April 9, 2024

The Most Innovative Podcasting Platform: Riverside FM's Evolution into an All-in-One Tool

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Podcasting Tech

How can you as a podcaster Improve audience engagement and community building? Riverside FM has all your answers!

In this podcast episode, Mathew and Kendall Breitman, Community Manager from Riverside.fm, discuss the platform's development into an essential podcasting tool, now incorporating AI for post-production to simplify content creation. 

They reflect on Riverside FM's rise during pandemic, providing isolated video tracks for better editing, and the newest feature for adjusting conversation pace without sound distortion. The conversation covers the platform's versatility for various content scenarios, including user friendly recording, and offers practical tips for creators and guests to achieve high-quality recordings with the platform. 

Additionally, Kendall shares insights from her community manager role, emphasizing the importance of listening to build a strong community and connect with audiences. They also explore the tech gear Kendall uses and wants to explore, like the Elgato key light and a boom arm for her microphone. 

In this episode: 

  • Features and capabilities of the Riverside platform
  • Importance of high-quality recordings and tips for getting the best content out of the platform
  • Evolution of the platform and addition of AI-based tools
  • Engaging with your community and listening to user feedback
  • Improving recording setup

 

Equipment Mentioned: 

 

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Transcript

Speaker:

Alright. Today, we are joined by Kendall Brightman, the community manager at

 

 


Speaker:

Riverside.fm. And as we've said before, Riverside is platform that we

 

 


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use for recording this podcast, and we're excited to talk a little bit about it

 

 


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and some of the really great new features they've just been rolling out

 

 


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continuously. It seems like every day I I pop onto Facebook,

 

 


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Kendall's posting something in the in the Riverside community group about, hey. We're doing

 

 


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this. We're doing this. We're doing this. So excited to talk about some greatest and,

 

 


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truthfully, by the time this updates, it'll probably seem like old hat. But Kendall, thank

 

 


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you so much for being here today. Yeah. Thanks so much for for having me.

 

 


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I'm really excited to talk about all the features we're releasing Riverside,

 

 


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and I'm glad that you're liking the updates. It's, it's fun to post them.

 

 


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I I love to see the comments coming in and see see creators excited

 

 


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about it. So that's good to hear. It's amazing when I first

 

 


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started using Riverside, when it really

 

 


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kinda in the early days when it was first released, it was this great platform.

 

 


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You know, one of the first out there that could record local

 

 


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ISO video on top of audio. Audio had been out a little

 

 


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bit before that, but the first one to do video, and I was like, oh,

 

 


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this is a great tool. Like, lots of podcasters should have a tool like this

 

 


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in their in their toolbox of production, whether it's

 

 


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for podcasts or, you know, YouTube or whatever else it is. But

 

 


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today, the platform has become so much more. Tell us a little bit

 

 


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about what is the kind of vision there at Riverside as it's, like,

 

 


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all in one podcasting tool. Yeah. I think I think that's

 

 


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really the vision is that we're, trying to develop to become this

 

 


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all in one podcasting tool like you just said. So the bread and butter

 

 


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of Riverside is really, as you said, like, the local recording,

 

 


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high quality recordings, so that even if you're remote, you're

 

 


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still able to get that studio quality. But from there, we've just

 

 


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been developing like, our focus right now has also become the editor.

 

 


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So being able to take the recordings that you do and

 

 


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edit them, whether that's through AI tools, whether that's through transcript

 

 


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Podcasting, and I think that really the name of the game

 

 


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well, I like to think the name of the game is Riverside is is that

 

 


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we're opening up, like, studio quality recordings

 

 


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for more people, getting being able to get more people out there to tell

 

 


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their stories. And so with that also comes being able to

 

 


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give more people, access to an editor, being able to edit their clips

 

 


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for social media, create show notes, just trying to make

 

 


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like, our goal here is really trying to make end to end the recording

 

 


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and editing plat the recording and editing process just a

 

 


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lot easier and smoother so that you can kinda get from record to

 

 


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publish with as little friction as possible. And

 

 


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so, yeah, I mean, there's a few different text based editors on the market, and

 

 


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you guys have kind of joined the fray in doing so. But you're starting to

 

 


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take it even a little bit step further. You have a lot of AI based

 

 


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tools. And what are some of the ones that folks who are recording on Riverside

 

 


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can use to take their recording and go straight from that into

 

 


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postproduction? Yeah. So, first off, I'd

 

 


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say the AI transcripts. And I'm not talking about transcript,

 

 


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based editing when I'm talking about this. I just mean that after you

 

 


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record, you get a really accurate transcript that then you can

 

 


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also use. Like, I love to use the transcript to put it in a chat

 

 


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gpt and say, hey. Can you make social posts out of this? Can you

 

 


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I used to say AI show notes, but we've actually also added

 

 


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that. So after you're done every Riverside recording, you get your

 

 


