did well the story people podcast returns for another week. We're gonna dive into the world of podcasting a bit this week, because it's a busy space. A lot of people are getting into it. And who better to have on than the CEO of one of the biggest in the land, and one of the most popular people in the land and in this space. It's Todd Cochran, CEO of blueberry podcasting. He's an inaugural member of the podcast Hall of Fame, which I think is quite amazing that there is a Hall of Fame for podcasting. So welcome to the show. Todd, how are you, man?
Brent, thanks for having me. And, yeah, it's, it is amazing that there's a Hall of Fame in the actually the Hall of Fame returns to pod Fest in, in January of this year, we will be inducting some folks. So it's exciting,
is what's the criteria for a pot to make it into the podcast Hall of Fame,
they do have some time criteria. But essentially, we basically any of us that are in the Hall of Fame, we we basically nominate people to a list. And those and I'm pretty open, if someone comes to me and says, Hey, Todd, I think you know, so and so is deserving. I'll add him to the list. It's just not, you know, it's not just who Todd thinks it's, you know, who we think as we get input, and then that list then is voted on by the inductees. So it's truly, you know, as the grid list of inductees grow, then the number of people voting. So, you know, that's kind of the criteria, how to get on the list to be voted on.
You particularly what do you actually look for? Is it something like about like the, as you submit your time? Is it sort of like quality of show more of a groundbreaking person that might have changed the landscape of the space?
I think it's all the above, you know, we've had inductees already, they have wildly popular shows, bed folks that have been more behind the scenes. So really, there is a pretty wide criteria. And you know, definitely there's people that have made major impacts that are not in the podcast, all fame that I hope, you know, will be able to be inducted at some point because you just look at the you know, some people's names in the news a lot. And you know, these are the types of people that have helped move the space forward and help this all you know, all all boats arose together because of these individuals.
It's an amazing space. I mean, I've been in it for a few years, and we've got 125 episodes in so and the changes that have happened in that time, in the different variations to land where I am now with do did will, it's taken many forms. I mean, we've had a pandemic through there, there. It started with me, traveling around and searching for all the best coffee in the world and feeling like I needed to change that format and then talking to a ton of colleagues. It's just amazing, where it can kind of go and I want to dive into that. But the first thing I definitely appreciate you coming on the show, you're busy, but you're a groundbreaker in this space, so why don't you tell our friends at home listening and watching? What do you do?
Well, you know, if number one I am a podcaster still, I create three different podcast ones. My Genesis show that really started it all back in October 2004 as called Geek News Central, just twice weekly tech show that I do a weekly show that's called the new media show. I co host it with Rob Greenlee. We talked about everything podcasting. And my, our famous tagline is Do you listen to the show long enough to get a PhD in podcasting? And of course, I do the show for our company, blueberry podcasting, which is a full service, podcast hosts, there's three of us that cycled through and do different episodes for the company. But blueberry itself really is, is is again, a full service podcast hosts companies. And you know, today podcast hosting became a commodity. You know, 10 years ago, there was five competitors to us now there's 30. I think, really our main differences is that we believe that content creators should build their brand on their own dot coms. build their brands, allow them to build and get that, that Google SEO juice for the content to be discovered and found. And so you know, we offer all the standard stuff, statistics, monetization, media kits, all kinds of different tools and stuff that tie in to social. We got aI stuff that's on the horizon. So really runs the full gamut, but we're best known obviously, for our PowerPress plugin for WordPress. that's used by about 100,000 shows but for me, it's really about working with individual podcasters. We really worked with a lot of independence. Now we have big companies that use their services too, but we really work with a lot of independence.
