Podfest Recap: Plus Monetization Strategies for 2025

Dave Jackson [00:00:01]:
Ask the podcast coach for January 25, 2025. Let's get ready to podcast. There it is. It's that music that means it's time for ask the podcast coach where you get your podcast questions answered live. I'm Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting.com, brought to you today by Sudafed. And joining me right over there is Jim Collison from, the average guy dot tv. Jim, how's it going, buddy?

Jim Collison [00:00:30]:
Greetings, Dave. Happy Saturday morning to you. Sorry that you're sick again. Good to have you back from Podfest. Right? Good Yeah. Those kinds of things. Do you think you picked it up? That's always like, conferences are always sketchy. Right?

Dave Jackson [00:00:43]:
It's kinda weird because it didn't kick in. I got home on Sunday, and this started about Thursday. Thursday, I had a, like, a little sniffy nose. Yeah. And then Friday was, like, you wake up and your eyes are floating in hot water kinda thing. And I was just like, that's this is no fun. And then today, I feel a little bit of my aura ring told me I I have less symptoms. Because yesterday, it was like, hey.

Dave Jackson [00:01:08]:
Guess what? You're sick. And I'm like, really? No no crap. You know, buddy? It was like but, yeah, it's the thing that's really it's a mental thing. I had all these plans for 2025 to hit the ground running. And, you know, first, I get COVID, knock that out the door, go to Podfest, come back. And I was like, I really I I have things that I wanted to do that I put off. You know? And so Yeah.

Jim Collison [00:01:31]:
Well, don't be discouraged. Just write January off. We're close to the end anyways. Write it off, and just start over again in February.

Dave Jackson [00:01:38]:
Yeah. That's it. You you but, right now, my throat is a little sketchy. I have no upper range. So when I went, you know, hey. Anything up here is just gone.

Jim Collison [00:01:46]:
Yeah.

Dave Jackson [00:01:47]:
Just gone. What what might help it though, is, of course, a a steaming hub of a cup of hot Java. And, that particular coffee pour is brought to you by our good friend, Mark, over at podcastbranding.co. If you need really kinda anything, whether it's artwork, if you need a website, if you need a PDF for a lead magnet, if you need anything that you're gonna give to the public, well, Mark's the guy you wanna talk to. He makes really pretty stuff. It's gonna it's just gonna make you look professional, really, is the bottom line there. If you're worried about how you're gonna look in front of people, Mark is the guy to go to. And the beautiful thing that you're not gonna get with every graphic artist is Mark's a podcaster, so he gets it.

Dave Jackson [00:02:32]:
He understands podcasting, and you don't have to give him the idea. You just hey. Here's my show. We're kinda light and bouncy. Maybe a little idea what the flavor of the show is. He's gonna go check out your show, check out your website, and make sure your brand fits your show. And he'll give you a couple different options. Sometimes you just get, you know, one, here's your artwork.

Dave Jackson [00:02:52]:
No. No. Mark's gonna give you a couple to pick from. And, I I've been lucky. Every time he sends me a couple, one of them is I'm like, that's the keeper right there. So, when you're ready to go, there's only one place to go, and that is podcastbranding.co.

Jim Collison [00:03:12]:
And, of course, big thanks to our good friend, Dan Lefebvre, over there based on a true story, based on true story podcast .com. Because we were off last week, by the way, for those folks, thanks for giving us a week off. Dave's a pod fest. We'll talk about that more here a little bit later. But, because we took a week off, Dan got 2 new episodes out. 1 based on the movie 13 days. So you might wanna check that one out. That's that's about all those things that went on during the Cuban missile crisis and during the Kennedy administration here in the United States.

Jim Collison [00:03:39]:
And then, if you're in a World War II guy or gal, Battle of the Bulge, and that's, we're not talking about the midsection. We're talking about 1945 during World War II, the Battle of the Bulge out there now. And, check those out. Dan, thanks for your sponsorship. Dave, you're familiar with battle battle of the bulge. Right? You know what happened. Or does that

Dave Jackson [00:04:01]:
No. I don't. No? I just I've heard it. You know? Yeah. First reaction was like, is that a porn? Like, no. It's okay. No. Alright.

Jim Collison [00:04:09]:
No. And it has nothing to do with us old guys, you know, when we get

Dave Jackson [00:04:13]:
old. Right? But

Jim Collison [00:04:15]:
yeah. No. 1945, the the, the, Germany takes one more attempt to kinda, you know, it's the world is closing in and they make one more attempt to kind of push through the western lines. And, of course, we know now with history that was unsuccessful, but lots of drama there, lots of movies made about that. And

Dave Jackson [00:04:36]:
so Interesting.

Jim Collison [00:04:37]:
For for enthusiasts, for World War 2 historians. Let's not say

Dave Jackson [00:04:40]:
That's it.

Jim Collison [00:04:41]:
Nobody's enthusiast about war. Right? But for historians, it's a big it's a big it's a a big historical event.

Dave Jackson [00:04:49]:
Yeah. Randy says, I'm still crying that we're not having podcaster happy hour, which is supposed to be next Monday. And the thing is even if I'm better on Monday, I'm so far behind. I'm like, and it's weird because on one hand

Jim Collison [00:05:05]:
You wanna switch

Dave Jackson [00:05:06]:
this back? No. That would be good. Thank you.

Jim Collison [00:05:07]:
It's okay.

Dave Jackson [00:05:08]:
It's the Sudafed. Not that Dan doesn't need. Like, everybody, let's just look at Dan's logo for an hour and a half. Yeah. So Dan

Jim Collison [00:05:14]:
would We did skip him last week and and worked too. So we should,

Dave Jackson [00:05:19]:
give him that. Yes. We'll we'll just randomly show our sponsors here this week. Yeah. That's it. But, yeah. So I I just was thinking about Monday, and the people I I thought I would find somebody at Podfest because we always podcaster happy hour podcaster happy hour dot com. Right now, it's just a newsletter, and I tell people, hey.

Dave Jackson [00:05:40]:
We're having a Zoom meeting. And, the people I wanted to talk to at Podfest weren't there. That was an interesting thing. There were some people like BSW, not there. Podbean, not there. I was like, yeah.

Jim Collison [00:05:54]:
That they're usually

Dave Jackson [00:05:56]:
Yeah. They they're always there. And I I I thought I heard somebody say that and I forget their names. The one woman always had bright orange hair. And then the other guy, I like to forget his name, but he was a guitar player. So we would always talk guitars, and somebody said they're no longer with the company. I went, oh, so that's that's interesting. But the fun thing yeah.

Dave Jackson [00:06:18]:
The fun thing at Podfest was I was manning the, the booth for PodPage. And the first thing is, right, I I get this big box of a booth and, like, the world's worst IKEA instructions ever to put this in the whole time. I'm like, because it's all based on tension. You you pull your banner tight and blah blah. And I like, I'm a guitar player. I like my fingers, and I'm trying to stretch things over the edge of stuff. And I just kept telling myself, this is the learning curve. Enjoy the learning curve.

Dave Jackson [00:06:47]:
The next time you do this, you won't have to do this, but that was the fun part. But I started off. They released the hounds, and everybody comes into the vendor area. And I I'm facing 3 people, and then there's kinda 2 people behind them. And the first person looks at me and goes, so what's a PodPage? And I was like and I and I went to answer. And the 2 people standing next to him were customers of PodPage. And they're like,

Jim Collison [00:07:11]:
oh,

Dave Jackson [00:07:11]:
it's the best thing ever. It's you know, I've been with them for 3 years and blah blah blah. And I was like, about that time, Brendan texted me because I'm just kinda standing there kinda chipping in where, you know, there's a place. And Brad's like, hey. How's it going? And I'm like, we just opened, and I'm watching our customers sell our product to future customers. And he's like, alright. You can go home. I was like, yes.

Dave Jackson [00:07:32]:
Kinda it. So it was, it was a lot of fun, though. The other thing that

Jim Collison [00:07:37]:
Any puppies or beer or what what

Dave Jackson [00:07:40]:
It was any any

Jim Collison [00:07:41]:
of those kinds of gimmicks?

Dave Jackson [00:07:42]:
There was a pen of 1 puppy, and I think it was somebody had a booth and just wanna bring their dog. There were a couple dogs at the event. I don't know if it's the old emotional, what's the step? Yeah. Because I always wanna bring my emotional support giraffe, but there's a problem.

Jim Collison [00:08:01]:
Now come on. Yeah. You'd never get it on the plane. Let's just be let's just be clear.

Dave Jackson [00:08:06]:
And I I got fun words from Jeff. Jeff says Dave's session of Podfest was excellent. One of the best of the conference. Holy cow. Not blowing smoke, really. What I did and you'll hear it in the next episode assuming I have a voice of the school of podcasting. But it was all about editing. And so I and not so much, like, what tools, but, like, what what do you keep and what do you lose? And I thought, you know what? This is gonna have a ton of questions.

Dave Jackson [00:08:33]:
So I think the session was supposed to be 30 minutes with with 10 minutes of questions, and I made my presentation, like, 20. I clocked it in at 20, and then figured I would add stuff as I always do on the fly, and I did. So, but, yeah, I, George Robb was a guy that I got to induct into the hall of fame. I've known George for probably 19 years at this point. And I saw him. He's like, hey, man. Your session was good. And I'm like, thanks.

Dave Jackson [00:09:02]:
And he's like, no. I'm I'm he goes, I've seen a few. And he goes, is there a rule about selling from the stage? And I go, yeah. I go, if you noticed, I barely mentioned that pod page had a survey tool. I go, because I don't really wanna sniff that topic. And he's like, well, somebody didn't get the memo. He's like, I've attended few of these, and he's like, holy cow. And I'm like, well, that's interesting.

Dave Jackson [00:09:24]:
I'll have to, let Chris know. But, yeah, it was fun. The other thing that was interesting, I always do a thing now at the beginning of my sessions where I turn around and take a selfie, and I go, if you have no idea who I am, I go, my ego is not bruised. I just need to know that this is the first time you're seeing me. And what was kinda good and kinda bad was, I don't know, maybe 5 people. Almost everybody in there knew who I was, which is good to have your friends there. But, it's, it was it was fun, and, that was good. The fun part was, again, I was running the booth Yeah.

Dave Jackson [00:09:58]:
And it was like, I looked down. I'm like, oh, crap. I'm talking in 15 minutes. So I grab my stuff, run down the hall, do my presentation. That was on Friday. Then I run back, work the booth for a couple hours. Oh, time for, hall of fame ceremony, dress rehearsal. Run back to the thing.

Dave Jackson [00:10:15]:
It's a lot of lot of running there, so that was always kind of fun. But Jeff says 30 minutes for a session is, it needs to be longer. That's tough. It's tough.

Jim Collison [00:10:25]:
And that's stuff.