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transcript. You also get your AI show notes, and that has the

 

 


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summary, a few key takeaways, and then time coded

 

 


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kinda chapters. So you can really just copy and paste that

 

 


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right into your hosting platform as your description

 

 


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and, kinda just streamline that part of the process. And then on

 

 


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top of that with editing tools, I mean, we had a remove silence

 

 


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feature, that removes silences 3 seconds or more in your

 

 


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recording, and we actually just released our newest version of that AI

 

 


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feature that you can really record, whether that's 3 second

 

 


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pauses, one second pauses to be able to speed up the pace of your

 

 


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video. We're really leaning into AI as

 

 


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part of the idea of making things easier for creators. So

 

 


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we have AI chapters. So after you record, when you go in your

 

 


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editor, it's already split up by chapters and what you talked about in

 

 


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each of those chapters. So, those are just, like, 3 of

 

 


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the tools that come off top of mind that I and we just keep we

 

 


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keep adding more. I mean, by the time that this comes out, we might

 

 


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have more AI features in terms of audio,

 

 


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coming out to really clean up your audio. So really just trying to see

 

 


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like, there's so much that could be done with AI, I mean, as far

 

 


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as even show, besides show notes, like,

 

 


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social posts or blog posts that you can take your transcript

 

 


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and create a blog post out of it. So really trying to lean into

 

 


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that because, the more work I mean, we all know

 

 


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that when you're creating a podcast, the more work that you can kinda have done

 

 


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for you just creates more opportunities to do what we actually love, which

 

 


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is having these conversations, putting our content out there,

 

 


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connecting with the people that are listening to it, that type of stuff. And what

 

 


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I love about Riverside, what I've noticed is that you are you

 

 


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especially are very active in the Facebook group, the kind

 

 


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of the community creators group that Riverside has going there. And what I constantly

 

 


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see are people asking a question like, how do I do this?

 

 


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Or can I do this? And your response 99 times out of a

 

 


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100 has always been, we can't do that yet,

 

 


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or, oh, that's a really good idea. Let me, you know, submit

 

 


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that as kinda like a request for our developers to see if they can do

 

 


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it. And then it seems like for a lot of them within days or weeks

 

 


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or maybe a month or 2 if, you know, they're more complicated, but it seems

 

 


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like you are listening to the content creators and

 

 


Speaker:

constantly trying to hear what it is that they want and implement them. Is that

 

 


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true? Yeah. Exactly. I mean, I would feel really, like,

 

 


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disingenuous if I was just Podcasting, like, yeah. We'll let we'll let the team know.

 

 


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But we really are like, I we are in direct

 

 


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communication all the time with our developers and our product team,

 

 


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And, it's cool to see. Like, when I joined, I

 

 


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was surprised to see that, for example, when we have feature requests, we put them

 

 


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in a system that kind of upvotes them. And so as more

 

 


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people request different things, it'll become kinda on the top of those

 

 


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developers' screens. But beyond that, like, we'll screenshot them and send

 

 


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them to each other on Slack, and you'll see kind of the product people

 

 


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saying, what if we added it to this tool? What if we did it this

 

 


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way? It's it's really cool to to see that process, and

 

 


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we really do listen to what people want and what

 

 


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people are needing in their content creation. And then I also think that a

 

 


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key part of it is that a lot of us use Riverside. So

 

 


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if we're creating, if we're doing webinars or if we're creating, we have a lot

 

 


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of people on the team that have their own Rodecaster on the side. So we're

 

 


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actually using it and developing it. And then those people in our company

 

 


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that do that, our product team will talk with them and say, even

 

 


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like, hey. If we're gonna add a text feature, where would you

 

 


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even look for that on your screen? So really just trying to,

 

 


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like, keep creators in mind. And then something else that I think is

 

 


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pretty cool is, that we have

 

 


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like, Riverside started a few years ago, and it's

 

 


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around the time that a lot of people also started their Podcasting. And

 

 


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I remember random time to throw Harry Potter in here, but I remember when

 

 


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we were talking about like, there was a documentary on Harry Potter,

 

 


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and they're talking about how the viewers actually grew with the with

 

 


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the main characters of the show. So people like, their target audience were, like,

 

 


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as they were growing up, so were were the people that were obsessed with these

 

 


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movies. And so it kind of feels the same here where, like, we

 

 


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developed this platform and a lot of people were starting podcasting

 

 


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around COVID. And so as they're developing, we're developing, and it

 

 


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feels like this really cool, like, creating and growing

 

 


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together, if that makes sense. I'm glad I got to throw Harry Potter in

 

 


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there. No. I mean, that makes a ton of sense. And in fact, it it's

 

 


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true because what I remember was I think Riverside really

 

 


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first came on the scene either shortly before or shortly after the

 

 


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pandemic began. And I remember that because

 

 


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in my old business, we wanted to start offering video editing, and

 

 


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I it became I was like, this is kind of a struggle. Right? You get

 

 


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the single feed from Zoom. It's it's, you know, not all that appealing.

