Here Are Some Plans for the Second Annual Big Live Live Show Live

Hey all. The gang at Whiskey Media is again planning some silly stuff on September 9th with our second annual Big Live Live Show Live (This Time it's Live!). If you missed it last year, we basically gave Vinny a panic attack and invited the community to join us for some good-natured mayhem as we broadcast a live variety show for a full 8 hours.

This year's show will also mark the one-year anniversary of the launch of our premium subscription offering. It's become a big portion of our business and for the most part keeps the lights on in our little crypt here in San Francisco. While I'd like to assume most subscribers feel they've gotten their money's worth, we figured it would be smart to do a check-in and see how you guys feel about how things are going one year later. If you've got the time, we've put together a quick little survey to help us out in that regard.

We're also planning on doing an open podcast sometime next week with our various heads of state in which we'll take calls, ideas, and threats from the community about what we should focus on in this next year. In the meantime, I can make the following general announcements about our upcoming system-level changes.

• The price of subscriptions will not go up in September.
• Yes, if you're an annual subscriber, you'll get the option for another free t-shirt. There will be a new design by community member buzz_clik.
• There will be other options to choose from in addition to the t-shirtl. We plan on giving all annual subscribers the option of a $15 coupon for use against any of our store goods. So if you don't want the member shirt, you can give that money to charity, pay it forward to another user, and a whole lot of other stuff. This option will essentially drop the extra $10 cost international members have incurred.
• We're working on full-featured Boxee, Roku, XMBC, Plex and iTunes/Apple TV solutions for each site where you'll be able to login and receive HD video if you're a member.
• We're also working on a general subscriber hub, as well as rebuilding our login and billing hubs, so you can manage your accounts a bit more cleanly and get a better overview of the features your membership offers. This should launch in the next week or so, and you'll be able to update your credit card (in case it's expired) then. This should also help alleviate the facepalms I do when I get a tweet from someone who's just finally discovered the full mobile site or iTunes feeds or something else that we added for members months ago.
• You will be able to gift subscriptions to a friend.

Specifically to Comic Vine members, we'd like to hear in the comments or the survey what kind of features we'd need to add to convince you to subscribe. Traditionally Comic Vine has always performed poorly when it comes to subscriptions given the site's size and we really want to focus on features you guys and gals would want this upcoming year. Please let us know.

Cool, the live show annual birthday

Sadly I won't be able to be "present" the day of the BIG LIVE LIVE SHOW LIVE 2011... but you guys have my support all the way from Mexico City! n_n

Very awesome update. Thanks for the info :)

Problem: Happy Hour usually has 2000 viewers, 20 of them in the Comic Vine chat, everyone else hates the CV seqments.

Solution1: Comic Vine needs its own live stream show, spread the word about Comic Vine, get writers to call in about subjects. In this Live Show Tony and Sara can talk about what they're currently talking about in the seqments and they can be as serious about comics as they want.

Solution 2: The Comic Vine seqments that were the most popular by far were the wacky Preview Theatres in which the users picked crazy voices for people to do. Why was it popular? Because they were wacky like Giant Bomb's, Tested's and Screened's seqments.

Nice :)

@FLStyle said:

Problem: Happy Hour usually has 2000 viewers, 20 of them in the Comic Vine chat, everyone else hates the CV seqments.

Solution1: Comic Vine needs its own live stream show, spread the word about Comic Vine, get writers to call in about subjects. In this Live Show Tony and Sara can talk about what they're currently talking about in the seqments and they can be as serious about comics as they want.

Oh, I second this solution so freaking much.

@FLStyle: I agree with your sentiments here. It does seem like CV could benefit from something "separate" in terms of showing more video content with Sara and Tony. Its always show Comic Vine right away for a few minutes and get them over with. Seeing comments in chat verifies what you're saying and what I am saying regarding that, and that isn't cool. It would be nice to have something Comic Vine specific; just don't know what, exactly.

Also, having the CV News dropped from the site seems to have annoyed a number of users as well. It was a fun addition to have.

I can't say I'd want the Preview Theaters to return, however. I think that was a major source of annoyance for a lot of people. It never seemed to receive very positive responses, even from myself, although it had its moments.

Great idea in solution #1 @FLstyle. Something like the Jimmy Palmiotti call in segment from last month but without having to worry about accessibility of the interview for the general happy hour viewers and also having more time to both cover developments with the interviewee and Also learn some personal stories and see the behind the scenes with the comic creators.

One quick question Dave, regarding CV's low subscriber rate is that just the amount of total users accounts on CV against all whiskey media subscribers on do you actually count subscribers as having come from one particular site?

Why has AnimeVice been left out of the survey???

Ahh the Big Live Live Show Live was about the time I joined the site. Definitely looking forward to this. Happy Birthday Live Show! September's looking to be a great month!

Looking forward to this years show. Hope Comic Vine get more love.

Why has AnimeVice been left out of the survey???

 @pikahyper said:

Why has AnimeVice been left out of the survey???

hmm....

@FoxxFireArt: Yeah, I know. Maybe it was due to cost of using the video equipment or time, or who knows. I hope it wasn't due to smart aleck comments, though, that would suck. I always felt like "It's Friday" because the Comic Vine News would pop up.

Maybe Comic Vine will present us with some other goodies, though. I hope!

I'm writing one of these for every site some more scaving than the others but first,

Anime Vice

Scrap it or give it to the Mods. The mods already may as well run the site, give them full news publishing power and just step in to upload videos if need be.

