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Annual Performance Review 2022 with Chris Webster & Rachel Roden - Ep 137
2.5k Plays2 years ago
Well, it is that time of the year again. In keeping with tradition, the New Year's first episode features Archaeology Podcast Network owners Christ Webster and Rachel Roden. The three hosts catch up with their APN overlords, discussing the upcoming year for the APN, what show we gained and lost in 2022, and how the A Life in Ruins Podcast has been doing.
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Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/ruins/137
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
You're
Podcast Introduction Struggles
00:00:01
Speaker
listening to the archaeology podcast network. Welcome to episode 137 of a life ruins podcast. Re-investigate the careers of those living a life in ruins. I did that wrong. What am I supposed to read? It's like all one word. Okay. I would already do that. I just leave it. See, this is where I'd say like,
00:00:25
Speaker
Rachel added it out, but you're right here. Um, and you know, we're gonna leave all this in. So welcome to episode. God damn it.
Introducing Guests: Chris Webster and Rachel Rodin
00:00:41
Speaker
Welcome to episode 137 of a life and ruins podcast, where we investigate the careers of those living a life in ruins. I'm your host Carlton Gilbert. I am joined by my co-host David Howe and Connor Jonnan. It is that time of the year. Ladies, gentlemen, Apache attack helicopters, Apache attack helicopters. That's the word.
00:01:01
Speaker
It is our annual performance review by our Archaeology Podcast Network overlords, Wrangler of Archaeology Podcast Network monkeys. I meant to say Life in Ruins. This is the Adderall that I recently got prescribed that I'm still coping with right now, and that's where all this nightmare is coming from.
00:01:22
Speaker
It is Chris Webster and Rachel Rodin. You too, thank you so much for coming onto the show. I'm really happy that we've kind of continued this tradition of having at least one of you present. Chris, you've been here all four years at this point, right? And Rachel, this is
Rachel's 2022 Podcasting and Archaeology Journey
00:01:40
Speaker
your second time. You missed the first and third, but now we're back. So with that being said, Rachel, since we haven't seen you in quite some time, how have you been in 2022?
00:01:51
Speaker
I'm pretty good. I mean, just doing my thing, editing some podcasts here and there, doing some archeology, but more tangentially to archeology rather than actual archeology. So that's my thing. That's what I'm doing. Good stuff. Well, awesome. And what about you, Chris? How have you been?
00:02:13
Speaker
Well, you know, my workload just continues to increase in the first one minute and 15 seconds of this show. I counted at least 15 edits. I gotta do so unless, unless Rachel does them. So yeah, you never know which of us is going to edit the show. So, you know, aside from that, it's been a, it's been a busy, busy year as usual. Where are you guys at right now?
00:02:37
Speaker
So we're in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's where Rachel's family is from. And I can let her tell you a little bit about where we're at. Yeah. I mean, I just grew up here and my family also lives
Life on the Road: RV Living and Upgrades
00:02:47
Speaker
here. And since we live in an RV and we can go anywhere we want, whenever we want, cause we also work remotely and you know, just need internet, which was actually kind of difficult for the last couple of weeks, but now we're in a pretty good situation. We can just be here for the holidays every year. And I get to play with my nieces and nephew and it's super fun.
00:03:07
Speaker
Nice. How long have you guys been doing the RV gig at this point? It's two and a half years at this point. We started in June of 2020 with our first RV and now we're on our second RV and halfway through our third year. So, yep.
00:03:23
Speaker
It was kind of pandemic related, but it was sort of like the circumstances just sort of came together because I had I left my full time job literally like three weeks before the pandemic started. When I decided to leave my job, like all we knew was that people were getting sick in China and that was that.
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah. But then the world shut down and I had already quit my job, which would have become remote, which would have been amazing. I probably would have stayed at my job, but that's all right. We hit the road. We bought that RV that just worked out for us. And I think it was the right decision for sure to do this instead. Yeah. Yeah. When do you guys get the bigger one? Cause I know you kind of had like a, this is mock two or version two of the, Hey, you guys have a mansion.
00:04:08
Speaker
Well, it's, and David, you've seen it. Do you saw the first one that we had? And this one is actually the new one we got just this last September. And it's actually 10 inches shorter than the first one, but so it's 35 feet and like four inches or five inches or something.
00:04:26
Speaker
But it's much bigger inside because if you've ever seen a class ARV, it's got slides. Well, the slides in the living room go out like an extra foot and a half on both sides. And we've got two slides in the back versus one slide. So that allows us to have, in a shorter space, that allows us to have a king size bed in the back and a washer and dryer. And we've got more space, all the comforts of home. And this one's a 2022 as well. So it's got the updated technology and all that stuff.
00:04:55
Speaker
It's fancier than our car. So that's, you know, not really saying a whole lot. We have a Ford C-Max at the moment. Hopefully that'll change soon. But yeah. The car's not amazing. Yeah. It's one of the reasons we upgraded because we moved to a diesel. So we've got a 10,000 pound towing capacity as opposed to five now. So now we can get something a little bigger. Yeah. Yeah. We really want something we can go off road.
00:05:16
Speaker
The cool thing about diesels is it's so cheap right now. We switched out RVs from a gas RV right when gas started getting down to $3 and less. I'm like, come on. But the gas mileage is way better.
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah, we were getting almost 8, 900 miles, almost 1,000 miles out of a tank of gas. And that's 100 gallons. So it's still only about 10 to maybe 12 miles to the gallon, depending on what altitude we're at. But it's better than the six or seven we were getting with the other RV. Yeah.
00:05:50
Speaker
We have a hundred gallons. That's wild. I get 30 or I think, I think it's like 40, maybe 40 gallon tank in your, in your bus. Yeah. Like put it this way from Cheyenne to Laramie. I had to fill up.
Scheduling Mishaps and Conference Preferences
00:06:08
Speaker
Well,
00:06:09
Speaker
Um, I also want to stay for the record. I got a zoom invite today saying that we had a performance review and I was like, Oh, that's weird. We never had one of those. So I logged in ready to do it. And then Connor was like, we're on Zen caster. And I was like, that's weird.
00:06:24
Speaker
It's easier to do, I guess. And then I hopped on recording a three-segment episode, and I just took a painkiller, so prescribed one. So yeah, this is a fun surprise. That would be Chris's dumb scheduling system thing with his calendar. It sends out a zoom invite whether you like it or not.
00:06:47
Speaker
I just need to be smarter. I think the moral of the story. We did have a conversation with David under, he might have been under the influence of some sort of painkiller, but we did have a conversation where we established that this was going to be the thing we do every year.
