That Blogging Panel
Just some critiques. It’s only fair that I’m as hard/soft on my panel as I am on anything else. Many apologies to SDS, Moy, and Super Rats. [imgsrc]
For background information, please do note that for all four of us, this panel was probably one the firsts live panel we had to run. The convention AnimeNext was kind enough to allow us the opportunity, but they also did a last-minute switcharoo on us so our panel had to move to a different room, and up by half an hour. That would be fine (and almost expected) except that I had to personally talk to the con ops folks (the one helpful lady whose name I forget, thank you!) and gotten it straightened out 2 hours before the original panel time. Two hours before! That’s kind of lame. And we wouldn’t have known better until the helpful RT team pointed it out to us when they saw a sign about our panel is being move to a TBA place, the day before. In retrospect if we knew about this earlier we could have gone and got it fixed on Saturday evening, but by the time we were free to wander about, panel ops had already closed for the night.
Oh, that is on top of the problem SDS ran into with his panel application becoming missing.
Funny enough, none of that actually bother me much, probably because I’ve seen this happen to others too often. So I am definitely giving props to the guys that were there in audience–Scott, kransom, Hisui & Narutaki, that anigamers guy, and a few stragglers that came in later. A cosy crowd, it was. It isn’t anything we didn’t expect being one of the last panels at the end of the con.
I was definitely talking way too much during the panel, but that is probably the result of several things–slightly unnerved, did not really practice enough as a group, I wrote too much of the presentation, and probably some other minute factors. That said, we expected everyone to say something worthwhile, and we all did. Also I should have taken some time and talked with SDS to see what he really has to say, since he does have a lot to say and I kept cutting him off! Oops.
The questions and answers portion of the panel is probably why we needed so many people on the panel. In retrospect, I should have just go and interview/poll a bunch of bloggers on these questions and get their answers. Might be a good alternative tack to deal with some of these issues I wanted to present if I ever want to run this solo. Still, I’m glad to see Super Rats and Moy occasionally shut me down, because that’s kind of what I wanted to hear, to have some diversity and opposite points of view on all of this.
The overall presentation is probably too unfocused. I need to re-write a lot of the story aspect of the panel to make it just as funny but more relevant. I had pages of stuff that didn’t really have much to do with anything. If you want to see our presentation you’ll have to bribe a panelist or a co-author, I think. It’s kind of lame and I don’t feel confident enough to leave it on the internets just yet. Not to mention that hippy scheme wouldn’t work anymore!
Maybe I should make some cue cards, so I remember what each slide is suppose to talk about.
I do have a recording of the panel. I think I might just transcribe a large portion of it if there’s demand for that. For this post, though, I’m going to just answer a couple questions asked by the audience at the panel in detail and call it a night.
Q2. What are some subject matter or type of blogs (or sites) that you think are missing for anime/manga/etc?
A2. Several–a Momotato blog; a merchandise site that is like MyAnimeList (like Tsuki-Board?); more sites like Canned Dogs (more than just a news site–an educational site that draws from 2ch-style Japanese news blogs); more industry sites that are not for marketing as primary goal (like this); and more anime sites focused on animation and not just from a film studies perspective (I’m tired of blogs looking at anime from the manga/comic perspective, TBH).
Q4. Anime sites turning out like gamer sites?
A4. I answered the question at the panel on the basis of pro versus not-pro, but it’s more than just that. Far most gamer sites people read today are pro. Even Penny Arcade is a business. However this is not the case for anime sites…yet. We might read sites like ANN or AnimeVice for news, but there are a lot of great, informative stuff out there that are either part of some promotional material (like Matt Alt’s site, or Schoolgirl Milky Crisis blog, etc) or purely out of fan interests (Anipages Daily, Canned Dogs). If I were to guess, there is a rift in the development of writing talent that home-grown English language bloggers (or whatever you call people who writes for sites like Kotaku or IGN) just do not have the full context. Not only it takes a wider variety of writers (and probably just…a lot of writers) to cover all your basis, your contributers have to know that gamut of related curiousities that you can report. Furthermore it has to be tailored to the particular audience you write for (Brazilian, French, Canadian, whatever), because there’s a lot of regional differences. And yeah, where’s all the good cosplay blogs at?
If you were there and have some constructive comments, please share. Or if you weren’t there.
I’d probably make a call for more anime music-related blogs on top of all the ones you’ve mentioned, except a certain MAL club’s activities have appeased me for the time being. :p
I’d love to listen to a recording/read a transcription though.
I’d like to see how the panel went, just in case I want to run a blogging panel someday. Video would be ideal, but a recording would be fine too (unless you danced or something, in which case I’d want the video. I’m assuming you all just sat at a table with microphones). A lot would get lost in a transcript.
Yeah, video, where? Where are those Anime Diet guys when you need them?
@zzeroparticle: There are a lot of music sites out there. I would say there may be a need for more anison blogs rather than the sharp divide between vk/jrock/visual stuff, jpop, seiyuu, idol, etc. We have this in a way, usually in the form of artist-specific blogs, news blogs, con blogs, etc., but merf.
You two: Videos are obviously not available. It’s a pain to set it up and it’s hard to make it look good, plus it cost money for the equipment. Nor is it really necessary.
@Baka-Raptor: the best way to learn how a panel is like, is to go to them. Find panels that you think won’t have a large draw, that has presentation format similar to the one you eventually want to run (or not, sample the stuff people do).
The reason why a transcript is necessary is because there are probably some stupid stuff I want to scrub out :3 My concern is about the quality of information present at the panel so that might just be better, so for my purposes the audio is just a transcript and it’s likely what you’ll get.
Apparently, I was one of those stragglers.
Are blogging panels always like this? Seems to me that the panel owes its coziness to an audience comprised of 99.99% (if not 100%) bloggers who probably know each other beforehand.
There haven’t been many blogging panels at all, but the cozy audience is more effects of the small con, poor time slot, and we’re n00bs.
Hey, I’m “that anigamers guy.” Pretty cool panel. I ran a similar one recently (though it was blogging AND podcasting) at Castle Point Anime Convention with some other folks, including RT’s Hisui. You hit most of the main points, and the WAH story was pretty funny. I’ll definitely be checking out any panels that you’re running in the future.
Appreciate the support man \o/ thanks for coming.
I like that it seems like things turned out nice here. I wished things worked out for Otakon though. :(
Yeah, it’s a blessing in disguise, too, because of the crazy stuff that happens every otakon; it might be hard to get it all prepared and ready.
Well it did not help that you guys basically got the slot of death as well. The only panel most people were going to on Sunday was the English VAs panel which you happen to be up against. So on top of everything else that happened they gave you the worst competition possible.
I think you also mostly talked becuase you are a leader type where as most everyone else on the panel was a person who would be a follower if you let them be. From what I know of say SDS he can be a leader but only if circumstances make him be. (In their defense I am very much this way myself)
The best solution is to assign each person a set of slides from the to talk about. If they have to talk periodically they are more likely to jump in on sides that are not theirs. That is Narutaki’s strategy for panels. Otherwise I might not speak at all during our panels.
Oh and thanks for giving a follow up on the questions I asked at the panel!
Well thanks for asking questions! And they were good questions too.
I agree with assigning slides. I was trying to do that via the WAH story but it didn’t work out the way I envisioned it. Anyways, thanks for coming.