← Podcast Answer Man
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Audio podcasting is more popular than radio for the first time in history. We're going to be talking about that and a bit more in this week's episode of Podcast Answer Man. Well, hello and welcome back to another episode of Podcast Answer Man. My name is Cliff Ravenscraft and this, my friend, is the podcast devoted to podcasting, helping you take your message, your business and your life to the next level. That's right. It doesn't matter if you have been podcasting for many years or if you are brand new to this content creating world, there's something we can all do to take everything we do in life to the next level. And in this week's episode to take things to the next level, I'm going to give myself a little bit of a challenge. I want to do something I haven't done in quite some time and that is a live to drive from beginning to end with no stops, no starts. I haven't done it in a while, but I'm going to do it today. And one of the reasons because is because I'm sitting here recording this on a Thursday evening. It's 7:17pm I just got back from having dinner with my wife. I told her earlier, I said hey, I think I'm gonna have to come back down to the office tonight and record the this week's episode of Podcast Answer Man. Because I got so busy, so involved in a project that I want to talk about in this episode, I've been vibe coding my own podcast related software. I'm going to tell you a little bit about it, but first I want to talk about the fact that podcasting, audio podcasting specifically for the first time in history is more popular among Americans than talk radio, AM fm, talk radio radio. This comes from an article that my dear friend Stuart Crane sent to me via text message this morning. Stuart, thank you so much. It is an article from CNET and it says podcast listenership outranks talk radio for the first time in history. Now before I get into the stats and what was discovered, I want to talk about my own experience with talk radio. I have been a fan of radio since I was a kid. I shared my story in many different interviews over the years where I talked about my favorite toy as a kid was Mr. Microphone. It was a little plastic toy microphone and it had a telescoping aluminum antenna and it had a tiny little super low power FM transmitter that you had to go over and tune your your radio to a specific station that was typically unused by any other stations out there. You turn on the power and speak into the microphone and I heard my voice on the radio. It was magical. As a kid, I grew up listening to a lot of radio and I remember listening to a lot of vintage talk radio. I loved audio dramas, I loved people just having conversations about things. I also loved music. Don't get me wrong, I will say that my love for music dampened in, I'd say the 90s and early 2000s. And it has a lot to do with just digital rights management. The RIAA organization that was suing people for, you know, copyright infringement and all this other stuff. And they just made it so difficult, so challenging to share music that you love with people and that I wanted to be behind a microphone and share what I love. And I loved a lot of music at the time, but it was not legal for me to create that kind of content. And creating content is something that's always been on my heart. I recall when I was a teenager, a young, like, I don't know, 13 years old, something like that, I had a CB radio from radio Shack and I had a big antenna and I would broadcast my voice within about a 10 to 15 mile radius. And for me, that reached a lot of people. I live in Northern Kentucky and I'm right across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm up on a big giant hill and so line of sight. I had the ability to reach all sorts of people, literally hundreds and hundreds of people with. Also at the time, CB radio was a big thing and people would listen to me. I'd host my own radio show every Tuesday night. It wasn't legal, but I did it. I would key up the mic and I would talk for 10, 15, 20 minutes. And then I would take in live callers by unkeying the mic and letting other people ask me questions and interact with me and engage with me. It was a blast. Of course I wasn't sharing music back then, but it was just talk radio. And I had a live call in show on cb rig radio. And then of course growing up, I remember just calling in and putting in a request to the local radio station for a specific song. Maybe it was a dedication to a girl that I might have been interested in at the time and things like that. And they would record you calling in and then you would hear your own voice. I would hear my own voice played on the air. I'd go to the school the next day. It's like, hey Cliff, I heard you on the radio. I'm like, yes. These kind of things really lit me up. And then When I guess I was probably in my late 20s, I started listening to a lot of talk radio. I was not listening to music as much. I would listen to a lot of radio broadcasts for Christian broadcasting back in the day. And there were lots of different programs that were along that interest line for me. And it was fascinating to hear all of these people communicate things related to faith that were intriguing to learn at the very least for me. And then I was never into sports myself, but at the time, there was a season of my life where I was interested in. In political things. A lot of that came from my upbringing and my community around me and stuff like that. And I would listen to a lot of political talk radio because, well, talk radio, which is what I was drawn to as far as an interest. I'm in the car, I don't want to listen to all of this music with all of these advertisements and all this other stuff. So I would listen to talk radio while I was commuting, while I was out driving, doing lots of things in the car. And I just remember, like, okay, their only options here is religious broadcasting. There is political talk radio, there's a lot of sports talk radio. And then the only other topic I think that was out there was car talk. And I'm not a car guy. And there may have been some other offshoots of some interesting things. Like late at night, I think there was that guy named Art Bell that had some real weird and strange out there kind of stuff. But I was a talk radio listener, consumer of, of that content all the way up until 2005 when. Oh, by the way, I will say that when Dave Ramsey came on the