I’ve said all I’m going to say about the personal part of what’s happening, but I thought it would be kind of cool to share how we’ve been producing the show from two locations.

Writing the show hasn’t changed much except that Luria writes much more than she did when she was here. It’s been interesting to see the different types of stories she chooses than me. I tend to write about gadgets. She tends to write about tech news and Web services like Google Docs. The Brief we will release today is about stuff we both wanted to cover. I wrote some of today’s show yesterday, some this morning and she wrote some to. Because of Google Docs, it’s always been easy to collaborate on a script.

After the script is done, Luria shoots it herself. She has our lights and the camera and the teleprompter. She shoots in front of a green screen in one take with one fixed shot and then she transfers one HUGE file to me, via FTP. The uncompressed footage is typically 4-8GB per episode. Sometimes it takes five hours, and really, that’s the biggest downside of the setup.

I have all the editing gear. As I download the file, I do preproduction graphics that will be used in the episode. When I have the file, I drag it into Final Cut Pro. It usually takes less than an hour to edit. Occasionally, when there are unusual graphics or video features in a particular episode, it takes longer.

I compress the show into three formats using Sorenson Squeeze. It does an excellent job, but it’s slow (and expensive). Then I upload the four formats to Mevio and post to the GeekBrief.TV Web site.

Except for news that needs to be more timely the workflow has worked well. It’s always fun to trouble shoot our way through new challenges.

I ended my last post with a question: What can I do for you? Shamir Katsu asked what he could do to reproduce the “Geek Brief miracle.” If you already know the GeekBrief.TV Story, jump down to the last paragraph.

My wife and I used to do Web design and development during the time Internet culture was starting to bloom (before the dot com bubble popped). Tech TV was a cable channel about technology that drew geeks together, and for the first time, geeky people started to feel like we could be cool too.

After the bubble burst, we kind of burned out on tech. We stepped away completely and took a job in the glamorous world of self storage. The company we worked for was called Extra Space Storage and although we thought it would be a temporary job, they treated us well and let us open new stores so we could move around the country. Before we knew it, we had been there almost five years. That was 2005, the year podcasting started to gain attention.

We loved the idea of podcasting for the same reasons we were drawn to the Internet. We listened to Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code, then Dawn and Drew and the list just kept growing. When Dawn and Drew quit their job to Podcast full time, we decided that would be our goal.

Around the same time, Steve Jobs announced the first iPod with video. It seemed like there was room for new content. Everyone always said podcast about what you love. The thing Cali and I love in common is technology. We loved Engadget and Gizmodo so we decided to create a gadget video blog.

My idea was that Cali Lewis would be the International Head of the Geek Intelligence Agency and she would issue regular “Briefs” about gadgets and technology. We had no experience with video production, but we were laser-focused. We wanted to make the best looking show we could make and improve it every day. We also wanted to make it a business that would succeed.

It has been very successful, from our perspective, but it has been hard work. The first two years, as we were really learning how to get the show done, we often worked 14-16 hours a day at least six days a week. Mevio, our partner for distribution and advertising, has been an unseen force in what we’ve been able to do too. They made it possible for us to do the show full time and have connected us with advertising dollars that have kept Cali in T-Shirts and both of us in gadgets. It’s been good.

To me, three things all successful new media projects have in common is compelling content, professionalism and a sense that they all just keep doing it and doing it and doing it. Constant content production plus laser-focus is what seems to work.

UPDATE: Shamir Katsu asked two follow-up questions…

(1) How did you get hooked up with Mevio?

It’s easy now. Anyone can sign up for an account and launch a show on the network. They look at shows that perform in terms of audience growth and they reach out with advertising opportunities. Jeff McCord, the host of the Moxie Mo Show is a perfect example. He watched GeekBrief.TV, wanted to do a show of his own, asked us for advice, launched his show and he’s making extra money from it.

(2) How do you maintain that focus and drive to keep going when things are not going well?

There are two different ways to go with that. Some pursuits aren’t worth the effort. If you start something and it doesn’t ever start clicking, it’s probably best to let that go and move on to something else. If you start something with merit, you’ll see some signs of success and you’ll want to focus on what works and abandon what doesn’t.

