Episode 10: Guest Jeff Revilla - Founder of Poduty Live Podcast Theater + Social Media & AI Stories Of The Week.

Episode 10: Guest Jeff Revilla - Founder of Poduty Live Podcast Theater poduty.com. Plus Social Media & AI Stories Of The Week.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Link Through Social podcast. Well, time flies by. We're at episode 10 today. What a what a day to celebrate. Thank you to all of you who have downloaded, viewed, liked, and subscribed. We can't thank you enough. Now, later on in the show, we have Jeff Ravilla, founder of poduti.com. That's right, Puduti. It's a live podcast theater. I think you're really going to enjoy the interview. But first, let's get started with some stories from AI and social media that are making news this week. Facebook and Instagram deploy new AI tool to spot kids online. And here's how it works. The US-based tech giant Meta appears to be tightening its own grip on age verification, and this time it's leaning heavily on artificial intelligence. In a recent blog post, the Instagram maker revealed a new system designed to identify users under the age of 13 by analyzing visual and contextual signals across its platforms. Very interesting. The idea sounds futuristic, maybe, but even a little unsettling at first, you know? But Meta insists it's being careful about how this technology works. According to the American Tech Giant, the system scans photos and videos for general themes and visual cues, which include indicators like height and bone structure. But Meta is quick to draw a line here. We want to be clear, they said, this is not facial recognition. The company said, adding that it does not identify the specific person in the image. Instead of pinpointing identities, the AI looks for patterns. It also reads between the lines, quite literally. Posts, captions, bios, and even comments are analyzed for contextual clues that might suggest someone is underage. Now, what happens if you're flagged? If the system believes an account belongs to someone under 13, it doesn't just issue a warning. The account can be deactivated. To regain access, the user will need to verify their age. And this AI-based detection is currently being tested in select regions, including the United States, with a broader rollout expected over time. This is very timely because we've been speaking about this a lot on the show about uh banning children under the age of actually 16 from using social media. And it started in Australia, it's going across Europe. Here in North America, the governments uh of Canada and the U.S. are both looking at it very strongly. So it's good to see that Facebook are trying to do some things pre-emptively before these laws uh potentially get passed. So we'll uh keep an eye on this as it rolls out further and um keep it here to the link through social podcasts. We will keep you updated. Now, next, our sponsor, Smart Post App, has a few new exciting things to tell you about. Their standard plan just got better. They now offer 30 cued schedule posts, 25 drafts, and seven days of completed post history. More room to plan, save, and review your content. So that's at smartpostapp.com. They've also released update v26.13, which is now available, and is added quick viewpost access for published and completed posts, improved completed post status display, fix some bugs, and stability improvements. So go to smartpostapp.com to learn more. Next, KinHealth raises $9 million to build an AI note taker for patients. The market for AI note-taking devices has exploded, especially in the United States, with the category generating over $600 million in revenue last year alone, according to a Menlo Ventures report. Kin Health is building a note taker that can transcribe your visits to doctors, put together medical advice, and surface next steps when required. To that end, the startup has raised $9 million in a seed funding round led by Mavaron. The app is similar to a meeting note taker. You can record doctor visits and it will return an AI summary of the meeting with the next steps, as all of which you share with family and friends if you so choose. It also lets you write down questions that you might want to ask during the next visit. And KinHealth says it encrypts all patient data. This is very important, and that summarizes are kept private by default. The tool is not HIPAA certified as of yet. But this is where we're going in the future with doctor visits, especially since doctors are so backed up, so uh it's very hard to even find a family doctor right here in Canada. So some of these AI um options to help both doctors and now patients are very important. And in the future, it will be something that we will all need. Now, next, Meta has quietly released a new standalone app for Facebook groups called Forum. The company seems to be positioning Forum as a platform that functions similarly to Reddit, describing the app as a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers, and communities that you care about. After you sign in with your Facebook account, forum will load in your group's profile and activity and let you make posts with a nickname. Just like on a standard Facebook app, Meta noted that your groups still exist on Facebook, and anything you share on forum will be visible in your groups on Facebook. Meta says forums feeds are centered on conversation within groups, allowing users to see what real people are saying, not just what's trending, and making it easy to pick up where they left off. The app includes an AI-powered ask tab that lets users ask questions and receive answers compiled from discussions across different groups. There's also an AI admin assistant to help administrators manage groups and moderate the content. So there we go. That's all the news for this week. The link through social podcasts will be back right after this.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