scene with, it was the first kind of personal slash professional development kind of content. I. I was like, you know what? Sure, I'm interested in becoming debt free. And as a result of listening to talk radio, my wife and I began that debt snowball and did the total money makeover. And we went. It took us several years, but we went from tens of thousands of dollars in debt all the way down to no debt outside of our mortgage in February 2007, which, if it wasn't for talk radio, I wouldn't have come across Dave Ramsey. And if it wasn't Dave Ramsey, I wouldn't have become debt free. And if I wasn't debt free, I don't know that I would have ever made the decision to leave my day job and pursue podcasting full time. So I owe a great deal to talk radio. I've always had a passion for radio. So when I Started podcasting as a hobby. Months before that, I was already consuming podcasts. And I recognized something. I was still doing a lot of driving, but I did notice that my radio consumption went down to zero percent, which was a massive shift for me. And there was just something about this idea that I could go and listen to an audio program, a people talking, and all of a sudden I don't have to listen to religious broadcasting. I don't have to listen. I wasn't gonna listen to sports anyway. I don't have to listen to car talk and I don't even have to listen to politics. But instead I could listen to people talk about technology. I could listen to people talk about a television show. I could listen to people talk about all sorts of random things that I am actually interested in. Not only that, I remember when I used to drive to go visit a client back in my insurance days. Some of the commercial clients that I had, I would drive to their location and I'd be right in the middle of a talk radio. And they'd been teasing that they're gonna get to this topic. And I'm like, I gotta hear what they're gonna say about that topic. I've been waiting and then all of a sudden they go to commercial and it's like. And they tease it again until the next commercial. And then I get to the client's office and then it's time for me to go in. I can't show up late. And so I come back out and of course that topic's done gone. And in those days there were no recordings. You couldn't go back and listen. And that was one of the things I found so frustrating with radio, is that they didn't have a DVR for radio. So anyway, I fell out of love. I fell out of the habit of consuming any radio content. In fact, I don't think I've listened to more than 30 minutes of any radio audio like music or talk since 2005. It is just as far as I'm concerned. Sometimes I forget radio broadcasting still exists. However, it was still the primary way people listened to spoken word audio was on the radio. And there are a lot of people who prefer to have their mind stimulated when they're out and about doing a commute. And so even like 10 years after I started podcasting, and then I was full time self employed. So let's go all the way to 2015. I'd already been doing this stuff for a decade, and in 2015, only 10% of Americans above the age of 13 listened to spoken word audio. However, in 2015, when Edison Research was doing this research, back in these days, 75% of all Americans above the age of 13 consumed spoken word content over radio. Now, if you put those two numbers together, that's 85%. Now, one of the things that I am not quite certain of when it comes to this research, does it mean that 75% or 80, you know, 75% of all Americans over the. And it says here, percent of daily spoken word audio time spent with AMF radio and podcasts. So I'm wondering if they did a research project where they're asking, do you listen to spoken word audio? And they said, yes. Okay, and how do you consume it? And it's out of those people who answer the question, yes, I consume spoken word audio, 75% of those people who do this listen to it on, you know, got their spoken word audio from radio and 10% got it from podcasts. Because I gotta tell you, to think that 10% of all Americans consuming audio podcasts in 2015, I don't know. It's something I should probably look into. What I do know is that this research has been done year by year ever since they started to have an interest over at Edison Research about the consumption of podcasting. And I saw that podcasting kind of went up and up and up. And it certainly has had a plateau. At one point, certainly during 2020, during the pandemic, the actual amount dropped for the first time. I think actually the second time, it had a 1% drop in 2016, and it had a 4% drop in from 2020 to 2021. But it's been rising each year. And for the first time ever, audio podcasting has become more popular than radio when it comes to consumption of spoken word audio. So here's what research shows. Now, as of December 2025, 40% of those who consume, and this is what I'm thinking, it has to be. 40% of those who consume spoken word audio get that spoken word audio from podcasting, and 39% get it from radio. That is the first time radio has dropped below podcasting. For those who are consuming audio content, this is huge. And I'm looking at this graph, and I can tell you right now, it's only going to increase the amount of people who are consuming audio podcasts in the car on those commutes. They're catching on. And popularity of podcasting today is just multiplying. It seems like every week I'm hearing a new story about how mainstream media, even Hollywood and all of these awards shows are now giving out awards for best podcast. And you know, the, it, it's a lot of people are up in arms about the fact that it's like all of a sudden now all these celebrities and a listers and all this other stuff, they're, they come around and there's no thought given to the independent podcasters who have been doing this for 20 years and all this other stuff. But if there's one thing that's going for all of this, the question what's a podcast? Is no longer being asked these days. Or it's very rare. Whereas 10 years ago, if you told somebody, hey, I produce a podcast on such and such topic, it was quite frequent. Somebody, you'd have to explain to them what a podcast is, how you consume a podcast. And I want to say this shout out to radio. For a lot of the growth of podcasting, radio began to recognize that podcasting was eating their lunch. You got iHeartRadio, who then began buying up a lot of podcast content. They began to create recorded shows of the radio shows that