So, you know, people aren't selling ads so much, and they're they're not necessarily always even worried about the size of their podcast,
you know, audience, but who's listening really matters.
Welcome to About Podcasting,
a show for podcasters.
We talk about podcasting practices, tools, successes, and failures
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Welcome to another episode of About Podcasting.
This week, I am talking with Greg Aldring and Neil McFadran
from higher edpods.com.
This is kind of a podcast directory or curated
kinda list
of podcasts in the higher education
sphere.
And it's pretty cool.
So we talk about what it actually is and, the community
aspect behind it as well because it's not just a directory.
We talk also about
ads and how I really don't like them.
We talk about downloads,
podcasting 2.0,
and some more stuff.
This was a fun conversation.
So without further ado, here are Greg and Neil.
It's, record so that we don't miss anything.
And,
you know, thank you very much for, for taking the time even to talk with me.
I love how this works. Right? So now we're here connected. You guys are on the completely the other end of the world.
Either we could talk with each other, and we can even record it. It's still Great. This is still magic. It is magical. Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah. And it works most of the time. Yeah. Which is awesome.
So we have, 2 guests today,
Greg and Neil.
Maybe we can do a little small introduction before we dive into the topic of the day. Greg, can you start?
Sure. I'm Greg Oldring,
cofounder of Higher Ed Pods,
long time tech entrepreneur.
Kinda newer to podcasting, but, super excited about it.
K. Cool.
And Neil? I'm Neil McFedran.
I'm the other cofounder of Higher Ed Pods,
and also founder of Podium Podcast Company.
So we work with a number of
higher education
podcasts,
helping them, you know, produce their episodes as as well as helping them with their with their growth. So that's out of that, we create we identified this, need for Higher Ed Pods, and I'm working with Greg on on,
on bringing it to life.
Right.
So I I've been looking at it, and,
what I'm seeing is kind of a directory
of, you know, podcasts,
related to higher education. Is that kinda kinda what it is? Can you elaborate?
Absolutely. That's it. That's the that's the sort of external phase. So for probably the most of the listeners here,
when you're looking for a podcast that you you wanna expand your horizons, you wanna learn something,
it's a great place to find those kinds of podcasts because
you can find podcasts that are from
higher education institutions
such as,
you know,
all of the all the names that you've heard of in in higher education, like, you know, Yale and Harvard and MIT and Stanford and Oxford. And,
it's a there's those kinds of podcasts,
and many, many more being added from universities and colleges around the world
every day.
And so it's a nice narrowing down
of
all the potential things you could, you know,
listen to in terms of learning content.
It's a nice way to narrow it down because they're all from higher education institutions. So it's a it's sort of a quick and dirty way to say this is probably
good content.
It's probably peer reviewed.
It's probably not,
just somebody's crazy opinion.
Although, you know, it'll still happen, but, but a lot less of that in higher education.
Okay. And and is this,
like, this directory, is this stuff that you curate, or is this stuff that you also produce with your other company?
I'll let Neil in. It's yeah. It
curate. There there definitely is a a a handful of podcasts on there that are podcasts that we work with, but the vast majority is is
is curated. So as Greg was saying, the the front end, if you will, is is the is the wider general
podcast listening audience that's interested in looking for something more academic or cerebral or coming from, you know, and it's
curated that it to say it's coming from,
a higher education institution.
But sort of at its core, I guess you could say the back end, if you will,
is is it's a community for higher education podcasters.
I don't know. So as I mentioned
off the top,
this the the idea for it came out of an insight that that that we've identified
working in the space now for 3 3 plus, I guess, coming out 4 years now,
that there really is a yearning for,
community amongst this cohort of higher education podcasters.
We hear this all the time. Like, I didn't know there I didn't know there was others out there. How do we collaborate more with them even in schools? So we have,
a niche a very niche podcast
called Continuing Studies, and it's focused for and the audience is for higher education podcasters. So we on there, we interview a different higher education podcaster and,
talk about their podcast and sort of dig into learning so we can so so we can all learn together. But continually, we hear, oh,
I I didn't know there was this other podcast out there. So, for example, we inter we we interviewed someone from Yale, Press,
and and she was like,
you you blew my mind when you first contacted me because I hadn't even thought about other podcasts out there. And we've introduced her to other Yale podcasters.
