Speaker 1: CS twenty twenty one, the show will go on Facebook
Speaker 1: Now lets you delete your old posts in Bulk, a
Speaker 1: new app that supports your favorite podcasts, plus your tech
Speaker 1: questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Damiro and this
Speaker 1: is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about
Speaker 1: the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's
Speaker 1: also where I answer the questions that you send me.
Speaker 1: My name is Rich Dumiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel
Speaker 1: five in Los Angeles. Joining me is producer Megan Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show.
Speaker 2: Hello, how are you?
Speaker 1: Oh that's a loaded question these days, I aw this
Speaker 1: this is one of the most I thought that the
Speaker 1: pandemic was one of the most interesting times of our lives,
Speaker 1: and now with everything going on, it's just twenty twenty
Speaker 1: is a year that will will be one of the
Speaker 1: most written about years in history. I think it's now
Speaker 1: just to kind of get through the show. This is
Speaker 1: a tech show. I talk about technology. It's a consumer
Speaker 1: focused show, so I'm talking about the gadgets I think
Speaker 1: you should know about. I'm talking about the apps and things.
Speaker 1: So we don't really get into the news of the
Speaker 1: day in this show, but I don't want to ignore
Speaker 1: the fact that there is a lot happening in our world.
Speaker 1: So I guess I'll leave it at sort of saying,
Speaker 1: we know what's going on. We work in the news media,
Speaker 1: so we are very well aware of the things that
Speaker 1: are happening in this world. We are cognizant. We are learning.
Speaker 1: I'm learning, Megan. I don't know about you, but I'm
Speaker 1: learning a lot. I think the story that we did today,
Speaker 1: you know, just hearing other voices and hearing just various
Speaker 1: points of view is really helpful during this time. That's
Speaker 1: really what's interesting to me. I don't pretend to know
Speaker 1: it all, you know, nor do I pretend to think
Speaker 1: that I understand where everyone's coming from. And so it's
Speaker 1: been a process in life to understand everyone's standpoint and
Speaker 1: why people do things and why people feel the way
Speaker 1: they do. And you know, even at my age, I'm
Speaker 1: still learning. And so that's kind of where I want
Speaker 1: to leave that. It's been interesting. I hope you're safe.
Speaker 1: I hope you're feeling well, both with pandemic and everything
Speaker 1: that's going on elsewise. But we will get into our
Speaker 1: podcast to talk about the stuff that I think you
Speaker 1: should know about in the tech world. If you are
Speaker 1: a regular listener of the podcast, you might have noticed
Speaker 1: there was not an episode last week, and this is
Speaker 1: the first time this has happened, and it was very
Speaker 1: sad to me that Megan and I actually did record
Speaker 1: a podcast and I could not put it out there
Speaker 1: because the audio quality was so bad that it just
Speaker 1: wasn't acceptable. And Megan sounded great. So your audio was
Speaker 1: perfect to Megan, like switched it.
Speaker 2: If there's a way to make it. Your audio is good.
Speaker 2: Mind can be a little bit bad.
Speaker 1: Somehow, it was recording the wrong microphone on my side,
Speaker 1: and so it was recording just a random mic from
Speaker 1: my computer versus the one I was actually speaking into,
Speaker 1: So it just would have been bad to have people
Speaker 1: try to listen to that. So I just decided that
Speaker 1: we would not post it at all. So anyway, let's
Speaker 1: get into the show. And one of the big stories
Speaker 1: this week is kind of a crazy one that CS
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one is actually going to happen as an
Speaker 1: in person event. Now, Megan, you and I have not
Speaker 1: discussed this. Whether you would even go, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but let me let me give you kind of the background.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about the blog post that that CS
Speaker 1: put out. So every event has been canceled, but CS
Speaker 1: is probably one of the biggest, is the biggest event
Speaker 1: I go to every year. It's in Las Vegas. The
Speaker 1: joke about CS is that you try not to get
Speaker 1: sick at CS because there's so many people from all
Speaker 1: around the world touching so many things in close proximity
Speaker 1: in smoke filled casinos. I mean, it's just it's a
Speaker 1: nightmare and it's dry out there. But here's what CS says.
Speaker 1: CTA is the company that puts on cts CS. They
Speaker 1: say that, yes, we will produce an in person event
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas. We will continue to expand the show's
Speaker 1: digital reach so you can see more live stream content. Okay,
Speaker 1: but here's what they're going to do. Clean and sanitize
Speaker 1: spaces around the show venue regularly and provide sanitation stations
Speaker 1: so hand sanitizer, enable social distancing with wider aisles in
Speaker 1: many exhibit areas and more space between seats and conference programs,
Speaker 1: best practices issue best practices for attendees like wearing masks
Speaker 1: and avoid shaking hands. Now, they didn't say they're going
Speaker 1: to require people to wear masks, so I'm not sure
Speaker 1: on that one and then limit touch points throughout the facility,
Speaker 1: including cashless systems for purchases, and then perhaps have thermal
Speaker 1: scans at entry points. So I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're still it's June, so we've got July, August, September, October, November, December,
Speaker 1: so you've got you've got six months minimum for us
Speaker 1: to figure out how this pandemic plays out after things
Speaker 1: have reopened. Vegas opened this weekend and so if I
Speaker 1: don't know if you saw any of the video from there,
Speaker 1: but people flooded in and it's like almost back to normal,
Speaker 1: except for the fact that there are some slot machines,
Speaker 1: Like I think every other slot machine is closed or whatever.
Speaker 1: But you when you have that many people in one place,
Speaker 1: you can't avoid it. You're you're with the people, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's so crazy.
Speaker 3: I mean, we really don't fully understand coronavirus still, so
Speaker 3: who knows what we'll know then, you know. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I just think of like, especially as media, when we
Speaker 3: see something that's really cool and everyone's crowding around it
Speaker 3: and you're trying to get the best angle, and you
Speaker 3: will you have like two hours.
Speaker 2: At that event. It's like crunch time. I just can't.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I can't imagine these days, like how
Speaker 2: that would how that would work.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't either. And the other thing is
Speaker 1: that there are people from all over the world, so
Speaker 1: it's like you're gonna have folks from everywhere, and every country,
Speaker 1: in every state, in every city has its own sort
Speaker 1: of precautions and the way they're handling corona. So yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're standing next to some guy from a country
Speaker 1: that doesn't really care and just has let everyone just
Speaker 1: do whatever they want and you're in, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a big mix. So I find this very challenging. I
Speaker 1: was I think I said this on I forget if
Speaker 1: I said it on TV. But you know, I've been
Speaker 1: going to see Yes for like I think ten years now,
Speaker 1: and I was actually kind of secretly inside looking forward
Speaker 1: to the fact that like, oh, no pressure this year
Speaker 1: because I can't go, it's not going to happen. And
Speaker 1: now that it's happening, I actually do need to make
Speaker 1: a decision of whether I am going. Right now I
Speaker 1: am I'm thinking thinking yes, just because you know, we
Speaker 1: have six months, but of course it will be something
Speaker 1: I think that everyone's going to be evaluating. I think
Speaker 1: it's not really important what I think. It's important what
Speaker 1: these companies are thinking, because if I'm a Microsoft or
Speaker 1: a Huawei or a Panasonic or a Samsung, I have
Speaker 1: to decide now if I'm going to ditch this event.