they're putting on the radio. And they were advertising heavily that you can get the replay of the episodes that are being broadcast on the radio on the iHeartradio platform. And there were other radio people into it as well. And, and, and as a result of that, they were taking these radio shows and these people who don't know what a podcast is, and they're consistently saying, you can listen to the whole show on, on podcast by getting this app. And of course, it was a very specific app produced by the radio industry and stuff like that. But once people recognize that, wow, I can get these shows that I've been listening to and I don't have to worry about missing it because it was live and I had to get out of my car to go back into work or whatever, this, this is very convenient. And so I love the fact that iHeartRadio and all these other podcast one and all these other places began to promote the technology of podcasting to their live radio show audiences. And the great news is that once they discovered that these podcasts exist, a lot of us as indie podcasters have the ability to go in and get our own independently produced shows in those same apps. Now some of them are exclusive and you have to get approved and they become a gatekeeper. But all of a sudden there are a couple of standout shows that begin to get a lot of popularity and word gets round that, hey, did you hear such and such podcast? And they're like looking at their radio station podcast app and they're searching for this podcast that everyone is talking about, but it's not there. And guess what? It's at that point where they at least know what a podcast is. And then they now become aware that this exclusive radio app doesn't have the podcast they're looking for that everyone is talking about that they desperately want to hear. And they go find a different app that allows them to experience even more. And so this is all kind of just been working as a firestorm to make podcasting just as a platform to listen to spoken word content that you're interested in, that you can take with you anywhere. It's just growing in popularity and I love it. Anyway, the whole point here is that this first article that my friend Stuart sent me, it basically is from CNET that says that Edison research has now shown that those who consume spoken word audio content above the age of 13 in America went from 10% in 2015 to now 40% of the of people above the age of 13 now consuming audio via podcast. And it is dropped for radio from 75% down to 39. And I'm looking at this graph. They're crisscrossed. And I know that it's going to continue to grow that percentage because there's just so much value in portable on demand content that you can listen to where you want, when you want. And not only that, but there's a lot more options for to listen to what you want. And not to mention the fact that if you stick with the traditional method of podcasting, you can skip all of those ads. And I got to tell you, as much as some people don't like it, I'm a huge fan of skipping every ad. I'd pay for great content if you gave me an ad free version of it. But if you're gonna throw in a bunch of ads and stuff like that, if I can skip them, I'm gonna skip them. That's just the way it is. Anyway, there's another article, this one actually comes from iHeartMedia and they did a State of Podcasting in 2026 article. And let me just read to you what I've got here. It says, consumers are navigating noisy feeds. By the way, the article has a little section that says why podcasting matters more now than ever. Consumers are navigating noisy feeds, questionable information, and an overwhelming amount of automated content. Podcasts stand out because they feel genuinely human. People choose shows intentionally, they spend real time with them, they build long term relationships with the hosts of these podcasts. That's the foundation that makes podcast advertising so effective. Now, I will say, I want to point out here, podcast advertising is incredibly effective. And while I do make a point to tell you that I will skip every ad that I have a chance to skip, there are some content creators that have done a very decent job with the way that they incorporate ads into their show. And I can say this, that the person that I've had do this the best in the early days would be Leo laporte, especially when they had Audible as a sponsor. And rather than reading a host read thing that was a script that they had to read from Audible, instead they would just sit there and do Audible picks. And occasionally they would actually have a great fit for me. They would have somebody that had an app or some sort of software as a service, and I would hear about it as a result of them being a sponsor. And the great news is that, hey, I either have made a decision after listening to the ad, this is of interest to me, or this is not of interest to me. And I love the fact that I can skip it once I've made that determination. And the number of times when this is not interesting to me, this is not interesting to me. But about four or five months later, I come across something where I'm like, oh, I wish I had a service that would allow me to do this. I remember such and such, and because they were an advertiser on a podcast, I instantly thought of them first. So podcast advertising is very effective. With that being said, I still hate to listen to ads. Anyway, continuing on in this article, this is a different one than the Edison research. Now, this is iHeartRadio's study. Listen to this. More than half of all Americans now listen to podcasts every month. And daily listening is rising across every age group. I just want to say that again, more than half you put 10 people in a room and at least five of them are listening to podcasts every single month. And almost all of them are beginning to get into a routine of listening to podcasts on a daily basis. This is mind boggling. You know, I hear people talk about the fact that, you know, you had to really get into podcasting back when you did, Cliff, because today there's just so much, so much content out there, so much noise. And I'm like, yeah, but if you were to compare the number of people who are looking for content in podcast form today, who are aware of what a podcast is, who are actively seeking out podcast content on Their favorite topics that speak to who they are, that resonates with them, that helps them in some way. Compare that to where we were in 2006 and 7 and 