Wow thankyou Crap on our 25th show too, and wow yeh there were some incredible technical glitches on this one, not excluding me having to jump all over the set on an ibook...after my embarrassing fal,l carrying my baby!! my mac book pro, which is now in Mac book hospital ....for about 2 or 3 weeks!!! thank god we are having a bye...Crap you are an absolute asset to our show your comments every week give us plenty of fodder and lift our spirits some shows when the SL gods are set against us presenting anything like a professional show! please allways come...you remind me of one half of the old men on the Muppets show that sit up in the balcony making funny sarcastic comments all through the show. And you are damn right about Yxes she is incredible and so are Rena, Ember, and Super, and the slcn.tv team rocks big time! you have no idea how little sleep they are getting right now doing all the shows for no money!!!
its a labor of love for all of us right now but gees are we having some fun!!! Bless you darling and have a lovey xmas and NewYear with your evil cat and adoring wife. Thankyou for all your support we love you and your couch and your weird clothes and iceblocks xxxxPaisley

Thanks, and this comment is being posted:

So many tangents I can expand on...

"when the SL gods are set against us presenting anything like a professional show!"

I had Houston television legend Marvin Zindler publicly condemn me on air for repeated teleprompter failures, which turned out to be caused by a hardware manufacturer putting out bad firmware for their switches, the news production system developer wanting to conceal a major flaw about the networking layer of their system design, and a cheapassed corproate structure who wouldn't buy business-class Windows NT systems when needed.

I know all about studio and system disasters. And I know that there's always a way around them, you just gotta plan for it and think things through, don't panic, and don't distract the (I had a million-dollar anchor bitch about not having Freecell working on their desktop while there was a major server collapse once, eh.)

Skype... SL... international net connections.... the miracle is that y'all pull this off as well as you do. Y'all have designed a battle plan that takes all the potential problems into account, and you work through the problems with efficiency and grace.

It kinda helps that the audience doesn't SERIOUSLY jump your asses for it, which is pretty amazing considering the boorishness of some SL folks.

"you remind me of one half of the old men on the Muppets show that sit up in the balcony making funny sarcastic comments all through the show."

One of the weird things about Second Life is that there's a closer connection than those in the role of the performers and those in the role of the audience when it comes to events such as your show, live music events, and deejayed events.

The interaction isn't limited to mere applause, laughter, tipping, or even simple boorish actions as walking out or interfering with attacks (griefing). The backchat, public and private, is a layer of communication and interaction that I haven't quite find an analog for describing it, but you could liken it to a sort of mind-reading/telepathy where it doesn't impact the performance layer, but allows communication between the performers and audience.

If you tried that complexity of feedback in RL, you'd have people shouting up or waving large signs... something that would absolutely be distracting and disruptive to a performer as well as ruin the enjoyment for the audience.

In SL, not only can you decide to interact with that, but you can manage it through muting or ignoring the screen entirely if need be.

Or, you can have a friend or family member work the avatar to react to such things, similar to the two-person Muppets where one person does the voice and mouth movements while another does the hands (Unlike the 1-person puppets that always had a palsied left arm)

Of course, there's other channels of communication and interaction... while a performance is going on, setting out props or altering the lighting or even the environment itself in holodeck fashion to match the music (Musimmersion/FreeStar's holodeck). Or having street-teamers discreetly offer invites to fan groups while providing a chatroom for any off-window discussion.

You can enjoy the performance while shopping for the Secondtunes or iTunes or CDBaby products, etc.

There's the fact that it doesn't take a master of logistics to find your way to an event... teleports, Slurls, Events listings, Map, links in Twitter, Google Calendar, blog entries... and more. As opposed to, say, when I was commuting about 65 miles a day back and forth through Downtown... MERE METERS from Hobby Center For Performing Arts, and yet never did manage to see the Broadway show "Avenue Q" that I wanted to see. There's a convenience, immediacy-amazingness there. (BTW, my office is now spitting distance from the ballet, theater, comedy, art-house movies, etc... because in Texas, you know you're cultured when you're in spitting distance of it, right?)

But on top of it all, there's a very flat social structure in SL where the performers are a part of the community... they rez their pants one layer at a time, so to speak, and the grid tends to sun elitism, arrogance, and petulance. Those that are unapproachable at such personal levels when the performer isn't busy with the many RL demands we all have, well, the social network has a way of correcting such behavior.

As for the money thing, well, one avenue might be to go in the direction of where the greatest stable growth is in SL: education. Talk to a journalism school (Columbia) or foundation (Annenberg) or museum (The Newseum) or corporation (CNN) and see if SLCN can be used as a living case-study for virtual world journalism/video production. Instead of reinventing the wheel, they might be willing to chip in some funds while providing some real-world applications and resources. They, on the other hand, would benefit from the experienced SL residents and an active community that's already in place and can grow considerably with the proper promotion and synergy.

Yes, I know, most people in SL are doing what they do there because they're trying to do something that didn't quite work out in RL, escaping from the "ties that bind" or "powers that be." But in this case, it's something that might be considered?

Now if you'll excuse me, Fozzie Bear is on next, and I've got a basket full of rotten tomatoes ready to hurl.

Bear marinana, anyone?

Crap, thank you for all your great comments about SLCN and Tonight Live, plus your incomparable wit and banter that really keeps the audience glued together, if not to their seats then to the chat window!