00:07:02
Speaker
Apparently I told the nurse my name was Timothy, so anything was possible. Nice. Nice. I do. I like doing these. I appreciate it. And it makes me actually want to, I don't know about do it on a podcast episode because you guys have kind of the only show that this is appropriate to have an episode about for, uh, you know, that's it. It just fits. But
00:07:23
Speaker
I, it makes me want to do this type of interaction with, uh, with all the podcast hosts at least once a year, you know, just to, just to check in. Cause I mean, there's, with all this being virtual, there's, there's hosts, of course, that I've never met. Um, I've been working with them for a long time and I've never met them. And so the only time we get to interact is on, you know, random Slack conversations, but normally it's just like audio comes in, we process it and kick it back out. And, and that's pretty much it, you know, we don't have to talk to anybody, but it would be nice to
00:07:50
Speaker
have that FaceTime, I guess, a little bit and keep that going. Are you guys going to SCA's this spring? You know, it's not in the cards for us right now. It's not in the works. And if anybody listening to this happened to hear an episode of the Sierra Mark podcast in the last couple of months, we had something about professional organizations and I kind of went on a rant. Bill White did too. We're kind of getting a little bit disenfranchised with the whole, with the big, the big,
00:08:18
Speaker
organizations, it's fun to go see people. Don't get me wrong. You know, it's fun to go there and hang out, but that's almost literally all they're providing you. And for the thousands of dollars it takes to get there, I feel like we could do better and we can do something else, which is why we're trying to try to kick something up on the APN and cultural side of things and, you know, make it a little more meaningful. If I want to go meet up with a bunch of people, we live in an RV. We'll just travel around the country and meet people.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah. So the short answer to that is no, I don't think we are. Um, and, uh, and I don't know if we're going to be going to one in the foreseeable future. We were going to go to Lisbon too, uh, for SHAs, but just kind of backed out on that for other plants. It just, it just didn't seem logistically worth it, to be honest. They don't, they don't make it worth it.
Podcasting Challenges and Network Expansions
00:09:02
Speaker
So yeah, that's where we're at with that. Not to bring it down. No, I mean, it's been a little documented. I think it's worth it.
00:09:12
Speaker
Well, you've got professor money, right? You get paid to go over and do that stuff, so I don't want to hear it. I do. That is true. Where is it at next year? Portland. Portland. I'm going to dye my hair blue and knock some statues over. We're really excited. Are we talking about SHA's or SAA's? SAA's in Portland. Yeah. We've got to figure out what we're going to take over. Yeah. Oh, that's right.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. Fair enough. But kind of moving this back into archaeology and podcast related kind of topic. And for those that have listened to these reviews before, you know that we actually don't get into much archaeological literature or anything here. We really just kind of talk about really an annual performance review of what has the APN been doing this past year? How has Life in Ruins been doing this past year? But the APN has seen some new podcasts come to the network.
00:10:08
Speaker
So yeah, who have you guys brought into, to the fold?
00:10:14
Speaker
Yes. So this year, I think there's, I think there's two new ones in one reboot. If I'm not mistaken, I have to think about it, but one of the ones was, I think that was this year, um, flip side. I think she started at the beginning of the year and her name is Leah Tilly who hosts that. She actually started the podcast and then had some health issues of her own and had to kind of bail on it for a few months. And then she's slowly coming back to it, but she,
00:10:41
Speaker
her podcast when she really gets it going, again, she's only a few episodes in and it's monthly, but it's supposed to be looking at events in history and then talking to people about what we don't know about those events in history, right? That's kind of where it is. The flip side of the event, if you will, that's where she gets the name. So taking the stuff that we really know and kind of looking underneath that and digging into it a little bit.
00:11:03
Speaker
And then there's T break time travel by the Matilda Sebrecht, who is also our MC, if you will, for the cultural share events, which we may talk about later, but she's helping set those up and ran our first one back in November. But she also runs a podcast called the T break time travel. And I can't remember where Instagram is, but her Instagram started from that. I think it's called T break archeology, if I'm not mistaken. But she started that and does like this weekly Instagram, real kind of thing.
00:11:30
Speaker
Archaeologist teacup. That's right. Yeah. And yeah, cause David was a guest on her, uh, on her show on one of the episodes. Yeah. I told her at the end of it too. She was in the beginning. She said she was nervous cause she'd only done a few, but like she was a wonderful interviewer, like asked questions, stayed on topic. Like it was one of my favorite that I've done. Yeah.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah. And I like, I like her show too. She's, she's very conversational. She's very comfortable. She doesn't seem nervous. You know, some people while they may be nervous, they, they like act nervous and she doesn't seem nervous and it doesn't come through the show. So, uh, and she's got experience enough to, to have a dialogue about most things. So.
00:12:06
Speaker
So she's, I think I just posted her episode seven, which will be out as we're recording this. So it'll be out in like a week and a half. But as you're listening to this, it's already out. Her episodes are monthly as well. And then we rebooted the pseudo archaeology podcast. It's been on hiatus for about four or five years now. It was started originally by Sarah Head, who has the archaeology fantasies persona on line. And Sarah, the archaeology fantasies podcast, all about pseudo archaeology was
00:12:33
Speaker
One of the first three, we started with four podcasts when we started the APN a little over eight years ago, and it was four shows and Archaeological Fantasies was one of the shows. Eventually, she wanted to take her brand in other directions and she took her show off the APN, but as per our agreement, we left the feed live and changed the name so she could take the name with her because that was her brand.
00:12:57
Speaker
And Dr. Andrew Kinkella, who is a host of the Sierra Mark podcast, took over the feed and has now put out, I think probably close to 10 episodes at this point. And it's just him right now. He's got a lot to say and he's doing somewhat shorter episodes, still three segment format, but it's just, it's him talking about pseudo-archaeology.
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah. His show is fun because he'll do like an episode of a personal experience that he's had with something kind of pseudo related. And then he'll do like a deep dive research episode about something in the pseudo world and just kind of break it down. And he does a really good job of, of, um, I guess like describing that stuff from a, in a way that is fun and entertaining too. I always, I do a little bit of like fun and entertainment. I like editing his podcast a lot. It's good.
00:13:47
Speaker
Are we ever going to get more of historical yarns or is that show? I mean, I totally would do it. I just, I lost my co-host number one. She's just way too busy with kids and she and I, her name's Heather, Heather Boyd. She and I had like such great chemistry and I just can't think of anybody else.
00:14:09
Speaker
who I would want to do that with. I mean, Chris and I, obviously we do our podcast together, The Archaeology Show, and like we're great chatting together, but he doesn't know it. You don't know anything about yarn or fiber. You know what I tell you, and I don't really think you're that interested in learning about it either.
00:14:26
Speaker
I know way more than I feel I should, but not enough. I mean, we could take the teaching format where I teach you about things, but then again, I'm not really an expert either.
