WEBVTT 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:05.120 Here's a new and improved way to see Podcast Industry Insights. 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:14.160 Thank you for joining me for The Audacity to Podcast. 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:15.119 I'm Daniel J. Lewis. 00:00:15.275 --> 00:00:19.594 I've been tracking metrics on the podcast industry since 2018, 00:00:19.914 --> 00:00:22.234 and there's an interesting story behind that. 00:00:22.394 --> 00:00:25.274 For many years, my podcast reviews had been running. Yes. 00:00:25.274 --> 00:00:26.394 This is totally irrelevant. 00:00:26.394 --> 00:00:29.355 My podcastreviews.com turned into Podgagement. 00:00:29.355 --> 00:00:33.369 But for many years, that was developed for me by someone else in 00:00:33.369 --> 00:00:38.010 a programming language that has been dying, Ruby on Rails, and a 00:00:38.010 --> 00:00:40.649 language that I just did not want to learn. 00:00:40.890 --> 00:00:45.210 But I really wanted to rebuild my podcast reviews into something 00:00:45.675 --> 00:00:49.674 much better. And I'd been planning that for multiple years. 00:00:49.995 --> 00:00:53.835 And in 2018, I decided to get serious about that and start 00:00:53.835 --> 00:00:55.274 rebuilding it myself. 00:00:55.594 --> 00:00:58.920 But that meant I needed to learn how to code because I didn't 00:00:58.920 --> 00:01:00.440 know how to code before then. 00:01:00.440 --> 00:01:03.719 I knew HTML and CSS as a web designer. 00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:08.680 So I was a front end developer in that sense of just the HTML and 00:01:08.680 --> 00:01:10.040 CSS, but I didn't know JavaScript. 00:01:10.405 --> 00:01:16.245 I knew back end PHP just enough to make a WordPress plugin, 00:01:16.245 --> 00:01:19.605 social subscribe and follow icons, or for short, subscribe and 00:01:19.605 --> 00:01:22.165 follow, and that was about it. 00:01:22.520 --> 00:01:27.400 So when I decided to rebuild my podcast reviews, I wanted to 00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:28.680 learn a programming language. 00:01:28.680 --> 00:01:32.600 I studied what the options were and decided I wanted to learn 00:01:32.600 --> 00:01:33.319 JavaScript. 00:01:33.319 --> 00:01:37.354 Because with JavaScript, you can learn back end code running 00:01:37.354 --> 00:01:37.834 Node. 00:01:37.834 --> 00:01:41.834 Js, and you can use front end JavaScript like with React and 00:01:41.834 --> 00:01:42.795 Next. Js. 00:01:42.875 --> 00:01:47.834 And so JavaScript can help run an entire site, an entire 00:01:47.915 --> 00:01:52.359 ecosystem of code to make a website or an app work. 00:01:52.439 --> 00:01:54.600 And so I started studying JavaScript and Node. 00:01:54.600 --> 00:01:58.120 Js, and I took a few courses on that to thoroughly learn it. 00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:04.224 And the first thing I built was going to be the back end engine 00:02:04.224 --> 00:02:10.224 for powering the new My Podcast reviews. But that was 2018. 00:02:10.544 --> 00:02:14.224 And while I was building that engine and having it running, I 00:02:14.224 --> 00:02:18.799 started discovering some interesting insights, like how many 00:02:18.799 --> 00:02:23.919 podcasts are actually in Apple Podcasts or how 1 podcast has some 00:02:23.919 --> 00:02:27.120 crossover audience with another podcast and their incoming and 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:30.079 outgoing networking, as I now call it, inside of Podgagement. 00:02:30.564 --> 00:02:33.844 So I built this engine to then start collecting all of this 00:02:33.844 --> 00:02:37.044 information, saving it to a database, as well as I started 00:02:37.044 --> 00:02:39.605 tracking the charts at some point shortly after that. 00:02:39.764 --> 00:02:43.844 And my thought was this was going to be the foundation for the 00:02:43.844 --> 00:02:45.125 new my podcast reviews. 00:02:45.719 --> 00:02:50.120 And so I started presenting some of this really cool data on the 00:02:50.120 --> 00:02:54.680 mypodcastreviews.com website, especially like when Apple Podcasts 00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:58.439 hit 1,000,000 podcasts inside of the Apple Podcast catalog. 00:02:58.805 --> 00:03:02.325 I was sharing that out, some press releases, and had some fun 00:03:02.325 --> 00:03:04.564 with predictions on when that might be. 00:03:04.564 --> 00:03:07.525 And that was all through the my podcast reviews brand. 00:03:07.764 --> 00:03:11.525 But that was around the time I started realizing that my podcast 00:03:11.525 --> 00:03:13.365 reviews had a branding problem. 00:03:13.689 --> 00:03:16.810 Because if someone wanted to cite the statistics that I was 00:03:16.810 --> 00:03:20.250 sharing, they might say, according to my podcast reviews, there 00:03:20.250 --> 00:03:22.889 are nearly 1,000,000 podcasts in Apple Podcasts. 00:03:22.889 --> 00:03:26.490 Now think about that grammatically without any proper nouns in 00:03:26.490 --> 00:03:26.650 there. 