8. I'm going to tell you right now there is more opportunity for you to reach an audience today. There are more people out there consuming content, percentage wise, that today's a brilliant time to start podcasting. Anyway. More than half of all Americans now listen to a podcast, and every month. And daily listening is rising across every age group. I love this. It says here younger listeners are leaning in. Older listeners are discovering the medium in record numbers. I can tell you right now, my mom and dad, who, you know, I'm 53, I think I am. Anyway, my mom and dad obviously know what podcasting is, but you know what, their friends, their peers, everyone's grandparents today, they also know what podcasting is. And the number of them who are actually tuning into podcasts, it's increasing, even in the boomer demographic. It's awesome. It says here once people start listening, they stay many, finish full episodes, and often binge multiple shows a week. And you might be saying, yeah, I don't know about that one. Do people really listen to full episodes of podcasts? Well, let me ask you this. Are you still listening to my voice right now? Okay. And you might ask yourself, do people really binge listen to podcasts? Well, let's just tune in real quickly here to the speakpipe voicemail feedback hotline, and I'll share with you something that came in from Mike Hill this week. Here's what he had to say to me.
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Hey, Cliff, this is Mike Hill, and I just wanted to leave this message because I've been listening to you for years. And when you recently just opened or reinstall your podcast Answerman, I decided, you know what? I'm going to come back and I'm going to start listening and wow, I have been binging your content. Been listening to your podcast everywhere I go, whether it be in the gym or while at work. And I started binging from the most recent episode all the way down. I'm at 437 right now. I just can't seem to get enough of the podcast Answer Man. And to the point where a couple of years ago I was going to start my podcast, but then for whatever reason, it just fell by the wayside. I just wasn't confident enough. But now, after listening to all these episodes of the podcast Answer man, it really inspired me again to launch a podcast. So that's exactly what I've spent The last week doing is getting everything together, dusting off the gear, hooking it all back up and just released my first episode just a few minutes ago and I wanted to thank you for inspiring me to be able to do that. Thank you very much, Cliff. Just thought I would leave you that message.
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Mike, wow. Thank you so much. That was my win of the week in my Mastermind meetings this past week. And I got to tell you, I'm super excited for you. Thank you so much for sharing that. I wish you would have dropped the name of your show. I would have loved to have given you a plug here. I sent him an email afterwards and maybe I'll try to make a point to share that in a future episode. But anyway, congratulations, Mike. Super excited. But the reason I pointed this out is because just a moment ago, remember I read this from the article from iHeartradio. They said once people start listening, they stay many, finish full episodes and often binge multiple shows a week. Now binging a show. He just said that he started with the most recent episode. This came in this week. There were four. The most recent episode was episode 486. He said that he has been listening everywhere he goes for several weeks now and he was already Back to episode 437. I've done the math here. That's 49 episodes of this podcast in just a few weeks. And my shows are typically about an hour in length. Yes, people do binge podcasts. People are out there looking for content that resonates deeply with them and people take action. Like Mike, who's finally gone out. He dusted off that equipment. He had an intention to create content years ago and finally today he's launched his first show. Congratulations, Mike. Anyway, continuing on in this article, it says people are also shifting time away from other media into podcasts. They are replacing time that they once spent on social feeds, music streaming or even TV with long form focused listening. It says this shift signals a clear preference for depth, connection and authenticity. These are qualities advertisers can build on when they advertise on podcasts. Now, I gotta tell you right now, this, this article is so heavily built on selling the concept of podcasting so that more advertisers will advertise on podcasts. It's very clear. But anyway, the article had another section I want to read as well. It says the trust gap is real and podcasts fill it. People know how much of their digital experience is shaped by algorithms. They are increasingly selective about what they trust. Podcasts break through that skepticism. Listeners trust Podcast hosts more than creators on any other platform. They believe hosts are honest with them and that credibility carries into the podcast ads they hear. Again, there's the angle for the podcast ads, by the way. Not everybody out there trusts the hosts of podcasts that they listen to. And let me tell you, there's something about somebody's voice that you can just tell the BS meter is kind of detectable. So there is something to be said. But let me just say we as podcast consumers do not just automatically blindly trust people are honest and have credibility and all this other stuff. But I will say that give somebody enough time if they stay subscribed to your podcast. It does mean that there is some level of trust that has been earned and that carries weight. It says here that here's why that matters for marketers. Listeners pay closer attention to podcast ads than ads in any other medium. Well, I'm sorry to bust your bubble. I skip nearly every single ad. There are very, very few times I will listen to an ad. Yeah, I don't know who else out there. I mean I hear there are some people out there that are listening to ads, but I don't know, I skip them. Matter of fact, if there's anything that I would say to rebuttal this article. Podcasting is my favorite medium for consuming content because if there are ads in the content, there is no other medium that allows me to skip those ads as easy as podcasting. Anyway, they often take action after hearing an ad. I'd say that that's true if there was an ad that did