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SPEAKER_02 8:25

Welcome back to the Link Through Social podcast. Uh, we have another special guest for us uh today. I'm really excited to talk with Jeff Ravilla from Padootie, Paduoty Lady, and uh it's Padootie.com is his actual website. Jeff uh is a podcast, has a podcast theater in Pennsylvania where creators turn their shows into live monetizable events. With over 20 years in digital marketing and a decade in podcast and live streaming experience, he helps podcasters grow audiences and build real revenue through live experiences. He's also the author of the new business model for podcasting and host of the trivia show Stuff I've Never Learned. Or sorry, I've never knew, where learning and entertainment both come together. Oh, I'm really excited to hear about that too. Jeff, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Thank you. It could be called Stuff I Never Learned because uh I've been hosting that for 10 years and I haven't learned anything.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

There you go. Well, um, we're gonna get to your uh trivia show in a minute, but uh, why don't you just uh briefly before we get started, just give our our viewers and listeners um just a little background about yourself uh professionally and uh how you came to this point?

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Yeah, professionally, um I've been a marketing director for like 15 years and just fell in love with digital marketing early in the 2000s and got lucky, like kind of forged my own career after college. And in 2005, I was uploading videos to the internet and building message boards and social networks. So I got this early start and this early feel and early like a head start into the world of digital marketing because I needed to do it for my business back then, and and that became a very tangible set of skills, even better than going to college were those early years in the 2000s where I learned all this stuff and I'm able to apply that in different aspects. And professionally, like I said, I've been a marketing director for an auto group. Uh I I managed 10 car franchises and I've been doing that for 15-16 years now. But I have a passion, you know, I'm very creative person, I like to do things, I like to, I'm always thinking of ideas. And about 10 years ago, I started thinking about expanding the definition of what a podcast could be. You know, now we hear a lot about you know Apple's adding video and all these you know, video podcasts, but I'm I'm thinking about this in such a bigger way with such a bigger audience that it that can attract smaller podcasters, independent podcasters. You don't need to have a million downloads to do what I'm doing. It can be a fun hobby with friends, uh, you know, a night out, and we'll we'll get into some of what all that means, but uh, I'm uh me personally, I'm a passionate podcaster, and I've been that way forever. It resonates.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

You can tell. Just just uh just you know, in our first few minutes, you can tell that you're you're very excited about it and very passionate. And isn't that so special, Jeff, when you're doing something that you really enjoy doing? Uh I I myself, I I love being a podcaster. I've been involved with social media management since 2010, I guess. Used to be in the automotive manufacturing business before that. It just a totally different um, totally different industry. And and I like what I'm doing, and it's it's it's enjoyable and uh exciting. So it's uh it's great to see that you're you're very passionate about this. And uh so I I have to hear about this live podcasting theater that you've set up. Um describe how it works. Uh to to uh do you go out and look for podcasters? Do they find you? How does uh how does the system work out?