Speaker 1: And I think that's actually going to decide for us
Speaker 1: whether this event happens, and not the people that go.
Speaker 1: I think it's really going to be the companies. So
Speaker 1: we will see, right. I think only you can hear this, Megan,
Speaker 1: So tell me is this your right sound?
Speaker 2: Yes? That's the sound question time.
Speaker 3: Okay, So this first question comes from Robert hi Rich.
Speaker 3: I saw your story on police scanner apps, specifically the
Speaker 3: fifty app. I understand that police agencies in Orange County
Speaker 3: scramble their signals so scanner cannot pick them up.
Speaker 2: Is this true?
Speaker 3: Is there an app whereby I can hear police calls
Speaker 3: from Orange County agencies?
Speaker 1: Now, this is interesting. We did this story on TV
Speaker 1: this week that the police scanner apps were the top
Speaker 1: downloads on the app store, and for obvious reasons, people
Speaker 1: people were monitoring what was happening in their communities, and
Speaker 1: it's you know, probably a mix of curiosity, safety, and
Speaker 1: maybe avoidance, I don't know, but all three of those things.
Speaker 1: So an app called five zero Radio Police Scanner, which
Speaker 1: is five dollars is the number one was the number
Speaker 1: one paid app. I'm not sure if it still is,
Speaker 1: but could you imagine the person who coded that app
Speaker 1: probably a while ago, and all of a sudden they
Speaker 1: just overnight see like, oh wow, I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of downloads, I'm making a lot of money. Number three
Speaker 1: right now in utilities, it's got two hundred and thirteen
Speaker 1: thousand ratings. And let's see when this guy came out
Speaker 1: with this app all the way back in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: So I think this is probably going to be his
Speaker 1: biggest he or she's biggest payday in you know, let's
Speaker 1: say June's let's say it takes some a month to
Speaker 1: get the money July. Let's say in August, this person's
Speaker 1: going on a nice vacation because they are going to
Speaker 1: get hey right now, but not right now, Okay. So
Speaker 1: the other thing is okay, so that's five dollars. There
Speaker 1: is a free version.
Speaker 2: Of the free version. With the free free version, but
Speaker 2: I'm assuming there's ads, so he's probably getting paid from
Speaker 2: that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's probably getting paid that way too. Now, you
Speaker 1: worked on the desk at KTLA, and remember one of
Speaker 1: your first stories, I believe, was Citizen, which is the
Speaker 1: app that if you're not familiar with Citizen, this is
Speaker 1: also beginning a lot of downloads. It's an app that
Speaker 1: listens to the police scanner. Using artificial intelligence, it transcribes
Speaker 1: what's being said on those scanners, and then it kind
Speaker 1: of uses humans to filter and push out those notifications
Speaker 1: to people that just live in that area. And I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but my Citizen's been going off
Speaker 1: the hook lately. I'm getting all kinds of alerts from
Speaker 1: things happening in the neighborhood just in general. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: now so we when we did this story, we talked
Speaker 1: to our guy at KTLA that's been listening to scanners
Speaker 1: for years, and he said that one of the things
Speaker 1: that cities are doing is they are scrambling their signals
Speaker 1: the police departments so that people can't really listen to
Speaker 1: these without very expensive equipment. Is that you're understanding, no, exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean KATLA obviously has the really good scanners,
Speaker 3: so we can like hear all, you know, what's going on,
Speaker 3: But I don't think.
Speaker 2: I don't think Citizen will pick up everything.
Speaker 1: I think, well, I think Citizen does pick up the
Speaker 1: scrambled ones. I think they do. That's why they're not
Speaker 1: launched in every city. But when I looked at this
Speaker 1: police scanner app and you've maybe you've used it more
Speaker 1: than I have, I didn't see Los Angeles as one
Speaker 1: of the cities. So I don't know if they are,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if they're sort of getting
Speaker 1: the scrambled ones. And i'm you know, according to Vance
Speaker 1: from what I remember, he said, you can get them
Speaker 1: de scrambled, but it costs a lot of money, like
Speaker 1: the equipment, So most average people that buy like a
Speaker 1: CB scanner, you know, or a not a CEB scanner,
Speaker 1: a police scanner on Amazon would not hear the scrambled
Speaker 1: stuff because those are maybe you know, fifty one hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: So anyway to answer the question that we got, it's
Speaker 1: really can I listen to them in Orange County? I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. It just depends. If they're scrambled, then you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to listen to them. I did
Speaker 1: recommend or I am recommending Citizen for a lot of folks.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if Citizen is in Orange County, because again,
Speaker 1: they have to set up the equipment to listen to
Speaker 1: the scanners to be able to offer their services in
Speaker 1: these places. So that that's a part of it that,
Speaker 1: you know, I just don't have the answer to. You
Speaker 1: just have to download it and see if it works
Speaker 1: in your area. So that's that's kind of like a
Speaker 1: kind of the answer to that, huh. But anyway, those
Speaker 1: apps are very popular right now, that's for sure. And
Speaker 1: I'm excited for that guy's pay day, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: Right now. I wonder how many downloads he got. Is
Speaker 2: there a way to figure that out?
Speaker 1: There's some there's some companies that try to say how many,
Speaker 1: but I mean, this says it was downloaded to over
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand times, but who really knows. I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't know. And the other thing is, it's like
Speaker 1: you said, I would I would gather that most people
Speaker 1: are probably downloading the free one, and then some are
Speaker 1: downloading the paid I downloaded.
Speaker 2: The free okay, okay, but.
Speaker 1: You know it's still the top charge. Is an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: It's not like the most paid app. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: by time so it's not really like it's at that
Speaker 1: moment kind of thing. So yeah, so if you looked
Speaker 1: at it right now, it may not be there anymore.
Speaker 1: Like it may have sprung to the top and then
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's back down a couple of notches.
Speaker 1: But needless to say, he's doing okay at this point.