capture my attention and it's the right ad for me and my interest. I will admit I will take action after hearing an ad, but it's. You're going to be hard pressed to get me to listen to. Has to be done in a pretty unique way. So anyway, it says they credit podcasts with introducing them to new products and services. I would say that rather than ads doing that, I would say sponsorships are definitely more in line, especially where you let a host kind of just naturally weave it into the story and it doesn't have to break the narrative flow and you're reading a boring script and all this other stuff. And by the way, I'm in talks right now with some folks, very high profile, industry related individuals that are interested in coming in and sponsoring podcast Answerman and there's a lot of negotiation, there's a lot of talk that's going around this. I haven't done advertising in podcast Answer man and gosh, it's been a very long time. And it was only during the first few years of doing this full time, self employed that I put a few ads in Podcast Answer man, back in those early days. And you know what? I don't like ads myself personally. And that's why I am interested in a long term sponsorship relationship where I can talk about a company that's sponsoring the show in a way that is natural to me and that's a part of the content and it doesn't have all the boring aspects of host bread ads that are from a script. So we'll see how that goes. I'm more than willing to walk away from lots of money if it doesn't mean creating content that I myself wouldn't want to be subject to. And I have a pretty strong feelings about ads. So there's that. Anyway, let's go here. It says, continuing on in this article, it says, last week iheartmedia revealed the state of podcast. Oh, this was from somebody else. This was from POD News. So I actually learned about this from the POD News email newsletter. And this is what they said. They said. Last week, iHeartMedia revealed the state of podcasting in 2026 with some very insightful insights for independent podcasters. Among their findings include that more podcast consumers than ever before. Here's new information that came in from this that I didn't pull out. Already 158 million monthly consumers of podcasts, 55% of all Americans, are regularly listening to podcasts. The next one is people trust podcasts more than other forms of traditional media. And then brands are turning to podcast advertising for attention, trust and measurable results. Now I will say that advertising with podcasting can do measurable results. There are certain ways things can be tracked today, and that's the side of the industry that just makes me tune out. And whenever they start talking about IAB and all this other stuff, it just like. But hey, I get it. There are a lot of you out there who are creating content and your podcast is your product and, and you earn your income from ads. And if you're able to do that, that's amazing. That's wonderful. But I, you know, I think I'm subscribed to this Week in Tech and Mac Break Weekly are the only two shows that I'm subscribed to that have ads in them. And Leo, I'm sorry, my friend, but I skip them all. I skip them all. I do probably need to go over and sign up for the this Week in Tech Club. And you know what? I'm going to make A commitment. I'm going to do that. Because you know what, Leo? I want you and your team to continue to prosper. And yeah, I'm going to go do that this week. Let's make that happen. All right, the next thing that I want to bring up here in this particular episode, I talked about PodPage several episodes back and let me see if I can't find what episode that is so that I can tell you. It would have been, let's see here why I moved the podcast Answer man website to podpage, episode number 477. So if you want to hear all about what podpage is and why I made the decision to move my podcastanswerman.com website to podpage, go back to podcastanswerman.com now the update that I want to share with you today, which right. By the way, several of you have already used my affiliate link that was mentioned in that episode, which I'm pretty sure is podcastanswerman.com podpage let me just try that real quick here. So go to podcast answerman.com podpage make sure you go to podcast. Yeah, that, that did work. Make sure you go there first. I get a credit if you sign up. It doesn't cost you anything more. I'll earn a commission for as long as you have your account. So just want to have that as full disclosure. I do earn a commission. But here's the new information about PodPage. For those of you who are on WordPress, they just launched a brand new feature where they will do a full migration of your WordPress website into the PodPage service. It says blog posts, pages, redirects, SEO metadata and all are carried over and the endless maintenance and insecure plugins are not. I love that. Now here's what I will tell you. If you are going to sign up for PodPage and you want to do the migration, do me a favor. First and foremost go ahead and type in podcastanswerman.com podpage and let that load into the browser that you will use to sign up for their service. Then feel free to reach out to me. My email address is cliffliffravenscraft.com and say hey Cliff, where can I learn more about how to migrate over? And I will send you a special page that you can go to that will show you exactly where you register to have them White Glove service do all of this for you. It's amazing. They're not a sponsor of the podcast but I am an affiliate with them and if you decide to sign up, I highly endorse what they're doing over there. It is amazing. My podcast right now, podcastanswerman.com, my website for this show is hosted on PodPage, so highly endorse it. Check out podcastanswerman.com 477 and I'm gonna just make sure that that short URL is there as well. Podcastanswerman.com 477 yes, it takes you right there. All right, what else is in my thing here? Oh, the next thing I want to share with you is we finally got an announcement from Podcast Movement. Many of us have been wondering ever since it was the event Podcast Movement was purchased by Sounds Profitable, the company that took over Podcast Movement. We've been waiting to hear when's the next Podcast Movement event. We knew it was going to be in New York City, but we were just waiting for dates. Well, they now have made an official announcement that Podcast Movement is going to be in New York City September 14 through 