We've introduced
Stanford podcasters to other Stanford podcasters. So so it really came out of that that that need we saw and that yearning,
as well sort of within this within this cohort. So it's kind of multipronged. Front end,
it's a directory for the general podcast listening audience looking for, you know, as I said, and sort of, quote, unquote, on the back end. We're really trying to build a community, and that's kind of you know, we beta launched in in
April, and I would say that's our focus really is getting on board as many of these podcasters as we can. And Greg and I have just been blown away.
When Greg says every day, like, literally every day, we've had someone sign up from somewhere in the world,
and it's been real. It it like, we've said to ourselves, like, wow. I we're we're kind of on to something. We're not quite sure where this is going. Yeah.
What was it about yesterday? Yeah. We we're we're we're getting a lot of traction. We don't know exactly the direction of that traction yet, but there's a lot of traction.
Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah. That's kind of the thing with,
whenever you build anything. Right? Yeah. Kinda
let's see if we get users and let's then see what they do with it. And then from there, you kinda can see also what how your your platform will evolve. Yeah.
Mhmm. And we've been
kind of shocked and delighted that, you know, with higher education,
there's a real hierarchy to things. You know, it's sort of,
you need the the the the pretty girl at the ball,
so to speak, to be,
yeah, to be interested. So for everyone else to be interested.
And and we've we've, out of the gate, been able to do that, which I, you know, we we wanted to do, but didn't expect to actually happen. And so we have, you know, every, you
know, like Neil was mentioning Stanford and Yale and and Harvard, MIT,
University College London,
London School of Economics.
You know, these
it's a pretty long list actually of the top schools in the world that,
most of them have signed up already and are part of this community
just right out of the gate, which is
fantastic
for for what we're trying to achieve. Because it's it's kinda hard to do that
later.
You know?
It would have been really difficult to do that later. But it's with that,
with that sort of validation
of the community saying, okay. This is something we're interested in. We're we'll they're just
signing up and trying it out, getting connected with it,
without
there being much of an offer yet of what the benefit is. That's telling us
an awful lot. And that we can we can really go a long way with because we've there's so much more we we have yet to build and and to grow, particularly on the community side. So we're really excited about that.
And the the community, is that the podcasters
slash the the people from the schools and such themselves, or is it also listeners?
The community aspect is largely for the podcasters
and the the people at the schools.
And it's so it's podcasters and and also, you know, agencies and people that support those podcasts. So, you know, we've had
Pushkin sign up, for example, and and, you know, organizations
that,
that help to produce TED. Yeah. So these these organizations that produce podcasts,
either along with or on behalf of or, you know, in various sort of formations
with, universities and colleges.
So so, yeah, it's for that whole community,
to to to be able to learn from each other, like Neil said.
Okay.
And and what is your ultimate goal with this? So I just heard one of them, like, for the whole community to learn from each other. Right?
Yeah. I think I think,
well, I I I I I think that's one of the goals,
for sure.
And then sort of and then back to the sort of the larger,
podcast
listening audience, if you will. I think a a a place a source, a place for them to go
to
to, you know, to find, to solve that sort of discovery mechanism, I think, as well too. So on both sides, I think there's you know, a lot of these podcasts, their challenge is how do they
create discovery,
grow their audiences,
get it noticed. And so that's part of, like, part of what we're doing here. And I think on the other side, it's like for those who are sort of looking and trying to figure it out and and trying to drill in. I think it's part and parcel, it's the Wild West of podcasting, and, you you know, I think we talk about discovery,
the the conundrum, the difficulty of of of podcast discovery. So we're going super niche on a
category or subcategory
or whatever you want to call it, and I guess we're, you know, trying it there to start with. I don't know where we can go with this beyond there, but we're focused in on this one cohort to start with.
Yeah. Yeah. Def and, so now on the the, let's say, the the front end
Mhmm. All these podcasts that people can discover, which is on the website,
is there also gonna be an app?