 

 


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But then all of a sudden, Riverside pops up and you get these

 

 


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isolated video tracks, and that really helped

 

 


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us be able to offer better video

 

 


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editing options than we could before that. And so right during the

 

 


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pandemic, a lot of people are stuck at home. A lot of people are thinking,

 

 


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how am I gonna get my message out there? How am I gonna communicate with

 

 


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the masses? And so a lot of them were starting Podcasting around the same time

 

 


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that Riverside was popping up and starting to implement all these great

 

 


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features. I I love how

 

 


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you recently added something about speeding up the

 

 


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pace of the conversation. What's that all about? Yeah. So that

 

 


Speaker:

actually it's a really cool feature to me because a lot of the time

 

 


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like, I'll watch TikTok videos or something, and I'm like, how do these

 

 


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people talk so fast? And as you can already tell, I'm already a

 

 


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I'm a fast talker, But you wanna, like, I've been

 

 


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told sometimes, but, like, you wanna speed up your video

 

 


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but without kind of sounding I used to work in in

 

 


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television news, and we'd always speed up the videos, and then everyone would

 

 


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sound like a chipmunk while you're editing. So this

 

 


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idea is that you're able to speed up the videos, but without

 

 


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it distorting the sound of your voice. So that's all

 

 


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about cutting out silences. So, the new feature

 

 


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that we have with set pace, you can really just take a toggle and take

 

 


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it from your original pace to natural, to fast,

 

 


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super fast, and just kinda toggle it back and forth and see how

 

 


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the video changes, or you can export 1 in a

 

 


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natural pace and then export a clip in super

 

 


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Passy. And so those were really

 

 


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again, we're just we're looking at content that

 

 


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creators are creating and then responding to that and

 

 


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saying, okay. How do we create something that's

 

 


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gonna be more friendly for social, and that's gonna help

 

 


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creators do it in a way that they're not individually picking out

 

 


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every bit of silence. So, really, again, just trying to make it, like, if

 

 


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not one click, then just a couple clicks to get you towards your final

 

 


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product. You know what I also found interesting was, you know, as you said, this

 

 


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was kinda created around the same time. Lots of people were starting their Podcasting,

 

 


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but I I'm often surprised by the

 

 


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types of uses that people talk about having with Riverside in the

 

 


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group. Like, oh, I wanna use it for x or I wanna use it for

 

 


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y. Talk to me about some of the ones that you've heard people talk about

 

 


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and maybe any that really surprised you. Yeah. I

 

 


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actually like, the 2 that come to mind are actually about businesses.

 

 


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So, you know, podcasting is kind of the general use case, but

 

 


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then I spoke with, with a

 

 


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creator who interviews CEOs in, like, c

 

 


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level positions, and they just sit down for an

 

 


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hour, and we'll have a conversation every week. And then they'll take

 

 


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that and, like, either they will break it up for

 

 


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social clips to just get the CEO out there in front of

 

 


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in front of users on social, or they will create

 

 


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internal videos based off of it. So that's one cool

 

 


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kinda use case. But the other one that's actually been pretty

 

 


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cool for me to see is that because especially with things like the

 

 


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editor and making it easier to edit, you're able

 

 


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to open up for businesses more people who can kinda get

 

 


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in on the creation process. So somebody like me. Like, I'm a marketer.

 

 


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I'm not a video editor. But if I record something or if

 

 


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somebody else on my team records something, I can go in and edit it and

 

 


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make social clips and put them out there. And so,

 

 


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in that case, I don't have to send it to my video editor, have that

 

 


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be added to the millions of projects that he's working on for really what is,

 

 


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like, a simple video. I'm cutting out 2 people having a

 

 


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conversation. But what we're seeing more businesses doing is that

 

 


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their their social, their social media managers are

 

 


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now video editors or their head of communications can

 

 


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be, and so it kinda allows more people

 

 


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to be using it. And then on top of it, I mean, like,

 

 


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there are a ton of just really interesting

 

 


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kind of podcasts out there. I Samson the other day where a guy was podcasting

 

 


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while he was, like, driving an Uber. So you could see,

 

 


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like, which I don't know. I don't know how if, I want my Uber

 

 


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driver podcasting, but you could literally see people,

 

 


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like, walking like, coming into his car, walking out of his car as

 

 


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he's recording this podcast, and it's was really a moment that I was like,

 

 


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wow. You can you can really record from anywhere. Yeah. I don't

 

 


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know how I feel about it it's even less about, like, the privacy issue

 

 


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of I didn't ask to be on your podcast when I signed

 

 


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up for Uber, but more just the even though you're not you don't have your

 

 


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hands on your phone, like, clearly, you're not a 100% focused on the

 

 


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road. Right? Like, that's just Oh, yeah. That I'm always bothered by whenever

 

 


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I see content creators who are doing something while driving. That's,

 

 


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Yeah. I mean, it was it was more of, like, an extreme use case,

 

 


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but I those are definitely ones that pop out to me. But, like, we see

 

 


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people also, like, with documentaries or something like that. They'll

 

 


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record, like, their talking head kind of videos or record an

 

 


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expert, and they're able to still get the high quality that, like,

 

 


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it matches up with the rest of the documentary, things like that.