It's an interest Think time for this space because there's a billion things popping up online or let me let me help you with your podcasts. And let me promote your podcasts and all these different variations of people offering services and offering, you know, snake oil, maybe like that. They're saying, you know, I can get you 1000 downloads in two days. And yeah, it's very, it's kind of interesting to me, because the rate, you know, on YouTube, the race to 500, or 1000 subscribers and the 4000, watch hours is one side, then you have the other side of it, which is the audio portion of it, where you're trying to maybe Trent, you know, you want to you want to be on these charts that may be charitable or sending out or something where you where you're ranking in a top 10 or top 30. And sort of showing growth to your show or giving you justification as to what you're doing. I've gone through various feelings about that. Because, you know, why are we doing it? Are we doing it for us? Are we doing it for the listener? Are we doing it to entertain each other? Are you being informative? Are people learning something? There's so many versions of podcasts? Yeah. So in this blueberry space that you're offering help for podcasting? Do you? Do you think that you know, what you're offering? Is, is the best? Versus someone on Fiverr offering this? Like, what's the difference between what you're offering as far as podcast help and what somebody on Fiverr is saying, Give me $100? And I'll and I'll give you 1000? listens? I'm curious about
that. Yeah, well, number one, those folks that are doing that are getting false lessons. So don't, don't go spend your money there, because it's just gonna falsely prop up your show. But I think what we do is we don't do the production of your podcasts, we don't do the creation of it, we don't do the promotion of it. We basically provide all the tools for you to do that and integrate with partners that will help you know, we got a partnership where we're integrated with descript, we've got a partnership where we're integrated with headliner. So basically, those types of we allow you to work within our space. And then we partner with folks that have great tools that we don't want to build. Any you know, the thing too, you mentioned the video part, you know, and I think one thing that's unique about this is that we have a true video podcast offering. I've been doing a video podcast for 10 years, and the majority of the time it was not on YouTube, it was actually available via Apple podcast. And so you know, most people don't know that video has been available in the podcasting space really, since the beginning. So that's something we do offer to our hosting customers the opportunity to have a true video podcasting, still have it on YouTube, and do that stuff. But you can have a video podcast is attached to an independent RSS feed. So again, it's the full services and the integrations with the groups that allow you to really, you know, hone your skills and be able to save some time, that's the key is that I often say we provide you the tools and services and then get out of the way. Most of folks that work with us, you didn't even know that they're hosting a blueberry. And that's kind of the way it is because again, we want you to build up your brand. And that's really, really important. It's part of our DNA.
What do you say to people that say, well, everyone's got a podcast that shouldn't start one?
Well, you know, here's the, here's the, the factoid. And you can verify this over a podcast index.org It's totally separate group. I don't have any affiliation affiliation with it, besides supporting it. There's 4 million plus podcast in their index. But in the last 10 days, only 230 to 240,000 shows to put out a new episode. And in the last 60 days, that number is around 370 to 400,000. So what it really shows you is even though there's 4 million shows that are supposedly out there, there's really only about 400,000 are active and then you divide that by 30 categories. And you do the math on that and makes pretty good sense to be able to do a podcast to become successful, versus having a YouTube channel where you're amongst millions. I think the opportunity to have success in podcasting is huge even today. As long as you're not chasing a topic long as you're passionate about what you're doing and can build authority. And it's again it's you know, in the podcasting space you we all don't have a celebrity audience. I started with zero or near zero and and build a great following for my show, but you know, it took a lot of work a lot of time and time behind the mic and honing the skill. So I think there's huge huge, huge opportunity for a maverick I say right now, this is kind of a cliche. It's the best time ever to be a podcaster because it have the number of new episodes putting putting out the audience that is listening to shows have not went away, they have fewer choices now because of less being created. So what that is causing is everyone to rise. And in fact, we've seen record growth and independent shows over the past year, numbers, growth numbers that people have never seen before, largely because the listening audience is looking deeper in the stack, which is raising those shows up.
I do it. Occasionally, I'll have my 12 that I'm subscribed to. And then I kind of poke around for a new one every now and again. Oh, what's that space and, and I, I'm a listener, just like I am a creator. So I like to find ones that that hook me and then if I'm not in I'll, I'll move on. Like, it's like listening to music or watching a TV show or anything. I guess whatever speaks to you, that's where you go. So keeping with that theme, and you were talking about starting from scratch, then let's dive into the deep part of the show. And tell me how you did it.
