00:00:02
[Music] hey what is up people of the internet welcome back to a bonus episode of the
00:00:10
waveform podcast we're your hosts I'm Marquez I'm Andrew and this week Andrew I got to do an interview last week on
00:00:16
the main Channel and I hear you did an interview with someone who's kind of a celebrity at the studio yeah like a
00:00:21
studio favorite um remember the podcast uh it's called pod quiz that we all did
00:00:27
on I think I introduced everyone to it on this Studio Road Trip the Thousand m road trip the Thousand Mile Road Trip
00:00:33
and everyone got real into it um it got us going pretty good it did so James Carter the host of that just reached his
00:00:40
1,000th episode wow of pod quiz which is wild and I decided to reach out to him
00:00:46
to see if he'd like to do an interview and in that process waiting to hear back I looked back on how many episodes he's
00:00:52
done and how long that's been and was just dumbfounded by it he started this podcast in 20
00:01:00
5 is this weekly every week weekly 2005 a th000 episodes cuz there's only 52
00:01:06
weeks in New Year it's a long time we've been we're on I think this is episode 2354 waveform and think about how long
00:01:14
it feels like we've been doing this WOW half of my life this is a lot yeah so
00:01:19
he's been doing it for almost 20 years um podcasting started in 2004 so he was
00:01:24
right there so so when he agreed to do it I was very excited kind of like your
00:01:30
first interview with Kobe my first interview the Kobe of uh trivia podcasts
00:01:35
James Carter I was very excited for um he was super cool we talked all about all sorts of things uh so if you don't
00:01:42
know about pod quiz it is a trivia podcast it is the trivia podcast in my eyes but because he's been doing it for
00:01:47
so long we talked about the early stages of podcasting we talked about um how he stayed so consistent for 20 years
00:01:54
because the podcast format is almost exactly the same since the first episode wow in 200 5 um nailed it yeah right
00:02:02
from the start we planned on him never wanting to post anything on YouTube which I thought was a really interesting
00:02:07
answer and most importantly I asked him in this new age of podcasting if he
00:02:13
considers waveform a real podcast h no pressure or anything no pressure I was
00:02:19
very worried about his answer for that so it's very interesting um and one last thing before we jump in this is my first
00:02:25
totally solo interview um so please give me any feedback on what I could improve
00:02:31
in I plan on doing some more in the future um but James was a fantastic guest really excited for you all to hear
00:02:36
about it and hopefully you all start listening to pod quiz soon because it's one of my favorite podcasts and he's
00:02:41
clearly one of the ogs he is the OG yeah I feel like exciting I'm excited for this one cool let's jump into
00:02:48
[Music] it James welcome to the show um I'm a
00:02:55
huge fan of pod quiz so I'm very very excited for you to join us uh thank you for joining us yes hi Andrew thanks um
00:03:02
for those of you who aren't aware of pod quiz or maybe know the show but not the man behind it would you uh give us a
00:03:08
quick introduction of you and pod quiz yeah sure so yeah I'm James I'm a
00:03:14
software engineer from New York in the UK and I've been running a weekly trivia
00:03:19
quiz podcast for nearly 20 years now that's incredible um so yeah I reached
00:03:25
out because I've been listening for years um and like said almost 20 years you just hit your thousandth episode
00:03:32
which feels so cool I remember like 100 episodes ago being like wow a thousand
00:03:38
coming up that's pretty cool but it's going to be a while before that and then my wife and I were listening the other day and we're like oh that's like in a
00:03:44
in like a month or two now it's it's getting there it did creep up on me um I mean like waveform itself is at
00:03:52
2:30 and it feels like I've been doing this for for a very long time but a
00:03:57
thousand just like how did it feel to finally hit that Milestone I mean it it definitely felt
00:04:03
like a a big thing um it had been obviously it's it's on a schedule so I
00:04:10
knew it was coming um but yeah it was like two or three weeks out it was suddenly oh yeah this is this is coming
00:04:17
and it was it was just so great to have have all the listeners of contacting me
00:04:23
with messages of congratulation lot of them have been listening for for nearly
00:04:28
all of them or all of them um yeah lots of people who say you know
00:04:35
they were listening to P quiz before their children were born and they're now listening to them together you know all that all that sort of stuff it was I was
00:04:43
I was just asking around the studio trying to see if there's anyone who worked here that was younger than pod quiz and I think everyone's just a
00:04:50
little bit older but um we were pretty close to a couple of them um have you felt like are there any
00:04:57
other big milestones in this journey to a thousand that you specifically remember maybe like a 100 or episode
00:05:03
500 episode 500 um I remember we we made a bit of a big deal there about um we
00:05:10
got um lots of of listeners to to ask questions um and even some of the sound
00:05:16
effects uh oh yeah if you if you uh listen to to the quiz you there's a
00:05:22
there's a sort of bell sound effect between each round okay yeah and that
00:05:27
was for that 500th episode that was recorded by by uh uh one of the children
00:05:33
of listener Alex who just had a very cute six-year-old voice said
00:05:38
dingding um and then yeah uh Al Alex's dad was in contact again for for the
00:05:45
thousandth episode to say that he'd remembered that so that was really nice yeah I really liked in this thousandth
00:05:52
one how you had like you had people doing the covers for things I know you've done stuff like that before you do a phenomenal job with bringing in
00:05:59
list ERS to doing different things with like guest categories and rounds and stuff like that so it's fun and and I'm
00:06:05
sure for you seeing that all come down to episode a th thousand is like the cool culmination of
00:06:12
all of it yeah um do you think we could go back a little bit though because a thousand episodes means like you said 20
00:06:18
years ago this started and pretty much around when podcasting itself had
00:06:24
started not too far off um yeah within a year or so yeah yeah so it was 2005
00:06:30
correct when you started that's right yes the first episode was I think the
00:06:35
25th of February I was going to ask if you remember the exact date so that's that's awesome um I'd love to know how
00:06:42
you kind of thought of the idea of starting this obviously I'm assuming you like trivia beforehand but what made you
00:06:48
think of putting it on the platform of podcasting and especially back then when podcasting a year was less than two
00:06:55
