How To Spot and Avoid Spamcasts on Audible and Spotify!

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:04

Welcome to the circle sessions featuring the circle of experts. Each week, one of the circle of experts joins me to talk about critical aspects of growing your podcast. We focus on marketing, social media, monetization, and website design to help you implement all of these together. The circle of experts are Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs, Tonnisha English-Amamoo of TJE Communications, and Don The Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson from Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. This week, Don is here with the circle of experts. He possesses creative powers beyond those of mere mortals. Don The Idea Guy rescues those in need of innovative ideas through his brainstorming sessions.

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:42

They are at 5 Buck Brainstorms. Don, thanks for joining me again today.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:00:47

Aloha, my friend. I just got back from the big island. Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:50

Exactly. Sound like you had a really good time and and get to explore a new island that you guys, have not seen or, really inhabited before for a while. That's

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:00:58

good. It was blast. I've not been there before. Very interesting things that would make a good podcast on its own.

Brett Johnson [: 00:01:04

Yeah. Exactly. Found out

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:01:05

in the way.

Brett Johnson [: 00:01:06

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, we've we've, taken a few weeks off talking about some stuff, but, obviously, AI is now kind of been it's now more of a a new story we did of of of what's new, new iterations of it, what's been implemented in platforms we already know about. And and one new, addition, is on a platform both you and I really enjoy using, Captivate FM. They have this new Spark AI podcast assistant, that you noted in our notes, that you, you know, caught your eye at least. And and I'll let you kinda jump in kinda go why why it caught your eye, and I can give you some detail on what I saw from the video presentation.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:01:47

Yeah. I they sent out the press release, and I thought it was really interesting about how they were using AI. It wasn't like we'll discuss in another segment today, but it wasn't so much in in solely an AI podcasting tool. It was utilizing AI technology to make their podcasting tools better. And the things that really caught my eye were the the fact that it would be able to, long term, give you a lot of insights into your podcast stats. So you kinda plug this into your Captivate program, and you were you were at the actual launch, the unveiling, so you got to see more demos than I did. But just based on the bullet points, it was gonna be able to look at your statistics and let you know which shows we're performing at. Or it's just gonna save you kinda combing through these analytic reports, and it was gonna give you summarized details on, hey.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:02:39

These shows are more popular, so here are some ideas for future show topics. I mean, that's a great way to to analyze that information. The other thing I thought could be very valuable if it was good at what it was doing was that it could give you ideas on where to insert, advertisements because so many people are really bad at inserting ads. Whether you leave it to the automated podcast ad insertion platforms, or you're just kind of, calling it by your gut and going, hey, an ad would sound good here. This thing's gonna give you insights based on where your listeners are. You know, this is the most engaging piece, or this would be a bad plan. People are dropping off here. Definitely don't put an ad here.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:03:22

So I don't know how it's gonna do those calculations because, you know, it's magic. It's AI. But I thought it sounded really interesting. What did you what did you think? What was your takeaway after seeing the actual launch?

Brett Johnson [: 00:03:33

I thought it was a good tool to insert with what they're doing with Captivate FM. All the things you noted as well can all based on transcript. I thought, as you pointed out, where to insert an ad or a promo or whatever you wanna do. It's it's going to learn as it goes along of how you transition into your podcast as well. So it's gonna pick a moment that makes sense versus just, you know, an ad, campaign that just inserts something wherever there's a pause possibly. That's where things so it's gonna try to read your flow of what you're talking about and such too. And, you know, and to that point, I wanted to go a little bit deeper into we'll get back to Captivate Spark AI, but, to your point about inserting an ad, you really need to think differently about how to insert ads, and and it should be more than just inserting an ad. Give your audience a little bit of heads up when they're in listening that you're gonna yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:04:24

Hey. We'll be back right after this. Even if you insert a little bit of that, then just sticking an ad in. Give your give your listeners something to go on that it's it's it's a it's a commercial break. You know?

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:04:36

The the abrupt in all of a sudden, there's an ad playing. YouTube is probably the word of this. You think Google would be better. But those YouTube videos, just somebody's talking, they're mid sentence, and all of a sudden the ad starts playing. Right. What are you doing?

Brett Johnson [: 00:04:50

And and I bring that up because okay. Now you have a tool with Captivate FM, which is great through Spark AI that allows you to pick some moments to put ads, but you've gotta take it the next step. Just don't insert something without allowing a little bit of, hey. Thanks for listening. We'll be back right after this. And now back to the show. Kinda create those 2 audio pieces, insert them, and you're golden. It sounds much better.

Brett Johnson [: 00:05:13

You're not gonna tick off your listener. But anyway, just do it better.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:05:17

Just do it better. Because why not use AI for that? So if this if spark can tell you where an ad would fit best, why can't it find the natural pause or break in the conversation? And why doesn't it come in with an AI voice to say, hey. That was a great point from Brett. We're gonna be back where Brett can finish his thought and cover the rest of that information. But first, here's a here's a word from our sponsor. And then go, and now back to the show. Mhmm. What they should absolutely build that.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:05:49

The AI voices is we're gonna talk about here a little bit later, can act as a cohost anymore. Why not make that another natural extension of, of what Captivate's doing with Spark AI? It would certainly add some additional value.

