Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and Welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I Heart Radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech, and a couple of years ago, I
Speaker 1: did a pair of episodes about How Stuff Works and
Speaker 1: how I and several of my coworkers transitioned from being
Speaker 1: on the editorial staff of a website to becoming podcasters
Speaker 1: and producers and a podcast network. And I got a
Speaker 1: request from Chad Ingles on Twitter to follow up that
Speaker 1: story because a couple of years have gone by and
Speaker 1: some other stuff has happened, and besides, while I talked
Speaker 1: mostly about the experience of writing and recording at the company,
Speaker 1: I didn't really go into as much of the background
Speaker 1: of the company itself as I could have. So rather
Speaker 1: than just do a follow up, I'm kind of doing
Speaker 1: a big picture journey of How Stuff Works up to today.
Speaker 1: But there's gonna be a lot of high level stuff
Speaker 1: because there's no point in getting down and dirty with
Speaker 1: every single era of How Stuff Works. So here's an
Speaker 1: episode about what's been going on over the last several years.
Speaker 1: Now to give the quick rundown. Marshall Brain and yes
Speaker 1: that is his real name, founded the how stuff Works
Speaker 1: website back in the late nineteen nineties, though it wasn't
Speaker 1: an honest to goodness business just yet. Marshall Brain had
Speaker 1: taught computer science at North Carolina State University prior to
Speaker 1: working on the website, and he wanted to create a
Speaker 1: website that could give clear, concise explanations for different subjects. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it would grow into this effort to demystify the universe,
Speaker 1: one topic at a time, and it would include articles
Speaker 1: and illustrations to really break down well how stuff works.
Speaker 1: One of the earliest and most successful articles was about
Speaker 1: our engines, and it would sort of establish the model
Speaker 1: for all future how x works style articles on the site.
Speaker 1: Brain raised funds in the effort to launch how stuff
Speaker 1: Works as a business, and with around five million dollars
Speaker 1: in investments, he launched how stuff Works the company in
Speaker 1: January two thousand. He was able to secure investments to
Speaker 1: get things in motion, and by two thousand one the
Speaker 1: company had grown to nearly forty employees and the goal
Speaker 1: was still the same. It was to create engaging, easy
Speaker 1: to understand articles explaining the universe one topic at a time.
Speaker 1: But while the site was creating content, it was having
Speaker 1: trouble attracting advertisers and making enough revenue through web advertisement
Speaker 1: to support operations, and that made it necessary to seek
Speaker 1: additional rounds of funding or go out of business. The
Speaker 1: company would also have to downsize, laying off about half
Speaker 1: the staff. And I guess I could explain really quickly
Speaker 1: how web advertising works. I'm sure most of you have
Speaker 1: at least a basic understanding of it. Typically, for a
Speaker 1: website like this, you were selling some sort of real
Speaker 1: estate on the web page. It might be the right rail,
Speaker 1: it might be a banner ad, it might be a
Speaker 1: pop up ad, and you get paid for the number
Speaker 1: of page views that the web page with that advertisement gets,
Speaker 1: so the more people who view that page, the more
Speaker 1: money you make. Sometimes advertisers also will include something about
Speaker 1: click through, so instead of the number of page views,
Speaker 1: it's how many people actually clicked on the ad to
Speaker 1: go to whatever the the ad was leading. So in
Speaker 1: those cases you have to hope for a viewer action
Speaker 1: or a visitor action rather than just viewing the page.
Speaker 1: So that was essentially the basis for all web revenue
Speaker 1: for a very long time. It's changed a little bit,
Speaker 1: although web advertising still plays an incredibly important part in
Speaker 1: UH and generating money for sites that are on the web,
Speaker 1: like news sites and things like that. So Marshall Brain
Speaker 1: had initially served as the CEO of this company, but
Speaker 1: he stepped aside for Marco Fregenal, a co founder of
Speaker 1: the company, to take over, and he would leave in
Speaker 1: two thousand one. Marco that is, and Dean Jordan's, who
Speaker 1: had served as the president for the Carolina Hurricanes the
Speaker 1: sports team, became the new CEO of the company. Jordan
Speaker 1: arranged to have a private company called the Convex Group
Speaker 1: purchase how Stuff Works before he departed and was replaced
Speaker 1: by a guy named Joe kiss ak Now. The purchase
Speaker 1: price for how Stuff Works was reported to be a
Speaker 1: bit more than a million dollars according to the Business Journal.
Speaker 1: Investors in the company were assigned promissory notes that they
Speaker 1: had the potential to pay off big time if the
Speaker 1: Convex Group were to sell How Stuff Works to a
Speaker 1: different company. More on that in just a little bit.
Speaker 1: So How Stuff Works had been based in Carrie, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: which is just outside Raleigh. The Convex Group was a
Speaker 1: group of investors based in Atlanta, Georgia, and at the
Speaker 1: helm of the Convex Group was a guy named Jeff Arnold,
Speaker 1: the founder of web md. So. Arnold had founded web
Speaker 1: m d and and it was phenomenally successful. Propelled Arnold
Speaker 1: into an entrepreneurial role, and he started a company called
Speaker 1: lid Rock, which used to put c d s in
Speaker 1: the lids of drinks sold at places like movie theaters. Yes,
Speaker 1: we used to have lid Rock c ds in our
Speaker 1: office once upon a time. He became chairman and CEO
Speaker 1: of How Stuff Works, and the headquarters moved to Atlanta,
Speaker 1: though a lot of people still stayed in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: The site did grow a bit in those early years.
Speaker 1: It really peaked in two thousand five, a couple of
Speaker 1: years before I would come on board, at least in
Speaker 1: terms of traffic going to the website. But then traffic
Speaker 1: began slowing down and the company had deal with the
Speaker 1: implications of that, including reduced revenue. And if your costs
Speaker 1: remain the same but your revenue is going down, you
Speaker 1: start to realize you're gonna need to make some changes
Speaker 1: pretty soon or you'll be on a slippery slope to bankruptcy. Now,
Speaker 1: when I joined house Stop Works in the winter of
Speaker 1: two thousand seven February two thousand seven, I still remember it.
Speaker 1: At that point, it was still under the umbrella of
Speaker 1: the Convex Group. Jeff Arnold maintained an office in our headquarters.
