This Week in Tech
Mirror of English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| This Week in Tech | |
|---|---|
| Error creating thumbnail: convert: unable to open image `/home/www/en.wikilib.org/images/2/26/TWiT_logo.gif': ûǸļĿ¼. | |
| Host(s) | Leo Laporte |
| Website | http://twit.tv/ |
| Update schedule | Weekly |
| Genre | Newscast |
This Week in Tech—officially stylized as this WEEK in TECH, casually referred to as TWiT, and formerly known as Revenge of the Screen Savers — is the flagship podcast of the TWiT.tv network[1]. A weekly podcast and videocast that features roundtable discussions and debates surrounding the latest technology news, it features several former hosts and cast members of the TechTV television program The Screen Savers, and is regularly hosted by Leo Laporte. Panelists include Patrick Norton, John C. Dvorak, Robert Heron, David Prager, Roger Chang, Doug Kaye, Kevin Rose, Molly Wood, and other technology pundits.
This Week in Tech has been ranked #1 on both Podcast Alley[2], Yahoo Podcasts, and the iTunes Podcast Directory, where it records around 250,000 downloads a week. It has also won two Podcast Awards: "Best Technology Podcast" and "People's Choice." TWiT is part of a surge of online technology-related programming from former TechTV employees.
Contents |
Format
An episode of TWiT typically begins with Leo Leporte introducing the week's panel, and some members discussing the latest news regarding their various projects, such as Kevin Rose's Digg and Revision3 Corporation or Patrick Norton and Robert Heron's DL.TV.
From there, conversation begins on the major headlines related to personal computing, internet technlogies, video gaming, home entertainment and more. An issue is introduced by Laporte and commented on by panelists, perhaps explained in greater detail by an expert or insider on the particular subject. Typically, the guests drive the conversation in different and sometimes unrelated directions, leading episode length to vary from show to show. Regular John C. Dvorak is also well-known for his controversial analysis and demeanor, which can sometimes result in heated exhanges. [3]
History
The show started when Laporte recorded a "roundtable" among himself, Patrick Norton, Sarah Norton, Kevin Rose, David Prager, and Roger Chang at Macworld Expo 2005, and posted it to his weblog. (This episode is now referred to as "the pilot" or "episode 0".) They came up with the idea to make this into a weekly show featuring more former cast members from The Screen Savers. The first episode was posted on Monday, April 18, 2005, and weekly episodes have followed. (There has been two special "mid-week" shows, episodes 8A and 49A, released on June 6, 2005 and April 12, 2006 respectively.)
When the weekly series started, the show was recorded with all of the hosts staying at their respective homes, talking via an Internet audio chat, using Skype most of the time. Starting around episode 10, Norton began physically coming to Leo's office during the taping. Upon Rose's announcement that he was moving to San Francisco, Laporte suggested that all of the hosts should get together to record the show. This eventually evolved into a new concept for the show. In episode 15, Laporte announced that new episodes will be recorded in front of a live studio audience, starting in the autumn of 2005. Kevin Rose suggested inviting the Revision3 Studios camera crew, so that the long-discussed video version of the podcast could be released as well. In addition, a local terrestrial radio station offered to broadcast a "live" version of the show, but no details of this deal have been mentioned recently.
Episode 21 was recorded at the San Francisco Apple Store on September, 4, 2005. The Revision3 Studios crew filmed the show, and released the first ever video version of the podcast. Episodes 22 through 24 were recorded at Noonan's Bar and Grill in Larkspur Landing, California. Video versions of episodes 23 and 24 were filmed by Pixel Corps, and distributed by Revision3. Episodes 25 and 26 were recorded at the Gallery Cafe in San Francisco. The audio and video can be found on the iTunes music store for no charge.
Contributors
Regular panel members are Patrick Norton, John C. Dvorak, Robert Heron, Roger Chang, and David Prager. Recurring guests include Kevin Rose, Yoshi DeHerrera, Steve Gibson, Alex Lindsay, Doug Kaye, Steve Wozniak, and Amber MacArthur.