Brett Johnson [: 00:06:03

Yes. It would. And it would be easy enough to do because, it's not necessarily recognizing the voice. It just knows what you put in the transcript, who is saying that turn. So it's saying and it's reading what you told it that, yes, this is Dawn talking. This is Brett talking. So it it knows when it's taking the break. Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:06:20

I mean, it AI understands context now. I mean, any anything you've searched in, you know, what I've taken to doing with chat GPT is I'll paste in a block of text and go, do you understand this? And it'll go, why? Yeah. I understand. You're talking about this, this, and this. I'm like, excellent. Now I can ask it a question in context. So if the AI is taking the audio, creating the transcript, now it has now it has the copy, and it can interpret that copy and give it context and flow. Why wouldn't it be able to have a cohost be your announcer and and call that break?

Brett Johnson [: 00:06:57

Yeah. Basically. Yeah. Exactly. It's it's your producer behind the scenes putting stuff together for you, as it goes. Yes. So yeah. It it's, along with the transcript, obviously, it's it's developing that for you, but it can, also, give the chapters as well.

Brett Johnson [: 00:07:11

So, I mean, that's gonna become a thing down the road, some chapters. And, of course, those are the you know, if you have the right, podcast app player, you'll see chapter show up as it plays. And you can put chapters in that basically are markers in time that you are suggesting listeners go to that are, this is a great moment, this is a great moment, you should go here. Or it can be an let's go back to the ad. The ad could be a marker and you put a little, a thumbnail artwork of your sponsor right there with a link. So you're you're that's another value added to your sponsor that yeah. Besides having a an ad at mark 22 in the podcast, I'm also gonna put a link there. I'm gonna put a a a little thumbnail artwork of your product so that listener sees where it is and can go there and and actually go through the link and buy your product.

Brett Johnson [: 00:08:00

So Yeah. These these things

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:08:02

captivate adding in. Absolutely. Yeah. They're they're building an additional value, and they're treating AI as it should be. That is not as a creative on its own, but as a partner and an assistant Mhmm. To help you better produce the things that you're producing, whether it's writing or artwork or or podcast. Right.

Brett Johnson [: 00:08:21

And if you have

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:08:22

should be your assistant. And I think it's Yeah. I think an analytical assistant because I hate going through Yeah. Google Analytics. I hate reading charts and and graphs. If and the value that it's gonna have increases over time. The more stats it has to go through and give you, summaries on, the more valuable the tool becomes. So I I think it's a fantastic use of AI.

Brett Johnson [: 00:08:46

It is. Exactly. And we've been going on and on about it. We we we have no affiliate, you know, linked to Captivate FM or anything. We're we're not part of the company. It's just it's a great tool that makes sense to insert with what they're doing. And and again, if you already have tools that you're using for your transcript, like, another one that I love, Cast Magic, is doing a fantastic job. That may do the job for you already.

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:08

But if you haven't, taken the dive in buying some type of transcription software and you're on Captivate, this is probably a good one, just go with this. Don't look at anything out outside because it it's it incorporates it so well. If you have something on the outside, you you you may teeter. It's one of those, do I spend this? I got it all here. But this does the you know, take a case by case depending on who you work with. I think, on a on a larger level, like myself with Circle 270 Media, I can look at it as, you know, offering it to my clients and I build it in. You know, it's one of those that they want it sort of thing. Independence, they yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:43

Every dollar matters. I totally get that. But it's that but if it can save you time, it's worth the money they're asking. It's really not that much.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:09:51

Did Captivate already have transcription as part of their normal

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:54

No. This is their first hit. They did not do anything with it.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:09:57

This is the first already have that.

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:58

This is the first AI that they have, done anything with in within their software. Who? Yeah. This is it. Justin,

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:10:05

what's Justin Jackson's company?

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:08

Oh, starts with an an r around Trans Transistor. Transistor. They may have. Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:10:14

They they must be theirs. Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:15

Could be. Could be. So And

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:10:16

speak for yourself, man. I've got affiliate codes for, for Captivate. I've got affiliate codes for Transistor. I don't play favorites. You wanna link to a podcast tool? I've got an affiliate link for you.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:26

There you go. Exactly. Exactly. I just wanna put the put the caveat out there. It's like, no. We're not starting off with an ad right away. We're just looking at AI. Exactly.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:34

So But

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:10:35

we could.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:35

We could.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:10:36

The AI didn't tell us to start out with an ad because that would be a bad idea.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:39

It would be a bad idea. Exactly. Yeah. So you have you have already played with Google's new, little, note taking product, notebook l m. It's interesting that they call it a note taking product.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:10:52

It's a dumb name. It's a dumb name. Interesting. And I'm I'm worried about a couple of things. One, every time I fall in love with a Google product, they discontinue it. So I know this one's not gonna be around for long because they'll just discontinue it like they did with so many other thing. Like, I don't know.