18. However, it's actually going to be 17th and 18th with a party the night before on the 16th. Let me explain to you what information I currently have. So first and foremost, it is a week long event. They're saying it's in mid September. The venue is going to be this place called Terminal 5. I've never heard of it. It says it's an iconic venue in New York City's Hell's Kitchen district. Great. Wonderful. New York City's a lot of fun. By the way, I have heard a lot of people complaining about the fact that it's in New York City, how expensive it is there. And I'm not going to lie, it is not inexpensive to go to New York City. However, I did see that the tickets for Podcast Movement on the creator side is very affordable. But, you know, certainly I can tell you I used to be the director of podcasting for Blog World New Media Expo, and we hosted several events in New York City. And I can tell you there were plenty of people there. And yes, it was expensive then as well, but it was such a fun city to have an event in. And so I'm personally, I'm very much looking forward to going back to New York City. Anyway, it says here that the event will take place September 14th through the 18th with two days of the Sounds Profitable Business Summit. So the first two days of the event are going to be what they call a business summit. And this is going to be for industry professionals. It's going to be basically people who want to talk to media buyers who want to talk to it's going to be. Well, first of all, it's a $2,000 ticket is what it is. And let me see if I can click on this image because it might bring it up and I can, it says, sounds profitable. Business Summit is intended for podcast industry executives, key decision makers, and brand and agency media buyers. Two days filled with panel discussions and networking opportunities for the business side of the industry. Now, I will tell you that I'm very much interested in attending September 14th and 15th, and yes, I will pay a $2,000 ticket price, but that's because I'm in this industry and I'd love to go and expand my professional network with those people who are in this side, even though, quite frankly, I know it's all about the ad side of the business of this industry. And as I've said before, it's not a side of the industry that I like, it's not a side that I enjoy. But I do want to learn more about it, and I want to be able to have access to people who are on the inside of the decisions that are made on certain things. So they also have, on September 16th, they have something called the IAB. And I think it's. Is that the International association of Broadcast? I don't remember what that stands for. Anyway, they've got the IAB Up Fronts Up Fronts Day, and I don't even know what that is. I could care less at this point. But it's going to be a full day on the 16th, and they're gonna have the official Podcast Movement party night on September 16th. Let's see here. And then September 17th and 18th will be what would be traditionally known as Podcast Movement. The conference ticket price as advertised right now will be $100. Now, that is incredibly affordable. And it says here Podcast Movement is intended for podcast networks, publishers and creators. The two days will be filled with panel discussions, vendor opportunities, and networking events that provide actionable insights and takeaways for the creator side of the industry. And I'm most passionate about the creator side of this industry. So mark your calendars if you're interested in the business side, the industry side, and all the inside baseball, all the other stuff. And yeah, I'm going to go ahead and do it. September 14th and 15th, the IAB up front. I don't even know what it is. I'll probably look it up sometime between now and September since I'll have a ticket that'll get me into all of it. And then I will be at the Podcast Movement Party night on the 16th, and I plan on being there on the 17th and 18th. Whether I'm invited to speak or approved to speak, it doesn't matter. I'm looking forward to going back to New York City and I hope to see you there. By the way, tickets are not yet available. You have to go to podcastmovement.com let me just go here real quick, podcastmovement.com and you scroll down and you click on the New York City thing there and then It'll take you to22026podcastmovement.com and you have to scroll down to the bottom of the page. It says be first in line for New York. Oh, and I should probably read this. It says here, tickets will be limited for this milestone event. Add your name below to get early access and be among the first to claim your place. Now, I went ahead and signed up as soon as this announcement came out and then they sent me a survey. Are you going to be interested in the Business Summit or the Podcast movement side or both? And I said I'm interested in both. And so I hope to be notified and I will make that purchase and book my airfare once I get in there. I do want to give you an update on podcast movement, the south by Southwest thing, the Evolutions version. I applied to speak there and my submission was not accepted. And the problem with going to Austin, Texas is it also states that it's limited availability and just all of the different things that it said. It's kind of like, you know, it's only for this many people. It's only for this first come, first serve. And by the way, unless you're a free, full blown south by Southwest full ticket holder of this whole big thing, you know, those people get first come, first serve. And there's no, and there's just no guarantee. And I'm like, I'm not going to go to Austin if, if there's no way that I can guarantee that I'm going to go in and be a part of that event. And so I have decided that in March, this next month, I am not going to Austin, Texas. So I will not be there for that. I did actually, however, get an incredible invitation to speak once again at one of my favorite conferences, Social Media Marketing World. And this year they're moving Social Media Marketing World to Anaheim, California, right down the street from Disneyland. And this event is going to be held April 28th through the 30th. I do, by the way, have an affiliate link if you are coming to Social Media Marketing World and you have not bought your ticket. See the show notes of this podcast episode. Click that link to get your ticket to Social Media Marketing World and full disclosure, it will not cost you anything extra, but I will earn a commission