Russell Harrower 🎙️

https://podcastindex.social/@russell

Head Developer/Creator: PodToo.com
Founder: DRN1.com.au

Public Key

npub1vc9pvr4mn8hx02tl6qfg5f6y46w78e6caa48m6u2hkyfuhvygccsnkg9a3

NIP-05 Address

russell_at_podcastindex.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsxvzskp6aenmn849laqy52yaz2a80ruavw76naaw9tmzy7tkzyvvgwdkk5p

Author Public Key

npub1vc9pvr4mn8hx02tl6qfg5f6y46w78e6caa48m6u2hkyfuhvygccsnkg9a3

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Last Notes

2024-09-12 05:44:35

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following this. James where is your server hosted out of interest, you seem to have had a few things that has peaked my interest.
1) High traffic from an app that says they don't auto download.
2) Bots that claim to be Google (who knows).
3) Outage that effectively removed your show from every system (Apple, Podcast Index).
Now the saying is things came in 3, but this just seems like someone playing games.
Do you have a firewall auto updating with latest abuseIP?

2024-09-10 01:49:49

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don't be sorry, but made me look at people a little more and try and understand what they are going through.
@npub1gw9…74re @npub12te…3mrl @npub1fmx…wp74

2024-09-10 01:47:40

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never want to get someones pronouns wrong, been cancelled once before because of a person who was named Alex, but was a male to female transgender, but I only went by a photo and the name and I mistakenly called the person a man and used he/him.
So yeah cancel culture is very real, mind you it increased listeners to our station for a good 3-6 months. @npub1gw9…74re @npub12te…3mrl @npub1fmx…wp74

2024-09-08 03:46:56

Does anyone have any suggestions for graphic designers? (@npub1fmx…wp74 love all the Adam curry artwork who do you use?)

2024-08-31 23:17:08

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how are you marketing your show? Do you do video preview like even if not a video pod you could you l use your logo with a 30 second clip.

2024-08-31 15:46:05

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V4V can exist while also having another method to support the development of these players.
We have something like Truefans by Sam which has loads of features and just needs a little bit of funding to help cover future development.
We have @npub1wma…5az9 another great app, that could do with funding to help the developer keep going.
So in away this is V4V it's just coming from the hosting provider.

2024-08-07 14:11:31

I honestly don't know how to feel. All those podcast hosting providers that have done the right thing like blubrry ([@Todd_Blubrry](https://podcastindex.social/@Todd_Blubrry )), Buzzsprout etc all bring listed in that drop down and now BAM Spotify saying "hey host with us, we free and will help you monetise".
I get Spotify is most likely not thinking about the hosting providers they are thinking about revenue but this is just DIRTY (but smart).
They trying to complete with Youtube clearly and this is the way to do it.
Thoughts??

2024-08-07 07:23:41

Well this is sneaky of #spotify
Now they are promoting that you can host with them directly in their dashboard.
This screenshot is when I login to manage a podcast on Spotify hosted on PodToo
@npub13cg…ck4q (news story idea)
https://cdn.masto.host/podcastindexsocial/media_attachments/files/112/919/536/425/393/763/original/04ac96edc7944e1d.png

2024-08-07 00:48:21

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The issue is we don't really have technology that allows a podcast advertiser (either programatic or sponsor) to show a banner on the podcast player or a QR code (like Youtube does on TV).
I am a firm believer we need to come up with a better way for those podcasts that do support ads and make their revenue via that format.
If Podcasting 2.0 wants to lead the way, we should really be supporting everything we don't have to always agree. But we have the chance to upset IAB.

2024-08-07 00:33:36

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that is one way to get some data, but and I have not done any research on this, but if the V4V wallet is with the hosting provider. Couldn't the hosting provider report to SOMEONE the wallet address to then find a link from that address 2 an email address which then could be linked to IAB UID2?
I no it's very far fetch and would be bad practice but I could see IAB saying to be complaint you had to do XYZ.

2024-08-06 05:48:46

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I did not realise that this was being done by #IAB.

2024-08-06 05:36:18

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100% James. I know you may not care if you sign up 1 or 100 customers to your sponsor. But what if that sponsor did care?
And yes this is where "sponsors can do code words" but for programatic ads they can't really do that (yet).
@npub1x70…4uc9 @npub1rcn…dw4h

2024-08-06 05:32:15

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Imagine a podcast that does v4v + ads and then that boostagram that has your id gets tracked and the ad company tracks that and sees you brought at X advertiser product.
What I am trying to say is, there already ways to track people+ads without emails.
Interesting though because I always create a random email using apple icloud feature. So maybe that is the solution?

