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- [00:01]
A
Here we are doing the thing again.
- [00:04]
B
I know.
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A
Oh, my gosh.
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B
And I'm really trying to find all new stuff. Now that Porter has narrowed his colleges down to two, we know that we don't have to move out of Nashville. So now we're looking to buy again and narrowed it down to two houses, and one of which, I don't know who the person was that lived there and built this house, but I think they were a little bit paranoid.
- [00:27]
A
Oh, no. Why? Tell me all about it.
- [00:30]
B
So they have this room which they call a storm shelter.
- [00:33]
A
Okay.
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B
And you go into this storm shelter, and it's a safe room with a gun safe. So it's a safe room where you have four bolts, big, thick bolts that you put at the bottom of each of the doors.
- [00:46]
A
Yeah.
- [00:47]
B
And on top of that, before you even do that, there's a keypad to get you into that door. And on top of that, there's another door that goes in front of it that locks. So there's a door that's in front of it that you can lock. You open that up, there's a keypad. You do that. Then you get into the room. Once you're in the room, you can bolt these four dead bolts. Big, thick bolts. And then there's a big gun safe in this room. And the only reason you have those bolts in there is it's literally a safe room panic room. So it's a safe room panic room. Perfect cinder blocked all the way around. You can't get into this thing, but you can't hear anything. So it's great for a studio, and it's the right size for a studio.
- [01:26]
A
Wow.
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B
And I'm like, who lived here? What did they do for a living? Why did they need this? So that's option one. So we call that the safe house. Option two is I build the studio in this extra area of the house that was for storage and a non finished part of the attic. And I build it from scratch and design it up and put in soundproof sheetrock and all the other things.
- [01:54]
A
I would vote for making your studio into that panic room. That's what I would vote for.
- [02:00]
B
Oh, yeah, me too. Because it's so, so cool. Cause I'm gonna do video and I'm gonna get some soundproofing in there, and I'll have this big safe in there. And there's so many jokes I can make around that room.
- [02:10]
A
So many jokes. Also, I like how you can't hear anything.
- [02:14]
B
Right.
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A
Anything could be going on out there, and you're Like, I don't know, I was recording.
- [02:22]
B
But think about all the time, someone busts into your room when you're recording, yes, I can quad bolt my doors. Nobody's getting in. No one's breaking in. When I'm recording, I don't have to put a light on. I just bolt the door shut.
- [02:35]
A
That is crazy.
- [02:37]
B
I know, it's funny.
- [02:39]
A
I mean, for those of you who are still listening, going, like, what in the world is happening here? This is. It's not just all the pizza. Hello there and welcome to in and Around Podcasting, the podcast industry show that highlights a range of powerful podcasting perspectives. I'm Elsie Escobar, creator, success and community manager here at Captivate, joined by Rob Walch.
- [03:14]
B
Hello, Elsie. Wait, wait. Good generic time of the day, Elsie,
- [03:18]
A
Are we doing more ggtotd?
- [03:20]
B
That's us. That's our thing.
- [03:23]
A
Yay. Here we are again. It's been what, 159 days is what I see here in the show notes.
- [03:31]
B
What have you been up to? Been up to anything in the last 159 days? Anything new in your life?
- [03:36]
A
Oh, my gosh. I don't even know if we have enough time to get into all of that stuff. But alas, here we are. Maybe we should die. I don't know. At some point we should talk about all that stuff. But yeah, look at this. Here we are back again with the
- [03:52]
B
mic and we've got new notes. And so we're doing our notes a little bit different. We're doing notion.
- [03:59]
A
I know.
- [04:00]
B
Which I'm missing. The colors.
- [04:02]
A
Have you seen the colors, though? I have colors. Do you know how to not change the colors in Notion?
- [04:07]
B
I don't because I, you know, I got it on the black mode. Dark mode, maybe.
- [04:11]
A
Me too. Look at Danny's feedback. See Danny's feedback in there? It's a green.
- [04:16]
B
Oh, yes, I do see that now.
- [04:18]
A
Okay, see that? So you have to highlight it. Let's do a notion tutorial.
- [04:24]
B
We always had this color code. Like, we had, like green was a quote out of an article and blue was a quote from a listener. Anything from listener feedback. So we had these little codes in there that we would use for colors just to make it easier to understand where things were coming from.
- [04:40]
A
Yeah. And I think. And then here we do have a little bit more of that stuff. We do have the colors. And you can also highlight in the colors too. So you just have to highlight it. And when you highlight it, there's a little pop up thingy there. And it's like when you see the little A and it has the square around it, that's the text color. So you tap on that, and then it gives you a little opening, but you have to highlight the text you want to do it with.
- [05:03]
B
Okay, I will mess with that for episode 29, but not for episode 28. Cause we're already got the.
- [05:08]
A
We already got it in there. Yeah. So, you know, when we were starting to talk, when we were just planning on. On getting back behind the mic, you mentioned that we're taking over this podcast on episode 28. And you thought it would be a great idea to ask other people about their episodes 28. And we got a lot of feedback about that.
- [05:33]
B
You got a lot of feedback?
