I am glad to say that Vidgle, a video podcast that started in March 2008 with plans dating back too 2004, is in the finals for the 2010 Podcast Awards. But its not just because we are in the finals that make me excited, its the fact that we are in the category for “best video podcast.”
The runner ups in the category includes Revision3, NASA, and Ted.
Each podcast has to achieve points, and with the podcasts with the top ten points and hits will be able to proceed to the finals. Points include well-formed RSS feed, a website, and amount of votes.
I have to say is thanks to my friends and loyal viewers who nominated Vidgle in a two-week voting process. And with Vidgle’s 2.0 engine that launched in October 2009, the website became more user-friendly, and was able to interact with third-party websites and devices such as mobile phones.
But its not over yet. Beginning December 1 – 15, you need to vote Vidgle once again for the best video podcast category. Each of you can vote once a day until polls close on December 15.
The Podcast Awards are chosen by the people, not a survey group like our other researches we conduct.
In 2010, Con Goer was selected as a featured HD podcast on Miro Guide. In 2010, Vidgle has 20,000 unique viewers and with over 75,000 stream requests from January 1 2010 to November 30, 2010.
Vidgle has had a successful run, with 70+ episodes by when 2010 ends. Vidgle had 61 episode posts in 2009.
Now its time for your help, Vidgle needs your nomination for the 2010 Podcast Awards! If you haven’t voted, go to vidgle.com/nominate (click here) and follow the instructions! Vidgle needs your help for us to get this notable award! (and Mia needs a raise)
This has been an awesome year with Vidgle… now with over 20,000 viewers watching the site. In May, Miro Guide selected Con Goer HD as a featured podcast on the podcast directory site, giving us more viewers than we ever had. In November, Anthony won a video-journalism award for Con Goer’s Steampunk World’s Fair’s Wrap-Up episode. Though studio shows was suppose to start over the summer, a flood damaged the new studio equipment in March, that put in-house production on-hold.
Vidgle announced earlier this year that a pay wall for the video portal website will be going up by year’s end. In addition to the pay wall, Vidgle will also be selling “Out and About” episodes on DVD. Vidgle will be selling DVD’s on its future sister website, savepointstore.com.
“Selling DVDs and having a paywall will help us out. This would help us out cover more conventions, purchase new equipment, and help cover more of the convention.”
Certain episodes, such as guest interviews, will not be available on DVD or on a single-purchase download due to terms of our legal agreement. All episodes will still be available free of charge for conventions.
Vidgle episodes that are older than one year will be made available on DVD while episodes that are two years or older will only be available with a subscription to Vidgle Plus, single-download episode, or on DVD.
Vidgle’s parent company made a Vidgle Plus subscription price for all archive videos for $5.99 a month, a single episode download of $1.99 (certain episodes $4.99), and a DVD of a convention is $9.99.
For each convention we’ve been to this year, we like to create a quote of the con. Here is the run down so far:
The first quote of the con is “Duck and Cover” at Setsucon.
Then Katsucon was “Oh my god, it’s Robert Loggia.”
Wicked Faire was “Oh here it goes!”
SpringFest was “Sexual Harrasment Panda.”
I-Con “didn’t deserve a quote.”
Castle Point Anime Convention was “Oh my god, you have a PokeWalker!”
T-Mode was “Rob Schneider is a Carrot.”
The “Duck and Cover” quote was among our favorite quote that we mention at each convention. We decided on the quote by watching (and listening) the “Volcano” episode of South Park while on the six hour car drive to Setsucon. Since Setsucon, we always watch the “Volcano” episode at each convention as a tradition.
Of course, the most memorable quote was “Where is the con… this is the Con,” which became the slogan of the 2009 season; it was founded in the 2008 coverage of Otakon. It was a reference from the TV series “Fairly Oddparents.”
The newest quote has been getting a huge success, and that’s “we’re trying” and “we’ll give it a try,” and that is the quote of Steampunk World’s Fair. “The reference of the quote was never mentioned on-air during the convention and it’ll never be mentioned because its an inside joke of our operations,” in my response to many emails about this quote.