The Archaeology Show's Rise in Popularity
00:14:36
Speaker
I just enjoy it and I like to learn about it. So I don't know. It's, it's on hiatus for the moment. We'll see if I ever go back to it.
00:14:43
Speaker
I wanted to ask you guys, so we normally get stats from you every month showing how well we did. Yeah, when I don't suck at that. Yeah, well, you only got like, what, 20 podcasts or whatever, you know, whatever. But it's been really impressive, the rise of the archaeology show. It's like meteoric. Like, could you talk about what
00:15:10
Speaker
where that came from. Well, there's a clear reason why that's happened. Chris, did you want to share what that reason is?
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's, you know, I just decided to have a better personality. So I changed my entire being and people really latched onto that. I had nothing to do with Rachel joining the show. So yeah. Honestly, I think we just got more consistent with it. We got a more consistent format and we started focusing on things that were happening in the news and kind of in pop culture too. And I think all of those things just helped us reach a larger audience basically.
00:15:48
Speaker
The crazy thing is, and it's a little bit of a lesson for people growing a podcast, is we haven't done anything different with that show than any of the other shows, right? We don't, we're shit at social media, just like we are with the whole APN, right? We don't really even promote this show in any separate way from just stuff that's promoted on the APN. And I don't know, I think it just,
00:16:10
Speaker
Like Rachel said, I think it just hit a struck a chord, and when your audience starts sharing the episodes, which must be happening for growth, it's the only thing I can imagine, then that goes. The other thing that could be doing it is I intentionally named the show when I first started it, and it had a very different format, like five years ago. I intentionally named it The Archaeology Show, so it could be incredibly searchable, and somebody types archaeology into a podcast player, it should show up right away.
00:16:37
Speaker
So I think that's probably helping, but it didn't help right away. We didn't have those kinds of numbers when we first started the show when I was with April and then doing other things. But again, Rachel mentioned the consistency. We weren't doing it enough. And when we went to weekly and kept it that way, the numbers really started to climb. So whatever happened to the I Dig It podcast?
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah. I was wondering that myself. They went on hiatus. They said they were going to, cause they were two students and they were both, one was going to grad school and the other one, I'm not sure what she was doing. Oh, it must've been hard to run a podcast while you're in graduate school. You guys don't know anything about that, do you? Just curious. I was about to say that, but not facetiously. I just went through all of it. Carlton is a freak, so I don't want to hear from you. Our organizations are huge.
00:17:28
Speaker
Honestly, I think they just, they just lost the feel for it to be honest and, and you know, just didn't want to do it anymore. Um, I don't think they're doing anything else. I think they were honest with me and that they just didn't want to do the podcast anymore. Cause I, they actually ghosted me completely and I tried to hit reach now to him on Slack and I eventually got them on their, cause I was on their discord channel they had for the show and that discord just like keeps going. There's people there that are continuing to have discussions over there apparently. And I don't even know if they're in it anymore, but they started this thing for the show and then there's just people there and I
00:17:57
Speaker
That's when I eventually got ahold of them and they're like, yeah, we're not going to do it anymore. It's like, all right, whatever. It happens. I mean, podcasts are just a lot. And I don't think you know how a lot it is until you do one. And then it's a choice. Like, do you want to keep doing this thing that takes up way more of your time than you ever thought it would? And that's cool if you want to do it. Yeah, you get it. Yeah.
00:18:20
Speaker
And there's just, you know, so many, like everyone and their uncle has a podcast now too. And my friends will be like, dude, I was listening to this pod. You should check this one out, dude, like every day. And I'm like, I can't physically listen to this many podcasts. Like it's just too much. I don't even listen to anything other than podcasts when I'm listening to things now. And I'm, I still can't get caught up on the ones that I want to listen to. So it's almost overwhelming.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot to keep doing one. It's probably, especially when you're just starting, it's probably a lot.
00:18:55
Speaker
Uh-huh.
Growth Statistics and Transition to Zencastr
00:18:56
Speaker
Even if you're like two years in and decide to take like, you know, like a three, two month hiatus, you know, it can be at the beginning. It can be in the middle. It can be at any point, you know? And on that note, we'll return to episode one 37 here for annual per. And on that note, we'll be right back with guests, Chris Webster and Rachel Rodin here on episode one 37 of a life and runs podcast.
00:19:20
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 137 of a Life in Ruins podcast. We're getting roasted here by Chris Webster and Rachel Rodin, our overlords of the APN. We wanted to chat at least a little bit and talk about numbers. Like how many... Numbers. Numbers. What do they look like for us? What is the trend? Are we going to go under? When do we get pulled? Right, right. Well, so keeping in mind that you guys were going through
00:19:51
Speaker
some changes, all of you, right? All three of you were going through some stuff in what was that September, I think it was, and we ran some reruns for a little while. It is what it is, but I've definitely done that before. And then the APN went through a whole project shutdown timeframe in October. I call it project shutdown because the company I work with, that's what they do right now.
00:20:11
Speaker
Anyway, we went through a little bit of a shutdown in October just to reset and retool a little bit. So keeping all that in mind, you guys still had overall 14% growth this year over last year, which is great. It means your audience, the people listening to this are sharing the podcast and telling their friends about it and saying, hey, go listen to this great show or at least sharing episodes or something like that on their social media.
00:20:35
Speaker
That's really good. So looking at this overall in November, now we changed our hosting service here at the APN. You may have heard Zencaster ads in the first half of this year. We were in partnership with them and we still are. And we've basically moved everything from the hosting service we've had for the last four years over to Zencaster as they've developed their hosting service. And that's going to allow us to really hopefully elevate everybody in the coming year, especially starting in Q1 of 2023 as you're listening to this now.
00:21:04
Speaker
Looking at that though, the last we have numbers for, for our past hosting service was 4,831 downloads in November. Now that's a little bit lower than the months for the rest of the year, but only because again, we were coming off a, no new shows in September and not really any new shows in, in October either.
00:21:21
Speaker
I guess it was November that we shut down, wasn't it? Or was it October? No, it was October. Yeah. So coming off of that, that's not bad. That's good audience retention, right? People were still at least downloading the episodes and not leaving the show as subscribers.