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:09

Because they can't make is it because they can't make money on it? Is that why they this stuff goes away? Or

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:11:14

Google's because Google's going broke. Those poor, poor guys. I don't know how they stay in business.

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:19

Exactly. Are they Anyway Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:11:21

Notebook l m, the dumb like, what does the l m stand for? Do you know?

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:25

I have no idea. I don't know. I've not heard. I'm sure it stands for something. Yeah. I don't know.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:11:32

This thing is really, really cool. You know, we're both from the radio background, and we know that there's, the company out of Cleveland that's doing AI services where their their goal is to replace on air hosts with these AI hosts. And we both know some folks who have some podcasting tools that it'll use an AI voice to put together your podcast for you. The ones we've seen so far has been, single voice, just one host. Google's notebook l m, you feed it content. Like, you can upload documents. You can give it a web link. You can paste text into it.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:12:14

You can give it a PDF And it takes all this information, and you click a button to say generate. And it creates a podcast or audio. It it's not producing a podcast where it's creating an audio file that you can play within minutes. And it's cohosted. There's 2 hosts. There's a male and a female, and their banter is amazing. So they take whatever information you fed it, and they condense it and create this digest where it sounds very NPR ish. It sounds like an NPR show.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:12:49

It could absolutely be something you hear on the air. The and it's not just parroting back the content. They interact with each other. They'll make little slight jokes, and they're not hilarious like stand up comedy. It's the jokes people make during an interview. And they're basically just talking to each other about this content, and it is put together so well. I think that you could feed it your insurance policy, and it would come back and give you, like, this really great conversation about everything that's in the insurance policy. It's amazing.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:13:25

Have you tried it on your own?

Brett Johnson [: 00:13:26

I have not. I've only heard results of it. And and, I've heard it, though. And and is pretty and I forget what topic they were talking about. And it's like, okay. This is listenable. Yeah. You know? When you have that

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:13:38

working on Yeah. I'm working on a historical novel, and, there's a lot. It's research heavy. And I had all this research about this time period, and I fed it into it. And it did a great start. It talked about that period in great detail between the 2 of them, the the 2 of them. They they like, they're real people. Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:14:00

They did a great job of covering all the information I gave them. It was a wonderful summary of all this dry historical info. Now as I'm doing this research, I can't ask them questions. It doesn't work like chat gbt where you can ask follow-up questions or ask what ifs or ask them to take that information and contrast it with something else. You can't tell it what you want out of the show. It is an audible summary of the information you give it. It's entertaining. It's conversate you could absolutely publish it as a podcast, but it's it's not very interactive yet.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:14:37

You can't direct you can't send them down a path that you want them to explore at all. But, man, the output right now in its first version is just it's it's I'm awestruck in how good they sounded. I've heard the demos from, that company out of Cleveland that's doing the the broadcast host Right. For radio stations. Yeah. And it's okay. And they promoted as this will be your AI cohost. It's not that good.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:15:09

And the jokes aren't funny and the speech is still still did. I I defy anybody to tell me that they could tell it was a fake person. I I heard maybe one word that was off the tiniest bit. It does a phenomenal job. It's free right now. I encourage anybody to go Yeah. Try it out and play around with this thing. It's amazing.

Brett Johnson [: 00:15:28

Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah, it's it's and that's interesting, and and how they're doing it. But, yeah, like you said, how long will it be around? So use it as quickly as possible. So, you

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:15:39

know, I I listen to a lot of things, and a a friend of mine, Scott Ginsburg, the name tag guy, he asked this great question that is, what else does this make possible? So when you see this technology and you hear the results, the first thing that pops in my head is, oh, man. Now what can we do? Mhmm.

Brett Johnson [: 00:15:58

Yeah. Yeah. And and that's true. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And and, you know, and you think, well, this will bust up podcasting. This, you know, we just insert stuff blah blah blah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:16:06

It's like, no. This is a tool for a certain reason. Everybody gets all crazy that, oh, this is the end of this is the end of because of this. It's like, no. We still have the opportune. People wanna talk and people wanna do podcast. This maybe insert when you don't have somebody that can do it or it has its uses. It has its uses.

Brett Johnson [: 00:16:25

So, yeah, figured it's we'll figure it out as we go.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:16:27

You know, even if you used it as, maybe use as a summary tool. Let's say you're gonna have a topic about Yeah. Oh, okay. One of my favorite podcasts is on the, pirate history. It's a pirates podcast. So this guy does a great job of retelling the stories from history. Adds a lot of drama to it. You can easily take the textbook of piracy, feed it into this thing.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:16:53

They give a summary of this one time period, and then the host can tell some specific stories about it. So if you need a good summarizer, you wanna use something as cohost, it could be a good utility that you could work in and around it. You can't talk to it. You can't banter with it right now. But, boy, if it said, we're gonna get here's a rundown. Here's the basis. Now let's talk about what what they just covered Right. And give them specific instances or what ifs and and that kind of thing.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:17:20

I Yeah. That gives me an idea of things to try too. That could be very cool.

