Really Specific Stories: Jason Burk Duration: 1:08:37 SPEAKERS Martin Feld and Jason Burk Martin Feld 00:21 Well, thanks for joining me for Really Specific Stories, Jason; it's great to have you on. To kick things off, I want you to cast your mind back. What was your earliest experience with or how did you get into podcasts? Jason Burk 00:34 Well, I would say, first of all, I think my intro into podcasts actually predates podcasts, if that makes any sense, in, in the sense that I, to date myself a little bit, was a child of the era when there were many... in the US, there was a TV station called Tech TV, which was very, very niche. Like, if you were into tech, you, this is probably what you watched. And it was about, you know, dig... digging into the Windows registry and like all that kind of very esoteric tech stuff that you would never hear anywhere else. So, it was very clear that if you knew about this kind of thing, that's where you were. And that, I think, is where I initially entered into podcasts in general, because these were TV shows, I think everybody that knows about tech podcasting probably knows of Leo Laporte, at some degree. He did a lot of these tech TV shows or was adjacently associated with them and then he also did a radio show that was The Tech Guy, which I think that's if I recall correctly, that was the name of the show. It was an actual radio broadcast show, was every... I think it was on the weekend, Saturday and Sunday, maybe for a couple hours. There were a couple of folks doing it in that timeframe but he was kind of like the one that was maybe a little more nerdy, less like basic support and would dive more deeply into some of the more nerdy areas. And then that got picked up as... because he was kind of in that geeky era, they would take that show, and put it onto a RSS feed, which was a podcast at that point. And it was like, oh, OK, so if I don't hear this show, so picture me as a kid, like listening to the radio, and that radio show being about like, what are we doing in window management, and you know, Windows 98, or whatever. It's just like, the quintessential, like lamest thing that you could think of as a kid doing in their bedroom, listening to the radio, but like, that was totally me. And then it was like, well, what if I missed it? How do I go back because radio was live, everybody knows that. So, if you miss it, you kind of missed it and that was it. It was like, oh, shoot, there's, there's so few avenues for little nerdy kids to be able to grasp onto this kind of information because the Internet was like, nothing back then, it was like AOL chatrooms at best. So, to get this kind of information at a at a steady flow, there really was nothing else other than there was also a TV version of this show that happened eventually but from the radio perspective, there was nothing else. Jason Burk 03:28 So, to be able to have that as a kind of DVR situation, where you could have it later, that's where podcasts really happened for me. And the thing I loved most about those shows, was not so much that I was learning a lot from them, because I was very tech-focused and nerdy. It was more of a challenge for me. So, I would listen to these shows, and callers would call in. I have XYZ problem. And it was sort of a Jeopardy! kind of thing, right? Where I would be trying to answer the question that they asked before the host would answer it. And that was like my gratification of like, ha, I knew that when that's an easy one, right? Like, that's kind of the Jeopardy! thing where people watch Jeopardy!, or insert name of game show, because they want to answer it before the contestants answer it or before the real answer comes out. So, I think that's really where I remember podcasts most being in my world. Jason Burk 04:29 And I guess the other extension of that would be another again, radio show from the 2600 sphere, The Hacker Quarterly Magazine, which I was obsessed with as a kid—still love it today. But I was very obsessed with that magazine as a kid because it was kind of this, this magazine that would come to my house every quarter. And there would just be this like super, super-nerdy deep-dive stuff about hacking in all different respects and they would do radio shows as well out of New York. And then that would become later a podcast that you could download, I had no way of listening to the New York radio station living in California that was meaningful anyway, other than getting like a shortwave radio and setting all that up, but I didn't, that wasn't really my thing at the time, so being able to just download it on the Internet was like, that was easy, or I... I don't even think it was really truly off the Internet, it was probably from some forum somewhere or some bulletin board or something back then, but... same kind of thing where there was a feed that you would grab, you know, the idea of RSS feeds today and podcasts are: everybody knows what a podcast player is, for the most part; I mean, everybody's phone comes with one at the very least, they've seen the word 'podcast', whether it's Google Podcasts on an Android phone, or the Podcasts app on an iPhone. So, everybody knows at least what it is but back then there weren't really dedicated devices for doing that. You'd throw them into iTunes, or you throw them into maybe like a Winamp or something like that. But yeah, I think really, the transition from trying to get that DVR content from radio is where podcasts started for me. And it was very much tech-only. There was no other podcasts I was listening to that was not tech-related; in my younger years, for sure; nothing else interested me as much as tech. Martin Feld 06:20 That's a fantastic story. Really, it gives me a fantastic idea of how podcasts fit in initially, with all of these different media that you were consuming. I'm interested in this idea of access that you brought up and how it was, as you said, DVR for radio, given that difficulty in access, or at least difference from what it's like today, how did you feel or what did it feel like listening to podcasts at the time? Was it more of a secondary thing for you—because you mentioned that you were trying to get access to radio and then podcasts came afterwards? How were you approaching that consumption and how did that feel? Jason Burk 06:57 I preferred the listen-to-it-whenever-you-want type of situation, where a podcast meant that I was in control of my time. I don't think I ever, throughout history of you know, childhood to adulthood, thought that it was great that I had to be in a specific place at a specific time, or you don't get it; that just seemed so backwards compared to what technology always promised uh, for the future. A thing like a podcast felt like the future to me, where a thing happened, didn't matter if I was there or not, I can get it later. And I think that is really—flash forward to now of the streaming services—it's that all over again, where it doesn't matter if so and so has seen season one, episode four, they can go watch it whenever they want. And I just think that's hugely powerful. I, I don't want to say that it's not important to have that specific time and place for a thing to happen; that does hold some value, but I don't think that should be the only method in which somebody is able to see or experience something. Because frankly, we just we have so much as humans going on. If we were to say everything is important only when it happened, we would miss out on so much just living our lives day to day, that it would be a complete waste to not only the people watching or hearing, but the creators that are creating this medium to begin with, to not be able to reach as far of an audience as possible with their story or message or dream or whatever they're creating. Jason Burk 08:35 So I think the fact that that was my first intro into time shifting, I guess we can call it, was an eye-opening experience and really led to me, I believe that really opened up my eyes to really everything should be asynchronous, or at least have an option for asynchronous, so