Rob Greenlee

Liquid Content Era Enables Creators To Become Trusted Media Brands

by Rob Greenlee, CEO/Founder, Trust Factor Lab and Trust Creator Community at M3Linked.com, Host of NewMediaShow.com & Spoken Human

Podcasting’s New Liquid Content Era has growing potential to turn audio and video creators into Trusted Media Brands.

Let’s stop pretending podcasting is still just an audio strategy.

It isn’t.

We are in a major reshuffle right now. The old boundaries around what a podcast is, how it gets discovered, and how creators build momentum are extending fast. What once felt fixed is becoming far more fluid and complicated. That is why I see this as podcasting’s new liquid era, where creators are becoming more than just podcasters.

Many are becoming trusted, personified, or human-centric media brands.

That shift did not happen overnight, but the major platform moves made it impossible to ignore. YouTube pushed podcasting deeper into its video ecosystem. Spotify reinforced video publishing and monetization. Apple pushed even further with a new video podcast experience via HLS streaming inside Apple Podcasts.

“That matters because it signals something bigger than a feature update.“

YouTube changed creator behavior. Spotify and Netflix reinforced the business case.

“Apple Podcasts has now validated that video podcasting via HLS is much closer to the center of gravity in podcasting. None of that means audio stopped mattering. Audio still fits some of the most valuable moments in people’s lives. It still works while driving, walking, working out, commuting, and doing everything else that makes spoken-word media so powerful. Audio still matters deeply.”

Video is not replacing audio in every context, but it is clearly driving much of the momentum, experimentation, audience behavior, and acquisition deals right now. That is why I do not think the smartest framing anymore is audio-first versus video-first.

The smarter framing is to trust first and to focus on content liquidity.
Because in a liquid content era, formats can move. Platforms do change. User behavior does shift. Discovery pathways evolve. But trust is what survives the reshuffle.

That is where new media creators need to up their game.

The goal is not just to publish an audio
The goal is not just to post a video version
The goal is not just to be present on another of many platforms
The real opportunity is to become a trusted media personality brand
That means your show is no longer just an RSS feed. It is a relationship. It has a recognizable point of view or change mission that matters to humans. It is also a repeatable format. It is a body of communications people can follow across audio, video, clips, livestreams, newsletters, search, and community.

And now there is another layer that matters more every month: AI algorithmic content scoring and sharing discovery in LLM’s.

The next phase of creator growth is not only about ranking in traditional search or getting picked up by AI platform algorithms.

To be discoverable inside AI answers, conversational search, and recommendation systems.

“If your content is clear, trusted, well-structured, and consistently published, it has a much better chance of being found, surfaced, and revisited across this new landscape.”

That is also why owned audience relationships are becoming so important.

The next strategic layer for creators is not just public content. It is building private, premium, interactive communities that they control.

Not just followers on rented platforms.
Not just subscribers inside someone else’s ecosystem.
Not just passive audience reach.

“Building spaces where creators own the direct relationship with their audience. Membership communities. Premium groups. Mastermind environments. Private creator circles. Direct audience ecosystems are built around trust, participation, and recurring value.”

Because when a creator builds that kind of community, they are not just publishing content anymore. They are creating a meeting place for direct connections. That is an ongoing experience. The creator is building loyalty, feedback loops, and a deeper business relationship that is far more durable than a view count or a download-and-view number on a large consumption platform the creator does not control the access pathways to.

That changes the economics, too.

Public content can drive awareness
Video can drive discovery
Audio can deepen a habit.

A private community can drive retention, monetization, and direct audience relationships.

That is a much stronger model than relying entirely on platforms you do not control.

And now we need to talk about what comes next.
I believe hybrid human-and-AI creator brands will become a real part of this landscape. Not fake creators replacing people. Not synthetic noise with no soul. I mean human creators extending their voice, expertise, archives, and availability through AI clones that are built the right way.

Done badly, that becomes creepy, misleading, and disposable.
Done well, it becomes powerful.

“A trust-first AI clone should not pretend to be a human when it is not. It should be clearly disclosed. It should reflect the creator’s actual values, body of work, and knowledge. It should be built from authentic source material. It should help audiences access ideas, archives, recommendations, and next steps in ways that extend the human-creator brand rather than diluting it.”

A creator’s human voice remains the center. The human relationship remains the anchor.

But AI can extend availability, responsiveness, discovery, education, and continuity.

In other words, the future is not human or AI, but both. It is trusted human brands with carefully built AI extensions.