Yeah, so I guess, maybe part of the due part also is, again, I'm on this mission, not only to help people their stories, but know, for me to how to do it, or how so maybe this falls into the did is really the key here is long term consistency of creating content, but just creating the content, and let's see got this great show idea. You're gonna start recording, you're gonna hate episode one, episode 10 is gonna sound better than 120, and so forth, the show is gonna get better as you find your voice. But really, it's that consistency piece and building a show. And I often asked content creators said, What is the goal of your show? Can you define that? Is it the goal to build authority? Is the goal to have have a business funnel? You know, what is the goal. And when you have a goal for a show, then you have the ability to create that content in a way that reaches that goal. And long as that goal stays real, locks out. Now you can shift like, it sounds like you have, you've shifted kind of some of the content you've done. Yeah. But for me, it was really about creating that content on a consistent basis. And then not only creating the content, but building the social scene, building the community, doing everything that you need. And there's really largely I could probably list 10, or 12 things that a content creator can do. I did I did a book, I wrote a book that was on podcasting, I was able to get a sponsor and be able to support the show, I was able to build a community, I was able to have good social influence, I was able to part of my goal for my first show, was to build enough authority to be able to get a press pass to go to what is called today's CES. CES show, which was before referred to as the Consumer Electronics Show, they don't refer to that anymore, but it's just CES show was just to get to be able to get a press pass to go that event and cover it and bring more content back to the tech show. So it really the goal of the show has changed a little bit over the years. But really the with everything that we've done is to be able to form and entertain. And again, build that community. A lot of times podcasters will ask their audiences to engage them and they don't it's kind of crickets, they get a little bit discouraged and they get an email that's maybe oftentimes people complain often before they praise. So I always tell content creators is you just got to go out there and do the best content that you can possibly do. Because it cream will rise to the top and be passionate about your topic and continuing to put a show out now, creating a podcast is hard work. And I firmly believe a show has to be in someone's here weekly if possible. If not, you need to set the expectations to how often the content is going to come out so that they can build you into their lives according to the schedule you're going to publish. But if you tell them it's going to come out on Wednesday, make sure it comes out on Wednesday. And if it doesn't come on Wednesday, make sure you've told them why because if you don't, they're they're really going to find something else to replace you. I've often said again, people build your content into their lives that listen to a specific time and place usually in a treadmill, in the car, on the bus, whatever it may be. But I think the key really point is stay engaging and make sure you got people linked leaning in. It is a medium that is unlike any other because you're literally in their head because they're usually wearing some sort of headphones or earbuds. They might be listening on a smart speaker or something like that. But again, this intimate relationship we have is interesting. I always have a post it note here on my computer monitor that says Remember you're talking to an audience of one because usually podcasts are consumed alone and you have to make sure You're talking directly to those folks.
That's a great point. And it's a really great point because I travel for work. And I put these episodes out into the universe. And I know, personally, some people that are following me, I know, friends that are following me, I've got some musician, friends that are calling me, people from the network. Sure. And then every now and again, I'll meet somebody in a far off land, that'd be like, I loved your episode about this. And I'm like, oh, there's other people listening. You just kind of forget, because you get into this, as you said, it's, you're kind of building these out for one person to listen to, but then that could be 10,000 individuals around the world, right. And I've had the pleasure now of meeting some of those people from around the world. And that's been really rewarding going into Denmark, or going in Israel, or going into some of these places, France and, and London, and you're like you, you kind of, you know, people reach out and go, Hey, I follow your show. And I noticed you're in Europe, are you going to be here, it's like, yeah, and then they come and say hello. And it's a really cool feeling. We're not rock stars by any mean. But I'm in a space where I travel and run concerts with rock stars. And when you have an opportunity to meet people that are listening to this little show that you're doing from your basement, in London, it's quite, quite something. So I'm assuming that where you're at now techno like, technically, technically, sorry, my words. As you touched on earlier, your first show is way different than where you're at now. So in this sort of did portion of what we're talking about. What was that first thing where you're like, I'm going to start a show and lead the charge here and actually become, you know, the master of this space? How did that kind of come together to get you into this hall of fame that we discussed before? For people watching, you'll see this graphic for the people listening, you can't see it, but where does that come from? How does that start that you know
