20 Years, 1000 Episodes: The Man Behind PodQuiz
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What is that? People of the internet? Welcome back to a bonus episode of the way from pocket. Where is Andrew? And this week, Andrew, I got to do an interview last week on the main channel, and I hear you didn't interview with someone who was kind of a celebrate the studio.

yeah, like a studio favorite. Remember the podcast got pod quiz that we all did on. I think I introduced ed, everyone, to on the studio road thousand and three thousand trip, and everyone got real tty. So James Carter, the host of that, is one thousand episode .

wow of pot quiz.

which is wild, and I decided to reach out to him to see if he like to do an interview. And in that process, waiting to hear back, I looked back on how many episodes done in how long that's been and was just dumb founded by he started this podcast in two thousand and five.

Is this weekly every week? Weekly two thousand and five thousand episodes, because this only fifty two weeks. yes. So long time we've been.

we're on. I think this is episode two thirty five, four wave form. And think about how long IT feels like we've been doing .

this for my life a lot.

Yes, so he's been doing for almost twenty years. Paka sing started in two thousand and four, so he was right there. So so when he agreed to do IT, I was very excited, kind of like your first interview with kobe, my first interview, the kobe of, uh, trivial podcasts nice James Carter, I was very excited for um he was super cool.

We talked all about all sorts of things uh so if you don't know about podded z is a trivial podcast. IT is the tribe podcast in my eyes but because he's been doing for so long, we talked about the early stages of podcasting. We talked about um how he stayed so consistent for twenty years because the pocket format is almost exactly the same since first episode in two thousand and five uh and we plan on him never wanting to post anything on youtube, which I think was a really interesting answer. And most importantly, I asked him in this new age of podcasting if he considers way form of real podcast.

No pressure.

anything no pressure and I was very word about his answer for that. So it's very interesting um and one let's think before you jump in, this is my first totally solo interview um so please give me any feedback on what I can improve. I get on some more in the future. James is a fantastic guest, really excited for you all hear about IT and hopefully you all start listing in the part was soon because it's one of my favorite podcast.

clearly.

James, walk to the show. I'm a huge fan of part ways some very, very excited just us. Thank you for joining us oh thanks. Um for those of you who aren't aware pod quiz or maybe know the show but not the next man behind IT, would you give us a quick introduction of you and pod?

Yes sure. So yeah mine change some the suffer engineer from york in the U K. And i've been running a weekly traffic with podcast for nearly twenty years now.

That's incredible. Um so yeah I reached out because i've been listening for years um and like you said almost two years you just hate your thousand episode which feels so cool. I remember red like a hundred episodes ago being like ww a thousand coming up that's pretty cool but it's going to be a while before that. And then my wife and I were listening the other day and like, oh that's like in like a month or tune.

Now it's it's getting a to creep up on me really.

Um I mean like way form itself is at two thirty and IT feels like i've been doing this very long time but a thousand just like how do you feel to finally hit that milestone?

But I definitely felt like A A big thing IT had been obviously it's on a schedule so I knew I was coming but yeah I was so like two, three exact IT was suddenly all yeah this is this is coming and IT was IT was just so great. Have all the listeners contacting me with messages of congratulation? Lots of them have been listening for foot. Nearly all of them all all of them um yeah lots of people who say, you know, they will seem to pock with before their children were born and then now listening to them together know all that all stuff.

I was I just asking on the studio trying to see if there is anyone who worked here that was Younger than pod quiz and I think everyone is just a little bit older, but we were pretty close to a couple of them. Um have you felt like are there any other big milestones in this journey to a thousand that you specifically remember maybe like a hundred or episode five .

hundred upgrade five hundred. I remember we made a bit of a big deal that yeah got lots of of listeners to to ask questions. I'd even some of the sound effects, 欧耶。

If you if you listen to to the quiz here, there's there's a sort of bell sound of that between each round. Okay, yeah, and that was for that five hundred episode that was recorded by by one of the children of listened. Alex was just in a very cute six year old voice, said ding. And then, yeah, a alex is dead, was in contact again for for the thousands episode to they remember that yeah no yeah.

I really like in this thousand and one how you had like you had people doing the covers for things. I know you have done stuff like that before. You do A A up with bringing in listeners to doing different things with like guests categories and and rounds and stuff like that. So it's fun and and i'm sure for you seeing that all come down to ea OA thousand IT is like the cool combination of all of IT. Yeah um do you think we could go back a little bit though because a thousand epo des means like you said twenty years ago this started and pretty much around when podcasting its self head started not too far off um yeah within .

the year yeah .

yeah so I was two thousand five correct when you started that right yes the first episode .

was I think the twenty fifth of february I was gonna if .

you remember the exact date so that that's awesome um I love to know how you kind of thought of the idea of starting this. Obviously, i'm assuming you like trivia beforehand, but what made you think of putting IT on the platform of podcasting and especially back then when podcasting a year with less than two years old?