00:03:26.974 --> 00:03:31.534 Are you saying your podcast reviews told you there are nearly 00:03:31.534 --> 00:03:33.615 1000000 podcasts in Apple Podcast? 00:03:33.615 --> 00:03:36.014 How do your podcast reviews tell you that? 00:03:36.014 --> 00:03:37.215 You see the problem there? 00:03:37.215 --> 00:03:41.615 By having that my in there and even it being branded to podcast 00:03:41.615 --> 00:03:45.240 reviews was a problem. It just didn't connect. 00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:49.639 So that's when I decided back then, I need to rebrand my podcast 00:03:49.639 --> 00:03:53.400 reviews when I launched this new site and rebuild it completely 00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:54.200 from scratch. 00:03:54.439 --> 00:03:57.400 But, also, I wanted to share this data, and I was starting to 00:03:57.400 --> 00:04:01.324 realize that this data is pretty cool what I'm able to track 00:04:01.324 --> 00:04:01.564 here. 00:04:01.564 --> 00:04:04.444 And people were starting to quote from the statistics that I was 00:04:04.444 --> 00:04:07.965 sharing and asking me questions for further insight into some of 00:04:07.965 --> 00:04:08.925 the statistics. 00:04:09.085 --> 00:04:12.925 So I decided I want to spin this out onto its own website. 00:04:13.510 --> 00:04:17.189 So it's no longer data sitting on top of my podcast reviews, but 00:04:17.189 --> 00:04:22.550 it is its own thing, and thus podcastindustryinsights.com was 00:04:22.550 --> 00:04:23.270 born. 00:04:23.509 --> 00:04:29.995 Now that code that I built in 2018, nearly 8 years ago, has been 00:04:29.995 --> 00:04:33.595 running ever since then until just recently. 00:04:33.834 --> 00:04:39.435 That poorly written legacy code has lasted for nearly 8 years. 00:04:39.850 --> 00:04:44.250 It's broken down here and there a few times, and the website too 00:04:44.330 --> 00:04:47.370 has been powered by WordPress using a charting plugin to display 00:04:47.370 --> 00:04:47.930 the charts. 00:04:47.930 --> 00:04:50.889 And that's had its own complications, like some of the caching 00:04:50.889 --> 00:04:54.569 would get really weird sometimes where most of the charts would 00:04:54.569 --> 00:04:56.884 refresh, but not 1 of them. 00:04:56.884 --> 00:04:59.365 And I couldn't figure out what is caching this. 00:04:59.365 --> 00:05:02.004 I would clear all the caches everywhere and just nothing seemed 00:05:02.004 --> 00:05:04.404 to do it. And then just magically, it would start working. 00:05:04.564 --> 00:05:07.045 And some of that stuff frustrated me, and maybe that frustrated 00:05:07.045 --> 00:05:09.819 too if you ever checked out the website and noticed that certain 00:05:09.819 --> 00:05:11.579 charts seem to be outdated. 00:05:11.579 --> 00:05:14.220 That was because of some weird caching thing. 00:05:14.220 --> 00:05:17.339 And managing the WordPress side of it, as much as I love 00:05:17.339 --> 00:05:19.339 WordPress, it was slow. 00:05:19.579 --> 00:05:22.459 But as soon as I logged in, if you were logged out, you would get 00:05:22.459 --> 00:05:25.019 the cached version of the page, and it would load fairly quickly. 00:05:25.154 --> 00:05:29.074 But being logged in, it was extremely slow and extremely 00:05:29.074 --> 00:05:30.595 complicated to work with. 00:05:30.675 --> 00:05:35.475 For several years, I've been tracking much deeper data about the 00:05:35.475 --> 00:05:40.670 activity inside of the 110 genres or categories inside Apple 00:05:40.670 --> 00:05:41.470 Podcasts. 00:05:41.470 --> 00:05:45.470 And I wanted to display those on my podcast reviews or then later 00:05:45.470 --> 00:05:50.270 Podcast Industry Insights, but I didn't want to make a 110 00:05:50.270 --> 00:05:52.270 different pages on WordPress. 00:05:52.454 --> 00:05:56.534 And on top of that, multiplied a 110 times how many charts I 00:05:56.534 --> 00:05:59.495 wanted to make. That's how many charts I'd have to have. 00:05:59.735 --> 00:06:01.654 Hundreds of charts. 00:06:01.894 --> 00:06:05.014 It's not like I could just have a single chart and swap out its 00:06:05.014 --> 00:06:08.620 data dynamically, at least on that WordPress side, Because that's 00:06:08.620 --> 00:06:09.979 not how it was built. 00:06:09.979 --> 00:06:14.139 The plugin and WordPress weren't designed for that style of just 00:06:14.139 --> 00:06:16.379 swapping out the data, but keeping the page. 00:06:16.620 --> 00:06:19.660 So I just decided I can't display this data. 00:06:19.754 --> 00:06:22.634 I'll just have to wait until someday in the future when maybe I 00:06:22.634 --> 00:06:26.314 have time to do it or maybe I can systemize it in some other way. 00:06:26.395 --> 00:06:27.995 And that's finally come about. 