Shownotes:
It’s December 23, the third anniversary of GeekBrief.TV, and this is our story. First, the back story.
Long, long ago before the bubble burst … the Internet bubble, not the housing one … Neal and I were freelance Web developers. He did the design and I did the code. There was a cable channel called ZDTV that later became TechTV. We kept it on all the time while we were working, kind of like the way some people keep a news channel on all the time. Tech TV introduced us to Leo Laporte, John C. Dvorak and Patrick Norton. There were others, but those three guys are the ones who inspired us, and then the bubble exploded.
I’m sure it was like what some people are going through now post housing bubble. Web Dev jobs dried up. We racked up about $30,000 in credit card debt just to survive and when we had had enough, we got a day job. Neal and I will have been married 10 years in January. When we got married, we made it a goal to always work together. There aren’t a lot of jobs where you work for someone else that make that easy to do. We drove past a self storage facility with a sign out front that said, “Hiring Husband and Wife Teams.” We stopped, applied and before we knew it, we were working for a company called Extra Space Storage. We were burned out on Tech. We were writing a novel. It was an easy job and the company treated us extremely well. Before we barely noticed, we worked there for five years, moving around and opening new stores for them.
In July 2005, Neal heard Adam Curry being interviewed on NPR. Adam was talking about podcasting. I didn’t have a TV in my house growing up so I didn’t know Adam Curry from MTV and when Neal started telling me Adam said this and Adam said that, I thought he had joined a cult. Then Neal played an episode of The Dawn and Drew Show for me and I fell in love with the concept of podcasting. Dawn and Drew, a young couple who live in a farm house in rural Wisconsin were doing a show from their house and building a worldwide audience. Adam Curry was doing a show from his house and building the business of podcasting. We wanted in and when Dawn and Drew announced Drew was quitting his day job so they could do the show full time, we decided that’s what we wanted to do.
Around the time Dawn and Drew went full time, Steve Jobs announced an iPod that played Video. There wasn’t much video content in iTunes at first and we saw an opportunity. Our goal was to get a show in iTunes by Christmas. Everyone always says podcast about what you love. We love each other, our dogs, martinis, movies, Jesus, and Technology. From that list Tech seemed to be the thing with the highest likelihood of commercial success and since we read gadget blogs every morning before work, we decided we would create a video version of our favorite gadget blogs. There was a problem though. Not only had I never been on camera before. Neal had never produced a video and in fact, we didn’t even own a camera.
One morning on Daily Source Code, Adam Curry talked about a guy named Lucian who was producing a show called Daily Planet TV using an application called Wirecast. It gave him the ability to shoot live on a green screen and do a show that looked pretty darn professional. Varasoft, the company that developed Wirecast also makes an app called Videocue Pro. It was less expensive and included teleprompting functionality. We bought that, four pieces of green poster board to make a green screen, a cheap DV camera, an expensive shotgun microphone and an iMac. We already had a soft light Neal used for photography. As soon as we came up with the right name we were ready to go.
GoDaddy.comis a Geek Brief sponsor, but we used them to register domain names long before we had promo codes GB1, GB2 or GB3. On November 30, 2005, We were on GoDaddy.com typing in domain names. Since we were doing a gadget news show, we had Inspector Gadget in our thoughts. We typed in a bunch of names, but when one of us typed in the name GeekBrief.com we knew that was the one. With that name came a flood of ideas including a cheesy GeekBrief back story. Geek Brief would be a daily news briefing originating from the Geek Intelligence Agency, the G.I.A.. I would be the International Director and my job would be to issue the daily briefing about the latest gadgets for agents in the G.I.A. Until we actually shot and watched the first Brief, we thought the show would appeal almost entirely to guys. The first episode was meant to be wholesomely risque’ kind of like how Johnny Carson was so good at a double entendre. After we watched it, though, we thought there was a potential for an appeal to women in addition to men, so there’s a pretty big difference between Brief One and Brief Two.