Speaker 1: It was a really big office, pretty swanky. Actually. We
Speaker 1: would eventually turn that office into a break area that
Speaker 1: nobody on the editorial side ever really used. It was
Speaker 1: really nice, had ping pong table and other stuff in it,
Speaker 1: and um or actually it was a foosball table and
Speaker 1: some other stuff in it, and and none of us
Speaker 1: in editorial ever felt like we had the time to
Speaker 1: go over there. But the sales team liked it, and
Speaker 1: the marketing team liked it, but um that's beside the point. Anyway.
Speaker 1: A few of my current coworkers, people who still work
Speaker 1: day to day with me, we're actually around back then.
Speaker 1: They either had been working there for a little while
Speaker 1: or they joined shortly after I did, and they also
Speaker 1: got to experience what life was like under the Convex era.
Speaker 1: And when I started, my job was pretty straightforward. I
Speaker 1: would receive an article assignment and I had a week
Speaker 1: to write the article, and then a week to revise
Speaker 1: the article based on any editorial responses, and I'd have
Speaker 1: another article to write as I was revising the previous ones.
Speaker 1: So I'd be working on one article and finishing up
Speaker 1: another one each week. So I'd research art for the
Speaker 1: articles as well. I would either request illustrations from some
Speaker 1: in house talent that we had at the company, or
Speaker 1: I would select images on the web and then try
Speaker 1: to reach out to get permission from the rights holders
Speaker 1: to get permission to use the photos on the site.
Speaker 1: This was in the old Wild West Web days, when
Speaker 1: even taking that step was seen as being pretty conservative.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who were just grabbing
Speaker 1: images and posting them online without any effort to track
Speaker 1: down whoever owned the rights to that image. Now these days,
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works purchases licenses from various stock photo libraries
Speaker 1: to make sure that any images used on the site
Speaker 1: are done so with no possible ownership problems, because one
Speaker 1: thing that can happen, and it has happened to lots
Speaker 1: of websites out there, is that they will post an
Speaker 1: image that they don't have the rights to, and then
Speaker 1: someone with the rights will end up making a big
Speaker 1: fuss about it legitimately, so I mean it's the rights
Speaker 1: to their intellectual property. And then typically that sort of
Speaker 1: stuff can end up going to court. Usually it's settled
Speaker 1: out of court. But that's a problem no one wants
Speaker 1: to have because at the very least, it will probably
Speaker 1: mean taking the art down for an article and needing
Speaker 1: to replace it with something else. Uh. At the at
Speaker 1: the most, it's going to mean a big payout that
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to make to somebody when you could
Speaker 1: have avoided that just by going through something like the
Speaker 1: stock photo route. Now every week I would join my
Speaker 1: fellow writers. There are really only two other writers back
Speaker 1: in those days that Tracy Wilson of Stuff You Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class was one of them. She was the
Speaker 1: senior writer on staff. Then there was me, and then
Speaker 1: we had another writer who wrote what we called question
Speaker 1: of the Day articles. Those were much shorter articles that
Speaker 1: tried to answer a simple question each day. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then the editor editors also would meet there, along with
Speaker 1: the interim head of editorial at the time, and we
Speaker 1: would talk about article ideas. We would have a pitch session,
Speaker 1: we'd have a conversation about which ones we thought were interesting,
Speaker 1: and then eventually the assignments would be based off of
Speaker 1: those discussions and then would go out to the various writers. Generally,
Speaker 1: before writing an article, the writer would create a list
Speaker 1: of questions that he or she expected the article to
Speaker 1: be able to answer. So you'd say, all right, you've
Speaker 1: got how washing machine means work. Here are the questions
Speaker 1: I think this article needs to answer. So it might
Speaker 1: be who invented the washing machine? How old is the
Speaker 1: washing machine? How does washing machine clean clothes? Like these
Speaker 1: would all be the basic questions that you think an
Speaker 1: article should answer, and you would share that with the
Speaker 1: other members of the editorial team, and they could add
Speaker 1: more questions so that you made sure that you had
Speaker 1: a good, fleshed out article that addressed all the questions
Speaker 1: it should. Otherwise you might overlook something and it could
Speaker 1: be something simple, it could be something fundamental. In a
Speaker 1: lot of cases, the questions that would get added, either
Speaker 1: mostly by Tracy or myself, would be about physics and science,
Speaker 1: so not just how something works, but why does it
Speaker 1: work that way? What makes it possible? Though, we were
Speaker 1: often the sticks in the mud that would add those questions, saying, well,
Speaker 1: it's not just enough for you to say it does
Speaker 1: this thing, We really do need to know how it
Speaker 1: is it anyway, it gave people the chance to create
Speaker 1: a framework for their articles as well, kind of thinking
Speaker 1: out what uh structure the article should take, and we
Speaker 1: called this the initial approach. Then the writer would start
Speaker 1: pulling research both online and offline and get an understanding
Speaker 1: needed to write the article in question. The writing staff
Speaker 1: took up a relatively small amount of the space we
Speaker 1: had on the fifteenth floor of an office building. The
Speaker 1: building we were in at the time. This office was
Speaker 1: in a part of Atlanta called Buckhead that has lots
Speaker 1: of shopping and restaurants. Buckett mostly caters to a slightly
Speaker 1: higher end crowd, kind of a the upper middle class
Speaker 1: maybe lower upper class kind of crowd, and it was
Speaker 1: also in close proximity to Mr Arnold's home. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that was coincidental. The rest of our floor was taken
Speaker 1: up with web developers who were building out and supporting
Speaker 1: the features that made our site work very important. Obviously
Speaker 1: there's no website without them, and they were great, they
Speaker 1: were fantastic. And then we also had our sales and
Speaker 1: marketing teams in charge of making deals for web advertising
Speaker 1: and then you know a few others as well. Now,
Speaker 1: starting shortly after I joined, the company began to make
Speaker 1: a more concerted effort to build out the editorial staff.
Speaker 1: Like I said, when I started, Tracy and I were
Speaker 1: really the only full time staff writers. A couple of
Speaker 1: years before I came to How Stuff Works, the staff
Speaker 1: had been quite a bit larger. In fact, they were
Speaker 1: even working on really fun ideas that were grouped under
Speaker 1: the the title stuff Oh. These were articles that were
Speaker 1: more kind of hypothetical in nature and and a little
Speaker 1: more lighthearted, things like who would win in a fight
Speaker 1: Superman or a Jedi? That kind of stuff like things
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't typically find on a house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: web page. But that staff was long gone by the
Speaker 1: time I joined, and so with STUFFO for that matter.