years old yeah um well I to be honest I've
00:07:00
never been a real trivia head you know been in a in a in a team um or
00:07:07
consistent team over years you know and never taken it that seriously but I did enjoy it um and um it was listening to
00:07:17
uh the daily source code Adam Curry's okay podcast and and like one of the the first big podcasts really um and he had
00:07:26
um a very occasional trivia segment in that okay um and and I was just
00:07:31
listening to that and thought well that's that's quite close to a pub quiz which is a thing I enjoy and would that
00:07:38
be something I would want to listen to yeah so that's that's how it started really and
00:07:45
so you call that a pub quiz we in the US we don't really call them pubs but now that makes sense so is that what sparked
00:07:51
the name for pod quiz versus pub quiz that's right yes yeah absolutely so that's like one of those things that
00:07:57
seems pretty obvious when you hear it but but until you hear it it's a mind openening experience that's that's cool
00:08:04
have you mentioned that on the the pot itself or I'm not sure I ever have I
00:08:11
don't explicitly remember doing that yeah probably something that's it's a like I think there's there's a slightly
00:08:18
um different feel between maybe trivia in North America and a pub quiz in the
00:08:25
UK in that but the impression I get is that it's taken very seriously and and
00:08:31
you know everyone obeys the rules to the letter and and all of this whereas in the UK it's much more relaxed um people
00:08:39
are there to have a chat and a drink mainly and and the the the quiz is a is a a little sudden and a chance to win
00:08:46
some some extra drinks yeah I I've participated in very few of them like like you said I've done them they're fun
00:08:53
but I don't seek myself out looking for them all the time but I do listen to pod quiz hundreds of episodes at this point
00:09:00
so um I don't know I don't I've never found them too too intense but maybe I'm just doing the the more low key ones and
00:09:08
not the weekly extremely uh competitive ones back when you started pod quiz and
00:09:14
you said you were listening to some early podcast do you remember kind of or can you explain to us I'm sure a lot of
00:09:20
our audience were not listening to stuff back then but what was the podcast landscape kind of like and what had you
00:09:26
interested in it that made you think you want wanted to push the platform with your own stuff it was it was a very sort
00:09:34
of amateur Affair um back in those days um there were no professional podcasts
00:09:41
at all um and uh certainly no sort of Corporations producing podcasts
00:09:48
um so I suppose the reason I got into it was I was I was a bit interested in the
00:09:54
technology of it the delivery of of audio via VIA RSS um and that got got it
00:10:00
got me into it in the first place um and then I just the early the Early podcasts
00:10:06
were mostly just couples and groups of friends just sitting around having a chat um and um and I I just enjoyed the
00:10:17
informal nature of it people would build up a small audience but it would be you they'd all be very involved it was very
00:10:23
much Community it sounds not that much different and Marquez would have been able to speak better on this but like
00:10:29
the earlier days of YouTube he said he started because there used to be like
00:10:34
you used to all talk inside of the comments and the way that they created videos just seemed like this very
00:10:40
tight-knit group of people watching videos and watching other videos and then commenting on all of them and
00:10:45
there's there is kind of like a magic behind that small Nick community of stuff like that I can totally see and I
00:10:53
I kind of wish I got to experience that uh back then because it sounds like a lot of fun and I'm sure in these days
00:11:00
every company or person is trying to create that next Niche magical moment
00:11:05
that feels like it absolutely but thing is Success kind of ruins it to a degree
00:11:12
sure and I'd love to talk about that later and see what your thoughts on podcasting is in today in comparison to
00:11:18
back there but um I I'd like to like pod Quist to me
00:11:25
feels I'm going to hype this up a little bit here because I I truly love the show and I really like want you to know how
00:11:31
much I appreciate it but I kind of describe it when I'm telling friends about it as like it's almost magic in
00:11:38
this way that it can take a long car trip or no one likes driving for more
00:11:43
than an hour and when I take a longer car trip like that turning on pod quiz feels like it can just melt away that
00:11:50
time of what the boring sitting on a highway for hours on end um that I get
00:11:55
so excited knowing that hey my wife and I are driving to X place that is four
00:12:00
pod quizzes away and by the time I get there it was like I kind of wish we got
00:12:06
stuck in traffic and we could do one more because maybe we didn't do very well on the last one um and what I was
00:12:12
most surprised about and like you think a thousand episodes you find your flow and you've you've re like created that
00:12:20
perfect uh show and like time and everything but I went back and listened to the first episode and it is almost
00:12:27
exactly the same to the te in terms of timing of everything 20 questions it's
00:12:33
four categories it's music first round other than you sort of explaining the rules more so in episode one because
00:12:39
it's brand new you're it's almost exactly the same how did you how did you come up with something that worked so
00:12:46
well so long ago and has have been so consistent over that long sorry that's a
00:12:52
lot of questions in one but I think well I think there's quite a lot of dumb luck but um there always is
00:12:59
there's all but I think it's part of it was that it does it does very closely
00:13:06
follow the format of of the pub quiz or the pub qu trivia down to normally it's
00:13:12
four rounds and that sort of thing normally there's a break in the middle true um so so that was a lot of it I
00:13:19
think it has developed a little bit over the years I those those First episodes
00:13:25
were quite a bit longer just because there were bigger gaps I was I was a bit
00:13:31
slower but the basic format hasn't changed just because I've not felt it needed to really no I mean it's great is
00:13:39
did you always know and maybe uh maybe it's different with Pub quizzes in the UK but has is it always music rounds and
00:13:46
stuff out there or is that something you consciously decided like you thought was a really fun way to start an episode
00:13:52
off that is again it's it's a fairly normal okay um structure that even even
00:13:58
down to being the first round very often he's either a picture quiz which doesn't work so well as a AIO podcast or or
00:14:06
music yeah okay interesting yeah the couple I've been to here in the US we don't have those and the the music uh