00:06:27.995 --> 00:06:33.035 Because when I did eventually finish rebuilding my podcast 00:06:33.035 --> 00:06:37.569 reviews into Podgagement years later, then I still had this 00:06:37.569 --> 00:06:40.449 legacy code doing all of this cool stuff, collecting new 00:06:40.449 --> 00:06:44.129 interesting insights, like the incoming and outgoing networking 00:06:44.129 --> 00:06:47.810 section of Podgagement where you can see what podcasts are linked 00:06:47.810 --> 00:06:51.735 out from yours from inside Apple Podcast, as well as of all of 00:06:51.735 --> 00:06:54.855 the millions of other podcasts out there in Apple Podcast, which 00:06:54.855 --> 00:06:58.134 of them are linking back to yours through their crossover 00:06:58.134 --> 00:07:00.774 audience in that algorithm. I track that. 00:07:00.855 --> 00:07:03.334 And I think I'm the only 1 who's been tracking that on such a 00:07:03.334 --> 00:07:04.375 wide scale like that. 00:07:04.500 --> 00:07:07.620 And I use that data now inside of Podgagement, which is the 00:07:07.620 --> 00:07:09.460 replacement for my podcast reviews. 00:07:09.620 --> 00:07:12.740 And that's been really cool, and that's been running on this very 00:07:12.740 --> 00:07:14.500 old legacy code. 00:07:14.579 --> 00:07:18.660 But I really wanted to update that code because it's slow, it was 00:07:18.660 --> 00:07:23.595 poorly written, it was sloppy, and there were a lot of places 00:07:23.595 --> 00:07:27.514 where it just wasn't efficient, and so it was getting expensive 00:07:27.514 --> 00:07:28.395 to run it. 00:07:28.555 --> 00:07:33.675 So I finally decided recently to rebuild the back end of that and 00:07:33.675 --> 00:07:36.850 the whole engine behind that that was powering that, collecting 00:07:36.850 --> 00:07:39.730 that information, saving it to the database, and how all of that 00:07:39.730 --> 00:07:40.530 is stored. 00:07:40.689 --> 00:07:43.810 I also then wanted to take the opportunity to update the front 00:07:43.810 --> 00:07:47.170 end, what you see on podcastindustryinsights.com. 00:07:47.634 --> 00:07:53.875 And I'm thrilled with the new podcastindustryinsights.com that is 00:07:53.875 --> 00:07:57.314 now available to you, and it is completely free. 00:07:57.395 --> 00:08:01.259 I used to sell access to an API to get some of the information or 00:08:01.259 --> 00:08:05.180 you had to pay in order to see some historic data, like how many 00:08:05.180 --> 00:08:07.579 podcasts there were a year ago or so. 00:08:07.660 --> 00:08:10.539 Now it's all completely free. There's not a paywall. 00:08:10.539 --> 00:08:13.740 There's not even an email wall or opt in wall. 00:08:13.740 --> 00:08:14.459 What do they call that? 00:08:14.884 --> 00:08:17.764 Where you have to enter your email address in order to see the 00:08:17.764 --> 00:08:20.644 information. And the site isn't littered with advertising either. 00:08:20.644 --> 00:08:24.805 I have 1 ad banner section on each of the statistics page. 00:08:24.805 --> 00:08:27.444 And for now, that's just advertising my own stuff. 00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:30.759 It's advertising Podgagement, PodChapters, and The Audacity to 00:08:30.759 --> 00:08:31.080 Podcast. 00:08:31.080 --> 00:08:34.519 There is the opportunity for someone else to sponsor that 00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:38.519 particular page if they want to, but I don't really intend for 00:08:38.519 --> 00:08:40.679 this to be a money making thing anymore. 00:08:40.679 --> 00:08:44.554 It's kind of like the byproduct of an engine that's powering 00:08:44.554 --> 00:08:47.115 features inside of Podgagement. 00:08:47.355 --> 00:08:50.714 And so I'll just make these statistics available for free to 00:08:50.714 --> 00:08:54.075 podcasters like you who want to see how's the industry doing, how 00:08:54.075 --> 00:08:57.195 many podcasts are still active, how many are in a particular 00:08:57.195 --> 00:08:58.075 genre and such. 00:08:58.169 --> 00:09:01.209 It's also really useful for podcasting professionals, like 00:09:01.209 --> 00:09:04.169 producers or agencies and networks and such. 00:09:04.409 --> 00:09:07.769 And it's extremely helpful for anyone who wants to keep an eye on 00:09:07.769 --> 00:09:10.490 the growth of the podcast industry, like journalists. 00:09:11.004 --> 00:09:15.804 So go to podcastindustryinsights.com to check it out yourself. 00:09:15.804 --> 00:09:19.564 But I want to walk you through some of the existing and new 00:09:19.564 --> 00:09:21.485 features that I'm excited about. 00:09:21.725 --> 00:09:25.169 First thing is, and you've been able to do this for a long time, 00:09:25.169 --> 00:09:29.450 is track the total number of podcasts in Apple Podcasts, Podcast 00:09:29.450 --> 00:09:32.529 Index, and even YouTube. More on YouTube in a moment. 00:09:32.529 --> 00:09:33.889 You've been able to see this for a while. 00:09:33.889 --> 00:09:36.529 You could visit the website podcastindustryinsights.com. 00:09:36.735 --> 00:09:41.054 Click on Apple or Podcast Index, and you would be able to see how 00:09:41.054 --> 00:09:44.575 many podcasts there are as well as some historical information. 00:09:44.575 --> 00:09:46.894 Well, I've expanded that historical information. 00:09:46.894 --> 00:09:50.735 So now you can see years back into the past, not just the 13 00:09:50.735 --> 00:09:52.014 months that it was before. 