant. And then jealous.

[00:32:37] Mark: But, yeah, go somewhere like that. You know, if you've got a if you've got a financial podcast and it's for accountants and it's, you know, some of soup super niche, Go to accounting conferences, not podcast conferences.

[00:32:47] Verity: Sure. You know?

[00:32:48] Mark: If you can only spend your money in one place, go where your audience is and teach them about podcast.

[00:32:52] Mark: that's the second thing. The third thing is, you will often obsess about having a perfect episode, and good and shit, good and out, good and released is better than perfect and sat at home on a shelf. Definitely. So you've gotta just give yourself a bit of time back by just understanding that, yeah, the edit could be better. Could the quality of the sound be better?

[00:33:15] Mark: Yeah. But if it's 7, 8 out of 10, the general listener doesn't mind that it's not 10 out of 10. You know? And and I think that applies in so many ways. You show notes.

[00:33:23] Mark: You know? Don't sweat your show notes. If you can't do them, you can't do them. Mhmm. So I think people, they bite off too much because they see too much going on, and they think I've got to do every facet of podcasting, like the newsagents does it, or like Jordan does it.

[00:33:37] Mark: Yeah. And we we can't because we're too busy. So Yeah. Good and shit is better than perfect and never released.

[00:33:43] Verity: Yeah. I think that's such a key point. I was talking to somebody in was it a Reddit forum or whatever it was recently? Discord, that was it on Discord platform server. It's gonna call it completely the wrong thing then.

[00:33:53] Verity: Discord server. And they were they were saying exactly that. They were like, how do I get myself on every single platform and do all these things like like all these big shows do? And I actually challenged them in a nice way because I'm not that argumentative online, but I challenged them in a nice way. And, you know, I said to them, what is it that are you doing this by yourself?

[00:34:11] Verity: What is it that you seem to think that you can do as an individual that, like, if you're comparing yourself to Steven Bartlett, for example, brilliant podcast, but we also know that Steven Bartlett has got a huge budget going into diary of CEO. He's got specialists in all the different, you know, social media platforms and doing his, collabs, you know, all these different things. So I said, why are you trying to do all of that and achieve the same output by yourself? Because that's not it's not it's not comparable. So I completely agree with you.

[00:34:41] Verity: It's just it's funny when you said the perfect episode does not exist, another pop culture reference, it reminded me. Have you seen Mean Girls? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:48] Mark: Long time ago. Wow.

[00:34:49] Verity: But Mean Girls is, what is it? The the limit does not exist when she's doing that maths equation right at the end. And, actually, they kept that in in the remake, which I watched recently, which is shameful to say.

[00:34:58] Mark: I forgot it would be remade, actually. Yeah. It's recent, I think.

[00:35:01] Verity: I secretly enjoyed it. I'm not sure I want to admit that, but it was actually, yeah, it was actually secretly. I thought I got way more into it than I thought I was than I thought I was going.

[00:35:13] Mark: Oh, they get you?

[00:35:14] Verity: Yeah. Well, exactly. But the limit does not exist. The perfect episode doesn't exist. I completely I completely agree.

[00:35:19] Verity: And I think, you know, just kind of going back to that point about, budgets and what have you, we know that there's a lot of very, very big podcasts out there who actually they're not using the most expensive microphones. They're not using amazing studio setups. They don't have Tom.

[00:35:36] Mark: No. Everyone does need a Tom.

[00:35:37] Verity: I feel like we need a counter of how many times we've actually mentioned poor Tom's name. Will you, like, walk into the camera later? Just oh, at 9. It's good thing it's not a drinking game, isn't it? Yeah.

[00:35:48] Verity: We can have to, like, walk into the, walk in aisle later just so so we can get some context. Because otherwise it sounds like we're talking to somebody who doesn't exist off.

[00:35:55] Mark: Yeah. We're just making it up.

[00:35:57] Verity: Yeah. There's a there's a Bob next to him as well. I've completely forgotten what I was even saying. Oh, yeah. People don't have a Tom.