that the journey is interesting I in before the internet was really a thing. I ran a bulletin board, the old school dial up ones got called in via modem. And when that era died off, I was a blogger for a few years in a failed blogger. And then fate had a had a hand in things in 2004, I was still active duty in the Navy. And I was accident wasn't combat accident, I was asked I hadn't had a swimming pool accident. And then it basically grounded me from being able to fly was not a pilot as a back end guy in P threes. And, you know, my recovery from that accident, I was wearing a clamshell and I ended up out in Waco, Texas, of all places. And in the middle of October and you know, Waco in October is the coolest place on the planet. So I spend a lot of time in my hotel room in the evenings just surfing the internet, I found out about this new medium called podcasting, and being a field blogger. So I said, Well, I can talk. So I recorded my first couple of episodes right there from that hotel room. And in those days, we had everything had to be done by hand. It was very a geek thing. You you you kind of had to be techy to to make this work. And it's not like it is today. And you know, I went back to Hawaii and you know, told my wife, I said, Hey, I'm doing this podcast, and you know what, what is that and it was costing money. And she basically, you know, pointed a finger at me. So you got two years figured out how to pay for this thing. And then November of that year, I got a book deal from Wiley Publishing. There's a whole story about that. So the first book on podcasting, was podcasting. Do It Yourself guide, sold 45,000 copies, July, June of 2005, GoDaddy, approached me and said, Hey, we're gonna sponsor your show. And they're still a sponsor my podcast today, which is, again, a whole nother story in itself. But from that sponsorship, there was a question asked to me by that their name was Chris Redlener. She says, Todd, do you know anyone who would like to advertise GoDaddy? They said, Yes, I do. Because I formed a network. And I said, I can't do this by myself. So I went on my podcast, I said, I need a lawyer. I need an MBA, I need a graphics guy and a programmer if you're one of those call into this phone call. And then essentially, 10 days later, I found the founders of my company on a free conference call.com Call from the audience. And we started this business in the business name is actually raw voice. And we started working on our first product offering and it really kind of went from there in the very beginning. We were a media company, then we changed later to a service business. But all that time, I'm still creating content because I had said to myself if I'm going to talk about this, and talk to podcasters and try to educate podcasters and give them advice gotta walk the walk, you know, you there's, if you look in this space, there's very few people that actually work in podcasting that do their own podcast. And I don't think they can fully relate with people that are trying to create content. If you you know, if I'm giving you advice on how to build a show, and how to build an audience, you're not going to be in the, in the in the weeds with you yet doing it this time, because what we did in 2004 567-912-1516 17 1819, none of that applies today, with where we're at and where things are moving. So, you know, actively creating content, actively building an audience was the thing that really drove it through. And obviously, my team, I was not wholly responsible, getting Hall of Fame, my team was doing so much stuff. So stuff that they did, they really they they all deserved that award because we did this together. But at the same time, I've been a big advocate in the podcasting space, make sure it stays open, make sure that gatekeepers are not there. There's a picture that of that book. It's very dated now. So you know, this was before Apple podcast even was involved in podcasting. So we went out before we went into what was then iTunes, but I think ultimately, the, you know, the journey to the podcast Hall of Fame was just being an outspoken advocate. And I also run the podcast award. So that added to it as well. And honoring podcasters in America grabbing our words for me an interview in about a week. Does that online? Is it an online? Yeah, it's an online event as so it's, it's it's one of those situations where it's just, you know, I've lived and breathed this literally I you know, in about a week, it'll be it'll be 19 years. Geez. Yeah.
It's it's such a fascinating thing to me, because 19 years, but you can learn something next week that will change the game again, I've never seen, I've never seen a space travel so quick. I mean, tech travels quick, I understand. Yeah. But just from the beginning of me starting this show, even do did will like from last season to this season. There's like all these new angles that are coming in. And I think your head can spin a bit. And you can get lost in the shuffle. And if I'm to your point, if I'm passing on any any advice to anybody that's asking you about getting into space, it's sort of like, just be consistent. Yeah, the rest kind of works itself out. But do you? What do you say to people that are like, Well, I'm not getting the lessons, I've had these giant guests. And no one's listening? Well, like, that's kind of an interesting one, because it can be discouraging shark or it can be lightning in a bottle too.
So I hate to break people's bubbles. But audience members come for you. They don't come for your guests, your guest has added value. So you have to be the personality of your show. You have to be the one they tune in for that love. Robin i that do the new media show together. Our audience numbers are always higher on plays, when it's just him and I back and forth. Versus when we bring a guest in when we bring a guest in Believe it or not the numbers drop because it's not as much Robin i and it's a weird dynamic, you wouldn't think that so we really learned over time they come to hear us. So even though it let's say you, obviously you're doing an interview show, Brent that come in for you. I'm the I'm the added I'm kind of the added value for the show today. But they're really coming to listen to you and what you have to say. So I think the analogy of Be quiet. Don't talk too much when your guest is there. I think that's the wrong this is not the medium this medium is. Let's have a conversation. Let's get rich and die. Agreed.