if you decide to sign up and make sure that you have access to the workshops because I am teaching a 90 minute workshop on Tuesday, April 28th from 4pm to 5.30pm Pacific Time in room number 252. The title of my talk is Creating an Influential Podcast that Captures Attention and Compounds Trust and here's the description of my workshop. Podcasting remains one of the most powerful ways to build trust and influence with an audience, yet many marketers feel overwhelmed by the technical details or unsure how podcasting fits into their broader content strategy. In this 90 minute workshop, you'll learn how to design a podcast with intention, clarity and purpose, even if you have never recorded a single episode before. This session begins with a simple confidence building overview of podcast fundamentals. You'll explore the different podcast formats available today, from ongoing shows to seasonal and limited series podcasts and learn how to choose the right approach based upon your goals. By the end of this workshop, you will have a clear understanding of how podcasting can function as a strategic communication tool. You'll leave with practical guidance, a framework for choosing the right podcast format, and clarity about how a well designed podcast can serve as a powerful asset in your marketing ecosystem. Anyway, if you want to come to my 90 minute workshop in Anaheim, California, make sure you spend a couple extra days or at least one extra day so you can get some time there at Disneyland if you if that's your thing. But I certainly hope to see you in Anaheim, California April 28th through the 30th again. Affiliate link in the Show Notes and that's pretty much all of the details I have here in my show notes prepared for today. I will say that I have been working on a little bit of a project. A couple of weeks ago I attended a masterclass led by Michael Hyatt, one of my friends and and mentors, and he was showing this service called Replit R E P L I T and he was showing that anyone without any understanding of how to code with this tool could create their own software. If you can think it and speak about what you want in English language, you just type it in and this thing will create it. And he demoed some software that he himself had created and he also demoed adding some new features and some new functions right there on this live Zoom call. I got off of that Zoom call and I signed up for my own REPL.account and within about four hours I had a full blown working podcast app called Podbriefer. And it's podbriefer.com it's not available to the public, it's in developer beta only, and I am the developer. But this is a first and foremost, it is a podcast app to replace my own ability to subscribe to and manage podcasts. So that's its first function is to be a podcast app for me to subscribe to and listen to the podcast that I want to subscribe to. But it's got all sorts of filters, so I can actually say, you know what I only want to see right now, the shows that I'm interested in, the ones that I truly follow. And then I can actually filter and have it show all of the shows of everybody that I know, all of my peers, all of my clients, all of the people I've taught how to podcast. I can easily filter through and see all sorts of things. Before, I used to have one app for the shows that I follow and then I would use another app for keeping up to date with all of the clients I've worked with over the years. But now I have it all in one app. And the other thing that I created was an inbox, just like my email inbox. And now I just open up my inbox in here and it shows me all of the episodes that are not archived. And I'm able to just instantly go in and say, you know what, that one. Not so interested in listening that I'll just hit archive. And it's just like going through my email inbox and it's like, oh, I like that one. And so I start playing it and I've got a progress indicator. So when I'm looking in my inbox, I can easily see how far I've made it through various different episodes that are in in my inbox. I love this. My goal is to be able to just keep up with all of these things and hit archive and clear it out of the inbox and have podcast inbox zero. Now, the other thing that's really cool about this is it's called Pod Briefer. And the idea is to get a brief about what this podcast is. And so with AI functionality built in, I'm able to quickly summarize any podcast. So first and foremost, I'm able to go in. If a podcast does not currently have a transcript attached in the RSS feed, I'm able to go in and instantly generate a transcript for any podcast that I'm subscribed to. And then I can submit that or click a button and instantly get a full, in depth, super detailed description of every single topic that is addressed in the episode with bullet points about everything that was said about that topic. And those are pretty lengthy, but it can take a one hour podcast. And with that super detailed thing, I can actually get a full overview of everything that was in that episode in about 25 to 30 minutes. Now, if it's a 30 minute episode and I do this super long, I can get that in about five to eight minutes. So I don't have to listen to the entire episode now I don't have to do the full in depth thing. I can actually say, hey, I want an overview of the essence of everything this show is about in a short summary that is no more than three paragraphs. And I can read that in two minutes. And then I can go in and ask this episode. So I can basically do a chat and it will only tell me things based upon what's in the transcript. And so I was doing this for a podcast where I was reading the in depth review and it says, and the host shared a story about her grandfather and this, and this was the takeaway, and this was the takeaway. And then what I did at the end of it, I just typed in real quickly, I said, can you actually tell me the story? In fact, I would like you to just break out and share with me the entire transcript of everything the host said in the story about the grandfather. And it's like, sure, it started here, ended here, And I read it and I'm like, oh, that's very cool. I'm glad I pulled that detail out. And so this was an hour long podcast and I consumed everything that I would need to consume out of it in about 27 minutes. And these are clients of mine, these are former clients of mine. These are people who have been engaging with me for the past several weeks or past several months, or in some