Do people actually like user call-ins?

With the shift to the live format, and some talk about the possibility of listener call-ins, I feel I have to ask, is it just me who doesnt dig them?

I get the appeal for the person calling in, and for the general feeling that you can somehow reach out to your podcast 'idols', but Ive never found them at all enjoyable.

Largely it boils down to the fact that the team are experienced, funny, and the right mix of slick and off-the-wall, and, well, folks who call in,,, arent. They are regular people... who dont have popular podcasts... for a reason. Dealing with an outside call breaks the rhythm and Ive never heard one where I wouldn't rather just listen to the participants riff on the subjects that comes up.

Im sure they will run call screening, but if this is something we have to have... please no questions about how you get into the business or what the 'real' truth about the thing they obviously cant talk about is, and no 'hey Dan tell us something crazy you did' questions, you cant make that stuff happen on demand.

They are the worst.

Q&A at PAX is the worst.

No thanks, I don't need a weekly call with someone "humorously" asking about the next Endurance Run.

Please god no.

Maybe voicemails would be cool if the cast screened them first like they do e-mails. Nothing live.

Nope, don't want to hear them.

The whole concept of a live bombcast sounds terrible.

They've been doing them since the Whiskey Media Happy Hour days, and Jeff occasionally takes some on his Mixlr drives, so they're not 100% terrible. What could work out better in terms of quality is taking in pre-recorded call-ins like they did during the HotSpot days. Those worked out quite well I thought.

As long as people put some thought into their questions, and don't just call for the sake of being on the show, or trying to act like one of guys with the staff when they're actually complete strangers, it could turn out pretty well.

I certainly don't.

Sometimes I wonder why the staff can be ambivalent toward the community.

Then I hear a live Q&A.

I love call ins but i dont think it will work in their weird podcast live experiment. They should do more call ins on fridays instead and ofc. no screening. The more professional they act the less fun it becomes.

They've done call-ins before that have resulted in a ton of great moments. There can be good call-ins you just need someone to aggressively filter the calls for you.

@demoskinos: But the real crazies can hide the crazy until they get on air!

They make a lot more sense for something like a creeper cam stream, or something else that's structured with a topic.

For the bombcast? No. I'm still trying to figure out if there would ever be a time when I'd want to watch a live bombcast and not just save the audio version for when I work

CALLER, YOU'RE ON THE AIR.

CALLER, TURN DOWN YOUR RADIO.

I think conceptually, call ins can potentially generate some great moments, or even just interesting discussion. Jeff is a knowledgeable guy with some smart opinions (not pertaining to food), Drew is just an interesting dude, etc. But man, those diamonds are in a whoooooole lotta rough.

I listen to sports radio, which seems to thrive on useless call-ins. Part of me wants to see what the Bomb Crew does with the format, but then again, I also hate myself.

Hell no. It's never not cringe-inducing.

Please no. User calls/questions hit like, 2/10 times. It's not worth it. T.T

If they do voice messages like every fifth podcast and someone filters through them first, I might be into that. Some people are better at getting their questions straight without having to type it out.

Yeah its fair to say they have a place, but Id rather it was a separate thing, an occasional Premium member show or something, and keep it off the Bombcast please.

Screened voicemails could work. When they did it on the hotspot it worked fairly well.

Total second hand embarrassment every time they do something like this. I can't even watch the Q&A parts of their live panels because of how cringe-inducing they are.

I hope they do not take calls. I already skip the email section every week.

no. even emails is pretty rough for me these days- the rando hypotheticals and user anecdotes are sometimes funny, but mostly feel like space-filler. especially when there seems to be so many questions repeated between the east coast and west coast podcasts.

it's probably more of a curation problem than content (i think ryan had a very good sense of what played strongly to the group)- but i often don't make it through the segment nowadays.

I don't like them and i don't want them.

Do people not have a forum to voice their opinions over Bombcast.com content already?

If they played voicemail sure.

Actual call ins may be fun for the person calling but are rarely fun for anyone else.

If it's sport radio then sure, but then it's mostly lots of callers weighing in on the same single subject.

I don't want to listen to people calling in and saying 'Hire Cara Ellioson' or 'Why did you hate Witcher 3', and if they are calling to ask questions then they may as well use email.

I think call ins would need to be spun off off into something separate from podcasts.

If they were gonna do it they'd have to screen the calls like real radio shows, I think.

I've never been a fan of call-ins. There's nothing they add over just having people email in, except with an email the staff can summarise if it the message waffles on a bit. They're bad or awkward 95% of the time, and the good 5% would likely still get through if they were sent in email form.

No, except in Pax where only one in ten is good. In my mind it serves the same purpose as e-mails and I believe you can only have one these two forms of communication. In an ideal world these call ins would serve as follow up questions on the topics already discussed in the podcast and give it a more stellar structure, but we all know it's not gonna work that way. People are gonna just call and ask the crew for more endurance runs and etc.

I'm strongly against the idea. That being said, one of my favourite moments happened when jeff was playing gal gun and a caller asked his thoughts on Megan's law.