that we don't always all have to be in the same place at the same time to experience something. Maybe there are benefits to being there in person. That's always the case, right? Like if you're at a concert with a bunch of your friends, that is going to inherently be a different experience than watching that concert later. But if the trade-off is never see it, or at least get to see it, it seems pretty clear that the benefit is there to at least be able to experience it. And with technology gaining, you know leaps and bounds as we go forward, that gap I feel like is going to shrink over time as we look at AR, VR and whatever the next X-R thing is to place us into locations virtually with others. I just think that's going to that gap is going to slowly close. Martin Feld 09:49 So, that's a great point: as that gap was closing and technology was gaining in leaps and bounds as you said, what came for you next after this early period of to podcast consumption? Jason Burk 10:01 I think the fact that it became a true product, I guess I'll say in the capital P product, when podcasts became podcasts, right? So, back to when we had iPods, and we were manually plugging in 30-pin dock connectors to load MP3 files onto our iPods, and then the term 'podcast' in general happened, because prior to the term 'podcast', it was just audio files shared on the Internet, which is not great branding. So clearly, we needed something there, because that's not really going to sell it. Thankfully, or I guess, if you're on the other side of the fence, not Apple-y, they're named podcasts. That's what they're called now. You can try like hell to change the name all you want. People have tried over and over again, nothing has changed that. They are podcasts and never say never, but I don't see any real push to change it from that name at this point. Especially with now that you know, the product iPod is really not even a thing anymore. So you kind of cut off any chance of getting rid of it. Because now it's really, it doesn't mean iPod. It sort of never did. But because that was the dominant music player, audio player of the time, it just sort of stuck. So I think when it became a product that was really the turning point for me of when this was like now as ubiquitous as having a… when you had a CD player or a cassette player previously, or Walkman, whatever you want to call it. Now, podcast players were a thing. And yes, it was the iPod first. But then we slowly started getting applications on the computer. Then we started having mobile devices in our pocket that could do more advanced things, past phone calls, and we had podcast players. Jason Burk 12:04 I think that was the next tipping point for podcasts where it was like, OK, they are now at the point where they are a standardised technology, which is great. They work everywhere. It's standard files, there's no weird DRM on them. There's nothing strange going on with them. Anyone can access them, they just need that tool to get them that last mile of taking that file and playing it. And back then it was really just playing it, right? There was no, like show notes didn't matter. Podcast artwork barely mattered. Maybe you had a cool logo, but it didn't show anywhere anyway, unless you had like a fancy iPod or iPod Video or something. So that, none of that mattered. It was just about the audio playing. And it was just MP3s, so that productisation of podcasts was probably the next tipping point where it was like this is a real thing now, not just this weird, hacky hobby that I do, because I'm trying to get this audio that already happened somewhere else into this other thing. Now they're starting to be audio that originates in this forum, verse being ported over to. And I think that's what really defines a category, when medium starts being created in that, verse just being ported to it. I think that's a key indicator that something is definitely changing in that area. Martin Feld 13:26 And as this change happened, and you were syncing things to your iPod, as was… Jason Burk 13:31 Yeah! Martin Feld 13:31 …the way as well as the method at the time. What kinds of thing were you listening to? Jason Burk 13:36 Honestly, it was really 100... ah, I mean, I'm gonna talk in absolutes, but I really feel like it was probably 100 per cent tech-related podcasts. Martin Feld 13:49 Mm-hmm... Jason Burk 13:49 Mostly because no other medium offered tech-related topics. There was nothing. And it makes sense because you would think: what category of people are going to make technological versions of a topic, but those in the tech sphere, sort of makes sense, right? Like, musicians are going to make music. Tech folks are gonna make topics about tech stuff. So, it was a natural fit for me because there was nowhere else to get that information. You know, there was mag... there was magazines, which was you know, they were great. You could get your your giant Computer Shopper Magazine, which was awesome. Loved getting that and thumbing through it! 2600 Magazine I mentioned before, but it's like that those were magazines, they were very, they were very focused, obviously, because there's a limited number of pages, so they couldn't really just go off in random directions. They were a magazine, it was like, we have to design the layout; we have to put the things in here and then they're baked; and then they go out, and they're probably a few months behind what's actually going on by the nature of publication; because we've got to ship these things somewhere physically. Jason Burk 15:02 Where then podcasts happen and it's like, we can talk about what happened today, and put it out today. I think that changed the news cycle of tech, where it was no longer reading about the newest Intel chip from three months ago, it was like, here's the event that happened today at CES, here's the 15 cool things that we learned from it. And you heard about it without having to be there. I think that was a major shift for me is like, wow, I can, I'm not going to be going to CES as a 13-year-old kid or whatever, but I can hear about everything and I don't have to wait two, three, four months for some magazine to write up about the things that they cared about at that time. I can have four or five podcasts that I subscribe to that talk about the whole gamut of what came out at CES that year, and then have a conduit back to them of feedback or questions if I want, you know, probably email back then or maybe they had a forum or bulletin board or whatever it was. But you could do that. And you can actually reach out and talk to these folks and have a conversation—and more so way back then, because there was so fewer people in the kind of sphere, that if you wrote something to one of these, you know, icons, that were running one of these things, like they'd probably write back to you, which was like, you're kind of like writing to your to like, you know, a famous actor or something (if you really cared about movies). It was kind of that type of thing for for nerdy tech kids, and they would generally write back and you'd have conversations with them, and I thought that was really cool. Martin Feld 16:44 In this time, how were you really feeling listening to these shows? What role did they play in your life? Jason Burk 16:51 It is, oddly... OK, so I would say if you, let's say you watch a movie, and you like connect with a character or whatever, it's like, OK, I had like some kind of distant connection with that character, but you never really feel like you know them. Something weird happens with podcasts where, and I'm, again, I'm going to absolute this and assume this happens to most folks that you start to, like get this connection with certain podcast hosts, quote, unquote, regardless of you know, what they did before, during or after podcasts, it just, somehow, it's so much more conversational, that you form a... I'll call it a relationship. I mean, you obviously don't know most of these folks, but you do start to tend to align with certain hosts on kind of their worldview and you, you don't