00:21:38
Speaker
In this setup here, just from January to November, that's 60,000 downloads, just a shy of 60,000 downloads for the year, which means including the numbers from our new hosting service for December, you should be somewhere around 65,000 for the year. And just at the end of November, that was 14% growth over the previous year. And 14% is a lot. I mean, that's good. So if you keep jumping up like that, then it's
00:22:04
Speaker
It takes a long time in podcasting to do this. Unless you're already a celebrity, it takes a long time to gain new audience members every year and just bring those up to whatever numbers you're happy with. So with our new platform, the numbers may not matter as much. So we can talk about that. Sweet. And those numbers do not include people that download or listen to our show on the All Shows feed, correct? That is correct. Yeah. And again, that
00:22:32
Speaker
That may change, although that is a really logistically difficult problem to solve, unless we just get rid of the all shows feed all together. It's really hard to quantify what goes on to that feed. But like I said, we may be able to
00:22:48
Speaker
since we're with Zencaster now and they're new in the dynamic ad insertion market. That's why we moved over to them. And that's what we're talking about here really is advertising. They're new in this whole thing. And because they're new and I got in on the ground floor with them, we're partners with them in this whole deal. We may actually be investing in Zencaster here shortly. They're asking networks and podcasters to maybe invest in them to help them build out some more services, which is really cool. I just actually saw that email not too long ago.
00:23:17
Speaker
Because we're at this level, I'm hoping to have a little more flexibility. So again, one of the reasons we moved over here is we really like Zencaster. Megaphone is what we were on. Megaphone was purchased by Spotify while we were part of this. And as everything else that's purchased by Spotify, I don't mind Spotify. It's great. It is what it is, but they like to own everything. That's why they bought Joe Rogan. That's why they're buying other podcast networks. And when they bought Megaphone,
00:23:42
Speaker
To me, the writing was kind of on the wall for Megaphone. If you're not on Spotify exclusively, you may not be able to use Megaphone, is what people are thinking in the future. I always look shopping around anyway. The way Zencaster is going to do stuff is
00:23:57
Speaker
they're going to have what they call programmatic advertising on your shows, which basically means they are seeking big advertising deals.
Monetizing through Programmatic Advertising
00:24:05
Speaker
So they'll, they'll take the guys that we can't possibly hit with our numbers individually, right? They'll take those big guys and those big guys are going to say, I want to buy a hundred thousand downloads of advertising on this show in a month. Right.
00:24:17
Speaker
we can never land a client like that. We just don't have the numbers, the per episode numbers, but us and 15 other podcasts might have those numbers. So they're going to be splitting all that up and divvying up the numbers and just giving the advertiser the downloads that they need, but spreading it across networks and other shows. We still get the same amount, right? As though we were doing it, but we get the amount corresponding to our downloads. So we will still be paid
00:24:42
Speaker
according to the numbers, but we don't have to search out any advertising. Of course, they take a cut for that, but if we can get this going and they can really keep it going, then that is going to change a lot of stuff here at the APN. If we can start paying for things like editing and
00:24:59
Speaker
social media and marketing and things like that, then we can start elevating all the podcasts through those efforts and bringing things up. Not only that, but continuing the efforts to monetize this for you guys a little bit. It's difficult when shows have three hosts because you got to split it three ways.
00:25:15
Speaker
But either way, you're not going to quit your day jobs for this show, probably ever, unless it gets stupid big. But that's where we're at. So that's what we're hoping for in 2023. I've had a lot of talks with the management and the leadership at Dencaster and the dynamic ad insertion and programmatic ads should start in January.
00:25:37
Speaker
That's when hopefully everything, everything goes up. So where do we rank now? Cause the, the dirt has also has left the APN. So now, where does that put ruins? Did we, did we take the number two slot? Cause it's the archeology show up there. Yeah. Should be, should be in Denmark.
00:25:57
Speaker
That was the weirdest ranking. So looking at Megaphone for the year, we were at around, by the end of November, we were at just over 900,000 downloads across the entire network, which is pretty great. And that was, yeah, that was approaching. I was hoping to hit a million downloads this year, but it doesn't look, it looks like we're going to be just shy of that by a few tens of thousands. And we probably would have hit it had we not shut down in October, to be honest with you.
00:26:23
Speaker
But that being said, that does put you guys into not including the network feed that puts you right behind the archeology show. So the archeology show had 171,000 downloads in 2000 up to November of 2022. And the life and ruins podcast was really close to that 171 with 59,000 downloads. So you have just a little ways to go.
00:26:52
Speaker
But that being said, too, the dirt was only at a 131. They were still 40,000 off of The Archaeology Show, too. Again, I have no idea why people like The Archaeology Show so much. It's got to be Rachel, because I was doing it for three years before that, and I did not have even close to those numbers. It's just because I give you crap the entire episode.
00:27:10
Speaker
I guess so. I don't know. Well, and here's the other contender you have. So the dirt left right as pseudo archaeology started gaining its audience back because the archaeological fantasy show, I almost started the archaeology show in response to the archaeological fantasy show because I was irritated that the show was always on top and it's about pseudo archaeology and it just like irritated me. And I wanted to create a show that
00:27:34
Speaker
Elevated and and and jumped up in the numbers and I did but it really took the archaeological fantasy show going off the network for that to really happen because they she just got like massive numbers for that show and Andrew is already up to right behind you guys and He kicked the
Listener Feedback and Audience Engagement
00:27:51
Speaker
show back off. It still consistently was getting that downloads even without episodes for four years. It was still consistently getting numbers and
00:27:59
Speaker
So with him only kicking it back off in, I think June or so, give or take May or June, um, it had 28,000 downloads up through November of last year, which is about half what you guys have. So it's coming up there. You know, we'll see, see how it does. That, that averages to almost like just shy of 5,000 downloads a month, just from our show. With your hand right there. I just, that just dawned on me.
00:28:28
Speaker
What? Yeah, that's, that's 5,000 downloads a month, I think. It looked like you had like a pen and paper and were like doing stats right there as you were doing some long division. I was taking notes. How did we get to it? It's the Adderall. I don't know what to tell you guys. Like I feel like I heard numbers and I was like, I should write these down. And that's what I did. Like I have, I don't know why I'm going to do. Yeah. Just anyways.
00:28:55
Speaker
Real quick, one more stat I can give you guys, too. Your number one downloaded episode in 2022, again, up through November, was episode 105, the domestication. And it says domestication and human brain size with Stefan Milow. And that was one thousand three hundred and forty two downloads. And that was an excellent episode, if I remember correctly. It was great. Yeah. Yeah, I do remember that one. April 25th, 2022 is when it was downloaded.
00:29:22
Speaker
or when it was created and it's about 200 over the last one. So yeah. Well, that's, that's a good lesson, right? I mean, you probably always tell your guests to share out, but you guys, you guys interview a lot of people, I mean, not all the time, but you do interview a lot of people that do have their own followings on social media and getting them to, you know, purposely share out and do stuff is, is one way to build an audience for sure.
