say if we wanted to sponsor a geek brief or sponser a GIA Agent is there any details?

Well just watched the show yeah me has got to get me one of those.

Sponsorship is a good thing, but maintaining the true sense of the show and not adjusting it to the sponsor’s needs or goals is important. With a less than 5 min show, it’s necessary to not lose the audience with any long drawn out sections… Viewers love Cali reviewing tech news and gadgets along with the bloopers and sexy outfits…

HP? Thought you were an Apple girl…. no Apple related sponsors there for you via Podshow? Can’t believe any of the PR people from Apple haven’t thrown any stuff your way to “help” the production….

Hi Cali!

As long as you state it clearly that it´s an sponsored/endorsed episode I can´t see any harm from doing it.

And it was kind of fun to, but me being a DIY geek I stick with my old Duron 750 and FreeNAS with its mindboggling :) 330 GB of storage (cant afford more hard drives atm) and using my Geexbox. Btw have you seen the Antec Fusion? Really good looking case for a HTPC project.

I thought the episode was entertaining. Although I wouldn’t have known it was a paid advertisement if it wasn’t for the little “sponsored by HP” and the end. I think you should identify that this is a paid endorsement at the start.

Sorry about Studio 60, I don’t think we’ll be talking about a season 2…

Thanks for starting my day with a laugh, great bloopers!

Great show. Loved the info and the bloopers.

I don’t mind the sponsored show at all. One of the realities of making a vocation out of a passion is that you have to pay the bills. Don’t do them too often and be clear about the sponsorship. The only suggestion I have is to state up front that the show has a sponsor instead of tagging it onto the end of the show.

Y’all still rock.

-Walter

No Problem with the sponsored episode - it was pretty clear that you were genuine about the product and as long as we can all trust you on that - why shoudnt HP help support the show.

As long as you dont start trying to sell crap to us - I think most viewers will be fine.

Maybe, just maybe you should have mentioned the sponsorship at the outset instead of the very end.

Keep it up fearless leader.

The best show on TV?

I haven’t seen Studio 60 yet, but you clearly haven’t seen Heroes yet. ;-)

Hi gang - I’m posting the text of the email I sent earlier for others to read. Perhaps to prompt others to offer up their thoughts on the subject…

Hi Guys!
To be honest, i’m not really sure what to think about the whole idea. Paying the bills is definitely important, but don’t loose sight of what the point of the podcast ..err…netcast is. I wouldn’t object to using the first 30 seconds to a full minute for product promotion, but not an entire episode. Even with best intentions in mind, you always run the risk of over doing it and that, in my opinion, could possibly drive people away. Which nobody wants to see happen.

Thanks for taking the time to listen …ummm read your viewers feedback!

I agree with Jude about the need for an identifier of paid endorsements at the beginning of the episode, other than that it was fun and entertaining. I’m not sure how I feel about actually having it be a part of the standard lineage of GBTV episodes. You might want to keep the “infomercial” episodes outside of continuity (i.e. not giving them GBTV ep #’s), in order to preserve that all-so-important credibility.

I don’t think of you guys as people who would actively endorse a product you didn’t like, but hey, money is, in fact, important. This is just one of those balancing acts that you have to face when you graduate from amature night to professional.

I just saw Studio 60 for the first time yesterday. I loved it! But I again have to agree with Jude, NBC has pretty much already nixed it, according to all reports I’ve seen.

Felt like a 3 minute commercial. To be fair, you should state upfront in the podcast (the note on the website doesn’t count) that you were are being paid for this. I don’t recall you saying anything negative about it either, which can be looked at as being “bought.” If HP was a long time sponsor, and you reviewed other/competing products while being sponsored by HP, then you seem more like a tech show (eg TWIT saying things about aol.com customer service when aol.com supplies bandwidth), and less like a paid advertisement, like this episode seemed.

As a newer viewer, more episodes like this would might cause me to look elsewhere for tech news.

I am so sad I can’t buy this item!
If it supported OSX, I’d be ordering it now!

Or am I wrong? :-/

I’m also for the full disclosure of sponsorship at the beginning, which you did and that’s fine. Sponsors mean money, money can be exchanged for goods and services, so we all just stimulated the economy. Hooray for all of us!

You mentioned the actual use for the product, and that you bought your drive separately for a good price. The only missing piece of info, for me, was “this takes 300GB drives which hold X hours of programming, or 500GB which holds X hours of programming.” If anyone can fill in the X factors, appreciated.

I just don’t want to see podcasting in general get overly commercial-loaded. Advertisers seem to have their mindset of what they want podcasting to be, which is not at all what it is, or should be. Unless the podcasters have the freedom to say what they really think about a product, the credibility is gone. And you did, which is good.

I’m happy you got Splenda, and HP, and I think Apple should just pay you for your enthusiasm and constant product placement (or as Guy Kawasaki would have said, evangelism).

You have a great advantage here with the direct communication and feedback from your viewers. Sponsorships, credibility and gravitas aside, I think if you continue to just be straight with us, we’ll be straight with you, and life will remain good.