Comic Vine

• Off My Mind - Tony two years ago this seemed like a great idea but as time has gone on the format has become stale and needs to change. Compare them to Sara's "Why Cassandra Cain is the Best Batgirl" article which other than the scumbaggy title, (that plays into DC's love of turning its fan-base against its self), which feels like a well though out and well produced piece of content but it also felt like a more personal peice. I'd rather have one good article a week than five middling ones.
• Reviews - I hated the Good & Bad format when you started using it and I still hate it today. It is a lazy format that encourages lazy writing from users as well. I know it is hard to review comics but here is an idea, review a trade a week. It doesn't even have to be an up to date one there are reviewers out there that make livings from reviewing old comics.
• Less Superheroes - This can also be put under reviews but really in general Comic Vine seems to focus entirely on Marvel and DC with a small chance of the other publishers getting a chance. There are great comics out there that you never even bother looking at. Hell require 2 reviews a week to not be from Marvel, DC or a tie-in and you get the chance to liven up reviews.
• Engage Comic Creators - Compared to other Comic sites Comic Vine seems to shun the very people that create the books it covers. Look at this years SDCC coverage, other than the Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato interview you didn't seem to talk to anyone but the company heads and the animated film guys. Now compare that to 09 and 10, it is pitiful. I don't want to see crappy figures I want to hear from the people writing the books I care about.
• STOP POSTING EVERY FILM RUMOUR/POSTER/SCREENSHOT - This should be in the forum. Jeff and the Giant Bomb staff have said before that they will never do the "Gun of the week" articles and you shouldn't too. If this is the only one you take to heart then this post was worth it.

@damswedon: Thanks for your critique but it seems more based on the site versus the question of what subscribers would want.

As for the Off My Minds, sorry you don't like them. Not to brag but they are one of the highest viewed articles each day/week. They may not all get high numbers of comments but they get lots of views.

Reviews: that's our format. I don't see it as being lazy. It gets down to what is good and what is not. That's what people want to know. Not an essay analyzing the issue. We have reviewed trades in the past. I'm a strong believer in that there is a large community that just reads trades. Problem is, there wasn't enough of an interest in those reviews.

Less superheroes. Again, that's what the Comic Vine community asks for. If you look at our reviews, especially mine, we pretty much review an Image, Dark Horse, Dynamite, etc comic each week. Hellboy was reviewed this week. Severed was reviewed last week, etc. We also do look at page views for reviews.

We do interviews/discussions with creators often. As for the interviews at SDCC and other Cons, they don't get views. We've been talking to creators a lot recently, especially about The New 52. And it's not just a matter of contacting the creators. Anything said has to get approval from the publishers first.

Movie news/screen shots, etc. Again, it's what people want to see. Henry Caville as Superman? Insane amount of views.

Referencing something Jeff said and applying it to Comic Vine doesn't really make sense. Everyone knows we mainly have different audiences. Also, Jeff is not in charge of editorial at Comic Vine.

I totally appreciate your input. Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. Feel free to pm or email me.

We do interviews/discussions with creators often. As for the interviews at SDCC and other Cons, they don't get views. We've been talking to creators a lot recently, especially about The New 52. And it's not just a matter of contacting the creators. Anything said has to get approval from the publishers first.

I put this in a PM to Tony to find out why I couldn't post. I want to put this here.

Thank you for at least taking a look at my post and responding. I'm sad to hear that the Comic Vine community seems so against non-superhero content and trade reviews. If it seemed like I was too hard I'm sorry. I joined Comic Vine just after Giant Bomb launched and it rekindled my love of comics, I felt like I owed it to you to say what I'm feeling honestly.

@damswedon: I'm sure Tony & everyone appreciates your honesty. To be honest, the community here is comprised mostly of super hero fans with a few niches on the side (Vertigo fans like Aztek, SC loves Nemi, and the odd moment of manga appreciation, etc). But overall, the public gets what the public wants; so to cater to the public a lot of attention is given to the big two. I tend to think of it as more of a business decision, cyber corporate hosting ;)

I think you guys are doing a great job here on ComicVine the only thing that I want is the return of the weekly news segment which I noted in the survey.

Only problem I have has been the lack of Off my minds & other fun little video segments from the staff over the last few months but other than that can't complain, the community as as good as it's ever been and the quality of reviews has never been higher. I would subscribe however I really don't have the fundage at the moment :(

@FLStyle said:

Problem: Happy Hour usually has 2000 viewers, 20 of them in the Comic Vine chat, everyone else hates the CV seqments.

Solution 1: Comic Vine needs its own live stream show, spread the word about Comic Vine, get writers to call in about subjects. In this Live Show Tony and Sara can talk about what they're currently talking about in the seqments and they can be as serious about comics as they want.

Solution 2: The Comic Vine seqments that were the most popular by far were the wacky Preview Theatres in which the users picked crazy voices for people to do. Why was it popular? Because they were wacky like Giant Bomb's, Tested's and Screened's seqments.

I absolutely agree. Also, just as a general CV note, I know that content is driven by page views, but all of your video content is some of my favorite stuff on this site and I'd love to see more - both in the wacky creative Whiskey sense but also more serious in depth videos. Interviews with artists and writers, the convention tours, all great stuff, it seems strange to me that they don't get more clicks.

Also, I'm not sure if I'm part of a silent majority or not, but I'd love to see more non-mainstream comic content. Whenever a story or forum thread about diversity shows up on this site it always gets a ton of views and replies - so maybe get in touch with some of these indie content creators who are pushing boundaries unseen by the mainstream and get some creative process interviews and so on - I know I'd be all over that.

Love the work, keep doing what you guys do.

Aww man....the Live Live show falls during school again. :(

Probably won't get to watch any.

Might it be taken into consideration that there ARE a lot of students on this site so a pre-Labor Day or weekend show might be better for some?

Anyway, wishing the show the best of luck and hopefully I'll manage to catch some awesome Comic Vine goodness. :)