00:29:46
Speaker
Yeah. And we've built a rapport with Stefan over, over there. He's always a blast to have on. I mean, same with that. We have those targeted, like when we need a fun time, it's, you know, we have, we have our, our group, but you know, part of, part of me asking like our numbers and things like that. And then you mentioned like why
00:30:02
Speaker
The archaeology show is so popular. Last week, out of curiosity, because I was thinking about our numbers and I was looking at the spreadsheet that I had from 2021, and we've remained around that same 3500 to 4500 range. We haven't really grown super much. Of course, that's what I thought, but you just said we had an 11% increase.
00:30:25
Speaker
So I just asked Reddit, because if we've done this before, we'll ask our Instagram followers, like, what are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? But those that usually follow our Instagram, they're there for the memes or they're our friends and they listen. So like we've gotten like positive reinforcement where it's like, well, we enjoy your show. It's like talking to a friend. And then so I asked Reddit out, you know, r slash archeology.
00:30:45
Speaker
on a whim. I was like, Hey, I'm one of the hosts of the life in ruins. This is where we've been these past couple of years. Like what can, like, do you guys have critical feedback to like make this show better? If you listen and stop and we, we got responses. Like it got well liked. People like were pretty nice. Like one person was like, no one wants to hear three guys talk of like, just hang out. I'm like, okay, you're not listening to our show. Cause that's,
00:31:07
Speaker
Okay. But there's always somebody who says that, but everyone else was like pretty good. And folks were like, I stopped listening in March because I don't have an archeology background. And so what it felt like to me was like hanging out with my part, like my girlfriend's friends that I didn't know. That's how they feel. And that was the consistent, like if they weren't students, like undergraduate graduate students within archeology, they didn't feel they were left out in the cold. They're like, I don't understand these references. Like I don't understand this outside joke about this archeologist.
00:31:37
Speaker
And that's where they talked. And someone mentioned the archeology show specifically, like I still watch the archeology show because they explain the topics and like I can, they, they're able to do that so I can understand as a layman and enjoy the content. Whereas you guys, like it just felt like a club.
00:31:54
Speaker
And so then we kind of started realizing on our feedback and our platform, like, yeah, that's kind of what we have developed is we didn't really make a show necessarily for everybody. It really became a show for early career archeologists and students in particular.
00:32:09
Speaker
which makes sense with my graduate career. And then David and Connor graduate in the master's just as we started. And that's who we kind of had on a lot of times. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing either. I mean, you want to have a target audience. You want to have like a group of faithful people that are going to be coming back. And this, this generation, they're always going to be new archeologists who are looking and getting in the field and
00:32:32
Speaker
And I think what we've talked about is expanding that and having more different types of episodes. So where we take different approaches and just take something that's in the news and kind of go over just the basics of it and talk about what's going on, which is something I think that the archaeology show is, you guys are really good at is you bring that stuff to light and you have those conversations about stuff that's relevant and it seems to work.
00:33:00
Speaker
It is important to think about your audience though, right? Like you have to create that, that avatar of the person who is listening to the show and what you want them to know and what their, what their knowledge level is to begin with, right? Like I've never stressed about the numbers for the CRM archaeology podcast. We're about to hit 10 years of doing that show. We just recorded 255 to the 255th episode. And yet still our numbers are about the same. We get, you know,
00:33:26
Speaker
five to six or 700 downloads per episode, maybe two or 3000 a month or something like that. But that's like the size of the people who listen to podcasts in CRM to begin with. Even with those numbers being relatively low as far as a super niche podcast goes,
00:33:44
Speaker
There's still hardly anybody in CRM archaeology that I've talked to in the past that has not listened to or heard about the CRM archaeology podcast, because we've been around for 10 years. And that's the whole goal of that show, right? The whole goal of that show is to present this information to that audience. And that's who we do it for. And we don't feel the need to break down any terms or anything like that, unless we're specifically defining something.
00:34:08
Speaker
I would say for your show, that is one piece of feedback I would give you is sometimes, unless it's your audience, sometimes you guys do get really technical on some things and get into some stuff academically that some people may be lost on. You know what I mean? Rachel.
00:34:23
Speaker
I think what I would say is- Wait, wait, wait. This is our show. We decide who goes, Chris. I'm just kidding. I know, right? You totally did. Rachel, he's a human next. For those that are listening, there's a function on Zencast, or you can raise your hand if you want to speak next. And one, Rachel's the first guest who's ever used that feature. And then Chris was like, go ahead, Rachel. It's your turn. It's like, wait a minute. Your guest's here. But please, Rachel, sorry.
Maintaining Identity while Expanding Audience
00:34:51
Speaker
It's a hard habit to break.
00:34:53
Speaker
Yeah, we use it all the time on our show when we have a guest. So, so I think what I would say about your show is that I actually always used to ask Chris to edit it and I've kind of stopped doing that because I'm very slow at editing and the more tracks you have, the longer it takes and Chris is just faster at it. But when I have the time to do it, I love to edit you guys a show because I'm listening as I'm editing and I love the like camaraderie that you guys have.
00:35:17
Speaker
because you're clearly buddies and you have been for a long time. And I know that you got some feedback that maybe people didn't like that as much, but that's honestly what I love about listening to your show. And the only thing I would say is I do have an archeology background. So when you go into the weeds a little bit on things, I can mostly follow and keep up with it, right? So I think the only feedback I would say is that
00:35:38
Speaker
just try to take that pause and explain things a little bit more. Ask your guests to explain whatever term they just used was that maybe isn't a layperson term. That might be a way to engage people in the conversations and still keep who you are as a podcast. You're still a niche topic, and I think that's great, and you guys are really good at it. So you shouldn't lose who you are as a podcast, but maybe just try to bring more people in with more explaining and slowing it down a little bit.
00:36:08
Speaker
Chris. Yeah, I I did it. Thank you. I did a. My head was my head was clearly raised. I am the one of the episodes I did as you listen, if you listen to this in real time, it was a few weeks ago. Episode one ninety eight of the archaeology show. Rachel was it's a whole lot of busy family time. So I did a solo episode. I abandoned him. It's OK. You can say it. I do it. She did. Yeah. It was a day before release and we had nothing. So I recorded.