Speaker 1: All right, this was an interesting feature that Facebook launched
Speaker 1: this week that totally got lost in the news because
Speaker 1: of everything going on. But this is a feature called
Speaker 1: Manage Activity. Now. Facebook is an app that it's kind
Speaker 1: of like your It's kind of like your attic, right,
Speaker 1: you put a lot of stuff up there and you
Speaker 1: kind of forget about it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: It reminds me. Have you ever watched that movie Christmas
Speaker 1: Vacation where they he puts the gifts up in the
Speaker 1: attic for his wife for Christmas and he finds him
Speaker 1: like five years later.
Speaker 2: That I need to watch at.
Speaker 1: Oh one of my favorite movies. It's maybe watch it
Speaker 1: during Christmas time. This is not the right time, but
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's always one of my favorites. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Facebook Manage Activity lets you The best way I
Speaker 1: can describe this is, think of all the posts that
Speaker 1: you've made on your Facebook page as emails, and imagine
Speaker 1: you can just delete those emails easily. You can filter
Speaker 1: those emails by which ones had a picture, which ones
Speaker 1: didn't have a picture, which ones have you know, just
Speaker 1: a text post by date. You can say, oh, I
Speaker 1: just want to look at the things that happened in
Speaker 1: the last year. Or let's say you had a partner
Speaker 1: during college freshman year and you want to just delete
Speaker 1: all those posts. But you don't have to just delete them.
Speaker 1: You can archive them as well. So now you can
Speaker 1: literally go through and just click the ones that you
Speaker 1: want to get rid of and either delete them or
Speaker 1: archive them. And archive is kind of a cool option
Speaker 1: because it means they still exist in a place on Facebook,
Speaker 1: but that nobody can see them. Deleting is like sometimes
Speaker 1: you don't your past is your past, and yeah, you
Speaker 1: know you don't necessarily want to just eradicate.
Speaker 3: It, but could you imagine like if you had gone
Speaker 3: on in not Instagram, Facebook when you were like.
Speaker 2: Eleven, Oh my god, I know I have all these pictures.
Speaker 3: If you if I search like Megan mcmonagall photos, or
Speaker 3: like if I just go back and photos, if even
Speaker 3: if I'm tagged and I've deleted the tag, it still
Speaker 3: comes up because that person has like my name, you
Speaker 3: just can't click on me.
Speaker 2: And so I have all these pictures. I'm like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, I.
Speaker 3: Don't want this on Facebook, but you know whatever, that's
Speaker 3: what happens when you join when you're twelve.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. Like, these kids are growing up
Speaker 1: on these services, and I think that's why they're gravitating
Speaker 1: to things like Instagram, stories and Snapchat, because why do
Speaker 1: you want that permanent record? You know? Now, I will
Speaker 1: say in some cases I love it, Like last night,
Speaker 1: Lindsey or this morning. You know, you get these Facebook
Speaker 1: memories and she came over and said, look at this.
Speaker 1: This was like nine years ago you putting together the
Speaker 1: crib for Parker in our old place. And that's amazing,
Speaker 1: Like I love that, but you know, it's like that
Speaker 1: had to be posted. And so when you don't post,
Speaker 1: and when you do the stories and stuff, a lot
Speaker 1: of that is lost because it's gone now stories. I've
Speaker 1: noticed that Facebook is kind of like they do our
Speaker 1: Instagram does keep the stories in your archive. Most people
Speaker 1: don't realize that, but you can see what's in your stories,
Speaker 1: but that's only for your eyes. The other thing, if
Speaker 1: you use Google Photos, they've started to do what's called
Speaker 1: I think it's memories or something, where at the top
Speaker 1: of your Google Photos library they have one year ago today,
Speaker 1: two years ago today, three years ago, and it just
Speaker 1: flipping through those is really cool because you forget ten
Speaker 1: years went by this fast. Oh my gosh, yeah, ten
Speaker 1: years ago today, I was sitting at my desk doing
Speaker 1: a podcast, just like right now.
Speaker 2: My life hasn't changed.
Speaker 1: Nothing's changed. This feature again, is called Manage Activity. I
Speaker 1: could not find it on the Facebook app. It's going
Speaker 1: to launch on mobile first. I could not find it
Speaker 1: on the Facebook app on iOS or Android. I checked both,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if it's launched yet or if
Speaker 1: it's rolling out slowly. But if I can't find it,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to find it. So they
Speaker 1: probably have not launched it and or they're doing a
Speaker 1: really bad job of putting it out there. But from
Speaker 1: what I understood, it was supposed to be available like
Speaker 1: this week on Tuesday, I believe it was. So anyway,
Speaker 1: look for Manage Activity if you want to just go
Speaker 1: and clean up your Facebook posts from the past.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely downloading that. Okay, This next question comes from
Speaker 3: Debbie thoughts and recommendations on UVC wands or other devices
Speaker 3: to use for cleaning hotel rooms and other virus type
Speaker 3: gunk looking forward to your response. I mean general germ
Speaker 3: of vogue now in hyperdrive with gunky people resisting public courtesy.
Speaker 1: Gonky people gunky love that.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever heard that term.
Speaker 1: No, I just heard like a person.
Speaker 2: Like I've heard grows, but not like gunky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this is a great This is a great
Speaker 1: preview of an upcoming story on KTLA because I've gotten
Speaker 1: so many emails about these sanitizers. One thing I've noticed,
Speaker 1: whoever is advertising on Facebook and Instagram represents a majority
Speaker 1: of the questions that I get email to me. Remember
Speaker 1: those copper keys. We did a story on the touch
Speaker 1: free tools.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now it's an ad on Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: It's all over I know everywhere, It's everywhere, and so
Speaker 1: we were way ahead of that. But the reason why
Speaker 1: we were way ahead is because I've got this army
Speaker 1: of folks out there that email me and they're asking
Speaker 1: me the stuff. They're kind of like my folks on
Speaker 1: the ground. You know, I live a very insulated life, right.