00:09:52.259 --> 00:09:56.660 It was 13 months so that you could see the current month a year 00:09:56.660 --> 00:09:59.860 ago, as well as see the current month as it's building out. 00:10:00.019 --> 00:10:03.779 But now you can see as far back as 7 years at this time of this 00:10:03.779 --> 00:10:04.179 recording. 00:10:04.674 --> 00:10:08.115 So you can see how the industry has grown over the years, and 00:10:08.115 --> 00:10:10.674 you'll discover some interesting patterns from that. 00:10:10.674 --> 00:10:15.154 Like, for example, it seemed like the industry's growth rate 00:10:15.154 --> 00:10:18.434 suddenly slowed in 2021. 00:10:18.595 --> 00:10:22.610 And some people around that time started reporting things on, oh, 00:10:22.610 --> 00:10:22.850 no. 00:10:22.850 --> 00:10:25.570 The podcast industry is slowing down because there aren't as many 00:10:25.570 --> 00:10:27.889 new podcast launching as there used to be before. 00:10:27.970 --> 00:10:33.009 And on the surface, that's kind of correct, but it's not telling 00:10:33.009 --> 00:10:37.285 the full story because this had nothing to do with COVID 00:10:37.285 --> 00:10:38.165 lockdowns. 00:10:38.325 --> 00:10:42.804 It had everything to do with Anchor, now called Spotify for 00:10:42.804 --> 00:10:43.524 creators. 00:10:43.845 --> 00:10:50.129 Because it was in 2020 that Anchor stopped auto publishing their 00:10:50.129 --> 00:10:53.330 pollution of podcasts to Apple Podcasts. 00:10:53.410 --> 00:10:55.410 So no longer was it just, hey. 00:10:55.410 --> 00:10:58.210 Is this thing on getting published as a podcast? 00:10:58.370 --> 00:11:01.649 I think in some cases, maybe accidentally or unintentionally. 00:11:01.824 --> 00:11:06.225 Now it is an intentional opt in that the users have to do, and I 00:11:06.225 --> 00:11:07.504 think that's the way it should be. 00:11:07.504 --> 00:11:10.464 People should have to opt in to say, yes. 00:11:10.464 --> 00:11:14.384 I want my podcast out there in in Apple Podcasts and all of the 00:11:14.384 --> 00:11:17.424 podcast apps that are populated from the Apple Podcast catalog. 00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:21.080 I think that should be an intentional opt in, not an automatic 00:11:21.080 --> 00:11:21.639 thing. 00:11:21.720 --> 00:11:26.279 So before that, Anchor was just polluting with millions of what I 00:11:26.279 --> 00:11:29.240 call pod flashes out there where it's a flash in the pan, where 00:11:29.240 --> 00:11:31.559 it's just 1 episode and nothing. 00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:37.004 And they stopped doing that in 2021, and that's why the growth 00:11:37.004 --> 00:11:39.805 rate of the number of podcasts have slowed. 00:11:39.965 --> 00:11:43.085 But it's still been a consistent growth rate since then. 00:11:43.165 --> 00:11:47.019 And you can look at that now for years of historical information 00:11:47.019 --> 00:11:49.500 over at podcastindustryinsights.com. 00:11:49.500 --> 00:11:52.539 And a few years ago, I started adding Podcast Index to that. 00:11:52.539 --> 00:11:55.419 And Podcast Index works a little bit differently. 00:11:55.419 --> 00:11:58.139 I don't necessarily agree with their approach to it, but still 00:11:58.139 --> 00:12:00.235 it's interesting insight to share. 00:12:00.394 --> 00:12:04.235 And that is that they not only track from some of the data that I 00:12:04.235 --> 00:12:07.514 track for them, what's in Apple Podcast, but they also go out and 00:12:07.514 --> 00:12:11.769 discover podcasts that are out there, which can lead to some 00:12:11.769 --> 00:12:14.409 unintentional inclusions, and I'd say maybe a lot of 00:12:14.409 --> 00:12:15.690 unintentional inclusions. 00:12:15.769 --> 00:12:18.330 But still, it's an interesting number to see, and I've been 00:12:18.330 --> 00:12:19.529 tracking that over time. 00:12:19.529 --> 00:12:22.169 And you can see how that looks over years. 00:12:22.330 --> 00:12:26.169 And I even track how many podcasts there are on YouTube. 00:12:26.554 --> 00:12:30.954 Go over there to podcastindustryinsights.com/youtube. 00:12:30.954 --> 00:12:34.714 In fact, pause the episode right now and go there. 00:12:34.714 --> 00:12:39.115 Podcastindustryinsights.com/youtube. I'll wait. 00:12:39.514 --> 00:12:41.649 Do you see my little joke there? Yeah. 00:12:41.649 --> 00:12:46.529 Until YouTube is actually a podcast platform, which it is not 00:12:46.690 --> 00:12:49.410 because nothing on YouTube is powered by RSS. 00:12:49.410 --> 00:12:52.769 You cannot add an RSS feed to YouTube, and you cannot follow 00:12:52.769 --> 00:12:56.274 what's on YouTube through an RSS feed, it is not a podcasting 00:12:56.274 --> 00:13:01.875 platform, and therefore, there are 0 podcasts on YouTube and 0 00:13:01.875 --> 00:13:06.035 podcast episodes on YouTube. I know that is a strong opinion. 00:13:06.035 --> 00:13:08.915 I am sticking with that opinion for what's a podcast, 00:13:09.240 --> 00:13:12.440 what'sapodcast.com, by the way, and that's why that's there. 