EDITOR’S NOTE (What editor?): The purpose of this post is purely to vent. Nothing written in this post should (at this point) be considered as indicative of any future changes or announcements, but is purely for the purpose of me to vent about some stuff that has been on my mind.
I’m sure that if you’re one of the meager few whom have followed PreviewCast, you have noticed that its path has gotten considerably bumpy thus far. And I’ve got to say, I have spent many, many hours over the past weeks and months debating about PreviewCast, its purpose, and its place in life and on the internet.
Now granted, I do have to say this for PreviewCast: when we restarted it in July 2006, we really were moving into uncharted territory and had no idea how it would continue. In short: it was summer, and we were bored, and we wanted to start doing it again. We knew that in 2005, the show had fallen apart after 5 episodes when school started and life started, and so we sort of dealt with somewhat of a tension in terms of whether we would still make it when school started, and whether we would make it past the five episode barrier.
It was to our delightful surprise that this “second generation” of PreviewCast actually started to become successful and built a personality for itself. We consistently produced about thirteen episodes (twelve regular plus one special edition) from mid-July to the end of October, during which we also had one guest (Micheal Cottingham from phpBB who was on episode #006 during the AboutUs.org debacle). Then, we ended up missing about three weeks in November, partially due to the busy part of a school semester, but we re-emerged during Thanksgiving to record two great episodes (and then to completely reinvigorate a broken-apart website by rebuilding it)–including interviews with Leah Culver, and later in December, Adam Christianson. We had a lot of moments to look back on during our 2006 Best-Of episode, #018. Shortly after this, I got started on my second podcast, phpBB Weekly.
We went right on through the end of January, although some tensions did emerge as we started to tackle the question of “randomness” versus “decency.” Nevertheless, looking back, the early part of 2007 reflects some of my favorite PreviewCast memories. We had another hiatus in February due to the couple of weeks that I was sick in bed, but then we sprung back together in March when we had an interview with TalkShoe CEO Dave Nelsen, a special episode seminar at my school, and then a much-beloved April Fools Day parody of Diggnation (complete with the Stewarts Orange & Cream!!!).
We had a few episodes in April, but didn’t get anything done in May (again, busy with school, end of semester, etc.). However, we got going again around Memorial Day weekend, and had a nice set of episodes in June, including episode #035, which featured my favorite back-and-forth argument with Larry: a 30+ minute argument over Safari for Windows. Then, we had two episodes from the day of the iPhone launch–a day which I’ll never forget–in which Robert and I talked about the launch outside our Apple Store on a park bench and I then interviewed the folks in line. Looking back, I was really proud of my interviewing the folks in line, which gave me practice for some episodes some time later. July continued with our one-or-two year celebration, a Matt Mullenweg interview, plus an excellent experience covering WordCamp and interviewing people there. And then, we reached the peak of this running streak with our forty-second episode on August 7th when we covered the iMac/iLife/iWork special event one-hour after the keynote ended.
And that’s when it plateaued. School started. People got busy. I spent many weekends online trying to record an episode, but with no one becoming available. Sometimes, I didn’t really have time to record. We did manage to pump out three episodes in late September–one of which was an amazing interview with Lorelle VanFossen and my most favorite interview ever, but after that, we went back down into the ditches. Our feed was entirely silent for two and a half months. Although he was the co-host, Larry had only been on PreviewCast twice since April. Not that I blamed him–I understand more than anyone that as teenagers, we have a lot happening in our lives, and have significant time constraints to deal with. Nevertheless, it was somewhat irritating to me, and Larry and I exchanged numerous IMs and e-mails over the possibility of ending PreviewCast. But, we never really had the will to do so.