Speaker 1: I don't watch TV. I don't watch anything. I don't
Speaker 1: look at anything. I don't go anywhere. I don't talk
Speaker 1: to anyone. I just live in my house by myself
Speaker 1: and don't do anything. I'm in a bubble. And so
Speaker 1: I have this army of folks on the ground that
Speaker 1: actually go out to places, and they actually look at ads,
Speaker 1: and they actually watch things on Netflix, and they actually
Speaker 1: see things. And so they're the ones that are telling
Speaker 1: me what's happening in this world. And so you be,
Speaker 1: sanitizers are clearly being advertised very heavily. And so I
Speaker 1: did do research. I talked to an expert on uv
Speaker 1: UVC does work to kill stuff. Now, with that said,
Speaker 1: what I gathered from my interview is that not all
Speaker 1: of these devices are made the same. Stay away from
Speaker 1: the cheap ones. That's number one. Number two, you want
Speaker 1: one that has a lot of lights inside around all
Speaker 1: edges of your gadget because that means it will get
Speaker 1: the maximum coverage area. These lights only work if they're
Speaker 1: one hundred percent like on the like if it can
Speaker 1: see the area, it doesn't work like if it it
Speaker 1: doesn't work if there's a little shadow. It's not going
Speaker 1: to get that virus or that bacteria or whatever.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: So I tested three of these. Now when I say test,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you whether they work. I'm not sitting
Speaker 1: there going, oh, there's a staff a staff bug on
Speaker 1: this phone and then I've zapped it and it's gone.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. But I tested them and
Speaker 1: seeing what they look like in the features they have,
Speaker 1: and so I'll have those on KTLA. But the bottom
Speaker 1: line is, if you're going to buy one of these things,
Speaker 1: which our UV guy that I interviewed actually said you
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't, like, don't waste your money. He said that
Speaker 1: seventy percent alcohol wipe is your best spat. So just
Speaker 1: get those alcohol wipes if you can use them on
Speaker 1: your phone, and that will clean it probably the best way.
Speaker 1: The problem with that system is that it does wear
Speaker 1: down the coating on your phone that resists fingerprints. And
Speaker 1: so I noticed this with my phone.
Speaker 2: Unless like, if you have a cover.
Speaker 1: Either one, if you have yeah, if you use just
Speaker 1: you know, most people have a screen protector on their phone,
Speaker 1: and so on my iPhone, I did have a screen protector,
Speaker 1: but I kept cleaning it almost like every other day.
Speaker 1: And I noticed that the fingerprints got to a place
Speaker 1: where it was like it looked like an oil slick
Speaker 1: on my phone when I was using it, because it
Speaker 1: was it just had no they call olifolick coating. It
Speaker 1: was all. It was all burned off. So if I
Speaker 1: would number one, have a screen protector. And if you
Speaker 1: have a screen protector, you're probably fine because you're just
Speaker 1: rubbing off the only phot whatever they however, they say
Speaker 1: it coding on that protector. You could just get a
Speaker 1: new one. So but if you're looking for one of
Speaker 1: these things, do not get the WAND. He says the
Speaker 1: WAND is total bs. You're not going to be able
Speaker 1: to wave it over at the perfect height end for
Speaker 1: long enough to kill anything. And if you get a box,
Speaker 1: make sure that it is reflective inside and there's lights
Speaker 1: on all the sides inside. So that's kind of like
Speaker 1: the main thing to do. And you have to you know,
Speaker 1: some of these boxes, like the one from Phone Soap,
Speaker 1: which is the most popular, that takes a ten minute
Speaker 1: bath in your phone. The other one I tested takes
Speaker 1: thirty seconds, but only does one side at a time,
Speaker 1: so you have to flip it over and then another
Speaker 1: one takes I think three minutes. But it also charges
Speaker 1: your phone, so that's kind of cool.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 1: So, Megan, you will be shooting this story soon, so
Speaker 1: you'll be able to see all these things and how
Speaker 1: they work. And your phone is never going to be
Speaker 1: cleaner than right now. All right, So, if you use Gmail,
Speaker 1: you might have noticed that there is now this meat
Speaker 1: thing inside Gmail mee T, which is their answer to zoom.
Speaker 1: And apparently a lot of people hate the fact that
Speaker 1: this has shown up in their Gmail. Now have you
Speaker 1: noticed this in your Gmail? At the bottom, let's see
Speaker 1: it says start a meeting, Join a meeting. It's kind
Speaker 1: of on the side bar where you have Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I see that. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people are super annoyed that that's there.
Speaker 1: And this has happened before with a lot of features
Speaker 1: that they add to Gmail. People get really mad that
Speaker 1: anything changes. Well, now you can get rid of that.
Speaker 1: So Google is listening to you. They're rolling out a
Speaker 1: feature that you can disable the little meat thing, And
Speaker 1: if you want to do it, you can go to
Speaker 1: settings on your Gmail and then look for chat and
Speaker 1: meat and then you'll see the way to turn it off.
Speaker 1: This is courtesy of TechSpot dot com. By the way,
Speaker 1: I personally love Meat and I wish that more people
Speaker 1: would use it because nobody wants to switch from Zoom
Speaker 1: now that everyone's on Zoom. So I think Meat is
Speaker 1: really cool. I think Facebook Rooms is really cool, but
Speaker 1: everyone's on Zoom and that's just the standard at this point.
Speaker 3: I think they think they're clearer than Zoom too, Like, Okay,
Speaker 3: so what's your all time favorite?
Speaker 2: Like, if you're gonna call someone, what are you what
Speaker 2: are you using?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm using Zoom because that's what everyone's using. And
Speaker 1: it's just everyone has it installed, everyone has it ready,
Speaker 1: they have an account. And I did connect Zoom to
Speaker 1: my calendar, which was kind of cool because I had
Speaker 1: to schedule a Zoom appointment, and I thought it was
Speaker 1: actually really great because it just put the Zoom link
Speaker 1: right on my calendar and theirs, so all we had
Speaker 1: to do is go into the calendar and click it
Speaker 1: and it was and that was pretty seamless. Now Google
Speaker 1: Meet does the same thing, but again, it's one of
Speaker 1: these things people just don't want to try. They just
Speaker 1: got into Zoom, they don't want to try something new.
Speaker 1: They're like, no, yeah, I'm good, and it's it's one
Speaker 1: of those things when you say i'll zoom, you're with
Speaker 1: no learning curve. Yes, we all know what we're doing.
Speaker 2: There, so mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Everyone knows what it is now. Basically, this next this
Speaker 3: next question comes from Russell hi Rich. I hope this
Speaker 3: email finds you and yours well. After a brief review
Speaker 3: of the topics on your site, I am reaching out
Speaker 3: to see if you may have previously done a piece
Speaker 3: on VHS to digital converters. If you haven't done a piece,
Speaker 3: is there a story or product out there that you recommend.
Speaker 3: It may be a good project to convert old home
Speaker 3: movies while I'm at home and currently have some time
Speaker 3: on my hands.
Speaker 1: Yes, do this. Do this quickly because your videotapes are
Speaker 1: quickly aging and they are getting really bad. The quality
Speaker 1: on these things is going away. It's been since the
Speaker 1: nineties or the eighties. What one did video? Was it
Speaker 1: eighties or nineties? I can't remember, but nineties.
Speaker 2: I mean I had vhs is when I was growing up.