Yeah um well to be honest i've never been A A real trivial head OK in in a teen a consistent team of years you know and never taken IT that seriously but I didn't enjoy IT and then IT was listening to a the daily source code I am curies the cast I like one of the first big pocket yeah and he had um a very occasionally via segment in that OK um and I was just listening to that though well that's that's quite close to public quiz which is I think I enjoy and would that be something I would want to listen to? Yeah so that's and so you call that .

a pub quiz. We in the U. S, we don't really call on pus, but now that makes sense.

So is that what Sparked to the name for pod quiz versus pub quiz? That's one of that seems pretty obvious when you hear IT. But but until you hear, it's a mind opening experience that that's cool. Have you mentioned that on the the pot itself .

or i'm not sure I ever have this. I don't even remember .

doing.

I think this there's a slightly different field between maybe trivia in north amErica and the pub was in the U. K. In that. But the impression I get is that it's taking very seriously and and you know everyone obeys the rules to the letter and and all of this, where is in the new case is much more relax. People are there, have a china drink mainly and the the quiz is a said in a chance to win some some extra drinks yeah I i've .

participated in very few of them. Like you said, i've done them. They're fine, but I don't seek myself out looking for them all the time. But I do listen to part quiz hundreds of episodes at this point. So um I don't know I don't i've never found them to to intense, but maybe i'm just doing the the more low key ones and not the weekly extremely uh competitive ones. Back when you started pod quiz and you said you were listening to some early podcast, do you remember kind of or can you explain to us i'm sure a lot of our audience were not listening to stuff back then, but what was the pod test landscape kind of like? And what had you interested in that, that make you think you want wanted to push the platform with .

your own stuff? IT was IT was a very sort anear. Yeah, back in those days, there were no professional podcast at all and certainly no sort corporations producing podcast.

So I suppose the reason I got into IT, I was as a bit interested in the technology of that does to the free of the five 23 um and I got got IT got into IT in the first place um and then I just the the early podcast were mostly just couples and groups of friends just sitting around having a chat and and I just enjoyed the informal nature of the people build up a small audience。 But IT would be they'll be very involved. IT was very much a community.

Sounds not that much different, and markets would have been able to speak Better on this. But like the earlier days of youtube, he said he started because there used to be like, used to all talk inside of the comments. And the way that they created videos just seemed like this very signet group of people watching videos and watching other videos and then commenting on all of them.

And there's there is kind of like a magic behind that small ic community of stuff like that I I can totally see. And I I kind of wish I got to experience that uh, back then because this sounds like a lot of fun. And i'm sure in these days, every company or person is trying to create the next niche, magical moment that .

feels like IT absolutely think is success kind of ruins IT, to a degree.

sure. And i'd love to talk about that later and see where your thoughts on podcasting is in today in comparison to back there. But i'd like to like, pod queste feels i'm gonna help this up a little bit here because I I truly love the show and I really like, want you to know how much I appreciate IT.

I kind of describe IT when i'm telling friends about IT is like a it's almost magic in this way that I can take a long car trip or no one likes driving for more than an hour and when I take a longer Carter like that turning on pod quiz feels like I can just melt away that time of what the boring sitting on a highway for hours on end um that I get so excited knowing that hey, my wife and I are driving to x place that is four pod quiz es away and by the time I get there I was like, I kind of wish we got stuck in traffic and we could do one more because maybe we didn't do very well on the last one um and what I was most surprised about and like you think a thousand episodes to you find your flow and you you've t like created that perfect uh show and like time and everything. But I went back and listen to the first episode. And IT is almost exactly the same to the tea in terms of timing of everything, that is twenty questions.

It's four category. It's music first round other than you sort of explaining the rules more so on episode one because it's brand new, your it's almost exactly the same. How did you how did you come up with something that worked so well so long ago and has have been so consistent over that long? Sorry, that's a lot of questions in one. But .

think well, I think it's quite a lot dumb luck.

but there always is this.

But I think it's possible was that IT does IT does very closely follow the four matches of the drive down to Normally its four rounds and that's think Normally there's a break in the middle 是 so so that was a lot of IT。 I think IT has developed a little bit over the years of those. Those first episodes were quite a bit longer just because the bigger group of its low, but the basic format hasn't changed just because I not felt I needed to really.

No, I mean, it's great. Is did you always know and maybe, uh, maybe it's different with pub crisis in the U. K. But as is IT always music grounds and stuff out there. Is that something you consciously decided like you thought was a really fun way to start?

