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From Music Box to MTV to Podcasting 2.0: Podfather Adam Curry talks with NL Newslinet about Podcasting, freedom of speech and music too.
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From Music Box to MTV to Podcasting 2.0: Podfather Adam Curry talks with NL Newslinet about Podcasting, freedom of speech and music too.

Our recent article about Podcasting 2.0 generated a lot of interest, so we decided to reach out for Adam Curry himself and ask for an interview to go deeper in the subject. He was kind enough to accept, so here is a brief transcript of our discussion, available in its entirety in podcast format.

The Interview

(Newslinet) - We want to talk about the future of podcasting, but first: everyone remembers you from the MTV times, and of course as the original pod father, you’re a real innovator and you started before with Veronica, and also Music Box on the “sleeping bird” called Eutelsat I F1 . So can you tell tell us something about that particular period of your life?

(Adam Curry) - Well, it was very exciting, this was when I was in the Netherlands, we were making a television program for the Dutch audiences in the Netherlands, that has always been a country with a lot of cable. So, you know, it was easy to add channels that almost everybody could see. But what happened is there was a consortium from the the European broadcast union, I believe (Eutelsat. Editor’s note), we also do the Eurovision Song Contest, and one of my favorite television shows of all time. And they created something called Europa television. And so they were taking different types of content from all the public broadcasters around the European broadcast union. And we were chosen for music:.we were doing all of the music. This was Music Box. So all of a sudden, from just doing the Netherlands we were on the satellite, and it was everywhere.

Building a community

There I started to understand how you can build up a community. Globally, people don't even have to barely speak the same language. As long as there's some common elements. And I was always impressed at how people always want to give information back and how they want to tell you about their experience, then how it progresses if you share that, again, by reading a simple letter. And I really found a lot of power in that. So that period for me, that was a big period of learning, and starting to understand the mechanisms that are used for building audience 2.0.

No Nielsen in 2.0

Because it's no longer a question of who has the most people according to Nielsen ratings or something like that. It's about whose network is more valuable to a community: a network where everybody benefits.

Adam in the podverse

(NL)—I'd like to skip everything about the original idea of postcasting, giving you've told the story so many times, and for that I link to the local maximum podcast interview by Max Sklar , which is quite nice. But I'd like you to talk briefly about the podcasts you're producing today.

(AC) - There are actually four podcasts I produce. There's one which I'm very proud of. It's called Moe Factz with Adam Curry. This is a podcast that I do with another American who's married and has kids. His name is Moe, my name is Adam. The only difference between us is he's black or white. We both work, we both have kids, you know, we both love, liberty and freedom. But he has a very different cultural background than I do. And what we've discovered throughout all these episodes is that mainly the media and politics are always trying to divide America, trying to divide people based upon race. And this has become a fantastic product,

Only on the Podcast Index

And then there is Curry and the keeper, which is a recent podcast, which I started with my wife, Tina. It's a podcast available on the podcasts index only. No Apple Podcast, no Spotify. And it is founded by streaming for streaming donations, I don't know exactly how many people listen to that but I just know, it's more than we ever expected.

Podcasting 2.0

Then there is Podcasting 2.0 A podcast really just intended for the developers. There may be 50,000 people listening to that podcast. Finallt No Agenda, a podcast with John C. Dvorak, a podcast paid by donations. Here we don't even consider our audience to be listeners, we call them producers because they are helping produce the show. It's just like Hollywood, when you see an executive producer, that person brought in some money.

Benefits of 2.0

(NL) - Can you tell us why we should transition to podcasting 2.0, what are the benefits for creators and for listeners, both sides?
(AC) - Well, so I'll go back to the reasons we started podcasting 2.0. The main reason is that Apple had kind of become the default onramp, the gateway to be a podcaster. Uuntil you put your podcast into Apple iTunes, you didn't really exist, because all of the smaller podcast apps were all using Apple's database, their index to get the information.