@humanity: Ugh. No kidding.

I've always thought they were God awful. Even good questions usually start off weird, with "ums" and "ahhs" and maybe a bad joke that flatlines. Besides that, don't even get me started on when people do something like drop a reference apropos of nothing, trying for a cheap laugh: "hey guys, nice to talk to you. Hey Dan, is there air in space? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I honestly thought it was just my own over-empathizing that made it seem awkward. I have trouble watching certain "awkward" scenes in TV and movies for God's sake, so I thought I was just overreacting. Nice to know that others feel similarly.

I understand when people with fans want to communicate with their fans but it always makes me cringe, i've always skipped watching pax panel questions or user call in's in the past because you take a gamble putting a microphone in front of someone, and the result can be brutally awkward. I like the e-mail segment because bad e-mails get filtered out, it can spark a conversation which the crew wouldn't otherwise have had, there are of course dumb or silly questions but it's a lot better than chancing a live call in.

Back in the Big Red Phone days there were quite a number of good call-ins. Maybe they can even bring back the phone!

NO

Yeah, I'd be on board for this. The voicemail call-ins made for some of the HotSpot's funniest moments. Of course that would require them to listen to all of them and edit them down for the bombcast, which might be more work than it's worth.

Live call-ins can be alright, but they can also be fucking terrible. Bit of a wash if you ask me and I could do with out them. Emails already do a decent job of allowing listener participation. You lose the back and forth between caller and crew, but again, that can go wrong just as much as it can go right.

This.

The only time users calling in was actually funny was when Jeff played Gal*Gun and he got the Megan's Law call and the "Jeff what are you doing" call. Other than that, I hope they keep the user calls as far away from this as possible.

Voicemail might be ok, since someone can listen to it beforehand and pick the best ones, like emails. But no. Nope. Fuck that. Just keep the emails. No calls. Calls are the worst in any kind of show.

Hate 'em in radio and TV shows.

Answering in the negative

The only call-in that matters. Nothing will beat this.

Was about to post this, thanks!

I feel like they are pretty cringe-worthy most of the time. Not that I really blame the people brave enough to call in/ask a question I would be just as bad.

Oddly enough I don't get the same reaction from the questions during the Co-Optional live podcasts. I guess they just have more rules set up like only one question and no life story.

Most of the comments from PAX or what have you from Giant Bomb feel like I'm watching a Ben Stiller movie ala Meet the Parents.

Nope. People are idiots. Harsh, but true, and yes I am including myself over that. I don't wanna hear Average Joe think whatever he is gonna say is either A) the funniest thing on earth B) groundbreaking discovery or C) something they think is original but thousands of other people have said/recommended/whatever.

I would never think to call in to anything because I know all of the above, but some people live in such weird bubble lives they think they, quite literally, are everything the world revolves around and more, and those people are usually the ones that call into things.

Everyone needs to learn we are all pointless specs on this globe! Embrace futility and kick back and play a video game.

The only, only reason I could imagine call-ins being okay is that these guys generally know how to take terrible, awkward situations and make them funny.

That doesn't mean I think they should introduce a terrible, awkward situation just for that.

No, they are fucking terrible and cringe-inducing in every format.

NO! They're the worst. The emails segment exists for a reason, if it ain't broke, etc.

I hate call ins personally

God no, leave talking to the professionals.

No, people only ever make it awkward for some reason, even radio call in shows make me cringe 90% of the time.

I think it's always awful no matter what. It's uncomfortable listening to people ask questions and/or comment on things. I actively skip that anytime it comes up in any medium. Same with Q&A at panels and such. There's a certain nervousness that can be heard, even when the person isn't awkward. It makes me very uncomfortable. Nothing against the people that participate in these types of things (I'd be terrible myself), but it's an automatic skip for me. Radio, panels, podcasts, TV, doesn't matter.

I don't for the same reason I don't like the question and answer section in pax panels or emails that don't get to the point.

People have a habit that makes "questions" too much about themselves and not getting to the point of the question. Those end up being overly long giving their opinion and then sliding a question in on the side. The pax panels are the worst of this though. No one respects the time of the other questioners or those there

Emails at least mostly cut a bit when they go on too long. If the calls were prerecord end and edited like emails it is better but then I don't see the point of just emails at that point. I would rather just them read the question.

But mostly I hate it when people can't give a quick question and get to the point. Too much of people trying to get their five seconds of attention giving their opinion or poorly edited questions that don't get to the point.

This most recent PAX GB actually got some quality questions, but some of them had too much preamble. Especially when Jeff said "okay we have 5 minutes left to answer questions" and the next guy proceeded to tell them his life story before getting to the point.

Some of my most vivid memories from when GB has done call-ins was when some girl asked about the size of Jeff's ding-dong, and that guy on Mixlr who was really fired up about cartoons and ethics in gaming journalism or something. That's not to say that there aren't some awesome people who ask great questions; but honestly, that's what e-mails are for. I'm leaning towards no.