Episode of that is, again, is a fairly Normal a structure that even even down to IT being the first round very often. So is either a picture quiz which doesn't works as well. The cast? Old music? yes. OK interesting.

yeah. The couple i've been to here in the U S. We don't have and the the music uh category is my favorite of every episode.

Um sometimes I can and make me. Be a little bitter towards the rest of the episode. If I do really poorly of the star, i'll be like, I feel like we've started this one bad already. Maybe I should just get to the next, but I always pushed through IT, but I guess I love music and and you do a great job and I think it's a really fun way .

to start IT each episode yeah I think I think um the the issue with with music case that IT IT divides people by generation very often. So the feedback i'll get is i'll know you did all music from the twenty tens. I've got nothing.

I'll never be able to do that and very occasionally or to classical music. And obviously, ly, there's a lots of people that don't like that. But it's yes, it's just trying to get baLance over the course of of many episodes.

think for sure. But I think at the same time, some of the like some episodes as I don't remember the specific episode, but I remember trips in which we were playing and one of them was IT was me, my wife and my mom. We were road tripping up to see my sister.

And I remember red specifically because of the first time between the three of us that we've gotten all twenty questions, right. And we were really proud of IT and I like kind of made the rest of the trip. But I think a reason of that is I IT was probably like a connection or something where there were a lot of different errors of music.

And because of two generations working out IT at the same time, we figured IT all out. And when you get the first five right, you're like, okay, we're rolling. We can. We can do the us.

You got settled twenty exactly. yeah.

Do you get a lot of people reaching out to you being like, I hit twenty this time? Or is that a bigger complishment?

Yes, yes, I do. And equally, I I get people saying i've been doing pod quiz for ten years. I've never like to get twenty to twenty. That's also I encourage people to to to sort of feed back stalls. And so this you'll see a small community of people on on the website to who post their schools each each week um which I find really useful just a feedback mechanism yeah there's something twenty is is an achievement. Now it's it's not something that people get every week.

certainly that also some. And I I noticed that looking back at previous episodes, you have you have episodes that are probably from three, two thousand and ten and there are people from twenty, twenty plus still commenting on some of those putting down answers and stuff like that. And I thought that I thought was really, really cool. Um I mean, I love your website is very like web one point now and just .

so easy to go back and see everything yes um by by front end web development skills are uh twenty century vintage that that definitely shows functional but yes I I am amazed the number of people who will who will get in contact and said, say, I discovered pot with a couple of months ago and now i've listened to the mall yeah listening to a dozen a day which I I couldn't plus up with my voice for that so I don't know how they do IT that's that's .

a brings up an interesting question is when you first started this and you were everything and was like i've done IT when we started away from um I kind of pictured to markets and I had to be the one I was editing everything he's used to his voice. I am not used to my voice and that is A A strange thing to hear for the first time and not just the first time, maybe the first one hundred times .

absolutely so so doing that all everyone hates throwing .

for yeah because it's so different and you're just like us that how I talk and did you get to do you think you got to a certain episode where you're like, okay i've listened .

to myself enough now i'm used to IT I I think so I don't think IT to all that long okay um but yeah I I am also told by my partner that I have I have a poquet voice it's a fat for my Normal and what that means but apparently it's it's it's soft is spoken than anomaly amid I suppose subconsciously i'm i'm just trying to make IT as understandable to a wide arrange of couples as possibly you know. People do struggle a bit sometimes with my my accents and I try turn IT down much I mean.

that's going to happen with any accent from when you have people around the world listening to um I mean, I think your device is fantastic. I think IT is a big part of the show itself uh I hope there are some people who come in listen to this episode because we are a video and like, I finally got to see who the man behind pod quiz is um and the voice is I if this voice is the same as your pod quiz, IT sounds very similar now so I don't know if this is your speaking voice. You've got the pod quiz voice and .

right now but I I I think I think is my almost breaking voice you know I I I I find IT difficile to judge but but yes, SHE tells me that the product was always so um you mentioned .

and maybe this has to do with the way you pronounce things and your voice on there. But you said earlier episodes were quite a bit longer and you do feel like you change a bit. Are there any specific things you remember? I know we've set the format has said the same, but maybe the way you you cut things together so it's quicker. Maybe the way you said pronouncing things, maybe you have feedback from that other any big changes you've seen that you feel like happened despite us, you know, seeing twenty years of twenty questions.

I i've definitely got more proficient. I said over the years, that first episode, I think I spent about eight hours recording and editing IT cording to took a ridiculously long time to to and half really so yeah um so that's that's that's a big thing. I I think certainly now I make a lot more effort to make IT international.

