Opinions on LMG content lately

[michaelmish]

Hello LTT Forum, I don't usually post here, and I don't use very often the forum, but I consider myself a fan of LMG, and since I've seen the fussing about "Nerd Sports", I wanted to wite this to LInus, but then I figured out that probably the forum is a good place to hear also your opinions, and maybe get noticed by Senpai Linus so that he actually reads it.

 

Hi Linus, I've read your response to the post about Nerd Sports and I thought it might be the right time to write this.
I saw that you did not only addressed the "Nerd Sports" problem, but also the raising of complaints by viewers on the quality of recent content and therefore I decide to write you this. I apologize in advance if it ends up being a long post.

I'm a long-time fan of yours, and of all LMG, and I follow you since garage WAN show days. I have to admit that LTT/TQ/CSF became part of my daily routine, and that I watch your videos unconditionally both on Vessel and YouTube each day, so that I can give you all the more money I can (yes I know, forum subscriptions, t-shirts and stuff, but since I go to university and I don't work I don't have much money) and I stay up until 3-3.30 in the morning to watch the WAN show on twitch (I live in Italy). I'm not saying this to boast, I'm not saying I'm the most hardcore fan, it's just so you know with which part of the audience I fit in, since it's broad.

Now that I have expressed my love towards LMG, it is time to talk about what has been going on lately, but first let me say, apologies accepted for the rushing, everyone has busy periods, and let me specify that the purpose of this post is to give future advices, if accepted.

In the last month or so, I noticed a different approach of the company to the videos. I love the workshop format, I think it's really interesting, but other videos feels like “filler” videos, which is normal to have since you committed to one release per day, but I feel like they are more frequent than in the past.

Obviously, with more time consuming content to produce, and the inability (yet) to expand a day to more than 24h, sometimes you have to cut down on some other videos.

Probably my considerations are a little bit too naïve for the internet, but I feel like that most of the complaints under your videos are written because the fan loves your content, and he is afraid that it is becoming more and more “casual”, and let me explain what I mean by that. By no stretch of the imagination 7 gamers 1 tower and projects like that are “casual”, by “casual” I mean videos for casual views, and not the hardcore fans that truly loves tech, and loves even more how you bring tech to YouTube.

The fact is that for many LMG fans, or at least for me, is that a Linus Tech Tips video is not only about a product, or about bleeding edge technology, it is also about Linus Media Group, the people that produces the content, with which we have an appointment every day.

As I said these words are really naïve, but I think that there is truth at the bottom. People watch you because they like your personalities, otherwise, you wouldn’t have 6-10k people watching you live every week. They could just search tech news on the internet if they were strictly interested in that.

After so many touching words, which by the way are referred to all of LMG, not only to Linus or video hosts, here comes my advice: stick to your fans, because they will stick to you.

It might seem a sentimental advice, and maybe it is, but even economically speaking, having a lot of people watching one video per month is not like having a fanbase that watches all of your videos everyday for the way YouTube works (or at least for my basic understanding of it)

Getting back to the Nerd Sports fact, I’ve really appreciated your response, because it means that you care about your fans.

Not the Noctua ones.

Well, maybe them too.

Sorry for the long post, I hope you will read it at some point

I also hope not to have made a lot of errors, since Italians are pretty bad at English.

Oh, and sorry for my dorky jokes.

 

[Loleo]

I definitely agree with you on some points, rather cut down the quantity of videos and go for less even more quality ones HOWEVER youtube doesn't like that. They would rather have  a channel produce 15-20 min long videos once or even twice a day because that's how they earn ad money and that is also the way content creators earn the most money. An example would be Pewdiepie. If you don't believe me and just think I'm spouting nonsense watch GameTheory's video on the subject, it's a grim truth.

[TheWoollyMammoth]

Last couple of weeks, I find the content being kind of 'meh', but I still keep watching every single video. The biggest issue seems to be the lack of fun. Seems the guys are under the weather all the time and you can't help but feel a little under the weather yourself.

 

Well, I'll just keep watching and hoping for the best.

[Murdoch]

It's interesting, I understand they want to move away from reviewing tech and doing product overviews all the time. From a personal perspective, I get it, it must be kinda tedious doing yet another Case or Motherboard review. But the thing is, when you reduce the level of Tech Reviews and Product overviews which I consider the "bread and butter" of the channel. The filler or bad ideas become way more apparent.

 

 

 

 

[RodJames]

Nick has been phoning it in on the sponsorship spots lately...

[KE2012]

The recent videos have felt a bit rushed, but I'm sure Linus made a comment on these forums about it. Gimme a min and I will see if I can find it. 

Found it!

