Blubrry’s Latest: Apple Podcast Subscription Publishing • PCI 328

0:11 Hey everyone. Welcome to Podcast Insider. My name is Todd Cochran. Of course, I'm joined by Mike Cohost, Mr. Mike Dell. Mike, how are you doing? Doing. Good. Welcome back. I trust you had a good trip to, uh, Vegas for c e s. Yes, indeed. And of course, anyone that has to spend seven days in Vegas voluntarily , you know, it's about four days too much. But, uh, yeah, had a great, uh, great event, great show about, eh, I don't know, about 30, 35 hours of live content. Uh, so we had a great time with the tech podcast team out there. Yeah. Um, I've been out there a couple times during ces and, uh, I don't envy the, uh, amount of time spent . You know, the, uh, the main thing is it's a lot different now. We, we basically are official press and we have the ability to work from a, a location where we have a workroom and then we have a studio on top and security and internet. Yes.

1:06 And it just really intercourse with gear now being a lot more condensed and not having to, you know, roll 20 boxes in and you just roll in with like three suitcases and in your good, um, little set up, of course. But yeah, I think we had a very successful live event. We streamed the audio and then of course, all that content's gonna be converted and, and used in our Reg Regular podcast as an additional episode. So, uh, yeah, it was, it was a good event. Ah, very good. Good. So, uh, yeah, we got our normal news today. We got a best practice, got some blueberry stuff, and we have a blueberry pro tip and a question of the week. So, uh, we have the normal lineup for now.

1:48 Absolutely. All right. We kick off the news here and, uh, we've got one thing, it's lead in the pack is really some blueberry news. We launch Apple subscriptions. It's now integrated on the blueberry platform. And, uh, it's, it's, uh, the ability for you to run premium content and not have to go directly to Apple to publish all that. You go through a very simple setup process, and then once you're done, you can post your premium content from blueberry just like you do, uh, a regular episode, but, uh, you make it available as a subscription on Apple Podcast.

2:30 Yeah, I've been playing with a test account and, uh, it, it is pretty slick. Uh, you know, you, you publish your regular episodes as you would regularly, and if you have a subscription tied to that same show, you could do the, uh, premium content all in the same dashboard at Blueberry. Uh, now if you're using Power Press, you have to come to blueberry to publish the Apple episodes, but it's a very similar process and pretty slick and, uh, I'm glad we got it done on time. You know, that's one thing we should reiterate is the, this is not just for dashboard customers. So if you are a Power Press user, you can publish your premium episodes, even if you're a Power Press user on the Blueberry dashboard.

3:16 The only difference is you still continue to do your public episodes on your own website. We were not able really to get disintegrated within Power Press to make it completely cohesive. So the premium stuff does have to be published from the Blueberry dashboard, and what happens is you'll get a key, and then when you get a key from Apple and you enter that key, uh, in the setting section, it unlocks, uh, features that would normally be locked on the platform for you to be able to publish, uh, to Apple directly again for the premium or for the subscription episodes only for those of you that are Power Press users. Yep. And, uh, like I said, it works really slick. We've, uh, been testing it, uh, guys at Apple been testing it and, uh, I think we had a few customers testing it, so, yep. It's, uh, all up and running.

4:07 So if you're interested in doing premium content through Apple Subscriptions, come check it out. You do have to be, uh, $20 and a month above client to do that. Okay. True. Uh, but that's the majority of the clients, otherwise prx, uh, they announced that they're using value for value part of the podcasting 2.0 spec in a new way. And, uh, this is kinda curious on what they, the route they decided to go. They kind of rolled their own, it looks like, uh, uphold.com, I guess, is who they were working with. And it does micro payments in Fiat currencies, uh, mostly US dollars at this point, but it's, uh, you know, set up similarly, but it's only on the web. There's no, uh, apps that are taking advantage of it. So, you know, this is for a web player, but you can stream a penny a minute or whatever while you're listening. Uh, they don't have any provisions for boosting kinda, you know, like we do with, uh, the, uh, value for value using Lightning. But yeah, it's a first step. I, I, I think it's, uh, it's worthy of a, NPR X is a pretty big outfit. So we'll see.