God. We've talked about that. We've talked about it. Yeah. That's that'll that would definitely slow down my,
my development
for sure. In the I mean, as soon as you get apps and the web, you're you're a lot slower for sure. So I think at the moment, it's definitely going to to to stick as
a a directory. And and, you know, we
we
actually use, episodes f FM. You know, if you wanna listen and follow any of the podcasts that you see on there or the episodes, you can go, you know, right from the episode that you found, let's say, to to that link, which will then, you know, open up that that
episode in your favorite app. So we're we're pretty committed to open and to,
actually, even
as part of what we're trying to do is is educating the community,
as well around podcasting 2.0
and the opportunities that are there.
And it's it's a great
group
for this
because higher education, it's a different,
it's it's kind of a different animal than than most other industries. They're not motivated in the same ways. It's very indirect motivation for how they get resourced, for example.
So, you know, people aren't selling ads so much, and they're they're not necessarily always even worried about the size of their podcast,
you know, audience. But who's listening really matters.
You know? They they wanna make sure that their stakeholders,
are able to to hear what they're putting out. That's really important.
And and so it's the right kind of community to
to really dig into
standards, open standards,
different than, let's say, someone who's trying to sell ads who's, you know, might really find that
use you know, like, really like the ideas around podcasting 2.0, let's say.
But but have,
have to put food on the table, and so a closed
network is where they're gonna be able to do that. So they don't really care, and they're not gonna push for anything.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, if you like, modern podcasting, you should convince these guys to come over to Pod Home and host host their stuff on there. Well, that's great. We should be This is this is part of what we're we're trying to do is to be able to recommend
the right places
for Exactly.
You know, for for hosting your,
hosting your podcast or your what are the apps that you can recommend to people to use? What are the you know, use 0 p 3, let's say, for,
you know, for being able to share the
the download data so that you know, because
why not? It's it's higher education, so they don't actually care.
In the same way, it doesn't feel embarrassing. They're like, yeah. This is our listenership. So great. And it it helps, though,
to be able to,
you put these things out there to be more open and transparent for
in that world, you know, in a way that's different than, you know, if you're trying to trying to hustle and maybe,
Definitely. Slide things back that or slide things slide things past people that,
they wouldn't be aware of. Right?
So for instance, the, there's there's Huberman lab in here, which is from Stanford University. Right? Mhmm.
Can can you convince them to, use OP 3?
That'd be cool. Yeah. That that might be an outlier to get into. It might be an outlier.
We we could we could we could we could try. That that would be a great one to get into OP 3, wouldn't it? We do have we do have some pretty huge Stanford
podcasts, though, that are on o p 3.
So Really? Oh, that's not yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a handful of them already, so that that one might be different. But but but just sort of to add to what Greg was saying, I think there's
there higher education podcasts make a lot of sense for podcasting 2.0 because there's a lot of features,
within it that that that actually speak to the the ethos of higher education. Like Yeah. Like like, the people tag, for example. Like, that's an important part when you're sharing academic papers, and you're citing and you're citing things.
You know, the transcript tag, that that that is table stakes.
All of the podcasts who I work with,
that that Greg and I work with in the higher education space, that's actually a mandate. They actually Yeah. Was mandated
because of accessibility.
Right. So, like, for example, work with the School of Engineering at Stanford, and they've had to go they've been they they've had their podcast live since 2017,
The Future of Everything.
They they've actually they they they have had to go back into their catalog.
They were able to convince them not to go the whole catalog because it was just 245 episodes. But they've actually had to go back into their catalog
and add transcripts
to,
to hit that mandate,
of the institution wide to have accessibility with which is transcript. So there's so many of the great things that, like, you know, to your point about it's modern. But beyond
that, there's there's actually a number of things in there that make a lot of sense for
the the higher education podcast space to kinda start adopting, but then to start using the hosts that are on board with it and then communicating and educating their audiences
to
select apps
that,
that are that are that are you utilizing a lot of these features.
Yeah. And they can then engage with, those, those podcasters as well.