Speaker 1: So there have been departures and layoffs in the editorial
Speaker 1: department before my arrival, and it brought it down to
Speaker 1: that small size of just Tracy and I being the
Speaker 1: full time staff writers. We also had a few freelance
Speaker 1: writers who would contribute articles occasionally, and we had the
Speaker 1: Stuff of the Day or the Question of the Day
Speaker 1: uh writer as well. Now then we had a guy
Speaker 1: named Carl Burne, who joined our team to head up
Speaker 1: the editorial department. We began adding more people to the
Speaker 1: editorial staff, people like Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant. They
Speaker 1: joined on, and behind the scenes, a big deal was
Speaker 1: slowly coalescing, though most of us working on articles only
Speaker 1: got hints that something was going on at the time.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there were other people in the editorial staff
Speaker 1: who knew much more than I did at the time.
Speaker 1: I tend to be pretty far behind on those sort
Speaker 1: of things. I'm not the most observant of people, I
Speaker 1: think when it comes to corporate culture. But yes, there
Speaker 1: was a big, big thing going on, and that big
Speaker 1: thing was a deal between the Convex Group and Discovery Communications.
Speaker 1: That's the company that owns the Discovery Channel, the Science Channel,
Speaker 1: TLC and more. Discovery, as it turned out, was struggling
Speaker 1: to create a digital footprint. The company was doing really
Speaker 1: well in cable, but companies are measured in growth year
Speaker 1: over year typically, and Discovery was starting to run out
Speaker 1: of places to grow into, particularly in North America. It
Speaker 1: had pretty much reached saturation in the United States, and
Speaker 1: it was hard to grow in a place where most
Speaker 1: of the cable subscribing population already has access to your channels.
Speaker 1: The future appeared to be online anyway, so there was
Speaker 1: a strong incentive to invest in growing the company's Internet presence.
Speaker 1: Discovery hadn't had a whole lot of success in that regard,
Speaker 1: despite being a big media company, and that led to
Speaker 1: the deal in which the Convex Group would sell How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works to Discovery Communications for the princely sum of
Speaker 1: two hundred fifty million dollars. Those promissory notes must have
Speaker 1: looked pretty darn good at that point. Remember this was
Speaker 1: initially a five million dollar investment, and then the value
Speaker 1: had crept down to a million dollars and it was
Speaker 1: sold for two hundred fifty million dollars, an incredible deal.
Speaker 1: Discovery told The Wall Street Journal that the plan was
Speaker 1: to leverage the House Stuff Works website to quote or
Speaker 1: as quote, the cornerstone of an effort to bring its
Speaker 1: vast library of video content to the web end quote. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, the way Discovery was looking at How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works was largely as a platform for all of
Speaker 1: the video that Discovery was sitting on in its countless
Speaker 1: hours of production of various television series. That's not exactly
Speaker 1: how it turned out, and honestly, I'm a little thankful
Speaker 1: for that, because if how stuff Works had only become
Speaker 1: a repository for uh discovery videos, then I might not
Speaker 1: have a job. The acquisition did bring with it some
Speaker 1: painful changes, if I'm going to be brutally honest. Way
Speaker 1: back in the day, when we were under the Convex Group,
Speaker 1: how stuff Works employees had a an unbelievably super sweet
Speaker 1: benefits package. I mean, it was incredible. It included a
Speaker 1: health plan, the basic health plan, in which the company
Speaker 1: paid the entire cost. There was no employee contribution apart
Speaker 1: from the regular copay stuff, so your monthly contribution was
Speaker 1: completely covered by your employer. It was just your co
Speaker 1: pay that you had to pay. That was incredible, it
Speaker 1: was it made medical care very affordable. And way back
Speaker 1: in those days, we would also get our paychecks every
Speaker 1: two weeks. It was just a bi weekly schedule. Then
Speaker 1: we had the acquisition and things changed. Discovery couldn't operate
Speaker 1: like an internet startup that was run by entrepreneurs, you know.
Speaker 1: And it to be totally fair, I mean, this was
Speaker 1: a major company. They could not operate at that scale
Speaker 1: with those same sort of benefits, it just wasn't possible.
Speaker 1: So the health plan would mean employees would have to
Speaker 1: pay for coverage. There was now going to be an
Speaker 1: employee contribution each month, and that was an initial blow
Speaker 1: to a lot of folks on staff who hadn't really
Speaker 1: budgeted for that. And in addition, Discoveries pay schedule, at
Speaker 1: least at the time, I don't know what it is
Speaker 1: now that at the time it was fixed to be
Speaker 1: the fifteen and the thirty of every month, or the
Speaker 1: closest work day to whatever those dates are. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously February it's going to be et cetera. All to
Speaker 1: align with the Discovery schedule. It meant that we were
Speaker 1: actually gonna have to go one extra week without a paycheck,
Speaker 1: just because the way the calendar fell. So that was
Speaker 1: kind of scary for some people who weren't you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't have a whole lot of money put aside,
Speaker 1: and so to go an extra week without a paycheck,
Speaker 1: plus knowing that some of that money was going into
Speaker 1: an employee contribution to a health plan was a little
Speaker 1: bit of a tough pill to swallow. Now, as it
Speaker 1: turns out, Discovery made some concessions to ease the transition
Speaker 1: a bit. Uh. The company did try to make it
Speaker 1: a little bit easier for people, but I distinctly remember
Speaker 1: early on before that happened, the anxiety in our office
Speaker 1: was pretty palpable, especially amongst certain people. Some of us
Speaker 1: were fortunate, like I happened. My wife happens to have
Speaker 1: very good benefits, so I was able to rely on
Speaker 1: on that instead on her benefits, and so that I
Speaker 1: had a cushion there. But not everyone was in as
Speaker 1: privileged a position as I was. Now. Our time with
Speaker 1: Discovery head its ups and downs. On the good side,
Speaker 1: we were able to launch podcasts for the very first
Speaker 1: time back in two thousand and eight. That was under
Speaker 1: Discovery Stuff you Should Know was the first of our
Speaker 1: podcasts out of the gate, and then we become and
Speaker 1: remain our most popular show in the network. We also
Speaker 1: got the chance to work more in video. Occasionally. I
Speaker 1: remember shooting videos in which I juggled flaming torches. There
Speaker 1: was a series I shot with Chris Palette, my original
Speaker 1: co host, where we talked about a Windows mobile app
Speaker 1: for How Stuff Works. That were a lot of fun. Uh.