00:36:36
Speaker
an episode called just the archaeology of the APN. And I went into it was, you know, a few weeks after the anniversary of the eight year anniversary of the APN. And I just wanted to go into for people who hadn't heard of our other shows. And I really just broke down where the APN started. I talked about all the current active shows. And one of the things I mentioned about your guys's show was
00:36:56
Speaker
Exactly what Rachel said I said some of my favorite episodes of your guys's show are when it's just the three of you and and you're talking Not necessarily all the catch-up episodes are fun But if you want to get into more archaeology where you're talking about what you're doing and and things that you guys have done and just getting into a single topic I I really like those because you guys have a good, you know, you guys gel together. Yeah, I noticed that with the Oh, forgive me. Hang on
00:37:20
Speaker
Uh, I noticed that the episode where me and Connor just, I think we're talking about pseudoscience just in general, but we ended up, I ended up doing the Lord of the rings monologue. That one episode. Yeah. And I could tell like you guys had fun with it. Cause you changed my voice and you even like added like a lot of humor to it with like the voice. Oh, that part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:46
Speaker
I was like in my like the one I messed up the monologue still in the voice. It was like hang on guys Just so funny because I could tell you get bored editing sometimes I'm assuming and then like that one you were like, oh Yeah, but yeah, I too like I listened to a lot Connor does as well like a lot of comedy podcasts and like I was explaining to my parents day to day like
00:38:13
Speaker
It's weirder, like it's harder for me to sit and watch a stand-up special now, more so than it is to just listen to comedians talk to each other. And I think that's what's really good about like our kind of podcast. It's like, especially for other archaeologists, like it's fun just sit in and hear other archaeologists talk about stuff that you know. But for sure, if you're someone who's not used to archaeology and just wants to hear about the Sphinx, like it's not for them. And we probably need to find a medium.
00:38:38
Speaker
And on that note, I guess we will come back in Segment 3 with some more roasting. Welcome back to Episode 137 of the Life in the Rings podcast. Pocket sausage. Yeah, with the pocket sausage. I have to put my microphone in my shirt pocket because my hands are paid fast. But this wouldn't be our annual surprise performance review that I thought was an actual performance review without some roasts. But you guys wanted to start with roasts of your own show, right? Sure. Let's do it.
00:39:07
Speaker
Well, I mean, we're talking about, Oh, you know, the archeology shows got so many downloads and blah, blah, blah, but you know, we still have haters. And, uh, this, this one here that from, from may 26, 2022, so we'd already kind of hit our stride a little bit. So it wasn't even that long ago.
00:39:23
Speaker
but they didn't even, they still gave us three stars too. So they were still kind of nice about it, but it says my, in the title, it says Mike issues and, and then trails off into the, into the actual review says less political correctness. So Mike issues and less political correctness. I, I gave that one honorable mention cause it sounds like a one star review, but they gave us three stars. So is that all it said? That's it. That's the whole review. Yeah.
00:39:50
Speaker
Yeah, we're trying to get politically correct. And that is from, that is from Bigfoot's Grundle. And then, and then from a year ago, from someone who just hit the J F D F G H J K keys on their keyboard, that's their name. Uh, one star said, would not recommend is the title and only listened to the first 15 minutes, a lot of misinformation.
00:40:18
Speaker
sure yeah we're in the business of sharing misinformation at the archaeology show so network as a whole isn't that the mission statement hey only fake archaeology here
00:40:34
Speaker
No, no, no. The title of this next review is the mission statement of the Archeology Podcast Network. The title is Wikipedia of Archeology. And they really just, I can't even read this whole thing. It's like four paragraphs and there's three outlined examples of why we suck and they really go into it. So if you want to see that, just go to the, again, another one from May, May 27th, 2022. We pissed off a lot of people in May, apparently. Yeah, what did you just say in May?
00:41:05
Speaker
I know, right? Yeah. I don't, I don't really know. We only have, we only have about 12 written reviews, um, 11 or so, but we do have 62 ratings overall and we're at a 4.1 out of five, which for podcasting, uh, I'll call that a win. You know what I mean?
00:41:21
Speaker
I don't know, I feel like we should work on getting that up. That feels a little low to me, but I was always the kid that went for an A in class, so not happy about that. Yeah, I hear you. We don't really promote that out. I mean, we're nowhere close to you guys as far as, hold on, Apple podcast ratings go. Let me finish this real quick. You guys are at a 4.8 out of five with 109 ratings because at the end of every one of your shows, I mean, it's in our outro, but nobody listens to the outro. But at the end of every one of your shows, you guys are like, please rate and view our podcast.
00:41:51
Speaker
And that really helps, you know, cause like, I know you guys say that at the end of every show, do you actually, you must actually get people who truly listened to you and go do it because much to the behest of Carlson. Yeah. I promised sending out stickers and shirts and it worked.
00:42:08
Speaker
He did that without permission. He said, yeah, we'll send you a sticker. And me and Connor were like, what the fuck are you talking about? We're going to send you a sticker. So now I have a list of people in e-mailing in January. We have our comeuppance where I have to send out a bunch of stickers. You have to do it.
00:42:24
Speaker
Do you just keep a running list and then do it like every... Yeah, I have a spreadsheet. And so now I've never sent it before. Like, Khan David promised this over a year ago. And that's why it's in our show notes now. Like, if David promised you a sticker, you have to step part two is to email us your address. Like, there's a catch to this exclusive giveaway of like, you have to tell us. Yeah.
00:42:46
Speaker
Cause he was like, yeah, leave a review. We'll find you. Like we'll Google your name. Like he was like, there was no way that we could find their mailing address from a review. Like there was just, I do love that. It was like David put it out and then it became Carlton's problem. Hi. Yeah.
00:43:08
Speaker
Well, now you know why Chris doesn't mail anything out to people that subscribe to APN anymore. Like, as much as we love people who subscribe to the network and really appreciate the donation and everything, it is such a pain in the ass to mail anything to anybody ever.
00:43:24
Speaker
It's just, it just is. It just is. So yeah. Yeah. I will say if you guys have a lot more written reviews than we do and you only have one star, the others are five. So, and the one star is from two years ago. I think we may have even talked about it last year. It just says awful, less reminiscing about the good old days. We're talking about actual subject matter. So yeah, I was going to bring them. So do you want to, I'll read the, the roast from Reddit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He has Boaz in his name, which is interesting.
00:43:52
Speaker
But it's both Z, so he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. Maybe it's just his name. He's like the long, whatever. People are sick of hearing a group of dudes sit around hanging out. As a format, it was refreshing for a few years, but at this point there must be millions of hours of professional hangout sessions.
00:44:14
Speaker
more writing and production and a focus on scientific communication could help your show thrive. So it started. There you go. Is it a roast or is that just like a good critique? Like there's some nuggets in there that are probably worth listening to. Maybe you could have been nicer, presented more nicely. Chris, can you check your reviews one more time?
00:44:43
Speaker
I don't know how quickly they take the update. Sweden is one of our top consumers of this podcast. You should never have told me I have these tools now because now I'm just staring at a map. I didn't know people in Kazakhstan had iPhones and looking at downloads there.
00:45:02
Speaker
Is it just because Swedish people love to learn? Is that part of the culture and they're always listening to learning podcasts? Or is it because we butchered the Norwegians?
Addressing Pseudo-Archaeology in Content
00:45:15
Speaker
She's Danish. First off, Maria Sletorud is Danish. Aren't they like rivals?