Uh-huh. Totally. Yep. That's great. So I see, I'm just looking it up here. On the podcast index, I see the future of everything is hosted
on, because I can see the arrows as feedback. On simple cast.
Yeah. Very old school, they do not definitely not do chapters or transcripts.
So come on over.
It's, yeah. I mean,
I cannot get into
but that's, that's, there's yeah. There's
Barry, I'm trying. I'm trying.
There's no Yeah. So Yeah. Is there, for you guys, is there
a revenue model, or could there be a revenue model?
There definitely could be. I mean, we we really just started with, you know, if we make this thing that people seem to want we think we think people want this.
So if we make it,
it it'll be a really great opportunity for us to get to know more people in the community
and be in sort of a position of credibility,
kinda showing off what we could do. And,
that alone was the starting point. That's gonna be good enough to make it worthwhile because it's so it's so easy to build things these days compared to, you know, 25,
30 years ago when I was first building on the web. You know, that was a lot more difficult.
So,
so now it's it it doesn't it didn't cost much to try. Let's put it that way.
And,
it's been really worthwhile. So that that was a starting point. But as we've started, you know, the initial feedback, people are so excited about it. They're they ask us questions about things that we were thinking about that that we haven't talked about publicly on the site at all. They're asking questions about, well, could we do promo swaps
with with others in this community? And, you know, could we do,
I don't know. There's a couple there's other things out there that are not coming to my mind all of a sudden, but,
but there's there's definitely opportunities
for
for revenue models for this to be sustainable to kinda grow. I mean, the obvious things around, you know, meetups and conferences and things like that or,
yeah, there's there's kind of a a lot of different directions we can go, and we're we're, at this point, trying to just follow
what the initial adopters are are interested in and and see where that goes. Because, like I said, there's there's quite a lot of enthusiasm at the out of the gate here.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think that's I think I think if we can if if like, as Greg was saying, like, it
we've got some ideas.
That's not our focus right now to monetize this. Our focus right now is is is to build it, and this is this is a a podium podcast project, if you will, for, you know, you know, for the time being. But I think, like, truly, if it's gonna work,
we need to kinda, like, not not let it go,
but, like, it needs to have that that community somewhat of a community ownership. So Mhmm. So we've got,
we have we have some key people that we're kind of talking to about it that are that are sort of helping us, you know,
advise us as as we go and, you know, and and and so on and so forth. But I think that's a future
a future goal. I think we're bullish. We can figure something out. But short term, let's let's let's get this thing built. Let's get Mhmm. Let's get people signing up, and and let's then let's get it out there and and help the higher ed podcast community.
I love that. Yeah. That's a that's a great way to go.
Yeah. Let's see where it goes. Right? So you just mentioned, Podium,
and that's a full service podcast agency, as we talked about.
Yeah. Sorry. What was your sorry. I didn't hear your question there, Barry. Do you wanna,
expand on that a little bit? What what it is? Yeah. Sure.
Yeah. I launched that,
a little over 4 years ago.
My background is
digital advertising, so I came from the digital marketing, digital advertising
world.
And I've always loved podcasts,
and
sort of as everything in that
digital
marketing content space become more and more and more specialized over
the over the years, I just thought, like, podcasting is a really
interesting
corner,
of of the larger ecosystem that still is, I mentioned before, Wild West.
Like, it really still is,
it there's there's still so much
dynamic action happening with,
you you know, all the big players of the Amazons and the Apples and
the Googles with through, you know, through YouTube and Spotify and so on and so forth and,
hasn't quite been cordoned off into a big walled garden yet. So I was just sort of curious to pursue the space, so I launched Podium. I was kind of thinking at first it was gonna be,
a,
a branded podcast agency,
but have have, you know, quickly sort of in my 1st year,
pivoted from that. There's a number of those kind of agencies out out there and really
found myself in this higher education
and,
and also not for profit,
like, nonprofit podcast space. So they're it's a similar kind of
genre
as the as the higher ed, where they're, you know, they're not looking to monetize. They're it's not a branded podcast. They're not trying to sell something per se. So really, really interesting content and people and and space. So, yeah, kinda built this,
agency
around that.
