Surviving The Balkanization Of Podcasting

PPS3E19 Surviving The Balkanization Of Podcasting - Transcript

The decentralized nature of podcasting has made it resilient for 16 years. But with countries threatening to block tech and media companies, they deem a threat. The ramifications for us could be dire

[00:00:19] Hello, and welcome to another podcast. Pontifications with me, Evo, Tara. I didn't have singalong social video app brings us to the brink of war on my 2020 bingo card, perhaps you did, but here we are. You probably heard the news last week that the administration of these United States is. Putting a deadline against China tech company that result, uh, that, that run companies like a tick tock and we chat and a handful of the things it's aimed at a company called Tencent.

[00:00:59] And you probably know about Tencent. If you don't know about 10 cent, they have their hands in a lot more things than you probably know. They are a big, uh, owner of tech and media and entertainment companies. Did I just describe podcasting? I believe that I did. I don't really care what companies, 10 cent has an ownership stake in and what the current set of orders will actually do to the overall tents.

[00:01:30] I mean, I do care, but I don't care about it for the sake of this conversation. It, it allows me to frame this conversation that is, is worth having. And it's about the balkanization. Of this thing, we call podcasting it's about countries deciding what will and will not go on inside of their borders. And here's the key part.

[00:01:54] What travels through their borders countries are sovereign entities. They have the rights to do the things they want to do internally, but man, it really doesn't work for the good and ease of spreading global information. Now does it. He does not. And so I'm less worried about whether or not people can access tech talk and we chat.

[00:02:18] I have counts on both of those things and I'm more concerned with what happens if this is just the opening salvo. What happens when the ramifications of retaliation? Hold true, because here we are in America, I'm going to block these Chinese apps. Well, it's pretty obvious what can happen in a tit for tat relationship, but I'm not worried about what's happening with the small apps.

[00:02:47] I'm not all that worried about what happens. And you're probably not all that worried about what happens to your podcast at market in China. But this goes beyond China and the U S this gets much, much broader than that. Because what we do, other countries tend to follow now geoblocking is already a thing in podcasting in case you're unaware, explicit content, for example, does not show up in the Apple podcasts section of India.

[00:03:20] If anything's marked that explicit. It doesn't show up over there. Now that's information that was given to me by Rob, from podcast four 11. I have not gone to investigate it. I have no reason to believe that Rob, but I just say a podcast four 11. It's been a long time since Rob has done podcasts for one 11, I think.

[00:03:37] But from Lipscomb, I have no reason to think he's incorrect about that because there are countries that can block things at that particular level. In the app stores will go along with that. It's like, sure. If that's what you want, that's what we'll do. This is something that's bigger than that. However, this is actually stating that these companies may not operate in other countries, this particular country until they changed their backend systems to host all the media and side, eh.

[00:04:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's sticky and it's weird and it's easy to get around if you've got VPNs. I totally get it. Totally get it. But I want us to think about this as podcasts, because this has some sort of a threat to the, our ability to spread the message wide. We just don't know what's going to happen.

[00:04:24] If these lockdowns continue and spread, and there's a little bit of infighting, some apps are blocked, some apps aren't blocked. What are we going to do about all this? Well, I think our solution to what we're going to do is what we should have been doing all along. What we working podcasters should have been doing all along.

[00:04:45] And that is making sure that we have great distribution of our shows everywhere, distribution and diversification. Not just distribution to people and places you think people might want to listen, but diversification of listings in weird places where you might not think of like India talking about them for a moment, they have a couple of large scale podcast apps that they have now been opened up to the public called Ghana and geo Saben, which I'm probably mispronouncing both of those.

[00:05:18] Have you listed your podcasts there? Now you might say to me, well, even why would I want to list my podcast there? I don't target the Indian market. My advertisers, if in fact I have advertisers, they don't care about anything other than U S based download. So why would I want to get it in other places?

[00:05:39] Look, there might be business reasons for you to think that way, but for everybody else, think about it in a slightly different way that you want to make sure your content is there. Everywhere. Because if, for example, let's just pretend for a moment that China is successful at blocking. Oh, let's just say Apple podcasts.

[00:06:00] Wouldn't be the first time people in China can't use Apple podcast and you might say, well, wait a minute. They already can't do that right now. Well, that's actually not true. There's actually ways to get to get around that. And it is listed there, there is an Apple podcast in China. There's an Apple store, a in Hong Kong market and other places, but all that is, is up in the air and fractured, but maybe.

[00:06:19] If your podcast is also listed on things like Ghana and geos on these Indian directors or some other international directory that China is a big fan of, or maybe even when they make it available to us, the ability to list our podcast directly with a Chinese app or directory like Himalaya, does that allow us to, to stay active in those other countries when this happens?

[00:06:47] Because that's going to continue this whole political bickering back and forth tit for tat stuff. We're probably going to keep seeing it for a while and we can draw lines in the sand and say where we want to be, where we don't want to be. But I, as I've said on the show previously, my strongest advice to you is be everywhere.

[00:07:06] Really honestly, be everywhere you possibly can. So it's probably worth some time for you working podcaster. To spend some time over at my friend, James, his web page, he runs pod news.net. He's got a great page set up that is entitled because of SEO, how to add your podcast to every directory. There will be a link to it here in the episode.

[00:07:27] Details spend some time there because James has listed all of the relevant podcast, directories and apps that you really should be on. Because this continued balkanization well, it'll continue. I think we'll see more of that. And the best thing that we can all do to protect our own shows and our own audience growth and making sure that our voices go where they can as widely as possibly, it means we have to distribute.

[00:07:54] In a diversified fashion. So again, go to the link in the episode, details for how to add your podcast, every podcast directory, to make sure you are everywhere. And while you're going, places go to buy me a coffee.com/evo Tara, and buy me a coffee. Your support is quite nice. And if you sign up for a membership, it's like five bucks a month, you're going to get access to some special perks that I am just starting to release.

[00:08:23] And finally other podcasters need to know about this brand new podcasters do not know about the importance of diversification in their distribution. They just list in one or two places. So sure. Send them to James's page, obviously, but also tell them you heard about it on podcast pontifications they should listen so that they are more up to speed.

[00:08:44] Not just what's happening today as this episode is quite timely, but also the future of podcasting. That's it. I shall be back tomorrow with yet another podcast. Pontifications cheers.

‍