2024-08-06 05:28:34

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(2/2)
I know I am a little different as we control everything internally, and we want to make sure that privacy is first and foremost.
However in the last 12 months we have helped our podcasters get data that they have not had before:
- Gender
- Age Demo
- What other podcasts they listen to.
etc
Now this is all internal, all DRN1 shows just hosted on PodToo using DRN1 internal data.
This "audience" is only becoming more trackable even with V4V.
There's companies that tracks wallets.

2024-08-06 05:25:45

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Yes I agree. I guess this is the really hard conversation.
As my money for my company comes from advertisers, we don't do V4V because Apple and Spotify don't support it and most Australian's don't have sats lying around. It's too difficult.
Ads pay our bills, they helped me keep the lights on when I had brain surgery and needed a break from work.
(1/2)

2024-08-06 05:22:40

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and I get that 100%. I guess it is if a business is spending money to promote they really want to make sure that that $250 was worth it.
What we know is the higher you spend the less likely you care about this data.
1) A client of our got charged $5,000 to advertise on TV.
2) Client tracked it with a phone number and web landing page.
3) Client was happy.
That solution should work for podcast ads. But because its online ad exec think no we need more data.

2024-08-06 00:28:36

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I try and educate my clients that we are brand awareness. But they often say “I got no sales from radio” I say “did you ask?” They often say no.
So to fix this we need a way that we can respond back to the advertiser and say well according to your sales + our data match system you had a 67% success sales rate.
I don’t have a full solution, but this seems at least to protect all parties expect the company that is starting the hashed emails how do we know they are not selling it?

2024-08-06 00:26:59

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also advertising revenue is down like down down. We have a new advertiser dashboard launching soon. But we have a slightly different approach but differently not full proof. All our advertisers have a pixel on their site we track that and verify the IP against our database.
Note this data gets collected when a person accesses the mp3 NOT part of our podcast performance system.
We need a system that allows us to prove to advertisers that sales happens. But we are not their sales people.

2024-08-06 00:24:22

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while am not a fan of this, as a radio stations owner, a podcast hosting company and an advertising DSP operator I have to say it’s not a bad way to get the data that advertisers want.
We need to be able to show conversation of ad spend it’s important that an advertiser can use their email of a recent user and check our data to see if that user received that ad.
Do I like that it’s an opt-out no. But media companies are putting things behind a username and password for this reason.

2024-08-01 08:02:31

🎉 Celebration Time! 🎉
We at PodToo are thrilled to announce a major milestone: we have surpassed 5,600 radio show episodes hosted for our amazing clients in under 12 months!
From radio syndication production companies to radio stations, our hosting and syndication tools have been embraced and trusted by media companies far and wide.
Thank you to all our clients and partners for making this achievement possible. Here's to many more episodes and continued success together!
https://cdn.masto.host/podcastindexsocial/media_attachments/files/112/885/717/229/408/703/original/47439876a03aa43c.mp4

2024-07-30 03:05:26

Really nice to be nominated for 40 under 40. But am not paying close to $2,000 AUD.
I have no idea who nominated me but to whoever did that was really nice.
https://cdn.masto.host/podcastindexsocial/media_attachments/files/112/873/223/732/535/742/original/28411fb9e6f58904.png

2024-07-28 07:24:23

@npub13cg…ck4q do you have a screengrab of the bCast closeure email? Happy to have your logo on top of it. We want to use it for asking people to come use PodToo.
Thought I would ask permission 😉plus give credit.

2024-07-27 05:40:03

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but you don’t store the session unless really needed in a url.
Session is a server side object, which transfer or access data between page call.
Cookies is a object which is client side/client machine which store some text information of browser and server.
The use case for session token in url well that’s a bigger conversation because we do that when working with 3rd party podcast players to track data.

2024-07-27 04:23:44

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but it’s harder to inject back into a site? Unlike cookie injectors.

2024-07-27 04:16:55

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yes but a session can’t be stolen like a cookie can.