Speaker 1: The app is, as far as I know no longer
Speaker 1: Things since Windows Mobile isn't really a thing, but those
Speaker 1: videos still live on if you want to do a
Speaker 1: search for them, and they are goofy just like me.
Speaker 1: We also butted up against some issues back then under Discovery,
Speaker 1: such as creating a lot of custom content for advertisers.
Speaker 1: Custom content is a fun way of saying, the advertiser
Speaker 1: would really like you to write about this topic, and
Speaker 1: they'll give you money for you to do it. And
Speaker 1: it's not always a bad thing. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: mean to say it's automatically bad. It's not. If it's
Speaker 1: done right, it can end up being great because it
Speaker 1: benefits them, it benefits you. You can get more access
Speaker 1: to experts and insight than you would on a normal assignment,
Speaker 1: and so if it's a good assignment, it could be
Speaker 1: a great fit. But sometimes in the process of making
Speaker 1: a big sale, you end up promising some deliverables that
Speaker 1: might in the long run hurt your operations. And we
Speaker 1: had a couple of instances of that back in the
Speaker 1: Discovery days. And I'm not blaming it one here. I mean,
Speaker 1: those sales were big, and they were important and they
Speaker 1: helped us stay in business. But at the same time, uh,
Speaker 1: they weren't great from a content perspective. We had to
Speaker 1: write a lot of articles that the editorial department felt
Speaker 1: were a little repetitive and uh, focus too much on
Speaker 1: some narrow topics, and that was not great. And visitors
Speaker 1: were noticing too. They were we were getting emails about it.
Speaker 1: So it was a bit of a growing pains kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Now, it did mean that we were able
Speaker 1: to learn from the experience and establish a better policy
Speaker 1: regarding sales and custom content moving forward, So it was
Speaker 1: valuable in the long run, but it was a little rough.
Speaker 1: Alt a lot more to say, But first, since we're
Speaker 1: speaking of paying the bills, let's take a quick break,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna be real with you guys. One
Speaker 1: other thing that happened during the Discovery years that was
Speaker 1: a bit tough on some of us was that there
Speaker 1: were more than a few rounds of layoffs in our
Speaker 1: time with Discovery. The Hell Stuff Works team was rolled
Speaker 1: into the overall Discovery Digital team, and Discovery was struggling
Speaker 1: a bit creating on working a holistic approach to the
Speaker 1: digital platforms. It had a lot of them, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't really sure about what to do with all of them.
Speaker 1: We never really felt like we were part of a
Speaker 1: cohesive online strategy, and at one point I realized that
Speaker 1: the editorial department had been reduced to the point that
Speaker 1: almost every single person who was still on staff also
Speaker 1: happened to have a podcast. The writers and editors who
Speaker 1: weren't on podcasts, most of them weren't on staff anymore
Speaker 1: unless they were at the most senior level of editor.
Speaker 1: And I don't think there was anything personal about these decisions,
Speaker 1: but it was a tough thing to see, and it
Speaker 1: also kind of painted a picture that podcasting might be
Speaker 1: the future for the company, but in a way that
Speaker 1: nobody wanted to see. I had a lot of good
Speaker 1: coworkers who were let go, and frankly I missed them.
Speaker 1: They were great to work with. Anyway, We just kept
Speaker 1: plugging away. The podcasts were growing, but rarely were we
Speaker 1: running any advertising on them, so they still weren't really
Speaker 1: a revenue generator. And for a while we were doing
Speaker 1: really well in search traffic. People would search topics on
Speaker 1: Google and frequently our page would pop up in the
Speaker 1: first few results. And that's great, but it's also a
Speaker 1: double edged sword because search algorithms can change, and what
Speaker 1: works well for you one day might not end up
Speaker 1: working so well the next day. And that's what happened
Speaker 1: a couple of times. Google would tweak the search algorithm
Speaker 1: and sometimes we wouldn't show up in the top results,
Speaker 1: even if we had an article on that topic. And
Speaker 1: this illustrates an important point anyone running an Internet business
Speaker 1: should keep in mind. Search engine optimization or SEO is important.
Speaker 1: It's often how people will end up finding your stuff,
Speaker 1: but relying heavily on search result means always having to
Speaker 1: play catch up to the search engines in question, which,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, it's really Google that we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: So when Google changes, you have to change too, or
Speaker 1: else you'll see a drop in traffic. And this means
Speaker 1: your platform is dependent upon something outside of your own control.
Speaker 1: It's important to try and mitigate that by either using
Speaker 1: multiple platforms or establishing your own platform as a must
Speaker 1: visit place. And that was always the goal, but it's
Speaker 1: easier said than done. We kept writing articles, and we
Speaker 1: kept recording podcasts. I kept going to c e s
Speaker 1: every year. Our office in Buckhead got smaller. At one
Speaker 1: point we occupied the fifteen floor of an office building.
Speaker 1: Then we reduced down to about half of that floor,
Speaker 1: with the other half being leased out to another company.
Speaker 1: Then we moved down to the eleventh floor and we
Speaker 1: took up even less space. As editorial staff, we went
Speaker 1: from having cubicles to work stations with a little divider
Speaker 1: between them, and now we don't even have the dividers.
Speaker 1: It was a series of changes that were difficult to
Speaker 1: get used to. We also would have to record podcasts
Speaker 1: in a corner office in those eleventh floor days, and
Speaker 1: that corner office was above Peach Tree Street, which is
Speaker 1: a major road in Atlanta, and so you can hear
Speaker 1: a lot of traffic noises. You could occasionally hear a
Speaker 1: whistle because we had Baton Bob, who is a local
Speaker 1: character here in Atlanta, who would march up and down
Speaker 1: Peach Tree blowing a whistle. The Ambassador of Smiles is
Speaker 1: fantastic to see on the street, but not necessarily someone
Speaker 1: you want to have whistling on your podcast every week. Also,
Speaker 1: we would occasionally get protesters outside the building, not for
Speaker 1: how stuff works. They were protesting a different business that
Speaker 1: had its headquarters in the same building we were in.