Speaker 1: Okay, so nineties to now you're talking thirty years. So
Speaker 1: these tapes, which are analog, those are degrading in a
Speaker 1: big way, especially depending on It's not like digital where
Speaker 1: it stays it's ones and zero's. This is analog, which
Speaker 1: means the way that you the way that you stored
Speaker 1: it has an impact on how it is lasting. If
Speaker 1: it was in a hot attic, you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: problem with some of these tapes. You know, you want
Speaker 1: to keep them in a cool place. I did a
Speaker 1: story where I this is what I love about my
Speaker 1: job is I love the fact that I can just
Speaker 1: talk to experts on everything and they'll talk back to me.
Speaker 1: You know, if you emailed like the top archive guy
Speaker 1: at Warner Brothers, do you think you would email you back. No?
Speaker 1: But yet I can go and I can email Warner
Speaker 1: Brothers and do a story and literally go into the
Speaker 1: archives and learn how they archive their stuff, which is
Speaker 1: filmed and you know, cool dry place. Believe me, it's
Speaker 1: it's all climate controlled and there fire controlled. It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was in there this year when they
Speaker 1: were busy going through all the stuff for HBO Max.
Speaker 1: So they were they were restoring a lot of those things.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of they said, a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff they had already done because in various places
Speaker 1: they've you know. But anyway, I digress. So a couple
Speaker 1: of things you need to do this. You need your
Speaker 1: old tapes. You need your capture device, which i'll talk
Speaker 1: about in a second. You need a computer and then
Speaker 1: a place to store your digital files. And you also
Speaker 1: need a VCR. And this might be the trickiest thing.
Speaker 1: If you still have your old VCR you're doing really well,
Speaker 1: or your old camcorder, but a lot of people with
Speaker 1: their VCR and cam quarter they might have gotten rid
Speaker 1: of them. And so good luck finding these on eBay
Speaker 1: because people know that people are trying to use these
Speaker 1: for this purpose, and so a lot of them are
Speaker 1: expensive or kind of they're just they look like they
Speaker 1: don't really work very well. It was very hit or miss.
Speaker 1: So I ended up sourcing these things from friends because
Speaker 1: I could actually trust the source instead of buying these
Speaker 1: on eBay. And so I got a video camera and
Speaker 1: a VCR, and then you need the capture software. So
Speaker 1: there's two that I recommend. El Gato Video Capture for Mac.
Speaker 1: That's the one I tested. I used. It's great, and
Speaker 1: the PC equivalent is called the Roxio Easy VHS two
Speaker 1: DVD for PC. Now with these, both of these, it's
Speaker 1: a very slow process because you have to capture in
Speaker 1: real time the videos and so you have to put
Speaker 1: the video, you have to rewind the tape. If it's
Speaker 1: not rewound, you got to pop into the VCR, you
Speaker 1: got to set up on your computer, you got to record,
Speaker 1: and you got to wait for it to go. And
Speaker 1: then at the end you want to trim the intro
Speaker 1: in the outro because there might be some you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, blank parts on those. So it's a process,
Speaker 1: and then you have to save it and then you
Speaker 1: have to upload it somewhere. So I've uploaded mine. A
Speaker 1: lot of these I did myself. I uploaded them to
Speaker 1: Google Photos, which is kind of cool because it looks
Speaker 1: for faces inside your videos.
Speaker 2: That's so cool. I need to do this.
Speaker 1: It's kind of neat. So if you're looking for pictures
Speaker 1: of like your grandparents and stuff like, they will show
Speaker 1: up in yes, which is it's really neat because back
Speaker 1: in the day, I was talking about this with my
Speaker 1: wife last night. Nowadays, when you record your kids, you're
Speaker 1: only doing a thirty second clip of them or maybe
Speaker 1: a minute. Back in the day, and I'm sure your
Speaker 1: family was like this, Megan, your dad would walk around
Speaker 1: the house with the camcorder for twenty minutes. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a reality show, right and say hi to everyone
Speaker 1: at the party, and you know the scene was watch
Speaker 1: the cake being cut whatever. Nowadays it's just oh, they're
Speaker 1: blown out the candles. Hold on, let me record that,
Speaker 1: and that's it. It's a thirty second clip of blowing
Speaker 1: out the candles. So it's very different and I don't
Speaker 1: know which one's better. It's kind of it's weird to
Speaker 1: watch the old videos because a lot of them are
Speaker 1: kind of boring because there's not many moments in them,
Speaker 1: but whereas the new videos are all like just where
Speaker 1: the action is right, like oh they're blown out the candles,
Speaker 1: or they're opening presents, or they're you know, mixing a drink,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and like everyone.
Speaker 3: Knows how to like film or take video or take
Speaker 3: pictures nowadays. Like back then, you know, it was a
Speaker 3: little one person the family would.
Speaker 1: Do it right, and the one person who was like,
Speaker 1: you got to check out my new camera I got.
Speaker 1: This thing is so high tech. Oh it's so great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And everyone was like, WHOA, what'd you pay for that? Larry?
Speaker 1: You'd be like, oh this was you know, and then
Speaker 1: it's like the tapes. Yeah, it's a whole big thing.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I've got the article on. I'll put the
Speaker 1: article in the show notes. So it's called DIY transfer
Speaker 1: your old home videos to digital. If you are concerned
Speaker 1: that you don't feel like over are taking this project on,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of places that will do this
Speaker 1: for you. Costco is one of them. I would recommend
Speaker 1: finding a local place. So in your area, just look
Speaker 1: on Yelp and see you know VHS to DVD or well,
Speaker 1: you don't want DVD, you want VHS to digital, you
Speaker 1: want a file. And here in Los Angeles there's a
Speaker 1: lot of places that do this because there's just i mean,
Speaker 1: we live in a company town where it's entertainment oriented,
Speaker 1: so you can go to a lot of places. If
Speaker 1: you live in a small town, maybe start a business
Speaker 1: where you are doing this for people. If you have
Speaker 1: spare time. I mean, you could make you know, charge
Speaker 1: people twenty bucks a tape or whatever, and you've got
Speaker 1: a nice little business. It's a lot of like hands
Speaker 1: on time. But if you can get a good little setup,
Speaker 1: it's not a bad thing. It's not a business that's
Speaker 1: going to last very long.
Speaker 2: But I mean, oh yeah, that's true. Basically you're saying like, now,
Speaker 2: like how much more time do we have for these tapes?
Speaker 1: Some tapes that I've looked at are totally gone. I mean,
Speaker 1: the the video quality was so bad that it's just
Speaker 1: almost just scrambled, like that's what it looked like. So
Speaker 1: and other tapes were fine. It just really depends on
Speaker 1: the tape, depends on the tape quality that you started with.
Speaker 1: There's so many things that it depends on. And it's
Speaker 1: just you don't want to wait much longer. Let's put
Speaker 1: it that way. You want to start getting this done.