become friends with them, because you don't know them, and that's not what I'm trying to get at, but there's definitely some kind of this weird fourth version of a relationship that happens amongst podcast people that you listen to. And I think that happens to a lot of people where you, you kind of get hooked on like, if there's a show with like three or four people, and you're like, oh, I really, really aligned with like, that person on this, but like, oh, that person kind of drives me nuts. But then there's other ones like, they're kind of 50-50; sometimes they're on my same page, sometimes they're not. Let's see what they think this week. Jason Burk 18:27 So, I think there's this weird relationship thing that happens to a lot of people when it comes to podcasts that I don't think happens with radio as much, because I don't think there's, I would venture a guess, having done no research in this whatsoever, so having zero experience or knowledge of this area, that this happens far more with podcasts than it does with a radio personality. And I think that's due to probably the reach of it, right? Where if you've a radio person that reaches 40 million people or whatever, it's like, oh, they're just kind of one of them. Whereas a podcast person feels so much more personal and like, I found them, I put them in my podcast player, they're on my phone. They're coming through my headphones. You just sort of formed this like, bond with them almost, which almost sounds a little stalkerish and weird, but that's not how I mean it; there's just, there's this fourth version of a relationship I think that happens with podcasting that I I don't think anything else has really done that. And when I say that, I don't mean all podcasts either. Like if there's a... in NPR where it's literally just the radio show, but in a podcast format, maybe that can still happen, but I think with these smaller niche shows, I think that happens a lot more. And as relationships become more than just listener-host but they become something a little bit more akin to a loose, you know never-met friendship kind of thing. Really what the Internet has done in general, I guess I would say, because there's there's so many people even personally that I just I know, through the Internet, and that's literally it. But I would still consider them good friends, it, like the distance thing has become less important in terms of a, quote, friendship. Sure you don't get some of the same benefits, but I think podcasts is just an extension of the Internet, which is an extension of that kind of friendship model, in a way. Jason Burk 20:30 And I would assume that would break at some point, as a show gets huger and huger, you obviously can't keep up with 10,000 people as you could with 50 people. So that's gonna break down. And I do worry about that a little bit in terms of having a podcast, right? It's like, you love having those kind of intimate personal relationships with people. But you do, I at least do personally worry that as a show grows, and you naturally will start having touch points less and less, because now where you used to only have to reach out to 20 people now you have to reach out to 2000 people like, it just gets lower and lower as it gets bigger. And that's like a... that's like, it's a hard thing to be involved with. So and I don't think that's part of the question, but it, it's an interesting thing to think about, being a podcaster. Because a lot of times what you're doing is free in every respect of the word 'free', you're pushing something out over a free medium, people are downloading it, maybe you do ads, maybe you don't, that's kind of irrelevant. But there's then that that personal connection piece, which has a lot of value to it that you have to worry about. Martin Feld 21:46 There's a lot of interesting stuff in what you just said; I want to pick on that point just now of as something goes on or it gets bigger. And the fact that you said just then being a podcaster, as well, as those years have gone on technology has changed and you've become more involved in this medium as a listener, and producer, what are some of those relationships that have endured? Or how how, how have things changed for you over time, since this iPod era? Jason Burk 22:13 Yeah, I would say I have several friends still from podcasts that I had, that either don't exist anymore, because they've moved on to other things, or they just, you know, kind of went to do something else. Maybe they moved to doing YouTube or something in that respect. So, there's been folks that I have met through listening to shows, and that has gone on past the show, which has been phenomenal. I think that's great. I think I did one show prior to the one I do now, which was just myself kind of just experimenting, thinking like I want to do something in this area, mostly because I felt like I wanted to contribute something back to the medium that was somehow different. I didn't want to put just, I didn't want to hear what was coming in through the podcasts I already heard and then just basically copycat that back into the system, because that didn't really feel like that would be beneficial to anybody and, frankly, a waste of my time to just kind of regurgitate what I just heard from everyone else. So I, the first show that I tried doing, I wanted to do something different, to give back to the community in a way that if there was hopefully someone out there that was listening to stuff, but was just missing that one thing they really hoped that somebody would touch on, that I could be that thing for them. So that was the first thing that I attempted to do in terms of podcasting, and I just kind of wanted to try it, I didn't really think it would be a thing I would be able to do personally just because of my... just who I am, like it just didn't feel like I think I would do. But I did it for a while I think I did like 12 or 15 episodes or something like that. I have no idea if anyone, I didn't track any. I'm probably the worst like Internet SEO person or whatever, like I just don't care. I don't care about numbers; I don't care about what's happening with the stats, and I just don't care. So I don't know what happened with that show. Maybe maybe people listened to it, maybe people didn't, I have no idea. But I ramped it I kind of just like stopped doing that because it just didn't feel.. I didn't feel fulfilled doing it. It just kind of felt like it became a job and it was like eh, I'm just not really I'm not feeling that this is the thing that I should be doing. And it sort of felt more like I was just doing blog posts as audio and that didn't really feel great either, so I stopped doing that. Jason Burk 24:45 But then doing the show now, there's been a tonne of people that I have made connections with outside of the show that has just been like really eye-opening in that, you know, the Internet has, it always has such a, a tarnish on it for being a terrible, vile, like awful place. And there's plenty of that like, yes, the vast majority of it, probably, it's probably pretty awful, in most places that you visit, um, you know, surprise, surprise, the Internet's made of people and people can be terrible, so naturally, it's going to extend into all facets that involve people. So it was, I guess, surprising, but not surprising that this show would bring about positive reactions from folks, you know, it's like, put a couple of mostly positive people in a room to talk about generally positive things, it will attract mostly positive people. It's like, wow, what a concept. Imagine that! So that's one thing that I appreciate about the show is that it's, it's and of course, we all fall into a rut of, of negativity from time to time, but in general, I have found many, many positive relationships through this thing that's just like, I'm talking into a microphone, it's going into an audio file, it's going out to the internet to who the heck knows who? They're listening; they're spending their life—literally their life, like, this could be the last hour of their life, but