Dave Jackson [00:10:26]:
Writing anything, shorter is a pain in the butt as much as you're like, wait. I've got because here's the thing. I've I got to induct I was honored to induct George Robb from, geologicpodcast.com. Really entertaining show. If you are a person that is offended by people that don't believe in God, don't listen to that show because George is a a stout, skeptic. But, you know, I I made a joke in my presentation. I said, now why do I listen? Because because one of the things George says at the beginning of the show, you'll hear interesting fauna, you know, Rupert McClanahan's indestructible bastards. And then he says, not the Bible.

Dave Jackson [00:11:02]:
So what are you gonna hear on Georgia's show? Not the Bible. I get that. I said, what do I why do I listen to it? And I said, because I'm not a skeptic. I go, because Georgia also has a segment that's called the religious moron of the week, and I just gotta make sure it's not me. You know? But I've known George for 19 years, and I've known Tom Webster. I got to induct Tom Webster. And here's another guy that has done so much. And I

Jim Collison [00:11:25]:
was like Yeah.

Dave Jackson [00:11:26]:
So I had and I had originally, it was 1 to 2 minutes to to, like, kind of explain why this person is awesome and why they deserve to be here. And I was I told, Rob Greer. I go, is it really just 1 to 2 minutes? He's like, hey. He goes, we're inducting more people this year. So we got and I was like and then later, he said, okay. 2 to 3 minutes. But even that and so, like, the the first time I just brain dumped on George Robb and read it. It was 9 minutes long.

Jim Collison [00:11:54]:
Mhmm.

Dave Jackson [00:11:55]:
And I was like, oh, and I really had to sit there and think, okay. What's the big thing that makes George Robb George Robb? And I was like, this dude is super creative. You know? And so that was basically it. I I ended it by saying, I don't care how many quantum computers you make and how much AI there is. You're not gonna make a George Robb because the guy's just he I mean, you think I do voices. This guy has tons of dialects and, you know, the thing I love, like, his family's from Ukraine. So when that whole war kicked on, he got a whole new perspective on that. And then Tom Webster, of course, has been, you know, measuring podcasting.

Jim Collison [00:12:34]:
Yeah. Oh, for sure.

Dave Jackson [00:12:34]:
Forever and I asked him, I go, were you at the thing in Ontario, California in 2006? And he's like, yeah. And I go, I'm I just remember Todd, and we were using the PA system. We're so we're in a dimly lit hotel room. There's an open bar and about 50 to 80 podcasters. This is 2,006. So open bar and podcasters is usually not a good combination. And Todd is talking into this PSM that's coming through the speakers in the ceiling. So it has the clarity of a broken McDonald's drive through, you know, speaker.

Dave Jackson [00:13:08]:
Mhmm. And Tom gets up to give his report. And I my punchline was and that was the first time I almost heard Tom Webster because it was just it was just literally Charlie Brown. It was like, okay. Just scare. Like yeah. So Yeah. It was like it wasn't always clamorous, folks.

Dave Jackson [00:13:24]:
So, Yeah. Yeah. John says, George doesn't have an invisible sky buddy. No. But the cool thing is he doesn't care that I do, and I don't care that he doesn't. Yeah. Right on. We kinda know you know that I know that you know that in in a fiber have questions, I could go ask him.

Dave Jackson [00:13:40]:
And if he has questions, he could ask me. So, yeah, it was fun. It was a good time. But that was I I obsess over that when I did Daniel's last year. And I the thing I loved about it is I'm 4 sentences in, and I forget what it was. I was supposed to say there, and I said your or something. I got one word a little little left to center, and I just fixed it. I was like, well, you know, and it blew them out of their out of your socks I mean, their socks and just went on.

Dave Jackson [00:14:09]:
It was like, okay. It's not perfect. You can relax now. You know? It's just and so it was fun. Yeah. Jessica Kofferman. I was so bummed that Jessica was not there. She and here's I'm nobody really knows, but it was something the the the rumor, so take this for what it's worth, was, Elsie was gonna which makes sense.

Dave Jackson [00:14:32]:
Elsie was gonna induct her. Jessica, you know, one of the driving forces behind She Podcasts, which, has, you know, 80,000,000 people in their Facebook group and things like that. And there was something where Elsie couldn't make it, so Jessica was like, well, if Elsie can't make it, I'm not going. That that was the rumor. I have no idea if that's true. I just know we were all dying to see her. Now she did a video. They both did videos, which was great, but I really just wanna give her a big giant hug and say congrats.

Dave Jackson [00:14:59]:
But, yeah, that was, that was fun. But, in terms of, best swag of the, the the show, it was so cool. I I should have brought mine here. Buzzsprout had a laser etcher. And all what it is, they basically had these key chains with kind of a teardrop. You know, you've seen your typical key chain. And what they would do is he would pull up your album artwork on a computer and etch it in the leather key chain.

Jim Collison [00:15:29]:
Nice.

Dave Jackson [00:15:29]:
And it was like, that was cool. And I I I asked, Kevin who's, one of the the founders of Buzzsprite. I go, is this a case where Kevin bought a fun tool and brought it here so he could expense it?

Jim Collison [00:15:41]:
Yes. Exactly what happened. Yeah.

Dave Jackson [00:15:43]:
He's like, you should be an accountant. Uh-huh. Yeah. But, the the thing that I'm hearing, though, is the like, number 1, this always happens. New people like, I just started my podcast, or I'm thinking of starting a podcast. They come in, and it's just a fire hose. Right? So the word you always hear is overwhelm. And I always tell people if they're like, man, it's just so I'm like, hey.

Dave Jackson [00:16:09]:
Just for the record, that's normal. Like, if you're thinking everybody else is, like, got everything I'm like, no. No. No. All the new people here are, are overwhelmed. And then, you know, the Jeff C's of the world, the the Nancy, May, they're all these people have been doing it for a few years. They're kinda there for the networking, but that's the thing where I think they have a pro, track where people who are doing this for a living. And, I hear that's a great track, but that kinda sounds like they need to have more of that content available to people who don't wanna spend for another ticket.

Dave Jackson [00:16:51]:
Yeah. So that that's the thing I've heard. Because people like, well, I didn't really learn anything new. But, like, I I the thing I ran into was, opportunities to maybe, collaborate. I don't know if that's that might be too strong of a word. But, basically, things PodPage could do with other companies. Mhmm. You know, basically, swap, kind of stuff.

Dave Jackson [00:17:12]:
I did see there was a booth across from me, really nice guy, whose name I can't remember, of course. But, podstars, I believe it's podstarz dotcom. If if that's not it, it's an s. And what's interesting, I I barely looked at their site, but they have things like wrestlers. It it's kind of like what if pod match, had a baby with Cameo. Right? So not like super duper celebrities, but you're like, oh, I I remember that guy. And so you can pay to have b list celebrity on your show. And I said, oh, wow.

Dave Jackson [00:17:51]:
That's interesting. And I go, now do you teach your customers that they need to, you know, disclose that per the FTC? And he was not aware of that rule or or not. And I'm like, oh, yeah. That I go if somebody's getting paid to be on your show, I go, it's it's pretty clear. Any any kind of way that somebody is banning benefit, you gotta disclose that up front. And he was like, So that was, you know, but I haven't checked out their site yet. So I'll have to, to see. I know there's a new one, talks dotc0, and this one's different because, yes, it's a place where guests and, you know, hosts can kinda match up.

Dave Jackson [00:18:35]:
But they also said there were events. Because I said I have a hard time finding events. I know the, oh, I forget the guy that, you know, helps you be a paid speaker. But they're all like, oh, go talk to colleges. I'm like, I don't think colleges wanna hear me talk about podcasting for 30 minutes. So, that's the one thing I'm kinda looking for, marketing events, you know, things like that. But it's it's the the you know, Joe Pardo is not doing his thing. The one in Washington pod or Podfest, or no.

Dave Jackson [00:19:07]:
I forget the one in Washington. That was cool. A lot of them have kind of gone the way of the dodo. Jeff C says, not a fan of the protract. People come to rub shoulders with their podcast heroes, which takes a lot of them out of the 1st day. Oh, yeah. That's not good. That's the thing I always tell people.

Dave Jackson [00:19:22]:
Mike, if if you're going there to do interviews, that may not be the thing people wanna do to take an hour out of like, I came here to network with people, and now I'm in a a booth. Although, I gotta say, ECAM, which we're using right now, they had this giant room, and they had these little, almost like little baby houses that people could go in and record, interviews. So that was cool. Mhmm. You know? Let's see. Tanner, I think, has a question. I still need new glasses. I do a how to podcast for ghost hunting and paranormal topics.

Dave Jackson [00:19:59]:
I wanna do premium content with an exclusive show, PDFs, and discount. What's the best platform? Well, Tanner, you've you've hit the nail on the head because, here's the fun thing. Now that people have been podcasting for a month, the question is let me go down to this. It is basically let me share my screen. Somebody asked about buy me a coffee, and they're like, hey. It doesn't have any advertising. Well, I I don't know how buy me a coffee makes money because they charge, like, 2.9% plus 30¢. I'm like, that's the credit card processing fee unless they are behind the scenes their own credit card of some way.

Dave Jackson [00:20:39]:
But there's no, like, monthly fee, and there's no, like, we take, you know, 10%. It's not like Patreon. And then somebody also asked, how far into your podcast do you get before introducing Patreon? So the the questions we're getting now are, okay. I've been doing this for a month. It's a lot work. Oh, now Tanner said he's been doing this for a while. But I've been doing this a while. And how do I make money with this thing? And so nobody likes any of my answers.

Dave Jackson [00:21:08]:
But when I did my research for, the book, you know, profit from your podcast. Turn your

Jim Collison [00:21:14]:
You've written a book? Really?

Dave Jackson [00:21:17]:
Profit from your podcast.com. Proven strategies to turn listeners into a livelihood where according to the the front page, I interviewed 70 podcasters, to give their best advice and insights. And, a, to make what I I kinda I think in the book, I called it car payment money, was about 3 years. So that's that. And then the thing that nobody likes is that it takes about well, you're gonna get if you're really, really, really good. 3%. Yes. There we go.

Dave Jackson [00:21:49]:
Look at him.

Jim Collison [00:21:50]:
He's he's I'm looking it up. He's just curious. Hold on.

Dave Jackson [00:21:53]:
I can

Jim Collison [00:21:54]:
look at I'm looking it up right now.

Dave Jackson [00:21:56]:
But it's, like, 3% of your audience. So my favorite right now, now and and always, Jim, it's a podcast question. So how am I gonna start this answer?

Jim Collison [00:22:07]:
It depends.

Dave Jackson [00:22:08]:
It depends. Yes. So it depends because I know, like, Patreon, you can do gift cards. You can do, you know, merchandise. You can do all sorts of stuff. You know? And the, so if you wanna do that, Patreon. But they're gonna take I think it's 12% if I remember right. And it depends on how much you're charging.