2024-07-27 04:10:13

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not sure if we talking about doing it the same way but here a quick ChatGPT example. It’s not stored in the URL it’s stored in the request much like a cookie.
https://cdn.masto.host/podcastindexsocial/media_attachments/files/112/856/488/892/211/945/original/5cd1968e54cfdf0f.png

2024-07-27 03:24:38

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Sessions store data server-side, enhancing security by reducing exposure and preventing tampering. They avoid the 4KB size limit of cookies and minimize network overhead. Sessions handle complex data structures, offer centralized management, flexible expiry control, and stronger authentication mechanisms. This makes sessions more secure and efficient than cookies.
Also session don’t need to be shown in the URL. It’s just an internal switch from cookies 2 session

2024-07-27 01:16:59

@npub13cg…ck4q not sure if others are having an audio issue with this weeks PodNews weekly review. But audio cuts from 16:14 till 16:24 so roughly 10 seconds. On my Apple CarPlay.

2024-07-27 01:10:30

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you could use sessions over cookies for login tokens. It’s what we are trying to push but even PodToo uses a 3rd party login system called LogTo which uses Cookies.

2024-07-26 03:26:35

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will cookies should be a thing of the past soon.

2024-07-25 10:16:41

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Also UID2/ID5 is nothing new, DRN1 has done something simular for years. We assign a deviceID and if the end user signs in or gives us their email address it creates a picture of that person whether they use Apple Podcast, Web, Spotify etc.
The difference is how we use the data:
1) We don't sell the data.
2) We don't use the data for targeted ads (as it sits fundamentally wrong with us).
3) We use the data only to provide better personlised shows and DRN1 content to them

2024-07-25 10:12:05

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So here the thing, technically as long as:
A) You "LIVE" in the EU
then:
1) you can request your data to be deleted.
2) you can opt out.
Its EU compliant.

2024-07-15 11:19:25

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what’s indexNow?

2024-07-12 11:48:45

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oh that is super interesting, might have to build this feature into the podcast performance server since we already support AP. 🤔

2024-07-11 09:04:22

Would really love some tips on social media:
- planning
- tools you use
- how often to post and on which platforms
@npub13cg…ck4q would be keen to know what tools you use to promote Podnews.

2024-07-11 04:57:04

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did you take a look at Spark mail client?

2024-07-10 13:42:04

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would be a great idea.

2024-07-10 06:00:17

Does anyone have any way for us to recover an iTunes podcast connect account.
One of our clients who is host of the show trusted the listing of their show to a person who now won’t return our calls or emails we have been able to successfully change the RSS feed on Apple. But we don’t have the stats.
Would love @npub1fmx…wp74 advice here plz.

2024-06-21 12:36:37

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thanks Dave. I have had to recode everything from NodeJS into Deno. So that was fun.

2024-06-21 08:22:30

I have to be honest developing for #mastodon / #activitypub is not easy, the amount of things we need to take into consideration it just like a lot.
If you're seeing a lot of posts from [@fresh7at7](https://fedi.podcastperformance.com/@fresh7at7 ) sorry, but it's the only true way to making sure that our code is working as expected before we roll it out as part of the Podcast Performance platform.
Best thing - It's OPEN SOURCE!

2024-06-18 13:33:38

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yeah for sure please do my email russell@podtoo.com and I’ll see how we can integrate it.

2024-06-18 06:19:35

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out of interest what is involved in supporting PodPing from an RSS level and what do we as a hosting provider need to do? Is it that we ping something when the release date is done?
Also what if a user re-uploads an episode mp3 do we ping again?

2024-06-13 13:31:57

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so first the podcaster can choose default currency, you could use a 3rd party to agree on the exchange rate like Google finance or Stripe.
However say your player is in USD, and transferring to PodToo, we have a US bank account. So you’d pay USD to us to keep it simple. We have bank accounts in UK, CA, US, NZ & Australia atm. We accept over 60 currencies.