When things aren’t going well it’s time to be as objective as possible. Sep back and work to understand the problem. Make adjustments a pay close, close attention to the things that bring positive results and do more of those things!

We get asked all the time for advice about equipment. New media production, even using professional equipment, is far, far less expensive than broadcast production. Even still … better, more expensive equipment can set a new media producer apart from someone using equipment purchased from a local, consumer electronics store.

We started GeekBrief.TV with an inexpensive consumer camera and a relatively expensive professional microphone. It was clear a couple shows in that the inexpensive consumer camera wasn’t getting the job done, so we upgraded. It was a massive financial challenge for us and we sacrificed a lot to pay for it without going into debt, but we bought a high-end camera. I think it gave us an advantage.

The next episode of GBTV will be shot on our sixth camera. We moved immediately from consumer to “prosumer” and in the prosumer space, we moved from SD to HD. Our new camera is our first professional camera and it was freaking expensive. The costs are covered by the value of all the equipment and past cameras we’re selling, but still, it feels like a big investment.

We love giving equipment advice to anyone interested in working in new media, but the one thing we never advise is to go cheap. We recommend making sacrifices to purchase the best equipment a sacrifice will enable.

The hardest questions we get are related to price. We often get asked to recommend an HD camera below $300 or a wireless microphone system below $200 and our answer is we can’t! There are HD cameras below $300 and wireless microphone systems below $200, but we can’t recommend them because they just aren’t good enough for professional looking and sounding production.

The first year of GeekBrief.TV, we spent approximately $30,000 on equipment. We had to sacrifice a lot to pay for it, but we were passionate about our goals. We still sacrifice to buy better and better equipment because this is our life.

The best advice we can give about equipment is to not go cheap. Go cheap on your clothing. Go cheap in your food and drinks. Go cheap on everything in your life, but invest everything you can, without going into debt, on your equipment.

Our littlest dog Zoe woke me up early with a request to go outside. When I got back to the room, I couldn’t fall back asleep. We’re on a road trip from Dallas to Chicago because a couple friends who own a restaurant in Highland Park, IL are having a BBQ emergency and we decided to be spontaneous and support the meat.

Laying in bed, trying to go back to sleep, I was thinking about the next episode of GeekBrief.TV. It’s episode #400. Cali and I think celebrating round numbers is arbitrary. We’d much rather celebrate the episodes that are good–the ones that inspire funny comments and make people smile or laugh. The 400 number isn’t even accurate because we haven’t always given every episode a Brief number, and if you’re pedantically minded, like we are, celebrating 400 is celebrating an inaccuracy and it doesn’t compute.

The restaurant we’re traveling to is called Bluegrass. It was opened in Highland Park at the same time Cali and I opened a self-storage facility for Extra Space Storage next door. Jim Lederer and Chef Dave Teichman fed us well. In fact, when we were saving money like crazy to get out of debt and buy production equipment, Jim and Dave made us honorary Bluegrass employees and gave us an employee discount. The bar manager when Bluegrass opened, Brad Davis, introduced us to all manor of martinis. Brad was so charming and funny (and generous with his pours) that when Cali’s sister Ariane decided to move to Chicago from Atlanta, we looked forward to introducing Brad to Ariane. We fell in love with martinis and Brad fell in love with Ariane. She fell in love with him too.

So far about 30 people have RSVP’d for the Emergency BBQ Meetup, and it just hit me! Brief 400 is going to happen back where Brief 1 happened!

It’s the place where we lived when we first heard Adam Curry on NPR talking about Podcasting. Adam inspired us with his idealism about the indie nature of Podcasting. It’s where we lived when we first heard Dawn say “Get ready, baby! Get ready! It’s The Dawn and Drew Show, ohhh!” It’s the place where we coined the phrase, “Tyranny of the Day Job” because no matter how well we were treated by Extra Space, the day job was getting between us and our driving desire to podcast full time. It’s the place where we spent a whole weekend with Cali’s whole family the Summer before Curtis Safford, our brother-in-law died of cancer. It’s the place where I interrupted Cali’s shower one morning in October 2005 and told her our next goal was to start a podcast that’s good enough and popular enough that we’ll be able to do it full time.