Now we were conflicted when we started. We had the clear intention of quiting our day job to do Geek Brief full time two months before we started the show. We wanted the first episode to go out in time for Christmas so all the people who got new iPods could subscribe in iTunes. At the same time, we had no experience in video production so we didn’t really think the audience would grow until we figured out what the heck we were doing. Enough people started watching right away that we were shut down by our hosting company just three weeks after we started. Yikes!
Five months to the date that we released the first episode of Geek Brief, we announced we were quitting our day jobs to do the show full time. In order to keep the “brief” in Geek Brief, that part of the story will be continued tomorrow.
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Watch GeekBrief.TV #2
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December 23rd, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Another great GeekBrief episode…I can’t wait to see the continuation of the story!
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Three years, and it’s all built up to the longest shownotes ever! Glad to see you guys finally reveling a bit in a big round number (3 is a round number, right?). You know what the show’s meant to me… It’s my pleasure now to keep getting new people hooked on the podcast the opened my eyes to Web 2.0 and introduced me to some wonderful friends.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Another great breif. Enjoyed the story and feel inspired. I wrote for the ibookzone.com years ago and would love to get into a fun hobby. As a geek I wrote code for physical chemistry problems etc. Now I’m in senior corporate management and love watching, learning and keeping up through podcasts
Happy anniversary. Happy holidays.
Ciao
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Hi Cali/Neal,
First off like to say that Ive been a fan for the past couple of months and really value your show and other content. Secondly, it was a joy to hear you share your own passions (including being a Christian).
So, I’ll forgive you for being such an Apple fan (I work for Microsoft – but do appreciate Apple Hardware!) and for the cheesy dreamy just married picture. Next year will also be married 10 years!
Anyway, well done on taking the various leaps of faith!
Look forward to tuning in in 2009,
Best wishes and Merry Christmas from (a Scotlman in) Australia,
_David
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Watched the 1st and 2nd ever Geek Briefs… Good to see you reverted to being yourself. The first two seemed to pander.
December 24th, 2008 at 12:11 am
I like all the things you like! Oh and happy birthday to Jesus in a few days wink
December 24th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Congratulations on 3 great years of tech news. It’s always a treat when we type in that geekbrief URL. I hope you will continue doing this for many years to come.
December 24th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Congratulations on 3 years.
I would love to watch that first show, I think I started watching geekbrief around episode 50 or so and never thought to look back to the first couple of shows.
I did a short search around on google and youtube and this site but couldn’t find those first two episodes (well geekbrief tv #0001 was there but it didn’t run).
Can anyone let me know where I can see geekbrief tv #0002 and geekbrief tv #0001
thanks !!!!!
December 24th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Blafin: All the links are above in the shownotes, right above Direct Download Links. :)
December 24th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Congratulations on your first three years.
I am relatively new to geekbrief but I am hooked.
Love the show and really prefer the modern format to the first couple of shows.
Keep up the great work.
Thanks for broadcasting ;)
December 24th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Cali and Neal — its an honor to call you guys my friends, and your support for others is unbelievable. I wish you guys the best of luck, and happy holidays.
December 24th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I find the GeekBrief.TV story very inspirational. It’s really great how both of you can put your mind to a goal and see that goal come to life. With that being, kudos to you! Hopefully, all of us can look forward to another innovative three years of GeekBrief!!
December 24th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Congratulations on your anniversary. I have been watching since Jan 06 and it has been great to see how you both have grown so much. You put out a very professional show that is much warmer and more personal then old media.
Thank you very much and keep it up.
December 24th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Cali you said at the end that you could not believe you were hot… you should know by now that you ARE hot Very HOT! ;-P
December 24th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Cali, I discovered you when I got my first video iPod! I typed “geek” into iTunes and there you were… :) I watched a few episodes and I was hooked! Had to go back and download the previous videos. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
December 25th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Thanks for saying Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays.
Love you show and keep p the good work.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from a Snowy/Rainy Southern Oregon.
December 25th, 2008 at 6:42 am
I am confused. The episode #482 that is on the web site is not the episode #482 that got in the RSS feed. The RSS feed had some kind of strange overdubbed piece that I guess was meant to be funny.