they're using it right now, to be listening to me talk about whatever the heck I'm talking about, and then interacting with me from some other medium about it, whether it's, you know, a Discord thing, or just email or, you know, I have iMessage things set up with many of these people now, where it's like, you text message folks that just randomly send you the Internet. It's like, hell yeah, I do! This is like, amazing, that I'm able to get this kind of interaction from these people! It's just great. Jason Burk 26:48 So, I have found many, many great relationships that I hope will just will go on into the future, because we're like-minded folks that think about things in a similar vein, and sometimes we don't, which is even better, right? Like we have differing opinions, but we have it in such a way that it's not just this, well, you suck, I'm never talking to you again. It's like, well, I see what you're saying, yes, and I think this. So there's been many positive bits of banter about certain topics, where maybe we come out at the end, and we still don't agree, but like, it's fine. It doesn't matter. It's not the end of the world. It's like, surprise, surprise, again, people have different opinions on things. Oh, my gosh, can you even imagine? Martin Feld 27:32 Now the show that you're referring to producing now... Martin Feld 27:35 ...unless you've started doing something that I'm not aware of, would be our shared show as co-hosts with Andrew, Hemispheric Views. Jason Burk 27:35 Yes... Jason Burk 27:42 That is correct. Martin Feld 27:42 Thank goodness, I haven't lost track. On that, and all of the relationships that you've developed in producing this show together with us, what's your memory of how this show started? Where did it go? Jason Burk 27:57 I actually should know this question; I should know how to answer this question, actually, but it's failing to come to me because there was actually a trivia show we did where that was a question, and I still don't remember. But if I recall, vaguely, um yeah, I think this was all your fault, if I remember correctly, because you had been doing podcasting already in several formats. So you had your kind of main one that you did that's part of your blog, and then you had your offshoot one that was like a family history one. So you had already been kind of doing this stuff, and I don't think at that point, I was doing nothing in this area. Andrew, I think had one, maybe two things going. So I believe both of you were well-established in the sense that you had been doing consistent recordings and editing things and postings and all that stuff. So I think I was kind of the outlier there in the sense that I was doing nothing, but I think I talked to you as a guest, if I remember right, on your show. And I think, and… Andrew did as well... Martin Feld 29:14 We have done that, yes. Martin Feld 29:15 Like a pilot! Jason Burk 29:15 ...and then the fact that we both had talked to you independently, but had not talked to each other independently. So I think it was kind of you then connected the other two dots there. And we did like a, like a trial, trial show you could or I don't know, whatever they call it in the biz, a trial show... Jason Burk 29:17 Yeah, like a pilot on your podcast, I believe was where the pilot landed. Episode 00 was on your show, and then I think you released that. And I believe we got some kind of feedback from somebody or maybe a couple of folks on like Micro.blog or somewhere, and was like, I don't know, maybe we just like, give it a go. And now it's like, almost two years later, which is shocking. I, yeah, it's one of those where you, you, they're like, OK, yeah, we'll try it. And I figured we'd get like, I don't know, a couple. And not like in a neg... not negative towards anyone else, but it's just like, it's it's work, right? Like, there's work that, these things don't just happen like you have to... so first of all scheduling, right? Like, you all are in Australia, I'm in the United States, so the time shift is awful, so scheduling is the first thing that we had to figure out of, how do we even get all of these folks on the same...? Even just between the two of you, you're on opposite sides of the damn continent! So it's like, that alone is a pain, then you add me in in this whole other frickin' country on the other side. So to get those three times to line up was a whole thing. We got that figured out finally. But then it's just it's work, we have to record it, we have to prepare for it, we have to figure out what we're going to talk about. You don't just sit down and magically 'BLEH!' things come out of your mouth, and it's just fine. I mean, sometimes that works out, but it helps to have like planning, like most things. Jason Burk 31:14 And then the editing that you both do, is insane amount of work that you have to undertake each week, or every other week, rather. And then all of the stuff on the back end to put that together into a thing that can go into a system that can push out to the... it's a whole thing. I think that's the one of the big things people don't understand and probably why so many podcasts don't quote, make it is because the... upfront it's made out like this super easy, you just do a thing and it's done. But like there's so much other stuff that it takes to make it go week to week and be consistent, that I don't think a lot of people are prepared for just because they're not set up for success out of the gate, they're led down this path of it's easy, anyone can do it, then they go down the path and it's like, oh, geez, there's like 50 things I need to know how to do. Or I have to know how to do audio-editing software, or this myriad of other things. So, there's all of that that has to take place and without that, it's hard to keep going on. So, it would not be surprising for us to have gone down and been like we did six and yeah, we're done here. Jason Burk 32:29 But lo and behold, we're still here, six going on 60 episodes later, which is roughly going on two years. And I think it's just absolutely incredible that the thing that has been built around this has been, I would definitely say it's been a slow burn. And I don't think that's a bad thing, when it comes to this kind of stuff. I think the expectation is like, well, it's podcasting. Oh, so it's like YouTube, where you go on YouTube and all of a sudden, you have 750 billion views a day, and you're getting plaques from Google. And it's like, no, doesn't really work like that. Or, oh, you're getting sweet rat... ad revenue, you're making so much money off of XYZ mattress company. It's like, no, it doesn't really work like that either. Martin Feld 33:19 It's often mattresses, isn't it? Martin Feld 33:21 Yeah. Like it, you have to go into this expecting no recognition, no money, no, nothing, you have to do it because you want to do it and because you enjoy it. If you immediately go into it thinking this is a get-rich-quick scheme, you're gonna be severely disappointed. You have to do this because you want to and because you love it. That's that's really what it comes down to. And I can see people come saying like, already, like, oh, well, you just don't have the big audience and the big revenue, so of course, he would say that, but like, I can guarantee you there's no one out there that's just magically, you know, making a million dollars overnight, through podcasting. It's not happening; there are severely popular shows out there that are making very, very, very little money off of this. So it's not a, oh, we'll just do a podc-... I'll just quit my job and do a podcast and everything will be fine. Like that's not going to happen. Don't don't think that. Martin Feld 34:23 Ah, I can relate very well to everything that you said. I personally, in doing this show with you two, feel very fulfilled. It is a hard task, but you, you recognise the investment and the effort in that work and you see this product come together. On that point of production, I mean, you've mentioned the relationships that you've established through listening