About a week before our last day at the day job, our Curtis passed away. We packed up the truck fast, dropped off our stuff in Dallas and headed to California for the funeral. Curtis was an IT guy at USC and he’s the person who converted us to Mac. He’s also the father of our most awesome 3-year-old nephew, Loki.

Friends of the Brief (FotB, pronounced FothBas) who come will be able to see where we started, where we lived and taste how good we ate when we WEREN’T eating Ramen Noodles. It really feels like we’re going home.

Of course we registered each of these domains at GoDaddy.com using promo codes GB1, GB2 or GB3 to register each of these domain names at a discount, but now the list is up to 87 names.

ATADAY.COM
BAILEYBABBIN.COM
BAILEYBABIN.COM
BIGTRIP.TV
BIGTRIPTV.COM
CALILEWIS.COM
CALILEWIS.TV
CALILIVE.TV
CALLILEWIS.COM
CARNIVORE.TV
CLEARCHURCH.COM
CLEARCHURCH.ORG
CRAPPYCHRISTIAN.TV
CURIOUSCALI.COM
DATELOVEFOOD.COM
DEARCALI.COM
DRUNCHIES.COM
EVERYTHINGYOUNEEDTOKNOWABOUT.COM
EXPATIA.COM
FAMCAST.TV
FEEDMYINTERN.COM
FONTSHIRTS.COM
GBTV.BIZ
GBTVLIVE.COM
GBTVPC.COM
GBTVSEARCH.COM
GBTVTALK.COM
GEEKBRIEF.BIZ
GEEKBRIEF.COM
GEEKBRIEF.INFO
GEEKBRIEF.NET
GEEKBRIEF.TV
GEEKBRIEFRADIO.COM
GEEKBRIEFTV.COM
GEEKINTELLIGENCE.COM
GEEKPEEP.COM
GEEKYBAR.COM
GIAHQ.COM
GOGOSHOW.NET
GREEKBEEF.COM
HELPIO.COM
HELPMEBUYTHIS.COM
ICALI.TV
ICALITV.COM
IFEVERYBODYGAVE.COM
INEVITABLEMEDIA.COM
IYULE.TV
IYULELOG.COM
IYULELOG.NET
IYULELOG.ORG
JOINGIA.COM
LURIA.TV
LURIAPETRUCCI.COM
MAKEOVERME.MOBI
MAKEOVERME.TV
MARKANDCALI.COM
MYADVANTAGE.TV
NEAL.FM
NEALANDCALI.COM
NEALANDLURIA.COM
NEALCAMPBELL.COM
NEALCAMPBELL.TV
PAIDBYPIXELS.COM
PAJAMA.TV
PANTSCANDY.COM
PEPPERQUE.BIZ
PEPPERQUE.COM
PEPPERQUE.INFO
PEPPERQUE.NET
PEPPERQUE.ORG
PEPPERQUE.TV
PEPPERQUE.US
SHINYHAPPY.TV
SOMERANDOMWEBSITETHATYOUVENEVERHEARDOF.COM
SPLANATION.COM
STARSHOLLOWPODCAST.COM
THEBRIEF.TV
TULLIOPETRUCCI.COM
TVSIDELINE.COM
TVSIDELINE.INFO
TVSIDELINE.MOBI
TVSIDELINE.NET
TVSIDELINE.ORG
TVSIDELINE.TV
WOZISMYFRIEND.COM
ZEEDEEBEE.COM
ZEEDEEBEE.TV

5: Benadryl
4: Urban Outfitters
3: Tanqueray
2: Chipotle
1: Apple

So, I have an idea and I want to see if anyone is game. Here goes…

Researching and writing The Brief usually takes us half a day or more. Shooting takes about 30 minutes and post production (editing, graphics, compression and uploading) takes about three hours. Check the Twitter transcripts. It’s pretty well documented.

This week, we’re slammed because we have an unscheduled trip to New York on Thursday and Cali has a speaking gig on Wednesday.