Brett Johnson [: 00:17:24

Yeah. Exactly. No. I think it's it's it's definitely something to take a look at, kick it around, see what's going on. So yeah. Exactly. It's a fun

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:17:30

new toy.

Brett Johnson [: 00:17:31

Yeah. It is. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. This is, this story next I found, and listeners know, you know, we, not every episode we do, you know, a breakdown on the news that we poke at traditional media or radio. But we tend to try to find stories that just like

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:17:49

We tend to poke at them?

Brett Johnson [: 00:17:50

What? What? So this this story is a little bit old. It was an expose ish on meeting, the the Expose or wine piece? Wine piece. Yeah. The the local newspaper here in Columbus, Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch, they do, every Sunday, I guess it is, Meet the dispatch reporter. Meet somebody on the dispatch, you know. So that'll last about 15 15 episodes because they have 15 people on staff. But, so this is Meet Dispatch digital producer, podcast engineer, Patrick Flaherty, from the Columbus Dispatch. So, he was talking about their corral of podcasts that they have.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:26

And and if you would look at what they have, you think, oh my gosh, you know, they're doing like 20 podcasts. This is pretty cool stuff. So, I did some digging, and most of the episodes most of the podcasts I have are dead. They're not doing anything with. But I'll I his his quote in here that he he was asked what's rid of

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:18:45

all the people who were doing the podcast.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:47

Exactly.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:18:47

They had the they had the dispatch reporters doing the the podcast on the articles they're writing, and he got rid of all your reporters. So, yeah, the podcasts are gone too.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:56

Right. So the he was asked what is the biggest challenge that he faces. And he says, one of the biggest challenges that I face is getting readers to understand the importance and the value of the digital audio and podcasting hold. Being able to grow a podcast and gain a loyal listenership can be a tough thing to do in a saturated market. Okay. That that's that that saturated market terminology is just so easy to throw out. Yeah. Right.

Brett Johnson [: 00:19:23

Simply making folks aware that news can be consumed through audio at the dispatch and not just by reading online or in the newspapers and ongoing daily challenge. Wait a minute. You're converting all your readers to online. They're online already, and you can't create news content that should resonate with your news readers and growth is hard.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:19:45

I I don't think they're first of all, they're not considering their audience at all. The people who are subscribing to newspapers are notoriously aging out and dying. Their audience is dying. Yeah. It's dying.

Brett Johnson [: 00:19:56

Right.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:19:56

And they're not doing anything to replace it. You don't need to be convincing your newspaper readers about the value of podcast. You need to be convincing podcast listeners the value of your podcast.

Brett Johnson [: 00:20:08

Because there

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:20:08

are listening to podcasts.

Brett Johnson [: 00:20:10

And there are some major newspapers that have increased twentyfold their paywall for podcasts. And it's just been in the news recently that that people are paying for good content behind a paywall for news. They're doing it.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:20:22

And newspapers were the were some of the first commercial podcast because they already had a platform. And they went, hey. This podcasting thing, we should get on it. There's a podcast for every ongoing article. Every sport team that the dispatch covered, there was a podcast for. Mhmm. Soccer, hockey, baseball, football, you had a podcast for it. That was a dispatch product.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:20:46

And, what their listenership was, I don't know. You're trying to convince newspaper reader to become podcast listeners. That's not what you need. The newspaper readers love you because you're a newspaper. You need to find the podcasters who don't read newspapers go, oh, hey. This podcast that this old dead tree company puts out is really good content.

Brett Johnson [: 00:21:07

Right. Right. And they're great.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:21:08

You're aiming for the wrong audience.

Brett Johnson [: 00:21:10

Yeah. You're they're great examples out of The Daily is a great example of that. This is just it's part of a newspaper, but it's that, but they do it differently. It's not the newspaper on a podcast, but yeah, they some of the podcasts they had the Ohio, what's called Ohio Politics Explained, from what I saw, not very many listeners. The Other Side Podcast, which I still promote is not published for over near well, over a year, from the newsroom last published in August of 2023, Broken Pledge, which was on college hazing, and he references this podcast in his interview, last published in 2021. So that that that's a stupid podcast even referenced that you had a hard time promoting.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:21:47

I can't believe it was a pod it wasn't an episode. It was a podcast? It

Brett Johnson [: 00:21:51

was a podcast. So it must have been, I I think it was 2 or 3 episodes, you know, to cover the story in-depth, but it, you know, it covered that college college hazing. And I remember

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:22:00

So it was a limited it was a limited time Correct. Correct.

Brett Johnson [: 00:22:03

Very specific to a topic. Yes.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:22:05

Alright. So it makes sense that that one wouldn't be published ongoing.

Brett Johnson [: 00:22:08

Oh, for sure. For sure. Yeah. Exactly. But he does reference it very heavily in the pod in in the interview, but it's like, you you didn't have anything else you could reference that's not 3 years old?

