To those who were able to stop by our official debut on Twitch.TV, thank you so much! We hope you enjoyed what you watched.

We also hope that you were also impressed by the level of seemingly professional video quality that you saw. I can’t speak for the level of video game talent and all that, but as far as progress towards a legitimately entertaining video game stream goes, I think we have made leaps and bounds from what we used to be able to offer. With 720p HD, commentary, picture-in-picture, and more, we are looking forward to providing you with more enjoyable content. Of course, things can be improved, so while we would really appreciate hearing your feedback about last night, recommendations for catering the show more to you are certainly welcome.

If you couldn’t make last night’s livestream, don’t worry! We archived all of what we did and made highlights out of the best matches from the tournament. Below, you’ll find the full replay of the draft tournament, so you are able to see the kind of improved quality that we’re talking about!

Playlist of highlighted matches

With our debut stream on Twitch behind us, I cannot help but reflect on it. Livestream’s services have served us well for quite some time, but I am truly considering making this migration to Twitch. I don’t want to have to deal with web-based streaming clients or programs that just suck up computer resources like Procaster anymore. The reason we moved to Livestream in the first place was that the stream’s chat allowed for anyone to contribute by typing – a feature that the previous Stickam service changed and neglected. However, streaming video has changed drastically since then. In this day in age, it is all about the services a website can offer. While Twitch does seem to require user registration in order to use the chat room, the features that Twitch offers are rather astounding, even compared to Livestream.

For those that do not know, Twitch.TV is becoming the place for gamers. Broadcasters can specify which games they are playing, which allows for users to search for channels that specify the game they’re looking for. Additionally, users can subscribe to channels, much like YouTube, and receive text notifications when their followed channels go live, among other alerts. However, I have been impressed by Twitch’s compatibility with YouTube the most. Twitch saves broadcasters’ most recent live sessions for those broadcasters to review and edit. From there, broadcasters are able to trim highlights of the best moments from the stream, like what we did with those tournament matches, and upload them to YouTube if they wish. This is something that simply was not possible on Livestream, as it would have required a lot of video editing work on our end. Simply, this has terrific potential for our YouTube content.

That said, this Twitch migration is not official just yet. I still want to go through a few more streams, including podcast recordings (imagine the highlight potential there!) before making that decision. However, I have been nothing short of impressed so far with this current setup. I’d like to think you all are as well.

I would recommend signing up for a Twitch account now and then subscribing to our channel, if you have not already. For developing news on this, future broadcasts, and more…all I can say is “stay tuned.”

As the school year winds down (for those in college, at least – high school SMYNjas, you’ll get there!), this summer break means a great deal to me. My course work for grad school is complete and I will soon determine a topic for my documentary thesis, which will lead me on the track to graduation in December. More importantly for the members of the SMYN community, however, this is the first full summer of the SMYN Network. As we know from years past, when SMYNjas have free time during the summer, they can accomplish some great things.

We continue to strive for improvements to our website, especially for a network that still does not make any money. Our front page is currently in the works of a facelift and we will be announcing a newer, more critical aspect to the SMYN Network experience soon. While I am excited to discuss that with those of you who do not already know about it, that is not what I am writing about today. In fact, I still can’t believe this worked out as well as it did.

Sure, we continue to have podcast streams every couple weeks or so, but that’s all about the audio, so the video portion is basic. We even have had streams of games in the past, but we would seem to keep running into problems. Frame rate issues, complex setups, issues with picture-in-picture, low video quality – it never seemed to work out just right. Fortunately, when you work a full-time corporate job outside of web-based projects, you have the budget to purchase devices and services that cater to your wants.

SMYNjas, I present to you all a first look at the future of our 720p HD, professional streams!

Livestream video replay of our final test

Now, this is just a starting point. Things can always be tweaked and improved. For now, we expect to continue broadcasting on our Livestream account because of chat flexibility, but TwitchTV is an available option, should that fail us. Still, this is a solution that fixes all of the aforementioned problems, with high quality video that doesn’t drop frames in a clean picture-in-picture design. For those wishing to emulate this, it’s amazing what a Hauppauge HD PVR 2 and an XSplit license can do. That said, we expect to have many gaming streams this summer and beyond, including the biggest anniversary event in July that we have ever planned! Stay tuned for details.

Anyway, from gaming streams to site/network improvements, we’re already starting to think about how we can make the most of our summer. Here at the SMYN Network though, we take the contributions of our fans very seriously. So, as the weather starts to get warmer, we have a question for you…

How will you contribute to the SMYNja community this summer?

Under normal circumstances I would just put this in the RTM Forums topic, but part of me doesn’t think that’s getting these updates the attention they really need. So here I am abusing my front page posting privileges to get more buzz for my event that’s not happening for eight months. I am obviously the best.

For anybody that doesn’t know, a few details have changed since the charity event in December was actually announced. Estimated length is still 6 to 7 days of straight streaming, but the tentative starting date has been pushed forward from December 26th to December 28th. Obviously this is because why would anybody fly out the help us the day after Christmas? Nobody is gonna do that. We were stupid to put that at first, so please forgive us for being dumbs.