00:13:12.440 --> 00:13:16.600 I know it's a little bit of a troll, but also in case YouTube 00:13:16.600 --> 00:13:20.279 ever does become an actual podcast platform, then I'll certainly 00:13:20.279 --> 00:13:23.480 include podcasts on podcastindustryinsights.com. 00:13:23.815 --> 00:13:26.855 You can also see how active podcasts are. 00:13:27.014 --> 00:13:31.014 And I recommend looking at the Podcast Index and Apple Podcast 00:13:31.014 --> 00:13:35.575 pages for this because you can see how active podcasts are for if 00:13:35.575 --> 00:13:38.970 they've had any activity, and that is maybe their first episode 00:13:38.970 --> 00:13:43.529 or any episode within the last 90 days as well as other amounts 00:13:43.529 --> 00:13:49.370 of time, like last 30 days, last 10 days, last 60 days, last 7 00:13:49.370 --> 00:13:49.850 days. 00:13:49.850 --> 00:13:53.394 And I think that's a very interesting metric to see how many 00:13:53.394 --> 00:13:57.554 podcasts have published an episode within the last 7 days. 00:13:57.715 --> 00:14:00.995 And it's a much smaller number than you would think. 00:14:00.995 --> 00:14:03.955 Go over there to podcastindustryinsights.com to see what the 00:14:03.955 --> 00:14:05.075 number currently is. 00:14:05.075 --> 00:14:09.519 And the small percentage of Apple Podcast that have published an 00:14:09.519 --> 00:14:13.279 episode within the last 7 days. And I track that. 00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:14.960 And you can track that over time too. 00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:18.559 And it's really interesting to see that the number, not just the 00:14:18.559 --> 00:14:22.080 percentage, the number of podcasts that are consistently 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:28.294 publishing has decreased a little bit, which I think don't get 00:14:28.294 --> 00:14:31.335 overwhelmed by that number of millions of podcasts out there. 00:14:31.335 --> 00:14:33.894 Although some of them are timeless. Yes. 00:14:33.975 --> 00:14:37.014 Focus on that number of how many podcasts published an episode 00:14:37.014 --> 00:14:38.615 within the last week. 00:14:38.855 --> 00:14:43.800 That's closer to the kind of competition that you might have. 00:14:43.879 --> 00:14:46.759 But then you can drill down into even deeper details. 00:14:46.920 --> 00:14:49.480 But you can also see more information, especially on the Apple 00:14:49.480 --> 00:14:53.639 Podcast page, podcastindustryinsights.com/apple for that. 00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:57.084 You can see more information, like, how about of all of the 00:14:57.084 --> 00:15:00.764 podcasts that have 1 episode in their feed, how many of them are 00:15:00.764 --> 00:15:03.644 active within the last 90 days versus not active? 00:15:03.644 --> 00:15:08.059 And you'll see a huge number of podcasts that are inactive that 00:15:08.059 --> 00:15:11.419 have only 1 episode in their feed. And guess what? 00:15:11.419 --> 00:15:13.419 Most of them are from Anchor. 00:15:13.580 --> 00:15:16.539 And that's why it's so good that that pollution fire hose has 00:15:16.539 --> 00:15:17.980 been turned off from Anchor. 00:15:17.980 --> 00:15:21.235 But you can also see what about podcasts that have 10 or more 00:15:21.235 --> 00:15:22.834 episodes in the feed. 00:15:22.834 --> 00:15:25.714 How many of them are still active versus inactive? 00:15:25.714 --> 00:15:29.315 You can also see the breakdown of how recently is the latest 00:15:29.315 --> 00:15:34.995 episode from podcast 0 to 7 days and so on, and you can get a lot 00:15:34.995 --> 00:15:37.930 more insight for the overall industry. 00:15:38.090 --> 00:15:41.690 But and this is brand new and something I've wanted to do for 00:15:41.690 --> 00:15:42.410 years. 00:15:42.570 --> 00:15:47.450 You can dig deeper into category details from Apple Podcasts. 00:15:47.450 --> 00:15:49.769 The reason I couldn't do this before goes back to that whole 00:15:49.769 --> 00:15:52.605 WordPress front end thing and the charting plugin that I was 00:15:52.605 --> 00:15:56.365 using, which served me well for many years, but I couldn't make 00:15:56.365 --> 00:16:01.485 all of the pages for the 110 categories inside of Apple Podcasts. 00:16:01.644 --> 00:16:06.429 Now I can because the new Podcast Industry insights.com is built 00:16:06.429 --> 00:16:09.230 on Next. Js. It runs on JavaScript. 00:16:09.230 --> 00:16:13.710 It's JavaScript all the way down, so I can dynamically change the 00:16:13.710 --> 00:16:18.190 data on an existing chart. I don't have to create a 110 pages. 00:16:18.634 --> 00:16:21.434 I don't have to create hundreds of charts. 00:16:21.514 --> 00:16:24.554 I just create a few charts and tell it swap the data. 00:16:24.554 --> 00:16:28.394 Just look at this record instead of that record of data, and it 00:16:28.394 --> 00:16:32.075 changes fast, and it's animated in some cool ways. 00:16:32.309 --> 00:16:38.789 So you can then see deeper data on specific categories of Apple 00:16:38.789 --> 00:16:39.350 Podcasts. 00:16:39.350 --> 00:16:42.789 Not just that overall picture of how many podcasts are in each 00:16:42.789 --> 00:16:47.534 category, but you can see the growth now of how has the sports 00:16:47.534 --> 00:16:50.815 medicine category grown over the last few years. 