And I did when I started because when I started, you know, I didn't have a particular road to mind. I was just playing IT to friends. I mean, he took he took a long time to get up to one hundred listers, you know and so I wasn't I wasn't thinking about the into international yeah until at all.

So that's that certainly changed of years, but IT hasn't changed a huge amount. I think it's IT kind of works as IT is yeah. I think people like the consistency, but I think people like they can listen to a five year old to epo de or a ten year old episode and not after. Learn new rules and yeah for sure I mean.

ah it's it's always just like small changes can make things slowly Better over time. But I think consistency definitely is key. And and like yeah going back, you you definitely have a show where the back catalogue is almost sometimes just as important as the new ones. Because what people love finding podcast and going through back, I mean, I am one like that. I pri found around like episode eight hundred and then just kept going backwards through the spotify library until I cut off.

I forget where where is cut off on spotify, but now if I had to dig into the website till listen to previous episodes um when you were starting out so you said you were originally sending IT to friends um I know even in today's world podcast discover ability isn't really the greatest thing um back then so did you send IT a friends and is just friends of friends and word of mouth started getting out? Or did you make any more deliberate pushes towards the trying to grow an audience? Or was IT always just more of a hobby that you were doing?

And if I was IT, that's also it's always been hoh. absolutely. So i've never i've never spent a huge amount effort on on growing in audience um early on. I did um spend a little bit after appearing on other people's broadcast. I think that's that's a really good way um in both directions.

Actually having having other podcast ers appear on your podcast um is a good wave of intermingling the audiences is a bit so I definitely did a lot of that in the early years. But more recently, you know there's plenty of people listening. Yeah, I love my listeners.

They're great. It's a really great community. I don't feel the need for IT to to grow. I think IT does gradually over time. I've not had any big pushes to do this in recent years.

Now that's also and also a really cool just that, that doing something just because you love IT is always the best way to keep pursuing through making some form of content. Because if you are just pushing for just audio or just the listener's or the engagement or the growth, that's when burnout happens. And and I think you are a testament to someone who hasn't hit burn out. I I maybe that's me assuming, but a thousand episodes is is extremely impressive.

Thank you. And I don't feel burned out yet, although people have been saying, you know, i'm looking forward to the two thousand six hundred and taking. I'll be seventy then that seems that .

a child thing that that things like .

IT might be a stretch right now. Notes, it's just good fun. I enjoy doing IT and that's why I did.

I like how you think that might be a stretch, not that is a stretch and that is a very, very, uh, difficult thing to hit. So that all so I look forward to as as far as you're willing to go before eating burnt, whatever episode that may be, think something you do extremely well is just the variety of difficulty you have in all of your different questions. It's when i'm listening and a category happens or around happens, IT feels like there's always one that I have a shot at getting, at least I guessin even if I know nothing about the category and if I know a lot about the category, there's always one where i'm really scratching my head. How long or is there anything you specifically do to try and uh, have variables for the difficulties of the questions .

I don't think about? yes. So I always think for each rounds, there should be at least one question that almost everyone will be able to answer that usually, but not always the first.

really. okay.

And symbol, I I want to have at least one question around what I think you really need to know your stuff on the subject to be to answer IT. But because too far, other ways no fun .

for anybody is .

trying to have that baLance across across the around is what I try to do always get we're going .

to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to see how James develops all of these different categories.

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So when you're thinking of a category, are they thin you're fair knowing knowing about? Or are you going out and looking for maybe something happened just within the last month that you think is interesting and that I you .

select a category? Um I find I find writing questions for things I know about harder than writing for questions, things I don't because if you know something about a subject is I think it's it's much more difficult to assess how difficult because they all seem president easy but jay, yes generally I don't I don't know a great deal. I'm I couldn't possibly do everything yeah i've still the twenty thousand plus questions at last the years but yeah no it's it's usually it's just a case of the difficult thing I find is coming up with the topic, coming up questions because I don't have a perfect record but I try to avoid repeating myself which again is is becoming more and more chAllenging. Um but once i've once i've got this topic um then then finding questions is just usually the case of his sing wikipedia yeah kind like the .

wikipedia game. You start at the topic and then you find links that are associated with IT and go .

through there yeah IT seems to show the current first I I try to avoid that. And because again, because people go back ten years to listen to old episodes and stuff that that current affairs now will be really obscured ten years time. So again, it's it's difficult to completely avoid that. But I I try to where possible.

one really interesting way you've done IT. And I I wanted to throw a couple um like categories that you've created that I think are really creative. Uh actually when you did something segment called old news, which is where you play a new segment, I know i'm saying this for you but our audience, but I know playing a news segment that has some some sort of piece of news and you have to get approximately the time that happened in.

