John Gruber: A Few Words About The Talk Show
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
He waited a week to say anything about it, and in the end didn't really say much of anything at all. Maybe he was 100% justified in what he did—we'll never know, and it doesn't really matter.
What jumps out to me through all this is that if the roles had been reversed, Gruber would have very quickly and publicly called Dan a 'dicknose'.
His lack of regard for listeners, the people who pay his mortgage, is very, very surprising and ultimately disappointing.
He probably would have made Dan the "jackass of the week".
1. John and Dan started the podcast together
2. John came up with the name
3. Something happend between the two of them
4. John leaves, taking the show with him.
From a business perspective, I'm shocked at both John and Dan. John took the whole brand and said it was his and started monitizing it right away, presumably cutting Dan out of any revenue. Dan, is just letting that slide. Doesn't he have a right to half?
Johnny Ive can't simply walk away and use the iPhone design because he came up with the idea.
...anyway, like I said, I really shouldn't give a shit about this whole situations. I just think it stinks.
I listened to the original Talk Show (pre 5x5) and I could not stand Gruber's constant "y'knows" and stopped after 2 episodes.
After 5by5 started and I was listening to his other podcasts, I gave the Talk Show a second chance because I like Dan, and thankfully Gruber worked on his verbal tics. In the end, however, the Gruber part of the show wasn't interesting enough to me, and I stopped listening.
As an aside, I love Dan and the work he does a whole heck of a lot, but I listened to the new The Talk Show episodes, expecting them to be rambling trainwrecks, but I'm starting to think these new shows are better. Gruber seems much more engaged. It's a little more entertaining. It really illustrated how wrong I was that Dan and John had this great "odd couple" chemistry.
The only issue I have (and had on the 5by5 version) is that the time vs. information value ratio is (for me) really weak. I could spend that hour on something else that has more value to me.
Wonder how that compares to other podcasts. Strange the network is not selling the spots.
EDIT: Just for the sake of comparison here are the ad rates on daringfireball.net: http://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/
There doesn't seem to be a pricelist for a particular show's sponsorship though.
They introduced the 'controversy' right at the beginning of the show and then you had to sit through 30 minutes of meandering back and forth before Gruber finally decided to get to the point and say it was a business disagreement.
The tone of the podcast for the sponsor message went from conversational to "I gotta read this so I guess I will". At least he admitted that Dan does better reads of sponsor messages.
I could imagine not being satisfied with whatever method 5by5 used to do measure and allocate this revenue share. For example, one show might have x% of listeners, and everyone might even agree on how to measure that (feed subscribers, downloads, live listeners, whatever), but the host of one show might feel those listeners are worth more to sponsors than other shows.
When the breakup first happened, he might have taken the listeners for granted, which explains why instead of posting today's post a week or so ago, he chose to post some oblique passive aggressive entries instead.
Once people started publicly announcing their "unsubscribes" in droves and leaving negative comments on iTunes, Gruber himself decided to sing a different tune.