Yeah, I agree that it's very much about the conversation. My the the the purpose behind this for me, was to branch out from music and coffee and some of those things and talk to people in different spaces. Because I do tend to meet a ton of people in different walks of life that are interesting to me that might not have worked on a music bass show. So I want to have these conversations where people come out of these shows and learn something, right. So to one side, you're like, yes, maybe they're here to come listen to me speak. But I want to offer value to my listener by bringing in people like yourself that can teach them something. So I'm no host, I'm a rookie. I mean, I'm sure I'm 125 and I'm no journalist. I'm definitely on a broadcaster, but I do get a chance to talk Do people on a daily basis 1000s a year, in just various walks of life and you, you just can't help but learn from people in that scenario, and I just want to get that out to the people Sure, I want to get that out and be like, You need to listen to this conversation, because this person is gonna teach you something. Some people don't want to be taught, they just want to, you know, workout in the gym and run or they just want to do whatever they're going to do. But the purpose of this gig is to teach. And I'm hoping that people will learn from that, which is why you're here because I get a lot of questions about podcasting. And I get my friend and your friend, Matt Cundill, has been a very big help in this space. from Winnipeg, and he's been an amazing teacher, and was very, very highly recommended you being a part of this as well. So I just love surrounding myself with these smart people that can help me and help others get to the next level. So it's, it's fun to listen to you explain out how you had to get there. And then but it's still changing for you. How do you How are you keeping up? What are you studying? Who you talking to?
Well, I, this is gonna, this is gonna sound amazing, but I listened to 100 new podcasts every two weeks. Now, I don't from that, I might take 300 to find one. But I'm also taking notes, and I'm figuring out what are people talking about? What are they listening to, and then I tried to dig in and find specific episodes. But right now really over the last three months, because I am kind of a bit of a geek. Hence, the geek News Central name for my Genesis show is I'm just following this AI space really heavily. And what I've really been doing is saying, Okay, how, how can we help podcasters with some AI tools that are not going to be obsolete in two weeks? So you know, I spent about three or four months really looking at that strategy. And you know, we starting to build some stuff. But I think what I really tried to do is again, I keep an eye on, you know, what are shows doing that are successful? What are shows that are doing that are growing, you know, what are they doing to engage and really, ultimately, it comes down to just one or two things. Audiences grow because their audiences loved them so much, that they're sharing it with their friends, families and people that they know that talk you up anywhere. That's where a lot of show growth happens. Number two, is in this part of the premises of art that I've been promoting for many years is make sure you've got great show notes, you know, you got a great episode title, something that's gonna someone's gonna search for, and a good backup header paragraph to make Google chew on that say, okay, Brent is just put on an episode with Todd and we know he's a podcaster, you know, have some stuff sprinkled in there. And that paragraph that's going to make Google say, okay, when someone's looking for Meishan on podcasting, and, you know, whatever you may, how will you ever play this off? Or that shouldn't say play it off, but you have to be able to have people find you through those search results. And that's probably the second biggest way to to grow audiences, not everyone's gonna subscribe to your show, and they find you but at least make it available so they can easily do that.
You touched on AI, and I actually had that question ready for you? Sure. Which is how will AI change podcasting? Now people are on the fence as to whether they're in or out on podcasting, they're sort of, or sorry, on on AI, people are kind of like, well, I don't agree with like, I know, the actors, and the writers are really having a hard time with AI. And it's definitely changing the landscape of so many industries. But I'm also finding that it can be a big help in some capacity, and podcasting, and video and content creation, especially I'm already seeing it. So where do you see that changing as far as landscape wise,
number one and foremost, original voices are going to win the day here, because AI is already creating a lot of digital content. So in this doing YouTube doing podcast, they're creating some sort of structural informational content, they are now going to be the folks that people are going to trust the most now, because they're not going to know what's been created, that has not been vetted, or has a slant or whatever. So humans are pretty easy to figure you can figure it off, you're right, left middle of center, you can figure out who a person is he really find out a lot if you listen to podcast long enough. So I think people are gonna flock to this type of content number one. Number two is a creator, in my industry, what I do for tech, and there's new news every day, I just have this endless supply of content that's been fed to me. But depending on your show, like you you've got a show here that has an endless supply of people to talk to that has cool things. But let's say you're doing a business show or whatever it may be and you're like, Oh, I'm topic tight, why don't what? So