Producing a Periscope Show
I thought all those years watching Youtube would teach me how to conquer Periscope, but I thought wrong.
So I’m in front of my computer super excited about The Framer Meetup that I am organizing. I normally organize the Dribbble Meetup in Miami, so this should be a piece of cake. I got in contact with the guys at Framer for some the logistic, so I’m super giddy. I press send on the email to all my designer friends of Miami and went to sleep. Usually, when I’m organizing the Dribbble Meetups I get around 20–30 people right of the bat. So I was super underwhelmed when I see that only 5 people signup and there is 8 days left for the event.
Sometimes I get a bit frustrated trying to engage people in Miami to get them into coding. I know that in a place like Columbus Ohio, where I went to art school, and where there are fewer distractions. I wouldn’t have such a hard time finding people that want to learn how to code. But Miami, well, that’s a little harder. I’m so discouraged at this point, but I am not giving up. I gotta give Miamians something that they like. You see, Miami is a place that you come to have fun. People love to going to shows here. They like going out and having a good time.
It’s show time
I grew up watching SNL, Jimmy Fallon, Conan and all those guys late night. When I was in college my friends and I loved doing impressions, and we would have watch parties for SNL while we did our art school homework. I never really had inspirations to be a comedian, I love creating things on the Internet, but I always wanted to be part of that club, the funny club. Maybe as a writer or just like friend of the club, kind of like Justin Timberlake.
Recently I started experimenting with the app Periscope. I have been playing a lot with it, testing different things and doing lots side projects with it. I did a stream the other day with close with thousands of people watching, it was kind of surreal. Honestly, it was partly because I was hanging out with very cute women, so I can see the appeal for those who were watching. Nevertheless, it got me thinking about all the possibilities.
Periscope reminded me a little of Youtube in 2005, when all the content was low quality and the only cool thing was the bulldog in a skateboard.
Periscope is like that right now, not really good content, a lot of hot girls in their bikinis, with a lot of us pervs watching them. But the technology is there, Periscope streaming platform is super solid, and they recently got a web browser view, meaning that you don’t have to download the app to watch the stream, you can watch from your browser. There is a really good integration with Twitter, so you can watch it from the twitter app live in real time. While I doing the photoshoot with all those girls, they all re-tweeted the stream, so their friends can see. The volume of hits that we were getting was epic, adding to all the original viewers.
“I’m just going to go ahead and saying it, I’m not a good actor.”
While studying film in college I quickly realized that I was not good in front of camera, but I enjoyed being behind it. Meanwhile however, I was very good at hosting parties and I had a good time entertaining people during events. I love making people laugh and have a good time no matter how silly it makes me feel. Which bring me back to Designer creatives in Miami. I like hosting all my designer friends, I like when they mingle and when they find new opportunities with one another. So I thought, why don’t I combine all these ideas together into an epic show? I have a lot of creative friends that I can have as guests, I have friends that are musicians that could perform as guests, and well, I’m an average writer. But we could easily throw this live on Periscope and make it an Internet event, while we teach people how to code.
“It kinda reminds me when I was little and my mother used to mix my vegetables with things that I like so I would eat them.”
The idea
Recreate something similar to the late night shows, but focused on Creators on the Internet. We want to make a show for nerds that can be watched by a wider audience as well. So bold graphics and provocative colors as well as good branding, good jokes, good guests, musical guests. Just like Jimmy Fallon. Graphics for a show like this should be a mix in between SNL, and designs that your would find on designer websites such as Behance or Dribbble. There are a lot of interesting things about the aspects ratio of watching something on your phone and watching something on vertical mode. You can interact with you hands right on top of the content that you are watching, comment and hearts. You can also take screenshots of things that you want to be reminded of.
How I everything collapses
All my hopes and dreams kind of fall apart at the moment when I reviewed the numbers. The amount of interest that I was expecting did not equal the amount of love that I got. Skepticism and doubt about a show about “creators” was full of friction, not something that I hoped. As opposed to a different show that I’m producing about reality stream that follows the life of beautiful girls in Miami, where somehow everyone is fully on board.
Conclusion
I’m hesitant to call this a conclusion since I don’t want to give up so easily, my hope is for everyone to start considering Periscope as a valuable place to put your content, specially if it can be delivered live. I have invested a lot of my time on Periscope and will continue to do use, taking advantage of their special features like. I hope not to do one show, but many as well as different topics such as politics sports and fashion.
If you are remotely interested in what I have been working on, or if you have feedback or if you would like to be part of this process feel free to hit me up on Twitter. Also if for some reason this article gets to someone that works at Periscope, contact me, I have tons of feedback & suggestions.