5:17 The challenge that they're really going to have with this , and this again, is one of the reasons why we're implementing the Podcasting 2.0 Value for value model specifically, is if someone wants to send you a dollar, then you really get all these fiat fees, you get these financial fees, and you may cost you 50 cents to send a dollar. But when I send the equivalent of a dollar in the podcasting 2.0 value for value model, which we're gonna be talking about a lot in the near future for sure, is, is you're gonna get a dollar, you're gonna get a dollar, and this, the sender pays the fee to send that money to, but the, the fee might be a penny or two. Yeah.

6:02 Versus it's definitely not what, you know, like PayPal, what do they take. Uh, yeah. Fit 50 50 cents and then a percentage, you know, so this is not, you know, this is the challenge that you run into. Yes, you wanna monetize and make it easy for people to send donations, but you don't want to eat that up in fees. And I'm afraid what prx is, the way they're going is it's, again, it, it's not going to benefit the content creator in a, in a big, you know, it's gonna hurt them from being able to get micro payments. People are gonna have to send 10, 15, 20, or $25 at a single time, which is okay if you got fans that will do that, but the value for value model, uh, works a little bit different.

6:47 So it's disappointing they didn't go with the regular podcasting 2.08 that everyone else is adopting, but so be it. Uh, they might come around a different implementation . They might come around and they're using the name space, so that's, uh, yeah. You know, they're actually, that's. A good thing. They're actually using the value tag included in the podcasting 2.0 tags. So that's a step, you know, one right little bit at a time. Luva Burton is launching his first kids podcast called Sound Detectives, star Trek actor and host of Reading Rainbow on Public TV for years. So, uh, LaVar is the Voice of Sound Detectives. Yeah. He's gonna be, uh, collaborating with Julia Smith and Jonah Slovs, , I'm sure I butchered that name. But, uh, it, it's a show that's gonna, you know, it's four kids, but it's gonna be kind of a, a drama sort of thing where they're looking for sounds that are missing in the world, should be fun for the kids. And, uh, lava's been, you know, doing Reading Rainbow, of course, he was the, uh, actor in Roots way back in the seventies, played Kuta Quinte. So, uh, he's pretty famous guy, and, uh, good to see him, uh, getting into podcasting.

7:57 Interestingly, found that Slack now produces a transcript if you upload an audio file. Uh, we're not sure how usable it is yet, but we discovered this last week, and apparently those other chat services have this too. So, Mike, when you guys upload the audio file, what did it do? Did it just pop a transcript next to it at some point? Yeah, it was, uh, fairly quick. Uh, Lee sent back our file, you know, after editing last week for this show, and I look at that and there's a, a transcript popped up underneath, and I scrolled through it, and it's even time hacked. And Wow. You know, I don't know if you can download it or if you can cut and paste it or what, but, uh, that may be another way of getting a transcript at some point.

8:40 I wonder if that is for premium customers or everyone that uses Slack. We ought to try that on a free account. Yeah, I'll have to do that. Uh, but, uh, I know on our, uh, company one, it worked just fine . So Oh, that's cool. Yeah, it was, uh, it was slick and, and like I said, it was time hacked, so you might even be able to cut and paste, save it as an s r t, as another way of doing it. So anyway, lots of transcript stuff starting to show up. Of course, if you remember, blueberry has a relationship, uh, with a transcript vendor. You can add that as an add-on at Blueberry to automatically get transcripts for your podcast every time you publish an episode. And that will show up in the Player as a closed caption option. So, uh, definitely consider adding and making your podcast accessible by getting transcripts created automatically through our service, which, uh, is one of the top rated, uh, transcript companies, uh, in the world.