There are also occasional contributors, such as Jessica Corbin, Jenn Cutter, Dan Huard, Roger McGuinn, Sarah Norton, Chris Pirillo, Arlo Rose, Sal Soghoian, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, Andy Walker, Bob Young, Cory Doctorow, Mike Lazazzera, Kenji Kato, Lawrence Lessig, Kevin Mitnick, Will Harris, Tom Merritt, Molly Wood, and Robert Scoble.
Additionally, other prominent industry figures and friends of the regular cast sit in for brief interviews or participate in the panel.
Title
At first, the podcast was called Revenge of The Screen Savers, signifying that it would be a forum in which the former hosts of The Screen Savers could discuss technology. (After TechTV merged with G4, The Screen Savers was converted into more of a variety show, with most of its technology content removed. It was eventually renamed to Attack of the Show.) To prevent trademark infringement, however, the show was referred to as ROTSS, Revenge of the Bleep, or jokingly, Revenge of These Green Saviors. After episode 1, Laporte received a cease and desist letter from G4 for illegally using the name The Screen Savers. In episode 2, Laporte announced a contest in which listeners could suggest a new name for the show. One listener suggested This Week in Geek, which inspired Laporte to come up with the final name, This Week in Tech.
Production
In episodes 1 through 20, Laporte talked to the other hosts through an Internet audio chat. They originally used Skype, but were limited by the number of users that could join a single conference call. Teamspeak was used in episode four to allow for more hosts to join, but there was a problem with latency (lagging). Skype has been used primarily since episode five, with Leo occasionally kicking one host out to allow for another one to join in for a short time. Gizmo was tried once, in episode 15. Up to episode 6, Laporte was the only host whose voice was recorded with a professional radio microphone. The other hosts' voices were not recorded until they were sent over the Internet and output on Laporte's computer, and therefore were of noticeably lower quality.
In episodes 7 and 9, the hosts talked over the Internet but also recorded their own voices individually. All of the recordings were sent to Laporte, who then edited them together to create the final version of the show. This increase in production value resulted in a two-day delay for episode 7, and a six-day delay for episode 9. Episode 8 was released using only the Skype track, to ensure that it would be available before Steve Jobs' WWDC speech on Monday, 2005-06-06.
In episode 10, which was released using only the Skype track, Norton said that the emphasis would be placed on releasing the episodes on time, even if "digital-quality" sound is not achieved. The concept of recording all of the hosts' voices individually was dropped, and the Skype track was used until episode 21.
Since episode 21, the hosts have gotten together at various venues to record the show in front of a live studio audience. In addition to creating a different feel for the show, this has resulted in better audio quality, since each host has their own pro-quality microphone. In episode 22, "something wasn't grounded properly", resulting in a buzzing noise throughout the entire show, but this has not been a frequent problem. In episode 31, The show went back to its roots by recording a special edition called TWiT: Unplugged, using Skype as they did in earlier episodes to record. This edition was much shorter, only going for 22.07.
Video version
Although video versions were discussed in early episodes, the idea was not taken seriously until episode 21.
In the first few episodes, the hosts talked about doing video chats through iChat and releasing both audio and video versions of the show. No mention of this idea was made again until episode 16, when Kevin Rose suggested that the Revision3 Studios camera crew could produce the video version.
Episode 21 was filmed and distributed by Revision3 Studios. Episodes 23 and 24 were filmed by Pixel Corps and distributed by Revision3. All other episodes with live video recording have been filmed by the Pixel Corps and distributed via TWiT's own BitTorrent server.
After show 33 there was occasionally audio only mainly because they did it from their homes and did not meet together. Around episode 45 and after they started to again use Skype for recording, and video was not commonly available after.