00:16:50.894 --> 00:16:54.654 How many of those podcasts are still active versus inactive? 00:16:54.735 --> 00:16:58.654 There is a little footnote on the site that there was some kind 00:16:58.654 --> 00:17:03.940 of weird data calculation issue regarding only the categories for 00:17:03.940 --> 00:17:06.980 a couple of months, and I didn't discover it until just recently. 00:17:06.980 --> 00:17:10.579 So I unfortunately can't retroactively fix all of that. 00:17:10.660 --> 00:17:12.259 But I fixed everything that I could there. 00:17:12.259 --> 00:17:14.565 At least to this point, I haven't figured out a way to 00:17:14.565 --> 00:17:16.724 retroactively fix some of that data. 00:17:16.724 --> 00:17:19.924 But you can still look at the trend besides that weird looking 00:17:19.924 --> 00:17:22.484 spot where you see some odd spikes and things. 00:17:22.484 --> 00:17:25.845 You can look at the overall trend to see how has this particular 00:17:25.845 --> 00:17:27.845 category of podcast grown. 00:17:28.159 --> 00:17:31.200 Like, for a while, it was the tennis category that seemed to have 00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:32.480 the fewest number of podcast. 00:17:32.480 --> 00:17:36.480 Now can you take a guess what it is that has the fewest number of 00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:40.799 podcast of the 110 podcast categories out there in Apple 00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:42.799 Podcasts? It's actually mathematics. 00:17:43.265 --> 00:17:46.865 So if you wanted to have a mathematics podcast, you would be up 00:17:46.865 --> 00:17:50.144 against no more than 200 other podcasts. 00:17:50.144 --> 00:17:53.904 I think it's closer to a 120 podcasts that have published an 00:17:53.904 --> 00:17:58.065 episode within the last 90 days that are in the mathematics 00:17:58.065 --> 00:18:00.730 category. And you can see that information. 00:18:00.730 --> 00:18:04.410 Not only just is this their primary category, but how many are in 00:18:04.410 --> 00:18:08.730 this category at all, even if it's their secondary category. 00:18:08.730 --> 00:18:10.730 And you can see how many were added to this category, 00:18:10.984 --> 00:18:12.984 deactivated, reactivated. 00:18:13.065 --> 00:18:16.904 You can now see that at the category or genre level from Apple 00:18:16.904 --> 00:18:18.904 Podcasts. And that is really exciting. 00:18:18.904 --> 00:18:22.744 I've wanted to share that data for years, but just couldn't 00:18:22.744 --> 00:18:25.720 because of how complicated it would have been to create and 00:18:25.720 --> 00:18:28.279 manage all of those pages. Now it's so much easier. 00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:32.440 You can check that out over at podcastindustryinsights.com and 00:18:32.440 --> 00:18:35.720 just click on that Apple Podcast categories link there. 00:18:35.720 --> 00:18:38.525 Or if you're on the Apple Podcast page, under the category 00:18:38.525 --> 00:18:42.045 section, there's a link to look at the individual categories, and 00:18:42.045 --> 00:18:45.644 you can switch your categories and the charts nicely update to 00:18:45.644 --> 00:18:48.125 show you the information from that category. 00:18:48.125 --> 00:18:49.244 And it's really cool. 00:18:49.244 --> 00:18:52.900 Another really cool thing is Podcasting 2, and I'm deeply 00:18:52.900 --> 00:18:55.539 involved with Podcasting 2. I'm a big fan of that. 00:18:55.539 --> 00:18:57.059 I hope you know that by now. 00:18:57.220 --> 00:19:00.579 I am an evangelist in many ways for Podcasting 2. 00:19:00.580 --> 00:19:03.299 I'm really excited about what's being built inside of Podcasting 00:19:03.299 --> 00:19:03.940 2. 00:19:03.940 --> 00:19:07.484 And for a little while, I've been tracking the feature adoption 00:19:07.484 --> 00:19:07.884 for that. 00:19:07.884 --> 00:19:10.525 And I don't think I've mentioned that for a while that you could 00:19:10.525 --> 00:19:11.164 see that. 00:19:11.164 --> 00:19:15.484 So if you go to podcastindustryinsights.com and click on 00:19:15.484 --> 00:19:19.990 Podcasting 2, you'll be able to see how these particular 00:19:19.990 --> 00:19:23.590 features, like the transcripts and chapters and value tag and 00:19:23.590 --> 00:19:26.710 some of these other features have grown over time and been 00:19:26.710 --> 00:19:28.309 adopted over time. 00:19:28.390 --> 00:19:32.195 Some of them track the podcast level, and some of them even track 00:19:32.195 --> 00:19:33.795 at the episode level. 00:19:33.795 --> 00:19:38.115 Like, how many episodes are there out there now with transcripts 00:19:38.115 --> 00:19:42.115 or chapters versus how many podcasts have this feature out there. 