to and now producing podcasts and also all the hard work that goes into it. How (when you look at yourself) do you feel as a producer now? Because in most of the story that you've shared with me you've been consuming or listening to podcasts, but production is is a bit of a different thing. How's the experience been for you transitioning to someone who also produces them habitually? Jason Burk 35:08 Um, I would say, I have felt um... pressure, it's been a lot of pressure. And it's because to know that there are people that are relying on a thing to happen now. And there's this weird like, so OK, let me go backward to before there was Patreon or any of that. OK, so just full disclosure, there is a Patreon for this show, and people pay to get extra stuff. So I'll say that. Martin Feld 35:43 Mm-hmm... Jason Burk 35:43 But prior to that, the only pressure was on ourselves of we set a schedule: I don't want to miss the schedule. We said it's going to be every Thursday, so it has to be every Thursday. OK, fine. If something happens, and it falls outside that schedule, what are the repercussions of that? Basically, somebody gets something one day later. Not really that big of a deal—I don't like it but at the end of the day, it's not the end of the world. OK, that's fine. You know, I'm not being, and this is not my job, I'm not being you know, held to some kind of standard by my management to say, I have to get this done. It's like, OK, it didn't happen, but we'll try to make sure it happens next time. So then you kind of, that's your first intro into this whole thing where you, you, consistency, I think consistency is key in this because without consistency, you're just going to lose people because they're going to be like is it going to happen? Is not going to happen, you start just people will start falling off naturally. So I think consistency is key. Jason Burk 36:49 But then you've crossed this threshold where you think: maybe I'm going to start doing ads, which I'm, I'm, we are not, I'm, I'm, I've yet to see any ad model slash system that I would be comfortable doing personally, that's my personal opinion. So, we don't do ads. But let's say you're going to cross over into: somebody is going to start paying you for the thing you're producing; that becomes a much different situation, because now there is there is money exchanging hands. There is a generally, I find with Patreon, people are doing that as a not expecting a fee for service, but more as a... I'll call it a tip, almost, I know it's not a tip, because they do get things for that, but I do feel like the vast majority of folks on Patreon, do it out of a, I appreciate what you're doing and I want to see this keep going. So, here is you know, XYZ monetary contribution, but at the same time, you you can't really just rely on people doing that. So you got to have some kind of trade there. That's that's how it's how currency usually works! You give somebody money; you get a thing for it. OK, fine. So when you cross over that threshold, that's when the the pressure to deliver I think definitely heightens 'cause now it's like, if it doesn't come out on Thursday, even though that technically wasn't part of the bargain, you kind of feel like it is personally and as you start adding more things on to that, you know, pay us X dollars per month and you get XYZ, if you deliver X and Y but Z doesn't happen, you start to feel, I mean, I do any... I start to get this kind of like pressure on my chest of like, oh, geez, like we've promised everybody, they're gonna get a whatever, by the X of the month. We have not done that yet. That's happening to me right now. So today, as we record this, we have a thing that's supposed to go out tomorrow my time. I have not done it yet and I have incredible anxiety about that. And I need to do it, but I haven't done it yet. And like, that's one of those things where it's like, you got to realise what you're signing up for going into this because the relationship changes. Jason Burk 39:02 And now, I I do find myself having these kind of crisis of in my own head of where I'm thinking like, these people that I've kind of become friends with, that are now giving me money for a thing—it muddies the waters a little bit for me personally, where I'm like, we were just kind of friends and we could joke about missing a deadline. Now they've paid me for a deadline! Like, what do I say to them? Are they mad? Are they just pretending like they're not mad because we're kind of friends already? So, there's kind of that a little bit too but I think, I I have to believe at least that they for the most part understand this, hat this is, and I understand what this is. And if we sort of miss a little bit here, they're like, it's all good. We're not you know, this isn't take your car down to the car service and I promise you it by Tuesday, but I don't give it to you 'til three months later, like, that's a different thing. That's a clear fee-for-service situation. I'm not paying my car service based on Patreon tips, right? Like, this is different. But there's still a lot of that that happens in my mind where I'm just like, oh God, like, if I don't get this thing out tomorrow, like they're not gonna get it, even though like 95 per cent of them are probably don't even realise it's coming out tomorrow and don't care. But there's still that thing that's like looming over you. So, as with all things, money changes everything. Martin Feld 40:38 That's a great way to put it: there are kind of differing expectations, maybe around the content, you know, whether you're on the production side, or the listening side, and you just said the word 'change', or that, you know, everything changes. Are you experiencing or witnessing any changes in podcasting in general? And this could be as a, as a producer, or a listener—what are the things that you feel are changing, or that are important to you? Jason Burk 41:03 These changes that you've noticed, uh in terms of that segmentation or ease of sharing episodes, and also what you said about including details in what I assume you meant, were the links... Jason Burk 41:03 Um, I think for my for person-, from a listener standpoint, my changes most recently have just been, I've always been a completionist of podcasts, where I will listen to every single episode of every single show I'm subscribed to. But now that podcasting has become as big as it is and the number of interests in areas of shows that I have subscribed to has, has exploded, frankly, it's just not feasible to be able to do that. So, I have found myself a lot more willing now, and even if I have a show that I'm on, I'm willing to say, not every show has to be listened to 100 per cent, every single week, or every single month, or whenever it comes out, like, use your time in the best way that suits you. If and... I think the thing that bothers me the most is so much of the medium is not well-defined in terms of what is in the content. And that is troublesome. So, a lot of times you just don't even know what's in an episode, it'll have a title, which is usually meant to be like a hook to get you in. And then there may be like a little blurb about what it is. That's usually where it ends, maybe it has chapters if you're lucky. But a lot of the times it doesn't. Jason Burk 42:27 And I find, which may be a negative, but the shows that are better at telling you what is in every single episode and that timestamps everything, will be the ones that I'm more likely to skip through and pick sections that have or interest of me, or interest to me rather, or just skip entirely, because maybe this week, they're talking about this topic that I don't care about, I just don't, that and that's fine: I don't have to care about everything this person talks about. But if I don't know what's in the show, it just becomes annoying that I can't figure out if I need to skip it or not. So that's been a big change for me, and that I'm much more willing to just full-on archive or skip episodes that are not very interesting to me right now versus before where I would be like, well, I'm 19 weeks behind in my podcasts, I guess I better go all the way back to the beginning and just be perpetually behind forever. Jason Burk 43:27 It's kind of RSS all over again, where you have to pick a time in your life where you're willing to just cut loose and be like, nope, deleting everything that's older than a month, don't care. It's irrelevant and I'm moving on. Like that's just how it's got to be. So I think that's the biggest change I've seen is just the prevalence and number of podcasts that people are subscribed to, and the ability now with a lot of these apps to grab one-off episodes, where that was never a thing in the past. It used to be you would subscribe to a feed and you get that whole feed forever. It's a lot easier now to send somebody like, 'Hey, check out this episode of this show you don't know about!' 