Monthly Archives: April 2015

Gossip, News

Is Drama Ever Wrong? Ever?

9 Comments

TWiT to Shut Down Studio ASAP!

Vomiting Step-17
Vomiting Step-17

This past January, #Soup was able to avoid saying  the lovely and talented Sarah Lane was leaving  TWiT because she was continuing on iPad Today. And then when he fired her from IPT in March, he just said it was old news, she left back in January. The man is clever, he knew it all along. On the very day he announced she was going to TC he stated that she was probably going to get too busy to do Ipad Today on Saturdays.

He is aware that the fans will realize that twit is collapsing when they have to shutter the Brickhouse, so he is setting them up. Remember, revenue has risen every year, 5% – 30% per show. Uh huh. TNT is back. Uh huh. This is just a strategic move. Uh huh. Get ready for some prime time bullshit about this last ditch retreat.

*Some raw video footage courtesy of savingtwit.org

Tech

GO BACK TO SAN FRANCISCO UBER, no one likes you in NY

10 Comments
Take those stars and shove them...
Take those stars and shove them…
A healthy yellow stream
A healthy yellow stream

Moron driver does not know how to use the app and the estimated arrival time of 2 minutes turns into 4 then 2 then 5 minutes. It is not fun watching him drive in circles. But, no big deal even though I had a reservation to get to. Idiot doesn’t bother using the navigation to get to me-whatever.

Out of the kindness of my heart when we were half way to the destination I tell the driver to make sure he logged the pickup into the app  because my app was showing him still “on the way.” The rest of the ride my headphones were on and i was quiet as a cup. Although, I was amazed his app was not showing a route to the destination, so he took the wrong avenue and didnt know which streets trafficked West and which traveled East.

The lovely & talented & happy Sarah Lane
The lovely & talented & happy Sarah Lane

How does he give me 3 stars. I am the most bestest passenger. I have never given a driver less then 5 stars in my life. This guy I gave 1 to. This retaliatory rating thing is so childish. If you want to gamify travel make it fair. I forgot to mention that he didn’t look that much like his picture yet I didn’t ask for identity proof.   The same bad rating happened to the lovely and talented Sarah Lane although she probably doesn’t stop correcting driver routes.

Gossip, Opinion

We Love Our Devs

2 Comments

Nobody appreciates the third party developers, who make the various twit apps for the fans, more than Leo. No one. Every chance he gets to thank Craig he does. They do such a great job, but the future is mobile and that will be some decent money. In our exclusive view of the new website we noticed an Apps page on the prestigious navigation bar. (Just follow the subtle red arrow below)

Follow the Red Arrow
Follow the Red Arrow

Debuting alongside this new site will be the official TWiT owned IOS, Android and Windows apps. Figure they push their new app hard and get 100,000 combined IOS/Android downloads at $3.99 and wallah, the new website is paid for plus a small profit. Stick in some ads on the apps and you have more money coming in. All they needed to do was screw over a few friendly developers. Maintenance? Let the current engineers do it. They walk around a lot anyway.

TWiT Employee Hilton Goring could not be reached for comment
TWiT Employee Hilton could not be reached for comment

Get ready for the hard sell folks. $$$
Man if I am right about this, it really is all about money. Remember when they cared about content. A full review of the site is on savingtwit.org. I don’t understand how Hilton still works there. He needs to move on already.

News

Policy Change on Show Cancellations

12 Comments

The results of the TWiT Survey are in and the verdict is a resounding win for the network. The remaining fans, as previously reported, are clinically brain-dead. Therefore instead of announcing show cancellations the executive team has decided not to tell the t-shirt purchasing idiots when shows are canned. Padre’s Corner fans have our sympathy (for many reasons) but they should not have to be told here that their show is no more.

It seems the strategem of not telling fans that personnel was terminated became such a success that they have now extended it to show cancellations as well. No wonder Leo looooooooooves the fans and the towns they hail from so much.

TWiT Employee Hilton Goring could not be reached for comment
TWiT Employee Hilton could not be reached for comment

And silly me believed Padre was just sneaking in when the lights were off to spend time with the fans and geek out. Ca-Ching Ca Chang.

Speaking about China. In other news you can lose Mike Elgun has gone on record saying that Apple didn’t give him an advance hands-on review unit of the coveted Apple Watch because….. swallow your drink ……. he is too much of a straight shooter journalist and they only give it to less credible and easily bought with favors journalists. The mega fool went on to co-host with one such journalist from Cnet and interview another from USA Today. One of the hundreds of ironies in that statement is that the News Director has been drooling over this watch like…  well… like… you know who over the dark triangle.

Opinion, Tech

Was the android experiment a failure?

5 Comments

I will preface this ground breaking article by proclaiming myself both an Apple-fan and a Google-hater. I do like some Google stuff like YouTube and Google-fiber, but let’s save why I dislike Google for another time.  This preamble would not be complete without my declaration that I have never even owned an Android product. However I am willing to stipulate for the record that Android is as functional, useful, utilityish and versatile as Apple’s IOS and possibly more so in many cases. (Albeit quite ugly)

Dumb and not cute
Dumb and not cute

Android has been a phenomenal success. The sales are incredible and they have become #1 while hurdling the obstacle of being second-to-the-party. Android adoption continues to grow and everyone agrees it generally gets better and better. This doesn’t sound like a failure.

Dream big!
Dream big!