cases the past several years that have not yet been clients, but are potential clients moving forward. And one of the things that I've done is I've helped lots of people launch a podcast. I have lots of clients, former clients and potential clients that have podcasts. And now I have one app. And every day I see all of these people who have recently released a podcast. And one of the things that I'm gonna do next I'm gonna build into this inbox is I'm like, okay, I see that. So and so has just published a 27 minute episode with such and such title. And I'll just click this button, button that'll say summarize and it'll pop up. If it's got a transcript, it'll immediately pop up a summary. And if it doesn't, it'll say, transcribing standby. And then it'll pop up a summary. It'll say, okay, here is the summary of this episode. And instantly I can engage with it and I can ask questions and I can even see myself getting timestamped versions of the transcripts and saying, you know what, take me directly to this space. This is all stuff I'm coding. Well, actually, Replit is coding. AI Tools are coding it, but this is already a reality. Now, I will tell you that I've invested so far about $300 to get the app to where it is today, and it's already really impressive. Not all of the features that I just told you about are in there yet, but that's only another, let's just say, four or five hours out. And this is just a side project. Right now I'm trying to keep it from being a distraction. I've got some other things that I'm committed to, but podbriefer.com wasn't even a thought in my head just over one month ago. And then I saw. I attended one masterclass from Michael Hyatt and I walked away from that. And I've got about $300 and about 15 total hours put into what I have as an app right now. That so far, nine out of 10 people that I've shown this to have instantly said, I want access. I want to be able to pay you right now for it. And I said, not yet. I haven't been able to figure out I'm going to be the heaviest user of this app and I need to find out how much it costs for me to be able to use this app as far as all of the API usage and the costs associated with it. Although I brought this up to Michael, Michael Hyatt, I mean, and I said, michael, I'm wanting to turn this on. People are begging me to become beta users of the software already. I said, the only thing is, I don't know how much to charge because I don't know how much it's going to cost me. It gave me a great idea. He says, well, you could simply build into the app to where people bring your own API, bring your own AI large language model. And so I could have a version of this software that is more expensive, but you don't have to go out and do anything technical. All of your AI usage is built into the cost or bring your own AI and it would be actually a cheaper subscription price. And all you have to do is go into your settings and if you've got a Cloud API, you put it here. Or if you've got an OpenAI Cloud API, if you've got OpenAI, you put that key in here. Or if you're a Gemini person, you put that in here or whatever. And this. Do I know how to do all of that stuff? No. But do I know how to describe that that's what I want it to be able to do? Yes. And what's my confidence level that that could all be coded in a single afternoon? 10 out of 10. That is what I've been up to. So stay tuned. I'll share more with you in the not too distant future. It is already progressing way faster than I thought it would. And yeah, I just wanted to let you know that's those are some of the things I've been working on. Hey, I want to remind you, if you are interested, you can interact with me here in this podcast. All I want you to do, head over to podcastanswerman.com and over on the right hand side, if you're on desktop or it's at the bottom of your mobile device, there's a little tab that says Ask a question. You can submit an audio question or a comment for the Speak Pipe Voice voicemail feedback hotline. I would love to hear from you. Are you out there? Have you been listening? Please let me know. Ask a question. Feed me some more topics that you'd like to hear me comment on. Answer any questions that you have. Just go over there. Ask a question tab on podcastanswerman.com and by the way, before I wrap up, if you are an entrepreneur, if you are a business owner, if if you're a solopreneur and you're out there making decisions on how to navigate the world of service first, entrepreneurship, having a business that serves others, and you're looking to make sure that I'm consistently maintaining and sustaining profitability. I've got everybody out there telling me I need to do this, I need to do that. There are these things over here, right I want to do, but man, I'm struggling to figure out how. I wish I had a team of people that I could bounce ideas off of back when I used to be in corporate or the people that I know who are in corporate, they have all of these teams of people and they have meetings and they come away with just so many different ideas. But as a solopreneur, as a single business owner working from home or working in this co working space, it's just like I feel like I'm so isolated in all of the things that I decide to do in my business. And if any of that sounds familiar to you, I want to tell you about the Next Level Mastermind. I have been facilitating the Next level mastermind since November 2017 and this is a place where you can be in community with me every single week for at least one year. And not just myself, but a hand selected curated group of other Service first entrepreneurs who have already validated products and services. They've already got happy customers who are experiencing powerful transformation in their life, or they are very satisfied with the products and services that are being offered by these business owners. These are people who have already got a lot of education, a great deal of experience, a lot of skills, talents and abilities and we all come together every single week for 90 minutes where all of us are committed, absolutely committed, to the success of each and every person in the group. We have a few seats available and I'd love to know if you would like to sit in one of these seats. All you have to do, email me cliffliffravenscraft.com I'll put that in the show notes as well. I look forward to hearing from you. Until next time, I encourage you to take everything you do to the Next Level podcast and some man.