December 25th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Never mind, the previous statement. I just now fallowed the links to episodes #1 and #2 and now realize that I just got episode #1 in the RSS feed instead of episode #482.
December 25th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I’ve been watching the Brief for five or six months. Interesting backstory. I watched the first few, and a much, much prefer the current style.
Q: Is the realistic Cali more of Luria? or has Luria morphed to be more like Cali?
December 25th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Hi Cali,
I started watching your show around episode 80. I just watched the first two episodes and I must say they were good. I will be honest and say they were not as polished as the shows you do today but still good. I have got to catch up on the old shows. I find it interesting on how the show progresses over time. Keep up the good work.
By the way, any predictions on MacWorld 2009?
December 26th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Started seeing your show since last one year after I bought the iPhone 2G. Loved it and still loving it. Its on my daily watch list now. I’m from India.
December 26th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Nice work folks, congratulations on 3 years. I’ll keep watching via my iTunes subscription.
December 27th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Congratulations to you both and thank you for the best Podcast on the Internet. Cali you were completely right about the broad appeal of your show. My wife is pretty sick of my gadget addiction but she always stops to watch Geekbrief with me because she loves your happy style. You’ve inspired me to teach podcasting to all my pupils at school who love the idea of making their own radio shows and you’re a regular feature in my lessons. Thank you for all your hard work.
December 27th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Good work. I know how much hard work goes behind a flawless performance. Still, it was interesting to know that you’re still putting in 7 hours a day, for each show.
I wouldn’t have guessed that part.
Sean
http://www.psychotactics.com
December 27th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I went back to see your first few episodes. :) It’s easy to see how you’re reading off Videocue. Maybe you can do an episode on teleprompters (if you haven’t already done one).
December 29th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
While I appreciate the GeekBrief of our world, it certainly would be interesting to visit the alternative universe where you chose to continue the tone of episode 1.
Happy Anniversary!
December 30th, 2008 at 8:49 am
This has been my first trip to Geekbrief.TV and I am absolutely sure that the visits would be more often now. Great show! please do keep up the good work.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
While I do like the newer style better than the “GIA” style, I wouldn’t mind you bringing back a few of those random orgasm sounds in the mix! ;D
Keep up the great work, and congratulations!
December 31st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Just finished watching the 3 parts on the History of GeekBrief.tv – Start with Part 1 here – http://tinyurl.com/8wleky
December 31st, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Cali: My 30th wedding anniversary comes Jan. 12. What day were you and Neal married on?
January 4th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Cali, I wanted to thank you so much for sharing the full story of geek brief! Just as you had your early inspirations, you were one of my very first inspirations. You became someone who told me that it was okay to be a girl in technology, and made me want to share my ideas with the world.
I can only thank you and I wanted to show you my first video blog, and surprise…it’s about you
http://randomsarah.com/my-good-people-day-contribution/
I am so thankful for such a great community that has taught me so much and really embraced new media.
Thanks again for everything and keep up the good work
-Sarah Cooley
January 5th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Whoa… you guys have come a long way! From orgasm sounds, Cali-cleavage, and condom jokes, to what we have now. Wait, what?
Seriously, congrats on 3 years!
January 6th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Congrats on the show Cali and Neil. Been watching for a year and you guys have given me great ideas for my work. Keep it up and happy belated celebrations.
January 6th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Great to have some history on your days starting out. I started podcast weekly back in 2005 myself. You both have come a long way and I continue to enjoy each Brief!
January 10th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Cali & Neal,
Thanks for the background story on the history of Geekbrief. I guess I’ve been watching for a year and a half to two years, and what strikes me most about your show is the warm, all-inclusive feel of being part of a gadget-loving community. You guys seem so genuine, you obviously love what you’re doing, and you make us part of your “tech family.”
(Cali-hope this isn’t too personal, but I couldn’t help but wonder: did Neal have to pull back to a long shot in #482 because you were getting a little teary-eyed after talking about Curtis? He sure sounds like a great guy, and we your viewers certainly appreciate the good advice he gave you.)
Thanks for the great job you two do, and here’s to many more years of Geekbrief!
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 am
There is obviously a lot to know about this.