'OK, cool, I'll listen to that one; and great, that was a cool episode, that, it can end there.' Or I can say, 'Oh, that was interesting, let me maybe subscribe to this or not, doesn't really matter!' But the fact that podcasts have become more uh, segmented now, where you can deliver them to people as one-offs and not a here's a whole show you have to listen to you forever. And it's like, oh, that's such a burden, because there's 384 episodes. And then you get the question of well, where do I start? And it's like, well, you could start at one, I guess, but then you're not going to catch up for about 27 years, so... but if you start at the end, you're not going to really know kind of all the in-jokes. So what do you do about that? Jason Burk 44:52 That's the other thing of podcasting that I think is important, if possible, is to try to make things not link too much, so that they can be more evergreen, and in, in three years from now somebody can go listen to that and still get something relevant from it. If it's about a timely topic, obviously, it's about a timely topic. But to try to not make it like you won't get episode 53, unless you've listened to episode 1 through 52—that puts you in a tough spot, so I think that's a powerful thing that we have today is being able to say, this is a great episode, share episode, somebody gets a little link, they can play it in the browser, they can play it in their podcast player, anywhere they want to play it, it just works. I think that's really helpful to not only spread shows, but just be able to share important messages and content without them having to have a burden of a subscription to something. Jason Burk 45:57 Yeah! Martin Feld 45:57 ...in the show notes, correct? Yep. Is that something... uh, because for anyone who's listened to Hemispheric Views, which we do together with Andrew, you mentioned that we edit the show, but you're the show-notes master. I think listeners know that. Has that dedication to links and show notes come from your experience as a listener and liking the shows that had that stuff or was it more the other way around, where you've come to appreciate that more or assert its importance, because you discovered that, in the experience of doing the show notes? Jason Burk 46:29 I, I take an approach to show notes as if it were a script for the episode. So, the way that I think of the show notes is that you can be listening to the show, and following the script all the way through. So, I will often put in little quips or jokes or whatever, as the show is happening as a way to indicate that if you're listening and following along with the show notes, it will go one-to-one, so we will talk about XYZ topic, somebody will say something and then the next line will be that, you know, comment about that joke or whatever. So I take the kind of approach of it being more of a scripted thing where it almost feels like this, the show notes were created first, and then the show is recorded as a reflection of the notes. And that's just because the way I do them is I, I listen to the show one at 1x and create notes as I'm listening through kind of one-to-one with the timestamps. Jason Burk 47:32 And I don't know of any other, I'm sure other people do that, I don't want to pretend like I'm the only person that does that. But I do that because I know that when I'm listening to a lot of shows, and somebody says, 'Oh, there's this cool insert widget thingy', and I'm like, 'Oh, sweet! What, like, what was that?' Or, or they have, maybe they have an accent, and it's like, wait, what did I didn't quite like they said something? I think they said this, but I'm not quite sure. So I immediately go to the notes too, because I'll be able to read it. It's I mean, if it's an English, I'll be able to read it. And it's usually not there. And I'm like, oh God, like you told me about this thing. How am I supposed to find it now? It would just be so nice if I had a nice link to click on to do that. So, I guess I think of it as a way that I hope that it, there are other people that are doing the same thing as me when listening to a show and thinking, *Oh, what did they say?* and going and doing that? So that's why I just like them to be that way. I selfishly hope that people will literally read through it like a script as they're listening to it. I know that's not happening and like no one's doing that, but if someone ever tried to, I think it would work and they would hopefully appreciate that. Martin Feld 48:44 That's interesting, so it comes from what I'm understanding your experience as a listener or how you'd like to listen; you like to read along, but it's seemingly different from a transcript. Jason Burk 48:54 Yeah, it is. It's because I'm the person that like, you know, read-it-later services, there's a million of them. And I'm one of the few people that like the services that let you save articles, and let you do the audio version, where it will read the article to you but it will like highlight the text as it goes through, so every word that spoken will be highlighted in the text as it's going through. So I will read along while listening to it and like seeing the thing highlight. And I think that extends into how I'm doing the show notes, because I'm kind of thinking that in the same way. Hopefully there's at least like one other person in the world that does that so that it's beneficial to somebody. But that's generally how I do it yeah, it's not a transc-... it's like an abbreviated transcript where you wouldn't want to read our show while you're watching it. I feel like that would take too much away, but you're you're getting the topics of the things we're talking about. Jason Burk 49:48 And then every once in a while, there's a little thing inserted in there that's like an... like a bonus content to what's being said. Or a lot of times when you're recording these shows, they're happening so real-time that you don't quite have time to process everything that people are, or the other people are saying, or there'll be like something that was really funny that just completely went over your head, because you're just, you're in the moment and you're going and recording and you're looking at levels doing whatever. And so when I'm listening back, things will be said, and I'm like, that was hil-... like, I did not even pick up on that when Martin said that or when, you know, Andrew said that. So I like to put those things in the show notes as a little bit of a nod to the person listening of: if you did pick up on it, cool, here's kind of a funny thing about that or maybe you didn't quite get that but by reading this, it made you think, oh, that's what you're saying! Oh, yeah, I get it now. So, it's kind of like little mini-easter-egg content, I guess. Martin Feld 50:46 So that's something that's developed over time, as podcasting has become more of its own thing, or at least in your experience with your preferences for how you listen and produce. Jason Burk 50:55 Mm-hmm! Martin Feld 50:55 Where do you personally see things going or what do you think is important for the future of this platform? Jason Burk 51:03 I think keeping it as platform-agnostic as possible is probably the first