Speaker 1: Let's see, by the way I sign up for Venmo,
Speaker 1: do I tell you that?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a big Venmo holdout, and I finally,
Speaker 1: you know, I decided, I just I decided that I've
Speaker 1: gone too long. So many people want to either, well
Speaker 1: most people don't want to send me money. They want
Speaker 1: to take my money. So it's like, oh, you owe this,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, five bucks here, ten bucks there,
Speaker 1: ten twenty bucks there. And I was so against Venmo
Speaker 1: for so long, and I realized that why am I
Speaker 1: doing this to myself? Because it's so easy, and as
Speaker 1: much as I don't like some of the things that
Speaker 1: Venmo does, it's just so easy.
Speaker 2: And you know what's rid of the thing that bothered you?
Speaker 1: So the thing that bothered there's a bunch. There's a
Speaker 1: couple of things. I set my stuff to private so
Speaker 1: I don't see so people can't see what I'm paying for.
Speaker 1: But I love seeing what other people are paying for.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of ironic that I liked scrolling through that,
Speaker 1: But I think just the ease of sending and receiving
Speaker 1: small amounts of money kind of outweighs the hatred I
Speaker 1: had for that company. So it wasn't hatred. It was
Speaker 1: just I didn't like the way they did things. And
Speaker 1: so but I'm fine with it. I connected, you know,
Speaker 1: my account, and it's anyway. So the first person that
Speaker 1: I did a couple of things I needed to do
Speaker 1: on there. But then yesterday it was someone's birthday that
Speaker 1: I work with on the radio, Alex Rozzo. Happy birthday, Alex,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, hey, Alex, I'm like, let
Speaker 1: me buy you a drink, let me send you you know,
Speaker 1: give me your Venmo and I'll send you some money
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, I don't use Venmo. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the one person that I want to finally.
Speaker 3: BUILDO and it's not worth it.
Speaker 1: And she was like, oh, I'm not on there. I'm
Speaker 1: like how. And she's young, by the way, I'm like,
Speaker 1: how are you not on there? So I thought that
Speaker 1: was kind of funny, So maybe she'll I think it
Speaker 1: would have been better if she would have signed up
Speaker 1: right away, Like she's like, oh, you'll buy me a drink? Sure,
Speaker 1: let me sign up, send me money, I get, I'll
Speaker 1: get Vemo. But so many people are on there that
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things you just can't avoid.
Speaker 1: And so I'm on there now and feel free to
Speaker 1: send me money, all right.
Speaker 2: I'll send you five.
Speaker 1: Right now, thank you? All right. So, if you use Alexa,
Speaker 1: there's a new feature that lets you drop in on
Speaker 1: your other devices. That's been around for a while. The
Speaker 1: new feature is that you can drop in on all
Speaker 1: of your devices at the same time. This is kind
Speaker 1: of equivalent to the old school PA system in a house.
Speaker 1: If you does your house you you live in like
Speaker 1: one of those classic houses, does it have one of
Speaker 1: those like intercom systems?
Speaker 2: We do We don't use it, but we haven't.
Speaker 1: Nobody use it. Yeah, but they used to be like
Speaker 1: the coolest thing back in like the you know, the
Speaker 1: early sixties, seventies, whatever it was when these things came out.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, we got an intercom system, We're so cool.
Speaker 1: I remember my house in New Jersey growing up had it,
Speaker 1: and when we moved there, and I thought it was
Speaker 1: the coolest thing you could ever imagine. It was so tough.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever used it, but I used to. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, it was outside by the doorbell, and so
Speaker 1: every time someone would come to the door, I'd run
Speaker 1: to the intercom and be like, who is it? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they'd like and my parents would like just open
Speaker 1: the door, like it's you know, noa.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's good for security.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And now, of course we have Ring, which is
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's it's a high tech equivalent, but
Speaker 1: it's not built into your wall. So the Amazon Alexa
Speaker 1: devices now let you do this, so you can drop
Speaker 1: in on all of your rooms. So let's say you
Speaker 1: had an Alexa in every room, or an Echo whatever
Speaker 1: they call it. You can drop in and be like,
Speaker 1: you know, from your phone, dinner's ready, come on downstairs. Now,
Speaker 1: my house is so small, it doesn't I don't need that.
Speaker 1: But in your palatial mansion, you would probably use this
Speaker 1: because it would go to all including like the pool house,
Speaker 1: the guest house, the spare bedroom, the it would just go.
Speaker 1: You would be able to get.
Speaker 2: Everyone together, theo.
Speaker 1: Yes, the workout room, the wine cellar, yeah, the bar room, yes,
Speaker 1: the barroom, the secondary. Trying to think of what we
Speaker 1: looked at this house in uh West LA. That was
Speaker 1: it was just unbelievable. And the room, the amount of
Speaker 1: rooms that they had in this house, every room that
Speaker 1: we just mentioned plus more. And it was indoor pool,
Speaker 1: I mean it was. It was unbelievable. I mean, palace,
Speaker 1: It's just crazy. And I love that you can just
Speaker 1: look at those and you know, like clearly I can't
Speaker 1: you know, elevator, you know, like I can't afford to
Speaker 1: buy that, but yet they'll just let me in to
Speaker 1: like look at this place. But you got to dream sometimes,
Speaker 1: all right. So that's the thing. So if you want to,
Speaker 1: it's called they call it a drop in. But now
Speaker 1: you can drop in on all devices. And by the way,
Speaker 1: if you have Google Home devices, they do the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's called broadcast, and many people don't realize this, but
Speaker 1: you can do it right from Google Assistant on your phone.
Speaker 1: You can just say broadcast. I think you could say
Speaker 1: I forgot to like sit, how you exactly say it
Speaker 1: the command, but it's like broadcast. You know this and
Speaker 1: you know whatever you say it will be broadcast to
Speaker 1: all your devices. So you can say, hey, I'm coming
Speaker 1: home now, I'm leaving work. I'll be home in twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: and you can broadcast that to all your devices. I
Speaker 1: did that exactly once to my family and they all
Speaker 1: were freaked out because all of a sudden they just
Speaker 1: hear my voice and all the speakers in the house,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think that.
Speaker 2: Would be kind. You're like, WHOA, where'd.
Speaker 3: That come from? Okay, this next question comes from Lean.
Speaker 3: I would like to know if you have a preference
Speaker 3: to a webcam. I recently purchased a forty inch Samsung
Speaker 3: Smart TV. I would like to be able to watch
Speaker 3: Zoom with my friends on the television, and I know
Speaker 3: I have to have a webcam for that.
Speaker 2: Which one would you recommend? Thank you so very much.
Speaker 1: Did you say Lean? I think it's Leanne.