 

 


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So, yeah, it's super cool to see just really, like, how people take

 

 


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it, whether that's in business or in their Uber driving business.

 

 


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So, you know, to that point, right, because this platform allows you to record

 

 


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with people anywhere, anytime, It, you know,

 

 


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eliminates the need for people to be in person to still get high quality

 

 


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content, but it also means that you have a lot of people who are joining

 

 


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podcasts, joining conversations without

 

 


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somebody on-site with them to help them out, right, without someone physically holding their

 

 


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hand and whatnot. So I guess what would be your advice to

 

 


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both the content creators and also just to the

 

 


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guests as far as how to ensure they get the best

 

 


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content out of this platform. I mean, it is it's easy enough, but,

 

 


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right, if you do what are the few tweaks that if you make, you'll get,

 

 


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like, the really just the, you know, recording out of it?

 

 


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Yeah. I like, my recommendation is if you can

 

 


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get your guests to use their phone as a webcam,

 

 


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That is my top recommendation because, we make it

 

 


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easy to connect your phone. Also, if you have a iPhone and a Mac,

 

 


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you're able to connect to via continuity Samson, and

 

 


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that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm recording on right now. Same here. So

 

 


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yeah. And so, like, your laptop camera is only gonna be able to go up

 

 


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to 7 20 p. So no matter if you make everything look

 

 


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amazing, like, that's the quality that you're gonna get. So my first thing is

 

 


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that if you have a guest that's, like, game to try to connect their phone,

 

 


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it's really a lot easier than you'd think. And in that case,

 

 


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you're just able to get a lot better quality. Asking

 

 


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them to wear wired headphones, I have heard from many an audio

 

 


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editor. And so but my main

 

 


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kinda recommendation is that you're gonna wanna pick a few

 

 


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things that are most important to you. So, for example, if you want that high

 

 


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quality video, asking if they can connect their phone or why wearing

 

 


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the wired headphones. When I see a list of, like,

 

 


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face a window, wear wired headphones, connect with this, do that, like,

 

 


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it becomes too much, and you want them to really, like, come into the

 

 


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conversation, like, as if it's a normal

 

 


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conversation. You know? The more that you try to, like, set up and

 

 


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and create this moment, the more like, the less

 

 


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natural they're going to be. So a really good point.

 

 


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Yeah. I just find that, like, it's also why I, there are different

 

 


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settings within the Riverside Studio. Like, I disabled my countdown

 

 


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only because I felt like, there's a countdown once you press record that

 

 


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takes you down from 5, only because I feel that sometimes when you're about

 

 


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to record, you get a little bit more upright, you get a little bit

 

 


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more like, I want to put as as little friction

 

 


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between person and having that conversation as possible.

 

 


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But little things like, if you there

 

 


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we have on our community group, or we're going to be posting them soon, like,

 

 


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a quick list, a quick checklist of face don't have a window

 

 


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behind you, face a window, but trying not to

 

 


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kinda overload them with as much information.

 

 


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If we had a very similar list that we would give clients

 

 


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to pass along to their guests, And if I can make one

 

 


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recommendation, the last thing on that list, smile.

 

 


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It is people always forget that, one,

 

 


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obviously, this is a video, you know, visual medium that we're using it in. But

 

 


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even if you're just using the audio off it, people can hear the difference

 

 


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between someone who is smiling and excited to be on your

 

 


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podcast versus the person who's like, Tech. Thanks for having me. Right? Like, if this

 

 


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Samson doesn't sound like they wanna be here, why do I wanna listen to that?

 

 


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And so we always include that as a last step for everybody. It's like, alright.

 

 


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You've got this. You've got this. You've got this. Now smile and have fun.

 

 


Speaker:

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I would also say what makes a

 

 


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huge difference is, like, eye level camera. If you're gonna have that,

 

 


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like, I've seen so many videos where the person has, like, it on

 

 


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clearly on their laptop camera, and they're kinda just, like, looking down at

 

 


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it. And it really just like, even just having

 

 


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them put their laptop, if that's their the the,

 

 


Speaker:

webcam that they're gonna be using on a stack of books, Just having it

 

 


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eye level is makes so much it makes such a difference.