We’ve also announced our games. We were going to give clues and have everybody guess what it was, but then we realized we wanted to have people come out to Kansas to help. Why would anybody do that not knowing what games we’re going to play?

So, before the break let’s get this out of the way. The three games will be Persona 3, Persona 4, and a small Persona 4: Arena tournament at the end. That’s two seventy hour games, all the way through, in one go. We’re not going for speed runs or anything, just nice relaxed playthroughs. Grinding sessions will probably be accompanied by us making complete fools of ourselves for more donations.

Now there’s more for me to bring up, but first a break for those of you reading on the front page. Trust me, it’d help us so much for you to hit that there “SEE FULL POST” button. Please.

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Welcome to the debut of the SMYN Network at showmeyournews.com!

When we first pitched the idea of combining multiple shows created by our community under one name, we knew it would be a tremendous undertaking. After functioning in this production style for a few months, we’re ready to make this official!

On the right side of the main page of the SMYN Network, you will see images that represent our current shows. By clicking on these images, you will be directed to the content page for the respective show, where you will find more detailed show information, episode downloads, and much more. Our current shows include…

Show Me Your News! – Discussion of the latest video game industry news (audio podcast)
Wut R U Playn? – Discussion of what video games the hosts and guests have been playing (audio podcast)
WTF, Pokémon!?! – Critique featuring the Bottom Five moments of episodes from the 4Kids dub of the Pok[e]eacute[/e]mon anime (video)
Read the Manual – Discussion of the media the hosts and guests have been experiencing, from film, to TV, to games, to anime, and more (audio podcast)
Down the Sidelines – Recap of the latest news in sports, with a predictive element to everything (audio podcast)
N64Ever – Reviews of video games from the Nintendo 64 era (video)
SMYN Top Ten – Top ten lists of a variety of media topics, made by members of the SMYN community (video)

At the top, we have our show list and information, our forums (friendliest fan community on the ‘net), our store (which is in need of art submissions), network affiliates, media links for logo use, and contact information. It’s all pretty standard fare, as the main page is going to act as a hub for you to get to your favorite shows, as well as a blog to see the latest news and releases from the SMYN community.

That said, we are FAR from completing our final vision. The site is a work in progress and we have multiple things we want to improve. We certainly welcome user feedback on how we can improve your experience. Some of these future version changes include…

– New forum skins, giving users more to choose from
– Livestream LIVE banner triggers, which will activate above the top post if one of our streaming channels is live
– Bracketed sections in content post titles ([SMYN], [WRUP], etc.) will be color-coded, similarly to forum post categories
– Fixes to front page blog glitches, as some posts appear blank for an unknown reason
– Add extra HTML code for front page blog formatting, such as size and alignment variations
– Donate button for our server costs and other show needs.
– Captain Falcon browser tab icon across all SMYN Network sites

And so it begins. It’s sad that it comes soon after the closure of one of our sites of inspiration, but we can only hope to continue moving forward.

Also, 12:12 PM ET on 12/12/12. That’s how we roll.

The Show Me Your News Network is descending on Youmacon 2012! And we have our panel times officially confirmed!

“WTF, Pokémon: An Anime Critique”
FRIDAY, November 2nd
3:00 PM ET, PANEL C

“SMYN: The Year in Video Games”
SATURDAY, November 3rd
12:00 PM ET, PANEL 5

If you want to see the full Youmacon schedule, its latest version is viewable HERE.

Also, we have a tease of PART of ONE of the SEVERAL VIDEOS we have planned for our panels. This one will be shown at the SMYN panel, as part of a look at games from the past year and games in the coming year.

You can watch this video here!

Finally, we have SO MANY SMYNjas attending the convention this year. After the break, you can find a frequently updated list of attendees, mostly for our records and for you to see how we’ve grown in our attendance since last year!

Whether or not you are going, you can expect big things from the SMYN community at this year’s convention!

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My fellow SMYNjas,

We at Show Me Your News have our internal secrets for the future, which we are good at keeping. At the same time, we also believe in a sense of transparency. Not only do we think you all as SMYNjas deserve it, it’s just how we believe to operate.

So when it comes to the SMYN Network, an idea many months in the making, we were so glad to finally reveal that secret two months ago. We were even more relieved that the feedback was mostly positive.

With that said, I write this now to show the progress we are making. In addition, I welcome your feedback, as this is intended to give you a place to make recommendations or commendations about the work we are doing to develop this Network concept.

Yesterday, we finally installed WordPress pages for STAGE 1 of Network development. These five pages represent the other shows, beside Show Me Your News, which will encompass the SMYN Network. Anyway, Stage 1 involves creating CONTENT PAGES for these shows. You may be used to our SMYN content page here – http://www.showmeyournews.com/podcast/ – however, you will notice that it has received a theme and layout facelift.

Similarly, the other pages have been established with this theme in mind:
Wut R U Playn
WTF, Pokémon!?!
Read the Manual
N64Ever
SMYN Top Ten

By this point, you have noticed that these are still very incomplete. That is because there is still a lot to coordinate. Posts must be made with full content, as opposed to placeholders. Metadata must be confirmed by show hosts. Feeds must be established, where appropriate. Logos must be reworked or created from scratch. Specific sub-pages must be created for each show. As you may imagine, this is a lot of work.