one, so, and I guess when, well, that doesn't—you could make it locked down and still be agnostic, I guess. So I would say, keeping it at least as much of an open standard as it can be. So, like today, where it's just stupid MP3s, right? Where, nothing special, you could make, you can make a podcast with a dumb MP3 with nothing embedded in it—nothing at... no, nothing fancy, no artwork, no nothing. And it would still work, which I think is great. I can upload the show to archive.org and people can go listen to it there. Totally fine! Does it have all the rich, cool media stuff? No. But are they still getting the content? Yes. So, I don't want to see it go the way of ebooks where, well, I want to get an e book. Okay, well, do I get it on? You know, the Amazon Kindle? Or do I get it on the this thing? Or do I get it on that thing? Well, now I've switched technologies. So now, none of my books work. Great! That's cool. I don't want that. I don't think that's a good thing for anybody. I, this, the the latest trend of exclusive podcasts is tiresome, and I... it's, it was obviously going to go there because duh... money, of course! But I I hold hope that the majority of this like exclusive crap is going to be limited to the stuff that would have been radio-type hosts anyway, right? So it's like the folks and I, I don't know radio stations, but pick a callsign that's popular, I guess, in your area. And whatever is the top radio DJ of the week, like, those are the kinds of folks that are gonna get exclusive Spotify deals and all that like, OK, I guess that's fine. Mostly because the folks that listen to that type of stuff anyway, don't care where it is, they'll go download Spotify, if they have to, doesn't matter, because they were trying to get it wherever they had it anyway. Jason Burk 53:13 So, I think as long as that doesn't encroach too much on the general nature of podcasting, so, as long as we don't start getting, you know: Spotify has the .spo extension for audio files, and Amazon has the .amz, like, if we get to that point, I feel like we're in a really bad spot in that if, as a producer, I have to create an MP3, a .spo, a .amz, a dot this, a dot that it's like... that is a bad position to be in, in terms of what this medium is. And it's a little bit old man shouting at clouds, I suppose, to some degree, but this medium feels like how the Internet's supposed to be this equal platform for everybody to have their voice, which clearly didn't work out. It's still like, you know, the latest and loudest that have the platform. Jason Burk 54:12 Um, I would love to see podcasting be that in the sense that the technical barrier to entry kind of feels less so than doing something like a blog, or, yeah, I guess I would compare it to a blog. That's probably the most close right? Where a blog is OK, now I have to, I can write words. OK, that's pretty easy. I can do that in most places. But now I gotta figure out where I'm gonna put the words. OK, let me pick like a blogging platform. Maybe that's good. Maybe it's not, OK. Costs... generally, they're, they're fairly affordable, but there's a cost associated with it. Whereas I feel like spoken word, the barrier to entry can be less for a lot of folks, 'cause writing is kind of intense, where writing feels like you really have to have this formalised idea. And don't get me wrong, I think podcasting should be that as well, you probably shouldn't just go spout off a bunch of random crap and then post it. but you can. And that's kind of cool in the sense that that's possible. And it gives you truly a capital V voice. Whereas writing is words on a screen, and you can put your own emphasis on that writing, however you see fit from your worldview. Whereas when you're listening to somebody's voice, there's kind of no question about how their emphasis, how they feel about things, if they're mad, happy, whatever it may be, it comes through 100 per cent in audio, whereas text is like, oh, they said that thing, that's funny! When really when they wrote it, they were like, super-pissed. But you took it as it was a funny joke, because your worldview is super different. So now your whole interpretation of this person is off. Jason Burk 55:59 But as a podcast, you're hearing every word they're saying, their emphasis on every word, their pauses, sometimes what they're not saying is even more important. So I think this medium being open to as many people as possible is super-important. And I don't know how we get that to be, because it is so tech-focused and has come from tech, it, it, it brings along a lot of those inherent problems of it being tied to tech, which I think everybody's pretty well aware of at this point. So that diversity already is very low. But again, I think the barrier to entry technically is lower for this kind of thing. And I just hope that that open equality can happen with this platform where people can say, 'Hey, here is my website with an RSS feed, put it into your part, your podcast player, and hear my weekly show'. I think that would be absolutely fantastic. Maybe they never write a word on the Internet, but if they can do a podcast, I just think that's super-powerful. Martin Feld 57:02 You touched on very, very important and broadly applicable topics with that, diversity is a huge one, I think, for technology. And um, together we're producing something, which hopefully brings different people together, or I don't know how you feel about that. Do you feel like you're contributing something in that area? Jason Burk 57:21 I sure hope so. I mean, if you obviously look at the demographic of the hosts, like it's obvious of what's going on there, and because it is somewhat tech-adjacent, I mean, I don't, I don't think we're necessarily a tech podcast. But obviously, its tech-influenced heavily, based just on our pure interests. But if I look across the folks that I've talked to in Discord, or iMessage, or across various methods on the Internet, I would say it's not like hugely diverse, but there's more diversity than I would have expected, given the platform. And I would love for there to be more as always, I think that is a an area that we can always look to try to increase. But the problem is like, you don't want to do it artificially, right? Like, you don't want to just say, diversity is for diversity's sake. And it's like, we have like token diversity now. And it's like, well, it didn't really help anyone, you're just kind of, that's more for you than for the people on the other side that are listening. So, I think that we have a little bit of that in the sense that because the show is at least from two very, well, I mean, different countries, they're not like hugely different. But they're different enough to where at least it opens up questions around differences in society. Granted, you know, again, we're not like polar-opposite countries here. But there's at least some difference, versus just me talking to two other folks that are like two states over; that would be a very different thing, I think, versus us at least having the fact that the show is based on Hemispheric Views, and that's just Australia and United States. But that does open it up to both hemispheres. So I do feel like we do get a lot of um, reactions and input from other countries that is super-valuable and interesting. I mean, I I don't think there's any day of the week where you can't go in and be like, what is this thing that's super-weird in my country, like in other countries, like, is that normal? And everybody generally for me anyway, says like, 'No, you're very weird over there'. And I go, 'OK, I figured... that sounds about right'. But so we do have at least, country diversity so far, which I think is good. Martin Feld 59:51 Yeah, coming through on the Discord like you said. Jason Burk 59:53 Yeah, mm-hmmm! Martin Feld 59:54 I think you've given a lot of very interesting experiences. You've, you've covered a lot certainly across the producer and the listener experience. Is there anything that I haven't asked you about in your personal story or your