SLCN's audience is growing significantly. I'm not that worried about the money yet, we're in this for the long haul and will do everything we can to redistribute what little "wealth" there is right now to producers who work their buns off to make these shows happen. Building an audience is the first step, and we're in a new market and doing well.

Right now we're hitting over 100,000 views per month on SLCN, and it's doubled within the last month or so. Most people don't just "test the water and click away" but people tend to watch entire programs! It's not uncommon to see people inworld watching for several hours at a stretch.

In any case, thanks for all your support, thanks for watching our podcasts, and all your kind words on our blogs. We can't help but succeed with audiences like this and producers and talent like Yxes and Paisley.

Yeah I was the guy that Paisley first approached. Except I wasn't asked to do the job, Paisley wanted to know if I was aware of anyone who could perform the task. I remembered that my new friend Yxes had about a years worth of experience on a previous podcast and she was a partner in SL Brand where she interacted with numerous corporate customers. She knew how to handle people and knew something about digital media production. I'm also very sure she was the perfect person for the job and that Tonight Live wouldn't be anywhere near as successful as it is now. She's also backed up by a crew of talented people who go the extra mile to produce an excellent show.

I have to say that the taping of Tonight Live is the highlight of my week! The show is entertaining and by and large the guest are interesting. But most of all the best part is being a part of the virtual rouges gallery of misfits, oddballs and wisenheimers who consistently cut up and entertain themselves at Paisley's and Yxes's expense :). Seriously, we aren't cruel or mean, we save that for Stuart Warf :-P . Instead of Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show we are more like Joel and the robots from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

My goal is never to be cruel in my commentary. Just distracting to the point of laughter, but not disruptive to the production.

You know you are sooo right Crap about the interaction thing, I said in my interview on the last show, that the audience reaction and chat were an integrall part of the show (or rather I hope I got that point accross) which as you rightly point out is really such a unique situation, that off the top of my head I can't think of another instance where a similer senario has occured...What it means to me as the host is that although I don't watch the audience during the taping, as Im focused on my guest..(unless I specifically refer to the audience as I did the show before when looking for a fashion crime amoungst them) I have chat running on the lower left hand side of my screen the entire time..Im never tempted to turn it off. I sort of have one eye on it all the time...And at least once a show I refer to a qestion or comment that I read in chat, and will ask the guest a question related to that, on the audiences behalf, if I think they have a good point. I can also get a very good idea at times how the interview is going, by reading the chat as to weather the audience is being engaged by the interview. If I find the studio chat is totally unrelated to the interview, (rightly or wrongly) it indicates to me that I'd better try and switch the interview to be more interesting quick smart to get the attention back.

Its also interesting to see via chat the opinions of the audience, varied as they maybe, about the subject matter being discussed on stage...the interview I did with Maxamillion Kleen was a very clear indication of how this works. Max had just performed his very first self penned song, oh our show, after many, many months of foot dragging and encouragement from fans, Max has a very devoted and very large loyal fan group. The Sim was packed and the overflow areas were busy as well. After announcing his very first attempt as singing his very first original song and then singing it...the audience during his song were chatting to each other, which I could of course see, talking about tears tissues ect...being obviously moved by this incredible performance...the acheivement that Max had made on the show..breaking throughh some sort of personal barrier in such spectactular fashion with such a sophisticated and moving song..So without seeing anyones face, virtual or otherwise I was able to clearly gauge how affected and moved the audience was by this performance and commented on this in my subsequent interview with Max...I know from talking to audience members and crew after that my assumptions made from the chat and my own feelings were correct in this. Now in a RL TV studio the camera may pick up audience members reactions, but as likely I would not see them as a host I would have to tune into the audience from a distance...but I would get a feel for the audience reaction I guess.

My point is that even though at this stage we are limited in our ability to read faces and check emotions in SL, the chat at each show allows us insight to the audience far more actuately as a host, than in a Real Life audience as they don't have to "shout" out or wave signs as Crap pointed out. It really is a gift as a host, and the fact that the audience is not shushed as is the case in many other presentations and productions within SL promtes this.

However having said all of this, and this happens very rarely, if an audience member were to start hurling abuse at the guests or using offensive language they would be asked to refrain or leave...This has happened but in my experience only once or twice, and the person was complient in their response, so controlling the audience participation has not been an issue, which may have been a reason that many other forums and shows may ask the audience to refrain from chatting..

It is indeed a very interesting and unique situation, and Im having a facinating time dealing with it, and using it. The audience members I find on the whole are astute and educated, and very much on their game I cannot therefore ever, not be on top of mine :)
Paisley

Congratulations Paisley, Yxes, and the rest of the SLCN.TV crew. It's always a blast attending the live taping of the show.

wow! Could this get any better?? thx to everyone for the kind words and encouragements for the show!! We ALL do have a ton of fun with it, that's so evident from the comments made here!

Thank you, Crap, for your very eloquently worded commentary. Like Paisley said.... You are one of the reasons the show is such a blast. You, with all the other (how'd GoSpeed say it?) "virtual rouges gallery of misfits, oddballs and wisenheimers" are my personal "stress reducers". (Don't tell anyone that... it's a top secret!), and I am personally grateful for each and every one of you!!!

I am very lucky, too, to have an opportunity like this, to work with the awesome people at slcn.tv (wiz, starr, texas!! whoo hoo!), and the crew of Tonight Live (Paisley, Rena, Ember and Dave!!) I love you all, and look forward to many more shows in 2008!!!

Just stay outta my camera chair, will ya??? LOL

xoxo,
Yxes