SPEAKER_03 12:28

Yeah, it started with me trying to expand that definition of podcasting. I started doing live shows at coffee shops and bars. I did some on a used car lot, you know, just running my show and having a good time. And like you said, I would do this without money involved. Like, this is just something fun for me to do. I really enjoy creating something and putting it out into the world, and as that evolved, as COVID hit, or you really couldn't perform anywhere, right? That idea inside of me kept expanding. I kept thinking about well, where can I do podcasts? How can I do this on a on a bigger scale? And then really, I was like, what if you know, in today's technology on a on a bootstrap budget, what if I could build like a little TV studio, and just like Saturday Night Live, it's not much different. Like, there's a stage with an audience and they're broadcasting to the world. And I thought, well, what if I could do that for podcasters and do it in a way where if you ever tried to put on your own live event, you might approach a hotel or a banquet room, and they want to charge you an arm and a leg thousands of dollars. You have to sign a contract, you have to use their audio video technicians. I'm like, well, what if I can make it turnkey where you can just walk off the street, it's already set up. You go to the stage, you perform your show, you get the recording, and you go home. So there's no teardown, there's no setup. It's it's you know, we can just keep flipping this room over and over again. And that idea became this infinite seat theater where yes, I'm only in a 1600 square foot building with 40 chairs surrounding a stage, but uh, surrounding that stage are cameras that can broadcast to the world. So now my little baby space, my little baby theater, can really have the same capacity as Madison Square Garden. And so what I try to do is you know, bring podcasters in and we an event page, we sell the tickets for them, we produce the event, we record the event, we give them back the recording. We don't take any ownership over the recording. Sure. And at the end of the night, instead of reviewing the terms of the contract, we have a handshake deal where I show you the dashboard where we sold all the tickets and we split that total 50-50. No podcaster is ever on the hook for money at the end of the night. They walk out of the store, out of the doors with money in their pocket.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

That that's amazing. Like I know I know uh there's a lot of podcasters out there or people that are are in different types of industry that want to get into podcasting, but like you said, that's a very important thing. Equipment isn't cheap. Um, you know, you you can kind of bootstrap it a little bit, but if your budget is really tight and you don't have that type of money to put out, um what an what an opportunity this is to come in, like you said, and and just do your podcast and collect some cash on the way out.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Yeah, and get it and then win situation.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Yeah, it almost reminds me of uh like a comedy club where uh different comedians would uh come to a particular town and pass through uh um a comedy uh club and and uh this is the same type of thing, but for podcasters.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Uh well I think while the use case is unique, I certainly didn't invent the small club, small theater model. That's yeah, a lot of it borrows from my love of comedy, my love of listening to how comedians put shows together, how they build venues, how they how they get to perform. And a lot of that, even the layout, this the C-shaped design, the darkness of the back of the room compared to the front of the all those things really come from comedy clubs. And I really want to recreate that feeling. Like if you've listened to a podcast on your morning commute or while you're walking the dog in the morning, yeah, you sometimes feel like you're in that room with that podcaster, and that's what this space is designed to do. It's you're literally in the room, but it's it's surreal how much you're in the room. Now the people you've been listening to, they're right in front of you, and you're only three rows back at the at the furthest seat, and it's you're just immersed in this magical moment that's only happening one time in the history of the world. And the podcasts don't typically repeat the same show next week. It's it's a one-shot deal, and you're there to witness it in that moment.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Incredible. And and like you said, the the reach is there. There's a small group within the theater, but the reach is is there's no cap, there's no ceiling to it. Uh it could be millions, it could be a few hundred people, a few thousand. It it it would all uh all depend. But that's that's the beauty of this. And um I think it's just a fantastic idea. And you're right. The um the pod some of the podcasters I have listened to for many years, they almost seem like friends, because you know, you check in with them every week or two or three times a week, depending on the the frequency of their their podcasts, and uh it becomes uh like a relationship uh you develop with the podcaster, and and this is just uh an extra extension, uh, a unique extension. And um so it's it's just absolutely uh fabulous. Now, I have to ask, I'm uh I'm a huge fan of uh Shark Tank in the US, and Kevin O'Leary is one of the sharks. And when some of these uh business ideas come in front of the sharks, they always talk about oh, franchising. Is there any possibility that this might be a franchisable project?