- [05:34]
A
Yes, I know.
- [05:37]
B
You know, someone emailed me or text me a message, and I thought this was kind of funny. It was. When the word broke about us being reunited at Captivate, the person wrote, quote, the podcasting gods were not ready for Elsie and Rob to be done podcasting together, unquote. And I thought that was.
- [05:54]
A
Oh, my God.
- [05:55]
B
Yes. So, anyway, I thought that was a very nice comment.
- [05:59]
A
I love that. And Danny. Danny. Danny. By the way, you guys, we are here to. We're figuring all of this stuff out. There's gonna be times when we have Mark on and Danny on and even some guests on and all of that stuff. So this just opens up the possibilities for things that we're doing and especially the kinds of content that we can bring to you and the kinds of content that's really gonna resonate with you all. Because I think that Danny and Mark have done such a fantastic job of bringing a lot of different perspectives into the show, a lot of different voices that you may not hear about before. And we are really going to keep that up in. In a lot of different ways. And what I like about it, too, Rob, is that it expands the ideas around the stuff that the people we want to talk to, and if we want to bring somebody on the show or if you want to find somebody on the show and, like, have them co host with you, I think it'll be great to be able to do that. It's a little bit more freeing for me. That's what it feels like when we
- [07:01]
B
talk about episode 28. Yes, we'll go back to that.
- [07:04]
A
Yes.
- [07:05]
B
For me, I went back and I thought about where was I for my episode 28 for my different shows. So podcast 411 was the first one. It was episode 28. And ironically, it was on 41 1, April 11th, and it was 2005. So April 11th, 2005. And it was the interview that went up with Charlie Wardley from the Israelisms podcast. He's a comedian. He's still very active in social media. The podcast, though, I think it only made people pod faded in, like, 2012, his podcast. So that was at podcast today on iPhone. Episode 28 came out Sunday, 29th July, 2007. That was before I was at that other company just before. And so that episode there, it was interesting looking at that about what was being talked about. And it was like all these missing iPhones that weren't activated. So they had sold like 250,000 iPhones, but there was like 124,000 of them hadn't been activated. And that was the big. Where are they? Well, years later, you'd see them pop up on eBay for $10,000. Never activated iPhone. So original iPhone. So a lot of people had bought them, I guess, and just stored them to sell them later on, never to be opened.
- [08:13]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [08:15]
B
Yeah. So I thought that was funny article. And then us, the feed, right? We had episode 28, that was August 23, 2014. And that episode we talked about, I kid you not, Listeners versus listens.
- [08:29]
A
Oh, my gosh. Stop it.
- [08:31]
B
Hmm. That was a thing over 10 years ago. Yes. 11 and a half years ago. We were talking about listeners versus listens. Who would have thought it'd still be a thing today? Also, that was the famous hover hug episode.
- [08:45]
A
Oh, is that how far it was?
- [08:48]
B
Yes, the hover hug episode, Believe it or not. Yes.
- [08:52]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [08:53]
B
We. We have a few episodes that we've done that we cover Friends episodes or Seinfeld episodes. Like, to me, you know, you'd say bubble boy episode. Well, the hover hug episode was great because it was about. We were looking at the photos after podcast movement, and there was this one person that did the hover hug on Elsie, and it was so funny.
- [09:13]
A
It was a little bit obvious. Cause I could see, you know, you can do hover hugs with people and be close to them, and it looks like you're hugging them, but you don't. You're still hovering. But this person, it was really obvious. It was like, you know, the hand, the arm was. It was awkward as all get out. Not great.
- [09:33]
B
So what about you? What was your episode 28?
- [09:35]
A
Oh, my gosh. Well, my episode 28, I actually didn't listen to it because I couldn't bear it. I was like, I don't know if I can listen to Myself. And this is for Elsie's yoga class. The class itself was a level one class. It was a. It's a really strong level one class, which means the poses within it are basic, but they require a lot of strength. And anyway, it's a great class to start with for people who are into that kind of stuff. But what was really interesting is that I had just done a birthday class. Cause this was, I think it was like a February episode. It was published on February 19, 2007. And I had just done a birthday class that I taught at Lululemon in Beverly Hills.
- [10:25]
B
Wow.
- [10:25]
A
And they had me come in there and they wanted to celebrate my birthday because why don't you want to celebrate Elsie's birthday? You know? And it was called Coconuts and Leg Warmers. Because I love coconuts. I love leg warmers.
- [10:43]
B
And this is 2007. So this is almost. This is 19 years ago.
- [10:47]
A
And at that time I was a Lululemon ambassador. So my picture was in the Lululemon Beverly Hills Stor Giant poster. So I came in there and I taught this class. We had coconut water there for everybody. I had like over 40 people. We raised money for a charity. I raised like two. What was it? What did I write in my notes here? Seven hundred and something dollars, fifty dollars. And it was so great. But because I was so excited, I told everybody, I'm going to record this class. I'm going to put it out in my podcast. And I didn't hit record. I didn't hit record.
- [11:25]
B
Oh, no.
