Most everyone seemed pleased with how we covered the Facebook phone announcement yesterday

[G+_Richard “Rick” Georges]

Most everyone seemed pleased with how we covered the Facebook phone announcement yesterday.  Very glad to hear that and once again a great job by Sarah Lane 

 

My question now is, when is that kind of in-show coverage preferable to a live special?  Do you still want us to cover say an iPhone announcement by having a special or would that be OK in show as well?

[G+_Kyle Veatch]

I would prefer them be in show. I never get the chance to listen live so by the time I listen to TnT and see some blog posts I don't really find it necessary to listen to the whole live event. I would much rather enjoy TnT and get the news in the same show. Maybe the show could even run an extra 15 or 20 minutes to make up for the interruptions. Love the show!

[G+_George Kozi]

The back and forth fit the format... and as expected, the announcement wasn't all that exciting. You guys made the right decision yesterday.

[G+_Alexa Krueger]

I would like to see in show coverage for most announcements. They tend to be boring and drawn out. That forces you guys to tread water and fill while they are trying to make a spectacle out of something not so earth shattering.

 

If there's really something huge, then cover it. Google Glass is a good example of what to cover with a special, the next iPhone, not so much.

[G+_Jess Newcomb]

In show definitely. There is just never enough to make it a special. Maybe CES or something like that but not IPhone or Facebook

[G+_Patrick Mooney]

Not a fan of in show for the reason I download and listen to TNT a few hours later (being in a different time zone). A news show dipping into an old announcement means a very stale news show. I feel it's better to have news kept to news and special events kept to live specials. I am a fan of getting insider commentary over live events akin to your live specials. As a result I tuned into live.twit.tv to find you reading out rumours as the live event was happening, so I went elsewhere for commentary. 

[G+_Andrew Boyter]

I like the both/and approach. Smaller announcements seem to fit the in-show model quite well. Perhaps the Google I/O keynote and WWDC and bigger E3 keynotes still deserve their own live coverage with discussion later on TNT. I leave it to your excellent judgement what is small and what is big.

[G+_Joseph Ferris]

In show is the way to go on this. Live shows done around the event seem to spend a lot of time on unrelevant information in order to fill time waiting for something worth providing commentary.

[G+_Q. Davis]

I enjoyed the in-show coverage of the live event. It combines immediate commentary while using other news stories to fill in the gaps while the live event is being covered.

[G+_George Sabbi]

I think it is driven by the scale and type of event. The Facebook Phone one wasn't necessary to get a full TWiT Special... But... Let's say during it... Something unexpectedly big popped up... Then it would be good to switch to full coverage within the ongoing main show.

 

I think being flexible is more important than locking into one style for News events

[G+_Tom Merritt]

Patrick Mooney Point taken about live coverage live and you felling it was stale later.  However, none of our discussion stories were rumour stories yesterday. Google is forking webkit, They are selling Formmer's back to Frommer, EA released a music app, and the Washington Bill about social network passwords is real. So not sure you were actually listening if you thought we were talking about rumours.

[G+_Con Diamantis]

I have to agree with other comments above, your gonna have to judge it case by case depending on the scale of the announcement or occasion .

Facebook from the outset downplayed it as "our new home on android" which to me just meant a new app (effectively what was released) .

The big conferences keynotes or yearly updates like , Google I/O ,Microsoft and Apple conferences yeah I would say those need to be covered live.

Smaller things in show coverage is perfect.

 

Worse comes to worse you could always go back to tnt at 3pm.... runs  :)

[G+_Travis Blanton]

It depends on the announcement, something like this where all they are really doing is showing off a skin, yes cover it in show, for major things like say the PS4 anouncement, or the inevitable XboxNext shortly, i enjoy the special coverage where you all give commentary over the feed

[G+_Vandré Brunazo]

Yea, a whole live special only about this facebook phone would be too much. But huge events like CES and GoogleIO certainly would be interesting to watch a whole show about.

[G+_Tom Merritt]

This is great feedback.  Thanks y'all!  So it seems pretty clear that legitimate 'events' like Google I/O, WWDC, CCES etc. deserve the special live treatment.

 

What do you think about press events like the recent Samsung event, or Sony event or the inevitable next Apple event?

 

Obviously TWiT has to make that call in the end, but curious where you'd draw the line.

[G+_Patrick Mooney]

Tom Merritt Re rumour, it was at the moment I tuned in. If I remember correctly you opened with the words the event is happening with the much rumoured features of x, y and z. etc. I didn't stick around to hear the rest of the show live. It's in my queue to listen to later today. I'm usually a day behind due to the time different when I commute etc. But at that time of 6pm yesterday it wasn't what I personally was looking for. So I popped over to facebooklive.com and used the liveblogs for commentary. Usually live.twit.tv is the first place I go to for live coverage of tech events. no matter what size.

[G+_Chris Ames]

I agree with many of the others.  Press announcments such as the facebook home and samsung events are fine as part of the TNT show but would like to see it run a bit longer to cover the rest of the news you normally would have anyway.  For big shows dealing with multiple vendors or for large (multiple) product announcements should stay as a special.  Don't want to make TNT run too long.  Just my $0.02.  I don't listen live most days because of the timezone thing but still would like to hear some alternative thoughts on these things that your team does.

[G+_Vandré Brunazo]

It depends on so many variables I don't know. Would you guys have to sacrifice any TNT discussion time about these topics to move them to live specials instead? If so, I'd rather have things aggregated in TNT instead, so it's easier for me to keep up.

 

But if TNT would be unharmed. And it's just a matter of having an extra live show or not. Then it's like asking a kid if he wants candy. Of course the more shows the merrier to me. I personally wouldn't watch most of the smaller announcements, but some of them I might be interested and it would be nice to have the option. So the ball would be on your court to decide which shows are big enough to justify the costs/audience.

[G+_Tom Merritt]

Patrick Mooney Ahh, I see what you were referring to. That makes sense. You missed the part where we said we would check in with Sarah Lane regularly to let people know what's being announced. But if you wanted blow by blow, then heading to the direct live stream is perfectly fair. And that's what we're trying to asess here. How many wanted that and how many were fine with occasional updates between other contact.  Thanks for the feedback!

[G+_Tom Merritt]

Vandré Brunazo Most of the time we can do both.  It's only when the announcements are scheduled for the regular TNT time that we have to decide whether to include or to record TNT early. Apple's usually the one that causes the issue.  And we never leave anything out of TNT in those cases.

[G+_Andrew Boyter]

Tom Merritt That's where I was thinking TWiT would need to use judgement (like it did with the Facebook press event). Some events are live-coverage worthy, others are not. I think everyone at TWiT has shown they can discern which events fit where (Facebook Home vs. Playstation 4 for example).

[G+_Andrew Boyter]

Tom Merritt After reading your reply to Vandré Brunazo perhaps Facebook Home vs. Apple iPhone/iPod/iPad Mini events are a better example.

[G+_P Costello]

Coverage with discretion , balanced coverage ... avoid fanboy like coverage .. fair and balanced when selecting what to cover :-)

[G+_Tom Merritt]

Andrew Boyter Of course, and as I said we will make those decisions.  I'm not asking you to make them.  Just curious where different people would draw the line.

[G+_Andrew Boyter]

P Costello ooooh, I'm going to start a 24 hr. news channel with the tag line "Coverage with Discretion".