Before the episode was aired, a motivator, which was used as a promo for the episode, was uploaded on Facebook and vidgle.com. After the taping of Steampunk World’s Fair, “Con Goer” was a featured webcast on Miro Guide during the T-MODE coverage and was nominated for most creative webcast at a web conference in London.
The fans certainly do love the new quote, so did the interviewees. Some fans ask “so, do you really try?” I responded, “At Vidgle, we give our best effort, we don’t just try! With thousands and thousands of viewers, we can’t ‘try’ anymore like what we did in the first season. We know what we are doing now, and the viewers and conventions love it.”
Miro Guide, a video and audio podcast directory, gave a “Moderator Pick” to Vidgle’s “Con Goer” earlier this week. This comes days after “Con Goer” received a nomination as most creative webcast in 2010 at a web conference in London. Vidgle also announced on Friday that “Con Goer” will be renewed for a fourth season.
“This is just amazing of how we are getting out there,” Anthony Zaragoza, general manager of Vidgle said. “Con Goer is the longest and successful on-going show covering conventions of sci-fi, anime, and fantasy. Conventions themselves love the series.”
In its third season, Con Goer got a new graphic package, a new music theme based from the band “Leetstreet Boys,” and new talent, Mia Walker. Con Goer currently has 126 episodes available on vidgle.com and has eight confirmed episodes from its recent trip to Steampunk World’s Fair. In its third season, the Con Goer team has already been to eight conventions, while in its second season only went to nine. Con Goer is currently confirmed with 5 upcoming conventions this year, including Otakon, New York Comic Con, New York Anime Festival, and AnimeNEXT.
Our viewership grew the past two quarters. With the many thanks of Leetstreet Boys posting several episodes on their blog and our new talent Walker, who has been promoting the series on her blogs and forums.
“When I go to conventions and cover it, people know who I am. They know who we are. That’s all I need to be satisfied with the show,’ Anthony said. “Working with Con Goer is truly a great reward. Being selected out of thousands is lucky. Many agree, ‘Con Goer’ is a web series that stands out than any other show you can watch on the internet, it is hard to come across another show like it. With the interesting people we talk to, the places we go to, and the outstanding talent of Fred, Mia, Louis Jon, and myself; its hard to come by a show like ours and the viewers agree.”
“The Vidgle team would like to thank Miro Guide for selecting ‘Con Goer’ as a featured show on the site.” Anthony concluded.
Vidgle’s “Con Goer” has been renewed for a fourth season in 2011. The show will have a less budget than 2010′s.
In its current third season run, “Con Goer” got its make over with fresh new graphics and a new music theme from Leetstreet Boys. In just the first 5 month run of season 3, the show has already been to eight conventions.
In May 2010, Con Goer reached its 120 episodes mark and was also nominated at a webcast conference in London as one of most creative podcast for 2010.
For the 2011 run, viewers will notice less conventions because of budget cuts. “We already cut two conventions for our 2011 season that we’ve been to for our 2010 season so far; which is not even related to our budget issues,” Anthony Zaragoza said. “We do promise more small conventions in the 2011 run and conventions that we haven’t been to before.” Anthony jokingly added “We don’t want to repeat the same cons every year on the series [anyways], because that is what we call a ‘rerun.’ We will keep on going to our favorite cons, such as Wicked Faire, Zenkaikon, and Otakon because those are our favorite events.”
Con Goer’s upcoming conventions for the year includes its first visit to AnimeNEXT and a return to Otakon.
For the past few months, it was in a statement that Vidgle will be dropping “podcast” from its branding in a decision not to confuse viewers. “Vidgle grew outside of a podcast format,” Anthony Zaragoza said. In a study back in February, it was noted that Vidgle was not a podcast website, its a internet television site. Vidgle had more video streams on its website and third party sites, such as Vodpod and Facebook.
The upcoming T-Mode episodes of Con Goer will be the last episodes to have “high definition podcast” in its opening graphic and as a branding. Vidgle dropped “podcast” and its slogan “watch us anytime, anywhere” on the homepage’s title name last month. “Are we branding internet television on Vidgle yet, just Vidgle is enough as a branding.”