what you could actually use AI for is say, Hey, I've got an idea. Or give me some ideas down some, you know, some topics I can cover for my show. But it's often though you have to put in great input to get great output. So I was an event recently where it was really broken down. And this applies to not just podcasting, but what's going to happen in the world over the next couple of years. There's going people that are super creative, which are a lot of content creators, a lot of thinkers, people in businesses that come up with new ideas, those folks whose jobs are going to be absolutely safe. They're still going to be the creative types are in Hemet ideas. But the thunking work. And this is a word Google came up with I heard this from a Google executive. The bunking this stuff is where you're creating forms, spreadsheets, you know, proposals, that thunking stuff within a couple of years is going to be done by the AI. But on the other side of that is going to have to be the subject matter experts, it's going to be those folks that verify that that boat stuff that the I put out is real, right and no biases, you know, all that stuff. And you're so the people are not checkers fact, checkers. So the creatives and the subject matter experts are going to be the two spaces are gonna survive in this if for knowledge work. In the middle is going to be the ones that are being challenged. I eliminated a $5,000 annual bill by doing data analysis of voting of 8.3 million votes for the Podcast Awards using chat GBT s code interpreters say, hey, look, here's the 10 questions, I'm trying to determine if there was fraud, look at the data and give me a report. And it took a while. And it basically wrote me a better report than the audit firm that I've often used. So this is the things is going to change. But with podcasting, you're gonna get better show notes, you may get better choices of titles, you're gonna have better summaries, and podcasters have been lazy. I go through all these shows I listened to and I look at their show notes. And here's the sentence or two, or paragraph, that is not enough for Google to chew on to say, Hey, this is what this contents about. This is why I should make this person the authority on this. And this is why should send traffic there. I think AI will help that piece more than more than anything.
sticking to that theme, to your your your point. And I'll put my hand up on that I I am very busy. With this show, but very busy with the post content and the micro and all the rest of it, my show notes could be a million times better. It's something I desperately need help with. So it's just one of those. As I'm learning I'm trying to learn I'm just trying to bring it in, bring it in show to somebody like me, that might be struggling on shownotes. Because because there's just so much going on in life. Two part question here. Is there a point of having a podcast if your show notes aren't good? Because what's the point? You're not getting out there for Google? But number two, do you think AI will be able to help with Show Notes by listening to your like, will it come to a point where it'll listen to your show and then actually write show notes for you. I'm very curious about where you think that tech is going to be.
Number one, you can be successful and not have great show notes. But you better have one motivated audience share in that show, far and wide. So you're giving up some audience by not having great show notes. So I always do a you know, you got to really think about the title because you record for your audience. You Write for Google because your audience 90% of time are never going to come looking at the show notes. Don't care, listen to show on their on their app. They don't actually go and look at the show notes unless you tell them to go there because you have to survey you got merch or something. So they're not going to read it. But so you you record for the audience. You're right for Google that covers the show notes piece, but the AI piece, you know the how I've learned how to use this. And again, we're using the stupidest AI will ever use at this given point right now it's only going to get better. As I take the transcript that you blueberry offers the ability for podcasts to get a transcript, I take the Transcript This created and I punch that in to chat GBT or Claude Claude is better, almost better for and I said write me a complete summary of this episode, you tell me what you think was the best part of the show. Give me a title. Or maybe give me five titles to choose from. Give me some key words. Give me a yo summary. I asked for four or five things and sometimes have to prod it a little bit because it only give me like half of the episodes summary. And I have to say you didn't analyze the whole thing. You have to treat like a little child and say go back and like like an intern. You have to go back and give me the RAS and ultimately I get this great summer Have the show. And then if I can manipulate that now it's taking me longer now to do my posts because I'm getting a much deeper fear. But 90% of it's written, all I got to do is go in there and fix it. Yeah, clean it up, read through Grammarly or whatever you use, because I'm not an English major at all. And use in basic, what I'm starting to see. And I've been doing a B testing is I'm starting to see is those episodes where I did it my old way, impaired the new way to traffic stop on those new episodes, because I'm given Google more meat.
Well, and the other side too, is you can go back and retro these can show you like I could go back and re Show Notes every single episode 120 episodes if I wanted to, and put it into the universe and see where it goes. That's right. So and that's a wonderful piece of advice for everybody.