- [11:26]
A
I never recorded it because I was so excited and so nervous and you know, it was a lot going on and I forgot to hit record. So that's why the class that I had on that specific episode, which was supposed to be my charity live yoga class, I didn't record that I recorded. I had another class that I put out. So that sucked. But this is another thing that happened there. A few days after that, I was telling my people that I was recording a show with Victor Cajiel and I was going to be his co host for a live typical Mac user podcast on Talk Shoe Rob.
- [12:06]
B
Oh my. So I love Victor. Have you talked with Victor anytime recently?
- [12:11]
A
I've corresponded with him here and there. Like I've seen a like. But I should definitely reach out to that. To him. I know that he. I don't think he's podcasting anymore, but maybe he'll come. He's come in. In certain shows and stuff, but I haven't talked to him. But yeah, so that was it. And on Talk Shoe, which is crazy. And I'm telling my people, imagine this 2007 saying, I'm going to be on the another podcast. I'm going to be co hosting the typical Mac user and come to this talkshoe.com and listen to us record live and you can chat. What?
- [12:47]
B
Yeah, I interviewed Victor way back when, one of my early interviews. And Victor is such a nice guy, such a sweet guy.
- [12:54]
A
So sweet. I have to reach out to him, I really do, just to like, maybe we can have him on the show. Yeah, we should have Victor on the show. That would be so great. Anyway, so that was it. That was my episode 28. So let's not just talk about us here. I think that we can bring in a voice of the pod that people are aware about. And let's see. Take it away. Danny.
- [13:22]
C
Hey there. I'm Danny Brown, previous co host of in and Around Podcasting and host of Five Random Questions. In my episode 28 saw me approaching the first anniversary of Five Random Questions. It was also coming to the end of season three of the show. So episode 28 really saw me finding my groove when it comes to the direction and goals of the podcast. Year two saw the podcast winning an award and being featured by Apple Podcasts and Forbes as I built on that year one identity. So episode 28 was a bit of a turning point for the show. Thanks for the question, Elsie, and looking forward to seeing where you and Rob take in and around podcasting.
- [13:56]
B
All right, thank you so much, Danny. He has been such a help.
- [13:59]
A
He said that he was the previous co host of in and Around Podcasting and that makes me sad because it's still everybody's show show. I'm sure you'll be back. And one thing that I saw of that is that he mentioned for his show of five Random Questions that he was coming to an end of season three of the show and that is when he started to find his groove in. Looking back at all of the feedback that we got, that was an amazing thread to everybody's episode 28. Check out this lady here, her half of his story. She says, at episode 28, I was in the middle of a series of women who escaped enslavement. And while it was ostensibly about survivors and happy endings, there was just so much misery along the way. My dad had also just died, and there was plenty of misery everywhere in life too. So I felt very, very, very heavy while doing it. I'd say I sort of had a rhythm, but I don't think I was yet in my groove. So even there you can still see that people are like striving up, right. To be able to do more things in there. Do you see anybody in here that you want to that really pops up about you?
- [15:14]
B
Well, Stacey Sims. Love Stacy. She felt she was fully in her groove. Right. She said I was finishing my first six months of podcasting. So, yeah, if you're doing it weekly, you're about halfway through the year. My show was definitely taking shape. That episode also helped me make a later connection between a pro athlete with type 1 diabetes and a kiddo who wanted to meet him. Definitely firmed up that podcasting was where I wanted to be and my radio days were happily behind me. And she just released episode 779, so she kept going and going and going. Kudos, Stacy. And I think when you get to episode 28, you stop worrying about the wrong things and start worrying about the right things. In other words, the wrong thing is this recording. Can people hear me? Those are the things in the early episodes you worry about rather than. Especially if you're doing interview shows rather than. What's my guest saying? And should I follow up with a question to what they just said? You definitely. I felt, at least when I looked back where I was, I was getting to the point where I was worrying about the right things. The content, then the wrong things, the setup.
- [16:24]
A
Yeah, no, for sure. It's interesting how you can start to see that transition. We have Kristen Sunden Brandt here, who also said it took us nine months to get to our 28th show. By the time we posted that episode, I think it's safe to say we had started to find our groove. Plus we were learning to give ourselves a little grace when it came to posting because sometimes life gets in the way. And I think that that's something else that we get so caught up when we're podcasting to want to do it consistently, you know, because people keep telling you you have to do it consistently. But I think that sometimes when you adhere to consistency in a time bound nature, it kind of makes it a little harder for some of us to be able to not burn out. Cause I know even there was an episode of in and Around Podcasting where Mark and Danny were talking about the shift in their production so that they can keep on podcasting. And I think that that's really one of the key things that we need to pay attention to when we're producing content, especially when it is going to keep you podcasting, to be able to do that.
- [17:30]
B
There was one I Want to mention, too. It was from Cafe.
- [17:33]
A
Cafe Compound Podcast.
- [17:35]
B
Yeah. And this is the important one to me. They said, quote, I almost quit. And I got a message from a listener who told me how much she liked to hear the stories, and I was sharing. So I got off the couch and back on the podcast Horse.
- [17:48]
A
I love that.
