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I must respond

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The failing sales team is directly under CEo, a woman with no sales experience who insists on selling her boyfriends shows first because then they can screw over hosts when it’s time to negotiate salaries. And #soupguzzler can continue his fantasy that he is 90% of revenue.

A huge failing of the dysfunctional management team is that they are morons. Specifically they are completely unaware that the reason the big shows at twit grow numbers is precisely because the smaller shows have loyal audiences and likewise bring in new listeners. Amber had an audience, Tom and his guests such as, Scott Johnson and Veronica Belmont had huge audiences. But the egomaniac gives out no credit, it’s all him. (My first twit show was iPad today) When someone discovers a TWiT show they generally explore more shows. This is known as The Network Effect.

lisa-hair

47 thoughts on “I must respond”

    1. Leo’s always spouting about how much this costs and how much that costs. When they ended the contract with Tom Merritt he went on for 45 minutes on a Tech News Guy (then told the TD to cut it out) about how much Merritt cost them and that they didn’t get the money back that he cost!

      I am sure I’ve heard Leo spout other wild figures that are just off the top of his head, kind of matching the losses for that month that he was told in a meeting.

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      1. Judging by the number of shows Sarah Lane was doing I’m guessing they must be paying her around $200,000/year. Merritt was on $200,000 before he was kicked and Sarah is/was doing more shows – not to mention she’s probably second in the pecking order to Leo as far as hosts go.

        Internet broadcasting seems a fairly risky business, companies are relatively young and could disappear quickly. Shannon Morse is asking for Amazon kickbacks on Twitter, she seems to be struggling a bit, and if TWiT disappears I doubt Sarah Lane would find a job quickly with a similar salary. There must be easier ways to earn a living.

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        1. Sarah is held back because she is merely an object rather than a person as far as Leo is concerned. If she was held in any sort of way by Leo then they would have offered her the News Director job instead of giving it to Elgum or slithered his way into the position after Elgum and Leo met at a swingers party out in Wine country.

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          1. I can’t comment on whether Sarah Lane has the skills to be News Director. Her super powers are that she is pleasant, and a jack of all trades. That means you can drop her into a variety of shows and, though they might not be exceptional, they will at least be, erm, pleasant. She is a useful asset for TWiT to have, in fact she is one of the few assets(talentwise) TWiT does have.

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  3. I used to get a kick out of it during the Inside TWiTs in the fall of 2011 when Lisa was coming up with excuses for getting rid of Lanigan’s Late Night Tech, and she’d bring up a bunch of costs related to doing the show (lights, staff, FloSoft streaming costs, studio computers) even though there was no staff present for the show(no cost), the stream is up 24/7 anyway showing reruns(same cost no matter what), and the studio computers and TriCaster are left on 24/7 sucking up power anyway(same cost no matter what). Lighting is pretty much the only additional cost actually incurred by doing Late Night Tech, but she threw in all of those BS costs just to make the number look bad both to Leo and to the viewers (yes, she was clearly trying to fool both).

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    1. Flosoft does it’s pricing like any other CDN. You don’t pay for the total amount of data that is streamed in and out you pay for the amount bandwidth used on simulatenous connections averaged out over the month. When we get internet we get a package that says “Use all you want for this price and up to this speed” CDN’s price on the basis of you estimating your monthly combined bandwidth usage for all connections at any moment at any time and if it the average of all these usage figures at the end of the month is higher than your estimate then you pay extra, if it is lower you only pay the set price you agreed for that speed. Overage charges are much higher.

      So if TWiT were to stream out, they estimate that they are always sending a stream at X speed, 1.5 Kbps I think, then they also estimate the number of simultaneous connections which will be at that speed and guestimate that the average will be below the estimate. If it is below the estimate they only pay their ‘predicted’ contract fee. If they go over then they pay penalty’s (overage charges) for going over. That’s what makes them get all pissy. They were blaming Eric Lanigan for ALL the costs. So either he had a big following or they were using charges received to justify letting him go!

      If they wanted to reduce Flosoft costs then they should stop streaming out old shows in the dead shape. No shows, no streaming and reduced bandwidth for Flosoft.

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  4. Similarly my first show was a minor show that got me viewing but not the first time I watched a TWiT show just the one that sucked me in. In fact I was driven away the very first time I found TWiT because it was literally that Grinning sleazeball Sociopath bouncing up and down on a ball (I just thought he was desperate to go and do a Pee and was dancing in his seat). He was offputting and arrogant.