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Yeah, similar to the improv or laugh factory, there there are certain models that we can follow in comedy. The one thing that we have going for us is from start to finish, from the idea to the recorded product, this this theater controls that entire process. So you come to the idea, we build the landing page. So you know, we have the tech to build the landing page, we have the tech to process the tickets, we have the tech to produce the show. So that whole package. Uh, I've been approached already. That uh that there's a model here. Once I figure out the theater model a little bit more, but the model for reproducing this is giving the the franchise owner that full control, that full system setup from start to finish. That's the model, that's the kind of like in the automotive world, the you'd always hear the secret sauce, right? That's the secret sauce that makes it all work, and and that's that's one way to approach it, you know. And I'm thinking it's probably more of a tech plus, you know, an investment of a location, yeah. And that's kind of the the balance that we'll find with with the future business model. And and I know that I knew two years ago when I opened this place that I was like two to five years ahead of the market. Like I need I needed runway for a couple years to really figure out what's going on, but I can tell you in the last three months, and especially with the rise of AI, there is so much chatter online right now for real-world experiences, in-person events. It is buzzing, and it there is a tsunami coming of people who want to get back out into the community, who want to experience live events, who want to do meetups and you know, and business get-togethers and go to small events and support local community. It is bubbling up in a way that it was I hadn't seen for years, but now it's really coming in a in droves, and so I'm thinking that timeline might be a little bit shorter than the the five years, right? It might be in the next year to 18 months where this really becomes a thing, if not not just here in Pittsburgh, but you might see these types of clubs pop up before I even get a chance to franchise it.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah, no, it's it's it's true. I I did a uh a radio segment uh uh uh this afternoon that I I do every week, and uh the host has me on to talk about social media and AI, and we were talking about a similar subject today. We're going back to simple, to community, to none of these viral millions of uh followers and watching a particular video, but we're we're going back to the grassroots of local community feeling, and this fits right into it. So I think you're in the right place at the right time for this type of thing. Now, you also mentioned AI, so AI, in your opinion, uh it's growing at a you know an astronomical rate, and we we talk about it every week on this show. Um name some of the things, maybe a couple points that AI has helped you in in growing this produce.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Yeah, I mean, I'm a team of one, right? I run this theater, front of house, back of house. I can literally run this with just myself. I do have some family members that pop in and help me out when it's nice, when there's more of a crowd. But I think of AI as a superpower. I don't use it for creative purposes. I don't, I'm not skimming ideas out of it. But if I need to to draft a letter or an email, or I need to put together something, even the editing, I use some AI in the editing process. Uh, I will use it to extend my reach. To you would think that this place was run by a team of 10 people, but it's mostly me and prompts and getting the things done that I couldn't just do by myself. So extending those tasks, that that's where I see the the real power and benefit. I'm able to do some pretty crazy things just because I can hand off some of those things instead of working on an email, you know, for an hour. I can get I just today I had to design me an HTML template, I plugged in all my things, and then boom, send it off, and we're we're good to go.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Yeah, those are those are some of the the tools uh that I I've been using as well. It's it's it's really help streamline the you know the some of the mundane tasks that you have to do during the day. And then you can focus on the real thing, creativity and and reaching out to people and and that type of thing. So that's you know, that's what AI should be about, and uh you definitely should be using it uh within your business. Now, uh, we've talked about your theater. I I need to know about your trivia show, stuff I never knew. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Yeah, that's the first iteration. That's kind of what really kicked off this whole idea of performing podcasts in front of people. It was 2015, and I just started on a platform called Blab, and Blab was the first live stream. You remember Blab? The four in the box, and you could let it snow and give props, and things were flying around. It was chaos, but Blab had this community element to it where you would go live and within three minutes they would dump 30 people into your stream, and I would go live on Blab without any plan, other than I had my questions written to do the trivia show, and I needed eight people per night. You imagine right now, if I was trying to do a live show and I needed eight contestants that I didn't have when I hit record, you can't do that anymore. The the the power of live isn't like that on Facebook or or anywhere else, but right but Blab had that social element and it was great. And we did the first shows there, and it did you know Blab kind of crumbled under its own weight, it didn't have a business model, it it just grew so so rapidly, it just collapsed on itself. But uh that idea became what you see now as a trivia show. And when we got to about episode 100 around 2020 when the pandemic hit, a local television show uh picked us up or channel, uh, the Armstrong channel. Oh wow, so the last 75 episodes have all aired on television, so we do still do a trivia show. It's you know, three players from around the world call in and battle it out over three rounds of trivia. Very good, and uh those all air on TV. So now instead of me, you know, recording, editing, uh releasing, and producing, I now just show up, you know, with my questions, record the show. Yep, I hand the show over to the cable company, they do all the editing, they cut me a check, and then it's it's so much better.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

