Join the Engadget HD podcast 138 live on UStream
By Steven Kim 
posted May 26th 2009 6:06PM
posted May 26th 2009 6:06PM
Do you talk back to the Engadget HD podcast as you're listening to it? Don't go around looking like a crazy person -- join in on the podcast live on UStream and hear it as it's being recorded! We'll begin broadcasting Wednesday around 5:30pm EST. There's no open mic, but you will get to hear the podcast before it goes into production (live and uncensored) and text chat with other listeners; and we promise to take your comments at the tail end of each topic. Head past the break for the straight dope. Live video by Ustream
UPDATE: We're running a little late. Hang in there, we'll get going as soon as possible.
Thanks for posting this on the blog. Some of else haven't been sucked in the Twitter-nado...yet...
Definitely. Had you guys posted word about this before hand on the website, there would have been a lot more people listening in. Maybe you didn't want too many people knowing about it in case you decided you weren't going to do it again.
Not all of us find Twitter of use/value.
Maybe some will disagree, but IMO, if you're not someone important/well known, then Twitter is useless. No one needs to know what I'm doing every 5 minutes, I'm not doing anything the public needs to know/care about. I can, however, see it of use for someone like a college professor, who twitters out to his/her students about tests, class cancellations, that sort of thing. I'm sure there's lots of other examples, but people are going far too nuts about twitter and I wish it would stop.
Either way, can't wait to hear you guys live today.
I really really wish that Ben and Steve would step back from this fascination they have with uStream and live feedback during the podcast so that they could see the detrimental effect it is having on the podcast. Each successive podcast since the inclusion of uStream feedback has gotten worse and worse with Ben and Steve now sounding like two stoners who can't concentrate long enough to form a coherent sentence and so much dead air that the flow of the conversation is completely lost.
In the hopes that they might actually listen to some suggestions, I'll go ahead and list mine (although I hold little hope since Ben and Steve seem hell-bent on this unfortunate path):
1) Discuss a topic without so much as looking at the uStream chat.
While Ben and Steve say that they will only respond to the chat at the end of each segment, it is obvious from all of the dead air, vapid half-responses and interjections from the chat mid-way that they are both (Ben especially) reading the chat the entire time and thus not concentrating at all on the discussion topic at hand.
I know that it requires discipline (so difficult to find that quality in people anymore), but ignore the chat and devote your attention to the topic of each segment.
2) At the end of the segment - PAUSE the recording. Read the chat, decide which posts you would like to read on air, formulate your responses and THEN come back and record again.
Will this make recording session time longer? Sure. But it will also lead to an infinitely better final product.
We don't want to listen to dead air while you read. So if you take a break, read what's there and then unpause to record again, you can ignore the chat during the initial discussion and then actually use the chat for something useful.
3) Refrain from only reading "witty" posts and other "hey, look at me...aren't I clever?" replies in the chat.
I don't want to hear peoples' pathetic cries for attention. If they have so much to say, let them start their own damn podcast! They only want to piggy-back on EngadgetHD's large audience exposure and it's cheap, lazy and thoroughly aggravating. If they're so damn clever, people will subscribe to their podcast - they don't have to use yours just to get their 15 minutes of fame.
4) Audience feedback and participation IS a good thing. I personally prefer that listeners use the channels of e-mail and comments to raise their questions and voice their concerns or corrections, but I understand the appeal of instant, live feedback.
Just don't let it get in the way and destroy what has been an excellent podcast up until the few most recent episodes.
When Ben and Steve are more interested in reading live chat than paying attention to one another and having an actual discussion, you might as well shut down the podcast and just have uStream chats as a completely separate, self-contained feature.
But if you listen and abide by my suggestions, I believe a reasonable compromise can be reached. It's obvious from the format of discussing the chat only at the end of a segment that you agree that full attention should be paid to the discussion - but your eagerness and lack of discipline are obviously leading you to "cheat" and read the chat the entire time and it's such a shame because listening to people read in silence is an awfully boring experience.
You have NO idea what its like to record a podcast, and how great the magic of editing makes it sound.
Have you guys thought about adding a third person to just monitor the Ustream and pipe in whenever there's something worth saying? If you guys could ignore the stream and have someone else to do the legwork, you could avoid the dead air.
Thanks for all the opinions. We're taking it all in and trying to come up with a good workflow with ustream. There's a lot of potential, but we need to find the right fit for our show and personnel.
Did I miss it? Just logged on, at 2:30pm PST (which I'd take as 5:30pm EST, am I doing it wrong?), but seems like its already over...
No, we're just running late
awesome, thanks! :)