But I think so interesting about that is rather being when did excEllent happen as just the question, you have this more context to maybe get guess something like that because if you don't know the the very simple question, maybe you could figure out. So me being A A production person, sometimes i'm like the world that microphone definitely is like three hundred and ninety years, something like that. So how do you come up with more fun ways of categories rather than just a very black and White question?

I'm sure a good I .

can list up a couple of my other favorites and maybe that would help. Maybe you can if you remember how you came up with those .

specific ground for certainly well, for the old news, IT was IT originally. I thought I would just ask question is more like a history around here asking questions about specific events. And then in the course of of researching that ended up on on youtube watching an old news si isn't I thought we're hanging that's that's quite interesting in itself and and so I thought I I think that I actually use the auto clip instead yeah and IT helps because .

if you don't know specific event, maybe in that clip they mention a president or a prime minister or they mention something else that happens that you do know about or gives this is the listeners way more opportunity is is which is so much more fun to o yeah.

that's so fun. I also really who .

am I is rather than just who is this person, that x is five different questions with varying levels of difficulty to get to somebody. Is that something that's um popular in pub quiz or is that something you develop?

No, that's that's something I came up with. I'm just making sure that true p because a lot, a lot of these rounds have been list suggestions so over this. But I think that was that was one. And again, IT was sort of one of those things where I was I often asked questions about famous people and if it's just A A single question about something, you can't really sort of begin to the the details yeah personally, it's difficult to vary the the difficulty bit. Where's that sort of structured rounds where you get more, more clues that getting more, more obvious over the course of the round that allows people who who really know about that persons and really quickly and to feel like they they've crapped the code as IT were.

There's there's a really good feeling if you actually do make the guess. I think it's happened once, which was a total uh, Alice, since I ve been playing one time, I like the day and where they were born, just total guests. And then like the next question, you're like when I think i'm so on the right track and then you get to the annual okay, cool. That was very lucky, but so much more fun um and then my other favorite category I always love this one is natural world where you play animal sounds and rather than just the exact species, it's how many legs do they have which is brilliant and so much fun.

Yes, I done similar around with with vehicles of very source yes, family wheel like um which part of that is because it's actually very difficult if you played the sound of an animal to say what species is that they will some there's a large number of different animals that sound like and also is just a bit of fun .

I think yeah it's yeah it's fine. And even like you get to get them right, there's only probably so many eels or so many legs or a lot of times their multiples of two. So you have somewhat if I guess it's like multiple choice, but not quite multiple choice at that.

One of the animals one is my favorite. I like a lot of the categories replace sounds and guest things. Um maybe that's just me like to listening stuff like that. Uh do you have any particular like category favorites that you've come up with their topics?

I don't think about specific topics. I do like my favorite. I think the quick fire rounds, it's it's a category of things.

So the questions IT might be like example, direct his first films or something like that. So it's just A A list of the questions are just a list of directors and you have to name their first films. And maybe that's not get example by I know I I feel I can get quite creative about that and also quite easy. 我 几十岁 that's um I know that you so music .

ground are my favorite um and I know you said that because a pub was generally starts with that， but have you you've come up with i'm assuming some these or may be audience once all these different ways you play the music ground. So whether it's uh what year there out, maybe a connection, some of the connections are so much fun and feels like you're solving like a uh, detective case.

Uh now I think one was all different IT was like, uh, king, queen, prince between all the names of everything. And finding that one out was awesome. Um I personally love terrible twins because hearing when two of them play at the site that I believe that matter. Same artist, two songs at the same time. It's really easy to pinpoint one if you IT, but even though if you know the ban to a tea, guessing the second one when you already are hearing one in your brain is something that so hard to uh like explain so that's why I love you so much but uh, are there any favorite music grounds you have or how do you come up with .

like some of these ideas for a lot of them is just trying to find a way of making IT different because because there's a music around every week fresh. Ah I thought I feel that just get boring. So um yeah I do I do try and come up with you.

Is this new one coming actually really, again, IT was a listened suggestion in a couple of week's time. I think we're going to have around where the focus being removed and you have to get okay just from the just from the music. so. But I think my favorite music ground is a very, very occasional one I do called lady da OK, which is just me trying to reproduce a song really badly with no instruments, so just sort of humming and badly. People, stuff.

I remember something.

Did you fun to do?

Did you also do one of, I thought was over a quarter for Christmas music?