- [17:49]
B
So important. As we say, when you start out, make sure you reach out to your audience. Let them know they can reach out to you. Give them your contact information, give them your email, give them your phone call and number, or your Gmail, whatever it is. However you're trying to get feedback, speak, pipe, whatever it is, get that out there to the audience early. Because getting feedback when you're starting is so important.
- [18:11]
A
Oh, my gosh. Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the key things that does keep you going, because one piece of feedback from your audience can do so much for you. I have something from Steve Stewart here that he posted that I think is also a really wonderful lesson. He said, you are going to think this is super boring, but I still get new listeners asking for the resource. Episode 28 was in 2011 with a guy who created a spreadsheet that helped him see how using the debt snowball method would help pay off his debt. Yes, a spreadsheet. My kind of listener was and still is interested in that. This is a lesson in the value and the evergreen nature of some discussions. Right. Everybody's still trying to get out of debt. You know, nobody is out here going, hey, we got all this stuff done here. And that's something that he posted on 2011 is still getting people reaching out to him to get that resource. That's astounding to me. And the power of the. The medium, you know, to be able to continue to do that kind of stuff. I love how Jess, like, wrote in here. My co host for she podcast, she was like, we were a disaster still. Which is also true because there's some of us who are just naturally chaotic. Oh, wait, wait. Before we move forward with that, I wanted. So Grant Bacchioco, he wrote also this, which I thought was kind of nice. He said, by episode 28 of Dr. Floyd, we were two episodes into our third season, summer of 2005, we were in a solid rhythm with the show and getting bigger and bigger guest stars. I really think season four and five were our peak, so we were ramping up into it.
- [20:05]
B
Think about that. Summer 2005, and Grant was already into season three, Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd.
- [20:13]
A
That was a lot.
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B
I know.
- [20:14]
A
One last bit of the theme Here, I'm gonna read to Laia's over here too, which. Cause this is also shows, I think, full circle moments for a lot of this stuff. She said, by episode 28, I was in it to win it. And I was determined to keep learning and getting better and keeping up my cadence and being consistent early on helped me to learn and get comfortable. Experimenting. During episode 28, I talked with a breast cancer survivor who highlighted the emotional pillars of healing. She also invited me to be part of her summit. And later I was included in her book, which is that whole full circle moment that a lot of podcasters have, where they start as. I'm just curious. I just want to have these conversations and then the relationships that you make and what happens later. And I think when, especially when podcasters are starting to podcast, they're looking for the success in downloads. And when you've been doing this for a long time and you look back at 28, you see, wow, look at all of the success I've had from my podcast that has not tied to downloads at all. Relationships and, you know, helping people with the debt of it all taken care of, or being able to create a new show or even changing where you're gonna go. So all of that stuff was lovely. Momentum and weight and clarity and doubt, all of that stuff. So we're gonna close it out. This section here with another piece of feedback. And this is from Carolyn Keel.
- [21:48]
D
This is Carolyn Keel, host of the Beyond Six Seconds podcast. And when I was publishing episode 28, I was still less than a year into my podcasting journey with the show. It was September 2018. I have an interview show, and I was still mainly interviewing people that I already knew or who were friends and family or referred from previous guests. But I was just starting to get new guest requests from people who I didn't know at all before and were reaching out to me to be on the show. So it was a new experience for me to interview people that I hadn't met before. My podcast is focused on neurodiversity now, but at that time, it was still a very general interview show about entrepreneurs and people starting their own businesses. So I was interviewing a whole variety of people who were starting businesses, volunteering, and doing a lot of cool things.
- [22:43]
A
Thank you. Thank you so much, Elsie.
- [22:46]
B
Thank you for getting all that together. And everyone. Thank you that submitted where you were. There was a lot. So we couldn't get everybody in. We could, but you wouldn't be able to drive a vehicle if we put
- [22:55]
A
it all in to be able to do all that stuff. I know. And so I want to catch up before we continue on here. So what happened at south by Southwest? Was this the first time you went in this capacity?
- [23:07]
B
Believe it or not, this is the first time I went to south by Southwest. There was multiple times where I had was going to go and things just didn't work out. So first time and you know, podcast Movement Evolutions was there this year. Saw a bunch of longtime friends so shout outs to Jen Rennie and Ali, Melody and Dan Franks and Lindsey Bowen, Reggie and Marcus at Amplitude Media and Neil at Headliner to name just a few. And it was many others. I met up with Jim Lauterbach and had some great conversations about video and events for Video. It was great catching up with him. Jim has been video first before YouTube having run Revision 3 and also was CEO of VidCon. So when you want to talk about what's going on with video these days and everyone's getting into video, we're gonna talk about video here in a bit. Nobody is more knowledgeable about video in this space than Jim. Thank you Jim for carving out an hour for me and it was really nice catching up with him and there were many, many others. I talked with plenty of good presentations. On the first day Google gave a keynote. Kudos to Brian and Tom and all of the sounds profitable team doing a great job at the event. As I booked late, I got a hotel room up near the airport, but luckily inside Tesla's robo taxi geofence. And I was purposely, I said I am going to just use robotaxi each day and see if I can do this with the robo taxi. Not the Waymo, but the robo taxi from Tesla because they only have it in two cities. So I was like, and Austin's one of them. And it did a great job. One point when another car came down a one way street right towards us, it was going the wrong way down a one way street. It handled it.