Dave Jackson [00:22:29]:
I love Supercast because Supercast, they take 59¢ per person plus whatever the process. I think I don't know if they count the processing fee, but, anyway so if you're charging $5, well, that's roughly 10%. You know, maybe a little more. But it's super easy. With Patreon, when somebody signs up, if they wanna listen to your stuff, they're either gonna download the Patreon app, or they've gotta do the old copy of the RSS and paste it into your favorite app. And that can be an absolute nightmare depending on who your audience is. So I like Supercast because all I'm doing is giving premium content. So in the case of, the awesome supporters, they get a a ad I I shouldn't say ad less.

Dave Jackson [00:23:20]:
There there are less ads in that version than there are in this because they still think the awesome supporters, but I usually insert 1 or 2 little baby ads. They're, like, 15 seconds long into the public version. And if you're an awesome supporter, you don't get those. So, but in terms of when do I start doing this, as always, it's your show. Do what you want. The thing I hate to see, though, is people start off. It's hard. You're going through that learning curve, and you're like, man, this is taking forever.

Dave Jackson [00:23:51]:
It's harder than I thought. And then you get your, you know, first two episodes out, and you got 32 downloads. And you're like, wait. I got 35 people in my my family. Like, grandma's not listening. And so that's disheartening. And then you're like, oh, and I'm not making any money. And that's the thing I hate is now you're you're gauging 2 things.

Dave Jackson [00:24:09]:
My downloads, and I'm not making any money. And it's that I'm not making any money thing that can really just after, you know, 7 episodes, you're like, I've done this for 7 episodes, and I'm not making any money. I don't even have one. And I'm like, well, it's because you got you're up to 54 downloads times that by 3%. It's not even a person yet. And that's if you're really, really good. And so as much as I should be saying, oh, start a podcast, and money will fall from heaven and blah blah blah. For 3 easy payments, I will show you how.

Dave Jackson [00:24:39]:
I'm like, no. That's kinda not the truth. You know? It's, so I I, you know, I would I would say look at Supercast. Look at Patreon. A fair amount of people already know Patreon. They're kind of the Kleenex of of, group, funding kind of thing, but I like Supercast. And then the other thing you have to do, I just I just did an episode about this on the your podcast consultant show. You gotta let people know.

Dave Jackson [00:25:10]:
I mean, it's always a joke. Right? When I hold this up, Jim goes, you have a book? But I remember, I do a show with Eric k Johnson called the podcast review show. And no joke, I was talking about something, and I said, oh, I I remember when I was doing that with my book, and he goes, wait. You have a book? And I go, yeah. Profit from your podcast. And he's like, I've never heard you talk about it. And part of it is and for the record, this next paragraph will be in a member it's gonna be in the school of podcasting. Because I came over with something, and I was like, oh, that's that's clever.

Dave Jackson [00:25:41]:
But, we we get stuck on the call to action because we feel like a salesy, you know, used car salesman. And I always say to people like, oh, so and that guy's selling you a bucket of bolts. And they'll go, yes. And I go, so you're saying your podcast is a bucket of bolts. And they're like, no. I I worked, like, 10 hours on that. And I'm like, okay. So it's helpful then.

Dave Jackson [00:26:02]:
They're like, oh, yeah. I'm I'm pretty yeah. I think so. Yeah. I'm like, so why are you stopping yourself from helping people? You know? It's and and but I thought about even just the phrase call to action. When I hear the phrase call, you know, part of me, you're calling after somebody, Or maybe you're a a slimy construction guy in New York. Hey, baby. What's going on? You're you're calling people.

Dave Jackson [00:26:25]:
And then action is sometimes shouted at you from a director. Like, you will take action. Do your thing, Mike. Okay. So instead of call to action, think of it as a nudge to value. Like, it's not a call to action. It's a nudge to value. But if you don't tell people, you know, that, you've got this thing, and if you wanna support the show, you can.

Dave Jackson [00:26:47]:
Nobody's gonna do it. It is not a, oh, I'll just throw a PayPal button on the website. Well, most of the people listen to your show, don't go to your website. They're listening in Apple Podcasts or whatever, things like that. But I know, if you if you start promoting that on episode 1, as long as you know nobody's gonna sign up, it gets the audience in the what's the word? In the routine of hearing you promote this so that when you finally get enough people to you know, like, hey. If I could get 3% of a 1000 people now that I've built my audience because you don't monetize a podcast. You monetize an audience. And so you've built an audience now that if you get 3% of them, you're like, that's that's a car payment.

Dave Jackson [00:27:34]:
That's that's when, in theory, like, you should maybe start to expect. But even that, I've had people because in the book, I talk about 3 years. And I'll I'll have people come up like, hey. It's been 3 years, so I'm ready to monetize. And I'm like, well, how many downloads are you getting an episode? They're like, a 112. And I'm like, okay. So that's maybe 3 people. You know? It's it's it's tough.

Dave Jackson [00:27:56]:
I hate to be you know? And by all means, try it. But that's why, the somebody asked that and read it, and I said, this is just one of many income streams. Like, it's not the only one. It doesn't have to be just Patreon. It could be Patreon and affiliate marketing and this and this and that. So I don't know. Thoughts, Jim? When when should people try to monetize?

Jim Collison [00:28:16]:
No. Well, let me go back to the original question of those platforms. I think you've you nailed it from what's available out there. You know, I I always hesitate. This is in the in the YouTube slash guru culture we live in now. You know, the the one answer of this is the one to go with, and then you find out that YouTube is sponsored by them. The the YouTuber was sponsored by them or whatever. So it's hard.

Jim Collison [00:28:40]:
I appreciate you always giving a couple different answers along those lines. Yeah. I dig into a couple. I think you mentioned a few of those. And, you know, I so so good work on that. I think from a monetization standpoint, and I know you give the 3 years, and I think that's an average. It can be faster. Trust me.

Jim Collison [00:28:57]:
There are people who've gotten out there, who've made it go fast. They've done a lot of work. They've got a little lucky. They do some stuff and get it done. It can go faster. It can be longer. And it's, there's, there's only so much. There's only so much attention in the space.

Jim Collison [00:29:11]:
You know, if you're jumping into a I'll use I'll use me as an example. If you're jumping into the tech space, although this space is kind of a lot of folks have exited the space. But if you couple years ago, you jump into the tech space, everybody was doing tech podcasts then. It's a very crowded space. You're gonna have you know, you're gonna be competing with a lot of people. If you're jumping into a more more of a niche, yeah, the audience is smaller, and I say this all the time, but those that you do find are gonna be much more engaged because you're scratching the itch. Right? You're getting down to the to the brass tacks. You're getting you're you're hitting right right there in the sweet spot.

Jim Collison [00:29:52]:
So as you think through that piece, you know, you're like, hey. Am I a small fish in a big pond, or am I am I just still that small fish in a smaller pond? Right? And that's okay too because you know? But depending upon what your goals are and what you're hoping for with this thing, that that can work as well. So, you know, yeah, 3 years is a good is is good, Dave. It could go faster if you depending upon you, depending upon your situation, what you do, what you hit, who works, how did how did it go, or did you get did you get some luck? Did you get a break? Did somebody mention you? You know, some of those kinds of things. The key, I think, in all of this is just to make sure your motivations are lined up. You know, sometimes we say, well, you gotta you gotta love this. I don't know if you have to love it. You just have to have your the right motivations for it.

Jim Collison [00:30:40]:
I know a lot of people who do a lot of things they don't love, but the motivation of a financial reward for it is large enough that they put the feelings aside for a moment. And like, well, you know, the payout's pretty good on this thing. I think I'll I'll figure out ways to put up with it. Right? Is that sustainable? I don't know. You you make the call on that one as far as how that works. But I do think, I do think it can it can go faster. It just go go to to to wrap that up, that segment. It just depends.

Jim Collison [00:31:12]:
Right? Depends on you. It And then Listen, you can work hard at this, and it goes nowhere. You can do nothing at this, and it goes everywhere. Why that happens? I don't know. Sometimes the universe just blesses you, and it it just for some people. Listen, John Lee Dumas could have gone nowhere with that. He could have tried that format, and it would have gone nowhere. Now it did.

Jim Collison [00:31:36]:
Now you're like, yeah. But, Jim, it did. Well, okay. Yeah. It's a foregone conclusion now because hindsight's 2020. But I'm sure for every one John Lee Dumas, there is 10 people who tried the exact same thing, and it and it didn't have the same

Dave Jackson [00:31:53]:
at least, I think, it was 26 shows that tacked on on fire. Me and Steve Stewart had a shared, spreadsheet, and it was literally like librarians on fire. It was just everything. Yeah.

Jim Collison [00:32:07]:
Well, I'm not talking about copycats. I mean, I'm just talking about someone who tried a daily. Yep. That wasn't the first he wasn't the first one to do that. He was just the first one to be successful at it. And so we know him because, you know, history is written by the victors. And so we know and you're like, oh, well, if I just do everything he did, well, maybe, but maybe not because there was a lot of lot of other things that went well for him. Rogen is another, you know, if we're gonna if we're gonna pick on, you know, big podcast examples.

Jim Collison [00:32:39]:
I'm there's other celebrities who've had other things happen to them that tried to do this, and they've been mildly successful just because they've had mild success in some of the things they've done, in other areas. Why did Rogan go? Why is he he have the success he had? Could you copy him and get the same success? Probably not.

Dave Jackson [00:32:59]:
No. Probably not. I started I cherry picked some episodes from Joe. One of them was Julian Lennon, because I'm a Beatles fan. And this is the the kid of a a Beetle, and I'm like, you know, I'm gonna check this out. And I'm here to tell you, I almost hit stop at 55 minutes because I was bored. Yeah. Like, big time bored.

Dave Jackson [00:33:20]:
I'm I learned that Julian knows where the best pasta is in Monaco, and that his mom married a nice guy. I don't care. I don't really care. And it's kinda weird with that guy because you wanna talk about his dad, but you don't wanna just, like, ignore the fact that there's a person in front of you that probably is interesting too. But at the hour and 7 minute mark, he said, my dad always told me if something happens to me and I wanna let you know everything is okay, I will do it with a white feather. K? Then he tells an amazing white feather story. And I'm like, why is it at the hour and 7 minute mark? You made me wait an hour and 7 minute mark for something I'm now going to tell my friends. You gotta go listen to this.

Dave Jackson [00:34:03]:
But I had to sit through 58 you know, an hour and 7 a 106 minutes of, I couldn't believe it. The chat room's been going crazy. So Yeah.

Jim Collison [00:34:12]:
We've ignored a few of their questions. We can Yeah.

Dave Jackson [00:34:14]:
I'm sorry, guys. Let's see. This one, I'll talk about in a second. What would I change about Podfest? That's always fun. Bite the hand that feeds you, Dave. Yes. But, Craig says I'd like to see more online workshops. I can't afford across the Atlanta.