9:35 Yeah. And the cool thing about that is you don't have to cut and paste and do all that stuff. No. You just click a button and it shows. Up. Absolutely. So tell me about this True Crime Podcast listener that's now turned into a murder suspect. Yeah, Robin Ward, he's the host of the True Crime Podcast. The trail went cold. Notice something odd when he scrolled through a bunch of, uh, his listeners, I don't know how he knows the names of the Lister listeners, but one of his subscribers was a, uh, person of interest in a 1984 case that he talked about on an episode back in 2017. Hmm. Uh, yeah. So that, that's a little suspicious. And I guess in April of 2019, the guy, the, the listener, made a call to investigators with offers to divulge what he knew about the disappearance. And, uh, anyway, long story short, he's, uh, up on murder charges in Greenley, Colorado. Wow.

10:30 So, uh, so yeah, he thought he would be smarter than the police, huh? Yeah. But you know, it, it's just, you know, they always say that the criminal comes back to the scene of the crime. This is kind of that mm-hmm. , uh, he probably was, uh, you know, searching through his podcast and saw this one, and Oh, I know something about this one. . Right. So. Bizarre. Yeah. Very, very strange. All right. We've got a best practice, uh, reach out to be a guest on your favorite podcast. Now, we don't mean your favorite podcast is not relevant to insights or expertise that you can provide, but you should reach out to be a guest on a show you're familiar with for a meaningful conversation.

11:12 Yes. And, and the thing about this is, don't just cold email somebody that you think might put you on their show without doing. You know, don't be, don't be that person that says, dear, and then, you know, whoever and have this form letter trying to get on podcasts. I get those all the time, and it's like, eh, I'm not even gonna entertain this. But, you know, if you've done your homework and you know about the podcast, like you guys listen to this podcast, if you, uh, reach out to us to be on our show, chances are you've already heard the fact that we, we want hosting customers and we want to, uh, you know, talk about something relevant to podcasting. Not, uh, not your latest, uh, , business venture or whatever, but, uh, you know, make, make sure it's a meaningful, you know, and in line with it, you know, I, I, I like, uh, the show No agenda. Okay. And they don't even take guests, but even if they did, I probably wouldn't be a good fit for that show because Right.

12:10 I don't pay attention to the news like they do. . So, and another thing too is I get, uh, emails, you know, talking about getting, uh, uh, pitched is my tech show has no guest, but I get, Hey, Todd, I love your show. It's fantastic. Ah, I love to be a guest on your show. Well, I haven't had a guest in 18 years. Right? So that tells you that they don't listen, they're just doing a pitch email. They know relatively nothing about it. So, uh, yeah, just try to reach out to those shows that you love, that you can add value to. That's really the, the simple thing.

12:51 Well, I tell you, we've got a whole bunch of exciting stuff coming. Matter of fact, Mike, I was working on documentation today, um, the, um. Never Ending Task. . Yeah. And, uh, I basically have the post ready to go on the description mm-hmm. of what Podcasting 2.0 is, and all the things that I'm gonna talk about in this particular segment here. And matter of fact, we might wanna link to that post, I'll, I'll send you the link when I'm done. Okay. But we've added a bunch of podcasting 2.0 features are now in the Blueberry publisher. Now, some of them have already showed up in Power Press, but Power Press is coming soon. But, and we could spend quite a bit of time on each one of these.

13:34 And these are in different locations, so you're not necessarily gonna find these all congregated in one area. And in the documentation that I'm hopefully finishing up today, you'll find, uh, where these, where these, um, items are stashed, but we've added the location tag and location, self-explanatory. You can essentially link to the location that your show originates, along with the ability to link to the location of your latest episode. So if you're normally, like Mike and I are doing the show, he's in Traverse City, I'm in Coldwater, we can pick if we want the show to be, um, located in Coldwater or Traverse City. But if, let's say we do this show at in Vegas Yep. And go to the new media show, we can set the episode location, uh, to Vegas. Right?