You can't ask for anything else, Jeff. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

And I am starting, um, I'm kind of branching off of that, and there is a new show coming out that uh we've only announced locally because it's only gonna be an in-person experience at first. It's called Trivia with Jeff, and I got a luchador coming in. It's gonna co-host with me. We're gonna uh do four games in one night. So we're gonna we're what I'm able to do now is structure a night of trivia where people can come in, they play right on their phones, right? It all gets recorded, but we're doing four episodes in one night. So I'll sell tickets, I'll have contestants, live contestants, and that'll be one month's worth of content. So I'm gonna try out this new format. And we're the first episode records on May 29th, depending on when this airs. Wonderful. People may or may not know if it was successful or not.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Yeah, and then hopefully you can send out the masses, and us uh here in Canada can uh pick it up as well. That's wonderful. So uh Jeff, uh, I just want uh we have to wrap things up, but um uh tell tell us your website and where we can find you online if we uh are in the Pennsylvania area and want to get uh connected up with you to uh to go to the theater if there are any podcasters out there, or uh just to watch and listen.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Yeah, go to paddooty.com, pody.com. We're in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So if you're in this local area, just stop by. Give me a call, even go out to the website. You can chat with me directly from the website. I'll meet you down there, give you a tour. And you know, anytime I love showing off the place. I'm really proud of it. Uh, it came together in a way that I could only have I couldn't even have dreamt of. It just works for some reason. And all those things I thought about, you know, fit into this little space. And just proud of it. We have the upcoming events on the website, new things. We do we sponsor meetups every month for podcasters. We buy pizza and drinks, and you can network with 20, 30 people, and it's it's just a great time. It's a great community that we're starting to grow here in Pittsburgh, and I think uh you're gonna see some crazy things come out from Pittsburgh, you know, could be the Hollywood of podcasts in you know a year or two, I hope.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

Wouldn't that be something? Yeah, I I'm kind of jealous. I I might have to make my way down to Pittsburgh to to come and check out your theater there. Come on, buy your sandwich. We'll be we'll be circling back uh and maybe bringing you back on the show later this year, Jeff. I have a feeling that things are gonna explode for you and potentially you never know the the the model of of franchising this uh across the US and uh maybe maybe here in Canada. Maybe I can get the Canadian rights to this. We'll have to talk off air.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

You can say you knew me when, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:54

That's right. That's right. Jeff Ravelia, a pleasure. Uh, thanks for coming on the Link Through Social Podcast and uh all the best. And make sure everyone uh that's listening and watching out there visit his website, and um you have a wonderful evening. You take care.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

You too. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

All right, everyone, the Link Through Social Podcast will be back after this short break.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Link Through Social. We specialize in social media management, podcast production, digital media, and AI solutions. We also look after all your web design and OCD to enhance your online presentation. Also check out our podcast URL, link through social podcast.com, which links you to our YouTube channel, and don't forget to subscribe. And we have all the links of where you can listen to your podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. Link through social. Link through social on social media. Stay connected. Link through social podcast. Well that does it for episode 10. Thank you very much again for all of your support. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe across all your social media platforms. Until next week, that's it. Another edition of the Link Through Social Podcast.