Only works if trust comes first. If audiences feel tricked, manipulated, or confused, the brand loses value. But if the AI layer is transparent, useful, aligned, and grounded in the creator’s real voice and expertise, it can become an extension of the relationship rather than a replacement for it.

That is why I think the creators who win in the next chapter will be the ones who know how to build trust across multiple surfaces:

Public platforms
Audio feeds
Video channels
AI discovery layers
Private premium communities and eventually, trust-first AI versions of their own brand.

That is the shift.

We are moving from content creators to trust builders
From podcasters to media brands
From single-format publishing to format flexibility
From a rented reach to an owned relationship
From static content libraries to intelligent, discoverable creator ecosystems
That is not the end of podcasting
That is, podcasting is becoming bigger than its original container.

And from my perspective, that is the real opportunity for creators, experts, and brands right now. In a world where more content will be created by more people and more machines than ever before, trust becomes the filter. Trust becomes the signal.

Trust becomes the value. The question now is not whether you are only a podcaster.

“The question now is whether you are building something people trust enough to follow, join more deeply in a community, and eventually interact with you and your brand.”

“The path is built on a trust-first approach: clear disclosure, authentic source material, useful value for the audience, and strong alignment with the human creator’s real voice and expertise.”

What opportunity is there now for creators?

To become trusted media brands that use public platforms for reach, video for discovery, audio for habit, private communities for ownership, and trust-first AI extensions for scalable audience support.

About the Author
Rob Greenlee is a 2017 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee and Chair, a global new-media leader who bridges podcasting’s human roots and its AI-driven future. As founder of Trust Factor Lab and host of the “New Media Show” and “Spoken Human”, Rob helps creators start, grow, monetize, and future-proof their content. He’s held leadership roles at Microsoft, Spreaker, Libsyn, StreamYard, and PodcastOne, and serves as Chairperson of the Podcast Hall of Fame. Learn more at RobGreenlee.com and join the Trust Factor Lab Creator/Podcast Services.

Personal note: I used AI tools to help organize this article and hand-edited it; the views, clarifications, responsibility, and industry perspective are mine. I have been working in podcasting and platform adoption for more than two decades, and this article reflects my own position. The original word choice was mine, and so is the clarification.

Why “Fringe” Was the Wrong Word and What I Actually Meant About Podcasting 2.0

By Rob Greenlee

This article provides context about my comments on New Media Show episode 660 with Libsyn CEO Brendan Monaghan, where we discussed Podcasting 2.0, RSS tag adoption, and the gap between innovation and mainstream platform implementation.

During my recent interview conversation with the Libsyn CEO, I used the word “fringe” when discussing Podcasting 2.0 RSS extension tag ideas. That comment in an extended audio clip was played and discussed on “Podnews Weekly Review“, and understandably, it raised concerns in parts of the podcasting 2.0 community, including Dave Jones and Adam Curry on the Podcasting 2.0 podcast. Let me say this clearly. That was not the right word for me to use, and I regret saying it that way.

Not because I am backing away from the broader point I was trying to make, but because the word itself does not reflect how I actually view the work happening in the Podcasting 2.0 and open RSS ecosystem.

The comment came out quickly in a live discussion and did not carry the full context I intended.

What I was trying to describe is something I have repeatedly seen said over the past two decades working with large platforms, hosting companies, and media organizations: there is a real difference between something that is not widely adopted yet and something that is not valuable.

Podcasting 2.0 Innovation Has Real Value

Podcasting 2.0 innovations are valuable. RSS namespace expansion, new tags, and experimentation around monetization, identity, transcripts, funding, and distribution all matter. This is where much of the real innovation in podcasting is happening.

At the same time, many of these capabilities have been around for several years, in some cases for close to five years. That historical context matters. My comment was not about the value of the ideas themselves. It was about the pace and pattern of adoption, especially among larger platforms.

When I used the word “fringe,” I was referring to the broader set of emerging and evolving tag ideas within the Podcasting 2.0 initiative.

There are many tags and concepts at different stages of maturity, market fit, timing, and implementation. Not all of them have broad agreement or adoption, even within standards-focused efforts like the Podcast Standards Project. From a product and platform perspective, this creates a spectrum of adoption rather than one unified standard that everyone has fully embraced.

What I Was Trying to Say

What I meant is that market fit and timing play a major role in what gets adopted at scale. Larger podcasting platforms tend to move more deliberately. Their decisions are shaped by user experience, engineering resources, monetization models, product stability, support complexity, and business priorities.