14:23 You already know about the transcript tag. The transcript tags have been in the system for a while. We also have the ability for you now to add chapters. And these are different than Apple chapters. These are podcasting 2.0 chapters. And we actually link, will link you to a tool to create chapter files. And these new chapter files are largely seen on apps that are basically over@newpodcastapps.com. But one of the cool ones that's on there is a, a person tag. So Mike and I are doing the show today, right? So we can actually set this episode to Mike and Todd mm-hmm. if next week it's Todd and Mackenzie. We can set the, the person, basically the two hosts to Mike and Mackenzie.

15:04 And then if we do have a guest now let, we'll have, today we have an, um, a blueberry pro tip that's coming in, and we could actually document the Blueberry Pro tip and who that co-host was. Yep. In the person tag. So the person basically allows you to document, um, at the show level and at the episode level who is available, but probably the most complex tag is the live item tag. And it's often referred to as lit. So for those of you that are doing live streams, in other words, you're streaming on Facebook, you're streaming on YouTube, maybe you got a Shoutcast server, you've got the ability now to tell podcasting apps your, your pending schedule of when you're gonna be live, when you go live, and when you end, you document.

15:54 It's basically a manual setting for pending live. And the cool part about this is, is when you fill this documentation out for the live item tag, the app will switch your show to live, and basically it becomes a, a place to consume the content in, within the actual podcast app. Yeah. It's real slick. I I, I, you know, you guys have been doing it on new media show, and I find that listening to an audio stream through the podcast app that I use in this case pod verse, it's just handy, you know, for the, for the listener and, you know, and sometimes I forget, you guys are going live, you know, usually I'm doing show prep for this show while you guys are doing that show.

16:35 And you get an in-app notification. Yeah. I don't even have to leave my app. I just hit Right. Okay. Hit play. Cool. Now, here's something I'm gonna offer up in this show. If any of you want to do live and do an audio stream, um, I have available audio stream capacity on a shoutcast server that I've set up. Uh, the company's paying for it, so if you want to be a, um, a guest and use, and I, I'll be happy to set you up an account on that platform. Um, there's some simple software you need on the front end, Mac or PC to be able to livestream audio stream your show to if you don't wanna do video, to be able to be, be live with your show. Mm-hmm. , um, if you would like to do that, just you can send me an email, todd@blueberry.com and then I'll figure out where in the schedule if they're, if you are a recording time doesn't conflict with others that have already asked, we'll get you on there. Or if you want more inform, I can send you details. But this live item thing is very, very cool. Now, again, this is for dashboard users only. At this time, power Press will be updated soon with the same tags, but we've got the text tag.

17:48 Yeah. The text tag is kind of neat because that's going to enable us to remove emails from RSS feed, so you'll get less spam. Right? There'll be other uses for it in the future, but that's the main one right now. But as soon as we get the text tag and Power Press, we're going to be removing emails at, in your RSS feeds at blueberry and at in within Power Press. Mm-hmm. so that you won't get spammed anymore. At least new people that are scraping feeds are not gonna be able to get your email address. You'll. Be able to turn it on for, you know, for like, Google Podcast still uses email, so you turn it on, Google sends you an email, you turn it back off, good to go. Right? And then pod peeing, there's something that happens behind the scenes, you don't even know it's happening. uh, pod peeing is basically set so that when you update your episode, it auto, it basically sends a signal on and say, Hey, this, this show has had a brand new episode, please update the directories.

18:44 And everything is tied to that. Instantly updates, there's no delay. Uh, apple Podcast is not tied to Pod Bing, so we still send a we SubHub hub Yeah. Ping as well to help that process along. But, uh, a Pod Ping will get you again, updated in a lot of podcasting apps, uh, over@newpodcastapps.com. Yeah. And it's also what causes the live item tag to, uh, pop up switch instantly. Yeah. Or nearly instantly. And then value for value is coming very, very soon. And, uh, the value for value, we'll be spending some time on talking about, oh yeah. In detail, uh, how that works, um, what it really means, and really the excitement, uh, behind it. But again, power Press will be updated with the same tags, uh, very, very soon.