Dave Jackson [00:34:32]:
Yeah. I mean, anytime because I know Craig was at Podcast Movement once, or twice. I I remember one time we roomed together. It was great. But that's anytime I see anybody, like Mark and, Kieran from Captivate were there. That's not cheap, and it's, really taxing on your body. But they they came over for a week. They hung out at Podfest, and then they were gonna go golfing, because they love to golf.

Dave Jackson [00:34:57]:
There again, you spend money on a, a hobby. But Tim lets me know the Empowered Podcast Conference is in June, Charlotte, North Carolina. Last year was the 1st year, and I totally forgot, doctor Brad Miller has Podindy, podindy.com. He said I'd love to some way to connect with other live events. I wanna network and learn from those folks. There is a Michael Stelsner interview on I forget what show, but he gave all the behind the scenes of social media marketing world and talked about how he does now his tickets are much more expensive, but he doesn't rely on sponsorship. The other thing that I would say to anybody doing event, you can't start promoting 2 months before it starts. And, you know, it's just it's I would look at podcast movement.

Dave Jackson [00:35:44]:
I look at Podfest. I look at their websites because that's the other thing. You know, your first impression is huge. And so you you gotta and make it easy. I mean, the pod I talked to Rob about this. You have to buy a ticket to get into the the hall of fame ceremony. And if I went looking, like, somebody said, how do I buy a ticket? And I was gonna send them a link. I was like, oh, I finally found it, but it was not should've been on the front page.

Dave Jackson [00:36:09]:
Click here and buy your ticket now. And I was like, what? Who's who's doing that? So that was, a little crazy. Back to the Patreon question, Dan said, I introduced pace Patreon when I had someone ask me if I could set up, set one up so they could support me. Yeah. George Robb was a guy that his audience was like, look, George. You're an amazing musician. He's a fantastic drummer. And, and they said, we bought all your CDs.

Dave Jackson [00:36:36]:
He even put out some sort of coloring book. You know, like, yeah, we bought that. Would for the love of God, can you throw up a PayPal button? You know? And then uncle Marv, let me know. Buy me coffee does make money by charging 5% on all transactions. So there you go. And also, Patreon has a 5%, 8%, or 12%. So it depends again on what you're you're doing over there. Substack, Doctor says, here's the funny thing about substack.

Dave Jackson [00:37:02]:
I went over to play with it and put in a dollar amount to, like, sponsor me for a year and, like, woke up the next day and somebody done that. And I was like, oh, well, now I gotta do this, I guess. Alright. But also, Substack, Ross Brand, one of our awesome supporters, they're now doing live streaming. And I was like, oh, interesting. And then Mystic Mac 413. How about merchandise? In my travels, not a big seller, but it depends. As always, it's a podcast question.

Dave Jackson [00:37:37]:
Any kind of meme or inside joke. I I remember the one, somebody it was a LGBTQ plus show, and somebody left them a one star review, and it was something some sort of somewhat offensive word, blah blah blah. And they took that one star review, took a screenshot, and turned it into a a T shirt. So it was kind of like, oh, yeah? I'm gonna wear this with pride now. If you have any kind of, catchphrase or something there was somebody I interviewed, and they had just found there was something about a chocolate banana, and I don't know. I didn't wanna go what that really meant. It was some sort of inside joke. And so they made a T shirt.

Dave Jackson [00:38:17]:
And here's the thing. They made it limited availability. If you want it, get them before they run out, which is stupid because you're using Printful, and they're not gonna run out. But it's like, hey. Get them before you know, they're only on sale from now till the end of February. So if you want your chocolate banana shirt and they sold a fair amount because the you got that fear of missing out thing going on.

Jim Collison [00:38:38]:
Yeah. On merch, I would say start small. I think a lot of folks make the mistake of trying to offer, okay, we're gonna do t shirts and hoodies and mugs and

Dave Jackson [00:38:47]:
Yeah.

Jim Collison [00:38:48]:
And pens and paper and, you know, you're like, okay. In the in the early days of your merch, start small. Just do one thing or a few things and and make it limited so you don't lose your shirt on this thing and see what the appetite is for that. You know, kinda test those waters out. I I watched this YouTuber, that the name of the channel is outdoors with the Morgans, and it's it's literally just a guy. He's retired. And, actually, YouTube now is his profession. And he just all he does is 2 videos a week of all the things he does on his he's got a, you know, he's got a kind of a multi acre property, and he cuts wood and builds things.

Jim Collison [00:39:30]:
And it's just his life. He's just sharing his life. But they they started selling, you know, hoodies and shirts first. And then, he realized he found a supplier who sold, a fire starter. Okay. Fire starter. This is just chips of wood soaked in some kind of flammable, right, that help you start your fire. It's, it's, it's chips of wood.

Jim Collison [00:39:55]:
Right? So he starts making it available. Mike is his name. Mike Mike Morgan. He starts selling this. He can't keep it. He cannot keep it in stock. They they bring it in for whatever reason. The the the the niche within his audience, you know, it makes kinda it makes sense.

Jim Collison [00:40:13]:
Right? These are people who burn a lot of wood and do things like that. Right? And and he gets to the point where he has to start offering and he has to get on the program and say, I'm sorry that we're out of Firestarter. Like, we'll we're getting more. He's he's got a, you know, he's got a source of it there in Pennsylvania. We're gonna get more. Well, it's kind of began to dominate the channel. And he now he's showing on his channel how they package. He had to buy equipment to package, put it, put labels on it, sell, box it.

Jim Collison [00:40:43]:
Part of him, part of his channel now is showing how he's selling merch. Like it's an inception. It's a, it's a merch inception. Right? So you, you never, you know, would I have ever in a 1000000 years, I mean, I buy my Firestarter and these little chip things at Menards. I never would have thought to buy it from a YouTuber. Right? But you never, with your audience, you never know. And so start small, give it a try. If it if it goes gangbusters, go a little bit bigger.

Jim Collison [00:41:13]:
You know, it's just business. It's just business, friends. Just go a little bit bigger, go a little bit bigger. Just be careful. I think sometimes the tendency is we have immediate success, so we go all in on the second one, and then it doesn't, you know, doesn't quite always do as well as we think.

Dave Jackson [00:41:29]:
What's the name of that show, the guy with the Firestar?

Jim Collison [00:41:31]:
Outdoors. Do you wanna buy some Firestar?

Dave Jackson [00:41:34]:
I do.

Jim Collison [00:41:35]:
Have I intrigued you? Yeah. Outdoors with the Morgans is the name of that on YouTube. Mike Mike. It's it's very fascinating. It's just a vlog. It's an old it's an old school vlog. It's just he's always doing his filming what he does every day. You know, you get a couple days worth, and then, you know, he he he puts 2 videos out a week.

Jim Collison [00:41:54]:
I listen. I this is a guy. I'd sit down and, you know, drink a cup I don't know if he drinks beers, but I drink a couple beers with him if he Yeah. I why am I attracted to that? It's just where I'm, you know, it's just where I'm at in my life. Right? I just I it gives me he's doing some cool stuff. Stuff I don't want to do, but I like watching, you know? And so it works. But that that's a merch story. That's one I've been thinking a lot about is watching his success.

Jim Collison [00:42:22]:
I watched him launch this fire starter, and I was like, what are you doing, Mike? It's chips of wood soaked in some kind of flammable Right. Thing that you like, come on. We I buy these at Menards.

Dave Jackson [00:42:35]:
Like, you know The beauty of it is it's proof of concept. Yeah. When you when you start because I remember the guy, and this is a real show, the chameleon breeder. And he had cages made, and his audience said, hey. You know, we could buy these cages from overseas a lot cheaper, but we wanna buy them from you. It's the whole law of reciprocity. You know, you've given us so much because it turns out there's not a lot of people doing podcasts about chameleon breeding, and, they wanted to give back. And so he said, yeah.

Dave Jackson [00:43:07]:
He goes, my, my supplier said, can you kinda, like, on the promoting the cages thing? And I said, dude, no. No. You go get a different supplier. I go, you've you know, either or get a second one and, you know, make sure they're making them to the right spec or whatever. I go, but that's proof of concept. You don't slow down. You put you found something that works. Put the gas on that thing and let it go.

Dave Jackson [00:43:28]:
So, yeah. Brad asked, any take on the captivate version of Patreon? Here's the thing that's interesting. I have my book, profit from your podcast. God, it's one of those days, isn't it? As an audio wrote a book. I know. On, sound wise. In fact, that's one of the things when my voice comes back, I need to wrap that up because everybody that bought it, before the end of January actually, before the end of anyway, I'm they're gonna get a shout out. Early early buyers get a shout out at the end of the book.

Dave Jackson [00:44:00]:
And, it's on sound wise because I got it on AppSumo. But and and this could also work just to be fair on Buzzsprout because you could have a podcast on Buzzsprout or Captivate. Don't list it anywhere. Make it private. Make all the episodes private. And then, with Captivate, you could basically sell that book. And when they buy it, they get access to these bonus episodes. Well, all the episodes are bonus episodes, and you could basically you know, I think with Captivate, you have to copy and paste the RSS feed, where Buzzsprout, you don't.

Dave Jackson [00:44:35]:
That's one difference. But, it's just I if I remember it, it's 12%. So it's very, Buzzsprout and, Captivate are both in that 12 to 14% range. So they're they're kind of the upper range of Patreon. The nice thing, it's it's all in one place. You know? So that's the, the bonus of it. But I've, I tried it once on the podcast rodeo show, and that's that's just a show that was not it's weird. People loved it, but yet when it came to I had it to where episodes after 6 months, I think I went in and set them to where you had to pay to listen to them.

Dave Jackson [00:45:10]:
And I didn't give it a lot of time to really test that, but I never had somebody because there were, you know, there are 15 shows that were free, or you could get access to the other whatever 100 shows that were paid. And everybody's like, no. I'm good with just the the free 15. And then Craig Craig, said I'd be nervous about moving to another service. Well, right now, if you go to ask the podcast coach.com/awesome, you will see that if you sign up, you're signing up with Supercast, which what happens is because I didn't go to everybody on Patreon and say, hey. We're moving. I kinda hinted at it. You know? I'm like, hey.

Dave Jackson [00:45:43]:
If you wanna give me another 4%, you could move over here. But right now, Randy Black from, Bible Bytes is the only person on, Supercast. So I just upload it twice, is is the thing. If you move you know? And so and to me uploading I just at this point, I've put everything into to, Patreon. So I just upload the file, go into Patreon, copy my show notes, paste it into, Supercast, and we're good to go. Ralph said I I added a buy me a coffee, and I've got close to 700 episodes. I honestly honestly did it just because a few people asked me if they could support the show. So, yeah, when do I when do I start monetizing? When people go, hey.

Dave Jackson [00:46:23]:
How can I give you money? Mhmm. Yeah. That's that's really it. And then there are people like John. Mister Jamango says podcast cost me about $200 a month. I consider it a hobby. If I was a golfer, I would spend more than that on a on the greens fee, fee. Yeah.