- [24:44]
A
Weren't you freaking out?
- [24:45]
B
Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. I can be a little bit of a control freak. I'm usually the driver of cars. Like you know me, my wife go out, I'm always driving. So it was very weird letting the car drive itself and you're in the backseat. So yeah. And seeing the steering wheel just turning on its own. I made a little video to show the kids. But I have to say it did a good job and it was cheap. Well worth it just to get the hotel at the aloft just to do the robo taxi. Six times I did see. I was mentioned a few times in different posts and articles. So thanks for all of the kind words and for the mentions people had out there for me. And one of those articles was from Grit Daily News. They did not use my full quote, but basically the article was about podcasting industry power players descending on Austin for South by Southwest. And the question was, quote, why does podcast movement's presence at south by Southwest this year feel like a landmark moment for the industry? Unquote. I said, the interesting thing is that many of the most influential podcasters have already moved to Austin. Thus bringing podcast movement to south by Southwest just amplifies that Austin has become one of the key places in the world for podcasting and now I believe it may have more influence than even New York City when it comes to the audiences of those podcasters that are there in Austin. I just think Austin is a really a great place now for content. And then another really good summary on the event on south by Southwest was the Podcasting perspectives was from Valentina at Castbox and we'll have a link to it. I love her. She's been around and going to events for many, many years and what they do at Castbox. Again, thank you guys there for supporting the industry. So from my summary I'm going to put it in perspective of if you want to go. I'll say this, it is an expensive event to stay downtown. Some hotels when I was looking were 600, 800, 1000 or more per night. The aloft near the airport was just 200 or so a night plus $15 each way via the Robo Taxi. So if you're going next year as podcast movement solutions will be back there, plan early, download the Robo Taxi or the Waymo app because there was lots of Waymos there. And price aside, it was really nice seeing the folks from Apple and Spotify, right? So they were there and having an event where both Apple and and Google also do keynotes, that says a lot about the event. So kudos to the podcast movement folks. It's a great event for the business of podcasting and new media. But if you're an individual podcaster primarily looking to just connect with other podcasters, this probably is not the event for you unless you really pre plan your meetings because it is spread out. There is the podcast movement event, but there's so many other things that are going on. There's many different marketing events. So a lot of people that I met with were only a podcast movement for one day out of the three and they were off to other media events that they were going to. So they were there not just for podcast movement. They were there for this marketing event that was around the corner. And then it was other media events. I mean, if you go and look at Allie Melody's Facebook, you can see different events that she was at. And it was only like one or so picture from podcast movement, but then pictures from other places and other events. So you need to plan. If you're going to go as an individual podcaster, you need to plan with other people who you want to see and what events you're going to go to, because it is a very dispersed event. South by Southwest, it's all over the downtown, and many little these side events here and there, and you need to be registered to get into each of those. And then I did get to the Spotify event on Saturday night. So thanks to Jeff at Spotify for getting me in to see Alanis Morissette and Ella Langley, which was a great concert. And my son was really, really jealous on the Ella Langley. He's like, you're seeing Ella Langley? He goes, how big is this event? So he was a fan of her. And it made me feel really old because I was thinking he was going to be more excited about Alanis Morissette, who was absolutely phenomenal. I mean, she sounded so good. Ella was better with crowd interaction. But Alanis's voice, I mean, you would almost think she was dubbing. She was that good.
- [28:59]
A
Wow. And she's like my age. I can't. I don't think I can. I can't imagine. I mean, I guess if you are a singer, obviously you work on the voice and stuff, but that's what tends to happen with a lot of singers once they get a certain age. You just lose some stuff. It's just a. It's human nature, you know, it was
- [29:19]
B
one of the better concerts I've been to.
- [29:21]
A
That's great. Really nice to be able to see that. All right, listen, I've been getting so many questions about some of this stuff. I'm sure that we are going to dive into this bit of content in the future. So let's go ahead and talk a little bit about HLS video, Rob. HLS video.