I've done .

a .

tin whistle in whistle, okay? And i've done, I lost. I used have a style phone, okay, which is very simple sync ze thing that I used to you still use as well. Yeah, they take a surprising amount of effort to do those. I'm sure when you do them ocasio .

are you are you a musical personnel this coming from, you're really just learning just for .

these rounds. And I I am a slightly music personal, playing the badly you played .

IT in the thousand .

episode right I did yes yes um but generally speaking, when I do this sort of around words, me performing a thing I don't I don't try too hard, okay um because because I know if I was perfect than IT would be too easy, but also it's I think I think it's just more fun if I do IT badly. Um so I put I put the uh a strictly defined amount of effort into each one .

that also um can we talk a little bit more about h you mention IT a little bit, but how you were tech people here, we ce production people here. We love cameras, an audio equipment, everything we talk about.

how you produce .

pod quiz yeah when um I mean I have to ask right now, h what is your set up like do do you know microphone .

and everything just for yeah ah I see that. So the road into U. S B. So fairly standard, much fun. And here I just recorded here no particular studio or in a thing and i've always just use or does nothing nothing more complex than that that I mean that's an extremely .

efficient set up uh what yeah sorry our producer adam guessed that before is like I Better uses audacity so he's very excited that he guess that correctly um do you remember what you .

started with um in two thousand five I don't remember I I was sure but don't remember um but it's the same. H I started with audacity one point to what may then and i've just kept up the over the years always slightly reading the next update. So there's a different sets to .

the yeah we know that all to markets is always dream any sur a macos updates when we're just in our workflow really well. Um you said I used to take about eight hours and you're down to about an hour and a half. Is that um that's just the full recording. How long if you had to give an approximate amount time from starting your questions to publishing the final episode, what would you give? IT.

I I think I put about ils at weekend. The research is, is the majority the time really, but spread down through the week, you know, just spent tough now here and now that so then the sort of recording next thing is one block, but probably a week.

So yes, you recording and editing and quickly into a very efficient time mine at .

this point yeah, yes yeah.

I guess not in with .

with about five minutes despair before it's due to go.

Oh, really just right up to the the public amazing rides .

up to the way. Yes.

that's that's kind of awesome. And now I I kind of usually listen in like three to four episodes. I'm not the person who's listening right as IT comes out, but I feel like I need to catch on now right as IT comes out, knowing that ten minutes before you might have still been .

putting the finishing touches on IT a um and are you .

you're recording i'm assuming with that your recording each episode that each week you'll not bad recording episodes.

I'll batch record if i've got reason to this going away for vacation or whatever. But generally I don't partially because I want too lazy to, but but also because um I I I like getting the sort of immediate feed back from listeners and people messages read for birthdays and that sort of thing. So yeah and if I if I back up too many recordings, then i'm too light for people for IT feels yeah .

IT feels out of wax sort of we're um it's cool to hear that because we are here. We are very weak, weak uh, studio I mean, markets, usually we know our schedule sunday, sunday night and then we do everything for that week, whether that's a couple of videos across all different platforms.

And people think that's wild because there's a lot of a lot of different people on youtube doing, you know two to three week, one plus month, uh, IT takes for a video. But we just like to know do what we're talking about right then get IT into a video as fast as possible and and publish IT still obviously keeping production quality up. But I don't think there's a lot of people out they're doing IT this quickly.

Um and I think there's there's is something really cool about the immediate audience feedback from that and being able to make IT applicable next year. That's awesome. Um do you mind? And if if you don't feel comfortable answering any these questions, that's totally fine.

But I in my mind, pod quis like the trivia podcast, that every time I search on reit about any other ones, the top answer is always pod quiz. There is nobody ever making an argument against IT and i've tried other ones and because of poor uh discover ability in terms of pocket, I ve found any other good ones but I found pod questions. I think it's the best. Do you have like an approximate amount of listeners that you know of?

It's it's really difficult yeah um because I can I can tell you the number of downloads. H yeah which is which is about about forty thousands forty something like that real but that's that's only part of the story because IT gets aggregated spotify whatever the IT of that IT doesn't that doesn't councils. The numbers that did IT were one one delivery mechanism I was really chafed about when I heard was some that's a listened email, me to say that he really enjoyed the crisis that he got on audio, except from a service who recorded broadcast on the audio because that to send out the surfaces for the blind.

oh, wow, OK.

that was that was really cool.

That's that's fascinating. And sorry, I am stuck on audio cassez. I'm going to about even .

thousand.

Wow, okay, that's really I need to look into what some of these services. Do you happen to know what the .

service is called or I can't remember because of many, many years ago. But I might will try and figure .

that out and and persist when we added this if if possible, our research will be good after that. But that's really also um and then yeah part podcasting metrics seem to be really tough in terms of figuring stuff out. I mean, even was IT like a year ago that apple stop auto downloading if you didn't listen. So like they change .

all the time.