    In fact I think it was Know How… before it was ruined by Padre Bobby Ballsucker (darn that autocorrect, it knows better about how his name should be) who turned me off completely with his ridiculous month long tutorial on mining for Dogecoin.

    I did watch it today, painful as it was and while Ballsucker was grinning line an escaped Asylum patient Brian Burnett looked quite shaken and close to tears for part of the show, I wonder if the poor guy got a verbal lashing and threatened with being shown the door.

    In fact you hit the nail on the head, MM is there not because of the viewers but because Advertisers (Marketers) think that because they are fascinated by marketing every joe blow on the street is as well but really few of us are. Certainly at first it was one on one with leaders in marketing but it quickly collapsed into smaller or unknown marketers that are almost regulars and she spends more time giggling like a love sick school girl than host.

    I think that the reason was that MM with the one on one was no more than another ‘Triangulation’ and big guys in marketing tend to not want to share center stage with anyone.

    The show is there because TH is another one of Leo’s “Friends” just like Elgum is one of Leo’s “Friends”. He is surrounding himself with “Friends” .

    It is interesting Reddit Up was kicked after Leo spent 5 or more minutes telling people how great it was.

    I don’t think that the iPad Today cost $400,000 a year. Maybe with the hourly cost of Leo Laportes soup and Salad or with the inflated worth of Leo’s Time.

    When you operate a business that relies on Podcasts and advertising on those podcasts it is up to the “Marketing” Team to sell slots. Putting more slots into the most favorable shows does not pull people in. Pricing your advertising at a higher price than the rivals does not attract advertisers.

    In fact conversion rates for advertising would be a darn sight higher if they didn’t have the Elgum style of “This is a Super Great Way” or “Super Smart method” or “Super garbled idiotic burble” for advertising.

    Look at Rev.3 advertising the same products, they do it cleanly and simply and they are obviously doing something right since they aren’t losing advertisers.

    You know it is all fucked up when the gimmicks like continually shaving on screen and the day that he had the balls to try and hide where he had cut himself shaving and said that he has never cut hmself with a great red bloody patch on his cheek where he had slipped.

    What the hell do they think they are! Martha Freaking Stewart?

    Arrrrgh! sorry Richard! They just have me so pissed off. Picking shows done by three Women, Amber, Sarah and Chad! That is just sexist and really targeting a minority in the workplace!

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    1. Welcome back Father Bobby Ballsucker! Glad to see you can’t resist the attraction of this site.

      Well it is by far better than watching the shit that you put out. Let’s face it, your ‘early’ stuff that seems a little more recent that ‘early’ stuff was abominable. Your comments are becoming for a someone that proclaims to be a man of the cloth! Yes I mean those snide comments. Do you not think that my all seeing network of eyes have not been watching you. Do you not think that we don’t have the internet here in my private apartment. You shamed my predecessor so much that he stepped down and not in the tradition sense, he hung his head and shame and we had to send him off where he could sit out his days in seclusion from reports of your shenanigans!

      Even when I was in Brazil working my mission I was horrified by your antic, not so much by what you did but by what you were saying. You maybe thought it was funny but not to the Church!

      Those pictures that circulated at the last Christmas party where you gained your nickname in the Church “Father Ballsucker” by the other priests shows exactly why the church is in crisis. They didn’t want to see you being ‘teabagged’ by someone, I believe teabagged is the correct term. Poor Sister Mary is still in treatment for the shock she suffered.

      Have you not remembered that a good Christian turns the other cheek! You have become lost my son! Lost! If there was not a waiting list for “Fixing” here at the vatican were I can put a stop to the unholy antics of the Members of the Church Cleric with seclusion and heavy prayer and chemical castration drugs I would have you here sooner than 2016. In the meantime Stop your piddling around, as the most Senior of Jesuits I beg you my son to stop the games. If you don’t I may have to send you to a most isolated of locations with no Technology and where temptation to harm the Church is out of reach!

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  6. Ya know, it’s all a gigantic mess. I’ll be honest and say I JUST found this site after I unsubscribed to the last TWiT podcast which at one point numbered 10 shows. Back when This Week in Tech was an informative riot, Triangulation was fascinating, and I can learn a little bit about Microsoft and Apple with no bias.