- [29:42]
B
So I mentioned that Apple did a keynote at south by Southwest at the Podcast Movement event. And Stacy Goers and Jake Shapiro presented for Apple. They started by talking about transcripts and timed links and chapters. And they said that over 12 million episodes with chapters now in Apple Podcasts. So, FYI, if you do not want chapters turned on for your show? Email me Rob Walch this is my new email so I'm going to give it out first time here. Rob Walch w a l c h not s hlobal.com I can send you info on turning those off. I'm not going to go into it in detail here. Then Apple got to the good part and this is the HLS part, their new HLS video Support and the 10 Launch Partners podcast hosts that will support HLS video. And yes, Captivate is one of those 10. Kudos to the Captivate dev team for getting the support done so quickly. I mean they did phenomenal job. I mean really really impressed. And matter of fact, the folks at Apple said they were really, really impressed at how quickly we got this up and how easily and Apple was impressed with our devs. So I always felt so proud of Kieran. So Kieran, great job and team HLS video support is available in Apple Podcasts if you have updated to iOS 26.4 which came out on March 24 the day before we recorded so yesterday for us. But by the time you hear this last week, FYI, who knows when you listen, FYI, that was just 41 days from the release of iOS 26.3. That is the shortest period between a dot 3 and a dot 4 release for iOS. Last year it was 63 days. So only it was a really short window. So kudos to Apple on getting this major update out so quickly. Sorry, today an iOS part of me just came out because I always like to track those things. But back to Apple's keynote and HLS video. To start, most people ask what is HLS video right? Some people listening right now thinking that, well, HLS stands for HTTPs Live Streaming. So the H from HTTPs, the L from live and the S from streaming. But per podcasting, there's nothing live about it. It's just a name for podcasting. What HLS Video and Apple Podcast means is that you will upload a single video file and then your podcast host, that is captivate, will transcode that video file into multiple versions. Example a 720p version, a 540p version, an audio only AAC version. The key user experience here, from the listener's and watcher's perspective or the audience perspective, is synced audio and video switching, meaning you start watching the video in your kitchen in the morning where you have a strong WI fi and Stream at the 720p video to your device. After your cup of tea and a biscuit, you walk over to the tube. On your walk over, you put your phone in your pocket or your purse and you switch to audio. Now, once you get to the tube and you sit down and start watching the video, it picks right up again, but this time your connection is slower, so it streams 360p. From the user's perspective, the switching is supposed to be seamless and the version delivered adaptive based on the connection speed and how you're consuming. Again, video if you want to watch audio. If you're not watching in this case, unlike YouTube, Apple does not rehost your file. You need the video file uploaded to your podcast host, and your podcast host is going to be doing all the delivering. Also, this does mean that the audio and video have to be the same length, and that is only possible if both the audio and video versions are pulled from the master video file. Apple does support dynamic interstitials, I E D A I, and that stands for dynamic insertion. In this case, you supply the file to be inserted as a video file. So if you are doing DI ads, you need to make sure the video ad works with your eyes closed. Don't hold up a sign going, hey, look at this, look at that. You have to make sure. Now when you're doing these ads, if you're going to be doing HLS video, the ads work with your eyes closed because there are going to be some listeners will just be listeners. They won't be watching. If you're wondering if Apple still supports auto downloads, yes they do for this, but by default it is the audio version that gets downloaded unless the users go in to the settings, which they will not, and change it to video downloads, which will only happen over WI fi, by the way. So by default, audio gets downloaded by 99% of the listeners. That's what's going to happen in the background. So your peak in the first day when you release, it's still going to be audio that's getting the peak. However, once you start manually playing the file, if on wifi, it will start playing the video if you have the phone up and the device open where it can play video. I know that's confusing, but this is where it's going to get even a little more confusing. You can still have a regular MP3 version of your file that is, say, highly edited and with a different intro and outro than the video file. But that's not going to be available to Apple podcast users on iOS 26.4 or later, just to all the other places that use your RSS feed. So overcast Pocketcast iHeart and iOS 26.3 or older versions, the listeners there will be getting your MP3 version. So yes, if you are someone that does edit your audio heavily and has a different audio version versus the video version, you can still upload the audio version and I would highly recommend you do that. Note and this is really, really important, you do not need to do HLS video if you are just an audio person like me. Hello, you can keep on doing what you have always done. There is no need for an HLS any of this HLS video stuff, which I'm sorry I can't give you this last five minutes of your life back. And as I recommend, I would not suggest you start doing video if you've never done it before. And especially if you don't want to do it. Once you start HLS video, you kind of really want to keep doing HLS video. That said, I know there are people that are going to try it and they're going to stop, but this is really meant for podcasters that are video first or video and audio equally. I can't recommend it yet for people that are just video curious or video fomo and we support it. So it's not like I'm saying don't do this because we don't support it. I'm saying don't do this if there's a chance it's going to cause you to stop podcasting because it's a lot more work. And most importantly, there is an additional charge if you want to do video because video bandwidth is expensive. We'll have links in the show notes for episode 28 of in and Around podcasting with FAQs and other info pertaining to HLS video and captivate and pricing. So we're getting all that ready and we'll have links so that you can go and read that. We're not going to cover that here yet. And please also call into the show or email us your questions, comments, thoughts on all of this. And if you are someone that launched an HLS video podcast and it's on Captivate, let us know and we will mention it on the next episode of in and Around Podcasting so folks that are listening can go and see some of how this works and check your podcast out for that. So if you are someone that does go down this path and you do launch HLS video, let us know. And Elsie, what's our new contact information to get a hold of us?