2024-06-13 02:25:09

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According to https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/micropayment.asp
Upwork.com is a micropayment platform, so we just do it the same way they do it.
User pays for services through the podcast player and then the podcast player pays out when reach a min.
@npub1x70…4uc9 @npub1fmx…wp74 @npub1thg…zq23 @npub1xam…pm48
https://cdn.masto.host/podcastindexsocial/media_attachments/files/112/606/937/424/863/738/original/3e08674fa9b517db.png

2024-06-13 02:20:27

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I think that might be a little hard due to sending 0.005 would not work. However as I would always suggest and some have suggested this for SATs too, is you batch the payments to a min payment.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but their are small fees with SATs transfers and when converting SATs to BTC then BTC to USD.
Would love to know what those fees total for say $100.
Just how much money is lost?
@npub1x70…4uc9 @npub1fmx…wp74 @npub1thg…zq23 @npub1xam…pm48

2024-06-12 15:36:45

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Also say a guest wants to get it on lighting, technically you could add that to the fiat, implementation might need changing but could kinda be done like this...
(Yes I noticed the error I forgot to change 53 to 50 - in this case I would hope the podcast hosting service would not let this happen)
or you could keep them separate which would make life easier for apps. but the total still needs to equal 100%
https://cdn.masto.host/podcastindexsocial/media_attachments/files/112/604/387/743/536/418/original/1fb3dc6a22cfbccb.png

2024-06-12 15:30:31

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Yes it's not perfect but the current system is also not perfect, technically V4V was meant to work with any form of value 4 value it was not meant to only be crypto.

2024-06-12 15:24:52

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Really good question, so this would be up to the player to work out how they would introduce this. But true fans for example could ask a creator to login to their true fans account to withdraw to their bank account.
But how it could look without changing the current model is like this.
@npub1fmx…wp74 @npub1rcn…dw4h @npub1thg…zq23 @npub1xam…pm48
https://cdn.masto.host/podcastindexsocial/media_attachments/files/112/604/341/160/936/508/original/a3a911eebfe63002.png

2024-06-12 11:24:26

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The issue is that the current V4V has a huge issue with getting people paid in FAIT from Crypto.

2024-06-12 11:23:22

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Here is the example. To keep it very simple.
https://cdn.masto.host/podcastindexsocial/media_attachments/files/112/603/391/460/823/727/original/782ab7b11d704166.png

2024-06-12 01:59:44

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basically say I use truefans, I top up my account with tokens. As I listen the server keeps track of how much each podcaster gets paid in a ledger, for allowing me to listen.
Then when truefans says podcast A,B,C from PodToo combined has reached $100 they request an invoice from PodToo, PodToo verifies and send a payment request (we use AirWallex) and then we pay out the creators once we have the money.
It’s the same way Google, Triton already do it for ads.

2024-06-12 01:55:57

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Money Transmitters facilitate the secure and efficient transfer of money between parties, ensuring regulatory compliance. Examples include PayPal and Stripe. They provide the infrastructure for payments, fraud detection, and regulatory compliance, but don't directly involve in content creation or advertising.
We would not be doing this @npub1fmx…wp74 (1/2) you would use any payment provider.

2024-06-11 14:18:31

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we already do this with podcast ads advertisers pay a ad company, ad company pays their supplier and their supplier pays the podcast host, podcast host pays podcaster. It’s really just business.

2024-06-11 04:52:49

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What it means is their is a public ledger and also validation on all sides. It also meets current legal requirements for handling money as it's a business expense.
Internally the player may use their own Token system but the player just needs to remember that the v4v split amount is still the same.

2024-06-11 04:49:56

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The idea here is because the hosting company has a valid BSB & Account we can handle the payment on behalf of the podcast creator.
Its the same way that funding works we get paid and then we payout to the creator.

2024-06-11 04:49:08

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myself and @npub1thg…zq23 have been talking about this, and we will be testing a system hopefully later in the year.
basically PodToo will issue Virtual wallets and say something like <podcast:wallet host="podtoo" address="67162876782576"/>
basically with the new AP system we have a player sends both parties the player duration for validation, and then we send an invoice or receive a invoice request from the player company when the player company reachs min out say $20.

2024-06-08 17:51:16

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I have only tested trying to Follow the user https://podcastperformance.com/users/russell
It the key signing is not signing correctly for the Approve message back.

2024-06-08 17:29:27

if anyone can help with this #ActivityPub issue I would be very grateful.
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/needing-assistance-signing-followers/4304

2024-06-02 14:11:13

OMG so silly of me - figured out how powerful AS/AP can be.
Just to notify other podcast players about a podcast being updated
{
"@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
"type": "Create",
"actor": "https://podcastperformance.com/users/alice",
"object": {
"type": "Episode",
"content": "New episode about ActivityPub",
"episodeGUID":"(INSERT GUID)"
"url": "(Either link to feed or episode embed player)"
}
}
@npub1thg…zq23 thoughts?