    After years of watching TWiT grow, a reborn Merritt built a lovely tech news show, a Sarah lane appeared (whom I have more criticism about than most around these parts but for the sake of it and ‘others’ around her is a fucking SAINT and I will NOT speak ill of in this thread), even a budding goofy Padre and OMGChad would come bouncing around. But, even before the ragnarok of late last year things started becoming clear…a mysterious ‘Lisa’ (never gave a shit about Inside TwiT so I was unfamiliar of her role) was saying things that didn’t make sense AND mismatched the mission statement Leo expounded for years. Leo started interjecting empty thoughts, usually controversial just to get others to speak, not the demeanor of the dude I used to see on the screen savers. I used to think Patrick was too uptight, but now it’s clear he’s the free-wheeling awesome guy to love, whilst I now imagine the old white guy using power to throw around sexism trope is powerfully clear and solidified in many a captured Sarah encounter.

    OMGChad and Padre turned out to be one note characters and goddamn, Padre fuck J turns out, assholery isn’t his tongue in cheek shtick, Jesus H Christ his character is pure assholery. Giz Wiz can’t even seem to follow WHATS happening anymore while Chad makes a Jackson pollack ripoff with all the words he needs to paint a story and it became excruciating to endure.

    I know, I’m too fucking nice for for this site. I even gave Elgan a chance! I even said the dude is pretty smart but belongs off camera. Nope. Worse. Elgum. Dumb motherfucker and I knew shit was dying the 5th time Leo had to share some poorly written thesis Gum had made and had to sing praises on how awesome their news department had gotten. Sorry, if that’s a news department if TMZ is the pinnacle of class. Trash. I feel so bad for so many there. I’d Fund That is proof positive no one over there knows what the fuck they are doing, Lisa has ZERO business sense, Soup is clueless, and Gumbot is with his people. And WTF I saw the ‘test’ of Tonya and thought ‘wow, what a lackluster, dynamic-less uninteresting person.’ She gets a marketing show? Ha!

    It came down to watching shows cuz I liked people, Steve, Paul, Andy, but even that wore thin. I couldn’t take it.

    Conclusion, I do find jabs on this site to be a bit unfair, biased, and taken out of context sometimes, and honestly the fake posts do annoy me. But my god I don’t think I’d ask anyone to change it as I come by to check new scoops almost hourly. You are doing god’s work here (and more appropriately than a certain pompous priest) because in the end it wasn’t this site that made me loathe what TWiT has become…TWiT did.

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  7. I don’t dislike the Padre as a person but I hate when he switches on “radio performance” voice. I’m not very fond of his desperate attempts to “look cool” , saying stuff that shouldn’t come out of a priest. I’m not a fan of Sarah, and really do not think she is attractive or a good host but I’ve really come to feel bad for her and hope she finds work somewhere soon before she is shown the door.

    “Conclusion, I do find jabs on this site to be a bit unfair, biased, and taken out of context sometimes, and honestly the fake posts do annoy me. ….But I come by to check new scoops almost hourly…. because in the end it wasn’t this site that made me loathe what TWiT has become…TWiT did.”

    Well put

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    2. Keep coming back, it will only get better. If it’s fake or true, someone has to say it, because God knows you can’t say it in Chat. The First Amendment does not apply in the Commie Leo chat.

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  8. From the cows mouth = Lanigan $50 a show
    From the cows mouth= F/T hosts get b/w $70,000-100,000
    From the cows mouth = Paul gets $350 a show (pre MaryJo)
    Per Brian & Justin = $175 each for NSFW
    From the cows mouth= we pay them a good amount for an hours work

    Tom may have had revenue share to get his salary up and being on a sold out show hit show may have brought his number up. (The real reason he was fired) (talentless Lgum can’t get rev share on a show he didn’t build)

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  9. I am very disappointed at the current state of affairs at TWiT; and the way Tom, Iyaz, Amber, Shannon and Sarah have been treated.

    A lot of outstanding and salient points have been well made on on comments section of this post. If anything should be taken away my the management team at TWiT, it is that the viewers are no longer willing to put up with the constant lies and deceit.

    But you may then ask, why do the viewers continue to watch the programmes. It quite simple. We put a lot of energy into helping build TWiT in our own little way, and we now are going to help turn off the lights on what has become a deplorable vaudeville comedy.

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  10. Marketing Mavericks is probably still there because it’s a “Lisa approved” show. The lack of success isn’t because it’s a crap show. No. It’s because it simply needs a better time slot so it can try to find its “target audience”. As with all Twit shows there is absolutely no relation to paying better money to get better presenting talent or guests. That has nothing to do with anything, you all hear?!