Speaker 1: But you can still hear them occasionally, so if you
Speaker 1: listen to episodes from around or fourteen, you might hear
Speaker 1: some of that noise. Also around that time, I got
Speaker 1: to start a series called Forward Thinking. Initially it was
Speaker 1: solely a video series that looked at ways science and
Speaker 1: technology could make a positive impact on the future, and
Speaker 1: eventually we launched a companion podcast, also called Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: which I co hosted with Lauren Vogelbaum and Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: In addition to Forward Thinking, we were also shooting videos
Speaker 1: for series like brain Stuff. Our video production really was
Speaker 1: beginning to ramp up. In fact, before we moved down
Speaker 1: to the eleventh floor, we had the Eternal Meeting series
Speaker 1: of videos that Connel Byrne. You know, he actually went
Speaker 1: into a a conference room, all of us kind of
Speaker 1: gathered around it, and for about forty five minutes he
Speaker 1: gave us a bogus meeting using lots of of of
Speaker 1: business speak that really meant nothing, but was amazing. And
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen the videos of Josh and Chuck
Speaker 1: where they're texting each other and you're getting the little
Speaker 1: text messages as they are talking about some sort of
Speaker 1: interesting topic, that came from that long, long video shoot,
Speaker 1: and it was a phenomenal phenomenal afternoon. In the spring
Speaker 1: of fourteen, our time with Discovery Communications would come to
Speaker 1: an end. We were sold off to another company called
Speaker 1: Blue Cora b l U c O r A. It's
Speaker 1: a company that's also known as Infospace. In fact, it
Speaker 1: was originally called Infospace, but changed its name to Blue
Speaker 1: Cora in twelve after it bought another company called tax Act,
Speaker 1: and Infospace would become a business unit within the company.
Speaker 1: Infospace is the search company that has its own pretty
Speaker 1: checkered past that I'm not going to go into here
Speaker 1: because it doesn't really play into our episode about how
Speaker 1: stuff works. But how stuff works was sold off for
Speaker 1: forty five million dollars. That represented an eighty two percent
Speaker 1: loss for Discovery Communications. Remember they spent two d fifty
Speaker 1: million years earlier, seven years earlier to buy it. Now
Speaker 1: all this is public knowledge, by the way, it's not
Speaker 1: time divulging secrets. It was a pretty rough time for
Speaker 1: some of us working at the company, or at the
Speaker 1: very least it was for me. I can't speak for
Speaker 1: everyone else, because we had gone from being part of
Speaker 1: a two fifty million dollar deal to seven years later
Speaker 1: being sold off for forty five million dollars. Which hurt.
Speaker 1: We weren't really sure where we would fit in with
Speaker 1: blue Cora. The company was known for not just infospace
Speaker 1: but also for tax act you know, financial services, and
Speaker 1: blue Core had purchased that back in two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: We assumed that our role would be to keep creating
Speaker 1: articles and podcasts, and for the most part, we operated
Speaker 1: in Atlanta just as we had before, and we were
Speaker 1: still in Buckhead at that time. But then in two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, our office would move to its current location
Speaker 1: in Ponce City Market, in a part of Atlanta known
Speaker 1: as the Old Fourth Ward, much closer to where I live,
Speaker 1: which is nice for me. I can now walk to
Speaker 1: work at about the same amount of time it took
Speaker 1: me to take public transportation to our old office. I'm
Speaker 1: not really saving time, but I'm getting a lot more exercise.
Speaker 1: Pont City Market used to be an old distribution center
Speaker 1: and storefront for Sears, and it's huge, with two million,
Speaker 1: one thousand square feet of space. When we moved in,
Speaker 1: the building was mostly under construction, and today you can
Speaker 1: walk around the first two floors of the market and
Speaker 1: visit all these different shops and restaurants. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: But when we moved in. All of that was just
Speaker 1: bare concrete. In fact, it was a hard hat area,
Speaker 1: and we had a very narrow pathway we could take
Speaker 1: from the door to the bank of elevators we could
Speaker 1: use to get up to the floor that has our
Speaker 1: office on it. And I only mentioned this because if
Speaker 1: you listen to podcast episodes from around the summer of
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen, you might occasionally hear the tell tale
Speaker 1: sounds of construction noises as the building was being prepared
Speaker 1: for news stores and residents during that time. We were
Speaker 1: producing a lot more video content during this time of
Speaker 1: our history as well. Not only were we still doing
Speaker 1: brain Stuff and Forward Thinking Now, we were also producing
Speaker 1: videos for How Stuff Works Now, which was a or
Speaker 1: news oriented series. We also began to experiment with live streams,
Speaker 1: including How Stuff Works Now live streams and fun stuff
Speaker 1: like Snack Stuff, in which Lauren Vogel, Bob and Ben
Speaker 1: Boland would eat unfamiliar snack foods live on camera. I
Speaker 1: showed up for a few of those. Those were typically
Speaker 1: streamed on Facebook, and we were starting to run ads
Speaker 1: on our podcasts at this time, and some shows were
Speaker 1: doing it pretty frequently. Stuff you should know obviously being
Speaker 1: one of the flagship ones. The forward Thinking video series
Speaker 1: was sponsored, but other shows were generating revenue through the
Speaker 1: tried and true YouTube model, and of course we were
Speaker 1: still writing articles for the website, plus writing more short
Speaker 1: form material for the blog, like pages on how Stuff Works. Now. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: over at Blue Cora, things were changing. The company that
Speaker 1: had started off as Infospace was focusing more and more
Speaker 1: on financial services, like its tax Act business, and so
Speaker 1: the powers that be decided that the most logical thing
Speaker 1: to do would be to sell off the infospace business
Speaker 1: to someone else, and that How Stuff Works would go
Speaker 1: along with the deal. So in July two thousand sixteen,
Speaker 1: Blue Cora announced it had sold Infospace and How Stuff
Speaker 1: Works to a company called open Mail for forty five
Speaker 1: million dollars. And yet again this was a bit of
Speaker 1: a downer. I mean, the last time How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: have been sold it was for forty five million dollars
Speaker 1: all by itself, and now the company was being bought
Speaker 1: along with another company at that same price. And I
Speaker 1: want to stress that during all these changes, my co
Speaker 1: workers were all striving to write and record the best
Speaker 1: stuff they could. The quality was never in question either
Speaker 1: among the editorial staff, the video staff. Everybody was doing
Speaker 1: an amazing job, but it was really feeling pretty weird
Speaker 1: at this point, at least for me. I can't really
Speaker 1: speak for anyone else. On the bright side, open Mail
Speaker 1: was super nice to us. The company seemed determined to
Speaker 1: give us space to create and support what we needed.