00:14:15
category is my favorite of every episode um sometimes it can un make me be a
00:14:21
little bitter towards the rest of the episode if I do really poorly off the start I'll be like I feel like we've
00:14:27
started this one bad already maybe I should just skip to the next but I I'll always push through it um but I guess I
00:14:32
love music and and you do a great job and I think it's a really fun way to start it each episode yeah I think I
00:14:39
think um the the issue with with music is that it it it divides people by
00:14:45
generation very often so um the feedback I'll get is oh no you
00:14:52
did all music from the 2010s I I got nothing I'll never be able to do that and very occasionally I'll do classical
00:14:59
music and obviously there's a lot of people that don't like that but I yes it's just
00:15:04
trying to get a balance over the course of of many episodes I think for sure but I think at the same time some of the
00:15:11
like some episodes I I don't remember the specific episode but I remember trips in which we were playing and one
00:15:16
of them was it was me my wife and my mom we were road tripping up to see my sister and I remember it specifically
00:15:24
because was the first time between the three of us that we'd gotten all 20 questions right and we were really proud
00:15:29
of it and it like kind of made the rest of the trip but I think a reason of that is I it was probably like a connection
00:15:35
or something where there were a lot of different eras of music and because of two generations working on it at the
00:15:41
same time we figured it all out and when you get the first five right you're like okay we're rolling we can we can do the
00:15:47
rest of it you got your sight set on that 20 hour exactly yeah do you get a lot of people reaching out to you being
00:15:53
like I hit 20 this time or is that a big accomplishment yes yes I do um and
00:16:01
equally I get I get people saying I've been doing pod quiz for 10 years and I've never managed to get 20 out of 20
00:16:07
that's awesome I do encourage people to to to sort of feedback the scores um and
00:16:13
so this um you'll see a small community of people on on the website who who post their scores each each week um which I
00:16:21
find really useful just as a feedback mechanism so um yeah 20 out 20 is is is
00:16:27
an achievement though it's it's not something that people get every week certainly that's awesome and I I noticed
00:16:33
that looking back at previous episodes you have you have episodes that are probably from pre 2010 and there are
00:16:39
people from 2020 plus still commenting on some of those putting down answers
00:16:45
and stuff like that and I thought that I thought that was really really cool um I mean I love your website it's very like
00:16:50
web 1.0 and just so easy to go back and see everything yes um by my uh front end
00:16:58
web development skills are are 20th century vintage and that uh
00:17:05
that definitely shows but functional but yes I I'm I'm amazed the number of people who will Who will get in contact
00:17:11
and said say I discovered pod quiz a couple of months ago and now I've listened to them all you know just
00:17:18
listening to a dozen a day which I I couldn't put up with my own voice for that long at all so I don't know how
00:17:25
they do it that's that's a brings up an interesting question is when you first started this and you were editing
00:17:31
andless like I've done it to when we started waveform um I kind of pitched it to Marquez and I had to be the one I was
00:17:37
editing everything he's used to his voice I am not used to my voice and that is a a strange thing to hear for the
00:17:44
first time and not just the first time maybe the first a hundred times um absolutely yeah so so doing that I think
00:17:49
everyone hates their own voice don't they yeah because it's so different and you're just like oh is that how I talk
00:17:55
and um did you get to do you think you got to a certain episode where you're like okay I've listened to myself enough
00:18:01
now I'm used to it I I think so I don't think it took all that long really um
00:18:07
but yeah I I'm also told um by my partner that I have a I have a pod quiz
00:18:12
voice it's a fantastic different from my normal speaking voice interesting I don't know I don't
00:18:18
know what that means but apparently it's it's it's softer spoken than I normally
00:18:23
am and I suppose subconsciously I'm I'm just trying to make it as understand to
00:18:29
a wider range of people as as possible you know um people do struggle a bit
00:18:34
sometimes with my my accent and I try and turn it down as much as possible I mean that's going to happen with any
00:18:39
accent from when you have people around the world listening to it um I mean I think your the voice is fantastic I
00:18:45
think it is a big part of the show itself um uh I hope there's some people who come and listen to this episode
00:18:51
because we are video and are like I finally got to see who the man behind pod quiz is um and the voice is I if
00:18:58
this voice is the same as your pod quiz it sounds very similar now so I don't know if this is your speaking voice or you've got the podquiz voice on right
00:19:05
now but I I I I don't think I think it's my normal speaking voice but uh you know
00:19:11
I I I I find it difficult to judge but but yes she tells me that's the Pod quiz
00:19:16
voice awesome um you mentioned and maybe this has to do with the way you pronounce things and your voice on there
00:19:22
but you said earlier episodes were quite a bit longer and you do feel like it's changed a bit are there any specific
00:19:29
things you remember I know we've said the format has stayed the same but maybe the way you you cut things together so
00:19:36
it's quicker maybe the way you said pronouncing things maybe you have feedback from that are there any big changes you've seen that you feel like
00:19:43
happened despite us you know seeing 20 years of 20 questions I mean I've
00:19:49
definitely got more proficient I it over the years that that first episode I think I spent about 8
00:19:56
hours recording and editing it recording it took took a ridiculously long time
00:20:01
and now you know I'm down to to an hour and a half or two hours to record episod
00:20:06
so yeah um so that's that that's a big thing I think certainly now I make a lot
00:20:14
more effort to make it International than I did when I started because when I started you know I didn't have a particular audience in mind I was just
00:20:21
playing it to friends I mean it took it took a long time to get up to 100
00:20:27
listeners you know and uh and so I wasn't I wasn't thinking about the intern International moment of it at
00:20:35
all um so that's that's certainly changed over the years but
00:20:41
um it hasn't changed a a huge amount though I mean it's it it kind of works
00:20:46
as it is I think people like the consistency um that I think people like that they can listen to a 5-year-old
