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On Monday I interviewed Dennis McCann. Today I'm interviewing Brad. Next week I'm interviewing Djehuty.
If you dig through my interviews tagged as sbutki-interview you'll also be able to find interviews with cartooncat, robbelew, vacelts and others
I asked Brad for a short bio. He wrote:
I'm a 26 year old blogger (and now podcaster) with a background in Computer Science, Programming, Law, Philosophy, Physics, Journalism, Photography, Martial Arts, and many other things, and have no degrees to show for it. I'm currently working on several online projects in an attempt to avoid a "real job"...and because it's always new and interesting. Working for myself seems like the best option for my OCD rattled mind to wrap itself around. My biggest projects right now are tvgawker.com and thevinecast.com.
Scott: How did you come to find your way to Newsvine?
Brad: A friend of mine (David Peralty) sent me a beta invite fairly early in the beta, and I didn't really get into it at all for a new months until I got a boring desk job and call center that had a lot of down time. Then once I started, I was hooked. Sadly David never really used newsvine much at all, and I don't think he ever does anymore.
What is your favorite facet about newsvine? What is your least favorite facet or part about Newsvine?
fav: The conversations and people. Nowhere else that I can think of can you discuss such a wide variety of topics with such a wide assortment of people from all walks of life.
least fav: The asshats. Every form of community has their asshats, but with newsvine it's much more apparent at times due the typically more intellectual or thoughtful conversations which more greatly contrast the asshats than most online forms of community...and the exponential growth of users and complete lack of growth of staff can't help much either...not that that is the fault of the staff...just a byproduct of the rapid expansion.
How did the vinecast originate? Why did it stop for a while?
Frankly I couldn't tell ya. It was around for a while before I was active on Newsvine. It was updated sporaticaly, but it was around. There were 6 episodes I think (maybe 7?) over a period of probably 6 months or so. One of the last episodes included me as a panelist, and I caught the obsession.
I'm not really sure why it stopped other than the original organizer, Dom Pody, got "a life" or something, and didn't have time.
I tried twice to revive interest in it, but was too busy to organize the thing myself due to work, and once I finally had the time I put things into full swing OCD-mode and was up and running within a month (would have been sooner, but my co-host, Viki "Babbles" Gonia has 14 (give or take a couple) day jobs).
What are your goals for the Vinecast? As you've noted you're starting to get interest from beyond Newsvine - is that exciting and/or scary?
My goals for the Vinecast are esentially make it into something that the Newsvine community can use both as a (hopefully) entertaining recap of recent Newsvine articles/seeds/drama that has gotten attention, and some that could use some attention in the opinion of whoever happens to be on that week, and a way to showcase some of the non-newsvine things that Newsvine users are up to and can't really promote directly due the COH.
It would also be nice to start turning a profit in the near future, though there are still some minor hurdles in the way of that just yet...but that should start happening very very soon in a multitude of ways that will hopefully please most people. We've got some interesting things in the works...let's leave it at that for now.
As for the attention the Vinecast is getting, I think it's great! It's awesome that people are not only enjoying listening to it, but a lot of people are interested in getting involved in one way or another, and that's exactly what I was hoping would happen. It is supposed to be for the community after all.
What are your future plans for the vinecast?
Future plans? Well, a lot of things are up in the air right now to be honest. There will definitely be serious changes to the Vinecast over the coming months (which is to be expected with such a young project really...). Including (but not limited to), recurring seqments, interviews, more structure, call-ins/outs, merchandise and other things to attempt to make the Vinecast self-financing (and hopefully beyond), more snark/humour, announcements of future events/projects by Viners....and who knows what else.....
What are your favorite articles or seeds you have done - include links and i'll include them too
I haven't really written/seeded much to the Vine...until I pulled the Vinecast back out of the grave anyway, but a few choice articles would be....
Zombie Jesus Day was pretty fun to pull out of my ancient writing files from WAY back in the early days of my writing, even if it didn't get much attention on the Vine.
I Lost My Left Testicle was hilarious, in that it was written by someone else for an event that shall not be named and put on my column. It has no truth to it whatsoever, and the comments are pretty damn funny.
8 Things about me you probably didn't know unless you're a stalker. I'm often told that I have no "too much information" filter, and tend to just answer questions honestly and directly wheter people really wanted to know the answer or not...and this was a chance to spread a little bit of that insanity.
What is your reaction to Dennis and Winsome leaving?
I think it sucks that it's getting to the point where prominent Viners feel like Newsvine is no longer worth their time, but I think it's understandable given the situation. Winsome is not completely gone, he'll just be focusing on the Vinecast and not interacting directly on Newsvine much anymore...Dennis on the other hand, hard to say how much people will hear from him anymore, which is a terrible loss for the Newsvine community.
Will vinecast ever include tv or is that too problematic due to your preference to do it without pants?
Hard to say if the Vinecast will ever include video. I doubt the main Vinecast will ever go beyond an audio podcast (the use of "the main" should be a clue something fun is in the works :P), simply because everyone involved is so far from each other it would be a challenge to work it out technologically, not to mention the added expenses involved. My lack of pants has nothing to do with that though, I assure you :P. That's not to say there will never be video showcased or otherwise pimped by the Vinecast though. The future holds many surprises!
What is one thing most people who read you don't know?
I really don't know....I'm pretty open about myself online. I'm not sure what "most people" who read me wouldn't know. Depends if they've googled me I guess hehe. Many people still seem shocked when they find out I got married a couple months back, I suppose I'll go with that.
What question were you hoping I'd ask that I didn't ask?
Now I'm supposed to do your job huh? Ok, I can play that game! I was hoping that you'd ask 'if you could convince any Newsviner to come on the Vinecast, who would it be?' And my answer would be "milkdud," because it would be hilarious and chaotic...and that's just the way I like it.