Have a couple of other projects on the go,
as well.
But, yeah, that's that's kind of in in in and of itself what what Podium is and and and the kind of clients that we work with. So we help, so we work
ongoing with a number of
of higher education
podcasts, and
let's say we sort of act as a
executive producer role, so we're engaged on a like, a lot of them are week weekly shows, so we're we're engaged,
you know, in the in the trenches,
helping produce, but somewhat audio engineering, but lesser of that, but more playing a producer, an executive producer role. And then managing sort of all their tech and their hosting and,
and then all their growth, as well too, sort of all those strategies and and whatnot. So yeah.
Okay. And and, how do you see coming from the advertisement,
world,
how do you see those worlds collide?
Ads and and podcasting
slash podcasting and how podcasters
can make money. How do you see that working at the moment?
Well, they're both a mess. I think k. I think I think it's it's funny. Like, I kinda think, like, this this conundrum we have going on right now with ads and dynamic ad insertion,
and how and is it a download? Are people really listening to my ads? And and,
it it reminds me of when banner ads first started, and I was part of that early, early day in to when banner ads were coming out and clicks and clicks on your banner ads, and and then you have, you know, dynamic ad insertions from a banner ad perspective too. So so I I think that, you know, I I I think I've got a lot of experience there, but I I I, you know, I think it's all kinda sorting itself
out,
if you will. And,
yeah. So, I mean, I guess I would come at it from I've got a deep understanding of the technology,
and and I've worked with tons and tons of different clients. So I feel like the podcast space is is is sort of in a moment similar to
going back 10 years of how I think the larger industry was grappling with banner ads and and and what really, you know, and and click throughs and what what does a click through really mean? And
and and so I think we're at that moment now in the in the podcast
space of a of of a dynamically
ad, you know, a dynamically inserted
audio ad,
and it's in a part of the downloads and, like so how does that all work, and and what how's it all gonna play out?
Yeah. I,
I'm I'm
so not a fan of dynamically,
inserted audio.
Just as a listener, you know, I'm listening to an American show, and then boom, I have some Dutch
local thing from some guy that's trying to sell me something here around the corner.
How did you know that I'm listening from there?
You know, this that's you know what? It's it's that's really interesting. It's so funny because I think so much of it is we're in Canada, so we're the similar.
So even though, like, we're we're
I live I live a half an hour from the border,
but but it's but the ads I get,
here are just the same. It's a Canadian ad, and it's really interesting because I think
the,
the
I think American shows don't understand really what what happens internationally.
And I think this is a real big difference with with podcasting is it's it's truly international,
and it's it's not the same from traditional radio or traditional
or or traditional TV or whatever. Like, that is that is localized, and I think that a lot of Americans don't think outside of, you know, with their podcasts, don't think outside of it. For example, we did,
one of the podcasts I work with, we did,
promo swaps
with,
with with some big American shows, Freakonomics and some other ones. And it's like, they didn't even think, like it's like not even kind of in their in their for a big show like that, not even in their mindset, it wasn't, at least, to think about, like, well, what what's the difference with what happens in Canada? Like, what's the difference in, like, what
what barrier you get in in in in, you know, your ads in the Netherlands? It's very much kind of focused that way. So I think that's another part of, I think, what's really interesting about this. But I agree with you. That's the
the the it's a very,
intrusive,
form of of of advertising.
Yeah. Plus, you know, technically, it breaks so many things as well because some, player apps
just only stream. They don't actually do a full download. So when you stream an episode and then a dynamic ad comes into it,
and you, I don't know, want to come back to that,
episode later, then your timing is off,
for instance. And it also brings timings of all the things that have timings, like a transcript, a chapter. Yeah. You're totally right.
So it's just sucks.
But I know host read ads, I don't mind because that's the host. I trust him because I'm listening. Podcasts, anyways. Completely agree. And you tell me something that he's using,
I'm probably gonna skip it, but, you know, maybe maybe I'll listen to it. Maybe maybe I'll even try it out. Maybe I'll buy it. Who knows?
That's not a bad thing. But, yeah.