00:20:54
episode or a 10-year-old episode and and not have to learn new rules or anything
00:21:00
like that so for sure I mean yeah it's it's always just like small changes can
00:21:05
make things slowly better over time but I I think consistency definitely is key and and like yeah going back you
00:21:11
definitely have a show where the back catalog is almost sometimes just as important as the new ones because what
00:21:18
people love finding podcasts and going through a back I mean I'm one like that I probably found around like episode 800
00:21:24
and then just kept going backwards through the Spotify Library until it cut off I forget where where it's cut off on
00:21:30
Spotify but now I've had to dig into the website to to listen to previous episodes um when you were starting out
00:21:38
so you said you were originally sending it to friends um I know even in today's
00:21:43
world podcast discoverability isn't really the greatest thing um back then
00:21:49
so did you send it to friends and it's just friends of friends and Word of Mouth started getting out or did you make any more deliberate pushes towards
00:21:57
uh trying to grow an audience or was it always just more of a a hobby that you were doing and if it goes that's awesome
00:22:04
it's always been a hobby yeah absolutely um so I've never I've never spent a huge amount of effort on on growing an
00:22:11
audience um early on I did um spend a little bit of effort appearing on other
00:22:18
people's podcasts I think that's that's a really good way um in both directions
00:22:23
actually having having other podcasters appear on your podcast um is is a good way of of intermingling the audiences a
00:22:30
bit um so I definitely did a lot of that in the early years um but more recently
00:22:39
you know there's plenty of people listening yeah I love my listeners they're great it's a really great
00:22:44
Community I don't feel the need for it to to grow I think it does gradually
00:22:50
over time I've not had any big pushes to do it in recent years now that's awesome and also a really cool
00:22:59
just that that doing something just because you love it is always the best way to keep pursuing through making some
00:23:05
form of content because if you are just pushing for just the audio or just the listeners or the engagement or the
00:23:10
growth that's when burnout happens and I think you're a testament to someone who hasn't hit burnout I I maybe that's me
00:23:18
assuming but a thousand episodes is extremely impressive thank you um and I don't feel
00:23:25
burnt out yet um although people have been saying you know I'm looking forward
00:23:31
to the 2000th episode and I'm thinking I'll be 70 then that
00:23:38
seems that's a wild thing to think about seems like it might be a stretch right now no it's just good fun I enjoy doing
00:23:45
it and that's why I do it that's I like how you're saying it might be a stretch not that is a stretch and that is a very
00:23:52
very uh difficult thing to hit so that that's awesome I look forward to as as far as you're willing to go before
00:23:58
hitting burnout whatever episode that may be I think something you do extremely well is just the variety of
00:24:05
difficulty you have in all of your different questions it's when I'm listening and a category happens or a
00:24:10
round happens it feels like there's always one that I have a shot at getting at least a guess in even if I know
00:24:16
nothing about the category and if I know a lot about the category there's always one where I'm really scratching my head
00:24:23
how long or is there anything you specifically do to try and uh have VAR for the difficulties of
00:24:29
the questions I do think about it yes I always think for each
00:24:34
round there should be at least one question that almost everyone will be able to answer um that's usually but not
00:24:41
always the first question in the room oh really okay um and
00:24:46
similarly I I want to have at least one question around where I think you really need to know your stuff on the subject
00:24:52
in order to be able to answer it um but cuz too far either way no fun for
00:24:59
anybody so for sure trying to have that balance across across each round is what
00:25:04
I try and do but um don't always get to grind we're going to take a quick break
00:25:09
and when we come back we're going to see how James develops all of his different categories be right
00:25:17
[Music]
00:25:26
back support for way for comes from from Meo so there's nothing like finishing a big project to make you feel connected
00:25:32
to your team and there's nothing like an ineffective retrospective to deflate everyone involved it's a lot of work to
00:25:38
do it well you have to synthesize and categorize themes and get the team involved and assign next steps and make
00:25:43
it a fun safe space where teammates want to participate so that's where Meo comes in Miro is the visual collaboration
00:25:50
platform that helps you run effective engaging and actionable retrospectives to help your team members voices be
00:25:55
heard with features like retro templates uh ice breakers and AI capabilities to summarize outcomes mirro can help keep
00:26:02
your team engaged and accountable while identifying and solving hurdles together plus it can help ensure your team shares
00:26:08
their ideas without fear with private mode so in private mode teammates can anonymously add notes to the board and
00:26:14
also have access to tools like voting and timers to help you facilitate communication between groups so whether
00:26:19
you work in product design engineering ux agile or marketing bring your team
00:26:25
together on Miro your first three Miro boards are free and you sign up today at mirro.com so that's three freeboards at
00:26:32
M o.com so when you're thinking of a category are they things you're fairly
00:26:37
knowledgeable knowledgeable about or are you going out and looking for maybe something happened just within the last
00:26:44
month that you think is interesting and that's how you select a category um I find I find writing
00:26:52
questions for things I know about harder oh than writing for questions for things I don't because if you know something
00:26:58
about a subject it's I think it's it's much more difficult to assess how difficult the questions um because they
00:27:05
all seem relatively easy um but um so yes generally I don't I
00:27:12
don't know a great deal I mean I couldn't possibly know a great deal
00:27:17
about everything I've asked all the 20,000 plus questions I've asked over the years but um um yeah no it's it's
00:27:26
usually it's just a case of um the the difficult thing I find is coming up with the topic not coming up with questions
00:27:33
um because I don't have a perfect record but I try to avoid repeating myself um
00:27:39
which again is is becoming more and more challenging um but once I've got it once I've got a topic um then then finding
00:27:47