    Lisa also needs MM because she requires ideas for how the hell she’s supposed to make more money! She can only churn out t-shirts, and bobble-head dolls of female-harassing pests, for so long!

    It’s well known the only business sense she’s ever displayed is opening the legs for someone who blames everything on his A.D.D, rather than accept it’s more like a predator abusing his position, and who needs to seek help. Once he was dumb enough to do that then of course she’s the sort of classy gal who’s going to use it to her financial advantage.

    For all Laporte is a douchebag, he’s also self-aware. He knows why she’s around him, and all I can say is enjoy old age alone when she’s bled you dry. At least if you marry her she can just get on with claiming her 50% and maybe you’ll get it over with more quickly.

    Why allow her clueless management at Twit? Because it’s just fine with the big L. It’s not about shafting hosts on profit share deals. I think the last people probably getting paid in that way are Sarah and Gibson (who was wise enough to refuse an offer to switch to a fixed salary). Anyone knows differently please say.

    The bigger issue is that his ego won’t allow for anyone, with actual presenting talent, to get within 100 yards of the brick house. Not just because he’d have a heart-attack at the prospect of having to pay them a decent wage, but because the amount of jealousy and paranoia, which would result, is just too much for him. He likes being the big cheese. No serious competition, please. Can you imagine how irritating it is when YOUR chatroom would rather talk about Tom than YOU, the great Leo?

    That’s why he’d welcome Patrick Norton. He knows his place as second fiddle, and if Discovery ditch him he thinks he’ll have Patrick over a barrel and can low-ball him with a salary offer. I hope Patrick never has to get that desperate.

    Sarah’s probably earning north of a $200k salary, and Laporte knows only too well she stands almost zero chance of getting that sort of money elsewhere. So does Lane. So don’t expect her to side with you guys who really like her. Unless they cut her salary she’ll probably go down with the ship.

    The question is whether Laporte’s internal demons take it to a place where he starts to humiliate her more if she stays, because he knows where she stands. I think many of us agree, with the sorts of comments made recently on iPad today, that process is already underway. Sometimes the “I wish I could get out of this damned place” seems painted all over Sarah’s face.

    As for the other changes, Laporte’s made it known for a LONG time he wanted rid of Amber Mac. I’m sure some might remember him saying exactly that earlier in the year, where he mentioned ditching her and attempting a revamp of the Social Hour. Of course the CEO left it to you guys to do her dirty work for her, rather than behave with personal decency. She’s got more important things on her mind, like dinner with Steve Martin and first class trips to stay at Claridges in London.

    Giz Wiz is a show that Lisa has wanted to cancel for years. Laporte’s only mentioned, about 800 times, how Dick owes his survival to the Leo veto. The switching of hosts could be considered her way of easing its inevitable transition to cancelled status. The excuse, of using it for developing the red-headed one, can only last so long before it’s accepted he’s a rubbish presenter who isn’t going to get much better and isn’t going to bring in that youth audience.

    I really do think the Soup Slurper is preparing for the possibility that, if he can’t get a low enough rent rate to continue at the Brick house when the lease comes up, he’ll be ready to move production to a building housed on his own property. Gum will be cut loose to wander the world again, and he’ll keep a few editors and ad sales people, plus one or two personal slaves so he doesn’t have to do actual work, and be done with it.

    Until then, keep at it guys. Much as Laporte would love to brand you all trolls, there’s enough truth in your messages that more and more people are going to see what a fraud the man is.. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer person. It’s called Karma, Leo. Enjoy it.

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    1. I think that you are wrong about Patrick Norton. He has a much better presence online these days than the Soup Slurping Sexual Predator who has become sidelined into his own personal cubby hole. Patrick Norton has a personality and works. He doesn’t just hole himself into a single category. In fact his DIY Tryin’ show is entertaining and informative and covers a whole range of projects not just Tech.

      You know that Leo’s reputation is starting to go before him! That’s why they are finding it harder and harder to find guests for TWiT and Triangulation. Chris Hardwick was blatant when he would agree to do the show and then either not do it or make an excuse about another obligation. Others just don’t respond back at all.

      They all find it uncomfortable knowing that a fleeting meeting or being on a Triangulation will get them referred to, forever more, as being one of his “Friends”!

      That is the sign of a very lonely person when they call anyone that has a fleeting encounter with him “His Friends”.