Speaker 1: Um so we were able to to try lots of
Speaker 1: different stuff, and by this time many podcasters myself included,
Speaker 1: would transition over to only researching, writing, and recording podcasts,
Speaker 1: not articles. It was really rare that I would write
Speaker 1: articles for the site after that point. The once in
Speaker 1: a blue moon I would still do it. The process
Speaker 1: of researching and writing an article for how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: is sort of like doing a term paper. You have
Speaker 1: to be very thorough, you have to be informative, and
Speaker 1: you have to make sure you have reliable sources when
Speaker 1: you write it, and it takes a lot of time
Speaker 1: to put a good article together. The same truth with podcasts,
Speaker 1: and as we focused more on doing shows, we found
Speaker 1: ourselves with less time to devote to writing articles. So
Speaker 1: we started using more freelancers for that, and occasionally, like
Speaker 1: I said, we would write an article ourselves. Open Mail
Speaker 1: would change its name to System One, but that was
Speaker 1: a tiny change compared to what was going to happen next.
Speaker 1: In August two thousand seventeen, the company announced it was
Speaker 1: going to spin off the podcasting part of How Stuff
Speaker 1: Works as its own independent company, which became known as
Speaker 1: Stuff Media. The website part of the business, however, would
Speaker 1: remain with System One, and so our office was now
Speaker 1: made up of people working for two different companies, though
Speaker 1: there was still a ton of cross pollination. And it's
Speaker 1: a weird thing for me to think about at this point,
Speaker 1: because you know, I I started with How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I started with that company in two thousand seven. I
Speaker 1: had started as a staff writer. I worked my way
Speaker 1: up to senior writer and then became a podcaster. But
Speaker 1: at that point, and by that point, I mean two
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen, I was part of something else. Stuff Media
Speaker 1: was a slightly different company, though we continued to inhabit
Speaker 1: the same office space for the time being anyway, but
Speaker 1: it was clear things were changing. It was also clear
Speaker 1: that we'd start ramping up working on new shows before long,
Speaker 1: though at first we were really focused on just making
Speaker 1: sure we could foster the shows we had already been
Speaker 1: recording and give them the love and attention they needed.
Speaker 1: The spinoff of Stuff Media included a fifteen million dollar
Speaker 1: investment from a company called The Rain Group. Kamal Byrne,
Speaker 1: who had led How Stuff Works for years before transitioning
Speaker 1: to Discovery Communications, returned to serve as president of the
Speaker 1: new media company. He's the guy responsible for getting us
Speaker 1: into podcasts, By the way, the hosts and producers owe
Speaker 1: a lot to him forgetting the ball rolling, particularly since
Speaker 1: we went for years without having a way to actually
Speaker 1: generate revenue from the shows. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: leaders would have ditched the podcasts in favor of focusing
Speaker 1: on more short term goals. In fact, I know that's
Speaker 1: the case because I've seen it happen at other places.
Speaker 1: But we were able to keep things moving long enough
Speaker 1: for podcasting to become a viable industry in its own right.
Speaker 1: By this time we spun off from System One, we
Speaker 1: were ranked as the second largest podcast publisher behind NPR
Speaker 1: in terms of streams and downloads. But I'm not done
Speaker 1: with our story just yet. I'll tell you more in
Speaker 1: just a moment, but first let's take another quick break.
Speaker 1: The months went by and we continued producing podcasts. The
Speaker 1: website side continued doing their thing, and then in September
Speaker 1: two eighteen, it was announced that I Heart Media, the
Speaker 1: audio company formerly known as Clear Channel, was acquiring Stuff
Speaker 1: Media for the reported princely sum of fifty five million dollars.
Speaker 1: By this stage, the stuff Media network consisted of about
Speaker 1: twenty five shows, and it was an interesting move in
Speaker 1: part because at the time, I heart Media was still
Speaker 1: restructuring under Chapter eleven bankruptcy protection, having accumulated a pretty
Speaker 1: gargantuan debt of around twenty billion dollars. I Heart Media
Speaker 1: was in the process of spinning off clear Channel Outdoor Holdings,
Speaker 1: which was its outdoor advertising business think like you know,
Speaker 1: digital billboards and stuff like that. That process became complete
Speaker 1: in May two thousand nineteen. The acquisition received approval even
Speaker 1: as I heart Media continued to restructure its As for
Speaker 1: the company itself, it is the largest owner of radio
Speaker 1: stations in the United States. It owns more than eight
Speaker 1: hundred fifty stations. The company also produces and distributes many podcasts.
Speaker 1: The stuff Media podcast network was seen as a way
Speaker 1: to develop that further, and boy, howdy, have we been
Speaker 1: producing a lot of new shows since then. We've launched
Speaker 1: numerous podcasts leading up to and following the move to
Speaker 1: I Heeart Media. Now you still have the flagship Stuff
Speaker 1: shows like Stuff you Know, stuff you missed in history class,
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, stuff Mom never told you, stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know, and of course tech Stuff. I've
Speaker 1: heard rumors that at least one former Stuff show maybe
Speaker 1: on its way back very soon, but I'll share more
Speaker 1: about that once it happens. Just wanted to seed a
Speaker 1: little excitement out there that something has coming down the
Speaker 1: pipeline now. In addition to the Stuff shows, we have
Speaker 1: tons of other shows that we're producing. Some of them
Speaker 1: are produced in house here in Atlanta, like Chuck Bryant's
Speaker 1: show Movie Crush, in which he sits down with various
Speaker 1: interesting people talks to them about their favorite films, sort
Speaker 1: of a launching point for a conversation. We have Savor,
Speaker 1: which was formerly known as food Stuff, that has hosts
Speaker 1: Lauren and Annie, and they're amazing. They just got back
Speaker 1: from uh uh incredible trip to Hawaii where I understand
Speaker 1: they talked to almost twenty different people in in interviews,
Speaker 1: so that's amazing. We have the Monster series that's a
Speaker 1: collaboration with Tinderfoot Studios, and it focuses on serial killers.