questions is just usually a case of hitting Wikipedia yeah kind of like the
00:27:53
Wikipedia game you start at the topic and then you find links that are associated with it and go through there yeah that's awesome in
00:28:00
terms of sort of current affairs though I I try to avoid that um because again
00:28:07
because people go back 10 years to listen to old episodes and um stuff
00:28:14
that's that's current affairs now will be really obscure triv in 10 years time
00:28:21
um so again it's it's difficult to completely avoid that um but I I try to
00:28:28
possible well one really interesting way you've done it and I I wanted to throw a couple um like categories that you've
00:28:34
created that I think are really um creative uh at you is one you did some a
00:28:40
segment called old news which is where you play a News segment I know I'm just saying this for you but our audience
00:28:46
might not know playing a News segment that has some some sort of piece of news and you have to guess approximately the
00:28:52
time it happened in but I think what's so interesting about that is rather being when did X event happen as just
00:28:58
the question you have this more context to maybe get guess something like that
00:29:04
because if you don't know the the very simple question maybe you could figure it out so me being a a production person
00:29:11
sometimes I'm like oh well that microphone definitely is like pre-1990 or something like that so how do you
00:29:17
come up with more fun ways of categories rather than just a very black and white question I'm not sure I've got a good
00:29:24
answer to I can list off a couple of my other favorites and maybe that would help maybe you can if you remember how
00:29:29
you came up with those specific rounds um um for certainly for well for the old
00:29:34
news um it was it originally I thought I would just ask question s more like a
00:29:42
history round of asking questions about specific events and then in in the course of of researching that I ended up
00:29:50
on on YouTube watching an old newsreel I think it was and I thought well hang on
00:29:55
that's that's quite interesting in itself um and and so I thought I I'll
00:30:00
I'll pick that up and actually use the audio clip instead yeah and it helps
00:30:06
because if you don't know a specific event maybe In that clip they mention a president or a prime minister or they
00:30:11
mention something else that happens that you do know about so gives us as the listeners way more opportunities which
00:30:16
is so much more fun or you can recognize the speaker you can say oh that's Walter Kon kite going to be in a certain time
00:30:23
period or whatever yeah yeah that's what's so fun I also really enjoy um like who who am I is rather than just
00:30:29
who is this person that's X it's five different questions with varying levels of difficulty to get to somebody is that
00:30:36
something that's um popular in in Pub quizzes or is that something you developed no that's um that's something
00:30:43
I came up with I'm just making sure that's true because a lot of a lot of
00:30:48
these rounds have been listener suggestions oh cool over the years um but I think that was that was one and
00:30:55
again it was sort of one of those things where I was you know I often ask questions about famous people um and if
00:31:04
it's just a single question about somebody you can't really sort of dig into the the details of that person and
00:31:10
it's difficult to vary the the difficulty a bit whereas that sort of structured round where you get more and
00:31:16
more clues that getting more and more obvious over the course of the round it allows people who who really know about
00:31:22
that person to get it really quickly and to and to feel like they they've cracked
00:31:27
the code just there's a there's a really good feeling if you actually do make the guest I think it's happened once which
00:31:33
was a total uh or at least since I've been playing one time on like the date and where they were born just total
00:31:40
guess and then like the next question you're like wait I think I'm still on the right track and then you get to the end you're like okay cool that was very
00:31:46
lucky but so much more fun um and then my other favorite category I always love
00:31:53
this one is natural world where you play animal sounds and rather than guess the exact species it's how many legs do they
00:32:00
have which is brilliant and so much fun yes I've done similar rounds with uh
00:32:07
with um vehicles of various sorts how many wheels they've got um which
00:32:14
um part of that is because it's actually very difficult if you play the sound of
00:32:20
an animal to say what species is it because they all sound there's a large number of different animals that sound alike and also it's it's it's just a fun
00:32:28
I think um yeah it's yeah it's fun and it even like you get to guess then right
00:32:33
there's only probably so many wheels or so many legs or a lot of times they're multiples of two so you have somewhat of
00:32:40
a guess it's like multiple choice but not quite multiple choice that's one of the animals one is my favorite I like a
00:32:46
lot of the categories where you play sounds and guess things um maybe that's just me like to listening to stuff like
00:32:53
that uh do you have any particular like category favorites that you've come up with
00:32:58
topics I don't think I've got specific topics I do like my my favorite I think
00:33:04
uh the quick fire rounds it's it's a category of things um so the the
00:33:10
questions um it might be like for example um director's first films or something
00:33:17
like that so it's just a a list of the questions are just a list of directors and you have to name their first films
00:33:22
and um and maybe that's not the best example but I I feel like get quite
00:33:28
creative about that um and also it's quite easy quite easy
00:33:33
too that's um I know you said M so music rounds are my favorite um and I know you
00:33:40
said that because a pub quiz generally starts with that but have you you've come up with I'm assuming some of these
00:33:45
or maybe audience ones all these different ways you play the music round so whether it's uh what year they're out
00:33:51
maybe a connection some of the connections are so much fun and feels
00:33:57
like you're in like a a detective case on them I think one was all different it
00:34:03
was like uh king queen Prince between all the names of everything and finding that one out was awesome um I personally
00:34:10
love terrible twins because hearing when two of them play at the same that I
00:34:16
believe that's M same artist two songs at the same time that's right it's really easy to pinpoint one if you
00:34:22
recognize it but even though if you know the band to a te guessing the second one when you already are hearing one in your
00:34:29
brain is something that's so hard to uh like explain so that's why I love it so
00:34:35
much but uh are there any favorite music rounds you have or how'd you come up with like some of these ideas for lots