- [37:36]
A
It is communityaptivate fm. That's our email communityaptivate FM and You can send us obviously a written message or you can attach an audio file to that and send it over. It's super easy to do that if you happen to follow me on social, at least at this time, in a lot of different places, whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's in on threads or whether it's like on Instagram, which is where I am. You can send me audio in any of those platforms and I can grab it, or WhatsApp for that matter. You can send me an audio file for in WhatsApp and just record your voice, send it over. And that's a way that I can handle getting some audio feedback in here for sure. But I think just to go back to what Rob mentioned and the most important things here is I would say for those of you who are not already well versed in video and audio and doing your video production with your shows, take a pause, wait it out and maybe if you want to add video, work on the video on your video production, get it on YouTube, get a cadence around that. You can always switch it up later once you have everything set up for yourself. Because the last thing we need is for you to quit. We don't want you to quit podcasting. And I can tell you now, been working in the space for almost two decades. One of the key reasons that people quit is because of life. And if you're adding more friction to your everyday existence by creating another layer that doesn't necessarily need to be there, maybe for your audience or for yourself, you're gonna quit. And it's better for you to keep podcasting than for you to not, you know, it's just. That's just not cool. This is not gonna go away. Video is here to stay. As you can see. Now, I've heard some of the benefits around, you know, being able to. To watch a video inside of Apple podcast and whatnot as it's, you know, the YouTube UI is challenging because it has all kinds of other things going on. There's shorts in there. You're, you know, I know I get overwhelmed with. And the ads will pop in there, all kinds of stuff. I'm going to give you a little hint and it's. This is some. Or a tip. This is something I've been using lately that has really been amazing. It's an app called Unwatched. Unwatched. One word for iOS. I don't know if. I'm sorry. I'm sure there is an app like this for Android or maybe it is Android too. It's called Unwatched. And it kind of works like a podcast app for YouTube videos. And so you can add it. You can, you know, download the app on your phone. And then if you find a video or a channel that you really, really love, you can send it via the little share menu. You can send it to Unwatched. And then when you open up unwatched, it has cues in the same way that a lot of podcast apps do. It actually resembles Castro a lot. And you can see an inbox, and you get all the videos in the inbox, and then you can move them into a queue. And so you move the videos into the queue and you can watch them there. And it strips out all of the ads. You just watch video, one video after the next video of your stuff that you want, and you. And you align them in there, and it's like, amazing. So that is how I watch YouTube videos. Instead of getting the ads in my way and all of the shorts coming in my face and everything, and I watch them both on iPhone and iPad. I'm using the free version. With the paid version, you can sync your accounts, and then it kind of keeps your playlist different. I'm not paying for it right now, but it's a fantastic, fantastic app. It really is. If you guys like to watch YouTube videos and not be annoyed by things. And speaking of amazing people who are creating incredible apps, I just want to give a shout out here to Marco Arment because he has just released in Overcast transcripts. Oh, wait, I don't even know if he's released this out of beta yet, but maybe it will by the time this goes out. Do you have this, Rob? Overcast is a podcast app. For those of you who don't know, it's a podcast app that was created by Marco Arment and it is the number three, I'm assuming. Is that correct, Rob? Basically the number three podcast app in iOS.
- [42:15]
B
Yes, number three.
- [42:17]
A
So they have a lot of hoax using Overcast, and I became an Overcast user a hundred percent as of 2025. So it's my exclusive app as of right now. And it's amazing that now I can go into any podcast that I want. And in the play screen, I just swipe on that play screen and the third screen that comes up after you swipe to the. After you get the show notes, and then it has the transcripts. And if it doesn't have transcripts, it says this podcast hasn't been transcribed or whatever. And you tap on it and it immediately does it, mind you, immediately Means depending on the length, two to three minutes. You have to wait for it to go in there. But it is so great. And this is just his first iteration of being able to have it there. So I find this amazing. And for those people who. And I've seen that there's people who have a hard time with audio only podcasts, which is not me, but there are people who audio only is hard for them. For me, when I really want to focus on a podcast, watching the transcripts move is the visual component that I want. And so it grounds me to be able to watch the transcripts move. To me, that's like in quote, the video version of a podcast that I can see.
- [43:40]
B
Yeah, I'm trying to see if my latest episode has a transcript in it. Yeah, hit play. And the transcript is there. So even. Yep. Even on podcast 411, the transcript was there and is ready to go.
- [43:52]
A
It's so great. I love it so much. And this is the coolest part of it all. Guys, you have to go. There's gonna be a link in the show notes for this ATP FM 6 83. That is where Marco talked about this. It's like a story about 20, 25 minutes long or something like that on that episode of ATP. But essentially this is how Marco made this happen. So he literally realized that traditional AI transcription would cost thousands per day for him to be able to do that within overcast. And he knew that there's a lot of people that wanted transcripts and he saw how valuable that transcripts were from Apple podcasts when they put it out. It's like it's a no brainer in the usability of something like this within a podcast app.
- [44:40]
B
So instead he went out and got supercomputers. He went, he built supercomputers, unbelievably big machines to do all of this, right?