Dave Jackson [00:46:40]:
It's, golf and, you know, I I I did a thing once in a presentation. I looked at golf, bowling, and I forget the other hobby. But I spend at least a $100 a year on my bike just to get it tuned up and new tires if I need them and brakes and that kind of stuff. Tanner, the man that kicked this off. Yeah. Supercast and Patreon are the front runners. I also do courses and books. I love the pod page has the course of storefront.

Dave Jackson [00:47:07]:
Yeah. All that is, it's funny because you could link to courses and books on pod page before. We just made the button for you, basically. And so check out, I believe it's pine. I wanna say pine cast, but that's not it. For selling courses. It's weird because it's $29 a month for that versus, you know, Teachable or I'm using Zendler, which is $60 a month. But this is it's one of those where I'm like, it's you talk about moving stuff.

Dave Jackson [00:47:43]:
If you're doing courses and you move to a new platform, that is no fun. I cannot find that anywhere. Link is in the show notes when I get done with the show, because I typed in Pine, and that's not it. Brad might remember if he's still on because I talked about it a lot at the school of podcasting, but it is escaping me now because I'm full of Sudafed and airborne.

Jim Collison [00:48:08]:
You're listen. You're doing pretty good, Dave, for for being all hopped up on on, cold medication. You're doing great.

Dave Jackson [00:48:15]:
Yeah. Here is we do have some other questions. Dan made this great point about growing your audience. No one likes to hear that there's an element of luck to it all.

Jim Collison [00:48:26]:
I know for sure.

Dave Jackson [00:48:27]:
But it is true. I did talk to

Jim Collison [00:48:29]:
manufacture that luck sometimes. Right? I mean, luck is where hard work meets opportunity. Yep. And so you can manufacture that in some ways by being by working hard. Like, it's it's it it's not a requirement. Right? Because you cannot do anything and get lucky still. Like, that opportunity can still come your way. You still might find that $100 bill as you're walking out of the store.

Jim Collison [00:48:53]:
Right? That's lucky. But, if you if you put yourself and and that analogy breaks down pretty quick. But if you put yourself in some situations with a lot of hard work where that opportunity might arise, right, the the more episodes you have out there, the better quality that they are, the more networking that you do. And any one of those things doesn't guarantee it, but it does put you in the right place for that luck to happen. And so you, you, you, again, this is the, this is the crazy thing about it is you can do all this work and get nothing, or you could do no work and get something. It's probably gonna be something in between, just to be honest. Right? Generally a lot of hard work pays off and generally people who do nothing don't get anything. It, we always, we always tend to focus on the extremes on this thing, you know, where our brains kind of go, Yeah, well, but that guy didn't do anything and he got so lucky.

Jim Collison [00:49:48]:
Okay. It was one person, you know, 17 people get struck by lightning a year. It just happens. But, that being said, I think you you can, Dave. You can't sometimes you can manufacture, and I'm putting in air quotes. You can manufacture that luck just with a lot of hard work. Guarantee? No. Does it give you better opportunities? Yes.

Jim Collison [00:50:09]:
Even gambling, the more you do it, the better your odds are in some cases. If you don't gamble, you're never gonna win it. Right?

Dave Jackson [00:50:16]:
Yeah.

Jim Collison [00:50:17]:
No. Don't I'm not advocating for gambling. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but that's one of those, you know, situations where, it you know, you got you gotta put some effort in.

Dave Jackson [00:50:28]:
That's it. Jeff says, also, people are afraid to ask. The worst a company can say to you is no if you pitch a sponsorship. I gotta tell you this, though. Do I name I won't name the company. But I'm setting up the booth. And somebody walks by, hey. We're neighbors and blah blah blah.

Dave Jackson [00:50:47]:
And they're like, do you need this? And I'm like, actually, I've been thinking about buying your product. And they're like, great. And then, the one lady they they played good cop, bad cop. And the bad cop lady started to pitch me. And I go, yeah. I'm kinda like, this is not a good time. I don't I'm kinda I'm like, I'll I'll see you later in the show, though. Though, but I'm like, no.

Dave Jackson [00:51:06]:
And so then good cop came back and was like, great. Whatever. Whatever. Bad cop pitches me again. Long story short, the 4th pitch, I because the 3rd pitch, I go, I I don't mean to be rude. I go, I don't mean to shut you down. I go, but this is not a good time to pitch me. And then, she pitched it.

Dave Jackson [00:51:27]:
That was the 3rd time. And the 4th time I said, you are this close to losing an absolute sale. I go Yeah. I do not want to be pitched. I don't wanna be rude. I do not want to be pitched now. Listen listen to your your future customer. And and so, yeah, that was, you know, pick your pick your time.

Jim Collison [00:51:49]:
I I haven't I haven't anti pitch built into me, and the second I sense it, it can be something I've been thinking about buying for years. Yeah. As soon as I get a hardcore sales pitch, I'm like, I don't want it anymore. I'm not I'm not interested. I don't it's just it's the weirdest thing that's that that's part of my personality is I just don't and maybe that's everybody. I don't know, Dave. Maybe that's everybody. I just don't like the pitch.

Jim Collison [00:52:17]:
And and or maybe it's a bad pitch. Right? Maybe that's a or or like in your case, maybe it's an overdone pitch. Like, read read your audience, friend.

Dave Jackson [00:52:26]:
Yeah.

Jim Collison [00:52:26]:
It's But maybe maybe she's been very successful doing that. Right? There are folks I you know, I bought things from people who've been very insistent. And eventually, like, okay. I'll just buy it.

Dave Jackson [00:52:36]:
Yeah. Get to get out

Jim Collison [00:52:38]:
to for you to get out of my house. Right? Whatever. So

Dave Jackson [00:52:41]:
Yeah. I did buy oh, forget what it was. But I bought something under that circumstance and hated that person after that. I was like, I bought this. I don't need it. It's way too much money. And I had a contract for, like, 6 months, and I was like, you stink. You know?

Jim Collison [00:52:57]:
Yeah. As soon as I feel a sales pitch, I just am like, peace out. I I don't this is this is the like, my philosophy in guests, oftentimes is you don't ask me, I ask you.

Dave Jackson [00:53:10]:
Right.

Jim Collison [00:53:10]:
And so I just if somebody comes to me and they start pitching and you can kinda feel it. Right? Like, I just I it's I have this anti, I I now if someone if someone, you know, like, someone from this community who's listened to me for a while Right. Who would who would send me a note and say, Jeff c did this. He would in in fact, Jeff, I Jeff, let's see if we can connect because I need to have you back on the show. But, Jeff c contacted me. He's like, hey, I got I heard you say on the show you were getting into this. I've been doing that. Would that be a good fit to to be on the show? Well, okay.

Jim Collison [00:53:48]:
Yeah. I mean, I have a relationship at that point. Right? Is the listener here? They they knows who I am. But just somebody out of the blue, and they're like, this is why I would be good. I I struggle with that. It I shut down. I'm like, no. Not gonna not gonna do it.

Jim Collison [00:54:02]:
So I don't know. I don't know why that's probably not important content for this show, but thanks for letting me say it.

Dave Jackson [00:54:07]:
Well, no. There's there's a time to pitch and a time to listen. You know? Yeah. Stephanie says, I wanna host an artist meetup in March. I should start promoting it now. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I you don't have to do the Chris Karmitzos thing where he promotes it about, I don't know, 9 months out of the year and starts flying around the country.

Dave Jackson [00:54:29]:
But you you can't wait till the last minute because people need to plan and, you know, sometimes especially, they're gonna use their vacation, things like that. Chris Stone from, castahead.net. I use the Captivate private feed for one of my clients, and it works seamlessly. This is, that extra paste RSS step, which loses a few people, But, a a great option. Yeah. I plus it works with Zapier. I don't put a lot down it, but I have a private feed for the school of podcasting. And so when somebody signs up at Zendler, Zapier says, oh, add them to this private podcast.

Dave Jackson [00:55:06]:
And then it Yeah. Emails them that, hey. Here's how you get your stuff. So going back to Doctor's question, or no. This was for you, Jim. Let's let me let me take this other one first, and then we'll do that. What would I change about Podfest in 2025? The only thing now here's the thing. New CEO and Nick is awesome, by the way.

Dave Jackson [00:55:27]:
I met that guy in person for the first time and really went the extra mile in a way. I I always love having, you know, the paper thing from the event. Right? And they were out of them. And it was like, oh, and Nick's like, hold on. He goes, we might have one in the back office or whatever. And he went and got me one. And I know it sounds stupid, but it's a little thing. But it was like the fact that I wanted one.

Dave Jackson [00:55:51]:
He's like, I'll I'll I'll find one. So that was cool. But they've raised their prices on stuff. And my guess is because Chris is a, you know, he's a community guy, wants to help everybody, maybe not making a huge profit margin on on Podfest. I don't know. I I'm I'm just I literally have no idea, but they they raise their prices on some stuff. I know if you wanted to sponsor a party, I heard somebody say that was a lot more than it used to be. I know as a speaker, you didn't get a full ticket.

Dave Jackson [00:56:21]:
You got the next to the bottom. Like, there was the the just get me in the door ticket, and then there was one, that's the ticket you got. You didn't get, like, a VIP ticket, which I personally thought was a mistake. Because don't you want your speakers at the VIP events so that people can mingle with the speakers? I don't know. That was my thought. But in terms of changing, I wouldn't change much because they do a really good job. As a as a vendor, they do a really good job of sending traffic to you. So that's that.

Dave Jackson [00:56:53]:
I would and and I I'm only saying this from 2 people I heard while there's a lot of pitching from the stage. So I would go back and listen to those recordings and flag people who are selling. There are some like Larry Roberts, the red hat guy. It's well known. This is a paid thing. You're going to a paid thing, and Larry is going to pitch you. And it's at the very end of the event. So that's nothing against Larry.

Dave Jackson [00:57:20]:
Like, he's, hey. You're gonna get pitched. We're gonna talk about AI, but at the end, I'm gonna pitch you my I AI stuff. So I'm not talking about that. But, and I don't know nobody named names, but I just heard there was a bit of pitching. So I that would be the one thing I think. I would go back and watch, and, really, every event should do that, because nobody likes to sit through a pitch. And then one while we're still talking about conferences, how long has Jared easily been gone from PM? Not very long.

Dave Jackson [00:57:51]:
Nobody knows the story on that. I even asked Gary Leland, and Gary Leland's like, I'm not really involved with podcast movement anymore. I just know Jared reached out to me. And if you if you need a Jared, I asked him. I'm like, dude, what do you do? I would be I he's connected with me with so many people. Talk about the law of reciprocity. This guy has helped so many people that I in fact, now that I'm back, I need to kinda text him or something and say, dude, what how can I help? Because, I don't know who left who or what the deal was. But, yeah, Jared is no longer working for Podcast Movement, and I think it's it's up to, you know, us to, like, help him find a job something somewhere because he's a he's a great guy, you know, and and has a really big heart.