 

 


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You know, that might be me then requesting in a feature, which is the ability

 

 


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to arrange the boxes on the recording the way I want it. Because

 

 


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right now, I have you kind of squished in and we're stacked on top of

 

 


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each other. But I'm on the top, and you're on the bottom. So I'm looking

 

 


Speaker:

down a little bit to watch you, whereas I should you know, I wanna

 

 


Speaker:

be looking at you at the camera level. So maybe if that's not a request

 

 


Speaker:

that's already in the making, you can, drop that to the developers. I'm gonna drop

 

 


Speaker:

it to developers either way, but I do know that it's something that we're that

 

 


Speaker:

we're aware of. So I hope that we can have some updates for you on

 

 


Speaker:

that because that and editing layouts too, are definitely

 

 


Speaker:

definitely on our radar. Yeah. I mean, there are there's obviously a

 

 


Speaker:

little bit of room for improvement, but I think to your point earlier, if you

 

 


Speaker:

are not a full time video editor, if you have not done tons

 

 


Speaker:

of video editing in your life, if you don't have the budget to outsource this

 

 


Speaker:

to a professional video editor, the nice thing is that you can go from

 

 


Speaker:

recording to editing and put out a really

 

 


Speaker:

nice product. It is not gonna look like, you know, it came out of

 

 


Speaker:

Hollywood or it's not gonna look like, you know, Joe Rogan kinda setup, but it

 

 


Speaker:

is going to be quality enough that you can stand by it. You can post

 

 


Speaker:

it. You can be proud of it. So encourage folks to use it. Just

 

 


Speaker:

I we, you know, we have questions that we ask everyone, but before we get

 

 


Speaker:

to that, you know, you have a interesting background in

 

 


Speaker:

journalism and you mentioned, you know, working in television, But you've

 

 


Speaker:

taken on this role as a community manager, and so many

 

 


Speaker:

podcasters need to have a community. They need a

 

 


Speaker:

Facebook group. They need a way to interact with their audience. So just wondering, what

 

 


Speaker:

have you learned in that role as a community manager that maybe you can pass

 

 


Speaker:

on to Podcasting a way to improve the way they connect to their audience?

 

 


Speaker:

I would Samson. Yeah. First of all, I was actually gonna mention this

 

 


Speaker:

when we're talking about the stacking. I'm just so used to, like, I was in

 

 


Speaker:

I worked at NBC News and Bloomberg News before this. I've gotten so used

 

 


Speaker:

to just, like, looking in a camera as if it's a news hit and being

 

 


Speaker:

like, back to you. You know what I mean? So I'm always just, like, looking

 

 


Speaker:

at this camera rather than my computer. But, yeah, my

 

 


Speaker:

background is in television production, and I was a

 

 


Speaker:

political reporter. And so my biggest piece of

 

 


Speaker:

information when you're starting a community is to not assume

 

 


Speaker:

anything and to listen. And by that, I mean,

 

 


Speaker:

like, I'm from, oh, the world of journalism. So when

 

 


Speaker:

I started the community, I I was like, okay. Or when I started my community

 

 


Speaker:

manager role, I was like, okay. People want to

 

 


Speaker:

network. Like, they want like, I'm coming from a place that, like, who you

 

 


Speaker:

know is your currency, how you speak, like, having that kind of

 

 


Speaker:

community of sources and things like that. So I came into it being, like,

 

 


Speaker:

networking. That's the name of the game. But then what I did was I

 

 


Speaker:

actually took time to speak individually to community

 

 


Speaker:

members. And once I dug in, I realized that my assumptions

 

 


Speaker:

were partially correct. Like, people do wanna network, but, like, if

 

 


Speaker:

you dig into it deeper, they wanna network because they wanna

 

 


Speaker:

learn from each other or make their podcast better in some way,

 

 


Speaker:

whether that's finding a guest for it, whether it's promo

 

 


Speaker:

swaps, whether it's having a mentor that they can ask,

 

 


Speaker:

like, have you used this mic? So it's

 

 


Speaker:

it's a lot about learning. That was the main driver, and I wouldn't

 

 


Speaker:

have found that out unless I spoke with people and actually listened.

 

 


Speaker:

So some of that was from user calls. Some of that was from

 

 


Speaker:

going to other communities and just seeing what the conversations are

 

 


Speaker:

like, going to Reddit and filtering based on,

 

 


Speaker:

like, the most popular Passy, like, what gets people

 

 


Speaker:

talking, excited, engaged. It's almost like

 

 


Speaker:

if you think about your community like a party. You know? Like, what do

 

 


Speaker:

your people want at the party? What kind of music do they want at the

 

 


Speaker:

party? What kind what time does it start? You know, like, understanding

 

 


Speaker:

what they want and delivering that. And I think sometimes it takes

 

 


Speaker:

going to other parties to do that is what I mean. Like, seeing where

 

 


Speaker:

where they're, like, congregating, seeing what they're excited about.