Quote

 That said, quantity isn't everything, and I've noticed that not everyone has appreciated the LTT content as much as usual lately, but it's hard for me to tell if that's because they don't like our new direction (fewer reviews, and more exploratory or experimental videos) or if they just saw a video or two they didn't like and raised hell in the comment section - it wouldn't be the first time.. And I will say, too, that honestly if a couple of the videos felt rushed then it's probably because they were.. HOWEVER, the primary reason for the rushed videos was  the entire week we're taking off this week to film Scrapyard Wars Season 4, which will be premiering on Vessel sometime in the next few weeks or so, followed by a release on YouTube 1 week later, which is the standard agreement for OUR content that is paid for by LMG or our sponsors.

Found here,

 

 

[Misanthrope]

Everything slows down when there's no hardware coming out, not even cases lately.

[GeekJump]

I do feel like in some of the recent videos the people in it looked drained. Like they are working +60 hr weeks making content. I much rather have 3 videos/week where they are energized and not look like zombies lol.

 

but I can't complain - they're making me/us content to watch. Or, if you took the views on some people recently, they are money hungry liars lol (not my view, I <3 Nick)

 

but 1 day breaks might work out for everyone. LTT doesn't have to rush videos out, and fans can stop complaining about quality

[Samfisher]

8 hours ago, Loleo said:

I definitely agree with you on some points, rather cut down the quantity of videos and go for less even more quality ones HOWEVER youtube doesn't like that. They would rather have  a channel produce 15-20 min long videos once or even twice a day because that's how they earn ad money and that is also the way content creators earn the most money. An example would be Pewdiepie. If you don't believe me and just think I'm spouting nonsense watch GameTheory's video on the subject, it's a grim truth.

15-20 mins long?  Neither LTT nor Pew do many of these.  OC3D though...

[Loleo]

4 hours ago, Samfisher said:

15-20 mins long?  Neither LTT nor Pew do many of these.  OC3D though...

Pewdiepie grew big using much raw footage from let's plays which he barely needed to even edit meaning he could produce content on a much higher speed.

[LinusTech]

To be perfectly honest, we've had as much as 50% of the company out of the office sick at times in the last month or so.

 

Combine that with this being the time of year when literally nothing comes out (seriously half of our meetings at CES went "yeah we don't really have anything, but just wait for Computex") and it's no wonder we look tired.

 

I've thought some of the stuff we've done recently has been great, I've thought some of it's been "okay", but not really any different from normal imo.

[JoePro87]

1 minute ago, LinusTech said:

To be perfectly honest, we've had as much as 50% of the company out of the office sick at times in the last month or so.

 

Combine that with this being the time of year when literally nothing comes out (seriously half of our meetings at CES went "yeah we don't really have anything, but just wait for Computex") and it's no wonder we look tired.

 

I've thought some of the stuff we've done recently has been great, I've thought some of it's been "okay", but not really any different from normal imo.

Well Linus, what you could do in the downtime between product releases would be to review more of the "low end" products. Not like, super trashy low end, but just find some random thing around the office, and review it. Here's a fun thought....you should do a series where you review the extremely cheap junk you find on the Wish app. I'm talking, they have like, keyboards and mice for like $2. Of course it's going to be trash, but it would make for some pretty good videos. And, who knows, you could actually find something decent on there.

[LinusTech]

The problem is that usually it ends up being exactly what we expect. Boring. 

 

And I love making entertaining videos about stuff that I'm passionate about. I couldn't be less passionate about $2 mice

 

Which isn't to say that cheap stuff round ups are impossible. It's just never really been a priority for me.

[JoePro87]

1 minute ago, LinusTech said:

The problem is that usually it ends up being exactly what we expect. Boring. 

 

And I love making entertaining videos about stuff that I'm passionate about. I couldn't be less passionate about $2 mice

 

Which isn't to say that cheap stuff round ups are impossible. It's just never really been a priority for me.

Make Luke do it! Buahaha....the rage will be real! >=]

 

Or...idk...I think I'd actually love to see some game reviews. I know Luke and Ed both stream on Twitch. Have you ever thought about having them do game reviews? It's technically still tech related...

[Dyelon21]

15 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

The problem is that usually it ends up being exactly what we expect. Boring. 

 

And I love making entertaining videos about stuff that I'm passionate about. I couldn't be less passionate about $2 mice

 

Which isn't to say that cheap stuff round ups are impossible. It's just never really been a priority for me.

With all the crazy hype about the HTC Vive and VR in general, you could do a VR op build log. I know they're expensive, but they're some of my favorite videos you've ever done

[LinusTech]

We will DEFINITELY do a VR build log or three

[FusionDeck]

Personally I love the new videos. The product reviews are good, but it gets boring looking at all the new laptops, which all do basically the same thing. I'd like to see more videos of the team, in sort of a vlog-sense - what goes into making a video, behined the scenes etc. @LinusTech

 

Whatever the videos are, I would still watch them