00:34:41
of them it's just trying to find a way of making it different um because because there's a music round
00:34:48
every week for yeah I I feel it just get boring um so um yeah I do I do try and
00:34:57
come up with new there's a there's new one coming actually really again it was a listener suggestion um in a couple of
00:35:04
weeks time I think we're going to have around where the vocals been removed and you have to guess just from the just
00:35:11
from the music so um but I think my favorite music round is a very very
00:35:17
occasional one I do called L da okay um which uh is just me trying to reproduce
00:35:26
a song really badly no instruments so just sort of humming and and badly beatboxing and all that sort of stuff I
00:35:33
remember some did you all it's great fun to do did you also do one of I thought it was a recorder for Christmas music
00:35:40
I've done a tin whistle tin whistle okay and I've done a um I I've lost it I used
00:35:47
to have a stylophone okay which is very simple synthesizer thing that I used to
00:35:52
used to use as well but um yeah they take a surprising amount of of effort to
00:35:58
do those on when you do them occasionally but uh yes are you gen are you a musical person or is this coming
00:36:04
from you're really just learning just this for these rounds um I I am a slightly musical
00:36:11
person I play guitar badly you played it in the thousandth episode right I did
00:36:17
yes yes um but generally speaking when I do these sort of rounds where it's me performing a thing I I don't I don't try
00:36:24
too hard okay um because because I mean if it was perfect then it would be too
00:36:30
easy but also it's I think I think it's just more fun MH if I do it badly um so
00:36:36
I put I put a a a strictly defined amount of effort into each one that's
00:36:42
awesome um can we talk a little bit more about uh you you mentioned it a little bit but how you we're we're tech people
00:36:49
here we're produce production people here we love cameras and audio equipment and everything can we talk about how you produce pod quiz sure yeah when uh I
00:36:58
mean I have to ask right now it what is your setup like do do you know the name
00:37:03
microphone and everything just for yeah uh okay about see that there Road
00:37:11
enter USB so fairly standard podcasting microphone um and yeah I just record in
00:37:21
here no particular Studio or anything um and I've always just used audacity
00:37:28
nothing nothing more complex than that that's I mean that's a extremely efficient setup uh are what yeah sorry
00:37:37
our producer Adam guessed that before he's like I bet he uses audacity so he's very excited that he guessed that
00:37:42
correctly um do you remember what you started with um in
00:37:47
2005 I don't remember actually it was a sure microphone of some sort but I don't
00:37:53
I don't remember um but it's the same I started with audacity 1.2 or whatever
00:38:01
back then and I've just kept up it over the years always slightly dreading the
00:38:08
next update so there's a different set of bugs to to learn yeah we know that all to Marquez is always dreading any
00:38:15
saf or Mac OS updates when we're just in our workflow really well um you said it
00:38:21
used to take about 8 hours and you're down to about an hour and a half is that um that's just the full recording how
00:38:27
long if you had to give an approximate amount of time from starting your questions to publishing the final
00:38:34
episode what would you give it I I think I put about eight hours a week in in total um so the research is
00:38:44
is the majority of the time really but I just spread that out through the week you know just spent half an hour here an
00:38:49
hour there so um the the sort of recording and editing is the one block of time that I do but probably about
00:38:56
eight hours a week cool so yeah so you have recording and editing pretty quickly into a very efficient timeline
00:39:02
at this point yeah that's right yeah like yeah I guess that usually in with
00:39:08
with about five minutes to spare before it's du to go out oh really just right up to the the publish yeah amazing right
00:39:16
up to the wire yes that's that's kind of awesome and now i' I kind of like usually listen in like three to four
00:39:23
episodes so I'm not I'm not the person who's listening right as it comes out but I feel like I need to catch one now right as it comes out knowing that 10
00:39:31
minutes before you might have still been putting the finishing touches on it that's that's a fun little that's that's
00:39:38
that's fairly normal yes um and are you you're recording I'm
00:39:43
assuming with that you're recording each episode each week you're not batch recording
00:39:48
episodes I'll batch record if I've got a reason to if going away for vacation or
00:39:54
whatever um but generally I don't um partially because I'm too lazy too um
00:40:03
but but also because um I I I like getting the sort of immediate feedback
00:40:09
from listeners and people want messages read for birthdays and that sort of thing oh yeah and if I if I um back up
00:40:15
too many recordings then then I'm too late for people for that it feel yeah it
00:40:20
feels out a whack sort of we um it's cool to hear that because we are here we
00:40:25
are very weak to week uh Studio I mean Marquez usually we know our schedule
00:40:32
Sunday Sunday night and then we do everything for that week whether that's a couple videos across all our different
00:40:38
platforms and people think that's wild because there's a lot of a lot of different people on YouTube doing you
00:40:44
know two to three week one plus month uh it takes for a video but we just like to
00:40:50
know do what we're talking about right then get it into a video as fast as possible and and publish it while still
00:40:56
obviously keeping production quality up but I don't think there's a lot of people out there doing it this quickly
00:41:01
um and I think there's there's is something really cool about the immediate audience feedback from that and being able to make it applicable
00:41:08
next yeah that's awesome um do you mind and if if you don't feel comfortable answering any of these questions that's
00:41:15
totally fine but I in my mind pod quiz is like the trivia podcast that every
00:41:20
time I search on Reddit about any other ones the top answer is always pod quiz
00:41:26
there's nobody ever making an argument against it and I've tried other ones and maybe because of poor uh discoverability
00:41:34
in terms of podcast I haven't found any other good ones but I found podquiz and I think it's the best do you have like
00:41:39
an approximate amount of listeners that you know of it's it's really difficult yeah um
00:41:48
because um I can I can tell you the number of downloads yeah which is which is about
00:41:55
about 40,000 something like that incredible um but
00:42:01