19:29 Right. And you've got some speaking gigs coming up. Yeah, I'm doing a popup in, uh, pod Fest. I'm doing a 10 or 15 minute on stage to talk about Valley for Value. And then I'm speaking, we're doing a new media show live as well on Friday. So, uh, if you're in the area, if you're in the Florida Orlando area and you want a expo only pass where you can go in and see the vendors, uh, we have some expo only passes available. Again, we just wanna, for those of you there in within striking business, probably Tampa, Orlando, yeah. That area, uh, you want to go and see the expo, we have Expo passes available. Let us just drop us in email. Yeah. Again, and we'll make sure you get one of those.

20:13 The emails will be in the show notes as per usual. . And I'm also, I was asked to be on a panel in, uh, in Vegas and March for Podcast Movement Evolutions. Uh, it's a, uh, pro programmatic advertising panel. So it's, uh, actually being, uh, moderated by, uh, Rocky over at Sound Stack. So I'll be one of, uh, four people on that panel talking about programmatic advertising at podcast Movement Very go. So we have a pro tip, Mike. Yeah. We have one from Toby. Uh, about first impressions in artwork. Hi there, it's Toby Goodman here. First impressions.

20:54 I grew up in a world without the internet. A world where when you met someone new who didn't know anyone in your social or work life, first impressions were made and received. The moment you met in person, some of you might remember that as podcasters, we make impressions on people we've never met all the time. But to the new potential scrolling listener, it's not your podcast audio itself that makes the very first impression. It's often your artwork. While some podcast players display episode artwork, others will only display the main album artwork. So using the first impression lens, let's focus in on that album artwork. The truth is, for scrolling potential listeners, the combination of how strong your show name is and how you present it visually can mean the difference between a few or a few thousand listeners Per episode.

21:48 This week, I was asked to review a piece of podcast artwork of a client who's moving over to pro production and to the surprise of this person who was very proud of what he had, I told him his beautiful podcast album, artwork needed to go. Now I can agree it was a great looking piece of art, but as podcast album art, it was absolutely useless. While the script font writing looked fantastic on my computer monitor, there was a major problem. The spelling was fine, the show name was good, but once I looked at it in situ, it was completely illegible. You see, in Sit, it's a thumbnail, and that means it's thumbnail sized.

22:30 So swirly writing just looks like a s scribble. Even with my glasses on and my eyes pressed up to my iPhone, there was no way me or anyone else was gonna be able to read it. And that means few, or maybe no one in Pod listener land was gonna bother clicking on it and become a listener. There were other mistakes too. Award-winning host was a prefix. It took up too much space. And what award some of you may know, I spent the best part of 20 years touring as a musician, and probably over half of those years in my home country of the uk. So I've had my fair share of curry and fish and chips, and you know what?

23:12 On the wall of every single one of those places in this country, an award, presumably nine out of 10 bestowed upon these people by themselves. So who cares? This is not headline information. They had me at Curry House. So here's what you need for your artwork. Show name and maybe host name. Not always essential. That's it. Then you need art that creates the feelings you want to emote. I'm no graphic designer, but I've been through enough branding and rebranding meetings to know fancy script fonts or a no-go. When it comes to small sizes, plain sands style fonts are winners as they're much easier to read. Then you have colors. Take blue, for example.

23:58 Some blues might feel too corporate, while others might feel too calm. So pay attention to this stuff, it matters. My pro tip for today is keep your artwork simple. Clean fonts, no more than a few colors that compliment each other, and you are good. But just like editing audio and podcast, post production, graphic design isn't something you learn overnight. It's okay that you can't do all of this stuff. If you're not an expert at graphic design, people go to school for this stuff. Thankfully, a few of those people work with us. So it widens the eyes of your prospects rather than irritates them. If you are ready to professionalize your podcast, we'll show you how it works for a helping hand.