I don't know. How do you see that,
evolving, especially when we only have the download slash stream metric, which really doesn't mean anything?
I I don't know. This is why I do
higher ed podcasts, they don't advertise.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a way to avoid the problems.
Yeah. I I I think I think as an industry, we need to
and I and I I think this is actively being I mean, we hear it being talked about all all the time. Right? Like, I think all of us. So,
when you,
but, yeah, I think I think there needs to be a turning point at some point in time where we it's this we we
let me back up.
There's there's a there's a large,
cohort, and this is where sort of my former role I know about, that is coming from
the the advertising
ecosystem. And so you have really big holding companies within
advertising,
that have massive media buying. There's,
consolidation.
So you've got literally, like, 3 giant holding companies in the world that buy
a vast portion of advertising.
And I don't think that they've figured out the different how different podcasting is, and they're trying to ram
radio ads
into podcasts. And so for them, they see a big spread. They work with, like, let's just say, like like, they work with Procter and Gamble. We've got a big massive budget, and it's broken out from traditional,
you know, TV, you know, yeah, they're trying new connected TV, and then they've got got a radio,
and, you know, they've got their portion set aside for Meta and for Google, bigger portions more and more, and then, you know, so on and so forth. And that podcast line, I think it gets rammed in right there with with radio
or
online audio,
and it's really not being thought about separately. So,
it's not gonna change until, as a podcast industry, we can work our way into that ecosystem
and and
differentiate,
because we're just gonna keep getting those
those,
you you know, whatever the ad is that's being bought at that
at that media buying level.
So, yeah, I'm not sure I'm answering your your your your,
I'm not giving you an answer to answer the problem. I'm kind of identifying the problem that I think that we need to, you know, you know, that we need to solve.
Yeah. I think I yeah. I don't know. You know? I'm I'm not a huge fan of ads, but I understand that as a podcaster, you also wanna make some money. Right? That's understandable.
I think
maybe a good way to do it, just thinking about it. If you have a host read ads, and you say, well, go to, better health.com/
my thing,
huberman or something, then they can immediately see, alright, this guy. I got, 10 clicks or something or 10 10 people that went through that thing. So you don't
then BetterHelp doesn't need to care about how many downloads there are or did people listen or not. It doesn't really matter. You bought that ad for x money, and you got this back. That's exactly what you want to know. Right? That's all you want to know. That's at least all you're gonna get. You're not gonna get age, gender, all that type of stuff.
So that's that's kind of a good way, I think.
I don't know.
Yeah. But I I I agree. I think the host red eye is is a is a definitely a better,
way to go.
It just there's big
ad dollars that have been
bought in a certain way, and and they're spent,
you you know, they're spent in a certain way and that and how that's bought on the other end, and we're, you know, podcasting is part of it. So so I think it's, you know,
evangelizing
and and the the the host read option, and then it's thinking about these these, you know, these these these these formats, and it's getting to these big media buying conglomerates,
with these options with these better options.
And and, indeed, I I could if I can in insert my uneducated opinion on this.
By just by experience on the web,
over time, standards really matter.
And I think the open standards are really worth
protecting and and carrying forward.
And because there's there's always a tension between
the
the sort of monopoly,
oftentimes, which has real benefit for the users.
Sometimes the monopolies do, but then it would
wouldn't around that monopoly are the things that that oftentimes enable it, which are sometimes open standards. And so in advertising, especially,
there's a really big spectrum to be had there.
I think what I'm hearing
with with Neil
and and, Barry, what you're saying too,
is that
we have to have some some standards.
They can't they're not necessarily be perfect, but where there are standards, it's really useful because then there's a bucket for people to be able to all collectively understand. Okay. This is how I can advertise
as an advertiser. I wanna I would love to put an ad
in a podcast, and there are people that would like to actually use a space in their podcast
to to sell an ad so that they can, you know, put put food on the table for their family.
And so create
creating those opportunities. And there's lots and lots of creativity in between,
that you know, from that to to host red ad to,
you know, not having any ads at all or whatever. There's there's so much creativity
in that space, but the the creativity's
gotta coalesce into some,
some standards so that then we can create a market for them.