In the new Vidgle graphic opening, above, an HD button is visible to let viewers that Vidgle is in high definition. The button won’t be visible if the current episode isn’t in HD.
Vidgle’s podcast feed will still exist and no platforms will be affected.
Earlier this month, Vidgle was nominated (as a podcast) for best in production, creativity, and website at a conference in London.
A word going around the internet in the business side of the web is “paywall.” Now, it seems that Jenthony Enterprises, Inc. wants to put one of its products behind this “paywall,” that product is Vidgle. In 2009, Vidgle had an estimated 20,000 viewers and 30,000 downloads.
Vidgle has grown over the past quarter. Jenthony reported that it reached over 25,000 downloads in the first quarter of 2010. “We may reach our 30,000 download hit in May, or earlier, outranking our downloads in the entire year of 2009,” said Maria O’Connell, director of reporting and second in command webmaster.
“Vidgle is not generating enough revenue,” in a company statement. “The company demands a paywall to be put up.” It’s not a decision that Anthony Zaragoza, founder and general manager of Vidgle, wants to do. “Something needs to get done,” Zaragoza said. The company forced developers to install a paywall system called”Vidgle Plus” in 2009 during the Vidgle 2.0 engine launch in September; that paywall system was successfully installed but not activated.
“There is no advertising going on,” said Anthony Zaragoza. “That is why a paywall needs to go up. If we can get advertising going on our video streams, this might not happen. The issue here is that this is a new medium and sponsor don’t want to waste dollars during the financial crisis.”
The company wants to charge viewers either a $5 a month subscription or pay a 99 cent pay-per-download (ppd). Currently, Anthony Zaragoza is planning that videos that are older than 2 years old will get behind the paywall, while videos that are younger than two years old will not be behind the paywall. Instead, the company wants to have all videos behind the paywall, Zaragoza refused to take that action.
“Users can download the videos through our podcast feed and keep it forever,” Anthony Zaragoza added. “We think there shouldn’t be any complaints right there. … The paywall is going to be up for archival purposes to watch content and information that are out of date. So far this year, there have already been over 10,000 downloads from videos published in 2008; and another 10,000 downloads from 2009; this shows our archive episodes are still living.”
The main issue is that will anybody be “willing” to pay for an episode (or subscribe) for Vidgle’s archives. “Con Goer, not the show, enthusiasts may,” said Anthony Zaragoza. “I believe someone years from now will be willing to watch a interview with Voltaire that we recently aired.”
The show “Con Goer,” the flagship show of Vidgle, is going to have many ethical issues if a paywall is to be put up. “Some conventions don’t allow press organizations that charges users to be welcomed as a press organization,” said director of “Con Goer” Anthony Zaragoza.
In recent news, Hulu will be launching a test subscription service in May that will cost $9.95. Five of the most recent episodes will be kept online for free while older episodes need to be subscribed to the subscription. It was a coincidence that the subscription service is called “Hulu Plus” while “Vidgle Plus” is the tentative name of Vidgle’s paywall.
Another paywall system in recent news was with Jenthony’s former Internet Service Provider “Cablevision Systems Corp.” with Newsday. In March, it was announced that the $4 million paywall setup only received 35 subscribers. “The catch is that this is just a marketing technique,” Anthony said. “I know Cablevision was going to put up this paywall just like with News 12.com, so they can keep their customers, both through their internet serviceand newspaper. They don’t care if they got 35 online subscribers, I am actually not surprised by that number, I thought it would of been lower.”
Zaragoza has been studying paywall tactics since 2007. “I will definitely keep on top of the Hulu test since it can be compared to our setup,” said Anthony Zaragoza concluding his statements. “The only paywalls I was able to research are newspapers, now a huge video streaming site is putting up a test paywall, lets see how it goes.”
A viewer survey will be posted on the Vidgle website in the upcoming weeks to determine if a paywall will be successful on the website.