00:19:42.115 --> 00:19:44.355 That's at podcastindustryinsights.com. 00:19:44.355 --> 00:19:47.039 And the other thing that you might be seeing this data, you might 00:19:47.039 --> 00:19:50.079 think, this is really cool. I'd love to share this out. 00:19:50.080 --> 00:19:52.799 Let me try and take a screenshot of this, or I'd like to get this 00:19:52.799 --> 00:19:55.920 on a slide, or try and copy this into a chart so I can use it in 00:19:55.920 --> 00:19:58.480 a presentation, or display it in a video, or share it out on 00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:01.200 Instagram, or x, or Facebook, or whatever like that. 00:20:01.365 --> 00:20:04.484 I made that now a whole lot easier for you. 00:20:04.565 --> 00:20:07.765 That there's now a feature next to every chart. 00:20:07.765 --> 00:20:10.244 There's a button in the upper right corner among the other 00:20:10.244 --> 00:20:13.284 buttons that let you change from monthly to daily or change the 00:20:13.285 --> 00:20:16.380 time range that you're looking at, like year to date, the last 30 00:20:16.380 --> 00:20:21.099 days, or multiple years of history, you can now also, with 1 00:20:21.099 --> 00:20:25.420 click, download an image of that chart, and it will download in 00:20:25.420 --> 00:20:29.580 16 by 9 ratio in 4 k resolution, and it has a nice heading. 00:20:29.775 --> 00:20:32.815 If you're looking at the category section, it names the category 00:20:32.815 --> 00:20:35.695 on the slide. It displays the chart really big. 00:20:35.695 --> 00:20:38.894 It uses the background color that you're looking at the same way 00:20:38.894 --> 00:20:42.095 that you would see it, but it's designed for a slide layout. 00:20:42.095 --> 00:20:44.940 And it even has the credit there on the slides. 00:20:44.940 --> 00:20:47.099 You don't have to worry about trying to copy and paste that onto 00:20:47.099 --> 00:20:49.980 the slide if you want to quote from my stats in a presentation or 00:20:49.980 --> 00:20:52.779 share that out. It's on there too already for you. 00:20:52.779 --> 00:20:57.025 So it makes it super convenient for you to go there any day and 00:20:57.025 --> 00:21:00.785 download the image for any of these charts and share them 00:21:00.785 --> 00:21:03.345 wherever you want to. And I'd love for you to do that. 00:21:03.345 --> 00:21:06.144 You're going to be seeing me do that more often too now that 00:21:06.144 --> 00:21:06.865 that's available. 00:21:06.865 --> 00:21:09.904 That's something I've wanted to do for years also is to make it 00:21:09.904 --> 00:21:13.589 easier so people wouldn't have to try and screenshot the chart, 00:21:13.670 --> 00:21:16.390 but you can just download the image. 00:21:16.549 --> 00:21:19.109 And I mentioned that it uses the background color. 00:21:19.110 --> 00:21:21.750 Like for Apple Podcast, it's a purple background color. 00:21:21.830 --> 00:21:24.710 For Podcast Index, it's a red background color. 00:21:24.710 --> 00:21:25.990 For YouTube, it's a red background. 00:21:26.424 --> 00:21:30.184 The new Podcast Industry insights.com also supports light mode 00:21:30.184 --> 00:21:31.224 and dark mode. 00:21:31.384 --> 00:21:34.505 So if you're in light mode, the images that you download will 00:21:34.505 --> 00:21:37.704 have a light background color and dark foreground. 00:21:37.865 --> 00:21:40.825 If you're in dark mode, then the images you download will have 00:21:40.825 --> 00:21:45.159 that darker branded color background with a light foreground. 00:21:45.240 --> 00:21:46.839 And I love how that works. 00:21:46.839 --> 00:21:49.960 This is the thing that I do now for any of the new sites and apps 00:21:49.960 --> 00:21:50.759 that I build. 00:21:50.920 --> 00:21:55.079 I am always thinking this needs to work in light mode and dark 00:21:55.079 --> 00:21:57.054 mode. I'm a dark mode person myself. 00:21:57.054 --> 00:21:59.934 I love everything to be in dark mode, but I know that not 00:21:59.934 --> 00:22:01.214 everyone prefers dark mode. 00:22:01.214 --> 00:22:04.014 Some people, I don't know why, prefer light mode. 00:22:04.174 --> 00:22:07.454 I'm not going to call them names, but you can get that in the 00:22:07.454 --> 00:22:08.974 images and in the website. 00:22:09.259 --> 00:22:13.180 So I'd love for you to check out podcastindustryinsights.com. 00:22:13.180 --> 00:22:13.740 Yes. 00:22:13.900 --> 00:22:18.539 This whole episode was a commercial for a free website that I 00:22:18.539 --> 00:22:21.740 would love for you to use as a resource. You can quote from it. 00:22:21.740 --> 00:22:25.125 You can download the images, share those images, link to the 00:22:25.125 --> 00:22:26.725 charts, reference that. 00:22:26.725 --> 00:22:29.525 As long as you just give me credit, then I provide in there just 00:22:29.525 --> 00:22:32.565 an example of how that you can give that credit, and that's very 00:22:32.565 --> 00:22:33.365 simple too. 00:22:33.365 --> 00:22:36.484 But I'd love for you to share that information out there with 00:22:36.484 --> 00:22:40.339 others. So go to podcastindustryinsights.com. 00:22:40.339 --> 00:22:43.380 I've said that URL way too many times in this episode. 00:22:43.380 --> 00:22:47.220 But go to there and download those images. Share them. 00:22:47.220 --> 00:22:48.339 Check out the stats. 