Speaker 1: The first season was about the Atlanta child murders of
Speaker 1: the early nineteen eighties. The second season was about the
Speaker 1: Zodiac Killer. We have committed a show about relationships that
Speaker 1: has some truly remarkable stories in it. Oh and I
Speaker 1: do a show called The Brink with my friend Ariel
Speaker 1: Caston where we talk about make or break moments in business.
Speaker 1: And there are several others, and it's just a small
Speaker 1: sample of the shows we're doing here in Atlanta. We
Speaker 1: also have tons being produced in New York, d C.
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and other places. There's the Daily Zeitgeist, Culture Kings,
Speaker 1: Cabinet of Curiosities, Ask a Manager, Broken Hearts, Dressed Ethnically, Ambiguous,
Speaker 1: Happy Face, and more. We've got a ton of shows
Speaker 1: and development at various stages, and the process is an
Speaker 1: interesting one. So I guess I'm gonna in this episode
Speaker 1: by kind of going through what we do behind the
Speaker 1: scenes when we want to develop a podcast. So it
Speaker 1: all starts with an idea. Frequently the ideas being pitched
Speaker 1: by a person who plans on being involved in the
Speaker 1: show in some capacity, either as a producer or a
Speaker 1: host or sometimes both. The idea is fleshed out and
Speaker 1: typically shared with several others in the company to make
Speaker 1: sure it sounds like a sustainable podcast that's worthy of
Speaker 1: the time and attention that will need to succeed because
Speaker 1: it does take a lot of time. You're talking about
Speaker 1: dedicating time to record, to edit, published, so we want
Speaker 1: to make sure that the ideas sound pretty good before
Speaker 1: we start committing resources to them. This idea would then
Speaker 1: enter into the pitch process, and we have our shows
Speaker 1: organized by what we call verticals. You could think of
Speaker 1: them sort of like categories, but the categories aren't hard
Speaker 1: and fast, as some shows overlap different categories, or one
Speaker 1: vertical might have shows that you might imagine would fit
Speaker 1: in a different category, but they act as general guidelines.
Speaker 1: At the head of each vertical, you have an executive
Speaker 1: producer who's in charge of overseeing the development and deployment
Speaker 1: of podcasts, as well as someone who remains keyed in
Speaker 1: on how podcasts are doing. You also have a supervising
Speaker 1: producer that's someone who's on the technical side of things
Speaker 1: and is helping making sure that all the stuff can
Speaker 1: actually be done. During the pitch process, a show might
Speaker 1: go through some changes, and some of them can be
Speaker 1: really dramatic. Something give me relatively minor. Some shows require
Speaker 1: a lot of production. They might have interviews that requires scheduling.
Speaker 1: It's a whole nightmare. If I were doing an interview
Speaker 1: based show, I would probably need a lot of help
Speaker 1: because just scheduling that kind of stuff is super tricky.
Speaker 1: My hat is off to all the people who do
Speaker 1: incredible interview based shows on our network. Um it is
Speaker 1: an amazing amount of work. But you also have stuff
Speaker 1: like transitions, you have music, you've got soundscaping and more.
Speaker 1: But then you have other types of shows like tech stuff.
Speaker 1: Those are pretty easy from a production standpoint. Those shows
Speaker 1: still have some of those elements. Occasionally I might do
Speaker 1: an interview. We do have music, but there's not a
Speaker 1: whole lot of bells and whistles attached to a tech
Speaker 1: stuff episode that not nearly to the extent of a
Speaker 1: highly produced show. Highly produced shows can be flashy. They
Speaker 1: can generate a lot of buzz, and if the show
Speaker 1: is good, it can easily justify the extra work needed
Speaker 1: to produce the podcast. But if it's a highly produced
Speaker 1: show and it's not doing well, it's probably not going
Speaker 1: to be around for very long, because it also is
Speaker 1: a very visible drain on resources. So the head of
Speaker 1: the verticals choose which show pitches are going to move
Speaker 1: forward in the process, and this can get a bit brutal.
Speaker 1: You might have a potential slate of a dozen brilliant ideas,
Speaker 1: but you might only have the capacity to launch let's say,
Speaker 1: two of them per quarter. On the one hand, it's
Speaker 1: great to have the luxury of choice between lots of
Speaker 1: fantastic ideas. On the other it stinks to have to say,
Speaker 1: you know, we can't do this show, at least not yet,
Speaker 1: but there are only so many hours in the day,
Speaker 1: and we have to be strategic in which shows get
Speaker 1: the green light. From that point, the show runners, which
Speaker 1: might include writers, producers, and hosts, and some people might
Speaker 1: be wearing multiple hats for a single show, they'll go
Speaker 1: off and they'll develop the idea further. Typically they'll record
Speaker 1: a pilot episode. The purpose of the pilot has given
Speaker 1: idea to the production team about what the finished show
Speaker 1: is going to be like, and it may or may
Speaker 1: not ever be published. That's meant to be sort of
Speaker 1: a prototype for the podcast itself, and frequently upon listening
Speaker 1: to a pilot, Executive, producers and others might have a
Speaker 1: few notes. These are typically suggestions for changes to the show,
Speaker 1: and the notes might include format issues or a question
Speaker 1: about the voice of the show. It might be questions
Speaker 1: about who is the intended audience and do you think
Speaker 1: this show is speaking to that intended audience. It might
Speaker 1: just be a note that says this is great, but
Speaker 1: it needs to be twenty minutes shorter. I get that
Speaker 1: note a lot, mostly from tari. Typically the show runners
Speaker 1: will then take those notes and then make another pass
Speaker 1: at it before they will start producing episodes. In earnest,
Speaker 1: when it becomes clear that we're going to launch the show,
Speaker 1: when everything's set, when we said, all right, we know
Speaker 1: what it is, we know what sounds like, We're ready
Speaker 1: to go, We're ready to start producing. These other factors
Speaker 1: also have to come into play. We have to secure
Speaker 1: u r L s for each show as well as
Speaker 1: social media accounts. We have to create logos for the shows.
Speaker 1: We have to assign a show to a marketing team.