Speaker 2: That's Leanne. I thought well with an E at the end.
Speaker 1: Well, she doesn't have an E, but it's still like
Speaker 1: it's like Leanne, like.
Speaker 2: Lean I have never seen that name.
Speaker 3: I know Leanne's name, but I I yeah, okay, Leanne.
Speaker 1: I'm all for unique names. I just think it's a
Speaker 1: unique spelling. Some people, you know, people get a notification?
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 2: Did you get a notification for anything?
Speaker 1: Uh? Oh? You paid me a dollar?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How did you find me on there? That's so weird.
Speaker 2: I thought you had to, like, you're under your name,
Speaker 2: you have an icon.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so interesting. Yeah, I just got a dollar
Speaker 1: for Megan. Thank you. You have to.
Speaker 2: Put in your like last four digits of your Social
Speaker 2: Security number.
Speaker 1: Oh, perfect, to confirm that you knew who I was.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love looking at the little list of what people
Speaker 1: pay for. Now I want to I want to build
Speaker 1: up the amount of people I'm friends with on there,
Speaker 1: just so I can see what they're all paying for,
Speaker 1: because it's really funny. I'll refund you the dollar at
Speaker 1: some point. Maybe I'll just keep it in there. So
Speaker 1: let's see what the question was. Webcam for her forty
Speaker 1: inch Samsung TV and she wants to zoom, so I'm
Speaker 1: a little concerned with this question because it sounds like
Speaker 1: she wants to zoom on her TV, which, as far
Speaker 1: as I know, is not possible, and as far as
Speaker 1: I know, I think is the dumbest thing in the world,
Speaker 1: because why are we in the in the year twenty
Speaker 1: twenty and there is no webcam that attaches to your
Speaker 1: TV or.
Speaker 2: Are built in?
Speaker 1: Well, okay, now, built I'm all about built in. But
Speaker 1: here's the problem. There are a lot of people that
Speaker 1: are concerned about privacy, and so I think that TV
Speaker 1: manufacturers would love to have a camera in the TV,
Speaker 1: and it makes a lot of sense. But and I
Speaker 1: kind of get this, like.
Speaker 2: Do you really want to be ohones?
Speaker 1: And I know exactly, I know you're preaching to the
Speaker 1: choir here. And I think if they put a little
Speaker 1: shutter on it where you can slide it like a
Speaker 1: physical slide it open, slide it closed, I think that
Speaker 1: would be enough for most people. Now there's also the
Speaker 1: idea of the microphone on your TV, but a lot
Speaker 1: of smart TVs have a microphone in the remote or
Speaker 1: on the TV itself, And so I mean, we're almost there,
Speaker 1: And if it's really a privacy thing, I think that
Speaker 1: the benefits outweigh the privacy concerns. But that's just me.
Speaker 1: But even okay, even if you don't want to built in,
Speaker 1: I get that. I'm totally fine with not having it
Speaker 1: built in, But give me an option to plug a
Speaker 1: webcam into the USB port or even the HDMI port
Speaker 1: on the back of my TV and boom, I'm on Zoom,
Speaker 1: I'm on Facebook, I'm on Google, Meet, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to do that, and I'm
Speaker 1: so disappointed that we don't have this feature, especially with
Speaker 1: the current state of the pandemic affairs. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people have been airplaying there their phone or
Speaker 1: their iPad or whatever to your TV. It's not the same,
Speaker 1: I think. I just I just want to be able
Speaker 1: to sit in front of my TV and video chat.
Speaker 1: The other problem with most people video chatting is they're
Speaker 1: holding their phone. And I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: that makes me so like I can't my brain can't
Speaker 1: process all the movement. I actually thought of giving up
Speaker 1: everything in life right now to just start a company
Speaker 1: that makes of these cameras and what you. But here
Speaker 1: is the trick that you would really need to get
Speaker 1: for this to work. This could not be a camera
Speaker 1: that simply plugs into HDMI on your TV. The problem
Speaker 1: with that is you know your parents. I know my parents.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna switch inputs every time they want to
Speaker 1: web chat, right or video chat. You want to have
Speaker 1: it integrated into the Roku TV or into the whatever,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. M m m hm, like
Speaker 1: that that makes sense, Like you need to have this
Speaker 1: camera work with fire TV, it has to work with Roku,
Speaker 1: it has to work with Apple TV, and I'm just
Speaker 1: not sure those platforms would allow this sort of thing
Speaker 1: to happen, and they should. So whoever wants to own that,
Speaker 1: go ahead, start it up. I'm giving you the idea
Speaker 1: for free.
Speaker 2: You should do it.
Speaker 1: I would love to do it, but the I have
Speaker 1: no idea how to do anything technical.
Speaker 2: Oh but like.
Speaker 4: You have the idea or also it's like you just
Speaker 4: get the app for that on your TV, Like I
Speaker 4: could just download it to my Roku and that's clip
Speaker 4: the camera onto my TV or something like.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a really good idea.
Speaker 4: It's brilliant, especially now like we're realizing all the things.
Speaker 3: Like Okay, like I'd like to be able to do that.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't want to FaceTime on my phone.
Speaker 3: It's too small, like it's really it's wild.
Speaker 1: I agree, I agree, all right, so we're gonna, uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna work on that startup. But I then, now, okay,
Speaker 1: I know there's gonna be some people listening that are
Speaker 1: gonna be sitting there screaming at their podcast being like rich,
Speaker 1: don't you know that Facebook has the Facebook Portal TV?
Speaker 1: And yes, Facebook does have a device that sits on
Speaker 1: top of your TV. But guess what. It turns out
Speaker 1: that nobody trusts Facebook with their communications when it comes
Speaker 1: to video chatting. So that's why they that device has
Speaker 1: not taken off. And I think that's a great device,
Speaker 1: and I'm kidding about the trusting Facebook, but the reality
Speaker 1: is this, that's a device that requires you to switch
Speaker 1: inputs on your TV. Nobody wants to switch inputs on
Speaker 1: their TV. That's the bottom line. That's why everyone is
Speaker 1: ditching cable and going with the streaming apps because they
Speaker 1: want everything to work through their firestick or through their
Speaker 1: Roku and they don't want to deal with you know, oh,
Speaker 1: HDMI one is my fire is where I can watch Netflix,
Speaker 1: and HDMI two is my cable box and HGMI three
Speaker 1: nobody wants to deal with that. So that's why you
Speaker 1: need to make this thing successful by working with these platforms.
Speaker 1: All right, good question, Megan. So I guess I didn't
Speaker 1: really give an answer to Leanne.
Speaker 2: You're like, no web cam.