Dave Jackson [00:58:35]:
And, I was kinda sad to hear that because that's you know, it's, it is what it is. So now, I don't know if you do you need to get your nerd on?

Jim Collison [00:58:46]:
No. But let's do let's let's thank our supporters.

Dave Jackson [00:58:49]:
Let's thank our awesome supporters. Well, I still

Jim Collison [00:58:51]:
They'll cover that on the backside.

Dave Jackson [00:58:52]:
Yeah. So you can be an awesome supporter by going to ask the podcast coach.com/awesome, and you'll see all the people over there check out their shows and click on their links. But, the show is all also brought to you by the school of podcasting.com where you get, online courses step by stepping you through things. You've got, an awesome community and, my favorite, unlimited coaching. In fact, I use an app that lets me send, text messages, audio, or video to people. And I was having conversations every day. I wake up and, like, oh, Kenny's got another question. And so that's part of it.

Dave Jackson [00:59:30]:
And they're like, oh, I thought it was 1 on 1 on Zoom. No. We do that unless Dave's at Podfest. But that that worked really well last week. So use the coupon code coach when you sign up at school of podcasting.com, And we're using PodPage. Big news on Monday, by the way, especially if you're, if you like newsletters, you're gonna like what happens on Monday, at PodPage. You can check it out at, tripodpage.com. Very excited for that feature, by the way.

Dave Jackson [00:59:56]:
That's been requested a lot. And, we mentioned ECAM earlier. Check them out. Ask the podcast coach.com/ecam, and I saw a video on their beta, and they're gonna start adding not so much where I can bring in my VST effects, but they're gonna have audio effects. So if you want a compressor or EQ, you're gonna be able to kinda tweak that live, which I was like, well, that's kinda cool. I haven't finished watching that. But, hey. If you need more Jim Collison and who doesn't, well, then just go over to, the average guy dot tv and, check out Home Gadget Geeks.

Dave Jackson [01:00:31]:
And it is time, and this time we're doing this on the screen because I couldn't get things to work. So, hopefully, you see the wheel of names. Is that correct, Jim?

Jim Collison [01:00:40]:
I I do see it. I do see it. Yes. Correct.

Dave Jackson [01:00:42]:
So will it be Randall Black or Jodie Crangle? I got to see Jodie Crangle. We kind of said hi and talked for there's a lot of that at at the show where I saw people. We'd wave. We're like, we gotta catch up later, and then we didn't. So, it could be Ed Sullivan at at, Sonic Cupcake, Greg at Indie PodCon. There's, Ross Brand. They're all there. Craig at AI Goes TO College.

Dave Jackson [01:01:03]:
Who is gonna be the featured supporter of the week? And you go with the, it is we're talking I talked to Glenn about this. He's like, do you have the wheel rigged? He goes, why do I keep winning? And I go, I don't know. But, our featured supporters, Glenn the Geek. You guys saw. I I just clicked randomly, from Horse Radio Network. He's he's got some sort of magic voodoo going on that he keeps winning. But, if you'd like to be an awesome supporter, you can go over to ask the podcast coach.com/awesome, and it you don't have to spend 20. We also have $10.5 if you're just like, I do wanna support this because, hey.

Dave Jackson [01:01:47]:
You know what? You save me time. You save me money. You save me headaches, and you keep me educated and maybe even a little entertained. Just go to ask the podcast coach.com/awesome. So we appreciate that. And then, do we need to play the jingle for this?

Jim Collison [01:02:02]:
Well, because I wanna hear the kids. I wanna hear the kids.

Dave Jackson [01:02:04]:
We wanna hear the kids? Alright. I wanna hear that. It means it's that time, kids.

Jim Collison [01:02:08]:
And now, he's been waiting for this. It's time for Jim to get his nerd on.

Dave Jackson [01:02:20]:
And this is from Doctor. It

Jim Collison [01:02:22]:
just makes my heart happy.

Dave Jackson [01:02:26]:
Except I clicked on the wrong one.

Jim Collison [01:02:28]:
Oh, it's okay.

Dave Jackson [01:02:29]:
But she was asking

Jim Collison [01:02:31]:
Yeah. I made a comment earlier about less podcasts. I think I believe there are less podcasts about technology or tech podcasts today than there were in the past. And she's asking me why do you why do you think that? I when I started tech podcasting about 12 or well, 14 years ago now, I guess, there was most of the podcasts were, were tech. You know, they were just tech podcasts. Now from a percentage standpoint, I think in those days, they were, they were, they probably represented a good number of the podcasts that were available. Technology people, were more adapt to doing podcasting. Required computers and powerful stuff and all that other all those other pieces.

Jim Collison [01:03:15]:
And so just kinda those 2 kinda went together, but with the proliferation of podcasting gear that's easier to do and that tech has really changed. I mean, in 2007, I don't think enough people realize what happened to the PC in 2007. When the iPhone was released, PC numbers dropped drastically and they've been dropping. Right? Now we all still I mean, we work and we have PCs, but we we don't it's it's not like the days, of old when everybody had a PC. That was their only way to connect to the Internet. And if you wanted to do anything, you had to do it on your PC. We are quickly moving into a world or have moved into a world where, most people are really consuming a 100% of their social media or whatever they're doing on their phones. And we just don't see that.

Jim Collison [01:04:06]:
And then there's just not, I mean, yeah, there's podcasts out there about how to do phones, but but the, phone operating systems and that kind of technology, it's just way better. I mean, the the days of Windows 95 and Windows 98 and then Windows 2,000. Those were terrible days to try to do things. Those that operating system was awful. It was for most people, it was hard. It was glitchy. You needed people to help you with your tech. So there was that kind of stuff was out there.

Jim Collison [01:04:38]:
We've come a long way from that. Most of the most folks who own a PC today or a Mac, are power users. And so they just know how to they know how to do things. They just don't need the help the that that they used to. The average guy, so to speak, with the brand there. The average

Dave Jackson [01:04:54]:
guy

Jim Collison [01:04:55]:
who I try to talk to has moved on from some of those things. Are there tech topics, like home automation, some of those kinds of things that are interesting that people need help with? Yes. They're consuming it differently. You know, my my tech podcast is more of a variety show than it is a how to show. A lot of the how to stuff has moved to YouTube, right, from, in a in a traditional sense of it fits nicely in with that. So that's Doctor, that's a long explanation, probably one people have just fast forwarded through. But it that's that's why I just think when I say that, like, I just think there's less there's less, of what I do that's out there. Now that's good for me in some regards.

Jim Collison [01:05:40]:
For people looking for those kinds of shows, I'm out there doing it. I'm still out there doing it. And so people can can if they wanna come and listen to a personality and people talk about it in we say news, reviews, product updates, and conversation, that's that's our space. That's what we do. I think there's less of those.

Dave Jackson [01:05:58]:
And I I think that situation of I don't understand this. I need help. That is now AI. That's where people

Jim Collison [01:06:07]:
For sure.

Dave Jackson [01:06:08]:
Yeah. I mean, there's For sure. Yeah. One of our awesome sup yeah. One of our awesome supporters is AI goes to college, but I know Mike Russell has a YouTube channel. And just every week, he's like, here's more tools. And I was like, I haven't played with you once from last week. You know? But that is something that that these will but here's you're ready for a a quick tangent just talking about where we were? So I didn't sleep at all last night.

Dave Jackson [01:06:31]:
It's you know, you do the whole 45 minute session until you have to flip and let your nose run to the other side. And so I woke up this morning, and I asked Spotify. I go, hey, play I didn't sleep at all last night, which is a song by Billy somebody. It's from the fifties. It is so 1950. It's hilarious. Because they even do the bump bump bump bump in the middle. You know? And, but at the end, he mentioned something about the milkman.

Dave Jackson [01:06:52]:
And I was like, I have not thought about and, I mean, it's really blurry, but I remember having this little silver box outside of our door, and the milkman would put that, put milk in that. I don't know why. But I was just thought, okay. I barely remember milk, the milkman. I barely remember black and white TV. I it just makes you wonder by the time I get up here, and I'll be like, back in the day, and that'll just be my voice. It'll just, you know, where we're going. So it's when you think about I remember Windows 3.1.

Dave Jackson [01:07:23]:
And the first time I I grabbed a mouse and couldn't control it. I was like, wait. What what do you do with who would know? So it's gonna be fun to see where podcasting ends up when we all listen via the chip in our head. So, that was fun.

Jim Collison [01:07:37]:
That's a good it's it's, like, that's a really good question when I think I don't think any of us know or describing what the future's gonna look like. I we think we do, but I I don't I don't think we I don't think we do. I think there's gonna be some interesting things coming with it.

Dave Jackson [01:07:52]:
Yeah. Every time I see something like, there are now Beatle videos. People are taking Beatles songs and making a video with, at times, fairly lifelike versions of the Beatles singing a song, and and it even says, like, you know, Norwegian Wood, AI generated video, blah blah blah. But it's like, okay. And they've taken, like, the one they've just took pictures and made them come to life. And I was like Yeah. So the whole time, I'm like, well, this is cool and spooky. And I've got my popcorn, and I'm gonna sit here and and watch.

Dave Jackson [01:08:25]:
I do wanna do a shout out. Deal Billy. I met at the Ecamm creator camp, and we said, oh, I I wanna bring you on Yeah. So reach out to me at School of Podcasting or something of a nature because I wanna have, Deal Billy is a guy that is just crushing on, I believe, if I remember right, Amazon and YouTube because he does all these videos for products and demos them and then as an affiliate and blah blah blah. But he started some of this, not to to but, apparently, I am somewhat responsible for a a small part of what he's doing as is Glenn the Geek. So I said, you know what? We should have Glenn the Geek and me interview Billy about what he's up to. And so when he popped in, I was like, oh, yeah. We should make that happen.

Dave Jackson [01:09:11]:
So, oh, man. Dan brings it in. It's probably best we forget about Windows Me.

Jim Collison [01:09:17]:
Yeah. The millennial edition. Yeah. It's probably it is probably best that we that we forget about those. By the way, just since we're on the tech space, let me let me throw this in really fast as we as we think about this is my contribution of actual tech news. If you're a Windows user, chances are you're probably on, your Windows 10 or maybe 11. Windows 10 support ends October 2025. So for the now I don't know if Microsoft's gonna actually hold to that.

Jim Collison [01:09:47]:
Their history is that they they that's 10 years since it's it's crazy to think it's been out that long. Right? But, they may or may not bend on that. But let's just say if you're still on Windows 10, you're gonna probably lose support. That means updates aren't gonna show up anymore for your PC. If it's an old PC and it requires, it doesn't have TPM 2.0, which is what's required for Windows 11, in in a few other things, you have to have a supported processor. You you can't upgrade it. That's not totally true. You can go on YouTube and actually watch some videos with with 2 steps and some downloads.