Now, we could make this development all private, secret and under-wraps. However, this goes back to the sense of transparency I mentioned earlier. Giving you access to view what progress we are making not only keeps us on task, but it also allows you to provide feedback. After all, the SMYN Network is intended to be a website that rewards long-time SMYNjas, but also welcomes new ones with tons of content and plenty of friendly faces.

The establishment and finalization of these content pages is Stage 1. These will remain unlinked to our main page for the time being, public only in the sense that SMYNjas will know how to access and view them. There is also another step that will need to be done before Stage 1 is complete. We’ve discovered that will likely need to move our audio content that we are currently hosting on our server to a brand new one, which may involve URL changes of those audio files. This will not break any iTunes feeds as far as we know, but it will take more work on our part to change the directed URLs in each of the content posts. This change will hopefully be rolled out slowly over time and should be unnoticed, but any mention of direct mp3 URLs we’ve discussed before will likely be ancient history.

Once Stage 1 is complete with the finalization of content pages, we move on to STAGE 2 – the final step. We must rework the main page at http://www.showmeyournews.com/ to reflect the new SMYN Network, while maintaining the homepage URL. The URL for the forums will also remain intact. We hope to keep the layout of the main page very similar, to keep necessary things intact (such as Front Page News posting) and to improve further on what already works. While I have discussed many of the intended changes in the Florj staff section of the forums, here are only a few of the biggest changes that we need to make.

– Change main header logo and social media links
– Update or add links in top black bar
– Livestream LIVE banner triggers below black bar and above blog content
– Change affiliates section to shows (quick-jump to content page): SMYN, WRUP, WTFP, RTM, N64E, TOP10 – move affiliates to page/dropdown under top black bar links

Once Stage 2 is complete, the age of the SMYN Network begins. As I mentioned in Episode 116 of SMYN, I hope for that to be complete by the start of September. However, it wouldn’t be SMYN without technical setbacks, so we’ll see what happens. In addition, I now must leave for a business trip in Traverse City, MI, which will occupy a good deal of my time this week.

So, SMYNjas, your Network’s construction is in your hands, in a way. Let us know what you want to see and let us know what we’re doing right, so that we can create an even greater community that we can all be proud of.

Editor’s Note: Scott White, aka SolidSnake120, asked to interview me for a creative writing class project. The following is his work, crafted into a magazine-style article, with more after the break. Enjoy!

WTF?! Peter Spezia Wants to Show You His News!

Interview by Scott White

For as long as I have known Peter Spezia, he has been constantly striving to create new and better works of creative art. I have known him since High School, where we both took part in marching band, and it wasn’t till later on that we developed a friendship. We both had a mutual love for Nintendo’s Smash Brothers franchise, but he would take to a whole new level by creating entertaining, imaginative, and popular pieces of content.

Peter is working at Chrysler as a intern, taking part in creating videos for them, but he is more famously known for his 5 year old online game podcast, “Show Me Your News”, which he runs and organizes weekly, complete with guests and co-hosts, to discuss the latest news in the video game world. A podcast he not only created, but grew from a podcast that focused solely on the world of Smash Brothers, and now one he is turning it into an entire network, full of fresh and creative content. He is also a talented musician, who creates and plays his own renditions of game music.

I conducted an interview with Peter, where I got his thoughts and feeling on how he creates is projects, and get a looked into the process he takes to get to the finished product.

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With our five-year anniversary TOMORROW (Sunday 7/8), here is the schedule of events planned! ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN TIME!

11 AM – 12 PM: Pikmin (GCN)
12 PM – 1 PM: N64Ever Recording (Secret Game)
1 PM – 2 PM: Sonic Adventure DX (GCN)
2 PM – 3 PM: Youko’s iTunes – Music Trivia
3 PM – 5 PM: Super Smash Bros Brawl ONLINE
5:00 – 5:30 PM: FOOD
5:30 – 6:00 PM: M&M Kart Racer (Wii)
6 PM – 7 PM: Metagame (Gaming Card Game)
7 PM – 8 PM: Mega Man Legends (N64)
8 PM – 9 PM: Charades with Livestream Chat
9 PM – 10 PM (or later): UMvC3 EVO Finals

Please watch the event and participate here: http://www.livestream.com/showmeyournews

Yeah guys, this is Tony’s game! We have lots of stuff for you guys to check out!

You can download the full game HERE!! Just $1!

You can also buy the entire soundtrack for just a dollar HERE!! As well as forum avatars for you guys to play with!

We also have a webcomic we’re looking to update every week around Tuesday about the kids in the game before the mole craziness! Check it out HERE!!

We also have a site with links to everything, and RSS feed and social media so you can be kept up to date on every detail! And you could also show our forum some love, as it’s rather barren at the moment! Any help would be great! If you don’t have an Android, tell your friends! Read the comic, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, anything! I’d be greatful for ANY help you SMYNjas could give us! Thanks a ton in advance!

Golden Vault Games Website of Awesome!

(Originally posted by TonyTH)