Yeah thanks. So um do you have and I guess you kind of enter this but an approximated total number of like downloads you know for pod quiz lifetime? Or has metrics changed in so many different ways?

But metrics something have changed blood life. I ve just not kept like they keep good records to I I I do remember being very excited the first the first weekend episode go one hundred yeah which was, I think, more than a year after I started ted so that that that was a little bit of my stand, I remember but actually to be onest only keep a few weeks worth logs just to say yeah yeah but you know because it's a hobby um the actual numbers don't really matter so much. I'm not having to sort of report this to a sponsor so IT doesn't finally and lucky that's all I mean yeah that's that's .

amazing is and that's the reason I just have to ask why you've never looked for A A more typical youtube at earth, are not youtube like podcast uh, add immigration or anything. You've never looked for any that and probably don't play .

on IT just because I have you know i've i've got a date up that so that pays me more enough to to live off um and I just think that I took power in that direction. IT would become a job and not a hobby and I don't the girl as much.

I think that's super respectable. And I think there are a lot of i've talked to people on youtube as well who've done stuff like that. And I think that's what's kept their general like very pure and fun for them, which I think is super, super awesome. We're going to take one more quick outbreak. And when we get back, we're going to see James is final thoughts on the current landscape of pakistan.

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Hey, it's fly from the koto with the liberation. We spend a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series, diving summer, the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you're listening to right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the A I space, why are so many big players in deciding not to acquire and instead license tech, hire away cofounder? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems. You'll hear all that and more this month on decoder with the light tel presented by strike. You can listen to the coder wherever you get your podcast.

I'd love to jump in just quickly. Kind of like our last thing here is you've experienced now podcasting over twenty years, and I think it's safe to say that is changed very much. And some of that change maybe doesn't really feel so much like the original podcasting anymore.

I think our channel specifically is far, far different from what podcasting uh, used to be. I'd love to ask what your thoughts are on the landscape today. Um and i'm totally okay with you using way form as um if you think we are not a podcast or more of A T V or a show online um I will take no offence to IT um but I love to hear thoughts on IT.

It's absolutely book up. okay?

I mean is that makes me feel very good.

I like not sure that, that it's just the aging from this delivery is is what makes IT a pot a to in my mind, whether it's whether it's video or audio or whatever, I don't think makes difference at all. I think there there is a bit of a difference potentially in how that can not uncertainly a difference in terms of how that's produced.

I think you if I would make pod with a video podcast, which I wouldn't now that, that recording time of and now on half would at least double and and probably more. But yeah, solution still. I appreciate when we were first pitching this.

I do remember specifically marketing, I made the conscious agreement to do audio first because we knew either way we we would be releasing an audio format. And being video people is very easy to just reference something on screen. So we felt like we needed to learn how do you be able to talk about things that people can see? And while I still don't think we are the best at IT, we did spend two years trying that before we moved to video. So i'm happy we did that. He was a IT was fun and it's really cool to be able to just use audio sometimes, whether it's just like you not feeling the best that day and you don't want to be on camera for tons of people to see.

Yeah, I do feel I have the ideal face for idea here.

No, I now you have an incredible voice for radio. You would be fantastic. And video, have you ever thought I know you said not a video for pod quiz, but maybe like the audio with like a video animation playing over IT, like a wave for an animation .

that that would be possible certainly, and certainly looks like google would very much like me to do that in the way that they're pushing. They're rehearing ing. The podcast started wanting people to to yeah everything to youtube music um i'm reluctant to do that and the recent no reluctant is because IT feels like giving up ownership a little bit at the moment. Everything but with is I host myself OK but no other services involved at all um and I quite like IT that way um whether you know as soon as it's as soon it's on youtube or any other service for that matter, if if if you know you are trying the rights yeah IT still feels like you've given up a bit .

of control. sure. I mean, we're we're here wondering if uh, OpenAI is just scraping every episode we have because it's on youtube and I know yes.

yeah i'm sure that's exactly so yeah.

that's that's really interesting. I was I was going to say I was going to ask you if what your thoughts were on podcasting discover ability. I've mentioned a couple times that I don't think it's the best ever. I'm assuming I haven't, doug, that deep into IT with that being more hobby focused than and you've had your loyal listener's for a while, uh, I feel like word of mouths is the best way that podcasts still seem to get around unless you do go to youtube route because youtube is obviously a search engine.

Yeah well, it's an algorithm name. So you again, yeah yes, your your subject to the algorithm. But algis m can work very well for you potentially.