Jim Collison [01:10:24]:
You can actually do it. You can get to Windows 11 if you wanna upgrade your your PCs. You can reach out to me if you got questions on that. I just did that for a couple PCs here. If you're moving to Windows 11, that's, like, the the newest version's the 24 h two update for that. That's the newest update that's been coming along down that. If if if you're following along and keeping your updates, it's the quality on that's a little rough. So if you can hold off on your updates for a little bit, let Microsoft get ahead on some of those kinds of things.

Jim Collison [01:10:54]:
Maybe, maybe not a bad idea if you've not if you've bought a new computer in the last year, most likely you're on Windows 11. Most likely you you have all the things that you need. But the newest update that came out for Windows 11 has a lot of changes to it. And you may see some you may see some issues. You may not. I haven't seen any on mine, but you you may or may not. If you can hold off on updates for a little while, you might want to. Sometimes it's good to just delay it a little bit if you can.

Jim Collison [01:11:22]:
You may not see any any updates either, but that the world of Windows is certainly one where I'd nobody's talking about that for the most part. I mean, we all have Windows computers. I think a lot of us do. Although as podcasters, we may have more max than the average, in in pop from a population standpoint. But

Dave Jackson [01:11:41]:
Yeah. Certainly

Jim Collison [01:11:42]:
some things going on.

Dave Jackson [01:11:43]:
The, the thing about a Mac is I'll be in a a Google Meet, and I want them to share their screen. And because of Mac security, they have to go in and change their settings and blah blah. So I ask people now, like, are you on a Mac? And a lot of them would say yes, but if you're not, it's much easier. And it's not a big deal. You just have to go in and say, yes. Allow. Whatever. But it's always like, oh, just share your screen.

Dave Jackson [01:12:05]:
They're like, I'm on a Mac. Like, stupid Yeah. Like, security keeping people safe. What are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, holy cow.

Jim Collison [01:12:13]:
Randy, are we gonna bring up Randy's?

Dave Jackson [01:12:15]:
I was gonna bring up this. Doctor gave us a super chat. So thank you so much for that. She says it feels good to get back in the swing of things. Thanks for the education. Well, thank you, Doctor. We appreciate that. What is Randy's thing?

Jim Collison [01:12:28]:
Randy says Microsoft, is forced installing the new Outlook into Windows 10 and 11 PCs next month. That's true. If you don't want it, you can't stop it. That's true as well. Wow. You can uninstall it, but you need that at the registry to make that work again. Yeah. I would listen.

Jim Collison [01:12:42]:
I don't I don't think the new, the new Outlook is spyware or anything. For most people, they'll never notice the difference. I'm I'm not saying it's right, what they're doing. I because I could easily say Mac does this all the time, just to be honest. They they don't give you any choices in a lot in a lot of ways. Like, nope. We're unsupporting this thing. The the the software they're replacing is literally a 1000 years old.

Jim Collison [01:13:07]:
Like, these are and they're not gonna update. They don't wanna update it. They want something new in there. Right? Again, I'm not saying it's right or wrong, Randy, on that. Some people feel different. I I think I would be more concerned about the new recall features that are coming out with Windows that they announced a while back, and there was a huge uproar about that. But basically, they're taking a screenshot, Dave, of your of what you're doing every 10 seconds, something like that. And then if you want to yeah.

Jim Collison [01:13:34]:
Exactly. If you want to and it's all secure. Okay. I'm putting these in quotes. It's all secure. It's only on your computer. It's backed up with, I mean, it's secured with BitLocker. So it's tied to your login.

Jim Collison [01:13:45]:
Nobody else can see it. So some of those kinds of things, you know, I'm a little skeptical on this one. But you can in theory, if you wanna be like, hey. I was at a I was on a website, and I can't remember what that was. You could go into recall, drag through the screen to see where it's at, and then, click on it, and it would take you there. Now as of today, only available on Copilot Plus PCs. You'd had to especially bought this to make this kind of thing work. But there's this is one of those areas, right, for most people, they've kind of forgotten to even keep up with any of this stuff anymore.

Jim Collison [01:14:21]:
And there's tons of things going on behind the scenes, especially on the Microsoft side of things you may want to pay attention to. You know? And so it it is it's it's we sometimes we set it and forget it. We talked we used to talk about this stuff all the time, but not not as much, anymore. But yeah.

Dave Jackson [01:14:41]:
Randy says literally a 1000 years old because it that may not be entirely accurate.

Jim Collison [01:14:46]:
It's that is a 100% accurate. I checked it before the

Dave Jackson [01:14:50]:
1,025. That was back when

Jim Collison [01:14:53]:
Hey. We live in a world you can just say I'm not I should

Dave Jackson [01:14:56]:
That's right.

Jim Collison [01:14:56]:
You can say anything you want, and it's true. So we'll we'll It's

Dave Jackson [01:14:59]:
the biggest. It's the best. It's wonderful. Yes. I

Jim Collison [01:15:03]:
don't wanna get I don't wanna get political. But the the there there it it it listen. If you're a Windows user on a regular basis, might be a good time to pay attention just over the next 6 months or so to what's going on to make sure you get what you want and you know what you're doing with your with your computing device. I'm just

Dave Jackson [01:15:22]:
And if you thought clearing your browsing history was enough No. Maybe not.

Jim Collison [01:15:27]:
Not maybe not true. Maybe true. Maybe not. Maybe it depends on depends on your computer and what you bought and what you have and what it's doing. Listen. Microsoft is making a big investment in AI. Right? They they made a giant investment into OpenAI, and they are doing a lot of things. They want you and they're they are the the I think they're the world's leader in AI compute right now.

Jim Collison [01:15:51]:
They wanna they wanna include these services. You're gonna see a lot more of that coming up in window. Yeah. I I just said I don't wanna get political. I don't I was shouldn't have said that.

Dave Jackson [01:16:00]:
Very sorry. Very sorry.

Jim Collison [01:16:03]:
No. It's it's alright.

Dave Jackson [01:16:04]:
Todd says, I I think the trend for podcasting is building a community alongside your podcast. It doesn't work for everyone, but I've seen, many examples of it. It's not a set it and forget it. Yeah. And he was also saying how there are things in his video software he still needs to learn. And that is anytime because, Tanner says I'm I'm fighting moving on to YouTube. Editing audio is hard enough without adding video. And, again, I always say, if you don't wanna go on YouTube, don't go on YouTube.

Dave Jackson [01:16:34]:
That will, you know Listen.

Jim Collison [01:16:35]:
I don't know if that's true anymore, by the way, that editing video is harder than editing audio.

Dave Jackson [01:16:42]:
That's true.

Jim Collison [01:16:42]:
I don't

Dave Jackson [01:16:43]:
know if

Jim Collison [01:16:43]:
that's I don't know if that's true anymore.

Dave Jackson [01:16:44]:
If you're using Descript, it's not. You know? Yeah.

Jim Collison [01:16:47]:
And There's some really good tools to help with that.

Dave Jackson [01:16:50]:
And you you can't really well, you can if you don't wanna do it. But, like, the algorithm, you know, it's hard to ignore that. And I'm like, you know, and it's kinda like we're talking about earlier with the lottery. If you're not on YouTube, you can't get found by the algorithm. So, you know, it'll be interesting to, to see how that's gonna work out in the in the long run, but, we will see.

Jim Collison [01:17:15]:
Dan Dan says Microsoft's bringing back 3 Mile Island again. If you haven't kept up with the news, there, what what we closed 3 Mile Island decade, 15, 20 years ago, something like that. Right? I mean, it had a reactor accident.

Dave Jackson [01:17:28]:
It was the

Jim Collison [01:17:29]:
first I think I think it was one of the first ones here. Yeah. I can't remember. I I may have some of those details wrong. Shut They shut one down, one ran for a while, then they're like, hey, this nuclear power thing's not working. Well, AI needs so much power. Microsoft is like, hey, we don't wanna build a whole another power plant. We don't wanna use fossil fuels.

Jim Collison [01:17:49]:
We'd rather just restart Three Mile Island. So they're in negotiation right now to to pay for the restart of that reactor, turn it back on, put it back on the grid, and then lease back the power that it generates. So they're gonna, they're gonna say, Hey, we will guarantee this is all for AI processing, by the way. We will guarantee we'll consume this much or pay for this much or whatever. It's way more complicated than that. But, and then you can put the extra on the grid type thing. So 79, says John. So, so there you go.

Jim Collison [01:18:22]:
So that was a while. That was a while ago. And, but they're gonna, I, and I've seen videos of them going through, they're not, they're not gonna re retrofit this with new stuff. Like, there I'm sure there'll be some things that need to be changed and some of that kind of stuff. But they're like, if you if you picture the typical seventies control panels for

Dave Jackson [01:18:42]:
Right. Yeah. Or yeah. Yeah. They're gonna use them. They still have the lime green refrigerator in the cafeteria.

Jim Collison [01:18:48]:
You got that switch that

Dave Jackson [01:18:50]:
But, like, isn't it, like, radioactive? Like

Jim Collison [01:18:54]:
For sure it is. Yeah. For sure. I mean, they safely shut it down in 79. I mean, they took all the

Dave Jackson [01:18:58]:
Okay. I thought they did at Chernobyl and just let it burn down.

Jim Collison [01:19:02]:
No. No. No. The other reactor is has been the one that went critical has been closed down and sealed off and all those other things. This is the good one. They're gonna restart the good one and and use the I think there's 2 reactors there. So, yeah, if you thought life couldn't get any more interesting, that's another yeah. And coach Dave says in crypto mining, that that's the that is true.

Jim Collison [01:19:25]:
I mean, like, our Yeah. Our our all of a sudden, AI has added an and crypto too have added an enormous strain on the power grid. And, and

Dave Jackson [01:19:37]:
so hear. And isn't that what again, without getting political, there's something 500,000,000 thing with Oracle and OpenAI. They and it's all about power.

Jim Collison [01:19:50]:
500,000,000,000, not million, but $500,000,000,000 they pledged to to to add well, I mean so now you have Oracle. You know, Google's in this space as well, adding to the AI grid needing power. Right? This AI stuff takes enormous of yeah. Craig, what could possibly go wrong? Well, that's we we're we're in for however you feel about that. I mean, it is progress in some ways. There's some folks I mean, you you gotta you know, you don't wanna Chernobyl in your backyard. Right?

Dave Jackson [01:20:20]:
Yeah. Me neither.

Jim Collison [01:20:21]:
Or Fukushima. Right? I mean, so both of those, all that stuff runs its risk. It it does it does highlight though the enormous amount of, John John jumped in. He said there's 3 reactors. They're gonna restart too. Right? With with the one being the one that that caused the problem. We've this AI is more than just fancy rewriting or summarizing of your text, right, or writing show notes for you. I mean, there's at least for right now, there's a huge there's a huge money being put in this.