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      1. I much prefer Norton, don’t pick me up wrong. I meant in terms of the role Soup would expect him to play. If Patrick proved popular (as he might) then I think the tubby dictator could work to make his life miserable and make him remember who’s boss.. More likely he’d get the CE-HO to do that dirty work for him. He just doesn’t share his spotlight, and he’ll make someone pay if he thinks they’re taking it from him.

        It think it’s also the main reason he’s stayed in Petaluma. He wants to be a bigger fish in a small pond. Moving to SF, to make a proper go at becoming a real network, he’d be faced with being just another small tech company. His ego couldn’t deal with that, much less the prospect of not being 90% of revenue.

        Actually, I think his problems started when he pretended he wanted to become an actual network. He simply lacks the personality to allow that to happen. He wants to be the star to the degree that I feel there’s some underlying mental issue going on. For him Twit is one giant exercise in self-validation, right down to the fez wearing ritual he created, where you’ll note he’s more frequently the one to suggest photos be taken – You DO want a photo with me, right? VALIDATE ME!!!

        And, yes, not only do -I- know his reputation is going before him, so does he! You know the only reason Dvorak shows up is he apparently gets paid several hundred dollars for each appearance, right?! That show banishment lasted how long before he was crawling back to Dvorak when he realized he was struggling to find guests?! Two whole weeks, I think?.. If that!

        It looks like he may now have added Jason Snell to a list of people being paid to appear more regularly. He simply can’t get enough people to appear without paying them. Why? Because word is out he’s a gigantic douchebag, and also because people don’t like being associated with the smell of decay. It’s now evident, even to people who don’t watch things more closely, that things are in decline there, especially since he hired the Robotron 3000 newsreader to hit it out of the park with his in-depth journalism.

        It’s notable that Soup’s live numbers have never quite recovered since Justin moved out of the streaming business either. If uStream drop out of the free business then I think he’ll say goodbye to live video streaming. The only possible chance for its survival is Soup’s insatiable need to be validated by an adoring (or else we’ll kick you) chat room, run by Minnesota’s answer to Ozzy the lap dog.

        The staff at Total Drama may be shocked to learn the IRC mods were a lot more free with their “real” opinions about Leo back in the days when the IRC server was hosted by DSL Extreme, and their own “staff” chat room was public..

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      1. You won’t find a source for a salaried employee. But that’s what this person made. Trust me. And you’re right. The editing is merely assembly line editing. Not creative at all. But that’s what he was offered. I hope you at least enjoyed his only creative outlet, TEFU.

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    2. Just a transition to using day laborers from outside home depot to do the editing and engineering. They get the handsome reward of some of Ozzies Barkbox to eat (since it is toxic to the poor mutt) and a picture with Soup Guzzler!

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  13. The problem with TWiT is simple. It is an organization staffed by people who have reached their level of incompetence. It’s painful to see what started as a cool, fun, low pressure, and high quality set of shows try to become an HD video network. It doesn’t make sense to imitate a dying business model and hope for growth when the audience originally came to TWiT as a refuge from and content filled alternative to the noise, shallowness, and clutter of conventional television.

    Just having a standard definition video feed of the studio was more than enough to enhance the shows. Special sets, lighting, props, and furniture take the focus away from friendly people spending time with the audience talking about amazing stories in the tech world. Radio studios are cool looking on their own.

    If I was asked for advice on how to run TWiT, I’d focus on thoughtful audio and leave all the extras to a simple live blog where pertinent links, still photos, and video clips could be posted during audio broadcasts. I’d abandon the attempt to make Skype mandatory and encourage the simple telephone call option to guests. Phones sound cool, suggest vast distance, and everyone has unlimited long distance calling now. I would probably lean in and pay more attention to phone in guests than grubby people on blurry webcams with light sources in the frame.

    If TWiT stopped putting on airs and acting like it’s above the audience, more people could relate to it. They need to let go of their bias toward serious business professional journalist personas and go back to being regular people having fun playing with tech stuff.

    Posted from a homebuilt Linux PC made under the influence of TWiT when PC Perspective was done from the cottage with Colleen.

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    2. I doubt it, everything that is emitted for Soup guzzler is usually a lie! Right now he is compulsively lying with his monologue. It was interesting that he turned up early and sat around talking shit for 20 minutes before his radio show started. Guess he has a point he is desperate to make before he runs for the door on Sunday.

      I don’t know why I am streaming it to the TV, I should just go and do work outside since I’m listening to an audio book rather than listen to his inane drivel!

      In fact I think I will.

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