that's that's only part of the story because it gets aggregated um you know Spotify and whatever else they'll
00:42:07
they'll serve it off their service it doesn't that doesn't uh count towards the numbers as it were
00:42:14
um one uh one delivery mechanism I I I was really chuffed about when I heard
00:42:19
was um that um a listener emailed me to say that he really enjoyed the quizzes
00:42:26
that he got on audio cassette from a service who recorded podcast podcast
00:42:32
onto audio cassette to send out for services for the blind oh wow so that
00:42:38
was that was really cool that's that's fascinating I and sorry I I'm stuck on
00:42:45
audio cassette because I'm trying to think about even 2005 like we're well past CDs at that point absolutely yeah
00:42:53
yeah wow okay that's really I need to look into what some of these services do
00:42:58
you happen to know what the service was called or I can't remember it was it was many many years ago but it did it did
00:43:04
make me chuckled at the time we'll try and figure that out and and post it when we edit this if if possible I don't know
00:43:10
if our research will be good enough for that but that's really awesome um and then and yeah pod podcasting metrics
00:43:17
seem to be really tough um in terms of figuring stuff out I mean even was it like a year ago that Apple stopped Auto
00:43:25
downloading if you didn't listen so like they change all the time than that wasn't it yeah I think so um do you have
00:43:32
and I guess you kind of answered this but an approximate total number of like downloads you know for pod quiz lifetime
00:43:39
or has metrics changed in so many different ways well metrics certainly have changed but also I've just not kept
00:43:46
not kept it kept Good Records to be honest um I I I do remember being very excited the
00:43:53
the first the first week in episode got 100 down yeah um which was I think more
00:44:00
than a year after I started um so that that that was a a little bit
00:44:06
of M done that I remember but actually to be honest I only keep a few weeks worth of logs just to see not yeah yeah
00:44:14
um but you know because it's a hobby um the actual numbers don't really matter
00:44:20
so much I'm not having to sort of report these to a sponsor or so so um it
00:44:27
doesn't affect me lucky that's I mean yeah that's that's amazing is and that's
00:44:32
the reason I just have to ask why you've never looked for a a more typical YouTube ad or sorry not YouTube but like
00:44:39
podcast uh ad integration or anything you've never looked for any of that and probably don't plan on it just
00:44:46
because I have you know I've I've got a day job that's uh that pays me more than
00:44:52
enough to to live off um and I just think that if I took pod quiz in that
00:44:59
direction it would become a job and not a hobby and and I don't think I'd enjoy it as much I think that's super
00:45:05
respectable and I think there are a lot of i' I've talked to people on YouTube as well who have done stuff like that
00:45:10
and I think that's what's kept their Channel like very pure and fun for them
00:45:15
um which I think is super super awesome we're going to take one more quick ad break and when we get back we're going
00:45:21
to see James's final thoughts on the current landscape of podcasting
00:45:26
[Music]
00:45:36
I'd love to jump in just quickly kind of like our last thing here is you've experienced now podcasting over 20 years
00:45:43
and I think it's safe to say that it's changed very much and some of that
00:45:49
change maybe doesn't really feel so much like the original podcasting anymore I think our Channel specifically is far
00:45:57
far different from what podcasting uh used to be I'd love to ask what your
00:46:02
thoughts are on the landscape today um and I'm totally okay with you using
00:46:08
waveform as um if you think we are not a podcast or more of a TV show or a Show
00:46:14
online um I will take no offense to it um but I'd love to hear your thoughts on
00:46:20
it it's absolutely a podcast okay I mean it's that makes me feel very good I I'm
00:46:27
not sure that that it it's it's just the asynchronous delivery is is what makes it a podcast
00:46:34
in my mind whether it's whether it's video or audio or whatever I don't think
00:46:39
makes a difference at all um I think there there is a bit of a
00:46:45
difference potentially in how that's consumed and certainly a difference in terms of how that's produced I
00:46:52
think if I were to make pod quiz a video podcast which I wouldn't
00:46:57
but that that recording time of an hour and a half would would at least double
00:47:02
and and probably more um but um yeah absolutely it still
00:47:08
countes appreciate that when we were first pitching this I do remember specifically Marquez and I made the
00:47:15
conscious agreement to do audio first because we knew either way would we would be releasing an audio format and
00:47:22
being video people it's very easy to just reference something on screen so we felt like we needed to learn how
00:47:29
to be able to talk about things that people can't see and while I still don't
00:47:34
we're the best at it we did spend two years trying that before we moved to video so I'm happy we did that it was a
00:47:41
it was fun and it's really cool to be able to just use audio sometimes whether it's just like you're not feeling the
00:47:47
best that day and you don't want to be on camera for tons of people to see yeah I do feel I have the ideal face for
00:47:54
radio here no I no you have an incredible voice for radio you would be fantastic on video have you ever thought
00:48:01
I know you said not a video for pod quiz but maybe like the audio with like a
00:48:07
video animation playing over it like a waveform animation that that would be
00:48:13
possible certainly um and it certainly looks like um um Google would very much
00:48:21
like me to do that in the way they're they're pushing uh they're ruring um the
00:48:26
podcast up and wanting people to to everything to YouTube music
00:48:32
um I've I'm reluctant to do that um and the the reason I'm reluctant is because
00:48:40
it feels like giving up ownership a little bit okay um at the moment
00:48:45
everything pod quiz is I host myself okay W no other services involved at all
00:48:51
um and I I quite like it that way um
00:48:56
whereas you know as soon as it's as soon as it's on YouTube or any other service for that matter it it's it's you
00:49:04
know you retain the rights but it still feels like you've given up a bit of control sure I mean we're we're here
00:49:11
wondering if uh open AI is just scraping every episode we have because it's on YouTube and I know what you yeah I'm
00:49:19
sure that's true exactly so yeah that's that's really interesting I was I was going to say or I was going to ask you
00:49:25
what your thoughts were on podcasting um discoverability I've mentioned it a couple times and I don't think it's the
00:49:31
best ever but I'm assuming you haven't dug that deep into it with it being more hobby focused and and you've had your