00:45:22
Speaker
I don't understand the name of it and we'll leave it at that. You guys are alienating every single one of your Swedish listeners right now. We love your chocolate. No wait, that's Switzerland. Dammit. Meatballs. We love your meatballs. We love your Ikea. Thanks Ikea. Right. That's Finland. Are we still running on the joke of making fun of Sweden?
00:46:00
Speaker
Yeah, Connor you'll have to read the review I don't think they update that quickly I just put too much archaeology Five stars too much archaeology
00:46:12
Speaker
Perfect. How did your guys's review, uh, you guys did a, did an episode review of hand of Graham, uh, Graham, right? Graham. Yeah. How did that one do Chris? I can't actually look at the numbers because Carl is in there and we're recording. So Carl can look at the numbers for me. I don't want to log in and wreck everything. Wait, you published that one on Zen caster or was that in make phone? That was, that wasn't too long ago. I would assume it was then caster. Maybe it wasn't.
00:46:43
Speaker
I know we've gotten to a point where we are recording like two days before we release. So like, I don't even know. I don't even know when we recorded it. It's at a 1.2 thousand, but that came out 22 days ago. So a little over the switch. Okay.
00:47:01
Speaker
Um, cause I know to like, we were trying to get on that and it took us forever to wrangle tune and, and, and Shane, which is why we skipped ahead to like episode six. So we saw a lot of you guys were like reviewing episodes one and two and we're like, well, there's an episode of Mississippians. We have two Southeastern paleoarchaeologists in here. Like we, this is our bread and butter.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, it was too much for one episode because we did watch the whole series and then we were trying to talk about, but you can't talk about every episode if you just do it in one episode. So, but I think the gist of it was this is trash. Do your own research. Don't believe it was, but we tried to say it in like a nicer way. Cause I think we probably do have a lot of listeners that
00:47:45
Speaker
could veer towards the pseudo arc side without some guidance. So whenever we're talking about stuff like that, we try to do it in a way that isn't just saying nasty things about Graham Hancock. We try to, I don't know, be a little nicer about it at least.
00:48:03
Speaker
We do need you guys to edit out that, how we refer to that one poor man because he's, as David said, like there was no justification for why we gave him that pedal. It was literally just based on his appearance and I feel like I woke up, felt terrible about it. Maybe he was there. I don't know.
00:48:24
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I don't want to get into Graham, Hancock, Graham cock, but, um, Oh yeah. Can we, can we talk about what, what, what's coming up for the APN and yeah. So I would say probably, probably the biggest like production news about stuff that we're doing is, is the cultural share events that
Cultural Share Events and Future Content Plans
00:48:43
Speaker
we're calling them. We don't really have a good name for it, but I want to call it conferences. And we're just kind of iterating on that a little bit, but we had our first one in November, just under a hundred people signed up. I think.
00:48:53
Speaker
Throughout the time it was about it ended up being about four hours long because we have we actually have a little over three hours long we have on the platform that we use it's two hour chunks of time that you can actually put up and then you have to start another session basically but it's fluid it brings everybody into the next one so we had the full first two hours and then another like hour and a half but the format was
00:49:13
Speaker
Again, Matilda Seabreck from the Tea Break time travel show, she organized it and she brought in three different people. And I don't know if she actually intended this, but I saw the subject matter and I titled it ancient crafts as like a theme. Actually, Aaron Dieterwolf, who, haven't you guys had him on your show? Yeah. Dita. Episode seven.
00:49:34
Speaker
Yeah, okay. And so he was on and then two other people that she knows over in the UK or at least is aware of doing various things. But basically the format was really cool. So I started the event.
00:49:47
Speaker
as the guy who was running the stuff on the background. And I just basically introduced her. She was basically the MC. She would bring on the first guest, I guess you would call it. And she basically did like a mini podcast interview for like 15, 20 minutes. And then they had a presentation that they shared their screen on for maybe 10 minutes. It was a really short presentation.
00:50:06
Speaker
And then there was another, you know, about 15, 20 minutes of question and answer that Matilda had some questions. And then we also have the ability to take in questions from the people in the chat. And it's the same format we used for you guys's live episode earlier this year. So.
00:50:21
Speaker
So that went really well. And we did all three guests back to back. And then I came in for the, for the next half of it, basically Matilda threw it back to me and I essentially just had a chat with all three of them. It was me and the other three on the screen at the same time. And then they got a chance to talk to each other about their individual things and where they, you know, where they overlap and they had questions for each other, which was really cool. And it's just really kind of like,
00:50:46
Speaker
continuing the conversation. So we're hoping to do these. Well, I mean, if I'm being honest, I want to do a monthly at the very least, but we're starting them quarterly and the next one's in February. Yeah. Matilda's got the plans for that one already. And I've got some ideas for the next two after that, but
00:51:02
Speaker
If anybody listening to this or even you guys, what her plan is, is to come up with a date and the platform and all that. And then she's emceeing the event, but we want to find like an anchor person that has a knowledge of a particular subject and then has colleagues that they can reach out to in that subject. So we bring three people in that are in, you know, similar fields.
00:51:24
Speaker
and uh or the same subject matter for example like plains archaeology for example something along those lines and then just have a have a really cool you know dialogue about it and not do a presentation i mean partially of kind of a presentation but really more of a half interview
00:51:40
Speaker
presentation with a lot of interaction from the audience and the people that are listening. And those are free, of course, if you attend on the day and then if you want to see the recording and post, you have to be a member and it's on your member pages to see any of the past recordings and those will be up there at all times. So that's what we've got coming up for Culturo at the very least.
00:52:02
Speaker
And again, who knows what else is going to happen in 2023 with this whole advertising thing from Zencaster? Because if it really blows up the way they think it's going to blow up, they're being very sure of themselves. And I understand that from a business perspective. But if it even goes half of what they say, I should be able to do the one thing that takes all of my time for the APN. I probably spend 20 to 30 hours a week editing on top of everything else I do, my normal job and all that other stuff.
00:52:28
Speaker
If I can just hire a professional editor to just take all this off my plate and do it as a job, I mean, it's going to be a full time job for somebody. That's what I need to do. And if we can do that, then the door is going to be blown wide open for the other stuff we can do because I'll have time and we can plan stuff and organize and do things right now. Just kind of.
00:52:49
Speaker
I always feel like I'm just trying to keep my head above water with just producing the podcast and keeping content coming out. And there's so many other things we want to do from even just keeping up on social media and the newsletter and other little things and just stuff that keeps us in people's minds. And there's just never any time to do that. You're always just like, there's an episode due out tomorrow. There's an episode due out tomorrow. There's an episode due out tomorrow. So that's a lot. But that's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping this is the year that
00:53:17
Speaker
we can financially get together and start really focusing on more content creation and production value. So I've said that for the last like five years in a row though. So go ahead. One day, one day you'll be, you'll be telling the truth. What about a live episode?