experience in producing or consuming podcasts that you'd like to mention? Jason Burk 1:00:12 Ummm... I think the maybe the the one area would be around: why, why do we do this? Like, what is the...? Martin Feld 1:00:26 Mmmm... Jason Burk 1:00:27 What is the rea-..., like we talked about, obviously, monetarily, it's not as if people are just doing this to make a bunch of money. But I do think that there is a need to express yourself in a different way than general Internet, which is generally typing, right? And I think that, I guess it kind of bounces back to what I was saying about audio versus text where, I can blog all day long, but everybody's going to put their own lens on that, on those words. And so, being able to speak with my own voice, it's obviously edited, but like, not, not edited in a way that's making me say, like, random things that I didn't actually say, but it's edited so that it's not annoying to listen to. But it's, for the most part, our own true voices about what we feel in that moment. And it's, we don't do like retakes, right? So it's like, it feels very, for the most part raw, in terms of what we're actually saying. And I find that to be pretty therapeutic for myself, in terms of being able to have a conversation like this, that I know it's going out to however many people I don't know, but a lot. And they're going to be hearing that, making opinions and judgements on me (not knowing me). And so, it's kind of a therapy thing. And I kind of wonder how many people do this type of medium for that very reason, as a, almost the podcast becomes the big leather couch that you're laying down on. And the person, the therapist listening just happens to be like people across the world that may or may not reach out to you afterwards. Jason Burk 1:02:08 So you have to kind of think about that too, but I don't say that to mean that I like censor, well, clearly, I don't censor myself on the show, but I think it's, it would be interesting to understand what part what part of the population that do podcasts use this as a, as a almost like a therapy-type thing, where it's a chance to kind of step outside your standard self, and do something different, to not necessarily try to act or be someone else, but just maybe be the most real version of yourself, that you could be in this type of scenario. Because we all have personal times and work times where maybe you're doing, you know, work presentations, or whatever. And that's kind of a persona that you have to take on because of that environment. Or you're in, if you know, certain friend groups, you have to kind of be in a certain way with them versus so it just kind of this open-ended, be however you want. Because the spread of people is so wide, that you kind of can't pick a persona, you sort of have to just be you, and like hope for the best. So, I don't know if that translates to others but I would be interested to know if that is something that other podcast people talk about, because I don't, I don't believe for a minute anyone that does a podcast is the exact same person when you talk to them in person. Like there's just, there's no way. I can't, maybe, OK, maybe, again, I tend to talk in absolutes, but I think mostly people are going to be somewhat different in person versus doing this type of set-up. So, I don't know, I think that's an interesting thing to think about, that it's sort of a, a mental therapy thing that I, that I use it for anyway. I don't know if others do that as well. Martin Feld 1:04:00 Well, given everything that you just said, I want to say thank you for sharing yourself, or elements of yourself on this podcast recording and I don't want to assume too much but I hope that it's also been somewhat of a leather lounge for you. Jason Burk 1:04:16 Yeah! Absolutely! No, this has been great! Martin Feld 1:04:18 I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's good. Jason Burk 1:04:19 Well, I'm happy that it prompted that thought and probably beyond this podcast episode, you're gonna have to do some spelunking. But it would be interesting to know beyond that... Jason Burk 1:04:19 Yeah I, it's, it was, I have not thought about the the early, early days of how this stuff all happened in quite a while, to be perfectly honest, because it's so just part of the lexicon. Everybody knows what podcasts... everybody, again, absolutes! Everybody knows what a podcast is now. It's just, it's ubiquitous. Ever-... it's just a thing. It's in our world now where it really was not, much like when the Internet started happening, no one, not everyone just knew about the Internet or hey, go search this thing and like what do you mean search? Where do I search it? At the library? It's like no, you go online. What is online? It's like OK, we're still at that point. But now, it's just everywhere. And it's, it's fun to think back to all of the stuff you had to do to make this stuff even work remotely reliably, back in the day, of trying to get the files to make sure they are the correct whatever to go into your player, and that they would play back and then syncing playback, once you've synced again to reset your playback position, or did it keep it oh, now all my shows are back to zero, damn it! So, we take a lot of this for granted now, I have to s-... I mean much like, I mean, everything with technology we take for granted now, but um it was fun to go back and think about all that. And it kind of makes me wonder how, what in my archives of files, like what would be the oldest .mp3 podcasts that I can find? I feel like I want to go find out now. Jason Burk 1:04:50 Yeah! Martin Feld 1:04:50 ...what it would be. And that's, you know, that that's what links and show notes are for too! Jason Burk 1:06:05 Yeah, I'm sure I have an iPod laying around with like, you know, shows from long, long ago, early 2000s, or something that is just on there that never got deleted. Martin Feld 1:06:17 Now, this is your story, so you're in control of it. Um, do we wrap up? How do you feel about what you've shared? Jason Burk 1:06:23 I feel great. I think this was, this was a fantastic walkthrough. I think I covered kind of beginning, middle, where we're going. The where we're going part is, you know, as with anything that's always kind of a fearful place to go, because you never want what you love to go negative. But I hope that by doing things like what you're doing and giving some light to what this all even means, that we can keep this going as a well diverse, as much as possible and adaptable medium going forward. Because I think it's here to stay. I don't see any reason why it should go away. It's not, it's not the type of medium where you say, 'Oh, we have YouTube now, we don't need podcasting anymore!' It's, it's not the same thing. It's a different use case. Martin Feld 1:07:17 Mmm... Jason Burk 1:07:18 And I don't see anything taking its place in the near future. Never say never! But I think it's here to stay, and I think as long as we have good stewards of the, the medium itself, I think we can, we can keep it going. And I think as long as we don't have too much infighting on stuff that doesn't really matter and really focus on the bigger picture of what the medium is, that'll be where we're going to win. Martin Feld 1:07:44 I think that's a great point to bring that to a close and I want to say thank you again, Jason, for joining me for Really Specific Stories. And I also want to thank all the listeners for joining for this episode and a bit of a Hemispheric Views point, Jason, we've spoken about whippersnippers or weed-whackers before, I hope that the weed-whacker and blower in the background of this episode has not affected at least my end too much. So we'll see how that turns out... Jason Burk 1:08:08 I did not hear a single whippersnipper, so I think you're OK. Martin Feld 1:08:11 'cause someone's very enthusiastically attacking all of their lawn very nearby. Jason Burk 1:08:15 That was me earlier today. Martin Feld 1:08:18 Right! Well, thanks so much, Jason. It's been a pleasure. Jason Burk 1:08:20 Thank you, Martin.