Deplatforming

So when Apple decided, these five podcasts, we don't like them, we're taking them off our system. And they even cut their funding off, off paylal etc. So I immediately called my friend Dave Jones and said, Hey, Dave, why don't we just make our own index and do it properly. And we won't deplatform anybody and won't take people off. And we'll make it open to all developers can access this and start building apps. And typical Dave went, Okay. And what happened was fantastic.
Also, Apple was using just a very strict set of RSS and never really innovated. And I wanted a mony system in there for creators to get paid. So at this time, the Lightning Network for Bitcoin had just started becoming a little more mainstream, I figured out that this could really work. And we implemented that. And immediately, you know, people started using both the value for value streaming payments and booster grams, which has all been developed within this project, which is very much like YouTube Super Chat, where you can send a little message with with some cash, and it shows up.

This is not Silicon Valley - This Podcasting 2.0

Then in 2.0 we have transcripts, we have chapters, we have all kinds of fantastic extra tags so that even music will start working in a different way. And people remembered Oh, yeah, this is what podcasting kind of was, is it's not Silicon Valley, it's not sitting around waiting for 10 years for Apple to implement one thing, like the seasons, or whatever. So it just needed a couple of dudes to come along and kickstart it and say, Hey, remember how we used to build things? And we didn't need Silicon Valley? And then people went, Oh, yeah, we remember. So now we have the hosting companies, we have 58 apps and services now using podcasting 2.0 and the good news is it everything works with podcasting 1.0. And you can transition very easily.

Satoshi

With Podcasting 2.0 we allow people to determine how much they want to send. It's not determined by Silicon Valley that says, “Oh, you have to pay 99 cents to listen”. I mean, that's, that's crazy. What if I want to pay $50? So in the 2.0 clients you already have your wallet, you've got your Bitcoin in there, whenever you're ready, you just hit it and it just sends off and and it really reduces that that distance between deciding you want to donate and actually doing it.

Transition to 2.0

(NL) - What are the two or three most important things to do to transition to 2.0?
(AC) - If you just want to see what it feels like and what it looks like, you can take your existing podcast feed, and you can go to sovereignfeeds.com/. , It's a real editing tool, a tool to create a 2.0 Feed. That's just if you want to try it out or if you have your own hosting solution.

Buzzsprout

The ones that are out front are Buzzsprout rss.com. We have quite a lot of Italian people who are in the 2.0 sphere there. But all of them are going to eventually have all the features in there. These things just take time, as usual. But that it's literally that simple.

Listener App

For the listener there's 15 new apps, some of the existing apps are enabled - except for Apple and Spotify, of course - they are adding these features like Pocket Cast, podcast addict, Podverse, I can go on and on and on. They're all adding these features over. So that’s going to happen automatically but if you want to jump in and get the full experience, then one of those new apps is definitely the way to go.

Venture Capital anyone?

(NL) - You're choosing this distributed way to approach fund the development of podcasting 2.0, as opposed to amore traditional way… i mean, you’re the Podfather you can go - for example - to A16Z, to Andreessen Horoviz and ask for some big money. But you choose not to.
(AC) - Thank you for noticing that. You know, Dave and I are old, we've been around, we know what happens, I've taken money from Silicon Valley, I've started several companies and have taken a company public. There's always a bill to pay.And once you get outside money, that means someone has control, and we don't want to take it from Apple and then become Apple, we want to be the place that you can trust, that developers can trust and podcasters can trust.

1%

The only way we get money is we ask, whenever someone sends money through the value for value system, to the podcast, that 1% of that goes to podcastindex. This actually this pays for our servers. It comes via crypto. Then if there's any money left after we pay their bill, we leave it on the server, and maybe in five years, or 10 years, with Bitcoins at a million dollars, Adam and Dave will have some money. Or maybe that will never happen.

Freedom of speech

Dave and I, our job is to make sure that people can always speak freely, and podcast freely. That is our core mission. We don't want anyone, no politician, no lawmaker. Now there are obvious limitations to freedom of speech, ther are legal things you cannot do. But it's not a lot. You should be able to say anything, and not have some Silicon Valley company determined that.