Speaker 1: Okay, here is really now. I love solving problems, and
Speaker 1: I love when apps solve problems. And this is a
Speaker 1: new app called pod Hero. And this tell me if
Speaker 1: you think this is brilliant or not. So the big
Speaker 1: problem with podcasts is that people love them, but podcasters
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of them are like not making any
Speaker 1: money off their podcasts. They have a good little audience,
Speaker 1: but if you want to try to sell ads, you
Speaker 1: need a certain amount of listeners. And by the way,
Speaker 1: it takes a whole team to sell those ads. And
Speaker 1: how are you going to talk to HelloFresh or these
Speaker 1: big companies, Like, You're just not gonna, you know, be
Speaker 1: able to do that on your own if you're also
Speaker 1: trying to do a million other things as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: So that's tough. There's no real subscription for apps. They
Speaker 1: tried one app that luminary. I think it was called
Speaker 1: but that failed. So what do you do? Well? This app,
Speaker 1: I think is pretty brilliant. It's called pod Hero and
Speaker 1: it's an app. It's a podcasting app. You pay six
Speaker 1: dollars a month for the app, and they take that
Speaker 1: subscription and they divide up the subscription by the shows
Speaker 1: that you subscribe to. So let's say you subscribe to
Speaker 1: two shows they give it's really five bucks a month
Speaker 1: because they take a dollar for their kind of cut,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean providing the service that's totally legit.
Speaker 1: So let's say it's five dollars a month. So let's
Speaker 1: say they give me two fifty and they give what's
Speaker 1: the podcast you listen to, the Girl Squad or.
Speaker 3: Something, oh the scrubbing in podcasts or whatever.
Speaker 1: So they give them to fifty.
Speaker 5: And they give me two fifty fifty though they probably
Speaker 5: have a lot of real ads.
Speaker 2: But yes, I totally hear what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Like, so me and beck A Tilly get to split
Speaker 1: the money. So I but isn't that an interesting way
Speaker 1: of attacking this problem? I mean it it's yeah. And
Speaker 1: here's the other thing. It doesn't the podcasters don't have
Speaker 1: to sign up. It just looks at the podcast you do.
Speaker 1: It reaches out to those podcasts and say, hey, we
Speaker 1: have ten thousand people that listen to you, and they're
Speaker 1: paying here's your you know, fifty bucks for the month
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. I think it's really cool. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's going to take off, but this
Speaker 1: is something that Apple should really look into. There's this
Speaker 1: whole idea of podcasts should be able to monetize, and
Speaker 1: they're having a lot of trouble because there are ways
Speaker 1: to do it. And yes, the big podcasts, I'm not
Speaker 1: crying for you. I'm talking about smaller podcasts and not
Speaker 1: even this one because this is a KTLA podcast, so
Speaker 1: it's not like I personally need to make money off
Speaker 1: this podcast. But if I was my own person doing this,
Speaker 1: it would be really I would look into ways of
Speaker 1: monetizing it. And I'm not going to sell ads because
Speaker 1: it's a scene, but something like this seems really cool
Speaker 1: and you push your followers to use this as their
Speaker 1: podcast app, and I think that's another problem because people
Speaker 1: kind of get comfortable with their app. They use Apple podcasts.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest, that's probably the most popular way people listen.
Speaker 1: So Apple needs to figure something out here.
Speaker 5: And podcasts are like free, so you're asking people to
Speaker 5: like pay and obviously I totally get why. But it's
Speaker 5: hard to get people to pay for something they could
Speaker 5: get for free.
Speaker 1: I agree with that, and I think that that's a
Speaker 1: big problem. But I also think there's a very big
Speaker 1: subset of people. Now you've said something interesting. You said
Speaker 1: they don't need the money to like the Becca whatever
Speaker 1: that podcast is scrubbing in. That's an iHeart say that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, like it's an iHeart podcast.
Speaker 1: It's a big podcast, so they don't need the money.
Speaker 1: You're right, now, could they always use more money? Sure?
Speaker 1: But you're right, it's a big, well funded podcast. But
Speaker 1: there are many podcasts out there that I personally I
Speaker 1: would think about supporting this way. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: the other problem is that you don't want to get
Speaker 1: into this world. And I think this is what pod
Speaker 1: hero kind of figured out. Let's say I ask for
Speaker 1: a dollar a month to support Let's say I did
Speaker 1: this podcast on my own and I was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: a dollar a month you go, or ten dollars for
Speaker 1: the year. No big deal, right, I mean ten You
Speaker 1: just sent me a dollar on venmo without even prompting. Right.
Speaker 1: The problem is do that times the fifty creators that
Speaker 1: you listen to, and now it becomes way more extensive. Right.
Speaker 1: And Netflix, by the way, is like nine dollars a
Speaker 1: month and you're getting a ton of stuff. So this
Speaker 1: is the problem that I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: run into when it comes to monetizing, is that there's
Speaker 1: no easy way when it comes to when you support
Speaker 1: a lot of independent creators. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: these companies and technology will someday figure out. Let's hope
Speaker 1: sooner than later. Can you believe it? Megan that is
Speaker 1: going to do it for this show. That's it finished.
Speaker 1: If you want to submit a question for me to answer,
Speaker 1: you can go to my website. It is rich on
Speaker 1: Tech dot tv. You can hit the email button at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the page that will send your email
Speaker 1: right to me. We'd also love it if you would
Speaker 1: rate and review the podcast to help other people discover it.
Speaker 1: We actually went over our free quota on this website
Speaker 1: last month, so that was good news. I guess a
Speaker 1: lot of you went there and rated it. Rate this
Speaker 1: podcast dot com slash rich on tech chas in Tech's
Speaker 1: was one of the last persons to rate this Meghan,
Speaker 1: what did he say?
Speaker 2: He said, Rich.
Speaker 3: Helps me keep up, keeps me up to date on
Speaker 3: the latest technology, and helps me when I have tech problems.
Speaker 1: Very good. He only gave us four stars, though, I
Speaker 1: guess he likes he likes the show, but with reservations.
Speaker 1: He was like, oh fine, I'll I guess I'll do this.
Speaker 1: Producer Megan, where can folks find you on social media?
Speaker 3: I am at producer Megan on Twitter, and you.
Speaker 1: Can find me at Rich on Tech on all platforms,
Speaker 1: including including Venmo. You can. Yeah, so I love that
Speaker 1: the idea that someone could just randomly send me like
Speaker 1: one hundred bucks on Venmo, Like, isn't that weird? Can
Speaker 1: you send anyone money even if you don't know them?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, that's going to do it for us. I'm
Speaker 1: Rich dmiro on behalf of everyone that gets this show
Speaker 1: to your ears. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk
Speaker 1: to you real soon.