24:42 We've got everything you need to help you get your podcast on the right track. Come and say hi over@blueberrypro.com. Thanks, Toby, for that Blueberry Pro tip. And of course, first impressions in artwork is extremely important. So Mike, we've got a question of the week. What's up? Somebody from Facebook says, I use Audio Technica at h m 50 headset for podcasting, but I need to buy three more pairs for guests. I don't wanna spend 200 bucks each. So can you recommend a decent headphone option that sounds natural and is easy to listen to for long periods of time? Well, I don't have a bunch of different headphones.

25:29 I use an audio Technica headphone when I'm not, uh, on camera. But I, I use a, uh, Sony MDR 75 0 6, uh, for, you know, just listening to music and whatnot, and I really like it, so I'm sure it'd work well for podcasting. They're about 80 bucks, uh, right now at b and h. Uh, not a, uh, affiliate link, but I'll have a link to that one in the, uh, show notes. But they're on sale right now for like 20 bucks off. But, you know, headphones for guests, uh, I don't know, what do you dot I know you guys use the, uh, ATR or the, uh, audio Technica boom headset. Mike's out in cs. But yeah, so, you know, I really think if it's a, if it's a permanent, someone that's gonna be permanent on the show, they should have their own headsets. Yeah. But, you know, I like in ear earbuds, but the problem is I use Assure, and they, they're actually wired, but that's probably not something a guest is gonna wanna put in their ear because, you know, they don't know if they've been in another person's ear.

26:34 So probably something over the head if they're truly a guest, that's just gonna be on one time. And I don't think you have to spend a lot of money, I think think under a hundred bucks. Um, long as the host has, uh, you know, good sounding headsets, it really doesn't matter. Yeah. As long as a guest can hear, you can, you can go cheap. Um, I, I would, I would spend as a minimal amount of money as possible, but one thing I would do is buy ones, had a cuff, have a cuff that cover the ear, so that way, uh, especially if they're in studio, they're not going to get, um, any audio feedback coming from Yeah. Crosstalk or anything like. That. Yeah. So I would definitely have a cuffed headset and go as cheap as you can.

27:17 Probably that Sony 75 0 6 Mike, that you recommends are on $80. I'm familiar with that headset. Probably would be the one to buy. But again, I think you can go cheaper. Yeah. It might be overkill. Yeah. , yeah. You can go cheaper with, uh, the main thing is the good microphone. You know, if you, if you're gonna spend the money, spend the money on microphones and then go cheap on headphones. Yeah. That's, that's the best way. As long as they can hear you and, you know, they're not uncomfortable. I, I think Right. Pretty much anything. But anyway, if you got a question you'd like us to answer a show, drop an email to mike blueberry.com, audio, text or video, we may use it. You can also post a question on the Blueberry Podcasting Facebook group, which we definitely want you to participate in.

27:58 Yeah. Get over there and, uh, you know, let's, uh, let's stir up some conversation. That'd be fun. Best place for support with any blueberry product or service is our ticket system. Uh, that's over at blueberry.com/support. Tickets give the whole team access rather than direct emails or calls. And of course, you've been, we've been coming to you this week for the new Media Production Studio Quarter Michigan and Mike Dell's World Studio in Traverse City, Michigan, produced by the Blueberry Pro production team@blueberrypro.com. You can fill out our listener survey at surveys.blueberry.com/podcast Insider. You can always schedule a one-on-one with us as well. Hosting customers only for myself, it's todd@blueberry.com.

28:41 And with me, it's mike@blueberry.com. Makes sense, right. ? Yep. And of course, if you wanna get a care package, send us your podcast sticker and a self address stamped envelope and we will send you a Blueberry Care package. That address is within the show notes@podcastinsider.com. So, Mike, did we cover everything today? I do believe so. And, uh, and now that it's, uh, after the new year, we're, we're not having a slow news a as it has been so. . Yeah. So things are kicking up and moving along, which is good. And we got some changes coming to the show here in the new future. I hope you're gonna like it. We'll talk to you more about that later. But again, uh, you're gonna wrap this show up, uh, episode 3 28 for Podcast Insider for January 12th, 2023.

29:27 Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Take care. We'll see you next time here on the Podcast Insider. Yep. Catch you next week.