Now, it’s interesting how this plays out–the feelings that I had and still have over ending PreviewCast somewhat reflects the feelings that I had in mid-2006 regarding my commitments with the phpBB MOD Team. I haven’t talked very much about the details on why I left the MOD Team in August 2006, partly because they were somewhat embarrassing circumstances. But it’s important to remember that at that time, I was in a very interesting situation. I had only become familiar with phpBB in June 2004, written my first very basic MOD in October 2004, doing a slightly more substantial MOD in February 2005, and then in November I grabbed an opportunity to apply to the MOD team, and I was accepted. However, I was only 14 years old, a freshman in high school, and with only a small amount of self-taught PHP experience, I was probably the least experienced person on the team and I was certainly the youngest person ever on the team. Plus, I had a very committed life–I look back on my freshman year as such a difficult year for me partially because I really overcommitted myself that year. By the time 2006 came around, I wasn’t being very productive towards the teams, I was having conflicts with other team members, and I was starting not to enjoy it very much. But at the same time, i was very reluctant to quit because there were some ways in which I liked being on the teams, and I certainly enjoyed having the status of being a MOD Team member. Nevertheless, things continued to deteriorate, up until the point where, two days before my sophomore year started in August 2006, I was asked to step down.
Quite frankly, I was only heartbroken about that for about a day. School started, I had recently gotten going with PreviewCast, and quite frankly, sophomore year was so crazy that I probably managed to survive because I wasn’t committed to the teams anymore. I ended up starting phpBB Weekly five months later, and I feel that I make a much better contribution to the phpBB community through that venture.
But I have a very similar feeling with PreviewCast too, and I think Larry does as well. We know that PreviewCast is not doing well. We’re all getting very busy, and as such, general interest and commitment in keeping PreviewCast going has been declining. Larry has not been able to make it to our usual 4:30 PM Eastern recording time on Sunday afternoon since last June (he was on once in late-December for a Boxing Day episode, when we recorded really early in the morning to adjust to his schedule). Even I have had to skip out a number of weeks because of things going on in my life, plus a number of our regular PreviewCasters have had life move on. Plus, we’re all growing older, and a number of things are coming over the horizon. Larry and Skoker are graduating in June (and congrats to them, by the way), and they’ll likely be moving on in life. I have ever-growing commitments in my life, plus my time to start college-searching has begun.
But yet, we really don’t want to let go of PreviewCast for whatever reason, and I really think that it’s because we have never done it for the subscribers, we have never done it for ad revenue, we have never done it for any self-serving reason whatsoever other than the fact that we have enjoyed doing it. PreviewCast has more or less been fun for us. In fact, sometimes when I tell friends or teachers about the things that I do, they often ask me what I do for fun–well, blogging and podcasting is what I do for fun. That is my hobby. And that’s why we have both been so hesitant to end PreviewCast or to disassociate with PreviewCast: we love doing it.
We have tried to restart the show back during Winter Break in December, and we’ve recorded a few shows, including a special Macworld 2008 set of interviews (#049), and an excellent fiftieth episode that we did in January. And then, once again, we have gone dormant. Part of that can be blamed on my recent Sojourn trip which has usurped a significant amount of free time, but then again, I have tried for these past few weeks to assemble PreviewCast episodes, and again have been met by a silent, already-committed internet.
I’m really trying to decide where to go and what to do. I really don’t feel like I can continue to work like this: trying to ask a bunch of people to try to come together for an episode, set aside my own time to prepare and be here to record an episode, and then see no results. At the same time, PreviewCast is a part of two networks that will only let the show stay around if we are somewhat reliable at actually producing content, which has not been happening. I really feel tempted to want to throw in the towel and say that PreviewCast is over due to a lack of commitment. But at the same time, I still want to be able to have some sort of a podcast where I can be able to offer my comments and opinions on tech stuff in a way that I can’t do it on a blog–but I want to be able to do it with someone and be able to do it regularly.
So, at this point I’m frustrated because of where PreviewCast has been going and yet continuing my continuous desire to have some sort of a teen-based tech podcast, regardless of whether or not it’s modeled after PreviewCast. I hope to be able to figure something out soon.
Tags: comments, discussion, episodes, friends, frustrations, guests, history, MOD Team, MODs, opinions, Personal, phpBB, phpBB Weekly, Podcasts, PreviewCast, rant, tech, venting
Recent Comments