If you've talked to someone, all of a sudden, they're in the news. It's like, bam, here's, you know, let me go pull a 62nd chunk out and put that up somewhere social and say, hey, you know, so I think there's huge, huge opportunity here. And guess what? Majority content creators are team of one, we don't have 6789 10 people working for us, you know? So we're host, we're marketing or sales. You know, we're PR, so in AI allows us to use a force multiplier save some time,
I definitely have a plan to utilize it a little bit to I'm already eased up a little bit on a few things. But I'm trying to still simplify. And that's the thing with podcasting that I've discovered over this time is simplifying the process. Because the less work I have to do on the back end, the more content I can put out. Yeah,
and I think a lot of times the, it goes back to this origin doing consistent content. This is Korean contents hard. So if you have a little help, this is okay, I do my shows about this is the goal of my show. Here's the scription give me 25 topics to talk about. And you may have already covered 15 of them, but it may pump out 10 This is why you would never have thought about it. Maybe that's just enough to have a little creative juices say okay, here's the next six episodes I'm going to work on. It's definitely helped
on I'm not alone on this very much ado, it is kind of a guest based show. But when I do decide to maybe look at covering a topic, I have gone into AI and typed in some information about my show. And it actually came back to me with some great points. I never utilized two of them. But I was like, wow, I could build a whole other show just based on the recommendation. Yeah.
And I think I think it's going to help I think it's going to ebb and flow. I think we'll see what the limits of the server still trying to figure it out.
Man, this is a go to school for anybody listening, including myself, Todd Cochran, CEO of blueberry podcasting is with me this week. So how do you know what do you do? How did you do it? And the final question that we're going to cover here is what will you do next? What's your plan? Where do you want to take blueberry podcasting? But what will you personally are planning on doing next?
You know, I'm I'm really on this mission, again, to help people tell their stories. Everyone's got a story to tell. And it's because of its really that is this is this. It continued to say you can I talk to folks, I went to Riyadh last year. And most people don't know things have changed in Saudi Arabia where, well, here's a factoid, six Dekoven, when screwed up 66% of the population is 30. And under, so they had to make massive changes for these young, intimate young folks be able to have more, because every year, either they're that or they're going to write in the street, you know, women can now don't have to be covered up, they can own a business. It just goes on and on. They can drive. So they've opened it up to allow creatives. So I went to this event. And you know, I'm sitting in front of a group of 100 people, 90% of women, and they're wanting to tell their story. They've never had the opportunity, some stories are going to be tough to hear. Some of those stories are going to be exciting. So it's really runs the full gamut of emotions. So I think what podcasting gives us the ability to do is is be able to worldwide, allow people to share, and everyone has something to share. And I think that's that's the goal here is to continue to open this up. When this podcasting space first started, it was a bunch of mostly men, mostly white guys. And now we go to podcast conferences, and it's very diverse. Women now are leading the podcast content creation space by creating more new episodes or new more new shows than men. Women of color have come in strong. It's just I mean it It's in the worldwide, the space is expanding. So for me, it's really about the will is I'm on this mission to help people tell stories. And if we can be part of that. That's great. There's lots of options for hosts out there, there's some that are free. We're a paid host. Again, being that social economic spot where you can't afford to pay, there's still an opportunity for you to create content. We wish people would be able to come with us all the time. They don't that's okay. We understand that. But at the end, it's really about let's let's get those stories out and and hear those voices we need to hear and there's there's a lot of inspiration out there things that people are doing.
On top of the trend side of things, you talking about CES, you talk about tech. Is it literally one of those situations where every single day, we need to tune in to the world to find out what's changed tech wise, I feel like I every day I learned something new about this content space, I find something has changed from yesterday. I didn't retain anything like in the
end, the tech may change. But the stories are the same. And not same. In regards to theirs exact shows or like one another No, no, no, there's unique stories that are being told by unique individuals that are fascinating, can educate us can inform us and inspire us. You know, that really It runs the gamut. And, you know, again, I think in the end, while the while the entire spaces, you know, we made when we talked about AI and we talked about social promotion, that kind of stuff. Still, in the end, it's about the content, people come for the stories, you know, why does Joe Rogan attract a certain demographic? Why does this American life attract a certain demographic because they are telling a story that that demographic people want to hear. So, you know, in their shows it or niche, their shows that are you know, where you have a neurosurgeon, and he's talking to 1000 doctors that are neurosurgeons then talking specifically about, you know, changes in their space. So again, I think it all depends on the type of content. There's content out there from anybody, it's really, you know, from basket weaving to zebras, it runs the full scale. It runs a full scale.