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:22:17

Well, broken pledge so let's think about prog as programmers. Broken pledge, if it's a stand alone piece, it's an audio story. That's not even a podcast. It's a it's a it's an audio version of the article. Right. You wanna create a podcast, create dispatch exposed. And every week, you cover another's or another story that was a deep dive. So Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:22:41

Broken Pledge is just a a 3 episode series, and now you're gonna go on to police corruption and neighborhood expansion and, you know, that kind of, you know, violence in school that but that's part of your exposed your your deep dive stuff.

Brett Johnson [: 00:23:00

Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:23:00

It's not an audio version of the article you printed. So dispatch has never hung well onto how they could use that tool. Even early, it doesn't sound like their new podcast producer is anymore on the ball.

Brett Johnson [: 00:23:14

I don't think so either. And, again, I'm gonna say I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He probably doesn't get a whole lot of, support probably. You know? Also so he's he's fighting, exposure just as much as we are, honestly. You know? And they

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:23:29

shouldn't have shined the light on them. I mean, you you brought this guy out. He's gonna complain about it, and you're not gonna do anything to fix it. He's probably the next guy to go.

Brett Johnson [: 00:23:37

Right. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Exactly. Because they, you know, they haven't done anything with it. Even even the sports, I was kinda surprised now from what I could gather. Even the but they have a Buckeye Extra.

Brett Johnson [: 00:23:46

They have maybe 37 100 listeners. Con and Cannon Fodder, excuse me, which is part of the Columbus Blue Jacket podcast. That's a little over a 1000 listeners. To me, I don't understand how you cannot have many more listeners than that when you are dead center on. If you're not from Columbus, you don't know this, but Columbus is Buckeye Ohio State Buckeyes. Any buckeyes, you should be well.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:24:08

Those those 2 podcasts are all part of, microsites that are dedicated to both pieces of content. There's a Buckeye Extra website. There's a CannonPotter website. This is content on those websites. And they were using at the time these launched, they also own the local TV station

Brett Johnson [: 00:24:28

Correct.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:24:28

Which they were using TV and print to put people to those pages. They since divested themselves at the TV station, so now they only have print. And the readership's dying. The the the people who list read the newspaper are not the same people that you're gonna build a large podcast on, but those are definitely audience sizes that you could be making profits on.

Brett Johnson [: 00:24:51

Yes. Yes. Exactly. And it's it was just an odd his interview was just kind of a whiny thing. Yeah. It was whiny. And it didn't

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:24:58

sit in consulting gig there, brother. Maybe. Reach out and go, he wants some help with this?

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:02

Yeah. If he's still, still employed there. So yeah. And I won't tell him to listen to this episode because it'll

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:25:08

Listen, man. Do you don't think people are saying bad things about the dispatch?

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:12

I know that. Exactly. He's like, wait a minute. You want me to be a client, but you're you're disobeying the on your podcast? Like, well, yeah. If it hurts, I'm sorry.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:25:19

But we just gave you 10 ideas on how to help yourself.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:22

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:25:24

He's a podcast engineer. He's not a marketing guy.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:27

Mhmm.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:25:28

He's not a guy who has to go out and find the sponsors for the content. Yeah. You know, one idea that makes this thing more responsible for him, The fact that he's he could go back to the sales team and go, I've got 37. I've got over 37 100 listeners to Buckeye Extra. You guys can't monetize this.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:46

Yeah. In some fashion. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. Really? Come on. Let's let's figure out how to do it. Let's figure out how to do it.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:54

Yeah. Exactly. So we're gonna this may be a, a segment we continue on because AI is just out there new stuff all the time, but weird AI tool.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:26:05

Newspapers. That's a segment we're gonna get to the rip out of.

Brett Johnson [: 00:26:08

Right. Right. Right. This next one, weird AI tools no one asked for. And I think, even as a listener, if you have an AI tool that no one asked for this, let us know about it. We'll review it. You know, that sort of thing.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:26:21

Yeah. If you see a link to, you know, there's an AI story about a new AI tool that just launched and you look at it and go Why? Why? Why?

Brett Johnson [: 00:26:30

Yeah. Yeah. Why?

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:26:32

So Send us the link.

Brett Johnson [: 00:26:33

I would love to.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:26:34

Sure to hit the welcome in the episode.

Brett Johnson [: 00:26:35

Yeah. Exactly. So, first one you saw recently, was with, in another transcription tool, Descript. A Descript Descript. I I don't know how they pronounce it. Anyway, talk a little bit about that. It's it's an AI contact filter. What's going on with that?

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:26:53

Yeah. So, with the rise of video in podcasting, which I still don't agree with, it's not it's not a podcast, but it's video. There are people who are working with cameras now that maybe they haven't before. And part of working with a camera, especially if you're doing a script that you're reading and using a teleprompter, is when you're reading a teleprompter, you are it's a game to get the cam to look make it look like you're looking into the camera, but you're still reading text that's scrolling on a screen, that's hard to do. Mhmm. If you're referring to notes and you look away from a camera, people are obsessed with making sure they're looking into the camera. And I one, I think that's a wrong thing to concern yourself about. That's not that's not what people are expecting on the other side.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:27:43

If I'm watching a video, I don't want some weird creepy dude staring back at me like they're looking at me through the camera. That's weird. That's weird and uncomfortable.

