The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same… Except Not.
January 11th, 2010

Posted by Matt

So, if you’re reading this, you’ve probably noticed that things look pretty different around here all of a sudden. Now, I know what you’re thinking, (“OHGODOHGODOHGOD CHANGE! I AM SCARED AND ANGRY!”), but before you freak completely I want to run down some of the new things around here, why they changed, and what they mean for the future.

If you’re a member of our forums, (found here: http://www.loadingreadyrun.com/forum ) You’re probably aware of the fact that we have signed a distribution deal with The Escapist (http://escapistmagazine.com) for our videos. If you aren’t a member, and you were heretofore unaware, well, now you know. The effect of this on your viewing experience should be fairly minor, though the link to our video above will now direct to The Escapist, rather than to a video page on this site. There will still be a discussion thread for our videos in both our forum and on The Escapist though, so you can feel free to comment in either, (or both!) if you wish. In conjunction with video link above, you will also notice the addition of links to our other Escapist video series, ENN and Unskippable. From now on we’ll be linking to those updates directly as well. We will still be hosting all of our Loading Time, Phailhaus, ISC and bonus videos through YouTube, with video pages here, though, it’s just the regular Monday updates that will be distributed via The Escapist.

Another major change that you’ve already noticed is that the last 3 posts from the blog are now displayed right here on the front page. In the past, our blog has been somewhat underutilized – both because we slacked off in writing for it, and because it wasn’t drawing a whole lot of readership. So, In the interest of communicating better with our viewers, particularly those who haven’t joined our forum community, we’ve bumped our recent updates right onto the front page. You can look here for news posts, appearance announcements and con schedules, behind the scenes photos, and preview pictures, along with a variety of other content.

To the right, you’ll notice that we’ve also included a repeater for the @loadingreadyrun Twitter account. We use our twitter account to post little updates from day to day about the goings on of the crew, filming, podcasting and so on. So, if you’re not on Twitter, you can just hit our main page to see what’s going on between updates, and if you are on Twitter, you can follow that account to get the updates directly in your timeline.

You’ll also notice that the “About Us” page has been updated with a more complete and expanded cast roster. The people listed as part of the cast are the people you can expect to see in videos nearly every week, and they’ll be the people producing content, updating this blog, and interacting with the forums the most. The contributors section is devoted to those people who support us behind the scenes, make guest appearances and who help us out whenever they can. We wanted to make sure that all the people who regularly help make our videos what they are got the credit they deserve. We couldn’t do all this without them, and they deserve to be recognized for their contributions.

Finally, we’ve also updated our LRR Store (found here http://loadingreadyrun.com/store/) with a new layout and t-shirt design that you can order. From now on we’ll be introducing shirts via pre-order system, with a new shirt design every month! Watch the video on the store page for more information on exactly how it’s going to work.

Hopefully this post has answered most of your questions, and will help ease the transition to LoadingReadyRun 7.0 and our partnership with The Escapist. If you have any further questions or concerns, I’ve set up a thread in our General forum for you to comment in. You can find it here: http://lrr.cc/f/11350. Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoy watching our future videos as much as much as we enjoy making them!

-mw

Putting the ‘Social’ in ‘Social Media’
September 25th, 2009

Posted by Matt

Hey everyone!

Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed a shift in how LoadingReadyRun has been working towards getting our videos “out there” more. The first major step was our move to YouTube as our video host. More recently, we’ve been announcing our video updates to Twitter, and posting our videos on Digg. These social media tools offer huge opportunities to us insofar as exposure is concerned because of how easy they make it to tell people how you feel about our work.  That said, these tools rely on a degree of audience participation to really provide their greatest benefit.

We need your help.  If you follow us on Twitter, please remember to retweet our video updates.  Share our videos with your followers and encourage them to share with theirs.  Don’t be afraid to ask your followers to “Please RT!”.  Similarly, we’ll be putting together an official LoadingReadyRun FaceBook page soon, to which we’ll be posting our updates, as well as pictures and news – remember to let your friends lists know when a new video comes out!

 With regards to YouTube and Digg, we ask that you consider taking a moment (right now) and signing up for a user account on each. Aside from the fact that both are great sites that aggregate tons of awesome content every single day – they also allow you to help take control of what gets seen. On YouTube every rating, every channel subscription, every video comment and every view is accounted for, and the more there are, the more chance a video has of being seen. Even if you usually watch from the LRR homepage, rather than from our YouTube channel, we’d really appreciate it if you could subscribe to our channel, and rate our videos.  All it takes is a single click-through. If you have something that you might say in the forum discussion, feel free to drop it into the comment thread on YouTube as well!  Digging something takes even less effort, but it’s less democratic in its aggregation process – when we put a video up on Digg, we need a lot of people to digg it in a very short period of time or it will fall under the radar. 

 For the moment, we’re asking you to please take the initiative.  Please sign up for a Digg and YouTube account, and rate, comment, subscribe and Digg away.  Over the next several weeks, we’ll be working on adding tools like a Digg link and a share on Facebook link to the video pages to make it even less of a hassle. We’re also looking at adding a few other pieces of functionality to our homepage that enhance our ability to communicate directly with you, our viewers, and keep you up to date with the latest news, events and announcements.

 Social media provides us a ton of opportunity to grow, but without your help – without the ‘social’ part – we’re not using it to it’s full potential.  So Runners, fans, friends, followers, please help us out. A few clicks from each of you would go a very long way.

Cheers,

Matt