It's quite a it's quite something. And do you to your point, though, about like, you touched on a little bit about stories and getting them out there. I I've spent a good portion of the year actually in the Middle East this year. So I was in Saudi Arabia, I was in Riyadh, I was in Bahrain. It is changing me the other show that I'm on with my friend, Chris machete. For whatever reason, and I'm not sure how accurate the charitable rankings are, or whatever. But that show is rocking in Saudi Arabia. At one point, it was like number three, and I don't know, we're like, what does that mean that we're number three. And then we were number one, for one day, we had a bit of a funny day. But I don't. But just it just seems random that Saudi Arabia had come into the mix. And then now every week, charitable, it's rather up three, down three, up 10, down five, but it's Saudi Arabia is a prominent space. But I I also don't necessarily see the crossover. So I wonder if there's a bit of, you know, bot bot world kind of contributing to that. But we definitely touched on something in an episode that was dealing with Saudi Arabia specifically. And it's kind of lived in that space. So it's very interesting to me, podcasting. Where is it headed, then?
You know, I will say one thing about charitable they're owned by Spotify. Now, I I'm a big privacy advocate. So I don't use their services, because I don't want to sell my audience to Spotify. So I'm, yeah, I'm begin. Now we offer a just as a full disclosure, we, we offer a standalone Statistics Service. But again, we've been privacy focused from the very, very beginning. We also don't do charts. So I understand why you go there to get charts. Where's the space heading is I think right now, again, because the economy has slowed down some of the higher end production stuff. I think this is a great opportunity and great time to grow a show. It's a great time to start a podcast right now. It's really in we're at a point. And there's new things to that and we could spend a whole hour on this new thing called podcasting. 2.0. It's about adding new features to the podcasting space, blueberry, Buzzsprout rss.com, and a few others have been on the leading edge of adopting some of those features. So I'm not just gonna take credit, we've all been working on that. And it's really it's about trying to build features that expand the capabilities of what we currently have an apps so that we keep the audience's engage from not only in the app standpoint, but between ourselves and audiences. ability to go live in in podcast app. So it's just this whole plethora, and some of that's called value for value. So I, again, the feature set is pretty significant. So that's what I'm kind of focused on right now is expanding the feature set to make it to make podcasting grow from what it was really hasn't grown, and many, many years because Apple kind of dictated to us what, what the expansion was gonna look like. And as podcasters we've kind of taken that back and are building out new feature sets.
Well, this has been super informative. And I'm hoping that listener and anyone that's got an interest in podcasting, and content creation is learning and taking notes. I've taken a ton of notes on this. You know, sometimes I put a show out and it just lives out there. I don't often revisit, I go, alright, it's like writing a song wrote that song. It's out there, I gotta write the next song. But this particular episode for myself personally has been super informative. It's exactly if I'm learning something, I'm opening the listener, and the watcher is learning something. His name is Todd Cochran. He is the CEO of blueberry podcasting, as we've talked about. Super, super informative. Where can people find you online? I definitely think they need to find you if they're in content creation and podcasting world and I want to direct them to there
for sure. To find me personally, it's real easy. I'm the top of search results from the name Todd Cochran with me. Of course, you can come over to blueberry.com That's blueberry without the ease because as I kind of like to jokingly say we couldn't afford the ease, they were $2 million. So blueberry.com If you want to check out the service, we get a free 30 day trial just by clicking the button on the website. But again, Todd, it blueberry.com is the email address. It's easy. That's why all my team members are so anyone that works in company first name gets you to them directly. We've got a great support team to help anyone that wants to start out. So yeah, that's simple. I'm easy to be easily found LinkedIn everywhere else. And of course, wherever podcasts are consumed, if you want to listen to about podcasting, you subscribe to the new media show.
Spoken like a true pro. I really appreciate your time. Todd, thank you so much for coming on to dwell the story of people podcast this week. I just very informative for the listener for myself, and I'm going to subscribe. I make jump on board to that space. Because I definitely am constantly trying to learn and I learned a ton today. So that's do did will the story of people podcast for another week on the crier media network. Todd, come back down the road. You know, when the technology changes in two weeks, and we'll talk about that started to build a story podcast for another week. Thanks, everybody. We'll talk soon
