Serious Stuff (Improving the Forums)

[Saladin]

What makes you say that? Gaming podcasts seem pretty popular, and they attract people who want to talk about them.

[kob]

it's too saturated of a market and so many of them get nowhere. no one on this site has a presence in the industry and there's nothing that would separate us from the hundreds of other podcasts. you need something that would make people want to sit through 1-2 hours of audio. a podcast is something that works best when you have established viewers/readers. i feel like it's something we could do AFTER we get a portal site running with decent readership, but not before.

perhaps my friends' failures with podcasts and Gamercast's very slow start is affecting my opinion, but i just don't see us gaining traction by starting one out of the blue. i think the best way to get more people to the site is to nag someone in PR for a game we cover and get a really good interview. hell, even an interview with a well-known indie developer like Edmund McMillen would go places. post it places, lots of people read it and hopefully a small % convert to regulars. if not that, the very least we could do is update the search engine tags for this site.

[Gordon Frohman]

if not that, the very least we could do is update the search engine tags for this site.

This is a fantastic idea, however our admins are highly inactive and am I correct in saying they are the ones that can edit that kind of thing?

[Mr. Smith]

if not that, the very least we could do is update the search engine tags for this site.

This is a fantastic idea, however our admins are highly inactive and am I correct in saying they are the ones that can edit that kind of thing?

Someone needs to poke Ransom on Facebook.

[Jon0101]

Eh, make something that you want to have fun with.You already have a website and a forum, that's most of the work done.


If you wanna make a podcast go for it. It will be fun.

If you want to make a podcast with a viewership make it consistent. You don't have to put out hour long podcasts. Throw something up for 10 minutes and put it on a youtube account. Hell it would take me 40 minutes tops to slap on an image to a mp3 file and upload it to youtube.

If you wanna make stupid videos, and streams. Go for it. Have fun!

Me, I just want more people to come to this forum. Anything that has a chance to do that. Go for it!

[Aliens]

There is still a "Subscribe with Zune" section under Gamercast
that is scaring everyone away

[kob]

unfortunately jon none of that means people will join. a podcast just isn't going to do anything, especially if all we're doing is talking about games. there are far too many podcasts that do that. we'd have to have some kind of spin on it to separate us from the hundreds of gaming podcasts

[burnfire88]

unfortunately jon none of that means people will join. a podcast just isn't going to do anything, especially if all we're doing is talking about games. there are far too many podcasts that do that. we'd have to have some kind of spin on it to separate us from the hundreds of gaming podcasts

Wrestling podcast or riot.

[Gordon Frohman]

We could all sit on the toilet naked and have a group discussion on games, that'd be tight. (srs)

[Ransom]

unfortunately jon none of that means people will join. a podcast just isn't going to do anything, especially if all we're doing is talking about games. there are far too many podcasts that do that. we'd have to have some kind of spin on it to separate us from the hundreds of gaming podcasts

Actually Jon has an excellent point, which is more or less what I was going to say. You're right that it doesn't guarantee viewers or new members, but that doesn't matter. (To be clear I'm not endorsing a podcast specifically, just the overall sentiment of his post.)

Unless you are a resourceful organisation, a starting point of 'we must attract interest!' has it backwards. Unpaid creative endeavours are best undertaken because it's what you want to do, not because it's what makes sense. The latter may fit better in a plan as a means to an end, but that doesn't account for the realities of self-motivation. That is, you should want to do it even if nobody is listening. You're not being paid, there's no penalty for failure, so the only real power source is your interest in the project. That makes it much more difficult if you're only doing something for the rewards of success instead of the thing itself.

I'd rather we figured out something we all wanted to do and just had a blast doing it. If it attracts an audience, awesome! If not, well, who cares? It was fun!

[kob]

haha, don't get me wrong here: I'm not trying to be anti-fun, nor am I suggesting we begin a soulless endeavor. we should absolutely enjoy whatever we decide to do! however, "it's fun" is not a solution to the problem, nor an answer to the question originally posed.

if we wanna go for something that's purely for fun then I'm on board, but that's a different discussion than the one being had.

[Mr. Smith]

I think a podcast would work well.

[Ransom]

haha, don't get me wrong here: I'm not trying to be anti-fun, nor am I suggesting we begin a soulless endeavor. we should absolutely enjoy whatever we decide to do! however, "it's fun" is not a solution to the problem, nor an answer to the question originally posed.

if we wanna go for something that's purely for fun then I'm on board, but that's a different discussion than the one being had.

I frankly don't think it is, because the alternative is not a realistic solution.

[kob]

I think that depends on the passion people have for other ideas, but hey! if everyone wants to do a podcast then there's nothing stopping us and something is better than nothing.

[Jon0101]

haha, don't get me wrong here: I'm not trying to be anti-fun, nor am I suggesting we begin a soulless endeavor. we should absolutely enjoy whatever we decide to do! however, "it's fun" is not a solution to the problem, nor an answer to the question originally posed.

if we wanna go for something that's purely for fun then I'm on board, but that's a different discussion than the one being had.

Is it like this?
Where this sense of doing an activity with a sense of quality and consistency to counter that fear of creating something that will burn out after a few weeks because the activity is not getting the attention it deserves because it is being crowed out because a lot of other people are doing a similar activity.

Like you're trying to find a hook. Something that would make other people excited and make us stand out in a very quickly.