For this edition of geek speak I’m joined by younger, nerdlier brother Dylan. Dylan hosts a podcast called 4playerfancast, which is a spin off of the more popular 4playerpodcast. We sat down and did a Q & A about podcasting and what it takes to host and maintain a project like this.
Would you rather we use your screen name or your actual name?
Either way is fine, I guess. Or both. Whatever. Darknezz, Dylan Spencer respectively.
What is podcasting?
Podcasting is, essentially, a group of people talking into microphones, or into cameras, depending on whether it’s an audio or video show. Podcasts exist for every topic imaginable.
How did you get involved in it?
I started doing a show because I started listening to a show. The first podcast I started listening to was really entertaining, and I found it interesting to listen to people having intelligent discussions about the video game industry, and then I realized, “I want to do that.” So, some stuff happened with some people on some forums, and then we started doing the Fancast.
What is 4player fancast about?
The 4Player Fancast is a show about video games. Plain and simple, we hop into a Skype call for about two hours every week and talk about some topic for the week, and then what games each of the hosts has been playing.
It doubles as another outlet for an online gaming community, called 4PlayerPodcast, which is how all of the hosts know each other, and we like to bring in a guest host for each show from the 4PP forums, hence the name, Fancast.
How do you develop a following?
This one is tough for me to answer just because the podcast I do has such a niche audience. I got people to listen to the Fancast by associating it with the forums and chat rooms that we all frequent.
For a larger contingent, I think the best way to get a following is to just do it. Just start a show, get it on iTunes, and then ask people to tell other people about it. There’s no more effective marketing than having a friend tell you to go listen to a show. Also, having the show on iTunes makes people more receptive to it, because it’s easy to set up a subscription, and get the show that way.
How much time and energy does it take to start and maintain something like this?
It depends on the level of editing and post production that you want to go into it. This is one of the best things about doing a podcast; it can take as much or as little of your time as you want it to.
For the show I do, it takes about two hours to record, and then there’s a half hour or so of post between hitting the stop button and getting the show up for download. I also don’t edit the show much, so that’s probably why it doesn’t take long; all I do is throw in the into and outro music, occasionally I’ll do a few other things, but for the most part, the music and I’m done. For more professional stuff, like the Giant Bombcast, I’d guess it takes a bit longer.
Do you want to turn this into a career?
It would be great to, but it’s not a realistic expectation. It’s almost impossible to convince someone to sponsor a podcast because, with the way iTunes works, and with the way streaming audio works, there’s no real way to tell how many people are listening to your show, except the raw download number, and that can be fluffed by people downloading the show multiple times or whatever.
Do you intend on keeping everything up to date forever?
I would definitely like to try, but that may not be possible. In relation to the other question, I’m going to have to get into a career eventually, and it may end up to the point where I won’t be able to do the show anymore. Stuff happens. But I’m definitely going to keep going for as long as I can.
What are some of the problems you encounter in doing this kind of thing?
The biggest one, for the show I do, is getting people on the show. We like to have guests come in every week, and we do schedule those well ahead of time, but we do the show over the internet, and sometimes, people just don’t show up.
The other big thing is the site we host of off. It’s an amateur show, so we don’t have any webspace or anything bought for it, so we host from a free podcast hosting service. And they are a bunch of jerks. The service works fine mostly, but the show cannot run more than two hours (or it’ll just reject the file), it has to have very specific encoding options, and sometimes, the site will go down entirely. Come to think of it, they’re the biggest issue.
Other than that, there’s just the courtesies we have to make when we realize it’s an audio show. I like to do a lot of hand and head movements when I talk, but I use a headset, so that’ll cause a whole bunch of noise, so I have to be mindful of that. Then there’s people talking over each other, or awkward silences while we gather ourselves, or whatever. Small stuff that just comes with the territory.
What is your favorite part of it?
It’s fun. We like to crack jokes as much as we can, and talking to people and finding out what makes them like or dislike certain aspects of a game is interesting to me.
There you go folks, Q&A with Dylan Spencer from 4playerfancast. Go check out his show on http://4playerfancast.blogspot.com/ and don’t forget to check out the examiner website http://www.avcexaminer.com.