00:53:37
Speaker
at SAAs when you have a majority of listeners present. So I have done live episodes at the SAAs. Which one was that? San Francisco. It was a while back. We heavily promoted it. I don't know which one it was. It may have been. We heavily promoted it because a lot of us from the CRM Arc podcast were going to be at one of the SAAs. So it was me and Bill and Steven Wagner. I think Doug was there.
00:54:03
Speaker
I can't remember who else was there, but we, the only way we could actually officially do it at the SAAs was to submit a panel presentation. And so we didn't even call it like a live podcast recording. We were promoting it as such, but in the program, it was a panel discussion about CRM archaeology or some stupid thing. And it was, I mean, there was a few people that attended it. I wouldn't say the room was full, but it was, it was unfortunate because of, it was pretty good.
00:54:30
Speaker
It was all right. I wish it was better because there were 4,000 people there. And I feel like we could have just filled up the room if the SAA would have allowed us to do something like that in a more official
Live Podcast Recording Logistics
00:54:40
Speaker
capacity. So I am all for a live recording at the SAAs, but organizing it, figuring out where you're going to do it, securing the internet and the location is all logistical challenges. Now, if you're not streaming it, that's one thing. If you're just recording it on site, then you just need microphones in the gear.
00:54:57
Speaker
Aside from that, yeah, I'm all for live conference streaming.
00:55:02
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking at like a bar somewhere, like after essay conference hours, when people would actually go to something like that. Like 11 PM when things get real spicy. Six before things get like wild in a bar, doesn't want a group of people. Yeah, I don't know. Third podcast today. Um, yeah, I, I'd also love to do one more. Like people can like call in.
00:55:28
Speaker
and ask questions. I've been looking into how to do that, but it seems like a lot of work. But I mean, I know I got a lot of people that would probably want to call in and ask. Yeah. So one of the downsides to going to the Zencaster platform a few years ago,
00:55:43
Speaker
was that it only works on Chrome. And it only works on desktop, right? It doesn't work on mobile. And it has to do with the way the audio files are stored in the browser. The mobile devices don't allow that to happen. So their fundamental code base is off and can be used for that way. But they did tell me
00:56:03
Speaker
And I don't know where it is on the road map. I think it's next year sometime, but they did say they're coming out with an app that would be for Android and iOS to essentially allow people to call in. You would essentially call in on the app. You wouldn't call in on a phone call. You would call in on the apps, you know, because right now the way you'd have to do it is there's external gear you have to get where
00:56:23
Speaker
you basically plug in your iPhone or Android phone into the bottom of it, you make the call and it comes through a mixer and then comes into another computer that's probably running another line into Zencaster. And it's a lot and it's complicated. It could be done, but it's a lot. But yeah, they're trying to try to do something a little more formally like that where you can actually call in. So I don't know, maybe that'll come down the line. Unless you can figure out another way to do it, I haven't really spent a lot of brain power on it.
00:56:51
Speaker
We'll definitely talk about it. As this episode's ending, every year like we do, we want to thank both of you for dealing with our shit and editing out the most ridiculous things and adding Lord of the Rings speeches.
Gratitude and Reflections on Success
00:57:09
Speaker
You know, all the stuff that you do, we really appreciate that. And the production editing being on our plate allows us to do more. So thank you both for that. Are you surprised at like how okay our podcast has become? I would say it's better than okay. I mean, you guys are really great. I mean, dial it back like three years ago and I pitched this idea.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah, were you guys expecting us being the number, pretty much the number three spot. The dirt hasn't been gone that long, but consistently we've been up there for like a year or two now.
00:57:50
Speaker
You know, I didn't know what to expect right off the bat because I didn't, I didn't really know you guys. I, I, the only thing I knew about you Carlton was the episode you did with Jessica and heritage voices. So, you know, I didn't really know what to expect, but I was very hopeful because I've always wanted, you know, when I heard there were three, three guys coming on to, to host a show and their friends, they've, you know, the ball, all archaeologists have worked together at various times, you know, just that interaction. I was hoping for something that was,
00:58:17
Speaker
going to be, you know, not only informative like our show should be, but also entertaining as well. And you guys certainly brought the entertainment value to the APN that was lacking before that. And I definitely appreciate that. So this, this shouldn't be a, archaeology shouldn't be just a stuffy old topic, you know, that takes place behind, you know, at the SAAs in a room with four people listening to your presentation. It should be fun and entertaining and
00:58:43
Speaker
And everybody should have a good time listening to it. So I appreciate you guys bringing that to the network. For sure. Well, I appreciate you guys. I know how hard editing is and like realizing you put 30 to 23 hours of it on top of your actual job is that's taxing for both of you. So, and also every cut that cut that cut that we have only adds to that. So yeah, I appreciate you guys coming on. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for having us. It's fun.
00:59:13
Speaker
please be sure to rate and review both of our podcasts. And if you haven't listened to the archeology show, you should check it out. Give them a, you know, their fourth rating. That'd be great. If you guys rate and review the archeology show, Chris Webster will send you a sticker in the mail.
00:59:33
Speaker
Hey, we actually have something like... Yeah, I'll send you a sticker. If you email Carlton and tell him that you rated our podcast and tell him you want a TAS sticker, he'll make sure you get one. There we go. That's right. Send Carlton your address. And make sure and check out all the links at the bottom of the show description. It has links to the Kultura website, et cetera. Make sure and click those and check out any new events that are going to be coming up. There you go.
01:00:02
Speaker
And as always, if you're listening to our show on the all shows, please, please, please consider downloading and subscribing to our visual podcast. It allows us to get numbers specific to our shows. So we may one day have sponsors and advertisers. And, uh, but now I guess that now that I know, like I can just, I have access in power to knowing how many downloads I have at any given time.
01:00:26
Speaker
I don't know.
01:00:42
Speaker
And they were like, I sent them like the APN website and like how to contact you guys and everything and like, that sounds great. We'll reach out. And then they just sent me a free box of dude wipes and I haven't heard back. But you guys do it, you'll get a free box of dude wipes. Well, there you go. Maybe we should do it too then. Yeah. All right. Well, with that, we are out.
01:01:14
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archeologists in from the cold and feed them beer.
01:01:29
Speaker
Connor, I think it's that time for your great joke. He says with all the sarcasm dripping out of his mouth. I don't know, some of these last ones have been really good. They've been smooth. Okay. Did you guys hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a soda? He's lucky it was a soft drink. God damn it. Oh my god. Alright. So bad. I'm getting grown. Alright, thanks, Connor.
01:02:10
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, Dig Tech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.