 

 


Speaker:

So as you build your community, I would say, like, maybe

 

 


Speaker:

you're not able to reach out directly to your listeners. But maybe,

 

 


Speaker:

let's say that you have, like, a health and

 

 


Speaker:

wellness podcast. Maybe it's about going to Facebook groups that are

 

 


Speaker:

about that and just seeing what people are asking, what's exciting to

 

 


Speaker:

them, and then not spamming them with your content, but,

 

 


Speaker:

like, engaging with them to make yourself part of the

 

 


Speaker:

party and then kinda be like, also, there's a pretty cool

 

 


Speaker:

party happening over here, and it's mine. Why don't you come over? You

 

 


Speaker:

know? So I think that it's about just it's it's about listening

 

 


Speaker:

and understanding and then reacting from there. It's so

 

 


Speaker:

interesting because as podcasters, what we want are listeners.

 

 


Speaker:

And it's you know, what you were saying, which I I totally agree with,

 

 


Speaker:

is one of the best ways for you to get more listeners is you

 

 


Speaker:

have to listen. And I don't think a lot of people figure that they think,

 

 


Speaker:

well, I've got the microphone. Everybody should be listening to me, but, no. What does

 

 


Speaker:

your audience want? What is your community looking for? What is it that's gonna resonate

 

 


Speaker:

with them? And maybe you are one of those people who just

 

 


Speaker:

knows, but most of us don't. So you're gonna have to go out there and

 

 


Speaker:

ask the questions and and find it out. So, once again,

 

 


Speaker:

Kendall is the community manager at riverside.fm. If you haven't checked out that

 

 


Speaker:

platform before, we encourage you to do so. We'll have a link to it here

 

 


Speaker:

on the bottom in our show notes so you can check it out. And as

 

 


Speaker:

I've said, all the interviews that we've done up to this point have been through

 

 


Speaker:

this platform. So I've been a big fan of it and been using it forever.

 

 


Speaker:

Before we let you go, I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions that we've

 

 


Speaker:

been asking everyone. First of all, just on tech stack real quickly,

 

 


Speaker:

I know you're using a Shure MV 7, kinda see that working right

 

 


Speaker:

there. And as you've mentioned, using your iPhone continuity

 

 


Speaker:

camera, any other tech in your life

 

 


Speaker:

that you personally wanna get a hold of? Is there

 

 


Speaker:

some device or or something out there you're like, I really wish I can

 

 


Speaker:

get x, whether it's out there or something that someone needs to

 

 


Speaker:

create for you? Well okay. So I will say that I'm in

 

 


Speaker:

my I'm in the Riverside office right now, and we're building our

 

 


Speaker:

studio. So these are, like, low hanging fruits, but I'm just, like, trying to

 

 


Speaker:

build up a studio here. So I'd say this is, like, studio for beginner. I

 

 


Speaker:

wanna get an Elgato, key light only because then you

 

 


Speaker:

can, like, you can, balance through the white balance from your

 

 


Speaker:

computer and kind of like, right now, I have a ring light that kind of

 

 


Speaker:

is set to 3 different modes, like, kind of more yellow, blue, or

 

 


Speaker:

white. So I want something that you can actually, like, program on

 

 


Speaker:

your computer and really change the settings there. So,

 

 


Speaker:

from one of my colleagues, Steven, who has a crazy setup, he

 

 


Speaker:

recommended the Elgato. So we're looking looking into that. And we had the pleasure of

 

 


Speaker:

chatting with Samson, and, yeah, he's he's not the first or the last to,

 

 


Speaker:

mention that being one of the things that they want. Yeah. Well yes.

 

 


Speaker:

And Steven's setup is crazy. He's, like, a whole smart home thing where he could

 

 


Speaker:

adjust the lighting. And now compared to that, this

 

 


Speaker:

is a really low hanging fruit, but I really want a

 

 


Speaker:

boom, like, a microphone boom arm. They call it a

 

 


Speaker:

boom arm here? In in TV, I remember they called it that. Like, a Kinda

 

 


Speaker:

like this. Exact exactly like that. Wow.

 

 


Speaker:

Now you're just bragging. I'm kidding. But it's

 

 


Speaker:

just like I like, the importance of that for

 

 


Speaker:

me is just to be able to type and have my arms around and feel

 

 


Speaker:

like I'm not gonna knock the microphone in that way and just as as few

 

 


Speaker:

things that I can have on this desk. So my, like,

 

 


Speaker:

very beginner kind of wish list is that Elgato key

 

 


Speaker:

light and probably a road. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. This

 

 


Speaker:

is the PSA 1 plus. This is a I it's funny because I had the

 

 


Speaker:

boom arm that, literally when I left my last

 

 


Speaker:

job in radio, the engineers, like, I'm giving parts away to people who I know

 

 


Speaker:

will use it. Otherwise, they're gonna get scrapped. And so I had this it was

 

 


Speaker:

a nice mic arm, but, you know, after a while, I got a little janky,

 

 


Speaker:

and I just upgraded this about a year or so ago. And the other

 

 


Speaker:

day, I was chatting with someone, and they were talking about the Elgato boom arm,

 

 


Speaker:

but not the one that hangs down, the one that comes up. It's like what

 

 


Speaker:

they call, like, a low profile arm. And I'm sitting there thinking like, oh, man.