What’s the likelihood some friends of the brief would like to submit some stories to wiki {at} geekbrief {dot} com? We’re talking completely written stories with an attached product graphic or screenshot and links to sources so we know we’re not plagiarizing.

It seems like a fun experiment. If you’re interested in playing along, write a story about a gadget, Web application, game or piece of software. Length should be about five sentences long (keep the brief in Geek Brief). Include graphics or screenshots and links to your sources. Send it via email to wiki {at} geekbrief {dot} com.

You’ll be putting words in Cali’s mouth, so gold stars go to writers who are funny and still wholesome. Cali will edit you just like she edits me, but you’ll get the credit on the show and links in the shownotes on GeekBrief.TV.

One time, I worked at a non-profit organization where I had the opportunity to write a speech for Laura Bush. Hearing your words come out of someone else’s mouth is magical.

Ultimately, this experiment could lead to writing work for a future Geek Brief Gadget Blog…I’m just saying!

Cali and I both grew up poor, but blessed. Cali grew up connected to an amazingly supportive Italian family and I grew up raised by Baptists who introduced me to Jesus and home grown tomatoes.

We’ve been married nine years and we’ve put off having a kid because we have an amazing relationship. We’ve never had an argument…ever and the big fear is that having a kid might be the factor that changes that.

For our Big Trip, we started a site called PaidByPixels.com. It’s similar to the principal of buying a brick in a pathway to support your college. You buy pixels to support our trip and get ads galore on PaidByPixels.com and on our network of Web sites. We call it the Pixel Board.

We don’t need nearly all of the pixels to sell to fund the Big Trip, but we need most of them to sell. Cali said tonight, if we sell all of them, we can have a kid after the trip. I’m pretty sure I can convincer her to get started on the kid mission about half-way through.

People have always said that you can’t wait for everything to be fine finically to have a kid because things my never be okay. Cali grew up in a struggle and she doesn’t want to raise a kid that way. I’m not opposed to admitting that I need your help convincing her. She loves me, and she loves y’all.

When people don’t get this Web 2.0 world we’re living in, I wonder if they want to connect to people at all. To us the connection we feel to our GeekBrief.TV friends is more real than the connection we have to anyone in the flesh-and-blood world. That’s why I’m sharing this mission with you guys and not the natural fam.

I doubt anyone reads my blog who doesn’t also watch GeekBrief.TV, but just in case, I’m embedding our latest episode here because it’s about one of the most amazing applications I’ve ever experienced. The app. is called Woopra. It’s in private beta, so you have to put your name in the queue to receive an invitation code. If you have a blog or Web site, PUT YOUR NAME ON THE LIST!

Woopra provides real time streaming data about what visitors are looking at on your site. The results are dynamic and even entertaining. One of the features is an animated graphic map of the world that shows you where in the world your visitors are when they are on your site. There is also a large live number at the top of the dashboard that shows you how many people are on your site at any given moment. A picture is worth 1000 words. Video is worth a million, so here is our profile of our favorite new application, Woopra.

GBTV #337 | Introducing Woopra from Neal Campbell on Vimeo.

We used the Vimeo player so the shots of John’s screen would be crisp.

Doing what we do, producing GeekBrief.TV, is often exhilarating, but isn’t constant, so it reminds me of an old gospel song that says, “I thank God for the Mountains, and I thank Him for the valleys. I thank Him for the storms He’s brought me through. Cause if I had never had a problem, I wouldn’t know God could solve them. I wouldn’t know what faith in God could do.” It’s about how low points in life give us perspective to appreciate the high points.

High points are when everything is clicking, production is flowing smoothly and feedback is strong. Low points are usually when opportunities and responsibilities are too fast and furious. Riding the top of the wave is an adrenaline rush, but each individual wave falls apart and it feels like we’re under the force of the water trying to get back to homeostasis.

I wouldn’t trade what we do for any other job because it’s the ultimate blend of independence and responsibility. There are times that it is fun and times when we’re scared to death. Other times… we just wish for a few days in a row of smooth sailing.