Hi there, my name's Mulley. Long time listener, first time caller. I had some thoughts after listening to the show.
Do as much as you can to interact with the forums. It's a much more enjoyable show when you feel like you are part of the discussion and not being talked at. Some possibilities:
- More name dropping. Everyone gets a warm fuzzy when they hear their name on the air. I think I only heard four or five members names throughout the entire show.
- Full-on mail bag. You mentioned sending questions to Locky at the end of the show. Have a full-on mail bag where people can send comments, questions, feedback, etc... It would also be cool if people had a way to submit audio commentary/questions so they could "talk" and you could respond on the show. You might consider setting up a "podcast mail bag" user that people send their PMs to so that you can share the account with four or five show hosts in case Locky is MIA or other people doing the podcast need to get to the mail bag for whatever reason.
- Perhaps create a thread a week ahead of time that will be specifically used and discussed in the next podcast. For example, you might ask everyone what they are up to over the summer, then discuss that over the air. This again helps the forum members feel like they are a part of the show. For example, one of the podcasts I listen to has a "trademark" of listeners sending in bad/corny jokes and one is picked for that week's podcast.
I don't know about the rest of the members, but my usual commute is around half an hour. I would be curious to see how long the members have to listen to the podcast in one sitting. I imagine quite a few will listen in the car, train, bus, etc... Knowing what your average "listener length" is would help to tailor the length of the show to make it easily digestible. You could also look into splitting the show up into 10-15 minute segments and then people can listen to as little or as much as they have time for.
The tangents and side bars are inevitable and fun but a couple of times I found myself ready for the conversation to move on when they went a little long.
Just like you had a rundown of topics at the top of this thread, a quick rundown of what's going to be discussed during the podcast is always a nice touch. You might also consider a somewhat standardized format. This will make it easier for you to generate a show as you don't have to try to throw crap at random into the show and hope it works, especially if you're trying to stay within a certain time constraint of the show length. One possibility:
- Hello's, introductions, a minute or two of idle banter with required good-natured jabs between hosts.
- Run-down of the show's schedule/content/topics
- News/Happenings related to EoFF
- News/Happenings related to SE and/or the gaming world
- Main topic 1 - Discussion of forum thread created specifically for podcast
- Main topic 2 - Something Final Fantasy/SquareEnix'y to discuss
- Mail bag
Of course, the above might be too structured for your taste and you might want something more organic.
I think that's about it for now. All-in-all I thought the show was well done and you had fun with it, which is the most important part. The audio quality was also very nice and everyone was easy to understand and hear, which always seems to bite a lot of new podcasts in the ass.
Originally Posted by Shorty
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