Dec
15
We’re having the Annual Streaming Christmas Party on December 22nd, and everyone’s invited!!! If you’re not familiar with our Christmas Parties, let me fill you in…
Geoff Smith
The first thing you need to know is who Geoff Smith is. A lot of you will know him and have enjoyed his music, and if you don’t know his name, you’ve probably heard his jingles. He’s an amazingly talented musician who made his mark on the new media world by creating jingles for different podcasters. Some examples are Drobo, iJustine, and TWiT. He’s also written and performed songs that make geeks dance, like Digg the Code.
One evening in 2007, Geoff tweeted that he was in his studio working on a new album, and he had Ustream going. Neal and I joined the chatroom at Ustream and I tweeted that I was watching Geoff work. Pretty soon, we had a crowd of people watching and talking in the chatroom, and Geoff wasn’t getting ANY work done! Someone asked if he could sing one of his songs so he did, then someone else asked if he knew the words to a Beatles song, and he started singing it. And that’s how the Geoff Smith Late Night Concerts began. It was pretty incredible to watch Geoff play the piano, sing, take requests from the chatroom (he knows pretty much every song ever made) and in addition to that, watch the chatroom explode with excitement. People loved “singing” along in the form of chat. It’s hard to explain, but when the night ended, people said it was one of the best experiences they’d ever had.
It became a regular thing. Geoff would jump on Ustream, everyone would join him and tweet they were there. Amber Mac, iJustine, and Leo Laporte have all showed up and enjoyed it as well.
Annual Streaming Christmas Party
Last year, we went to Nashville where Geoff lives and plays at the Big Bang Bar, a dueling piano bar. We set up all our cameras and lights, brought our Tricaster along, called in extra bandwidth for the night, and went live. 80 people were there in person to watch Geoff do his thing and request songs. About 7,500 people joined us on the Ustream throughout the night, and thousands more watched the recorded version as we streamed the concert during the holiday season. It was a night we’ll never forget!
Christmas Party 2009
This year, Geoff is joining us to do it all again! Everyone’s invited to the live stream, and we encourage you to spread the word so it’s a more dynamic experience!
The party will be December 22nd at 9:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM CST, and 6:00 PM PST (that’s 2:00 AM GMT, December 23rd). Bring your smile, bring your song requests and hook up your computer to good speakers!
Join the video and chatroom at CaliLive.TV
Switching Granny
In addition to the live stream, we’ll have some local friends here at the house joining in. We would love to be able bring Switching Granny (the official grandmother of GeekBrief.TV) and her husband, Tommy, back into town for the Christmas Party. It’ll cost $1200 for the flight. Dave Peterson, who is flying in from Seattle, has offered to cover their hotel. If anyone in the Geek Brief family wants to help make a grandmother’s holiday, email me, @reply me on Twitter, or leave a comment below.