So absolutely. I'm the back in the day discoverable let for the podcast was through podcast directories really talks. I mean, they still exist, but IT IT relies on people sort of actively seeking them out out. And I don't. And that worked in the early days when when you know you expected your team to have a certain level of technical proficiency to do all that sort of stuff.

I mean, to download a podcast in the first cut place that itunes didn't support, to know you had to install the special piece of self twice self, and manage copying IT to your M P three player. So back at those days, just having a directory online work really well. But yes, I don't I don't fit IT works so much anymore. I I I don't know what the what the solutions are. I'm not necessarily convinced that for one, a service like youtube is or at least I much prefer if there was a more sort of open source oh, sharing these things.

I totally agree, a IT IT works and maybe it's the best, but that does not mean that IT is the ideal situation by any means. Um alright I think uh i'd love to just last question pretty much is um a thousand episodes in you mentioned before that people are wishing you good luck to you two thousands you have I mean future of pod quiz. Are there any other milestones you're specifically looking forward to or any special ideas coming up that we should all be excited about or that you are excited about?

I think it's IT to science. st. IT is keeping on, keeping on. I don't have many particular are stones, although the geek me will look forward episode a thousand and twenty four, just bigger way hit ten ten bits. So but yes, I i've got a couple of ideas for new rounds and that's a stuff coming. But there's no big, big revolution is the again, it's the consistency and I think people take comfort in that for sure are not planning any big changes.

go. That's awesome. I do one more question, and it's something that we ask all of our guests on way form. Do you know how fast you can type the alphabet?

Uh, I don't, but I am a terrible typist.

Would you mind if we test you on the show?

You can yes.

can I? Um i'm gonna send you a link. Um I think I can send IT just right here in riverside. You know, like top gear, the reasonably Price car leaderboard they have.

yes.

So we do this all of our guests, which is this website, that's just how fast you can take the alphabet. We give everyone three tries and we have kind of a leader board of everyone that's been on here.

Okay, so do so I just got have and start.

Yeah so the way IT works is once you press a it'll start um you don't after press enter and if you miss a letter is just gonna pause where that is. So IT should follow along in the A B C D right above that. Um and then we just save three tries and i'll put your best score as the final okay .

what's the slowest?

Uh it's like almost ten seconds. I also being a good typist. I don't know how much IT helps you because nobody types the alphabet like ever.

It's very hard, okay if you give them.

Six point seven something you're definitely in the middle.

I don't if I have the leader board on me right now, but oh, here six points that you're like sad center pretty much .

with that OK. okay? Not the good time. yeah.

That will slower.

So that happens all you.

You wanna .

give you .

one more e i'll get one.

Yeah that was sorry. Okay so six point seven you're right. Um between I don't know you know who colon and samir r or Simon yet. She's the like makes all the different robots on youtube yes I I do.

Yes right .

between those two. O James, thank you so much for joining us. Um personally, this was an absolute blast for me and I know Adams a big fan also.

Um we're very thankful for joining the show. Um for anywhere listeners, where can they find you? Any other projects you're working .

on that you're like to shut out? Um well, thanks very much. Have been really enjoyed IT. Um yes, you can find pot quiz at pot quiz 点 com and all the Normal places you find podcasts。 Um as for other projects, if you're interested in computers and movies, I have a web cycled staring the computer 点 com which is like I M D B。 But for computers in films.

we took a look at IT and it's it's really cool. I really like that. I was just asking people around the office like named a movie or named the computers that are IT, but I I appreciate that you show all the photos and exactly what they are. It's an also .

the website .

you congratulations on a thousand again and can see much right that was IT. I thought I was a great interview. Um he was he's just like the purest podcast. Yeah i'm very glad that he considers .

this a .

real pog tic that's a badge of honor. Ah thanks for joining for another bonus episode. Um oh fun fact, in next episode we asked him to create the trivial questions for a regular episode.

Okay, i'm so happy. Agreed to do IT because I done. You know, you make twenty trivial questions a week for twenty years. Don't add two more to, but you was kind enough to do for. So next episode we will be getting tribe questions .

from the trimeter.

Anything I did OK. But that still could be about pretty.

That's a wide range IT ocurred me.

I don't know if included the answers, so I have to look this up.

I'll leave that to you. I want I am, I don't know the question hopeful.

Ly, everyone subscribed and you see, you know what the answers are on friday. A couple see.

Hey, it's lee from decoder with the P2P. We spend a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why do they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series, diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buy? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you listening to you right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the A I space, why are so many big players in tech decide ding not to acquire and instead license tech and hire away cofounded ers? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that. Seems you'll hear all that and more this month.

I'm decoder with new life to presented by strike. You can listen to the coder whatever you get. Your podcast .

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