00:49:37
loyal listeners for a while uh I feel like word of mouth is the best way that podcast still seem to get around unless
00:49:44
you do go the YouTube route because YouTube is obviously a search engine yeah well it's an algorithm isn't it
00:49:51
yeah so you again you're yes you you you to that algorithm
00:49:57
but that algorithm can work very well for you potentially so absolutely um I
00:50:04
mean back in the day discoverability for for podcasts was through podcast
00:50:09
directories really and I mean they still exist but it it
00:50:15
relies on people sort of actively seeking them out out and I don't and that worked in the early days when when
00:50:22
you know you were expected your audience to have a certain level of technical proficiency to do all that sort of stuff
00:50:29
I mean to download a podcast in the first place that iTunes didn't support it you know you had to install a special
00:50:36
piece of software yourself and manage copying it to your mp3 player or so um
00:50:42
um back in those days just having a directory online work really well but yes I don't I don't feel it works so
00:50:48
much anymore and I I don't I don't know what the what the solutions are I'm not I'm not necessarily convinced that um
00:50:55
for everyone as service like YouTube is or at least I'd much prefer it if there
00:51:00
was a a more sort of Open Source all right of of sharing these things to I
00:51:07
totally agree uh it it works and maybe it's the best but that does not mean
00:51:12
that it is the ideal situation by any means um all right I think uh I'd love
00:51:18
to just last question pretty much is um a thousand episodes in you mentioned before that people were wishing you good
00:51:24
luck to your 2000th do you have um I mean future of pod quiz Are there any other Milestones you're specifically
00:51:31
looking forward to or any special ideas coming up that we should all be excited about or that you're excited about I
00:51:39
think it's it to a certain extent it's it's keeping on keeping on um I don't
00:51:44
have any particular Milestones although the geek and me will look forward to
00:51:51
episode24 just because we're hitting 10 bits awesome um
00:51:57
but yes i' I've I've got a couple of ideas for new rounds and that sort of stuff coming but there's no big big
00:52:04
revolution um it's the again it's the consistency and I think people take
00:52:10
comfort in that so sure I'm not planning any big changes cool that's awesome um I
00:52:15
do have one more question and it's something that we ask all of our guests on waveform do you know how fast you can
00:52:21
type the alphabet uh I don't but I am a terrible typist so not be very fast would you
00:52:27
mind if we tested you on the show you can yes can I um I'm going to send you a
00:52:34
link um I think I can send it just right here in Riverside you know like Top Gear
00:52:39
the reasonably priced car leaderboard they have yes so we do this all of our
00:52:44
guests it's just this website that's just how fast you can type the alphabet we give everyone three tries and we have
00:52:50
kind of a leaderboard of everyone that's been on here okay so what do I so I just
00:52:55
go ahead and start do I yeah yeah so the way it works is once you press a it'll start um you don't have to press enter
00:53:01
and if you miss a letter it's just going to pause where that is so it should follow along in the ABCD right above
00:53:07
that um and then we just say three tries and we'll put your best score as the final okay what's the slowest uh it's
00:53:16
like almost 10 seconds I also being a good typist I don't know how much it helps here because nobody types the
00:53:22
alphabet A to Z like ever it's very hard that's true yeah yeah okay here we go
00:53:37
then 6.7 something you're definitely in the middle I don't know if I have the leaderboard on me right now but oh
00:53:45
here 6. you're like dead center pretty much with
00:53:51
that okay I'll give it another go then yeah
00:54:04
that was slower that happens a lot yeah and you
00:54:10
want to give it h one more try one last go but yeah I'll give it one more guy
00:54:25
sure yeah that was also slower slower okay so 6.7 you're right um between I
00:54:30
don't know if you know who Colin and Samir are or Simone yurz she's the like makes all the different robots on
00:54:36
YouTube I do yes right between those two cool James thank you so much for joining
00:54:41
us um personally this was an absolute Blast for me and I know Adam's a big fan
00:54:46
also um we're very thankful for you joining the show um for any of our listeners where can they find you um any
00:54:52
other projects you're working on that you'd like to shout out um well thanks so much for having me I've really enjoyed it um yes you can find podquiz
00:55:00
ATP pod quiz.com um and all the normal places you find podcasts um as for other
00:55:07
projects if you're interested in computers and movies I have a website
00:55:12
called starring the computer.com which is like IMDb but for computers in films
00:55:18
it's awesome we took a look at it and it's it's really cool I really liked it I was just asking people around the
00:55:24
office like name a movie I'll name the computers that are in it um but I I appreciate that you show all the photos and exactly what they are um it's an
00:55:31
awesome website cool cool um congratulations on a thousand again and
00:55:36
can't wait to see what else you do thanks very much all right that was it um I thought it was a great interview um
00:55:43
he was he's just like the purest podcaster I feel like I've ever seen it's a good word he does it does it For
00:55:49
the Love of the Game I think is% I'm so glad we're a real podcast yeah I'm very glad that he considers us a real podcast
00:55:55
that's a bad of Honor but yeah thanks for joining for another bonus episode um oh fun fact in next episode we asked him
00:56:03
to create the trivia questions for a regular episode okay I'm so happy he
00:56:08
agreed to do it cuz I thought you know you make 20 trivia questions a week for 20 years you probably don't want to add
00:56:15
too more to it but he was kind enough to do it for us so next episode we will be getting trivia questions from the trivia
00:56:20
Master himself could be about anything I did ask Tech related okay but that still could be about pretty much anything
00:56:26
that's a wide range okay I'm excited for that too it also just occurred to me I don't know if he included the answers so
00:56:31
I might have to look this up oh I'll leave that to you I won't I
00:56:37
obviously don't know the questions either but yeah well hopefully everyone subscribed and you'll see if we know what the answers are on Friday in a
00:56:43
couple days in a couple days see you then waveform is produced by Adam Alina and Ellis Ren we're partner with the VOX media podcast Network and our
00:56:49
interactional music was created by v s
00:56:54
[Music] a
00:57:00
[Music]