Queen Ursula (Von der Leyen)

(NL) - In Europe, there was this satellite TV channel from Russia called RT News. A lot of propaganda, but also a lot of unorthodox views to our society. And of course we could understand when it was propaganda. But then it all went black, no signal, deplatformed from Eutelsat because the president of European Union said “no more”. The feed was cut and…
(AC) - Yes, Queen Ursula! The queen said, you can't watch this anymore. And what she's saying is, you're stupid, what she's saying you're too stupid to understand what's propaganda. Now what she really means is you need our propaganda. Yeah, that's what she wants, and I think that people are seeing through that now.

De-Swift Russia: an european decision

Queen Ursula, also de platformed. Russia from Swift. That wasn't America. That was the European Union and the European banks who made that call. There wasn't Joe Biden, it was the European Union. So yeah, but that's the point. People aren't stupid. They can learn and thebn maybe some people are, so what? They are not the boss of our brains and of our thinking. That's not okay. I don't want to live in that world.

(NL) - Care to switch argument for the last 10 minutes?
(AC) - Ok…

Måneskin

(NL) - I've heard Tina stating that the best part of Eurovision contest 2021 was the Italian song. That means Måneskin. But you did not express yourself.
(AC) - Oh, no, no, I love them you know ! I have I have a lot of affinity with Italy - my sister married an Italian. So of course, when Italy's winning, I'm going to root for Italy too, you know, and then this one I actually liked it. I thought that I liked what they did.

Ukraine to win the Soccer World Cup

Although of course, you know, I predicted it on my show, I said “Don't worry, Ukraine is gonna win, they're gonna win the Eurocontest. They're gonna win the World Cup soccer”. These are all corrupt things. And, you know, they changed the votes for this year, they literally changed the votes of Romania and Bulgaria. So the whole thing is corrupt. But If I think about the music, that music from Europe, a lot of it was pretty good. And, Italy (Torino, Editor’s note) did a beautiful job, of course, of hosting the event. It was great production. I'm still old fashioned that way. I love these big European shows, you know, where all the different countries are doing something together, competing a little bit. That's always always felt very good to me. I've always liked that.

70-80

(NL) - We've have a sister publication, 70-80.it, which is a of website with the stories about the 70s and 80s but also a radio station on DAB which is the european….
(AC) - I know what DAB is!

Hill Country, Texas

(NL) - Ah, good I thought you only knew about HD-Radio. Good. So we’re on DAB and on streaming of course. And also on digital television, DTT. And all of this is quite popular and not only with people born in the ‘60s. How about the US, do people like that music, that period?
(AC) - That's a good question. Now, I used to live I lived in all Austin, Texas for 12 years, a very thriving young city. So, you know, there's, that would, that would not be the type of music you would encounter in Austin. But then we moved about 100 kilometers to the west. And we're now in Hill Country, Texas, where there's wineries and it's very green and it's a lot less people. And there's a radio station here, 94.3 FM, a rock station that has a traditional morning show is called the rock of Texas. And they play everything from the 70s Bowie to Led Zeppelin to, you know, some good 80s Ozzy

Local Radio

In fact, I love radio, I love local radio, I think local radio is, that's what radio is still really good at. So there's people who are putting the songs into the specific order, you know.

I am a DJ I am what I play

You know, as David Bowie said in his song, I'm a DJ, I am what I play. So you can really feel that. The moment, today is the day for this particular song. It's not something the computer can't know, that this is really the right song for today. A computer cannot know that, you have scheduling and playlist. And you can wake me up any day and ask me to do a morning show, as long as there's music involved. And I did it there… once I reached out to the morning show, and said ”Guys can I come on the show? Do the show?” And they were like, Are you kidding me?” And we went on for hours, we played music for hours. (M.H.B. for NL Newslinet)

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