Brett Johnson [: 00:27:52

Yeah. A matter

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:27:52

of fact, if you ever watch any, sitcom outtakes, they if they look too into the camera, it's a bad take. They don't want them looking into the camera. They don't want them staring out of the TV. And I really think that that's the same thing with what you should be striving for with your videocast. So this script, which has been a pretty good transcription tool, it's been around for a while. Yeah. They added this new thing. Do you have a name for it? I think it's just called eye contact.

Brett Johnson [: 00:28:21

Okay. Yeah. Think so. Yeah. But, you know, check

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:28:24

your notes. It's called eye contact Indescript.

Brett Johnson [: 00:28:26

Okay.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:28:27

So it's an AI tool that basically paints eyeballs on your eyes so that if you look away or you close your eyes or it keeps your eyeballs staring at the screen and it's it's weird. I mean, I've seen worse ones. It's it's it's as natural as it can be for this tool, but it's really odd. And if you watch videos that have been created with this thing, even the samples that it has on their on their page at descript.com, I think they're weird. I I it's not your exact eyes. And then they've got an example where they turn it off, they turn it on, they turn it off, they turn it on and like your the whites of your eyes are too white and the pupils are too centered. It's just a weird tool that nobody asked for. Was this a big problem with video stuff? We're recording this now, and we're not staring out of the screen.

Brett Johnson [: 00:29:26

Right.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:29:26

Yeah. I mean, I'm looking a little sideways because my monitor to see you on the screen is off to the right of where my camera's off to the left. If I was just like, good point. Just like this. When I have a when I have a conversation with somebody out in public, I don't fucking do this. Sorry. You have to be bad. That's exactly right, man.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:29:39

Yeah. Right. Someone just freaked you out.

Brett Johnson [: 00:29:50

Exactly. You,

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:29:51

it doesn't blink the whole time they're talking to you.

Brett Johnson [: 00:29:54

Especially when they have you have the up lighting that you have, you know, perfect for Halloween. Exactly. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Like a

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:30:03

jack o'-lantern.

Brett Johnson [: 00:30:04

It seems as though it's just an addition to as a like you said, they may have oversold it. That's like, oh, look what it does, look what it does. I and okay. Then take this into consideration as well too. The research is showing, okay, you have your podcast on YouTube. Let's put it that way. You have the video version of it. That's playing in the background.

Brett Johnson [: 00:30:25

Nobody cares if you got eye contact with it with it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Now, again, if if if now let's take this tool maybe one step further. If it's not a podcast, maybe it's a video presentation. Maybe it's that you do want some intimacy with the viewer because it's it's a a training tool. I don't know. It's something beyond a podcast. Maybe Maybe.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:30:46

But Man, I

Brett Johnson [: 00:30:47

I don't know about that. That's questionable too. You know? I it's strange.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:30:51

Not natural. There's there's a thing there's a thing in AI and artificial, and robots. It started with called the uncanny valley, where something looks so real, but there's just something a little bit off about it. That's the uncanny valley. So that's what this is to me. I Yeah. Any conversation you've had with any human being, their eye if they're meeting your gaze is it's hitting your forehead, it's hitting your nose, it might hit your left eye, it might hit your ear. Their eyes are moving.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:31:22

They're not staring at you deep and deeply, deeply right into your eyes and just talking to you because that's creepy and stalkerish, and they probably have bodies in the basement.

Brett Johnson [: 00:31:36

Exactly. Exactly. So you now you know what? So the video version of this, folks, you're gonna probably see a thumbnail I know. That that YouTube selects that one right there. That Don is staring right into the camera. That's gonna be the thumbnail artwork that it's gonna say, this is what we suggest.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:31:50

And I don't even know what it looks like because I couldn't look at the video monitor because I was staring at the camera.

Brett Johnson [: 00:31:56

Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, probably a tool we really didn't need. Yeah. Exactly. So, you also caught one. You're you're a tiki guy, Hawaii guy. You love that that that whole world, but you found a podcast called hawaii shirt.net talk about this.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:32:17

Yeah. So I'm, I'm a subscriber to Audible. I I listen to audiobooks as well as podcasts. And we've had discussions about Spotify before. I listen to Spotify for music playlist. I don't use Spotify for podcasts. Audible, I go to for audiobooks. I do not go there for podcasts, but Audible has been pushing people to listen to podcasts there.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:32:39

So when I'm searching for a topic and be I mentioned I just came back from Hawaii. So I was looking for books about Hawaii and, cool, Hawaii history, that I could listen to on the plane and kinda psych myself up. And and as I'm doing searches for this topic of Hawaii, it suggests podcasts. And it's a podcast called, hawaiianshirt.net, authentic Hawaiian Aloha Shirts. That's the name of the podcast. Now I am an Aloha shirt guy. If you've watched past episodes of this many times, I'm wearing an Aloha shirt. I am not today.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:33:15

I'm wearing a, Don the Beachcomber shirt. It's a what it's the home of the Mai Tai. It was one of the places I visited while I was in Hawaii.