00:22:48.339 --> 00:22:52.255 Look at the genres and the categories to see what is your actual 00:22:52.255 --> 00:22:57.054 competition inside your primary podcast genre, whatever that is. 00:22:57.295 --> 00:23:00.255 See how many of those podcasts are still active. 00:23:00.255 --> 00:23:01.535 Get more insight this way. 00:23:01.535 --> 00:23:05.615 And what I really hope is that this will be inspirational to you. 00:23:06.015 --> 00:23:10.329 That if you are podcasting and you're thinking, how am I going to 00:23:10.329 --> 00:23:14.489 stand out among the millions of other podcasts out there? 00:23:14.569 --> 00:23:17.769 Well, it's actually only a few 100,000 that have published an 00:23:17.769 --> 00:23:19.929 episode within the last 90 days. 00:23:20.384 --> 00:23:23.825 It's an even smaller number who have published an episode within 00:23:23.825 --> 00:23:25.184 the last 7 days. 00:23:25.505 --> 00:23:29.025 And then it's an even smaller number, and this is now so much 00:23:29.025 --> 00:23:34.144 easier to see, of podcasts in your primary category that have 00:23:34.144 --> 00:23:36.224 published an episode in the last 90 days. 00:23:36.599 --> 00:23:40.119 That's closer to how many other podcasts you're competing with. 00:23:40.200 --> 00:23:41.399 Not millions. 00:23:41.640 --> 00:23:45.880 Maybe it's a few thousand or a few 100, or maybe it's even in the 00:23:45.880 --> 00:23:51.634 tens instead. Check it out over at podcastindustryinsights.com. 00:23:51.634 --> 00:23:53.075 Completely free to use. 00:23:53.315 --> 00:23:56.595 If you would like to donate, please reach out to me and let me 00:23:56.595 --> 00:23:57.075 know. 00:23:57.075 --> 00:24:01.394 There will be a link on the site that you can email to either 00:24:01.394 --> 00:24:05.890 offer a donation or advertise if you want to on the site, but the 00:24:05.890 --> 00:24:09.250 resource is free to use, and I intend to keep it that way. 00:24:09.250 --> 00:24:12.609 So check it out. Podcast industryinsights.com. 00:24:12.769 --> 00:24:15.890 Special thanks to Brian Insmeter from toptieraudio.com who 00:24:15.890 --> 00:24:20.369 streamed 1,303 total Satoshis across my previous several 00:24:20.369 --> 00:24:20.769 episodes. 00:24:21.065 --> 00:24:24.744 And thanks to Chad f who sent 1000 Satoshis and said in in 00:24:24.744 --> 00:24:27.704 response to my previous episode giving a sort of introduction 00:24:27.704 --> 00:24:28.904 about OpenClaw. 00:24:28.904 --> 00:24:32.105 He said, I ran OpenClaw for a few weeks, but uninstalled it 00:24:32.105 --> 00:24:35.130 because it burns through tokens way too fast, And I can do what I 00:24:35.130 --> 00:24:37.529 need with Cloud Code and GitHub actions. 00:24:37.529 --> 00:24:38.970 That's awesome that you can do that, Chad. 00:24:38.970 --> 00:24:41.210 I'm really glad that you are able to do that. 00:24:41.210 --> 00:24:44.250 And if you have some things that are working really well for you, 00:24:44.250 --> 00:24:47.384 especially podcasting related, please share that in an upcoming 00:24:47.384 --> 00:24:47.945 episode. 00:24:47.945 --> 00:24:51.865 I want to talk more about what you can do and how you can do 00:24:51.865 --> 00:24:53.465 things with OpenClaw. 00:24:53.465 --> 00:24:56.745 Not just saying, oh, you can make a whole team run your podcast 00:24:56.745 --> 00:24:58.825 for you. Now buy my course. No. 00:24:58.825 --> 00:25:02.740 I want to actually share the prompts, link to the resources, and 00:25:02.740 --> 00:25:04.179 the skills, and such. 00:25:04.339 --> 00:25:08.259 So that if you want to try OpenClaw or a similar kind of agentic 00:25:08.259 --> 00:25:10.660 AI service, that you'll be able to do that. 00:25:10.660 --> 00:25:12.900 So please send that feedback if you have any of those, and 00:25:12.900 --> 00:25:16.580 especially the text of your prompts or commands and such. 00:25:16.755 --> 00:25:21.075 Send that through podcastfeedback.com/audacity. 00:25:21.154 --> 00:25:24.434 And I'd love to include that in an upcoming episode since my 00:25:24.434 --> 00:25:28.595 episode about OpenClaw was really just an introduction of some 00:25:28.595 --> 00:25:33.119 things to think about before you use OpenClaw. It's not all bad. 00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:34.720 It doesn't have to be all scary. 00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:38.640 I want to do an episode soon about what you can do and how you 00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:39.840 can do it for OpenClaw. 00:25:39.840 --> 00:25:43.359 So send me that feedback, podcast feedback dot com slash 00:25:43.359 --> 00:25:44.160 audacity. 00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:46.724 Now that I've given you some of the guts, taught you some of the 00:25:46.724 --> 00:25:50.085 tools, and shown you some of the statistics, it's time for you to 00:25:50.085 --> 00:25:54.085 go start and grow your own podcast for passion and profit. 00:25:54.085 --> 00:25:54.884 I'm Daniel J. 00:25:54.884 --> 00:25:58.484 Lewis from theaudacitytopodcast.com and creator of 00:25:58.484 --> 00:26:01.730 podcastindustryinsights.com. Thanks for listening.