Distribution and licensing
The show is available in four formats: 64 kbit/s MP3, 32 kbit/s MP3, AAC, and Ogg Vorbis. Occasionally however these bitrates vary if a stereo version of the podcast is produced. The files are distributed via several means, including direct downloads with bandwidth provided by AOL and via BitTorrent, a preferred method since this puts little strain on the official server.
The original server load went up significantly when iTunes 4.9 was released, since it has built-in support for podcasting but no support for BitTorrent. This causes each listener to download the entire audio files directly from the web server, instead of from other listeners, like they would if they used BitTorrent.
Because of the issue of server load, Laporte had been in talks with at least two companies about hosting the audio files for TWiT. On July 4, 2005, he announced that America Online would be hosting the highest fidelity MP3 version of the show. AOL membership is not required, and the hosting is provided in return for Laporte's mention during the podcast, with the agreement for profanity to be censored.
All episodes are licensed under the Creative Commons share-alike license.
Other details
Laporte announced in episode 3 that the show will always be free, and will never include advertising. However, during episode 45, Laporte announced that the first TWiT ads will be coming in the next few months. Listeners can optionally "subscribe" via Paypal, at a cost of $2 per month or $20 per year, or give a one-time donation. Since episode 40 anyone who donates gets access to a forum via the TWiT website, which provides a place for the TWIT community to discuss the topics of the day. These funds have been used to purchase radio-quality microphones and digital audio-recording devices for the hosts, and there has been mention of compensating contributors as well.
In episode 4, Yoshi announced that he is soon to be married, and is expecting a child. In episode 6, he announced that the child will be a boy.
Also in episode 4, Rose announced that he would be leaving G4 to focus on his two Internet videozines, thebroken and Systm. He has since created Revision3 Studios to produce these series, among others.
Episode 9, which was supposed to have been released on 2005-06-13, was released 6 days late, due to technical issues and Laporte's busy schedule. This caused one subscribing listener to write to Laporte and complain. Leo responded with a post on the This Week in Tech website, saying that the podcast is supposed to be for fun, and that he puts a lot of work into editing the show. Leo released two versions of episode 9, edited and unedited, so that listeners could hear the difference for themselves.
In an early podcast, the faithful listeners of This Week in Tech were dubbed "the TWiT Army" (possibly a joking reference to the the Unscrewed Army or the 'Apple Army'), and have been referred to as such ever since.
There was no episode of TWiT on February 13, 2006. Leo simply had not managed to get everyone together for the episode, therefore it was postponed for a week.
Sometimes TWiT skips a weeks show for various reasons such as holidays or not having a big enough panel.
Spin-offs
Episodes of This Week in Tech usually feature a large number of hosts. Even with the episodes being around an hour long, there is not enough time to discuss all of the week's technology news stories, take listener questions, and talk about every host's current projects. Because of this, Laporte decided that he wants to create a few additional podcasts. These spin-offs have fewer hosts, and focus on more specific issues.
Security Now!, hosted by Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte, is a weekly podcast focusing on computer security. It is released every Thursday. Laporte has mentioned the possibility of experimenting with new methods of distribution for this podcast, such as selling the show on CDs.
Inside the Net, hosted by Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte, is a weekly podcast featuring all things Web 2.0. It is released every Tuesday.
Triangulation hosted by John C. Dvorak and Leo Laporte, with a third host. It is a podcast focusing on issues through three differing types of experts. (Only 1 episode have been released to date, no new episodes are officially scheduled at present)
MacBreak, a video podcast which explores many interesting topics regarding Apple Macintosh computers. Laporte's co-hosts are Amber MacArthur, Alex Lindsay, and Emery Wells.
FLOSS Weekly, hosted by Chris DiBona and Leo Laporte, is a weekly podcast that covers issues in the open source community. It premiered on April 7, 2006.
This Week in Media, a discussion about both the business and technology of digital media production. Hosts: Alex Lindsay, Ben Durbin, Kenji Kato, Scott Broock, Emery Wells.
Futures in Biotech, a new podcast on biotechnology.