Brett Johnson [: 00:33:22

Gotcha.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:33:23

So I'm not wearing an Aloha shirt today, but I recently did buy a coffee table book that's about the art and history of the Aloha shirt. So when the podcast came up for this, it's not a podcast I've heard before. I certainly would not have listened to it or subscribed to an Audible, but I wanted more details on it. Yeah. I click over to it. Oh, this is kinda this is kinda cool. An Aloha shirt podcast. This will be really interesting.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:33:46

And I click on the listen for the show, and it's an ad. You know, this is not this is not a podcast, except that, technically, it is because there's an RSS feed that you can subscribe to. You can subscribe to this in any podcast player, in any podcast app. You can subscribe to it on Audible. There are multiple episodes. There's a whole playlist of these episodes. And in every single one of them, all they do is spotlight 1 of the Aloha shirts that they have on their website. It's like if you went to Amazon and you had a podcast that just read the description of office supplies or kitchen gadgets.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:34:27

Right. That today's episode is on, the cork coaster. It's a beautiful addition to any living room, and it protects your wooden coffee table from liquid stains. And if you want them, they're 4 for a dollar, and you can buy them on Amazon dotcom. That's the podcast for this Aloha

Brett Johnson [: 00:34:47

shirt. Wow.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:34:48

This Aloha shirt features fish, and it's available in blue and green. And you can buy them on hawaiianshirt.net. Wow. It's horrible.

Brett Johnson [: 00:34:57

Wow.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:34:58

I've coined a new term called spam casting. Mhmm. It is generated by AI of some sort. It's a definitely a robot voice. It is not a human voice.

Brett Johnson [: 00:35:06

Okay.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:35:06

It it sounds terrible. It's the word it's like this isn't even AI voice. This was, like, the artificial voices that you could type in and it reply back to you before AI was the thing. It sounds horrible. They could make this sound a lot better if they would use you know what? I bet you I could take a page on the hawaiian shirt dot net website, go to Google notebook l m, paste in description, and I get a much better podcast than they are delivering on, on Audible.

Brett Johnson [: 00:35:37

That's that's where that's where my mind was going to. It's like, okay, create create an atmosphere around maybe 2 people wearing a shirt and commenting that, oh my god, that is so cool. Look at the detail. That is so, you know, getting an emotion around the shirt.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:35:49

Automated this where there's probably not even a human working on it anymore.

Brett Johnson [: 00:35:52

Right.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:35:53

Here's my problem with it. Audible is a paid platform. Like, you gotta be a member of Audible to go in there and buy or use your credits to buy the books on there.

Brett Johnson [: 00:36:02

Right.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:36:07

Amazon certainly has a bunch of spam ebooks. You know, it's become so easy to create ebooks that are available on Kindle that everybody's done so, and they're either free or they're 99¢. And there's a bunch of them on there that are, they're a big rip off. There there's no value in them at all. And Amazon lets us through because Amazon's making a buck off of them as well. There's no value to this being on Audible. Audible is not a a major podcasting platform. Why are you vetting the content that you're allowing people to distribute on the Audible platform? It's free.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:36:40

It's crap content. You're not charging credits for it. At least Amazon's charging 99¢ for a crap book, I guess. Yeah. This is a terrible platform, and I'm like, I can't believe any to get through the vetting process. And then I go over to Spotify and search for this pie the podcast is on Spotify too. So these guys should have better gatekeepers. If you're gonna go there for quality content, you need the curator.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:37:05

You need the curator to go. This crap doesn't work here. Hey. By all means, go post that on your own website. Make it available for anybody to subscribe in their own podcast app. I'm not saying it shouldn't be out there for somebody. But if I go to Audible, if I go to Spotify, I expect there to be premium content there, not this drivel, spandex.

Brett Johnson [: 00:37:27

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, you know, and it gets my creative mind like we just I mentioned a few minutes ago. You could have something really creative with this, you know, I forget what the podcast name is off the top of my head, but it's, it's it's all alive or we're alive or something like that. But what what they do is, put voice to an inanimate object, like a pineapple or or, you know, a kangaroo. It puts voices to kangaroo. It's not really inanimate object. So one episode was a about about a kangaroo and and it's baby rue.

Brett Johnson [: 00:37:57

Oh my god. It's so funny. But, but you because the baby rue would not leave in that but then and baby rue, his voice was like he was 30, and he wouldn't leave mom's pocket. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's hilarious.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:38:07

So millennial. He moved back to the mom's basement.