Vidgle is among the first website to invest and create a 3D video streaming website. “Vidgle is not just on your computer, it’s also on your TV,” Maria O’Connell, the technical director of Jenthony Enterprises, Inc. “With that element, we are able to bring our 3D production right to your 3D televisions since 3D may not appear correctly on a computer monitor.”
“When we went HD last year, we thought that seeing the sweat of con goers on Con Goer wasn’t enough,” said Anthony Zaragoza, the general manager of Vidgle.
Since the studios of Vidgle is being rebuilt, it is going to be 3D friendly when we go 3D in April. The studio set will have 3D effects that will keep the viewers attention.
Most production work will go 3D in April when “Con Goer’s” coverage of Caste Point Anime Convention will be done completely in 3D. All other future productions will be 3D friendly as well, including AZ Tech Talk, Lucky Podcast, and Fantanime.
Users will be able to watch “Vidgle 3D” on a 3D HD television with 3D glasses. Vidgle will continue support its HD, iPod, Mobile, and SDTV feeds.
On March 13, the home of Jenthony Enterprises, Inc., which includes the studios and set of Vidgle and WRAJ Internet Radio, was damaged by a flood. Nothing costly was damaged, however hundreds of studio cables were damaged and will need to be replaced. “We don’t know the total cost of the damage of the wiring we use, however the floor had to go,” said Anthony Zaragoza, president of Jenthony Enterprises, Inc. “Several set props for Vidgle were damaged, those props cost about a hundreds of dollars in total.”
The studio and offices flooded late Saturday night due to a power outage. With heavy rainfall, it caused the water table beneath the basement to overflow the pumping stations and it then leaked through the stations and the cement floor beneath the rug. The water raised above the rug to about 3 inches. We had no power for at least 20 hours.
“We had a generator to start pumping the water once it began to rise, that generator failed. After a replacement generator was purchased 12 hours later, we received power shortly after.”
Now a planning process is about to start Monday. This includes new furniture, lighting, set props, and new wiring configurations. “We are planning to upgrade our network to high bandwidth with CAT6 network cables,” Zaragoza added. A new studio patch bay will be installed for WRAJ Internet Radio which will allow interactions with Vidgle’s video productions.
The last flood logged that hit the studio was on March 13, 2007 when a storm drain failed.
This flood comes a week after Jenthony Enterprises, Inc. is planning to move to a new location by 2013. This is the first major flood which had to move the company out for longer than a week. It is also the third flood since WRAJ Internet Radio started in 2003 in that location. WRAJ Internet Radio is currently broadcasting at a temporary location and the company is renting space at another location. There is no date when the company will be able to operate out of its home location. “The only date we can come up with is the date of April 12 or the 19th, maybe even later than that.”
Miro Guide, a video and audio podcast directory, gave a “Moderator Pick” to Vidgle’s “Con Goer” earlier this week. This comes days after “Con Goer” received a nomination as most creative webcast in 2010 at a web conference in London. Vidgle also announced on Friday that “Con Goer” will be renewed for a fourth season.
In its third season, Con Goer got a new graphic package, a new music theme based from the band “Leetstreet Boys,” and new talent, Mia Walker. Con Goer currently has 126 episodes available on vidgle.com and has eight confirmed episodes from its recent trip to Steampunk World’s Fair. In its third season, the Con Goer team has already been to eight conventions, while in its second season only went to nine. Con Goer is currently confirmed with 5 upcoming conventions this year, including Otakon, New York Comic Con, New York Anime Festival, and AnimeNEXT.
Vidgle’s “Con Goer” has been renewed for a fourth season in 2011. The show will have a less budget than 2010′s.
A word going around the internet in the business side of the web is “paywall.” Now, it seems that Jenthony Enterprises, Inc. wants to put one of its products behind this “paywall,” that product is Vidgle. In 2009, Vidgle had an estimated 20,000 viewers and 30,000 downloads.
Vidgle is among the first website to invest and create a 3D video streaming website. “Vidgle is not just on your computer, it’s also on your TV,” Maria O’Connell, the technical director of Jenthony Enterprises, Inc. “With that element, we are able to bring our 3D production right to your 3D televisions since 3D may not appear correctly on a computer monitor.”