- [44:49]
A
Not quite. Not quite. So instead he built his own system. But almost, almost what you said, using Apple's On Device API, which can transcribe audio at 200 times real time. Okay, so then what? Started it as a few remote Mac Minis. He turned it into a self built fleet of 48 machines scaled across hosting providers. And eventually. So he first started just in all these different places and putting them in all these different places. And then he finally was getting out of control. It's like he just kept buying Mac Minis. So he ended up eventually going to a full data center setup. Like he talked to the data center people. He'd never done that before. He got a whole like area for all of his Mac minis. And the most mind bending part is that he solved dynamic ad insertions by creating a custom audio fingerprinting system that realigns transcripts perfectly to each user's unique episode file, which is like wackadoodle. He engineered a highly compressed storage system for word level transcripts and made the whole thing work seamlessly between servers and the iPhone app. Now it's really one of those stories like I'm serious, like I, I don't even know what I'm saying. I sat there and I listened to him talk about it. My mouth was just open going, what? It's one of those you have to hear him tell it stories, literally. So go listen to ATP episode 683 link will be in the show notes. Or you could just actually go to@tp.fm 683. The transcript story starts at around the 54:44 mark. It's a great listen and amazing what Marco was able to do with it.
- [46:38]
B
Do you know what he could do after listening to all of this? You ever go like a website and it says, stop showing me these ads. He literally could put a thing in there that says stop playing when it comes across an ad. He knows now what the ads are. There could be a little thing that pops up and says stop playing these ads for me in the future he could have that in there. So if there's like an ad that you've heard one too many ads for hims for erectile dysfunction, you can skip those. He would be able to build that in there that you just say no. For premium users. Nope, just anytime from now on when this ad pops up, just skip it.
- [47:14]
A
And you know what's really interesting is that when you look at the transcripts, the way that you identify the ads is this little like musical notes on the outside so when you're looking at them there, you can scroll through it. And you can very easily skip the ads by visually seeing things. And the functionality of the transcripts and everything that he has built on his own there allows him to have the ability to do all those things that you're talking about, which is, it's so exciting. He's the boss, you know what I mean? Like, that's so cool.
- [47:51]
B
He is the most impressive engineer I've ever talked with. The things he does are amazing. Not surprising that he was able to
- [47:58]
A
do this, but also who thinks that I was what? Anyway, I love it so much and I will pay him more money for all the development to be able to do. That because ultimately it's serving the consumer in such a really wonderful way. And not to discount, because I know people are like, well, the ads, they support the show, blah, blah, blah. I get that and I respect it. And I think that there is the capacity for being able to continue to support podcasters and also skip ads at times because of the value of the content that they're creating. I think podcasts themselves are valuable. Just so valuable to me overall that I don't want them to not get paid. But also being able to have wonderful experiences as a consumer is just the power of it.
- [48:59]
B
Well, I mean, the data he could get from his users on which ads were skipped, Unbelievable. He could be in a position to turn that into a billion dollar company.
- [49:09]
A
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. But the other part too, though, Rob, is that with a lot of the programmatic stuff, it's made my podcast consumption a little bit more cognitively heavy in the sense that now I have to be going like, oh, they're starting ads, and I have to press forward seven, eight times. I'm just like, when are they gonna be done? It's like, that's too much. It's too much.
- [49:32]
B
There are some podcasts that overdo ads, and I have my old Apple AirPods set up that you can double tap on them. The long ones, not the new pros, but the older ones, you can have them set up where you can double tap on your ear and it will skip forward 30 seconds. So if I know I have a podcast consumption coming along with a certain podcast or two that have too many ads in them, I will switch my AirPods to those so that I can skip through easier.
- [49:59]
A
Yeah, the ones where I'm done with a podcast and then at the end, there's 11 minutes of ads left. Oh, my God, it's just so much. Anyway, regardless, thank you, Marco. That's amazing. And I think that, you know what? This is probably a good place for us to wrap up our very first episode. And also because there is the flattering ram, and I think I want to give myself since I just gave Marco this big. Love the flattering ram. Hold. Before we begin, let's go ahead and play the jingle. Okay, so I'm giving this flattering ram to Mark Gorment. How about you, Rob?
- [50:42]
B
And I am going to give the flattering ram on this episode to two people, Mark Asquith and Brian Conlon, for being those podcasting gods that made it possible for us to be back recording and working together again.
- [50:56]
A
Yay. Yay. Thank you so much. And for those of you who don't know what the flattering RAM is, the flattering RAM is our way of intentionally ending each episode on a note of positivity. It's a simple shout out where we highlight anyone or anything, whether it's a person, a tool, a platform, whatever we feel is doing good and meaningful, or just really genuinely great work in podcasting. Just something worth celebrating. So I think that those double of those is is wonderful. Always so yay. Awesome.
- [51:32]
B
Anything you want to say about your where you've been? You did a little community.
- [51:35]
A
Oh my gosh, the community meetup. That's right. I literally was. I just did a community meetup here and it was very well attended. It was really nice to get to know the Captivate folks and we're going to do lots more of that. I don't have any links right now to share with everybody, but we're going to be doing some more of those events. And thank you to everybody that attended. That really just was a really great gathering for sure.
- [51:59]
B
Finally, where can people reach us again, give us feedback?
- [52:03]
A
They can email communityaptivate fm.
- [52:09]
B
Thank you everyone for listening and we
- [52:11]
A
will chat with you soon. Bye bye.
- [52:13]
B
Ciao.