Brett Johnson [: 00:38:09

It's so freaking hilarious. But, anyway and the mom has just wore out and something like that. But it's that, okay, let's have some fun with Hawaiian shirts. But, yeah, obviously, that was not the intent of what they wanna do. But it's it gets you creative going. Yeah. You could create a podcast or a, at least a presentation piece in an audio form that could actually have some fun and maybe another form of selling product, but describing it versus the visual.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:38:34

Could be kind of fun. Definitely be a historical Hawaiian shirt Right. Art history of Hawaiian shirt. There's multiple books out on the topic. I I paid for 1. I would have listened to it. If it was about the history and artists of the Aloha shirt, I would have become a subscriber, not on Audible platform, but in my podcast list. I would have subscribed to this podcast.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:38:59

But as it is, it's a really bad audio catalog entry. Wow.

Brett Johnson [: 00:39:04

Yeah. And what what what what are they doing? And I and I don't know if they even have access to if you if you hear something like this, can you tell Spotify going, guys, really? Can you know? And it it probably not because they they have not, the terms of of of agreement, it's not racist. It's not inflammatory. I obviously, they can take it down. They can. But it's one of those

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:39:28

On Amazon's product pages, there are links to say this product's inaccurate or you wanna report something about the listing. There's no link on any Audible sites to to make a complaint about anything, even if it's a bad audio file. Hey. This this audio there's no audio there. There's no way to to directly draw a line to say you go through their general support, and we all know how good, the support is for reaching out and getting hold of a human at Amazon.

Brett Johnson [: 00:40:01

Yeah. Right. Exactly.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:40:02

Because Amazon knows all about it.

Brett Johnson [: 00:40:04

Right. So so it's good. Yeah. Exactly. Wow. Yeah. So so yeah. We may just have a a a new segment here.

Brett Johnson [: 00:40:11

I like that. Oh, and by the way, we're gonna go back a little bit. The l m is language modeling. That's what the l m stands for. I was I I didn't get to insert that early. I'm not gonna do any editing, but it's actually yeah. Isn't it? No. Book notebook language modeling.

Brett Johnson [: 00:40:25

Still doesn't make sense, but that's what the l m stands for. So yeah. I guess I should have picked that up because that's what your

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:40:30

minds wanna know.

Brett Johnson [: 00:40:31

Yeah. I just have to Google it, and that's all you gotta do. Exactly. So or or that that's not I have to chat GTP it or whatever. So that'd be Well, I was

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:40:39

gonna say they they must have went, hey. Hey. Let's just use letters. It worked for chat g p t. We're notebook l m.

Brett Johnson [: 00:40:47

Yeah. Right. And then I have to try to remember what I guess l m is not really, anything, roman numeral. I don't think that is. I'd have to I'd have to think about that one. I don't think that one It's

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:40:58

gotta be. To your Super Bowl letters. Oh, I'm trying to

Brett Johnson [: 00:41:01

think of l l would be go for an m. I think it might be actually, maybe. But anyway, either way, either way. So, hey, you know, this episode was full of great ideas that actually have some teeth to it, that have some money that could be made off of it. How can they get a hold of you if they wanna kinda pick your brain a bit more and kinda go, you know, I like what you guys say. I wanna talk I wanna

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:41:19

talk to

Brett Johnson [: 00:41:19

you a little bit more, Don. I wanna talk to you more.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:41:21

The the easiest way to find me is at dontheideaguy.com. Cool. And by the way, l m for, Roman numeral is 950.

Brett Johnson [: 00:41:30

So notebook 950. Notebook 950.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:41:33

The notebook 950. Now that that sounds like something.

Brett Johnson [: 00:41:36

That you can you put your night book, the notebook 950. Okay. That'll be our code for notebook. Notebook 950. Alright. 95951, whatever it takes. Right. Exactly.

Brett Johnson [: 00:41:43

There you go. Exactly. And if you got any, problems with podcasting, you know, if you got a podcast out right now that you're not real happy with, it's not going where you

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:41:55

want to go.

Brett Johnson [: 00:41:56

Call the dispatch first. No. Anyway, because they'll commiserate with you. At least they'll have a wine party with you. Yeah. Get a hold of, me, mypodcastguy.com. You got my calendar there, but we can, we can help you launch podcasts that you wanna launch, or if it's if it's just something about a podcast, that you're producing right now, you're just not quite there. Just, you don't know what's wrong.

Brett Johnson [: 00:42:20

Or we could do a review of it, that sort of thing. Contact us. My podcast guy dot com. We got a booking calendar right there. It's easy to do. Easy to do. Don, as always, time goes so fast. Thank you for joining me.

Brett Johnson [: 00:42:30

This is this is good. I think, we we we bring up the, the problems of the day, and we, we we we definitely answer them, I think.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:42:39

Solving solving the podcast problems nobody asked for input on.

Brett Johnson [: 00:42:42

Exactly. Exactly. Without using notebook 950. Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:42:46

Yeah. And I guess it's actually, like, CLM. It's not quite correct. That was that was a chat GPT hallucination, possibly.

Brett Johnson [: 00:42:55

There you go.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:42:56

It'll fire my AI assistant. I need the model 951.

Brett Johnson [: 00:43:00

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, well. Talk to you next time. Thanks.