The Android experiment was not built just to be a competing operating system to IOS. It was novel, an open platform to be built upon and improved upon by major manufacturers and anyone with a good ideas. That was the experiment, can we build a better OS by making it open to the world. On a basic level, the failure becomes clear when we look at how everyone prefers pure android and not the garbage affixed to it by Samsungesque manufacturers. But the disappointment is greater than that. The same independent (non-Apple) developers who made the iPhone a significantly better device by adding their ingenuity via applications were now supposed to take Android to the next level. Many of us had hoped for more than phones, we wanted the OS to infiltrate technology. Here, It’s free, now go make something great!

We got shit from 3rd party people, nada, zilch, zero. Android is a full OS, it could be stripped down and combined with a crap screen and pottered into a fridge, or you can add to the OS and attach it to a robot. Android was a major ingredient for many new technologies and no one cared.

3rd world like China
3rd world like China

I want some kid in a third world country on a castaway 2009 MacBook and Android to build the next big thing. We got enough from the Amazon, Google and Apple think factories. Instead I see IOS getting more like Android and Android getting more like IOS. Are all the great minds wasting time thinking up new addictive games for my phone.  Enough with the apps engineers.

Opinion, Tech

The Real Official Review

2 Comments
Former producer and former guest
Former producer and former guest

If you read any review and see the following phrase in the review be wary – the reviewer is a “fanboy” and unqualified to do a review.

“It feels good in the hand”

Thinks about it, why would anyone say that?

In related news, on my way home from work someone harassed me  on the train by bumping into me, then the guy at the deli harassed me by calling me “chief” and then a Starbucks barusta kept a penny of my change. Hello , any lawyers out there.

“A star takes time out for the little people”

Gossip, News

2 Scoops

15 Comments

“Draconian privacy policies hit TWiT” drama2901

Shira_A._Scheindlin
This is Judge. Allegedly

Please remember that this website is a bunch of trolls as you read this:  As fans of TWiT we have all learned what some websites do with our information. TWiT has often covered (other reporters reports on) updated privacy policies. Guess who just joined the club of crazy privacy policies?

This policy leaves no stone unturned, they seemingly grab it all and share with practically anyone. We encourage our readers to read the whole thing on their website and not rush to judgement but we clipped the basics for you lazy people. The […] denote where we cut and the italics and boldface are ours.

TWiT, LLC ...are not targeted to children ...all users, including...without being registered with or subscribing to a TWiT...
Registration Information ... may include, for example, name, email address, gender, zip code and birthday...
...Public Information and Posts ... which may include a name, user name, comments, likes, status, profile information and picture...
...Information from Social Media. If you... a social media service... may also include your user ID and/or user name associated ...such as your profile picture, email address or friends lists...
...Activity Information ...record information about ... including ...IP address ...a unique device identifier ...geolocation ...At this time we do not respond to browser 'Do Not Track' signals,...
...Third parties that support the TWiT Services ...advertisements ...may also use these technologies to collect... information...
...We may supplement the information we collect with information from other sources, such as publicly available information from social media services...
... If you log in with or connect a social media ...and with your friends associated with your social media service...
...To share with business partners...

Wow, remember when Leo went nuts on Facebook for combining information with outside sources. There must be good money in this though. I guess we know how him and his chat mods track us all down.

“Free Speech is overrated” Webuser4511

@YavoYavoyavo “Just some things you should know about your FLOSS Weekly guest for the 8th.”
If Russel Randall grills him then Kudos to Russel. If he gives him a pass….

*@YavoYavoyavo is not associated with totaldrama.net or totaldrama.eu to our knowledge.

News, Opinion

Is the DiamondClub.TV Revamp Enough?

7 Comments
Looking good
Looking good

How many times have we at totaldrama been asked to recommend podcasts? Millions if not billions.

In the land of Silicon Valley, if you want to make something new you have to tell your investors that something old is broken. Payments are broken, banks are broken,  and on and on. It’s an annoying habit.

Therefore, I hate to phrase this in said manner but podcasting is broken.

Is there anything more cumbersome than being a podcast fan and bookmarking 30 websites and 30 separate calendars and keeping track of what you have watched and when stuff is on.

Even TWiT understood that viewers need easy. Easy easy easy. All the shows in one spot and recent shows playing 24/7.

For DCTV to grow, they need to do curation.

Liam and Miley will help out!
Liam and Miley

They seem to think “live” should be old reruns of Night Attack 24/7. They need more content, but curation is a word they dislike. Why? [Speculation] Curation means being a “boss” and deciding what are the best shows to put on the schedule and maybe needing to do cancellations.

Cowboys don't have to be on their own.
Cowboys don’t have to be on their own.

The Patreon model has cured a big problem for people looking to curate internet TV. In the past, a creator who used the advertising model, would likely not want to be on DCTV or any curated platform. Viewers watching live on a curated platform are not counted in downloads and so the creator is not paid. The creator also loses website impressions. But if the creator is on the Patreon model he just wants views anywhere he can get them. Additionally, many expert  prognosticators think ancillary revenue streams are a big part of the future of podcasts.

Foxes help too
Foxes help too

There is a ton of shows out there to scoop up. Why not have Eklunds hockey show on DCTV or Ashley’s feminist show and why not pick out two shows from GFQ and two from Frogpants or somewhere else. Air a few amateur shows in the wee hours of the morning, and have you heard of Veronica Belmont, where is she? Fill the schedule.

Yea You
Yea You

Why do all these internet people want to live on their own islands? Just make shows not websites and IRCs. Split the banner ad income. Get Veronica’s book fans checking out DCTV and maybe DTNS fans checking out GFQ, maybe simulcast a Twitch personality and end up discovering some young talent. Maybe one day Frogpants and DCTV and Geekbeat and Hak5 and GFQ and others will combine IRC’s (you can have your own rooms you babies) and websites. Make an app. Apps are pretty big these days I hear.