State of the site, end of the podcast?

(I was going to craft a new narrative for all of this, but I spent a lot of time making sure the following e-mail to the other guys was as truthful and diplomatic as possible. So, with a few edits, here is that document.)

To: Gameodactyl, Gamegnathus
CC: Benji, Gameratops
Re: Podcasto (Spanish for podcast)

New plan — no podcast today, as (UNNAMED GAMEOSAUR) hasn’t started the book nor played FFXIII much, and they’re the only two things I really was planning on talking about. I want to discuss both of them at some serious length — took two pages of notes on the book for discussion questions, etc.

So we’ll catch up again next week. Unless either of you have something you’d really like to discuss this week, in which case I’m totally game.

One other thing, and as a foreword, I know I share responsibility for this:

Editing together the last five or six shows, it’s become fairly clear that we’re going through the motions. I really appreciate everybody’s involvement and the enormous amount of time each of us obviously has sunken into this project, but if I’m pulling teeth and creating a hassle for you guys, I’d just as soon not do it. And if I’m creating a financial hardship for people by harassing them into buying things they otherwise wouldn’t, thereby draining checking and savings accounts and pissing off spouses, well, I really don’t want to be doing that, either.

I trace most of this back to the fact that a) we’re still trying to do too much too often, and b) we really don’t know who we’re talking to. We DO know that we’re not talking to many people. Even after Pat courageously pelted the entire FFXIII launch crowd with business cards Monday, this week marks our lowest podcast and Web traffic since the first week of February.

Whomp whomp.

So the stakes are pretty low every time we get together.

Here’s my proposal: I’m writing two posts today — one for FFXIII at the 13-hour mark, one for the state of the site. In the state of the site post, I put it to readers that we intend to make episode 48 our last WEEKLY show, as that would bring us to precisely one year since we started the podcast. And then we bang out five really solid episodes.

But that’s with one caveat — if our listenership of roughly 25 people can get our weekly audience to 50 by the last episode, we’ll continue doing it weekly, setting audience benchmarks as appropriate.

If not, we’ll keep the feed running, and I’ll find reasons to record occasional pieces of audio.

The site will continue, of course, and you’re all welcome to continue contributing. Starting sometime in April, I’m moving to the copy desk at work, which means I get a raise and 7½-hour days back. That’s down from 11-ish, which means I’ll have much more time to myself, and I won’t be completely burned out by already having spent the entire day writing and lifting. And in September, I technically hit four years with the company, which means my salary jumps by about one-third. That allows for considerably more resources for things like recording and video capture equipment.

I’m trying to prod Alex into mocking up a new design for $200 or so. Something super minimalist. One fat column spanning about 800 px, completely for body text. At the top, the logo; one Gameosaurus twitter feed that anyone can contribute to, much the way Drunken Gamers does it (@DGRadio); an ABOUT US link, a link to back episodes of the podcast; and a search util. The rest is content, all the way to the bottom.

And at that point, it’s just an attractive blog (hopefully) with some audio every now and then. No expectations, no reason to fuss or feel stressed. Ben’s welcome to get in on it if he wants. I’ll still edit for grammar, but not for content. I’ll just disagree with him vehemently

(I confess that I was a dick during that whole process, but that was when I was plagued by delusions of relative fame and blissfully unaware of how few people we were reaching.)

Rambo, I continue to pester you about playing co-op Dawn of War II with me. I’m available all night.