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

[G+_Andrew Boyter]

Tom Merritt Then I suppose my line would be the top tier tech companies: Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Samsung, Facebook, etc.

 

Also, I appreciate how much TWiT listens to it's audience. Thanks.

[G+_M. L. Hunt]

I'm definitely in the 'it depends' camp.

 

Basic rule of thumb should be that if the event can be adequately covered in-show without sacrificing regular news coverage, do it that way; if covering the event in-show would eat most of the shows' minutes and lead to a loss of general coverage, cover it in a Live Special.

[G+_David Landry]

In show only. Maybe provide links on the TWiT homepage for streams to the live events, but if I miss a live event, it's very seldom I will bother to watch a recording of it.

 

If you do it in-show you can also be much more even-handed on coverage ie: right now for live press events you only cover Apple and Google  ... is there another company press event that TWiT covers on a regular basis?  --- this is especially galling in that Apple is probably the company that has the least to show that is really 'new and innovative' at their press events, meanwhile MS, Linux (yeah, I know, you'll say that they don't have the market share, but if main stream tech journalists refuse to cover Linux, then that just makes it all the harder for Linux to ever come out of its artificially created isolation,)  and various Android manufactures are showing real interesting innovations (be they good or bad) and their press events are either ignored or disparaged.

[G+_R Picioli]

You should do what makes sense based on the nature of the event.

I don’t think it should be an "either / or" choice.

[G+_Tom Merritt]

+David Landry, I covered two Windows phone events and two BlackBerry events live within the last year. 

[G+_Eng. Jorge Santana]

For small announcements like this yes, but for Big announcements we want to see the live coverage of the event.

[G+_David Landry]

Tom Merritt I stand corrected, I checked the TWiT site for live event coverage and it seems that it is only Linux based events that TWiT ignores.

 

Wish TWiT would consider Linux as worthy of tech coverage  as it does Ford, Sugar Hill, the 2012 election, Hollywood, Ham Radio, etc ... wouldn't even have to be a live event, just a bit of coverage beyond passing mentions in the news.

[G+_Erik Jansson]

I prefer in-show for smaller announcements but specials for the bigger announcements like the iPhone.

[G+_Christian Rumshizzle]

For things like Google I/O -- a special even would be great. Something I can turn on in the house and keep up without being glued to the live blogs.

[G+_Tom Merritt]

David Landry I agree.  I try to cover it more, but the sad fact is, fewer people come to that coverage.  I'll definitely keep at it when I can.

[G+_Daniel Heredia]

Its more convenient for me that's in you show rather than a special.

[G+_David Landry]

Thanks Tom .. I am aware that you use Ubuntu and, in my experience, are probably the only member of the TWiT team that mentions Linux without talking down your nose about it (probably because you do use it and know better.)

 

I'm not sure how you know though, that 'people don't come to Linux coverage' ... there hasn't been any recently that I am aware of?  Maybe it's time for TWiT to revisit the idea of some kind of Linux coverage? It might start off slow because the tech community and your audience has been conditioned to understand TWiT as really an 'Apple/Google leaning' network, with some coverage of Windows ... but if you started covering Linux, maybe the Linux community would start to pay more attention, and the Apple/Windows users might also learn that there is an alternative platform (especially now that some of the gaming and Multimedia platforms have started to make significant moves towards Linux.)

 

I'd also suggest that TWiT doesn't do enough coverage on the world of actual multimedia (video and audio production --- after all, the world is moving quickly towards a more 'visual communications' paradigm, maybe keeping the TWiT universe abreast of what's available in those realms might be worth the effort? ... and again, not just from the world of Apple, but on all platforms.)

[G+_Allison Sheridan]

I definitely liked the embedded experience better. You guys do a good job during live events, but I can tell it's hard to figure out what to talk about much of the time. In this case every time you broke to Sarah Lane, she had something interesting to say, no vamping required.

[G+_Tom Merritt]

David Landry The numbers we have are from FLOSS Weekly relative to MacBreak, Windows Weekly etc. Which reminds me, Steve does a fair bit of Linux/Unix coverage on Security Now. And FLOSS does a great job covering open source and Linux.

 

The video/audio production is a cool idea. Thanks for that.

[G+_Tom Merritt]

Allison Sheridan Thanks!!!

[G+_David Landry]

Tom Merritt I don't think it's fair to claim FLOSS, which is really a program about back-end enterprise software and programming frameworks, as a program about Linux... I'd compare it to having a show that only dealt with Windows Azure, Exchange, and Dot Net frameworks (ignore Windows 7 and 8) and claiming it was a fair look at MicroSoft's line of consumer software products ... FLOSS is nomally about Linux (because most of the enterprise software covered runs on an Open Source OS, which means Linux or BSD,) but it's not really legitimate to  compare it to a show about desktop/end-user level software/technology.

 

I watch Security Now and I don't recall any significant coverage of Linux, other than the odd security issue, again not comparable to the types of programming on MacBreak and Windows Weekly.

 

I think you're measuring your Linux coverage by an outdated set of metrics, and assuming that more Linux coverage simply means more of FLOSS and Security Now ... Linux has come a very long way from how it looked in 1999 .. it's no longer just an OS for geeks and office backrooms.

 

Now, I'm guessing the real issue is more about the fear of who TWiT could get to sponsor a show on open source software. That may be a legitimate concern. I notice that not many, if any, of your sponsors are very 'Open Source' friendly ... not sure if that's a "chicken' or an 'egg' problem, but if Google can build the Android empire from an Open Source OS, then maybe TWiT can build some new streams of revenue with some real, and interesting coverage of end-user friendly (and some 'not so end-user friendly', but very powerful) Open Source technologies?

 

Anyway, thanks for listening.

[G+_Tom Merritt]

David Landry Now you're talking above my pay grade.  But I do know those of us that use Linux on the desktop are a much smaller slice of the population than others. As to everything else?  Not my call.

[G+_Kevin Kelly]

I think smaller announcements, like Facebook's, should be in-show, but larger things, like WWDC, Build and I/O, should definitely be TWiT Live Specials. It really all boils down to audience interest though. TWiT gets huge audiences for any Apple event, so I think it would be crazy to just move them in-show. But this announcement was done really well, top job TNT crew!

[G+_Arnold Valentino]

iPhone, Android, etc should have it's own Live Special... Anything Facebook... should just be a footnote on TNT.

[G+_Saviz Soltani]

Yes please

[G+_Joe Sears]

For minor announcements like Facebook's, in show coverage is fine. However, events like WWDC and Google I/O should be live specials. I'd actually prefer two channels on events like WWDC: one with you guys giving the commentary. The other being the raw feed for us to watch w/o comments, with commentary after the event (highlights).