Speaker 1: The sales team also has to be keyed into the
Speaker 1: launch of new shows. We've got to make sure the
Speaker 1: publishing pipeline from back end to the end user is
Speaker 1: ready to go. All this has to be done far
Speaker 1: enough in advance so that when it comes time to
Speaker 1: publish the trailer, everything's already in place, and typically that's
Speaker 1: how we start. We record a trailer that explains what
Speaker 1: the show is about, and will frequently PLoP that trailer
Speaker 1: into the feeds of other shows on the network, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard if you've been subscribed to any
Speaker 1: of our podcast for any real length of time. This
Speaker 1: sort of cross promotion can be incredibly useful, particularly since
Speaker 1: we're producing a lot of shows that complement one another.
Speaker 1: So if you listen to tech Stuff and you like it,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna like Sleepwalkers, which is why we will
Speaker 1: run a trailer for Sleepwalkers on the Tech Stuff feed.
Speaker 1: It's not just to promote the show. It's to say,
Speaker 1: I know, you guys like this stuff, this is something
Speaker 1: else you might really dig. You should check it out.
Speaker 1: And upon publication, we typically have a couple of episodes
Speaker 1: ready to download straight away, so instead of just publishing
Speaker 1: episode one, will have maybe episodes one and two, and
Speaker 1: that way listeners can check out more than a single
Speaker 1: episode right from the start. We want listeners to have
Speaker 1: a good idea of what a show is going to
Speaker 1: be like, so they can make that determination about whether
Speaker 1: or not they want to subscribe to the podcast. In
Speaker 1: some cases, they may not. They may say, well, i've
Speaker 1: listened to too and I don't know, it's just not
Speaker 1: appealing to me. That's totally valid. But if you listen
Speaker 1: to and you say, man, I really like this, and
Speaker 1: that's a good indication that you know you should subscribe
Speaker 1: to that show. Sometimes shows get a strong following and
Speaker 1: they grow from there. Other times shows might take a
Speaker 1: while before they catch on. Some shows might never get
Speaker 1: much attention at all. Producers sometimes have to decide to
Speaker 1: end a show if it has a small audience and
Speaker 1: the time being spent producing the show could be, you know,
Speaker 1: better used elsewhere. But it's a tough call. There are
Speaker 1: lots of other factors that can also affect the end result.
Speaker 1: For example, a show might have a small but loyal
Speaker 1: following and advertisers might just love that show, and in
Speaker 1: those cases you might say, well, let's keep it going
Speaker 1: and keep trying to grow this audience. Because it's got
Speaker 1: a lot of support behind it. It doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: to just end it. But if a show isn't getting
Speaker 1: much traction, and if you can't sell ads for it,
Speaker 1: it's probably not going to be around very long. This
Speaker 1: also gets a bit more complicated when you talk about
Speaker 1: the differences between ongoing shows like Tech Stuff, ones that
Speaker 1: published every week, and then shows that are divided up
Speaker 1: into seasons. With seasons, you tend to get a pretty
Speaker 1: big bump and subscribers when a show generates some buzz
Speaker 1: when it first premieres, but you're not likely to keep
Speaker 1: adding at that same pace when you are between seasons,
Speaker 1: so that affects things a bit. On the flip side,
Speaker 1: for a show like Tech Stuff that's been running for years,
Speaker 1: you're not likely to see a big bump in numbers
Speaker 1: unless one of my episodes gets mentioned on some larger outlet,
Speaker 1: or if I land a killer interview with someone important
Speaker 1: that a lot of people want to hear more about.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of other moving parts to
Speaker 1: a podcast network. The marketing team is constantly finding ways
Speaker 1: to promote shows and to get them to a wider audience.
Speaker 1: The social media team works hard to reach out to
Speaker 1: our communities and keep them engaged. The sales team is
Speaker 1: responsible for landing all those ad deals that pay the
Speaker 1: bills and allow us to actually make these shows. And
Speaker 1: while we're supporting all the shows that are already out there,
Speaker 1: we're always in the process of making more. Meanwhile, my
Speaker 1: former co workers are on the website side are no
Speaker 1: longer in our office, though they aren't far away. There
Speaker 1: are a couple of floors above us. Now. They still
Speaker 1: produce content for the website and they do an incredible
Speaker 1: job with it. If you haven't been to How Stuff
Speaker 1: Works in a while, or even if you've never been there,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to check it out. They are producing
Speaker 1: fantastic articles and videos, and they are genuinely great people
Speaker 1: and I miss seeing them every day. I'm very fortunate
Speaker 1: to have so many cool folks working on the Stuff
Speaker 1: Media I Heart side. We keep adding new people as
Speaker 1: we focus on making existing shows better and bringing new
Speaker 1: shows to you guys. It's an exciting time for us.
Speaker 1: We've received a lot of love from the I Heart
Speaker 1: Media side. Now, as I record this, it's nearly on
Speaker 1: the eleventh anniversary of Text Stuff's launch, it's actually just
Speaker 1: past it. So it's pretty amazing that this podcast has
Speaker 1: been through so many changes. You know, what it really
Speaker 1: tells me is that you guys are incredible. I have
Speaker 1: incredible listeners, because without you, this show would have gotten
Speaker 1: the acts a dozen times over. We've had format changes,
Speaker 1: we've had host changes, We've gone through ownership changes more
Speaker 1: times than I can count, and you guys have remained constant.
Speaker 1: And that is the reason why I'm still doing this show.
Speaker 1: So thank you all for listening. I greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And that wraps up this episode about how Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: and uh, and you know how things are going now
Speaker 1: that we're a podcast network arm of I Heart Media.
Speaker 1: I am excited to see where things go from here.
Speaker 1: It has in a pretty amazing experience so far, one
Speaker 1: that I think it's been more positive than anything else.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of opportunities to talk to some
Speaker 1: really smart people in the mass communications world, and it's
Speaker 1: nice to get some validation that some of the things
Speaker 1: I've been doing have been right all along, and it's
Speaker 1: great to get guidance on how I can do other
Speaker 1: stuff better. So I consider that a positive experience overall.
Speaker 1: If you guys have any suggestions for future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, send me an email the addresses tech Stuff
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. Or you can drop
Speaker 1: me a line on social media. Just go on over
Speaker 1: to tech stuff podcast dot com that has links to
Speaker 1: the social media presence, as well as an archive of
Speaker 1: all of our past episodes and more information about yours
Speaker 1: truly if for some reason you've gotta know more. Plus
Speaker 1: there's a link to our online store, where every purchase
Speaker 1: you make goes to help the show and we greatly
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Y text Stuff is a production of I heart Radio's
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.