That often means only a subset of new capabilities gets integrated into mainstream products at any given time.

That has been the pattern over the past several years.

But it is also important to say this pattern is changing.

Momentum Started Very Slow, But Is Building

Over the past year or so, we have started to see real momentum around some Podcasting 2.0 tags and capabilities. More platforms are experimenting. More tools are supporting them. More creators are becoming aware of what is possible and how these features can be used in real workflows.

That has been great to see.

I believe we will continue to see more adoption of certain RSS tags as platforms, tools, and creators find clearer ways to integrate them into everyday use.

Some Tags Are Seeing More Adoption

You can already see this progression in parts of the ecosystem.

Tags like transcript, chapters, and person have seen meaningful adoption because they provide immediate and understandable value. The Alternative Enclosure tag is being more widely adopted across platforms, too. They improve accessibility, discovery, context, and creator attribution.

The funding tag has gained traction within parts of the ecosystem, especially among creators and platforms exploring alternative monetization models. The value tag, which supports value-for-value and streaming payment models, has been adopted within specific apps and communities, though it has struggled more recently and has not yet become mainstream across larger platforms.

Other tags and ideas are still at an earlier stage. Some are being tested. Some are evolving. Some are still looking for the right use case that will drive broader adoption.

That is what I meant by a spectrum of innovation.

Innovation and Adoption Are Not the Same Thing

Podcasting operates across two layers simultaneously.

There is an innovation layer, where developers, independent platforms, and forward-thinking creators create and test new ideas. Then there is a platform layer, where those ideas are evaluated, prioritized, supported, and integrated into products used by millions of people. The gap between those two layers is where much of the tension comes from.

I have seen this pattern many times. Podcasting itself began outside the mainstream.

Mobile listening took time to become the default. Video podcasting has gone through multiple cycles before finding its current role. Programmatic advertising in audio took years to mature. Innovation usually moves faster than adoption. Adoption follows when user demand, product fit, creator benefit, and business alignment come together.

That is where many Podcasting 2.0 capabilities have been.

My View of Podcasting 2.0 and the Podcast Standards Project

I also want to be clear that Podcasting 2.0 and the Podcast Standards Project are not the same thing. They overlap in some areas, but they do not necessarily embrace every tag or idea in the same way.

That is part of the larger point

When standards-oriented efforts evaluate which capabilities to support, it shows that this is not simply a question of innovation versus resistance. It is about maturity, usefulness, interoperability, timing, and market fit. That is the context I was trying to convey, though I did not do so well at the time.

I Respect the Podcasting 2.0 Community

So when I used the word “fringe,” I was trying to describe how some organizations have historically perceived ideas that had not yet reached scale or product integration. But I understand how that word sounded dismissive of Podcasting 2.0, and that is not how I really see it.

I respect and appreciate the innovation and work happening through PodcastIndex.org, Podcasting 2.0, and the broader open podcasting community, including the work and advocacy of Adam Curry, Dave Jones, Daniel J. Lewis, and many others.

The opportunity now is to build on the momentum emerging and move the most valuable ideas toward broader adoption. That means making these capabilities easier to use, improving listener experiences, aligning them with sustainable business models, and demonstrating clear value at scale.

That is how innovation moves from experimentation into everyday use.

My Role in the Conversation

I do not want to frame this as one side versus another. I am focused on helping connect what is being built with what is actually being adopted and used at scale.

That is the conversation we are having every week on the “New Media Show“. Join us LIVE on Weds, 3 pm PST/6 pm EST, or on demand in all the podcast apps and live on YouTube.com/@robgreenlee, LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, and X.com

So, yes, I regret the word “Fringe” I used. But I stand by the broader point that there has been a gap between innovation and adoption in podcasting over the past several years.

The good news is that momentum is building, and that gap is starting to close. That is where the real opportunity is for all of us in this industry.

About the Author
Rob Greenlee is a 2017 Podcast Hall of Fame inductee and Chair, a global new media leader who bridges podcasting’s human roots with its AI-driven future. As founder of Trust Factor Lab and host of the “New Media Show” and “Spoken Human”, Rob helps creators start, grow, monetize, and future-proof their content. He’s held leadership roles at Microsoft, Spreaker, Libsyn, StreamYard, and PodcastOne, and serves as Chairperson of the Podcast Hall of Fame. Learn more at RobGreenlee.com and join the Trust Factor Lab Creator/Podcast Services.