Footnote: I’ve grown impatient with episodic network tv, so I’m letting a few episodes stack up at nbc.com and will watch Studio 60 and Heroes there. Watching 3 or 4 eps in a row is better, IMHO. Fewer ads too. I watched four eps in a row of Ugly Betty over at abc.com, and discovered it’s actually quite a charming show. Didn’t think I’d like it.

Toooo cool!
Neil must have a really hi-tech laundry room. But how do you deal with the humidity/moisture/dust that is always in a laundry room?

Best show on TV is HBO’s, “The Wire” Pick any season. I’ve seen several episodes of Studio 60 and it is cute, but lacks real substance.

Glad to see things settling in!

Studio 60 reminds me of the movie Network, which I also didn’t like. I can see the appeal for industry insiders, but for us outsiders it’s terribly boring.

By the way, I don’t have a problem with the sponsorship.

Laughing out loud! Really cool episode.
One thing with those large storage devices. How do you get DVD’s on the harddrive. Isn’t that illigal ;)

Peter V
Putting movies you own down to a hard drive you own is illegal just like putting music you own down to your hard Drive or iPod.
I think that if you own the DVD and are only using it in a digital form on a hard drive for your use they wont mind

Interesting. I’m new to the show, but the sponsorship was done well. Full disclosure is always a good thing. I’m torn on whether or not you should be pointing out faults in products or not… because in reality, nothing is perfect, and this is a sponsored placeholder.

I forsee some difficulties keeping that balanced, but I like the way it was done. The splenda jabs are a bit excessive I think w/ the watermark.. unless.. that really is the splenda in you taking over :)

And I’ll 2nd, 3rd, whatever-ith the vote for Heroes as the best show on network TV now :)

There’s nothing wrong with endorsements as long as you use and really believe in the product, getting paid to plug a product that you know is garbage or that you’d never use is misleading, which you aren’t doing. Product seems great. I’d never endorse an Xbox 360 after it froze and died on me :p, had to put that dig in there. Studio 60, never watch it, try watching 30 Rock, very funny show.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to comment about this! That’s what I love about podcasting!

John B: 30 Rock, also awesome, and inexpensive enough that it might just make it past the vicious cutbacks NBC is planning to make on their scripted shows.

I try not to judge shows without watching them (drama’s at least), and NBC’s rewind site has been mad cool for catching shows that I might not otherwise watch.

Heroes does, in fact, rock.

Oh, and now I need to put something about geekbrief to make it past the moderation:
ummm…

Yay Geekbrief!

Aeron thanks! It wasn’t meant to be serious.

Anyway’s I’ve seen a product on the Happy Birthday IPod episode which I can use to copy DVD’s. (ofcourse for own use)

Again thanks, and I must agree with Cali.
Through podcasting even this feedback between viewers is possible.

This rocks!
Peter

As one of the HP people who worked on the HP Media Vault, I really enjoyed your podcast and will make sure to link it to the HP Media Vault FAQ and to its growing user group. If anyone has any questions about the product, please visit the HP Media Vault FAQ here:

http://www.k0lee.com/hpmediavault

If your questions are not answered in the FAQ, you can ask them in the user group and I’d be more than happy to answer them there.

Lee Devlin

If you want to be extra-clear (Hey, Cali’s translucent!) you could slug the title like this:
GBTV #0084 | GeekBrief.TV (Episode Sponsor:HP)

I don’t mind the sponsorship as long as the info is honest.
If it makes *you* feel better, you could tell sponsors you will note any ‘cons’ you find in the product… and of course, never pimp something that’s not terrific.

I didn’t really catch the audio note at the end that the brief was sponsored BTW, maybe cuz I’m always multitasking when listening….

Good news for HP: I did think it was cool enough to end up here to find the product link, so the review was effective :-)

cheers,
Ken

Hi Cali

I enjoy the show a lot. I am interested in the Miglia TVmini HD product. Seeing as how you guys use it, do you mind talking about your experience with it on one of these shows ? I am esp. interested in the quality and storage aspects of this device.

Thanks,
Nitin

I started ripping my DVD collection to my 400GB SimpleShare NAS and soon discovered that 400GB doesn’t go very far when the media is left in it’s original MPEG2 format. What do you suggest encoding these video at? Obviously making things iPod compatible would be cool, but I want them to not look bad on a standard TV and later when I upgrade to something approaching HD…. any suggestions? JBB

when it comes down to riping dvd’s to do a copy with say just the movie and no extra features your looking at say what 3 gigs, when it comes down to the storage features of you said “1.2 terabytes” means ill be able to fit 360 movies. now at first i thought wow only 1.2 terabytes how they going to fit all them movies on that, but when you do that math it adds up possibly you have about as may dvd’s as me so you might need 2 or 3 of them ;)

“I am so sad I can’t buy this item!
If it supported OSX, I’d be ordering it now!
Or am I wrong? :-/”
- Lila

You’re wrong. The media vault’s file shares are mountable in OSX via SMB/CIFS, NFS, or http://FTP. The included backup software is windows-only…but configuration/management of the device doesn’t require windows (web-based).