 

 


Speaker:

I really want that. But as you say it, one of the reasons why I

 

 


Speaker:

like this is because it keeps my arms free. Right? If I need to reach

 

 


Speaker:

around on my desk or something like that, I'm not banging into it as you

 

 


Speaker:

said. So Exactly. I want something from the side, yeah, that kinda,

 

 


Speaker:

like, hangs down, and then I we I'm, like, facing

 

 


Speaker:

a wall right now, so my dream would be to kinda have, like, some sort

 

 


Speaker:

of tripod to hold my phone out of the wall, because right now when I

 

 


Speaker:

type, it's, because the tripod's on the desk, it can get a

 

 


Speaker:

little, like, a little shaky. So, really, my my whole thing's about,

 

 


Speaker:

like, stabilizing and lighting right now. That's that's been my my goals

 

 


Speaker:

here. So good to know there's not an earthquake where you are recording from. Yeah.

 

 


Speaker:

Or else or else you'd really see it in this video. Out outside

 

 


Speaker:

of the things that Riverside is doing, is there places where you'd like

 

 


Speaker:

to see improvement in the podcasting space in general,

 

 


Speaker:

whether it's from the you know, on the creator side, on the publisher

 

 


Speaker:

side, on the listening side? Like, is there just something that if you

 

 


Speaker:

have the power to wave your arm and say, I wish we could do this

 

 


Speaker:

in podcasting? Mhmm. Oh, for sure. I

 

 


Speaker:

would say I think there needs to be more support on bigger

 

 


Speaker:

platforms for indie podcasters. By that, I mean,

 

 


Speaker:

like like, everyone is listening to Wondery

 

 


Speaker:

or, like, you know, those bigger kind of, like, conglomerates.

 

 


Speaker:

Media companies. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And it's always like that. But

 

 


Speaker:

I really wish that maybe, like, Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts would push up

 

 


Speaker:

some of that independent creator content because people are

 

 


Speaker:

making really incredible content, and then you

 

 


Speaker:

go on to Apple Podcasts, and it's all the the Wonderies, the

 

 


Speaker:

Dear Medias, that kind of stuff. So I really wish that there'd be a little

 

 


Speaker:

bit more celebration of, like, what people are kinda

 

 


Speaker:

doing on their own. I don't know how that would I mean,

 

 


Speaker:

my first thing would say, like, Apple Podcasts kind of featuring those a bit

 

 


Speaker:

more. But, yeah, that's been that's been something that I wish

 

 


Speaker:

because I've discovered so many podcasts since I've joined that now I've kinda

 

 


Speaker:

told my friends about it, and they've loved them. And then

 

 


Speaker:

you like, they wouldn't have been able to find it otherwise, and there's so much

 

 


Speaker:

good content out there. Yeah. That's, in a conversation we

 

 


Speaker:

had recently, we were talking about how it wasn't that long ago that

 

 


Speaker:

this space was dominated by independent creators and that

 

 


Speaker:

big brands and media conglomerates were like, that's cute, but we're not really

 

 


Speaker:

interested in now. The tables have totally turned. There's lots of money and lots of

 

 


Speaker:

big companies. Everybody's making a play for podcasting, and it's kinda, like I

 

 


Speaker:

said, push those more independent voices off to the side. So

 

 


Speaker:

I unfortunately, you know, Spotify has an interest in promoting their

 

 


Speaker:

big ones because they're paying those creators and, you know, same thing

 

 


Speaker:

with Apple. Right? Wondery is selling subscriptions, so Apple is

 

 


Speaker:

kind of incentivized to be like, well, yeah, let's sell more subscriptions because we're getting

 

 


Speaker:

a piece of that. So it is a it's a hard thing to to

 

 


Speaker:

reconcile. Exactly. And then you also see a lot of creators now making

 

 


Speaker:

their own networks. So, like, I talked with a creator who has an AI podcast.

 

 


Speaker:

He's doing a network of other AI podcasters. And so it's smart, but

 

 


Speaker:

I just wish that there were ways to really, like, uplift

 

 


Speaker:

more voices. Yeah. Well, Well,

 

 


Speaker:

speaking of which, I'm gonna give you a chance to do that because the last

 

 


Speaker:

thing we always ask everybody is their favorite podcast that they're listening to.

 

 


Speaker:

So what's 1 or 2 that when those episodes drop, you are

 

 


Speaker:

immediately listening to or, you know, you're not gonna let those, just hang

 

 


Speaker:

out in the library for too long? Okay. This is, like, kind of

 

 


Speaker:

embarrassing, though. So I listen to a lot of,

 

 


Speaker:

like, reality show Podcasting. That's okay. It's just be it's just

 

 


Speaker:

because I like to just, like, listen to a Podcasting. Like, either it's true

 

 


Speaker:

crime, and lately, I haven't been as into it. I go up and down,

 

 


Speaker:

or it's, reality television podcast.

