Hey there, Chris here.
This summer has been a whirlwind. I traveled out to Boise, Idaho for the Craft Commerce conference, and it ended up being one of the highlights of my year so far. Great sessions, even better people, and the kind of conversations that remind you why you got into this work in the first place.
There’s a longer story here that I want to tell properly someday, about what it took to get in that room. Growing this business is long, arduous work, and I feel fortunate that reaching out to one person connected me with another who made the whole trip possible. A huge thank you to Scott Queen and the folks at SegMetrics for the invitation. If I can swing it, I’ll be back every year.
Since getting home, I’ve hit the ground running. Interest in our studio keeps growing, the groundwork we laid this year is coming to life, and I’m genuinely excited about what the fall holds for HumblePod.
This issue: Apple rebuilt video podcasting (and locked many of us out for now), the rise of podslop, and a Knoxville creative powerhouse on We Built This Brand.
The studio is growing.
The biggest update from the studio is a simple one: it’s growing. New folks are joining us, interest keeps climbing, and the professionally designed space we built here in Knoxville is getting busier every month. It’s exciting to watch the groundwork we laid this year come to life.
If you’ve been curious about what recording in a real studio feels like, come see for yourself. You can schedule a tour anytime, and keep an eye on this newsletter for discounts and promotions we’ll be running for readers.
Apple rebuilt video podcasts. Most shows can’t get in yet.
Apple’s new video podcast experience is rolling out with iOS 26.4, and it’s a real rebuild, not a coat of paint. Listeners can switch between watching and listening mid-episode, flip to horizontal full-screen, and download video for offline viewing. Under the hood it all runs on HLS streaming, the same technology Spotify announced in May that it’s adopting so creators can publish video to both platforms from one workflow. For the first time, the two biggest podcast platforms are converging on a single video pipeline.
“The walls between audio shows and video shows are coming down. The gates are another story.”
Here’s the catch: at launch, only shows hosted on four platforms can participate at all. Acast, ART19 (Amazon), Omny Studio (Triton), and the SiriusXM family (Simplecast and AdsWizz). You might notice all four are also ad networks, which tells you plenty about how Apple plans to monetize this. If your show is hosted anywhere else, and most independent and mid-size business shows are, you can’t take part yet, no matter how much video you produce.
I’ll be honest: this isn’t a reason to panic-switch hosting providers. Apple says more hosts are coming, and history suggests they will. The smarter move is getting your video house in order now so you’re ready when the gates open. Because the other thing this rollout confirms: video podcasting only pays off when you treat it as its own product. A camera, real lighting, intentional edits. Not a waveform slapped over a static image.
One piece worth your time.
“Podslop” is real, and it’s getting worse. Podscan data suggests 39% of new podcasts are now likely AI-generated, and TechRadar’s breakdown of why that matters is worth every minute you’ll spend with it. Also, just my two cents, but over on r/podcasting, creators keep reporting strange download spikes, and it looks like more than AI shows flooding the feeds. Someone appears to be scraping podcasts for LLM training data too. The slop machine is feeding itself. All the more reason an authentic, human show stands out right now.
This Week’s issue is brought to you by... us?
Yep, we’re sponsoring ourselves this week. I’ll be honest, most of what we talk about in this newsletter happens because we’ve got a studio here in Knoxville where people can just show up, hit record, and sound great without buying a single piece of gear. If you’ve been meaning to get that episode, interview, or video done, this is your nudge.
HumblePod readers get 10% off their next studio recording with code HumbleNewsletter07. Book on our website by July 31.
That’s it for this issue. If something here landed for you, hit reply and tell me, I read every one. And if a friend forwarded this, you can subscribe here.
See you in two weeks.
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