[00:36:03] Verity: People don't have these, you know, these big budgets and and what have you, and that's okay. Yeah. It's it's okay. And, like I said, there's a lot of very, very big shows, very popular shows that don't have massive, But she is very open about the fact that she just records But she is very open about the fact that she just reports it in her kitchen if needs be. And, like, her kids run-in every so often.

[00:36:31] Verity: And I'm kind of thinking to myself, well, if somebody as big as Katharine Ryan who's got a hugely successful podcast, if she can have her kids randomly run-in on your podcast, why can't Joe blogs

[00:36:41] Verity: Sarah blogs have, you know, have the same have the same thing? I think we strive for this perfection sometimes that it only exists in our own heads It is. In some ways, it's

[00:36:52] Mark: Totally subjective as well, isn't it? That's the thing. It's totally subjective. Yeah. Don't don't sweat those things.

[00:36:57] Verity: Yeah. Absolutely. Because at the end of the day, if people like the content, they'll come to your show, and they'll stick around for that as well.

[00:37:02] Mark: That's the main thing. Keeping people sticking around is bigger is bigger than perfection.

[00:37:07] Verity: Yes. It is. Absolutely. Okay. I'll ask you for one one final tip, and then I'll stop talking because Tom's a bit like, come on, Baratou.

[00:37:14] Verity: How do we make people stick around for our podcasts?

[00:37:18] Mark: I think the thing is when someone's finished listening to a podcast, they're looking for the next thing to listen to. You just gotta make sure that next thing is your episode. Yep. And a lot of people think it's they'll the the people will just go back through the catalog. Unless they're a fan, they're not gonna do that.

[00:37:30] Mark: So they need signposting out. If I if I list I listen to, a Michael Rosenbaum podcast or I listen to whatever, happy, sad, confused, whatever. At the end of it, I'm like, what am I in the mood for?

[00:37:39] Verity: Mhmm.

[00:37:40] Mark: It's rare that I'm in the mood for something different to that because then I've gotta go back through finding something. What I what am I feeling? What am I vibing at this point? I don't wanna go back to my lab. I can't be bothered.

[00:37:49] Mark: It's easier for the host to just say, if you like this episode, we think that this will match up with episode 17 really well. So just scroll back and find episode 17, or there's a link in the show notes. That's the the the biggest and best way of keeping people sticking around is just make it easy for them to decide. Don't even make them decide. Just give them the next episode.

[00:38:11] Mark: And that works. We see that with a lot of the biggest shows. They do that. They'll find, Jordan does it with his show really effectively where he'll say, okay. This is an episode about Israel and Hammas.

[00:38:21] Mark: What do we have? Like, the last few episodes might have been, around the pandemic. They might have been around biohacking. 10 episodes ago, we did another one around Israel and Hamas, so they'll they'll they'll recommend that one, not just go back and listen to the back catalog. They'll say episode 121 Yeah.

[00:38:38] Mark: Is more of this. So that's really episode 121 Yeah. Is more of this. So that's really powerful. It does work that.

[00:38:44] Verity: It is. It's it's really specific as well. So I can't think off the top of my head for an episode to link to. So everyone listening to this episode, scroll back to number 54, and we'll see whatever We'll see how

[00:38:54] Mark: relevant it is. Yeah.

[00:38:55] Verity: Exactly. It's probably not at all. It's probably gonna be something completely off the wall. I'm gonna have to look up what episode 54 is, but links in the show notes. Check out episodes.

[00:39:02] Verity: Cross. Absolutely. Mark, thank you so much for sitting down with us today. You're welcome. I have taken up too much of your time, but I've really, really appreciated it.

[00:39:10] Verity: It's been great to chat, and let's go explore the show a little bit more and go network, learn, and thank you so much for your time.

[00:39:17] Mark: Go get a beer. That's what we're all thinking.

[00:39:19] Verity: Or my colleague

[00:39:20] Mark: colleague, which is

[00:39:21] Verity: sat there the whole time not being drunk.

[00:39:23] Mark: Solitary kind of cook.

[00:39:25] Verity: Absolutely. Other fizzy drinks are available.

[00:39:27] Mark: Thank you, Verity. Appreciate it.