 

 


Speaker:

So my embarrassing one, and it's just my I'm just gonna be

 

 


Speaker:

completely honest. It's called Reality Gaze, and it's 2 gay

 

 


Speaker:

men who are hilarious talking about reality

 

 


Speaker:

TV. And this is what I mean when, like, with, like, independent Tech of

 

 


Speaker:

podcasters. So I was, like, sitting here listening to them

 

 


Speaker:

laughing alone, and then I found their Facebook group.

 

 


Speaker:

There's, like, 20,000 people in that Facebook group. I don't know if that's exactly

 

 


Speaker:

the number, but it's, like, 1,000 and 1,000. And so

 

 


Speaker:

it's really and then I joined it, and immediately, it was just like, wow. There

 

 


Speaker:

are all of these people like me that are listening to,

 

 


Speaker:

like, this hilarious reality TV show

 

 


Speaker:

recap podcast. So that's my embarrassing

 

 


Speaker:

one, but then I feel a little bit a little bit,

 

 


Speaker:

not what's the what's the word? A little bit validated by the fact that I

 

 


Speaker:

found this Facebook group, and I'm like, there are more of you. So

 

 


Speaker:

that's my little shout out, and I hope you don't judge

 

 


Speaker:

me for it. There is absolutely no judgment here. That's the beauty of

 

 


Speaker:

Podcasting that everybody can find something

 

 


Speaker:

that is special to them, and it could be

 

 


Speaker:

huge, grandiose, you know, general mass appeal, or it

 

 


Speaker:

can be really tight specific

 

 


Speaker:

niches. And even that niche, it doesn't have to be

 

 


Speaker:

what you're talking about or who you're talking to, but just the

 

 


Speaker:

filter for which you are talking about it. And so I'm

 

 


Speaker:

sure there are lots of reality show, you know, Podcasting

 

 


Speaker:

reaction shows and whatnot. But, you know, the fact that you found this one that

 

 


Speaker:

speaks to you in a way and obviously has a huge community that supports

 

 


Speaker:

it, I think that's exactly what makes this medium so great. And,

 

 


Speaker:

yeah, judgment free zone. You listen to what you wanna listen to.

 

 


Speaker:

No. I I just, like, I I listen to a bunch, and it's just there's

 

 


Speaker:

some hosts. Like, I think that that's a really important part of this, that there

 

 


Speaker:

are some hosts that you just connect to more that you can be

 

 


Speaker:

recapping. Like, I hear so much people saying, oh, there there

 

 


Speaker:

are enough podcasts. Do we need another podcast? You'd never say that about, like,

 

 


Speaker:

do we need another book? You know? Like, Netflix and Hulu put

 

 


Speaker:

out the same storyline at the same time, and still people

 

 


Speaker:

watch both and then talk about which one they like more. So if,

 

 


Speaker:

like like, there are so many like, there will be so many

 

 


Speaker:

podcasts recapping the same exact episode of the same exact reality

 

 


Speaker:

show. It's about finding a host that you're like, I just enjoy

 

 


Speaker:

every minute of hearing you talk about this topic. Well and

 

 


Speaker:

I think you're you're highlighting the thing that makes a good podcast

 

 


Speaker:

great is that Mhmm. When you feel that connection, when

 

 


Speaker:

you stop feeling like a listener and you feel like

 

 


Speaker:

the host is in the back seat of your car chatting while you're

 

 


Speaker:

driving. Right? And it feels very intimate and very connected,

 

 


Speaker:

and you feel a bond with them. If you can accomplish that, you're doing

 

 


Speaker:

something really special. And, you know, it

 

 


Speaker:

might take some time, but you should be able to find success with this space.

 

 


Speaker:

And in the meantime, if you're thinking about doing that and you need to connect

 

 


Speaker:

people remotely, can't emphasize enough that we like

 

 


Speaker:

Riverside.fm. Kendall Brightman is the community manager for

 

 


Speaker:

them. We encourage you to check them out. And, so grateful that

 

 


Speaker:

you took the time to chat with us today, and I'm sure with all the

 

 


Speaker:

new features you guys are coming out with, we can, do this again in a

 

 


Speaker:

few months. Yeah. I would love that. Thanks so much for having me on. This

 

 


Speaker:

was great.

 

 

 

 

 

Kendall Breitman Profile Photo

Kendall Breitman

Community Manager at Riverside.fm

Kendall Breitman a community manager, leading a community of thousands of podcasters and video creators for Riverside.fm, an online recording and editing studio. Before joining Riverside, Kendall was a political reporter and producer for outlets like MSNBC and Bloomberg News