And it can be traded, and it can all make sense. And, you know, when you build a when you build a hosting app or when you build a a player or, you know, whatever you're building,
around this ecosystem, if there's a standard, then you can just you can put it up. You're not gonna own it. You're not gonna have the the monopoly on it, necessarily,
but now you you can everybody can play in that space.
Yeah.
Okay. Well, this was quite a side
A good side story. Yeah. Yeah.
I It was good it was a good it those those are some good questions. I hadn't Yeah. I didn't
dig back into my, experience here. So Higher Ed Pods is really about being open, open standards. Yeah. We love podcasting 2 point o. We love putting ads, and we're not gonna put ads on there. We don't have any ads to put on there, but if there's some sort of higher education ad that formulates or that as a standard, then we'll probably support it. So there you go. And it does align, kinda with my values as well, which is and that comes back to the ads. Yeah. The The the ads where you say, you know, big ad companies are buying lots of stuff, and they wanna just put that into blah blah because they know that there's
earballs on there. Right? They're attention.
That sucks because I don't wanna live in an in an Internet
where my attention is being monetized.
I wanna live in a world where
I get give value where I get value. For instance, with a whole ads. Right? I get value from the guy, so maybe I'll give him some slack. You can do that with podcasting 2.0 as well with
value for value, we send them a little micro transaction.
And I think that works well. And especially with these types of podcasts in the higher ed,
where you see that a lot, that is kinda all giving value. Right? The educators are giving value there often for free Mhmm. For nothing.
But that really,
aligns also with, let's say, the ethos
of just giving, putting stuff out in the world. You'll get something back if it's valuable.
I like that.
Yeah. Me too. I like that.
Yeah. So what is,
on the on the horizon for you guys? What's next with Higher Ed Pods?
We're gonna launch a podcast.
Yeah. K. A higher ed pods podcast.
Yeah. We're,
hopefully, by end of this month or or
probably more like tomorrow. That last month, though.
Yeah. But we're we really are. That's that's our so one of our nice things. But, yeah, so we wanna,
launch a a podcast that's that's targeted at the
at the larger audience,
which where we can feature
in each episode,
a different higher ed,
podcast.
So a feed where each week, you'll get,
exposed to,
a different university's
podcast
and being and then we would the the idea is
each host
or or a producer from the show,
in, like, 2, 3 minutes introduces
the show,
and then they pick their favorite episode. A lot of these podcasts are evergreen, so they they pick their favorite episode, and that's the that's the podcast. And and Greg's gonna be the host, and he'll just sort of quick little quick little intro at the beginning, and a quick little outro at the end, but essentially, it's,
each each episode is is an episode from,
one of the, higher education podcasts in the directory.
Oh, I like that. Yeah. That really makes the discovery,
very well.
This makes me think of a conversation I had earlier today with somebody that also makes a podcast player app, and he was also talking about discovery
and creating, like, specific playlists for episode
for for instance,
shows
where you pick out, like, these are the 3 episodes that are good ones to start with. Let's say Human
has
so many episodes. Where do you even start to Yeah. Start learning this?
Mitsu. If that's the curated thing as well, that would be great. You just Yeah. Go down and say, alright. I want to learn about x. Let's start here.
That'd be
cool. Yeah. We're getting good traction on that one too. This is this is gonna be really fun. I'm I'm working on my voice over voice.
Hopefully, it's okay.
Hello. This is Greg Oldring. Yeah.
But, yeah.
Well, I don't know if I'll use that smarty voice, but, but, yeah, we're we're getting good traction already just from from way again within the community,
putting it out there saying, okay. What's your favorite episode? And describe this to us because we want to be you know, we're creating the show to introduce
higher education podcasts to listeners.
Yeah. This is the plan.
Okay.
Great. So,
let's,
let's wrap up on, where do people go find all this?
Higher edpods.com.
K.
Cool. I'll put that in the show notes, and we'll also link to you and also
to a podium so that people can find all of that there.
Thank you. Thank you very much for, for talking with me today.
Thank you, Gary. This has been fantastic. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Yeah.
Alright.
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