Jim Collison [01:20:57]:
The question will be, will it pay off? I mean, these companies that are spending this money, talk about trickle down economics. These companies that are spending this money are putting $500,000,000,000 over the next 4 years. That's a lot of money to dump into the economy to, you know. So there's gonna be, of course, these companies, in some cases, these companies have this money to Microsoft has a, I mean, Dave, they they could never do anything again and and continue to you know, their their their revenues on a quarterly basis are counted in tens of 1,000,000,000 of dollars every quarter. So, anyways, lots lots coming with AI. I think that's a space to pay attention to, and keep your eyes on for sure because I there's a lot more coming than what we see today.

Dave Jackson [01:21:49]:
Yeah. And talking about we're talking about editing. Chris makes a great point. Editing is less hard when you do it more. Absolutely. I, I use the script once a week. I know how to go in, get it to do what I needed to do, but there's a ton of stuff that it's, I use it for this show. And then Doctor says, they give her massive shade for editing video in Canva, but it's really easy, and the results are pretty good.

Dave Jackson [01:22:15]:
Yeah. I've done stuff in Canva with video. And I was like, wait. What? And I put it in there and was like, well, this isn't bad. We use a thing at PodPage called Capwing, but that was basically just I forgot what the deal was. And that's not my favorite because we wanted a cloud based thing so that both Brandon and I could see the stuff at the same time. But, it takes a while to render video, at least in that case for that. So but, I mean, I I've not I've not heard about 3 Mile Island.

Dave Jackson [01:22:45]:
That's really weird.

Jim Collison [01:22:46]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's coming to a theater near you.

Dave Jackson [01:22:49]:
Yeah. But, yeah, do what works for you. And, you know, I I still use, not Canva, Camtasia for a lot of video stuff.

Jim Collison [01:23:00]:
I I just think I just think though sometimes, and not this isn't a contradiction, Chris. But I think we I think sometimes we when we think of video, we think video from 10 or 15 years ago. And we're like, oh, no, no. I tried video editing then, and it just was so hard. And I just couldn't. And it's like, well, if if the last time you did video editing was 10 years ago, even 5 years ago, You might wanna just take a quick look at it again because there's some pretty good tools and it's gotten a lot easier. And our computers have gotten a lot faster and the services that especially if you're doing it online, have gotten a lot faster. And there is there are some AI helps for that.

Jim Collison [01:23:42]:
So all that being said, I don't think that statement is based on an experience from 10 years ago. Maybe that's a myth today. That could be a quickly ending myth that video process or video editing is harder than audio editing.

Dave Jackson [01:23:59]:
Yeah. Well, the fun part is, Todd brings up, file sizes are enormous.

Jim Collison [01:24:03]:
They are.

Dave Jackson [01:24:03]:
If you're getting into 4 k, like, we don't need to see me in 4 k. Like, I'm I'm good at whatever this is. But,

Jim Collison [01:24:10]:
yeah. But bandwidth's never been better. Like, our our Internet speeds have never been faster. Your your your results may vary on your location or where you're at. Right? I mean, look look at the with the advent of Starlink and the ability to now do pretty fast Internet stuff pretty much anywhere in the United States anyways. And, you know, they're again, your your, your mileage might vary, and I'm sure some Starlink customers who had bad experiences will email us. That's dave@schoolpodcasting.com. But we we've we've never had better you know, bandwidth continues to get better.

Jim Collison [01:24:48]:
Equipment continues to get better. Some of the stuff, as we think about what's coming out with computer hardware, some really good stuff is on. I mean, just the the Mac Mini M4 that I just bought is an amazing device in a box that big. Yeah. Right? I mean, it's incredible.

Dave Jackson [01:25:07]:
And Chris points out storage is cheap these days. It's ridiculous. You can get, you know, terabyte drives that, you know, are next to nothing. Dan says, in my honest opinion, the biggest difference with video is introducing graphics Yeah. Titles, etcetera. Yeah. There's a I I wanna play with it, but I'm there's a part of me that goes, Is that and it's an AI tool for making, YouTube thumbnails. So what it does is it will go out and basically find a really popular video and kind of let's say it it will ins the the resulting image will be inspired by that.

Dave Jackson [01:25:51]:
And by that, I mean, they just copy the crap out of it. And I was like, that's that seems kinda odd, but it it looked I mean, the results that it came up with because it's designed for one thing, and that's creating YouTube thumbnails. And I wanna say it was, like, 20, $30. And I was like, I don't need another $20 subscription. Last thing we should point out, I'm not gonna say who this was, but, a a big name in in his space, because I have this person's software, announced that he's going bankrupt. Oh. And and in a nutshell Darn. He basically because he's the kindest, sweetest guy you'd ever wanna meet and bought himself a big old team.

Dave Jackson [01:26:40]:
And did all this stuff, tried to kinda do everything. Yeah. And in the end, I don't know who was watching the books, but they're like, and then he I I think there's more to the story because he's, can I say that? He's got some health issues, and I think some medical bills might have come. But all of a sudden, he was like because I wonder what was going on because his his team, everything was always top notch. And I'd emailed them and said, hey. I canceled this, like, a couple months ago, and I'm still getting dinged. And I got nothing. So what they did is they can't refund because everything's been frozen.

Jim Collison [01:27:14]:
Yeah.

Dave Jackson [01:27:14]:
And they said, you can you have access to this tool that you don't want for, like, another couple months. Basically, they gave me free free months of a service that I didn't want. And I kinda get why. It's not really what I was looking for, but I just say that because, you know, as much as we say run this like a business, if you are spending money and, you know, it's an expensive hobby, but you you might wanna watch you might wanna do a couple like, how much am I making? 0. How much am I spending? I didn't realize I was spending that much. And, it really just kinda boils down to his his heart took over instead of his brain. And I was like, oh, yeah. Be careful with that because you can make some really bad I've made really I'm still paying for some really bad decisions that I've I've made over the past.

Dave Jackson [01:28:02]:
And so

Jim Collison [01:28:03]:
Well, okay. Cut yourself some slack. Yeah. Bad decisions well, like, in this case, you didn't know. Right? I

Dave Jackson [01:28:11]:
mean No.

Jim Collison [01:28:12]:
And That wasn't a bad decision when you made it.

Dave Jackson [01:28:14]:
Yeah. Doctor asked if this is from AppSumo. No. This was, it's it's it's kind of a big name if in his space again. And I've bought every product he's ever bought. It's really good stuff. And I would except this one. He made an AI tool that helped you.

Dave Jackson [01:28:28]:
Like like every other AI tool you put it in, and it helps you write. Like, if you think about CapShow, CapShow is an AI tool that helps you write show notes, with a marketing slant. And then you'll have here's an AI tool that helps you write this with a whatever slant and then this slant. So it's they're all kinda doing the same thing. It's just that they basically put in a profile to, kind of have the writing be not biased, but definitely have a slant towards, you know, yeah. My branch is not working today. No. You're doing great.

Dave Jackson [01:29:03]:
Yeah. Bring towards. My brain is yeah.

Jim Collison [01:29:05]:
No. You're doing fine.

Dave Jackson [01:29:06]:
Yeah. Ralph says I wanna have enough spec.

Jim Collison [01:29:08]:
Does it He's responding to I I'd asked for some specs for his he he just bought the new Apple Pro, the 48 gig version, and so he was that was his response to it. You can you can still read it. It just makes more sense.

Dave Jackson [01:29:21]:
Well, the nice thing about we were talking about this at the school of podcasting is when you buy an Apple product, it it's gonna hang around a bit. If you if you load that thing up, you know, it's gonna be a while before like, I'm still you I don't know how long I've had my Mac Mini, probably a couple years at this point. And that thing's turned along and hasn't sputtered once.

Jim Collison [01:29:41]:
No. You're gonna be I debated, but in this, you know, because I was on the M one too. I bought that Yeah. 3 years ago. And I thought, no, I'm gonna go to the M4. It's it's time to upgrade. I'm gonna keep this. My Windows boxes, I don't upgrade as fast now anymore.

Jim Collison [01:29:56]:
But this was one of the next jumps of, like, you know, I talked Ed Sullivan and I talk about this all the time. And it's, like, yeah, I think it's time. And the pricing was actually very, very reasonable. I got the 32 gig standard with Yeah. A half a terabyte of storage, and it works perfectly for me. This that was the perfect I just wanted more RAM. I'm gonna run some local LLMs, some local AI. I this is a project I've been working on using LM Studios, and I just I wanna get familiar with the back ends and some of the things.

Jim Collison [01:30:25]:
You don't get the most current AI that way, but that's that's what I wanted to do. And so I wanted to run it on the Mac because many of those models are are, optimized for the Mac. And there's a lot of cool things happening in that space. So I bought maybe a little more. I didn't quite go to Ralph's level.

Dave Jackson [01:30:42]:
Right.

Jim Collison [01:30:43]:
But, but I bought enough that I could push it I could push it hard. And so it was a use case for me. Am I gonna sell those or do anything with them? Probably not. But it's just that's the tech space I wanted to be in. So it's a good little machine. I I'm not gonna lie. I've it was good good call.

Dave Jackson [01:30:58]:
It is. Yeah. And, Jim, what is coming up on the average guy dot tv?

Jim Collison [01:31:04]:
Yeah. I am on a 3 week break. Like I've never purposefully taken this much time off, right? But a lot of things going on at work. And I just thought, You know what? I've got a break in there. I'm going to take it. So yeah, I've been kind of hanging out, taking some time off, which is kind of nice. So I think you need to do that from time to time just to, you know, reset. If you need, you need vacations from work, sometimes you need a vacation from your podcast.

Jim Collison [01:31:28]:
So take some time off.

Dave Jackson [01:31:29]:
Or if you find yourself sick as a dog, that would be For sure. Time to take time off.

Jim Collison [01:31:34]:
Except you've got that crazy weekly streak going that you can't miss. So

Dave Jackson [01:31:39]:
Yeah. I I should, but I'm I'm not. But, yeah, on the school of podcasting, I'm gonna take my presentation that I did at Podfest and talk about editing, not so much what's the best tool, but how do you know what to keep? And the one thing that people I I kinda did a quick pull, and people feel that they worry that the guest is going to come back and listen to the episode. And I said, well, at least for me, I listen I come back and I listen how I was introduced, and that's about it because, well, I was there. I know what I said. And I kinda listened to see if they d ummed me because often I am a machine. But, so we'll be talking about that, in the, on Monday's show. And, thanks for everybody, coming out today.

Dave Jackson [01:32:24]:
Thanks to Mark over at podcastbranding.co and dan@basedonatruestorypodcast.com. And, I I always you're gonna hear me in a second say this, but if you ever have a question and you can't attend live and you're listening to this in your car, just go to ask the podcast coach.com/voice mail because, you know, we use PodPage, and, you can leave your question there and we will answer it in a future show. So, thanks for everybody for showing up, and, we will see you next week with another fun filled episode of Ask the Podcast Coach.